#;; the road wife - bonus scene

[cellythefloshie]

;; The Mix Up The Road Wife Series Deleted Scene.

Table of Contents

Summary: The Bolts are set to leave Chicago with a 2-0-1 record in their 3 game series, but you’re set behind schedule when you forget your cell phone in the locker room and you share a tense encounter in the hallway.  Note: Takes place after chapter 12 of the Road Wife. I am also dedicating this one to @hagelpoint-3821​ as it is her birthday today! Kinks & TW: sex work, there is no actual smut in this chapter. Word Count: 1742

TAGLIST: @equallyshaw , @charles11700 , @starshine-hockey-girl

The Bolts had played their final of three games in Chicago in a week’s time. They had walked away from the series 2-0-1, with Yanni scoring 2 goals in the second period to help propel the team to victory - which left you feeling bold, and cocky even - but the road trip didn’t end in Chicago. They would be playing the Red Wings in Detroit in 2 days' time, which meant they needed to fly out that night. 

The locker room was buzzing after the victory, but celebrations were always short when you were expected to be in the next city by morning. Equipment clamoured as the managers prepare sticks, gloves, jerseys and more for the move to the next stop. The noise created a symphony around you as the players undressed and moved for the showers. It was a room of steam that billowed into the locker room even though the showers themselves were well out of sight. The players cycled out of the showers behind you while you packed your work bag the busy noise was something you had gotten so used to you didn’t look back. That was until you felt the sharp impact of a hand’s firm smack against your ass. 

“Holy hell,” you shrieked, jumping around as a hand fell to rest on your ass. Your eyes went wide, your jaw slacked as you looked over the locker room and your eyes fell on the player looking all too guilty. Pat watched you with a too-wide grin, wearing nothing but his boxers as he ran a towel through his hair. “Patrick,” the use of his full name earned a drawl out ooo from the boys in the room, “that hurt!” Your whine only had him grinning wider, and it earned a soft groan from your lips - as if recovering from your day at the gym wasn’t enough, now you were going to be feeling the imprint of Pat’s hand on your ass or the rest of the night. 

“Just my gentle reminder to get that sweet ass on the bus, Sugar,” Pat smirked, his head shaking to mess up his hair so perfectly. 

“My ass will be on the bus right behind yours,” you assured him as you zipped up your bag and pushed the handles up your arm to rest in the crook of your elbow, “but, since I’m the one that’s ready, I should be the one giving your ass a smack.” 

This earned another chorus of ooo’s from the boys as you moved for the door, and out into the narrow hallways. Your body bounced around like a pinball, off bodies, and off the walls as you moved towards the bus. You could feel the chill of the winter air creeping its way into the depths of the building as you approached the loading zones. The cold froze your cheeks, and you couldn’t get onto the bus fast enough except something was missing: The persistent vibration of your phone. 

Shit. You had left it in the locker room. “Don’t let them leave without me!” You called out, abandoning your bag on your seat before running back the way you came. 

The hallways were a little clearer now. Many of the Bolts players had already loaded onto the bus, with few straggling behind - and those who you pushed passed as you moved with quick strides teased you with jesting words and playful smiles. You countered them with a smile of your own, and a casual wave - you weren’t going to risk putting them behind schedule because you forgot the phone that had every single sinful appointment in its calendar. The risk of someone finding that phone had you moving even faster, and you did not stop until you could feel it vibrating in your hands.

You stood near the center of the visitors' locker room, letting the pulsing vibration numb the palm of your hand as you caught your breath. It was the persistent reminder that you had an upcoming appointment that sent your phone into a rumble. A one-hour warning. Followed by a thirty-minute and a fifteen. Each one spread Brayden Point’s name in bold in a banner at the top of the screen. 

It sent your stomach fluttering as you tucked your phone into your coat pocket and you fell into stride once more - and for what you hoped would be the last time that night. You hesitated in the clearing corridors, looking back once, then again as you thought that there might be something else you may have left behind. Your steps were stuttering as you moved down the hall, the thick heel of your boots dragging against the ground as your head spun. It was consumed by the mental checklist of everything that should be packed away in your bag. You checked off each item one by one only for your thoughts to falter, and you would lose track and your mind would fall on one simple thing. Brayden. 

Brayden and how he was always so coy with you. 

Brayden and how he always tucked his wedding band and cross away before he let himself touch you-

Your phone vibrated in your pocket. Another reminder of your appointment with Brayden, and it made you giddy. A smile blossomed over your features, forcing you to cast your gaze to the floor. You couldn’t risk anyone seeing you wear such a shameless, excited smile. It was an excitement that hastened your steps - that was until you caught sight of him out of the corner of your eye. He was standing in the hallway, his back to you, as he fixed his white button-down over his figure. It was sticking to him in the spots where he hadn’t quite dried after his shower, and his usually shaggy light brown - almost blonde - hair was wet, slicked back and beginning to curl. 

Smile splitting wider, a little more devilish now, you took quiet strides, sneaking up on Brayden in the hallway. You didn’t stop until you were standing right behind him, your hands reaching out to touch the strength of his back oh so gently before you pressed up onto your toes to whisper in his ear; “Are you going to tell me all the dirty things you’re going to do to me, or are you going to make me wait for the surprise-”

You lost your words along with your breath as you felt him reach around, his touch finding your waist, and he forced you back against the wall with the push of a single arm. You stumbled back on your heels, your hands dropping down to meet the cold concrete as you let out a shaky breath, “Bray-” but you couldn’t even finish his name - but this wasn’t because he was stealing your words from you. Not this time. No, this wasn’t Brayden at all. 

Near choking on your unspoken words, you looked up through the loose strands of hair that had fallen into your face as you had hit the wall. Your eyes were wide, panicked, as they looked over each familiar-yet-foreign angle of the confused expression looking down at you. Your lower lip quivered as you let your eyes meet his dark brown iris that had the slightest glimmer of golden intrigue. It was then you recognized him, not just for his resemblance to Brayden, but for who he really was: Chicago’s rookie, Brandon Hagel. It had almost been enough to put you at ease, but then you felt the touch of his hand against your neck. He dragged his thick fingers down over the angle of your exposed collarbone and down the length of the lanyard that hung from your neck. His touch didn’t leave you until his hand had found the badge that had rested against your cleavage - that heaved with every uneasy breath you took - as he looked over the marker that identified you as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning staff. 

His brows only furrowed further at this revelation, his heavy gaze falling on your features again - and while you held his gaze not one of you muttered a word. You had no way to explain what you had just whispered in his ear, and he had yet to find just the right words to say. Surely he had questions, who you were looking for being one you would bet on - but Brandon wasn’t given the opportunity to ask you. Not when you could hear your name being called out to you, followed by a series of rushed steps to meet you. 

“Brayden,” his name slipped from your lips with a breath of relief - and you watched as the realization of the mistake made took Brandon’s features, one that prompted a string of apologies from your lips as he eased away from your form - freeing you from where you were pinned between him and the wall. 

You retreated back to the center of the hallway, where Brayden stood with an open arm to greet you. It wrapped around your waist effortlessly, his large hand giving your hip a gentle squeeze as he let out a low, soft chuckle. He had heard your apologies and it had left his head shaking, “Did you think-” his question was broken by laughter, his head shaking from side to side as his bright eyes raised to look over the other, opposing player. He had to see the resemblance,  right? His words told you otherwise: Thought you knew me better than, Darling. I’ll just have to remind you…”

His words reignited the giddy feeling that had been lost on the risky encounter with the Blackhawks’ forward and left you near shuttering against Brayden’s side as he began to lead you down the hallway and towards the bus that was awaiting you both. But you had only made it mere strides in its direction when there was a clamor of heavy footsteps behind you, then a rush of Brandon’s body against your side before he could cut you both off. He was still wearing that same confused look, as he raised up a hand casually, making sure Brayden couldn’t push past him as he spoke, “what exactly is going on here?”

And Brayden could only laugh, his head shaking and casting his hair down into his eyes as he reached his free hand out to pat Brandon on the shoulder.  “If you ever want to find out, you’ll have to be wearing blue…”

[chronic-ghost]

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

rating: M (just for language)

pairing: javier peña x f!reader

word count: 5619

summary: you're a human lie detector-- so you tell the handsome man at the Jim Bo’s Burger Barn at 3AM. Too bad you're too drunk to catch up to his lies.

warnings: language, references to drugs/cartels, drinking, smoking, this one is pretty tame, no use of y/n

a/n: this is my Poker Face adjacent fic and inspired by the scene where Javi so innocently flirts with that american wife in the lounge. might become a series but not quite sure yet. lemme know which direction I should take this, if I should take it anywhere at all!

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You attract trouble.

You attract trouble like you put on your nicest dress, did your hair, fixed up your tits, and doused yourself in trouble-pheromones. Like you found trouble curled up on the side of the road, sad and alone like a lost dog, and you gave it a cookie and now it swings around your ankles, always moments away from knocking you on your ass. Except it’s not a dog, it’s a chimpanzee that’s finally snapped and it’s pissed–  it’s beating on the bars of its cage, it’s yowling, howling, it’s coming after you to eat off your goddamn face and–

Okay, back up a bit. 

You have a thing that gets you into trouble. No, not like a self-destructive habit or a weird twitch. It’s not drugs or alcohol or even a dumbass ex. It’s this thing you’ve always been able to do, always known, and because of your big mouth, it’s always gotten you into hot water with the wrong people.

You know when someone is lying. Don’t ask how. It’s a thing. But you know, without a shadow of a doubt, if what’s coming out of someone’s mouth is the God’s honest truth or total and utter bullshit.

You know when someone is lying and generally, folks don’t really appreciate it when you a) catch them on a lie and b) call them out on it. You and your big mouth.

Okay, that’s two things that get you into trouble, but it’s primarily the lying thing and the mouth thing is more or less a fun bonus. Used for good or evil, or whatever. 

The point – the point is – you know when someone is lying. Every single time. So, sure, the audience may say, it’s a weird quirk, kinda bizarre, may or may not be difficult to prove, but trouble? Real actual trouble? How could you possibly get into chimpanzee-face-eating trouble with just this little thing?

Well, rather easy actually. If you don’t have any particular skills, that is. If you barely finished high school, and street smarts was the only kind of smarts they were selling the day your mom smacked you on the ass and told you to find your way in the world. It was hard keeping a job too. Minimum wage living is terrible, especially when the customers lie to you, or to each other, or to their children. Even worse when management lies about why there’s no cash payout this month or why they’re late with this month’s checks. Getting by is fucking hard as shit, but when you know there’s something wrong being done and you’ve got this big fucking mouth, well, you’ve never been one to not court trouble. 

Maybe trouble is easier to find because you like to wave and flirt with it when you drive by. Give a little wink.

You work here, you work there. Nothing serious. Always temporary. And then, one day, during your shift as a maid at the Economy 99 on route 10, the elderly night guard asks if you’ve ever played poker. 

Nah, you say. Go Fish, that’s really your game. 

So he offers to teach you, along with a few of the other maids and staff waiting around for someone to blow chunks in the swimming pool because you always managed to find the really classy places. 

Okay, so you barely finished high school, you don’t have real marketable skills, you’ve got a big mouth and you’re not afraid to use it and –

– and –

You’re really fucking good at poker. 

And who here would like to venture a guess as to why?

You always know when someone is lying and what is poker if not Advance Bullshit for Adults? Fuckin’ Astronomical Physics for Liars and Dumbasses. Hell, you gotta fuckin’ PhD in Bovine Excrement and it’s time you graduated to the big leagues. Sayonara community college, hello Stanford for Assholes.

Okay, maybe that’s just regular Stanford. 

You learn to hustle too. Lose a few rounds so they don’t catch onto you and can’t accuse you of anything as you wipe their clocks clean. You change your name too, in different towns, in different back alley poker halls, because unfortunately the poker and casino community in this place is too small.

This place being all of the United States. 

You can’t exactly go online and work your literal magic– you gotta at least see or hear the person to know if they’re lying. Bluffing over pixels just isn’t the same. Isn’t sexy enough. 

So, with your big mouth and exceptional poker skills, you go hunting off the coast. It was an invite only poker tournament in Florida. You hadn’t managed to burn your ‘Marlene Green’ identify just yet and she was fucking crushing it up and down the east coast. You barely blinked at the ten grand buy-in– baby money, suckers ducks, little Tikes casino royale.

This was also the last one, you told yourself. One for all the marbles. 

Because the thing about disreputable poker halls, they tend to be filled with unpleasant, disreputable, very angry characters that, like a chimpanzee, will rip your face off and eat it if they think they’ve been cheated. 

Exit strategy. Mama always said you gotta have an exit strategy. Well, Mama said a lot of things and the actual literal exit strategy was Monterey Marina with a gorgeous trawler for sale. Older than shit, but damn that baby could purr. You were gonna take the money, offer up stone-cold cash (no questions asked), and sail off into the sunset. Or, well, sunrise because you were definitely getting the fuck out of Florida. 

But here it comes, the real kick in the goddamn teeth, the real screw in the rack. This is where your mouth and your talent– gift, power, is this a fucking superhero movie?– whatever– tended to get all mishmashed with one other thing that always– and you mean always– got you in the hot seat. Got you in Trouble, with a capital T, that rhymes with P and stands for pool hall – breathing down your neck. 

You alway had shitdumb, bad, fucking luck. 

So it’s not some lowtime, grumpy townies you piss off when you win the pot, it turns out its members of a goddamn drug cartel! And they are PISSED.

P-I-S-S-E-D

You don’t wanna ask the barrel of their guns if they’re going to kill you because you don’t actually want to be sure of their answer, so you’ve got your hands up, thinking this is definitely it– I’ve played my last hand, I’ve sunk my last boat, I’ve cursed my last fuck– when police sirens go off. It’s not a relief, but a distraction.

You’ve got a big mouth, wacky abilities, and reflexes like someone who’s been running their whole life. You smash a bottle against the back of the head of the blonde one closest to you, flip the table– chips and bullets go flying– and with the case holding the winnings still in your hands, you sprint out the back door. 

To your lovely Chevy Camaro waiting for you. 

And you drive.

“And I drive and I drive and I drive, all the way down to this lovely little diner in . . .” 

You swivel on the red seat, nearly knocking over the five little plastic bottles of Crown Royal on the counter that is making your head thick and puffy. You squint at the sign that boasts the best burgers in – “Texas, yes, thank you, Texas! Lone Star State. The most hated state, of all fifty of them, for Wile E Coyote. His nemesis. His haunting. His apocalypse now . . .” 

The man seated next to you, the same man who’s been there for an hour, quietly listening to you drunkenly ramble at the counter of Jim Bo’s Burger Barn, smirks. His mustache twitches.

“Why is it the Wile E Coyote’s least favorite state?”

Your mouth drops at him. You slouch as though indignant about his very question. “Roadrunner, duh, state bird of the Lone Star State. That and blue bonnets. I mean, the flower. Blue bonnets are the state bird and the road runner is the state flower of the Looney Star State . . . wait . . .”

He laughs, softly, his elbows under him as he leans forward on the counter, his brown jacket looking like it smells amazing. Drunker than you meant to be, you eye him from his classic cowboy boots, up his hips, and to the edges of that lovely brown jacket as it hangs around his waist. He has the prettiest eyes. 

“You were saying something about driving here?” He asks, very much aware of your shameless staring. “Do you still have that money?”

