#like it's a perfect example of ellie's softness
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Something Borrowed, Something Blue (Reid Fic)
*MY GIF
Summary: Despite her engagement to someone else, Spencer grapples with the reality that he’s in love with SSA Reader when he sees her in her wedding dress.
A/N: I am so fucking proud of Spencer’s speech that I wrote.
Playlist: Till Forever Falls Apart by Ashe + FINNEAS This song hurts so good :,)
Category: Fluffy happy ending!
Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid
Content Warning: possible unrequited love, soft angst
Word Count: 6k
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*
Call it a superpower or a sixth sense, but I had this inexplicable, preternatural ability to detect when we weren’t heading in the right direction - a skill unaffected by even shut eyes or the deepest slumber.
It seems as though after all these years of being (y/n)’s passenger, my body has developed a survival adaptation in order to offer her guidance before she would even have to ask, or worse - lower her pride and admit she’s lost!
With as hard-headed as she is, she’d sooner drive us to Timbuktu before asking me for help.
I was half-asleep when I peeked through one half-lidded eye to observe where we were only to see she blew right by Gregory Boulevard when she should’ve turned left on it.
“Um, you should make a u-turn at this next light,” I gently advised her before returning my head to its previous position perched on my hand. I closed my eyes again with the presumption she would follow my navigation and make a u-turn, but when I didn’t feel the car change course, I opened them to see that she blew right past the stoplight, too.
“Hey, my apartment’s that way.” I gestured behind us while looking at her for the first time, catching a smug look on her face. That’s when I knew I was in for it. “Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see.”
“You know I don’t like surprises,” I grumbled, slumping back into my seat with partially renewed energy. Her little antics never failed to get my heart racing. I never knew whether to expect a sweet sunset or a sea of snakes when it came to her. She was that polarizing. “Can I at least get a hint?” I egged on, considering she had yet to even reply to my first statement.
She was completely unfazed by my pleading. She didn’t even peel her eyes away from the road - that’s how little attention she thought I deserved. “Mmm depends. What’s the magic word?”
This blatant tease was successfully getting a rise out of me. “Pleaseee,” I dragged out the word as if it would do me any good to let her hear it for longer, but in reality, she just liked to hear me beg.
She took a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth, a chupse, to express her displeasure before saying, “Ooh tough luck. The magic word was actually mushroom, but nice try.”
A mirthless chuckle escaped me for willingly falling for her tricks despite knowing she’d pull something just like that. This girl was the bane of my existence, but at least she still rewarded me with a hint anyway.
“Your hint is …” While pondering what hint to give me, her eyes traveled to the side, away from the road long enough to make my heart palpitate in a “if-she-doesn’t-pay-attention-to-the-road, we’re-both-gonna-die” kind of way.
“... something old.”
Again, she tore her eyes away from the road so she could register my reaction, but truthfully, I didn’t have one. I had no idea what that hint meant. Or rather I had too many ideas, far too many to limit to just one.
She could’ve been talking about the age of a location, the history of a place, the vintage appearance of something - virtually anything.
“There’s an infinite amount of possibilities about what that could mean,” I argued. “If you actually want me to guess, you’ll have to give me something more.”
As expected, she was not a fan of my whining and simply rolled her eyes at me. “Oh, stop complaining and use that big brain of yours. I’m sure you’ll figure it out before we even get there.”
Although there was a high probability she was right that I could’ve solved it by myself, it was more enticing to feed off of what she could give me. “What if I ask you ‘yes or no’ questions?”
The gears in her head were turning as she weighed the pros and cons of humoring my offer. “You better ask some good questions then,” was her answer, which was the long way of saying yes.
“Is this ‘something old’ an object?”
She hesitated, then decided on, “No.” So I took that as maybe.
“Is this ‘something old’ a place?”
There was no indecision with this answer. “No.”
“Is this ‘something old’ as in appearance?”
Again, a partial hesitation, but still ultimately a, “No.”
Realizing I pretty much exhausted the tangible, I settled for something more abstract. “Is this ‘something old’ a concept?”
“Yes, you could say that.”
Her answer would prove to be redundant, as just seconds after we would arrive at our mystery destination.
Ellie’s Bridal Boutique.
“Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue.” I recited to myself under my breath when I finally unearthed the meaning. The rhyme was a wedding tradition that referred to the things a bride is supposed to wear on her wedding day that’s meant to provide protection and prosperity for the new couple - a superstition.
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” She mimicked the sound of a winning buzzer. “And you are going to be my something old.”
A short chuckle left me as I stepped out of the car. “Oh yeah? What are you gonna do - wear me?” I jested.
“Well you are a very pretty boy, but I don’t know if you’re pretty enough to wear down the aisle.”
“So then how am I going to be your something old? I’m only two years older than you.”
She stopped dead in her tracks on the sidewalk to reach for my hand. I’d be lying if I said the chilling warmth of it didn’t make my breath hitch. My eyes fell to where our bodies met, but they rose to look at her again when she finally spoke.
“You’re the very first person I met when I started working in the BAU, which makes you my oldest friend on the team, and since you were the first one that saw me, I wanted you to be the first one that saw me in my dress, too.”
I was already aware that she’d picked out her wedding gown months before, so this appointment couldn’t have been anything more than an alteration update. The only reason I knew that, besides the obvious, was because I could still remember with perfect clarity the morning she came into work after her fitting. She marched right up to my desk to wave a picture of her in the garment right in my face. It wasn’t until I drew back with my head that I could see the image clearly. The dress, while incredibly stunning on her, ‘didn’t fit right’ - her words, not mine.
“But that’s not how it’s actually gonna look on me. I asked them to take in the waist, change the neckline, and alter the length.” She vividly described to me, letting her finger run over the digital photo of the dress as she spoke. “Do you see what I mean?”
I lied when I said, “Yeah, I do,” because really, I didn’t need her to describe the details to me - I could already see the vision. Even if the dress was the wrong color, length, and ‘poofiness,’ I’d still think she’d look lovely.
It was my only hope that her future husband would think so, too.
“I’m (y/n) (y/l/n). I’m here for my alteration with Reagan at 4.” Just as quickly as she introduced herself to the receptionist, she was being whisked away by an older woman who seemed to have recognized her.
“Oh, (y/n)! It’s so good to see you again! Come, come, your dress is ready. I just know you’ll love it.”
Before she slipped out of my vision completely, (y/n) turned around to address me. “I’ll be right back, I promise. Just wait here.”
I raised my hand in the air to give a short acknowledgment goodbye and followed her instruction to sit in the chair that lied directly in front of a circular raised platform.
“Are you the groom?” A soft voice from beside me suddenly asked. I looked up to see it was the receptionist holding a tray with a glass of champagne.
“Oh, I’m okay thank you,” I denied the alcohol with a shake of my head. “And no, no I’m not. Just an … an old friend.” Again, her words, not mine.
It would come as a surprise to both me and you that with as much as I know about the world, I had no idea how long this would take before I saw her again. With my estimates, it should take maybe fifteen minutes maximum before she walked out in her dress, but who knows? It’s (y/n) after all. She runs on her own clock. The sun rises and sets on her.
At least in my world it does.
By around minute 17, I realized my estimates were way off and there was no way she’d be coming out any time soon, so with all that I could do in that store having been done already, the only thing left for me to do was read. Nothing of quality, though. Just those frivolous bridal magazines on the coffee table beside me. I didn’t even want to think about the germs and bacteria that were harboring on these reading materials, but if it meant it’d cure my boredom then perhaps the contraction of microbes would be worth it.
To say I wasn’t well-versed in fashion would be an understatement and reading the subscriptions only emphasized that further. To put it in perspective, you could style my future bride in a medieval frock and it wouldn’t discourage me whatsoever because I simply have no understanding of what a ‘good’ wedding dress is, therefore, I cannot make an accurate comparison.
Take, for example, the dress on page 17 of Modern Bride. The model was donning a high neck, long sleeve creme satin dress. I thought it looked quite nice and classic, but the excerpt described it as totally out of style and too old - a faux pas.
But when comparing that dress to the gown on page 24 of The Bride’s Guide, I couldn’t spot a single difference between the two, yet this passage was written in complete adoration. “This dress is vintage done right,” said the article. But to me - they were exactly identical! What was wrong with the first one?
Maybe it was a good thing grooms weren’t allowed to help pick wedding dresses because if I had to assist my bride in picking her’s, then, of course, it would be bad luck! I’d probably pick something utterly horrendous!
I had to admit it was slightly humiliating to confront my incompetence relating to wedding dresses, so before my self-esteem plummeted any further, I set the magazines back in their rightful place on the coffee table so they could once again be what they were always intended for - extraneous decor.
With a flick of my watch, I noted the period of waiting had only increased by three minutes. Again, I had yet to master the art of wedding garment fittings, but how was 20 minutes not enough time to put a dress on? However, unlike my better half, I had (relatively) zero problems admitting my ignorance, whereas she’d rather drive us off a cliff or into a lake before letting me know she was lost.
In surrender to my lack of knowledge, I rose from my seat to approach the receptionist and ask if she had a more accurate estimate for how long it would be until I saw (y/n) again. But as it turns out, any estimate she might’ve been able to tell me would’ve been completely wrong for she wouldn’t have even been able to finish her answer before the aforementioned future bride entered the space behind me.
Remember before when I said I had no gauges of good fashion to outrank a medieval frock? Well, I stand corrected.
(Y/n) in her dress is what I will measure everyone against. And no one will ever compare.
“Wow…” The word came out of my mouth before I could think to stop it. My tone was so honest that it scared me. “I’m - You’re …” I was at a total loss for words that I had to sit back down to hopefully regain some clarity. She laughed at my stupidity with a laugh so gentle, I couldn’t not laugh back.
“That good, huh?”
I wordlessly nodded while my mouth lied openly in waiting. But the right words never came out; there just weren’t any that could capture this vision of perfection in front of me.
My mannerisms had clearly already given away the true level of my admiration, so in an effort to lessen the enormity of my obvious wonderment, I reluctantly broke my gaze away from the angel in white and picked up a magazine on the table to perfect the notion of nonchalance.
“You look . . .” She impatiently waited for my addition, even doing the most adorable little twirl in her dress to give me the full view in the meantime. “Nice,” was the adjective I settled for, as it was such a thoughtless response that perhaps it would convince her that there weren’t a million thoughts on my mind. The most recurring one, and arguably the most troubling one being: I think I’m in love with you.
“Nice?” She repeated like the word stung her tongue, more out of mock offense than earnest disappointment. “You’re reading your magazine upside down so it’s gotta be better than nice.”
I bashfully looked down to find that, sure enough, her words were true. The magazine was upside down and therefore a total revelation of just how ‘nice’ I really thought she looked.
I tried to hide my smile behind my knuckles as I pressed a fist to my lips, deciding on the most sincere compliment I could give her.
“Nobody holds a candle to you, (y/n),” I nodded in affirmation. “You look absolutely beautiful.”
After saying so, I nonchalantly - well as nonchalantly as one could when caught slack-jawed and completely in awe - reoriented the catalog. Had I glanced up even a second later, I might not have caught her reaction to my words and the way they made her smile uncontrollably. I looked back down at the magazine with a smirk, giving it a brief flick to open up the pages all the way to me and parrot the motions one would make if they were actually reading.
We both knew I wasn’t though.
It seemed I never left that wedding boutique because even as we arrived outside my apartment later that day, my mind was still there, stuck on the future bride in her gown.
“Earth to Spencer!” She waved her hand in front of me to grab my attention despite already having it. “We’re here!” She announced. Who was I kidding? She always had my attention. I only wish it didn’t take me this long to realize that the reason she was constantly at the front of my mind was that I loved her.
Nearly about to exit the car, the millionth and one thought rang in my head like a bell - wedding bells, if you will.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
At a tantalizingly slow speed, I released the doorknob and turned back towards her.
“...I love you.”
She furrowed her brows and shrugged with her mouth, forming a confused pout. “I love you, too, Reid?” She kind of laughed when she said it, so I knew she thought this was just a friend sending off a friend goodbye, but I couldn’t let her think that’s what I meant.
“No, not like that.” I clarified with the utmost candor. “I’m in love with you.” I shook my head when I said it which, in any other context, might make you think I was lying, but the shake of my head was merely the physical manifestation of every bone in my body knowing I shouldn’t be saying this, but my heart still having the audacity to do it anyway.
I confessed with that brutally honest tone again, the one so raw and vulnerable it leaves you nauseous and breathless all at once as you anxiously anticipate the other person’s response to your vulnerability. But I couldn’t even meet her eyes, I was too scared. Even if I had, they would’ve been vacant. Her spirit had vanished from her body, and in its departure left just the shell of a woman who was completely void of color. Her flushed face was a remnant of the shock that paralyzed her and it wouldn’t disappear even as I tried to bring her color back.
“I’m so sorry, (y/n). I wish I had better timing - trust me, I will beat myself up later for not saying it sooner. But I promise you, I am not trying to ruin things between you two and I would never actually try to stand in the way of your wedding - you have to believe me. I want you to be happy and if he’s what makes you happy, then I will live with that. I just had to tell you now because ... if you married him without ever knowing how I felt, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.”
This was true - I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if I hadn’t said anything - but now that I have - will she be able to forgive me?
Vacant stares turned into piercing glares that drove, what felt like, a thousand daggers right through my heart. She was looking at me as though I were a stranger - completely unrecognizable to her.
(Y/n), it’s me. It’s Spencer. Don’t you remember me? My heart pleaded. I’m still the same guy I was before. I’m the first friend you made on the team, remember? I’m your something old. Please, please remember me.
By the time I came to the woeful conclusion that she wouldn’t reply, at least not now, there was only one question weighing on my heart heavily enough to make me ask it before I left her car.
“Would it have been better if I didn’t tell you?”
My question stayed answerless even as I lingered at the door after getting out, waiting for one. I knew I should’ve closed it, but I couldn’t. In many ways, it would’ve been shutting the only open vessel to her, formally closing myself off from our friendship. The possibility of losing her as soon as I walked away was too real, and I wasn’t ready yet.
“Please, (y/n), talk to me.” It was a trending theme to have every word I spoke be underlined by this profound piteousness. “Say something.” Say anything.
“I ... I need to get home,” She quietly whimpered, practically begging me to let her go. Up until then, I didn’t want to, but I suddenly wished I had shut the door sooner so that I might not have had to hear the quiet addition, “To my fiancé.”
The color she was so void of in her face? It seems I must have recompensed, for not only was I crowned her something old that day, but I was also her something blue.
_ _ _
If there were a guidebook on all the things to do as the love of your life’s wedding (to someone else) nears, I’d like to think I was following all the protocol.
Since my not-so-subtle confession, I had yet to press the subject or force her for an answer to my final question, which I think she was thankful for. I also hadn’t plotted a giant scheme to ruin the wedding, nor did I have any intentions of doing so.
For all intents and purposes, I was acting as a gentleman (who’s in love with you but whom you’re not marrying) ideally should.
You would think that after my big declaration, (y/n) would do everything in her power to avoid me. It’s what I would’ve done. But she’s no coward. That exact heart of gold I fell in love with made no exceptions. Because even after what I did, she still had it in her to extend her kindness to me.
She’s stubborn like that, remember?
And though she was showering me with a treatment I didn’t deserve, it still wasn’t enough for my greedy heart.
The true pain lied in the pretending. Every day I would have to come to work and talk with her and laugh with her and smile with her - I would have to be her friend … pretending that was all that I wanted and nothing more.
It was both a blessing and a curse that she was acting just as she always had with me. It may seem weird to have expected, nay - wanted - a different reaction from her, but I just wanted something. At least, if she was angry, then I would know what I said had some effect on her, but she was just so indifferent. Like what I said didn’t matter.
It’s been said that there is a thin line between love and hatred. Hate and love both seem to be involved in the neural processing of what is sometimes referred to as the arousal effect of emotion - this is a technical term, so arousal can be negative. Scientists studying the physical nature of hate have found that some of the nervous circuits in the brain responsible for it are the same as those that are used during the feeling of romantic love – although love and hate appear to be polar opposites. Therefore, the same brain circuitry is involved in both extreme emotions. So, as strange as it may sound, if she didn’t love me, then I at least wanted her to hate me, just so I’d know she had any passion for me that matched my burning passion for her.
But as it turns out, she would never go on to display signs of hatred or love, for she never acted passive-aggressively, never gave me the silent treatment - nothing. Nope, she just acted as if it never happened. She went on with her life, essentially expecting me to do the same, but how could I carry on with life while she was still carrying half of my heart with her?
