#might put them up as charms? or do a pre order <3 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gentlemancrow · 3 years

Note

jonmartin, pre-romance, #15/28??

I did manage to get BOTH of these in! So we have a combo of "You called me, remember?" and "It's too early for this". Much like the others, the MINUTE I read this prompt an idea popped into my head that I just HAD to go with! This is actually based off a real life incident I had with a friend (They know who they are...) but it fit both Jmart and the prompt PERFECTLY! The names have been changed to fictional characters to protect the innocent. (Hint I was the Martin in this situation) Anyway this was super fun and cute to write and I made myself all squishy a lot. HOPE YOU ENJOY! <3

There were precious few reasons why Martin’s mobile should be ringing at exactly 5:47 am on a Tuesday, and precisely none of them were good. Still, the anxiety inducing sound alerting him to something ominously, ambiguously amiss struggled to worm its way through a rather lovely dream of his acceptance speech after being awarded poet laureate. The poem he had prepared for the occasion was marrow-deep and hauntingly beautiful, or at least he remembered it that way until suddenly he was reciting the lyrics to Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ instead and sweating profusely as the audience began to murmur in disgust amongst themselves. Waterloo was indeed blaring, but from the ringtone of his phone, not from his lips, and his stomach performed a cold somersault with the force of the wave of anxiety that had begun in his dream and crested up to lap at the base of his barely functional brain. The few synapses he needed for basic motor function and reading comprehension crackled to life as he clumsily batted the buzzing device on his nightstand into his hand and squinted blearily at the name.

It was small. That was an immediate relief. If the care home had been calling about an incident with his mother, either her health or the staff’s as a result of her, it would have been the full moniker of ‘Sunrise Acres Care Home’ ticking across the caller ID. Yet small implied a name, a person, someone he had in his phone and not just a random spam call, and anxiety spiked again as Martin scrubbed at his eyes until ‘Jon’ appeared in white hot letters on the screen. Sleep dissolved from him in an instant and he sat bolt upright in a tangle of covers as he smashed the green answer icon with his thumb and threw the receiver to his ear.

“Hullo?! Jon? R’you okay? What’s happened?” he demanded, voice still slumbery thick and groggy.

“Martin!” Jon’s silky, prim voice, thinned out to a tin can vibrato over airwaves, answered, “Good, you’re awake. I need your help. Urgently.”

Martin was already out of bed by the time ‘need’ reached his ears, yanking on the first pair of jeans he spotted in the laundry heap on the floor and hopping on his free leg to the en suite with his phone pinched between his cheek and shoulder.

“I’m on it!” he assured him despite having no clue what ‘it’ was, exactly, “I’m coming to you as soon as I can. Where are you? Are you hurt? Should I bring a first aid kit? I don’t think I have a first aid kit… should I buy a first aid kit? There’s a Boots just down the block from my flat, I could-“

“Martin, stop! What the hell are you on about?” Jon’s annoyed tone cut through his panic like a scalpel.

Martin stopped in the doorframe of the bathroom, brows knitted, jeans puddling around the one leg he’d managed to get through and left once again in naught but his boxers as he gripped his phone back into his hand.

“Huh? What are you on about? You said you needed help!” he snapped.

“I do! But not like… not like THAT. What kind of mortal peril do you imagine I would find myself in at a quarter to six in the morning?”

The initial surge of adrenaline fizzling out uselessly in his veins the more Jon talked, Martin sagged against the doorway and pinched his temples as he strained his words through a colander of civility.

“I don’t know, Jon. You called me, remember?”

“Right, right…”

A terse, lowly hissing silence of dead satellite replaced Jon’s voice, twisting Martin’s nerves as acrobatically as he twisted to avoid the point. He kicked off his jeans and stalked grouchily back to bed where he threw himself face down and unmoving.

“So, what is it then? Wi-Fi gone tits up? Forgot how long to steep Darjeeling?” he hissed into his rumpled duvet, a little nastier than he would have liked given the deadly combination of interrupted slumber and primordial biological survival instinct.

“I uh…” Jon’s voice deflated over the speaker, “I have a… problem.”

“Yes, we’ve so very, very clearly established that. What kind of a problem, exactly…?”

“A problem of an upsettingly… Arachnid nature.”

“A spider…?”

“…Yes.”

Martin propped himself up on one elbow, eyes narrowed with genuine and curious concern.

“Wait like a… like a spooky spooky spider? Or just an ordinary kind of spooky spider?” he inquired with as much levity as he could muster, given one of the likely options.

“Stop saying spooky. And the ordinary kind. I think. No, I’m sure of it. It’s merely the sitting on my kitchen wall like it owns the place and staring at me rudely with all eight eyes, judging me for skipping breakfast again, kind,” Jon answered with clinical pointedness.

“O… kay…?” Martin drawled, suppressing a giggle, “So, what’s the problem then?”

“What do I do?”

Martin opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again as he doubted that he had actually heard Jonathan Sims, the irascible, pompous, only capable of truly looking at him down his nose Head Archivist Jonathan Sims, ask him, a lowly assistant, what to do. With a spider. It would have been almost adorable, had he not scared the life out of him initially, but even that knocked it only down a single peg to helplessly charming.

“I-I mean, the normal thing one does when encountering a spider in one’s home? You kind of only have the usual two options? Er well, three, if you count just leaving it be, but I doubt you’re amenable to that one.”

“No, absolutely not, out of the question,” Jon declared swiftly.

“Didn’t think so,” Martin chuckled, rolling onto his back and sagging in relief into the mattress.

“So?” came the impatient invitation to continue.

“So what?”

“So, then what do I do?” Jon repeated brusquely.

“Well, you either kill it or let it go, of course! What else is there to do? Invite it to brunch?”

“I know that! I’m not an idiot!” Jon erupted furiously, “Good lord, Martin! Do you really think I would have called you because I didn’t know the only two options for dealing with an eight-legged criminal invading my home were kill it or let it go? Really?! Did you suppose this was the very first spider I ever encountered in my life? Is that what you thought? Or perhaps I had my own personal valet to attend to all of my insectoid tribulations, hmm? Just call the bug butler, he’ll attend to it straightaway! Do you ever stop to think before you open your mouth? Or do you customarily just air out whatever inane notions blow through your ears, no matter how puerile? Christ!”

Martin let the phone drop onto the bed beside him, away from the verbal darts hurled directly into his eardrum and taxing the output matrix of the speaker, as Jon launched into an affronted, mortified tirade, smirking and shaking his head.

“It’s too early for this…” he mused to himself ruefully, rubbing both hands over his face and eyes.

Once the phone stopped humming and glowing white hot with remote rage, Martin scooped it back up and yawned into the receiver.

“You alright there, Jon?” he asked in a gentle tone.

A ragged sigh crackled into a blip of feedback from lips too close on the other end of the phone.

“…Not really?” came Jon’s tremulous reply, “Listen, I’m sorry I went off on you. That was unfair of me. I-I just… I really… really hate spiders.”

Something squeezed in Martin’s chest, something about the confident bass flayed neatly out of Jon’s usually assertively solid mannerisms, leaving it abnormally thin and rickety. He sat up on the bed, cradling the phone much more gently to his cheek.

“Hey hey, it’s okay,” he assured him, “If anybody sympathizes about being afraid, you definitely called the right person. Need me to stay on the line with you while you whack it? A good heavy book will probably do the trick, or if you need speed and agility a rolled-up newspaper or a magazine might be better?”

“No! I wasn’t calling because I needed advice on how to murder the damn thing! I’m quite capable of doing that on my own. Frankly, I’ve taken rather a vested interest in honing my spider termination methodology over the years. I called you because… well you were going on about how you thought they were…” Jon trailed off in a series of garbled sounds of disgust, “Cute… of all things.”

Martin grinned and had to put the phone on his bare chest a moment, as if Jon might somehow perceive his giddy glee through the receiver.

“To be fair I’m a little odd that way. Most people feel much the same as you do about them,” he commented as he picked it back up.

“True, but that’s not even the whole of it!” Jon went on exasperatedly, “I also overheard you talking… must have been to Tim or Sasha but… you were explaining about how helpful they are to the ecosystem and what a vital role they play in that natural order of things, and how we always see images of them eating butterflies and beautiful things that make them look sinister, but how really they mostly control pests and the like… how you thought they got kind of a bad rap?”

“Wow I uh… I can’t believe you remembered all that,” Martin muttered, freckled cheeks dusting a light pink, “But what does that have to do with your unwanted houseguest in particular?”

“It was the last part, mainly. That’s what got me. The part about fear. That they’re afraid, too… You said there had been studies that showed a clear fear response in spiders… to us. They’re afraid of us, demonstrably more so than we are of them…”

One word of all of those slipped between Martin’s ribs and into his heart. Too. They were afraid, too. His thumb stroked and consoled the edge of his phone unconsciously as Jon blustered on, unbothered by his own unconscious admission.

“And now I can’t do it! Now I have to set this bloody spider free because you think it’s cute and want to make friends with it, and I can’t make it an innocent victim of my fear and I have no idea how!”

Martin couldn’t help but smile, imagining how Jon must be in his flat on the other end, scrunched in a corner all hunched up shoulders and furrowed brow with hackles bristling, squaring off with a creature who was possessed of no knowledge of the fear she symbolized, or the grace to understand the iconographical divorce to her salvation. Only Jon, quivering and still bed-rumpled and frazzled, could understand the magnitude of cupping that fear in the palm of his hand while reaching out to him with the other. And now Martin understood it, too.

“Hey alright, I’ve got you. Steady on Jon, we’re gonna get through this together. I’ll talk you through the steps, you just follow what I say, okay?” he instructed in his best 999 operator performance.

A beat of silence ensued, followed by a much more robust and emboldened, “Okay.”

“So, what you want to do first is get a glass.”

“A glass?”

“Yeah, like a water glass. And a stiff piece of paper or cardboard or something. If you’ve got a bit of post lying about, flyers and coupons and the like, those usually work well.”

There was a period of distant shuffling, clattering, and indecipherable muttering as Jon gathered his weapons, then sucked in an audible breath through his teeth.

“Alright I’ve got them, now what?” he asked, sounding a bit winded.

“Now you very carefully put the glass over the spider, then slide the paper under the glass so you trap it inside. Then you can take it out without touching it or worrying about it scuttling off on you and set it free wherever you think it’ll be happy!” Martin answered sweetly.

“Okay, okay. I think I can do that,” Jon chanted for steadiness, “I’m putting the phone down so I don’t louse it up, but d-don’t hang up, stay on with me, okay?”

“I’m not going anywhere, Jon. I promise. You’re okay.”

“O-Okay… Okay… Okay…!”

Martin listened as Jon’s voice grew distant, but somehow stronger, more like a war cry, with the soft pad of socked feet on tile, then a short stretch of silence, and then a chorus of oaths and yelping, rising to the crescendo of a door being messily flung open, shut, then opened and shut again. A drumbeat of returning feet rolled mutely close and melded into the scratchy rustle of the phone being picked back up.

“I’m back,” Jon announced.

“Is it done?”

“The deed is done… your little friend is enjoying some lovely pink dahlias out front as we speak.”

“I’m pleased for her! And… for you, too,” Martin said, voice melting into lilting tenderness, “I’m honestly really proud of you, I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

“I… Ah… No, it wasn’t. Thank you, Martin,” came the sheepishly measured rejoinder.

“You’re very welcome.”

Martin smiled privately to himself, and ran a loving thumb down the edge of his phone once more.

“So then may I rightly assume I have permission to come in an hour or so late today so I can go back to sleep?” he continued, already knowing the answer as he flopped back down on his pillows and rolled up into the covers.

He was relieved to hear a husky chuckle rumble through the phone.

“Yes, yes. I think you’ve more than earned it.”

“Brilliant, see you in a bit then? And for lunch?” he added hopefully.

The brief silence as Jon calculated his response hung thick and palpable in the digital airwaves.

“Lunch sounds good,” he replied at length, “See you then.”

“G-Great! Great! See you!”

Their phones clicked mutually off without the awkward jumble of sign-offs, pleasantries, and accidentally stumbling over each other’s words. Martin thought glimmeringly of the spider hunting free in plush pink petals, none the wiser, and of Jon, with new and irrefutable proof that not everything ugly or quietly cunning in the world lurked behind to cast its shadow over him. A spider could be just a spider, and Martin back asleep with both hands still clutching his phone to his chest, dreaming of singing Waterloo again, but this time to a rapt audience and thunderous applause.

#The Magnus Archives #TMA #JonMartin #Jmart #jonathan sims #Martin Blackwood #Spiders #Crow Writes #Ask Drabble #distortingbones #Suddenlyapples

38 notes · View notes

ectogeo-art · 3 years

Note

omg i want to hear about romulan embassy siskarak

WIP ask meme

Omg, yes, thank you for asking, I’m so excited about this one!!!! :D The fic idea appeared to me fully formed as soon as I saw this post by @the-last-dillards about how in a scene cut from “The Wire”, Sisko mentions that he and Curzon were at an embassy on Romulus when Sisko was about Julian's age, and dillards speculated that it would be funny if Sisko and Curzon happened to be there at the same time as Garak was on Romulus posing as a gardener. Most everyone else who saw that post was like "lmao Curzon/Garak <3" and while that is extremely funny too, the Sisko/Garak implications are soooo much more interesting to me personally.

I think Sisko would be an interesting parallel-but-not-quite to Julian. I feel like young Sisko would be similarly bright and passionate and idealistic, which we KNOW is a type Garak is attracted to, but unlike Julian, Sisko would NOT put up with Garak’s bullshit mindgames, he would NOT find Garak inherently charming.

And then there’s Garak, still young, on top of his game, feeling confident and powerful and indestructible (but ultimately just Tain’s pawn... he’s been indoctrinated to love Cardassia unconditionally and hasn’t really had that challenged in any way yet).

They would both find each other extremely grating. Sisko embodies everything Garak hates about the Federation, so Garak would want to take him down a peg, make him sink to Garak’s level. Sisko would be infuriated by Garak’s duplicitous and condescending nature, but maybe Garak also keeps saying things that are juuuust provocative enough that Sisko can’t seem to help arguing back against his points (and Sisko really doesn’t get how that’s somehow turning both of them on...).

So that’s the gist why I’m obsessed with the potential for this pairing during pre-canon in general. Now onto the fic itself! Juuuust in case I never get around to actually writing this, here’s my detailed plan for the romulan embassy siskarak fic:

Sisko and Curzon are on assignment at the Federation embassy on Romulus. The Federation embassy is holding an open house next week. Sisko offers to help cook the food for the event, because he has an idea to incorporate ingredients from other cultures into his jambalaya recipe to Symbolize how cultural exchange can lead to amazing new technological advances and/or art and/or political alliances (or idk, whatever overwrought metaphor an excited young Sisko decides is galaxy brain levels of diplomacy). Curzon's just like “hell yeah, sounds great, kid! go for it!”

So Ensign Sisko (or whatever his rank is at that point idk) asks around at the other embassies nearby for ingredients native to their homeworlds. They give him some recommendations, but he’d have to replicate or import the ingredients. But then he gets to the Cardassian embassy and they have this beeeeautiful garden, overflowing with native Cardassian produce. Sisko asks the gardener there (Garak) if he can possibly use some of the vegetables for his jambalaya of interplanetary diplomacy.

Garak is instantly annoyed by how performative and insipid Sisko’s project is... but Garak knows he has to play nice and hand over the vegetables. He also knows how much he doesn't want sisko rendering these vegetables he's been diligently tending into tasteless inedible garbage that an unrefined Federation or Romulan palate couldn’t possibly even appreciate... So he smiles politely, and offers to show him the proper way to cook it. Tonight. In Sisko’s quarters.

Garak internally justifies this unnecessary dinner date by deciding that it will be a good opportunity to scope out the inside of the Federation embassy. And so what if he’s also getting a little riled up thinking about all the delicious arguments he might have with this headstrong and attractive Starfleet officer? So what if he kind of wants to figure out what he has to say in order break Sisko’s composure? What he can say that would make Sisko, despite his self-satisfied demeanor of peace and acceptance and understanding, angrily slam Garak into the wall hard enough to trigger the pleasurable rush of the implant...?

Meanwhile back in sisko POV... Sisko gladly accepts, actually quite eager to learn more about cooking, and a little curious about this strange Cardassian gardener who seems a little bit interested in him. (He’s not annoyed by Garak yet, because all he’s seen is his mask, his poker face.) Curzon’s taught Sisko everything about diplomacy and how to be a Starfleet officer and how to be a person, and sisko looks up to him in a bit of an unhealthy way. Sisko knows that the easiest way to impress Curzon is to score with an alien. Sisko’s maybe a little curious to see if that’s what Garak is interested in, so that Sisko will have something to brag about with Curzon.

[sidenote: idk where Jennifer is in this timeline (but also the canon timeline of when Curzon and Sisko were off on adventures that included banging twin alien chicks and getting falling-down-drunk together seems inconsistent with the canon timeline of when Sisko and Jennifer met lolll)... anyway, maybe bennifer are on a break bc of the long-distance while he’s on Romulus, and/or bc she maybe doesn’t particularly like the influence Curzon has had on him and they very recently got in a fight about it.]

Okay, so now it’s that night in Sisko’s quarters. For now let’s just gloss right over the (presumably horny as hell) scene about the chopping and stewing and seasoning of the vegetables—during which the arguments (and resulting tensions) between them build and build, from little things like vegetable chopping techniques to the fundamental paradigms of their worldviews and senses of morality—and let’s fast forward directly into the middle of their fight about whether the federation sucks more than the cardassian empire: Garak out of nowhere just starts undoing his shirt while saying something inflammatory questioning the federation’s true commitment to cultural exchange... Garak basically implies that Sisko is a hypocrite who has been arguing for ideals he doesn’t believe in if he doesn’t want to bang Garak RIGHT NOW...

And then they bang, And it’s a mess, and they HATE each other, and it’s really hot. Or at least, that’s the idea. ( @delicatetrashstranger volunteered to help write the E-rated part, for which I am very grateful, lol.) In the end, the weird space jambalaya burns while they are going at it, and everything is ruined and smells terrible, and Sisko doesn’t even WANT to brag about this one to Curzon, because he is not proud of how he let Garak get under his skin. Garak maybe experiences A Consequence of some kind that makes him realize he can’t recklessly throw himself at Federation hotties (like... maybe something Sisko says makes him question a Truth he was certain of, or maybe this fling has jeopardized his assassination plans somehow, or maybe there is a close call where he almost reveals something personal about himself, or almost accidentally leaves behind his underwear, which is where he keeps some of his sci fi Spy Gadgets, lol idk).

The end!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this summary of my fic... I hope I actually write it one day XD (If anyone feels inspired by any aspect of this and wants to run with it, PLEASE DO! Also, if, like me, you desperately Need this fic to exist, feel free to let me know that you’re excited about it! My brain is all garashir all the time, so any WIP that’s not garashir sometimes needs to be helped along by external motivation lol.)

#siskarak #my fic #wip ask meme #ask game

38 notes · View notes

the-music-maniac · 4 years

Text

I got sucked back into Ever After High, so hoo boy get ready for a long ass analysis about a ship

Did I mean to get sucked into Rapple? Uh, no. Fuck no. I usually make it a point not to sell my entire soul to small fandoms because the inevitable lack of fics will just break my heart. But here we are.

I'm low key distressingly neutral about the canon/popular ships for Ever After High. Namely Dexter x Raven and Apple x Darling. I have absolutely nothing against them, cause they’re both really adorable. I don’t know if appling is canon actually but it is strongly hinted at, and while I’m ecstatic that there’s some form of lgbt rep (however small), and that Dexter isn’t sadboi anymore cause he’s with Raven, I’ve always just liked Apple x Raven way more.

I guess I’m posting this cause I want to analyze why I like Rapple specifically? This isn’t meant to attack either of these ships or shippers in any way btw! This is just my personal opinion, I just felt the need to mention dexter x raven and apple x darling cause they are (for the most part) canon. :))

Tbh i really didn't mean to make such a gigantic analysis about this, but I got carried away lmao.

1. Rapple has a lot of narrative tension and weight:

I feel like rapple has more narrative weight as a ship then most I’ve seen in the Ever After High fandom. These two characters are undeniably the focal point of the story, and while all characters in the show have backstories and well developed characterizations, Raven and Apple are the "leaders" and the main main characters.

Raven with Apple could make for a really a complex and interesting storyline. After all, Ever After High is ALL about breaking free of your pre-determined destiny, it would be the perfect twist in the story for Apple to fall for Raven and vice versa. There's so much more to write with that kind of turn in the story; the growth of a relationship, character development, the backlash they might recieve from a hero and villain together, fighting what everyone else tells them they should be. Honestly if we're gonna go there, it kind of mirrors what lgbt people have to go through on the daily. In my eyes, appling and dexter x raven (I'm sorrryyy I don't know the proper ship name) pales a bit in comparison, just in the amount of weight they carry (not that it HAS to have narrative weight to be a good cute ship of course).

Darling for Apple is also unconventional and a plot twist, cause it no longer follows the stereotypical hetero-normative fairy-tale, and I absolutely ADORE Darling as a character, but in the end she is still a Charming. Apple is still pre-destined to fall for a Charming, she's still following what her destiny tells her she should be, and while that's good on one hand, cause Apple wants to follow her destiny, I feel like when she pulled Raven back from the brink in Wonderland, she realized that destiny is not so set in concrete and what matters more is the people behind those destinies. I think Rapple would really drive in that point; destiny or no destiny that’s not what matters. So while appling does have some narrative tension as well, it doesn’t make me gleefully go “oh my god FUCK, you wonderful DISASTERS, now you’ve gone and done it. Now you've fucking stepped in it. AMAZING.”, y’know? Dexter and Raven is the exact opposite. Destiny-wise it's pretty unique and frowned upon, but again, heterosexual romance (not that I expect all the characters to be lgbt, that's not what I'm saying) so it also doesn't hold as much weight as Rapple. I'm greedy ok? I want both. I want aspects of both. Maybe I'm just a shit-stirrer though lmao, maybe I just need a ship that fucking destroys all expectations and fucks shit up in the process XDD. It's possible *shrugs*

2. The amount of growth they go through together.

So it's pretty undeniable that Apple at the beginning is....um. Selfish, if we're gonna go with mild language. Kind of a bitch if we're gonna go with stronger language. She doesn't give a shit that Raven will have a horrible life if she follows her destiny, all she cares about is her part of the story and her happy ending. But the thing is, Apple doesn't stay like that. She becomes Raven's roommate and friend, and when it really came down to it, during the Wonderland part of the story, even though Apple is the one who gives Raven the book, she doesn't push and shows her support in thinking that Raven is too good to become the evil queen. And then when Raven was almost lost, Apple is the one who pulled her back and told her to choose who she wants to be. She let go of her need for Raven to be evil and saw her as her own person; someone she cares about deeply. Raven on the other hand starts off unsure and kind of insecure. She was still figuring herself out, and trying to resist what everyone is trying to tell her; that she has to be evil. I feel like through her personal growth and Apple's influence she starts to be more settled, confident. And Apple's support before and after she signed her storybook in wonderland definitely helped. This mutual growth actually brings me to my next point:

3. Rapple has a very strong basis for a relationship

So there's a definite reason why I love the concept of enemies to friends to lovers SO MUCH, and despite what people say, no it's not just because of UST (i mean that's a bonus but far from the only reason). What I care about is again, the mutual GROWTH.

