#rewatching their start and seeing their story in the same blink

[spottedenchants]

y'all i miss the mighty nein

[octopiys]

I've been rewatching HTTYD and of course I had to combine my two interests

John MacTavish (27) is a native to the village, most recognized for his shaved sides and long mohawk. He's the village blacksmith, with an affinity for crafting new weapons, large ones that counter even a dragon's fireball.

Once when he was a teenager, he got his hands on a craftsman's items, and decided that he needed some of it to slick down a part of one of his contraptions. It exploded, as those kinds of things do, into a mass of bubbles and sweet scents, earning him the nickname of Soap.

John Price(37) is a trainer. He was an older viking whose battle seemed all but over when a dragon took his arm. He was still the same, just more experienced, and 10 years older.

He's had a few apprentices, his most recent being a younger man named Kyle Garrick(28), or commonly referred to as Gaz. If you ever ask why he's called that, Price will mutter something about it being "need to know", and he'll sick a particularly nasty dragon on you the next time you train with him.

There's a common pattern amongst Price's protégés.

Most of the times they're outcasts, alone. Gaz's parents were killed in a dragon attack when he was a child, but he didn't consider himself alone. He had plenty of friends, of course he did, there's Soap...-

No but totally, he was fine. He's fought dragons! Sure, he hasn't killed any yet, and sure, Price has saved his ass more than once, but he's come out unscathed!

Most of the time.

But Price's most famous protégé, or shall I even say very close ally, was the Lieutenant: Simon Riley

From the stories, Simon Riley was a man who fought dragons like no other. They both learned from each other, Price and Riley. He was a beast of blades and man, they slayed more dragons together than the entire village combined.

It would be a lie if I said that the two boys didn't look up to him, a lie if Price didn't see Riley in each of them.

It would be an even bigger lie if he hoped they didn't turn out like him, either.

Neither Gaz, nor Soap had ever met Simon Riley.

He was killed in one of the worst dragon attacks the village had seen in its entire 300 years of history.

They descended from the heavens, flying warriors sent from hell, carting off men and cattle, snapping them up in powerful jaws and flame. Price was one of those men, it was how he lost his arm. He was also the only one to survive a personal attack of that scale.

Riley had thrown everything he had to save Price. There were tricks he had up his sleeves, some that not even Price had known, that he used to get the Captain back when even he thought he was done for.

All they knew was that Simon Riley had been killed that night in place of John Price.

Those parts of the stories were left untold.

It wasn't a sensitive subject, but Price had a tendency to shatter the glass he was holding if someone asked one too many times.

It had been ten years since Riley's disappearance. His name was inscribed on the village memorial in the square, a remembrance statue to all the greatest warriors in the village's history.

It was a particularly late night when Price had let Gaz go early, as the dragon tournament was coming up, and he wanted the man to get some rest. That's how both Gaz and Soap were out by the bluffs overlooking the ocean. It was hidden through a mile of brush and trees, but tonight was one of the first clear nights since the winter, and they were excited to see the stars.

It wasn't until stars had started blinking out, half the sky was black, that they realized something was wrong.

"Dragons...." Gaz breathed suddenly, as mouths began to light up, hundreds of feet in the air above them. "It's dragons!"

Gaz pulled Soap to his feet and they began running like their lives depended on it, which in this case, it did.

Their lungs were already sore, their voices hoarse as they shouted to a few men on the outskirts.

"Swarm! Swarm!"

Vikings readied their weapons, and minutes later, the beasts shot overhead. Flashes of red, blue, greens, and yellow, silver glinting unnaturally in the moonlight.

There had been rumors about dragon riders. Those who had tamed the beasts, or maybe found a common ground with them.

There was nothing more dangerous than a man-tamed dragon.

"It's Kingfish!" Someone down the hill had shouted, and Gaz's blood ran cold.

There were whispers about a man they called Kingfish, one who hid in the shadows with armies of the scaled monsters, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting villages and pillage them for himself. No one knew his real name, where he came from, or where the nest was. But everyone knew that once Kingfish set his sights on a village, they were as good as dead.

They saw Price leave his house, half armored, but a fire in his eyes as he heaved his Warhammer behind him, disappearing behind the body of a massive dragon that was scaling the watchtower down by the water.

"Soap! C'mon!" Kyle shouted, dragging his friend down the hill. The Blacksmith paused at his shop window, pulling a few weapons away from the sill and into his arms. They kept running. Soap passed an axe to Gaz, and they ran first to a house that was lit aflame. A few people were tossing buckets of water, while a woman pulled arrows at a Whispering Death.

Farther away, they heard the crunch and splintering of wood, and Gaz looked over in horror to see the watchtower fall, both the dragon and Price going with it.

"No!" He had screamed, all but dropping his axe as he started running like mad down towards the docks. "Captain!"

"Gaz!" Soap was shouting behind him as a trebuchet fired, throwing a large stone at some dragon above him. "Gaz, look out!"

Large, leathery wings kicked up a storm of dust around him as he was tackled to the ground, rocks digging into his knees and elbows as he fought to get the beast's claws out of his shoulders. It pressed his face into the dirt as he struggled to fight against it. It cut through his shirt, digging straight into his skin. He cried out, fighting against it, but his movement was impaired, he wasn't able to swing his axe around to-

The dragon opened its mouth and screamed, the shriek going directly to his ear drums, and springing the worst headache he'd ever had, his head felt like it was going to explode, he couldn't feel his shoulders. Gaz squeezed his eyes shut, praying to Odin to make it stop, make it-

A dagger sunk directly in between two of its center scales, shocking the dragon into dropping him as it turned on its next enemy. Someone was shouting, but Gaz couldn't get his eyes to focus enough on the figure.

They were waving wildly at the dragon, now weaponless, and shouting for its attention. The dragon cocked its head to the side and stepped over Gaz, who was struggling to stand to his feel, his whole equilibrium thrown off from the noise.

And he glimpsed the the mohawk just behind the scales as the dragon lunged forward, grasping Soap in his claws and shooting off into the air.

"No!! Soap!!" Gaz shouted, chasing after the dragon as it flew. He could just see the outline of Soap, struggling, screaming as the claws pierced his leather armor, sinking into his chest. He was too high, and there was nothing Gaz could do, but he'd be damned if he wouldn't try. He shoved past people, ran through fights, passing the dark clad enemies of Kingfish's men, all while shouting for his friend, never once taking his eyes off the Whispering Death that was slowly growing smaller and smaller in the night sky.

An arrow pierced his shoulder and he cried out, stumbling, but he kept going forward, ducking behind a house. "Soap! Soap!"

A fireball exploded the wall next to him and he hit the wall hard, his consciousness leaving him before he even realized what had happened.

Soap was helpless as he squirmed, gasps being torn from his chest with the leather apron that fell away into the ocean below. He was gonna die, this was it. He couldn't see the island anymore, but he wasn't giving up. And yet this wyrm of a Whisper wouldn't let up, only shrieked until the pounding behind his eyes made him too lightheaded...

He wasn't sure what was happening when he woke up from a faint, but he sure as he'll knew he shouldn't be plummeting to death, rocketing towards the sea below him in a free fall. "Och! Shi-i-i-ite!" He flung himself onto his stomach, spreading his arms and legs apart to catch the air. His braid had come loose, whistling around his ears as the moonlit waves approached him too quickly.

Something else snatched him up like he was free prey and he shouted out again, the wounds on his chest screaming from the strain. His hands scrabbled at the beast's nails that wrapped around both his shoulders, carrying him like he was precious cargo. This was a different dragon, unfortunately for him. It was red, from what he could see, with long claws and a pale underbelly. There were antennae like appendages that dropped off the sides of its head, fading from red to orange to yellow towards the end, like leaves in autumn. But what jarred him the most was the straps of a saddle that tucked underneath its belly, and wrapped up the sides. There were a few ropes attached to the tail and- oh fuck he was falling again.

"No no no no-!" He shouted, flailing in the free air, before he hit something hard beneath him. But he wasnt.... dead...? No, he was sitting-

He was sitting on a dragon.

There was a man who sat in front of him, blond hair peaking out of his hood and helmet. Most of the helmet covered his face, save for the dark brown eyes glaring at him from behind it. In the darkness, the moon light shone off of the raised texture of pale skin that Soap could see, before smoothing off. He'd seen scars like those around the village, but only rarely. People like him never usually survived dragon's fire.

This person wasn't wearing black like Kingfish's men were. Instead, he was wrapped in a camouflage of browns, greens and furs, similarly to the dragon. He was tense, his shoulders bunched up as he glared at Soap, radiating a dark, or in other words, mysteriously powerful energy.

It occurred to him, then, that he wasn't staring at just a dragon rider.

And it occurred to him, then, that they had been wrong.

This.... this was Lieutenant Simon Riley.

[sparrowssally]

I’m thinking about writing a Sally Sparrow/Tenth Doctor fanfic, so naturally I went and rewatched “Blink” tonight for the millionth time to get some inspo, and you know what kills me?

All the little details we don’t get. All the little stories that played out without us seeing.

Kathy getting zapped back to 1920’s Hull, directly in front of the cow farmer who will become not only her first friend in the strange new town she now has to call home, but also eventually her husband. When Kathy awakes in the night with her heart pounding and tears streaming down her cheeks, and simply chokes out “the angels…I dreamt about the angels again”, his arms are always there to comfort her. The dreams slowly subside over time as she adjusts to her new life, and soon there are other, more important things to worry about. Some good, like the birth of their children, and some bad, like the war. But Kathy survives and lives a full life, as do her husband and children, and with every picture she continually insists upon taking—one every time they have enough money to afford it—she thinks of her friend Sally Sparrow.

There’s also poor, lovely Billy Shipton, transported back to 1969 London—probably by the same Angel that sent the Doctor and Martha there. He’s just as unmoored as Kathy is, but—as strange as this Doctor guy seems to be—Billy finds himself liking him in a weird way. He makes a point to become Billy’s first friend in 1969, and he and his friend Martha help get Billy not only a place to live, but also a job working in publishing (even though Billy can’t figure out how the Doctor possibly managed to forge those papers that spoke to his “extensive expertise” in the field, or why he is so insistent upon splicing several videos of him talking in jargon into a bunch of completely unrelated DVDs once Billy moves into video production). Martha sets Billy up with a pretty girl named Sally who always comes into the shop where she works, and a few months later, the Doctor attends their wedding. Billy tries to find him afterwards at the reception to say thank you, but he’s already gone, leaving behind only a simple envelope inscribed “for the bride and groom”. It contains a pound note hefty enough to get Billy and his new wife off to a good start in their marriage, and simple card inscribed with a wedding blessing, written in a script and language neither of them can read.

The next time Billy does see the Doctor is many years later, when he’s old and grey, lying bedridden in a nursing home. Billy had never truly believed the Doctor’s claims of being an alien, but when he sees the same skinny, dark-haired young man walking across the room towards him—looking exactly as he had in 1969—he can’t help but cry in the midst of his wonder. The man who calls himself the Doctor is still a mystery, but as he pulls up a chair next to Billy’s bed and takes the latter’s outstretched hand, he’s as kind as he always was. He offers his condolences when Billy tells him of the passing of his wife, and smiles at the photos Billy shows him of his children, carefully dodging Billy’s question of whether or not he ended up having children of his own. But then he grows silent and his gaze grows sad as he looks out the window at the storm clouds brewing in the sky. “I’m sorry, Billy, I’m afraid I didn’t just come here to visit,” he says, and his voice is laced with a guilt and sorrow so deep that it sounds centuries old. “It’s time.” For a second Billy thinks he sounds close to crying for some reason, so he puts his wrinkled hand on the Doctor’s shoulder gently. “It’s okay.” he insists, giving him a soft smile. “This means I’ll finally get to see her again.”

[randomfoggytiger]

X-Files Typing: Dissecting 'One Son' (Part I)

In answer to one of my Typing Topics (that I put out to see if readers were interested), One Son's "You're making this personal" was one of the first requested. So, I doubled down and rewatched the episode (frame by frame) to get premium quality for this analysis and definitive answers for the angst floating around this touchy conversation. It was an enlightening experience; and has since become a favorite episode of mine (if I ignore the canon bugs.)

I will list the explanations, as close to frame-by-frame as I could fit in this post, and then a summary of Mulder's Hows and Whys by Type at the bottom.

Now, onto the episode analysis--

ONE SON

One Son begins with Mulder and Scully being separated from Cassandra and spirited away to Fort Marlene as part of an interception mission.

Fort Marlene

In the showers, Mulder takes a prolonged "is this allowed?" look while Scully errs on the side of deniability with a "blink and you'll miss it" peek.

After they've gowned up, Scully deduces their location based on travel time and quarantine capabilities (and impresses Mulder); but all her suspicions are dialed up to 10 when Diana Fowley walks through the door.

Although Diana "begs for forgiveness and understanding", Scully grills her for reasons why they were quarantined and huffs at Fowley's explanations. When Diana claims Cassandra's condition was immediately infectious and severe, she rebuts: “What?”; but politely nods along as the woman continues.

Mulder is immediately satisfied when Diana's basic answers (stating that Jeffrey Spender had called the information in);

but Scully gears up for a full-frontal assault.

She refutes Diana’s claims, stating Cassandra was already hospitalized for days and that they’d met with her, they hadn't been infected, and that Fowley had scooped her up on a whim. “It’s unjustified and highly suspicious as to motive.” 

Mulder starts getting tense and tries to deescalate with a "Scully."

Diana plays into the tension by asking Scully what she is implying, treating her like an idiot for positing basic medical inquiry. Scully insists no one else in infected, basing her assumptions on the fact that Diana “walking in here dressed to the nines to offer apologies masquerading as explanations.” 

While Mulder appears to be tuned out-- whispering to the med team,

and wincing at their bloodwork tests--

he immediately “Scully--”s at her blatant insinuation of Diana's motives, making a mild “we’re on the same team here” face.

(This is a prime example of Mulder's Se Trickster showing-- he can't accurately read the motives of others and assumes that Diana would never do something like that. See Missteps below for more info.)

Scully gently reiterates: “Mulder, I want to see Cassandra.”

When Fowley refuses to permit Scully, and Scully keep pushing with "I'm a medical doctor", Diana sharply spits out: “Who is suspended indefinitely from her position at the FBI.” 

Scully gets angry, rips off the arm cuff, and storms out.

Mulder doesn’t comment,

but also looks away from Diana’s “I tried, it’s your turn” eyebrow. His face is resolved to some course of action.  

In the lockers, Mulder tries to diffuse Scully’s tension with a “gray is the new black” joke, 

and even agrees with her “Mulder, this stinks” opener.  

But his candor drops when she calls Diana “that woman”, crossing his arms and tightening up his face. 

Scully sees him tense and drops her rant. “Well, I think you know what I think that woman is.” 

Mulder tries to recover the mood again with a second joke-- “No, you hide your feelings really well”--

but it falls flat because there are too many brewing emotions between the two of them.

Nonetheless, they are still talking amicably to each other, even when Scully tries to poke holes in Diana’s story and Mulder backs it up with confirmation from Skinner (who had called about Jeffrey Spender.)

Her gut is telling her she’s right, but she has no proof; and when she tries to insist that Cassandra was miraculously healthy, Mulder asks: “Well then why did she come to my apartment demanding to be killed?”

He is taken aback by Scully’s impassioned speech:

“Because of everything that had been done to her. Because of the tests, because of the men the medical experiments, and the implant in her neck….”

It dawns on him that this may be how Scully has been suffering; it disturbs him that she might have considered the steps that Cassandra did.

From this point on, Mulder is convinced that Scully is taking this case too personally, projecting her own trauma of the men who abducted her onto Cassandra and vilifying Diana by extension. He understands being twisted by the men in shadows because of the endless stories they've fed him about Samantha; but Scully has gone through so many variations of her own story that it's not clean cut for him anymore.

His tone moderates, but his heels dig in further. He believes his assessment is further bolstered by Scully stating “The same thing that was done to me. She just wants it to stop.” 

