#also can we talk about how the actor knocked it out of the fucking park

[chevelleneech]

It being said Buck and T*mmy are still dating and getting to know each other, and Eddie feeling left out is all well and good. It’s at the least a decent start to developing something (not that I want that anymore, but still).

However, couple those words with L*u FJ having not been seen on set at all… I don’t know how much of it I’m believing will stretch behind the first three episodes. I’m not trying to give Tim credit for being sneaky or anything, and I’m still not looking to watch the premiere. I’m going to hold off, but how far under the radar can they truly fly with his filming, and why would they want to, given Buck is openly bisexual and there was a positive reaction to the relationship even with Buddies being unhappy?

There’s no reason for me to believe L*u is so beloved by Tim and ABC that they’re sneaking him on and off set. I’m not saying he can’t have “snuck” on once or twice, but again… for what reason? No one in the cast is talking about him, the behind the scenes hadn’t really posted him, and no one has spotted him on set. So how well can the relationship be going if the actor playing Buck’s boyfriend has not been seen, heard, nor mentioned anywhere near the show this season?

The only way this supposed developing relationship keeps going, is if it’s over the phone or we get it in slices where T*mmy is never actually present. As in, Buck tells Eddie he’s meeting up with T*mmy, yet we never see them together. Or we see Oliver sharing the screen with a stand-in, and we only get arial shots of them.

I guess they could always be indoors. In a car or something, but idk. Something is very fishy. Tim and co either managed to slip that man on and off set for weeks, or they’re talking around a quick breakup. Because “getting to know each other” and “not much time has passed” equals Buck and T*mmy don’t know each other enough to have developed a deep connection. Which allows writers to write both an attempt for Buck to make it work and a breakup within the first 3-5 episodes without making the general audience feel like it ended abruptly or was pointless.

Buddie may not happen even if Eddie comes out this season, but if they do want to get rid of T*mmy, I will admit I can see them doing it this way. It would avoid starting the season with Buck being single yet again (which truly would not be an issue if they didn’t try shoving him with a woman every damn season in earlier seasons), but also give BT stans a little food. Make Buck try and want it to work, but ultimately have it fail. That also tells general audiences who are neutral about him “suddenly” being “gay” that he is serious about wanting to date men, but couldn’t make it work with the first one he dated.

Whether or not Buddie will be a result? I don’t know, but I can’t say I’m on team hopeful, lol. I think this is the last shot, and unless they cast partners for Buck and Eddie that knock it out of the fucking park in terms of chemistry, I do not see s8 being the place to start anew yet again. So Buddie really and truly makes the most sense if Buck and T*mmy breakup and Eddie comes out. Main characters getting together is tv normalcy.

There isn’t a single show or film in history where the mains don’t end up together, that’s why they’re mains. And if they wanted an outside relationship, T*mmy unfortunately is the only other choice outside of Josh, because he’s already here. So they either gotta make T*mmy worth the choice to not have Buddie, or they make Buck single and have Josh and Eddie randomly get together. Which would lows be just as unnecessary as BT, but at least Josh is likable.

Anyway, that’s my 5¢. They’re either setting BT up to be roadkill, or they did somehow manage to sneak that man on set for weeks, thus cementing the implication he will become an important character. Because again, there is no reason a recurring love interest is important enough to hide on set, just because he’s unliked by some fans. They didn’t do that with Edy, and people wanted her head on a fucking spike.

[asha-mage]

WoT S2 Premier - The Good, the Interesting, and the Messy

Now that I've had a chance to sleep on it and become half way coherent again, I want to say that I really really liked what their doing so far in season 2. You can see the seems of course, the places where COVID era production and changes had to shift things around, but the show is continuing it's central ethos of adapting the heart of the series and characters, even while having to shift the details to suit their limitations and medium, and that to me is far far more important then one-to-one accurate book scenes.

I don't have anything bad to say about the show, so instead I am going to split up my more general thoughts into three broad categories: The Good (stuff I adored), The Interesting (Things I'm very very curious to see where they are headed), and the Messy (the places where some of their working within limitations has created complex problems for further down the road, or might inform certain things more directly).

The Good

Every actor so far has knocked it out of the fucking park. I have to give special shout outs to Rosamund Pike, Joshua Stradowski, Zoe Robins, Natasha O'Keeffe, and Ceara Coveney for really clearly managing to convey the nuances and complexities of their characters in ways that just blow me away. The show's writing continues to get these characters on a fundamental level and every actor is turning in a performance that conveys their heart so well.

The visual look of the show still rules, but channeling especially has taken a huge step forward in how it's depicted. I didn't mind the way it looked in season 1 the way some did, but I appreciate that they've decided to hew to something closer to what the Darkhorse Comics did, especially as we have so many characters now trying to figure out how to actually channel the One Power.

I also like that we're seeing sharp differences already in the different groups channel, just visually. The Aes Sedai use sweeping graceful gestures, the damne sharp, short gestures, with little wasted energy, all clearly rehearsed as if drilled into the military style.

In other ways the visuals of the show, especially in it's art direction, also rule. The way Cairhien has a mix of Versailles era France and Han Era China in architecture and fashion. The way the Seanchan feel alien, strange, and other, and yet how key parts of their Empire's culture come through even as their conquering and destroying.

The use of the Texan/American accents hits the PERFECT balance I was hoping for to add to that level of strangeness. It's not heavy enough to be a joke, but it's so stark in comparison to everyone crisp vaguely European accents. On that note- the sheer brutality of the village's subjugation, this tiny nowhere village probably somewhere on Almoth Plane, just one ant being smushed by the huge fingers of the Empire. Talk about effective introductions.

The Interesting

I was admittedly a little skeptical of the choice ot have Rand working a asylum but having seen the show I'm glad I reserved judgement because it fits in perfectly with hie Messiah vibe. Here is the savior of the world, and is he staying in palaces and toppling cities? No (well not yet). He's spending his time caring for the sick and the mad, doing menial back breaking work for those society rejects and wants to forget. And of course, it's more complicated then simple altruism: Rand is being driven by his own fear of going mad, his own desire to know what he's facing, and yet that compassion still shines through.

I also really like that, since Rand can't be Lan trained in the show, they decided to do something very Jordan: take a classic trope (cooky wise old master) give it a shine of realism (he's got dementia and PTSD from being a vetran soldier) and dig at the humanity underneath (Rand is letting the old man train him as much to help the man as to learn the sword).

Liandrin is a character I'm shocked by how much I am enjoying her in the show. The decision to explore her depths more, to dig into her anger, her arrogance, her desire for control and power, is fascinating, and her relationship with Nynaeve and Egwene even more so. Her scene with Nynaeve where she gets Nynaeve to channel (an adaption of Siuan scene from the books) especially kicks ass. It's got the same fundamental point as the book: Nynaeve is limiting herself, holding herself back, but the show lets it be starker, crueler, because it IS Laindrin, not Siuan.

The choice to have Perrin be solo with the Shienarans, even if was basically forced on the writers by Barney Harris's departure. They don't waste any of that time, using it to explore Perrin's growing sense of isolation, his grief at Lalia, his relationship to Loial, and his growing fear of the wolves. I've always felt that Perrin, who is very introspective and quite, was the hardest of the main heroes to adapt, and the ways their bringing his conflict out and literalsing continue to be very smart.

The Messy

Some of the merges have caught me off guard, even though I knew they where coming. Elays and Hurin makes a great deal of sense. I have a strong fondness for Hurin, but I can admit he's an easy cut. It does raise the question though of how they are going to incorporate the element of noblesse oblige, which is an important part of how the series explores it's themes of government, nobility, responsibility, and duty. Of course, even if they had kept Hurin the party splitting means he'd probably be no where near Rand right now, so this was almost certainly the right choice.

Nynaeve's Acceptatron Test. Having sat with it, I still like it a lot, and I understand the choices they've made. I wish it had been a little bit more clear that her decision to go back in the final arch was her decision, having a scene of her forcing the arch to appear with the Power, but overall I think they had a good job otherwise. The first test was always going to have to be different since they've cut Aginor and Balthamel from the show, and the important part was Nynaeve choosing to go back over her own anger and desire for revenge, which they kept. The second arch probably would have required half the run time of the episode if they wanted to do it in full, so I don't mind them condensing it down, and again the important thing is that Nynaeve choose to leave the role of Wisdom behind for good, to seek the power to truly make a difference in the lives of those she cares about. The third arch is the big one, and the point of that sequence was always Nynaeve rejecting paradise in order to go back and protect those she loves. She is offered everything she could possibly want, but it isn't enough because her friends, those in her charge, are still at risk, and nothing has changed. She has to go back to save them, because that is the essence of who she is. The show takes the plank of showing that paradise would be hollow anyways, doomed to fall apart because the world needs Nynaeve, she is called to duty, and she can not reject it. It's....actually moment very reminiscent of Rand's Portal Stone journey/his arc in TGH which makes sense since they've always been parallel characters, and the closest thing to a male and female lead the series has.

Verin being merged with Vandene. This is one that it will take far more for me to decide on. On a very practical level it makes a lot of sense, but it has long term implications for Verin's arc in the series that wont be apparent for a very very long time. How will Adeleas factor into Verin's scheme? Does she know? Is she in on the plan to bring down the Black Ajah? Is she ignorant and Verin has been carrying this off in secret while her own sister had no idea? A lot of how this merger goes hinges on how those questions swing. Also, there is Adeleas's murder to consider. It's likely to be kept, but the circumstances being different, and Verin being Verin, the vengeance she seeks will likely be a great deal more dramatic and direct then what Vandene could do.

Past that though I mostly just have gushing and nitpicks, and far more gushing then nitpicking all things considered. Overall....another banger start. I probably liked the opening to season 1 a little bit better, but I suspect season 2 is going to go to some Interesting Places that I am Ready For.

[torchickentacos]

This April 1st, I'm going to be normal about pokeani <3

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LMAO GOTTEM GET REKT ok so

Can we talk about the characters of the day from AG014. What the fuck. Why are they so weird. They're twins. Forrest and Forrester, surname Franklin. They both go by Franklin for some ungodly reason. They look identical with only a minor difference in their outfits. Forrest is a ranger. Of the park variety and not a pokemon ranger. Forrester, his twin, is not a ranger afaik, I think he's just kind of there???? They were both born right outside of Rustboro, but both brothers only have Johto bug type pokemon, and we know that Forrest has never been to Johto because his whole episode arc is May inspiring him to travel on his own, because he's too scared to. He admires her strength and independence or whatever, but we're on AG014, May's only been doing this traveling gig for like a week and she is comically terrible at it for the entire first season and a half. She’s incompetent, said with utmost love and respect. She's only got a torchic and a wurmple right now. Forrest admiring her traveling abilities is like admiring a microwave's ability to be an industrial kitchen. They also give him some pseudo-romance plot with her, because pokeani May was out here captivating multiple people with her dumbass swag. Drew, Forrest, and Sid being the canon ones I remember off the top of my head, but also probably Dawn tbh, and I’m like 85 percent sure she accidentally homewrecked Pacifidlog Joshua even if he didn’t actually like her but I last saw that episode when I was maybe eight years old, so grain of salt. What the fuck. Anyways, Forrest’s all "Oh, seeing you all independent makes me want to travel with you guys! :)" and between that and the weird crush subplot, you'd think they were setting him up to be this important next traveling companion. He's set up as this important guy who's going to stick around. Nope. We never see this guy or his brother ever again. Never again. He shows up in one episode, doesn't elaborate on literally anything, and then leaves. Let's go back to the fact that he has an identical twin, their names are Forrest Franklin and Forrester Franklin, AND THEY BOTH INTRODUCE THEMSELVES AS FRANKLIN? YOUR FIRST NAMES ARE ALREADY BASICALLY THE SAME THING ANYWAYS. WHAT FRESH HELL. 

More random facts. He looks vaguely like Kenny to me. He made his way into one of those pinterest edits. He shares a name with one of Brock's little brothers. His ship name with May is Bugshipping. You know. Because of the bugs. He's voiced by ANDREW RANNELLS. READ THAT AGAIN. He shares a VA with Harley. I’m just at a loss. Pokeani voice acting is its own rabbithole that leads you places like knowing that the following characters share a voice actor: Drew, Brock, Scott, that Magnemite from Journeys, Ghetsis, and King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule. Also the red and yellow M&M in the 2008 M&M wii game. There were four voice acting credits for that game. He was three of them. The only character he didn’t voice seems to be the green M&M, which is actually hilarious given the whole Drew and Ghetsis thing. Anyways.

