#tag: james

[beneath-the-null-moon]

Outtakes (SPOILERS): "I need you to like James"

I don't give away The One Big Thing here, but I do talk around it very closely. And the reason I try not to spoil The One Big Thing--the thing that James can't remember that he did--despite alluding to "things he feels guilty about" or "things he did wrong," is because I feel like the end of the game will lay you out if you like him right now, as he is, at face value. Because James as he currently is--he's kind, helpful, patient, polite.

I don't say this in the video, but what I ended up saying to Ian later was that I feel like James is experiencing Silent Hill as the best version of himself to pay for the worst version of himself: the self that is most able to regret what he did. It's not that I want to make excuses for James; it's that I think him being a genuinely good person during his time with us makes the rest of the game hit so damn hard. And it also presents James as someone we would like to be, not someone "othered" the way I feel Eddie is--we hold Eddie at a remove because obviously he's a "psycho." I feel like Silent Hill 2 presents the question, are you really better than James? How much would it take--what circumstances could turn you into the worst version of yourself? I don't think a game that so delights in ambiguity wants to present any kind of moral, but it's made me think a lot about low mental health points in my life--I never did anything terrible, but how much lower could I have gone? What would it take to break my moral compass? And is it possible that I could live a better life going forward for having considered this?

[wukongfeetpics]

characters have to be a little bit awful in ways that you cant defend. its good for the ecosystem. your honor he did do that. He did in fact do that

[astral-scout]

party rockers in the

[palukoo]

three hearts that beat as one | old hollywood throuples anyone???

[mimicben]

The proposal~

My other cheesy romcom Deadpool 3 drawings are here

[junibgoode]

"are they lovers?" worse, they're sherlock and watson variants.

[marvelwitchergilmore]

Dog Tags

Summary: Bucky Barnes x fe!Reader -> Bucky is looking for his Dog Tags, and you just so happen to have them.

Disclaimer: Mostly fluff and fun, kinda enemies/rivals to lovers vibes, open ended kinda, reader is mentioned to own a knife. Not Proof Read.

Bucky had been looking for them for weeks. 

His dog tags. His identity. His attachment to a life long forgotten. 

They’d been with him on his last mission; he was sure of it. He remembered clasping them in his hand before laying them under his uniform. And he never took them off unless…did he? 

“Buck. You’ve already looked in here. Twice.”

Sam’s eyes tracked Bucky around the room as if he was the madman’s doctor. Bucky wasn’t paying attention and nearly ran into Sam’s legs that were resting on the coffee table. 

“Dude.”

“They’ve got to be here,” Bucky kept muttering to himself. “They have to be.”

“Buck, I will get you a new set.”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t want another set.”

Sam stood with a sigh, placing his bookmark in his book. “For all we know, they’ve been trampled into the mud on our last mission.”

“I would have noticed them. I never saw them.”

Sam watched as Bucky looked in every cupboard in the kitchen. He sighed, again. “Have you asked Y/n?”

Bucky scowled. “She doesn’t have them.”

“And you know this because…”

“I’ve already checked.”

Sam watched Bucky. “Did you ask? You know, before you ransacked her room.”

“I didn’t ransack her room.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two recently. It’s like you’ve gone from agreed silence to sworn enemies, but maybe you should just ask her. She might know.”

“I’ll ask Wanda.”

“Y/n’s better.”

Bucky looked over his shoulder to Sam as he opened another cupboard. “But Wanda is my friend.”

Sam sighed before walking into the kitchen and shutting every door Bucky had left open. 

“Buck-“

“I’m gonna look outside.”

“Bucky!”

He wasn’t listening. But you were. 

“You know, all he’s gotta do is ask.”

Sam looked over his shoulder at you as you leaned by the main entrance. Bucky had left through the back. 

“Do you know where they are?”

You tried to hide your smile and shrugged. “I might do.”

Sam turned around. “Y/n.”

You gave in and walked inside. “Oh, come on, Sam. He kept my knife from me for, like, three months.”

That had been true. It was your favourite one. You’d lost it after being pulled away by Yelena for some ‘Kate Bishop’ emergency. Bucky had found it in the training room and kept it from you for three months. 

It wasn’t until you were both on a mission that you saw him flip it through his fingers before using it. He’d just chuckled when you called him an Ass. 

“Gotta be more careful next time, doll.”

You could have punched him in the face. 

So, when you found his dog tags on the ground, you made a decision. 

Originally, you were going to give them to him. But when you pulled your knife from your holster back on the jet, you were reminded of what he’d done. 

It was simply payback. 

“You know, he’s not gonna be happy when he finds out.”

You shrugged. “S’only fair.”

