#his life has been forcibly changed in every way!!! and the movie ends with him embracing that change

[landofgay]

THE WORLDS END IS ABOUT HOW IF YOU DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO MOVE ON IN YOUR LIFE AND ALLOW MAJOR CHANGE TO HAPPEN, MAJOR CHANGE WILL BE FORCED UPON YOU WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT AND IT IS UNAVOIDABLE AND INESCAPABLE.

[theepisceswriter]

AOT characters (Reiner, Jean, Pieck, Erwin, Zeke) comforting a stressed out/overworked significant other headcanons

TW: Modern AU, suggestive themes (slight nsfw for Jean), vague drug mention (for Pieck, it’s just tweed), GN!reader, mostly fluff 

REINER BRAUN

Reiner knows exactly how it feels to be in your position, overworked and stressed out with the world on your shoulders, not a single positive thing in your mind, and no one seemingly noticed the heavy weight you’ve been carrying all of a sudden.

But he notices and that’s why at the first sign of you being in a sour mood he’s all over you immediately.

Well, not physically just yet. He doesn’t want to be a bother and feel like he’s being too overbearing, adding to the annoyance you must already be feeling from work, but he’s definitely keeping an eye on you from afar to monitor you as often as he can.

He’ll do little things like run some warm bath water for you, send you memes he knows will make you chuckle, bring water & fruit to you to make sure you’re nourished, and order your favorite takeout just to see you smile for once.

And when you’re ready to talk about it he’ll pull you into bed with him and press you against his soft pecks so you can feel comfortable while you lay there telling him what has you so stressed out.

JEAN KIRCHSTEIN

Jean can be a little insensitive to your emotions and just how heavy they weigh on you sometimes, not to mention that he’s always using comedy and his cockiness as a way to distract himself from his own emotions, so after complaining to him how stressed out you’ve been because of work he’ll hit you with the “You want some dick to help you feel better?”

Like yes, you do but some cuddles and words of reassurance would’ve been nice first 😭

It’s like everything you’ve said and been complaining about has went over your head, so of course you’re a little mad and might let something like “You’re such a jerk” slip out of your mouth 😕 it’s after that that he’s like “Okay, maybe I should’ve waited a little later to offer them some dick.”

He’s all over you in an instant; climbing on top of you and peppering your face and whole upper body with kisses, soft ‘m’sorry baby’s leaving his lip with each kiss. After about a minute of him doing that he’ll look up at you like, “I’m sorry for discarding your feelings like that. Can you forgive me? 🥺” pouty lips and all, and how can you possibly stay mad at a face like that!!

Of course, you take him up on his dicked down option soon after that. Playing a pillow princess/prince the whole night, Jean wanting to focus on you the whole night and rid you of any thought that isn’t his head between your legs.

PIECK FINGER

Modern!Pieck’s solution to everything would be a big fat blunt #sorrynotsorry. You don’t even have to be stressed out or overworked for her to come up to you and be like “You look like you need a blunt.” I live for stoner!Pieck.

You just being in her presence is enough to make you feel about your stress. She’s so carefree and relaxed 24/7 that it’s like she’s a natural relaxant for you and because of that she never has to worry about you too much whenever you’re in her presence.

Everything is all good when you’re around her. Nothing else matters but the blunt you’re going to smoke with her and the food you’re going to get afterwards because boy can Pieck out eat munchies. She’s such a sweetheart though, she’ll turn on some funny stoner movie to distract while she slips out the house to go get all of your favorite foods.

She’ll come back in the house with a bag from McDonald’s, tacos, a bag from Taco Bell, some drinks and treats from Starbucks, etc. Standing in front of you in the livingroom like “I also got you an ice cream but it looked too good while I was driving home so I accidentally ate it.” 🙈

The weed alone helped take your mind away from stress, so this just has you blushing and loving on your stoned girlfriend for the whole night. Grateful to have someone as sweet as her in your life.

ERWIN SMITH

Erwin knows that look of tiredness and exhaustion that plagues you every time you come in from work all too well. He’s been the victim of the negative side effects of nearly overworking himself to death to not notice them on you immediately. And he’s not going to let you succumb to them like he has on multiple occasions.

Like Reiner, he’s on you immediately but a lot more vocal and physical to voice his opinion on you overworking yourself. He flat out tells you one night “You need to take a break from all this work. It’s not doing you any good.” While forcibly removing you from your workstation by carrying you bridal style.

He ignores your pleas of wanting to be carried back to your desk and how “you’re doing just fine!” And lays you in your shared bed. Within minutes you’re sleeping like a newborn baby cuddled up into the covers and pillows, not stubborn enough to fight off how tired you truly were.

But that’s not enough for him, just one 2-hour nap isn’t enough for your body and mental health to recover, so every time he catches you working longer than needed he’s forcing you to put that pen and paper down and relax for once. Of course you’re stubborn and still try to work, what what does he do?

He contacts your job and requests some time off for you so you won’t have any excuses to be working for a good week or two. In this time he prepares things for the two of you to do together and spend some quality time with each other like actual date nights out, warm baths together, a vacation to a nice resort, and even a high end quality spa day to truly help you relax.

ZEKE JAEGER

I know we like to label Zeke Jaeger as a pretentious meanie, I know bully!Zeke really gets us all going.......but softie Zeke deserves some content too 🙈

Though he’s not too good at expressing his concern for others and has the littlest of ideas on how to reassure others ( *cough* thanks a lot Grisha *cough*) he would genuinely try with you!

After noticing a slight change in your demeanor and your excuses always being work related whenever he brought these observations up, it’s after his first time seeing you in a while with bags under your eyes that he’ll feel an obligation in his heart to make them, along with the stress you’re feeling, go away.

He’s very gentle and slow with his prodding. He’ll check up on you throughout the day through texts like “Hey, what are you up to right now?”, “You should probably take a break right now and go drink or eat something if you’ve been working for more than an hour” with some article that helps support his words, or and “Are you feeling alright? I’m free if you want some company.”

And you do want his company! You feel so bad for pushing your hairy bearded boyfriend away, so you finally invite him over and spill everything while he holds you in the middle of watching some shitty comedy on Netflix. He’ll tell you right off the bat that he’s not the best person to come to for reassurance and comfort, but him just trying is enough to make you feel better.

[thenovelartist]

ABC Fluff Headcanons - Luke Pearce - Tears of Themis

A = Admiration (what do they absolutely adore about you?)

You may be the Watson to his Sherlock, but he knows you’re not a follower by nature. You stand firmly on your own two feet. And though it may scare him at times, particularly when your safety is on the line, he can’t deny the pride he feels watching you go above and beyond in all you do, especially when it involves others. That selflessness paired with your determination is what he truly admires about you, and he hopes that you’ll never change, no matter what trials you face.

B = Body (what is their favorite part of your body?)

Your smile. Because if you’re smiling, he knows everything’s going to be okay. He also knows when that smile is forced and when it’s faltering, prompting him to take action of his own to protect or hold you. It’s a tell-all for him, and that brings him comfort.

C = Cuddling (how do they like to cuddle?)

In any way he can. He loves holding you. However, he likes it best when you’re chest-to-chest with his arms around you holding you close, no matter if it’s a long hug, lounging on the couch, or snuggling in bed. It’s a versatile position, allowing for you to either meet each other’s gaze while still having close physical contact or for hiding your expressions, such as you snuggling against his chest or him resting his chin on top of your head. It fits for every scenario.

D = Dates (what does their ideal date with you look like?)

Ideal date? Well… a date… with you. He’s not picky. However, he definitely leans towards the more casual settings. Things where you two can be relaxed around each other, chatting and bantering all the way. Whether that’s strolling around town or a camping adventure or even relaxing at home with a familiar movie you’re not really watching in the background is up to you, but he’s down for any and all of them.

E = Emotions (how do they express emotion around you?)

He’s… well, not quite an open book but rather a book you have to open. He frequently puts on a happy face, so sometimes, you have to break past that. Once you do, he’s not ashamed of being open and honest about his feelings. He wants first and foremost for everything to be okay and for you to be happy, but if you’re shutting that down and calling his bluff, he’ll surrender and be open to having heart-to-hearts so as to get on the same page as you.

F = Family (do they want one? If they do, when?)

Yes… and no.

No, he doesn’t want a family because the lingering fear and guilt of leaving them behind would weigh heavily on his soul. But, if he was being honest with himself and the fear of his life being cut short wasn’t hanging over his head, his answer would be “how many kids are you willing to give him?” None? Okay, he gets you to himself. Five? Fantastic, he’d love a busy house. Adopt? He’s already got all the forms downloaded. Mix of both? Perfect. Family is what you make it, and he’s more than happy to make one with you, no matter what form that takes.

G = Gifts (how do they feel about gift giving? What are their habits when it comes to this?)

He loves things from you and accepts them all as a treasure. But he places the most value in things that are made. A solid ninety percent of the gifts he gives you are ones he made himself. He doesn’t see the value in giving gifts just to give them; they should either mean something or bring some sort of use to you. To him, gifts mean the most when time and effort was poured into it.

H = Holding Hands (when/how do they like to hold hands?)

All. The. Time. He wants contact with you, and hand holding can be both perfectly innocent and sweetly intimate. And little squeezes here and there can communicate without words. He loves it.

I = Injury (how would they act if you got hurt?)

Instantly blames himself. He’s there to protect you, and if you get hurt, that means he failed miserably, so you’ll likely have to coax him out of his self-abusive state. Doesn’t matter if it’s anything from a papercut to a large accident, he’ll think it’s his fault, and he will be by your side as much as humanly possible during your recovery. And if it has something to do with NXX? I pity the person who caused you harm. He’d devote far too much time and resources to hunting them down as quickly as humanly possible and making their life a living hell.

J = Jokes (do they like to joke around with or prank you? how?)

You’re childhood friends. There’s plenty of teasing and inside jokes to go around. It might just be impossible for you to go a single day without one inside joke or playful reference to the past being pulled up.

K = Kisses (how do they like to kiss you?)

Luke’s kisses come in one of two varieties: Reverent and Passionate. Reverent kisses cover most kisses, consisting of everything from good morning to good night to general pecks on the forehead, cheek, nose, you name it. The ability and privilege to kiss you means a lot to him, so no kiss is ever taken for granted. Passionate kisses, on the other hand, are less about the way he pulls you close or presses his lips against yours and more about him emotionally baring his soul in those moments. However tangled or feverish that kiss ends up being is only a byproduct of him wanting to express just how much he genuinely adores you.

L = Love Confession (how do they confess?)

You will have to drag it out of this man. Not so much the confession but the confidence to admit he wants to be with you, in sickness and in health, for as much time as he has left. So really, it’s far more likely that you confess first and he’ll admit he feels the same while telling you all the reasons you can’t be in a relationship. Only once you get over that will he pour out all his secrets of how long he’s loved you and how deeply he loves you… And potentially propose right then and there.

M = Marriage (What does the wedding look like?)

He could elope with you and be perfectly happy. And honestly… he might be the happiest with that. If you wanted an actual wedding, he really would have no problem letting you have what you wanted, but the beauty of an elopement is that it can be done sooner rather than later, and he thinks he’s running on borrowed time. If he’s gonna marry you, he’d want to do that, like… yesterday. So if you’re up for an elopement, you basically have twenty-four hours to find a dress because he’s gonna take you down to the courthouse ASAP.

N = Nightmare (what is their worst fear?)

That he’s going to die soon and leave you behind. The biggest stressor for him is letting you get more attached to him because then his death will be even harder on you. And then what if you end up getting very close to him and marrying him like he wanted, only for him to leave you a widow at a young age? Or worst of all, what if he leaves you a single mom? He already hates the thought of leaving you, but leaving his kids behind…

He tries really hard not to think too deeply on this but it feels like a waking nightmare he’s not going to wake from any time soon.

O = Oddity (what is one quirk they have?)

This man cannot go forty-eight hours without making at least one Sherlock Holmes reference. And he occasionally has the knack of saying them… at the worst time.

P = Pet Names (what do they like to call you?)

I don’t think he’d be into cutesy, couple pet names all the time. Instead, I feel like he’d probably use “Watson” or any other childhood nickname he had for you on the regular basis. “Baby” and “Sweetheart” are probably in use, too, but he would tend to save those for quiet or tender moments. And “love” is reserved for the private, more intimate moments.

Q = Quality Time (how do they like to spend time with you?)

In any way he can; you just have to be present. Quality time for Luke can be anything from you two sitting in the same room while doing different things to going on an adventure together to an intimate date night. As long as he’s with you, time is not wasted.

R = Romance (how do they show their love and affection?)

Yes, yes, there’s grand gestures, but his love is shown in the little things. It’s the way he always is looking out for you, like offering you a moment to sit if you’d been walking a while or water if it’s hot. It’s in the way he squeezes your hand in the middle of a conversation. It’s the way he texts you reminding you not to over work yourself before ending it with an XO. Every day to him is precious, and he’s not going to bother with large, elaborate gestures of love if he can smother you in little, affectionate ones all day every day.

S = Secrets (how open are they with you?)

He’s pretty open with you, but the few secrets he has? Those he keeps locked away in the deepest part of himself. He will not let on that he has those secrets unless you get an inkling of their existence and go fishing to pull those secrets out of him. Keep at it; he won’t last long because he’s weak for you.

And of course, there’s state secrets he literally can’t tell you, but that’s a different matter all together.

T = Time (how long did it take you to get together?)

Freaking years.

This boy has been in love with you forever and could have asked you out as early as high school, but he didn’t. Then you were apart for eight long years, and he could have started something up with you soon after you two reunited, but he didn’t.Instead, he plays the “beat myself up with regrets” game and wastes even moretime trying to logically distance himself from you before you eventually have to forcibly break him down. Only then does he cave. But the “beat himself up game”? Yeah, that never quits. Because eventually, he’ll beat himself up for wasting so much time to make a move.

You really have to help this boy out of those habits.

U = Upset (how do they act when you’re upset?)

Will do anything to make you smile again. If you’re sad, he’ll try to pick you up with either a smile and some light banter or a hug and soothing words. If your mad, he’ll try to redirect or release your anger in any way he can. If you’re mad at him, que the kicked puppy look as he practically falls to his knees and begs for forgiveness.

V = Vaunt (what are they proud of? Do they like to show you off?)

He will show off when he can, usually about his detective skills or ability to fix things, and he will look like a five-year-old boy trying to impress a girl on the playground while doing it. Be sure to praise him for those moments. You will be rewarded with a grinning blushy boy.

W = Warrior (how do they feel about you fighting? Would they fight for you, beside you, etc?)

No. No. No.

…

Until you put your foot down and insist you’re gonna be by his side in a fight no matter what. He literally cannot win against you. And he hates it.

However, he is 110% your warrior and will be until he draws his dying breath. Nothing is going to change that. So if he can fight first and keep you from fighting in the first place, then he’ll do that.

X = X-Ray (how well are they able to read you?)

Like a book. He’s known you waytoo long to not be able to. Even those eight years didn’t change you too much, and he was able to relearn everything that felt new to him fairly quickly.

Y = Yes (how would they propose to you?)

One of two ways. In scenario L, after the love confession, he would propose marriage in the heat of the moment. You’d probably already both be crying and a total wreck, but your hearts would already be out on the line, and he’d just take that moment to drop the bomb of “please be by my side for the rest of my life”.

OR if that didn’t happen, (or maybe it did BUT he didn’t consider it a proper proposal and wants a redo) the proposal would be nothing big or fancy. Rather, it’s in a quiet moment between the two of you, either hanging out at your place or his. He’s sure to get down on one knee, holding your hand reverently as he pours out his heart to you. You’ll be in tears and his eyes will probably be glassy too by the time you say yes. At which point, he’ll put the ring on your finger and then hug you tight. And probably not let you go until absolutely necessary.

Z = Zen (what makes them feel calm?)

You.

No, really. You’re basically his world, so as long as he’s able to see you and know you’re okay, he’s okay. And if you want to settle him with sweet words and gentle touches, go right ahead.

You will also put him to sleep if you massage his head with your nails, so be sure to pet the Golden Retriever Puppy. Let him have a moment where he isn’t carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

[xenia-cenia]

hiiii 💕 may i request domestic hcs with chuuya and dazai with a clingy s/o? thank you 💞💞💞

A/N-i like doing these theyre cute :)

sorry for taking forever! some irl things came up

-writing for chuuya is hard bc all the gifs of him are so cool

-so im using dog chuuya for this one

-moving on

-chuuya does not put any thought before asking you to move in with him

-you mentioned it once in passing and he responded with 'yeah, why the hell not?'

-as stated before his house is filled with dog pictures

-he LOVES cooking

-do not get in his way while he cooks

-itll just be a mess for everyone involved

-if you want a cutesy-fun couple activity hes much more fond of walks in the park

-in fact he likes to go on at least one long walk every week

-and hes always delighted when you tag along

-if you get tired and cant finish the walk dont worry he'll just use his ability and carry you back home

-also enjoys going shopping with you

-he knows the ins and outs of every current fashion trend and will happily help you pick clothes out

-be warned though he likes to only buy the most expensive stuff

-he personally has no plans to get married

-deep inside the fear that hes not 'human' enough lingers

-however if one day years into your relationship you were on a night walk and turned to look at him

-the wind softly rustling your clothes and the streetlamps reflecting in your eyes

-(oh your eyes. he always feels painfully human when he looks into those eyes of yours)

-he'll take a deep breath

-and give into his impulses once again

-"lets get married."

-he says it so casually you barely notice

-but when he says it again it sticks in your head

-you laughed

-(why was his heart beating so fast? did your laugh always do this to him?)

-and kissed his cheek

-"id love to, chuuya."

-his knees shook as you spoke those words

-he smiled and didnt notice his ability start until the two of you were above the trees and you gripped onto his shirt

-"chuu!" you had exclaimed

-but nothing was phazing him

-it was the happiest he had ever been in his life

-well

-the second happiest

-as your hands folded into his

-and the expensive suit he was wearing felt 1 million degrees

-he was shaking

-had he ever shaken this hard before?

-and you noticed his fear

-(you always could read him better than he could read himself)

-and all at once the world melted away

-there was only pure bliss

-"to the person who makes me feel truly human" he had added to his vows "i promise to protect you for the rest of our lives"

-"to the person who hangs dog pictures on our ceiling," (he had laughed nervously. he didnt know you saw those) "i promise to protect and care for you the rest of our lives"

-thats when chuuya cried

-he kissed you as hard as he could

-tears burning his eyes as he pulled away for air

-"i love you." chuuya whispered and he knew that this

-this would be the happiest moment of his life

-he LOVES clingy people

-once you move in with him (or him with you. He doesn’t mind either way) he finds himself falling much further in love then he thought possible

-want cuddles?

-god yes

-reading together with his head on your lap?

-please play with his hair

-he’s also a terrible cook

-terrible awful cook

-if you enjoy cooking you’ll need to forcibly keep him out of the kitchen to stop him from ruining your meal

-if you just want to have fun and make a mess?

-he’s your guy

-“belladonna! Look! The eggs stick to the ceiling!”

“Osamu no”

-like Chuuya he enjoys talking walks

-his walks are  much less peaceful however

-he likes to talk about whatever’s on his mind as he walks

-though frankly he enjoys listening to you blabber much more

-insists on movie date nights

-he picks the movie one week and you pick the movie the next week and so on and so forth

-his movies are typically tragic love stories

-you asked him why one day and all he did was smile and shake his head

-“there are some secrets I’d rather keep, Belladonna.”

