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starring-movies · 3 years

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The Haunting of Bly Manor: Episode Analysis

*SPOILERS*

Episode 7 - The Two Faces, Part Two

Episode 7 of The Haunting of Bly Manor is mainly a continuation of Episode 3, which has the same name, as we explore more of Peter and Rebecca’s backstory and a lot more questions also start to get answered.

The episode starts as Dani has been tied up and is coming back into consciousness after Miles (possessed by Peter) hit her over the head at the end of Episode 6. As Peter is trying to set his plan in motion, for him and Rebecca to possess Miles and Flora’s bodies permanently, he suddenly gets thrown into a memory. Unlike Hannah, Rebecca and Flora who ‘dream-hop’ through many of their memories, Peter only ever gets put into one of his memories.

The memory that Peter repeatedly gets pulled into is the memory of a time when his mother came to visit him. Peter’s mother knocks on the door and when Peter lets her in, she tells him “I’m out” and that this time she’s out “forever”, because she says “I suppose they’d say I’m cured”. It’s never explicitly made clear where she’s “out” from, but it’s most likely that she’s been released from a mental institution for her failure to help her son when she knew that her husband was molesting him (which is something that is insinuated later in the episode).

Peter’s mother tells Peter that she needs money from him now that she’s been released and so she blackmails him, saying that she’ll show Henry his “juvenile records”, if he doesn’t give her any money.

The scene then moves to the memory which Rebecca has entered, where we find out that “priceless heirlooms” have been stolen from the manor and that Peter had been embezzling money from Henry. From this it becomes apparent that in Episode 5 when Hannah saw Peter stealing a necklace from Charlotte’s vanity, he was stealing it so that he could sell it and give the money to his other to keep her quiet. It seems that Peter was stealing the “priceless heirlooms”, such as the necklace, to give the money to his mother. However, the “quarter million pounds” that Peter embezzled from Henry most likely really was for the purpose that he said - so that he could run away to make a life in America with Rebecca and free himself from his mother’s blackmailing.

A small little detail; is that after Rebecca finds out that Peter is dead, we see her zoned out in one of Miles and Flora’s lessons. On the desk that Rebecca is sitting behind, there are some word blocks that spell out “redrum”, which is a nod to the 1980’s film ‘The Shining’. Mike Flanagan created The Haunting of Bly Manor and also directed the 2019 sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep.

It’s interesting to note that in The Shining “redrum” spells “murder” backwards, and Rebecca ends up being murdered by Peter.

This is not the only reference to The Shining, as there was another one in Episode 1. When we see Dani leaving the hostel which she’s been staying at, as she’s shutting the door behind her, we can see that her room number was 217. In the original book of The Shining by Steven King, the haunted room that Jack Torrance enters is room 217 (but in the movie it’s room 237).

As well as these two instances, there is yet another reference to The Shining, also in Episode 1. When Miles and Flora are locking Dani in the cupboard, we get a shot of them just before the shut the door on her. The shot of Miles and Flora standing side by side with one another evokes the memorable shot of the twins in The Shining.

Rebecca tries to suggest to Peter that they still continue their previous plan to run off to America and tells him that she doesn’t mind if people think that she’s “some batty old witch who talks to thin air”. Peter tells her that they can’t do that because he “can’t leave Bly” and he “can’t get past the end of the drive”, but then he discovers that he can possess Rebecca’s body just like he can with Miles’. The two of them devise a plan where Peter will possess Rebecca’s body and he’ll try to leave while still in her body. They carry out the plan the next morning but as Rebecca runs to the boundary of the grounds, Peter is ejected from her body.

This brings up a question of confusion, as in Episode 9 Dani manages to leave Bly with The Lady in the Lake in partial possession of her body and neither of them were thrown out from Dani’s body. Since Dani is able to leave the grounds, the reason that Peter was pushed out of Rebecca’s body must be because he exited her body himself. As he was about to cross the boundary he probably came to the realisation that if he left while still in Rebecca’s body, then he and Rebecca will never be able to be properly together again and so he pulled himself out so that he could think of another way that they could be together. However it also could be that Dani stopped Viola’s gravity well when she invited Viola into herself (we see all the other ghosts are released when this happens in Episode 9), but this still wouldn’t explain Peter’s oddly quiet reaction when he gets pushed out of Rebecca’s body at the manor’s boundary.

This would also make sense of a lot of a few other things as well. It would make sense of the odd reaction that Peter gives after the failed attempt at escape, when Rebecca says “it didn’t work” - he doesn’t look particularly sad that it didn’t work, even though he was so enthusiastic to finally be able leave and be with Rebecca. It would also make sense of when Older Jamie says that “Peter had not been back to find her, he had left her at the boundary of Bly”. Peter disappears for so long because he’s trying to come up with a different plan for them to be able to be with one another.

After trying to leave the manor in Rebecca’ body doesn’t work, for whatever reason, Peter then comes back to Rebecca with his new plan. Peter explains that when he tries to take possession of Rebecca’s body, neither of them mean to, but he always tries to push her out and she always tries to push him out and so the possession is “temporary”. He tells her that there is a way that they can be together forever and able to touch each other but to do this he says he needs to be given permanent possession of her body and for this to happen she needs to invite him in and give him consent. However when he’s explaining this to Rebecca, Peter doesn’t explain that his grand plan for them to be together means that he’ll take over her body and they’ll only be together by being tucked away in a memory together.

After being given consent from Rebecca to have permanent control over her body, which he gets through the phrase “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us”, Peter carries out his plan. Rebecca gets tucked away “in a memory of them”, and although they are together and can touch one another, this is not what she wanted (nor is this what he really promised to her when he got her to give him her consent) and it’s not ideal for him either as he is now left in Rebecca’s body “here, alone”.

Since Peter is now alone in Rebecca’s body and he doesn’t want to continue to be alone, he decides that he’ll drown her body so that they’ll both become ghosts and they will both be together that way. We see Rebecca (possessed by Peter) crying as she walks into the lake, and then we see Peter crying in bed with Rebecca in the tucked away memory, which is how we know that Peter was in possession of Rebecca’s body when she drowned.

But then as the water starts to enter Rebecca’s body’s lungs, Peter leaves and Rebecca herself is forced back into control of her own body again. We see just what type of a person he is, as he leaves her on her own to feel the pain of the drowning. In a parallel to this, this shows us just how much Rebecca cares for Flora, as in Episode 9 she tells Flora that she’ll take over her body before she’s dragged into the lake and she’ll feel everything for her - a completely selfless action considering that she’s already had to endure the pain once.

Like Peter and Hannah, Rebecca immediately turns into a ghost and we see her mourning her body and the betrayal of her trust, as she stands by the side of the lake and cries. This explains to us why, when Rebecca was possessing Flora’s body, she always walked to the lake - because she sits by the lake and mourns her life.

This is the most prominent example of the love versus possession conversation that Dani and Jamie were having in Episode 3. Peter says that he loves Rebecca, but he displays no true love for her at all, to ask for her complete trust and consent and then to betray her by stealing her life. Peter is acting completely on selfishness and is treating Rebecca like a possession who he manipulate for his own personal benefit. To truly love someone is to want the absolute best for them, even if that comes at your own expense; but when Peter makes this decision he isn’t thinking about Rebecca at all, he’s only thinking about his own desires and loneliness.

After Peter drowns her body, Rebecca returns once more to the memory of when Peter gave her Charlotte’s fur coat. The memory was once a very happy one for Rebecca, but now it’s been tainted by Peter’s selfish actions. Rebecca now sees how Peter manipulated her as she says that “I didn’t agree”, she only agreed to them being together not for him to take her life from her.

Peter suddenly gets pulled back into the only memory that he gets pulled into, the memory of his mother coming to visit him. Peter says that from constantly having to return to this memory he feels “like I’m in hell” and his mother says “well, where else would you go”, stating that there is nowhere else that he could go after what he did to to Rebecca.

Peter then gets released from the memory he was being tucked away in and he returns to the attic, where Miles and Flora are in the process of freeing Dani. Peter stops Miles and Flora from letting Dani go and Rebecca returns from her dream hopping.

To try and convince Miles and Flora to give consent for their bodies to be possessed, Peter says that they’ll be able to go to their “forever house” where they’ll be with their parents forever. The “forever house” is a reference to The Haunting of Hill House where Olivia made blueprints of a “forever home” for the family to live in once they got enough money from flipping Hill House (but when Olivia dies, Hill House becomes the forever home). The “forever house/home” is something that is supposed to symbolise safety and family, however in both Hill House and Bly Manor this isn’t really the case. In Hill house the promise of the “forever home” that Olivia dreamt of was never fulfilled; and in Bly Manor the “forever house” that Peter is talking about is just for Miles and Flora to be permanently tucked away in false memories.

Despite Peter’s manipulation, he does know what love really looks like. He tells Miles that, when he’s tucked away in the “forever house” with his parents, he’ll be “with two people who love you so much, so much. That makes you the luckiest man in the world, the richest person, I wish I could be that rich”. Peter recognises that being in a safe place with two people who love you makes you the “richest person” and was something that he never got to experience himself. Not that this makes his behaviour acceptable, but it may from his childhood where Peter developed a distorted view of love and posession, and so this is why he manipulates others and treats them as his possessions - while Peter is supposed to be the conventional ‘villain’, this fleshing out of his past makes his character much more multifaceted and complex, as well as making his actions much less black and white. This added depth and complication is one of the things that makes Bly Manor and its characters so deeply flawed yet extremely relatable.

When Peter takes permanent possession of Miles’ body, when Miles gets up we can see that his right eye is still blue but his left eye is now brown. This is a sign that the person is no longer completely themselves anymore and we see the same thing happen to Dani’s eyes in Episode 9.

We then see Miles (possessed by Peter) walking with Hannah to the well, to try and get her to come to the realisation that she’s dead. He compares Hannah to the cartoon Wile E. Coyote, who would run off a cliff and just keep going, just as Hannah has died (run off the cliff) but she just keeps going and doesn’t become a proper ghost. Miles explains to Hannah that “when Wile E. Coyote looked down, then he’d fall, only when he looked down”, so he tells Hannah that she also needs to look down in order for her to come to terms with her situation and then she’ll also fall (become a ghost). The looking down that Miles wants Hannah to do is not just an actual looking down the well to see her corpse, but this is also a metaphorical looking down of her seeing the ‘big picture’ and for her to stop being in denial.

Hannah finally looks down the well and sees her corpse. She isn’t interrupted (like when Dani interrupted her doing this in Episode 1), but she’s given a proper moment to take in what she’s seeing, and so she is able to come to process and accept her death - just like Peter got to see and accept his body being dragged away by The Lady in the Lake; and just like Rebecca saw and mourned for her body by the side of the lake.

We then return to Flora and Dani in the attic and we find out that Rebecca only pretended to go along with Peter’s plan and possess Flora’s body. Rebecca tells Flora that “no one should ever need that much help”, showing us that she understands true, selfless love and to ask that much of someone is not caring for them at all. This also relates back to what Peter did to Rebecca, he should have never needed “that much help” from Rebecca as to take her entire life from her.

As well as this, it shows us how much Peter is like his mother. Peter’s mother asked too much of him and, in a way, ended up killing him by blackmailing him for money, which is just as he told her that “I hope you know that, late at night, that you killed your own son”. Peter is just as manipulative as his mother when he persuades Rebecca and Miles to trust him so that he can possess their bodies - needing to ask for “that much help” from a person is not love.

You can read my previous The Haunting of Bly Manor posts here:-

Episode 1 - The Great Good Place

Episode 2 - The Pupil

Episode 3 - The Two Faces, Part One

Episode 4 - The Way It Came

Episode 5 - Altar of the Dead

Episode 6 - The Jolly Corner

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cecilysass · 3 years

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Jackson Van De Kamp’s Not-So-Final Repose (1/3)

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A dream café. A dead old man at a table. A message for Jackson Van de Kamp. Mystery, unconventional MSR, and family feels. It’s the post-revival Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose sequel you never knew you wanted! Act One.

The boy realizes immediately it’s a dream, but of course that doesn’t mean he lets his guard down. One thing he knows for certain about dreams, from experience, is that they aren’t harmless. Even when they are mysterious or playful, they can also be dangerous.

So he is suspicious at first, because he does not recognize the old man.

The man sits at a café table drinking a tall glass of iced tea, smacking his lips in appreciation. He waves the boy over as though he knows him.

“Well, what?” The boy plops down in the ornate metal chair directly opposite the man.

He sees no reason to waste time on greetings. The old man either has a significant message for him, or he doesn’t. Either way, there is no point in revealing anything more about himself than necessary.

The old man looks at him for a moment, a tiny expression of amusement on his face. “Huh. You’re not what I expected.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“A young asshole, apparently.” The old man takes another sip of his iced tea.

The boy rolls his eyes. “Why did you bring me here? To insult me?”

The old man stares at him, an elven twinkle in his eyes. “I didn’t bring you here, kid. You brought me here.”

“I don’t even know you,” the boy insists, his voice taking on a whiny tone he immediately hates. He rolls his head, angry and frustrated. Nothing ever works the same way twice in his dreams, and it aggravates him. “Okay, fine. Let’s say you’re right. How do you know that? How do you know that I brought you here?”

“No idea.” The old man smiles an enigmatic smile, raises a hand in a ta-da gesture. “I just know. Your father once said I was a psychic.”

“My father,” the boy repeats, tapping his fingers on the table impatiently. “Who do you mean when you say that?”

“Oh,” the old man says. “Well, I guess you know I am not talking about Daddy Van De Kamp.”

“I was told my real father was a man named Spender.”

“Yeah,” the old man gazed off into the distance, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I know. But I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the actual story.”

The boy doesn’t think so either. It doesn’t fit with what he has been seeing. But he wants to see what this man sees.

“Your dad is that other idiot,” the old man says, at last, as if he is certain. “I know you’re probably relieved, because sure, he’s better looking and seems nice enough, but there are plenty of reasons to be worried about being that FBI guy’s kid, too. I knew the guy.”

“The FBI agent Fox Mulder,” the boy says, trying to mask his rising interest. He finds he wants to hear everything about this now. “He’s the one who told you you were a psychic.”

“Yeah. Your dad ate that sort of shit up,” he tilts his head. “But honestly, he was wrong. I wasn’t a psychic who knew things like this. Like lotto numbers, or who’s the daddy, or what someone is thinking. I was never a fancy mind tricks guy like you. I only had one bullshit skill. I only could see how people died. Worthless.”

He looks down at his drink, takes another greedy gulp.

“So how are you knowing things about me now?” the boy asks.

“I think ... because I am the dead one.”

“You’re dead?”

“Yep,” nods the old man. “Putrefying. Under a field of tulips as we speak.”

Jackson scrutinizes him. A dead man. This has not happened before, to his recollection. If he now has acquired the power to speak to the dead, it is news to him.

He looks around. He wonders if there is a dream waiter who will bring him an iced tea, too. The details of the café around them are unnervingly sketchy, incompletely filled in. There are a few ghostly, half-there people at the other tables. Jackson doesn’t like to look at them. There are some billboards, half finished, on the walls around them, advertising real estate, travel destinations.

He wonders if he is dead, too. Could he have died in his sleep? Been murdered?

Jackson takes a breath. His lungs still work. He decides to start asking questions.

“How do you know Fox Mulder?” the boy asks.

“I don’t know anyone,” the old man says. “I’m dead.”

“Okay,” the boy says, trying to be patient. “How did you know Fox Mulder?”

The old man is staring at his sweating iced tea glass, holding it up to stare at the water droplets closely in the light. “The condensation on this glass,” he says, “actually reminds me of dying.”

Jackson winces a little. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” nods the man.

“Were you, uh, poisoned?”

“No.” The man is still looking at the droplets on the glass, lost in his memory. He looks up at Jackson, smiling fondly. “Your mother was there, you know.”

“My mother was there when you died?”

“She was so lovely,” the old man said, lost in reverie. “Just so lovely in every way. Inside and out.” His eyes land on Jackson, and his soft look hardens. “You take more after your father.”

Jackson can’t hide his confusion. “Who are you?”

There is a train whistle, loud and disconcertingly close, and both the boy and the old man start a little, sit up, and look at one another.

“This is a train station?” the old man asks him, surprised, looking over his shoulders at their surroundings. “It’s a café inside a train station?”

“God, I don’t know.” The boy doesn’t see any trains, but now he can hear the hissing of a train brake on a track somewhere. “I have no idea where we are.”

“Oh, okay,” the old man nods. “Train station. I get it. You’re making this a dream heaven in a train station like in those dumb books and movies you liked so much.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do,” the old man says knowingly. “Your childhood obsession. The kid with the dark hair and the magic powers and the special destiny blah blah blah. The birth mom with the pretty red hair. I guess the attraction for you is obvious. You read them again and again and again like a little psycho.”

“I did not,” lies Jackson primly.

“Have it your way,” the old man says, gesturing indifferently. “Makes no difference to me. I never read them at all. Dead.”

The old man looks around. “It’s just interesting to think why you made things here the way you made them. Like, why am I drinking iced tea?” He holds up the glass. “Not that I am complaining. Very refreshing.”

“You were already dead when the first Harry Potter book came out?”

“Don’t feel bad for me. I doubt I would have read them anyway.”

“That was just a very long time ago,” Jackson remarks.

“Ha,” the old man says. “Only a stupidly young person says things like that. It was five seconds ago.”

“It was before I was born.”

“Well, that much is true,” says the old man. “When I met your parents, they weren’t even thinking about doing the nasty yet.” He pauses. “No. They were definitely thinking about it. They just weren’t doing it yet. At least I don’t think they were. It didn’t seem like it.”

“You can’t see things about them? Only me?”

“I can see some things about them,” muses the old man. “But with you, everything is clear. With them, it’s like when you try to get Cinemax on TV. Lots of squiggly lines keeping you from seeing the good stuff.”

Jackson doesn’t understand the reference. “They were partners back then? At the FBI?”