What enemies to lovers does (healthy enemies to lovers btw, rivalries and stuff, not abusive shit) is force the two people to confront the worst parts of each other first and foremost. Meeting someone for the purpose of dating/because you like them means you'll put up a fake, mellower version of yourself to impress them, but there's none of that if you start off hating each other. Clashing is also often because of some underlying issue or sometimes because of a weakness in character; there's numerous reasons, pettiness, unhappiness, jealousy, anger, but it's never because everything is perfect. This means that, in order for these two characters who dislike each other to end up together in any capacity, they have to grow as people first, become better versions of themselves, and in the process they help each other achieve that. They also have to learn each other and let go of whatever was nagging them and compromise. It takes work and I love that, so much more than just a kiss to fall in love, or love at first sight or any of that fairytale stuff. Because that’s exactly it, relationships take work. It takes people repeatedly choosing to stay and work things out, and compromising, and that’s, in pure essence, exactly what you’re doing in enemies to lovers. Not only that, but it means they willingly choose the other person despite their setbacks, because god knows they're not the easiest option, means they see the worst in each other and want each other anyways.

Raven and Apple already have that set up in Ever After High, the only difference is, canonically, they're only friends (which honestly is just as good, not everything needs to be romance but this is a shipping analysis, so, I’m gonna stay on brand here). They disagree with each other, and they annoy each other, and they fight sometimes and they're still best friends despite it all. They really truly know each other, and that I feel like is such a strong basis for a relationship. Other than Maddie, I don't think Raven truly is as close to anyone else as she is to Apple, and the same goes in reverse. They even live together. *leans forward creepily* oh my god they were roommates.

I don't know, I just feel like, with other Raven and Apple ships, there's always a hint of potential for a relationship that the show and books never really explored or developed extensively, while Rapple already has these solid af steel foundations that could be built on and made into something amazing.

4. We know the most about Apple and Raven respectively

This is a rather minor detail, and more about me personally, but I'm the kind of person that has to really know a lot about characters in order to ship them. I also have to like both characters but I feel like that's kind of a given for shipping. If I know very little about the characters involved I lose interest. I know the most about Raven and Apple, we follow them closely throughout the series, and in the books, we see things from their viewpoints. In contrast, I just don't know as much about Darling or about Dexter.

5. I just find them cute as shit tbh

This is pretty self explanatory, they're just plain adorable. Something about them makes my heart go squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Oof this turned out WAYYY longer than I intended it to be, but anyways, stan rapple- or don’t y’know, stan appling or dexter x raven, or whatever other ships, stan ALL the other ships, ship anything and everything you want, be happy. I’ve been writing this ever since I finished my physio midterm and got this analysis idea that wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone so now my eyeballs feel like they’re about to fall out of my head, I’m gonna go pass out now, peace.

163 notes · View notes

percywinchester27 · 4 years

Text

A lot like ‘Us’

Word count: 3.8K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Warnings: Fluff

Series Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is eager and honestly, still in awe that she managed to get herself an acceptance from Stanford Law School. On the face of it, her life seems as put together, mysterious and independent as one might hope for. On the insides, she carries the burden of past that haunts her till date. Seemingly, she’d left it all behind; that is until she sets foot in the class of the Law School’s youngest, most promising professor.

Warnings: None for this chapter

A/N: I am so excited to share this story. I am really loving it <3 This is also written for @sdavid09 ‘s Tale Teller’s 2020 Bingo Challenge.

Beta: My amazing girls @deanssweetheart23 and @anathewierdo Thank you!! I love you both <3

Finally the last of the boxes had been pushed up the five stories of stairs and into your living room. The guy from the movers quickly accepted the payment and disappeared before you could even utter “thanks.” You didn’t blame him. Anyone would be over eager to leave after hauling boxes up the stairs given that the lift randomly stopped working.

You were just relieved that none of his men got stuck inside. That would have been awful. He complained about the sort of shitshows the rental buildings in the locality were, but all things considered, he had been pretty nice about the untimely disaster.

You closed the door behind and slid to the floor, glad that you didn’t have to smile for strangers anymore.

The lift might have been a shitshow, but the flat you were renting was really nice. It had two bedrooms, a living room and a small kitchenette. The flat had only one bathroom, but the grand balcony on the other side of the living room all but made up for it. You got off the floor and made your way towards the balcony. It overlooked a small meadow of sorts, and the entry wall beyond it was high and covered with thick vines. Right in the middle, was a small fountain in the shape of a mermaid, carved out of what must have been once pristine white marble. The mermaid had a mysterious look on her face, like she knew your secret, and was contemplating if it would fetch a good gossip. In her hand, she held a beautifully carved flask, from which the water fell into the basin below.

It was like being in your own space, enclosed in this beautiful Caribbean meadow. That was until a voice called your attention.

“Hey!”

You looked sideways to find an Asian guy who couldn’t have been more than 20 waving at buy. You waved back awkwardly.

“So, I see you’ve met judgy Judy!”

“Who?”

He tilted his head towards the mermaid. “That’s judgy Judy.” he said, smiling. “If you happen to walk past her after 12 in the night, you are bestowed upon the judgiest of looks. And if you’re drunk…” he let out his breath in whoosh.

You laughed, then were surprised at the sound of it. You didn’t laugh this easily.

“My name’s Kevin,” the boy said. “Kevin Tran. Aren’t you the new girl renting 502? Meg?”

You shook your head. “I’m Y/N, actually. Meg won’t be here until Wednesday.”

You knew nothing about your roommate except that she loved her privacy. That was her only demand in the advert. That she was looking for someone who knew of basic hygiene and didn’t poke their nose in her business. You couldn’t argue with that.

He smiled, “So what brings you here, Y/N?”

Before you could answer, Kevin put out his hands excitedly. “Wait! let me guess. You’re a pastry chef, looking to start your own little bakery in this quaint little town.”

You rolled your eyes. That was about as far as he could get from why you were here.

He caught on. “No… no… you’re an artist? Looking for inspiration?”

You pursed your lips, trying not to smile. “I’m actually starting the year at the Law school.”

Kevin whistled. “Law school, huh?” Then added, “Hey, what do I know? I’m just an engineer!”

You sized him up. He looked too young to be a professional.

He raised his hands up, “I know, I know what you’re thinking,” he said and you instantly felt guilty about judging anyone by their looks. Judgy Judy would be proud.

“You’re thinking why would I live out of the city,” he said and you breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s ‘cause San Francisco is boring. Besides, I get to work from home a lot, and it’s an hours drive anyway.”

“Seems fair,” you said. He didn’t ask you why you weren’t staying in the official campus dorms. Maybe he had already done the mental math and figured out that the Law building was less than a ten minute walk from here. Besides, most of Stanford was a student town anyway. This building was closer to the college than even the Faculty residence.

“Hey, Y/N,” Kevin said genially, “Why don’t you join us for dinner? It’s just me and my roommate Jack. We can order some pizza and pop some beers. It’ll be cool. That way you don’t have to worry about cooking in the middle of all that unpacking.”

It was starting to get chilly outside, and you wrapped your arms around yourself, “I’m not much a drinker.”

“That’s fine,” he said, unfazed. “We have soda, if you want.”

You hesitated, “Thanks, Kevin, really. Maybe some other time.”

You waved at his somewhat confused face and stepped inside, closing the glass doors of the balcony behind you.

If Kevin thought you were weird, he’d get used to it like everyone in your life. He would get used to not talking, stealing glances and the fact that you weren’t exactly the sort of person people wanted around in fun times. He’d learn to ignore you like everyone else.

Most of the weekend was spent trying to put your room together. There really wasn’t much to your belongings except books and some clothes, which you arranged as neatly as you could. If the blaring music on your speakers disturbed Kevin and his roommate, neither of them complained.

On Monday, you attended orientation lectures by a few alumni and the Dean. It all seemed like a dream to you. On Tuesday, they had a pre-law show you around in groups, the grand campus that was Stanford University. By the end, you were biased about the Law building being the best, maybe because you had dreamt of being here day and night for as long as you could remember. The Law school wasn’t a grand facade. It was functional and built in a pale beige sandstone which had weathered wonderfully over the years. The corridors were breezy and opened on to landscaped spill out spaces … and the building itself seemed to breathe through the tactfully placed fenestrations.

The pre-law showing your group around the campus talked and talked and talked, while you followed her dumbfounded at the expanse of it all. One day, you’d get used to this, you knew that… but that day was nowhere near close. In fact, it had barely even registered that you had done it! That you had actually been accepted into Stanford and that you were going to be a lawyer!

Stanford had twenty libraries. Twenty. The place that you absolutely fell in love with was the Cecil H. Green library. The high, vaulted ceiling made you feel like you had stepped right into the Victorian era. The rows and rows of shelves absolutely boggled your mind. You could live here and it still wouldn’t be enough.

You touched the richly colored mahogany table in the library and unwillingly, like it was the most inevitable thing in the world, you thought of him. The look in his eyes when he talked about this very place. “Y/N,” he’d say “You’re gonna fall in love with the smell of those books!”

You immediately yanked your hand from the table, as if a current had passed through your body. The girl next to you, looked over. “Everything alright?” she asked kindly.

You nodded and moved away from the piece of furniture. You couldn’t think about him now, not here. So, you took a couple of deep breaths and closed your eyes, focussing on the things around you, the long shelves, the smooth tables. And it eased some, you could feel your chest constrict a little.

Meanwhile, the guide talked on.

“Water?” The girl next to you offered as you all stepped out of the library. You needed it, but that meant talking to her, and you weren’t sure you were up for that.

“C’mon, take it,” she insisted, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You took the bottle and splashed some water on your face, then took two gulps, feeling better immediately. The water tasted funny, but in a refreshing way.

You looked at what was inside.

The girl laughed. “It’s cucumber water,” she said. “I figured we’d be doing a lot of walking today and this is a saviour.”

“Thanks,” you said, actually looking at her properly. She had a slim build, with dark brown hair and eyes. Despite knowing that they would be walking a lot, she was dressed in a black pencil skirt and a flowy baby blue blouse, with matching heels. She was carrying all that effortlessly without breaking a sweat, while you were wearing your most worn pair of comfortable jeans, a sweater and sneakers. You did notice that she looked really pretty and when she smiled, it reached her eyes.

“Better?” She asked

“Much. Thank you.”

She put her hand forward. “I’m Madison. Madison Maxwell.”

“Y/N Y/L/N.” You shook her hand.

The others had already gone ahead while she had waited for you to catch your breath and drink water. You started walking together.

“So, excited for the classes to begin?” She asked peppily and you nodded.

You figured that Madison was the sort to fill every silence with words. After a while, she was going to be really disappointed in you for your lack of responses or initiating a conversation.

As you walked, Madison told you everything that she could about herself in the span of the couple minutes it took you to reach the rest of the group. She was born and brought up in Pasadena, to a lawyer dad and a socialite mom. “I feel like my mom was born as a socialite! Her first words were probably, ‘well, hullo, Dahling!”

You laughed, and encouraged by your reaction she continued. She was a pre-grad in sociology from USC, where she was voted the most likely to charm people with her smile (seemed fair). She had two older brothers both lawyers in their Dad’s bigass firm, and they lived in this huge house overlooking a hugeass swimming pool. Her words, not yours.

The fact she was rich was pretty much in your face, from the gucci bottle filled with cucumber water to the Prada shoes, but it wasn’t because she was pushing it… she was just used to it.

“What about you?” She asked as you reached the group. “Where are you from?”

“Kansas,” you said.

“And?” She coaxed good naturedly.

“And I did my pre-law from University in Texas.”

“That’s nice. What about your parents?”

You looked down. “They died in a car crash when I was little.”

“Oh no!” Madison gasped. She looked like she was about to tear up.

“It’s okay,” you said quickly, offering her a smile. “I’ve made my peace with it.” It was true. You’d had twenty odd years to adjust to it. It was a way of life now.

Madison still gave you an apologetic smile, but thankfully, for the rest of the tour she didn’t talk much. It wasn’t that Madison wasn’t charming, but everyone charming usually expected the same from you… and you weren’t. Why pitch her up for disappointment?

“So, see you tomorrow, Y/N?” She asked, tentatively.

Poor girl, you thought. “See you,” you said. “It was nice meeting you, Madison.”

“Likewise,” she said brightly.

You watched her walk over to another group of girls, all dressed fancily,who squealed when they saw Madison. You shook your head, smiling to yourself that Madison had found some kindred spirits.

It didn’t explain why she had been so nice to you all day though. If she already had friends, she didn’t have to care about you, right?

It took you a while to figure out which was your exit. Roaming around in the campus as it was dark, was anxiety inducing. Yet, a voice in the back of your head kept telling you how the Oval was at the centre of the campus, and the Law building was just to the south east. You didn’t want to hear the voice, hell you didn’t even want to think about whom the voice belonged to, but slowly and surely it guided you back to the gate closest to your flat. Once you reached it, you made a run for it, not stopping till you were inside the tall building gate and into the meadow. You ran into Kevin.

“Y/N!” He said, “I didn’t see you there.” Next to him was another boy, dirty blonde hair and a smiling face. “This is Jack. Remember, I told you about him?”

Jack took one look at you and concern rippled across his face, “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just tired,” you whispered.

Before any of them could say another word, you dashed up the stairs.

“The lift is working again!” Kevin called after you, but you bolted into your room without halting. Once you were inside, you locked the door behind and you rolled into a ball on your unmade bed, finally letting the tears make their way.

You knew this was coming, you knew it the moment you set foot in this town that it would remind you of him… the way he smiled, the way he ran his hand through his hair when he was nervous… the way you loved him. Over the years you had trained yourself to snap out of it whenever your thoughts even inched towards him. You could shut it off and just stop thinking. It had taken years and years of practice, but finally you could lock him in the darkest part of your mind and not look at it. Not feel anything for him. In return, you barely felt anything at all. About anything, about anyone.

In the long run, you preferred that bargain, though. The numbness.

And after spending so much time in it, the numbness felt homely. It cushioned you against the pain and the memories. So what if it cushioned you against feeling anything at all, too? At least this way you were functional. You could get through the day and be productive. Besides, who did you have to live for except yourself, anyway? So it was okay to just survive. To just feel enough for you to feel human. At one point even that had felt like an impossible feat.

You tried not to remember the days and nights wishing for the endless pain to end, wishing to just give up on everything, on life. At least now you didn’t feel that way. You had re-learned to aspire, to work hard. You didn’t feel hopeful anymore, but you had a goal set in mind and you were willing to work as hard as you could to fulfill it.

Most of the time, you managed to block out all unwanted noise in your head and outside, and just concentrate on surviving. It will have to suffice till one day you could actually start living.

But once in a while the box cracked, like today, and all the memories came spinning out. In the library, somehow Madison’s prattling had kept you from spiralling. Now, there was no one to help. The thoughts simply overwhelmed you and you shut your ears, rolling into a smaller ball, as flashes of light from that night flared behind your closed eyes, the rain pouring down on you and all the blood. The thing you remembered most clearly was the cold. The skin-numbing, bone chilling cold as the water soaked through you.

You woke up to the blaring alarm. It was 7:15 in the morning.

“Shit!”

You jumped out of bed and then immediately slipped, landing on the floor with the thud. You cursed again as you got to your feet and rushed into the bathroom. Not only had you overslept, but last night you hadn’t even gone through your schedule of classes and lectures. The plan had been to wake up at 6, and go through the schedule once more, which you should have had studied last night, wear the perfect first day clothes that you should have picked out last night, and reach early to the classroom which you should have already figured out before 8 in the morning.

At 8 in the morning, however, you were still trying to shimmy yourself into the only formal skirt you owned. You quickly threw on the first decent shirt that you could find and tied your hair in a ponytail, then made your way out of the apartment without breakfast. Your bag was threatening to spill out the laptop and notebook you carried as you all but ran across the street to get to the campus.

By some extreme luck, you remembered the building perfectly. With a quick look through the schedule and the help of a very offended senior, you finally made your way to the class, completely out of breath by 8:20. Even though your hair was falling out of the ponytail, you were covered in sweat and your shoes were permanently damaged, you were miraculously ten minutes early.

The classroom was huge and circular. It was stepped upwards, with desks curving around to focus downwards on the podium at centre, right underneath the big projecting screen mounted on the opposite wall. If you had entered the normal way, you would have probably entered through one of the two doors at the top of the class, but with your luck, you had obviously entered through the one door at the bottom, presumably which the faculty used. This way you had to climb up all the way to an empty spot with over a hundred people staring down at you in your hassled state.

“Smooth,” a blonde guy from the third row muttered as you began climbing.

“Y/N! Hey, Y/N,” a voice called. “Over here!”

You saw Madison waving at you from the corner seat on one of the top rows. A few people were looking at where the commotion was coming from. To avoid more of it, you hurried towards her.

“Saved you a seat!” she said, moving her books from the seat next to her, to make space.

“Thank you,” you said gratefully. The three girls seated on the other side of her, gave you a curious look. The sort that is given to old cheese, wondering if it has gone stale.

“Girls,” Madison said, “This is Y/N. Y/N, these are Lacey, Meredith and Rebecca.” In your harrowed state, you only remembered that the brunette with long hair was Lacey.

“Aren’t you excited?” Madison asked, smelling like she had stepped straight out of a beautiful orchard, while you were sweating bullets.

“Mhmm,” you said. Madison went on to talk about how excited she was for this particular lecture, while you hurriedly set out your laptop, and readied your papers.

“He’s just so dreamy and hot,” Madison gushed and the other girls nodded in agreement. “I can’t believe we have him for the first lecture.”

“How are we supposed to concentrate?” One of the girls wailed.

Like that was really a problem.

“Civil Procedure,” you read from the time table, quickly going through the syllabus, not even looking at the professor’s name the girls were raving about. In your experience, the content mattered, not who was teaching it.

There was a sudden ruffling, and everyone quieted at once.

“Sorry, I’m a little late,” an apologetic voice said.

It was 8:32, you thought absentmindedly, as you looked up from the papers, that was hardly late. That voice felt like long forgotten music.

The professor was facing the board, printing “Civil Procedure.”

When he turned, the floor dropped from under your feet.

He wore a light grey suit, with a striped tie and a white button up shirt, and stood tall against the black board. His soft brown hair was long and silky, curling slightly at his collar, and even though from this far you couldn’t see the colour, his hazel eyes were warm and slightly abashed.

“My name’s Sam Winchester,” he said, the words each felt like a separate stab to your gut. “I'll be taking the Civil Procedure Module for this semester and the next. And, I’m usually never late… especially in the courtroom.”

Some laughter ran around the room. He gave it a minute acknowledging it with a smile, then opened his laptop, and a tech hurried over to set it up.

“While Paul here is helping me with the wires, let me introduce myself more fully,” he said, leaning against the table. “I did my pre-law from right here at Stanford, so I’m still your senior. You all better be respectful.” More laughter rang around. “Then, I went to Yale for law school. I’ve practiced in New York for two years before moving to California, and practicing in LA for a few more. I currently work as the Senior Associate at Acton Griswold in San Francisco. You guys heard of it?”

“Is he kidding?” Lacey whispered. “Who hasn’t heard of Acton Griswold?”

“You’re even paying attention to what he’s saying?,” said the girl next to Lacey. “I can’t get over the way he looks. What is he? 30? Hot damn!”

“I have to impress him,” Madison muttered, though her voice had become softer. “I need that internship at Acton Griswold.”

On the podium Paul was done setting up the laptop, and Sam walked over to it opening the presentation. He pulled out frameless glasses from the box and slid them up his long pointed nose.

“Damn!” Lacey said again.

Your vision was tunneling in, and the room was spinning around you. Nothing made sense anymore. Not where you were, not what you were doing. Nothing mattered except the fact that he was standing there, right in front of you.

You could hear the rustling of papers, and the tap-tap of fingers hitting keys. while you just sat there numbly, not knowing what to do, not caring what was happening, or how long it had been.

“Y/N? Y/N?” Madison was calling your name. “Are you okay? You look really clammy.”

Maybe she had been calling you for a while because a few people ahead of you turned to look, visibly annoyed. and it was in slow motion, almost reluctantly, as if to seek the source of disturbance that Sam’s eyes found you.

A second passed and you could see them widen, then freeze in absolute shock. Unadulterated and profound shock.

“I’m sorry, I need to go,” You muttered, then grabbed your laptop and your bag and rushed out of the door at the top, without caring about the papers you had spilt… and bolted across the corridor, without a sense of direction till you found yourself in a toilet cubicle, locked and in hysterics.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not ever.

You had closed that chapter of your life, fled as far away as you could and yet, and yet he was right here. Sam was so close to you, how had your heart not known?

***************************************

A lot like ‘Us’ Masterlist

A/N 2: SO WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK? Are we off with a good start?

PLEASE PLEASE please let me know?

If you want be tagged, you can send me an ask or add yourself to the taglist here.

Or here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to know about updates.

ALLU taglist:

@feelmyroarrrr @gabavaldman @im-a-light-child @cosicas-cuquis @bllyjianne @hoboal87 @i-is-for-inspiring @daughterleftbehind @wackiekebab @mylovelydame21 @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba @superbadassnatural @bellastellaluna @babypink224221 @badlittlehabit99 @anathewierdo @sams-bubblegum-bitch

#sam winchester x reader #sam x reader fluff #reader x sam winchester fanfiction #sam winchester fanfic #sam winchester fluff #lawyer!Sam #professor!Sam #Ana writes allu #anawrites #anawritesspn #q

184 notes · View notes

nazghoulz · 4 years

Text

The Definitive Ranking of Richard Armitage’s Acting Roles, Rated Exclusively by How Hot I Find Him In Screengrabs

Richard Armitage. As a diehard Thorin Oakenshield fan I certainly have a complicated relationship with him, mainly because I can never decide if I find him inherently hot or not. On the one hand, I’m a hardcore Thorinfucker. On the other hand my gay ass sees a headshot of Mr. Armitage and I’m just like, “Oh, no thank you.” So in order to set myself to rights, I have gone through Mr. Armitage’s IMDB and done a definitive ranking of all his 44 screen roles on there, based completely and arbitrarily on how hot I find him in screenshots. (Thank you to all the hardcore Armitage Fuckers who keep wordpress blogs with screengrabs of his various cameos and bit parts; my respect for you cannot be put into words.) I haven’t seen like 90% of these properties, and I didn’t bother to research them, so these are mainly just gut first impressions. I hope this helps anyone else out there who as confused by him as I am. Enjoy ?