I'm sure I could go on. Pokeani has so many COTDs that are like this (weird). I could talk about the watermelon farmer. I could talk about Samurai. There's Max (no, not that one). I could talk about fucking. sigh. TOMMY/TOMO/WHATEVER HIS NAME IS. WHATEVER THAT EPISODE WAS. Lord knows I could talk about Brianna (girl... /judgmental). There's essays to be written about Mikey and his weird brothers. I could talk about the dead guy that May and Meowth saved and created a new timeline for, because this dude knocked up his wife and then died in a snow-induced train crash before his wife could tell him about their child, and their grandchild looks weirdly like Brianna. But the dead guy is fine. Don’t worry. May and Meowth saved him with the help of a magical locket. Unclear how or why or literally anything. Just not worrying about it. And there’s the whole split timeline thing. Thanks pokeani. Back to other characters. I need to study Roderick and his little bellsprout and wynaut army and the fact that Paul’s his grandson (allegedly) under a microscope. Solidad might as well be a COTD, but lord knows now isn’t the time for The Solidad Rant. Then there's this next guy with a fucked up family situation. Timmy Grimm. He sounds like a Wizard 101 necromancer. Nobody in pokeani gets a last name but for some reason TIMMY GRIMM did. There's Damian and Seymour and Bill and honestly every single person who showed up in OS tbh. Then there's like. Marble. Old Man Swamp. STEVELAND AND HALVERSON. WHAT KIND OF NAMES EVEN ARE THOSE. S T E V E L A N D  AND  H A L V E R S O N . Steveland……………

You guys wanna know the worst part. Not a single damn thing I said here was an April Fool’s joke. None of it. Everything here is true. I have the world’s most fucked up citations list to prove it. Here. Have it. I don’t even care. It’s in MLA 8 format, but probably wrong because I always lose points for messing up on citations on every paper I write. I’m posting this post and then calling it a day. I’m going to go make some coffee. No in text citations because I can't actually be bothered to put that much effort into this tbh, so. Here. World's worst citations list. I don't even care.

Works Cited

Behindthevoiceactors.com. “Bill Rogers (visual voices guide).” Behind The Voice Actors, https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Bill-Rogers/. Accessed 1 April 2024.

Behindthevoiceactors.com. “M&M's Adventure (2008 Video Game).” Behind The Voice Actors, https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/MMs-Adventure/. Accessed 1 April 2024.

Bulbapedia. “Forrest Franklin - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.” Bulbapedia, https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Forrest_Franklin. Accessed 1 April 2024.

Bulbapedia. “Joshua (Coordinator) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.” Bulbapedia, https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Joshua_(Coordinator). Accessed 1 April 2024.

[hatosaur]

tlou hbo ep.4 & ep.5 thoughts.

more analyze-y than the others ones because i’m talkin thru my damn feelings >:,(

getting ep. 4 outta the way real quick because it was mostly setting up for ep. 5 but also i didn’t get to rewatch it since last sunday so memory’s fuzzy.

i’ve seen people have mixed reactions to ep.4 and i get it, because it was so different to how it played out in the game. biggest breaking point from game-joel was a) him talking about tess (which i felt broke a rule for his character) and b) him being openly kind to ellie. being soft with her when she shoots the hunter. laughing at her joke. these aren’t the end of the world. i can see how it was all to show he’s warming up to ellie but it did still feel odd.

i do kinda get the sense that him being mean old joel would wreck the momentum and tone, since we’re not watching pre-rendered cutscenes sandwiched between gameplay segments. you can’t have the danger happening and THEN joel’s yelling at ellie. that’s just TENSION TENSION TENSION; him being nice and open was a good way to balance things out and give us (and ellie) a breather.

so ep. 5. i have to fuckin take deep breaths.

once again, i can’t fucking believe that i can know exactly what’s going to happen and this show will still floor me. i’m broken over the immediacy that henry killed sam with, different from henry talking out his thoughts in the game. his scared, stammered “what did i do?” as he looks to joel, because he can’t believe what he just did.

when i look back to game-henry, it wasn’t emphasized all that much that he was pretty much still a kid, taking care of a kid. show-henry had plenty of those moments. both versions are cocky but the cockiness show-henry has was more kid-like, especially in his interactions with joel, and it only made it hit harder when he looked at him in those last moments, as if for help, and when joel tried to gently get the gun away from him. i’m very glad for them amping up the connection between joel and henry.

the choices they made with sam were amazing. the kid was a great actor and i love seeing all the extra bits that came with him being deaf. i knew it wouldn’t matter all that much that he was younger and deaf; what mattered at the end of the day was his connection with ellie and they fuckin knocked it out of the park. i love that even without them being close in age, they latched onto each other anyway.

the bit with ellie’s blood was such an interesting change. because that was a stellar way of showing despite her maturity, she’s still a kid too. you can tell she really believed she could save him.

this coupled with sam’s superhero fixation...god. the thought of him thinking of her as a hero because of that.

another big change was showing ellie’s reaction to henry’s suicide, instead of joel’s like the game. in the game, i think it was to remind joel about the fragility and impermanence of good things. the show’s not really joel city, they can’t really keep it on him the whole time because that’s boring. not to mention, it’s about more than him. in the show, you can tell it’s to show the impact it’s going to have on ellie’s journey.

i wasn’t a big fan of kathleen initially -- felt she wasn’t intimidating enough as a leader -- but as we saw her more in ep. 5, i was disgusted with her, which is good! i do like the complexity of her, how she’s the leader of this big resistance movement but also seemed unsure and grasping in a lot of moments (of which surprisingly did not include the moments where she ordered people to be killed or argued that ellie and sam should die because “kids die”).

brief note, the child clicker was cool but like...a bit farfetched right?? i mean unless she was bit as a baby and has just been turning since then? aside from that, i do like that she foreshadowed sam’s turning in a way. kid infected is such a gutpunch.

another thing i liked were the parts ripped straight from the gameplay. just watching joel reach the house with the sniper in it caused a lotta moments where i was like “OH YEA THAT HAPPENED.”

WHEN THE INFECTED CAME OUTTA THE GROUND??? i was like “OH YEA THAT WAS PART OF IT.” this show’s great. i love seeing the funny ways they tie back to the game.

all the episodes have been good so far but it really seems like the odd-numbered ones have consistently been bangers.

NEXT ONE THO. JACKSON TIME. TOMMY. MARIA. LET’S GOOO >:)

[saviourkingslut]

okay but curry can we PLEASE talk about how fucking PHENOMENAL like action Mihawk is. Had me on the brink of mental collapse 24/7 bc I kept thinking about his magnificence- he knocked it out of the PARK GODDAMNIT!!! Who's your fave from the live action cast and what are your thoughts?? Personally I think it's very good, I just wish Sanji's arc hadn't been cut (tho Don Krieg sucks as a villain, ngl, kinda happy Mihawk got rid of that bitchboy so easily ☠️☠️☠️), but other than that I'm SO proud of everyone involved, they really put in lov and dedication and respect for the series, I'm looking forward to more!!! How about you??🌸🌼🍀

ok full disclosure lest anyone think i have read the manga or seen the anime: i haven't, it's way long and i've never felt particularly drawn to it. HOWEVER i've seen my fair share of (shounen) anime and when i saw they were doing a live action of one piece i really thought it was going to suck bc the live actions always suck. boy was i wrong. everyone working on this from screenwriters to cinematographers to costume department to the actors themselves clearly love the source material and knew exactly what they were doing, and the vibe is Exactly Right. it's camp and fun and a little stupid like shounen anime tend to be and it fully embraces it and so it feels completely natural. of course the cat-themed pirate crew hiss and wear knife-gloves. of course there's characters with blue and green and whatever colour hair. of course the officers in the marines have personal Themes. we don't need any explanation, the world is just like this. and it's balanced exactly right so the more emotional, serious aspects of the story carry the weight that they need to without feeling out of place.

also, as a someone who hasn't engaged with the manga/anime, i think the series cut away/kept enough of the original material to come out of it feeling well-paced, understandable to newcomers and filled with fun recognisable bits for long-time fans. perhaps this meant, as you say, cutting out some pieces of character development/background that might have been enjoyable, but it's a well-made sacrifice bc it prevented the story from feeling too bloated. i think it was just right like this: gave us background on everyone and simultaneously left room for the story to process, without too many things at once to focus on. you could still sense that it was based on a manga bc of its little arcs - usually two eps with a minor boss to beat each time, and a bigger, badder boss at the end of the season. so i feel like keeping that theme in a narrative sense also really helped to make it reminiscent of the material it draws from and made it well-rounded and well-structured overall.

ANYWAY. mihawk. oh my god. i rewatched his scenes. multiple times. he was gorgeous. effervescent. insert the lady gaga meme. again i haven't engaged with the og material but i know these kinds of manga characters and there's so many ways to do them wrong but steven john ward really said 'i was made for this role actually' and he served absolute cunt. definitely up there among my favourite characters in the show - and that's saying a LOT bc im obsessed with almost everyone in it fr. they made me like the fucking clown (i hate clowns) buggy is genuinely incredible. the main cast? what the hell dude. they just found luffy living irl like... genuinely what the fuck. iñaki was born to play him and he did it so wonderfully - guy who is fatally optimistic but also insane and it works. nami's really cool as well - i've heard/read some stuff abt the writing of women especially in the earlier parts of the manga (woman in shounen main character group syndrome) but i think she was solid here and her interactions with the rest of the cast were great. also usopp! is so cute! so much potential to not have that kind of character work out in a real life adaptation but he's so lovable

and on that note the fucking. interactions amongst the main cast? im sobbing screaming crying they're everything to me. the way they're so supportive and proud and protective of each other and yet they talk shit the whole time too. there's so much chemistry among them and they truly do feel like people from different backgrounds who (sometimes reluctantly) come together and would do anything for each other. like real friends who have fun and make fun of each other too, it's a great dynamic and they really hit the mark there.

as to who's my favourite, well, as i said, mihawk's definitely up there, and im a simple hoe - i love zoro. but i think i enjoyed sanji's scenes the most and not just bc of his ass. heard he's kind of pervy in the og material? well the direction they took him in the live action where they kept the 'imprints on woman' but is overall sweet about it and generally less moody than he is in the anime/manga was a great direction i think. he's supremely enjoyable as a character. the accent? the facial expressions? the smiles? the jokes? im on my bed swooning and giggling and kicking my feet he is so fucking funny and i want him so bad. 'apologies madam i didn't see you there.' 'oooh back for seconds must have liked it' i literally re-watched every scene he was in at least once. his kicks were so nicely choreographed too it was really satisfying to look at, very clean (taz did god's work on his training). sometimes at home ill be doing nothing in particular like ill be standing in the living room and i'll mutter to myself 'cotelette. collier. epaulé. poitrine.' and go on with my day he lives in my brain rent free.

so uhm yea i think the series is really good and 1) sanji 2) mihawk 3) zoro if i had to put them in order i think lmaooo

[longlive2023]

so i did not see the plot twist in the last episode

[zodiyack]

Rude! (3,000+ Follower Fic Special 1/3)

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Female!Hopper!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, Billy stuff, lyrics, fluff

Song: Rude by Magic!

Words: 1,798

Summary: Billy's love for Hopper's daughter is too strong to be stopped by the tough Chief Jim Hopper. Despite being told "not in a thousand years", he plans to love her regardless.

Note: Thank you so so much! I love you all, and writing your ideas, as well as sharing mine with you, has been so fucking fun and amazing! I'm sorry for my lack of words, I wish being an author came in handy with writing this, however, all I can say is that I love you all from the bottom of my heart. I've seen people do shout-outs, and ask-related stuff with their follower things, and I may do that, I'm not sure. For now, I hope you enjoy this... Thank you all, again!

Also 1/3 means that there will be two other fics released for the 3,000+ follower present!

Taglist: @urie-bowie-mercury, @matth1w, @redspaceace-writes, @fandom-puff, @darling-i-read-it, @simonsbluee, @sebastianstanslefteyebrow, @dpaccione

Masterlist | Stranger Things Masterlist

"Saturday morning, jumped out of bed and put on my best suit. Got in my car and raced like a jet all the way to you. Knocked on your door with my heart in my hands, to ask you a question, 'cause I know that you're an old-fashioned man. Yeah."

Billy was freshly graduated, working as a lifeguard whilst his girlfriend worked her own job, both saving up for their chance to ditch Hawkins and move to California. Sweet Cali. Billy was excited to show the love of his life around the place he called home. Though, physically, he left the salty ocean and windy beach behind, the place never truly left him.

You could see it in his eyes. The waves crashing in his blue orbs. He swore the scent had just barely clung to his belongings; the smell of the tangy air that followed a majority of the state. Working at a pool was the closest he got to the memory of California. Chlorine was most certainly not the salted ocean waters, but with the circumstances, he decided it'd do.

The way his face lit up whenever he talked about his home...it made Y/n more and more excited to see it. His girlfriend had grown up in Hawkins, stayed there her whole life. Never once did the Hoppers leave Hawkins.

But the second that was introduced to Billy, he knew it had to change.

Although they were saving for a big move, Billy had...other things in mind with what to do with his first large pay-check (or series, rather. Working as a lifeguard didn't pay well with just one check). He began to work more shifts to make up for the money he'd spent, and one day after calling in for a day off, he decided to put his plan into action.

"Billy, stop messing with the tie."

"It's annoying." Hands slapped away his attempts of adjusting the black silk tie.

"Well it won't stop being annoying if you keep fucking it up."

For the first time in a long time, Neil Hargrove was calm. Not happy, not amused, not pissed off for some unjust reason- just calm. He wasn't wreaking havoc and he wasn't being an asshole to his son. Billy hadn't seen this side of his dad in quite some time, in fact, he thought something important was going on and he was about to fuck it all up. And then, Susan retreated to the living room with a camera and a freshly ironed suit.

"You're not putting me in that."

"And who asked for your opinion?" Neil deflected with a raised brow. One heavy sigh later and Billy was leaving the bathroom, dawning the whole black and white getup.

Susan clasped her hands over her mouth, a tear leaving her eye, "You look so handsome! Just like your dad!"