“Yeah,” agrees the man. “And why do nice ladies like your mom always end up with assholes like your dad?” He sighs. “If I had psychic powers that were useful, I could have warned her. Mr. Handsome will be nothing but heartache.”

“They seem to … love each other,” Jackson points out. “They have a good relationship.” It feels strange defending them, these parents he does not know.

The old man rolls his eyes. “Ain’t love grand.”

“How did you know my parents? Did they investigate you? I know they investigate, like, supernatural cases.”

“They didn’t really investigate me,” the man sighed. “Like I said, I wasn’t that interesting. I helped with a murder case, told them how people died. Then I died in bed, began to putrefy, end of story. Good times.”

“Can you still see people’s deaths?” Jackson asks. “Can you see mine? How do I die?”

The old man coughs a little, politely. “When people ask you that directly, you have only a few options. Option one: tell them the truth. They either won’t believe you or it will mess them up thinking about it. No good. Option two: lie. You can either lie in a mean way, or you can lie in a nice way, depending on how you feel about the person. Option three: evade the question. It’s really the best option.”

“You’re trying to go with option three right now,” says Jackson, understanding, a reluctant sigh.

“Bingo.”

“Did my parents ask you?”

The old man shrugs.

“What did you tell them?”

“Option two with both of them,” the old man says. “Well, I didn’t really lie to your dad. I just strongly implied he died in an undignified way.” The old man smiled to himself. “He was very agitated. The man really wanted to impress your mom. I had to get my kicks somehow.”

“How do they really die?” It is fascinating to Jackson that this man could see, way back then, his parents’ ends in a time that has not yet come.

The old man folds his hands in front of him and looks at the boy, his eyes serious. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“It’s not my death.”

“It will mess with your head.”

Jackson looks at him in disbelief. “I barely know them,” he says.

“You will,” the old man says. “You will know them. And it will bother you. You gotta trust me. I am that kind of psychic now that I am dead. Very wise.”

Staring at the iced tea glass, Jackson considers the idea of having a different, closer relationship with the FBI agent parents. It is a strange but not unpleasant idea. He thinks about Agent Scully’s heartfelt speech to his dead body, her broken voice, her tears. He thinks about Harry Potter seeing his dead red-headed mother standing behind him in the Mirror of Erised.

“You can see everything about me? Even my future?”

“Mostly, I think.”

“Am I … happy, eventually?”

“Way, way too hard of a question,” the old man says. “What am I, your shrink? You seem like you will be … pretty happy? You have sex a lot. You fall in love. That seems good to me.”

The boy nods, gravely, finding this more comforting than he thinks he probably should.

“You have sex with girls and guys,” the old man adds, mystified. “Is that just a regular thing people do now, or what?”

Jackson smiles. “I guess. Some people. I think people always did, though.”

“I had sex with basically no one,” says the old man sadly.

“I’m sorry,” the boy says, and finds that he means it. He is starting to like the old guy, despite himself.

“You fall in love just like your idiot dad. All heart, no brain.” The old man sips his tea.

“Yeah,” says the boy ruefully, who has had some experience with love already, and with it being unrequited.

“And the sister,” the old man says. “That seems nice for you. You’re crazy about the sister, your whole life. She’s around after your parents are gone.”

“I don’t have a sister,” the boy says.

“Did I tell you I was psychic or what?”

Jackson has been seeing some things, lately, from his mother’s mind, that could imply his mother was having another baby. He didn’t know whether they were real, or metaphor, or references to the past, or what. But it seems impossible. Isn’t Agent Scully too old?

“All of her babies are impossible,” the old man answers his thoughts directly, shrugging.

Like many children who have not known a biological family, Jackson is somewhat taken by the idea of a sibling, a sister, who might grow up to physically resemble him and speak and think and feel like him. Would she be able to do his tricks? Would she have his same faults? Could he help her avoid his mistakes? She would grow up with the FBI agents as her parents, Jackson realizes, in the life he might have had, perhaps should have had, and that makes him sad. In some part of him that isn’t numb to this old desire already, he feels envious.

“Is she, uh, in danger?” Jackson asks suddenly. “The baby? I am not sure my parents know about ... everything.”

“She’s not if you help protect her,” the old man says.

“You’re saying I should go back to talk to them again. The FBI agents.”

“Listen, I don’t tell you to do things,” the old man says, an offended tone. “Don’t get confused. I’m not God. I am just some dead guy.”

“Do you miss being alive?” Jackson has no idea where this question comes from.

The old man considers his answer. “Not … mostly,” he says. “I miss Hydrox cookies.”

Jackson has never heard of Hydrox cookies, and imagines they must be something from 20th century pre-Jackson existence.

“You find it difficult to talk to your parents,” comments the old man.

“Yeah,” Jackson says, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s complicated. Painful.”

“Sure, it’s complicated,” the man says. “But it’s not like you’re the first kid your age who finds it hard to talk to his goddamned parents.”

“What are you saying, exactly?”

“Well,” the man gestures around him. “Not every kid has a magic dream heaven and a bunch of hocus pocus powers. Seems like you have a lot more options than the rest of us did.”

“What are you suggesting I do?” Jackson says.

“Hell if I know.”

Jackson makes an exasperated sound. “Then what good is this?”

“For someone who is so hell bent on running away on his own, you sure seem desperate for someone to tell you what to do,” the old man says.

He tilts his head to one side, looking at something past Jackson’s head. “Well. How about that.”

“What?” Jackson turns his head around, urgently. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” the old man smiles a little. “I just thought the pattern on the back of these café chairs looked kind of funny. Like a brain.”

Jackson looks at the chair the man is staring at, but to him, it looks like an abstract pattern -- swirls of metal fused together, not especially brain-like. He turns around and fixes the man with a bemused stare.

“Well?” the old man says, sipping the iced tea. “What do you say?”

“I have an idea, maybe,” Jackson says, looking over the man’s face carefully. “But I may need you, sort of.”

"I had a feeling," shrugs the old man. "Life is just like I remember it. A pain in the ass."

“That’s been my experience as well,” sighs Jackson.

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#x-files fanfic #the x files #fox mulder #dana scully #jackson van de kamp #clyde bruckman's final repose #todayinfic #msr #I don't know how to use tumblr #i'm trying though

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smilepal · 3 years

Note

First, I want to say that I hate tumblr for never really showing me when you do an ask game, because I really want to know more about Hiro! TuT Second: 13, 9, 5, 3, 2 for the Horror Ask Game pls QuQ And I really need to tell you how much I adore Ollie! <3 He reminds me so much of my late dog <3

Horror asks for @ladyizunia 💖💖

2.) Does your oc have nightmares? What are they about?

He'd seldom admit it, but yes. He has lots of them. He's been struggling with insomnia most of his life, but it got worse after he left the Claws, and nightmares aren't uncommon. They're a common feature in his dreams, that and the amount of guilt he carries with himself. He also dreams of people who he's close to getting hurt, especially because of him. It's a very real fear of his, and this often bleeds over into nightmares. On nights they wake him up, he doesn't bother trying to get back to sleep, figures it'll only lead to more dreams anyway, and tries to find a distraction, whether that's around his apartment or taking his bike out for a nighttime ride, and finding a diner to sit in until the sun starts to rise. It's another one of the reasons he doesn't like sleeping around other people unless he really trusts them--it's something he's pretty ashamed about.

3.) How does your oc feel about bugs and spiders?

Hiro is fairly used to them--if you have a shitty apartment in Night City, they're unavoidable, and he's glad he's finally found a place that isn't overrun with roaches. It's not like he particularly enjoys them, but it's hard to get rid of them entirely. They're not something he's afraid of, just sees them as vaguely gross--especially because when he's encountering flies/maggots in his line of work, it means he's potentially dealing with a body, or some sort of killing, and turns a potentially easy gig into something much more complicated. Sanakes, on the other hand--he's quite afraid of. He's not as familiar with the badlands, and finds them and the way they move very unsettling.

5.) Has your oc ever had a near-death experience?

He's had enough of them, particularly when he was still in the Claws, and in his role as a merc, and they are starting to not feel particularly special, at this point--only a risk that will always be present. There were also a couple when he was younger, when he was still living with his brother--nearly drowning in the trash-choked waters near the Kabuki docks when he was looking for scrap metal, or things he could sell. His brother pulled him out, luckily--but it left him with no desire to go anywhere near the water after that. He still hates deep water, especially with his cybernetics. He's heavy enough that he doubts he could swim, if he felt for some reason inclined to try. If anything, the experiences have made him even more determined to survive, despite the dangers of living in Night City. Despite this, death is something he still fears, even though his actions can verge on reckless, and one of the first things he got when he had the cred/eddies to do it was secure second heart cyberware. He hopes he never needs it, but figures it's better to be prepared.

9.) What role/archetype would your oc fulfill in a horror movie?

Probably the final survivor (who may or may not get brought back for a sequel). Maybe you think he’s dead and he ends up coming back later. So many of his motives are driven by survival and he’s stubborn as hell—stubborn, and with enough common sense to survive, particularly if his more reckless side is kept at bay. There’s a healthy sense of wariness there—definitely not the type to wander into the spooky house alone, or into the creepy basement, and definitely not the one who assumes the villain is dead.

13.) Has your oc ever tortured/hurt someone else without killing them?

Yes, but he isn't proud of it. There are a couple times he did so in TC, when he was younger, but more often he saw others doing it instead. It's something he absolutely will not do, unless it was to get information that he'd need to keep his loved ones safe, or in the event that something actually happened to them. That...might lead to said scenario. He knows he's walking a slippery line, and that it would be a little too easy to return to what he knows/what he's used to.

Thanks for asking, and Ollie says thank you too! He also adores you, I'm sure. 😘

#ask game #character asks #hiro oda #oc: hiro oda #cyberpunk ocs #tyger claws #sorry not sorry you get angst

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vmficrecs · 4 years

Text

Every school has an obligatory psychotic jackass. He’s ours.

It has been one year since The Incident. In celebration of this beautiful, snarky, dynamic, passionate, beloved, smug, asshole, essential, etc., etc., character I have complied a lengthy (but by no means exhaustive) collection of some of my personal favorite fics focusing on Logan, or on his relationships, or fics that i just think do something neat in terms of Logan/his journey/his character. ❤️

Previously on vmficrecs:

dark_roast, “Fish Out of Water,” Mature, Post Season 1 AU

Logan opts to leave Neptune, and spend summer vacation with his grandparents.

Notes: This AU is essential reading if you love Logan. His characterization is nearly perfect, and the premise of the fic is endlessly engaging and smart.

wily_one24, “Sleep, Perchance...,” Mature, Pre-series AU

Logan thaws towards Veronica and sets out to save her.

Notes: I want to eat this fic. If you’ve never read it, read it-- it will linger endlessly inside of your brain in the best way possible. So many of the things Logan does or says in this fic exist in a very tangible and palpable manner for me, it’s that good. I think about it constantly.

ghostcat, “What We Have in Common,” Teen, Post Season 3 AU

Weevil Navarro, his incredibly poor choice of a research paper prepping locale and the close talking, finger waving jackass that interrupts and effectively hijacks his night. Set in 2010, three years after The Bitch is Back.

ghostcat, “A Trace of Meaning,” Teen, Pre-series

13 year-old Logan Echolls and 14 year-old Veronica Mars wait at the Kane Estate for their held-up sleepover hosts to show up.

theohara, “Rich Dirt,” Mature, Pre-series AU

And Logan wouldn’t let you have anything. He’d danced over to you and smirked in your face and twirled your plastic cup right out of your hand and cooed that just because your Daddy wasn’t sheriff anymore didn’t give you license to break the law, and he’d acted all shocked with his hand over his mouth and he’d laughed like breaking glass and nanced off with your drink.

anjou, “Into the Blue,” Mature, Post Season 1

It’s almost summer, and Logan is sinking into the blue.

flyingcarpet, “Mexicali Blues,” Mature, Post Season 3 AU

When he reaches the water he doesn’t hesitate, just keeps walking until he can duck his head under and start to swim away from shore, letting the salt and the waves wash away the residue that Neptune’s left on his skin.

absolutelyiris, “Truth for a Dream,” Teen, Future Fic (Pre-movie)

Fleet Week 2012. A reformed bad boy turned sailor and a former party girl turned career woman meet in a bar…

Notes: A LOGAN AND PARKER FRIENDSHIP FIC!!! pure fucking delight

absolutelyiris, “Come Around,” Mature, Future AU

A woman travels the world over in search of what she needs and returns home to find it.

Notes: I will talk about this fic until the day that I day, and then I will still talk about it. One of my absolute favorites. Pure gold Logan/Keith dynamic. I would 10/10 die for Razia. and, of course, the l/v is so damn good

TheLastGoodGolfish, “The Phenomenal Pixie, #1,” Teen, AU

Veronica is a masked avenger who stalks the streets of Neptune. Logan is the intrepid reporter who’s on the story.

Notes: PERFECT. PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT. also-- “That’s ridiculous. My favorite person is a sorority girl.” in my head, rent free, and i am forever indebted.

bryrosea, “Waste of Breath / A Quartz Contentment,” Mature, Post Season 2 to TDTL

Part one: Logan Echolls, the nine years, and the Navy. Part two: Veronica Mars, the nine years, and a new normal.

Notes: I am recommending specifically “Waste of Breath” for my boy, although Veronica’s piece is excellent as well.

always_winter, “Written Out,” Teen, Season 2 AU

Duncan has some residual guilt and Logan wants to be left out of the story.

always_winter, “White Combs and Sweet Honey,” Mature, Season 1

Even when Aaron is trying to be a good father, there’s still a lot he’s doing wrong.

Notes: This fic is so tender to me!!! A beautiful Logan and Aaron piece.

sadiekate, “Grand Canyon,” PG-13, Season 1 to Future AU

Three friends reminisce several years in the future, snarkily and pointlessly.

sinaddict, “Necrosis,” Explicit, Season 2 AU

Death in bits and pieces, denial as a religion… Or ‘normal’ in Neptune.

sowell, “Surviving the Wreck,” Explicit, Season 3 AU

Nothing’s ever simple with Veronica Mars. Weevil’s day at sea gets a little complicated.

Notes: THIS FUCKING FIC!!!! i love everything about it and especially at this moment in time, the part where logan gives weevil a blow job but weevil notes that somehow, in spite of this, logan retains the upper hand. this fic is world class and i am grateful everyday for it

theohara, “Broken Toys,” NC-17, Pre series AU

One glance across a street saves Lilly Kane’s life. It changes everything; it changes nothing.

Notes: This is the most heartbreaking Veronica Mars’ fanfic ever. I have such a deep love for it. It takes Lilly’s character and Logan/Veronica’s relationship to places I don’t ever think they would go and yet it works in this and it works so damn well. a truly devastating and beautiful au

fluffernutter8, “The Ninety Nine Percent,” Teen, Post Season 3 AU

Junior year of college, Logan gets some news that proves that no matter how hard he tries, life is just going to keep throwing him curve-balls. Post season 3, non movie canon compliant.

youcallitwinter, “gravity is gonna keep you tied down to this city,” Teen, Post Season 3 to TDTL

[your life in extended parenthesis] the lone neon nights and the ache of the ocean, and the fire that was starting to spark. From the love to the lightning and the lack of it.

Notes: please don't fall out of love with me, okay? don’t you dare give up on me. I DIE EVERY FUCKING TIME youcallitwinter is a force with all of her writings, but this one.......my god every single bit about it is fucking flawless

petpluto, “Of Scars & Consequences,” Teen, Post-series AU

Almost a decade in the future, Logan's still a little messed up. And Veronica's still a little closed off. They make it work.

julietbravo, “one brutal thing after another,” Teen, Pre-series to Season 1

These rich boys think they can get away with anything, don’t they.

querulousgawks, “there should be stars for great wars like ours,” Teen, AU

It’s gotta be some Alliance mind game, a holdover, the Operative’s last trick: Logan’s old secrets manifesting everywhere around them. Where are you, how are you doing this, he wants to scream, but he doesn’t know which ghost he’d be railing at.

SilverLining2k6, “Sometimes (You Can’t Make It On Your Own),” Teen, Season 1 AU

Silly Duncan stopped taking his meds. Now, one dead Fitzpatrick later, Logan and Veronica need to get him out of town. Too bad they hate each other.

SilverLining2k6, “Control,” Teen, Pre-series AU

Don’t you mess with a little girl’s dreams. ‘Cause she’s liable to grow up mean. Pre-series. Oneshot. - A twisted little tale of hate and revenge.

Notes: CONTROL!!!!! I love Control so much, it’s one of the first fics I ever read for the fandom and one of the finest. The Logan that exists in this is sooo good and his relationship with Veronica is deeply flawed & wonderful. M is in the process of writing a remix to Control (more in-depth emotion) and I for one am foaming at the fucking mouth every day about it.

nevertothethird, “Reunions,” Teen, Post Series AU

Sometimes it just takes a little longer to get things right. Two high school reunions and a birthday party should do the trick.

youcallitwinter, “you give love a bad name,” Teen, Season 2 AU

“Hey, did you guys know there was a sensitive poet-type hiding behind this hard exoskeleton of expensive alcohol and bitter cynicism?” In which Logan Echolls is, well, Logan Echolls.

scandalpants, “Something to Remember,” Mature, Post Series AU

Facing a separation, Logan and Veronica spend their last night together exchanging gifts.

Notes: I am always in a goddamn state about this fic. Logan jacking off in front of Veronica at her request? Yes, thank you please. thank you so much

leurocrystal, “Take Your Time,” Teen, Post Season 2

Keith doesn’t know how to look at or touch his daughter for the first time in his life.

petpluto, “We Are Nowhere, And It’s Now,” Mature, Series AU

“You know there is another way of looking at this, Logan. If you’d still been together, you might be dead too." Logan and Lilly both die on October 3rd. But for Veronica, it’s not like they’re gone. And she still works to solve their murders.

absolutelyiris, “Delay,” Teen, Post TTDL

Logan reflects on his first Christmas with Veronica after a ten year separation, as well as how his life has changed with her absence.

