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slowburningechoes · 1 year

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remediation

Summary: When your first forensic interview isn't up to program standards, you are forced to meet with your obnoxiously intelligent teacher's assistant to brush up on your knowledge and skills... but he ends up being much different than you imagined.

Pairing: TA!Spencer Reid x Graduate Student Fem!Reader

Content Warning: 18+ Content (NSFW/NSFM) | Slow burn with eventual smut, angst, fluff, pining, sexual tension, office encounters, oral (f)

Word Count: 7.4k

This had to be the most mortifying experience of your life. You had never failed at anything before. Aside from negative lab results from the hospital, your record of passing tests and proving your competency in various areas has never been a problem. Academic accomplishment was your strong suit.

And now, you found yourself here.

In your professor's (who also happens to be the director of the entire program) office, along with his teaching assistant, who happened to be the most obnoxious man you'd ever encountered.

Even though he was only a teaching assistant, Professor Walters always made sure that we called him Doctor Reid since he already had two PhDs and was on his way to a third. He wasn't even a psychology student, he just picked up being the PSY745: Advanced Forensic Psychology TA for fun. Who does that? How was he even allowed to do that?

Those factors alone were enough to vex you, but the reasons just continued to pile up. His hair always being tucked behind his ears, the loose professional clothes swallowing his lanky body, the thick black framed glasses he would wear sporadically... but the absolute worst of all were the tangents.

Somehow, Dr. Reid always knew something about everything - and everything about that something. He would ramble on past the point of relevance, stating the most arbitrary statistics in the most interminable manner. You swear he rambled on last week for nearly an hour about the specific neurochemical indictors associated with criminal deviance. That was the only one you could recall the specifics of since it was slightly interesting and mildly related to the topic of the lecture... but still exasperating, nonetheless.

Now, you found yourself in a predicament stuck in the same room with him for an indeterminate amount of time. You hoped that Dr. Walters would take the lead on this very critical (and frankly, mortifying) conversation... but unsurprisingly, Dr. Reid opened his mouth first.

"Well, miss y/l/n," he started, propping his right ankle upon the opposite knee. "I assume you know why you're here?"

You fight the urge to roll your eyes and maintain professional, responding blankly, "Yes. I do. I made a C on my clinical interview at the men's correctional facility."

Dr. Walters chimed in, "Correct. I believe that you may benefit from some additional guidance before your next session. Until then, pending the results of that interview, you will be placed on remediation."

He was right. You had entered the interview room of the prison, something you had looked forward to accomplishing throughout your entire adult life, and completely froze. You couldn't figure out for the life of you why, whether it was realizing the heinous crimes of the man across from you or knowing that both the men who sat across from you now were standing behind the two-way mirror analyzing your every move. When you finally formed words, they were careless and disorganized, allowing the subject to completely take over the interview. It was humiliating... but this sit-down may be even worse.

"I think that would be very beneficial. Thank you, Dr. Walters," you say, swallowing your pride.

"Perfect. Up until your next interview, you will meet at least twice weekly with Dr. Reid," he states matter-of-factly.

There was no inquiry in his tone, no inflection requiring a response from you. It was set in stone. Dr. Reid was your new tutor for the next two and a half weeks. That meant 4 meets at the very least. But you had to agree as a compliance to your remediation. Your academic success was on the line, and that was a bigger disruption to your life than having to put up with Mr. Know-It-All a couple times a week.

"How does tomorrow at 8:30 work for you?" Dr. Reid asks, opening his leather bound planner.

"In the morning?" You raise your eyebrows, to which he responds with a nod. "On a Saturday?" Another nod.

Alright, you were convinced this man was truly insane. The delay in your speech caused him to tilt his head, signally for an answer. You had already planned a school work-free night of copious wine consumption with your roommate, but you decided you had nothing to lose in agreeing to meet sooner rather than later.

"I have a feeling you'll need some caffeine. Do you want to meet at The Roast?" he offered generously.

You hadn't expected him to care about how conscious you would be, since he had already suggested an early morning meeting on the weekend.

"I'll see you there," you agree, leading his pencil to jot down the information under tomorrow's date. "Thank you, again, Dr. Walters... Dr. Reid."

Your eyes meet for a moment longer then expected before you quickly gather your belongings and head out of the office.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

The progressively louder beeps from your alarm woke you up with a jolt from your wine-induced slumber at 7:15 am. The first thing you noticed was the splitting headache spreading across your forehead and deep behind your temples. Probably not your best idea, but you weren't going to sacrifice plans you had already set in stone just for a good night's sleep before meeting with some overly intellectual teaching assistant.

You pop a few Tylenol and take a quick scalding hot shower, and the hangover begins to wear off. As you brush your teeth, you contemplate just showing up as you are - sweatpants and wild hair barely held back by your scrunchy, but you figure that may reflect just as poorly on your professionalism than failing your interview assignment. Plus, you know Dr. Reid will inevitably be dressed to the nines. He probably even expected you to show up looking slovenly. You decide to prove him wrong.

You sort through your closet in an attempt to find the most obnoxiously academic outfit you own. The typical black suit-white blouse combination that most forensics students donned was certainly not enough to prove your point. As you reach the end of your professional clothes, you see the perfect outfit: a pencil dark chocolate brown tartan skirt with a long sleeve cream mock-neck shirt. To finish the outfit off, you grab the matching blazer for the skirt, dark tights, and black chunky loafers.

You pulled your hair back so most of it was off of your neck and face, but a few wispy parts fell to the front before glancing down to check the time on your phone.

8:05 am. You can't believe you spent so much time searching for an outfit for your mandatory tutoring session - how embarrassing. You had to pick up your pace, the coffee shop was at least a fifteen minute walk and you sure as hell weren't going to be late. You were certain that Dr. Reid had already ordered some piping hot bitter black coffee and overanalyzed the room to choose the most ideal seating for optimal heat flow or something completely ridiculous like that.

You manage to throw together some light coverage makeup, swiping gel through your brows and managing to get one coat of mascara on before your stumbling out the door with your backpack swung over one shoulder.

The walk is chillier than you expect and for a moment you regret being bare legged in the middle of fall in New England, but the impact of the outfit would make up for bracing the frigid air.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

By the time you enter the coffee shop, your nose and cheeks are bright pink from cold and the heat inside was so warm it stung your skin. You pull out your phone to check the time just as your body fully passes through the doorway.

8:25 am. The cold had slowed you down a bit, but you were still technically early.

You scan the room and lock eyes with Dr. Reid in the corner booth diagonal from the doorway. His usually straight and studying stare was strangely one that seemed to be of concern, with furrowed brows and widened eyes. As you stride towards him, he suddenly stands up.

"This side is warmer, sit here," he says, gesturing to wear he had just been seated.

You give him a confused look. "No, Dr. Reid. That's alright, really."

"No, no, you look like you're freezing," he motions to the bench and places his hand on your back. "I insist."

You didn't feel like arguing, especially since all you could think about was getting off your feet - those loafers definitely weren't broken in all the way. Why did you care to impress him so much anyways?

You sit down and hand his briefcase off to him from across the table. He was right, though, this side was pretty cozy already.

"You haven't even ordered anything yet. What would you like?" Dr. Reid asks, moving his own cup across the table.

You catch a glimpse at the abbreviations on the side that translated to: 20 oz latte with two extra shots of espresso and - 6 packets of sugar? This man definitely wasn't the straight black coffee man you pinned him to be. He certainly needed the caffeine boost, but he needed enough sugar to kill a small animal in order to down it.

You glance up at him and his head is perched to the side, waiting for an answer to his inquiry.

"Uh - don't worry, I'll go grab something real quick!" You urge, fiddling through your backpack for your wallet.

"It's alright, let me get it. Something to make having to sit with me a little less miserable," he states, spitting the first self-deprecating and non-savant joke you'd heard him say. "What will it be?"

You manage to half-grin through your frozen cheeks, agreeing to his offer. "A hot dirty chai with oat milk would be perfect."

You swear you caught a smirk flash across his face before he turned and headed for the counter. You had never thought of Dr. Reid as being anything less than some kind of humanoid robot, but he was managing to quickly tear down that perspective. When he arrived back with your drink, he continued to deconstruct that idea entirely by a simple phrase.

"You can call me Spencer, by the way."

Spencer. You, of course, knew his first name couldn't possibly be "doctor" but there was never an inkling that he would be okay with you calling him anything but that title.

"Then you can call me y/n, not miss y/l/n," you respond teasingly, slipping the warm drink from his hand.

An embarrassed grin spreads across his lips. "Yeah, I'm sorry about all that. It's an old school formality that Dr. Walters insists upon. But here, I'm Spencer and you're y/n."

Something about the way he said your name made all of your cheeks radiate with heat, thankfully the wind-burn rash covered up the fact that you were blushing. That was even more embarrassing than spending a ridiculous amount of time on your outfit, especially since it seems to have had no influence on him whatsoever compared to the fact you looked frozen. Now he was making you blush, what the hell?

"So, what do you say we get to it?" Spencer inquires, opening up his briefcase to remove multiple books and a file with your name on it. "What has been giving you the most trouble?"

You down another sip of your tea before reaching into your backpack to remove your laptop. "Honestly, reviewing general interview skills would probably be beneficial."

He opened the black folder with your name on the front and shuffled through the stack of papers in its right pocket. Spencer pulls out numerous papers from various points in the stack and laid them out between the two of you. They were some of your verbatim transcriptions from your practice interviews from throughout your previous semester and current forensic psychology classes. Each had a red circled "A" on the top right-hand corner with various positive comments along the side.

"You know the content, y/n. You have the skills and you demonstrated them well when practicing with your peers. We can go over them again if you like, but I don't want to repeat things you already excel at," Spencer said matter-of-factly, pointing to the multiple successes spread in front of you.

You were silent for a moment, stunned that he had said you "excelled" and generally unsure of how to proceed. You couldn't admit to him that you had just become paralyzed as you entered the room. That you felt incapable and that your heart was beating a thousand times per second as soon as the door slammed shut behind you. The doubt permeated and transformed into anxiety, which completely ruined not only your confidence but now your competency level. You wanted, still, to prove yourself as capable and qualified in your pursuits.

Spencer eventually broke the silence, sensing your discomfort. He proceeded to go back over the basic intervention skills with you and pose a variety of practice questions for the next few hours until it was close to lunch time. He was right, it did feel repetitive and quite pointless, but if it helped you overcome the remediation period that's all that mattered.

As you wrapped up your first session together and headed for the door of the cafe, Spencer noticed how your face winced as the cold air hit your body.

"Let me drive you home, y/n," he insisted, adjusting the long strap that held his briefcase on his arm. "You were practically frozen when you came in this morning."

"The sun is out now, so it won't be as cold," you responded quickly.

He gave you a smug and perplexed look. "Don't be ridiculous. My car is right around the corner."

You gave in and walked beside him down the sidewalk, bundling your coat around you for warmth. Spencer eventually halted beside an old fashioned cream colored car and placed his keys in the passenger side door. Once unlocked, he opened the door and motioned for you to take a seat.

When you sat down you noticed the cool touch of the dark leather against the back of your thighs and a faint scent of bergamot and vanilla surrounded you. Soon, Spencer sat down beside you. The make of the car was so antique there was no console to separate your knees from accidentally bumping his.

"Where am I headed?" he asked, wrapping his long arm around the back of your seat to turn and look out the rearview window. That scent of warm bergamot and vanilla completely engulfed you as the space between the two of you was closed more than ever.

It takes you a moment to gather yourself and respond, "Uh - about 8 blocks that way. I live at the apartments off third."

He nods with understanding as he shifts gears and then proceeds to turn on the radio. The soft classical music made the silence of the short drive bearable.

As the car rolled to stop in front of your apartment building, you didn't expect Spencer to get out and open the door for you once again - but he did.

Almost simultaneously, you both reach towards the floor of the car to grab your backpack. You accidentally bump heads and find yourself nose to nose with your now not-so-annoying and kind-of-handsome teacher's assistant. For a moment, neither of you move or say a word. In fact, you try your best not to breathe too sharply. You lock eyes with Spencer and notice a fervor in his gaze that made your heartbeat begin to beat so hard that you swore that both of you could hear it.

Suddenly, he pulls away and stands parallel to the opened door. As you come out of the car and stand in front of him, he quickly states, "I'll email you... to set up our next session."

You can't ignore the tension and manage to crack a half smile in a failed attempt to break it.

"That sounds great. Thank you, again," you respond, swinging your backpack over your shoulder and stepping further onto the sidewalk.

Spencer's posture was like a stone wall and his sweet demeanor from earlier in your interactions suddenly formed back into that of a strict professional.

"You're welcome," was all he managed to spit out before abruptly closing the passenger side door and entering back into the car.

His sudden attitude shift was nerve-racking and even as he drove away, it left you dumbfounded standing beside your building's entryway. Was there something about being close to you that was truly that off putting? Self consciousness filled your mind as you considered the fact that maybe it was your breath or that you forgot to put on deodorant... but nothing seemed to make sense.

You tried your best to let it go as you walked the steps up to your apartment, but you found yourself growing more nervous for your next session than you were for your first - not because of academic stress, but because of the unpredictability and complexity of Dr. Spencer Reid.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

That Tuesday in class, Dr. Reid - Spencer - or whatever he wanted to be called at this point, avoided eye contact with you throughout the entire lecture. Even when he passed out a case vignette, he managed to dodge your gaze. It had been two days and obviously whatever it was that happened was still on his mind. He hadn't even emailed you about your next session yet and it was 10:00 am on the second day of the week - he's usually a Monday at 8:00 am kind of instructor. Shockingly, though, the remediation session concern was secondary in your mind to the fact that he seemed to actively attempt to evade you. Even after class, you went to speak with him at the lectern, but he seemed to rush out of the classroom with unorganized stacks of papers in his hand.

Fine, you thought. Office hours it is.

You didn't even bother to knock on his door before opening it swiftly. There he was behind a vintage wooden desk with a collection of papers skewed in front of him. He was studying them so intently it was almost as if he hadn't heard you enter at all, so you cleared your throat to get his attention.

When Spencer looked up and saw you, his eyes widened with surprise and what seemed to be a touch of anxiety. "Oh - y/n, hello. Wh-what can I do for you?" He shuffled the papers in front of him into a drawer quickly.

"Setting up our next session would be nice," you state matter-of-factly. He goes to open up his agenda as you continue. "And maybe an explanation to why you've been acting so strange with me."

His eyes dart up quickly and he adamantly protests, "I have no idea what you mean."

You place the heel of your palms on the edge of his desk and lean over closer towards him. "Well, you haven't emailed me -"

"I forgot."

"Forgot? Aren't you known for having an eidetic memory or something?" you respond in disbelief.

He has no rebuttal to that.

"You wouldn't look at me or even walk by me during lecture. And I had to chase you all the way to your office in order to speak to you at all," you say before flopping down onto the brown barrel chair across from his desk.

"I'm sorry," Spencer says, his head hanging low. "I've just had a lot on my mind... well, more than usual. Personal stuff. I should've been more accessible to you, I know that the remediation period is stressful enough already."

The apology and explanation seemed reasonable enough, so you dropped the subject and moved on to schedule your next meeting. Together, you agreed upon the meeting back in his office following day after your final lecture was over at 5:00 pm.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

5:00 pm rolled around and you found yourself alone in Spencer's office. He was always punctual without fail, but you didn't worry too much since he said he had a lot going on. You took the extra time to walk around the small area and look at all the little trinkets and decor he had set up. There were fossils, stacks of unfinished crosswords, and numerous books about a vast variety of subjects among so many other things.

You tried not to look at his desk, since you were certain there was confidential information about your peers, but your interest was piqued whenever you saw your name at the top of a piece of paper sticking out of the top left drawer. You quietly pulled it open a few more inches and fingered through the stack of paper. Each and every one read "y/l/n, y/n" somewhere on them. Your academic transcripts, your curriculum vitae, your personal statement, and multiple research papers were among the stack. You realized that the papers he had been studying so diligently yesterday were all of your documents. You were stunned and felt stuck in place, you didn't find it creepy but you did find it baffling.

Suddenly, the office door creaked and you practically jumped to sit down across from the desk. Spencer entered with a deep breath and walked past you to get to his seat, but his leg bumped into the still-open drawer on the way. You had to hold back from gasping and tried your best to regain your composure, acting as if you had seen nothing.

Spencer swiftly closed the drawer and walked back around towards you to sit on the edge of his desk. "I can explain," he said softly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," you claim.

"Y/n, I know you saw them," Spencer sighed, crossing one of his ankles on top of the opposite thigh.

You didn't know how to respond or if you even could with the growing knot in your throat. His eyes surprisingly looked upon you gently, not the sharp angry gaze you expected to see.

"I - I didn't mean to pry," you managed to blurt out, shame causing your body to radiate with heat. "I'm sorry."

A scoff left his lips, "I'm the one that should be sorry. I didn't mean to pry either, I just - had to know more."

"About me?" you inquired, looking up at him with furrowed brows.

Spencer threw his head back and inhaled deeply before responding, "Yes. I guess I thought that going this avenue would keep it more professional than... personal."

"Personal?" you spouted another question since your brain could hardly compute the situation.

"I really enjoyed meeting with you the other day and...I guess I just wanted to learn more about you outside of academics," Spencer mumbled.

"Like as a friend?" you asked, attempting to clarify his motivations.

His tone suddenly jumped with alarming certainty as he responded, "Yes, yes! Like friendship."

The tension that was previously between the two of you had shifted to an uncertain resolve, but it was settled enough to feel less on edge and continue the session. Despite feeling less tense, you had to admit you were slightly disappointed that he didn't seem to have felt the same shock to the system that you did when you were so close just a few days earlier. As you studied techniques, common personality types of offenders, and assessed your interview transcript, you attempted to forget that feeling you had experienced and accept Spencer's offer of friendship - but he kept getting in the way.

He would use his long fingers to scan down sentence by sentence and would frequently bite down softly on his bottom lip when considering how to word certain critiques. Strands of Spencer's hair would fall in front of his glasses and you were so tempted to tuck it back behind his ears like he always had it. About halfway through the session, he rolled up the sleeves of his light blue horizontal striped shirt up to his elbows. You never thought that the mere exposure of someone's forearms could make you speechless, but his soft skin and slightly protruding veins did you in.

As you struggled to concentrate, you started to notice the silence. Spencer hadn't gone on any tangents, in fact he seemed not to say much more than what he had to... and surprisingly, you kind of missed it.

Before you could even think about the words leaving your lips, they fell out. "Could you - tell me more?"

"About predictors of criminal behavior?" Spencer perked up at the suggestion, continuing without a prompt. "Well, one of the most well known indicators of future criminal behavior is a diagnosis of a disruptive behavior disorder at a young age or antisocial personality disorder in young adulthood..." As he rambled on, he reached for a large academic book before leaning closer towards you as he flipped through the pages. Spencer continued to switch between verbatim recitation of text and numerous statistics. You couldn't help but stare at him, completely taken by his excess of knowledge and the way that the most elaborative words rolled of his tongue like they were the most common lay terms.

Spencer closed the book tight and locked eyes with your obvious gaze of adoration and he smirked. "Was that what you wanted?"

"Mhm - I mean, yes. Thank you," you said quietly, trying to ignore the heat radiating beneath your skin.

"I think this may be a good stopping point for this session," Spencer states, rising to stand in front of where you were still seated. "I'll see you in class on Monday, and how about another meeting afterwards?"

"Back here?" you ask, with hope he'll say yes.

He nods in agreement, with a tone slightly more suggestive than you expected. "Yes, back here. If that's alright with you."

"More than alright, that sounds perfect," you say as you gather your belongings before standing up to where the bodies were nearly touching. The tension was back again, but it wasn't that of uncertainty - rather of expectation.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Much unlike the week before, the following Monday's lecture was filled with your eyes meeting more often than they should. That may be attributed to the fact that you purposefully chose to wear another outfit that you hoped would grab his attention, making sure to provide plenty of layers so his concern about your body temperature didn’t get in the way. You opted to wear a heavier top than before, specially the most cozy, drop shoulder, cream sweater. You had an extra layer of warm on top with a bulky faux fur lined jacket and your bottom half covered with dark tights and an addition layer of a neutral brown thigh high stockings to accompany your loafers. The skirt you had selected was what you were beating real money on, though: a deep brown houndstooth print mini skirt. On top of it all, you decided to test out your rarely-worn-but-desperately-needed prescription glasses with a thin gold wire frame.

