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dailyanarchistposts · 2 months

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Chapter 5. Crime

Beyond individual justice

The notion of justice is perhaps the most dangerous product of authoritarian psychology. The state’s worst abuses occur in its prisons, its inquisitions, its forced corrections and rehabilitations. Police, judges, and prison guards are key agents of coercion and violence. In the name of justice, uniformed thugs terrorize entire communities while dissidents petition the very government that represses them. Many people have internalized the rationalizations of state justice to such an extent that they are terrified of losing the protection and arbitration states supposedly provide.

When justice becomes the private sphere of specialists, oppression is not far behind. In stateless societies on the cusp of developing the coercive hierarchies that lead to government, the common feature seems to be a group of respected male elders permanently entrusted with the role of resolving conflicts and meting out justice. In such a context privilege can become entrenched, as those who enjoy it may shape the social norms that preserve and amplify their privilege. Without that power, individual wealth and power rest on a weak foundation that everyone can challenge.

State justice begins with a refusal to engage with human needs. Human needs are dynamic and can only be fully understood by those who experience them. State justice, by contrast, is the execution of universal prescriptions codified into law. The specialists who interpret the laws are supposed to focus on the original intention of the lawmakers rather than the situation at hand. If you need bread and stealing is a crime, you will be punished for taking it, even if you take it from someone who doesn’t need it. But if your society focuses on people’s needs and desires rather than on the enforcement of static laws, you have the opportunity to convince your community that you needed bread more than the person you took it from. In this way the actor and those affected remain at the center of the process, always empowered to explain themselves and to challenge the community’s norms.

Justice, in contrast, hinges on judgment, privileging a powerful decision-maker over the accusers and defendants who powerlessly await the outcome. Justice is the enforcement of morality — which, in its origins, is justified as divinely ordained. When societies shift away from religious rationales, morality becomes universal, or natural, or scientific — spheres ever further removed from the influence of the general public — until it is shaped and packaged almost exclusively by the media and government.

The notion of justice and the social relations it implies are inherently authoritarian. In practice, justice systems always give unfair advantages to the powerful and inflict terrible wrongs on the powerless. At the same time, they corrupt us ethically and cause our powers of initiative and sense of responsibility to atrophy. Like a drug, they make us dependent while mimicking the fulfillment of a natural human need, in this case the need to resolve conflicts. Thus, people beg to the justice system for reforms, no matter how unrealistic their expectations are, rather than taking matters into their own hands. To heal from abuse, the injured person needs to regain control over her life, the abuser needs to restore healthy relations with his peers, and the community needs to examine its norms and power dynamics. The justice system prevents all this. It hoards control, alienates entire communities, and obstructs examination of the roots of problems, preserving the status quo above all.

Police and judges may provide a limited degree of protection, especially for people privileged by racism, sexism, or capitalism; but the greatest danger facing most human beings is the system itself. For example, thousands of workers are killed every year by employer negligence and unsafe working conditions, but employers are never punished as murderers and virtually never even charged as criminals. The most workers’ families might hope for is a monetary settlement from a civil court. Who decides that a boss who profits from the deaths of workers should face no worse than a lawsuit, while a wife who shoots her abusive husband goes to prison and a black teenager who kills a police officer in self-defense gets the death penalty? It certainly isn’t workers, women, or people of color.

For every human need, a totalitarian system must provide it, subdue it, or substitute a surrogate. In the above example, the justice system frames the killing of workers as a problem to be addressed with regulations and bureaucracies. The media assist by focusing grossly disproportionate coverage on serial killers and “cold-blooded murderers,” almost always poor and usually not white, thus changing people’s perceptions of the risks they face. Consequently many people fear other poor people more than their own bosses, and are willing to support the police and courts in targeting them.

To be sure, in some cases the police and courts respond when workers or women are killed — though this is often to offset popular outrage and discourage people from seeking their own solutions. Even in these cases, the responses are often half-hearted or counterproductive.

Meanwhile, the justice system serves quite effectively as a tool for reshaping society and controlling lower class populations. Consider the “War on Drugs” waged from the 1980s up to the present day. Compared with work and rape, most illegal drugs are relatively harmless; in the case of those that can be harmful, medical attention has been thoroughly demonstrated to be a more effective response than prison time. But the justice system has declared this war to shift public priorities: it justifies the police occupation of poor neighborhoods, the mass imprisonment and enslavement of millions of poor people and people of color, and the expansion of the powers of police and judges.

What do the police do with this power? They arrest and intimidate the most powerless elements of society. Poor people and people of color are overwhelmingly the victims of arrests and convictions, not to mention daily harassment and even murder at the hands of police. Attempts to reform the police rarely do more than feed their budgets and streamline their methods for imprisoning people. And what happens to the millions of people in prison? They are isolated, killed slowly by poor diets and miserable conditions or swiftly by guards who are almost never convicted. Prison guards encourage gangs and racial violence to help them maintain control, and often smuggle in and sell addictive drugs to fill their wallets and sedate the population. Tens of thousands of prisoners are locked up in solitary confinement, some for decades.

Countless studies have found that treating drug addiction and other psychological problems as criminal matters is ineffective and inhumane; mistreating prisoners and depriving them of human contact and educational opportunities has been proven to increase recidivism.[84] But for every study that showed how to end crime and reduce prison populations, the government has gone and done the exact opposite: they cut educational programs, increased the use of solitary confinement, lengthened sentences, and curtailed visiting rights. Why? Because in addition to a control mechanism, prison is an industry. It funnels billions of dollars of public money to institutions that strengthen state control, such as the police, the courts, surveillance and private security companies, and it provides a slave labor force that produces goods for the government and private corporations. Forced labor is still legal in the prison system, and most prisons contain factories where prisoners have to work for a few cents an hour. Prisons also have the modern equivalent of the company store, where prisoners have to spend all the money they make and the money their families send them, buying clothing, food, or phone calls, all at inflated prices.

The prison system is beyond hope of reform. Reformist prison bureaucrats have given up or else come to support prison abolition. One high ranking bureaucrat who directed juvenile corrections departments in Massachusetts and Illinois concluded that:

Prisons are violent, outmoded bureaucracies that don’t protect public safety. There’s no way to rehabilitate anyone in them. The facility produces violence that calls for more of the facility. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Prisons offer themselves as a solution to the very problems they’ve created. Institutions are set up to make people fail. That’s their latent purpose.[85]

These are not problems to be solved with reforms or changes of law. The justice system has set its priorities and arranged its laws with the specific purpose of controlling and abusing us. The problem is law itself.

Often, people who live in a statist society assume that without a centralized justice system following clear laws, it would be impossible to resolve conflicts. Without a common set of laws, everyone would fight for her own interests, resulting in perpetual feuding. If methods of dealing with social harm are decentralized and voluntary, what’s to keep people from “taking justice into their own hands?”

An important leveling mechanism in stateless societies is that people sometimes do take justice into their own hands, especially in dealing with those in leadership positions who are acting authoritarian. Anyone can abide by her conscience and take action against a person she perceives to be harming the community. At best, this can push others to acknowledge and confront a problem they had tried to ignore. At worst, it can divide the community between those who think such action was justified and those who think it was harmful. Even this, though, is better than institutionalizing imbalances of power; in a community in which everyone has the power to take things into their own hands, in which everyone is equal, people will find it is much easier to talk things out and try to change the opinions of their peers than to do whatever they want or cause conflicts by acting as a vigilante. The reason this method is not used in democratic, capitalist societies is not because it does not work, but because there are certain opinions that must not be changed, certain contradictions that must not be addressed, and certain privileges that can never be challenged.

In many stateless societies, bad behavior is not dealt with by specialized defenders of justice, but by everyone, through what anthropologists call diffuse sanctions — sanctions or negative reactions that are diffused throughout society. Everyone is accustomed to responding to injustice and harmful behavior, and thus everyone is more empowered and more involved. When there is no state to monopolize the day-to-day maintenance of society, people learn how to do this for themselves, and teach one another.

We do not need to define abuse as a crime to know that it hurts us. Laws are unnecessary in empowered societies; there are other models for responding to social harm. We can identify the problem as an infringement on others’ needs rather than a violation of written code. We can encourage broad social involvement in the resolution of the problem. We can help those who have been hurt to express their needs and we can follow their lead. We can hold people accountable when they hurt others, while supporting them and giving them opportunities to learn and reestablish respectful relationships with the community. We can see problems as the responsibility of the entire community rather than the fault of one person. We can reclaim the power to heal society, and break through the isolation imposed on us.

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monsterintheballroom · 7 months

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Penelope Wilton and others remember Michael Gambon

‘He hit his teeth on the glass and spilled beer down his front’

Penelope Wilton, actor

In 1978, Michael and I were in the first production of Betrayal at the National. The preview was nerve-racking, not only because we were opening a new play by Pinter but because the backstage crew were on strike, so we didn’t know if it would actually happen. The country was going through a sort of nervous breakdown – as we are now.

The opening scene takes place in a bar where we have a couple of drinks. Michael comes to our table with the first round: wine for me and a pint of beer for himself. But out of nerves, he put the beer in front of me and wine in front of him. And I thought: “Fuck, I’ve got to drink two of those!”

The first line is, “Cheers!” Just before we said it he swapped the drinks, but then, rattled, he hit his teeth on the glass and all the beer went down his front. It could only go up from there.

I worked with Michael many times and he was a dear colleague and wonderful man. I’ve never met anyone like him. He was very surprising and not what he seemed. A complicated man, particularly in his private life.

But I understand why young men venerated him because he was so charismatic. You were naturally drawn to him. He was witty, entertaining and also extremely nice - a really sweet man in many ways. He could also be naughty.

We were once in a production of Sisterly Feelings: I played Abigail and Michael was my husband, Patrick. Halfway through the play, someone tosses a coin and that determines which sister’s story is told in the second half: Dorcas’s or Abigail’s. Michael was a precision engineer before he was an actor, and he made a coin with two heads. I didn’t know this, but most of the men in the company did, including the one who tossed the coin.

So every time, it was heads – which meant ‘Abigail under Canvas’, which meant taking my clothes off in a tent with Michael, with all the boys getting to go to the bar in the interval, because they wouldn’t have a costume change. I found out about the fix and so, the next night, I called tails. They weren’t expecting that.

Michael made acting fun. That made him easy to work with, because he was so quick and instinctive. He was also very generous - when you were in a scene with Michael, he looked you in the eye. On stage, his concentration was excellent. Off stage, it wasn’t always so good. Yet he’d take direction extremely well if he admired the director – and not so well if he didn’t.

