#James L. Brooks-As Good as It Gets | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

muddyorbsblr · 1 year

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you deserve better

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Summary: When all the plans you'd made for today go down the drain, the last person you expected shows up at your door to try turning the night around

Pairing: James Conrad x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: angst; language; craptastic friends [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: simp Conrad, that is all 🫠

"Fucking dammit!"

You gripped your phone tightly in your hand, resisting the urge to chuck it into the sea right where the ship's rotor blade was located. Tears burned behind your eyes as every message you'd missed in the last week while you were on this research trip with Monarch trickled in at a steady pace now that you and the rest of the crew had signal again.

Where your fellow scientists were calling up loved ones on FaceTime with bright smiles on their faces and assurances that they were on their way back home, you had an influx of messages from your friends telling you that no, they wouldn't be making your birthday dinner tonight after all.

"Doctor Y/L/N?"

Oh fuck not him, doesn't he have a pool bar to get to so he can snap his fingers and get tonight's lay? you snidely thought to yourself, steeling your stance at the sound of former Captain James Conrad's voice. Taking a deep breath, you turned to face him. "What's up, Conrad? Looking to split an Uber and Brooks doesn't wanna--"

"Are you alright?"

His question felt like a shock to your system, making you blink your eyes repeatedly as if you were trying to get your bearings back. "Of course," you lied through your teeth. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well…" he trailed off, motioning toward your hand. "You're gripping your mobile so hard your knuckles are turning white, for one."

You glanced at your hand, sighing when you saw your skin stretched taut over bone and trying to relax your grip somewhat. "Fine," you gritted out. "If you really wanna know, it's my birthday today. I had plans to spend tonight with my friends once I'd unpacked and washed that goddamned island off of my skin. But some people in that group can't seem to let petty high school shit go, and today when we finally got signal again I got a metric fuckton of messages from one of said friends calling me either a bad friend or a dumbass for extending an invitation to my friends because it's inconvenient for her, which then led to a domino effect of if she's not going then I'm not going and now…" you trailed off, chuckling sardonically to yourself. "Now no one's going."

Something akin to pity crossed the tracker's eyes, making you look away. The last thing you needed right now was the most jaw-droppingly unfairly handsome man on the face of God's green earth to look at you like a sad wet little puppy left out on the side of the road.

"Anyways I'm off," you said a little too chipper it even made you cringe a little inside. "Got a date with a pizza box, fridge full of wine, and my Netflix account. 'Till the next one, Conrad."

Before he could say anything else, you were already walking to your Uber that just pulled up, finally letting yourself let go of all the hot air you were running on and quite aptly feeling deflated. When you were finally far enough from the port that Conrad wasn't even a speck in your line of sight, you felt the tears start to roll down your cheeks.

You felt exponentially worse when you got home, most of the food that you'd placed an order for before you left on the trip to be delivered today already waiting on your porch.

"Fucking dammit," you repeated, albeit this time with a whimper rather than a roar. You propped your door open and started bringing the food in, deciding to set aside a couple of days worth of meals for yourself and then giving the rest to a nearby food bank so that it would at least do some good.

It took a few hours but you were finally perched on your couch, wearing a comfy pajama short set, Kate & Leopold playing on your TV, and tucking straight into a tub of mudslide ice cream just letting the night pass. This definitely wasn't how you pictured spending your 30th birthday, but you strived to remember that there could have been worse ways to spend tonight.

You could've been mediating between spatting friends because they couldn't manage to keep civil for one night, or you could've been on the receiving end of Deena's tirade about "how duplicitous you were to drag her into a gathering with Shana". The island would've been a better alternative than dealing with that all night.

About 30 minutes into the movie you heard a knock on your door, causing you jump in your seat. "I didn't order anything!" you hollered toward your front door, wincing at the pins and needles starting to prickle at your feet and lower legs from the motion.

Whoever was outside knocked again, this time a bit more persistent with the sound booming across the living room. Your visitor, whoever it may be, wasn't here by mistake, and they weren't about to be waved off with a simple 'go away I'm pissy'.

