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thestray · 3 years

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The 62 2020 Movies Releases I Watched During 2020 Ranked

Like the awkward title says, I’m going to rank (and talk about) all the 2020 movies I watched in 2020. This is not meant as any empirical list of what was best, it’s ranked by what I liked the least to the most, and my main criteria is what kind of impact it had on me and/or how much I enjoyed the experience of watching it.

Little bit about myself, I went to art school for animation, then after art school I went to a community college where I studied screenwriting. Never ended up pursuing either thing professionally, but I still write screenplays in my free time and read screenwriting books and listen to screenwriting podcasts. I'm the type of person that loves special features, seeks out behind the scenes information and director interviews, and watch youtube videos analyzing films. I love film, and thinking about film and talking about film and sharing the films I like, and maybe one day making films of my own, who knows.

Ranking and reviewing 62 movies was a more ambitious and challenging task than I anticipated, I rearranged this list swapping titles back and forth so many times, and then I’d remember a movie I forgot I watched and have to add that and figure out where it ranks. I started this on January 1st and am just now ready to post it on the 17th, I was still switching rankings right up until posting this. Even looking at it now there are some kinda want to switch but I’ve accepted that this is more or less arbitrary, lol.

The more I learn about film and what goes into creating a movie the more lenient I am about them. It’s not like I’m never critical of films, but I try to consider both the good and the bad of a movie instead of thinking in a binary of films are either amazing or trash. Some of these films aren’t great, but I typically still enjoyed them to some degree. Except Mulan, lol. I’m sorry Mulan. Speaking of Mulan...

62. Mulan

I'm going to try to say something nice about all these movies even if I didn't like them at all. So... I like the cast, and there are some nice visual moments. I actually was looking forward to this movie before reviews started coming out, it has 2 of the martial arts G.O.A.T.s in it, Donnie Yen and Jet Li, and also Jason Lee as the bad guy, so I figured it might at the very least have some decent action, but they were all underutilized. There’s not a single moment in the film where I felt anything at all. I think all these Disney live-action remakes are doing is making a case for how effective animation is for storytelling.

61. Color Out of Space

I heard a lot of good things about this movie, and it’s really cool visually, and I love Nicolas Cage always, but I really couldn’t get into it. I guess my main issue is that it starts off already too campy for any of to the Lovecraftian horror to really hit. It felt like a B-movie with great production value, and maybe that’s what they were going for? I really wanted to like this but I really just did not feel invested in anything going on, did not relate to anyone in the family, so I don’t think I got much out of it besides the cool visuals.

60. Bloodshot

I think the main flaw of this movie is that is that Vin Diesel was a producer on it, and Vin Diesel should be kept away from making creative decisions on movies. How Did This Get Made did a great podcast episode on this movie. It’s absolute nonsense, it has a couple of cool sequences and special effects in it, and Lamorne with a British accent is great, he’s the main redeeming value of this movie.

59. The Midnight Sky

It seems like this movie wants to be Interstellar, it’s structured in a very similar way, but it just didn’t quite have that same emotional punch. It looks very good, it’s well-acted, it has it’s moments.

58. The New Mutants

It's not as much of a trainwreck as people make it out to be in my opinion, I think the cast is good and it has some good character interactions, but it mostly suffers from the fact that it's way too predictable, from the beginning you're way ahead of the characters, and it doesn't help that they're in this confined setting so there's not a lot for them to actually do. But I appreciate the attempt at using mutants to do a horror breakfast club thing, good concept.

57. Vampires vs The Bronx

Vampires as a gentrifiers taking over the hood, great idea. Mero is in it, the brand is brolic. It was a fun set up, but it was neither funny enough or scary enough in my opinion. The vampires die so easily it's like okay whatever. It's like a really long Goosebumps episode.

56. Freaky

I don't think the execution lived up to the great concept, but Vince Vaughan was really great in those sincere moments playing a teenage girl. Horror fans will appreciate the gory kills. I'm not going to spoil anything but I do think there are some narrative issues that keep this from being stronger than it could've been. If you made the killer a creepy janitor at the school or even one of the teachers, then I think that would've created more interesting situations.

55. Eurovision

I love Will Ferrell, I even love some of his flops like Casa De Mi Padre and Kicking and Screaming, and even the House I think had a lot of really funny moments. This was definitely one of the least funny movies he's done to me. I think the director David Dobkin couldn't commit to being silly the way Adam McKay can cause there's a lot of this movie that just has no jokes, and the movie is over 2 hours long which isn't normal for comedies so you spend a lot of time watching unfunny scenes and extended musical numbers.

54. The Wrong Missy

I'm not a big fan of most Happy Madison movies, the jokes are very hit or miss for me. I'm a big fan of Lauren Lapkus though so I watched it to support her, and she plays an absolute psycho in this. It's so over the top it's like this character is not a human being, but I have to admit there are a few moments where she made me laugh pretty loud. I'd never watch this movie again, but maybe I'd look up certain parts on youtube.

53. The Platform

High concept dystopian sci-fi horror. Reminds me of the Cube. It's one of those things that makes you think about what you'd do in the same situation. It's a very on the nose allegory, so by the end of it my only takeaway was "Yeah, it really be like that."

52. Archenemy

Another high concept movie. Joe Mangienello is good in it, but Glenn Howerton and Paul Scheer are my favorite parts of the movie, it's fun to see comedy actors play bad guys. My main problem with the movie was that I did not find the teen character to be interesting or relatable at all, in fact he can be kind of obnoxious. In his introductory scene he's REALLY bothering this random guy minding his own business, not respecting his boundaries at all. Then the rest of the movie is about him exploiting a homeless man and being really pushy for likes on some app, and he doesn't really have a character arc. Also wasn't a big fan of the animated sequences but I forgive that knowing this was a low budget movie and those sequences were done by a team of just 3 people.

51. Power

Jamie Foxx is great. I think he makes almost anything he's in watchable to some degree. The idea of this movie is fun but I think the action sequences are kinda underwhelming, but Jamie makes it worth watching in my opinion.

50. Birds of Prey

This movie was all style and absolutely no substance. When your main character doesn't have a solid purpose or goal you're really just watching shit happen, and that can be okay if the shit that's happening is occassionally fun or funny, but it doesn't really make for a memorable story in my opinion.

49. Wonder Woman 84

The most panned movie of 2020 maybe? It's got flaws for sure and some narrative choices I just can't understand why they made. It has some fun performances though and I ultimately appreciated that our superhero wins not by using her fists but by appealing to goodness. I feel like you rarely see that kind of idealism any more. It may not be realistic but I think that's one of the things fantasy is good for, showing us a way things could be better to strive for. But yeah, the Steve Trevor things was fucking weird, why'd they do that? And neither Steve or Diana seem concerned with about this random guy's fate. I'd probably rate this film higher if they had Steve simply appear out of thin air, I mean why not? It's magic. But I loved Kristen Wig and Pedro Pascal in this. Pedro is performing with his whole body, did he film this after season 1 of the Mandolorian? Maybe being under that helmet for a season made him want to be really expressive. The films overall kinda campy but I didn't necessarily mind that.

48. Peninsula

Sequel to the already classic Train to Busan, this film decides the up the scale, which is what sequels often do, but I think it was a mistake in this instance. This is more of an over the top action movie than a character-driven horror film like the first. There's a climactic Mad Max-esque car chase scene that is almost entirely CGI. I don't think it was a bad movie, it's an okay popcorn flick, but it definitely doesn't live up to the original.

47. The Old Guard

In terms of action I don't think it did anything interesting, but I like how they explored how horrific and heartbreaking it would be to be immortal. Coming to terms with your own mortality is a tough thing to do, but we often don't consider the idea that death is a blessing we take for granted.

46. Sputnik

A Russian sci-fi thriller about a young doctor being tasked with trying to figure out how to separate an alien parasite from a Cosmonaut that's returned from earth. Good performances, creepy vibe, and lots of interesting questions about ethics. It has a sort of epilogue ending with a reveal I didn't quite understand the significance to the story, but didn't take away from either. Solid.

45. The Invisible Man

Fun sci-fi thriller about toxic abusive relationships and gaslighting. Elizabeth Moss is great in it and my favorite sequences are before her character actually catches on and you have moments where the camera is just focusing on a random place, very creepy and effective.

44. Sonic the Hedgehog

Personally I would've preferred a fully animated film taking place in Sonic's world. I don't know why they always feel like they need to make these movies about human characters and then spend a lot of time having to hide your CG character and having people do comical reactions to them. It feels very played out to me. BUT Jim Carrey is great in this, of course. Jim Carrey is the reason to watch this movie. He makes the movie. And it goes without saying thank God they changed that character design.

43. 2067

What I liked about this dystopian future is that the cause was basically everything. War, famine, ruining the environment, pandemics, just all our collective fuckery has resulted in a world where the human race is on the verge of extinction, plants are extinct, and oxygen is synthetic. Enter time travel, a young man is tasked with traveling into the future to bring back the solution to saving the human race. Very timely obviously. I liked it.

42. Monsters of Man

Some asshole tech bros let some killer robots loose on a remote southeast asian village as a trial run. It has lots of flaws but I give it some leeway because this is the first film of a guy who wrote, directed and was the cinematographer by himself, he didn't have a huge budget or much experience, so it's hard to expect perfection. My biggest criticism is that the film centers a white guy living in this village and some westerner medics, not the actual Asian people of the village. Could've been so much more of interesting commentary about racism and eurocentrism dropping these robots in a village of brown people no one will miss just for practice. That aside though I think it was a solid enough thriller and the robots looked pretty good.

41. Family Romance LLC

An interesting movie about a Japanese entrepreneur who has a business where he'll play whatever role in your life you need. Father, husband, coworker, etc there's a scene where someone even pays him to be scolded in his place by his boss. The main thrust of the film though is him playing the role of a girl's absentee father, pretends to reconnect with her and take her out on the town for activities. It's shot very documentary style, and there are a mixture of first time actors and non-actors. Sometimes there are long awkward conversations that feel just as awkward as real life. I really liked the premise, and the only thing that keeps it from being higher on my list is it doesn't have a strong enough conflict nor does it really have a satisfying conclusion.

40. Over the Moon

Directorial debut of animation legend Glen Keane, I really liked this visually. It was sufficiently enjoyable, but it doesn't have that emotional gut punch that Pixar or Disney films tend to have. But I guess cartoons don't NEED to make you bawl your eyes out to be good. I think there were some missed opportunities narratively, like I guess this is spoilery so just scroll ahead if you don't want to know, but she gains a step brother that she doesn't like and doesn't want to spend time with, once the adventure starts on the Moon they get separated very early on, and don't ge reunited until towards the end, but she somehow now cares about him and considers him her brother. I didn't feel like that was really earned, they should've been together throughout the adventure getting to know each other. But I otherwise liked the story aside from that nitpick. Loved the colors of this movie, almost everything in the moon world is luminescent which provides some nice visuals. Hope to see Glen direct more in the future.

39. The Croods 2

Nothing revolutionary but it has some solid physical comedy and great voice acting. All of Nicolas Cage's overacting is perfect for animation, and I liked Peter Dinklage as Mr. Betterman as well. There's a lot going on thematically but it all works pretty cohesively.