-eventually you wrote it off as another mystery about Dazai Osamu

-it takes a long time before he lets you change his bandages

-the entire time hes smiling sadly and refusing to make eye contact

-(your fingers are so smooth compared to his. he’ll never forget the feeling of your fingers tracing the new bandages, making sure they fit right)

-now unlike Chuuya he has put a lot of thought into marriage

-he’s fantasized about it for years but always wrote it off as a pipe dream

-though his dream marriage isn’t really anything official

-he thinks ‘love’ is something that you can’t put on display or into a certificate

-when the two of you get serious he’s very clear about this dream of his

-to his surpise (and joy!) you smiled and kissed his cheek telling him you’re okay with that

-if you want a big wedding dazai will compromise for two weddings

-one thats incredibly low effort, just the two of you drinking wine and getting lost

-and the other thats everything youve ever dreamed of

-in fact during his vows for the ‘second’ wedding he’ll grab your hands and look out towards the audience

-”they told me if you love them so much, i should just marry them. so i did! twice.”

-about half a year after the wedding the two of you were lying in bed

-you were half-asleep and dazai smiled softly

-”belladonna, did i ever answer your question?”

-”wha?”

-”i watched them so often because i wanted to remind myself that we’d have a happy ending.”

-you looked at him through sleepy eyes, confusion lacing your expression as he kissed your forehead

-”osamu...”

-”sleep, belladonna. i’ll remind you in the morning.”

-and as you quickly drifted off to sleep he finally felt the stress in his shoulders dissolve

-”a happy ending...” he muttered to himself

-(though, he feels any ending that includes you loving him was the happiest ending he could get)

-he went further into the sheets and let his eyes close

-maybe... maybe he’ll get the story he never thought he deserved

[oquinn53]

BNHA THEORY RAMBLING WITH SPOILERS

Okay so second bnha rambling with theories because I can’t think straight so I think of bnha! Specifically Deku.

Specifically, Deku’s endgame. There are so many theories out there and I just.... think about Deku specifically a lot. I mean he’s the protagonist and everything and I love him and a common theory that I actually do kinda think about a lot is Deku losing OFA. But I don’t think he’ll end quirkless. I think a lot of things need to happen but let’s start with me rambling about Deku’s characterization, how it can all be wrapped up in this:

Deku has PTSD. (This part is LONG and talks about masochism and mentions suicide and all that. Other points are shorter!) And I don’t mean post war arc or even post Bakugo’s kidnapping, if we want to go that far back. Deku has PTSD from the VERY start. This kid is a walking mental illness. Sources? Hi, I’m a Civilian With PTSD and I saw Deku at the beginning and I watched Deku’s horrible mental health deteriorate EVEN MORE than it started off as. This is really important to me, to state that he has it from the beginning, because I believe in the character growth and development. I might be talking out my ass but it’s fun so. Why do I say he starts out from it? Let’s look at symptoms.

A) hyperfixation, my old friend. Deku fixated hardcore on All Might and Heros in general. But he fixated specifically on All Might and he gets EMBARRASSED about it a lot. (Funny enough, the embarrassment of it is also a symptom of ADHD but I’m not as well versed in that). Hyperfixation is a very very common coping method.

B) His anxiety. Kinda self explanatory here. He’s a bully victim. He also has been literally classified as LESS. Quirkless. But also defenseless. Useless. We’ve heard that, his anxiety is there but it’s because of what DEFINES him. His self identity was born from what everyone else tells him. He’s a determined boy, but his sense of self is only wrapped up in what other people think—or specifically, what All Might thinks. Which blends a bit with...

C) A loss sense of identity. I talked about this a little bit he last part but Deku’s goal to become a hero is so tied to All Might that even when he gains the quirk, he has to have it beaten into him with warning of losing the use f his arms for him to realize he’s NOT All Might. But that’s still what he sees, even when he switches to using his legs more. He has no idea who he is. He just copies. He copies Bakugo’s moves again and again. And while it’s cool to see all the parallels and growth of Deku learning from others, there is a message of “making it his own” when Deku copies others again and again because he has no idea who HE is. He analyses like crazy because figuring out how other people do things is the only way he can figure out how HE can do things. Also, the whole language change because his image of victory is Bakugo? Literally his speech pattern isn’t his own, his every day one matching his mother’s.

D) repressed and heavily released emotion. He’s 0 or 100, both when he gets OFA and with his emotions. I mean. Feral!Deku. Do I need to say more? Yes, because I was to drive home how not okay Deku is from the very beginning. Boy cleans the beach and screams bloody murder. He has no idea what emotion to have and needs to let it out. Doesn’t matter he just did a shit ton of physical release, he has so much emotions that he doesn’t know what to do with. Just like Bakugo’s anger, Deku’s emotion usually comes out as his tears. Boy cries a lot but sometimes tears aren’t enough and Deku screams a LOT. Even his own excitement bursts out in bigger ways, with his mumbling and fact dropping (god, also slightly autistic coded maybe? Blurred lines with ADHD there, it again, not my area of expertise)

E) black and white thinking. He’s young, so that explains some of this but just like I mentioned above with the 0 or 100, he represents the mindset of civilians. He literally blinds himself at the very start to even what’s happening to HIMSELF. He sees hero and he sees villian and those are his two categories. Bakugo literally tells him to kill himself and Deku thinks about how that would negatively affect Bakugo. He doesn’t and never does see Bakugo as a villian for this. He sees “wow that wouldn’t be good for his Hero image” and because Deku sees Bakugo as a hero, everything has to fit into that. And while Deku has huge growth with this next part, he also originally viewed villains as just villains. He learned a LOT and while the society’s image becomes less black and white for him (because the whole manga revolves around the gray morality of it all) he still doesn’t see much gray area. It’s win or lose. With the sports festival, he literally won the race without his quirk. He got through the Calvary battle despite being a giant ass target. He placed in the top 8 (which he probably would have gotten higher on if his goal didn’t change) and despite accomplishing his goal with Todoroki, he broke down about not doing what All Might asked him despite gaining permanent scarring and a hell of a warning re his arms. But to point back at the beginning, this is reinforced with his entrance exam. Passing the written exam meant NOTHING because he did “””nothing””” in the practical.

F) last point, Deku’s a masochist. Obviously with the broken bones and things but I’m not even just talking about the physical damage he does to himself—which is, what, 95% of the time what he gets most of his wounds from? Anyway—I’m talking about his mindset. Masochism isn’t just the physical act of causing pain. It’s that mindset of deserving pain. The reasoning doesn’t matter. Deku only “betters” himself for the sake of giving more to others. He trains so hard, not for himself, but for others. On the outside it might seems like his goal of becoming a hero is his own but he sacrifices his body and dives into situations where he’s literally been warned he’s going to die and he just does it anyway. Eri’s Arc and him “changing the future” is what I’m referring to here and you could say “well he DID say he would change that future!” And okay, sure, but he was told Sir is never wrong. But he would rather rush into that future where he dies than take even a moment to think through his actions. But anyway, my point is him at the beginning so I specifically mean the training montage. Where he was ALREADY on a tough schedule that he knew would be difficult and he literally adjusted it and added MORE. Because, to circle back to other points because mental illness always overlaps points, he can only think of himself as 0 or 100, black and white, Able To Save or Failure. If he can’t be at 100 then he believes he deserves pain and causes it to himself. The only time he regrets his injuries is when it prevents him from giving MORE of himself to others. He learns his shoot style not because he doesn’t want to hurt himself but because he doesn’t want to become useless to others. He trains and loses sleep and puts his body through hell because he thinks of himself only as something for others. (I think wanting to save Shigaraki is a powerful moment not because it’s Pure Boy Deku but because it’a his own thinking, his OWN want, but.... it’s still not for him and will still cause him pain). And a last point on this, Heros Rising showed us that Deku is willing to give up his quirk and his dream to win and it showed us that while he believed he didn’t have any other choice, he was deeply disappointed in himself. Winning wasn’t enough. Hurting himself THAT MUCH wasn’t enough. He let All Migjt down and giving up his dreams, almost dying, becoming quirkless, all wasn’t enough to counteract the shame he held. Like god. Baby.

Other small observations or relevant commentary:

1) The doctor who told Deku he was quirkless is the same doctor who worked on Shigaraki. Same doctor who can perseve dead bodies. Same doctor who worked with AFO and all that. (See? Short! Will be relevant soon)

2) One for All is tied to All for One. OFA was literally created the moment a hand reached out to help. Can one even exist without the other?

3) Bakugo needs to apologize. Horikoshi has literally said in an interview post Heros Rising that Bakugo needs to apologize. Sacrificing his life to save Deku is NOT how you apologize to Deku. Deku will ask for a receipt on this type of apology. Return to sender. Unacceptable. So. Bakugo needs to apologize.

4) Deku’s dad isn’t in the picture yet. Hasn’t even been spoken of except for the fact we know his quirk is fire breathing and his name is Hisashi. Oh and he’s abroad. Oh and Horikoshi said he’ll be in the picture at some point. Given we’re in the final arc......... this might not be relevant at all to my theory because I have mixed thoughts on AFO being Deku’s dad but it would connect a few things in the theory.

SO. Finally, all of this together had me thinking about Deku’s characterization and what this (now with COMBAT related ptsd and not just civilian ptsd) means for his ending.

Like I said, I think he’s going to lose OFA. And I originally didn’t think so because Heros Rising showed his losing it and why would they do that again? The movie is canon. Horikoshi himself said so and was a huge part of the production of it. So they did that and wouldn’t do it again. Except.... Deku GAVE OFA away. Which is significant because it was his choice. And he had shame and we witnessed how much that hurt him, but we haven’t seen what’s now been tried TWICE: OFA being forcibly taken from him. Maybe by Shigaraki, since that is building up big time. But maybe by saving Shigaraki.

Either way, what’s more significant to me than how he has it taken is what that means for him, based on everything else above: he would lose his entire self identity. He would literally have no idea who he is anymore except for the only reference he’s ever had, which his from when he was quirkless. He gained friends only after he had a quirk. Every bond he has is tied to him being a hero and he was told it was impossible for him to be a hero without a quirk. Even All Might’s adjusted answer to him at the beginning involved giving him a quirk as the answer for him being able to become a hero.

I think this is the absolute perfect chance for Bakugo to say “since when did you need a quirk to be a hero”. And it doesn’t matter much what the context is, what causes Deku to still need to be a hero (whether a Situation or just an identity crisis) and I think about Quirkless Deku as a hero a lot, since that’s how he was originally written in the one shot before he was revamped for bnha.

But I don’t think Deku will end quirkless either because of who his doctor was. I think Deku had a quirk. I think the doctor stole it. Whether that’s because AFO is Deku’s dad and saw his quirk and knew he had to take it for some reason or whether it was independent and the doctor saw it and took it. The whole toe thing can be written off so easily that Deku could easily have had a quirk at some point.

And maybe, if AFO and OFA are cancelled out, the quirks that were stolen go back to their original owners. Meaning Deku gets his ORIGINAL quirk back.

As in, Deku gets his own identity.

And what would that quirk be? Hm. I don’t know. But. His mom can move small objects. His dad can breath fire. A mutation, maybe? I’ll leave that one up in the air.

And there are a lot of implications here that this could mean for him, as far as healing. And I just want him to be happy.

[the-young-and-forgotten]

Chapter 1 - The Arrival

| masterlist |

A/N: this is set at the start of the marauders 6th year

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a clap of thunder and a single flash of lightning, four boys fell directly from the sun, slamming onto the concrete ground beneath them. 

As their backs hit the pavement, their mind whirled through memories that weren’t their own. A castle up on a rocky cliff, rooms full of magical equipment, a forest with danger at every turn and a fiery redheaded girl that made James blush.

Groaning, they all picked themselves up, dusting their clothes off.  Peter shielded his eyes and looked up at the sun, grumbling “Why did they have to go and drop us from the fucking sky?” Remus opened his mouth to respond but something hot and soft started falling from the clouds. 

James held out his palm to the sky and watched as a burning piece of ash floated down onto his open palm. He studied it, visibly confused. “The sky is.. raining fire?”  “Nah mate” Sirius said with his arms outstretched, head tilted towards the sky “The worlds shuddering at the weight of our power” At that, the other boys started to spin in the fiery rain, laughing as they caught the embers on the tip of their tongues. 

Unbeknownst to them, an old man had heard their laughter and was walking up to them, smiling softly. “So you must be the fallen gods” he stated bluntly, capturing their attention. A flash of panic flitted across the boys’ faces as they searched for an excuse. “Oh no,” James said quickly, leaning against Remus’ shoulder. The boy in question had just started picking the flowers out of his hair, which was not helping to sell their lie. “We are just four normal boys casually dancing in the burning rain.” The man laughed, looking at them with a twinkle in his eye. “I do not think I am mistaken, Hecate told me you would be coming soon.” Peter scoffed, “Psh Hecate. You should never trust the goddess of…..” He paused at this, looking at James in wonder who was waving his arms around haphazardly. Realising his mistake, he tried his best to backtrack.  “Wait I mean, who's Hecate? She sounds dumb.” 

Right at that moment, one too many ashes had landed on Sirius’ skin, activating his flames.  With a big flash, he turned into a humanoid fire. The flames gradually subdued, leaving a sooty boy who looked at his hands in shock before turning his gaze to blood brothers, eyes wide. “That wasn’t supposed to happen..”  James’ shoulders slumped, running a hand down his face as Peter ducked down to hide his grin. Remus finally looked up from picking out the flowers from his hair that now lay in a pile around his feet. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows at him. “That uh.. That doesn’t happen often...” he explained, shaking his head at what a mess they all were. 

“Would you like to take a walk?” Dumbledore inquired. They slouch after him, visibly relieved that he didn’t question their insanity further.

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Dumbledore spoke up. “Are you boys familiar with… the tale of the Children of Hecate? It’s an old one.” Sirius laughed harshly at this “dude, we are a thousand years old we know all sorts of tales you couldn’t even dream up.” “You never answered my question young god.” “No… we aren’t” Dumbledore smiled, pulling out his wand. “I thought not.” He waved about his wand and silver mist broke out of the end, morphing into people, animating the story being told.

“A long time ago, there was a woman.  Cast out by the gods from helping out a paranoid mother, she, like you today, fell from the sky in a blaze of burning rain. Filled with hate and grief, she vowed to anger the gods in any way possible. For a hundred years she wandered this earth aimlessly, occasionally accompanied by Thanatos who came to reap the mortal souls. One day, she stumbled across seven mortals, cowering at the feet of Death, begging for life. Now, this woman had traveled among us, watching all our struggles and misery. Listening to our heartbreak and treachery. She took pity on these mortals and stepping from the shadows for the first time in a century, she addressed the seven. Pushing past Thanatos, she knelt to their level and placed a hand on the cheek of the child in front of her. Smiling kindly, she knew what to do to help them and fulfill her vow.  Reaching inside of her core, she drew out seven silver wisps. Weaving it around the mortals in front of her. “Upon you I bestow the power of the gods,” she whispered, transforming into her godly form. “Follow the path this shows you and life will come.” As the mortals scampered away, hands smoking and eyes dancing, Thanatos turned to her furious. From then on, Hecate was forced to spend the rest of her immortality guiding demigods, gods and mortals along the three crossroads. The mortals she blessed, though some may say cursed, used the powers how their minds begged them too, some for good, some for evil. But the magic went on, passed from generation to generation, family to family and will do so forever. Among all these powerful witches and wizards, as we call ourselves, were two men and two women. Born with magic unrivalled by anyone but Hecate herself.  They drew together and formed a school now known as ‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’.  From then onwards, magical folk have been taught, honing their abilities to perfection. Carrying out the vow Hecate made many eons ago.” 

The boys were speechless. Remus pointed to Dumbledore then his wand and back again. “So you’re…” “Yes” Dumbldore answered, turning towards them and giving a short little bow, “I am a descendant of Hecate.” “And you want us at this school of yours?” “With Hecate's blessing, yes.” 

Peter cuts ahead of his friends, raising his hand. “Interjection! How the hell are we supposed to get magic powers?”  Dumbledore smiles at him and holds his hand. “If you four trust me, I will take you to where everything will be revealed.” The godlings look at each other before holding onto the man in question, watching as he whispers something, waving his wand around.

The boys feel a tug on their abdomen and gasped as the world around them blurs, like they are on a moving train. They felt themselves morph, as if they were travelling through time. Their very fibre being pulled and torn. Before long, the scenery around them started to solidify, changing into a strange room with silver instruments and hundreds of portraits everywhere. “What the FUCK was that.” Sirius shouted from a pile of broken items he had staggered into, being vulgar as always.  Dumbledore merely dusted himself off and fixed his robe before moving behind the desk. “That, dear boy, was a form of magical travel called apparition.”  Peter lay on the floor, gasping for breath. “I think I prefer falling from the sky.”  “And I prefer lying on a couch throwing grapes at the nymphs.” James groaned, stretching out his back.

“So magical powers?” Remus asked, walking up to Dumbledore's desk as his friends gazed at him in shock, wondering how he could be fine after that supposed ‘hell’ they just went through. “Ah yes!” Dumbledore clapped his hands together, reaching into a drawer just behind his desk. Out of the drawer he pulled four glasses filled to the brim with grey smoke.  “Within these glasses contain the exact wisps Hecate used to infuse those seven mortals with magic. Take this and it shall do the same.” “I’ll drink to that.” Says Sirius, pushing past Remus and picking up a glass. 

In one go he downs it, smiling devilishly. “See men? All fi-” Suddenly, Sirius’ face freezes in a half smile as his hands fly up to throat. He falls to his knees, coughing horribly, eyes glowing silver. His whole body twitching uncontrollably.  As quickly as it started, it was over. He lay there gasping, trying to formulate a sentence. “That was delicious…” he wheezed “110% recommend you give it a go.”

After seeing what happened to Sirius, the other boys were more hesitant to take even a sip.  But one encouraging smile from Dumbledore made them drink it, going through the same process as their blood brother. 

When they had finally recovered from the side effects of the potion, Dumbledore was reading through a small scroll covered in glyphs. “I just need to ask your four a question in order to secure your stay here at Hogwarts. Now this may feel extremely unnatural, since I am jogging memories that don’t actually exist.” 

He looked up from the paper, his eyes holding that twinkle they had seen before.  “Boys, what house were you sorted into six years ago?” The godlings felt their soul pulse for a second and their mouths fell open of its own accord.  A movie tape started running through their mind, twisted and slightly burning. Back and forth it ran, so fast everything was a blur of colours.  Finally, it landed on a vision of their younger selves sitting on a stool in front of hundreds as a hat screamed out something. The boys on the stools were faceless and the edges of their bodies were blurred, as if someone had edited them into a scene. They felt something invisible reach towards the memory and rip it out of the tape, forming it into words. Speaking together, they all said “Gryffindor.” 

Their souls pulsed once more, and they were brought back to reality, grabbing their heads and groaning. “I swear if we have to go through that everytime we remember some pointless memory-” Sirius spat, grabbing at his hair like he was trying to rip the headache out. “No, do not worry, Sirius. This should be the last time it will happen. You will feel dizzy and weird when experiencing a memory though, since they were forcibly planted into your mind.” 

