#i like to think the theater kids suggested they do that play in her honor since its called the tempest lol

[jennyboom21]

It might seem strange, especially for those who only know Marshawn Lynch for his football career, to see the Super Bowl champ in a comedy about queer high school girls launching a fight club.

Bottoms (in theaters now) features the 37-year-old former NFL star in a scene-stealing role as Mr. G, a clueless teacher overseeing the feminist after-school club launched by Rachel Sennott’s PJ and Ayo Edebiri’s Josie. Even the film’s director and co-writer, Emma Seligman, admits she initially thought landing Lynch was a long shot.

“It was such a random movie for him to be in that I was so shocked that he even was considering it,” the Shiva Baby filmmaker (who goes by she/they pronouns) tells PEOPLE.

But the real reason for this unlikely casting is altogether more personal: Marshawn Lynch’s queer sister, Marreesha Sapp-Lynch, says he asked her whether to add Bottoms to a growing acting résumé that includes Westworld and Murderville.

“From the beginning when he read the script, he said that I came to mind,” recalls Sapp-Lynch, 34. “I was like, ‘Most definitely you should do it.’ I just told him, ‘It'll get you to understand, get more knowledge about the lesbian community.”

Like the characters of PJ and Josie, Sapp-Lynch has identified as a lesbian since high school. It felt easy coming out to her mother Delisa, she remembers — “She'll tell me to this day, 'I always knew you liked girls!'” — but brothers David, Marshawn and Davonte had a less straightforward reaction.

“They were understanding, but they didn't understand,” Sapp-Lynch tells PEOPLE. “Marshawn had a lot of questions and was thinking it was his fault: ‘What did I do?’ Because growing up he would always say I couldn't have a boyfriend, ‘You can't talk to boys.’ We’d go to a party and he'd be asking everybody, ‘Did you dance with my sister?’ But I wasn't attracted to boys, so I didn't dance with them!”

Her brother has accepted and celebrated her sexual orientation since those teenage years, Sapp-Lynch says. Case in point: Marshawn helped plan her 2021 wedding and walked her down the aisle.

“I asked him to walk me down the aisle because our dad passed away,” says Sapp-Lynch with a smile. “He cried the whole time,” she adds.

“He doesn’t cry — or I don't see him cry. The fact that he did cry and shed some tears, it meant a lot to me.” (Marshawn was so invested in his sister’s wedding, in fact, he urged the pair to reschedule it from 2023 to 2021. “He was very much involved in the whole planning... He called us at 5:00 a.m. talking about the cake designs and party favors.”)

But with Bottoms, a comedy produced by Amazon’s Orion Pictures and Elizabeth Banks’ Brownstone Productions, Marshawn had a bigger opportunity to honor his sister. Discussing the role of Mr. G with the footballer, Seligman, 28, remembers thinking there must have been “more of a connection here beyond him wanting to be in a funny movie or something.”

“In his words, he said he wasn't amazing about it when Marreesha came out in high school and that he felt like this was the universe giving him a chance to right his wrongs,” she adds. “He made it seem like that was really what was interesting him the most about it.”

Throughout the film’s shoot in New Orleans, Seligman says, “he kept on bringing up Marreesha.” Especially when Sapp-Lynch and her wife visited the set, she recalls, “He kept on being like, ‘That's my sister.’ In a way where it was like a proud parent [of queer kids] — a proud brother.”

And when Orion Pictures president Alana Mayo suggested Marshawn for Mr. G, Seligman says, she realized it might expand the moviegoing audience of Bottoms. “Him believing in these girls and getting to know them and getting to understand them means a lot in the grand scheme of things within the crazy conservative town that they're in.”

Plus, the story’s homophobic characters are obsessed with the high school football team, Seligman points out. “To have a legendary football player like him playing this character that's getting to know this subsection of this town, and see them as real people with valid desires and hormones and feelings — that's pretty cool that Marshawn is representing that kind of straight, male character.”

Sapp-Lynch agrees, and says seeing a movie full of gay characters like Bottoms while coming out in high school “would've helped me make me feel easier, make me feel better about me being who I am.”

“I didn't understand my sexuality in high school, so I actually think it might've freaked me out,” admits Seligman. “It would've excited me. Maybe it would've jumpstarted some things!”

Of co-writing the film with Sennott, she says, “I really just wanted to see my high school self in a stupid comedy.” She recalls a quote from Edebiri: “Being stupid is a political act.”

“Just having queer characters in something so silly and that's not serious feels subversive,” Seligman continues. “I don't think we're trying to prove anything political or have some sort of deeper message or meaning out of the movie. Other than ‘Gay people can be funny, sexy and horny, and that's normal.’ Sometimes just normalizing something is enough.”

“Marshawn in the movie,” she adds, “beyond him being a wonderful actor and improviser and a lovely human being, it is wild that it might be seen by so many more people who wouldn't have otherwise seen it.”

[theguardianace]

AROACE POLYSHO ???? SPILL SPILL SPILL TWLL ME ALL ABOUT IT PLEASE

AROACE POLYSHOW AROACE POLYSHOW THE GREATEST THING OF ALL TIME.

things of note that i think are fun.... nene and rui had major questioning phases pre-wxs about being aroace. i'd imagine nene being really confused why everyone around her seemed so interested in dating and romance and the whole amatanormative feel of dramatic media and such. it's in so many plays, and people get in so many shipping wars/draw suggestive art for games. it's hard to ignore as a theater kid and gamer. she didn't get it and felt isolated. she came across the term aroace online but had a hard time accepting that she might be that, but eventually silently embraced it. rui on the other hand knew full well he was not like other people. he's not the kind of guy who would pick and choose a crush that isn't there. being aroace and a middle/high schooler made him feel even more lonely and alienated from his peers. he agknowledged the fact he was aroace pretty easily, but it took him a lot longer to accept that isn't a bad thing at all.

emu and tsukasa had NO clue they were aroace. did not occur to them at all. emu had to be told it was a thing and she went "huh? OHHH THATS ME !!!! :D". skipped teh entire questioning/am i broken stage and went right to "hehehehehehe". (though other people don't believe her that often. emu is so full of love. how could someone like her not fall in love with other people? she's too young. she hasn't met the right person yet. it's just a phase. her siblings started off as ignorantly aphobic, but then realized the fault of their ways and learned.). my hc for tsukasa is a bit different than other peoples, but i am fully convinced he thought he was bisexual for teh LONGEST time. "guys and girls can both be good looking, so i must be bi! yeah the extent of my feelings is "they're cool" ... what do you mean that's not what a crush is". it was a shocking revelation to him that people actually want to kiss/have sex for real. he's accepted being aroace and actively embraces it, though he still feels connected to teh bi label. he'd like the concept of tertiary attraction and probably label as bi aroace, to honor both.

i like to think that tsukasa accidentally came out first (accidentally meaning he simply forgot to tell them and then was surprised when they were all surprised). emu was like !!!!! omg samsies and nene laughed and came out, too. wxs were the first people rui ever said the words "aromantic asexual" out loud to.

i personally think aroace polyshow never actually labeled themeselves as such, but BOY do tehy act like they're all married. they just care about each other soooooo much. its platonic its queer platonic its romantic its everything all blended together. if its them, they can do anything. with the shared knowledge of being aroace, they all also sort of feel more comfortable being openly affectionate, yknow? there's no risk of misinterpretation of intent- they love each other. they love each other in a way that they cannot describe and most people wouldn't understand. they are tied by their love of shows and their love of each other. emu is really physically affectionate and they all feel safe cuddling with her. rui lightheartedly flirts and half the time i dont think he even realizes he's doing it, the other half he's just trying to be silly. nene excels in the silent acts of love, making sure the stage is clean and there's always a few snacks backstage and honeslty just being there for everyone.

they have game night/sleepover every once in a while, usually during planning stages of shows. there's also a high likelyhood one goes to another's house at least once a week for some reason.

oh also they never do romance plays ever. it was a revelation tehy only came to after coming out. it just... never occured to them to do one. and now that they all know none of them can fall in love they actively try and avoid it. they've re-written fables to be about the power of friendship, or re-imagined the tale to the point romance wouldn't even be on anyone's mind. it's not a theme the audience ever picks up on, but at the same time they do? they don't realize the pattern but nobody ever comes out of a show with that interpretation. their shows are a hit every time, too. ("story" doesn't mean "romance", after all).

wonderlands x showtime isn't a romance. it's a love story.

[tillxthexearthxstartsxtoxcrumble]

Little details in The Phantom Of The Opera movie that I love so much cause I just watched it for the first time in years again and I will be mentioning my point of view now vs when I was a kid. Also this is in honor of it closing on Broadway today, it's truly an amazing musical

My mom had watched this musical since she was a kid and it's a favorite of hers so this is also one I watched with her and we shared things we liked throughout it :)

Just so everyone knows, as a kid I didn't understand anything bad about what the phantom was doing but I knew he was treated horribly and I sympathized with him a lot.

Warning: this is a very long post. I just started liveblogging at one point and never went back.

This was emobviously entirely intentional but the color coming back as it lights up in fire is truly one of the best things that could have ever been done with a movie and I will NEVER get over it. Best part of those flash forwards

Lot 666. The freaking chandelier falling. I'm just. Yeah. That's cool.

My mom saw a performance of this off Broadway but still in a big theater and they did light a fire and raise a chandelier for it and she mentions that anytime we talk about this musical. It was truly an amazing experience for her

THE TRUMPETSSSSSSS. I'm such a band nerd but I am gonna try and convince my band director to let us perform this cause we have a copy in the music library (also happy birthday to my band director cause it probably won't still be his birthday when this is posted but it is as I'm writing this)

She says she thinks of her as a daughter and yet she's aware of everything and lets it happen...

My mom said she didn't like Raoul until the movie and as a kid I didn't care for him (as I said, I cared for the phantom) but rewatching it now they're kinda cute with how excited they are when they recognize each other. More comments on them later, probably.

CHRISTINE IS GLOWING LITERALLY DURING THE PERFORMANCE. LITERALLY.

Because it's my current binging show and I'm emotionally attached, I have to mention- the actress playing Christine is truly incredible because I'm watching her in Shameless rn and it's truly amazing seeing her in both of these

CHRISTINE AND RAOUL SINGING TOGETHER AT ALL IS JUST THE BEST THING FOR THE EARS

SHE WATCHES HIM LOCK CHRISTINE IN WHY FORS SHE JUST STAND BY?! MA'AM I UNDERSTAND SYMPATHY, I HAD IT FOR HIM AS A KID TOO, BUT YOU'RE A GROWN ASS ADULT WITH A KID AND A SURROGATE CHILD. COME ON.

I mentioned this with my mom but I am really into color theory and white usually represents purity and innocence, which is why I find it interesting how his MASK is literally the color meaning innocene and then later on in the film he has a black mask when even Christine knows he is not the wonderful angel she though he was, and he doesn't get back his mask of innocence And the mask is even taken off. Which also, there is a beauty when reading into color symbolism how black represents evil and death and he has a black mask when going after so many people to kill and then she removes his mask and she has sympathy for him. Because while he is truly terrible for all he's done, he is a damaged creature that has never been shown love and she pities him. Doesn't change or make anything he has done okay but if there was much thought behind that, I love it.

Watched a Cinema Therapy episode on this (HIGHLY suggest checking them out, they're amazing!!! You can find them on YouTube!) But they mention how his lyrics are all very possessive and her love song with Raoul is all about sharing. I love it.

Time to acknowledge the elephant in the room cause the casting of Gerard Butler is very controversial apparently but my mom told me she read an article saying that they chose him because he was an untrained singer, as the phantom was meant to be. I understand both sides of the arguments on his casting, because while yes the authenticity of the character making it more realistic with singing ability, he was meant to be this amazing singer who literally sang like an angel so getting a trained actor may have been better but idk. I still love it

Sir get your hands off her you literally watched her grow up while you were an adult already.

The difference in perspective between Christine and what the reality was being shown is something that makes me appreciate it being a movie. There being rats and it being dark and damp as the reality vs Christine seeing it all lit up and beautiful and mysterious.

Nah man cause Christine is my favorite voice in this but I AM OBSESSED WITH RAOUL'S VOICE HOLY HELL

Nah man if I had literally seconds notice to play an unplanned song in band I'd lose my shit

The cinematography in this is just so beautiful oh my gosh

Okay more on the color theory a little bit with the masks. The masquerade scene- my mom told me the live performance was quite colorful during this but it was more black and white in this and it's interesting to me that they choose now to have the both black and white here. Because Christine sees through The Phantom mostly, but still believes him to be some angel in some form, and until she goes to the cemetery he will stay that way. The mask he enters with here, while still white was shaped much like a skull. Still the purity, but the death behind it that she now knows. It's also covering his whole face now.

He falls down into a firey pit. They're really not hiding the symbolism I just love pointing out the details

I hate people. I completely understand why he killed the guy and why she got him away. (I just don't like that she continues with it)

The song at the Graveyard is just. Yeah.

The red lighting is yet again making me think of color theory however I just can't get over their singing together in this song holy shit.

HE HAS THE WHITE MASK BACK WHEN HE WAS TRYING TO GET HER BACK AND SHE WAS GOING, IT WASN'T UNTIL HE FOUGHT RAOUL AND HURT HIM THAT IT CHANGED

Raoul I care for you a lot buddy but why share your plan when you know the man lives there and hears everything

They're covering their ears for his opera.

Yet again gonna mention the literal fire they have on the stage. Hell, but also passion and the danger.

Her straps of her dress are up before he shows up. One strap has fallen to her shoulder when he shows up and as she realizes it's him, both fall down. His play is titled "Don Juan" after the famous man who dedicated his life to seducing all women he could. Also this is Gerard Butler's best song vocal wise in my opinion

SHE LIFTS HER SLEEVES BACK UP THEN HE SINGS THE LINE "beyond the point of no return" AND THEN SHE LOOKS AT RAOUL AND HE REALIZES. Is this anything? Possibly not but it's 1 am at this moment

Her sleeves go back down when she turns back to him and sings the same lines as him.

Holy fuck their voices in this song too.

Raoul I'm so sorry my guy I saw those tears in your eyes.

She was acting along with everything he wanted but as he sang the song she thought was secret with her lover, she moved and started to tear up. Then she takes off his mask.

They fall down through the flames. I've already mentioned it but just... I love it

Okay idk if people will agree and I know there wasn't this much information on her in the Broadway performance but she stopped her daughter from going with them and brought Raoul down there. She has been shown to know his traps and the way out of them, where he hides and where he stays. She wouldn't let her daughter go, and stops, then sends him to go on alone and he ends up falling into a trap. She's shown that she is loyal to the phantom so far, who's to say she wouldn't try to sabotage Raoul?

I love how she isn't sympathetic at first, she was ANGRY and rightfully so. She sees a way out later and shows him compassion and love that he has never known

THE WAY HE SINGS "I fought so hard to free you" SO SOFTLY AS HE LOOKS AT HER BREAKS MY HEART MAN.

The fact that she mouths "I love you" to Raoul before she acts that way with the phantom.

He's shown love for the first time and it breaks him.

Okay further providing evidence of my theory that the surrogate mother (I forget her name ngl) wasn't so good- she was shown earlier to know the way that Christine was always taken there and that's the way the other people come in (as far as I could tell she wasn't with them) but she led Raoul the way that there was a trap door...

Going back to the white mask being the mask of the purity and innocence... the monkey was shown with him when he was a child. Not that exact one, I don't think, but a monkey was there and the white mask of purity (the way he was as a child) being left with it and him looking at it earlier on with no mask at all, after she shows him love and says that his face is not the monstrous side of him. Idk, I just loved that.

[lydia-yougowith-stiles]

My Top Ships of 2020

It’s FINALLY here!! The list of my top ships of 2020. What a year it was and I can’t believe it’s already January 8th as I’m writing this. Just like I mentioned with my 2020 TV Wrap Up, a lot of these ships helped me escape during 2020. I can’t wait to see where they’re headed for 2021. I have also started watching a few things in December, but I will be saving those ships for my 2021 list. (You’ll notice I have already expanded this list from last year.) Last year, I debated about including an Honorable Mentions sections. This year I will be including it because I wanted to still talk about these ships, but found it hard to rank them with the others. Without further ado here we go!  

Oh! One last thing. Compared to previous years Bellarke has not made it on this list. J. Roth did us dirty with this last season of the 100 and I will pretend it didn’t exist. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

~ Anne with an E: Jerry and Diana

These two were SOOO CUTE until Diana started acting rude and left our perfect boy Jerry. Watching this last season back, I grew not to like this couple as much as I did the first time. This most definitely had to do with the fact that I knew the outcome AND I could see Diana using him more earlier. She wanted to experience something different and rebel and Jerry was there. But they were so cute as they walked home together and shared books. I’m also really proud of Anne for sticking by Jerry when she found out the truth about their relationship. (As you probably already know I love Jerry so much and don’t want any harm to come for him, so this was a tough one, but yes I’m still including it.) 

~Umbrella Academy: Klaus and Dave

I started watching Umbrella Academy this year, so I was lucky to not just experience the first season, but also the second. I instantly fell in love with Klaus and Dave and we barely got any scenes with them. (That’s my main reason for making them an honorable mention rather than a permanent spot on this list.) I wish we had more scenes with them in love. We do get some great moments in scene two with a younger Dave, which highlights Klaus’ love for him, but it’s not the same. I really love how much Dave changed Klaus. I would argue they’re my favorite romantic relationship on the show. 

~Walking Dead World Beyond: Hope and Elton

Here’s my classic shipping people together who weren’t technically romantic (but honestly those often make the best and most satisfying ships if the writers open their eyes to the chemistry that is on screen...but I digress). While they technically weren’t “romantic” you could tell that Elton grew to have a crush on Hope as the season went on. There was definitely a lot going on between their characters as Hope ***I’m going to try and avoid a spoiler here*** was one of the last people to see Elton’s mom. I think there’s potential for these two down the road and as there are only 2 seasons slotted for Walking Dead World Beyond, I can only hope this is the path the writers take. 

~Violetta: Angie and Pablo

Okay, so even if you have not heard of the Disney Channel telenovela “Violetta” or seen many of my posts, can you just appreciate the chemistry in the above moment between these two people! For a good amount of season 1 of the show, Angie and Pablo were the couple for me and I was ESTATIC when they finally got together. I anticipated it wouldn’t be for long because of slight spoilers and more intuition, but god were they beautiful together. Friends to lovers to the extreme. Screw Herman! Now as I’m slowing watching season 3, I know these two won’t be OTP, but I can savor in this moment and remember the good times. 

17. Violetta: Violetta and Leon

Two back to back Violetta appreciation posts. This show took up my entire 2020 from awaiting for season 2 (and 3) on Disney Plus, as well as watching the 80 episodes (a piece!). Currently, I’m trying to get back into wanting to watch season 3 (as other shows took precedent). With the amount of Violetta I watched, I couldn’t leave Violetta and Leon off this list. They were the favored ship of the show (and one of the most central). In season 1 it took me a little time to like them together, but by episode 35 I could feel the mutual attraction. I remember the moment of them singing/playing piano together. I knew they’d be endgame. My main complaint is that when these two are a part they are SUPER ANNOYING! Like they (specifically I’m thinking of Leon) say rude things about the other person and I’m like how could you be okay to get back together? Their best moments are definitely in season 2, whether singing to the other person or imagining singing to them. Definitely at the end of the season when they’re in Spain. I still have to watch the end of their love story, so I hope it’s satisfying.

16. High School Musical the Musical the Series: Nini and Ricky 

So I added this ship onto my list long before I knew about any real-life/personal drama that was happening among the cast. I considered taking it off the list, but as I am discussing the fictional characters I decided to leave it. High School Musical the Musical the Series was a very early 2020 watch. I liked the show more than I was expecting and was upset to hear that season 2 wouldn’t include a performance of High School Musical 2. (I mean, Beauty and the Beast...really?) This was one of those extremely rare times where I actually liked a ship that was the main ship. Usually, I favor the other part of the love triangle or the underappreciated part. I was both shocked and happy when Ricky and Nini kissed in the finale and got together. Of course the final episode ended with some hurtles for season 2 (which now I guess there will be even more), but it was good to see them together and happy. 

15. Legacies: Hope and Josie

With all of these shows ending earlier than they should have due to COVID, I feel like I’m going to sound like a broken record when I say I don’t remember a lot of what happened in this last season. (I guess for 2021 I’ll have to take more thorough notes, but then again you can see which ships I like more.) With Hope and Josie, season 2 was a bit of a rough road. I mean, what do you expect when you erase yourself from existence for the greater good, which means that your boyfriend hooks up with your friend/eventual lover? (Yes, I added in that second part.) Josie and Landon felt very awkward in the beginning of this season when they were in “love” and forgot about Hope. (I rarely heard anyone say they liked them together.) It got more awkward when Hope came back in the picture and had to watch them together. Then we had that spill with Josie being evil (which I was surprised they tackled so early on in the show. Feels like a later plot to explore). Due to all these hurtles, there were less opportunities for my OTP of Legacies. The best moment we got was in the above photo when Hope went into Josie’s subconscious and was speaking to Josie as a fictional pig the whole time. We will never forget how the “pig” suggested Hope kiss her awake. Come on Julie! Give us what we want! 

14. Single Parents: Will and Angie

Will and Angie were far down on my Top Ships last year. Another friends to lovers, you could just feel the chemistry between these two and that was strengthened in season 2. (I just loved some couples more this year I guess.) Last year, they couldn’t really act on too much romance between these two because of Poppy and Douglas’ relationship, but as those two had some drama this season, Will and Angie had a greater chance of getting together. We watched moments where the two pretended to be a couple (for the sake of Will’s parents) and eventually Will came to the realization of his feelings for Angie. In a classic season 2 plot device of a sitcom, Angie decided to go with her real-life husband/Graham’s dad at the end of the season. But you could see she also had feelings for Will and they HAVE to act on those next season. I can’t remember if the show got a third season, and I will be crushed if they didn’t. Previously, they’ve been mid-season starts so I feel hopeful.  

13. Emma: Emma and Knightley

The last movie I watched in movie theaters was Emma. While it makes me sad that I haven’t been able to go back since, this film was a great one to hold this memory. As an avid Jane Austen fan (and period drama as you will continue to notice), I LOVED this Emma and Knightley pairing. This couple is one of my favorites of the Austen heroines and heroes and I have many favorite reincarnations from Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller to Joanna Sotomura and Brent Bailey in Emma Approved (still so sad those two broke up). So it was very hard to live up to what I’ve watched and liked before. Anya Taylor-Joy and Johnny Flynn did not disappoint and will be one of the combos I think of when I re-visit the novel. I love how we didn’t focus on their crazy age difference and really highlighted on their relationship as family friends and going back a long time. I specifically like the decision to bring in some early nods to Knightley admitting his feelings for Emma and then not doing so because of the presence of Frank Churchill. Just talking about all of this makes me want to re-watch the movie all over again. :) **If you’re a fan of this combo or Emma/Knightley in general that you have to watch this video. It is amazing! 

12. Avatar The Last Airbender: Zuko and Katara

Another binge from 2020. I watched Avatar the Last Airbender in the summer and was amazed by the story-telling and how deep they could get for a kid’s program. Despite, being in MS/HS when the show originally aired, I hadn’t watched it before. So many people had told me to do and then with the help of Netflix, I felt the pull to do so during quarantine. When I headed into the show, I thought Zuko and Katara eventually got together. Mainly, because I know the fandom and love for them is so strong. I instantly felt this too. There were so many great parallels between there characters. (I mean clearly we have the whole water and fire dynamic.) Even when these two weren’t in scenes together I was thinking about how well they’d work together. So needless to say I was disappointed when they didn’t get to be endgame. We did a lot of great moments at the end of season two and definitely with season three. The Last Agni Kai scene will forever give me chills and represent how deep Zutara is. The evidence is all right there. Such a great ship. 

11. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: Zoey and Max

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist was one of my favorite watches of 2020 and such a feel good show for a moment with a lot of uncertainty. (I highly recommend if you haven’t watched it. Season 2 just started on NBC this week.) For a while I felt very on the fence if I shipped Zoey more with Simon or Max. As you can notice friends to lovers has been a common thread with my posts (although I LOVE a good enemies to lovers) and Max was that 100%. Plus, he’s played by Skylar Astin so what’s not to love. Despite, all of that I felt both of the men in Zoey’s life had potential and I could be happy if she ended up with either one. By episode 6 I was leaning towards Max (if I’m remembering correctly this would be the “When I Wake Up” number with the scooter) and then by episode 8 I was all in! I mean she sang “I’m Yours” to him. (Episode 8 was one of my favorites for the whole season. She did a fantastic job singing and I loved the twist of events. Also, Max being there for her was adorable. The “Pressure” song in the conference room OMG, get me a Max!) The only thing that upset me about their relationship and Max’s character was how sudden his emotions were. It became all or nothing and it felt like too much. He shouldn’t have given Zoey an ultimatum like that. Once he went to work upstairs, I grew to not like this character. Luckily by the last episode I saw some of the old Max again. We’ll see what happens with this new season. 

10. Julie and the Phantoms: Julie and Luke

Julie and the Phantoms: I cannot talk highly enough of this show. It is amazing and everyone needs to be watching it. Of course, it was created by Kenny Ortega so need I say more...but there is so much more to appreciate too. The actors are fantastic and I love the characters they portray! I also can’t stop listening to the music. But this moment is for Julie and Luke, sorry, I should stop promoting the show :) It was very obvious that two members of the band should fall in love and with Julie and Luke both writing their own music and being passionate about their craft it became a no-brainer that they should end up catching feelings for one another. Of course, there’s the major hurtle that he’s a ghost, but we can figure that out in season 2. Luke is obviously the better pick for Julie (Nick who?). They are just so adorable together and I can’t get over that moment when he talks to her at school by her locker and she pretends to talk on her phone. The way they look at each other says it all. (Such great acting!) Then there’s Edge of Great and Luke’s guitar solo. OH! They’re so meant for each other. While no season 2 announcement has been realized yet, there’s no way this show does not get renewed. 