38. #ALIVE

Another Korean zombie thriller. I really liked this because I felt like as far as zombie outbreaks go this is the most realistic scenario. Once you realize what's going on you will just stay in your house rather than risk going outside and fighting zombies. But that poses the problem of a limited supply of food and water. The main thrust of the movie is not how this character survives though it's about him trying to retain his will to live. It's the perfect pandemic isolation allegory.

37. Love and Monsters

It looked kinda corny but I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I like Dylan O'Brien, I love Tom Holland as Peter Parker but I've always felt like Dylan O'Brien would've been a great choice too, he has a good everyman relatable quality. There's also a dog in the movie that I loved. Put a dog in peril in a movie and I will be on the edge of my seat guaranteed. It's a fun movie with some interesting creatures in it and a solid character arc for our main protagonist.

36. Extraction

I love the trend of stunt coordinators directing films. That's the main reason why the John Wick series is so good, and the reason why this also has some very solid action. Nothing crazy here in terms of story or themes, everything is an excuse for Chris Hemsworth to fuck people up and it delivers on that. There's one scene where he slaps around some kids attacking him that I found hilarious as well. Fully welcoming an Extraction 2.

35. Save Yourselves

A couple decides to take a break from social media and get away to a cabin outside the city. While they're disconnected from the world an alien invasion occurs, furry little basketball sized poofs. This movie was pretty funny. I'm a little ambivalent about the ending but I enjoyed these hipsters arguing about what to do about aliens.

34. Bill and Ted Face the Music

A most bodacious movie. Fun gags and a robot that steals the show. It's not as good as the first 2 but I don't think that's any surprise. I think it borrows a little bit too much from the previous films, like the collecting legendary musicians thing, could've done without that. It was a fun movie though, and the daughters really worked.

33. An American Pickle

Seth Rogen playing an orthodox Jew who's been preserved in pickle juice for 100 years and his modern day app developer grandson. I think this may be Seth Rogen's best acting role, as silly as this movie is he's kind of endearing as this character from 100 years aro, and as the grandson he's a lot more understated than he usually is in movies.

32. Tenet

Tenet! Is it controversial that this is not higher up on the list? I really like Nolan's films, actually been a fan since watching his first film Following in a film class. Nolan likes playing with time in his movies so it was inevitable that he'd do something that addresses it very directly eventually. I love the time travel genre and I think this is one of the most ambitious and unique approaches to it to ever done. I actually braved theaters to see this because I did not want to miss the opportunity to see it on the big screen. I did it as safely as possible and booked a reserved seating theater where I knew I wouldn't be sitting by anyone, had a mask, gloves, antibacterial gell on deck, sanitized my seat with wipes, etc, there only 2 other people in the theater all of us sitting way for from each other. Weirdest moviegoing experience I've ever had but glad I saw it on the big screen because the visual spectacle of this is excellent. The reason it's not higher on the list is because as conceptually cool as it is as I did not feel invested. Just on a story level having a character we know very little about pursuing a goal he knows very little about for no clearly defined reason makes it feel like... we're just watching events unfold as opposed to watching a character-driven story. There's a moment at the end that you can tell was meant to be an emotional moment, but I felt nothing. They try to introduce some emotional stakes with the female character, but idk, since it wasn't tied to the inciting incident it felt more like a b-plot than fundamental to the story. So it was a really fun cool looking puzzle, more like watching a cool Rube Goldberg machine, but not something I really thought much about after it was over.

31. Guns Akimbo

I really have been enjoying Daniel Radcliffe's post-Harry Potter career, he'll do some solid dramas he seems to prefer doing fun weird shit like Swiss Army Man, Horns, his role on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, etc. This is in that vein of fun weird shit, a guy who gets guns bolted to his hands and is running around the city in a robe trying to survive essentially a real life video game. A lot of the movies lower on this list had fun concepts but were lacking in execution, but this is one that is just as fun as the idea sounds, even more fun actually, it's funny, the action is good, and there are some great visuals. I found it all around enjoyable.

30. Let Them All Talk

Glen Close as a celebrated author who invites her nephew and 2 estranged best friends on a cruise with her. It's a very light-hearted movie with some underlying conflicts that the characters are afraid to address head on. Glen Close is great, obviously, she plays this pretentious self-important woman with affectations but is still likable and warm. It's a fairly pleasant almost slice-of-life until the 3rd act where everything comes together. To me it was a movie about communication, saying what you mean, saying what you feel, and those unspoken assumptions of what those around you are thinking or feeling about you. I know I can relate to the idea of wanting an apology from someone who might not even be cognizant of the fact that you feel slighted by them, or vice versa finding out someone's had a long standing problem with you when you thought you were cool. One sided grudges do no one any good.

29. True History of the Kelly Gang

I've heard of Ned Kelly, but I've never seen the Heath Ledge or Mick Jagger movies about him and I don't know much about him other than he's a famous Australian outlaw and something of a folk hero to some. The performances and cinematography if this are great. George MacKay from 1917 is the lead and he's amazing, sometimes vulnerable and soft, other times a madman. It spends a lot of time in his childhood and the child actor who plays Ned is great as well. It's gritty and sometimes surreal in it's imagery. From what I can gather previous films seemed to focus more on what happened with him and his gang, while this movie seems to focuses more on everything in his life that led up to him becoming who he is and forming that gang. Like a 3rd of the movie is spent in his childhood, and once the gang is actually formed things move at a pretty brisk pace, seemingly skimming over the exploits of the gang to the conclusion. The film feels very raw and gritty and very fuck the police which I always appreciate.

28. Lucky Grandma

A stubborn grandma in New York's chinatown gets her fortunte read and is told that she's going to be very lucky and come into a fortune, she then comes into possession of a bunch of money that belongs to a gang and she decides to try to keep it feeling it's owed to her by the universe. A funny crime drama with the unlikeliest of protagonists.

27. Da 5 Bloods

Spike Lee is an icon but he can honestly be a little hit or miss for me. I don't always enjoy every choice he makes, for instance he uses real footage of war attrocities in this, and it's really upsetting to see REAL people, including children, be killed, when you're not expecting that. I understand it's meant to be upsetting, but it does make the movie something I'll probably never rewatch. Spike Lee's films to me can also feel at times heightened to the point that it feels a little cheesy (Miracle At St Anna), and there moments in this that kinda took me out of it to be honest, but overall I enjoyed it. The performances were great, Delroy Lindo in my opinion is one of the most underrated actors of all time, he's just always good no matter what he's in, everyone else in it is good too, but of course I have to mention Chadwick Boseman who was great. At the end of the day it gave me a lot to think about in terms or race, war, America, forgiveness, trauma and so many other things.

26. The Devil All The Time

There's a LOT going on in this movie, maybe a little too much, it's like 2 or 3 movies smashed into one, but... I really liked it, and that's probably because Tom Holland is so good in it. Really liked Robert Pattinson in it too. I can’t really think of more to say about it say I won’t. Next movie.

25. Bad Education

A true crime movie about school district officiala who stole from the budget of a highschool. Hugh Jackman is great in this. I loved Jackman as Wolverine, but now that he's done with that I'm excited to see him other stuff cause he's always interesting to watch; The Fountain, Prisoners, The Prestige, he's always solid. I enjoyed this, it was done with nuance, it doesn't let them off the hook for what they did but it doesn't paint them as absolute monsters either. I really have to ask myself, if I could get away with stealing money that no one would miss... I don't know, I think I'd not do it out of fear not altruism, lol.

24. My Octopus Teacher

This is a documentary on Netflix about a diver who immerses himself in the world of underwater life and documents the life of an octopus. It's really beautiful, both in terms of visuals and in content. There's not a lot to talk about because it's fairly straightforward, but it was really fascinating to learn about this octopus and see the bond they mutually formed, and again I can't talk about how great this movie looks, it's like you're in a different world. This is something I could put in and mute while I draw just for the ambiance.

23. Kajillionaire

A quirky dramedy about a family of really obtuse poor scam artists. As absurd as their behaviour is I can totally imagine a trio of weirdos like this living in Los Angeles ( I can say that cause it's my hometown and where I lived most of my life. It's Evan Rachel Wood's best role, I never would've imagined her doing something like this but she's great as "Old Dolio". It's funny, at time sad but not in a hammy melodramatic way, and I feel it had the perfect ending.

22. The Gentleman

Guy Ritchie doing what he does best. It's fun, stylish, witty, has layers and twists and reveals. Everybody's good in it. It doesn't have anything poignant to say, but it's fun to watch the entire time

21. Run

A thriller about a wheelchair bound teen who suspects her mother is drugging her and tries to get to the bottom of it. You can tell this director is a Hitchcock fan because it definitely has that Rear Window vibe but takes it a step further, and in many ways it's even shot and paced like Hitchcock. The lead actress is actually wheelchair bound herself so it really adds to the realism of all the things she does in this film. Oh, and Sarah Paulson is the mom, when is Sarah Paulson ever not good?

20. Horse Girl

Alison Brie is an awkward neurotic woman getting over recent grief and a history of mental illness in her family, she starts to have weird dreams and then notices people from her dreams in real life, starts blacking out and having gaps in time, and starts to believe it's due to alien abduction conspiracy. Is she losing her mind or is it really happening? Alison Brie is really really good in this, and she co-wrote it too, it has a lot of moments where you really feel sorry for her or scared for her and you start to question what's real yourself.

19. Swallow

I found this movie really fascinating, it's like what if you turned one of those My Strange Addiction episodes on TLC into a movie. It's about this woman who ostensibly, at least from appearances, has the perfect life (at least by societal standards), she came from nothing and is now housewife to a rich successful man, and behaves almost like a Stepford wife. Then develops a compulsion to swallow inedible things, like marbles and batteries and thumbtacks, which is a real condition called pica. Its the kind of movie that gives you a lot to think about but no easy answers.

18. Time to Hunt

A Korean heist thriller set in the near future. A bunch of childhood friends rob the wrong person and have an Anton Chigurh-esque killer sent after them to retrieve the money and kill them. It's a really tense cat and mouse thriller with good performances. The ending seemed to turn a lot of people off based on a lot of youtube comments I read, but I didn't mind it. My only real gripe is that they set this in the near future but aside from some imagery in the beginning it doesn't seem to come into play that much, this all could've taken place in modern day or even the past with no alteration of the story. I think the future setting was more just for some social commentary that maybe went over my head a little bit because I'm not from Korea, but I think if they were going to do near future they could've added some futuristic weapons or something. But that's just nitpicking, while the future setting didn't add to the story much it didn't take away from it either.

17. Tigertail

As I get older one of my worse fears is making decisions that I will regret for the rest of my life, so this movie really hit home as a cautionary tale. It's a kind of quietly devastating movie. There's no huge tragic horrific even, just a huge miscalculation. Decades of your life of work and unhappiness go by and all you can do is wonder what things could've been. I also especially appreciated the cinematography and music of this film.

16. Mother

It's been a while since I hated a character this much, but this titular mother really pissed me off. She's a neglectful mother who only sees her son as a tool, but he sticks by her cause he loves her. It's definitely not a fun movie to watch, but it made me feel a lot and meditate on the idea of love and whether it in itself has innate value.

