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suzie-shooter · 13 days

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Alex Rider season 3 unhinged liveblog ramblings scribbled during first watch. Spoilers, obvs. (also fair warning, I am not particularly a fan of Tom or Kyra lol)

Episode 1 - Widow

S2 recap trivia - Alex's therapist is Molly Doran from Slow Horses and married to Alan Blunt IRL

Malta: Ok, so we're not just going to pretend it's Venice lol.

Creepy old men already hitting on Alex. Standard.

"After this we're out of leads." How do you even have any leads in the first place? Oh ok, Smithers' phone. Terrible security protocols from him, leaving that much historical classified data on it.

"Find the Widow - surely he could have given you an address?" First thing Tom's ever said I've agreed with lmao

Aaaand within a second he's back to being deeply irritating, okay.

Yassen living rent free in Alex's head, you love to see it.

"They've got this picture of me being the responsible one." Have Tom's parents actually met him?

Ooh Razim mention.

You maybe want to clean that wound before whacking a dressing on it Alex?

"Do you think you'll ever lose your appetite Nile?" Spat my drink.

Damn, no harem pants then. Scrubs up well tho.

Listing Levin in the opening credits than having him be only a S2 flashback should be a warcrime.

Episode 2 - Lab

"This weapon is called pork sword, wait, no, shit, wrong USB."

"Julia Rothman. Definitely a wrong un." Spat my drink again.

Do Crawley and Pritchard not warrant helmets and visors? Are they somehow immune to shrapnel?

So, room 6, wired to blow, yes? It's what I'd do…

Oh yeah sure guys, they're going to still be sitting there, all unmoving in the dark, for sure that's a person, and not a Massive Trap.

Thereeeee we go. Agent mince. Top of your class huh, well you're certainly at the top now, and down the sides and partially out of the window.

I know there's the whole 'characters don't know what genre they're in' thing but you are literally in the 'working for MI6 genre', you are up against people notorious for booby traps and blowing shit up, why the fuck would you touch something that hadn't been declared safe first? Apart from anything else you're fucking up the scene before forensics get there.

"I love you man." Vom.

Alex: breaks into super sekkrit lab. Also Alex: doesn't have the faintest fucking idea what he's looking at, so not really helpful.

COMICALLY LARGE BOMB KLAXON.

Episode 3 - Enemy

"Welcome to Malagosto." OooOOooh.

Maybe I'm just looking at it from a fic writer's perspective but it does seem a massive anticlimax to immediately let Tom and Kyra know Alex is okay? Like, you could have got a good couple of episodes of angst out of that uncertainty.

"Do you want me to kill them?" Oh God yes please.

Why the fuck have they plugged the USB directly into the network rather than an isolated PC? 'Hur dur we checked it first', you literally believe Scorpia are smart enough to not be bluffing about the nebulous death threat but you don't think they could hide something on the hardware? Fuck's sake lads. Amateur hour.

Is this Home Secretary meant to be Suella Braverman? Or Priti Patel maybe lol. (Equal rights and all that, and if it had been a white male character I don't think I would have thought twice about the dialogue but having both your two new female characters be immediately proved wrong/ massively patronised/ blown up ain't hugely comfortable viewing tbh).

HOW MANY FICS INVOLVING ALEX GETTING FUCKED ON THAT BED HAVE JUST BEEN BORN?

"Are you suggesting we break into a dead man's house?" "It's not like he's going to be there." 😂

"He became a very close friend of mine." Fnar.

Omg making Alex read his father's love letters is hilarious.

Alex: you could have faked that news report Also Alex: handwriting can definitely never be faked (how is Alex even familiar with his dead father's handwriting? wouldn't recognise mine)

Ugh please stop trying to make Alex/Kyra happen.

Alex up the vent shaft. I hope they're sitting casually at the top going - you could have just taken the stairs love.

If he's climbing upwards, why is his hair dangling like he's upside down? Have they filmed this like 60's Batman, and he's just crawling along a horizontal set lol.

Alex never once asks about his mother does he. Given the shagger-John route they seem to have gone down you almost think Julia would be in a better shout of getting Alex to switch sides by claiming to be his mother.

And - yeah, Alex's recruitment just doesn't feel that convincing here. Adding Tom/Kyra/Jack so much to the mix has changed the feel of his life a lot, and TV verse Alex has had a lot less fucking over by the Department by this point too. And Rothman feels too creepy to be effectively convincing him of anything.

"I want you to meet your tutor." FUCK YES FINALLY 🙌 (may have rewound that part several times lol)

Episode 4 - Recruit

Nicaragua: 18 years ago OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING

Baby Yassen is adorable, I'm in love.

OH MY GOD THAT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FUCKIN SPIDER THING

OH MY GOD THE REVEAL OF HIM STANDING OVER THE SLEEPING ALEX I'M DEAD

(Ok, I'm calm again. For now. We continue.)

"You killed my uncle" - all the hundreds of ways this conversation has been written over the years and Yassen's just like lol get over it 😂 (here for it tbh)

Rothman: He's one of our best Yassen: One of? Bitch.

Yassen watching Alex train like 👀👀

"Did he ever tell you you're no fun?" Oh you want to have FUN with Yassen do you?

Yassen bitchslapping Alex to fuck, both hilarious and hot.

Oh, you want to be WET wet.

"Matteo's the guy with the blanket." Why is that so funny.

Omg Yassen stepping in to protect his boy and humiliating Nile in the process lol. And Alex doing what Yassen tells him, because of course he does 🥰

"This one is my responsibility" 🥰🥰

"What about love, friendship?" Alex has only known Yassen five minutes and is already down bad.

"Kind of lonely though, right?" Yeah, Yassen needs you at his side Alex, so step up and stop being a whiny little bitch about killing people.

Never get in the first taxi, rule one of espionage.

Yep, called it. Tom's like: I'll have my fucking tip back in that case.

This scene is so dark I have no fucking idea what's going on, I thought Nile had attacked Alex, but apparently not. Is Nile officially part of this exercise or not, it seems really unclear lol.

The power of friendship and sparklerabbits saves the day, apparently. Yawn.

Jesus, we really ATE with this ep, huh.

Episode 5 - Revenge

"Would you rather your arms around me, or my arms around you?" Way to make it creepy Tom you skeevy fuck.

"Can we focus please?" "We're multi-tasking."

Sure Grendel, rock up to the super sekkrit spy base in a massively conspicuous car why don't you?

"Yassen will give you everything you need." Oh I BET he will.

Feels sloppy them not removing the diffuser from the vent tbh.

"What does this say?" Alex hasn't inherited John's neat handwriting then lol. Alex leaning into him like that > me making noises only dogs can hear.

"You've put lockpick?" "I left my last one in Nile."

Ooh, suicide pill, nasty. Kind've pointless though, given they've been left with the evidence anyway.

Yassen in Alex's bedroom again, likely place for him to be.

"I don't want you to fail. I don't want you to die." 🥹💕🥰

Yalex roadtrip, let's goooo.

Disappointed they're not making Alex do the Entrapment infrared acrobatic sequence here lol.

If this is Yassen's idea of a date it definitely needs work.

So no surprise scorpions then? Can't have shit in Detroit Malta.

"Why? Why did she kill him?" Well taking things at face value here he was a highly murderous member of a terrorist organisation, so you know, kind've her job.

Yassen does like a casual lean, doesn't he.

Episode 6 - Target

Alex and Yassen have shacked up in London, hope there's only one bed.

Now they're in the back of a van, SO many opportunities for shagging, they're spoilt for choice.

Yassen's impressed look when Alex reels off all the security details, so proud of his boy.

"What happened to my mum?" Finally he wonders lol.

"And I'm good at it. You could be too." 🥹

"You think Alex killed him?" I mean, he was also there with a notorious assassin, so probably not, y'know.

Domestic Yassen cooking Alex's dinner and also cooking him a gun lol.

Smithers' "How I've missed you" ahahaha. Smithers/Kyra much better pairing tbh.

"He's actually quite good at this stuff." Smithers' little snort lmao

Time for Alex to be blacked up/ dunked in a teabag bath/ gussied up. Although he still looks exactly like Alex afterwards, which feels less useful lol.

"You love him, don't you?" Yassen loves him more. I have to say Alex had far more chemistry with Syl, and frankly for that matter with Tom. I really don't get the Kyra agenda.

"It's a dry hole." Alex's worst nightmare.

Is Alex going to look through Mrs Jones' knicker drawer?

Episode 7 - The Shot

Mrs Jones and her tall murderous hobbit son lol. Otto really looks about 58 here.

Hope they bill him for her fucked up fridge.

Is that Bath? Oh, it is.

Mrs Jones casually throwing Alex back into play lol. Maybe she can have a little revenge for him trying to shoot her.

"Everyone breaks into houses." Jack's face lol

Ewww put him down, you don't know where he's been (Yassen's bed, almost certainly)

"Remember they can't hurt you unless you invite them in." "That's vampires."

Yassen arguing in favour of going to rescue Alex MY HEART

"Sit down. I'm going to tell you a story. About your friend, John Rider." HOLY PLOTHOLE TIMELINE PATCHING BATMAN

"John was embedded inside Scorpia for three years." Not the only thing he was embedded in by the sounds of it.

Alex seems to be hallucinating again lol.

Yassen, maybe psychoanalysing your insane boss isn't the safest thing to be doing?

"It's quite mad Julia." Yassen really gives no shits omfg

"I know my place." Yes, at Alex's side.

I like how Julia thought telling Yassen she'd killed John would do anything other than piss him off lol.

Episode 8 - Invisible Sword

"But you do owe me a new fridge." LOLLLLLL

Crawley feeling like a spare part during this lift convo, hahaha

"Smithers, you can do me some kind of tracker, right?" "Yeah, if you promise to keep it on you this time."

Alex is like ohshit I'm gonna die fr

"Not for the agents. They undid their seatbelts." Eyyyyyyyy 👉

Aww they've given him a little baby assassin outfit, how cute.

Where's Yassen, has he just fucked off to the pub?

"For the head of Scorpia, you're a really bad liar."

Laughing at all the other Scorpia agents having to listen to this convo about their boss like we are not paid enough for this shit 😬

"Everyone else is getting what they want, let me have my cereal."

Protecting his boy to the last. Yassen really is purely on Alex's side, we love to see it.🥰

And OMG HE LIVESSSSSSSS 🙌🙌🙌🙌 (I voted yes in that poll, I had faith lol)

Well that was - far more fanservice than I dared hope for, after the meagre pickings we got in the first two series. Yalex supremacy to the motherfucking end, let's go.

#alex rider #alex rider spoilers #alex rider season 3 #yalex

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juniperhillpatient · 1 year

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City of Walls & Secrets Re-Watch

Oh wow, this episode, ok. I was mainly focused on Jet & Zuko (again oops) during this episode. But, that's not to say the rest of the episode wasn't interesting, because it absolutely was. I loved the opening scene with the Gaang seeing the city, & Sokka & Katara's excitement was cute. I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a tiny village where everyone knows each other & then see a big bustling city like that.

Joo Dee is right away so terrifying. Sorry Ozai, but you've got nothing on this chick. She is the stuff of nightmares to me.

It's the subtle, consistent creepiness for me. The feeling that something is not quite right. The way she shakes her head, smiling, at everyone that the Gaang tries to talk to & they shut their mouths. I love the underlying creepiness of Ba Sing Se. "Why do you keep all the poor people hidden & separate?" The dawning realization that there's something very wrong here. Also, Aang's continued lack of luck finding Appa is so depressing & I remember not being able to focus on much else because I was so worried about Appa the first time I watched.

I love Sokka & Aang pretending to be fancy rich people & goofing around. Sokka & Aang's bestie-ism moments where they're just being dorks are so precious. +100 iconic behavior points each. Another A+ comedy moment that gets me every time is everyone's confusion at the notion of just a regular old bear. Katara & Toph dressed all fancy was so cute, & I love Toph shutting down Katara responding to Aang's compliment like "don't speak to the commoners!" That moment just cracks me up. Katara gets +300 iconic behavior points for getting them into the party & +100 for making Toph's fake name "dung." And some people think Katara isn't funny!

Jet becoming increasingly obsessed with Zuko & Iroh is just so sad. What's important to note is that Jet was actually obsessed with Zuko before he found out that Zuko & Iroh are fire-benders. He wanted Zuko to join the Freedom Fighters because he felt a connection with him after they stole the food for the refugees together. He was following Zuko around & trying to convince Smellerbee & Longshot to give Zuko a chance & that's the only reason he was paying enough attention to see Iroh fire-bend. It's the betrayal & tragedy for me <3 Wow, I love a good ol' tragic fucked-up whirlwind love-hate romance dynamic.

And like - the thing is that Jet is right! He's more right than he even knows! Zuko & Iroh ARE fire-benders but not only that, they're Fire Nation royalty. Like not even just "yeah, they are fire-benders," no, they are literally both personally directly responsible for harm caused by the Fire Nation. Yet everyone around him treats him like he's crazy. Even his closest friends think he's becoming too obsessed. And it's understandable. Smellerbee & Longshot both want Jet to move on for his own good. They want to move on with their lives & stop obsessing over vengeance, & the Fire Nation. They want a new life, but Jet is still stuck in his obsessive hate. And like.....the thing is, the thing that gets me, Jet is not wrong to be stuck? The more I think about it, the more right he is. As we know, Zuko eventually personally helps the Fire Nation conquer Ba Sing Se. Like??? Hello??? Jet was literally 100% right to be obsessed & concerned.

Anyway. Jet & Zuko obviously both get +1000 iconic behavior points for having a dramatic gay sword fight in a teashop. I'm losing track of who's winning, but they might be at this point. Katara's also doing pretty good. Anyway, I will never get over Jet attacking Zuko to try & force him to fire-bend. It's dramatic, it's hilarious, it's tragic, & it's a great fight scene. They really do have the range. I absolutely love Zuko popping out with his dual swords like - "I'll give you a show!" Dramatic fucking king, I love you so much Zuzu. Also, can we just like, acknowledge that Zuko apparently had his swords on him while waiting tables? Good for him.

The end of this episode is pretty chilling. Jet getting arrested is just a rough scene. And the introduction to the creepy brainwashing that happens? Terrifying.

When the new Joo Dee shows up & she smiles creepily & says "I am Joo Dee"? Eugh. Chills, every time.

This is a great episode. Very creepy & foreboding. I love the introduction to Ba Sing Se. I just love a setting where Something is Wrong.

#city of walls and secrets #atla book 2 #atla re watch

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op-sheepy · 3 years

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ok so I'm particularly interested in

Bellamy Law

Law and Bible stuff

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

shichibukai applications

reverse hanahaki disease (?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

if you feel like elaborating on any of these!

This is gonna get long and I actually contemplated posting them separately but would that have been more work? Yeah, that felt like more work so for anyone interested, check under the cut. :D

---------------------------------o

Bellamy Law

Hm… This would be an attempt to explore the parallels and contrasts between Bellamy and Law. I've always found it fascinating that the former was a foil to the latter.

They both come from well-off towns in the North Blue.

Bellamy left because of boredom. Law had no choice because Flevance.

Both ended up seeking Doflamingo because of his notoriety as a pirate. Both admired him initially

Doffy favored one over the other though. Bellamy always sought his approval but was never really part of the inner circle Doflamingo cared about.

Law got the dubious privilege of being part of the family despite being absent for so long. Even offered one of the highest seats by Doffy's side for seemingly nothing.

Law had no trouble turning his back on Doffy once he realized the man's nature. Bellamy tried to stick to his principles until the end despite admitting that he new he was wrong.

Bellamy can (and did) quit piracy after his ordeal with Doflamingo. Having the option to live peacefully, perhaps a return to his previous life (the one he considered boring). Law can't do that quite as easily what with his Devil fruit and his reputation.

I thought it would be interesting trying to explore what Bellamy was thinking. Did he hear the Donquixote Pirates talk about their missing 'family'? Did he get to see Doffy be amused at Law's rise as a Supernova while he kept being reminded of his own status? Did Law save Bellamy partially because he also saw what he could have been had Corazon not saved him?

On principle, Bellamy should have hated Trafalgar Law. Does. Bastard even saved him without him wanting it. But there was something about the shadows haunting those eyes and Bellamy started to wonder.

He had heard the family talk about Law before. The child personally taught by Doflamingo, chosen to be his right hand. Never was he compared to the man because Law was just obviously better. Smarter. Stronger. Bellamy was ever just an uncouth thug.

He was allowed to 'borrow' Doflamingo's symbol while Law had an empty seat waiting for his return–a seat Bellamy had wanted enough to risk everything for.

Maybe he had resented, Trafalgar Law for carelessly rejecting the things he had that Bellamy had always desired. In the end too, Trafalgar Law did prove to be better. He'd done as a child what Bellamy had trouble doing even as he was now.

But having been given the chance to observe the other man as they all recovered, he wondered, perhaps for the first time, whether despite Law being better than Bellamy, Bellamy had had it better–barring the poor life choices.

---------------------------------o

Law and Bible stuff

This is just me wanting to know how many biblical parallels and themes I can draw from Law, the Donquixote brothers, the characters associated with them, and his backstory. Honestly not sure whether this would become a fic and in what style or I'm gonna give up and just make it a post.

Not gonna elaborate on them much but here are the ideas in more bullet points (yay):

Law gets familiar with all four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death. He even survives them.

Law is like the son in the parable of the prodigal son to the Donquixote pirates. Except the themes are inverted.

Doflamingo and Rocinante -> Cain and Abel

Ope Ope no Mi -> Granting eternal life by sacrificing one's own life

Gods descending or living among humans. Also, Homing and his family being prosecuted for other people's sins.

That scene where they were hanged by their arms outstretched looks like a crucifixion. Also, Rocinante was on the right while Doflamingo was on the left. Similar to how the penitent thief was on the right and the unrepentant one to the left.

Flevance being considered a paradise with walls/fences/gates and somewhere Law cannot return to.

In the panel where the Donquixote pirates are seated at the table, there were thirteen of them with Doffy at the center. Same as The Last Supper

There are a lot more of these (David and Goliath, Solomon, Jonah, Job, etc.) but I kinda lost the notes and some are more visual so I can't really explain it too well. This would is a drabble series to emphasize or highlight the parallels so no proper snippet for this one.

---------------------------------o

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

Originally an idea to get around most of the Heart Pirates being nameless but evolved to include other characters as kids. Chopper is a kindergarten teacher and he convinces Law to take over his class for a week because somehow Law has the qualifications to and free time. Naturally, he wasn't able to say no.

Unfortunately, despite not being terrible at handling children, Chopper's class is filled with menaces. Also, despite not being terrible, Law can still be awkward so...

"Mr. Trofao–fargar—"

"Trafalgar."

The kid—which one was this one again? Shit, he should really get them name plates or something—scrunched up his face and tried harder, "Tar-pal—"

"Law. Just call me Law."

"Mr. Low"—eh, close enough—"can I go to the bathroom?" Wide imploring eyes stared up at him.

"Sure, go ahead." Law gestured towards the exit of the classroom with his head.

The kid just stared expectantly at him and he tried to suppress the need to narrow his eyes.

"Is there… anything else?"

"Mr. Chopper always comes with me to hold my hand."

Really?

"Mr. Chopper isn't here. You should practice doing it on your own now." He said after a deep inhale.

"But the monsters might get me…"

"No, they won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Before the kid could open his mouth again to argue, he added, "Besides, children taste terrible so you're safe."

The kid looked stricken and took a step back from him. Uh oh. Glistening eyes, wobbling lower lip… "Alright! I'll go with you." The kid did not look reassured. In fact he looked like going alone with Law was the last thing he wanted to do. Guess, he kinda implied that he ate children didn't he? Oops.

Well, the kid needs to go and he's not going to be cleaning up after him if he wets himself.

Law glanced at the rest of the children. It was Arts and Craft time and they seemed preoccupied enough. Still, Law doubted Chopper ever left these kids alone–already he could see some of them glancing up at him, waiting for him to leave no doubt to cause trouble. That Monkey kid in particular looked extremely suspicious.

He stood up from his crouch and clapped twice to get everyone's attention.

"Alright. Fall in line. Single file."

There was some grumbling and questioning directed at him. "What's going on?"

Law shrugged. "You're all going to the bathroom."

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Shichibukai Application Forms

Crackfic where the World Government and relevant parties review various Shichbukai Applications. Most submitted by the pirates applying themselves, some produced by their own staff. They discuss and debate. As well as judge pirate resumes.

She scanned the document. Terrible format, really. If you fail to impress within the first page, you've failed entirely. There just wasn't anyone promising enough in this batch of applications or any of the other ones before. The last one had been that clown. "Apprentice to the Pirate King," was a pretty hefty credential.

"Oh, how about this one? Three years experience pillaging, and they even listed all the towns they looted." One of the newly transferred administrative staff said.

"None of these are worth considering at all. You know, when Mihawk was asked to submit his application, he hadn't bothered with all of this. He just sent us a card with his name on it and the title "World's Strongest Swordsman," underneath."

The staff perked up. "Oh, there was an application like that." There was scramble and some shuffling before a plain white card was produced. "Here."

"'From Trafalgar Law'. What does this even mean?"

"Well, it did come with a big box..."

---------------------------------o

Reverse Hanahaki Disease

(?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

Haha. At first it was going to be that way (because it is hilarious) but the inflicted would probably choke to death too soon. Or if both enemies had it, they'd end up just coughing flowers at each other until they stopped being enemies.

The version I ended up going with was that this variant of Hanahaki, instead of afflicting those with unrequited love, affected those in denial instead. The reverse part comes from the original idea that this would usually happen if you somehow fell in love with your nemesis (someone you originally hated). So it's not the thought that the other person can't love you, it's that you can't accept that you love that other person. You get cured by confessing to the person sincerely.

This is actually another KidLaw (surprise!). And the flower coughed up directly represents the person they're in love with (I went with Oda's flower representation for them because I found it funny for plot)

So the idea is that, you get sick but you don't automatically know (maybe) who it is because that's part of being in denial. Kid and Law have many enemies after all. In this story they both get it though not exactly at the same time and not known to the other.

He survived Amber Lead Syndrome only to be killed off by a stupid flower disease that apparently knows more about his own feelings than he does.

He glared at the petals. Tulips. Red.

An image of a cocky grin and a shock of red hair flashed through his mind and—nope. That's not right.