“Where are you even keeping them? He probably turned your entire room upside down.”

You nodded, “Oh, he did. But he’s never gonna find them.”

From under your clothes, you pulled out the military issued dog tags. Embossed on the metal was Bucky’s name, birthdate and blood type. On the second was his regiment. 

Sam gave you a slightly judgmental look but you could see the pride he was trying to hide. 

“You’ve gotta tell him eventually.”

“You’re not gonna tell him?”

Sam shrugged as he passed you and picked up his book. “I knew he had your knife. I didn’t help you, I’m not helping him.”

You gave a small gasp, “I knew it!”

Sam just laughed his way down the hallway. 

Meanwhile, you looked back at the dog tags with a light smile, your thumb brushing over his name. 

You’d give them back soon. But a little just desserts would do no harm to the super annoying, massive pain in the ass, super soldier. 

Bucky looked for two more weeks. His dog tags were lost forever. He had a feeling Sam know something since he’d suddenly changed his tune on issuing him some fresh dog tags. 

“Just hold out. Maybe they’ll show.”

“Who told you that?”

Sam shrugged, “I went to a psychic.”

Bucky rolled his eyes before trudging over and sitting beside his friend. He’d hold out for one more week, then he was gonna issue them himself. 

You could feel Bucky’s eyes still on you. He was practically searing a hole into the side of your face. 

He’d been like that for three days. Watching you. Staring. 

“You know something,” he said when he finally cornered you. 

You acted as if you didn’t know what he was talking about. “I know nothing.”

“Where are they?”

“Where are what?”

“Stop acting dumb,” Bucky told you. 

“Ever considered I’m not acting, Barnes.”

Bucky chuckled a little. “Every day.”

You walked into that one. 

“But I know there’s a small part of you that’s a lot smarter than you’re letting on. So, I’ll ask again. Where are they?”

“Please.”

Bucky leaned back a little. “What?”

You clasped your hands behind your back and leaned forward a little, practically bouncing on your feet. “Where are they, please?”

Bucky stared at you before groaning. “Where are they…please?”

You stood tall and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Quit lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

Bucky sighed. “Do you really enjoy this?”

“Enjoy what, Bucky?”

You could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. “You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side from day one.”

Your gaze hardened on him as you stepped closer. “And you’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass. Look, don’t you think if I’d taken them, I’d have kept them safe? Safer than being hidden in my room? I know what they mean to you, Bucky.” 

You stepped back before you could let your mind wander to places further than just standing inches from Bucky in an empty hallway. 

“Kinda like my knife.”

Before you disappeared down the corridor, that last sentence only added fuel to Bucky’s fire. You had them. They were safe. But if they weren’t in your room, where the hell were they? 

It took him ten days to realise. And when he finally did, he hadn’t been thinking about them.

It had been just before he closed his eyes. It hit him. The safest place from him, was you. They’d been on your person the whole time. They had to be. 

And, despite the clock beside his bed telling him it was almost 23:00, he knew where you’d be. 

You hadn’t been sleeping much for the last few months. He knew because of how tired you seemed to move. A little slower, a little more distant. 

Zipping up his grey jacket, he padded his way down towards the training room. 

You hadn’t spotted Bucky standing against the wall, grey sweatshirt, white tee and darker pajama pants. If you had, you would have made some kind of comment about wearing plaid in Spring. 

“I figured it out,” Bucky called out calmly as he watched you. 

You ducked your head as if you’d just avoided a bullet. “What the- James.” You gave a huff. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Bucky just smiled casually and pushed himself from the wall. “I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” You asked, a little breathless. You’d been in the training room, alone, for the last two hours. 

“Where you’ve been keeping my dog tags.”

“Really? Who says I have them?”

“You and I both know you’ve had them since the beginning.”

You just watched him, studied him. A slight smirk broke out on your face. “I don’t know who took them, Buck. But I’d say it’s Just Desserts, wouldn’t you?”

“For stealing your knife?”

You nodded. “I’d say so, yeah.”

“Wanna know how I figured it out?”

“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me anyway.”

Bucky shrugged. “You knew I’d find out it was you. But you also know I avoid you as much as I can. And I know you’ve done the same with me. That’s how I kept hold of your knife for so long.”

That much was true. It was just safer to avoid each other than it was to deal with the potential ramifications of being left alone together longer than ten minutes. 

You let Bucky continue as he walked closer to you. You remained fixed in place, just watching him. He looked so…domestic. Slightly bed ridden hair, freshly showered, relaxed. Cosy.

“So, the best place to keep my dog tags safe would be with you, at all times. All day. All night.”

“Really?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah.”