“Sure, sure,” you mutter and turn back to your chocolate milkshake that’s pretty much just chocolate soup at this point. You snatch up a remaining fry from your long gone burger and swirl it in the soup. “Got the keys and the money locked up tight. I worry more about someone fucking with my baby more than the money, you know. Lots of sentimental value in that car. ‘Is where I lost my virginity.”

At that, the man sputters on his coffee, his third of the night. Black, almost as dark as his hair. 

You sigh, frowning into your lumpy, ice-creamy soup. “So hard to get laid when you’re running for your life.” 

You swivel back to him as he’s patting his jacket dry of coffee. “Wait. You.”

“Me what?” You think his cheeks warm pink for a moment.

“What the hell are you doing out here at 3AM, listening to me babble endlessly? You don’t look shifty, but maybe you are.” 

He smirks again and tosses his napkins into the now empty coffee mug. 

“I’m Javi,” he says in a deep, soothing voice as he extends his hand across to you. You take it, with the proper amount of trepidation. “And I’m on my way to see my niece in Flagstaff.” 

You click your tongue and withdraw your hand, disappointed. “Bullshit.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I mean, your name is definitely Javi.” You pick up your own coffee mug and see that it’s unfortunately empty. You pick out some fleck that’s fallen into it. “Well, almost – is that short for something? – but you are definitely not on your way to see your niece in Flagstaff. Does she not live in Flagstaff or . . . do you not even have a niece?” You gasp, mouth agape. He has the decency to look uneasy. His eyes narrow at you. You scoff. “That is fucked up, hombre. Starting off a conversation with a lie is not a good way to make a friend.” 

“Why do you think I’m lying?” 

You roll your eyes, the coffee cup dangling loosely in your fingers. “We’ve been over this, my dude. See the court documents. Jeez, how hard is it to order a refill at three in the morning? Paragraph B, Subsection I’m really fucking good at poker. I don’t think, I know. I have this thing, always had, and when people lie to me, I . . . wriggle. Squirm. Not exactly ‘spoiled lunch meat’ but not ‘just clocked a hottie from across the bar and I like their vibes’ either.” 

He watches as the waitress, glaring, comes over and refills your mug. You immediately dive into five packets of sugar, shredding them like a racoon with a bag of popcorn. 

“But I don’t take it too personally,” you continue, flicking the sugar packet to make sure every single crystal falls into the cup. “People lie all the time. About stupid shit too. I don’t think they even mean to do it. It just happens.”

“Does it bother you? That people lie?” 

“Eh. Once upon a time. But fuck, if you could hear the bullshit firehose that comes outta people’s mouths on the daily, you’d stop shaking it off too, if you know what I mean.” Satisfied that you’d be able to see through both time and space with your sugar high, you take a sip. Needs milk. You reach across his plate, wobbling on the edge of the seat, his chest inches from your forearm, and snag the little tin milk pitcher. Your cup becomes more milk than coffee. “People lie for the best of reasons, mostly. Or at least, best for them. Either to save hurting someone else's feelings or their own. We humans don’t like pain, generally, as a rule. But rules are meant to be broken, I suppose.”

Javi, or as close to his real name as you’re going to get, is quiet. That tends to be more of his natural state, given that he had barely said two words while you recounted the past few weeks to him whether he wanted it or not. You sip your coffee again, delighted to have found the right balance of sugar, milk, and burnt coffee, when he taps the rim of his mug with his nail. 

 “I do have a niece, but she lives in Austin. Haven’t seen her in a while, actually, but I want to.” 

“Oh, yeah?” That was all true. You bend forward, eyes trying to watch him as you sip the delicate, hovering brown line that threatens to spill over the edge of the cup. “What’s stopping you from seeing her?” 

“Work.” 

Well, that was fucking ominous. 

“Wait. Fuck. What do you do for a living?” 

Javi slides off the seat and turns those slim hips towards you and, like a fucking idiot, you just now register the bulk at his waist. 

You whimper. Of course the one nice person who wanted to spare you a second glance was from the cartel. They found you. Somehow they tracked you down to the middle of nowhere, which was exactly what you wanted when you still had your life ahead of you. But now it seemed like a terrible fucking idea because there was no one around to at least make sure Baby Girl Camaro went to a good home. 

“Ah, fuck. Fuck! That’s a gun. Fuck, you’re gonna kill me right here in this goddamn diner,” you whine and put your head on the counter, hands covering the back as if you were preparing for a tornado. 

He sighs. “I’m not going to kill you.” 

Truth. 

“Then what do you want with me?” You glare at him, bleary-eyed. “Because the whole cover as a kindly stranger with baby cow eyes is officially fucking blown, my guy.” 

“Let’s go outside and – wait, what? Baby cow eyes? What the hell does that mean?” 

“What? You’ve never watched Dr. Pole? TV veterinarian?” You unwind from your prone position and frown at him. “He takes care of those little baby cows, lookin’ up at their mama with those big, sweet, gentle, loving brown eyes. Cutest thing in the world. Almost made me wanna give up beef for a whole two minutes. But seriously, dude, there’s this hamburger joint in Miami that makes you just wanna lick the juices right off your fingers– hey!” 

He grabs you by the upper arms and, as casually as a kidnapping can go, hauls you out of the diner. The bell above the door rings joyfully as he pulls you through. 

The reality of your situation hits you like a sixteen-wheeler truck and tears spring up in your eyes as panic bites into your spine. His grip is like iron around your bicep. 

“Dude, I’m so sorry I rambled on like that but I swear I didn’t know who you were. Please, please don’t kill me – o-o-or hurt me. Please don’t take me back to the cartel. You can have the money, I swear, j-j-just take it–,”

His eyes widen and immediately lets you go. The neon sign and lights of the diner behind him blur his face in shadow. You wipe at your eyes. 

“Lady, look, if you’re gonna survive on the run from the Cali Cartel, you can’t be telling your whole life story to anyone who asks.” He’s got his hands on his hips as if disappointed with you. You pout with your bottom lip out.

“Wasn’t telling just anyone. Was telling you.” You cross your arms and sniff, suddenly rather embarrassed to be crying in front of a man so genuinely hot it makes you go a little cross-eyed. Well, it was either him or the whiskey. TBD. “Not that I’m encouraging you or anything, but if you don’t kill me, aren’t your cartel bosses gonna be pissed?” 

“I don’t work for the cartel. I work for the DEA.” 

If crying was embarrassing, you are going to be fucking traumatized if you puked all over his cowboy boots.

“Aw shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.” You press your knuckles into your eyes, groaning. You wander backwards. Your head starts to spin and so do you. “The fucking government is after me? Holy shit, this is not good.” 

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

You frown and spin back around. He looks exasperated. 

“Well, how many words does it take to read me my Miranda rights?” You tick off the words on your fingers as you speak them aloud. “You. Have. The. Right. To. Remain. Silent. Anything – is that one word or two? – You. Say–,”

“Jesus Christ–,” He claps his wide hand over yours, squishing your tally between his palms. “Are you always like this or just because you’re drunk?” 

“I’m a delight, pal, okay?” You scowl up at him. “I am a barrel full of monkeys at all times. I am a waterslide with chocolate and whipped cream, okay? I am a–,”

His hands leap to your shoulders. His touch is gentle like he knows he shouldn’t scare you but he’s considering throwing you into oncoming traffic. 

“Just . . . show me the case of money you stole,” he begs with his baby cow eyes, “alright? Let’s start there.”

Your eyes narrow at him. “If I do, what’s to keep you from knocking me out and throwing me in the trunk?” 

“I’m not going to do that.”

No tingle. You purse your lips and wiggle out from under his palms. “Say it. Say, I’m not going to knock you out and throw you in the trunk and steal all of your money.” 

“It’s not exactly your money, is it?”

“Say it!”

“Fine!” He says, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m not going to knock you out and throw you in the trunk and steal all of your money.” 

Still nothing. No tingle. Well, no tingle about him lying anyway. 

“You passed the test. Now come here.” 

Hesitantly, he nudges towards you, those thick eyebrows dipping down as if expecting you to pull a bazooka out of your bra.

“C’mere, c’mere. Good.” You clap a hand on his shoulder and lean into him. You shift your weight onto one leg and wiggle off your other boot. You get a whiff of his cologne – dark, woodsy, a little too much, as if to cover for a lack of deodorant. “Now, as you so annoyingly identified earlier, I have had a little, insy-tintsy bit to drink, and if I tried to take off my shoe by myself, I would, as the kids say, eat shit. And once you’ve fallen on your ass in front of one cop, you’ve fallen on your ass in front of them all.”

His warm hands find your waist, steadying you, just as you pop your heel out of your boot. “I’m not a cop,” he grumbles.

“And I’m not a walking lie detector.” You shake your boot and your car keys tinkle as they hit the dirt. “Ah, ha! Got ‘em.”

You shake them in front of his baby cow eyes, grinning, before spinning back to your car and popping the trunk, hopping as you went to slide your boot back on. 

“Do you work out?” You ask as he rounds the edge. Half of you is buried in the trunk, feet in the air. 

“Uh, yeah, when I can. Why?”

“What do you bench?”

“256. Why?” 

“Oh, then this should be easy for you.”

You groan, struggling with something and he dives to help you – and his knees buckle. 

“Why the hell do you have a tire for a sixteen wheeler in your trunk?”

“Same reason you’re sweating, toots. Heavy as fuck and hard to move. But now that we have . . .”

You pull out a slim silver case. You pop the handles and sigh.

You haven’t moved a single bill since that night. You haven’t even breathed on it, as if doing so would set off a series of alarms, bells, and whistles.

“So small for so much trouble,” you whisper as he crowds in next to you. “Fifty thousand dollars. Make or break a life. Well, at least, a life like mine.” 

Javi makes a face. “Should be one hundred, but those fuckers switched it out.” 

“Wait, how do you know that?” 

He sighs and slams the lid of the trunk shut. You snatch up the case before he does and hold it tight to your chest. Javi stands there for a moment, with his hand on Baby’s trunk, head down, thinking.

“Look, I want to help you . . . and I can. But you’ve gotta start being honest with me. How did you really get into that poker game?”

“What do you mean?”

He crosses his arms, frowning. “That little party trick you do. The human lie detector thing. What is it? How did you know Veracruz had that shit hand?”

“Uh, because I asked him and he said he didn’t have a shit hand, and I knew he was lying.” 

“Yeah, that. How did you know he was lying?”

“I just did.”

“Bullshit.” 

“That’s my line!” You glare up at him, very much aware of his height and very much aware how hot he is. “I’m not lying to you. I just know when people are lying. If you believe it, I’ll know.” 

Javi rolls his eyes. “That’s not a real thing people can do. Have you done forensic work before? Studied body language somewhere?” 

You scoff and step back, showing off your black fringe vest, dirty jeans, and combat boots. “Do I look like I’ve studied anything anywhere ever? Where would I even have gotten the money to go study somewhere? Oh right, the forensic fairy, just beating the shit outta people with a bag of cash.” 

He puts his hands on his hips and you match him because you can do the scary cop thing too. It’s not that hard. 

“I broke my arm when I was seven on a bike ride.” 

“True.” 

“I had a dog named Benji.” 

“Dog’s right, but not named Benji.” You grin, rubbing your hands together, then putting them on your thighs. “C’mon, gimme something you’ve never told anyone. This is exciting. Your mustache does this little twitch thing when I’m right.” 

“When I was twelve, I cheated off my friend’s math test.” 

You frown, dropping your shoulders. “That’s your big secret? Whoof, buddy, and here I thought the big scary man gunning for me was mean and lean, when he’s actually just an All-American—,”

“I need your help to arrest the men who are trying to kill you.” 

Your mouth snaps shut so fast your teeth click.

“That’s what all of this is about.” He crosses his arms and leans against Baby. “Aren’t you curious how I found you so fast? Faster than the cartel who's been on your ass for two weeks now?” 

“I’d like to think it was just kismet that we found each other,” you grumble. “Serendipity. Movie magic. Lady Luck doing me a fuckin’ solid for once.”

“That case has a tracker in it. We had a plant in that game who was supposed to win, but not before he could distribute the cash out in the pot. We’d be able to follow them back to their stashes and track their movements.” He bit his lip, disapprovingly. “And then you showed up. Cleaned their fucking clocks like it was nothing. Had their goddamn numbers from minute one and none of us could figure it out. Steve was probably relieved when you knocked him out with that bottle.”

“Oh, shit, the blonde was your partner?” You grimace. “My bad, dude, my bad. Is he, uh, okay?”

Javi nods, eyes distant, as if subtly trying to work something out in his brain. Like testing to see if you could read minds or something. “He’ll be fine. His wife Connie is thrilled to have him home for a few weeks.” 

“Ah. And that means you pulled the shit straw to go after the girl who ran off with all your government money . . .” It was finally all coming together. “Shit, should I add your wife to the list of people I’ve pissed off? I can’t imagine she’s thrilled about any of this.”

His jaw works, as if he was chewing on something, eyes dark, before he pulls a packet of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jacket. He holds one out to you.

You stay where you are, hesitant. 

“C’mon, don’t tell me you’re not a smoker.” He spins an unlit cigarette between his fingers. “I don’t bite.”

You scowl and trudge forward. You snatch the cigarette from his thick fingers and wait your turn for the lighter.

“What gave it away? I haven’t had a smoke in hours.” 

The shadow of the flame flickered in his palm as he held out the lighter close to your lips, his hand blocking the wind. His brown eyes looked black in the absence of light. 

“Chain-smoking and playing poker with idiots is a combo deal. Two vices for the price of one.”

“Ha. Ha.”

You match his lean against Baby’s trunk, the pair of you watching the occasional car or truck go by on the interstate in the distance. The paper crinkles when you suck in the smoke. God, there really is nothing like the first bite of a cigarette. 

“So, what’s the play here?” You ask, after a moment. “You have the money. Why do you need me?” 

“You won’t have to worry about kindly strangers with baby cow eyes for starters.” You scowl at him. Maybe it’s the orange light of the flame, but you swear you see a twinkle in his eyes. “But you tell me. You seem smart. What would the government want with you?”

He likes a chase, you realize. He likes to play, to tease. He likes to be in control. Something inside you knots up, threatening goosebumps on your skin, but you shake it back. Down, girl. 

You take a sip from your cigarette, thinking. 

There is nothing else around except the highway and this diner. Seemed like such a good idea at the time. Who’d ever find your ass all the way out here? You lick the bottom of your lip before pulling it between your teeth.

“I’m your only witness to the mountains of coke being produced out in the open when they brought us in. Everyone else at that table was cartel or DEA. You want me to testify. 

He nods slowly. If he was impressed, he didn’t show it.

“We didn’t know who the hell you were when you showed up and planned to arrest you before everything went tits up.” He taps the ash onto the gray dirt and you watch his fingers. “If you do this, you’re out from under the cartel. We can give you a new identity, and you can start grifting again across America. All of this’ll be a bad dream.”

He flicks the butt of his cigarette into the dark, just at the edge of the light from the neon sign. You follow suit a second later. The keys to Baby are still in your pocket. 

“And if I don’t? If I don’t do this, then what?” 

His answer is a single arched eyebrow.

You dart to the left, trying to get around him, but he’s there first, arms outstretched like he’s guarding a goal. He frowns at you. Seriously? 

You lunge again, this time to the right, and he’s again in front. 

Your brow sweating, you hook your foot onto Baby’s trunk, desperately trying to scramble over the top. You get about halfway up before those annoyingly large hands snatch you around the waist and haul you off the car.