You weren’t able to pinpoint which part caught his attention most, but every time that Spencer would turn to speak to your side of the class and catch a glimpse of you, he began to uncharacteristically fumble over his words. When you bit the tip of your pencil to contain your laughter, it seemed to make his reaction even more unhinged.

As your cohort members shuffled out of the room to head to their inevitable hours of reading, Spencer followed, presumably to prepare himself better than your last encounter… or at least hide whatever sensitive information he had lying about.

When you arrived at his office, you suspicions were confirmed. Spencer had speed organized what he could within his office and certainly made sure to shut and lock all his desk drawers. He was sitting in his office chair with his lanky legs propped up on the corner of the desk, openly flipping through your file which was propped up in his lap.

“I thought you said you could just ask,” you teased, swinging your book bag into the spare chair.

Spencer shrugged and provided a sarcastic response, “But this is so much easier! Y/l/n, y/n: full ride scholarship for your undergraduate education, numerous scholarships and research grants, and absolutely glowing letters of recommendation from some of the leading members in the field of psychology. Impressive.”

“Yeah, none of that seems like something a friend would be interested in knowing unless they were some secret job interviewer,” you roll your eyes and snatch the file from his hand before dropping it on his desk. “What kind of information are you even trying to find? Because unless it’s academic, this file won’t get you anywhere.”

“That’s not exactly true, there is a section on your extracurricular activities,” Spencer responded adamantly.

You flash him an expression of exasperation before bending over to grab your materials from your backpack. When you did so, you heard a faint hitch in Spencer's breathing. As you turned back around, he still hadn't closed his mouth from gaping slightly and his eyes were still focused on your body.

You didn't know what to say, so you just asked, "Are you alright?"

That broke his trance and he came to the other side of his desk and suddenly put his hand on your waist, closing the space between you for the first time. You couldn't help but look up at him with wide and confused eyes.

"I want to know everything about you, y/n - what your favorite color is and what makes you tick, what makes this interview so hard for you, what you wear to sleep at night, how you feel... how you taste..." Spencer spoke lowly, his voice trailing off at the end.

The warmth of his body against yours and the words that he said left you dumbfounded, barely able to mutter, "T-that's a lot more than a friend would know."

"I know," he sighed, before leaning down to whisper in your ear. "I lied."

Chills went down your neck and you felt a simultaneous sense of relief and need permeate your entire body. You were afraid he hadn't noticed you the way that you had him, but apparently you had been very wrong. "Why - why didn't you just say that?"

"I privilege myself on being controlled... professional, but I just can't stand it anymore - not while you look so good in that skirt and you keep staring at me during class... biting that pencil, god."

"You stared first," you insist, but you are cut off by his massive hand on the side of your face pulling you to a passionate kiss.

"Shut up," Spencer says, pulling away breathlessly.

You tug him back down to your level by his tie and press your lips against his with even more force. Spencer's lips are incredibly soft and as they eventually part to involve his tongue in your kiss, a small moan falls from them. That sound was like music to your ears, motivating skillful and calculated movements from both of you. You ran your fingers through his luscious brown waves and latched on firmly, tugging to emit another faint groan. With that, his hand moved from your waist and down to your ass, gripping it firmly and massaging it in his hands.

"I think we'll have to reschedule your study session," he mumbled breathlessly before hoisting you up onto the clear edge of the desk and planting wet kisses along your neck. "We'll be a little preoccupied today."

You whimpered softly at the intoxicating feeling of Spencer gently sucking on the most tender parts of you neck. "I-I agree, Dr. Reid."

He hums against your neck and it reverberates down your spine, making your entire body more sensitive and a well of warmth grow in between your legs.

"The first time you came into lecture, you were wearing a skirt almost as short as this w-with your hair pulled back and these perfect pink lips. I wanted to j-jump you right then," he said pulling away from you for a moment, causing you to groan in disappointment at the lack of his touch. "Then you came into the cafe and I could've looked at you for ages if you hadn't been shivering. God, then you opened your mouth and the more you talked the less I could concentrate..."

You had a feeling he'd continue to go on and on if you didn't stop him, so you cut him off. "So, that's why you were acting so odd when you dropped me off."

"I was afraid I'd kiss you when we both reached for your bag, and then I knew I had to drive away quickly or else I'd try to convince you to let me come upstairs."

"Maybe I would've let you," you purred in his ear before lightly bringing his earlobe between your teeth. "And what would we have done?"

"I - I...," for the first time since you've known him, he could barely form words. "I would have touched you."

"How?" you inquire, smirking against his skin as you loosened his tie.

Spencer slowly untucked your sweater from your skirt and ran his cool hands up along your torso and up to cup your tender breasts. As he felt them full in the palm of his hand, Spencer couldn't help but mutter a few curse words under his breath. "L-like this."

You continued to work his tie off and unbutton his shirt as he shut his eyes in pleasure. "And where would I have touched you?" you ask, running your hands down to open his shirt, revealing soft skin and slightly defined abs.

Spencer took his free hand to guide one of yours down to the bulge that his black dress pants were concealing.

"Here," a moan huffed from his mouth, followed by a desperate "yes".

Spencer's IQ of 187 had reverted back to a brain filled with nothing but desire and his body full of the same aching need as yours, which became apparent as he rushed to lock his office door before stripping your sweater off. All he could do was stare down at your chest, now scattered with goosebumps and barely contained by your bra. Spencer was able to unclasp it in a less than a second and as you slouched it off the sudden temperature shift caused your nipples to become hard. He looked between your face and your breasts for a few moments, mouth gaping in disbelief before he enveloped one with his hand and the other with his mouth. Spencer swirled his tongue around your sensitive bud and twirled the other between his thumb and index finger, looking up at you with contentment in his golden brown eyes. The wetness between your thighs grew and the throbbing of want became excruciating.

Before you could consciously gather the words, they escaped you, “I need you, Spencer.”

“God, say my name again. Please,” he begged, kissing your rib cage.

You worked down your skirt and tights, kicking off your shoes as you went, leaving you standing before him in nothing but a pair of cheeky black panties. “Please, Spencer. Touch me here.”

He brought you in for a forceful kiss before dropping to his knees and bringing two fingers to press against the outside of your underwear. When he brought them back away, they were glistening lightly.

“I’m going to do more than touch you,” he growls, hooking his fingers on either side of your panties and pulling them down in one stride. “I’m going to taste you.”

Pushing you back onto his desk, Spencer pried open your legs to reveal the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Your pussy was already slick with wetness and your clit was swollen with need. He had the perfect view of it, your tits, and every facial expression you would make. Throwing your legs around his shoulders, he licked a stripe up your slit causing your toes to curl. He lapped at it skillfully and placed kisses along the lips before wrapping them around your throbbing clit and sucking softly. You couldn’t help but grab onto the desk edge and wrap your other hand through his hair in an attempt to contain your cries. Spencer soon brought two of his fingers to join, pumping in and out of you as he put his focus on your bundle of nerves.

“S-Spencer, if you keep going like this I’ll cum,” you whimper desperately.

He shook his head while still putting in the work. “No, no, y/n. The only place you’ll be coming tonight is on my cock.”

That nearly sent you over the edge, but he pulled away just before you hit your peak. You whined at the loss of contact, but quickly sat up to help him undo his belt and strip him of his black slacks. His heather gray boxer briefs were tented in the middle, barely containing his erection. You caught yourself licking your lips as you reached to stroke it gently before tugging down his underwear. When he sprung up in all his fullness, an audible gasp slipped from your mouth. You had considered what he looked like shirtless and maybe the fleeting thought of him naked, but you had never thought about how big he might be. Despite this, you had to admit that you were pleasantly surprised. Spencer's cock was long and hit just above his navel and he was girthy enough you were nervous that he may not fit, but you sure wanted to give it a try.

"How do you want me, Dr. Reid?" you query, looking up at him with suggestive eyes.

A low rumble came from Spencer's throat and he wrapped his arm around you to flip you over his wooden desk. A large hand squeezed your ass before parting to expose your core.

"Mmm, so wet for me," he grinned, rubbing the tip in between your folds.

The feeling was euphoric already and he hadn't even entered you yet. There wasn't anything on your mind except the overwhelming need for him and the fact that every touch felt like electricity.

"Please, more," you cry softly, looking back at him desperately and spreading your legs wider.

"Fuck - of course, angel. Anything you want," Spencer said fervently, slipping a new nickname for you just as smoothly as he entered you.

Inch by inch your walls stretched for him in a painful bliss that had your hands intertwined with his and hushed moans of passion filling the air surrounding you. By the time he bottomed out, your eyes were tearful and he had reached the crest of your cervix. It was unlike anything you had ever felt before, like someone was formed to fit into you perfectly and you never wanted him to leave. You both sat still for a moment, adjusting to the pressure, but Spencer gave the first stroke and you both crumbled.

The first few pumps were cautious, but they quickly devolved into uncontrolled sloppy thrusts. He threaded his lengthy fingers through your hair and lifted you up by it just enough that your head was off the desk. The rhythm he had taken on was perfect and the sensation of his thighs slapping against yours made it vibrate through your body. Uncharacteristic cuss words drabbled from his mouth and primal whimpers for more flowed from yours. He was hitting every spot just right, not slamming into your cervix but tapping it just enough that you felt it in your stomach.

"Rub your clit, angel," Spencer demanded. "I-I don't have enough hands, please. I want you to feel good."

"I feel more than good already, but -," you reached down between your legs and began to rub your clit in figure eights, causing your words to trail off into meaningless mumbles.

His pace became steady as he found a spot that he realized made your toes curl. The combination of the hair pulling, perfect placement, and clitoral stimulation you found yourself quickly back on the edge of a climax. Pressure built in your abdomen and your leg muscles began to tense up. Apparently, he felt it, too, as your walls contracted around him causing him to moan your name breathlessly.

"Spence, I - I'm going to cum," you whimper, your finger movements becoming more rapid.

"Y/n, I'm begging - please cum on my cock," Spencer cried, the sense of desperation in his voice real and adamant. "Please please please,"

His begs motivated your climax to roll through you, causing your fingertips to become soaked and your cum to coat his cock along with your wetness. "S-Spence, baby - I want your cum inside me."

He thrusted into you deeply and a guttural groan escaped him. "Fuck, angel. Are you sure?"

With what little strength you had left you nodded vehemently, "I-I'm on the pill, I never miss a day. Please, sir."

You believe the "sir" is what did him in, slamming into you only four more times before coming undone. The feeling of his cock twitching inside of you and his cum filling you completely was one that admittedly made you feel feral and powerful. The noises that escaped him were irrepressible and the grip he had on your ass was as well. Even after he was finished, he held on tightly for a few seconds before slowly pulling out... but you still felt so full of him.

"You know," Spencer said. "I'm not really the make love and leave kind of guy."

"So is that what we did - make love?" you approach him and press a small teasing peck on his lips.

He smirks down at you, "You know that wasn't just some regular fuck."

"Mmm," you hummed. "Now, that is very true. So, what are you suggesting?"

"Would you want to come back to my place and... spend the night?" he suggests, a tone of shyness in his voice.

You don't even consider the alternative before agreeing and wrapping your arms around his neck for a long kiss.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

"You know," Spencer starts, handing you a mug full of chamomile tea. "It's a real shame I won't get to grade your papers anymore. I always enjoyed reading your perspectives."

You sip on the cup and prop yourself up on a pillow. "Well, maybe if you're lucky I'll let you proofread them."

Spencer crawls in bed beside you, wrapping his arm around your upper body to pull you closer to him. "I think I might have figured out what was making you so nervous during your interview," he said.

"And what is that?" you inquire.

"Well, self-doubt for one. Even though, like I said before, you know the content like the back of your hand. But I think the main part was the fact that you were being observed."

"You think I'm afraid of Dr. Walters and you," you scoff, sitting the tea on the bedside table.

"Afraid isn't quite the word, intimidated maybe? I mean we don't appear to be the most approachable pair. Walters never shows emotion and is known for being a tough professor, and I'm -," he says before you cut him off.

"Obnoxiously intelligent with nearly three doctorate degrees?"

"Obnoxious?" He scoffs with a sarcastic tone. "Thanks for letting me know how you really feel."

You roll your eyes, "Yes, obnoxious. If you hadn't been so approachable during our first session I would have continued to think that you were a strict academic who didn't know how to let loose and have some fun."

"Ouch!" Spencer clutched at his heart. "Well, I sure proved you wrong today."

"That you did, Spence," you kiss his cheek. "And fine, maybe you're right - most of my nerves were probably tied to the fact that I was intimidated by your very serious demeanors."

"I like it when you call me that." You were surprised he had seemed to ignore the other half of your statement.

"What? Spence?" you ask, cuddling close to his chest.

"Yes," he responds, and you hear his heart skip a beat. "I don't think anyone's ever called me that before."

"No one has ever called me angel before either," you say, drawing a line down the valley of his chest.

"Well, I think you'll do wonderfully on your remediation interview, angel," Spencer states, bringing your hand up to place a kiss upon it.

You snuggle closer, engulfed in his warmth and the scent of spiced vanilla. "I think so, too. I'm way more comfortable with the content... and my assessors."

please feel free to request! (or let me know what you think!)

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literary-illuminati · 7 months

Text

Book Review 55 - The Gods Are Bastard Volume Four by D. D. Webb

This is properly a review of Books 11, 12 and 13 of the gargantuan web serial The Gods Are Bastards, which I read in one massive sprint back in August, and also mark the exact point stops including book summaries in the table of contents. So caveat lector, all errors are my own here. Though this is hopefully the last review I’ll need to open by saying that for a while.

The serial is set in a world that’s best described as ‘someone’s D&D setting left to cook for a couple hundred years, and which is now undergoing a magitech industrial revolution’. Quite literally, actually – as it was revealed in the previous volume that the setting is a Lord of Light-style experiment by far-future space-magic-weilding scientists from Earth who were insufferable nerds even before their experiments and millennia of treating the world around them as an experiment drove them insane. All of which becomes much more plot-relevant in this volume, with one book’s main plot dedicated to an imperial concubine learning how computers work in what is like 90% of the way to a femslash harem anime, and the main villains of another being a cybernetics cult who were objectively the coolest thing to show up in a hundred thousand words.

This volume returns more focus to the ostensible protagonists of the serial (sophmore class at Adventuring U), while also splitting them up so Triss (the only-occasionally-murderously-racist paladin) can go get some character development and also spin out the cast even more. Which may have been part of the reason this is the volume I started to burn out on the series in this volume, really – I have, I think, an unusually high tolerance for sprawling casts of characters. But there’s really only so many different sets of sympathetic plucky teenagers learning to bond and work together I can take before I literally stop being able to tell them apart. Certainly my limit of characters I actually cared about got hit some time before Triss’ half dozen new fellow thieves guild apprentices were introduced. At the point where I’m waiting for a murder demon to get loose just to clean up the dramatis personae a bit.

I mean admittedly it didn’t help that they all had the most incredibly predictable character arcs imaginable and none of them ever really got enough screentime or, like, creative energy to ever become memorable. The one besides Triss who got much independent focus was instead someone whose entire character, arc, and impact on the plot was ‘realizing she’s trans and being loved/accepted/supported for it’. Which I acknowledge many people find important and validating, but if I am looking for Representation Fiction it probably won’t be a million words into an epic fantasy web serial (and the author can clearly do better! Ingvar is trans and it clearly informs his character and backstory and he still gets to, like, affect the plot and do things).

Though honestly I’d probably forgive the bloated cast if at this point I wasn’t getting, well, either bored or impatient with the conflict of the story. Which is to say – look, the story’s titled The Gods Are Bastards, I don’t think I’m being unfair in expecting a certain rebelliousness or blasphemy in the narrative. But it’s been 13 books, and all morality aside, 13 books of the protagonists working for Gods and Empire and University and either upholding the status quo or mildly reforming it from within to strengthen it just gets monotonous. Even the thieves guild is somehow a pillar of the establishment. The forces arrayed behind the heroes so utterly outclass their opposition in basically every case that it’s really hard to care about them on any sort of dramatic level, and I keep waiting for a reversal or betrayal that just isn’t occurring.

Anyway yeah, if you liked the previous 10 books you will probably like these ones as well! Would just recommend spacing them out so you don’t burn out.

#book review #sff #web serial #the gods are bastards #d. d. webb

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stay-outta-my-blood-circle · 2 years

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I would be INCREDIBLY interested in reading what you wrote about the extent of the damage on Vincent’s face!

Okay okay okay. So let's start off with a few caveats:

I have a medical background and lots of general medical and biological knowledge, but I am not a doctor or anything, so while I have done some additional research relating to this, I'm sure there are things I missed/don't know. A lot of what I'm going to cover is just what I consider to be scientifically logical with the benefit of my background.

While we're at it, I've seen the movie a decent amount of times but not, like, a ton. I may very well misremember something. Feel free to correct me or add on.

I'm disinclined to believe that the House of Wax production team brought in a specialist or even did more than cursory research on the subject, so there will be areas where I'm going to have to discount aspects of the movie for the sake of realism. (Sometimes movies aren't intended to be completely realistic and that's okay, but we're going to cover this from the perspective of how it would have to be to work in the real world.)

I'm not trying to debunk anyone else's interpretations; if anything I put here flies in the face of your personal headcanons, don't worry about it. You do you. This is not intended to be dogmatic.

This is fuckin LONNNNNNG. Which is why I avoided typing it up for so long. This took like 3 hours :p

So first off: conjoined twins.

The specific type that describes Bo and Vincent is craniopagus, i.e. conjoined at the head. The movie takes some liberties here, as the face area is practically never involved in real life, and as far as I could tell there's never been a case of conjoined twins born in their specific orientation (most of the time they're joined at the forehead and facing each other, joined at the back of the head and facing away from each other, or joined at the top of the head).

Furthermore, there are two major subtypes of craniopagus twins (CPT): total and partial. This has to do with whether or not the twins share a large portion of their dural venous sinuses (major vessels found in the lining of the brain) - total meaning they do, and by extension also show pronounced distortion within the cranuim. As you may expect, this type is associated with higher mortality rates and much greater difficulty of separation (lots of large vessels at a surgery site = higher risk of complications and bleeding out). Many of these twins are stillborn, die shortly after birth, or cannot be separated without one or both twins passing away during surgery or shortly thereafter. While it is the more common type of CPT, it's safe to assume that this is not the type that Bo and Vincent fall into, since they were apparently separated fairly easily and with no lasting damage aside from poor Vinny's precious face :(

Partial CPT, however, do not share a significant portion of these vessels (or any at all), and are characterized by limited surface area involvement and intact (or mildly defected) skulls. Prognosis of separation is much more optimistic in these cases. I'd say this one has gotta be our boys.

Okay, so we've got some background on the condition. Let's move on to surgery.

We're told (I think? I'm pretty sure this has been said) that Dr. Sinclair performed their separation surgery. Now. This is a tiny town in backwoods Louisiana, which probably does not have the best facilities or equipment - and who knows how qualified he was to actually perform this procedure in the first place.

The process in general is super interesting, but I'm not going to get into the details since it's not relevant to the current discussion (and probably isn't nearly as intriguing to people without a medical background, honestly). It usually involves a multidisciplinary team (often surgeons and cosmetic specialists), a long procedure (sometimes 12-18 hours), and several stages of surgery (as in, several surgeries over a few months) before full separation. Dr. Sinclair's resources were likely not ideal, which is why Vincent's face looks that way. Normally, there would have been cosmetic surgeons present to repair damaged tissues and structures. Dad likely just had to make do with what he had. (For this reason, I'm going to go ahead and make the claim later that their skulls were fully intact, because I honestly don't think he would have been able to separate them so successfully otherwise.)

Bo seems to have come through quite unscathed (someone has stated previously that he might wear a wig, and yeah, he might), but let's talk about

the lasting damage to Vincent's face.

There are two ways to approach this: skull deformity or no skull deformity. I've already stated which one I prefer, but let's go over both for the sake of thoroughness.

Let's say the twins' skulls were, in fact, joined. Bo would have been the one to come away with it, leaving Vincent with an open cranium - which their surgeon would have had to address, because you can't very well leave the brain with no protection. This would mean some kind of plate, or something, which would significantly complicate and lengthen the surgery. It's possible, but not likely in my opinion.

If Vincent had his own complete skull, albeit with some degree of fusion between the soft tissues to the bone, things would be a lot simpler in terms of survivability. The bone would be damaged from the separation, but present and closed, which at least means his brain is intact and safe, and it's only the outward structures we need to worry about.

If you separate his face into quadrants, the connection seems to be focused on the upper right side, specifically in the area of the eye socket - contrary to being a casualty of the separation, that eye likely never even formed.