Billy rolled his eyes, "Great."

However, his careless attitude was swept under the rug when the blue Camaro pulled up to the police station, interrupting a clearly distressed Chief Hopper bickering with his daughter. Billy had to get himself together before stepping out of the car, jaw slack after seeing the beauty he got to call his date.

"Hello Mr-"

"Don't even try play nice with me, Hargrove. She's not going anywhere with you. End of story." Hopper kept his eyes trained on the blond, body tense like a snake preparing to strike it's prey.

Y/n grabbed Billy's arm, slowly directing him to the car, "And in the sequel, we find out I am going with Billy. End of that story."

"There is no 'sequel.' The writer got drunk and lazy." She paused, turning to face her father who stood tall, arms crossed and face unamused.

"So his daughter picked up where her father left off, and then the sequel was published and the two lived happily ever after, the end."

While her dad attempted to search for a line that would better hers and force her to stay, she pushed Billy toward the driver's side and slid into the car as fast as she could, rolling down the window as Billy started it up. "Bye! I'll be back before midnight!"

The two drove off toward the school, leaving behind a trail of dust and very, very, pissed off Hopper.

Prom was better than Billy thought it would be. He didn't want to go at first, but after Max found out and spoke to her mom about it (the little redhead a cupid-in-the-making), Neil pushed him to go (as he was "doing something else besides being a lazy-no-good rebel"). It was then that he called Y/n and asked if she'd be going.

The suit came in handy. Clashing with his rocker aesthetic, he put it back on once more. The once-annoying tie proved to be somewhat okay in the end.

Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life? Say yes, say yes, 'cause I need to know. You say I'll never get your blessing "till the day I die, tough luck my friend, but the answer is no!"

Why you gotta be so rude? Don't you know I'm human too? Why you gotta be so rude? I'm gonna marry her anyway. Marry that girl, marry her anyway! Marry that girl, yeah, no matter what you say! Marry that girl, and we'll be a family! Why you gotta be so rude?

With a deep breath, he ran-over the conversation in his head once more. Like a script for an actor, he had thought of every possible outcome and every possible line for him to face it with. He almost chickened out as his fist rose to the door, but it was too late, for his knuckles rapped against it before he realized he was even knocking.

El opened the door, eyes wide when she saw the familiar mullet and button-down. "Papa..." She muttered as she backed away and out of view.

Hopper traded places with her, his lazy expression sobering up instantaneously, replaced with a grumpy scowl. "Hargrove."

"Mr. Hopper, sir."

"What are you doing on my front porch?"

He swallowed roughly, palms sweaty against his sides. "I was wondering if I could talk to you."

"You seem to be doing just that right now, Hargrove." Hop crossed his arms and clenched his jaw.

Well, this was certainly not something Billy had thought of. He was on panic mode internally, attempting to find any response that could save his hide and accomplish what he set out to do. Unfortunately, the word-vomit button seemed to be misplaced under the button labeled "help".

"I'd like to marry your daughter, sir."

Hop's eyes grew just as big in size as El's had when she opened the door. He choked on his own surprise, coughing it off, then glaring at the boy in front of him. "Over my dead body, Hargrove. If that's all, I'd strongly advise you to get off of my fucking porch while you're still alive."

I hate to do this, you leave no choice; can't live without her. Love me or hate me, we will be boys- standing at that alter. And we will fly away, to another galaxy, you know. You know she's in love with me, she will go anywhere I go-

"Billy, he's just stubborn."

"No, no, I don't think he likes me."

Y/n sighed, rubbing her boyfriend's back. He hadn't told her of his proposal plans, only that Hop seemed to have it out for him. "It'll take time, but he'll warm up to you!"

"It's been how many years since he's met me?"

"To be fair, your reputation wasn't doing you any good until now..."

"It's not like that was fucking obvious." He slouched further down in the front seat of his Camaro. To Billy, all hope was lost. If he couldn't get Hopper to give him his blessing, he was sure he'd lose his goddamned mind.

Y/n frowned. Her frown flipped around as an idea popped into her head, her lips finding Billy's knuckles and quirking his attention. "Even if he never likes you, I'm not going anywhere."

Billy laughed softly, "he'll fucking kill me if you go against him."

"Eh, that's only if he can catch us."

"You're out of your fucking mind, Y/n Hopper."

"I know."

The rest of the night was spent in the Camaro, of course, doing one of Billy's favorite pastimes. By the time the sun rose, Billy was sneaking a kiss to a giggling Y/n before dropping from her window in the cabin and running to his car, parked far enough that Hop or El wouldn't notice. He blew her one more kiss, which she pretended to catch, then he broke into a sprint.

Maybe, he thought, just maybe; there was still a chance.

His knuckles hit the door again, shifting on his feet nervously. It swung open to reveal Hopper, an unimpressed look bringing no surprise Billy's way. It was quite expected, honestly.

"What." His tone made it clear he wasn't up for fucking around.

"Mr. Hopper, if you just give me one chance to prove to you that-"

"No, no, no, no, no. Let me make it very clear to you that I want you to have nothing to do with my daughter whatsoever. No marriage, no friendship, I don't even approve of you guys fucking or whatever-"

"We're in a serious relationship, sir. It's nothing like you think it is."

This made Hop laugh. He continued to do so, holding his stomach, until he realized Billy was unamused. "Oh, you're serious?... My answer is still no, Hargrove. My answer will always be no. Go find someone else's daughter's heart to break. You're not hurting mine."

"It's not like-"

Before he could even get the words out, he was met with a door in his face. Turned down, again.

Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life? Say yes, say yes, 'cause I need to know. You say I'll never get your blessing "till the day I die, tough luck my friend, 'cause the answer's still no!"

Why you gotta be so rude? Don't you know I'm human too? Why you gotta be so rude? I'm gonna marry her anyway. Marry that girl, marry her anyway! Marry that girl, yeah, no matter what you say! Marry that girl, and we'll be a family! Why you gotta be so rude, rude?

Again, again, and again, Billy incessantly pleaded with Hopper. Different tactics were all met with the same answer; rejection.

He held up a sign outside the cabin, only for Hopper to close the curtain and chuckle as he sipped his coffee.

He asked at the door again, only for Hop to threaten to give him a black eye (which was met with "aren't you the sheriff? Isn't that illegal?").

He raced past the police station, Max leaning out the window with another sign, only for Hop to threaten them with holding cells.

He even went as far as to ask Max and El to help, but Hopper had none of that, and sent Max home with a rant full of nos.

However, if Jim Hopper thought any of it would get it into Billy's head that getting his blessing was just not happening- he was as wrong as Nancy when she claimed not to have feelings for Jonathan.

Billy had another plan in mind, and this one was impossible to say no to.

Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life? Say yes, say yes, 'cause I need to know. You say I'll never get your blessing "till the day I die, tough luck my friend- but no still means no!"

"Hopper." Billy stood before his desk, interrupting his nice date with a delicious doughnut, and earning a very annoyed glare. "I got Miss Byer's blessing. Aren't you two a thing?"

"You son of a-"

"I got Eleven's too."

"Hargrove, I'm gonna-"

"Before you cuss me out, I think you should know that I've got a stable job, an interview with a mechanic so I have a job when the pool closes for the winter, and I've got a house on the market I'm looking at. I'm devoted to your daughter and she's devoted to me. You may not like me, but I think you're a great dad, better than the one I was unfortunately stuck with. You raised a strong and amazing woman. She's incredible and I admit, she deserves better than me-"

"You don't have to say that twice." Hopper huffed, crossing his arms.

"I know she deserves so much better than me, I'm surprised she's even with me too. But she loves me, and I think you can see that. I love her too. I would never, in a million years, break her heart."

Jim stayed silent for a few minutes. The silence brought uneasiness to Billy, but that was intentional on Hopper's behalf. He finally piped up with a cough, clearing his throat, before his piercing eyes met Billy's blue orbs.

"I'll hold you to that, Hargrove."

Why you gotta be so rude? Don't you know I'm human too? Why you gotta be so rude? I'm gonna marry her anyway. Marry that girl, marry her anyway! Marry that girl, yeah, no matter what you say! Marry that girl, and we'll be a family! Why you gotta be so rude? Why you gotta be so rude?

Bonus:

(after the wedding)

"What was that about a no?" Billy quipped with his infamous smirk.

"You're lucky I'm sheriff, Hargrove."

Why you gotta be so rude?

[azaleavi]

“All of the songs are about you”

Requested by anon: Hi, first of all I want to thank you for all your amazing work that you share with us, I absolutely adore everything that you write!!! Secondly, I was wondering if I could request something with Sebastian, where reader is a famous singer and younger than him, and when they reveal their relationship, people start saying that he is only using her and he gets worried that she will leave him for someone her age. Once again, thank you! 😚

Word count: 2k

Author's note: Thank you for your kind words dear nonnie! I hope you like it.

Warning(s): language

Feedback is always appreciated and don’t forget to reblog and like if you enjoyed it and want to see more. Thank you!

Masterlist

Both of you being famous wasn't easy with you being a singer and Sebastian being an actor. Especially when you wanted to keep your relationship a secret and you were quite younger than him. You have been dating for a while now and you couldn't be more in love with him. He was your muse for many of your songs, but the fans didn't know that. They did notice though that you started writing more love songs than before. You got questions about it almost every day, but you never answered them. They had their speculations, but you never confirmed any of it. It might be selfish, but you wanted to keep him all to yourself and both of you agreed to wait a little more before going public. He was promoting his new movie and you didn't want people to think that you announced your relationship only to give more publicity to it. But sometimes the universe doesn't care what you want.

It was a normal day, like any other, when you were at Sebastian's house and you started craving some McDonald's. The weather was nice for the time being past 10 pm so you decided to go out to buy it instead of ordering. It was dark already so you weren't afraid that anybody would see or recognize you. It was a five minute walk from his house and you thought it would be nice have a short walk. You waited for Sebastian to lock the front door then started walking down the street hand in hand. It probably wasn't the best idea, but you really didn't think that any paparazzi would be near you. You went into the fast food place to buy what you needed, then started walking back to his place, laughing at a story he was telling you. You loved these late night walks, the dark giving you a sense of comfort.

"Baby" he stopped walking as still giggled, making you stop as well. You turned to him, eyebrows raised in question, a smile still on your face. "I love you" he blurted out, intently looking at you, waiting for your reaction. He never said it before, despite dating for almost 6 months now. You didn't say it either yet, not wanting to make him uncomfortable or rush him. After his last relationship he wanted to be extra sure when saying the three words and you understood him. Your heart skipped a few beats at his confession, the smile widening on your lips.

"I love you too, Seb." you beamed, stepping closer to him and pulling him into a hug.

"Thank god." he mumbled into your hair, making you pull away.

"What do you mean 'thank god'? How could I not feel the same way about you? Haven't you heard the songs I wrote lately?" you asked jokingly in disbelief, but knowing he didn't mean it like that.

"You know what I mean" he blushed under the light of the streetlamp.

"I do" your arms going around his neck you pulled him down into a deep kiss. When you broke apart you walked back to his house to finally eat.

What you didn't realize was that there was a paparazzi following you, getting the perfect angle of your kiss, taking a series of photos.

The next morning you were woken up by your phone essentially exploding with calls and messages. You groaned as you reached for it, barely being able to touch it as Sebastian refused to let go of your waist.

"Why is your phone waking us up at the ass crack of dawn?" he groaned, rubbing his eyes.

"I don't know" you unlocked it to see at least 25 calls from your manager and another few from friends and family. Around the same amount of texts were sent as well, making you sit up in bed, confused. "Something is wrong." he sat up at your tone to look at your phone. You dialed your manager, putting it on speaker. She picked up right away.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she almost screamed into the device, making Sebastian look at you.

"I was sleeping. It's 7 am." you explained.

"Care to tell me why is you and Sebastian kissing plastered on every news site on the internet right now?" your whole world stopped at her words.

"What did you say?" Sebastian spoke up as you were still frozen in your spot.

"Oh your partner in crime is there too? Great. I don't have to say this twice." she was being sarcastic, but you didn't care. You just wanted an explanation.

"Tell us what is happening, please" you pleaded.

"There are multiple pictures of you going around. They are claiming that they took them last night." she explained, but that wasn't enough.

"What pictures?" you asked.

"Pictures of you holding hands and kissing." you ran your hand through your hair.

"Fuck" Sebastian sighed.

"That's an understatement." you heard shuffling on the other side. "So I recommend you guys figure out what you are going to do and do it real fast because it is getting out of hand."

"Yeah, sure we will do that." he took the phone from you. "Thanks."

"Just doing my work." she ended the call with a sigh. Sebastian looked at you as you stared at your legs, deep in thought.

"Hey" he brushed his hand up your back, shaking you out of your mind.

"Yeah?" you looked at him, startled.

"We need to do something." he explained.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. What should we do? Go public? I mean we don't really have any other choice." you furrowed your brows.

"Do you want that?" he wanted you to be hundred percent okay with whatever you were going to do.

"Yes, I just hoped it wouldn't happen like this." you sighed. "Do you want that?" you asked back.

"Yes. We already talked about going public so I guess we will have to do it now." he shrugged.

"How are we doing this then?" you stood up to get dressed, getting ready for the day.

"Posting a video on TikTok?" he grinned.

"Absolutely not. We are not posting on Tiktok." you shook your head, laughing.