Timing and a light touch are things you can’t teach; you either have them or you don’t. Michael had them. That’s why he was wonderful in comedy but also why he was wonderful in Pinter, which requires you to be very deft, and in Beckett, who is also very funny.

He was aware of what he did to an audience and knew when he’d scored. On stage, he was a big man – yet he wasn’t actually that tall. Nor was he the greatest looker of all time, but he had a sort of sex appeal. He created a lot out of very little. And for someone who was for a lot of his life quite large – he got much thinner as he got older – he was extremely light on his feet.

Other than his size, he didn’t change at all. He stayed just the same and told a lot of the same stories – and they were still very funny. I saw him last year at his beautiful house in Meopham in Kent, with his wife, Anne, and eldest son, Fergus. Michael collected vintage cars and 17th-century pistols, and had a wonderful tool shed where he used to do his precision tooling.

He still knew who I was. I said something about Betrayal and he said: “Did we have a nice time?” I said: “Yes. We really did have a nice time.”

#penelope wilton #michael gambon #daniel craig #matthew macfadyen #downton abbey #harry potter #theatre

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kabutoraiger · 10 months

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Idk if you're still interested in CheriMaho and the whole deal about there not being a proper kiss. But there is confirmation that Eiji is the reason as to why there was no kissing. He admitted that he didn't want to do any kissing scenes, saying that it would make him uncomfortable to kiss a man. Going even further, he also admitted that initially he didn't even want to do a BL, and only agreed after someone from his agency told him that it would be good for his career (saying how well Tanaka Kei's career is going since OL).

Tbh I find it more than a little weird for him to pretend to be all excited about the project, only to turn around once everything was filmed and have fans eating out of his hand, and then admit the truth. Like, I kinda get that he couldn't say the whole truth from the beginning because fans would've never gotten as excited about CM as they ended up being. But he could've at least be honest about the whole kissing a man deal (actors do have a right to say what they're comfortable with and what not).

I mean, he basically sat back and sat nothing as people went to blame Keita for the no kiss thing, and even remained silent as his fans went ballistic when Keita "dared" to invite people from his own agency to a work thing instead of asking Eiji to join. There was also the whole thing were his fans went after one of Keita's close acting friends and accused him of coming between them, even though that person has known both Eiji and Keita far longer than they know each other.

oh man. i did have a feeling between the two of them it was probably eiji who had a No Gay Kissing Clause - keita just has more of a "down for whatever" vibe imo - but you're telling me even more than i ever expected to hear. i don't keep up with celebrity gossip very much so that whole last paragraph is like 😯

not the greatest look for him, though if i were being generous i suppose it's possible he has some agent leaning over his shoulder instructing him to engage with as little social media drama as possible... even if someone else unfortunately gets thrown under the bus bc of it.

regardless it's such a bizarre & interesting spot for gay romance as a genre to be in now where being in BL can actually be super beneficial to a young actor's career while some of them still find it inconceivable to do something as ~weird~ as kissing a man...

it's true that nobody should be forced to do anything they're uncomfy with but. when kamen rider build is what got him here i think he should probably be a little more open-minded to the power of yaoi.

#replies #doramablogging

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sihaya74 · 1 year

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NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1:E1 -- PLEASE LOVE MY INNER MONGOOSE

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E1 – PLEASE LOVE MY INNER MONGOOSE

It seems that the character of Will Graham was destined to be played by a beautiful, curly-headed man with a penetrating gaze.

And goddammit, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The name of the show which my blog series is exploring is Hannibal – the eponymous title heralding to the viewer exactly who the story will be about and what connotations the viewer needs to bring to his well-appointed table.

It occurs to me that most people, upon their first viewing of Hannibal, bring different experiences depending on what they have seen before and possibly, what generation they belong to. The first Hannibal Lecter I ever saw was indeed the on-screen first, Brian Cox, in Michael Mann’s 1986 film, Manhunter. I still love this film with all of my heart and soul, but unfortunately, Cox’s Lecter gets so little on-screen time that he does not stand out much. I will not criticize – obviously, all directors must make their decisions as they see fit. It just means that the Hannibal Lecter, wickedly brilliant psychiatrist, former surgeon, and notorious cannibal, that I came to know and love was the portrayal by the incomparable Sir Anthony Hopkins, which very rightfully won him an Academy Award.

I truly thought I would never be able to see another actor render Dr. Lecter upon the screen and feel comfortable with it – just as to me there is only Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch and only Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton. When I finally watched Hannibal, some five years after its final episode (FINAL EPISODE, FOR NOW – I WILL NEVER GIVE UP HOPE FOR SEASON 4) – I had finally warmed up to the idea of a different Dr. Lecter. I had enjoyed Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal of Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, (another fabled on-screen villain), and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Long story short, Mads exceeded my expectations – exceeded my hopes and dreams for the character even. I will not say that his Hannibal has obliterated Hopkins’ Hannibal in my mind, but I feel very comfortable with Mads as the Younger Hannibal, and I feel that should Bryan Fuller ever be able to take up the Silence of the Lambs story that Mads will rise to that amazing occasion in his beautiful, nuanced, astonishing style. He is quite simply one of the greatest on-screen actors I have ever seen. He was born to do it. He’s also an extremely handsome Devil, so there’s that…

There’s definitely that…

If you don’t know what I mean, go watch Charlie Countryman or Polar and get back to me…

However, there are some people, who upon their first watching of Hannibal, have never seen the prior Hannibals, never read any of the books, as I have, and so they come to characters and the story cold – with only perhaps some anecdotal information about liver and fava beans and Chianti or perhaps not even that much – only an inkling that the series looks dark and creepy. There are entire legions of Fannibals who have only ever known Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal. And therefore, have only ever known Hugh Dancy as Will Graham.

And as Will Grahams go, Hugh Dancy is, in my opinion, the best.

Please do not get me wrong – I love love love me some William Petersen-curly-headed, bandy-legged, skinny-tied, pink-shorted Will Graham. Petersen’s performance was heartstopping. I rewatched Manhunter over and over to experience it again and again. His intensity and focus was intoxicating. And he was fucking gorgeous.

But upon watching the first scenes of S1:E1 of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, “Apéritif,” when our lovely Mr. Dancy kicks his way through the red door of the Marlow home, I knew I had found my Will Graham. I have loved the character of Will Graham a long time – since that first viewing of Manhunter. Then, I immediately purchased a copy of Red Dragon and read all about my darling empathic profiler and fell in love with him even more.

I am a very empathetic person. All my life, it has been both a blessing and a curse. More often than not, the curse was the way I experienced my empathy – it was taken advantage of by abusers and narcissists. Empaths draw narcissists like the moon draws water and my baby Will Graham is no different. So, I always found Will very relatable. A line from Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon springs to mind. Harris describes a conversation between Will and Jack Crawford; they are discussing a lead in the Tooth Fairy murders and all of a sudden, almost non sequitur, Harris says of Will, “He was sick of himself” (65). Speaking as a person who becomes exhausted with her own spinning mind on a daily basis, all I can say is that Will Graham is like my spirit animal.

Even though the show is named after the King Cannibal himself, I have always maintained that the show is in fact Will’s. Practically all plotlines revolve around him. Every main character in the show is in love with Will, in their own particular ways. And Will is oblivious, wrapped up in his own tangled mind. The only time he is able to pick out the knots is in the decriminalization and recreation of murders in his head. Well, in that, and in caring for his dogs, and in fishing. These are the only times Will can make sense of anything he feels. The simple zen ease of fly fishing – the simple love of tending to his pack of strays – and the simple act of cuddling up inside a murderer’s mind – seeing all the elements that make murder and seeing himself there as the maker. The character is lovable from the jump. Mr. Dancy just solidified it for me. His portrayal is Will Graham. I will accept no substitutes.

But all of this preface, which truly serves as my preface for the rest of this blog series is leading up to my purpose – to identify and explain the lesson we as the viewer learn from Bryan’s very first episode of Hannibal.

It has to do with one of the most dominant themes in the entire series – that of seeing and being seen.

As viewers, we see Will Graham first as he exists in his own mind – as a powerful creature. As we watch him decriminalize the Marlow murder scene, we are witness to his efficacy as a profiler and his potential for real, dynamic action. Even though is it a visualization only in Will’s psyche, we, as audience, see him kick in the door, see him shoot the Marlows, see him commit the crime. He is endowed with raw savagery and undeterred intention. This is not a shaky, twitchy Will Graham. In his mind, he is powerful and steadfast.

But outside of his mind, he is vulnerable – wobbly and confused. From the first moment that Jack Crawford enters his classroom, Jack identifies Will as something different, something strange – in short, he others Will from the get-go and Jack communicates this message to everyone on his team, to Alana Bloom (who is, of course, already aware), and later, to Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

It is Will’s otherness that Jack wants to tap into and use. Many Fannibals often criticize Jack Crawford for taking advantage of and exploiting Will, but let’s face it, Jack is trying to catch serial killers who murder innocent people. In Will, he has found a veritable dowsing rod for murderers, and no reasonable person could expect him to abandon this magic wand, damaged and temperamental as it may be.

In every one of my viewings of the series, even though I know what is going to happen, I desperately wish Will could just walk away from Crawford, from the FBI, take his dogs, and move into a beach house somewhere, and spend his days fishing and taking tourists out on fishing expeditions.

I guess I want Andy Dufresne’s ending for Will. But there is no Zihuatanejo for Will – his fate is bloodier and more romantic. Harris’ Will winds up a bit like I always hope for, kinda. In The Silence of the Lambs, Harris writes, “Will Graham, the keenest hound ever to run in Crawford’s pack, was a legend at the Academy; he was also a drunk in Florida now with a face that was hard to look at, they said” (73). I can’t imagine Hugh Dancy ever being hard to look at, and so his Will needed a different fate.

Returning to “Apéritif,” it is emphasized constantly in the episode how Will is not the same as everyone else. He is possibly on the autism spectrum; he “deals with huge amounts of fear;” Alana has “never been in a room alone with” him; he “makes jumps [he can’t] explain,” and so on (Fuller 9, 23-24). Everyone’s curiosity about Will is palpable. Whether each character’s curiosity is tainted with attraction, jealousy, or covetousness, in S1:E1, all roads lead to Will. This is very important when one considers the fact that in the space of only one episode, the character of the Minnesota Shrike, Garrett Jacob Hobbs, is introduced, tracked, found, and killed. It really is amazing how much Bryan packs into this one episode of television.

