#that's how i knew i wouldn't like the movie. because that was in the trailer

[hippo-pot]

i watched Barbie because they made an ASL-interpreted version (with a Deaf interpreter, as they should) and i was like oh okay, even if i don't think i'll LOVE the movie, this should be a fun way to get some ASL receptive practice. unfortunately it was only fun for like 20 min. did not enjoy the movie

[ghoulfriends-and-tin-cans]

Howdy Partner - Part 1

I...yep. This fic finally broke out of the cage in my brain and found its way into the world. Careful. It bites.

If you'd like to be added to my taglist, please let me know!

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

~*~

Pre-War!Cooper Howard (Fallout Show) x fem!Reader

[A/N: This is just fluff with some suggestive language, because as sinfully hot as he is as a Ghoul, he looks like an absolute cinnamon roll as an actor.]

Warnings: Fluff, mild angst, mutual pining, idiots in love, they both think their feelings are unrequited, Cooper is already divorced, flirty friends to lovers, they both wanna kiss so bad, drinking but not heavy, mentions of alcohol, they're not tipsy but they have had a couple of glasses of champagne.

~*~

"Cut! That's a wrap for this week," the director called, and everyone on set began to disperse. Beginning to corral the various props so they could be stored until Monday, I breathed a sigh of relief that the week was over. Halfway through winding up one of the ropes, someone cleared their throat behind me.

"Pardon me, ma'am. Any chance an ole cowboy could int'rest you in a celebratory drink?" The faux western accent drew a smile across my lips before I could school my expression. When I turned, Cooper Howard stood in full costume with his cowboy hat held respectfully over his chest. Always such a gentleman.

"Surely there's some gorgeous starlet who you'd rather be drinking with, Mr. Howard," I teased as I laid the looped rope onto its hook. Clasping my hands behind my back, I blinked innocently up at the man who'd been my friend for years and had quickly carved a spot for himself in my heart.

"Now, why would I want to take another woman out on the town when the most gorgeous one in all of Hollywood is standin' right in front of me?" He murmured, and despite the pang it sent through my heart, I gave a sly smile as I grasped his arm.

"One of these days, Coop, you'll regret being so flirty with me," I said as he plunked his hat on top of my head instead of his own. I couldn't imagine it looked as good on me as it did on him.

"Oh? And why's that?"

"Because, one of these days, the woman destined to be your next wife might overhear you, think you're taken, and give up before she's even met you." We walked toward his trailer, dodging busy workers as we talked. "Or worse...I might actually think you mean those sweet little things you say to me."

Keeping my head forward as we walked, I caught him looking at me out of the corner of my eye, his expression inscrutable.

"Wouldn't that just be a shame," he muttered, but his tone contradicted his statement entirely. A large grin stretched Cooper's lips as we stepped inside his trailer. I knew the drill by now. We left the door open, and I took a seat as he ducked behind a privacy screen at the other end. His accent fell away as he changed out of his costume. "That hat's yours now, by the way."

For a moment, all I could hear was the gentle sound of cloth as I tried to force my tongue to work.

"What?"

"They had about ten of those hats for this movie, and I snagged a couple. One for me, and one for you. That one's yours," he called, and butterflies swarmed in my stomach. "Assuming you want an old actor's hand-me-down, of course. You could always just leave it in my trailer today when we go for drinks and the costume people will find it. I just remember you saying you liked the way the one from this particular movie looked, so I figured..."

He trailed off as he walked out from behind the privacy screen in a white button-down shirt and some dark brown slacks. My breath hitched in my throat, but I shook my head quietly.

"No, I do love it. I'm not leaving it here," I said as I got to my feet. "Thank you, Cooper."

Pink dusted his cheeks, and I couldn't help but wonder how I got this lucky. He didn't feel the same as I did, but it was enough that he considered me one of his close friends. Or, at least, that's what I told myself on those lonely evenings when I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in his arms.

I'd been lost in thought for a moment, snapping back to reality when he waved a hand in front of my eyes.

"You in there?" He asked, a mix of amusement and concern coloring his features as I blinked up at him. "You looked like you were a thousand miles away."

"Only about fifteen," I muttered, and before he could ask what I meant, I plastered what I hoped was an enthusiastic smile on my lips. "Well, what are we waiting for? You wanted a celebratory drink, so let's go get it, shall we?"

Cooper had known me for too long to be fooled by that. Like always, I could see his jaw clench for a second as he tucked the information away in the back of his mind for later, then smiled back at me.

"Lead on, ma'am." His faux western accent was back, and he gave me a little wink as I slipped past him out of his trailer.

--

I'd expected to find myself in a bar with him, but Coop had different plans. He'd driven me to his place - a much smaller house than the one he'd previously shared with his daughter and his ex-wife. He'd downsized after the divorce, choosing a more rustic place that was closer to nature than his cushy almost-mansion had been. Modern conveniences were still present, but he was no longer surrounded by the stifling side of city life.

Kicking our shoes off and wandering out onto the upstairs balcony, we raised our champagne flutes and toasted the success of the new movie. I tried not to watch the bob of his Adam's apple too closely as he swallowed.

Looking out at the dark expanse of the night and the bright lights of the city several hours later, we'd barely finished more than a couple of glasses each. It was so incredibly easy with him. We'd talked the whole evening away, focusing on everything and nothing, paying no mind to the fact that the world kept spinning without us.

Eventually, a cold breeze whirled through the air, and we retreated inside. Cooper grabbed an oversized blanket and we cuddled up together in his living room in front of the fireplace. Setting the hat he'd given me on the coffee table, he wrapped his arms around me and let me rest my head on his chest.

This wasn't the first time we'd curled up like this, but it felt more weighted this time. His chin touched the top of my head just as I noted how fast his heart was beating.

Adrenaline. That's all it was. We'd both been startled by how quickly the temperature had dropped. There was no way it could be anything else.

"It looks better on you," he murmured against the top of my head, and my own heart thudded faster in my chest. "The hat, I mean."

A huff of laughter escaped me.

"Somehow, I think your fans might disagree, Mr. Howard. Hell, even I disagree," I admitted as I toyed with one of the buttons on his shirt.

"That's too bad. All of you are wrong. You look so damn good in it," Cooper said as one of his hands skimmed up my back. He sounded more serious than any of his other silly little flirtatious statements ever had - a feat I hadn't thought possible. I could never tell if he was joking when we were alone like this.

"Careful, now. I might end up thinking you're serious–"

"I am," he blurted as his grip around me tightened by a fraction. "I'm serious."

When I lifted my head to look up at him, Cooper was already looking at me; his gaze was soft and vulnerable as he lifted a hand. The backs of his knuckles brushed down the side of my face so gently that the breath was stolen from my lungs.

"Cooper..." I tried to tell him what I was feeling - tried to force all of the words I'd been holding back to the tip of my tongue - but they got stuck somewhere in my throat.

"It's okay," he breathed, his voice was low and rough as he spoke. "You don't have to say anything. I know this probably isn't... I'm divorced, older, and I have a kid. I'm not under any delusions about how undesirable my situation is, but I just wanted to say it once...before I lost my nerve."

I must've fallen asleep. I was dreaming, I had to be.

"I don't expect you to feel the same. You're so beautiful, so kind...you must have men beating down your door for a chance to be with you, and you're stuck here drinking with a washed up old man," he murmured, guilt winding around every word. "When I drive you home in the morning...if it would make you more comfortable, we can forget I ever said anything...blame it on the champagne."

Alarm rocketed through me. I didn't want that. I didn't want to forget. I didn't want to blame it on the alcohol.

Dream or not, I just wanted Cooper.

Leaning upward, I took a chance and pressed my lips against his. They'd always looked soft. I never thought I'd get the chance to find out what they felt like on anything but the back of my hand.

When he kissed me back, I'd never been so glad to be wrong.

Giving in to my desires, I braced one hand on his chest and buried the other in his soft, dark hair. He grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me closer as we drowned in each other.

When we finally broke apart, Cooper nuzzled my nose drawing a breathless, joyful giggle from some dazed part of my mind.

"Stay with me tonight," he whispered, and I nodded my head.

"I did assume I would be when you stated that you'd be driving me home in the morning," I teased, and he gave me a gorgeous smile, his eyes twinkling in the low light.

"Beautiful smart-ass. I meant...stay in my room with me. Not the guest room," he murmured even as his gaze dropped to my lips again. "I promise I'll be good - keep my hands to myself."

"You don't have to." The words whispered against his lips prompted a hungry hum from his throat, but he shook his head.

"I want to wine and dine you first. You deserve that...deserve to be treated like a princess," he said, "that way, when the time comes, and I finally have you all to myself, you'll know how much you mean to me."

A desperate whimper escaped me, and he smirked like the cat that got the canary.

"Now, can you be a good, patient girl for me tonight, sweetheart?"

I agreed, muttering under my breath that he was a damn tease, but my protests were silenced by the look Cooper gave me as he led me to his bedroom. Longing looked good on him.

~*~

Taglist:

@live-logs-and-proper

[undreaming-fanfiction]

Written for @steddieangstyaugust day 13: "Please, stay." I'm slowly continuing.

It was 1986, the world was ending, monsters were real, and Eddie Munson decided he'd stop running.

An improvement, right? Good for him.

Well, no. Not really. Because the not running thing was supposed to be one time only, the last hurrah before disappearing into stomachs of otherworldly bats. And that hadn't worked.

So Eddie Munson lived and had to come to terms with the uncomfortable truth that to truly change, he had to be consistent. One time was good, but his life hadn't ended, and that meant to keep working on himself.

But Eddie was tired, he was hurt, and worst of all, he was weak. He couldn't do the camraderie thing the kids and Harrington's group had going on. Good for them, he thought. They found safety in numbers. But Eddie, even though he had friends, had been taught early in his life that relying on other people was just asking for pain.

His plan was simple. Finish high school by any means necessary, pack whatever little he had, and leave for greener pastures. No attachments, not drawbacks. Wayne supported his decision, seeing how he was treated, and others didn't know he wanted to start elsewhere yet. But then came the massive fucking hiccup that threw his plan into a dumpster and then set it on fire.

Because see, Steve Harrrington turned out to be a good guy. He made Eddie laugh even when the rest of the world was dark, he protected Eddie against anyone and everyone...and he cared for Eddie. Which, okay, maybe Dustin did too, and Wayne was a miracle who didn't deserve to have his life ruined by Eddie's presence, but Harrington had no obligation, no shared hobby, he just appeared in Eddie's doorway one day and said "you look like you could use a friend." And when Eddie tried to keep his plan in motion, pushing Steve away, he looked so sad, Eddie couldn't keep it up.

It was always Steve asking him.

"Please, stay," as they fought and Eddie was about to slam the door shut and drive to Wayne's.

"Please, stay," as he got off another scathing call with his parents.

"Please, stay," as Eddie accidentally blurted out his secret, and he wondered if Steve would hate him now.

"Please, stay," as Steve interrupted Eddie's hookup with a rented movie, Eddie's favorite candies and a confession on his tongue.

Eddie didn't stop being a runner just because he said so. It was because Steve believed in him. Because he loved him. But some days it wasn't enough.

They fought again about staying in Hawkins, and Eddie had enough. He was targeted again, Wayne's trailer too, and Steve wasn't able or willing to leave the worst town in America with him. He felt trapped, needed to run, and Steve wouldn't, not yet.

And Eddie told him. He said that he only stayed because of Steve, but that if he wasn't insistent on ruining both of their lives by putting down roots in the very place that mingled with actual hell, he'd have been out of there months ago.

Steve went silent. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture that told Eddie how much he'd fucked up.

It would be okay. Steve would get over it. He'd ask Eddie to stay for a little longer and Eddie would say yes.

But that didn't happen.