Mulder realizes Cassandra is “the one” for the Project, and that is why she wanted to be killed. Scully willingly accepts this explanation; but it only digs up further questions.  

After Mulder is released and gains information from Marita, he answers Scully's call to meet up at TLG's for something important.  

TLG Headquarters 

When Mulder arrives, Scully quickly says: “I’ll ask you to hear me out before you launch any objection.” He nods, perfectly fine with that stipulation. But when he realizes it's about Scully's suspicions of Diana, he gives a huffy "of course" sigh.

Interesting to note: my memories of this conversation were tainted by my hatred of Diana and my disbelief at Mulder's refusal to believe; but rewatching it was... enlightening, to say the least.

While Mulder at first tries to dismiss the conversations (“I don’t have time for this"), he then switches to a plea with Scully (“I… know her, Scully." *softer* "You don’t") before resigning himself to what the boys have dug up for him.

At first, he deflects Diana's records by fake gasping-- snippily remarking on their lack of concrete evidence, then convulsively nodding so that they hurry up and get to the point--

but he becomes alert and intrigued when Scully brings up Diana's weekly trips to Tunisia (since it was a constant Consortium hot spot.)

He asks intently for more evidence (“For the purpose of what?”) and expects a GOOD reason.

(Ti Hero needing SOLID, irrefutable, and TONS of evidence to change its mind, or not at all.)

When TLG present him with European MUFON visits, all his suspicions vanish again, and his slightly condescending attitude returns, placing all of their conjectures into the realm of conspiracy theories.

This whole conversation, Mulder has been harshly dismissive of any point that TLG bring up, since they're the boys who are poking into his personal decisions; but now Scully takes over, and his demeanor shifts down a few notches. While annoyed, ("Scully, you’re reaching")

Mulder respectfully and empathetically listens to her speech recapping her experiences with her MUFON groupies. His worry for her still peaks through his defensiveness (scrunched in brows, screwed up mouth, etc.) But what's interesting is: his anger is not directed AT Scully, but FOR Scully-- that she had to live through these horrors, that the men who ruined his childhood have mangled her happiness; and further, that they're weaponizing her pain to turn them both against Diana. He senses manipulation; but misdiagnoses its source.

Mulder remains convinced Scully has become too blinded by her personal experiences; and he overcorrects in an attempt counteract her outright dislike and distrust of Diana.

Scully becomes insulted when Mulder sums her claims up by saying she's "suggesting" that Diana is monitoring abductees-- flicking her tongue out (which is her verbal tick for "biting her tongue.")

Scully tries to compose herself before launching into the firsthand experiences of being an abductee; and repeats Mulder's words back to show that she'd respected his opinions enough to recall them. Mulder returns that respect by easing up even more on the pressure, seeing her emotions are uncontrollably near the surface. His concern over her personalization only increases as she places herself in Cassandra's shoes, proving to himself that her rationality cannot be relied on in this scenario.

Mulder may be giving her full lead, but he is not giving up ground. As she continues to argue her points, he follows her logic, half-hoping she will change his mind just like she and TLG hope she can though the thought of Diana's betrayal cuts him to the quick (more furrowed brows, tightening of the jaw, etc.)

Scully desperately needs his belief; but loses him when she inadvertently touches on his greatest fear:  

“Mulder, ask yourself why there is no information whatsoever on Special Agent Diana Fowley; why she would suddenly happen into your life when you are closer than ever to the Truth.”

His open-minded willingness to listen is quickly shut down, and he swivels away from the conversation with a final toss of his head.

Mulder's raw fear-- that he won't be accepted (Fe Inferior) is blinding him to Diana's actions (Se Trickster), afraid to look deeper into her motives; and satisfied that he hasn't been given enough data to change his Ti Hero's mind.

At Scully's “I mean, you ask me to trust no one and yet you trust her on simple faith" he becomes offended and angry.

“Because you’ve given me no reason here to do otherwise.”

Scully is devastated-- “Well then I can’t help you anymore"-- and immediately starts to leave.  (her immediate "cut and run" Ni Demon Function rearing its head.)

Mulder swings around, tracking her with his whole body, and shows the first real sign of his insecurity and teeming emotions. And this, while vulnerable and starting to get scared, is when he says the line:

“Scully, you’re making this personal.”

His brown is furrowed in worry, his mouth is loose, his jaw is unclenched, and his posture is tight as he pivots in Scully's direction. If he had been dismissive, or rude, or belittling, Scully would not only have never called him (which she does later in this episode) again, but she would have walked out forever.

He moves in closer as Scully responds: “Because this is personal, Mulder. Because without the FBI, personal interest is all that I have. And if you take that away, then there is no reason for me to continue.”

Unlike the Fight the Future confrontation, she is unshaken, knowing her worth and value. She is letting Mulder make his permanent choice, and is prepared to respect whatever he decides, even if he believes Diana is a better fit.

Scully's Si Hero has led her all these years on Mulder's quest: placing her in the Starbuck role naturally to a cause greater than herself, feeding him Te Parent information to give his mind constant hoards of verifiable data. She has set all else aside, believing this quest to be more important that her own Fi Child comfort, and trying to save the future and bravely face the unknown with her Ne Inferior. But as much as this life with Mulder has fulfilled her completely, Scully needs someone to LISTEN to her: if she is not listened to, then she is not valued. And if she is not valued, she will use her Ni Demon to cut ties and permanently walk away. As much as she sacrifices willingly and without reciprocation needed, she expects to depend just as much on that other person; otherwise, there can be no trust.

The scene ends on Mulder's resolved face, setting up his next step (to prove if his own biases are true or false by interrogating Diana.)

He chooses to see if Scully’s right or wrong (his Te Nemesis using its worries for good, see Missteps below.) 

Now, onto the Type information--

Mulder's Missteps

For a full breakdown of Mulder's Type to better explain this post, see my Mulder, The Spooky INTP post (linked here.)

Mulder's dominant Function, Ti Hero, is all about the Truth: what can be proven, not what others SAY is true. It's pure, unadulterated logic; its flaw, however, is becoming immovably fixed in its convictions (having weighed the pros and cons meticulously to reach whatever conclusion they believe in.) It requires mountains of evidence, and continents more of firsthand accounts as well as repeatable research to budge them into a new direction. Much patience and verification is needed. (We can all see where this is trending.)

In this case: Mulder REFUSES to budge from considering Diana a trustworthy friend or person at all. Although he is at least willing to listen to Scully's concerns (because his Ti Hero knows that his Te Nemesis-- fear of faulty information-- is always demanding he check his biases), there is not enough evidence to point to as irrefutable evidence. And, although Ti Hero is willing to weigh all information in the balance, it will not implement it as Truth unless it is given enough time to prove itself beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Mulder's vanity and insecurity Function, Fe Inferior, is always seeking acceptance from others. It makes him one of the easiest to guilt and exploit of all the Types, because Fe believes that it can earn trust and love from others by bending over backwards. They will do ANYTHING for those they trust, including letting themselves be continually used as a rug mat for others' treacherous feet. (It is not until INTPs mature that they realize they must find self-acceptance instead of over dependence on others; and because of their high Si in their stack, this is fairly easy for them to achieve through self-reflection on what they've achieved and overcome.)

In this case: Mulder's low self-esteem coupled with his emotional abandonment as a child and his isolation at the FBI makes him lean heavily on the few people he trusts. This is easily used against him by bad faith actors wanting to bring about their own end goals. Diana twisted it by calling upon their long time friendship(?), leaving enough doubt in his mind of her innocence. The horror that she would have never accepted him or his mission, even as a loyal friend, was such a blow that it would take that mountain of evidence for Ti Hero to accept it as fact.

Mulder's worry, Te Nemesis, keeps him continually fact checking all information that he believes in, reinforcing his Ti Hero with constantly updated data. He is afraid that others are feeding him wrong or biased sources, and thus continually peer reviews the thoughts of those around them to see if they pass muster.

In this case: It saves Mulder's bacon. When Scully lays all her cards on the table-- about Diana, and MUFON, and her personal interest-- Mulder decides to heed his Te Nemesis's warning, and checks on Diana, his source, to see if she is still reputable. Which leads him right to the CSM (who further muddles his mind and sends him into apathetic Fi Demon.)

Mulder's blind spot, Se Trickster, not only blinds him to his own weird quirks and inadequate reactions or behaviors; but it also prevents him from accurately reading the actions of those around him (being led around by Pheobe Green, having his work stolen by Jerry Lamana, misinformed by CSM and informants, etc.)

In this case: every action Diana made was never suspicious to Mulder, because he interpreted all of them in good faith. His trust in her is already established, and it blinded him to her end goal and obvious double motives.

Mulder's most powerful and corruption Function, Fi Demon, leads him straight into apathetic debauchery. If they are exploited and beaten down and unappreciated, INTPs can only take so much before they toss the whole world aside and collapse into self-indulgent destruction. The only way to snap them out of this mode is to awaken their Fe Inferior by slightly manipulating them ("you're hurting my feelings", "you're not meeting my needs", etc.)

In this case: Mulder finds out that not only has Diana Fowley been using him-- or misdirecting him-- for her own purposes; but that he'd been used and placated for years by the very people he was trying to expose and depose. As CSM weaves his tragic, hopeless tale of self-pity, Mulder sinks further and further into apathy, finally punishing himself by resigning himself to being with Diana, fellow nihilist to the cause in an attempt to right the wrongs he'd "done" to Scully. Thankfully, Scully snaps him out of his apathy and gets him to drive with her to Potomac Yard.

End of Part 1-- Part 2 coming soon-ish.

Enjoy!

Disclaimers: This is a self-assessed analysis. This information is not based on the abominable MBTI system (which has been butchered from its original Jungian typology since ~WWII); instead, it’s a combination between the works of Jung’s type psychology, Dr. Linda Berens’ Communication styles, Dr. Dario Nardi’s EEG brain scan compiled research, and others’ data and practices as compiled and simplified by CSJoseph. This system is based only on the Nature side of Nature/Nurture; and each “type” is not a “box” to fit everyone into– simply a tool to help understand the basics of the human mind that science has only begun to fathom in its limited scope.

[doverstar]

It's such a fun story about how I got into Doctor Who. I was in highschool (around 2007-2008). I'm not sure of the exact date since back then there was a huge delay when the episodes aired in the UK and in Canada. My math teacher kept talking about this sci-fi show and he kept talking about it and it piqued my interest a little. Eventually I was flipping channels (or actually I think this was when you still went to that channel that scrolled through all the stations and showed what was on) and saw Doctor Who was about to be on so I thought 'oh hey. I should check this out!' and put it on. So... that very first episode I saw was 4x12: Stolen Earth... yeah. To say I was confused is an understatement, but 16-year-old me was so intrigued by the characters and setting. The tall, dark-haired man in a suit that said funny things, the creepy robotic voices coming from the transmission, planets in the sky!?, and I could feel there was lots of context I was missing out on. Therefore, after watching Journey's End the following week, I borrowed series 1-4 from the library and was completely caught up by the time The Next Doctor aired. I actually think I started with series 2 not understanding the regeneration thing, but I got there in the end.

I remember when Matt Smith was announced as the next Doctor. (17-year-old me was smitten (and I still am)). I was in grade 12 when Eleventh Hour came out, and I immediately liked his Doctor. I loved the new opening titles, and as soon as he said 'basically run' I was sold to him being the Doctor. By the Pandorica speech in the season finale he became my favourite Doctor. I remember seeing the series 6 premiere with my family and we were all freaking out. I also saw the 50th anniversary special at the movie theatre in 3D!

Fast forward 3 years to Time of the Doctor, I was not ready for him to go. I cried. To this day I still can't watch the behind the scenes stuff for that special.

I couldn't connect to Capaldi in series 8 and I stopped watching the show before the end of that series. Over the years I heard bits of information about what happened over the years.... I remember not being sure about a girl being the Doctor at the time since I also was uneasy about Missy... and then last summer I saw a clip with David Tennant returning and I went '...what!?'. And that re-sparked my interest because WHY is he back!? So I've been rewatching the show from series 1 to current since July 2023 and getting myself all caught up. I saw the 60th specials and Church on Ruby Road, but I'm still working through the Flux season currently, and I regret not watching the show over the years. Capaldi became my second favourite Doctor by the end of his run (I cried just as much as when Matt regenerated), and Jodie is a lot of fun so far There's still a few surprises in her run that I've managed to avoid spoilers about, so I'm looking forward to this last stretch.

That's the end of my story.... but fun tidbit, I got the rest of my family into the show. Their first episode was Silence in the Library.

I especially like that your teacher got you interested in it! I can't imagine Stolen Earth/Journey's End being your introduction to the show; that would have been so weird and so confusing for me. I'm super impressed you decided to catch up and watch the show! It's no surprise you were/are smitten with Matt Smith's Doctor. I'm the same way, especially the older I get. How can you not love him? He was absolutely magical. I got my whole family into the show, too! They loved Silence in the Library, but I remember I actually got my parents interested first with Blink, but I realized my siblings liked it when I saw them watching Fear Her with enthusiasm. This show is so much fun. Thank you for sharing! Loved this.

[deanismysavior]

Today I tried rewatching season 4 from the perspective of an audience member who had zero clue about Will’s sexuality before starting the season. I tried stripping my mind of any outside information and just watching the show unfold. And I realized that without context, especially if I was a straight audience member who didn’t easily pick up on queerness, there’s nothing in volume 1 that explicitly televises Byler or Will’s sexuality if you aren’t looking for it. There’s little details and some blink and you’ll miss it vaguely coded convos. But if you had no idea about Byler previously, I feel like it can easily go over your head. Even the painting is a detail that can easily be forgotten. I feel like the first explicit sign is volume 2 and the painting confession but without knowing Will is gay and in love with Mike previously, even that might be somewhat confusing. Thoughts?

I haven't tried to do this, so my view of this might be skewed, but I did watch this with my mom who is not queer and she picked up on Will's queerness pretty quickly into Vol 1. She definitely thought Mike was straight until I suggested the subtext to her, so I think that for general audience members, seeing Mike as gay or queer is a lot harder to pick up on because they don't have the lived experience of being queer and don't understand what repression looks and feels like. To most people, Will comes across more obviously as queer because he's never shown interest in girls and he's been bullied for being gay in the show previously, even if at the time it was just conjecture, the suggestion was still there. But with Mike, I think even though the clues are there, if you put on your straight glasses just because he's with El, people can more easily explain away his actions as being platonic, friendly, awkward, etc. They don't really understand the complexities of queerness. To me, I do think that even without having known about Will's sexuality before s4, the general audience SHOULD have been able to see it, especially in the way Noah played his role this season, but I'm also someone who pays attention to the media I consume, so what seems obvious to me from a narrative standpoint could be completely lost on someone else. I don't think that burden should fall on the writers though. They put enough into the story to make Will's queerness obvious if you're actively watching (the painting, the jealousy, the pushing off the girl's advance, the Alan Turing presentation). I think the real problem is that people don't actively watch what they consume most of the time anymore. Critical analysis has become largely lost on general audiences, which only works to their detriment, but this is to say that them not getting it doesn't make it badly written. There's a lot of power in nuance, and I think that's one of the things this season actually did fairly well, they made people ask questions. Here's my thing: if people can go back and look at the earlier seasons and realize they missed Vecna all along and think it's some crazy cool plot twist, they should be able to do the same thing with both Mike and Will's queerness (not that queerness is a plot twist but you get my point). They should be able to look at the earlier seasons and say, "how could I have missed that?" But likely, instead they'll just say it came out of nowhere. I think I wandered a bit there, but I guess my point is that we shouldn't have to hit people over the head with queerness in order for it to be real. Not sure if this fully answered your question, but these are just some of my thoughts.

