#maybe she would have been a good suit for nate | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lemissingmask · 7 months

Text

[ID: Partially coloured sketch of part of an old building, with an old wooden door and low wall showing, and some red flowers on the left side of the image. The low wall has a crudely drawn block image of a wolf with a bushy tail and fangs and breathing fire. End ID]

Day 19: Taken for granted

The Leverage crew take for granted the story of someone who flees into the brewpub for protection, and suffer the consequences.

Ficlet below the cut, which hopefully explains the obscure art.

It had been a mistake, a stupid failure in their personal security, and one that Hardison would never forgive himself for if they failed to get Eliot back.

Checking out the clients, verifying their stories and their backgrounds, that was his job. He was the only one with the skills to do it.

And he did. He usually always did.

But this time, he had not.

At least not until it was too late.

He took for granted that the terrified woman who had fled into the brewpub to hide from her two pursuers was legit. Hell, there had been two suits - former marines according to some distinctive feature Eliot picked out - lurking outside the building waiting for her.

Eliot had dealt with the muscle without the least difficulty, and then they had all listened to her story.

She told the leverage crew that she had been on her way to meet with her lawyer, who was helping her take down her former boss for money laundering, when she found the two men to be following her.

She gave them a background on her boss, how she found out about the criminal activity, and how since then she had been fired, harassed and had her car broken into.

So they took her on as a client, and Eliot drove her to a safehouse while Parker and Hardison got started on the case.

They had only just finished and wrapped up their last one, they were all on the tired side, but they could hardly do nothing when this woman needed help.

Except she didn’t.

The boss existed but she had never worked for him. He ran the company she claimed to have been employed by, but neither the financial situation of the company nor the boss was good enough to imply any sort of money laundering activity. What’s more, there was no digital trail to suggest any payments from that boss or anyone or anything linked to him to imply that he had hired professional muscle.

It wasn’t definitive, but something didn’t feel right, so then, and only then, Hardison got around to looking into their client.

Her background looked believable on the surface but one layer down it fell apart.

Profiles on social media built within the last month and backdated to make them seem older, no digital trail for her existence. No bank accounts, no SSN, no credit history.

And then facial recognition said her name was not Lucy, but Mary. And Sophia. And Clarissa, Diana, Francesca…

“She’s a grifter?!” Parker looked up at the screens where Hardison had the salient information projected, “Why? What does she want?”

“Maybe she heard of us and is auditioning?” Hardison suggested, not believing that idea for a second, “Eliot, you catch that?”

Silence over the comms.

Hardison pulled up their comm feeds. Working fine, Eliot’s was still on, sending system updates and pings.

“Eliot?” Parker asked, her comm showing the sound waves.

Eliot’s remained nothing more than base level of noise.

“Where is he?”

Hardison accessed the gps, “Safe house.”

Parker frowned, “Eliot! You copy us?”

“Maybe he and Lucy or whatever her name is are…”

“No,” Parker glared at the fake IDs on the screen, “Eliot wouldn’t do that. He still gets angry with himself for taking his comms out once before.”

More than once, to Hardison’s count, but it was true, not since the incident with the music producer and Nate having no backup.

She gave those IDs one more, lingering glare, and straightened, “I’ll drive.”

For once Hardison didn’t object. If something was wrong, even just potentially wrong, they needed to get to that safehouse and to Eliot as fast as they could, which meant Parker driving Lucille..

Hardison kept his laptop open in the passenger seat, checking the gps signal and keeping up attempts to reach Eliot by phone or comms. He and laptop only slammed into the window about four or five times in fifteen minute drive, which was pretty good he thought.

Not that there was time to feel proud.

Eliot’s Challenger was in the drive out front, parked normally. Nothing odd or hurried or wrong there.

Inside the house itself things were similarly apparently fine.

Alarms correctly disabled, mechanical locks unbroken, no sign of a struggle. In fact nothing out of place other than the two cups of coffee unfinished on the kitchen counter, and beside one of them Eliot’s phone and earbud, both in tact and still switched on. Alongside them lay the necklace Eliot almost never removed.

Hardison slipped that into his pocket and picked up the phone.

“I’m gonna search the house.”

Hardison turned quickly from the counter to Parker, putting the phone back down and immediately abandoning his plans to check through it, “Not alone you’re not.”

Whoever got the jump on Eliot - something nearly impossible on its own - could still be there, not expecting them to realise the grift so quickly, or maybe waiting for them in a trap that this could very easily be.

The house was empty and undisturbed. No trap but also no Eliot.

Traffic cams. Find the cars that could have left that area in the window between them arriving and their last contact with Eliot. Trace each identified car through the network of cameras, run each plate, look for something that seemed to be a lead.

Parker was still driving Lucille as Hardison initiated this search.

On top of Eliot going missing, someone luring him from the brewpub meant it was burned. Someone who had bad intentions for at least one of them now knew their base of operations. Before they could do anything further, they needed to head back and get everything essential or sensitive and get it into Lucille. They’d have to go on the road for a while, move to one of the safe houses, and operate from there until they had a handle on this fresh disaster.

They could do that while Hardison’s codes ran, scouring traffic cams and DVLA databases and cross-referencing with everyone - all the aliases of those people - who had ever or might ever have a grudge against Leverage.

Luckily, they did have a clear protocol for moments like this, and they had a specific plan for the brewpub, which served as a place of employment for a few dozen people as well as their base.

They dealt with the Leverage part of things - data, files, emergency funds, possessions of personal value - then told the employees to take two weeks paid leave starting when the last customers there already had gone. After two weeks, they would evaluate the safety of keeping the pub open, or even of returning to Portland, but whatever they did, the staff would not be collateral damage.

By the time the two of them had finished these tasks and returned to Lucille, Parker starting back out in the direction of the safe house where Eliot had been lost, Hardison’s codes had produced some usable data, and even more usable intelligence.

The data, lists of car registrations and their owners, was essentially useless, until cross-referenced against aliases they knew, which picked out one belonging to their recent grifter. Tracking that car through the cameras led to either an airfield or an industrial complex.

Hardison immediately started looking into who owned or rented property at the industrial site, and what flights had left the airfield within the window of Eliot’s disappearance.

There was a Dean Chesney who rented a warehouse in the industrial area, but obviously not the same Dean Chesney they had wrangled with since that guy had been dead some years now. There was a supervisor elsewhere in the district whose surname was Doyle, who couldn’t be utterly discounted as a relative of the Doyle who they had conned, but even if it was the same person, luring and kidnapping the hitter was not his style.

The airfield showed one flight landing, two leaving, in the time window they had approximated. The departures were, respectively, to Malta and Cyprus.

Hardison’s hope dwindled as he looked at the names of the people who owned the planes and their known associates, not a single one coming up as any likely enemy of them or of Eliot specifically.

But then he looked at the photo IDs.

And, now it all made horrifying, sickening sense.

“Damien Moreau?!” Parker was pacing back and forth in front of the comparatively small screen in their safehouse, “He escaped San Lorenzo and we didn’t know about it?!”

Hardison shook his head, looking from her back to his screen, “I’m contacting Eliot’s friend there now. If he knew, he would have told Eliot.”

“And Eliot would have told us,” Parker paused for a moment, pursing her lips, then resumed the pacing, “We need to warn Nate and Sophie. If Moreau wants revenge…”

“I’ll send an encrypted message, tell they to lay low, be cautious, but,” he looked back up, “If I tell them it’s Moreau and he’s taken Eliot…”

“They’ll want to get involved.”

They lapsed into silence, Hardison working on both the lines of contact, Parker pacing in her anxiety and frustration.