“Would you stop it?” He plops you down between his solid chest and the car door. This close to him, air temporarily leaves your lungs. “I’m being honest when I say I’m here to help you.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

“Am I lying?” Again, that beautiful eyebrow of disapproval. 

“No, but I’ve officially decided you’re shifty.” 

He shakes his head and steps back, allowing blood flow to return to your brain. 

“Is this what you want for your life? Driving from small town to small town, picking up bullshit jobs, sleeping in shit beds, when there’s so much more you could do? You’re smart, resourceful, funny, weirdly agile . . . but you wanna spend your life hiding from the world.” 

There’s something hot and sharp in your throat.

“It’s what I’m good at,” you croak. 

His expression softens. The gravel crackles beneath his boots as he comes closer. Javi, the DEA officer, has temporarily left the building. In his place, this Javi is smoothed out, dulled, not all jagged edges and razor burns. Maybe tastes sweeter than day-old coffee and stale cigarettes. You want to tell him there’s nothing wrong with either– you happily take both– but seeing him unguarded, even for a moment, threatens to topple you over. There’s a light in his eyes when he takes in your face. Your eyes. Your nose. Your mouth. 

He looks . . . hopeful. 

One hesitant finger brushes away a stray strand of hair from your forehead.

Do not tremble. Do not tremble. Do not do it, I swear, ladies, keep it together!

“I bet you are,” he says softly. Jesus Christ, his hands are so big up close. “I bet you are good at a lot of things. You seem like the type who could genuinely surprise me. And I think you might surprise yourself one day.” 

You grimace, deeply, deeply regretful. 

“Yeah,” you mutter glumly. “I do surprise people a lot, actually. Unfortunately, you didn’t seem to be listening.”

“Wha–,”

From your other pocket in your vest, you yank out a one-time-use stun gun and stab his thigh through his jeans. Fifty-thousand volts lights up his entire body, arched, and tensed, before the grown man collapses at your feet. 

Unconscious, Javi hits the ground so hard you squeal, landing on his face and no doubt earning a nasty bruise. 

“Exit strategy, dude! Always gotta have an exit strategy. But I’m so, so sorry!” Grabbing his deadweight shoulder, you roll him onto his back and try to get him in a comfortable position. There’s dust in his mustache. .You fold his hands onto his chest like he was casually napping. 

Then because you were in fact the nicest or stupidest person on the planet, you dig your arms under his and pull him out of the parking lot. It would be a true sin if he got run over and anything happened to that beautiful face. Huffing, you drop him off by the bike rack. “I’m sorry. You are so gorgeous but I gotta get outta here and I can’t have you following me. This hurts me way more than it hurts you.”

You bend down and rifle through his jacket. You find what you’re looking for and take his phone out of his pocket. Old, probably a burner. With a shake, you crack off the battery and throw it on the ground. The crunch is loud beneath your heel. That should give you some more time. Can’t haul you back to HeadQuarters if he can’t call them.

This close to him, you can see the bags beneath his eyes. You remember he didn’t eat the entire time he sat with you in the diner. He didn’t respond to your question about a wife. Guilt clangs into your ribs. Slowly, you loosely brush your fingers through his hair. It’s soft, curls around his neck and ears. He looks like he needs sleep. 

You had been blasting across state lines, hardly eating, barely sleeping, restless and fearful. Maybe he had been too.  

“God, I am such a fucking idiot.” You grimace as you see a ripe purple bump growing on his cheek. “I am so sorry and I am so going to hell for this.”

Over the road to the highway, the dawn rises, purple and pink and heavy.

Baby purrs, when you start the engine, welcoming and warm. Where to today, Mama?

Jim Croce’s twang eases out of the radio as you adjust your mirror and see his long legs still out by the concrete. Somebody would find him soon enough.

Uptown got its hustlers

The bowery got it's bums

42nd street got big Jim Walker

He's a pool shootin' son of a gun

Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come

But he stronger than a country hoss

You shake your head, guilt gnawing at your gut. Baby roars as you pull out onto the road and up onto the highway. Into the burning dawn.

What was it that he said? 

And when the bad folks all get together at night

You know they all call big Jim boss, just because

He called you funny. Resourceful. Full of potential. And smart. He thought you were smart.

Liar, liar. 

And they say

You don't tug on superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger

And you don't mess around with Jim

[demons-and-demigods]

Demons and Demigods Part Nine: Written Scene #5: Ruby vs. One Pissed Off Mom

More Sally, Paul, Sam, and Dean content! With bonus bamf Sally because I love her. Also, this has some hand-wavey bits but it's mostly a fully written scene, so enjoy!

Sally, back at home, was sick with worry. She hadn’t gotten an Iris Message from Percy or Annabeth in months and she was terrified that something had happened to them and no one would tell her.  

She called Dean and Sam, to ask if they’d run into the seven in their time on the road, and when they told her they hadn’t seen them since their chance meeting in Kansas a couple months ago, she broke down sobbing. Paul wrapped an arm around her shoulders and took the phone from her, putting it on speaker. Dean promised that they would be on the lookout for any signs and keep an ear open for any mention. Paul thanked them and asked if they’d be willing to swing by sometime soon, Sally would surely appreciate seeing them. 

The boys arrive in NYC and there’s still nothing from Percy or Annabeth or any of the other Seven or demigods that Sally knows. She reached out to Chiron, Thalia, and Grover to see if they’d heard anything at all, but they were all just as in the dark as her. Desperate, Sally prayed to Poseidon, begging him to send her some sign that their son was still alive out there, to tell her if something had happened to him. But there was no answer. She had known that there would be none, had believed Annabeth when she said that the gods had closed themselves off from the world all those months ago, but she had foolishly let herself hope that maybe her prayers and the love she knew Poseidon had for their son would be enough to break through whatever was going on with the gods to him. 

Anyway, Paul is still on paid leave and him and Sally and Sam and Dean are all at the Jackson-Blofis apartment trying to figure out what happened that made Annabeth and Percy stop IMing with no warning, and then one of Paul’s teacher friends and her wife come knocking on the door with a tray of cookies to check in on them. Paul invites them in and if they are startled by the two rugged male models sitting in the living room talking with Sally, neither of them says anything. Sally greets them and introduces Sam and Dean as her nephews who are P.I.s helping them look for Percy and the teacher and her wife are pleasant as can be, ask if there’s been any news and say that they hope they hear something soon, they know it’s hard not knowing if your child is safe.  

They stay and chat for a while, asking for stories about Percy and listening intently to every story that Sally and Paul tell. Sam and Dean do, too, excited to hear stories of what their little cousin is like when not on deadly quests where the fate of the world hangs in the balance. They also listen for instances where the story seemed to be sanitized for mortal ears and make mental notes to ask for the real story later.  

Once the teacher and her wife left, however, another random woman appeared in the living room. No one jumps, per say, but Sam and Dean both reach for the guns tucked into their waistbands and Sally grabs for the celestial bronze knife she’s taken to hiding in her boot as Paul tries to sneak toward the wooden baseball bat in the corner.  

“I thought they’d never leave,” the woman said dryly, and Sam and Dean lower their weapons with simultaneous groans. “You know, the company you boys are keeping these days makes it really hard to talk to you.”

“Sally, Paul, this is Ruby,” Dean said, distaste clear in his voice. “She’s a demon.”  

Paul’s eyes widened and he inched backward, shooting a glance at Sally. Sally narrowed her eyes and kept her knife in her hand, though she didn’t say anything.  

“She’s, well, maybe not a friend, but she’s not an enemy,” Sam tried to placate her. Dean rolled her eyes.  

“Yeah, but only because she’s weirdly obsessed with you.”  

“Look, if you don’t want to hear what I came to say, fine, I’ll leave,” Ruby snarled. “I just thought that since you’ve been sticking your noses in Greek business, you’d want to know that I heard something. But I guess you’re not interested, so maybe I’ll take my knowledge somewhere else.”  

“Wait!” Sally cried as Ruby turned to leave. “What do you mean?”  

Ruby laughed and turned back around to scrutinize Sally with a raised eyebrow. “You know, I’ve heard about you, Sally Campbell, or, sorry, what did you change it to, Jackson? The higher ups had big plans for you, you know. Just like they did for Mary. Of course, you had to go and ruin them by shacking up with a Greek god, making you and your son untouchable.” Ruby shook her head. “A shame, really. If the Greeks weren’t so anal about inter-pantheon mingling, your son could have been extraordinary.”  

“Enough, Ruby. Tell us what you heard or fuck off.” Dean growled.  

Ruby clicked her tongue and wagged her finger at him disapprovingly. “Now, Dean, is that anyway to ask a friend for help?”  

“Ruby, please,” Sam butted in, gesturing for Dean to leave it. “What did you hear?”  

“Thank you, Sammy,” Ruby said, and Sam had to bite back his retort that only family was allowed to call him that. “See, Dean? That’s the way to get a girl to open up.” She sauntered over and plopped herself down in Sam’s lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and playing with his hair. “There’s a rumor going around,” she said casually. “I thought it might be of interest to you.”  

“Spit it out already, you black-eyed bitch. Or did you just want to waste our time?” Dean grit out through clenched teeth.  

“Sammy, I don’t like the way your brother keeps talking to me. I don’t think I want to tell you, anymore,” Ruby pouted, looking up at Sam with an exaggeratedly hurt expression. “I want an apology.”  

Sam fought to keep his face neutral. “Dean’s sorry, Ruby,” he ground out.  

She shook her head. “I want to hear him say it,” she smirked over at Dean, who was practically fuming. “Make him tell me he’s sorry, and then I’ll tell you what I heard.” She tucked her head into the crook of Sam’s neck and smiled sweetly.  

Sam gave Dean a pleading look. Dean took a couple deep breaths, trying to quell his steadily rising rage, before opening his mouth, but Sally, it appeared, had had more than enough and decided to take matters into her own hands.  

Sally was a blur, appearing at Sam’s side in an instant and grabbing a fistful of Ruby’s hair to yank her off Sam’s lap and throw her to the floor. Before anyone could react, Sally had Ruby pinned underneath her and her celestial bronze dagger hovering just above Ruby’s throat.  

“Tell me what you know about my son right now or so help me God we will see just what celestial bronze does to demons. I can’t imagine it’s pretty,” Sally snarled.  

Dean, Sam, and Paul all stared at her in shock and a healthy bit of awe. (Paul thought he probably should not have found that as attractive as he did.)  

Ruby stayed silent, and Sally lowered her knife until it just barely sank harmlessly through the skin of the mortal Ruby was possessing and Ruby let out a scream that Sally quickly muffled with a hand over her mouth. Sally lifted the knife and waited for Ruby stop screaming before removing her hand.  

Ruby panted harshly.  

“Talk. Now.”  

“S-some big shot demons have been real chipper lately, which is unusual for demons. I heard a few of them talking about it. One of them said ‘the son of the sea and wisdom’s daughter fell.’” Ruby gasped.  

“The hell do you mean, ‘fell’?” Dean demanded. “Are you saying they died?”  

Sally tightened her grip on Ruby and twitched the knife downward again.  

“No!” Ruby cried. “At least, I don’t think so! Demigods die all the time, Greek or otherwise. I doubt demons would be so giddy about two more demigods they’re not allowed to touch biting it.” She rolled her eyes, then flinched when Sally made a low noise in the back of her throat. “Look, I’m not sure, exactly, okay? But I think-I think they meant that two demigods fell into the Pit.”  

“The Pit,” Dean said slowly, not entirely sure what Ruby meant.  

Sally gasped and sat back on her heels, dropping her knife to the floor and clapping her shaking hand over her mouth. “You don’t mean—” she said weakly.  

Ruby nodded.  

“Oh gods,” Sally gasped, and her eyes filled with tears. Paul rushed forward to kneel beside her.  

“Sally, what-what is it? What’s the Pit?” he asked, voice shaking.  

She sobbed and shook her head, unable to speak.  

Sam’s eyes widened in realization. “Tartarus. You mean Tartarus,” he breathed.  

“Based on all this, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s really bad,” Dean said. “What the hell is Tartarus?”  

“It is Hell,” Ruby said, sitting up now that Paul had moved Sally back to the couch. “The Greeks’ creation myth is a bit of a convoluted one, but essentially, there was nothing but Chaos, at first. And then Chaos made the Primordials. Gaea is the earth, she is nature and living things. Over the earth was created a dome, which became the sky and Gaea’s husband, Ouranos. Another dome was created beneath the earth, called Tartarus, the Pit of Damnation. Gaea and Ouranos had children together, and those children were the Titans. But Ouranos grew cruel, so Gaea convinced her children to help her trick him. They brought him down to earth, away from his element so he’d be weak. Their youngest son wielded his father’s scythe and, as his four brothers held their father down, chopped Ouranos into tiny pieces and scattered them into the Pit so that he would never again be able to take on a physical body. The Titans later had their own children, the Gods. When the Gods brought the same fate upon their father Kronos as she and her children had upon Ouranos, Gaea grew furious, and bore a new race of children with Tartarus called the Giants. One Giant was born to oppose each of the twelve Olympian Gods. The Giants were bigger, stronger, and meaner than anything that came before them. Eventually, however, they, too, were cast into Tartarus as their eternal prison, and Gaea fell into a deep sleep, exhausted and depressed as all her family was locked away. But now, Gaea is waking, and the Giants are rising to help her. They are ruthless and will stop at nothing to reawaken their mother. But I’m getting off track. Tartarus himself is the Pit. He is the place Greek monsters go to reform when they are killed. His is the very essence of evil. The air is like acid and the ground shard of glass. The very environment down there is meant for suffering. If two demigods have indeed fallen into the Pit, then the air will poison them as they breathe, stop their wounds from healing. Every step will leave them weaker than the last. There is no escape for demigods from the Pit. They will wander, slowly dying, hunted by every monster they have ever killed, every horror ever spoken of in Greek myth, until they cannot carry on, and they give up. Until a monster finally gets the better of them or they simply lay down and wait to die. Their bodies will rot down there, will become carrion for hungry monsters on their way back to the surface. Their souls will be trapped in eternal agony, unable to rest or find peace as they continue to wander endlessly through hell. After long enough, they might change into monsters themselves. If they’re smart, they’ll throw themselves into one of the rivers of the Underworld and pray that the waters dissolve their sense of self.” Ruby smirked, then. “I hear that the Styx would be good for that.”  

Sally screamed in outrage and lunged for Ruby, wrapping her hands around the demon’s throat, but Ruby just opened her mouth and black smoke poured out, leaving an empty vessel on the floor. 

Sally sobbed.  

Paul held her close and cried silently into her crown.  

Sam and Dean looked at each other in horror before moving simultaneously to kneel beside Sally and Paul on the floor.

“Hey,” Dean said softly, laying a hand on his aunt’s shoulder. “Percy and Annabeth are strong. They’re also insanely smart and from what I hear, have a habit of surviving the impossible to survive. They’ll find a way out.”  

“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding. “They said something about the Doors of Death being chained and having to free them. As terrifying as it is, I bet those Doors are chained in the Pit and I bet that Percy and Annabeth know it. They’re probably on their way there to free the Doors and use them to escape as we speak. You just have to trust that they will find their way back to us, to you.”  

Sally breathed shakily as she tried to calm down and nodded slowly. “You’re right,” she said and sniffed. “I have faith that they will make it home. And I will be ready to support them and help them heal when they do,” she said firmly.  

“We all will,” Paul promised. “Whatever they need.” 

