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lady-divine-writes · 4 years

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Klaine Advent One-shot: The Hallmark of a New Christmas Tradition (Rated PG13)

Summary: With their plans canceled and a cherished Christmas tradition persona non grata, Kurt and Blaine come up with a new tradition - writing and starring in their own Hallmark-style movie. (1305 words)

Notes: Written for the Glee Potluck Big Bang prompt 'Hallmark' and the Klaine Advent 2019 prompt 'tradition'. Also, I'm embarrassed at how quickly it took to write this XD

Read on AO3.

“Ugh! Hallmark!” Kurt groans, closing his browser and tossing his phone across the sofa in disgust. “You disappoint me.”

“I take it you heard about the Zola thing, too, huh?” Blaine asks, retrieving the discarded phone and dropping on a cushion beside his husband.

“Yup.” Kurt snags his phone back, but only as an excuse to grab his husband’s leg and yank it over his lap. “Well, good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Rubbish? I thought you loved Hallmark movies!”

“Sort of.” Kurt shrugs. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” Blaine snorts. “It’s Hallmark.”

“Yes, but it’s formulaic! And that formula is repetitive … and kind of sexist. It’s something you have to be in the mood for.” Kurt shifts in his seat to better face his husband. “When you put on a Hallmark movie, you know what you’re going to get – successful woman with no time for family or holiday nonsense gets pulled away from an extremely important career-making decision to travel, last minute, to the small town where she grew up and care for her ailing ma/pa/grandma who raised her or whatever, and discovers the true meaning of Christmas in the arms of a rugged lumberjack who spends the first three-quarters of their so-called relationship making fun of her life decisions even though, in the grand scheme of things, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, besides maybe the fact that she’s going to be thirty in a few years, le gasp!, and she has yet to pop out any kids.”

Blaine’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise when Kurt finally takes a breath. “Wow. You gave that no thought at all, did you?”

“Don’t have to. Think about it. They never change.”

Blaine’s eyes roll up as he tries to recall the plot of the last few Hallmark movies they watched. He finds himself nodding without even meaning to, his husband’s point proven. “I see what you mean.”

“Plus, no LGBTQ couples ever. At all. Not even in the background.”

“That is a shame,” Blaine agrees, eyes focused on the phone in Kurt’s hands, up to his face, then over his shoulder to the window beyond, where a steady stream of snow has been falling all morning, gathering on the panes and obscuring their view. According to the news, it’s piling up fast, which pretty much 86’d the plans they’d made to visit a bed and breakfast upstate. They’d changed back into their pajamas and opted for their fallback tradition – watching Hallmark movies. But without even asking, he knows that’s out.

Blaine grins. He’d been bummed about their circumstances before, but now he sees an opportunity. The phone, the snow, this whole conversation has given Blaine a stellar idea.

“Seeing as we’re snowed in for the weekend, maybe we can try our hands at making our own Hallmark movie! You and I can star in it!”

Kurt’s right brow arches sharply. “Are you serious? Or is this some veiled excuse to make a cornier-than-normal sex tape?”

“I’m serious! We used to do something similar back in high school! Remember?”

“Normally I try to forget high school, but yes. I remember.”

“Great!” Blaine says, genuinely excited. “Let’s start! Open up your notepad and let’s come up with a script.”

Kurt stares at his husband open-mouthed for a second, but since Blaine honestly looks like he wants to do this, he unlocks his screen and opens his notepad. “All right. Well, casting this thing shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, I work for Vogue, so I get to be the career woman protagonist.”

“Plus you have a dad with a history of health problems …”

“No!” Kurt snaps, less than playfully. “We’re not including that. It’s bad juju.”

Blaine puts up both hands in surrender. Burt’s health has always been a sore spot with Kurt, even now when the man is certifiably fit as a fiddle. But Blaine can understand his fear – even if it’s more superstitious than rational. No need to take unnecessary chances. “Fair enough.”

“We can make up a fictitious ailing grandmother?” Kurt suggests in a softer, apologetic tone.

“Or a pet.”

“Ooo, that’s good!” Kurt jots that down. “People get invested in pets more than people nowadays anyway!”

“I guess that makes me the jerkhole lumberjack,” Blaine says sadly, having not thought this completely through.

“No!” Kurt puts a hand on his husband’s shoulder and kneads comfortingly. “We’ll make you the … uh … cynical struggling musician with a heart of gold!”

Blaine’s eyes light up. “I like it. I like it a lot! And I’m not from the small town. I’m just passing through.”