44. Father Quart in The Seville Communion/The Man From Rome (2020) — ??/10

I don’t think this movie is out yet? Idk I haven’t been able to find any stills of him, let alone much information about the movie itself. It’s listed on his IMDB though! And apparently he’s playing a priest...which could be extremely 👁️👁️ if done correctly.

43. Unnamed Naboo Fighter Pilot in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) — 1/10

OH SWEETIE NO!!!!! This physically pains me to say this, because I unironically love this terrible movie with my whole heart, but unlike a yung Kiera Knightley’s role (pictured front and center) as Padmé’s loyal body double Sabé, this is probably a cameo that we would all like to forget about. The only thing Richard has to offer is this unfortunate turtle-faced realness. This helmet does him no favors.

42. Man in Pub in Boon (1992) — 2/10

As far as I know this is Richard’s first acting credit on IMDB, and he for sure is working the background extra energy. Go on girl give us nothing! He does have a decent backside though, and it’s better than looking at unfortunate turtle face, so I give this one a 2.

41. Paul Andrews in Between the Sheets (2003) — 2/10

I can’t really articulate why, but I absolutely despise every screenshot I see of Richard Armitage in this role. He is completely unhot, and not even in a way I can laugh at. He takes no advantage of his assets, he has no charisma, no magnetism, no nothing. This is Richard Armitage at his most white bread rando, in a way that makes me actively dislike him. Pbbbbttth. Bad. Throw this whole thing away.

40. Craig Parker in Casualty (2001) — 2/10

I don’t know, it’s like the perfect storm of the gelled 2001 hair, the terrible quarter? eighth? zip sweater, and overall, er, skeezy vibes that he gives off that makes him particularly unhot in this role. Perhaps not as reprehensible as Unhot Paul, but still. I think the sheer boringness of this has to count for something. Blech.

39. Dr. Tom Steele in Doctors (2001) — 2.5/10

He honestly looks like a villain in an early season of Alias, which... well. Quentin Tarantino was cast as a bit-part villain in Alias season one, so take that as you will. But at least he’s compelling here, which is why he gets half a point over Unhot Paul.

38. Steven in Frozen (2005) — 3/10

Get some rest, tall child! You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends! Also short haircuts do nothing for you, Richard. Styled like this, they just serve to make you look sort of like a sleaze.

37. Peter Macduff in ShakespeaRe-Told (2005) — 3/10

He honestly looks like he could be a guest star in Friends in this one, where he’s a guy named Jason who Ross meets in Central Perk where they find they have a lot in common. Ross introduces Jason to Monica and they really hit it off, but it all comes crashing down because while Jason is sensitive and writes poetry, he also thinks that the Earth is flat. The rest of the episode is trying to get rid of Jason while he becomes increasingly obsessed with Monica, and Ross cannot quite let go trying to prove to Jason that the world is round. Anyway. Macduff Flat Earth Jason isn’t quite as unhot as Unhot Paul, but he’s pretty much on the same level as Tired Steven.

36. Phillip Durrant in Marple (2007) — 3/10

Something about him in this image really makes me want to punch him in the face. It’s huge Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3 energy.

35. Young Claude Monet in The Impressionists (2006) — 3.5/10

I’M LOSING MY FUCKING MIND THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO MIND IS !!! CARNIVAL BARKER !!!!! STEP RIGHT UP TO SEE THE WORST GOATEE IN HISTORY !!! I was actually going to give Yung Claude a 2 but the more I look at this terrible beard the more impressed I am with the boldness of this look, so I had to bump it up to 3.5. Idk. Just look at this. It’s incredible, especially knowing what kind of beard Armitage can grow himself !!!!!!!!

34. Heinz Kruger in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) — 3.5/10

This is definitely the best looking he’s been so far in this list, but he’s a Nazi in this one, which makes him unsexy on principle. But do I feel a little something when he gets pinned to the ground by jacked Chris Evans with the above look on his face right before he swallows his cyanide pill? Can neither confirm nor deny. They are also truly playing into his inherently sinister bone structure, so I can respect that.

33. Percy Courtney in Miss Marie Lloyd (2007) — 4/10

Even including Yung Claude and Nazi Heinz, I think Nothing Percy is probably the weakest of Richard’s period looks, mostly because he looks like, well, nothing. He certainly doesn’t pull off that top hat like he does in North and South, and the secret to that might be the lack of sideburns. In this one he just sort of reminds me of the asshole fiance in Titanic.

32. Philip Turner in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2005) — 4/10

He’s really giving off bargain bin Hugh Jackman as Wolverine vibes here, if Logan’s energy was more “murderer in a Hallmark channel mystery” than “superhero.” Though, given what sort of show this is, that may be the point! Idk, this isn’t the worst. At least he has a decent haircut in this one. Still, I feel absolutely nothing when I look at him. He’s simply royalty-free stock music given human form.

31. Dr. Alec Track in The Golden Hour (2005) — 4.5/10

I could see how this conceivably be sexy in this role, but to be honest, he’s still nothing to me, sorry. He gets some extra points because he obviously worked out for this role and the hard nips through a white undershirt is a commendable look. I whole-heartedly respect Doctor Alec’s thottitude.

30. Daryl in Staged (1999) — 4.5/10

Speaking of thottitude!!!!! This is one cream-faced business boy that I can certainly get into! He looks like the love interest in a pre-Hayes code homoerotic thriller from the early 1930s. I’m sure that’s just because of the lighting and general staging of this production, but hm... demure. Love it.

29. Capt. Ian Macalwain in Ultimate Force (2003) — 4.5/10

Well, he looks like a character from M*A*S*H but with no charisma, or like an extra in The Great Escape who snitches on Steve McQueen to the Nazis. Also in half the pictures I find of him from this he’s wearing this terrible beret, which I know he can pull off because of a role that ranks much higher on this list. Whoever styles this man really needs to pay attention to what sort of headgear they put on him.

28. Epiphanes in Cleopatra (1999) — 5/10

Speaking of headgear, you know what?? He doesn’t look awful here. A solid 5, perfectly acceptable. I think the helmet does a lot to accentuate the sharpness of his face in this extremely bit part, though the eyeliner definitely also helps as well.

27. John Mulligan in Moving On (2009) — 5/10

Mr. Armitage’s characters can really have potential when a production’s stylist allows him to wear scruff (IN A WAY THAT LOOKS NATURAL, LOOKING AT YOU YUNG CLAUDE). However, as it is with John Mulligan in Moving On here, he just sort of looks like a rando? They’re not playing into the inherent angularity of his face, which for me makes it sort of confusing regarding what sort of emotion I’m supposed to feel while looking at him. As it is, I’m just like, “Yup, that sure is a regular human man, right there.”

26. Smug Man at Party in This Year’s Love (1999) — 5/10

This is the face of a man who less smug and is more DRUNK OUT OF HIS MIND !!!! Idk. He’s cute here, I’ll admit. That’s all I have to say about it.

25. John Standring in Sparkhouse (2002) — 5.5/10

I enjoy the bold choice of giving him wavy hair in this one, but I’m not sure he quite pulls it off. It doesn’t look bad, per se, just... he looks completely nonthreatening. Which I guess could be someone’s thing, but not mine. He honestly looks like a knock-off Will Graham, sans dogs and trauma.

24. Gary in Into the Storm (2014) — 5.5/10

I think the thing that really gets me is that this character’s name is Gary. Who on God’s green Earth looks at Richard Armitage and goes, “Ah yes, you do look like a Gary” ??? I don’t think I know of a single non-American Gary, especially since the name Gary only got popularized after Gary Cooper renamed himself after his hometown of Gary, Indiana!!!! It wasn’t really a name for human men before that!!!! I want to live in the alternate universe where Frank Cooper was originally from Albuquerque and named himself Albuquerque Cooper and this character is named as such. Gary. Really.

23. King Oleron in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) — 5.5/10

I truly hate how much his facial expressions in these stills remind me of Thorin, considering how bad he looks otherwise. Like his face his fine, I guess, especially since this is the first instance of his full beard. I’m charmed despite myself! Take me to wonderland, O King.

22. Adam Price in The Stranger (2020) — 5.5/10

For as compelling as people call this series, Richard here isn’t very much so imo. But despite my utter lack of interest, he doesn’t look bad per se. He just sort of has that stubbly white man blandness that colors a lot of his more recent roles. Like, at least his bad mid-2000′s styling had character. This is just the visual representation of a vague handwave.

21. Harry Kennedy in The Vicar of Dibley (2006) — 6/10

Gosh... floppy hair, cute sweaters... he also seems to be smiling a lot in this one, which is nice! The only thing I have to complain about is that he looks very much like if Bradley Cooper and Hugh Jackman circa Kate and Leopold had a baby, which may not necessarily be too much of a bad thing, but I can’t unsee it.

20. Sgt. John Porter in Strike Back (2010) — 6/10

Ah, back to poorly suited haircuts. At least he’s a little bit gritter and grimier than we’ve seen so far, and I will say Richard Armitage does look good covered in dirt, as we will see later on. Also he’s got biceps in this one, which, hell yeah.

19. Ricky Deeming in Inspector George Gently (2007) — 6/10

I’M HAVING THE HARDEST TIME RIGHT NOW RANKING THIS ONE BC OF THIS INCREDIBLE LITTLE WHITE SCARF-RIDING LEATHERS COMBO!!! WHICH ABSOLUTE GENIUS DECIDED THIS!!!! EVERY SCREENSHOT OF HIM IN HIS EPISODE HAS THIS!!! Part of me just wants to give Stylish Ricky a big fat 10 because I’m gay and adore the sheer audacity of this look, but I still have to be fair and rank his overall aura accordingly. I think he’s a handsome extremely gay-coded motorcycle lad in this one, but he doesn’t exactly rev my engine, so to speak.

18. Lucas North in Spooks (2008) — 6/10

The tattoos really spice this one up. Luke could have been plagued by the problems inherent in Regular Mulligan’s Moving On styling, but this guy has an edge to him. He has a good haircut and 5′ o’clock shadow, which is something I’ve figured out is integral to Armitage Hotness. I feel like if I got to know this character I could possibly find him sexy.

17. Raymond de Merville in Pilgrimage (2017) — 6.5/10

Speaking of bad haircuts, this one is his undoing. This is almost the perfect balance between full beard and short haircut, which is the only way a short haircut works on this man, but they ruined it with this one! They gave him a bad bowl fade, which completely undoes any inherent sexiness that comes with being a knight. Not even the fact that he’s covered in dirt can turn me on at this point, ugh. Guy of Gisbourne he is not!!!

16. Tom Calahan in Brain on Fire (2016) — 6.5/10

Oh hell yes, WELCUM 2 DA DILF ZONE!!! I’m not super duper thrilled with the looks I’ve seen from this movie, but he seems scruffy and comfy in a way that is slightly refreshing for ol’ Richard. This is certainly the best of his normie looks so far. I’m just sad it took them 24 years to figure out how to style him properly for sympathetic roles in a contemporary setting.

15. James in My Zoe (2019) — 6.5/10

It’s another DILF look, slightly edgier than Comfy Tom but none of that sexy tired energy that we’ll see from Ocean’s 8. I don’t know !! Jimmy here doesn’t exactly thrill me, I think I prefer Tom’s flannels to this sharp bomber jacket/white t shirt combo seen here. Oh well! I am extremely 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 that he can just casually palm that soccer ball like that.

14. John Thornton in North & South (2004) — 7/10

Alright. I’m sorry. I just don’t find him that hot in this role. Like yeah, he’s got the scruff and the sideburns that work to his advantage, and the setting does make this character inherently sexy, but in some screenshots he screams too much of an aforementioned Kate and Leopold (the best Meg Ryan movie, imo) era Hugh Jackman to me. And if I was particularly into that, I would just watch Kate and Leopold again. I will admit, however, that this rating could be subject to change if I actually took the time to watch this show.

13. Chop in Urban and the Shed Crew (2015) — 7/10

...I’M??? INTO IT??? He’s dirty and scruffy but also has kind eyes.... I feel like this is knock off Will Graham who has blossomed into his own. His run down, grime-covered own. He’s back edging into Bradley Cooper territory, but somehow it works for him in this one. Like, I’m 89% sure it’s the DILF vibes I’ve been getting from the other screengrabs I’ve seen of this role, and this particular flavor of DILF is way sexier than Jimmy or Comfy Tom.

12. Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal (2015) — 7/10

His Caesar cut doesn’t bother me quite so much in this, probably because he is pretty explicitly playing a villain in a series that doesn’t have any basis in reality. A villain who is ripped, and who can effortlessly throw real Will Graham around. Armitage uses his inherent sinisterness to great effect as the Red Dragon, which is good actually! I think a lot of how hot he is in any particular role really depends on whether the styling allows him to play to his strengths...idk! I’m not usually a huge fan of clean shaven Armitage, but it works for Frank here.

11. Daniel Miller in Berlin Station (2016) — 7/10

As much as I adore this particular look (beard + fade + green army jacket), I have to compromise and give Danny a 7/10 because it seems like the first season they styled him in usual stubbly white man blandness. I’d say screengrabs from s1 are a solid 6, while this might be an 8, so the average is a 7. That’s all I have to say about this!

10. Claude Becker in Ocean’s 8 (2018) — 7.5/10

!!!!! I love him in this role, I about had a conniption in the theater because I absolutely was not expecting him!! He looks perfectly ruffled and scruffy, edgier than either Comfy Tom or Jimmy, which I’m very into. That plus his two borzois (objectively the best looking dogs on the planet) really put Old Claude over the top for me. Thank you, thank you Hollywood stylists for finally figuring out what to do with him for roles as a Normal Man.

9. Richard Hall in The Lodge (2019) — 7.5/10

I don’t know anything about this movie, but it seems pretty spooky, which I’m into. I think Richard is well suited for this sort of horror/thriller role, where his angular features can play into the overall vibe rather than some hapless stylist trying to work around them. He looks like another cozy DILF here but with a bite to him, like someone who would do anything to protect his brood. I mean, he’s teaching this child to shoot! But idk, he also has the potential for Jack Nicholson in The Shining energy, which I also could be....hm... into. Idk. Is this on Netflix??

8. Lee in Cold Feet (2003) — 7.5/10

FUN!!! FLIRTY!!!! OTTER VIBES!!!!! I LOVE THIS, he seems so goofy here, and Armitage doesn’t usually pull off goofy that well! I’ve giggled at literally every screenshot I could find from the four episodes he was in this show, he seems like a real himbo. I’m a huge fan, even if it comes at the cost of dehydration abs.

7. William Chatford in Malice Aforethought (2005) — 7.5/10

Hoo hoo HOO DO NOT JUDGE ME!!!!!!! Maybe it’s just because I’ve been watching the new season of The Alienist and the new dark and gritty HBO reboot of Perry Mason back to back, but sue me, I love the bold choice they made with giving him a pencil moustache here. He looks like a hot Howard Hughes; if cream-faced business boy Daryl from Staged is the young ingenue in the pre-Hayes Code thriller I cast him in, Bill here is the sexy antagonist. I desperately want to hear a perfect Transatlantic accent coming out out of that mouth. This look fucks and I’m sticking to that no matter what.

6. Trevor Belmont in Castlevania (2017) — 8/10

Ah, yes, speaking of king himbos... do me a favor and look me right in the eye and tell me that you wouldn’t fuck Trevor Belmont. You can’t, can you?????? At least 80% of Richard Armitage’s inherent hotness stems from his voice, and you can’t tell me there isn’t anything sexier than thinking about letting that guy loose in a recording studio and letting him say fuck. Look, Trevor may be drawn that way, but it’s the absolute stupidity coming out of his mouth in that sweet baritone that makes me want to be raw-dogged by 100% pure Romanian beef.

5. Dr. Scott White in Sleepwalker (2017) — 8/10

Much like I had intimated when talking about Hot Danny in Berlin Station, this is Peak contemporary normie Richard Armitage styling. I honestly think The Hobbit either awakened something in him, or casting directors finally figured out he looks way good with a full beard. His crew cut even works with his whole look, which is a miracle!!!! I think he should be contractually obligated to have a full beard in all of his future roles, but that’s just me.

4. Guy of Gisbourne in Robin Hood (2006) — 8.5/10

I honestly can’t believe I’m ranking Guy so far up here, but honestly, THIS RULES!!!!!! THIS FUCKS!!!!!!!!! Which is incredible due to Guy’s lack of beard, but I’m weirdly okay with it? Like sure, he looks like he’d probably call me a slur in front of his shitty friends, but he also looks like he could tenderly pound me into the mattress in a way that would have me questioning my commitment to the “no emotions” clause of our clandestine no-strings-attached sex agreement. Anyway. Guy of Gisbourne if you see this im free thursday night. please message me back if you’re free thursday night when i am fr

3. Angus in Macbeth (1999) — 8.5/10

HHHNGHGNHNGHGN HE’S SO HOT.....!!! HE’S SO HOT!!!!! Leather jacket!!! Scruff!! Dirt!!!! Flattering beret!!!!! He’s so hot, and the worst part about this is that this was filmed in NINETEEN NINETY NINE!!!!!!!!!!!! Which means we could have always had this, had stylists and makeup artists PLAYED TO HIS STRENGTHS!!!!! He’s so hot I’m getting legitimately angry. Without scruff and dirt this man is nothing. N o t h i n g.

2. John Proctor in The Crucible (2014) — 9/10

Look, I know I have a type. But... this guy is just so hot, Daniel Day Lewis please step aside!!!! Contemporary theater historians describe John Proctor as a “strong beast of a man,” and... hhhHHOOOGH HELL YEAH!!! HELL !!!! YEAH !!!!! Like, his dick got almost his entire Puritan village, including himself, accused of witchcraft and like, looking at this guy, I kind of get it. I would probably go to war over the raw animal beauty of this horrible dirty, greasy man. Sue me, I confess. I saw Goody Osburn with the devil.

1. Thorin II Oakenshield in The Hobbit Trilogy — 9.5/10

Come on. You knew it was going to be this guy. Look at my icon for christ’s sake. I am completely biased, I cannot look at his pictures objectively. Anyway. Thank you so much for reading, this was a very stupid list.

#rene rambles #this is the worst thing ive ever done tbh #richard armitage

94 notes · View notes

iheartsunset · 3 years

Text

Papa Louie Emery Headcanons (Amii’s PL pre-gen for Utah and Nevada)

(I love Amii’s OC so much and I’m so glad they asked me to write about them! I also got some ideas from @freezeriafan and I love their analyses too!)

@maznanangy @amii

-Emery Young-Freeman (she keeps Freeman just to rub it in her ex’s new wife’s face) is the 42 year old mother (if you can even call her that) of Nevada and Utah. She works as a bitchy office manager for Travel Trout above Ivy, who Emery keeps investigating because she is “very suspicious”. Emery has unfortunately re-emerged back into her kids’ life and now they dread existence. I feel like Emery lives in a small Tastyville house where she is a menace to her neighbors and the townspeople. Utah and Nevada go by the surname “Mahelona” from their paternal grandparents to both honor their heritage and cut off any connection to Emery.

-Emery grew up in an upper middle class family as the oldest of 2 kids. Her brother, Wayne Jewell (Wayne is also a county in Utah), is about 14 years younger and lives in Starlight City with his wife and their 4 sons. Their parents indulged in her difficult behavior and clearly favored her over Wayne, which was probably why she’s so messed up now. Okalani also used to babysit them, so she’s Nevada’s godmother. Emery was head cheerleader and Clark was a football player who was extremely smart. She basically just charmed him into doing all her assignments for her and they got married immediately after graduating. It was no secret to Clark or their daughters that she was cheating on him with multiple men and women as well as her abusing illegal substances. She even dragged Clark into it, and he was so ashamed after a while that he divorced her and made her go with him to Starlight City to get help. They both essentially abandoned their children and forced a then 16 year old Nevada to become the mother figure to Utah. Emery doesn’t really care about her kids at all and her reason for coming back was just to basically terrorize her ex husband who was trying to make up with them.

-She was totally a high school mean girl, not even a charming one like Regina George, she was more like Courtney from Jawbreaker or Marianne from Easy A. She’s also a complete Karen, always complaining, being a hypocrite, and a is a huge pessimist. She lies about the people around her, but is obviously terrible at it. The only redeeming quality about her is that she’s a hard worker and genuinely cares about the company, but that’s it, she’s not even nice or anything. She’s also stubborn, always staying or persisting with something that should be left alone (you probably don’t wanna get too involved with Ivy, I’ll just put that out there). Emery also might be going through a midlife crisis and likes to act like a teenager outside of work, often stealing clothes from her daughters or showing up unannounced to where they are.

-She, Quinn, and Sue used to be a polyamorous sort of relationship. Sue was only in on it because dates took stress off of her and Quinn just wanted a rebound because of her and Timm’s falling out. Quinn ended it after she proposed to Timm and they made up and Sue left because she met Mary. Despite this, Emery is pretty homophobic and claims it wasn’t even a relationship. She just sucks.

-Her friend group consists of Quinn, Sue, Mayor Mallow, Prudence’s mom, Vicki, Rico, and Rhonda. And by “friends”, I mean they tolerate her at best, except for Prudence’s mom because she’s just as awful.

-Emery isn’t a typical Karen, as she knows that vaccines work, the earth is round, and that wearing a mask is a good health decision. But Facebook Karens who run MLM schemes and give their children essential oils are the only people who tolerate her, so she likes to pretend in order to keep her friends. Emery also despises Minion memes, but will occasionally tag Utah,Nevada, Clark, and Ari in them to piss them off. Her PTA mom personality type would be Carol.

-She is one of only 3 people who have been banned from every single one of Papa’s restaurants, the other two being Guy Mortadello and Radley Madish. Utah at the Pastaria and Timm from the Bakeria banned her because she’s a jerk, but she was banned from the other places for verbally abusing the staff on a constant basis. She mainly just gets her miscellaneous boyfriends and girlfriends to get her stuff from there. She also likes to crash workplace meetings at Papa’s house just to rub it in Timm’s face that she used to bang his wife.

-She likes to eat tropical fruits and seafood. Her favorite food would be shrimp tacos with mango salsa and her favorite drink is a Hurricane (typing the word Hurricane as a Floridian makes me shudder). Emery also like coconut shrimp and sometimes sends some to her family, who just give it to other people because they don’t care.

-Alberto and Gremmie are Utah’s best friends and so they absolutely hate Emery. Gremmie plays all sorts of pranks on her and Alberto likes to hit her soccer balls on “accident”. But that’s nothing compared to Cameo, hoo boy does he not like her. He’s physically attacked her before because his love for Nevada is that strong, but it’s like she’s made of steel and always ends up whooping his ass after. Okalani, Kahuna, and Gremmie’s dad are extremely passive aggressive towards her too. Chuck is the only one out of all of them that will probably kill her both provoked and unprovoked.