“That reminds me,” Remus interrupted, wincing as he stood up “How come we aren’t going dizzy from the sight of you? Something tells me we should know you even though we don’t .”  Dumbledore laughed “My, aren’t you inquisitive?”  “That's Remus for you.” said Peter smiling fondly at the boy in question. “Has to know everything about a subject the moment he finds out about it.”  Remus made a face at him before turning back to Dumbledore, eyes hopeful.  Dumbledore smiled kindly at him and continued. “That’s because I personally asked the gods not to include me in your implanted memories. I would prefer to get to know you as the boys you are now. Not what fake scenarios portray you as.”

The godlings look at each other, questions of trust in their eyes.  Taking the first leap of faith, James extended his hand for Dumbledore to shake. “You have left a good impression on us sir. You have earned our trust.” Delighted, Dumbledore shook his hand, once again smiling kindly at them all. “Now, I must show you to your dormitories…”

“No need Sir.” Sirius said, finally standing up. “We can get there just fine.”  They turned to leave, heading for the office door. Dumbledore cocked an eyebrow at their departing figures. “You may get lost” 

James stopped by the door just as the others went through, chuckling.  Turning around he winked at Dumbledore.  “That’s the thing about us chaos gods.” He said, grinning mischievously.  “We have impeccable navigational skills.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

taglist: @pregnant-piggy @just-a-belgian-girl @james-effing-potter @thegrxywitch @aspiringsloth20 @naviation-xx @marauderenergy @give-the-boy-a-hug @amixedwitch

if you want to be a part of my taglist for this, fill out this form 

[sneezefiction]

falling for you

Tsukishima Kei x reader - Scenario

a/n: ok so, trying to portray fluff with Tsukki was a challenge characteristically, but i’ll be damned if i don’t try. lemme know who i should try next~ i’m open for requests :)

warnings: slight cursing, mentions blood/wounds (nothing angsty)

wc: 1680

---

Tsukishima never intended to get to know you.

He had actually been avoiding you for quite some time.

You see, you got under his skin in the most irritating ways.

It wasn’t like how he loathed Hinata or Kageyama. Or his annoyance with incredibly slow grocery clerks. It wasn’t even similar to the exhaustive irritations he experienced toward the end of a full volleyball match.

Yes, these things are problematic, but Tsukishima can handle almost any obstacle.

You see, his cold, calculated presence soaks in every detail of life for the purpose of learning how to dismantle an issue. He resassesses, maneuver, and overcomes. There’s a reason the boy is so good at blocking. 

However of all the problems he could have... this one is the worst.

Previously, he had everything he possibly could, under his control.

But when you came along? Oh, he had absolutely no experience with handling this level of meddling.

Because it isn’t even your fault.

You just somehow manage to interrupt all of his patterns and sneak your way into a majority of his thoughts. 

Every. Single. Day.

So it isn’t a surprise that Tsukki, a master of mental strength and strategy, would be enraged by his inability to pin down his feelings for you.

For example, last week, you accidentally bumped into his arm, stumbling a bit. Tsukki grabbed your arm before you could hit the floor, but as his hand meets your skin he feels as though he’s taken a fall of his own.

His heart fluttered.

And when you immediately turned to him, apologizing and thanking him sweetly and sincerely, his whole mind went numb.

You make him feel confused. Uncertain. And… real.

But that doesn’t mean he likes those feelings. No, he doesn’t, Tsukishima tries to convince himself.

So why is it you that he pictures your figure whenever he closes his eyes? Or that your laugh echos through his head after someone tells you a cheesy joke from across the classroom? Or how whenever you call his name, he can’t help but temper his irate disposition?

You’ve got him spinning in circles and it’s driving him wild.

Because Tsukishima doesn’t want to need anyone. Not a friend. Not A lover. And he definitely isn’t in the market for another disappointment.

However, as much as he tries to avoid you, your touch, your smile, he can’t seem to stop running into you. He can’t bury his feelings for you, as much as he wishes he could.

Even though he’s tried to find reasons to hate, laugh at, or ridicule you, he simply can’t. Because the reason you are so bothersome and so obnoxious has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with his inability to cope with how relentlessly wonderful you are in his eyes.

---

Your walk home conveniently crosses with Tsukki’s own path and every so often he’s out of volleyball practice just in time to run into you. An increasing occurrence over the past couple of months.

Tsukishima may not realize or want to admit it, but he treasures the rare moments where he’ll walk in sync with you. His stride subconsciously copies yours, slowing him down significantly, and somehow it’s okay.

You, harboring your own feelings toward the blonde, always try to make small talk or ramble about your day, doing your best to find some type of common ground with the tall boy next to you. 

He finds himself responding to you again.

He’s tried for so long to not get involved, but over the past few days, he can’t help but let his thoughts flow. You make him uncomfortably comfortable, if that’s at all possible.

His snarky comments are (currently) nonexistent. His abrasive nature, moderated.

I mean, of course he’s dripping with sarcasm, but Tsukki wouldn’t change that part of himself for anyone.

Today something seemed to have clicked between you two, likely due to Tsukishima briefly relinquishing his stubbornness and fear of connection. It’s infrequent, but with your consistency, he’s finding himself far more capable of seeing outside of his past.

As the conversation picks up speed, so do your feet. The pebbled path you walk doesn’t help you keep your footing, so you find yourself unsteady and sliding every once in a while. 

Suddenly, your feet are out from under you, and similarly to the week before, you plummet to the earth. 

You’re not quite as fortunate this time, because as quickly as Tsukki swoops down to catch you, your hands and knees are already covered in dirt, sand, and bits of rock. Scraped and bleeding, you do your best to calm yourself down and assess the situation… so you turn to Tsukki.

Poor boy looks so awkward, unsure of what to say, but still attempting to keep his cool demeanor.

“Are you okay?” He asks, crouching down to meet your eyes. As masked as it is, you see a flicker of concern in his expression.

He takes your hand in his, trying not to let his feelings intervene with your pain, and studies the tears in your skin.

“I- I’m okay,” You stammer, partially from the pain, but mostly from his gentle touch.

“Okay… let me see if I have anything that’ll help.” Turning toward his bag.

It aches and the grimace on your face shows just how nasty the gash on your knee really is. 

He gently lets your hand down, taking out tissues from his backpack and uses one to wipe off your knee while you use another to apply pressure to your hands. 

The air is very still, almost as though it chose to pause for this moment. 

“Hm, the weather actually is nicer down here for you short kids. I’m envious.” Tsukki jokes, breaking the tense silence.

“Haha, very funny. Maybe if you ever fall down, I’ll actually be able to catch you, since I’m already down here.” You retort playfully.

“Okay captain sassy, whatever you say.” He shoots back, “Now how ‘bout we see if you can actually stand up.”

He offers you his hand once again, the feeling making your heart race and his face go blank.

You attempt to straighten out your legs entirely, moving a foot forward, but find yourself in extreme discomfort.

Tsukki notices and without skipping a beat, suggests,

“Well, I can… y’know, carry you?” He turns his head, the lightest dusting of pink touching his cheeks.

You, still using his hand for support, look down, your face becoming red.

“I think that may be the, uhm, best option. It hurts a lot.” 

He silently stoops down, placing his arms under your knees and behind your back, making sure to not agitate the wound any further.

The walk continues in a nervous, but intimately close manner. Neither of your eyes knowing what to focus on.

So you decide to fixate on him for a moment, 

“I’m sorry about all this… I should’ve watched my step.” You express, “But… I’ve really enjoyed our walk together.” You crack a warm smile.

Tsukki returns your gaze, pulse jumping slightly, his honey-brown hued irises capturing your soft (e/c) eyes,

“Yeah, dumbass. You should’ve at least remembered how big of a clutz you are.” He smirks.

“But I guess this was nice… not so much the falling part…” He takes a moment to consider his next few words, breathing a little deeper.

“But these walks, speaking with you…” He averts his gaze,

“Just you, actually, y/n.” If your blush wasn’t already apparent, it was clear now.

He’s approaching your house as he finishes his sentence, but it feels as you’re both walking through time and space. A small galaxy opening up just for the two of you.

Reality stops in moments like these, Tsukki notes.

And it doesn’t feel… bad.

It feels right. Nice, even.

Before making it up to your front door, you reach your soft hand toward Tsukishima’s forcibly stoic face.

While outwardly, he’s kept his composure, his insides are producing so many SOS signals, it’s not even funny.

You lean forward, hand resting on his jaw, and place a short kiss to his cheek.

Leaning back, you catch a look of adoration in his eyes. Something he has no idea he’s physically showing right now.

He takes this chance to capture your soft lips in a kiss.

He hasn’t really done this before, but Tsukki gets how a kiss should work.

What didn’t cross his methodical, logic-based brain was just how good it would feel. Like a cloud, back-lit by golden sunlight, or a perfect chord progression to the most touching ballad.

It’s imperfect, but it’s electric.

Your lips melded with his so well, every second melting away his icier emotions. It began to introduce him to a new reason for life and a new meaning to love.

He eventually sets you down in front of your door.

But he has your hand lightly held in his, careful not to disturb the scrapes.

A huge grin spreads through your face, eyes lit up.

And he now knows why he can’t stop thinking about you. You really are a necessary part of his life. Worthy of breaking routines. Special enough to stop his flow and grumpily facetime you. Important enough to reshape himself to account for your existence.

With this final realization, Tsukki goes to his next line of action.

“So, are you free Friday?” He inquires.

“Actually, yeah! Can we go see that new dinosaur movie? I’m kind of obsessed with it.”

“Well, damn. This is gonna be even better than I expected.” He smirks, leaving you confused, but smiling at his response.

No, he wasn’t going to tell you about his discoveries from that day.

At least not in great detail.

But, thanks to this… to you, Tsukishima is learning to open himself up again. To take chances on himself and others. A process that is never too early to begin.

All it took was helping you back onto your feet to get you into his arms.

Something that both literally and relationally makes a whole lot of sense for some reason, Tsukki concludes.

[lavenderek]

Why were you disappointed by the Howl's Moving Castle movie? I think I read the book years ago, but I don't remember much about it

i'm gonna critique the gibbly movie and it's my understanding that it's a special movie for a lot of people so if that's you feel free to skip this one

so i was delighted and enchanted by the book, which has only twice to date not made the movie a devastating letdown, so my dear friend sending me this book was pretty much signing a contract in her own blood accepting that i would be cranky about the movie. i'm not really a ghibli person either, like i can appreciate the artistry and value in them, and i'll watch it if the people i'm with really need to watch princess mononoke or whatever, but i just don't go out of my way to watch them. (i like reading meta about spirited away, though.)

i did go out of my way to watch this one because i loved the book so much.

it's important to remember the culture in which the movie was made as opposed to the culture in which the book was made. howl is welsh, if that says anything to you. (his name is howell, and he adopted the name howl to run from himself and seem more magical. i love him and movie howl had none of those elements except for when he told us he was a coward and i was like. ok lol, i'll jot that down because i didn't see it in the text)

so i'm not necessarily surprised by the creative changes they made, but i am confused, because those changes drastically affect the characterization, the character motivations, and the pacing of the story.

(i also was only able to get my hands on the dub and i loathe and detest christian bale as howl lmfao but that's subjective)

so first of all, does movie sophie, like, want anything? she's flawless as a character. even though she has a completely different personality as an old lady than she does as a young lady, there's nothing wrong with her. everybody is fond of her, she's shy, she's gentle, she's beautiful, and she's kind, and her only motivation in the whole movie is this vague desire to cure the curse, but even then she doesn't work on it much at all. her life before howl is about being buffeted around like a leaf in the wind, and her life after howl is about being buffeted around like a cow in a twister. sophie in the movie is a blank slate. she is insecure about her looks (seriously, they couldn't even give her like a crooked nose or something, only doll-faced, thin, pale women over here), and her confessing this and crying about it for about four seconds was the first truly deep emotional response i had seen of her. i cried when she cried, who doesn't grapple with feelings of inadequacy? then the kid came out and she was like, okay, i'm done being upset now :)

second of all, howl is a little eccentric, but mostly he's just a glorious gentleman who has a messy room and one (1) overly dramatic depressive episode. it was disturbing to me as a viewer because it was violent and came out of nowhere, and it never comes back again lmao. it was so bizarre, he's introduced as this suave, debonair man in a cape, and he stays that way the entire movie, except for a weird moment in the middle where he screams at sophie naked and then lists the character flaws that we the viewers have never witnessed. why does he like sophie? why does sophie like him?

why did they turn michael into a child? i just don't see what that added to the story lmao. i get them taking out the complexity of secrets involving sophie's decidedly interchangeable sisters and their mystery beaus, it's a lot to fit into a little movie; but like, why did they turn him into a child though lmao

there's a lot of fatphobia in the movie too.

the change that upset me the most, though, was that the element of sophie having the ability to influence things without her knowledge was totally abandoned. like i said, things just sort of happen to her. in the book, her hats are the most lovely because she's inadvertently cast spells on them to make whoever wears them seem alluring or mysterious to people. the witch curses her because she recognizes these little spells and believes sophie's trying and failing to trick her (and also because sophie snaps at her lmao, why is movie sophie only an asshole when she's old? leave my daughter alone).

book sophie unknowingly protects howl by worrying over his cape (which she previously shredded because she got mad at him, i love her), she unknowingly enchants the scarecrow by helping it stand and complimenting it. she does that the entire book. she also starts the book already feeling sort of dull and trapped, and spends the story trying desperately to solve mysteries and protect loved ones. movie sophie doesn't like, sit around and knit demurely, don't get me wrong; but all the major plot points are things that howl makes happen to her lol.

i think the scarecrow is an excellent representation of book sophie's inner struggles. it's something she inadvertently enchanted, and she doesn't understand it, so she runs from it. she's terrified of the thing. in that way it kind of stands in for her own agency: only when she was forcibly in disguise did she feel free to find out what she wants her life to look like, and that kind of power is foreign and frightening to her. i loved that for her.

and very late in the book, howl reveals that he knew all along she was under a spell, that he tried to get rid of it out of curiosity (book howl doesn't seem to notice that he's just as imperious and nosy as sophie is), but she resisted it. he couldn't get the spell off. so he assumed she wanted to stay that way and let her be about it. so basically it's very huck finn on the raft, she realizes that in running to get away, she was already away. she had that agency all along.

all of that was missing from movie sophie. the idea of her inadvertently hanging on to the curse is still there, we see that she sort of fades back to her young self while she's asleep (not the case in the book, we know this because howl doesn't know what she looks like until she turns back in the end); but she doesn't seem to gain any knowledge about herself because of this. the only time she seems to have any personal drive, it's to learn about and help howl. her inner struggles are about howl. and i hated movie howl lmao, i hated his design and i hated his voice and i hated how like, patronizing he was to everyone around him. book howl was a condescending dick at times and just weird and distant at others, but he never came across like he was absolutely positive he was seducing sophie at any given moment. it was clear that he was the star of the movie and sophie was just the audience stand in to be like 🤩🥸🧐

the scarecrow who is a prince was the most hilariously egregious moment in the entire movie. in the book, the missing prince is introduced as a plot in the beginning and is referenced repeatedly throughout. and he's a major player in the climax. in the movie, it's the last like five minutes of the film and the scarecrow turns into a dapper boy with bread for hair and is like, "you've cured me! i'm a prince who went missing from a nearby kingdom and i was cursed but now i'm free." and i was like NICE, so we just found out there's a nearby kingdom that has a prince who's been missing. love that for us

the book had a lot of themes that i don't often encounter in fantasy novels - themes of female agency, of disguise, and of chaos. the chaos is my favorite part, every chapter is equally chaotic at various levels. you'll have michael fretting over some spell, sophie fretting over her own spell, howl trying to get someone in disguise to fall in love with him, THAT someone pining over michael, and all the while sophie and howl are bickering because she is cleaning (it seems like she cleans to clean up her mind) and he doesnt want her to (he is afraid of change and of reality), and he needs a huge favor of her, and she needs to wheedle out of it, and she promised calcifer she would free him, and calcifer is repeatedly promising to die of not being appreciated enough, and everybody is having three arguments at once. it's like that in every chapter, culminating in the moment howl and sophie realize they're in love, and they stand clasping hands and sort of smiling at each other in the middle of a room full of panicking and perplexed people just yelling over each other lmfao. surrounded by chaos and no longer thrown by it, rooted there in the middle of it, stabilizing each other in a way. i loved that. i actually flipped back a few pages so i could read that moment again.

and it seemed to me that the movie tried to imply that with visual chaos, but everything else was really quite linear and simple. everything was very airy. and since the conflama and the general atmosphere and character dynamics of the book is what made me fall in love with it, the movie didn't work for me.

tumblr user door pointed out that the book and the movie are extremely different and she appreciates them both as separate entities, and she's wise and correct; i knew this and i tried so hard to engage with the movie on its own terms. but i couldn't divorce them in my mind. i felt the same way about ella enchanted and practical magic. i cant stop thinking like, i wish they hadn't gotten rid of x, i wish they hadn't added this weird element of y.

also it was boring. i checked to see how much more was left three times. sorry. i can't express enough how little i cared about the plot with the witch and somebody's secretly evil boss and time traveling to yell at howl or something, because i didn't connect with the characters. and the feathers growing out of howl triggered my weird phobia about things being embedded in skin. i'm skeeved just remembering it.

anyway, yeah. the movie was beautifully animated and whatever atmosphere they were going for was pretty consistent throughout. oh and i LOVED calcifer. he was my favorite in both the book and the movie. in fact, he was the only character in the movie who they didn't really change, he was petty and bitchy in both versions. i loved him. he's like, "SHE FED ME SOMETHING YUCKY" my perfect, horrible boy.

oh and. book sophie was a redhead. that's all.

after i finished the book i tried to draw how imagined them:

couldn't finish it though, i wasn't super jazzed about how it was coming out.

she's sitting in like, a window well altering a coat of his without permission. and he's like, i guess i'll have to wear this one instead, and she's like, i guess you will

[theonewiththefanfics]

At Arm’s Length (Part 5)

 Synopsys: Modern!AU

Bucky Barnes is the co-owner of ‘Barnes and Rogers’. The Reader is the secretary for Stark Industries. Both are childhood friends and madly in love. Things couldn’t be more perfect. But when something happens at Reader’s work, things might change and it will test to what lengths the pair is willing to go to find their happy ending.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Genre: angst

Warnings: swearing, mentions of accidents and hospitals and injuries

Word count: 2298

Italics are flashbacks

Bucky was halfway through throwing things in his suitcase and mentally trying to check everything off a list he might need in Spain, when the doorbell rang. The absolute want to telepathically punch whoever was on the other side of the door and taking away every precious minute was almost as unbearable as that time Y/N had made him try out sushi and he’d had to pretend not to hate it.

Practically running, Bucky got to the door and ripped it open only to be greeted by a bewildered Steve at his actions.

“What?” Bucky shook his head. “What do you want?”

“You in a hurry of some kind?”

“Actually yes.” He stepped away from the door and allowed Steve to come inside the loft, quickly shutting it and grabbing the dirty whiskey glass before placing it into the sink and washing it out. “I’m going to Barcelona.”

Steve blanked for a second. “Barcelona?”

“Yes, Barcelona. Just because you repeat it won’t change the name of the city.”

His friend scoffed, and Bucky threw him a dirty gaze, but Steve just bit down on his lip. There was only one reason Bucky would be in such a frenzy, and it wasn't a secret (not that he was trying to keep it that way). 

“I’m assuming you talked to Y/N," Steve more so stated rather than asked.