15. Call

I went into this movie cold, having no idea what it was really about other than that it was a thriller that revolved around a woman getting mysterious calls. I'm glad I had seen no trailers and did not know the gist of the plot becuase it went places I really was not expecting. One of the most fun thrillers I've seen in a while. So, I'm not going to talk about the movie but what I will say is that Jeon Jong-seo, who played the woman in Burning is in this, she was great in Burning and she's great in this. After watching it I googled her to see what else she's been in that I can watch and this is only her 2nd film. Apparently Burning was her first audition EVER and she BOOKED IT! Like, one a million success story right? But she deserves it cause she's great and I look forward to seeing what else she does.

14. Possessor

This was directed by Brandon Cronenberg, the son of David Cronenberg, big shoes to fill, and I think he's going to fill them fine cause this is already a cult classic in my opinion. The visuals in this, which look like they were mainly created with practical and in camera effects. There is some very graphic very realistic violence in this. The movie is about an assassin who works for an organization and uses some type of scientific process to "possess" people to carry out hits. When she's in a body for too long who's in control starts to blur. It's really fucking trippy, like a fucked up Black Mirror episode.

13. Borat 2

Been a fan of Sacha since the old Da Ali G Show days when Borat was just a side character. I'm amazed with out Sacha can stay in character the way he does, especially when later on in the movie he shelters in place with some Qanon conservatives with who knows how long staying in character. Maybe they'll reveal they were paid actors who knows, but whatever I fucking laughed a lot at this movie. There's a black woman in this movie that I hope to god was not an actress cause I loved her and her reactions so much. It was a breath of fresh air to watch something that's just goofy in 2020 because it wasn't a good year for comedy. As much as I love film sometimes I got a little fatigue from watching so many things with very heavy themes, this also had heavy themes it was satirizing, but also chimp pornstar jokes, so.. a fun time.

12. A Sun

A drama about a family's eldest son going to juvenile detention for his involvement in a violent crime. We see how his father, his mother, his brother and his pregnant girlfriend all deal with this. I found it very engaging. My only gripe is that there are some moments of levity where they use this really generic comedy music score it and it really takes you out of the film. No music at all is better than bad generic music. Other than that I really loved it and the ending is great. I really thought this would end up in my top 10 but the following films just had more personal relevance or were more fun to watch.

11. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

R.I.P. Chadwick Boseman, this movie is like an acting showcase for him, he has so many great monologues here, the ending really took the wind out of me. It's also packed with really still relevant commentary on race.

10. Onward

You already expect a Pixar movie to make you cry, but this came from angle I was NOT expecting and I bawled hard at this. This movie was so applicable to my life experience it's like they specifically engineered it to make me personally cry. Honestly there are better movies lower on this list, but movies are just like any other art, when a song touches you on a personal level it doesn't need to have complex instrumentation cause it's how it made you feel that matters.

09. Palm Springs

A comedy released during a pandemic about trying to find stimulation and meaning when every day is the same thing? Ya don't say! Another take on Groundhog Day, which at this point I feel like it's its on genre with the amount of times the concept has been done, but I'm not complaining, I typically enjoy a good time loop movie (or show; Russian Doll). I don't know what else to say besides that it's really funny and Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are both charming and great in it.

08. Scare Me

This movie was funny, creepy, the performances were great, and it's just really unique and clever. Written, directed, produced, and starring Josh Ruben, who I know primarily does really idiosyncratic "impressions" on instagram. It's 2 people alone in a cabin telling each other scary stories, they don't cut away to the stories you just watch them act it out. 4 people in the cast, one location, and it still manages to be a fun ride of a movie and manages to touch on some good themes in the overall story. I really hope to see Josh Ruben direct more films because I think he's really creative.

07. Ride Your Wave

A romantic comedy about a woman trying to find joy and purpose in her life. I often go into movies very cold, so I didn't know much about what this movie was about, just knew that it was from an animation studio and director that I really respected. It's very beautiful, very grounded, until it's not. Kind of movie that breaks your heart so it can uplift you later.

06. Uncle Frank

I really did not expect a lot from movie, not that I thought it would be bad, I just thought it be your middle of the road movie. It's about a teenage girl who really looks up to her uncle who she learns is a closeted gay man, in an era where that was potentially dangerous to be. They go on a road trip home when his father dies and learn about each other and themselves, it sounds kinda cookie cutter, but it really surprised me. Paul Bettany is so very good in this, and it made me cry. Easy way to get on high on this list is to make me cry lol.

05. Children of the Sea

This film had to be in my top 5 because I'm an animation nerd and this is one of the most beautiful animated films ever. Ever. It's right up there with Akira and the Ghibli catalogue, and the works of Satoshi Kon, and all the Disney movies and everything else. It focuses on details and nuances in a really gorgeous way. The story is VERY ambiguous and gets very metaphysical towards the end, the climax is like watching an acid trip. It's about a girl who meet 2 young boys who have adapted to living underwater, and they form a bond, and then... uh... there's no way I can concisely explain it. The creator has said it's not supposed to be understood logical, instead it's supposed to be felt. There's a lot of symbolism and metaphor, it's very philosophical and explores themes of connection and the cycle of life. It's produced by Studio 4°C, which is my favorite animation studio because they really push the envelope, they're responsible for Mind Game, Tekkonkinkreet, and the recent Mutafukaz, and other, if you've never heard of any of those definitely look them up, they're unlike any anime you've ever watched before. Anyway, beautiful movie and the cryptic plot allows for you to rewatch it multiple times and take different things away from it. I can't wait to own it on blu-ray.

04. 37 Seconds

I saw this very early in the year and love it. It's about a young woman with cerebal palsy who is also an aspiring hentai artist trying to get laid. Her mother who takes care of her like a child smothers her, so it's not only about trying to get laid but trying to have some independence. Firstly the performance of this woman who actually does have cerebral palsy and is a first time actor is so natural and endearing, secondly there are things they portray with an uncomfortable amount of realism and awkwardness that it really draws you in to the nitty gritty of her reality and what it can be like for someone who is wheelchair bound to try to have sexual experiences. I like that there were 2 films this year about characters in wheelchairs that used unknown actresses that face the same things their characters do, it adds to the authenticity of either film. Films like this are why I think diversity in film is not just about doing something for the demographic you're depicting but also giving everyone else not of that demographic new unique stories and perspectives.

03. Soul

I guess spoilers if you haven't seen this because it's easier to talk about why I liked it if I talk specifically about the plot. I wasn't expecting much from this when the initial trailer dropped, it made it seem like it was going to largely take place in this imaginary soul place with these blue things, and for most of the first act it seemed like that's what it was going to be, but when they come back to earth and the story really starts I really started enjoying it. This movie tricks you into thinking the film is about finding or fulfilling your purpose, only to throw a curveball that living life in and of itself is the "purpose", and this movie resonated so much with thoughts that were already on my mind. I relate so much to Joe as a creative person myself with so many unfulfilled dreams, at 36yrs old, having to put many of my goals on the backburner just to survive, and generally having that feeling that I'm still waiting to live life because I'm not fulfilling my "purpose". Sure reaching for goals is great, but I think our culture breeds this idea that happiness is a destination, an accomplishment, a certain amount of recognition, a monetization of your passion. I really loved how the film depicted that there's a dark side to focusing on your passions and how it can become a source of stress and unhappiness. This movie is just about savoring life itself, which people have been expressing through platitudes since forever but this film illustrated it in a way that words fail at, and that's what makes film such a great form of art.

02. Sound of Metal

This movie had one of the best trailers of 2020, I couldn't wait to watch this movie. FIrst of all I love RIz Ahmed and think he's an underrated and underutilized actor, he's fucking amazing in this, he needs an Oscar nom FOR SURE. His frustration is so palpable and he feels so natural in this movie. It follows a metal punk drummer who loses his hearing and goes to stay in a deaf community to acclimate. One thing I think is absolutely brilliant about this movie is the sound design. I'm not deaf so I can't speak from any type of experience, but they try to replicate what going deaf sounds like, what the audiologist tests sound like, what hearing aids and cochlear implants sound like, it's very immersive. I almost think of it like a companion piece to Soul, cause I had almost the same take away, it's just coming from it at a different angle.

01. I'm Thinking Of Ending Things

Okay, so I’m going to have a lot to say about this movie.

Maybe a very controversial pick for my number one because so many people absolutely hated this movie, lol. I am biased given that I'm a huge fan of Charlie Kaufman, he's my favorite screenwriter, and his films have only gotten weirder and weirder, so I know to expect the unexpected when going into one of his films. I can understand how this would be an offputting experience if you're expecting the conventions of normal narrative structure. It was surprising and perplexing to me how this film unfolded but I've watched non-narrative and experimental films before so I was intrigued rather than frustrated. You think it's about a woman who is thinking of breaking up with her boyfriend as they head to meet his parents. Once we get to his childhood home things start getting surreal, and that surrealism just escalates to the point where you realize this film is not at all attempting to depict reality and doesn't even have any continuity. This is the most a movie has ever felt like one of my dreams. I don't know how other people dream but this was so much like every weird nightmare I've ever had where I feel trapped in a situation.

There's a scene where the family is talking about art, the dad says he hates abstract art because it takes no skill, he prefers paintings that look like photographs because that takes real skill, the son asks why make a painting look like a photograph when you can just take a photograph, the woman states she paints pictures of landscapes and tries to imbue them with a sense of interiority, capturing the way she feels, the dad asks how can a landscape be sad if you don't have a person in it looking sad. I felt like this was a bit of meta commentary on the film itself. After I watched this movies I had my own theories, I watched some analysis videos on youtube that confirmed a lot of my ideas and gave me insight on other parts of the film, I watched the film again and formulated more ideas, it's so dense with things to project meaning onto and interpret it. I went on instagram and ended up having lengthy discussions about what the film meant both with people who loved it and hated it. Everybody I spoke with had slightly different interpretations and takeaways. One woman who initially did not like it came away with an appreciation for it after we had a lengthy discussion about it's meaning.

All of this is why it's my favorite film of the year, not only did I relate to it on a personal level because I'm in a stage of my life where I'm approaching middle ages and afraid I'm going to end up like the guy in this film, but I can't remember the last time a film led to such meaningful conversation about life, death, love, mental health, loneliness, trauma, etc. So like the scene where they're talking about art, I think this movie is neither intended to be abstract or realistic, it's supposed to be imbued with a sense of interiority. I know I sound way pretentious right now, but I just really appreciated Charlie Kaufman for making something unabashedly expressionist and serving it up to mainstream audiences. I really feel like I grow as a person and an artist every time I watch one of his films.

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

So there ya go. That’s it. That concludes this arbitrary exercise in ranking the movies i saw last year, thank you for wasting your time on this, lol. I think it was a very good year for movies.

If there was a movie you were expecting to see on the list and it’s missing I just didn’t get to it in 2020, I may do an unranked follow up list of 2020 movies I missed in 2020, maybe.

That’s it.

End of post.

Bye.

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queenofmoons · 4 years

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7, 12 and 14! Plus, answer the question of your favorite number!

