#i don’t know what the point here actually is i just realised it’s our independence day soon

[dontneedmyheart]

x

[completeoveranalysis]

[8]

Ok Evil Wolverine what do you have to say. 

Oh. 

No Evil Wolverine is full of shit. 

But I think you can see an interesting side of him here that I’m not sure has been on display before. Usually he narrates about how great his plan is or how angry he is that his plan isn’t working, but here he’s talking about something entirely different. He’s watching Lava Lamp make these choices and he seems THRILLED that making the decisions he is. 

I don’t know if he has Plans for Lava Lamp (he was originally meant to be killed by Fai after all), but lacking any future knowledge this scene is tacked onto the moment where Lava Lamp FINALLY starts to be a bit less tragically alone by having the Tsubasa Family share his decision and the consequences of it. Evil Wolverine, in turn, is celebrating the fact that Lava Lamp is making the same type of decision that HE might make. 

So we effectively see Evil Wolverine himself ALSO take comfort in the idea that other people are like him. That they’re making the same decisions and facing the same consequences that he’s so focussed on. 

Even though it’s a bit of an evil monologue moment we’re accidentally privy to Evil Wolverine ALSO being so alone and isolated in his ruins and his plans that he’s visibly excited over any perceived similarity he has with someone else. He’s thrilled into monologuing over the PERCEPTION that Lava Lamp can make the same hard choices he does, that he’s willing to cause suffering to get what he wants. 

And it’s clearly not actually the same. Lava Lamp is torn up inside to the point that the Tsubasa Family were finally moved into realising that he ISN’T as calm and collected and unaffected as he pretends to be. Lava Lamp was emotionally devastated by the choice he made here and was willing to let it destroy him before the others saw this and stopped him. 

It’s a far cry from Evil Wolverine who feels nothing as he destroys the lives of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people - endless worlds tossed into the tragedy pyre far beyond our ability to measure - for his own private goals. 

He’s also missing the Agency factor. Lava Lamp doesn’t REALLY have any choice here. He can’t ACTUALLY choose to stay here in this time loop and never ask any questions that deviate from the plot. The time loop was ending the second they arrived. In reality, they DIDN’T make this choice. It happened around them completely independent of anything they actually did on purpose. In reality, this was a choice that EVIL WOLVERINE made by forcing this reality on the people trapped in the time loop in the first place. NO-ONE ELSE did this. No-one else set this up or chose to be here or chose to end this. It’s all on him - the ENTIRE SERIES is on him. 

It’s all choices that he forced on other people from start to finish. So even though he’s really fond of the idea that "Lava Lamp made a hard choice here and this makes him just as selfish as Evil Wolverine", he is deluding himself. Not a single other person can really take the blame for these lives that he’s destroyed, no matter how much Evil Wolverine tries to convince himself that they might. 

The only real question I have is whether Evil Wolverine is telling himself this because he’s entirely delusional or if it’s out of emotional desperation, and he’s just that eager to have a connection with the people he watches all day every day. 

Evil Wolverine is developing his own little parasocial relationship here, delighting in the percieved brutality in people that doesn't really exist and using it to back up his own warped misinterpretation of reality.

It's all just a bit sad really.

[ilex-opacus]

Erwin Smith is a cat person AND HERE’S WHY!!

jk i think him being a dog OR cat person is believable but I saw someone say him being a cat person after all would be a funny twist and then I realised how much sense it made.

Most people expect Erwin to be a dog person.You know – dogs are loyal, willing, can be easily trained to do X in promise of Y. They can be trained so well, in fact, that you don’t even need to give them a reward - their faith in you is that innate and complete that they will fetch or roll over or indeed lie down even if all you offer them afterwards is a cursory “well done, good job, smart boy.” And while Erwin admits that dogs would indeed, out of the choice between them and their feline counterparts, make better soldiers, it is foolish to think that what he values in his men is what he values in his personal companionships as well. And while dogs can be used for labour, they are - like cats - primarily for companionship. Erwin has always struggled to be close to his men precisely because they are so loyal, blindly and self-flaggelisingly so. They would do anything he asked, some of them, and these men make the best soldiers and the worst friends, because they fill him with a deep sense of guilt and remorse at having to demand such loyalty from them in the first place.

Cats, he finds, are much nicer creatures when friendship is the game. 

Cats are not like dogs. They are cold, aloof, unfriendly, and smart. They never trust you, merely tolerate you, and they are impossible to trick or fool. They switch their mood as easily as the wind turns, and even if you treat them nicely they are not guaranteed to even pass gas in your undeserving direction. To put it simply, befriending a cat is a challenge, a task, a mission that requires skill, understanding, and patience. Erwin has always been told to know his enemy, and the same is true with cats.

But cats present a worthwhile reward, if you can manage to commit yourself to the time-consuming, intellectual task of taming them. Where dogs are stupid and overbearing in their affection - which, albeit admittedly nice, can feel overwhelming and ill-deserved at times - cats are conservative with such pleasantries. And so, when they finally deign to butt the side of your leg with their furry little heads or mewl endearingly as they trot up to you, it feels like a real victory, it feels like something you unequivocally deserve. And if Erwin needs anything, it is the type of love he feels as if he actually deserves. Not love that is won from simply being the bigger and smarter life form, but love that is won through being good to those below you, from understanding their wants and needs and not needing to have them sit subservient beneath you and awaiting your orders.

Cats are quieter, too. Stiller things. Dogs are loud, always barking like they’ve had to suddenly scream out a battle plan, always moving and jumping in circles like they’re nervous or preparing to flee. But cats move with a slow grace, an unbothered laxness; a cat does not know, care, or act as if they are in a war. A cat is greater than that - supersedes such petty mortal happenings. A cat can’t sniff for bombs or point to alert you to a fallen soldier’s position on the field, because cats represent something greater than conflict. Cats were only ever partially domesticated, never brought fully into the human way of life. They are transient, they are beings of luxury and calmness and independence. Maybe, Erwin thinks, if the world were comprised more of cats - solitary, intelligent, wary - and less of dogs - obedient, unthinking, impulsive - there would be no need for wars to begin with. And yet that is not how things have turned out. The world is a catastrophic mix of cats and dogs, and we get on with each other just as well. In truth, though, the world is made up entirely of humans, and we are the cause of our own pain.

But Erwin likes cats. He likes the small, happy noises they make and the deep, constant, reassuring rumble of them purring contentedly against his chest. He likes how they can be relied upon to find their own food and water, how they do not look up to him as someone who should, and unfailingly will, provide. They are more his equal than some humans are, and he tries very hard (and subsequently fails) not to feel guilty about that. In the meantime, he scratches between their ears and watches those sly, sharp eyes glinting from amidst the small mass of black fur. It reminds him of someone, and he thinks that also plays quite a large part in why he likes them best.

[disasterbijamietartt]

Since I just can’t not think about how Roy x Jamie could still happen and my dream scenario for the next episode, I’ll just drop this here for fanfic writers looking for ideas since none of this will happen and I know I'm too lazy to write this myself 😂

(Jamie was in two promo pics so he’ll probably be a background character with zero lines but some great pantomimes)

Jamie won’t be called up for England to play in the qualifications for the World Cup in Qatar, which is a downer at first, but he soon recovers (he’s a battler after all). And he still could make the cut for the actual World Cup team (I don’t know if this is how it works with the teams, but I doubt the show would care). Therefore, Roy and he have some extra intense training while everyone else is on break. Finally, we get a proper training montage to the tune of “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John.

(Sam also won’t be called up for Nigeria since Akufo is a piece of shit. 😞 But he’ll focus on his restaurant during the break, which is Akufo’s next target on his irrational mission to ruin everything good for Sam. But this will lead to Sam and Simi bonding some more and becoming an official couple. And Rebecca somehow gets Akufo to stop with his scheming. (He probably wants to buy Richmond to kick Sam off the team…) Maybe thanks to a bet similar to the dart competition with Rupert.)

But back to our main guys.

Roy is still pondering what he wants out of life (For once this season he hasn’t forgotten the lesson he learned between episodes!). During a training session, he asks Jamie what Jamie wants out of life. Jamie answers something like “I just want to live life as me!” which initially has Roy rolling his eyes. Until Jamie explains that most of his life he has lived as the man his dad wanted him to be instead of being true to himself. And that he wants to become the best version of himself to finally deserve to be loved and cared for. (And Roy looks puzzled like “??? But everyone already loves and cares about him???? Even me.”, but of course doesn’t say so…)

Then something along the lines of “I wanted and got a lot of things for the wrong reasons, so … maybe it is better not to get what you want but what you need.”

Jamie also comes out as bisexual during this exchange. He tells Roy how Colin’s coming out and everyone’s acceptance made him think maybe he can actually be bisexual. Instead of always hiding this part of himself, just because his dad hated it when he got the notion Jamie might be into boys.

(All of this then sets up that Jamie turns down the offer to play for England in Qatar, since he won’t support a World Cup in a country where they still have strict anti-gay laws. Clarifying that it is more important for Jamie to be the best, most authentic version of himself instead of being the best and most successful footballer he could become)

Keeley loses KJPR since Jack pulls the funding. And she realises the firm was something she might have wanted, but not what she had actually needed at this point in her life.

When Keeley goes to Rebecca to talk about this, she runs into Jamie in the hallway, they have a sweet exchange (he encourages her not to give up on her dreams), that is witnessed by Roy who has this yearning, slightly jealous expression (Cue for Isaac to talk about body language and something along the lines of “Sorry, coach, looks like she’s over you”)

Roy and Jamie do a school visit similar to the one with Ted and Roy in “Trent Crimm, the Independent”. Jamie meets Phoebe and Ms Bowen and while they interact, there is a similar wistful shot of Roy pondering … something. (Trent is there for his book and looks at Roy like “I know what you are”)

(Alternatively, Phoebe’s team visits Nelson Road and that is where the locker room stills are from—I just want Jamie to meet Phoebe!)

In a later scene, Roy is watching TV with Phoebe, getting snacks while some commercials run.

Cut to Keeley slouching on her couch, watching the same station as Roy and Phoebe.

And then Jamie’s bantr commercial plays. He says something super profound. That he is looking for a relationship where they help each other become the best version of themselves and support each other in reaching their life goals. This visibly moves Keeley.

Cut back to Roy and Phoebe. Roy tells Phoebe he has to go somewhere, to get what he really needs.

And then “You can’t always get what you want” by the Rolling Stones starts playing, while Roy makes his way to his unknown destination. Is it Keeley? Ms Bowen? (Spoiler, it is neither!)

(The song is both a callback to Jamie comparing him and Roy to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards AND to “She’s a Rainbow” playing while Roy returned to Richmond. And the chorus very well suits the theme of the episode as I wrote it in my head.

Edit: I also just noticed they used this song for the season 3 trailer, which I had totally forgotten about, so it would make even more sense to pick it up at some point later in the season)

And we get a montage of what is going on in the other characters’ lives, finishing of their storylines for this episode.

Rebecca has realised throughout the episode that she wants to give Sam another shot. But when she reaches Ola’s she sees Sam and Simi being cute together and kissing. Rebecca turns around, runs off and slams into someone. She drops her phone and when she reaches down to get it, the other person does the same. Cue to them looking at each other and … it is Dutch Guy! (And at last Rebecca gets to see his penis!)

Feeling sympathy for Bex, Nate leaked information to the press about Rupert's cheating (just like he did with Ted, but this time it is for the greater good!!!). Rupert finds out who the source is and tears Nate down verbally, really humiliating & insulting him to the core (to stress the stark difference between Rupert and Ted). In the end, Rupert threatens to fire Nate if he makes another mistake. Nate is devastated at first, but finds comfort with Jade. She is proud of him for exposing Rupert for the cheating asshole he is and reassures Nate (who is a worried mess about possibly losing his job) that she likes him and not his money and fame.

(At first I wanted Rupert to outright fire Nate, but Rupert probably wouldn’t want more bad publicity by firing the Wonder Kid AND it would be a better end for Nate’s arc if he is the one walking away from Rupert.)

Someone rings at Keeley’s door, but … it is not Roy, it is Barbara. She tells Keeley that she quit her job with Jack since she is sick of collecting snow globes. She rather wants to build a business with Keeley. (And for the rest of the season Keeley works on building her own little PR firm, slowly growing instead of suddenly being overwhelmingly BIG because of funding and expectations, with AFC Richmond as her primary client.)

(Also something with Ted, but I haven’t settled on some specific scenario. Maybe some realisation that the team may want him to stay but they don’t need him anymore, therefore it is better for him to leave so they can grow on their own. I’m fairly certain he’ll leave—or at least he decides to leave—by the end of the series, but it might be too early for him to actually come to this realisation. Either Trent or Rebecca or both will play a big part in his storyline this episode)

Next cut is Jamie on the couch, reading a book about football tactics. It rings at his door, and when he opens, *gasp*, it is Roy, a bit breathless and sweaty from running too fast. Jamie is a bit confused. Roy explains he has finally realised what he wants out of his life and that he maybe not get it, but he has to at least try. Then Roy confesses to Jamie that he wants him. A brief moment of hesitation before they kiss.

Fade to black and the end credits start rolling.

OR, if they go for a more gut-wrenching scenario and Jamie x Keeley x Roy endgame: Roy reaches Jamie’s house just in time to see Keeley standing at the door, both of them talking and then Keeley going in for a kiss. Shot of a very sad Roy turning away while Keeley and Jamie retreat into the house.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 27/01/2024 (Noah Kahan/Sam Fender, Benson Boone, Becky Hill/Sonny Fodera)

I think it’s this week that I’ve realised Noah Kahan might be a bonafide star. We’ll get more to it later, but “Stick Season” spends a fourth week at #1 - welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start with our notable dropouts, which I define as songs exiting the UK Top 75 (read the FAQ) after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40, and this week wasn’t too busy but it did come with some fair losses. Therefore, we bid adieu to “When We Were Young (The Logical Song)” by David Guetta and Kim Petras, “Stop Giving Me Advice” by Lyrical Lemonade, Jack Harlow and Dave (might be back next week given the album), “Won’t Forget You” by Jax Jones, D.O.D and Ina Wroldsen, assisted by a (bizarrely, credited) “donk” edit featuring The Blackout Crew, “One of Your Girls” by Troye Sivan, “Me & U” by Tems and FINALLY, “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift. It feels like it’s been there forever.

When it comes to our returns, we see the oddity of Sam Fender returning to #35 assumingly because of a boost to “Seventeen Going Under” that resulted from… well, you’ll see, but otherwise, we only have a handful of notable gains that, during a pretty dreadful-looking week, show some promise, and no, I don’t mean “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi somehow still here at #59, more so “Praise Jah in the Moonlight” by YG Marley at #51, “Scared to Start” by Michael Marcagi at #47, kind of grew on me, and “Nothing Matters” by The Last Dinner Party at #41… and less so “Toxic” by Songer at #32, please, let’s not do this, and on that same pleading note, “Alibi” by Ella Henderson featuring Rudimental at #26… why?! I suppose on a good note, Flo Milli is up to #17 with “Never Lose Me” and I can’t really complain about Natasha Bedingfield’s second wind at #13 with “Unwritten”, but it is majorly a mixed bag over here.

Our biggest story, however, rests in our top five, as “Homesick” by Noah Kahan debuts at #5, thanks to a version with Sam Fender who, surprisingly enough, is actually credited by the Official Charts Company, probably because, well, it would have no reason to as high as this without him. More on that later, but for now, it’s pretty standard elsewhere - Jack Harlow’s “Lovin’ on Me” at #4, “yes, and?” by Ariana Grande at #3, “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor at #2 and of course, Mr. Kahan still sitting at the very top. Now we have a… considerably unpromising set of new songs to discuss, so I guess we’ve just got to trek through that, and our starting point is…

New Entries

#75 - “Coal” - Dylan Gossett

Produced by Dylan Gossett

There aren’t that many new arrivals this week but the songs apart from one all fall into being either by singer-songwriter types or working as faceless EDM, and if you’ve been following this blog at all, you’d know those two styles really aren’t my thing, but hey, an independent folk singer racking up a streaming giant with a song from last year, notching him licensing with Republic, it could be promising in the same way I like Zach Bryan or even Oliver Anthony, who I assume we will never see again but appears as a recommended song in Mr. Gossett’s Spotify search terms. One has to wonder why and how but first of all, the elephant in the room: Diamonds aren’t made from coal.