Moreau had to want revenge. It made sense. They had ruined him, got him locked up in some hole of a prison, and put him on the most-wanted list for some of the most powerful governments.

So, at least he probably wasn’t going to just kill Eliot…they had time to rescue him…

“What do we know about this alias?” Parker asked, appearing over his shoulder just as the messages both disappeared to their destined inboxes.

Hardison pulled up the information he had obtained but thus far only glanced briefly at, “Not much. The digital trail only goes back about a year, but it starts, pretty much, with one very big payment into a bank based in Bermuda from a…”

He dug a bit deeper into the source of the money, a company that didn’t really exist in any proper sense, set up just to make that payment, and set up by one of the very powerful billionaires who Moreau had once worked with.

Maybe he blackmailed his way out and back into a fortune.

“Looks like from someone he used to do business with,” Hardison shrugged, “He also paid a large part of it straight back out to a law firm, with another two payments over the following year.”

“So he got himself a lawyer?” Parker frowned, “A lawyer good enough to get him released from San Lorenzo under a new name and with a lovely big cheque waiting for him on the other side?”

“Maybe,” Hardison carried on searching, an activity fairly routine for him by now, “We gotta figure out where he took Eliot.”

“And how to get Eliot back. Moreau’s security is going to be tight, even if he’s lost most of his money and influence…the flight went to Cyprus, right?”

“Yeah,” Hardison was about to continue his answer when he saw an email from General Flores, which he quickly read before related to Parker, “Flores knew nothing about Moreau’s release. None of the government did…it was done on the whisper. And I mean, the serious whisper…someone with a lot of money or power had to have orchestrated it…”

“And we can dig into that later,” Parker said firmly, “First we have to get Eliot back.”

Hardison couldn’t agree more, “Two tickets to Cyprus, coming right up.”

Cyprus. Over twenty hours total of travelling, only about five of which allowed any sort of digital investigation into where Moreau was, what his security was like, and who had managed to get him released without anyone knowing. They had enough information for Parker to be rotating possible plans in her mind during the flight, much of which was spent looking absently out the window at the wing of the plane, and during which neither of them slept at all.

It was impossible not to think about what Moreau would do to Eliot, and the myriad dark thoughts that crossed Hardison’s mind made him really wished he had watched fewer horror films.

The guy had earned his reputation among the criminal community. He was ruthless and people did not cross him. Until Leverage had, and now they were paying for it.

By the time they reached Cyprus, they had three likely locations where Eliot would have been taken, approximate security profiles for two of them, and maybe half a formed Plan A for getting their hitter back.

This had become three complete security profiles and a hierarchy of probabilities for the locations, as well as vague Plans A-S (skipping M), by the time they reached the town in Pafos where Moreau had at least one property.

It was early morning when they reached the town, the old streets nearly devoid of human life, making the slow approach towards Moreau’s property feel almost dreamlike as the small rental car moved through the pale, thin light. They expected to see some sort of security outside the building, but as they approached closer on foot, they saw nothing. Some lights on inside, but no people or movement other than the gentle rustling of the oleander plants scattered around the exterior.

It was quiet, peaceful, calm.

Hardison jumped, almost screamed, at the suddenly hard nudge Parker gave him. But he managed to keep quiet, and turned, seeing where she was pointing.

On a low wall at the far side of the building from them, in thick, black paint, there was a sort of stick-figure wolf with a bushy tail and that seemed to be breathing fire. The paint had dripped in places, and in others, over the pale bricks, it seemed to have either faded or deeper into the porous rock. Not enough to obscure the image, however.

“Eliot signal?” Parker mouthed, hope blossoming in her eyes.

Hardison swallowed.

Maybe.

Moreau wouldn’t know anything about that, and it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.

“Stay here,” Parker whispered into his ear, and began to make her way towards the signal, but Hardison quickly caught her arm and pointed to a camera camouflaged with the building's wall.

"Can you disable them?"

"I'm working on it..." he carried out the same procedure he had thousands of times before, assessing the cameras, working out if and how to get into them - loop the feed. Just needed to record a few seconds. Enough for Parker to get past unseen. There were five exterior cameras...except they were all showing static on his phone screen, already disabled. The same for the interior cameras.

"Someone beat us to it," Hardison looked back at Parker nervously. It had to have been Eliot, and that was a good thing, but then why did he feel so uneasy.

"I'm going," she whispered, "Stay here."

Cameras were out, but there might still be patrols, people inside, even though it was still very early and hopefully they were asleep.

Hardison watched Parker until she disappeared around the corner of the building, and he was left alone to wait in that eerily peaceful silence. He kept his phone out, watching the camera feeds and looking into what he could access of other systems inside.

The feeds never deviated from the static, and there didn't seem to be anything else with an operating system inside to attack, other than a few smartphones. But Moreau hadn't exactly been a high-tech bad guy. More of an old-school, send goons in the night to assassinate his enemies bad guy.

Hardison grimaced at that thought.

Eliot had once been one of those goons.

“Hardison!”

The hissed name over comms nearly made him jump, breaking his train of thought.

“I’ve found Eliot,” Parker whispered, “He’s unconscious and he's not waking up. His leg's shot and his feet are all messed up, and he…he looks really bad...should I taser him?”

"What?!"

"To wake him up!"

"No, Parker. Don't taser him," Hardison replied very extra care to be very clear, then added, “You see any guards anywhere?”

“No. You're clear. It's totally quiet. Just stay low and avoid the windows."

Hardison took a deep breath and followed Parker’s path along the side of the building, round the corner, and into a yard that overlooked the ocean.

The two were a lot closer than Hardison expected, in a small half-covered alcove at the back of the yard.

Eliot was sitting up, leaning back against the stone wall with Parker beside him. His left leg was bloody, a tourniquet tied not far above his knee, and the soles of his bare feet were, as Parker had said, pretty messed up. Bloody and red and bruised. His right hand, unmoving on his lap, was obviously broken, and two bands of deep bruising crossed his exposed torso, stark against his too pale skin.

Matching bruises over his arms and wrists suggested some sort of restraint strong enough to have bruised the skin. Maybe fractured the bone beneath. Maybe internal injuries…

Hardison swallowed back his nausea, burying the worst case scenarios running through his brain.

Eliot had escaped far enough to get here and to leave them a signal, so he had to be okay-ish. Nothing acutely urgent...maybe it was blood loss or dehydration or hypothermia...he did look very pale and his lips maybe a touch blue. Moreau probably hadn't been exactly generous with food or drink, so it might be something as simple as that.

“Okay,” Hardison took a slow, steadying breath as he felt Eliot's thready pulse, “Parker, go ahead and let me know if anyone’s in the windows. I’ll carry him. We get him to the car, get some supplies, and get outta here.”

She nodded and hopped to her feet, running ahead. Hardison carefully slipped his arms under Eliot and stood, gritting his teeth as his legs and back protested him standing with the added weight.

The first few metres were fine, but with all the stopping and starting while Parker checked the way was clear, Hardison’s legs and arms were burning by the time he reached the car. He didn’t have time to deal with it though. They needed to get the hell out of here.

With minimal discussion, they arranged themselves so Parker drove and Hardison sat up across the back seats, Eliot propped up against him, hopefully absorbing some of his body heat. As much as Parker driving was not the best thing for someone with severe injuries, this was the way it had to be for when they stopped at a pharmacy.

It was still too early for anything to be open, so Hardison disabled the alarm and camera remotely, while Parker broke into the first pharmacy they found with no one nearby.