It’s an impossible feat, that - to walk around with half a heart. And it’s one that has not gotten easier with time. If anything, time has made it worse, and the closer we got to the wedding, the more difficult it became for me to hold back. And with this exponential growth, it was only inevitable that the pinnacle of difficulty came right before the wedding.
Before shit hit the fan, she arranged, or rather insisted, that I give a speech at the dinner rehearsal. That hadn’t changed, despite almost everything else having done so. Up until the minute I arrived at the venue, I could’ve recited that speech a million times, forwards and backwards, in my sleep, or even in Russian. But I lost any ability to form coherent thoughts from the second I laid eyes on her.
As soon as I opened the door, she stood at the entrance to greet her guests, having taken a radiant form that I could only imagine would not pale in comparison to what she would look like tomorrow on her actual wedding day. That thought alone scared me shitless.
If this is how beautiful she looked tonight and it was only just the rehearsal, how would I ever be able to resist her less than 24 hours from now when she would be marrying a man I could only dream of being half so lucky as?
“Spencer!” Familiar crinkles formed around her eyes as a result of her gigantic smile when she saw me and hugged me thereafter. Her embrace was strangely tighter and lasted for longer than usual, not that I was complaining, but I had to wonder if she was compensating for something. What’s that saying - keep your friends close, and your enemies closer? Was she killing me with kindness? That might’ve been wishful thinking though. Because the same flash of indifference I’d been dealt in recent times came back into her face and tone after hugging me. “You’re at table five with the rest of the team.”
“Oh, thanks.”
That was it? Just a ‘Spencer!’ and then a nudge in the direction of my seat? No questions about my speech? No threatening comments to not say anything that would ruin the charade we’d been playing for months now? Had she forgotten I was even giving a speech?
“Oh, wait, Spencer!” I felt her hand on my shoulder before I heard her voice. “You left this in my car a couple months ago. I’ve been meaning to give it back to you, but I didn’t remember until today.”
The first thing that raised a red flag was what she was saying. I’d left something in her car? That would imply that I’d forgotten something, and we both knew that wasn’t possible. But the second suspicious element was the matter of what she claimed I’d left behind. She was handing me a book with the back cover facing me. From the looks of it alone, it wasn’t mine. Clearly, it wasn’t mine. I knew every single book that resides on my shelves and this one has never once crossed them. That, on top of the new book smell and the lack of a wear in the spine, was enough to tell me that not only was this a book I’d never read nor was one to grace my bookshelf, but it was most certainly not one I would have left behind.
She was lying.
She saw the realization dawn on me, but knowing I would mention it, her hand’s grip around my wrist, which I hadn’t noticed was even there in the first place, tightened, sending me a message.
She knew I saw the deception. There were so many flaws in what she was saying, that she couldn’t have possibly been clueless of them. It was too easy. Or maybe that was by design. She wanted me to figure out it was a lie. But why?
What was she hiding?
The final thing to leave me when she did was her hand. In its place, it had left a a near perfect indentation in my sleeve. How flawlessly it sculpted to her hand told me just how tightly she was holding me. What was she trying to say?
That’s when I flipped the book over to see the cover.
Can Love Happen Twice?
And right on the inside cover page was scribbled - in a handwriting so distinctive it could only belong to one person and one person alone - “Yes.”
_ _ _
My heart was racing the entire night as I anxiously awaited for the moment to give my speech. Nothing seemed to ease the tension. Not a sip of water, not the loosening of my tie, not the self-soothing bouncing of my leg. But all it took, all it took was one glance from her and suddenly, the storm within me had settled.
“Next up we have a speech from Spencer Reid!”
I rose from my seat like a floundering mess, as to be expected, because how can you possibly catch your bearings as you’re about to make a speech to a room full of people?
“H-hi there. I’m Dr. Spen- I’m Spencer Reid. I’ve worked with (y/n) for several years now and - and so I, um, I wrote this speech for her, so, so I’m gonna read it to you all now,” My stammering had gotten the best of me, so before I could unravel into the mess I surely came off as right about now, I spun from my previous position facing the majority to facing only her. I needed to see her. I needed the reprieve of her eyes again, and she was happy to give it to me.
“(Y/n), from the moment I met you, I thought who is she? And I mean that quite literally because I had no idea who you were and why you were there,” Laughter from the crowd erupted, but her laugh was the only one that mattered to me. “But also because there was just something about you that told me I needed to talk to you. I had no idea what that instinct to strike up a conversation with you would lead to, but I trust my gut a little more now because that very intuition gave me one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
To my words, an endeared pout formed on her face. She was touched, and I was glad.
“Over the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years we’ve spent together, I have enjoyed every single measure of time with you. You have taught me more about life and myself than I could have ever learned otherwise - which says a lot,” This once again brought her to laughter. “So I thank you for that, because without you, there would be no one to tell my campfire stories to, there would be no one who could recite Jung or Freud with me, and there would be no one I’d have to correct when they drive down the wrong path,” My own chuckle cut my sentence short.
“Life with you has simply been made better, and my only hope is that tomorrow, as you get married, you too, will experience that eternal bliss with which you have surely bestowed upon everyone who has had the privilege of knowing you.”
By now both of us were on the verge of tears, hers more apparent than mine as she used the palm of her hand to stifle her sniffles.
“There is so much more I could say about how great you are, but your favorite author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, has said it best. ‘She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. She is beautiful’,” A tear ran down her cheek as my own eyes welled up beyond their means. “So to you both - may you have a life as beautiful as the bride.”
Even if that life isn’t with me.
I tuned out all the clapping and cheering, and set my focus solely on her, giving me full liberty to see the way she rose from her chair and escaped the room. Not even shock could paralyze me or stop me from running after her. I sprung so fast into action, which required the maximum amount adrenaline, although I could not credit my speed to the rush, but it was more the exclusive motivation to find her that powered me. The entire time I kept calling out her name as I frantically chased her out of the venue.
“Spencer.”
I didn’t even see her there at first, probably because I was half-expecting her to be jumping into a cab or running away from me some more when I found her, but just as before, she made it too easy for me. She was waiting for me, standing there in no spectacular fashion.
The wind was blowing strands of hair in her face that were not so large so that I couldn’t see the red rings around her eyes that were caused by the irritation and formation of tears. She was simply staring back at me with this look in her eyes as if she wanted to say something.
In the silence, I could still appreciate how astonishingly gorgeous she was. How badly I wanted her. I would’ve whisked her away and taken her as mine if I knew it would make her happy. But that’s just it - I didn’t know.
I needed her to say it. So say it.
Say it, darling.
Spoken through a congested voice (which spoke volumes in reality because of the mere revelation that she was indeed crying) was the plainest, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, she vanished back into the restaurant, leaving me to my devices on the sidewalk.
She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to.
_ _ _
Perhaps the false confidence in my speech or what little she had to say to me after it or even the hidden message in the book got to my head, but whatever it was, I was feeling suspiciously alright. Luckily, that feeling didn’t deviate even as I made my way to the church.
Upon arrival, everything seemed exactly as it should be, so consequently the lack of something out of place did not adequately denote what lied just beyond those doors. Or should I say what didn’t?
Much to my mortification, it was a completely empty church. Every pew, though decorated for a wedding, was uninhabited and showed no indications of having been such recently. As I walked further in, the door automatically shut behind me with a loud bang. It would’ve shocked me more had something else not caught my attention already.
It was (y/n), standing at the altar … completely alone.
Suddenly, it felt like I’d been drawn in by this invisible gravity, which was now floating me down the aisle. My feet could not carry me to her fast enough.
I was sure this was some kind of dream simply by the way the light gleamed through the stained glass windows, casting banners of golden luminescence on her. It was as if heaven itself had come down with the specific delegation to illuminate the vision of one of its fallen angels.
“(Y/n)?” My voice reverberated throughout the chapel, ricocheting off the high, painted ceilings and back to me. “Where is everyone?”
It wasn’t until I reached a certain point in the middle aisle, that I realized her veil had been covering her face this entire time. The angel in white only turned more heavenly when she flipped the veil backward, revealing herself to me.
It took her a moment to answer, but it was her head that answered first before her mouth did. She began shaking her head slowly, followed by a short, unequivocal, “No.”
As you might imagine, I was dumbfounded. “No?” That answer wouldn’t have made sense in the context of what I had previously asked.
“No.” She repeated, with somehow even more definitiveness. I decided it was best to stay silent and wait for her explanation.
“No, it wouldn’t have been better if you didn’t tell me.”
There was my answer I’d been searching for.
“God, Spencer - what took you so long?”
From the breathlessness and the rushed cadence of her voice, I knew precisely what was coming next. She instantaneously abandoned the bouquet she’d been clutching in favor of her hands’ ability to pull me in. The pressure on my fragile skull when our frenzied lips finally met was not a punishment so much as it was a reward. And just as we began to find our rhythm, I slid my hand into her hair, which I began to regret when I realized just how much time and effort probably went into its structuring. I pulled away the moment I felt a carefully placed pin lodged within her hair slip between my fingers.
True, for a moment I was unable to open my eyes afterward from the sheer elation I was experiencing, but as I came to, I found myself looking at the hairpin I’d accidentally extracted from her curls, one that I could’ve sworn I’d seen a fellow coworker of ours donning in the past.
“Is this -”
“Yep, it’s Penelope’s.” She admitted through the most debonair giggles. After giving her a quizzical, and only partially judgmental glance, she managed to blurt out, “What? Why are you looking at me like that? It was my ‘something borrowed’!”
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*
reid taglist: @s1utformgg @no-alarms-no-surprises-silence @jemimah-b99 @justanothetfangirl @kylab @rainsong01 @calm-and-doctor @inkstainedwritergirl @rexorangecouny @ashwarren32 @carooliina @fortheloveofcriminalminds @watermelongubler @obsessedmaggiemay @k-k0129 @aperrywilliams @eevee0722 @spencersmagic @spencerreid-mgg @half-blood-dork @goldeng1rl8 @just-a-bunch-of-fandoms @random-human-person
#spencer reid#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid fic#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid kiss#criminal minds#juniorgman187#something borrowed something blue
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i wanna talk about characters having “writer clairvoyance,” to borrow a term from lindsay ellis, and how it doesn’t make characters smarter.
one of the most common complaints about... pretty much any piece of media, is that the characters aren’t smart enough. this is often literal, people want the characters to be adequately intelligent and observant to answer their most burning questions, to explain plot points you think bears questioning.
but like... there is such a thing as doing that too much. if people acted irl on the level of writer clairvoyance hyper-awareness some want fictional characters to act, you couldn't walk out the door without someone being like "hang on... why are you carrying a bag? i've never seen you carry that bag before :/"
let's say you were a fictional character, and something WAS up with the bag. there's a plot-relevant ancient scroll in it which will let any wish you make come true or whatever.
if you’re the type to care about realism - the vast majority of people irl would not question you carrying a bag. the audience screaming that someone needs to ask about the bag or take it from the protagonist to find the secret scroll? that's because you, the audience, already know about the scroll.
you have access to information about what’s suspicious or bears questioning - the characters don’t. you screaming that it’s “so obvious” or how “stupid” the characters are doesn’t always mean unrealistic writing. unless the character is acting comically suspicious, there's no reason anyone would think to ask about every little thing. they’re busy living in the world, not solving it.
therefore, as a general rule, i think the reason characters ask questions is more important than asking “enough” questions to satisfy an audience who are approaching this as a mystery to be solved, which the characters aren’t.
also - sometimes, even if a character doesn’t know something, and are aware that they don’t know it... that doesn’t mean every question is worth asking.
it all comes back to character motivation. not just if they know that there’s something to question here, but do they CARE? is this something the character actually wants to know, or just the audience?
there could also be other factors obstructing a well-placed question. like whether they have know the right person to ask, and feel like the person will answer it.
i’m going to take steven from SU as an example here, because i have seen a couple people acting like he’s this silly naive boy who doesn’t question anything.
number one: he does. quite a lot, actually!
they’re just questions that make sense to his character - he cares about the questions, and have enough information to ask them - instead of questions only those with 4th wall writer clairvoyance would ask.
for instance, steven (above) asks the crystal gems to confirm whether his mom shattered pink diamond, because this is something deeply upsetting to him - he wants it not to be true. he wants to believe in a perfect mother idol he can live up to. he questions lapis taking the tower, because he doesn’t think gems should fight each other. he asks bismuth to watch garnet, because he’s naturally worried about her in her current state.
steven tends to ask why people are doing things he thinks are bad, because he wants to believe in them. again, caring about something is paramount to asking. a bunch of random weird magical stuff around him happening, is often as mundane to him as the bag example. he’s used to being weirded out and traumatized, as well as not knowing things. so he’s not gonna question every time a monster shows up. sometimes, he’s just “used” to stuff that the audience thinks he isn’t, because they see him first and foremost as a child.
as in some of the gifs above, steven questioning things can also be subtle - quick moments where his expression shows that he feels or realizes something is wrong, not always as literal questions. in these gifs, he questions what he thought he knew about pink’s shattering, and the surface-level utopian nature of the zoo.
also, there are times when you can tell steven is too frustrated to ask a question, or knows it won’t be answered. this is a big thing in episodes like “steven’s dream” and “lion 4,” where he knows the gems will keep hiding things from him, so he essentially says f you and seeks answers on his own.
and... he has every reason to think that! there are plenty of instances where the gems chastise steven for wanting to be involved in gem stuff, especially early in the show. on the emotional side, them hiding things insults him, and so, he starts to go behind their backs, against their wishes, and to seek other authorities.
a big theme in a show like SU is also that there is no authority who has the answer to everything, even when you wish there was.
i think a real issue here is that the audience is frustrated they don’t get to know everything... but the characters don’t either. they just know their own perspective, which is inherently flawed. that is a sublime writing style - a lot of stuff is just implied, perhaps only to be guessed or assumed from the soft worldbuilding, because the world is “bigger” than the characters. this is generally well-done and consistent. it’s thematically sound, how there are no true experts who know everything, or know to question everything in this sassy, ooc way.
personally, i also think it often is better writing to limit a character’s questions, because it shows awareness of the difference between what the audience vs characters know, and their motivations. i think emotion should precede it (and yes, sometimes, characters are too emotionally distraught to notice every little thing, this is normal and doesn’t indicate bad writing.)
it also often just makes for lazy media criticism - well i can think of something the character (living in the moment, stressed out of their mind, trying to survive) should ask, so it’s bad writing that they don’t!
...i’m gonna go ahead and say it would be bad writing if they questioned everything, regardless of motivation, relationships, human flaws, and emotion.
also, having a character actively ignore their emotions and act like a logicbro is often a defense mechanism to hide how afraid they are of being wrong. ahem.
personally, i can think of more examples of the opposite of “not questioning enough” - the character asks something, or is questioning something in an overbearingly sassy way, and i have no idea why. it seems to just be so the writer can show off how “smart” they are for being right, even if they don’t have a real reason to reach the conclusions that they do. or to be "self-aware,” like making a “wtf, that doesn’t make sense!” 4th wall breaking joke with no subtlety.
i’m guessing a big reason i’ve seen this complaint several times with steven now is that i think the “norm” in cartoons, especially ones with a certain “witty” humor, is leaning towards being too sassy and questioning, beyond what a normal person would ask. this is a big issue with shows like gravity falls and atla - characters will ask things just to show off how smart they are, just for the writer to vent about something they want to question, to ask about plot only the audience would ask about, or just to set up an answer. they often ignore the flow of a scene, or the emotion, because the characters don’t “really” live in the world. they just exist to be sassy / “intelligent.”
often, i’m frustrated that there’s no organic motivation behind a given question, and they’re oft asked far too conveniently - “okay, the shittiest parts of our audience wants to be handheld, lest they call something a plot hole... so we need a scene where a character says ‘x doesn’t make sense!’, so then we can have another character explain why the plot is good, actually.”
so that’s my little rant for today. there are certainly times where something should be questioned and the characters in a given piece of media don’t... but i also think a lot of the time, the audience just has generalized frustrations when they don’t like a show, and are looking for any way to express that. they want to intellectualize it, so they’re grasping for a way to vent about how stupid they think the characters are.