[whatstrangeloops]

The Hades II prediction post

Wow! Hades II! That was a swerve from a studio that’s pointedly never done a sequel to any of their other games. In a way, surprising with their first sequel is entirely in character for Supergiant, who if you’ve seen interviews with the team, have always approached development from an innovation-first perspective. After Bastion, Transistor was developed around incorporating narrative elements into the mechanics more strongly, then Pyre was about writing for a large cast, and Hades, finally, was about synthesizing all their previous work into the rogue-like formula, distilling the gameplay and storytelling elements they’d kept consistently and those that they’d innovated upon previously into one release.

So what will Hades II be about, what will be it’s driving innovation? First though, let me write about the fluff. I think Hades II will have dual-wielding. The trailer really seems to emphasize both Melinoe and Hecate dual-wielding weapons. And close watchers will have noticed that Melinoe uses mismatched weapons, a sickle and a dagger. Could this mean we might get to choose a dual wielding loadout? I think it could be likely, such a system existed in Bastion and I expect that Transistor’s “weapons equipped in different primary or utility slots create build wide modifiers” system could be on the table as well.

I am also entirely certain that we will see more areas. Hades five (5) zones (I count The House of Hades as a zone) were fully fleshed but not very numerous especially comparing to SGs previous releases. I will go ahead an claim that Hades II will have closer to 8 or maybe 10 zones though I’m not sure if these will be linearly arranged, arranged on branching paths, or if instead they will crib some notes from the Spelunky games and implement secret side zones only accessible by player investment. The prospect excites me though. There are two new zones featured in the trailer, a sort of haunted forest, probably the first zone and a blink and you’d miss it shot of a mechanical “submarine” type area with fish and aquatic based enemies. Interesting. Passingly, I know that in the Greek mythos Poseidon and Hades were actually once possibly the same god only later split into different domains. To be clear I’m speaking about the historical evolution of the Greek mythology and not an explicit narrative element in any story. This detail could have interesting thematic or story implications but I’ll get to that in a bit. Anyway, it would also be cool if they remade some of the areas from the first game but you had to go through them the other way. People go crazy for that kind of thing.

What about Magick? That’s intriguing. At first, I thought that maybe this was going to replace the cast but rewatching the trailer I see that the cast is seemingly still it’s own thing. The UI in the trailer is clearly not fully fleshed out so I think it’s wise not to draw speculation from every single thing present in the trailer. It seems Magick is similar to the abilities that the exiles had in Pyre though. More movement based abilities would be an appropriate addition of complexity for a sequel...

And actually that brings me to what I teased at the start of this post. What is the principle driving Hades II’s development? I think that the innovation the Supergiant wants to explore, the new challenge they’re trying to face with this game is “How do you make a sequel?”. You might think, duh, it’s Hades 2 but you have to remember that this is Supergiant’s 5th game but only their first sequel and how do you do a sequel? I think the modern game enjoyer takes sequels for granted. We just sort of expect eventually any popular game will have a follow up but at the same time a game franchise that just pumps out sequels is seen as being commercialized or creatively bankrupt. Think about like the Madden or FIFA or Call of Duty or Assassins' Creed games. Gamers talk a lot about what sequels or entries are good or bad relative to other members of that game’s lineage. Do you just give the fans what they think they want, more of the game they already liked? Do you simplify or do you expand? How do you bring back old favorite characters whose stories you supposedly wrapped up in the last game and/or how do introduce new characters to exist alongside those old ones? These may seem like silly, basic questions but they are also fundamental to the creative structure of any sequel.

Based on this prediction I am going to speculate on the choice of Chronos as the new villain. I think it fits in my framework. We are all expecting, on some level, that Hades II will take us back to what it was like to first be playing Hades (the first) so the antagonist being Father Time himself usurping and re-establishing an older order is something that I don’t think will be left unaddressed. After the trailer posts were immediately speculating that at the end of a rogue-like cycle Chronos will simply send you back in time to the beginning again. And that Hades and Poseidon connection I mentioned before? What if Hades and Poseidon hadn’t been split historically? What if Chronos can see a different timeline? Multiverse stories have just been in the water lately and time travel and multiverses have been arm-in-arm since, ohhh that Flash comic from the Silver Age? I’m think I’m saying that at least we’ll be seeing some of the older and stranger elements of the Greek mythology being mined in this sequel. Hopefully maybe.

I could write a more, about Hecate I think, but I don’t feel like drinking anymore tonight so I think I’ll leave it at this.

[birgittesilverbae]

aaaaaask meme

7, 10, 18, 24, 26, 29

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

I answered this previously, but 7 when it comes to you specifically is making you yell at me. fills me with warmth

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Your star wars au Shannon death makes me want to disappear (and your description of Bea's elbow stuff) asking this question has made me forget everything I've ever read tbh. I've been haunted by stuff I never finished, and I'll stumble over it and just get slapped in the face

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

from tmtl ch5, rewatching ep6 for the millionth time I got stuck on the fact that Bea's had to drive out to Ronda alone and then back with Mary and sit in the knowledge that they've lost Lilith too and their family of four has been cut in half in the blink of an eye

outline/v1: The return trip with Mary. Quiet, stilted questions. Not on the same wavelength, interrupting each other and apologising because they don't know how to fill the spaces that have been left for other voices.

v2: "Would you just look at me?" // "I can't. Because I look at you and all I see is her."

v3: "You're all I have left. Shannon's dead. Lilith's dead. Mary, you're all I have left." // "I can't." Mary's voice is hoarse. "Even just sitting here– You still use her soap." It's not a question. "I sit here and I smell her and when I look at you all I can see are the fingerprints she left behind. And I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I can't fucking deal with that right now."

v4: "You're all I have left,” Beatrice continues, unable to hold her tongue now that the first stones in the dam have cracked. “Shannon's dead. Lilith's dead. Mary, you're all I have left. Look at me. Please." // "I can't." Mary's voice is hoarse. "Even just sitting here– You still use her soap." It's not a question. "I sit here and I smell her and when I look at you all I can see are the fingerprints she left behind. And I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I can't fucking deal with that right now."

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

it depends on the story; tmtl for each scene I had a one sentence outline for the exact emotional beats I wanted to hit, and then a paragraph outline with scene beats and callbacks, and then a bulletpoint outline to detail the exact shape of the scene. fic: nature is gonna end up with the same sort of treatment but probably less intense about it. tmau prep work has involved a shit ton of academic papers and spreadsheets. if it's not clear, I really love prep work, I haven't had as much opportunity for research work in my day-to-day lately so I've been really digging in. honestly fic: dads has been such a departure in that it's been an exercise for me in trying to do absolutely no planning

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

I'll typically have a song assigned to a character for a specific fic and listen to that repeatedly if I'm having trouble getting into their mindset. getting out of it usually isn't that difficult, head empty brain go brr etc. but if I'm getting to stuck in something I go watch cooking videos on youtube tbh. there are a couple points I've hit where I've been writing something and had to take a step back and go 'okay, it's not good for me to be here right now I need to walk away' but I don't know that I regret those points so much as they give me more insight into myself

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

I usually turn to my sad bangers playlist (which I've been familiarizing you with cas hehe) if I'm in the need for inspiration, and lately when I've been stuck on something I've gone and stared at @princington 's art until I'm Fixed (read: made worse (affectionate))

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Our Love Died

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Dumped into a strange yet familiar world, Viktor falls back into some old habits- including losing contact with his siblings. Eventually, some years pass and they start finding him again. At that point he's not quite sure he wants them to, though. Warnings: Domestic abuse, abusive relationships, trans male pregnancy, childbirth, depression/anxiety, and transphobia Word Count: TBD (Chapter 1: 3,535) Chapter(s): TBD Ship(s): Viktor Hargreeves/Five Hargreeves

Archive link!

A/N: (fic notes) So I actually created an entirely different story and character off of labour and King by their respective artists and then I realized that it would fit really well into this kind of a fic as well. I decided I was just going to write it so I had another nice chaptered fic for TUA before the last season comes out. I'm going to leave a little disclaimer here: I have never been pregnant and I am not a trans man (I'm genderfluid, so still trans) so some things may not be entirely accurate. I'm also writing and uploading this at the same time so there might be some awkward plot holes or something throughout. I'm going to try my best to prevent that but please honor me with some grace if I don't manage it! I hope that you all enjoy this, I know I'm loving writing it so far. Make sure that you heed the tags, though, things do get pretty dark. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <;3 (chapter notes) Here's chapter one! This is basically a complete rewrite of the last scene of the last episode of season 3. I tried to write every bit of dialogue directly from the show, so if things sound a little awkward it was probably a typo I didn't correct because I didn't want to go rewatch that scene again. Rewriting directly from a script is exhausting, after all, lol. I hope that you guys are enticed by this first chapter but if you're not, try sticking around to the second when the plot is gonna actually get started! Things are moving pretty slow for now but they'll pick up soon. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

The first thing that Viktor saw when the elevator doors opened was a garden.

He hadn’t been in a lot of gardens when he was younger because it wasn’t something that Reginald put a lot of his time and energy into and then he had never sought them out as an adult around the monotony of his everyday life. He had to admit that it was an improvement to the accommodations that they had been staying in for the past week while they tried to sort out the third end-of-the-world.

It was dark, just as he thought it would have been when he was traveling in the hazy, half-asleep state during the ride up the elevator. The dimness wasn’t caused by the dark colored walls and lack of windows, however, but rather because at some point the sky had turned into night. The moon was hanging high in the sky, glinting pale silver-blue light down onto the earth with the help of the blinking stars. The sky was clear and bright, devoid of the heavy rain clouds that so often plagued The City. The color of the light reminded Viktor of the heavy power that slept inside of him, waiting to come forth and create another apocalypse like it had three lifetimes ago.

He tilted his head down so that he could take in what the garden actually looked like while his legs slowly carried him out of the elevator and into the cool night air. There was a gray cement path that led to a bust and plaque in the center of the main part of the garden. From it were several more paths, though it was hard to see where exactly they went because of the trees and shrubs that were obscuring the already dark view. He could just barely make out the vibrant green of the grass clashing with the darker shade of the neatly trimmed bushes along the paths. He thought that it was strange that there were no flowers, all of the books that Viktor had ever read as a child that contained gardens had them described as overflowing with different colors of petals.

Next to him, Lila giggled, “Cool.” It made sense that she would be able to process the weirdness that they had all just endured better than all of them. Viktor was probably handling it with the least amount of grace since he had never been a hero when the Umbrella Academy was active and thus hadn’t seen any of the weird powers or abilities that the villains the others fought possessed. The closest that he had gotten was just seeing his siblings train and listening to their exploits through the radio that Grace kept on when missions were underway. Lila, conversely, had grown up surrounded by time traveling assassins and flipped through many different periods in time with her mother. This was just another thing to add to her list of adventures instead of something that was emotionally shattering as it was to Viktor.

The sound of a police siren wailing in the distance was comforting and terrifying at the same time. The images of the police towering around the car that he had been trying to get his girlfriend and her son to safety in flashed through his mind, quickly followed by his nerves fraying just a little bit more at the memory of his electro-shock torture session. He flexed his hands at his side to try and get rid of the anxiety, something close to what he had used to do. His violin was nowhere in sight now, though, so it meant that he couldn’t pick it up and use that to get rid of the adrenaline-summoned energy.

All of those thoughts were pushed from his mind as soon as he turned properly and saw the towering figure of his brother. He short-circuited for a moment as the only thing that he could really process was the overwhelming joy about seeing the man he thought he had lost, just as he had lost Ben. Viktor was so used to mourning, to grief, that the joy surging through his body was foreign and addictive. 

“Luther?” he asked, breathless and awed. Viktor was barely even aware that his legs were moving as he made his way closer to the other. He was moving a little sluggishly, as if he was scared that if he made even a single wrong move then his brother would disappear again forever, just as he had done when Klaus summoned him during their fight. “Luther?” he asked again, which got the blond’s attention.

“Oh, shit,” Luther swore as a smile blossomed over his face. “You can see me?” he asked, pointing towards some of the others.

“Yes! Yes!” Viktor almost screamed as he threw his arms around his brother’s neck and shoulders to trap him there in a hug. 

“I’m alive?” Luther asked, his body almost vibrating with the shock of his realization.

Viktor and Luther had shared two hugs in their entire lives. They had never been terribly close as children since Reginald kept Viktor as far away from him as possible, both physically and mentally, while Luther had basically been on his coattails all the way up until the last year of his life. 

The first hug that they had ever shared was one of Viktor’s least favorite memories. He had been under the impression that he had just killed his sister with no reassurance from his then-boyfriend. It had felt so wonderful to be wrapped up in the arms of someone he had known and loved without anything in return. Then he had felt the air slowly being forced from his lungs, his body compressing in on itself while black spots danced in his vision. Then he had woken up in the soundproof room where the only thing he had for company was his own quickening heartbeat, watching as his siblings all abandoned him one by one again.

The second hug that the duo had shared was the one that they were having now. Luther’s arms stretched all the way around Viktor and he was so tall that he had to bend over at the waist to be able to loop around Viktor’s chest. He could tell that the other was holding back his strength significantly because this time it felt nothing like it had before. Luther was hugging him and holding him tightly enough that he could know for certain that the taller was there, but there was no pain, even as he got lifted into the air.

“Luther’s alive!” Klaus crowed in the background.

“Oh my God,” Lila breathed. It was odd how quickly she had been assimilated into the family and how deeply she cared for them all already, but they were the Hargreeves. Nothing about their family had ever been normal and nothing about it ever would, not that they would want it any other way.

“And that’s not all, big guy,” Viktor felt like he was going to explode with how many emotions were flowing through his system. Luther had since put him down on the ground and he was able to get a proper look at his brother, though it was already confirmed when he had been up in the air. He was staring at Luther’s chest and arms as he tried to come up with a way to phrase what was racing through his mind.

“Huh?” Luther asked before he gasped when he noticed it as well. “Holy shit, my body!” he brushed his hands over his chest and then looked down at his arms again. Where there had once been copious amounts of thick, wiry hair stretched out over grotesque, engorged muscles was nothing but pale skin with blond hair and lean muscle. “Wait, I look amazing!” he beamed as he realized what it really meant.

Jealousy and happiness mixed inside of Viktor until all he felt was nauseous. He knew that Luther had struggled with how he looked after the experiment that their father had performed on him to save the life Reginald himself had endangered. That much was evident from the way that Luther had hidden himself away in layers and layers of clothing when they had all first reunited. Viktor was very familiar with what it was like to feel uncomfortable in one’s body as that feeling had been magnified for him since he realized what his gender was. He wished that the transport to the new universe had given him a body that he felt more comfortable in, one that didn’t make him want to crawl out of his own skin when he caught himself in a reflective surface at just the wrong angle. At the same time, he couldn’t help but be happy for the gift that Luther had been given after everything he had been through.

Klaus wandered over to them in that stumble-walk that he had perfected when they were teenagers. Viktor had always been amazed he wasn’t tripping over himself more often, the same way that he would be if he tried that. “Luther’s all svelte now,” he commented as he touched his brother’s arm as well.

“Wait. I gotta show Sloane!” Luther beamed. It was heart warming to see him being so affectionate towards someone other than Allison. When they were younger, it was very disheartening to Viktor to try and pour so much love into his relationship with his brother only to be pushed to the side. Of course, back then, he hadn’t realized that Luther and Allison were romantically involved so the relationship he wanted was actually very different. Given everything that had happened with Allison in the last couple days, up to and including Luther’s death, it was a good thing that he had someone who adored him just as much as he did her.

The mention of the Sparrow hero was enough to make Viktor take attendance for everyone standing around in the garden. Lila and Diego were standing next to each other, so close that their shoulders were brushing against each other. Ben and Five were hanging around the bust in the center of the little garden path. Klaus was near Luther, who was standing in front the elevator still.

Five raised up his arm, fussing with his watch. “I got my arm back,” he informed them plainly like it wasn’t the best thing that had happened to him in decades.

“This is so cool. W-wait where’s Sloane?” Luther asked as he reached out towards Klaus for the information.

Surprisingly enough, the most chaotic member of the family actually did have an answer for him. “Oh, she was, uh… she was right behind me-”

“When Allison hit the bloody button,” Lila finished for him, gritting her teeth in anger.