“Ooo …” Kurt makes a note “… a mysterious stranger with a past. Okay. Now, I come home because my dog …”

“Cooper.”

“Cooper!” Kurt laughs. “Perfect! My dog Cooper …”

“A thirteen-year-old, blind, shaggy mutt with three legs and chronic gall stones …”

Kurt stops writing to take a gander at his bitter husband. “Uh … is there something you need to pause and work out here, or can we continue?”

“Oh!” Blaine yelps as if he may not have intended to say that all out loud. “No! Continue! By all means.”

Kurt shakes his head. “I come home because my dog Cooper needs emergency surgery. And my dad thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to convince me to move back home and work with him in his shop … despite the fact that my character makes close to seventy-five thousand dollars a year.”

“Where do I come in? Where do I come in?” Blaine asks, bouncing up and down like a toddler mainlining Pixie sticks.

“You showed up in town the week before. No home, no job, no money. And your car …”

“My Harley,” Blaine corrects with an eyebrow wiggle.

“Oh, yes, your Harley needs repairs. But you can’t afford them. So you’re going to work the bill off at my dad’s shop.”

“That sounds like something your dad would do.”

Kurt smiles fondly. “Yeah, it does. Bonding over beers at the only bar in town, he finds out you’re gay, and so he connives you into helping him. You know, using your masculine wiles.”

“He gets me to seduce you? In exchange for repairing my bike? So you’ll stay and work in his shop?”

“A-ha.”

Blaine frowns. “That sounds kind of sleazy.”

“Yes, but this isn’t real life. Remember? It’s Hallmark. And it’s right on brand.”

“Surprisingly, it is. What else?”

“But you’re a drifter. A nomad. You don’t want to put down roots, not until you’ve scored that big time record contract. And my dad doesn’t want that for me – going on the road with you. So the deal is as soon as you get me to agree to stay, quit my job and sell my penthouse, you’re going to break up with me and leave.”

“So your dad doesn’t really like me?”

“No, sweetheart!” Kurt takes Blaine’s hand, kissing away the sliver of hurt in his husband’s voice. “He does! And in the movie, he’ll come around.”

“All right.” Blaine kisses Kurt’s hand back, momentarily soothed. “If we’re going to act this out, where do we begin? Should I throw on some jeans and a flannel? Grab my guitar?”

“We just got back into our pajamas. And I don’t know about you, but I’m really cozy …” Kurt chews the inside of his cheek, mischief and a smile twitching his lips. “I say we jump ahead to the epic cookie baking montage.”

“Doesn’t that usually happen before the equally epic first kiss?”

“A-ha. Which leads to making out on the sofa. And then …”

“Sex tape?” Blaine meets Kurt’s mischievous grin with one of his own. Kurt flashes his phone screen Blaine’s way, the camera app already open with the perspective flipped so Blaine sees his own grinning face.

“You read my mind.”

#klaine advent 2019 #klaine advent: tradition #gpbb drabble december #klaine fanfic #klaine fanfiction #frankie writes

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blackbatpurplecat · 7 years

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My Thoughts on “The Enigma”

Because I have a wonderful friend who gave this to me on my birthday and because I finally have a PC that’s good enough, I played the first episode of Batman: The Telltale Series - The Enemy Within yesterday, it’s titled “The Enigma”. And it was awesome!

Warning: SPOILERS ahead!

So what’s the plot?

After the events of season 1, Bruce had picked Wayne Enterprises back up and Batman’s been working with the GCPD to keep Gotham’s streets clean. One night, the Riddler, after a long time of absence, reappears in the city and crashes a casino. He takes revenge on an arms dealer, who’s gambling there, over a deal they had. Batman saves the man but Riddler can escape - not without leaving a riddle box behind though. Amanda Waller and her agents from The Agency show up at the crime scene and demand to form some sort of cooperation between Batsy, the GCPD, and them. Gordon’s not amused.

Batsy takes the box with him and finds out that it can turn into a disc that gives off a weird sound. The next day at WE, he has Lucius take a look at it. Tragically, a missile hits Lucius’ office and he dies. The noise the disc had given off turns out to have been a homing signal for the missile.

At the funeral, Joker shows up and asks Bruce to meet some special friends of his. They think Bruce would make an excellent addition to their group. Later, Batman and Gordon check out the place Riddler’s hiding at.