#writing#steven universe#steven#white diamond#(implied)#long story short: having a character Not ask something can be the better writing choice actually#it depends on your writing style but try to be selective about it - the unsaid can say as much as the said#also fetishizing characters being smart or sassy as the ultimate sign of good writing reads to me as not only kinda oof#but as a very narrow way to look at what makes writing smart#and a way to be easily satisfied with hacky writers who know how to write '''''witty''''' dialogue
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I had always known what I like. I mean, in terms of men. If you put my crushes and celebrity crushes and line them up together, they look quite... distinctly alike.
For example, my first ever crush was Kevin Zegers in Air Bud movies. My crushes in the past 5 years consist of Sebastian Stan, David Tennant, Tom Ellis, Tom Hardy, Rami Malek, Oscar Issac, Ben Barnes, and a brief confusing Jurrassic Park Jeff Goldblum phrase.
So I drew the line there. Dark, tall, beautiful eyes, and look good with a beard. I could even tell the similarities between Seb's face shape and a couple of my real life crushes and I thought, yeah, that's how I like them.
Then I crashed and fell head over heel for a 52-year-old, internet's new boyfriend, whom MY MOM had a crush on Owen Wilson and I said to my sisters while we were watching Night at the Museum for the third time this year (the other two were because we all miss Rami Malek. Ahkmenrah is a whole another story but this is not the time.) that I didn't get why I liked him this much. He didn't fit in my types and I didn't even prefer blonds.
(Notice how him being 52 wasn't the issue, but him being blond was. I'm not sure if my daddy issue is out of control.)
My two little sisters said in unison: you do!
They kindly pointed me to Chris Hemsworth whose Thor looks caught my eyes and pulled me into the MCU in the first place, Steve Garrigan of Kodaline--another blond, and Mark Hamill who I couldn't help but praise his beauty everytime Star Wars is on.
And of course Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire which I still insist is his best look. Don't sleep on my man Lestat.
So we came to the conclusion that I indeed have a type, and it isn't only dark tall and handsome exclusive, but more like big eyes, long hair, with memorable voices/accents.
My little sister added that facial hair is also crucial.
And it made me think. I remember looking at the cover for You, Me and Dupree dvd in a local store and thinking this guy doesn't look good one bit, but Jedediah got a brief hmm he is cute I guess and they must have been no more than a few years from each other.
(I was about 10 in the early 2000, but I digress.)
So even the lightest of stubbles makes a different I guess, and we aren't going to bring Mobius into this.
I had to add another man in the equation and it was my ideal man, Marshall Eriksen. I asked the girls to fit him in. There must be something about him that made me consider him perfect.
(Like, if I can marry any fictional character, it's always gonna be dear Marshmellow.)
So they ended up with big eyes (HUGE, little one insisted) long hair, great voice, a little rough, and old enough to sign my adoption form/soft enough to be an ideal dad and sadly I have nothing to argue about that, like, at all.
#my therapist need a raise#owen wilson#ben barnes#tom elis#david tennant#mark hamil#sebastian stan#i guess I have a type#judge me all you want but tom cruise was hot as lestat#petition for one of these guys to sign my adoption paper#if only i had a gentle dad growing up#i might be attracted to fresher face korean dudes like normall people#marshall eriksen#tom hardy#don't forget tom hardy#when are we getting a next movie mr hardy we miss ya
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NCT 24th member || Harumi
FACE CLAIM: Remi (Cherry Bullet)
DANCE CLAIM: Lee Chaeyeon (ex IZ*ONE)
VOICE CLAIM: Jo Yuri (ex IZ*ONE)
STAGE NAME: Harumi (하루미)
BIRTH NAME: Miya Harumi (宮晴美)
晴 (Haru) - bright
美 (Mi) - beauty
KOREAN NAME: Moon Myeong Hee (문명희)
ENGLISH NAME: Ellie Miya
CHINESE NAME: Gōng Qíngměi (宫晴美)/Wen Ming Xi (文明熙)
NICKNAMES: Haru, Brainnie, Xiao Měi, Bright Myeong, Rumi-hime (princess Rumi)
BIRTH DATE: November 25th, 2000
PLACE OF BIRTH: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
ETHNIC: Japanese
NATIONALITY: Japanese, American
EDUCATION: unknown elementary school in Madison, unknown elementary and middle school in New York, unknown middle school in Seoul, Seoul School of Performing Arts - practical dance (2016-2019)
ZODIAC SIGN: Sagittarius
MBTI: ENFJ-T
EYE COLOUR: Black
HEIGHT: 163cm
WEIGHT: 45kg
BLOOD TYPE: O
POSITION: main vocal, lead dancer
UNIT: NCT DREAM, NCT 127 (Limitless - now), NCT U (Timeless), NCT U (Make A Wish)
TRAINING PERIOD: 2 years (2014-2016)
LANGUAGES: Japanese and English (native language), Chinese and Korean (proficiency obtained), German (learning)
FAMILY: Miya Hayao (father, deceased), Miya Yoshiko (mother, deceased), Moon Seungyeon (adoptive father), Moon Bom (adoptive mother), Jianyu (adoptive cousin)
B A C K S T O R Y
Harumi was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Daughter of a young Japanese couple that moved to USA to start a new life, Miya Hayao and Miya Yoshiko
Since her father was an Algebra teacher in an middle school near their house and her mother was a Japanese teacher in a local language school, Harumi grew up highly influenced by knowledge and curiosity
Unfortunately, at the age of 6, Harumi and her parents were involved in a car accident, resulting in their death at the spot. Luckily Harumi survived, despite heavily injured
She was transferred to an orphanage in New York, where she could afford a better treatment to her injuries and social assistance with her double nationality
Harumi was the eldest child in the orphanage and the least interviewed kid for possible adoptions, because of her age. Because of that, she matured quickier and learned how to mask disappointment
She decided to learn by herself Chinese and Korean - in an attempt to increase her chances of being adopted, even if through an international adoption
Four years later, when she was 10, Moon Seungyeon and Moon Bom adopted her and brought her to South Korea
Harumi got casted during a Sunday outing she had with her family. A scout heard her singing and playing guitar and decided to invite her for an audition
Seungyeon, Bom and Jianyu (her cousin) convinced her to try for it and, eventually, join SM as a trainee
A couple of months after she began a trainee, SM introduced her as one of the SMRookies, participating in shows such as "Mickey Mouse Club"
Debuted in August in NCT DREAM, charming the fans with her powerful and husky voice
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Harumi is perceived as a sweet extrovert, always polite and warm towards anyone who approaches her. Though her soft looks and voice could mistake her as a shy girl, she is a truly happy virus
Her energy changes according to her surroundings. Whenever she’s with more playful members, she’s joking around and making a mess. However, with the calmer members, she can blend with them very well
Since she was the eldest in the orphanage, Harumi usually takes care of everyone around her, including the older members. She makes sure all the members are comfortable, healthy and happy
Extremely independent, struggles on relying on other people - which gives constant headaches to the older members
Keeps all negative comments and feelings to herself, not wanting to burden anyone
Has a hard time saying “no” to people, that being one of her biggest weakness
Constantly looks for improvement and new knowledge, so she's either learning a new dance style, an instrument or improving her producing skills
Because of years of rejection, Harumi is extremely self-conscious about herself as an individual
F U N F A C T S
Harumi learned Korean and Chinese through grammar books she found in a library. Because she was really young, the girl often reached out to the employees to explain some topics (what was a verb, noun, for example)
An volunteer in the orphanage taught Harumi how to play guitar and, eventually, gifted her his old one
Every Saturday afternoon, the orphanage headmistress would take the kids to Central Park. Harumi started to sing and play guitar there just for fun, but people started to spare her a dollar or two
In her audition, Harumi sang "Growl", from EXO, an acoustic version that fit perfectly her huskier tone
Seungyeon and Bom gave Harumi her Korean name, but let her decide whether she would use it or keep her given name (Harumi actually cried when they let her keep "Miya Harumi")
She surprised all the trainees with her almost perfect Korean, especially after introducing herself with her Japanese name. They were even more shocked when they discovered she knew as well English and Chinese
Contrary to all the Dreamies, Harumi did not drop out of school, juggling her student and idol life. All the members were worried about her health, but when they discovered the reason why Harumi was so adamant to keep studying, they did everything they could to help her
In 2017, Harumi got Korean and Chinese proficiency through the official test, formalizing her fluency in both languages. Because of that, fans gave her the nickname Brainnie
Before joining NCT, Harumi focused her vocals on acoustic versions and ballads. She was often told that her tone didn't match girl groups
Because of the car accident, Harumi has a long scar from her sternum to her bellybutton. Only in Ridin' era she felt comfortable enough to wear crop tops that showed a bit of it
Following the trend of peculiar dislike of foods in NCT, Harumi doesn't like nuts. She's actually heavily allergic, needing to have an epinephrine shot with her whenever she goes out to eat
The part she loved the most during her trainee period was dance classes, Harumi had so much fun and created a soft spot for it
Harumi despises winter the most, snowy days are the worst for her, because remind her of the car accident
Loves all Disney movies, even the underrated ones
Harumi's a quick learner, but feels extremely burnt out and unsatisfied, dropping one or another activity every once in a while (she usually tries again, because she hates the fact she gave up on something)
Her official emoji is ✨, because of the meaning behind the kanji of her name (Haru). Her introduction during her debut days was “Hello, I’m sparkling Harumi!”
One of her favorite hobbies is re-recording songs. She would record all the instruments, getting all notes by hearing and - finally - get the vocals done
Likes affection, but hates aegyo
Her favorite color is yellow
Maintains Dream’s dorms up (she does do cook, she does the cleaning to the point the others scold her for doing all by herself)
Her lives are mostly songs recommendations, guitar sessions and whenever she’s at practice room, she does a few covers
She’s a huge fan of BoA, EXO, SHINee and MAMAMOO
In 2019, Harumi became an official MC at Music Core alongside SF9 Chani
#nct 24th member au#nct dream 8th member au#nct 127 female member au#nct female oc#kpop female addition#kpop female oc#kpop addition#kpop oc
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Spoilers for The Last of Us 2
The idea that Abby doesn’t feel remorse is so fucking weird when a main part of the reason she saves Lev and Yara is that she’s clearly dealing with some inner shit that she feels the need to make up for. Like, she tells them she’s doing it for herself and I don’t think there’s any way to take that other than that she’s trying very hard to deal with her own shit and atone for it in whatever ways she can?
An example someone used to justify the idea that Abby feels no remorse was that Abby was just going to kill Dina even after finding out she was pregnant and like??? In that moment, where emotions were high, where she’s thinking about how Ellie has killed ALL OF HER FRIENDS, and she sees that Dina very much matters to Ellie, and she had no way of knowing that Ellie didn’t know Mel was pregnant when she killed her? LIKE when she says “good” it’s so obviously because she thinks that’s tit for tat, that’s just equal punishment for the crime? Which is already pretty “fair” in the conflict between them when Ellie has been killing literally anyone who even looks like they ever met Abby as retaliation for a single death, but ANYWAY.
Abby doesn’t stop just because Lev doesn’t want her to do it. Lev literally just brings the softness that she VERY OBVIOUSLY HAS back to the surface for her. She wasn’t just trying not to hurt him or just giving in to what he wants because she has a soft spot for him specifically. Abby IS a soft person at heart and years of wanting revenge and stewing in hatred from multiple directions and being more or less brainwashed by a militant organization has buried that. She very clearly is ready for that to just be who she is again. She turns so easily on the wolves, considers Lev “her people” so quickly because she finally has a true, shining reason to leave in Lev. Her messy, complicated, painful relationship with Owen wouldn’t have been enough to ever really change things, and especially not with Mel and her refusal to ever see Abby anything more than a single horrendous moment in time or the work she’s been doing because it’s almost the only option she even has.
It takes almost NOTHING for her softness to rise to the surface when she has Lev and Yara as an outlet for it. She immediately is ready to bend the sky for them. Because they’re the perfect exit. They’re WILLING to see her for who she is, and not just what she’s done or who she’s associated with, and she clings SO hard to that SO quickly. It’s a chance to make up for wrongs done, and a chance to exercise softness that she’s clearly not had a real outlet for in years.
Anyway, y’all had made up your minds to hate her before the game even came out (and I thought I would too, even if for different reasons!) and y’all are stretching to make the narrative work to justify that feeling instead of making any effort to understand what the narrative is already saying.
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You Said You’d Grow Old With Me
again, another one-shot that i never posted on tumblr, only the link, so yeah! im also pretty sure this fic makes no sense, but my 4 am brain wrote it so...
____
"thought we had the time, had our lives, now you'll never get older, older"
~*~
TW// major character death
takes place some time after 16x15, before 16x16.
____
Jo was laying in her bed. Their bed. The bed that felt too cold. The bed that felt too empty. The bed that felt too big. After crying she felt better, having Link comfort her while she broke down. She wanted him back. She wanted him to answer her calls. She needed to know if he was okay. If he left her like she thought he did she at least needed to know if he was okay. One call. One text. Thats all she was asking for.
Except she wouldn't be satisfied with that. The five different positive pregnancy tests to the side of her were an example. She was pregnant. They were pregnant. How the hell did that happen? She was just pranking him about having a baby a two months ago, and now she really was going to have one? And at the best of times too. Right when her husband decides to go MIA.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there for, staring blankly into the distance, her body incapable of feeling anything. Numb. Thats how she felt. She felt like she was bathing in a tub of ice and all her sense and nerves had just shut down. Numb.
She'd only been numb once before, after seeing Paul for the first time in five years. Bu this was worse, oh this was so much worse. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She couldn't talk. She couldn't do anything, she was just numb.
She wishes she could say she was startled by the sound of knocking her door, but she wasn't. She'd gotten used to Meredith and Link coming over at random hours of the day. Sometimes to rant about anything, or sometimes to just talk with her.
Maybe it's Alex, she thinks, and with that thought she gets up from the too big bed and makes her way to the loft's wooden door.
Please be you please be you.
The door opens and the sight she sees is one she wishes she didn't.
In one second she knew that her whole world was about to crumble under her feet. Oh god, how badly she wished she stayed in bed, how badly she wished she was at the hospital.
"Ma'am is this the home of Alexander Karev?" the officer asks, looking up from his notepad, his partner standing next to him dutifully.
Jo gulps visibly, already feeling the tears burning in her eyes. "Y-yes, he's my husband, i'm his wife."
The two officer share a sympathetic glance. "We're afraid there's been an accident.
____
After a short phone call with Meredith and one plane ride to some place in Oregon, Jo is standing outside some hospital she's never heard of, Meredith right by her side, holding her hand so tightly, like it was a life-line. Because it was. They knew nothing. All they knew was that Alex was involved in a ca accident that involved a drunk driver, and they hadn't been able to identify him for the past two weeks. They didn't know anything. Was he alive? Was he dead? Had they simply only contacted her so they would know what to do with his body? Was he seriously just okay and he was in a medically induced coma? Did he have amnesia? Did he not remember who he was?
For two weeks her husband had been just another John Doe. One that they see in the pit nearly every day.
He wasn't Doctor Alex. He was even a doctor. He wasn't her husband. He wasn't a best friend, a companion, a lover. He wasn't a surgeon who saved the lives of tiny humans. He wasn't a guy who made little kids less scared of the hospital. He was just another meaningless John Doe, taking up space in the ICU.
But oh, she felt guilty. So guilty. She was worried that he was having some kind of secret affair while he was really just in the hospital.
Meredith squeezes her hand, "You ready?" she croaks out, her red rimmed eyes string up at the hospital in front of her. Meredith wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for what stood behind those doors. She wasn't ready.
"No." Jo shakes her head, a few stray tears already coming down her cheek. She hadn't gotten them to stop. She physically couldn't get them to stop. Ever since those six dreadful words came out of the officer mouth.
Meredith sighs in understanding, "I know." she says, stepping forward and taking the first steps, Jo following behind her robotically.
No, not robotically. Numbly.
How naive she was, thinking that what she felt earlier was numbness, this was a whole new level. This was paralyzing. This was frightening. This was feeling her body start to disintegrate piece by piece.
Without knowing it she was standing on the sixth floor, the ICU. Meredith leans over the nurses station, asking for the room number for Alex Karev.
Jo doesn't see the sad, sympathetic smile the nurse gives the two, but Meredith does. And that's when she knew that things weren't going to be alright. Nothing was going to be bright and shiny and happy with unicorns and rainbows.
Somehow, they end up on the other side of the Alex's room, but Jo had yet to look up from her gaze on the floor. She's never noticed how white the linoleum of hospital floor were. They were shiny too. So shiny that she could see her reflection.