"So where do you want it? Facebook?" he raised his eyebrows, joking.

"No." you laughed. "I was thinking about posting a pic on Instagram." you threw out the idea. Both of you used the app a lot so it would be the best choice.

"Okay, let's find a picture." he also stood up.

"Ah-ah" you held out your hand to stop him. "You talk to your manager while I pick out a picture to post on my account and you can post one on yours if you want to. Mine is going to be a surprise." you grinned, already having one in mind. It was your favorite picture of you, taken by a friend without your knowledge. You were in a parking lot at the beach, you sitting on the hood of his car while he was standing between your legs, kissing you. There was a second picture, where you were leaning your forehead against his, both of you laughing at your friends shouting at you to get a room. Both of your faces were clearly seen on them so you decided to post both of them.

'All of the songs are about you' the caption read. In seconds your notifications were blowing up with comments from fans. You didn't want to read them, because you knew how people on the internet could get and you knew that you being younger than him would bother some of them. Sebastian came out of the bedroom to sit next to you.

"You posted it?" he asked, taking out his phone.

"Yep" you smiled. You leaned your head against his shoulder as he opened the app, waiting for his reaction. He immediately searched up your name and tapped on the photo. His thumb froze on the little heart as he read the caption. He put the phone down and grabbed your chin to pull you to his soft lips in a kiss.

"I love you." he mumbled into your lips.

"I love you too." you giggled. He pulled away to pick up the phone to leave a comment. 'If I wrote songs mine would be about you too' you snorted at it. "You are cute"

-

A few days later you had enough courage to check the comments people were leaving online. Maybe it wasn't the best idea.

'Jesus. Isn't he like 12 years older than her?? Gross'

'He is definitely using her lmao but I can't blame him, get that coin king'

'Y'all think she calls him daddy in the bedroom kjsdnhs'

'She is just using him to write songs'

There were nice comments as well, calling you cute together and wishing you well. The mean comments always stuck with you more though and you didn't want Sebastian to read them. It was enough that you went through them. Both of you were a little insecure about your age gap, but you loved each other so you helped the other through the harder times.

You got to his house and walked in as he asked you to not to knock anymore. You found him sitting on his couch, phone in hand. Hoping that he wasn't doing what you thought he was doing you sat down next to him. He had instagram open.

"Seb" you sighed, taking the phone out of his hands.

"What? I just wanted to see what they were saying." he tried to defend himself.

"You shouldn't read these." you shook your head. "So you wanna watch a movie?" you changed the subject. He agreed with your suggestion.

The movie had been playing for a half an hour when he pulled away from your cuddling.

"What if they are right?" his voice was so quiet so almost didn't hear him. You paused the movie to look at him.

"What do you mean?" you asked, confused by his sudden outburst.

"The comments saying that you could do so much better than me" he kept looking at his feet. You sat up and grabbed his chin to turn his head towards you, your heart breaking at his words. This was exactly why you didn't want him to read them.

"Baby" you sighed. "They are not right. Not even by far. I could not find anyone better than you even if I tried. But I'm not trying because I have you with me and you are the best thing that happened to me in a long time. So get that thought out of your head." you stared into his eyes to get your point across.

"But don't you want someone your age?"

"No I don't." you shook your head. "I am perfectly happy with you and I don't need anyone else." you held his cheeks between your palms. "Plus I like it that you are older." you smirked making him chuckle lightly. Climbing onto his lap you pulled him closer. "I love it that you are more experienced." you pressed a soft kiss on his cheek. "I love it that you are taller." a kiss under his ear. "I love it that you are always so so sweet to everyone you meet." a kiss on his nose. Your right hand went into his hair as your lips kissed down to his neck. "And I love the way you make me feel when it's just the two of us." you whispered into his ear, your breath hitting his skin, making him let out a moan. He grabbed your waist in a strong grip. "I love how big your hands are." you nipped at his skin on his neck earning another noise of pleasure and his fingers digging into your skin. "But most importantly" you pulled away so you could look into his eyes to show your sincerity. "I love you. All of you. With everything I have." his eyes softened as he pulled you into a passionate kiss.

"I love you too."

Permanent taglist: @byatomoe

Sebastian Stan taglist: @wobblymug @sleutherclaw @toms-spiders @sarcastically-defensive17 @allforkook @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @mrsbarnesinmyimagination @bbl32 @wakandabiitch2

get added to my taglist

[andoqin]

Shows I’ve watched 2021 pt 3

Well finally I’ve reached the shows I watched this year and actually enjoyed. Huzzah!! I can’t even do a best 10 shows this year, because at the moment I don’t even have 10 shows that would make the rank. 2021 was fucking *dire*. 

I told sunset about you - Thai drama does coming of age and gay love story with a truly cinematic feel. The actors knock it out of the park and the way it’s shot gives it that feeling that you have when you think back on your first love, all the ups and downs and all the intense emotions you felt. Truly a show that stunned me and promises good things for thai (bl) dramas. It was still set in high school but it approached the feelings from a very different angle and used production values and great directing and writing to get you invested with the cahracters that many Thai BLs never even dream about. 9/10

Word Of Honor - the show that took over tumblr and danmei fandom at the beginning of this year to the point that it was probably a catalyst for a harsh crackdown for all BLs to come. The censoring after the fact was so noticeable that fans were still able to glean the original dialogues at points and while some of the acting wasn’t really up to par and the plot suffered the great romance of Zu Zhi Shu and Wen Ke Xing was always the focal point and always really well acted. Gong Jun delivered his best role to date and ZZH got to get away from his previous stoic roles that had him pretty type cast. Of course it all went to hell in the summer but ah well. 8.5/10 rationally (10/10 emotionally)

Run On - A show that manages to be low stakes and yet it knows how to make those low stakes really connect with you as a viewer because its slice of life feel actually feels like it could be part of your life (okay I don’t actually know that many rich people... nor do I want to). We got to see Shin Se Kyung shine in her role as Mi Joo who knows her worth and what she wants from her life. Short King Im Si Wan gets to be not her knight in shining armor but the one who does see her and see how great she is without asking her to compromise in any way. Then you have the great surrounding cast who are all dealing with being adults in a world like ours and just doing the best they can. I also really loved listening to Mi Joo talk about her subtitling work and how much she loves it. It’s so nice to see someone who has a career they’re proud of and that they enjoy. 9/10

The Rebel Princess - Zhou Yi Wei continues his assault on my heart whenever he appears. He’s such an incredibly versatile actor whose magnetism just leaps off the screen. It was a real delight to see him and Zhang Zi Yi be the power couple they both deserve to be, who never doubted each other and always stood strong. I do think most of the side characters also delivered their parts as the story needed them to, but some of the plot elements got to be tedious (Wanru and Zitan come to mind), but in the end the show gave A’Wu and Xiao Qi the ending they (and we) deserved. 8.5/10

Kieta Hatsukoi - A FUCKING DELIGHT. A mistaken identity leads to a false confession that turns out to be a true confession once Aoki truly discovers his disaster bisexual potential. It is unmistakably a manga adaption, but it manages to read that fine line between being super twee and catching your heart strings, mostly because Aoki, Ida and their friends are just genuinely good kids that you want to be happy. Maybe it was this hellscape of a year that made me check it out and fall in love with it but it came at the right time since I hadn’t really enjoyed a drama in a long time and this really did get me. 9/10

Utsukushii Kare - If Kieta Hatsukoi is sunshine and puppies, Utsukushii Kare is abandoned dogs and creepers and I mean that in the best way. Both Hira and Kiyoi are fucking weirdos in their ways and maybe Hira is more obviously a weirdo, but what I really appreciate about the show is that it shows how they both crave something from the other. Kiyoi is *not* unaffected by Hira’s obvious adoration, but Hira has to acknowledge that Kiyoi is more than just his “god”. But man that finale, that was fucking great. They both have that shouty argument that dramas sometimes like to do and that I slurp up with a spoon because for these two it works because they’re not people who express their feelings in more ~conventional ways. AND THAT SCENE at the theater/bar thingy, where Kiyoi’s face gets so *vulnerable* when Hira sucks on his finger (okay so writing it out sounds weird but man the way it’s shot and acted and edited is a++++) and then Hira fucks it up again and Kiyoi’s walls snap all the way up once again. Mmmmh good stuff. 10/10 no notes!

Beyond Evil - Ahhhh the last show I really enjoyed before I went into a drama funk because I enjoyed fucking *nothing*. The mystery was a bit eh, but well, I’m fucking weak to Shin Ha Kyun and Yeo Jin Gu acting their pants off (each other) and I’m kinda glad the mystery got a twist in the middle so it didnt feel like the police was completely idiotic. I mean not that the police work *wasn’t* iffy at best but sometimes the script is just elevated by Shin Ha Kyun and Yeo Jin Gu going off on each other... hehehe. Anyway infantile jokes aside their chemistry was fucking a+ and I wish i could have seen more of that kind of energy this year. 8.5/10

7!!! dramas I finished and enjoyed! 7!!! out of over ca 40 i tried this year. God, I pray to the drama gods that 2022 will treat me kinder!

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[pastelwitchling]

Woo boy. There is quite a bit to get into here, so let’s get started. As usual, get some tea and a snack because this is going to be a long one.

I think it’s best to begin with a disclaimer; I once again skipped all of Liz’s scenes 😂 They’re just so freaking boring. I’m sorry, I love Jeanine to death, but Liz is just... so uninteresting, and I feel like she brings nothing to the central plot this season. Maybe that’ll change soon, who knows. I did, however, of course not skip her scene with Kyle, and I’ll get to that when I talk about him.

I really love Isobel this season, I love this new empath power she has. Small little fun fact that no one will probably care about, but I wrote a novel when I was sixteen, first one I ever finished, where one of the main characters, also a beloved sister, was an empath, so I really, really love that they’re delving into that storyline and whether being someone who can sense emotion is strong or weak. I think Isobel handles it really well. I also really love how they’re bringing back her reliance on her brothers. Not dependency, but reliance. She is emotionally and physically stronger with them, just as they’re emotionally and physically stronger with her.

I do think she’s listening a little too much to Jones. She said that there must’ve been some truth to what Jones was saying, but it feels like she believes everything he says a little too much. I’m not complaining, I think it’s brilliant storytelling, and I’m really enjoying it so far.

I loved Maria’s scenes, too! I’m trying not to get my hopes up until the rest of the season, but I’m really liking her. If not for a certain line Alex says (we all know which one, I won’t say it, but I neither needed nor wanted that line, so I’m just going to ignore it completely), I would say that I’m kind of loving her character this season? 🙈 Certainly more than Liz’s.

I love how they really seemed to bring back her and Michael’s usual banter this season without any of the romance, like they never even looked at each other any other way at all. I pray to God it stays that way. Like I said before, the best thing the writers can do at this point is pretend the tragedy of season 2 never happened.

I thought Wyatt was sweet this episode, I really liked him. I don’t care.

Max and Kyle’s scene brought me to tears. Oh my god, I loved it so much. I love their dynamic, I love this new reluctant friendship between them. Nathan Dean is really just knocking it out of the park this season, and I’m loving him so much. I love Jones, I love their relationship - what a wonderful actor, I love him.

Kyle. What can I say about Kyle? Y’all, I hope he mentions at some point that Alex is the only friend he has that doesn’t take advantage of him and drag him into bad situations. In fact, when you think about it, it had been Kyle who’d dragged Alex into this whole aliens thing in the first place! I love that so much!

Michael Trevino’s emotion in this episode plunged a dagger through my heart. What a beautiful, powerful soul. The way he talked to Liz had me gaping. Finally!!! Someone tells her off for what she did, someone won’t let her be the innocent victim when she was the one in the wrong. And believe it or not, that acknowledgement made her more likeable to me. Like, yes, you can give female characters flaws that you acknowledge! (Your turn, Maria.) I actually screamed that I love Kyle in that moment, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And I do. I love him.

Gregory and Alex. Words truly cannot describe how much I loved their conversation about Jesse and Deep Sky. It felt so much more meaningful for Alex’s brother to talk to him about the Air Force. It feels like Alex has spent his military life alone, and away from everybody, and this was just such a wonderful reminder that he did have a family who understood him on a deeper level than other people. I just loved it. I loved it so much. Rooting for more Manes scenes.

Malex. Don’t even touch me. Listen. That scene was so fucking worth it. I don’t like to curse. That’s how serious you know I am. The way Michael sought him out, the way he so clearly wanted any excuse to talk to Alex and tell him what was going on, the way he played it off like it didn’t matter, but seemed to be waiting for Alex’s reassurance all the same. The way Alex - just like in my fic a few days ago!!! - shrugged it off like it was nothing, like it made no difference to him, like it didn’t change how Alex saw him, not even a little bit. And then his words in the car, the way Michael looked like he’d finally found some semblance of comfort, the way he clung to hope, the way he looked like he just wanted to follow him, the honest pain in the slight of tremble of Alex’s voice at the mere thought of something happening to Michael. The fierceness in his words that showed how hurt he was that Michael would even assume that he would cover up his murder. I just - I really cannot.

Finally, Alex Manes. At some point, I will write a Black Widow au for him, and it will be marvelous. I love his interactions with Ramos, I love his work at Deep Sky. I love the way the Lockhart Machine connects to the radio Jim Valenti left for Kyle because it promises more Kylex team-up moments. I’m just hopeful for the best.