9. The 100: Murphy and Emori

Okay, so I know this sounds hypocritical that I said I won’t think the last season of the 100 exists and here are Murphy and Emori. But in my defense they are the best part of this season and my love for them as a couple really came to a head this season. Murphy had so much character growth and I was fearing for his life almost every episode. Same went for Emori especially after her accident I didn’t feel positive. These two (along with Raven) were the shining beacon in a very disappointing and confusing season. I love how close they are and how strong they make each other. They have been through so much and it was nice to see them so happy (despite everything going on). You just knew they’d always have each other’s backs no matter what. 

8. Violetta: Fran and Diego

I feel like I would do anything for this ship and I have so many more episodes of season 3 to go. (So that’s saying something.) Another Violetta ship, but arguably the best and one that I know is endgame because I grew so obsessed that I started searching for spoilers early on. (That’s how you know it’s bad. Especially when you’re watching YouTube videos without subtitles, so you have no idea what they’re saying, but they look happy and therefore you are happy.) Fran and Diego only got together in the third and finale season of Violetta. Previously, they were a part of different romances (Diego a major one with Violetta), but at the start of this season they are put together in a lot of situations and quickly grow a strong relationship. You can feel the chemistry instantly! They just fit each other so well. Their singing voices together-OMG! While it took FOREVER for their relationship to be public knowledge, I really haven’t had any other problems with them together. (And with 80 episodes it could easily be the case.) A positive of having more than 30 episodes to go: I have more opportunity to fall even more in love with these two. 

7. Sanditon: Esther and Babington

I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH! I watched Sanditon so long ago that my memory could get fuzzy, but one thing that stands out clearly is how great it was watching Esther and Babington get together. When thinking about this show people will probably immediately think of Sidney and Charlotte and while they are great and the central couple of the series, these two have my heart. Esther has SO MUCH character growth and development and Babington is a big influence on that. He helps her to see that she can be so much more than what she currently is doing and gets her away from her brother and that lifestyle. For a bit it was touch and go and I wasn’t sure if the two would be endgame, but luckily they were. It appeared to be a marriage out of friendship/necessity. Babington is fine with loving Esther more and hoping she’ll grow to love him. This quickly changes with a scene where we see the two looking very much in love. While this show only used Jane Austen’s unfinished novel as a stepping stone and became a lot more modern (than most fans liked), I thought it did a nice job with several aspects. The main one being Esther’s character. It is a show that I will definitely be re-watching and will always be upset that it did not get a second season. 

6. Legends of Tomorrow: Ava and Sara

A great ship since Ava was introduced. These two balance each other out so well and are one of the most constant ships on the show. (As the Waverider’s doors continue to be revolving in recent seasons.) Each season we watch their relationship deepen and I truly felt that with this most recent season of Legends. Now this might sound super ironic, because from what I can remember (remember 2020 brain, it’s been a while since watching), Sara was off the Waverider a lot, leaving Ava in charge. Sara was away for so many episodes that I started to question (and do a lot of Google searching) if she was leaving the show. Despite the two being a part, I feel we got to know Ava’s character more. She has definitely grown since we first met her all those seasons ago. Due to this development, I felt this couple deserved this spot on the list. When we got to the end of last season ***SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*** and it looked like Sara (and actually all the Legends) might die, my heart broke for them. Ava and Sara deserve the world. And with the way the finale ended it’s going to be some time till they get it. Once again, Legends is the best CW Superhero show (I said it) and everyone should be watching it.

5. The Spanish Princess: Mary Tudor and Charlie Brandon 

This ship is so underappreciated and deserves to be talked about more!!! (Another common thread in many of these entries.) I have searched for Tumblr posts and YouTube videos and have only found a few dedicated to this couple. There needs to be more!! As the second season of the Spanish Princess dragged for me a bit, once Mary Tudor and Charlie Brandon got more screen time and a plot-line I was instantly sucked in. They nicely balanced the falling out of love of Katherine and Harry. There should have been more scenes with Mary and Charlie. Right away, you could feel some sort of chemistry, but Mary had to be married to the King of France. Then the King dies and she’s promised to pick a marriage of love for her second marriage. Knowing her brother and expecting that she will be married off again she marries the messenger come to get her from France, Charlie Brandon. Super intrigued by their story I looked up the history of the real Mary and Charlie Brandon and their story matches very closely. They got married despite the King’s rules and had many children together. It seems to be a marriage of love like she wanted. This couple will forever be one of my favorites. 

They are also one of my major reasons for wanting to watch the Tudors. While they completely change the Mary and Charles romance (Firstly by naming her Margaret), at least it was very easy to watch. As Charles Brandon is played by the beautiful Henry Cavill. 

4. The Outpost: Talon and Garret

Speaking of underappreciated ships (and TV shows), I present Talon and Garret from CW’s The Outpost. It was SO HARD for me to find a picture from the third (and latest season) of them to put with this post. It’s even hard to watch any scenes of the show on YouTube. Talon and Garret FINALLY got together this season and it was ABOUT TIME! Since season 1 you have felt the tension between these two, but there were always obstacles and people in between them. There seemed to be potential in the first season and by the start of third I was not holding out hope anymore that they would be together. So, it was such a joyous occasion when they became endgame (is that too soon to say? I have no idea if there’s another season on the horizon). This couple solidified my love for a WARRIOR romance. One where, despite being two different genders (and for this show species), both partners are equal in strength and fighting ability. (Well, Talon could take Garret, but they are such a powerful duo!) I now want to read and watch more romances/ships with this trope. [Please let me know if you have any suggestions.] Just talking about them, I can’t help but smile (almost as big as Garret when he saw Talon again before she left for another mission). At the end of the season they might have tried to make it seem like they would pick other partners and I’m so glad they didn’t. You seriously need to watch this show if any of the above sounded appealing/you like high fantasy and maybe a little CGI cheesiest. 

3. The Society: Grizz and Sam

It breaks my heart talking about this ship ever since Netflix released that they were taking back the second season renewal of The Society. I started watching the Society during quarantine (shocking I know), but I do remember a lot from my time watching (more shocking, right?). Hands down the best couple from this show was Grizz and Sam. They weren’t introduced right away and again I might have cheated when I suspected the two might get together, so I looked up some spoilers. (Honestly, that’s the best sign of a ship in my book. If I can’t wait and need to look up spoilers then your show has a good thing going.) Individually Grizz and Sam were my favorite characters and then pairing them together I was dead. So many amazing moments with them. Naturally we didn’t get enough and I will continue to watch fan videos (because there are so many). They are precious and I’m so glad we got some closure at the end of the season because if we didn’t this cancellation would have been even harder. 

2. Nancy Drew: Nancy and Ace

Okay, I’ll try to keep this brief because I know I’ve talked about this couple A LOT on this page in 2020 (but that might be difficult FYI). From an honorable mention thought last year to #2 this year-THAT’S HUGE! But they deserve it, even if they haven’t officially become a couple on the show...well not yet. Early on in the first season I felt a pull between these two characters, which is super ironic seeing as how they had few scenes together and were a part of two different romances. (I mean Nancy had two different love interests.) I thought I was just imagining things (as I do often pair people who barely share plots), but then episode 14 happened and I was sold. Then I came onto Tumblr and discovered the amount of people that felt it too and knew we had something. Shout out to all the other blogs that mention Nace or are made just to honor this amazing duo. I know they will be endgame too and value all your posts that I’m constantly liking and looking for. 

Again, there’s so much I could talk about, but I’ll focus on how much they trust and listen to one another. (I mean Ace drank that stuff because he trusted Nancy!!!) I love how they get paired up on cases and go into investigator mode. They speak SO CLOSE to one another and just all the looks! If we don’t get more moments in the second season I don’t know how I’ll survive. They are just so perfect and I could easily see them become number 1 next year. I cannot wait for the start of season 2 on Jan. 20th!! For now I’ll fast forward through old episodes and watch my favorite moments. Like these:

AND NUMBER ONE.... DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

1. Anne with an E: Anne and Gilbert

Now I know what you’re thinking...’Stephanie, didn’t you pick Shirbert last year too?’ Why, yes that is true. But back then I had only watched seasons 1 and 2 with some spoiler videos of season 3. The release hadn’t come to Netflix yet. Since then, I have watched the last season (and the show as a whole multiple times). It’s just so good and watching the growth of the characters (not only Shirbert) means so much more when you can watch the episodes back to back. But we’re here for Shirbert and how we watched them rise. Yes, it departed from the novel, but I love the twists and turns it took getting to endgame. So many looks and unspoken feelings. I thought it was great how Anne discovered her feelings. I hated Winifred, but understood her purpose. Anne and Gilbert will always be one of my top OTPs no matter which adaptation. Of course, the book will always be the tops, but so many great representations of it have been done on screen. Ultimate enemies to friends to lovers. I hope to one day create characters that could be so strong and beloved. 

[moonflower-31]

I Won’t Forget You - Spencer Reid x Reader

Masterlist 

Part 27 

Pairing: Spencer x Reader 

Words: 5.2k! 

Please comment what you think of this, I'm proud of this one. 😊

Warnings: Severe degrading language, description of violence, talk of rights and misogyny 

 Tags: @dra-reid, @eevee0722, @ceeellewrites, @anotherr-fine-mess, @ssahoodrathotchner, @egg-boy03, @helena-way07, @l0ve-0f-my-life, @serendipity-imagines, @kaelyn-lobrutto24 , @thatsonezesty13, @bihoeofmanyfandoms, @rewindlr 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

"And when he smiles. I find a reason to live a little more" - Nehwish 

Spencer’s knee bounced as he felt the turbulence of the plane getting ready to land. He'd never had trouble with planes in the past. Especially the landing. He supposed it was his nerves. 

Spencer bit at his nails nervously and looked out the window of the jet, catching the interest of Rossi and Emily. 

"Don't worry, there's a bathroom." Rossi jokes, smirking at the young genius when he finally turned his head towards the voice. 

Spencer sighed, deciding not to add fuel to the flame and shut his mouth. They all knew at this point that he wanted desperately to get back to you. His feet were itching to break into a run to head back to his apartment, but unfortunately he did not have the ability to glide on air.  

Emily smiled and leaned closer to Spencer. "Come on, Reid. It's okay to be worried." She assures, shrugging softly. Spencer looked away, thinking her words over. 

"I-I… I know I can be worried." He exhaled. "But the probability of Peter getting back to her before I do increases by each minute I'm away from her." Spencer felt an urgency welling up inside of his chest, and he couldn't get rid of it. 

Garcia popped up on the screen and sighed. "Hey, tell you what. How about I call Morgan and have him bring her to the BAU? So you can see her when you guys get unloaded?" Garcia suggests. 

Hotch nods. "That's a good idea, Garcia. I need to speak with Morgan as well so this will be convenient for the both of us." 

Garcia nods and clicks off her computer with some random farewell. Spencer felt a bit of his apprehension fall away at the idea of being able to see you sooner than originally planned. He could finally be in your presence and hold you when you wanted him to. He could comfort you. He could be there physically. For you. 

Reid looked down at his hands, noticing how diminished his fingernails were with how much he'd been biting. He knew it was just a nervous tick, but it wasn't good for him. 

"Try pinching the skin on the back of your hand instead. It gives the same effect." Rossi spoke up, moving over to sit across from Spencer. 

Spencer looked up at Rossi in interest, confused as to how that would be any better. "Pinching the taut skin of the back of the hand would cause more injury than biting nails. Did you know that our nails are made up of the same material in our hair? It's actually quite interesting-" 

Rossi raised a hand. "I took anatomy in highschool. I think I know what makes up my greying hair." He smirked, making one appear on Spencer’s face as well. 

Spencer smiled and began to look around, then back at his watch to check the time. Rossi adjusted his posture before he began to speak again. 

"Kid, let me tell you something about what I learned with all three of my ex wives. Don't wait to say it." 

Spencer furrowed his eyebrows, confused as to what Rossi meant. "I-I don't think I follow, Rossi. Don't wait to say what?" 

"Don't keep her waiting on those three little words. If you keep pushing it off, she may move on without you." Rossi advised. "Tell her how you feel. Most women love hearing how you truly feel about them. They love honesty. That's why we're often the ones doing the asking." 

Prentiss looked back at Rossi with a teasing look. "'Most women'? Hell, I enjoy honesty. Who really appreciates lies? My exes maybe." She shrugged, making JJ laugh. 

Spencer exhaled a tired sigh before running a hand through his messy hair. "I suppose that makes sense. B-but she's still recovering Rossi. What kind of person would I be to try and tell her now? I'd be taking advantage of her. That's the furthest from what I want." 

Rossi shrugged, sitting back into his seat as the jet began to touch down. "Whatever you say." 

Spencer looks out the jet's windows, thinking of you. And of Morgan. 

A few moments later, two agents opened the jet's door and stairs, allowing them all to unload from inside. Spencer was the first to his feet and out the door. 

JJ and Emily shook their heads, smiling knowingly. Rossi sighed as he got himself up from the jet seats. "Kids these days." He grumbled to Hotch, who smiled softly. 

Spencer tried not to make it obvious how hurried he was to get to you, his pace a fast walk instead of a run. It was hard not to race towards the back entrance to the BAU where he knew you'd be waiting for him in the bullpen. But he could do this. You were okay. He was going to see you. 

"Geez, excited much? You'd think a limited time showing of the original Doctor Who was playing in theaters." Emily teased beside him, hurrying in front of him to unlock the entry. 

"Forgive me for wanting to ascertain the safety of (Y/N)." Spencer expressed, the words coming out colder than he meant. 

Spencer hurried into the building once the door was open, rushing to the stairwell; the elevator was just too slow.

All he could think of was seeing you. Once he did, then maybe he'd consider doing his reports. 

Thinking about it now, he most definitely had it bad for you. 100.00% There wasn't a moment where he was near you that he didn't feel his heart beating a little faster. That he didn't feel a squeeze on his heart and his words got stuck in his throat. There was never a time that he wasn't thinking about what you might say if he were to kiss you in that moment. 

Finally, after three minutes and five flights of stairs, he burst through the door and hurried into the bullpen, slowing himself down once he saw you.

You smiled happily once Spencer entered your field of vision, putting the bag of food you had in your hands on the nearest desk to your right. It wasn't long after that you felt Spencer’s arms wrapped around your waist and pulling you tightly against him. 

"Spence," you smiled, hugging him back just as tight. Spencer put his face in the crook of your neck, reminding himself that you were indeed safe and not in danger. 

"Thank God you're safe," he exhaled, beginning to calm further as your hand met his hair. 

"Yeah, I'm okay Spence. Why would you think otherwise?" You were confused as to what was making him so worried over you, but even then you were glad he cared. 

"It… it doesn't matter right now. Just-" Spencer once again exhaled sharply, releasing you from his hold as the rest of the team entered the bullpen. 

Morgan smirked as he returned with a drink tray from the other room with Garcia in tow. "Was the case really that bad, Lover boy? Couldn't wait to get back to your pretty lady?" Derek teased, his eyebrows wiggling as he smiled his signature smile. 

Reid rolled his eyes, not as annoyed as he usually was with Derek's antics. 

"Hey, I bought food for everyone. Hope fast-food is good enough." You spoke up, picking up the paper bag to lift up for everyone to see. 

Hotch nodded, while Rossi and Emily smiled thankfully. "Sounds perfect. I didn't feel like cooking anyway." Rossi joked, walking over to take his share of the food. 

"It's a nice offer, but Will's got something at home for me. We rarely ever get home in time for dinner anymore, so when we get the chance we take it." JJ says, grabbing her go bag once it was dropped off. 

"Alright. Just send me your reports in the morning." Hotch says, getting a nod in return from JJ. 

"Junior G Man," Garcia spoke up. Spencer turned around, facing the eccentric hacker. "Don't you have something you wanna tell (Y/N)?" She asked,

Spencer’s face lit up in a bright blush, thinking Garcia meant something else entirely. This blush also effectively caught Morgan and Emily's attention. "Well? Do you pretty boy?" Morgan teased. 

You sighed. "Leave him alone guys. If he's not ready to tell me what happened that's fine." You settle. Truthfully, of course you wanted to know. But if it was something business related or something about the case you knew it could wait. 

Spencer sighed with relief. He'd tell you once the two of you were home. Maybe then, you'd be able to react without fear of judgement. 

Garcia sighed. "Well, still. I've got something to announce." She insisted, her smile returning bright and bubbly as ever. 

Hotch raised an eyebrow, pausing his conversation with Derek. "What is it, Garcia?"

"Well, since we all didn't get a chance to celebrate her rescue, I'm inviting everyone out to have drinks in a couple days in (Y/N)'s honor!" Garcia smiled, cheering to herself. 

You smiled happily, reaching into the paper fast food bag and pulling out a few fries. "Thank you Pen. You don't have to though." You insist, putting the fries into your mouth. 

Garcia waved you off. "Nonsense! We're gonna celebrate finding you! And we'll all have to get taxis cause we'll be too drunk!" Garcia insisted, hurrying over and giving you a hug. 

You hug her back, smiling at her happily. "Okay, okay, I give. Will you be letting us know the place soon?" 

"Why of course my fine furry friend!!" Garcia giggles. "Of course I'm gonna let JJ know too. Everybody's gonna be there." She says before she waves goodbye to everyone, scurrying back to her den. 

Spencer laughs and shakes his head. "I guess we just made plans?" He asks out loud. 

Hotch, Rossi, Emily, and Morgan all laugh along with you. Hotch even cracked a smile. "I guess we did. I'll see if I can get free for that night. She was right, you deserve to be celebrated whether your case was a priority for the BAU or not." Hotch explained, giving you a genuine look. You couldn't fight the blush that slipped onto your face, but you did smile at him. 

"Thanks, Hotch." You answer. Then your attention shifted to Spencer. "I'm going to head to the bathroom real quick then we can head home." You then began walking away from him towards the bathrooms, unbeknownst to you being checked out by Spencer himself. Hey, he's got eyes. 

"Reid." 

Spencer jumped and looked to Hotch, blinking a few times. "Yeah, Hotch?" He asked. 

Aaron walked over, clearing Morgan to go ahead and head to his office for them to continue their conversation. "Garcia sent me a message saying you both had information on Peter Calvin. What do you have?" He asked, his tone and volume lowered. 

Spencer sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck again, finding it worrying that he was developing it as a nervous tick. "Garcia and I saw him on some nearby traffic cams. I spoke to JJ and Emily about it. I assumed they would have told you by now." 

Hotch sighed, taking his mental notes. "Which direction was he headed?" He asked. 

"Southwest, towards Quantico." Spencer replied. 

"I'll let the police know to keep an eye out for the license plate number and the car Garcia got on the footage. For now, keep (Y/N) safe. We cannot afford him getting his hands on her again. He may not stay nearby this time. And she may not be as lucky." Hotch warned before he stepped away from Spencer and then began walking up towards his office. 

Spencer let out an exhausted sigh, closing his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, you were standing near him, smiling gently at him. "Hey stranger." 

He smiled at you, his mood immediately improved by your presence. "Hey." 

"You wanna head home or get some dinner first? I know you probably don't want fast food. When I was getting this I was thinking about what you'd say. 'Eating junk-food has a-'" 

"A link to higher rates of obesity, depression, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and in some cases early death." Spencer finished, his smile wide as he looked to you. You giggled playfully and nodded. 

"Yep. Exactly." You smiled. "So I made sure to buy some extra healthy food to make at home." 

Spencer smiled back even wider. "That sounds great. But I think eating something healthy we can already buy ready-made will be good for tonight. This last case wasn't an easy one."  

You smirked and nudged his arm. "Is that so?" You teased. Spencer smiled and looked down somewhat bashfully. 

You smiled and looked up triumphantly. "Well, then you'll have to tell me about it on the way home." 

Spencer chuckled as he gave into your teasing, nodding his head a little. "Yes, I suppose I will." He replied, a bright smile on his face. 

○●♡●○ 

"Okay, you have got to tell me how you narrowed that hunting zone parameter down. I don't think I could've done it even if you were paying me-" you expressed gleefully, dropping the soup kitchen bag on the dining room table with two neatly placed chairs on either side. Spencer then walked in past you, dropping his go bag behind the couch as he turned back to face you. His face was brighter than a string of christmas lights and his smile whiter than a cloud. If he wasn't so focused on your beauty he'd notice the pain in his cheeks. 

"I'm sure you could've. I could help you if you'd like. It's actually quite simple." Spencer nodded his head and smiled at you teasingly, earning a playful and teasing glare in response. 

"Yeah, and I went to school for Geometry instead of Psychology." You joke, digging into the bag for one of the styrofoam containers of soup and placing them on the table. 

"Which makes me wonder why you didn't take Geometry. I know it wasn't for a lack of smarts, you're very skilled with that aspect-" Spencer began to ramble on, walking over to the table and putting napkins under the soup containers as you put them down to act as coasters. 

"I just suck at shapes, okay? Sure I can remember the damn perimeter formula and the area but give me variables and a word problem? I can't figure out how to do shit." You expressed, handing Spencer the plastic spoon that came with the food. Instead, he handed it back to you. 

"I prefer using my own cutlery. Reduces the chance of any chemicals remaining on or inside the plastic being used to make the spoons." He explained, pulling out a drawer and selecting two intricate spoons before closing the drawer with his hip casually. 

You smirk and giggle. "I never thought I'd see you do that." 

Spencer raised an eyebrow as he began to hand you a spoon. "Do what? I don't see what I was doing that was unusual behavior for my personality-" 

"Closing the drawer with your hips, Spence!" You expressed in a loud, happy laughter. "Seriously, you never seemed to me like the kind of guy who'd do that." 

Spencer raised an eyebrow and smiled happily at your cheerful face. "Well I guess surprises do happen on a day to day basis. Even in our line of work." 

You smiled brighter as you finally opened your soup and took a first spoonful. "Amen to that." You giggled, grabbing another napkin to wipe your chin from the stray soup that leaked onto it. 

"Guess I'm still a clutz. Not even being kidnapped and raped is gonna change that I guess…" you mutter, causing Spencer to half choke on his soup. His eyes widen as he looks to you, his eyebrows furrowed after a moment. 

"(Y/N), do you… wanna talk?" Spencer asks, slowly approaching you as he places his soup down on the table. He didn't even care where. You were more important. 

You sniffle and shake your head. "No… no I'll be okay. I just wanna eat and go to bed. And… and hope that I don't see his face again tonight-" you choke on a sob, lifting a hand to your face and wiping desperately at rapid tears. 

Spencer rushed over and hugged you tightly, cradling your head softly as he held you. He whispered gently into your ear, letting you deal with your emotions while he was there to listen. He was good at that, he thought. 

You pressed your forehead against his shoulder, your hands clutching at his vest. "S-spencer I-" you hiccuped. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't-" 

Spencer shook his head. "No, you should. You're allowed to express how you feel, (Y/N). I will always be here for you. No matter how many times you need me to be." 

You sniffled, sucking in your bottom lip anxiously as you looked up at him. "Promise..?" 

Spencer smiled down at you, caressing your cheek. "Promise." 

You let your lips curl into a hesitant smile as an idea crosses your mind. "Do… do you think…" your bottom lip quivers as you ponder your own question. 

Spencer’s head tilts and his face softens as he looks down at you, being patient with your feelings. "Yeah?" 

You take in a sigh and grunt at your pathetic-ness. "Do you think maybe I could share a bed with you tonight? Just in case?" You asked, a bright blush accompanying the slight voice crack that added to your awkwardness. 

Spencer’s eyes widened at your question and his cheeks blew up a firey red as he began to fluster. "U-uh-uh…" Spencer scrambled to reply in a timely and polite manner, but he was so caught off guard. 

You bit the inside of your cheek and grunted. "Forget it, I knew it was a long shot…" you let go of Spencer’s vest and began to move away to go back to eating. 

What surprised you was the sudden grasp of your hand once it fell to your side. You swear your head swung towards Spencer as soon as you felt his touch, almost as quick as a sword. 

Spencer looked down into your glossy eyes, red rimmed from crying. He saw beauty in them. He saw a genius, a comedian, a model, and saw perfection. All in the oceans of color that were you're irises. 

He would be a fool to reject your proposal. 

"Of course, you just shocked me a little." Spencer insisted, squeezing your hand. He wanted nothing more than to see your lips curl into their familiar smile and see you laugh again. At least he'd see one thing tonight. 

You smiled gently at Spencer’s reply, blushing softly in response. "You… you mean it? It's… not too terribly weird?" You brushed a strand of stray hair behind your ear, trying not to freak out. 

Spencer tried to make a face that said 'don't worry about it' but instead managed to make an altogether new look instead. One that gave him a chance to see the other expression he loved on you. 

You snorted at his expression and began to laugh. Your eyes were full of joy as you laughed, even with a care in the world. Spencer couldn't be more in love. 

You laid your head on his chest for a moment, sighing as you began to calm down from your laughter. You looked up at Spencer, who's face somehow had managed to grow even redder from your placement. 

"What?" You ask, moving back as you assumed you'd done something wrong. 

"It's nothing, (Y/N). Promise. W-why don't we just eat and then we can head to bed?" Spencer suggested, not knowing if he'd be able to handle another moment without kissing you. 

You took in a heavy, but relieved sigh. "Yeah… yeah…" 

Spencer then took his seat, moving the chair closer to your side. He picked up his now lukewarm soup and began eating it anyway. You watch him for a few moments before you begin to do the same. 

And it was just like that, just you two. 