Other possible structural issues include the sinus cavities, any holes in the hard palate, jaw connection (if it extends that far), and muscles/connective tissue. These things could all be repaired with varying degrees of success. It's likely his TMJ (jaw joint) wasn't involved. Dealing with a cleft palate or damaged connective tissue is easy enough (at least enough to make it functional). His sinuses on that side are very probably fucked up, but that's not necessarily a big deal. His mouth and teeth shouldn't be affected, overall.

There is, however, significant trauma and scarring throughout the soft tissue layers. His skin is visibly a mess. There's nothing wrong with it, necessarily - that's just what happens when tissue is traumatized and then left to heal that way. This is something a cosmetic surgeon could have fixed, at least by and large.

Ready for some pictures? :)

I'm not sure the method they used for this, but even if they did some practical effect makeup, I suspect CGI was at least involved and I'll tell you why in a moment.

You can see an intact zygomatic arch (cheekbone) and supraorbital, forming a complete eye socket. This part of the skull appears to be properly formed and structured. You can see where an eye would have been. (That ear might be gone, too, if the damage extends that far - I'm not sure if we're ever shown. But cartilage isn't very hardy.)

That nostril is gone, and the sinuses surrounding it are likely either not present or collapsed and nonfunctional. Our boy is probably very congested (and nasally, if he speaks), and has to breathe through his mouth unless he wants to sound like Darth Vader.

The tissue around his mouth is fairly deformed, though his lips seem to be mostly intact. I don't know what that's supposed to be in the corner there - it's tooth-colored but doesn't have the same structure as teeth and isn't in the right place. Weird scar tissue or CGI weirdness, idk.

I also don't know why his teeth look sharp there?? There's no reason his teeth would be sharp. If anything, they would be missing, IF the permanent teeth, which form within the skull before they erupt and push out the baby teeth, seen here:

were either affected by the process or didn't form in the first place, which I suppose is possible. But even then, his lower jaw shouldn't be involved. Those teeth should be normal.

His mouth looks more normal here, and you can see even more clearly that the cranial structure beneath the skin seems to be complete.

Right side of lower lip and corner of mouth look more substantially affected here. (and the teeth again. why the weird spacing and sharp points? it doesn't make any sense.)

Here he is in motion:

And here's the annoying part:

SUDDENLY HALF HIS FACE IS A CRATER?!?

From this angle, it looks completely caved in on that side. I'm going to discount this as a CGI mishap or something, because 1. his skull seems perfectly intact in every other view and 2. this would cut deeply into his cranial structures, which would cause pretty significant impediments and 3. if his skull was caved into his brain like that, he'd be severely impaired or dead. And he doesn't appear to be either one of those. This is horseshit and it will not stand.

Finally, on the subject of speech:

Is he unable to talk, or does he just not want to? I'll give you my take on it, but again, feel free to believe whatever floats your boat.

I don't see any reason he shouldn't be able to speak, physically (its possible he could be mute for some psychological reason). His vocal structures themselves should be unaffected. Between the damage to his lips (not extensive, but still), sinuses, and possibly some missing teeth or palate deformities, however, it's likely that he has a hard time speaking clearly - whether due to the quality of his voice (nasally, congested, probably can't articulate terribly well) or even a full speech impediment. That's my personal belief on the subject.

And with that, we've finally reached

the end!

Let no one ever challenge my love and devotion for this man. :)

#Rune writes slashers #I guess #lord almighty this took forEVER #let me know what you think #unless you want to argue. then keep it to yourself lol #vincent sinclair #house of wax #slasher community #slasher fandom #slashers

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Text

Tedious Joys - Chapter 8 - END

- Ao3 link -

“You’re not going to like what we’ve decided,” Lao Nie said.

Lan Qiren could have guessed that from the way that the other man had marched into the room and promptly used Lan Qiren’s thigh as a pillow, primarily, Lan Qiren suspected, because he didn’t want to have to look Lan Qiren in the face.

It was a common tactic of his these days. The Nie clan had always been inclined towards tactile behavior and a certain lack of personal boundaries – personal information was too much to share, but apparently bodies were free game – and Lao Nie had very quickly transitioned from embarrassment to taking advantage of his newfound dependency on regular physical contact with Lan Qiren. Much to Lan Qiren’s relief, they had managed, with some experimenting and considerable effort on all parts involved, for Lao Nie to form a bond directly with the jade pendant. Now, as long as he carried the pendant, he was able to be by himself for a shichen or so without experiencing any degradation in his mental state – and that, in turn, enabled them both to separate and allowed them both some measure of privacy.

Unfortunately, after that shichen was over, Lao Nie would begin to become irritable and irrational again, his eyes slowly becoming bloodshot as the rage and resentful energy contained now wholly within him, rather than in the jade – in Jiwei, rather – began to need to be excised. Exercise and cultivation with a heavy training saber helped slow the effects, as did Lan Qiren’s musical efforts to calm and clear his mind, but Lao Nie’s cultivation was simply too high for it to last for very long. It was as if half his meridians had vanished overnight and yet he continued to cultivate as he did before; it was as if his dominant arm had been abruptly cut off, and yet he instinctively continued to try to do everything he previously could. He needed his saber to complete even a standard circulation of his qi, and short of suppressing his spiritual energy entirely (another experiment that met with some limited success, getting them another two shichen of time apart if they really needed it, but which was not a long-term solution given the unfortunate side effects), he had to have access to it.

Currently, that access was through Lan Qiren.

“If you’re warning me in advance, I’m quite certain that I won’t like it,” he said mildly, continuing to play uninterrupted. He wasn’t cultivating anything at the moment – the piece he was working on was actually a refinement of the music he’d inadvertently created in his grief at Cangse Sanren’s death, the one that had made his normally very stable nephews burst into tears, and he didn’t want to add spiritual energy to it until he’d worked out exactly how he wanted it to go. He reached an appropriate stopping place, noted down a few revisions to the score, and put his guqin aside. “You should tell me about it regardless.”

Lao Nie exhaled. “Well, good news first – the smiths have finally finished conferring and they’ve concluded that they believe it’s possible to try reforging Jiwei, so they’re willing to give it a try.”

“Good,” Lan Qiren said. He hadn’t really understood the spiritual weaponsmiths’ reluctance on the subject, but he respected their expertise as craftsmen, just as they respected his as a musician. “Once the saber has been remade, I can reestablish the resonance between them and, in theory, Jiwei should be able to use that pathway to return - and with greater ease, as she would be returning to her more familiar self.”

“Not that easy, unfortunately,” Lao Nie said regretfully. “Jiwei was shattered. To remake the blade, they will need to – for want of a better explanation – melt her down and start entirely afresh. It will be like having a wholly different saber, albeit with the same metal that she’s used to.”

Lan Qiren frowned.

“There, you see the issue. If it’s a new saber, the familiarity will be absent. We will need to work on reestablishing the resonance the way we did with the pendant, and that means –”

“Slowly.” Lan Qiren’s frown deepened. It had taken him years to establish that initial resonance, and knowing how it was done could only reduce the process by so much. “That is indeed a problem. I cannot stay here as long as that would take. In all truth, I am surprised that I have not already been summoned back by my sect…”

“Oh, you have,” Lao Nie said cheerfully. “A-Jue burned the letters and told the messengers to fuck off.”

Lan Qiren’s jaw dropped. “He did what?!”

“Did we not say? You’ve officially been kidnapped! Well, no, really it’s more of a hostage exchange situation, since they have A-Sang with them…oh, don’t look so horrified, Qiren,” Lao Nie said, starting to laugh. “Your sect elders have indicated that no offense was taken, under the circumstances.”

“Circumstances?!” Lan Qiren spluttered a little. “You’re not serious! What circumstances could justify one sect kidnapping another sect’s sect leader, acting or otherwise?!”

Lao Nie stopped laughing, the sound cutting off as if he’d been choked. “Yes, well,” he said, closing his eyes. “That’s the part you’re really not going to like.”

Lan Qiren determinedly prodded at Lao Nie’s shoulder until the other man, grumbling, sat up and took a proper seat so that they could have this discussion face-to-face. Their knees remained touching, which was good enough, and about all that the scoundrel deserved at the moment.

“Explain,” Lan Qiren ordered, and Lao Nie dipped his head into a nod.

“There are several relevant points,” he said crisply, dropping into the familiar pattern of a report. “First, Hanhan has clearly decided that he wants me dead –”

“Must you?” Lan Qiren interjected, even though he had not meant to interrupt.

“Oh, I must.” Lao Nie’s eyes were flinty. “He decided that if he couldn’t have me – and no one said he couldn’t, except his own paranoia – that if he couldn’t, no one could, and I’m not about to forgive him for that, don’t worry. But he’s still my Hanhan, my A-Han, underneath all his madness, and for my own sake, I’m not going to let anyone, whether him or me, forget it. No matter how necessary, some things have to hurt, and to their fullest extent...However, that’s not what’s relevant now. May I continue?”

Lan Qiren nodded.

“He wants me dead,” Lao Nie said, resuming his narrative. “Now that he tried once, he may try again, and I currently lack the capability to defend myself – the doctors, and you, have all agreed that I should avoid any excessive use of qi, and fighting a battle with a saber that isn’t Jiwei is a recipe for disaster in the best of times. I can’t exactly swing the pendant around, can I? Moreover, it may take years for us to establish the resonance, re-transfer Jiwei, and for me to re-familiarize myself with the new saber.”

Lan Qiren did not like the way this was going.

“There’s also the matter that I can’t be without physical contact with you for extended periods of time, and you of course have your responsibility to your sect,” Lao Nie continued. “Kidnapping you is, at best, a temporary fix. We will need something more permanent, and your sect elders have already indicated that they won’t let you marry out until your nephews are grown – and obviously we can’t wait that long, even assuming you’d want to marry me.”

Lan Qiren opened his mouth.

“Don’t say that you’d be willing to make the sacrifice to marry me, because even if you would, I wouldn’t. Putting aside the fact that you wouldn’t be happy leaving the Cloud Recesses and as much as I adore you, having been married before, I’m quite certain that I only want to marry my lovers, thank you.”

Lan Qiren had, in fact, been about to make an offer just like that, but he kept his mouth shut. They could discuss it at length at a later point.

“In short, the best solution to all of these problems, therefore, appears to be to allow events to play out as Hanhan would have wanted: for me to die.”

“You cannot be serious!” Lan Qiren exclaimed, abruptly furious. “After all the effort we put into saving your life, you would just throw it away?”

Lao Nie held up his hands. “Forgive me, I spoke unwisely – ‘do not take your words lightly’, right?”

Lan Qiren was usually very easily distracted by the mention of the Lan sect rules, but he resisted the temptation and glared.

“I didn’t mean I’d actually die,” Lao Nie said, and Lan Qiren’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Only that that would be the story we put out to the world. The process has already begun – that’s why your sect elders aren’t kicking up a fit about A-Jue being so rude to them about refusing to return you.”

“They think he’s in mourning,” Lan Qiren realized. “Whether actual, or merely preemptive.”

He could see how it might appear that way: Nie Mingjue showing up late in the evening, depositing a shaken and terrified Nie Huaisang, using up all the medical supplies in Lan Qiren’s personal possession, and then asking Lan Qiren to return home with him…

Due to Lan Qiren’s friendship with Lao Nie, Nie Mingjue had grown up especially close to the Lan sect; Lan Qiren had been his teacher, and in the end he was only fifteen, even if most people didn’t know that. Even in a world where Lao Nie could not have been saved, he might have refused to let Lan Qiren go home so quickly, seeking comfort from the sole familial authority, however informally constituted, that he had remaining.

“But Lao Nie,” Lan Qiren said slowly. “If you are supposedly dead, then Mingjue will need to become sect leader.”

Lao Nie grimaced, but nodded.

He’d been right about one thing, at least: Lan Qiren did not like what the Nie sect had decided.

He didn’t like it one bit.

“You know what that will do to him,” he said. He himself knew it better than anyone.

“I do,” Lao Nie confirmed, looking pained. “But it’s the best out of a short list of very bad options. If I stay on as sect leader in my current state, someone will kill me – probably Hanhan, but maybe someone else, one of the many small sects that have ambitions of taking the Nie sect’s place – and if that happens, A-Jue will have to become sect leader in truth, without my support. At least this way, I can act as an advisor, aid him with paperwork…that sort of thing.”

As much as Lan Qiren would have liked to argue, he didn’t have a good rebuttal to that.

Lao Nie’s position within the Nie sect was as secure as anything, and the Nie sect’s position as a Great Sect was nearly as unshakable, but there were always smaller sects looking to see whether that could change. If he were known to be so critically weakened...Wen Ruohan might not even need to kill him personally. He’d just need to wait.

And the rest was true, too. There were many things Lao Nie could do from a distance - his month at the Lan sect had shown that much - and having someone reliable to turn to for advice and hard choices was the ideal sort of transition for a new sect leader.

Still, the sect conferences alone would be horrifying, and those Lao Nie would not be able to aid Nie Mingjue with, even if he could help with all the rest.

He hated it.

But he couldn’t argue against it.

“Moreover, without the bulk of the responsibilities of sect leader on my shoulders, I’ll have more opportunity to focus on healing.”

That was true as well. Lao Nie had been hurt very deeply by Jiwei’s destruction. His cultivation had fallen, his usual cultivation pathway denied to him, his trust in his own mental well-being betrayed…in an ideal world, Lan Qiren would recommend seclusion for a few months, maybe even a year, for him to focus on reestablishing his connection with himself, re-centering his foundation so that he could climb up once more. But for a sect leader, that was impossible.

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said, although he made sure by his tone to make clear how much he disapproved. “I understand the basis for your decision.”

“I thought you might.”

“There’s only one flaw I see with your plan.”

“Oh?”

Lan Qiren folded his hands together in front of him. “You still need me, don’t you? Even with the excuse of mourning, Nie Mingjue can only request my presence for so long before the demands of my sect become paramount over their respect for his filial piety and grief.”

“Oh, we’ll let you go back eventually,” Lao Nie said with a shrug. “And I’d go with you.”

Lan Qiren had been expecting that. “And how exactly do you intend to keep the story of your death intact if you’re living with me at the Cloud Recesses? Even if we increase your tolerance such that you can stay home at all times, my home is often visited by my students, including those from other sects – and while there may be a rule against talking behind people’s backs, it is one of the most commonly broken.”

Lao Nie winced in a way that suggested both that he had thought of an answer to that question and also that Lan Qiren was going to hate it.

“Whatever you say, I cannot dislike it more than A-Jue becoming sect leader at fifteen,” Lan Qiren pointed out.

“I don’t know about that,” Lao Nie said. “Given that to this day you despise the smell of gentians.”

Lan Qiren’s brain came to an abrupt halt.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“Qiren…”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s a good solution,” Lao Nie argued. “No one in your sect goes to that house – most of them don’t even know it exists! It’s within a short walking distance of your home, protected by arrays to enhance silence and protect privacy…”

“I am not locking you in He Kexin’s place!” Lan Qiren bellowed.

“You wouldn’t be locking me anywhere,” Lao Nie said, for once the reasonable and calm one in the face of Lan Qiren’s fury. “I would be going willingly, and I would be free to leave at any time. You’re not your brother, Qiren, and I’m not He Kexin – not least of which because I’m neither capable of nor interested in bearing two sons for you as a means of passing the time.” He paused, tilting his head to the side. “A bit of a pity, that. I’m sure they’d be cute.”

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes at him, although the reassurance and humor had helped douse the worst of his terror at the mere idea. Irritatingly, it was a good solution: he had made the trek to He Kexin’s home hundreds of times and no one had ever raised any questions. In the unlikely event that they did so now, he could claim he was merely tending to the garden to maintain it for his nephews; more likely, however, they would simply not notice – the path between the two locations was short and purposefully discrete.

“You’ll need someone to clean the place,” he pointed out. “Even He Kexin had servants, and if you don’t want anyone from the Lan sect finding out about it…”

“I have some servants that are loyal to me personally, and which are not Nie sect disciples,” Lao Nie said. “They can seek employment at the Cloud Recesses on the basis that they didn’t want to remain here after I’d gone – literally true, if you think about it in a certain light. Your sect would snatch them up in a heartbeat.”

They would, too, even without Lan Qiren interfering: properly trained servants who knew how to serve cultivators were a precious commodity that often had to be raised up from a young age or recruited with great caution from the ranks of rogue cultivators, and ones with the skills and experience that came from serving at another Great Sect were even more valued than most. And once they were part of the Cloud Recesses, there would be no difficulty in Lan Qiren adding the task of caring for He Kexin’s house to their list of duties.

“It’s a good plan,” he finally conceded, and Lao Nie sniggered.

“You look as though you’ve bitten into a lemon, Qiren. Did it hurt to say?”

“It hurt to think,” he retorted, and turned back to his guqin. “Will you visit my brother while you’re there? He might enjoy hearing your voice and knowing that you are close.”

Lao Nie had always refused in the past, and he shook his head now. “Not all of us are as forgiving as you, Qiren. Qingheng-jun made his choices.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“He makes them again every day,” Lao Nie disagreed. “He may have declared that he would stay in seclusion for the rest of his life to make amends, but that was his decision. He could break his oath and come out, do the right thing, but he doesn’t want to.”

It was an old argument, and an unproductive one. Lan Qiren shook his head, signaling that he would no longer engage.

He had other things to be concerned with, and would for some time. There was helping with Lao Nie’s recovery, creating the new resonance, playing calming music for him, keeping his secret; he would also need to help support Nie Mingjue as much as possible during his transition to sect leader, whether through correspondence and advice or through active intervention during the discussion conferences. He would need to manage his nephews, who he had taught so carefully not to lie, and yet they would need to learn to keep this secret, too.

Taking care of Lao Nie would also be an additional set of duties, on top of being sect leader and being a teacher and being himself, but Lan Qiren didn’t mind it.

It wouldn’t be so bad, actually, now that he thought of it without prejudice. To have someone close by to take tea with in the afternoons when his nephews were too busy and it wasn’t the right time of year for students, someone with whom he could speak on any range of subjects, including his occasional frustrations with his sect, stories about his students, the political troubles of the day – a friend close by, rather than at a distance. Someone who would probably encourage him to take more exercise than he usually did, to try things outside of his comfort zone, someone who would listen to his ideas on music or the rules without judgment, someone who would share his burdens and support him…it would be a little like having a wife, but without all the inconvenient aspects that he so thoroughly disliked.

“It’s not too bad, as such things go,” Lao Nie said, his thoughts clearly moving along a similar line as Lan Qiren’s. “Whatever the world thinks, I’ll be the first Nie sect leader to live to enjoy a retirement, however premature.”

This was true.

“I’ll miss my boys, of course,” Lao Nie added. “But I’ll write, and you can invite A-Sang to your lectures when he’s old enough. A-Jue can come visit you, sect leader to sect leader…I wouldn’t be the first father to only see his children a few times a year.”

“Nie Huaisang will probably fail my classes,” Lan Qiren said, having been acquainted with the individual in question for some time now. A clever child, even very clever, but he was also lazy, hated reciting facts, and was as stubborn as a rock – as stubborn as his father. “You’ll probably have the joy of him for several summers in a row.”

Lao Nie smiled.

“Well, I can’t say this was what I expected when I wrote to you for help all those years ago,” he joked, leaning down and playing with the jade token that now hung from his belt rather than Lan Qiren’s. Wen Ruohan would probably have a fit if he ever saw it – indeed, Lan Qiren was already looking forward to that day in the future, however distant, where Lao Nie would regain his saber and his former strength and re-emerge to make his feelings on the subject of Wen Ruohan’s actions clear. “But I’m still glad you came.”

“As am I, my friend,” Lan Qiren said. “As am I.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #sect leader nie #my fic #my fics #tedious joys

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tenthgrove · 3 years

Note

Can you pleasedo headcanons for la squadra with a teammate/so from America with a stereotypical valley girl accent? I think it would be kind of funny lol 🙂

An Unlikely Teammate, but Welcomed Nonetheless

La Squadra x Reader (Fem), SFW

(A/N: just for the record here I’m not American and didn’t actually know what a valley girl was until I looked it up. I love the concept but just wanted to warn you about this incase I’ve gotten the wrong idea from my research)

Formaggio- it’s love at first sight. Formaggio practically bursts out laughing the second he hears your voice but he swears he means it in the best possible way. He finds you a real charmer, and since his style of speech tends to be more casual too it’s easy for the two of you to converse. You’ll be fast friends without a doubt.

Illuso- let’s face facts, you could insert him into a group of Valley Girls and he would fit right in. He just would. For this reason, Illuso will also click well with you. However, he also picks up on how funny your accent sounds when you get angry, so he starts annoying you on purpose just to hear more of it. Some of the scenes you make get everyone laughing. He might be an ass, but you soon get used to it and come to like him.