And even though the central hub of the plot is finding Hobbs, the story is mostly about Will – Will the odd duck, Will the wounded empath, Will the King of Lonelytown Castle inside the bone arena of his skull.

Until…Hannibal Lecter happens. He really is a happening in all the stories in which he lives.

From his first meeting with Will in Jack Crawford’s office, Hannibal tries to relate to Will. He points out things they have in common: they both have tasteless thoughts; they both have trouble finding mental refuges from their work lives; they both can’t shut their powers of observation off.

With regards to Bryan’s theme of seeing, Hannibal sees Will and recognizes him immediately. Fannibals like to argue exactly when Hannibal falls in love with Will. Some argue it is instant, love at first sight in Jack Crawford’s office. Some argue it is more gradual and reveals itself as the series unfolds. It is difficult to say. Both types of love exist. Only Hannibal knows.

What I can say is that Hannibal is a master of sizing up other people, as evidenced by Bryan’s line about Hannibal’s perception of Jack: “Hannibal reads Jack Crawford in one slow blink” (Fuller 33). And using that same intuition, Hannibal reads Will as easily as a sonnet by Dante and just as easily, is bewitched.

So, by the time we arrive at the breakfast scene in Will’s hotel room in Act Five of the episode, Hannibal has made up his mind that he will do whatever is necessary to make Will Graham interested in him, perhaps, even like him. The beautiful empath has drawn the calculating narcissist yet again.

As they sip coffee and munch on Hannibal’s “protein scramble,” most likely made with Cassie Boyle sausage, Hannibal explains his understanding of how Jack sees Will.

HANNIBAL: I think Uncle Jack sees you as a fragile little tea-cup, the finest china used only for special guests.

Will responds.

WILL: How do you see me?

Hannibal then answers him.

HANNIBAL: The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by

(Fuller 39-40).

This exchange is a perfect example of how Will is seen by those around him and how he actually wants to be seen. It is significant that Hannibal refers to Jack as “Uncle Jack.” I believe he means mostly Will’s uncle and not uncle to both Will and Hannibal. Hannibal and Jack are closer in age to each other. Will is younger than both men and so the connotation is that Jack is Will’s uncle – a man who is not Will’s father, who is dead and gone – but a man with some claim to Will, an authority figure who can issue commands, a father surrogate. This “father” possesses Will and believes him to be a rare and uncanny item – a useful thing, like a tea-cup, but delicate, weak even.

I cannot speak for everyone in the world, but I know that I have been considered “weak” in my lifetime. Called “weak” to my face by people I loved who told me I had to “toughen up.” Empaths often get this treatment. We are told to stop being the way we are. We have to develop a thick outer shell, arm ourselves against psychic onslaughts, or our hearts will be dashed to pieces. The truth is that a sensitive person cannot be talked out of it. And other people who try to “toughen” those people up are doing so because they themselves are uncomfortable with emotion. Basically, “STOP HAVING EMOTIONS BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM, SO YOU MUST BE AT FAULT HERE, EMPATH!”

People who feel things deeply are not weak. And neither is Will Graham.

And he doesn’t want to be seen that way, even if he feels that way a good deal of the time.

We like people who see us a force to be reckoned with. We like it when others recognize that we have power. Will Graham wants to be seen as he sees himself in his own mind. The way he wants to be.

And that is what Hannibal gives him. He allows Will his power.

Mongooses (yes, that’s the plural – I looked it up) are known for fighting and killing snakes, specifically cobras. They are able to do this because they have a genetic mutation that protects them from the effects of snake venom. They have even been known to square off against larger reptiles, like crocodiles. [See Snoop Dogg’s Plizzanet Earth.]

Monogooses are sassy bitches, to say the least. And in Will Graham’s little red heart, inside his rumpled and resplendent exterior, lives the sassiest of bitches. And more than a bitch, a predator. That is what Hannibal sees. To Jack Crawford, Will is prey. Hannibal sees Will as the predator he is. Then, the not-so-good Doctor spends thirty-eight more episodes trying to coax that predator out so they can fight side by side as equals. That is love, isn’t it?

And so…the lesson? We all have an INNER MONGOOSE.

We all want to be seen in our power.

I didn’t want to be told that I was weak, or too emotional, or not tall enough to be really beautiful. I wanted to be seen as I saw myself in my dreams – devastatingly gorgeous, wicked smart, and full of agency. I want someone to love my INNER MONGOOSE.

And we all do.

Get you someone who loves your INNER MONGOOSE.

Don’t settle for anything less.

Here endeth the lesson…

References:

Fuller, Bryan. Writer. “Apéritif.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 1, Chiswick Productions,

2012.

Harris, Thomas. Red Dragon. New York, Berkley, 2000.

Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

#lessonsofhannibal #hannibal #fannibals #fannibalfamilyforever

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lethargicwizard · 1 year

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Alright I think enough time has passed but nevertheless; Spoilers for Black Panther Wakanda Forever!

to start off I really enjoyed the film, I know "MCU writing" has become something of a meme recently with how formulaic it can be and how you can practically predict how the dialogue will go for most of the movie but Wakanda Forever's themes of grief and loss along with how it carries a more mellow/serious to even melancholy tone over the better part of its run time makes it a very refreshing change from what I usually expect from Marvel. I'm not saying to abandon that style entirely but save it for the more snarky characters in the Marvel gallery.

while I am and always have been of the firm belief that you should never just make characters a different race or ethnicity as opposed to creating original stories and characters the talokhans are the exception that proves the rule, they have an interesting and fleshed-out backstory that makes them feel unique and original as opposed to if they just copy and pasted on Mayan designs to the original Atlantans, I'm a sucker for the sort of tribal futurism that has become indicative of this series making them feel like what might happen if you left an isolated Mayan civilization alone till the present day. The fact that they went through the trouble and chose to create a brand new underwater civilization as opposed to the same overused trope of Atlantis is delightfully refreshing and the fact that they based it off Tlālōcān the Aztec/Mayan (present in both mythologies) paradise realms for those who died violently from phenomena associated with water is just a cherry on top. As far as antagonists go I think they're top-notch, the fact that they are a very clear foil to Wakanda itself and don't so much feel like villains as they feel like people trying to protect their way of life also considering the relationship between Black panthers and Namor as well as the respective kingdoms they rule over in the comics they seem like the obvious choice, not to mention the fact that no one would believe that any force from earth could touch Wakanda aside from a nation of equal standing. The city of Talokhan itself is an absolute masterpiece and not just for the iconic tour scene accompanied by "Con la brisa" but for being the only underwater civilization that makes use of three-dimensional architecture given the fact that they are in a medium that allows for it: which gives me the pleasure of awarding it the

"Greatest Fictional World-building/ Fictional Architecture Award"

not to mention that that was undeniably harder to film given that it had to be filmed underwater. And to that end, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a slice-of-life comic run detailing daily life in Talokhan or in Wakanda for that matter. However, my absolute favorite thing about the Talokhans was that they were able to recreate the same magic for the Latine community as the original Black Panther did for Black people back in 2018 giving Latine and indigenous actors a chance to be on the big screen and shine with all their glory, plus a new hand sign out of it.

Characters:

Shuri: Her journey through the film was an incredible ride watching her deal with grief, wrath, and heartache throughout made her standout and not feel like she was just in T'Chala's shadow, watching her stumble and slowly but surely become her version of the black panther was great. The fact that she still jokes around and still has fun in the movie feels very relatable since life can't slow down for grief and healing and sometimes little sparks of joy leak out in sadness, I think her journey as queen and as a protector and i look forward to seeing it all

M'Baku: Once again an absolute joy to have on-screen, his comedy, shit talk, and lines are second to none and in general just heightens the quality of the film. His range as a character surprised me this time while he's always been belligerent but honorable his ability to empathize as well as the respect and recognition he shows towards Okoye and Shuri in this film gave me another layer of respect for his character, Winston Duke's performance was all around top notch.

Namor: This rendition of the character is without question my favorite, and while that's not really saying much coming from someone who's always thought of Namor as one of the most yee-yee head-ass characters to ever exist from the dumb ass Hermes feet to usually wearing some scale covered briefs/speedo/ male striper wetsuit, I enjoyed his design this time around. The boxer briefs, armbands, footwear, collar piece, and piercings do so much for his design to be unique and so him (at least in this origin). Tenoch Huerta does a magnificent job as the character capturing his infamous condescending nature yet still making him charismatic and enjoyable making him feel sympathetic and caring as a leader. As far as his moral affiliation and alignment goes I never thought the anti-hero title suited him all that well at least in this rendition of the character, both he and the black panthers fill this odd niche as leaders of nations for how they fit in a moral scope since they are always juxtaposed from what they feel and what they need to do for the sake of their people. Above everything else, my favorite part about Namor in this film is his fight choreography; as much as I loath the foot wings (the wing loading you'd need on those alone...) the way they allow him to kick off the air like a platform is one of the coolest locomotion choices I've ever seen giving him this sense of agility and maneuverability that is unparalleled in universe and in any other media, not to mention his intelligent use of his speed, strength, and velocity in his unarmed combat makes his style feel fresh, unique, and tailor-made for him. Also, he makes the second example for my thesis that water-themed comic book characters are significantly better with facial hair.