The brunet sighed and nodded.

“And I assume it didn’t go over too well…”

“Nope,” Bucky murmured and plopped onto the couch. “In fact, it’s probably the worst way everything could’ve gone, which is why I need to go and see her face-to-face.”

“How so?” 

“She admitted she loved me. But…” Bucky let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes like it would erase her words from existence. “Then she said it’s not enough.”

“Did she actually say she’s in love with you?” In all honesty, Steve was quite stunned. Yes, he knew Y/N was most definitely capable of love and loved the people in her life as fiercely as the sun burned in the sky, but actually saying those words… that was not something she took lightly. And especially in the context, Bucky made sure his words were heard.

“Well not exactly. But when she asked me for a reason not to move on, and I said because she loved me as I love her, she didn’t deny it… and that’s good enough for me.”

Steve looked at his friend, the determination on his face. There was no way he’d be able to stop him (not that he wanted to), but at the same time, it was his job as his partner to get that brain living in romance-land back into the real world as well. “Well before you go, I think you should know, that whatever happened last night, has become an absolute mess. More than it already was.”

Bucky’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean? What’s a mess?”

Steve huffed. “This.”

From the inside of his jacket, Steve took out a roll of paper and unfolded it, placing it on the glass coffee table. In front of both men was a newspaper, a picture of Bucky’s face all over it, but not in a flattering sort of way. Especially with the title in big bold letters read ‘Is the fairytale already over? Bucky Barnes was seen cosying up to Tony Stark’s personal assistant Natalia Alianova Romanova minutes after professing his love on live TV to the recently promoted Stark Industries secretary Y/N Y/L/N.’

He threw the paper back onto the table, not even bothering to look at the full article. “This is bullshit," he gritted through his teeth. "It’s absolute bullshit. Look,” Bucky sighed placing a hand on his hip and running the prosthetic one through his already dishevelled hair. “I can't do this right now, I need to get to Y/N first. I’ll deal with it when I get back. I’m going to Barcelona.”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “To do what – forcibly make Y/N come back?”

And that set off Bucky. “I can’t lose her! Not after everything that has happened! I can’t just sit on this fucking couch and wait until she is transferred back because guess what – that’s not happening! I’ve let life dictate everything too much, so it’s time I take it into my own hands.”

The desperation was laced in every single syllable of his words, as Steve understood what he meant.

***

Bucky had never been this close to death. Scratch that. The only other time Bucky had been this close to death was when he had tried to sneak out of his room in eleventh grade to go with Steve and Y/N to a midnight movie showing, after failing his math exam. His mom hadn’t been too happy about the results, to put it mildly, so when Winifred Barnes had seen her son try and climb through the window after she'd downgraded his curfew to nine PM… let’s just say, Bucky didn’t join for movie nights for a month.

But as the train violently swished off of the tracks, his body tossed around the inside like a ragdoll, Bucky truly thought he was going to die. The train rolled to the side and continued to skid along the way. A sharp pain shot down from his left shoulder to his abdomen and up to his head, and that’s when the darkness came.

It wasn’t all-encompassing darkness as Bucky thought death would be. It was warm, where he thought it would be cold, and soothing where he thought it would rip him apart. But all of that he could attribute to the fact that even after years of not seeing her, barely catching up with phone calls and texts as they had gone their separate academic ways, Y/N was the one that brought him peace.

She was there, in the blackness, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, and her gentle laughter filled the air around him, fueling Bucky with nothing but love. 

God, how he loved her. He’d been too scared to ruin their friendship and too scared to mess up the dynamic between him, her and Steve, but now he didn’t have to worry about that. 

Death was comfortable, it was as soft as Y/N’s hands and as gentle as the look in her eyes, and Bucky wasn’t even half-mad about going, as long as she led him through into the light.

But when he got to the end, the light was too bright and stung his eyes, and the soft palm that had slid in his had transformed into a rough and scratchy one, and Bucky’s blue eyes opened up to see a sterile room rather than what he thought would be heaven in the form of Y/N's old bedroom. 

Steve’s eyes were red as if he had been crying for days on end when their blue orbs met.

“I’m sorry,” his friend choked out, brain barely processing Bucky was awake, spewing out the first thing that came to it, the guilt eating at his insides. “They tried everything.”

“What?” Bucky slurred and tried to roll his head to the side when blearing hot pain shot through his side. That’s when the warmth he’d felt disappeared and the sharp reality set in, the horrid memories of what had happened coming back in painful waves. He didn't need to glance to his left to understand what he'd paid to stay alive. The bandages across his chest and the stump where his arm used to be said it all.

But even then, Bucky turned his head back to look at Steve and gave him a tight-lipped smile, teeth digging into his bottom lip as he desperately tried to keep it from wobbling to somehow comfort his friend.

“You gotta swear something to me, Steve." Bucky immediately stated, mind running a mile a minute. "Right now.”

“Anything,” he said through a hiccup. “You know I’d do anything for you, Buck.”

“We don’t tell Y/N about this shit.”

Steve was flabbergasted. They told Y/N everything. It was practically wired into all of their DNAs to share stuff with one another, so when Bucky demanded silence about the accident, Steve’s head didn’t compute the request.

“We can’t,” Bucky reiterated, squeezing Steve's palm with his remaining hand. “We can’t tell her.”

“And why the fuck not? She’s our friend! Our best friend!”

“Because she’s gonna flip.”

Steve scoffed. “As any normal person would. I can’t lie to her about something like this.”

“We’re not gonna be lying. We’re just not gonna say anything.”

“Why?”

Bucky bit down on his lip before looking up at the ceiling, attempting but ultimately failing to keep the tears at bay. “Because I don’t want her to look at me in any different way. I don’t want her to worry or stress.”

“Buck, she deserves to know.”

“He sighed looking back at his friend. “I know… but she deserves to finish her degree.”

Steve shook his head. “How does this factor into her getting her fucking education?”

“This is Y/N we’re talking about!” Bucky let out a teary chuckle.  “She’d drop anything and everything if she found out! Fuck, she’d run over after hearing that you got off scots free," and Bucky breathed out that statement with pure relief in his voice, as he gave Steve a once-over to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him. "She'd do that just to see for herself that you’re alright. I can’t let her do that to her life.” Bucky finally looked at the stump that once was his left arm. “She deserves to grow and flourish before any of this shit baggage comes into her life. The recovery will be long, I'm not delusional. And she doesn’t need to see all of the crap that’s gonna happen.”

“Don’t you think it’s unfair to Y/N?” Steve bit his lip. “She’d want to be here to support you.”

“I know,” Bucky sighed. “But I couldn’t handle seeing her in pain. In any amount of pain… so please, Steve… don’t tell her about any of this.”

And with a resigned sigh, he took hold of Bucky’s one remaining palm and squeezed it. “I won’t. I promise.”

Two years and a month later after the accident.

“I deserved to know!”

Bucky let out a terrified shudder. He took it back. The train wasn’t the closest he’d ever been to death. This, the moment he told it to Y/N, was. “I – I know, but –“

“What ‘but’?! There is no ‘but’! I deserved to fucking know! Bucky, I loved you! I still do! You’re my family as is Steve, and the thought of having potentially lost you…” She chocked back and sob and placed a hand over her mouth. She had to take a deep breath before she could continue. “The fact that you didn’t want me there for you, honestly hurts like shit. Did – do I mean so little to you?”

“Sweetheart, you’re my entire world! Please don’t ever think that I don’t trust you or love you. I do,” he whispered bringing her head to his chest, which she reluctantly placed there, hearing Bucky’s erratic heartbeat. “I love you more than you’ll ever be able to understand, but you didn’t deserve to see the shit I had to deal with. It was nasty and horrible and brutal, and I’d never want to put you through something like that," he muttered in her Y/H/C locks, kissing her head.

“I don’t care about that!” She sniffled grasping onto the back of his shirt. “I’d change your fucking diapers if I’d had to. I would’ve dropped everything to help you!”

Bucky pulled her face back, head cupped between his palms, a pained smile on his face. “Exactly! Because you’re amazing, and kind and sweet and care for others and their happiness more than you care for your own! I couldn’t let you do that! You were so close to getting your degree. I wasn’t about to ruin it.”

“Bucky, you’ve never ruined anything.”

“Even your tenth birthday celebration?”

And that’s when she let out a small chuckle, but it was like a symphony of angels to Bucky’s ears. His Y/N was back, the smile he'd fallen in love with once again on her face. “Okay, maybe just that one thing. But I don’t hold that against you. More so the bad leftover shrimp you had.” She placed her palm against his cheek, and he leaned into her touch. “Please, don’t keep things from me. Especially something as big as that. I want to be there for you. Through thick and thin, I wanna be able to help.”

Bucky couldn’t help the tears that brimmed at his lower lash line. “I love you, you know that?”

“I love you too,” she mumbled pressing a small kiss to where his prosthetic connected to his shoulder. “Now let’s eat that pizza and watch ‘Friends’. You owe me. Big time.”

***

“And what are you gonna say? When you get to Barcelona?” Steve asked, finally realizing there was no way he could talk his friend out of what he had set his mind on. The blond would be lying if he said, he wasn’t at least somewhat excited that Bucky flying out could potentially get Y/N her head out of her ass and agree to at least try a long-distance thing. He'd been watching from the sidelines as his two friends loved the other from afar, and his heart ached for them.

Bucky shrugged his shoulders. “The same thing I told her before – that I love her, have for a while, and I’m not ready to give up on something that hasn’t even started yet.”

“And then?”

“And then… and then I can only hope she doesn’t make me leave.”

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take):

Everything tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64​ @supernaturalbaesduh​ @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl​ @sea040561​ @staryeyedgirl​ @deathbyarabbit​ @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91​ @dalilx​ @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns​ @averyrogers83​ @in-the-end-im-still-trash​ @gallifreyansass​ @dewy-biitch​ @avxgers​ @unlikelygalaxygiver​ @magicwithaknife​ @ollyoxenfrees​ @bnhvrdy​ @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl​ @sj-thefan​ @teenwolflover28 @lestersglitterglue​ @im-squished​ @strangersstranger​

At Arm’s Length tags: @impalatobakerstreet​ @slender--spirit​ @janineabad @salty-buchanan @chrisevans1fan @dyanna-corona​ @chook007​ @lost-and-wandering-alone​ @goalie-love @nerdgirljen​ @jediviolet​ @fandomly-writings​ @densewaffle @hawkxyes @mizzzpink​ @nishanki1​ @misplacedorphan​ @dylan5573​ @onespideyboi @nerdygirlwithacrush​ @rumlow-barnes-kulina @wantonmeep​ @savemesteeb​ @hoe4sebastian @dreambutdontsleepx​ @marvelismysafezone​ @cap-just-said-language​

Bucky tag list: @thunderous-flower @who-cares-rn​ @projectxhappiness​ @callmebucky-doll​ @coal000​ @killuaenthusiast @courtneychicken​ @sophiealiice​ @raquelbc2003 @watch-out-for-thorns​ @potentially-kinetic​ @thatonegirljessy99​ @proxinge @bbkenna @buckysclub @ulired @fangirlofeverythingbasically @mrsalh32611​ @horrorx570ximagines​ @the-nargles-made-me-do-it​ @pooslie​ @itsisabelanotisabella @httpmcrvel​ @purplebananatragedy​ @pxrrishly​ @parker-barnes-af​ @skulliebythesea​ @california-grown​ @stevehesaidabadlanguageword @belongsto-prachi​ @hello-i-am-insane​ @its-nott-my-problem @emmalbg @hopeinahotbox​

Marvel tags: @nerissa98​ @happyseagrill​ @asguardiansoftheavengers​ @crazybutconfidentaf​ @wishingforahome​ @pizzarollpatrol​ @desir-ae​

A/N: soooo, I guess I’m continuing this, although for whatever reason my fics won’t show up in the Bucky tags, so if you could reblog it please do so as it would greatly help :)

Also sometime on Friday I’ll make a masterpost of every tag list I have and everyone who’s tagged in what. I have loads of accounts I can’t seem to tag, and some of it might be due to the fact that these accounts have changed their names, and if you’re one of them and still would like to remain on the list I’d like it if you sent me a message with your old name so I can update it. If not I’ll just remove the untaggable name :)

P.S. hope you like this :)

P.S.S. please don’t plagiarise or repost my works on different platforms (wattpad, AO3 etc) without my specific written persmission.

[the-whumperfly-effect]

Just watched Homeworld Bound

Future has, as a whole, been painful to watch. But this episode... I don’t know. It just hit me differently.

Homeworld is amazing. It’s colorful, lively, free... it’s everything we wanted for gemkind. It’s like the fluffy fix-it fic we all use to cure the post Future depression. Gems are integrated, happy, allowed to fuse with whoever they want, encouraged to ask questions, they even get to vote on policy makers. It’s a literal utopia.

And the Diamonds! I’m so proud of them. During the movie, it was clear that they were trying really hard to follow Steven’s example, even though they didn’t fully understand.

Now though! They’ve really come into their own. They genuinely understand what they did was wrong and are doing their best to repair the damage. But what really hit me was how happy they all are. Usually, after a redemption arc, the former baddies spend the rest of their life dealing with the guilt and angst over what they did in the past. But the Diamonds... they saw what they did was wrong, repented, dedicated themselves to making things right, accepted their past, and then allowed themselves to heal, along with their gems.

Yellow is healing gems that were violated by her experiments, with plans to restore the Cluster components. Blue is giving gems a place to just exist, to be happy and at peace, instead of forcing everyone to adhere to their assigned purpose. And White! The queen control freak herself, is giving a voice (literally!) to the views and concerns of the everyday, common gem. The same people she forcibly silenced for eons, she now let’s take control of her and use her body as a vehicle to ensure fair representation.

Their demeanors have flipped entirely! Instead of the cold, perfect leaders they used to portray, now they’re so open and expressive. The throne rooms is basically a museum, and their private quarters are open to visitors. What really got me, though, was how they interact with other gems. They used to use their massive size for intimidation. Now, they actively try to put themselves on everyone else’s level. Sometimes, it’s by raising a gem up (Yellow’s room was full of tiny staircases and Blue’s clouds let gems float). Other times it’s by lowering themselves (White literally puts the other gems in control). Most of the time, they were sitting or laying on the floor. On the floor! And they were so casual about everything, none of this was out of the ordinary for them, it’s just how things are now.

Everything is perfect. And that made it hurt so much more to see Steven suffering. Every single positive change in gem society is a direct result of Steven’s actions. He ought to be ecstatic.

But he’s not.

See, Steven has been a problem solver his entire life. He helps people, he fixes things, he makes things better. He centered his identity on that, it gave him a purpose. But now... there’s nothing left to fix.

There’s no more gem missions.

There’s no more monsters to fight.

There’s no more corrupted gems to heal.

There’s no more mysterious past to discover.

There’s no more worlds to save.

There’s no more need for Steven.

Everyone’s happy and safe. They don’t need his help anymore. In fact, when he tries to help it just makes things worse. Instead of fixing problems, he’s causing them. All he does is mess up and hurt the ones he loves.

Steven fixes problems, but Steven is the problem.

Maybe it would be better if Steven was just... gone.

I’ve struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts, and the way Steven has been behaving is terrifyingly familiar. He’s already tried to stop existing; trying to be Stevonnie permanently? It’s the exact same thing Rose did when she made Steven.

Everything is great without him, so why is he still here? Mentally, he’s already on the ledge and he’s got one foot in the air. He should be in a mental hospital on suicide watch.

I can feel in my bones that there’s going to be a suicide attempt in the next few episodes. It will probably be metaphorical, like corrupting himself, wiping his own memories, tearing out or even shattering his gem, but the intent will be clear.

I believe the show will have a happy, or at least bittersweet, ending. After all, it is ultimately a kids show, shown on a children’s network. But this is some of the most powerful, resonating storytelling I’ve ever seen. It’s so much more than I expected when I started watching and I’m so grateful that I got to experience it as it unfolded.

I don’t know what the final episodes will hold, but I do know I’m going to feel every bit of it. And I’m definitely going to cry. Steven Universe is genuinely amazing and incredibly relatable for anyone who has struggled with mental illness. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt, like a healing wound.

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press/Gallery: Elizabeth Olsen Is Ready to Lead the MCU

An ambitious new Disney+ series might just give the strongest Avenger the happy ending she deserves.

  GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 001

  ELLE: We can’t keep meeting Elizabeth Olsen like this. By “this,” I mean in the throes of catastrophe or bereavement, or, to put it plainly, when she’s an emotional wreck. In the 2018 Facebook Watch drama Sorry For Your Loss, Olsen assumes the role of Leigh Shaw, a young widow grappling with the unexpected loss of her husband and all the painful nuisances that come with death: the unbearable waves of sadness, the clichéd condolences, a grief support group that runs out of donuts. At one point, Leigh says through a cracked voice, “I’m just mad all the time.” It’s hard not to draw parallels to Olsen’s other angry character. After all, “mad” is exactly how 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced us to Wanda Maximoff.

Defined by tragedy since her Marvel debut, Wanda (aka the Scarlet Witch) is an orphan with telekinetic powers. When not saving the world, she spends most of her time onscreen grieving the deaths of her parents, twin brother, or lover. Wanda’s never been allowed to fully exist outside the confines of her grief and anger, but with the launch of WandaVision—Marvel’s foray into serialized content for streaming—she may just be getting the happy ending she deserves.

Partly inspired by The Vision comic book, which follows synthezoid superhero Vision and his family as they move to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the Disney+ series is an ode to the TV sitcoms we’ve come to love, with Wanda and Vision (Paul Bettany) basking in newlywed bliss—except Vision’s been very dead (killed twice, in fact) since the events of 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. It’s unclear exactly how these starcrossed characters got to suburbia, but for now, it’s a delight to see the typically solemn duo sink their teeth into slapstick comedy.

“The show is like a blank slate for them,” Olsen tells me over Zoom, her light brown fringe a departure from Wanda’s red waves. The Scarlet Witch’s doleful glare is also long gone; in its place, Olsen’s eyes are wide with excitement. “Wanda and Vision’s journey to this point is a story of pure, innocent love and deep connection with another person,” she explains. “It was also very traumatizing. Tragedy has always been their story. In our show, we kind of wipe that clean and start fresh.”

But Wanda’s complicated past looms over WandaVision. Age of Ultron saw her and her twin brother, Pietro, initially opposing the Avengers (the siblings volunteered for a series of experiments with Hydra—a super evil organization within the MCU—after the deaths of their parents at the hands of Tony Stark’s Stark Industries) before switching sides to help save the Earth. The movie ends in victory for our superheroes, but yet another tragedy for Wanda when Pietro dies in battle. She finds comfort in the arms of Vision, an android created from the remains of Tony’s J.A.R.V.I.S. program, but even that bliss is short-lived. You see, Vision can only live with the help of the Mind Stone, which Mad Titan Thanos needs to take over the universe. In Infinity War, Vision asks Wanda to sacrifice him, and Wanda reluctantly agrees—but Thanos reverses time to gain control of the stone, killing the robot for a second time. Wanda’s pain is palpable: Imagine sacrificing the love of your life to save everyone else, just to watch him brought back to life and killed again—by the very villain you’re trying to defeat.