Prosciutto- oh Lordy lord. Things are off to a... difficult start, let’s say. Prosciutto is immediately off put by the unprofessionalism and pettiness he can hear seeping from your voice. That will never do around here, and you need to fix your attitude! (Yes, Prosciutto is aware of the shambling manchildren that make up the rest of this squad but facing that fact scares him). But over time he comes to see that you are just as competent an assassin as him. Perhaps he shouldn’t judge so much from first impressions, he wonders. It’s dangerous, for someone like him.

Pesci- aww, your voice is really cute! Also, an American? The rest of his team all had similar stories to tell of their childhoods, most of them very miserable, but regardless of whether that’s the case for you perhaps you might have some different experiences to share from your life across the Atlantic. Your voice is unique but soothing, regardless of how abrasive the others say it is. He likes to hear you ramble.

Melone- hm... definitely his type. Your voice conveys a feistiness and energy he adores in women, so he’s eager to learn more about you. His interest you is nothing to be concerned about; he would never harm a teammate! So although the others may get weird about it when you spend time together, your friendship is actually pretty good and wholesome. Though it could always lead to something more if you’re interested.

Ghiaccio-

H̸̤̐O̷̭͝W̴̲͠ ̷̭̾M̵̨̌A̵̠̽Ṅ̷̲Y̴̝͌ ̷̙́T̴̗͆Í̷̘M̴͉̍E̸̹͑S̸͉͊ ̷̲́M̷̢̈́U̶̝̐S̵͎͛T̴̪̀ ̵̦̒I̶̔͜ ̸̯̿R̴̩͠Ë̶̯́P̷̹̈É̶͚A̸̩͘T̷͉͌ ̶͍̇M̸̩̽Y̴̱̓S̵͖͋E̸̳͠L̷̲̆F̸̡̈?̴̺͛ ̸̧̈́“̴̫̀L̴͔͋I̶̮̿Ḱ̶̦E̷̟͝”̷̺̕ ̸̼̈́I̷̜͑S̵̺̕ ̶̗̇N̷̠̅E̸̙̕Ĭ̶̭T̴̻̊H̸̩̒E̴̫͑R̵̞̐ ̶̹͝A̸̯͒ ̴̫͋D̶̗̏I̸̬͝S̷͖͝C̷͕͒O̶̫͋U̷̜̓R̸̜̓S̷̛̰E̸̹͋ ̵̰̿M̴̤̿Ȁ̶̱R̷̡͗K̶͐͜E̵̲̅Ṟ̵̑ ̸̘̚O̶̟͂R̷̢͆ ̵̱̓A̵͓͑ ̵̋ͅQ̴͈͂U̶̝̐O̶̭͌T̷͙̑A̴̛̗T̷̋͜I̵̫͛V̵̱̈́E̸��̰

Your way of speech irks him, to put it mildly. Ghiaccio has no issue with you speaking your native English around the base (since it’s either that or your broken Italian) but can’t you at least speak the normal, unfucked version of the already utterly stupid language? Regardless of the topic he’s going to call you out on every choice of wording you make that annoys him. What stops him in the end? He just gets tired. It’s clear you aren’t going to stop and he honestly doesn’t have the energy for it. Weird words aside, you’re pretty cool, he guesses.

Risotto- not being the sort to call people out on their personal features unless relevant to the matter at hand, Risotto makes no mention of your strange dialect, simply speaking to you as he would anyone else. To someone watching you interact from the outside, it’s hilarious: Risotto’s deep, solemn, authorative tone against your perky, upticked, jittery one, just having a casual chat about murder.

Sorbet- a strange mix between Risotto and Ghiaccio’s reactions. Although he calls you out on some of your stranger choices of dialogue they don’t really bother him that much. To him, it’s just a little quirk he’ll occasionally tease you about. “Come on carina, can you tell me again without saying ‘like’? Could we go a full three minutes without you saying it again? Oh, I know you can do it!” He’ll sometimes say to you, followed by a short, rare laugh.

Gelato- he gets you. Coming from the far north of Italy and having Russians, the French and a couple English folks in his family tree, Gelato has frequently been told his accent is weird by native Italian speakers, especially now he lives down in Naples. He finds your accent funny in the best possible way, and will often make atrocious attempts at mimicking it, much to your and Sorbet’s amusement.

#la squadra #formaggio #formaggio x reader #illuso #illuso x reader #prosciutto #prosciutto x reader #pesci #pesci x reader #melone #melone x reader #ghiaccio #ghiaccio x reader #risotto nero #risotto nero x reader #sorbet and gelato #sorbet and gelato x reader

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highfunctioningflailgirl · 3 years

Text

Whumptober 2021

Prompt #3: „Who did this to you?“

With a familiar tingling in his neural network, the EMH materialized in La Sirena’s sickbay. His biosensors kicked into action even before his holographic body had fully assembled and threw a barrage of medical data at him. Adaptive filters quickly cast the obvious, familiar facts aside (human, male, age 42, 6 ft, 80 kg) and prioritized the relevant ones: raised levels of cortisol and adrenaline (in the process of breaking down), elevated blood pressure, a dip in hemoglobin and an alarming level of blood alcohol.

Stress. Pain. Hemorrhage. Intoxication.

“What is the nature of your medical emergency?”

Captain Rios, standing by the hypospray dispenser, turned around unsteadily and used his hip to stabilize himself against the counter. Hunched over, he was protectively cradling his left hand in his right. Beneath the stark ceiling lights, the Captain’s face looked pale, and blood was glistening in his beard.

Potential hand fracture. Epistaxis of unknown origin.

“I need pain meds,” the Captain slurred, his tone hostile. “Can’t get the damn hypospray replicrate… precate…” He grunted in annoyance. “Can’t get the damn thing to work.”

The EMH pulled a tricoder from his coat pocket and pointed it at Rios. Processing its readings, he rearranged his forehead into a frown.

“I’m afraid the application of an acetylsaliciylic acid won’t fix a misaligned metacarpal fracture.”

The Captain gave him an irritated, blurry look.

“What?”

“Your hand is broken and needs to be set.”

Rios looked at the injured appendage in disgruntlement.

“Bullshit. I just need some ice and an aspirin.” He glared at the hologram. “Why isn’t there a single fuckin’ aspirin in here? It’s a fucking medical bay!”

Detecting a fresh release of stress hormones in the Captain’s system, the EMH’s programming switched to a de-escalation protocol. Automatically, his vocal frequency dropped and his timbre softened.

“I can give you something better than aspirin, Captain,” he said calmly. “A fast-acting analgesic. You will feel better immediately. And then we can take it from there.”

Rios seemed to consider yelling at him for a moment - something the EMH had become used to since his initial activation a few months ago - but then, swaying in place, the Captain asked with narrowed eyes: “You’re not going to sedate me, are you?”

“Not unless you want me to, Captain,” the EMH answered, mildly affronted.

There had been several occasions where he’d offered sleeping pills to Rios (all rejected), and one memorable day when he’d suggested an antidepressant and almost been wiped from La Sirena’s mainframe in response, but, unless the Captain’s behavior and brain chemistry scans fulfilled all the criteria for temporary mental incompetence, medicating him against his will would violate the hologram’s hippocratic coding.

“Do you want a sedative?”

“No!” Rios barked. Then he looked at his hand and tried to wriggle his fingers. The EMH’s biosensors detected a spike in pain intensity even before his patient hissed and winced.

“Alright,” Rios relented angrily, teeth clenched. “Give me the pain meds and set the damn hand.”

The EMH’s neural processors lit up in mimicry of human glee.

“Right away, Captain.”

He slid past Rios to reprogram the hypospray console and replicated the medication he needed. Swiftly, he loaded the vial into the dispenser.

“Sit down, please.” He gestured at the biobed.

Captain Rios grunted, but he clumsily did as ordered. The EMH pressed the dispenser to the side of his patient’s neck and administered the analgesic. On the monitor that had self-activated as soon as Rios’ body had touched the biobed, the hologram was satisfied to see an immediate physical response as his captain’s vitals settled down.

The decrease of pain was also visible in Rios’ body language and behavior. His tense frame softened as his muscles relaxed, his mouth unclenched and his eyes lost some of their aggressive sheen.

“On a scale of one to ten,” the hologram asked, “what is your level-”

“It’s fine,” Rios snarled tiredly. “Just fix the damn hand.”

“There is blood on your face. Would you at least allow me to examine your-”

“Madre de dios! I got punched in the face. It’s just a nosebleed. The hand, Emil! Just the hand.”

The EMH didn’t have a limbic system, but his AI coding answered to Rios’ use of his moniker with a quick burst of invigorating energy.

“Certainly, Captain.”

Gently and efficiently, he took Rios’ broken hand and, with a quick tug, realigned the index metacarpal. Rios, now intoxicated and medicated, barely flinched.

Looking at the broken skin on Rios’ knuckles, the EMH reached for the dermal regenerator.

“May I ask who did this to you?”

The Captain scoffed. “Why would that be any of your business?”

“Depending on the species, toxic agents could have entered through your injured epidermis upon contact. The Cal’thra, for instance, produce a toxin that mixes with their sweat when threatened, leading to necrosis in their enemies’ wounds, and in case you-”

“EMIL!“

The hologram shut his mouth. Inwardly, his processors bristled at the rudeness, but if he wanted to finish treatment before the Captain deactivated him (as he usually did at some point), he knew he had to stop lecturing him. He had learned a lot in recent months, and while dealing with La Sirena’s ever-belligerent, moody new owner wasn’t exactly pleasant, he at least gave the EMH ample occasion to execute his intended programming. This wasn’t the first time he’d fixed the Captain up after some sort of altercation, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“If you would now lie down and let me configure the ossifier matrix…”

He began tapping on a holographic screen.

“No.” Rios shook his head.

The EMH stopped, confused. “Excuse me, Captain?”

“I’m not staying in sickbay,” Rios slurred defiantly. “Just splint my hand and I’m out of here.”

The hologram shouldn’t be surprised. Captain Rios had refused proper treatment before, in favor of letting his wounds heal on their own. The EMH’s hippocratic coding, however, still balked at the sheer stupidity.

“Captain, the ossifier matrix will expedite bone fusion. Foregoing micro-repair will prolong your regeneration considerably. You will be in pain, and your hand will be in a cast for weeks!“

“I don’t care,” Rios growled at him. “Just do it and I’m out of here.”

The EMH sighed. After all these months, and with all the knowledge the hologram had at his disposal, he was still unable to understand the Captain’s motivations. He’d browsed each and every of La Sirena’s computer files accessible to him, and he’d dived deep into his-… Rios’ memory base to find the cause for his self-flagellation, to no avail. Every time he came close to an explanation, a hole opened up in the data. A log entry that had been erased, a medical file that was incomplete, a classified Starfleet report, a face without a name.

Resigned, the EMH replicated a splint and bandaged Rios’ hand.

“All done?” Rios asked when he’d finished.

The hologram cast another look at Rios vitals: except for his blood alcohol, everything was back within normal range. He would have preferred to keep an eye on his Captain, here in sickbay. Something beyond the reach of his scanners told him he should. But there was no medical justification. His nosebleed had stopped; his hand would heal; he would survive another hangover in the morning.

“Yes,” the EMH answered truthfully.

“Good,” Rios mumbled and pushed off the biobed, swaying and tugging his bandaged hand against his chest.

“Deactivate EMH.”

Emil disintegrated with a woeful hum.

(You can also read and comment on this fic on AO3:)

#whumptober2021 #aramis in space #star trek picard #day 3 #prompt no. 3 #fanfic #Who did this to you?#cristobal rios #the EMH #Emil #whump #h/c

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kjack89 · 3 years

Note

Man I always get whiplash from your blog layout, it's great. Anyway, 44 (Tentative kisses given in the dark.) for exr *eyes emoji*

Sorry not sorry about the blog layout XD

Anyway, this was supposed to be something else, something sweeter, but then this happened, and, well...

ExR, modern AU, developing relationship.

Enjolras dumped his bag on a table in the backroom of the Musain and started unbuttoning his coat, though he paused when he saw Grantaire, Joly and Bossuet at a table in the corner, their heads together as they discussed something with what looked like urgency.

His curiosity piqued, Enjolras wandered over to them. “Not to use ableist language, but if you believe that, you’re cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” Bossuet said dismissively, as Joly nodded in agreement.

Grantaire snorted. “Not entirely sure that’s ableist, though General Mills may sue for copyright violations. Besides, I’m not the one who’s apparently lost what’s left of my marbles.”

“Look, copyright violations aside, I think Bossuet’s got a point—” Joly started, but Grantaire cut him off.

“Oh, sure, take his side like always,” Grantaire sniped.

Enjolras cleared his throat and all three startled before looking over at him. “Dare I ask what you three are arguing about?” he asked mildly, and to his surprise, Joly blushed.

“I wouldn’t call it an argument,” he hedged, glancing sideways at Bossuet, who nodded emphatically.

“Right, it’s really more of a disagreement.”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow. “Fine, what are you disagreeing about?”

Grantaire smiled blithely at him, the only one of three who didn’t look remotely abashed. “Whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not.”

Enjolras blinked. He had not been expecting that. “Uh...what?”

“You know, the holiday classic starring Bruce Willis,” Grantaire said cheerfully. “Which I maintain, if you’re going to allow films like It’s a Wonderful Life and Holiday Inn, which, let’s not forget, features actual blackface, to be counted as Christmas films, you also have to allow Die Hard, which is arguably even more Christmas-y since it actually takes place fully at Christmas.”

Grantaire said this all with absolute confidence, which bewildered Enjolras almost as much as Joly, who leaned forward to tell Grantaire, equally heated, “Christmas-y is not a word, and also, the point isn’t whether they take place solely at Christmas time, but whether they’re filled with, y’know, Christmas spirit. Which Die Hard is not.”

Bossuet cleared his throat. “What do you think, Enjolras?” he asked loudly as Grantaire stuck his tongue out at Joly.

Enjolras shook his head slowly. “Believe it or not, this is one area where I don’t really have an opinion.”

Grantaire raised both eyebrows as he did what he clearly thought was a comical doubletake. “I could die of shock.”

“Well, try not to, at least not until we have your mockup for the mutual aid fundraiser flyers,” Enjolras said sourly.

“And here I thought you didn’t value my contributions,” Grantaire said with a grin. “But seriously, you don’t have an opinion on Die Hard?”

“Oh, I have opinions,” Enjolras assured him. “I just don’t think they’re relevant to this particular debate.”

Grantaire fluttered his eyelashes at him. “As if that’s ever stopped you before,” he said sweetly.

Enjolras scowled. “You really want my opinion on if I think a movie featuring an extrajudicial cop qualifies as having the spirit belonging to a holiday devoted to capitalism and religious imperialism?” he asked sharply, and Joly and Bossuet had the good sense to look a little embarrassed. “Because in that case, I do have some fascinating insights on the ties between the military industrial complex and evangelical Christianity.”

Joly and Bossuet grumbled and turned away, clearly ready to continue the conversation without Enjolras, but Grantaire propped his chin on his hand and smirked at Enjolras. “Fascinating though your use of big words may be, you didn’t actually answer the question.”

“The question of whether I think Die Hard is a Christmas movie?”

“Yeah.”

Enjolras looked at him flatly. “Is ‘I don’t give a flying fuck’ an answer?”

Grantaire’s smile widened. “Not so much, no.”

“Oh, so when you give me that as an answer during Les Amis meetings, I’m just supposed to accept it, but when it comes to inane debates about Christmas movies, it’s not good enough?” Enjolras asked sourly.

Grantaire nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

For a moment, Enjolras considered telling Grantaire that he should focus on more important things, but he could only imagine all the ways that would backfire on him. “Fine. Then Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Happy?”

Grantaire cocked his head slightly. “I’d be happier if you could explain why you think that.”

Enjolras stared at him. “Because it just...it isn’t.”

Grantaire’s smirk was back, and his tone turned teasing. “C’mon, cite your sources, this isn’t your first debate, you know better than that.”

“I don’t have to cite anything!” Enjolras snapped. “It’s not a Christmas movie. End of discussion.”

“Then why did Bahorel wear a sweatshirt with ‘Now I have a machine gun, Ho-ho-ho’ written on it in red paint to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party last week?” Grantaire countered.

Enjolras blinked. “Wait, that was from Die Hard?”

“Of course it was from—” Grantaire broke off, something like glee lighting up his face. “Wait a minute, have you actually seen Die Hard?”

“I’ve seen parts of it…” Enjolras hedged.

“That does not count.” Grantaire stood up. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“My place,” Grantaire said cheerfully. “We’re watching Die Hard.”

Enjolras stared at him. “What? Why?”

“Because you claim to hate it but you’ve never even seen it,” Grantaire said, as if it was obvious.

“And what part of my description of it would make you think that I would enjoy it even if I did watch it?”

Grantaire snorted. “No one said anything about enjoying it. I just think you should actually have an informed opinion about something if you’re going to wade into such hard-hitting debates as ‘Is Die Hard a Christmas movie’.”

Grantaire’s tone was innocent, but Enjolras ground his teeth together, recognizing that he had said the same exact thing to Grantaire during a Les Amis meeting the previous week in regards to a debate on restorative justice and an article that Grantaire hadn’t actually read. “I don’t exactly have a spare two hours to waste on this right now,” Enjolras snapped.

“Sure you do,” Grantaire said cheerfully. “What else do you have to work on?”

Enjolras immediately blanked on any of the things he could possibly have to work on. “That’s– that’s not the point,” he spluttered, but it was too late. Grantaire had already taken his arm and was steering him towards the door.

“We’ll be back in a little over two hours and twelve minutes,” Grantaire called over his shoulder, and Enjolras sighed resignedly.

“I am so going to regret this.”

----------

Die Hard, as it turned out, was everything Enjolras had suspected, and then some, and about a half hour into it, he shifted on Grantaire’s couch and tossed a look over at Grantaire, who had thus far been more silent than he’d ever been at any Les Amis meeting. He could barely see Grantaire’s face in the dark room (Grantaire had insisted they leave the lights off for a ‘true cinematic’ experience), and was sorely tempted to elbow him or many any number of snide comments when he noticed Grantaire’s lips moving, just slightly, in time with Alan Rickman’s character speaking on screen.

“Are you...mouthing the lines of the movie?” Enjolras whispered, and Grantaire waved a dismissive hand.

“Shh,” he said. “And yeah, so?”

“So of all the movies in all the world, Die Hard is the one you have memorized?”

Grantaire gave him a look. “What part of shh don’t you understand?” he asked.

“I could ask you the same question during every Les Amis meeting,” Enjolras said, a little sourly. “Besides, since you clearly have the movie memorized, it’s not like you’re going to miss anything.”

Grantaire sighed but relented, half-turning to face Enjolras. “Fine, if you must know, Die Hard happens to be my favorite Christmas movie and, honestly, one of my favorite non-Christmas movies as well.”

Enjolras wrinkled his nose. “Ok, but...why?”

Grantaire made a face. “You’re going to think it’s dumb.”

“Dumber than the movie itself?” Enjolras asked, only half-joking.

Grantaire gave him a look. “Because responses like that are so likely to make me want to confide in you.” Enjolras held his hands up defensively and Grantaire sighed again. “Honestly, it’s my favorite movie because of John McClane, because...well, because he reminds me of you.”

“He – what?”

Enjolras wished he had come up with something more eloquent to say, but luckily, Grantaire didn’t seem to notice, as he was busy avoiding meeting his eyes. “Well, y’know,” he said, shrugging uncomfortably. “Saving the world, or at least Nakatomi plaza, by any means necessary because you realize that sometimes the system is broken and to do the most good, sometimes you’ve got to do it yourself.”

Enjolras opened his mouth to respond and immediately closed it again, mostly to swallow his immediate reaction which was to vehemently deny any similarity between himself and a cop, because despite himself, he knew that wasn’t what Grantaire meant.

Or at least, it better not have been.

“Well,” he said, after the silence between them had stretched to almost uncomfortable, “the comparison to a police officer aside, thank you for, y’know...saying that.” Grantaire nodded stiffly and Enjolras cleared his throat to try to make the moment less awkward. “So, uh, if I’m John McClane, who does that make you.”

Grantaire snorted. “Oh, Argyle, definitely.”

Enjolras gave him a look. “Be serious.”

Grantaire smiled, but it was a pale imitation of his usual smirk. “I am wild.”

Enjolras nudged him with his elbow. “So who?”