“She’s gone too,” Diego groused.

Five began to walk towards one of the dark paths surrounding the small place of respite that they were in. His brows were furrowed and his face was pinched in that way that it always got when he was upset about something. “You know, I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t felt this good in years,” Klaus said as he also turned his gaze towards the peaking city that they could see between the trees.

“Does anyone know where the Hell we are?” Ben asked.

Viktor felt his heart sink down into his stomach as he realized that it was the version of Ben that had come from the Sparrows despite none of the other Sparrows being with them. He had been hoping, after Luther had risen from the grave and stepped out of the elevator with them, that his long-dead brother would also return so that Viktor could apologize for using up the rest of his unlife energy. He figured that it made sense it would be that version of Ben, since he was the one that fought the final battle with them after they fucked up the timeline so that he existed in the first place.

“The hotel,” Lila quickly supplied before he could get in a fight with anyone. “Or at least, this is where it used to be.”

Five let out a breath, which really emphasized just how tired he was. “I think the old man did it. I think he reset the universe.”

Diego walked over so that he was standing in front of Lila with his hand up in front of her. She gasped as she held it in both of her own and said, “You got your fingers back!”

“Sloane? Sloane!” Luther called through the garden in a desperate attempt to find his wife.

Viktor could only stand there and watch his siblings interacting with each other as he tried to process everything that had happened. Something inside of him felt like it was missing, something that left him hollow and slightly damaged. He didn’t have time to unpack it now as tensions were already rising between the other family members.

Moving around the bust, Luther grabbed onto one of the lapels of Five’s suit jacket. “I don’t care about any resets, all right? I want my wife back. Where is she, Five?”

“I’m glad you’re alive, but please take your hand off me,” Five snarked. He was using that voice that he always did when he was upset about something or close to getting in a fight with someone. Viktor had heard it often when they were all going through the beginnings of puberty.

Anxiety began to rise inside of him as he realized that this could all go very badly very quickly if someone didn’t step in to stop them before they did something stupid. “Not until you give me an answer,” Luther threatened as he grabbed the other side of Five’s jacket so that he had no chance of escaping.

“Okay, screw this!” Five sassed back. He jerked to the side like he always did when he was getting ready to teleport, but this time he just fell limply back to where he had been before. A look of confusion took over his face and he glanced out around the garden as if that would somehow give him an answer. “Something’s wrong.”

“That’s right, something’s wrong, you’re about to get your ass kicked,” Luther snarled as he jerked his brother around again.

“Yeah, kick his ass,” Diego goaded.

“No, you moron,” Five seethed. The panic was beginning to make him mean, Viktor knew exactly how that felt. “My power. I can’t blink.”

“Yeah, right,” Diego said sarcastically as he got one of his knives out from the vest that he always wore. It was nice to see him in something other than black leather, even if the knives were probably going to exist with him throughout his entire life. Diego flipped the silver blade around his fingers once before it toppled down into the dirt below them. “That’s not good.”

Suddenly everything fell into place. Viktor glanced down at his hand as he raised it. He focused for a moment to try and pick up on the minute noises that existed everywhere in the world. It was only then that he realized that everything had been muffled since he had stepped out of the elevator. Hearing every tiny thing that was happening around him, even if it was accentuated only when he was off of his medication, had just been how he lived his life. He didn’t realize that the world was so quiet for everyone else until his power had been stolen from him. It explained the heavy emptiness that rested in his chest, right where the supernova of noise had been only an hour prior.

A few feet away, Klaus was waving his hand out in front of him as he said, “Okay… come on… Alakazam… ghosties.” Nothing happened. Ben strained with his hands clenched in fists out to the sides, but again there was nothing. “This means I’m mortal again? Aw, man,” Klaus whined as it became more and more obvious that they were ordinary.

“Wait, wait, wait. How do we get them back, you idiots?” Ben asked before anyone had the chance to do anything else.

“Shit,” Klaus groaned when no one was able to come up with any ideas. Reginald had told them so little about their powers that none of them knew where they came from, much less how they were supposed to get anything back.

“I gotta… I gotta go find my wife,” Luther said hoarsely. Viktor had enough breakdowns in his life to recognize that the other man was clinging to something that felt like it could still be tangible. They had all been through something deeply traumatic and painful on top of arriving in a strange world that they didn’t know well enough to tell if it was safe. Learning that their powers, which had been a constant for everyone other than Viktor, were gone had to be enough to make some of them deeply rattled.

Luther turned and began to walk down one of the paths to do as he said he was going to. Klaus turned after him and said, “No! Luther, you can’t go. You were dead ten minutes ago, you’re fragile.” He whirled back around to the rest of the family and said, “I gotta go after him.”

“No, wait, Klaus!” Diego tried to argue with his brother but at that point Klaus had already begun down the path after Luther. Despite what a lot of the public had thought when they were younger and actively acting as the Umbrella Academy, Klaus was the most stubborn out of all of the siblings. If he got an idea that he decided he just had to do, then he was going to do it come Hell or high water.

Ben was the next to leave, already stalking towards the other side of the park, “I’m out, bitches!”

A flare of panic unlike he had felt in a long time rang out in Viktor’s chest. Memories that were hazy with sedative and time flashed through his mind. All the times that they had left him for their training, all the times that they had been ushered into a car together while he had been left watching them out of a stained glass window, all the times that they had snuck out together and left him behind, played over the top of each other. “Guys, come on,” Viktor said desperately. “We should stick together and figure this out-”

“Well what are we supposed to do?” Diego asked, interrupting Viktor before he even had the chance to say what he was planning to. Too much of it felt like what it had been before Viktor had gotten his powers and had become too dangerous to ignore. 

They were all quiet for a second as Diego and Lila turned slightly towards each other. “Live our lives?” she suggested. Diego remained quiet as he obviously rolled the idea around his head. He then took her hand, weaving their fingers together, before he disappeared down another one of the paths.

Then it was just Five and Viktor, as it had been so often when they were children. The conversation that they had about other people being ants, which had given them some common ground now that they had shifted so much in their adult lives, rolled over in Viktor’s head again. He knew that it wasn’t true anymore since neither of them had the massive powers that they did when it took place, but he was still hoping that it would mean something.

He supposed that hope was his greatest flaw. Just like last time, Five turned on his heel and marched away from Viktor without saying anything. He disappeared into the dark foliage so that not even a glimpse of his back could be seen.

That morning at the dining room table, when Five had lurched away and thrown himself outside to try time traveling for the first time was a moment that replayed over and over again in Viktor’s mind. He always wondered, both now and when he had been a child, what would have happened if he had just had the balls to pull his brother back into his seat instead of just letting him go.

What was happening now felt so similar to that, that Viktor almost felt himself shrinking down into the demure version of himself that he hadn’t been in so long. Being off of the medication had let him feel free in a way that he had never before, and the idea of having to go back to that now that his powers were gone brought the panic that had been resting dormant in the back of his mind to the forefront of all his thoughts.

He paused for a moment to try and pick up on the sounds of footsteps and rustling leaves from where his siblings and Ben were now lost in the park, but there was nothing. He tilted his head down towards the bust of Reginald and gave his head a small shake. “Asshole,” he muttered.

Viktor turned and walked down the last remaining path so that he could get out of the park.

[nottoxicfr]

“That’s-!!“

“His face…it’s...familiar?”

“I-it…can’t be…”

"Dr. Emmerich, do you know this man?"

"He's...he's...oh, of course you don't recognize him. It's been over ten years now, hasn't it? You probably wouldn't think of him more than you do the dried blood on your boots, do you?"

"So, you do know him? Is there anything you can tell me?"

"No. Get out of there now!"

"Dr. Emmerich, he has the-!"

"I know he has Subject-07. That's exactly why you need to get out of there! You said he changed, he woke up, because he heard her crying!" "What of it? You don't really think its cries could..."

...

"Gah! Look, I'll tell you everything later. Just get out of there!"

"If he starts fighting again, it'll be to get rid of whatever made her cry. That's just how he is! Besides, you're wounded. You can't fight him like this. Retreat back to my office." "And if he follows me back?"

"That's-! I'm willing to take that risk. Do. Not. Engage. Do you hear me, Jetstream?"

"...I hear you."

This is another part of the Bad End AU thing that happened as a result of conversation with @mewtonian-physics! This one is definitely Raiden.

I had a scene in mind that I made a list for. I just copy and paster it.

Raiden wakes up-

-mfw ten years pass in the blink of an eye and you're no longer bleeding out on a train-

-small blonde child with a gasmask is crying. No idea who she is, looks familiar without a gasmask. why is she wearing a straitjacket? Kids are weird.

-Vaguely recall a mission briefing through coma haze, she's probably important. even if she's not, she's still a crying child and that makes her important.

-Stupid cowboy samurai who cut off your arm a decade ago standing on the other side of the room. Weirdly bloody.

-Small blonde child in the vicinity of violent people/ bad environment for children. Big Brother Mode Activate.

-Say first word that comes to mind? "S-Sunny?" Cyborg throats can't get dry. Somehow, yours is.

-No response. Wrong small blonde child. Whoops? Promptly apologize to small child. No response again. Pick her up.

-Very small. Had no clue they made gas masks this small. Wow. Whatever. Put it back on her face. Stops crying. She has a small blue bunny. It's all bloody now.

-Oh no.

I rewatched all of MGS2 to check if this was within character. I think it sort of is. He's a sleepy guy right now.

Her outfit is a reference. I think small Psycho Mantis looks cool, but it is also related to my plot chart. You'll see on her character chart.

Below this line is exposition about Raiden and what's going on with him.

"Freed from his fate, awoken from his coma-" relates to his mask. Sam cut it, ergo the cut on his face. His consciousness was being suppressed a la Big Boss, but his body was being piloted by a sort of AI made from his accessible memories and instincts. The AI's main method of observation was the mask.

His suit is based on a darker version of his past bodies and suits. specifically the Skull Suit. There's a reason for that of course, but if it were a Metal Gear Game it would be revealed in an unraveling fashion.

I'll follow that and say, memories are funny things. In a broad sense, they're no different from observed data obtained by a machine. It's not just temperature, approximate speed, who and where you are.

Memories are feelings too, moments that embody entire sentiments. You can't just brute force your way through them, or you'd risk distorting them. If you want all the data, the whole memory, you have to unravel them just like any story.

April 29th. The Big Shell. Is there something in those memories worth pursuing?

Anyway, I don't like Sam. If this was a game, then Raiden waking up would be the moment the game switches to his story, rather than Sam's.

I think I'll do the same, because dang he's no fun to write.

There's a Master Post Now

[heartsgallery]

I agree about most substantially deliberate HSM parallels ending on s1. I feel like Josh and Sofia's chemistry as Ricky and Gina was an unexpected goldmine that fell in Tim's hands and he adjusted accordingly (possibly rewrote portions of the script or changed character backgrounds/stories or personalities) after all the screen tests with every actor! I may be in the minority, but I feel like original plans for the show were supposed to keep R*ni the whole time and will they wont they them like some annoying Ross Rachel rehash but Tim couldnt waste the potential of Rina (tested the waters with those middle eps and boy did we fishes snap at that fishing line 😂). That's why s1 sometimes feels disconnected with the pivot to Rina and the abrupt pivot back to R*ni (like 2 different stories). Season 2, he really started delving deep into Rina and you can see so clearly the groundwork he laid out for an angsty Rina will they wont they slow burn that failed with R*ni in s1. The interesting part is you can see in the narrative that Tim has written and has been writing Gina as the "Gabriella" lead since s1, even though Nini is presented as primary lead. Honestly that's why s1 has a disconnect to me sometimes too because it feels like the wrong protagonist is being followed and the wrong story being told?? if that makes sense.

Now I feel like though he's not persisting on HSM parallels, he is dropping little hints as reminders to keep viewers on track. Costuming for example, is sometimes deliberate. One of the biggest someone paralleled was the Troyella floral pink and blue, which Rina got 😮 Ricky's skate rate style imo has never been shirts like that, and though it works, the departure from his typical style just to make him wear that blue orange striped shirt seems deliberate too. It's a subtle but blatant iykyk kind of thing but if you don't, you'll blink and miss it kind of thing at the same time. The person who found that link should get applause! Cuz technically yeah, both pw and Rina have had "Troyella" moments this season, but the costuming seems like a deliberate way to subtly remind viewers that if you get baited by the pw "Troyella" HSM 2 thing, you'll miss the actual story playing out here. It's really quite brilliant that it makes me want to go back from the beginning and rewatch to find more of these interesting ways he's been foreshadowing Rina!

ahh first of all THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME THISSSSSS!!!! i loved reading all of it.

while i mostly agree about everything about this, i’d only discuss on the part that rini was set to be on and off. like i can imagine it being like that definitely, but also they were always doomed and they made it clear in the s1 finale that they will never work again like they did once (not all couples are meant to be together… sometimes people change). rini’s arc is strangely to me one of the best on the show. probably the most coherent and cohesive writing between s1 and s2. everything about it was hinted and it makes so much sense that is so hard for me to believe it wasn’t planned since day one.

i definitely think seeing the rina chemistry changed a lot in the future of the series i so agree with that. i mean, tim himself said that after they shoot the car scene he was so shook and he wanted to keep writing towards that (and did!). but like rini, s1 rina finale set up was so amazingly done that sometimes it’s just hard to believe that it wasn’t planned since the beginning. tim has always been so messy and talked about how he wanted to explore all the chemistry between the cast (and he did because why everyone dated everyone in the core four😭) and also with his rants since the very s1 about how he grew up with dawsons creek (very known for his surprising ship that ended up going down on history), so i think the possibility rina has always been the plan exists. i mean, he did write the car scene before he saw them so he was already planning something with them…

the part about how s1 felt weird because it felt like they were following the wrong protagonist is so so so true. gina having the whole moving away all the time storyline just as gabriella wasn’t a coincidence at all. also nini not having any gabriella trait besides playing her in the show😭 i mean, if you look at it know, it kinda makes sense. the show making you think nini was ricky’s troy gabriella, when at the end of the day it was always gina👩‍💻

also i love that you pointed out the costume thing because i agree with that, specially with ricky wearing that kind of stuff because it’s not really his style so it def seems on purpose. i think someone also pointed out that his spin dip shirt or the one in the clip he’s singing in the finale (they look so much alike so idk which one) were the same as troy’s in the hsm2 poster. if we’re talking about troyella real parallels that’s what we should talk about!!!

again thank u so much for dropping this here❤️❤️🫶🏻

[landinoandco]

Our Love is a Game

Lando Norris x Reader

Request from @jamieeboulos

Warnings: pinch of fluff, cute ending because they are the best

Word count: 2.7 k

Requests are open :)

It all started with a phone number, an innocent exchange that would subsequently change the world you knew; mostly for the better. When you had met Lando, as far as you were concerned you had just met a 21 year old who lived in London and had a passion for cars. How wrong you were. It was only when things started to get serious that he sat you down and explained everything that came with being a formula one driver; more importantly the fandom that he was involved in. 

You had always been a private person and admittedly this piece of information almost broke your relationship but after some time to think you had decided that he was worth it all. You both decided it was a better idea to keep your relationship as quiet as possible - you took every precaution to make sure you stayed a stranger to the fans.

For the past 2 years, you thought you had managed to stay clear of the cameras, the photos and the twitch streams but it wasn’t until a fan-made compilation caused your world to spiral out of control. 

You and Lando were out for a run, it was a part of your morning routine - a great way to start the day and it was time that you two could escape the motor sport world and act like a normal couple without worrying about who might be watching. It was time you both valued and appreciated. On this particular morning, Lando had decided to add to his Instagram story, a short video of his morning adventures - the mist still hanging around the trees as you ran under a heavily graffitied bridge, the early birds song chirping animatedly. At the time you didn’t think much of it as you were too busy tying your hair back up to notice. 