I found several articles, both from sustainable energy advocacy outlets like TreeHugger and the people selling diamonds like With Clarity, clarifying that diamonds cannot really be made from coal. Coal is an impure carbon whilst diamonds are purer and whilst pressure is involved in the process, it is not a simple “one equals the other” sum, since coal has too much organic matter to be made into crystalline diamonds, especially since you can see vividly in the colour of rarer diamonds to what other chemicals may be found in them. Now I’m tempted to believe these articles as they’re backed by science, but if I’m wrong and these articles are just using words I don’t understand to spread a mythical debunking of an already existing myth that diamonds originate from coal, which is actually true all this time, then I’ll stand corrected. For now, the main conceit of this song, asking why under all this pressure, how the Hell he’s still “coal”, doesn’t really make much sense, and the rest of the song reads like listing off proverbs and sayings that fit the part but he doesn’t fully understand them or tie them together. Singer-songwriters are supposed to weave stories, when this feels like playing word association with common and universal wisdoms. For all of Oliver Anthony’s imperfect wording, at least you can tie them together to refer to a specific viewpoint, seeing where those views align, without becoming vague “woe is me” platitudes that don’t hold much reason for said pity, or really any narrative detail. You might see this as nitpicking but when it’s just a guy with a guitar, he opens himself up for interpretation and autopsy, possibilities he seems to willingly flail away by displaying disappointingly little to even work with, and as the song fills itself up with non-verses, as tightly as this kind of song can be produced without a particularly impressive vocal performance, one starts to wonder what the appeal in this even is. It’s a non-song, let’s move on.

#71 - “Incredible Sauce” - Giggs featuring Dave

Produced by Payday and David Morse

The #1 album this week was Green Day’s best album in decades. I have a full first-impressions review of Saviors on my RateYourMusic listening log (exclusivelytopostown) and whilst I understand that sales factor in here, I’d have loved for the only song here that bucks the categorical trends I laid out earlier to be a cut from that record. Instead, we have a Giggs song from last year that I’m honestly surprised has yet to chart already, given the Dave feature and that it was released in August of last year. Apart from the… choice of a name, I still don’t really know what level of quality to expect from Giggs, outside of a comical menace that emerges largely from his attempt to be “laidback” that can more accurately be described as an active  coveting of his natural voice to sound much more relaxed than he really is, considering he’s never sounded comfortable with a flow he picks out, which becomes especially clear with Dave on the hook as he actually pulls off sounding effortless. Giggs’ delivery honestly reminds me of Dean Blunt’s satirical British rap project Babyfather more than anything, especially with the half-asleep cadences leaving so much dead air in this eerie, stagnant trap beat. The song doesn’t end with a piece of classic Dave wordplay, though he’s not on his A-game here comparing himself to Sonic the Hedgehog, it just ends with “Lingerie on a special occasion”… okay. That’s barely even a flex, why does it punctuate the track’s final moments? This is just another ugly showing of substanceless pretence from Dave over a pretty minimal beat with an absolutely worthless performance from Giggs, whose verses feel double the length and really halt any possible fun that could be had from Dave’s bite-size verse. Somehow, this ends up much like “Coal” - there’s just nothing here.

#39 - “Whatever” - Kygo and Ava Max

Produced by, well, Kygo

Speaking of nothingness, welcome back, Kygo and Ava Max… Jesus Christ. Okay, well, if anything is the saving grace this week outside of #5, it will be this.

I have just checked the sample credits, I have bad news. To delay the suffering, I will say that I kind of like the production here, the acoustics remind me of Avicii’s pretty seamless blend of folk pop with the anthemic festival house that defined much of his catalogue. Kygo has always been a detailed producer who pays much attention to ensuring his songs are as easy as possible on the ears, and he succeeds in the sense of this being a very pretty little tune with depths of cute synth pads, guitar rolicks and plucky percussion. Ava Max herself actually impresses me a tad here vocally, mostly because since this is a Kygo song, she can belt without clipping unnecessarily in the mix for once. However, and this is a big however, the main hook of the song, its crux, if you will, is a direct interpolation and rewording of the iconic melody to Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever”, a 2001 single that debuted and peaked at #2 for two weeks in 2002 here in the UK, being kept off the top spot by Will Young’s double A-side of “Anything is Possible” and “Evergreen”. I can’t believe such a classic was blocked by not even Westlife, but a Westlife COVER, yet I digress, this is just a lazy and frankly obnoxious way of using the song’s chorus. Kygo is clearly dipping into the David Guetta pool of reskinning prior hits, and I will give it to him that he’s not just redoing a classic EDM track, this is largely a unique house single, but that may make the last-resort hook that much more disappointing. I’m disappointed in you, Kygo. Not you, Ava Max, you can just do whatever. Albania forever.

#36 - “Skin and Bones” - David Kushner

Produced by Rob Kirwin

Oh, we’re actually making David Kushner a thing, fantastic, that other song just had so much to offer, didn’t it? I feel like I can very quickly summarise this melodramatic, uber-serious noir piano ballad, deepened by some of the ugliest froggy-sounding snaps I’ve heard in pop music and only plunged further into sludge by Kushner’s insufferable lyrics, by just a stray observation. When I clicked on the Genius annotation for the first verse of this song, it was completely empty. At least to the first verse, there’s literally nothing there: an empty annotation box. It may just be a glitch on my part, or it was deleted for whatever reason, but regardless, I think this exemplifies how little this song has to offer: someone attempted to just touch upon the pretty self-explanatory first verse, attempted to offer some wisdom or deeper analysis that seems granted with the cinematic grandeur of it all, and couldn’t cough anything up. Once again, there’s just nothing here.

#34 - “Never be Alone” - Becky Hill and Sonny Fodera

Produced by Sonny Fodera

I mean… it has a pulse at least. In fact, this is much more interesting than I expected for Becky, and not necessarily in a lyrical front, simply because she does not need to do much more than recite boardroom word association over four-on-the-floor, but moreso with her vicious delivery, going into an attack that sounds like it was overpowering the mix before being blended a bit more clearly into the nostalgic breakbeat hardcore rhythm that punctuates a surprisingly long build-up into a… surprisingly unique drop. This is really just a flex show for Sonny Fodera here, but Becky stepped up to the plate to match his passion and energy, bringing more of a rough instinct to the trickling alien synth critter that grounds the 90s pads and rock-solid breakbeats into a killer pre-drop that genuinely took me aback, as did this drop, which completely ditches the breakbeats for a tense hardcore kick and more atmospheric, glitching pads that run through the mix like a spiralling staircase, as Becky’s vocalising becomes little more than an inhuman drone until it’s removed altogether. The intensity of the track, filling up the mix with padded quirks even when the breakbeats are relegated to simple fills, is genuinely unprecedented for Becky Hill, and I’m actually really glad that she is not only on hopping on much more effective and unique production, but stepping out of her comfort zone to riff and meander in a way that she never really lets herself do, even in her looser songs. I am honestly quite shocked, but this is fantastic. If this doesn’t smash like much of Becky’s tighter, more restrictive cuts have in the past few years, I will be immensely disappointed.

#18 - “Beautiful Things” - Benson Boone

Produced by Evan Blair

Sigh… one of my first thoughts when Kushner had success with “Daylight” was how much he seemed cut from the same cloth as Mr. Boone over here, and to be completely honest, the concept of the two charting the same week chased me in my worst of nightmares. Hey, at least my dreams have become reality! To be fair to Booner Boy here, he has what Khrushchev and Gossamer lacked: genuine lyrical detail in the verses. There is a certain dichotomy between the universalities of the choruses and pre-chorus compared to the pretty niche and incredibly lucky situation he’s found himself in during the verses, it almost reminds me of Tom Odell’s “Black Friday” given its wordy mundanity, but that’s only lyrically, as I don’t hear much here connecting the two sonically, especially given the faint bass and reliance on soaring guitars on “Beautiful Things” that makes it almost more of a pop rock tune, one that is surprisingly willing to ditch much of its initial build-up for a desperate screech over stop-and-start staccato guitar rhythms that go way harder than I expected. This is what I’ve been saying Lewis Capaldi should be doing for years, if these moan and drone singer-songwriter sadboys are going to have their voice fit over anything, it’s not basic adult contemporary swells, it’s melodramatic, no-holds-barred pop rock, and this honestly becomes pretty killer by that first chorus. The guy can let out a desperate cry, and I’ll be damned if he’s not convincing as he airs out his paranoia about this perfect relationship breaking down. The second chorus could use some deviation, but I’m a sucker for radio rock that takes itself way too seriously and considering his dire earlier material, this may as well be Mr. Boone: The Animated Series. I really want to hear more of this from this guy, and it seems that these last few songs may be the light at the end of the tunnel for an unpromising week.

#5 - “Homesick” - Noah Kahan and Sam Fender

Produced by Noah Kahan and Gabe Simon

Okay, it’s Noah Kahan: there is a base level of quality here and I am actually always excited to hear a new song from him because at least there’s always a lot to uncover and appreciate even if the song isn’t great or has some grating element throwing a spanner in the cogs. This is especially true with Sam Fender in play, as this raises the standard of quality to at least bearable and at its worst, it’s going to be an interesting and perhaps powerful narrative… and if we’re talking about lyrical detail, I mean, Kahan’s your man, almost too much so given some of the awkward wording in that original version from his Stick Season album. On hearing those church organs sliding just slightly off the careening heartland rock groove, I knew exactly why Mr. Fender ended up on this specific song, and this actually lets Kahan let out a little, have a little more fun as he vocalises playfully about his frustrations, delivered largely in the form of punchlines, about his slow small town, with the chorus being him breaking down and basically begging for a reason to grab him out of that place, even if it’s where he grew up, using an on-the-nose but still fun play on words with the term “homesick”. I do wish there was a bit more to its mid-section, it feels like it stagnates a bit once we reach the chorus for the first time, mostly structurally. I want to hear more of Kahan’s stray, funny observations, but we don’t really get more of that even with the ramped-up intensity and a guitar solo way too Weezer-coded for me to not get a stupid grin on my face.

As for the Fender version, well, this is the best-implemented anyone has been in these Kahan duets yet, given Fender brings a new verse giving a unique and personal story about the background of riots in northern England that informed his town, injecting further reason to why one may be Kahan’s form of “homesick”, but also, despite being more strikingly intimate and less darkly comic in his observations, finding a valid and heartfelt reason to live his life outside of that home town: the dreams his father set out for him lay far away from where they were instilled. It adds a lot of depth to the song, and whilst Kahan and Fender don’t play off each other incredibly well, they have a decent chemistry that from interviews with Dork and People seem to have arisen from very similar hapless upbringings and recurring topics in both catalogues. Additionally, I like Fender’s voice more than Kahan’s, and the harmonies fill out the  mix so it’s a tad more impactful, so I think this new version actually beats out the original. I’m also pretty happy that this week, starting off with a lot of mediocrity and not exactly a promising set of artists for me, personally, ended up surprising me with that three-track run by the end, and trailing off with two killer rock songs is the best way to make me feel a lot happier about a week as a whole.

Conclusion

I’m relatively predictable, especially when we get alt-rock on the charts, so I feel like despite how much I liked the Becky Hill song, it’s no surprise that Benson Boone ends up snabbing an insanely close Best of the Week for “Beautiful Things”. It was pretty much neck-and-neck with “Homesick” by Noah Kahan and Sam Fender, which is of course the Honourable Mention, and whilst I think that it is lyrically more insightful, there’s an instinctual raucousness to the emotion in The Booney One’s track that just hits that bit harder. As for the worst, I mean David Kushner obviously gets Worst of the Week pretty much effortlessly with “Skin and Bones”, but I do think I was just frustrated enough with Dylan Gossett to grant his song “Coal” with the Dishonourable Mention. At least Giggs wasn’t trying to say anything profound, and if he was, then I sincerely worry for him.

What’s on the horizon next? God knows, it’s January, but Justin Timberlake has a comeback single, Tom Odell has an album, it may be the week of even more whiny white dudes. Story of my life. Thank you for reading and I’ll see you perhaps a bit earlier than next week.

[queerextremity]

ok so i finally watched ‘she-hulk’ and oh god, it was so bad

(spoilers for ep1 ahead!)

1. i’ve already posted on why making steve’s virginity such a big deal is problematic at its core, but it also makes jennifer so creepy and unlikeable from the get-go. she’s never met him, he’s not her friend, he’s basically like a celebrity in her world and i thought we’ve all agreed that ppl who obsess over celebrities’ sexual life so much are creepy. i just feel like we’re so tangled up in our perception of steve as a fictional character that we don’t realise how weird it is from her side. the post-credit scene literally sounds like something bruce came up with so that she would leave him alone. it’s just so weird to pester steve’s friend with questions about his sexual life. oh, and her line about how sad it is for ‘that ass to die a virgin’ is so acephobic and i feel so very offended by it. it literally says your life is sad if you never had sex, which is incredibly toxic and has the possibility of making many people who see this feel bad. sex is just an experience someone has and someone doesn’t. it’s not the most important thing in life and it doesn’t change anything about the person you are and the happiness you’re able to get from life.

2. the virginity stuff is generally very good at representing the kind of character jennifer is. i feel like in that scene they were trying to make her super progressive, sex positive and show us that women in mcu discuss sex freely and aren’t ashamed of it. and i think we’ve seen the fight against slut-shaming turning into virgin-shaming thousands of times before, but it’s like the world was so done with it somewhere in early 2000′s teenage comedies. mcu is so late in here. the show is just like that. it tries to be feminist so hard, it tries to make jennifer independent, funny, totally in control of her life, but she just comes off arrogant, invasive and mean. it’s not internal misogyny, i would’ve hated a male character like this even faster.

3. her monologue about women and anger is true, but it’s just... stuff we’ve already heard a billion times in countless of other shows. i don’t even see the point of she-hulk if she’s so good at controlling her anger. you can’t just throw some feminist monologue in my face to justify it. she-hulk had so much potential to play with gender norms since women usually aren’t allowed to be angry, uncontrollably angry especially. a giant green monster who smashes everything it sees isn’t a type of character written for women. it could’ve definitely been interesting. but jennifer is still good with her anger, instantly good at being hulk and she’s not a big giant monster at all. she’s still very feminine, just green and stronger. what is the inner struggle of her character so far? what is the point of her learning to be hulk if she’s so good at everything already?

i’m not sure if it was like that in the comics and i don’t really care, because it’s still just boring to see and it’s not the story we need to see in 2022. 

4. i’m all for feminist talk in any shapes and sizes, but i want deep and layered stories about women’s struggles. ‘she-hulk’ just acts like its audience is stupid, so they need everything explained at the most basic level. well, probably more is too much for mcu. maybe we’ll get stories like that in 10 years!! let’s hope they won’t be late by that time, just like ‘she-hulk’ is by now.

5. oh, and yes, as for a comedy show, it sucks. i haven’t even smiled once during the episode. this is the least funny mcu show so far.

6. i know dozens of shows where the first episode is shit, but the rest is gold, so i never instantly judge. i’ll give it another chance and hopefully have the desire to take half of the stuff i just said back. but something tells me i won’t

7. tatiana maslany is actually great and i see how she tries to make something out of this terrible script. 

[popcornforone]

The Innocent Boyfriends Fics:- How To Micromanage A Micromanager

Another new innocent boyfriend for you all today to make you all go a little bit crazy on this cold & rainy day.

Mostly fluff & pining & most of it being your head. Again we stop before things really get going. Some angst but not at him. Alcohol & swearing included. & reader is having a really bad time in life. Once again the story is based on the picture, it can be any man you like.

Let me know if I’ve missed anything out peoples.