-She is banned from every holiday and celebration that the Calypso Fam holds. It’s like Clark, Nevada, and Utah can sense her from miles away and they just automatically know not to answer the door. If she comes in, they just say “get the hell out of here, Emery”.

-She talks loud on the phone when she’s in line, and the conversations are usually not suitable to have in public. You can also hear music coming out of her headphones and she snaps at you if you bring it to her attention. She also has no phone case or pop socket, it’s just a phone. A plain, bare phone.

-She knows Ivy’s secret regarding the strange existences of Hacky Zak, CJ Friskins, Sweetheart, and potentially others. Ivy knows that Emery’s been too nosy, but she’s okay with it because nobody likes Emery and don’t listen to her anyways. What is the secret, you ask? Maybe in a future Ivy headcanons post will the truth be known...

-She named her kids after old states because the only class she was good at (besides PE) was geography. Why she never chose a name like Arizona or Florida for Utah we’ll never know, she was probably just being extra petty.

-Chuck has shot her with the pineapple gun before. Pineapple hurts. Not even the cold steel of Emery could deflect it. These are facts.

-Totally orders the most awful combinations of food and gets pissed off when it doesn’t taste good. Then she calls and complains about it and demands free stuff.

#papa louie #flipline studios #flipline #my headcanons #also amii and freezeriafan’s headcanons too #emery #pre-gens #emery freaking sucks #poor Utah and nevada #anyways stan Nevada #I’m stuck with so many play rehearsals #and my ankle is still fractured as heck

10 notes · View notes

forestwater87 · 4 years

Text

Every episode of Camp Camp ranked: A very (non)objective list

It's well past the time of year when Season 5 of Camp Camp would've dropped. I fully understand and support it not coming out; the crew's health and safety are much more important than a comfort show.

However . . . man, would it be nice to have some comfort right now.

So I'm reliving the entire series! I've been known to share with the world a whole bunch of Spicy Hot Takes, but I've never really sat down and talked about my feelings about the show as a whole.

And what's the best way to do that? Well, just ask Jenny Nicholson: a numbered list! That is, here's the series ranked from worst episode to best, because I want to get the negativity out of the way early and focus on everything I love (and because people enjoy complaining, so let’s frontload all that).

The takes will be hot. The feelings will be intense. The post, I'm assuming, will be largely unread.

Let's do it!

Oh and duh, there are spoilers. I tried to keep it pretty chill, but you’ll want to have watched the whole show or just not care about spoilers before going forward.

Also slashes in the middle of “naughty words” are meant to prevent this from being kept out of the main tags. Who knows if it’ll work? I don’t.

60. Who Peed the Lake? (Season 4, epis/sode 3)

Ah, good ol' Pi/ss Lake (or as @hopefullypessimistic84 calls it because she's funnier than any of us will ever be, “Pis/s Fe/tish Dot Com”). Terrible, one of the few I’d consider nigh unwatchable. I actually kind of love this episode for being such great shorthand for "the absolute worst one."

Who signed off on an entire episode centered around Sherlock Holmes meets a bad om/o joke? Give me names and addresses: I just want to talk.

59. Reigny Day (Season 1, episode 6)

And nobody was surprised.

I'll admit I'm more willing to defend this episode than many people, but it's not . . . like, good. It seemed okay when there were only 11 other episodes to compare it to, but now that there have been so many bangers, this comes across as extremely weak.

And let’s just say the Na/zi jokes hit a lot differently in 2020 than they did in the summer of 2016.

I’m overall happy with the direction the showrunners have moved Dolph’s character in, and I can’t totally blame them for using a kind of humor that was fairly common in the pre-Trump era, but yikes, this has aged like milk. And it wasn’t even very funny at the time, so it aged like milk that was already pretty bad to begin with.

58. Squirrel Camp (Season 4, episode 10)

This is a dumb one.

Not much else to say; it’s just kinda stupid and lame.

57. Fashion Victims (Season 4, episode 13)

I love Sasha, but this is filler. Which isn’t in itself a bad thing -- I have a couple episodes near the top that could reasonably be called filler, and a valid argument could easily be made that “filler episodes” don’t actually exist in a show with no plot -- but as much as I adore the Flower Scouts and enjoy the handful of good moments we get in this episode . . . who cares? Does anyone really give a sh/it about anything that happens here? Does anyone get their life from this one?

I didn’t think so.

56. Foreign Exchange Campers (Season 3, episode 3)

I know, I know, your Russian waifu came from this episode. Why do you think it’s so low on this list?

Okay, for real: this is . . . fine. It’s fine. It’s fine? I’m not mad at it, it just feels tonally incongruous and not very memorable beyond the fact that the fandom got really weird and kinda gross about Vera. But the episode itself? There’s some cute stuff with Neil and Nikki being jealous, but for the most part it’s a big hunk of white bread with some super mild white cheese that’s kinda soggy from sitting in a bag for too long and getting all condensation-y.

That is to say: it’s fine.

ETA: Space Kid does say “fu/ck.” I can’t decide if that’s a point in the episode’s favor or against it.

This is the last of what I’d call the “bad” episodes. Everything after this ranges from mediocre to mind-blowingly amazing. But whatever our failing tier of Camp Camp episodes is, it stops right about here.

Onto the good stuff!

55. Night of the Living Ill (Season 2 Halloween episode)

I keep switching this with “Eggs Benefits,” which probably means they should be tied. But whatever, this is my list and I am in charge and I’ve finally decided, after like 5 changes, that I like this one a little bit less.

It’s a fun Romero parody with nothing I’d call bad. Really this one’s only so low on the list because I think it’s kinda icky, and looking at those green snotty faces makes me queasy. If you think this is a bad reason to put it near the bottom of the list, then make your own post.

54. Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum (Season 4, episode 11)

I . . . don’t remember this at all. I initially had it a bit higher because I tend to love things with Campbell in them, but then I realized that nothing about this episode stuck in my brain even a little bit.

Oh, this is the “Dolph has autism” episode that made everyone either extremely happy or really mad? Okay. I guess that’s the most remarkable thing about it. Neato.

Cam, I love you, but this was just not the best use of your sleazy charm.

53. Eggs Benefits (Season 2, episode 9)

This is one of those episodes with enough cute moments and good ideas to save it from being totally unmemorable, and I mostly enjoy rewatching. Platypus being a mom is a fabulous idea, and pairing the campers the way they did was mostly really interesting and fun.

The Preston-Nurf stuff takes it down several pretty significant notches, though. It’s what the kids would call problematic, and while I normally enjoy how the show doesn’t skew away from darker themes and jokes, it didn’t really fit either of their characters and just . . . isn’t fun to watch. It’s not especially funny, it’s not especially tragic, it’s just uncomfortable.

52. Camp Campbell Wants YOU! (Season 1, episode 0)

Honestly, this would be a lot higher if it was a full-length episode. It’s funny.

The next 5 or so episodes fall under the “cute but not very memorable” umbrella:

51. Nikki's Last Day on Earth (Season 3, episode 4)

I love the ensemble episodes, so this was always going to score higher than any of the single-character “meh” eps. I didn’t see the twist coming, though I know a lot of other fans did. Textbook example of “cute but not very memorable” -- the Platonic ideal of that concept.

50. The Candy Kingpin (Season 3, episode 9)

A clever idea that plays on Max’s worst characteristics and then calls him out for them, while also giving Dolph some much-needed character development. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like it really picks up until the last third of the episode, leaving the rest just kind of sitting there.

49. Campfire Tales (Season 4, episode 13)

Who doesn’t love campfire stories?

That’s all I got. They’re campfire stories.

ETA: OH SH/IT THIS ONE HAS THAT REALLY SCARY STORY! Where David’s all like . . . Slenderman’d. Fu/ck, I didn’t remember that until I was writing out my thoughts for #35 or so. That definitely elevates it, but I’m too tired to try and re-decide where this should go, so just tie it with “New Adventure!”

48. New Adventure! (Season 4, episode 4)

New trio! Focusing on these 3 was a definite risk, and I think it really paid off. While the “plot” itself isn’t anything special, there are a handful of really great side gags (hi, Dirty Kevin!!!!) and it’s fun to see these three interact. They all get some nice character beats. It’s a good time.

47. Something Fishy (Season 3, episode 8)

This might’ve hit me harder if I’d actually seen The Shape of Water, but the send-up works fine without having more than the seen-the-trailer level of understanding. Gwen dresses pretty, which I love; Max sucks, which I also love. What drags this one down is mostly feeling like the surreal aspects of the comedy go a bit too far into the “what the fu/ck am I looking at?” territory without really . . . making an actual joke beyond “look! Wacky!"

Why is David at the opera with a bird? Why??

46. City Survival (Season 3, episode 11)

Literally do not remember a single thing about this episode except David getting mugged and being called a “homeless twi/nk.” That should probably rank it lower on the list, but David being a fluttery mother hen saves it for me -- as does the fact that it leads directly into one of my favorite episodes, and the single best story arc of the series.

Next set of episodes is what I’m going to arbitrarily call “okay! but like the good kind of okay, not the bad kind.”

45. Bonjour Bonquisha (Season 2, episode 7)

Max and Sasha masterminding a scheme is really fun; their dynamic is great (though it won’t be fully realized until Season 4), and heartbroken David is so tragically cute it actually makes my heart explode out of my chest.

Also I can’t resist a good “3 kids in a trench coat” gag.

44. Anti-Social Network (Season 2, episode 2)

Neil is very relatable and I don’t have much else to say about this one. It’s fun to see an episode that more heavily focuses on our nerdy science boy, and Max and Neil teaming up to save Nikki was really charming and sweet and set my Makkiel ship out to sea.

43. A Camp Camp Christmas, or Whatever (Season 2 holiday episode)

Why does this episode have a musical number? It’s not good.

Okay, that was mean. This is fun and cute and Gwen wears a pretty purple sweatshirt and Space Kid gives her a present and it’s really sweet. But that musical number is an instant fast-forward for me, sorry.

42. Preston Goodplay's Good Play (Season 4, episode 7)

We get some Preston character development! Awesome!

It’s done in a really trippy and surreal way that totally fits his character and heightens the drama of the episode! Awesome!

David has an apparently-tragic history of being a French mime! Not a good call!

Next tier: Some good sh/it! (Tbh, these could all be put in just about any order; they might as well be one massive tie.)

41. Cookin' Cookies (Season 2, episode 11)

I love the Flower Scouts. I love Dirty Kevin. I love the idea of accidentally starting a dru/g empire. Another weird, borderline experimental one focusing on side characters, and I think it works better than “New Adventure!” because the scale of the melodrama is just so over-the-top.

The fact that this is in the bottom 20 but I have nothing but good things to say about it illustrates how dang good this show is. It’s only getting better from here, folks!

40. Romeo & Juliet II: Love Resurrected (Season 1, episode 7)

Preston is a terrible playwright. This makes sense, because he’s like 11, but he’s the kind of hilariously bad I wish I’d been as a preteen, because his play is absolutely bonkers. Max fucking with David is great, Tabii vs. Bonquisha is great, Bonquisha in general is a giant amazonian goddess and I want to be swept up into her giant arms. Neil is . . . a robot, for some reason?

So much fun!

39. Camp Cool Kidz (Season 1, episode 4)

I don’t love Ered’s characterization in this one, but there are a lot of wacky hijinks in this episode that I think make it really enjoyable. Max’s wide-eyed revolutionary naïveté is a fun change from his usual dour pessimism, and Nikki’s loyalty to Ered is both very gay and very charming. Plus we get to learn a bit more about how the camp operates (and fails to operate), and it’s a nice way to better establish the campsite as its own setting.

(Definitely think “Cool” should’ve been spelled with a K though. But whatever, I don’t write for the show.)

38. Scout's Dishonor (Season 1, episode 3)

The birth of Neeancy! The introduction of the Flower and Wood Scouts! Neil saying “cu/nt” -- one of the first and only truly shocking uses of profanity in the entire show! ZUKO!

I don’t know if my fondness for this one is rooted mostly in nostalgia or if it was actually really fun, but I enjoyed the he/ll out of it. Not as highly-rated as some other episodes mostly because it doesn’t really do anything, character or story-wise, but not every episode needs to be a massive game-changer that drowns us in feels. Sometimes it’s enough to have a fun romp, and this is very that.

37. Ered Gets Her Cool Back (Season 3, episode 2)

Awww, Ered. I have a soft spot for her, because I love the archetype of a spoiled bit/ch clearly still figuring out how to be a person and have friends. You really get the sense of her as a teenager trying to sort her shi/t out in this episode, which I would love to see more of. Her interactions with Nerris are top-tier, and I like that it’s a continuation of how her character’s been softening since Season 1 into this kind of big-sister figure.

Also, all the female campers in this show are lesbians. I do not make the rules.

36. Attack of the Nurfs (Season 4, episode 2)

I feel like this is a pretty underrated episode. But then again, I feel like Nurf is a pretty underrated character, so maybe that’s just my own personal bias.

I really enjoyed all the different iterations of Nurf, and I think Blaine did a killer job giving each one its own personality and life. It’s a fun episode that plays hard with cartoon physics (a 3D printer printing people! I love it!) and has a surprisingly moving ending.

At least, that’s what I think. Most other people seem to find this one pretty forgettable. Again: make your own da/mn list. I liked it.

35. Mascot (Season 1, episode 2)

This entire episode is memorable for so many things, but a few of my favorites:

David is established as kind of a di/ck.

Platypus arrives and kicks all the as/s.

Quartermaster is the best.

Nerris, Harrison, and Space Kid all get little moments to show off how cute they are.

Neil and Nikki bonding.

This:

34. Quest to Sleepy Peak Peak (Season 2, episode 3)

I love watching Nerris and Harrison bicker, and Neil and Nikki fit really well into their group. It reminds me of being a kid, and of playing Dungeons & Dragons (as an adult, because I’m so cool), and of summer . . . which is a really good thing for this show. There are a lot of funny one-liners, and it’s just a good dang time.

33. Quartermaster Appreciation Day (Season 2, episode 6)

I don’t think this one is all that well-loved, but I thought it was funny. There are literally zero important plot or character moments, but it made me laugh a lot, and that’s all I need a Camp Camp episode to do.

I love QM, and the more we learn about him, the more confused and disturbed we end up being. What a fu/cking champion.

32. Arrival of the Torso Takers (Season 3 Halloween episode)

I lowkey hated this one when it came out, because I knew the Daniel stans were going to be exhausting. And they kind of were? But looking back, it’s a great way to reintroduce this motherfu/cker. He’s a lot scarier than he was the last time around -- but also less competent, which is a great way to kick him in the proverbial ba/lls -- and while I wish it had a lot more Gwen in it, it’s a clever and creative Halloween episode.

31. Operation: Charlie Tango Foxtrot (Season 3, episode 10)

Charlie . . . Tango . . . Foxtrot . . . CTF . . . OH! Capture the Flag! I never got that before. Oh, that’s neat. I love this show.

Listen, every time the writers decide to take a risk and do something bizarre and creative, I’m going to be here for it at least a little bit. An entire episode told from the POV of the Woodscouts, explaining how hard they failed in all directions? A great gag where everyone in Petrol’s story talks in grunts? The return of Jermy Fartz?! Fantastic.

30. Panicked Room (Season 4, episode 16)

Listen. I’m a sucker for my trash grandpa; anything Campbell-centric is probably going to be pretty good (except #54), because he’s just one of the most consistently funny and engaging characters. Good times are had whenever this terrible man is on the screen, and giving him a romantic backstory? A tragic romantic backstory full of mistakes and emotional damage?? One where he waited 17 YEARS for the love of his life???

We have no choice but to stan.

29. Party Pooper (Season 4, episode 15)

I’m so predictable. If you put Gwen in something, I will be happy. If you make an entire episode about how Gwen is under-appreciated and overworked and just trying to do her best despite the circumstances, I will dedicate my firstborn child to you.

Anyway, this episode is really sweet, and I liked the unexpected direction the writers took her relationship with her dad. He seems like a nice guy, they seem like they have a nice relationship, and . . . well, an episode about how hard it is to be an adult millennial hit pretty hard. Plus this was just a really pretty episode -- and not just because Gwen was in so much of it! Seriously, that night sky was a thing of beauty.

Also if you say a fuc/king word about Max and that godda/mn dog I will choke you out with your own intestines. Few things are more hilariously, annoyingly ironic than the fact that the entire fandom ignored and failed to appreciate Gwen . . . in the episode all about how everyone ignores and fails to appreciate Gwen.

28. Culture Day (Season 3 holiday episode)

Now, would it be arrogant to point out that I had the idea for a Culture/Heritage Day back in September 2018? Yes, especially since I don’t think the writers ever read fanfiction and it has literally nothing to do with this episode. Will that stop me? He/ll no it will not! I am a creature of ego! Read my stuff!

Anyway, this is a really fun look at Neil’s background, personality, and relationships. Max looking out for him is just . . . oh my god, I cannot, I’ve written like 30 of these and my brain is starting to melt, but these two are so cute. I love arrogant Neil, and I love protective Max, and I love QM and Gwen fuc/king over the Flower Scouts to save the day. Everything about this episode is lovely.

27. Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper (Season 3, episode 7)

This should not be ranked so high (even if these are all essentially tied). This is a dumb episode based on a really, really dumb premise.

But . . . I don’t know what to tell you. “Samboy Kidwell,” Max realizing he and Campbell are disturbingly similar and not liking what his future could look like, David’s “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” face . . . this episode happens to hit all of my favorite things. It had a really good balance of heavy-handed moralizing and goofs, it was part of the most graceful lead-up into a finale the show has ever had, and I’m just all about it.

Excellent job, Samboy. Count Olaf would be proud of your disguise.

There ends the “some good sh/it” tier. We’re starting to get into the really excellent stuff now!

26. Parents' Day (Season 2, episode 12)

I know. You want this to be higher. I hear you.

Honestly I’m kind of shocked it’s this high; it’s my least favorite of the season finales so far, and I had to push past a lot of prejudice to actually rank this where I think it deserves to be, as opposed to somewhere in the like mid-40s. Mostly because it gave fuel to the raging inferno of “Max has terrible parents and David should adopt him” headcanons, which I’ve detailed my problems with extensively in the past (in a post that, statistically speaking, none of you have read).

But, trying to be objective: is this episode actually any good?

Well . . . yeah, it really is.

So much work was put into giving each of the campers families that make sense with their characters and bounce absurdly well off of them, ranging from wholesome and adorable (Nerris’s family) to quietly tragic (Harrison’s parents), and they’re all designed so well; they’re fun to look at and fun to watch interact with the kids and each other. (The only exception is Dolph’s dad, who is both kinda lame and misattributes the cause of the weird Na/zi thing because it did not come from Germany, I assure you. But things with Dolph are always a little off, and I don’t really know how you would give him a backstory that actually works with the character, so they were caught between a rock and a hard place there.)

The drama of David having to choose between the man he considers his father and the camp he considers his home is really touching, and him and Gwen choosing to take a sad camper out to get pizza instead of covering for their boss’s a/ss is such a beautiful moment for both of them that I can’t really blame the fandom for losing their mind over it. Campbell’s arrest leading into the arcs of the next two seasons was great as well, and the finale left us all with this weird sense of foreboding because we didn’t know what was going to happen next; it was the only finale that actually ended on something close to a cliffhanger, while still being satisfying enough to keep us all from melting down.

Plus, it’s funny. Carl and Candy are really funny and the idea of Neil and Nikki’s parents boning is funny in a horrible way. The joke about Quartersister is funny. It’s a good episode.

Should this be higher? Maybe, but I can’t bring myself to put it above the rest of these episodes. Again: make your own list.

25. Mind Freakers (Season 1, episode 10)

The episode that launched a thousand ships. Assuming those ships are all Harrison/Neil, anyway.

It’s hard to talk about these Season 1 episodes because they feel so classic. Like, what is there to say? You’ve all seen it a couple dozen times; I’ve seen it a couple dozen times. Harrison is a di/ck, Neil is possibly an even bigger di/ck, and magic may or may not be real. (Though spoilers for literally every season: yes, magic is definitely real.) It’s so much fun watching these two smug as/sholes snipe at each other in an almost literal playground hair-pulling way that could very easily be read as flirtation.

And the fandom did most certainly read it that way, at least for a little while.

24. Gwen Gets a Job (Season 2, episode 8)

It’s Gwen. What, was I supposed to not put it this high?

This was the first Gwen-centric episode, and it absolutely slaps. She’s pushed to the breaking point and responds by being a cold-hearted BAMF, and it got her some pretty significant hate from fans but I don’t give a fu/ck, I loved it. We got to see her all dolled up, and then we got to see her all disheveled, and both of those looks were gorgeous. David gives her a tiny fragment of the love and validation she deserves (I don’t know if this is when gwenvid started taking off -- I think it wasn’t really until “Parents’ Day,” or even Season 3 -- but I ate that s/hit up).

Also, again: job hunting post-2008. It’s a bad time, y’all. Camp Camp gets it.

23. Follow the Leader (Season 4, episode 6)

Yeah, I was kind of surprised at how high this landed, too. I guess I’m just a sucker for unlikely companionships, and these three have a great chemistry. The combination of competitiveness, sass, and reluctant admiration make their interactions a lot of fun. Their motivation of doing petty errands for Campbell for the sake of getting at the Box of Illegal Contraband is a great framework too, with high enough stakes to justify all sorts of wacky shenanigans without causing actual anxiety.

I want to see these characters forced to spend more time together. Please, RT, make that happen.

22. Escape from Camp Campbell (Season 1, episode 1)

In terms of numbers, this feels so low, but considering everything from about #45 on is ranked as at least decent, this is actually a pretty high rating. There are 21 episodes I’d call better than this, but these decisions were all pretty painful.

This introduces us to everyone! The main trio, the counselors, Mr. Campbell; we get a snapshot of the major personalities running around the camp, the major points of conflict (Max vs. David, primarily), the major building blocks of future episodes, setting, and relationships . . .

Again, I don’t know how much of my love for this episode is nostalgia -- there’s a lot of squeeing at familiar faces and gags; this is the first time David gets hit by a bus!!! -- but it was a fun and funny introduction to a series that’s ended up being so important to me, and I’m so grateful this wonderful, quirky little show with its wonderful and quirky little premiere.

Of all the episodes, I really can’t look at this one objectively. It’s too important.

21. The Fun-Raiser (Season 3, episode 1)

David and Gwen scheming is my ki/nk. They very rarely scheme together, but every single time their teamwork makes the dream work (or, more frequently, makes the dream fail horribly and have disastrous consequences) my soul flies out of my body and takes to the stars, where I write another 500 first chapters to gwenvid fanfics I’ll probably never finish.

This is a great follow-up to “Parents’ Day,” where we immediately see the consequences of the previous season finale and what happens when the one adult in the camp disappears. Mr. Campbell was a terrible adult, true, but at least he was smart enough not to steal QM’s hook. Like . . . whose plan was this? It was so bad. These two are hilariously incompetent sometimes -- often when their bad ideas are feeding off of each other, actually, a la this and “Space Camp Was a Hoax” -- and watching them frantically try and keep all their balls in the air is so great.