○●♡●○ 

"You done in there yet? I still gotta brush my teeth. Studies have shown that if you don't brush your teeth it can lead to erectile disfunction, inflammation, head and neck cancer-" Spencer began to ramble, knocking against the bathroom door gently. 

You swing the door open with a toothbrush in your mouth. "I know, Spence. You just gave me that speech 10 minutes ago." You tease, a smile pulling onto your toothpaste stained cheeks. "Come on, get in here and brush those damn teeth." 

Spencer chuckled to himself and walked in beside you. "I don't believe that kind of language is supposed to be used when talking about the bones inside our mouth." He teases, raising an eyebrow. 

You roll your eyes and elbow his arm. "Shut up!" You smile playfully. "Compared to you, I'm a cranky old grandma, you old sailor." 

Spencer laughed as he put the toothbrush in his mouth and began brushing. You finished up and washed your toothbrush in the running water before heading into Spencer’s room to get into the covers. 

Spencer finished up a few minutes after and washed his toothbrush. "I am not a swearing sailor. If anything-" he starts, walking into his room to find you falling asleep under the covers with a pillow in your arms. 

Spencer softly chuckled and turned off the bathroom light, closing the door behind him and closing the bedroom door as well. 

He walked over and sat down on his usual side of the bed. He looked over at you again, smiling at your peaceful form. If he could give you eternal reassurance that you'd be okay, he would. Even if he had to do time for manslaughter. 

He sighed and turned back towards his lamp and turned it off once he plugged in his work phone. See, he knew technology. He just didn't prefer it to paper copies of things. 

He then adjusted the covers and climbed into them, trying not to convince himself that staring at you sleeping for a whole night was a good idea. 

A sudden crash echoed into the apartment and startled Spencer awake. It didn't sound like glass, more like wood breaking. He took heavy breaths and looked beside him, finding you stirring awake. 

Spencer reached into his nightstand and picked up his spare work pistol. He didn't know who or what it was that just broke in, but he wasn't going to let it get to you. 

"Spence…" 

Spencer looked back over to you, seeing your eyes opening slightly. "Shh… hey, I'll be right back. I'm just going to check what happened. Stay here, okay? No matter what you hear." Spencer whispered, putting a gentle hand on your shoulder. 

You murmured a few inaudible sounds but nodded. That was good enough for Spencer. 

He then got up from the mattress and began to fumble with his gun. Once he had it aimed, he snuck out into the main area of his apartment. 

The windows provided plenty of moonlight to see, so Spencer wasn't worried about seeing the intruder. He didn't want to let them know he was awake. That would cause violence that didn't need to happen yet. He had the element of surprise. And he needed to keep it that way. 

Rustling of pages, and of books echoed into the room as Spencer slowly looked around the corner to see who was the invader of his home. 

The intruder was bent over the couch, looking through the books that laid there as if looking for something. Proof of something. The intruder was definitely a man. He was definitely at least 6'2, and his voice was a little deeper. 

"Dammit, how can she hide so damn well?!" The man cursed, letting the book hit the couch with a dulled thud. 

Spencer looked a little farther past the corner, swearing he'd heard this voice before, if not had heard it described to him before. He had an idea of who this was, a damn good one. But he needed proof before he decided to make his presence known to this devil of a man. 

Spencer’s foot made the wood beneath him creak for a moment, causing the intruder to look his way. And that's when Spencer knew. The man had green, piercing eyes. Ones he'd definitely seen on one Peter Calvin. 

He had enough evidence to do what he planned. Spencer hid behind the bookshelf for a few more moments, hearing Peter's footsteps approach his position. 

Then, just before Spencer knew he'd be in him, he turned and faced Peter with his gun facing him and his finger dancing with the trigger. 

"Give me one good reason not to shoot, you son of a bitch?" Spencer glared, his aim never wavering as his anger swirled around his head. 

Peter grinned. "You…" he began to laugh maniacally. Spencer’s composure wavered only a smidge. Why was he laughing? 

"You-!" Peter cackled, his face turning into one of victory. "Out of all the men in the world she could choose to protect her whore-ass--" Peter sneered, reaching behind him. "She chose you."

Spencer refocused his aim, his eyebrows furrowing. "What does that have to do with how you treated her? How badly wounded she was when we found her?" Spencer retorted, spitting out the words like they were poison. 

Peter rolled his eyes, putting his hands in the air as Spencer refocused his aim. "Please, she's my damn property. I can do with her as I wish-" 

"She's no one's property-!"

"Why do you say that? Have you been inside her yet? If you had you'd never want to let another man have her." Peter taunted, his smirk ever so large on his face. 

Spencer’s face and sneer never shifted, even as Peter was determined to get under his skin. "It doesn't matter. She doesn't belong to anyone. She's a human being. She has thoughts, feelings--things you can't take away from her. " 

"We'll work on that. Once she has my first child she'll have no feelings of her own. It'll all be about our little boy." 

"I don't care how much money you fucking paid for her--" Spencer’s voice raised as his finger fiddled with the trigger. "She is not yours! I will never, ever let you get your filthy hands on her again!" 

Peter rolled his eyes as Spencer roared his declaration. "Men like you disgust me. You let the women walk all over you. You give them rights to shut them up and then suddenly you start giving them the freedom to take power. Then we're suddenly the ones being undermined. We're the men! We should be in power while the women give us children-"

"No!" Spencer yelled. "You’re wrong." He breathed, hoping that you would stay where you were until he could be sure you were safe. 

Peter sneered and looked to the ground. "You seriously are gonna take the side of a woman? A walking pussy?" Peter asks, getting threateningly close to Spencer. 

Spencer re-aims his gun, making sure his first shot would be the only one he'd have to fire. "Yes. Because she's a person." 

Peter smirked and briefly laughed. "You wanna die? Or are you gonna step aside so I can reclaim what's mine?" He asks, his hand gripping Spencer’s gun tightly. 

Spencer scowled as he looked slightly up at Peter. "I'd rather lose my life than give you what was never yours." He growled, not daring to instigate the conflict.

Peter then forced Spencer to the ground with a roar of anger, slamming his head into the floor. Spencer scrambled and pushed against Peter’s shoulders, managing to bite his shoulder. 

Peter let go of Spencer briefly to gasp in pain. He was strong, but not as strong as Morgan. Why else did he need to injure Morgan to abduct him then? 

"Damn it-! You string-bean bastard!" Peter spat as he began to charge at Spencer again. Spencer narrowly dodged and grabbed Peter’s arm and shoulder, forcing him into the floor. 

"String Bean? That's the best you've got-?" He asked as Peter rolled him back around and held his shoulders down against the floor. 

"Why must you be so damn difficult-!? She's mine you cunt-!" Peter spat into Spencer’s face. Sending a punch into his face. Spencer spits up at Peter the blood from the impact, only earning him a second punch in return. 

Spencer grunted as Peter raised his fist to give a third punch. Spencer leaned his head back just far enough that he could headbutt Peter hard. 

The impact sounded throughout the small apartment as Peter staggered off of Spencer from the onset of the pain. Spencer scrambled to his feet and tried to race towards his gun. Peter unfortunately managed to regain his control and grabbed Spencer’s arms and spun him around. 

"You really thought you could win that easily?" Peter hissed, slamming Spencer’s face into the corner he'd previously been hiding behind. Spencer let out a cry of pain before he was spun right back around and thrown across the room from a shove. 

Spencer landed onto his back onto the go bag you had placed behind the couch. He winced at something hard hitting him in the back. Peter was slowly moving towards the bedroom now, a smirk on his face. 

No, Spencer grunted, reaching behind him through his blurring vision. He wasn't going to lose this. He wasn't going to lose you again. 

When he reached behind him, he found what he'd needed. It was his usual pistol. He must have mispacked it when he was getting ready to head onto the jet. 

"Hey Peter," Spencer called, surprising himself with how loud he still could be. 

Peter scoffed and turned back towards Spencer, who was managing to stand up on two feet. "What now? You can barely hold your own-" 

Spencer smirked. "You know what?" He asked, pulling out the pistol from behind him. Peter widened his eyes, glancing from the second pistol to the one he had knocked away. 

He was speechless as he listened to Spencer’s next and final words. 

"I can't say it was a pleasure to meet you." Spencer replied eerily before he fired his pistol, shooting Peter in the chest and shattering the glass of the bookcase behind him. 

Spencer exhaled a long sigh of relief once Peter fell against the floor, blood beginning to pool around him. With Spencer’s injuries, he'd be able to convince any judge that he'd only killed Peter in an act of defence. 

You were safe now. 

Suddenly footsteps raced out into the living room. Your figure entered the room and turned on the lights. What followed was a shriek of terror from you at both Peter and at Spencer’s condition. 

Spencer hurried over to you and wrapped his arms around you, not caring whether or not the two of you were together at this point. 

"S-spencer… W-what d-d-did-" you began to stutter, still breathing heavily and beginning to panic. 

Spencer instead cradled your head and softly shushed your worries. "Shh… it's okay now, I promise." He breathed, kissing your forehead protectively. 

You stayed silent, still in shock and horror of who laid dead at your feet. Instead you let him hold you, and you breathed in his cologne and his natural scent. It still managed to calm you, even after that night's events. 

"I promise, he's never going to hurt you again my darling…" 

And you believed him. 

[crowtrinkets]

Liquid Courage

The Apprentice is alone after Asra leaves for a trip, they decide to have Julian over for a drink as friends. However, one bottle of wine later and some of their relationship with Julian before their death is revealed.

Takes place after the plot and after Asra's upright ending. Platonic relationship between Julian and Gender Neutral apprentice/reader I uploaded this to my AO3 and thought I would post it here as well. :)

Word count: 3,729

———

The air was warm and slightly muggy as Julian and I walked from the castle to my shop. Asra was away to aid the locals of Nopal with a small issue. He was adamant that I go with him but by the time we would return our rent would be due. I insisted on staying and running the shop so we avoid eviction. He was sad to leave on another journey without me but responsibility comes first, and besides, he would only be gone a week at most. By the fourth day, I started to grow antsy being in the shop all day and decided to pay Asra's parents and Nadia a visit. I baked some cookies and the four of us had tea together, Julian joined as well because the four of them are still working on the new clean water system for Vesuvia.

It was a little awkward when we had to explain to everyone my um... Predicament regarding my lost memories. Asra's parents were especially shocked when they learned their son made such a drastic deal with the Arcana. But in the end, we settled on the fact that they also made deals of their own in a sense, they still treat me as family and are kind but I can't shake the feeling that they're a little unnerved by my circumstances. Muriel, Nadia, and Julien did not seem especially surprised by the news, I mean they all attended the ritual as well. However Julian was especially quiet for that conversation but I never bothered to ask him about it. I figured any talk of the plague makes Julian uncomfortable.

After the masquerade we all started to hang out as friends, I especially became close with Portia and Julian. I would visit Portia on occasion so we could talk about magic and she could show me her progress, Julian would be there as well and sometimes we'd all have dinner together. Portia and I both loved to tease Julian with the fact that he finds magic weird. "A science man" is what he called himself, I protested with why can't one be both a science and magic person. He winced a little at that comment and changed the subject. I again did not make attempts to pry into why he reacted as he did. I would like to think Julian and I are close, I understand he and Asra had a past that I know nothing about, but it doesn't bother me. What they had was in the past and I have no say in the decisions they made back then. Especially because I was well.. Dead.

Julian hummed idly beside me as we walked through Center City. I wanted to invite everyone to my shop for drinks, mostly because I could not bear another night alone in the shop. However Julian convinced me to leave Portia and Nadia, something about "letting the lovers be." I took his suggestion and invited him alone. I would like to become closer with Julian. On occasion we have gone to the theater together, Asra staying behind claiming if he wanted to watch overdramatized actors wailing he would just pay Julian a visit. But I find enjoyment in the arts, Julian's critiques however always take the cake. Who knew he would be so critical of another actor's method. I chuckle to myself remembering how heated he could get sometimes.

"Something amusing, MC?" Julian leans forward to look me in the eyes. His hands in his pockets.

"Oh nothing, I was just remembering the time you heckled that poor actor," I stifle my laugh recalling the horror in the actor's face.

"Oh, he deserved it! His accent was terrible! And he took too many breathes between speaking it made the play much less enjoyable," Julian crosses his arms seeming visibly agitated. We finally approach the shop and I unbind the spell as well as unlock the front door, allowing Julian in first so I can lock up behind us. Julian looks about the shop with a cautious curiosity.

"Careful Julian, you may insult the spirits with all your staring. Julian freezes, his one eye going wide as dinner plates as his gaze shifts to the floor. I have to cover my mouth to stop my laugh from escaping.

"I'm only kidding, why don't we go upstairs," Julian gives a quick nod and is making his way upstairs after a few quick strides. I skip happily to the kitchenette and search the cupboards. There's a bottle of wine here somewhere I just know it. Asra and I don’t drink often but we always keep something handy. I find a nearly full bottle of white wine and grab two glasses.

"This is no salty bitters Julian but I think it will suffice," I turn towards Julian who is awkwardly positioning himself on the small table in the corner. Asra and I don’t need much room but Julian's long lanky figure looks awkward, he settles on resting his legs on the chair next to him. Taking up two of the mismatched chairs. I place the bottle and glasses down and go to prepare a snack for us to munch on. As I cut up some fruit, Julian sits silently occasionally adjusting his large frame in his seat. I speak without thinking.

"Does it make you uncomfortable to be back here?" I see Julian tense from the corner of my eye. Damn, I just wanted to fill the silence not pry into Julian's subconscious thoughts. I turn around knife still in hand, thinking of a quick way to remedy my comment. "Because the last time we both were here together I threw a bottle at you…. Sorry for that by the way," I wince at my own comment.

"Oh yes, no apology needed, a strange man breaks into your shop, I can understand the hostility," Julian gives a weak smile and looks down.

"Why don’t you pour our glasses while I continue with the snacks?" I suggest. With a nod from Julian, I turn back around cutting the fruit and opening a tin of crackers. Placing the platter on the table I sit on the only available chair while Julian hands me my drink. I take a sip and feel the drink go down my throat and its telltale burn following it. For a while we both sit in silence, taking sips and eating apple slices and crackers in between. I did not expect this evening to be so… so awkward. When Julian and I hang out it's usually not this quiet. Well maybe because we're either walking in the busy streets talking about the show we are about to see, sitting in the show, and then walking back talking about the show we just saw. I quickly think of a topic before we spend the whole night in silence.

"So Julian," he stops mid-sip, glancing at me. "Why don’t you tell me about the water reroute project," Water reroute?! We were just talking about that at the palace!

"Well considering we just talked about that with the Countess I do not have any new information for you," Julian states with a wave of his hand.

"Right right, silly me, well um…" I ponder for a moment. "why don't you tell me about some of the trips you've taken? Asra and I have traveled a little but definitely not as much as you," With that Julian gives me his usual toothy grin and starts off on a story about his time on a spice ship. Satisfied that the silence is being filled I sit comfortably and continue with my drink.

---

I don't know how many hours it's been since Julian and I first arrived back at my shop but the wine bottle is now empty, I feel warm and dizzy, but just the right amount that I can still walk and make rational decisions. Almost.

"Julian, we're friends right?" my words come out and I try my hardest not to slur. Julian, whose head is now laying on the table, gives me a nod. "Best friends?" It slips out. Julian sits up and gives me a confused stare.

"Well, I would imagine Asra has that honor?" He starts. I shake my hand in the air.

"No…. no, I mean yes, but Asra is my partner. I mean like…. In the way, Asra and Muriel are… or me and Portia? I would say you and I are as close as that?" Julian thinks for a second and nods with a smile.

"Then yes, I couldn't ask for a better friend who is just as appreciative of the arts as I am," Julian raises his glass so we can toast, although we have nothing to drink so we both take a bite of the leftover cheese on our platter.

"Then can I ask you something… personal?" I trace the wood grain of the table with my fingers, trying to distract myself from the conversation I started.

"Ask away my dear friend," Julian pops another slice of apple in his mouth.

"Were we friends before I died? I know you and Asra were-" I'm interrupted by the sound of Julian coughing on the apple he just ate. Spitting it into a napkin while I stumble to grab him some water. I hand him the water and he quickly drinks it. I grab myself some as well, maybe I drank a little too much. I sit back down taking sips of my own as Julian finishes off his glass. Putting it down with an exasperated gasp. "I'm sorry I guess that was a little too personal," I try to joke. But the concern in my voice is obvious.

"No no, I guess you have the right to know, I mean it is your past," Julian says with a shrug. His usual demeanor has dissipated as he stares forlornly out the window. Looking for something I can't see. After a minute Julian meets my eyes once again, with a nod he sits back in his chair, legs stretching out onto the other chair once again.

"Yes, we knew each other. You were my apprentice at my clinic, during the plague. Ah, I'll never forget that day, it was a long day at the clinic, well they were always long but this one especially. I was just about to head home until an unfamiliar magician stormed in." Julian lets out a chuckle as he recounts the memory. "Your demeanor was so strong and determined, but then you took one look at me and all that slipped away, you shyly approached me and said, 'Hello sir, I would like to apprentice under you and become a doctor, if you will have me?'" Julian lets out a barking laugh, throwing his head back after impersonating me. I roll my eyes but laugh with him. Unfamiliar with the memory, but it seems I haven’t changed much.

"Did I really ask you like that?" I give Julian a pointed look.

"Well maybe not as dramatized as I made it, but yes. You asked and I gladly agreed. You told me you wanted to cure the plague and you figured a magician doctor would be of great assistance," Julian's smile is warm but his eye evokes sadness.

"Wait, I thought you said someone couldn't be a magic and science person,"

"I said the same thing back then but you were so determined, I couldn't say no to that innocent face as well," he lets out a small chuckle but trails off. Mumbling something I can't fully hear, but I think I get the phrase "shouldn't have" at the end. I don't comment, allowing Julian to continue his story. The knit-in his brows growing tighter as he goes on.

"You worked very hard, studying as much as possible and aiding me in house calls, eventually you got good enough that you didn’t need me to help you anymore. Taking your own house calls. We both worked long hours and eventually we almost never saw each other. Only on occasion when you needed me to sign off on death certificates for patients who had no one to claim them. And even then there were so many bodies that they weren't required anymore," Julian stops for a second. The atmosphere of the room begins to grow heavy, the single candle on the table dances reflecting on Julian's solemn features. He lets out a sigh refusing to meet my eyes.

"Eventually I became so busy with my work, trying to find the cure that we stopped speaking. When we first started working together we would sometimes go to the Rowdy Raven to lift our spirits but even then I was too busy for you. It wasn't until you were sent to the Lazaret that I knew what happened." A shiver runs up my spine at the mention of the Lazaret. I remember the flashes of memories I experienced when I went there with Asra. I remember the pain and the sick aura that coated me when I was about to be cremated. Julian finally meets my gaze and reaches for my hand, I take it, gripping his leather-clad palm.

"I am so, so very sorry MC," Julian grips my palm with a squeeze, his eye grows misty as he looks into mine. "If I had never agreed to take you in as my apprentice this never would have happened or I would have at least been able to care for you as a patient," before Julian continues I rise from my seat approaching him and pulling him into a tight hug while he still sits in his chair. He lets out a quiet squawk but then relaxes in my arms, wrapping his around my back hugging me back.

"Don't you dare apologize, Julian, I may not remember what my life was like before but I know that I wanted to help. I wanted to help and you gave me that chance. But I chose my fate, I knew the risks of what could happen to me and I still chose that path. You are a dedicated and hard-working doctor, it wasn't your fault Julian," I hold Julian tightly, his head resting on my shoulder, he lets out a stifled cry. I feel tears run down my own face but I stay quiet allowing Julian to get his emotions out. For a while we just stay in place, crying and holding onto each other for dear life.

After a bit we pull apart, rubbing our eyes dry, I keep an arm on Julian's shoulder. For a second we glance at each other and chuckle at the other's red puffy appearance. I grab some tissues and refill our cups for the both of us and we each clean our faces and drink water to rehydrate. I sit back down finishing my glass and look back at Julian who is readjusting his patch after wiping his other eye dry.

"Besides, if I never became your apprentice, we never would have become friends," I give him a shy smile.

"Ah ah," Julian raises his glass to toast me again, to which I raise mine "Best friends," he says with a toast. I laugh at his joke to my comment earlier and clink our glasses together. We down our cups of water acting like its salty bitters and we're at the Rowdy Raven.

Once again the two of us fall into silence. It’s a comfortable silence but I can't help the question brewing in my mind.

“Did I have a bird mask? Like yours?” To that question, Julian cracks a smile. He lets out a sigh.

“Heh, you did actually, and I uh… I may have kept it,” a flush crawls up Julian’s face at that last comment. I sit up.

“You did?”

“I am always one for nostalgia. After you, well yknow, I was tasked with clearing your desk and sending them to your home. Your mask was left on your chair and I couldn’t let such good craftsmanship go to waste,” Julian stands placing his cup down, and extends a hand towards me. “Would you like to see it again?” his sly smile and waggling eyebrows are so hard to say no to. Not that I would though, it would be nice to see an item from my past. With a nod, I grab his hand and we make our way downstairs and out of the shop.

—-

The moon is high in the sky and Julian and I make our way in the south end. He says his belongings are all at a friend's house but won't tell me their name. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was keeping it a secret for dramatic effect or if they were a fugitive. I practically have to jog to keep up with Julian until we finally reach our destination. A comically small house with a fittingly small door. But Julian walks past the door and goes around to the side.

“Wait here, uh this may look suspicious but just trust me,” before I can say anything Julian starts climbing into the window of the home. Cursing as glass bottles get knocked over when he finally makes it inside. I wait for a few minutes, hearing rustling and Julian's constant commentary. I finally hear an ‘aha!’ before Julian pokes his head through the window again making his way back out. He approaches me, hands behind his back. “Now this is a treasure that belongs to a dear friend of mine, do handle it with care,” with a wink (I think) Julian pulls a bird mask from behind and puts it into my waiting hands. I nearly gasp when I see it. It looks almost exactly like Julian’s but rather than red glass covering the eyes, it's transparent, devoid of any color. I turn it in my hands stroking the long beak. It’s cold to the touch and definitely finely crafted as Julian stated. My fingers trace the circular eyes.

“You replaced the red with a less intimidating color, you said it scared the children and you wanted them to at least be able to see a friendly pair of eyes behind the scary bird mask,” Julian's voice is low but full of nostalgia. I turn the mask around and pull it onto my head, fixing it so it sits properly on my face. I can smell dried lavender and sage in the beak. I look up at Julian who looks at me slightly astonished, but it soon turns to a smile.

“My you look as good in it now as you did then,” with a laugh I remove the mask.

“Where’s yours?” I look up at him.

“Ah that, I uh,” he lets out a nervous chuckle “I threw it in the aqueduct,” I give him a surprised look to which he shrugs. “At the time I felt hopeless and like my life was meaningless, I thought I was going to be hanged. But looking back on it, I just wanted to put my past behind me, and be a better person,” I place my hand on Julian's arm, he looks at where I made contact and then meets my eyes.

“You are a good person Julian,” He gives me a smile, but frowns when he looks at the mask once again, it must be a reminder of the horrors he faced during the plague. An idea strikes in me. I look around the area, trying to find a good place. We’re near the edge of town so it shouldn’t be hard to find. I walk towards the waterway with Julian following. I crane my arm back, mask in hand, Julian tries to protest but before he can do anything I throw the mask in the aqueduct. It lands with a splash. He looks out into the water, shock plastered on his face.

“Looks like you’re not the only one for theatrics Dr. Devorak,” I nudge him with my elbow. Julian lets out a laugh and slings his arm around my shoulder.

“How about a pint at the Raven then, let these former plague doctors blow off some steam?” He says with a grin. I nod and we head over together.

—- I am awoken to someone gently shaking my shoulder and calling my name. I let out a grunt and realize I have a pounding headache. I slowly open my eyes and see Asra above me.

“Asra, you’re home early,” I whisper, shielding my eyes from the incoming sun.

“And you’re asleep on the floor, Ilya is also in our bed?” He gives me his usual mischievous smile. I slowly sit up massaging my temple, swaying slightly as I feel the alcohol looming in my system, I look over at Julian, who is in fact sleeping in our bed while I am on the floor with a single blanket and one of our many decorative pillows. I try to recount what happened last night. Julian and I went to the Raven, we drank quite a bit, dancing and singing till the late hours, and then we came back to the shop because Julian left his aqueduct plans here. But Julian was way too drunk to go back to the palace so I insisted he sleep here. He tried to take the floor but he was too drunk to resist as I pushed him into mine and Asra’s bed, taking the floor so my guest could sleep comfortably. I turn back to Asra.

"Salty Bitters," I grunt out, rubbing my head, my voice is hoarse, probably from the amount of singing I did last night. Asra gives me a knowing smile and kisses my forehead.

"How about I get you some tea to help with your head and throat?" I give him a nod as he helps me to the table, blanket wrapped around my shoulders. As Asra fills the pot with water he looks over his shoulder at me. "Did you two have fun?" I glance over at Julian who is a tangled mess of blankets, watching his chest rise and fall. I remember the moments we shared together and the laughs we had the night before. Looking back at Asra who is now facing me I give him a smile. My voice comes out rough and raspy but I don't mind.

"Yes, yes we did,"

[chiseler]

Ginger Rogers: Curse of the Working Class

A natural-born mimic, ham, tease, hard worker, stoic follower and out-of-reach babe, Ginger Rogers has proven one of the most difficult to define of all the 1930s Hollywood stars. At her best she was a synonym for fun and high spirits while also conveying a dignified and skeptical kind of resistance to other people, and these contradictory impulses made her one of the most special and ambiguous performers of her time. Rogers excelled in her first seven musicals with Fred Astaire and in several of her comedy vehicles and even in some of the programmers she churned out in the early 1930s. She was beloved, and rightly so.