I loved this episode, it was really amazing. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of the season.

[petersasteria]

Raising You - Holland!Reader

Holland!Reader || Main || Taglist

Requested? Nah. 1,941 words TW: character deaths, swear words, nothing super bad

I was supposed to post this on Mother's Day, but it wasn't ready by then and I didn't know the direction of this story. But yeah. Here it is now. Enjoy.

* * * *

“I hate you!” You screamed. “Why do you always ruin things for me?! You’re no fun at all!” Tears were streaming down your face as you ran up the stairs to go to your room.

Tom followed you and said, “Tough luck, Y/N! I love you and whether you like it or not, I’ll always meddle in your life!”

“Go away!” You shouted, went into your room, and slammed the door. Tom furiously knocked on the door and let out a frustrated sigh when he heard you lock it.

He rubbed his face and went downstairs to cool off. He walked in the living room and saw a framed picture of both of you. He smiled at the sight and immediately went to grab the picture. “When did you grow up?” He asked himself quietly.

Things were different. His life was difficult. He no longer had parents and his brothers perished in a terrible accident. All he had left was you. He could’ve followed his dreams and took his talent to Hollywood, but life was cruel. He never got a chance to do that because his family mattered more to him than any film career.

Tom couldn’t remember a time when he had a decent break. To him, he was always working and on the go just to get by. But he knew that his parents would be proud of him for stepping up at being the best brother for you.

Tonight was just different.

He got a call from your school saying that you left prom with one of the douche-y dudes. It was just fitting that Harrison was with him, so he had some help in dealing with you.

“Haz, I’m really worried. She could be anywhere!” Tom said as he paced back and forth, clutching his phone.

“Mate, calm down. We’ll find her, alright?” Harrison said calmly. “Have you called her?”

“Yes, and she didn’t answer. I left 20 fucking voicemails, Haz! Fucking 20! Still no answer. I called her friends and they said they didn’t know where she went and obviously that’s bullshit! What if she was kidnapped? O-Or killed somewhere and she’s dead in a ditch in the middle of fucking nowhere??” Tom rambled, running a hand through his hair frustratedly.

Harrison looked at his worried best friend and only said three words, “Check your wallet.”

“What?” Tom stopped pacing to look at him. Harrison shrugged, “Check your wallet.”

“We have no time to shop online right now, Harrison.” Tom said through gritted teeth, but grabbed his wallet anyway. He opened his wallet and he still didn’t know what he was supposed to look for. As if reading his mind, Harrison added, “Check your credit card or debit card or whatever fucking card you have. Check your cash.”

Tom did what he was told and groaned in frustration, “Y/N took my credit card and she took the fake ID that I confiscated from her.”

Harrison nodded and pointed to the phone, “Call the bank and ask for your recent activity.”

Tom called the bank and asked what his recent activity was. They told him that he checked into a motel about three minutes ago and gave him the address. Tom has certainly never been there and it baffled him on how you wound up in a place like that. Tom thanked the bank and hung up.

“She’s at a motel.”

Just like that, the two best friends got in Tom’s car and drove to the motel. Tom was too nervous to drive, so Harrison drove instead. Tom was looking out his window to see where the motel was and they eventually found it. Harrison parked the car and they both got out.

They went to the person in charge and asked if they'd seen you. “She was wearing a prom dress and she’s with some guy who was probably wearing a tux.” Tom explained.

“Yeah, I know those two.”

“Where are they?” Harrison asked.

“Room 2A.” The man said.

“Okay. Can we please have your spare key for that room?” Tom asked. “It’s an emergency.”

“No, sorry.” The man replied and sipped his coffee. Harrison glanced behind the man and immediately saw the key for room 2A. He walked around the desk and grabbed the man from behind. “Tom, go!” Harrison shouted as the man tried to get out of his grip.

“What are you doing?!” Tom shrieked.

“GET THE FUCKING KEY.” Harrison nodded his head toward the key and Tom’s jaw dropped in realization. Tom quickly jumped on the desk and grabbed the key for the room. When he grabbed it, he ran outside; followed by Harrison.

“Return that key!” The man shouted.

Tom and Harrison went up the stairs and walked around until they found your room. They stood in front of the door and Tom whispered, “What now?”

“You go in there and just take her. I’ll be out here for back up.” Harrison whispered back and Tom nodded.

Tom knocked on the door and said ‘housekeeping’ in a high pitched voice. Harrison slapped his arm and mouthed “what the fuck”.

“It’s improv! I can’t just barge in like a freak. I’m an actor, Haz.” Tom defended quietly, earning an eye roll from his best mate.

“We’re busy!” A male voice said which enraged Tom.

“Alright. Now, I can barge in.” Tom said as he used the key to open the door. The chain was in the way, but he managed to break it by pushing the door open.

“Y/N!” Tom shouted.

“Tom! What are you doing here? How did you find me?!” You shrieked. Your hair was messy and your dress wasn’t as neat compared to when you left the house. The guy with you was just watching the whole scene go down.

“That doesn’t matter now. Get in the car!” He yelled.

You shook your head, “No! I’m staying here with Brad!”

“Over my dead fucking body, Y/N.” Tom said before he grabbed your wrist and dragged you outside. Brad intervened and grabbed your other hand, “Let go, man!”

Tom was stronger and he was able to pull you out of Brad’s grip and told Harrison to take you to the car and give the key back to the man downstairs. You and Harrison went to the car and Tom stayed to lecture Brad.

“Chill out, man. Nothing happened!” Brad exclaimed.

“Okay and what if something did happen, hmm? What if you got her pregnant? Can you pay for child support? Do you plan on marrying my sister in the future? Are you ready to take care of a fucking baby?! I DON’T THINK SO.” Tom said angrily.

“She’s 15 and she has a great life ahead of her! I’m not going to let some boy ruin that. If you look at her or even blink at her, I will end you, Brad.” Tom threatened before leaving.

Tom sighed and put the picture back. Harrison left when you got home and that’s when your screaming match with Tom started. He walked up to your room and knocked on the door.

“Go away!” You said.

“You know, saying that will only make me knock on the door again. Just let me in. Let’s talk this out.” Tom said softly. He waited for a few seconds and he heard you unlock the door. He smiled at himself and let himself in.

He stared at you as you lay in bed with red eyes and puffy cheeks. He went further in the room and closed the door behind him before sitting down on the foot of your bed.

"I'm sorry for what happened back there, but I was doing it for your own good. You'll thank me in the future." Tom said and you rolled your eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes at me, young lady." He gave you a pointed look. "I'm serious. I guarantee that if it happened, you'll regret giving it to someone who isn't special after all. So you're welcome, I saved your ass."

"You're not the boss of me. Don't you remember what it's like to be young?!"

"Yes, I am the boss of you and of course I remember what it was like to be young. It was five years ago when I was 19!" Tom raised his voice and stood up. He paced around your room to calm down. He didn't want to fight, but you were being stubborn.

He looked at you and put his hands on his hips. “I never got to truly explore or- or experiment with different things, alright? I was robbed of my youth because I have to step up. I’m the eldest so it’s my job to take care of you; all of you.”

“Do you know how shocking it was for me?!” Tom shrieked. “I never got to grieve properly because I had to be strong for you and Paddy and Sam and Harry. It was too much for me to handle, but I forced myself to push through because I had no choice but to move forward.”

“Sam and Harry had their youth taken away too because they had to help me. When they were your age, they worked and picked up a few side jobs just to help me pay the bills. We’re lucky that we get to keep this house because it was already paid for by mum and dad before they died.”

“I had to give up everything for all four of you and you have no idea what that’s like, Y/N!” Tom yelled. He was clearly frustrated and it dawned on you that he never released those pent up feelings and you just let him shout.

“Sam and Harry were there sometimes, but they were also too busy trying to make something of themselves. Most of the time, it was me! They were working and going to school for their future and I was at home with you and Paddy because both of you were still too young. All my friends were out partying, dating, going to university. Meanwhile, I’m at home too busy being your mum and dad and brother.” He cried out of frustration, causing you to cry too.

He sat down at the edge of your bed and wiped his tears as you stared at him., not bothering to wipe your tears. “Now three of our brothers are also gone and it’s fucked. They never got to reach the finish line of their dreams and goals.” He said quietly. Tom looked at you and gave you a tight-lipped smile, “I don’t want to fight anymore, okay? It’s just you and me now and we have to be a team. We should help each other, so before you do anything stupid ask yourself if it’ll put stress on me. If the answer is yes, then don’t do it. I don’t need more stress.”

You only nodded. He got up from your bed and said, “Good night.” Before he left your room, you walked up to him and gave him a hug, “Thank you for your sacrifices and I’m sorry for being a pain in the ass.”

He chuckled lightly and hugged back, “I’m sorry for being strict, but it’s all part of the parenting thing.”

“You’ll be a great dad.” You said softly before yawning. Tom’s heart melted when you said that. “You think so?” He asked.

“I know so.” You told him. He smiled and kissed the top of your head. It may be sad that five of your family members left both of you, but it was okay. You had each other and that’s all that matters.

* * * *

𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃!𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @blueleatherbag @thatforgottenangel @turtoix @runawayolives @chewymoustachio @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @alexx-stancati @rumplebutterbaby @dummiesshort @thevelvetseries @quxxnxfhxll @angelsgrxzer @dreamy-clousds @bora-world @caitsymichelle13 @wannabemobwife

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @holland-styles @trustfundparker @alinastarkrovs @felicityparkers @hufflepuffprincess24 @tommysparker @justasmisunderstoodasloki @quaksonhehe @call-me-baby-gir1 @itstaskeen @theonly1outof-a-billion @lost-in-the-stars03 @justafangirlduh @piscesparker @speedymaximoff @miraclesoflove @lexirv @blairscott @getbywithasmile @pqrkerr @lavender-writer @blackbat2020 @hoodpankow @bi-lmg @emmastarz

[hermankopusortizorsumshite]

Walsh

Final Part, PART THREE

Also, sorry this is so long. I just wanted to post the whole thing this weekend. So enjoy babes!

Warning: smut, violence, gore, breaking and entering, sarcasm. So much swearing. Mentions of Shane c*ck.

A/N: funny story, I've hated Shane since the Walking Dead aired originally because I thought he was cocky and I was like fourteen. Well, now I'm a 22yr old adult and GOOODDDAMMMN it, Jon Bernthal is a great, wonderful actor and so, so easy on the eyes.

@thewhitewolfownsme thanks for getting me hooked ;)

Kennedie gets up to look out the window, not one for hospitals, when she sees Walsh heading to his cruiser. She almost knocks, but she didn’t want to make it seem like she actually liked him.

“Where’s Walsh going?” She asks, looking to Rick. He shakes his head and scowls, he didn’t know either. Rick joins her, watching out the window as the horror unfolds before their eyes. A small, petite nurse jogs up to the car and he greets her with a hug and a kiss. He hands off something small, she can’t quite see it, but she can deduce by the way the woman wagged them at him and the way he smiled exactly what they were. Shane looks around to see if anyone saw them before he heads back inside.

“Rick, I don’t want him in here.” She whispers, tears falling down her face.

“I don’t blame you.” He assures, patting her shoulder she sits down. Rick heads out the door to meet Shane before he can get in the door. “You’re a liar too?” He growls as he pushes Shane back down the hallway.

“What?” He asks, his body getting chills.

“Go outside.” Rick orders, jabbing a finger at the door. Shane tries to go back to Kennedie’s room but Rick just grabs his collar and drags him out.

“Rick, what’s goin’ on?” He stammers.

“Tell me you didn’t respond right away because you were eating your lunch.” He seethes.

“I told you, when I was eating the keys fell between the seat.”

“It had nothing to do with little miss muffet and her little lace panties?” He asks, pointing to the cruiser. Shane’s eyes blast wide, nothing but whites as he takes a step back.

“Rick, I can explain-”

“Well you better, because you’ve got Kennedie up there so mad she’s crying.” He jabs a finger up to the window with the half-open curtain.

“Shit!” He shouts, slamming his fist into the hood. “Rick! I messed up once!” He cries, fists quaking at his sides. He paces back and forth in front of the cruiser until it’s black outside.

“Shane, go home.” Rick calls as he walks down the lot to their car.

“I can’t, Rick.” He huffs, sitting on the hood.

“She doesn’t want to see you.” Rick shoots into the night.

“I know. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see her. When I got there, she was laying in a pool of her own blood, Rick. I’ve seen dead bodies and I’ve seen a lot of blood, but that made me sick. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t help her. I--I fucked up.” He cries, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, you fucked up, Shane. Unfortunately, I can’t fix this fuck up. She hates you.” He breathes a shaky breath out watching Rick leave. As the lights leave the street, Shane heads inside and slips into her room just to see her, to make her real.

“Pussy. Pussy. Pussy. The only thing that lives in Shane Walsh’s mind. Even when someone is breaking into his best friend’s house, pussy. That must be the way to live, huh? Why don’t you worship me like that? Huh? The way you worship the pussy? I wasn’t even worth a ‘sorry I gotta go’.” She throws her stress ball at him, hitting him upside the head.

“Kennie, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, comes out smooth to me. Didn’t come out at all to nurse Panties.” She hisses, rolling away from him.

“So we’re back to this? The insults and anger?” He asks. She jerks into a sitting position and looks at him with a wild look in her eyes.