The ending is satisfying, too; a bit graphic, in keeping with a show that tends to keep the violence limited to periodic spurts of bloodshed 1-2 times a season and mostly pretty mild the rest of the time, but between Max stepping up and fixing everything while still being his shi/tty self to our dear dumba/ss counselors getting their dumb as/ses handed to them (deservedly so, if we’re being honest) . . . it’s such a great note to begin a new season on.

20. Journey to Spooky Island (Season 1, episode 5)

A classic.

We get to meet our spooky boy Jasper, we get to watch the comedy trio play off each other and continue to sketch out the general contours of their friendship, and we get to see the Quartermaster with a big purple dil/do for a hand. What’s not to love?

19. The Butterfinger Effect (Season 4, episode 17)

CONTROVERSIAL HOT TAKES! GET YOUR CONTROVERSIAL HOT TAKES HERE!

I’ve already gone into some pretty intense detail about why I think this one is actually really good and carries the theme of embracing change that everything about Season 4 was centered around, but none of y’all read that so here it is in short: this episode is super funny, almost all of the campers’ transformations work really well as extensions of their characters while still being strange and surprising, and the fact that Nurf creates all of these problems by trying to solve them is deliciously fun to watch in a karmic sort of way.

Or maybe it’s just because any Nurf-centric episode is going to rank pretty highly for me. That is also possible.

18. Space Camp Was a Hoax (Season 2, episode 10)

Our camp counselors being bad people: it’s my drug of choice.

We get Space Kid tripping balls in what might be one of the funniest sequences in the show, the entire camp coming together to try and pull off the stupidest, most impossible task (and kinda maybe almost nailing it???), and once again the fun of watching Gwen and David scramble to keep from getting caught in their boss’s shit/ty lies is so great. And Lindsay’s voice acting is absolutely killer, even more so than usual.

17. Jermy Fartz (Season 2, episode 4)

I get the sense this might be a somewhat controversial one.

I’ve written before about why I think this episode is a lot of fun, but it mostly boils down to two things: watching the campers try (and fail) to be nice to the most bully-able person on the entire planet, and the essential likeableness of Jermy.

No, really.

I think a lot of people were put off by Jermy’s general grossness, because . . . my god is he disgusting, but he’s also polite and good-natured, and seems totally self aware of how difficult he is to be around, without letting it make him depressed. He’s cheerful in a weirdly downbeat way that’s impossible to understand until you see him in action. He’s so matter-of-fact about his own awfulness in a way that I found entirely endearing. I don’t think I’d want him at my camp, either, but get that kid to a good dermatologist and gastroenterologist, teach him some basic hygiene and social skills, and you’ll have quite a little gentleman there.

I do however find it hilarious that apparently David got the type of tree wrong when making fun of Jermy. Not only is that a great moment for reveling in David being an as/shole, but he didn’t even have the right wood. F/ucking idiot. I love him so much.

These last ones are my favorites! (Well, duh, that’s how this whole ranking thing works.) Maybe not perfect, but just really good and with limitless rewatch value.

16. St. Campbell's Day (Season 4 holiday episode)

They Grinch’d Camp Camp. Those brilliant bast/ards, they really pulled it off.

Ignoring the fact that David is truly frightening-looking for most of the episode, this is a great bookend to Season 4, following up on the theme established in the first episode about how David is a flawed and selfish human being despite trying his best not to be.

This is another one I was surprised to find so high on the list, but the more I thought about it the more I realizes how good it is. David being a jerk is always one of my favorite storylines, and the fact that the trouble comes from him trusting Mr. Campbell too little instead of too much is a nice twist on the usual formula. Gwen coming to help him out despite a blistering hangover gave me aggressive shipping feels, yes, obviously.

Between a lot of really funny little gags like QM’s failed satanic ritual and the genuinely touching moral about the importance of spending time with the people you love, it’s just a really lovely episode that gets just the right amount of maudlin for the holiday season.

15. Jasper Dies at the End (Season 2, episode 5)

I kept switching this and “Dial M for Jasper”; it was a really difficult decision to make, figuring out where these two belonged. I think in the end, while the John Dies at the End reference was very, very good, this one loses me a little bit by being told from David’s perspective. Now, normally the more David is in an episode the more I’ll be likely to love it (see my #1 for proof of that), but his blinders when it comes to the camp and Mr. Campbell result in a really funny story, but one without the same emotional heft as hearing about what happened from Jasper’s point of view.

That doesn’t mean it’s not perfect for what it needs to be: each Jasper episode builds on the previous ones, and having the same intensity of “Dial M for Jasper,” where we learn how he died and how his relationship with David fell apart, would be weird and heavy at this point. In Season 1 we just found out he’s a ghost (and eagle-eyed viewers realized he’d been a camper with David); in Season 2 we find out how David views their friendship and time at camp; and in Season 3 we get Jasper’s perspective. It’s an absolutely wonderful raising of the stakes (for lack of a better term), but the one that packs more of an emotional punch is going to rank a bit higher than the one that’s mostly just for laughs.

That being said: there are plenty of laughs in this one. Everyone -- Griffin, Miles, Travis, the animators -- nailed this one, and it gets funnier every time I watch it.

14. Camporee (Season 1, episode 11)

AKA the episode where Forest realized she was in love with Gwen.

What a great idea for an episode, seriously. Every coming-of-age story has a talent show or a competition or a big game -- something where the kiddos can show off their improved skills and teamwork to beat their bullies or whatever. And this show has both kinds of bullies: the popular girly girls and the violent muscleheads. What a great moment to pull everyone together and show how friendship can help us accomplish anything!

Except . . . of course that’s not what happens. Of course they’re absolute garbage, and of course teamwork isn’t the answer. Gwen is the perfect foil for David here, being the anti-teamwork, anti-Camp-Campbell adult who can perfectly and effortlessly undermine David’s relentless optimism. David wants so badly for his campers to live in the same coming-of-age summer movie he did as a child, and their staunch refusal to do that leads to a really heartbreaking closer to the episode, as well as lead into the next one. Everything about this, from the challenges to the setup to Gwen shouting “we are winning this FUC/KING trophy!” is just gold.

13. David Gets Hard (Season 1, episode 9)

We have David. We have Nurf. We have Gwen. We have Max trying to be helpful in the shi/ttiest way possible.

We have all the makings of a da/mn good episode. And they deliver. Not a very emotionally intense or moving one, but so, so funny.

12. Dial M for Jasper (Season 3, episode 5)

This isn’t the fate any of us expected for Jasper, and it’s not the fate of a lot of people wanted. But godda/mn it, it worked. The constant bait-and-switch the episode keeps playing with, where you keep waiting for something really dramatic and tragic to happen . . . and then the reality is that Jasper died because Mr. Campbell was stupid and careless, and it was all just a horribly sad accident.

It’s anticlimactic, but in a way that suits the series, both as a comedic counterpoint to all the hype throughout the episode and as a way to establish that Cameron Campbell is a bad man first and foremost through selfishness and laziness, not Daniel-esque sinister evil. Jasper’s death was totally avoidable and totally Campbell’s fault, and while that’s sad, it also adds a weird sort of lightness to the episode. David didn’t do something terrible to kill his best friend, Jasper didn’t kill himself, and without having actively chosen to murder a child (well, not this time), the door remains open for fans accepting Campbell’s later pseudo-redemption. It was just an accident, and Jasper was “haunting” David to tell him that he was sorry for how their friendship ended. That’s really sweet, actually.

I think it’s the best way this reveal could’ve gone, and I’m so impressed with how they pulled it all off.

11. Into Town (Season 1, episode 8)

This might actually be the only flawless episode in the entire show. I mean, I call a lot of them flawless, and I mean that on an emotional level -- “I love this so much I cannot see anything wrong with it” -- but this one is a masterpiece of storytelling. All the technical jumbo I’m bad at, like planting and payoff and tension and all of that, is just perfect.

I feel like this is the kind of claim that needs to be backed up with a long-as/s essay full of citations and video clips and references to, like, Joseph Campbell or something, but this is my 49th entry in the list so I am not going to be doing that. Besides, I don’t think my English degree qualifies me to critique film/animation; I don’t even entirely know half the terms I’ve used to compliment this episode. Someone else please explain why this is such a good one.

10. The Quarter-Moon Convergence (Season 4, episode 5)

I’ve mentioned in other entries that the weird, surreal humor sometimes doesn’t work; it feels too much like being odd for its own sake, and sometimes gets so distracted in being surreal that it forgets to include anything funny or meaningful.

This . . . is not one of those.

Putting Harrison and QM together is a stroke of genius; the two of them are literally the most magical beings in the entire show, and using them as the conveyance for this great Lovecraftian horror-comedy was such a good idea. I don’t know if we’ll ever see these two interact in another episode -- honestly, this felt a bit like lightning in a bottle, and I have a hard time imagining what could possibly bring them together again -- but if this is the only episode we get, it is such a fantastic one.

Harrison makes a really good everyman, despite his powers; he’s just the right amount of confident and insecure to pull off that wide-eyed apprentice to QM’s grizzled wise mentor. (The fact that QM is objectively a terrible mentor is beside the point.) I still don’t entirely know what the two of them accomplished, but it feels baffling and momentous, with the perfect amount of gravity to make things extremely tense all the way through to the end.

Also, I guess God is an octopus? That’s kinda cool. I like octopuses.

9. Camp Corp. (Season 3, episode 12)

Another unpopular opinion? Oh ho ho, I am so contrary! I am Not Like Other Fans! I am the Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, refusing to have the same opinions of all you prepz.

I know this wasn’t the most well-loved episode, but I think it did a really great job tying together story threads woven throughout Season 3: Max’s selfishness leading to him hurting other people, his growing realization that he cares about his friends and the camp itself, the parallels between him and Mr. Campbell (and the fact that they both get this redemption moment in the finale).

This is the most Max-centric season, focusing on his flaws and character growth, and they pulled it off in a really organic way that felt faithful to his character, touching without being too maudlin. The fact that his feelings about the camp are echoed in Gwen, Neil and Nikki, the other campers, and even Mr. Campbell drives home how important the camp -- and David -- are to this strange little family.

Each season, Max reluctantly becomes a better person, without changing the fundamental core of who he is. That’s a really hard putt for the writers and Michael, and I’m blown away every finale by how they so consistently nail it.

8. Time Crapsules (Season 4, episode 18)

Gwen-centric? Check.

Max learning how to be a better person while still being the bratty kid we know and love? Check.

Looks at one of the most under-appreciated character dynamics in the entire show (i.e., Max and Gwen)? Checkity check-check-check.

I don’t really have much to say about this one, which I should: it was considered a pretty serious letdown to a lot of fans, and I’m not sure how to explain why I loved it so much.

Comparing Max from “The Order of the Sparrow” to Max from this episode is wild. It’s not like 2 different characters: they’re still very obviously the same cynical, self-absorbed 10-year-old trying to survive summer camp. But he’s become a more considerate friend and decent version of that kid, and it’s great to watch. The moment where he and Gwen go too far and immediately regret snapping at each other is still painful (on my god, the VAs in this show, they’re so talented), Nikki and Neil both get nice subplots about how they’re also growing up, and the ending is fuc/king hilarious, perfectly breaking the tension from Campbell’s speech, which is both beautifully done and important to hear, especially if you’re in a period of uncomfortable transition (like, say, in your late 20s, or living through about 5 different national and global catastrophes).

And okay, I found that speech on the wiki for this episode and it made me deeply emotional, so here:

Here's the thing: you've got to take your failures and make something out of them. Take Camp Campbell for instance: a lot of poor decisions went into making this place what it is today. Sure, somewhere along the line it maybe strayed from its path, not living up to the camp it wanted to be. At some point, the camp realized that the camp would never reach the end of its path until it was ready or until it gave up. So, if the camp wanted to keep embezzling money and dealing with foreign powers, so be it! But, at some point, it didn't anymore. I never saw this coming, but I'm starting to think this camp is the best it's ever been.

If this is the last episode of Camp Camp we ever get -- and for at least a little while, it looks like it’s going to be -- I can’t think of a sweeter, funnier, and more lovely bittersweet note for this show to go out on.

7. The Lake Lilac Summer Social (Season 3, episode 6)

And again: No one was surprised.

This is the longest non-finale episode of the show, and it uses that time perfectly. Rather than having some big emotional moments and character arcs -- which are great, don’t get me wrong -- the writers use the extended time to build a series of shenanigans as complicated as Gwen’s matchmaking web, and watching her try to set up a series of dominos (with David, for once, being the responsible, level-headed one) is almost as satisfying as the catastrophic results.

Neil and Snake steal this episode, even from someone as in love with Gwen as I am, and for an episode that’s largely about making fun of shippers, there hasn’t been one that launched nearly as many ships as this. Neil/Snake? Tabii/Erin? Max/Nikki? GWENVID?! It’s all here, and I am here for it.

It was also fun to get a traditional episode setup in a very non-traditional show. I assume this means the beach and/or hot springs episode is forthcoming. (No, Pis/s Lake doesn’t count. Obviously it doesn’t count.)

6. Keep the Change (Season 4, episode 1)

Again, this is an episode I’ve said a lot about in the past -- and I was pretty uncharitable toward Season 3, which in retrospect was very unse/xy of me -- but I stand by a lot of my opinions then: this is a fu/cking great episode.

David is an as/shole, Max is an as/shole, Campbell is an as/shole. No one escapes the as/sholery. David schemes, Max catches him in the scheme, Campbell gets drunk and kind of gay . . . I’m 54 entries into this list and I don’t have much to say anymore: it’s just really good and fun and I love it.

5. Camp Loser Says What? (Season 4, episode 9)

This is another one I kind of hated when it came out, and again for fandom-related and personal-grudge reasons.

Fu/cking Daniel. That motherfu/cker. He shows up for 12 minutes and Tumblr bursts into flames. Every single time.

However, it’s really hard not to love this one. Daniel-as-Trump is a clever but subtle -- I mean, for this show’s definition of subtle -- allegory, and it’s amazing how much this slimy freak and the Woodscouts slot into it. David is a bise/xual disaster with the absolute worst taste in men, Dirty Kevin and Daniel are onscreen together for all of 2.5 seconds and the kevdan shippers lost their minds, and Xemug looks like Megamind for some weird reason.

My only minor complaint is that the ending is a bit anticlimactic, but it plays on Daniel’s stupidity and the value of teamwork, so it’s a very small nitpick in an episode that mostly works like gangbusters.

4. Cult Camp (Season 2, episode 1)

Duh. There’s a really good song and we’re introduced to a charismatic, sinister, and totally dumba/ss villain. What’s not to like?

I don’t think I even need to say anything about this episode. Season 2 started off the summer by throwing a lit firecracker directly at the viewer’s face, and ignoring the fact that we as a fandom proceeded to eat each other, it’s impossible not to get caught up in the episode’s wild energy.

And dude, that song. Fabulous. Fu/ck Daniel, but thank god he’s around to be such a prickly little pri/ck.

Now for the top 3: Literally perfect, wouldn’t change a single solitary thing.

3. After Hours (Season 4, episode 8)

I’m not sure anyone loved this episode as much as me. But this is my list, and I will put this up at the top if I want to and you cannot stop me.

It’s much easier in a lot of ways to talk about the episodes I hated than the ones I love this much. What do I say besides “literally everything about this fills me with joy and my life is better because it exists”? I don’t know. The counselors are my favorite characters, and between Gwen and QM having the weirdest bonding experience, Gwen getting to meet up with people who care about her silly fanfiction, Mr. Campbell being the trash grandpa of my dreams, David getting in way over his head . . . it’s the episode I always wanted, and they made it work so well.

Also, I just discovered that “Gwen Isn’t Your Mother So Stop Asking Her to Rinse Your Dishes” is an actual song and I am overwhelmed with delight. Here, I’m embedding it as well as linking because it’s so good:

youtube

God. This show. What the fu/ck even is up with this amazing, weird-as/s show.

2. The Order of the Sparrow (Season 1, episode 12)

Duh.

The entire first season is a great time (except “Reigny Day”), but it’s a pretty low-stakes kind of great time. There isn’t much in terms of emotional depth until the very end of “Camporee,” despite some hints at darker themes in one-off jokes and quick asides, so this episode comes a bit out of left field, tonally speaking.

But that’s not a bug, it’s a feature; if the show had been this overtly emotional from the outset, this finale wouldn’t hit as hard, and the rest of the season wouldn’t be as funny.

This manages to serve as a capstone to the conflict of the first season, building on episodes like “Into Town” and “Escape from Camp Campbell” in a way that feels totally natural for both David and Max’s characters while revealing new sides of them. It works because it’s so unexpected, but it doesn’t come across as incongruous with their personalities. It’s the first and only time David swears in all 4 seasons, and that line -- I don’t even need to say it, you know exactly what I’m talking about -- still gives me chills.

Also, Gwen sings the camp theme song. Impossible not to cherish.

1. The Forest (Season 4, episode 12)

I’m not sure if this one is a surprise or not. It might be the obvious first place, or it might be a bit of an oddball for some people.

I had a really hard time choosing between this and “The Order of the Sparrow”; I switched their places half a dozen times, and the difference in quality between the two is razor-thin. I think part of that is because it accomplishes a lot of what “Order of the Sparrow” does: puts David in a situation where he’s pushed to his absolute emotional and physical capacity, crushes every shred of hope he has left, and sees what he’s actually made of when you strip everything away. It’s much more dramatic this time around, but it’s the same basic concept.

And just like in the Season 1 finale, what we see is a man who’s determined to do good even when he isn’t rewarded for it, even when he’s actively punished for it. Who wants to love nature, and life, and make the world a better place -- despite his faults, his selfishness and thoughtlessness and anger, David proves that he is fundamentally kind. He’s not nearly as deludedly optimistic as he seems; he just refuses to stop trying.

Because somebody fuc/king has to.

I’ll admit, some of what puts this one in first place is that I’m a sucker for whump, and David really goes through the ringer. However, I also think it’s important to acknowledge the risk Joe Nicolosi took with writing this episode: it’s all centered around a single character, it’s darker and more viscerally bloody than any other episode in the show’s history, the art is focused on these grand sweeping backgrounds that must’ve taken forever to paint, and there’s very little talking in a show that runs 99% on clever dialogue. This could have so easily backfired -- and for some fans it did -- but it was brave and beautiful and breathtaking.

I’ve actually only watched this in full once. It’s really hard to get through; it’s just so intense and even disturbing. But if there’s one episode I'll remember for the rest of my life, even when I’m 80 years old and haven’t seen the show in years, it’ll be “The Forest.”

It’s funny how such a sharp departure from the format and style of the rest of the show somehow manages to perfectly capture the heart of it. Talk about a fuc/king achievement.

So what have we learned?

I don’t entirely know what the purpose of this whole exercise was. I think it was mostly to get myself a nice Camp Camp fix that came from something other than slogging through 20 different fanfic WIPs, and to remind myself of what a strange and fun ride the last 4 summers have been.

I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge what Camp Camp means to me. This show has been hugely important to me on a personal level: I met two of my best friends through this fandom, and I’ve never been more connected to a community or readers than I have with CC. I know I bi/tch about this fandom a lot, but it’s a big extended internet family, and I’m so happy to be a part of it. Going through all these episodes, getting the chance to ramble about the things I liked and the things I didn’t, was a great way to reconnect with a series and community that I love.

So . . . what have we learned?

1. Season 4 was all over the place.

Some of this has to be due to the sheer volume of episodes, but when I sat down and organized everything into tiers:

There isn’t a single category Season 4 doesn’t have at least one episode in. I was surprised to see how high a lot of them ended up; it really was the best and worst of the show so far.

For the fun of it, I decided to give a number to each placement -- 60 points for the #1 episode, 59 for #2, etc. -- and see how each season broke down. Because that’s that kind of thing I think is worthwhile, apparently. And . . .

2. Seasons 1 and 4 are really good, actually.

Well, I don’t think anyone’s surprised to see how well Season 1 stacked up; it was amazing. But I was surprised to see how much I ended up enjoying Seasons 3 and 4, when if you’d asked me before this little project, I would’ve said they were the most underwhelming. Maybe I messed up the numbers a bit -- I’m no mathmagician -- but not only are they all really close, but Season 4 was one of my favorites.

3. This entire show is really good, actually.

One thing that really struck me when I put it all together visually is how most of the episodes sit in the “good,” “really good,” or “amazing” categories. The amount of episodes that are memorable, fun, and/or emotionally resonant is crazy. I don’t now how many other tiny cult-hit web series can say the same, honestly, and all of the writers, animators, directors/producers/other people whose jobs I don’t really understand, and voice actors should be commended for their outstanding talent and hard work.

4. Thank you, Camp Camp.

It was a real pleasure to relive all of these episodes again and think about what they meant to me. It won’t be the last time I sit down and watch this show -- and it certainly won’t be the end of my being a shrieking fangirl over it -- but with this break, where we have to get through a blazing, extremely difficult summer without a new season to fawn over, it’s nice to stop and appreciate what a precious gem of a show this is.

I hope everyone involved with Rooster Teeth is taking a much-deserved rest and prioritizing their health and well-being. Thank you for creating something truly special, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

#campcamp #camp camp roosterteeth #thank you RT Animation for giving me my life these past 4 years #cc david #cc max #cc gwen #i'm not tagging all the characters #campcamp masterpost #i really hope this doesn't get hidden from the tags but #guys this was a super intense labor of love please check it out #but also reading it is also a super intense labor so i get it if you don't XD

81 notes · View notes

wincestisasincest · 4 years

Text

2000 Man (A beatle!reader story) - Part 5: Fore!

A quick one, inspired by this picture. Beautiful.

As always, credit to @casafrass for inventing the concept of Beatle!reader, that mf idea that sister snatched my heart.

Description: It’s the year 2000, and y/n, the fifth member of the Beatles, is advertising her new book, Madam Beatle, in her first interview of the year. We see snapshots of her life, from when she joined the band, to the trials and tribulations, to the death of the band, and everything in between. Loosely inspired by Slumdog Millionaire.

Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Head canons: None, I think, besides the general concept, this is just me spitballing.

Words: 1465

Pairings: None? I mean, it’s the same as always, depending on how you view it, it can either be a pairing or a friendship.

Warnings: Alcohol, smoking, golf

“There is this recurring, oh, let’s call it a motif, in the book, of the Rolling Stones.”

“Yeah, this is one of the few cases in which popular opinion was actually correct. We really did see the Stones a lot.”

“Now, you were friends?”

“I’d say so, yes. Initially, we had something of a rivalry, I guess you’d call it, but even in those days, we still had a very deep reverence for each other. And, then, at one point, our managers decided that we should meet.”

“An interesting decision, yes?”