It’s been a very long week. The meeting haven’t stopped & your just so out of it. You genuinely just want to go home, do a work out, have a shower & put on some catch up tv as you eat your noodles & then fall asleep. That would be ideal. But no.As you go to leave your boss screams at, you don’t forget our network mixer tonight. As the lift goes down you silently let the tears fall down your face. Your weekend start is now being ruined too.

When you get home you do very quickly have a shower & throw on a better dress (but not too much better a dress) than what you wear to work. You straighten your hair & actually do your make up for once, properly. You then send your boyfriend who’s away until Tuesday a msg *babes this weeks been hell, what I’d love is a face time but I’ve got to go to a mixer event, can we do that tomorrow xx* & you send it. You know it will just say delivered & just stay like that but you can’t complain, the man’s got a busy life.

You walk around the networking mixer at a saunter. Your feet just about clinging into the sexy heels you’ve put on, & you have been sipping the same glass all night of fizz, as the canapés are all fish or avocado based, food your can’t stand, so you don’t want to get drunk. Your boss comes up to you & asks what you’ve secured for the company so far & you round off some random numbers to make it sound half decent. he pats your hair patronising & says “well you had best be in tomorrow to put them on the system, to act on them on Monday.” His micromanagement really does your head in, but you love your independence & career & the actual owner of the company appreciates you more so you don’t say a thing & just move on. It’s just one more hoop to jump through, but right now your really wishing you were eating those noodles.

It’s gets to the part of the night when your boss is up on stage, talking about how all these different groups aspire to be more & are a better family… blah blah blah, you hear this every Monday morning from him as a rally cry to the office. You’ve completely tuned out when suddenly your ears pick up the words “good evening ladies & gentlemen”. You look up frozen to the spot dropping your glass to the floor making it shatter & various eyes turn to look at you as you stand there motionless, like a debugged sim. He’s here. Your Boyfriend is here.

He’s obviously used to the noise of the smash & the few tuts, as he continues his preplanned press endorsement of this mixer. It’s only when he goes to point at someone by the back wall that he realises you are here. He stumbles on his next 4 lines. Usually the consummate professional at everything, you in that dress having put in some effort, makes him feel certain things. You can see him really being effect by you & that makes you realise that he needs to see you as much as you need to see him. He glances at you bashfully when you both realise he’s mucked up. You your do a breath gesture at him. “I’m sorry” he states to the room “at least you now all know, us actors can’t just get it right on the first take” a stutter of uperty laughs fill the room, before he adjusts his tie & continues to the end. Altho he is now feeling more than just flustered.

The room fills with polite applause when he’s done & various people go up to him for a selfie & for 5 mins of his time. So many girls putting their hands on what rightfully yours. You head to the ladies to sort yourself out & thats when you check your phone. 4 missed calls from him & a few msgs, the last one consisting of *your boss is a wanker I can punch him if you like* he’s been watching you all night. His other msgs were he was back early but was at a boring press thing to & then others about omg your here, turn around. He’s finding this corporate event as pissy as you are but at least he’s getting paid to be here, you aren’t. But now at least knowing he’s here it’s bearable .

When you come out the ladies, your boss is almost lurking for you & says he needs you to network with someone every important, before walking you into a private part of the party. There he’s stood looking suave in that blue suit & the whitest shirt you think you’ve ever seen. Eyes that light up as he glances across which your pretty sure yours are mirroring. Your boss then introduces you to him & you both shake hands & then he starts talking about the company. He’s completely unaware that you know each other at all let alone that you’ve been dating for the last 18months. You both then drift off looking at each other, & ignore him talking, but it’s only when your eyes roll that he stops. “I’m sorry what was that?do your want to work Sunday as well & put in everyone’s contacts?” He bluntly asks. “Sir can’t you see that your brilliant member of staff is tired & would like nothing more than to go back to her flat & have a foot massage while she falls asleep” he states. It’s suddenly got very warm in the room for you. The idea of his hands starting at your feet & moving there way up your body gives you tingles that are hard to control. “Well shed best be in the office tomorrow “ “tell me miss…” & he pauses questioningly waiting you to respond with your full name, & like the pro that you are you do so. “does your contract say you work weekends?” “No it’s a 9to5 Monday to Friday” you respond. “But she…” “ahhh ah I’m not done yet speaking to her” he hushes your boss his celebrity status his slowly giving you a bit more power & confidence without asking for it.

“& does your contract, mean you have to attend networking mixers without being paid, or be on your laptop at 3am when he calls you, or telling you annual leave has to be taken on certain days” your proud of him for standing up to him but your boss just looks confused, he’s still not worked it out yet. “no it doesn’t” “& is this man,other than being a micromanager, actually pay your wages?” “No” “so in that case you need to go home & have that foot massage miss” he smiles at you & touches your shoulder, which sends shivers down your spine. ““I’m sure you’ve got a handsome other half to go home to who can look after you like a queen” his eyes dilate with lust & he nods at the door “she doesn’t have time for a boyfriend & how dare you chastise me in from of one” he put a finger to his lips shhhhhing him & his calm eyes turn dark with anger “your lucky to have her work for you, you should appreciate every thing she does to make you look good, because all I’ve seen from you tonight sir is poor management & I will actually be informing the company’s owner as to what’s happening in their business” he’s fucked him off now. For a man 5mins ago who was busy introducing your to your lover,as some kinda power trip was ,now he’s left standing there having small dick syndrome. You said to your boss good night & that you’d see him on Monday. You did stop before you left & turned around & said”oh & it was a pleasure to meet you.” He smirks at that as he heads toward the door to “I’m a fan of all your work & I think your skills are unmatched” his eyes, not seen by your boss, roll in his head in lust, biting his bottom lip. He can’t wait to get in to treat you like an angle, but he knows he can’t be seen leaving with you, especially after what just gone down.

You get a taxi but ask them to wait as you pop in a shop on your way home, which for once they do. & you but a new bottle of Chilean red & a bunch of tulips. If he’s coming back to yours, you want your place to look good. You get to your flat & see the light is on. You are sure you turned in off as you left earlier, although it was in a rush. You walk in & hear music playing from the bedroom. “Don’t worry I’m not a burglar but I know who’s stolen your spirit” is said out loud. You throw the flowers in the sink, they can wait & lock the door, stumbling to the bedroom.

There he’s sat, on your spare chair. The tie,shoes & socks are gone & he’s just admiring your dress. He gestures to the edge of the bed & you sit down & finally breath. “Was it you that wanted a foot massage then?” As you point at his large feet. “ oooh my needs can wait my love” & he bends down & slips you feet out of those sexy black heels & your silky tights. His hands work on the balls of your feet almost pushing you over the edge at nothing but his touch. Something that you’ve missed so much.

“So why are you back now & not Tuesday” you ask somehow, you’ve lost track of your senses. “I’m not complaining, & I also didn’t get your txts till after I saw you” he moves on the next foot & moves his chair closer to you. “I finished my filming, yesterday & then someone else couldn’t make the speech tonight, so my agent asked me if I could” his hands are so large & soothing making you coo. “Please tell me you got paid to deal with the majority of those wankers” your eyes are now shut just enjoying the attention. He was so right you needed this massage. “Yes I did, probably more than what your take home is a month” “is that’s pop at me?” You ask & you learn your head forward “no but you don’t need to work for that guy, he’s very manipulative & I will be calling the owner to say he doesn’t treat his staff properly” both your feet are now in his lap. & he’s worked his way to your ankles & he puts a kiss on both of them.

“& yes you did need a massage babes, but so did your ego & confidence” you can sense that the next few words your other half is going to say may tip you over the edge. “& I will give that to you whenever I’m here, day or night, because your deserve the world & im just lucky to be apart of your world” you slide off the bed & straight onto his lap, putting your feet behind the chair. It’s jolts him a little at the swiftness of your move, but he’s been very good not to go too far already. You put your hands on his cheeks & pull him in for a slow deep kiss. Something you’ve not had from him in 5 weeks. Something that as his tongue brushes across your teeth you let him in to engulf the two of you. You slide his jacket down while you’re embracing & rediscovering each other.

His hand is at the small of his back as he try’s to find your zip, & as he does & he moans into your mouth, you hear the snap. The chair breaks & crumples into a million pieces beneath the two of you. You let out a a small scream & you fall on top of him, your heart pounding for lots of reason. When you look at him he’s laughing “I’m guessing you’re okay baby?” You ask, his laugh is very infectious so you start to giggle too. “ oh darling, I’ve never felt so good in such a long time” he shifts his weight to his elbows & pulls himself up before taking your with him & depositing you on the bed. “I say that but we haven’t started the main activity for the weekend yet” he is now above you & is taking your lips once again to paradise. “& you are not going to work tomorrow, your boyfriend & your speech maker demands that.” “I wasn’t going to babes, the only thing I want to be working on this weekend is you.” You whisper back at him one hand in his hair the other reaching for his buttons.”I didn’t even have to micromanage you to get you to come for me” You close your eyes & sigh. It maybe late on Friday but you now never want this night to end.

[docidoci]

PoR JP/EN script differences overview: (Part 3) ch #10 - ch #11

→ Main Index — Begin reading here ←

Chapter 10.

1) Ranulf explains the use of "human", so a note on that. As a curseword, "Human" = ニンゲン (ningen), it is phonetically the same as the normal "human" but written in kana to stand out. However, "sub-human" is originally "Half-beast" = 半獣 (hanju). That explains why Ike initially doesn't consider it an offensive term, which is fairly impossible in the translation.

2) Narrative introduction again implies that Crimea is still having a dependent position to Begnion, while the localisation adds a lot of words to say that they are currently independent.

JP: The support of the suzerain Begnion was absolutely essential for the rebirth of the Kingdom of Crimea, which had been born as a domain of the Empire.

3) Meeting Volke. Where the original is reasonable, the localisation confuses measures of time to a great effect.

EN!Volke: Stop into any tavern along your way. Tell the barkeep you've need of a fireman. You'll see me within an hour.

JP!Volke: Any tavern in a little town will do. Just tell the owner, 'I need a fireman'. I'll be there within a week.

Volke himself indeed comes off as abrupt and rude to the point where even Soren calls him rude.

4) Kieran is mostly the same person. He is slightly less wordy, like for instance he isn't describing torture to Brom, but his attitude is accurate.

Chapter 11.

A lot of subtle foreshadowing is going on here… or should have been going on.

1) A little worldbuilding note. It's not super important, but we are introduced to the concept of Kingdom of Crimea being non-monolithic and the possibility of internal conflict, even if it's not happening until RD.

EN!Soren: Perhaps this is due to the temperament of its rulers, but the country hasn't seen serious warfare for centuries.

JP!Soren: Perhaps it is because of the gentle temperament of the royal family that there are few conflicts between territories, and there have been no major — country-wide — wars for hundreds of years.

2) Talking about Soren right after he gives the famous "no sympathy" speech (which is translated very well).

EN!Titania: Soren's a very empathetic young man. The emotions of this place may have proven to be too much for him.

EN!Ranulf: Ignoring impending doom because you cannot prevent it... Fatalism is by nature a disheartening beast. Well, for all those born with nothing, there are those born with everything. Perhaps those who never notice the difference are the ones we should envy.

Some really weird choices here that seem to fit badly with the rest of the script. What is actually happening?

First, Titania has the role of implying Soren's non-beorc perceptiveness.

JP!Titania: …Senerio is a sensitive kid, so he can't stand this kind of atmosphere, right?

After that, Ranulf, in fact, continues talking about him being Branded. When you know that the Branded are considered "born without a blessing", everything he says becomes clear.

JP!Ranulf: Sometimes, even if we know something we pretend not to know, because we can't do anything about it…… I wonder if those who were born without a blessing are envious that those who were born blessed live their lives without realising it?

Ike: What's that supposed to mean?

Ranulf: Oh, I was talking to myself. Pay me no mind.

And now it becomes natural that Ranulf doesn't want to explain anything to Ike, since he sort of "pretends not to know" as well.

3) Brom ☆

Small, but strange choices erase the foreshadowing that he is a dad to Meg and give him parents instead.

EN!Brom: We never had much money, so my parents gathered some stones from our farm back home and put them in this leather pouch. It's not much to look at, but it means a lot to me. Every day, I take them out and talk to them like they're my family.

"How is everyone?" "I'm out here doing the best I can." "Don't worry. I'll be home soon."

JP!Brom: We're poor, so I have a worn-out pouch full of pebbles that each of us picked up... That's all. But for me, it's very important. I take it out and talk to them every day.

"How is everyone?" "Dad is doing his best here." "I'm gonna make it back alive."

4) Ranulf talking about Nasir.

EN!Ranulf: You'll be met there by a man with a dusky pallor.

JP!Ranulf: There's a dark-skinned man called Nasir waiting for you with a boat.

The unfortunate word choice makes him say that Nasir is sickly greyish in complexion instead of merely dark-skinned. Again, it's not super important, but really baffling…

~~TBC~~

[charlie-rulerofhell]

For they know exactly what they do

Today there was a pretty long article published in the German newspaper FAZ, written by Julia Schaaf. Since there were quite a few interesting topics raised in it and Måneskin talked about some new aspects (or in more detail), I translated the whole thing (it might also have helped me to procrastinate).

Full interview in English under the cut.

For they know exactly what they do

June 22, 2021

Four young rock musicians from Rome are today's hottest band. Måneskin are enchanting Europe. Why? We met them for an interview.

Every romance needs its founding myth, an anecdote from the beginning, something you can tell later in more difficult times for self-assurance.

In the case of the band Måneskin, who first had Italy and now half of Europe wrapped around their fingers, and who are now trying to conquer the rest of the world with their rock music, there is the story of the shoe box. Rome, around five years ago: Four teenagers who are meeting every day after school in their rehearsal room to make music together, and sometimes they play their songs on the Via del Corso in the city centre in front of a changing audience. One day they want to record their own stuff. They find a studio that they can actually afford and as they go there they bring a shoe box, with the name of the band written on it, 'moonshine' in Danish, the bassist's mother is Danish. In the box: around seven kilogram of coins. The things you get from playing music on the streets. Everyone searching through Instagram for photos from that time can find four hippies with children's faces, three boys in batik, the girl is wearing a straw hat.

As they have to pay [for the recording], frontman Damiano David, 22, says that there was this guy, Angelo, and his bandmate Victoria De Angelis, 21, is interrupting: “No, Andrea, not Angelo”, and all of them have to laugh because a rigid studio manager with the Italian name 'angel' would be even funnier for a founding myth. David continues his story: “The guy was completely dumbfounded. 'We can't do that.' We went: 'Sure we can, that's worth the same even if it's just 20 cent coins, it's still 300 euros.” Thomas Raggi, 20, the guitarist of the band, is gasping for air as he laughs, while drummer Ethan Torchio, 20, is smiling dreamily. David finishes: “And then we snuck off before he was able to count it.” [the German text says 'verdrücken' here which is just a colloquial way of saying 'we left', but it entails some sort of a dramatic exit, so yeah, let your thoughts get creative how they left exactly :D].

Four young musicians on the verge of global fame are sitting on a white interview sofa in Berlin, completely styled, babbling across each other like overeager teenagers.

Ever since the Roman band first won the music festival Sanremo and then also the Eurovision Song Contest, carried by the enthusiasm of European viewers, you could say Måneskin has become a phenomenon. “Rock 'n' Roll never dies!”, Damiano David yelled fueled by the adrenaline of winning, and the insinuation that circulated on social media of the singer snorting during the counting of votes in front of a live camera – including their strict denial followed by a negative drug test result – might have given an additional boost to their public interest, their exploding album, ticket and merch sales, and their outstanding success on Spotify.