At the hideout, they find one of Waller’s agents who had been killed by Riddler’s death trap there. They find out that Riddler has a hit list of Waller’s agents and plans to turn their phones into homing beacons to kill them all. Riddler appears on a wall of TVs and expresses his hatred towards The Agency, blaming them for turning him insane. He also mentions Lucius which makes Gordon suspicious. He questions Batsy about it later and Batman admits that Lucius was an ally of his. Gordon, again, is not amused but decides to keep the info to himself.

At this point, we can decide if either Batman should interrogate Riddler’s right hand or if Bruce should talk to the arms dealer about the deal they had. I chose the Batman approach and scared the living SHIT out of that dude! He reveals Riddler’s and the missiles’ location: a cargo ship in Gotham Bay.

Batsy goes there and finds three more agents as Riddler’s hostages. He can free one of them but gets trapped in an extra cage with her. After enduring Riddler’s trademark questions and some audio torture, Batsy is able to redirect the missiles Eddie’s sending towards Gotham into the bay, save the agents (although the female agent is now deaf), and take down Riddler.

However, while Riddler rambles on about how his friends have betrayed him, a poisoned dart hits his neck and kills him. All Batman can make out is a shadowy man on the bridge. Later, the GCPD and Waller investigate the scene. Due to my choices, Gordon’s trust in Batman is shattered and he breaks off his alliance with him while Waller praises Batsy. She says that they will work closer together in the future and, to Batman’s shock, she calls him Bruce Wayne.

What an amazing start to a sequel!

The first thing I have to get out of my system is that Bruce’s clipped ear constantly distracts me! Moving on.

I really appreciated the episode’s length! I remember that the pilot back then was maybe 1h / 1h and a half but this one was ca. 2h and a half! So much was going on!

The contrast to last season’s theme is extremely intriguing: the first season was about Bruce’s past, his family and legacy, if everything that made him who he is was a lie. This time, however, it’s about the present, about how he does things, who he works with and who he can trust. And I assume they’ll also introduce the question if Batman rather attracts Rogues instead of getting rid of them.

We are introduced to new characters: I loved Lucius’ daughter, she was so cool and her hair has an amazing design. I have the feeling that she’ll become our new Lucius or Oracle or whatever. By the way, losing Lucius was quite a dramatic scene and I was shocked that they’d do that! Waller was impressive and untrustworthy as always. The “reveal” at the end wasn’t a big one to me. I mean we all know she knows Bruce is Batman, it was only a matter of time till the game revealed it. And Riddler was great! I admit I was missing Wally Wingert because he’s become THE Riddler to me ever since the Arkham series hit the world. He’s to Riddler what Kevin Conroy is to Batman. Also the design was strange. The mask and hood made him look like an adult version of the rape result shit stain.

I was a bit disappointed that they killed him off this early on, I had hoped he’d have a much bigger role, like Penguin or Harvey in season 1 while Joker would turn into the main villain. But at the same time... I don’t really believe that he’s dead... I can’t believe it when I think of the prison’s name we saw in some footage earlier. And the green stuff in the poisoned dart...

Which brings me to my predictions. We see three shadowy figures in the next episode’s title card (btw I think they shouldn’t have made the title cards so spoiler-y). The characters look like Hugo Strange (or Mr. Freeze?), Bane (hinted at by the prison’s name and that makes me think they shot Riddler with a Venom dart), and Harley Quinn (she has a mallet and Waller also shows us a photo of Dr. Quinzel).

I think Joker’s role will increase more and more, he’ll probably be the man behind everything in the end, he’s the leader of those special friends he and Eddie mentioned, and the last episode’s title card shows us Batman fighting him.

Batsy will also have to deal with repairing his relationship with Gordon, Lucius’ daughter, take care of a traumatized Alfred, and get Waller off his back. AND Selina will come back in episode 3, something I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO! I actually replayed episode 5 of the first season to repair my relationship with her. I don’t want her to return and still be pissed at me!

Speaking of decisions in the game... Oh boy, at the end of the episode, I felt so awful. I felt like I did everything wrong. People I cared for hated me, people I hate think I’m one of them. Almost every time I picked one thing I immediately regretted not picking the other. It made me an emotional mess.

I hope things will get better over the curse of the season because if not... I’ll cry. A lot.

Highly recommend season 2!

One last thing though: the female agent had nice green eyes which made me even madder at the fact that they couldn’t give Selina green eyes. What the fuck is SO FUCKING HARD ABOUT THAT??? Just give her green eyes! Cat-like eyes, she’s Catwoman, make her eyes fucking green!!! UGH!

#Personal note #review #telltale games

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