He coughed harder, tears stinging his eyes with the effort. More flowers. Now he has enough for a bouquet.

Alright, he was a doctor. He could do this. Differential time.

First, which variant does he have. He doesn't particularly feel unloved or hopeless. There wasn't anyone he wanted in particular to love him. Ok, nothing. It was maybe safe to say he had that other variant.

Which was stupid because Law had many enemies and he hated all of them.

And cue the racking coughs. More red. He was very familiar with that particular shade.

New theory. This was a new variant that somehow makes you sick when you think of the person you hated the most.

Yes, that had to be it. He thought as he all but collapsed on the floor from the sudden paroxysm.

I knew this was gonna get long. :) Oh well...

Thank you for playing. :D

#One Piece #One piece fanfiction #wip game #trafalgar law #donquixote brothers #donquixote doflamingo #donquixote roci #donquixote homing #donquixote pirates #one piece bellamy #bellamy the hyena #eustass kid #kidlaw #trafalgar d water law

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mc-lukanette · 4 years

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42 Lukanette Thoughts

Marinette waiting until Luka’s birthday to give him a response to his confession. He’s absolutely “offended” and she’s just grinning at him.

Luka not being able to swim despite living on a boat. Bonus if Marinette invites him and Juleka out to the swimming pool one day and the absolute love-struck dork finds himself unable to say “no” to her. Juleka thinks it’s hilarious that he can’t just admit to Marinette that he can’t swim, so she has a blast constantly making everything worse, like telling Marinette that Luka doesn’t have a swimsuit so Marinette’ll end up making one for him.

Marinette thinking about the whole “LadyNoir” situation while she’s sketching in her notebook. She finds that she doesn’t even like the way her name meshes with Chat’s. One thought leads to another and she - while not even thinking - ends up writing “Lukanette” in her sketchbook. Cut to her hanging out with Luka later and showing him the designs she came up with that day, meaning that Luka ends up seeing “Lukanette” so casually written in her sketchbook.

Luka Knows™️ but also has to hide it because he can’t have Marinette thinking that he’s crushing on Ladybug. This eventually leads to him telling Ladybug that she can come to him at any time, which leads to nights of Ladybug giving him the snake so he can go on patrol with her. He’s not ready for her lowkey flirting and has to keep reminding himself that he’s not supposed to react since she doesn’t know that he Knows™️.

AU where Kitty Section never became a thing, but it turns out that Marinette’s good at writing lyrics. She actually ends up singing along to a song that Luka never had lyrics for and that’s how she becomes his lyricist.

A concept: switching around “Frozer” and “Captain Hardrock,” meaning that, when Luka goes to comfort this “stranger” walking onto deck, he might not even hear about the ice rink. If he does, they’re not close enough for her to ask him to come with her but he offers her some quick ice skating lessons before the “third-wheeling date.” If he doesn’t and thus gives Marinette no lessons, Adrimi ends up happening due to Marinette staying mostly off the ice due to clumsiness and constantly feeling bad over seeing Adrien and Kagami there, which leads into “Captain Hardrock” where she meets Luka again without any sort of Adrien influence (outside of her getting over him).

Marinette always being made fun of and called “funny” due to her clumsiness when she was little. Likewise, Luka was always considered too “soft” so he began to see it as an insult. Once they’re older, they end up calling each other “funny”/“soft” and suddenly find that it hits very different when it’s THEM saying it to each other because they can tell that there’s no maliciousness there.

Post-reveal friendly shenanigans where Luka is somewhere, idling on his phone, when a flash of red and black swoops down and snatches it out of his hand. He looks around, confused, then manages to catch the sight of Ladybug this time as she swoops back the other way and hands his phone back. He sees that she took a picture of herself winking + sticking her tongue out with his phone and now he can’t stop grinning stupidly to himself.

Marinette waking up after a stressful/exhausting day, then seeing the time and frantically calling Luka, worried that she’d missed an event or something. There’s a light chuckle on the other line as Luka reminds her that it’s Sunday and nothing’s going on so she should get back to sleep.

Post-Guardian Marinette things where Luka is her confidant who she told about her guardian status. Marinette occasionally lets the kwami free whenever she knows that Tom and Sabine won’t come up to disturb them, but it leads to a “problem” of sorts. Pollen, of course, calls Marinette her “queen,” but now that Luka is there also, Pollen calls him her “king” and Marinette and Luka are collectively dying.

Silly thing: snakes of all kinds being attached to Marinette. She’ll go to pet stores and they’ll boop their noses against the glass, wanting her attention. Luka feels unnecessarily smug post-dating because he’s her snake and no one else is.

Luka Knows™️ and finds a way for Marinette to vent about her Ladybug duties without her having to tell him her identity, like mentioning things that happened with Ladybug that day and giving her an opening to talk about them, if only from a faux-outsider’s perspective.

Luka having a terrible day, to the point where he’s legitimately worried about being akumatized. He decides to call Marinette as an akuma starts flying past the window, and just hearing Marinette’s voice alone fills Luka with such positive energy that the akuma is immediately repelled like wow ok i’m out. He watches the akuma leave with a smile and whispers, ”You’re amazing, Marinette.” “W-what?? Did you call just to tell me that?” “No, but it’s true.”

Marinette decides that she wants a challenge and asks Luka if she can make a full guitar for him. He knows he’d be stupid not to agree, but then Marinette shyly adds a condition: he has to name the guitar after her. Luka has no idea how to explain to her that he’s already named a guitar after her so she might have to settle for her guitar being “Marinette 2.”

Luka Knowing™️ and it makes him legitimately upset at how much stress and responsibility has been placed on her. He ends up getting akumatized so he can take her earrings, not to bring them to Hawk Moth, but to “save” her.

Viperion in a particularly tough akuma-related battle. Ladybug legitimately doesn’t know if they’re going to make it out okay, so she ends up finding a moment to confess to him. Cut to later when he ends up having to go back with Second Chance, erasing the moment from time, and apparently he’s just supposed to focus and pretend like he’s okay and he is SO getting her back when this fight is over.

Marinette being afraid to confess to Luka directly, so she’s constantly dropping hints that she likes him and Luka is picking up on none of them because he’s convinced that she still likes Adrien. The rest of Kitty Section is constantly getting on his case for not pursuing Marinette and he’s just like, “But she likes Adrien?” while having like 3984723748234 texts from Marinette just from that day alone.

Marinette deciding to use her Instagram to ramble, leading her to post some pictures of Luka and talk about how nice/sweet/handsome he is because surely he doesn’t follow her account so it’ll be fine (spoiler alert: he follows her account very much and Juleka makes a game out of trying to catch his reaction every time Marinette posts about him).

Post-dating, Marinette insisting to Luka that she “doesn’t want to mess up their first kiss,” and therefore they have to practice kissing each other first, apparently missing the point that it won’t be their first kiss if they’ve kissed each other before. Luka tries to explain the fault in logic but she’s not backing down and, really, who is he to refuse if she wants to kiss him a bunch?

Adulthood Lukanette “cruelty” on Marinette’s part where she decides that she wants to propose to Luka and puts the box with the wedding ring inside one of his guitars with the excuse that she was replacing the strings for him, then leaving Luka to realize what she did later.

Juleka asking Marinette who her favorite hero is because she was getting into a debate with Luka about it and they couldn’t agree. Marinette shyly peeks up because Luka is right there, but nonetheless admits that her favorite is Viperion.

Marinette visiting the Liberty and noticing Luka not playing his guitar and just staring off into space, a soft, loving look on his face. She asks Juleka about it, who casually brushes it off as, “Oh, he always does that when he’s thinking of you.” “When he’s thinking of WHO now????”

Post-dating in which Marinette freaks out over even the smallest contact with Luka just because she’s on a happy emotional high. (”You wanna hold hands??? Like--my hand??? Holding yours??? And our fingers will be intertwining and everything?? And we--stop laughing, Luka, these are important questions!!!”) Bonus if what gets her to take a huge step forward and just passionately kiss Luka is someone mocking their relationship and her proving them otherwise thusly.

Marinette gets a pet snake, names it “Viperion,” and happily uses it as an opportunity to gush about Viperion the second Luka questions why she chose a snake as a pet.

Marinette complains sometimes about Luka being “too tall” but really, it’s perfect for hugs, so-- (even if she still pouts about the fact that she can’t kiss him simply by being on her tip-toes).

Lowkey headcanon that Juleka and Rose purposefully set Marinette up with Luka since they’re like, “Luka’s missing!” in “Captain Hardrock” when Luka is in his room that Juleka shares with him and it would’ve been the first place to go look for him.

Luka being so used to messes and just leaving them alone thanks to living on the Liberty for so long and being around his mother. It’s a really hard habit to break when he starts living with Marinette and he’s extremely apologetic about it.

Luka posting a lot about Marinette/him and Marinette on Instagram and Marinette “fighting back” (bonus if she doesn’t do it intentionally) with posts about Luka/her and Luka/Kitty Section.

Why limit oneself to balcony scenes when you can have houseboat scenes too???

Marinette being offended by any polls where Ladybug wins over Viperion except Luka is offended by her opinion and it’s just them going back and forth about why Ladybug/Viperion should be more popular.

Tikki agreeing with Master Fu that Marinette and Adrien are “made for each other” but being a closet Lukanette fan in secret. That tiny Kitty Section shirt that Marinette made on Instagram is hers.

Pre-”Captain Hardrock,” Luka thinking he’s subtle asking for details about “the girl who broke his sister’s photo curse.” He’s not.

Marinette taking a music class and of course she asks Luka to help with things that she doesn’t understand. Bonus if she’s so into trying to learn that she doesn’t notice when she’s making him blush, like her casually sitting on his lap and asking him to physically instruct her on where her hands should be.

Post-dating, Marinette “bribing” Luka to do things using kisses. Bold of her to assume he wouldn’t have done it anyway, though he won’t say “no” to kisses either.

Marinette, being carried/protected by Viperion, knowing that she needs to leave to transform but also he’s very warm and nice so maybe just a little longer, this akuma isn’t that dangerous/disruptive anyway. (Viperion may also be indulging himself too but she’ll never know.)

“It's amazing how you can be so composed all the time, Luka! It feels like it's impossible to know what you're thinking!“ “Really? But I just think about you all the time, Marinette.“ “*DOESN’T KNOW WHETHER TO BE FLUSTERED OR OFFENDED BECAUSE HOW DARE--*”

Whenever Marinette does that thing where she closes her eyes and raises her head proudly... I feel like Luka gets the sudden urge to either kiss her or cup her cheeks.

Marinette and Luka having “silence challenges” in adulthood where they give each other affection and the first one to make a noise loses. The challenge never lasts long.

I just presume that Luka has sixth senses that go off the second Marinette is completely over Adrien.

Post-reveal and post-dating where Luka expresses concern to Marinette about the whole “destiny” nonsense with Adrien being Chat Noir and Marinette lets Luka know how she feels about that by showering Luka with lots of kisses.

Luka not realizing what he said to Marinette in “Silencer” until he goes home and Juleka asks him what they’d been talking about. His face turns progressively redder as he makes the realization.

Post-dating, Marinette not being used to the abundance of affection that Luka’s going to give her due to how many times she failed with Adrien.

#type: thoughts #Flower Arrangement Shipping #type: prompt set #((Not really but I could see people viewing it as one.))#Pro LukaMari #Lukanette

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ivyglow · 4 years

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making my boyfriend jealous #prank 01 - Carter Hart | Philly

a/n: this idea sounded perfect in my head, but I don’t know if I’m satisfied with how it turned out; Hope you guys like it anyway. Don’t forget to let me know <3 It’s not proofread-ed so let me know if you find some mistake

btw, I wanted to say a huge thank you to @skarsgardswiftie for putting up with me talking about this idea and helping me out with some scenes. Love you, Val!!! <3 *muah*

Word count: 3.5k

Requested: yes

Prompt: 17. “wait a second..are you jealous?” 19. “I don’t love them. I love you”

warnings: none

No one would believe if told that Nolan, the grumpy almost shy one, was best friends with y/n the smiley and loud girl. They met at a pharmacy, going for the last pain medicine box on the shelf and bumping hands, he was about to give up, but then she smiled and suggested buying it and give him one card since there were two inside. They spent some time talking in the line and when she found him once again in the same pharmacy she didn’t lose time following him and sliding to his DM. They got along pretty well and months after y/n saw herself in a bar full of hockey players to celebrate the victory of the team.

That’s how she met Carter and more further ahead started dating him.

They were two distinct polos.

Y/n loved to dance, Carter preferred to sit and sip at his drinks.

Y/n was a college student of Fine Arts, Carter was a hockey player.

Y/n had curly hair while Carter had the thinnest straight strands of hair.

Y/n was Colombian, Carter was Canadian.

Y/n had a YouTube channel and Carter, well Carter discovered that he liked it a lot more than he was supposed to.

She did videos of hair care, study routine, and even some dance moves while cleaning the house. He was able to watch her, hear her, and almost feel her even if the timezone would not allow during trips.

Their first kiss was in one of those videos, y/n was talking about some chapstick new flavor while Carter was watching some game on the TV sitting on the opposite sofa.

“Well, I’m really suspect to talk about the peach one since I don’t like peaches” she comments while putting it on. “Carter, can you come here for one sec.”

At that point, the boys were part of her routine so they were used to appearing in some videos sometimes, TK truly loved the attention, he would show out of the blue behind the camera or pretend the video was about his morning routine. Nolan would crack a laugh and Carter would roll his eyes telling his friend to give the camera back to y/n. Of course most of the time she would edit these parts, so it didn’t appear, but sometimes it was hilarious, and so she couldn’t help herself. The next day Travis would be the joke of the locker room -but he never stopped-.

“What’s up?” he asked, sitting by her side on the living room floor. Travis and Nolan were out buying food, Hart and y/n being the only ones in the house.

“Can you taste this chapstick flavor and see if you like it?” she applied one more time in her lips and smelled the tiny balm in her hands, making a face and giving it to him.

Carter laughed and scooted closer to her taking her shin into his fingers and bringing her face close. She giggled not expecting him to taste directly from her lips, he was probably messing with her like they always did with each other. But when Carter closed the gap all she could do was hold his neck and dive into the feeling.

After the episode, they would kiss every time no one was around. Dates and night in started to be a common thing and the rest is history.

It was a Saturday morning, Carter was sound asleep since he was going to have a game later in the afternoon and y/n was already in the kitchen preparing the usual breakfast they had for game days, except today she was reasonably early.

“Hey there, my lovely pals” she greeted trying to speak as low as possible. “It’s a Saturday morning and I’m doing breakfast while editing some school stuff, Carter is sleeping and this video has everything to do with him” she grins while sipping from her favorite cup of coffee. “Travis was talking to me about some kind of conversation they had at the locker room and apparently Carter said he wasn’t a jealous person...well, it’s something between the boys but my amazing and devilish friend came up with the idea...he wants me to act a little weird and see if Carter really doesn’t feel jealousy at all. I decided it was better to film it so he wouldn’t be capable of denying it. He’s sleeping as I said before and I’ve distanced myself since yesterday, I don’t know if he already noticed it but yeah..let’s go” she turned around to start paying full attention to the preparation of breakfast.

Y/n was halfway done when she faced the camera again.

“So we usually have the ‘breakfast-pre-game’ together whenever we can, but today I’m calling Trav and Nolan to join us…”

The next record was y/n pacing in the kitchen while sending some messages on her cellphone. When the duo was already there TK gave her a bear hug and murmured “let’s go for it, Hartsy girl”. She laughed and went to hug Nolan, who didn’t know about the prank.

“Where’s Carter?” he asked.

“Sleeping, can you wake him up while I set the table, please?”

Nolan noded going for the stairs and Travis started setting the table while y/n moved the camera to a better angle. When Carter and Nolan showed up he was still in his sleeping sweatpants and with his hair a total mess.

“Morning” he mumbled to his friends going directly to his girl and wrapping his arms around her.

“Morning, sleepyhead” she teased.

“Why you didn’t wake me up?” his calm breath lingering on her neck almost made her forget about the plan.

“I did, I just send Nolan to do it” y/n answered pretending to be confused with his question. On these days she was the one to wake him up and she did it with kisses, depending on the mood even some morning sex.

Carter left one last kiss on her shoulder before they head to the table.

“What’s up with the juice, babe?” Carter asks while sitting beside her.

“Oh, Travis didn’t want chocolate milk so I made him orange juice…” here we go, she thought.

“God, you’re so sassy, TK” Nolan rolled his eyes glancing at his friend.

“You see?! He comes to have breakfast at my house and wants to choose what to eat” the goalie goes along while TK just grins.

“It’s ok, Carter, he didn’t ask for it, I just wanted to make sure he is one hundred percent spoiled since it’s a game day...” she speaks and then pauses pretending she said the wrong thing. “Not only him, but you guys, of course…”

Travis tried to suppress the giggle, that fucker! she was a great actress.

The meal went along with TK always carrying the subject to y/n witch made Carter glance at him every once in a while. She would for sure zoom his face in the editing process.

…

“Hey, lovely pals, it’s afternoon now, Carter is already at the rink and I’m getting changed. I’m going with Travis jersey today and we’re expecting a big win so I have an excuse to film the boys leaving the locker room and get a good view of Carter’s reaction.”

Y/n keeps the camera on her face while showing some makeup tricks and it was not long before Ryanne was knocking at her door. They met way before y/n started dating Carter, back when she was starting her friendship with Nolan, he was the one saying that the two would get along pretty well...and he wasn’t wrong.

“Why are you wearing TK’s jersey?!” was the first thing she said when the door was open.

“Hi, Rya, I’m doing pretty good, thank you for asking!” Y/n’s words packed with irony were responsible for both of their laughs.

“I’m sorry, it’s just...very weird. Like I look at your face and my mind goes straight for a #79…” she jokes.

Y/n rolls her eyes slightly at her friend and let her enter “I’ll just grab my purse and we can go!”.

Not even 10 minutes later they were already in a cab making the way to the arena. Y/n take advance of the time to explain to her friend everything while making sure she won’t let herself slip, such as sheer too loudly for Carter or forget about everything once he left the locker room with wet hair and rosy cheeks pursuing her body for a warm hug.

And that’s exactly what Ryanne does once the game starts and y/n is on her feet holding tight to her water bottle. The thing is, the Colombian girl was very competitive being raised in a home where the weekends were specially for soccer games and her father got her a jersey even before she was born. She was so used to diving deep into everything she did, especially if it was about cheering for a team. And well, living in Philadelphia and dating a hockey player made her role to cheer as loud as possible. It was her team and her boyfriend after all.

The game went better than expected and thanks to Ryanne she was able to hold herself together.

“So I bet this is the hardest part…” Ryanne stated holding y/n’s camera and prepared to film everything. “That’s why I’m praying for TK or even Nolan gets here first…” y/n sighed.

It was not long before the three boys come all together laughing and talking about something y/n predicted as the game.

“Hey, babe” Carter greeted burying his head in the crook of her neck and breathing deeply.

“Good game, Hart” she smiled hugging him back but shorter than the usual. And only when she went to hug the other two players he notices the different numbers printed on the jersey. His lips twitched and his brows furrowed, Ryanne tried to suppress a giggle before Claude finally leaving the locker room.

“Nolan I hope deep down in my heart that you washed this hair with shampoo, please” she joked.

“For your information, I always wash it with shampoo…” he shoves her lightly before hugging her by the shoulders. “He’s lying, y/n, last time I went to his house he was using soap to wash this damn birds nest.” Travis grabbed her hand bringing her closer to him.

“Hey! Great game, by the way, Trav! I loved that last pass!!!!” and that’s it, that’s precisely how she usually does with Carter, praising everything he does during the match time, always. Giving him advice and hyping him up.

Carter chose to let it go while they started to make their way to a bar to celebrate as they did every possible time.

At the bar, Carter kept his distance while y/n danced around with Ryanne and Travis,

He should be happy since his team won and he did an amazing job keeping every puck away from the net, but something was bothering him and he knew exactly what it was once his eyes found his girlfriend one more time that night.

Something in the way she did not bother to stay close or even tells him how good he played was giving an uncomfortable vibe. Not that she should always do that, but habitually that’s what they up to, and the sex after too, so when y/n brush him off going for a cup of water in the kitchen he knows something is really wrong.

They just got home from the celebration, she was barefoot looking for a glass in the cabinet.

“Y/n what’s wrong?” he approached not knowing how to start that conversation. “What do you mean?” she asked, a confused look on her face.

“I mean, why are you wearing another player jersey…??”

“Oh...I just wanted to support the team in general, you know?!” she shrugged. “I need to go to sleep now. I’m exhausted, sorry. TK danced too much tonight…” she giggles, walking to their shared room and leaving Carter behind. Knowing damn well that she planted a jealousy seed in his mind.

...

Two days and more distance later she was recording a video about her playlists in the bedroom when Carter got home from practice.

“Hey, missed you” he muttered undoing his tie.

“Hi, Carter” she grinned, not the big bright smile he’s used to when he got home, but at least it’s something considering she’s been almost ignoring his the last days “I’m filming a video” she explains.

“Not gonna interrupt” he left a kiss on her forehead and went for the closet to change, coming back minutes later with his grey sweatpants and no shirt on. Y/n knew what he was trying to do and being as competitive as she is she choose to make a game out of it.

“...and so there’s a lot of Post Malone’s songs, as you guys expected, and some Spanish as well because hell yeah I’m here for praising my own language…” she’s trying to focus on the camera in front of her when the bed dips, Carter is laying in the bed.

Sometimes he used to do it, but usually, he would wear a shirt or something and try to be as invisible as possible, just wanting to be closer.

“You can keep going, I’m just gonna...watch” he whispers smiling and laying his head comfortably at the pillows.

She rolled her eyes and went back to talking with the device when his hands found hers. The long and calloused fingers threading and holding to her strongly but still somehow soft. She felt his adoration look and could not keep her eyes from founding his and her lips from mirroring him and smiling.

Carter was this contagious.

Like some kind of speel.

It was hard to resist when he started being so soft and loving around her.

And that’s exactly how he managed to lay her beside him and finally get the deep kiss he’s been seeking since three days ago. His hands found her waist bringing her closer and slotting one of his legs between hers. Y/n’s hands went to his soft hair and pushed it lightly, part of her wanting to separate their mouths, the other just expecting for what he did next: he moaned into her mouth. He melted every time she pushed his hair and she knew it.