(i loved Okoye, Attuma, and Namora too but there wasnt much else i could say about them still love them, their performances and their actors tho)

All and all I love this film quite a lot so much so that I'm actually considering buying this upon release, that after credit scene and memorial to Chadwick Boseman simultaneously feel like a kiss on the forehead and a punch to the gut and I almost cried several times in. this film

#black panther #wakanda forever #wakanda #talokan #shuri #m'baku #attuma #namor #namora #okoye #t'challa #nakia #queen ramonda

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finitevoid · 8 months

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Finally able to organize my thoughts on the blue beetle movie. so here they are:

-I think the concept of a destined chosen hero is antithetical to jaime reyes as a character. khaji da is not some heavensent agent of destiny, they’re a weapon of mass destruction developed by a colonial empire and sent to mass enslave other planets. The reason jaime is blue beetle as opposed to anyone else is mostly chance, and the fact that jaime happened to be the first person khaji da came into contact with that they didn’t find repulsive, hence them “choosing” him

-I like that they live on el paso street, that was cute

-I like that they made jaime’s little sister a cynical pessimist to counteract jaime’s glittering optimism. Also she’s goth a+

-the fact that jaime attended gotham university not only sent me into hysterics but is continuing to haunt me. Jaime reyes gotham u pre law graduate. Whew

-I was really surprised when they announced this movie because Whatever section of the dc company is in charge of greenlighting these movies seem rather attached to gen 1, year 1 origin stories. we’ve had Two (2) movies about year 1 batman in the past decade, not to mention man of steel and the wonder woman movie taking place during ww1 etc. they’re not even touching the gen 2 sidekicks let ALONE gen 3, so when I saw the blue beetle movie was about jaime and not ted kord I was pogging. However, adapting a Generation Three hero’s origin story into a self-contained story that Actively shies away from the context of the wider dcu seems to be an exercise in futility, because when my father and I watched it he came out so confused as to what had happened in that movie that I spent 30 minutes explaining infinite crisis to him in an attempt to make sense of the movie’s allergy to exposition. while I’m not expecting an adaptation of jaime to, like, completely adapt the utter insanity that is infinite crisis, I do think that the way they went about it ultimately harmed the film more than anything else. while a bit more boring, I think yjtv did a better job by just having khaji da break tf out of their cage and latch onto jaime as a means of escape. It makes more sense than couching the whole movie in a really weirdly unsubtle jesus metaphor

-when George lopez said “batman’s a fascist!” I scream laughed

-I liked that jaime spent the whole time haggardly being like NO MURDER while his entire family was so Utterly down for murder. Truly that is the vibe of the reyes family

-anyway the movie did tackle things that comics, I think, would never be able to. discussions of class and race that blunt would get shut down in (modern) comics, so I enjoyed them taking this opportunity to go there. I liked how believably the reyes family acts like a family, from how they smoothly interact with one another, reference things together, reference past events and even have, you know, thoughts and feelings about their place in their family. jaime’s always been an outlier in comics for having a family that isn’t dead, but I think comics will always struggle to portray a family that Feels like a family (because the writers will always be bogged down by portraying people other than the heroes are surface level cardboard cutouts) so having actual actors take that out of their hands was cool

-“it’s like batman’s stuff but shittier” is the greatest thing jaime’s ever almost said

-I didn’t like the romance subplot

-How did they manage to make one of the most batshit, buckwild and whacky origin stories and make it into a cookie-cutter superhero movie with a bland social justice flavoring. Jaime spends half his comic fighting with an alien parasite on his back, getting mindcontrolled by said alien parasite, fighting robots and Going Into Space To Topple An Alien Colonial Empire and this movie was just so. Predictable. yeah ok he’s the chosen one who’s hunted for his chosen status dead dad become one with your destiny beat the bad guy who isn’t bad so he can beat the bad guy who is. Yeah. Ok man

#he didn’t even get mind controlled into being a weapon of mass destruction :(

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 1 year

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DID YOU SEE WATCHING AND DREAMING. I CRIED.

Oh, I saw it!

First of all, I'm genuinely impressed that they wrapped things up in such a succinct and satisfying way after Disney pulled the rug out from under them. Apparently, (and I only just learned this) The Collector wasn't even part of the original plan? He was added after they found out they weren't getting a Season 3? That is wild, but in hindsight, yeah, I can kind of see it. And sure, we didn't get everything we wanted - personally, I'd have loved more development of Phillip's backstory - but overall it was a powerful conclusion. One thing that comes to mind is that we don't get much resolution on The Collectors/Archivists, even though to be frank, they are a problem. Enslaving and genociding their way across the universe, but the story just didn't have time to dwell on that. I've also seen people lament that this was mainly a showcase for the original three protagonists and that the ensemble didn't have much to do. True enough, but they're also called protagonists for a reason. It started with Luz, Eda, and King. It had to end with them too.

It's curious how there are multiple points where the story does a fake-out with The Collector and makes you think they're going to be the new Big Bad, but they never are. Certainly the end of King's Tide and the beginning of For The Future implied as much, but in the end it was always Belos. (And to a lesser extent, Kikimora.) I've got a whole post in the works about him, because I genuinely think he's one of the greatest villains ever written in modern media, which is a surprise even to me, but he totally is. And since this is the final episode, Dana dropped all pretense and had Belos scream that he would "cleanse this Perdition" himself. Which is a religious term. Yep, he's a Puritan bigot, and they're coming right out and saying it now. By contrast, we learn a lot more about The Collector and how he was never the bad guy. Seeing him sobbing in the corner, lonely and desperate for a friend...learning how the Archivists used him, enslaved his friends, and abandoned him...only for him to take the blame for their crimes...god, can you see why they're an unresolved issue? Fuck the Archivists. But by far, one of the most chilling lines was "So? Toys break all the time. You just fix em." Like. Wow. It explains so much, and gives us some insight into Collector/Archivist culture.

Belos possessing The Titan's corpse is something I never saw coming, but it works for me because Belos didn't realize it was possible either. Any more than he realized King was The Titan's son. Why would he? I love his surprised reaction, "The dog?" Especially coming from Raine's voice. I have to give credit where it's due to their voice actor. I bet it was a lot of fun to play Belos during those lines. But speaking of The Titan, I never expected to see him either, but man oh man do I love him. I can't really bring anything new to the conversation about how wonderful he is. From how he acts like Sans, to the casual way they reveal that he's bi-gendered, to the implications of a Hooty-like appendage sticking out of his eye socket. (Why didn't Hooty get any lines, by the way? That's a little disappointing...) Like he might be some kind of maggot that grows on Titans or something. I adore The Titan and his laid-back, good-natured attitude, complete with a bread pun message for his son! The way his works about Luz choosing herself echo back to Eda's words, and how Luz finally does it. I can't get enough of her Titan Form, by the way. Especially since it reminds me of Harpy Eda, and seems like Luz has taken on aspects of both her best friends. (Shame Amity never saw it, though...)

In general, Luz as a hero of this story works really well.

I'm not a fan of the fake-out death trope but they really got the most out of it here. (Similar to Frozen 2.) They reveal almost immediately that Luz is still alive, and what matters is that her loved ones think she's dead. The Collector is forced to deal with loss for the first time and he does not know how to handle it at all. King's rage is awe-inspiring, as is Eda's line about how she can't control herself. In general, the moment of Luz dying to save The Collector, in their failed attempt to pull the forgiveness trope? Oh my stars, that was poignant. And the actual scene of her simultaneously dissolving into goo and yet also turning into light? I don't know how else to describe it but if you saw the scene, you know what I'm talking about, right? The way The Camilia doll sheds a tear. The ball of light falling into the pool of liquid and turning back into Luz as it does. Luz's final thought being a realization of how she should have said goodbye. Like, oof...for a split second, I honestly thought we were losing her. Oh, and the music. The music told us Luz was dying long before anything else did. That track punches your feelz.

But I also love how there's an inversion of what we've come to expect. How Luz's friends are all using Glyphs but she, for the first time, doesn't need them. With the Titan's power, she can cast magic the normal way, with Eda guiding her in how to do it. It feels like comradery, like teamwork, like everyone coming together to save The Isles. Right down to Luz's declaration to Belos at the end. How she is both a child of the human realm and student of the demon realm. Unlike him, she didn't reject either world. She embraces both parts of herself. "Now eat this, sucker!" Ah, so satisfying. I'll talk more about Philip's death in my master-post about him, but since I'm just showering praise on Luz right here, I absolutely love her reaction (or lack thereof) to his final, last-ditch effort to scheme his way out of this, and his subsequent death. Like he said, she just stands there. The Boiling Rain doesn't even hurt her - since, at least in that moment, she's not human anymore. Philip's pretense is figuratively and literally stripped away as the rain causes his human form to melt and reveal the monster underneath. And Luz is all out of fucks to give. She and everyone else have been fooled too many times. It's not going to work this time.

...and then the whole thing is ruined with the stomp-out death, and a serious, poetic moment is played for laughs. Yeah, I know people love this, but I just wasn't a fan of it. Totally kills the tension, and it's not worth it when Belos is a character who hasn't ever come anywhere close to the comedy in this show. He's always been played straight. Also, The Collector smashed him into a wall at full speed, and that didn't kill him...but getting stepped on does? How? Why? It's just a little weak...

But never mind that, time to talk about the ending and epilogue!

I know a lot of people were disappointed that The Collector didn't stick around and get adopted into the big found family, but I like this. One, they were never looking for a family. They were looking friends. That was the word they specifically and repeatedly used. King and the others are still going to be their friends. Cause like, The Collector isn't leaving forever. The final scene proves that. They come and visit. Possibly all the time. But the point was made that he has a lot of growing up to do, and I love that. I love that it was his realization, too. And that final moment between him and King made me sob, even if everyone predicted it. I like how Luz loses the ability to use her magic, and I wouldn't even have minded if that had been permanent, but I also like how there's hope for something new. Hunter gets reunited with Darius (but not explicitly adopted by him. Hunter Noceda fans, y'all are still valid.) and there's seemingly no punishment for Odalia, but also no love. Alador gets a big hug, she gets squat.

Dana, I swear, that fake-out in the epilogue was uncalled for. "After all this time..." Had me gaping. But I will say that Camila's "Luz, you saw them last week." Was perfectly delivered and very funny. Vee is as cute as ever and I love the implication that she became Luz's adopted sister like we all wanted. Luz majors in everything because of course she does, (honestly, I can relate) and I don't even care that the new doorway to The Boiling Isles is incredibly conspicuous and easy for humans to stumble upon because Headmaster Eda! Head. Master. Eda. It's perfect. Amity's redesign makes her look like a pirate, I love it, she actually kind of resembles Alador. Gus's hair is on point, Willow's lost of a ton of her baby fat, and-excuse me? Blue Jay? Blue?! Jay!? Hunter got a new Palisman! And his name is Waffles?!? Nope, sorry, I can't. Nothing could destroy me more than thi-Flapjack has a grave?!?!? Yeah, no. I'm done. I'm out. Dana, you want my heart? Take it. This is just too much. Blair out.

I'm going to miss this show. So, so much.

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icharchivist · 9 months

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good idea. what would your ideal a3/ gbf crossover event look like? :3

oh my god.

i actually have a tag for this with a few posts in it already that should help out, with a main post with most of my major headcanons at the time here!

rereading the post though i.

I want Hisoka to meet Troue because i think between the sleepiness and memory loss Troue goes through, Hisoka’s protective bone will tingle and it’ll be a neat plotline.