Instead, Steve wiped his eyes, and said: "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was being so selfish. It's okay, you can go."

Eddie never knew freedom could taste so bitter.

[silent-stories]

𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋

Pairing: Eddie x GN!Reader

Summary: Eddie is more cuddly than usual.

Warnings: fluff

That day Eddie was in the mood for hugs. You understood it when, after school, you entered his trailer and the first thing he did was came up to you and wrap you in his arms, holding you close to his body.

"Hey" You said, your voice muffled against his chest, "are you okay?"

It wouldn't have been the first time he'd behaved like this because something bad had happened at school, like an insult he received that affected him more than usual or a not really funny prank.

Instead, when he answered you, his voice was calm.

"Yeah," he said resting his chin on your head and holding you tightly but without hurting you "but now you're here it's better."

Honestly, you never understood how people could think Eddie was scary, you didn't even think that before you met him and realized he could never hurt a fly.

His hugs were one of the most comforting things in the world.

You wrapped your arms around him and you just stood there in the kitchen of the trailer for a few moments in silence, just enjoying each other's closeness. Then he left a kiss in your hair and one on your lips before taking your hand in his and heading to the kitchen.

You ate while you told him the plot of the last book you read and he told you the ideas he had for the next D&D campaign.

"I swear it's one of the best books I've ever read."

"You say that every time." He laughed before stuffing his mouth with food.

"This time it's true. You should read it."

"You say that all the time too." He replied starting to clear the table and you rolled your eyes before carrying the glasses to the kitchen sink.

And before you could even have time to suggest a movie to see, Eddie had dragged you into his bedroom and you found yourself lying on his bed as he settled himself on top of you.

When he found the right position to hold you close to him without crushing you under his weight, he buried his face in the crook of your neck and never moved.

"Eds," you said softly bringing your hand to his hair "are you sure everything's okay? I swear to god if Jason did-"

"I'm fine, really," he interrupted you, his lips tickling your neck as he spoke "it's just that I haven't seen you much lately. Just missed you."

"Oh. Okay" a smile crept onto your face even though he couldn't see it "I get it."

He was right, it had been several days since you had visited him after school but you hadn't thought he might have such a reaction.

You played with his curls a bit and when your nails started gently scratching his scalp you heard him humming with pleasure.

How could people think he was scary or mean? Or that he could be the leader of a satanic cult? He was basically a puppy.

You brought your other hand to his back covered in a simple thin black t-shirt and slowly rubbed his shoulders, feeling his muscles melt under your touch, finally relaxing.

"Feels good." He murmured as your hand trailed down his spine and he planted a few kisses on your neck and behind your ear. Not in a particularly sexual way, but it was sweet and intimate.

Then you noticed that his breathing shifted and his back was rising and falling more evenly and you knew he had fallen asleep.

From his face still buried in your neck came a soft snore that you found adorable, you just hoped he wasn't going to drool all over you.

Well, for sure Eddie wasn't scary. At all.

[sailing-through-hawkins]

not a specific prompt im just a whore for kas!eddie being utterly obsessed w Regular Guy steve harrington & i think it'd be funny if they tried to just have a normal hangout w the party & eddie absolutely cannot be normal & just like gargoyles around or something

sorry about the wait, writer's block hit me pretty hard again but i did it!!! i hope it's to your tastes and that you have a very happy birthday!!!

So here's the thing.

Eddie could have been a vegetarian.

It was a whole thing when he was like thirteen years old and had just watched a very, very terrible movie that involved a lot of gore and too many metaphors about chickens. It fucked him up so bad that he refused any of Wayne's meat-infested meals, from pies to hot dogs to fucking sandwiches.

He did end up caving after one too many weeks of hiding in his room when the smell of delicious, juicy steak (it wasn't really a steak but fuck if he knew the difference) wafted around the trailer. He cried the entire time while he ate but Wayne pat him on the head and said he was still proud of him for making it that far.

Anyway, the point is Eddie could have sworn to look at nothing but vegetables and grass his whole life.

He's never been so glad that he didn't.

Not when Steve, the absolute fucking dork that he is, is eating his burger in the messiest way possible just to prove to Robin that he could do worse.

 Eddie can't tear his eyes away.

The way the dark, twilight blue of that Henley somehow makes his skin look that much warmer, the way his smile is riddled with sauce and lettuce, the way his eyes squeeze shut when -

"You can't eat Steve."

Eddie blinks, and turns his head to find Dustin with his arms crossed, his face squished into a grim expression.

Eddie tilts his head.

"I'm serious, you promised you wouldn't eat anybody -"

"I don't want to eat Steve," Eddie rasps out, his tail flicking against the wall. It's cold, the surfaces of everything in this house is too cold. He's almost desperate enough to burrow his way into the couch, just so he can soak up the warmth of Steve and Robin, even if their eating habits are disgusting.

Dustin glances at Steve, who's already got a tissue and is jamming into Robin's cheek with a laugh, and frowns at Eddie. "You're sure? Because you've been staring at him like, all day."

Sighing, Eddie resettles himself on the island counter so he's sitting cross-legged and continues to watch Steve. "I know."

There's a pause.

"That's it?" Dustin says incredulously. "That's all you have to say?"

"Have you ever seen someone so intrinsically against everything you've ever believed in that's somehow also the exact poster child for what you should aim to achieve?"

He hears Dustin blink. "What -"

"He's just so -" Eddie flails a hand, his tail mirroring the motion. "Benign! And yet, he possess the strength, the fearlessness of a man on the battlefield -"

"Why are you using your DM voice -"

"And yet again, he will sit there, with a perfect swoop to his hair, an innocence to his eyes and a delicate sweetness to his tongue and he will ask that you believe him to be harmless."

Another pause.

"Okay, that was a little weird -"

"And you will!" Eddie leaps onto his feet, standing above Dustin with power raging through his veins as the head rush of a monologue captures him. "You will believe that fine, gracious man to be harmless! As long as you don't - look - back."

"Eddie, get down from the counter."

With a laugh, Eddie spins and his tail wiggles a hello to Steve, who looks up at him with his exasperated, innocent eyes. "My liege," Eddie says, hopping down only to slink into Steve's space and wrap his tail around his bicep. "How goes the competition?"

"Robin won -"

"As usual!" said-bird calls out from the living room.

"Yeah, as usual," Steve repeats with a lovingly snarky tone. Eddie's tail tightens. "What have I said about standing on tables, Eddie?"

"Oh but sire," Eddie murmurs as he circles Steve, ducking down just to pout up at him. Yeah, he knows the power of his big brown eyes, he knows how to use 'em. "I was simply delivering an informative, nay, crucial declaration of your -"

"Eddie."

He switches tactics. "I won't do it again?"

"You fucking better not," Steve mock-glares down at him and oh, that's a look to think about later. Hooking a finger under Eddie's tail, where it's curled around his skin, Steve gently pulls it off and walks to the sink, the warmth of his finger sending shivers down Eddie's neck.

There is a moment of silence.

"You can't fuck Steve either, by the way, it'd be like - weird. For a lot of reasons. Not because you're guys -"

"For fuck's sake, Henderson -"

[balioc]

Thoughts on the Barbie Movie

Hoo boy. Here we go.

This is long. Spoilers abound.

I

The movie is not, in any normal sense, a Barbie movie (like this or this or this or whatever). It is not a story of Barbie doing the kinds of things that Barbie does in stories. It is an endlessly postmodern and self-referential movie about Barbie, which is to say, about the Barbie franchise and its role in culture. Which is, at least plausibly, an interesting thing for a movie to be.

You probably knew all that already. But it does give us a baseline of "this movie kind of had to be political and discourse-y, one way or another." Or even, to be more specific: "to some large extent this movie had to be about feminism, explicitly, if it was going to exist at all." How could you talk meaningfully about Barbie's role in culture without touching on that stuff?

II

The evaluative TLDR:

Barbie is very ambitious, and in many places very fun. It is also deeply confused, and fragmented, about what it's trying to say and do. Often it raises genuinely interested problems/scenarios and then totally fails to address them, or else addresses them in ways that are incoherent. The text knows that it's doing this, and on several occasions kind of apologizes for it; a couple of times it more or less looks into the camera and says "sorry, we're not going to deal with this properly;" but, well, that's not a substitute for dealing with things properly.

There is also a streak of genuine political nastiness running through the film, in a place where the story really cannot afford it. It...doesn't match up, tonally or thematically, with some of the surrounding material. I have no background at all in cinematic stratigraphy, but I would be fascinated to learn about Barbie's editorial history, because I have the vague sense that a more-cogent (and more-interesting) story got hacked apart and then Frankensteined together into something much cheaper and worse.

III

The opening sequence of the movie is wild. You've seen most of it -- or you can, if you haven't, and you want to -- because it is the film's first teaser trailer. Girls are playing listlessly with baby dolls; a giant Barbie appears like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey; and then the girls enter a frenzy of destruction, bashing their baby dolls' heads against the ground.

I don't know whether I would have found it as disturbing as I did, if I didn't actually have a baby of my own. But speaking from the standpoint of a parent...yeah, wow, it's more viscerally horrific than most actual horror I've seen recently. The narration says some stuff about Barbie providing a new and more rewarding set of imagination games to play, but the visuals by themselves tell a message loud and clear, which is: Barbie will turn your daughters into infanticidal maenads. It wouldn't need any editing at all to be part of a shock-you-silly Reefer-Madness-y moral panic film.

Which is really good! And really interesting! It starts us off on an undeniable thematic note: there is something primal and powerful and very dangerous about Barbie.

IV

The very best part of the movie is probably the part that comes right after the opening, when we explore the movie's depiction of "Barbieland" by going through Barbie's Typical Day, before we get into any of the notional plot or metaphysics. It's joyful and charming in a consistent way. The gags are (mostly) great. The movie is in love with its base premise, and that love is palpable.

This sequence makes one thing very clear:

Barbie treats Ken like absolute dogshit. She is a bad girlfriend.

And it's taken seriously. I mean, it's played for laughs, almost everything in this movie is played for laughs, but...it's not mean-spirited, not here. It's not, like, "ha ha, Ken, what a contemptible loser." He's Pierrot, asking for very basic forms of affection and attention and respect, and getting the door slammed in his face over and over. It's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

That colors everything that comes later.

The movie doesn't forget this, or fail to acknowledge it. At the end, after everything, Barbie does apologize to Ken for her treatment of him. It's a halfhearted and supremely unsatisfying kind of apology, especially in context, but...it's there, in so many words! I'm not making it up! This thematic foundation was laid down, not-very-subtly, right at the beginning!

V

This movie, which is at least trying to be ambitious, is juggling a million themes. Many of them are dumb at their core, and have no real promise; many of them lack any kind of narrative synergy with the others. But there are at least two which, I believe, (a) are genuinely worthwhile individually and (b) work well together in a story.

One is: What does it mean to be a symbol rather than a person? To exist, not for your own sake, but for the sake of influencing the dreams and culture of entities that you don't know and can't really understand?

The other is: What is the proper ordering of the relationship between Barbie and Ken?

I've seen a number of Takes in which people say, essentially: Couldn't this have ended with the Barbies and the Kens just being decent to each other and treating each other like humans? Couldn't there have been equality and mutual respect, instead of the weird uncomfortable girlboss-supremacist stuff that we got? And I sympathize with that impulse tremendously, but the honest answer has to be: No. We cannot have simple equality and esteem between Barbie and Ken, not in a movie like this. That would be a lie. Because this is a movie about Barbie-as-symbol, and when you're looking at Barbie through that lens, it is true and unavoidable that Ken is an appendage and an afterthought. You can have toys for boys; you can have dolls for boys (even if you call them "action figures" or whatever); for that matter, you can have dolls of boys for girls, so that girls can tell stories centering on male characters; but that's not what Ken is, and never has been. There are no Ken stories, and no one particularly wants them. Ken exists to be Barbie's boyfriend.