In Stage Door (1937), Rogers gives one of the most distinctive, most suggestive, and most perfectly judged performances of the period, molding every one of her bone-dry, wisecracking line readings (and what lines she has in that movie!) into something pleasurable, something unexpected, even something profound, delivering them all with her guarded, in-transit sort of face.

I’ve seen Stage Door probably more times than I’ve seen any other movie, but I always notice something new in it, some new line, some new angle. As a kid, I didn’t really understand the source of Rogers’s misgivings here, which is the same source that animates her outrageously and inventively bitchy yet somehow tender and worldly fights with Linda (Gail Patrick), her high-falutin’ former roommate. Linda is the mistress of Anthony Powell (Adolphe Menjou), a powerful Broadway producer. When Powell sees Rogers’s Jean Maitland rehearsing a dance routine, his little weasel eyes light up with lust. He thinks she’s just playing hard to get when she makes her habitual mordant jokes at him, but she is really just trying to delay the inevitable. She wants no part of sleeping with a man for his money not because she thinks it’s morally wrong, per se, but because she’s basically too tired-out to go through those motions.

Jean is so disenchanted that the disenchantment seems to be leading her to some kind of drastic change. She talks herself into going out with Powell but gets out of sleeping with him by getting, or pretending to get, disruptively yet vaguely drunk. Jean gets drunk the way she does everything else, at some very unusual kind of steady and wary behavioral half-mast. She cracks wise as a matter of course, but she sleeps with a doll and she plays a ukulele. These cute details don’t seem to fit her character, but they do express the divided character of the woman who was playing her.

Jean stumbles home from Powell’s penthouse to her new roommate Terry (Katharine Hepburn), a rich girl with airily la-di-da attitudes about life and the theater. Hepburn had not endeared herself to Rogers with her much-repeated remark about Rogers’s partnership with Astaire: “He gives her class and she gives him sex.” The competitive rivalry between Hepburn’s upper-class pretension and Rogers’s low-burning common sense is the heart of their conflict in Stage Door, and this conflict and mutual dislike reads as pure chemistry on screen, just as it did for Rogers with Astaire.

There is such chemistry between Jean and Terry that Stage Door has always been a kind of closeted lesbian classic just waiting to burst into full-on Sapphic love. Terry has no love interest and shows zero interest in acquiring one, while Jean looks more than ready to give up on poor, unreliable young men and rich, sexually demanding older men like Powell. Jean and Terry, in fact, are perfect for each other and wind up with each other, and in the last scene Rogers reaches a kind of epiphany as she reacts to their friend Judy (Lucille Ball) leaving New York to get married. “At least she’ll have a couple of kids to keep her company in her old age, and what’ll we have?” she asks. “Some broken-down memories and an old scrapbook that nobody’ll look at.”

I first saw Stage Door when I was eight years old. Now that I’m well into adulthood, these last few lines that Rogers tosses off with such face-the-facts casualness have the force of revelation, as if she has finally washed up on the shores of some final philosophy. They predict the real lives of both Hepburn and Rogers (though some people still do want to leaf through those particular scrapbooks) and Terry and Jean, and everybody else for whom the easy way and the conventional way of living will never fit or will never be acceptable.

Rogers was capable of that tough-minded and frank and bleak attitude on screen, but in life and in general she was actually, and alarmingly, one of the most clueless of stars, never quite knowing what it was that people liked about her. Starting as early 1938, the year she made Vivacious Lady and Carefree, something peculiar started to happen to Rogers. After years of the most unlikely and enormous success in her Astaire films, where she was up to any dance challenge he gave her and where her timing in both musical and comic and dramatic scenes was magically sharp, her timing started to go horribly awry. Rogers began to be afflicted by self-consciousness, miscalculation, cutesiness, self-infatuated archness and flashes of deep-rooted mean-mindedness. She slipped back into her best controlled star mode in several films after that year, but she started to deteriorate more and more by the mid-1940s, almost as if someone had put a curse on her.

Rogers was born Virginia McMath in Independence, Missouri in 1911. Her formidable mother Lela Rogers was a writer for silent films and a journalist, and she was seemingly joined at the hip to her daughter. It was Rogers who wanted a career as an actress, and Lela resisted this at first, but when Ginger won a Charleston contest Mama Lela knew which way the wind was blowing. She poured all of her own considerable energy and ambition into making Ginger a star and keeping her one (that first name supposedly came about because a cousin couldn’t pronounce the name Virginia).

At the height of her stardom, when Rogers was sent the script of The Hard Way (1943), she wonderingly said, “This is the story of my life,” and turned it down. In that movie, Ida Lupino works like a demon to get her malleable kid sister (Joan Leslie) into show business, and the comparison is not flattering to Lela, who made a fool of herself testifying before HUAC as an expert on Communist infiltration of Hollywood, citing particularly the time when Rogers had to say Dalton Trumbo’s line, “Share and share alike, that’s democracy” in Tender Comrade (1943). Lela herself actually turns up playing Ginger’s mother in Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor (1942), and she’s a rather low-key presence, but she talks and moves like a woman who has power and feels no need to make any outward show of it.

In that Wilder movie, Rogers spends most of her time pretending to be a twelve-year old, and this uneasy reversion to little-girlhood was one of her most troubling fallback modes. She had made her first successes on stage with “baby talk monologues” written by Lela, and her early style, as seen in films like Young Man of Manhattan (1930) and Honor Among Lovers (1931), was very much a hold-over from the 1920s, a Betty Boop baby vamp persona that was more suited to cameo roles than to leads (Claudette Colbert, the star of Young Man of Manhattan, gently mocks these baby affectations after meeting Rogers’s character).

She churned out lots of low-budget programmers in 1932, and in 1933 she made ten films. In two of those, 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, Rogers nearly steals the show in fairly small parts. As Anytime Annie, a notoriously obliging chorus girl in 42nd Street, Rogers is first seen wearing a monocle and affecting a grand manner accent, and this was the first sign of her aptitude for two-faced disguise. As Manuel Puig once said of Ann-Margret, Rogers is anything but reassuring.

She’s close to surreal in her gold-coin outfit singing “We’re in the Money” with pig Latin verse in Gold Diggers of 1933, looking directly into the camera and not flinching as it travels all the way up to her face. Rogers gobbled up attention like that, and she had what it took, but she needed something or someone to stabilize her. When she strips down to her slip and stockings and gyrates in Professional Sweetheart (1933), an outraged Norman Foster spanks and then punches her, the first in an increasingly ominous series of punishments that would shadow her later career.

In the very horny Pre-Code musical Flying Down to Rio (1933), her first film with Astaire, Rogers is a hot mama, singing and swaying to “Music Makes Me” in a vagina power dress that even Marilyn Monroe might have rejected as too overt. When they dance “The Carioca,” Astaire starts out holding his head slightly away from Rogers, as if she might be diseased, but by the end their electric chemistry has fully kicked in.

Astaire had spent his youth dancing with his sister Adele and didn’t want to get stuck with another steady partner. Rogers had her eye on dramatic parts, announcing to an incredulous press that she wanted to play Joan of Arc. She was an ambitious and competitive person, and she knew that she was not even close to Astaire’s Olympian league as a dancer. But that’s part of the magic of their series of films, in which Rogers improves as a dancer bit by bit until she is fully capable of following his every step.

Astaire objected that no one would believe Rogers as an English girl in The Gay Divorcee (1934), and surely no one could mistake her for English, but this part gave her the reserve that she intriguingly used and toyed with for her best years as a star. Like most first sexual experiences between two people, their first real romantic dance together in that film, “Night and Day,” is both exciting and a little awkward. In their follow-up Roberta (1935), Rogers looks tense during their slow “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” routine, but she comes wonderfully alive when they casually tap to “Hard to Handle,” their first really great dance together.

She was always at her best in the lively comic numbers, where her wacky energy seems to warm Astaire, but she worked hard at the dramatic routines, so that when they do “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” in Follow the Fleet (1936), Rogers has somehow ascended up to Astaire’s level as a dancer. It must have taken nearly super-human will, but she did it, and audiences saw and felt her progress, and they loved it because it meant that anything was possible if you worked hard enough, even dancing like or with Fred Astaire.

Astaire didn’t like her feather dress for the “Cheek to Cheek” dance in Top Hat (1935), and you can see why he didn’t: it’s a little tacky. Costumer Walter Plunkett said Rogers always wanted to “add a crepe paper orchid or a string of beads or some goddamned feathered thing. She just never could resist little improvements.” But her feather dress in Top Hat does move beautifully when she dances, even if we do see some of the feathers floating away from them, as if she’s molting.

A more characteristic and winning image of her comes in the way she hikes up her skirt in the “Pick Yourself Up” number in Swing Time, which has a deeply charming kind of put-on nonchalance, or in the soldier-like way she executes a series of brutally exacting turns at the end of the “Never Gonna Dance” finale toward the end of that movie (while she shot this scene, her feet started to bleed in her shoes). One of the real pleasures of American moviegoing is watching Rogers as Astaire sings a love song to her: she would listen so intently, with barely any change of expression, but with such sensitive receptivity behind her eyes and in the set of her mouth.

People like to wonder if Astaire and Rogers hated each other. Maybe there were moments when they did, but mainly they just resented being tied together as a team, and those misgivings are part of what give their partnership and their best dances such impact, such crackle. Rogers reported in her autobiography that Astaire had taken her out on dates in New York when they were both working in theater, and at the end of one such date he gave her “a kiss that would never have passed the Hays Office Code!” But when they worked together in films, Astaire was married to a woman he adored, and he was a distant taskmaster in the killer rehearsal sessions for their dance routines. His friends, cultivated when he played on stage in London in the 1920s, were the English gentry. Rogers was not his cup of tea, and he made that known to her in subtle ways. She said either, and he said eye-ther, and they wanted to call the whole thing off, but no one else ever did.

In the many years after their partnership ended, they were still stuck with each other, and they both still resented that. Rogers would sometimes make friendly overtures to Astaire, and he would politely but firmly put her off, and this led to hurt feelings for her, so much so that she didn’t even go to his American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony. Film scholar Joseph McBride helped to put together that evening, and when I asked him about it, he remembered Astaire saying, “I suppose we’ll have to have Ginger,” in an irritated voice. When she didn’t come to the ceremony, it seemed like sour grapes on her part, but it had been made clear to Rogers that Astaire only wanted the bare minimum to do with her, and so she withdrew. It would do well to remember, of course, just how obnoxious Rogers could be. If you want to feel the full force of that, just look at any number of the films she made from 1944 to 1964 and you’ll see one garishly misplayed, mistimed performance after another, including the last one she did with Astaire, The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), where her dramatic aspirations were mocked and then the mockery was unintentionally confirmed when she did a goggle-eyed recreation of Sarah Bernhardt reciting the Marseillaise.

So what happened to Rogers? Why did she lose all of the qualities that had made her a star right after her stardom was confirmed? Many writers have tried to explain it. Analyzing Astaire and Rogers in The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book (1972), Arlene Croce says, “She’s an American classic, just as he is: common clay that we prize above exotic marble. The difference between them is that he knew it and she didn’t. Rogers always wanted to be something more. Probably no other major star has so severely tried the loyalty of her public by constantly changing her appearance and her style.” In his book Romantic Comedy (1987), James Harvey writes, “Can there be any other major star who was so variable, even from film to film, as she was?”

Harvey blames George Stevens, who directed maybe the finest Astaire/Rogers film, Swing Time (1936). He sees a softening of her character in the straight scenes in Swing Time, but the rot really sets in with Vivacious Lady, a romantic comedy that has all the elements for success but perversely ruins them with its taffy-pull pacing, its willful lack of coordination, its leaning on jags and cutesiness and bizarre sequences like the fight scene between Rogers and a rival that devolves into a series of unmoving tableaus broken only by a coy laugh from Rogers, as if Stevens wanted to turn her into Frank McHugh. In the same year, in Carefree with Astaire, Rogers exhibits such unpleasant sadism when her character is under hypnosis that it feels like a revelation of some inner nastiness that had always been prudently hidden from view.

The damage was reversed in Bachelor Mother (1939), a working girl comedy that has no right to be as charming as it is, where Rogers added a kind of moony dreaminess to her repertoire of personas. She then made two films for Stage Door director Gregory La Cava, 5th Avenue Girl (1939) and Primrose Path (1940). In her second La Cava film, Rogers is so deadpan that it reads as a lack of basic vitality, a first in her career; it’s as if La Cava is unearthing the suicidal or even homicidal side of Jean Maitland. “People annoy me,” she says in that movie, and boy does she mean it. In Stage Door, when Powell tells Jean he wants to put her name in big electric lights, she says, “Gotta be big enough to keep people away.” La Cava is the director who understood Rogers the most, discerning something anti-social and solitary behind her sunny audience-pleasing looks and manner. In Primrose Path, he cast her as a teenager who breaks away from her family before she joins their prostitution racket, and her work in that movie is stark, clean, unsentimental.

Rogers won an Oscar for Kitty Foyle (1940), and many have dated her decline from that point, even if she is modestly touching in what is a modest working girl soap opera. She was close to unbearable in Tom, Dick and Harry (1941), where director Garson Kanin seems to dote on every moment of her self-indulgent performance as a dumb and narcissistic telephone operator who must choose between three suitors. Something about playing dumb here makes Rogers’s style seem laborious and throws her timing all out of whack, yet the following year, in Roxie Hart (1942), she certainly gets her laughs with her broad playing of a very dumb murderess who lives for publicity and likes to do the Black Bottom for reporters. In her segment in Tales of Manhattan (1942), you want to say to her, “OK, you can have all that hair on the top of your head or you can have all that hair fanning over your back, but you can’t have both, Ginger.”

Leo McCarey’s Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) did her no favors, but most writers agree that the real coup de grâce in her career was Lady in the Dark (1944), a Technicolor movie of the psychoanalytical stage musical that had starred Gertrude Lawrence. Rogers insisted on playing it, and she was at loggerheads with director Mitchell Leisen and Paramount studio chief Buddy DeSylva, who vengefully cut most of the Kurt Weill songs from the film. All in all, the mercifully little-seen Lady in the Dark looks now almost as if it had been made in a spirit of deliberate sabotage. It is has to be the most nastily misogynist of any major studio production of this time, constantly hammering home the idea that Rogers’s Liza Elliott is an unnatural woman unhealthily attached to her work, and her leading man Ray Milland warrants particular scorn here for the gleefulness he brings to the scenes where he humiliates Rogers’s character. In the one extended musical number Rogers has, “The Saga of Jenny,” she doesn’t seem to have been given any choreography or direction and she can barely move in the outfit Leisen designed for her. “After Lady in the Dark there was nothing left of the Rogers character,” wrote Croce. “She died on the analyst’s couch.”

Rogers’s career proceeded only through sheer determination on her part (and on Lela’s part). She floundered in an updated remake of Grand Hotel (1932) called Week-end at the Waldorf (1945), and the next twenty years of her career were a real trial for her fans from the 1930s. Howard Hawks’s Monkey Business (1952) was supposed to be about scientist Cary Grant reverting to childhood when he drinks an elixir of youth, but Rogers insisted that she “wanted to do the kid thing too,” and so she ripped into scene after scene of coarse-grained youthful impersonation, the wise child of her early ‘30s character bearing rotten and poisonously un-watchable fruit.  Cast as a hardened gangster’s moll in Phil Karlson’s Tight Spot (1955), Rogers is so heavy-handed and slow and cutesey with her dialogue that the effect is ghastly. If I were to make a simple diagnosis of her problems in the last half of her film career, I’d say that she caught a bad case of George Stevens-itis and never got over it (she had an affair with the married director during Vivacious Lady, which had Lela up in arms).

When she worked with a fine and sensitive director, as she did with Frank Borzage for Magnificent Doll (1946) and with Edmund Goulding for Teenage Rebel (1956), Rogers was still capable of restrained and acceptable if somewhat colorless work. But hateful things kept happening to her. In something like Storm Warning (1951), where she does battle with the Ku Klux Klan while also doing a transposed version of A Streetcar Named Desire, it seemed as if someone behind the scenes wanted to see Rogers punished. When Steve Cochran attacks her in Storm Warning, the scene is so prolonged that finally it is Rogers being humiliated and hurt, not the character she is playing.

Rogers went through five husbands, including the pacifistic and beautiful Lew Ayres, and most of them lasted for a couple of years, but Lela was her real partner for life. The last husband, William Marshall, got her to play a madam in a dire film shot in Jamaica, variously known as The Confession and Quick, Let’s Get Married (1964), and after that low point she made only Harlow (1965), where she was intriguingly cast as Jean Harlow’s mother, before retaining her star status in long-running stage stints in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway and Mame in London. After that came a little TV and nightclub work, where she ended most of her songs with a corny wink to the audience. A Christian Scientist like her beloved or at least inescapable mother, Rogers refused medical treatment after having a stroke, and she was ill for several years before dying in 1995.

The last forty-five or so years of Rogers’s long career basically ran on fumes of good will from her first twelve years in movies, and particularly those Fred Astaire musicals that she preferred to forget. Like many actors, Rogers had no real center or base that was really her, and this lack of center meant that she was able to in effect be something she wasn’t with Astaire, and transcendently so, but it also meant that bad habits and instincts were ready to rush in and overwhelm her when her guard was down.

“May I rescue you?” Astaire asks her in Top Hat, to which she snaps, “No, I prefer being in distress.” The Astaire/Rogers films are so romantic because part of her resistance is that she is suspicious of romance, and maybe she doesn’t believe in it at all. That lack of belief was what made her so sexy beyond her God-given but worked-on perfect figure (“Women weren’t born with silk stockings on, you know,” she says in Follow the Fleet). Look at how cool and unreachable she is when Fred is singing his heart out to her during “Never Gonna Dance” in Swing Time. She preached that God is Love and soda fountains were forever, but in her best work with Astaire and in Stage Door, she let darker and more movingly yearning things cloud her almost cartoonishly pretty brow, and those things are what should define her and what should be remembered.

by Dan Callahan

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

Hey, i really like minecraft and used to watch mcyt's back when i was younger. I was wondering if you could maybe guide me into the dream smp series. I have no idea where to start or what people are partaking in it. It seems so active rn and you seem to be invested in the plotlines and such so i thought maybe you can help me?

Okay!

The Dream SMP: A History

Warnings for drugs, the selling of drugs, drinking, war, death, explosions, and human/fish relationships

So, once upon a time, there was a Minecraft server.

It didn't have much of a plot or drama, everyone was just kind of playing the game

Then Wilbur showed up.

An important thing to remember about this server: It’s all Wilbur’s fault, except when it’s Dream’s.

Anyway, Wilbur decided to start a Minecraft drug empire (re: potions) out of a hto dog van (I did not misspell that. It’s called the hto dog van).

But they all lived in Dream’s server (Dream is the main Ruler/God/Inconceivable Green Dude of the SMP) and under Dream’s rule. 

He interfered with their “drug” business, so Wilbur did the only logical thing: Declared independence and formed his own nation to sell more “drugs”!

The nation was called L’Manburg, but Dream wasn’t a fan of any of this

And so the Revolution began!!

Part One: The Disc Wars

The main players were Wilbur (the most theater kid of them all), Tommy (The closest thing to a shonen protagonist this thing has), Tubbo (sunshine personified, likes bees, can lie though), and Eret (fuck Eret /j) (In all seriousness, they're awesome)

It was a hard battle.

Dream had way more people. The revolutionaries were outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, and out planned. And that was before Eret betrayed them.

Eret killed off all of their fellow revolutionaries in exchange for Dream giving them a kingdom.

All seemed lost (Tommy even tried to duel Dream despite being 16 and not the best at combat. He got killed quickly.)

Tommy hadn’t really cared about the revolution in the beginning, but at the end he gave up his most prized possessions (his music discs) to get Dream to leave them alone.

And L’Manburg was an independent nation!

Everyone celebrated in the ways they knew best

In Wilbur’s case, that was sleeping with a fish (yes. a fish. it was a salmon, if that clears anything up) named Sally and having a son: Fundy, furry extraordinaire!

Somehow the middle ground between Salmon and Human is Fox, as Fundy is an anthropomorphic fox.

He was the first person born in L’Manburg, and it seemed like there was to be peace throughout the land once more.

Take one flying guess who screwed that up.

Part Two: The Election

If you guessed Wilbur, we have a winner!

He decided that he needed to win an election to rule the country, and ran as POG 2020, or Wilbur for President.

But he wasn’t unopposed.

Enter Quackity (yes, this is the guy Trump vague tweeted), wanting power but being chill about it, as usual. He decided to throw his beanie into the political ring as Quackity 2020.

It seemed like an easy race, since Wilbur had liberated the nation and Quackity was just Some Guy at this point.

Then, Fundy and Nikki decided to run as Coconut 2020 in a third party bid for the presidency.

THEN, when Schlatt (senile old goat, the corrupt businessman archetype, often drunk) came up to the stage to endorse a candidate, he instead rambled into the mic that he was running for president too.

Like the senile old man they all thought he was.

Little did they know.

Wilbur still could have easily won this election. He was popular and everything. Then, he made a decision.

(Wilbur didn't need to do this, but like all tragic heroes and/or theater kids, he had hubris and was going to make it Everyone's Problem)

He went up to Quackity and suggested that they combine their votes. Quackity wasn't going to win either way, but this way he'd get to be vice president.

Quackity saw that it made sense, but decided that he wanted to be petty that day, and decided to combine votes with Schlatt instead.

And then the votes were counted

Team Coconut came in fourth because they cheated

Team Schlatt came in third because no one wanted the drunken, senile goat to be president

Team Quackity came in second

And Team Wilbur won in a landslide, taking 45% of the votes! 

Tommy ran out of the video to tell his mom they won. And then Wilbur revealed the deal Quackity and Schlatt struck. 

Quackity+Schlatt got 46% of the votes. Schlatt was president of L’Manburg. 

Schlatt immediately takes the podium and starts giving a dramatic speech that sounds less Senile Goat more Dangerous Dictator Goat. He orders that Team Wilbur leave the nation of L'Manburg Manburg (he renamed the country) under threat of death.

Part Three: The Festival

Team Wilbur became Pogtopia, Schlatt and crew became Manburg, and L'Manburg became a nostalgic dream.

The Pogtopians hope to reclaim their nation, and get this absolute madman on their team.

The dude spent a year just farming potatoes to beat someone in a contest. He regularly quotes The Art Of War. He's a die-hard anarchist.

Behold: Technoblade.

So Manburg is a dictatorship at this point in the tale, and Pogtopia is trying its best. 

They have Technoblade, Tommy, Wilbur, probably someone I'm forgetting, and Tubbo. 

Tubbo is their spy on the inside (so is Fundy, but he hasn't even told Pogtopia he's spying for them, so he's regarded as a traitor)

Then the Festival rolls around

Wilbur has been spiraling, and having a little corruption arc because of course the theater kid decides to kin Hamlet (or is it Macbeth in this situation?) 

A day before the festival, he reveals that he's planning on blowing up L'Manburg, because if he can't have it no one can.

The festival comes around, and surprise! Tubbo is publicly executed in front of a crowd!

Schlatt figured out he was a traitor, so he ordered that Techno execute him.

Techno did, but because he was peer pressured. 

Then Techno killed pretty much everyone at the festival with fireworks!

Wilbur tried to blow up the place, but lost the button to detonate the TNT (Side note: The TNT was given to him by Dream. Because of course.)

Part Four: The Revolution 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

By the time the true war for L’Manburg rolls around, next to no one is on Schlatt’s side.

Quackity betrays him, Fundy betrays him, even Eret is back on the side of Pogtopia.

The war went by fast, and Schlatt was surrounded by former allies and enemies alike.

Schlatt had a heart attack before anyone could actually kill him, and died as pathetically as he’d lived. Anti-climactic, but everyone was happy.

Wilbur declared Tommy, our protagonist, president.

Tommy declined the presidency, saying that he needed to search for his discs first. He declared Wilbur president of L’Manburg once more.

Wilbur declined the presidency and declared Tubbo president

Tubbo accepted and gave a lovely speech

And then it all goes to shit. "Surely not all of it?" Yeah. All of it.

Wilbur (yes. it was wilbur.) explodes L’Manburg, finally pressing the button to destroy his nation despite his dad trying to stop him.

His own father, Philza, kills him

Stabs the Wilbur

Everyone panicks

And that's when Techno decided it was Chaos Time.

He stands on the ashes of L'Manburg, and said that no government will be allowed to rise in the entire SMP. Tommy objects, and Techno gives this speech:

do you think you’re a hero, tommy?

the thing about this world tommy, is that good things don’t happen to heroes. let me tell you a story, tommy. a story about a man called theseus. his country—well his city-state technically—was in danger. and he sent himself forward into enemy lines. he slayed the minotaur and saved his city.

and you know what they did to him, tommy?

they exiled him. he died in disgrace, despised by his people. that’s what happens to heroes, tommy. the greeks knew the score. but if you want to be a hero, tommy. that’s fine.

do you want to be a hero tommy?

THEN DIE LIKE ONE.

And then he spawns two withers (one of which is named Subscribe To Technoblade) and all hell breaks loose.

Part Five: The Aftermath (aka Where Are They Now?)

Since then, Tubbo has been trying to rebuild L’Manburg. It’s a canal town now, and it looks lovely. He’s a good President.

Tommy isn’t the best Vice President, but once he stops banning people from the country he should be good.

Nikki has left the fox Wilbur gave her in Pogtopia.

Speaking of abandoned foxes, Fundy’s dealing with the death/betrayal of his dad, as well as not getting on that well with the others. He’s also engaged to Dream.

Yes, you read that right. Dream and Fundy are getting married. Fundy met their eldritch overlord on what was pretty much a blind date, and they just clicked.

Eret is adopting Fundy! She has no kingdom any more, but she’s recovered some honor and now has a son.

Philza is dealing with the fact that he killed his son, and may try to resurrect him.