Though the thrill of playing a character with superhuman abilities is enticing for any actress, Olsen says it was Wanda’s internal battle with mental health that attracted her to the role in the first place. “[Joss Whedon] explained to me that Wanda Maximoff has always been this pillar of the struggle of mental health, from her pain and depression and traumatic experiences to how she completely alters the reality of the comics,” Olsen says of her early conversations with the Age of Ultron director. “The thing I held onto after reading the initial script was that she was not only powerful because of her abilities, but because of her emotions.”

In fact, MCU theorists would argue she’s one of, if not the, strongest Avenger. She can infiltrate the others’ minds to reveal their biggest fears (Age of Ultron). She can overpower Vision and send him plunging through several floors to break up a fight between warring superheroes (Avengers: Civil War). She can even bring Thanos to his knees, snapping his sword in half and forcibly removing his armor piece by piece (Infinity War).

Still, “they keep slapping her over the head with more grief,” Olsen quips.

As phase one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with the sound of clanging metal on May 2, 2008, phase four kicked off on January 15, 2021 with a kitschy 1950s sitcom theme: “She’s a magical gal in a small town locale / he’s a hubby who’s part machine / How will this duo fit in and pull through? Oh, by sharing a love / like you’ve never seen.”

With WandaVision, Marvel steers clear of the typical superhero trappings: no destructive battles at a Berlin airport or across the streets of New York City; no blonde-haired god time-traveling to other realms; no tree-like alien fight alongside a raccoon. Wandavision takes place after the events of Endgame in a fictional suburban town called Westview, and the biggest problem the newlyweds face in the show’s opening moments is creating a convincing backstory to get nosy neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) off their backs.

“They are just trying to fit in,” Olsen explains. “They’re trying to not be found out by their neighbors that they’re super-powered beings.” Now, if only we can figure out what the hell is actually going on. Olsen remains tight-lipped: “The reason it’s a sitcom shows itself later in the show,” she hints. “When Kevin [Feige] told me, it didn’t feel so bizarre. It felt like a great way to start our story.”

“With our show, you don’t know what the villain is, or if there is one at all.”

So, is Wanda stuck in the first stage of grief, denial? Has she altered reality as a coping mechanism for Vision’s death? Is she being held hostage by a terrorist organization (ahem, Hydra!)? One thing we do know is that someone is watching the couple and taking notes. At the end of episode 1, the camera pans out from a retro TV playing an episode of WandaVision (meta!) to show a hand jotting down notes. There’s a strange sword symbol on the notebook and a nearby control board, and in episode 2, the same sign appears on a toy helicopter lodged in the couple’s front yard. Later, when a mysterious beekeeper crawls out of the sewer on the couple’s street, the symbol is seen on the back of his suit. In its 20-plus movies, Marvel villains have always existed in plain sight. But with a new, less obvious darkness lurking at every turn, Wanda may have to return to her world-saving roots.

“Someone said to me when you watch any of these hero movies, you know when the villain’s about to show themselves, and you also have an idea of who the villain is,” Olsen says. “With our show, you don’t know what the villain is, or if there is one at all.” For now, WandaVision allows for glimmers of hope and optimism for Wanda and Vision, despite what darkness tries to threaten their happiness. “Wanda is trying to protect everything in her bubble, protect what she and Vision have and this experience,” Olsen says. “I think everything she does is in response to keeping things together.”

In addition to exploding the concept of the superhero onscreen, WandaVision toys with a different era of TV in each episode. The pilot takes viewers to the ‘50s with an episode filmed in front of a live studio audience, and Wanda dresses up in the quintessential housewife garb, not a hair out of place in her voluminous bob. By the time we click on episode 2, she trades in her apron and kitten heels for a more pared-down ‘60s look, while episode 3 gives a nod to the ‘70s, complete with a Brady Bunch-style staircase and a shag haircut for Vision.

While dressing up was the fun part, time-hopping through the eras required a lot of binge-watching old sitcoms to get the mannerisms down right. Olsen studied series like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Brady Bunch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Bewitched to “understand the tones of each era” and get a grasp of how Wanda and Vision should act as a couple. (One of her favorite TV pairings was Jane Kaczmarek and Bryan Cranston from Malcolm in the Middle.) She was fascinated by the way female characters evolved through the decades: “You have to learn appropriate manners—what’s considered being polite or proper. That coincides with women’s voices changing,” she explains. “I enjoyed challenging myself to match the syntax and the lyricism. I live in a very chest-register kind of deep voice. I had to remember not to bring it up at certain moments.”

For so long, Wanda served as a supporting character to Marvel’s biggest names, and the formulaic mundanity of the major theatrical releases made it easy to get comfortable. WandaVision offered Olsen a much-needed challenge. “I’ve only been working for 10 years, but there is this feeling where you start to get comfortable,” she says. “WandaVision was the furthest thing from comfortable for me. It felt intimidating. The character is a completely different thing.”

And fans hoping for a little Marvel action won’t be disappointed. “We still live up to what Marvel does,” she promises. “We just tell the story in a completely different way. It’s a very emotional, female story and it’s a story they haven’t told yet for either of our characters.” Whatever your theory is, keep the cliché condolences to yourself. No one will be uttering, “Sorry for your loss” in Wanda’s world.

Press/Gallery: Elizabeth Olsen Is Ready to Lead the MCU was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[painted-starlight]

Frozen 2:The Impression of Accountability, Iduna and Agnar Characterization Analysis

Warning: LONG POST, Anti-Frozen, spoilers for Frozen 2, swearing, talking about racism and mentions child abuse. If I get anything wrong on the issue of accountability, please don’t hesitate to correct me. 

Summary: Examining the inconsistencies between Frozen 2′s depiction of the behavior of Iduna and Agnarr and how this affects the overall themes of Frozen.

Introduction 

I’ve let myself sit on Frozen 2 and how I feel about it for a couple of months now. I’ve mostly focused on the meta-aspects of the film, from it’s character design to the early spoilers, but nothing too in depth until recently. 

And I’ve come to this conclusion that Frozen 2 is almost accountable, but backs away from any true accountability on the part of Arendelle and, most controversially from the response from my posts, Elsa and Anna’s parents. 

Arendelle: The Spirits Hate Them But Not Really

Frozen 2 is often praised for it’s handling of holding Arendelle accountable for it’s crimes. The spirits are angry with Arendelle for the previous king, Agnarr’s father Runeard for killing the leader of Northuldra. It is up to Anna and Elsa to right the wrongs of the past and destroy the damn that brought only grief to the Northuldra and the spirits of the Enchanted forest. 

So, I have a question. If the spirits were so angry with Arendelle, then why trap the Northuldra and allow Agnarr to leave to rule Arendelle without any real repercussions? Sure, King Runeard is killed in battle, an immediate consequence for his actions but that was ultimately a good thing because he sucked. Only a few soldiers were left behind as well. And King Runeard was later succeeded by king Agnarr, his son, who sucked slightly less than him. 

Arendelle was allowed to prosper with a better king, and Iduna is rewarded for saving his life by the spirits by having her child be gifted with magic. 

For saving the son of the man who murdered the Northuldra leader. 

Because that is something to reward...?? 

I’m starting to think that the concept of accountability is kind of twisted in Frozen 2. Arendelle is explicitly in the wrong, and yet, they are rewarded constantly for no reason. 

The entire Northuldra community, who have a good relationship with the spirits and were merely acting in self defense, were collectively punished and forcibly kept in a magic barrier for 34 years. That doesn’t sound very fair to me.  

Arendelle is Rewarded Rather Than Truly Punished

Yeah, Arendelle is wrong, but they get more benefits than punishments in long run. In fact, you could argue they were exponentially REWARDED for their heinous actions because as a result of the battle they have:

A super powerful monarch who wields magic (which no one else has because Elsa is special)

A better king than the one who died in battle to succeed him (King Agnarr) and who is married to the woman who is the favored child of the spirits

Citizens allowed to go anywhere they want and do trade with other countries to their benefit

Any consequence of said powerful monarchs magical actions (eternal winter) maybe only lasted three days, TOPS. After that she is immediately accepted for her powers and now Arendelle is essentially bulletproof because they have a magic ice queen to defend them.

Allowed to get a warning before the flood of Arendelle, but the Northuldra didn’t get any. 

Allowed Elsa to stop the flood to spare Arendelle, because for some reason the spirits are super cool with Arendelle now?

Like, how fucking crazy would it have been if the spirits woke up and immediately destroyed the dam while everyone in Arendelle was sleeping? THAT would’ve been a life or death conflict. 

But the movie is determined to deal with accountability with kid gloves, or weasel out at the last minute. 

Part 2: Iduna and Agnarr

Now, the aspect I want to talk about is the way that the story frames Iduna and Agnarr and how this contrasts with what we know about them up until the most recent movie. 

This is an examination of the theatrical installments of Frozen because they are the most canonical. Extra stories in books or supplemental material that wasn’t widely released or accessible don’t really count. And not to mention, the consistency between the theatrically released movies and shorts are mostly made by the same team. Therefore, have most canonical elements to them.

Iduna and Agnarr’s Relationship with their Children

Up until Frozen 2, the general consensus was that Iduna and Agnarr’s parents was...misguided. 

Misguided being a very soft term in my opinion because I truly feel that what they did was completely out of line and extreme, crossing the border of abuse. But that’s my personal opinion and it’s not how they are framed in the movie. 

Control vs. Love Theme

Iduna and Agnarr love Elsa and Anna. That much is true. However, Frozen, like a lot white disney princess movies believes that good intentions means benevolent actions. (Please note: I’m going to refer to Elsa and Anna as white coded, because that appears to be the most appropriate given that they are canonically white passing Indigenous characters. Yet, all the white disney princess tropes definitely apply to how they are framed and their characterization in the first film). 

However, this is not true whatsoever in reality, but most importantly, it’s not consistent with what is shown as a result of their desire to control Elsa. 

And yes, their desire to control and contain her meant that their “love” for Elsa-- least the impression they gave her and never made her feel otherwise--was conditional love. It means that as long as she controlled her powers they approved of her and gave positive reinforcement.

Iduna and Agnarr’s Love Had Conditions, Anna’s Didn’t

Their approach love can be compared to Prince Hans, because he is another extreme: He wouldn’t be interested in Anna if she didn’t have the power he desired. Many characters in Frozen are compared in whether their love comes with conditions, or is unconditional. 

Iduna and Agnarr, unwittingly, proved to Elsa that their love for her was conditional. Yes, they loved her, but they didn’t love every part of her. And that, in of itself, is placing conditions on their love. 

If we go by the narrative context of Anna’s love in comparison, hers comes without condition. Elsa’s powers are at their most controlled when she is given love without strings. Which is why the solution was (admittedly very cheesy and somewhat out of place) “love.” 

The more specific kind is the love Anna has for her sister. She never stops loving Elsa, even after she is hurt by her. She might be angry, frustrated, but in the end loves Elsa the right way.  

Frozen Fever

Subsequent installments drive home this point even further. In Frozen Fever, more is revealed in implications about their parents without directly referring to them by name. 

Iduna and Agnarr don’t celebrate Anna’s birthday after the incident. Elsa cannot recognize when she is sick and in need of medical attention. She feels like she needs to go overboard in celebrating Anna’s birthday, is highly self critical, because their parents never allowed either of them to celebrate it. 

Olaf’s Frozen Adventure

Olaf’s Frozen Adventure goes even further into the theme that Anna and Elsa are moving away from their parents traditions and expectations. 

Elsa laments not having a Christmas tradition, because her parents only rung the bell in front of the citizens as a superficial way to signal “everything’s just fine,” when it wasn’t. When all the mandated bell ringing was done, they went back to separating the sisters. 

At the end, Elsa and Anna make their own unique traditions, and that ringing the bell doesn’t matter anymore. Their bond is what makes Christmas special for them. This is narrative cue that they are moving away from their parents and looking toward the future. 

Frozen 2: Iduna and Agnarr’s Love is Depicted as Unconditional

And then we get to Frozen 2. 

I have problems with the way they portray Iduna and Agnarr as parents in Frozen 2. It started when the film opened with Elsa and Anna playing with Elsa’s magic while their parents look on smiling. 

That’s confusing, and a little out of character. I didn’t get the impression in the first movie or shorts that Iduna nor Agnarr particularly cared for Elsa’s powers, and I also didn’t think they would be so cool with her using them so blatantly. 

Elsa’s ice powers were the bond that kept Anna and her together. That’s why they had to go and play in secret. Because Elsa’s powers were supposed to be something that couldn’t be played with out in front of their parents. That was the first cue that something was very different about this Iduna and Agnarr. 

And Frozen 2 is telling it’s audience that the parents would be supportive? Then why would Elsa feel so anxious about using them and locking herself away for so long after her parents explicitly made changes to the staff, the access to the outside, and refusing to tell Anna about Elsa’s powers? Her actions didn’t come from nowhere. Their negative reaction to Elsa’s powers was a common occurrence. 

In fact, that very same night where he looks on lovingly at Elsa’s ice magic, we hear Agnarr immediately placing blame on Elsa for an accident and exacerbating her trauma. This is a reprimanding that has been done before. Her ice powers were something to be hidden.

Agnarr: “Elsa, what have you done? This is getting out of hand.” 

Elsa “It was an accident, (to Anna) I’m sorry Anna.”

Iduna: “She’s ice cold.”

Agnarr: “I know where we have to go.”

Does this sound like the same man and woman who, just hours earlier looked on with happiness at his child using her ice powers to play pretend with her sister? It really doesn’t. 

King Agnarr and Queen Iduna specifically decide to “Lock the gates, reduce the staff, and limit her [Elsa’s] contact with people. Keep her powers hidden from everyone...including Anna.” 

The filmmakers really pulled out all the stops in the sequel to make sure that all the pain and suffering Elsa went through was actually totally just her own decisions, and the not the decisions that her parents made for a young child. 

I’m not going to lie, I get why they made so many changes. They wanted to expand on Iduna’s heritage and explain Agnarr’s view of magic without complicating the story too much. 

But these morally gray elements to their characters and the revelations on their backstories didn’t need to be mutually exclusive. If the filmmakers held Agnarr and Iduna accountable, we could’ve had a very unique set of parents in disney canon. 

Personally, I think that portraying them without the morally gray areas of their actions and having with an unambiguously supportive relationship with their children in Frozen 2 conflicts with their earlier actions. It makes the story flow a little bit better in the sequel to uncomplicate their relationship, but I think the way they set them up would’ve been interesting too. 

Olaf’s Recap Removes the Parent’s Decision to Lock Elsa Away

I was also tipped off that the whole framing of the parents was being twisted when I saw Olaf’s recap in Frozen 2.

Olaf: [As Elsa] Anna, no too high! Blast! [a Anna] Ohhh! [as Elsa] Mama Papa Help! Slam, doors shutting everywhere, sisters torn apart. Well, at least they have their parents. [beat] Their parents are dead. 

The way he describes the situation is bizzare to say the least. He doesn’t mention “conceal, don’t feel” even once. He mentions the parents positively, stripping their role in Elsa and Anna’s separation and only leaving it between the lines. I think this is because if they remind the audience about the things the parents did, the audience would have a harder time accepting their sudden support for Elsa’s powers. 

If the parents actions weren’t controversial, then I think that they wouldn’t have this problem. But it’s like they went out of their way to make it appear that it was actually all Elsa’s decision to lock herself away instead of her parents expecting her to do so without protest. 

It Was Iduna and Agnarr’s Decision to Isolate Elsa, Not Elsa Herself

When we really look into the specifics of Elsa’s isolation, we can’t ignore Iduna and Agnarr’s role. The only reason why Elsa became so secretive is because she was conditioned to do so by her parents. 

How many times did Anna go to her parents and ask what was wrong with Elsa, only to be turned away to the point where she doesn’t bother anymore? 

How could they look at this situation for more than a week, and just allow this to happen? Easily, because it was a solution that worked for them. It honestly looks like they got used to the situation after years of Elsa’s isolation.

Just look at the body language of Elsa’s farewell to her parents, Elsa is NOT happy. Unlike Anna, she remains a good distance away from them. She is nervous and sad without her parents to direct her. 

This is reaction they are most likely expecting. Her parents smile on, almost as if to say “she’ll be ok for a couple of weeks, then we’ll be right back to normal and keep her in check.” It’s a reassuring smile, that things will go back to the way they were once they come back. And they don’t.  

Elsa Hiding Things is Learned

Look man, I feel like Elsa should be held accountable for a lot of things. Abandoning her people, twice, in the middle of a storm she created. Not getting help for Anna when she was injured and kicking her out of the ice castle instead. All things she should get shit for. 

However, I also think that her parents shouldn’t be let off the hook. 

My other problem comes from Frozen 2′s emphasis on Elsa hiding things from Anna. The constant references to Elsa shutting Anna out, making decisions without her, would definitely lead a more casual viewer under the impression that it was all Elsa’s decision to lock herself away for years at a time when this simply wasn’t true. 

On a meta note, I’ve seen people place all the blame on Elsa to lock herself away to in order to prop up her parents and give them the benefit of the doubt. That they were trying their best in a situation they didn’t have any knowledge of. However, this is an extremely inappropriate reaction to a character who is depicted as a child under the care of her parents. 

I think that there is an intrinsic desire for people to believe the framing of movies, and that good intent creates good results. But the text of Frozen shows this isn’t true either. Iduna and Agnarr should be able to be morally gray characters who made decisions that aren’t always beneficial, even with the best intentions. 

Elsa and Anna, like most siblings, have wildly different feelings toward them. For example, Anna insists to Elsa after finding out the truth about their death that she is not responsible for their decisions when Elsa blames herself. 

On one hand, this seems to be an acceptance by the story that they were not perfect people and that Elsa needs to take into consideration that she is not responsible for their actions. 

However, the way that this conversation is framed shows that this is a different conversation altogether. Anna means that they gave their lives to HELP Elsa, and that she is a gift for Iduna saving Agnarr. It martyrs their sacrifice, something that most fictional parents, who are portrayed as ultimately good, would be. They died to help her, because they were good parents who made good decisions.

They are Flawed Characters

But...they didn’t make good decisions. They were very flawed individuals. Once something is portrayed as flawed, it can’t be flawless. You can’t just dump their decisions on how they grew up, or say it’s all Elsa’s fault they treated her that way because mature writing means that you accept that your characters need to be held accountable for their decisions. 

No matter how many sad looks they give to convey their sympathetic nature in Frozen, the reason Agnarr and Iduna used the gloves and kept Elsa in a constant state of fear so much was because it was working. It wasn’t a good long term plan, nor ideal for them, but it was the one they went along with because it kept Elsa’s powers in check.

I personally don’t like how the filmmakers made them the idea of parents. Iduna is the idea of a mother and Agnarr, the idea of a father. We are supposed to put fond memories of good parents into their characterization because they rely on audiences not really remembering them in the first movie. The biggest scene with them is their death in the original movie. 

If they simply were just parents who died, then the characterization is Frozen 2 would be a welcome expansion of underdeveloped characters with little screen time.And within the vaccum of the sequel, their unconditional love for their daughters makes sense. If we place the generic idea of a mother into Iduna’s role, we get to know the mother who always loved her daughter finally reconnecting with her after her tragic death. With Agnarr we get a loving father who only wanted what was best for his daughters, who was misguided on the truth of the past. 

But Iduna’s big duet with Elsa, “Show Yourself” only highlights the parents role in her involvement with making Elsa suppress her powers with “conceal, don’t feel” since it’s a direct response. 