New to vmficrecs:

Christmas in Arkham Author: dark_roast Pairing: Logan Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort, A Really Good Hug Setting: Season 2 Spoilers: 2.09, “My Mother, the Fiend” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 10128 Status: Complete Summary: Sequel to Fish Out of Water. Logan spends christmas with his grandparents. Notes: This is, full stop, my favorite Veronica Mars fanfiction ever. I am so protective of this fic that part of me doesn’t even want to give it a formal place on the blog, which is ridiculous because I’m sure plenty of people have already read it and obviously it’s so good that I want people to read it but....this belongs to me, somehow, like I feel like it’s mine that’s how much I love it. ANYWAY possessiveness aside-- Every word, every sentence, every punctuation mark in this fic is perfect, devastating insight into Logan’s character. Absolutely beautiful and wonderful and every other good thing.

The Teeth by the Shoulder Author: ghostcat Pairing: Fab Four, Logan/Lilly, Veronica/Duncan Rating: Teen Genre: Friendship, Angst Setting: Pre-series Spoilers: 1.01, “Pilot” Chapters: 3 Word Count: 17273 Status: Complete Summary: Two couples, two friendships. The Fab Four in three Octobers. Notes: WE’VE NEVER FUCKING RECOMMENDED THE TEETH BY THE SHOULDER BEFORE?????? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE OH MY GOD jesus this is one of the greatest fanfictions ever written. three pre-series explorations into the fab four friendship and it is impossibly good. i am especially in love with the logan/lilly in this fic (the first chapter!!!!) and as always special care is given to exploring the logan + veronica dynamic. the third chapter will break your fucking heart so bad in the best way

Seven Times Logan Echolls Went to Jail Author: sowell Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Veronica/Piz Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, Romance, Logan Echolls is a Little Shit Setting: (Post) Season 3 AU Spoilers: 3.12, “There’s Got to Be a Morning After Pill” and 3.16, “Un-American Graffiti” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 6701 Status: Complete Summary: Who thinks Logan behind bars is sexy? I do, I do! // Logan goes to jail and calls Veronica to bail him out. Again and again and again and again. Notes: WE HAVEN’T DONE THIS BEFORE EITHER???? oh my god!! I remember finding this one a few months before the movie came out and i would just lay in bed in the dark and re-read it endlessly. and then i left it alone for a few years and when i went back to it holy shit it undid me all over again. perfect logan and veronica relationship. p e r f e c t!!! i firmly believe this is exactly what shape their relationship would’ve taken if veronica hadn’t cut and run

Love is Just a Four-letter Word Author: bigboobedcanuck Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Keith, Weevil Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort Setting: Future AU Spoilers: 1.12, “Clash of the Tritons” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1753 Status: Complete Summary: Set a few years down the road from high school. Logan hits rock bottom. Keith and Veronica help him back up. Notes: Lynn’s body turns up and it is fucking DEVASTATING. A short piece that’s told from Keith’s POV (anyone who knows me knows how much of a sucker I am for Keith + Logan interaction) and holy hell Logan is so good in it and I think about it all the fucking time

Serendipity Author: TheLastGoodGoldfish Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Veronica/Piz, Carrie, Gia, Stu Cobbler, Ensemble Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Detective-ing Setting: Post Season 3 Spoilers: 3.20, “The Bitch is Back” and The Movie Chapters: 4 (out of a planned 6, fingers crossed!!!) Word Count: 59763 Status: Complete Summary: During her sophomore year at Hearst, Veronica takes on your run-of-the-mill blackmail case: the clients hate her, the evidence is impossible to destroy, and her ex turns out to be a bit of a distraction, but Veronica is a sucker for a damsel-in-distress. Even if the damsel is an intoxicated, pissed off Carrie Bishop. Notes: I AM HIGH PITCHED SCREAMING. Transplanting the movie plot to this timeframe works tremendously and TLGG’s execution is fucking perfect. Carrie is a powerhouse in this fic and god, Logan is such a honey it in which is why it is being recc’d for him. Him practically letting Carrie move in with him and doing his damnedest to protect Carrie and Gia (much to Veronica’s chagrin) is so, so important to me and I love him so much.

The Phenomenal Pixie - Interlude #1 - “Bugs” Author: TheLastGoodGoldfish Pairing: Logan/Veronica, OC’s Genre: Humor, Fluff, Logan and Veronica Are Smarter Than You Setting: AU (Season 3) Spoilers: uhhh n/a Chapters: 1 Word Count: 5072 Status: Complete Summary: Dating a superhero poses a unique set of challenges. Notes: Tiny sequel to The Phenomenal Pixie which you absolutely must read first (and is recommended above) because it’s a fucking delight. Logan is incredible in this fic and I would die for him, like always. The part where Steve can sense Logan is thinking about punching him in the face-- a million chefs kisses.

The Medusa Jewel Author: TheLastGoodGoldfish Pairing: Logan/Veronica Genre: Established Relationship Bliss, Fluff Setting: MKAT Spoilers: MKAT Chapters: 1 Word Count: 5336 Status: Complete Summary: Logan and Veronica's new neighbor is a writer. Notes: is my TLGG obsession shining through? good because it fucking should be. The Logan/Veronica in this relationship is so sweet and perfect and is 100% my reality and i would like to bathe in this fic and live in it forever as is my right.

Drowning Together Author: bryrosea Pairing: Logan/Veronica Genre: Romance, Hurt/Comfort Setting: Season 3 Spoilers: 3.07, “Of Vice and Men” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 897 Status: Complete Summary: AU of the confrontation scene from 3x07: Of Vice and Men (Logan and Veronica both need a hug) Notes: Absolute wonderful insight and even some reconciliation into a canonical season three fight. Logan calming down while Veronica falls apart as they hug is so important to me.

Interrupt Us Author: bryrosea Pairing: Logan/Veronica Genre: Romance, Hijinks, They Want To Fuck So Bad Setting: Post TDTL Spoilers: through TDTL Chapters: 1 Word Count: 17223 Status: Complete Summary: Logan Echolls is home from deployment. Time to cue the sweeping movie montage, right? Notes: Logan and Veronica try to have sex everywhere and it is my life force. The car scene when they get pulled over and Logan instinctively hiding under Veronica’s desk....god i love everyone in this bar

Ready to Go Author: Amberina Pairing: Logan/Duncan; Veronica Genre: Friendship, Romance, Angst Setting: Post Season 1 Spoilers: not obvious but 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 6346 Status: Complete Summary: "Let's leave. Let's go. What's left in Neptune for us anyway?" (AKA Duncan, Logan and Veronica have wacky adventures on the road! Also angst.) Notes: Logan getting hissy and storming off from the car while Duncan and Veronica just watch him and then calling a taxi once he’s out of their sight is PEAK logan. I love boyfriends, even if they’re angst-ing in this, and they big time are.

Nashville On My Mind Author: hjcallipygian Pairing: Logan, Veronica, Duncan Genre: Friendship, Hijinks Setting: Post Season 1 AU Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1659 Status: Complete Summary: Every year, they take a road trip together. This year, it's to Nashville, Tennessee. Notes: i just spent forty minutes trying to find this fic to the point where i was genuinely concerned i had hallucinated it. it’s so fucking good. a sequel/prequel of sorts to grand canyon by sadiekate (recc’d in the previously section). logan is a mess and by god do i love him

Six Times Logan Echolls Got Wet Author: bryrosea, CarolineShea, ghostcat, kmd0107, marshmallowtasha, SilverLining2k6 Pairing: Logan/Veronica Rating: Teen Genre: Romance, Friendship, Hijinks Setting: Everywhere Spoilers: All series to MKAT Chapters: 6 Word Count: 11568 Status: Complete Summary: aka: The Wet Henley ChroniclesSix stories in which we probably give Logan Echolls pneumonia, inspired by the movie's infamous wet henley. Set variously across the series and post-MKAT. Notes: each chapter is written by a different author, they’re all good but bryrosea’s chapter and silvery’s chapter are my favorites. set during the summer between season 1 & 2 and post season three respectively they do such a great job dealing with the fractious and tumultuous nature of Logan/Veronica’s relationship at the time and i love it so much

A Little Dysfunctionality Goes A Long Way Author: fluffernutter8 Pairing: Logan/Veronica Rating: Teen Genre: ANGST with a side of fucking ANGST, happy ending but jesus Setting: Post Season 3 AU Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 2878 Status: Complete Summary: Despite their history, Logan and Veronica might be somewhere on the brink of normal. A few years post season 3. Notes: i just read this for the first time 07/13/20 at 9:08pm because when i asked shelby for her favorite logan fics she included this one. i am fucking dead now and-- there’s nothing else to say about it. i’m just fucking dead. for YEARS i have said that nobody with the username fluffernutter8 should be able to write shit this goddamn emotional and yet, time and time again, i find myself here fuckign wrecked and furious about it

these are just ghosts that broke my heart before i met you Author: theviolonist Pairing: Logan, Veronica, Carrie, Dick Rating: Teen Genre: Introspection, Angst, I Love Logan Setting: Pre Movie & Movie Spoilers: Movie Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1326 Status: Complete Summary: In the army they say, don't think of the target as a person, otherwise you won't have the guts to pull the trigger. Notes: fuck, you guys. this one is so beautiful. an exploration into logan’s grief and him trying to move on and it cuts like a damn knife because he can never really do it but fuck he wants to so bad and [lucas scott voice] that’s gotta mean something, right? truly so so wonderful

Fugue Author: vaeran Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Logan/Lilly, Dick Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, hopeful ending Setting: Post Season 1 Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 4137 Status: Complete Summary: It's something he refuses to let go because it defines who he is and what he has become. Notes: deviates from the PCHer confrontation on the bridge, which means logan takes a little longer to come around to reconciliation with veronica. it’s perfect and i particularly love the logan/lilly in this, he’s hurt but still so impossibly and eternally in love with her

One Flew Over the Echolls Nest Author: Wynn Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Duncan Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, Friendship Setting: Post Season 1 AU Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1507 Status: Complete Summary: Open wide and see what's inside. A bridge and a bed and Veronica. Logan finds himself in a mental institution after the events of "Leave it to Beaver." Veronica, Duncan, and Logan's psychiatrist attempt to help. Notes: so sad and so good!!! the part where Logan’s psychiatrist asks him when the last time he was happy was fucking wrecks me everytime!!

Free at last Author: querulousgawks Pairing: Logan, Weevil, Aaron Rating: Teen Genre: Frenemies, They Are Boyfriends Setting: Season 2 Spoilers: 2.09, “My Mother, the Fiend” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1242 Status: Complete Summary: Logan and Weevil and fire go a long way back. A flashback scene interrupts their Season 2 meeting in the Neptune Grand. Notes: I LOVE EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THIS SO GOD DAMN MUCH

The Right Shade of Red Author: ghostcat Pairing: Trina, Logan, Aaron Rating: Teen Genre: ANGST Setting: Pre-series Spoilers: 1.15, “Ruskie Business” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 883 Status: Complete Summary: Trina finds her jerky little brother hiding in her closet and does the unexpected thing. (Or, A time Logan trusted Trina) Notes: If you want 883 words to be able to make you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck this is the fic for you! I love the Echolls family dynamics so much, and this one is excellent.

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sardinesandhumbugs · 3 years

Note

i would be very interested in learning more about horwood (derogatory) if you're interested in explaining?

okay so

so William Horwood was is (apparently he’s still alive and kicking in his 70s) a writer who wrote perhaps the best-known sequel to The Wind in the Willows in 1993: The Willows in Winter. (He wrote three more following after it: Toad Triumphant, The Willows and Beyond, and The Willows at Christmas, but the first one is the one most will be familiar with due to the 1996 movie.)

(He wasn’t the first person to write a sequel to WitW; that honour goes to Dixon Scott in 1983 with A Fresh Wind in the Willows although that had some funky copyright issues)

The Willows in Winter does its best to mimic the style of the original book, and to some extent it does succeed. It is, however, still essentially published fanfiction and, as such, it has some wonderful ‘misses’ that I will mock this 27-yo story for. (I admittedly kinda love the movie it was adapted into, so this is all done with the same kind of ribbing my friends lovingly bestow upon me after I walk into glass walls or eat notably dodgy apples like some modern-day snow white)

These misses include but are not limited to:

awkward character decisions

These Characters Are Aggressively Not Gay

But Sometimes It Will Read Very Gay Anyway

hilarious character names

I Will (Almost) Kill Mole Multiple Times

Sometimes Twice In The Same Book

you will read “The Water Rat” more than you ever did in witw

Rat has river-speaking abilities now

Badger has one (1) response to “someone has vanished” and it’s to organise a funeral

Rat sees heaven for, like, a moment

Toad nearly gets hanged

Anyway, because I have A Lot of thoughts about the book, here’s a spoiler-inclusive breakdown of the plot for your enjoyment below the cut:

The story starts with Mole’s nephew who we will call “Nephew” for the sole fact that Horwood never deigns to give him any other name. (I have been reliably informed that the next story has Badger’s grandson creatively named... Grandson, just in case anyone thought this might be a one-off.)

It has been... an indistinguishable number of years since the original book, and Horwood decided the natural character development for the polite and loyal Mole is for him to have become a grumpy old soul who has been passing his recently orphaned Nephew around his friends because he doesn’t like company.

The biggest issue Mole has is that he erroneously told Nephew that he could stay “as long as [he] wants” and, well, you have to see this for yourself:

...for ‘as long as you want’ soon feels like a life sentence to a bachelor like Mole, unused to sharing his home with another for more than an evening at a time.

(Mole is a Bachelor, okay? He’s definitely not accustomed to living whole seasons with Ratty, to the point that he nearly forgets what his own home looks like.)

So Mole is beginning to think that perhaps Nephew isn’t The Worst Thing Ever when Portly turns up in the middle of a horrible snow storm and, in attempting to warm him up, Nephew gives him too much alcohol and promptly sends Portly off to sleep, but not before he imparts that he came running all this way because Rat said that he needed Mole.

So Mole heads out into the terrible snow storm, gets to the River, and carves his will into a tree because this is Horwood’s fanfic and he can write angst if he wants to, dammit! And, naturally, everything goes wrong. a la Don’t Carry It All style.

You may be saying, oh plot! This sounds dramatic! I regret to inform you that Rat was not, in fact, in danger, but was actually just snowed in with Otter and drunkenly remarked that it’d be so much jollier if Mole joined them (no homo), and then carried getting so drunk that neither of them realised that Portly was gone until three days later.

[A helpful comic illustrating Otter’s parental abilities]

(This is, of course, the same Portly for whom Otter spent days trying to find in The Piper At the Gates of Dawn chapter of the original book. Turns out his parental approach has drastically changed since then.)

After some searching, they find Mole’s will carved into the tree and deduce that Mole attempted to cross the frozen river and failed and they decide to leave off searching until it’s light again. In the meantime, we get this lovely passage that I actually adore for how tender it is:

The Water Rat knew a night of shadows and half-dreams, memories of Mole in the hot afternoon sun of summer, reflecting upon life. Such remembrances tormented the poor Rat till dawn came once more and he stared bleakly out of the window, tears trickling down his face, listening to the quiet bustle of the other three round the corner in the kitchen.

During all of this, Toad has discovered a love of flying machines (biplanes, to you and me) and the Riverbankers claim use of his newest one to search for Mole. Long story short, Toad tricks his way into being the pilot, flies so badly that he unseats Rat (who manages to deploy his parachute in time, but has a near-death experience beforehand) and then crashes the plane into a greenhouse in town.

The other Riverbankers find Rat, who has survived his fall (even if he has seen Beyond the Veil) and he’s currently Talking to the River (Horwood decided to take the “water” part of Rat’s name as a personality trait) and Rat assures the Riverbankers that Mole isn’t dead because the River Said So.

Badger is like, cool, cool, okay he’s suffered a mental break from losing Mole, and possibly Toad too, so we’re going to do the sensible thing and host a funeral for Mole. (Have I mentioned how much they are definitely straight?)

Anyway, in a move that would make any soap opera green with envy, Mole manages to find his way back to the Riverbank just in time to crash his own funeral, scaring everyone witless until they realise their mistake. (I did say this was published fanfiction.) Everyone is happy, Mole is not dead, and life goes merrily on.

Meanwhile, Toad has had a few misadventures, that include:

crashing into a greenhouse that belongs to the judge who sentenced him in the original book

somehow no one realises he’s Toad, so he stays in bed as the heroic pilot who risked life and limb to stop his plane from crashing into the town

escaping disguised as a chimney sweep

turning up to a wedding that the judge was attending and getting arrested

being accused of murdering the missing chimney sweep

being sentenced to be hanged for murdering the missing chimney sweep

being acquitted from the crime when it turns out the chimney sweep is still alive

(Yes, Horwood really went, hey I should raise the stakes from the original, and then put Toad on trial for murder under threat of hanging.)

(If what I’ve heard about the later books, Horwood decided that what the Extended WitW Universe was missing was an overarching antagonist, which he rectifies by having the judge return several times.)

Toad is set on his way and he slowly returns back to the Riverbank, mostly because he’s under the impression that not only is Mole dead, but that he probably killed Rat too (this is a Fun Kid’s Book) whereupon he eventually discovers that, uncared for, Toad Hall has fallen into flooded ruin. He mopes and drinks and lights candles before toddling off to Badger’s home, where Badger is having a thoroughly miserable party that has pretty much turned into a Mourning Toad party and they all celebrate Toad’s return. There’s even a sweet moment:

Toad, very drunk and sad: What am I, Badger? Badger: You are home, Toad.

And then in the last two minutes of the book, Toad Hall burns to the ground because Horwood couldn’t resist a last-minute sprinkling of drama into the story.

(Also, also, the last few lines of the book seems to imply that the name of “The Mole” is something that’s inherited like the title of Caesar was, and Nephew will one day be The Mole and I can’t get over that.)

The End.