(One of the most painful moments of the movie comes during the resolution wrapup. Ken wails to Barbie that he has no identity outside her. She says, basically, "you have to find one, because I'm leaving you." And he...acts like he's had an epiphany, and does a little silly celebration. But his "insight" is just literally "I'm Ken," there's absolutely nothing there, and of course it's the most hollow and awful thing in the world because he really does have no identity outside her.)

VI

The movie's metaphysics are not even slightly consistent. The nature of Barbieland, and the ways that it affects and is affected by the real world, are completely different in every scene. In large part because the film can't ever pass up a gag, whether or not it's funny, no matter how much damage it does to the narrative and the theming overall.

The worst part is that the movie is not capable of saying anything remotely coherent about the real world, because its version of the "real world" is as weird and fake as its Barbieland. Will Ferrell's CEO of Mattel character is more of an absurd cartoon than any of the Barbies or Kens. Mattel HQ is some kind of surreal labyrinth tower out of The Matrix. A random receptionist can handle herself like James Bond in a car chase, for reasons that are [handwaved in a gag].

VII

So. Yes. There is the sequence in the third act where Ken takes over Barbieland with the power of patriarchy. This is pretty much as bad as it can be. And I say this as someone who thinks that the movie probably did actually need a plot thread doing roughly that kind of thing.

Almost as bad as it can be. The wannabe-patriarch Kens are gleefully goofy in a way that you can't help but love, or at least, I couldn't help but love it. Which has something to do with the writing and something to do with the charisma of all the Ken actors. The main Ken, Ryan Gosling's Ken, really seems to believe that being a successful patriarch has a lot to do with riding majestic horses and wearing a giant fur coat without a shirt, and when he takes over Barbie's Dream House he names it Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House -- that kind of thing.

But. Apart from that, it's real unfortunate. The justification for Ken's ability to conquer Barbieland with patriarchy, instantly and effortlessly, is -- in almost so many words -- they had no defenses against it, it was like the American Indians encountering smallpox. I...don't think I need to spell out the problems with that.

Worse yet, the whole sequence is soaked in, uh, let's call it "2014-era upper-middle-class social-status-oriented feminism." The real bad behavior on the part of the Kens, the stuff they do when they're not being adorably weird, is: mansplaining their extensive opinions about cars and movies, and wanting to show off how helpful and knowledgeable they are to "damsels" who are having trouble using machines or computers. Apparently that's the real problem at hand, the causus belli of the gender wars. The way that you deprogram a patriarchy-brainwashed Barbie is by...ranting to her about the stereotypical social irritations of upper-middle-class women (e.g. "you have to keep yourself thin but not act like you care about being thin," "you have to be a confident leader but also be nurturing and supportive," etc.) [note that the Barbies of Barbieland have never encountered these irritations, at least not at the hands of men]. And the girlboss victory montage consists of having the Barbies put on deceptive manipulative bimbo acts to stroke the Kens' egos, which sure is one way to depict girlboss feminist victory.

But the most unforgivable thing of all is the depiction of the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies. They're lad-magazine caricatures, endlessly offering their Kens "brewski beers," dressing up as French maids, gazing on in cow-eyed adoration as their Kens mansplain stuff to them.

Barbie does, in fact, have a problematic history with the patriarchy. And it does not look like that.

VIII

@brazenautomaton:

Barbie isn’t someone who had to fight through the patriarchy to be seen as good enough to be an astronaut even though she’s a woman. Barbie’s a fucking astronaut because she’s fucking Barbie of course she’s good enough to be an astronaut.

That is...one aspect of the deep Barbie lore. It is the Barbie-nature that Mattel was trying to push, as far back as my own childhood; it's certainly the Barbie-nature that Mattel is trying to push in this movie. But there is another side to Barbie, even older and even more fundamental than Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie, and you can't make a postmodern movie-about-Barbie without addressing it.

This is Barbie the fashion doll. The Barbie who is an icon of ultra-consumerist teenage girlhood, whose life is defined by her fancy clothes and her fancy car. The Barbie whose most salient traits are her hourglass figure and her long blonde hair and her feet that are always posed to fit into high heels. The Barbie of "math class is tough!" The Barbie who is kinda vapid and shallow and, yes, boy-crazy.

How can you tell a story about Barbie wrestling with the culture of patriarchy, and not talk about that? How can you depict Barbie falling victim to the patriarchy and have it look nothing like that?

...the movie does bring up the specter of Vapid Consumerist Barbie, briefly. When Margot Robbie's Barbie first comes to the real world and meets with the sullen teenage daughter character, she has a litany of That Thing thrown in her face, and it makes her sad. But nothing is ever done with it, and it goes nowhere.

IX

And it could all have fit together so well. That's the hell of it.

You can imagine the version of the story in which Ken conquers Barbieland with patriarchy, because the Barbies are actually vulnerable to patriarchal narratives, because Vapid Consumerist Barbie is the chthonic serpent that gnaws at the foundations of Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie civilization. He successfully makes them all forget that they're senators and astronauts and veterinarians, and turns them into airheaded teenage fashionistas who think that math class is tough.

And this avails him, and the other Kens, nothing. Even within the "patriarchal" version of Barbieland, Ken is still an afterthought and an appendage. He still gets treated like dogshit, just in a different idiom.

Because the thing that has always been true of Barbie, though every age and every phase of her mythos, is: she is the main character of her own story.

This is what the movie was telling us all the way back in the horrific 2001-pastiche prologue, right? Even when Barbie was just a swimsuit model, the point was that she let girls tell stories about themselves (or idealized/aspirational versions of themselves), not about boys or babies. That is a truer, and more powerful, feminist message about the meaning of Barbie than any message the movie actually bothers conveying.

The gag scene practically writes itself: the brainwashed Barbies are sitting around in a giggly slumber-party huddle talking about how dreamy Ken is, and actual Ken cannot get a word in edgewise, he can't even get them to notice he's there, because even Vapid Consumerist Barbie is fundamentally centered in her own life. Her narrative is not about a boy, it's about the experience of being a girl (mostly engaging with other girls) who likes thinking and talking about boys. Which is very much beside the point, if you started out with the complaint that your girlfriend never paid any attention to you.

Patriarchy hurts men too, indeed.

X

The movie ends, as I've intimated, in a disappointing squidge of thematic confusion. Barbie announces that she never really loved Ken, and leaves him, because...well, because these days the smart-set target audience is allergic to romantic narratives that Produce the Couple, as far as I can tell. Then she goes to the real world and becomes a real girl, a move that means nothing and is nonsensical even by the standards of the Barbie metaphysics, because the storytellers don't know how to end her arc and Becoming a Real Girl is the sort of thing that feels like a meaningful conclusion.

The Kens...sigh...the Kens ask for equal rights in Barbieland, more or less, and get told, "nah, but we'll throw you some bones." And they're happy with this, more or less, because they're dumb and don't really care. The narrator says, approximately, "maybe someday they'll make as much progress as women have in the real world." Haw haw.

It's probably too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something substantive about responsibility and kindness in relationships. It's almost certainly too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something about the nature of love symbols and love narratives. But all the pieces really were there, laid out very conspicuously. The movie could have wrapped up with: Ken doesn't need to be more important than Barbie, he doesn't even need to be as important as Barbie, he just needs to be treated with human decency. And if little girls are going to play with Barbies, and fantasize about having cute guys hanging all over them -- maybe they should have functional models of romance and human connection in which to root their fantasies, and not terrible ones.

[pleasantlycrazyworld]

Losing your pet.

Triggers: pet loss; talks of depression.

Author note: I had to put my cat to sleep at the beginning of the month, he was my baby so things have been really rough lately. I'm hoping writing this will help with grieving and it may be posted it may not be. If it is I hope it helps anyone who is also experiencing something like this.

Eddie:

You call him when you were freaking out about what to do. You were awoken by your animal crying out and knew they needed a vet but it's so early in the morning you don't know where to go.

When he got the call he was instantly worried for you. He knew how much having your animal helped you cope with your depression and he didn't know how losing them would make you react.

He rushed over and took you two to the 24 hour vet.

He was there to hold you as you cry, he talked to the vet for you, he called the place to make arrangements for the remains

He'd offer to have you either stay at the trailer or for him to stay at your house. He thought being in a quiet house would make you feel worse and since it happened in your room he knew you wouldn't be able to sleep in your actual bed for a while.

The two of you slept on your couch for a week after everything happened.

He would set even more reminders to help remind the both of you that you need to take your medicine

I think he would have you come and sit in on a DnD session to give you entertainment and take your mind off of things, he'd feel pretty prideful when it works

He wouldn't rush you to do anything. There is still a box of litter, still a collar, still toys on the floor oh thats fine! We can get rid of it whenever you are ready to. You want to get a new pet great! Let's get into the van! You don't even want to be around animals that's fine too!

He will map out the store trips to make sure you do not have to even walk by the pet supply aisle if you can't handle it

Steve:

He paid for everything. He knows money doesn't fix much but he didn't want you to be worried about paying for anything.

He never had a pet but he knew how close you were with your pet and he knew you were going to take it hard.

He would make sure you ate and took your medicines, he isn't the best cook but he can do basics so it was about a week of mac and cheese before you started cooking again.

He had you stay at his house, he would worry about you being alone so he made a plea deal and convinced you to stay with him. It's already pretty big and there is more than enough room for the both of you

He would try and get you a new pet better soon after everything happened

I think he would try and get you to talk about your feelings, either by making you therapy appointments or getting you stuff to journal he doesn't want you to keep things bottled up

He tends to treat it as any other heartbreak. There will be days where you two just eat junk food and watch sad movies and when that happens he doesn't mind holding you as the both of you cry into your bowls.

Billy:

Alot of people would probably say Billy wouldn't be that helpful.

I think he would struggle with knowing what to do, he could tell you were struggling but he freezes when he doesn't know what to do.

He would make some sort of comment that made you start crying and that is when he realized how serious this situation was. "It was just a cat/dog/bird/lizard/etc. get over it." Seeing you break down in front of him was his wake up call.

He would bring take out everytime he came over, he'd act like it wasn't a big deal but he knew how much it meant to you.

I think if you were to journal it would be because of Max and if/when Billy tried to make fun of the new habit you both would give him a look that made it clear to back off and he took the warning loud and clear.

I think the next time he sees a stray he would pull over and try and take it home for you. He either comes home with the animal successfully or he comes home covered in scratches and is refusing to speak about what happened.

[the-m0st-forg3ttable-g1rl]

❝𝐚 𝐋𝐚𝐦𝐛 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫❞

𝐁𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘'𝐀𝐋𝐋!! 𝐈 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐬𝐮𝟏𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞, 𝐬𝟑𝐥𝐟 𝐡@rm, 𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝟑𝐫𝐝𝟎𝐬𝐞. 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬!! 𝐈 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 (𝟑+ 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬)

the lamb siblings sat outside their musty trailer, they could smell the weed from the surrounding houses... if you could even call them that. Penny was convinced the two had a constant second hand high from how much their little "safe haven" smoked that shit.

This was their normal ever since they were small, sitting with each other while their parents couldn't care less, penny, being the elder of the two felt the responsibility to protect her brother, Ezra, from the cult they lived in, however he was a clever kid and eventually caught on in his preteen years.

"do you think we'll get out of here, ez?" penny asked gently, looking over at her little brother, dressed in his usual cape, he insisted he looked cool.

"no. no we won't, no one has" Ezra put simply, that was one thing him and penny never saw eye to eye on; sugar coating things. he always said it how he saw it.

"you.. don't think we even have a chance?" her question was met with the boy simply shaking his head.