It wasn’t until you got home and looked at his story that your heart stopped, rushing over to the kitchen island you placed your phone down and ran your fingers through your hair. It was a blink and you’ll miss it moment but in the corner of his video - the last millisecond before it ended - there was a flash of a purple top (the purple top you had been wearing) and a swish of brown hair as you chucked it back up into a ponytail. 

“Lando.” You called out, trying to keep your voice as calm as you could. You didn’t know why it had affected you so much - or why you were so desperate to keep your identity a secret. It wasn’t like you wanted to hide your relationship; you were the happiest you ever had been, everyday was exciting and offered new prospects - it was more that you were so used to being in this bubble with Lando, the idea of it bursting seemed rather unappealing. Usually you didn’t care for how others saw you but seeing some of the words that people used to describe him, it would be enough to trouble even the thickest of skins. 

Lando’s close proximity broke your thoughts as he stared down at your phone, pausing on the flash of brown and purple. “I am so sorry, love.” He almost whispered, his eyes widening at his carelessness. He picked your phone up to take a closer look. 

“It will be alright, won’t it? I mean, it’s a blink and you’ll miss it.” You had said, more to reassure yourself than Lando. He didn’t answer, anxiety building in the pit of his stomach because he knew exactly what he had started. 

The fan-made compilation didn’t go viral until a few hours later - as it turns out that flash of purple was the perfect cherry on top of an unappetising cake. Lando was sat on stream - not that this was out of the ordinary and Max had decided to join him, leaving you alone to rewatch Friends for the umpteenth time. 

The pair were sat reacting to videos on YouTube when a clip of a seal swimming into a shoal of fish started playing - the amusing part was that they kept quickly dispersing away from the seal in question. Unsurprisingly, they laughed and Lando spluttered: “This is me trying to find a girlfriend.” What the fans didn’t know was the apparent irony of that sentence and this was what caused the major meltdown; whilst Lando and Max were busy crying with laughter - that chat had filled up with the same link and references to the video you would be redirected through. 

Max was the first to stop laughing, tapping Lando on the shoulder as he pointed at the chat. Hundreds of the same message filled the screen: “That’s not what this compilation shows.” “Lando, what are you hiding from us?” “Lando and Max laughing knowing very well he has a girlfriend.” 

“Chat what on earth are you waffling on about.” Max chuckled uneasily, looking at Lando out of the corner of his eye. Lando sat with a forced smile, his nostrils flaring as he continued through the comments. He could only let out a tense laugh as he swallowed thickly - his throat feeling suddenly dry. You were still sitting, completely engrossed and unaware that Lando Norris was now trending on twitter. 

Max had come up with an excuse to end the stream not long after, Lando uncharacteristically quiet. His thoughts were with you in the other room, had you seen it? Did you know? How would you react? He felt as though he had lost all control, like he had failed you entirely - all he wanted to do was protect you yet he was the one to screw it up. 

“Hey,” Max nudged his shoulder, “It was bound to happen at some point. Let’s go and see if she’s seen it - if not then -” He took a deep breath, “We will watch it together. We need to know what we are working with here.” Lando nodded, unable to reply, his body went into automatic pilot mode and too quickly he was standing facing you. 

Pausing the tv, you looked at Lando - his jaw tightened and facial expressions set as though he had just seen a ghost. “Is everything ok?” You asked apprehensively. 

“There’s something you need to see.” Max reached for his phone, pushing Lando onto the sofa. You offered your arm to Lando, pulling him into a hug. Max pulled up the video and pressed play. A tense atmosphere held the room hostage - breath restricted and gazes fixed onto the tiny screen in front of you. 

It started with a clip from this year’s Goodwood - Lando preparing to drive his last hill climb - you remembered it well, a McLaren hat placed on your head mainly to cover your identity; knowing that there would be more than a few fans around. The clip moved to 3 separate stills - all of you in your McLaren hat. One with your back to the camera, you hand placed around Lando’s waist, the other two a side profile as you spoke to Max. 

The reaction was immediate, you slapped your hand to your mouth, Lando looked horror-struck and Max was watching you carefully. 

The video moved on, this time a clip from the quadrant video where Niran trains like Lando for 24 hours - Lando and Niran were in the kitchen preparing to eat their breakfast when once again the video moved to stills. This time they were of your reflection in the oven - holding the camera. You had thought at the time, if you were behind the camera it would stop every chance of you accidentally being caught on camera. Apparently not. 

The video had moved on again, this time to stills of Lando arriving on track - of course there was no way for you to get on track without being photographed and you were fine with that because you would just arrive after Lando either with Jon or Charlotte. Photos of you arriving with Jon and Charlotte flashed up - with them you were just another member of staff but put with those other stills and it really did yell out that you and Lando were romantically involved. Finally the flash of purple from Lando’s story. The game was up. 

“Oh my-” You stuttered as the video came to an end. Fortunately your Instagram hadn’t been shown but judged by how skilled you knew the fans to be - it would only be a matter of time. “I feel sick.” You admitted, wiping your hands across your face. Lando still hadn’t said a word, staring blankly at the floor. Max was the first to come up with something logical, turning to you and Lando. 

“It will blow over.” He started, “The fans will soon lose interest and move onto the next big headline. We just need to ignore anything we see regarding the subject.” He moved his attention to you. “Maybe avoid social media for a few days. Let everyone cool down -” Sensing your means to interrupt, he held his hand up. “I know you shouldn’t have to and I know none of this is fair but unfortunately people have no boundaries and believe because it’s on social media it is their business. If they were in our situation, I’m pretty sure they would be the first to complain. Let’s just go along with it for now. It will give you time to think about what to do next.” 

Lando cleared his throat, pulling you closer into him. “I’ve failed you. All I wanted to do was protect you.” At this, Max got up and left. 

Shaking your head, you pressed your lips to his forehead. “You could never. Think about how long we kept it secret for. Besides, until we announce or admit anything - it isn’t confirmed.” You offered, trying to soothe his worries. He nodded, still not convinced. 

“Our love is like a game and it’s not a game I enjoy playing.” He croaked, lacing your fingers together. 

“I know, Lando, I know. Let’s let everything calm down and then we can think about what our next step is.” 

Weeks later and it was the night before you were due to leave for your summer holiday. You would be spending it with Lando and some of his friends and family. Due to the current pandemic, it had been so long since you had been away - even if it was a bigger group of you going; you were still looking forward to spending that quality time with Lando. 

Max had decided to take himself and Tom off to the streaming room - leaving you and Lando to sort out the remaining items you needed for your time away. 

“I have a present for you.” He said suddenly, his hands behind his back. You beamed, taking a step closer to him. He shook his head, “If you want it - “ He pointed at his lips. 

Rolling your eyes, you pecked his lips then held out your hands like a child. Lando chuckled, “Close your eyes.” Hands still outstretched and eyes closed, you waited for Lando to present you with your surprise. He grasped your left wrist and attached something to it - “No peeking.” He added. A moment or two later, he dropped his hold of your wrist and said: “You can open them now.” You could hear the smile on his lips. You opened your eyes and looked straight to your wrist - he had given you a pink watch. You furrowed your eyebrows and looked up at him, his eyes twinkled as he then pointed to the orange watch on his wrist. 

“Watches?” You asked, confusion laced your tone. 

Nodding, he said, “We all have matching watches but in different colours - they are for our holiday away.” 

You gave him a lopsided grin and wrapped your arms around his neck, “I love it. Thank you.” 

In the streaming room, Max was having to ignore the majority of the comments because they were all asking the same thing: “Who was the girl from the compilation.” He was trying his hardest to keep moving off the topic, instead showing off the watches - it had been his idea, blue for him, orange for Lando, a child’s watch for Tom and a pink watch for you. He had listed off all of the colours and said who they belonged to: “And then pink-” He paused, mentally face palming. He looked over to Tom for assistance - he hadn’t meant to say pink at all. “And pink is for someone.” He cursed his poor excuse but as if by magic - Lando walked through the door. 

Distracting the stream from his slip up. 

Croatia was a dream come true, the hot summer sun on your back and the time to just relax and recharge. Days spent with Lando sunbathing on the boat or stuck in a tense game of Uno. Not being the only female was brilliant as well - as they got to go off and not feel guilty about leaving you on your own. 

Currently, you and Lando were standing in each other's arms - the afternoon drawing into the evening as the sun began to set. You had your arms around his neck and his arms were around your waist, sighing contentedly you broke the silence: “This is nice.” He pressed his lips into your hair, a sign that he agreed with your statement. In that moment, it was just you and him - everyone seemed to disappear from around you and all worries vanished. It was the simple yet affectionate moments that had always meant the most to you. You felt as though you could relax every muscle in your body, listening to his steady heartbeat - you wished for this moment to never end, to forever be in his arms and to not worry about who sees you there. 

Ever since that compilation had been made, the thought had been on your mind a lot. Were you ready to go public with Lando? At the end of the day you were both happy and surely that was the most important thing. 

Later that night, you were sitting eating your meal when a phone was handed to you, displayed on it was a picture of you and Lando - in each other’s arms. 

Instantly you knew what this meant, looking at Lando you were met with the same expression. He did as well. 

You and Lando had decided it was time to announce your relationship, there was no point sneaking around anymore if people knew and were looking out for you. You had agreed that the best way to do it was if you joined him in a stream, that way they got to know you a bit more for who you were. 

“Is it ok to feel as nervous as I am?” You asked him, pulling up a chair beside him. He was setting up the stream, two mugs of tea placed in front of you. It seemed completely unnatural to sit facing the camera. 

“I mean, this is kind of a big deal so yes I would say, it’s completely natural for you to feel nervous.” He reached for your hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. Nodding, you took a deep breath. 

“Ok. I’m ready.” You said, your heart beating at a million miles an hour. The corners of his lips turned up, leaning in to leave you a kiss on the lips. 

“I love you and I’m so proud of you.” He admitted quietly, as though you were the only person in the world, his eyes flickered with complete adoration. 

“I love you too. Now, shall we start it?” 

Lando went to press the start stream button but paused. He turned back to face you, his eyes wide and offered an apologetic smile. 

“What did you do?” You asked, a smile toying at your lips as you had an idea of what it might have been. 

“Stream, meet my girlfriend.” 

He had already started it...

[k-comfyspace]

Protect

Star: Kim Minji (Dreamcatcher)

Idea: Yes

Love: hi, this is kinda late since it’s halloween today, but I was rewatching dreamcatcher mind horror hospital and thought of a request. can you write something about 8th member reader and Jiu being partners? they’re both scaredy cats, but Jiu tries to act tough so she can protect her younger gf? i hope that makes sense, thanks!

A/n: First story of the year! It’s a bit short but I hope you still like it love

You held the ball in your palm, anxiously waiting and glancing around to see who had the same color as you. Counting down, you held your breath and it took a second to register until Minji wrapped her arms around you and started jumping excitedly. You were a bit relieved at first, knowing that your leader would accompany you in the hospital.

There was a fleeting moment of joy before you remembered how much of a scaredy cat your leader was. You stopped celebrating and glanced at your girlfriend, seeing excited eyes, though you could see through her. She wore a confident smile but she was easily terrified.

You were a bit lucky when Yoohyeon and Bora went first, gauging how scared they were going to be in their first run. However, they hadn't left the vicinity of the cameras and they were already screaming. You buried your face into Minji’s shoulder, feeling your girlfriend wrap an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to her while maintaining a reasonable distance to not be seen by the cameras.

She was commenting about the two younger members, shocked by their screams as she absentmindedly rubbed your back. You were visibly relaxing at her presence, but the dread wasn’t even comparable when the two returned minutes later. They were considerably paler than they looked, walking with nervous smiles while holding an envelope.

When it was down to you and your girlfriend, your face had gone considerably stiff, holding the camera shakingly with your hand while the other was tightly clinging unto Minji. You were so scared that you could feel your teeth clattering together.

Thankfully, your girlfriend sensed your discomfort, lowering her hands until they intertwined with yours. Your hands eased up, albeit still a little scared, it became subtle.

When you stepped out of the small room or as you liked to call it, safe room, there was a sense of tightness in your chest. Yet, you still ventured into the darkness, keeping a firm grip on your girlfriend’s hand. Not only did your objective include going to the back of the hospital, but what made it worse was the fact that it was a floor above the current one.

Standing before the stairs, you swallowed harshly, walking after your girlfriend who bravely went first. But what both of you didn’t expect was the shadow looming over the stairs waiting until both of you reached the top suddenly springing up behind both of you. While you froze up, Minji screamed to the top of her lungs, tugging your hand wherever her feet took her.

She whined exasperatedly, looking at the camera with a playful glare when both of you got to a safe enough location inside a dimly lit room. She glanced to check on you, worry building on her face when you stared at an empty space, waving a hand she was glad when you blinked.

“Are you okay?” She asked softly, though you could easily read her eyes, she wasn’t the only one afraid. You nodded your head, mirroring her smile when she cupped your cheek, forgetting about the cameras in your hands. Taking a deep breath, Minji pulled away from you, glancing around the room before she saw a wooden box on the table.

She chuckled at the sight, happy that you were able to arrive at the correct room in a panic. You walked behind her, looking around at the decorations the staff placed around. When your girlfriend approached the table, she wasn’t expecting someone to be hidden in the corner.

They jumped up, scaring your girlfriend as she practically bumped into you, but you were able to catch her, preventing an unwanted accident. She buried her head in the crook of your neck, causing a small giggle to bubble from your mouth, seeing the contrast to your girlfriend’s protective attitude a few minutes ago.

When Minji realized where she was she pulled away swiftly, a pink hue staining her cheeks while rubbing her nape. You chuckled at her cute antics, approaching the wooden box, fully aware of the person who looked at you. Muttering a quick apology, you took the letter, as well as your girlfriend’s hand and ran out the room.

You practically closed your eyes as you ran, letting Minji take over and keep you close to her, screaming past all the people who tried to chase after you. Your moment of bravery from taking the envelope disappeared when the darkness of the hallways greeted you, however, you were glad that Minji guided you.

She tucked your head under her chin, keeping a hand on your back. Even if she was screaming every time she saw something move in her peripheral vision, she did manage to guide you both until the bright lights at the end of the hallway relieved her.

On the final stretch, she kept screaming until both of you crashed on the floor, panting while your hearts pounded against your chests. You felt like you ran a marathon, even if your girlfriend did most of the running and looking around.

You reached for the envelope in your pocket and raised it up, slamming it on the floor. Your hands sprawled out, searching for Minji’s who met you in the middle. When you held her hands, it was moist, shaky while it still intertwined with yours.

The staff and your members chose to laugh at the scene of their leader and Maknae, seemingly having gone through a lot in the past ten minutes.

“I am never doing this again.” You muttered, making the others laugh more at your statement.

[therealvinelle]

I'd be very interested in the differences between book and movie Carlisle, like the one you did for Aro. If you've already done one sorry, I didn't see it when looking through tags though

(The Aro post referenced.)

First of, let me say how sorry I am that you waited so long for a reply. In my defense, I had to rewatch the movies first. Then I had to recover from watching the movies.

There’s a part 1 to this post, explaining my thoughts on the actor they cast for the part.

First, I’ll just say that I think the movies made two big mistakes with Carlisle. These two mistakes are the main reasons why I disown movie!Carlisle to the extent I do.

One, he became very Stepford. This is the big issue with the casting: he now comfortably fits the dad role, and he never deviates from it. As all the Cullens (well, all the characters in the movies, not just the Cullens) are flattened out and made hollowed versions of themselves. They become a Stepford family. Why do these people stick together and play house? Because they’re the Cullens. What will you see if you poke beneath the surface? Nothing.

I know Carlisle does not appear to deviate from the dad role in the books either, what I mean is that he is a person in those books. He was a person in his own right long before any of the Cullens had even been born, he had friends everywhere and a life of his own, and he continues to lead this social butterfly life with his family by his side. When he steps out of the house he does not blink out of existence. He is a family man, but he’s other things as well. Movie Carlisle is not.

