#birthday asks

[starteas]

"breathes in" YOUR SUCH AN AWESOME WRITER!!! THANK YOU FOR HAVING A HAND IN WRITING ABSOLUTE PEAK!!! Late birthday gift for the CEO of gunshow!!! 😄 Happy late Birthday Starteas, your art and writing bring me so much joy!

Thank you so much!! I know I already reblogged this but gosh, I can’t stop smiling at this. Thank you so much!

[johannestevans]

Happy early birthday!

The other day I was watching person of interest and got to the bit where John and Finch are giving Bear a bath and I'm not sure what it was about that scene specifically but I went I am seeing Johannes's Vision bc I know that you like engaging with disability in your work and also when two men have a fucked up little dynamic but the thing that really popped into place was like OH Harold is like Fussy and Particular in a way that feels really emblematic of your interests lmao

Send me asks for my birthday (May 30)

Thank you!!

RIGHT, like...

I've watched Person of Interest through a few times, it's been a piece of television that I've adored for years - I remember being so astonished when I first watched it, seeing what seemed like a really conventional piece of USAmerican shlock with an ex-soldier doing vigilante work and the question of Good Policing outside of the law...

But then seeing it develop on that basic thesis and going well-beyond like, basic copaganda shit, and instead having this genuinely complex exploration of and criticism of US American militarism, the police system, through the lens of horrific ideological surveillance, the ideas of public vs private identities, etc etc, to be a very prescient and interesting critique of government and statehood in the digital age?

Excellent stuff, obviously.

And I think part of the reason the show works so well is because you have John Reese as this incredibly paranoid and traumatised ex-soldier, ex-spy - the show obviously leans into him being vaguely straight whilst hinting at a more homoerotic intimacy with Harold as much as I think they thought they could get away with in the period, especially given Jim Caviezel's own views; Michael Emerson is obviously a lot more comfortable acknowledging it and discussing it a bit more explicitly.

The fact is that being a spy in the West is for queers and bisexuals and trannies, for Jews, for commies and socialists, etc, and always has been - you are a social chameleon and you are hiding and layering facts about yourself at the risk of death and destruction, and certain people in Western societies, in the US, the UK, France, Germany, have historically been from those subsets of society.

POI was very aware of that from the start, and so you have Reese as someone who outwardly is very rugged and straight and square, but in his quieter moments you get a real sense not just of his potential attraction to men and to the calm and security he gets from leaning into authority over himself and entrusting it to someone else, in part because of the fears and anxieties he has about his own masculinity, his capacity for violence and destruction, but to his own tenderness, his gentleness, his vulnerability.

Meanwhile, like, I was saying to Lorenzo as we've been watching through that what is crazy now as a disabled man with hip and lower back issues, I am watching Michael Emerson on screen, having watched this show many times before, and I am seeing him do a stiff-backed, careful, lilting walk that is identical to the one that I do now in my own home when I don't have my cane. I did not learn it from him. I watched him do it before I became this disabled, and as I became more disabled I ended up developing a similar gait, and now watching the show anew I'm seeing my pain and my disability reflected in his portrayal.

Which is just... It is so much subtler than the disability you see in your Greg House, your John Watson, your Kerry Weaver, because the fact that Harold doesn't use a mobility aid oddly means that many people don't think of him as disabled, even though the show is explicit and direct about regularly making reference to the fact that he cannot run, that he cannot climb or do physical tasks, that he's consistently in pain, etc.

ANd he is fussy! He is particular! Partly for his personality, partly for necessity!

And his intimacy with John and the way that you see him like... kean into his authority over this very strong and traumatised man, ordering him AND caring for him, fucking doting on him whilst holding his leash, doing what the US government never did for him, and also like... experiencing a fucking thrill at the power over him, and even seeing the same frightening thrill as the same one he experienced and does experience now over the Machine.

It is just such a fucking choice dynamic and SUCH a show. I'm pitching a retrospective panel at the next few SFF cons I'm going to because I'd love to fucking talk about it on one if I can.

[akiiame-blog]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AKI!!!! Hope it’s a good one! Here’s a bunch of Marios to celebrate :3

AAA THE HANDSOME BOY!! I love your Mario so much 💕💕💕 Thank you!!

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Aw thanks you guys! Ya boi is another year older fr!

[guessimherenowtoo]

You asked for asks so imma send multiple! 😆 (happy brifdayyy)

For Betting Men…ooof that one hurt and was so well written. The layers and conflicting feelings of what Gale is going through in processing his past when faced with John and his like-but-unlike foils of his father and yet so really to gamble on John for what he wants despite his mixed feelings. Tell me more plzzzz! What does all this look like from Bucky’s pov? And how does he start finding out from Gale bits of his past?

Thanks for sending multiple!!

Thank you! I wound up throwing that one together relatively faster/more loosely than I usually do so I appreciate you saying it's well-written haha.