7: do you name your plants?

I don’t keep many plants, because allergies, BUT I started a tiny bit of a garden over quarantine and my eggplant plants are named Eleanor, Tahani, Chidi, and Jason! My tomato plant doesn’t have a name, though. (ps: Eleanor and Jason are doing best).

12: what’s your favorite planet?

Saturn’s rings are so pretty, so I’m going with her, but-- and there’s no unfunny way to say this-- Uranus has the prettiest coloring

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

We’d have bookshelves everywhere. Furniture that’s worn and cheap, probably from a flea market or a yard sale. Work desks covered with different furniture. Framed pieces of artwork that one of us has made, windows with blinds that are never closed in the living spaces. Big, Persian rugs under the (coffee-ring stained) coffee table. Chalk boards in the kitchen. Candles in the bedrooms. magnets on the fridge that hold up plane tickets and sticky notes that have lost their stickiness, and drawings, and a schedule for feeding the cat(s).

23: what are your favorite things to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?

Go to a coffee shop and get some writing done (god-- remember coffee shops? I’d do anything to be writing in a Dunkin right now). Re-watch a favorite movie, or watch a new one. Order in food while binge-watching New Girl. Finally crack open the video games I got for Christmas. Practice drawing. Do nothing, sometimes. Just scroll endlessly through the doom-portal that is Twitter. Back when I lived on campus, I would always get dinner/lunch from the diner across the street on Sundays.

Ask me questions

#ahhhh thank you these were so cute!#ask #canonismybitch

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adamwatchesmovies · 5 years

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Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)

Released as a special event on October 15th and 17th, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is aimed at the series fans. I'm at a disadvantage, only have seen one of the films in the "View Askewniverse" but even so, I can't imagine any state where I would've enjoyed this painfully unfunny, agonizingly self-referential comedy with nothing to say. It’ll be less painful to watch at home because this special presentation was one of the weirdest, most awkward cinematic experiences I’ve ever had.

Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) are busted when the police deduce their “Cock Smoker” chicken sandwich restaurant is a front for their marijuana grow-op. The boys escape prison sentences thanks to a court-appointed lawyer (Justin Long) only to realize they've been tricked out of their names and affiliated “Bluntman and Chronic” comic book properties by Saban Films. Determined to stop the production of the movie reboot, the pot-smoking duo head to Hollywood, along the way joining up with the daughter Jay never knew he had, Millennium (Harley Quinn Smith), and her best friend Soapy (Treshelle Edmond).

After an interminable intro in which Smith and Mewes assure us we're in for a good time as the film pokes fun at Hollywood's practice of rehashing past properties by making them younger, more diverse and gender-swapped, we finally get to the movie. It’s immediately obvious this adventure will be about as funny as dunking your head into an open sewer. The jokes are juvenile. Not only that, they’re obvious. A Silence of the Lambs reference? “welcome” spelled “welcum”? Shoot me now. I know Smith’s defenders will tell you many of these gags are throwbacks to his earlier films. Believe me, I know. This entire film is composed of references. It doesn’t matter if a cameo breaks up the flow of the story. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. If there's a way to crowbar Rosario Dawson, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Biggs, James Van Der Week, Chris Hemsworth, Keith Coogan or anyone else who owes Smith a favor, they'll be here. At best, these serve as welcome reprieves from the unfunny trek we've embarked upon - which includes Jay fantasizing about having sex in a fast-food restaurant (you might die of shame as Jason Mewes vigorously humps the air), a KKK rally, a brainless parody of Uber called “Ride Me Now”, and other visual means of torture.

Over and over, the actors turn towards the screen and wink at you (sometimes literally), making it clear that yes, they did indeed just tell a joke, and that now, it’s time to laugh. Acknowledging that Jersey Girl was lousy, that your filmography hasn’t been fresh since 1999 is no substitute for making a good movie. Parading actors we recognize in roles we’re nostalgic for doesn’t poke fun at big studio’s lack of innovation, it’s being as unscrupulous as they are. Maybe that’s the joke. I recognize Marie-Jane enthusiast Millie is a “new” version of Jay, and that deaf Soapy is a “new” version of Silent Bob… but so what? We learn nothing about how you should react when something you loved years ago is exhumed for greed's sake. All this"Reboot" does is make a couple of not-so-sly observations then proceed with a plot that gets significantly worse during the last few minutes.

My jaw dropped when the man at the concession told me this film started at 7:00 and wouldn’t end until 9:51. 3 hours?! Even considering the trailers preceding it, that couldn’t be right. This is where this review becomes further biased. Accompanying the film's special Fathom Events showing - is an hour’s worth of bonuses after the credits (themselves filled with extra scenes and snippets). First, you get the second-worst interview I’ve ever seen. Smith asks Rosario Dawson and Shannon Elizabeth what they’ve been up to. It’s a whole lotta nothing that has zero to do with the movie. It’s followed by THE WORST interview I’ve ever seen: Jason Mewes ambushing a bunch of no-name crewmembers and asking them inane questions. The sound is bad, no one has anything to say, everybody is clearly uncomfortable and unprepared, you leave having gained nothing. The unfunny gag reel which follows is a breath of fresh air by comparison.

For Jay and Silent Bob Reboot to not make my "Worst of 2019" list, the year will have to be apocalyptic. Only fans devoted to the point of idiocy could leave the film satisfied. It's so bad, it's making me do something I've never done before. Rather than turn me away from the series, I've become committed to seeing the whole thing through so I can truly tell you whether my fury is justified both as a non-fan, and as a fan. (Theatrical version on the big screen, October 17, 2019)

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alrightinbed-betterwithapen · 5 years

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Clever Little Things — Part One — David Dobrik x Reader

A/N: hey guys so this one’s based off an awesome ask! I’m writing my asks a little slower at this time (and taking sometime away from Datalie until inspo comes back) to ensure better quality. I’m also turning this one into a series. Lemme know if you have any ideas of where you want this story to go. Anywho, thanks for taking the time to read, love ya!!

Masterlist

Summary: You don’t like David, and he plans on changing that.

Anon Asked: Hey !! Love you're writing, nobody ever does my requests so hopefully u can break that pattern :-), can u do a david x reader where it's an enemies to lovers sort of thing, where he's really charming and smug to her and like a huge flirt and she kinda just rolls her eyes and tells him to fuck off (maybe it could be a series??) Thanks !!

——

David fucking Dobrik.

Fuck that guy.

Yeah, you said it. Repeatedly and sometimes out loud. You couldn’t give a fuck about YouTube’s resident golden boy. You have lived in California far too long to be impressed with young, ridiculously wealthy men and their expensive cars. David seemed like a guy who fell face first into a vat of luck and wore humbleness like a cloak, hiding who he was underneath.

You were bound to run into him around Hollywood, your job as a freelance editor had you working with a ton of people in the industry he dominated. You had once preferred working in TV and film, but when a girl named Gabbie reached out to you, getting your info from a colleague, you were yanked into the YouTube world. Gabbie loved your work and had given your name out to all her influencer friends. The calls came rolling in.

Hey, it was a paycheck. These viral sensations actually made bank, and you were getting a more steady source of income from them than you did at any other job you’d worked in the city of angels. It even led to a pretty long contract job at a decent media group. Where you had to attend events and mingle and really learn about the world you were working in. It was mostly good.

But David, he fucking annoyed you. Whether it was hanging all over Instagram models for clout, or holding up the entrance line at a club to take paparazzi around his car, laughing and playing it up to an extreme, he fucking irked you. You had made the mistake of following him on Snapchat, one of his stories accidentally rolling over from a friends; he had two bleach blondes screaming about merch and then the camera flips around to his smug face telling you to swipe up. Yeah. Fucking. Right.

In your mind there were the Paul’s, Ricegum and David Dobrik: the premier fuckboys of YouTube.

So, there is no way you’re actually going to call Jason Nash about becoming his steady editor. You tell Gabbie as much over coffee.

“But, it’s a job, like long term and well paying... and he asked me about editors I knew the last time I saw him. Plus, if you last for a while, you can put that shit on your resume. And he’s great, like the coolest, chillest dude ever,” she’s explaining, trying to win you over. She had told you all about his kids and ex wife, how stressed he was. And that he could pay big money because he was racking in the revenue from his relationship with Trisha Paytas. Still, working for one of the vlog squad basically meant working for David, and you weren’t interested in that at all.

“Yeah, no. I’m sure he is, but the vlog squad? C’mon. Why would I do that to myself when you noped the fuck outta that mess years ago,” you tell her, sipping on your latte.

“Because I’m not an editor, (Y/N). It’s not like you have to hang out with them. You just hang around Jason and edit his shit. It’s not that complicated,” Gabbie says, looking at you like you’re dumb. You roll your eyes at her.

“Maybe I don’t want to be associated with David Dobrik and his loyal servants when their party comes crashing to the ground. You know it’s coming. He’s the next Shane Dawson expose for sure,” you ramble, “Like, Dobrik is the next Jake Paul. At least that’s what I get from his Snapchat’s, does he do anything but try to sell his shitty hoodies? And prank people until they cry?”

“Yeah. He gives people cars all the time.”

“PR move!” You yell, a little too loudly for nine in the morning at a coffee shop. Gabbie jumps a little and brings her hand to her mouth, shushing you. Ignoring her, you continue, “Yeah, it’s sooo genuine, Gabs. ‘Hey guys, I sent my friend to the hospital last week for a poorly thought out, unfunny stunt. This week I’m buying my assistant a car! No motive, no PR team screaming at me from the sidelines. Nope, I’m just a super awesome, humble guy who appreciates the people who obediently follow me around like a puppy so I can make content that’ll have 16 year olds everywhere buying my shitty merch!’ Gimme a break.”

“Holy fuck, I know you’re a cynic, but you have gone full pessimist lately,” Gabbie laughs at your impression, shaking her head. “They aren’t bad people, (Y/N). David isn’t either, he’s just young and rich and a little dumb. And Jason is probably the most down to earth one of them. Just think about it.”

“Ugh, fine. Fine, just no more talk about it. How’s your book coming?”

You change the subject, firm that the phone number she programmed into your phone will never get any use.

——

Then Defy Media goes under and Clevver, the main source of your rent lately, is done. You are out a decent paying job and next months check, you are royally fucked. Staring at the number in your phone, bent over on your couch, your thumb hovers.

You need the job. You want work, being at home with nothing to do all day makes you stir crazy. But all your points listed out about this still stand.

Fuck it.

You type out a quick message to Jason about Gabbie and his need for an editor with a link to your reel. You press send before you can talk yourself out of it. Then, it’s a waiting game. You’re scouring the internet for job postings when you get a message in return.

Hey! I’m so glad you hit me up. I desperately need help and would love to have you as my editor. Your reel is great! Can you meet for coffee in like 2 hours? I’m behind already and we can talk logistics.

You’re shocked. He must be desperate if he’s hiring you sight unseen and already getting you to work. But it’s a saving grace and more than you could of wished for. You’ll get a paycheck sooner and not have to worry about eviction. You let him know that’s fine and arrange a place.