Two, he’s barely in these movies, to the point where he could have been cut. What actually is his character? What drives him? Who is this blond guy who has taken the “father” slot in the Cullen household?

If you’ve only seen the movies, you sincerely won’t know.

Yes, he is a tertiary character in the books, but Dumbledore and Voldemort are tertiary to Harry Potter in the same way. They have no screen time, but remove Dumbledore and your story starts scrambling. Carlisle is tertiary, but he is still an important character. He’s the reason the Cullens are the way they are, why Edward is the way he is, he is the heart of the family. Take him out of the equation, or neuter him like the movies did, and the Cullens are like an old tradition that once meant something. They go through the motions of Cullen-ing because that’s what they do, what they’ve always done, but they have no deeper reason to do it. They drink animal blood and go to high school because- well, because fuck you audience, that’s why. Why exactly is Carlisle a doctor?

Carlisle of the movies explains none of these things, is at no point important, checks none of the points book Carlisle did. He’s a placeholder, not a character.

Even little things, like book!Carlisle gathering his friends in Breaking Dawn, makes sense since we know he spent centuries exploring the world and getting to know other vampires. Movie Carlisle spawned into existence with no mention of any vampire network, so who knows where he found all these friends.

With that, let’s go through his failings movie by movie.

Twilight

Carlisle of the first movie is barely in it.

He is introduced to us as a dashing doctor, alright, so far, so good.

Then, when Bella learns he is a vampire, he acts exactly the same as ever. Book Carlisle didn’t, he kept his distance and was very set on not scaring the human:

 They smiled in welcome, but made no move to approach us. Trying not to frighten me, I guessed.

"Carlisle, Esme," Edward's voice broke the short silence, "this is Bella."

"You're very welcome, Bella." Carlisle's step was measured, careful as he approached me. He raised his hand tentatively, and I stepped forward to shake hands with him. (Twilight, page 153)

This is a vampire, a very kind and thoughtful vampire who is in “don’t make Edward’s girlfriend run for the hills” mode. Movie Carlisle greenlit the Cullens all making her a meal instead. This is veering into my hating on the movies again, but you see how this is a different decision that in turn points to different characterization.

Movie Carlisle then calls Rosalie a “nice kitty” and I can only take that as a homage to his backstory in the book because the only explanation for that line is that he is on some level still suicidal. “Nice kitty” is what he says, but what he really means is “kill me”.

The James debacle unfolds, and Rosalie demands to know why they’re all risking their lives for this random human. Movie Carlisle shuts her down, there’s not even a discussion. In Twilight (To cut the movie some modicum of slack I’m not using Midnight Sun (much), since Meyer hadn’t written it yet at the time of the movie being made), their interaction is off-screen and I’ll admit that Rosalie is glaring at Carlisle when Bella reenters the room, but going by his M.O. when it comes to settling differences (giving Bella an explanation as to why Edward won’t turn her, using reason to talk Rosalie out of hurting Bella after the truck accident, throwing every argument he can think of at the wall in the hopes something will stick early in Midnight Sun when he wants Edward to leave Forks, being the person Alice sends Jasper to when Jasper needs to be talked out of doing something rash) it would be out of character for him to just shut her down the way he did in the movies.

Lastly, we have his “REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE” moment when Edward is trying and failing to fight James, which was just bizarre. 

The worst failing of this movie’s Carlisle, though, was that his backstory was cut. Now, it was a myopic story centered on Bella, so her human life versus the vampire world were a big focal point in it. We were treated to the full small town routine, with the Cullens as a giant juxtaposition to all of this. The point was the new world Bella was entering and the beautiful boy who opened the door, not the Cullens. It doesn’t seem to have been a movie that expected to have sequels and become a franchise, either, it acted very much like an indie one-off. Even so I posit that Carlisle’s backstory should have been included. The movie didn’t do the whole “mundane vs. fantastical world” thing very well, for one thing. The Cullens acted human, looked human, their house looked like a regular house, and their baseball was sped up at times but otherwise human.

And so, when the Cullens’ characters and lifestyle is never explained, they’re just vampires who live exactly like humans because they jive like that, the end result is that… well, they’re human. Bella isn’t entering a new world at all, she’s just dating a weird kid whose anemic family all follow a special diet.

On to New Moon.

He’s barely in this one, literally this time and not just figuratively, but he gets to be butchered all the same.

We learn he was in Volterra… sort of. There’s a flashback of the Volturi and Facinelli is in it. His part consists of him looking miserable and wishing he was somewhere, anywhere, else. The movie never explains what he was doing there. Edward’s narration says nothing to explain, and then later in the movie Aro (whom book fans will remember reminisced fondly about Carlisle) makes no mention of him. One wonders why Facinelli was in that flashback at all, his presence in it served no purpose. (One wonders the same about the flashback itself. What did it add to the movie?)

I’ve explained in this post how the movie flipped his religion and view on eternal damnation upside-down. Book Carlisle believes he has a soul, movie Carlisle doesn’t. Book and movie Carlisle are not the same person.

Then we get the vote scene, where Carlisle rather effectively ignores Bella. Now, he did address Edward first when he gave his vote in the book too, so that’s technically being true to the original, but book Carlisle then turns to Bella. It’s just so dismissive in the movies, the feminist in me gets all uppity. And, when combined with all the other things, little and small - then yes, I’m putting that little moment on my list of “ugh, movie Carlisle” things.

Eclipse. Oh boy oh dear, oh Eclipse.

Carlisle has a litany of shortcomings. These are brought on by the movie itself being terrible, he’s only a symptom of the disease, but all the same he’s a damning symptom that truly shows how ill the patient is.

In no particular order:

He worries that if the newborn army keeps wreaking chaos in Seattle, the Volturi are going to get involved. Wouldn’t want that.

Book!Carlisle very much wanted the Volturi to step in and do their damn jobs.

He never calls Tanya for backup, so we lose book!Carlisle’s refusal to let the Denali harm the Quileutes at the cost of his own family's safety.

When Jacob is injured after the werewolf attack, he is Mr. In Control of the Situation, offering his savvy medical opinion on Jacob’s condition. Book!Carlisle stared at this injured horse-sized supernatural wolf, stared some more, weakly joked “I’m not a veterinarian”, and went for the trial and error approach. Movie!Carlisle later talks about how Jacob will burn through his morphin, which- how would he know that? He acts so authoritative about things he has no way of knowing, his book counterpart did not.

When the Volturi arrive he's stand-offish to Jane, another characterization choice that diverges from his book self.

Breaking Dawn part 1.

He was barely in the movie. My only recollection of him is of me jumping in my seat at the horrific makeup and wig, and then him performing some examination on Bella.

Book!Carlisle had two moments in particular that come to mind during Bella’s pregnancy, and they are his assurance to Jacob that he won’t abort Bella’s fetus against her will, and his refusal to put Jacob and the Clearwaters in a situation where they’d have to fight Sam’s pack. Both very telling of his character and integrity, both lost in the movie adaption.

The fact that the movie cut those scenes is additionally damning if we look at everything else they cut from his character. The decision to make him a one-note set piece is a consistent one.

Breaking Dawn part 2, things start falling apart. 

Carlisle of the books having friends from around the world makes sense because he’s very old and has been all around the world. Movie!Carlisle has no past known to the audience, apart from one weird, unexplained and never mentioned again flashback to Volterra three movies ago. Carlisle’s esoteric friends spawn into existence because the plot needs him to have esoteric friends.

Edward thanks Carlisle for this beautiful life Carlisle gave him, and it means nothing because the two have barely interacted in these movies, Carlisle is important to Edward because this scene just now is telling us that he is important to Edward. Carlisle hasn’t shown any conflict or doubts about turning Edward either, he hasn’t received characterization enough for that, so what Edward’s words mean to him is a mystery to me. Please, show me even one scene in this same movie, or even in the entire quintology, that built up to this moment, I’ll be waiting. The exchange is just a cheap shot at pathos.

Carlisle of the book spent much of this storyline fretting over the coming confrontation, and praying with every fibre of his being that there would be a peaceful resolution. I don’t think movie Carlisle ever so much as voices the sentiment.

The confrontation with the Volturi comes around, and hoo boy. 

Carlisle is off to a great start by reminding Aro of a friendship that Aro definitely needs to be reminded of, because per the movies it never happened. He then kills any hope of association with book!Carlisle when he decides to start the fight. Book Carlisle quadrupled down on pacifism, movie Carlisle rushes into glorious battle to kill Aro himself.

-

In summation, Carlisle is unrecognizable in the movies. Every little thing that made him who he was in the books has been lost or flanderized, with no in between. What’s left is a golem who- well, he doesn’t walk, talk, and act like Carlisle, but he insists he’s Carlisle anyway.

Movie Carlisle is one of the many reasons why I don’t take these movies seriously or consider them canon, or even canon adjacent.

(Post edited on the 18th of October for clarifications. A few paragraphs bothered me.)

[dubersbutt]

Take a Bow (4) - Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,

Warnings: Babies, anxiety/feelings of heightened anxiety, smut

It’s not that Connor hates kids. They just make him uncomfortable.

Like when his aunt had a baby when he was 13 his mom asked if Connor wanted to hold him. Connor was fine when his mom gently placed the baby in his arms. Up until his mom told her to be super careful with his head or else he could snap his neck and kill him. Or if Connor accidently pressed his soft spot it could severely detriment his brain development. It was too much responsibility.

At least that’s what he used to think.

He fell in love with Emilia the minute you walked through the front door with her in the baby carrier. The dogs were excited by the tiny squirming arms inside the carrier, he had to hold Lenny back so he didn’t crush her.

“This is going to sound super cliche,” Connor says as he coos into the carrier where Emilia is trying to open her tiny eyes, “but she is the cutest baby I’ve ever seen.”

“She’s a lot cuter now that her head is a normal shape,” you joke, munching on a cookie Connor had set out for you.

“Can you stop making fun of our daughter’s cone head?” Leon rolls his eyes.

“You didn’t see it, it was terrifying.”

(Connor googles a picture of it later. Babies are fucking weird.)

He helps you up the stairs to the waiting cup of tea on the mug warmer in your bedroom. He lets you get settled, handing you the TV remote and giving you a kiss on the forehead before going back downstairs to meet his daughter (step-daughter? Connor didn’t really know).

“Can I hold her?” Connor asks when he finds Leon and Emilia in the living room.

“What happened to the three month rule?” He raises an amused eyebrow.

Connor had created it after the incident. He didn’t hold a baby that was younger than 3 months.

“I’m feeling brave.”

Leon scooches over so Connor has room to sit comfortably. Leon gently places Emilia in his arms, and gives Connor a pillow to prop his arm on. Emilia’s blinks at him before squirming and stretching her little arms over her head. Connor feels all warm and fuzzy in his chest.

“Hello, Emilia,” he says, with a smile on his face, “I’m your other dad.”

~~~

Connor’s not inherently a jealous person.

Or at least he thought he was. But ever since Emilia came home he’s been feeling it. He loves Emilia, don’t get him wrong. Well, actually, he should backpedal for a second.

Connor is still annoyed at Leon.

He knows he should probably bring this up (because look what happened last time) but he hasn’t because Leon was trying to make things right with you. He obviously was trying with Connor as well, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was an afterthought. Some days were better than others, but everytime Connor thought about how he woke up and couldn’t find Leon in the penthouse he felt like puking.

Emilia eases the pain. He truly does love her like his own. The only time he uses the “she’s your kid” card is when it's 2 am and he’s too tired to get up. But he rarely even does that because Connor’s always been the heaviest sleeper out of the three of you. But other than that, he volunteers for bathtime, plays with her while you’re in the shower, he doesn’t even hate changing diapers that much.The puppies love her too, they’ve transitioned from napping on the dog beds in the living room to the spot on the couch closest to the bassinet to keep an eye on them. He regularly has to stop Lenny from trying to jump in and crush Emilia.

Back to Leon (Connor tends to get side tracked when talking about Emilia). Connor’s still annoyed and he’s been working up to talking about it. But it never seems like a good time. First you were pregnant, and Connor didn’t want to upset either of you. Then it was playoffs and Connor didn’t have any time to think about anything else. Then they got swept and Connor did nothing but eat ice cream for a week like he just had his first heartbreak. And after that…well, he just hates confrontation.

He keeps telling himself that he’ll get around to it, that he just wants to gather his thoughts but he knows he’s stalling at this point. Mostly because -

“So did you do what we talked about last session?” Sophie, his therapist, asks him at the beginning of his appointment.

-his therapist calls him on his bulshit. And he realizes that’s the whole reason he pays her, but it’s still rude.

“About that…” Connor trails off.

She gives him an amused smile, “Connor, you know I don’t like telling you what to do but I strongly suggest you talk to Leon.”

“Sophie, my girlfriend gave birth, we started playoffs and got swept all in the last two weeks,” he says with an exasperated sigh, “I deserve a little time for myself. Isn’t that what you told me last week?”

“I was getting to that,” she says.

Connor almost didn’t show up to his first session. He spent the whole ride over that he his therapist would be a quiet homophobe and who’d sell his story to the presses and ruin his life.

But then he went in and saw the framed photo of Sophie and her wife and their twins. He let out a sigh of relief and felt more comfortable telling her about his life. She didn’t even really watch hockey and she told him that he thought he was a “good player” for his age. Connor always has to stop himself from laughing whenever she tries to compliment his playing style. She’s adorable.

“And what about  (Y?N)? Have you thought about what you were going to say to her?”

He knows. He just doesn’t know if you’ll want the same thing.

“I have, a little bit.”

“And would you like to share what you’ve been thinking about?”

“I-uh,” he swallows, “I want another baby?”

“Is that a question?”

“I don’t think so.”

Sophie sends him home with the same homework he had last week: try to slowly figure out what he wants to say when he’s eventually ready to have a talk.

When he comes home, Leon’s standing in the kitchen by Emillia’s bottle warmer. He looks stupid hot holding a baby and Connor’s only mildly annotated about it.

“Hey,” he flashes Connor a bright smile when he notices Connor’s presence, “Can you hold her while I make her a bottle?”

“Sure,” He takes Emilia from Leon before sliding the dimmer down on the light switch. Her eyes slowly open in the dim light and her gumless smile warms Connor’s heart.

“Hello sweet girl,” he coos, watching as she somehow wiggles an arm loose from her blanket, “I love you. I hope you had a good morning.”

He doesn’t expect her to answer, obviously, but she does start to open and close her mouth, indicating she's hungry.

“Leo, you’re too slow,” he taunts playfully, watching as Leon carefully measures out the formula, “she’s starving over here.”

“I can only move so fast,” he laughs.

When Leon finally gets Emilia her bottle Connor relaxes into the dining room chair as she eats her lunch.

“How was therapy?”

Connor told you and Leon that he started going when he came home from his session. Connor didn’t divulge everything that happened in his sessions but it felt nice to have someone ask.

“It was good,” he says, leaning over and resting his head on Leon’s shoulder, “I only cried a little this time.”

Leon chuckles, “Does that mean therapy’s working?”

“Probably.”

~~~

Connor can’t help but laugh when he rewatches the interview of Leon talking about Emilia. He manages to somehow be adorable and sarcastic at the same time. You’re settled against his chest with your ipad resting on your lap and he can feel your giggles as Leon gives his short, glib answers to the journalists' annoying questions.

(Congratulations, she’s very cute.

“I know. She is my daughter after all.”

Your girlfriend’s not going to get mad about that comment?

“She’s gonna get mad if you keep asking questions about her newborn.”)

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen this yet,” Connor says as he runs his fingers through your hair.”

“Neither can I,” you giggle as Leon looks into the camera like he’s on the Office.

Leon rolls his eyes as he emerges from the bathroom, now freshly shaven.

“It’s not that funny,” he says.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Leo,” Connor says, gently hooking his fingers in Leon’s chain to pull him down for a kiss, “You’re very funny.”

“Why did you shave?” you say as Leon turns to give you a kiss, “Your beard looked so good.”

“It was also getting super scratchy,” Connor says.