Okay, so I'm not the happiest with Ruby's rendition of the Greek creation myth and so-on, and I am well aware that I got carried away there and it's not all that accurate, but whatever. Please just roll with it. Bask in the glory of bamf Sally instead of thinking about that spiel too hard, okay?

[by-kilian]

Hello!! I hope you're having a pleasant day!~ For the ask game, I was wondering whether I could hear your answers for 1, 4, 69, and 73?

Hey love! It's so nice to hear from you, I hope you also had a wonderful day! ❤️😘 HAPPY to answer 🤗 below the cut!

do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

It's a little bit of both actually. I often know exactly how I want my stories to end because I know the story I want to tell. However, I never know exactly how it will happen and that's the exciting part. I often plan and have what I *think* is the best road to the ending when I first outline a story. But as I write more and my characters grow and things happen, oftentimes things change or get scrapped but for the better. I actually recently discovered that my process is not unlike Neil Gaiman's in which he describes it as taking a roadtrip from Miami to Seattle. You know where you're headed but you have no idea what is truly in store for you along the way. I hope that makes sense!

4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

Ohhh....I can't share. 😭😭😭 LMFAO. Because some of them may come out. They may never come out. I don't know. But I think I mentioned before that I have a habit of sitting on stories for literal years before they come to fruition. They sit in my notes as ideas. And idk I just like to let stories marinate because plot bunnies to me never come as ideas for one-shots, they come as ideas for ideally long stories or stories that at least take more than one chapter to tell. "Open Door" was actually one of these plot bunnies that became an official story just recently. I had wanted to write a story about Erwin trying to mend things with a wife whom he had either already gotten a divorce from or was in the middle of divorcing, but never quite liked it until a few tweaks recently. That sink scene? Sat on that for years. Back to the question though, I prefer to sit on plot bunnies because it happens quite often where I sometimes just like them in that moment. If I revisit it and scrap it, I know I was never that invested in it anyway. On the flip side, if I revisit it and still like it and want to keep fleshing it out or even if I just like to read it and enjoy its basic premise, I know it's a story I still want to tell. And maybe—if we want to wax poetic here—need to tell. I know why I haven't written any of them yet however, and it's just honestly a matter of not having enough time. I don't know if you can tell but I really like to devote myself to every single long-ish story I write. When I feel spread thin with just other things in life, I prefer to keep my writing to one project with occasional one-shots on the side to keep things fresh. I don't experience existential dread over it though because if it's a story I am meant to tell, I will tell it when I'm supposed to. Or it can fly away to another owner and I'm quite content with that too.

69. how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

I utilize music when I write emotional scenes. It may sound cheesy but it's almost like being a composer scoring for a movie, or being a film editor and choosing juuuuust the right song for the right scene. I actually had a mini assignment to do stuff like this when I took film in high school. We had to take scenes from a movie we liked and pick the *perfect* song for it, and I had such a fun time with it. I picked "The Notebook" and the scene where Allie and Noah lie on the road with each other and giggle and fall in love, and chose the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. So oftentimes when I picture scenes, especially emotional scenes, I picture it with music as if you're watching a movie or a TV show. I will loop it 100 times if needed, until the scene is completed and written fully. As for do I ever feel what the characters feel, ALL THE TIME. I've mentioned before that I don't write a single emotionally sad scene for my characters without crying myself. Because honestly if I want to evoke any kind of emotion out of anyone else, I think I have to first do it to myself.

73. how do you visualize scenes? do you see it like a movie in your head, or do the words just flow?

I see it like a movie in my head and then the words flow. ❤️

Thank you for sending in your questions!! I appreciate it <3

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

wife wife i have no music taste, but you feel musical to me! will you drop any songs you relate to your universes stans, kyles and style in general? if not music books, other characters, pieces of media, quotes, poems? i am insatiable darling <3

YOYOYO!!!!!!

First of all hello my wife my wife the love of my life! (I did in fact ride half of my first year of college on a music scholarship)

OKAY so you know how heavily I associate Fall Out Boy with Stan in general (mostly bc I like projecting and I’m a gremlin abt fob) SPECIFICALLY Infinity On High (I know we’ve discussed this before and yes I’m still unhinged abt the 27 rm thing) AND I’ve said a LOT abt OrangeJuiceVerse Stan being musically inclined as one of his main outlets.

(I will be mainly sticking to ojv bc that do be my main focus atm)

So Stan will play literally whatever on the guitar and he can improvise SO WELL!!! Like it’s wild but he’s just like eh it’s a casual hobby but he hears a song and immediately knows the basic chord progression and bpm he’s the king of countermelodies too. Kenny will start playing something and then Stan will pop in with the most gorgeous harmonies and just…. fall in.

Stan will listen to ANYTHING he especially loves songs with a story (I’m sticking to ATLCTS for him being a Tenacious D fan bc I very much enjoy that) and Kyle, while Stan is all “LISTEN TO THAT CELLO BREAK” Kyle Is all fully into the lyricism and losing his shit about RAINDROPS ON ROSES AND GIRLS IN WHITE DRESSES AND SLEEPING WITH- (I feel like they have similar tastes but for different reasons if u get me)

My Kyle’s for sure are lyrics gremlins. Stan will be like KEY CHANGE KEY CHANGE but Kyle will be WAIT LOOK THE STORY HOLY SHIT SYMBOLISM(smh they whole ass watch musicals together and neither of them stfu) (losers)

(This is unhinged I’m eepy) so song specific idk man but I feel in my soul that Stan’s hopeless romantic ass serenades Kyle on a regular basis ESPECIALLY when he’s in an Emo Boy Mood like this man thinks he’s Orpheus or something ALSO Stan is incredibly specific about having certain playlists for every single situation and the “Super Best Spicy Time” playlist is INCREDIBLY LAME!!! (I’m talkin Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls and Mr Brightside was playing during their first time) like they are losers your honor

On FOB Stan I’m currently specifically feeling him with What A Catch, The (After) Life Of The Party, From Now On We Are Enemies, Golden, Fame< Infamy, The (Shipped) Gold Standard, She’s My Winona, Disloyal Order, A Little Less Sixteen Candles, Heavens Gate, SOPHOMORE SLUMP IS SO STYLE OMG

Sorry that was a lot I’m very passionate abt the fob Stan thing

EVERY LAME ASS SAPPY LOVE SONG IS EXTREMELY STYLE TO ME!!! If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell, I’ll Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab For Cutie, LINE WITHOUT A HOOK?!? Nothing Matters But You by The Young Veins, Northern Downpour and When The Day Met The Night by Panic, I Think I Love You by Tenacious D, All I Ask Of You from Phantom (btw I saw someone draw a style phantom of the opera au it slayed so hard), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John (there’s this scene in a fic I read where Stan plays it for Kyle on his guitar and I lost my mind), ofc Carry On Wayward Son, Accidentally In Love by the counting crows, Turn Off The Lights from the Vices and Virtues bonus tracks, As Long As You’re Mine from Wicked (I feel like Kyle fuckinh loves Wicked) All I’ve Ever Known from Hadestown.

OJV Kyle for sure listens to the acoustic versions of pop songs and is SUCH a sap (he won’t admit it as much as Stan tho) like he’ll pause a song after a particularly clever or romantic line and just be like DID YOU HEAR THAT! Stan writes songs every once in a while and whenever he writes for Ky he always tries to paint a story because that’s what Kyle likes help I love them so much

As for other media I associate w the boys, bruh lemme tell ya the sp brainrot is so real I physically cannot watch or read anything without imagining a couple as style (literally last night my partner and I were watching the picture lock of the last feature we worked on and I’m over here looking at the two main characters like hmm who is Stan who is Kyle I’m the WORST)

Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure is so Them to me holy shit like best friends getting into situations and being obsessed with each other I love that shit (u can’t tell me Bill and Ted aren’t in love)

This comes as no surprise to anyone but Lord Of The Rings for sure, especially since i decided that they speak elvish to each other on the regular

I’ve also said it before but!!! As a massive PJO/Riordanverse fan, THEY ARE SO PERCABETH CODED!!! We got Stan/Percy as the reluctant hero who everyone looks to, Kyle/Annabeth as the badass short tempered voice of reason, like DUDE.

(Also I hope you know how much your fics have influenced my mindset like I’ll drive past Taco Bell and be like o look style moment and I saw Fireball at the gas station and thought abt rm Stan)

Anyway this is long as SHIT I’m completely insane it’s fine THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ASK ILY

[avengingmariner]

Dear Yuletide Writer:

this is my first yuletide and I'm so excited!! and nervous! I hope you have fun with these prompts, but of course they are just suggestions so follow your heart

Likes: porn WITH plot, off the wall humor, angst, tragedy, ambiguous endings, morally ambiguous characters, well choreographed fight scenes, bdsm, dub/noncon, gratuitous descriptions of food, plot twists, literary references, monsterfucking, a Hope Spot in tragedy, religious angst, Daddy Issues

DNW: omegaverse, fluff, soulmate aus, underage sex, mpreg, suicidality, my biggest squick is maggots and I doubt that would come up but there it is anyway.

For all of these requests, the writer may use any combination of characters at their own discretion as fits the story needs.

Fandoms:

Temeraire- Naomi Novik:

Requested Characters:

William Laurence

John Granby

Temeraire

Napoleon (yes that Napoleon)

prompt:

This is a new fandom for me but now I'm obsessed. Temeraire is my most favoritest dragon and my precious babey boy.

ok listen. you must put my man laurence in A Situation. the more uncomfortable/awkward/awful for him the better tbh. I just need him to suffer a little. or at least be mildly inconvenienced. if you want to crazy Napoleon/Laurence is a good and beautiful fucked up ship. and temeraire/laurence tbh like. It’s total crack but also kind of cute in a weird way. and granby/laurence. that man is so shippable I'd ship him with a clone of himself.

but it doesn't have to be shippy if that

or maybe do some time bending so Temeraire can try American junk food. like anything flavor blasted.

Watership Down- Richard Adams:

Requested Characters:

Fiver

The Black Rabbit of Inle

General Woudwart

El-ahrairah

I've been obsessed with this book since I was in third grade when I read it after my mom accidently got the movie from on vhs from the library because it had cute bunnies on the cover.

i need some sweet sweet el-ahrairah lore. what kind of el-ahrairah stories do they tell in Efrafa? How does Woundwart twist their sacred stories to his needs? or maybe send woundwort on a journey through the rabbit underworld to meet the black rabbit. or maybe give fiver visions of death. or maybe the specter of woundwort is haunting fiver's dreams (or his real life). How does Fiver cope after Hazel dies? What other visions does he have? feel free to throw in any random side characters if you feel so led.

Ancillary Trilogy- Anne Leckie:

Requested Characters:

Translator Dlique

Tisarwat

Justice of Toren One Esk/Breq

Seivarden Vendaai

This one is near and dear to my heart. I listened to all the audiobooks when I was going through a super bad depression so it's like, a part of my soul.

Super into Breqvarden. But also I'd love if you dug into Seivarden's history more. Like what is the family drama going on in House Vendaai? Or maybe some Tisarwat angst. Or Dlique being weird and off-putting. Or like, generally Silly Space Sitcom Shenanigans. Or some extremely dark Justice of Toren/baby captain!Seivarden era ship stuff (bonus points if present!Seivarden is feeling Some Type of Way about it). Or throw all the characters in a tiny spaceship on a Road Trip From Hell. I'd prefer if it were Seivarden heavy in general, she is my trash wife

[kenaran]

1, 3, 4, 29 and 63 from the Fanfic writer ask meme

Taken from this.

Thanks for asking!

1. Do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

I’m leaning more towards the latter, but since I mostly do one shots the stumbling is rather limited. Most of my ideas/drafts start in the middle and I don’t usually struggle a lot to find the ending. (But again, we are talking one shots and they aren’t usually plot focused.)

3. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you enjoy incorporating romance into the average story?

Easily a 10. I do write stories without romance, but if it’s there I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

4. What is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? Optional bonus question: Do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

I don’t have any plot bunnies in the sense of vague story ideas that are living inside my head only since I usually come up with specific scenes / segments of dialogue first. Whenever I get those I absolutely write them down (doesn’t matter what it is) and then may or may not try to find the story around it. The progression from scribbled notes to something I’d call a draft is pretty fluid.

That being said, the oldest one of these that’s still lying around is over a decade old: a Picard/Troi fic set after the Dominion War. I’m not currently planning on doing anything with it (mostly because it’s not a fandom that’s keeping my head busy right now), but the last time I looked at it I still considered it decent and interesting enough to not push it into the ‘abandoned’ folder. It’s a really tiny ship, which is probably part of the reason I haven’t scrapped it yet. (The archive count is a little over 100 and even that is misleading as most of it is one series.)

Optional answers: No and no.

29. Give us a spoiler for one of your stories.

From a WIP: Fifty-One (working title, but likely to stay), Babylon 5, E-rated

In the fine tradition of A View from the Gallery John Sheridan continues to severely underestimate the kind of pull his wife has with other people.

(It’s really more of a teaser, but it’s pretty hard to do spoilers for stories not centered on plot.)

63. What’s the best insult you’ve read in a fic?

I honestly can’t remember a single one and I’ve been trying. The only thing that keeps popping up is “moon-faced assassin of joy”, but that’s not from a fic, but from B5’s canon.

[ripleycano]

here’s a rant about the birthday boy :)

thank you @foxofthedeep​​ for giving me a starting topic!

-

(It’s been a while since I’ve finished V3 + I’ve never done in-depth research into his character before today so please forgive any mistakes I might make! Also these rants will probably contain some of my opinions, none of which you are obligated to agree with, of course.)

Section 1: Shuichi

With Shuichi, I’ve noticed that there seem to be people who either adore him and consider him (subjectively) the best protagonist of the three main games or people who think he’s bland and uninteresting. 

I think the reason for this is Shuichi being representative of a very specific personality that some identify with, while others might reduce him to just being shy.

The wiki explains that Shuichi’s parents were a famous actor and screenwriter who were constantly on business trips, leaving Shuichi with his uncle + his wife. 

As seen in his dynamic with Kaede and the relatives who took him in, Shuichi seems to feel like he owes something to people who display care or affection towards him as a result of the neglect in his upbringing. 

The way Shuichi explains stories and traits about himself heavily implies that low self confidence and the tendency to feel obligated to express his gratitude is in his nature; this, of course, led to him helping out his uncle and eventually gaining the title of Ultimate Detective.

Shuichi never held himself in high regard, which only worsened through the very case that ended up giving him his title. The moral conflict between arresting a murderer being the right choice and considering their motive for doing so ended up scarring both his confidence as a detective and belief in his choices; this state is how we first see him at the start of Danganronpa V3.

Here are a few central characters and how they led to Shuichi’s development throughout the game:

Kaede - Speaking in terms of tropes, Kaede was the optimistic, textbook protagonist. Shuichi was quick to warm up to her, and I imagine he admired her confident leadership despite what might lie in the path ahead of the class. 

Her blackened case is a parallel to Shuichi’s ‘Ultimate Detective’ case; Shuichi was made aware of her (ultimately justified) motive for killing, yet he was the one to expose her. However, Kaede made a difference that would completely change things for Shuichi. While the last murderer who confronted him was filled with bitter anger and malice towards him, Kaede reassured him that he had made the right choice- even going as far as to entrust the future of everyone else to him. What Kaede told him moments before her death were, in a way, what properly assigned him the role of the protagonist and some trust in himself.