It was when Meredith lets out a soft sob that she finally decides to look up, not at all prepared for the sight in front of her.
The sight of her husband, the love of her life, lying in a bed, tubes sticking out of every possible place in his body.
It was then she felt her whole world crash down. Crash down and burn. A gut wrenching sob escapes her throat, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as the tears come down her face. They come down so fast she cant even wipe them away until her face is soaked again.
"Mer I-i," she chokes out, feeling her breathing start to pick up as she tries and fails to form her words.
Meredith nods, "Go in." she whispers brokenly, watching as a doctor makes his way towards.
The doctor holds out his palm to the blonde, "Hi i'm Doctor Kelsey, i'm the neurosurgeon on Mr. Karev's case-"
"It's doctor." she interrupts him. "Doctor Karev. Doctor Alex Karev." she says slowly.
The man nods, "Okay, Dr. Karev has been here for fifteen days now. There was an MVC on the 45 with a drunk driver and he ended up getting very severely injured-"
She cuts him off again, "I'm sorry, let me introduce myself. I'm Dr. Meredith Grey."
She watches as the man's eyes widen in surprise. He was standing in front of Meredith Grey? The Meredith Grey? Catherine Fox Award Meredith Grey? Daughter of two time Catherine Fox recipient Ellis Grey?
"W-wow. I-its an honor to meet you Doctor Grey, i'm a big fan." he says, smiling brightly.
Meredith jolts back in shock, eyes narrowing at the man who was about ten years older than her. "It's an honor to meet me?" she hisses, watching as the fellow surgeon's smile falls as quickly as it appeared.
"I-its an honor to meet me? That's what you have to say? You have the audacity to say that, as i stand here, outside of the room of my best friend, who is alive because of tubes and vents? It's an honor to meet me, when the only reason i'm here if because my best friend, my person, is lying there, unable to move or breathe, or talk? It's an honor to meet me?" Meredith yells , tears escaping her eyes, earning the attention from the others in the ICU, but she didn't care.
The man nods furiously, "O-of course, i'm so sorry Doctor Grey, that was very disrespectful of me." he says, going on to explain the extent of Alex's injuries.
___
Jo stumbles into the room lifelessly, seeing the unmoving body of her husband lying on the bed.
The sight causes a whole new round of tears to spring into her eyes and down her cheeks, "Oh Alex," she chokes out, grabbing ahold of his left hand, clasping it firmly in her palm.
it was cold. Way too cold. Normally his hands were warm. Not sweaty or clammy, they were just warm and soothing, perfect for her's to slip into at any time of the day.
She feels the cold band of his wedding ring touch her fingers and that's when she lets the sobs take over.
The gut wrenching, heart breaking, deep sobs as she collapses on the side of his bed and onto her knees, completely ignoring the chair next to her.
She couldn't hold herself up. its like her legs could not longer support her, like they had turned into helpless piles of water, "Alex please." she begs, lips trembling as she places kiss over kiss on his hand.
She wasn't stupid, she was a doctor. She knew what all the tuning and the wires and the ventilators meant.
"Please tell me this is just some joke. Some really mean, really awful joke. Please Alex. Please." she cries.
"Please tell me this is just a nightmare, an awful, awful nightmare. Please tell me this isn't real Alex. Please." she begs, holding his hand so tight as her body shakes with sobs.
She shakes her head, laughing softly at first, then louder and louder, "Oh god." she sobs, her laughter coming to a halt. "This is real." she whispers, feeling as her tears drop from her eyes to the floor.
"No Alex. you don't get to die on me alright? Because, because i cant live without you okay? You-you need to know that. If you, if you die, i die." she says, taking both of her palms and clasping her tiny hands around his big one.
She shakes her head, "No Alex. You don't get to do this to me. You don't get to leave me. We-we meed to grow old a and grey, and we need to have kids. So many kids. We need to have at least three kids. We need to get a dog a-and travel the world. We still need to do that Alex."
Jo sniffles, "But it's not only you that needs me Alex, this baby needs you too." she sobs, standing up and sitting down on the bed, taking Alex's hand and placing it over her stomach, hoping that this would be enough. That this would be enough for him to wake up, to defy all medical standards and wake the hell up.
"Please Alex, this baby needs you." Jo sobs, "Because, i sure as hell can't do this without you. Y-you're the peds surgeon Alex, you were practically born to be a dad." she wipes her tears to no avail, since they just kept coming. "You need to hold this baby in your arms, you need to be there with me to tell them about how we had sex in a shed next to a corpse on our wedding on their wedding day. You-you need to see them grow up and graduate Alex."
"Y-you need to be there Alex. I need you, Mer needs. Zola and Bailey and Ellis, they need you. The tiny children that you save all the time need you. They need Doctor Alex. I need Doctor Alex."
"I-i need you to get so overprotective if it's a girl when she has her first boyfriend. I need to watch you teach our baby how to wrestle if he's a boy. Or a girl, i'm not judging." she chuckles soft'y, holding his palm against her still flat abdomen.
She lays down beside him, laying there in silence for a long time. She lets the thoughts roam in her mind.
Jo sighs, "I hated you at first." she starts, absentmindedly threading her fingers though his hair like she had done so many time before. 'Like seriously, you were one of the biggest assholes I ever met." she chuckles softly.
"And then there was the teen mom who was just going to abandon her baby that i went al crazy on, rightfully so by the way." she smiles slightly, knowing that if he could somehow hear her he was probably rolling his eyes. "And then suddenly, i told you my whole life story, just like that. I'd never done that with anyone before." she sighs, glancing back down to her stomach, where she had her hand clasped in his in a hold over her stomach. "I'd never opened up to someone so easily before. It was like... my heart knew I could trust you before any other part of me could."
"I know i know, you're laughing at me. I sound like something out of a cheesy lifetime movie." she smiles softly. "And then came Ben and Bailey's wedding, and then, before i knew it, you were my best friend."
She starts to trace his fingers, something she always did to calm her down, "And then, one day, i was drinking a beer at Joe's with Jason, and all i could think was that i would rather be with you, on the couch that I bought, and watching action movies with you. That's when i realized i was i love with you." she whispers, some new tears building in her eyes.
"And then we wen through crap. So much crap Alex. That's why this can't be the end. Thats why this can't be the end of us okay? Because we've been through too much crap to let a drunk driver end us."
"Please Alex, i'm begging you, come back." she sobs, starting to pound her fists on his chest.
"Come back! Come back you son of a bitch! Come back!" Jo cries, unable to atop the steady flow of water coming down her face.
"Please Alex." Jo begs, her eyes so red and puffy that they looked like she had been crying for years. "You-you have my whole heart Alex. And i-if you die, you will crush it, and I wont make it. I cant live without you okay? You hear me? I need you Alex. I- i cant breathe. I cant breathe, ii cant exist in a world without you in it, okay?" she sobs, hyperventilating as she trues to get her words out, which only came out in barely audible sobs.
Somewhere along the way she cries herself to sleep, waking up a nearly a whole day later to a view of Meredith, Amelia, Tom, Jackson, Arizona, Callie, Link, Cristina, Bailey, and Richard standing outside the ICU.
And for one second, before she opens her eyes, she forgets everything, simply snuggling into the body and the scent she missed so much, a combination of aftershave and spearmint.
And then she remembers.
And oh god, she just wants to die.
She feels like a knife is being driven through her heart, stabbing her again and again and again, with absolutely no intention to stop.
Eventually Meredith breaks her out of her trance by knocking on the door, in which Jo responds by a head nod, letting her know that it was okay to come in.
The blonde enters, flowed by Amelia and Tom. "I called them. I wanted them here to consult, look at all his scans, everything." Meredith mutters, her voice hoarse and broken from trying to hold in her tears.
Jo looks up at the two, a small glimmer of hope shining in her eyes, "P-please." she stutters out, her voice high pitched and squeaky, sounding more broken than they'd ever heard her before, "tell me you guys can do something."
Amelia takes a deep breath, letting a few drops of water pool in her eyes, "Jo-"
"No," she sobs, shaking her head. "It took me twenty-seven years to find him, longer to realize i loved him, and even longer to be able to marry him." she starts to shake, trying to take in every detail of his face.
His overgrown stubble.
The soft creases around his eyes.
The slight wrinkles etched into his forehead.
"Jo, we can't bring him back. I'm so sorry." Tom says, trying to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, which she shakes off.
She slowly nods, unconsciously mumbling something about how she was going to let everyone say their goodbyes before she said hers.
So thats what she did. One by one the said their tearful, heartbroken goodbyes, still i denial that the man they loved would soon be gone.
Jo goes in one last time, lying down next to him, holding his figure in her arms. "I love you." she sobs.
"I haven't said that enough. I love you Alex. God, I love you so much jerkface. I didn't know it was possible to love someone as much as i love you." she cried, her tears an endless flow into a river. "I love you, i love you, i love you."
"And, please, please love me enough to come back." she begs him, still holding onto that tiny bit of hope.
"You said we'd be together forever Alex. You and me. Please, please let there be forever." she pleads with him one last time, giving him a soft kiss on his cheek.
With one deep breath she gives a nod to the nurse, who slowly begins to remove the ventilator. Then she unplugs him from all the machine.
She lays her head on his heart, feeling as he breathes one last time under her.
And then, she places a kiss on his lips, one last time
and all of a sudden,
he was gone.
"we had plans, we had visions, now i cant see ahead. We were one, were golden, forever you said."
"didn't say goodbye now I'm frozen in time getting colder, colder. "
"One last word. One last moment. To ask you why, you left me here behind."
"You said you'd grow old with me."
#jolex#jolex fic#jolexau#ignoring canon#jolex fanfic#jolex fanfiction#alex karev#jo wilson#jo karev#greysanatomy#greys anatomy#greys abc#meredith grey#major character death#based on a song
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Opinion: Let’s Have A Talk About Kygo
When Kygo burst onto the scene in 2013-2014, tropical house was everything. Names like Thomas Jack, Robin Schulz, Felix Jaehn, Sam Feldt, Bakermat, and Matoma similarly rode the wave, but Kygo, with his brilliant melodies and ear for remix-worthy anthems, gained an early edge and has gone on to become a worldwide star with over 27 million monthly listeners on Spotify. He released his critically-acclaimed debut album, Cloud Nine, in 2016 with features from John Legend, James Vincent McMorrow, Maty Noyes, and Julia Michaels, among others.
He’s played some of the biggest venues in the world, including the Hollywood Bowl and SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the Ullevaal Stadion in his native Norway, and of course Coachella. He was the fastest artist to reach one billion total plays on Spotify in 2015 — no one can deny his magnetism and talent.
All of this is to say, he has every right to put out literally anything he wants. But it’s been eight years and he has hardly evolved beyond that pretty melody and vocalist paradigm. And it’s getting kind of boring.
He has a new song out today with X Ambassadors, “Undeniable,” and it follows that exact formula. Some pretty melody, his little reverb vocal effects, some soft drums, that recognizable piano, and vocals from a pop star. That’s not to say that the song isn’t inherently good or well written, or even that it’s poorly produced.
Kygo says, “Sam and I had so much fun writing this one together in LA then performing it last month at Banc of California Stadium. It’s a special song to us and I hope everyone likes “Undeniable” as much as we do.”
X Ambassadors lead singer/songwriter Sam Nelson Harris says, “I’ve always had an affinity for big-ass love songs but don’t often end up writing them. This one came together so organically and quickly— it was such a treat to write it with Kash, Nick, Whethan and Kyrre. I honestly couldn’t be more excited to sing it at all my friends weddings.”
Clearly, both artists found joy in writing and creating the song together, and they’re proud of their work. As a listener, I would never deign to impose my own will on an artist’s creativity. We’ve seen the same arguments made for Skrillex, Zedd, Porter Robinson, and others who have changed their sound, sometimes, perhaps, to the chagrin of fans. (This is not a comparison of Kygo’s stagnation to the others’ evolvement, merely pointing out fan reactions to what an artist wants to make.)
The difference between those examples and Kygo is that those other artists have evolved through new sounds, but they still sound like themselves. A couple perfect example of artists evolving and retaining the same sound are Flume and RL Grime. Both have an “undeniable,” to usurp the title from Kygo’s latest single, sound but have evolved and grown over time.
Yet, Kygo has remained complacent, putting out the same melodic, vocal ballads for years. And look, they’re working for him. He has been able to “resurrect” Donna Summer and Whitney Houston, and cover a classic from Tina Turner (which brings into discussion the topic of capitalizing off the back of black women’s work, but that’s for another time), has a 1.1bn play song with Selena Gomez, and multiple other hundred-million play songs. So clearly, fans enjoy his work.
But isn’t there something more beyond the usual? The familiar? The tried and true?
Before I began writing this article, I wanted to challenge my own confirmation bias. I listened to his last two dozen or so singles. Some have variations in tempo, like “Think About You” with Valerie Broussard; “Kem Kan Eg Ringe” with Store P and Lars Vaular is a notable outlier. But even as he’s teamed up with the likes of Miguel, Imagine Dragons, U2, Ellie Goulding, and OneRepublic, names that on their own sell out arenas, the result remains a predictable brand of ballad that he’s become known for.
Of course, I’m not naïve enough to believe that reactions to this opinion couldn’t be boiled down to, “Well if you think he’s boring, then don’t listen to him.” And that’s valid. But I also believe that Kygo is incredibly talented, and after seven years of doing this job and cultivating talent, I can’t help but mourn when I feel talent is squandered.
This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Opinion: Let’s Have A Talk About Kygo
source https://www.youredm.com/2021/10/15/opinion-lets-have-a-talk-about-kygo/
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50 Wordless Ways to Say “I Love You”
Pairing: Ride or Die | Colt x Ellie
Summary: A highlight reel of the most important moments of their life.
A/N: Highly suggest reading this in order (all even numbers for Colt). @lovehugsandcandy @dancingboba @choicesarehard
#29 Tucking their hair behind their ear to help them get it out of their face.
“Woah, this is a rare and nostalgic sight.”
Colt’s ears perk up as he wheels himself out from under the orange Zenvo ST1 he’s working on and immediately searches for Ellie.
“El, what are you doing here?” He sits up, blindly looking for a rug to wipe off of his grease-stained hands. “I thought you had brunch with your co-workers.”
“Cancelled,” Ellie shrugs before she hops on the hood of the car next to him, careful not to let her dress snag on anything, before she looks down at him with a smile. “Don’t let me stop you, continue.”
Colt rolls his eyes at her before he lays back down, wheels himself back under the car and goes back to where he left of. “So you’re bored and you’re here to bother me now.”
“Correct,” Ellie confirms, pulling out her phone before she starts to absentmindedly scroll through her Pictagram account. “The shops quiet, where is everyone?”
“On a job,” Colt confirms, grunting a little when he pulls out some wires and throws it to the side.
Ellie looks up from her phone, eyeing his lower torso in disbelief. “What? They’re on a job and you’re here just…fixing up a car? Not pacing and being cranky in the office like usual?”
“I don’t pace and I’m not cranky,” Colt refutes with a small huff as he blindly reaches out for the wrench he left near his thigh. “And Sam’s got it handled, it’s fine.”
“Oooh I see what this is,” Ellie snickers as she nestles her phone between her thighs. “You’re trusting Sam on his first solo planned job and you’re too nervous and worried to pace and be cranky so you’re out here fixing a car instead to distract yourself.”
Colt rolls out from under the car with a small glare, pushing himself up and off of the floor before he stalks towards Ellie with a small smirk. When he reaches in front of her, he cages her in between his arms and leans in with a smile. “Again, I don’t pace,” He captures her lips, nipping the bottom of her lip before he moves down to the side of her neck and leaves purposeful nips and bites. “And I’m not cranky.”
Ellie laughs a little, delving her hands in his hair and smoothing back the strands sticking on his forehead. He continues to line her neck and collarbone with kisses and Ellie flutters her eyes close, feeling a little giddy at the prospect of making out in the shop like they used to do. But when she sees him lift his grease-stained hand in her peripheral view, clearly moving to grip her hips, the feeling immediately vanishes.
“Colt, if you get grease on my one of my very few dresses with pockets. I’ll kill you.”
Colt groans in annoyance and leans back as he throws his hand in the air with a playful smile. “Then I’m going back to work.”