“We think it's a shit prejudice against rock music that there always have to be drugs involved. We fully threw ourselves into our participation with the utmost professionalism. We give everything for the music. So of course we don't want people to think that we can only do that because we take drugs.” – Victoria De Angelis

Prior to Eurovision, Måneskin was more of an insider's tip outside of Italy. Handmade rock music, not creating something entirely new but paying homage to the good old times with classic guitar riffs and cracking drum beats, being a lot of fun but also quite fragile and vulnerable at times and, first and foremost, conveying a captivating energy. Finally, on the stage of Rotterdam, live after so many months of isolation and renunciation, this wave of energy spilled straight over into European living rooms. It seemed easy to (mistakenly) interpret the winning song “Zitti e buoni” (Shut up and behave) as a declaration of frustration of our youth in times of a pandemic. In fact, singer Damiano David is singing about the favourite topic of the band: the unrelenting need to, against all odds, be yourself, despite or perhaps because you are different. The message fits their provocative sex appeal, which the band uses to demonstrate their independence of gender norms at any given time. But the core essence of rock music has always been the promise of unlimited freedom.

Thus at the first moment, the meeting with Måneskin is kind of startling. It's Wednesday, we are in the top floor of the new Sony head quarters in Berlin. The four Italians have just started their two-week long promotion tour through Europe. In the afternoon there will be a live concert in a queer club [the SchwuZ, but that's not mentioned here] in Neukölln, which will be streamed via TikTok. Around one million viewers will watch the show, some of them even from Brazil, so people at Sony are pretty excited [for Måneskin to come here]. But at first, these stunningly gorgeous creatures [yes, that's the exact wording :D] are standing surrounded by an entourage of people – their management, PR team, a stylist, a photographer, people who can hold a smartphone or a cigarette if needed [this paragraph is worded a little weirdly, especially taking into account that basically their whole team / 'entourage' is just friends of them, but it seems like the journalist didn't know that or maybe they just wanted to describe their first impression]. They seem like fictional / artificial characters out of a Hollywood movie. Transparent frill blouses with blazers and flared leather trousers, even the platform boots, everything brand-new, the makeup makes their faces look like a glossy magazine cover even in person. The smokey eyes of De Angelis and Raggi make them look smug and bored. Later, on the pictures it will probably look cool.

So of course your first impression might be: This band is under contract to industry giant Sony ever since their success on an Italian casting show [X Factor] in Winter 2017. The music industry must have its hand in the game when a band is photographed half-naked by Oliviero Toscani and styled by Etro. Also, one does not simply rent a villa with a pool in Rome to produce new music there, isolated from the rest of the world. And who else went to London for two whole months, shortly before the winter lockdown, just for inspiration? After the TikTok concert in Berlin – De Angelis and David are now wearing fishnet shirts that sparkle with every move, their bare nipples covered with an X of black tape – the band is posing with a few influencers. In the world of social media you would call that 'producing content'. But what does that mean for a band who are preaching their hosanna of authenticity? How authentic is Måneskin? And is their pointedly casual approach to sexuality and gender cliches in today's pop-cultural spirit more than a marketing strategy?

We're in the interview, the recording device is running for not even five minutes, when Victoria De Angelis says: “Actually, we just try to be ourselves and do what we really want to do.” And really: The more you listen to those four how they speak about the early days of the band in their slurred Roman dialect, about the shoe box and their own experiences with being different, but most importantly about their shared obsession [with music], the more you realise that [De Angelis] is  very serious. Ethan Torchio, who got his first drum kit at the age of six or seven from his father because he was beating everything he could reach, says: “For me, music is like food. I cannot live without it.” The bassist next to him laughs at his pathos. Singer Damiano David applauds the otherwise more reserved friend for his truthfulness [it says 'klarer Punkt', meaning 'for the point he makes', but it makes it seem like Damiano is agreeing with Ethan here, although it doesn't indicate whether he agrees that yes, music is everything for Ethan or that he understands and feels the same].

De Angelis and guitarist Raggi already knew each other from middle school and they were the ones who tried to form a band at the age of only 13, a band that actually took music seriously.

De Angelis: “It's just difficult at that age to find other people who really put everything into music and who truly commit themselves and are willing to invest a lot of their time.”

Raggi: “We set strict rules and scheduled fixed times for the rehearsals, for every day.”

David: “Fever, stomach ache, there was no excuse. Even if you were feeling sick in the rehearsal room. At least you were in the rehearsal room.”

The way the four of them talk across each other, completing each other's sentences, taking turns in talking and sometimes joking about each other, seems intimate and playful. Singer David remembers how at first bassist [De Angelis] was merciless towards him when it came to her first metal band project, as she told him that he wasn't committed enough [to the music]: “Back then I was still playing Basketball. I was one of the people that Vic absolutely didn't want [in her band].” Drummer Torchio was later discovered through Facebook, even though there had already been a drummer, a close friend, but he was not good enough. It seems as if even back then music was everything for them. Even if it meant that only Raggi managed to graduate.

And why rock, why rock music of all things? Because it's great, the four of them say in unison. David adds: “Actually, it's a genre that allows you to do everything you want to do.”

When they played on the street, they were laughed at by their classmates. But not only there. De Angelis explains that she never wanted to be a typical girl: “I was always deterred by those stupid boxes that people put you in, and that are just restricting and constraining you, because something is only regarded as male or female. I always rejected that. Instead, I just wanted to do the things I enjoyed doing, I went skating and played football.” Torchio says: “Friends who are not friends anymore were already telling me at the age of ten that those“ – he grabs his long, silky black hair – “were wrong. Because I'm a boy and boys are meant to have short hair, long hair is only for girls. I was bullied a lot for that.”

“Compared to the past, people in our age became much more open-minded. It gets better.” – Thomas Raggi

Frontman David on the other hand, for whom eye shadow, jingling earrings and nail polish as well as his bare torso with the tattoos have become trademarks by now, says: “I was actually more of the average boy.” De Angelis convinced him to try out some eyeliner, which he describes as a spiritual awakening: “I liked myself much more [with makeup]. I saw myself more as myself. As if it had been a suppressed desire of mine.” On a trip to Copenhagen with the others, when he realised that it really didn't matter what people were thinking about him, he got his first fake fur [coat? the article doesn't specify that] in a second-hand shop and let his clothing style be guided by his own love to experiment: “I realised that my whole life I was just going at half speed.” When it comes to diversity all four of them are becoming almost missionary.

At the same time, their success is not only opening doors for them. Back home in Rome they are barely able to go out on the street due to all the paparazzi. “[You need a] hoodie and huge sunglasses”, David says, “the mask is quite helpful, too.” And still, none of them is complaining, and Torchio explains why: “Even if those experiences right now may have sides that are not so pleasant, we still know that for us a dream is coming true. We experience something that we always had in our minds, so we are willing to face every consequence that this entails.”

So is the band facing difficult times, is Måneskin going to change with all the success? Again, all of them answer at the same time.

David: “I'm not worried about that.”

Raggi: “No way!”

De Angelis: “On the contrary. Everything that happened to us happened because we are who we are, so we want to continue the exact same way and stay ourselves.”

Just a few hours later, they are at the stage in Neukölln, bouncing around like pinballs, hammering at their instruments, flirting with each other. “We are out of our minds, but different from the others”, David sings their winning hymn against conformism, and: “The people talk, unfortunately they talk.” Here on stage, the four paradise birds [a German word describing someone with a flamboyant personality] with their half-nude-glittering outfits are radiating an incredible energy with the utmost sincerity, and you begin to wish there was a live audience instead of the TikTok cameras, absorbing and spreading this energy. Måneskin. A cry for a life after the pandemic, a cry for freedom and a better world.

“We do what we wished for all our lives.” – Ethan Torchio

[one-boring-person]

Hi! I was wondering if you could write more for Dutch from Predator? Lol it's me btw! I was wondering if it could be a hate to love relationship, where Dutch, being the hardass he is, can't live down his pride, and the reader (preferably female), is a strong independent woman who is actually Poncho's little sister, learning from the best. To add on, can the reader be short as Arnie is so tall, and because I am only 5'2" irl?

I kind of combined this with the enemies-to-lovers prompt request, I hope that's ok! I hope you like this!😊💛

Old Habits Die Hard.

Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Predator 1987) x reader

Warnings: NSFW, smut, swearing, mention of violence, alcohol consumption

Masterlist

"This round's on me, what does everyone want?" Mac announces as we go to sit down at the table, the mercenary remaining standing.

"A beer sounds good." Poncho says, looking at the rest of us.

We give words of agreement, taking our respective places at the table as Mac goes to leave the room and go to the bar.

"Don't forget a soda, I don't think they sell alcohol to underage people here." Dutch chips in, flashing a pointed look in my direction.

"Very funny." I roll my eyes, forcing a smile as the others chuckle, "A beer is fine, Mac. Thanks."

He nods, ducking from the room we rented out for the evening, leaving the five of us alone.

"So what's all this about, Dutch? Got us another job?" Blain questions, the gruff man leaning back in his chair, jaw working languidly at the gunk in his mouth.

"Yeah, but this one's a bit different." The major replies, taking a cigar from his pocket and lighting it.

"Different? How?" Hawkins frowns, cokcing his head to the side.

Dutch takes a deep breath of smoke from the cigar, sitting back in his seat.

"An old friend from the army got in touch. Says he needs us for a rescue op."

"Friend from the army? Who?" I inquire, lifting an eyebrow.

"Old commander of mine." Dutch replies dismissively, barely sparing me a glance.

"Ok, where is the job?" Poncho asks, my brother shooting me a knowing look, his eyes flicking up as Mac walks in again, seven beers cradled in his arms.

"What job?" He asks as he places the bottles down on the table, looking round at us all.

"Dutch got us another op." Blain grunts, reaching out to take his beer, spitting the contents of his mouth out into the ashtray on the table. Hawkins, Poncho and I pull faces at that, but don't say anything.

"Another one? We only just got back!" Mac exclaims, taking a seat across from Hawkins, taking a sip from his beer.

"Perks of the job." Dutch shrugs, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

"Will you at least tell us what it is?" I can't keep the impatience from my voice, finding his vagueness irritating.

"I'm getting to it, (Y/n), calm down." He rolls his eyes, "It's in central America, somewhere in the jungle. Phillips was cagey about where exactly, but he said it's got something to do with guerrillas and hostages. We're supposed to get the hostages out of there."

"Sounds simple enough." Billy muses, rubbing his chin.

"When is it?" Poncho chips in, watching the major closely.

Dutch is quiet for a minute, his eyes flicking over us all, before he finally responds.

"It's tomorrow."

I nearly choke on my beer, spluttering as I sit upright in my chair.

"Tomorrow? Are you insane?!" I burst out, annoyed, "We got back from Afghanistan at the ass-crack of dawn today, and you want us to fly off to the jungle at the same time tomorrow? You trying to kill us or what?"

The others nod in agreement, murmuring their own complaints, only to shut up when Dutch turns a venomous glare on me.

"You know, if you spent half the energy you do on complaining on growing, you wouldn't look like a damn child anymore, (Y/n). Would make taking jobs a lot easier - means I don't have to explain why we've only got six and half mercs with us." He snaps, voice laced with anger, "I'm not insane, just practical. We all need more money, and the work is low at the moment. You'd know that if you weren't off lounging at home all day, letting us do the hard planning and prep work."

Silence descends on us all, my jaw dropping at the vehemence behind his words. No one speaks, letting the two of us stare at each other in hatred, my expression swiftly creasing into fury, every muscle in my body going tense.

Another moment passes, before I suddenly stand from the table, slamming my bottle on the table as I stalk past, heading straight out the door. Poncho tries to stop me, calling out to me, but I ignore him, practically seething as I leave the bar and stride to the car my brother and I came in. Unlocking it, I climb in and slam the door, buckling myself into the driver's seat as I throw the car into drive, pulling out onto the road. 

Furious, I drive way over the speed limit, weaving in and out of the traffic with no regard for my own safety as I careen down the highway. Screeching horns and tyres follow me as I go, but I ignore them, focusing instead on getting home, filled with anger now as Dutch's words play over and over in my head. 

It doesn't take long for me to pull up in the drive of my house, the car skidding on the loose gravel as I harshly jerk the handbrake into place, unbuckling myself before I climb out, making my way over to the door. Opening it, I go in and head straight to the bathroom, intending to take a shower to cool me down, knowing I need to calm down. I strip down quickly, quickly getting under the cold water with my fists clenched at my sides for a while, until I start to massage myself with my fingers, working out the knots in my muscles. It's pleasant, but I can still feel the anger burning in my system, so I swiftly leave again, wrapping myself in a towel. 

As I leave the bathroom, I hear a car pull up in the drive, the tyres crunching loudly on the gravel, announcing the newcomer's arrival. I dismiss it, chalking it up to it being Poncho, come to check up on me as the door downstairs opens, then closes, footsteps sounding in the hall as the person checks for me. The sounds are heavier than I thought they would be, and the identity of the person soon dawns on me.

Immediately, I feel the anger start racing through me again, my face creasing into a scowl until I force myself to calm down, at which point I turn and storm up to my bedroom. Going in, I start to rummage through my wardrobe, looking for some new clothes, trying to bite back the irritation rising in me as I hear the footsteps getting closer, the heavy boots not even halting as they reach the door. Within seconds, the wooden structure has been flung open, an angry mercenary standing in the space behind it.

"Ever learn to knock?" I snap at him as soon as I turn around, glaring at Dutch as he looms in the doorway, "Nevermind, you never learned manners period."

"Says the person who just stormed out of a bar." He scoffs, sneering at me as he steps into the room, "Talk about table manners."

"And whose fault is it I stormed out in the first place?" I glower at him, holding my towel in place as he continues forward, the glint in his eyes sparking a blazing heat inside me.

"Oh, so now it's my fault you can't take a joke?" Dutch jabs his finger at his chest before pointing it at me, brow furrowed in anger.

"You have a pretty poor idea of a joke, asshole." I spit back, lifting my finger up in his face as we step closer together, less than a foot away from each other now.

"You're the only one who thinks so, short-ass." He glares down at me, making me all too aware of how he towers over me.

Swallowing tightly, I shift uncomfortably.

"Sure about that? I can't be the only one who thinks your height jokes are getting old." I reply venomously, jabbing my finger at his chest.

He laughs humorlessly.

"Oh, but we both remember a time when you used to love playing into your shortness." His voice drops an octave, eyes boring into me, "I had you on your knees more than once with only standing over you. Remember?"

A flare of lust goes through me at the reminder, flashes of him looming over me as he pounded his cock harder and harder into my waiting mouth coming, unbidden, to mind. I'd always liked the sight of his muscular body above mine, as well as the feelings of his large hands wrapped around me, even if it was simply to hold my head still whilst he fucked it. 

"That was months ago." I hiss back at him, barely able to look up at him - if I do, it'll be too much like the memories in my head and I'll give in to the urges of my body. Already I can feel arousal pooling in my panties, my cheeks flushing as I realise this.

"Old habits die hard." Dutch growls, before swiftly reaching out to tear the towel away, exposing me to him. Before I can protest, however, he's taken hold of me and lifted me against the wall, pinning me roughly in place with his body, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist. His lips crash into mine, a mess of teeth and tongues ensuing as we kiss like we used to, wet sounds filling the air as we press closer and closer together. Soft sounds of need escape me, but they're swallowed by the ravenous major above me, who licks and nips at my lips, a few grunts leaving him as he does so. 

Moving to pull him closer, I moan loudly as Dutch jerks his hips into mine, using them to hold me in place, his arousal pressing at my clit through his trousers. I have to bite back whines at the feeling of the rough fabric against my unprotected clit, my slick soon covering the crotch of his jeans as he rolls his hips into me. One of his hands moves to palm roughly at my breast, pinching and rolling the nipple between two calloused fingers, his other hand grasping my ass, which he squeezes tightly. Whimpering into his mouth, I take my nails down his back, grinding my sensitive clit down onto him, enjoying the waves of pleasure emanating from the stimulation. 

Months and months of pent up lust pour through the kiss, only breaking as Dutch pulls back to yank his shirt off, revealing his muscular yet scarred torso to me. Instantly, I go to lick and kiss at the toned muscles, only to yelp indignantly as he takes hold of my hair and jerks my head back, growling as he fastens our lips together again. He presses closer, crushing me against the wall with his huge body, grinding his arousal into me with vigour, only to suddenly pull away, keeping me in his arms. In seconds, Dutch has thrown me on the bed, standing at the end with his hands on his belt. 

