Probably the bit towards the end when the whole cop plot is over and Fusco goes over to Finch’s house and helps him pack up all his stuff and it’s just “what are we” and very uncomfortable but very sweet too. I really liked writing those scenes.
What I Would Have Done Differently:
I don't know if I'd choose to do it differently, but I've been thinking a lot recently about how the fic would be different if I'd been able to set Armor during Season 3 or 4. There are a ton of characters and story elements that I never got to use at all because I started writing during the summer break between Season 1 and Season 2 and I committed to that timeline. Finch would have Bear with him all the time and there would be cute dog walking/cuddling! Root and Shaw would be there, and Shaw at least would be featured really heavily because the friendship between Shaw and Fusco is my favorite and he's the POV character. Reese would be Fusco's police partner, thus totally changing the tone and workings of the police plot (which would probably be tied into Samaritan in some way, reflecting the show's move away from case-of-the-week structure). Carter would be dead, holy shit (thus resulting in a net loss of quality, most likely, since she was my supporting character MVP). Armor would be a really different story just by virtue of taking place at a different point in canon and I'm kind of interested in contemplating that alternate universe.
But I wouldn't want to go there, because in that universe, I'm still only like halfway done. If I'm lucky.
ace-case replied to your post: “it’s finally happening. it got too hot, and now death is here. death...”:
Take a shower with a sundress on. Leave the sundress on. Evaporate dry with the wet sundress on afterwards. <3 Stay cool :(
k2merc replied to your post: “it’s finally happening. it got too hot, and now death is here. death...”:
Take a shower. Don't dry off -just lie down naked in front of a fan. Repeat.
Luckily, it did start raining last night and now it’s like 75 degrees, which is wonderful. But I shall keep these tips in mind, because summer is not over yet. Thank you!
What they smell like: Coffee (his), cigarettes (other people’s), and strong, starchy cheap laundry detergent
How they sleep (sleeping position, schedule, etc): He used to tell people he slept like a baby, in spite of everything. Recently, this became true.
What music they enjoy: All the classic rock. Fusco spent his teenage years sneaking his way into every concert he could. Also sad songs sung by ladies ‘cause fuck you he’s got feelings too.
How much time they spend getting ready every morning: Literally twenty minutes. Five of them are devoted to finding an unstained tie.
Their favorite thing to collect: I like to think Fusco has kept every bullet that’s ever been removed from his body. It is a modest collection.
Left or right-handed: Right
Religion (if any): Catholic. Doesn’t actually believe in God but, you know: Catholic. He was a choir boy and everything.
Favorite sport: To be involved in: boxing, because it’s one of a few things in his life that he’s dangerously good at. To watch: baseball. He was an infant at the time, but the fuckin’ Dodgers broke his heart, man.
Favorite touristy thing to do when traveling (museums, local food, sightseeing, etc): I bet he’s a deeply embarrassing tourist because he never gets to go anywhere. He’s never trained. He has roughly shoved aside many a tourist in his capacity as a person who lives in NYC, but he has no idea what to do with himself when he’s in that position. He’ll go to all the most embarrassing, touristy things. Never in his adult life has Lionel Fusco been to the Statue of Liberty, but he’ll go see the World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn and take a dumb, grinning picture in front of it.
Favorite kind of weather: Bright, sunny, highs in the 70′s. The kind of weather where one could comfortably hang out in a baseball stadium with one’s son for an entire day.
A weird/obscure fear they have: That he’ll die an asshole and his son will be ashamed of him.
oh
wait
that’s not weird or obscure
oops
The carnival/arcade game they always win without fail: Again, I think most of the dudes on POI are a little too old for the arcade game boom (Root is another story). I would propose, then, that Fusco is cheerfully bumbling at most of your standard carnival games until you get to the darts, whereupon shit gets uncomfortably accurate.
What do you think domestic (post-Armor) Finch and Fusco would argue/disagree/fight about? Any ideas about who tries harder to make peace?