@ past me i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry this happened to us, i don't even know what to say anymore to replace this HC, this aged like milk.

Troue would be a representation of Hisoka's greatest nightmare: that under all the amnesia there's actually someone who would be willing to hurt everything they thought they cared about.

help.

ANYWAY adding to that list since it's a list i made years ago already, i absolutely NEED, like, NEEED!!!!! Michael to meet Juza.

I've spent the full reading of the Mole Troupe losing my mind because their arc is the SAME THING. Lost in life, unsure what to do because people have always projected a role on them, one that comes with them having to fight, and as a result they come off as scary and have issues showing their true emotions. But deep down, they're gentle souls who get completely shaken by theater, who finally find themselves there, because by acting they can be something different than what was projected on them. And their acting is wooden and they struggle a lot with it at first, but their passions shine through regardless and it touches people enough that you know the more they'll work on it the more they will shine, and the more they'll be able to leave behind the "scary face" they had to carry for a long time.

also Michael's "try out cute bunny bread pyon pyon!!" in the most threatening voice possible is not so unsimilars to Juza, wearing a bear costume, with the most wooden of voices, going "what sound does a bear do again? huh. BEAAAAR"

Michael and Juza being best friends is all that matters to me i want that in an event so bad.

Similarly to the Mole Troupe stuff, Falsch and Tenma need to meet i don't make the rules. Child Actors prodiges with a passion for acting, but with Falsch now being a burnt out adult who lost all of his friends and just keep seeking desperately for connection, it would probably be a good insight for Tenma who is still a teen figuring out his future and navigating how much his troupe means to him versus the expectations that are thrust on him as a a child prodige.

And still Mole Troupe, therefore Guy and Sariel would probably get along on the same ground of, being set all of their lives into being a weapon of sort, so much so they have forfeited connecting with their emotions and don't even know how to acknowledge them anymore, but thanks to getting into theater, they start to understand their feelings a lot more. Guy has made so much progress ahead and i can only wish the same for Sariel on the long term, and i feel like if they met and discussed it, Sariel especially could do a lot of progress in his recovery.

......

COUGHS

that's for some specific character i'm adding to the list of "having to meet each other" but honestly i feel like there would be fun opportunities for any of the granblue charas to meet any of the cast of a3.

In a more general mindset, the problem is that i want all 24 of the a3 cast to be able to interreact with granblue characters, and there's no way a gbf collab could actually explore it the way i want them to unless they run 4 collabs for each troupes :( and it means also giving up on some crosstroupes dynamic and stuff.

the more realistic way for a gbf x a3 event to happen would be to have the a3ders, the leader of each troupes, to be sent to the world of Granblue. And i could imagine that then, like in the love live's collabs, their fate would rest on making a good play, and the a3ders have to band together to really show people their love for theater.

and as such the most ideal characters to bounce of to for them would be the Romeo&Juliet cast, the Mole Troupe cast, Makora, and maybe also Cupitan.

But i'd be so interested into seeing each troupe in focus with their own particular brand of nonsense brought into the gbf world.

I just want everyone to meet up :(

hope it was a nice read for you ;D

Take care!

#ichareply #anonymous #ichafantalks gbf #ichafantalks a3 #gbfxa3

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 1 year

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so i have three movie reviews to catch up on for the year (along with oh god so many things) but i did get to see the black panther sequel at my theater and it was fantastic, i loved it so much, and getting to be at the theater in general was such a nice experience it made me even more determined to try and save up by the end of next year to afford the regal unlimited movie pass thing.

but even though that’s a reasonable (and frugal, with the huge holiday discount they do) plan, gosh it’s so frustrating that suddenly way more potentially fun movies are coming out all at once right now.

i don’t actually think i would enjoy the gore of violent night, but DAVID HARBOUR. got his own CHRISTMAS MOVIE. i’m so proud of him! forever out here rooting for my current bipolar hero.

the whitney houston biopic will probably not hold a lot of surprises? because i feel like music biopics have always been formulaic in a way that i noticed even as a preteen, before i knew what other tropes were. but it still looks really good! i want to go to with kayla while she’s here for the holidays.

and now there’s babylon, which at least according to the advertisements is going to be over the top and ridiculous grandeur and high drama, with margot robbie AND jean smart AND phoebe tonkin! and it’s a period piece set during early hollywood!! it sounds so fun.

with the cost of theater movies and how rarely they release ones here that are important to me, i only see a couple a year--i’m very particular about the ones i pick. but if i had the prepaid ability to see any one at any time, it really would lower the bar back to the kind of person i used to be, who would be like ‘hey that movie has an actor in it i like or an intriguing plot. no clue if the movie will be good, but it will be an experience.’

i miss having those experiences. before moving here, i once spent the day at a theater that had an embedded starbucks (woo) and i saw the greatest showman (a rewatch, that movie just made me so happy), followed by the post, followed by get out, followed by yet another attempt at the greatest showman (i nodded off partway through that 10pm showing oops). it was such a great day, and both the post and get out were movies i was sort of giving a chance to, rather than expecting to like. which made them even nicer, like discoveries.

having a wider range of movie theater experiences again, going in without any idea if i’ll actually like a movie...sounds so perfect to me. as a way to get out of the house but also (to be a little cheesy) as a way to feed my soul. i’m just really impatient now that movies are getting my attention again--next november feels so far away.

#me eyeing the almost 300$ yearly cost or $60 for three months cost of their pass thing: if i *could* afford it...should i really wait?#lol #(side note: i can't remember the last time jean smart got top billing in a movie--she was in so many in side roles over the years #and now people are finally like 'this woman is a HEADLINER' and i'm like YES YES SHE IS)#movies #life stuff #rambling #black panther: wakanda forever #david harbour #i wanna dance with somebody #babylon #margot robbie #jean smart #phoebe tonkin #the greatest showman #the post #get out

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misscaptainamericana · 1 year

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twenty-five

word count: 7951

content warning: pregnancy, online hate, mental illness, Chris gets upset there is a lot of yelling and reaction on his part, IT'S THEIR FIRST BIG FIGHT GUYS

a/n: proofread by me so it likely isn't proofread that well and sorry for being gone so long <3

After the Greatest Showman was over, he looked over to see Nicole still sound asleep.

He wanted to sleep as peacefully as her. He just wanted to shut his mind off and be happy but he couldn’t. There was this non stop nagging feeling that the general public was tearing her apart. It happened before to his previous girlfriends, he would be stupid to believe that they would refrain from acting awful towards his wife. Grabbing his phone off the nightstand he saw that it was a little past four in the morning. With a sigh, he sat up and kissed the side of Nicole’s head. He paused as she stirred slightly before getting out of bed with the dogs. He grabbed a change of clothes and slumped out to the living room. He started to make his way to the couch but Dodger quickly directed his attention outside. “Yeah, you gotta go outside buddy?” The two barked in response causing him to quickly shush them, “Okay, okay, I get it. Don’t wake up the house.” He turned on the porch lights and ushered them outside before sitting in one of the patio chairs and opening up his phone. Just as he suspected twitter was full of awful things. Tweets saying that Chris was only rushing into things because he was worried he was going to die alone, Nicole was his midlife crisis and he didn’t even love her, bets on when they would break up, if it was a PR stunt, old clips and photos questioning how a woman as ‘slutty’ as her could get with him, that the marriage wouldn’t last once the pandemic was over.

He couldn’t take it.

It was days like this when he hated his career.

He hated his fame.

He hated all of it.

He just wished that he could’ve grown up a normal man in Massachusetts.

Dodger must’ve noticed something was wrong because the dog quickly ran over and dropped one of his tennis balls at his feet. With a sad smile, he gave his dog a good scratch behind the ear before getting up and throwing the ball. After an hour of play the two dogs were definitely getting tired and ready to head back inside. As the three of them made their way into the kitchen, he noticed it was 5:28 am. With a sigh he pulled out his phone again and called his mom before beginning to make himself some coffee.

“Hello?” A tired voice answered.

“Hey ma, it’s me.”

“Is everything okay? Is Nicole and the baby-”

“Everything’s fine. Well it’s not, I just figured you would be awake. I need someone to talk to.”

“Well, normally I sleep in on Saturday but, yeah. Just give me a moment.”

“Oh shit.” He sighed hearing the muffled sounds of her moving on the other side of the phone, “I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize what day it was.”

“It’s no problem. When it comes to being a parent there aren’t really days off for that. You’ll figure that out soon enough.” She let out a small laugh as she sat in her living room, “Now what’s going on?”

“Me and Nicole…We announced our pregnancy to the world last night.”

“Oh?”

“And it went just about as well as you would expect.”

“Oh.” There was a noticeable shift in her tone. “Is she okay?”

“She isn’t reading it. She’s honestly sleeping the best she has in months. I’m the one that…I looked at what people were saying and now I can’t stop thinking about them.”

Lisa stuttered over her words before taking a deep breath to pause before asking, “Are you having second thoughts about your family?”

“No, no, no.” Chris quickly replied. “I’m not having second thoughts about her or the baby. I don’t think I should be an actor anymore. If this is how the world is going to treat my family, I don’t think I can put up with it anymore.”

“Well, you have been towing that line for a while now but if you think that is going to help you’re mistaken.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think Nicole wants to be seen as the reason you quit acting?”

Chris quickly interjected, “That won’t be-”

“That’s what the public will think though, isn’t it? That’s what you’ll read. It’s not going to go away.” The line went quiet causing Lisa to sigh before continuing, “I think you need to sit down and take some time to yourself today. We both know you think better when you’re alone. Why don’t you shut yourself in your office and give yourself time to calm down?”

“How do I know when it’s a good idea to come out of my office?”

Lisa sighed, “Well, I would say when you’ve made a decision about your career or you have calmed down enough to talk to Nicole in a way that won’t upset either of you. And with her being pregnant it’s going to be even harder. Just try not to think about random idiots online, okay? Do your meditations. Think about the things that bring you joy in life. This isn’t the end of the world no matter how much it feels like it.”

“Okay.” He said with a sigh, “Thank you for talking to me.”

“Of course, honey. That’s what I’m here for. Are you gonna be okay?”

“I think so… I just wish I wasn’t so mad.”

“You’re only mad because you care. Just try and make sense of it before you talk to her. If worse goes to worst you can always call me over and I can try to mediate.”

Chris let out a pained laugh, “Hopefully it won’t come to that but thank you.