The meeting goes well, Jason is a cool dude who doesn’t seem as wound up as your usual content creators were. You agreed on a wage (like 35% higher than your last gig, fuck yeah) and got to understand Jason’s edit style and post dates.

What didn’t shock you about the job, but you were hoping you could circumvent, was that you would be working closely with Trisha and David, as Jason often traded footage with both of them. And unlike Jason, they both edited their own vlogs because they had either, fewer responsibilities in their lives (Trisha), or were anal about their edit and wanted to do them personally (David). Great, great, great.

A jobs, a job though. You’ve survived working with some shitty people in your time and honestly didn’t think you’d have any problem on your hands.

——

There are problems though.

Yeah... there are a couple.

——

The first is Trisha. Well, she wasn’t a huge problem, but an obstacle. She was super insecure (you knew this going in) and the first time she came over to Jason’s and you were chilling on the couch, finishing up a vlog, things got tense. She knew you were hired, but she hadn’t met you before. You’d introduced yourself and shook the woman’s hands, wearing your usual editor getup of jeans and a giant hoodie, no makeup, hair not really done up but presentable enough for the public and giant headphones, to tune out the world around you.

You think that helped you because Trisha made a comment about how you were at least not trying to look good for Jason. You laughed at that, and looked her straight in the eyes with meaning behind them, and maybe a little intimidating,

“You couldn’t pay me into retirement to sleep with Jason.”

She’s taken a back for a second and you both look over to the man. You say no offense softly as the man shrugs, but don’t apologize or try to take it back. Trisha just snorts and says she likes you, claws retracting and a calmness returning to the room. Jason looks like a bomb’s been defused and ever grateful for you.

Bullet dodged... hopefully.

——

The next problem is David...

He’s actually the rest of the problems you have with your new job.

See, Trisha got over her bullshit pretty quickly and began texting you once a week for specific footage with Jason. She would describe them well and stay on the phone while you found and verified the clip, and then you’d send them to her. No muss, no fuss. She was an editor’s literal dream.

But, David fucking Dobrik was a nightmare.

Constantly texting you about clips from things that weren’t recorded, but he’s “sure they were because Jason was holding his camera like it was recording”, or waking you up in the middle of night to make sure you weren’t using a certain song for a montage or outro because he was going to use it in the next week.

And that was besides the ridiculous amount of times David was reminding you not to post certain things that were gonna premiere on his channel first. Like, yes, it’s fine to tell you. If it makes David feel better that you’re hearing it from him and not Jason, FINE. But to text you every post day, over a dozen times? It was a fucking joke and has been going on through week four of your new job. And you’d had enough. You’d mentioned it to Jason, but he’d just shrugged it off as David being David.

Well, fuck David.

You’d never even met the man in person at this point in time, but he was living up to every one of your terrible expectations. That’s when the 14th text comes in, as you’re exporting Jason’s latest vlog and just leaning back to relax on the older mans couch. That’s also when you snap, hitting the call button on the text and calling the douchebag.

“Hello? (Y/N)? Why are you callin-,” he starts after a few seconds of waiting for it to connect.

“Hey David! Nice talking to you finally and not just reading your utterly demeaning and demanding text messages!” You start in, just letting loose all the irritation he’s caused you over the last month. “Super appreciate the literally DOZENS of messages you leave me on post day, not to mention in the middle of the god damn night the rest of the week. I’m glad you understand what an invalid I am and how the constant texts actually do help me! It’s absolutely not a slight to my four year education and years of experience in my profession. Or the fact that I do heed your words the FIRST time I hear them, because it’s my literal job. A job I have that actually doesn’t revolve around you. Crazy, I know!” Your voice is just dripping with sarcasm at this point. In your brief pause you can hear a soft, amused breath from his end of the call. It doesn’t stop you at all.

“Anyway, I just wanted to call and let you know how productive you’re making me, and thank you! I really don’t know how I would function in my chosen career without your undying, unrelenting, un-asked for guidance. Hope the vlog that just posted meets your standards! Leave a comment if it doesn’t. Just please, please don’t text me about it.”

And you’re slamming the end button before he can respond. You look up and Jason is standing in the entrance way to his living room, jaw dropped. And all he can say after lifting it off the ground is,

“I didn’t know he was texting you in the middle of the night! Yeah... fuck him.”

You’re glad this ends with you both laughing and not you being fired.

——

“Your editor’s got some mega fucking attitude, dude,” is the first thing David says to Jason, picking him up in the Tesla the next day. Jason just starts cackling at that.

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t text her in the middle of the night. Most people’s work schedule doesn’t extend to 3am, Dave. And I thought she had quite a few points. Like, she works for me. And she does in fact know how to skillfully edit my shitty vlogs,” Jason’s laughing this out and is glad to find David just as amused.

“I wasn’t expecting to get ripped a new asshole is all. I was in an Uber to some event and Natalie heard the whole thing,” David replied, kinda sheepishly.

“You’re just butt hurt that there’s someone in this world that doesn’t give a fuck who you are and is willing to talk shit to your face. And that now Natalie and I know someone put you in your place,” the older man retorts, pointing at him accusingly before going on, “I’m not reprimanding her for having enough of you. She’s doing great AND Trisha likes her. Fuck off dude. Just text her less.”

“What do you mean she doesn’t give a fuck who I am?” Of course this is the part of what Jason was saying that David focuses on.

Shaking his head, he explains, “Well, she knows who you are and is absolutely comfortable enough to basically call you a dick within the first month of being my editor. Also, Gabbie told me the first time we talked about her that (Y/N) hates working for the bigger creators on the platform, and that she thinks they’re all materialistic and out of touch assholes. So, you know, I thought she would be a perfect fit for me. I’m basically nobody. But you? There’s no love lost there from the beginning, but she’s obviously professional enough to keep from snapping on your ass for like a month. I don’t know, Dave. What? You want me to force her to care who you are?”

“No! That’s not what I meant. I guess I just figured-“

“Sorry, dude. Not everyone loves our golden boy. But she’s not a mean person. She’s never even mentioned it. This is what Gabs told me forever ago. Either way, she doesn’t have to be blown over by you to be my editor. Right?”

“No, yeah, right. I guess I didn’t think I was bothering her. I’d always hit you up the same amount.”

“Yeah, but we’re friends. She works for me. It’s different,” Jason’s explaining as David nods along, eyes on the road, thinking.

(Y/N) doesn’t like him? Everyone likes him! YouTube world or not, David was charming as shit. It perplexed him, stirring uneasiness in his chest. This was just going to be a challenge in his eyes now.

She doesn’t like him? That’s fine. She will though.

David guar-an-fucking-tees it.

——

David Dobrik sends you an apology Edible Arrangement. The good kind, all chocolate covered fruit.

There’s a card attached that says,

Jason’s last vlog def met my standards, so you obvy don’t need my help. I’ll stop being such a dick.

(See? I didn’t text you.)

-D

It makes you laugh fucking hard.

You find it a little endearing but also, yeah, you deserve an unhealthy Edible Arrangement. He probably has a contact at the fruit company for appeasing all the people he steps on to run his empire. You’re not special, but the thought is at least there. Whatever. He had stopped bombarding you with texts and had been much more polite in general, so you were more than fine with the whole situation now.

You had hoped this was the end of it.

——

It wasn’t.

——

#david dobrik imagine #david dobrik x y/n #david dobrik x reader #david dobrik fluff #david dobrik smut #david dobrik fanfic #david dobrik #vlog squad imagine

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darringauthier · 5 years

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Deathgasm (2015)

Genre: Horror/Comedy

Who’s In It: Milo Cawthorne, James Blake, Kimberly Crossman, Sam Berkley, Daniel Cresswell

Who Directed It: Jason Lei Howden

Plot: Two teenage boys unwittingly summon an ancient evil entity known as The Blind One by delving into black magic while trying to escape their mundane lives.

Running Time: 86 Minutes

IMDB Score: 6.3

Why I Watched It: It had gotten some decent genre buzz and had started a mini cult following so I thought I’d give it a try.

Where I Watched It: I found it on Amazon Prime Canada

Random Thoughts: Make no mistake this is a throw back movie, there was a time when heavy medal music and horror went had in hand now not so much as “heavy metal or death metal” aren’t as commercial but it’s still niche and cultish.

This is an indie film from New Zealand. Just wanted to throw that out there, had no follow up, sorry my bad.

What I Liked: This does have a cult film, no budget indie vibe to it, something you would come across in your video store and it does help that it’s from New Zealand. So it’s pretty standard, a heavy metal head has to move in with his aunt and uncle and is bullied in school and finds some nerdie friends and one metal head to start a band. Horror ensues. It can’t be a heavy metal horror without a record that could summon great evil and blah blah blah. Standard premise but I do like the enthusiasm, glee and all out gore that director brings to the film.

It’s a young unknown cast Cawthorne and Crossman are the standouts for me, yes they’re playing stock characters but both have enough charm to make them feel at least somewhat believable. There’s a couple of images that are cool and the film does move well and they bring the noise that’s for sure.

What I Didn’t Like: They had a tough road to ho here as they had two horror sub-genres that are tricky, the horror/comedy and the horror/heavy, there’s humor and the heavy metal culture is there but the horror part is pure cliche, also some of the sub-plots are very tired I honestly would be fine if we can do away with seeing kids bullied in school oh and the one cute girl is with the good looking jerk and kind of secretly likes our nerdie lead,really? Also the plot, a song, an evil song is played and yes great evil is summoned, and of course if you played it again backwards then you undo it.

The second lead played by James Blake is very annoying and would have worked better as a bad guy, instead he does these mean and evil things but he does it in service of the plot so he’s forgiven. The film also relies mostly on dick and shit jokes for their humor and some land but most times it just gross and unfunny. The action is decent but nothing to write home about.

Final Thoughts: I can see why it’s getting a following but for me it’s not clever or funny enough to be an enjoyable movie, it’s fine and I liked the effort but it didn’t make me laugh that much and it was leaning too much on cliches for me to get engaged.

Rating: 4/10

#deathgasm #jason lei howden #milo cawthorne #kimberly crossman

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scarceserotonin · 4 years

Text

non ed rant about my friends:

Story time, I have a friend, let’s call him jason.

Me and jason are pretty good friends. We’ve been really on or really off for years. We’ve been on since about february, and it’s been pretty normal.

A few days ago (may 30) was my birthday, and I had friends over. Jason, “Ollie”, and “Coal”. Jason came over first, we were kinda flirty, a lot of eye contact and laughing too long at dumb jokes. Everyone else came, and we played smash and listened to music. We fucked around in my room for a while and after a few hours Ollie and Coal left. Just me and Jason, he was staying the night.

We chilled on my bed, watched avatar, and listened to music. Eventually over the course of like 2 hours he was to my right (of my tiny ass bed, a twin size) and we were listening to music and fucking around (still)

He guessed the passcode to my phone, and started going through some of it (besides my tumblr lmao)

It was fun. Eventually he started to fall asleep. It was like 3 or something in the morning. I didn’t want to fall asleep in case my mom walked in and saw us both asleep.

At like 5 or something, he woke up. “I’m booored!” he said.

“Don’t be lol” I said.