Kaito - If Kaede triggered Shuichi’s trust in himself, Kaito was the one who made him aware that getting through life can be a team effort. Personally, I like Kaito- but I completely understand where people are coming from when they find his blind faith in the people he takes a liking to irritating. 

Thanks to Kaito’s comically exaggerated trusting hero archetype, however, Shuichi starts to depend on others to participate and fend for themselves in trials (instead of overthinking everything by himself) and get some relief from the Protagonist Pressure™ through Kaito’s “sidekick” persona.

Kokichi - Oh boy. Funnily enough, a lot of lessons to be learned from Kokichi’s character seems to go against what Shuichi gathers from Kaede. Kaede urges him to push for the truth as a detective, while Kokichi insists that lies are of value. These contrasts can also be seen in scenes like the first Death Road Of Despair; Kaede is an idealistic optimist but Kokichi’s talent (despite the oddly phrased name) renders him a better leader in the end. (I think I’ll talk about Kokichi’s talent in a separate post specifically for him at some point!) 

Luckily, Shuichi pieces the two together and comes to the conclusion that truth and lies are not polar opposites- they’re often dependent on each other. In my humble opinion, I think what many people found appealing and relatable in Shuichi’s character was watching him grow into a protagonist rather than starting out as one. (Makoto started out with an optimistic and resilient personality, Hajime had some authority among his classmates)

In conclusion: Not only are Shuichi and the player put into a situation where they have to grow together as the game progresses, but (in general) he also has a subtle and likable personality that isn’t too ‘in-your-face’. 

If you’re someone who deeply identifies with his character, you most likely found comfort in seeing someone who went from being plagued by doubt, self-deprecation, and loneliness mistaken for independence to a person who learns about love with no strings attached through their found family.

Bonus: The ideal dynamic of Saiouma? Saiouma is... interesting, because it’s a comfort pairing for many but also the scum of the earth to a large part of the fanbase. As with any other pairing in fiction, this is a result of difference in interpreting their interactions. 

If you’re asking for my personal thoughts on it, I really enjoy Saiouma! The closest representation of their ideal dynamic would be Kokichi’s FTE’s, since it’s the clearest instance where Shuichi plays the curious detective to Kokichi’s complex and secretive supreme leader facade. 

Shuichi tries to understand Kokichi more than anybody else would even attempt to, and I suppose it’s implied that Kokichi found it both amusing and touching (?) judging from the ‘trustworthy’ label next to Shuichi’s photo.

From all this, I guess their ideal dynamic is Shuichi being understanding of Kokichi’s flaws and encouraging him to stop isolating himself + Kokichi having someone to (1) have fun with obviously 🙄 and (2) confide his bottled up issues and trust into.

Man V3′s entire theme is trust huh

(Plus, if we see it as Shuichi representing truth achieved through some lies and Kokichi representing lies that hold some truth, Saiouma is a direct parallel to the game’s big concept of truth and lies! Neat huh)

Anyways. This is terrible and has no clear structure but it’s 1AM so I’m cutting it short. I hope you found it somewhat entertaining!

Please lmk if there are any other characters or things in DR you’d want me to write about :)

[flutteringdreams-matw]

For DP 'the road to normal'

Is it possible to get a bonus clip of fenton's react to the king danny news?

Preferably during the "i dont WANT to be king" stage

Hmm... see this may be an Post-OoT scene but I also think this might be a hilarious interlude of them finding out about the possibility of him being King. I will circle back to this when I finish Out of Time Anon, but until then...

Kingdom Come (Road to Normal 12)

The attack came out of nowhere.

… Well - it wasn’t really an attack.

It started with a training session in the lab, Danny zipping about in the lab trying to avoid being hit by his parents. Dodging a well timed flurry he had yelled “I’m the king of dodging attacks!”

That was his downfall.

When the Ecto-Exodus alarm went off, they stood awaiting the mass ghost attack. The first ghost arrived, a small penguin with wide eyes. It smiled broadly. “My king!”

Danny fell out of the air, Jack dropped his weapon and Maddie’s mouth hung open.

“Your what?!”

The penguin bowed deeply. “It is so good to meet you!” it continued, more small ghosts coming through the portal and bowing at the teenager. Danny scrambled upright, looking quite unnerved at the ghosts.

“Uh, I hate to break it to you,” Danny said, scratching the back of his head. “But I think you have the wrong ghost.”

The small ghost shook its head. “You claimed your title,” it said brightly. “You said you were.”

“It got you there son,” Jack laughed. Danny shot him a dark look. “You did say you were a king of dodging attacks.”

Danny groaned. “I’m not the king!”

Maddie frowned, watching Danny carefully as her mind whirled in thought. “But you might be,” she whispered in disbelief.

Danny stilled. “What!?”

Maddie looked into her son’s wide eyes. “You beat the ghost king.”

Jack blinked, turning back to his wife. “You… did,” he confirmed. “You locked him away in the coffin.”

Danny paled, looking panicked. “Yeah but that doesn’t mean I’m the king!”

“The king!” the crowd of ghosts chanted proudly.

“Will you stop that?!” The half-ghost yelled. “I keep telling you, I’m not the king. I can’t be.”

There were murmurs in the crowd. “Didn’t you save the Christmas Truce last year?” a high pitched voice asked.

“After I caused it? Yeah I guess,” Danny replied flatly, looking over to his parents with a frown.

“And stopped Vortex? Undergrowth?” another called out.

“Well… yeah… but that doesn’t make me the king!”

“The king!”

Maddie’s eyes were wide. “Danny… how well do you know ghost politics?” she asked breathlessly.

“Mom! I’m not the King of Ghosts! I have no crown! No ring! Don’t you think someone would tell me if I was?” Danny buried his head in his hands. “This day cannot get any worse.”

“Great One?” Frostbite called, flying into the lab with a frown. The teen groaned as the small crowd of ghosts cheered at Frostbite’s arrival. “Are you alright?”

Danny groaned again. “Can you tell these guys I’m not the King?”

“The King!”

Frostbite observed the scene, from the eccentric smaller ghosts to the pale parents to the very uncomfortable teenager in front of him. “The King?” he asked apprehensively.

“The King!”

“I’m not!” Danny whined. “I keep telling you!”

Frostbite chuckled nervously. “Of course not!” he boomed, avoiding eye contact. “You’d need the crown!” He addressed the crowd below. “The Great One has much to attend to young ones, please leave him be until we coronate the next King.”

As the ghosts left grumbling, Danny sighed in relief. “Thanks Frostbite - dodged a bullet there.” He laughed uneasily. “Imagine me as a king. Just ‘cause I beat the Ghost King!”

Frostbite stiffened, not going unnoticed by the two parents. They shared an uneasy glance with the large ghost.

“I mean, the Ghost King would have a lot of power right? I doubt I’d have enough to qualify! Besides I’m still young, I gotta graduate high school! Ghost King? Pfft!”

Frostbite shook his head. “Perhaps let’s get on with your lesson,” he said, changing the topic. “Even if you did assume the throne, you’d still have to go through training before you were crowned.”

Danny stopped his rant. “But I’m not the King,” he stated.

“No,” Frostbite agreed. “You are not.”

“But you could be,” Jack said with a large smile. His eyes gleamed at the thought. Maddie slapped her face in embarrassment. “Couldn’t he Frostbite?”

“Dad, don’t even - I’m not - I don’t want-” He sputtered, breathing shallowly with wide green eyes. “Can we just… I don’t know… talk about anything else.”

“Whatever you say, your majesty.”

“Dad!”

They didn’t talk about this day for different reasons. Danny feared power and responsibility so he ignored it. Maddie and Jack for fear it was true and what that would mean for their son’s life.

Frostbite never spoke of it for fear of Clockwork’s wrath.

Links to previous:Eye for an Eye Infinite Realms Girls Night Out Torrent of Terror Forever Phantom Urban Jungle Livin' Large Boxed Up Fury Frightmare Claw of the Wild D-Stabilized Ectostorm Series

Suggestions welcome!

[variousqueerthings]

Tom Hardy Movies rated least to most queer

I made a list of some Tom Hardy movies and I rated them based on my own, non-specific criteria about what makes a movie queer. Results below the cut.

(Some films not included, because I haven’t watched them yet, because Mr Hardy’s only in them for a few minutes, because the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to this list, or because I just don’t want’em here. TV series also not included. The list is organised into both groups and ratings, because I’m doing The Most.)

Movies are divided into four groups and rated from 0 – 10 on the Queer-Scale, scroll down to the bottom if you want the ratings without the commentary.

Disclaimer: This list is subjective. Don’t come at me because I didn’t rate Inception higher, Nolan himself is as queer as cargo shorts. 

1. This movie would make more sense if it were queer

If this movie were queer it… might not become a perfect film all of a sudden, but it’d make a hell of a lot more sense than what’s actually going on. With an occasional dose of “are the cis-straights okay?”

This Means War (2012): So Chris Pine and Tom Hardy are ostensibly both in love with Reese Witherspoon, but say “I love you” to each other pretty much constantly throughout the movie and their friendship is often presented as a domestic partnership. Cool, cool, cooool.

Queer Rating: 2 out of 10. This movie hate-crimed me by having Tom Hardy literally spell out his relationship with Chris Pine, only for the script to then have him say… “can you imagine all that… but with a woman…” Later on the movie explicitly denies polyamory is possible. Fuck this film.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Batman movies should always be queer. Mr. Hardy’s the only one who acceptably camps it up, despite Nolan’s best attempts to make him “acceptably gruff.” No matter what you do, Bane is a massive daddy in a mask and thanks to Mr Hardy’s honestly iconic fucking speech pattern in this film, it goes from pretty atrociously straight to just queer enough to imagine a future where Robert Pattinson plays batman and maybe adopts a bunch of kids.

(the only truly decent mask in this franchise tbh)

Queer Rating: 3 out of 10. Mr Hardy’s back is the one that’s actually broken carrying any semblance of fun in this overly long movie all on his own.

Lawless (2012): Wow, this really was the year of the not-queer-enough, wasn’t it? Look, it’s “based on a real story,” but it’s also a movie and movies don’t need to stick to the truth, and this one certainly doesn’t. Was the guy queer in real life? I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that it’s just kind of an eh movie and maybe being queer would add something to it. One of those “but why make someone queer? because it’s always more interesting to do so,” movies.

Queer Rating: 3 out of 10. It’s just not queer. But Tom Hardy wears cardigans and described his character as a “mother figure,” which adds an interesting dynamic to him.

2. Actually Queer but in a homophobic way

Tom Hardy plays a canonically queer character, yaaay. The whole movie contains a strange sense of the director being too not-queer to actually engage with that and everything around him is almost aggressively straight, noooo.

RocknRolla (2008): Honestly this movie has the funniest coming out scene ever + that familiar undertone of “all these manly men secretly want to fuck each other” is only heightened by one of them actually being gay and in love with his best friend. It’s such a fucking… it’s such a movie. Personally I find Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Thandie Newton, and, of course, Tom Hardy to be really hot in it, so that’s a plus. There’s a scene in which Strong’s character teaches another gangster how to do a proper backhand. It’s really gay of him. Also slow-dancing at a gay club. Butler’s character needs to get himself together, you really don’t think 2008 Tom Hardy is hot? Mate.

(left to right: functional queer, disaster queer, distinguished queer)

Queer Rating: 6 out of 10, for having an actual gay character who is played by Tom Hardy doing a sexy phonecall voice to another guy, but then there’s that feeling you can’t shake that the whole movie is vaguely uncomfortable about it, like a family member awkwardly patting you on the shoulder after they found out you were queer second-hand, but they’ve still got 50 years of bias to unlearn. Also Thandie Newton is killed, fuck that noise. 

Legend (2015): If I had a nickle for the amount of times Tom Hardy’s played a gay gangster, I’d have two nickles. Which isn’t a lot, but weird that it happened twice (looks at Peaky Blinders and thinks it ought to be three times). I’ve watched Legend three times and every time it just… loses me. And because this is a biased list, I’ll only specifically mention that it fails to make Ron’s queerness anything but a way for him to shock others. Gangsters could be gay? Gasp! On the upside Tom Hardy has so much sexual tension with everyone in this movie, including himself (why would you do that? Asks Ron, bemused. Because I can’t kill you, no matter how much I fucking want to, hisses a blood-soaked Reggie right into his ear. It’s hot).

Queer rating: 5 out of 10 because the film is just not very queer for a movie with several queer men in it.

3. Straight as a forced family dinner

It’s straight.

Locke (2013): He’s a married man who had an affair and trying to deal with the fallout of it. This isn’t a spoiler for most of the movie, it’s a pretty neat movie where we look at Tom Hardy having a bit of a mental breakdown and taking lots of phonecalls (my personal hell). Is it queer? Not in the slightest.

Queer Rating: 2 out of 10 for Hardy’s face being in almost every shot.

The Revenant (2015): Yeah, yeah, DeCaprio’s and Hardy’s characters are obsessed with each other, yeah it’s a man’s world where the only women are dead wife, kidnapped sexually assaulted native princess, or background whore, yeah, they fight each other and there’s a ton of grunting, but also… I just fucking don’t like this movie. The thin line where a storyline like this one becomes queer might be crossed for others, but not for me. Fuck these guys and their stupid  bear fights.

Queer rating: 3 out of 10 for it being about dirty men in the middle of nowhere (but you could just watch Brokeback Mountain or The Lighthouse or God’s Own Country or any Mad Max, or, or, or…)

4. Queer? Queer. Queer? … Queer…

The plots, aesthetics and/or characters played by Tom Hardy lend themselves to a queer reading, even if there is no overt intention towards queerness. Often this is because of a deliberate lack of heterosexual and/or cisgender writing, which in this day and age is still pretty uncommon not to include within a plot.

Inception (2010): Okay, I don’t even need to write about the added “darling,” or the “go to sleep Mr Eames.” I don’t need to go on about the absolutely bonkers amount of fanfiction written for Eames and Arthur, based on a few minutes of film and a boatload of chemistry. It’s queer.

Queer Rating: 7 out of 10, because the actual plot of the film isn’t very queer, but between the Arthur/Eames dynamic and Elliot Page, Nolan was really given a gift he didn’t deserve.

Warrior (2011): Okay, so first off, this might be my favourite Tom Hardy film, at least some part of my brain is fixated on it at almost all times and I’m considering watching it for the third time in two weeks. I don’t only consider it queer based on Mr. Hardy’s character, although he has no romantic or sexual interest and could be read as aroace, but because of the themes, especially those surrounding said character, who is coded as a caregiver to women and through close emotional connections to men. It’s got possibly unintentional deconstructions of masculinity and two men (brothers) who need to forgive each other and can only do so through the catharsis of violence. It speaks to me as a transmasc with several cis brothers, struggling with my own masculinity. It’s not at all written for me, but I find myself all over it. I could talk about this movie forever.

Queer Rating: 8 out of 10. I’m not allowed to say any more or I’ll never stop writing about it. I love you Tommy…

The Drop (2014): Bob’s lack of sexual and/or romantic interest in Naomi is so strange to her that she doesn’t know what he would want from her otherwise. Bob really just wants to raise a dog with her (and also forgiveness for past sins). Bob is such a rare ace and possibly aro coded character, it really throws me every time I watch this film how obvious it is. Bonus points for also being autistic-coded and not in the stereotypical ways.