Anyway, Horwood is evidence that fanfic writers have always gone, “I can add angst to this,” and that you really shouldn’t feel so bad about that edgy OOC fanfic you wrote when you were 13 because it turns out some people go and get theirs published.

And that’s why some of us have “Horwood (Derogatory)” as a meme.

#Anon #replies #cat rambles #the willows in winter #horwood #at some point I'll find a copy of his other books #the wind in the willows #anyway again I will mention that I do love the film that this was turned into #but I am very aware that it had some Interesting choices #if anyone else familiar with this book wants to chime in #feel free #i'm sure there's some other things I've missed #tbf it isn't a bad book #and there are definitely more uh interesting 'sequels'#sorry for the long post #hope this entertained somebody

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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HBO Max New Releases:. July 2021

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

LeBron James might be out of the NBA playoffs, but he’s still angling to be a big part of the summer entertainment season. That’s because HBO Max’s list of new releases for July 2021 is highlighted by a very special sequel.

Space Jam: A New Legacy premieres on July 16. will find LeBron teaming up with the Looney Tunes in a Warner Bros. IP-extravaganza. Can ‘Bron and the Looney Tunes beat the Goon Squad before Warner Bros.’ server steals LeBron “Bronny” Jr.’s soul (or something)? Let’s hope so. The two other major WB releases this month, No Sudden Move and Tom and Jerry in New York, both come to HBO Max on July 1.

HBO Max is also bringing some fun TV shows to its stream this month. The long-awaited Gossip Girl revival premieres on July 8. That will be followed by Mike White’s satirical limited series The White Lotus on July 11. Ronan Farrow’s excellent book Catch and Kill gets a docuseries adaptation on July 12.

July 1 will see the arrival of library titles like Planet of the Apes, Reservoir Dogs, and Scream. Recent hit Judas and the Black Messiah comes to HBO Max on that date as well. It’s a good month for geek TV with the Doctor Who 2020 Christmas Special (July 1), Nancy Drew season 2 (July 3), and Batwoman season 2 (July 27) all coming home to their streaming residence.

HBO Max New Releases – July 2021

TBA FBOY Island, Max Original Season 1 Premiere Romeo Santos: King of Bachata, 2021 (HBO) Romeo Santos Utopia Live from MetLife Stadium, 2021 (HBO)

July 1 ¡Come! (aka Eat!), 2020 8 Mile, 2002 (HBO) All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, 1996 (HBO) All Dogs Go to Heaven, 1989 (HBO) Behind Enemy Lines, 1997 (HBO) Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1970 (HBO) Bio-Dome, 1996 (HBO) Black Panthers, 1968 Blackhat, 2015 (HBO) Brubaker, 1980 (HBO) Cantinflas (HBO) Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, 1972 (Extended Version) (HBO) Cousins, 1989 (HBO) Dark Water, 2005 (HBO) Darkness Falls, 2003 (HBO) Demolition Man, 1993 Dirty Work, 1998 (HBO) Disturbia, 2007 (HBO) Doctor Who Holiday 2020 Special: Revolution of the Daleks, 2020 Duplex, 2003 (HBO) Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971 (HBO) Eve’s Bayou, 1997 Firestarter, 1984 (HBO) First, 2012 For Colored Girls, 2010 (HBO) For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, 2012 (HBO) Full Bloom, Max Original Season 2 Finale Ghost in the Machine, 1993 (HBO) The Good Lie, 2014 (HBO) Gun Crazy, 1950 House on Haunted Hill, 1999 Identity Thief, 2013 (Extended Version) (HBO) Ira & Abby, 2007 (HBO) Joe Versus the Volcano, 1990 Judas and the Black Messiah, 2021 (HBO) Laws Of Attraction, 2004 (HBO) Lucky, 2017 (HBO) Maid in Manhattan, 2002 Married to the Mob, 1988 (HBO) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1997 Mississippi Burning, 1988 (HBO) Monster-In-Law, 2005 Mousehunt, 1997 (HBO) My Brother Luca (HBO) No Sudden Move Pleasantville, 1998 The Prince of Tides, 1991 Project X, 1987 (HBO) The Punisher, 2017 (HBO) Punisher: War Zone, 2008 (HBO) Rambo, 2008 (Director’s Cut) (HBO) Reds, 1981 (HBO) Reservoir Dogs, 1992 (HBO) The Return of the Living Dead, 1985 (HBO) Return of the Living Dead III, 1993 (Extended Version) (HBO) Rounders, 1998 (HBO) Saturday Night Fever, 1977 (Director’s Cut) (HBO) Scream, 1996 Scream 2, 1997 Scream 3, 2000 Semi-Tough, 1977 (HBO) The Sessions, 2012 (HBO) Set Up, 2012 (HBO) Snake Eyes, 1998 (HBO) Staying Alive, 1983 (HBO) Stuart Little, 1999 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2003 Tom and Jerry in New York, Max Original Series Premiere Trick ‘R Treat, 2009 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls, 2007 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2005 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself, 2009 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail, 2009 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family, 2011 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion, 2006 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too, 2010 (HBO) The Watcher, 2016 (HBO) The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, 2007 (HBO) Westworld (Movie), 1973 White Chicks (Unrated & Uncut Version), 2004 The White Stadium, 1928 Won’t Back Down, 2012 (HBO) Zero Days, 2016 (HBO)

July 2 Lo Que Siento por Ti (aka What I Feel for You) (HBO)

July 3 Let Him Go, 2020 (HBO) Nancy Drew, Season 2

July 7 Dr. STONE, Seasons 1 and 2 (Subtitled) (Crunchyroll Collection) Shiva Baby, 2021 (HBO)

July 8 The Dog House: UK, Max Original Season 2 Premiere Gossip Girl, Max Original Series Premiere Human Capital, 2020 (HBO) The Hunt, 2020 (HBO) Looney Tunes Cartoons, Max Original Season 2 Premiere

July 9 Frankie Quinones: Superhomies (HBO)

July 11 The White Lotus, Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

July 12 Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

July 15 Tom & Jerry, 2021 (HBO)

July 16 Betty, Season 2 Finale (HBO) Space Jam: A New Legacy, Warner Bros. Film Premiere, 2021 Un Disfraz Para Nicolas (aka A Costume for Nicolas) (HBO)

July 17 The Empty Man, 2020 (HBO)

July 18 100 Foot Wave, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

July 22 Through Our Eyes, Max Original Documentary Series Premiere

July 23 Corazon De Mezquite (aka Mezquite’s Heart) (HBO)

July 24 Freaky, 2020 (HBO)

July 26 Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, Documentary Series Finale (HBO)

July 27 Batwoman, Season 2 Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBO)

July 30 Uno Para Todos (aka One for All) (HBO)

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Leaving HBO Max – July 2021

July 3 The ABC’s Of Covid-19: A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Parents Part 2, 2020

July 4 Annabelle, 2014 Annabelle Comes Home, 2019 (HBO) The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, 2021 The Curse of La Llorona, 2019 The Nun, 2018

July 5 Lost And Delirious, 2001

July 8 Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015

July 10 It: Chapter 2, 2019 (HBO)

July 11 An Elephant’s Journey, 2018 In the Heights, 2021 Thanks for Sharing, 2013

July 15 Burlesque, 2010

July 17 The Notebook, 2004

July 26 The King’s Speech, 2010

July 31 17 Again, 2009 A Clockwork Orange, 1971 A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, 1985 A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, 1988 A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, 1989 A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street, 2010 Adam’s Rib, 1949 America’s Sweethearts, 2001 Anaconda, 1997 The Apparition, 2012 (HBO) Are We There Yet?, 2005 Argo, 2012 (Alternate Version) (HBO) AVP: Alien vs. Predator, 2004 (Alternate Version) (HBO) Badlands, 1973 Beau Brummel, 1954 The Benchwarmers, 2006 Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, 2011 (HBO) Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta!, 2012 (HBO) Billy Madison, 1995 (HBO) The Book Of Eli, 2010 (HBO) Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992 Bringing Up Baby, 1938 The City of Lost Children, 1995 The Color Purple, 1985 The Comebacks, 2007 (Alternate Version) (HBO) The Conjuring 2, 2016 The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, 2002 (HBO) Don’t Let Go, 2019 (HBO) Downton Abbey, 2019 (HBO) El Angel (aka The Angel), 2018 (HBO) Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 Fool’s Gold, 2008 Fort Tilden, 2015 (HBO) The Four Feathers, 2002 (HBO) The Gay Divorcee, 1934 Get A Job, 2016 (HBO) The Goonies, 1985 Grand Canyon, 1991 (HBO) Hairspray, 1988 Happy Gilmore, 1996 (HBO) Hellboy Animated Collection, 2006, 2007 The Hurricane, 1999 (HBO) I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997 Iniciales SG (aka Initials S.G.), 2019 (HBO) J. Edgar, 2011 Jackie Chan’s First Strike, 1997 Jacob’s Ladder, 1990 (HBO) Jeremiah Johnson, 1972 Keeper Of The Flame, 1943 Kill Bill: Vol. 1, 2003 (HBO) Kill Bill: Vol. 2, 2004 (HBO) Kung Fu Hustle, 2005 The Lego Ninjago Movie, 2014 Less Than Zero, 1987 (HBO) Life Stinks, 1991 (HBO) Lincoln, 2012 (HBO) Little Children, 2006 (HBO) Little Man Tate, 1991 (HBO) Lovely & Amazing, 2002 The Lucky One, 2012(HBO) The Madness of King George, 1994 (HBO) Marisol, 2019 (HBO) Me 3.769, 2019 (HBO) Michael Clayton, 2007 Mickey Blue Eyes, 1999 Monster-In-Law, 2005 Mulholland Dr., 2001 Muralla (aka Muralla, The Goalkeeper), 2018 (HBO) Murder on the Orient Express, 1974 (HBO) Music and Lyrics, 2007 My Dream Is Yours, 1949 My Girl 2, 1994 My Girl, 1991 My Sister’s Keeper, 2009 Now, Voyager, 1942 Old Dogs, 2009 (HBO) The Opposite Sex, 1956 The Pledge, 2001 (HBO) Precious, 2009 (HBO) The Producers, 1968 The Prophecy, 1995 (HBO) The Prophecy II, 1998 (HBO) The Prophecy III: The Ascent, 2000 (HBO) Prophecy IV: The Uprising, 2005 (HBO) Prophecy V: The Forsaken, 2005 (HBO) Pulp Fiction, 1994 Rachel and The Stranger, 1948 Radio Days, 1987 (HBO) The Reluctant Debutante, 1958 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, 1987 (HBO) Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love, 2005 (HBO) Revenge of the Nerds, 1984 (HBO) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991 Roger & Me, 1989 Rollerball, 2002 (HBO) Romance on the High Seas, 1948 Rumble in the Bronx, 1996 Safe House, 2012 (HBO) Salvador, 1986 (HBO) Shall We Dance?, 2004 Shallow Hal, 2001 (HBO) Shocker, 1989 (HBO) Sinbad of the Seven Seas, 1989 (HBO) Sprung, 1997 (HBO) Stop-Loss, 2008 (HBO) Sunshine Cleaning, 2009 (HBO) Swing Time, 1936 Tea for Two, 1950 Thief, 1981 (HBO) This Is Spinal Tap, 1984 (HBO) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011 (HBO) Top Hat, 1935 Trapped in Paradise, 1994 (HBO) Troll 2, 1990 (HBO) Troll, 1986 (HBO) Two Minutes of Fame, 2020 (HBO) Underdog, 2007 (HBO) Untamed Heart, 1993 (HBO) Up in the Air, 2009 (HBO) The Visitor, 2008 Waiting for Guffman, 1997 The Wedding Singer, 1998 Wendy, 2020 (HBO) Wildcats, 1986 (HBO) The Wings of Eagles, 1957 Without Love, 1945 Woman of the Year, 1942 Worth Winning, 1989 (HBO) Young Man with a Horn, 1949

The post HBO Max New Releases:. July 2021 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jwDnnp

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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capevans3000 · 4 years

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Love triangle - Part 5 (final part)

seSummary: You and Chris had always have feelings for each other, but were too afraid to let each other know. That was until Sebastian came along and a love triangle was quickly formed.

Featuring: Chris x Reader x Sebastian Stan

Warning: Some angst. Other than that mostly just fluff.

Note: This is the final part of Love Triangle! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this mini series as much as I’ve had a wonderful time writing it! Let me know what you think of the ending! Should there be a sequel, if yes, what should the sequel be? Which was your favourite part of this story? Let me know! Once again, thank you for reading and pardon any grammar error in this one. Stay safe everyone! <3

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Masterlist

“Don’t leave me like this again. Please.” Chris choked as he pulled you into a hug, his actions urgent, like his life depended on it. You took in his warmth and returned the hug. Chris quickly removed his jacket, second time in two days, and wrapped it around your shoulders to keep you warm.

You looked at him and saw that he had tears in his eyes. “You were gone for so long and I didn’t hear anything from you for hours. I couldn’t get through to your phone and- and I thought something bad had happened to you.” Chris cried openly now, tears cascading down his cheeks and dampening his face mask. You felt bad for making Chris cry like that. It was never your intention to make Chris worry and you felt so bad for forgetting the time. You pulled Chris in for another hug. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

You and Chris were locked in an embrace in the middle of that sidewalk. It was late and dark, and no one else were around. You felt a sense of déjà vu, for 24 hours ago, you were in a similar embrace, but with Sebastian. Both of these embraces were warm and safe to be in, but you couldn’t help but feel a sense of home and familiarity with Chris, although this was the first time you and him had hugged. Chris felt like home, something that you didn’t quite feel with Sebastian last night.

Chris quietly took your hands in his and walked you towards his home. You and Chris didn’t talk during the walk home, instead, the both of you just enjoyed the moment together. It was the first time you held hands and your hands fit so well together. His hands tightened on yours, seemingly not wanting to let go. His hands were warm, warmer than your pockets.

Hidden from view, Sebastian stood and watched. After realizing that you were gone and missing, Sebastian had dashed out of Chris’ house in no time to look for you. He heart had pumped with adrenaline and fear as he searched around the vicinity for you. When he couldn’t find you anywhere, it had felt like his heart had collapsed. His hands had went cold, his mind numb and he struggled to breathe. It was a feeling of utter despair when he couldn’t find you and the closest way to describe how he felt was like he was drowning. When he had finally seen you walking alone on the sidewalk, he was too late. He was a step later than Chris, yet again. Chris had gotten to you first. As he saw you walked away with Chris holding hands, he wanted to cry out your name. He wanted to run towards you and take you away, not caring what anyone would say.

But he couldn’t. His feet stood still on the ground, suddenly losing its ability to move. He could only watch as you slowly disappeared into the night, his heart felt cold like the weather. When the sense of loss finally hit him, you were already nowhere to be seen. Willing his legs to work, he slowly made that lonely and broken road back to Chris’ house – in the other direction, even further away from you.

Right before you both reached home, Chris sat you down at the bench nearby. Seeing and ensuring that there were no one else around, you and Chris removed the face masks so you could talk.

“Y/N, I’m really sorry about what happened last night. There’s no excuse for how I reacted.” Chris began. “I want to be honest with you, something I wished I had done earlier.”

Chris then began to tell you everything he had been feeling, from fearing about your lack of privacy, to him being a jerk for not telling you how he felt about you much earlier and to him lashing out at Sebastian because of his own fears.

You listened and took in everything. Your heart was pounding so hard and so quickly, you swore you could hear it in the dead of the night. You swore the person in the house next to you could hear it. You felt euphoric, like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Before this, you had felt inadequate, thus unable to tell Chris you had feelings for him. But with Chris’ confession, you felt braver to let him know about your feelings as well.

“I love you, Y/N. I have never, never loved anyone else so much before that it scares me. It scares me that I could actually lose you that I became possessive. I love you, and I really want to be with you.”

You took a breath and looked at Chris. All those months of secretly having feelings for him were finally over. This was the moment that you would tell him your true feelings as well.

“Chris, I love you too. I have been wanting to tell you this for months but I never felt good enough for you. Thank you, thank you for loving me the way I am and showing me that I am enough for you. This means so much to me.” You said, feeling a tear escaping the edge of your eyelid. It was one thing feeling like you were not good enough for him, but it showed you how much Chris really cared about you that he had casted all these doubts from your head. You felt lighter, not only because you had finally told him how you feel, but because, as he always did, made you feel enough.

“I don’t care if being with you means a life of paparazzi chase. I want to be with you and everything else is secondary.” You continued. You saw Chris’ eyes tear up again at the sound of what you just said. In the same way Chris had made you feel enough, you had assured him that his fears were unfounded because you were not afraid of giving up that part of your life for him. Chris was touched at what you were willing to sacrifice for him and his heart swelled with love.

In that moment, it was like everything clicked. It was like putting the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that you each had held in your hands for months but didn’t put down to complete the whole puzzle. Everything was full and well, like tea leaves and water together, making one flavourful drink.

“I love you so damn much, Y/N.” Chris said and he leaned in for a kiss that he had dreamed about for months. Your lips locked and you felt Chris’ warmth through his kiss. If this was a movie, fireworks would light up the sky behind them, because that was exactly what the kiss felt like. The kiss felt like it went on forever, when finally you both let go to catch a much needed breath. “I love you, too.” You said.

“Shall we continue this at home?” Chris asked and took your hands in his.

As Chris kissed you, he fumbled to look for his keys. He didn’t had to, because the door unlocked from the inside.

“Hey,” Sebastian called out. Both you and Chris stopped kissing and looked up at Sebastian. He had his bag over this shoulders, and was preparing to leave the house.

“Hey.” You and Chris called out at the same time.

“I see you two are officially together. Congratulations.” Sebastian said, forcing a smile.

“Yeah. Thank you.” Chris replied. You looked at Sebastian and smiled.

“Thank you for having me for the past two days. I should get going. Sorry if I had caused any trouble.”

“You’re family too, Seb. You’re welcome here anytime.” Chris said.