Leon gets under the covers on Connor’s otherside, “Yeah Emilia’s been distracting me from the beard routine.”

You scoff, “the scratch is the best part, Con.”

“Tell that to the scratch marks on my ass,” Connor says without thinking, and then immediately blushes.

You groan, “Don’t talk about anything remotely sexy when my poor vagina is still healing from pushing out a whole watermelon.”

Leon laughs, “Don’t worry, baby, the beard will be back by the time you get your 6 week all clear.”

~~~

(5 weeks later - after your 6 week all appointment)

“Guess what bitches,” you shout as you enter the kitchen, “I can finally have sex again.”

“Mhm,” Leon hums, feigning disinterest, “And what would you like me to do about that?”

“You’re mean and not funny,” you say lightly hip-checking him, “Besides I have two boyfriends for a reason.”

“Yeah about that,” Connor stretches and yawns, “Emilia kept me up last night so I was gonna take a nap.”

You blink, “I will go to Whyte Av and find some rando to screw in a coat closet, don’t fucking test me.”

Leon grabs your hips and pulls you against his body so your back is flush against his chest before walking forward and pressing your hips into the kitchen counter.

“As if I could pass up the opportunity to fuck this sweet little pussy,” he grinds his hips, pushing your hips further into the counter.

“What have you been cleared for?”

“L-light, non-strenous sex.”

Connor laughs, “Boring, but better than nothing.”

“Davo, take her upstairs,” Leon commands so Connor scoops you up and carries you bridal style to the bedroom.

“Wait wait,” you say when they reach the top, “Where’s Emilia.”

“She’s napping in her crib,” Connor says as he drops you onto the bed, “Leo’s gonna check on her before he comes. So you can turn your brain off for a little bit.”

Connor doesn’t wait to hear your answer, just presses his lips to yours. He fels you moan against him. Connor’s hands slide under your shirt, slowly exposing skin. When he gets it over your head he trails his kisses down your body, unhooking your bra as he does. His kisses move in between your breasts to your belly.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs as he kisses your belly button, “you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.”

He hooks his fingers on your shorts, pulling them down your legs. He settles himself on the bed as he spreads your legs to press kisses to your inner thigh.

“Perfect,” Connor says, lightly nipping at the sensitive skin.

The tiny hitch of your breath causes all of his blood to rush straight to his dick, but he can’t bring himself to care. He takes his time, warming you up with kisses to your inner thighs, gently scraping his teeth against the skin. He kisses your pussy before running his tongue through your folds. His tongue gently caresses your clit with his tongue. Your hand comes down in his hair when he sucks your clit into his mouth. Your hips start to move against his face, grinding down to give yourself more friction.

“So impatient,” he hums, fucking one finger in you.

“It’s been six whole weeks,” you say,  “I haven’t gone six weeks without sex since I was a virgin.”

Connor chuckles, “Easy baby, we’ll get there.”

~~~

Connor can’t help himself when he sees you changing Emilia’s onesie in her nursery. He walks up behind you, wraps his arms around your waist and rests his head on your shoulder.

“Good morning,” he says, planting a kiss on your cheek, “And good morning to the world’s most adorable baby.”

Emilia gurgles but doesn’t retort. Smh, someone needs to teach her how to be humble.

“Morning,” you reply, buttoning up her fresh onesie, “How’d you sleep?”

“Good,” he responds with another kiss, “Except when you kicked me in my ribs.”

“I take offense to that,” you raise an eyebrow, “I am an angel in bed. And, yes, pun intended.”

Connor snorts, “We both know that's a lie.”

Both Connor and Leon have been victims of your aggressive sleeping style. One of these days he’s gonna tie all your limbs down, and not in a sexy way. But not in a murderous way either, let’s make that clear. In a Connor-wants-one-singular-night-to-not-get-punched-in-his-sleep way.

Oh god, his brain is rambling. Oh god, he does not want to do this.

“(Y/N),” he says before he can talk himself out of it, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

“About what?” you ask, holding Emilia close as you sit down in the rocking chair.

“I…” Connor has never been this sweaty in his life, “I want another baby.”

“Oh,” you say, indifferent, “Congratulations.”

His brow furrows, “what?”

“On growing a uterus,” you arch an eyebrow, “Because I sure as hell am not using mine again for like 3 years.”

Connor laughs, “I wasn’t saying right away. But, I just want to know if it’s something on the table.”

“I want another baby,” you say, “And as long as you’re willing to wait, I don’t see why it would be an issue.”

~~~

And Connor definitely feels lighter after his talk with you. And he even impresses Sophie by actually doing his homework for once:

“So did you talk to Leon yet?” She asks after he’s finished giving his rundown of his week.

“No,” he says sheepishly, “But I did talk to (Y/N) about having another baby.”

She has the professionalism to not look shocked, but Connor is getting a little better at reading her. Or at least he thinks he is. He still gets anxious whenever she writes things on her notepad, “and how did that go?”

“Honestly, it was better than I expected.”

“How so?”

He shrugs, “I guess I was just expecting the worst?”

“And why is that?”

He shrugs again, “Isn’t that something that you’re supposed to figure out when you psychoanalyze me at the beginning of every session?”

Sophie throws her head back in laughter, “You do know I can’t read your mind right.”

It sure feels like she can sometimes. Which is why he pays her but still, it’s rude. ~~~

Connor thought he was sweaty and anxious before talking to you. However, when it comes time to talk to Leon he also feels nauseous. Like, he might throw up in the kitchen sink again nauseously. But he’s been sitting on this for a few months now - but what if Leon hates him. What if he doesn't want to be with Connor anymore. What if he asks for a trade?

No, Connor’s spiraling. Leon’s a rational person; he's not gonna hate Connor for talking about his feelings, something Leon encourages because Connor tends to bottle things up until he explodes.

But what if-

No. No spiraling, yet.

“Leo,” Leon hums against Connors chest from his spot on the couch next to him, “You still awake?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, “But I was thinking about going upstairs soon.”

Connor shuts the TV off, “Um, actually before that can we...talk?”

Leon sits up and stretches, “What about?”

Connor takes a deep breath, “I think - I think I’m mad at you?”

Leon looks a little confused, and Connor can’t say he blames him, “You think you’re mad at me?”

“I-yeah,” he takes another breath, “I know you’ve been trying really hard to reconcile with (Y/N), and that’s great, and I’m definitely not trying to say I take priority over her, but it kind of feels like you’ve put me on the backburner a bit.”

Leon nods, “How so?”

Connor shrugs, “I mean, when you came back and you apologized it was definitely pointed towards her. And it’s the little things, like you always make what (Y/N) wants for dinner and not me. It feels a little bit like there’s a hierarchy here.”

“Do you...feel this way with (Y/N) too?”

“A little bit,” he says, “But mostly with things concerning Emilia, so it’s not as big of an issue.”

Connor realized he feels a bit…scorned, for lack of a better word. Connor was with you first, and that’s not something he feels jealous about but now it’s all coming up. Connor never left you, Connor was the one who held back your hair and wiped your tears when Leon was MIA. Connor was there, Leon left.

...maybe he did need to talk to you some more.

~~~

Connor and Leon spend a long time talking on the couch before they join you in bed. Eventually, Leon puts his head in Connor’s lap as the conversation turns mundane and they just enjoy each other’s presence. It’s been a while since they’ve done that. They end the night with a little make out session that doesn’t lead anywhere more. It was nice.

The next morning Connor’s on baby duty. Not that he minds, it’s always nice to start his day with a smile from Emilia. He changes her diaper and puts a fresh sleeper on her, listening to the little baby noises she makes. When he’s finished he takes her downstairs to the kitchen where you and Leon are making breakfast.

“Good morning, babe,” Leon says when Connor turns the corner, “Do you want strawberries or blueberries on your french toast?”

Leon was making his favourite breakfast. Connor can’t stop the smile from spreading on his face.

“And how’s my favourite girl?” he asks, giving Emilia a little kiss on her forehead.

“A pooping machine,” Connor responds to her, and Emilia laughs at him.

“Did she just-?” you get from your spot on the barstool and run to Connor’s side.

“Her first laugh?” Connor says, “Yeah.”

He tickles her belly in an effort to get her to keep laughing, but she chooses that moment to be a stubborn newborn and frowns instead.

He looks at Leon, “She is absolutely your baby.”

“I smiled when I was a baby!”

“No, Leo he’s got a point,” you say in between funny faces, “your mom said she has one baby photo of you smiling because you would refuse to smile for the camera.”

“I was shy.”

“You’re a robot,” Connor says.

“Like you’re one to talk,” you scoff.

~~~

“Connor please,” you pant, “I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Connor holds back a laugh, watching the sweat drip down your face, “I thought this is what you wanted?”

“Leo!,” you yell, catching his attention from across the room, “Tell Connor he’s being an ass.”

Leon does not hold back his laugh, “He’s got a point.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting bullied right now.”

Connor wraps his arms around you and pulls you close into his body, “It’s just some squats, baby, it’s not the end of the world.”

“It is when you keep adding weight!”

“Because you’re stronger.”

You just stare at him and, honestly, Connor feels a little scared.

“Tell you what,” he leans down so he can whisper in your ear, “If you make it through your sets, without complaining, Leo and I will take turns eating you out tears run down your pretty little face.”

“Promise?” you hold out your pinky.

Emilia’s being babysat by her grandparents so Connor feels no qualms when he links his pinky with yours, “Promise.”

“Promise what?” Leon pipes up from his place on the leg press.

“Connor offered up your body in exchange for squats,” you say, shouldering the bar once more.

“And what did Connor say I would do?”

“You’ll find out,” Connor says, waving a hand at Leon nonchalantly.

“I don’t even get to know how I’m being used as a bargaining chip?”

“Nope,” Connor says with a smile, popping the ‘p’.

~~~

Leon learns what the exact terms and conditions are of the agreement about an hour later. And, just like Connor expected, he does not complain.

He even has the audacity to wink at Connor as he’s tongue-deep in pussy. Ugh, he forgot what the butterflies in his stomach felt like when he’s not constantly annoyed with Leon. He can’t help himself, he gets up from where he was giving his jaw a break, and slides his fingers over Leon’s hole. Leon tenses up ever so slightly, he breaks the momentum he had on you, evident by how hard your ankles are digging into Leon’s shoulders.

“Don’t stop,” Connor grunts, slipping one digit past the rim, “You don’t cum until she does.”

He slides his finger all the way before uncapping the lube and lathering his fingers up and adding a second. Connor knows when he hits Leon’s prostate when He lets out a low groan into your cunt.

“Fuuuuuuck,” you whine, writhing against the sheets.

Leon pushes back on Connor’s fingers at the same time your hips start to grind down feverishly on Leon’s face.

“Make her cum, Leo,” Connor says, removing his fingers from Leon’s ass and teasing his hole once more.

Leon’s focus changes completely. His fingers dig into your hipbones, pulling you closer to him so he has a better angle. Your chest is rising and falling quickly, heaving off the bed when Leon finally sucks your clit. You cum with a shout, tumbling over the edge, pussy clenching around Leon’s tongue.

Connor wastes no time, grabbing Leon’s hips to steady him before spreading Leon's cheeks and swiping his tongue in long, broad strokes. Connor’s not the biggest fan of rimming, but Leon loves it. Leon groans as Connor teases him, starts to rut against the bed when Connor’s tongue dips into his hole, loses it when Connor starts to fuck him open with his tongue. He reaches over to jack Leon off, pumping him as he continues to take him apart. Leon goes limp beneath him, reduced to nothing but moans. Connor speeds up his ministries, revealing in the way Connor’s name falls weakly from Leon’s mouth. Leon bucks hard against the bed, cums with a shudder. Connor takes his hand off Leon's cock, and places it on his own but doesn’t quite relent on his tongue, working Leon through the aftershocks' pleasure. It doesn’t take very long for Connor to cum, finally letting up on Leon and effectively ruining his boxers.