Biting my lip, I eagerly move to help him, but he pushes me back down roughly, wasting no time in pulling his trousers and underwear down, revealing his leaking cock to the air. I moan at the familiar sight of it, eyeing up the veined length keenly, following it from the base to the reddened tip, watching as precum beads there. 

Dutch doesn't give me long to admire him, climbing over me and pressing himself against me as soon as he's exposed, his lips moving to my neck. He leaves wet, open-mouthed kisses in his wake, biting at sensitive points as he goes, licking over them briefly each time to soothe them, every movement extracting a needy whine from me. One of his hands moves down to his cock, which he takes hold of and runs through my slick folds, coating the tip generously as he supplies pleasure to me. With every pass over my clit, I moan and rock up into him, clutching at his back. 

"Fuck me, Dutch. Show me how much bigger you are." I moan out, wrapping my legs around his waist.

As he hears my words, however, Dutch growls, leaning back, making my legs fall from where they were. I whine at the lack of contact until he rolls me onto my front, grabbing hold of my ass to knead and grope. 

"I'll show you alright." He practically snarls in my ear as he bends back over me, moulding his huge body to my smaller frame, hands jerking my ass into his hips. He grinds himself into me for a moment, building my pleasure further as he bites at the back of my neck, sending bolts of electricity through me, which I respond to by rocking back onto him. 

With a final grunt, Dutch lines himself up with my hole, surging forwards into me in one stroke, stretching me out as he goes. A half-scream leaves my throat as I feel his cock slide over every sensitive spot inside me, my walls clenching deliciously around him, every vein rubbing against me. He gives me no time to adjust, pulling out entirely before slamming back into me, setting a hard, fast pace that has me seeing stars in no time. Ecstasy races through me, a knot tightening swiftly in my abdomen at the feeling of his thick cock pounding into me. 

Dutch straightens after a moment, taking my hip in one hand whilst he presses my face into the bed with the other, using me as leverage to shove his cock as far into me as he can go, grunting and groaning behind me in pleasure and need. Under his grip, I feel totally immobile, but the thought of him using me to work out his anger sends me reeling, my walls clenching tightly around him, tearing a moan from his lips. His name falls from my own, almost like a mantra as he slams into me, sending bolts of pleasure through me, bringing me closer and closer to what I really want. 

"So close, Dutch...keep going, oh fuck, you're so good…" I moan out, my words muffled slightly by the bed, though they are audible enough for him.

A whine of displeasure echoes from my chest as he suddenly pulls out, my pussy throbbing at the loss. He doesn't wait long, though, rolling me back onto my back before he hikes my legs up onto his shoulders, thrusting roughly back into me. With the new angle, whole other waves of pleasure ripple through me, his cock hitting the very spot that brings me crashing towards an orgasm. The sound of skin slapping together fills the room, along with obscenely wet noises and moans from the two of us, both too caught up in the moment to care about what comes after.

"You're getting tighter, (Y/n)...gonna cum for me, are you?" Dutch groans, his thrusts becoming erratic as my pleasure rapidly builds, "Come on, (Y/n), cum for me!"

With a final scream of ecstasy, the tension inside me snaps and I cum, hard, my walls clenching like a vice around him. White light blinds me, everything disappearing around me as the pleasure floods through me in a great torrent, rendering me incapable of moving momentarily. 

Vaguely, I feel Dutch pound into me a few more times before he pulls out and cums over my stomach, letting out a roar of satisfaction at the sensation, his hand wrapped around himself, jerking his cock desperately. Breathing heavily, he milks himself dry before he slumps over me, smearing the sticky substance between us, the two of us left breathless in the throes of our pleasure. 

"Still as good as I remember." He hums, rolling off of me to lie beside me.

"Could say the same thing." I sigh, trailing a finger through his cooling cum, grimacing at the sight of it.

Groaning, I heave myself up, taking the towel up from the floor.

"Where are you going?" Dutch asks, still lounging on the bed.

"Shower. You should, too." I inform him, moving to leave, only to stop still as the door swings open.

"(Y/n)? Who are you- oh." Poncho blushes a deep red, grimacing as he swiftly ducks back out of the room. 

"Oh shit…" I groan, putting my head in my hands, unable to bite back a small smile.

With just grins, leaning back on his hands.

"Oops."

-

Tag list: @nightime-luna-fairy

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense. 

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that. 

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later. 

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone). 

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways. 

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie! 

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway. 

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that. 

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality. 

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason. 

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough. 

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes. 

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away. 

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula??? 

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00. 

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

[theshelbyclan]

Not Alone

Summary: You’ve just gone through a very difficult breakup and feel lonelier than ever. But with the help of Ada’s wise words and some family traditions, you start feeling just a little better

A/N: A sweet anon requested: hi luv!! can you maybe do a bit of the brothers or maybe ada helping the shelby sis after a very hard breakup? i'd kinda appreciate the words right now 🥺🤍 Hope this helps you in any way and if it did happen to you, much love from me also! Also, I am in no way an psychologist or an expert on what to in break-ups, because they simply suck, but I tried to do the best I can. I hope you like it

Words: 2328 *** “What’s with Y/N?” John asked out of the blue over dinner. Arthur looked up, mouth filled with potatoes, “What? Why?” “She doesn’t eat,” commented the brother who never ate himself. 

So Aunt Polly fixed him with a glare, “Must be a family thing…” “She never even touched her pie,” John continued, “She always eats pie.” “Finn?” Tommy asked, “Tell us what’s wrong with her, eh?” The youngest brother evaded his family’s looks and mumbled something along the lines of, “Why are you asking me?” “You know everything that goes on with Y/N,” Polly now shifted to the other brother and said in her characteristically low voice, “Spill.” “Remember that boy from down the road?” Finn started carefully. “There are lots of boys down the road…” “You mean the Irish kid, blonde, tall, went to school with Y/N?” Polly caught on quicker. 

Finn hesitated, “Yeah… well, Y/N’s been kind of seeing him?” “Arthur, John, you kill the Irish kid,” Tommy was already standing up, “I’ll deal with Y/N.” “Sit down, Tommy,” Ada sighed, “Finn isn’t finished yet, is he?” “How the bloody hell would you know?” Arthur questioned. “Because seeing an Irish kid won’t make Y/N go off her food,” their sister explained, “But breaking upwith an Irish kid will, right, Finn?” “Right…” Tommy sank back down into his chair and sighed deeply. “Should we still kill the Irish kid, Tommy?” John asked innocently. “Hang on, John boy,” his eldest brother stopped him, “I’m the oldest. I should talk to Y/N first.” “You really shouldn’t…” Polly mumbled. And when Arthur got up, nervous but certain at the same time, Ada quickly pushed him back down in his chair again. With this, a certain sibling rivalry awoke in the Shelby household. With Ada up the stairs, the brothers quickly followed and even Finn was hot on their tails. All except Polly, who knew none of this would actually help. And while you’d locked yourself in your room, planning to spend the evening on your own and feeling particularly sorry for yourself, the bursting in of five siblings didn’t exactly help. “Fucking hell,” Arthur said, as soon as he saw your tear-streaked face, his nostrils flaring in sudden rage. John looked more helpless than ever, mumbling, “Why are you crying over that bastard…” Tommy stayed back and lit a cigarette in de doorway. But Finn looked from you to Tommy and his face was getting redder by the second, until he finally hissed, “Can I do it now, Tommy?” “Go,” his brother gave him permission, “but take Isiah.” Only Ada responded directly to you, as she sat down next to you on the bed and pulled you into a warm embrace, “What’s happened, sweetheart, you can tell us, eh?” “He left me…” you mumbled into her hair. “That’s it, I’m going to bloody shoot his balls off!” “Arthur, calm down, Finn is taking care of it,” Tommy soothed, but it didn’t comfort you at all. Ada looked at her unhelpful brothers full of scorn and almost shouted, “Well, is anyone going to add something that might actually help Y/N? Because if not, kindly get the fuck out!” “What can we do?” John asked gently. But you just shrugged, still locked into Ada’s arms.

“Well, you’re the fucking oldest, right? Go on!” John urged Arthur on.

So Arthur started, with all the best intentions in the world, which was the only thing that could calm him in this very moment, “The thing is, we human beings are made up of different things…”

You send a look of uncertainty across the room towards Tommy, who returned your gesture with one lifted eyebrow that said: yeah, I have no idea either.

“Like, when we lose someone, it’s like your head, it’s out of balance. So you need to balance it out again.”

“Arthur,” John asked bluntly, “What the fuck are you on about?”

“Like when John here lost Martha! He had to learn to live without her and it took him a lot of time, also because he has fifty kids, but mainly because he had to balance his head out again. And that takes time!” Arthur got more enthusiastic in his speech with each sentence, “It’s a chemical thing, like… like with cocaine!”

“Cocaine?” you repeated, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, cocaine,” he looked nervously around the room filled with incredulous faces, “Cocaine brings you up, while whiskey brings you down, right? You need both. You understand? You need to find the balance.”

“Are you suggesting our baby sister does cocaine?” a harsh voice suddenly asked.

“No!” Arthur called out, “Fucking hell… I’m just saying, accept that it takes time, because the chemicals in your body need time to adjust and that takes a while…”

Deep down, you knew Arthur meant well. Hell, he even had a point in a way, but he wasn’t great at getting his point across.

So John tried, “When Martha died, I did grieve. And I had to rethink life without her, you know? And especially with four, that’s four, kids. It was like I had lost a part of me.”

“So how did you do it, John?” you asked, looking up at your brother.

“Honestly, I was drunk all the time.”

Tommy rolled his eyes almost audibly and sucked on his cigarette in the doorway.

So you fixed him with a stare, “What about you, Tommy? Any brilliant advice from you?”

“Nope,” he simply said.

And a sudden anger flared up in you, “None at all. So, you don’t even care, do you?”

Tommy stared at you for a few moments and then he turned to John, “Go out to the fields near the Black Patch, where the vardo is. Get a fire going. I’ll be there in an hour. Go on, John!”

Being emotional in front of your brothers was one thing, but feeling like they were ignoring you made everything even worse. As you felt the tears welling up again, you got so annoyed and mad at yourself that you needed to take the anger out on someone. So you turned to Thomas again, but before you could open your mouth, he’d turned around already and was making his way out the room.

Completely defeated, you slumped on your bed and seriously considered throwing yourself out the window.

“How do you feel,” a softer female voice asked and you realised you weren’t actually on your own.

So you frowned and tried to explain, “You know that feeling when you drop a glass of water and within seconds it splashes and then just…disappears?”

“Yeah,” Ada said gently.

“That’s how I feel.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Tell them?” you scoffed, “Well, you just saw how well they handled it…”

Ada nodded for a second, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know how to,” you shook your head, “I have no idea what to do with myself now.”

So Ada sighed, lit a cigarette and gave it to you, “You’re not going to do anything, except listen to me now, alright?”

And you nodded meekly as your sister spoke.

“Polly is going to tell you this: fuck men. And in a way she’s right, but in others she isn’t. Men are a common nuisance and we would have no need for them if we didn’t like them so much, did we? In fact, I’m guessing you might even love this one?” Full of sisterly concern she stared at you.

As your head fell down and you started crying again, a loud bang sounded and John barged into the room once again.

“Oh shit, sorry Ada… Uhm…” he stood there, cap in hand and having no idea how to hold himself, “I just wanted to quickly give… Y/N, thought you might need this?”

Ada took the bottle of whiskey John had brought from his hands and started opening it up at once. Then she looked at her brother and demanded, “Don’t you have a fire to get to?”

Clumsily, he left the room quickly.

“They try,” your sister waved a disinterested hand.

And finally you spoke words that had burned in your throat for the last couple of hours now, “I did love him.”

“And that’s okay!” Ada urged, while rubbing you back softly, “That’s what happens and it’s fine. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not allowed to love someone or that you should be strong and independent all the time. You’re allowed to love and you’re even allowed to need someone, just like you’re allowed to grieve right now,” she opened the bottle and traded it with you for the cigarette, “and if you ever tell him I said this I’ll deny every word of it, but Arthur was right: it is a little like grieving over the death of someone. It fucking hurts, but it has to be done.”

“Okay, so what the fuck do I do now?”

“Well… you cry, which you’ve already done, good for you,” your practical sister continued, “Then you plan his funeral, which should be easy because I’m guessing Tommy is arranging that as we speak.”

You had to laugh; you couldn’t help yourself, even through the tears.

And Ada called out, “That’s it! And then you laugh.”

“So that’s today covered,” your smile faded a little, “What about tomorrow and the day after that?”

She took a large swig from the bottle and spoke while choking on it slightly, “Sweetheart, if I had all the answers I wouldn’t be a single mother right now, but it’s about learning to live with yourself. It’s about being alone and suddenly realising you’re no longer lonely.”

“Why though?” you almost whined, “What if I don’t want to be lonely? Maybe I could still get him back? We weren’t that bad…”

“Yes, you were.”

“Yes, we were,” you admitted, taking the bottle from her.

“Listen,” Ada took your hands in hers and locked eyes with you, “You deserve better. This doesn’t help you at all right now, but maybe it will in a few weeks time. You deserve a man who loves you, adores you and worships the ground you walk on, and at the very least you fucking deserve a man who stays. Now, you may not understand now, but a few weeks from now, you will love yourself again. It will all make sense then. Right now you need to let go and you need some distraction.”

“What if I want to be on my own?”

“To do what? Cry?” Ada could be horribly blunt.

So you frowned full of irritation, “Well, maybe I do.”

“You already did that. You need to be with someone you love. Doesn’t have to be me, but don’t go wallowing on your own too much. It doesn’t help.”

“Right, okay…”

So the two of you sat in silence for a long, drinking the whiskey and smoking. And while you didn’t speak, it was good. You’d always been a child that was drawn more to her brothers than her only sister, but right now, the sister proved invaluable. For the first time, it was like you felt the ground beneath your feet again. That solid feeling of family always there kept you sane and it made you just a little bit less lonely.

And then, just like that, Tommy was back. With a painfully direct way, very similar to Ada’s, he announced, “It’s ready. Come on.”

“What is?”

“Just bring his stuff,” Tommy said quickly, “whatever he gave you, and come with me.” He was already out the door when he called from the hallway, “And bring Ada too!”

So after a lot of complaining and ranting about brothers, the two of you left the stuffy bedroom and followed Thomas out the door. He hoisted the both of you in his car and drove out into the fields, above which the sun had already started to set.

Finally, he brought you to the fire, and explained, “We gypsies are used to a lot of pain, but we’re no good with it. It’s a bit like the darkness; we live in it, but it’s where the trouble is too. So, we light fires.”

“How’s the fire going to help?” you asked sarcastically.

“It’s not,” he said, “But sitting here with us might. You used to sleep outside whenever you felt trapped, thought maybe we could do it again.”

You nodded slowly. This didn’t sound like a bad plan at all, actually.

“What about his stuff?” you questioned, “You told me to bring it.”

“If you want, burn it. If not, keep it. For now.”

So you sat down by the fire and it awoke something old inside of you: something you had missed intensely.

“So is this the gypsy cure?” you asked Tommy, a small smirk playing about your lips.

“You can ask John in a minute. It’s what he did, after Martha.”

And suddenly you remembered, “That’s why he left for five days.”

“Am I expected to sleep here as well, out on the grass, all wet and dirty?” Ada asked sharply.

Tommy pointed at his older sister playfully, “Yes. Y/N gets to choose. You however do not. You’ve forgotten where you’re from, Ada.”

“I fucking haven’t,” she protested, “I remember these fields. We used to come here with mum, after the fairs.”

Your other three brothers joined you one by one and like second nature, they huddled around the fire and you weren’t sure if it was the fire or them that kept you warm. Until well into the night, they brought up stories about traveling, family and horses. You hardly spoke, but it was good to listen.