(Tom Hardy’s most challenging role: pretending he doesn’t know dogs)

Queer Rating: 9 out of 10 because it’s so fucking rare to see ace and aro coded characters that aren’t, you know…. serial killers. Also Tom Hardy adopts a puppy and has a very cute, kinda lispy voice. How often does Tom Hardy play softer men like this?

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): Very deliberately no sexual or romantic writing included in Max’s and Furiosa’s relationship. Sure, there’s not a lot of time for that in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it was also done with a purpose! “It was always going to be two warriors on par, starting off with very little respect for each other and ending up with a massive respect for each other.” - Charlize Theron. “So of course they meet, of course there’s a relationship, an unspoken understanding. A recognition.” - Tom Hardy.

Queer Rating: 9 out of 10. It’s not just the characters, but the world and it’s apocalyptic BDSM leather scene, the questions it asks about sustainability and about people as tools, and the found family. It’s about overcoming violence through multiple kinds of love. And it’s about watching a guy playing flame-thrower guitar. What could be queerer?

Venom (2018): Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same… No, but Eddie is queer. The only question is whether the sequel will acknowledge that aspect or not, but even if not. Even if it manages to straightly bypass the reality of a symbiotic relationship with a genderless? genderfluid? being from another world that is linked to you down to your very cells and understands you more intimately than any other person possibly could… even if all that: Eddie is queer. Venom and Eddie are in a relationship. Any relationship Eddie ever enters into will automatically become a thrupple. He makes out with Venom in the movie! Eddie is queer.

(aw yeah that tongue is going down his throat)

Queer Rating: 9.5 out of 10, because it’s still coded by the creators in the language of bromance (hey, bro, is it gay if we’re physically and emotionally closer than any other people on earth?), but the movie is so, so camp and Mr Hardy’s acting choices are beautiful – the screaming? The lispy soft voice and lack of taking up space? The lobster tank? The only people who don’t know how queer this is are the people making it apparently. Fingers crossed for that sequel!

Hon. mentions:

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): Star Trek – even at it’s worst (especially at its worst?) – is camp af + Hardy is a straight-up baby in this film.

Bronson (2008): It’s about a real person who’s still alive, so I won’t comment on the actual man. However the film seems to code the character Bronson along an ace line and also has genderqueering Vaudeville. Someone let Tom Hardy do more of whatever was going on in those stage-bits.

(this right here: this the good shit)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011): Another ensemble piece not massively about Hardy’s character, but it’s a movie that centers around queerness in a strange, depressing way. Tom Hardy’s character isn’t queer. Colin Firth and Mark Strong are though. The book makes me cry.

Peaky Blinders (2013-): Because it’s a TV series I left it out. There’s a lot of straight nonsense going on there, but Alfie Solomens is gay. There’s nothing in the series that disputes that and plenty that lends itself to the reading.

Dunkirk (2017): Tom Hardy plays an RAF pilot in a deep emotional connection with the other main RAF pilot. That’s immediately gay. However he’s not in the movie much because of the way it’s constructed, so I left it off.

Queer Ratings (least to most)

No queer to be found here traveller:

This Means War: 2 out of 10 - illegal movie, Tom Hardy swore he wouldn’t do another rom-com after

Locke: 2 out of 10 - straight Welshman and his straight problems. He pretty though

Lawless: 3 out of 10 - cardigan-Hardy being a mother-hen, but very straight for all that

The Dark Knight Rises: 3 out of 10 - a superhero movie that doesn’t deserve Mr Hardy’s camp talents (unlike Venom)

The Revenant: 3 out of 10 - doesn’t give me what I want out of a movie full of dirty, bearded men

Queer but we deserve more:

Legend: 5 out of 10 - timid homosexuality, considering the source material. 

RocknRolla: 6 out of 10 - hey bro, is it gay if we kill the only female lead in our massive ensemble cast

The queerest of Hardy’s:

Inception: 7 out of 10 - Elliot Page and JGL kissing was an all-around terrible choice that made no sense, we know the truth, Nolan

Warrior: 8 out of 10 - I’m still crying, Edgerton’s crying, Hardy’s crying, we’re all crying, and I think that’s really emotionally healthy and queer of us

Mad Max: Fury Road: 9 out of 10 - non-romantic love in the time of BDSM post-apocalyptic wastelands is something that can actually be so personal

The Drop: 9 out of 10 - “Fucking punk. Go out to dinner dressed like you're still in you living room! You wear those big hippity-hoppity clown shoes! You speak to women terribly! You treat them despicably! You hurt harmless dogs that can't defend themselves! I'm tired of you man. I'm tired of you. You embarrass me!”

Venom: 9.5 out of 10 - Sometimes a relationship is an anxious reporter, the sentient goo inhabiting his body, his kinda-ex-girlfriend and her new doctor boyfriend, and I think that’s beautiful

[herstarburststories]

illicit love

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x reader

Summary: Jensen loves you, but sometimes love isn’t the right thing.

A/N: Hey, guys! All we needed was a newish fic to say that I was really back, here it is! This one goes for @negans-lucille-tblr 6k challenge. So glad you got to another millestone, honey. It's like I was posting my part for your 5k celebration just yesterday! xD Prompt in bold.

Warnings: age gap, cheating

Jensen Ackles kept squinting through the bricks of his memory in an attempt to recall where it all began. Maybe it was when he drove off the road he had known for years with the dumbfounded desire to take the trails yet traveled, threading his fingers through your hair on the night of September 7th. He could’ve chosen the easy out and say it all started to crumble with the first kiss, but no. The actor, father, and now horrible husband highly doubted that. No, as he unwound the convoluted wires in his mind, it wasn’t the first clandestine meeting that he saw as the beginning, not the first kiss or the primal stolen glances. It wasn’t even the lies or the way he pushed his body against yours in an act of illicit faith.

Like any grand mistake, it was way before that. Just like how the church not-so-gently advised, it all starts with craving something you never thought you would want.

It happened when he landed the job in a new series after leaving a fifteen-year-long rollercoaster, pushing away any real witness to the fact the old show that swallowed part of his soul was over. There was a certain shock of excitement misplaced by the fact he was going to be working with Eric again, and that the show was an abrupt change considering what he had been doing previously. Now, he believed it was his body’s particular way of telling him that — as the savage animals can sense rain or a calamity — this, baby, this is gonna change your life.

JENSEN ACKLES CAST AS SOLDIER BOY!

‘’Since when have you read comics?’’ Jensen arched his messy eyebrows at Dee’s curiosity about the Homelander and Soldier Boy panel making it to the screen. Shaking the comic book in his right hand slightly, he continued: ‘’Especially that kind.’’

‘’Never,’’ Danneel stated plainly, “but I have Google. It was pretty much the first thing that appeared.’’

‘’Well, Eric said that scene won't be on the screen. Besides, the portrayal won't be that Soldier Boy, but the original one who died in the war. ‘Course, he wouldn’t have died there in our show, but it ain’t the panel one.’’ He shrugged, bringing her closer to his side as she snuggled against him. ‘’There’ll be a bunch of Herogasm, which is basically drugs and sex. Just not with Homelander.’’

Danneel nodded at his explanation, humor clinging to her words as she added: ‘’Guess the only man I have to share you with is still Jared.’’

‘’Hey, you knew what you were getting yourself into.’’ Jensen scoffed playfully before kissing her cheek. ‘’Can't wait to start the show.’’

Jensen leaned forward to rest the comic that he had been religiously studying to form a psychological character profile on the dashboard of the Impala. The actor was spending plenty of hours inside his most palpable Supernatural souvenir -- Baby. His safe place. He sure as hell needed one of those, as molding a whole character that has a bunch of source material wasn’t as easy as he pictured. With Dean, he was putting himself and the script in one until it made his imaginary best friend. It was love at the first sight. Soldier Boy, however, was a long story short. Jensen figured he should do both, honor the character created and add his own special ingredients to it. It was a brand new kind of passion that he hadn’t done for a series in the longest time. Still, his glance trailed back to the woman by his side in the backseat.

‘’Let's hope it won't last another decade,” she mocked.

Jensen shook his head with a chuckle, relaxing against the leather seat. Even the mere smell of the Impala was enough to settle his nerves. ‘’Eric has plans for five seasons.’’

Danneel’s features contorted as if having war flashbacks. Sort of. She never imagined Supernatural would make it that far, and now with three kids, signing on for another excessively time-consuming idea for a new show didn’t seem too appealing either. Yet, she would support Jensen in any decision he’d take regarding his job. “Remind me the last time I heard that line before?” 

‘’Come on.’’ He let out a wry huff, poking her side in a playful manner. She couldn't help but laugh, returning the gesture with tickles to start a very light-hearted battle. He seemed happy with the new job, something Danneel truly thought he would have more difficulty with. She’d pushed her weathered worries away with his easy-going laughter for now.

SOLDIER BOY’S LOVE INTEREST?

Eric Kripke threw the gossip magazine on the table, his eyes not straying from his long-time friend’s. He could’ve simply added the digital article to an irate email and be done with it, but he was a simple man with extravagant taste. That had been usual through his whole career, especially regarding the Supernatural aesthetic. Yet, in those mundane situations, Jensen almost found it too much. That wasn’t the case, though. If anything, the plain, yet still overpowering words that his green eyes scanned made his body sweat. He could even hear his organs working from the absolute silence of the blame that covered the room. Kripke’s room had never seemed more like an interrogation chamber than now.

The magazine in question held Jensen and your picture on the cover, his arms wrapped around your torso as he pulled you close. The most sequin smile hung from your lips like happiness was something that could be touched on that sunny day in the private park near the studio. Giant and garish letters made the headline along with the subline: Jensen Ackles wearing his Soldier Boy costume caught sharing a passionate kiss with the new arrival of The Boy’s Team: Y/N Y/L/N, also known on-screen as Cangaceira!

His voice came out as an accusation: ‘’What’s this, Jensen?’’

‘’We were…’’ The director just waved his hand to interrupt.

‘’Don’t try saying you were practicing a scene because I wrote the Soldier Boy and Cangaceira kiss, and it wasn’t here.’’ Acid tainted his words with no space for fake niceties on his set. Jensen remained in the chair, not even daring to make the most subtle move. Eric knew where he was hitting, and Ackles deserved a punch in the jaw. “The sex scene wasn’t here either, but you two added a lot of erotic subtext. Trust me, I know.’’

His shoulders fell in exhaustion. ‘’Eric…’’

‘’You’re lucky we were going to make those two a couple anyway. I can just put the kiss here and save your ass. What if that wasn’t the case, huh?’’ the director continued, more interested in spilling out his anger than listening to dumb excuses. ‘’What about Danneel, Jensen? You have a wife and kids, for God’s sake!’’

The breaking point. Jensen rose to his feet with sudden frustration, a growl leaving his lips as he pushed the chair to the side with uncharacteristic brutality. How could Eric bring up his family like this? And how could Jensen’s heart not bring them up when he kissed you before?  It was all a fucking mess, and he had no choice but to choke down whatever came out of it, even if it was poison and spite.

‘’Fuck, Eric! Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think it doesn’t pull me apart every time I go home and know I’m lying to the people who love me?’’ The vein on his neck popped as he spoke, emotion gushing thicker through his arteries than blood. Woe remerged under his skin as he swallowed dryly, resting his hands on the table and looking down. That wasn’t him. He had done a lot of things that weren't him lately. ‘’I have enough guilt here, pal.’’

Eric just glared down at the man’s outburst, furrowing before asking, ‘’What’s going on, Jay? You don’t just get up and cheat on your wife. That ain’t you.’’

He shook his head. ‘’I don’t know. Y/N’s just…’’

‘’At least 20 years younger than you,” he stated. ‘’Just starting her career and might be getting the homewrecker title if someone finds out.’’

‘’I won’t let that happen.’’

‘’How? You are gonna be more careful or will you cut it out and go back to your wife and three kids?’’ When Ackles didn’t respond, Eric sighed. ‘’Just stop this, Jensen. Let her go.’’

Jensen scoffed humorlessly. ‘’I can’t.’’

Kripke felt like talking to a teenager. He shook his head as he got up. ‘’Do you have any idea what you’re doing here? This could destroy your family, destroy Y/N’s chance to make a name when you already have your own. That’s selfish in all proportions, Jensen!’’

‘’I know, I know.’’

‘’She deserves more than this and —’’

‘’I know.’’

‘’You are gonna mess up everyone’s lives —’’

‘’I know!’’ He slammed the table and winced, turning around with his hands on his head. If only he could stop his thoughts for a second and reorganize his feelings. ‘’Do you think it doesn’t rip my heart out that I can’t love her?’’

‘’Who?’’ The burning question was ready to set everything ablaze. ‘’You can’t love Y/N, or you can’t love your wife anymore, Jensen?’’

He couldn’t love you in public. He couldn’t love Danneel anywhere. Love just escaped through his reaches when you spoke his name like a prayer, and it was time to accept that.

‘’Both.’’

NO CHICK FLICK MOMENTS: SOLDIER BOY AND CANGACEIRA TALK ABOUT WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THEIR RELATIONSHIP

‘’It's amazing to portray with Jensen. I’ve watched Supernatural since I was like twelve, which probably isn't advisable.’’ You chortled, answering the reporter’s question. Your body could barely contain your excitement under your skin, although, why would you want that? You did it. You got the job you had dreamed and worked hard for. To a bonus, you were working with Jensen Ackles! If there was someone that had earned the right to scream to the sky until your face was the color of the red carpet your heels currently stood on, it was you. ‘‘I was even a Samgirl!’’

Jensen faked a gasp next to you, a light spectrum surrounding the interview. ‘’Really? Me too!’’

You pushed his shoulder playfully while he chuckled. ‘’Anyway, I'm very excited to be here and portray a strong latina superhero. The representation’s very important, and to be able not only to cherish it, but to be a part of it doing what I love and inspiring people like me is… mythical.’’

‘’Wow, woman!’’ Ackles pursed his lips, clapping a little before shifting his gaze from you to the reporter. ‘’She likes the big words. I swear, dude. She’ll just come and in like, a casual conversation, say something like gelid or whilst, and then she's gonna say dumbass. Both sound smart as heck.’’

You winked. ''It's the accent. Makes everything sound nice.”’

Jensen nodded but was quick to sprinkle in an incendiary remark to his compliments. ‘’Yeah, I have never seen someone confuse coach and couch before. Go sit on the coach got a lot of wrong ideas.’’

‘’Hey, you sat on the coach!’’

‘’Because I’m a good boy.’’

You rolled your eyes despite the grin on your lips. ‘’Sure, mister hours-to-get-ready.’’

‘’Hey, plenty of face masks are needed to keep this — ’’ He pointed at his face. ‘’at fourteen.’’

‘’All I hear is that you’re old.’’ Your eyebrows knitted together. Jensen licked his lips at the sight. On any other day, he’d pick you up, say I’m gonna show you who’s old, and enjoy where your teasing had gotten you two, but he couldn’t do it now. You’d get what was coming to you after the event, perhaps even under the table if your dress allowed it, or in the bathroom, if you kept going.

The mischievous smirk on your cherry-stained lips proved that you knew what was going through his mind. God, you were his sweet death. Nonetheless, Jensen sighed dramatically and looked at the camera. ‘’This is what I have to deal with every day.’’

The reporter went on, happily surprised about how comfortable you and Jensen seemed together. Usually, new coworkers were timider around each other during interviews, especially when they were a romantic pair. The journalist decided to try getting a little sneak peek of the couple aspects of Soldier Boy and Cangaceira.