“Well, you see, in our industry, competition isn’t unusual, but having enemies really can’t be an option. I think they wanted to actually have us meet face to face so our competitive energy couldn’t turn into blind hatred. Because that only leads to worse things.”

“Hasn’t competition produced some great records?”

“Yes, but it’s not really a prerequisite. All due respect, I really am against the idea that you need some sort of negative presence to properly be a musician, or make beautiful things. People just like focusing on that because it’s interesting, but really, as much songs have been motivated by joy as they have grief. I wish more people, especially aspiring artists, knew that.”

*************

“They’re late.” Brian checked his watch impatiently.

“What’d you expect?” John was lighting his cigarette.

“Their public personas are one thing, but there’s no need to be rude in private.” Brian huffed.

“Maybe, and this is crazy, but hear me out, their on-stage personas evolved from their own personalities.” You retorted as John courteously lit your own cigarette for you.

“(Y/n), I’m really not in the mood for any of your back-talk. If you could kindly keep the sass to yourself, I think it would benefit all of us.” Brian retorted and John snickered.

“You got in trouble.”

“Shut up, John, I’m gonna go check out the bar.” You shifted your eyes up to Brian, expecting some sort of reprimand, though he just looked at you tiredly.

“Just don’t get drunk.” And with that, he paid you no more mind. It’s not nearly as fun when he doesn’t get offended, you thought.

You turned on your heel and wandered off in the opposite direction, leaving John to flit over to Paul, George, and Ringo, who were pretending to know how to swing a club. You laughed to yourself. The benefit of being the only girl in the group is that when they did dumb guy business meeting things, you were not expected to participate. Another day of your life where you would not have to play golf. Thank god.

You swung open the door to the bar and the air conditioner hit you in the face. The bar had an old-timey feel, all the way down to the bar tender cleaning a glass at the counter and a few mysterious strangers lined up on the stools. Might as well join ‘em.

You plopped yourself on the stool the closest to the door and called the bartender over.

“What can I do ya for, sweetheart?”

“Vodka sour.” He nodded and whisked off behind the counter to fetch your order. You took a drag of your cigarette.

“Vodka sour?” A thick British accent floated from one of the stools. You spun around your seat, face to face with none other than Keith Richards, the guitarist for the Rolling Stones, and also one of the people that you were waiting on.

“It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.” You shrugged. If he wanted to play it coy, and act like you two don’t know each other, then he’s on.

He slid out of his seat and moved to the one directly next to you. The both of you were smoking and sizing each other up. Of course, if you wanted to ruin the fun, you could’ve asked why he was late. But you didn’t.

“Vodka sour, Miss.” The bartender dropped your drink on the counter. You briefly turned back to him.

“Thanks, what do I owe you?” As you struggled to pull out your wallet, Keith took some money from the front pocket of his shirt and handed it to the bartender. He returned your startled look with a charming smile.

“On me.”

“Well now, I must be something special if I’m getting you to buy drinks for me.” You doused your cigarette in the ashtray and took a long sip.

“Nah, it’s just, I feel like I know you from somewhere.” He grinned.

“Feeling’s mutual. Perhaps I can buy the next one?”

“Oi, Keith, stop flirtin’ we got some bugs ta’ meet!” Another British accent, though this one a lot more harsh, cut through the room.

Coming in from the alternate entrance was none other than the flamboyant, the one and only, the Romeon to your Juliet, Mick Jagger. Trailing behind him like ducklings was the Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog-Oldham, the bassist, Bill Wyman, the other guitarist, Brian Jones, and the dummer, Charlie Watts.

“While you were sittin’ on your ass, Mick, I already got started!” He leaned back in his seat, revealing you sitting next to him. You flashed your million dollar smiled at the confused crowd.

“It’s a pleasure.” You toasted to them across the room with your vodka sour, before finishing the drink off and leaving it on the counter.

Mick’s eyes slanted at you, and you could’ve sworn that you heard him purr.

“A pleasure indeed.” He stalked across the room towards you, before gently taking your hand in his own and kissing your knuckles. You turned to Keith from the side.

“See? He knows how to greet a lady.” Keith chuckled at your joke.

“I apologize if our Keith has been forward at all, he can’t handle himself around birds, ‘specially those he fancies.” From what you already knew about Mick, you would never really know whether or not he was actually interested in you because he flirted with anything that moved.

“The picture of a gentleman.” You smiled wryly.

“Damnit, Keith. That’s against our image.” Brian teased, his blonde locks bouncing as his head moved. You giggled.

“Well, I suppose we shouldn’t keep the others waiting? They’re out there pretending they know how to play golf.” The crowd laughed, yet again. You were on a roll. You got up from your stool, getting your footing on the floor, not forgetting to leave a tip in the jar, as you exited the building flanked by your biggest pop competitor.

The image of their (y/n) coming up the hill with a group of men known for being disrespectful towards everything did set the lads on edge a bit. John was almost angry, Paul was concerned, George was curious, and Ringo was still focusing on his swing. Brian was just glad that these people had showed up on time.

As the manager’s greeting each other with aggressive levels of formality, the group took to intermingling.

“Not gonna lie, I thought you had just found some fans (y/n).” Paul started.

“You’d be correct. We are fans.” Mick put an arm around your shoulder.

“Speak for yourself. I thought you were kidnapped.” John did that thing where he would say a joke, but you knew that there was real anger underneath. You silently prayed that John wouldn’t mess this up.

“Oh, please. If anything I kidnapped them.” You psshed.

“Does anyone actually know why we’re here?” Brian interluded, somewhat impatient with the formalities of the managers.

“I think the football mums over there wanted us to play golf together? Because that’s what business people do?” John shrugged sarcastically, and the group chuckled.

“Is now a bad time to tell them that I don’t think any of us know how to play?” George quipped quietly, though making sure that he was still included in the conversation.

“Speak for yourself, I think my swings improved.” Ringo demonstrated, narrowly missing the back of Brian’s head, though thankfully, Brian didn’t actually notice.

“Yeah, if you’re tryna take someone out.” You smiled at Ringo, knowing full well that someone would die of a golf mishap before the day was over.

“Speakin’ of takin’ out...” Mick looked back down at you flirtatiously. John had finally boiled over.

“Absolutely not. No.” He pulled you over to their side. Everyone giggled like a bunch of pre-teen boys, except for John, surprisingly.

“As a rule, (y/n) is off limits. Just business, lads.” He placed you behind him and Paul like a wall.

“Imma big girl, Johnny. Just like you.” Talk shit, get roasted John. Though everyone was laughing, with several oohs interspersed between them, you could swear that Paul laughed unusually hard.

“Alright you ten,” Brian returned to the group, “shall we get started?”

“I just have one question, Brian,” Paul turned to face him, “how do you play golf?”

89 notes · View notes

crispyliza · 4 years

Text

Spamano multi-chapter fanfiction recommendation masterlist!

For all you home-quarantined people that have nothing to do and also because I’ve been meaning on making one of these since 2015 (took a global pandemic to get me started lol)

These fanfics are all with multiple chapters and listed in no particular order. Of course some are better than others, but every single one has its charms! I added only a few with 3 or 4 chapters because i liked them too much not to whereas the rest of the fanfics have at least 5+ chapters. So without further ado, here they are:

Una Notte A Napoli “One night in Naples, by the moon and sea, my heart was stolen by an angel who had forgotten how to fly.” (completed)

Per Sempre Tuo “Lovino Vargas, better known as Romano, is a famous TV actor. He has everything anyone could ever want. The only problem is that the thing he wants, over-night singing sensation Antonio Fernandez, is married.” (completed)

HOVA “The Nova Sagittarius was a ship that would take myself and countless other passengers on a one month trip around our solar system. But things went wrong; the ship changed and just like that, we were stranded. We got to know each other but more than that, we got to know ourselves.” (completed)

What We’d Do Without Gravity “While lost in a hospital Antonio comes across young terminally ill patient, Lovino Vargas. With Lovino left only six months to live it’s an awful time a romance to blossom between the ill fated pair, but with a bucket list to race through as the clock ticks down, the two find that love is very hard to avoid.” (completed)

Numbered Lithograph “When Lovino starts attending art school with his brother he finds his most important lesson doesn’t come from his professors, but from a culinary student at a sister school: sometimes the flaws hold the beauty.” (completed)

Tienimi Streto “Lovino Vargas is a detective with a poor attitude and a dark past, driven to the side of law by pain and revenge. After his partner quits, he is paired with specially recruited Antonio Carriedo, who becomes something more than just a co-worker. When deaths linked to the Italian start popping up over the city, Lovino begins to question everything he thought he knew.” (on-going)

More than attraction “Antonio says he met his love’s eyes over the bin of tomatoes. Lovino says he was stalked relentlessly until he was forced to give in.” (completed)

Credo “AU, 1502. Fueled by revenge, Lovino Vargas hasn’t failed an assassination job yet - but when a new Spanish captain comes to Rome, killing the unorthodox Antonio Carriedo might just be the death of him.” (completed)

Secret Tunnels from Madrid to Sicily “When Antonio Fernández Carriedo begins work as a professor at a prestigious university in Britain, one of his students, a Sicilian boy who goes by the name Romano, immediately catches his eye. He is a clearly gifted writer, who closes himself off in the wake of a dark and painful history. Even wrapped in his darkness, pushing everyone away, Toni finds himself determined to bring out the potential within Romano…They drag each other into a passionate, inevitable affair–doomed, they know, to end in flames.” (completed)

Why Did it Have to be You? “Lovino’s parents are tired of his horrible behavior, and hire Antonio to babysit him. But time is a cruel mistress, and in absence the heart grows fonder. These are just some of the things Antonio and Lovino will learn.” (completed)

And the Birds Sing No More “Don’t ever leave me.” Lovino said nothing. He allowed the tense heaviness to settle among his shoulders, tighten his lungs, and spread between the space from where he stood to where Antonio was seated lethargically. Antonio’s gaze sharpened. Lovino, inclining his head slightly, whispered, “I won’t.” (completed)

A Dancing Star “Antonio is the easy-going, life-loving art professor and Lovino is the Italian exchange student who walks into his art studio. When Antonio falls in love he thought he only had his job to worry about, but maybe it’s Lovino’s dark secret that’ll push him away. Trigger warning for self-harm and dark themes.” (completed)

Kismet “Lovino learns the hard way that things change and that they can change quickly. The necklace fell and now he’s in a strange land far from home. Will he ever see his brother again? Will he find his way home? Or will he discover home is where the heart is? Fate is a strange woman and can work in mysterious ways.” (completed)

Let that be enough “Lovino had given up hoping for someone who’d care about him. Antonio never expected to fall for the most tormented guy in town. But dark secrets and hidden dangers threatens their blooming relationship. Is it over before it even begun..?” (completed)

Child services “Romano and Feliciano Vargas have just lost their parents. Romano, who is 22, must care for his 6 year old little brother. Enter Antonio Carreido, the agent from Child Services who must record his progress, however, it’s hard for the cheerful Spaniard to keep from falling in love with this little broken down family and with Romano.” (on-going)

Loving a Stranger “You don’t remember, but I know you. We were- I don’t even know how to describe our relationship. That sounds bad, I know. I think you might have been in love with me, although I cannot see why. That’s just what I’ve been told. I acted as though I hated you, but I never did. I was afraid, because you were kind to me. I didn’t know I loved you until you forgot me…“ (completed)

The Many Personalities of Spain “England casts a spell to rid himself of Spain. As expected it goes wrong; leaving Romano to deal with the many personalities of Spain. That sounds like a normal day for Romano, right? It would be if the personalities not had their own personifications.” (on-going)

Daisy Genocide “My name is Lovino Vargas but that’s not who I actually am. I’m my brother. They put his DNA into a little ball of jello and grew me like a house plant. To say it blatantly, I’m a clone and I’m in a disturbing amount of trouble. I’m about to tell the story of my fight to preserve my humanity followed by a vicious history of crime but it’s a secret. Nobody has to know.” (completed)

More Than Meets The Eye “Striving to find approval and meaning, Antonio throws himself into the world of art determined to come out on top. Yet, in all of his searching, burning, and pain, he never thought that a single culinary student could ever manage to tear down his walls and make him face his biggest fear; himself.” (on-going)

Cryonic “After suffering a fatal attack from an unknown illness, Lovino Vargas underwent cryopreservation, leaving behind his only family, his boyfriend, and a blooming company. Years later the effects are only just coming into play causing more problems than his preservation was supposed to solve. Human AU; T for language; pre-established Spamano.” (on-going)

All of Our Flaws “Antonio is a man whose world revolves around anyone but himself. Lovino is a man with dreams bigger than a job behind a drugstore counter. Antonio is broken; Lovino is incomplete. Will a chance meeting lead them to mending their cracks and finding their missing pieces? Human AU, trigger warning for self-harm.” (on-going)

Truly an artist “Having already completed college, Lovino Vargas lives in Madrid as an artist suffering from severe artist’s block. In one of his visits to his old school he runs into a new teacher, Antonio Fernández Carriedo, who decides he’ll be the one to help Lovino in his endeavor to find himself. However cheerful and optimistic, Lovino still feels there’s more to Antonio than he’s letting on.” (completed)

The Heartbreaker “Sometimes the best things happen unexpectedly. Certainly this is Antonio’s opinion at the moment. The handsome stranger he met upon moving to a new town in Italy seems to be able to do almost no wrong. Until he digs a little deeper below the surface and begins to discover an unsettling reputation. And if the rumours are true, is it wise to trust a man known as ‘The Heartbreaker?” (completed)

We sing, We dance, We eat tomatoes “When Lovino Vargas takes in a starving guitar player called the Curbside Prophet from the streets of Philadelphia, he isn’t expecting the man to tolerate him for more than a couple weeks, much less fall in love with him. Based on the the music by Jason Mraz.” (on-going)

Underwater Land “Antonio was a merman. Lovino hated water. It was truly a match made in heaven.” (completed)

Flashlight “If I throw a tomato at you, vampire bastard, will you still sparkle under the sauce?” Twilight parody. (completed)

Catch you, Catch me “Clumsy, clueless detective Romano is on the trail of the infamous handsome and charming thief El Apasionado Caballero. But there’s more to this, what seems like a simple game of cat and mouse, than meets the eye.” (completed)

Blackbird “Antonio walks into a small coffee joint, hoping for just some caffeine to take the edge off of late-night studying for midterms, and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for in the form of a snarky, foulmouthed, Italian barista.” (on-going)

Counting Stars “Antonio, failed writer and journalist, thinks things are finally going his way when he lands an interview with actor Lovino Vargas. But it’s only the start of a long line of problems… the biggest of which may be Vargas himself.” (on-going)

Cosa Nostra “Based on the historical background of the Sicilian Mafia during the First Mafia War starring Mafia!Romano.” (completed)

Tight Rope “Rich, spoiled kid Lovino Vargas hates pirates. Pirate captain Antonio Carriedo hates rich, spoiled kids. None of them ever thought they could feel something different from hatred towards one another. However, Fate seems to have different plans for them, and twists their lives in unexpected ways.” (on-going)

When You Recover “Nurse Lovino Vargas has to take care of brain damaged patient Antonio Carriedo, who seems to have a strange affection towards him. N-not that Lovino likes it! The Italian is determined to make the man recover, no matter what it takes. What will little Lovino get himself into with this patient?” (on-going)

Like All Things, It Ends “Lovino doesn’t want his family to know how much his childhood trauma still affects him and he does a good job at hiding it. That is, until he moves to a new town and meets Antonio, someone he is unable to hide anything from. (Warnings for PTSD, Depression, harmful thinking of oneself, and violent death of a loved one)” (completed)

Wish upon a star “A drunken wish on a star lands Lovino back in the time of pirates, and when he runs into a familiar face with an unfamiliar personality, he’ll start to question his own heart. Pirate!SpainxRomano. Rated for language, violence, and maybe mature situation” (completed)

Crooked Timber “As an artist, Lovino understands that perfection doesn’t exist. If only Antonio agreed with him, and stopped trying to hurt himself. -Human (College) AU. Spamano multi-chapter with other minor pairings. Depressed!Antonio, Writer!Antonio, Artist!Lovino- TW for self-harm.” (completed)

Just Pretend! “Romano liked Emma- a lot. Except her stupid big brother was too overprotective (and, okay, a little scary)! He wouldn’t allow any guy near her- unless they weren’t romantically interested in Emma. So, Romano decided to pretend to be gay, with the help of Antonio, in hopes of getting Emma to fall in love with him. Perfect plan, right?” (completed)

The Duty of an Elder Son “Lovino Vargas knew a lot about duty.” His Grandfather’s swollen empire puts all of his family in danger, the other gangs are massing, the police are on their tails and Lovino is given a bodyguard in one Antonio Carriedo. 1920s Mafia AU fic. (completed)

Flatmates “They were flatmates, they were best friends and they were really frustrated about relationships. So what would two young men do about this?” (completed)

Zero Tolerance “Lovino lives a perfect life. Or atleast thats how he is suppose to appear. Antonio lives a life as a dangerous gangbanger. North Side meets South Side as these two are partnered in their Chemistry class. But there is one chemical reaction these 2 arent prepared for- Love. AU, human names used. Based on the book “Perfect Chemistry” by Simone Elkeles.” (completed)

Your Love Can Be My SIght “Seventeen year old Lovino Vargas lost his sight in a terrible car accident. Antonio, a teacher at Lovino’s school was born without it. Can Antonio teach Lovino that even without sight, life can be beautiful?” (completed)

The Greatest Treasure, You Idiot! “Spinoff of the “Sea Foam” chapter in Hetalia Fairy Tales. Captain Carriedo of the pirate ship, Buscador Dorado, seeks a legendary treasure “that is worth gaining” with the help of the infamous wish-giver, Lovino. But what is the true treasure?” (completed)

Crowns of Triple Gold “Things are rarely simple for Romano in the Eternal City, especially when he falls for one of his clients, a Hispanian senator up for consul against his father.” (completed)

Prisoners on the Slave Ship of Love “Lovino Vargas has been captured and taken hostage in a pirate raid led by Captain Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and his band of Spanish buccaneers. Tensions grow high and hearts are tested when Lovino becomes Captain Carriedo’s personal prisoner…” (on-going)

The Lemon Tree “Lovino didn’t want to be a slave in that scary mansion. He needed to break free. The fight for independence, however, is a difficult path, and falling in love with the man that destroyed his life doesn’t make things any easier.” (completed)

Sun Kissed “A powerful man once created gods to rule the sky as the creatures of the land lives. The Sun and the Moon. Brothers since birth, and all powerful, they rule side by side. As time passes, the Sun realizes how unhappy he is watching people hide from him. What happens when he discovers a man who isn’t afraid to live under the harsh sun?” (completed)

Tesoro Mio “Antonio’s the charming, handsome farmer with an infuriating Spanish accent, and Lovino is the mysterious wine entrepreneur who comes and goes. When Antonio falls in love, he throws society, expectations, and religion to the wayside, but can a strict Catholic like Lovino do the same?” (completed)

Because of the war “A first person POV for Romano during and after WW2. His thoughts as he fights and survives. Beware of angst.” (completed)

Just Add one Mermaid’s Tear “To gain something of ultimate value; the unthinkable must be preformed. The line is etched upon the brow of every nation, the taste of the water still on their lips. What happens though when one nation desires the fountain of youth once more?” (completed)

Until the Moss Had Reached Our Lips, and Covered Up Our Names “In a city filled to the brim with gangs, all the territory split between them, peace has lasted for the past sixteen years. It’s a tentative peace, won after the last massive gang war reshaped the entire city. Except all it takes is one domino to fall, and the Vargas patriarch is dead, leaving behind Antonio to lead his house, who isn’t even his blood relative. With an untried Head, the balance of power has started to shift again, and it seems as good a time as any to start calling in old debts and revenges.” (on-going)

The Bet “When someone kisses you, and then moves away you’d think that would be it. But when Antonio comes back from Spain he wants Lovino to be his again. Except Lovino now hates Antonio…which sucks for Lovino because Antonio isn’t going to let go that easily.” (completed)

Wings “People ask me a lot why I love him. Why I spend so much time chasing him when he never returns my feelings. It’s because I see something they don’t.” (on-going)

My Heart is Drenched in Wine “Wine and romance. More importantly, when you cut through my wine!fangirling, this is a story about Lovino and Antonio and how they find their way back together (in spite of the past and occasionally the present) as they attempt to make wine and sometimes love.” (completed)

Of Two Minds “Feliciano and Lovino are living on the streets, with a secret that keeps them from getting close to anyone. Will their lives get better or worse after being forced to join a pirate crew, and what will happen when their secret finally comes out? Rated T for some (minor) violence, Romano’s mouth, and some angsty feelings. Pirate AU.” (completed)

Beats of Fever “Antonio Fernández Carriedo is a doctor working in Madrid dealing with a crush on an Italian tourist when the tensions in Spain reach a head and Civil War breaks out.” (on-going)

All of Our Sins “Lovino is Catholic, but he’s not entirely sure what he believes. Nevertheless, he and his brother Feliciano are forced to attend confirmation classes. When Lovino meets their group leader- bizarre, cheerful Antonio; one of the first people to treat Lovino like he matters- things get complicated. When they find this church is much darker than it appears, things get terrifying. Fast.” (completed)

Es Sólo Tu Corazón “Lovino has been in love with Spain for as long as he can remember. All he wants is to be with his former caretaker, but he soon finds out that the Spain he knew as a child is no longer there…and the real one is far more dangerous.” (on-going)

There Goes My Life “Antonio, 26, a old gourmet chef, a bachelor who’s all party. Lovino a 20 y/o premed student who only has one goal, to be become a doctor. He is determined to let his feelings for the Spaniard fade away, but after receiving devastating news, a drunken one night stand leads to the end of life as Lovino knows it.” (on-going)

As We Were “Rich, bored and unhappy, Lovino Vargas is the heir to his grandfather’s wine brand. Antonio is the restless young traveller prone to attacks of claustrophobia. For them, falling in love is a journey. Literally. Spamano, Human AU, multi-chapter. Warnings for language and sexual themes.” (completed)

NekoRoma “Antonio has been feeling lonely with his recent break up with his on/off boyfriend. The solution: a new kitten that his boss doesn’t want. Just as he gets used to this cat, a new challenge is thrown at him. How do you teach a cat to be human?” (completed)

Summer Sensations “The hot summer nights of Madrid bring many things, but one very special night changes two lives forever. Lovino learns that love is not such a frivolous thing after all.” (completed)

Fools Like Us “What starts out as a normal Friday night for the “Bad Touch Trio” soon becomes an opportunity for Francis to use his favorite word in reference to his best friends. Unfortunately, Gilbert and Antonio couldn’t possibly have fallen for people who would return their feelings easily, but Francis is determined to help them out despite his own relationship-or lack thereof.” (completed)

Hear Me “Antonio and Lovino are trying their best to get by in high school, but between the stresses of grades, family, friends, and heartache, it’s a lot harder than it looks.” (completed)