Shrugging slightly, Grantaire leaned back against the couch arm rest. “I dunno, probably one of the hostages that dies or something.” Enjolras just looked expectantly at him and Grantaire sighed. “Fine, I always thought if I was like anyone, I’d be most like Holly.”

Enjolras blinked. “John McClane’s wife?”

Grantaire nodded. “Yeah, she’s badass and not afraid to give heroes and villains alike a piece of her mind.”

“You do have that in common, I suppose,” Enjolras said with a light laugh.

“Yeah, but more importantly than a mouth that won’t quit, she doesn’t have to be the hero,” Grantaire continued. “She’s there to help and do what she can, but at the end of the day, it’s John McClane who saves the day, and she’s just along for the ride. And when it comes to Les Amis, and saving the world, well…” He trailed off. “I may be a lot of things, but I think we can both agree I’m not a hero.”

“I don’t know about that,” Enjolras said automatically, and it was hard to say whether he or Grantaire was more surprised. Grantaire stared at him, wide-eyed, and Enjolras flushed before adding, “I mean, uh…”

He trailed off, not able to actually find the excuse he was looking for, and after a long moment, Grantaire forced a laugh before looking pointedly back at the TV. “Well, in any case, spoiler alert Holly also gets the hero in the end, and that we can definitely agree is not in the cards for me.”

“It could be.”

Enjolras would never know what made him say it, but as soon as he did, he knew he meant it. They’d been dancing around this, and each other, for years, and if he didn’t say something now, he wasn’t sure there was any other time that it could happen.

Even if it was happening with John McClane killing vaguely European henchmen in the background.

“Enj—” Grantaire breathed, but Enjolras had already closed the space between them, cupping Grantaire’s cheek with one hand before kissing him lightly.

It was a quick kiss, light and fleeting and a little hesitant, because awkward kisses in the dark while Die Hard played was like something out of high school and Enjolras hadn’t been any more sauve in high school than he was now, but then Grantaire’s lips parted with a sigh and he kissed Enjolras back in earnest.

They broke apart sometime later, Die Hard long forgotten in the background, and Grantaire’s grin was so bright that Enjolras almost forgot the lights were off. “If this is your idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year’s,” Grantaire murmured, and Enjolras raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” he asked, amused.

Grantaire’s grin didn’t so much as flicker. “It’s a line from the movie,” he said. “We can always watch the rest of it, if you’d like.”

“If only there wasn’t something better to do,” Enjolras said dryly before leaning in and kissing him again.

When the movie finally ended, Grantaire pulled away from Enjolras and fumbled for the remote to turn the TV off. He looked back at Enjolras, a slow smile spreading across his face. “So, uh, what’s the verdict - is Die Hard a Christmas movie?”

Enjolras pretended to consider it. “You know, honestly, I didn’t actually see a whole lot of the movie.”

“Shame,” Grantaire said, grinning.

Enjolras nodded. “Yeah. Guess that just means we’ll have to try it again sometime.”

“I’m pretty sure that can be arranged.”

Grantaire leaned in to kiss him again but Enjolras stopped him, resting his hand lightly against Grantaire’s chest. “You do realize we’re not going to watch Die Hard every time we want to do this, right?”

“Of course not. There’s also Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard—” Enjolras groaned and Grantaire laughed, leaning in and kissing him lightly. “Well, we’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah,” Enjolras said, kissing him again. “I’m sure we will.”

#exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #enjolras #grantaire #joly #bossuet #and lots of discussion of Die Hard #les miserables #modern au #developing relationship #ask #answered #adorablecrab #sorry that i took your prompt and did #y'know #this with it

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ilovesamheughan · 4 years

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Herself is fun like no other! 😂

Diana Gabaldon's Foreword to Clanlands Reveals Behind-the-Scenes Stories from the Outlander Set

Here's your first look at the introduction to Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish's new book.

BY DIANA GABALDON

NOV 3, 2020

outlander season 2 2016ED MILLER / STARZ

Well, in The Beginning . . . there was a man in a kilt.

I’ve always figured that if there’s something you want to do, you should start doing it, and if it’s the right thing, the universe kind of comes out to meet you. So, I started writing a novel about a man in a kilt, and the universe brought me a television show.

I’ve been indirectly responsible for a lot of strange things since I wrote Outlander – from:

. . . five seasons (so far) of a hit TV series

. . . the names of dozens of purebred dogs, racehorses and housing developments

. . . thousands of babies named Brianna or Jamie (no one has ever, to my knowledge, named a child ‘Murtagh’, which is puzzling . . .)

. . . Lord John Grey’s Tea

. . . symphonic band compositions

. . . a musical

. . . a Scottish woolen mill specialising in tartan

. . . a marvelous pair of cookbooks

. . . three million knitted cowls

. . . dozens of female fans who lower their trousers at book signings to show me ‘Da mi basia mille’ tattooed on their tailbones (as my husband remarked to me, ‘Well, how many people can say,“Kiss my ass” in classical Latin?’)

. . . a 72% increase in Scottish tourism (as Visit Scotland was kind enough to tell me), and

. . . an excellent whisky called ‘Sassenach’

But this book may be one of the strangest, and definitely one of the best!

I’m deeply honoured that Sam and Graham have asked me to write the foreword to one of the most interesting, unusual (to put it mildly . . .) and hilarious books I’ve read in a long time. I’m not quite sure what you’d call it, but then I’m used to not being able to describe my own books in twenty-five words or less, so this is probably not a problem.

To start with, it’s a buddy book. Two good friends banter (and bicker) their way across the Scottish Highlands, risking life and limb in that casual way that makes men attractive. Why? Well, because they’re both Scottish and they have both been a large part of Outlander (not just the television show, but the whole weird phenomenon), have realised that they are Scottish (wearing a kilt every day for two years will do that to you), and want to find out where their heritage came from and what being Scottish actually means (aside from being born liking whisky)

It’s also a road book. (Think Jack Kerouac, but with fewer drugs, more paragraphs and no sex. Well, almost no sex . . .).

Our two friends are in fact making a television series about several historical locations in the Highlands. Accompanied by a small film crew – including a talented makeup artist and a drone operator – they visit spectacular historical locations in the Scottish Highlands to learn the true history of some of the best-known massacres, fights, betrayals, beheadings, and other typically Scottish recreational activities. This is the story of that journey, accomplished via an aged Fiat camper van, tandem bike, kayak and any number of other improbable modes of transport that only make sense to people suffering from testosterone poisoning.

And on their way, they talk. Not only to each other, but to themselves. In some of its phases, the book is a twin memoir. Each man recalls his life as an actor – in bits – because every actor (like every writer) pretty much makes it up as they go along. Which means a lot of the stories are of the kind that are only funny to the protagonists with twenty years’ perspective, but are endlessly entertaining to the spectators.

These reminiscences include a good many stories from the Outlander set, as well. I’m only on set myself intermittently, but I do recall the day in Season Two when Sam’s horse – which he was preparing to mount – decided to take its mother’s advice and relieve itself before setting out (there’s reason why most costumes are made in multiples). And another occasion during Season Two wherein Graham was required to ride a mechanical horse (as the director said to me, ‘It looks like shit, but you won’t be able to actually see it on film’)

The mechanical horse was carried on the back of a truck, followed by another truck with a camera, and Graham was supposed to leap into the mechanical horse’s saddle while moving (supposedly jump-ing from another horse). This being television, they filmed the scene many, many times to ensure enough footage to get the effect they were after. When they finally stopped, Graham staggered downhill from the road where they’d been doing this, pausing by me and Anne Kenney (brilliant writer of the other episode in that block of filming) to say, ‘I’ve just been having a conversation with my balls. They said, “We’d really rather you didn’t do that again”’. And staggered on, muttering, ‘I knew I should have worn a cup this morning . . .’.

And finally, there’s the actual history of the ‘clan lands’, woven through this tale of a journey. The travelers reach the most interesting/famous/relevant Highland locations, where they do learn what their history and heritage are, assisted by some of the most colorful inhabitants of those places.

So, you’re actually getting four books in one! (A real bargain . . .).

But the most important part of this book is the friendship between its authors, that colours and illuminates every page.

I was both intrigued and immensely entertained by the story, but also touched on a personal level. One of the most unexpected aspects of the whole ‘Outlander phenomenon’ is the amazing way in which it seems to draw people together. People read the books and watch the show – and they want to talk about it. So, they form fan groups and book clubs and Facebook forums, and deep, lasting friendships, all because of a shared love of a story.

I will always recall one woman who brought me a book at a signing, who told me that she lived alone, had been alone for many years, seldom got out and had no family – but that she’d become attracted to the story, found others who felt likewise, and who invited her to go with them to book-signings, premieres and conventions. ‘Now I have friends!’, she said. She cried, and so did I.

I hope you’ll feel that sense of friendship in these pages.

A final word, since this book is all about returning to one’s roots: Some years ago, one of my novels won the Corine International Prize for Fiction, and I was invited to go to Germany to accept the award. This was rather a Big Deal for the German publisher, and they took advantage of my presence to have me interviewed by the entire German press corps; newspapers, magazines, radio, television, literary journals, you name it. By the end of the week I was sleep deprived and a bit glazed over when I met a nice gentleman from one of the literary journals.

Delightful man, he went on at great (and flattering) length about the books. He loved my narrative drive, my characters were tremendous, my imagery transcendent!

So I’m sitting there in a pleasant daze, thinking, ‘Yes, yes, go on . . .’, when he suddenly said, ‘There is just one thing I wonder: can you explain to me, what is the appeal of a man in a kilt?’.

Well, had I been totally conscious, I might not have said it (then again . . .). Anyway, I looked at him for a moment and said, ‘Well . . .I suppose it’s the idea that you could be up against a wall with him in a moment.’

<ahem>

A few weeks later, home again in Arizona, I get a packet of interview clippings from the German publisher, and on the top is the interview from that journal. The publisher had attached a Post-it note, saying, ‘I don’t know what you said to this man, but I think he is in love with you!’.

A man in a kilt. A very powerful and compelling image, yes . . . And now you have two of them . . .

Pour yourself a good dram, open the covers and enjoy yourself!

Slàinte mhath!

Diana Gabaldon

Scottsdale, Arizona

August, 2020

#sam heughan #clanlands book #diana gabaldon #grahammctavish

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prongsmydeer · 3 years

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Ayesha Liveblogs Oh My Ghost (2018) Ep. 1-8

As a precursor to the mildly harrowing journey I’m about to take you on, you should know that I initially liveblogged this in a Discord chat, so what I liveblogged is purposely not emphasizing some of the stranger elements of this show. Anyway, I thought, well why not have this fever dream live on my blog too. Spoilers ahead, but as I’ve said: it’s not that I recommend this show, but I did watch the whole thing

This woman is chanting at a rooftop altar in a lightning storm so I'm guessing she's responsible for the horny ghost

Just as I was pondering the fact that this is the only piece of Thai media I have consumed in which the main characters are not, to my knowledge, mlm or wlw, the next three characters to appear on screen were all gay (I do think they're just bit roles and not important characters but it was funny timing)

Update: God this is the second show premised upon Magical Virginity set in Asia I've seen in the past few months; r u ok Thailand and Japan

In an ironic twist of fate, she can't go to the afterlife unless she has sex with someone.... as a ghost????

I don't care for most of the chefs in this kitchen; both the sous-chef and executive chef seem to physically intimidate staff below them

In more fun news Jiw, the shy main character, seems to see all sorts of dead people, since she is currently being haunted by spectres other than Horny Ghost, who has not yet met her

Grandma's explanation for why Jiw sees ghosts is that it's hereditary

UNBELIEVABLE SOMEONE HAS REFERRED TO HER AS A HORNY GHOST ON SCREEN

I'm oddly endeared by this sudden auto-rickshaw-chasing-a-taxi shenanigan, makes me miss India a little

“The onIy thing I can’t let go now is just that” It appears that the fact her virginity is relevant not because it's part of some greater Thai ghost lore, but because she specifically really wants to have sex but died before she could. The Horny Ghost Title prevails

It has been implied that Sun the Executive Chef may somehow be one of the 1-in-ten-million-men who could withstand having sex with a ghost, I now understand the trajectory of this show

“If one day you happen to possess someone who has exactly the same frequency as you, you will never be able to leave that body” The heavy-handed exposition is great

Reasons I Do Not Trust Sun the Executive Chef:

1) He seems p harsh with his staff

2) He was rude to his mum

3) He doesn't like rice!!!! Who do u think u are!!! Gluten-intolerant???

Oh my goooood, I think Win the Handsome Restaurant Staff Who Studied Abroad (who I have been rooting for since he was introduced purely because he's handsome) might be Jiw's love interest hkjhgkjhgkhg

It might be a love square!!! Jiw and Win falling for each other while Horny Ghost tries to get with Sun the Executive Chef

“You know why I don’t like you?” SUN YOU ARE HER EMPLOYER!!!

He's right but he's rude 😔:

“A woman shouldn’t have scars on her hands” The context of this comment is that Jiw has just spilled hot soup on her hands kjhfkhfjhf sorry Sun, femininity isn't flame-retardant

Sun's tragic backstory is that he was also once a crybaby who apologized too much

Though in fairness to Jiw, if I were seeing ghosts and had this kind of work culture, I'd be stressed out too

Jury's still out on Sun; I do like Sun's sister and her husband, they both seem very nice so far

I'm confused by the fact that Jiw's landlord seems to barge into her place anytime he wants??? Also he's threatening her to evict her for her Ghost-Be-Gone-Rituals

The first actual hint of romance: Sun is commenting on Jiw's food blog, which he doesn't know belongs to her, bc he thinks her recipe and passion for cooking is nice

KUHHGDKJHGKJDHGKJHSJDKHG Horny Ghost has now possessed Jiw and has just THROWN SUN TO THE GROUND for trying to root through her purse for the storage room key

My guess is that the Horny Ghost will try to get with Sun the Executive Chef, while inhabiting Jiw’s body Greed-from-FMAB-style

Ep 2: Horny Ghost is attempting to figure out what Jiw's job is in this restaurant while still impersonating/possessing her

Barely ten minutes in and she has already challenged the sous-chef to a fight

Horny Ghost’s only priorities are fucking and fighting

God it's so hard get through this show it's too embarrassing

POOR JIWWWWWW SHE DOES NOT DESERVE TO HAVE THIS PERSON IN CHARGE OF HER BODY JGHKJHG

Jiw has been saved from further embarrassment because Sun has been taken into the police station. Bc he firmly escorted a food blogger out of his restaurant in ep 1 for yelling at his staff and now she's filing false charges against him. Whack

Why is there a shower in the back of this restaurant??? I was willing to accept the lockers for their stuff but the shower perplexes me. Was this building formerly a gym??

And yeah I don't know if I'll make it through this whole show bc I have to pause every minute or two to be embarrassed

TOOK 1 MINUTE FOR JIW TO SHOW UP IN THE SHOWER

I feel all of these emotions

Horny Ghost!Jiw is taking Handsome Study-Abroad Win on a date; I feel bad for both Jiw and Win bc I think they have a vibe going on hgkjhgjh

Executive Chef Sun is solving his B Plot problems by leaving fake positive reviews about his own restaurant

Sun is mad at his mom for settling his legal dispute bc she wasn't there when he was a Sad Little Rich Boy (Now he is simply a Mad Tall Rich Man)

I keep forgetting that the Sous Chef's name is Rain; hgkjhgkjhg I wonder if Sun hired him for the comedy of it

Oh with added context Sun and his mom had a rough go of it actually, she had him young and sent his sister to live with their aunt and kind of really did leave Sun to fend for himself

SUN MADE A FRIEND

Sun's mom and Horny Ghost's Nemesis (Auntie Pu) are hanging out bc Sun's mom is very superstitious

Also dear god these episodes are each an hour long???

An earlier sidenote: There was a scene where Auntie Pu seemed to be heckled by God for her inability to catch Horny Ghost

Executive Chef Sun is now shooting a cooking competition and Rain has been thrown out by security so I'm guessing that Sun and Horny Ghost will be ✨ live ✨ on ✨ television ✨

So the theme of the cooking competition is Mom's Home Cooking and they've mentioned like 3 times that Sun's mom never cooked anything for him

I know this is supposed to be a sad moment for Sun but I'm cracking up bc he reacted like he'd just been shot kghkjgh

Horny Ghost is helppppppppppppppppping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh noooooooo the sad old man restaurant owner having a hard time with his business who they occasionally cut to is Horny Ghost's dad, it seems!!

You know, ironically even though the other Thai media I've watched has been set mostly coming of age/university stories, this is the first thing aside from Love of Siam that has put such emphasis on the parents. Most other media has been ‘1-2 parent scenes in the whole thing is enough’

HORNY GHOST HAS REGAINED SOME OF HER MEMORIES AND NOW HAS A NAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HER DAD CALLS HER 'KAOPOON'

Awww Dad's Restaurant used to be so bustling with life when Kaopoon was still alive 💔

Kaopoon's obnoxious personality really suited her old life!!

What an unexpected turn towards sincerity and emotional depth

In more light-hearted news, Sun is still vain as hell

Also shout-out to Thailand for the adult orthodontics representation kjhkgjh I noticed this in 2gether as well, it seems a p common thing

Kaopoon has made the bold choice of hanging out of with her dad and snooping through her old room. I can only imagine this will lead to a fight with her brother, bc she has Jiw's face

OH MY GOD KAOPOON HAS BEEN STEALING FROM SUN'S RESTAURANT TO GIVE STUFF TO HER DAD'S RESTAURANT KJHFKHGK

Another ongoing subplot mildly stressing me out: Sun's sister Nam is married to a policeman and it turns out that Kaopoon used to have a crush on him when she was alive and I'm like DON'T FLIRT WITH HIM IN JIW'S BODY PLEASE DON'T NAM IS HER FRIEND

Sous Chef Rain is being a real bro to Horny Ghost Kaopoon and saying “We should all be held responsible so we don't lose our trust in each other” to which Executive Chef Sun says “that makes you a thief,” bc being rich makes u lose empathy I guess lmao

🎶 This is I why do not trust the Bourgeoisie 🎶

Executive Chef Sun is now expressing his regret for firing his Sous Chef to his dog, who, while doing nothing but eat, has stolen the scene and any of my sympathy

Whoops Horny Ghost's brother is about to reveal her Restaurant Crimes to her boss, I'm pretty sure

I hate that Horny Ghost's brother keeps insinuating that Horny Ghost/Jiw is seeking a “sugar d*ddy” or flirting like can't people just be nice jghjkg? I hope that Sun realizes now that family or not, she was being kind, not stealing for self-gain

This is so fucking funny Sun found out about Jiw/Horny Ghost's restaurant crimes, seemingly forgave her on the spot for no good reason, and hired Sous Chef Rain back only for the rest of the restaurant staff to immediately begin muttering about how much they hated Rain hahaha

I'm beginning to think Sous Chef Rain has a weird passive-aggressive crush on Executive Chef Sun. I would support it only bc I find them both exhausting and the comedy of two people named Sun and Rain falling in love is great

Rain: We have a strong bond. Stronger than friends, family or brothers. Sun, and also me: 👀🤔

“I helped you fix things with Rain,” said Horny Ghost Kaopoon, as if she had not also been one of several sources of conflict at her restaurant. (Also this dialogue is part of her drunkenly coming onto Sun.. which is quite something to watch)

Study-Aboard Win Who Probably Has Feelings for Real Jiw to the rescue

God, who has the mental strength to get through show all at once? Really and genuinely every time this show gives me a false sense of normalcy they do something embarrassing dhfjhfjk where is the pay-off? Where is the romance??

Sun's childhood friend Ida who seems to have a crush on him tried to invite him up to her apartment [Tiktok voice "I wanna ruin our friendship"] but he said nah so now he's standing in the rain thinking about their history

First of all, sir, you are 30, so I don’t see the point of trying to pretend the same actor makes sense in a school uniform. Second of all, is wearing glasses and having bangs all that it takes to make you unpopular? What kinda She's All That nonsense??

Sun's argument for denying the booty call is that they should've dated in university but now they've missed their moment

Horny Ghost has just found out her Cop Crush is married (to Sun's sister) and Sun has just rejected himself from the Friendship Booty Call, so I wonder if they're going to have Sad Sex in the Rain

Update: No one is having sex in the rain but Horny Ghost Kaopoon has just been kicked out of her apartment and is now going to sleep in the restaurant I guess, this should end well

Sun definitely has a weird crush on Horny Ghost bc he keeps letting her get away with all kinds of shit kjhgkhgkgh she has punched him, stole from him, come onto him strongly, and snuck into the restaurant at night and she's just like “~~please chef 🥺” and he's like “FINE 😤😊 you can do whatever I guess”

That said despite taking it fine he did not let her stay the night at the restaurant so I guess that's the one thing she's not allowed to do jghkhgg

Uhhhhhh it seems like the Cop Crush is reciprocated???????? Kaopoon/Jiw was like “You must love her a lot” and he was like “who” ABOUT HIS WIFE!!!