“Thanks, buddy. Before I leave, can I just talk to Y/N for a moment?” Sebastian said, his gaze turned to look at you. You turned and looked at Chris before noding your head and followed Sebastian into the deck.

“I hope this doesn’t scare you, what I’m about to tell you.” Sebastian began. He was usually confident and candid, but it felt difficult to confess to you, knowing that you already belonged to someone else.

You looked at Sebastian, not knowing what to say.

“You’re really a very special person to me. I have never ever felt this way before about someone that I barely know for a day but you were different. I was so drawn to you and extremely attracted to you almost instantly. I can only blame the fact that I didn’t know you before you knew Chris. I know Chris is head over heels in love with you and I know you’re well protected with him. If it was anyone else, I would have stopped at nothing to put up a fight for you. This may sound crazy, but please know that my feelings for you aren’t rash. I may not have known you for a long time, but I can’t deny the fact that I have feelings for you no matter how short our interaction was.” Sebastian continued.

You looked at Sebastian, even more unsure of what to say.

“I’m here for you. We may not have the chance to develop our relationship further, but I’ll be here when you need me.” Sebastian finished. He pulled you in for one last hug, and you gladly returned the hug. “I’ll always remember the dance we had on this very deck.” He said and kissed you gently on your forehead before saying goodbye.

You followed Sebastian back to the house as he went to bid goodbye to Chris. As he leaned in to give Chris a hug, you heard him whispered to Chris, “Don’t you ever dare hurt her.” Chris smiled as he returned the hug. If not for Sebastian, Chris wouldn’t have had the courage to do something he had been afraid to do for months, which was to tell you how much he loved you.

Sebastian gave you a final wave and a smile and as his car slowly disappeared into the night, Chris closed the door behind him and grabbed you in for a kiss. “For all the times in the past few months that I didn’t kiss you, I want to kiss you enough and more to make up for it. I love you, Y/N.”

#chris evans x reader #sebastian stan x reader #chris evans jealous #sebastian stan jealous #chris evans fluff #sebastian stan fluff #love triangle #chris evans #sebastian stan #reader

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guide4cj · 3 years

Text

season 1

1.01 pilot - obviously the setup for the series, should not be skipped

1.02 wendigo - direct continuation from the plot, further establishes sam and dean’s characters/relationship

1.03 dead in the water - optional, but continues to establish dean’s character, including some sweet moments between him + a mute kid with insights to dean’s trauma re: his mom’s death

1.05 bloody mary - optional, but has a scene near the end that explores sam’s guilt regarding jess’s death (it just depends on how invested you are in that part of his character on whether or not you’ll wanna watch)

1.06 skin - the beginning of the winchesters vs. the police side plot, dean’s first public “death”

1.09 home - sam and dean return to the house their mom died in for a case, john appears briefly at the end (so tw for jdm :/)

1.10 asylum - optional but has some good moments for sam

1.11 scarecrow - first appearance of recurring character meg who becomes a huge part of the series, also one of my favorite hunts from s1 personally

1.12 faith - dean’s first actual death, reaper lore, huge foreshadowing for s4

1.13 route 666 - optional, but provides background information for dean regarding relationships and love, features cassie robinson my angel

1.14 nightmare - very important to sam’s character and the s2 finale

1.15 the benders - optional, but one of my top five s1 eps; no big lore dumps, but the monsters are human, and it’s interesting to see sam and dean deal with that

1.16 shadow - return of meg and john

1.18 something wicked - flashbacks to childhood that establish john is a shitty parent, overall a very emotional episode

1.19 provenance - optional, but features a character named sarah who is the first character sam really has an attraction towards since jess’s death (she also makes a brief return in s8)

1.20 dead man’s blood - first introduction of vampires, john is here, very important worldbuilding which sucks because like i said, john is here

1.21 salvation - penultimate ep of s1, john is here too :/ but important for the plot

1.22 devil’s trap - season finale, bobby’s first appearance i’m pretty sure (and he’s their real dad and i love him), obviously very important

season two

2.01 in my time of dying - dean is dead again, john dies in this ep, generally an important episode (though this is true for all first eps i guess)

2.02 everybody loves a clown - first appearance for ellen and jo and ash whom i love, dean and sam deal with their grief over john dying

2.03 bloodlust - optional, introduction of gordon who shows up again (he eventually tries to kill sam and dean, this ep is the setup for that. there’s some commentary on humanity and when a monster isnt a monster etc but i don’t think skipping it will cause too many issues. it just depends on your interest in this based off of the desc i guess)

2.05 simon said - spiritual sequel to 1.14, introduces a character important to the s2 finale, continues to explore sam’s psychic abilities, etc

2.06 no exit - optional; the return of jo and ellen. viewing depends on your interest in them i guess.

2.07 the usual suspects - sequel to 1.06, dean vs. the cops again, which is a pretty important part of his character overall imo

2.08 crossroad blues - optional, but has a lot of lore for demons and crossroads, foreshadowing/set up for s3 (plenty of the lore can be picked up without this ep/will be repeated but i like this one, personally)

2.09 croatoan - prequel to 5.04 ! poetic cinema. apocalypse vibes

2.10 hunted - optional. continuation of 2.03, with the introduction of another character similar to max from 1.14 and andy from 2.05 who will be important to the s2 finale, but if you aren’t interested in gordon then the recap for the s2 finale will cover it

2.12 nightshifter - continuation from 2.07, more winchesters vs. the cops, introduces victor my beloved

2.13 houses of the holy - optional, has some commentary on the way sam and dean view religion that continues from 1.12 and adds perspective to s4 but not exactly necessary

2.14 born under a bad sign - optional, but kind of an important episode for sam. spoiler is that he’s possessed by meg and there’s some uncomfortable scenes regarding what she makes him do while possessed (and is one of the reasons i dislike her)

2.15 tall tales - optional bc i feel like i’m listing too many as essential :( it does introduce an important character (the archangel gabriel who is masquerading as a trickster) but i feel like the eps he appears in after will have sufficient enough recaps covering the events of this ep to catch you up

2.18 hollywood babylon - extremely optional this ep is just very comforting to me for some reason. dean and sam are working on a horror movie set that ends up having real ghosts and it’s just fun

2.19 folsom prison blues - optional, but the next thrilling installment in the winchesters vs the cops. victor from 2.12 returns. i like this ep a lot but if you aren’t interested in this subplot it can be skipped

2.21 + 2.22 all hell breaks loose - two part season finale. actually i won’t spoil this for you but it is important (just like with the first eps of every season i think finales will always be relevant)

season three

3.01 the magnificent seven - deals with fallout from the s2 finale, explores the hunting community a little more. introduces ruby, an important character

3.02 - introduction of lisa and ben (who are important to s5/6)

3.03 bad day at black rock - optional, but introduces bela my beloved (maggie twd). continues gordon’s plot from s2 as well

3.06 - optional, the return of bela (my beloved)

3.07 fresh blood - optional, the finale to gordon’s plot

3.08 a very supernatural christmas- optional, but there’s some childhood flashbacks and in general it’s a cute episode and i typically hate christmas eps skjfnskjn

3.10 dream a little dream of me - dean talks shit about john and in general talks about his feelings and it hurts me

3.11 mystery spot - the return of the trickster/gabriel (still not revealed as an angel), dean dies 100+ times, it seems dumb but is important

3.12 jus in bello - winchesters vs cops again! victor returns

3.13 ghostfacers - optional. i have no good reason for you to watch this im just obsessed with it

3.15 time is on my side - penultimate ep, deals with a lot of dean’s feelings, bela returns/this concludes her arc

3.16 no rest for the wicked - finale, dean dies :(

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livlepretre · 4 years

Note

That was realllllllll unfair of you to slide that preview into your WIP word challenge thingy!!! if this is how you’re going to play, then I choose the word the.

oh, those aren’t previews, those are just little lagniappe bits for you all to chew on while I put together the actual chapter preview and the update.

but okay. let’s play your way 😈

Fairytale Ending 43: Klaus crawls into her bed the night that Celeste had almost slit her throat. Gathers her to his chest and holds her close to him.

(The Stars Were Brightly Shining) 19: Or... she squints at her, remembering how she had flirted with Klaus the day before. She’d sullenly concluded that he must like never having to worry Caroline had plans to kill him, but that isn’t really true. She’d flirted with Klaus plenty, to distract him, she supposes, from the near-death blow Tyler had had planned for him. / Caroline had flirted, and more importantly, she had seemed to like it. / Maybe Elena could tell her everything after all.

Symbiosis 6: “Hm,” he agrees, approaching the temple ruins to examine them. “The Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, I should think. I visited here once, in my youth. I had to flee Italy, you see, nasty bit of business with one of my sister’s paramours, and so I came here. Wanted to see fabled Byzantium.”

Untitled Sequel to The Quick and the Dead: At the car, Klaus pauses. Watches her in silence as she opens up her door and climbs in. He takes in the way she yanks on the seat belt and slams the buckle in, and methodically mimics her exactly. The way he doesn’t question the car at all annoys her. In the movies, they always question the car.

New Geographies: They had had to leave Madrid in the middle of the night. They barely escaped, and left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. That had been two months ago.

Nights at the Museum: “What are you talking about?” she asks from the doorway. When neither of them move to respond, she steps into the kitchen. “If it’s about me, I have a right to know.” / Jenna gives John a pointed look before offering her a smile that fails to remove the frown from her brow. “Your uncle has this preposterous plan for you to move to New York with him.” / “Just until the summer’s over,” John cuts in. “Just to give you a chance to recover in peace.”

Chance Encounters: For the first time in many, many decades, he feels an anticipation for the coming years. Already, ideas of how he could pass his time with her are taking form in his mind-- / “Zdravei, Katerina,” he murmurs, “How I’ve missed you.” And he has-- / Katerina turns, to glance up at him, and the world tilts out from under his feet. / “I’m sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else.”

Untitled canon divergence from 4x01: Damon looks at her and cants his head to the side and he tells her, voice flip and unreachable as only he can be, “I see you’ve cheated death again.” He makes it sound like it’s him she’s cheated by not finishing the turn.

Innocence: “Would you prefer to forget? I could compel the last two years away from you, make it all as though it were a dream, and a hazy one at that. Set you up someplace new. I could even pack your brother off with you, if you’d like.” / She should be horrified. Outraged that he would so cavalierly offer to wipe away her history, her survival. / She’s not.

That Old Petrova Fire: She’d torn the town apart looking for the moonstone, playing with Stefan and Damon, keeping them distracted while she made a vampire and triggered a werewolf and readied to bring her doppelganger to Klaus like a little lamb to the slaughter-- but the moonstone had been lost over a century ago. Destroyed or sold or misplaced by George Lockwood’s son, who had never grasped its value.

Riding in Cars with Girls: Elena is practically an entirely different person than she was last fall. Which suits Rebekah, because the old Elena was the kind of girl you might get truly close to, only to be stabbed in the back.

What the Water Gave to Me: At night, she can hear the boats on the water, their horns echoing through the night like a ghostly dirge. She likes it here, surrounded by water on all sides.

Blood Ties 3: As a vampire, she had never noticed it. The fact that her entire bloodline stuck close together had never been something she questioned. They were all friends. Lovers. Siblings. They were close. She hadn’t realized how close. Not until she was no longer one of them.

Tulane AU: And yet, a year later, here’s Elena in New Orleans, a Tulane student with a false smile that still lures men to their deaths. He watches her from across Dauphine Street, does the math. It’s late November-- she’s been here since August and he’s never noticed. Time was, a Petrova could never evade detection that long. Time was, he would have torn the world apart to find her. / But it’s not that time anymore.

#anonymous #fairytale ending #swbs #symbiosis #atfbbtf #new geographies #nights at the museum #chance encounters #innocence #that old petrova fire #the quick and the dead #riding in cars with girls #what the water gave me #blood ties #wip game

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beccarooni · 4 years

Text

Prison Break

(The sequel to Alone is here! I had a few requests for there to be a part 2 to this, and with my christmas trade with @astrobruce coming up i figured what better way to wrap up the decade than with a prison break. Enjoy!)

He didn’t know how long they’d both been there. There was a lot about their current situation that he found he didn’t know, really. Their location, for a start. He couldn’t feel anything of the outside air, as if the sky itself had been closed off from him. Thor hadn’t felt like that since…well, since Odin had cast him out, really.

At least he knew Bruce was beside him. He couldn’t see the scientist - or his green companion, but being Asgardian had its privileges. The weather may have been barred from him, but Bruce’s breathing rang true in his ears if he wished to listen to it. The coolness of the metal against his cheek as he placed his ear to the wall, the soft tones of Bruce trying to talk to him - and his ability to talk back. It made the whole ordeal a lot less unbearable.

He was sure he would’ve been fine if it had been just that. Just a prison, a monitoring, nothing more. But of course, fate wasn’t so kind to him. Not when he woke one day from a sleep he didn’t remember entering, staring with abject horror at the machinery that was now lining his arms. Metal coils circling him like snakes, and he felt the freezing material of something against the back of his neck.

And Ross was there, standing in front of him, toying with some kind of activator in his hand.

Thor’s voice was hoarse, with disuse and something he’d swear wasn’t fear. It wasn’t. He was Thor, God of Thunder. And he was not scared of a man in a pressed suit with a trimmed mustache.

“I know you must feel very powerful with us being here,”

He nodded in the direction of where Bruce’s cell was, trying his best to picture him alive and well and not the cold, shaking figure that haunted his dreams in the few hours of sleep he’d been able to get.

“Very powerful, and very strong. But please, listen to me. This is a bad idea. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

He swallowed, taking a few steps towards the glass - or as many as his now limited mobility would allow.

“I don’t even know how these powers work - not really. I thought I did when I had mjolnir, but now I don’t, and I have no idea what’s going to happen if you press that button. You…You can’t do this.”

Ross, for a moment, seemed to consider this. In the face of the unnatural, on the brink of accessing a raw force of nature, he did what any human would do. When faced with the passage to the northern seas, with the mountainous ice caps that loomed over ships and the biting wind that froze fingers and cracked skin - people had hesitated before drawing out the maps.

They’d considered the pros and the cons, used their heads, used caution.

Ross’s fingers wavered above the control panels, his face set in stone.

Thor shook his head mutely, the eloquent phrases and elaborate threats and ominous forebodings he’d picked up from a cave somewhere long ago boiling down into one word. One syllable.

“Please."

Ross frowned. The air was still.

Until he pressed down, and Thor’s world tilted in the corner of his vision, dissolving into a burning white that for a moment seemed suspended between the here and now. For a moment, nothing touched him. His body was not his own.

Until it was.

Until his soul was dragged, screaming back into his body, and he felt every jolt that ran through his veins.

Standing tall through that storm was a feat that none could have achieved. The strongest ships still stood a chance of sinking, the most hardened sailors could still drown when faced with cold waters.

Thor didn’t want to drown.

Not with Bruce on the other side of the wall. Not when their miraculous escape hadn’t happened yet, and he still had promises left to fulfil - tales of tea and warmth and some old sappy movie that he still needed to tell.

For a moment, the thought of it worked.

And then the pain redoubled, and he didn’t have moments anymore.

***

The grate was cold, and Bruce was panicking.

Of course, maybe it was a little late in the day to start panicking. Given that he was being held by General Ross who had made his plans to dissect him abundantly clear in the past. But, he’d always had Thor. His rage, his sorrow, his storms echoing off of the sides of the chamber. The creeping feeling of static that seemed to sink through his skin itself had always been there, right when he needed it.

And now it wasn’t.

He didn’t have the booming tones of his demi-god. His spaceman. He didn’t have anything to prove that he was even alive-

Bruce’s breath caught in a throat that was growing tighter by the minute, and for a few moments he teetered on the edge of the abyss, his mind reeling and the corners of his eyes growing wet and hot.

“No.”

He sniffed, wiping his face and attempting to set his features into something cold - something strong. Unbreakable.

‘Hulk, now’s the time. We can’t wait any longer - we’re leaving.’

The larger than life presence shrunk further into the back of his mind, but Bruce wasn’t giving up. Not now. He reached out, pressed at something until it was painful, grabbed the remnants of a flaming childhood by the shoulders and stared his giant in the eyes - metaphorically speaking, of course.

‘I know you’re cold. And I know you’re hurting, and I wish I could take that away from you. But Thor needs our help - he might be hurt, or scared, or…’

Bruce didn’t want to finish the sentence, but Hulk seemed to understand. The presence that had been retreating rapidly into the back of his mind froze, turned, metaphorical ears turned back to Bruce to listen.

‘Blondie not dead,’ Hulk mumbled, and Bruce caught the faintest of tremors in that cavern - deep voice.

‘No, I know. I’m sorry for scaring you.’

Bruce cradled his hand to his chest, tracing his thumb feather-light over the freshly made wounds - still glaring and red even under the shadow of artificial night.

‘But we have to help him. And I need you to get us out of here, big guy. You think you can do that for me?’

‘Hulk tired.’

‘I know.’ Bruce snapped, and immediately regretted it when the presence seemed to shrink away again. He sighed, shaking his head mutedly, his voice falling to softer tones.

‘I know, Hulk. And I promise after this is over, we can take a break. As long as we like. But I just need you to do this one thing for me’.

Hulk stilled for a moment, the corners of his mind growing quiet.

And then his bones began to ache, but for once, the familiar battle for dominance and control wasn’t being held. He stepped back, with a slow and careful breath, passing the torch over to the one thing strong enough to get them out of there.

‘You got this, big guy. Let’s go get our demigod back.’

‘And smash Ross.’

‘Yeah.’ Bruce felt himself grinning as he relinquished control of the wheel.

‘Smash Ross.’

***

And a few dark seconds later, Bruce was stumbling onto the floor, faced with a different problem. He hadn’t even gotten that much prompting - in fact, he’d been all for leaning into this more recent development when abruptly he’d been shoved back into reality, broken glass digging into the skin of his knees as his world reformed itself before his eyes.

‘Hulk? What the hell happened?’

‘Blondie wrong.’

‘What?’