“Grab sterile gauze, bandages, disinfectant, painkillers…electrolyte replenishing stuff…if they’ve got one an emergency blanket.”

“The shiny one?”

“Yeah.”

“Got it.”

A few minutes later she reappeared, a lollipop in her mouth, and shoved the supplies into the car, ripping open the blanket and tossing it at Hardison while he rearmed the alarm and cameras to hide the break in as much as possible.

They really needed to not leave any sort of trail behind them.

While Parker kept driving, heading towards the next district, Hardison wrapped the blanket over Eliot. He should try to make him drink something, but doing that while he was unconscious would probably just make him choke.

Just as Hardison was mentally running through all the first aid Eliot had taught them, he felt the man in his arms shift slightly.

Then he fell motionless again.

Hardison squeezed him very lightly, "El? Eliot?"

Eliot moved again, making a soft, almost pained, sound.

"Parker! Parker, pull over."

She did with a little more abruptness than Hardison had hoped for, but then he had sounded pretty urgent. Urgent enough that she looked outright terrified when she opened the door to the back seats.

But then she broke into a smile.

"Eliot!"

"Hey," he rasped, voice heavy and rough.

Parker hopped into the back with them as Eliot tried to sit up, helping him to shift to rest against the back of a seat rather than Hardison. Able to see him better now, Eliot looked just as awful as back at Moreau's place. Maybe a bit more colour to his cheeks, but that was it.

"You okay, man?"

Eliot glared tiredly. He never liked that question.

"You were very unconscious."

"Drugged," he replied, and now his groggy state made more sense, "Moreau was gettin' ready to transport me somewhere else. Got out before it took effect."

Got out, but not fully away.

He must have had just enough time to escape before whatever sedative or paralytic or cocktail it was got to him. Enough time to escape and leave a signal for them to find.

"Here," Hardison twisted the top off a bottle of isotonic flavoured water from the pharmacy and passed it over, "You got it?"

This last as Eliot's hand shook when he took the bottle. But the hitter just nodded tiredly and drank steadily. Three long gulps, and he passed it back.

"Thanks."

"We liked the Eliot signal," Parker smiled up from her new position sitting comfortably in the footwell where no adult human should be able to sit comfortably.

"How'd you know we'd be there?" Hardison asked, "I mean, what if someone else found your graffiti or it washed away?"

"Moreau was keepin' tabs on you. Heard 'im say somethin' 'bout a plane arrivin' from Oregon. Figured you'd find the place soon enough."

"Speaking of, we should probably get going before Moreau comes after us..."

"Moreau ain't gonna be a problem anymore."

They both looked sharply at him. And then looked away, Hardison first, then Parker, realising the blunder in their evident alarm.

Eliot hadn't missed their reactions, but he spoke on as if he had been entirely unaware, "Should call cops an' get 'em to that place.”

“Do you think his men will try to follow us?” Parker asked.

Eliot began to reply, but he broke off. He shut his eyes, jaw clenching, and took an unsteady breath. Whatever Moreau had drugged him with was strong.

“Don’ know. Maybe. They might try to score an easy bounty or somethin’,” he paused again, and Hardison could see him shaking slightly under the blanket, “With cops on ‘em they’ll hafta lay low. Less likely to chase us.”

Hardison nodded, watching as Eliot continued to struggle against some pain or exhaustion or whatever it was, "Yeah. Yeah, I'll get on that now. Cops to Moreau's place...but we should get going. Stop at a hotel...you look pretty bad, El."

Eliot half-glared, half-frowned, caught between confusion and irritation, like he was attempting his usual grumpy but the lingering effects of the drug were getting in the way.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Eliot did, really, look damn awful, it would have been adorable. Hardison almost smiled as he turned his focus to his phone to make the call.

As Parker drove, Hardison kept a close eye on Eliot, who slowly drank his way through the electrolyte drink. More than twice, he seemed to almost slip back into unconsciousness or sleep, but he was obviously trying to fight it.

Hardison had got pretty good at knowing when Eliot wanted to talk, when he wanted just to listen, and when he wanted only silence. Now he wanted silence, and Hardison and Parker gave it to him.

Twenty minute to drive to the nearest fancy hotel, where Parker helped Eliot sneak in while Hardison checked him and Parker in under their aliases.

Then over an hour while Eliot cleaned and patched up his injuries, Parker and Hardison helping where he couldn’t manage with his left hand alone or when his strength started to slip.

They had to help with the extraction of a bullet from his shin, which was particularly gory and made Hardison very glad of Parker’s dexterity and not being bothered by blood, with getting some splinters of wood out of the cuts on his feet. Cleaned up, those didn’t look as bad as before. There were numerous narrow gashes and a lot of bruising, but nothing was too deep. It still looked horrible and was probably really painful. But it wasn’t damage to the extent Hardison had feared.

But by the end of their makeshift medical activities, and after a bath during which Eliot submitted to allowing them both to help, their hitter looked more like himself again. Worn out and subdued in the way he usually was after especially rough fights or bad injuries, but no worse than they had seen him before.

And he was behaving more like himself too, with the effects of the drug wearing off. It did away with the unease that Eliot's remark about Moreau had set upon them. Even after all this time, Hardison could never fully reconcile the Eliot he knew with the Eliot who killed people, and that moment had been the closest the two had ever come to meeting.

But now, their Eliot sat on the plush couch of their hotel suite, bandaged feet resting on a cushion on the coffee table, with Parker pressed close on one side, munching on a sweet pastry she had stolen from the hotel restaurant. Hardison was a little way off, making use of the small desk to work on bolstering their cover.

He had just posted a couple of photos to the social media of his alias to help their covers.

“Parker and I are here on holiday," he said, finishing a Tweet and looking up, "Eliot I’ve got you an alias set up for when we head back. How long do you need before you fly?”

“Couple of days.”

“We should stay at least a week to keep our covers good,” Parker pointed out, “A few days vacation is gonna look odd.”

“Two weeks?” Hardison suggested, “That’ll give me time to start sorting out a new base.”

Eliot frowned, “New base?”

“Portland’s blown. Moreau knew where to find us. No way to tell who else might know.”

The hitter looked away, letting out a frustrated breath.

“What we gonna do with the brewpub?”

“I’ll sell it. Make sure the employees are kept on or get compensation…we still need to move some things, clear out, but…”

“Can we set up our new base in Pennsylvania?” Parker interrupted excitedly.

Hardison frowned, and Eliot supplied the answer, “It’s the state that produces the most chocolate.”

“I was thinking Florida.”

Parker pouted, “Doesn’t Florida pollen make you cry?”

“Yeah man,” Eliot smiled teasingly, reassuringly like himself, “Can’t have you cryin’ your way through our jobs.”

Hardison rolled his eyes and moved over to join them, bringing his laptop and prepared to launch into the inevitably long debate over where they should move next. They had two weeks here, so they had time to discuss it in depth. Maybe enough time to go see some sights, do some touristy things, or just binge watch some classic TV and movies in the hotel.

#ailesswhumptober2023 #Day 19: Taken for granted #leverage #alec hardison #parker #eliot spencer #damien moreau #cw implied torture #cw blood mention

44 notes · View notes

mrgaretcarter · 1 year

Text

Everything I enjoyed about Ted Lasso 3x10

It was so exciting to watch them announce the players that got into their national teams

Laughed at Ted not knowing Bumbercatch is swiss

Appreciated the whole team being there for Sam when he was snubbed

I genuinely laughed out loud at all the jokes to do with Dani's personality change

When it cut from the title sequence to ted sitting down with rebecca for biscuits with the boss i really thought it was for real gonna be an OG one but then they panned to trent and i was disappointed but i couldnt even be mad because it was so funny

Ted is a LIAR we have seen him gossip so many times he is such nosy biddy 🤣

Trent loving getting a good grade in girl talk was so funny and cute!