Sun has gotten caught up with Jealousy Antics towards Childhood Friend Ida and now Kaopoon is attempting to blackmail him to let her stay at the restaurant lmaooo

Okay Win his definitely in love with ONE of the two (Sun or Jiw/Kaopoon) bc Jiw/Kaopoon slept in the restaurant and everyone's like “Oooooh Chef and Jiw got lucky last night” and they had a lingering shot of Win looking longingly in their direction

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Sun just kissed Jiw/Kaopoon bc of a fever-induced hallucination I bet u $85 that Ida is about to walk in

Kaopoon has confirmed that Sun is Ghost-fucking Proof and now she's 100% Mission Sleep with My Possessee's Boss Before I Get Turned Into an Evil Spirit in Two Months

She just straight up asked him, “Will you do it with me? Just once?”

Sun, emotionally, at this particular moment: [Donkey Kong meme]

(As an aside I really wish Kaopoon were not up in everyone's grill romantic advance-wise this is straight up worse than an anime in that sense)

Oh my god is this how they actually become friends?????? By her chasing him around asking him to fuck and him going “NO” and then physically rolling her away from him

I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR DYNAMIC!!!!!!!! WHY IS THIS WEIRD FUCK-PROPOSITION MONTAGE SET TO SUCH PEPPY MUSIC

I have now pivoted and I think Cop Crush may have murdered Kaopoon???????? Auntie Pu (Horny Ghost Kaopoon's Nemesis) just said his identity was death and suspicious music played

OH MY GOD FOR SOME REASON SUN UNPLUGGING HIS PHONE CHARGER HAD THE COSMIC EFFECT OF REMOVING HORNY GHOST FROM JIW'S BODY???? WHAT!! WHAT!!!!!!!!

Every time I think "that's it, I'm done with this" they keep pulling me back in!!!

DGhfjdkjk?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They just made Cop Crush run over an unhoused man's recycling??? I guess to establish that we shouldn't trust him??? What is the writing on this show!!

Dkjhgsdkjhgkjh a Canadian character has appeared for some wonderfully stilted English dialogue:

Sun: How's Canada sir?

Canadian Ambassador: Canada was very cold, but it's good to be back

Sun: It sounds like fun anyway!

CA: It is! It's always fun!

Sun: Ok!

JIW HAS ACCIDENTALLY SET FIRE TO THE BACK OF THE RESTAURANT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I figure if I power through the show the psychic damage will be shorter term

Also I think Sun has accosted Real Jiw for a psychiatric evaluation bc of her reasonably erratic behaviour

To add to the layers of this show, Jiw and Sun are back to interacting via her recipe blog and he's all like “wow this internet gal is my soulmate 😍“ like the dumbass he is

Not to detract from internet relationships or anything, but they've exchanged ONE comment

They're having at least a minute long back and forth of cutting to these two staring stupidly into the distance thinking about each other

Kaopoon's father seems to have alcohol poisoning and Cop Crush just left him in the back storage closet on the ground????????????? Heavy-handed murder foreshadowing I think

Kaopoon saved her dad by possessing Jiw again; as much as I understand why she did it I really do feel bad for Jiw bc Kaopoon keeps living her life for her, you know? Seems unkind

Sun just offered to train Jiw/Kaopoon to be a chef (which Jiw really would want to do) but will Jiw be present for it? Hard to say!

SURE YOU WERE LIEUTENANT MURDER

It's been narratively established that Jiw does not remember what happens while she's been possessed so it makes the possessions that much sadder. Particularly since everyone but Win seems to like Kaopoon better

Bc this show needs at least four dramatic plots per episode, Sun has invited his childhood bullies to his restaurant to mock them passive-aggressively with his wealth

The bullies are like: Hey Sun, your childhood trauma's really harshing the vibe

Sun found out his Main Bully (Big) is really not doing well income-wise and now he feels slightly bad for mocking him with his wealth

Clearly Sun has not caught onto the Horny Ghost Situation

Oh my GOD “I spring up every time you talk horny because I’m scared of your words” Sun really said: ‘Well mark me down as a scared AND horny’

Auntie Pu whacked Horny Ghost out of Jiw on the way to their Spring Roll Not-Date so Jiw will finally get to experience some chef stuff with Sun

Sun, despite his reservations, seems to have a crush on all of Jiw's various personalities

He's playing guitar for Jiw through their shared apartment wall just bc she stopped on the street bc she saw a guitar player 🥺❤️

Real Jiw really likes him!! This is the Thai Jamie Oliver bullshit I signed up for

SCREAM he's trying to take Real Jiw on a bike ride kjhgkjhgkh what a quit pivot from his standoffishness to “I will be involved in every aspect of your life”

This biking day concluded in a way I could not have possibly predicted which was, as an interruption to their flirting, they had to high-speed foot chase a bicycle part thief, which they caught because Real Jiw BIT HIM on the leg

And Sun, because he is OUT OF HIS MIND, is just kinda like: “Love that for you babe 🥰”

OKAY SUN YOU MAY HAVE ONE (1) BOURGEOSIE PASS

The Jiw/Sun/Ida stuff finally comes to a head because Ida brought him a cake but Jiw and Sun are already sharing a cake (and restaurant-apartment building)

“Think of it as... helping a hungry policeman” EVERYTHING THIS MAN DOES IS SO FREAKING SUSPICIOUS

Somehow I don't think this is a reasonable request, Kaopoon

Things have escalated and now Auntie Pu, Kaopoon and Jiw are all on Team Sun Should Have Sex with Horny Ghost

I'm gonna power through as much of this show as I can at once so on it goes lol

I kind of understand Sun's "I'm not going to deal with this" way of approaching romance but man it sucks to be Ida who has tried to be pretty forthright with her feelings

So apparently Sun's sister Nam has not always had a wheelchair, she only had it starting three years ago, which is when Kaopoon died,,,,, did Cop Crush murder Kaopoon AND injure his wife,,,,, the stank vibes!!!

As weird as it is that Kaopoon and Jiw are working together to seduce Sun, it's exactly what I wanted and thought this show would be from the beginning

Win said all women are queens 😌❤️

Rain: Why are you protecting [Jiw as Kaopoon]? Is she your girlfriend or something?

Win: Do I need to be her boyfriend to do that? Fine, I'll be her boyfriend then

Sun purposely did not give Win the prize in their Friendly Vacation Cooking Competition because he is jealous that Jiw and Win seem to be flirting; this man said my love language is Passive Aggression

They're going on yet another couple's bike ride (this time ft. Horny Ghost Jiw, which Sun simply canonically thinks is a product of mania, which is fair I guess)

Nam's friends are talking about the person who did a hit and run to Nam getting karmic justice while Lieutenant Murder sits there, probably the one that did it

Lieutenant Murder (formerly known as Cop Crush) just keyed his wife's friend's car because they need to establish that he is not only evil, but also a run-of-the-mill dick

Gsdkdhgkhgkh Kaopoon as Jiw has been trapped inside a storage crate by a tween girl who can see ghosts and u can this is set in Thailand (or Asia generally) bc they cut to this temp gauge like 10C is a really threatening temp. Girl it's chilly but you are fine!!

Sun said, "I am in love with all sides of Jiw, Aggressive Horny Ghost I Think Is Mania included"

#ayesha says things #ayesha liveblogs oh my ghost #liveblogging #oh my ghost 2018 #thai television #television #long post

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the-desolated-quill · 4 years

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It’s Summer And We’re Running Out Of Ice - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I’m not going to lie. I was incredibly sceptical going into this. This isn’t the first TV adaptation of a classic novel to go beyond the source material and try to continue the story, and they nearly always suck (see The Handmaid’s Tale and The Man In The High Castle). There’s a reason why books end where they’re supposed to end. If the author intended to carry the story on, they would have done so. This is why I get angry when the TV industry arrogantly oversteps the mark and try to continue a plot that has already come to a satisfactory conclusion. Doing a sequel to Watchmen, a story that hinges on the ambiguity of its ending, is just utter madness to me, and allowing Damon Lindelof to write that sequel borders on moronic at first glance. This is the man behind the TV series Lost, a show that ran out of steam within the first couple of episodes due to the fact that the plot was complete and total bollocks and the fact that nobody could be bothered to come up with satisfying answers for these ludicrous mysteries and series arcs beforehand. They were just making that shit up as he went along. Now you’re handing Lindelof the keys to one of the most intricate and detailed comic book properties of all time?! Fuck, why don’t you just let JJ Abrams direct the next Star Wars mo- Oh yeah, I forgot, he already did that.

Thankfully, judging by this first episode anyway, HBO’s Watchmen is nowhere near as bad as Lost. It’s certainly far more engaging and coherent. Does that mean I’m looking forward to the rest of this season? Well... I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’m definitely intrigued though.

HBO’s Watchmen is a sequel to the graphic novel (Lindelof called it a remix, but come on. Grow a pair and call it what it is. A sequel). Superheroes are still illegal, Robert Redford is now the President, Rorschach’s death has inspired a white supremacist cult, and it’s raining squid.

Yeah, the raining squid thing feels like the only egregious bit of fanwank in here, to be fair. Maybe they’re going somewhere with this, but I have my doubts. Are we supposed to assume that Ozymandias has been making squid rain for the past thirty odd years in order to keep up the whole alien invasion ruse? Why squid rain? And why is everyone so nonchalant about it? Shouldn’t people be just a bit concerned by this, considering what happened in New York?

Speaking of Ozymandias, we see him riding a horse and writing plays for his butler and maid in some fancy mansion. Quite what the significance of The Watchmaker’s Son is, I don’t know. All I do know is I’m not going to be able to sleep at night without thinking about Jeremy Irons’ thighs from now on, so thanks for that.

Putting my cynicism aside for a moment, I do like what Lindelof is trying to do here. He’s not merely cashing in on the Watchmen brand. There is a genuine effort to do something fresh and different with this material, and I commend that. Watchmen’s central theme has always been about power, but whereas the source material focused mainly on its relation to sex (Comedian’s hedonism, Nite Owl’s impotence, Rorschach’s mummy issues and the sexual objectification of Silk Spectre), the TV series seems to be zeroing in on race as a topic. This I applaud. Expanding on certain areas that the graphic novel only ever really touched upon is a great idea. This doesn’t feel like a repeat of the graphic novel, but rather a clarification of it, exploring areas and themes that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons may have overlooked. This helps set this series apart from the outset.

The opening scenes where we see the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 is a pretty harrowing way to start. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea about the Tulsa Massacre prior to this, and we could have a whole other discussion about why schools seem to have been avoiding teaching specific topics like this in favour of the broad strokes of the Jim Crow era, but now is not the time. The fact that it’s depicted here sets the stage for what’s to come. Some have criticised the show for the length of time the opening focuses on Tulsa, claiming that it sensationalises the pain of black people at that time. I personally don’t think it does. It’s not overly graphic or gratuitous, at least in my opinion, but it is a very shocking way to open a series. Some might say even upsetting, but I think it’s important that we saw this because it’s relevant in setting the tone for the episode and indeed the season as a whole, as well as letting the audience know that this show isn’t going to fuck around or shy away from more sensitive topics, and I can respect that. Unlike Zack Snyder’s overly stylised adaptation from 2009, Watchmen the HBO series is grounded very firmly in reality.

Let’s discuss characters. This episode mostly focuses on Angela Abar, also known as Sister Night. Regina King has given some terrific performances in the past and this is no exception. She’s simply phenomenal. The way she switches from light-hearted wife and baker to violent, no nonsense vigilante cop. The shift is noticeable and yet both personas feel like they’re aspects of the same character. It’s exceptionally good. It also helps that the character herself makes for a great protagonist. Having survived the ‘White Night’ four years prior, where the Seventh Kavalry attacked the families of forty Tulsa police officers in response to the government giving special reparations to the victims of racial injustice, Angela has become cynical and battle hardened. She has no sympathy for Kavlary members and is willing to skip due process by beating one of them to a pulp and bundling him in the back of her car. She’s angry and in pain, and yet retains the audience's sympathy. I’m interested to see what happens to her over the course of the season.

I also really liked her friendship with Don Johnson’s character Judd Crawford. Johnson is a charismatic performer and Crawford is a charismatic character. He really dives into the olde western sheriff persona and seems to be having a lot of fun with it. Crawford is the only other character, besides Angela, who stayed on as a police officer after the White Night, and the two characters seem to have a great relationship. They laugh and joke around and there’s clearly a mutual respect between the two. I genuinely like this character, which is what makes his murder at the end so much more heartbreaking. Not to mention all the little details that force us to realise he may not be what he seems. We see him sniff cocaine in private and there’s a photo on his desk featuring the kid from school who aggressively asked Angela why black people deserve reparations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Crawford himself is racist, but there’s clearly more going on with him that we don’t know about.

The final character of interest at the moment is Tim Blake Nelson’s character Wade Tillman, aka Looking Glass. We don’t know anything about him yet other than he’s a human lie detector, which I find very intriguing and I hope will be explored further as the show goes on. There’s a lot to play around with there, and the moral implications are tantalising. A conviction based not on physical evidence, but rather on the observations of one man. Even Sherlock Holmes has to back his deductions up with evidence, and yet Looking Glass clearly doesn’t need to. That just raises so many ethical questions. What if he has a particular bias towards someone? What about burden of proof? What if forensic evidence contradicts him? If Looking Glass is supposedly that accurate, does that mean the police will side with him regardless? It’s a great premise for a character and I really like Nelson’s performance, giving him a cold and detached personality that contrasts beautifully with Angela’s.

The characters and ideas are solid, however where I feel the show is lacking is with the consistency of its world building. Let’s analyse. This is an alternate history where Nixon used superheroes to extend his term limits, but after the New York attack at the end of the graphic novel, he’s been kicked out in favour of Robert Redford (nice nod to the source material there by the way. lol). As a result, black people got reparations for the racial injustices their ancestors went through and police are now unable to openly carry firearms without special permission from Panda (literally a cop wearing a panda costume). However, after the events of White Night, the government agrees to allow cops to wear masks to protect their identities, hence why quote/unquote ‘superheroes’ like Sister Night and Looking Glass are around despite the existence of the Keene Act. These are, in effect, legal vigilantes. Except already there’s a problem with conflicting messages. I like the idea of masked cops. In the current age of Black Lives Matter and police accountability, it makes sense and could be interesting to explore. However this is hindered by the whole ‘no guns’ stuff. Again, not a bad idea. America’s current gun laws are, to put it mildly, woefully inadequate. What if we went the other way? What if not only was it near impossible to own a gun, cops couldn’t even use a taser without special permission. Both ideas could work... but not at the same time.

Cops being allowed to wear masks creates the effect of empowering them through anonymity, and runs the risk of officers overstepping the mark and normal citizens being unable to hold them to account. But on the other hand, we’ve also got cops whose lives are constantly at risk and who are hindered in their duties by an overprotective nanny state, which effectively depowers them. So... which is it? It can’t be both. I like the scene where Panda reads the law about how the use of firearms can only be permitted in extreme circumstances, and everyone just angrily shouts him down because it tells us how the police feel about this new system. The fact that they’ve made one cop the sole arbiter of these new restrictions and forced him to dress like some ridiculous furry demonstrates the sheer amount of disdain they have towards this policy. But having said that, with the masks on, they have the power and freedom to break into people’s caravans and basically kidnap and assault them without consequence anyway. So what the fuck are they complaining about? It just doesn’t gel together. Either have it that the rules and regulations of the police are the same as our world except that cops can wear masks now, which has led to an increasing problem of police brutality and corruption, or have it that the police are being too heavily restricted and so a few have chosen to turn toward more ‘unorthodox’ methods of crime fighting out of frustration. Pick one and go with it.

Then there’s the Seventh Kavalry. Again, not a bad idea. In fact I love it. A white supremacist cult that’s taken Rorschach’s journal as gospel and have banded together out of a fear of being sidelined in a more liberal world. Very relevant and very interesting. Except... well... there’s not an awful lot to it, is there? In the original graphic novel, there was no clear bad guy. Ozymandias believed he was doing the ultimate good by killing millions of people to save the world, and everyone reluctantly went along with it. It was morally complicated. This, not so much. They’re unambiguously evil. The end. So what? What is there to discuss? It just feels lacking compared to the graphic novel and it runs the risk of creating a conflict that’s too clear cut. Obviously we’re going to end up siding with the cops, regardless of what they do, because the alternative is objectively bad. Hopefully Lindelof is going somewhere with this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I was slightly concerned.

So on the whole, would I say I enjoyed this first episode? Well... I’d say I did, but with reservations. There’s some good characters and ideas that could be interesting to explore and develop, but its execution feels a little shaky in places. Hopefully the episodes to come will offer further clarity.

#it's summer and we're running out of ice #watchmen #watchmen hbo #damon lindelof #dc #hbo #review #spoilers

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invertedeidolon · 4 years

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The Longest Library #5: The Crying Sisters by Mabel Seely

(This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.)

Rundown: A librarian wishes for a little more excitement in her life and IMMEDIATELY regrets it. Goes to a resort with a stranger, hired to look after his kid. His kid is cute but he may or may not be a fucking literal murderer?? We don’t know!! 4/5, good suspense, great pacing, a steady read that won’t make you obsessively read for three days straight, but it will definitely overtake your lunch breaks.

This entry took me a little longer, not because it was a bad book, but because for roughly two or so weeks I got caught up in mental health shite and had to re-tweak my schedule YET AGAIN and force a half hour of reading in the mornings to make sure I actually had time to read. This book was wonderful.

I think this book marks the first actually good mystery I’ve ever read. Considering I never read mysteries, and the first one I read was catballs mcgee over here. There are some reviews that seem to be bothered by the authors occasional tendency to mention something and then go “I had no idea that would be so important at the time”. Personally, I loved it. It put me in a further state of suspense, and it had me attempting to put more things together. There’s not enough info to pin one person down, and the really obvious choice is a REALLY obvious choice, and the main heroine constantly agonizes over it, so you know the book wouldn’t do THAT, but still... what if? The very last resort my mind ended up going to in a lazy scooby doo kind of way ended up being right, but the intricacies of their place in the whole plot was still a surprise.

No, the super conservative prude witch lady had absolutely nothing to do with any of it, she was just unpleasant.

A really cool thing about this book, at least the copy that I have, is that it’s a reprint from 1944, during the war. There’s a little note in the front about book cloth shortage because of war-time rationing (you can see it in my instagram post here). So instead it was bound in a ‘sturdy paper fabric’ instead. That, plus the aging of the paper, give it a really smooth and airy feel, for a book. I love holding this thing.

Okay, onto quotes.

We already start off strong with the writer’s description of oppressive summer heat:

“In the afternoon I was a cooking waffle between two irons, the steely paving and the chromium sky; heat from below pressed up and heat from above pressed down until the juice oozed out of my bones and each eye was a separate furnace”

Hot damn that’s a HOT day.

“My imagination worked overtime a bit, but the last thing I would ever have thought was that that revolver would come into my possession”

There’s that hinting that people were talking about. But it wasn’t useless or meandering. This line appears on page seven and become EXTREMELY pertinent by the end of the story. I don’t mind hinting if it isn’t useless without giving too much away. We have no idea about the circumstances of how she gets the gun, but all we know is that she gets it, and that’s just a tiny bit exciting already. The author putting a little foreshadowing in front of us directly didn’t bother me because not only was it immediately relevant (usually within a chapter or so), but also relevant in an even more significant way by the end of the book.

“...if Cottie calls me mamma, then anyone who hears him will think I’m your wife.” “I won’t.” It was cold enough to douse me the rest of the way back to sanity. “I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind. I‘m not going.” His answer came with the tired reasonableness of a construction boss rebuking a steel riveter who complains he is afraid of high places. “Aw, quit being a sissy pants.” Sissy pants! Before I could recover he had elbowed me aside, and was inside my car.”

What the FUCK. What a little shit! Holy fuck! This man makes me feel offended and incredulous like an amish spinster looking at capri pants! Like what the fuck!!!!

“I can see, now, how expertly he handled me, how exactly he conveyed the right amount of disinterest in me, how he goaded me into staying.”