Ellie hums in agreement as she picks up her phone between her thighs and resumes scrolling through her feed. A calming silence settles between them while Ellie continues to scroll through the pictures. Most of it is just her co-workers pictures on weekend trips, old classmates showing off new engagements or vacation trips and…Ellie stops at a picture, her eyes looking up at the name before going back to the picture. An old classmate of hers in high school, holding a baby in her arms as she lays on a hospital bed. Something inside Ellie’s heart squeezes at the sight in a way she’s never felt before. Her eyes latches on to the small pink cap on the baby’s head and the almost scrunched up look on her baby face and Ellie is suddenly aware that Colt and her never really talked about having kids.
Sure, marriage was always in their plans. In fact, a month after Colt proposed, he immediately whisked her off to Las Vegas to finally get married (grumbling that he’s waited enough years to marry her).
But kids? That never really came up.
Ellie tries to direct the question to herself, does she want to have kids? A big part of her says yes but another part of her is…scared, terrified. Other than her hazy memories of her mom and the finer points of her dad’s earlier days of parenting, she never really had a good parental role model she could follow. Heck, for all her brains and intelligence she doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby, let alone raising one.
What if they mess up? What if they fail?
And what about Colt? Does he want one?
Ellie frowns a little, her eyes moving to Colt’s lower torso. She can always ask him right? He’s right there after all and the shop’s empty.
“Hey Colt, I need you to answer a question for me,” Colt replies with a mumbled What? and Ellie tries to think of ways to approach this delicately but realizes that there really is no delicate way to bring it up other than just cannonballing it. “Do you want to have kids?”
A pause.
Colt wheels himself out from under the car and quickly sits up, his confused and worried eyes landing to her face before they flick down to her stomach. “Why? Are you pregnant?”
“No, I’m not pregnant,” Ellie chuckles a little when he sees the subtle relief on his face. “Answer the question, it’s important.”
“Well what do you want El?” Colt asks, standing up and abandoning his tools on the floor when he senses the conversation will need his full attention. “It’s your body, you should get to decide.”
“But you’re my husband,” Ellie refutes with a small pout, leaning back a little on the hood of the car to look at him before she shoves her phone into her dress pocket. “Just…don’t think about me for a sec. Tell me honestly, do you want them?”
Colt crosses his arms in front of him as he leans against the car he was just working on. His face is impassive, his eyes betraying no emotion to the thoughts in his head. But he already has his answer, an answer he’s been dwelling on for as long as he can remember. Perhaps even before he met and fell in love with Ellie Wheeler.
“Yeah, I want them.”
Ellie blinks, her eyes widening a little. “Wow…really?”
“Yeah,” Colt shrugs a little, trying to sound nonchalance. “I’ve always wanted kids and not because of this,” He waves his hand around the shop with a small scoff. “But I want someone to carry on my memory when I’m dead,” Ellie gazes at him warmly, a little sympathetically, knowing that in some ways he’s talking about his own father and his death.
Of the lonely and solitary death of Teppei Kaneko.
A death where Colt couldn’t even properly hold a funeral for his father. Where no one that knew Teppei can find a grave where they can pay their respects to.
His existence—forgotten, almost erased, and only continues to live on in the memories of his son and those who knew him.
Colt awkwardly shifts his weight on his other leg, his eyes flitting to somewhere else in the shop before he continues. “…My old man wasn’t perfect but he did what he could. But I feel like—no. I want to be a better father and if it’s with you El,” He looks at Ellie as his eyes gazes into hers, his voice resolute and honest. “I know that I can be better.”
A smile tugs on her lips, her eyes warm and soft as all the fears she had seemingly vanishes in an instant.
“Do you think we’ll be good parents though? We didn’t exactly grow up with the most stellar of examples.”
Colt scoffs, flicking his wrist dismissively at the thought. “With your brain and my expandable income, the kid’s going to grow up like royalty.”
Ellie stifles her laughter as she looks at him playfully. “You forgot your pleasing personality and endless modesty.”
“Oh yeah,” Colt snaps his fingers with a smirk. “That too.”
Ellie rolls her eyes and pushes herself off of the hood of the car to walk towards him. She easily fits her hands behind his neck, leaning forward, and Colt loosely and carefully wraps his arms around her waist to avoid getting grease stains on her dress.
“I’d like for them to have siblings,” Ellie says with a smile, playing with the ends of his hair behind his neck.
“Sounds like hell,” Colt replies, trying to sound dismissive but fails when the affection and happiness coats his voice. “How many are you thinking then, two? Six?”
“Six?!” Ellie exclaims, leaning back to look at him in absolute horror. “Do I look like I’m making my own crew here?! You try pushing out a tiny human out of your hoo-haw and let’s see how you’ll feel about six babies!”
Colt throws his head back with a laugh, the sound bouncing off the walls of the shop before he tugs her closer to his chest and buries his face into the crook of her neck with a sigh of bliss. “God, you’re so fucking annoying.”
“Yeah, well you married me so deal with it,” Ellie huffs with a smile, burying her fingers into his hair before she kisses the top of his head. “It’s gonna be tough work Colt. You have to be with me through every step of the way, you can’t half-ass this.”
“I know El,” Colt replies sincerely, placing kiss on her pulse point. “I’m all in, baby. Whatever you need.”
“I’m gonna work you so hard,” Ellie teases with a small chuckle, pushing his hair back with her fingers as she starts to imagine what a little Colt and Ellie baby would look like and she’s surprised that the thought causes tears to prick her eyes. “You’re gonna regret ever asking me for a kid.”
Colt leans back to look at her, his brown eyes boring into hers. “I never regret anything with you Ellie. Not then, not now and not in the future.”
Ellie bites down on her bottom lip, trying not to let her quivering lip make its appearance as she fits her face to the crook of his neck. She tries to think of something sweet and loving to say back but she draws a blank, so she resorts to the one thing that she’s always had with him—loving, teasing, and heartfelt banter.
“You are a sap, Mr. Kaneko.”
Colt chuckles as he turns to place a kiss on her temple, his heart feeling light and free in her hands.
“Only for you, Mrs. Kaneko.”
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Jersey on my mind (part 24)
Through the next door bedroom window, Mila observes as Daryl makes his way over the wall, agile like a cat, without being detected by the drooling crowd, whose full attention is locked on the houses. With impressive flexibility the tall muscle pack straddles the wall and disappears out of her sight. We can’t stay here, Mila thinks and lets her gaze run past the curtain and over the street, sprinkled with walkers. They have to go somewhere, be with the others. How that’s gonna happen is another issue. They’re trapped inside the house. To open the front door at this time, especially since the walkers don’t know they’re in there, would be incredibly foolish.
Mila walks back to the bedroom, with her brain buzzing with activity, in an attempt to come up with an escape plan which does not involve risking her and her mini me’s lives. Juri lies on his belly on the bed, tapping his fingers against the surface of the walkman, when Mila enters the room. He looks up at her, the round, blue eyes reads her like a CAT scan. The small hands form a pattern of signs, asking her where Daryl went.
“He’ll get help. We’re on our own now, Malysh.” Mila sighs and pulls the long, tangled hair out of her face, in an attempt to clear her mind. She’s in charge and has to figure out a plan. Not being on her own anymore has absolutely been a blessing, but it has also decreased her usually very useful ability to make quick decisions. “I’ll figure something out.” Mila bites her lower lip.
The apple of Mila’s eye returns to his walkman device, tumbles over on his back on the bed and starts to air cycle with his short legs. Imagine being able to be so carefree in the middle of a siege, Mila thinks to herself and can’t help but smile at Juri’s coolness.
Just as she’s about to follow Juri’s example, plump down on the bed and stair at the ceiling, maybe doing some air cycling as well, she hears a loud crashing sound outside. Wood breaking, followed by something like metal cans falling to the ground. That can’t be good. Mila hurries over to the window, almost trips on Eddie-the-teddie-Vedder on her way, pushes it open and looks out with her heart in her throat.
Has the walkers finally made their way into the house? No, not their house, not the second one either. It must be over at Jessie’s.
“Fuck, fuck-” Mila sputters, and rests her forehead towards the open window. Now she really needs to get them over there. It’s foolish, risking both her and Juri’s lives by doing so, but it’s not just the two of them anymore. “Govno… SHIT!”
The flash of genius does not wait. It hits her like a meteorite, a damn stupid one. But it’s the only idea she has. What Mila said earlier to Spencer pops into her mind. The climb. Her eyes wander from the roof covering the porch underneath the window she’s standing in, to the roof on the other house, further over to Jessie’s porch. It’s not a climb, but she could easily make a jump for the other roof. But but what about two?
The gaps between the houses aren’t big, they stand quite narrow, but could still potentially be lethal, if she made a mistake. Not that she plans to- could she do both jumps, carrying Juri? It’s a risk she has to take.
It’s my only option, Mila thinks and turns around with a determined expression on her face. Juri looks at her from his upside down position.
“We gotta go, Malysh.” Mila explains and walks over to the bed and grabs her rifle and swings it over her head. “Bring the walkman, will you?”
Juri nods obediently and climbs up to standing position on the soft covers, before climbing down on the floor. Mila rips the covers from the bed, takes the sheet from the messy bundle of pillows and covers and rips it into two pieces. With the torn sheet over her shoulders, Mila lifts Juri from the floor and walks over to the window, swings her leg over the window sill and settles down, with one leg at each side over the window frame. She meets Juri’s wondering, yet ever so calm, eyes, as he looks around, interested in what’s gonna happen next.
“Now, this is very dangerous.” Mila explains, as motherly as she can. “And you’re not supposed to do this. But drastic times call for drastic measures.”
She gets out and settles with both of her feets on the roof, finding a balance point, leaving Juri sitting in the window.
When Mila was a toddler, a long time ago, back in Russia, her mother and her grandmother used to carry her around in makeshift harnesses, made of towels, big shawls and sometimes even old, stained tablecloths. When Mila was pregnant with Juri, her mother showed her how to make such a nifty harness over Skype. Way much cheaper than buying a Baby Bjorn! They practiced for months, Mila, her mother and Ellie Galka, over the struggling video transmission with poor resolution and delayed sound. But practice makes perfect, and by now Mila can create a harness, with her eyes closed, in her sleep. She quickly twists the sheet around her waist, ties and soon she has created a craft for Juri to sit in. Mila helps Juri climb up on her back, getting his legs into position on each side of her body, while feeling her spine deform itself into something similar to an accordion. He’s a bit heavier now. She’ll need a cane earlier than expected if this continues.
“Put the headphones on.” Mila instructs Juri as she looks over the edge of the roof, estimating the gap to ‘fair’. It’s doable, hopefully. With Juri on her back, and equipped with weapons and ammunition, she weighs more than she expected. “It’ll be okay, Juri. It’ll be okay…”
Mila’s heart beats like a runaway train inside her chest. But to hesitate now would be unhealthy, foolish. Mila takes a couple of deep breaths, clears her mind, as if she prepared for a gymnastic display. Below them the crowd of walkers crawling around like ants. They haven’t spotted them however. A soft squeeze on her arm signals that Juri is ready. It’s now or never. Can she jump or not?
With the willpower of a bull that sees red, Mila sprints over the short roof, like a fighter jet taking on a slightly too short runway. She charges, her feet lift off the ground and they fly through the air, over the clueless walkers, crowded between the houses. She lands with a thump on the sloping sheet metal roof on the other porch, with her heart stuck in her throat and climbs like a monkey up to the leveled part of the porch roof. Mila exclaims in sheer surprise, breathes gaspingly while Juri claps his small hands over her head. They made it! She made the jump!
But there’s another one to make. The one to Jessie’s house. Carefully, not to slip and slide down the sloping roof, Mila climbs over the roof, past the windows and towards the other end of the porch, the one next to Jessie’s. The house looks like a besieged city and the walkers have managed to get inside. The tiny flame of hope begins to weaken within Mila, but she refuses to give up, and there’s no reason to sneak around anymore. She needs answers, now! She puts her fingers in the corners of her mouth and whistles, loudly, signaling their presence on the roof for the entire street.
The heart slows down from its manic techno dance inside Mila’s chest when Michonne appears in the window, facing the street. She opens the window and, without a word, climbs out onto the roof.
“You’re alright.” Mila sighs in relief at the sight of Michonne, but also by the sight of Rick and Jessie, who also appear in the open window.
“We blocked the stairs.” Michonne replies and gives Mila a faint smile, as in relief.
Mila meets Rick’s gaze over Michonne’s shoulder. The sheriff gives her an impressed nod, before Mila returns to the dreadlocked woman at the other roof.
“Good to see you.” Mila says.
“You too.” Michonne squats. “Can you make the jump?”
“If you’re prepared to catch us.”
She starts backing away from the edge, carefully. The porch is approximately ten meters long, slopes and feels like walking on a slide. One wrong step would be the end of it. With one last look down at the street, at the hungry carcasses swarming at her feets like a drunken sea of spectators at a music festival, Mila once again prepares to make a leap; a deep breath in, filling the lungs with air, followed by a breath out. She hugs Juri’s denim dressed leg, before bolting over the metal roof, boots banging against the metal, before leaping as far as she possibly can through the air, landing on her toes and knees on the other side, into the arms of Michonne, causing the otherwise agile woman to fall on her behind. No wonder, when there’s a mother with a toddler in a homemade harness on her back, equipped with a rifle, flying through the air. Heavily panting from the adrenalin rush, caused by not only making the first jump, but also the second, the three of them get inside the house, where Rick, Jessie, Carl and Ron stand, sweaty and ravaged. No wonder, trying to keep the walkers away from getting upstairs and inside the house. Mila nods at the crowd through heavy breathing, squats on aching legs and lets Juri climb out of the sheet on her back. Rick looks at her from underneath the sweaty bangs, all curled up in his forehead, gives her a gaze of disbelief and relief.
“What a climb.”
“Jumps.” Mila corrects pantingly. “Twice.” She meets his gaze. “Told you I’d made it. ”
“You alright?” Rick asks, eyes wandering between her and Juri down on the floor. “Where’s Daryl?”
“The radio-” Mila says. “Abraham and Sasha, they’re back. Daryl went out to get them.”
“Where?”
“Don’t know. The other side of the wall.” She takes another deep breath and looks around at them. “Are you guys alright?” But the look she gets back at those words makes Mila frown. “What? What is it?”
Somewhere down the hall, Judith starts to cry. Carl turns as if on command and hurries to comfort his sister. Juri looks at him wonderingly, almost longingly, as he walks away; his idol, his hero. As if he was his big brother too. Mila, on the other hand looks, still with a frown, at Rick, Michonne and Jessie.
“It’s Deanna.” Rick sighs. “She won’t make it.”
“Wha-” Mila puts her hands over Juri’s ears, who’s full attention is still locked at the door, where Carl disappeared seconds ago. “She’s bitten?”
Jessie nods, the brown eyes are agitated and she seems to struggle to stay calm, for the sake of her kids probably. Ron seems shaken and the younger boy, Sam, is nowhere to be seen, probably in his room.
“She doesn’t have much time.” the blonde mother of two says.
“But- How? When?”
“When the wall went down.” Rick explains. “And we-” he looks around at them. “gotta get out of here. They’ll get up here sooner or later.”
“Any ideas how that’s gonna work?” Mila expresses with ill-concealed doubt. No, it seems impossible.
“I might have an idea.” Michonne says. “Are any of ya’ squeamish?”
#daryl dixon#daryl dixon fanfic#daryl dixon fanfiction#twd fanfiction#daryl x oc#jersey on my mind#twd daryl#daryl fanfiction#twd fanfic#the walking dead fanfic#the walking dead fandom#the walking dead fanficition
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USWNT Back In The Hunt
CARSON, Calif. — A few moments after the U.S. women’s national soccer team completed a 4-0 victory over Mexico on Friday, five players used their arms to create interlocking rings.
Much like the match, their circles were not perfectly formed. Rose Lavelle, for example, gets a pass because of the red soft cast she wore on her lower left arm.
The message, nonetheless, was clear: The Americans are going to the Olympics this summer. Not that that’s any sort of surprise. They have never missed women’s soccer’s second-most important competition.
Fresh off a World Cup championship, FIFA’s top-ranked team has not lost in more than a year, a span of 27 matches. And by sailing through the Concacaf tournament with four victories by a 22-0 margin, the Americans booked a ticket to Tokyo, where they will pursue a fifth gold medal.
There, they also will attempt to become the first women’s team to win the World Cup and Olympic titles in consecutive years.
Don’t bet against them. Setting aside the talent and depth, this is a team that, even after decades of success, continues to perform with raging intensity.