“Babe, please…” he spoke sinking his head in the crook of her neck, kissing that spot.

“Not today, Carter” she tried to resist, departing their bodies.

He huffed but nodded his head. “Can I at least eat…” he started looking for her legs and she gasped interrupting his naughty question. “The camera is still on” she tried to pretend that this was the big deal, but in reality, she would not be able to hear his full question and deny it. “It’s not like you are on live, puff” he joked and she tried to stay serious. “Wait...are you on live?!” his eyes went wide and y/n didn’t resist the laugh. “I’m not on Live, calm down.”

“Fine, but are you sure?! Are we ok?!” he asked sitting when she did the same.

Y/n turned her head to the nightstand pretending to look for something while answering “yeah, we’re just fine”

“So does that mean we can do something?! I just want your attention, love” and there he was all soft again.

“I’m just...not in the mood, Carter” she mumbled. “Not even for kisses?! Cuddles?!” She shook her head and he sighed. “Fine. Can I at least just be here watching you??” he asked this time not looking at her but drawing imaginary patterns in the mattress. She felt a pang on her heart but went for the answer she knew was going to make he thinks something was different “yeah, whatever”.

And just like that, she kept trying to go on with the video while Carter was laying beside her and watching every move until he fell asleep. Still, he kept the adoration look, she knew it, she felt it.

…

The Flyers were playing again and just like the last game y/n went wearing TK’s jersey. But only this time the game wasn’t so good as the last one. The team failed shamefully and even TK gave up from the prank for some time after leaving the locker room. This time the hug y/n gave him was well needed. Consequently, when she was comforting him, it was not part of the jealous-game anymore, but for Carter, it all seemed the same obviously. “You did great, Trav. Sometimes we just can’t control everything and that’s ok” he hugged her strongly before letting go.

Hart just noded for his two buddies, Nolan and TK, before heading for the parking lot, not going for his usual hug or kiss after loss or victory.

“You don’t want to hug me or anything?” she asked once they reached the parking lot.

He sighed. He looked tired. “I...I guess Travis needed the hug more than I did.” she furrows her brows. “Wait a second..are you jealous?” she asked and he shrugged before entering the car.

“You’re ok?!” y/n asked as soon as she got inside the car. He nodded starting to drive in complete silence. She knew better than to give him his space after a loss, but usually, he wanted her around, he would not want to talk during a certain hour, but he definitely wanted to hug her or at least have her close.

This time it was different.

And it kept being different during the whole ride home.

He was giving the silent treatment.

She almost forgot to turn the camera on when they arrived home, but when she felt the tension she knew it was the moment he probably was going to snap.

“Y/n…” he called already inside the apartment. “Can we talk…?”

“Is it about the game?! Of course, we can talk…” she pretended not to be aware. Carter shook his head. “It’s...about a subject completely different.” He was undoing his tie while walking to sit beside her on the couch. Somehow it seemed like he was too nervous about it, so he just rose and started pacing in the middle of the living room.

“Oh, go ahead. What is it about?”

He sighs.

The passe goes on.

“I’ve been noticing lately what your...friendship with Travis started to change...to develop…” she tried to open her mouth and comment, but he shook his head again. “Just...let me finish ok?!” his voice was not angry, it was calm...like he wasn’t that angry like he was just...hurt. And so he went on “And I love you… that’s why I just want to see you happy. So...if you’re not feeling the same anymore, if it’s something I did or said, or it’s nothing at all just you falling out of love with me...just...let me know. I do trust you with all my heart, and I know you would never cheat and I know you don’t want to hurt me too” he took a deep breath before starting again. “So...what I want to say is that if you’re starting to like Travis, tell me now, don’t bring it to me out of the blue-”

He’s so deep into his ranting that he did not notice she’s snickering with her two palms covering her face. When he did, he stops himself. “Oh- no, don’t cry, babe. It’s not your fault, feelings happen...and I’m not blaming you…” she was about to finally crack a laugh, but when she found his sad eyes she just couldn’t.

“What’s so funny?!” He’s clueless.

“It’s not it, Carter...it’s just...you love me so much. This is a whole level of maturity and affection...I was not expecting. I thought you would be jealous and snap at me, get angry, I don’t know. I’m just in shock.”

“I was not that angry because it’s not like we choose to fall in love you know?! We just do…” he says apparently deep into his thoughts. “But if I could choose I would go for you anyway.” there’s this small smile in the corner of his lips.

“I’m so sorry I was so distant lately. But...I don’t love him. I love you” she whispers. “I’m really really sorry about this week.”

“so…?”

“It was a prank, Travis idea, I got curious...I did not imagine it would get this far. I’m sorry I make you felt like I did not love you…” she hugs him and feels when his body relaxes into the embrace. He was relieved.

She stood up and went to the camera behind an ornament in the coffee table.

“This is the moment you tell us how it felt. Take it easy on TK, he’s not the greatest actor, we could’ve come up with something better...” she joked sitting in front of her boyfriend. Carter chuckles admiring her face behind the camera.

“Actually, I do love him, but as a friend” y/n adds before turning the lens a little and kissing his lips.

“That I can deal with.”

#carter hart #philadephia flyers #latina!reader #black!reader #nhl imagine #carter hart imagine #travis konecny #nolan patrick #hockey imagine #carter hart fluff #carter hart request #nhl quarantine #mels writing

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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Blushing in His Colours, Chapter 1

TITLE: Blushing in His Colours CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 1 AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki being a Daddy Dom, his adores and loves his little, worships the ground she walks on. She has vaginismus, but he couldn’t be more supportive with her. RATING: M

Mia walked into the party feeling a little shy, she looked around quickly and spotted Natasha and Wanda. So she made a beeline straight for them.

Parties weren’t exactly her favourite scene. But she had promised the team she would attend, considering she had managed to make up an excuse not to go to the past few.

Ever since she started working in the tower with The Avengers, her life had changed rather drastically. She had only gone there originally for work experience through college, but the team liked her and Tony wanted to keep her on in charge of their social media presence. She was super nice, so helpful too in other areas. Nothing was ever too much bother for her.

Being offered her own room in the tower and a well-paying job there had been too much to pass up, of course. There was no downside really… Well, aside from one, maybe.

She had a bit of a crush on one of the team members. Or maybe, a huge crush. But what made it a little tricky, was it was the trickster himself. Loki. She had been mesmerised by him from the first moment she met him.

He was a charmer, had welcomed her with a kiss on the back of her hand. Making her blush like a schoolgirl. She often tried to be in the same room as him when possible, without looking suspicious. But at the same time not getting too close to him. Luckily, she’d become good friends with Natasha and Wanda, so was often hanging out in the main living room where Loki sometimes frequented.

She was barely able to get the courage up to speak to him. He was a literal God, after all. She even struggled speaking to Thor sometimes, but it was worse with Loki because she found him so attractive. It wasn’t just his looks, but his intelligence and mischief too. He seemed fun to be around, was often pranking the others which made her laugh.

It was his voice that always hit her the most though. She could just listen to him speak about anything at all, it was such a soothing and lovely voice he had.

But something she would never admit to anyone, not even Natasha and Wanda, was in her mind she thought that Loki was perfect Daddy Dom material… But then, she wasn’t sure if it was maybe just her fantasies that made her think that of him.

‘You look beautiful, Mia!’ Natasha said as she hugged her, so did Wanda.

‘Thanks.’ Mia blushed a little.

‘Did you pick that colour for a certain… Someone?’ Wanda asked, winking.

‘You do suit green though.’ Natasha said as she looked her up and down.

‘I… kind of.’ Mia said sheepishly.

Natasha and Wanda knew about her crush. Not that Mia had told them, but they had worked it out quite quickly. The way her cheeks went a little red whenever Loki was in the same room, how she would always glance over in his direction. Her general demeanour always perked up when Loki was around.

‘Oh, speak of the devil.’ Wanda said quietly, sipping her drink as she looked over Mia’s shoulder.

Mia froze, feeling a shiver run down her spine as she knew he was behind her.

Loki had spotted a lovely figure in green, as he moved to get a better look, he was stunned to see it was Mia. She had her dark walnut coloured hair up nicely too, in a messy type of bun. He’d always found her rather adorable, but she was so shy and he was never able to get her alone to chat properly. She was a bit of a flight risk, often darting off when he made his way towards her. He felt she was intimidated by him, which he wanted to rectify if possible.

‘Ladies.’ Loki greeted with a nod, his voice like smooth velvet as he came into her view at the side. But then he looked directly to Mia and smiled. ‘Mia. You look beautiful, that dress is very becoming on you. If I may so.’ He said with a slight twinkle in his eyes.

Mia thought her face was going to combust with how badly she blushed. ‘Oh… thank you, Loki.’ She said quickly, not quite able to make eye contact with him.

He was looking very regal in his Asgardian armour, him and Thor always went all out for the parties. Making sure everyone remembered they were royal Gods.

‘I also couldn’t help but notice you didn’t have a drink… May I get you one?’ Loki asked politely.

‘Please… Thank you.’ Mia spoke quietly, able to look up into his eyes for a moment.

Loki nodded and went to fetch her a drink. She turned to look at Natasha and Wanda, who were grinning at her.

‘This could be your chance!’ Natasha said as she nudged her playfully.

‘Don’t be silly. He’s just being… polite.’ Mia shrugged as she looked over in Loki’s direction, he was getting her a drink from the bar.

‘He never compliments anyone, Mia. You should feel honoured.’ Wanda said, then went quiet when Loki returned with a drink for himself and Mia.

Mia was surprised when he handed her favourite to her. ‘How did you know what I like to drink?’ She asked, curiously.

‘I remember from the first evening you were here, when we all had a few drinks.’ Loki grinned and winked at her.

Natasha and Wanda shared a knowing look with one another. ‘We’re just going to get some food.’ Wanda said as she dragged Natasha away.

Mia’s eyes widened a little at being left with Loki. She started sipping her drink straight away, hoping to get some alcoholic courage. Loki could tell she was nervous. He wasn’t sure why she was so nervous around him. Though he was glad she hadn’t run away from him yet this time. But her constant blushing when he was around did make him wonder…

‘It’s nice that you’ve joined us, I know you tend to avoid parties normally.’ Loki said as he motioned for her to walk with him.

She walked along next to him around the side of the room. ‘Yeah… I just, am not too keen on big crowds really… Do you enjoy parties?’

‘Not normally, similarly to you I am not overly fond of huge crowds. Although, I am rather enjoying this party because of the delightful company.’ He winked at her.

She almost choked on her drink, but managed to quickly compose herself. Was he actually flirting with her? She almost couldn’t believe it.

The two sat down on one of the sofas near Pepper, Tony and Clint. Thor was over by the bar with Steve and Bruce, telling one of his jokes. Loki shook his head. ‘He thinks he’s hilarious.’

‘His jokes are better than yours.’ Tony said to Loki.

‘You’re the biggest joke here, Stark.’ Loki snarked back at him.

Clint and Mia laughed, making Loki grin.

‘Glad you could join us, Mia. Bad choice of dress though, wearing Loki’s colour.’ Nick said as he joined them at the sofas.

‘Don’t be mean. She suits that colour. Green isn’t just Loki’s colour.’ Maria said as she also sat down with them. Natasha and Wanda came to join too.

‘But you did wear it mainly to get Loki to notice you?’ Vision said, he had been hovering at the back.

If Mia thought she was embarrassed before, she certainly was now. With so many people staring at her, and Vision blurting that out.

‘I… need to go to the bathroom.’ She said, quickly getting to her feet and almost running out of the room.

‘Vis!’ Wanda chastised.

‘Sorry, was that not the right thing to say? I thought that was the reason.’ Vision seemed genuinely confused.

‘I’ll go after her.’ Natasha hopped up and rushed after Mia.

Loki frowned. ‘She wore green to get my attention?’

‘Duh! If it wasn’t clear to you by now, she likes you, Loki. But is too shy to speak to you.’ Wanda sighed.

Natasha found Mia in the corridor heading back to her room. She managed to catch up with her. ‘Mia! Wait!’ She called, glad when Mia stopped. Her eyes were watering, she felt so embarrassed.

‘Hey, you ok?’ Natasha gave her a hug.

‘I’m so embarrassed, Nat. Now Loki knows, how will I be able to face him again?’ She said sadly, looking down.

‘I certainly hope you will face me again.’ Came Loki’s voice, making Mia freak out internally as she looked up and saw him coming down the corridor towards them.

‘Loki.’ Natasha said in warning as he reached them.

‘Can I talk to Mia privately?’ Loki asked.

Natasha wasn’t totally sure, but she looked at Mia who nodded.

‘I’ll just be round the corner if you need me.’ Natasha said.

Mia was fiddling with her hands on front of her. ‘Loki… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to disrespect you… Or anything. I just… I…’

‘Shhh.’ Loki said softly and he cupped her chin, lifting her head up to him. Her heart was racing as she looked into his eyes. ‘No need to apologise, and why would you disrespect me?’ He frowned.

‘I don’t… I don’t really know.’ She swallowed hard.

‘Did you really wear this colour for me?’ He asked.

Mia knew he could tell when someone was lying, so she knew there was no point trying.

‘Yes… I wanted to try and get you to notice me… so stupid.’ She admitted, wanting the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She would have to leave and get a new job, there was no way she could stick around here now that Loki knew she had a crush on him.

Loki brushed his thumb up over her cheek, making her skin tingle as she realised he was still touching her. And he didn’t look angry at her admission.

‘Oh darling.’ He hummed, smiling down fondly at her. ‘You’ve always had my attention, right from the very start. And you are far from stupid, Mia.’ He said so softly she thought she was going to start crying with how nice he was being.

‘You’re just saying that.’ She laughed nervously and tried looking down.

‘The first day you came here, you were wearing a knee length dark blue dress, long sleeves with leggings and flat black shoes. Your hair was down and straight, if I remember rightly it was to help hide the blush on your cheeks when Fury introduced us. I know that your favourite snack is a double chocolate chip cookie. When you work, you are so focused you don’t even notice what’s going on around you. But you are so kind to others and extremely helpful, you go out of your way to help other people. Even if it’s just getting them a drink. Your eyes light up entirely when Maria brings her dog to work, so I will go out on a limb and guess that you love animals. You’re not a morning person, but you prefer getting work done first, so you have the rest of the day to relax. Purple is your favourite colour and I do believe that you love rock music.’

Mia was completely stunned, she was gazing up at him with her mouth parted.

Loki had taken note of all these things over the few months she’d been there. Also hearing bits and pieces from when she conversed with others. But he had stored everything he knew about her away in his mind.

But the rather lovely moment between them was ruined when Natasha came rushing down the corridor. ‘YOU FOOL!’ She whacked Loki’s arm as she stood at the side of them, hands on her hips.

Loki narrowed his eyes at her as he let go of Mia’s chin.

‘You’ve liked her all this time but haven’t said or done anything about it?’

Loki ran his hand down his face. ‘You’ve been listening?’

‘Of course! To make sure you weren’t going to be an ass.’ Natasha said.

Loki clenched his jaw, but knew she looked out for Mia, they were good friends. ‘In my defence, I didn’t think you would be interested in me.’ He said as he looked at Mia. ‘Because you’d always avoid eye contact with me, would barely speak to me. I thought you were maybe scared of me.’ He said honestly.

‘You dumbass. That’s just because she’s shy!’ Natasha said, hitting him again.

‘Stop hitting me, Romanoff.’ Loki growled.

His tone made Mia’s stomach lurch, in a good way. She loved it when he went all growly…

‘Nat… Maybe uhm, give us some time?’ Mia asked quietly.

Natasha looked to Mia, then back at Loki. ‘Alright. See you back at the party.’ She nodded and headed off, this time actually leaving them to it.

Loki looked at Mia, unable to stop smiling. He was really fond of her, he just had no idea how much she liked him, too.

‘May I take you out to dinner tomorrow night?’ Loki asked, taking hold of her hand and running his thumb across the back of it, causing goosebumps on her skin.

Mia couldn’t quite find the words. But she nodded quickly, over eager, making Loki chuckle.

‘Excellent.’ He grinned.

They did return to the party. Loki promised Mia that he would personally hang anyone who dared to make her feel embarrassed about wearing his colours.

She was secretly really pleased about that.

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #submission #Blushing in his Colours #Chapter 1 #Fanfichiddles

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bohrapbois · 3 years

Note

I wanna request something to!

Joe finds out Ben likes him because they're hanging out and Ben has a cute boner because Joe did/say whatever you come up with. 🤭

This was written on my phone as I was cooking eggs for my lunch, so you’ll have to eggscuse any spelling mistakes ;D

They’d been hanging out just them two a lot more recently. They got on with everyone else just fine, it’s just sometimes it’s nice to just be Ben and Joe. And even if Ben and Joe time was watching a crappy movie with crappy snacks at a crappy time of night. It was nice. Less crappy when it was them two.

Joe, being himself, was having a joking rant about something tiny in the film. It wasn’t important what it was, Joe was on a rampage and pulling it apart from the view of a director, screen writer, actor and viewer. It was hilarious, and Ben was already complaining of his cheeks hurting from laughing that much. The blond had tears coming from his eyes as he clutched his stomach, laughing so hard that it was coming out as a wheezing sound, Joe laughing around his exaggerated point.

“It’s like they gave him go-“ Joe reaches down and pulls off his shirt, flinging it over to the other side of the room “- ‘you should all listen to me because I’m hot and topless! Look at my muscles’”. The redhead starts flexing, laughing at how stupid the plot line of this film was, and it took him a second to realise that his friend wasn’t laughing.

Ben, in fact, was avoiding eye contact, swallowing a few times as he tries to laugh again. Holding a pillow over his front, he was pretending to watch the film, but it failed when Joe stepped directly in his eye line, getting up on the bed and kneeling by Bens feet with a quirked eyebrow.

“Joke not funny?” He asks, crawling a little higher up the bed on his knees, watching how the blond shifted on the bed a bit more and a frankly very adorable blush darkened over his nose and cheeks. “What is it, Jones? What’s going on below those curls?” Joe reaches forward and ruffled Bens hair, still messy from where the makeup team took off the wig before.

“Nothing interesting,” Bens voice sounded a little strained even to his own ears, but when you suddenly spurt a hard on for your friend, it’s only natural to try and keep said friend from finding out.

“Then what’s the pillow for?” Joes attention went to the thing in Bens lap, trying to tug it away, but Ben gripped it harder. Joe laughed, sitting down on Bens knees and grabbed the pillow with both hands, trying to pull it away.

“No! Please don’t!” Ben gripped it harder, blushing more. God, he was like a teenager. When was the last time his dick had shown such sudden interest? It was embarrassing!

“Why? What is it?” Joe stopped pulling, but stared at Ben more, who, in turn, dropped his head to avoid eye contact. A slim finger propped his chin up, and wow ok he’d already admired Joes hands but f u c k.

Green eyes unsteadily met hazel, the older man on top of him looking at him with concern, but still very very topless and very very lean. It was rude how good Joe looked right now, especially as he has that fucking perm.

“I... like you,” Ben broke the silence between them, unknowingly echoing the scene behind Joes back.

“Well, I hope you do, we are friends after-“ Joe rolled his eyes but Ben shook his head, Joes finger still under his chin.

“No, Joe, I like you. As in, like like you,” Ben huffed and shifted under Joe, now knowing how it feels to have Joes thighs straddling his own. The pillow is not helping his situation at all.

“Wait... like like?” Joe aired the confession, and Ben nodded, the redhead taking a moment before his face breaks in realisation. “Well, uhm,” he looked away for a moment, missing the way Bens shoulders slumped in disappointment. Both had gone through breakups recently, he should’ve known Joe wouldn’t like him like that. He didn’t even know if Joe liked guys like that.

“Hey, don’t start pouting on me now,” Joe was looking at him again, Ben unaware he’d been acting so childish, but there was a hand cupping his jaw and Joe was closer on him now. “Don’t start rejecting yourself for me. Because, Benjamin, this has worked out very well because I like like you too”.

“What?” Bens eyes light up, and he gets a nod, both men breaking out in smiles. Ben reaches a hand to hold Joes waist, the older man chuckling at the touch. They don’t do anything other than rest their foreheads together, laughing softly at eachother every now and then.

“I can’t believe it took you getting a boner at me being topless for us to confess to eachother about our like like,” Joe teases after awhile, now able to pull away the pillow as Ben had calmed down a bit.

“Well you’re very hot, and I’m saying that even with that hairdo, so,” Ben grins, pulling back to stare at Joe hair, who whines a complaint and hides his face in Bens neck, the blond wrapping his arms around his waist properly as he laughed, noting how natural it felt to be like this.

#ben hardy #joe mazzello #my work #my fic #fluff #crack #bohemian rapsody movie #queen cast #hardzello

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autumnsart22 · 3 years

Text

Oikawa x reader ch. 7

Longer chapter today, sorry! I just couldn’t stop writing this scene 😫

“Y/n, come on!” Kindaichi jabbed me in the side.

“Ow!” I said, punching him. “I don’t want to go!”

“But it’s tradition,” Hanamaki said, coming up on my other side.

I groaned. The idea of going to a mall arcade with 12 teenage boys and me as the only female might have been appealing to some girls, but not to me. When Kindaichi had asked if I was going yesterday after the practice game, I had almost immediately said no. But apparently, it was Seijoh’s tradition to go out and celebrate after every practice game we won.

“Come on Iwa, tell her!”

I glanced up to see Oikawa and Iwaizumi approaching, Oikawa’s knee was in a brace, but he wasn’t limping as badly as yesterday. The doctors had apparently given him a good amount of pain medication, but I hoped he wasn’t pushing himself too hard. I knew that despite my words yesterday, he still was disappointed in himself for not finishing up the game, but that wasn’t an excuse to keep hurting himself.

“Tell her what?” Oikawa stopped in front of us, a hand on his hip.

Yahaba smacked me across the head lightly as he spoke. “We’re trying to get her to come to the arcade with us.”

I rubbed my head, glaring. “And I told you, I have no interest in spending the afternoon with losers like the Aoba Johsai volleyball club.” I grinned wickedly, and Oikawa placed an offended hand on his chest.

“Who else would you spend the afternoon with? Karasuno?”

I rolled my eyes, but I was suddenly getting accusatory glares from all the boys.

In truth, I actually had been planning on hanging out with Karasuno, but there was no way I was admitting that. “How long are we going to be out?” I asked in a resigned tone.