“Yes Walsh! We’re back to square one because I trusted you! And you were too busy getting laid in a hospital parking lot to respond to a burglary at Rick’s! So yes! We’re back to the beginning! I trusted you because you said you really weren’t that bad and here we are in a hospital because you couldn’t keep that precious Shane cock to yourself. You gotta share that shit with everybody!” She screams, Shane just stands there and takes it. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want to leave.

“Listen, I’m sorr-”

“I don’t want to hear another fake apology come from those stupid lips! Get out Walsh!” She cries, tears pouring down her face.

“Kennedie please don’t make me go.” He whispers, his bottom lip quaking.

“I don’t want you here! Hell, maybe I’ll get lucky and you and nurse panties’ll be fucking on the empty bed there! Wouldn’t that be a goddamn sight!” She roars, kicking her feet.

“Kennedie, I-”

“Quit saying sorry, Walsh. Get out.”

“Please don’t make me-”

“Like you made me trust you and fall in love with you to find out you’re still the same womanizing dickbag you’ve always been? No. You made me. So get out. I swear to god I’ll call security.” She threatens, grabbing her call button.

“Fall in love with me?” He asks, breath hitching in his throat again, that familiar burning sensation in his throat.

“Does it matter now?” She asks, rising to her feet and walking passed him to open the door. “Leave please.” He faces her and sits in the chair.

“I can’t leave.”

“You can and you will.” She grabs her phone and calls Rick. “Please just make him leave. I-I need him gone. I don’t want to call security and make a scene, but dammit he won’t leave. She sits on the edge of her bed crying, sobbing uncontrollably. How dare he make her fall in love with his stupid smile, and those stupid pools of dark chocolate, and that stupid fluffy hair. He stands in the corner by the door, unable to get any closer, but he just looms, watching her cry.

“Shane?” Rick coos, heading into the room. He finds the large man standing in the corner, a terrified look on his face. “C’mon buddy. We gotta go.” He grabs the other man’s elbow and pulls him towards the door. Digging in his heels, Rick hears a small whisper.

“Please don’t. When I leave, all I see her laying in that pool of blood, Rick. I can’t.” He cries, trying to go back.

“Shane, she doesn’t want you in there so you gotta go. You gotta leave.” He pulls Shane from the room. Her strangled sobs mangle his emotions and he steps into the hallway to breathe. Rick’s hand finds his shoulder. “Shane, it’s okay.”

“It’s all my fault. I went by at eight every day but today. Every other day. I checked four times a day just to be sure.” He begs, trying to make it make sense.

“Shane, they got the guys okay?”

“They did?”

“Yeah.”

“Rick. I’m in love with her, Rick. I’ve been in love this whole time. I was excited about cold pizza and movie night. I made breakfast. I took Carl to school. I was nice.” He stammers, listing off everything he did right.

“I know, Shane. But she’s mad at you right now, okay?” Rick tries to reason with this grown man the way he’d reason with his five year old son.

“Kennie?” Lori’s soft voice breaks through her sobbing. She looks up, swiping away the tears and sniffling. “Shane is pretty beat up over you.” She smiles gently, a hand on her best friend’s knee.

“I bet. So am I.” She cries, letting Lori hug her tightly.

“He fucked up, he knows that.” Lori tries to reason with her, but when she realizes what she’s trying to do, she sits up and frowns.

“No no. Don’t you dare try to stand up for him. He did this to himself. And unlike everyone this man child has ever met, I’m not giving into him that easy. He made his bed, let him lay in it a while.” She retorts, rolling her eyes.

“Listen, I know you’re mad at him. I get it, but Shane isn’t good when he’s mad like this. He starts to drink and make bad choices.”

“And who’s fault is that? Mine? I should just cast aside my anger because Shane might get drunk and pass out? He’s a grown man, Lori! He’s not your child!” She shouts, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I know that. I’m just asking you to --”

“To forgive him for getting pussy instead of answering a call to your house, where your son was, and where I was shot. I’m sorry Lori, I don’t know what kind of hold the Shane dick has on you too, but I’m forgiving him yet.” Lori’s hand smacks across Kennedie’s face before she can stop herself.

“I would never-”

“Oh shut it! I’ve seen the way you look at him sometimes, like he’s a fresh piece of steak. I see it. You two probably had some fling before you and Rick got married and now the Shane dick has the almighty power over you.” Kennedie rolls her eyes as Lori stands and stomps out. Kennedie just laughs. Lori would ruin twenty years of friendship over her husband’s best friend’s dick.

“Rick. Let’s go. Shane, get up and leave. You’re being a child.” She hisses, grabbing Rick’s arm and storming for the door.

“What happened?” He asks, looking to Lori with confused eyes.

“I slept with Shane ten years ago, before you ever thought about dating me. Okay? Please don’t be mad. Anyway, I was trying to talk to Kennie about forgiving him but she won’t.” She huffs, getting it all out in one breath.

“Because Shane was fucking a woman in the backseat of the cruiser when he should’ve been responding to a burglary at your house where your son was. Your best friend was shot. And you think she should just forgive him? He fucked up, Lori. He messed up. I know you like to see the best in everyone, but Shane really needs to reevaluate, hunny.” He offers, explaining to her. “And I’m not mad, it was ten years ago.” He chuckles.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She heads back into the room and looks to see Kennedie getting up and dressed. “I’m sorry.” Lori calls from the door.

“It’s fine. I didn’t mean what I said to you, but I’m not forgiving Walsh. So if that’s what you’re here for, I don’t have anything to say.” She pulls on her jeans and Walsh’s tee shirt that she’d stolen at a party long ago.

“I know. You don’t have to forgive him, but please forgive me.” She asks, sitting next to her and hugging her.

“I could never stay mad at you.” Kennedie chuckles, hugging back. “The doc let me go, so. I guess I’m outta here.” She pats her knees as she rises and heads out the door.

“Let me drive you home.” Shane begs, grabbing at her hand.

“Let you drive me anywhere? No. Fuck you. I actually never wanna see you again. So.” She shoves him away and walks out the door.

“You can ride home with us. Your car is still in the driveway.” Lori calls as Shane gets into the cruiser. He follows them to Rick’s. Rick gets out and gives Shane a confused look.

“Walsh, go home.” She bites, throwing a fist at him. “Oh my god, Lori. I gotta clean the blood off the floor.” She calls, jogging inside.

“No no, we had cleaners come in hunny.” Lori chuckles, hugging her tight before they go in the house. It was spotless, like nothing happened.

“Wow.” She whispers, taking in the memories of the weekend.

“Tell me something though. Were you and Walsh really hanging out and like, not hating each other?” Rick asks as she grabs her bag.

“Yeah, kinda. He was almost nice.”

“Aunt Kennie says uncle Shane is a woman fighter.” Carl states from the edge of the hallway. Walking tiredly to Lori, he gets up on the counter. “Uncle Shane came and made breakfast one morning. He even spanked aunt Kennie, but she spanked him back. Then they both had white on their butts.” Carl gives a sleepy little smile. “Uncle Shane came back for pizza and they laid on the couch like you do with daddy.” He points to Rick and she feels her cheeks flame.

“I thought you were sleeping you little stinker.” She laughs, tickling him as he erupts into giggles.

“Did you know all my other friends have aunts and uncles who are married. How come you and uncle Shane aren’t married?” He asks, yawning and curling against Lori. She looks ove her son expectantly with a smirk.

“It just wasn’t meant to be little dude.” She smiles sadly, patting his shoulder.

A month goes by without so much as a sound from Walsh. As she’s walking to his apartment, she hears a thump and opens the door to find Shane laying on the floor.

“Wow, look what the cat dragged in.” He gives a drunken whisper as he tries to stand up.

“Yeah, lookie there.” She coos, smiling sadly at him.

“You-look--” He covers his mouth a moment before he sucks in a breath and vomits on the hardwood floor.

“Not as good as you.” She laughs, pulling him up off the floor and getting him into a shower. Tugging off his black tee shirt and his jeans, taking a deep breath before pushing him under the water. “C’mon Walsh, stand up.” She coos, trying to help him. Finishing his shower, she gets him walked to his bed and laid down, tugging off his sopping wet underwear and putting on basketball shorts. He’s snoring soundly when she steps out of the room. Her eyes land on the pizza boxes and beer cans like a frat party had been tossed there in his living room.

“Christ, Walsh.” She whispers, folding up all the boxes and stuffing them into a bag, shoving all the bottles and cans into another. Tidying up the couch, she even vacuums the floor for him. Hearing a groan, she looks up to see Shane standing in the doorway, staring at her with the most bewildered expression.

“Ken?” He asks taking a step into the living room to find it clean. “Kennedie, what are you doing here?” He asks, stepping a little closer.

“You called me and told me you had the perfect idea for Carl’s birthday. And when I got here, you were on the floor drunk. I showered you, not fun.” She snorts, scrubbing the couple of dishes in the sink.

“Did you put these shorts on me?” He asks, raising a brow.

“Yes.” She nods, heading for the door. She turns on one foot daintily and gives him a smirk. Eyes dropping to his crotch and back up, “and I really don’t understand the hype. It’s not that big.” He just laughs, leaning against the hallway wall.

“Bah, you’ll sing a different tune someday.” He crows, wagging a finger at her.

“Shut up, Walsh.” She chuckles, grabbing the handle and heading outside.

“Hey, slow up a minute.” He coos, heading towards her. Cornering her against the door, he leans in, his breath warm against her face.

“Walsh, what are you doing?” She asks, looking up at him through her lashes, her cheeks flushing red.

“Ssh ssh ssh.” He hushes, putting a thick finger against her lips. Instinctively her tongue swipes against her lips and his finger.

“Shane.” She whispers, careful where she put her hands. Planting them on his chest was the wrong move. He leans his weight against her now, her hands pressed into his chest.

“Sweet girl, I think you are the most beautiful girl in the world. I love you.” He whispers, getting so close to her lips his ghost across hers.

“Walsh, I need you to take a step back.” She whispers, pushing him gently away.

“Why? Can’t you see that I’m in love with you?” He asks, looking to her with glossy, dark brown orbs.

“Because you are still drunk and tomorrow you’ll have that cock slamming into some other whore, so I’m sorry Walsh, but your drunk ass is not kissing me.” She steps out and shuts the door. Leaning against the cool wood door to breathe, she hears a thump behind her.

“I love you sober.” He whispers, sending chills down her back.

Carl’s birthday party was at one, and she was there at eleven with the cake. When she got there, Shane’s Jeep was parked in her spot. Typical Walsh.

“Walsh! Your Jeep is in my spot!” She shouts, seeing Shane’s curly top poke above the sofa. He jumps to his feet and her breath hitches in her throat. His sheer size and chest width made her heart patter, but the button up half buttoned and the denim clad thighs. The silver necklace around his neck placed perfectly against his chest.

“What’s the matter?” Shane asks, looking at her and winking.

“N-nothing. Walsh, can you help me?” She points over her shoulder toward the door. His smirk is sexy and sweet, her eyes drinking him in as he saunters out the door. “The uh, the cake-here.” She slips between him and the door of her honda pulls it out. Carefully handing it off to him as her arms start to shake.

“This all you needed?” He asks, eyes drifting to her as he tries to hide a smile. His eyes drink her in; that yellow floral sundress riding high on her thighs, the sandals on her feet, her curls falling over her shoulder.

“Yeah, of course it is. Thank you. At least you’re good for something.” She chides.

“Better be careful, lady! I’ll drop this cake!” He threatens, calculating a wobble in his step.

“Walsh, if you drop that I promise you I will drop you.” She giggles, pulling open the door.

“Ooh, do it baby. I wanna see you try.” He chuckles, daring her to do it. Sitting the cake on the counter, she heads out to her car to get Carl’s gift. Shane follows her out this time, his hand slips down and grabs her ass, gripping tight.

“Shane!” She jumps, holding her breath.

“What baby? You don’t like that? Sh, I know you do. I love you. And I meant that shit. I can’t explain to you how it felt to kneel in your blood and hold you, not knowing what to do.” He whispers, shivering at the trauma.

“Shane Walsh. Stop it.” He leans her into her car and presses his lips firmly, sweetly, promisingly against hers.

“Just say it. You were right.”

“Aw thank you Walsh, I knew I was right.” He pushes her into Rick and Lori’s garage, pulling the door shut behind them. He drives her against the wall, lips soft and sensual against hers as he holds her against him.

“I saw how you were looking at me earlier. You wanted me.” He huffs into her ear as he lets her hands drift across the bare part of his chest.

“Yeah. No shit. I think you're hot.” She stammers, yanking at Shane’s shirt.

“That’s a first.” He coos, wriggling his knee between her legs. “I think you’re hot. Sometimes when I bang other women, I think of you.” She’s taken aback for a moment before she just laughs.

“Shane, shut up.” She grinds through her teeth as she hooks her arms around his neck and tugs his lips to her neck. His lips go to work and her hands massage his bare shoulders. Shane gets them into a spot between the shelves and totes where they couldn’t be seen and he lets her scoop up her skirt and he grabs her panties. When he pulls them down he chuckles, the same black panties he’d teased her about.

“Goddamn you are beautiful.” He hushes as he leaves open-mouthed kisses across her exposed collarbone and up her neck. He stops on her lips, pressing a hot, delicious kiss there.