“And what makes you so sure I have them on me now?”

Bucky took a final step forward and looked you over. His body was in chest from you. 

“May I?”

You nodded, realising where his eyeline had fallen. Silently, his fingers reached out. Ignoring the way his touch felt against your skin, you watched as he pulled his tags from under your shirt. 

He examined them. 

“Found ‘em.”

You looked up at him with a knowing smile. “Seems we have a winner. I must say though, I can see why you get so attached. There’s something…familiar about having them with you all the time.”

Bucky nodded. But he seemed to be thinking. Then he smiled before tucking them back into your shirt. 

You were confused. “Don’t you want them back?”

He nodded. “One day. But, for now, you should keep them safe. They look good on you.”

You looked down, mostly to avoid his blue gaze.

There had been a few moments like this over the last few years. Moments where the ten minutes ran out and it was just you and Bucky, alone, barely inches from each other. All the while, comments passed between you both which made you think that, deep down, you didn’t hate him. 

And that he didn’t hate you. 

Part Two

[deadrlngers]

the art of touch in Crash (1996), dir. David Cronenberg.

[industrations]

[wolfythewitch]

12 apostles designs :D

[beneath-the-null-moon]

James' masculine ideal

...maybe does not look or act anything like himself.

Like, I'm not saying James is pitiful or anything. He's a normal-looking guy, and he sure can break through a wall when he wants to. But he does follow monsters around meekly calling out, "Hello...?" (Whether he runs from those monsters or squares up to them depends on how you play him.) He works in an office and his hands look very nice. He's not strong enough to hold some (very heavy) elevator doors open, with dire consequences. Eddie threatens him with a gun and he shies away, scared--until finally he's goaded into throwing a punch (and winces afterwards like it hurt).

Let me be clear: James is also someone who has a gun point-blank in his face and he PUNCHES THE GUY; I was pretty impressed with that. But Maria, a manifestation designed "for him," teasingly calls James "big guy" and "big man," and I... would not deem him such.

Again, I want to be clear: I am not trying to put down any type of body. If he were just some guy and not James Sunderland with all his attendant baggage--I would swipe right on a guy built like this. He's a normal dude.

My point is that James may feel a way about not being "a big man." There may be a reason a woman "born from a wish" calls him that, and not even to mock him. (His real-world wife calls him something else: "Hey, handsome.") And there may be a reason that, when he arrives at Maria's place of work--a club that may or may not exist with exactly this decor in the real world--he sees that the other dancers have posted lots of pictures of extremely muscular men. (Including a poster with a lipstick kiss on one pec, even--see the top picture.) No, not homoeroticism--outside this one location, James imagines pinup pictures of women. When he steps into a women's space, either the real club confronts him with what those women find desirable, or his psyche suggests it to him, perhaps as an insecurity.

I think it's a little bit of both--Heaven's Night may well be real (we see it in the montage of the town in the "Leave" ending), and it may look exactly like that backstage. But the game has put those beefcake pictures there for you to make James look at, and I think it's for a reason: to show you (him) that women have desires of their own, even while James sees their legs everywhere--and also, perhaps, that James secretly wishes he was bigger and tougher and stronger. And I think so especially because there's a moment maybe an hour earlier when Pyramid Head is leaving your first big boss fight, and he gets a hero shot in the doorway...

... and the look on James' face is certainly not the one I had on my face after getting him killed eleven times over a twenty-minute-long panic attack. I was not looking on with a shy sort of awe, for sure.

Pyramid Head's designer Masahiro Ito has said that Pyramid Head is James--his desire to punish himself for what he's done. On YouTube, Max Derrat specifically calls him James' id in a Jungian context, perhaps also his shadow side. In keeping with that, I personally don't think Pyramid Head is meant to be a villain; there's an interpretation that he's trying to help James remember what he's done and come to terms with it. (It's just that he might kill James a few times along the way.) And I think the idea that Pyramid Head may look like the kind of "big man" James wishes he was--that James admires him--supports the idea that he's not just a simple bogeyman.

[meandmrpopularity]

-But you do smell especially like flowers today -I took a shower.

yay, first Jegulus fanart ever (and my first fanart in YEARS). This was supposed to be a Florist!Regulus and TattooArtist!James but I forgot to draw his tatoos so it's just florist regulus. ദ്ദി •⩊• )

I didn't realize how small the speech bubbles were but this took me A WEEK and there's more jegulus fanart waiting to be drawn so, zoom it.

Anyway, hi.

[lyenka645]

amok time

[misfitmiska]

Best friends who look out for each other by pulling rank on each other. <3

[patrick-stewart]

james flint + tags i've seen on my black sails gifsets