She sighed deeply, feeling herself starting to tear up, god she hated this place, she hated her parents, more importantly? she hated herself. Times like this she thought back to her countless nights alone in her room, bloody toilet paper, a razor in her hand and her cheeks tear stained as she felt the sting in her thighs. that's how she kept herself grounded; pain. The only thing keeping her alive was her brother, she cannot leave him alone in this hellhole, he's her whole life, he's the only one who loves her.

Her flashback was interrupted as their parents called the pair inside, the two exchanged worried looks before heading into their trailer, this thing didn't even deserve to be called a home. Once inside they we're met with a harsh grab on their wrists and dragged to the kitchen, Penny's worst fear had become reality, and her brother would have to bear witness.

"mind explaining this? hm?" their mother questioned, her glare shifting between the two.

a razor, a bloody fucking razor sat on the counter, penny felt sick, she wanted to run away and die. actually die, no coming back like in movies, no happy ending; she deserved death.

Ezra stared in shock, he'd never seen it before, he was too young to worry about facial hair to shave, he was too afraid to even touch dangerous objects, so he shook his head

"ive never seen that, mom, and- and I doubt penny has! she.. she wouldn't, right penns?" penny remained quiet "penns..? why is it bloody?" he asked again shakily, connecting the dots. Their parents watched emotionless, penny finally spoke up

"how.. did you find that?"

"oh honey, please, we looked through your room once you developed a little limp and found your friend here. Tell your brother what you've been doing, or should i?"

"tell me what? penny why have you been limping? what does,.. that... have to do with it? you said no secrets between us!" her younger brother quickly became defensive, he knew the answer, he knew the answer to it all, he wished he didn't but... He wasn't dumb.

"Ezra, please, I'll explain it later-"

"no! I want- I want to know now! how are you so calm?!" tears began to form in both of the children's eyes.

Ezra was crying over his beloved sister hiding secrets, penny crying because her brother hated her now.

"ever... ever since we were young, I began to cope in this place with... that" she gestured to the object "the pain would distract me, would get my mind off of how doomed we were to die here, I'm not calm, i am beyond scared right now" penny explained, her voice flat, it was scary, she was never like this. this all but scared her brother more, he was the monotone one, it seemed they had switched places.

With that he walked silently to his room, their mother turned to penny, holding the razor out for her to take

"I see you'll be needing this again, now that the only person who would remotely like you is gone, all because you can't handle your emotions..."

penny took the blade, going up to her own room and breaking down as soon as the door was closed.

Her mother was right, about everything, grabbing the stash of first aid in her dresser she hitched up her skirt and began to "cope"... she couldn't even call it that, it wasn't coping, she was dying, she wanted too, now that Ezra was gone what was stopping her? she continued this cycle of thinking, of slashing and hacking at her skin, for what seemed like hours but was only 2 minutes. The girl sat there, staring at the mess she made, her skirt was blood stained, her thigh was sticky and her nostrils were intruded with the smell of sickly sweet metal. she wanted to vomit, she wanted to vomit until she couldn't any longer.

After her self pitying, penny finally stood up, limping to the bathroom in order to clean up, this was her nightly routine it seemed. Wrapping her leg in gauze, she heard a knock on the door;

"Penns...? I know it's you" her heart hurt. She couldn't turn her brother away, she opened the door to let him in.

Ezra nearly screamed at the sight, his sister was blood stained and sickly pale, he sat next to her on the ground, grabbing an alcohol pad to wipe her hands. A small gesture but he needed to be there for her

"I didn't want you to see me like this, I look pathetic" penny laughed, finishing bandaging her leg, letting her brother care for her

"I didn't want to see you like this either, at least I know you're alive" he reassured, throwing the wipes away and just sitting near her. the two sat like this for a while until penny spoke up

"when... I leave, will you be okay-"

"no. no I won't. which is why you can't leave, in any way." he knew what she meant by leaving. he wasn't dumb.

"right but... if I did?"

"I'd go with you, I don't exist without you"

penny just nodded, pushing herself up to exit the bathroom in silence

"I'm okay, ez, I'm going to bed, you should too" he agreed with her, hugging her tight as he headed to his room.

Once she knew he was asleep, she rushed to the kitchen, searching the pill cabinet for Ezra's Ritalin, with shaky hands she poured a handful, pouring a cup of water with her free hand.

She walked up to her room, waiting for the pills to kick in, she laid down in bed, feeling at peace for the first time in her life, she was finally leaving Elysium. her peace didn't last long as her body soon became clammy and her breathing was shallow; it was time, and she was okay despite the panic. her mind was racing; was this the right thing? should she call someone? what would ezra-

Ezra. oh god Ezra.

By the time her brother crossed her mind, she felt herself choking on her own blood, she found it beautiful in a way, ghostly pale in a pool of blood.

After a minute of agony... penny lamb was dead. She reached her goal of leaving Elysium.

Ezra awoke the next morning with a sense of dread, something wasn't right in the house. he rushed down to the kitchen, finding his parents but no sister

"where's penny? she's out by now"

"hell if I know, couldn't care less about that slut" his mother huffed, shooing him away like a horsefly, he simply turned and made his way to pennys room, figuring she must've overslept after the long night she had. It was unusual for her to sleep until 10am but he didn't put it past her, slowly he opened her door in case she was indecident.. she was, but not in the way he suspected.

This time he did scream at the sight of his sister, the only thing remotely recognizable about her was the twin French braids she always had, even they had dried blood in them, everything about his dear sister was bloody. his parents rushed to find their son kneeling in front of their daughters body, hysterically sobbing as they watched in shock

"no... no she couldn't have, she can't be serious, penny lamb, wake up!" their mother pleaded, shaking her slightly, her head simply lolled to the side as her mouth spilled with blood, dripping onto the floor, causing her family to back up.

Ezra stayed in her room for days, even after her body had been removed, the room smelled of her, of her perfume, blood, tears, memories... the room was her, it was all he had of her, he barely ate for weeks, just enough to barely live, just enough so his parents, as shitty as they were, would have one of their kids. He needed to stay alive for her, stay alive so she wouldn't have died in vain.

[lodeddiperactivate]

Part 2 How to survive a horror movie / OBX x Scream Crossover

Pairing: Barry x Reader

Word count: 637

Warnings: smut, drugs, alcoholism

Summary: You're the new kid in town, and simply trying to adapt to your new life in the Outer Banks when serial killer Ghostface starts their murder spree. Now, you can't really trust anyone, right?

Author’s note: This part's a bit short, decided to cut it before they got to the trailer because final part will be packed.

part 1

You walked all the way from your house to the country club, mainly because you just needed to clear your head with everything that had happened since that night. You weren't particularly close with the victims but you knew them from school and have talked to them on several occasions as well. On top of that, the entire town is crippled with fear from the news that there is a serial killer on the loose.

You were only a few minutes away from the country club when you noticed someone familiar walking towards you. Barry, who looked like he had just came back from the country club, was walking towards you counting the money he had in his hands. He didn't notice you and before you could even process what you were about to do, you called out to him.

"Hey Barry, hey!" He looked up at you and smiled.

"Well hello, Y/N, right?" You nodded as he made his way to you, putting the load of cash he had in his pocket.

"Headed to the country club right now, huh,"

"Uhmm yes, I guess I needed some kind of distraction from what's been happening and I've been at home the whole morning so I figured I'd go spent the rest of the day there," you ranted then paused. "I'm just really REALLY bored but also too scared to do anything that may attract the attention of a serial killer, ya know?" you feigned a small smile to which he replied with a light chuckle. There was something dark in the way he looked at you.

"Where are you headed to now?" you heard the desperation in your voice. You thought to yourself that this is not you, you're normally cool and indifferent but Barry's making you act like some highschooler.

"Ah just a couple of errands here and there," he replied. You smiled back at him, and waited. What were you waiting for? You wouldn't admit it out loud but despite Sarah's warnings, you were sort of hoping for an invitation from Barry to go some place else, maybe go with him to do whatever his errands were. But he didn't ask you.

"Well Y/N, it was nice seeing you but I gotta run," he smiled. He knew you were waiting for some kind of invitation but he also knew that the two of you being together is trouble, especially with your father who is one of the most powerful man in town next to Ward Cameron.

Your heart sank as you saw him walk away. He looked back at you after a few steps, and he thought you looked adorable standing there with a defeated look so he decided that maybe a couple of hours spent with you won't hurt his busy schedule.

You saw him walk away from you and stopped after a few steps. He looked back and smiled at you. You tried so hard to hide your smile when you saw him walk back towards you.

"Come on, I know some place a pretty girl like you can go and kill time."

You were so dumbfounded at how this man is so good with flirting that all you replied was, "You think I'm pretty?" To which he replied with a grin as he motioned you to follow him.

~

You two walked side by side for a while to where he had parked his motorcycle.

"This one's yours," he said as he handed you the one and only motorcycle helmet.

"Where's yours?"

"I only have that one," he said as he mounted the motorcycle and started the engine. "Hop on, princess."

"But all operators and passengers on motorcycles and mopeds must wear a motorcycle safety helmet of a type that complies with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 218."

He let out a heartily laugh at that very descriptive explanation before replying, "Then, I'd die happy knowing you were wearing my helmet," he said as he winked at you. "Now come on."

[canmargesimpson]

Doesn’t anyone else think about poor steve having to live in his house, where he is constantly reminded that he’s a failure. I mean, he graduated and instead of going to college like his parents wanted him to, he just got a mediocre job. I just can’t help but imagen poor Steve arriving home exhausted and his father yelling at him, telling him he has to move out and that he’s just a disappointment for the Harrington name. I imagen Steve keeping a straight face, but then going to his room and just shouting into his pillow, with anger, frustration, and pure rage. I imagine his parents giving him till the end of the year to get out of the house. And even after the starcout fire, his dad wouldn't have mercy on him. While his mother on the other hand, would every month an allowance to help himself to get back on his feet. She would still visit him every now and then, because he was her son after all. She would sometimes invite him for dinner sometimes, but only the times when his father wasn't in town. Steve would be so thankful for his mother, but he was never one to let her know, he was raised in a house where physical touch and emotional conversations were uncharted territory. So instead he would bring her flowers to every dinner and always tried to help out as much as he could.

 When christmas arrived, his mom would obviously invite him, with the grandparents and close family. His father was there but he didn’t even go to greet steve. At dinner, an aunt would ask about what he's doing and how his life has been. He told them about having to work at the Family Video store, and how he worked with his best friend, he told them about how he also helps Holly Wheeler with her homework sometimes, he talked about how, yes it wasen’t the best thing in the world, but he was still happy for his job,and how maybe he was considering singing up for community college in Indianápolis next year. His father, who had a little too much to drink, laughed at him and just teased Steve for his so-called ‘Jobs'. Rebeca, Steve's mom, tried to stop him, but he just kept going.

“Giving out movie tickets isn’t a job! Are you kidding me? And other than that, i bet you spend your time with that queer munson , huh? Apperently he comes oftenly to visit you, doesnt he?”

Steve freezed and he became a dear in headlights. He father kept on going anf going, and no one seemed to dare to stop him. That was until he said it. 

“Maybe you didn’t get into college because you’re such a f*****!”

Rebeca Harrington stood up and slammed on the table, with a loud “enough” and left everyone, dead silent. But the seconds of silences didn’t last long, as Richard stood up and left the scene. And soon followed steve. He got into is car and just drove.

He went to Eddie’s instead of going home.

Eddie was jewish, meaning he really didn’t do the whole “Christmas” thing.  So he knew eddie would be alone and knew that Wayne would work for those who wanted to spend time with family. Steve just went to his trailer and told him everything. Steve always felt comfortable around Eddie, even if he would not admit it to himself. But he just vented. About having to live alone for almost 2 years now, about having the constant fear of being alone, about his father abusing him all of those years before, and about how he couldn't stand looking at her broken mother, who was only trying to get this family back together. He even told Eddie about what his father said infront of everyone. That words he onces used to insults but now the roles were reversed. He told him that he never meant that friendship to go further on, but sometimes couldn't help it. Eddie was just too perfect for him.