"I told you, buddy, I didn't order any--" Your words stopped short on the tip of your tongue as you saw nothing but broad shoulders clad in a familiar tight and worn blue t-shirt stretched tight over well-defined pectorals, only this time with an off-the-rack casual blazer draped over it. Your eyes slowly traveled upward to meet the oceanic blue eyes that quite frankly you constantly tried and failed not to dream about whenever you drifted off to sleep at night. "Conrad…" you said his name slowly, as if every part of your brain was fighting against accepting the reality that he was here now, looking like the human embodiment of Lust on ridiculously long legs. "What're you doing here?"

There were quite a few thoughts that crossed your mind in the last few hours, scenarios that you'd conjured up on how the rest of the night would go, each of them dwindling in their respective probability as the hours ticked on. Former SAS Tracker James Conrad being at your door, however, was definitively not among those scenarios.

"Erm…I thought I would come over to check on you. You were visibly…understandably…upset when we parted ways at the pier," he answered, shifting his weight to one leg as if trying to make it all sound so casual. He looked over at how you were dressed, from the haphazard ponytail down to the fuzzy monster slippers covering your feet, and resumed his stance that you'd grown accustomed to with the squared shoulders and the ramrod straight back as if he was back on training grounds. "Get dressed, Y/L/N."

You jerked your head backwards, surprise and confusion flooding your system at the soft spoken order. "Why?"

"I'm taking you out for dinner," he stated plainly. "I know you had plans for tonight and they didn't pan out the way you intended. No one should such an important day alone unless they really want to."

"Conrad, please. I'm fine, everything's fine. You don't have to check in on me or take me out to dinner or keep me company out of--I don't even know, pity? You have your own thing and I don't wanna keep you from it or the hordes of women who would probably abandon all common human decency and trample over each other to get that blazer off of you." You finished your little lament with a wave toward the garment, already stepping back like you were about to send him off to better and more interesting company.

When he sensed what you were about to do, he reached out, putting your hand in a delicate hold. "The night has barely begun, and you're in pajamas, eating ice cream, and one of your comfort movies is playing on the screen." He motioned his head towards your TV, where Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan were currently paused mid-waltz on a New York rooftop. He brought his hand up to cup your face, swiping his thumb over the corner of your mouth before softly saying, "This isn't fine. And I know that I'm not the company you expected or perhaps even prefer. I just--I wanted to come here tonight and just let you know…that I'm here. So…you could join me for dinner or alternatively I could join you here and you can talk my ear off with your movie commentary. The point is that you won't be spending your birthday alone."

His words left you stunned to near silence. "I uhm--I'll go get dressed then." You stepped back from his hold, an irrational part of you already missing his touch, awkwardly waving toward the sitting area. "I'll be out in a few minutes."

Once you'd started to make your way up the stairs, Conrad made his way to the living area of your house, a smile making its way to his face as he looked at the framed pictures you had on your shelves, your dimpled toothy grin on full display. "Oh, Y/N," he breathed your name almost reverently in the silence. "How the hell am I going to move on from you now?"

Earlier today when you'd all disembarked off the ship, he had plans to wash up and head off to a bar to look for someone to keep him company for the night, perhaps until Monday when you were all expected to return to Monarch for briefing on your next mission. All he wanted was to find someone who held even the faintest resemblance to you and lose himself in the chimera that you were the one he was with, that he held you in his arms as he woke up that next morning, and with that indulgence to tide him over for some time, perhaps he could maintain the professional, nearly friendly, relationship that he had with you without running the risk of putting that in jeopardy all because he couldn't keep his affections in check.

Those plans all went down the drain when he saw how you were fighting back tears explaining how your plans for tonight had gone off the rails. When his choices for how to spend the night were spending a few empty hours with someone he would meticulously compare to you or making sure that your birthday wasn't going to be spent alone and licking wounds that should never have been dealt to you in the first place, there was no choice to make.

Tonight's objective was simply to wipe the frown away from your perfectly enchanting face, perhaps even get you to smile. And maybe somewhere along the way finally get you to see him as someone more than just your colleague. Someone that cared. A friend, if he was really going to push it.

And maybe if he was going to entertain the moon shot that played in his most self-indulgent daydreams…a lover.

The sound of you clearing your throat brought him out of his thoughts, the sight of you in your simple pale blue dress with a slight teasing cutout by your waist stealing every bit of his breath away. "Too much?" you asked him, your tone shaky.

"Not at all," he croaked out, clearing his throat before speaking again. "You uhm…you look--You're beautiful." The tiniest smile played at your lips as you motioned for him to follow you to the door. "You always are," he murmured under his breath.