We got to the point where we were laying down stick-like next to each other, He edged his hands toward my thigh. Eventually it was on it. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” I said. “I can’t tell either,”

I put my hand on his because I didn’t want him to move it anymore.

“Do you wanna do something?” he asked

“like what?”

“yknow,” he kinda squeezed my thigh.

“...No...” I shook my head.

“....Ok,”

silence for a bit.

He took his hand off. After a few minutes, I said “I’ll be right back...”

I went to the bathroom and laid on the floor shaking extremely hard. I texted one of my online friends.

He helped me calm down, and jason texted me saying he is sorry, and if I want to come out to talk.

After like 15 minutes, I came out. I forgot the initial conversation. I was basically asleep the whole time.

The episode of avatar where aang was trying to get Katara, worst timing lmao

He left because I was super tired, and we’d just talk in the morning. He left for the living room. 5 mins later he came back. We talked about it.

I was asleep for this too, but I do remember asking him what was going through his head, and if he likes me.

We eventually went to sleep in different rooms.

When we woke up, we kinda acted like nothing happened. We kept having fun eye contact flirty time tho. I didn’t think either of us wanted to talk about it. We covered almost everything last night anyway.

We were mostly on our phones. We were physically close almost the entire time. Every minute i’d want to hold his hand but then remembered last night and felt horrible.

We were laying down with me behind him and he took my phone. I opened it for him and he went through my insta saved. I was laughing while he was judging me. When something (usually unfunny) came up, Id take that as an excuse to put my face into the pillow and his back and laugh. I shook my foot and it made us play footsies. I enjoyed it.

He left eventually. I thought about it a lot. My friend brought up a point that he wouldn’t apologize or feel bad if it went the way he wanted to. I think about that a lot.

I asked him on discord again if he likes me, because I forgot the answer. We had a long talk about relationships and shit and he said that he has an irrational fear of relationships. I told him I won’t force him into anything, and it’s completely up to him if he wants to date me or anything. “I’m down for whatever.”

What happened today, to make me post this to rant, is that a girl that he’s been texting for a while, send him a pic. It wasn’t a nude, but it was close. She said she’d send “more”, but Jason told her not to. I asked him why, he said “Many reasons.”

If it was something simple like he doesn’t want that on his phone, he would’ve told me. That was my first thought. Then I kept bouncing between “He likes me and doesn’t want to talk to her anymore because he likes me” and “He won’t get in a relationship with you. He’s scared, and you’re probably annoying and/or ugly.”

yeah idk, i’m just thinkin bout it a lot. I know i have more thoughts about it, but i lost them on the way of writing.

Also, (off topic, but kinda part of the story) Ollie goes on ome.tv a lot, and streams it to us. Every girl he gets, he’s encouraged to “get the snap”. (mostly by Jason) They’re so quick to judge if a girl is hot or not. (this is part of what drove me to relapsing) and every time we do it, i just get super numb and start thinking too much.

TLDR: Jason wanted horny but I said “no no no” and started questioning if relationship or what???

#rant #rant over #sorry for the rant #rant tag

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moreracquetball · 7 years

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omg do u have any jason and whizzer getting to know each other hcs for ur baseball au i'm in love with ur writing

—Early in Marvin and Whizzer's relationship (when they were just messing around and it wasn't even a relationship yet), the location of the game/practice was moved (or insert other realistic reason here) so that Whizzer was close to where Marvin lived, so Whizzer decided to surprise him by not telling him that he was close and dropping by his apartment. Cue Whizzer, dressed very suavely and holding a bottle of expensive wine and a bag of condoms, strolling up to Marvin's door and knocking. But guess what, it's /Saturday/, so Jason is the one who opens the door. And yeah, Whizzer and Jason had no idea of the other's existence in Marvin's life, so they just sort of stood there awkwardly and Whizzer dropped the wine and threw the condoms over his shoulder and Jason yelled for his dad and Marvin died of mortification, and that's how those two met for the first time. —Initially, Whizzer is usually very great with kids, but he is Very Awkward around Jason bc "hey, I'm sorta dating your dad and I weirdly want you to like me and think I'm cool" and Jason is sort of put out by the whole thing?? He is positive Marvin started dating Whizzer to spite him bc he's from Jason's rival team, but inwardly he's kinda nervous too because Whizzer is a famous baseball player and that's still a pretty big deal. So at first, they kinda walk around each other.—But but but, eventually Whizzer walks in on Jason watching an old, "vintage" (to Jason, at least) baseball game on TV and Whizzer tells him that he'd actually been in the stands at that game and they start watching it together and yelling at the announcers and other players and it's the turning point of their friendship.—They only talk about baseball and stuff for a long time and Whizzer begins worrying that Jason only likes him as a player and not a person, but simultaneously Jason is worried that Whizzer only hangs out with him and talks to him bc of Marvin and so only talks about baseball bc that's what Whizzer seems to actually relax and like talking about. But eventually they start opening up about other things like Whizzer teaches Jason how to flirt with girls and Jason teaches Whizzer how to play chess and they have the same sort of weird, unfunny humor and their interactions become a lot less awkward and stilted.—Despite his own spotty batting average, Whizzer teaches Jason how to bat better and Jason hits his first ball ever during a game and Whizzer literally explodes in the stands and starts loudly cheering and freaking out and kinda forgetting that he's a celebrity and he needs to be discreet out in public.—Jason and Whizzer both came from parents of divorce and so like Jason always comes to Whizzer when Marvin and Trina fight, and Whizzer becomes very very protective over Jason and Jason starts to really look up to Whizzer as a role model and it strengthens their bond.—At first, Marvin had been worried that the two wouldn't get along, but now he has become the odd man out of the house bc Whizzer and Jason will talk about baseball and school stuff and Marvin gets kinda jealous that Jason talks freer and easier with Whizzer than with him. Whizzer has to remind him that Marvin is Jason's /dad/ and that will never change and to stop being so insecure bc guess what, baseball isn't the only thing him and Jason have in common—they both love Marvin.Feel free to add more of your own or ask me for more info in general bc I Love This

#Baseball au #I'm going to start tagging these so my other followers wont get annoyed #ask

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andawaywego · 7 years

Text

Zack Taylor’s Guide to Getting the Girl

by andawaywego

Read it here

If you asked her, Kim would probably say that she’s completely and totally fine with how crazy her life has become. She’d say she has no problem with being a superhero or fighting off she-beast aliens in the rubble of a pastry shop.

She would say she’s adjusting pretty well.

Sure, occasionally rock beasts still crop up in town at the most inopportune time--namely, when she’s sleeping or eating or trying to have a normal life. But that’s fine.

Just kick their asses and climb back in the bedroom window before your parents notice you’re gone.

And, yeah, okay. Jason being large and in charge means practice every single day for upwards of five hours at a time, but that’s not so bad.

Just listen to his pointers, ignore that smirk Trini gets every time she lands a hit on you, and sneak a frozen bag of peas out of the fridge for your black eye as discreetly as you can when you get home.

So maybe that lecture they’d gotten from their resident, prehistoric alien wall-face on the morality of combat was a bit much. But Billy had snuck her a bag of M&M’s from his pocket halfway through and Trini had stolen all the yellow ones and it was fine.

If she had to pick, then the worst part is probably how connected they all are now. How she’ll wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and feel the light tremors in the air, in her muscles, because Trini is having a nightmare five miles away.

But even that’s not so bad.

Trini may lock her bedroom window tight, but Kim knows how to wiggle it open and she knows that it usually only takes someone there to hold her for a little while for her to fall right back asleep.

No, none of that is the problem.

The problem, Kim thinks, is Zackary Taylor.

Zackary Taylor who knows something like three dozen corny pickup lines that he uses incessantly on all of them.

Zackary Taylor who makes jokes about Trini being a top when she pins him during training.

Zackary Taylor who corners her after training one day--catches her by the elbow before she can get to her car. Before she can escape. Corners her and smiles and says, “Kimmy,” in that vaguely annoying voice he always does.

Then says, “So you’re gay.”

Because, wow, like...rude.

And also not true.

“What?” she asks and Zack is smirking.

She tugs her elbow out of his wet hand and crosses her arms over her stomach. Looks over at where Jason, Billy, and Trini are walking. Dripping and laughing.

When she looks back, Zack is still smirking and she’d really enjoy, very much, if she could punch that dumb look off his face. But she doesn’t. Too afraid of Zordon finding out she escalated a fight, or something.

“You’re gay,” he repeats, “And I can prove it.”

Kim fixes him with her best glare, tries to look as menacing as she can manage when her hair is dripping into her eyes. “Taylor, what the hell are you talking about?”

Because she’s not gay. Really.

He crosses his arms, too, and then nods over to where the others are. They’ve stopped walking now and are just standing there, talking. Waiting for Zack and Kim to join them.

“You have a thing for Jason,” he says and she whips her head away from watching them to stare at him, mouth opening just the slightest bit in disbelief. He laughs, uproariously and she’s pretty sure she can see Trini turning her head to look at them.

“I do not have a thing for Jason,” Kim hisses because she doesn’t.

She’d thought maybe she was going to or that he was going to for her back when this whole thing started because they shared an awful lot of meaningful looks. But then she shared just as many meaningful looks with Trini, too. More, actually.

But Zack is still smiling like he thinks he’s the most clever person alive. “Okay,” he says slowly, lowly, like he really wants her to listen, “So you don’t mind that he has a thing for Trini then, huh?”

What will strike Kim later about this comment, is how wildly unfunny it is. Because obviously Jason doesn’t have a thing for Trini and obviously she doesn’t have one for him. And obviously Zack is just saying this to make room for his third point, but Kim doesn’t think about it in the moment following this comment.

Instead, her first gut reaction--rather than annoyance, like usual, or disgust--is jealousy. And she’s so surprised by it, that she can’t even begin to understand it. So she just says, “Yeah, right,” and rolls her eyes in what she hopes is as spectacular a display of how much Zack is pissing her off as it feels like.

Zack is undeterred. “I thought you didn’t have a thing for Jason.”

“I don’t!” Kim says again and she’s shaking her head a little too hard, trying to look impassive, like she doesn’t care because she isn’t supposed to. She genuinely does not want to be with Jason.

Her eyes move back over to the others, to Trini standing there, hair sticking wet to her forehead, smiling at Billy. Running her fingers through her hair and shaking it backwards and Kim’s eyes drop down the slope of her neck.

Something twists unexpectedly in her chest and suddenly she’s thinking, Not Jason.

Zack’s eyes widen in what can only be described as absolute glee. He’s grinning so widely that Kim really, really wants to punch him in the chest but isn’t sure if she can manage it just then, so, instead, she settles for closing her eyes, uncrossing her arms, and pressing her fingers to her temples.

Zack lets out this loud, “Girl,” making it sound impossibly long.

“Oh my god, Zack,” Kim sighs. “Shut the fuck up.”

Because she doesn’t know what’s happening. She’s thrown off kilter entirely because she suddenly doesn’t know if she’s been feeling this the entire time or if it’s brand new. If this is why she’s constantly drawn to looking back at Trini in Biology. If this is why she’s always pushing to sit next to her at lunch.

If this is why she feels like the world is spinning a little.