Agnarr’s misremembering of the past is used to highlight the truth that needed to be revealed. It’s portrayed as tragic, since we can assume he never learns the truth. And their treatment of Elsa’s powers is never brought up in detail, just glossed over. 

Even Parents With the Best Intentions Can Hurt Their Children

The problem is that we could’ve really examined how Iduna, forced with suppressing her identity, made mistakes in trying to protect her daughter. Sometimes people from marginalized groups who have no choice but to assimilate force their children to hide their identity to protect them from harm.

Agnarr’s upbringing is often pointed to as the source of his extreme views on magic, and that he inherited it from his father. But ultimately he is responsible for his actions, and he hurt his daughters. Sometimes people who seek to do better than their parents end up making the same mistakes.  

Maybe Iduna regrets hurting Elsa but felt it was a better alternative than being killed for who she is, or Agnarr so focused on protecting her he never realizes it was doing her more harm than good because it was controlling her and giving him the results he wanted. 

This could’ve been parallel with his lack of critical thinking when recounting the enchanted forest story. He doesn’t question why the conflict started, even though he has the pieces to put it together himself. He told it in a way that benefited him the most, without considering the people around him. 

Both parents could still be held accountable for the pain they caused Elsa and they would also be characters who inspire different feelings from both daughters. This could also be a turning point in Frozen 2′s theme that the sisters are on different paths. 

Final Thoughts

Like I said, I understand why the filmmakers of Frozen 2 decided to tone down the harsher implications of the parents actions. And maybe in the end, people really prefer this version of Iduna and Agnarr. But I can’t really ignore what they’ve done because their actions permeate the very themes of Frozen’s views on love and control. 

However, these are personal feelings toward this subject and I think it could’ve been handled a little better. 

[revchainsaw]

Bumblebee (2018)

Good Evening worshippers, and welcome! Today the Cult of Cult goes a little more mainstream than usual. It's been a while since i've tackled a big Hollywood superhero film. But I do believe that these sorts of films will be remembered fondly my small groups of people in the future, especially the smaller films that are being overshadowed by the big bad MCU, films like 2018s Bumblebee.

The Messsage

Bumblebee was originally released as a prequel to the Transformers franchise that had started all the way back in 2007. However, reboots had really hit the market as a way to breath new life into struggling franchises, and the Transformers series had already gone to just about every absurd extreme you could imagine. No changes were made to the movie as it was released, but with it's more childish and heartfelt tone, and a new aesthetic that was softer, smoother, and all around just generally more pleasing to the eye, I think it was a wise choice to rebrand Bumblebee as a new beginning.

Our story is of two friends from two very different worlds and how they came together. Our first character is Bumblebee, then known as B- number sign/it doesn't really matter. Not yet Bumblebee is a soldier set with securing a safe location for the Autobots to regroup and make their home as they suffer a pretty serious defeat on cybertron at the hands of the tyrannical Decepticons. Optimus Prime, here again voiced by Peter Cullen and looking so much more like himself, assigns this task to Bumblebee promising him that they will meet him there when the time comes. Then Optimus fucks off for the rest of the run time making way for our little hero.

Bumblebee lands on Earth and is immediately set upon by John Cena and his military goon squad. It probably would have been wise for Bumblebee to avoid John Cena but in his defense, he couldn't see him. Hardy har har. In his attempt to flee his voice box is damaged, he seeks sanctuary by taking the form of a run down little VW bug, and suffers from amnesia.

Then we have Charlie. Charlie is not like other girls. She likes cars, all the retro music, which wasn't retro when the movie takes place, so I'm supposed to just think she's a rocker but it kinda seems like she'll listen to just about anything. I think in 2018 liking Motorhead and The Smiths (who are used ad nauseum in this movie) is perfectly common, but I feel like in the 80s that was a much different and much older attitude to take.

Anyway Charlie's poor family lives in a super fucking nice house and are poor because the dialogue keeps insisting they are so it must be true despite all the shit they have that actually poor people would sell blood and teeth to attain, but hell, this is Hollywood and Hollywood poor is like regular people upper middle class. Charlies family is so poor that instead of giving her a one time graduation/birthday present to buy a part for a car she already has, they just give her a moped, She also spends all her time at a pull apart where the manager (who might be her uncle that wasn't super clear) is willing to just give her a Volkswagen so I don't understand why she didn't already have the project car up and running. Whatever, it's a plot contrivance. All you need to know is that Charlie is tenacious and hard around the edges cuz her dad is dead and she's not yet mature enough to process that in a healthy way. Maybe her character arch will teach her to let others in, we'll have to find out.

There's also a wacky nerd named Memo, and some bad guys, and John Cena. They are all also pretty archetypal and contrived and don't really do anything of note that isn't just filling a beat that this kind of movie needs to walk. Charlie starts Bumblebee up, discovers he's a robot and the two begin to bond. Charlie learns to make a friend, and bumblebee is learning about himself. They get into hijinks and get revenge on a bully girl who makes Regina George look like a saint, she pretty much only picks on Charlie exclusively for having a dead dad.

The moment Bumblebee is woken back up, some technology goof em up that both he and Charlie are unaware of brings two Decepticon baddies into the picture. I don't remember their names, but since I love The Venture Brothers let's say they can be "Jet Boy and Jet Girl". Jet Boy and Jet Girl are sometimes cars, sometimes various flying military vehicles, and they make friends with the deep state and plan to get all the adrenochrome from all the orphans, or just to go find Bumblebee and beat his ass good cuz their bad guys. Let me tell y'all though, Jet Boy and Jet Girl are so bad that they don't even care that the government is listening when they reveal that they are planning on bringing a Decepticon Invasion and after they rough up Bumblebee real good they are going to destroy all life on this planet. So they start by killing a military scientist.

John Cena is after Bumblebee and he's homies with Jet Boy and Jet Girl until the military scientist butt dials him and he hears the evil plan. John Cena goes from heel to face and helps Bumblebee and Charlie save the day. It's a giant CG clusterfuck climax a la any superhero film in the last 10 years and I basically stopped watching. BumbleBee pulls a Hellraiser on Jet Boy, and then he hits Jet Girl with a freaking boat. Charlie uses her diving skills do dive down and save him, but he's a Giant Robot and he was okay and it was literally pointless for her to to except as a way to show that her character has completed her arch by doing the thing that was representative of her connection with her lost father.

Bumblebee turns into the Camaro from the first movie, meets up with Optimus prime, and the stage is set for this prequel to squeeze more prequels out. So it wasn't very creative, but was it bad? Let's find out.

Please Stand to receive the Benediction.

Best Aspect: Transform the Franchise

Bumblebee was directed by Travis Knight of Laika fame and it shows. This movie marks a stylistic change in the transformers franchise, as in it doesn't look like utter dog shit, but it also represents in many ways a tonal shift. It does hold on to a lot of gross sleaze that has unfortunately been forcibly jammed into the DNA of the franchise but it also attempts to be a more heartfelt entry. The characters of Bumblebee might all be sort of a waste of time, but at least they are doing something with emotions, even if the emotions of the characters are only explored as deeply as a children's cartoon I'm glad they are there. In the previous installments the only thing the characters did between running from action piece to seizure inducing action piece was drool over underage girls like a bunch of chimpanzees at the facility where they test experimental E.D. meds. It was nice to see that at least somewhat tampered. This transformers movie feels more like it's for kids and young teenagers, and strangely that more friendly tone makes for a much less juvenile product.

Worst Aspect: Remember I Love the 80s from the 2000s

I hope you really like Stranger Things. I do, but because Stranger Things was so successful it' s going to be everywhere. Not true Stranger Things just 80s nostalgia porn. This 80s nostalgia is going to be forced on you whether you like it or not, and it's not going to be fun. It's gonna be in your shows, in your music, in your Sunday like Bacon in 2010. It's that or Marvel Franchise Brand Whedonisms. Bumblebee is that brave movie that says, "Why not both?" It would seem fitting that a property as quintessentially 80s as Transformers should feel completely comfortable doing a period piece set in the 80's but it's so fucking half hearted it's depressing. It wasn't done to appreciate the roots of the IP, it was done to cash in on a trend and it feels it. All they did was throw up a date and insufferably force an 80s soundtrack down your throat as if that was enough to convince you that this movie needed to be set during this time. Other than that you could have told me this film was set in 2007 and I couldn't tell you any different.

Best Character: Charlie's an Angel

I liked Charlie. Sure her Arc is predictable, her taste is dumb, and she isn't exactly a master of her own destiny to any degree. But at least she is a woman in a transformers movie who's got something going on. Sure she's defined entirely by grief, but that sure is better than pretending that being able to work on cars is a feminist character trait instead of a weird fetish thing. They certainly do that thing with Charlie, but at least it's not the only thing they throw at the wall. Bumblebee is by no means out of the woods in this department, but it garners a lot of goodwill for trying. Like a racist uncle who just started his journey out of ignorance, but hasn't yet realized he has to stop asking mortifying questions to the barista at Starbucks. Okay, maybe that's an extreme metaphor. I'm saying that perhaps Charlie is not a great character but she's a great character for a Transfomers movie.

Worst Character: It's JOOOOHHHNNNN CEEEENA!!!!

Why is John Cena in this movie? I don't hate the guy, but his character seems pointless. You could remove him from the movie completely and replace him with any one of the random military goons at any point and it changes nothing. What was with that dumb salute at the end? It seems like they put him in this movie in post and it was just to pump up cast list. I wish he was given anything to work with. I can't remember his characters name, and it's not like John Cena did a bad job, I was just annoyed every time they kept giving him hero shots. I felt like I was watching a trailer for a different movie.

Best Actor: Optimal Primo!

Every time Peter Cullen speaks I want to listen. There's a reason they haven't had Chris Pratt or somebody with a bigger name come in and take over the role at this point. He's why the audience keep coming back. Peter Cullen IS Optimus Prime, and there's no changing that. He also wins twice. He's the best actor in the movie AND he's barely in the movie. Good call Peter.

Worst Actor: Mean Girls 2, Meaner and Girlier

I don't want to be cruel so I'm not going to go into to much detail, but there's an actress in this film who's performance is so mustache twirlingly evil and stupid that it ruined my suspension of disbelief when i knew going in that i was about to endure a 2 hour toy commercial about robots that turn into cars. Beldar Conehead was a more convincing human being than Tina.

Best Effect: Goo Be Gone

I really appreciated when the bad guys shot the government nerd into a blast of snot. That was pretty fun for me. Best part of the movie hands down.

Worst Effect: Live Action?

Bumblebee is a cartoon. It's a great looking cartoon but it doesn't sell itself that way. If we were doing a Roger Rabbit thing I'd have no gripes. However, I think CG is just getting worse. I'm criticizing this and it's still lightyears better than the previous entry's on the franchise. No transformation or fight sequence in Bumble Bee had me straining to make sense of what I was looking at. I think it was a great idea to start using some basic shapes and outlines to these characters, and return somewhat to their 80s designs. But at certain points, especially when there were no humans in the shot, i was pretty convinced I was watching Clone Wars. There may not be anyway around this, as the Transformers concept might not be able to be pulled off in any more effective manner. It's a minor gripe, but I just didn't think it looked like anything other than a very expensive cartoon, and in this franchise that's a compliment, because it least it looked like SOMETHING!

Best Scene: Space Opera

I am not a Transformers fan. I missed the boat on the cartoon as a kid. I would sometimes catch it at friends houses but I was more into Batman, Star Wars, and Ninja Turtles. By the time I came onto the scene the world had moved on to Beast Wars. I did one day arbitrarily decide that my favorite Transformer was Sound Wave. He looked great in this. I am a big fan of the return to form with a lot of the character designs in this. They really did keep the things that worked from the other adaptations, and they are steadily removing the things that didn't. For this reason, the scenes on Cybertron, particularly the battle with Soundwave (i prefer for personal reasons) looked great and were exciting to watch. I remember thinking Cybertron used to look like a Marilyn Manson shot a music video from inside to dumpster. This is so much better.

Worst Scene: Blocking the Box

There's a scene in Bumblebee where Charlie's family decides the best way to save their daughter was to cause a pile up of vehicles in an intersection, and it's pure contrived writing that saved any character in that sequence from being killed in a horrific traffic accident. It was stupid, played for laughs, and it wasn't exciting as much as it was anxiety inducing. I also thought that there was no reason the covert military group covering up extraterrestrial life wouldn't just disappear this family of fucking morons in their little piece of shit car. The logic of the scene was just so childish like, "No they won't hit me, I'm a good person."

Summary

Bumblebee may be remembered fondly in a decade. I think especially if the Transformers franchise were to end here. It didn't get the publicity of the other films, and that really is a shame. For my money, this was the best Transformers movie so far. I was very tempted to give Bumblebee a C, it does just enough to right what was wrong from the other movies to make me appreciate all that work. This movie has heart, and if you are at all into Transformers then l think you should see it. It's still pretty stupid, and pretty basic. It's not offering anything new to the genre, and it feels like a commercial for more movies. I really wish we could just get movies that want to tell a story. I thought it over and decided that it wasn't fair not to grade Bumblebee on it's own merits. Bumblebee is substantially better than the films that preceded it, but that's not saying a lot, when the films that preceded it are joyless exercises in self abuse.

Overall Grade: D

[captainelsaeverdeen]

I like me better when I’m with you ~Part 4.

Hello my bumblebees! I think we’re in the middle of this au so there would be four parts more! I already have plans for another series but let’s just end this one to write another. Maybe for a short period of time my work would be uploaded on my seperate imagines blog but if that hapenns, I’ll tell you where to find it! Let me know if you like it! Song: “Your Love” by The Outfield. 

summary: based on ‘To All The Boys I Loved Before’. Y/N Henderson used to be in love a couple of times. This time she’s sure it’s something bigger, something serious. Her love for Jonathan Byers is unlimited, untamed and endless. At least she thought so. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 here.

-

The fries were hot, too hot to grab them with your fingers. Despite that, Robin grabbed a few carefully in two fingers and put them in her mouth. You waited impatiently for what she would say, tapping your foot under the table. Your friend sighed.

“I have a solution” she said, trying to reach the salt on the other side of the table. “Thank goodness” you sighed. Robin looked at you with a serious face. “It involves fire”. “Absolutely not” you've resisted firmly. Robin rolled her eyes over and started eating.

“If you'd come to me earlier, I'd tell you you shouldn't have done that” she murmured, drinking a sip of her chocolate milkshake. The bar was filled to the brim with kids like you who hated school dinners and saved money for fast food. “But since tragedy already happened and you had to make a quick decision without my generous intervention, we have... you, in fact, have no choice but to survive these two months. After all, the contract was signed. You must cure yourself of unrequited love.”

“I'm sure it won't be that bad. Steve... Steve was quite nice today”

“Because he is nice” Robin rolled her eyes again. “That's why girls stick to him like a fly to the syrup. One smile, and they're already dreaming about rubbing his long hair. Of all the boys at school, you had to tell him that he's your boyfriend?” ”Maybe it would be better if I said I meant Tommy?” you raised your eyebrow. “I would've strangled you. You wouldn't even get turned on because I'd only do it to really kill you” Robin snorted. You grabbed a handful of fries from your plate and threw them into her blouse, leaving fat stains on her. The waitress sent you a warning look. Robin opened her mouth wide.

“You're lucky there wasn't ketchup on them. What do you have to do, as Mrs. Harrington?” “Not much. I've pledged to come to his matches and of course his parties. He has the right to drive me to school and he'll be spending movie nights with us.”

“Sounds good” Robin leaned her head on her hand. “His car is insane. Anything else?” “Well... he's gonna have lunch with us” you said slowly. Robin moaned, her head leaned against the worn couch she was sitting on. “I don't know if I can survive this. I'll try to look at the food, not the two of you. If you start kissing when I eat, I swear to God...”. “We're not gonna” you answered quickly by taking a sip of your drink. “I told him he can't kiss me”. 

“Like... no kissing at all? At all? Zero? Nothing?” Robin squealed her eyes wide. “I've never had a boyfriend before. I wish that... all my first times, first dates, first kisses wouldn't be fake”. “Maybe they won't be if you fall in love with him” Robin shrugged her shoulder. You twisted your head. “I'm not gonna fall in love. I don't know if I can cure from Jonathan. But even if, me and Steve... it's never gonna happen. We don't fit together”. 

“Never say never. Maybe you'll like it so much that you'll stop pretending in a while”.

You turned your head to the window, looking at the world outside the diner. There was this risk. Old feelings could come out, Steve could dig them out of your heart and brutally re-activate them. But even if he did, would he feel the same? Of course not. Each of you has a purpose in this. You don't want Jonathan to find out the truth, and Steve wants to show people that his breakup with Nancy is long overdue. It's just business. There's no room for feelings in business.

"How do I keep getting into these situations?" you sighned. Robin slipped some fries under your nose, almost forcibly stuffed it in your mouth. She laughed so much that she shaked the table, and a little bit of her milkshake landed on your shirt. You opened your mouth wide, watching your friend roll out of laughter. "Two years of friendship and I still don't know," she said, wiping the tears caused by laughing in her face.

-

Dustin was always distracted, but in the morning he passed himself off. His hair was in disarray, he walked around the house looking for books, clothes, or money while you or Mom made him a second breakfast. One minute he was in the kitchen and the next he was upstairs because he forgot his hat. Each day of the week.

When he finally sat down at the table to eat his cereal, he looked at his watch.

“Son of a bitch. If I don't leave right now, I'll be late. I'm gonna eat something at school”. “Eat your breakfast” you puted him back in the chair. You gave him a spoon in his hand, biting your lower lip. “We have a ride today”.

“Ride?” he asked surprised. “Mom didn't go to work today?” “She did, but I don't mean mom. Someone else will take us”. “You mean Jonathan?” your brother was so emotional that he didn't have to ride his bike that he completely forgot about his breakfast, while you were chewing lazy your toast looking out the window. “Oh no... it's Robin. I don't get in if it's Robin, the boys are already waiting for me...”.

“Sit down” you pushed him back in the chair again. “It's not Robin, it's just... just wait”. “Wait for my own death? I don't think so” Dustin snorted when Steve's red BMW finally showed up on your street. You grabbed your backpack and your brother and you fell out, hearing the sounds of song of The Outfield from a distance. The boy got out of the car in full sunshine, with blushing cheeks, partly hidden behind sunglasses. He rested one of his hands on his hip, looking at you and Dustin, who desperately tried to close his mouth open out of surprise.

“Ready?” Steve asked impatiently. You were the first to run off the porch, running into the car and opening the back door for your brother. Dustin walked slowly into the car and got inside. “Since when do you drive Y/N to school?” Before Steve could put the keys in the ignition, Dustin leaned forward and the seatbelt was probably sticking in his neck. “You're friends again? You're dating? Is Y/N your girlfriend? Y/N, is Steve your boyfriend?”

“Shut up and lower down, because your face is all I see in the mirror” Steve sighned. You stopped laughing by leaning your forehead against the window glass when brown-eyed boy pulled your ear gently. Enough gently that it didn't hurt, but enough to push you away from the door to turn around.

“Don't breath on that, it's expensive” the boy joked, moving off the driveway. “More expensive than your glasses?” Dustin snorted, already pulling sandwiches out of his backpack. “It should have been your second, not your first breakfast” you raised just one brow. “I didn't get to eat the first one. I was too dazzled by the glow of that red paint” he said, looking around the inside of the car in admiration. “Why are we going with you?” “Steve... Steve suggested yesterday that since he drives every day in the same direction...” “I'm dating your sister” Steve blured out, answering you'r brother's earlier questions. Dustin's face was smiling wide, revealing his braces. He happily hit the back of your chair, sticking his little fists in your back.