“Those emotions and motivation is something that is hardest to get back up again,” said Coach Vlatko Andonovski, who in the fall succeeded Jill Ellis, a two-time world champion. “I was glad to see the emotions were out there and the motivation is there to make it happen.”
Forward Carli Lloyd said, “There is hunger. There is desire.”
On those rare occasions when things do go sideways, the players are hard on themselves.
“Our ebbs are like micro-ebbs because we are so psycho,” midfielder Megan Rapinoe said. “It’s hard to keep it up all the time, but as soon as it starts to ebb, it’s like, ‘Oh no, hell no, that’s not happening.’ We keep each other accountable. It doesn’t need to come from anyone else.”
The Americans scored twice in the first 14 minutes Friday but were a little off their game for stretches of the first half. After intermission, they regained their form to improve to 37-1-1 against Mexico.
Lavelle scored a sensational goal in the fifth minute, Sam Mewis had two goals, and substitute Christen Press capped the semifinal victory with a cheeky finish.
In Sunday’s final, the United States will face Canada, which defeated Costa Rica, 1-0, to earn a fourth consecutive Olympic berth. Although that match is inconsequential — and both teams will rest regulars after playing less than 48 hours earlier — the U.S. squad will not ease up.
“We have the same attitude as the game before and the game before that,” Andonovski said. “That is not going to change going forward.”
His qualifying unit, which featured 18 players from last year’s World Cup roster, respects the program’s history.
“It’s a legacy that has been passed on,” said Lavelle, a Washington Spirit midfielder who will turn 25 in May. “When Vlatko first came in, he said, ‘What you did this past year was incredible, but that is the past now. We have new goals. It was really fun, 2019, but that doesn’t dictate the rest of the years.’
“We know that and don’t take anything for granted.”
Lavelle was fabulous in the first half, lively and creative, keeping the ball close, spinning out of trouble and creating opportunities for herself and others.
“Some of the things she comes up with sometimes,” Andonovski said, “it surprises me too.”
Rapinoe said, “She just has something special, something different that you can’t teach — that little bit of flair.”
Lavelle’s goal rekindled memories of her left-footed strike against the Netherlands in the World Cup final, capping her breakout performance on the world stage.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we are here again!’ ” Mewis said. “She is such a unique player in the way she creates space for herself and can wiggle out of tight situations.”
Mewis scored on a pair of wicked shots: an eight-yard one-timer off Rapinoe’s corner kick and a free kick from the edge of the penalty area.
Chris Cuellar, Mexico’s California-born coach, said the United States’ strengths lie in the layers of talent.
“Every practice,” he said, “is probably tougher than a lot of their matches.”
Few would have blinked had Andonovski started any of his second-half substitutes: Press, Lynn Williams and Lindsey Horan. All was not perfect, though.
Andonovski said, “We played a good brand of soccer, we created lots of good opportunities, and with the quality of the players we have, I think we could score a few more.”
The Americans could get away with that in Concacaf. They will need to tighten their performance in the fifth annual SheBelieves Cup on March 5-11 against sixth-ranked England (in Orlando), No. 10 Japan (Frisco, Tex.) and No. 13 Spain (Harrison, N.J.).
The 12-team Olympic tournament will include the third-ranked Netherlands and No. 5 Sweden.
“We saw glimpses of some unbelievable stuff, selfless stuff out there,” Lloyd said after Friday’s match. “We are all along for the ride to keep getting better.”
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THE HALF OF IT
directed by alice wu, twenty-nineteen
is this his a recommendation? yes!
mark — 89 / 100
THE STORY STARTS OF telling you what it is. Or more specifically what it isn’t. It is not a love story.
And really, it isn’t. It is a film about coming into your own. A film about chances, it’s a queer coming of age story with a hopeful ending.
The story follows Ellie Chu whom lives in a small town named squahamish as she is approched by paul, a soft hearted, jock whom wants her to help him write a love letter to aster floris.
As Ellie writers papers for money, and needs the money to help at home she accepts the ‘challenge’ [ i don’t know how to describe it ] that paul poses when he struck a core talking about how she had never been in love before. saying she would write him the best damn love letter.
One letter turns into more, which turns into texting on a private app, which evolves into telling Paul what to do while he is on a date with Aster Floris.
The girl both parties involved are intrested in. While the story continues Paul mistakes Ellie wanting to help him with Aster for being attracted to him. Breaking all of our hearts when he catches on whag is happening and says “you’re going to hell”
But not to worry, in the end he makes it better. Just by being his goofy, soft hearted, self. Speaking out how it would be horrible to not be you, your entire life.
The story is beautiful, but really it’s the ending that solidified it for me. It’s Alice Wu, her perfect ability to not dumn anything down for her audience but rather letting us catch up.
It treats you as an intellectual that will catch on. Instead of telling you everything. More importantly it did not “straighten out” the ending, which is what I call making an ending very heteronormative for an otherwise queer film.
Unlike other queer coming of age films it has more freedom, as it is not an adoptation of an already established and [ well ] loved book. this way they — namely, Alice Wu — could truly take advantage of the medium, and leave all the norms of queer storytelling behind.
Apart from the amazing cinematography, storytelling, and acting it has something more; representation. as a woc, I rarely see myself as a main character. Let alone a queer main characger. Which leads me to always have to think of changing characters in my brain to truly feel seen.
I am not asian, but seeing another women of colour on screen gave me a sense of comfort that I have not felt in a while. Besides that I am also quite awkward, bike everywhere, and don’t have many friends.
The character of Ellie Chu is one that every teen deserves to have. Sadly I am already in college, and did not get to have a story like this in highschool. But other will, and that is all that counts.
the mark
which leads me to give this film a 89/ 100 because there are other films [ on this list ] that broke more barriers. with that being said it is an amazing film about love, friendship, and growing. and is one of my comfort films <3
links
— An example where I go into more detail on moments being “straighten out” in lgbtia+ cinema is Love, Simon.
— If you like this you might like Rafiki
— The rest of the film reviews are here and the billboard charts is here!
#lgbtq#lgbt discourse#lgbtq community#lgbtq positivity#lgbtqia#queer cinema#sapphic film#sapphics#the half of it#alice wu#sapphic film festival#sapphic#wlwoc#wlw tag#wlw love#wlw film#lgbt film#film review
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oh dude dude DUDE have you...have you finished tlou2 yet? God I didn’t even know you liked the game I’m so excited I have someone to bother about it now 😂 anyways if you haven’t finished yet how far are you? also hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself while playing the game cause it can be quite a bit on the violent side for some people
dear keeps,
rip to this disaster of a review that took me so long to complete:
So anyway, I was really debating on answering this ask or not for two reasons. One, being I don’t think I’m the best person to be doing this type of thing--I’m too scatterbrained. And two, I admittedly have a lot to say but have trouble putting things into words + this will be a lot of writing on my part that I don’t believe my brain can handle. Nevertheless, here we finally are.
I want to start by saying I have a poor memory and had not played the game in many years. I didn’t even play it when it first came out (even though I was interested in it), but only a year following it’s release. I also had not seen the trailer for the second game but once when it came out, and I didn’t see the second trailer they put out--I actually was just barely paying enough attention to anything to know only when the game was released. I’m certain if I had been up to date on all the leaks and scene changes from the trailers that I too, would have been more upset with the game itself. However, I’m not even going to talk about this beyond this point because I don’t know of the specifics and I’m too lazy to do the research and figure it out. On my own personal level, I did feel a disconnect from the first game to the second--mostly because I had not played the first game in such a long time. However, I have played it again as the time of my writing this, and will be talking about much of it here.
In a certain way, since playing the first game again, I definitely feel as though these two games complete each other on a deep, bittersweet level. It’s not perfect by any means but actually messy, and yet somehow I feel these games go together like Ellie and Joel themselves. There are so many little moments that tie them together that I didn’t realize at first but now, make the game seem very complete for me. Even if I didn’t like the ending.
Things like, Ellie telling Riley the only way she’s going to forgive her is with a dinosaur. Or Ellie telling Joel she wanted to be an astronaut + that he’s “so singing for her” when Joel gets badly injured. Or when Joel tells Ellie he’s gonna teach her how to play guitar following their journey to the Fireflies. We see every following moment to these in the second game. Joel singing to Ellie about losing himself if he ever lost her. Joel, teaching Ellie how to swim and then taking her to a museum full of freaking dinosaurs while also making her dream come true and giving her “the best birthday ever.” I don’t think I’m the one to be saying this, but none of this would have happened to Ellie if Joel had not done what he did. I am not trying to act like he’s perfect. I know he isn’t, and yes, I do think Abby is justified for what she did. Yet, I also side very much with Joel and maybe doing what he did seems very fucking selfish, but I view Joel being selfish not for himself, but instead for Ellie. It saddens me to feel as though Ellie only views her importance and purpose in life as being this “cure” however, in my mind, she’s more then that and I think Joel knows that too. You have no idea the impact you can make in someone’s life--big or small--just by being alive. Ellie surely made an impact on him.
So yeah, maybe I can see why people are really upset. Is it right? Sure. Am I a little biased because I too, was raised by a single dad and see just a hint of him in Joel? Yes, and if that’s wrong I don’t want to be right. Besides, I think it’s a lot of pressure to put on a little girl to be the cure for mankind (to be frank, we don’t even know if mankind is worth it). Not only when Ellie indeed, was a young girl who still had an entire life in front of her. Maybe, Joel did what he did because he didn’t want to lose another daughter, maybe he saw Sarah in Ellie (I mean, they totally didn’t put that beginning part in with single daddy Joel for no reason), or maybe, as I said, he saw this entire future for Ellie because even he knows this isn’t all she was meant to do. Something I wish I could have told Ellie before Joel’s passing. Because while she has every right to be upset, I still believe Joel had every right to do what he did when he lied to her and stopped everything.
Let me try and explain, part of me sees some of my dad in Joel. He’s rough around the edges but he’s got soft insides. He feels deeply connected to someone and therefore might become shut-off when he loses them (like my dad losing my mom or Joel losing his daughter). He didn’t have a great start, as I’m fairly sure Joel has killed and done lots of things he isn’t proud of before he met Ellie (for my dad I think it had a lot to do with drugs). However, I do see and believe that Ellie made him a better version of himself and it was clear how much she changed him because instead of pawning her off and shutting her down--he wanted to be with her, and I felt it showed their journey was more about protecting Ellie because he loved her and not just because she was the cure. I pretty sure the games makes it’s obvious enough and I don’t have to point it out because I’m deep in my fucking feelings right now. Yes, Joel is not the only person in the last of us* however, he does get a fucking pass from me for being not only a dad, but a single dad. Single dads do not get enough credit. It hits when we get to part where Joel gets injured and I sit there and think “well, what if that was me and my dad?” Firstly, we’d be fucking dead. There are no five hits in real life and then you restart. Second, my dad would probably fucking tell me to leave him and let him bleed and I’m sure I couldn’t do that. Therefore, I’d try to reason with the bad guys and then we’d be dead, again.
I also want to talk about how it’s interesting when Ellie makes her first kill and Joel does admit “it was either him or me” how this is such a big theme of the game. So much in fact I think it plays a huge role in Joel’s death. This entire time you’re playing these two characters and having to fight and kill because of just that--it’s either you or them. Yeah, you could try and sneak your way past and whatever, but firstly, that’s never seemed to fucking work for me--I’m not Batman. Secondly, the minute they see you they’re going to shoot you--it’s dog it eat dog out there. Yeah, it’s a game and that’s the way it’s programmed, but in Joel and Ellie’s reality that’s what the world has come to. Crazy enough, I complained a little from the second game that it felt you fought more people then infected, yet you come back to the first game and it kinda seems the same way! Like, maybe mankind doesn’t deserve to be saved. You could argue it’s the circumstances that made them that way--but there is still plenty of good people *and yes, I count Joel as one of them because when you’re going around and the people are just shoot you on sight you have a right to defend yourself.* Then over here, you have the Cannibal-rapist King, David and I guess “his people” going around in a tank mercilessly killing people on sight only to be disappointed they have nothing on them besides the clothes on their backs. ????
Don’t even get me started on those bullshit Fireflies, because first off, Marline does not get to fucking come to Joel and tell him what she’s fucking lost. You don’t get to act like another person has lost more or less then you. You don’t get to talk about how Ellie’s mom left her with you and then taint that loyalty and trust by killing Ellie just because “you just want this all to be over” because, in my view, you are lazy and want to take a cowards way out while other people are over here surviving. Tommy is a good example of this because he part of the Fireflies but now he’s not. He’s got a home, a wife, livestock and grown produce and seems overall very happy. He even talks about how those were things people didn’t think were going to be possible anymore.
I understand, Marlene is technically Ellie’s guardian, yet who protected her this entire time? Joel Miller. The one person who apparently wasn’t going to stand for any of this. Who called Marlene on her bullshit--rightfully so, and also, did most of what he did for Ellie. Yeah, maybe he’s her dad or whatever, and perhaps he’s just the stranger she got stuck with--but I feel Joel has every right to be a part in all this because Ellie is just a kid who needs adult guidance. I have to cover all my bases and say yes, maybe Joel was out of line--he’s not her dad but he is a dad and I don’t know any parent in the world who would give up their child for the rest of the world. I know my dad wouldn’t.
Which brings me back to this thing about Ellie and Joel being connected and being puzzle pieces that are different in shape but fit perfectly--more perfect then any of the pieces of the puzzle. Ellie needs an adult figure *which sure as fuck is not going to be Marlene* and Joel I think needs Ellie to be grounded. To be a better person. To complete him--if you will. I say this because I have no problem with Joel taking Ellie’s choice away, even if it wasn’t the perfect thing to do. In his defense however, the Fireflies didn’t give him much choice. They knocked him out while he was in the middle of CPR and a high doubt they pulled Ellie out enough to tell her the full story of the situation--which is not fair to Ellie at all. They would’t even let Joel fucking see her and let me ask, how in the world can you expect Joel or judge him for saving Ellie after they’d been though so much? Ellie is worried about a wasted trip but think of how far you came just to unknowingly die? After having made plans with Joel for a life beyond the Fireflies.
I do think Ellie would have still chose to sacrifice herself, but again, I also don’t think what was happening to her was fair. And before we get into Joel lying to Ellie, he lied in true dad fashion and did the best he could do at the time. He was right and should say it, killing Ellie because Marlene thinks it’s better for her is not for her to fucking decide. Torn apart by clickers? Honey, I really think if that was the case it would have happened by now (or if you’re me it happened several times). Raped and murdered? We already closed that chapter of the book and in all three cases Ellie was able to hold her own like a pro--this on top of taking care of big daddy Joel after he was injured. So no, you don’t get to make the choice just because you think it’s “better” and those are your only reasons. Mind you, this is also the woman Ellie said would have shot her on sight once she got bit. *Please, don’t even come at me with this bitch in season two. Abby has more validation then her.
Needless to say, but I do not like Marlene however, I do wish he death is something I would have done differently. While I understand Joel doing what he did, I found killing her kinda harsh and is she was going to return I would have preferred to cross that bridge in the second game. I also didn’t agree with killing the surgeon (Jerry) --I just wish that could have been different and less brutal. I think perhaps it might have been a little better if them hunting Joel and Ellie became the second game but hey, I didn’t write it and I’m probably wrong. I did try to go around the doctor but nothing happened so I felt exceptionally bad when Joel killed him the way he did (I mean, when someone screams “you animal” it makes you question if you’ve become everything you’ve fought against). I do wish they could have talked it out and reasoned dad-to-dad but that is probably unrealistic and Marlene would have found a way to stop it. I know Abby said she’d been cool being the sacrifice and all but I think things admittedly been super different it was Abby and her father going through this. Write me a fic of Abby and her dad helping Joel escape, I dare ya.
*okay, so I totally just just looked it up and you die if you wait too long to kill the surgeon + hitting him with a brick or bottle does nothing*
Now, the reason I wanted to say all this is because right now, my heart burns deeply for Joel. I am not trying to take away from Abby by saying this or seem conflicted or convoluted, but I do believe deep down Joel’s death has bigger meaning because of these past events. We look at the “it’s either him or me” statement but compare that to Ellie and Joel. If Ellie had died then Joel would most likely be alive. However, being he stopped that from happening it ended up in him losing his own life. Now, I understand Joel said if he could he’d have done it differently--but I really do think in the case of saving Ellie, he’s wrong. If we look at the above instead as “it’s either Ellie or Joel” (as the case ends up being) Joel is most certainly going to pick Ellie over himself because that is what a good parent does for their child. Again, bringing me into the whole him seeing a future for Ellie and giving her one. I feel that’s way more important to him and if he had never done what he did then Ellie would not have had the best birthday ever, she would not have had Dina (the dinosaur) or JJ, and she would have never learned how to swim or play guitar or had a cute little farm with animals and whatever. She would not have touched the lives of the people she met. And I feel like, in most cases it is common for parents to want better for their children (like I’m sure Peter wanted for Abby).