I unno. I think they argue about money a lot, not in the normal way where they’re worried about how to spend it and who’s spending too much of it, but in the weird, “we’re richer than god” way where Finch wants to buy all the things for Fusco and Fusco is uncomfortable because he can’t be seen at work in a $2,000 suit and he can’t drive that luxury car because same and he can’t accept being provided for, really, because he’s used to providing for himself. I also think they fight about what secrets Finch can keep from Fusco and which ones he can’t. And sometimes they fight because the hamper is right THERE lionel, why are your pants on the floor.
I think they’d both try to keep the peace in their own way, which means Finch would do a lot of brushing off and subject changing and “let’s discuss this later when we’re less angry” and Fusco just wants to get it all out in the open right now so it can be over with.
"Hi! Can you recommend a horror movie, a’ la The Conjuring?"
[KICKS DOWN THE FUCKING INTERNET DOOR]
HI DID SOMEONE ASK ME TO TALK ABOUT HORROR MOVIES WOW WHAT A TERRIBLE MISTAKE YOU'VE MADE GUESS WHO'S NEVER GOING TO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THIS TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TIME'S UP IT'S ME
Oh man I just love horror so much.
In terms of flicks with a The Conjuring-esque low gore quotient, high scare quotient, you actually can't do too badly by sticking with James Wan's other movies, which is surprising given that he's, you know, the Saw guy. He's really great at building a tense scene, sticking likable characters in those scenes, and using tension rather than gore to scare the shit out of you. The Conjuring is probably his best movie, but Insidious comes very close and is very similar structurally/thematically, so I'd definitely recommend that. Insidious 2 sucks a little, but in the grand scheme of horror movie suckage, it's not that bad. Dead Silence is kind of moronic, but I love it so much and it, again, builds some pretty tense scenes while being largely goreless. Bless its haunted ventriloquist dummy heart. I'd even rec Death Sentence, which technically is a revenge movie rather than a horror movie but I love me some vengeful Kevin Bacon and the emotional core of the movie is rock solid.
(that is code for "this movie makes me cry like a little bitch")
(although this is true of pretty much anything with a theme that centers around parents, children, and the loss of either)
SPEAKING OF THINGS ABOUT PARENTS AND CHILDREN THAT MAKE ME CRY MY EYES OUT, are you familiar with Guillermo Del Toro's horror flicks? Because The Orphanage is a) terrifying and b) [loud sniffling sounds]. I have a weird mental block around The Devil's Backbone that completely prevents me from remembering specific that happened during that movie's runtime, but I remember liking it a lot. And Pan's Labyrinth isn't technically horror but if you can make it through the scene with The Pale Man without peeing a little, you're much braver than me.
Other stuff, in no particular order:
The Awakening: A smart, tough heroine investigates a possibly haunted boy's boarding school in the 1920's. Takes a hard left turn into Whatthefucksville towards the end, but the earlier parts of the movie are totally worth it.
Ravenous: Cannibals on the eve of the Gold Rush. Smart writing, solid performances, a bizarre soundtrack using period-appropriate instruments, and just a good time all around. Some gore, but nothing too extreme. Homoerotic to a degree that's frankly irresponsible.
The Changeling: George C. Scott yells at a haunted house.
The Exorcist III: George C. Scott yells at a haunted man. Original movie canon gets screwed with and Fabio makes an appearance, but oh man I love it. I love it so much. Brad Dourif being all possessed in this movie, sweet Christ.
House of the Devil: Strong female character vs. Satanists. Tense. Has a really awesome 70's feel to it in the same way that The Conjuring does, only more so.
Kill List: This movie is a) nothing like The Conjuring and b) violent as fuck, but I feel morally obligated to inform everyone I see of how good it is. because it's SO GOOD.