“Holy shit!” Dustin whistled loudly into your ear. “Our little girl is grown up!” “I hate you” you looked at Steve with a killer eye, and he just shrugged his shoulder. “Why? I'm adorable” he snorted. “He should know. That's how his morning's gonna look every day from now”.

“Don't shit” Dustin's eyes went out. “Everyday? Troy will literally break out of jealousy”. “That's what it's all about. You don't even know how the girls will react to you when you show up in a car like this. And in this company” Steve smiled proudly. A few minutes away and rocking your heads to his favorite pieces on the tape later you found yourself under the middle school building, where usually only parents would come, or the school bus. Steve looked outside with a disgust. “What's the word for that infestation of tiny creatures over there?” “Those are children. That's a school” you explained, blinking slowly. Dustin got off with looking like a ray of sunshine, he said something that sounded like goodbye and ran to his friends, looking at you with delight.

“I thought you told him” Steve shrugged his shoulder. “He would have guessed”. ”I know, but... he's in love with you enough anyway. I don't want him to be sorry afterwards when... you know” you said, like you didn't care. Once you break up. Someday it will happen, and Dustin will be devastated when the red car and Steve are gone. He was his idol. 

“Woah, slow down, slow down. We just started. We have a wonderful two months ahead of us. My company will light up your life. You'll see. And the kid... kid will always be important to me, you know? I don't know what will have to happen to change it” Steve said,  drumming his fingers into the wheel. You smiled at yourself. Guess every girl would want her brother and boyfriend to get along, right? The two most important men in her life...

Except Steve's not your real boyfriend. Why did it get so hard to remember every step of the way? Forgetting it is dangerous.

People's looks are an integral part of going to school, so over time you can get used to them, but certainly not now. Not when literally everyone is staring at you with a laser in their eyes, when Steve embraces you with his shoulder, leaning in your ear from time to time to say something funny. His hands were everywhere. Of course not literally, but there was no way to go next to him without holding his hand, not to feel his arm on your waist. Physical contact was a priority if all of this was going to work.

“You're doing pretty good” Steve said when you got to your locker. “I'm impressed”. “Thank you. Given that I don't have any experience, it means a lot to me” you said, hiding books in your locker. “I still think it's crazy, but I think it works, so...” “Crazy would think it wouldn't work. You'll see that Jonathan...” Steve broke off half the sentence. All of a sudden, the pictures and stickers inside your locker have become interesting to him. “Jonathan what?” you asked quietly, pressing the book to your chest. Steve coughed and took off his sunglasses, cleaning them with his T-shirt.

“Nancy is a great girl.  But if he had looked around earlier, he would have found one, too” he murmured under his breath, without raising his eyes. He put his dark glasses on your head, and when they fell on your eyes, he laughed sincerely, correcting them again. He tried to get serious and pointed his finger at you, although the smile was still lurking in the corner of his mouth. “If you lose them, if you destroy them or scratch them... you're ass is grass, Henderson. Is that clear?”

“Of course” you admited quickly, not wanting to upset him. Steve smiles brightly and leaned down to kiss your cheek. You heard the girls sighing behind you. Becky was standing by her locker too, clenching her hands firmly on her black pen, seeing the two of you. Steve stood back and pinched you in the nose. “I'll see you later?” he asked, and you nod your head slowly. He left his way (without his  glasses this time) but he turned around to wave to you at the end of the hallway. Your heart jumped a few times, banging on your ribs. That boy was so beautiful. And for a moment... for a few weeks, he could only be yours.

You twisted your head to drive the intrusive thoughts out of your head again and turned to go to your class, but you couldn't go on. You were blocked by Nancy.

-

Bathrooms in schools are not the best place to talk, but the ladies' bathrooms at least were cleaner than the boys'. Nancy sat with her legs crossed on cold tiles on the floor under the sinks, drawing tiny hearts with a pink marker on her notebook, listening to your story.

“I'm sorry that I only told Jonathan. He found out by coincidence” you said, suddenly feeling ashamed. A gentle smile appeared on your friend's face, the marker froze over the white paper. “I hope you're not angry at me”. “I'm not” Nancy twisted her head so hard that her curls covered her face for a moment. “For not telling me and for being with him. I wish you both the best. Steve is a wonderful guy. And you are a marvelous girl! I was just hoping you could give me some spicy details”.

“Spicy... details?” you repeated slowly, praying for someone to go to the toilet. “Oh, don't be shy” Nancy kneeled down on her knees, leaning her hand against the sink above her to keep her balance. “How did that happen? Jonathan said you invited him on a date, so you have to tell me what happened. What were you doing? You guys already kissed each other, right?”

Details. How could you both be so stupid to not set a common version? If you say something else to Nancy... and he'll say something different to his mates, you'll bring suspicion on yourself. The school's gonna start to be filled with false rumors. Think like Steve. What would Steve think...

“It's just... somehow work out, you know?” you shrugged your shoulder innocently. You gave her a fake smile, feeling your thoughts trying to get ahead of each other on the highway in your brain. “We talked for a while during his training, so I suggested we can have lunch together the next day... and since then we're inseparable”.

“You don't even know how happy I am” Nancy squeezed your hand tight. Her small fingers have been warmly wrapped around your pale hand. “Since I started dating Jonathan... I was afraid you'd feel uncomfortable with us. Although you assured me that it's not like that, I know how you must have felt sometimes. That doesn't mean we didn't want to spend time with you, don't get me wrong. I just... I didn't want you to be alone. Now I don't have to worry anymore, right?”

“Yeah” you smiled at her.  Nancy was always there for you, and she always wanted the best for you. Lying to her is not right. But if she doesn't find out about Jonathan being more than friend that to you... you won't break her heart. It'll be worth it. Your own misery, for the happiness of a friend. Life is constant sacrifice. And you don't always have to act selfishly. You'll make sure Nancy is happy. You'll make sure she's happy like no one else.

-

“Y/N, someone's ringing the doorbell!” Dustin screamed from his room, interrupting you from reading the book. You put it on your stomach. Mr. Darcy was just about to confess his love to Elizabeth Bennet, and there's no way you're gonna get out of bed until he does. If Mom was at work and her friends knew about it, it was definitely someone to your brother. Or to you.

“Why can't you open the door?” you yelled, taking your legs off the wall. “I'm a little busy here! Just open the door!” your brother shouted. Mr Darcy had to wait for your reading to move forward. You came down the stairs, almost stepping on your cat, who, strangely enough, liked the lowest step. You opened the door wide, seeing Steve on the other side. He was wearing a black jacket, dark jeans, and his hair was perfectly up. If Mr Darcy had existed in the '80s, he'd probably look like him. But you're not Elizabeth Bennet, so you shouldn't allow yourself unnecessary comparisons.

“We supposed to see each other?” you asked, surprised, unable to take your eyes off his. “No, but I didn't have your number, so I thought I'd come. Can I come in?” “Sure” you smiled, leading him inside. God, when was he last here? You remembered that his favorite hiding place was between the wall and your mom's chair. That he once couldn't reach the shelf in the fridge with the chocolate milk on it. Now he was taller than the fridge. He watched everything with curiosity, as if he wanted to see how much of what he remembers had changed. You didn't know he saw the biggest change in you. He remembered when you once hit your head so hard on the stair railing that a big purple bruise stayed on your skin for weeks. Now there was no trace of it. Even if there was, it wouldn't matter. Looking at you, in a striped shirt with flushed cheeks, Steve thought you were just adorable.

“As I was saying” Steve leaned lazy against the table top. He took an apple from a fruit bowl and tossed it a couple of times in his hand. “I didn't have your number, and my teammate Evan is having a party today. I was gonna go, but... but if you can't, or don't want to, I'll understand”. “Why can't you go alone?” you asked, genuinely surprised. Steve stopped tossing the apple.

“Because, Henderson, you're my girlfriend. I'm not going anywhere without you” he said. The corners of your mouth turned up. “I don't know if that's a good idea. Isn't it too early to introduce me to your friends?” you asked. Of course it wasn't too early. But the vision of Steve coming with you to the party, drinking alcohol with him, leaning lazy on his chest while sitting on the couch literally terrified you. “I don't know if Jonathan's going there, but parties are in the contract. A deal is a deal, Henderson. I'll wait until you get changed”. 

“Okay... but I can't be home late” you said firmly, going up the stairs. “What do you mean by saying 'late'? You need to be a little more specific”. “Midnight. We'll be home at 12:30 pm, and I'll go to bed at 1:30 am. So we have to go out at midnight” you smiled proud of your own calculations. Steve twisted his head with disbelief. A corner of his mouth lifted. How could he disagree? He's gonna bring you here at midnight, even if he's gonna go over the speed limit to do it. 

“Let it be, Cinderella. Before your carriage turns into pumpkin, you'll be home”. “I thought your car was red, not orange” you joked, running up the stairs. You stopped halfway up and turned to the boy who bit into the apple. Mews only now turned her attention to him, raising her head from over her thick fur.

“Are you legal to drink yet?” you asked, squinting your eyes. Steve moved the fruit away from his mouth. “You're serious? The fake ID in my wallet says I am” he said, raising his shoulders. “I can work with that” you nodded your head and ran upstairs. Steve laughed quietly, unable to be not surprised. He and Y/N Henderson are going to a party together. This is going to be an interesting night.

Taglist: @krazykatkay456​ @mochminnie​ @the-almond-dinger​ @ghostineleven​ @art-flirt @sydzygy​ @queen1054​

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Ladyhawke: The Characters

The problem with putting a fairytale on screen is that the characters are usually the least interesting part of the story.

In most legends, the focus of the story isn’t really on the characters.  It’s on the plot, and what the characters do.  When you come right down to it, the point of most fairytales isn’t really about character growth, it’s about good vs. evil, heroic deeds against acts of villainy.  The characters tend to be archetypes, with the side of good led by the Hero, the Champion, the Dragonslayer, and the side of evil led by the Ruler, or the Classic Villain.  There are damsels in distress, mentor figures, and sometimes sidekicks along the way, but when it comes to fairy tales, there isn’t a huge amount of variety or development in the people involved.  The characters exist to champion a side, to move the plot forward, to give us someone to root for.

In a story so reminiscent of a fairy-tale, Ladyhawke could be forgiven for using these archetypes as a way to advance its plot.  The thing is, it doesn’t.  

Instead of marching out the clichés of standard sword and sorcery characters, Ladyhawke does something different: it plays on subversions of simple archetypes, developing them in different ways that adds to the distinctive style of the film.  Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at these characters and the unique way they are used, beginning, of course, with our protagonist. (Spoilers below!)

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, the most interesting thing about our main character is that he really has no business in this story.

In any other fantasy story, Phillipe Gaston would be a smaller character, perhaps a comedic sidekick or a helpful rogue, taking up his own part of the narrative without changing too much or growing as a character.  He is an Action Survivor, a shrewd thief that possesses both boyish charm and wry cynicism.  He’s smart, but impulsive, lies often, but is honest about himself.  He avoids battle at all costs, and wavers back and forth between arrogance and apprehension depending on the scenario at hand.  In short: Phillipe is by no means a fantasy hero, and really doesn’t belong at the forefront of this conflict.  Even more interestingly, he knows it.

Again, as I’ve mentioned earlier, Phillipe seems very disconnected with events around him.  He is only involved in the plot simply because he is the only person who has ever escaped from the place Navarre is trying to get into.  He is involved because of his skills, not his importance to the plot.  Phillipe has no connection with anyone, not Navarre, Isabeau, the monk Imperius, or even the villain, the Bishop. With no connection, he has no investment in the characters, no reason to help.  On top of that, he doesn’t really have any of the traits befitting traditional fantasy heroes.  

Putting it like that, Phillipe really seems like a terrible choice for a protagonist.

Now for our next question.

Does Phillipe as a main character work anyway?

Actually, yeah.

Now, wait a minute, you might say.  You just told me why he doesn’t work as a main character, and now you decide that, going against all good characterization of main leads, it works anyway?  Isn’t that going against the laws of film critiquing?

Here’s the thing.

Sometimes, characters who seem like bad ideas in theory turn out to be good ones in practice.  In my opinion, Phillipe Gaston is one of those characters.

In my last film review, I talked about what made Dorothy Gale such a good protagonist for The Wizard of Oz, and one thing that I mentioned was that every protagonist needs a problem, particularly a problem pertaining to the plot.  At first, it seems like this is fuel for the argument that Navarre should have been the protagonist and not Phillipe, a closer look perhaps proves otherwise.

At the beginning of the story, Phillipe’s problem would appear to be not only simple, but being taken care of: he’s in prison.  More specifically, when the story picks up, he’s escaping prison, trying to stay ahead of the Bishop’s guards.  He doesn’t want anything except to get away. Nothing drives him.  He has no goal except that of escaping pursuit, which, while not being a traditional fantasy hero’s goal, is extremely understandable, and relatable to the audience.

I want to draw your attention to that fact, because that’s extremely important to both Phillipe’s character, and his role within the story.

Throughout the entire film, Phillipe responds to everything in a reasonably realistic manner, one that is relatable to the audience.  He learns things at the same rate that we do, and as a result, Phillipe ends up being the audience surrogate, hence his aforementioned ‘outsider’ viewpoint on the story.  As mentioned in the ‘story’ segment earlier, it is an inversion of the ‘Hero’s Journey’: an unheroic hero being forcibly drug along on a quest that is not his own.

This is part of what makes the character of Phillipe work so well for the first half of the film, and here is where things get tricky.

You see, if Phillipe had remained this type of character throughout the entire film, he really wouldn’t have worked as a protagonist at all.  For a main character to work, they have to change, and in the case of characters whose goals don’t fit with the story, the goals have to change as well.

In Phillipe’s case, it’s moving from a selfish goal to a selfless one.

Like I said, Phillipe’s objective at the beginning of the story is to escape. His concern is for his own skin, as it remains even after being hauled along into Navarre’s quest.  However, something happens during the story that affects a change in his plans, and in the process, his character.

After Isabeau’s injury, while Imperius is explaining the curse and the history of the lovers to Phillipe, his focus shifts from himself to Navarre and Isabeau.  Due to growing friendship with the couple (Notably Navarre), Phillipe decides to do the right thing and help them, to the point where he is attempting to convince Navarre of the way to end the curse.

That change is where the magic (forgive the pun) happens.  Phillipe’s introduction into the grander scale of what’s going on is the realization that jolts him into being a more active part of the story, putting him firmly in the actual main conflict.  The second half of the story is where the ‘protagonist’ part of his character comes in: when his goals begin to match up with the story. He is the catalyst, the thing that prevents the other characters from total despair, and it is because of him that the curse is broken.  It is Phillipe that causes the other characters to regain their hope, and as a result, reach their own happy endings.

If that’s so, you might say.  If Phillipe grows into being the main hero, then why isn’t he a bigger part of the climax?  Where’s his ‘hero’ moment?

That’s a fair question.  With character arcs, we like to see them end, satisfactorily.  How does his arc cumulate?

Like Dorothy, Phillipe’s ‘hero’ moment isn’t a dragon slaying moment, and unlike Dorothy, his hour of bravery isn’t even at the climax.  It comes earlier.

As I pointed out in the ‘story’ segment, Phillipe’s ‘hero’ moment arrives when Navarre, in wolf form, is falling through the ice over the water.  This is the scene where, for the first time, Phillipe puts himself in harm’s way for someone else.   Going in after Navarre allows him to fully switch from selfishness to selflessness, or, in other words, from petty thief to hero.

In short?  Phillipe Gaston, while seemingly out of place in both personality and role, somehow manages to be a compelling, if unusual, supporting protagonist.

But of course, the main draw of a fantasy movie is the Knight in Shining Armor, right?

At first glance, Etienne Navarre seems like the perfect fantasy hero.  He is stern, quiet, an expert swordsman and great warrior.  He’s decked out in black armor, possesses an ancestral sword, a horse, and, of course, the secret of his curse.  Navarre is the one with the quest for this story, and as a result, has a connection with every other character in the movie. He is an active character, driving the plot with his own goal.  

Remember what I said earlier about the character subversions?

It is Navarre’s goal that receives the subversive treatment.

In many fantasy stories, the hero’s quest is a great moral battle, a good and evil, right vs. wrong.  Luke Skywalker wants to overthrow the Empire.  Harry Potter wants to stop Voldermort.  Frodo Baggins wants to destroy the Ring of Power to stop Sauron.  These are all larger-than-life stories about defeating an evil for the good of the world.  

Following this pattern, you’d think Navarre’s quest would be to break the curse and overthrow the Bishop for his tyrannical rule, whether by consulting a wizard or raising a rebellion, or going on a great journey to find a way, but it’s not.  Navarre is cursed, and he knows it, and in a world with magic so infrequently used, his mission is that of revenge.

Navarre wants nothing else but to kill the Bishop at the start of the film, and that is where we get our subversion.

This decision is not to indicate that Navarre is a bad person, or an antihero in any way.  Like I said earlier, the characters in this film respond to things with startling amounts of realism.  Most of us wouldn’t search for a magical cure, most of us would immediately think to the ‘realistic’ way of dealing with it: revenge.

So it is with calm, cold precision that Navarre waits for two years for a sign to attack, and the sign comes in the form of the escape of Phillipe Gaston from the Bishop’s prison, causing their paths to cross.  Navarre’s plan is smart and simple: use Phillipe to get in, and murder the Bishop with the sword of his ancestors, completing his mission.

What’s interesting about Navarre is that he too experiences a goal change, albeit a little later than Phillipe does.

See, at the point where the film begins, Navarre (and Isabeau) have lost hope, if they had any to begin with.  They are worn down with the effect of the curse, and Navarre’s anger at the situation comes out in this revenge plot.  It is to the point that, when Phillipe experiences his own goal change, realizing he wants to help the couple, Navarre refuses to believe in a way to break the curse, and commands Phillipe not to tell Isabeau.

At first, this seems kind of selfish on his part; it almost seems like he’s putting his revenge plan over an actual way to save them both, and he doesn’t even give Isabeau a say in the matter.  The thing is, once again, it’s a realistic answer.  Not believing in the miraculous would seem like a good way to not be let down easily.  On top of that, the curse breaking isn’t plainly worded, and seemingly impossible to fulfill.  For both their sakes, Navarre refuses to believe in what he sees as a foolish hope.

What changed?

Phillipe.

It is his change of character, his dive into the water after Navarre, and the following day’s realization that Phillipe had rescued him at personal risk, (with the scars to prove it) that makes Navarre decide to give the breaking curse a chance.  By the same token, he does remain practical, and changes his plans back to revenge when there seems to be no sign of a ‘day without a night’.

In the end, of course, Imperius and Phillipe are right, and the curse is broken, reuniting Navarre and Isabeau, giving them their happy ending. And in the end, Navarre is also changed, becoming a more hopeful person after the proof that sometimes, miracles do happen.

But what of the other half of the couple?

Let’s talk about the titular Ladyhawke: Isabeau d'Anjou.

The interesting thing about Isabeau is, once again, tied to her utter practicality and realism.  Neither a helpless damsel nor a great warrior, Isabeau is a subversion of most female fantasy archetypes, being very simply a woman with a problem.  It’s just that the problem is a little more fantastic than most.