Eddie didn’t know how to react. He holds the boy off his dreams in his arms, who is crying and shaking like a child. He just ran his hand through his back and arms, reassuring him that he was okay now and that nothing could hurt him. Even though Eddie was scared too, having Steve next with him made him feel better. So he did what his mom used to do when Eddie was a kid and had a bad night. He took him to his kitchen and got to cooking. This is the only thing Eddie knew how to cook. He opened the freezer and took out a little plastic box filled with frozen berries. He would place them on a little stove and he added sugar and a bit of water. He then mixed it till it was marmalade. Steve who was watching him smiled at his goofiness, and really made him feel better. Then Eddie took out a spoon, filled it with the marmalade and held it in front of Steve, who gladly opened his mouth for the spoon. He ate the whole thing and with an immediate smile he looked at Eddie, who just took a bite with his finger and tasted it.

“A spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine go down in the most delightful way” he said in a british accent like his mom used to do

“Mary poppins?”

“Yeah… it's the only thing I remember from my mom. We would… we would watch mary poppins together, it was her favorite. Every time I cried or even asked for it, she would make this for me. She said that there are only 3 things in the world to cure a broken smile. Sugar, something warm, and the person you most love”

After that, Eddie gave Steve a sleeping edible, gave him one of the many band t-shirts, and another spoon of the warm berry mix he loved so much. Steve went to his bed, and was fast asleep. Eddie instead, he stayed awake reading one of the many books he had. He was right next to Steve, who was snoring softly, which made him laugh. Sleeping Steve somehow made its way to Eddie, and placed his magnificent hair on his chest. Eddie blushed and started playing with it, while he read the stories of Alice in Wonderland.

For the next few weeks, Eddie always went to see Steve, to see how he’s doing and how he’s holding up. Though Steve completely ignored what happened on Christmas, Eddie couldn’t forget it. The sound of Steve's tears really broke his heart, and the fact he was so scared and lived alone, made eddie stay up all night. He had to do something about it. So, in the cold of January, Eddie took his van and drove to the other side of town to see Steve. Even if his van had no warmers, no chains on the wheels, and the roads were covered with snow, Eddie went to see Steve no matter what. Today tho he went up to his loft and opened the door to find Steve with an older woman sitting on the couch.

They all stared at each other, completely lost of what was going on, until Steve cleared his throat and presented it to Eddie, his mother. 

Oh… Eddie turned red. He didn’t actually remember steve saying anything bad about his mom, but he did remember about her and his dad being rude to steve, so eddie just went all out to defend steve… or something like that

“You- you bitch! How dare you let your husband shout at your own son! He is the best person I know, and he has a pure heart of gold! This man is nothing but a gift from god, and you just threw him out of his own house, even if he had no job or anything!?! SHAMEFUL! This man SAVED my Life! He even-”

“Eddie-”

“NO steve! She can’t just show up here, and drink your stupid tea and pretend everything is okay! ITs not okay. You show up at my house that Christmas and I had to hold you till you stopped crying because of what your parents did, and now you invite her in, give her tea… and a gift? Why does she have a gift? Oh…”

Steve stands up with pursed lips and an irritated face

“Eddie, my mom came here to apologize for the christmas accident, im handing her the gifts i didn’t have a chance to give to her”

Eddie looked at the elderly woman and then back at her son, and then back at her. 

“Oh shit… I’M SO SORRY!” he just went to the couch and sat neck to Rebeca, he holded her hand and apologized “I never meant to say you were a b-bitch, i just thought- and i got confused and i was so angry and i thought you- and i- Shit. im so sorry i never really meant anything that i said and-”

“Eddie” Steve smiled as he looked at his friends “Why don't you get a plate of cookies i have in the fridge”

Eddie nodded and ran to the kitchen. Steve placed his hands on his face, sighed, and sat down.

“He seems… energetic” she smiled

“Yeah, Eddie… he’s- he’s hyper and yeah, im sorry, i didn't know he was coming over,”

“It’s okay” she smiled as she stood up and dusted off her skirt “I'm gonna leave, it seems like you 2 boys, need to catch up” 

“Mom-” Steve followed her to the door and before she left she turned around quickly and looked at her son

“He seems like a great guy Steve, He really does care about you” she patted his cheek and left.

“I got the cookies!!” 

Steve turned around to look at Eddie with a bowl filled with cookies and one of them in his mouth like a puppy. Steve repeated his mothers words and just dashed to him, grabbed his face and took the cookie from his mouth as he pecked him. He ate the chocolate cookie, as Eddie's jaw was on the floor, dropping the cookie left in his mouth, and Steve kissed him once more.

[hannahxhoney]

we don't talk anymore - e. munson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

eddie munson x female!reader

summary: after years of not talking, you see eddie at a party and things get heated. i suck at writing these lol

warnings: kinda angsty, a little bit of asshole!eddie, cursing, use of y/n, and arguements

fic is kind of inspired by the song “we don’t talk anymore” by selena gomez and charlie puth

also this was written on mobile so sorry if the formatting is off! thank you for reading!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and Eddie have always been friends. Ever since you were kids, you and him were inseparable. Long days at the trailer park during the summer, being outside and playing make believe with him. Cold nights in the winter where you would make hot cocoa and watch Christmas movies on your family's beat up couch together. Everyday you spent with him, was always your favorite. Him being about two years older than you meant that all the other kids at school your age would leave you alone, since you were always hanging out with the older kids like Eddie. But you wouldn't have it any other way. Eddie was fun, kind, and so brave that sometimes you felt that his courage would get him in trouble one day. He was your best friend and you were his. There wasn't a day that went by when you wouldn't see Eddie and his goofy smile.

Until now.

It was the summer before you started high school and Eddie was already going to be a Junior. You were excited to go into such an intimidating place already knowing someone. You knew Eddie would help you with whatever you needed, and would even let you sit with him and his friends during lunch. But as the summer went by in a blur, so did that excitement. You didn't see much of Eddie during that summer. He always said he was busy hanging out with his friends or planning his next campaign. You understood, but you still felt disappointed that you didn't get to hang out much during those two months. Before you knew it, it was already August and school was starting in three days. You were still excited that you wouldn't be completely alone going into it, but it all felt weird because you haven't really talked to nor seen Eddie in two weeks. He was never at his trailer when you went to see if he was free and he was ignoring your calls. On the off chance that you did see him, he was still regular Eddie. He was kind and always cracking jokes with you, but your conversations with him were always a quick "hi" and "bye" before he left. Because he always had something to do these days, other than hanging out with you. You started to think that maybe you did something wrong, or said something to upset him.

It was the Friday night before school started, and you were re-reading The Lord of the Rings for the third time, until you heard your mom calling and saying there was someone on the phone for you.

When you got to the phone you were a bit confused, because who would be wanting to talk to you this late at night? Until you heard his voice.

"Hey y/n."

You were surprised to hear from him right now, but happy that he called.

"Hey Eds! How are you?"

There was a beat of silence before he replied.

"I'm fine, but I wanted to talk to you about something."

You were confused what he wanted to say, since you haven't done much talking to him recently.

"Ok, what did you want to talk about Eddie?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I think it's best if we don't hang out anymore."

"Wait what-"

"I don't want to be friends with you anymore, y/n."

It felt like you got hit by a two ton semi truck in the heart when he said those words.

"What do you mean? What's wrong Eddie?"

"I mean that I don't want to be associated with some stupid freshman that follows me around like a lost puppy all the damn time. It's annoying y/n. You always want to hang out with me, but I thought you would get a clue by now since I've been ignoring you. We aren't kids anymore y/n. Yeah we were best friends at one point, but I don't want to be friends with you anymore."

"Eddie, I don't understand. What happened? Did I do something wrong? I-I don't know why you're changing all of a sudden?"

"Look y/n, please just leave me alone and stop trying to call me. I don't want to talk to you anymore."

"Eddie please I-"

"Goodbye y/n".

He hung up. He broke your heart and just hung up the phone, like it was nothing. I guess it was nothing, to him at least. You spent the weekend crying and trying to prepare yourself to see him on Monday morning. You always loved seeing him, but now every time you see his face you're reminded of the time you lost your bestfriend.

It was now your senior year, and Eddie's second. Freshman year felt like hell for you. Having to see his face everyday felt like pure torture, but by winter break you were starting to feel better about it each day. And as you entered your sophomore year, you had made some friends and joined the photography club at Hawkins Highschool. But now, sometimes it feels like you never knew him. He got taller, grew out his hair, and started growing into his rock star look. If you were any other girl, you would have a huge crush on him. But you're not, you know who he actually is. And sometimes you feel stupid that you ever fell for his act and actually liked him. But you grew up too. Puberty hit you hard the summer after freshman year, and you grew into yourself. You developed your own style, learned how to do your hair and the occasional makeup, and developed a wall of confidence that no one can break through. Not even him. You ended up becoming really good friends with Jonathan Byers through your shared love of photography. And when he started dating Nancy Wheeler, you guys got closer too. You would hang out them during and after school, and sometimes even Steve Harrington would join you guys. Since Nancy's little brother is in Hellfire club, you occasionally cross paths with Eddie. He always seems to ignore you, but every once in a while you catch him staring at you. You don’t understand why though, it was his decision to cut things off. Every now and then when it’s late you think of showing up at his door, to really ask him after all this time if he still feels good about that decision but you know that would be wrong. Of course he feels good about it, especially when he has his hands all over a girl at a random party.

Just like right now.

One of the popular jocks at the school - probably Jason Carver - is hosting the usual friday night party tonight and you, Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve all decided to go. Steve already found his girl to take home tonight, a pretty blonde girl who is putting it on pretty heavily by laughing at the jokes Steve is telling that you know aren’t funny. Nancy and Jonathan are outside talking about who knows what, but they always seem to be having fun with each other know matter what they’re doing. That’s why you’re alone in the corner of the room sipping on a mixed drink that is slowly making you feel that warm feeling through your veins. That is also why you catch Eddie’s eyes as he dances with some girl. She’s pretty, skinny, and her hair is dyed a dark blue color. A girl you would typically think Eddie would be attracted too. So why is he still staring at you, when his hands are on her? You don’t care enough to find out, so you walk away looking for something much better to do. To your surprise, you actually end up finding it. So now you’re the one dancing with a random guy. He’s cute, at least cute enough to distract you from whatever was happening between you and Eddie. Plus with the alcohol fairly well into your system by now, you’re even thinking of asking him if he wants to go upstairs. As you’re about to ask said question, you’re suddenly pulled away by the arm by a strong hand.

“What the fuck-“

It wasn’t till you got a look at the long curls of the person dragging you out of the house then you really lost it.

“Munson what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Once you were outside, you pulled your arm away and faced the person that all your anger is directed at right now.

“What am I doing? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Dancing? You’re mad at me for dancing at a party!?”

“No! I’m mad that you’re throwing yourself at some guy that asked me if I knew anyone that had coke at the party!”

Well you didn’t know that. But that doesn’t excuse what he’s doing right now.

“That isn’t any of your damn business anymore, Eddie! Or did you forget the fact that you haven’t spoken to me for years?”

He got quiet after that. You finally looked at him. Really looked at his face and how much he’s changed over the years. You never allowed yourself to really do this before, afraid that it would open up the wounds that took you so long to heal. Suddenly you were a kid again. Waiting on him to say something. You didn’t know how to describe the way he made you feel at the time. But now you do. He was like a drug. After every time you saw him, you wanted more. But then you overdosed.