Schlatt is still dead (but is he really gone?)

Quackity is....doing some worrisome things, getting vague tweeted at by Trump, ate Schlatt’s heart, and might be possessed by him??

Technoblade is still doing his own thing, I think

And Wilbur? Wilbur is an amnesiac ghost, blocking out the memories of when he was hurt or a bad person.

There’s way more to say on the subject of the Dream SMP, but this is the basics! Hope this helped!

[sunflowerhae]

-> Forgotten Love [M.L]

Requested by • @sweetie-yoongi7 hope you like it bb!✨🐌🍄

•3.7k

warnings• slight verbal abuse, language, a fight 👊💥😤

“Write about an experience where someone you love hurt you. Explain the situation, what was done or said, how you both responded, and what the outcome was. Must be 5 full pages long, and in MLA format. God, how annoying is that? I mean, what do I write about, my mom not letting me get McDonald’s one time because we had food at home?” You scoffed while pushing yourself back into your chair at the cool, air conditioned coffee shop you currently found yourself in. Summer was just officially ending, and October was creeping it’s way into the year, which meant the air wasn’t exactly hot, but it definitely wasn’t cool enough to walk around with a jacket on. You found solace in the beige and dark brown toned drink house, that smelled like coffee beans and lured in customers with its smooth jazz playlist. You were thankful Mark picked this place to have your little date in between classes, for the chill ambiance calmed down your irritated interior.

While you loved your creative writing class, and you absolutely adored your professor, you couldn’t help but be slightly pissed off at the writing prompt she randomly assigned you. You stared at it for what seemed like hours during class, no specific moment like described coming to your conscious. You were still thinking about it as you finally looked up at Mark’s shrunken frame, and the prompt was easily forgotten as worry took over your emotions.

“Babe? Are you okay?” At your concerned tone, Mark lifted his head to meet you eyes, before quickly looking back down at his coffee. He kept glancing between your eyes and his drink, while you patiently waited for him to explain what was bothering him.

Mark scratched the back of his neck, before looking back up at you one final time, and huffing out a soft sigh. “I know what you can write about.” He had barely even mumbled it, so neither of you were surprised when you asked him to repeat himself.

“I..know what you can write about.” The way Mark refused to look you in the eyes, and the tone of his voice, lead you to believe you knew what he was talking about, and you knew he didn’t want to say it.

You and Mark were an amazing couple.

You liked the same music, you both had the same sense of humor, and you were both equally loving towards each other and your friends. You were the two oldest people in your younger friend group, and two of the youngest in your older friend group. You both balanced it out quite well, and set an example for both groups as a healthy relationship while you did it.

But that’s not to say you were perfect.

It was a year ago, to be exact. You were both at the beginning of your sophomore year of college, and the priorities were starting to stack for both of you. Mark -being a music major- had to write a song and collab with the dance majors to make a dance for the song in about two months and turn it in as a beginning of the year exam. Meanwhile, you -being a film major- had to make a small movie using the theater kids as your actors; due in a month. To top on to all the stress, you had both recently moved in together, and had barely started unboxing before the projects got thrust at you.

You hadn’t noticed he was distancing himself from you, at first.

You were so distracted with your project, that every time he would blow off eating dinner together, or would stay at the school until well into the night, you didn’t complain much; just trying to finish your project and get a good grade. It wasn’t until a month later that you started to see that something was wrong. You had finished your project and had gotten amazing grades, and all you wanted to do was go out on a nice date with your boyfriend; something you hadn’t done in about a month. You texted him the time and place to meet you at, to dress nice, and that you’d be waiting with a surprise. You had seen the small “read 3:14pm” under the text, and while you were a bit puzzled as to why he didn’t respond, you didn’t worry about it too much - seeing as lately that was his thing - and just got ready for the night you hoped would be just as amazing as the day was.

You thought you looked pretty beautiful.

Your hair was nicely done, your nails were painted marks favorite color, and the black, tight dress with sleeves hanging off the side accentuated your body and breasts perfectly. You had even sent Haechan a picture to make sure it was “hot,” to which he replied that Mark’s a lucky man, which made you smile. You were looking fine tonight, and while you had had a reason to celebrate, you couldn’t wait to give Mark your all tonight.

{for more effect, I suggest playing It Happened Quiet by AURORA here}

You took your seat in the dimly lit restaurant that was definitely too expensive for a music and film major, and waited for your water that was requested to the waiter to arrive. With a quick glance at the time on your phone, you realized Mark wouldn’t be here for another ten minutes or so. So you just sat there, trying to distract yourself from the excessive amount of bread on your table, and watched the clock count down until 7:30, when Mark should be arriving.

7:40 rolled around and you couldn’t stop yourself from staring at the door like it just did you super dirty. While it was just 10 minutes late, Mark was never one to be late.

Okay, that’s a lie, but he was never late to these type of things. And you perfectly timed it so that he would have time to get home from school, change, and then get to the restaurant. You quickly shot Mark a “you on your way?” text, before setting down your phone, trying not to be the clingy girlfriend, and keep your hope that Mark would be there soon.

Yet, by the time the clock struck 9, and your bread was stale and you had drank enough water to definitely get a bladder infection if you didn’t pee soon, your hope was completely dead. You silently got up from your seat and gave a small smile and nod to the hostess - who shot a sympathetic smile to you - before pushing the door of the restaurant open and walking toward your car.

You tried not to cry on the way home, but when you walked through the front door to see a dark and cold apartment, indicating that Mark had not yet come home, you couldn’t help but let the tears fall at the thought of something happening to him. You had called and texted him multiple times, and when he answered none of them, you even called the hospital to see if they had seen a patient that fit Mark’s description, or had someone named Mark Lee come in. You called all the hospitals in your area, in fact, but nothing came up. Your last hope was someone you actually didn’t want to call. Not because you didn’t want to call her, but because you didn’t want what you’re thinking to be true. But when all of your friends said they hadn’t heard from him, you had almost no choice.

“Hello?” Her chipper voice on the other end made you want to cringe, but you held it together.

“If Mark is in the room, don’t say my name. It’s y/n. Is mark with you?”

Yerim honestly didn’t know what to say. She stuttered a bit on the other end, before clearing her throat and mumbling a, “yes”.

You sighed and gave a half hearted, “okay, don’t tell him I called or anything, okay? Can you just, like, pretend you never even talked to me? Thanks Yeri,” hanging up the phone before she could answer.

You didn’t know how you felt about Mark working on a school project with his ex. When you had met Mark, it was at a college party during freshman year, around a year or so ago, actually. He had just been through a terrible breakup with his high school sweetheart who was - you guessed it - Yeri. If you were being honest with yourself, you knew you were the rebound. You just, fell so hard for him in the short time you had known him that, it didn’t really matter. You guessed somewhere along the way, Mark actually did fall for you, because he stayed, and he said he loved you, and you moved in together. Because of this, and because of the fact that Yeri was never brought up, you didn’t feel too insecure about your relationship.

But now that you’re sitting on the couch in silence, thinking about the fact that your boyfriend ditched your date to hang out with his ex, you can’t help but feel a bit unconfident in where your standing was with Mark. You slowly started realizing that Mark had, in fact, been distancing himself the past month; choosing to instead spend time with his ex-girlfriend instead of the girl that he claimed he loved.

Jealously and insecurities bit away at your insides when you heard the door slowly being unlocked from the outside. Looking at your phone, you realized it was 11:32pm. You had called Yeri at 10:15, so you suppose she honored your request to not tell Mark you called.

Mark was surprised to see you sitting on the couch when he walked in. He had figured that you would have gone to bed already. It was quite late for a Friday for you, seeing as this was the day you usually went to bed early; tired from the week. He felt guilty looking at you, so he choose to train his eyes on anything besides your crumbled figure on the couch. Meanwhile, you stood up, trying to catch his gaze.

“Mark. Where were you tonight?” Your harsh infliction made Mark slightly flinch. He wanted to apologize, because he knows what he missed. And when he finally did look at you, he felt even more guilty, because you looked quite upset about the situation, and you also looked absolutely beautiful tonight. Your black dress fit your body and extenuated your curves perfectly. Your hair was done gorgeously, and he could tell you spent a long time on your makeup. Mark did want to apologize, but when you said,

“Do you even care about this relationship, I mean it seems like all you’ve done lately is ignore me-”

Mark had almost seen red. Every little thing bothering him lately just...boiled over. He wasn’t thinking before he spoke, which never worked for him; this time wasn’t so different.

“God, shut up! Just shut up! All you do is talk! This is why I prefer to spend my time with Yeri, because she’s not so extreme like you always are! You’re not even half the women Yeri is, and you’ll never be! Sometimes I wish I hadn’t picked you to be my rebound for her an-“ Mark stopped himself from talking by clamping his hand over his mouth with wide eyes.

He hadn’t meant that.

He had not meant that.

He was just so upset by everything lately, and he spoke without thinking, like an absolute idiot.

But you didn’t know that. The tears streaming out of your eyes and the wobbling chin showed that for him. He reached out for you and took a step forward, only for you to take a step back, which basically broke Mark in half.

“Y/n I...” Nothing was said between you too, what was there to be said? To you, Mark had finally shown how he had really felt for the past month or so. You gave him one last look, before walking past him, putting on your heels - which were the fastest thing you could slip on - and quickly opening the door.

At the sound of the door, Mark snapped out of his daze, and rushed after you. “Y/n, no! Give me the keys, you can’t drive right now!”

Your tears had, in fact, gotten worse, but you said nothing to Mark as you picked up your pace to the parking lot of your apartments. Mark almost caught up with you, but you sped up even faster, which silently baffled him because you were wearing heals.

You finally got into the car and quickly got in to the drivers seat and locked the door just as mark arrived at the door. He was practically begging you not to go, and pleading to open the door. You just cried more and put your keys into the ignition, before backing out and driving out; Mark feeling like he was watching his whole life drive away from him.

{for more effect, I suggest playing Forgotten Love by AURORA here. You may have to play it multiple times.}

It had been three months since that incident. Three months since you and Mark talked. Three months of you being single. You, unfortunately, had a basic math class with Mark, and while you two used to sit in the corner together, you now both sat on opposite sides of the classroom. Or you in the front - him in the back. Wherever the first one in sat, the other sat on the opposite side.

Mark felt like he went through hell and back in those three months. He felt incredibly bad for what he said to you, and the fact that after that night, he didn’t try to get you back at all. The Monday after, you just sat on opposite ends, quietly agreeing that it was over. You had gotten all your stuff from the apartment, and luckily Haechan had a spare room you could live in.

Speaking of Haechan, your friend group was absolutely baffled when you both told them you had broken up. It had seemed like just a month before, you two were completely in love with each other; on the same page and everything. Then a month later; it’s over. They didn’t know who they should invite where, but you both reassured them (seperately. You both were just secretly on the same page still, without knowing it.) that you would be fine at the same social events.

You, of course, didn’t factor in that you would be watching your ex-boyfriend bring girls up to random rooms in his friends frat during parties. And that at bonfires, you would see him kissing random girls cheeks from across the fire. Or that, when you all had a group study date, he would bring a girl that none of you knew. You didn’t factor in that your ex-boyfriend would actively go out of his way to hurt you.

Truthfully, Mark didn’t do it to hurt you. He did it because if he didn’t hook up with girls at frat parties, he would drink too much and end up trying to kiss you. And if he didn’t flirt with girls at bonfires, he would spend the whole time staring at your from across the fire. And if he didn’t bring a girl to the study dates, he would break his pencils in anger when jaemin would wrap his arm around you in affection. But, at every event, no matter who he was with, Mark always failed.

He couldn’t stop stealing glances at you from across the fire while you laughed at something Nayeon - Johnny’s girlfriend - said to you. He couldn’t stop himself from breaking his pencils under the table when jaemin played with the tips of your hair. And he always ended up leaving the girls before anything happened at frat parties because he couldn’t stop wishing it was you.

It was actually at a frat party that Mark had gotten you back.

You were trying to have a good time. You didn’t come to the frat parties much, because the pain of seeing Mark lead a girl upstairs hurt you so much, you felt like your chest was on fire. But Haechan had all but begged you show up to this one, and you would have never declined anyway; It was Taeil’s birthday, after all.

You were dancing with Dahyun and Chaeyoung when you felt two hands grip your waist. You expected it to be one of the guys, so you turned with a smile on your face, only to come face to face with a man you had never met. The smile on your face dropped, and you took a step back from his grip.

He gave you a sick smile, and moved forward, back into your space.

“Hey, pretty girl. Wanna dance?”

“No.” You exclaimed disgustingly, before trying to move away from the unknown man. However, that proved difficult as his grip on your wrist was quite violent, and strong. You winced, and kept tugging on your hand, to no avail.

“Leave me alone, I don’t want to dance with you.” You kept pushing your arm back, but he just tugged you closer to his chest. You could smell the alcohol on his breath, and felt sick to your stomach at what was about to happen. At the thought, you started wiggling out of his grip at a faster speed.

“Bitch, stop moving-“

“Call her a bitch one more fucking time, asshole.” You opened your eyes to see a small group has formed around you, your mystery creeper, and..Mark?!

“Get lost, man. This ones mine.”

Mark was seeing red again.

“She’s...not ....PROPERTY!” and with that final statement, Mark swung his fist and you ducked just in time for the weirdo to be struck in the face and loosen his grip on you completely. You pushed yourself forward, and ran behind Mark, to the open arms of your friends, who - as you understand - ran to get mark the minute they saw you struggling.

Mark fought this dude almost twice his size for a minute, and he was about to be taken out, before he locked eyes with you, and the power surged through him. One final punch to the unknown asshole, and he was on floor. Everyone cheered, and some people were already picking up his body, chanting “POOL! POOL! POOL!” But the noise faded out as Mark strides up to you, takes your hand, and drags you upstairs. He pushes you both into a bathroom, where you suddenly take charge as you force him down on the seat, and look through the cabinet for a first aid kit.

You and Mark say nothing as you rub his cut with alcohol. At the sudden sting, Mark hisses and places his hands on your hips, gripping them harshly to push himself through the burn. You can’t help but let your eyes flutter shut at the feeling of the love of your life’s hands on you again. You felt like you had lived a thousand years without water, and were suddenly given a water bottle.

You didn’t realize how long you stood there, relishing in the feeling of Marks hands on you. Mark had opened his eyes, to see you with your eyes closed and you hands clasped together in front of your chest - the cotton ball resting in your hands. Mark pulled you closer to him with a whimper, and when you opened your eyes back, you saw that you were significantly closer to Mark, and that he had tears threatening to fall.

With a cough, you looked back at the first aid kit and pushed yourself out of Mark’s strong grip. Another couple of minutes went by in silence, before Mark finally let out a soft, “I’m sorry.”

Your movements halted, and you couldn’t bring yourself to look down at the sad boys eyes.

“I spoke before thinking. I didn’t really mean the things I said, I was just stressed out from school, a-and, fuck I don’t know, y/n. I just..”

Mark was crying now, and he leaned down and placed his hands in his hands. You stepped back in surprise with wide eyes. “I just want you back. I want my girlfriend back. I want to love you again and spend a decade and then some apologizing for what I said. I’m such a fucking idiot I know I don’t deser-“

You shut him up by pushing his shoulders back up, sitting on his lap with your legs on either side of him (terribly hard to do on a toilet, but you’re a master), and kissing him like a woman starved. Mark quickly falls into your lips, and brings his hands up and under your butt, effectively scooping you up a bit.

You don’t know how long you and Mark sat there kissing, but when Yuta walked into the bathroom to pee and had to see two twenty year olds kissing, he never let you live it down.

You smile fondly at the memory, before looking back up at your lover, awkwardly sitting across from you. Before you know it, you’re leaning forward and taking his hand in yours.

“I’m not going to write about that. That was a personal thing between us, and I honestly don’t want to relive that moment longer than I have already. I’m going to write about the time my cousin stole my DS.” You laughed, and Mark visibly relaxed at hearing you weren’t going to write about it. While he had suggested it, that was because he wanted you to feel like you could talk about it if you wanted, but the truth is he hated reliving those three months too. He remembers what terrible state he was in without you, and he doesn’t like to think about it.

You knew he was dwelling on it, so you stood up slightly from the table and leaned down to kiss Mark - who saw what you were doing and met you half way. You both gave each other a few more pecks before you whispered, “I forgive you, always and forever. And I love you.”

[angelbaugh-writes]

My Almost Soulmate {Steve Rogers x Reader}

Request: Can I ask for 5 with steeb rogers?

Warnings: endgame spoilers (just in case you haven’t seen it), heartbreak at the end

Author’s Note: Thank you for the request, sunshine! Fun Fact, this dialogue prompt is a line from a poem I wrote. (Another fun fact: One part of this deleted itself twice! So I had to write the date section a total of three times. I think I have it memorized!) I hope you like it. Much love Xox Angel Baugh

    I was madly in love with Steve Rogers. It was love at first sight; at least it was for me. If soulmates existed, I believed with my whole being that he was mine.

     We first met at the tower. Tony had hired me as an assistant, and was introducing me to the team. I had excused myself to the restroom when Steve arrived. When I entered back into the room, I quite literally ran into the blond super-soldier.

     “Oh my gosh. I am so sorry,” I stumbled over my words as I apologized profusely. “Are you okay?” A deep laugh brought my gaze up to the prettiest face I’d ever laid eyes on. I’m sure he heard the squeak that left my mouth.

     “It’s okay, doll. I should have looked where I was going.” Oh god. Did he just call me doll?

     “Fuck me.” I couldn’t keep the words in. My face began to heat up as the embarrassment washed over me. His smirk sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

     “Y/N! You met the old man, I see,” Tony spoke as he found us, “What did I miss?” You stared at Steve, wide-eyed and silently begging him to keep his mouth shut. He sent me a wink that caused me to groan inwardly.

     “Y/N just ran into me, but it’s no big deal. She apologized to make up for it.”

     I must have left a lasting impression on the poor guy, because I had managed to seduce him into asking me on a date. That was the first time I’d ever seen Steve flustered. A light dusting of pink covered his cheeks. I had, of course, said yes. How could I say no to Captain America?

    The date started at a nice restaurant. We passed banter back and forth as we ate. Steve told me about his childhood. Sure, I had learned about him in History class, but it was so much more interesting learning it from him. We shared embarrassing stories as we walked to the movie theater. I couldn’t remember the name of the film to save my life, but I do remember practically jumping into his lap when a scary scene played on the large screen.

    “I had a really good time tonight,” Steve spoke as he walked me to my front door. I held my cardigan in my hands. He stuffed his hands in his pockets nervously. “I’d love to do it again sometime soon.”

    “Maybe we could meet up for some coffee one morning this week,” I suggested, biting my lip. The small action claimed his attention. He licked his lips as his gaze drifted to mine.

    “That-That sounds perfect,” he mumbled. A few moments passed before he finally asked the question I’d been waiting to hear. “Can I kiss you?”

    A nod was all it took for him to connect our lips. His hands cupped my cheeks while my arms wrapped around his waist. The cool night air nipped at our faces. Sparks shot through my spine at his touch. We pulled away flustered.

    “I’ll see you at the tower tomorrow,” I whispered, seemingly dazed. He grinned at me. “Goodnight, Steve.”

    “Goodnight, darling. I’ll see you then.” One quick peck on the cheek and we parted to go our separate ways.

    Our relationship started slowly. After three more dates, I asked Steve to be my boyfriend. We became closer together as weeks and then months passed. We moved in together after a year together. The house was small but still big enough for us. Soon after that purchase, we got a dog. The irish setter was our child. Sam came over more often than he was invited to play with the dog. He spent many nights in our guest room. We got engaged after three years of being together.

    My phone rang as I talked with Pepper. The team was due to arrive from a mission that day and we waited for our boys together.

     Tony didn’t give me time to talk when I answered the call, “Hey, kid. We just landed. Your old man got hit and he’s not doing too good. He’s going to be okay. Meet us at the med bay.” He hung up without waiting for a response. I looked at Pepper.

     “They’re home,” I croaked out, “but Steve’s hurt.”

     When I entered the room, Steve was laying down with an IV hooked up to him. His face looked as if it had been drained of color. Tears pricked my eyes as I sat next to him.

     “Oh. Hi, Y/N. I missed you.” His lazy smile brought a quiet chuckle out of me. “I got a boo-boo.” 

     “I see,” I sniffled. “I thought you were supposed to be invincible to this kind of stuff?”

     “I am! But the bad guys got the good stuff. But don’t you worry, I beat them up real good!” His words slurred together as he spoke. The medicine being given to him was causing him to become delirious.

     “I’m proud of you, babe,” I grabbed his hand in mine and kissed his knuckles gently.

     “Why are you crying? Don’t cry, my love. How am I supposed to propose to you tonight if you are sad?” I halted my actions at his words.

     His head lolled to the side before shooting back up. He had sobered up just enough to realize what he had said. I knew this was coming, Bucky is a terrible liar, but I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

     “Oops. I didn’t mean to say that. Unless you’re okay with that. Will you marry me, Y/N? This is really bad timing, but I’m so madly in love with you. You’re amazing. You’re so smart and talented and pretty. Not to mention your fat a-” I cut off his rambling with a kiss.

     “I’d love to marry you.”

     The wedding was simple. The team were the only people invited. No best-man was appointed, due to Bucky and Sam’s subtle rivalry, and I had no maid of honor. It was perfect for us. We were perfect together.

     I wish I could say that things ended with a Happy Ever After, but it didn’t. The war against Thanos ended with Tony’s funeral. It was easily the hardest day of my life. After the service ended, Steve had to jump back in time to return the stones. He left. He left to finish saving the world for the last time.

     The last thing I expected was for him to stay. He was given the chance to stay with her and he took it. He chose Peggy over me. I came second to him in those fleeting moments. In the long run, I meant nothing to him. Just a stepping stone in the path back to her. Everything had been a lie.

     He was my almost soulmate.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Dead Poets Society: The Story

Dead Poets Society opens in a pretty traditional way: with the first day of school.

It’s the beginning of a fresh school year for transfer student Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke), new, shy kid on the block at Welton Academy, a prestigious prep-school for boys, located in Vermont.  At the opening ceremony, older recruits march through a church, down the aisles full of other students, carrying banners that display the words: Tradition, Discipline, Honor, and Excellence.  New students light candles, and, most importantly, headmaster Nolan takes to the podium to welcome the new students, and shy, quiet Todd Anderson sits in the pew, looking nervous as Headmaster Nolan begins his speech, discussing the four Pillars of the school, the prestigious nature of the establishment, and introducing the new English teacher: John Keating (Robin Williams).

The panel of teachers, sitting behind Nolan, is notably older and grayer than Keating, who, while not a terribly young man, is considerably more lively and animated than his new colleagues.  This will be important later, but not right now. (Spoilers below!)

After the ceremony, the courtyard in front of the school is full of parents saying goodbye to their sons.  It is here that we learn something interesting about Todd: he has, as Nolan puts it, “big shoes to fill” .  As it turns out, Todd’s older brother was a student here, and a pretty good one.  Even more nervous, Todd files out of the courtyard with the rest of the students, where we meet Todd’s to-be roomate: Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard).

Neil Perry seems to be Todd’s complete opposite in personality.  He’s confident, and out-going, and is expected by Nolan to be doing ‘great things’ this year.  He takes Todd up to their dorm room, and there, Todd meets Neil’s friends: Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles), Richard Cameron (Dylan Kussman), Stephen Meeks (Allelon Ruggiero), Gerard Pitts (James Waterson), and Charlie Dalton (Gale Hansen).  The boys get comfortable in Neil and Todd’s room, teasing Neil for being made to take chemistry courses over the summer.  The laid-back nature of the introductions is cut short, however, by a knock at the door.

It’s Neil Perry’s father (Kurtwood Smith).

Mr. Perry tells Neil that he has spoken to Mr. Nolan, and has cut all of Neil’s extra-curricular activities for the year, including the school yearbook, as he doesn’t want Neil distracted from the end-goal of medical school.  Neil tries to argue, but is quickly shot down.

After Mr. Perry leaves, the other boys encourage Neil to stand up to his father, but he refuses, resigned to doing what he’s told.  The other boys leave, inviting Todd to join them for a Latin study group the next day.

The next day, on the first true day of classes, the boys pass through lesson after lesson, taught by wizened, distinguished men who bore their students to tears.

And then comes English class.

Mr. Keating enters the room, passes his entire classroom, and heads for the opposite door, telling his class to follow him.  Confused, the class obeys.

Keating takes them out to the hallway, encouraging them to look at the case full of pictures of Welham alumnus, and tells them that those who first attended Welton, explaining that these people who were once young, are now old, or even dead.

“Carpe diem, seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

He also recites to them some poetry:

“O Captain, my Captain. Who knows where that comes from? Anybody? Not a clue? It’s from a poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class you can either call me Mr. Keating, or if you’re slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain.”

After class, Cameron remarks that Keating seems rather odd, but the rest of the boys seem to like him, or at least, find him interesting.  While the boys hit the showers, Knox reveals that he has to attend a dinner at the Danburys’ (whoever they are, more on that later) explaining that he can’t meet to study with them tonight.  The boys pick on him a little and then invite Todd, who doesn’t seem to be on board for the plan.

That night, the boys meet to study, and Knox comes in late, elated.  See, he’s met the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen: Chris.  The bad news is that she’s engaged to a guy named Chet, but that doesn’t seem to deter Knox that much.  He remains completely smitten.

The next day, Keating’s class remains as unconventional as the day before.  This is no course where the first class is fun and then it’s down to business the next day: Keating seems to mean business about seizing the day.

He opens class by requesting that Cameron reads the first page of the introduction of their poetry book, an introduction about how to rate a poem’s ‘greatness score’.  As he reads, Keating writes on the board, allowing him to reach the end of the page before telling Cameron, and the rest of the class, to rip out the introduction.