This man is a fucking EXPERT at manipulating the heroine. Your own mind sort of starts to soften to him the further you read, because like the heroine, in the beginning there’s no reason to like or tolerate the man, but as you go on, it becomes a necessary evil if you want to figure out what the FUCK is going on. I also started to get just as curious as to who he really was and what business he had at the resort. (by the end of the book I came to understand it’s a lot like how Kain had to handle Raziel: You can’t reveal too much or you risk your plans going astray, but for fuck’s sake Kain, you could be way less of an ass about it, you know?)

“Whatever had been done in the resort tonight, for whatever reason a woman had screamed, he was staying. The cot creaked lengthily as he lay down. I tried, with an effect of pressing a lid down on a kettle that bubbled and boiled over, to suppress my expectant terror.”

Damn that’s a good description of that feeling. I used to get that way when I heard stuff at night and my (at the time) untreated, panic prone brain immediately went “IT’S A CRIMINAL, A MURDERER, A CRIMURDERER, YOU MOVE AND YOU DIE”

“Mrs. Clapshaw carried herself like a small dragoon and had a nose like a thin white claw. I thought she’d be the acid test. “A scream?” She repeated rapidly, reaching upward with the nose. “Mrs. Corbett, I’m so glad you heard it. It’s the Reds. I’ve told Mr. Loxton here. There are un-American activities going on at that Flaming Door. Nazis.” She bit at her decisive words as they went past her teeth.”

Oh my god. Thankfully we don’t really deal with this lady for long, but holy fuck. The heroine wisely doesn’t spend any more time with her on purpose.

“You can decide to treat me like a person or I leave. I don’t like being pushed over or taunted or overruled or spoken to contemptuously. I can leave here today. It’s my car.” “Sure. Why don’t you?” Why is it that being invited to make good on a threat makes you want to change your mind? As usual when I’m pushed over the edge of anger, I couldn’t find words, and stood sputtering.”

The thing about Steve (this asshole’s name is Steve) is that he doesn’t force her to stay. He makes it quite clear in his smug little way that she always had the choice to leave at literally any time, and many times gives her orders knowing full well she can very well disobey them (and she does at times). She has a gun. Why doesn’t she shoot him? Go to the sheriff? But just. God. The man is infuriating and uncomfortably manipulative, but when immersed in the book, it becomes something mildly amusing, although the real world implications and usage of this kind of manipulation are sobering. The curiosity overrode everything else.

“I didn’t know how difficult it was going to be to keep out of Mr. Sprung’s way, or for what a long section of the chain he was going to be responsible.”

Another hint. The heroine frequently refers to the thread of the mystery as a chain (i.e: Chain of events), and it’s used fairly frequently through the book, sometimes in creative ways. There’s a moment where she realizes she’s reached the point of no return, that she’s in too deep, and goes on to describe how she can feel the chain whipping around her and binding her.

“Something would come of this night business now. I had in an instant a hundred blinding expectations -- a shot through the door, harsh angry voices calling to open, Steve Corbett rushing to attack the source of the light, men tramping in to say he was caught. My internal arrangements drew out into a rope and then tied themselves into one tight knot as I sat there with all animation suspended.”

Night noises be like that though. Man, these descriptions of the heroine’s internal reactions to things have been excellent!

“I’d heard that thin, high tone before. I’d heard it walking along a country road with telephone wires over my head and a wind in the wires. It was eerie in the wires. It was deadly in the man’s voice.”

“The boy was the man’s son, and the man loved him almost with agony. Yet last night he had walked out of the cottage into some circumstance he thought might be so dangerous he might never come back.”

“Suddenly I was shaking again, clutching Steve Corbett’s arm. He wasn’t shaking, but the muscles hardened as my fingers grasped; it was like touching a sleeve holding a warm marble arm. Had this been the arm I fought against last night?”

“The eyes above me had the same blue-metal gleam as the revolver’s mouth.”

The author does a fantastic job of making Steve Corbett seem like a very threatening potential murderer, nearly everything around him is foggy, suspicious, and mildly threatening in it’s implications, and yet there’s never enough solid evidence to truly pin anything on him. Both myself and the heroine could only stand by and watch further with a distinct sense of unease as everything unfolded both too quickly and not quickly enough.

“If tampering with the truth was illegal, the sheriff was a bit unlawful himself. “She couldn’t see, it was black as pitch,” Niddie denied weakly. “So there was something to see!” Niddie wasn’t the stuff of Hoxie Moebbels; once the sheriff had an opening wedge he weakened quickly.”

I like the sheriff a lot.

“I had hardly heard her. The corner of my eye had caught the stubby white patent-leather sandals on her feet. Caught between the heel and the instep of one sandal was a dry scrap of plantain leaf.”

So, something that annoyed me a little bit in the last mystery, was that the glimpses of suspicion raising evidence sometimes didn’t mean anything. They’re were just like ‘ooooo, suspicious!!!! It MEANS something!!!’. Here the narrator (our heroine) seems way more credible, relatable, and the events preceding it turns this into a massive clue. AND it’s later actually relevant, and NOT evidence of the heroine being (understandably) paranoid!

“If ever there was an evil-eyed harridan, I thought, she was it. I wondered what had built the immense familiarity with the worst impulses of men, that lay in her eyes, the thickness of her slow, significant voice, the turn of her hands, the slide of her thick hips.”

Another good description of yet another extremely suspicious person.

“We called hello in return, Carol prinking and smiling.”

Autocorrect can’t tell me that’s not a word.

prink /priNGk/ verb spend time making minor adjustments to one's appearance; primp. "prinking themselves in front of the mirror"

Ah, so nowadays we would more readily recognize ‘primping’ as opposed to this one. Nice! I learned a new word!

“In a white rayon bathing suit her figure was as plushly luscious as an overstuffed pink satin davenport.”

So she’s cute chubby! Nice! I assume this is roughly the era or coming from a writer from an era that was just on the edge of where being ‘too skinny’ was a REALLY bad thing.

“Look, Janet.” It was the first time he’d used my name.”

213 pages in. What a piece of work.

“Wasn’t it too bad I couldn’t be placated by an ice-cream cone, I thought grimly, as I went to obey orders.”

Me too, Janet. Me too.

“This was the sheriff to whom I held with the emotion portrayed by the girl in the old oleograph of the storm swept cross.”

If anybody knows what painting this is, that would be fantastic. I can only barely imagine it based on context, but that’s about it.

The quotes and the commentary are more sparse here at the end because I don’t want to give too much away.

This was a book that I genuinely enjoyed, and I could easily recommend it for some casual but still absorbing reading. They still print this book in paperback now, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find, it’s just me that has the old as balls copy.

Good shit!

#thelongestlibrary #book review #mabel seely #the crying sisters #mysterynovel #origin1 #wri1

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silvershoelaces · 4 years

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HPWU: A One Year Retrospective

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite turned one year old last month, and over the past year, it has improved a lot.

This review is looking at HPWU as a standalone game, devoid of the context of the book series, any views of its author, the movies and spinoffs, or any other media associated with the Harry Potter franchise. I have plenty of opinions thereof, but they are not directly relevant to my opinions of the game and how it functions.

The game at its core is not particularly inventive, and at the beginning of its first year, it mostly felt like a reskin of Pokemon Go. Spawns appear on the screen based on a map that a player traverses in real space, and players must tap on the spawns and then attempt to collect them in order to complete their collections. But instead of catching Pokemon to fill the Pokedex, players are rescuing “foundables” from “confoundables” to fill their stamp collections. Unlike Pokemon Go, multiple copies of each foundable must be collected in order to acquire the stamp, and once the entire page of stamps is collected, it can be prestiged in order to start the whole process over again.

Traversing the world, though, can prove to be complicated in anywhere but the most urban of areas. I live in an urban area, close to my local downtown, and at the game’s inception, I had to walk pretty far in order to complete my daily F2P chores each day. See, all of the POIs (points of interest) on the map are auto-generated from the data in Niantic’s original game, Ingress, and each POI is randomly assigned to one of three types. Inns, where players can acquire spell energy, are the most common. Next are greenhouses, where players can acquire potionmaking ingredients and occasionally, more spell energy. And the least common of these POIs is fortresses, which allow players to enter timed dungeons either by themselves or with other players to fight baddies and get prizes for their efforts.

The randomness of assigning each of these three types of POI is a real drag for many players. When the game was first released, I had two greenhouses and one fortress reasonably close to my home. This was enough to play the game, as greenhouses also occasionally awarded spell energy just like inns, except that the dailies explicitly required me to interact with two inns each day in order to get any premium currency. And as I mentioned, the assortment of POIs was completely random! Some players found themselves with nothing but fortresses around, while others had only inns and no fortresses for multiple kilometers. I considered myself relatively fortunate that I only had to walk 1 km to get to a nearby inn!

But unlike Pokemon Go, while the game encourages exploring, the core mechanics are not well suited to walking. In Go, a rare spawn can be easily subdued in 1-2 attempts, and curveballs are quick and easy to throw. In HPWU, the rarer the spawn, the more difficult it is to capture, and the more likely it is to run away. Foundables are captured by tracing patterns on the screen, and they all have a rather low acquisition rate, which means the rare ones are more likely to flee than to stay put unless the player pours consumable items into their capture. And even so, a player having to trace the same pattern multiple times just to capture a single spawn means that there is much more time standing in one place and less time walking. This is not an exercise game.

And this is one of the core flaws that has plagued Wizards Unite since its inception. It’s a clone of Pokemon Go, but every single mechanic that differs from Pokemon Go brings it further away from Go’s vision of an exercise game. Wizards Unite is an augmented reality exploration game, but it’s more about exploring a story and a setting than about racking up burned calories. This is especially apparent in limited-time events that encourage players to spend multiple hours standing still by the same POI, challenging hordes of enemies.

Monthly Community Day events aside, the regular cycle of in-game events was fun and engaging at first, but it quickly grew dull as players finished the main story quest and found the primary content of the game to be the fortnightly events. This is always a struggle for F2P games, especially games that rely on collections rather than PVP mechanics. The events weren’t even new content, merely recolored versions of content that already existed in the games, spawning much more frequently than other foundables and with featured spawn rates. What was fun in the game’s first few months had quickly become tedious, especially when the featured foundables had low catch rates.

Despite this stagnation, the game has changed over time, and many improvements have been made. The tonic for trace detection, a craftable potion that allows players to summon foundables to wherever they are, was long overdue when it was introduced into the game, allowing players who were less mobile to encounter more foundables when they had time to play. Inns and greenhouses were rebalanced so that inns in less urban areas dropped more spell energy, and greenhouses’ spell energy became guaranteed, rather than a 50% drop rate, which was an important improvement for areas with a low POI density and an active playerbase. Adventure Sync was added, which allows the game to track steps. (Unfortunately, this feature does not function well, as the steps counted toward daily tasks only begin after the player’s daily login bonus, and AdSync requires the game to have access to the player’s GPS while the game is closed, which drains phone battery in the background. Players who already have AdSync enabled for Pokemon Go will not notice much difference.)

The most significant overhaul, of course, came with the onset of coronavirus. In order to allow players to continue playing from their homes, the daily requirement to interact with inns was removed, and the Knight Bus, which allows players to remotely access fortress challenges and even engage with other players remotely, was implemented. I have found that the implementation of the Knight Bus almost single-handedly revived my interest in the game when I had grown completely bored of it, as it was a lot more fun to play fortress challenges with friends, which I had barely been able to do before, than to play the game solo.

But these improvements also serve to highlight the flaws in this game that have not been improved since its release. Trace completion always takes a particular shape, and its right-handed bias is clear the moment one attempts to complete a trace off-handed. The swirl of Ebublio, in particular, which takes an “e” shape, feels much more natural in the counter-clockwise direction in the right hand than in the left. Mirroring traces in a left-handed or “mirror” mode would be an easy fix!

SOS assignments have not been updated since day one of the game, and they have said “new assignments coming soon” since I completed them. In my first few months of playing, that was the real draw of the game for me, finishing the story quest and continuing on to the next page to see what would happen next. Each event feels like filler, while what would have made the most sense would have been to add four or five new pages of story quests every few months or so. And they (and all other events) aren’t replayable, so when WB/Niantic/whoever is responsible finally gets around to adding them, we’ll all have forgotten what happened. I already don’t remember.

Finally, the entire story as a whole, which is told as a haphazard, shoddy, zigzagging extra flavor to the repetitive, bland events, could have been told with just a week or even a day of gameplay in a regular game. “What is causing this calamity?” the characters ask. “I don’t know, but let’s patch the problem and investigate the cause later. Maybe the identity of the next problem that arises will give us a clue.” The game relies on half a dozen characters who show up just to give the player instructions, and it is somewhat over-reliant on the draw of the property to encourage players to invest themselves in the game. This is not good for a game that is mostly divorced from the primary story of its franchise. Assuming I knew nothing about Harry Potter or his universe before playing this game, and even if I do, there are way too many characters, and no documented point of reference for a player to look at for a reminder. The main characters seem to be Constance Pickering and Hermione Granger, with a splash of Harry Potter and a pinch of Ron Weasley thrown in. Their commentary doesn’t add much to my engagement because it’s the same mildly curious “I wonder what’s causing this” speculation we’ve had since the beginning.

Good stuff appears to be coming soon. The strongest aspect of the game is the ability to customize one’s character with an ability tree, which lends more variety to the way players can interact with the fortress challenges. An upcoming update is set to add this customization to the map screen, which may give this game the new life it so sorely needs.

All in all, judging Wizards Unite by its gameplay and content alone, and divorcing it from the source material, I’d rate it a C+. The game isn’t sure what it wants to be. It advertises itself as an exploration game, but punishes walking and rewards standing still. Adventure Sync once again rewards walking, this time when the game is closed, but the player is again punished, this time by severe battery drain. The game leans heavily on its story, but the story falls short due to poor updates and over-reliance on events to tease rather than deliver new story elements.

And of course, if we are to judge the game based primarily on its being an entry into the Harry Potter franchise, then we must begin to judge it on the merits and flaws of the franchise as a whole, which is a discussion for another day. If we don’t measure it against the franchise, there is much in the game that will be confusing to a player unfamiliar with the series. Who are these people, and why are we rescuing them? Why are we rescuing this one man some of the time, and attacking him other times? Four of the six pages of stamps feature characters from the franchise heavily. Players who aren’t invested in the franchise won’t care too much about them.

To someone who isn’t interested in the Harry Potter franchise, or to someone who was previously interested but has become disillusioned with the author of the series, I recommend you pass on this game. However, longtime fans who can still derive pleasure from the series, who separate the creator from the creation, or who view this and other derivative works as their own entries, created by teams rather than by the one who started it all, may enjoy this game.

#harry potter wizards unite #hpwu #mobile games #reviews #long post

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 5 years

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@kiwimeringue replied to your post “I know it’s generally rude and very unwise to reply to a fandom...”

ok I'm super curious now, feel free to message me if you want to talk about it all stealthy-like~

@veliseraptor replied to your post “I know it’s generally rude and very unwise to reply to a fandom...”

i'm so curious

apparently I did want to talk about it, because this got looooong (also please do not add more discourse to this post, it’s probably kind of shitty of me but I don’t super want to have a dialogue about it, I just want to barf out my thoughts and defend my own faves on my own post, so if you want to argue with me I would really rather you didn’t and just made your own post instead)

(I also only just realized that I only put “tony stark negative” and “tony stark critical” in the tags, not anywhere before the cut, so here’s your warning now if you didn’t see the tags that this is me being frustrated with a lot things about how Tony is written)

I can't find the actual post now to screenshot or link because I just came across it on my dash, got annoyed, scrolled past, and then made my post when I couldn't stop grumpily thinking about it (so at this point I also don't remember who the OP was or who reblogged it onto my dash, which is probably just as well), but the gist was that almost all MCU title characters have storylines establishing that they're wrong about something and they show growth by accepting that and working to improve...except Steve, who never acknowledges that he might ever be wrong about anything, with the implication that this makes him a bad, self-righteous character who is basically incapable of growth. several other characters--Tony, Thor, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker--were mentioned, but the state of fandom discourse makes me assume any Steve-negative post exists at least in part to show how much better Tony is, which...may not always be a fair assumption on my part, but I do think it's fair to say that's still a relevant context. and of course Steve is one of my favorite characters, so anything even mildly Steve-negative puts me at least somewhat on the defensive right away, which again is not necessarily fair. (the other post that’s already sitting in my notes is about Ragnarok, which is probably even less surprising.)

anyway the post made me grumpy to begin with and then doubly so because I couldn't think of a good way to refute it aside from "yeah well maybe Steve's just a better person than your faves and he doesn't need a whole character arc about realizing he's been an asshole and needs to change because he didn't start out as an asshole to begin with, bet you didn't think of that huh" which is of course VERY unhelpful. but then I started thinking about how I don't think OP is right about the changed characters to begin with, given that a) it's not really fair to compare a character who's only had one solo movie (Dr. Strange) with characters who've had more, b) Spider-Man is kind of an edge case because he's a teenager and a lot of the problems in his movies stem from a combination of him being a fucking teenager and Tony dumping him with tons of dangerous tech that he doesn't have the training or adult impulse control to use safely and then blaming him when disaster inevitably results, and c) the characters who have had multiple movies and arcs focused on realizing they were wrong about something (just Thor and Tony, really) are...maybe not actually great examples because like 75% of that character development seems to reset after each movie and, actually, the narrative still operates under the premise that these characters are basically right even if some other characters don't agree. like...I mean, the only lessons Thor really, consistently seems to learn are "humans are at least not totally worthless (but lbr they're mostly silly and cute)" and "Odin is extremely wise and probably right about almost everything despite mountains of evidence--that grow with every single film he's in--to the contrary".

and Tony, well--yeah, that's his arc, in theory, and in theory I don't have a problem with flawed characters who keep making the same mistakes because let's face it, that's a very human thing to do. but with posts like this, it's like...you're effectively arguing that he doesn't really make mistakes overall, though, because it’s really just an opportunity for growth? and that when he does, the narrative shows he's wrong, he admits he's wrong, and he makes consistent efforts to change? which...again, obviously I have my own biases, but I have to see this as a weird interpretation because he's basically been the main character of the entire MCU thus far, which means he's likely to get sympathetic treatment and justification from the narrative even if he's ostensibly being called out for fucking up, and that's something I've definitely seen. his entire first movie is about him realizing how wrong he was and working to do better, definitely, but he ends up being his own worst enemy half the time and other people suffer for it. like...he wants to protect the world, okay, that's a reasonable goal. you can argue that the vision Wanda gave him made things worse, and that's possible, but I don't know how much that might be true given that I'm pretty sure he was working on Ultron before that too (and her mind-magic mostly seemed to work by emphasizing something that was already there, not planting new ideas). so he ends up creating a murderbot, with good intentions but he still does it and he keeps it secret from the other Avengers, and now-sentient murderbot immediately reaches the conclusion that humanity is awful and they won't need protecting if they're all gone, and everything breaks very bad, and then Tony...basically does the exact same thing again, without telling anybody else, in hopes that it'll work out better this time because JARVIS? and it does but that seems like mostly luck? and everybody manages to defeat the murderbot, barely, but a not-insignificant number of civilians die anyway because that tends to happen when a sentient murderbot goes on a rampage, and Tony feels really guilty about this when it's shoved in his face, so he deals with his guilt by kind of...spreading it around and allowing the possibility of other major problems down the line so they can hand over some of that responsibility and he can feel less guilty. (that’s not the most charitable interpretation, yeah, but I also don’t think it’s an unreasonable one, based on what’s there in the text.) and then of course things blow up and other problems get dragged in and it's a huge mess and half the Avengers are fugitives, and the general consensus sort of seems to be that nobody was completely right or completely wrong but Steve is the only one who actually apologizes for any of it (no wait, I guess Wanda and Vision apologized but just to each other) and Rhodey reinforces the idea that the Accords were a good idea with no major drawbacks...and then Thanos shows up and things get SO VERY MUCH worse.

and Tony is once again stricken with grief and guilt (not to mention half dead), so lashing out at Steve is understandable, but what he actually says is basically that this is all Steve's fault because he wasn't there (even though he immediately sent Tony that phone, which means Tony could have contacted him at any time but hesitated to do so even when monsters were basically falling from the sky), and he was right about the Accords and Ultron even if the latter didn't work out so well in ways that probably could have been predicted, and...that's what we're left with. nobody else has a meaningful opportunity to say "now hold on a second, you cannot possibly be arguing both for accountability and for your right to decide for the entire world that exchanging some freedom for some potential security is a good trade, and also how are you saying you were essentially right about Ultron when Ultron is what kicked off the desire for the Accords" or, like, anything. (does the world need a security blanket? going by the evidence...yeah, probably? but again. Tony. you tried that and you made a sentient murderbot instead so like, your track record is not great!!)

and then it all culminates with Tony sacrificing himself to save the universe, which I do at least think was a climactic, thematically resonant send-off for such a major character--for the final time, in the most final possible of ways, he reaches a point where there's no more clever tricks and he reacts by selflessly taking the entirety of the consequences onto himself. I can't say I'm happy with it, because I'm not a fan of character death in general even when it doesn't involve my top faves, and it absolutely would have been possible for the filmmakers to keep him alive if they hadn't gone into this with the specific intention of ending Tony's arc with his death. (ditto on all the other major character deaths, which is a big part about why they make me mad--none of them really, honestly had to happen, some even less than others.) but regardless of my feelings on whether it had to happen, it's inarguable that his entire arc from Iron Man to Endgame is that of a brilliant but selfish manchild who changes and grows until he doesn't hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the entire universe.