Hulk made one final pushing motion, green eyes blinking away the last of the blurriness, leaving Bruce face to face with the problem.

Thor was standing in the center of the cell, staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, the familiar ocean blue blocked out entirely by a pulsing glow of white.

Sparks of lightning flew from his body - a body that was bruised, broken, and teetering as if it was on the edge of collapse. Bruce wasn’t even sure what was holding Thor up at this point. If it was the electrodes that lined his demi-gods arms, or if it was the lightning - each fork forcing him ram-rod straight, suspended like a puppet from glowing strings.

“Thor?”

Bruce managed to croak out, taking one tentative step inward.

“Can you hear me?”

If he could, he made no sign of it. Just kept staring at that point in the ceiling - the only real movement being the occasional twitch of his hands.

A sharp jolt ran through Thor’s body as an arc of lightning surged, and for a moment, Bruce worried for the stability of the room. The electrodes buzzed, lights flickered, and it was then he remembered that scene on the bridge. The clouds darkening, the golden spires of Asgard being torn apart by an unnatural storm - that had been Thor.

It was difficult to remember that, sometimes. To look at the man who had spent 5 months marvelling over the invention of the frappuccino, who wore pyjama bottoms printed with the Hulk’s face, and see a storm of nature.

It made all the news reports seem somehow even more fake. He’d heard the words that they’d said about him, obviously. Bulletins that scrolled across screens, screaming of alien invasions and freak weather conditions and interdimensional conquerors.

Seeing Thor like that was hard.

Confronting the raw force of an elemental God was somehow even harder.

Because Thor was there. He was right in front of him, he was there.

But at the same time, he wasn’t.

This wasn’t Thor. Thor wasn’t an unfeeling storm, a force of destruction and only destruction. He’d always been so much more than what people expected him to be. A warrior, a prince, an Avenger. Throughout all of it he’d even managed to be a friend. And then something closer than that.

It may have been strange, but despite the pain of it all, Bruce was beginning to feel a little bit brave.

Thor was still in there. And someone needed to save him.

Bruce Banner tightened his jaw, stepping further into the eye of the storm.

Working in the fields he did, Bruce had learned a few things about routine, and it’s importance. About taking things slow - not lethargic, but slow. Careful. Following instructions, and biting back the panic that was threatening to boil over.

Bruce was a doctor, at the end of the day. He didn’t get those phd’s for nothing, after all.

And if treating Thor as a patient was what was going to get them through this, then that’s what he would do.

Carefully, Bruce walked forward. Carefully, he stepped over broken glass and warped metal, his eyes catching sight of the grate that connected the two cells together - burned beyond repair.

Carefully, Bruce raised his arms, cupping Thor’s face in his hands, looking for any sign of life within the burning lightning.

Looking for anything that could remind him of the man who had saved his life countless times, and who he’d like to say he’d saved in return.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I just -”

Bruce was cut off by a yelp, as a stray spark of electricity shot up his arm. He stumbled backwards, Hulk rearing his head, and he felt his veins flush with green, but he needed control for this.

Hushing Hulk back down to the corner of his mind, Bruce cradled his injured arm, and began his journey again.

Calloused fingers brushed against the electrodes against Thor’s arms, cramped muscles strained as he brought himself to a tiptoe until the cold metal that had been fixed on to the back of Thor’s neck met his hand.

He frowned in sympathy, in anger, and a whole lot of emotions he didn’t necessarily recognise at the moment.

It shouldn’t have come to this. The negotiations should never have been able to reach this point - where strapping in a person, a friend, and harvesting their power was apparently an ok response. Bruce swore to himself that he would protect Thor, if he needed to.

And it was about damn time to start fulfilling that promise.

“So, I don’t know if you can hear me. Or if you’re even still in there. But, just in case you are, I need you to listen,”

Bruce swallowed nervously, fingers latching on to the cold, unfeeling metal, tightening round it until he couldn’t grip any further.

“You told me we were going to get out of here. That at the end of the day, we’d be at home, and things would be ok again. Now, I know you’re not a liar - at least, not to me. So I’m gonna hold you to that standard, and trust you not to kill me when I do this. Ok?”

Thor didn’t respond, but Bruce hoped that maybe it had helped.

If any of it had reached him, he’d count it as a success in this point. Because the universe couldn’t be that cruel, could it? It wouldn’t force a barrier between them, and break it down, only for there to be another one in place.

That couldn’t happen.

No, Thor could always hear him. It was a perk of being Asgardian. Thor would hear him, and Bruce could hear him, too.

He didn’t need a metal grate, or a buzzing of static to hear his spaceman.

The storm was alive. Thor was alive.

And they were getting out of here.

Bruce pulled, and the room was plunged into darkness.

***

Things got a little foggy, after that. He remembered a few details - a warm body falling against him not long after the power had given out. Heavy, with veins that still retained a faint blue-ish glow, but warm.

Hulk had taken over not long after that. Pulled the two of them out through the crumbling prison, and ok, maybe he’d smashed an office on the way.

Ross hadn’t been there. Part of him was disappointed, but another was relieved. Honestly, he didn’t know if he could hurt anymore people. And Hulk seemed to share the same sentiment. A sense of exhaustion, that made him more than a little worried. Because this had been too close. The danger just a little too real - and sure, flying robots and aliens were also very real.

But they’d faced those threats as a team.

The Avengers, Revengers, whoever - there’d always been someone watching someones back.

Here had been too vulnerable. For both of them.

Thor hadn’t woken up just yet, at least, not fully. He’d stirred briefly when they’d gotten to something resembling a safehouse, but he hadn’t been making much sense. Not according to Bruce, anyway.

Hulk seemed to understand more than he did. Which was weird, considering he hadn’t been there for most of it. Bruce was used to doing the comforting, the shushing, being the calming voice and the mediating opinion.

It was strange seeing Hulk do the same. Watching large green fingers brush through Thor’s hair, hearing low tones grumble words of reassurance.

It was nice. But strange.

Even stranger when Hulk had turned those words on Bruce, and insisted he get a proper nights rest.

‘Hulk keep watch. Banner sleep.’

Bruce had hesitated, feeling the overwhelming urge to fidget with his hands that only really resulted in Hulk twitching his fingers.

‘You’re sure you’re gonna be ok?’

‘Hulk fine. Banner sleep.’

‘Alright, but if you need anything -’

‘Banner sleep.’

‘Ok. But only for a bit.’

He paused, taking one last look through the small viewing window he was able to find.

Thor was asleep, too. Nestled in Hulk’s arms, face pressed somewhere between the crook of his elbow - thick, green skin stifling loud snores like the rolling of thunder.

‘Night, Hulk.’

‘Night, Banner.’

#thorbruce #thor #bruce banner #hulk #thorhulk #gammahammer #thunderscience #christmas exchange #fic sequel #fanfic #angst with a happy ending #thor!whump #thor whump

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cupcakemolotov · 4 years

Text

Scatter the Die

I was originally just going to reblog my old post but I couldn’t find it and I decided that I couldn’t be bothered to keep digging for it. I decided to pull a lalainajanes and update/edit/re-post a thing to see if it will get me off my ass to finish the sequel. Also, I apologize, because I’m pretty sure I’ve changed the title of this thing twice now so oops.

You can find it here on A03 if you prefer.

Caroline shivered beneath the blankets she'd been tucked into, thankful that the bone jarring shakes were finally easing. One of the disapproving medics had surprised her clothing change and trussed her up like a thanksgiving turkey, but she’d been cleared from taking a ride to the hospital. A warming IV did not sound like a fun way to spend the rest of her day, and the last thing she’d have expected was to brush off her was hypothermia training in New Orleans of all places.

Magic had changed a lot of things over the decades, but the last few years had been particularly difficult. The veil was thinning and monsters sometimes wore human faces. Humanity sat poised on another apocalyptic event, and they fought it one case at a time.

Today wasn’t likely her last brush with death.

But her own state of well being wasn’t her highest priority. All around her cops and feds scrambled to collect evidence, trash bags and waiters being handed as they worked against the clock. The evidence was disappearing with the muddy rain, and once gone, they’d have no chance to collect it.

They owed the dead cops more than that.

Mouth tightening, Caroline watched the other ambulance pull out, it’s lights flashing as it’s wheels hit pavement. To lose a rookie on his first day in Homicide would be a kick in the gut for the department that was already reeling from two deaths. She could only hope he pulled through.

Goddammit.

Two weeks ago, what should have been an open and shut suicide had turned into a horror movie gone bad. What lived behind the veil was hungry and angry. Assuming her department was allowed to keep so much as a paper lip attached to the files of this one, explaining the deaths to the grieving families wouldn’t be easy. There was no right when nightmares gorged.

Oh, the Feds would make all the right noises at there having been a cop-killing Fae running loose and offer little else. It was why she’d taken to making two set of notes. So that when her case file disappeared she’d still have her back up files. But in this case, even if the Feds did make an evidence grab, at least they knew the murderer was dead.

She’d seen to that much.

"Detective?"

Caroline bit the side of her cheek at the familiar voice, glancing over to find Special Agent Mikaelson walking towards her. In his hands was a steaming takeout cup, and his jaw was set at an angle so rigid she wondered how he hadn’t cracked teeth. He wasn't wearing a coat in respect to the drizzle, and his curls looked riotous. For a moment they stared at each other before he offered her the cup.

Wary, she wiggled a hand free, and was amused to discover it was hot chocolate. Taking a careful sip, she tipped her head. "Agent?”

He leaned against the side of the ambulance with eyes that were once again dark with things she'd no intention of reading. "I've been told to keep this short."

"Elena can be fierce," Caroline murmured as she glanced over at the brunette EMT who was assessing another injury. "But she means well."

"Friends?"

She shrugged. "It never hurts to make them."

A quirk of his lips at the slight accusation in her voice. He didn't look at all bothered by her jab. She might have admired his thick skin, but it honestly just made her want to punch him in his perfect teeth.

"I owe you an apology."

She paused, the drink inches from her mouth and studied the lines of his face, both brows arching. "For what exactly? I have a list, if that’d be helpful.”

A hint of a dimple before he slipped one hand into his pocket, face sobering. "You make a habit to carry cold iron with you, Detective?"

The knife was an old safety blanket, born from teenage years spent knowing that a fae nightmare had killed her mother. Years later, the truth might have freed that particular fae from its fate, but Caroline had stopped feeling comfortable without cold iron around her.

Special Agent Mikaelson from the FBI Department of Weird didn't need to know that.

"My captain encourages police officers to carry iron, Agent. Shall I dig out my handbook?"

A flicker of something bright slipped along his pupil, and Caroline tilted her head, gaze narrowing. She knew what magic looked like. Until that moment, she'd have sworn Mikaelson was human. A complete ass, but human. Now, she wasn't so sure.

"That knife wasn't department issued," Mikaelson said with a hint of a blade in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Caroline said serenely after she took a slow sip of her drink. It was really good hot chocolate. She wondered where he'd gotten it. "Where exactly is this apology?"

His eyes were calculating, as he studied her. Those disgustingly long lashes lowered to hide his gaze, and when they lifted, his pupils were golden. The blue of his iris had narrowed to a thin band, and the color had changed to something several shades brighter. It was like looking at the heart of a star.

But other than those eyes, he somehow managed to appear completely human.

Her mouth ran dry.

"We underestimated her," Klaus said and the crisp tones of his accent had sharpened a hair. "Fortunately, it appears that you were also underestimated, and that was a lucky break. My sincere apologies, Detective Forbes, that you were pulled into a situation you shouldn't have had to deal with."

Something about his tone irritated her, and she concentrated on that instead of how she could almost feel his words on her skin. Taking a careful, deliberate sip of her drink, Caroline forced herself to hold his gaze.

"I'm a cop," she said bluntly. She didn't back down from his gaze, even when the tilting of his head wasn't quite… right. "It's my job to deal with the unexpected. How long have you know what we were hunting was a she and what it could do, Agent?"

He long had he known that this… woman could drown someone when they were standing between four walls? Caroline was certain she'd dream of screaming, the saltwater scent and the taste of brine in her mouth. The monster who'd had no face that Caroline could describe with words, she'd had no interest in another woman. The rage, the worst of the water had been used to attack the men who'd stood around her as they'd examined the scene. Surprise had been the only reason Caroline had won, surprise and an old, old habit.

Watching the life go out of a nightmare was no easier than watching a human die.

Those glittering eyes studied her. "I'm afraid that's classified."

"Is it now," Caroline said slowly, a hint of drawl elongating her vowels.

"You're a bit of an enigma, Detective," Mikaelson said, the calculation in his gaze turning to iron she recognized. "Your mother murdered; yet, you worked to clear her supposed murderer's name. You’ve filed a number of complaints with the local bureau when they couldn't produce information on a number of supernatural killers."

"Families deserve the truth," she said stiffly. "They also deserve to know what justice has been given. It's not that difficult a concept."

"Sometimes, truth isn't the right answer."

Caroline tossed the last of the hot chocolate on the ground and stood, unwrapping herself from the blankets. The oversized clothing was a little ridiculous and her hair was a tangled mess scraped into a wet bun, but right then she couldn't care. Pasting on a fake smile, she hoisted the ends of her pants so she wouldn't trip. "Yeah, well, in that case, why don't you shove that apology up your ass."

His brow arched. She didn't like how much taller her was than her when he straightened, and she lifted her chin to scowl when he stepped into her space. "Regardless, the bureau will extend its apologies to you and your precinct."

Her teeth ground together. "So that's it?"

"The case is closed."

"Oh yeah? Care to tell me what the motive was exactly?" Caroline asked. “Or why she picked men. Cops. People I worked with.”

"I'm afraid that's classified as well," Mikaelson said.

"Donovan has a daughter," she said carefully. “They all had families.”

Those burning eyes softened a hair. "The loss of any life is always a regret."

Caroline showed him the edge of her teeth. "And this mythical apology of yours. Will it include using cops as bait?"

The smile wiped from his face and his chin lowered, so they were nearly eye to eye. It struck her again, how pretty he was, with his scruffy jaw and burning eyes. His magic should have frightened her, but all it did was piss her off. He'd had this magic and she'd almost drowned.

He was such a dick.

"Is that what you believe happened?"

Of course that was what happened. Mikaelson was obviously not human, and Caroline had seen this kind of maneuvering before, when her mother had been killed. Had seen good and honest men, used as easily discarded chess pieces. She wasn't stupid and she resented that he thought she was but this was also not a battle she could win. Not today. But maybe tomorrow.

So instead of picking the fight she really wanted, she shrugged. “Are you saying you weren't using us?”

"Be very careful, Forbes," Mikaelson warned, gaze tracking a curl as it tumbled across her cheek, the wild colors in his gaze shifted like tectonic plates. "There are things in this world you don't want to engage."

Caroline wasn't sure if he referencing himself or whatever had happened to fellow cops. Not that it mattered. When had she ever let something stop her from getting answers for the families who'd had a loved one stolen? Knowing that a killer was dead meant nothing if you couldn't grasp why.

She knew that sometimes there was no good answer. This wasn't one of those times. Still, she'd no reason to tell Special Agent Klaus Mikaelson that, did she?

"I'm just a murder cop."

Mikaelson laughed. Deep and rich, dimples flashing, he watched her as the gold and wild blue faded from his eyes. "It'd be easier if you were, Forbes."

It was on the tip of her tongue, to ask him what he was. What caused eyes to shift to molten heat that way, while the rest of them remained normal. What kind of power did he have? But she sensed a trap there, saw him waiting and refused to give him the satisfaction.

Bonnie might know, anyway.

"Apparently your case is closed," Caroline said with sugary sweetness as she shifted to walk away. "So, here's to hoping I never see you again."

"I don't believe it will be quite that simple, Detective," Mikaelson said softly, voice laced with warning as she moved towards the squad cars.

She rather thought it was.

Three days later, when her Captain brought up that the FBI were digging through her old cases, she was irritated. When the official letter offering her a both an apology as well as position showed up, she dug up the card that had been left on her desk and the number she refused to input into her phone. She never replied to the Bureau directly, but she did send a single text with a picture of a letter on fire.

The response had left her grinding her teeth.

Some things are inevitable, love.

#my fic #repost #i know i know #but I'm 8k into the sequel #and i need to finish it #for the love of fic #ive ben working on it for ages

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mariolucario493 · 4 years

Text

A Frozen 2 review no one asked for! (POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD)

Okay, hear me out. I’m probably in the minority when I say this, but...

I think it’s better than the first one.

I liked the original Frozen just fine. I liked how it depicted anxiety and how it subverted a lot of Disney tropes, but I probably wouldn’t put it in my top ten.

(Which, in case you’re interested, is:)

10. Tarzan

9. Aladdin

8. Beauty and the Beast

7. Frozen 2 (this one!)

6. Lilo & Stitch

5. Wreck-it Ralph

4. Moana

3. The Lion King

2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1. Zootopia

(And that’s not even including the Pixar ones.)

But it seems that the general consensus of Frozen 2 is the same as a lot of sequels (especially Disney sequels): that it’s not as good as the first one. Or, dare I say it, that it’s just the first one all over again. But here’s my argument against that. I think being similar to the first one actually works in its favor.

What do I mean by that? Well, after the prologue, the movie opens with a song called “Some Things Never Change,” in which all the characters sing about how happy they are in their current life. Although Olaf worries that change might be inevitable (I love how woke he’s become, btw), no one is really seeking anything new. Now that sounds like the setup for a lot of recent Disney movies, I know. But it's an idea that’s really explored throughout the entirety of the movie.

Every character reacts to change differently. Elsa is nervous, but tries to embrace it anyway; Olaf dismisses it as something he will understand when he’s older; Kristoff feels like he and his friends are drifting apart; and Anna struggles to accept it overall. And we see how each of them goes through it. Even the inclusion of darker themes allows the audience to react similarly to the characters onscreen. Kids probably won’t always understand what’s going on; but they’ll have a good time anyway. And just like Olaf, they’ll understand it when they’re older. That does seem to be one of the major criticisms I’ve seen for Frozen 2, that it’s too dark and too complicated for kids. But Disney’s never been afraid to tackle heavy subjects before, because they know that challenging the audience helps them grow. And hey, at least it’s not Crimes of Grindelwald, right?