At first, the class hesitates, but after a moment, many of the students gleefully obey.  As they tear out the pages, another teacher, Mr. McAllister stops to investigate.  Keating explains that he is teaching the boys to think for themselves, to enjoy the use of language and the power of words.  

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”

The boys contemplate this as Keating adds:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

At dinner, McAllister sits next to Keating and chastises him warningly about his choice to educate the boys to think for themselves, encouraging them to be creative.

“Show me the heart unfettered by foolish dreams and I’ll show you a happy man,” McAllister quotes.

Keating smiles and replies with a verse of his own: “But only in their dreams can men be truly free. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.”

At their own table, the boys unearth an old yearbook, searching for Mr. Keating’s page.  They learn that he was involved in a group called the ‘Dead Poets Society’.  

Curiosity piqued, the boys ask Keating about the Dead Poets Society after dinner.  Keating explains that it was a secret society, inspired by the words of Henry David Thoreau to ‘suck the marrow out of life’.  This group would gather in a nearby cave and read poetry aloud, and write some of their own.

Neil suggests to the rest of the boys in private that they should revive the Dead Poets Society and meet that night.  In his room, he finds a book called Five Centuries of Verse, with an inscription from Keating: the opening to every Dead Poets Society meeting.

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.  To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”

That night, the boys all sneak out of the school and meet in the caves.  Neil begins the meeting, reading the opening, and then the group takes turns reading poems and talking, getting progressively more spirited.  After a while, they conclude, heading back to the school and singing.  

The next day, in English class, Mr. Keating shows the boys how to read Shakespeare: not dull and stuffy, but full of life, (doing impressions of Marlon Brando and John Wayne to illustrate) and then does something even stranger.

Keating climbs onto his desk and asks the class why he does this.  Charlie suggests that it is to feel taller.

“No!  Thank you for playing, Mr. Dalton. I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.”

With that, Keating encourages his class, one at a time, to stand on his desk, looking at the room from a different perspective.  As class comes to a close, Keating announces that the boys are to write, and then read aloud, their own poems, privately telling Todd that he is quite aware how much this assignment must scare him.

In his room, Todd attempts to write a poem as Neil bursts in, full of excitement.  He has discovered a flier for a community play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and intends to try out, realizing that he wants to be an actor.  He says:

“For the first time in my whole life, I know what I wanna do! And for the first time, I’m gonna do it! Whether my father wants me to or not! Carpe diem!”

The next class, Keating takes the boys out to the field, handing them each a line of poetry.  He begins an exercise where each boy must read aloud the line before running up and kicking a ball, one after another, while he plays classical music.  Directly after, Neil blazes through the dorm, shouting that he’s secured the part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, his enthusiasm undaunted by the fact that his father will never write the approval letter necessary.  He forges the necessary letter from his father for the theater and the school principal as Todd looks on.  

It is the next English class, and it is time to read the poems from the class.  Knox, who has ridden his bike to Chris’s school to watch her at least once, reads aloud a poem dedicated to her.  Other students read, and finally, it comes time for Todd’s turn.

Todd, as it turns out, hasn’t written a poem.

Undaunted, Keating brings Todd to the front of the class, covering his eyes and encouraging him, helping him create a poem on the spot.  Todd’s spontaneous poem brings the class to applause, and Mr. Keating moves the class outside for some more ‘poetry in motion’.

At this point in the story, we’ve got a lot of information about quite a few characters.

Protagonists Todd and Neil, originally apparently the opposites of one another, are similar in pressures from home: Todd to be like his older brother, and Neil to follow the carefully laid plan that his father has set out for him.  Neil is already moving outside of that plan, pursuing acting, and Todd, with some encouragement, manages to come up with an intense poem in front of an entire class, despite his shyness.

Even the other boys in the group have unique characterization: Charlie, the anything-for-a-joke class clown, Knox, the hopeless romantic, and Cameron, the reluctant tag-along.  (Meeks and Pitts are there too, but they have far less screen time and personality than the rest of the DPS.)  We as an audience are watching their growth and personal arcs after the catalyst that is John Keating.

Oddly enough, Keating is the main character that we spend the least amount of time with, and know the least about.  We don’t know a lot about his home life, or what his background is, or what his thoughts are.  All we see is his direct influence on the boys at the school, and his unintentional inspiration to restart the Dead Poets Society.

Speaking of which:

At the next Dead Poets Society meeting, Knox seems uneasy, announcing that he’s going to kill himself if he can’t be with Chris, and leaves the meeting to call her.  The boys follow, cheering him on, as he makes the call, hanging up at first, before working up his nerve (Carpe Diem) to call her again.  Chris invites Knox to a party, saying she was thinking about calling him, and elated, Knox accepts the invitation.

The next night is the night of the party.  Knox heads off to the Danbury house, where he’s swallowed up by a rowdy crowd of teenagers.  Soon enough, Knox (and everybody else) is at varying levels of intoxicated.  Inhibitions loosened, Knox kisses the forehead of a passed-out Chris, enraging her boyfriend and starting a fight, ending the party abruptly.

Meanwhile, Todd is given the exact same birthday present as last year: a desk set that he didn’t even like, yet another sign of his parents not really paying attention to him.  Neil, noticing Todd’s disappointment, cheers him up, throwing the desk set off the roof, before taking him to another Dead Poets Society Meeting, where Charlie (now insisting on being called Nuwanda) has brought girls in to impress them with poetry.

Charlie also announces that he published an article in the school newspaper demanding that girls be admitted to Welton, signing it the Dead Poets Society.  The rest of the group is justifiably angry, afraid that this will put the school’s administration onto them.

Sure enough, at an assembly, Headmaster Nolan demands to know which of the students was responsible for the article.  At first, none of the students come clean, until a phone rings.

Charlie picks it up, and announces that it’s from God, saying they should admit girls to Welton.

This prank inevitably ends with Charlie getting paddled in the Headmaster’s office (1959, remember?) and threatened with expulsion.  Nolan wants the names of the other members of the Dead Poets Society, but Charlie won’t tell.  

After dismissing Charlie, Nolan calls Keating in, questioning him about his teaching methods.  Keating explains that he’s trying to teach the boys individualism.

“I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.”

“At these boys’ age? Not on your life!”

Afterwards, Keating approaches the boys, specifically Charlie, and gently scolds him for his stunt.

“There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for,” he says, explaining that being stupid is not the same as being an individual.

This is a common theme of the entire story, actually.  As much as Keating encourages free-thinking and exploration of ideas, he knows the difference between bucking authority for the sake of it versus nonconformity.  Each of the boys is exploring this aspect in their own way, from Todd’s slow-growing confidence to Neil’s direct disobedience of his father’s oppressive plan to Charlie’s defiance, even to Cameron’s caution against ‘disobeying rules’.  Dead Poets Society is a story about encouraging people to think for themselves, but to be wise about what they do once they start, and while some are more obvious than others (Charlie’s foolishness and Knox’s overzealousness contrasted with Cameron’s blind following of ‘the rules’, all portrayed as kind of problematic), some examples are more ambiguous.

Such is the case with Neil.

After a rehearsal for the play, Neil comes back to his dorm to find his father, very displeased with him.  He’s incredibly angry about Neil joining the play, and instructs him to quit the play the next morning, the same day as the first performance.  Upset, Neil goes to Mr. Keating’s office to ask him for advice.

Keating listens to him, and suggests trying to talk to his father, for Neil to show him how passionate he is about acting so that he will allow him to do the play, encouraging him to come to his father earnestly before the play.

On a slightly lighter note, Knox enters Chris’s high school and follows her to class with flowers, trying to apologize for the previous night.  She’s understandably embarrassed and tells him that her boyfriend, Chet, is still upset with Knox and is out to get him.  Undeterred, Knox follows her into class and reads a poem about Chris aloud, in front of all of her classmates.

Remember what I said about ‘wise’ ways to deal with free thinking?

A little later, Neil lies to Keating, telling him that he’s talked to his father, and that he’s allowed to stay in the play.

The next night, Keating and the boys prepare to go see Neil perform, with Chris even turning up and deciding to accompany Knox to the play.  It’s well worth it.  Neil is in his element, comfortable and dynamic on stage, and his classmates and teacher cheer him on, awestruck by his talent.

Before the last monologue, Neil spots his father, entering the theater.  Clearly daunted, he goes out and sells his final monologue anyway, to the wild applause of the audience.  

All but his father.

After the performance, Neil’s father brings him home, informing him that he is being pulled out of Welton, and enrolled into a military school, immediately followed by medical school.  Neil attempts to argue, to plead his case, but his father shuts him down, and Neil stops arguing.

Later that night, after his parents go to bed, Neil sneaks into his parents’ room wearing his costume, opens the drawer, taking his father’s gun, before retreating to his father’s study and killing himself.

It is right here that the movie goes from a good, even average film about ‘seizing the day’ and living life to the fullest, to a great movie about the consequences of doing it.

In another movie, Neil’s father would have seen the performance and realized his son was right.  Or if he hadn’t, Neil would have finally stood up for himself, and his parents might have seen the light.

In another film, Neil wouldn’t have died.  Especially not like that.

It is this moment, this gear-switch, that the audience is forced to contend with the implications, the fallout of these actions, and that sometimes, even ‘seizing the day’ is impossible, depending on your circumstances.

It’s not an easy idea to swallow.  It’s not one we’re used to in movies.  But it’s here, nonetheless.

Back at Welton, the boys tearfully wake Todd up to tell him the news.  Upset, Todd runs out into the snow, as the boys follow.  He remarks on how beautiful the snow is before throwing up and breaking down, rushing into the snow alone.  In the classroom, Mr. Keating paces empty desks, arriving at Neil’s and removing the poetry book he left for him with the Dead Poets Society inscription.

The next morning, it turns out that the fallout affects more than Neil.

Headmaster Nolan announces that he intends to conduct an investigation into what happened.  The boys gather to talk as Nolan interrogates Cameron, the rule-abider.  The remaining Dead Poets are certain that Cameron is going to sell them out, and sure enough, that’s exactly what he does.  Cameron enters, telling the group that he told them everything, and that they all should too, as it’s too late to save Keating, but not to save themselves.

Charlie reacts to this by punching Cameron in the face, getting him expelled.

The next boy called in is Todd, who enters Nolan’s office to find his parents there, too.  Nervously, he sits as Nolan tries to get Todd to sign a document blaming Mr. Keating for Neil’s death.  Todd glances at the page: the rest of the Dead Poets have signed too.

Later, in English class, Headmaster Nolan arrives and announces that he will be teaching until they can find a permanent replacement for Keating.  As he opens class (encouraging people to read the ‘excellent’ ripped out introduction from the book) Keating enters the room to collect his things.  After long moments of silence of the boys keeping their heads down as Keating gathers his belongings, Todd finally breaks, calling out to Mr. Keating and telling him that the school forced them to sign the confession.

As Nolan tries to get him to sit down, Todd shouts out: “O Captain, My Captain”, and stands on his desk.  Many other students follow, one by one, as Keating tearfully watches.

Keating gratefully thanks the boys, and the film ends on a closeup of Todd’s face, after he’s finally stood up for himself, and seized the day.

Make no mistake, this is not a happy ending.  Keating is forced to leave the school.  Neil has taken his own life, trapped into a lifetime he didn’t want.  Charlie has been expelled, and it’s likely the rest of the boys will be too.  This is a movie based on, and ending with, great uncertainty.  Not every boy stood up.  Not everyone is coming out of this okay.

The question is, what are we supposed to take away from this?

The message of the film, the core theme that people remember, is Seize the Day.  And yet, of those who ‘Seize the Day’, very few come out of it unscathed, if any.  Instead, people are left with heartbreak, making bad decisions or, even if the decisions may have been morally ‘right’, or what they felt they had to do, consequences must follow.  Charlie’s overzealous sense of humor and bucking of authority gets him expelled.  Knox’s over-the-top romanticization of Chris nearly drives her away and gets him in trouble.  Neil kills himself because the restricting nature of his family won’t allow him to ‘Seize the Day’.

And Todd?

Todd finally speaks out, but too late to fix any of the damage.

Despite the focus on Mr. Keating in most of the promotional material, the protagonist of the movie is, of course, Todd.  Once Neil dies, Todd is who we are left with, and it is Todd who changes from shy boy who won’t speak out to the leader of a final daring farewell to a teacher that changed his life.  He’s the one that grows.  He changes.

It’s just too little too late.

The story of Dead Poets Society is a sobering one, and not exactly a story you’d expect.  The first two-thirds could have been part of any typical, ‘feel good’ teen drama about self-discovery, but the last third takes expectations and turns them on their head.  This is real life: it doesn’t always work out.  People get fired for trying to do the right thing.  Parents don’t see the harmful impact they have on their children.  People value rules and tradition over the dreams of the young.

It is in this devastating third act that Dead Poets Society earns its place as a classic: by refusing to allow the cliched beginnings to define its ending.

It would have been so easy to allow Neil to convince his father to allow him to act.  It would have been simple to allow Keating to change the mind of the establishment, for the Dead Poets to take Welton by storm.

But real life doesn’t always work out like that.  Sometimes, the way we go about ‘seizing the day’ can end badly depending on our circumstances and the wisdom in the method we choose.  The film isn’t telling us how to do it right.  It’s showing you the lives of people who did it wrong, or at least, who seized the day, tried to make their lives extraordinary, and failed, due to many different reasons.

But.

That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

For every failure, for every mistake (Neil sneaking to do the play, Charlie’s pranks, etc.), Todd’s example stands above and beyond.  Yes, he might get into trouble.  But this moment, this act of telling a beloved teacher that his work was not in vain, that his students will remember him, that he was not to blame, feels right.  This is what he is supposed to do.

We cheer for that moment, we feel the weight of the movie lift just a smidge, because in the end, we have to seize the day.  We have to try to make our lives extraordinary, but we have to find the right way to do it, the wise way to do it.

Because, for all of the mistakes made, Keating is right: Words and ideas will change the world.  It is up to us how to use them, when to use daring, or caution, and in the end, try to find the meeting place between doing what is right, and doing what is true to yourself.

The ending is uncertain, yes.  But it’s the only satisfying ending that an honest movie could give us.

Dead Poets Society is an emotional story, bringing up questions about non-conformity and following the rules that go beyond a surface: ‘yes or no’.  A gripping story full of great performances, a warm atmosphere, and immortal dialogue, Dead Poets Society will continue to be a testament to words as long as we care to use them.

In the articles ahead, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the other important elements of Dead Poets Society, so if you enjoyed this one, stick around and join us!  Don’t forget to leave a comment, like, or some other form of love if you enjoyed it, and follow for more!  Thanks so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

[colorfullfalls]

One of our own

Charlie Barber x Reader

Summary: Charlie Barber gets a second chance at love, he is just so blissfully happy that he has you. 

Charlie Barber's heart was in his hands as he watches the scene in front of him. You were cutting up celery, handing a piece to Henry as you explained the debate if pluto was a planet or not. Henry listened with upmost interest, loving that you took the time to be so thorough with your words.Your son, Carter, colored on the floor, being three years old and so in awe of the world around him. 

Charlie met you two years after his divorce, a local flower shop woman who was also divorced and had her own son. Luckily you lived in California too, and soon his whole life in New York vanished and all was moved out to the coast with you guys. His theater company slowly gravitated to his area, starting brand new to a whole different audience. You were so refreshing to have around because Charlie needed another chance. His divorce to Nicole taught him to not take loved ones for granted and not to be so blindly self centered anymore. You, of course, would not let his decisions be the final call. You were not to be told what to do. You guys were partners, equal in every way. He was foreign to a love so pure and forgiving. 

He was slow to fall in love, scared and hesitant, guarding his heart after how badly his last marriage went. But you were painfully kind, soft personality melting away his walls that tiny knights had built up. Luckily Carter and Henry clicked and played like best friends, albeit the age gap. 

“Pluto should be a planet.” Henry concluded, big brown eyes staring up into yours, he turned his head over his shoulder to peek at his dad, but Charlie’s eyes were trained on you, “Right dad?”

Charlie snapped out of it, nodding exuberantly, “Yes, I agree. Pluto should be counted.”

You laughed, shaking your head, “NASA begs to differ,” Out of the corner of your eyes you saw your three year old attempting to tear off the yellow covering of his crayon,” Carter, love, don’t peel the paper off because your hands will get all yucky when you use it again.” 

“Carter, no.” Henry whined, pointing accusingly at his step brother. 

“Y/N already scolded him, you don’t need to too.” Charlie softly reminded, not liking that Carter was getting tag teamed. Henry was honored to be a big brother and liked to help out, but sometimes he tried to scold Carter when it wasn’t his place to. You thought it was charming, but Charlie got annoyed with it. Henry sheepishly nodded, showing that he understood and was sorry. 

“Mom, I’m hungry.” Carter’s cute voice called out to you. Charlie pulled out the dish from the oven, turning it off and taking off the mitt. His arm wrapped around you briefly to grab the salt and pepper, but before he retreated, his warm lips brushed your cheek in utter affection. You smiled, gazing lovingly at him. 

Carter was now clinging onto your legs, wanting attention from his mom that had been occupied the last ten minutes cutting up vegetables for a salad. Your hand ruffled his messy hair before bending over to pick him up, his legs going on either side of your left hip. He leaned his head on your shoulder as you cleaned up the space. Henry carried the plates over to the table, setting them respectively in everyone’s spot. Dinner was spent with talk of school, plays, flowers, and how animals communicate. Afterwards you two got the kids ready for bed, tucking them in with sweet kisses and whispered I love you’s. 

Charlie shrugged off his blue button up shirt, hanging it up in the closet, neat as ever. Charlie was all about neat and it was refreshing because you were too. Nicole used to leave her belongings everywhere and he cleaned it up because he loved her, but it drove him crazy. You two took turns cleaning up and it made life so much easier. You made his life easier. 

You walked out of the bathroom, pajamas on with a toothbrush hanging slightly out of your mouth, watching him as he shed his day time clothes. You admired the way his back muscles rippled as he worked an old shirt over his head and down his torso. Charlie was well built, and it was always a pleasure getting a glimpse at the man you married. He turned around and blushed slightly at the fact that you were just watching him. 

“What?”

You took the toothbrush out of your mouth and shrugged sheepishly, “I love you, is all. It’s nice being here with you and the boys.” 

Charlie’s heart swelled with a consuming love, devotion and adoration swimming in his eyes as he walked across the room and had you in his arms within seconds, pulling you flush against his chest, his nose nuzzling yours. 

“I love you more than life, and I will tell you every morning and night.” His lips brushed yours and you melted into his lips but remembered what you were doing before he held you, pulling away and rushing to the sink. 

“Ew, I had toothpaste in my mouth, hun.” 

He laughed, throwing his head back, leaning against the door frame, “You think I care about that?”

A horrified look was sent his way, “I certainly do!” 

The bedroom door was pushed further open and little Carter came stumbling in, blankey in hands and a discontent look on his face. You mentally awed as he walked straight for Charlie’s embrace. Your husband picked up your son, brushing hair away from his forehead. 

“What’s wrong bub?” You asked, stepping close to the two. 

“Bad dream.” He mumbled, leaning into Charlie for protection and comfort, small face burying itself in the man’s neck. When Carter had scary dreams of monsters getting him, he crawled into Charlie’s arms. His step dad was his ultimate protector since his dad was out of the picture, “Sleep with you?”

“Yes, let’‘s get in bed.”

Carter laid between you two in the large bed. Your hand carded through his hair, lulling him to sleep while Charlie’s arm hung over the young boy protectively, like a shield of armor. Not too long after did Henry crawl in too, scared by the howling wind hitting his shutters against his window. He slid in between you and Carter, hugging you tightly, head resting on your chest. The boys sleeping in your bed with you happened at least once a month, and you loved it dearly, made you feel like a complete little family. 

A large hand found yours, intertwining fingers, deep voice breaking the silence, “You know, our bed could fit a third kid in here.” 

Your heart hammered in your chest at the idea of a child coming from your DNA and his mixed. A child that would have parts of both personalities and features. Both boys loved each other so dearly, and you knew in your heart that one more little bean would complete the family in a blissful way. 

“Are you suggesting getting me pregnant?” You whispered, brushing your lips against his fingers to press a chaste kiss, careful to not bump Henry with your actions. 

“”Please? It would be perfect. Hopefully they would get your kindness and gorgeous eyes, but my black hair and love for theater.” 

You chuckled, “That does sound like the definition of perfect. Is it bad that I want a little girl? Just a little princess with two big brothers to protect her from the world.”

“They would be so excited, especially Henry, he loves being a big brother to Carter.”

It was true, Henry was Carter’s best friend and protector. The two ran around the house together, playing constantly. Sometimes Carter would crawl to Henry when he had a mild bad dream. The two boys sought comfort and a connection from one another, and a little girl would be lucky to share such a bond with them. 

“Let’s do it.” You firmly spoke. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Next time Henry goes back to Nicole’s, Carter can go stay with my mom and our mission can be completed.” 

Now it was time for him to blush at your implications, “Consider it a plan,” He shifted to glance at you in the moonlight,” Y/N, thank you for marrying me, I love you.”

“I love you more, Charlie Barber.”

[girllovescomic]

Winter Begonia recap episode 21

Shuiyin Troupe is gearing up for something while Du Qi, Shang Lao Ba and Er Ye are sitting around a table in front of what I believe to be the main house, close to the entrance.  Du Qi is reading the lyrics changed by Shang Lao Ba and comments about how good the modification he brought to the composition were as opposed to the lyrics.  Shang Lao Ba replies that he did not get an education or otherwise his lyrics wouldn’t be so bad.  Bookworm prideful Du Qi tells him to stick to performing while he takes care of the scriptwriting. Er Ye inquiries about the symbols and whether they were drawn by Shang Lao Ba. Arrogant non-rival Du Qi gives him a condescending look and explains those are Chinese musical notation, mainly the Chinese stave, while our cute penguin is smiling at his Er Ye, probably sending signals hoping for some heavy petting (I have read chapter 20 of the novel and now that is all I am thinking) for a job well done.  LOL, best girl Xiao Lai interrupts this moment to bring attention to the troupe.  I have a feeling Shang Lao Ba completely forgot about that them at that point. Xiao Lai stop being your book self! 

 He invites the troupe to come and line up.  Shit starter Shi Jiu is up first. She sings her part but our penguin is dissatisfied and tells her to stop. He criticizes her acting of a chaste and fierce lady, so why is she making him shiver. Rong Lan is up next and same situation.  It turns out they are auditioning for the main female role of the Consort. He is not happy with their vocals and portrayal of the Consort. The girls asks him to demonstrate what he finds is lacking in their performance, but he is unable to put into words.  Du Qi suggests they invite someone from other troupes, picking a top performer and paying that person handsomely.  Shang Lao Ba reminds Du Qi that next month is the election for top performer so no one would have the time to perform with him, inevitably lend support to him. Dasheng suggests that his boss takes the role of the Consort since he has the quality he is looking for, but he replies who will take over the role of the Emperor if he becomes the consort. Clearly no one in the troupe can play either roles to the level that both picky Du Qi and SXR have set. Er Ye reiterates what Shang Lao Ba mentioned about performers not wanting to perform for another troupe since they don’t want to lose their chances to shine for the election. He suggests looking for an outsider, who may not have the moves but have great singing capabilities that may even surpass that of other bosses.  Shit starter Shi Jiu suggests they hire Du Qi as the outside.  Is she being serious? For what? Clearly not the dan role.  I guess for the emperor role, which makes no sense.  Girl, sit your ass down!  LOL the look on SXR when she said that!  Du Qi replies that she is making fun of him and he has only the skills to fool a layman (like Er Ye?), adding if he had such skills why would he follow their leader instead of making it on the stage.

  Boss Niu crashes the party, like he usually does.  I swear he always arrives at the most opportune time. Du Qi asks what is wrong with the Opera Association this time around. Boss Niu replies that nothing is wrong and since they made a scene inside the association, no one dares mess with them. DAMN RIGHT! He announces that Yuan Xiaodi is retiring and invites them to a banquet, which will be thrown at the association.  Our penguin is stunned by the announcement; Boss Niu confirms, adding that Boss Yuan had contemplated retiring for a while, having not performed a lot in the past years and now that his wife is pregnant, he has decided to branch out into business with his satin shop.  You can tell our penguin is saddened by the news.  Both Du Qi and SXR are invited, and Boss Niu extends that invitation to Er Ye. Du Qi picks up the invitation card and announces that he won’t go finding Yuan Xiaodi is too phony and he doesn’t like him.  LOL, do you like anyone else but our penguin?  Boss Niu takes his leave while our penguin is still sad.  Layman Er Ye asks about Boss Yuan, having never heard of him; our penguin explains that he has only seen two of Boss Yuan’s performance and they were both amazing.  He had hoped to perform with him someday, like he had Boss Hou, but now that he is retiring, he won’t have the chance.  He doesn’t understand why Boss Yuan, who is still young is retiring, unlike Boss Hou and wishes he had come to Beijing earlier to fulfill his wish.  