Fame and Fortune “Lovino Vargas is a barkeeper and reluctant Stasi informant. As much as he despises what he does, he obeys the terrifying Red Army colonel, Ivan Braginsky. That is, until the secretive and frustratingly attractive Antonio Fernandez Carriedo arrives in his life and breaks all the rules. Inspired by the Elvis Presley song of the same name.” (on-going)

It’s all Antonio’s Fault “Condoms, footballs to the stomach, fake nurses, confusing hallways, and flying backpacks. Lovino Vargas’s first day at World Academy was already one of his worst, and he could only imagine that it would spiral downwards as he got to know the tomato bastard, otherwise known as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.” (on-going)

My Antonio “Going against everything in his strict, Catholic upbringing, Lovino has fallen desperately into love and lust for his family’s Spanish stable boy, Antonio.” (completed)

Sound Life “Spain is dead, leaving Romano distraught and wishing for there to be a way for him to see his beloved Spaniard alive and healthy…Only to wake up in a strange alternate world… with another Spain seeking his affection.” (completed)

Possessively Scary “Romano begins college late with his brother after their nonno passes away. When entering, he meets a very strange Spaniard. The man is odd but still attractive at the same time. As they get closer, Romano learns more about Antonio and doesn’t know if he should be scared of the man or not. Can he get out of something he got himself into?” (on-going)

This Dance “Antonio wants Lovino to be his dancepartner at Austria’s ball. Lovino, struggling with his growing feelings of love and affection for everyone’s favorite tomato-bastard as always, agrees. Now, there could be worse things, right?” (completed)

Powdered Sugar “Truth, like powdered sugar, tastes sweet but goes down cold. If a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, we might need a bit more.” (completed)

Singles “Antonio, Francis, and Gilbert are three friends who suffered their first heartbreaks at the age of fifteen, and made a pact to never fall in love again. That will change for Antonio when he first lays eyes on a brown-haired young man in a club…” (completed)

A Heated Story “Sky High / superpower hs au. wip. Lovino Vargas is a new kid at Sky High with his brother. He has the power to control fire. Only one problem, he hates the heat. Spamano, and other ships. Doesn’t actually have anything to do with the movie, just used the school.” (on-going)

I Don’t Hate You “Lovino and his brothers face the unknown while on a mission to Earth. The Italian angel comes up against more than he bargained for when a dark angel takes a liking to him and now he and Feliciano might be cast out.” (completed)

Like all things, it ends “Lovino doesn’t want his family to know how much his childhood trauma still affects him and he does a good job at hiding it. That is, until he moves to a new town and meets Antonio, someone he is unable to hide anything from.” (completed)

Disegno e Colore “A young, apprenticing artist, Lovino craves rationality, perfection, and self-possession, and has curated his life to one day attain that. He never expected a chaotic and brash painter to barrel into his life and test everything Lovino thought he wanted and knew of himself, his art, and his heart.” (on going)

Land Beyond Dreams “Antonio is saved from death by someone he’d spoken to only a few times, but who lost his life in the process. Grief-stricken, he only wishes he could have gotten to know his savior, when his dreams suddenly become reality…or are they still only dreams?” (completed)

It’s All Antonio’s Fault “Condoms, footballs to the stomach, fake nurses, confusing hallways, and flying backpacks. Lovino Vargas’s first day at World Academy was already one of his worst, and he could only imagine that it would spiral downwards as he got to know the tomato bastard, otherwise known as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.” (on-going)

A tale of endurance “Lovino had no idea what to do. Knowing that your life will be over in half a year tends to do that to you. Well, one thing he knew for sure. No one would ever discover this until the day he was pushing daisies. And that was a fact.” (completed)

The Risk of Love “Romano is dead and Spain is broken, spiralling into the deep, blackness of depression. And as he locks himself from the outside world, isolating himself from his friends, from everyone, in his oblivion of pain, Romano find’s he’s the only one who can help. Only, how can useless ghost like him even dream to help the slowly dying love of his life?” (completed)

Dance with me “Lovino Vargas started taking tango lessons completely by accident. Who would have thought that one day he wouldn’t mind those hands roaming over his body? That he would be dancing with his teacher as if there was no one in the room but the two of them?” (on-going)

Fireflies “Lovino was abandoned in Italy with his grandfather at age seven because his parents liked his little brother better than they liked him. On his way back from America, he sits next to a far too happy Spaniard. But, when this childish Spaniard turns out to be his new teacher, what will happen? And with a field trip to Venice on the way, what antics will they get up to?” (on-going)

El Corazón del Pirata “Fate is once kind, twice cruel. And Captain Antonio Fernandez Carriedo does not have a heart, nor does he fall in love with his prisoners. But Lovino Vargas might just be the fuel to his flame - certainly there’s more to him than meets the eye.” (completed)

More Than Lust “Why did the Spaniard always hope for the impossible? That Romano would come to him one day, confessing his feelings, and they would make LOVE? That they would cry out each others names, he could hold the Italian, wake up the next morning, and he would still be there?” (completed)

The Prince and the Pauper “When Prince Feliciano goes missing, it is up to a poor servant boy Romano to step in to take his place and thwart an evil plan to take over the kingdom. However, falling in love was something neither one anticipated. Based off of the Princess and the Pauper.” (completed)

Talking to My Shadow “Lovino spends his life telling doctors about his brother, Feliciano. They hear about his look-alike brother everyday but never see him. Lovino is finally taken to a new physiologist and he meets the doctor’s son, a springy little Spaniard who’s excited to help his new friend, no matter the difficulty. Will this illness mean a life time of seclusion for Lovino or can he win?” (completed)

Spend my time dancing “As much as Lovino loved seeing the upperclassman in his soccer jersey, he’d much rather help him take it off. It’s about time they started playing on the same field. AU. SpaMano. Various others. All’s fair in love and soccer.” (completed)

Maybe, Just Maybe “Romano couldn’t help but be instantly attracted to the stranger on the train, the one with bright green eyes and an unforgettable smile. How could something so simple end up changing his life so much?” (completed)

Dead Alone “Lovino drains the life from anything he touches, seriously. It seems that he’s the embodiment of death while his lively twin brother is his counterpart life. He has isolated himself from everyone, for their own protection. So what happens when a new transfer student decides to take an interest in him his freshman year of high school?” (on-going)

Lovino and the Conquistador “Lovino lived a life of simple pleasures; a good book, his own little world and an odd, but loving, family. However, in order to save his family, he must take their place as prisoner of a hideous beast within a gloomy castle. Based on “Beauty and the Beast” (completed)

Truth Be Told “The Well of Uncomfortable Truths is discovered & deals Spain a hard fact- "Whenever you said you loved him, you didn’t really mean it. You were thinking of his brother. They were empty words.” Can Romano be convinced about whom the Well was talking about?” (completed)

Scaliest “When his entire life is taken from him, Antonio vowed to slay the beast that ruined his life no matter the cost. But on his travels he meets a secretive, sassy bard who might be more helpful than either of them realize. Is vengeance the answer or is there more at stake?” (on-going)

All I’ve lost “Lovino Vargas has slowly fallen into the trap that is Anorexia. He meets Antonio who is a strangely kind kid. Lovino thinks maybe, just maybe…there is hope. Warnings: Depression, anorexia, bulimia, mental illness and bullying.” (completed)

Infection “Antonio didn’t know what to think of the man who randomly showed up in his home… completely naked. Yet, he still found himself drawn to this “Lovino”, only to be thrown into his worst nightmare.” (on-going)

Tomato Angel “What happens when Antonio get’s jealous? (Aftermath of ‘Awesome Being Evil’)” (completed)

Step-Lovers “King Romulus is getting married to Queen Isabel. While the wedding goes smoothly, things don’t go all that smooth for Antonio and Lovino. The heat is especially turned up when it’s decided that there will be a competition for who gets to be heir to the throne.” (completed)

There goes my life “Antonio, 26, a old gourmet chef, a bachelor who’s all party. Lovino a 20 y/o premed student who only has one goal, to be become a doctor. He is determined to let his feelings for the Spaniard fade away, but after receiving devastating news, a drunken one night stand leads to the end of life as Lovino knows it.” (on-going)

Broken Wings, Healed Hearts “Junior Lovino Vargas, a broken angel, has a dark secret he’s determined to keep to himself, now matter how much of an outcast it makes him. But will his new neighbor, Antonio, change that?” (completed)

The Reunion “Light or Dark?” Lovino asked. Feliciano studied him before answering. “Light. Light always wins” When Feliciano Vargas catches the eye of a mysterious man only by the name of “The Lord,” he finds himself and his brother on an adventure ending in Germany’s infamous Black Forest. However, the Lord’s affections are not what they appear to be and Lovino finds himself worried there is a worse threat other than some creep trying to get into his brother’s pants. (on-going)

Slowly But Surely In Love “Lovino Vargas turns fifteen, the age at which the words of peoples’ soul-mates say to them when they first meet is branded onto their wrists. Feliciano has a brand as soon as the hand strikes midnight, but why doesn’t Lovino?” (completed)

Life with Lyrics Lovino Style “Lovino struggles with what he believes is a one-sided crush and his completely oblivious, also entirely too cheerful, brother. Mentions of suicide, but not a death fic!” (completed)

Walking the Line “Maybe stumbling into Walmart in search of supplies during the end of the world wasn’t as good of an idea as Lovino initially thought. Nothing screamed desperate like raiding the aisles of a fucking Walmart for food while a hoard of the undead snarled at him from outside, but that didn’t seem to matter to the armed trio he stumbled into, or more specifically, the odd Spaniard munching on Skittles. His ideas were getting to be pretty lackluster these days.” (ongoing)

Hymn to the Sea “Please, call me Antonio,” he says. “Oh, and Lovino?” “What?” Lovino snaps, a little sharper than he wants when his brain has finally caught up to his embarrassment and he realizes he’s acting like a love-sick child. He finds he still can’t keep up when Antonio’s smile changes into something different: not the friendliness it was earlier nor the comforting warmth it was moments ago. No, this one is affectionate. “I prefer your smile over Feliciano’s any day,” he says, quiet and honest. (completed)

I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You “Throughout the 500 years they spent together, Antonio never stopped reminding Lovino of how special he was, and Lovino never stopped making Antonio the happiest man on earth.” (completed)

Lentamente “Antonio and Lovino are struggling with catastrophic life changes. A traumatic event leaves Antonio scared of his own shadow; a romantic betrayal destroys Lovino’s ability to trust people. And when coping seems impossible, can dance save them?” (completed)

We’d Be Together “Something felt off about Antonio’s new home. The stairs creaked, the windows groaned, and in the mirror he saw a face he didn’t know. The face was young but the gestures old; Toni began a romance untold. He felt an issue new to most… if only he could touch Lovino the ghost.” (completed)

Blessed WIth A Curse “Monsters are real… and they didn’t just hide in your closet or under your bed. Too bad they came in the form of Antonio Fernandez Carriedo- a Spaniard too sexy for his own good. / AU Vampire!AntonioxLovino” (on-going)

Speak “Lovino is shy. So is Antonio. Oh dear…” (completed)

You Belong With Me “Lovino wished for a lot of things. He wished he had a family or food or fitting clothes or friends but mainly just wished to belong. He doesn’t quite get what he wished for when he meets filthy rich Antonio, who just came from Spain and has settled in the same town as the little thief. Still…it’s a start.” (completed)

The Witch of Sicily “There were still whispers, rumors that the witch of Sicily remained in that forest, cursing all who would come near. It was a place many feared to tread, treated almost as sacred ground. Only fools would dare incite the wrath of the witch by entering that place. Only fools…and pirates.” (on-going)

We the Dreamers “New York City, 1940: Antonio is a recently arrived refugee from Spain, a scarred soldier with firm political convictions. For Lovino, everything is pointless and nothing ever lasts. The two of them live, love and dream desperately, as World War Two threatens to take it all away.” (completed)

Guide Me “After witnessing a startling event, Lovino Vargas finds himself stricken with blindness from a psychological misfortune called ‘conversion disorder’. Without anyone to guide him, he is placed with Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, a novice seeing-eye counselor, who will try to help him regain his sight and if not, teach him how to live in the new dark, lonely world ahead of him.” (completed)

Pirate’s Lullaby “It was the last thing in the world that Lovino Vargas wanted. To fall in love with Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. But when the pirate takes him aboard his ship, Lovino learns that maybe it’s not so bad to be a pirate.” (on-going)

Infamous “Lovino was a childhood actor, but once the show he was a part of got canceled he thought he was free and could leave all the acting and fame up to his brother Feliciano. However, when a 'follow up’ episode is decided upon ten years later, he ends up going back. There he sees a familiar, face; Antonio Carriedo, a singer with his eye on Lovi making normal impossible” (completed)

Guilty Bliss “Lovino has had a drug problem for years that he’s never been able to stop. With his debts getting out of hand, Lovino finds himself in situations that made him wish he had quit.” (completed)

Bottoms Up! “Follow Lovino on his weird and, well, at least quite interesting trip around Europe in order to find out some of the greatest secrets ever about himself, Europe, tomato-shaped alarm clocks and the past of his lovely, but complicated Spanish partner.” (completed)

A Trip To Spain Could Only End In “Lovino is a foreign exchange student in Spain. Things were going just brilliantly before he happened upon a Spanish restaurant in the heart of Madrid where he laid eyes on a certain Spanish Sex God…” (completed)

The Pirates Treasure “Pirate Captain Antonio wants one thing, and one thing only; a mermaid. Boy or girl doesn’t matter, as long as they are royalty and can make him jewels.He’s got his wish, but dealing with this prince is going to be much harder than he thought.” (completed)

Strike a Pose, Fake a Smile “Antonio loves the stage; Romano hates it. So when he’s “convinced” into coming to drama club, he’s not gonna like it. In fact, he’s going to say things that he’ll regret. And because he’s such a good actor, this time Antonio believes him. Uh-oh.” (completed)

A Helping Hand “Antonio owns a cafe low on business. One day a strange boy comes in, running from a group of men and covered in wounds. Antonio offers for him to stay and repay him with work. As payment, the boy Lovino begins to make new dishes to bring more people into the cafe. Who is this boy and why won’t he tell Antonio anything but his name and age?” (completed)

A Beautiful Story “Lovino Romano Vargas is a suicidal designer who is unhappy with his fate. One day, he chances to meet Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, who turns his life upside down.” (completed)

Careless “This year, Antonio had priorities: grades, girlfriend and the Football competition, securing college with his two best friends! But that was before the Vargas moved in with all their drama including kidnapping, threats, and football talents. If anyone asks Lovino, not getting killed would be a clear ecstatic success. He is just what Antonio needed, or not.” (on-going)

This is it for now but I might update this if I get any suggestions, if I remember any fanfic that I missed or if I find any new good ones. If you’re an author and want me to add your fanfic or if you just want to suggest me one don’t be afraid to PM me! (because this is a masterlist after all)

166 notes · View notes

buckyreaderrecs · 4 years

Text

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power: Chapter 4/?

Summary: Nobody knows about your power. You’ve never really wanted to use it, let alone hurt someone with it. But, someone has figured you out, and now they’re following you. There’s only one place you can go for help - The Avengers. Good news is they’re good people. Bad news is your power is entirely relevant to soft, sad, recovering, broody Bucky Barnes. Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3.

Chapter 4: You have to leave behind the life you knew.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker Additional tags: Bucky needs a hug, recovering Bucky, mostly canon compliant (Infinity War and Endgame didn’t happen, Stark Tower still exists), angst, possible future smut (who knows, not me), mutual pining, reader has powers / enhanced!reader, she/her pronouns, more tags/characters to be added with future chapters

Notes: I haven’t updated this fic in months and monthssss. Let me know if there are any continuity errors, and if this is still a fic worth me plugging away at. Thank you for any and all support! xo Rhi

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power Chapter 4/?

There was nothing comforting about having Stark-employed agents tailing you. Logically you knew that besides maybe a well-placed and patient sniper, nobody would be able to get close enough to hurt you. Not with spiders and witches and falcons watching over you. Certainly not with the last remaining Howling Commandos on your side.

Although you couldn't see him, even when you tried to covertly spot him, you could feel Bucky. You could feel him watching you and you knew it was him because it wasn't like before. It didn't make you feel sick with dread.

All of that was probably in your head though.

More tangible aspects of the situation were the beads of sweat rolling down your spine and pooling in the small of your back. Very real was the awkward pace you were keeping - definitely faster than a casual walk but a solid attempt to appear calm and normal.

It had been decided that you would walk the entire way home. It was doable, but you'd usually catch the bus. The people who wanted you would have to see the future to know when and where you'd catch a bus, but that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Not anymore. So, you walked for 40 minutes.

…

Unless he wanted you to see him, Bucky Barnes was invisible. He'd always been good at camouflage, but programming by Hydra included 'how to disappear 101.' And under your power, it was like that again. Not a single soul saw Bucky as he followed you block by block. There wasn't even a gust of wind left in his wake to alert people that someone… something, had gone by.

Entirely focussed and keen eyed, Bucky watched your strange gait. If there was no power clouding his mind, he would have smirked a little; even Hydra couldn't take the sass out of him.

After he climbed through an unlocked bedroom window and landed on the floor behind you, Bucky stood up straight at attention. You were on your hands and knees, pulling things out of the bottom of a closet. There was a duffle bag in there somewhere, you were sure.

"Yes!" you whispered to yourself, standing and spinning around. The yelp that escaped your mouth sounded through Bucky's earpiece to the other Avengers situated in, on, and around your apartment building.

"Buck?" Steve asked, muscles already poised to move.

"Package is safe," Bucky replied, no emotion in his voice. The lack of it went unnoticed by Peter Parker - who was still too new and in awe to know Bucky beyond reputation and limited interaction. He didn't mean to, but Bucky had avoided Peter; he reminded him too much of pre-serum Steve. However, Wanda, Sam, and Steve all heard the tone, and all frowned to themselves from their respective positions. Nobody did anything though.

"You scared me," you said as soon as you yelped. When he didn't move, speak, or even shrug it off, you were reminded of your spell. A small, sad, "Oh," was uttered. "Stop. You can stop your… mission," you ordered him.

It didn't work. Maybe it wasn't specific enough. Without a lot of practice, you really weren't good at using your power when you actually needed to. You realised that you shouldn't have given Bucky a complex and prolonged order in the elevator.

"Ah… Relax. Be yourself…?" you tried. Bucky's blue eyes simply remained fixed on you and he went to speak, but you cut him off. "Oh! Ignore my previous order. Do not… feel compelled… to… Fuck. What did I tell you to do?"

"Make sure I get to my house safely. Help me get what I need, and bring me back here," Bucky said, repeating your command word-for-word. It was unnerving.

"Yeah… Don't… Don't do that. Unless you want to. Only do that if you want to."

When his posture gave (by only the slightest amount), you breathed out. It had worked, but you weren't sure exactly which part.

"Bucky?" you asked gently. Bucky smiled and it felt like rain in a drought. "You okay?"

He nodded, being much more used to giving non-verbal responses. Sam's voice was in his head though, encouraging him to speak, pushing his recovery forward faster than Steve's love alone could do. "Yeah, I'm fine…"

You could hear it in his slow drawl- that slight cognitive lag people sometimes experienced after your power left their minds and they were free again.

"I'm sorry,"

"No, darling', you don't have to keep saying that. It's alright,"

"But-"

"Please," he interrupted. He shook his head slightly, but it was enough for you to see he didn't want to talk about it. "You did good,"

"I just… walked," you replied.

"Yeah, but that isn't easy when you think someone's about to kill ya,"

"Wow. Reassuring. Thanks," you said sarcastically, moving around him to put the bag on the bed.

Bucky chuckled, then sat down next to the bag.

"Aren't you gonna, like, check the cupboards and stuff?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Christ, how unprofessional do you think we are?" From the dresser you were digging through, you looked over at him and shrugged in confusion. "Stark had people in here as soon as he figured out where here was,"

"Guessing that was pretty quick?"

"Yep," Bucky replied, popping the P sound purposefully.

"So, random people have been going through my stuff?" Looking around, nothing seemed out of place. It was unnerving, actually.

"Not random. People Stark trusts,"

"Do you trust them?"

But he hesitated and he saw that you'd seen. He couldn't but smile a little. "I don't not trust them."

Thinking for a couple seconds, you decided on, "Probably fair…"

Bucky nodded, and you continued to pack. He decided it wasn't worth telling you that in the very early hours of the morning, after the city was asleep and just before the sun woke up, he'd gone to your apartment too. Clues in the cupboards. Secrets under the seats. Anything really. Steve had been awake when Bucky slipped out. He'd thought maybe Bucky was checking for Hydra. Or possibly, Steve hoped, his best friend was driven by the fact that you looked a lot like a couple of the girls Bucky had charmed before the war meant anything to them.

Bucky followed you as you went room by room, filling the duffle, then a backpack, then an empty shopping bag.

"You planning on never coming back here?" he asked, mostly joking. When you stopped, moving like a deer in the headlights, Bucky realised. "Oh…"

"Am I? Am I coming back?" you asked, on the cusp of hopeful. The glimmer of it in your eyes killed Bucky.

"I don't know," he answered, voice a little too soft to be comforting.

Looking around your apartment, you tried to look brave. "I guess… it doesn't really matter. Hadn't really built much of a life anyway,"

"Of course it matters, Y/N."

Before you could say anything else, there was a loud knock on your door, followed by the shrill voice of your neighbour. "Y/N?! Did I just hear ya come home?! Where've ya been?!"

You and Bucky turned to each other at the same time, both expecting the other to do something.

"She's not gonna go away," you whispered.

"Make her," Bucky said.

"I don't want to use-"

"No," Bucky interrupted. "Just talk to her…" His tone implied the 'obviously.'

As soon as you swung the door open, Barb went to step in.

"Ah, sorry, Barb. Bit of a mess in here… Did you need… something?" you said, stopping her.

She eyed you suspiciously, tried to look past you. "You didn't come home last night,"

"Stayed at a friend's,"

"That's lovely… Which friend? That nice Lisa girl?"

"No, um, new friend. James."

Bucky almost laughed.

"A boy? I didn't realise you were dating." She emphasised the last word like it was taboo.

Normally, you'd be better at dealing with Barb; she meant well, but was incredibly nosey. Normally, you didn't answer all her rapid-fire questions immediately, but you were nervous.

"It's not like that. He's just a friend,"

"That you spent the night with,"

"Barb, it's 2020. We can be friends with guys now,"

"So defensive, Y/N! Must really like him," she said with a knowing smile.

"I'm just on my way out, actually,"

"Such a social butterfly all of a sudden. I was just coming over to see if you're alright,"

"I'm alright. And I appreciate it. I really do. I'm just… a bit busy right now,"

"Alright, alright," Barb said, holding her hands up in surrender. "I know when I'm not welcome-"

"No, Barb, it's not-"

"No, no, it's fine." She took a step backwards.

"Barb-"

"When will you be home then?"