Chris knocked on Scott’s door although he was sure he wouldn’t be up yet. After a few moments he entered the room and called out to his younger brother. It took a few times but Scott woke up a bit startled, “Me! Yup! What’s going on?!”

Chris walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him and put him back into bed, “Everything's fine. I just have a favor to ask.”

“Yeah, sure, a favor.” The man groggily repeated back to him before rubbing his face in an attempt to better wake up.

Chris sighed, “Can you hang out and wait for Nicole to wake up before going over to Carly’s?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Anything wrong?”

“I’m considering retiring.”

“Again?”

“Okay, Scott, don’t be-”

“I’m sorry, I just, what happened?”

“The way people are attacking the two of us online, I don’t want to see that about my kids or have my kids exposed to that so young.”

Scott nodded, “I understand but also, it’s what you love. And if we’re being honest with each other, at the End Game premiere you said it felt like your acting career could finally take off in the direction you wanted.”

“That was before I met her.”

“And we also know that having her on your side at the red carpet was great because you finally felt like you had your other half to show and celebrate your art with.”

“Scott-”

“I’m sorry! I’m just trying to show you both sides of this. You can have your family and your career. Just try and think it all through before you make any crazy decisions, okay? You’re the one that fucking woke me up before the sun.”

Chris sighed and started walking towards the door, “Just wait for Nicole to wake up and tell her I’m doing ASP things in the basement, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Scott agreed with a mild frown before Chris shut the door to his guest room.

It wasn’t until nearly eleven that morning Nicole woke up with a yawn, puzzled to see she was the only one in bed. Wandering into the living room to see Scott watching a true crime show on Oxygen with the dogs on either side of him. “Have you seen Chris?”

“Uh, yeah, he’s in the basement doing business things. He said he didn’t want to wake you and he’d come upstairs once he was done.”

“Oh…Alright. I didn’t think he was working today.” She sat on the couch a few feet from him.

“Something came up, nothing crazy, just political things. Do you want some breakfast? Or you wanna go get some coffee?“

“No, I'll probably just make a smoothie bowl in a while. Why are you dressed up in actual clothes?”

“Oh, I was going to go over to Carly’s for the day and help the kids out with some school stuff before we have a sleep over because it’s the third Saturday.”

Nicole nodded, “Oh, I-yeah, once a month you do that. Sorry I just-“

“It’s okay, it’s been a hectic week for you guys.”

“Well, I’ve been fine… He’s another story.”

Scott nodded, “I know he is. What did you guys do after the announcement on stream?”

“Uhm, his phone went off so we had a moment in the kitchen but after that we ate cheesecake in bed while watching The Greatest Showman. I fell asleep during the Never Enough reprise. I woke up at three to go to the bathroom and cuddled back up to him but when I woke up he was gone.”

All his little brother could do was sigh, “Chris is just an extremely emotional guy, he’ll calm down eventually and then you two will be back to being sappy teens in love. I’m sure of it.”

“Thanks Scott.” She gave him a sad smile before throwing a blanket over her.

“Well, since you’re up I’m gonna head over there. Call if you guys need anything, okay?” He patted her knee as he got up and left through the garage.

Nicole didn’t know what to do. It had been four hours since Scott left, making it a little after three in the afternoon. Pulling out her phone, she decided to send Chris a text.

Nicole: Hey, I’m gonna start dinner. You want anything in particular?

Chris: No, I’m going to be in meetings for a while. Just eat without me.

Nicole: You sure? I could bring it down to you, I don’t mind

Chris: No, I’m in a meeting.

Nicole sighed and put her phone down. “Alright then.”

It was weird that he had meetings on a Saturday and it was even weirder they were lasting this long. She reluctantly made herself dinner. Something small and light. A chicken salad sandwich and some chips before sitting outside with the dogs. She posted a few videos on her instagram story of the dogs running around together.

It was a little after six and Chris still hadn’t come upstairs. With a sigh she went into her office and sat at her makeup filming desk. She pulled out some different products and drew a little frog on her stomach. She made her way back to the living room and sat on the couch with the dogs, “Should we watch another crime documentary until your dad comes back?” Kennedy barked in agreement causing her to smile before she opened up Hulu.

Harpingerofchaos: I was going to draw a shrimp for bubba gump shrimp and then I realized I couldn't draw a shrimp. uhm, bubba meet instagram. Instagram meet bubba.

The documentary was nearing its end when an exhausted Chris made his way into the kitchen.

Nicole turned and gave him a warm smile, “Hey, how was work?”

“Fine.”

“Uhm…Okay. I didn’t feel like cooking so I just had a sandwich. I hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

Nicole rested her arm on the back of the couch, propping her arm up to rest her head on, “Is everything okay?”

He shrugged and shut the fridge before looking around in the cabinets.

“Is it something I did? I can delete the photo of my belly if that’s-”

“No!” He yelled out and slammed the cabinet door shut before taking a moment to calm down. With a tight grip on the counter he spoke at a quieter volume. “It’s nothing you did, Nicole. Just…Give me a minute.”

Nicole shrunk back into the couch fiddling with her sweater. She normally wouldn’t wear a sweater in the middle of September but their fall temperatures were Texas’ winter averages. And honestly, with how harsh his tone was, it was possible a cold snap was about to hit their sunshine marriage.

Chris let go of the counter before looking over at her on the couch, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“It’s okay.” She mumbled and gave him a sad smile.

“I just- have you seen some of the shit people are saying?”

“Yeah. People are making memes in my discord about it too. If anything it’s just made me miss my body like two years ago, that playboy shoot was incredible.”

“Nicole, this is serious.”

“I know it is but all the things they’re showing are things that already existed. They were the things I was worried about your mom seeing but we moved past that.”

He shook his head as he began walking over to the couch, “This isn’t about modesty or anything like that. This is about people being vile.”

Nicole nodded, slightly confused, “I know, Chris. We knew people were vile and would continue to be vile but we announced it anyway.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“I’m going to post something, people shouldn’t just-“

“Chris, it’s okay. I’m okay… It’s just the internet.”

“The internet kind of fucking sucks.”

Nicole let out a little laugh, “Yeah, it can be a brutal place. I knew it would happen. I just didn’t think that many people would be so disgusted with the fact of me carrying your baby. I just need a new plan of attack, going to ban a few words, and we should be back to normal.”

“Be back to normal?” He asked, clearly annoyed with her tone.

“Yes? It’s no big deal. Nothing to get upset over honestly.” She said with a shrug and another laugh.

“No! Goddammit Nicole! You don’t get to decide what I get to be upset over! This is entire situation is a fucking disaster and you’re laughing?! Not everything is a god damn joke but I guess you’re too fucking naïve to notice. You honestly see nothing wrong with how this hurts me and how it should hurt you? You really are a child aren’t you!?” He yelled at her, his body completely tense.

Nicole sat frozen in fear, yet not being able to stop her lip from trembling. Looking over the man she loved, this was someone she didn’t recognize at all. She wanted to apologize, she wanted to say anything at all but nothing came out. As he unclenched his jaw and fists with a loud exhale, Nicole finally snapped out of it and pushed herself off the couch.

Chris sighed and started to make his way across the room to her, “Wait, I didn’t mean it like-“

“C'mon, Kennedy. Let’s go to bed.”

He grabbed her arm, “Nicole, I-”

“It’s fine…” She pulled her arm away and walked down the hall. She thought about going into the bedroom but felt awful making Chris sleep on the couch in his own home. Taking the roundabout way through his office and down the hall, she went into her office and slowly shut the door behind her. She sat on the floor behind her desk and Kennedy rested his head on her lap. The darkness of the room lit up from Nicole awakening her phone. She turned the brightness down and opened up one of the puzzle games on her phone.

She knew this would happen.

There’s always something that she does that causes people to fall out of love with her. She wanted to believe that Chris was different and could take all her quirks in stride but she knew.

As the burning tears obstructed her vision, she locked her phone and moved to laying on her side. Disturbed by her movements, Kennedy went to the small couch in her office to grab the big squishmallow from it so she could rest her head.

“Thank you Kenny, for always taking care of me.” She kissed the top of his head before he nudged her away and began licking her face. With a light laugh she patted his side, “I get it buddy, I get it. Let’s go to bed, okay?” Nicole asked before laying back on her side and curling up with the squishmallow. After she got settled Kennedy curled up behind the bend of her knees, resting his head on her calf.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It wasn’t exactly easy falling asleep on the floor, especially with how pregnant she was. Normally she would turn on a podcast but she didn’t want the noise to give away her position and she wasn’t about to go searching for headphones right now.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed but sure enough the door creaked open.

Chris’s voice called out, “I know you’re in here.”

He was met with silence. A heavy sigh escaped him, “At least I hope you’re in here and not walking down the road in the middle of the night.”

He turned on the light, scared when he didn’t see her on the couch or in her chair before seeing part of the squishmallow sticking out from behind her desk. He slowly walked over and knelt down in front of her.

She grumbled in reaction to the light, throwing her arm over her eyes, “What? I gave you the bed.”

“I don’t want the bed. Especially not when my pregnant wife is upset with me and I can’t sleep knowing you’re hurt. I’m not going to bed, not without you in it. Or at least not until you talk to me…It’s in our vows, Nicole.”

The room was silent for a few moments before Nicole let out a sigh and uncovered her eyes and looked up at him, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, so let’s just go to bed.”

She began to sit up and Chris reached out to help her before she flinched away, scooting back closer against her desk

They had never had this before.

This awkward uncertainty about their relationship and their emotions. This fear of saying the wrong thing or hurting the other.

Nicole’s face fell into a small frown, “I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry.”

Tilting her head to the side, she saw his red and puffy eyes. He had been crying. “Please, just come to bed with me…I'll do everything I can to fix it tomorrow, just please.” He pleaded, his voice was now weak. Extremely softer than the tone he had taken with her earlier. Nicole sighed, “You scared me earlier…”

Chris sat in front of her on the ground realizing it might be best to talk here, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice at you like that it won’t happen again I don’t-I don’t know what happened. I just-”

“It’s okay. I don’t want you to have to walk on eggshells around me but-”

“I can handle it when people talk that way about me. I don’t handle it well, but I handle it. I can’t handle it with you. You don’t deserve that and it hurts me. It hurts me because they’re doing it because of me. That isn’t right and it isn’t fair. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and they don’t get to talk about you that way.” He sat in front of her completely defeated.

She lightly rubbed his arm, “You can’t take it so personal, I… They aren’t the ones hurting me. You yelling at me hurts me. They’re just names on a screen to me.”