I think the reason they made Frozen 2 similar to Frozen 1 was the same reason they used similar themes in Frozen 1 that we were already familiar with - princesses, magical kingdoms, curses, goofy sidekicks. And that’s to deconstruct and subvert them. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that this was an attempt to remind Disney to always try new things, which they have had trouble with recently. Just look at all those live-action remakes that no one asked for. The exact same thing all over again disguised as something new, but without all the stuff that made the originals so good in the first place.

Frozen 2 also continues the tradition of having interesting female protagonists. Well, interesting ANIMATED female protagonists, anyway. It’s not like the Aladdin remake, where Jasmine has a whole new song about girl power, but then she becomes the damsel in distress anyway and does nothing to fight back. It’s not like Captain Marvel, who makes a big deal about being a female superhero even though the Avengers already have several much more interesting female members. It’s not like the new Star Wars movies, in which they’re so focused with making Rey a strong female role model that they forget to give her a personality. And it’s not going to be like the Mulan remake, which I’m just going to assume is going to be another soapbox feminist’s wet dream. Oh, wait, I forgot this is Tumblr, and they love that shit.

But really. Starting with Tiana, Disney’s animated leading ladies have become such well-written characters. From Rapunzel to Vanellope to Judy Hopps to Moana to Elastigirl, they are fully fleshed-out characters first and agenda pushers second. Anna and Elsa are no exception. Elsa battles magical spirits and tames a water horse, and Anna has a crisis of ethics that feels really genuine. All without saying something dumb like “Look how capable I, a female, am in this situation, in comparison to my less competent male companions.”

Oh, by the way, for those of you who wanted Elsa to be revealed as a lesbian, I think we have a few more hints that she may be. She does not end up with a love interest, but I noticed she does seem to get along really well with Honeymaren. So maybe? Definitely better than the live-action Beauty and the Beast, am I right?

Oh, and the songs are great. We get not one, but TWO big numbers from Idina Menzel. Olaf and Kristoff both get new songs that are pointless, but still really funny. Anna has a new song that is one of the emotional highlights. The lyrics are just as clever, and they help further each character’s story arc. Even the lame pop versions of the songs over the end credits, which I usually DESPISE; hearing Imagine Dragons’ cover of “Into the Unknown” was actually pretty decent.

So, those darker themes. The reveal that one of Anna and Elsa’s ancestors was a genocidal tyrant who built the dam as a way to restrict the Northuldra tribe’s resources, and then declared war on them. Pretty ballsy, I have to say. And pretty creative that the villain of this movie is a character who is already dead before the movie even begins. Kind of like Coco, but they don’t even interact with him as a spirit or anything. What I like about this is that it kind of explains why the father in the first movie didn’t always do the right thing when it came to raising his kids. Locking up one of your daughters because she has supernatural abilities seems like a terrible move. But when you consider that Agnarr’s father was also distant from his son and had the goal of suppressing magic, you realize that it may have been a subconscious choice on his behalf. And hey, it’s also revealed that the reason Agnarr left on the ship that would eventually be his grave was to find answers about Elsa. So he probably felt remorse about it.

And now it’s time to compare this movie to today’s political climate. And before you start typing about how I’m wrong like Tumblr users are prone to do, maybe take a hint from the first movie and let it go. This is just my personal analysis.

The Northuldra tribe is clearly inspired by the Sami, the indigenous people of Norway, who have been persecuted for generations. But I don’t know much about Norwegian history, so let’s just compare it to America. Now let’s see...does America have a history of persecuting its indigenous population and disguising acts of war as offerings of peace? Hey, didn’t this movie come out just a week before Thanksgiving?

That’s right, I’m going there. Come to think of it, this whole movie radiates Thanksgiving vibes. It’s set in autumn, and it opens with everyone having a big feast with pumpkins and stuff.

King Runeard is a historical figure within Arendelle, and he is considered a hero. The dam that Runeard built is a monument that is ultimately destroyed by Anna in the film’s climax. And Anna initially refuses to do so because she believes the dam represents all that her kingdom stands for. I might be crazy, but this reminds me of how people are starting to take down statues of Confederate soldiers or how many cities have stopped recognizing Columbus Day as a national holiday, despite others saying that they are important parts of our heritage. One of the lines in “Some Things Never Change” is “Arendelle’s flag will always fly.” Sounds kind of like those conservative nuts who think the American flag is an infallible symbol and anyone who disrespects it (say, by taking a knee during the national anthem) is not a true patriot. Might be grasping at straws with that one.

And what Anna decides to do ultimately makes Arendelle a better place, even though she worries that it will be an unpopular decision. So we have a person in a position of political power who puts aside her own hubris for the good of her people. She asks for nothing in return, and knows that the right choice is not the easy one. She destroys a physical bridge, but builds a metaphorical one. Anna really is the type of leader we need. And if you think that it’s ethnocentric that a white person saves the day for a minority, remember that Anna and Elsa are actually half Northuldran on their mother’s side.

Yes, I believe Frozen 2 is up there with Zootopia as one of the great Disney flexes on right-wing extremists. But it’s subtle enough that we can enjoy the characters, the music, and the story first; and the message second. It reminds us to step outside our comfort zones and to always think about what it means to do the right thing.

If you didn’t like the first Frozen, you probably won’t enjoy this one either. I can understand what people mean when they say the movie throws a lot at you and doesn’t always feel focused on a coherent story. But regardless, I think it is an important movie.

#frozen 2 #disney #review #anna #elsa #olaf #kristoff #sven

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izzy-b-hands · 5 years

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The Taste of Blood

So here’s that vampire AU for Sledgefu I talked abt a while back. It falls into the two other AUs I’ve created thus far, Horror Movie and NOLA. This specific vampire one is going under the Demolition Lovers AU tag (because yes, this was inspired by the first MCR album in part.) Title is taken from one of my fave tracks on the Only Lovers Left Alive soundtrack (another inspiration for this AU.)

This is another one that might have some sequels, I’m still playing with the idea based on some other sources of inspiration! In any case I don’t think I can leave it with just this one piece.

My love to all who read/like/reblog!

“I think we should call my dad,” Eugene touched the mirror he was looking into, waiting for his reflection to appear, but it didn’t. “We’re both obviously sick. I mean...I can’t even see my reflection, and I know it’s there. It has to be.”

Snafu moved behind him and peered into the mirror. “Where? I don’t see mine either.”

“We’re both losin’ it,” Eugene muttered miserably. He didn’t want to call his dad, hadn’t even tried since he’d left to find Snafu in New Orleans. But he also didn’t want to go to any of the local doctors, and as it was they’d both started to develop an intense sensitivity to sunlight. Even if they’d wanted to see a doctor in town, they’d have to somehow convince one to make a house call at night.

He moved back to the couch, where they’d both been sleeping for the past week since the trouble had all started, and picked up his glass of water. Neither of them could keep anything down, but they kept trying water in the hopes of at least being slightly hydrated.

He sipped, and immediately gagged and brought it back up, nearly choking as his stomach contracted violently at the water inside of it.

“Baby,” Snafu whimpered softly, pulling him gently back onto the couch. “No more water. Just gonna make yourself more sick.”

“That isn’t possible,” Eugene protested. “We’re sick, so we need fluids. Give me your wrist, we can at least do a pulse check.”

“Alright Florence,” Snafu sighed and held out his wrist. They’d been doing these checks all week, with their pulses getting fainter and fainter with each passing day. Eugene was worried, but he didn’t know what he could possibly do to try and fix it. Nothing was working, and they both looked worse with every hour.

“What the fuck,” Eugene spat, and moved up Snafu’s arm, then to his neck, searching for a pulse anywhere. Nothing.

“Check me,” Eugene said, his hands shaking at the thought of what Snafu was (or rather wasn’t) going to find.

Snafu did the same, moving from pressure point to pressure point, anywhere, searching for a pulse. “Uh. Eugene.”

“I know, I know, I know,” he felt like he couldn’t breathe, and suddenly noticed how stiff the air felt in his lungs. The air went in and out, and he was still breathing, but it felt...off. “This isn’t possible. We’re dreaming. Or dead. Or something.”

“I think we are dead,” Snafu said quietly. “I think I know what’s wrong.”

“I gotta call my dad, now. Before we pass out and-”

“Eugene,” Snafu interrupted, and grabbed a hold of his hands, just tight enough to keep him sitting on the couch. “You aren’t gonna wanna believe me. And that’s fine, cause I don’t wanna believe me either. But...you remember how we brought Hugo home late last week?”

Eugene did. It had been a bit spur of the moment, but they’d been talking to Hugo for the past few months, meeting up with him most nights to hang out. It had always edged up near wanting to bring him back to their bed, but it had taken them until Friday of that last week to finally feel brave enough to ask him to come back home with them.

“What do you remember from that night?”

Eugene blushed. There was a lot he remembered, a lot of fun and good things. But he couldn’t remember much after.

“I know I found a weird rash on my neck. Figured Hugo and you were just overly enthusiastic about the hickeys.”

Snafu shook his head. “Still got the rash?”

Eugene moved his collar to show it off. Two small red dots, evenly spaced.

Snafu undid the first few buttons of his shirt and showed off the same.

“Okay, so Hugo was a little rough. What’re you gettin’ at, sweetheart?” Eugene laughed.

“We’ve never seen Hugo during the day. He bar tends some nights, but otherwise he doesn’t work. He dresses like he’s at least five years behind everyone else, and his teeth are...well, you’ve seen them,” Snafu continued. “I...this is everything my family made fun of growing up. All the ‘spooky’ parts of the city that the tourists fall for. But...”

“But what?”

“Some folks always used to warn about vampires. The city’s old, and you can melt right into it. Where else would you go if you couldn’t die and wanted somewhere you could just be and party or hide away or do whatever else you wanted?” Snafu asked.

“Are you saying you think Hugo’s a vampire?”

Snafu looked at the floor, and Eugene sighed internally over how pale he looked. How pale they both looked. Whatever this was, it was eating them alive.

“And you think he turned us, but it’s just now...taking full effect or something?”

“Don’t say it like that,” Snafu protested. “You think I like thinking that this is what it is, what we’ve got? This wasn’t my first option for a diagnosis.”

“Okay, I’m sorry I just...you know how it sounds. I know you do.”

Snafu nodded, sighed, and dropped his head into his hands. “There’s ways to find out. I mean...it’ll feel silly, but if we do some of these tests, and then it turns out it isn’t this, then we can move past it.”

“Fair enough,” Eugene agreed. “What tests do you know of?”

“Well, we failed the first one. No reflection. Failed the second one. Can’t keep any food or water down. Failed the third one. Don’t have a pulse anymore. I’ve got one more, but you aren’t gonna like it,” Snafu replied. He went to the fridge and pulled out the meat they’d picked up from the butcher on Monday.

It slowly dawned on Eugene what the test was, and his stomach turned. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Snafu said, slicing into the meat with a knife from one of the kitchen drawers and draining the little bit of blood that came out into two glasses. “C’mere.”

“I don’t think I can...” Eugene said. It looked repulsive, thickly settled at the bottom of the glass.

“It’s old blood, but nothin’ we can do about that,” Snafu said, and handed over one of the glasses. “Bottoms up, darlin’.”

He tossed it back like a shot after Snafu tossed back his, grimacing at the sensation of the blood as it slid down his throat.

“Now what?”

“We haven’t been able to keep anything down, so this should come up too,” Snafu replied.

They stood at the kitchen counter and waited. And waited. And waited.

“Jesus,” Eugene whimpered, and dropped to his knees, hiding his head against them as he wrapped his arms around himself. “Snaf-”

“I know,” Snafu interrupted softly, and pulled him up to standing again. “Come on. Back to the couch we go. We’re gonna be alright.”

“No, we aren’t,” Eugene heard himself whisper, horrified. “What the fuck, what the fuck what the-”

“Shhh,” Snafu interrupted. “Can’t do nothin’ about this if we panic.”

“We’re dead,” Eugene hissed. There was no other way around it. He was walking, talking, feeling the panic but with none of the usual heart-pounding. Because his heart no longer beat. Because they’d fucked a vampire, and now they were dead.

“I know,” Snafu was alarmingly calm, and it made Eugene itchy to watch. As much as he valued Snafu being able to be cool and collected, he also couldn’t bear to be the only one freaking out.

“We have to find Hugo,” Snafu continued. “May as well go straight to the source. I know going out sounds like shit right now, but we can do this.”

They dressed, just barely presentable to be out of the house, and wandered down to the nearest bar. The sun had just recently gone down, but Eugene missed it. If this was all real, and he really had already had his last moment in the sun, then he wished he could have somehow known. He would have enjoyed it more.

Hugo was behind the counter, working. But he looked like he wanted to jump the counter as he caught sight of them.

Eugene let Snafu take charge of the situation. He was too weak, too tired to do much more than stand by Snafu and lean against him.

“Hugo. We gotta talk,” Snafu called across the bar.

Hugo winced as they stepped up to the bar counter. “You guys look like shit.”

“Yeah. Feel like you might know somethin’ about that,” Snafu said. “Wanna take a moment in the back room with us so we can sort this out?”

Hugo sighed. “Fine.”

He led them to the back room, and Eugene let himself collapse onto the couch in the room with a groan. He’d felt better after the glass of disgusting, sludgy blood, but whatever effect it had given him had worn off.

“I thought I had drained you both completely. You should be dead,” Hugo said, staring at them in amazement and confusion.

“We are dead, asshole,” Eugene barked.

“I mean...not dead like me. Completely dead. Not getting up and looking for blood to drink dead. Speaking of, have you guys been feeding? Because you look awful,” Hugo said.

“Wow, thank you for again tellin’ us we look horrible after doin’ this to us,” Snafu spat as he dropped into a wooden chair near the couch.

“I didn’t mean to,” Hugo protested. “I was going to just kill you both. I hadn’t fed in weeks...it was nothing personal, I swear.”

“Hugo...this is is why you’re still single. I swear to fuckin’ god...” Snafu muttered. “Nothin’ personal. Jesus.”

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Hugo continued. “Look, I can help you adjust to this. It’s the least I can do, and it’s what my maker did for me. Granted, he was also well off and not bar-tending to pay rent, but-”

“Boo-fucking-hoo for you,” Eugene scoffed. “I’d say this is the least you can do.”

Hugo sighed. “Clearly, whatever we had is gone. So I’ll do this. I’ll give you a list of places folks like us-”

“Vampires,” Snafu interrupted. “I wanna hear you fucking say it.”

“Vampires,” Hugo said. “Places where vampires like us can meet up for resources, help when you’re new and learning how to feed and how much to feed, things like that. I’ll give you my phone number, but you call me; I won’t call you. You only call if you’re comfortable with doing so or really need immediate help, okay?”

Hugo grabbed a piece of stationary from a desk near one wall of the back room, and started to jot down the various places and people they could use as resources, and as he listened to the pen scratch Eugene’s heart sank.

No more sunny walks in the park, or sunsets watched in between making out with Snafu. No more dinners they cooked together, learning new recipes. They’d have to quit their jobs, and find new ones with only night shifts, or they’d lose the house. No traveling, unless they were willing to drive all night while knowing they for sure had somewhere to hide during the day.

And more killing. If they wanted to survive, there would have to be more killing.

“For now...give me five,” Hugo said and handed Snafu the paper before ducking out of the room. He returned with one of the other bartenders, who calmly bared his neck to Snafu as he knelt down near him.

“What the fuck is this?” Snafu scoffed.

“Dinner,” Hugo spat. “Unless you wanna keep looking and feeling like death.”

“We are dead!” Eugene screamed, forcing himself up off the couch even though every limb protested the effort. He strode towards Hugo faster than he intended to, unsure if it was his new state of being or his anger carrying him forward. He pushed him up against the nearest wall, and hissed. “We’re dead and it’s your fucking fault and-”

He was suddenly incredibly aware of blood in Hugo’s veins, and before he could stop himself he latched onto Hugo’s neck, effectively stealing his dinner from within him.

“Get him fucking off of me!” Hugo was screeching, caterwauling, but Eugene held tight onto him, hating how much he enjoyed the feeling of his now much sharper eyeteeth sinking into Hugo’s flesh, emptying his dead veins of his last meal.

“Eugene! Enough!” Snafu pulled him away, and Hugo dropped to the floor, whimpering.

“He deserved it,” he huffed.

“I know,” Snafu said. “But what good is killin’ him gonna do us, huh? None. Let him live with the knowledge. I guarantee that’s worse than bein’ all the way dead.”

“Neither of you are even up to my usual standard,” Hugo scoffed, still on the floor. The other bartender was staring at him, but made no move to retrieve him. “That’s what I get for fucking ugly goddamn-”

It was his turn to hold Snafu back as he tried to race towards Hugo, shouting abuse right back at him, how he was a shitty fuck, how he was lucky they’d even allowed him near them to begin with.

He dragged Snafu outside, regretting that he’d lost his cool.

But he did feel better, with the blood he’d taken from Hugo.

“Here,” he offered Snafu his wrist. “You’ll feel better. If we both feel a little healthier, then findin’ all of these people and places’ll be easier.”

Snafu pulled him into a dark corner near an alley, and kissed him hard before moving his wrist up to his mouth. The feeling of Snafu’s teeth slipping into his wrist was something else, painful but not so much to make him do more than wince. It was almost erotic, especially when Snafu looked up at him, still drinking, his lips locked against the skin of his wrist.

Which at least confirmed one thing he’d been mildly worried about, regarding blood flow. He didn’t know how it could still work, but he wasn’t going to question it when he had Snafu with blood on his lips, pulling him close and rutting against his hard cock.

“Let’s go home,” Snafu murmured into his neck. “We can check out everything Hugo gave us tomorrow night.”