“A few hours, usually.” Iwaizumi said with a pitying look. “We usually go at 12--”

“You can ride with me!” Oikawa interrupted, throwing an arm around me. I shrugged him off and raised my eyebrows.

“Iwa literally lives down the block from me, so I can just ride with him. You’d just be going out of your way.” I glanced at Iwaizumi. “If that’s ok?”

The ace nodded, his eyes shifting to Oikawa who looked a little put out.

“You’re so mean, Y/n-chan! You never want to spend time with me!” Oikawa complained.

I grinned and poked him in the shoulder. “Maybe it’s because you’re such a baby.”

That night, I called Kiyoko. I felt like I hadn’t seen her in ages, even though it had only been a week. I told her that I would have to come to the Karasuno sleepover a bit later than I expected, but I would still make it. Hopefully two teams in one day wouldn’t be too much for my poor mental state to handle.

I wanted to tell Kiyoko everything about Oikawa and the team, how I finally felt like I belonged at Aoba Johsai, but at the same time, I felt like a traitor. It was stupid and irrational, especially since she had been the one to tell me to become Seijoh’s manager, but we were no longer directly involved in each others day to lives. It made me upset, but I vowed that I would have her meet my new team as soon as possible.

The next day, Iwaizumi pulled up in front of my house in his huge black pickup truck at exactly 12. My mom, reading through paperwork at her desk by the front window, stared at the intimidating vehicle in mild confusion or disgust, but I thought it was hilarious.

I snatched my purse from the kitchen table, stuffing my phone in my pocket, and then I ran out the door to meet Iwa. As I jogged up the passenger seat, I blinked in surprise to see Oikawa already seated there.

As I crawled into the backseat, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I slept over at Iwa-chan’s house. Is that a crime?”

“Nope. You just stole my seat.”

He reclined his seat all the way back until it was resting on my lap, and I could barely move. “Oikawa!”

He grinned up at me, poking my cheek. “You’re so cute, Y/n-chan!”

I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue. “Will you get up?”

“Honestly, I’m pretty comfortable here.”

“Ughhhh.”

Iwaizumi gave me an “I’m so sorry” look, and punched Oikawa. “Get your ass off her, Shittykawa.”

The two argued the whole way to the arcade, which was around a fifteen minute drive, and Iwaizumi almost hit Kunimi pulling into the parking lot because he was too busy trashing Oikawa.

The rest of the team was already waiting by the entrance of the mall by the time we all walked up, and they greeted me with just as much excitement as the two boys. I got swept into a tide of Watari, Matsuwaka, and Kindaichi, who literally dragged me through the glass doors of the mall and towards the arcade. I could hear pounding music and flashing lights coming from within, and I sighed, resigning myself to a long day.

The arcade was huge, way bigger than I expected. Every arcade game I could have imagined was there, ranging from the Jurassic park shooting games, to classic pac man, to car racing, each one flashing dizzyingly in the darkness.

“Usually we play to see who can get the most tickets,” Kindaichi practically yelled over the music. I nodded to signal that I understood, and followed them through a maze of games to the race car driving. There were exactly four seats, and it didn’t take long for us to get into a violent competition of racing.

I ended up winning three out of the four games we played, boasting a huge handful of tickets by the end. The three boys were shocked, but I had Tanaka and Nishinoya to blame. Over the course of two years, I had probably played the game at least a thousand times with them, giving me quite the edge.

My eyes were burning from staring at the screen for so long, so I quickly excused myself to go to the bathroom. Almost instantly, I was lost in the maze of games and darkness, completely turned around by the dozens of blinking screens.

“Are you lost?” An unfamiliar voice asked from behind me, and I turned. A tall guy with dyed blonde hair and dark undercut and earrings looked down at me, smirking. He wore a white t-shirt and black sweats.

“Oh, uh...yeah I am actually. Do you know where there’s a bathroom--”

“What’s your name? You’re pretty cute.”

As the guy spoke, I noticed he had a tongue piercing.

“Um-”

“There you are Y/n.” I felt relief pierce me like a knife as I turned to see Oikawa and Iwaizumi prowling towards me, both of their eyes spelling out literal death for the guy still standing behind me, a little too close.

“Is this guy bothering you?” Iwaizumi looked down at me, face blank.

Oikawa wasn’t as subtle. His arm slid around my waist, tugging me into the protective shelter of his side. He had a truly terrifying smile on his face as he glared at the blonde guy, daring him to say something.

“It’s ok. He was just leaving.” I tried to say, but Oikawa was suddenly leaning forward, a look of delight crossing his face.

“Wait a minute...You’re Terushima Yūji, captain of Johzenji high volleyball club, aren’t you?

I blinked, looking back at the guy. Captain of Johzenji volleyball club? Karasuno had played Johzenji a few times in the past, and as I stared at the guy in front of me, I felt a vague sense of recognition.

Terushima smirked, not looking very intimidated by Oikawa or Iwaizumi. “Wow, I guess I must be popular. And wait, let me guess...hurt knee, annoying attitude--you must be Oikawa Toru from Aoba Johsai.”

Before Oikawa could respond, Terushima’s gaze was moving back to me. “But the better question is, who is she? She’s very…” His eyes trailed slowly down my body, and he smirked wider.

I felt Oikawa tense up so hard, I was sure he was trying to hold himself back. I turned to look at him, my hand wrapping around his shirt. “Oikawa,” I whispered, tugging. “It’s fine, seriously.”

Iwaizumi was who I didn’t count on. The wing spiker shoved Terushima so hard, the other boy almost fell on his ass. “Get the fuck out of here, you disgusting piece of shit. If you ever talk to her like that again, I will personally beat the fuck out of you.”

I had never heard Iwa so angry. Terushima glared, but he seemed to realize that Iwa and Oikawa were ready to fight, and he was outnumbered. Instead, he grinned and flipped Iwaizumi off.

“I look forward to seeing you all at the next game.” He winked at me before turning and sauntering away.

It took almost a full five minutes for Oikawa to relax and let go of me. I tried to tell both him and Iwa that I was totally fine, that Terushima hadn’t even done anything that bad, but they continued to look murderous. I was almost afraid that they would go after the captain of Johzenji the second I let them out of my sight, so instead I tried to distract them.

“Oikawa, hey! It’s fine! We’re at an arcade, so can we please play some games?”

They finally agreed, and we all set up in front of one of the zombie shooting games. I usually wasn’t particularly good at them, and this time was no exception. Iwaizumi ended up getting the most points, Oikawa close behind him, but I barely even killed two zombies. My failure seemed to cheer up Oikawa, who went back to his typical annoying self, poking fun at me as usual.

“You’re terrible at this, Y/n-chan!” He mocked, putting down his gun. Iwaizumi put in a few coins to start up another round, and Oikawa moved behind me, arms wrapping around my shoulders, my back suddenly flat against his chest. His hands were almost twice the size of my own as they guided me to the proper position to hold the plastic gun.

“Wha--” I stuttered, brain short circuiting at the setter’s sudden proximity.

“You hold it here, and move around like this,” he said in my ear, breath washing across my neck. I felt like my face was on fire, and I was sure that if anyone saw me, they’d think I was a tomato who had come to life and started speaking.

A zombie jumped out, and Oikawa’s arms tensed around me as he fired the fake gun at the screen. I could barely focus, far too aware of his chin hovering just over my shoulder, his arms around my torso, and his hands tight on mine. I felt like I could melt right there.

The game was one of the longest five minutes of my life, but also ended far too soon. Before I knew it, Iwazumi was slamming down his gun in defeat and turning to Oikawa. I felt the heat of Seijoh’s captain pull away as he dropped his arms and stepped back, and I let out a breath that I didn’t even know I was holding.

I turned around, heart still racing, but Oikawa was already moving towards another game. It didn’t mean anything. I had to remember that.

I stood in front of the claw machine, arms crossed and pouting. I had already wasted half my coins on the stupid thing, trying to get a sweet blue whale stuffed animal that rested in the corner of the box, but it looked like it was impossible.

“You still didn’t get it?” Iwa asked from the air hockey table, where he played viciously against Kunimi.

I glared at him. “No need to sound so condescending!”

“Move, I’ll get it for you.” Oikawa came up and shoved me out of the way, and I made a noise of indignation.

“You don’t have to--”

But he was already shoving coins into the slot, smirking at me. “Watch the master, new girl.”

I sighed, rolling my eyes. But as I watched Oikawa manipulate the level, I practically leapt out of my skin from excitement. Hands against the glass, I simultaneously watched the claw as it moved across the box, positioning over the whale, and also Oikawa’s concentrated face. I had only ever seen him get this serious during a volleyball game.

The claw descended, wrapping around the whale with a precarious grip on its tail. My eyes were wide as it got closer, closer, and--

The whale dropped into the box, and Oikawa handed it to me, a proud and smug smile on his face. I let out a cry of delight, abandoning any pretense as I flung my arms around his neck. I couldn’t see his face, but he hugged me back tightly.

“Thank you so much Oikawa, I love it,” I said, pulling away.

He grinned.. “I have one condition: you have to name him after me.”

“What?! How do you know it’s a boy?”

He crossed his arms, raising his eyebrows.

“Fine, Tooru the whale it is.” I hugged the stuffy tightly, not noticing Oikawa’s cheeks get red in the darkness of the arcade.

“Wait one sec.” The setter whipped out his phone and held it up, and I had just enough time to hold up my stuffed animal and smile widely before the camera flashed and the picture was taken.

“You’re so cute, Chibi-chan!” Oikawa said, holding out the phone. In the photo, I smiled widely and happily, Oikawa’s head resting against mine as he held up a peace sign. Of course, Oikawa looked far better than me, but there was no use complaining about that.

“Wanna play the dance battle game?” I asked, noticing it as we walked back towards where the rest of the team was.

Seijoh’s setter looked down at me. “Are you ready to be destroyed?”

“Ha! As if.”

“I guess we’ll have to see then.”

I laughed, setting down Tooru the whale and my purse off to the side. “What song do you want?”

I didn’t know many of the options, so Oikawa picked Five More Hours by Deorro and Chris Brown, an American dance song.

The arrows began to flash on the screen, and Oikawa and I both furiously began to jump on the arrows, probably looking ridiculous. The song was fast paced and I was completely out of breath from laughing. By the end, I abandoned all attempts of getting the right arrows, and just danced around to the beat of the music, watching Oikawa crush the game. How was he so good looking while dancing to such a ridiculous song?

“Wow Oikawa, I think you should look into becoming a professional dancer!” Hanamaki yelled, standing a few feet away with his phone out, filming us, the rest of the team behind him. I almost immediately became embarrassed, but Oikawa clearly revelled in the attention.

He flipped off Hanamaki before turning to me with a wide smile. Before I could stop him, he grabbed me around the waist, holding one of my hands up so we were dancing together, abandoning the game completely.

I laughed in delight as the beat dropped and we both started jumping around crazily like idiots. Oikawa still held my hands, but my overwhelming happiness pushed the embarrassment aside.

When the song finally ended, I collapsed in a fit of giggles. Oikawa was laughing and panting, leaning against the railing for support, while the rest of the team clapped and whooped. I stepped off the raised floor of the game, stumbling over to the rest of the team where they slapped me on the back. I cringed; their slaps were unbelievably hard from volleyball.

“Hanamaki, send me that video,” Oikawa said, joining us over by the basketball game.

“I’m hungryyyy,” Kunimi complained.

Iwaizumi crossed his arms. “Me too. Want to go to the food court?”

“I’ll join guys,” Watari said, and Kindaichi, Kunimi, and Kyōtani nodded, all of them agreeing that they were ready for food. Yuda, Sawauchi, and Shido all wanted to play another round of motorcycle racing, so I was left alone again with Oikawa.

Neither of us were hungry, so instead we headed to the photobooth which sat by the door of the arcade. I didn’t really like getting my picture taken, since I always seemed to look awkward and terrible, but Oikawa insisted.

“As our new manager, you need a picture with your captain, obviously.”

I gave him a look. “Do you just have a wall of photo booth pictures with all the managers of Aoba Johsai over the years?”

Oikawa smirked, tapping me on the nose. “Nope, you’re the first one.”

“I’m honored.”

The booth was very small, and Oikawa’s legs were scrunched up as we squeezed next to each other on the bench. I tried to ignore the fact that we were completely wedged next to each other, with me practically in his lap.

He clicked the screen, and a countdown started, and I stuck out my tongue. The second picture we both smiled widely, and the third we made weird faces at the camera.

In the fourth and final picture, I turned to Oikawa and kissed him on the cheek.

It was completely random, a spontaneous burst of courage, and before I could really think about it, the camera had clicked and the picture was taken.

We climbed out of the booth, my face hot. Oikawa scooped up the two printed sheets of photos, handing one to me. He looked completely delighted as he stared down at them, which only made me blush more. Just friends.

“What time is it?” I murmured aloud, realizing I hadn’t checked my phone in a while. Tugging it from my bag, I choked. It was already 4:15, and Kiyoko, Daichi, and Tanaka had called me a total of 11 times.

I quickly clicked Kiyoko’s name, turning from Oikawa without an explanation. “Hey Kiyoko! I’m so sorry, I lost track of time. I’m about to leave the arcade and get an Uber, so I’ll probably be there in like twenty minutes.”

“It’s totally fine, we were just worried about if you had died or something.” Kiyoko said, a smile in her voice.

I heard Tanaka in the background of the call. “Is that Y/n? Tell her to get the fuck over here!”

“Ok, I’ll see you soon!” I said, and clicked end on the call.

“You have to leave?” Oikawa asked. Was I imagining that he looked a little put out?

“Yeah, I’m going to run and catch an Uber,” I said, pulling the app up on my phone.

“I’ll walk you out.”

“It’s fine--”

He flicked me on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The sun was starting to set and a purple sheen passing over the sky, but the mall was still busy, late night shoppers just beginning their trips. I carried my stuffed animal in one arm, my purse in the other, the photobooth picture stuffed into one of the pockets for safe keeping.

We stopped at the curb, and I turned to Oikawa. “Thank you for today. I actually had a lot of fun.”

“Aw, Y/n-chan, no need to thank me. We should do it again sometime.”

“After we win the next practice game?”

“Well--”

At that moment, the Uber pulled up next to us, and I stepped off the curb towards it.

“Talk more later ok? I’ll see you Tuesday, Oikawa!” I smiled brightly and waved before stepping into the car.

Chapter 6

Chapter 8

#oikawa #oikawa tooru #oikawa x reader #oikawa fluff #oikawa torū #fandom #fanfic #x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #haikyuu oikawa #haikyū!!

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fizzingwizard · 3 years

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Episode 27! It’s a transitional episode and I have Thoughts but nothing major really happens until the very last second :P

Cap of the day!

You know what they saw about the megane shine... next season’s villain is Jou-senpai!!! you heard it here first!

More below!

GAWD I LOVE JOU

no but SERIOUSLY... so glad to have the rest of the team back. They really do make EVERYTHING better. Taichi and Yamato, yeah they’re cool, I love them, but they just don’t carry the show by themselves. And in a similar vein, the rest of the team needs Taichi and Yamato too. Otherwise they have no reason to be all dramatic and show off their cool sides.

(other than Koushirou of course who was just born Cool but it’s the kind of cool most people don’t recognize until you literally own the entire world Koushirou’s three steps from becoming Seto Kaiba except NICE)

ok back to business... last week we left off with the team finally reuniting and bringing Hikari along. For some reason the two groups both decide to stand in a straight line like two baseball teams about to shake hands. Leomon’s team still looks fricking ridiculous

Sooo jury’s out on how Taichi’s gonna react to Hikari! Yamato’s been so chill with having Takeru around, I started to wonder if we’re gonna see super over protective big bro Taichi instead this time! But for the most part he’s just surprised that she’s not surprised by the Digimon.

Hikari is creepy. lol. She’s very much the “cute little sister” type and this episode, at least, we didn’t see any kind of initiative from her, which is to be expected, I mean give the kid some time to adjust. We don’t see a lot of personality though either... I guess we can say she likes cute things, and she’s pretty darn calm... I don’t really like her voice though. It’s a perfectly fine little girl voice, but she always sounds like she’s about to doze off...

Obligatory “cutest couple” pic

The group then basically recaps what’s been happening in the human world recently. Which is all pretty important stuff. But for some reason Taichi and Yamato don’t fill them in on what they’ve gone through?? They have to explain Takeru and Patamon because well there’s a surprise but then they’re like “oh yeah Patamon’s the holy Digimon” and I’m like WHOA. DUDES. IT’S THE HOLY DIGIMON. THE THING Y’ALL RISKED YOUR NECKS FOR. Shouldn’t there be a little more interest, both in the telling and the hearing?? XD

Koushirou’s most excited to update their digivices.

Taichi: Why so blue, Agumon?

Agumon: I shouldn’t have had so many Hawaiian blue energy drinks... but how else did they expect me to fight non stop

Koushirou even has handy dandy charts and images to illustrate. He’s going to get hired somewhere and immediately promoted to CEO, by the CEO.

Patamon: “Hi! I’m the Holy Digimon! Bow before me!”

Jou introduces himself to Takeru and Hikari as the “leader” and tries to convert them to his religion (No-play-only-study-ism) to make them his first acolytes when he inevitably becomes the season’s true final villain. But Gomamon’s all over it.

Gomamon: “You can’t have acolytes until you master maniacal laughter, Jou, didn’t you read ‘Villainy for Dummies’ like I told you to??”

Agumon adorably walks right up to Hikari and asks her if she’s okay and if she feels scared. Hikari says “Agumon’s cute!” Taichi’s face is like “cute? cute?? he’s a dinosaur! dinosaurs are cool!” but he wisely says nothing because you cannot argue with girls about what we think is cute you just cannot

Then Hikari notices something even cuter! Patamon!

Hikari: So cute! I want ten!

Takeru: Sorry, he’s one of a kind and mine!

Hikari: *looks at him* So cute! I want ten!

Takeru: Wait... of me?

Hikari: (u3u)~♥ ﾁｭ

Takeru: (o///o)~♥

love at first sight???? lol

In a nod to the original series, we get a scene of Taichi asking Hikari if she has a Digivice and her being like “oh that thing, I filled it with catnip and gave it to Miko”

Taichi: No digivice! Well I guess this means there’s no way she’s a Chosen Child like us!

Agumon: Infallible logic

Meaning the Zurumon are on the move! this time to FREAKING NASA

Taichi: *most unimpressed voice possible NASA??

I thought hey, it’ll be fine, we’ll just have to fight some more... but

Nasa: *launches a rocket*

The internet:

it’s all just variations of people oh-no-ing in Japanese. A little further down someone just writes “Explosion” in English lol

Due to the weirdness in the digital world that is affecting the human world, a bunch of waterspouts appear in the ocean. Eldradimon’s like “oh bother”

he protec!

Mimi and Palmon rush to comfort each other with a hug.

Jou... immediately gets seasick.

Gomamon: So how’s that maniacal laughter coming along?

Jou: DON’T MAKE ME OPEN MY MOUTH

Awwwww. Point of interest.... Koushirou is barely larger than Hikari x’D

Leomon, for some reason, decides now we must part. He doesn’t think these kids can survive this storm and offers to protect them as they escape. The kids are powerful against evil monsters but weak to weather lol. I’m sure the actual logic in no way was “Now that the rest of the team is back from their pointless stint in the human world we no longer need Leomon to play back-up”

They don’t agree without an argument, but Leomon insists, because he believes the Chosen Children have other important things they are meant to do. We get a cool scene of everyone making their escapes. Sora takes Mimi with her

Taichi and Hikari join Koushirou

And Yamato and Takeru “join” Jou (but really Yamato’s the one calling the shots because Jou’s busy struggling not to pee his pants)

It’s just in the nick of time... before a giant whirlpool seemingly sucks Leomon and Eldradimon into the sea.

Taichi: Oh my god did they just DIE??

Kabuterimon: Don’t look back!

Taichi: I know... we have to respect their sacrifice...

Kabuterimon: Well, that and you might be scarred to see Leomon’s reenactment of Ariel at the bottom of Ursula’s whirlpool

Taichi: huh

(look I think I’m funny and that’s what counts)

Getting all split up like this made me think they were gonna end up split up for reals, but the team manages to stay together for now.

They arrive at a new continent covered in weird spikes! Yamato picks up his digivice like a walkie-talkie and says one word: “Taichi”

it amuses me that he could only bring himself to say “Yagami” for a good while in the beginning but then he finally started saying “Taichi” and now he just can’t stop!!

Anyway he’s alerting the others to the fact that some? of the spikes on the island are actually Tortomon about to attack them. Before going to join Greymon’s attack, Taichi flings Hikari at Koushirou “HERE PROTECT MY SISTER SINCE YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO”

jk but seriously... why does Taichi need to be all up in the action? Until now I thought it was something they all had to do to help their partners, because they usually ride on them during battle, but this episode seemed to suggest that Taichi goes out of his way to do it even more than is maybe necessary. Which doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, but xD

Reason #1229345894 why the team is better when they’re all together: Mimi is hilarious and SORA HAS A GOSH DARN PERSONALITY. She DOES, folks. We hardly got to see it recently -____- this episode at least lets her react to the others. Ugggh. Irony of ironies, Sora needs more love.

It’s a stampede! Simba! NOOOOO!

Sooo... the battle with the Tortomon goes pretty well but then this guy called Groundramon or something appears and uh... starts to eat them... like it’s pretty visceral y’all o_o le eugh

Taichi is shocked and recalls last episode when he saw Seadramon power up and evolve after eating Ebidramon. He does not choose to mention the time he was eaten by Devimon. EH IT’LL BE FINE I’M SURE THAT WASN’T IMPORTANT ANYWAY

Greymon: Don’t get eaten.

Garurumon: lol same to you

The Agumon/Gabumon bromance is honestly one of the best things about this season. Not that we get a ton of it, but when we do we do I always feel like “yes, that’s Digimon, that’s it right there”

The Digimon rev up to face off with their cannibal and Groundramon quickly decides Ikakkakumon looks the most nutritious. He probably has lots of blubber and meat on him so I guess I’d go for Ikkakumon first too

Ikkakumon: Don’t eat me!

Jou: Wait don’t! He was teaching me how to be cool!!!

Taichi: Eat him! Eat him Groundramon! I can’t let Jou be the cool one!

Yamato: Are you two fighting to see who can reach peak villain status first?