"So chaps, what do we think?" was such a fun line to me for some reason

All 3 of them going "Nah" and making the same face, so fun!

Ted was saying such nonsense for the rest of that scene and they made sure to show us Rebcca's reactions to every single one and she looked so fond every single time

Of course Rupert is saved on Rebecca’s phone as "The Devil" she is so insane

I loved Keeley's green skirt suit

I laughed at Beard's 17 throwing axes that he brought to the UK with him 🤣

"Sneaking in here today reminded me of the first match I ever saw at Nelson Road." "Ah, when they used to play by candlelight." 🤣🤣

I was SO happy to see Phoebe, then happier still to see her mum! And Jamie is totally right, she is fit

That whole scene was an absolute delight, filled my heart with joy, the England kit! the E for U swap! the tie dye shirt with Roy colors! One thing I can say about this season is that things do tend to go great when Jamie is involved

I laughed at the doomed handshake at Sam's restaurant, he was so resigned to his fate 😅

Nate breaking into his parents house in the middle of the night because he felt lonely and lost reminded me of 13 Going on 30

I was happy to see Rebeccas Amsterdam pants again! Especially with that purple blouse 💜

I love that Higgins knows Keeley, Ted and Sassy are Rebecca's top options in that order and that this is unquestionable

Higgins' comparing Akufu to the Chocolate Factory kids was both very accurate and very funny 😆 "I hate to break it to you Rebecca, but those children are dead."

I really liked Rebecca being insecure about the meeting because she knows she's only been invited as a token. It felt true to life and also reminded me of a favorite moment from a beloved show of my past, The Good Wife, where a character expresses a similar concern and gets much the same advice as Higgins gave

I really thought Rebecca was taller than Higgins' office door and was momentarily scared she was going to bump her head on the way out 😆

I liked Keeley and Mae's conversation, though I, much like Keeley, did not understand the lightning saying 😅 did appreciated the little "Maybe" joke though, it felt like something Ted would do and I always love to perceive them mirroring each other

Everyone noticing Roy's cheerful t-shirt was very funny

I loved that we saw Rebecca studying for the meeting

THE!! TOY!!! SOLDIER!!!!!! She's been carrying it around!!! She is fond of it!!!!! She treats it with such care, and it still brings her strength, gosh!! To think of the moment she picked it up off the ground and stored it away, of whenever it was she decided to keep it with her as an amulet!!! I'm breathless!!!!!!!

Kenneth saying "twins" to Roy lmaooo

The fact that Rebecca has panic attacks is something that can be SO PERSONAL that meant so so SO much to me, I could cry just thinking about it, I've always been sure she did and to have it confirmed was a thrill, and so emotional and satisfying to me to see her self soothe and how it paralleled Ted, truly beautiful gorgeous amazing

Ms Bowen is blonde now! Idk why but that was exciting, I like her! I think Roy should introduce her to Beard, I feel like she could beat up Jane. It was also hilarious to me that they named her Leann for real 🤣 they have no shame!

Barbara's Juicy couture tracksuit and "I like clothes that tell the truth" LMAOOO COMEDY GOLD

Barbara and Keeley's snow globe exchange was delightful. Barbara slowly grew on me throughout the season and was a true highlight in this particular episode, I was very glad that she chose Keeley.

I love that Rebecca went to that meeting in a bbp top and one of her less murderous earrings

I appreciated seeing Rebecca in a professional setting, taking a stand, and going to bat for the club and for football in general, it's something I have always longed to see from her and I'm glad I got it even if it was late in the game

Really liked that Nate plays the violin

I liked the window into Rupert and Rebecca's past and the glimpse into why they were in love once

I liked the contents of Roy's letter to Keeley and thought it was funny that she couldn’t read his handwriting

It was exciting to see Rebecca at Keeley's house! She demanded a hug! She's going to fund Keeley's firm! Their friendship has stayed beautifully consistent throughout the season and I appreciate that.

Keeley writing down the number and saying "This is how they do it in the movies" was another Ted-like moment (down to Rebecca being endeared by it!)

I enjoyed the joke of Roy walking in when he did and I loved loved loved that he and Rebecca saluted each other again! I'd been waiting for that!!

I think Nate's apology to Will - how he did it, the score, the note with the sprig of lavender, how it was filmed - felt like such a season 1 moment that it filled me up with this sense of right-ness and I truly appreciated it. Possibly one of the best moments of the season 🥹

Rebecca looked so at peace hanging that painting and also SO beautiful in that dress

Ted sat down without being invited, and Rebecca scooched a little closer once he did 🥹🥹

She specifically wanted to tell him about this big emotional milestone and Ted looked? I have no idea how to describe it, but it was new, it was a face he's never made before, and it was so?? I don't even know, I don't know what to do with it, or with "I wanna win for us too."

Rebecca is truly insane for spitting on his face on purpose like that lmao

Aaaand that's it! I liked a lot of the bits and pieces of this episode as you can see, and I had a mostly good time while watching it. There were a couple big things that bothered me though, but I'll save those for a different post later in the week once I've gotten a chance to collect my thoughts!

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #If you noticed me avoiding mentioning certain things... there's a reason for that #tl ramblings

55 notes · View notes

jamiesfootball · 9 months

Note

thank you for the very thoughtful response! here is the royjamiekeeley leverage snippet!

•••

"You've got a sister?" Jamie asked, chin perched on top of Keeley's head. They were wearing identical, big-eyed, innocent looks. Roy did not look impressed.

"Fucking obviously," he grunted.

"Is she fit?" Keeley asked, expression not wavering.

"Fuck off," Roy said as he returned his attention to his book.

"I bet she's fit," Jamie whispered loudly to Keeley.

"I'll rip out your eyes with a toilet plunger, Tartt," Roy said with a dangerous glance at Jamie.

"Keeley, save me," Jamie said. He cowered dramatically behind Keeley's tiny frame. "My eyes are too pretty to be toilet-plungered!"

"You fucking deserve it," Roy said, standing up and making a swipe at Jamie. Jamie danced out of reach with a loud, obnoxious laugh. "Hold still, you bellend!"

"Can't catch me!" Jamie cackled as he ran all the way around the kitchen. Then, he made a neat circle in the sitting room with Roy in hot pursuit. Keeley hopped up onto the kitchen island, egging them on. Rebecca sat next to Beard, a mug of tea in hand, as they both watched the tireless chase. Ted entered the room, barely avoiding being bowled over, and moved to stand next to them.

"Y'know, sometimes I wonder what it would take for those three to just have a good old-fashioned romp around - if you catch my drift. Cut through some of that tension," he said.

"I think they're already romping, actually," Rebecca said faintly, absorbed in the action.

"Oh, yeah," Beard said. Jamie made a sharp turn past the island to smack a kiss onto Keeley's cheek, and Roy followed suit. "This is like foreplay for them."

"Huh. Well, I guess you have a point there." Ted settled onto the couch on Rebecca's other side, and they all watched Jamie windmill his arms to try and stop his sock-fueled dash so he could screech to a desperate halt. It didn't work, he crashed into the counter, and Roy slammed into his back.

"Gotcha," he growled.

"Keeley!" Jamie cried. "Help, he's gonna eat me!" Keeley muttered something that sounded suspiciously like god, I hope so. Beard hoped he wouldn't have to remind them that there were other people in the vicinity. They'd been very good about leaving when things got hot and heavy. Keep the streak going.