At one point you did whisper, “Maybe you were right, Tommy. Maybe this is the gypsy cure…”

“There’s no cure sweetheart, just patience. But you won’t be alone.”

“No?’ you asked vaguely.

“We’re here,” Arthur said.

“We’re your family,” John added quickly.

And Ada pulled you close to her once again, saying, “And we’re never leaving you.”

***

Masterlist

[dameronology]

to make a house a home {agent whiskey}

summary: just a soft weekend away in kentucky w/ our fave cowboy {for @zazzysseoul - thank u so much for ur support and i hope you enjoy!}

warnings: i think one or two swear words? but nothing else!

enjoy,

- jazz

Jack Daniels was good at reading people.

It was part of his job. He had to be observant, had to have a working understanding of body language and non-verbal signals. He was especially diligent about it when it came to you; it wasn’t a purposeful thing, but rather an instinct to keep an eye on the person he loved most in the world. He could read you like a book and some days, it felt like he knew you better than you knew yourself, and maybe he did. There was really no telling with Jack. Every time you finally thought you had experienced every little quirk and trait he had to offer, he managed to pull something out the bag. Whether it was his ability to predict a bad mood before it happened or the way he remembered every tiny little detail of a conversation, he was constantly proving himself to be one hell of a partner.

It was no surprise; Jack thought you deserved the best and so, that’s what he tried to give you. He didn’t often let people into his life, especially not after so much loss, but from the moment you’d met, he knew he could trust you. He’d always been a brilliant judge of character and he’d been completely right about you. You’d turned his entire world upside down; taught him how to love again and reminded him that the things he’d lost could be found again, just with a little care and patience. The empty house he used to come to was filled with love and laughter and little marks of you and him; photos from your various trips, magnets on the fridge, that he brought home from all the countries his job took him to, the little notes you left on his nightstand when you had to slip out for work before he rose. The first time Jack had come through the front door and almost tripped over your shoes, he’d cried - not out of anger or shock, but at the realisation that he was no longer alone. 

Jack had the innate desire to look after you. He knew you could handle yourself but that didn’t mean that you had to. You’d been there for him in every sense of the world, and he wanted to do the same, to make sure that you felt appreciated every second of every day. In his mind, if you ever questioned his love or loyalty, then he wasn’t doing his job right. That desire translated into little things, rather than grand displays of affection; he’d do your laundry when you worked late, sent you sweet texts through out the day and brought you flowers just because. It wasn’t uncommon to find that Jack had filled up your car with gas without asking, or to come home to your favourite take out. 

His biggest way, however, was in how well he knew you. Every slight change in demeanour and every variation in the tone of your voice was caught by him; he knew when you were okay, and he knew when you weren’t. He could tell when you were half-way between, and he’d do his best to bring you back to the lighter side. You take comfort in the fact he always had your back, no ifs or buts. 

When Jack woke up early one morning to find your side of the bed empty, he immediately knew that was something was up; the second his palm reached out for you, only to be met with a fistful of cold sheets, he knew. You never got out of bed early. There could have been an atomic war happening outside and you still would have refused to move, insisting on five more minutes before nuclear winter hit. The bathroom light was off and there wasn’t anything you could have found in the kitchen. After all, you’d only arrived at the ranch a few hours earlier. You were both tired from a few long weeks at work and escaping the suffocating fog of the city for the rolling hills and fresh air of Kentucky felt like heaven. 

Jack sat up, pausing for a moment. There was a gentle creek coming from somewhere; it was steady and rhythmic, ringing from the porch. His shoulder slumped wit relief - you were outside on the porch swing. At 6AM on a cold, winter’s morning. The relief was shorting lived. 

Pulling on his robe, Jack rubbed his eyes and headed out towards the porch. Sure enough, you were the first thing he saw, shoulders covered by the plaid shirt he’d worn the previous day and fluffy socks gently brushing against the floor with the movement of the swing. The light above you illuminated you in a soft smoulder, a golden glow cast over you, illuminating your tired eyes and disheveled hair. He would have lectured you about the cold, had you not had a knitted blanket around you. 

‘Bit early for you, ain’t it?’ Jack leant against the door frame, gently smiling when your eyes met. 

‘What’s early when you haven’t slept yet?’ You aimlessly joked. 

Lifting up the blanket, you silently gestured for him to come and sit next to you. Jack obliged, dropping down beside you and winding a large arm around your shoulder. He pulled you into his chest, placing a kiss on your temple. His warm body was a welcome feeling against the cold of the January air. 

‘What’s keeping you up?’ He softly coaxed. 

‘I don’t know, to be honest.’ You replied. ‘It’s just been a long week.’

‘I get that.’ His voice was slightly murmured. He pulled you even closer, chin resting on your head. ‘But we’re here now, sugar. I think we both need the down time.’

‘Definitely.’ You said. ‘Plus, the view isn’t so bad.’

The ranch overlooked a large field filled with cows and horses; it stretched out for miles, fading away into the distance into a seemingly endless close. The edges of the green pasture were tinged with the pink of a tonic sun rise, pushing away the dark of the night sky. It wasn’t often that you got to watch the sun come up, and it felt a little refreshing to see a new day come. It was fresh; a clean slate, young and naive, but full of possibility. An ironic thought, given that you and Jack were probably going to lay on the sofa the whole day and order take out. 

‘You’re right.’ He murmured from beside you.

‘Are you doing that thing where you look at me when I’m talking about a nice view?’ You peered up at him, thinning your eyes. 

‘You said it was romantic!’

‘The first five times, Jack!’ You chuckled, leaning up to press a kiss to his jaw.

‘Nothing is sacred anymore.’

You settled back against his chest with a smile. ‘I like it here.’

‘Me too.’ He agreed. ‘It’s nice to get away from the Apple. Everything over there if faster than a knife fight in a damn phone booth.’

‘And it doesn’t smell of pizza and...pee.’

You loved New York dearly; it had been your home for many years, and it was also where you’d met Jack. But, whether it was your permanent home, you didn’t know. There were some days when it all got so much. The city never quietened down and you could never quite escape it, even in the comfort of your own apartment. Out here, you were worlds away from that. Crickets were gently purring in the distance, and the only other sound came from the rustling of the animals in the field across the road. It was peaceful. Serene. 

‘What if we moved out here when I’m done at the Statesman?’ Jack posed, almost as though he were shy about broaching the subject. ‘We could get a couple horses. Maybe a dog. Heck, if you want a zoo, I’ll get you a zoo.’

‘I’d like that.’ You smiled. ‘I mean living here, not the zoo thing - but a dog and horses sounds nice.’

‘Then a dog and horses we shall get.’ He grinned. ‘Oh! I can teach you to ride.’

‘Or I could just watch you do it.’

‘There’s not a single person in this here town who can’t ride a horse.’ Jack said. ‘Unless a pony would be better.’

‘Why not both? We have enough room.’ You reminded him. ‘Maybe we can re-tile the kitchen too. It’s not that I don’t like the green, it’s just it’s...’

‘...dreadful?’

‘That’s a nice way of putting it.’

Because you didn’t live on the ranch full time, neither of you had put too much effort into making it homely. It was liveable, by all means, but the television in the living room dated back to the first Bush administration and the kitchen was a little too lime for your liking. The place had come furnished by the old owners, which had been a big selling point for Jack. He just wanted somewhere he could live whilst he was in Kentucky and this place had been practical. It wasn’t until you and your eye for interior design came along that he realised how retro it was. 

‘There’s a hardware store down the road.’ Jack said. ‘We can get a couple hours sleep and head down there later to see what they got.’

‘Maybe we can find something less green.’ 

‘I sure fucking hope so.’

---

The next morning, you and Jack bundled up into some warmer clothes and piled into the Bronco, heading for the store downtown. The actual city was miles out, but there lots of little local and independent places. There were little cafes and restaurants, as well as farmers’ markets and fresh produce. You had thought about living here permanently before, but you hadn’t verbalised it until Jack had suggested it first. Given everything that had happened in the past, you’d wanted to do things at his pace, but so far, you’d been perfectly in tune with one another. That was a testament to your relationship as a whole. 

‘I just smiled at that woman and she smiled back.’ You muttered to Jack, peering up at the store as you headed through the parking lot. 

‘And?’

‘I once smiled at a stranger on the Subway and they told me to piss off.’ 

Jack chuckled, reaching out to wind his arm around yours. He tangled your fingers together, pulling you flush against his side. It was easier to show physical displays of affection here too. He was always a little paranoid in the city, given how busy it was and how easy it would have been to for an enemy to hide. That was another thing Jack did without thinking; taking tiny little precautions to protect you. He couldn’t even begin to think about losing you. And the thought never popped up here. Never. Only in the city, where everything was loud and overwhelming.

The store itself was pretty big - it was good for you, but confusing for Jack. You had Pinterest boards with inspiration for all your hypothetical future houses, whilst Jack couldn’t the difference between ivory and sand. So, true to character, he let you tighten your grip on his arm and drag him towards the kitchen section, eyes wide like a kid in a candy store. You had a green blank canvas to go wild on, because probably would have agreed to anything. It wasn’t that he was a walk-over, or because he was lazy, he was just genuinely terrible at interior design. Introducing him to build mode on the Sims 4 had been traumatic enough. 

You didn’t have to decide anything immediately - after all, he’d said he wanted to move out here after he was done at Statesman. That was just as likely weeks as it was years. He did complain about his job giving him a bad back but you also knew that he enjoyed it. It was all he’d known for such a long time, and he’d worked hard to get to the top. Unbeknownst to you, he’d drop it all in a second if you wanted to relocate now. Even if he had the best job in the world and all the money he could ever want, the only thing Jack really needed was you.

‘Where do we even start?’ He asked, brown eyes staring confusedly at some paint samples. 

‘We start with the most important rooms - living room, kitchen, bedroom.’ You replied. ‘I’m thinking something midcentury for downstairs. What d’you think?’

‘Midwhatnow?’ His brows furrowed. 

You laughed. ‘Midcentury. So think...Bauhaus. Mid 60s sort of thing.’

‘Right.’ Jack nodded, getting a clearer idea. ‘How about you just to point to things and I’ll either shake my head or nod?’

Yeah, that sounded like a better idea.

And so, you began your trek around the store. Your Pinterest boards came in handy, especially for the kitchen - even Jack was grateful for them, because it meant you moved a little quicker. He did die inside a little when you grabbed a huge trolley and began piling it up with kitchen tiles, counters and cabinet doors, and even more so when you casually asked ‘you’re good at DIY, right?’

He didn’t complain though, not once. The sight of you rushing around the store, face lighting up at lamp shades and paint samples, was one of the best things he’d ever seen. Not only because it was hilarious, but also because it was the first time you really planned for your future. There was sort of an unspoken agreement that this was it, and that you were both in it for the long run, but neither of you had made any verbal plans together. You’d moved in together back in the city, but that had happened naturally. You’d started staying over and over more and more to sleep in his fancy Statesman bed and use his heavenly marble bathtub, and you came over one weekend and just never left. 

After a few hours, Jack finally had to put a stop to your antics. 

‘Okay, darlin’, I think we’ve reached the threshold now.’ He called. ‘We don’t need a new lighting fixture for the downstairs bathroom.’

You huffed. ‘Placing it back on the shelf.’

‘Fine.’

‘We’re gonna have a hard time getting in this car as it is.’ He held his arm out to you, signalling for you to come back to him. 

‘I’ll have to come back for the upstairs then.’ You muttered. 

‘We’ve gone from painting the kitchen to gutting the whole damn ranch, baby.’ Jack replied. ‘We’re only here for two more days anyways.’

‘Damn. I forgot about that.’ Your eyes widened. ‘I guess we better start today, then.’

--

This was supposed to be a relaxing weekend. 

Relaxing! 

And yet somehow, Jack Daniels was stood in the middle of his now half-demolished kitchen, a sledge hammer in one hand and a glass of his namesake whiskey in the other. He couldn’t deny that it had been fun to rip out the cabinets and tear off the tiles. He’d despised the colour of the kitchen for so long that it felt good to finally get rid of them, even if it meant that the tedious process of putting on the new ones came immediately after. You’d gone for simple black and white ones, with some mosaic ones for a...what had you called it? A feature wall or something. Apparently it added character (something he took your word for). 

‘So what’s the paint for?’ Jack frowned, taking a brush as you handed it to him. 

‘For the living room.’ You grabbed him by the shirt, dragging him out the kitchen.

‘But the kitchen isn’t done-’

‘- I’m bored of the kitchen.’ You said. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Course not, angel.’ He pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

After grappling with covering the furniture up, you and Jack began to paint. It wasn’t too hard of a process; he just sort of whacked it on, whilst you had a much more meticulous process. So what if he got a splash of grey on the light switch? Actually, on second second thought, he should probably wipe that off.

Besides, it only took him five minutes to get sidetracked. The sight of you stood across the room, his red and black plaid shirt hanging from your shoulders, face screwed up with concentration and paint on your nose, was a distraction in itself. It was the sort of moment he wanted to get on a Polaroid, but equally, one that he wanted to savour. He always entranced by you, but sometimes that amplified. You weren’t even doing anything special - just...existing. But that was enough to capture his attention in its entirety. 

He didn’t tear his eyes away from you - not until something cold hit him in the face, and a splatter of grey paint nearly hit his eye. The noise of your laughter pulled him back to reality, practically losing it as you doubled over, holding onto the fire place for support. You were lucky that it was his favourite sound but heck, you coulda dumped the whole bucket of paint on him and he wouldn’t have flinched. 

‘That was rude.’ Jack folded his arms across his chest. ‘I’m gonna get you for that.’

‘No, you won’t.’

You dropped your paintbrush, suddenly leaping over the couch and sprinting out into the hallway. Trying to outrun a highly-trained government agent (a fact you sometimes forgot) might have not been your brightest idea, but you still managed to breeze past him and skid into the kitchen, almost tripping over a strewn tile as you did. 

Jack was hot on your heels, arms reaching out to grab as you circled back into the living room. He managed to snatch you by the waist, pulling you down onto the sheet-covered couch - he was nice enough to use his own body to break the landing at least. You landed on his chest with a thud, still in a fit of giggles as he grabbed your face and planted kisses all over it. His lips were soft and warm, tasting of whiskey when they finally met yours. You tangled your hand through his hair in an attempt to bring him close, as though it were even possible. 

You broke the kiss, rolling off of Jack and onto the sofa next to him, nuzzling into his side. The paint you’d managed to get on him was on you now as well, smeared down the side of your face and a little onto his shirt that you were wearing. Not that it bothered him all that much, because the sight of you in any of his clothes was worth a little bit of paint. You had a sort of rotation, where you would steal various garments and wear them until they lost his smell, before dumping them in the laundry and swiping some more. They were always baggy, scented with his aftershave and the faint smell of the leather from his car. When he was away on missions, it was the nearest thing you could get to one of his warm hugs.

‘Darling, d’you think, just maybe, that we should just pay someone to do all this?’ Jack gently suggested. ‘I can have a guy from the agency come in and be done in like three days.’

‘Three days? For the whole house?’ You peered up at him with a frown. 

‘Their speciality is rebuilding places after we accidentally blow them up so this will be like a walk in the park.’ He explained. ‘Although, the kitchen isn’t far off. the place is lookin’ as messy as the farmers’ market after sundown.’

‘And Champ won’t mind you abusing Statesman resources like that?’ You teased.

‘The man is so rich that he buys a new boat when the other gets wet.’ Jack reminded you. ‘He ain’t gonna notice.’

‘You have a point.’ You nodded. 

‘Besides, they’re better at decorating-’

‘- interior design.’ You cut him off. ‘It’s a house, not a Christmas cookie.’

Jack dropped his head against yours, letting out a groan. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘I know.’ You leant up to press another soft kiss to his lips. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too, angel.’ 

Even though it was still a little far off, the glimpse that this weekend had given you into your future meant everything to him. He’d brought the ranch as a place to crash on business stays, and now you were helping to turn it into a home. At one point, he hadn’t imagine having a life to look ahead to or a house to decorate or somebody to love. Even though they were small, everyday things, you’d brought so much into his life, and he was never going to let you forget it. 