Taichi/Jou: I’m naturally competitive

ka-boom!

Our heroes are blown back by. Takeru quickly runs to check on his big brother who seems to smack his head on a rock...

Yamato: It’s cool. I’m cool. The definition of cool. Ishida Yamato. That’s me.

Sora: Oh no, I think he’s got a concussion.

Takeru: No, that’s how oniichan is on a normal day.

The team starts to feel overwhelmed! That’s when a fire ignites in Taichi’s eyes and he announces the next siege!

Yamato: Taichi...

no but okay what even IS this moment. The episode goes out of its way to show us Yamato reacting to Taichi not giving up. This is a Thing. I don’t know what he’s feeling here - impressed? Happy that Taichi’s able to bring everyone together when they’re feeling defeated? Or is he also recalling how that same desire to never fail almost got him killed and his partner transformed into an evil evolution a few episodes ago?

So like I keep saying I don’t see why we had to split up the team for so long, and for now I stand by that. But one thing’s clear: the show wanted only Yamato around to witness what happened to Taichi. (I mean, Takeru was there too, but he’s a baby xP) And even Yamato doesn’t know everything - we don’t know how much he was actually conscious for. But I feel like, if there was any point to the separation at all, that was it. I hope so anyway. I like the idea of Yamato grappling with how to know when Taichi’s going too far while at the same time really valuing the way Taichi’s able to push them to victory.

Turns out Taichi’s new plan is... even bigger guns!

Pointed directly into Groundramon’s mouth!

Yamato: This is madness.

Taichi: No! This! Is! DIGIMON ADVENTURE:!!!!

Everyone attacks poor Groundramon in the mouth x’D im crying

The combined attacks seem to overload Groundramon and then MetalGreymon launches missiles down his throat, which cause these internal explosions. Uh, gross... like if there’s any time Jou should be puking it’s now

we won by being even more violent than normal! yay us!

Not that this means we get a break because Darknightmon chooses now to make his dramatic return!

They get blown back again

... but I love how adorably protective the big brothers are whenever it happens <3

Yamato and Taichi finally remember they never told the others much about what they’ve been up to recently, other than “we found the holy Digimon.” Now they add “and we found Darknightmon too.” Wow what a level of detail.

I honestly... expected Darknightmon to be interested in Hikari instead of Takeru xP It was a little too predictable so I was glad when he seems to go right for Takeru and Patamon after all.

Patamon, who’s recent hobby has been watching musicals, begins to sing:

Don’t ever kick a dog

because he’s just a pup!

You’d better run for cover

when the pup grows up!

Taichi: Uhh did he not see the part where Gavroche dies??

Yamato: He fell asleep before we got that far.

Angemon!!

Honestly... as a fan of 99 Adventure, Angemon there was SUCH a dramatic thing and... this isn’t. I know, I know, it’s a different show, we do things different in 2020... I just remember the excitement I felt about Angemon’s first apperance though. But, to be fair, although it takes a long time before his second appearance, once it happens Patamon always evolves to Angemon without all the fanfare and it’s just a normal evolution. So... yeah, this all makes sense xP

At least we end on a cliffhanger! What’s gonna happen?? Tune in next week!

So I guess I wasn’t that off about the team splitting up again, I was just wrong about when... next week it looks like they’ll be separated, which, although we just got everyone back together, I’m not upset about as long as each group gets focus. Now that they’re back in the digital world, there’s potential for stuff to happen. But it depends on the groups as well. I do sort of expect this is mainly a “put Taichi and Hikari” on their own maneuver.

Oh, was right about Darknightmon going for Hikari after all xP

My guess is... Angemon’s gonna fight but just not have recovered enough to stay in that form for long, and somehow that results in everyone separating... we’ll see. More importantly...

NANIMON!!!

My relationship with this guy is love-hate! I love to hate him x’D So I’m glad he’s back! Still want to see Piximon and Whamon the most but I’ll take it!

#digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digimon adventure 2020 #fizz watches digimon 2020 #digi spoilers #digimon

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tellywoodtrash · 3 years

Text

immj2 30.10.20 lb

lol ishani is suchhhhhhhhh a messy bitch. not even pretending to look less than outright gleeful.

le, iska rona shuru. god sis, you knowwwwwww these bitches have it out for you, then why do you give them the satisfaction of seeing this reaction???

yeh aadmi hai ya bhagwaan? koi bhi jagaah koi bhi time marzi se prakat ho jaata hai.

THAT FUCKING STUPIDASS SCARF IS RUINING THE WHOLEEEEEE LOOOK. GOD WHY DO THEY DO THIS TO HIM?????????

TUMNE JITNE TELLYWOOD FANS KO KHOOOON KE AANSOON RULAAYE HAINNNNA SHIRALI, BHAGWAN TUMHE IN PAAPON KE LIYE KABHI NAHI MAAF KAREGA!!!!!!!!!!

also, just noticed the set and production design credits and finally have names to put on all the hate mail i wanna send.

naaaah jk, i think it's really nice that they got employment in this pandemic, even with their OBVIOUS lack of taste. so much so, that it seems to be a medical condition!

anyway, he said he got this sargi for ishani on behalf of angre, but since she's got hers anyway, this one can be given to riddhima. noice. this fucker be worming his way into my heart with shit like this.

inka phir se popat bann gaya.

mummy biting out and giving the worst blessing of all, “sadaa suhaagan raho.” which is just an elaborate way of saying "hope you die before your husband does, because life without a man is worse than death itself!!!!!!"

“thank you mummyji. aapne ~~sachchi neeyat~~~ se sargi taiyyar kii thi toh dekhiye, mere haath khaali nahi hain!”

lmao nice. where was this riddhima allllll along?????? i've been waitinggggg for this snarky bitchhhhh who doesn't take shit!!!!!

le, aadarsh bahu mode is back on. sab ke liye koi paath ka intezaam kiya. chanchal chachi was right, she's suchhhhh a annoying suck-up to dadi, honestly.

husband is like here, no one's looking; sneak some almonds, come on. yes, i approve. this the kinda man* you want ladies. one who's willing to have a few hours taken off his lifespan so you don't get hangry.

(*T&C strictly apply: only in this feeding waala criteria wrt this dude. baaki sab toh disaster hi disaster hai iss mein.)

“kaisi baat kar rahe ho??? vrat sachchi nishtha se kii jati hai. koi nahi dekh raha par bhagwaan dekh rahe hain!”

lmao, the most appropriate response.

wait you guys genuinely need a gif of this moment, coz it’s priceless:

i can't believe they don't let this dude move his face in this show when he is the MOST ENTERTAINING when he doessssss.

he's like dude i'll adjust with the 2 hours less in my life, but dharampatni is i won’t let you escape a minute of suffering existence in this flesh prison we’re all trapped in, so help me god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who the fuckkkkkkkkk is this????? and you know you didn't need a needle on the syringe for this whole thing, don't you???

vansh's "baaz ki nazar" toh i've long given up on, but riddhima's peripheral vision also seems to be completely shit if she didn't notice a wholeass person wrapped in all black skulking around directly in her eyeline, not 10 feet away.

lmaooooooo dadi is like tf you doing here, and the hasty retreat he beat. scaryass men soft for their sweet old grandmas is a trend i really do love in tellywood.

oh i like ishani's outfit.

blah blah blah KC gyaan idgaf.

riddhima has lit diya and instant cough attack from the smoke.

it's her. she's the one who did this. looks like she's okay with bhai dying a few days earlier than fated, as long as it means she knocks riddhima down a few pegs.

mummy rubbing it in saying dekho yeh akhand paath hai, beech mein rukna nahi chahiye, apshagun hota hai. godddddddddddddd.

I HONESTLY CANNOT WATCH HER COUGH AND CHOKE THROUGH THIS THE SHEER RIDICULOUSNESS OF THIS IS FUCKING KILLING MEEEEEEEEE

yeh lo ji, parmeshwar prakat ho gaye to save the day and read the paath himself.

all dudes in the world should be in whatever business this guy and angre are in. ki biwi mil gayi toh it manages itself while he devotes himself to her.

lmao the sheer earnestness with which he's narrating the KC paath. both wholesome and fucking hilarious. looks like those primary school kids at their first public speaking contest.

i am ishani. god, why won't this scene just endddddddd already, i'm dying of cringe.

whoooooooooooops. bhai is pointedly asking ki how riddhima's throat got messed up when she was fine like 3 min ago.

behen is giving earnesttttttt excuses and he's really "sure jan"-ing her.

dadi's all no matter what issues crop up in these two's lives, i'm sure they'll win over it with their lurrrrrrrrrrrrrrve. yeah, it looks that way rn, but i wouldn't be quite so optimistic yet, dadi.

literally no one is surprised by this revelation.

oh god, she has something more planned. man who are these ppl with so much energy in their lives WHILE PREGNANT, to do such scheming and plotting??????? just my period cramps have me taking 2 hours off work to curl up on my heat pad and cry about ouchieeeeeee.

great. ragini ko ab daure pad rahein hain.

and poor angre is saddled with getting her treatment. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO DEAL WITH ALL THESE TROUBLESOME WOMEN IN YOUR LIFE VANSH?!?!?! EK ADIYAL BEHEN ISKE SAR PE BAANDH DI HAI WOH KAAFI NAHI THA, KI AB INVALID EX KO BHI ISKE HI HAATH MEIN THAMAA DIYA. i know you got your hands full with that disaster wife of yours, but come on man.

oh god is he gonna blow up at her again for eavesdropping!?!!?!?!?

thank the lord above, she had airpods in. (also lmao, ofc she's literally the airpods meme.)

isn't HE supposed to give HER a gift today???

i liked his other watch better. but this watch is supposedly riddhima “ke dil ki dhadkano se judi hai” so........ i'm no expert in cutting edge watch technology, so sure. sounds like something that would be available for the wives of billionaire gangster’s wives to buy.

oh man she got herself a matching one. which ofc is “tumhare dil ki dhadkano se judi hai.” lord, she CHEESY CHEESYYYYYYYYYYYY. and i'm mildly lactose intolerant, so 🤢🤢🤢

this dude is not though. he falling for this hard and fast. which is....... unexpected. nice, but also suspicious.

“yeh ghadiyaan chahe rahein naa rahein riddhima, lekin tum mere dil mein hamesha rahogi.”

that's sweet. and i'd believe and squee over it if this was any other show. i would. but in this show, literally everyone other than dadi/siya is out to fuck each other over and i don't trust a single goddamn word out their hissy snake mouths.

aaaaaaaaaaaaand ofc he's vrat-ing for her too. BECAUSE THIS IS A FEMINIST SHOW WITH THIS VERY FEMINIST HERO OK?!!!!!!?!?!!!!?!? THIS ONE EPISODE ABSOLVES ALLLLLLLLLLLL THE OTHER 98 EPISODES FILLED WITH HOT FLAMING TRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!

“apni umar badhaake kya karoonga main, agar tum saath nahi ho. main chahta hoon ki tum meri zindagi ki aakhri saans tak mere saath raho.”

again, very very sweet and all, esp. with these soft melty eyes; but it's this show. and we saw the upcoming promo. sooooooooo, kill bill sirens in my head, i'm afraid.

both mann hi mann mein deciding to tell each other the truth about their backstories after the vrat. which should work out splendidlyyyyyyy.

lo ji dream sequence shuru. voot blocked the music but colors put up the scene with bol na halke halke on instaTV so i watched it there.

yesssssssssss you messy trainwrecks. get it onnnnnnnnnn.

this is literally alllll i am watching this show for. the moment y'all bang in canon, i'm outttttttttttt. it's always the best time to quit a tellywood show. always. take this protip from wise, old TT. quit the show the episode the lead couples fuck. just trust me on this.

idk WHOSE dream sequence this is, but lmao it's got the vibes of a not-that-great wedding "promo" thing ppl have got going on these days. which one of y'all is binging these on youtube and thus has their subconscious filled with it/??? it's gotta be riddhima, but it would be absolutely fucking hilariousssssss if it was in fact, vansh.

yup. it was her dumb ass. i bet she had the exact video in mind for kabir and just cut-copy-pasted vansh's face in there from the last week onwards.

oh chachi's back from maayka for vrat kholing.

mans literally do be looking like the chand today. because they eased up on his yellow foundation, thank god.

poor ishani. god, this is why we need feminism. so our sisters don't get pushed into shit like this against their willllllllllllllllll.

dadi and siya shipping riansh to the point of making ppl uncomfortable. what next, you gonna be writing mature fanfic about them on IF????? BACK THE FUCK OFF, YOU WEIRDOS.

“humaare plans kamyaab hote toh vansh iss waqt riddhima ko zeher ki pyaali pilaa raha hota. hmph.”

lmaoooooooooooooooo mummy is an eternalllllllll mood.

this one is getting overly emotional about her first completed karwachauth vrat. eat a snickers, bitch.

dadi overpromising and saying shit like evennnnnnnnn god himself can't shake your love for each other, tumhari prem kahaani billlkulllll pooori hogi and what not. oh dadi, did YOU not see the promo?????

this one got the footage she needed and has duly handed it over to bhai. both of vansh's sisters have the trait for going straightttttt to him with their sordid discoveries, albeit for completely polar reasons.

lmaoooooo the way she peaced out.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he's started growling about how all this KC naatak was fake and and vowing revenge and games for her dhokaaaaaaaaaa. i hate to say it but............ i told you so.

also abbe oh gobar ganesh. itna CCTV footage mila hai kahin se, toh baaki ka bhi toh dhoond, where you see how she got into the bloody dickey?!?!???! nahi, 2 out-of-context second hi dekh ke paagal saand ki taraah bekaabu ho jaana hai. shit for brains, literally everyone in this show has.

anyway, if i was vansh’s murti maker, i’d be expecting a call righhhhhht about now. riddhima yahaan rahe na rahe, uski murti zaroor rahegi, which vansh and his next paramour will demolish together as a bonding/foreplay exercise.

#ishq mein marjawan 2 #immj2 #immj2 lbs #episode liveblogs

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jojo-reader-hell · 4 years

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Hello Bad Children it is I, Koro, with more 5am angst. Melone x Reader: The Outside

(Writing this was like waking up from a nightmare about my partner cheating and then being mad at him all day for something he did in a dream, and I chose this picture because I’m finna slap the shit out of Melone after this.)

Melone reasoned that his date wouldn’t mind if he was a couple minutes late.

Everything was perfectly set into place. The night was young, balmy, perfect for cuddling close to his special someone. The restaurant was close enough that he could see the flower shop where you worked very clearly from the window. At the table he’d reserved, he knew exactly which way to tilt the chair he sat in so that he could keep an eye on your form at all times, and intended to sneak glances at you throughout the night so he could gloat at the fact that his life was still perfect, and yours was as miserable as he hoped for. It wouldn’t hurt to keep his new flame waiting a little while. She might even be touched, he thought as he strolled boldly into the shop and heard the tinkling of the bell, if he walked in like a prince with a beautiful spray of your favorite flowers to give her. It had to be all of the ones that were your favorites, the same make of bouquet he’d ordered nearly every week to keep you happy. He had to make a statement. Otherwise how else would you know he was doing well?

You had been many things. Faithful. Honest. Receptive. It had only taken you a matter of days, maybe even hours, to accept that Melone was your one true love even though you didn’t know it at first. Months of careful planning and building of your love nest paid off, and it was quite painfully obvious that you enjoyed these passed few years being his kept woman, as he put it lightly. You were a good girl, so obedient, doing whatever he asked without question and even with a smile towards the end when he began losing interest. Unfortunately you were also stubborn, hence why Melone had let the punishment go on for too long.

Truth be told he thought he’d been rather generous that last day. He felt he had to, it was at least fair he treat you kindly in your last day captive in the home he bought for you. It made up for the languid looks up other women’s skirts, the audacity of ogling endless trains of rear ends, ankles and breasts, entering chat rooms to look at bare pictures and post them until one day someone replied back at him just as intensely as he commented. It was only fair he give you one days break from domestic duties. Usually you did the cooking and the cleaning, rising early before the sun came up to make your “husband” something to eat, but he’d decided to surprise you that morning. Let it be known in the records that Melone could cook quite the sumptuous feast for breakfast, and he made sure the omelette came out nice and fluffy, and that the pancakes stayed warm by keeping the syrup on the side, or that the bacon was crisp and the fruit without blemish. Even the orange juice was good, squeezed fresh with a hint of Prosecco, and the coffee was pour over, Melone taking great pains to get the coffee grounds just so that the flavor exploded in your mouth even with the addition of cream and sugar. You were quite surprised when he’d brought it all to you on a tray in bed that you didn’t even register the indifference he had, not bothering to feed you like he usually would and just letting you savor everything until you were full.

“Was it good?” He asked, your name a trill and a light note to begin on.

And then he smiled a saccharine toothy grin as you agreed, praising him and thanking him for spoiling you.

“Good. Because it’s the last meal you’re ever going to have in this house. I want you out before the sun sets.”

“Good evening! I’d like a bouquet please.”

The cashier smiled at him, asked what he liked and set to work filling the order. Melone was almost disappointed that he didn’t call you to the front to work on it yourself, but he didn’t let it show and only met the other man with a smile. This person was one of your coworkers, blissfully unaware that the man before him was the monster that had ripped you from your happy home and completely brainwashed you into making one with him, having only torn you away from it five months ago. It had been hilariously funny to Melone, seeing you trying to reintegrate into society like a helpless idiot. Your coworkers treated you like a simpleton, your paycheck merely a grudging kindness they didn’t have the courage to put an end to. He saw you by chance on the street after the third month of your break up, and you’d been more of a mess than the first night he held you captive. You were fearful of everything around you, comically wide eyed and avoided nearly every attempt at human interaction. Your hair was unkempt, your clothes wrinkled, dark circles under your eyes and you looked as though you hadn’t eaten properly since that last breakfast. Melone had to stifle the laughter in his throat, a sick sense of pleasure filling his tummy as he followed you just out of sight that day. You looked everywhere, wandering in circles around the streets before eventually finding your way into the flower shop where you worked before he met you. Sometimes he checked on you, content to see you miserable as ever working for less than minimum wage, but never once did he bother to see where you were living now.

Probably in a cardboard box in the alley for all I care... he’d thought with a wicked smile.

Those first three months after Melone had quite literally booted you out onto the street were bliss, everything was quiet around the house, he had endless evenings talking to his new flame and hearing her lilting voice comment hotly on all the things she’d do to him once she came abroad. She wasn’t even from Italy, just someone he met online before he broke up with you, telling him she knew how these things worked out and she’d give him time to admire her from afar until he was completely over it. Even though he kept insisting at the begging and whining for her affection, he waited patiently for the fateful phone call that came five months later: she was ready to come to him at last.

He scrambled at the last minute to get the house perfect, rearranging furniture, thankful that your things had long since been thrown out. Even the Junior you’d produced with his Stand had been eliminated a month prior to his date. It used to infuriate him, seeing it look at the frosted glass of the front door as though it was looking for traces of you still clawing desperately, screaming to be let in. God help him, the Junior even pined for you, wondering why Melone wouldn’t just let you come back to live with them and destroying things when he tried to insist that a new mommy would come to take your place. The Junior had thrown a fit before the computerized Baby Face had taken action, and your Junior’s death had been a sick sort of closure for the assassin.

“Don’t open that door.” Melone had told your Junior during the breakup, in more of a giddy coo than the anger he felt hearing you crying for him to please let you back inside.

“... Mommy is out there.” Your Junior had told him, as if he’d missed it. “She’s crying. She’s cold. Why can’t I let her in?”

The sneer he gave your Junior must have set the seeds of rebellion into growth, because he still remembered the look of frustration it gave him.

“She’s not your mommy, she’s what’s called a ‘problem’. And do you know what we do with problems?”

“... no?”

“We work through them. Chase her away, make her afraid to go near that goddamn door. I don’t want her setting foot in this neighborhood ever again.”

Melone was snapped out of his thoughts of the past as the cashier happily handed over the aforementioned bouquet, wishing him a good night and shocking the assassin with the abruptness. He found himself so shocked he left without trying at least to drag the conversation on in the hopes that you’d hear his voice and come running.

This wouldn’t do... he thought, bringing him to his current predicament of waiting out of sight behind the dumpster of the restaurant. This wouldn’t do at all...

Melone knew what he wanted. He wanted to approach you when you left for work. He wanted to make himself known. He wanted pain. He wanted a scene. He wanted your tears and screaming and crying, craved it like a shot of liquid courage to steel his nerves for his proper first date. He didn’t feel these butterflies when he met you, only felt a sense of calm, and he needed some of that to quell the anxieties he felt. You were good for some things after all, he begrudgingly decided. And what better way for a bookended closure than to use you for a last dose of peace before he began what would most certainly be a romantic beginning to living a brand new happy life with the beautiful woman he’d courted for so long.

“Have a good evening sweetie. Do you need any help with those presents?”

He heard the telltale tentative steps of your footfall before he saw you, and he snapped his head up to see your coworker loading you up with a large cardboard box, helping you adjust to the weight of it as you both exited the shop. You were bundled up in an old puffy coat, clearly a donation, your hair pulled back into a bun and combed for once.

You shook your head, avoiding speaking directly and opting to look at the box in your hands instead of his eyes.

“Are you ok to walk home?”

Silence. A nod in the affirmative.

“You’ll let me know if you need anything?”

Affirmative silence.

There wasn’t anything else left to say. The first look Melone got up close was already disappointing and not boding well for his date. If he didn’t do something now, you would already be out of sight and long gone before he had a chance to use you one last time. Already you were backing away, not even bothering to thank your friend nor even wanting to bid him goodnight as that familiar lost look settled over your face. Melone cursed at the stupidity of your coworker, unable to follow you as long as he stood there watching you go. How hard was it to just cut the cord? He wondered, and finally cursing in an exhale of breath when your coworker returned to his place in the shop, allowing Melone to emerge from his hiding place to follow your journey home.

His date wouldn’t mind if he was a few minutes late, he reasoned. Your house couldn’t be that far, and he had flowers. It would be so nice to get your hopes up and then crash them down, it would make his pining for his true love all the more sweeter.

You walked slowly. Seeing without seeing. Hearing without hearing anything as you made the long journey home laden with your large box. There was a slight limp in your step when you walked, and Melone knew with a sickening satisfactory smile that it was courtesy of your own Junior taking the setting foot part literally. He walked a few car lengths behind you. Quiet as a mouse, even with the noise of the flowers wrapped in cellophane. But then again with how out of it you seemed Melone could have been accompanied by a goddamn marching band and you wouldn’t have noticed anything.