"Not gonna fucking eat you, you muppet, stop bucking the fuck everywhere," Roy said. Keeley slid off the island and took a running leap to land on Roy's back. The man didn't even flinch, just moved one hand to support her leg until her thighs were securely around his waist.

"Is it unethical to be watching this? Is this weird?" Ted asked. His gaze didn't move.

"Maybe," Rebecca said. Her gaze didn't move.

"No," Beard said, and he was damn sure his own gaze was not moving. "It's like a nature documentary."

Ted made a vague noise. Jamie and Keeley were giggling uncontrollably, and Roy was even looking like he wanted to crack a grin. His head moved down to near Jamie's ear, and Jamie audibly snorted with laughter. Then, the snort transformed into a cry.

"Did you just fucking bite me?" His voice was full of shock and disbelief, as well as something that had Beard composing a notice in his head to present to the trio. Hello, please do not have wild kinky sex within earshot of your coworkers. Thanks, Beard.

"Maybe I will eat you after all," Roy said, his voice low and gravelly.

"Keeley!"

Ooh, this is giving me very strong Eliot-cooking-in-the-kitchen-after-a-heist vibes. The camaraderie, the silliness—the ‘Nate and Sophie off to the side having a normal fucking conversation to sum up the themes of tonight’s episode’ of it all. You’ve somehow captured it all in a little bottle

#what an impeccably crafted au you have going on here #roy/keeley/jamie #leverage au

33 notes · View notes

arlovegood · 6 months

Text

Six little nuggets

This is a little drabble of something that could/will maybe become a larger one shot (hence why there's some passing mention to things that would only make sense with context), but I thought it cute and wanted to post

From the corner of her eyes she watches him, his gaze is fixed on the sleeping babies and his face, oh that face, a tiny smirk verging on a smile resting on his lips, a look that says he knows this kids are trouble and he couldn’t be more delighted by that. She knows that face, knows what it means.

“You always wanted six” she mockingly singsongs while lightly nudging him with her shoulder. It’s a joke but not really.

She doesn’t even know which one of them she’s talking about.

He huffs out a laugh and looks at her. That intense, loving look that captures her and lets her fly free all at the same time.

“I’ve always wanted you” and his eyes are so serious, so truthful. She’s always know that, even before they truly got back together, after all, he had said hadn’t he?

‘the most important part’ That’s what he called her.

“And whatever makes the both of us happy. Truly happy. That’s what I’ve always wanted Nance. That’s what I’ll always want.”

And she knows the question laying hidden on that phrase.

‘What will make you, us, happy?’

She looks back to the babies. Their tiny little angelic faces sleeping, unaware of the world they were born into, unaware of the way they came to be.

Unaware that they could be soon tossed into an orphanage to go gods know where, maybe even separated.

Nancy truly looked at those little faces and…

“I’ve always liked the name Nathaniel” She sees the little furrow of Steve’s eyebrows. Sees the confusion mixed with giddiness and hope in his eyes. He lets her talk, explain….confirm.

“We didn’t use it at any point…I mean…I love our boys names but…what I’m saying is…” and she’s stumbling because it’s just..so much. It’s good, it’s great, but she’s just as emotionally stable as she was on those four trips to the hospital where she left with a little bundle that was now hers and Steve’s to care and love.

“Nance…” and as his gaze catches hers again she melts, embraces what her heart has been screaming for the past hours, what her soul already knew when that poor girl was brought in.

“They’re ours Steve…aren’t they?” And his eyes scream the answer and she just hugs him, lets herself be enveloped by his arms, that place where nothing can hurt her.

“I like Nathaniel…it’s pretty, I think it’s suits him. Our little Nate” She just squeezes him tighter, her eyes watering from holding back tears.

“And this little princess Nance…what should we call her?” God his voice! She already knows this two little sleeping babies have him wrapped around their tiny little fingers and well, okay…..they got her two.

“Destiny” she doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t say anything really. When she was younger, but on that age where you hate being called young, she would have scoffed and said she didn’t believe in things as destiny and fate.

But that was before.

Before the world as she knew fell out of her feet. Before she found someone who came so close to what a soulmate was supposed to be. Before life brought her back to Hawkins, to this very hospital, so she could find her babies.

The last remaining two lil nuggets missing from their pack.

“Yeah, Nate and Destiny Harrington….I like that” his voice was hoarse and chocked. He was crying too. A dream years on the making, always giving that feeling of happiness and fulfillment to them but also ever growing and ever evolving.

'Minus the six kid part…that sounds like a total nightmare'

Once upon a time, her younger self had declared this, in a fruitless attempt at deflecting the emotions Steve was making her feel.

But now…

Now as she saw Steve buckling a little Destiny, dressed into the most adorable “Daddy’s little girl” onesie, onto the baby seat, while Max, with a lot of help of a scowling Ellie - who apparently was very disappointed with his proficiency in holding a baby - rocked little Nate back and forth in a soothing manner.

They weren’t buckling it up to go on a road trip across the country.

At least not yet.

They were just going to the Wheeler’s residence until the babies were a few days older so they could go back to Boston.

(Or until Karen managed to convince her daughter that Hawkins was a perfect place to live and that the Post would allow her to write from anywhere. What can you say, the woman was persistent if nothing else)

And yet….

Nancy felt like this was truly the beginning of the adventure promised so many years ago on a stolen Winnebago while they faced the possible end of the world.

It had sounded like a nightmare….but it wasn’t.

Not really.

It was her life. And she goddamn loved it.

#stancy #stranger things #steve x nancy #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #six little nuggets

7 notes · View notes

booksandchainmail · 1 year

Text

Pale 9.11

Her spiritual antler having enough to it that the actual antler could float there. Verona’s mask hadn’t stuck, apparently. She wasn’t sure what that was about.

My theory here is that Verona's mask remains broken because it breaking was an emotionally resonant moment. Avery's mask just got damaged in battle, and hasn't impacted Avery's view of how it should look. Verona's mask was shattered in a moment of betrayal and cruelty from someone she should have been able to trust, and had a corresponding impact on her Self.

“You related to Ken?” Avery asked. “He’s my dad, I guess,” Nettie said. “I’m the offshoot. We figured we’d scatter, cover more ground.”

oh neat!

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. I like the name Nettie,” Avery said. “Now I’m wondering what the others are called.”

I think there were four total? So some ideas: Kendall, Kendra, Kennedy, Nate, any name that ends in -nette

“Good. The pin will help you with the prep. If you’re in a place for a while, it’ll change. Tells you when you’re attuned to a place, when you can ask the city spirits things. There are ones smaller and vaguer than me. Neighborhood spirits, street spirits. You’ll usually need to do things for them, even picking up litter or something, before they’ll do something for you.”

I like this! Good for the girls' role as protectors of Kennet, and particularly suited for Avery's personality

Nettie nodded, glanced around, then leaned in a bit. “Nobody’s listening, so I can tell you Verona’s claimed her gift. She called, another part of me answered. I’m meant to forget after I’ve told you two.”

something that helps her run or hide within Kennet would be very useful right now

“When things go really wrong my mind kind of shuts off,” Avery said. “I’ve had thoughts before that it doesn’t work like that for Verona. I don’t think she’s making dumb moves.”

she's making extreme moves. She is making them very effectively! But entirely possible to get herself in too deep while she's like this

“I think she can be very smart and have almost no common sense when she’s like this.”