Eugene nodded, but used a hand to carefully pull Snafu’s face back up towards his, and gently, with just the tip of his tongue, licked the drying blood from the corners of Snafu’s mouth before kissing him.

He had figured it wouldn’t be a jubilant walk home, but he had expected to at least feel better, having gotten confirmation of it all. But he didn’t. He was tired and hungry despite having fed off of Hugo, and wanted nothing more than to fuck until the morning or until they were both too tired and sore to move, whatever came first.

By the time they got inside, however, he was only half-hard and he could tell Snafu was just plain exhausted. They dropped onto the couch after making sure the door was locked and the windows were all still tightly covered with blinds and newspapers they’d taped over them, and Eugene knew they’d both be asleep soon. There would be no calling into work; he couldn’t keep his eyelids open let alone get up to go to the phone and call them both in.

What he could manage was to wrap his arms around Snafu, and try not to cry when he didn’t have the familiar sound of Snafu’s heartbeat to lull him to sleep. But he still had Snafu’s hand squeezing his, and it was just enough to work in place of the heartbeat.

#text post #LeeH writes #Sledgefu #Horror Movie AU #NOLA AU #Demolition Lovers AU #it is almost 2 am so please forgive any typos #I'm gonna reread this tomorrow after my tattoo appt and fix any mistakes I see

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constantlyirksome · 5 years

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Spider-Man Far From Home: The Peter Tingle. (Spoiler Review)

With a movie as massive and influential as Avengers: Endgame ends like that you have to what the ramifications are when half the universe blips back into existence. Probably just as impactful and difficult as having them disappear in the first place. Luckily the first MCU film since then tackles these questions almost immediately. People who didn’t dust didn’t age; the people who remained aged five years, meaning the structure of high school would be completely different. And Spider-Man far from home, that feels like the most important thing, and it was great.

Scaled back a thousandfold from the blockbuster spectacle of the fourth Avengers film. The Spider-Man sequel spends a great amount of its time on the emotions and social lives of its lead, Peter, MJ and Ned in a truly sweet high school drama. We get reminded time and time again that despite being a space hero Peter Parker is still a sixteen-year-old kid. The focus was on high school crushes and the expectations around growing up, and it was fun! I wanted Peter to be able to take a break, kiss a girl, enjoy the sights! It was a foil that seemed equally trivial and appropriate.

Unlike its predecessor, Homecoming, the action seemed to actually matter. As the asshole Mysterio would say, it was avengers-scale carnage even if it was fabricated. The most glaring question is, why would Nick Fury, master tactician, pick a sixteen-year-old on a field trip to deal with giant elemental monsters? He’s super strong, incredibly smart, and has some nifty gadgets, but synthetic spider webs do dick all against a monster that is %100 water. Even with Strongest Avengers Thor, Carol and Strange off world, there are like fifty un-blipped avengers who would be better equipped. The whole movie I was thinking, “Scarlett Witch could handle this in an afternoon. Even if the monsters were real she would be perfectly suited to contain the damage. And I get that she’s moved to Disney channel or whatever, but questions like this greatly affected my enjoyment of the movie. The explanation in the post-credits scene came too late.

It also made me wonder, “Hey, why is Nick Fury being such an insufferable jackass? Picking on an emotionally damaged child, who just lost his, like, billionth parental figure. He’s usually no-nonsense but he knows when to cut people slack. So realizing it was actually Talos, an alien with zero people skills, was a good aha moment. I loved Talos in Captain Marvel, so to see he wouldn’t be backbenched like all the other inconsequential villains was nice. Seriously tho, it might help with Marvel's villain problem if their arcs were built up over multiple movies, like Loki. I’m still exceedingly bitter over Killmonger. Killing the villains off right away is a waste, and I thought this as Mysterio kicked it. He was such a crafty, cool villain.

His grafter antics matched up pretty well with his first comic appearances. Create mystique with gadgets and tricks, come up smelling like roses, gets his ass kicked. His dream/holograph sequence as he gave his Villain Speech to a confused peter was visually stunning and weird. Giant snow globes, spider-clones, a dead Tony Stark, it was an ingenious nightmare. The fact his final form was a VFX suit was hilarious. They could have used him more. His costume was also awesome and considering the source material thats an incredible achievement. (Props also for spider-man’s two suits. The stealth suit ws particularly awesome/ sexy on Tom Holland.)

Jake Gyllenhall was believable as both a heroic rogue and a dastardly psycho. But his motivation? Weak ass. “Oh nooo Tony Stark used my gadget for self-improvement and therapy instead of weaponizing it, now I’m going to straight-up murder some children.” And what is he like, he fiftieth character with that origin? Weak. Foolish. Boring. However Jake Gyllenhall was both believable as a heroic rogue and a maniac, so it was easy to gloss over.

Tom Holland was the emotional center of the film tho, serving us roguish charm, incredible vulnerability and superhero swagger in one adorable package. When he cries you want to murder those who would do him harm, such is his power. Seeing Spider-Man sort of don the Iron Man mantle while also doing his own thing with it, deciding what he’s capable of, what kind of path he wants to take was some satisfying character development. Seeing him build a suit from scratch, or sass Happy Hogan was delightful. Hopefully, the director gets his way and we get Kraven the Hunter as the next villain so we can see Spider-Man fight some rhinos or whatever.

Before that, he has to deal with being falsely accused as a war criminal and no longer having a secret identity (that at least he can deal with literally no heroes in the MCU have alter-egos they all just walk in their costumes, no mask.) With the two post-credits scenes we end up feeling the same we do before the movie starts, lost and unsure where the MCU could possibly go from here. What’s Fury up to? (is he creating S.W.O.R.D?) who knows, we don’t even know what the next movie will be. But Far From Home sort of acts as a perfect palate cleanser to all the crossovers and universe level threats. It’s just about a boy in high school, and that’s perfectly fine for now.

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ljones41 · 4 years

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"SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" (2019) Review

"SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" (2019) Review The Marvel Cinematic Universe finally ended its third phase with the release of its second Spider-man movie called "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME". Released after the franchise's mega hit, "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME", this second Spider-man movie is regarded as a follow-up to the previous film.

Set in June 2024, eight months after "ENDGAME", former S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nicholas Fury and his top aide, Maria Hill, investigate an unnatural sandstorm and discover it was created by a creature known as an Earth Elemental. A super-powered man from an alternate universe named Quentin Beck arrives to help them fight the creature. In New York City, those students who had been killed by Thanos' Snap and revived by the Hulk's "Blip" prepare to finish out the school year they had been forced to repeat. Among them are Peter Parker aka Spider-man and his fellow members of the school's academic decathlon team, who the school rewards with a two-week European vacation. Still grieving over the death of Tony Stark aka Iron Man, Peter anticipates enjoying the trip and using it as an opportunity to confess his growing feelings for fellow classmate, Michelle "MJ" Jones. However, while the Midtown students are in Venice, Italy; Peter is contacted by Fury, who delivers a pair of glasses equipped with an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) called E.D.I.T.H. that had been given to him via Stark's will. E.D.I.T.H. was an augmented reality security, defense and artificial tactical intelligence system. Fury also asks Peter to help him, Hill and Beck to deal with a new threat to Earth, the Elementals. Longing to spend time with MJ, Peter rejects Fury's request. But when a Water Elemental threatens to overwhelm Venice, Peter dons a new Spider-man suit given to him by Fury and Hill and helps Beck deal with this new threat. I might as well be frank. I was not a fan of 2017's "SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING". I simply thought it was a badly written film with very little imagination. I also consider it to be one of the worst films within the MCU franchise. I never had a problem with Tom Holland as Peter Parker aka Spider-man. But with Jon Watts back as director, I had doubts that my feelings for "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" would be the same . . . or similar. I did not think that this sequel to "HOMECOMING" would be a vast improvement over the 2017 movie. And this is why a family member literally had to drag my ass . . . wait a minute. I should be more honest. I had every intention to see "FAR FROM HOME". It was the only major film that was being released around the Fourth of July holiday and I needed something to do. So, was the movie worth a trip to the theaters? One of the joys I had managed to derive from "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" were its European locations. I have not been that impressed by the photography featured in many of the MCU films. But I could not help but be impressed by cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd's work in this film. I found it unusually sharp and colorful for this franchise. And it did help that he had utilized his talent for scenes shot in Venice, Prague and London. I also felt that Leigh Folsom Boyd and Dan Lebental's special effects had enhanced Lloyd's work. Another aspect of "FAR FROM HOME" that impressed me were the special effects created for the Elementals. Another aspect of the film that I enjoyed were the performances. Tom Holland gave his usual excellent performance as Peter Parker aka Spider-man. Samuel L. Jackson's portrayal of Nick Fury proved to be a bit more skillful than usual, deliberately conveying the idea that Fury seemed to be a bit off in this story. This was due to the fact that his old Skrull friend from "CAPTAIN MARVEL", Talos, was impersonating him. I thought Jake Gyllenhaal gave the best performance as the costumed vigilante Quentin Beck aka Mysterio, whose sincere and warm manner hid a possibly sinister agenda. I was pleasantly surprised by Zendaya, who gave a more nuanced performance as Peter's new love interest Michelle "M.J." Jones than she did in "HOMECOMING". However, I remained unimpressed by her screen chemistry with Holland. There was another screen pair that proved to be surprisingly impressive was Jacob Batalon and Angourie Rice, who portrayed Ned Leeds and Betty Brandt, Peter's roommates. Thanks to their performances, I really enjoyed Ned and Betty's summer romance that took everyone by surprise. The movie also featured funny performances from Tony Revolori, J.B. Smoove, Martin Starr, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau and a surprising cameo from J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. The only real disappointing performance came from Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill. She seemed to be used as background, instead of a supporting character. I blame the writers. Thanks to the European locations, Matthew J. Lloyd's cinematography and the cast's performances, I can honestly say that I enjoyed "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" . . . more than I did 2017's "HOMECOMING". But despite the above, I was still disappointed with the film. There was simply too much about this movie that rubbed me the wrong way. And I find this sad, considering that Spider-man has always been my favorite Marvel Comics character for years. The main aspect about this movie that irritated me was the main villain's goal. The Disney/Marvel publicity machine had hinted for months that "FAR FROM HOME" would explore the aspects of an alternate universe. In fact, the Mysterio character was supposed to be from an alternate universe who had arrived in this one to defend Earth against the Elementals. Instead, this all proved to be cheap plot twist that originated from revenge. The main villain, Quentin Beck, was a former Stark Interprises employee, who had been fired by the late Tony Stark for his unstable personality. Stark had also stolen Beck's holographic technology for his own private use, embittering the latter even further. With Tony dead, Beck settled with deceiving Peter Parker into handing over E.D.I.T.H. to him. I could not believe what this story had been reduced to . . . another Spider-man movie in which the main villain had a grudge against Tony Stark. Then again, I should have known better. For some reason, the movie's narrative seemed unwilling to touch upon or explore any grief that Peter may have experience over Tony's death. I take that back. The movie featured one scene in which Peter and Tony's former security chief, Happy Hogan, did discuss the dead Avenger. But there were no other scenes in which Peter dealt with the emotional consequences of Tony's death. Instead, he spent most of the movie being torn between plotting to win M.J.'s love and "helping" Beck and Fury deal with the Elementals. Which would have been fine with me, considering my dislike of Tony Stark. But instead of allowing Peter to face the emotional consequences of Tony's death, the movie included scenes of Robert Downey Jr.'s mug being plastered on a wall or a billboard or in a dream. After I saw Downey Jr.'s face for the fourth time, I had to fight the urge to throw something at the movie screen. It was sooooo fucking annoying. What I found even more annoying is that for the second time, the main antagonist's villainy sprung from some past action of Tony Stark's. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has managed to make two of Spider-man's well-known villains more about Iron Man, instead of him. I still find it ridiculous that the MCU seems hellbent upon making Spider-man's villains more about Iron Man, instead of Spider-man. And then there was the matter of E.D.I.T.H. Why on earth would any responsible adult will a dangerous piece of technology like E.D.I.T.H. to an adolescent? Why? Why did the screenwriters treat this dangerous and irresponsible action on Tony's part as a source of comedy? Come to think of it . . . when did Tony make this decision to bequeath the glasses to Peter? During the last five years of his life, Peter had been dead, thanks to Thanos' snap in "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR". He had been resurrected at less than two hours before Tony's death. So, when did Tony decide to bequeath E.D.I.T.H. to Peter? Had he included this legacy in his will before the events of "INFINITY WAR"? If so, why did he fail to change his will following Peter's death? Especially, since he and Pepper Potts managed to get marry and conceive a daughter? Or did he create a new will, while building a time machine (MASSIVE EYE ROLL) for the Avengers? I have never heard of anything so stupid in my life . . . even for a comic book movie. One more thing - how did Quentin Beck and his co-conspirators discover that Tony had bequeathed E.D.I.T.H. to Peter? Was Tony stupid enough to post his will electronically? And why in God's name would the MCU allow Tony to create something so dangerous and not treat it so seriously? What was the franchise thinking? I had assumed that "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" would explore the aftereffects of both Thanos' snap and the Blip that had resurrected Peter and others who had been killed by the former. It barely did. The movie revealed that Peter and his aunt, May Parker, were helping other resurrected victims of the Snap in Queens, New York; who had had returned to life to find themselves homeless by staging some kind of fundraiser with Spider-man. I had learned via the MCU Wiki page that May Parker had also been killed by the Snap. I find this odd, considering that the same website had made it clear that she had survived the Snap back in 2018. And if both Peter and May had been killed by the Snap, why did they NOT end up homeless after being resurrected? How did May resume her profession (whatever it is) after five years? How did she get her money back? Did her bank refund her money following her resurrection? The more I think about Peter and May's situation regarding the Snap and the Blip, the more I find myself disgusted with the MCU's handling of its overall narrative. Audiences never saw May deal with the discovery that her nephew was Spider-man. Audiences never saw Peter and May struggle after their resurrection. It seemed as if the screenwriters of this movie had become emotional cowards. Or perhaps I should simply label Kevin Feige as an emotional coward? I have noticed that in past movies, he has never allowed the franchise to deal with the aftermath of serious events. At least not in the movies. "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." had to deal with the aftermath of the agency's fall back in 2014. The series had to deal with the rise of Inhumans - something that the movies never touched upon since the topic first came up back in 2014/2015. And now, it seemed apparent that the MCU seems unwilling to deal the aftermath of both the Snap and the Blip. Looking back, "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" was the wrong movie to follow "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME". It was willing to be some ham-fisted ode to Tony Stark, but it was obviously unwilling to explore how people like Peter and May Parker dealt with their deaths and their resurrections. Speaking of the Snap . . . guess who else got killed? All of Peter's friends from his school's Academic Decathalon Team. ALL OF THEM - Michelle M.J. Jones, Ned Leeds, "Flash" Thompson and Betty Brandt. All of them. All of them had been killed by Thanos' Snap and resurrected by the Blip. All of them. You cannot imagine how much I found this incredibly contrived. According to the movie's narrative, those students who had been killed and resurrected were given a two-week trip to Europe during the summer. So . . . Peter, his four remaining companions from the last film, and a handful of other students were the only ones from Midtown School of Science and Technology who had undergone the Snap and the Blip? Just them? How convieeeennent. By the way, this was a shoddily planned trip. The movie never featured them visiting any place of academic interest. No one discussed or brought up the possible trauma of being killed and resurrected. No one. And when did Peter become interested in Michelle "M.J." Jones? Audiences last saw her casually conversing with Peter at the end of "HOMECOMING", while he was mourning the end of his relationship with Liz, Adrian Toomes aka the Vulture's daughter. Sometime between the 2017 movie and this one, he became attracted to M.J. My God, how frustrating! It almost reminds me of the rushed development of Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo's relationship in the STAR WARS Original Trilogy. At least in that franchise, "STAR WARS: EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE" revealed hints of Han finding Leia attractive. I saw no such hints in Peter's feelings for M.J. by the end of "HOMECOMING". So . . . when did he fall for her? I was also surprised about how Nick Fury aka Talos managed to change the group's itinerary at short notice in order to get Peter to continue with the so-called "Elemental threat". How did he achieve this without alerting the school board or the travel agency? This made no sense to me. Speaking of the fake Nick Fury and Maria Hill . . . why? Why on earth would Fury allow two aliens (even if they were friendly) to impersonate him and Hill? Why? If he was on vacation, he should have immediately cancelled it when the so-called "Elemental threat" first appeared. But he did not. Why? This is not how someone as paranoid as Fury would behave. Was he really on vacation? This whole scenario regarding his identity was simply a joke to me. After the joke about his eye in "CAPTAIN MARVEL", it seems as if the MCU is hell bent upon making him the franchise's punch line. Has Kevin Feige recently developed a grudge against Samuel L. Jackson or something? It was worse for Hill/Soren since she/he barely said a fucking word. By the way, what has Fury been doing since the breakup of the Avengers? Which government agency was he working for when the Snap happened? Or was he operating his own security firm? How did the Snap and Blip affect his livelihood? I get the feeling that the MCU will never explain anything. I would discuss the movie's ending, which featured Peter's identity as Spider-man being exposed by Beck or one of his colleagues. But I was too disgusted with the film to overall care. I am certain - or I hope - that this issue will be addressed in what I HOPE will be the final MCU Spider-man movie. Granted, I enjoyed the film's photography and the European locations. I enjoyed the performances of the cast led by Tom Holland. I especially enjoyed Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. And I enjoyed the romance between the Ned Leeds and Betty Brant characters (they eventually got married in Marvel Comics). Unfortunately, the sloppiness and laziness of the film's writing, the narrative's unwillingness to address issues from the last two Avengers films, the heavy-handed ode to Tony Stark and Jon Watts' mediocre direction has led me to regard "SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME" as a complete bust. This is the second time that a MCU Spider-man movie has completely disappointed me. I really wish that Sony Pictures would resume producing Spider-man movies without any output from the MCU. I really do.

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