“Shane. Will you please do your job and fuck me?” She nips through shivers as he takes his time. Her fingers fumble with the belt and she undoes his jeans in record time. Sliding into her, he takes his time to get comfortable firsrt, before his thrusts are fast and hard, a hand covering her mouth because currently there were about twelve little kids inside screaming. “Shane. Shane please.” She whines softly, gripping his hair as he drives up into her, legs quaking as she reaches her orgasm, she grips his ebony locks so tight his scalp starts to tingle, but he likes it. Ramming into her as she clenches and spasms around him, making his heart slam hard into his chest before he sinks into her once more, spilling his hot seed in her. Slipping out with a soft groan, he tucks himself away and tugs . his shirt back on, buttoning it up like before. Half open shirt, necklace hanging around his neck and his heart still pounding, he looks to her to find her still leaned against the wall, eyes closed and breathing heavily. Leaning forward, he grabs her waist and pulls her against him. Gingerly pulling up her panties, he pulls a dark blue hankerchief from his pocket and wipes his seed from the inside of her legs before pulling her panties on the rest of the way. Her arms around his neck, he stuffs the kerchief back in his pocket and starts to hum, swaying with her.

“I do love you.” He coos in her ear, his wide hands splaying to cover almost her whole lower back.

“I love you too, Walsh.” She giggles, softly sighing as she sifts her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Will you quit calling me Walsh? At some point, when we’re married, people will think it’s weird if you’re still calling me Walsh, and not Shane. Or hunny. Hunny works, or baby. But not Walsh.”

“Hey Shane? Get used to it. It’s hard to even call you Shane. I just wanna throw insults at you but it seems wrong now, cause like Walsh dick really is that good.” She laughs, letting him kiss her face; her cheeks, her nose, her lips, and her favorite, he places the gentlest kiss on her forehead and adjusts her dress before he checks his watch.

“It’s twelve-fifteen, baby.” He whispers, sending chills down her back.

“Goddamn it, Walsh. You truly gotta ruin everything.” She whines heading back into the the house through the back door that leads into the kitchen. Lori’s eyes meet hers with a knowing grin as she hands Kennedie some plates and a basket of silverware. Screeching kids come flying into the kitchen in party hats and swimming trunks all kinds of different colors.

“Carl! Not the kitchen!” Lori yells as she grabs a bowl of pasta salad.

“Sorry mom!” He shouts, racing into the living room. Shane’s hand grips her ass as she walks passed the grill with her hands full and she gasps, eyes burning into him as he grins and he and Rick laugh.

“Those two are trouble.” She huffs to Lori as she sees her best friend chuckle with the men. “You too?” She asks incredilously, staring at Lori as though she’d been betrayed.

“Hey Lori! I’m just dropping off Gavin!” A sweet, high pitched voice calls. As she looks to see who it is, Shane stiffens and holds his breath. “Hi Shane.” She coos, giving him a sultry wave. He nods back and wraps his arms around her waist.

“Let it go. I love you.” He whispers into her ear as he holds tight to her, his lips pressing into her neck.

“Shut it, Walsh.” She nips, slipping from his grip and stepping into the house to breathe. He follows closely behind, stepping in with her and leaning her against the door.

“I love you, don’t you get that?” He coos, thumb smoothing her cheek.

“I just--it feels surreal, Shane.” She whispers, letting him pull her against his chest.

“Listen to me, baby. I love you. The minute you shot back at me with insults I was done for. It was infuriating, it was beautiful. And you packed me lunch like some kind of domestic, sweet little house wife, and don’t take offense to that, but I loved it. Every minute. I was the proudest man in King County to go to work with your pink lunch box in the passenger seat of the cruiser. I wanna marry you. I wanna marry you and--and--get old with you. I love you, you fiesty lil thing.” Tears fall down her face as she grips his face and kisses his lips warmly and happily.

“I love you, Shane. I love you so much.” She coos, hugging his neck.

[severetimetravelnerd]

I Don’t Know(13) (ft. G Dragon and MINO)

Part 13

You’ve had enough of this crap.

This series will be updated once a week, every Friday! No specific time though lol. It’s an AU where Jiyong has a younger sister and you’re her best friend! Featuring my OC Mirae as the Best friend. Just saying, it’s not related to any of the scenarios I’ve written so far. Please do leave me some comments or asks! I love receiving them! It’s also a bit of a love triangle situation, so yeah :)) There will be eventual smut in this series.

(I don’t own any of the images used. All credit goes to the original owners.)

I only write on this blog on tumblr, so if you see my work on any other platform, please let me know immediately.

Taglist:

@kwonnansi​ ; @unabashedturkeytreeslime​ ; @happiestgirlontheeastcoast​; @yee-hawwwwwwww​ ; @slayergroupie0128​ ; @herewecomeitsjekki​ ; @happygirl327​ ; @to-all-the-stories-i-love​ ; @kankoshio​

Please comment if you’d like to be added to the tag list:))

This is the second last part!!

Word Count: 2020

WARNINGS:  crying, drinking.

——————————————-

You tried to put up with it. You really did. For two weeks, you respected his wishes and put some distance between the two of you, no matter how much it hurt you to go back to being practically strangers with Jiyong. You didn’t message him. You passed on all messages for him via his manager. You didn’t try and acknowledge his existence at work, even though you were working on his comeback. It got tougher by the day, because his manager had given you printouts of the lyrics of the songs in his comeback for you and your team to have a better idea of what to do and after reading them, you were moments away from bursting into tears, because of the beautiful way in which he put down the feeling of longing he had for you. You knew that feeling. It was what you felt for him. For all those years, and somewhere deep down, you knew you still did. You also had to fight the urge to laugh, because when you read his lyrics about wanting to be close to you, all you wanted to do was shake him and ask him why he was pushing you away again. Yeah, maybe he wasn’t being mean to you this time, but it hurt. It hurt so goddamn much. You were so confused. But you tried. You really tried to maintain the distance. You tried even harder to pretend like it wasn’t affecting you. But you betrayed yourself in the small things. The hope in your eyes whenever you thought you heard his voice. The constant looks towards the door. The general air of weariness about you. The pained expression you got whenever someone spoke about him. Even so, you persevered for two weeks before a combination of things made you snap.

-two weeks later-

You were mid conversation with Hwiyoung when Jiyong’s manager walked in. He was smiling and looked very excited.

“Okay, you guys! I thought it might help with your work if you listened to Jiyong’s album, starting with the title track ‘I Don’t Know’. It’s the song for the music video you’ve been working on!”

And before you could make an excuse to get out of listening to something you knew would only cause you more pain, he started playing it. The moment you heard Jiyong’s voice reading out the message he sent you the night you confessed to him, you found yourself unable to move. You wanted to get up and walk away, but from the sound of his beautifully melodic voice and the things he was talking about, you were stuck in this flurry of memories. They all flashed before your eyes. The day you realised you liked him, the times you cried over him, the times he comforted you; everything took over in this wave of emotions and it proved to be too much for you to bare. The song had ended, but you were still stuck in your own world. You were only jolted out of it when Somin hesitantly wiped a tear off your face. Shocked at yourself, you looked upwards to find Hwiyoung, Lia, Somin and Jiyong’s manager staring at you, confused. You opened your mouth to make an excuse and laugh it off, but you couldn’t.

“I-I need to go.” Your voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”

And you walked out of the room, tears streaming down your face.

What was going on? What was Jiyong playing at? You liked him and then he rejected you. You tried getting over him and more or less succeeded, but then he entered your life again. He told you he loved you, he acted like he cared. He drew you out of your walls, enough to trust him again and expect something from him, when he disappeared and ignored your existence. That song pushed you too far. You were just so confused. You walked down the hall, fully planning on crying until you calmed down and returning to work, when you heard his voice. At first, you thought it was just the song echoing in your head, when you heard it again. His laugh. Pausing, you looked around and realised you were near a practice room, with the door wide open. Against what your mind was telling you to do, you peeped in to see Jiyong doubled over with laughter and the actor blushing and hiding her face.

“Jiyong, stop laughing at me!”

“That is not what I meant when I said dance.”

“Well, I know that now.”

“Here, this is how you do it.”

He turned her to face him and guided her arms to wrap around his neck. Smiling, he wrapped his arms around her waist, leaned her head against his chest and began swaying to the music. And that was it. You snapped. It wasn’t even seeing the way she looked at him or the way he touched her, though that didn’t help. It was the song he played while dancing with her. It was the same song that played for the first dance at Sohyun’s wedding. It was the same song the two of you danced to over and over again. You looked down at your phone, looking through the images and finding the picture from that night. It was one of the few good memories you had with him. Subconsciously, you always thought of that song as special to you and Jiyong. Seeing just how special it was to him, you felt betrayed. It wasn’t even noon, but you were done. You needed it to stop. You walked off, deciding to go to Mirae’s house and drink your ass off. Little did you know Jiyong heard your footsteps as you walked off. He wanted to run after you, hold you and erase every memory of him with that other girl, but he couldn’t. He knew he had to maintain the space. You were happier without him.

---

Mirae jumped up from the couch when she heard this continuous knocking on her door, almost annoyingly loud.

“Hold on, for fuck’s sake! I’ll be there in a minute.”

She flung open the door, fully prepared to scream at whoever was at the door when her jaw dropped. You were standing there, seriously dishevelled, in your work clothes. Your hair was pulled out of the neat arrangement it had been in in the morning, your make up was smudged from all the crying and you had tear marks running down your face. You had this painfully forced smile on your face and you held two bottles of wine in your hand.

“Mirae! Babe,” You threw your arms around her. “Let’s get drunk.”

“Y/N, what? It’s 11 am.”

“So what? Who cares? It’s just a little wine anyway.”

And before Mirae could stop and ask you what happened, you opened a bottle of wine and chugged.

Mirae gently coaxed the bottle, which was half empty, out of your hand and sat you down.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? Do you want to talk about it?”

You grabbed the bottle back. “Nope.”

Before you could drink again, Mirae snatched it away again.

“No, we’re not doing this. You’re going to get drunk and rant and then forget everything if you continue drinking. Not happening. We’re going to talk this out and deal with our problems, okay? We can take however long you want, and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you’re not doing this thing again where you try to forget about them.”

You fell silent.

“You wanna take a shower and change into something comfy? I’ll fix you something to eat in the meantime.”

You slowly nodded and left. When you got back, you were decidedly calmer. Your skin was a little splotchy from having cried so much, but you weren’t near hysterical anymore, which is always a good thing. Mirae just quietly watched you and didn’t say a word until you had eaten. While handing you a glass of water, she sat down beside you and pulled you into a hug.

“Y/N, I don’t know what happened, but it’s okay. I’m here for you. We’re going to get through this.”

You couldn’t help it. You started crying again. She held you and let you cry it all out before finally asking you,

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

You took a deep breath and started ranting about Jiyong. Mirae heard you out throughout and with each passing second, she got more annoyed at her brother.

“Good god, he is an idiot. I don’t know what he’s thinking. You know what he rants about when he’s drunk? About how he would do anything for your happiness. I didn’t realise he meant he wanted to pull this bullshit. He always talks about how he will wait for you, no matter how long it takes, if you’re unhappy. That idiot doesn’t realise that there is no need to wait for fuck’s sake. He even heard you tell him you love him. But no, that’s not enough. Why? “She won’t remember saying it.””

She paused when she noticed you staring at her.

“What?”

“I told him I love him?”

“Yeah, you did. You were drunk, which is probably why you don’t remember.”

But the moment she said that, hazy recollections of the night he sat with you in the park started to come back to you. Fuck. You told him you loved him. You told him you missed him. And as you sat there shocked over your words, you realised just how true they were. Shocked, you whispered to yourself,

“Then why is he doing this?”

Mirae sighed. “He’s an idiot, that’s why. Also, he thinks he’s never seen you smile as happily as you did when you were with Minho.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s only because I wasn’t with him!”

“I know that. You know that. The only problem is he doesn’t.”

You jumped up, determined to go and talk things out with Jiyong, when Mirae held your arm, stopping you.

“Look, I know you want to go talk to him now, but it’s only 2 in the afternoon. He’s still at work, with everyone else there. If someone records your conversation, it would be a huge scandal. You should talk to him after he goes home. Why don’t you nap for a while instead? I know you haven’t been sleeping all that well.”

Reluctantly, you followed her advice. She was right. You couldn’t afford to risk a scandal involving you, Jiyong, Yuna, Jae and Minho.

---

It was late when you woke up from your nap. Really late. You rubbed your eyes and reached across to check the time on your phone. 11pm. Wait. What. How on earth did you sleep for nine hours straight?! You doubled checked the alarms you set on your phone. Great. You managed to sleep through all of them. You looked around Mirae’s room and you saw a family photo. Jiyong. That was why you were exhausted in the first place. You couldn’t sleep thinking about him. Well, not anymore.

---

Jiyong was lazily watching some old reruns of a tv show, not able to bring himself to watch anything you liked, when he heard someone maniacally banging on his front door. Worried for a minute, his fear eased when he heard your voice.

“Kwon Jiyong, I know you’re in there! And if you don’t fucking open this door, I’ll stay here all night.”

Worried about you, he gently opened the door, prepared more for you coming in and sitting down. He was not prepared for you storming in with crazed eyes, kicking the door shut behind you, grabbing his collar and pushing him against a wall.