“I don’t know how to think of it like that, how to compartmentalize it like you do.”

“Okay, just hold onto me and we’ll get there… okay?” Chris nodded as she got up and straddled his lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist, interlocking his hands together.

Nicole cupped his face in her hands and gave him a sad smile, “So, let’s help you see it like that. Did you leave any of the comments?”

“No.”

“Did I make any of those comments?”

“No.”

“Mmkay, how about your brother?”

“What? No, Scott loves you and he’s so excited to be an uncle again.”

Nicole’s smile became a little more genuine, “Alright, your mom or your sisters?”

“No, I don’t even think they-“

“Your marvel friends?”

“No, I-I see what you’re doing.”

Nicole nodded, “These people don’t know us. We can’t control what they think of us or what they post, but we can control how we react.”

“And what do you think we should do?”

“Ignore them… Keep living and posting as normal. Life on the internet is so much simpler when you don’t focus on them, okay?”

Chris pressed her forehead against hers, “I love you.”

“I know you do and I love you too. I’m not worried about what the people say, I’m worried that it’ll get to you.”

“And I’m worried that it’ll get to you and you’ll leave because it always gets to be too much for people.”

Nicole shook her head, “I grew up with internet hate my entire life, it’s not going to phase me. Just don’t read it, and if you do read it and it gets to you. Just find me, just come hold my hand or hug me, kiss me, anything really. I'm not going anywhere. And I know that whenever you hug me, I feel a hundred times better.”

“Really?”

“I feel so safe and so loved right here.” She kissed his forehead before resting his head on her shoulder, “I do think we should get up soon because even though I love you and this my left leg is falling asleep sitting like this .”

Chris laughed slightly, “Yeah, we should definitely move this to a comfier location.” He let go of his grasp on her and Nicole scooted off his lap. Chris pulled himself off the ground with a small grunt before reaching down to pull her up. Nicole squeezed his hand before starting to walk out of the room, “You wanna join me in the shower?”

“You sure? You aren’t worried about me getting into funny business in there?”

“No,” Nicole paused to look back at him with a smile before walking into their bedroom, “You don’t make grabby hands when you’re this sappy.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Nicole shook her head with a small laugh before heading into the bathroom, “I guess I misspoke, it’s not a challenge and you do get grabby but in a kid needing a stuffed animal sort of way not a leave handprints, scream into the pillow kind of way.” Reaching in the shower she turned the water to warm leaning to hot before letting go of his hand. Nicole held her hand under the water for a few seconds before turning the water temperature down a bit before turning around. After taking off her shirt and tossing it on the floor, Chris pulled her close to him to kiss her. She smiled and pulled away, “What was that for?”

“For being the best wife a man could ask for.” He said softly, placing his lips gently to her forehead before stepping away to pull off his shirt.

Maybe she did overreact but when her previous partners did this, it meant goodbye. But now here they were, in their bathroom, getting ready for bed together. After she finished undressing, Nicole tugged on her sunflower printed shower cap and Chris turned to smile at her, “I really like that cap.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, “I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“Well, we haven’t really showered together recently but I remember your previous cap was pink, right?”

She smiled and nodded, “With the big monstera leaves.”

“Yeah, and I liked that one too but you know.”

“It’s my nickname.”

“I haven’t called you sunflower in a while.”

Nicole smiled, “No but it’s still my name in your phone.”

“Fair point.” He said before holding open the glass door to the shower and motioning for her to enter first. Nicole kissed his cheek before carefully stepping into the shower. He followed in behind her and gently shut the door. Leaning against the tile, he watched as she lathered the soap and rubbed it on her body before rinsing the suds away. He kissed her shoulder before hugging onto her from behind.

“This isn’t showering.” Nicole reminded him with a small smile.

“I know. I know that, I just want to say something.”

Reaching up, she rubbed his arm, “Okay, whenever you’re ready.”

Chris took a deep breath and started anxiously rubbing her stomach, “I’m sorry I was so combative. I’m sorry that I’m closed off sometimes. I’m used to handling things alone. No one stays with me either because I’m a mess. You’ve lived with me for months now you know I’m a mess. I'm up and down, I’m picky, I’m loud, I’m childish, I’m a lot to handle. I know that. I just need you to know that I love you. Through all the ups and downs I’m still gonna love you more than anything.”

“I love you too.” She said with a smile before turning around in his arms. Taking a deep breath she gently placed her hands on either side of his face, “When I’m a handful, do you think about breaking up with me?”

“No, I just want to know what’s wrong and help you move past it.”

“Exactly, so when things like this happen I only want to help you… It may take me a while because I’m emotional and dramatic too but I love you. I was going to make you those pesto eggs and those lemon blueberry cupcakes you liked tomorrow morning because I just needed time to cry and be pouty, but I didn’t hate you. I don’t hate you. I just needed to cry, and I don’t like to cry around people, especially not lovers. I’ve been told that I weaponize my emotions.”

“That’s not true, we’re a bunch of criers.”

“A big ol’ bundle of cry babies.” She smiled at him before she paused. With a small huff her face fell into a pout and she ran her fingers through his slightly damp hair, “Who made you think you were such a bad guy?”

“Well there’s gotta be a reason, y’know?”

She tilted her head to the side still cradling his head in her hands, “A reason for what, baby?”

“A reason why I’ve made it to forty and never had a steady girlfriend or a family, anything really. I have to be a bad guy otherwise there’s no reason for me being alone all this time.”

“I know you’re too nice of a guy to think so but maybe they were the problem, or I have better reason if you don’t like that one.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“They weren’t meant for you.”

He instantly cheered up and smiled, causing her to smile and move her hands to his shoulders. “You were right, that is a better reason. That is the best reason.”

“We’re going to be okay.” She reassured him and he nodded.

“I know, I know. I just get so worried about losing you. You are so…Incredible and beautiful. And I know what you’ve been through and I don’t want to be another person that hurts you.”

“You won’t be.” He looked away from her before she spoke again, “Hey, look at me. You can’t hurt me like they did because I know you would never do it maliciously. What you’re doing, standing here with me right now, is solid proof you love and care for me.”

He continued to nod trying to hold back the tears that were forming, “I love you.”

She kissed his cheek before leaning back to smile up at him, “I love you too.”

Once they got out of the shower, he helped dry her off which she teased him for.

After hanging the towel up behind her, he cupped her head in his hands, “Squeaky clean from head to toe.” He kissed her on the nose to end his sentence causing her to giggle.

“Thank you. Ready for bed?”

“Ready to hold my beautiful wife while she watches the same American Dad episodes for the hundredth time? Absolutely.”

She playfully pushed him away with a laugh before walking into their bedroom. “Okay boys, it’s bedtime.” She clapped her hands together and the dogs moved from the middle of the bed to the foot of the bed. The two crawled into their respective sides of the bed before Nicole scooted over to rest her head on his chest.

Chris grabbed the remote and started navigating his way to Hulu, smiling to himself as she settled in, “Thank you for coming to bed.”

“Thank you for getting me off the floor.”

He kissed the top of her head before pressing play somewhere in the middle of season eight and setting the remote back on the nightstand. He rubbed her arm slightly before asking, “Is it too much to ask for you to still make those cupcakes?”

Nicole laughed and patted his side, “I will make them if you promise to make dinner.”

“I’ll make dinner for the rest of the week if I get even six of those cupcakes.”

“Hmm, consider it a deal.”

“I’m so sorry, Nicole.”

“I know…And it’s okay. Just don’t shut me out again. Don’t let it get you worked up, okay?”

He inhaled sharply as his anxiety kicked in knowing he would likely react like this again. “Okay, I’ll try.”

“You don’t have to be perfect, we just…Need to work on things together.”

“I agree. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. I’m sorry for running.”

“You’re fine, I shouldn't have yelled. I just kept all that rage in me all day, I should’ve calmed down before I came upstairs. I tried to, that’s why I was down there so long.”

“It’s okay. We’re all okay.”

He kissed the top of her head before moving his hand to her baby bump, “I love you both.”

“We love you too.” She said with a smile before closing her eyes and getting ready to fall asleep.

The next morning, their connection was still a little off. That awkward stage of trying to come back from the near breaking point. His alarm went off at nine and after turning it off he rolled over to kiss her forehead, “Sorry about that, you go back to sleep.”

“You better not go anywhere.”

He let out a tired chuckle, “I’m not, I promise.”

They slept in for another two hours before the dogs began to get restless. After making and eating breakfast, Chris decided to take the dogs for a long walk while Nicole baked the cupcakes she promised.

Nicole put another dozen cookies in the oven before going back to frosting the cooled cupcakes lined up on the counter.

“Hey.”

Nicole looked up to see Scott walking into the kitchen, “Hey, good afternoon. When’d you get back?”

“Bout fifteen minutes ago… I wanted to talk to Chris before I came in and talked to you. Stopped him down by the mail boxes.” He said with a light laugh before placing the bundle of mail on the counter.

Nicole nodded, “Ah, did he tell you about last night?”

“He called me after he yelled, then he called mom, and mom called me… But I also know that you’re alone up here in Massachusetts and you should have someone to confide in if you want to talk about it.”

She just shook her head before looking back down at the cupcakes in front of her, “I’m fine, really. He’s the one that needed to talk about it, I just… Worry he’s going to be upset like this forever. I took away his happiness and privacy. I can’t help but feel guilty for that.”

Scott laughed, causing her to look back up at him, “Nicki, you can’t take away his happiness because you are his happiness. The same way you’re worried about him he’s worried about you. He’s so afraid to lose you, this has nothing to do with anything you’ve done.”

Nicole sighed, she knew he was right but this elephant in the room between her and Chris felt like it was crushing them. Scott gave her a sad smile before walking over to her and giving her a side hug, “I need you guys to fix this so I can move out and not feel bad or worry.”

“What?! You’re moving out?” She said with a small pout.

“Yeah, I met this new guy. He’s going to stay up here with me for a few months to see if we can make this work.”

“Oh, well that’s good.” She said with a sad smile causing Scott to sigh and pull her into a full hug, “It’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that.” She mumbled against his chest.

“Yes, I do. I know because you are going to have my handsome little nephew and then the government is finally going to get its head out of its ass and handle this pandemic. Chris will go back to work, finish up his projects, and you guys can start your sweet domestic lives together. It’s going to be good, you just have to ride out the rocky parts.”

Nicole nodded, “I hope so.”