“Y/n I-

“I don’t want to hear it, Eddie. You were the one who cut things off. You were the one who left me hanging. You don’t get to care about me or stop me from dancing or doing anything with anyone.”

“I just wanted to stop you from doing something you’ll regret. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I don’t understand why you even care, Eddie. We’re not friends, and we haven’t been for years. It’s your fault. You’re the reason why we don’t talk anymore.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

authors note: i know the ending is kind of bad but I just wanted to write something. If you read it all, thank you so much!!! I appreciate you all <3

[simplykorra]

“Are you wearing it now?” Chanel breaks the silence so suddenly that Beatrice jumps a little.

“Wh…what?”

Chanel sighs and looks at her like she’s exhausted to have to go into detail. “You keep fidgeting and shifting in your seat, please tell me you didn’t wear lingerie on your flight.”

“I…how did you…what?” Beatrice stumbles over herself so much she blows the entirety of her cool. “Of course I didn't,” she says, as if she has any real practice in this. As if she isn’t nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs about the prospect of wearing it at all.

Because yes, she has lingerie in her bag, picked out by her friends with the promise of blowing Ava’s cute little rubber duck socks off.

“So you do have a pair?”

“Chanel,” Beatrice warns, or begs, she’s not sure which.

Thankfully, Chanel laughs and pats her knee. “Relax, the last thing I want to do is scare you off and ruin the moment - because Ava has been a pain in my ass for the last three weeks, she needs this as much as you do, trust me.”

It’s late enough that the stars are out and the sky is dark - though lit up by the array of lights and equipment that make up a massive movie set. Genuinely, Beatrice has found herself on a few sets since she started dating Ava, but this one is surreal - it feels almost like its own city.

There is an entire row of trailers and Beatrice just knows if Camila was here, she’d be freaking out about all of the stars here. Sadly, the weight of it all is lost on Beatrice, when she read the cast list out to her friends before coming, she only knew three of the big names and one of them was her girlfriend.

The car slows to a crawl as they reach the back end of the set, beyond the production crews and the big, sprawling studio buildings where the green screen content is filmed - and hit the row of trailers.

“Okay,” Chanel rolls the car to a stop. “Third trailer, second row - if you go one too far you’re going to be putting on a show for Harrison Ford.”

Beatrice instantly perks up, “oh I know him!” She says, sounding far too much like Camila.

Chanel snorts, “everybody knows him.”

“I know but…never mind,” Chanel wouldn't understand how rare it is for Beatrice to actually know a celebrity and perhaps it’s good that she doesn’t. “Thank you for helping me with this,” Beatrice says after she climbs out, bag in hand.

“Like I said, she’s been a pain in my ass, a good orgasm or two will go a long way so-”

“Goodbye, Chanel.”

-------------

a celebrity!ava au follow up one shot

[piko-power]

It wasn't until the Knuckles Series trailer when I realized how much I love Sonic and Knuckles' dynamic.

Honestly, I'm just excited to see these two interact. I know the show's probably not gonna focus more on these two and more on Knuckles and Wade, but them interacting is something I NEED.

Especially since this is after Sonic 2 and they've become (brothers) friends after their confrontation and after Sonic finds out that what Knuckles been through as a child is the same as what Sonic himself went through.

I just wanted to talk about Sonic and Knuckles' growth in their friendship and in themselves and how it makes me feel at the moment because their relationship and brotherhood is gonna drive me crazy and I need to tell EVERYTHING.

Everything will be under the cut since it's gonna be one hell of a ramble post. (btw if you tag this as ship I'll sell your kneecaps to the dark web)

At the beginning of the movie, Sonic suddenly got a visit from his worst enemy that he thought was banished to the dreaded Mushroom hellscape. He didn't expect him to bring any company, however.

An Echidna. The same species who nearly took Sonic's life and took Longclaw's.

Sonic only knew these Echidna best from the day where he lost everything. He couldn't save Longclaw in time from the Echidna tribe. He did blame himself, but deep down he was also mad at the Echidna.

So it was understandable that Sonic wouldn't be so pleased to see an Echidna in his house.

It's one thing if Robotnik came back, but a random Echidna who swore to destroy Sonic at any cost? Sonic ain't having none of that.

The Echidna took away something dear to him once, he won't let it happen again.

There's just one problem: Knuckles is WAY too strong for Sonic. He may have the speed, but he didn't have the punches like Knuckles.

Clearly it was quite a terrifying moment for Sonic. He couldn't fight back against the Echidna and he even knew about Longclaw.

From his POV, it was all shocking. Of course later on in the movie, he finds out that the Owls and Echidna were at war for the longest time over the Master Emerald.

So it's no wonder that Knuckles is after Sonic, who was raised by Longclaw.

So the fact that Sonic and Knuckles thought they were both bad guys is actually pretty messed up, since the Owls were the bad guys to the Echidna as well, so Knuckles thought that Sonic was the bad guy too.

MAN-

And after learning more about the Master Emerald, it was Sonic (and Tails') mission to make sure the Emerald is safe and make sure Robotnik BUT ESPECIALLY KNUCKLES don't get their hands on it.

Everything about Knuckles is a mystery to Sonic. He doesn't know a lot about him. All he knows is that he's after a giant gemstone full of ultimate power.

The power to turn thoughts into reality.

And since Sonic knows that Echidna only want power to themselves and other selfish needs, at least according to him, he knew Knuckles has to be stopped. Robotnik included, but now there is a new threat.

A threat Sonic wished would never come back to his life.

Meanwhile with Knuckles himself...

Knuckles never really thought about sticking around with Robotnik. He only needed his help to find the hedgehog. But after overhearing about ultimate power, Robotnik insists to join Knuckles on his journey.

Knuckles doesn't know a lot about Robotnik and was a first skeptical, but he seemed to be trustworthy. If he wanted to help Knuckles restore power to his people, then he would have to believe that maybe forming an alliance with this man won't be so bad.

After all,

When was the last time Knuckles had a friend? When was the last time Knuckles trusted someone? When was the last time someone liked him, or looked after him?

After what happened to his people?

The closest family member he had was his father, who he and his tribe never came back after their battle. Knuckles was left there, waiting for them to come back.

It eventually dawned on him that they'll never come back.

For the longest time, he went off on his own to find this hedgehog, for vengeance. And to find the Master Emerald in time before he does. (I think he believed he was searching for the Emerald as well.)

Throughout his journey in the galaxy, he came across some trouble along the way. Some scavengers straight up take him away and put him in a Rise of the TMNT ass arena. (You know the one I'm talking about. 😉)

Apparently word goes around about how Echidna are, and Knuckles didn't like this at all. (He won against the beast in case you're curious.)

He did gain some assistance on helping him find the hedgehog, but he wouldn't call them his friends. They are only there to help him without a choice after all.

What caught his and the scavengers' attention was the energy surge that spread through the galaxy from this planet invested with mushrooms.

The first thing he finds is this bald man with weird clothes and a blue quill that looked awfully familiar. This man knows where the hedgehog is and where to find him.

For a while, Knuckles been on his adventure alone after loosing his family. He thought he was better off alone on his journey, but after meeting Robotnik, he never knew that he would befriend this man.

He seems to be smart and makes all kinds of machines, and even has a goat milker. (The king of Bi Men, Agent Stone) If Robotnik can help him find the hedgehog, and the Master Emerald, then Knuckles is fine with being friends with this man.

He never had a friend before, he only had a father. A friend sounds nice. Who wouldn't be friends with Robotnik?

Sonic and Knuckles' view of each other shifted slightly during this scene, in Siberia.

Knuckles is tired of Sonic messing around, saying that he knows nothing about him. All Sonic knows is that his tribe is most famous for ruining his life. (Ouch)

Knuckles didn't take that kindly, stating that he lost everything because of you. His people, his father.

The reason why Knuckles' journey is important to him right now, was his father's last words to him:

"Your moment to honor our tribe will come, but it was not this moment."

Hmmm... That's sound really familiar...

Wait a minute...

WAIT A MINUTE...

"There will come a time where your powers will be needed... But you don't choose that moment. That moment chooses you."

Tom Wachowski said that. Sonic's father.

Those words were similar to what Knuckles' father told him... before he died.

Sonic really didn't know Knuckles. At all.

Yes, what Knuckles is doing is pretty bad. He still assume that Knuckles is gonna use the Emerald for something awful.

But after hearing Knuckles' story on what happened to his people and his father... After what happened to all those Echidna and Longclaw... After figuring out that him and Knuckles' trauma share similarities... After figuring out that they both lost something so important to them...

Sonic just felt... devastated. (The second image even looked like he's on the verge of tears finding out this information. 🥺)

He had zero clue Knuckles went through all that, and just trash talked his tribe right there. Hearing his story just... broke his heart.

He, too, lost everything that day. They both lost everything that day.

Knuckles didn't have to hunt down Sonic because of all that but he did, because since he was technically on the Owl's side, Sonic was also "responsible" for the demise of his tribe.

Knowing that Knuckles believes this just hurts Sonic more. To make things worse, Tails attacked at the wrong time, giving Knuckles the belief that Sonic was tricking him.

At this point of the fight, I believe Sonic doesn't want to fight this guy. Yes, he's on Robotnik's side, but he wished he wasn't.

He knows Robotnik and Knuckles doesn't. Robotnik might mess with the Echidna and just make things worse for him. If he is his ally, the first one he had maybe, then it won't be pretty if Robotnik does something stupid.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens next.

The next time they meet was in the Labyrinth, right where the Master Emerald is. Knuckles is done with Sonic's crap, and Sonic is going to stop him.

Sonic really didn't wanted to fight him anymore, and just wanted him and Robotnik to leave the Master Emerald...

But he's not given much choice.

A big fight broke off between two powerful critters over the Emerald, meanwhile Robotnik sneaks off to get the Master Emerald into his grasp.

Thankfully, before things got messy, Sonic pointed out that Robotnik was stealing the Emerald, and this infuriates Knuckles.

This man. This deceiving man, wished to join his side to take out the hedgehog just to take the Emerald for himself.

Robotnik himself even mocked at the fact that Knuckles believed that he and Robotnik were friends. The first friend he ever had, and he straight up betrayed him.

And just like that, he takes the Emerald and leaves. (or Chaos Controlled I think...?)

The place begins to flood and Knuckles gets trapped underwater. Sonic, not okay with the fact he has to go in the water, AGAIN, jumps in anyways to save him.

He cannot let this guy drown. He went through too much crap and he can't let this happen to him. He doesn't care that they fought, he wanted to save him.

Eventually he did, but...

Sonic couldn't swim. He tried to reach out for Knuckles who was getting further and further away from him. He nearly drowned but at the right moment, Knuckles came back down to save him.

They both have a moment together on the beach, throwing sand at each other. XD

Knuckles was confused on why Sonic saved him, despite the fact he tried to destroy him. He says that being a hero isn't about taking care of yourself, instead it's about taking responsibility for other people. Words from his own father.

While Tails was on his way to save Sonic, Knuckles mentions how he and Sonic lost everything and wonders how despite that and failing, how did he kept going?

Simple. He found a new family. New friends. And he can too.

Learning about Knuckles' childhood, and knowing what he been through, and witnessing Robotnik's betrayal to him, it's clear that he need to do something for Knuckles.

He knows that Knuckles isn't the bad guy, he was just used for Robotnik's deeds. Knuckles only wanted what was best for him and his people.

But Sonic knows now what Knuckles really needs.

A family.

Knuckles lost his and so did Sonic. He doesn't want Knuckles to be alone again. He's been alone for too long just like Sonic. He offers Knuckles to join him on his adventure.

But he also wanted him to join his family.

Knuckles is quite surprised about the offer. It's understandable.

All they've been doing whenever they meet is fight, but after learning about themselves, after a small quiet talk with each other, Sonic just...