“Dude,” she sighs and she covers her face with her hands, looks away.

Zack starts shushing her in this overdramatic played up way, puts an arm around Kim’s shoulder even as she struggles to get away from him. “Don’t worry, baby girl,” he coos and then lets out a pained grunt as she elbows him in the ribs. “It’s okay.”

She struggles some more and the others are looking at them really weird now.

Trini especially.

Kim doesn’t read into it.

“Get off me, Zack,” she says and he releases her, still smiling.

“Don’t be sad, Kimmy,” he says, letting those white teeth shine again. “This is why you have me.”

“What you need,” he says the next day, not even waiting for her to close her locker before he says it, “is an in.”

He leans back against the metal stylishly and nods at some girls passing by. Kim rolls her eyes.

“An in for what?” she asks, feigning ignorance because that’s gotta be better than actually listening to him.

“For dating Trini.”

He says it so loud that Kim reaches up and smacks him on the back of his head. Hard.

Making him yelp and grab at it, giving her a scandalized look.

“Where did you get the idea that we can talk about this here?” she hisses between her teeth.

Zack shrugs and follows her when she starts storming off, gesturing vaguely with his hands to say that he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t have a good answer. As usual.

Kim rolls her eyes and then briefly wonders if they’re actually going to get stuck that way.

“Look, you guys are friends, right?” he asks and she looks over at him, shoulders her way past a giggling group of sophomores and frowns.

“I’d say so,” she says, thinking of all the times she’s crawled in through Trini’s window at night, all those rides home after school or training or getting coffee at the Starbucks the next town over--a poor substitute for Krispy Kreme, for sure, but you do what you can.

Zack nods. “I would too. Problem is, you don’t know how to date her.”

Kim scoffs. “And you do?” she asks.

They’re coming up to her history class now. She can see Billy sitting in the front row adjusting his pencils. He looks up and waves.

Zack adjusts his backpack on his shoulder. “Better than you do.”

This gets him an eyebrow raise and Kim reminds herself over and over that Trini doesn’t like Zack like that. Trini says Gross anytime Zack makes a pass at her. And not in a cute flirty way.

In a genuinely wow-stop-saying-that way.

“So what are you suggesting?”

And there’s that damn smile again.

“I’m gonna tutor you,” he says and it’s probably one of the most frightening things she’s ever heard.

“What’s up with you and Zack?” Trini asks when they’re standing in the lunch line together.

She looks perturbed, her lips quirked to the side as she grabs a blue Gatorade from the pile of them and shoots Kim a look that Kim can’t decipher, or doesn’t try to, focused instead on paying for her food.

“What do you mean?” she asks, leading the way to their usual table so that Trini can’t see her face.

She’s trying not to give anything away, but it’s Trini. Trini who seems to understand her better after two months than Amanda did after eleven years. Trini who knows about the off-key shower singing and the pile of old stuffed animals hidden in her old elephant-shaped toy box in her closet.

Trini who knows about that recurring dream she has where all of her teeth fall out.

Trini who, it seems, doesn’t know that Kim is apparently super into her.

Zack wiggles his eyebrows as they sit down and he slides a note over to her that she tries to read discreetly, but she’s pretty sure that Trini, at least, sees it.

It just says, home ec room at final bell. got us out of training 4 the day

Which explains why Jason looks vaguely pissed off and says, “Feel better, okay?” when they part ways after lunch.

The Home Ec room is empty when Kim slips in at the final bell, skipping past her locker so she doesn’t run into Trini and risk blurting out everything that’s been on her mind the past couple of days since Zack’s initial confrontation.

It looks ominous with the lights out and she’s only ever been in here once before--when her French class had food day and Mr. Bernard made them crepes. Ovens line the room, which is weird enough, but there are a couple of tables in the center, so she sets her bag down on it and looks around.

Wonders where Zack is.

She doesn’t have long to wonder, though, because he’s bursting in the door, pushing an old projector that’s stacked high with papers.

“Sorry,” he says when he sees her. “Snyder was being a dick about letting me borrow this, so I had to wait until he left his room for bus duty.”

“You don’t have permission to have that?”

Kim may have gotten herself into trouble earlier on in the year, but was never the kind of girl before that to do something like this--sneaking out a projector for a dumb joke. She’s not even really sure why Zack has it, but she almost positive he’s going to use it to make fun of her for some reason.

Zack grins. “Be cool, baby.”

He sets it up so that it’s pointing towards the bare wall by the door and then tugs a worn out, school-sanctioned laptop from his backpack--the ones most of the seniors had been trusted with at the start of the year to help with their classes. The ones that usually just ended up being distractions or used for the wrong purpose anyway.

Like it is now, for instance.

Once it’s on, once he has everything set up, he turns around with a positively pleased expression on his face and says, “Ms. Hart, if you would take your seat.”

And the worst part is that Kim does. She sits down facing him and crosses her arms huffily. Says, “Why the hell am I even here?” under her breath.

Zack can hear her of course. He says, “Because you wanna bone Trini and you know I’m your best shot at it.”

Kim sputters at the thought, not the implication, because her mind immediately conjures up a familiar image--one she’s fairly positive she’s seen before at night when she’s trying to work through some of the leftover tension and energy of the day--of Trini underneath her, the smooth skin of her neck, the sharp line of her jaw.

The only thing she has to throw is a pen so she chucks it at Zack’s head and he just barely dodges it.

“Woah! Hey!” he cries out, surprised. At least that stupid smirk is gone. “Don’t make me write you up for insubordination!”

“This isn’t a real class, Zack. Stop it. I won’t miss next time.”

He looks down at his computer and taps a couple of buttons, adjusts the cord connecting it to the projector and then looks up again. “Not a real class, huh?” he asks and--

Oh, lord.

He made a slideshow.

A slideshow titled Trini 101: A Crash Course on How to Hit it and Never Quit It.

Kim slides down in her seat and eyes the door, but she’s pretty positive that, as the only student in the class, it would be pretty obvious if she slipped out.

Lesson One:

A Comprehensive Background on the Subject

Zack has a fucking laser pointer.

He keeps circling the dumbest words with it and smirking and Kim really, really hates him sometimes.

“Trini was born on August 9th, 1999 at 12:31 P.M. in Arlington, Michigan. She weighed twenty-two pounds and seventeen ounces--”

“Oh my god, no. That’s impossible.”

“--and was, at least, forty-seven inches long.”

“You know nothing about babies.”

Zack shoots her a glare, but continues on. Flips to the next slide to reveal a picture of a recently-born Trini who is fussing and red-faced and Kim hates the way it melts her insides.

That stupid laser pointer comes out and Zack uses it to circle the picture--Trini’s triangle of dark hair--for a second, like he’s trying to point something important out instead of just snickering. He looks sheepish when he looks up to catch Kim glaring at him and flips hastily to the next slide.

Another picture of Trini as a baby--this time swaddled and gurgling happily in her crib.

“Where did you get these pictures?” she asks and Zack shrugs. “Did you steal them like you stole the projector?”

He doesn’t answer, which is answer enough anyway.

The next slide just lists the places Trini grew up and Zack mentions various injuries--the scar on her knee from when she fell off her aunt’s exercise bike; that jagged scar running between her left pinky and ring finger that left that side of her hand numb until the power coins activated; the handful of broken ribs from jumping off of trees; that little dimple behind her right ear from the time one of her brother’s accidentally clocked her with his putter during a game of mini golf.

“What does any of this have to do with dating her?” Kim asks finally. Her phone had said 3:52 last time she checked, and that was before Zack confiscated it so she would “pay full attention”. “I know all of this.”

Zack looks up from the wall, where a picture of a seven-year-old Trini in an elaborate green costume at a dance recital is projected. He seems to consider this for a moment and then nods. “Fair point,” he says. “I really just wanted to show off my knowledge.”

Kim rolls her eyes. Feels a headache begin to throb behind them because of the frequency with which she’s been doing that the past hour.

“Okay.” Zack starts flipping through his presentation, making pictures and large, poorly-structured paragraphs pass by on the wall at a dizzying speed. Finally, he settles on--

Lesson Two:

What Not To Do (And Why You’re Probably Failing)

“Get out a notebook,” he tells her and glares until she obeys. Tosses her pen back. “Take notes.”

It’s probably another hour and it really just comes down to this:

“Do not bring up the final season of Scrubs. Not ever.”

“If you bring up Idina Menzel, be prepared to discuss her wasted role in Enchanted.”

“Don’t cry in front of her.”

“Don’t squirt ketchup directly onto your fries. She will hit you in the head.”

“Don’t sing, whistle, or hum any songs from High School Musical. She will sing them nonstop for the following two days and you will want to die.”

“If you ever bring up that hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo--Leona?--be prepared to watch about a hundred videos of her in a row.”

And apparently, Kim is failing because:

“You’re too dodgy. Trini needs you to be straight with her. Well...Not straight. But, like, she dumb, okay? If you like her, you’re gonna have to make your interest a lot more obvious. And, I’ve also heard you whistle Bop to the Top like twice and you’ve gotta stop that, too.”

By the time he’s done, Kim’s brain hurts and she’s written down about two pages of what she’s pretty sure is useless information.

Zack flips on the lights and she squints. Groans.

Says, “What the hell, dude?” as he starts packing up his things.

“We’ll pick this up tomorrow?” he asks, when they’re wheeling the projector down the empty hallway. “Same time?”

Kim wants to say no because this is dumb and she’s pretty sure it’s a waste of time because there’s no way Trini likes her back. It’s not like she’s inexperienced when it comes to dating and she would know if Trini were interested, right?

She likes to think so, anyway.

Zack slides her phone back into her hand as they near Mr. Snyder’s history classroom and she has three messages--one from Jason, two from Trini.

Jason’s is just asking what their English homework was.

Trini’s is a picture of that baby hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo wearing a box around her torso and a message that says, she likes cardboard. hope you’re feeling better.

And Zack must have read it over her shoulder because he’s watching her carefully, biting his lip to tamp down a smile. “So,” he starts, “same time tomorrow?”

Kim sighs and lets out a, “Yeah,” with her invisible white flags of surrender.

Wonders if it’s possible that he does know what he’s doing.

But then, of course, he opens the classroom door and shoves the projector inside, letting it roll too quickly and slam into the opposing wall before shutting the door and hightailing it out of there, leaving Kim to jog in order to keep up.

There’s an announcement the next morning about abusing school property.

Kim presses her fingers into her temples and ignores the look Trini sends her when she does.

Lesson Three:

Ticks, Habits, and Annoying Traits

They’re in Kim’s living room and Kim is pressing an ice pack to her nose, mentally cursing out Jason every time it shifts a little and makes her entire face ache. This is what she gets, she supposes, for letting herself get distracted.

In her defense, though, it’s probably Zack’s fault. If Zack hadn’t cornered her and made her realize her feelings, she probably wouldn’t have been staring at Trini when she was supposed to be sparring with Jason. Or, she would have been because she’s pretty sure now that she’s been staring for a long time even if she’s only just now figured out what it means.

Zack has his laptop out but seems to be floundering from the lack of projector, like he hadn’t planned on this. Kim sort of wants to tell him that it is his fault and that if he hadn’t broken the projector yesterday, they could be doing this at school.