Fuck.

You tried to look over your shoulder into your apartment as casually as possible. Glancing at Bucky, all he could offer was a shrug. You realised then that you would have to lie, really lie.

"Actually… Might be gone for a while. Got family upstate that need me."

Barb was quiet for a second, searching through everything she knew about you. "I hope everyone's alright," she settled on. She wanted to say that she didn't know you had family upstate… or any family at all, for that matter.

You'd lived in the apartment complex for five or so years. Barb had always looked out for you, especially since her kid went off to college. She'd met a couple of your friends, heard about work, but never once had you spoken about family. Barb hadn't pressed, although she very much wanted to. Something inside her was keeping her from doing so.

"Yeah, yep… They will be," you replied, nodding.

"Okay… Well, you'll have to come over for tea when you get back?"

"I will. Thanks, Barb."

She left.

Bucky watched you close the door, lock it out of habit.

Your eyes were full of tears. "I can't come back here," you whispered to him. "If someone is after me, I can't bring them here,"

"They probably already know where 'here' is," Bucky replied, almost immediately knowing it was the wrong thing to say. "But," he quickly added. "If they were gonna do anything, they'd done that already."

Bucky didn't believe that to be true at all. More likely, the people following you, upon discovering your sudden disappearance, would try to draw you out. If they knew Barb was a friend - it could make her a target.

You watched Bucky's expression. You read the lie. You didn't need to force the truth out though. You let the fact that he was trying to reassure you, reassure you.

"We'll keep surveillance here."

You nodded, moved slowly to continue packing.

Bucky stayed quiet, watched, tried to remember all the details of your apartment. Maybe they'd come in useful at some point.

"Okay, I'm ready," you announced.

"There's a car downstairs waiting for you," Bucky said.

"You're not coming?"

"I'll go out the way I came," he answered. When you didn't move, he added, "You'll be okay… Steve and everyone… they'll look after you." He wasn't lying that time. "Go."

Slinging bags over your shoulder, you nodded and left Bucky Barnes in the apartment you would never return to.

What would happen to the rest of your stuff? Would Stark pay for a storage unit? Pay your rent? What about work?

By the time you got to the car, you were again, on the verge of tears.

Upstairs, from a window of your apartment, Bucky watched you leave. He made a note to tell someone to teach you not to get into cars without checking if it was safe first. You hadn't even asked to see the driver's ID.

"She's aboard," Bucky relayed into coms.

"Copy that," Steve's voice came back. "Buck?"

Bucky was in his head.

For longer than Steve liked.

Chapter 5 is coming soon...

Tag list for this fic (open): @animegirlgeeky @brighteyedmichelle @howthehellisbucky @bitterstar88 @thatweirdwalangpake

Tag list for all my work (open): @bubbabarnes @browngirlmagic @lookalivefrosty @aynaraxas @vibraniumwitch @the--sad--hatter @fairislesheets - still won’t let me tag you?

#mine #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes fanfic #Bucky Barnes imagine #Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes/Reader #Bucky Barnes x You #Bucky Barnes/You #Bucky Barnes x Y/N #Bucky Barnes reader insert #Marvel #Marvel fic #BB and the Girl w Too Much Power

80 notes · View notes

drshebloggo · 4 years

Text

Ask box: JUSTICE FOR LANE KIM, a breakdown.

Anonymous asked: Do you know why Lane disappeared from the show as Rory's best friend over time? She appeared every now and then, yeah, but it has always bothered me that she slowly faded from being Rory's best friend to nobody... am I remembering things wrong?

I do not know! The Palladinos make decisions that sometimes are simply beyond my comprehension.

It’s been awhile since I watched Gilmore Girls in its entirety (and I kind of selectively ignore a lot in the last two, three seasons) but I don’t think you’re remembering things wrong. I will say, though, that the show faced a challenge with all of the Stars Hollow supporting ensemble when Rory went off to college. It’s these kind of problem-making focus shifts that I find really interesting, and they are UBIQUITOUS across teen/high school shows when a character or ensemble graduates.

Most of them that I can think of are done poorly, maybe with the exception of Friday Night Lights. But in defense of these shows, it’s HARD. How do you embrace a fundamental shift in the entire premise of your show? How do you deal with the new geographies of this shift, and the way they ripple into beloved character dynamics? How do you evolve a character through an engaging and meaningful arc without abandoning the foundation on which they were built? And how do you still capture your audience’s attention when there’s a risk that you’re leaving behind the magic that captivated them in the first place? IT’S HARD.

So in the case of Gilmore Girls, Rory at Yale is the shift that moves the show into a new paradigm, and it’s a big one. She’s separated from Stars Hollow and slowly beginning her emancipation from Lorelai, which is, on principle, painful for the audience because it’s directly against the show’s premise. (It’s no coincidence that the Palladinos starts seriously building the Luke-and-Lorelai-of-it-all once Rory’s away at college. Give that empty-nester some new story!)

Of course, Lane is right behind Lorelai in the list of People in Stars Hollow that Rory is Leaving Behind. How is Lane supposed to stay a part of Rory’s story when Rory is in a new context, and Lane is not? But, truth be told, Lane was ALREADY in this role. In seasons 1-3, LANE, not Lorelai, was #1 on the list of People in Stars Hollow that Rory is Leaving Behind. Ultimately Gilmore Girls is a story of two worlds, and Rory going to Chilton begins her passage across the into the New (Old, with Baggage) World. Lane is already being left behind, to some degree, and in seasons 1-3, there’s still room in the show’s universe to address those issues and give Lane some good storylines of her own, especially in conjunction with Rory.

So it’s possible that the issue is not necessarily one of screentime or setting. Whenever I hear the rebel cry of JUSTICE FOR LANE KIM resound in my heart chambers, I mostly think of the kinds of storylines that befell her in the later seasons, not simply in their detachment from Rory. Heeding her mom’s insistence that she attend Seventh Day Adventist college. Fracturing her relationship with her mom in order to pursue her dreams. Getting kicked out of her home. Living with her two boy bandmates who are very stupid and very messy. Never really getting the band off the ground. Her first sexual experience being terrible. Her first sexual experience being terrible AND yielding a pregnancy with TWINS. Why do the Palladinos hate Lane Kim!!! The only thing I wholeheartedly love about Lane’s later storylines is Luke hiring her to work at the diner and then being completely overwhelmed by her sheer competence.

It’s probably important to note that the mere construction of Lane Kim’s character is a bit tragic. The Palladinos are VERY good at building conflict and tension into what seems like simple character descriptions. Here’s this girl that loves rock music to an obsessive, encyclopedic level, wants to play drums in a band, and she’s from a strict religious household where she can’t express any of that. The description itself inherently means that things are going to blow up for Lane at some point. That’s okay, to some degree - that’s conflict, that’s drama, that’s good story.

So if we look at Lane’s arc pre-blow-up, and post-blow-up, the satisfying thing would be for Lane to experience some kind of happiness or success living unstifled in her dreams, to offset the trauma that her family relationships are ruined (at least for the time being). But the Palladinos don’t even do that! It’s encapsulated in the incident that tears apart Lane’s relationship with her mom: she goes to play at CBGB, her mom finds out and kicks her out, and the band doesn’t even get to go on!! The Palladinos love PAIN.

And okay, fine, there’s still some defense that that is well-designed drama and story. (And Lane and her mom do reconcile eventually, and it was at least very affecting, from my memory.) I guess you could argue that Lane IS happy with how things turned out after the lifelong lie she’s lived completely unravels and she’s able to just exist, unguarded. But also... the Palladinos wrote her that way??? And regardless, for me, the issues arise more down the line with Lane essentially staying in Stars Hollow. Wouldn’t unshackling herself from the yoke of her mother mean that she’s free to pursue her dreams? And wouldn’t pursuing her dreams necessitate her to ALSO leave Stars Hollow, like Rory herself? Would she not try to scrape together money to move with the band to New York City and hit the big time? (Bear in mind, I have no idea how the music industry works.)

Ultimately, Lane’s story in the later seasons puts the writers in a Catch-22. If she leaves Stars Hollow and goes somewhere else to pursue her dreams, she’s almost certainly written off the show. She’s a supporting character, and they can’t open up a new world beyond Stars Hollow and New Haven, just for her. On the other hand, if she stays in Stars Hollow, in keeping with the geographies of the universe, she stays on the show, and just... gets really disappointing storylines. I’d be inclined to keep giving Keiko Agena a paycheck.

(Now, the fact that WB threw money at a backdoor pilot for Jess Mariano to go to California and open up a new world for a weakly-premised spin-off, and did no such thing for Lane Kim, is some bullshit. Literally “moving to the big city to live a dream” is SUCH a well-worn trope that all the storylines are essentially handed to them, and it’s almost inherently refreshed because Lane is a Korean-American woman and not a brooding white guy or a quirky white lady. You FOOLS, you could’ve made that show with your EYES CLOSED.)

Anyways.

I’m going to meander my way further off the main point for a moment to kick up some dust on JUSTICE FOR RORY GILMORE as well. When you write ten paragraphs lamenting Lane Kim’s eternal relegation to supporting role, it’s hard not to be cranky about affording world-opening and story-building for a main character instead. (Spin-off Jess very much deserves the crank, though.) But, frankly, the unyielding walls that the Palladinos built to construct their very effective Two-World Universe don’t do a lot of favors for Rory Gilmore either, in the end.

Basically, this construct of Stars Hollow ensemble and New Haven future means that Rory is the only one who will “get out” of Stars Hollow, because she is structurally decreed to do so. It’s the massive conflict that the Palladinos smartly built into their little generational premise: Lorelai fled her parents’ world, and Rory will slowly be lured back into it. Pain ensues. This is good drama. This is good story. This is story that will last seven seasons and six-hour revival.

But it also inadvertently makes Rory the Chosen One, in a story that doesn’t need one. This is not Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, and I’d like to believe that even Paris and Rory wouldn’t want it to be, much as they love the Power of Myth. Lorelai divests her entire life into Rory’s success; the town of Stars Hollow wants Rory to spirit out of their small town and Be Great; Rory’s grandparents expect her to follow in Richard’s footsteps and also carry out their orphaned dreams for Lorelai. And then the Palladinos choose little things that further this: Lane doesn’t ever leave Stars Hollow; Paris doesn’t get into Harvard but Rory does; Luke interrogates any boy that comes near Rory because no one is good enough. (I confess, I’m charmed into forgiving the last one.)

It’s much too much to put onto one character and leave unaddressed!!! It’s also why some audience members just really hate Rory, in a really unfortunate knife-twist on an otherwise-winsome main character. They hate the unwillingness of the narrative to acknowledge this very obvious dark and specific underside to Rory’s specialness, and the unwillingness of people within the narrative to name this very obvious dark and specific underside about Rory. But to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit: she’s just DRAWN THAT WAY!

Rory’s storylines never really confront the idea that she has had FAR too many unrealistic expectations put on her by literally everyone that’s ever existed in her life, and what it might mean if she doesn’t live up to them. What does it mean if she’s not Christiane Amanpour? What does it mean if she’s scared of disappointing people? What does it mean if she’s trying to live up to other people’s standards rather than examining what she really wants?

The Palladinos completely ignore this, and simultaneously give Rory multiple meltdowns (cheating with Dean, being cowed by Mitchum Huntzberger, stealing a boat, quitting Yale, an aimless/struggling career) and they never QUITE dig into the complete dark and specific issue at the core of Rory’s character construction... which just exacerbates the Rory hate. Rory has no self-awareness; the writers give her no self-awareness; we go in circles, and every few years there’s a slew of thinkpieces about how selfish and awful Rory is.

What makes it worse is that those questions outlined above are essentially applicable for two other women on the show: Lane Kim, and Lorelai Gilmore II, herself. Lane, like Rory, doesn’t quite bust through and answer them wholly. Lorelai, however, comes into the show having already answered them, years before, when she was a headstrong and tenacious teenager. The idea that neither Rory, her actual daughter, nor Lane, her spiritual inheritor of Parental Disapproval, are ever able to grapple with those concepts in a real way, and blossom into self-defined adulthood the way that Lorelai did is maybe the bottom line on where Gilmore Girls went “wrong.” Lorelai’s legacy is not that she’s hyperverbal, loves junk food, and got pregnant young. It’s that she rejected the expectations of her forebearers and carved out a place in the world for herself by her own definition, for better or for worse. It’s why Lorelai comes out of the narrative like a Super Mom, when in fact she’s still just as deeply flawed as Emily or Rory, and why Stars Hollow is overall magical and cherished despite it serving as a small-town hometown for Rory to leave behind. And it’s why A Year in the Life was SO satisfying for Emily Gilmore, because she proved it’s never too late to answer those questions and break through to the other side. Perhaps we’ll get enough revivals to see the same happen for Rory, and for Lane.

But enough dust about Rory. I think, after all this nitpicking, there were two options for the best way to have handled Lane Kim after Rory went off to college:

1. Give her a backdoor pilot and spinoff to Band Dreams NYC. Which, of course, was not in the Palladinos’ control, so, y’know, fine.

2. Keep Lane in Stars Hollow and give her a chance to answer those questions about self-definition and live out a few years of Lorelai-like hard-but-happy independence (and better sex) before saddling her with Zach and two babies (if you MUST). Bonus points if she moves in with Lorelai and they bond over being fundamentally disappointing to your parents and also missing Rory. A very good obvious choice.

Secret option 3. Just let Lane move to New Haven and live with Rory and Paris off-campus, and give me the goddamn roommate comedy of my dreams. Honestly this is what they should’ve done. Forget everything I said. This is my answer.

Tiny footnote: I cannot BELIEVE, that after twenty years, I am just now realizing how on-the-nose it is that Lorelai escaped from the clutches of New Haven and started a new life for herself at a place called INDEPENDENCE INN. Truly, it was right there in front of me and I didn’t even notice. This oversight might weaken the integrity of the thousand-paragraph essay I rattled off above...

#long post #ask box #JUSTICE FOR LANE KIM #there's also justice for Rory Gilmore in here too #I haven't done this in ages and it's... long.#I am watching approximately zero new television but I'd love to relitigate TV from the early 00s and 10s #Gilmore Girls

17 notes · View notes

coffeebeannate · 3 years

Text

Taken from @werebearbearbar

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2020. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

I started writing fic years and years ago. And have done so in other fandoms before taking a long hiatus from the writing world in general. I stuck with written roleplay only. For what I assume to be around four or five years, I did not write a single fic. (I also wrote short stories in childhood, teen years and young adult years)

(I want to point out though that this absolutely does not negate roleplay writing, and that writing with another person, or in a group is a lesser form) My break from fanfic came with one of the worst periods of my mental and physical health, and everything I had written was purged from my Ao3 account in a single night.

I started writing for The Old Guard in August, and below, are the things I like a lot that I’ve written for it. To do this, I decided to use the criteria of ‘fics I like the most’ instead of what seems to be the most popular to read. For me, if I really love a piece of work, I recall the creative process fondly, and have lines and bits of dialogue I truly adore within it.

1. Precision Mission Fic. Gala. Post-Movie. Current Group (Nile, Andy, Joe, NIcky)

Rated M (Mature) 4846 words

My second fic for the fandom that I published, but the first I actually conceptualized. This one is just..so special to me. I have phone notes typed at five am. I can recall the excitement as I was so eager to share this story and get it off the ground. I wanted to see this complete so bad. I loved nearly every second of writing it, and it’s always going to hold a special place in my heart as a result. There’s so much overdone clothing talk and I can only think of it with fondness.

Excerpt:

None of them are comfortable. Except Joe, it seems.

Joe makes it look easy. Simplistic, even, judging by the way he effortlessly glides and charms his way through the expansive ball/congregating/entertaining room. Something that never failed to fascinate Nicky was the way Joe could integrate himself almost seamlessly into any scenario, situation, or environment. Neither Andy nor himself had that ability. Not when it came to cavorting, anyway. Nicky more quietly reserved, Andy lacking in the ability to care enough to fake it.

Nile seemed to be more in the middle. She did not appear overly comfortable with the mingling, but she had enough personal grace and adaptability to make it seem somewhat effortless to have a decent time.

All their eyes remained sharp on the surrounding area, awaiting the arrival of their target. And for all his schmoozing, Nicky knew Joe’s surveillance was tack-sharp, multitasking to a degree no one he was currently conversing with could have possibly noticed.

“You going to move at some point, or have you taken up permanent resident status here?” Nile asks, appearing at his side where Nicky has spent the last half-hour molded to the furthest left corner of the solid black bar. “I know you have an excellent view, but.”

Nicky snorted, though only Nile could actually tell, “Why waste a good opportunity?”, momentarily ceasing his Joe watching to stare back into the depths of his glass, which currently contained some horrifically shocking pink abomination, Nicky’s second drink, since he was letting the bar tender dictate them, too utterly distracted to care what was touching his lips, and curious with the way the bar tender had delighted in being given free reign to make whatever he desired.

To be fair, it didn’t taste that bad-something frighteningly sugary and weirdly noxious smelling, but it’s not exactly ‘crime against humanity’ levels of alcoholic nightmares.

2. Old

Post-movie. Current Group. (Andy, Nile, Joe, Nicky) Mortal Andy. Character study.

Rated T (Teen and Up Audiences), 2903 words.

My first attempt at Andy-centric writing. Andy is a character I consider a challenge to write, and that makes me want to write her more. This fic centers mostly around her and the others trying to come to terms with how much has happened, within day to day life and taking the comfort that they can in one another.

I really like this fic. A lot. Sure it’s short. Sure maybe not much happens, but Andy’s character fascinates me, as does her relationship with her family.

Excerpt:

Old.

Old

So motherfucking old.

Someone is calling out to her, her hearing and senses long fine-tuned to knowing. It’s Nicky- she can easily pretend she can’t hear him, he knows when she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, after all.

She’s being petty, and she knows it’s unfair. That the nearly untouched plate and nights spent not sleeping gives them reason to be at her. But facing them with that fact feels about as ideal as jumping into a flaming volcano right about now. They’re just worried. It makes her stomach turn, sour and vicious. Venom in the gut, acid in the heart.

Said volcano would be kinder.

3. Spice it Up (Or Not)

Joe and Nicky. Pre-Movie. Fluffy Lovings

Rated: E (Explicit) 3030 words

This one was just fun. I am such a sucker for banting, and the most established of established relationships that Nicky and Joe have going on. This one is indeed not safe for work, and honestly, the opening paragraphs are what came first, and I actually had to build the story around it.

Something that I think makes this fic fun to me as well is that, just because something that sounded like a good idea fails, it doesn’t make it an ending. Healthy communication, knowing each other..it’s so blissful to think about.

Things aren’t always perfect, but that’s okay. And it’s not always a threat. Oh and because this is me, what was supposed to be fairly light hearted gets all sappy and reflective mid-way.

Excerpt:

He knows Nicky in every way. He knows his scent from battle, from sex, from showers and from sleep. He knows his eyes in darkness, in light, in dread, excitement and worry. He knows his grief, his love, his sadness, and adoration. Excitement, passion, fear, and pain.

He could count each tear that Nicky has shed, could recall each tone of his voice in every language they know. From the first he heard to the current. The sweet harmony of song and the rough gasp of drunk intoxication. He’s heard him yell, heard him scream. Heard his shouts and his cries.

He knows how Nicky tends to favour his left shoulder even though there’s no reason beyond psychological to do so. A spot Joe stabbed so long ago. So far back in another life. He knows how he likes to pause and do surveillance before they enter any new location. Knows he likes vehicles that move fast and has a fondness for roller coasters.

He’s seen those hands, so large and skilled break bone, wield a sword and cut vegetables and fruit. Seen them card through his hair, felt them map out each knot and ridge in his spine and ribs, felt them so deep inside himself he can taste it. Rolling into it. Demanding, needing.

“Yusuf.” Nicky’s not calling him back, Nicky’s just as far gone. So often they seem to share thoughts.

Nicky knows Joe in all ways and more. Knows that Joe still sometimes seems to speak ancient by-gone languages in his sleep. Knows that he tends to carry the strongest personal scent in the dead of night. That no shower, no soap, no life experience or battle has truly ever masked the delightful musk he has to himself. There could be a cologne out there that would modify it, and Nicky would bite and lick it away. Demanding and asking, why take this from me? How dare you try to alter what I know and love so furiously?

4. Touch Before Heart

Historical Kaysanova. Early Years. Pre-Movie. Getting to Know Eachother.

Rated E (Explicit) 5030 words

As is pretty obvious by now, I write a LOT of early years Kaysanova. A lot. I am addicted to it.

This one..I love it. This might be one of my favourite pieces of writing of all time. If I was doing these numbers strictly in order preference, then I’d put it as number one I bet.

I think the summary I made for it sums up well just how much I love it. And maybe why.

The first moment they’re able to have a bath, they resolutely do not look at each other. Picking opposite ends of the small stream bed, backs turned to one another. A strange show of both trust and distrust; their backs were exposed, but it was up to their tentative mutual agreement to not partake in the opportunity to stab each other for it.

The..idea that they had so much to learn, so much to understand. So much confusion, anger mistrust..I just really really adore this fic and I think I did a good job with it.

Excerpt:

He curses in unison with Nicolò, both holding fast and steady as the thing finally rights itself, Nicolò letting out a slow, shaken breath of relief.

“Are you alright?” Yusuf asks, both to break the silence and mend the irritating gap they’ve created for themselves.

“Better. Thank you.”

Yusuf wants to scream.

He wants to grab Nicolò, shake him until he can do nothing but give him answers.

Why do you drive me to the brink of madness?

Why do I know your touch, but not your heart?

Why do you tempt me, consume me?

What does it mean?

Why are we here?

Why!?

It is an unfair desire; he’s hardly given the man any more clarity.

5. Curated

Post-Movie. Current Group (Nile, Andy, Joe, Nicky)

Rated G (General Audiences) 1807 words

Alright, I admit it, I had trouble picking number five. I picked Curated because it’s just..so fluffy. But it’s so sweet I always feel so sugary when I think of it. The softness that I tried to convey, and I think I succeeded.

Nile is another character that fascinates me, that I just do not explore enough, and this is all the comforting goodness I could ever hope to create.

Excerpt:

She’s grown used to the easy intimacy they all share, but the sight before her, Nicky’s eyes half-lidded, face a perfect serenity she rarely see’s on it, Joe lost, far-away in reciting but still wholly present, creates an odd, near-throbbing ache in her chest. Something powerful and raw. It’s hard to imagine that people who have been alive this long can be this content.

Everything they’ve seen, experienced and done. All the stories they’ve regaled her with. All the prep, the anxieties, the concerns, and curiosities. None of it seems to exist in these moments. Joe speaking in a language the world might think dead, the true master of softness within the room.

And there we have it! I have so much more I want to write, I have so much more I want to explore, and I thank you all for sharing in these journey’s with me. May there be more writing in our future!

#nate does writing #end of year fic thing #self positivity #things nate has written #long post

5 notes · View notes