“Aw Leo,” Connor says once he can catch his breath, “We have to watch the duvet cover now.”

~~~

“Where is my baby?” Connor teases playfully when you walk through the door, baby carrier in hand.

“Calm your tits,” you say, placing the carrier on the kitchen counter and allowing Connor to take her out, “She’s home, and just woke up from a nap.”

“I wish I took a nap today,” Connor says as he rocks Emilia in his arms. She gives Connor a toothless smile and Connor just wants to smoosh her.

“Has anyone ever told you, you look really good holding a baby?” Leon says, giving Connor a quick peck on the cheek.

“Good enough to have another baby?” Connor asks.

You roll your eyes, “Two years, Con.”

“I’m just teasing.”

And, yeah, Connor finally starts to feel like he’s home again.

[jazy3]

Free Guy Review

!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you haven’t seen the movie Free Guy (2021) stop reading right now! Drop what you’re doing and go get yourself a ticket! You’ll thank me later!

I loved this movie! I saw it this weekend for the second time because it’s that good! I first saw the trailer on YouTube a while back and then when theatres reopened a few weeks ago I saw the trailer again and my interest was piqued. I had high hopes for this movie based on the fun looking trailer, the premise, the cast, and the sense of fun and escapism that the movie seemed to embody and it did not disappoint. It’s always nice when you have high hopes for something and it meets or exceeds your expectations.

Free Guy is just such a fun and joyous movie. Never taking itself too seriously, packed with lots of heart, cool cameos, full of gaming and pop culture references, and it’s fueled by a unique concept that is well executed. There are just so many things I loved about this movie! It was a ton of fun to watch and the actors clearly had a blast making it. During the movie I kept trying to figure out where I knew most of the actors from but couldn’t place them. When I got home, I googled it and I instantly realized why. The roles are just so different and the actors embody their characters so completely you lose yourself in the film and get completely sucked in. I was honestly so surprised when I figured out what I knew most of the actors from because the roles that they’re known for are so different from their characters in the movie. Their appearances, established ages, and even the accents are so different that I literally did a double take, but that’s what makes the movie so good! Because the main actors obviously didn’t need the paycheque they were just there to have fun and it shows. I think if the situation had been different and the actors involved had been desperate for money or took the role for some other reason it wouldn’t have worked. The film would have come off as cheesy, forced, cringeworthy, or just plain bad. Free Guy is none of those things. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as ‘Guy’ a bank teller in a video game called Free City, Jodie Comer whose best known for playing Villanelle in Killing Eve as programmer Millie Rusk and her avatar Molotov Girl, Joe Keery whose best known for playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things as programmer Walter ‘Keys’ McKey, and Taika Waititi whose best known for playing Viago in What We Do in the Shadows as the Head of Soonami Studios and the film’s main antagonist and villain Antwan. Rounding out the cast are Utkarsh Ambudka as programmer Mouser and Lil Rel Howery as Guy’s best friend and bank security guard Buddy. In a nutshell, Free Guy is about a bank teller named Guy who finds out he’s a non-playable background character (NPC) in an open-world Grand Theft Auto style video game called Free City. Guy becomes the hero of his own story after meeting Millie, the girl of his dreams, and winning fans all over the world by racking up points by being the good guy and helping others. After leveling up and helping Millie escape a dangerous situation in the game, Guy wins her over and she falls for him thinking that he’s another player. But when the world that Guy knows and all of the people in it are threatened, he teams up with Millie to save his friends before it’s too late. In the real world, Millie enlists the help of her former programming partner and best friend Keys in a race against time to stop their code and all of the sentient characters from Free City from being deleted by Antwan the developer who stole their code when the game’s sequel launches. I love that the movie had a unique premise and didn’t overcomplicate things. There are so many movies that I’ve gone to see over the last few years with such excitement only to be disappointed. For example, I loved Wreck It Ralph, but was so disappointed by its sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet. The trailers made it seem like it would take the premise of the first movie and move things into the online gaming world, and I was excited for that. Instead, the sequel left the premise of the first movie behind entirely and way over complicated the plot and the end result was extremely cheesy and disappointing. Free Guy’s strength is that it’s a self-aware movie made by self-aware people who are excellent at what they do. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, nor should it, and that allows the story to flow and the characters to feel real and genuine. The movie achieves that perfect balance between being entertaining and telling a cohesive and important story because while the movie never takes itself too seriously the people behind it are serious about what they do. This was very clearly a passion project for all involved, especially Ryan Reynolds, and it shows! As he’s spoken about in interviews and on Twitter, Reynolds called on a lot of his friends to be in Free Guy and help him out and the end result was fantastic! I loved all of the cameos! The Chris Evans cameo was by far the funniest and the Alex Trebek cameo got me right in the feels. When I saw the movie in theatres me and everyone else in the theatre gave a collective “awww” when he appeared on screen. Enlisting real YouTubers to show up as fictional versions of themselves to talk about Blue Shirt Guy’s popularity was a nice touch and you’ve also got blink and you miss it voice cameos by John Krasinski, Dwyane The Rock Johnson, Hugh Jackman, and Tina Fey. Channing Tatum appears as the avatar of player Revenjamin Buttons which for the most part was hilarious. One of my few criticisms of the film is that they went a bit overboard the avatar’s antics as Guy and Buddy are attempting to leave and it got bit a cringeworthy. But I know other people found it hilarious so to each their own. I love all of the little details and references in the movie. Just listing them all would be a post in itself. If you’re someone that loves pop culture references and Easter Eggs this is the movie for you. The characters are fun and believable, and you get attached to them quickly. The actors commit completely to their roles which is makes the humour, romance, and heartfelt emotion of the film work. You buy it. 100%. Something that I absolutely loved was that the characters felt realistic and that the dialogue, attire, and settings for each character really felt authentic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a movie or TV show and walked away thinking, “The person who wrote that clearly never meet a kid, teenager, or twenty something in their life! That was so unrealistic.” The slang’s all wrong. The dialogue is so eloquent everyone sounds like they did Shakespeare in the Park last summer. You walk away thinking, “What the hell was that? No one talks that way!” What I loved about the characters in Free Guy is that they felt like real people you could actually run into or walk past on the street. I’ve read in interviews that in addition to the written dialogue the cast did a lot of ad-libbing and improvisation and the end result is both hilarious and relatable. The dialogue feels real because it is. The big exception to this of course is Antwan who is altogether off the wall and ridiculous. Antwan is such an outrageous, absurd, vulgar, and cartoonish character. He’s so fun to watch and the actors clearly had a lot of fun with his scenes! I’ve read that a lot of his lines with Keys and Mouser were improvised and I believe it. When he goes all Jack Nicholson on the servers? Lord. He’s such a great villain to watch. The characters that are established to be in their twenties like Millie, Keys, Mouser, and the other employees at Soonami Studios talk, act, and dress like they’re in their twenties. The actors that are in their forties are styled to look like they’re in their thirties and honestly, they’re in such great shape it works! I mean I was honestly shocked to find out Taika Waititi’s real age. I love how the costuming really fits each character and allows you to learn more about them. Keys’ clothing is your typical gamer chic which makes because as we learn from his interview with Millie coding is his life and what gets him up in the morning. From Mouser’s clothing we learn that he’s a sports fan, but also isn’t afraid to take risks like with that blazer ensemble he wears in his final scene at Millie’s apartment.

Millie’s clothing shows the contrast between her and her avatar Molotov Girl, and Antwan’s ridiculous coat enhances the overall wackiness of his character. Guy’s clothing tells us something too. He wears the same thing every day until he meets Millie in the game at which point, he starts deviated from his Free City programming and chooses a different blue shirt. I also really love that they put thought into why Keys needs to wear glasses. Something I noticed on rewatch is that Keys is far sighted which is why he has his glasses on when he’s looking at his laptop or computer and sometimes when’s talking to other people, but not when he goes to see Millie at her apartment or when he goes to get them coffee at the end of the movie. Another interesting aspect of Keys’ character that I noticed on rewatch is self-confidence is really something he struggles with in contrast to Millie and Mouser who are very confident. Millie is a genius programmer and Mouser is excellent at what he does, and they are both very confident in their coding abilities, but Keys isn’t despite being every bit the genius that Millie is. At the beginning of the movie when they first notice the issue with Guy Mouser jokes that Keys needs to be better at his job. In response Keys meekly says he thinks he’s pretty good at his job and trails off at the end. Mouser is just joking around, but because Keys lacks self-confidence comments like that hit him hard. Mouser is moving towards his own desk as he talks so he doesn’t notice how self-deprecating and uneasy Keys’ response is. In the interview from the indie games conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment, he brushes off the interviewers comment that he’s a genius and says Millie is the real genius because she created the AI engine and he just wrote the code to make it work. Later on, when Keys helps Millie get into the stash house, she calls him a genius and he tells her that as he’s currently sitting on a toilet stealing user code he doesn’t exactly feel like one. Millie responds offhandedly that he never does, but luckily, she knows better. When Keys realizes that Millie was right, and that Antwan did steal their code and their game worked he tells Millie they need to celebrate because once everyone sees their build she’ll be celebrated and she could win a noble prize. Both Millie and Keys are geniuses in their own right. The game wouldn’t have worked without both of their skills and Guy wouldn’t have come to life without both of them working together. Millie’s AI engine made his sentience possible, but Keys is the one who gave him hopes and dreams so that when he met Millie in the game, he came alive. When done right the settings we see tell the story just as much as the characters do and I love how realistic the settings in Free Guy look. The floor at Soonami Studios where Keys and Mouser work looks like a real office and I love that the desks have clutter and personal effects on them like real cubicles do and that they show Keys taking a box of his stuff with him as he leaves. The lobby with the moving water videos and Antwan’s massive but largely empty office fits perfectly with the obnoxious, zany, and over the top character that he is. I also love the contrast between Keys and Millie’s apartments and how those settings tell us a lot about each character and where they are in their lives when the film starts. When Keys comes home from work to find that Millie has broken in, we see that he lives in a stylish one bedroom apartment with an open concept kitchen full of stainless steel appliances, a large living room centred around an expensive wall mounted TV and entertainment system, with his computer and gaming station set up in the corner. On the walls we see artful clusters of black picture frames, through a partially open door we see a bedroom off to the side, the apartment is full of black and white furniture including a plush couch and nice lamps, and features a textured silver accent wall. All of which makes the fact that Millie managed to break in even more impressive because it is clearly an expensive apartment in a nice building. Keys’ style is minimalist and upper scale and based on what we learn about the events that took place before the start of the movie this indicates that Keys got the apartment and all of the nice stuff in it using the money he received when Antwan bought his and Millie’s game. In contrast, Millie lives in a bachelor apartment and spends her time in coffee shops ordering one single black coffee over four hours. This tells us that she kept her original apartment that she had from before the game was sold and is living off the money she got from the sale while she spends all of her time trying to find the proof she needs to win her lawsuit. When we see Millie’s place, we find that it’s cozy, full of plants, throw rugs, quilts, and comfy furniture. She’s got a bike in the corner, you can see her bed from the centre of the room where she’s got her computer and gaming station set up adjacent to the coffee table and the rest of the living room furniture. Her kitchen is smaller and full of wooden cabinets and her bathroom door has DIY multicoloured square panels on it. Keys and Millie’s apartments are very different and through these settings we see the contrast between where these characters are in their lives, their wealth, and their personal style. The song ‘Fantasy’ by Mariah Carey is featured heavily in the film and is guaranteed to get stuck in your head in the best way! Jodie Comer’s cover of it is amazing! It fits the moment where Guy makes it to the island that is Millie and Keys’ original build and shows it to the world perfectly. This movie made me appreciate Mariah Carey’s music in a whole new way and I can’t be the only way. After watching the movie, I went looking for the song on Apple Music, wound up listening to the Mariah Carey Essentials Playlist, and I’ve become obsessed. I knew some of her hits, but after listening to her music more I get why people love her so much. Her five octave vocal range is amazing, and her music is just so fun to listen to. The film has a really great soundtrack overall and I’ve had many of its song on repeat since I saw it. Something I really loved about this movie and the reveal at the end that Keys is in love with Millie and is desperate for her to notice, but she’s been oblivious the whole time is that they don’t do the supposedly nice nerdy guy whose really a jerk trope. So many movies do this where you have a nerdy male character whose unluckily love, looked over, or his love is unrequited, and we’re supposed to root for him because he’s a quote “nice guy”. But really, he’s not. He’s a jerk who feels slighted because a woman in his life doesn’t love him back or notice him and he feels as if she owes him something. The scene at Millie’s place where Millie tells Keys he looks cute when he brags, and Mouser encourages him to tell Millie how he feels is super frustrating to watch but it’s so important to Keys’ character. He asks Millie out for coffee and when she turns him down to jump back into the game, he doesn’t make a big deal about it even though Mouser wants him to. Instead he gets up and goes and gets her a coffee anyway. She goes to tell him her order, oblivious to the fact that he’s memorized it, he tells her he remembers, and goes to get the coffee anyway much to Mouser’s and the audience’s dismay. This is big because Keys clearly doesn’t want to be walking down the street by himself to get coffee. He wants to be getting coffee with Millie so that he can tell her how he feels to see if she might feel the same way, but when she turns him down he goes and gets the coffee anyway because he truly loves and cares about her and he values their friendship enough to put his own feelings aside and suffer in silence rather than lose her and what they’ve built. So, he takes the opportunity to get some air rather than continue to sit there in disappointment. Which is why he’s so confused when Millie runs after him and calls out to him from across the street. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing there. She turned down his offer to get a coffee and he already knows her order so why is she there? I love that they chose to make that scene non-verbal. I think if Millie had come out and made some big declaration of love it would have felt cheesy and overdone. But her running after him and silently communicating through her smile and body language that she understood and that she felt the same way was perfect. It was subtle and beautiful and perfectly acted. It also felt realistic to the characters because in real life when you’ve known someone a really long time and you’ve spent a lot of time with them you don’t always need words to convey what you mean. What Millie wanted to express in that scene was so big and so all-encompassing she couldn’t find the words to say everything that she wanted to say so she didn’t. She just stood there and smiled knowing that being the genius that he is he would understand. It’s like Keys says in their interview, words will fail you, but code never does. His coding worked and now she understands so rather than try and say it all and fail she just looks at him and smiles to show him that she finally gets it. She finally understands what he’s been trying to say to her all this time. And you can see the exact moment Keys realizes why she’s there. The moment where he goes from being confused as to what she wants to realizing that she saw the video and she knows how he feels and that she wouldn’t be standing there smiling at him like that if she didn’t feel the same way. When I watched the scene the first time around, I was anxiously clutching my nachos the entire time because when Keys ran towards her my immediate thought was, “Oh my god he’s gonna get hit by a car and they’re never gonna get to be together! Oh my god!” But then he didn’t get hit by a car and Millie ran out to meet him and for the first time in their relationship she met him halfway and they kissed and it was beautiful! I think because Free City had so much violence in it that’s where my mind went and I’m very glad they didn’t go that route. One of my only criticisms about the movie is that I wish they had stayed on Millie and Keys just a little bit longer. They kiss and embrace and then very quickly they cut to black. I wish they’d linger on that moment just a little bit longer because I love those characters so much and in the scene that follows where Guy and Buddy are reunited we see them hug and then walk away together to start their new lives and I wish we’d gotten just a bit more time with Millie and Keys. I also really loved the parallel between the different kinds of relationships within the movie and how platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones. The reveal at the end about Guy being Keys’ creation and a love letter to Millie and her realizing she’s been loving Keys vicariously through Guy and them finally coming together and being on the same page is beautiful because from the very beginning the movie is full of clues, hints, and foreshadowing that all comes together at the end. Meanwhile, we see the friendship between Guy and Buddy and how important that friendship is to him because it’s something that he created on his own. His love for Millie is born out of the programming that Keys gave him, but his friendship with Buddy is something that Guy created all on his own of his own volition. Which is part of what makes Buddy’s death on the bridge so tragic. I cried when Buddy disappeared. Reynolds and Howery play their characters with such sincerity that his death pacts an emotional punch you don’t expect. I love that the security guards at Soonami are so moved by Buddy’s heroism and are so captivated by what’s happening with the live stream that Millie is able to sneak past them into the server room and stop Antwan from destroying what’s left of the game. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that during the final battle after Millie gets booted from the game and Guy has to fight Dude on his own the glasses he’s wearing are very similar to the ones Keys wears in the movie which I thought was a cool nod to Guy being Keys’ creation. This really is a movie in which you find something new every time you watch it. For instance, the second time around I noticed that the foreshadowing that Keys is in love with Millie, but she’s oblivious to it because she’s so focused on the game was really well done. In the video from the indie game conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment when asked by the interviewer about their chemistry Millie responds first and says that their friends, their relationship is completely platonic, and laughs off the idea that they have chemistry. In contrast Keys falters and is silent and then eventually says meekly that they’re just friends. Millie is looking ahead at the interviewer and to the side away from Keys as she’s laughing and so she doesn’t see Keys’ reaction. At the end of the apartment scene after Millie breaks in to ask Keys for his help, he tells Millie he cares about her and he almost says something else. It feels like he’s about to say, ‘I love you’ but then he catches himself and instead tells her that she needs to leave. When Keys visits Millie’s apartment to tell her that she was right and they’re sitting on the couch he reaches out and puts his hand on her knee and then snatches it back when he realizes he’s gotten too close. He wants so desperately to be closer to her and in his excitement, he gets closer than he normally would before realizing that putting his hand on her knee in that close proximity is not a platonic gesture. Millie is so caught up in the realization that Guy, the person she’s fallen in love with, is an AI and not a real person that she doesn’t notice. My heart broke for Keys in that scene as he realized that Millie had fallen for Guy and kissed him and was so upset about it and meanwhile, he was right in front of her desperate for her to see how much he cares. It must have just wrecked him to go home that night and realize that Guy was based on the lovelorn character he created and that Millie had fallen in love with his creation while at the same time being so oblivious to his real world affection for her. In the scene at Millie’s apartment after they’ve gotten the server from Antwan and Mouser encourages Keys to say something, I noticed on rewatch just how weak and meager Keys’ attempt to ask Millie out is. He stumbles his way through asking her to get a coffee and trails off at the end so it’s no wonder Millie doesn’t clue in that he’s trying to ask her out. And in Keys’ defence he sent her a whole video confessing his feelings for her and all of the little things he loves about her and then told her to watch it and he has no idea if she did or not. We the audience know that Millie only saw half of it, but Keys has no idea if she saw none of it, part of it, or all of it. He knows she got Guy to remember, but she’s also sending him mixed messages. One minute she’s saying he’s cute when he brags and the next, she’s turning him down for coffee to talk to Guy. From the outside it’s so obvious that Keys is in love with Millie, but she doesn’t see it because she’s always looking the other way, not paying attention, so caught up in the game, and too focused on their work to see what’s right in front of her. On rewatch one of the big things I noticed is that Keys is always on the edge of telling Millie how he really feels but he always stops himself because she brushes him or the idea off and because he’s scared of what will become of their work and their friendship if she doesn’t feel the same way. It’s a huge leap. If Millie doesn’t feel the same way it’s going to make their relationship incredibly awkward and could potentially destroy their partnership so Keys decides it’s better not to say anything or only hint at how he feels rather than run the risk of ruining everything. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that in the interview they give Keys says he thinks of himself as an author and that code is what gets him up in the morning and that he loves the ones and zeros of binary because words can fail you and let you down but code never does. At the end of the movie when Millie goes to talk to Guy in Free Life he tells her that he loves her and while he knows that’s his programming he’s realized that he’s a love letter to her and that somewhere out there in the real world is the author. Such a great callback. All in all, I can definitely say that Free Guy has been my favourite movie so far this year! Definitely my favourite movie of the summer. I went to see it twice in theatres and I’ve never done that for any other movie before. I’ll rewatch them at home sure, but I’ve never actually paid money to see something twice on my own. I’m very excited to see the sequel and my hope is that it will be just as good as the first.  Until next time.