High INT low WIS. Honestly that seems to describe Verona most of the time, but it gets amplified when she's like this. In this state she doesn't seem to have much sense of self-preservation or care for the future or side consequences.

“I don’t want her taking some property from Ken and doing a demesne ritual without us there, or anything.”

I mean. That would be one way to keep the furs out of reach. But I don't like the implications of Verona choosing her new home while in this state, or of creating it all alone.

Scary Others, goblins, body snatchers, a heist of some ancient spirit judge’s furs? That was one thing. But buzzing a classmate she barely knew for weird reasons, then having to improvise an explanation? Augh.

big mood

Steph + Reagan + Howie Perry. It was only visible with her Sight. She tapped the name.

Reagan! From the Hungry Choir ritual!

“Bonky Donks? Cookies? Whizzbangs?”

are those actual canadian snacks?

“It’s fine,” Avery said. “Your daughter was really cool to us when things got really hairy, and I’m really grateful for that. You raised a good daughter.” “Why even tell her if she’s going to forget?” Melissa asked. “Because it’s important,” Avery said. Maybe if I say it again, “Reagan was cool.”

awww

“You can stay if you want, Melissa, we don’t really have the time to drag you with us, but I’m going to be blunt, on a seriousness scale of clown to terminal cancer, I’d rate this a multiple stab wound,” Lucy said. “What are you even talking about?” Melissa asked.

yeah I'm with Melissa, that explanation does not help

“I’m the Frankenstein’s monster that got put together from the scraps that were left behind. A bit of the backfill that’s smoothing over the holes they left, so the universe can heal and move on. I was a confused jumble of a bunch of people’s memories, at first, and then I put myself together. It was excruciating. Tying knots in two ropes that are being pulled in opposite directions, over and over again. I don’t think I’m very long for this world. When the universe has smoothed it all out, I’ll be the bumpy bit that gets scraped away. Probably.”

Man that sucks. And made worse by how all the component pieces of him were in a place to join the Hungry Choir ritual.

I wonder if there's a way to preserve him? Tie him to something other than just the gaps of those missing kids? Crack theory: make him the new Carmine judge.

“McKay and Bridge have a solid game plan. Pick a body I want, drive out the occupant, then slip inside. Depending on the fit, I should be able to hang out for a few decades.”

or that :|

“They were so desperate. All of them. It wasn’t just those three. They bit, they clawed, they screamed, they hurt. In their last moments they stood on the edge of oblivion. More of them gave their all than gave up. That’s the space I’m occupying. Those are the Frankenstein pieces I’m made up of. They were barely even human. They were scared and savage. They were torn to shreds and I’m the shreds that didn’t get eaten.”

Anyone who made it past even a single night of the Choir had to have come to terms with watching people die. And anyone who participated in one of the last night's of the cycle, like Reagan, knew what their survival would cost and had to decide to keep going.

Now that I think about, we've never got details on the night Brie won. Maybe some the parts she needed from other people were willing, but there's no way she didn't choose to go after people with force to survive. I wonder how much of her not wanting to fight is having to live knowing that seven people died in her place, and now their twisted echoes are bound in her flesh?

“I don’t think you realize what it means, for me to be made up of people who were like these guys were right at the end. Doing anything to keep going. Even eating vomit, clawing at a friend’s arm, begging…”

which of course means CK is born from a place that is desperate enough to make those awful choices. No wonder he's contemplating stealing someone else's body to survive.

"We- the idea we were debating was… we’d spread enough raw chaos that the universe wouldn’t be doing any paving over for me. McKay would have more people with their lives in shambles to steal from, and Bridge would maybe be able to pull more Self together. If anything can survive the Abyss and its chaos then it tends to get bigger, tougher and stronger." “That’s a terrible idea, you know, and I don’t know much about the Abyss.”

having read Pact: do not try to get more Abyssal! It's bad!

#booksandchainmail reads pale #pale #wildbow

14 notes · View notes

joetavis · 1 year

Text

I'm so torn apart, because I loved (and I mean LOVED) Ted Lasso. I watched the first two seasons in two days, barely slept and was obsessed with it. I urged people to watch it, I literally talked about nothing else for weeks.

And then the third season came, and to say it with Roy's words: it's fine (and partly it was shit), but we didn't deserve just fine. We deserved better, the characters deserved better and especially Ted deserved better.

This absolute shitshow of season three paired with a mediocre conclusion to the characters just pisses me off. I don't fucking know what changed with the writers but almost every decision they made in season three was horrible and leaves me super bitter about the final episode that could have been way better.

I like the ending of the team as a sports team, I like Colin's ending, I like that they didn't make Ted and Rebecca end up together (because I like that sometimes people are just friends), u like the Roy and Jamie storyline (even the immature fight I didn't mind), but the even the season told these stories badly.

And I hated so much about the season. I hated that downright immoral THERAPIST/CLIENT relationship. What was that? You would loose your fucking licence for that, how could neither Ted, nor anyone else say something about that, Michelle's new partner should have been anyone else, really. I hated Jack, she was a complete unimportant character, she added nothing except making Keeley's (already wonky) storyline worse. It was a bad relationship. I don't like that they broke up Roy and Keeley for no reason. They should have stayed together. Especially if the Witter's don't even have the guts to show the break up on screen.

Keeley's whole story was horrible. She was a bad CEO (or whatever her position was) the story should have ended with her actually losing her PR-firm. (Because the end with Barbara was a good and heartfelt moment) and maybe let her figure out something better suited for her.

I liked Zava, but I would have preferred if him leaving the team was more of an on-screen moment.

Nate's whole story line is fucked. He shouldn't be with Jade, I don't really understand why she would like him. His dad 'apology' was clearly a lie and did not fit with what we've seen from Nate's Dad before (like I know I told you that you're worthless, but I only wanted you to be happy, what?). Nate was the villain (!) In season two, just like Rebecca in 3, but where she had to apologize to the people she hurt, Nate just came back, and we, the audience, never sees how and why this decision was made.

I was ready to forgive him, I really was, but he doesn't apologize to Colin, only to Ted. And that doesn't sit right with me. Nate's problem was, that he had so little self-worth, that he seeked it through abusing power. He should have apologizes to his Team at West Ham, to Ted, but he should have grown and start to love himself, instead we don't see any of that on screen.

In general I was so disappointed that all big moment were cut from our view and happened 'off-screen'. Like this is a TV-series, this is your purpose. Why would you stop showing us the moments that matter to the story you're telling.

(I know that this CAN be a stylistic device, but if ALL moments happen off screen, it's just lazy and leaves us nothing to watch.)

And lastly: The Lasso Way. That should have been the title of the book, and everyone knows it, especially Trent. And while it is on character for Ted to insist otherwise, The Richmond Way is a shit title, because the Team has always existed, and it was Ted that moved them, that changed them. That's why the series is called Ted Lasso and not AFC Richmond.

It is his story, and like many things season three got wrong, season three forgets about that.

Where were the coaching moments? Where was the inspiration, the kindness, the believe?

A private investigator? Really? Ted Lasso would never? And I still love him, and he had his moments, but there were just overall too little.

The big farewell was too little, too late. Ted Lasso deserved the world, he deserves personal, meaningful goodbye with each of the characters, even with the unimportant side characters, because to Ted, there are no unimportant people. I should have wept, I should be devastated, because yes, of course he has to leave, this is about his son, the most important thing in the world, but the team loves Ted too much for one goodbye dance. We, the audience, love Ted Lasso too much to get this bleak ending.