Bratty sister Cha Cha’er is sitting with her SIL who is trying to coax her to talk with her brother so the mini cold war could end. CFT enters home and is confronted by his bratty little sister.  She asks why he lied to her and he replies if he did he do so. She reminds him of how he basically used her to lure Zheng Laihong so he could make Grandpa Zheng capitulate, while Er Nainai is trying to explain to her that is not her big bro’s fault.  Yeah, you are asking a teenager full of hormones to understand complex situation.  I understand that back in those days, teenager were basically grown, capable of even marriage, but sis, they still see shit in black and white. CFT tells Er Nainai to stand down and let him discuss with Cha Cha’er alone.  Yeah, Er Nainai you are not making things better.  She agrees to do so and leaves. He tells Cha Cha’er to take a seat and asks between Zheng Laihong and him, whose life is more important.  She responds yours of course.  He tells her that he was surrounded by Zheng’s guards who were armed, almost losing his life.  If he didn’t use this card, he would have been killed. He admits he should have lied to her and promise not to do it again.  She reminds him of the promise he made in the car, but now her friend has been sent back to live with his parents on the countryside since the grandfather was arrested.  CFT tells he doesn’t care and reminds her how the debt collectors did not care about not implicating the children to resolve their father’s debt, leading them to live a terrifying life watching their estate being depleted.  Her friend lived a good life because of his grandfather’s prestige but now he has to deal with the consequences however indirectly. She’s like bro, you’ve changed since leaving Shanghai.  Well, yeah, he became a grown up, darling.  He tells her that he had to help support and protect the life.  Good lord she is naive.  He tells her that she will do so too when she grows up, but she huffs out of the room.

Shang Lao Ba is waiting for his Er Ye who pulls out in his car, which he drove himself, btw. He comes out, looking dapper as always and his bae greets him.  He compliments his little penguin for being well dressed, which gets his penguin smiling. GAAAHHHH, they are so cute together!  Er Ye fixes his bae’s collar and tells him the outfit fits him.  Then he instructs him to eat elegantly in public, as to not scare away the proper Boss Yuan.  LOL.  Shang Lao Ba replies that he is very elegant to outsiders and pulls out a fan drawn and gifted by Du Hanlin, Du Qi’s pops.  Er Ye smirks and tells him to stop showing off.  A loud noise puts him slightly on edge, ready to pull his gun, while our penguin smirks, as we see a puffed rice seller and some kids.  He’s the one who made the loud boom. Er Ye says he was scared by the loud noise thinking it was a bomb, while penguin chuckles at his reaction.

At the association, Shang Lao Ba is discussing shop with the other bosses.  Awww, it is nice to see him hang out with the people of his circle and be respected. Er Ye looks at his baby with his usual “I love this man” gaze when third wheel Fan Lian comes to disrupts his favorite activity.  The third wheel asks if he came with an invitation and Er Ye responds that he came to serve Shang Lao Ba and of course my mind goes to my naughty place. Judging from third wheel Fan Lian, he had the same thoughts, as he complain that Er Ye cares more about Shang Lao Ba than him.  Honey, take a look at our penguin and take a look at yourself. You are an useless dandy while the other is a cute talented penguin. Yeah, case closed.  LOL, Fan Lian tells his BIL that Shang Lao Ba does not even have time for him since he is mingling with the other bosses.  LOL, why do I detected jealous pettiness? Someone announces the arrival of Boss Si Xi and oh boy, dafuq is this dude?!!! He is wearing the most gaudy of Chinese attire, yelling out, to bring attention to himself, that everyone, including the top stars are here and prances toward the other bosses  LAWD, this one is a piece of work, I can tell.  Er Ye is disturbed by that man’s behavior, finding him annoying.  Why do I have the feeling the translation is not quite right here?  I bet he said something far more disparaging. Fawning Fan Lian tells him the weird man is Sixi’er from Yunxi Troupe, calling him a buffoon. Oh well.  Si XI’er stands amid the circle of performers, which include our penguin.  You can tell the others don’t him there.  He asks the other performers if they are ready for the upcoming election.  One of the bosses goes to Shang Lao Ba and talks about his new theater, stating how gorgeous it is.  A young boy called Zhouzi looks on with eyes full of admiration.  Hmmm wonder who he is admiring.  

The opera boss asks Shang Lao Ba if he could perform in his new theater and our kind penguin says it would be his honor. OH BOY, Si Xi’er twirls toward our penguin.  LOL, I cannot with this character.  He exclaims “Isn’t this the famous Mr. Shang!” Bish you knew he was here, stop overacting.  He states that others say Shang Lao Ba is good looking and has a nice temperament.  Well, yeah, he is fine af, and? Oh, he looks down on my penguin saying he looks dowdy.  BISH, I’m about to throw hands and so would Er Ye. Stupid Fan Lian smiles as he looks on at the scene. This boy sure loves drama. Si Xi’er adds that he wouldn’t have been able to spot Shang Lao Ba due to his plain looking exterior.  Our penguin ignores the insulting Si Xi’er, telling another boss that voice still isn’t good, it shouldn’t use the flower-selling tune.  Oh, is he throwing shade? Si Xi’er tells him he shouldn’t ignored him and then states that SXR thinks he is above all of them since he is leaning on Commander Cao’s BIL and has Mr. Liu as godfather. He states that SXR thinks he is too good to even show the Jiangs respect, let alone lesser known performers.  Hmmm...why should he?  While he talking smack, a woman walks into the room, looking for someone.  Si Xi’er continues his barbs claiming that if the bosses are not careful with SXR, he might send soldiers after them. This gets his hubby all riled up, but Fan Lian stops him.  The woman walks toward the small crowd and ask why there is such excitement brewing among them.  Si Xi’er exclaims that it is Miss Yu Qing.  Well, looks who actually recognizes an opera performer’s name!  It turns out Yu Qing is an amateur performer who was once courted by General Zhao to be his concubine but turned it down. Damn, ballsy.  Imma like this woman. It turns out the reason why CFT knows about her is that her refusal made it to the papers. Si Xi’er being his bitchy self snidely greets Yu Qing stating that she came from far and worked her way hard, talking about her career.  She tells him not to mention it and that she should call him senior since he is 20 years older.  LOL, Si Xi’er is not liking this.  He tells her not to be too polite by calling him senior. He turns back his attention on our penguin, making another snide remark, this time claiming that Yu Qing came to Beijing, gracing her presence in their city, and that no one can compare to her beautiful appearance.  The boy with the admiring gaze is called Xiao Zhouzi and seems to have his eyes on our penguin.  Well, can’t blame him, who can’t keep their eyes off of him. Well hopefully Er Ye won’t catch him in the act. Si Xi’er claims that its no wonder Miss Yu drew general Zhao’s attention prompting him to want to marry her.  She replies it is an old story, no need to mention it.  He replies that since she is from a rich background, she had no problem turning down the proposal, unlike someone else who is latching on to a handsome, thick and suave powerful businessman.  OH LE SHADE.  Well, then again....She replies that she is too much trouble for a man like General Zhao or any other wealthy men to handle, since she has a silver tongue and likes to throw shade.  LOL, I’m telling you, I love this girl.  No worries, I still love you Gu Dali! She adds that she also likes to be jealous of people who are better than her and that people claims she is a bit like Si Xi’er.  OMG THIS QUEEN. She continues her put down by claiming that people like them when dealing with powerful people may get slap in the face.  LOL.  Everyone’s laugh, including CFT who is probably thanking the woman for coming to his wifey’s rescue. An angry Si XI’er calls out Zhouzi, claiming   a coward in public while being bold at home, and orders him to go see Mr. Hong for a private performance.  Ewww, I do not like the sound of this and judging for how terrified the boy looks, yeah, I am not liking this.  Before he leaves, he gives our penguin another gaze, this time catching his attention. Oh, looks like our penguin is about to add another member to his harem. Well, at least distracted hubby this not see this, still laughing at what he witnessed. Then again, I doubt he worries about any other men around his bae.  He knows he has no competition and he is absolutely right.  Drama Queen Fan Lian tells him these opera bosses are even more vicious than the performers of Shuiyin House.  Er Ye speaks loudly that his bae is an excellent manager and everyone in his troupe is loyal to him, none of the other troupes can compare. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.  The wifey turns around and smiles, happy to hear his hubby compliment him like this.  Yo, I love my Queen Yu Qing, but girl your timing sucks.  Why are you interrupting such a cute moment!!!!! She introduces herself to SXR who is surprised that she knows him. What? Babe, you are a big time star! She tells him she came to Beijing to watch his performance for a month.  Wow, what a compliment.  CFT and fan boy Fan Lian comes to invite to one of the best room within the theater.  Awwwwww.  SXR introduces his hubby and business partner, and as he is about to introduce Fan Lian, the idiot introduces himself as the troupe manager.  BIsh what? LOL, she does not shake his hand, simply nods at him.  SHAAAADE.  

Another person enters the room, wearing a beautiful gold chinese attire. It is the man of the hour, Boss Yuan. Fan Lian dips out to go to the restroom, while Si Xi’er looks sourpussed. Boss Yuan seems to stare warmly at someone within the small circle, and at first I honestly thought it was CFT, and even he thought so too. It turns out it is our Queen, Yu Qing who got his attention.  Oh Oh. She smiles but then turns away when CFT realizes what is going on. Fan Lian comes out of the restroom and hears a beautiful singing voice.  Drawn to it, he goes to the room where the voice is coming from and it turns out to belong to our Zhouzi, singing for some old dude.  Meanwhile Boss Yuan thanks everyone for coming to his retirement banquet, telling them that he is looking forward to starting his new chapter, however, he wants to maintain his friendship with the opera circle, hoping they will support him in his new venture.  They raise a glass and toast him.  On the dining table, hubby Er Ye grabs the pig trotter that perpetual third wheel Fan Lian was eyeing and gives it to his wifey.  AWWW Shang Lao Ba is happy while Fan Lian wishes once again that his BIL would pay attention to him.  LOL, not as long as a cutie chipmunk is in close proximity. Boss Yuan does the round and comes to their table.  An enamored Yu Qing starts to stand up but is cut by SXR who is too happy to speak to one of his favorite performer.  LOL, he is such a fan boy. Once again, he is surprised that someone like Boss Yuan knows who he is. Is he being modest, because that kinda don’t make sense.  Anyhoo, it is clear that Boss Yuan knows who he is, as he even cites that SXR is well versed in Kunqu operas, having seen his Peony Pavilion, a well known Kunqu opera and being amazed to the point of not wanting to perform afterwards. Damn what a compliment. YOOO, Fan Lian, you be trying with Yu Qing, serving her food and ish.  

You are not even on her radar, she is far more attracted to a certain opera performer.  Boss Yuan discuss how impressed he was with that performance, which seems to get Zhouzi attention.  Sigh, the penguin is far too modest.  He thanks Boss Yuan for the compliments but claims that he might be too young and not skilled enough to make the necessary changes to a certain section, that Boss Yuan considers redundant.  He gives him pointers on how to fix that.  Hmmm, now I see why people consider Boss Yuan an academic and slightly arrogant, judging from Boss Niu’s reaction, but our penguin takes it in stride.  It is clear he wants to learn from those he considers greats, no matter if they criticize him harshly or not.  He is so respectful to those he admires. Yu Qing looks on, admiring her crush who acknowledges her.  LOL, CFT finds the whole thing amusing, while Si Xi’er is about to start trouble. He gets up and class out for attention, walking toward SXR table, and ask for Boss Yuan to perform for the last time.  He agrees to do so and ask what they would like to hear. 

 Shady bish Si Xi’er of course cannot miss the opportunity and calls on SXR to perform a part of Peony Pavilion called Awakened Dream. Our penguin quickly downs a glass of wine and then pretends he is drunk, his head hitting the table.  BWAHAHAHA.  CFT looks at him wondering if it is true, while Yu Qing calls out for him.  Si Xi’er asks if he is going to perform, but SXR claims he is too drunk to do so, afraid of turning Du Li Niang into Yang Pai Feng and accidentally slap Si Xi’er. BWAHAHAHA. Si Xi’er responds a male role is rude, even if he plays a female role, he might be too violent and beat him to death.  Boss Yuan tells the crowd since SXR is too drunk, they should not force him to perform.  CFT volunteers to take the drunk bae to a room so he can sober up. Everyone wonder if they are leaving, while Zhouzi looks on, a bit chagrined. The others turn to Si Xi’er asking for him to replace SXR and sing.  LOL, the old bish that his voice is no match to Boss Yuan, who looks as if he is about to sink 6 feet under if Si Xi’er had accepted.  The sly bish asks Yu Qing to sing instead since she was one of Boss Yuan apprentices and actually got into opera because of him, making her the best match to Boss Yuan.  Boss Yuan reminds the crowd that she had a long trip and might be too tired to perform, but the old bish is like, traveling in a car is too tiring? We actors still perform when our parents died.  He adds that he had forgotten Ms. Yu was just an amateur, which makes her more privilege than other performers.  Boss Niu gets incensed, calling out Si Xi for being drunk and inviting him to sit down to sober up. Like the graceful queen she is, she stands up and responds that since that old bish put her on the spot, she must accept. She turns to Boss Yuan and tells him that since he is about to retire, they should sing together like old time. He agrees.

  Er Ye brings his bae to one of the rooms and lightly taps his cheek, knowing he is acting. LOL, he knows his bae. Shang Lao Ba asks if Si Xi’er is nuts for trying to put him on the spot and he was tempted to slap him. If it wasn’t Mr. Yuan’s reception, he wouldn’t have held back. Er Ye is proud of his little bae for growing up and understand the ways of the world, mindful of the occasion along with manners. He even pretended to be drunk to avoid a confrontation.  He taps his head in pride.  AWWWW.  Shang Lao Ba sassy self resurfaces as he tells Er Ye that he likes to act like the senior and take advantage of him.  YOOOOO, this can be interpreted in so many ways, and of course in my naughty mind, TEEHEEE.. We get the million watts smile that Er Ye only reserves for his bae.

We see Ms. Yu and Boss Yuan performs.  Everyone is looking on, including Zhouzi, who is enjoying it. Damn, these two look good on the stage, you kinda see the intimacy flowing between them. Our penguin is listening attentively in the private room and seems drawn, standing up to watch.  Er Ye is fixed on his bae who, in turn, is transfixed on the two performers. LOL he stands up in front of his penguin, trying to get his attention.  Hold up, you have this prime piece of hot businessman standing in front of you and you are lost somewhere else?! I command you penguin! Finally, tired of being ignored by his bae, Er Ye blows ligthly on his face (YALLL BETTER NOT GO THERE).  This finally gets his attention, as he asks what his hubby is doing distracting him from listening to the two performers.  Er Ye replies, that is my question, I am standing there looking fine as hell yet you seem bewitched by something else than my presence. In his cute voice, he says Er Ye (god I love it when he says that), I want to ask Yu Qing to perform with me in his new opera Tale of a Hidden Dragon as his consort.  They come out as they hear whispers.  Shit, its the baby mama. erhm...I mean the wife, calling out Ms Yu. Sigh, jealous spouses are so annoying, especially since it was a time when polygamy still existed among wealthy men.  She states that Ms. Yu is sure is a noble woman coming from a wealthy background and so pretty, elegant, demure and educated.  Yet behind this exterior, she is a seductress following her crush.  Her husband is like, the hell are you talking? Third Wheel Fan Lian runs toward where SXR and CFT are standing.  Ms. Yu responds that she did not come to Beijing for Boss Yuan. The old bish Si Xi’er exclaims that it is his fault that Ms. Yu and Boss Yuan are singing together.  Our penguin is like, they only perform why the sudden quarrel. Honey, you kinda went through something similar with Er Nainai.  It is about the primary wife trying to assert herself against potential concubines. Third wheel Fan Lian catches them up on the drama, and that Mrs. Yuan knew that Ms. Yu was here, and caught them performing.  Did the old bish instigate all this? Knowing him, probably. LOL, our penguin is like, this crazy hag is pregnant, why is she getting all uppity.  Mr.s Yuan hormones are raging as she asks whether the crowd would have let her husband and Ms. Yu end up together if she hadn’t interrupted.  Bish are u cray? Boss Yuan responds they were simply performing, he was her shifu, teaching her all her operas.  His cray wife is like, ohhh, so you are her shifu, so that means I am also her mistress, so you have to recognize as so.  Geezus xrist it is just as I suspected.  The cray wife wants to assert her position in case her husband takes on Ms. Yu as a concubine, since she would probably lose out on the status level, considering Ms. Yu is from a former aristocratic family.  YAWN. Her husband just stands there while his apprentice is berated by his wife.  YUCK. Well, our penguin who knows how to be a hero and has a sexy husband always willing to protect him, comments how Boss Yuan is a coward.  Damn right, sis! He offers to help but is stopped by his hubby who advises to mind his manners while helping out.  Our penguin is like, honey, I am well-mannered and takes his sassy self towards the stage. He yells out that Boss Xi said one thing right, that he has a big mouth.  LE SHADE.  He adds that Ms. Yu was invited by him to perform a new opera with him.  Even though this is Boss Yuan’s banquet, since she is HIS guest, Boss Xi shouldn’t have invited her to sing without his consent.  The old bish Si Xi’er notes that SXR has sobered up real quick and asks if that is true, since this is the first time he heard of this. SXR says, bish since when were you privy to hear my business? LOL, seriously, this is the same man who did not inform the Opera Association of his costume design, you think he will divulge of his new opera? He tells the old bish that he does not deserves to know and Boss Niu looks, probably thinking damn right, bish! Boss Xi gets up and tries to go bish slap my penguin, but is stopped by the other bosses.  Someone asks SXR to perform with Miss Yu.  He asks Boss Yuan if it is okay for him to sing since it is his banquet.  Cowardly Boss Yuan says if it is not too much trouble, he will gladly allow it.  Seriously, he looks like a whipped little man with no balls. He looks back at his wife and steps off.  LOL, he does not even help her get off, this task is left to Boss Niu.  That cray cray bish sneers at Ms. Yu before she leaves.  Seriously, I was ready to throw hands at this bish, pregnant or not.  Stay away from elegant queen!  Fan Lian invites his BIL to sit down, while our chipmunk asks Ms. Yu to sing another opera called Lady Thirteen.  These two dan ju’er look good on the stage.  Boss Yuan and his wife are having a cold war, while Zhouzi is looking at his idol but gets caught by his master.  Sigh, this poor boy.  

SXR and Miss Yu walk through the hallway.  She thanked him for saving her against the raging hormonal Mrs. Yuan.  He tells that he dislikes Si Xi’er, the instigator of this whole mess. He admits that he was not lying about inviting her to perform in his new opera. She replies that it is a big deal and will have to think about it. He tells her to think quick and offers a big salary if she agrees, on the same level as his.  She tells him that she does not care about the money, it is rare for performers to get a good story of their own, adding that performance is one thing while the script is equally important. You can tell she is passionate about the art form as a whole.  He replies that his new opera will become a classic. She sighs and tells him his new opera is indeed a wonderful story and agrees to do it. He warns her that he is a strict leader and will be critical of her performance.  She tells him she’s looking forward to it.

Third wheel Fan Lian is driving our penguin and his bae.  The cutie pie Shang Lao Ba burst in a giggle, happy to have snagged the elegant Ms Yu as his consort. Seeing his bae happy, Er Ye asks if Ms. Yu agreed to join his opera. He confirms it.  Er Ye, being ever observant, ask about the weird vibes he got from Ms. Yu and Boss Yuan and comments as to why Mrs. Yuan was so agitated upon seeing a master and apprentice to sing together.  Shang Lao Ba excitedly gossips that Ms Yu was mesmerized by Boss Yuan singing, she decided to learn opera, getting in trouble with her renowned family, to the point of breaking off with them.  Boss Yuan taught her everything she knows, but when he got married, she refused to become his concubine, but now he has no idea what is happening between the two.  The more experienced Er Ye tells him he should now have a better understanding of what is going on between the two.  Wait, what? Did he just casually said these words.  Is this an acknowledgment of their own intimate gazes they’ve been sharing, their longing for each other? Seriously, what is this line and how did it fly under the censorship radar???? Anyhoo, he explains that seeing how Boss Yuan gazes at Yu Qing when they were singing, it means that she is in his heart.  HOLD UP!!!! Oh my god, I can’t!!! MY SHIP. My little penguin is looking at him, astonishing, as if he is surprised to hear his bae admit what we’ve known since episode 2!  Er Ye continues stating that when Mrs. Yuan came to make a fuss, Boss Yuan acted as if he didn’t feel anything.  He asks what does that mean? Our penguin is like, what, I don’t get it. Er Ye answers these two never got together.  OHHHHHHHHHHH, so the gazes you shoot toward Shang Lao Ba is because you guys haven’t gotten together yet!!! FAINTS. LOL, Shang Lao Ba responds that Er Ye is able to see through that, compliments that he has good eyes and I swear I wished they had cut to third wheel Fan Lian rolling his eyes to say that it’s because his BIL is basically the same towards you.  Er Ye tells Shang Lao Ba that he must perform a great opera or he will owe him for all his hard work.  HMMM, I like where this is going. Our innocent penguin replies that he won’t be the only one standing on stage, it won’t be enough.  Er Ye replies that he now has Yu Qing.  He complains that his troupe is not up to the task, especially since they don’t have a good young dan performer, like Lie Yue (who left to become a concubine). Oh look, Fan Lian is finally trying to be useful, as he mentions he may have scouted a young dan performer with a bright spirit.  Shang Lao Ba congratulates him for the good timing, while Er Ye is basically me in dashing suave businessman form, dropping snide remarks about his useless BIL finally using his fanboyism to do something good. Geezus Xrist, the third wheel is actually proud of it, despite the obvious insult.  Don’t you have any same. He mentions Zhouzi and ask if Shang Lao Ba had seen the young and good looking kid. Er Ye asks if he is that good why isn’t he performing.  Fan Lian replies that Si Xi’er is a jealous bish who would not tolerate an handsome young man being better than him, abusing him instead.  Sassy Shang Lao Ba replies that it is not surprising since it is Si Xi’er.  Er Ye glances at him, which draw sassy Shang Lao Ba to look back, with his cute pouty lips. UGH, kiss already!  Er Ye is like, baby will you be like this petty when you get older.  Shang Lao Ba states he won’t get old because he will simply end his life once he reaches forty years old, and Er Ye should go his own way.  They laugh, clearly it is said in jest, even third wheel Fan Lian joins in on the laugh fest.  Shang Lao Ba asks where he could find this rare gem, but Fan Lian replies that Si Xi would not let Zhouzi perform on stage, so nix that idea. Shang Lao Ba replies they should go check Yunxi Troupe house instead.

The next day, they go to Yunxi Troupe house, helped by a neighbor (btw, this is one of the opera consultant for the show).  He tells them that Si Xi is mean and critical, so he hesitates to enter not to incur his wrath.  Shang Lao Ba says he has no idea what Zhouzi looks like, but the guide tells him he would be the one doing the hard labor. GEEZUS. Er Ye asks the guide to stand by and alert them if anyone comes by.  They overhear Zhouzi singing and walk toward the area where the boy is working.  He says it is a shame, which draws Zhouzi to his direction. The young shy boy quickly walks toward Shang Lao Ba who asks if he is Xiao Zhouzi.  The boy says yes shyly.  Shang Lao Ba tells him someone asks to come see him. Er Ye sees the bruise on his face and ask what happened.  The boy lies and says he fell down, but Er Ye can see he was beaten. He comments how cruel this is and how he could be maimed if this continue. Zhouzi is just like Shang Lao Ba, asking if he sang well misinterpret Shang Lao Ba previous comment.  Shang Lao Ba explains what he meant; that his voice sounds similar to Si Xi’er but since he wasn’t well trained, it is lacking.  Shang Lao Ba does a demonstration (BRO, you are going to attract people!).  LOL Er Ye does not stop him despite the potential danger.  The guide comes rushing to make him stop.  Shang Lao Ba tells him they will leave so he won’t put him in trouble. Zhouzi is about to have a meltdown and kneels, begging SXR to save him, promising to make him money.  Our penguin tells him being a follower will not allow him to sing.  He has to become a master of his own fate in order to become a leading performer.  He helps stand up and tells him to find any opportunities to seek him out so they can discuss operas with him.  The poor boy kneels again, prompting the guide to hurry him out, fearing Si Xi’er return. Er Ye tells his penguin not to worry, he will do whatever he can not to let a young prodigy suffer within Yunxi Troupe. Such a good hubby.  I feel so bad for the boy. 

[cheesytoucans]

alright I have so much to fucking say about the first episode of revue starlight, I’ve actually seen it 3 goddamn times now which is basically unheard of for me with anime. Even with shows I really like I still don’t go back and rewatch the first episode multiple times, basically I’m losing my fucking mind over this show so there’s gonna be a bunch of rambles under the cut

First of all I’d like to reiterate just how much I think the utena vibe works for this show and adds to it. I’ve been thinking for years how we need a new modern utena like show and this one uses it to perfect effect. It’s got the whole vibe of utena but it’s less obtuse and they took out every single guy and replaced them with cute girls and that could totally not be your thing and that’s fine but for me that’s just a combo pack that I cannot resist. The style also just really works for the kind of story that it seems like they’re trying to tell and as of right now it has so much potential and room to grow. 

Just like with utena it looks like these “duels” that they do are symbolic on some level. As of right now the obvious one is that they are literally competing and fighting for the honor of being the best and for things like theater and idols that’s a huge, important part of that work. Besides that I could think of a bunch of other things they could also be symbolic for (god knows if they’ll go the utena route and have some sex symbolism or not but it sure has a few suggestive moments so it’s possible) but I’d like to wait until we got a few more episodes before I start throwing out random ideas.

Moving on though, the line at the beginning where they say: “The tale of these 8 women captivates us” seems slightly worrisome after you realize that there are 9 of them and that Karen is missing from the establishing shot of all of them on the stairs. I don’t know if that’s meant to tell us something or if something will come later with that but when you take that line and then combine it with Karen’s super weird dream where Hikari seems like she’s trying to murder her and it gets a little scary. Normally I would say that there’s no way that means anything but with the way that this show is already playing with symbolism I really wouldn’t be surprised if it was foreshadowing. Also the fact that Karen and Hikari seem to be watching themselves as kids is kind of interesting and might play into something later as well. 

Then we got Karen’s roommate Mahiru who very obviously has a crush on her and it’s cute and amusing. 

this shot where Karen has her face firmly planted into Mahiru’s boobs and Mahiru doesn’t even look phased is 10,000% funnier after you realize that Mahiru is so fucking smitten with her. 