Smiles and offers his hand. He doesn't want him to be alone anymore.

Knuckles just looks at him. It look liked he was unsure about the offer for a split second. But he's thinking about it, as Sonic smiled at him.

After everything they've done to each other, Sonic is willing to help him out and give him everything he truly needed without even knowing what he truly needed.

Sonic, according to Knuckles, is a strange hedgehog, but has a heart of gold. He seems to be strong too after all this time. He lost everything, but he never gave up. Not even once, even when things get tough.

He gained a new family because of that.

Knuckles respects that. Mentally anyway.

It will take some time to process and adjust everything, but if what Sonic's saying is true, about not being alone anymore...

Then Knuckles believes him.

After taking the offer, a lot happened afterwards.

Him and Sonic and Tails fight against a giant Eggman Mech.

He gave Robotnik a taste of his medicine and retrieve the Master Emerald before him and Tails fall to the ground.

He and Tails witnessed Tom, Maddie and Sonic getting crushed by Robotnik, before seeing that Sonic absorbed the power of the Emeralds.

Tries to protect Tom and Maddie from a possible corrupted Sonic, but then gets slapped by a chili dog.

He and his newfound friends made a vow to protect the Master Emerald.

And plays baseball for the first time with his friends and goes out for victory ice cream.

It's safe to say that Sonic and Knuckles' friendship means a lot to me than I thought. With the Knuckles series coming out, I am excited to see what will happen between them.

It's clear that it will be just older and younger brother shenanigans and I am all here for it.

I love their dynamic a lot, but now I'm a little obsessed with them at the moment. Their origins and their differences and how they grew together is really special to me.

I love Sonic and Tails' dynamic but Sonic and Knuckles' is something I never really thought of a lot until now.

Every time I watch Sonic 2, I just feel so happy for Knuckles now that he's got friends and family who love him and look out for him.

In fact, after watching Sonic 2 for the first time, almost two years ago, I loved Knuckles a lot. I used to think he was a fine character. I enjoy his character, but after watching the movie, he became one of my top 10 favorite characters.

I love him so much and I cannot wait to see more of my favorite version of Knuckles, and more of Sonic and Knuckles' interactions.

[paintbrushnebula]

I think now that Tangled the Series has been over for the better part of four years now, what makes me sad the most is that there were enough pieces left behind by the film to construct a compelling narrative for a strong continuation of Rapunzel and Eugene's story that wouldn't have required all this "bigger and more epic" stuff that the series made up in order to be interesting. 

And you can have big epic magical stuff, that's fine! I LOVE epic large-scale stories! But there's a difference between expanding your world by further developing its elements and themes, and just scaling up the adventure tenfold to be “bigger and better”—which is what I feel that the series did in the end. 

It’s funny, because I was already a fan of Tangled when I was little. I still remember being 7 years old sitting in that theater with my sister, actually breathless and in shock when Eugene drew his last breath. I had never seen a kids movie where a lead character dies.

(and I know that sounds absurd because there were Disney films before where a lead character dies and comes back XD look I was 7 and my parents weren’t people who knew many pop culture American movies at the time so I didn’t watch much that wasn’t Disney Channel or VHS films that my Grandma owned. To this day I’m still kind of trying to catch up on film culture XD)

Sorry to get off track but what I’m trying to say is, I was there when the series was announced and they revealed that promo art back in 2016, I saw the 30 second promo trailer, I watched “Wind in my Hair” when it was released on Youtube in February 2017 the morning before school and I was hyped for the rest of the day, and I remember watching Before Ever After’s premiere with my sister and was FLOORED that it was good??!! Like actually was gonna have a serialized overarching story and everything! God I’ll never forget Eugene’s verse where he pulls out that ring. I’ll never forget Rapunzel’s face when he gives her his proposal speech (before it went downhill that is), and I’ll always forget the last 25 minutes that take place  after Rapunzel’s hair grows back because its low-key pretty heckin boring! 

What hyped me was the relationship stuff, Rapunzel’s PTSD, the parent drama, everything that those first 30 minutes had that made me THINK we were in for an emotional story about Rapunzel’s life after the tower, I thought we’d get to see in detail how she’s gonna to grapple with her trauma, her new life, her new responsibilities, her new relationships, all that. And some of the series was that, a very small “some.” Not enough by any means for me lol

Because like, wouldn’t that have been a more interesting story to tell than the one we got? Ultimately Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure doesn’t feel like a continuation of Rapunzel’s story, it’s more like a Brand New Adventure that happens star Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert. I know that sounds weird and I might not be making much sense here but, did the story of a girl who stops a plague of darkness and fights a transdimensional demon blueberry ghost girl and has to reconcile with her “step-sister” HAVE to be about Rapunzel? Also like, just. NOTICE how that summation of the story of the series DOESNT involve Eugene in some way. You know. The hecking CO-LEAD of the film this series is based on. 

And like, there was so much story to be told with Rapunzel and Eugene WITHOUT the blueberry Disney Junior-giving ghost girl, the poorly written heavily contrived step-sister conflict, AND the big plague of darkness nonsense. Rapunzel and Eugene are two VERY tragic individuals. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM, IOUHWO4Y2IBBU3FN3FI

I’ll admit that I was more attached to the series than I was to the movie while it was airing, and even for like 2 years after it was over. I was younger and more immature and the big stakes and fresh new characters and magical adventures captivated me more than the focused drama of the movie. But now that I’m older, I realize that I resonate more with Rapunzel in the movie. NOT in any concerning “do you need help?” Kind of ways, just that I find myself thinking the way she thought, since I’m now around the age she was in the movie. The way I think about my future, my self esteem etc. I relate to how she feels inexperienced and fresh in the world despite being a young adult, because she hasn’t done any of those “big things” yet. And you wonder “how am I gonna do those big things? When do they happen? Will I know what to do when they happen?” I get it, Rapunzel, I really do. 

The series is kinda an afterthought to me now I guess. I still appreciate that it exists and I’m so happy it happened. In the beginning, it didn’t feel real when it was happening. Like a dream honestly. And like, Tangled the Series is literally 80% the reason I wanted to write fiction, so I’ll always be grateful for it. 

But holy kriff is the movie so much better heeheeeeeeeeee

[epickiya722]

You know what, I expected that they would have Chloe not mention Chad at all. We already know they do not care about continuity.

But I'm going to tell you my problem with not having Chloe mentioning Chad.

Just throwing it out there, it's not that the fandom really cares about Chad like that. I don't really care about Chad like that. (They could have done better with his writing. As for a lot of other characters.)

It's not that the fandom is like "oh, how dare they take away our favorite white boy". It's not that. No, scratch that. It's part of this following reason.

It's that the OG VKs and AKs were done dirty before and it continues. Oh, but it's not just that. See, them leaving most of them out is an "excuse" for something else that I'll talk about later.

Just follow with me here.

Not too long ago they released the Red version of Uma's song, What's My Name. In the song there is this part...

This is Red's part, just so we're clear. They had her make remarks that the VKs are "middle-aged". Mind you while on a song belonging to UMA. The VKs would just be reaching their 20s at this time. Just their 20s!! If you're including Celia, Dizzy and the Smee Twins as VKs (because technically they are) they would probably still be in school.

What's makes this part worse is the "cradle to the grave" lyrics. The songwriters obviously were not thinking when they put that in. They didn't register what fans might they think when hearing those lyrics. Do I have to say it? Like, really think about it.

With this part of the song and no mention of Chad in Chloe's video, it's them saying "well, it's not like the AKs and rest of the VKs are important anyways!"

That's the problem right there. And that's a problem that leads into a bigger problem.

Let's think about the Sea Three. It's like they're already trying to replace them with Uliana, Hook and Morgie.

"But Uma is there!" They knew damn well that Uma would bring in more fans to watch that movie. Uma is a beloved character, why wouldn't they include her? It's the same reason Brandy and Paolo are back playing as Cinderella and Charming.

See, Disney will market off Black and other people of color. They'll be like "oh, we can give this character this, but not this". They can have some good traits, but they still have to get some bad. (Example, Tiana could be a princess!! But she had to spend most of her movie as a damn frog!)

Let me start with Uliana.

What sucks about Uliana and her crew to me is that it seems this time they really want fans to hate on a Black girl... again.

See, I bet in 2017 they didn't anticipate on fans adoring Uma and actually sympathizing with her. And it helps that China is a damn good actress and singer.

They made Uma the "big bad" in the second movie, continuing the "let's make the Black girls and women antagonistic" (Audrey, being played by Sarah Jeffery who is half Black, being mean to Mal and Cruella being played by a Black woman, Wendy Raquel Robinson).

Again, though, that shit didn't work so they're trying it again.

Don't believe me?

Here's the thing. If they wanted Bridget to have this sad backstory who was bullied... why did they make it a Black girl? And why is this character just so happen to be Uma's aunt and Ursula's sister? They couldn't have made another villain character be her bully? To be the reason as to why Bridget aka Queen of Hearts hates Cinderella? In fact, how about Maleficent? She's right there!!

From the looks of the trailer, it may be Uliana did something that made Bridget hate Cinderella. So they couldn't have Maleficent be manipulative and do that then? Why come up with a whole original character related to one of the most other notorious Disney villains (who is Black in the Descendants universe, by the way, Whoopi Goldberg) for just that? Hm?

No, Disney said "let's make trick the fans, make them think that Dara will be playing a sweet, innocent princess and then reveal she'll be playing this bully who we made up".

See, they couldn't use Morgana from the second Little Mermaid movie because one, there's her name. We have Morgie in the movie and his mother's name is Morgana. Two, when the first Descendants movie came out, Disney made it a point to make it seem that the first films of the animated films were canon. Meaning that, yeah, sequels were ignored.

In the case of Chloe and Chad!

As I mentioned before, it comes off that the AKs and VKs are being brushed aside. And yes, it's a problem.

The problem isn't having a new generation. I personally am not upset seeing these new characters, let alone new actors. I hate how they (not the actors, not them) went about this.

They could have easily announced Malia Baker playing Chloe from the start. But no, they didn't do that. On top of that, no mention of Chad??

Disney didn't have Chloe mention Chad because they want to play off him being an OG AK and white and have the fandom feel some kind of way towards Chloe who is of color. They want people to be antagonistic towards and annoyed at Chloe. See, they let this Black girl be a princess... but they'll probably have her be annoying in the movie, some perfectionist, oh and no mention of her supposed brother.

When you think about it... while Uilanna is the Uma here, Chloe is the Audrey.

Hm, a girly princess who wears blue, who is the daughter of a beloved Disney princess whose race was changed for the Descendants, played by an actress who looks racially ambiguous but happens to be Black, who has some connection to Chad (or lack of), who also comes off as some perfectionist, an often annoying character trait.

Now, don't that seem like Chloe is the Audrey here? Just this time, our princess is nicer.

Like with Uma, Audrey was meant to be disliked, but come the third movie fans grew to like and sympathize her.

This time around with Chloe, it's like Disney is trying to be sneakier about getting the fans to hate her.

Again, it's the "they can have this but they can't have this" with their Black and other characters of color.

"It's not about race." Disney made it about race. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have done previous antics with the other characters. If wasn't, Disney would have easily kept Cinderella and her family white from the animated films, if they still wanted fans to dislike her, just as they could have with Aurora and her family, but they didn't. They made fans believe Dara was going to play a princess and just knew fans would be like "Brandy could be Cinderella" because of that, and once they had Brandy be Cinderella? Well, you see what happened.

Simply, just my opinion, Disney has the intentions to make Chloe hated or at least less popular. They're just not trying make it not racist, but still still are racist about.

Now, I'm not saying the movie is going to be oh so terrible. The thing is, a fourth movie could have been a more excitable thing for fans if Disney stopped doing most of these characters dirty with their racism and favoritism.