BUT THEN THERE'S SPIDER-MAN AGAIN.

spoilers if you haven't seen Spider-Man: Far From Home but like, the entire conflict of that movie was based on two major things: a bunch of disgruntled Stark Industries employees, at least some of whom had to have legitimate, recent grievances (and frankly that whole mess demonstrates--among other things--that Stark Industries must have unforgivably lax security around its arsenal of world-ending weapons); and Tony's decision at some point to essentially REMAKE ULTRON AND THEN DUMP THAT RESPONSIBILITY ON A FUCKING TEENAGER WITH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE WAY OF WARNINGS, TRAINING, OVERSIGHT, OR EVEN BASIC FAILSAFES, like holy shit my computer spends more time making sure I definitely want to delete that file than EDITH does about confirming that yes this random teenager is a legitimate target for IMMEDIATE DEATH. all the other adults involved in this clusterfuck bear a good share of the responsibility for this too, given that not one of them ever seemed to think either "hey, maybe saddling a smart and very good but basically normal sixteen-year-old boy with the power and responsibility (but not the resources or experience) of a grown-ass adult with unlimited resources is not the smartest move here, and yelling at him when he inevitably fucks up this power and responsibility we dumped on him with no training whatsoever is not actually fair or reasonable" or even "maybe before giving a piece of massively powerful and dangerous tech to a sixteen-year-old boy, we should spend at least 15 minutes going over the device's major functions and how to not accidentally kill someone, even if we figure things like ethics and privacy rights and knowing when not to use this tech aren't that important".

but, but, Tony still made the decision to give it to him, and he did so without building in any precautions at all, which is the exact same thing he did in CW/Homecoming with Peter's new suit (yes, the Training Wheels protocol was a good step, but the fact that it could just be turned off that easily--and that Tony isn't shown even trying to tell Peter to use the training programs or safely practice with the suit--shows that it really, really wasn't good enough) except even worse because EDITH is about 100 times more invasive and destructive than the suit. and he pretty much scolded Peter in Homecoming for getting ahead of himself, but then the second Peter did well in a bad situation Tony was right back to making this teenager an official Avenger and giving him all this power and responsibility he'd just decided Peter hadn't really earned, and Peter turned him down because at that point he had a better idea of his own limits and need for growth than Tony did, and then!! in what must have been one of his last acts alive!! Tony dumped an even bigger, more dangerous power/responsibility combo on him!!! way way bigger than the one he'd already turned down and maturely decided he wasn't yet experienced enough to handle!!! without even giving him a chance to say no!!!! and did not take any of that (or the mess with Ultron and the lessons he theoretically learned there, or the mess with the Accords and the lessons he theoretically learned there, or for that matter the lessons he theoretically learned in his three solo movies about treating his employees well and making sure he knows exactly what his company is doing at all times) into account when designing it, handing it off to other adults who also should have been more responsible about it, and leaving it to a teenager against that teenager's stated wishes, thereby ensuring that this teenager will follow Tony's footsteps in being unable to have a normal life!!!!!

...................but, okay, the point of the original post was that Steve is generally deemed to be Always Right and therefore he never has to change, and that makes him unrelatable at best and also not a great character. which...well, that's part of the point, that's why he was picked for Project Rebirth in the first place because he's a good dude dedicated to doing what's right; even before the serum, he was literally willing to die to protect a few people he barely knew (the grenade scene, remember). he was already starting from a point of selflessness and an understanding of responsibility that the others lacked, so it would be tough to give him a similar character arc without undermining or ignoring the whole point of the character. sure, though, even a character like Steve is imperfect and human and bound to be wrong sometimes, and when that happens he should acknowledge he was wrong and take steps to make amends, and if he's never shown doing any of that, it's true that it's not great even if part of the issue is that he's never really put in a position to do so.

except, except DID YOU ALL COMPLETELY FORGET THE ENDING OF CIVIL WAR

like, sure, if what you wanted was to hear Steve say "I was wrong about everything and Tony was right about everything, and I will humbly submit to whatever you think is best regardless of my own convictions, my very good reasons for having those convictions, and my personal concerns for my friends, or at the very least I will humbly ask for forgiveness and accept whatever you throw at me, because Tony Was Right About Everything," then...yeah, I'm sure it was a disappointment, especially if you figure Tony was right about the Accords and at least the intentions behind Ultron. it's true Steve doesn't really address any of that, which indicates he definitely still believes he’s right about those parts. but...look, the last time he saw Tony, he was fighting to save his lifelong friend from being murdered from a crime he didn't necessarily remember and really wasn't responsible for. once again I don't blame Tony for reacting emotionally and lashing out at the nearest targets instead of the people who were really at fault, but that doesn't change the facts of the situation, which are, Steve was fighting to save Bucky's life. and when he did that by incapacitating Tony, he didn't go any further; he took Bucky and left. and then he almost immediately sent Tony a letter of apology and a means of contacting him in return if an emergency comes up--and again, yes, his apology wasn't "I'm sorry for everything because I was wrong about everything," but it was a genuine, compassionate apology for the ways he'd hurt Tony even if his intentions were basically good. (this of course assumes that he really did know for a fact that Bucky killed the Starks and consciously chose to hide the knowledge from Tony, and frankly I'm not convinced that's true, but it's not really the issue here.) honestly, I thought his letter was kind of funny because it so closely followed the format of the apology-note meme--you know, "I was trying to do X, but I see now that I hurt you because Y" and everything. he didn't apologize for opposing the Accords or protecting Bucky or fighting in Germany so he could get to Siberia in time to stop what he had every reason to believe was a much bigger threat, because all those actions stemmed directly from his convictions and sense of morality and he wouldn't be Steve Rogers or Captain America if he was willing to compromise his most foundational convictions--but he absolutely did apologize for hurting Tony and recognized that he'd made at least one big mistake where Tony was concerned.

Tony...didn't. even before doubling down on the Accords and Ultron, I don't think he ever really said, hey, at least some of this was my bad; most of what he said boiled down to "okay this situation isn't ideal but I'm sure if I throw more money at it things will work out fine, more or less". in the Raft and in Siberia he got close to saying that maybe he'd been wrong about a few things, but that all went out the window pretty quick, and I don't think there's ever a point where he--just for instance--at least apologizes for trying very very hard to kill Bucky. and by Endgame, apparently he’s pretty much walked back what little he did kinda sorta think he was maybe wrong about. so.

that's...basically what I've got, OP’s interpretation is wrong because their facts are actually wrong and I was apparently annoyed enough to barf out all these words when I could’ve been doing anything else, the end

#tony stark critical #tony stark negative #I mean I think I'm being reasonably fair here but just to be safe #conversations #veliseraptor #kiwimeringue #marvel cinematic universe #steve rogers #meta #my meta #captain america: civil war #avengers: endgame #spider-man: homecoming #spider-man: far from home #avengers: age of ultron #avengers: infinity war

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obscurelocalstranger · 4 years

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Wrote a ridiculous thing for @cakesandfail‘s birthday so figured I’d post it here since I don’t have an ao3 or anything.

It’s a very non-canonical Magnus Archives/Buzzfeed Unsolved crossover since I’ve only done 1 season of TMA. No spoilers, just cut for length and general weirdness. Pickles are mentioned, if that sort of thing bothers you.

[click]

Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, regarding unexplained behavior surround [garbled] . Statement given direct, 14th September, 2017. Statement begins.

I'm not saying what I saw was supernatural. Ordinary humans do incredibly weird things on a daily basis. However, something did feel very… off about the entire thing and it may be related to the other cases. I feel it bares recording in the event this proves relevant later or multiple occurrences are later reported.

The rest of the archivists are spreading themselves a little thin so I was asked to "help out" with research. I found myself regrettably in the field even though we're still working through reconciling past statements and my talents are better used there.

[Tape cuts out]

I was just taking some photos of the pond, trying to avoid the few obvious tourists there. That's when I first spotted the three men in question. One tall and gangly; one shorter and talking animatedly; and the third holding a camera, filming the other two. I endeavoured to avoid getting in the background of their film, and only partially because I definitely overheard the term "ghost hunting."

My feelings on amateur paranormal research aside, what the taller man did is the crux of my story here. I saw him stop, staring out into the pond. His companion finally noticed after a minute of talking and looked out as well.

The tall man suddenly dove into the pond, a feral, animalistic look on his face. And then I saw what he had spotted. In the very center of the water, a single pickle. Wildly biting at the pickle, the man, (who I now knew was called Shane due to his colleagues shouting out his name several times) dove under the water, disappearing with his quarry. One would expect to see bubbles or movement but there was nothing. The pond was eerily still. The other men were still shouting but more in annoyance. "Please Shane, we can't keep doing this," the shorter man said in exasperation. Finally the surface broke nearer to the edge, and Shane walked out, calmly, as if nothing has happened. He was nonchalantly eating the pickle. The men ended their filming and left the park. I waited a few minutes,

Now, as I said, seemingly normal humans do very weird things every day so it might be nothing. But the ferocity with which this Shane entered and attacked the pond does worry me. Especially considering Statement #9330617 and related experiences at [garbled] Pond. Also I am mildly concerned that someone would eat a pickle they saw lying in a pond, though I suppose people have eaten stranger things. Hmm. Yes. Statement ends.

[click]

#the magnus archives #buzzfeed unsolved #writing #sometimes I write things.#it's been like 84 years since I've written anything but this idea made me laugh #cakesandfail

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calleo-bricriu · 4 years

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Three questions: How were you getting paid if you were a "prisoner"? Where you really a prisoner or is that just the excuse you used to get out of punishment? Did he even TRY to kill you?

Oh no, no, not an excuse at all.

I was a prisoner and the only reason I walked right into it was, more or less, to spite @directoryandle and, going in with the assumption that I was going to eventually be let out again, also be able to come back and hopefully still have him working there so I could claim however many years I was stuck there because he’d sent me to deal with the ‘request’ instead of going himself that it was official Ministry business, work, and I absolutely expected to be paid for it.

Essentially, the Ministry ended up paying me five years’ salary to be a prisoner and largely did continue doing things that were part of my actual job anyway, just from an entirely different location surrounded by largely competent, if a bit mental, people.

Nice temporary break from being surrounded by largely incompetent, if a bit mental, people.

Nobody else was really allowed to take a serious swing at me, which is a shame, as it never hurts to get a decent amount of experience having a scrap with very different sorts of people. I still maintain that one General would have killed me outright if she’d been allowed; she didn’t like me from the start, though I never bothered to ask why and I doubt she’d have answered me anyway.

I don’t know that @absintheabsence ever necessarily was trying to kill me so much as he was trying to make me think that he was, but there were a couple of times that I almost believed it.

I’d like to note here that “almost believed it” doesn’t mean I was anything approaching frightened; I lost the ability to be afraid of death or dying before I was thirty. After enough close calls, it loses its bite.

And I really do need to point out that I am definitely the one that caused it every time. That isn’t blame of any sort, let alone victim blaming as I never have viewed myself as any sort of victim (a target maybe, but not a victim), it’s a statement of fact. See, he’s got–or had, I’m not exactly sure how short that fuse is now–one hell of a temper, but also never seemed to really care to put that on display which isn’t a bad thing at all; makes one seem unbalanced.

And I enjoy running my mouth specifically to see what and how much it takes to get someone who likes to come off as on a very even keel to wobble a bit.

That’s exactly what I did and after awhile I either got very good at figuring out just how much I could push before I’d have to ease off or he’d snap or he knew what I was doing and was refusing to play because of it.

There were several times the first few years I was kept there in which either I missed a non-bluffing signal to back off or, instead of storming off and leaving me alone for awhile the storm in question was directed at me as opposed to whatever poor idiot he ran into first after leaving the tower.

There are two instances that I remember clearly, however:

- In the first instance, while I know it wasn’t the terrible, terrible puns that caused it, they did end up in that 'last straw’ pile and that is so worth it. I could only hope to die over something as ridiculous as making a terrible pun to the wrong person and would want that on my headstone.

- In the second, and last, despite the fact that I would have been fifty-seven at the time, I was being a brat. There’s no other way to say it, and I was doing it on purpose just to see what would happen.

The first one happened the first few days I was there; the thing about the stone used to build Nurmengard, particularly down in the prison areas where it wasn’t so nicely decorated, is that the stone siphons magic from anything that’s kept in contact with it and that was then used to power a lot of the automation. Even where it was mitigated by decor, it was still able to function in that capacity to varying degrees. That’s how the automation kept running with nobody to maintain it.

Walking right into the trap landed me in one of those cells, which is a very good way to render a prisoner harmless; if everyone around them can use magic and they cannot, they’re easier to handle. I started off on the wrong foot with the guard who had to deal with me for the following reasons:

- The stone was interesting, and I lost track of time to the tune of not really sleeping for two solid days, while I was studying it as much as I could by just looking at it and poking at it.

- So when the guard came to haul me upstairs, I first wasn’t listening to what he was saying and his English wasn’t all that good, no to mention heavily accented, and I didn’t respond at first.

- When I did, and realised he’d said something to the effect of I was going to see “the Emperor” my immediate response was, “The what now?” which, and this will be come relevant, caused him to hit me with an incredibly mediocre Cruciatus cast.

- …and I just sort of…stared at him and asked him what he was doing, and that got me grabbed, thrown out of the cell, and walked at wand point (as though that was necessary, it’s not as though I could have left without being able to use magic anyway; effect, I guess) to the less prison cell filled areas of the building.

- Got mildly distracted by how over the top everything was decorated and failed to stop at the door the guard stopped at, got dragged back again.

- Very impolitely herded into the room, see who’s in there and, in a case in which my mouth did get ahead of my brain for a few seconds, went with, “Oh! It’s only you! This guard said we were going to see an emperor.”

The guard actually took a few steps away from me with that one but, nothing happened because we can’t lose our temper in front of the help, can we?

- …and I kept talking. Specifically, I started complaining about the mediocre Cruciatus and got–I’m still not entirely certain if it was sarcasm or if he was being seriously, but something about maybe I should start training them how to use it.

“Yes, and anyone who can’t manage it gets to be used as the practice dummy,” probably was not the kindest thing I’ve ever said but, in fairness, this is a curse I’ve done extensive research and fine tuning with and it’s always so disappointing to see it done poorly.

- Much to the guard’s relief, he was eventually allowed to leave and now there were no witnesses. And, as my brain had caught back up to my mouth, the first thing the duo decided was appropriate was, “Well, this is certainly a grave situation isn’t it?” because I wanted to see what he’d do.

He started by hitting me with the massive compliment of not only having read that paper but having not dismissed it out of hand, and having clearly read it to the point where he knew the cut off before I’d be damaged to the point of being vaguely useless for several months. I’m sure it was meant, on some level, to be horrible but when you’re used to other people (at best) explaining your own work back to you incorrectly it’s positively lovely to see it demonstrated without hesitation. I’m still pleased about that!

There was a great deal more after that, largely blood magic based if I recall, though not anything I was familiar with beyond having a general idea of what it was at the time; if I had to choose between that and the more familiar (if modified) well cast Cruciatus, I’d take the latter as it’s far less unsettling than a great deal of what can be done with blood magic.

That all said, I was never really convinced that he was planning to or intending to kill me; if he’d wanted to, he would have. Still, where physical death is concerned, I did get to hover right on the line of it for some time.

Great fun, actually, if you’ve never done that before. One hell of a rush too, and it lasts for weeks if it’s done right.

Which it was.

- The second time was in 1943 and he was definitely not pleased with me for that one. The one I just wrapped up, I still don’t think he was nearly as angry as he was trying to come off and I’m also fairly sure I saw him trying not to laugh at the awful pun.

I had my cards and my runes with me and, of course, they’d been confiscated by guards on intake years before, but he’d let me have them back to play with now and again. Wouldn’t usually stick around, just sort of drop them on the desk in the room I was in and leave. Half the time I’d just check to see everything was still there then set them aside, and occasionally I’d let the cards gossip with me but never mention what they said to anyone because it’s all a bit silly.

I can’t recall now why they’d been taken before this particular incident, but he’d come up to give the cards back and this time he stood in the doorway watching me until I figured out he was waiting for me to pick them up and do something with them.

Because I am the way I am, I went with what amounted to, “Oh, you want us to gossip about you, do you? All right.”

I kind of knew what to expect as that deck is nothing if not consistent and, to that point, any time they’d been gossiping about him specifically there were a lot of swords and the Tower, both of which had been consistent for over a decade at that point.

The thing is, despite the cards technically backing up what I was saying, a great deal of what I said was largely based in subtle things I’d seen or overheard that I likely wasn’t supposed to have seen or overheard in the first place and it started out warning of an ideology split within his own ranks that, if not dealt with swiftly and decisively, would lead to everything collapsing.

I don’t know if he knew that on some level and didn’t like hearing it or if he simply didn’t like hearing that those in his inner circle and high levels of command may have decided along the way that he was too unpredictable and erratic to be effective and had begun trying to organise a split–the main problem the cards saw was that those people thought he wasn’t being, I don’t know what the word I’m looking for is, but they thought he was too tolerant of things that weren’t “Pureblood” or human.

That’s saying a lot as, by that point, there had been several genocide campaigns directed at non-human beings and beasts that he’d greenlit.

At that point, the cards split as they often do when they gossip like that; down one path, he’d ignore it and continue on, trying to keep control of a crumbling empire and taking everything down with him in the process.

Down the other, it was a purge the ranks, get back on the original track, and–the cards predicted that would end rather well and be at least somewhat long lasting. There would be initial losses and a period of uncertainty while rebuilding, but it wouldn’t be such a massively destructive nightmare.

You remember that part where I said I like to run my mouth? If not, just a reminder: I like to run my mouth, and I definitely ignored the fact that, in the doorway, as I kept tossing cards up into the air in front of him, it was looking more and more like I was about to have an attempt to make me regret my entire life up to that point happen.

I made some comment about how we both knew he wasn’t going to take that second path as that would be admitting he’d made mistakes, and let the cards talk down the more destructive path.

That’s about when the Tower appeared because of course it did.

And I kept pulling cards because, the thing about the Tower card that most people overlook when they see it, is that, even among the destruction and ruins, it’s already being rebuilt; whether it’s rebuilt into the same thing or into something better depends on a lot of things, but the fact is that something gets rebuilt in the aftermath.

Figured, at this point, why not?

I thought that’s where it got interesting but it seemed to just make him even more livid than he already was and by that point I’m not even certain he was still listening so much as he was mapping out exactly what was going to happen as soon as I quit talking.

Unfortunately for me, I quit talking immediately after saying, “Looks as though you’re going to cheerfully self-destruct, while taking as many people with you as you can manage on the way down, as this deck has consistently indicated only after this Tower hits, you’ll slowly rebuild–with the assistance of someone else, it appears–into a reasonably decent person.”

Or, to condense it down, “You’re a landfill on fire but, hey, ashes eventually turn into decent ground again, so that’s something!”

Still don’t remember large pieces of what that exactly was but the thing is–if you’re not killed by something as abrupt as a killing curse, physical death happens before complete death in which you’re severed from your physical body one way or another and I do recall brief spots of physical death and–

–now that I think about it, there’s a great deal of overlap and interweaving between–

At any rate, I’m fairly certain not everything that was done during that one ever fully cleared up but I’m so used to the side effects of it now I’d be alarmed if they stopped.

For the most part, though, I suspect he figured out what I was doing just in general and would either ignore it or would do that thing where you know someone is telling you you’re not worth their time or effort and sort of–do things in a very mediocre fashion.

Since I didn’t like that one bit, I eventually stopped jabbing him with a proverbial stick because it’s not any fun at all at that point.

#1986 #v: ftbawtft #it's very interesting when both people in a room take the #i'm not locked in here with you you're locked in here with me #standpoint #hp rp

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