“Wh-what”-

“Enough. I’ve had enough of this Jiyong. Why? Why are we putting ourselves through this?! No. Why are you putting me through this?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve had enough of you ignoring me.”

“Y/N, I had to-”

“Shut the fuck up and listen. I love you Jiyong.”

And you pulled him closer, sliding your arms around his neck before kissing him.

---

Copyright © 2020-2021 @severetimetravelnerd All rights reserved.

Any unlawful and unauthorized sharing of these works will result in legal action.

(Reblogs are good :) )

[nautilusopus]

tbh the 2001 version of ocean's eleven is better than the rat pack version (and ocean's 8 too from what i've heard don't @ me) but the dumb subplot with tess is easily the weakest part of it

they could've cut the tess thing and lost absolutely nothing and the movie would've functioned the same, except for maybe the metaphor about the lose half the money or try to keep all of it and lose all of it thing. which wasn't really a terribly strong or compelling theme anyway so

but like julia roberts is acting so goddamn hard and there's just nothing for her to actually do. like never mind the fact that danny's plan to win her back is fucking stupid because that is just not how people act??? like no one in their right mind is gonna go "oh well my current husband is a piece of shit so i guess i'll go back to my ex, who went out of my way to show me what a piece of shit he was while robbing him (which is the reason i broke up with him to begin with because it kind of ruined my life) because our relationship was just that loving prior to the being arrested thing and the movie keeps vaguely alluding to that, even though we never actually see that at any point at all."

like, even in a wish-fulfillment movie, the idea that she'd take him back because of all this stuff is batshit moon logic at best. except then she does. the problem is, a movie like ocean's eleven is already purely style over substance in the biggest way possible, and i mean this as a positive. it is extremely stylish and it is there to BE stylish. it has nothing deep to say to you, but it wasn't trying to do that anyway. it's a popcorn movie, and it is here to show you some people stealing things in a really fucking cool way. the director even outright admits this in an interview, claiming he set out to make "just a pure piece of entertainment" and i think he fucking nailed it, and i especially love shit that knows what it wants to do at the outset and then does it without fucking around and with a high degree of competence. this movie knew what it wanted to do and then set out to be the best version of itself it could possibly be and absolutely knocked all the goals it set out of the park

this is especially important given that it's still not a brainless movie despite being a turn-your-brain-off movie; it's a heist movie. there are a lot of moving parts, and that shit is very hard to do well without it feeling dumb and contrived (just look at ocean's 12). knowing how much to show the audience so they can follow what's going on/the reveal is hard! knowing what to hide so there can still be an air of uncertainty around the plan is hard! maintaining suspension of disbelief for a movie that specifically is calling attention to logical inconsistencies, meaning it has to keep its narrative even more tightly wound than normal, is hard! all these things are difficult, and ocean's eleven does all these things really, really goddamn well. it is genuinely a brilliant piece of filmmaking. (maybe i will get into how at a later date but for now i want to encourage you to watch it yourself by bitching about it shhhh don't question me. all i'll say is that brad pitt was actually fucking spot-on casting.)

tess is a fucking lamp, though, and her existence only serves to detract from the experience. i am only this mad about her because the rest of the movie is so good otherwise (hell, even her individual one-on-one scenes with danny, all fucking two of them, are well-acted and well-written), so it REALLY sticks out how awkward it is as a whole package.

and i know why they put the damn thing in, they needed an emotional core of some sort to the movie s it wasn't completely fucking shallow, because even in a popcorn flick there has to be something for the audience to care about. but like..................................... the heist crew is right there

like a huge chunk of the dialogue in ocean's eleven (mostly the banter, which is again one of the strongest parts of the movie) is ad-libbed. the cast all have excellent chemistry with one another and play off each other extremely naturally, and all the time in behind the scenes footage all anyone talks about is how genuinely well everyone got along, to the point where they'd just hang out on set with each other instead of going back to their trailers between shoots. and you're obviously invested in the heist, which in turn helps you get invested in the crew, and the actors work well together. and the sharp banter is the other reason besides the heist that you're watching the movie anyway and just

why not make THAT the emotional core of the movie why not build on that? it's right fucking there

why does nobody see these things

did they really think they needed a romance to sell this thing THAT BAD when the core cast already had such great chemistry. not to mention like a solid third of the movie is just danny and rusty exchanging Knowing Looks between one another and i absolutely buy them as friends that go way back a lot more easily than i buy danny and tess as a couple that were truly happy with each other a long time ago, in part due to them actually fucking getting screentime together. c'mon man

that isn't to say I think a Danny/Rusty romance subplot would improve the movie or is anything i particularly want to see, but the point is that the main cast already has a lot of chemistry together that is in turn written INTO the script already and they could've just worked with that lkdflhsdkslhhgssg.

or like, if you must have tess, maybe you could actually incorporate her into the heist properly beyond Existing as a weird mafia cuck subplot? this is actually something i think ocean's twelve did do right (just a shame about the heist in question but whatever, credit where it's due). as mentioned, roberts's perfornance isn't bad either and she also plays off clooney well in the brief fucking moments they're onscreen together.

i dunno. i feel like there were better options than what we did get. the tess subplot is a black spot on an otherwise really fucking good experience.

......................................................and YES OKAY FINE obviously i'm fucking biased for wanting more found family crime squad nonsense but that doesn't meant i'm wrong either.

[keyofjetwolf]

What was your first?

So a horse walks into a rehab and says “ouch”. And not a lot. Then a great deal. While also saying nothing. It’s BoJack, in rehab, and going about as well as you might think!

“The Stopped Show” may not have been much about BoJack, but “A Horse Walks Into A Rehab” makes up for it by being 99.9% BoJack, setting aside the brief appearance of the other characters to set their stages for when we get back to them. Diane’s in a shitty motel, Todd’s in a seedy alleyway, Princess Caroline has her porcupine baby, and Mr. Peanutbutter continues to deliver cheer while everything around him burns AND drowns. I’ve now touched base with them about as much as the season premier, and we’ll get busy ignoring them.

As I said, BoJack is the star today, and we continue his quest for ... what, exactly?

Trying to pin it down, that “what is BoJack looking for” question, it’s a lot harder to answer than I expected, which marks another instance of me fucking myself, GOOD JOB ME.

I initially said “punishment”, but that isn’t true, or a least, is too easy. BoJack wants accountability for his actions -- which is a very different thing than punishment -- but he wants it in a way that also absolves him from having to do any work to rise above it. So you’d think he’d love this, the constant claim in rehab that he’s powerless. It seems like the answer to everything, a blanket pass to excuse his behaviour because he’s powerless. Why doesn’t he? I’m not sure I’m entirely clicking with the heart of that, so come with me as I have a poke at it.

For one, I doubt very much rehab would begin and end with “you’re powerless, oh well”. Addiction is some nasty business, but in and of itself, it’s a symptom, not the problem. That in mind, we swing back then to BoJack having to put in the work, only now it’s with the removal of his favourite coping mechanisms.

I think what he was hoping to get out of rehab was more along the lines of “Vodka is a naughty irresistible siren who topples even the most noble of men, but if you cross your eyes and click your heels, you’ll be free from her spell forevermore.” And yeah, no.

I think we get some of that in how, for a while, rehab seems to suit BoJack.

To the point I very specifically said to Doc as I was watching this, “Oh shit, did BoJack just become even MORE insufferable?” He’s okay so long as he has the comfort of the scripts and the regimented plant therapy and the same hike every day. When he starts to get fucked is when he has push further, when he has to work harder, when the treatment demands MORE.

“I notice you tend to deflect when I ask you about the source of your addiction,” his therapist says, causing BoJack to immediately deflect, first with a joke and then, when that doesn’t work, attacking the entire system. Getting to the root of his problem is the last thing BoJack wants, to the point where the entire episode ITSELF is one giant deflection. I made a joke in passing up there about our passing moments with each of the other main characters, but that’s actually it, that’s the heart of this episode.

Each of these are efforts by the episode to deflect what’s going on NOW, tempting us with something shiny and interesting, if only we’d take the bait. I ONLY JUST MADE THIS CONNECTION WELL FUCKING DONE SHOW

And of course, there’s Jameson’s story, which is part deflection, part contrast. She’s intended to appear at first like someone BoJack can relate to, a Sara Lynn Pt. 2 that he wants to save and in whom he sees so much of himself. In equal parts, he’s the adult trying to guide her and the force enabling her, and I’d have to do a bit more thinking on whether I thought his success with her was about him walking both sides of that line, or Jameson just, at the end of the day, being lucky. Either way, it’s also not really about her, so much as BoJack talking a really good game at her, while giving her all the tools to make the worst choices.

Which is, I think, where the episode finally settles. BoJack’s choices have been his own, but they aren’t made in isolation. Throughout this episode, we get moments, presented in reverse chronological order, that could on their own answer that key question: When was the first time you drank?

To settle your nerves to get through a scene everyone was counting on you to nail?

To fit in with the cool kids at high school?

To win your father’s approval?

What’s brilliant to me about each of these flashbacks is that the further into the past we go, the more willing we are to absolve BoJack. In the first, he’s a professional actor required to kiss an attractive and consenting fellow professional in the course of a performance. Nervous? Makes total sense. Getting plastered to do it? LESS SENSE.

The high school one is the most damning, which I adore. BoJack’s the butt of some light bullying by the jock, and I don’t mean to completely dismiss that it sucks, but the remainder of events before he starts in on the beers shows he’s hardly an absolute social pariah. And even if he were, once he begins to drink, BoJack doesn’t just become the life of the party, he becomes cruel (demonstrating quite well that jokes aren’t his only tool of deflection). Worse, that he KNOWS he’s doing it, but cares more about his positive attention than their negative. Still, BoJack’s a kid and peer pressure is a hell of a thing. This isn’t a good look, but it’s also not damning, if he’d come to learn from it. 

Now we jump the line to, I’d guess, ten or eleven year old BoJack, who walks in on his father having an affair with his secretary, but too young to recognize what he’s seen. Butterscotch can’t take the risk though, so he effortlessly manipulates little BoJack into getting drunk and passing out, then uses BoJack’s shame about it to keep him quiet on the whole evening. UNDER THE GUISE OF BEING HIS FRIEND AND DOING HIM A FAVOUR BY THE WAY. No question, Butterscotch is a son of a bitch, and the only thing BoJack did wrong here was crave his parent’s love.

Even with the high school one being a little more grey, they’re all pretty cut and dry. Remember that we’re following the thread of “When was the first time you drank?” and to land on the answer “When my unrepentantly dickish father lied to me to save his own ass” puts a pretty solid punctuation mark on the whole affair. Addiction may not be at fault, but Butterscotch Horseman is. Case closed, we can go home.

BUT WAIT WHAT’S THIS

Right at the end, when you think we’re done, there’s one more flashback. A party of some sort, possibly New Year’s. The house sounds empty, there’s only the looping of the record player, stuck repeating the same five seconds again and again and again. Butterscotch and Beatrice are passed out drunk, judging from the empty bottles around them. Was it a good party? A bad one? She has her back to him and they’re about as far apart as they could get while still remaining in the room, but also, nothing’s broken? It’s impossible to know.

What we do know is that BoJack, aged about where we saw him in the “Free Churro” flashback so maybe seven or so? Very young, at any rate, and he’s alone. There doesn’t appear to be anything in the room for a child, so it’s probably fair to say he wasn’t included in the festivities. Did he have something to do instead? His own party maybe? Friends to play with, someone to watch him? Did he even get dinner? From what we’ve seen, “no” is a much more likely answer to any or all of these.

AND NOW THE FIRST TO PUNCH YOU IN THE HEART

Tiny BoJack knocks back several gulps of vodka (like a fucking pro, may I add), then crawls onto the couch next to his unconscious mother, pretending for just a few minutes that she’s cuddling him until he, too, will fall into a drunken slumber.

RIGHT SO WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO WITH THIS JESUS WEPT

Had you told me “Just wait, seven year old flashback BoJack is going to muddy the hell out of this” I wouldn’t have ... okay, well, I know the show, so I probably would’ve believed you, but I would’ve been preemptively grumpy.

This isn’t his fault! But it is! This isn’t his parent’s fault, but it super super is! Nobody MADE BoJack drink the vodka, as the scene goes to great lengths to show. There is nobody to tell him to do anything at all. Beatrice is three fucking sheets to the wind, she has no idea he’s there and he could have pretend cuddled all night AND stayed sober. Did baby BoJack, like adult BoJack, take the drink to calm his nerves for an expression of physical intimacy? Would baby BoJack have even known that was an option? Remember, this is framed as the answer to the question “When was the first time you drank?” Not “took a drink”, but “you DRANK”, the phrasing of which I think is important. It’s all about the root of the problem. What I get out of that question is then is “the first time you drank to numb yourself”.

Baby BoJack is looking at this disaster, this mess that is his every day no matter how many party hats and streamers you stick on it, and he wants anything else at all. So he turns to the easiest thing he knows will take it away the fastest. The situation isn’t his fault. The opportunity isn’t his fault. But the response IS, in a way that EVEN AS I SAY IT, makes me feel shitty.

CONGRATS BOJACK HORSEMAN FOR MAKING ME SEE A LITERAL CHILD SLAMMING BACK VODKA STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE AND MAKING ME GO “okay, but”.

SEASON SIX SHOULD BE A WALK IN THE PARK