After a few minutes he began to get antsy. What the hell... how far away did you live from work? Were you just leading him in your typical circles, looking around for something like a helpless puppy that lost its mother? He didn’t know what you could be looking for, stupid and blind as he’d become by love he couldn’t figure out why you kept stopping, looking everywhere but behind you, then continuing onward painfully slow as though you had no regard for his commitments.

Melone needed no reminder of why he decided to leave.

Finally, when he was sure he should just nut up and turn back without his dose of courage, he saw you arrive at a slum of an apartment complex. Of course you’d be living here, you couldn’t afford house payments on what they paid you at your old job. Couldn’t afford the luxury of the house he bought for you. Not without Passione’s money. It amused him. When left to your own devices you couldn’t even provide a basic pedestrian life. You lived like a dog if left alone.

He formulated a plan. First he’d call out your name sweetly, like he used to, then when you turned around he’d hold the flowers in his hands in such a way that you’d think it was in offering. You would cry, he was sure, and just as you ran to him and reached for the flowers he’d pull them away and duck just out of reach. If he timed it right, and his foot flashed out at just the right time, he’d be able to see you fall and hear you scream out for him as he walked away and back to the restaurant. It was foolproof, and he began to open his mouth.

You turned to one of the ground floor doors, merely turned the door knob, and entered the unlocked apartment that was bathed in darkness.

There was one window in the living space, and when the light turned on it flooded the dark street. You didn’t even have curtains, just had one window facing the street and that was all. On the floor of the apartment was a dingy mattress, shoved in the corner, a thin sheet bunched up on the floor. There weren’t any decorations. No pictures on the walls. No chairs or table. Not even a plant from work. You still had the box in your arms as you stood in the middle of the bare room, looking around, as though you were unsure you’d entered the right place. Melone just watched, unreadable, as you finally set the box down and began to unload its contents.

A package of diapers. Two bottles. A soft blanket. A teddy bear. Some powdered formula. You both stared at them for a long, long time. He only saw the tiny cradle by the mattress when you unzipped your coat, because the bulge under your shirt had grazed it slightly as you bent to lay the teddy bear inside of it. You didn’t react at all. Just sat down at the edge of your mattress and looked at the things your coworker had given you. A hand, from this distance Melone could see how rough and chapped it was, rubbed the bulge of your stomach as you quietly contemplated the things before you.

“Oh...” he whispered.

It was now he realized: you hadn’t even locked the front door.

Oh.

You reached for your jacket, wrapping it around your shoulders. It was too puffy for him to have seen.

Oh no.

You always worked with your back to the door. The plants covered your lower body, you weren’t tall enough for any part other than your head to stick out.

Oh no...

You didn’t move to make anything to eat. You just sat there.

Unblinking.

Lost.

“Oh no...” Melone choked.

The flowers were beautiful, petals scattered all over the street as they dropped from his hands.

What had he done... What had he done?

...

You’d be a liar if you said you didn’t leave the door unlocked at night for the last five months with just the slightest bit of hope.

You lived life purely with hopes riding on being rescued. Taken away from this pain. You wanted to be taken up in thin strong arms, coddled and protected, reassured with that soft voice that everything would be ok.

Days turned into nights, thence into weeks, thence into months, thence into eternity.

He never came.

Did you start losing hope? Yes. The items before you proved that. Everything was real. It wasn’t a dream. Life was going on without you, he was going on without you, everything was constantly spinning and spiraling out of control and you were left helpless in the middle of all of it, your own body betraying you and refusing to wait to let you catch up.

What did you do to deserve this?

Whatever you did... you wouldn’t do it again. Never. Never ever would you act out of line if if meant you’d be cast out like yesterday’s garbage.

The world goes on without you, and leaves you behind. You can’t hear anything. Can’t feel the gurgle of your stomach or the kicks demanding a meal. There isn’t anything tonight. You don’t have enough for meat, all that’s in the fridge is milk that went bad yesterday and the last slice of bread. Besides you can’t find the strength to get up and feed yourself. You’re not used to having no direction in which to turn.

Your stomach growls, but you’re not hungry.

You live life hearing nothing.

Seeing nothing.

Hardly able to process what’s happening around you.

The door opens and slams against the wall but you don’t hear it.

Footsteps hurry toward you, but you can’t feel their slams against the floor.

Someone drags you up by the arms off the mattress, but it doesn’t matter anymore. You stopped feeling when he broke your foot, never got it treated properly, the pain doesn’t register.

The only reaction you have is to the voice that calls out to you, begging, pleading, just like you did all those months before.

“Please...! Please! Forgive me. Amore please!”

You look up. Wide eyed. Heart aching.

“... Melone?”

It all hits you at once, the senses return, and he has to catch you to prevent you from falling headlong into it.

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes!: You’re Everybody’s Sidekick Review

OK KO was easily one of the best animated series of the 2010′s and i’ll stand by those words. The brainchild of Ian Jones Quartlery, voice of Wallow in Bravest Warriors and more importantly former head writer for Steven Universe, and current longtime romantic partner of that series creator Rebecca Sugar. That part isn’t AS important, but I still find it sweet. Anyways OK KO was the story of K.O., a 6-11, not my own laziness for once but the show’s own way of doing age, year old boy who wants to be the best like no one ever was. In this case i’ts being a hero in a world that’s basically like if someone took the marvel universe and smashed a retro game collection and a pile of manga on top of it and then blended up the result and shot it full of gamma rays. Full of heroes of all kinds ranging from those fighitng crime to those who just want to loiter outside strip malls or cut hair. To achieve this goal KO gets a job at Gar’s Bodega, the combination of your average bodega (for those unfamiliar with the term, i’ts a convience store) and a video game item shop, so the slurpee machine is right next to the power ups and ninja stars, and everything from skateboard polish to Spread Guns is avaliable. The bodega is owned by Mr.Gar, a mustachiosed muscle man whose basically a shoutier mexican version of MIke Haggar but with shades and a mustache. So a somehow better version of him, though with him being busy watching over the plaza itself, doing secret hero missions and what not the day to day operations are left to two teens: Rad, a muscle bound dude bro alien with telekenisis and a secret heart of gold and Enid, a cynical, slacker ninja whose also bilogically a witch because her parents are a vampire and a werewolf. So the series follows these three as they run the boedega, grow as people and fight the robots that frequently attack the plaza sent by the evil Lord Boxman who hates the place literally because it’s there and it’s existance annoys him. This is the canon explination and it is utterly hilarious. The series was funny, had great character work, decent ongoing stories, great jokes and a fun tone that could go from meaningful and well thorught ot utterly batshit from episode to episode and was sadly canceled after 3 seasons because Cartoon Network is kinda stupid right now and dosen’t know how to handle a superhero show that still makes action a priority, but it did get a solid ending, a slew of great crossovers and a decent amount of representation under i’ts belt. WHich brings us to today and the start of RED ACTION WEEK: A week dedicated to the series most prominent gay character and the bisexual ninja witch who loves her. I’m covering all 5 of Red’s more prominent apperances... I was just going to do the red/enid episodes but decided this was a better introduction to the series itself, as well as the fact it allows her character arc to better tie together by her final episode, which directly uses this one as a major plot point. I also threw Plaza Prom in there since, even if she’s only a supporting character, it’s still one of her few major apperances, is part of her final major episode, is one of my faviorites, and the climactic dance fights is one of the most intentionally homoerotic fight scenes i’ve seen in some time. With all that out of the way, let’s do this after the cut.

We start at Gar’s Bodega, just after the opening two parter, with KO starting his first day of work, part of the reason this episode is a fairly smooth introduction into the show. Not even in the door he accidently shoryukyn’s joe cuppa, a stand up comedian with a cup of coffee in the big time for a head... I told you anything goes and I meants it. After that accident, we find Enid at the counter, ignoring the customers before shooing them away and when KO asks for work, plays along with his enthusasim and tells him to clean the store.. which he does in minutes, before being told to sort the penny dish, and while he does the two discuss KO’s love of helping people: KO just genuinely thinks that’s part of his job, the right thing to do and feels good while Enid.. dosen’t feel it’s worth the effort and people are just generally ungreatful and not worth it. I really like this scene for showing off their character dynamic beautifully: It starts showing that while at this stage Enid is largely an asshole, she does care about K.O. and while he’s cleaning, despite usually turning customers away, still let’s Ginger, an elderly patron and one of KO’s mom’s dojo customers, not only check out but pay in freaking pennies. It shows that try as she might, Enid really isn’t a cyncial or heartlesss as she claims. It’s also nice setup for later in the season as, and as i’m sure Ian Jones Quartlery and crew were preparing for, we later DO see why Enid hates people so much: her best friend, possibly more, Elodie, who i’ll certainly be covering eventually, betrayed her for a spot at Point Prep, basically UHA or Xavier’s for this world and claimed their friendship was just a ploy (It wasn’t, but again, story for another time), while her one date with Rad went terribly due to him acting like a huge jackass at the advice of his even bigger jackasses of friends. It’s easy to see why she stopped carring: When she opened up in the past it only lead to her being hurt and alone. K.O.... is the opposite. He genuinely belivies in everyone and tries to help them because, as said above, it’s just what he does and what he belivies a hero should be... he hasn’t been hurt or influenced by assholes like his friends, and thus is able to get them to open up. It’s a wonderful dynamic and I love it. And naturally, KO is determined to help Enid see the light, with Enid responding with the wonderful line “You’ll never melt my icy heart”... give him a few more episodes Enid, give him a few more episodes. So K.O. Decides to set out helping people, shouting about it to enid back at the store as he does because he’s 6-11 and kids in that age range are many things, but subtle is not one of them. He starts with Geoff and Nick Army, a monk and gay duke nukem reflectivity who despite having polar oppositie personalities, are both a couple, as confirmed by the creative team and then the finale, and a crime fighting duo who are having a dispute over opening a pickle jar with the good old ultra violence or non violence, which KO solves by letting both do it once, which results in a pickle jar explosion, both men in their underwear and everyone happy, especially the shippers. KO continues his quest, going to Logical Cuts where we meet Mr.Logic, a robot who has a rather moving and well done backstory we’ll certainly get to, and is voice by James Urabanik, aka the voice of Rusty Venture on the venture bros, to my utter delight. And yes i’ll be covering the venture bros eventually, and might be this month. His customer, another one of KO’s mom’s regulars, is upset because her haircut isn’t right while Mr.Logic is upset, well as upset as a monotone robot can convey, that his usually 100% mathmatically perfect haircuts are off. KO pitches in and the new result is perfect, with both being greatful.

KO’s next stop on his good will help people crying for help tour, after the above bit of wonderful art shift as that version of ko moveds like a south park character for some reason. Anyways, it turns out best friends, co workers and the dante and randal of this show, i.e.two best friends working a dead end job who despite arguing a lot need each other, A Real Magical Skeleton, self explaintory and Greg, a bear, are having an argument because RMS is trying to do their job and frame a baseball for a guy while Greg is being a dickhead and playing the drums constantly. As you can probably wager, I do not like Greg, probably more than rusty, partly because a future episode has him making KO doubt his macaroni art gift for his mom so he can eat it, yes really,and partly because he’s less intresting than his buddy and yet the two are shipped frequently despite my honest assumption they’d kill each other.. much like if dante and randall finally banged. However if you do ship them, I have no hostility with you. Unlike say loudcest or shipping sam with lincoln over at the loud hosue, there's nothing wrong with RMS X Brandon, it’s just not for me. Anywho KO solves it in the hilarious and awesome manner of just putting Brandon inside one of those baseball cube things... it’s a shame he apparently gave him air holes but whatever. Proud of himself, K.O. plans to head back when he runs into the Ally Teens: Red Action, rude teen warrior from the future who just had a bad haircut, Drupe, a sentient strawberry because of course, and Greg, Drupe’s nonbinary best friend and combination of one of the bone cousins and Woodstock. K.O. offers to help and , with the trio being huge steaming bowls of elephant piss at this point, they instead trick him into waiting in a lava flow and then have drupe whip him every time the lava causes him to cartoonishily jump in the air. Yeah despite both Red Action and Drupe going on to having supporting roles, like our good pal tom, who I will get back to this month, there isn’t nearly as much wiggle room in their first apperance. With Tom Lucitor, he was a dick.. but you could make the case, even just off that ep that he genuinely dosen’t know HOW to be a good person or that what he’s doing is sketchy at best. Here, it’s fairly obvious the ally teens know setting a child on fire and using vine whip on him super effectively is wrong, that’s why their doing it. Red, being that special brand of asshole, posts it on social media. I mean posting a video of yourself hurting a child, that’s Tucker Carlson level’s of dickery right there. Stone cold. Enid sees it and is understandably concerned, and goes over to see if KO’s allright when he returns and is forced to explain to him that no they weren’t laughing with him, they were laughing at him and were just being dicks. Also he wasn’t in lava, it was magma. It was above ground.

K.O. glumly wonders why and Enid reitrates this kind of shit is why she dosen’t help people. K.O. also wonders how she saw it and we find out Enid is basically facebook stalking red action on her social media, as you do, and that Red’s been on a bit of a tear lately, smashing up shit and farting in Geoff’s face all because she got a bad haircut, with K.O. , likely going thorugh more of her posts, realizing theirs a pattern: When bad things happen to her she lashes out at others.. just like Enid. I do like the parallel there: Enid likely has a crush on her because the two are fairly similar.. but Enid runs cold and tens to be standoffish as a result of her past, while Red tens to take out her anger and frustration on everyone else and runs red hot. But they come together because opposities attract... it’s what noble laurite MC Scat Kat taaught us after all. K.O. however, having Steven Universe level’s of empahty and an equal sense of wanting to help, and just as few boundries as he had as a tween, decides that it’s clear the ally teens have underlying issues to adress and gets Enid help to look at their social media. Returning to the ally,and seemingly unphased by earlier, K.O. sets out helping them, starting by helping red get her haircut fixed by Mr. Logic. Red is adorably delighted. Moving on K.O. notes that Drupe basically just follows Red’s lead but has a fashion blog and clearly an identiy of her own and we soon learn she believes no one reads it. K.O. showed it to the not at all ambigiously gay duo and Geoff and Nick thank her> That’s two blushes and two wins in K.O.’s court. Finishing up, K.O. realizes Gregg stays quiet because they have low self esteem and feel they have nothing to be proud of. K.O. however found lots to be proud of and framed Gregg’s valdectorian certificate for him, again with some help from earlier. Instead of graditude red just calls him weird and leaves and KO slumps back depressed. I’ts a good lesson though: people DON’T change just because you did one weirdly kind thing for them. That takes time.. as we’ll see with Red and as we see with Drupe, who has less of an ons creen journey but is far nicer after her next apperance. While Enid is grossed out over having helped someone, Gregg comes in.. and after some great deranged animation thanks K.O. and Enid admits after some prodding that it does feel good to help, and K.O. is happy to have helped her int he process. The two playfully mess around as the episode ends. Final Thoughts: This was a really good one. Reaching back this far into the series, I didn’t think it’d would be nearly as good as it ended up: It serves both as a good proper introduction for a lot of the plaza regulars, a good setup for Enid’s character arc, and was also really funny with great animation. LIke Tom, I don’t think the creators knew exactly what they were going to do with the Alley Teens and thus take the two they end up focusing on in opposite directon: Red keeps her assholishness for her next apperance and grows from it, while Drupe’s drops off by the end of this season, likely due to her fashion blog taking off, but we’ll get into Red more in a review or so and Drupe more later this month.For now this episode was good and next up we have their next apperance in Plaza Prom. Until then, follow this blog for more reviews and nonsense, like and reblog it if you enjoyed this, hit me up with asks for review suggestions or comssions and until next time, later days!

#ok ko let's be heroes #you're everybody's sidekick #enid #red action #rednid #drupe #gregg #ko #geoff #nick army #mr.logic #ginger #lbgtq+#pride month #happy pride

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cerastes · 4 years

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BTW what is your opinion about S3 of Castillos Vania? I'm very interested in your thoughts

ALRIGHT, SO, LET’S ADDRESS THE DULLAHAN IN THE ROOM. It goes without saying this post contains Castlevania Season 3 spoilers.

So, Season 3. The weakest, really. By far. I still overall and barely enjoyed watching it, but it is easily the weakest. Now, in the greater scheme of things, maybe this was just a bold move, maybe when Season 4 comes out, we’ll only look back at it for what it is: A transitory set of episodes leading somewhere. Right now, in the present? We can be far less generous.

It felt, quite simple, very weird and aimless. I think the only thing worthy of note here, in the present, is, hilariously enough, Isaac’s arc. Isaac, of all people. Now, I love Netflix!Isaac, and I love what we’re exploring with him. But, I think we should’ve been able to see more with the protagonists simultaneously, you see? It’s not like we had any shortage of screen time, but… What everyone else did felt pretty aimless and meaningless.

Now, as I said, Isaac’s arc is really good. I love how it’s progressing, I love his experiences, I love him. I’d say he’s a really good change in every way from his PS2 incarnation.

Trevor and Sypha’s arc felt… Disjointed. It felt very slow for what could’ve ended in two-three episodes. It just feels a bit unnatural, if you ask me, to have Mister and Miss Beatdown patiently scope out actual satanists instead of just barging in and absolutely beating the shit out of them. I’m glad we saw Saint Germain! Probably the highlight of that arc. I just think that otherwise it was a very drawn out nothing otherwise. You can present to the viewer that the land is still fucked up without spending the entire season slowburning like that, especially when it feels out of character.

Hector’s arc, ooph, ok, I have thoughts here, so bear with me: I’m hopeful it will turn into something great down the road. I WANT to believe this is all groundwork for when eventually Hector has his big “I’ve Had ENOUGH” scene and just absolutely fucking wilds out. Unlike “Kickboxing God And Walking Arsenal” PS2 Hector, however, Twink Hector is a weak baby who doesn’t know how to fight directly… But he still has the signature Hector willpower. He’s a weak baby by himself, but he still tried to attack and threaten Lenore. Sure, all it got him was yet another brutal asswhooping, but that’s who Hector is: The One That Gets In Fistfights With Supernatural Creatures (ever think about how Hector wields a sword in exactly one cutscene in Curse of Darkness, and in the rest of the game’s cutscenes, he’s not only wielding no weapon, but also shown to be using hand to hand combat techniques? Including when he beats Isaac? Implying his canon weapon is deadass fist weapons? I think about this a lot). I want to be hopeful that this is all groundwork for the moment in which Hector finally sees Lady Luck’s smile and aaaaaabsolutely 70 Million Power Muscle Sparks Carmilla, Lenore, maybe Isaac, and all who dare stand in his demon-fueled path of anger and revenge. Probably by summoning some really badass demon army who does all that for him, but still. I want to be hopeful, and so, I will wait to see what happens with his arc in the future. I am an optimist, after all… But not a hopeless one: If I see that the future seasons fail to deliver any sort of satisfactory development or conclusion to Hector’s tale, I will be the first to denounce it and dunk on Netflixvania, mark my words.

Aaaaaaaand…

sigh

And… Alucard’s arc.

What the fuck was that.

Aimless. Pointless. Went quite literally nowhere. I was super on board with it right until they put the bracelet on him. It felt so forced, suddenly, these two have deep seated complexes about betrayal? That never once came up before? Not even a hint? Ok, the closest thing to a hint was Taka being like “He’s hiding stuff from us, I KNOW it”, but… In the context of the scene? It could’ve meant a number of other things as well. And, I mean, it’s not like Alucard was not teaching them ANYTHING. Yes, he was taking his time, but we are even shown he’s teaching them really valuable things like “use and master a long weapon, because being close to a vampire is exactly where you don’t wanna be” and, you know, access to the Entire Wikipedia Of Monster Killing AKA Leon Belmont’s Wet And Wild Repository. Where the fuck did that come from, then? Suddenly they hate Alucard? And then we get the obligatory shot suggesting Alucard will become Bad Vlad 2: Revenge Of The Impaler? Look, I’m fine with creative liberties even when I disagree with them (such as cutting out Grant Danasty entirely), because sometimes they bring good stuff to the table (such as this version of Hector), but you cannot possibly begin to tell me they are going to really, really miss the point of Alucard as a whole this hard. If they go down this route for real, yeah, I lose all respect. Alucard is not exactly a complicated character to understand, and again, creative liberties are good, but also, you do have a responsibility to properly understand what makes the character, the character.

And those would be my thoughts. Isaac arc good. TrevorSypha arc weird. Hector arc hopefully groundwork to something good. Alucard arc horrible. End Ted Talk.

#redwhitebreeze #the final two episodes were hard to watch

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mayquita · 4 years

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The Art of (Fake)Dating - (3/5)

I still can't believe I managed to finish this chapter in such a short space of time, at least for my standards. Anyway, I can't seem to stop writing this story even though I got like a million other things to do. But when you get a stroke of inspiration you should take advantage of it, right? @shardminds this is for you, darling. :) Thank you, everyone, for all your comments, notes, likes, kudos and reviews.

(This is unbeta'd, so I apologize in advance for the many mistakes and nonsense)

Summary: When Emma agrees to be Killian’s fake girlfriend she expects it to be a one-time thing. However, and despite getting an enemy in the form of an overprotective brother, she ends up becoming an expert in the art of fake dating even though she can’t stand her fake boyfriend, at least at the beginning.

Ao3 / FFNet / Part 1 Part 2

The Art of (Fake) Dating - Part 3

Liam took his time to prepare the hot drinks, keeping himself in a stubborn silence broken only by the sounds caused by his task, so Emma had no choice but to wait sitting on a stool at the kitchen island. This awkward silence, far from making her feel uncomfortable, allowed her to at least regain her composure and meditate on what had happened since she had accepted this stupid plan.

She had never found herself in such a surreal situation, about to be lectured by her fake boyfriend's brother on Thanksgiving night and after having witnessed a performance in which said fake boyfriend pretended to have sex with her with the sole purpose of bothering his brother. It was almost like being part of a hilarious scene from a typical romcom.

Okay, the scene might not be funny, at least Liam's serious expression while preparing the hot chocolate showed it, but that didn't stop the beginning of a chuckle from bubbling in the back of her throat, so she had to press hard her lips together to hold back the incipient laughter.