Scott patted her back before pulling away “How many more cookies do you have to make?”

“Oh, just these twelve. I already made the cupcakes so I’m literally just waiting until those are done baking so I can switch them out and then I’m done.”

“Well how about I finish letting them bake and you and Chris can go on a little date?”

“We’re in a pandemic and I’m pregnant, I don’t think he’s really feeling date night.”

“Not like an actual date, just gather some snacks and some comfy clothes and you guys can go on a drive. It gets him away from the screen and you love car rides.”

“I do love car rides.” Nicole said with a sigh. “Ugh, fine I’ll go get a tote bag and a pillow.”

When Chris got back to the house thirty minutes later Nicole was ready with snacks and a pillow from their room. He was glad that Scott got her to agree to the car ride, he wasn’t sure how it would’ve gone if he had been the one to ask. He didn’t want her to make her feel even more trapped with him than she already felt. About twenty minutes had passed in the car ride when Nicole finally spoke up over the low music playing, “We’re gonna be okay, right?”

“Of course we are, why do you ask?”

“I’m just worried you aren’t going to let what happened slide…I’m worried that this will separate us and we won’t be able to go back to how it was.”

He sighed with a small shake of the head, “I don’t think we can ever go back to how we were but I think that’s okay. I think we’ll be stronger because of this.” He looked over at her as she ate her bag of sour cream and onion chips before looking back at the road with a smile, “I think we will be stronger because we have actually had our first fight, we reconciled, we’re moving forwards together. Honestly, it wasn’t much of a fight. I was really the only one yelling.”

“I don’t yell when I’m upset.”

He paused, “Are you still upset?”

She looked down at her fidgeting hands, “I don’t think so… I just know that I’m scared.”

“Of?”

“What if we keep fighting? What if when you go back to work things get worse?”

His hand gripped the wheel a little tighter. “Realistically, are there things about you that I don’t like? Yes. But I’m not going to let those small things build up to shadow how much love for you I have. I want to help you through these problems and help you grow. I want us to be together through the ups and the downs because I love you. I love you more than I’ve loved anyone else and that’s scary and it’s new, but I know that I’ll be okay because I’m with you.”

Nicole looked over at him with a small pout, “What don’t you like about me?”

He chuckled, “Well the fact that I just gave a beautiful speech and all you got from it was there’s little things I don’t like about you is a good place to start.”

“I’m being serious… If it’s something I can-“

“It’s nothing I want you to work on because they’re quirks and they’re yours. They make you who you are and even when you annoy me sometimes I smile because you’re so adorable I could never stay upset with you. Ever.”

“I guess I get that. I hate the way your feet have those hard crusty things on the edges. And I really don’t like it when you snore.”

He gasped followed by a laugh, “Ouch! That was harsh.”

“What?! We’re getting things off our chest, are we not?”

He looked over at her with a smile, “No, we are, we are.” Looking back at the road, he moved his hand to her thigh, “The main thing is you don’t know how to just sit in the quiet. You like there to be something on or something said. Something to think about. But most nights I just want to lay in the dark and just hold you. To just be at peace in the silence is something I’ve always loved to do and I haven’t much since you moved in.”

Nicole pouted and grabbed his hand, “You could've just said that, babe.”

“I just didn’t know how you would take it.” He said with a sad smile.

“Well, we can definitely try sitting in silence. I'm not sure how well I’ll do but I'm willing to try for you.”

He gave her hand a light squeeze, “I appreciate that, sweetheart.”

Nicole kissed his hand before smiling at him and letting go of his hand. After taking a drink of the Dr Pepper she had brought, she started looking out the window, “Thank you for driving me around tonight.”

“Of course, it was nice. It’s always nice to take in the sights.”

“It’s just so much easier to think when I’m curled up in the passenger seat.”

His smile grew, he knew this was the best way to get them out of their funk. “Oh yeah, what are you thinking about?”

“A Wendy’s chicken sandwich.”

He let out a loud laugh, “If I get you some food will you tell me what’s actually on your mind?”

Nicole there her head back with a laugh, “That is what’s on my mind!” She composed herself slightly, “But if it gets me a chicken sandwich I just love you. I love you a lot and I keep waiting for that other shoe to drop and this to be over, but… You always bring us back around.”

“I try to. Especially when I’m the one that steers us in the wrong direction.”

“I wouldn’t say it was your fault, it’s just, the world is how it is. It’s awful, cruel, and cold and it attacks the things that are warm and good. I just don’t wanna lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either. I told you that you’re the love of my life and I meant that, still mean that.”

Nicole gasped, “Oh my god!”

Chris quickly swerved off to the side slamming on his brakes, “What?! What?!”

She reached over and grabbed his hand and placed it on the lower left quadrant of her stomach, “Do you feel that?”

“I-what am I-” His stammering was interrupted by a small nudge against his palm, “Did he just kick?!”

Nicole nodded excitedly, “That’s the strongest he’s ever kicked before! He’s getting so big!”

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe-” His sentence was cut short as the car lurched forward and he quickly scrambled to step on the brakes again and put the car in park. Nicole was in a fit of giggles but his attention went right back to her belly. “Hey little man, I’m sorry about that…Wow… Hey bubba.”

Nicole’s laughing fit slowly subsided and she reached up and rubbed his shoulder, “We really need to come up with a name for him.”

“A name for an all-star athlete because he’s going to be incredible.”

“Maybe he’ll even be a kicker for the Patriots.” Nicole teased, causing him to shake his head with a laugh.

“Has he been kicking for a while?”

“I mean, a little nudge here and a flip there, but that was the first genuine like ‘hey I’m here give me attention’ kick.”

“Wow…”Chris said before kissing her belly with a smile. Leaning back in his seat, he looked over at her, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“You and bubba ready to get some food before we head home?”

“We would love that, daddio.”

“Alright, operation chicken sandwich is a go.” He clapped his hands together before safely merging back onto the road.

Nicole leaned over and kissed his cheek before looking for her phone in the totebag. Going through her notifications she saw that Scott had made an instagram post. Quickly reading through it she gave it a heart and flipped through the videos and pictures before looking over at Chris, “Should I see if Scott wants anything?”

“Oh yeah, he loves Wendy's. Did he text you about the dogs?”

“Nah, he just posted something really cute… I’ll show you when we get home.”

Scott’s Instagram post:

I’m so happy that I finally get to introduce the world to my new sister! We have gotten along so well these last few months. I wanted to share some memories with you all. She taught me how to make perfect cupcakes and cookies. I can’t master cinnamon rolls but who cares. We would eat our amazing treats and talk about true crime cases that keep us up at night. We watched Grey’s from start to finish. There were several days and nights Chris would find us sharing a big blanket and an insane amount of snacks. And my time with Nicole is great but I love watching her and my brother come alive when they’re in the same room.

This first video was filmed ten days after Nicole moved into my brother's house. The second, I don’t remember when it was filmed but I know it was in the summer. And the third, literally the day after the Taylor Swift album dropped, July 25th. Nicole was so excited for this album and Chris stayed up all night with her jamming and learning lyrics. As you’ll be able to tell by these videos, she is my brother's other half. She is the half he has been waiting for to be whole. I’m so happy she’s a part of our family so I can be a part of and witness so many moments like these.

Video One

Chris and Nicole are in the kitchen, there is a bowl of cookie dough on the island counter next to a timer and a speaker playing Rewrite the Stars.

“All I want is to fly with you!” Nicole got out with a gasp as Chris lifted her onto the kitchen island. “All I want is to fall with you.” She sang out while fully standing up but was shaking her head quickly. But Chris was nodding and pointing up at her, “So just give me all of you!”

Nicole looked down at him, “It feels impossible!”

Chris shook his head laughing, “It’s not impossible!”

“Is it impossible?”

“Say that it's possible!” Nicole yelled out with him before she jumped off the counter and into Chris’ arms in a bridal carry with a squeal before going back to singing along, “How do we rewrite the stars?”

Chris couldn’t stop laughing as he spun around holding her. He slowly stopped spinning and set her down gently. Trying not to tear up he cupped her face, Nicole scrunched her nose with a big smile before kissing him.

Video Two

“Scott! Do you know where we put the lawn checkers?” Chris called out from upstairs.

“No! You can come down help me look if you want!” Scott said while propping his phone up trying not to be obvious it was filming.

“You better not be waiting in there to scare me!”

“Wow! No trust. I’m literally just being a good brother right now.” Scott said with a laugh before pretending to look around the basement and opening a closet.

Chris started making his way down the stairs, “Listen, we’re mid prank war right now. You’re probably a little salty after volleyball yesterday.” He gave his brother a smile as he made it to the bottom of the stairs. Scott rolled his eyes, “That wasn’t fair, dinner was done before the game was so it doesn’t count as a loss.”

Chris threw his head back in a laugh before starting to walk over to some storage boxes in the corner, “Sure, sure. Whatever you-”

“Baby!” Nicole screamed before jumping out from behind them.

“FUU-AAAH!” Chris yelled as he fell backwards onto the floor. “Shit! That got me!”

Scott jumped up in excitement, “YES!”

“Did I do good?” Nicole asked with a laugh coming out from behind the boxes, looking down at her husband laying like a starfish on the floor.

“Too good.”

Video Three

The living room was dim, only lit by the two standing lamps and the television, but still they playfully danced and sang to August by Taylor Swift as it played through the speakers. Nicole was mid spin when he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her in for a kiss. Nicole pulled away from the kiss looking up at Chris with a smile. He smiled back before kissing her forehead and then her shoulder, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” She spoke through the silence before the next song began to play. He smiled against her skin holding her against him as they swayed. They almost made it one full circle before he lifted his head up to see Scott recording them. “Scott!”

“What?! It’s cute!” He yelled back before stopping recording.

“Why would you even record that?!”

“Living with you guys is like a damn romance novel anyway, I normally just send them to mom but Nicole has me send them to her.”

Chris looked at her with a slight gasp, “You knew about this creepy habit?”

“You don’t record that many videos of you singing or dancing and I love it so yeah, I have him send them to me.”

Chris shook his head with a sigh but he couldn’t help but smile, “You love it when I sing?”

“You already know that I love when you sing.”

He blushed with a small shrug, “But you’ve never told me.” He kissed her cheek before turning back to his brother, “Just know that you both have some scares coming your way for this little secret. Now turn that shit off!” He said with a laugh before pushing his brother's phone away and the video cuts.

#rewrite the stars

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