[camilasstories]

❝feeling unreciprocated❞ chapter 1 | jungkook x reader

summary: Sleeping with one guy after feeling rejected wasn't a good idea, but sleeping with another one and another seemed to be even worse plan. Especially with your handsome crush behind the wall, who is as confused as you about your ways of coping with a broken heart.

trailer | next chapter

Your phone was buzzing from all the notifications you got after you had turned on wi-fi in your settings. You ignored them and started to scroll mindlessly through your Instagram to kill the time as you were waiting for popcorn to be ready in the microwave.

The anxiety and nervousness were escalating to the point you were bitting your lower lip which became more red and puffy. Like on every Friday night since you and your roommate made an arrangement that once a week you two would organize a small movie-night that nobody else could take part in it. And you weren't exactly sure what was the reason behind you distressing about such a trivial matter, but you fathomed soon enough, with a minor help of your dear friend, it was because of the second arranger of your undertaking.

You sighed as you rubbed your cheek in defense.

It had been already three months since you two ended up living together and for these three precious months you were truly fucked, frankly speaking, but who wouldn't be in your place? Let’s be honest - everyone would lose their mind over this boy sooner or later. Moreover, it wasn’t just your personal opinion as far as you knew, but you were the only one who had to endure this killing pleasure all by yourself. You should be grateful, you thought to yourself with a pity that you couldn’t use the circumstances to your advantage. You just couldn’t figure out how and you were afraid it would stay that way if you kept behaving like a simple coward. On the other hand, it would be super discomforting if you ended up stop talking to each other because of your sweet, silly crush. So you were trying to shut it down once and forever, but with no effects.

"Is it ready?" you jumped a little hearing a male voice behind your back.

"No, not yet".

"And now?"

"No, Jungkook, it's not ready yet” you shook your head to emphasise that he would have to wait just a little bit longer for a 3-minute meal “Just pick a movie, I’ll bring it to you in a moment”.

“Okay, just don’t eat it all”.

“Mhm” you managed to utter while you lowered down your head to stare into the screen, but you kept observing him from the corner of your eye.

He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and grey pants that hung from his hips giving away its oversized cut. He looked casual, but his tattoos elevated the outfit making it look… hot. Not to forget his messy hair that were a bit too long. You liked it, but you were able to hide it, anyway. You weren’t crazy to such a point you would run after him, right?

“You have some stains on your shirt” you had told him before he entered the living room, but he just shrugged his shoulders and made his way to the sofa that happened to be the most expensive furniture in your flat. You pitched in together at the beginning of your moving in. It was his condition, actually, but then he didn’t know you were a girl. Had he known it, he wouldn't have made you chip in, however it was too late to cancel the order. You didn't mind. At least you two were in a happy possession of a brand new sofa, which you used very often. Not in this way, of course.

You put the popcorn in front of him, which made him turn his gaze from his phone at you.

"You're addicted" you said slightly amused.

"I didn't complain when you were using yours" he scoffed and put it away "But okay, mummy" he made sure he stressed the last word.

You knew he was just being cordial, but you were flushed anyway, because of the mummy part. The teasing was unbearable when was done by him, because well, you used to take everything he said too seriously and keep second-guessing what he actually meant. Soon, you realized it needed to stop as you were going mad because of it and the worst part was you was aware his words didn't indicate anything more serious than just a friendly reminder you were his "bro". And it sucked.

You didn't let yourself to make a comment so you just sat in the sofa making yourself comfortable.

"What are we watching?"

"Something random, we've watched almost everything" he left the pilot on the coffee table and stuck a pillow behind his back to have something to lean on "So how was your week, miss smart brain?"

You didn’t have to think for too long about your reply.

"As always. Lectures, then practice and lectures again and... meetings with Gia. I'm just happy it's Friday again" you sighed and folded your arms thinking about the last five days "And you?"

"The same thing. Almost" he chuckled seeing your discontent, grumpy expression "I didn't sit with books ninety percent of my time" obviously, It was an exaggeration, but it might have been true if you wouldn't have Gia by your side. Your best friend.

"So it wasn't the same. I should have known that" you rolled your eyes, but smiled anyway "So..." you waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't bother too much to shower you with details.

"I was at Vixen's with my friends".

It was predictable his place to go to was another new club. Somehow, it suited him. Such places were perfect for him. He was outgoing, open with conversation with newly met people and he just liked the atmosphere of big crowds and loud music. Nothing you could compare yourself to so it was a nice surprise you two got along. Still, you thought there was an abyss between him and you on so many levels that even his friends looked at you oddly the first time you met them, but you were just his roommate. Not his girlfriend he choose.

"You should go one day" you looked at him surprised taking popcorn into your mouth "With Gia, for example".

"Maybe" you changed the topic looking at TV. It would be nicer to go with him this time "You picked a trashy film".

"Hey, it's random. I told you" he pushed your leg with his feet "Get lost!" you just laughed shortly and lied down on the sofa making him choose the floor this time.

"My turn" he murmured something under his breath, but sat on the floor, eventually.

The fact was, you saw each other only one day during the week, on every Friday, of course. Sometimes maybe in the mornings or in the evenings if your schedules allowed that. You totally understood he had his own friends, plan etc. so you weren't disappointed, because you weren't even certain if he saw you as his friend or only as his roommate. You just expected from him a little, little attention.

"Do you want pillows?" you asked noticing he took his place without anything to cover or make himself comfortable.

"No, I'm good" he didn't even look at you while answering your question and took his phone out from his pocket.

That was the hard part in all of this. He wasn't that invested in your friendship, at least he was giving this type of impression, so you had the right to be doubtful when it came to his feelings. Maybe it stood on the level called "roommates, nothing less, nothing more" with an arrow "you will never get to the next level, we're sorry for the inconvenience" next to it, so you were stuck.

His position enabled you to see everything as well as to smell his scent because his head at the level of your face as he was sitting in front of you. If you wanted to have a picture of what it was like - just imagine a really heavy, manly perfume coming right into your nose. It wasn't getting any easier for you, unfortunately. You were melting.

You tried hard to focus on the movie, but the ring tones were successfully preventing you from doing so.

You didn't want to come as being nosy, but somehow you couldn't help yourself so you raised your head from a comfy pillow, so you could have a full view of his phone's screen. He was checking his instagram account as you did earlier, nevertheless it wasn't what made you disturbed.

The texts were one by one showing on his notification bar with a loud sound, so Jungkook turned the silent mode on his phone. You saw him frowning his eyebrows and playing with his lip ring at the same time, which got you to make an ultimate move. You pulled yourself up a little bit so you could follow his actions, he opened the conversation. You knew it was wrong of you to look at his private texts, but he didn't move or change his place so you took it as an allowance to give it a look. Just one, you promised, but you could tell it may not have been the last.

min_bora: hi jungkook! min_bora: it was great to see you at vixen's typing...

It wasn't confusing at all. It was just a normal text, however still a hard thing to swallow, again. It was from a girl, overall, so it made you reckon if he was really with his friends like he had said? Like Jimin or Taehyung. Or Namjoon. It wasn't your business, but still you weren't exactly the most happy person in the world if he really lied to you.

min_bora: you looked so handsome without your tshirt ;) not my words but harin's haha

You almost groaned seeing the last text. What was that? A pub or a social club with stripping? Or even worse - harem, which was an obvious overstatement. You just hoped it wasn't it and he would deny it. Fun thing, it shouldn't have concerned you but it did. Maybe if it happened to be the truth, you would finally get rid of your stupid feelings. Perhaps, it was the key to let it go...

"Did you just look at my fucking texts?" he smirked leaning his head back so he had the picture of your face upside down.

Jungkook saw your empty expression as you had got lost in your thought few seconds earlier. You opened your lips wanting to say something, but you were too cogitative to reply right away.

"No, of course not" you shook your head lowering your gaze, but it seemed like you had a large writing "a liar" on your forehead.

Of course, he didn't believe you as he felt your gaze on his back when he was about to text back so he took a pillow and threw it at your face, while you blushed immediately all over your cheeks. This thing was something he didn't notice to your liking.

"Instead of making fun of me, you could help your friend" he pretended to whine while looking at the messages.

Friend? So maybe you were already on another level, which made you instantly worried about getting friendzoned, but it felt like it already was the thing in your situation.

You weren’t making fun of Jungkook, it was far from it. Curiosity just won over your honour and your morals.

"Difficult task" you held your chin with your one hand, bitting your lips and reckoning if you should say it "I don't know what to do with a text that says you look handsome without your t-shirt".

"Any advice?" he rolled his eyes watching "min_bora" sending him some silly emojis, which didn't get slipped by you.

"Don't take your t-shirt off next time?"

"Oh, you don't say" he hissed "She spilled her drink on me by accident. I had to change".

"You bring your clothes with you?"

"Yeah, gym clothes" he said brushed his hair back "They were in Namjoon's car, I forgot them two days earlier".

"Oh".

jeon_jk: hi bora jeon_jk: to the next one :)

You weren't expecting this kind of text got typed to this girl, but he was a free man. He could do anything he wanted, not like you had something to say in this matter, but this one coming...

min_bora: i was wondering... min_bora: do you have tattoos only on your arm or maybe somewhere lower... ;)

"Are you kidding me?" you mumbled quietly so he couldn't made out what you had said and you covered your face with your hand completely uncomfortable.

And envious at the same time, knowing you wouldn't get the courage to simply ask him for a coffee, yet these girls had all of it. Even the view.

You thought that maybe he would react in some way. Like getting embarrassed that you saw it or something, but no. He was unfazed, like nothing too extraordinary happened. Maybe he got used to it, to attention and it didn't surprise him. He just sighed and closed the conversation down leaving Bora on a read.

Jungkook leaned even more so his head was laying on the sofa and his long hair were within reach of your hand. His eyes were closed and his breathing was calm and steady as if he was ready to take a nap or just thinking heavily.

"Are you okay?" you asked with a tranquil voice not to disturb his peace.

"Yeah" he replied with his eyes closed, but this time the tone he used managed to put you off "Let's just finish this movie".

It was a clear signal something happen or it was just his casual attitude towards random things, like everything was the enemy to him and his job was to brace himself. You never talked about your problems, not even complaining about something more private than your day or how bad the lunch tasted. Everything was kept to yourselves and you didn’t have the nerve to ask him what was the reason behind his changing moods. Maybe he was like that. His nature could be edgy, even by looking at his image anybody could say that. You didn’t dwell on the subject assuming he would prefer it to be talked with his closest friends rather than a roommate.

So you just stuffed your mouth with popcorn contemplating what could be wrong with him until you saw closing credits at the end of the movie.

When it finished, he stood from the floor and helped you with cleaning the mess, but soon he went to his room, got changed. Of course, he didn’t stay that night in a flat which made you sad for a known reason, but who you were to stop him.

Honestly, having this type of a crush was quite a burden if you were the one to speak up. Constantly feeling the strain was exhausting, sometimes you couldn’t sleep and think straight in situations which he was involved in. It wasn’t normal and you wished you could do something with it, because it was getting you nowhere. Maybe if you made the decision but… You didn’t want to ask him out and at the same time you didn’t want to let it go. It was a total rollercoaster of mixed feelings that day by day made you run out of energy.

The rest of the evening was calm as usual and you spent it on your phone waiting for a new story from Jungkook which sometimes he posted on his Instagram, but it didn’t happen. You thought about checking Jimin’s account, but you gave yourself a break.

You took a towel and your pyjamas so you could get a shower and you were on your way to the bathroom when you got a new notification, which you checked right away. In your message box was a text that was totally unexpected.

hyunn_wonn: hi there, love

You looked at it confused bringing your knees close to your chest after you had returned to your bed.

And then not the best idea came to your mind.