You could honestly come back at me like three weeks from now with a slightly rephrased version of this question and I'd have a totally different list but here's what I got for now.
saulsgoodman replied to your post: “Hey, I don’t mean to passive-aggressively imply that someone should...”:
talk about them u buttfuck
WELL IF YOU INSIST. (shipping meme, reese/fusco edition)
when I started shipping it: I think I officially had the I WANT TO READ FIC ABOUT THIS urge during Cura Te Ipsum, when Fusco tried to kill Reese and Reese showed forgiveness and let him live. But I'll be real, I was into it from the second Reese pulled him out of that car in the pilot. They had all kinds of weird, angry, ahh-too-close-too-close-what-is-personal-space tension from the start.
my thoughts: I LOVED IT. I LOVED IT SO MUCH. GodDAMMIT. I really enjoy love/hate relationships, and this is kind of an extreme example of that, in that the hate end is attempted (and successful) murder and the love end is this weird kind of understanding and a sense of complete ownership. It's so intense and weird and painful and suppressed and violent and yessssss. Reese and Fusco, in the early days of the show, were caught in this horrible limbo where they're wanting to kill each other but also wanting to save each other and it's nuts, it's so, so nuts.
Or it was. I hate that I have to be past tense about this relationship, because it's just not what it was. Which, after two years, it obviously shouldn't be what it was; it should change and evolve and grow and stuff. But I feel like it didn't grow so much as fizzle. Like, we had the season 2 premiere with the teasing and the ball gag and all, and I was like HELL YEAH and then they didn't speak to each other for a season and a half and it sucked. Which, I get it. Fusco's screentime is limited and they needed to work on Carter and Fusco's relationship because it was kind of underdeveloped at the time, so it's good that they took that time. But even in the scenes where Reese and Fusco actually got to hang out, that scary momentum was just GONE. Then we got Lethe and Alethia, which were great because mud-wrestling and stunted dude feelings and all of my Fusco headcanon was confirmed. But those two episodes also confirmed something I'd been turning over in the back of my head for a while:
(cuttin' for length)
I have no idea how Reese feels about Fusco anymore
Like, I used to. Reese needed someone to be his eyes within the NYPD, so he picked up this dude who he was kind of disgusted by but he also saw himself in, because Reese had been exactly that kind of bad person before. And Reese hated that about himself and he also hated it in Fusco, so he tormented him. But there's also this undertone of the old "I saved your life and now you're my responsibility" thing where Reese felt a sense of ownership and a need to save Fusco from himself while simultaneously throwing him into the worst situations imaginable. Or, that's how I saw it. And I think that's how Fusco sees it, because as of season 3, he credits Reese with saving his life. And Reese just...I don't know. He's just like "*irritated sigh* ugh that horrible dude i brought back from the edge has totally reinvented himself as a kind, thoughtful, loyal human being with a moral compass and a soul thanks to my intervention, how annoying *rolls eyes shittily*" Like, I don't need them to be BFF or anything (in fact, I'd prefer if they weren't) but I do need them to have strong, bizarre feelings about each other hidden beneath a thin veneer of sarcasm, and it's like the writers have chosen to scrap all of that in favor of Reese being stoic and exasperated that comic relief exists.
*pants heavily*
ok
rant done
what makes me happy about them: HAHAHA WHAT IS PERSONAL SPACE. 'hey. hey lionel. my nose is three inches away from your nose and i'm whispering creepily while backing you into a wall. hey. hey have you noticed how i say your first name all weird and sexy all the time. weird, huh."
what makes me sad about them: WHY DON'T YOU HAVE WEIRD CREEPY WALL-SLAMMY CONVERSATIONS ANYMORE
things in fic/art that annoy me: THERE ISN'T VERY MUCH OF IT, WHICH IS EXTREMELY ANNOYING
things i look for in fic/art: Physical roughness and bitter, bitter sarcasm as disguise for unwilling kinship and fondness.
my kinks: roughness please all kinds of weird, grabby, violent roughness
who I'd be comfortable seeing them end up with if not each other: Lots of people, really. There are healthier relationships out there for both of them. But then, I don't like Reese/Fusco because it's healthy.
my happily ever after for them: I don't WANT a happily ever after for them. I want an unhappily ever after, where they keep sniping at each other and hurting each other and saving each other forever. I want them to feel drawn together and I want them to hate it. I want them to keep on saving each other's lives and never saying thank you. I want them to fuck in alleys and shitty hotels and in Fusco's apartment, but never Reese's, and I want it to feel like a horrible accident every time but they just keep coming back because their fucking souls are bound together in hatred and loyalty.