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, got any good old (maybe new?) bedsharing fics for a fanfic obsessed lurker?

Thanks 😘

Hey Nonny!!

Hahha! I actually just did a list recently of my old ones, but I just double-checked my offline lists and I actually DO have some fics on my next Bed Sharing list, so GUESS WHAT? Your ask is the one to start the next Bed Sharing one, LOL.

As usual, if anyone has any they’d like to add, especially if they’re brand new fics, let us know! <3

BEDSHARING Pt. 5

See also:

The Speckled Blonde / BedSharing

BedSharing Pt. 2 and Insecure Sherlock

Bed Sharing Pt. 3

Bed Sharing Pt. 4

Bed Sharing “Just Happens”

Soft. Happy. Content. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 223 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Cuddles, Bed Sharing, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Spooning, Morning After, Sherlock POV) – Sherlock reflects on his state of mind.

And When The Night Is Over by Simply Isnt On (K, 329 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Platonic Bed Sharing / Not Slash) – Sherlock and John sleep together.

I Knew You Loved Me by inevitably_johnlocked (T, 743 w., 1 Ch. || Morning Cuddles, Fluff, Clingy Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slice of Life, Morning After, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Declarations of Love, Pet Name, Bed Sharing, Snuggles) – John and Sherlock share a lie-in the morning after their first time. So fluffy and gross your teeth will fall out. Part 4 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Sleep Tonight by Jenn1984 (T, 1,220 w, 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Bed Sharing, Worried Sherlock, Sick John, Hugs/Cuddles, Touch Neediness) – Fingers begin prying open his jacket looking for a wound and John would really like to swat at them. No, he's not hit anywhere, he's just damn sick.- John Watson has a fever.

Loved. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 1,231 w., 1 Ch. || First Sherlock POV, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Nose Kisses, Morning After, Love Confessions, Morning Cuddles, Emotional Sherlock, Sentiment, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock reflects on his relationship with John. Part 5 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Here to Stay by MockJayPhoenix12 (K, 1,574 w., 1 Ch. || Post Reunion, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Headache, Bed Sharing, Care Taker Sherlock, Hand Holding, Fluff) – On Sherlock's first day home, John wakes with a migraine.

The Perfect Place by SilverSmile (K+, 1,955 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Romance, 5 and Ones, Fluff, Experiments, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock attempts to find the perfect place to sleep, but his little experiment proves to be far more difficult than expected.

Insomnia by TheSingingGirl (K+, 2,635 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Humour, Bed Sharing, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sleep is merely the next frontier in what has become the battle to keep Sherlock alive. It's because of this that John ends up in bed with a sociopath.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

The Myth by AGirloftheSouth (M, 4,329 w., 1 Ch || Sex Toys / Anal Beads, PWP, Romance, Bottom John, Prostate Stimulation) – Sherlock believes something to be a myth. John proves him wrong.

When We Sleep by PrincessNala (K+, 6,660 w., 1 Ch || Post-TGG,  Alternating POV, Bed Sharing, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Hugs) – Sherlock needed to feel every beat of his heart, every rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. It was the only way to completely assure himself that John was alive and right there next to him, and not dead, no, never dead…

To be loved by Strange_johnlock (E, 12,436 w., 8 Ch. || Post S3, Established Relationship, First Person POV Sherlock, Pet Names, Soft Sherlock, Mild ADHD, Protective John, Captain Watson, Body Appreciation, Bottomlock, Rough Sex, Travelling for Holidays, Introspection, Sherlock Loves John So Much It Hurts) – John is so deeply integrated into the work, both as my conductor of light, and as a great shot with a vicious right hook who tackles men -and women- no matter their size all in my defense. He protects me with all he can without question, and this loyalty is surely more than I deserve. Or: Sherlock is counting his blessings.

There's So Much Labour Just in Breathing Lately by Susan (E, 12,708 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF / Mentions of S3 Events, Romance, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Mutual Pining, Meddling Mycroft, Therapy, Ambiguous Hopeful Ending, Infidelity) – The dreams he hated most – the ones that left him a sweating, shaking mess when he woke – were the ones in which Sherlock was just Sherlock. Laughing or drinking tea. Sitting across the table from him at Angelo’s eating pasta. Trailing his open hand behind him on the way to the bedroom. “C’mon, John. I’m about to have my way with you.”

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Burning of the Leaves by blueink3 (M, 15,915 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Angst, Reichenbach, Parentlock, Past Jolto, Idiot John, Sherlock’s a Mess, Puppies, Fluff, Possessive / Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Matchmaker Sholto, Melancholic Feelings, Emotional Sherlock, Domesticity, Love Confessions in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Pet Names, Panic Attack) – After the events of series 4, Major Sholto invites John and Sherlock to lunch one day. It nearly proves to be too much for their tenuous relationship as the past haunts the present, putting the future that Sherlock so desperately wants at risk.

A Silver Sixpence by _doodle (NC-17, 16,400 w., 2 Ch. || LJ Fic || For a Case / Case Fic, Fake Relationship, Humour, Romance, Marriage Proposal, Awkward Idiots, Cuddling, Touching, Kissing, Love Confessions, Bed Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fake Until It’s Not, Schmoop and Fluff, Bottomlock) – “John, we need to get married. It’s for a case, not any romantic notions on my part pertaining to our partnership,” Sherlock said, with brutal honesty, and without even looking up.

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

Insanity in the Middle by DotyTakeThisDown (E, 28,010 w., 8 Ch. || Equestrian Sports AU || Alternate First Meeting, POV John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Clueless Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Passionate Kisses, Hand Holding, Caught Making Out, Bed Sharing, Spooning, Blow Job) – John is a world-class eventing rider with a gold medal and several four-star wins to his credit, but he's never won at Rolex. Sherlock is an up-and-coming rider taking the sport by storm.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Anchor Point by trickybonmot (E, 49,856 w., 80 Ch. || Truman Show AU || Psychological Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Dark Characters / Fic, Alternating First/Third Person, Protective John, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Tender Moments, Love Confessions, Hand/Blow Jobs, Cuddling, Jealous John, First Kiss/Time) – The world tunes in nightly for Sherlock, the ultimate in reality TV: Sherlock Holmes, a real person with a legendary name, unknowingly lives out his life in a staged setting contrived by his brother. Things get complicated when a retired army doctor joins the show to play the part of Sherlock's closest friend. This fic borrows its concept from the 1998 film, the Truman Show. However, you don't need to have any knowledge of the movie to enjoy this story.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom by Polyphony (M, 52,748 w., 16 Ch. || Celebrity John AU || Alternate First Meeting, TV Host John, Supermodel Mary, Character Death, Mystery, Romance, Case Fic, First Kiss/Time, Meddling Mycroft, Drug Abuse, Doctor John, PDA, Deductions, POV Sherlock, Toplock, Sexual Tension, Angry/Rough Sex, Hopeful Ending, Asperger’s Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love,  Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

Gold Rush by ShirleyCarlton (E, 71,783 w., 17 Ch. || Post S3 / No Mary, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Past Sexual Abuse, First Kiss, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Alternating POV, Switchlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Marriage Proposal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abduction, Anxious/Insecure Sherlock, Miscommunication, Emotional Lovemaking) – John has divorced Mary and pops round to 221B one evening to find Sherlock in the middle of a case. As Sherlock tries to find the identity of a young woman’s stalker, John realises he can no longer deny his feelings for Sherlock – which then, to their befuddlement, turn out to be mutual. Shy kisses and tentative embraces ensue. But will Sherlock be able to cast off a shadow from his past that he thinks might prevent John from wanting to stay?

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

Kintsukuroi by sussexbound (E, 91,823 w., 20 Ch. || S4 Compliant / Post-TLD, Grief / Mourning, PTSD, Internalized Homophobia, Therapy, Past Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Suicidal Ideation, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Sexting, Frottage, Inexperienced Sherlock, Rimming / Anal / BJ’s, Emotional Turmoil, Finding Each Other) – “I love you.” Sherlock sees the words hit John with almost physical force. He reels back a little, jaw twitching and eyes filling. “I love you,” he repeats, a little softer, a little more gentle, as earnest as he possibly can. Because they’ve been teetering on the brink of this thing for years, and it had become painfully obvious over the last few months that they were at a tipping point. This had to happen. Now it has. Now they can see where they end up. The tears in John’s eyes spill over, and he wipes at them angrily. “Do you even know what that means?”  

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

The Bang and the Clatter by earlgreytea68 (M, 137,049 w., 37 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Baseball AU || Slow Burn / Dev. Rel., Possessive/Obsessive Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Body Appreciation, Depression, Closeted Sexuality, Family, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Ogling Each Other, Anxious Sherlock, Panic Attack, Drunkenness, Talk of Forever, Big Feelings™) – Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU. Part 1 of Baseball

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[agustdakasuga]

You Never Walk Alone | Chapter 14

Genre: Werewolf!AU, Poly!AU?, Mate!AU, romance, fluff

Pairing: OT7 x Reader

Characters: Student!reader, Omega!Seokjin, Alpha!Yoongi, Beta!Hoseok, Alpha!Namjoon, Omega!Jimin, Beta!Taehyung, Alpha!Jungkook

Summary: You live a quiet life in your late grandfather’s cabin in the woods. You go to school just to graduate and get your diploma, not to make friends or stand out from the crowd. That was until one day, you enter your home to see a pack of wolves that need shelter.

The thought of their mate being a target starts to make the boys panic. Being so caught up in their fear, they forgot to consider your feelings and opinions as well.

“Let’s talk about what’s going on.” You said as you sat down. The boys all looked at each other. 

“No mental conversations! Tell me everything.” You whined. 

“Relax, jagi. We’re not having a mental conversation, we just looked at each other, that’s all.” Yoongi chuckled, ruffling your hair. You huffed and leaned back, tucking yourself under his arm to cuddle him. He draped an arm around you lazily to embrace you. 

“With you being the princes’ mate, there are bound to be... some rivals that try to get to us through you.” Namjoon explained. 

“They see you as our weakness.” 

“But the first time they appeared, when all of you were still wolves, before all of this happened. We weren’t mates yet, right? Or at least, not verbally claimed as mates.” You said. 

“They must have assumed then because they found the whole pack living with you. The other packs, even the rogues, would do anything to try and take down the royal pack and take their place. It’s one of the downsides of being royal, I guess. But don’t worry, we’ll never let them hurt you.” Yoongi rubbed the side of your arm in reassurance. 

“I trust you guys.” You forced a smile. 

“We’ll just have to patrol more and make sure that no one else crosses the border.” Jungkook shrugged. 

“They know where I live.” You said in realisation. All the other enemy wolf attacks have been in the area of your home. And today, the other wolf was waiting for you in front of your house while another attacked Jungkook. 

“Don’t worry. We will figure something out.” Taehyung comforted and you nodded your head. 

“Shall I make dinner?” You offered. 

“You don’t have to. We can just order delivery and relax.” Hoseok said. You shook your head, wanting to get your mind off thigns by cooking dinner for them. Besides, it has been a while since you cooked. 

“I can handle it. You guys just chill.” You waved them off. Having cooked with Yoongi and Jin, as well as make snacks with Jungkook, in their kitchen multiple times, you were quite familiar with the layout of the space and knew where everything was placed. 

“What shall we do?” Jimin asked. 

“Like Jungkook said, have more patrol. But they do know where she lives so that’s another problem. We can’t be there 24/7 just to wait for an enemy attack.” Namjoon said. 

“Why not?” 

“Because Tae, she needs her space too. She won’t like it and it is an invasion of her privacy.” Yoongi pointed out. 

“Maybe we can convince her to camp over here for a while? And just... stay in?” Jin suggested. 

“That’s not a bad idea, hyung. Either that or we travel for a few days just to let things settle. I’m not sure if getting her to stay here and abandoning the house is going to be so effective. She’ll get worried that someone might attack her cabin. And it’s her grandfather’s so all the more will she want to protect it from destruction.” Namjoon shook his head. 

“He’s right.” Yoongi nodded. 

“Then we go on a holiday instead? Firstly, she won’t let us pay for her. Secondly, she won’t skip exams or work just because we want to protect her.” Hoseok said and everyone nodded in agreement. 

“Let’s just bring the idea up. See what she says or how she reacts to it.” Jungkook told them. 

“Jungkook is right. But let’s tell her nicely and explain our reasons that we’re doing it to keep her safe and that we know it’s hard but we have to. Don’t make her upset or angry.” Namjoon said.

“Asking her to skip exams, skip work and stay with us? Hyung, she might get angry either way.” Taehyung stated.

“Boys, cut the mental conversation. Dinner is ready.” You laughed as you called out to them. For dinner, you made bibimmyeon with pan seared beef slices on the side, the boys’ favourite. They all sat down with stiff looks on their faces, making you a little worried. 

“What?” You asked. 

“Nothing.” Jungkook shook his head. 

“It’s not nothing if you guys all have the same look on your face.” You said as you took all the cutlery from the kitchen and handed them out. 

“Let’s eat first, okay?” Jin ruffled your hair. You nodded and sat down. The boys tried their best to act normal and still have the usual conversations with you through the dinner. 

“There are still 4 exams to go.” You sighed. 

“Anyway, thanks again for what you did yesterday, Koo. I still feel so bad that you had to miss the exam and forfeit your exam entire grade because of me.” Your head hung low in guilt as you remembered what the teacher said.

“Don’t feel bad, (y/n). It’s not your fault and like I said, the exam and grade is more important to you than it is to me. I never wanted to take the exam anyway so I never really studied. I would rather me forfeit the grade than you. You’ve actually worked hard and you shouldn’t have to forgo your chance just because Kira decided to be a b*tch.” Jungkook shrugged. 

“Then why would you even go for the exam?” You asked. 

“I go for you. To support you.” He said honestly and you softened at that, reaching over to hold his hand. 

“That means a lot, Kookie. Thank you. But studies and grades are still important, okay?” You smiled, squeezing his hand lightly. He nodded obediently with a bunny smile. 

After dinner, you sat in the living room, waiting for the boys to clean up and do the dishes. You wanted to help but since you cooked, they didn’t allow it. 

“Coffee?” Yoongi asked. 

“Yes, please.” You smiled and he walked away to fix you an iced coffee. He set in front of you, taking the seat beside you. His hand squeezed your waist as he kissed your cheek lovingly. You yawned and leaned against his chest comfortably as you waited for the others. 

“All done?” Yoongi asked the 6 who came. They nodded and took their respective seats. 

“So, with what happened yesterday, it is normal for us to be concerned about your safety, (y/n). You’re our mate and we want to make sure your safe and well protected.” Namjoon said and you nodded. 

“We think it’s best that you come and stay with us temporarily. And just stay in for the time being.” He continued, looking at you.

“What do you mean?”

“Stay with us for now. And I know it’s going against what you want but we don’t think you should go to school for the remaining exams and work for a while.” Jin explained.

“You say it’s for the best. The best for me or you?” You asked. 

“Of course, you. This way, it’ll be easier to protect you. And since you’ll be with us and not alone, the enemies are less likely to strike, knowing that the 7 of us are here to defend you.” Yoongi said from beside you.

“I... I can’t.” You shook your head. 

“(y/n), we know you’re worried because it is your grandfather’s cabin. We promise to protect it and make sure that nothing happens to it. Our plan is to still be patrolling the area as we always do to make sure that no one else crosses over the border. As for work and exams, we have to prioritise your safety.” Hoseok informed. 

“How long will I have to stay here? Trapped?”

“You won’t be trapped, (y/n). We don’t know how long you’ll have to stay here. As long as we feel that there is a threat...” Jimin spoke. 

“Did you guys think about what I feel? Or did you make this decision for me?” You asked but it came out a lot colder than you wanted. Of course you knew the boys had your best interest at heart. 

“We’re not forcing you into a decision, (y/n). It’s just a discussion.” Jin tried to keep you calm, feeling your rising anger. They all felt it. 

“Then my answer is no. I’m not leaving my cabin, not skipping my exams or work.” You said firmly. 