"How do you prefer your chocolate, lass?" When Liam turned his head to address her, she made an effort to keep her back straight and a neutral expression on her face.

"With whipped cream and cinnamon if that's ok, thank you."

After uttering what seemed like a sound of approval, Liam returned his attention to the stove, ignoring her presence again. It was obvious that he didn't know her at all if he thought that with that attitude he was going to make her nervous. It was rather the opposite, with each passing minute she gained more self-confidence. You wanna play? Let's play, buddy.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Liam took a seat next to her while he handed her a steaming mug. Still, he kept his silence, focusing his attention instead on the mug between his hands. His expression was quite cryptic, though, so Emma couldn't tell if Liam was reluctant about how to approach the issue he wanted to deal with her or if, on the contrary, he intended to intimidate her in some way. She suspected that the latter option would be the most likely, so Emma convinced herself that it didn't matter what Liam could hold against her. He was no one to her, she was just playing her role in a farce. None of this was real.

While she waited, Emma took a sip of her drink. Damn it, it's delicious. She kept her lips sealed, though. It wasn't like she had any intention to compliment him, especially when she hadn't yet managed to figure him out. After the second sip, the hot liquid sliding down her throat seemed to have its effect, pushing her to act. She already was so done with the waiting.

"Is this like a protective big brother talk where you want to make sure I'm good enough for Killian?"

Liam clicked his tongue, placed his mug on the counter and finally — finally — looked her straight in the eye before answering. "No, because I already know you're not good enough."

Whoa! Straight to the point. Good, at least he had already shown his cards. Now it was Emma's turn to continue playing. She also put the mug on the counter and then she crossed her arms over her chest and slightly raised her chin in a defiant attitude. "Oh, so now I'm not good enough for your little brother. Enlighten me, please." Emma hoped she had endowed her words with enough sarcasm for him to notice.

The change in Liam's expression was immediate. His features hardened as he also crossed his arms over his chest and kept his gaze fixed on her. "I've taken care of my brother since we were both just children and I can assure you that I will continue to do so until my last breath. So that means than I care about anything that might affect Killian in one way or another."

Liam paused for a moment, but since Emma remained silent, he continued speaking, somewhat maintaining a defensive attitude. "I have no idea how much you know about Killian's past, but at least I suppose you do know about his accident. He gave you some explanation about the loss of his hand, I take it?"

"I do know about his accident," Emma replied in a calm tone.

It was true, she didn't know all the details, but she did know about the most important thing, that in that accident that happened sadly on Killian's birthday more than five years ago he had not only lost his hand, but also his fiancée. And she knew all this not because Killian had confessed to her —their relationship wasn't that close after all— but because of other circumstances that, she really preferred not to remember at this moment, although she suspected that they would somehow come out at some point during this conversation.

"And do you also know that, before the accident, Killian had aspirations, projects, and a promising future? And that all that was truncated not only by the accident but by his subsequent decisions?"

Emma's face must have revealed the confusion she was feeling because Liam's lips moved drawing a smirk of little authenticity behind it. "Of course you don't know. Well, let me enlighten you. Despite my insistence that he move here to Boston, to allow us to help him, he decided to move to a bloody town in the middle of nowhere and start working as a simple bartender in that dreadful bar. Even its name, The Rabbit Hole, suits the town."

The way he said the last words, almost like spitting them out with disdain, caused her blood to start boiling in her veins, but she remained silent, biting hard the inside of her cheek to try to hold back any possible reply. Emma also reminded herself that none of this was real and that nothing Liam could tell was going to affect her. She knew from experience that sometimes it was better to wait for the right moment and not act impulsively, so she simply raised an eyebrow in a defiant attitude, before asking, "and this is where I come in, I take it?"

Before continuing, Liam narrowed his eyes, as if studying her. After the brief scrutiny under which she remained impassive, he finally offered Emma some juicy detail directly related to her.

"It's funny because when Killian confessed to me a few weeks ago that he had started dating someone I had the hope, at least for a moment, that whoever the chosen girl was, she would talk some sense into him and would get him out of that hole, quite literally if you know what I mean." Liam let out a humorless chuckle at his own pun. Emma instead, had to make an effort to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. "But then he confirmed that it was you and all my hopes went to hell."

This time Emma couldn't help but huff as she shook her head. "You don't even know me."

"Oh, but I do know enough. No offense, lass, but, honestly, what would you think of a person who hated my brother from the beginning for no apparent reason? Someone whose feelings changed magically to the point of suddenly deciding to start dating him? How is someone like you, with no family, no aspirations, without a future, supposed to help my brother?"

Okay, she had had enough. Emma didn't need this kind of gratuitous crap in her life. Just when she was intending to get up, Liam reached up his arm, palm forward. "One last thing, if you allow me. It seems obvious that my brother fancies you for some strange reason, so I suggest you, if you care in the least for Killian, you should do what is necessary to keep him from being stuck in that life without a future. You should push him towards us, his family, who can really help him."

Emma considered for a moment to ignore him completely, go up to her (their) bedroom, grab her belongings and get out of there like a bat out of hell. But Liam had managed to piss her off enough for him to earn a few retorts at his level.

"Are you done?" Only when he nodded sulkily, did she continue. "Good, because it's my turn now. And you better get settled, because this is going to take a while." Emma silently gloated over the fact that Liam's grumpy expression continued to accentuate. And this is just the beginning, buddy.

"Well, we better start now to finish as soon as possible." He threw at her in a challenging tone.

Oh man, how she was going to enjoy this unexpected situation.

Maybe if all this were real, if Liam was her actual boyfriend's brother, she would think twice before acting, but given the unwarranted situation she found herself in, she really had nothing to lose.

"Okay. Here we go. First. It's commendable that you've taken care of your brother since you were kids. I guess it's something families do, but how would I know?" Emma shrugged, her lips drawing an exaggerated pout. "As you well indicated before, I have no family. I've never had one, in fact." Emma added to give even more drama to her speech, ignoring the pang in her heart after uttering those last words and focusing on the matter at hand, holding her finger up to stop any attempt at reply by Liam. "However, Killian is a grown-ass man, capable of making his own decisions. He doesn't really need you or anyone else."

"If you aren't able to see that he does need help..."

"I'm sorry, but I didn't ask for your opinion." She hastened to cut him off. Although Liam kept a challenging attitude, he must have thought better and pressed his lips together into a grim line. "If it is not too much trouble I'd like to continue, because this absurd situation is giving me a headache and I'd like to go to sleep. Yes, with your brother next to me. It's what happens when you got a boyfriend, you get to sleep in the same bed and sometimes you have an extremely good time in it."

A furious red tinged his cheeks, causing her to almost step out of her role and burst out laughing. At least he kept silent, so, after taking a deep breath, she continued. "We agree on that, but you know what? I don't remember seeing you in Storybrooke on the days when he needed you the most."

"That's because he continues to push us away." Liam hissed, clearly upset, but she ignored him.

"Oh, it's so easy from your privileged position to decide how another person should live his life." She waved her hand to encompass the entire house in a way to emphasize her words. "But in the difficult moments, on those dates, and you and I know what specific days I am referring to, those who have come to Killian's aid have been his coworkers, his friends, the people who care about him back in Storybrooke. Where were you, Liam, on Killian's last birthday? Certainly not in Storybrooke."

"He doesn't want us there." He snapped, but she might have hit a nerve because his defiant attitude had deflated considerably. Emma almost felt sorry for him, because all his bravado seemed to have left him, but then she remembered all the hurtful words he had thrown at her face and any hint of pity disappeared.

"And it doesn't surprise you? I wouldn't want someone like that by my side either, someone who thinks he has the right not only to decide for me but to question my own decisions, no matter how close that person was."

"I just want what's best for my brother." Liam insisted, regaining part of his confidence.

"I know it, and you've already made it clear that I'm not good enough for him. Which brings me to the next point. You don't know me, but wherever this relationship takes us, it's up to him as much as me. You don't get a say in this."

"I did not intend to interfere in your relationship, lass, but to get an ally in you." It was a poor justification, neither his voice nor his expression were convincing and they both knew it.

Shaking her head, Emma finally got up ready to leave the kitchen but before, she turned back to him wearing what she expected was a triumphant expression. "It's a bit unfair, don't you think? Your brother and I have only been together for a few months but you've decided to blame me for something you haven't achieved in the past five years." Emma was surprised that her voice didn't even tremble when she released such a lie.

To his credit, Liam seemed uncomfortable, his elusive gaze and his clenched jaw at least indicated so. She had one more thing to say, though. "One last piece of advice, if you allow me. Maybe you should rethink your strategy towards Killian. But who am I to offer advice? I am nobody, right? " This time Emma could not help a hint of bitterness in her voice, but she recovered quickly to give the final blow. "The chocolate was delicious, by the way. And now if you'll excuse me, I suddenly felt like waking up your brother and showing him how much I want him, so you better be prepared for any unusual noise. Good night."

This time Emma did go out of the kitchen leaving Liam, who seemed partially defeated, all alone. At least she had managed to leave him without arguments. She should consider it as a triumph, right? In fact, that was how she felt, like a winner. Their argument had meant such an adrenaline rush that she felt her whole body vibrating, a surge of energy gripping her as she climbed the stairs up to her bedroom.

That determination weakened as she approached her destiny, being replaced by a mixture of feelings. Emma was so mad at Killian for putting her in this situation that she was tempted to wake him up and send him to sleep in his car, the one he so much had insisted on driving. But there was another feeling struggling to emerge, guilt.

Somehow Liam's words had gotten deep into her. She shouldn't feel guilty, they were just acquaintances after all, although that didn't stop her from having witnessed some of his low moments. Except for the momentary assistance in his few episodes of grief, she had done nothing to help him overcome his loss.

After letting out a deep sigh, Emma shook all those turbulent thoughts away and focused on her most immediate concern, how to face her encounter with Killian after the intense talk with his brother.

When she entered the bedroom she realized that she could delay that concern at least until the next morning, as she found Killian sound asleep.

She was so upset with him... But when she saw him there looking even younger with a placid expression on his face while he slept, she didn't have the courage to wake him up to yell at him, so she couldn't do anything but sneak into bed, trusting that he didn't notice her presence.

The moment she laid down, she felt a strong arm around her waist pulling her back towards a solid body. "Go to sleep," Killian mumbled against her ear as he tightened the hold of his arm on her waist.

Emma remained still for a few seconds, not even daring to breathe, her heart beating frantically in her chest. The whirlwind of emotions was so intense that she felt a bit overwhelmed, but when she noticed his breath caressing her skin and the warmth emanating from his body against hers, she gave up. After taking a deep breath, she allowed herself to melt under his touch as she grabbed the left arm wrapped around her and held his stump between her breasts. That was how she finally fell asleep.

When Emma woke up the next morning she was alone in bed. Her brain needed a few seconds to start working, so she allowed herself a few seconds huddled under the covers, surrounded by the sensations her senses captured.

The light that filtered through a slit between the curtains caused Emma to blink a couple of times until her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the bedroom. She reached out her arm to find a cold and empty space on the other side of the bed, so she deduced that Killian had woken up a while ago. She still wasn't sure if she felt relieved or irritated by that fact.

What her ears caught next, muffled voices coming from somewhere on the ground floor, caused her to want to curl up again and bury herself under the covers. Although Emma tried to prick up her ears, she was only able to identify the owners of those voices, the Jones Brothers, and some rambling words that seemed to indicate that they were not having a calm conversation.

A heavy sigh escaped between her lips, as she squeezed her eyes with one hand, the reminder of her previous conversation with Liam finally coming to her mind and causing an even less desire to leave the shelter offered by the bed.

In the end, curiosity overcame her, so, although reticent, she sat up and walked stealthily to the door. She poked her head through the slit, glancing up and down, finding that the coast was clear. The voices could be heard more clearly from that position but the sounds still came muffled, so Emma had to make an effort to capture anything that revealed the subject they were talking about.

My girlfriend, how dare you? she is so full of herself... Emma was able to understand a handful of words perfectly, getting to clear up any doubt about the reason for their discussion. So the secret conversation was no longer a secret. She let out a huff of annoyance as she turned back to the bedroom and grabbed her box of toiletries and fresh clothes, then headed to the bathroom for a quick shower.

When Emma left the bathroom a few minutes later, she found that the discussion wasn't over yet. She would even say that the argument had become more heated. Doubting whether it was convenient for her to make an appearance or not, she finally decided that it was more reasonable if she returned to the bedroom and waited there. She had definitely had enough fighting with people she barely knew.

Emma had been in her bedroom for less than two minutes when a soft knock on the door caused her heart to jump until it almost popped out off her chest.

"Emma? Are you awake?"

A sigh of relief escaped from her mouth when she detected that it was Elsa the one on the other side of the door. "Yes, come in."

Whatever she thought she would find was certainly not Elsa with a contrite expression. She walked reluctantly to stand right in front of Emma, a light pink hue adorning her cheeks, her eyes cast down to the floor. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Elsa seemed to regain her composure, as she finally looked into Emma's eyes, her lips drawing an apologetic smile.

"I'm so sorry, Emma, for everything. And I don't mean only the discussion you had yesterday with my husband but also that Killian has heard about it because of me. He caught us a while ago arguing in the kitchen."

"It's okay. I'm fine." Emma assured her with more certainty than she really felt.

"No, it's not okay. Look, can we talk? It won't be a lecture, I promise." Emma simply nodded and then they sat on the bed, side by side.

"I'm so sorry about what happened yesterday with Liam. His behavior is inexcusable, no doubt, but, you know, he cares too much, about everything." Emma was tempted to reply but Elsa continued talking. "Don't get me wrong, I'm so mad at him that he's going to sleep on the couch for the next few days. But, we really care about Killian. Maybe we put it the wrong way, but we do intend to offer him any help that he decides to take."

"Okay, I get it. But, honestly, that's a family issue. I still don't understand why your husband took it against me. I don't know, maybe, although it's still too early to value it, our relationship eventually turns out to be just a passing thing and you would be worrying about nothing." Emma realized at that moment that her speech was the closest she had been to being honest with them. The expression of disbelief that crossed Elsa's face indicated that such a possibility was something she hadn't considered.

"Do you know that you're the first girl he brings home after the accident? I don't want to put any pressure on you, you obviously don't deserve it, but I have a feeling that your relationship may become quite serious and, although my husband may have a strange way to show it, we cannot be happier in that regard."

Emma couldn't help letting out a laugh of surprise. "A strange way to show it, we agree on that." She shook her head in disbelief but continued smiling until Elsa did the same. Emma decided then that she liked Elsa, even she would probably place her as her favorite person in the house except for the children, of course — She still hadn't decided if she was still mad at Killian. Meanwhile, he would continue below Elsa on that mental list of hers.

Just as the conversation began to become interesting, the bedroom door opened abruptly giving way to an angry Killian. "We're leaving, Swan." He simply snapped without even looking her in the eye as he headed toward his travel bag and began to throw things inside in a careless way.

When Emma glanced sideways at Elsa, she met her new friend wearing a panic expression, which led her to act. Rising from the bed, she walked with determined steps toward Killian and grabbed his arm gently, forcing him to stop with his task.

"No."

"What?" He addressed her with the confusion marked on his face, his eyes flickering quickly between hers.

"We're not leaving. Not yet anyway. I need my daily dose of caffeine to function properly, so Elsa and I are going to look for breakfast somewhere out of here." Emma looked for Elsa's approval who nodded vigorously. "And in the meantime, you're going down again and you're gonna fix things with your brother. We're not leaving for Storybrooke until you two have solved whatever it is that makes you behave like two obstinate teenagers."

"Are you kidding right now?" His voice trailed off when Emma gave him a silent warning through her gaze. Killian simply pursed his lips and kept silent. After glancing at his sister-in-law he let out a heavy sigh and dropped his arms in defeat. "Fine, but I want an extra-large coffee. Something tells me I'm going to need the additional caffeine."

A strange sensation had taken hold of her since she had woken up, making her act in a more determined way than usual in her, more confident, and above all a little bold. Only in that way would she explain what she did next before he left the room again.

"Killian, wait." Without thinking twice, she pulled him toward her and pressed her lips against his. The simple contact caused her knees to weaken and the butterflies in her stomach to flutter furiously, as a wave of memories washed over her.

After that brief initial moment, though, she realized that he wasn't responding at all to the unexpected kiss, so the flutter in her stomach was replaced by a sense of disappointment. Luckily, that feeling lasted just a split second. After that brief pause of shock, he kissed her back, hard, as he wrapped her with his arms. Such was the spiral of emotions dancing inside her that she almost got carried away but a glimmer of lucidity appeared in her mind, making her realize where they were. Showing off unusual willpower, she pulled away from him just a few inches, their foreheads pressed together as she whispered against his lips, "easy tiger, we got company."

Killian didn't seem to care, though, because he captured her lips once more before finally pulling away. This time it was he who murmured, his warm breath caressing her lips and causing her head to spin.

"See you later, love." He then turned around and disappeared through the door, leaving behind a stunned Emma, unable to decide if the kiss had simply been part of their performance or if it had been something real. She obviously knew the answer as to herself, there was no point in denying it when her lips still tingled craving for more. But she wasn't sure she wanted to know what Killian had really felt. Certainly, his expression also seemed somewhat astonished, although she couldn't say whether if it was in a good or bad way.

At least the delighted expression that appeared on Elsa's face seemed to indicate that she had totally bought their stellar performance. That was a good sign, wasn't it?

Half an hour later Emma and Elsa were back home carrying several cups of coffee to go and a box of delicious pastries. That short space of time had served to reinforce Emma's previous impression towards Elsa, so much that she wouldn't have minded spending more time with her, but honestly, both were afraid of how the stubborn Jones brothers would have faced their time alone. Luckily the kids had stayed in their care so Elsa hoped they would have been able to behave civilly.

When they entered the living room they were pleasantly surprised to find a fairly quiet picture. Killian was on the ground playing with his nephews while Liam took pictures of the scene, both sporting calm but guarded expressions.

The moment Killian's eyes fell on her, he hurried to get up and walk towards her, wrapping her in a tight embrace before kissing her again. This time it was a gentle kiss, but with the ability to take her breath away. Only when they heard Liam clearing his throat did they separate.

Once recovered from the incredible sensation of his lips on hers, Emma dared to look sideways at Liam, who wore a more relaxed expression, no sign of animosity towards her, to her relief. Emma could even detect the hint of a smile. Good.

They moved to the kitchen where they enjoyed a peaceful breakfast, everyone having a lively conversation sprinkled by the sporadic remarks of the two little boys who kept hovering around giving signs of overflowing energy. Once they finished, Elsa hurried to take the children out of the kitchen, leaving Emma alone with the two brothers.

That was when Liam finally dared to address her.

"I'd like to apologize for my poor behavior yesterday, lass. It was totally out of place, and for that I'm sorry." Both his voice and his expression seemed genuine, so Emma couldn't do anything but shrug her shoulders before responding tentatively.

"It's okay."

In other circumstances, if all this had been real, that little attempt at apology wouldn't have been enough for Emma. In fact, she would probably have crossed him out of her life maybe forever. But she reminded herself once again that she was simply a part of a farce, so it made no sense to hold a grudge towards a person she probably wouldn't have to deal with anymore.

She was wrong.

"As a way to make amends we've decided to invite you guys to come over for Christmas, if that's fine with you, of course." Emma's eyes widened in surprise, and then she turned her gaze subtly to Killian, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

So the farce was going to last a little longer after all. It's okay, I like a challenge, she convinced herself mentally before responding.

"If Killian is fine with it, I'll be fine as well." She offered, which seemed to be enough since Liam finally — finally — smiled at her.

"Good."

They stayed at the Jones' house for another hour, which they spent in peace, although it was evident that the tension hadn't completely abandoned them, so Emma felt relieved when they finally left the house and got into Killian's car.

They traveled in silence during the first minutes, until Emma could no longer resist it.

"I should be so mad at you, Jones. You knew perfectly well that something like that could happen and you still decided to bring me." She reproached him in a tone perhaps harsher than she intended.

"I'm sorry lass, I really thought he wouldn't dare. But in my defense, I did warn you." He was right. The apologetic smile that appeared on his lips and the way his eyes glowed were too distracting. Her anger melted away under his charms without her being able to do anything to stop it. Bastard.

"So Christmas, huh? Have you thought of any new plans to continue bothering your brother? Something like adding some other sound, human perhaps, to make our performance more credible?" She wasn't flirting, right? She was totally doing it. Dammit!

For all answer, Killian burst out laughing. It was a deep and somewhat contagious laugh because a few seconds later she was accompanying him, letting the laughter act in a liberating way, dragging away any trace of the previous tension.

Once the laughs subsided, he glanced at her with a mischievous expression on his face. "Sorry to tell you, Swan, but apparently our performance was a bit scandalous. They haven't invited us to spend the night."

"Seriously?" She asked pretending to feel upset while her lips drew an exaggerated pout, earning a new laugh from Killian.

"But they have invited us to spend New Year's Day." He hurried to reply between chuckles.

"We have the New Year's Eve party at the Rabbit Hole though." Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion while looking at him.

"Aye, that's why they invited us the following day."

"So we're going to continue with the fake dating."

Killian's eyes bored into hers for an instant before his gaze turned back to the road. "You don't have to do anything, love, but we make quite the team, so I'm in if you're still in."

Emma ignored the butterflies fluttering in her belly and focused on something safe, their farce. "You know this is going to cost you much more than a switch of shifts, buddy. But, in a way, I will have my reward when we show up at your brother's house with a hangover and feeling miserable on New Year's Day."

"And even if we aren't allowed to spend the night there, we always have the possibility of making out on the couch, or in the kitchen..."

"Keep dreaming, buddy."

"Always."

The way Killian winked at her had no effect on her. None at all. The burning sensation that spread through her body was nothing more than the result of the heat inside the vehicle. That was the only reason.

This time, Killian wouldn't be the only one who would dream about it. Both her first experience of unforgettable sex with him ant the two previous kisses had left her wanting more. Sadly, she had no choice but to settle for improving the art of fake dating. At least for the moment.

One thing was certain, though. She was no longer sure why she couldn't stand Killian in the first place. In fact, she might have started to like him a little. Just a little tiny bit.