I also wanna say that this scene just flows super well and is paced perfectly. They flow from each student to the next in a way that tells you a small tidbit about each of them and lets you get acquainted before  smoothly rolling onto the next and it just makes it so much fun to watch. 

I really like the way that all the fooling around stops too when Maya walks in, not only does her name give her away as this well to do lady but her voice and the way that she walks seems to command the room and gets everyone else to focus on the class that’s about to start, it’s a power move to say the least. Also the way Claudine especially seems to get fired up and the way those 2 interact throughout the rest of the episode, they got some weird sexual tension going on there, they probably got caught angrily making out in the locker room one day and never lived it down. 

I really wanna know what this musical thing is about because it sounds so gay and they say that Claudine and Maya were the stars last year so that definitely means they’ve been angrily making out at some point, it’s canon now. 

the way that Karen hangs on for dear life is so fucking funny, also super gay. I don’t know if it’s like training for her to hook her leg around her thigh but that’s also super gay and I love it. 

After all that is the dream sequence which is probably my favorite scene in the entire episode. It’s too early to tell if this dream is like a premonition or what but my gf had an interesting theory that I’d like to share. They said that it’s possible that the dream was a test of sorts to decide who would be fit for the revue starlight and that Karen didn’t pass because she let herself be pushed off the tower by Hikari. There’s no way to tell if that’s true or not at this stage but it’s a cool thought so that’s something to think about. 

this shot is probably my favorite in the entire episode though. It’s slow and lingering and that combined with the limited music and the strange buzzing noise like your ears are ringing makes the entire thing just stick in your brain to the point that I was thinking about it for hours after I first watched it. It’s also interesting that Karen doesn’t remember that she bought that barrette here until she’s pushed off and with the strange morbid atmosphere you really gotta wonder if it’s trying to tell you something. 

The transition that leads you out of this scene is also perfect by the way, that text tone on a black background followed by the picture of a giraffe is so bizarre and because of that it leads you out of a strange dream sequence perfectly. 

You also really gotta wonder if Junna knew about this whole underground revue starlight before she got that notification and if so who told her about it? The same with Hikari, who told her and why? and does anyone else know? that also leads you to the question of is this starlight thing going to land on the more symbolic side and they’ll barely talk about it outside of it or will it be discussed at length.

I’m really curious about what happened in Hikari and Karen’s past too. Hikari seems to be hiding a lot of demons and I want to know how much Karen has to do with it all. There’s definitely something to be said about how Hikari has kept that barrette all these years but to what ends we don’t know yet. 

Then we got the revue starlight itself and holy shit is that beginning suggestive 

I really wonder if that’s something they do in the actual starlight musical thing or if it’s just for this underground thing but it also makes you wonder if this really is going to go full on utena and this duels will be a sex metaphor as well. I’m not sure if the show is willing to go that far or not, utena did somehow get away with an onscreen sex scene so I guess anything can happen. 

I would also really be down if the duels went utena in a different way in that they each represented the girls doing them and their struggles and lives and whatnot, again I’m not sure if it’ll go that direction but it would be interesting. Their weapons as well could possibly be representative of who they are, it’s honestly fascinating that Hikari as a dagger of all things and Karen gets the hero sword. 

They also seem to be in real danger of serious injury or death with how that arrow barely misses Hikari’s skull and then later she’s thrown back hard enough to give her a concussion, so there are real stakes here and I love that. 

I love that it doesn’t seem to matter that Karen wasn’t fit for this underground thing before by not being motivated to stand at the top, the fact that she proves herself here and now is much more telling of who she is as a person and is a huge testament to her worth and character. Also the fact that she jumped into action because it was Hikari and she was worried, that’s gay. 

That whole transformation scene where she puts on that outfit was so utena and I loved it. Also loved that those outfits are very prince like and when I first saw Karen in it the first thing that came to mind was that she’s a handsome little prince, I dig that.  

this shot that gets repeated from the dream sequence is so damn cool and that white text on a red background is also so damn cool and so utena and I’m fucking living. 

while the nudity in the ending is definitely fanservice I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was symbolism in some way, which again it’s hard to know what kind since nudity can represent a whole bunch of things so who knows, a thought to keep in mind. 

[avatarsymbolism]

The Full Avatar Trek AU

I  felt bored, so I decided to do a follow up on all of @yinza​‘s awesome Trek/Avatar crossover art by creating a timeline (with episodes) of all the Avatar Trek shenanigans. Also because I’m a huge nerd and there are just SO MANY THINGS that kind of parallel each other in really weird ways despite their differences.

I’ll start off with ATLA and make a post later for Korra. 

Anyway, let’s begin!

Note: This was made pre-”Star Trek: Discovery” so, unfortunately, there won’t be any Lorca/Zhao parallels…yet. I did add one “Discovery” related thing though. 

Avatar

Avatar is the story of a Vulcan-Trill hybrid named Aang who commands the Appa, one of the most prized ships in the Vulcan fleet. Aang himself is a prodigy of sorts, so much so that only he was deemed worthy of the Avatar sybiant–one of the oldest symbiants known to the trills–despite not being fully Trill himself. And, to make the Klingon’s hunt for the Avatar make more sense, I guess we can maybe say that because it’s an old symbiant the Avatar has access to some kind of higher plane of power? That, or maybe the Avatar just tends to be very powerful?

He was merely a Lieutenant Commander serving as first officer to Captain Gyatso when the Klingons attacked the Vulcan homeworld. After Gyatso was fatally wounded in one of the Klingon’s initial assaults on Vulcan, Aang took the initiative and tried to steer them towards safety. 

But, as luck would have it, the Appa got caught in some kind of space anomaly which forced Aang to land on the nearest planet–a small Bajoran colony–which is where our story begins…

Book 1

The Man in the Anomaly 

Katara and Sokka are two Bajorans hunting for food to bring back to their village. The situation on Bajor (and the Bajoran colonies where Katara and Sokka live) is a mix of the ATLA and DS9 canons While there are no signs of camps, the Klingons have frequently raided the Bajoran colonies and tried to harvest their resources in order to weaken Bajor Prime. 

Anyway, Katara and Sokka are out hunting when a space vessel decides to land a few hundred feet away from them. Sokka cautions Katara to stand back, fearing that it might be some kind of Klingon trick. But, when the doors open, the only person to step off the ship is an exhausted looking Aang. 

Meanwhile, on a worn out looking Klingon warbird, Lieutenant Jee informs Zuko that they’re receiving a strange signal from a nearby planet. Zuko investigates. This is rather odd, since last he checked the Vulcans began masking their signals to protect them from the Klingons long ago. Hell, he didn’t even know how many of them were left alive–unless…

And that’s when Zuko decides to head a course to the planet. 

I guess I shroud probably also add that the space anomaly that Aang encountered whipped his ship through time and space. 

The Avatar Returns

The kids’ grandmother informs everyone that a Klingon ship is coming their way. Everyone panics, and Aang is banished from the village by Sokka, who still doesn’t quite trust the guy. 

Enter Prince Zuko and his awesome bat’leth. Zuko demands to know the location of the Avatar–basically a similar situation to what actually happened in canon. Aang appears, offers himself up on the condition that Zuko leaves everyone alone etc., etc. 

Back at the village, Katara and Sokka investigate the ship–a few canonical things happen–and they end up taking control of the vessel to go and save Aang. 

Canon stuff happens–and Katara and Sokka end up managing to teleport Aang back onto the ship. 

As they make a run for it, Aang thanks his new friends and appoints them as officers aboard the Appa (Later on, Katara becomes the chief medical officer and Sokka becomes the science officer).

Also, I just realized that there should technically be a ton of dead bodies on the ship…no idea when/how they’d be removed yet. 

Return to Vulcan

The Gaang travels to Vulcan (just go with it) where they try to look for Vulcan survivors, knowing that not all the Vulcans were actually killed in the Klingon attacks. This leads to some Aangstig when our captain voices regret about not tending to Gyatso when he had the chance, and not being there when his people needed him. Katara assures him that that was nothing he could do anyway (which makes this episode a mix of “The Southern Air Temple” and “The Storm.”).

Meanwhile, Zuko meets Gul Zhao (Yes, he’s a Cardassian and you can’t tell me otherwise. Also, there’s been a long standing alliance between the Cardassians and the Klingons and Ursa was a Cardassian which is why Azula looks like  a Cardassian and Zuko looks like a Klingon in @yinza‘s fan art), and some canon taunting happens. Also, Iroh is not a fan of red leaf tea. He does like prune juice through. “A warrior’s drink!” That, and blood wine.

[filler stuff and exploration I guess] 

I guess instead of a waterbendding scroll, the Gaang could be after some kind of prized Bajoran manuscript?

I was also going to suggest that, with Rene Auberjonois playing one of the tribal leaders in “The Great Divide,” that that episode could be about Bajoran orbs but, that would still be a very boring episode, I think. 

The Storm

BACKSTORY TIME!

After some asshat spouts bullshit, Aang and Katara find themselves in a cave where Aang recounts the events leading up to his landing in the future.  

Meanwhile, the crewmen of Zuko’s ship are threatening mutiny and bringing up the prince’s dishonor. Iroh intervenes and explains Zuko’s story because everyone respects General Iroh (I feel like he’d get along well with General Martok for some reason…man, I need that au now. Meanwhile, Zuko and Worf can talk about how they restored the honor of their families.). 

Cut to Aang’s story. Aang’s busy serving under Gyatso when the Klingons attack. Everyone’s on red alert. Gyatso is busy captaining and trying to get the Appa away from the Klingon flank. Gyatso gets hit, but instead of tending to Gyatso, Aang takes the helm. Aang voices regrets about leaving Gyatso to die saying that he should have been by his side. Katara assures him that that there was nothing he could do (Hmm, since this is partially a repeat of “Repeat to Vulcan,” this may need some work).  

Cut to Iroh and the story of Zuko. Zuko is a young, enthusiastic youth eager to learn how to rule. He wants to observe a war meeting etc., etc.

(Oh, and fun fact: Daniel Riordan, the guy that voices General Bujing–the guy that Zuko speaks out against–played a Klingon in Star Trek: Enterprise. What kind of Klingon lets someone else fight his own challenge!) 

Zuko speaks out of turn…dual…Zuko gets a quarter of his face cut by his father’s bat’leth and is discommendated and banished from Qo’nos until he manages to find whoever holds the Avatar symbiant. 

The Blue Spirit 

Similar premise to the actual episode, although it may need a better name (btw, instead of being a theater geek, the Zuko of this universe is a big fan of Klingon opera). I keep re-imagining Aang’s speech from this episode as something that sounds like it may have come from Captain Picard. (Hmm…Kuzon and Kurzon…).

The Siege of Bajor

Zhao’s plot in the latter half of this season is basically the final arc of Gul Dukat’s plot. I have a few words for you all:

I AM A LEGEND NOW. CARASSIA WILL FOR GENERATIONS TELL STORIES OF THE GREAT ZHAO WHO CONQUERED BAJOR! THEY WILL CALL ME ZHAO THE CONQUEROR, ZHAO THE GODSLAYER, ZHAO THE INVINCIBLE! 

Zhao tries to destroy the orbs or something like that, but Aang manages to get the Prophets to intervene and Zhao is killed the same way as Dukat. That, or Aang just shows up, doesn’t intervene with the Prophets and it’s Zuko that watches Zhao get destroyed by the Prophets…or maybe Aang. I don’t know how Zuko fits into all this. 

Book 2

So, after the Siege, Pakku decides to travel from Bajor to some of the settlements to help them rebuild, and gives Katara some kind of special Bajoran poultice thing…I don’t know–something like the spirit water that Pakku gives Katara in ATLA canon. 

Meanwhile, Zuko meets up with Azula, who tells him that Ozai has apparently decided to restore his honor. Canon stuff, big fight. I can’t decide how Iroh and Zuko would try to disguise themselves. Maybe they just try to blend in, somehow? There’s no way they could just do reconstructive surgery or something since they’re fugitives. 

I’m also wondering if there could be some stuff that makes the Avatar symbiant more significant. I don’t know what though. 

The Cave of Two Lovers

The Gaang’s plot would probably play out differently, but the cave could be some kind of alienish thing that the Gaang encounters. 

The idea of having Chong and co being hippie aliens makes me laugh though for some reason (Oh, I bet it’s because of the drug psa episode of TNG). 

The Swamp

I feel like this could be a variant of “If Wishes were Horses,”  or better yet “Where No Man has Gone Before.” Huu could even be a traveler or something that the Gaang meets. Maybe this planet has some sort of alien property that connects them to the universe in such a way that they almost become enlightened just by being there for a period of time. 

Katara sees a vision of her dead mother, Sokka sees Yue, and Aang has a vision of a girl wearing a VISOR, standing beside a flying boar. 

(Another fun fact: Buck Bokai is Jeong Jeong, Also, Wesley Crusher is the pet shop owner in “City of Walls and Secrets,” and the circus trainer that hurts Appa? Yeah, that’s Lt. Barclay.)

The Blind Bandit

So, the Gaang is trying to find their  way to Earth when they meet Toph in some kind of arena.While there, Aang tries to talk to her but, Toph doesn’t really give a shit. 

Later they manage to find the Beifong household, and Aang meets Toph. Just like in canon, Toph’s parents try to shelter Toph s much as possible, not thinking that she could manage anything on her own, even with her VISOR. 

Later, Aang and Toph talk, and she tells him about the VISOR. By the episode’s end, Toph decides to join the Gaang as their engineer. 

(Wait, this now brings up the valid question of who’s running the ship before all this and whatnot. Maybe we can have a few episodes about the crew and whatnot like we had in TNG? Granted, I don’t think Aang’s crew would like it all that much if he just randomly approved two Bajorans as his science and medical officers. Maybe there could be some other officers and Sokka/Katara/Toph can eventually work their way up? That, or somehow Aang is the only one left on the ship.) 

Zuko Alone

Zuko disguises himself with a hat (yes, we’re doing that), and enters a small village in one of the Earth colonies. There, he gets in trouble with some Terran officers (since we can’t really do Starfleet at this point. Although, Starfleet being like the URN would be cool–Oh, so THAT’S why Raiko is so incompetent. He’s one of those asshat Starfleet command types that knows diddly squat about what he’s doing.)

Zuko meets Lee’s family, and we get some nice character development an some flashbacks.

In this universe, Zuko’s family has a monopoly on the Chancellor position (that or it has become hereditary). General Iroh has laid siege to Earth for 600 days when his son is killed in a Terran counterattack. Devastated by the death of his son, Iroh ends the siege.

Meanwhile, Ozai meets with Azulon and asks that he be made his father’s heir instead of Iroh. Azulon is offended by Ozai’s request and orders Ozai to kill Zuko.

Ursa intervenes, and thanks to some chance events, Ozai is made Chancellor after Azulon;s death.

(It is also at this point that I’ve come to realize that Zuko would basically be the Avatar equivalent of Alexander Rozhenko…I hated that kid. Zuko is 1000 times cooler and less lame. Although, Zuko’s lack of fighting skills as a kid and his empathy probably puts him on par with Alexander…somewhat.)

Lee’s mom meets up with Zuko and tells him that the Terran soldiers are threatening to take Lee away. So, Zuko decides to help her get Lee back, and we get some canonical stuff with a fight.

Well, Zuko’s hat comes off (man, that just sounds really stupid. I’ll come up with something more clever, eventually…maybe) and everyone find out that Zuko is a Klingon. Also, prejudice just like the actual episode.

The Chase

I feel like this would be another fun episode to Star Trekify. You get lots of action, fighting, wisdom etc. Maybe Toph still meets up with Iroh, and she doesn’t realize that Iroh is a Klingon so the two of them drink tea and share wisdom (wait, the VISOR would tell her he’s a Klingon. I’ll have to fix that sometime.). . 

The Serpent’s Pass

This will probably need a name change. But, this could probably have the Gaang traveling through an asteroid belt or something. Meanwhile, Zuko and Iroh are ALSO on their wa to Earth, and Zuko meets Jet. I’d love to see a Star Trek version of their relationship. It would be interesting. 

(Ok, this now brings up the question of: if Jet realizes that Zuko and Iroh ar Klingons, why doesn’t he just remove their hats? This hat problem is now sounding ridiculous.)

City of Walls and Secrets

The Gaang arrives on Earth and tries to meet with the United Earth Council Finding that they’re having difficulty meeting some of the higher ranking officials, the Gaang decides to sneak into one a gala hosted by Kuei. 

However, things don’t go quite as planned when the Gaang gets taken captive by Long Feng, the head of Section 31. Long Feng tells Aang to stop distrupting the state of peace that’s been maintained by him and his agents. For here they are safe. 

Meanwhile, Jet tries to reveal Zuko and Iroh’s identity and fails, being taken prisoner by Section 31 and is brainwashed. 

(Also, what if, in this univrse, Long Feng tries to steal Aangs ship so he can better keep tabs on him or something?)

Ok, the Book 2 plot definitely needs to be reworked so ‘ll just skip to the finale. 

The Earth King

(Or, rather, the equivalent of)

The Gaang manages to show the Council that Long Feng and Section 31 have been running a massive conspiracy, and Long Feng is arrested. 

Meanwhile, Azula (Cardassian), Mai (Klingon), ad Ty Lee (a human presumably from a Klingon colony or something), infiltrate the United Earth Council and are ‘caught’ by Long Feng. 

The Crossroads of Destiny

Plotwise, this episode is pretty much the same as canon.

The Star Trekified differences are that the Appa, Azula’s ship, and Zuko’s eventually meet up. 

Zuko and Kaara were busy having their canon conversation when Katara is beamed away to the Appa, and Azula takes her place. 

The Gaang waits anxiously, all the while wondering what the hell is going on. 

Azula teleeports back to her ship..

Zuko’s ship readies to fire…and the Gaang realizes that they’re about to to get attacked!

Katara is heartbroken! A hit surges through the circuits and Aang gets zapped in his captain;s chair!

Madness endues!

The Gaang just barely makes it out alive, and Katara ends up using some Bajoran medicine to revive Aang 

Book 3

Book 3 pretty much follows canon, so I don’t think I need to explain much. The Gaang travels from place to place, meets different people,there’s an equivalent to “The Day of Black Sun” (not sure what exactly it involves, but maybe they use the cave systems mentioned in “Star Trek: Discovery”) and then the finale. 

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Talks the Creative Freedom of That R-Rating

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A couple of days. That’s how long director James Gunn had to wait before Warner Bros. and DC came calling in 2018. Up until that moment, it’d been a pretty turbulent July. The iconoclastic filmmaker who made audiences cry over a talking tree in Guardians of the Galaxy was just fired by Disney—temporarily as it turns out—and his name was being besmirched on social media. Yet less than 72 hours after that dismissal, WB was making him an offer that could change the face of DC superhero movies forever.

“It happened immediately,” Gunn says with a hint of lingering chagrin. “We started talking about what the project would be. The first thing that was brought up was Superman, but I didn’t know if I wanted to do that.” 

So the studio suggested a once-in-a-lifetime alternative: make whatever you want. Gunn was free to adapt “anybody out of the DC catalogue.” Somehow though, with an entire gleaming multiverse at his disposal, Gunn only had eyes for the filthiest D-listers this side of Krypton. He only wanted to make The Suicide Squad.

The team of supervillain rejects has of course been adapted before, with David Ayer’s divisive Suicide Squad coming out in 2016. The earlier movie was a hit too, grossing more than $700 million and triggering a small bout of jealousy in Gunn, who even then thought that was the only DC property he ever wanted to do. But the film left something to be desired for many fans and critics.

To be clear, there are things Gunn absolutely loves about Ayer’s movie. How could he not, when he incorporated so many of the 2016 film’s cast into his own? In Gunn’s mind, Margot Robbie was born to play Harley Quinn, which he hopes to only further highlight by bringing out her “true lunacy” in the new movie. Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller, meanwhile, was the first character he decided to put in his own film. But Gunn is unambiguous on one point: his The Suicide Squad is going to be its own 31 flavors of weird.

“It wasn’t something to contrast the first movie,” Gunn says. “It wasn’t about going through a checklist of this is good, this is bad, this works, this doesn’t… but the concept that John Ostrander started with in the comics, that these are B-grade, shitty superheroes who are considered disposable by the U.S. government and are sent out on these black-ops missions, where they probably won’t make it but who gives a shit because they’re pieces-of-shit prisoners without many skills?”

That is the movie Gunn wanted to make. And he did so with R-rated glee.

Engineered as a standalone epic that might (or might not) be a sequel to the 2016 movie, Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is, in essence, meant to be a spiritual continuation of comic book writer Ostrander’s seminal 1980s run with the team. Davis’ Waller is still the government’s shady lady pulling the strings and recruiting incarcerated sad sacks to do the wet work law enforcement won’t; her point man on the ground remains Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), a straight arrow surrounded by coerced supervillains, including familiar faces like Robbie’s delightfully demented Harley, plus new ones such as Idris Elba’s Bloodsport.

The genre Gunn and his cohorts compare this to is war movies, but who they’re going to war against isn’t exactly clear. With that said, recent marketing revealed a comic book deep cut, with the 1950s space alien, Starro, running amok at kaiju-size.

“Starro is hilarious because he’s ridiculous. He’s a giant, cerulean blue starfish, but he’s also fucking terrifying,” Gunn says. “When I was a kid I thought that was the scariest thing of all time… and I think that exemplifies what this movie is: it is ridiculous and it’s also terrifying, and serious. So he works really well as the villain of the movie—as one of the villains, actually.”

Ironically, the real antagonists of The Suicide Squad might simply be the flick’s main characters, and Gunn is using the motley crew to unleash his distinctive voice. With an absurdly large cast to pick from, the director has carte blanche from WB to kill any character he wants, and to embrace any level of weirdness. And unlike the 2016 film, or his previous Guardians movies, The Suicide Squad is a big budget superhero flick with an R-rating. A first for Gunn.

“Most of my movies have been R-rated,” Gunn laughs when we mention this. He is, after all, a filmmaker who cut his teeth at indie grindhouse distributor Troma Studios, and has a history with tongue-in-cheek horror movies like Slither. But whether it’s making an R-rated Suicide Squad movie or a PG-13 Guardians picture, it’s all the same to him: telling the biggest-ass version of a campfire yarn.

“This is simply a little bit of a higher age bracket,” he explains, “and my audience is a little bit different. They can see a shark tearing someone in half, they can see a penis. It doesn’t matter.” Even so, there remains a sense of human connection among a number of broken Squad members. And those without that vulnerability still allow the storyteller to broaden the moral spectrum he’s playing with.

“I think you know from the beginning of the first Guardians that most likely, in his heart, Peter Quill is good, Gamora is good, Rocket is good, Drax is good.” But with the Suicide Squad, “some are not good people. They’re bad people. It’s less sentimental in that way. King Shark is much less sentimental than Groot.”

And some of these bad people will die in presumably horrible ways. Not that Gunn is killing his darlings lightly.

“The first thing I had to do was ignore the potential blowback from killing a character,” Gunn says. Instead he focused on following the natural progression of the story, and the natural progression of a character’s arc. “I’m just the servant of the story, so whatever the story says is what I’m going to do, no matter what the repercussions are for anything. I believe in the truth of the story. I believe that there was a story out there that needed to be told that I don’t have any control over.”

Perhaps ceding that control is the greatest advantage he’s discovered from making a gross, foul-mouthed superhero movie exactly to his liking.

“I wanted to do the things that other spectacle films haven’t been able to do,” Gunn says, “which is really take my time and investigate these characters, get to know them, focus on the character aspects, focus on who they were, and deal with time in a different way than it’s been dealt with in these movies.”

Gunn is thus able to let his movie breathe in a way that’s unusual for the superhero genre, but is in line with the more adult-oriented filmmaking he loved as a child. The Suicide Squad may be a war movie, but for Gunn it’s a specific type of throwback. Quick to name The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, he becomes audibly excited when discussing those 1960s “war-caper” films from his youth. Recapturing that men-and-women-on-a-mission aesthetic is as much the appeal of the movie as honoring Ostrander’s comics. He even refers to Elba’s Bloodsport as his Steve McQueen.

“He’s the unsentimental portrayal of a 1960s action hero but without the moral repercussions of those characters,” says Gunn. Also, he notes, Bloodsport is the guy who shot Superman with a kryptonite bullet. “How cool is that? And also, what a dick!” When contrasted with Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Gunn even likens the pair’s energy to an Abbott and Costello routine, only now Costello might kill you with a bat.

But then, each of the Squad members represent their own genre. They also each leave the door open for further exploration. Hence Gunn’s next project is still not Guardians 3, but rather an HBO Max TV series starring one of the nastiest pieces of work in The Suicide Squad: John Cena’s Peacemaker.

Describing the jingoistic flag-waver as if Marvel’s Captain America took a really far-right turn, Gunn saw Peacemaker as the perfect jumping off point when HBO approached him about doing a series.

“I think that the actual inspiration for Peacemaker was the shitty 1970s Captain America TV shows that I loved when I was a child,” Gunn says. “And I think Peacemaker exemplifies a lot of things about society that are going on politically, and what people’s beliefs are about America and the world. So being able to tell those stories that are slightly more socially conscious in their essence, but also outlandish, he lends itself to that.”

Exploring this week-to-week with Cena—an actor whose range Gunn believes audiences have only seen a fraction of—is irresistible. In fact, Peacemaker might mark another significant turning point in Gunn’s career.

Says the filmmaker, “I love doing Peacemaker. I could see just making TV shows after Guardians 3. It’s a possibility.”

Three years since Gunn’s one very bad week, the possibilities now seem limitless.

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The Suicide Squad opens on Aug. 6 in theaters and HBO Max. We’ll have more from our interview with James Gunn in the coming weeks.

Check out more on The Suicide Squad in the latest issue of Den of Geek!

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