From Bucky's POV, he just thinks Gale is Neat and a little Peculiar. Like he's Odd, he's got weird reactions to certain things that shouldn't bother him and no reaction at all to things that leave other men shaking in their boots, but that's just Gale, he's always been the fae sort. He's a puzzle John would love to figure out, but also he doesn't feel particularly pressed to understand because well, Gale's just Gale. Buck's just Buck, anybody got a problem with that? (Nobody does, but he's a good guard dog anyway even after he realizes Buck doesn't actually need one, he can handle himself just fine). And Bucky LOVES that man for all his oddities and his quiet nature and his sudden inexplicable bouts of risk-taking that seem to come out of absolutely nowhere and the way sometimes he looks at Bucky like being near him is killing him but like he also can't stand to be anywhere else. Sometimes Gale looks at him like he's touching a hot stove and purposely leaving his hand there to let it get burnt, and John doesn't know why he stays but he's not going to ever question it just in case it makes Gale learn to doubt him, when that's the last thing he ever wants.

As for actually finding out bits of Gale's past, I think it happens very, very slowly in drips and drabs, and for years John only learns as much as he does because he's paying such close to attention to Gale, always, to pick up the little hints he drops rather than Gale telling him anything outright (see: the 'you sound like my dad, John' scene when they're already stationed in England, years after they met! Gale's still revealing bits of himself to John well into their ride-or-die relationship, and that's fascinating to me).

Anyway, so rather than just saying what happened, instead it's an errant comment one night when the men are a little too pushy about getting Gale to drink with them because doesn't he want to know how it tastes, isn't he curious? and Gale says he's had plenty of tastes and sure it's fine but he's given it up, sticking to it but thanks anyway, now leave him alone. And then some time later it's another seemingly innocuous comment, that yeah Gale can do just about any work that needs doing because as a boy he just had to learn to, and folks didn't always pay him in cash, he got paid plenty in promised favors and trinkets and swapping service-for-service, so why would he think twice about trading a quick bike repair (or whatever) for first pick of the next batch of novels that comes in (or whatever)? And John dutifully collects all these breadcrumbs of Gale's Before and tries to fill in all the blanks using just those and some pretty big assumptions, but even that takes years, even as the man Gale's closest to in the whole world, even after they become lovers.

Gale's not necessarily hiding what he dealt with before they met, he just doesn't see why any of it matters when it's all in the past and he's got John now and he's not in Wyoming anymore and none of it is ever going to find its way back to him, it'll never hurt him again. PTSD, what's that? Trauma, what's that? Why are we asking about his childhood, what does it matter? All fathers beat their sons and use them as collateral, all mothers let it happen because they're tired and don't know what else to do, all children escape home as soon as they're able to either die or never look back, why are you looking at him like that? Is it something he said? ANYWAY

So all that to say John gets the full story out of him eventually and he's absolutely fucking livid that by the time he knows the extent of it Leslie Cleven is long dead, drank himself sick and died unceremoniously in a ditch, and no longer has a neck to wring. And Gale never really processes that trauma properly because it's just not the done thing and even if it were he wouldn't be the type to do it anyway, but he does get better and John keeps his trust and they love each other enough to mold themselves into funky shapes around each other's bad habits and trauma responses and really in the end there's no one for them but each other and that's the way they like it.

[roselyn-writing]

Happy birthday and so many happy birthdays, and wishes to come for you my dear best friend in tumblr 🥳🥳🎂🎂🎂🕯️🕯️

Oh my fosh, thank you so much for the birthday wish my dear Nana. (You are among my best friends here in tumblr) 🥹🥰🥰🥰

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROADIE!!!

YAAAYY thanks so much!!!! 🥰💞💞

[lizpaige]

happy birthday!!! i’m totally not a tumblr user but i love your fics so much that i had to leave a message lol

do you have any headcanons abt the lynch bros & adam’s relationships post greywaren?

thank you so much 💖

i think adam and matty get close. mainly cause declan (and even ironically ronan) are pressuring him about school and life and things and adam, having been thru multiple college transfers and choosing a career he hadnt originally planned for himself has now opted to only plan out so far. minute details dont matter anymore, its more big picture stuff. so adam casually takes matty’s side at family dinner fights and things bc ronan wont take declan’s side and he p much always sides with adam anyway. declan gives up eventually. i’m also big believer in adam teaching matty to drive bc its poetic since ronan taught him to drive and matty is a part of ronan idk

adam and declan? enemies forever. they just get more casual about it. less bitey and more heavy sighs and airs of “putting up with” each other. they trust each other tho. i used to think about ronan and hennessy going on their dreamer trips and calling adam for help when ronan fucks up and needs advice or actual help on getting out of a sticky situation (hen never fucks up 😇) and adam texting declan like “your turn”