Thanks for reading :)

#cs ff #captain swan #cs au #csss #cssecretsanta2k19 #the art of (fake)dating #mayquita writes #my cs writings

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ayankun · 4 years

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The Asset

so I’m making my mom watch Agents of SHIELD (obviously) and today we watched eps 1x03 - 1x06. That’s The Asset, Eye Spy, Girl in the Flower Dress, and FZZT.

THEN I ACCIDENTALLY SPENT LIKE FIVE HOURS DISSECTING MY LEAST FAVORITE EPISODE YOU’RE WELCOME

First off, full spoilers ahead, of course.

1x03 is, hands down, the worst episode of the series. PERIOD. I didn’t give it my full attention when I did my rewatch, because I remembered it well enough for some reason and the guy that plays Quinn looks too much but not enough like Tahmoh Penikett to seriously irritate me. DODGED A BULLET THERE.

Giving it your full attention does not do it any favors. I was physically discomfited, squirming in my seat and dropping snide remarks every 12 seconds. It’s bad, you guys.

First off, we have this guy, who is, for now in S1, the one and only “Agent Mack.”

THE SIMILARITIES ARE UNCANNY.

Then this big rig gets dropped like 50 feet and I’m supposed to believe that this guy strapped in the back only had his glasses knocked askew?

Ok then we go see what the team is up to, and lord, three episodes has not been enough time for Chloe or Brett to Figure Their Shit Out. They’re so awkward and dumb looking.

After a passable briefing scene, where we learn that Baldy McGlasses is a valuable asset (and beloved advisor to FitzSimmons) who was being transported with maximum security before being kidnapped, we get this wildly wild “we have to put something on the screen while exposition happens” shot:

Which cuts contemporaneously to

Thanks I hate it

Where did the atmospheric smoke go? Was that highway always there? What time of day is this supposed to be where the ambient light changes so drastically over a matter of seconds? They couldn’t have kept the camera on the left side of the lane marker?

But it gets worse because Simmons has a line and the coverage for this is basically just a matched jump cut over to the other half of the line up and back again.

I can’t stand it.

So Agent Mack survived the fall and is still on the scene of the accident. My mom was pretty incredulous that he was alive, and I was thinking it was too bad that he had to sit there for hours waiting to be debriefed instead of being taken to a hospital.

THEN there’s some FitzSimmons pratfall-adjacent sci-fi nonsense that my mom really got a kick out of. But I was too distracted by Iain’s decision to play Fitz as a douchebag so far this season so I wasn’t in the right mood to be impressed.

Ok then we go back to the lab to do some science on the MacGuffin, and I will admit my favorite part so far is Skye challenging Coulson on the existence of the truth serum, and Coulson plays it so Coulson-y it’s truly chef’s kiss.

BUT THEN May comes along and drops 100 pounds of print media for Skye to review (oh yeah, there’s a key subplot about there potentially being a mole inside SHIELD, which is how McGlasses got got) and MY MOM who REGULARLY prints out things like Facebook posts to keep for posterity rightly pointed out that they have high-tech on this plane like holograms and stuff, so printing out all this correspondence in order to go through it page by page makes 0% sense.

Also we never see it again.

OKAY THEN COULSON AND WARD ACCOST A COWBOY RIDING A HORSE THROUGH THE WOODS. Said cowboy also just happens to have the incriminating bag of gold on his person, which Coulson and Ward straight up steal. That’s it. That’s the whole concept for the scene. Coulson’s just parked his car along a narrow woodland path, just waiting for a cowboy to come riding along so he can accost him/steal his gold.

Check out how whack this scene-setting shot is, too. We have Coulson on the left, facing the Cowboy on the right. At this trajectory, you can see that Lola and the horse are basically pointed perpendicular to one another.

Yet cowboy pulls to a stop without banking and addresses something dead ahead of him.

Surprise! Coulson’s over there now and Lola and the horse are facing dead on.

To really drive this home, cowboy spends the rest of the scene on the left, addressing Coulson who remains on the right.

Anyway so yeah, this scene is about roughing up an innocent civilian for intel and then stealing his legally acquired wealth.

At least they can’t take the sky from him.

The purpose of the cowboy gold is that it’s directly traceable back to Quinn Worldwide, which is hilarious considering that one assumes the under-the-table transaction used this method of currency in order to not be easily traced.

Coulson name drops Quinn like he’s some off-brand Tony Stark that we should be impressed with, and we are immediately shown that Ian Quinn’s defining characteristic is that he has an assistant to hang up his cell phone calls for him. We are not impressed with Ian Quinn.

OKAY AND THEN WE GET THIS COMPLETE MIS-READ OF SCRIPT INTENT IN THIS SHOT

why why why why why why would you ignore a character’s line like that. Why are you choosing to TELL me that a man is tied up when it would be SO EASY to SHOW me.

Especially since the narrative so far is that McGlasses has been skillfully kidnapped by a very determined adversary, and this moment, this interaction, is where that assumption is proven erroneous. Quinn’s line is a very specific cue that we are meant to SEE that he’s restrained, per our expectations following a kidnapping, specifically to introduce the twist that Quinn is just that budget Tony Stark who actually has no malicious intentions towards his former colleague.

A super close close up of McGlasses fails to achieve that moment the script was hunting for. I’m feeling that the intent was to keep the focus on this dude because of the upcoming secondary twist where he is revealed to be the SHIELD mole who masterminded his own kidnapping, but this guy is So Bad at acting I don’t think keeping him front and center is ever going to pay off.

(ok I just checked and it turns out Ian Hart is a prolific English actor. this makes me feel like I ought to chalk it up to “difficulty emoting while doing a fake American accent” but guys this performance is so bad I’m really not willing to believe there’s a good excuse)

anyway it turns out Quinn’s good guy!

.....but then he’s on the wrong side of the shot all of a sudden for no good reason and HEY maybe this set up with the wide angle on the lab and a clear look at McGlasses’ physical situation within that environment would have been an alternative for, you know, maybe some sort of establishing shot? Maybe? No?

Also here let’s take a moment to let the “plot” really sink in. These two chuckleheads are former classmates and colleagues, even though one of them looks about 20 years older than the other, and Quinn discovered that “an asset” was being moved, “deduced” that the asset was McGlasses, and wanted to bring McGlasses in on his semi-nefarious science plan. So to avoid SHIELD interference in his schemey scheme, Quinn

kidnaps McGlasses directly from SHIELD custody,

in the showiest manner, not only using but LEAVING BEHIND the exact product at the core of his scheme,

and pays a local cowboy with easily traceable gold in exchange for just some regular backhoe to bust open the big rig transporting McGlasses, instead of, I don’t know, using his massive wealth and influence and in-house R&D products to not massively incriminate himself

He couldn’t have just invited McGlasses over without calling attention to himself?

There is the way that “the asset” was being “moved” makes it sound like McGlasses was on top secret lock down with no civilian rights or means of making/receiving contact with people like old colleagues. But this is never clarified, like, the only other thing we know about him is that he evidently advises classes at the Sci-Ops branch of the SHIELD academy.

ALSO we have yet to learn that McGlasses personally staged “being moved” and leaked the hints regarding the identity of “the asset” to Quinn just so that Quinn would do all these nonsense things he done. He couldn’t have just invited himself over???

Also the conversation they have at this point is real rough, with non-sequiturs, shambling exposition, and garbage jokes that wouldn’t float even if you didn’t have a log and a ham struggling to mimic human behavior.

Also Quinn bought the PRIME MINISTER OF MALTA’S old manor specifically because it has a huge underground lab???? What about Malta do I need to know about before this makes sense?

Let’s move on. FitzSkimmons have an only-mostly painful scene of exposition in which Iain is still having a hard time with the lines/characterization the Powers That Be are forcing Fitz to be at the moment. I’m going to say it. Season 1 Fitz is Utterly Unlikable.

However, this rant has given me the opportunity to 1) stand corrected and 2) appreciate this understated joke:

She’s still on page 1 of 1 billion LOLOLOLOL

The other nice thing to come out of this scene is the casual validation that the public school system may not be right for everyone, and that being a high school drop out does not mean you can’t also be an intelligent self-starter who finds value and satisfaction in picking up a trade skill on your own. *coughs in Robbie Reyes*

UGH but then we go back to McWooden and Bargain Ham. Their story is UNINTERESTING and their performances are HARD TO STOMACH. Also it ends on a mirror of the shot we started with (so there is some evidence of intelligent design at play here after all)

But this framing makes me so uncomfortable like, I’ve shipped for less don’t put weird ideas in my head that no one wants least of all me--

Ok. We’re a third of the way through. It doesn’t stop getting worse.

So here’s the correct way to reposition your characters if you want to change up the eye lines without making it super jarring! The start of this scene is actually really textbook-nice, just look:

The pre-mission planning is already in full swing, but we follow Skye, the outsider on the outside, approaching the scene with some amount of hesitation.

She starts on the right, facing left, and crosses across the path of the camera as it follows her towards the meeting, ending up on its left while the folks currently giving lines are framed over her right shoulder. Your eye line and sense of positioning has fluidly followed hers, and this makes sense.

From this establishing shot, we do a real nice punch in on Coulson as he’s speaking, using a really action smooth cut as he does a bit of business with his hand.

We’re still coming into this scene from Skye’s POV, and this shot reflects that -- close enough to focus on the important action, but distant enough to show Skye’s current position (literally and figuratively) relative to the rest of the team.

The reverse shot is ... fine. It’s fine. I don’t like that she’s framed on the right hand side of the screen (exactly where Coulson was a split second ago), but the eye lines still match up and it does give the impression that the camera is the avatar of the audience and we just turned on the spot to look at her as she quietly invites herself to this scene and starts putting that big beautiful brain of hers to work.

Then we leave her to it! Feel the difference this cut has, emotionally, from the last time we looked over at Coulson:

We’ve left Skye’s aloof POV and now we’re all up in his biz. This framing tells us he’s no longer the subject of Skye’s contemplation and has gone back to being a character of the TV screen doing TV character things.

The remainder of this scene holds onto that “normal” shot-reverse-shot framing of the team as they give their opinions and work through the plan.

This laudable result of thoughtful camera work is almost instantly ruined by Fitz yammering on about using a brave little monkey to do their serious spy business and HOLY COW Iain does his best with the dreck he’s been given but there is no universe in which I will find this type of dialogue acceptable.

The valuable plot point here is that Skye is finding her footing on the team, doing hacky stuff on her phone and putting herself out there as -- wait for it -- an asset to Coulson. Ward responds to this with bafflement, being generally supportive of her known abilities while also being doubtful that she’s a complete package, and turning to Coulson for advice on how to round her training out.

This results in yet another JARRING AF transition (read: there’s no transition) from Ward and Coulson’s heart to heart to Ward pointing a gun at Skye at some indeterminate amount of time later.

Look we haven’t even had time to ingest Coulson’s line yet and BAM we’re here.

This scene’s fine. It’s doing double duty and that’s admirable. Triple duty, even. Many duties are being performed in this scene. We have

fledgling Skyeward

the introduction to the gun-manipulation maneuver Skye will use later on

Skye’s irreverence butting heads with Ward’s need for brass-tacks

at least one solid joke at Ward’s expense

Ward valuing Skye’s er, assets -- I’M TALKING COMPUTER SCIENCE YA PERVS

a very competent conversational segue into Ward’s Whole Deal, wherein we are introduced to the concept of his childhood trauma (lolol and man does Brett just fail to deliver these lines in any sort of a way that inspires human empathy wowowo he’s so bad in this one)

a callback to an earlier conversation as well as a set up for a future joke

SKYE STEALING WARD’S GUN FROM OUT OF HIS PANTS A++++

Now we go into pre-heist plan-walkthrough mode, and it’s so boring and lifeless that Skye’s actual summary line is “Plan, green, drop, walk ... pie.” To be honest, she got more out of the discussion than I did.

May has an interesting character moment where she’s complaining about going into the field and then immediately regrets it because she was never going to be sent in, but that means Coulson’s going in instead and that worries her. I keep thinking back on this season as being unfocused, but that’s because I forget that the sales pitch for this entire shebang is “we killed Coulson in Avengers but now here’s a show where he’s the lead because everyone loves him so much” and the subsequent focus of the inaugural season is everyone’s burning curiosity to find out how they undid his murder.

Aside from the sci-fi/Marvel/generic spy show gimmick of the week, these early episodes never fail to prioritize the interpersonal dynamic of their team while simultaneously teasing out the Coulson mystery with these nice little regular hits.

I let it keep playing while I was typing, and we flew over some whatever business where Skye goes to Quinn’s party, and Coulson and Ward land their little raft on the beach, and the other kids are watching from the Bus and FITZ IS AGAIN TERRIBLE

I feel you, Jemma.

(Also, am I wrong in hearing him give in and say “boobs?” The Netflix subtitles have it as “oops” but that can’t be it.)

Anyway so Skye’s busy using her Assets to win Quinn over, and Chloe’s shining moment in this scene is the delivery of the drivers test joke.

Back to stuff that’s gratingly awful, we’re supposedly on Malta, right? And you know how Hollywood generally and the spy show/movie genre specifically tries to stretch their location budgets by putting on color filters to “evoke” distant lands?

We go from the above, washed out and unfiltered, to this sepia-toned nonsense:

This is supposed to be taking place basically right outside. Why not just keep the filter on for the interior scenes, too? There’s plenty of searing Maltese light coming in through that wall of windows.

(They must have had a hard time on location for the manor shoots, though, it’s just as washed out in the earlier scene set outdoors that I didn’t show you because it was boring but I’m showing you know because it’s not even the same color filter as the Coulson/Ward shots

)

((Also, yeah, I get it. You can’t fly to Malta for a day for a television shoot. But how many people are you fooling when you put the Santa Monica mountains in the backdrop of every exterior shot?))

So we go back and forth between these high-grain-low-saturation beachfront stuff to these holy angelic light of judgement shots and I hate it.

Like, why choose to shoot against this nuclear-blast light? It’s not doing your actors any favors.

Especially when you’re ALSO choosing to depict that same “natural” light with a whole different palette and then continue to give us the opportunity to compare and contrast.

Also I hate the Ward/Coulson business because it’s just generic spy stuff where some guards come out of nowhere and I guess maybe it’s implied that their cute boat was found but it could just as easily be that it was explicitly stated that there were guard patrols and I forgot.

But then they fight and defeat the guards in literally under 8 seconds and that’s that. End of stakes.

The character moment that validates this trivial obstacle is that Coulson tries to do something with a gun and finds that May’s concerns weren’t entirely unfounded. He’s a little rusty.

Also Ward’s response to this is to chuck the gun into the laser wall and I don’t know why. In any case, the energy from both of them in this screenshot really resonates with me.

So then Skye Does The Thing with her Assets and if you’ll let me be picky again about plot holes, why does the wireless access MacGuffin need to have an interface for Skye to check that the connection is possible, and THEN have that connection activated by LITERALLY dropping it on the table. They couldn’t have set it to auto-scan and then tell her through her earpiece to stay still when the connection activated itself?

Whatever. Success! Immediately followed by ... INEXPLICABLE OBSTACLE

WHO, praytell, is on the other end of that walkie talkie? Because the downed man is the man you see. Typically, it would be like a survivor of the scuffle who radios for backup, but here we see the scene of the scuffle and some unknown unseen ADDITIONAL MAN who I guess is just spying on them from somewhere and radioing still more unseen men?

Instantly hearing this news, the Unseen begin a sniper assault on Coulson and Ward, and we get to see their bullets getting evaporated by the laser wall. Remember those guards walking along the sea cliff towards the sign? There’s no place for the snipers to be sniping from, unless they have some kind of invisible floating island.

This scenario is made even more hilarious once Fitz brings down the laser wall and Coulson and Ward dive through like they think they some kind of James Bonds and then the wall goes back up and the snipers keep sniping.

Why aren’t the guards on the inside of the perimeter of the compound which they guard? This laser fence is now protecting the intruders. Minor design flaw.

Anywho, Quinn is still talking about how he doesn’t trust SHIELD and SHIELD doesn’t trust him, so it’s like, what are we supposed to believe about this guy anyway? Why did Coulson introduce him as bargain bin Tony Stark if he was known to be bargain bin Justin Hammer all along?

So now that snipers have failed to snipe the intruders, some Seen Guards come to alert Quinn so he breaks the wireless MacGuffin and turns a gun on Skye. (Just sayin, if it had been some secret device that was still in her bag, she’d have plausible deniability)

I think, at this point, I have two conclusions

Team Coulson has no extraction plan for getting McGlasses out of the compound since they don’t have a Plan B to get back through the laser wall, no firepower to use on the Seen Guards, and no available land-or-sea getaway vehicles.

There was never any sort of extraction plan for Skye even if the laser wall and the Seen Guards were not an obstacle.

Here’s where it gets the messiest.

Coulson busts in on McGlasses but is told no rescue is required.

AT THAT SAME TIME

May has just popped open a tablet over in some room by herself, evidently disinterested in whatever FitzSimmons is probably doing right now in light of this drastic turn of events, and she’s randomly googling up on the SHIELD leak mentioned earlier, only to discover that it was MCGLASSES ALL ALONG.

Keeps a cool head, our May.

Yeah, we know, we .. he ... he just said ... you know what? We didn’t actually care, though? Who the mole was or that it was McGlasses. We certainly didn’t spend the last half hour watching May diligently tracking down some breadcrumb trail of clues to get to this dramatic reveal, only to find out a second too late. We didn’t even see her checking up that Skye had/didn’t have this angle covered.

Did she print out the contents of the four-foot binder as some sort of eco-terrorist cruel joke since she was just planning on spending three seconds on the computer to complete the same task?

Ok so Coulson misinterprets McGlasses’ decline of his rescue operation as collaboration with Quinn until May clues him in. We then go to commercials and come back and have to go over all this info again just in case we didn’t follow that super exciting double-cross the first two times.

At which point we figure out where all the pre-production time was sunk -- somebody had to spend a lot of effort envisioning how they were going to do the wacky-gravity scenes. My feeling is that fun challenges like that are what stand out to people who are working on a thing, and sometimes the prestige of “pulling that off” can overshadow the need to pay attention to other, less exciting aspects of filmmaking, like making sure your eye lines stay coherent in a scene or that your color gradings aren’t super distracting.

Anyway I do really like the load-bearing scene where Quinn threatens Skye at gunpoint because it is one of those many examples this season has of laying ground work for and paying off character moments.

Skye’s flip and smart and completely not ready for this level of field action, but she remembers her training, remembers how earnestly Ward wanted her to be ready for this defining moment, and gets the gun!

That “nOPE” when she can’t shoot the man is also Classic Skye and we Love Her For It.

Anyway oh yeah, McGlasses reveals his master plan to get kidnapped, so that he could get on site and ruin Quinn’s everything because he’s a Bad Justin Hammer. His performance is SO PAINFUL and his reasoning has yet to make sense. Coulson doesn’t ask “why did you have to be kidnapped to get in, though” but he does ask “why didn’t you try reasoning with him” as if that were the question we needed an answer to.

Also it turns out FitzSimmons has been pretty chill this whole time since their agents lost their extraction plan (well, they’re smart, they probably knew all along that there wasn’t one) and are just puttering around the lab working on what looks like their regular day-to-day science, talking excitedly about gravitonium rather than panicking that the whole plan’s gone to shit.

Unflappable.

COME ON PEOPLE the mission wasn’t “throw McGlasses into the gravitonium and do high-fives” it was “rescue McGlasses from Quinn’s grasp.” From the way that this plays out, there is 0% indication that their initial plan was ever expected to succeed.

WE DON’T EVEN SEE HOW THEY GET OUT OF THERE, WE JUST LOOK AT SOME MCGRAVITONIUM AND THEN SEE COULSON ON THE BUS INSTRUCTING THE CONTAINMENT FACILITY ON HOW IT SHOULD BE HANDLED.

Oh well, the gratuitous plot is disposed with after this point.

In the denouement, we get to see May and Coulson interact over his experience in the field and her experience being stuck watching him in the field. She’s finally ready for combat, but strictly for his sake. And he’s at the point where he’s ready and willing to take her up on her offer instead of trying to prove that he’s everything he was before he died.

Following that, we get some Skyeward with some really gross romantic comedy type music. Bear, you’re better than this!! But the scene is nice, Chloe really brings it (almost brings too much) and Brett is there to support her.

It’s a really on-the-nose admission from Skye that her allegiances lie with SHIELD, but its an organic continuation of that bit from earlier where she wandered all up on their meeting, the outsider, and pushed her way into the heart of it. She wants this. She wants to feel like she belongs here. And now she’s been trusted with some opportunities and tools to prove it!

This early in the season, we’re still doubtful that she’s on the up and up, what with that Rising Tide plot thread hanging so loose and tantalizing over our heads. Due to the potential of a storyline revolving around her betrayal, there are a lot of fun little moments in the next few episodes where Ward gets to say some betrayal-related stuff that is absolutely excellent in retrospect.

I was watching some old interviews and while it is very clear Brett did not know the fate of his character in advance, it’s also distinctly implied that no one knew and the arc of the season may have developed episode by episode. That’s so nutty to me, considering how strong the structure of the season is, how there are so many satisfying call backs and payoffs later on.

I think I’m more likely to applaud a well-plotted narrative, in which foreshadowing and a deliberate order of events slowly unravel to great effect. But I can definitely appreciate the ability to force the illusion of the same by being crafty and attentive and not letting any usable threads go to waste.

Ultimately, whether by design or by providence, Season 1 is successful in pulling it all together. It’s just that episodes like this one don’t really inspire you to believe that that outcome is likely, or even possible. Episodes like this one cause a person to give up watching halfway through the season and walk away for years until cajoled into giving it another shot because “it got good somehow.”

But what this season has, every episode, especially ones like this one, is a pronounced, chaotic, relentless prioritization of Character over Plot. What is this show about? Who cares. That’s the wrong question. This show could have been about anything, and these early episodes are all too aware of it. What kind of story can you tell when every option is on the table and no one knows what to expect from you?

You find that story, step by step, episode by episode, through the eyes of your characters. The forward motion of the story isn’t “how did Coulson come back to life” but “what is life going to be like for him now?” It’s not “will Skye betray the team” it’s “what does she want and what is she willing to do to get it?”

Posing and answering these character questions generates the Story of Agents of SHIELD. Plots be damned. Remember how at one point in this episode, our heroes robbed a cowboy at gunpoint? Yeah. Me either.

And I can’t agree more with this approach. In my experience, PWP works best when its about the characters.

#agents of shield #aos

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