We don’t really know a lot about Isabeau’s character, since she doesn’t appear a lot within the movie itself.  Human by night, she carries with her an air of sadness and mystery, gentle and warm, but with a heart of steel underneath.  Isabeau is an incredibly strong person, living out her days by night, never seeing the man she loves except for at twilight and dawn, and having to fend for herself each night for survival.  Time and time again, she displays incredible strength of character, rushing out into the wolf-trap-littered woods to save Navarre, and, during the curse-breaking, takes the hawk jesses and coldly throws them at the Bishop’s feet in her own show of victory.

By the time of the story’s opening, Isabeau too has lost hope. After two years of living like this, separated from all she knows, she is despondent, with no discernable way out.

Once again, it’s Phillipe to the rescue.

It is his intervention on the couple’s lives that brings them to the point of hope.  Without him, there is no catalyst for the plot, there is no knowledge of a way to break the curse.  And at the end, when Isabeau stands with Navarre, fully human, she is finally joyful, full of hope for the future.

But there would have been no curse-breaking if not for the monk, Imperius.

Imperius is an ex-priest, living as a monk as penance for his accidental betrayal of the couple.  Being the one person confided in about the relationship, Imperius, while drunk, accidently informs the Bishop of it, leading to the curse in the first place.

Horrified and distraught, Imperius becomes a monk, desperately seeking the answer to this curse to seek redemption.  His growth comes in that redemption.

Rejected by Navarre, he is encouraged to follow them by Phillipe, proving his worth as he assists them in both the rescue of Navarre and the breaking of the curse.  It is this man’s desire to make things right that allows the happy ending in the first place, giving him peace and granting him forgiveness from what he inadvertently caused.

Although, let’s not lay excess blame at his door.  After all, the Bishop is our big baddie here.

The Bishop (no name given) serves as the main villain of this film, and once again, is a subversion of the traditional fantasy villains.  He’s not an emperor, a warlord, a king, or a leader of a band of orcs or goblins.  He is a selfish, controlling, old man who is driven by his lust and jealousy.  (Think a version of Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

The curse, as mentioned previously, is his fault.  After his pursuit of Isabeau is rejected, his anger causes him to lash out at both her, and the person she is in love with.  This curse, an unnatural thing called up with considerable effort from a darker realm beyond ours, causes the animal transformations that prevent the couple from ever being together.  What’s notable about this is that the curse does not only affect Navarre, but intentionally Isabeau too.  The Bishop’s line of thinking is even said out loud: “If I can’t have her, no man shall.”

The Bishop is not extremely powerful in a traditional sense.  He is the leader of the church, which gives him power over the people there in an influential way, and uses this power unjustly. He has no armies other than a band of guards (which Navarre dispatches) and himself is no match for the fury of a trained warrior.  In fact, it is because of this that the curse needs to be broken the way that it is.

The curse is not broken by killing him.

In many fantasy films, all curses are undone by killing the curser. Not so here.  Against a villain with no physical power, what better way to pose a problem for the protagonists by making the answer one of non-violence?

To break the curse, Navarre and Isabeau must confront him together, as humans, demonstrating that he has no power over them.  The curse is broken in a way that demonstrates direct defiance of his jealous and lustful nature, the couple reunited and human, despite his best efforts.  Sure, he dies anyway, but the principle of it is that show of boldness against him.

Another interesting thing about him is how he relates to the realm of villains in general.  In many cases, villains have personal ties with the main hero, or a symbolic connection, something in common or in contrast with the main character that draws some kind of connection.

Harking back to what I said earlier, the Bishop has no ties with Phillipe whatsoever besides being the one whose jail he escaped from.  The main conflict in this story is between the Bishop and Navarre, again, nailing home that final point of what I’ve mentioned earlier: Phillipe is an audience surrogate character slowly turned into a protagonist, not a heroic fantasy character. The Bishop is Navarre and Isabeau’s enemy, not Phillipe’s.

So how does this make him work as a villain?

Surprisingly well.

He has elements that very much make him seem like a real-world villain. He has no magical abilities of his own, he has no armies, no physical abilities.  He is a man placed in power who chooses to abuse it.  He is selfish, controlling, jealous and hateful, like any rejected suitor who tries to use his power for his own gain.  His curse is not of his own, but the result of much searching to intentionally make the couple’s lives utterly miserable because of his denial. Once again, the key to his characterization is the utter realism in which his motivation and execution is rooted.

He is thoroughly believable, and thus, the audience rejoices over his defeat and death.

The beauty of all of these characters is the total reality in which they are grounded.  These are very real people, stuck in fantastic circumstances, dealing with it the best they know how.  The characters are relatable to the audience, whether it’s the cold anger of Navarre, the sad sincerity of Isabeau, or the bewildered but witty reactions of Phillipe.  You feel their emotions, and you understand where every character is coming from because of the realistic way they are portrayed, and the lifelike ways in which they react to the events around them.  No one is superhuman, nor unrealistically incapable, they exist as people that we can easily see existing.

Ladyhawke’s characters work as subversions of traditional ‘fairy-tale’ stories because it plays the ‘fairy-tale’ aspect straight, while playing around with the character archetypes.  There is a romance, a curse, and true love conquers all, but the way in which it is done, and the way in which characters go about acting out the fairy-tale turns it from a bright children’s story to a familiar-feeling, simple, but emotional story about people the audience, no matter what age, can relate to.

As with The Wizard of Oz, these characters are not overly complex, but in this case, they are not simple, either.  They serve their purpose, which is to relate to each other and make us care about what happens to them, and this film definitely succeeds in that.  In a film much more grounded than contemporaries such as Labyrinth, the characters and their struggles hit that much closer to home, and we feel the sincerity of what’s going on.  Even in the unbelievable aspects, such as the effects of the curse, Isabeau and Navarre’s pain is tangible, and the audience isn’t immune to that.

The characters in Ladyhawke leave a strong, unique impact in an equally unique film, a film that really does deserve a higher place in the history of fantasy films, if for nothing else it’s courage to combine the tried-and-true and the innovative ways of conveying story and characterization.  These people make the plot compelling, and they make us care about them, and in the end, that’s the point of characters.  With that in mind, Ladyhawke certainly does its job, memorably so.

Thank you guys so much for reading!  If you enjoyed it, stick around for more, since we’re not done talking about the elements that make up Ladyhawke. If you have something you’d like to add or say, don’t forget that the ask box is always open!  I hope to see you all in the next article.

[unpopular-bishop]

teamwin

“Do you like to bottom?” Team asks once they’re cleaned up and the lights are off. He’s got his head resting on Win’s chest and Win has to think that he probably picks up on it when Win’s heartrate suddenly goes crazy.

“Not really.” he settles on saying, trying not to come off unsure, trying to figure out where the sudden bolt of anxiety came from. Team hums once and then snuggles close and drifts off.

Win does not drift off for a while.

-

Win thinks he has a pretty healthy relationship with sex. He likes the connection and the physicality of it, the vulnerability. The way sweat mixes and there’s laughter when you’re comfortable with the person, the weird parts and the good parts and even sometimes the bad parts. He’s always willing to try something at least once, unless it makes him too uncomfortable, and he tries to have the same mindset for other people. He isn’t into anything too wild, that he’s discovered yet, at least, but he’s got a pretty normal sex drive. Despite the rumors, though, Win has not actually ‘got around’ all that much. He’s had a few girlfriends and boyfriends, a couple one night stands, and exactly two friends with benefits before he met Team, and there was a dry spell between his last time with someone and falling for a freshman swimmer with cute cheeks and a bad attitude.

All of this is currently pertinent to the conversation because, no, Win doesn’t think someone is assigned a role in sex and must live that role out for the rest of his or her or their life, but Win also is aware that he is experienced only in that he’s technically had more partners than Team has. None of those partners were exceedingly adventurous. Win started out in the world of sex topping and he’s never had a partner that was interested in him doing something else.

Until Team.

Like most things about Team, there’s that until before his name. Win didn’t really care about romance until Team. Win thought he was down with just chilling out, having some fun together, being casual, until Team. Win had never met anyone who was so willing to work hard to show he cared, even if his efforts sometimes didn’t work out, until Team. Win’s never been in love until Team.

Win’s never really been nervous about sex before, until Team, too.

-

“I’m not afraid that he’s gonna hurt me,” he says into his latte, slowly circling his straw around as he thinks out loud. He and Dean are sitting in Dean’s car, parked in front of an old movie theater. The car is off, windows down in the empty lot, with soft music playing from Win’s phone set on the dash.

This is their spot. Win’s never brought anyone else here, and he knows Dean has never brought anyone else, either. This is the spot they were parked in (on bikes, just starting high school) when Dean told Win about his family, and how alone he was. It’s the spot where Win first came out to Dean, and the spot where he finally broke down and cried because he didn’t actually want to be dating the boy he was dating but didn’t know how to say no. It’s the place where Dean once described his nightmares to Win, and the place where, last year, Dean finally broke and told Win about In and Korn, and he and Pharm. It’s their place, and that’s why he feels comfortable admitting to the weird, personal thoughts that have been floating around his head ever since Team hinted that he wanted to switch things up.

“He wouldn’t.” Dean agrees, sipping at his own coffee.

“And I don’t think it’s weird to bottom?” Win sort of says as a question, because he doesn’t, but if that were true then he wouldn’t be having such a hard time now, would he? Is he secretly an asshole without meaning to be? Has he been looking down on bottoms his entire sex life? That doesn’t feel right, but also the love of his life hinted that he may want to try being on top and suddenly Win’s whole foundation is shaking so obviously something is up!

“Start simple.” Dean suggests, which is always how he starts out his suggestions. Start simple. For Dean, things are always simple; don’t overthink or overcomplicate. Things are, or they are not. To start, figure out what is, and then figure out exactly what is means. Start simple.

“I’m worried about letting Team top me.” Win flops back in his head, huffing. It would be embarrassing to admit to anyone but Dean. But Win has held Dean through more nightmares than either of them would admit and Win is who Dean panic-called the first time someone had kissed him and Dean had burst into tears in the bathroom of the party because he felt like he’d cheated on someone who didn’t exist.

“Is worried the right word?”

Win thinks, carefully.

“I think so.”

“Is it that you feel it’s passive? You letting him?”

Win takes a long drink while he thinks that one through. He’s an active person. He’s aggressive about what he wants, he likes to chase. One of the things he ended up not liking with previous partners was having his hands restrained because it meant he couldn’t do what he wanted and that wasn’t enjoyable to him.

“Maybe.” he admits.

“Okay, so pin that.” Dean changes the song on the dash to something less loud. They’ve been listening to Brit Pop for an hour now and that’s about the extent to which Dean lets Win control the music. “Is it that it’s Team?”

“No.” Win says immediately and then pulls a face when Dean gives him a look that says shut up and actually give it some thought.

Win, reluctantly, shuts up and gives it some thought.

He loves Team. He trusts Team. He has never hesitated to really do anything with Team once he decided that Team was what he wanted. He likes how Team touches him and he likes what they do in bed and what they do out of bed. He likes swimming with Team and eating lunch with him, likes holding hands or just meeting eyes from across the room. He likes being with and around and near Team.

Is it the thought of Team that’s worrying him when it comes to this? The thought of Team topping?

“Maybe.” He says with a grumble.

“Are you worried about being topped in general?”

Win hesitates, thinks about it, then shrugs.

“Not really.”

Dean nods and Win takes a deep drink of his latte just to have something to do. So is it that he’s being passive? Or is it the thought of Team? Is he overcomplicating?

“What about Team is worrying you?” Dean offers after more silence, like he’s prompting, and Win appreciates it. Win is a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. He wishes he could just lay back and have a blast and not worry about this at all, but there’s anxiety in his gut when he thinks about having sex like that now, and he thinks that if Team knew that, it would hurt his feelings a lot. If Win has to talk this out, he wants to go in prepared and no one does prepared like Dean smacking him in the face with everything he’s doing wrong to get him prepared.

So what about Team is worrying him?

“He’s younger.” He decides. “No, that’s wrong. He doesn’t have much experience. I’m his only one.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not worried he’s going to hurt me. I’m worried...that I’ll hurt him?” Win tries to put the thought to words and fails. He stops for a second and then tries again, “I’m worried that I’ll let him down.”

“I wonder if you’re worried because this is gonna be the first time you’re both going in. You don’t have any experience bottoming. Team’s the expert this time.”

“Oh fuck.” Win blinks, sitting up straight, “Dean, what the fuck! Is that it? I’m not worried about Team topping me, I’m worried about me bottoming for Team!”

Dean claps three times, placid as ever, and drinks his coffee.

Win downs his latte like a shot, slumps back in the seat and looks at the sky through his window.

Huh.

-

“Wanna have a weird and awkward conversation?” Win asks once Team is in bed and they’re both warm and wrapped up in each other for the night. Team’s still wide awake, and will be for at least the next half hour while they both come down from their days and prepare to actually fall asleep, so Win thinks this is good a time as ever.

“Do we have to?” Team wrinkles his nose up at him and Win can’t resist leaning down and kissing him, just once, because it’s either do that or explode with fondness.

“Yeah, a little bit.” He admits and then has to resist the urge to kiss Team again when Team just sighs before settling in. Win has broken up with people so that they don’t have to have awkward conversations. Awkward conversations ended three relationships and a friends with benefits arrangement. Team just sighs and braces himself.

Until Team, once again.

He knows that if he’d said that last year, Team probably would have hit the ground running. Honestly, Win was probably in the same boat for a while there. But he feels safe now, secure in the knowledge that this isn’t gonna tear them apart or hurt them. He thinks Team must feel the same way, because he looks curious and slightly awkward already, but he hasn’t tensed up or tried to escape Win’s arms or bed, either.

“A couple days ago, you asked me about bottoming.”

“I don’t remember that.” Team suddenly ducks his head, cheeks going pink, “The end, goodnight, hia.” Win laughs and ends up needing to forcibly yank the blanket off Team’s face so they can look at each other again, “Team, come on. I promise, it’s gonna be weird but we can figure it out.”

“Ugh, fine,” Team complains, but he settles back down and they lay together in the dark for a few seconds in comfortable silence before Win starts up again.

“Yes, I remember bringing it up.” Team finally huffs, “What about it? You didn’t seem super into the idea.”

“I wasn’t.” Win admits, “But I wasn’t sure why.”

“Maybe you’re not into shoving things up your butt?”

“Okay.” Win pats Team’s face and resists the urge to cover his mouth. “Judging by what we do, like, nearly every day, I don’t think I have a problem with shoving things up butts.”

“Not my butt, maybe,” Team pinches him, “Maybe your butt is different. There are people like that, you know, who only like to put it in or be put in.”

“There are.” Win agrees, “But I never really thought I’d be one of them. I just,” he has to pause, gear himself up, “I’ve never done it before.”

Team stops where he’s been tracing insults into Win’s stomach, then sits up so he can look down at Win with wide eyes. Win can make out how big they are just using the moonlight streaking in through the windows and he tries not to flush under the surprised look.

“You haven’t? But you’ve done, like, everything!”

“I haven’t done everything, Team!” Win tries to decide if he should be amused or annoyed by that, “I have more experience than you, but that doesn’t mean I’m a sexpert, you know.”

“You sure act like it.” Team mutters and then yelps when Win smacks at his hip, “Okay, sorry! I just meant, you’re like...good, or whatever.”

“Thanks, or whatever,” Win sighs and stretches out, still under Team’s watchful, surprised eyes, “But yeah, I guess I just...got nervous. I talked to Dean about it -”

“Hia! Again!?”

“I talked to Dean about it -” Win repeats louder over Team’s whining, “And he helped me figure out that I’m not really worried about you topping, but more about me bottoming. It’s gonna be the first time I’m not able to, I guess, take the lead. You know more about bottoming than I do, experience-wise. I don’t wanna do it wrong.”

“Oh.” Team pauses and Win watches him let that sink in. When he smirks, Win can see that clearly in the moonlight, too. “Don’t worry, hia. I’ll be gentle.” he croons, and then switches back to normal, “But only if you want to.”

“I think I want to.” Win finds himself smiling, even as he reaches up to forcibly make the smirk go away with his fingers at the corners of Team’s mouth.

“Well.” Team smacks his hand away and flops back down, “I think I want to, too.”

“Good.” Win nods once, “See, that wasn’t so bad, right?”

Team hums, and they fall quiet again. Win does not expect it to last, and it doesn’t.

“Well.” Team sits up to look at him again, “Actually, if we’re gonna be awkward, I wanna talk about this, too. Why didn’t you talk to me about it if you were worried?”

Win cuts his eyes away. He was expecting the question but it still makes him feel called out and pulled open in a way he isn’t very fond of.

“Come on, hia.” Team pokes at his chest, “I know I’m not very good at talking and stuff, but I wish I could have helped you. I don’t really care if you talk to P’Dean, I guess, because I talk to Pharm, too, but this seems like something we should have worked out together?”

“You’re probably right.” Win admits and makes himself look back at Team, meet his eyes and hold them, “I was embarrassed, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. You don’t ask me about trying new stuff much, and I didn’t want to make you feel like you overstepped or anything. I just wanted to get my thoughts in order and Dean always helps with that.”

Team hums again, not agreeing or disagreeing, but just showing he’s listening. It’s one of Win’s favorite noises; just proof that Team isn’t sure but he’s still present and listening. He makes Win feel listened to. Just another until Team moment.

“I already know you aren’t actually cool, hia.” Team finally says and it would sting except for how it forces Win to laugh, bright and sudden.

“Rude! Rude, Team!”

“It’s true!” Team laughs back, shoving at Win’s hands when they fly up to pinch at his cheeks. He’s at a disadvantage, still using one arm to lean over Win while Win has both arms free but he eventually manages to catch both of them by a couple fingers on each hand and pin them to the bed above Win’s head with a loud huff of effort, “For real! I already know you aren’t some super cool senior, hia. I like you the way you are. If you’re embarrassed about something, you can just tell me, like I can tell you even when I’m embarrassed about something.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, baby.” Win agrees, nodding slowly. Team adjusts his grip so he has Win by the wrists instead of just the fingers and Win lets him, feeling his neck and cheeks starting to heat at the way Team is leaning over him, holding him down with a playful sort of grip.

“It’s okay. I’m glad you could figure it out with P’Dean. But, you know, if something like this happens again...I want you to talk to me, too. Okay?”

“I promise.” Win says simply and knows that Team knows how much he means it.

“Good.” Team leans down for a peck, and then kisses him a few more times, until Win’s starting to feel a little dizzy with it. “Now, back to the issue at hand. Wanna practice?”

“Practice?” Win repeats dumbly, still blinking. He’s not used to Team taking that sort of initiative, kissing him so confidently, and he’s still recovering.

“Yeah, you know,” Team lets his wrists go and wiggles his fingers in front of his face, “Practice.”

“Oh.” Win says slowly and then nods without thinking about it too deeply, “Yes. Yeah. That sounds - good. Like a good idea. You want to?”

“Duh.” Team smirks, “It was my idea in the first place, remember, hia?”

“I remember.” Win says and then drags Team down for more of those deep, smooth kisses Team is handing out like candy tonight.

-

“I don’t wanna hear about it.” Dean says as soon as Win sits down, latte in hand and a smug smirk plastered on his face.

“Okay, but I’m gonna tell you anyway because you secretly do want to know.” Win says around his straw and takes immense pleasure in the way Dean’s already stoic face somehow falls even more.