"What was that?" you called out absentmindedly, still steadily making your way to the front door.

"N-Nothing," he stammered. "I was just…admiring your home. It's lovely."

"It's too damn big is what it is," you scoffed as he passed you at the threshold before locking the door. "That's what I get for being perpetually alone, I guess. Just my luck that every guy I ever even tried to date fully expects me to hang up my coat and give up my research so I can play housewife." Your eyes misted over again as the next words came out. "Not a single soul on God's green earth that could deal with that." You turned the key with a little more force than necessary, the lock clicking into place with a resounding knock.

When the two of you made your way to his car, he opened the door for you, your disbelief at the gesture evident in your eyes. And when he was sure that you wouldn't be able to hear him through the car's closed door, he whispered to himself, "I could deal with that. If it meant that you were mine, I could deal with anything."

A/N: Happy happy birthday @liminalpebble!! I hope this puts a smile on your face today and that you have a spectacular year ahead of you, bestie 🥹🥹 Many many hugs from me and Grassy the Mango (even though the bub hasn't arrived yet but it will…today. I think…)

everything taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @unlucky-number-13 @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @evelyn-kingsley @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @peaches1958 @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th @lovelysizzlingbluebird @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @gigglingtiggerv2

#james conrad x reader #james conrad x female reader #james conrad fanfic #james conrad fanfiction #muddyorbs writes

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cantsayidont · 3 months

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The thing that undermines the movie BROADCAST NEWS (1987), which in many respects is very good, is that in the end, the story is handcuffed by the exact same fallacy it spends the first two hours making fun of: that the deck is stacked so that the slick, handsome Gentile will always win out over the nebbishy Jewish guy, even if the Gentile obviously doesn't deserve it. Inasmuch as the story is about the three main characters' careers, it's still ultimately a romantic triangle, which presents writer-director James L. Brooks with an insuperable problem. The script can't ultimately have Jane (Holly Hunter) go off with Tom (William Hurt) because he's beneath her, intellectually and ethically, which would undermine the narrative's feminist pretenses, but at the same time, it's extremely reluctant to let her end up with Aaron (Albert Brooks), because even though they're much more on each other's level, Aaron is loud and awkward and obviously Jewish, and that wouldn't test well.

So, the ending cheats — all three characters go their separate ways, Tom triumphant, Aaron still humiliated (essentially banished to suffer out the rest of his career in local news in Portland), Jane continuing her way up the ladder — and tries, not very convincingly, to reassure us that they're all still friends, that they're much happier now that they're with other people (only one of whom we actually see), and that this is a triumph of realistic adult storytelling over Hollywood romantic mishmash. Which it is, I guess, but it's not really satisfying because it's so clearly trying to paper over the fact that if Aaron had been played by someone less obviously Jewish than Albert Brooks, the story would have certainly ended with him and Jane together. It's like canceling the award ceremony rather than risk giving the award to someone who might make the white Gentiles in the audience uncomfortable and then proclaiming the cancellation a triumph of egalitarianism, which is not great.

It might be less galling if BROADCAST NEWS didn't make Jane's decision ultimately about whether or not Tom is good enough for her, which seems like Brooks missing the point of his own story. The bigger problem for Jane, particularly in the era when the movie was made, would have been that getting involved with Tom beyond the occasional casual fling (of the kind she repeatedly tries and fails to tempt him into) would risk subordinating the subsequent trajectory of her career to his success: Her star might rise further, but she would never be sure if it was on her own merits or just because she was Tom Grunick's girlfriend, and it would undermine the things about herself in which she takes the most pride. That would be a choice more in keeping with the themes of the narrative, but Brooks insists on making it a romantic decision rather than a professional one, which ends up spoiling the punch.

(THE NEWSREADER, set in the same genre and same era, stumbles over this same point. The biggest issue for Helen (Anna Torv) in her relationship with Dale (Sam Reid) seems to me not so much whether she's going to be okay with Dale's interest in men, but rather that she's only gotten what she wanted professionally by attaching herself to Dale in a way that would be fraught even if there were not this other tension in their relationship. However, examining that might require the show to take Helen seriously as a character, which it seems frustratingly reluctant to do.)

#movies #hateration holleration #broadcast news #james l brooks #holly hunter #william hurt #albert brooks #antisemitism #the newsreader #anna torv #sam reid

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