‘’It's definitely interesting.’’

‘’But not in the best way.’’ The only thing more messed up than Jensen’s relationship with you was the correlation between your characters. At least you and he had the purity of love, even if it was twisted enough to turn heads and churn stomachs

‘’Certainly not in the best way.’’ You agreed, bringing him back into reality as always. ‘’It's really nice to explore a couple that doesn't consist of two white people getting to it like most main characters of the shows in our current climate. It’s not the kind of relationship you should be rooting for — not because it's interracial or anything, that's pretty much the biggest, if not only, positive aspect about those two — but because they aren’t healthy at all, just as all main relationships in our show. It's not a romance series, and we certainly don't treat our couples like it.’’

‘’Told you she is the beauty and the brains.’’ His cheeks dimpled with joy and pride as he looked at you. Jensen knew how excitedly nervous you were about that interview. He couldn’t wait to tell you how great you were like you were born to sell dreams and magazines. ‘’But yeah, it’s a messed up relationship like any other in The Boys. After all, it's not a respectful, wholesome show. It's about gritty superheroes that ain’t got heroism. Soldier Boy isn't a good guy, and it translates in his relationship too.’’

You nodded in agreement, brushing his arm to keep you sane. ‘’It’ll be an interesting dynamic to see on-screen to our show standards, but it's not an actual picture of how a relationship should be.’’

THE BOYS 100TH EPISODE PARTY!

The glimmer of his green comet eyes caught your undivided attention in the throngs of people. The crowd had gathered for his family, his arm around his wife's waist as you both shared a tender, stolen look. You savored her wine and yearned for the man in her arms.

It was just a small celebration due to COVID’s lasting effects on public events. People from the set and their significants together were in the Ackles house for a couple of drinks, small talk, and a cake with The Boy’s comics printed on it.

‘’Aunt Y/N!’’ JJ tugged your dress, her mix of Danneel and Jensen’s features almost haunting your soul. Almost. You would never despise a kid for that — you didn’t even have the right to. If anything, JJ was the one that would graduate to hating you someday. You didn't have enough youthful stupidity not to know the risks of being in love with a married man. ‘’Auntie!’’

You leaned in the most that you could with the red skirt, glancing at the child. ‘’Yes, honey?’’

‘’That’s my new Barbie! I bought a beach one! She looks like you!’’ the blonde kid said with a childish joy that ached in your heart. You could end up destroying her family’s stability if Jensen went any further, yet there she was; buying dolls that looked like you and so happily babbling about it.

You were a monster. Love opened you up and planted greedy seeds, and now you were a monster growing like a beautiful tree that could never be strong enough to hold a kid as they climbed up. The fact that you could sense Jensen’s eyes on your ass didn’t help one bit.

‘’She does! That’s so cute, JJ.’’

‘’You can be her. I have one who looks like mommy, I’ll be her, ‘kay?’’

Your nausea was replaced by a pageant smile and a nod, and so you spent the night sharing longing stares with the dad and playing dolls with the daughter. It was a role that was never yours.

ILLICIT AFFAIR? JENSEN ACKLES SEEN ON THE BEACH WITH Y/N Y/L/N

‘’I can’t believe you did this to me, to our family,‘’ Danneel screamed exasperatedly as she threw her clothes in a bag and heart on the wall. Jensen just stood there, accepting the deserved fury. ‘’Ten years of my life, Jensen, and you just threw it away for a mistress! I gave up on my job to be a stay at home mom because you didn’t want a babysitter. I supported you in every moment. I loved you!’’

‘’I’m sorry…’’

‘’You don’t get to be sorry,” she howled, glaring at him with the hatred of an overthrown nation. She felt like he got to the podium and forgot to say her name. ‘’You let that woman get in my house, drink my wine, talk to my children…’’

Reflexively, he said, ‘’Our.’’

‘’Shut the fuck up! There’s no ours anymore, no us!’’ Her words had garnered a learned violence, much louder than the sound of the zipper closing her duffel bag. She threw the CC exclusive on the floor, holding onto the handle for dear life. He didn’t deserve to see her breaking, only her anger. ‘’You destroyed our family, you destroyed me!’’

He pleaded, unable to discern if it was for her or the guilt: ‘’Dee.’’

‘’I hope you’re happy. I hope you go to her, get her to sleep on our bed, and be happy for a month.’’ She gulped, pursing her lips. Her glossy eyes coupled with the pink hue of her lipstick brought back a treacherous memory of their wedding day. ‘’And then, I hope she cheats, like you did to me.’’

The next headline didn’t call it love.

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[tricksytrinity]

My Fresh (2022) Review

WARNING: Major SPOILERS under the Read More cut.

For lack of first-line indentation in paragraphs, I've opted to change the text color of the first words for each paragraph for ease of reading.

I would like to preface this review by stating:

I'm a Sebastian Stan fan. I generally enjoy his acting style/choices. As a sort of pseudo-hobby, I like to analyze his acting when faced with challenging scenes/characters; And, inversely, I love to dissect how he deals with (sometimes, inevitable) poorly written scenes/dialogue that can crop up in the projects he takes on.

Despite my bias, I'm doing my best to rate/review as fairly as I can. After all, the movie doesn't entirely revolve around his character, but Daisy's.

Out of 10, I would rate this film:

9.7/10 Would recommend it. Would watch it again.

(I'll be going into more detail regarding my praises and issues below the cut.)

To be completely honest, I actually feel conflicted about deducting any amount of points at all given how much I enjoyed watching the film. Pushing my bias for Sebastian aside as much as I could didn't seem to change or challenge my opinion of the film much more than to lessen my distaste for certain hiccups of the pacing and one minor road not travelled.

! SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT !

Now, let's get down to the finer details.

I find that the more I'm thinking back on the film, certain moments stick out more than others. As such, I've listed these observations in the order of what parts stayed with me the most since watching.

Firstly, for common sense character response:

The black man [Dayo Okeniyi] heard screams and shooting and did the sensible thing by getting the f- outa dodge!

(PSYC 243: Psychological Anthropology, AKA: How to Not Die in a Horror Film as a Member of a Minority Group)

Then, for realism/common sense (plus AMAZING acting/directing):

Realistically, if I had met Steve [Sebastian Stan] in the grocers like Noa [Daisy Edgar-Jones], I'd have ended up in a cell in that same hallway. We could have been vent-sisters. Just like any typical single person, Noa is looking for Mr. Right —or at least someone better than she's found so far. I know I would personally settle for a pony in this pasture overfull of donkeys. Then, out of nowhere, there's a freaking unicorn!! Immediately feeding her, he's easy on the eyes, has a great smile, makes her laugh, and doesn't have kids. Plus, BONUS! During your first date, you find out he's a doctor?! The man is too good to be true! (Literally)

(PSYC 254: Social Psychology, AKA: The Presence of a Unicorn is Itself a Red Flag)

Also, for realism:

Mollie [Jonica T. Gibbs] knew from the get-go! She was my girl! As a best-friend/supporting character: 10/10, would totally ride or die for her! Black-girl-magic, FTW! She was concerned the very moment Noa didn't have all the normal details. She pushed for answers and got just enough to dig deeper when she needed to (to her eventual detriment, but still). Then when she got a heart instead of "I love you too" and went full detective mode? Reverse-image searching? I fell absolutely in love with her cause I've done the same for my besties.

Lastly, and probably, most importantly: For realism, common sense, and spreading sexual assault self-defence tactics.

When I yelled at my screen to bite it off, she actually did! I whooped loud enough that I scared the cats upstairs. Noa did me so proud! She saw the opportunity and knew exactly how to exploit it. As any woman with half a brain cell knows, men are always stupider with less blood flow to the brain. Men will trade safety for increased pleasure 95% of the time.

Now, the not so amazing...

The first source of point deduction: a lack of realism/common sense.

Not one of those women went for their assailant's eyes! Noa had been smart enough to chomp Steve, but she didn't go for the eyes even when being choked and was herself actively slapping his wife [Charlotte Le Bon] in the face?!?! She can obviously reach their eyes; Just push and scoop, girl! Somehow, over the course of production, the director and/or writer must have either overlooked this or decided against it. I can't fathom how they didn't think of a single eye-gouge given that it could easily add depth to Steve's relationship with his wife —or even made the scene where Mollie first finds him more fleshed out and intense. Taking into account how wonderfully the rest of the film was done, I'm left to assume that they considered it but found that there was some mitigating factor that prevented it. A pity, really.

The point deduction was further solidified by: a lack of believable pacing (or maybe it was a lack of a discernible timeline?)

From imprisoned to bite feels like only maybe a week has passed, at most. Suspending disbelief as much as I can, then I can say *maybe* two weeks. Even then, I can't imagine a world in which Steve would be able to keep up with such high demand for the product if he's shipping out that many boxes every week or two. Furthermore, how could he possibly be so dumb as to fall for her ruse so quickly? He's an educated, intelligent, experienced man. Plus, it would seem that he's converted a victim into a business partner before with his wife. Just that alone should mean he knows better than to trust her so quickly. Finally, his forgetting to secure her on only her SECOND time to dinner? Allowing her to have a fork within face-stabbing distance? Showing her where he keeps the phones? These are all mistakes that an amateur would make, not a seasoned pro like Steve. So many mistakes make me wonder if maybe his wife is actually the brains while he's just the butcher with a name that moves product. But, then, why was she giving him so much freedom??

Maybe I'm thinking too hard about it all. Maybe it's just me with issues understanding the timeline. Maybe I'm not as astute as I think I am.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Lost Tomb Reboot Lewks: Part 12

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for both seasons of The Lost Tomb Reboot

Look 61

The first look is Wu Xie’s road trip outfit, which includes this grey and white jacket. It has a contrasting elastic waistband, cuffs, and neckline, and slanted pockets. 

This is exactly the sort of jacket that my 5th grade science teacher would have worn in 1979, and she would have slayed in it.  She awakened something in me and it wasn’t love of STEM. (Spock was responsible for my love of STEM, and various other awakenings in 5th-grade me) I’m sure it would still look great on her, because she is probably a silver haired foxy granny now, and that’s who this jacket belongs on in the current century.

Wu Xie should never have gotten within a mile of this old lady jacket.

To clarify, I’m not being gender-essentialist here; I’m being ageist. If this jacket had some contemporary detailing or interesting features to offset its last-century vibe, the way Bai Haotian’s green roller derby jacket does, it would be fine even though I’m not a fan of this sort of collar in menswear. But it’s just a nicely-made old lady jacket. Mary Berry could bake a nice cake while wearing this jacket. 

Note: Liu Sang could wear the hell out of this jacket, of course, because that man can wear literally anything and make it look like it’s made of spun pheromones.

(more after the cut!)

Wu Xie eventually improves this look by taking the jacket off and giving the camera operator a nice long look at his ass. He’s wearing dark jeans and a long-sleeve white thermal shirt, which is a great improvement. 

Look 62

The granny jacket is contrasted by the blessed arrival of Huo Daofu’s daddy jacket, and the rest of the clothing that Huo Daofu is wearing with it.  This is a dark green jacket with a nipped in waist, military styling, and invisible stitching that says "obey" You can't see it, but oh, it's there.

He's wearing this jacket of domination with jeans so tight they appear to be made of paint. I approve of these jeans so much that I might need to take a break from writing for a moment. 

Instead of shoes he’s opted for a pair of tall riding boots, just in case anyone failed to get the message.

He finishes off this look with gold rimmed glasses, pomegranate-toned lips, and an air of authority so strong that even Pangzi does what he tells him to with minimal back chat.

Later the jacket comes off, so he can wrap it solicitously around the shoulders of a person who is already wearing a perfectly good jacket.  OP looks up “service top” in the dictionary.

Underneath, Huo Daofu is wearing a grey houndstooth waistcoat. Shen Wei’s tailor would gnash his teeth in envy, if he saw the cut of this vest. This tops off a warm-toned brown shirt worn with a silver-toned watch. The watch is...round, and it tells time. He’s wearing a brown belt with his black jeans. Huo Daofu is great at combining warm and cool, formal and casual, in a single look. 

Look at this dapper bitch. Slaying this hard has got to be against his Hippocratic oath.

This jacket-free look is combined with hip posture so provocative that it sends Wu Xie into a hasty search for the last scraps of his heteronormative assumptions. Xiao Bai does her best to help.

Look 63

The beards. 

OP's family of origin is full of hairy visigoths, so Pangzi's beard is a style I've encountered before, alas. We call this a [US] Civil War beard. This one is terrible and lopsided, but at least it covers a lot of Pangzi’s face.

Wu Xie’s fake facial hair isn't terrible, but isn't great. You can tell it’s fake because everything about Zhu Yilong is inherently lovely, and this isn’t. 

Also, it's a ridiculous idea for a disguise. Wu Xie's close-trimmed chin patch and mustache are nice style, very typical for a Chinese dude. They let Wu Xie’s lovely facial structure continue to do its thing while they just provide a bit of an accent. But this is a problem, because they don't change his appearance in any meaningful way; his cheekbones are still visible from orbit. 

He’s wearing this facial hair and cap with the same vest he wore earlier to practice slingshot. This time he's accessorizing with a simple tan jacket, with an interesting buttonhole detail... 

...and with an attractive human IV stand.

Doctor doctor, give me the news, I've got a bad case of loving you you loving me.

Look 64

This look belongs to the man that Jia Kezale’s wife has replaced him with. We have to infer his look based on his shoes, and that he is presumably in the same league as the extremely hot Jia Kezale. 

Based on these shoes, which are very nice, if a little weathered, Huarache-style loafers, this other man in her life also presumably wears linen trousers and a guayabera shirt. 

*mentally pictures this person* 

ok, I guess I don't blame her. 

[Image, and shirts, from cubavera dot com]

Look 65

After having his IV fluids, Wu Xie goes for a nighttime motorbike ride, because he apparently needs to go way up on a hill to see that the hotel he’s staying in is circular.

So, what is with the Ultraman motorcycle helmet? Does it have any padding or insulation at all? Why doesn’t it cover more than 40 percent of his head and face?

And shouldn't it have a chin strap?  How does it stay on in a crash?  I mean yes I know this is a show with sentient crustaceans...yeah, never mind. I’m sure that’s a super effective helmet. 

Once the rain starts, his mustache and beard look better. Still not great, but better. Here he looks like he’s cosplaying as Zhou Yunlan.

Now he’s wet and lying on the ground because...oh, hell if I remember. Just look at him, poor moist snookums. He needs a blankie and a hot tea and a hurt-comfort fic about him and his doctor. 

This look gives the newest members of the polycule an opportunity to demonstrate their devotion, as they haul him off the motorcycle and over to a wall, and then continue to stand in the rain, for some reason, instead of going indoors. 

I gotta say, when a producer decides to pour water on Zhu Yilong, they  commit to it.

Speaking of commitment, here’s Huo Daofu holding his hand up over Wu Xie’s face like a tiny umbrella. 

Bonus 1

Look at the yellow duffle coat on that kid. She looks beautiful and classic, and the mustard yellow color just pops so nicely in this scene. 

The mustard yellow also visually marks her allegiance to gold-dragon-wearing Xue Wu. 

Bonus 2

This look is Wu Xie’s antique-scheming outfit, but now he is wearing the Sunglasses of Manpain. They belong to Pangzi, but Wu Xie is wearing them while he waits for Pangzi to collect his angst from the morgue.