I loved Ted Lasso. Season one and two changed me as a person, they rewired my brain and I swear, I breathed and bled its essence. Until season three. Season three is so horrible, that I lost all love for the series, and I don't think I can revisit it ever, because I know that season three will come, with only three fine episodes.

#ted lasso #the lasso way

8 notes · View notes

strideofpride · 1 year

Note

two follow-ups based on your last ask:

1.) what type of girl do you think would make a good girlfriend for jenny? the only girls i see her regularly get shipped with by the fandom are blair and agnes, but both of those relationships were so toxic lmao. i’m also a lesbian jenny fan, but i can never quite picture what kind of girl i could imagine her ending up with!

2.) since you like serenate, natessa, and serenessa, how do you feel about serena/nate/vanessa in a poly way? do you think they could work as a throuple or would it be too unstable?

it's so hard to answer cause I don't really think there's like...one correct answer. So much of what we know about Jenny's "type" I think was completely colored by comphet. Like I think it's guys she think she should be with (Nate, Asher) or guys that she thinks make her seem more mature (Damien, Chuck in the pilot). The only other guy we see her hang out with is that boy she was doing that science project with or whatever it was in 2x21? That was definitely the one guy not colored by UES expectations for sure. So maybe a girl version of him, shy and sweet - I definitely think Jenny has a big personality and would be well suited to someone on the softer side. Definitely an artsy girl as well though, someone who gets Jenny's drive and ambition and creativity side.

I...don't dislike the idea but also I have been having trouble picturing how it would all work tbh. Like when I think dairthaniel I just like...I can just see it all so clearly. But I don't feel that same ease when thinking about those three together, I don't know why. Like I really really like serenate, natessa, and serenessa individually, but for whatever reason I'm not sure it would work with the three of them together. I think maybe it would be too unbalanced? Or maybe they just had so little interaction in the show together, I'm just having trouble seeing it.

#sorry for the wait anon but i needed a full day to think about it #gossip girl #jenny humphrey #serena x nate x vanessa #serena van der woodsen #nate archibald #vanessa abrams #gg headcanons #anonymous #strideofprideanswers

8 notes · View notes

bingwriterxo · 11 months

Note

My dear bing!! I have taken the liberty of writing this long analysis to you in hope you find it entertaining. I advise you to buckle up because it will be long. First of reader and Tara driving in the car and Tara’s nervous rambling upon just seeing endless road made it a great introductory! It was so intimate and domestic! I was hoping you would have some sort of party where Tara is introduced to readers life I should say. Who she grew up with, the environment and such. The way you described readers house was such a perfect painting in words! I don’t believe it could have been better. I love how upon reader and Tara’s entrance everyone just turned 😂 of course our dear girl tara would think it was a cult. I will say it again..never change tara. I will say after reading so many anons from you and 🇬🇧 I was eager and very ecstatic to meet readers young brothers! As always you do not disappoint! The interaction between Eddie and Nate and Tara made my day! You wrote them exactly how I pictured them! With major differences! Nate has my heart, he is my favorite (don’t mention that to Edmund I don’t want him to think badly of me) reader being her usual self and telling Tara if she needed some breathing room to go to her room and then she preceded to give her directions 😂love our girl! I will say the gif had taken me by surprise and I was a bit worried but as always you come through bing. Tara meeting readers mother was wonderful! Already calling her mother😂 I just adore that! And baby Cordelia! Definitely took me by a wild surprise but it was greatly welcomed! And Tara getting baby fever was the cherry on the cake for me. Readers father is such a vivacious and charming man! I’m a book girl myself so I very much love readers family. ‘Call me dad’ readers dad precede to light up! Now as for connor, or as I call him the scum on the bottom of my shoes. I have nothing nice to say about him, and I take the saying if you have nothing to say that’s polite do not say it. So I shall hold my tongue. What broke me the most was Tara having to use her inhaler. My poor love must have been crying very much for it to trigger her asthma. Readers mother comforting her was such a great idea! And I had a hunch reader was engaged! From the minute you forshadowed it with Connor saying he was no stranger to readers family parties! Reader being the absolute gem to Tara and explaining everything…why can’t everyone be like that!! I will say I hope Connor gets a taste of his own medicine someday! He made me filled with rage! As someone who is not as tall it’s not very much rage but it is still rage nonetheless!! Hope you enjoyed this rant of mine! Your writing was too good I had to write this!I cannot wait for this AU to continue to grow! It has quickly taken over my heart. There is something so uniquely special about reader and Tara. There is no other AU quite like this. As ever bing wishing you a good weekend 🫶🫡- houseofwindsor77

YASSS ANALYSIS

i worked wrote and rewrote the intro 5 times before publishing what i did. it was tricky for me. i didn’t wanna seem too info-dumpy but i also didnt wanna throw them right in. i also had trouble with the imagery b/c, tbh, it is NOT my strong suit

im glad u liked the boys!! there will be much more of them! i just wanted tara to meet them quickly, and, yes! baby cordelia! i kept her a secret till now. i just thought she’d be a fun addition

both of R’s parents were extremely fun to write! there will be more of them as well! i thought having R’s mom comfort tara first before R has the chance to would open up the room for a great relationship between them!

connor is such a little poo head and i hate him! im not sure if he’ll be back. maybe he’ll pop in every once in a while to spice things up? but we’ll see

i love ur analyses always 🫶 i look forward to them after ever chapter!

#ask #museum tara

3 notes · View notes

icxnvc · 1 year

Text

if you’re hearing BACK TO BLACK by AMY WINEHOUSE playing, you have to know NATTHAPHON "NATE" ROCHANA (HE/HIM; CISMALE) is near by! the TWENTY-NINE year old UNEMPLOYED has been in denver for, like, TWO WEEKS. they’re known to be quite AGGRESSIVE, but being LOYAL seems to balance that out. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those DRUNK TATTOOS, CONFESSIONS IN THE RAIN, YEARNING TO PUNCH A HOLE IN THE WALL BUT KNOWING BETTER vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the DOWNTOWN DISTRICT long enough!

Basics:

Name: Natthaphon Rochana

Nickname: Nathan / Nate

Age: 29

Birthday: February 9, 1994

Occupation: "Unemployed" - Paralegal

Sexuality: Pansexual

Residence: Downtown

Languages: Thai, English

FC: Boun Noppanut

Appearance:

Height: 6'1

Hair: Black - Dyed Blonde

Eyes: Brown

Tattoos: Left Shoulder - Hah Taew Na Kong Krapan , Right Forearm - Yant Juntra, Right Bicep - Flower Band but with these flowers, Upper Left Arm - , Left Leg - This style but this image,

Piercings: Right Ear - two lobe and one helix, Left Ear - three lobe and industrial. Always wears this on his left ear, regardless of other jewelry

Scars: A few, but they're hidden

Aesthetic:

Smudged eyeliner and kiss bitten lips

Rings on every finger and too many earrings

Perfectly tailored suits, but only for work

Sleeveless shirts

Lots of black

Bio: tw: anger issues, sexual content references/implied

Nate grew up just outside of Bangkok, Thailand and was dragged to the US when he was fifteen

He knows his parents consider it "moving" but with how much Nate did not want to go, he will never call it anything other than dragged

His English was good enough in Thailand, but kids in the US made constant comments about his accent and the occasional slip ups in grammar

Making friends wasn't easy because he didn't want to make friends. Nate - as he quickly was dubbed when people realized how long his full name was - was angry. Every little thing made him more angry.

Soon, he was the kid people were afraid of. He had a hairpin trigger and no hesitation about decking people who looked at him wrong.