However, Abby is just as justified for wanting to kill Joel and it’s crazy we can justify wanting Abby hurt or dead because she killed Joel. However, things would have been different if we played the first game as Abby instead of Joel. Yet, we have played a game and then some getting to know Ellie and Joel, siding with them and not being able to see the other side where we jump into playing Abby who we only just met.
There is a good post or two I am going to link here* and here.
I also want to point out that while we’ve been playing with Ellie for one game and then some--where she has only know Joel for X amount of time, yet there is Abby who has known her dad her entire life. Abby who, walked in and saw her dad on the ground in his blood, brutally murdered by a “fucking animal.” I’m not trying to take away from anyone here, this mostly for the people who hate Abby just to do it, and I know I’ve probably said lots of time but I know it’s not easy to see your parent die in front of you and I don’t think a lot of people see that. (There is also a neat post I am going to link here) Now, the circumstances are very different but trauma is trauma no matter how you slice it and while I admire Abby for only going after what she initially came for and nothing else, I do with she would have spared Ellie of the sight considering it wasn’t her fault. Knowing what Abby herself had been through.
This part of my review/rant/word vomit is probably going to sound a little fucked-up but I really wish Abby and Ellie could have found a way to be together. I know it sounds dumb but they are really two halves to the same coin and I really believe the only one who could help Ellie with her PTSD would be Abby. It isn’t like she can go to a therapist and fighting for Abby’s death wasn’t going to cure it. Abby and Ellie have both experienced loss (and to some degree at each other’s hands). They were brought into this infected world pretty young and lost their parental guidance in the process. I also, wished things had been different with Joel as hard as that is to say, because I’m not saying Abby should forgive Joel but I would want Joel to be sorry and know what he did. I believe having the characters actually confront the issues they faced rather then look at them and kill would bring more peace--which is all I want to ask for. Peace.
Something else I really liked about Abby was her trying to stop the cycle of revenge (I’m not gonna lie, I really not care about anyone else aside from Abby, Ellie, and Joel this game don’t get me wrong about Lev though). Yes, I know she kinda added to it, but once Lev and Yara came around she too, like Joel, was trying to be a better person and I could really see her potential. It became all about saving/helping Lev and Yara (much like Joel and Ellie). And I feel like I sound crazy when I say I didn’t have much issue fighting Ellie as Abby (it’s really sick how I saw most of the fight style like fighting David in the Steakhouse, wtf Naughtydog) but I had a huge problem fighting Abby as Ellie. I feel as though seeing Abby spare Ellie was showing how much she’s grown and how much she understands Ellie. However, I had a tough time fighting as Ellie because Abby was already so fucking beat by the end of the game. She had Lev as her top priority, had lost weight, been out in the blistering sun, probably starving, and the Rattlers had cut her fucking braid (something I see as a way to humiliate her on top of other things they probably did to her and Lev). Not only that but seeing Abby be cut up repeatedly when she could barley fight for herself was tough.
So yeah, it’s going on one in the morning so now I’m going to talk about some other things... Overall, I really enjoyed the game, I even like the new dodge feature (which I came to realize was not in the first game). I did feel like you kinda had to kill everyone in order to progress the game but to be fair I’m not really good at video games so I don’t really want to count that.
Even I too, did not like Abby at first. I didn’t like her because she was new and by brain often immediately rejects new. I also didn’t like how she jumped (but then I came to realize that everyone jumps that heavy and acts like they just missed that two foot jump). Lastly, I love how Abby and Joel got muscles, therefore, they don’t really need a knife I guess but I hate crafting shivs and I think it’s a little dumb so I don’t know why Abby never made one after that period of time (like girl, you know you need it). I thought the Rattler’s crew was stupid only because they really just seemed there and like you average neighborhood hoodlums--again, just killing people on sight for whatever reason.
I didn’t like the dogs in the game because I felt too real. Killing a dog in the cemetery of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness? No problem. Killing dogs in The Last of Us? I couldn’t live with myself. If I accidentally sliced up a dog with my knife or melee weapon, I had to let them kill me? A shotgun? No go. Part of the time I could run away but again, I’m not good at video games so this was a bit of a challenge.
I do wish they had let us use Ellie’s whistling on the scars, I think that would have been cool, and I want to say I found myself getting lost a lot but I didn’t want to make another paragraph just to say that.
It’s crazy because I was not totally sure how they were going to approach a second game/what they were going to put in it. I was very shocked Joel’s death but not really turned off by it if that makes sense. I am a little sadder now, but will add that with my thoughts during the ending. I also, couldn’t understand why people were so upset because at the time, Joel’s death did not seem like a good enough reason to me. I was more upset over Ellie being upset with Joel for doing what he did even though she’s right and it’s natural but I also don’t think she could see what Joel was until it was too late. Having someone pass away with unresolved issues is not easy and can take a very long time for someone to get over.
As for the ending, it’s bittersweet. I am a little sad but also a little un-phased--so to speak. At first, I thought Dina had left with JJ, but there was another post (which I didn’t save in my drafts so I’m not going to link it) that explained why Ellie was back at the farm--to possibly close a chapter. She is wearing Dina’s bracelet again (as opposed to in Santa Barbara) that indicates she reconciled and will probably return to Jackson--which is nice. Yet, I am very torn over her giving up playing guitar. Yes, she cannot play the same, but I wish she hadn’t given it up fully. That guitar, which Joel made if I’m not mistaken, was a symbol of Joel’s love. It was something he passed onto Ellie out of love that he wanted to do because he loved her. It was more then a skill to survive and more then a piece of advice given. That’s why it hurts deeply to see her let something like that go. However, I know (as talked about in Ana’s review) that losing her fingers is supposed to show the damage her hunt for revenge caused. She lost her fingers because she begged Abby to fight, can no longer now play guitar the same, Tommy is changed and lost his wife, and Joel is still dead. That is why I wish so much for peace between Ellie and Abby but there may never be any.
On top of letting go of the guitar, I wanna say that sometimes memories are not enough for people. Sometimes all we have are the things people left behind and it can be really challenging to let go. For some reason it always seemed like my dad used material things in place of what I lacked, so when he passed I didn’t want to get rid of anything and kept almost everything. I got my driver’s license so I wouldn’t have to get rid of his car that’s seen better days--despite my family’s wants. Hell, I even have a container of his cigarette ashes from his bedside kept as well as the container he left in the car. I was so upset when I lose his car key that he always used (despite the fact that I broke it and it kept falling off the ring). Things that just aren’t even that important but they matter, you know? So, I feel bad Ellie left the guitar.
My (hopefully) final thoughts: David was the only person I do not feel sorry for and deserved to die (he is another fucking rant for another asks, I swear). I really wish we could have seen Abby choke someone out with her muscles but maybe in the DLC where her and Lev get a more finished ending. And lastly, I know I could have just said if I liked the game or not but I do not live in the real world.
I can’t wait to play the games again, they are my salvation right now.
Hope you are well, and taking care of yourself also!
xoxo
* since it took me So Long to find that second post, I found another talking about Ellie’s tattoo I’m gonna leave here *
#thank you for all the sweet messages. love#asks#guys. you don't have to read this but if you did or even just part of it I'd be so grateful#I worked really hard on this and it's so fucking late#keeps. I was totally gonna make a video because this is a lot#but I didn't so I hope my humor can come through in text#also I really wanna do an ellie inspired tattoo because I am not original at all#XD
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If you continued that modern bodyguard au into something I would be eternally grateful🙌🏼 If so wish I mean
‘do i have to do this?’
‘do you have to promote your new CD by going to a three minute interview? yes, contractually.’ joel nudges her foot with his. ‘it’ll be fine.’
ellie hums quietly, clutches at her guitar case.
‘what are you worried about?’
the question comes from dina hayes, bodyguard of a week and three days. there hasn’t been too much of an opportunity to use her so she’s come along today more as a learning opportunity than anything. she is to shadow joel and accompany ellie in the studio where joel might not be able to, when he’s off doing managerial work, or if the make-up team bans him from the room again. the question comes as a surprise—not because dina hayes hasn’t been conversational or pleasant to be around, but because ellie’s previous bodyguards hadn’t been and she’s still adjusting to the change.
‘i’m not great with talking,’ ellie tells her, and returns her attention to the window and the slow crawl of the city outside of it.
‘why not?’
ellie shrugs. ‘i’m not here to talk about me, i just want people to hear the music.’
‘because the music is important.’
ellie nods.
‘what if you’re important to someone out there? you’re gay, right?’ the question draws a sharp glance from joel, but ellie just nods again. ‘what if hearing you talk about yourself is really important for a kid who is confused or worried, or just really happy to see that you’ve,’ out of the corner of her eye, ellie can see dina hayes waves a hand in a way that includes ellie and the car and the driver and the guitar and the everything that comes with being a semi-famous artist. ‘made it.’
ellie doesn’t look away from the window. they pass a bank of taxis, orange and black, and the sounds of the city are loud even in the car. the beeping of the walk signal, the chatter of a thousand commuters walking into the skyscrapers that shoot up on all sides. ellie pretends she’s back home among the silverbark gums and that these are just massive, massive tree trunks, but the game doesn’t work so well today. because of the nerves, she thinks.
‘thanks for the suggestion,’ joel says finally into what registers to ellie now as an uncomfortable silence.
ellie blinks, looks over at the other woman who is staring out the opposite window. ‘it was a good point,’ she agrees, and when dina hayes looks over, it is with an expression ellie knows well. confusion, mostly, and a whole slew of complicated stuff ellie can’t divine. ‘thank you.’
dina hayes nods. it’s a little disappointing, because ellie likes to hear her voice, but it’s fine.
there’s a small crowd gathered outside the studio that has to be shuffled away so the car can dip down into the private car park. tires squeal on painted concrete as they follow the parking attendant to their place.
stepping out of the car, even a floor down and many tonnes of concrete between them, ellie can hear the faint screams.
‘ell! ell! ell!’
ellie hoists her guitar case into her arms, flicks her fingers over the catches so they click and stick and click and stick and click and-
‘i hope they have signs,’ joel says mildly, following the attendant to the elevator. ‘i like the meme ones.’
ellie grins.‘you’re too meme literate for an old man. it’s weird.’
‘i’m not old.’
‘ancient.’
‘this grey is all thanks to you, y’know,’ he grumbles. he watches surreptitiously as dina hayes sweeps the parking lot and the elevator and leads them in before taking her protective stance next to ellie. he gives ellie a short nod; he likes her, but ellie already knew that.
‘middle-aged.’
‘distinguished,’ dina hayes chimes in, and joel’s brows shoot up and he breaks into a grin.
‘ha! distinguished, yeah! i like that.’
//
the studio lights are hot and too-bright in her eyes and the couch is way too soft. ellie scoots to the edge of it and gets a glare from one of the studio hands but no one wants to interrupt the anchors introduction of her to correct her position so she pretends that’s the same as permission and stays where she is.
‘—so please welcome to our studio with me, eleanor knight, or as the world knows you now—ELL.’
the sharp-edged sound of clapping pulls her attention from the side of the set where joel is standing, arms crossed, frowning. he’s a solid stable source of what is real and important in those fake-ass room and ellie pulls in a deep breathe, focusing on him. seeming to sense it, joel’s black eyes slide from the anchor over to her and he gives her a short nod.
‘hello, christine gunnarsen.’ ellie says.
‘good morning! and just chris is fine,’ the woman says with a wide smile of perfect white teeth.
ellie wonders if she’d had braces, and how long for, and whether they’d hurt, and how it is that teeth whitening actually works because there’s no way her teeth are white like that just from toothpaste.
‘ok,’ ellie agrees. nods.
if there is one good thing about news hosts, it’s that they’re usually very good at smoothing over awkwardness. christine “just chris” gunnarsen is a perfect example of this. she sits on the couch opposite ellie and turns so that if ellie managed to ignore the massive cameras and the lights and the dozens of people walking outside of the set, it would feel like just the two of them talking.
‘so, ellie—can i call you ellie?’
‘yes.’
‘ellie, you’re here today because as of yesterday morning, you have released your second album—hopeland. now, this is following your debut album a little over a year ago, the last of us, which was received very well by critics and by the public as well. you had two number one hits from the album—winter, and quarantine zone. that’s a lot of success early on, how are you feeling about this new album?’
ellie drums her fingers on the body of her guitar, cocks her head to the side. ‘joel, my dad manager, says i should tell you that i feel very positive because it’s good music and my fans will enjoy it.’ joel, still exactly where he was, shakes his head, grinning.
chris is smiling too. ‘and what about you?’
‘i had a little more fun with these pieces,’ ellie tells her, and she feels her cheeks turn a little hot and shyness shivers up her back. she tucks a strand of hair back behind her ear and shifts the guitar closer. ‘i tried out some new techniques and so the sound is a bit different in places. maybe the fans will still like it, maybe it’ll draw a new crowd. i’m—excited to find out.’
‘a little nervous too?’ chris asks, and crinkles her nose like this is a joke just between the two of them. ellie knows it isn’t, but she doesn’t mind. she knows the woman is being kind.
‘yeah. very. music is, it’s really important to me. it’s, it’s probably the foremost way i communicate with people. i’m autistic so music is, it’s always been a way of talking to people and understanding them and helping them understand me and i think the first album did that well and this one will show a little more.’
chris looks surprised by the comparative flood of information but rolls with it, nodding. ‘like what? what can we expect from it? this is the CD,’ she says, and picks up the slim box from the table. ‘but it’s available on spotify and iTunes and anywhere else to listen to music, is that right?’
ellie nods. ‘i think my favourite one—i mean, it’s hard to pick,’ she says, and laughs quietly. ‘i wrote all of them, with a little help from some of my friends—‘
‘your co-writer on the CD is listed as howie garzia?’
‘yeah, howie is brilliant,’ ellie agrees and smiles genuinely, properly genuinely, for the first time since she was sat on this couch. she can’t help but pluck out a quick line on the guitar as she says, ‘they’re probably the most musically intelligent person i know. howie has years of classical training in, like, voice and a billion instruments and i was really lucky that they were partnered with me. we had a really great time making this album together and i got to meet my best friend.’
‘i’ve heard so many similar stories of either artists making great friends with other artists or great enemies. what is it about the process of making an album, or this album, that brings people together like that?’
‘it’s a lot of work,’ ellie says with a shrug. ‘more than people might thing. more than i thought when - when i started a few years ago. but when you’re, you’re - when you’re putting your thoughts and feelings and heart down on paper and playing it for someone else to hear it can be a really vulnerable experience, especially that first time or first hundred times, so it’s gonna be with the right person. howie listened and made it better and pushed me to challenge myself to, to not bring it back in? to keep it out there where people can hear it all. they make my music better and me braver so,’ ellie shrugs, cheeks fully warm now, and she ducks her head as her fingers nervously play over the guitar.
‘well, that sounds like a beautiful segue into asking you to please play something for us off your album. we have a stage over there,’
‘what a coincidence,’ ellie says, unthinkingly, teasingly, and is rewarded with a bright laugh from the host and a few others scattered in the crowd. she lets herself be led to the stage and sets about making sure the microphone is at the right height, though this is all stuff they did before ellie went onto the show. she clears her throat, searches the room for joel—there, square and solid—and, without really knowing why, she searches for dina too and finds the other woman staring back at her—bright eyed and proud.
‘i think i stated to say before but i got sidetracked,’ ellie says with a grin, more confident behind her guitar, the microphone, the persona of ELL. ‘this is one of my favourite songs i wrote. it’s called fun and games, and it’s a love song, i guess, to first loves.’
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Anna’s Appreciation Post
A year ago I plucked up my courage and posted my first fiction here, it was trash really maybe after some corrections I’ll post it someday but anyway that was the time when I really got into fanfiction like I could spend the whole day on Tumblr reading everything I could, writing whenever I had time (I was able to write almost 7k words fic in two days which is a success for me, now it would take me 2-3 months) and of course I started to follow wonderful people who are masters in what they’re doing.