“Why not?! It’s just a dumb exam! It won’t mean anything!” Taehyung grew ticked off. You looked away, taking a deep breath. 

“You asked me and my answer is no. I know you guys have my best interest at heart and are doing this for my safety. You know my grades mean a lot to me and working is the only way I can support myself independently. I’m sorry, I just can’t leave my life and home now.” You told them. 

“(y/n), just think about it.” Yoongi tried to persuade you. 

“I did. You guys know how much the exams mean to me. It’s a promise to my grandfather that I am going to keep.” 

“You keep going on about you and what you want! You’re being unreasonable. Do you think we want to do this, either? We’re doing it to protect you and keep you from getting hurt!” Jimin was also growing impatient.

“I’m not.” 

“You aren’t? You make it sound like we’re the selfish ones that want to rip you away from your life. It’s only temporary! Yet you’re not willing to compromise because of some stupid promise.” Taehyung sided with his best friend. 

“It’s not stupid...” You blinked away your tears. 

“That’s enough, you two.” Namjoon stepped in before things could get uglier.

“All we want to do is keep her safe, hyung! But she’s making it so hard. Is this what it is like having a human for a mate?!” Jimin yelled out in frustration. 

“Park Jimin!” Yoongi shouted. 

“I’m sorry you have a human for a mate then.” You whispered. Grabbing your bag, you wore your shoes and left the house. You went home and locked yourself in, feeling your heart break.

“Park Jimin, how dare you?!” Jin screamed. Jimin lowered his head, looking down as tears fell from his eyes. Namjoon sighed, rubbing his temples. That was not how the conversation was supposed to go. But he did predict that either way, one side would get hurt. He knew what your personality was like, you were strong headed and stuck to your beliefs. 

“Taehyung too!” Yoongi scolded. 

“Everyone just go to your rooms.” Namjoon used his leader authority. The 6 obediently retreated to their rooms. 

Namjoon took his keys and went down to the basement where the attacker from yesterday was chained up, with reinforced bars, made of silver, separating him and the weakened enemy. 

“Back... so soon?” The enemy smirked. 

“Your brother is dead. You shouldn’t be so confident in yourself.” Namjoon raised an eyebrow. 

“Lies.” The enemy said. 

“You think so? Because I cleaned the body this morning and it was very real. If it’s any consolation, I saved this.” Namjoon tilted his head as he took something out from his pocket. He dangled the shark tooth pendent from his hand. The enemy’s eyes widened as Namjoon smirked. 

“That’s what you get for trying to attack the princes’ mate.” Namjoon dropped the pendent, smashing it with his foot. 

“You f*cker!” The chained man shouted in rage.

*growl*

The enemy tried to shift but the silver chains that held him back didn’t allow him to do so. Namjoon just looked on in amusement. These people were the reason why his pack and mate were fighting. 

“You can’t stop us... We... will get... your precious... mate.” The enemy coughed out blood, spitting it onto the ground. Namjoon rolled his eyes. 

“It’s cute that you think you can still beat us.” Namjoon whistled as he walked up the stairs, leaving the enemy again. When he came out, he noticed the side door open and saw clothes on the door. Stepping closer, he recognised the clothes to belong to Jin. He guessed that Jin had gone to see how you were doing and comfort you. 

Namjoon was right, Jin stepped onto your front yard. He could hear your soft sobs from inside the house and his heart broke. 

“I hate that we’re the cause of your tears, my love.” Jin whimpered softly, threading over to the porch. He climbed up the two steps and sat by the door. Lifting up a paw, he hesitated to knock. 

“At the end of the day, I’ll just be alone.” He heard you say. 

“No, you’ll never be alone. I won’t allow it.” Jin put his paw down and just curled up by your door step. 

He knew Jimin and Taehyung were frustrated with you but at the same time, it wasn’t right for Jimin to say what he said. Even after knowing them and learning from them, the boys knew well enough that you were trying to grasp at the fact that werewolves were even real.

“Jin?” The door opened and Jin lifted his head. He whimpered at the sight of your red eyes and nose. Falling to your knees, you threw your arms around him to hug him. 

“I’m sorry.” You cried into his fur. 

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.” He leaned his head into yours, licking your cheek lightly. You let him come into the house and cuddled with him on the couch. Jin didn’t even make a sound, giving you peace and quiet. 

“Taehyung’s right, I’m selfish. I’m such a horrible mate.” You cried. 

“Don’t say that. You know that’s not true. You’re a wonderful mate. What Taehyung said was just out of anger. He doesn’t mean that. He just loves you, we all do. Don’t cry anymore, love.” Jin let out a short whimper. You rubbed your face into his fur, just enjoying his warmth and comfort. You were glad he was just here to listen to you. 

“Want a cookie?” You stood up and went to the kitchen. Jin barked in response, wagging his tail. 

“I’ve got you.” You came back with a jar of cookies you made and a tub of ice cream. Turning on the television, you scooped ice cream onto the cookie and took a bite, holding it out to Jin. 

“Hyung, where are you?” Yoongi asked. 

“With her.” He replied as he took a bite of the cookie, licking the ice cream that dripped onto your fingers. 

“Is she... okay?” Yoongi seemed hesitant to ask about how you were. 

“She’s... okay. Upset but not with us. I’m just here for her to let her cry on me. I don’t want her to think we’re angry and left her alone.” Jin explained, looking up at you, who was focused on the television. You felt his stare and turned to him, blinking. 

“Want more?” You tilted your head. Jin gave a nod and you held out some ice cream on the spare spoon you had. 

-

The next day, you grabbed your backpack and got ready for the next exam day. Glancing at your grandfather’s picture on your nightstand, you picked it up and smiled softly. 

“This is all for you.” You whispered and put the picture back down, slipping your blazer over your shoulders. As you stared at your reflection, your eyes zoomed in onto the white crystal that hung from your neck. The very thing that connects you and the boys. Sighing, you tucked it under your shirt and slung your bag over your shoulder to head downstairs. 

“Namjoon?” You saw the boy standing in your porch. He turned around and gave you a small smile. 

“What are you doing here?” You locked the door behind you. 

“Waiting for you. So we can go to school together.” He flashed you his dimple as he held your hand. You nodded your head and walked with him. The other boys were no where in sight. 

“They’re not coming... aren’t they?” You asked softly. 

“Hobi and Jin hyung are coming.” He tried to sound optimistic. On the bright side, you didn’t need to face Jimin and Taehyung for now. The other two werewolves came and greeted you normally. Jin hugged you while Hoseok ruffled your hair. 

“Are you okay?” Hoseok cupped your cheek to make you look at him. You nodded your head. 

“I love you.” He whispered, staring into your eyes. 

“I love you too.” You gave a small smile. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder, keeping it there for the rest of the journey. When the bus came to a stop, you got off with the 3. 

“Just focus on your exam, alright angel?” Namjoon stroked your cheek. You nodded your head obediently, hugging him. 

“Let’s go.” You all went in to sit. 

Yoongi groaned as he tossed in bed. He knew that Jin, Hoseok and Namjoon had gone to support you through your remaining exams. Even if he wanted to be there, he didn’t want to leave his room. He was still angry with Jimin and Taehyung for the way they acted and spoke to you. He knew the best option was for him to contain his anger to his room. 

‘All the best, jagi. I’m sorry I can’t be there. - Yoongi’

He sent you a text and flopped back onto the mattess. Soft hip hop music was playing through his bluetooth speakers. 

“Hyung, I’m going on patrol.” Jungkook informed with a knock. Yoongi grunted in response and heard the maknae’s retreating footsteps. He finally got up and opened the window. 

“I need a walk.” Yoongi jumped out the window, shifting in mid air and landing on his paws. He shook his fur and snorted before walking off into the forest. 

Jimin and Taehyung were in their own rooms, they have been there since last night, when Namjoon sent all of them away. Jimin cried the whole night while Taehyung was just brooding, staring at the blank wall. 

“I’m sorry you have a human for a mate then.”

Your crestfallen face would forever be imprinted on Jimin’s mind. He hated that he was the cause of your tears and heartbreak. Everything he said was just in a fit of anger. He knew it was immature and wrong of him to be venting it on you. Of course, he didn’t care if you were human or werewolf. 

He loves you. 

“You’re seriously stupid, Park Jimin.” He scolded himself, throwing his arm over his eyes as he sighed. 

Taehyung felt so much guilt. He knew he had no right to call your promise to your grandfather stupid, especially since he was the one you spilled all your worries and past to. 

“I’m sorry, my love.” Taehyung shook his head. Your grandfather was your world, he was there before any of the boys were. 

All the boys were well aware that you were not over your grandfather’s passing and it still made you sad when he was brought up in conversations. And yet, just to make you follow what they wanted, Taehyung did the worse by dismissing and insulting whatever promise or agreement you had with him before he died. 

“I’ll make it up to you.” He squeezed his green crystal with determination. 

~~

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[meichenxi]

Obsession, ‘productivity’ and habits vs routines: starting learning in a healthier way

cw: perfectionism, obsessiveness, allusion to eating disorders, depression, anxiety (very non-explicit) I’m going to be writing a series of posts from some asks I’ve had waiting for me, on how to build a cohesive language learning routine, but I wanted to preface that first with something we talk about less than we should in the language learning community: obsessiveness, perfectionism, recovery from mental health, and how to approach language learning in a better way. If the personal stuff bores you, feel free to skip the first two paragraphs. 

I have been trying to ‘be more productive’ - in healthy ways, and unhealthy ways - since I was about ten. If you don’t fit in, for whatever reason, hobbies - and especially creative or ‘productive’ ones - are a wonderful escape. They make you feel that it’s ok not to have friends; they let you look down on all those other stupid children with all the misplaced arrogance of every single bored, clever pre-teen. When I was twelve, I realised there was no point eating with people that didn’t like me and went to the library instead, because that was ‘dead time’. When I was fourteen, I realised getting the bus was ‘dead time’, and started doing Anki for two hours a day. When I was sixteen, I realised walking was ‘dead time’, and started either listening to podcasts or talking out loud. By the time I was eighteen, I was doing four A-levels in school, an EPQ, teaching myself an extra Latin GCSE, and taught myself the Spanish A-level in 3 months right before the exam. I also worked out for two hours a day - because eating lunch was ‘dead time’, and sleeping was ‘dead time’ - trained martial arts four evenings a week, tutored twice a week, had a part-time job as a waitress, played the flute in a prestigious orchestra, and was 150,000 words deep in the first draft of a very gay, Norse-mythology inspired fantasy novel. 

I had it all under control. My marks were excellent; I was a well-rounded person, musical and sporty and already decently on the way to becoming a polyglot, I was training to be a teacher, and I had plans to publish my novel. My home life was painful, but I was painfully independent with what I now like to call the ‘Elsa complex’. Or, actually, like Zuko: I could look after myself, by myself. It was all under control. 

I guess everyone can see where this is going. School ended, and with it came endless, open days. I fell apart. 

With endless surprise, I can now say that, four years later, I think I’ve come through the worst of it. I still have tendencies to get obsessive, but my anxiety and perfectionism are a lot better, I don’t dissociate, and I have - gasp! shock! - actual interest in life again. I never wrote that novel, but I’m still gay and still love Norse mythology, so I’m slowly finding my way towards writing again. What people don’t tell you about getting better, though, is that trying to define yourself, trying to find yourself, as a person who exists without mental illness, is very, very hard. Many of the things that you used to identify as core components of your personality or important values may have changed, and you may be hesitant about trying to take up hobbies that you used to enjoy because you recognise - and rightly so - that the incessant drive to be doing something, all the time, didn’t necessarily come from anywhere healthy. That those things which you clung to and which protected you may actually have ended up harming you in the end. A lot of figuring out old patterns of unhelpful thoughts involves realising that the things that you defended or framed as helping - weren’t. That’s a hard thought, especially because those mechanisms developed to try and protect you, one that’s immeasurably sad. 

Seperating your reasons for doing something obsessively and your love of it in the first place, before it became unhealthy, is difficult. And it means that when you feel - finally, finally - ready to start tackling something like language learning again, you end up sorting of approaching it sideways, shiftily, as if you’re hoping to trick yourself into it. It’s a delicate thing, like a baby bird, and it’s dangerous too, because if you do everything which you did before - the only thing you know how to do - it’s not going to work. And every time it fails is personal, because being able to do it again represents getting better, and reclaiming parts of your identity mental illness stole, and it hurts.

I’m writing this post because somebody asked me about my approach to creating a successful language learning routine. And I do have a lot of thoughts - but I wanted to preface that post with this one, to say:

If you are reading this to be more productive, if it is becoming obsessive, if you want to fit the most possible language learning into the tightest schedule possible, STOP. Take care of yourself. These tips for ‘productivity’ are for people who want to learn a little bit more about organising their time, and are in the right space to add more learning to their life. If you are only defined by what many hours you get done a day, if that’s what motivates you, these tips are not for you. Look after yourself. 

And on that note, here’s a confession: I don’t have - have never had - a successful language learning routine. Because of what happened, the only way I can keep going and prevent myself from falling into bad habits is if I approach it sideways, if I pretend I’m not taking it seriously, because I know if I don’t things will go wrong. But I want to be honest and upfront because I know a lot of people read my posts for advice and say that this doesn’t work for me. It might not work for you either. I especially know there are a lot of conceptions of successful langblrs with 7, 8, 9 etc languages in the title - that that we spend 5 hours a day on Anki, fall asleep to Glossika, and so on. And it’s especially important to mention now, because I feel like my language learning habits have only started being healthy in the last year or so - essentially since I started actually enjoying Chinese media. I could teach you how to cram every spare second with language learning, or how to successfully pass an A-level in 3 months with no teachers. I was good (and arrogant, and cocky, and needed bringing down a peg or two). But I won’t.

What I do have are succesful language learning habits. Apart from being a generally more flexible appraoch for all learners, the advantage of building successful habits over a fixed routine is that it allows for learning according to different in energy levels, how busy you are, what you find difficult and what else is going on in your life. Most crucially for me is that it is always a much healthier approach, because what I do is not based on number of hours, or number of units a week, or anything quantifiable that allows me to get obsessive again or frustrated that I’m not doing enough. 

Routine is important, especially when it comes to routinising daily tasks. The only thing I have is that sometimes - on good weeks, and once or twice even shockingly on good months - I have a decent Anki streak going. That’s it. I don’t listen every day - I don’t read every day - I certainly don’t do grammar every day. There’s nothing specific I do every day, though I usually rack up a good few hours of immersion or study - to be honest, I fail at Anki probably at least 60% of the time. Everything else - all these tips I have written about - I do as and when. Framing it in such vague terms makes it sound like I must have an extraordinary amount of motivation to keep going, that maybe I’m just lucky to be interested etc, but that’s really not the case. What I have done to keep learning regularly and somewhat successfully (I hope!!) without limiting myself to a routine which I know I will starting obsessing over is tying specific language learning behaviour to certain moods or levels of concentration. 

All routine is just habit. Habit, with a ribbon and packaged nicely. But allowing yourself to adapt your learning to the circumstances gives you more flexibility than any strict routine, and is more sustainable in the long term. What building habits rather than a specific routine does is allow you to learn what works best when, what works when you’re tired, and what is best to do when you have energy, or when you want to watch a show, or talk to people. It puts you at the centre of your language learning, rather than framing language learning as a central part of you. 

So how can we build healthy habits? How can we utilise ‘dead time’ whilst keeping it light, and fun? How can we adapt our language learning for times when we are tired, and stressed? Or what about when we don’t have time to give 100% of our attention or concentration? How can we identify our own strengths, our own weaknesses, and unite these with our personal goals to figure out what to prioritise in active studying, and what to do when we don’t have the energy for that? 

I’ll give my thoughts on all of these over the next couple of weeks, in what I hope will be a comprehensive overview of how best to practice, addressing everything from how to practice speaking to how to start as a complete beginner. If you have any thoughts or interim questions, or if you’d like to add your own experience to anything I have said, please feel free to!

In the mean time - 

chenxi out.