These sunglasses are good to wear while contemplating the fact that, despite the many differences in narrative tropes between Chinese and Western media, the one where a female character is hurt and/or dies merely to further a male character's emotional development remains a constant.

That said, this is a nice small signifier of their relationship, as he puts these glasses on Pangzi, allowing him to hide his feelings, while hugging him, allowing him to express his feelings.

[mst3kproject]

The Ape

In the vein of movies that should not be confused with eerily similar previous entries, The Ape is distinct from The Ape Man... but not by much.  Both feature a slumming horror superstar, glandular secretions, and a stupid gorilla suit.  All these things also showed up in early seasons of MST3K, of course, and The Ape Man also has a surprise bonus.  Apparently, the guy in the gorilla costume is none other than Crash Corrigan, of Undersea Kingdom!

Long ago, Dr. Adrien lost his daughter to polio, and ever since he's been obsessed with finding a cure.  That sounds pretty noble, but unfortunately, Adrien is a mad doctor, so the cure he comes up with requires killing healthy people to drain them of their cerebralspinal fluid!  In order not to arouse suspicion, he kills and skins a gorilla that escaped from a circus, and wears its hide when he murders people... you know, as one does. To nobody's surprise but his, he ends up getting shot, but hey, at least he cured beautiful young Frances' paralysis!

This is a weird, dumb movie but one thing I can say in its favour is that everybody seems to have given it a good try.  This material was far beneath Boris Karloff but he takes it seriously and actually gets a couple of decent moments, as does Maris Wrixton (who was also in The Face of Marble) as Frances.  Nobody else is even close to Karloff's level, being just bland 40's actors who talk too fast, but none of the main cast are phoning it in, either.

Conversely, the worst thing in the movie is its truly horrendous gorilla suit.  The puppet face shows the actor's eyes and can curl its lip, which is cool, though the features don't look very gorilla-ish.  The rest of the suit, however, is terrible. It's way too shaggy and in order to give it a gorilla-like silhouette, they stuck a big hunchback on it.  This might have worked if Corrigan had tried to walk on all fours like gorillas actually do, but instead he waddles along upright like a toddler with a full diaper, which ruins it.  The people who made the movie also appear to think gorillas are nocturnal which, for the record, they are not.

Gorillas were kind of a big thing in movies of the 40's and 50's.  The species had been scientifically described a century earlier, but hadn't really been studied until the 1920s and most people had never seen one outside of King Kong. Films of the period were not kind to the gorilla.  One of the first gorilla movies was 1930's Ingagi, which purported to be a documentary about gorillas kidnapping women as sex slaves.  That kind of set the tone, and subsequent movies depicted gorillas as creatures prone to violence and rape.  Examples from this blog alone are numerous: The Ape Man (1940), Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955), and Bride of the Gorilla (1951) for starters... Robot Monster (1953) might also count.

The Ape has a slightly more nuanced approach to gorilla behaviour.  Yes, its gorilla does maul people to death... but the first victim is its trainer, who has been shown mistreating it.  Another circus employee even tries to tell him that he'll catch more flies with honey.  When the ape batters its way into Dr. Adrien's house, it does so in order to get at the trainer's coat, which Adrien left draped over a chair when the dying man was brought to him for treatment.  We see far more fear of the escaped ape than we do of the animal itself, and it does not commit near as many murders as Adrien does while dressed in its skin!

So that's halfway progressive for the 1940s.  We can also look at the treatment of Frances, the wheelchair-user partially paralyzed by polio.  She is clearly meant to be an object of the audience's pity, and Adrien is obsessed with making her able to walk again – as he could not do for his own daughter.  To some extent the movie infantilizes her, as she is clearly dependent on her mother, unable to have much of a social life, and her boyfriend Danny professes his willingness to 'take care of her'.  When she regains movement in her legs at the end of the movie, she and her mother immediately burn her wheelchair.  Apparently she's not allowed to build up her stamina slowly... if she walks ten minutes from home and then can't continue, she's just gotta sit there until she recovers or somebody finds her.

On the other hand, Frances' family aren't trying to force Adrien's possible cure on her, but let her choose it for herself. Her mother doesn't mind looking after her, and Danny is happy to accommodate her by, for example, hiring a cart so she can accompany him to the circus.  Danny in particular is very suspicious of the fact that the injections Adrien gives to Frances are causing her pain, and takes the doctor to task for it, telling him he would rather have her disabled and happy than walking but in pain.  “I'd rather carry her around all my life!” he says.  Her loved ones are willing to try for the cure, but it doesn't seem like anyone will be miserable if it fails.  Frances herself wistfully admires the acrobats at the circus, but shows no anger or bitterness that she cannot be like them.

Frances is even allowed some initiative, as she hurries down the road in her wheelchair calling to Dr. Adrien and trying to warn him that the gorilla is in the area.  This, ironically, is what leads to Adrien getting shot, as it attracts the attention of the posse hunting the animal.  But as Adrien lies dying, he gets to see Frances standing for the first time in ten years, so I guess we're meant to think this was all worth it.

But was it?  Several people died in order to provide the spinal fluid that helped Frances heal.  The movie shows them as terrified of Dr. Adrien and/or the gorilla, but other than that it is oddly uninterested in their fates.  None of the deaths are presented as tragedies, with families left in mourning... the only family we hear about for the gorilla trainer is a father who is already dead, and another one of the victims was an asshole who told his wife if she didn't like him cheating on her she could always drown herself(!??).  So... are we supposed to think they don't matter?  That their deaths are acceptable because they helped Frances – who was not dying or even deteriorating, and was satisfied with her life as it was – to a cure?

It is notable that we do not see what happens when Frances finds out that people had to die for her to be able to walk.  She would have to reassess her opinion of Dr. Adrien, whom until now she has thought of as a loving father figure.  She would have to figure out what this means for her future and perhaps need reassurance that she is not culpable.  Her unconcerned happiness at the end suggests that nobody bothered to tell her, and that she has not yet made the connection herself.  This is really quite unfortunate, because it deprives Frances of her only real chance to be a character rather than a plot point – which is ultimately all she is here.

Nobody else is shown dealing with the aftermath, either.  The town has long mistrusted Dr. Adrien because of rumours that he was experimenting on his patients, and a recent spate of missing dogs is shown to be his fault.  An early scene shows a group of boys bothering the doctor by throwing rocks at his house (which made me wonder if toilet paper hadn't been invented yet. According to Wikipedia, it dates to 1857, so there's your Fun Fact for the day). Seeing their worst fears realized really ought to have some effect on the people.  Even if nobody bothers to tell Frances how her miraculous cure was effected, others will surely figure it out and have to weigh up what he achieved versus the crimes he committed to get there.

Yeah, I know: this is a movie about a guy killing people while wearing a dead gorilla.  I'm thinking too hard.

Finally, I want to note some interesting possible connections between The Ape and a number of other movies I've seen.  Both The Ape and The Ape Man appear to have been inspired by the 1932 movie Murders in the Rue Morgue, which also features a gorilla and injections of bodily fluids in the name of mad science, and did not feature very much resemblance to Edgar Allen Poe's story of the same name.  I don't know if these films directly inspired each other, and it's been ages since I saw Rue Morgue... but the combination of plot elements here seems weirdly specific to be something different people came up with independently.  I should watch all three again and see if I notice any more similarities between them.

There are also interesting likenesses between The Ape and another Boris Karloff movie, 1945's The Grave Robber.  The latter is the story of a doctor who needs fresh corpses as part of his research, which culminates in surgery to allow a paralyzed girl to walk again.  The doctor in this film is more a victim than a villain, himself, as he finds that the man he's been paying to rob graves for him is actually murdering the homeless, and he can't expose this criminal without jeopardizing his work and incriminating himself.  It's been a long time since I saw this movie, either (as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've had some shit going on and I haven't had a lot of time for movies, bad or otherwise), so I can't actually say if it's better than The Ape, but it's definitely less silly.

Anyway, the moral of this story is vaccinate your fucking kids or a gorilla will kill you.

[theodore-themilkman]

That's Not On The Script

In which you go a little off script.

Ships: JensenxPregnant!Reader

Reader Gender: Female

Reader Age: 25+

WARNINGS: mentions of premarital sex (is that even a warning?), the reader is pregnant, sandwich scenario is heavily based off of an incident that occurred when my cousin was pregnant, character reader plays is named Lora

-There Is No Road So Far So We're Jumping Right In-

"Goddammit Lora!" Jensen, or more Dean, said with obvious frustration is his voice. "I can't read minds! Just tell me what the problem is. You've been acting so different lately, hell if I didn't know any better I'd say you were possessed."

I glared at him fiercely, crossing my arms. "There isn't a problem Dean, you're just looking for things to criticize."

He laughed humorlessly. "If that's the case then I don't have to look very hard. You don't think I've noticed? You avoiding me? Running out of the room when I come in? Is it because you regret it, that night?"

My eyes had gone glossy as he spoke and for a moment I forgot we were only acting. Although it was easy to forget, after all Lora and Dean were in the same situation Jensen and I were in. In the last season, filmed about four months ago, Lora and Dean had hooked up on the show and the sexual tension that had occurred while filming got to the both Jensen and I and we slept together. Only, much like Dean and Lora, Jensen and I refused to bring it up. Except now, in the scene where Lora was supposed to admit that she had fallen in love with Dean except that isn't what came out of my mouth.

"I'm pregnant, okay?" It was quiet, I don't think anyone had expected me to say that. "And you're the father," I added in a whisper.

Jensen stared at me mouth open in shock. "But that night... we used protection." I don't know if he was continuing the scene or if he was speaking as Jensen, either way I continued.

"I know," I choked out, "but it must've torn or something and now -" a sob broke out, "-now there's this baby growing inside me and I can't bring myself to get rid of it."

Jensen stepped forward and wiped the tears rolling down my cheeks, then his hands went to my stomach. As he placed them there I was sure he could feel the small bump that was concealed by the baggy flannel I wore. "And I would never ask you to. We'll get through this, okay? You, me and," he looked to my stomach, "our baby."

"Cut!" Both our heads snapped to look at Robert and the rest of the crew, they all stood there staring at us.

"Wow," Robert told us walking closer to us. "That was unexpected but it works. When did you two discuss changing the scene."

I looked to my shoes. "We didn't."

"Wait you mean..." he trailed off looking between Jensen and I.

"Yeah, I really am pregnant."

-Line Break-

I smiled warmly, placing my hands on my swollen abdomen as I watched the boys answer another question in that funny way that only they could pull off.

"Y/N," I looked to the young blonde girl that had spoken and nodded indicating that she continue. "I was wondering is you could tell us how Jensen reacted when he found out about you know the whole pregnancy thing?"

I laughed, as did Jensen and the rest of the cast. "Well, I assume you've watched the latest episode?" She nodded. "That scene where Lora reveals the pregnancy to Dean is also when I revealed that I was pregnant."

Her mouth fell open. "So that was genuine, no lines or scripts or anything?"

I shook my head. "In the script Lora was supposed to admit that she had fallen for Dean but I kinda broke character and it slipped out."

"The best is that everyone else thought that we'd talked about it before shooting and Y/N had to explain that nope, she's actually pregnant."

"Jared punched Jensen," Misha added.

The blonde looked perplexed. "Why?"

"Y/N is my little sister and best friend or not no one can sleep with my baby sister and face no repercussions," Jared explained.

Misha started laughing remembering what had followed after Jared punched Jensen. The crowd and cast alike stared art him in curiosity. "Y/N's reaction to the punch," he said as if that would explain it. 

J2 both started laughing at the memory and I flushed, embarrassed at what I had done. The fan that had asked the original question glanced between all of us looking intrigued. "What happened?" 

"Do you want to tell them or should I?" Jensen asked me teasingly.

I flushed further and shook my head, unable to speak of the embarrassing moment aloud. "All right, I'll tell them," he laughed. "So I had just been given a good right hook in the face by sasquatch over there then Y/N burst into sobs and stormed off. Misha, Jared and I followed after her (albeit in a bit of pain on my part). We met her at the kitchen and she was making a sandwich but she was still heavily sobbing. Being the oh so clever older brother Jared stepped forward-"

"Something you didn't do," Jared said cutting off his co-star.

"Are you kidding? I'd rather take on a demon than approach a crying hormonal woman. What you do is ward them off with hot bubble baths and chocolate until they calm down and then admit that you're wrong about whatever they're upset about ," Jensen explained as if it were a science he had perfected. "Anyway, Jared stepped forward and the next thing you know there's a moose covered in tuna, mayo and bread in the middle of the kitchen. Y/N is screaming at Jared that he's her least favourite Supernatural character and that she wished his character would be cursed to turn into a moose for the rest of the show. Misha and I just stood there, the rest of the crew must've heard the commotion because they were there too. And after 20 minutes of angry Y/N she turns around and offers to make everyone sandwiches."

"Did you guys have her make the sandwiches?" A fan called out over the laughter.

"Are you kidding? She had just thrown bread and tuna mayo at Jared, we weren't going to risk saying no," Jensen quipped good naturedly. He then proceeded to put an arm around me and rest his hand atop my swollen belly. "No but seriously, despite all the hormonal rage fits and the crying when she couldn't get a scene right I couldn't ask for a better baby mommy. Which is why," he removed his arm from around me and slipped onto one knee, "I'd like to make this official. Y/N L/N, Lora Pierce, Chipmunk, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife."

My hand had gone over my mouth in shock by the end of his proposal and tears blurred my vision as I caught sight of the ring he held in his hand. 

"Y/N?" He asked worriedly after a beat of silence.

"Okie dokie," I squeaked out.

-Bonus-

Misha stood up and pointed at me as if accusing me of something. We all looked at him. "That was part of a Destiel fan fiction!"

Laughter broke out throughout the hall.

-Cue End Music- 

[pleasereadmeok]

Matthew Scene by Scene #3 - Spoilers if you haven’t seen episode 1. 

[By the way - I’m writing these for a friend who is an A & E doc so she has something to make her giggle when she can take a break.  If anyone else reads these = bonus!] 

A What Now??? 

So they landed in the wrong place but Matthew is so proud of Diana’s achievement in getting them to the right year, the right night even and just down the road from his house (handy - what are the odds?).  I love that Matthew is never threatened by Diana’s power and always praises her achievements.  

‘You did it’

‘Your wife did it’ - she teases. 

Matthew apologises for suddenly making Diana his wife - too right he should apologise.  No dress, no party and especially no wedding night - Diana has every right to be a bit miffed. She’s not.  Phew! 

Matthew is worried that others will know that he has fed on her [OMG - we find out the important reason why in Ep 2 - yikes] and then says he’s a word (that we’ll have to get used to) that sounds like he’s coughing up something nasty.   A what now? 

A wearh = old word for Vampire.  Who knew?  [Unless you read the books!]  I was wondering how they would pronounce it - yep like coughing up something nasty as I thought.

Francoise interrupts (with her face like a slapped arse).  Diana has to get dressed coz some of Matthew’s friends are coming and they are a powerful bunch of Tudor luminaries including Walter Raleigh.  She works out who Matthew is, basically an historians dream man - Matthew Roydon.  Matthew is clearly not delighted to be Master Roydon anymore as shadow’s of regret show in his face.  This is not working out as he had planned.  He wanted a stealthy time walk, a quick visit, but instead he is going to have to become the mysterious Matthew Roydon again.   

...  and Matthew has to sort out Kitty.  Which means he has to put on more leather.... 

[Pics mix of screenshots and edits - yes I know it’s dark - they need more candles!]