So in order to celebrate my one-year activity in Marvel fandom, I made a list of 26 blogs I really love, admire or simply like. I know I’m gonna expand it or do the part 2 because 26 out of over 100 is simply not enough.
Disclaimer:
I put here works I especially enjoyed and since I was neglecting Tumblr for the past six months I simply forgot many of the titles by those amazing authors, I put here those who I recalled
I tried to write about every author so you may notice I wrote more about one but less about other this stems from the fact that I don’t know personally any of those authors although I wish I did, I simply based on interactions with others and of course also my Tumblr-avoiding-time is showing through this. So please don’t take it personally.
I probably repeated myself too many times but you have to forgive me.
I’m still unsure about putting any links here but we’ll see.
!The order of the list is random. This is not a ranking, it’s just a list!
And sorry if this appreciation doesn’t look like should but I tried.
@suz-123 is always ready to help anybody, helped me (I was that whining anon a couple of months ago about a small number of notes. Thank you for that!). Her writing is phenomenal and she’s one of the few who made me cry while reading fanfiction.
Favorite work: Too Soon
@persephone-is-here-omg a wonderful person who wanted to help me when I messaged her out of the blue. Always defending others when they're being attacked (I started following her after somebody attacked another blogger)
Favorite work: Bed Time (it’s realy filth)
@skishenanigans Ary is amazing. She is one of the firsts blogs I started to follow and her willingness to fight for ethnic minorities and with racism amazes me. She is the one who awakened my daddy kink so yeah I blame you.
Favorite work: Dark Paradise and One Time Thing
@jaamesbbarnes and @sgtjbuccky How could I separate those two friends? Doriane and Salina are one of the sweetest people here. Their work is always full of teeth-rotting fluff. I love them.
Favorite work from Dori: Curves and Edges and Soft Touch
Favorite work from Salina: Always be you and Symphony
@papi-chulo-bucky Del's blog always makes me smile, she is a wonderful and a funny person and her hoeing hours are delightful
Favorite work: It’ll Last Longer
@bucky-plums-barnes Gen runs a wonderful and an interesting blog, every day she has headcanons or drabbles for different situations (I don't know how to call it) for example, daddy's Wednesday or spinoff Fridays. That's a shame she wakes up when I usually go to sleep.
Favorite work: To Build a Home and One Call Away
@softlybarnes Becca is also one of the firsts blogs I followed, her writing is really amazing and I think her series was the first I have ever read. Psst If you still want to learn Polish just hit me up.
Favorite work: Blue and Names
@221bshrlocked what to say about Maggie? I envy her talent and the smoothness she writes with, her masterlist is so enormous that I honestly haven't seen the half of it but I promise I will one day.
Faviorite work: A Real Man (from That Haircut masterlist) and Behind the Walls
@sebashtiansatan again one of the firsts blogs I followed and a hell of a writer. Really like this blog.
Favorite work: Happy Anniversary
@after-avenging-hours I don't like to repeat myself but again one of the first blogs I followed. I don't think in Sam's masterlist there was a writing I haven’t read although the masterlist is huge.
Favorite work: Hunter Bucky series and Late Night at the Office
@ursulaismymiddlename the author of the first work on which I cried like a baby while reading it. Love the writing and original ideas.
Favorite work: Pretty, Shiny Things (that’s the one which made me cry) and Home Coming
@moonbeambucky Tara is a hell of a writer. Everything she writes I read with a blush.
Favorite work: Regrets
@prettyyoungtragedy Maya is funny and caring. She's one of my favorite bloggers.
Favorite work: Accidentally in Love and It’s Complicated
@sherrybaby14 I like that Sherry isn't afraid of what she's doing. I mean you're not stumbling upon darker fics all the time and I really admire Sherry for that. Non-con and dub-con is not everyone's pet subject but under all this halo is interesting stories and wonderful writing.
Favorite work: Winter Smut
@angryschnauzer How couldn't I mention a famous Schnauzer? When I was new in this fandom and with reading fanfiction at all I stumbled upon fic called On The Fence, I read it and wanted more so I think I went through the whole masterlist with w Patrick Star shocked face. I still do that whenever I read anything from Schnauzer because every work is so good and explicit but that’s good.
Favorite work: Hard Drive and On Your Knees
@bitsandbobsandstuff Kris entranced me with her stories, I hate Sundays but her Safe With Me was the reason I was eagerly waiting every Sunday for another chapter. To me this story still is canon.
Favorite work: Safe with Me and Cracker Jacks and Kiss Cams
@sad-af1121 I remember Sadaf from when I was really active as a kind and a funny person. If you want to visit a solid blog and really nice blogger- go to Sadaf's. All of her writings are really good and series are captivating.
Favorite work: Million Dollar Man
@caramell0w Cara IS a writer she is a hell of a writer. She published two of her books and I still lament that they're not available in my country but to those who can buy it knowing Cara's writing skills those books are amazing.
Favorite work: Pen Pals
@myattemptatfanfic I'm ashamed that I even don't know your name but I know your work very well. It was one of the firsts multi-chapter stories I read and it was a year ago but I'm happy you're back.
Favorite work: Big Girls Don’t Cry
@plumfondler "Easily one of the best writers for smutty goodness" end of the quote. I think that sums everything up, everything Ellie writes, she creates perfection.
Favorite work: Snowed In
@gaybybirth Huge masterlist and even bigger talent! How am I supposed to pick something from your works when I haven't even seen the half of it? Another person who I envy the smoothness with Molly writes.
Favorite work: What Are You Thinking About? and Let Me Show You How It’s Done
@hufflebucky I don't know much about CJ, I started following her recently but I know already that she is a brilliant writer and I hope to read other works from her.
Favorite work: Wine and Dine Me
@theycallmebucky The very first blog I followed, I can't count how many times I went through this author's whose name I still don't know masterlist. Every work has something that makes it memorable.
Favorite work: A Dash of Jealousy and A Woman Like You
@buckychrist this pure soul who was so kind that she was willing to help me writing a fic (I still have it in my drafts maybe someday I'll post it). Hayley is really incredible with everything she writes and she is a wonderful human being.
Favorite work: Grown So Cold and I love this (sorry it’s on my blog but I couldn’t find it)
@trashpanda-barnes Shay, as I noticed merely minute ago as I'm writing this, is the biggest Jamie and Brienne shipper I know (I happen to be the second) but anyway Shay is a really kind and warm person, she is always so nice to other people and in my opinion, Shay deserves the world.
Favorite work: Confessions and Unspoken
Sorry for any grammar mistakes and typos and thank you for the time you took to read this!
#appreciation#appreciation post#trashpanda-barnes#buckychrist#hufflebucky#theycallmebucky#gaybybirth#plumfondler#myattemptatfanfic#caramell0w#sad-af1121#bitsandbobsandstuff#angryshnauzer#sherrybaby14#prettyyoungtragedy#moonbeambucky#ursulaismymiddlename#after-avenging-hours#sebashtinasatan#221bshrlocked#softlybarnes#bucky-plums-barnes#sgtjbuccky#jaamesbbarnes#skishenanigans#papi-chulo-bucky#persephone-is-here-omg#suz-123#i love them
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WWDCTR: omg the progress! To start, I’m feeling for Nick, SO HARD. This man is so torn about his feelings for Ellie—he knows they’re there but he doesn’t know what to do about them 💔 He goes from being worried about her, to upset with her, to giving her these heavy looks. My heart can’t. He’s clearly wrestling with how to reconcile his feelings for her & the repercussions of 16x18 AND if she would even reciprocate his feelings. Perfect example: his hand on the back of her chair in interrogation even though he’s telling her that he’s upset she went to Jack about the fight. Even when he’s upset with her he NEEDS to be close ❤️😭 oh and he *finally* called her Ellie again!! I think Ziva making him address this has reopened his soft spot for her. And ugh Ellie 😩 worrying for Nick - that look on her face after he jumped over the balcony & tackled the guy, you can just see her concern, going to Jack because she doesn’t want to see Nick slip back to post-Mona Lisa (aka going swan). They just- they just need TO TALK ABOUT IT.
My thoughts are so jumbled, much like Torres’ 😖
Side note: McGee & Bishop getting back at Torres for calling them out with Vance by throwing him under the bus with Jack was *gold* - Nick’s face was priceless.
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you all certainly didn’t make this easy on me — it was an incredibly tough decision for many of the roles. there were THIRTY-EIGHT applications for only ELEVEN roles, which is insane, and please know that every single one was incredible. i’m only one person on the internet, and this decision is in no way a reflection of the quality of your writing ( seriously, i know i just said it, but i’m kind of shocked by how good every single app was ). i’m so grateful for all the love heist has gotten, and i couldn’t be happier with the beautiful submissions i received ! from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
for those of you who were accepted, please follow the checklist, familiarize yourself with your fellow members, & review the triggers list. once your blog is set up, please send it in to the main within 24 hours so i can send you a link to the discord server.
but enough talking — the newest members of HEISTHQ can be found under the cut !
welcome, DEDE ! you have been accepted as THE BLEEDING HEART, otherwise known as JUDY FAULKNER PRYCE ( ELIZABETH OLSEN ).
good god. what a way to start off acceptances — judy reached into my heart and took it for herself, and i’m not upset about it in the slightest. her gruff outer shell, still with that instinctive need to help, to do something, is so bleeding heart, and i ached at every step of the way through her journey. i knew i was really in for it when i dedicated a skeleton to loss itself, but you spun that concept into a living, breathing person and shot her back at me. i’ll happily let her knock me down any day, and i know she certainly will as soon as she makes her way onto the dash.
welcome, CHERRY ! you have been accepted as THE CAREER CRIMINAL, otherwise known as MISCHA DOSTOYEVSKY ( NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO ).
though you made my decision very difficult with that eleventh hour app, i couldn’t stop coming back to mischa. from the beginning of her childhood crimes to her current position as the head of the motherfucking bratva, she pulled me in and got me hook, line, and sinker. you painted such a brilliant picture of her that i felt she was going to jump off the page at any moment — and that last line of her bio ? chills. literal chills. finally, i have now decided their next heist is going to be stealing lip gloss from claire’s, shoutout to mischa for that hot idea. all in all, she’s an absolute delight, and i cannot wait to have her here.
welcome, REED ! you have been accepted as THE EYE IN THE SKY, otherwise known as INDIANA “INDIE” ASCENCIO ( ANA DE ARMAS, BUT ONLY WITH PINK HAIR ).
okay, first of all, are you kidding me with that bio structure ? that was the coolest shit i’ve ever seen. what a way to kick it off for the eye in the sky — i said break the stereotype and you said bet. indie is an absolute gem of a character, as stunning as she is valuable, and damn if she doesn’t know it. she’s so vibrant that i could practically hear her voice when i read your answers to the prompts; i’m still howling at thirty five pages of criminal offenses. the eye in the sky needed to take me by the throat to show me who they are; you broke down the door and said here she is. i couldn’t be more honored to have her.
welcome, NOAH ! you have been accepted as THE GETAWAY DRIVER, otherwise known as CARLISLE “JACE” JACOBI HARRISON-SHEA ( CYRUS AMINI ).
the getaway driver was, arguably, the toughest choice i had to make — but i couldn’t help myself. jace drew me back in every single time like a moth to a flame, and i know he’d read that fact with that same, secret little smirk. every moment of reading your app is exciting, like i’m white-knuckled in jace’s passenger seat, along for whatever twists and turns his psyche brings, which was exactly what i was looking for. there are too many incredible quotes to put in one acceptance post, but one such example is stunningly simple: you weren’t just running. you were chasing. i posed a question in the getaway driver’s skeleton, and with one quick pivot, you took my breath away. just... wow. that’s all.
welcome, MARS ! you have been accepted as THE HIRED GUN, otherwise known as ASLAN “MAZZIE” YILMAZ ( ALPEREN DUYMAZ ).
mars, i’m gonna be honest, i hate you a little bit ( but not really. i love you ). i’m pretty sure forcing me to choose between two stunning apps should count as some sort of personal attack, but after much agonizing, i’m delighted to settle with the absolute tragedy that is my newest son mazzie. there’s a quiet power, a quiet ( but no less imposing ) threat threaded throughout his story, and somehow you managed to weave my own heartstrings into the picture alongside it all. you sent me tumbling head over heels for this man who, in his own words, is death himself. you gave me my hired gun, and he’s everything i dreamed. thank you.
welcome, LUCY ! you have been accepted as THE INSIDE MAN, otherwise known as IVY WANG ( GEMMA CHAN ).
lucy. lucy !!! you didn’t make it easy on me, but man, i couldn’t be more wrapped around ivy’s finger, which is probably just how she’d like it. the structure of your app was so interesting & unique ( that arrest report ?? HOT ). she encapsulates the inside man so perfectly — from her mannerisms to her motivations, everything was so spot on that i’m pretty sure you reached inside my brain to pull out my exact vision. she feels so real, so human and so powerful all at once, and i would personally let her arrest me and write her a thank you note for putting me in jail. i’m obsessed. obsessed !
welcome, BEE ! you have been accepted as THE MASTERMIND, otherwise known as BISHOP LEE ( CHOI MINHO ).
my beautiful mastermind is no longer mine — he’s yours, bee, every inch, and i couldn’t be happier about it. from his recruitment log ( which was !!! you wove his voice into it so perfectly ) to his reasoning for creating the group in the first place, bishop is someone i didn’t expect, but i adore him, shaping his little family & leaving behind a legacy he can be proud of ( “so bishop acts like they’re immortal, because he truly believes they are. it’s just his version of immortality is in the history books rather than an eternally beating heart.” are you KIDDING ??? ). please don’t take him from me — i don’t want to let him go.
welcome, MIA ! you have been accepted as THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK, otherwise known as MARTY CHOI ( KANG MINA ).
listen, i’m pretty relieved i didn’t get another app for this character, because i didn’t need one — marty is the new kid, through and through. she has that hunger that is so quintessential for this role, the drive and ambition for something more in this grand universe of ours. it’s so perfectly exemplified by marty’s own words: let me be excellent at something again. let me be proud of my own capabilities again. let me be part of something so i'll stop feeling so alone. this !! this is so perfect i almost jumped out of my skin reading it. thank you for bringing me our perfectly imperfect new kid — i can’t wait to see her in action.
welcome, LEXI ! you have been accepted as THE SECOND IN COMMAND, otherwise known as PERCY BANKS ( BRENTON THWAITES ).
holy shit, lexi. holy shit !! from the moment i saw “STATUS: deceased” at the beginning of your app, i knew i was in for a wild ride — but i had no idea what truly awaited me. from percy’s humble beginnings through his ambitious rise to hotshot fbi agent ( speaking of, can you say hot fucking take to have him as ex-fbi ? i’m floored ), i was hooked into the twists and turns of his story, my jaw dropping when i realized who jupiter was after all. the highs and lows of his first foray into the world of heists had me on the edge of my seat, and i truly cannot wait to see what percy does next — because at this rate, who knows where he’ll end up ? i’m excited to find out !
welcome, HANNAH ! you have been accepted as THE STAR OF THE SHOW, otherwise known as STRIKER KIM ( CHARLES MELTON ).
god, hannah — break my heart, why don’t you ? as each tidbit of striker’s past fell into place, that’s what you did, and i’m aching for this boy who’s just trying to stay alive ( and live as much as he can while he still is ). though the star could be played in so many different ways, you took this role an entirely different direction, and suffice to say it blew me away. literally, your mind. exhibit a — you didn’t go running to high society for fame or fortune, no. it was your insurance policy — god, striker !! he’s such a complex, heartbreaking character, and i can’t wait to see him on the dash. he may have a hand in two different worlds of crime, but he’s also got a place in my heart, and god knows he could use the love. also, making me crack a code just to understand your bio headings ? touché. i deserved that.
welcome, ELLIE ! you have been accepted as THE WATCHDOG, otherwise known as THEA JAIN ( NAOMI SCOTT ).
the watchdog requires a delicate balance: soft edges bathed in steel, a gentle person capable of terrible things. it can be a tough image to capture, but i shouldn’t have worried. your entire app painted a picture of this exact person, tugging at my heartstrings until the very end: remember that you are thea jain, and that you are a good person. you are kind. you are loved. and you are in control. that was it — just like thea’s fifth rule to round out the reminders of her morality, you completely sealed the deal. the way she cares for the team, baking for them and occasionally mothering them, exposes that soft underbelly guarded by her quiet yet surprising strength and power. you’ve made a beautiful character, ellie. i can’t thank you enough for bringing her to me.
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