The only thing that really helped Nate calm down was diving. It wasn't something he'd ever done before moving, but he'd dabbled in gymnastics/parkour as a kid, so he picked it up fairly quickly

He loved that it was a team sport, but on a diving platform, it was just him. His only competition, only worries, and only goals were himself.

Diving was perhaps the only thing Nate worked overtime for. School came easy to him, and friendships didn't matter enough for him to try. He became convinced he wanted to be an Olympian because it was the only thing he could seriously set his mind on.

The Olympic dreams started to die down over time when he realized it would likely be way too expensive, but he did walk-on to a D1 college team.

Four years later, he'd graduate pre-law from the University of Florida having been put on scholarship, with four conference championships rings, an NCAA championship ring, two years of eligibility (red-shirted, and medical red-shirted two years), and a future set on law school, which he was already starting to hate.

He moved to the San Francisco area to go to the University of California for law school and as a graduate transfer for diving. The sudden uprooting of his life had him set back in his angry ways. Instead of fighting, he resorted to a plethora of hookups and dates with no-expectations.

Law school, the swim team, and a menagerie of bad habits did not bode well for him, and Nate spiraled several times.

It was in this era that he'd meet Aileen. They started like the rest of his hookups, as nothing more than a fun night in a sketchy club bathroom. Then it turned into two nights in other random places. Then his apartment, and hers...and threesomes...and jealousy.

Nate hesitated to admit to himself that he had feelings for her, because he knew she didn't like talking about it, but one drunk night after an attempted threesome gone wrong, he knew he had to admit it. His confession was not shakespearean, but it got the job done.

They started dating, he graduated law school and went on to become a paralegal. With a newly stacked bank account and the only love he thought he needed, Nate started planning ways to propose to Aileen. Even going as far as to buy a ring.

Except she found out before he could mention it himself, and Nate came home one day to an empty house and a note reading "I'm sorry, I can't," attached to a ring box he'd been trying to hide.

That was six months ago. It took three of those months for him to settle out of his anger, two to find her, and the last to find a way to get to Denver.

Nate's now been in Denver for two weeks and is still trying to find a way to run into Aileen, just to see her again. He has a broken heart and no expectations, but isn't willing to let the woman he loves run from him.

Connections:

Friends: He's the new kid in town and is actually willing to put effort into friends now that he's an adult

Enemies: Nate still has a lot of anger that he's shoved down. He might snap at the wrong person a time or two

Work Out Buddies: Despite never quite making the Olympics, Nate likes to look good, and he still swims. He'd get back into diving if he felt he could.

Hook Ups: Nate falls back to anger and hook ups when he doesn't know what to do with his emotions. He mature in many ways, this isn't one.

Aileen's Friends: Though he may befriend them for the reason of getting to her, he'd be nice to them. Maybe they'd end up actually being friends.

#bio || nate #chq;intro #more connection ideas to come #and a graphic

2 notes · View notes

scrapyardboyfriends · 2 years

Text

So I finally caught up on the like three and a half weeks of Emmerdale that I had missed/skipped...

It wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be so that’s something. I think I’m just still in that period where I’m just happy to see more people in the pub interacting and stuff. I don’t know. Haha.

Chas was of course absolutely horrible for so much of it. I just kept correcting everything she hypocritically said. And I hated that she forced Faith through another round of chemo when she didn’t want one. And I hated just as much that I had to agree with Cain in that moment. They’re both still so loathsome for so much of it that by the time we get to their little special episode where they get drunk in the pub and have their little chat, I just don’t really care. Which is a shame because they actually almost resembled the characters I used to like in those scenes.

And I’m still just annoyed at the idea that Cain still needed to work through all of this stuff with Faith because that was really half the point of that flashback episode back in 2018 or whatever. They had worked through things. Cain was totally fine with her and before Chas even really until the stupid Nate story. And then they just forgot about that and reset to his initial issues with her and that never really rang true to me so I was just super frustrated with the whole thing. Also, it’s like they brought Faith back and knew that they were going to kill her off at the 50th anniversary and then had to make up reasons for Cain to continue to hate her for another couple years it really was very tiring and made him seem really awful and ridiculous. I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes now that he and Chas are being slightly less monstrous.

The Faith/Eric/Brenda content was great though. I want more of that before she goes. And Mary too if they can squeeze that in maybe.

The Chas/Al affair stuff is so cringe and I don’t know what he sees in her either cause she’s terrible to him too most of the time but also it’s kind of some of the best Chas content we’ve had in years. She’s just so ill suited for Paddy. She’s definitely like Aaron in that capacity, neither of them work with the safe, boring nice guy. They need someone with a little edge. I mean Al is no Carl (or Robert) but he’s certainly a step up from Paddy in being able to stand up to her a little bit and that’s a good thing. I feel like she thrives on a relationship where they can be a little mean to each other. Haha. I don’t know, I also look forward to it all blowing up in her face.

The David money stuff was...ridiculous. The only thing it did for him and Vic is that it did give them at least some marginal screen time as a couple, which made me feel slightly less blah about them.

The Nicola stuff is interesting and I like seeing Bernice and Laurel involved and I didn’t even mind Rodney. And I love seeing the King kids again even if it was all too brief. Also, Dotty is adorable. I can’t believe Jimmy still hasn’t come back or been informed though.

The Charles/Ethan/Marcus scenes were so weird. Why is Charle THAT clingy when Manpreet is away for a bit? That was a lot. And I do not like all of those vague references to Pierce. I’m still concerned on that front. All that said, I did like Naomi and I hope we will get to see more of her. I’m still really expecting her to randomly be the “I’m sorry” girl from Nicola’s attack and that’s why she went off the grid for a while or something. Because they absolutely cannot resist having a convoluted connection to someone else in the village.

I’m super ready for the Leyla coke story to end or reach its climax because I’m over Liam misdiagnosing her. I also still don’t quite know what the purpose of this Holly stuff is but I mean...I don’t hate it. It’s nice to remember when the show was better. Haha.

Sandra’s fourth personality is uh...pretty horrific. Almost makes Chas look like a saint. And that’s hard to do. I don’t mind totally the idea of Liv (and Vinny) getting scammed or whatever, I just DO NOT WANT A RELAPSE. If they want to touch on it further in the future, fine, but not right now. Just let her stay sober. I did really love seeing her have actual scenes with Gabby though. I don’t understand why they cannot maintain that friendship regularly.

Probably for the same reason Matty and Amy only get one 2/3 episode mini arc once a year and they call that a relationship. It’s so annoying. Every time I see Ash posting about being happy to be a part of Emmerdale, I’m just like “but are you though? You clean their tables and that’s about it.” I just want more for them. Amy apologist and all, but it is funny that Matty went and yelled at Suzy for being a murderer when he’s dating someone who in part caused someone else’s death and his mother directly killed someone, forcing his brother on the run. Haha. Only in soap land.

Not that I really want more Noah the creep, but if he’s just magically fixed mostly off screen in prison the way Liv always got sober in prison, I’m going to be a bit annoyed. (I laughed when Liv said she’d followed that program. I was like...no...you just went to prison again). Also, Amelia...get yourself some self respect girl.

Oh and if Billy and Dawn ever break up because she doesn’t want kids and he does, I’m going to be very annoyed. The number of times that plot comes up is so frustrating. Just let people A) talk about this stuff before they get married and B) just allow some couple to want kids and actually have one or C) let people both not want kids/more kids.

That Marlon and Priya scene was really nice though. More of that please. And I hope she really is there at his wedding without her jacket.

#emmerdale complaints corner #emmerdale #belated live blogging #ed lb

7 notes · View notes