But she doesn’t want to spend another afternoon in the home ec room and it’s easier to hide what’s happening in her house anyway.

Because Trini is starting to get suspicious. Trini shot her weird looks all through lunch and biology. Trini eyed her and Zack like she knew and every time Kim caught her eye she felt guilty for reasons she couldn’t really pinpoint.

“Okay,” Zack says, finally looking ready. He slides back on the couch beside Kim and tilts the slideshow towards her. “Do you have your notebook?”

Kim grumbles in response, pretty much automatically and without meaning to or really thinking about it, but the answer is--

“Yes.”

Zack grins.

After an hour, her notes read:

nail-biter

punches too hard even as a joke

sets all alarms to uneven numbers

whistles incessantly

curses only in spanish and you gotta know it’s about you when she does

Disney freak (only annoying when Let it Go is stuck in her head)

Zack asks her how much of Hakuna Matata she has memorized and seems irrationally angry until she tells him she’ll learn that last 70%.

By six o’clock, she has a headache--one of those ones that settles right behind your eyes and makes everything you look at kind of pulse in pain each time your pupils dilate. It gets worse every time Zack talks.

This is not surprising.

She’s been listening to him talk for about two hours and now he’s just staring at her kind of dumbly, like he’s expecting her to do something or say something.

“What?” she asks, her hand automatically flying to her mouth, worried she may have something stuck in her teeth.

Zack shakes his head and then gets up to go to his backpack, sprawled across the floor by the coffee table. He rifles through it for a second and then pulls out a sheet of paper that he hands over to her.

Kim takes it and groans when she sees the title.

Completion Exercise

Fill all blank sections with traits from below.

There are about four full paragraphs that pretty much just describe a normal day in Trini’s life, but the blank spots are meant to be filled with some of the things Zack covered earlier.

“This is the dumbest thing,” she says and actually feels bad for a second when Zack’s face falls.

She imagines him spending his study hall or the night before, even, typing all of this up in preparation and the guilt that descends is immediate and swift. He cares, clearly. Possibly too proactively and Kim could definitely win Trini over on her own. At least, she’s pretty sure she could.

Pretty sure that she doesn’t really need Zack’s help.

But Zack is Trini’s best friend. She’s seen them together--seen the way Trini’s body language opens up when he makes her laugh, when they’re talking lowly during training when someone else is sparring, the way she smiles when Zack chucks notes at her head during detention. Neither of them, Kim thinks, has ever had someone to care about them the way they now care about each other.

And, it’s weird, but it sort of feels like earning Zack’s approval is something that has to happen before Trini will even give her a chance (if she’ll give her a chance, if Kim’s stomach can stop swirling like that at the mere thought of being given a chance).

So she says, “Fine,” and grabs her pen to fill it out.

She gets all of them right (it’s not hard) and Zack hands her a Ziploc bag of mini jawbreakers as a reward.

And, okay, she eats most of the bag before her parents even get home, but in all fairness she doesn’t hear them come in until, like, ten.

She’s on the phone with Trini by then, because Trini called to ask for the homework and Kim couldn’t ever ignore her. Couldn’t ignore her if she tried.

Problem is, she’s chewing too loudly--popping those little jawbreakers with her back molars--and she barely hears what Trini is saying even though she is listening. Just maybe so intently that she’s not hearing a word.

“--about you,” is the last thing she catches and it’s right at the end of the handful of candy she’d had in her mouth. It sounds serious and Kim frowns, rolls over onto her stomach and props her chin up with her hand, elbow digging down into her mattress.

She’s trying to replay the conversation in her head so she doesn’t sound like an asshole when Trini inevitably asks for a response, but the invisible little red timer in the corner must run out because Trini barely gives her a second before she says, “Kim?”

“Huh?”

It’s terribly uncouth, but it’s the best she can manage.

“Did you even hear me?”

“Um…” Kim coughs and then swallows to buy herself time.

Either way, it doesn’t matter, because Trini cuts back in with an elongated sigh, like she’s either disappointed or worried or some strange, potent mixture of the two.

“See? This is what I mean. Are you okay? You’ve been...off the past few days. I mean, you let Jason get a hit in earlier and he never gets a hit in.”

That’s true, actually, but Kim thinks it’s only because she uses no-armor days to her benefit and pulls faces so cute during a match that Jason would never dare punch away. And then she usually knees him in the stomach the moment she senses his hesitation.

A dopey, wide-eyed stare as she ogles another girl is definitely not on the top ten list of Cute Facial Expressions Jason Scott Won’t Hit.

“No, yeah,” Kim says, which makes no sense and she closes her eyes and then winces at the way it scrunches her still-healing nose. “I’m fine.”

Trini doesn’t seem to believe her, and what it comes down to is that Kim can’t blame her.

She hangs up a few minutes later with a disappointed and quiet, “Goodnight,” that’s still ringing in Kim’s head later when she’s lying in bed, wishing there was a good way to tell Trini what was going on without potentially ruining everything.

School is weird. Trini is quiet and doesn’t make eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time.

Zack sends a note at Kim’s head when she’s standing in the lunch line that just says, the fuck did you do???

She leaves it unanswered because she doesn’t have anything to say.

“Sorry I’m so terrible,” Kim finally manages at the end of Bio. It’s not what she meant to say, nor is it anywhere close to the apology she’s been building in her head since the night before, but it does the trick.

Trini stops listing the ways DNA’s structure relates to its function and frowns. Looks up.

“You’re not terrible.”

It’s nowhere close to I think I love you or Yeah, I think about you constantly, too or No, Kim, those jeans look great but it’s better than the silence they’d been working in prior.

“Sure,” Kim says, realizing too late that it might sound like she’s fishing. “I am, Trin. Face it.”

Trini’s mouth twists up at the side, like she’s trying not to smile. Their eyes meet and Kim hates teen movie cliches, but she’s pretty sure everything stops for a second when they do.

“Make it up to me, then,” Trini tells her.

“How?”

She shrugs and Kim wishes this were easier. That Trini was some dopey boy she could probably make go weak-knee’d with a look or a brush of her fingers. Instead, she’s the one with weak knees and all because of the way Trini lifts her left hand to her mouth, biting nervously at the nail of her index finger.

“Dinner or something?” she suggests as she pulls her hand away. “After training?”

And it’s not anything new--they’ve spent a good number of afternoons dripping onto the upholstery at pretty much every local food place that wasn’t smashed to bits by Goldar--but it feels different somehow.

Kim is helpless to do anything but nod, to say anything other than, “Sounds great.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

It’s not the first time Zack has talked to her like this, but it feels more jarring, somehow, than his usual greeting.

Maybe that’s because his usual greeting is a head nod and a quiet, ‘Sup?

Kim looks down at her laces, at the dirty ground where she’s kneeling, and looks back up. “Tying my laces?”

Zack doesn’t seem to appreciate that and he shakes his head. Crosses his arms. “You’re going out with Trini? Alone? Do you really think you’re ready for that?”

He must have heard Trini, then, asking Kim if there was anywhere she wanted to go just a few minutes prior.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve been alone with her before,” she tells him, rising up to her feet.

The others are distracted in the corner. Billy preparing his belongings in his waterproof bag before the jump back up and Jason changing his shirt. Trini glances over at Zack and her and frowns and Kim waves a little, which seems to placate her for the moment.

Zack shakes his head and follows her when she turns to grab her things. “That was before I took you under my wing. You know things now.” A dark expression crosses his face and he looks away. “Dark things. Terrible things.”

“Dark things like what? Trini owning three copies of Frozen? Pretty sure that doesn’t count.”

Zack gives her a look like he can’t believe how ridiculous she’s being and Kim wants to scoff on principle. “You could mess everything up,” he tells her and she’s used to him being over the top, but, for some reason, this sounds much more serious than she’s used to hearing from him.

She doesn’t get the chance to respond, though, because Trini is next to them in a moment, shoulders braced at the tension she must sense between them. “You ready to go?” she asks, darting her eyes over to Kim.

Kim nods and opens her mouth to say yes, but Zack cuts in.

Zack says, “She sure is. And I’m going with you!”

They end up at Jamba Juice because it’s the only intact place casual enough to not have rules about customers being soaked to the bone when they come in.

Kim lets Trini lead them to the front of the line so she can linger back with Zack, so she can hiss, “What are you doing here?” at him without being heard.

“I’m making sure you don’t screw up everything we’re working towards!” he says back, and it’s too loud. Trini hears. Trini stops ordering the Squeeze of the Day to shoot them a confused look.

“How would I even do that?” Kim asks, quietly enough that no one else can hear. “All that info is useless anyway, okay? It’s not gonna do anything.”

Zack looks offended, taken aback. He steps away from her and puts his hand on his chest as if fighting the urge to fan himself from the blow to his ego. “Not gonna do anything, huh?” he asks after a moment and then a mischievous look comes over his face and Kim basically regrets everything she’s ever done wrong.

“What?” she says, trying to put on a brave face. “You going to tell Trini all about it? Dangle it over my head?”

It doesn’t sound like Zack, but he looks hurt enough that it might not be outside the realm of possibility.

“Miss?”

It’s the guy at the register. He looks frazzled and Trini is standing there making a face at them like they’re causing a scene or something.

Kim is busy ordering, technically, but she definitely hears Zack when he says, “Pop Quiz time,” behind her.

His rules are simple and he texts them to her when they’re sitting down at one of the tables in the corner, Trini across from her and Zack in a chair to the side.

pretend i’m not here

pretend this is a real date

steer the conversation only with things u learned so far about her

have to say “we should do this again sometime” at the end or i’ll s c r e a m

Kim texts back, why the actual hell would i listen to you? and the answer she gets back is simple.

i’ll do everything in my power to get u banned from jamba juice if u don’t

It’s not that the threat is really all that scary or that this stupid mango smoothie is good enough that she couldn’t live the rest of her life without it. It’s really just that Trini is sitting across from her and Trini suggested this--them being alone together, probably at dinner and not Jamba Juice before Zack tagged along--which has got to mean something.

And she’s just really terrified that Zack is going to out what’s been going on.

That it’ll scare Trini off for good and then everything will spiral and it’ll tear the team apart and Rita will come back and kill everyone.

Quite the slippery slope.

“Are you texting each other?”

Speaking of slippery slope.

Trini is staring at her when Kim looks up and she shakes her head, goes to deny it, but Zack starts talking at the same time and it basically sounds like--

“No, we’re--”

“Yep. Sure are.”

And Trini frowns. Looks away. Takes a forlorn sip from her straw.

Zack kicks Kim in shin and she lets out a pained sigh and shoots him a dirty look, then looks back across the table.

“So...Trini,” she starts, floundering already. “How much did you weigh when you were born?”

It’s possible that Zack’s lessons were never going to help her anyway.

It’s also possible, based on the look she gets when she says this, that it’s Zack’s lessons that are going to hammer the final nail into the coffin of Kim and Trini and What-Might-Have-Been.

She ends up following the fourth rule even though it comes out stilted and awkward because the conversation on the drive back to Trini’s had been made up entirely of Kim just saying some of the lyrics from Hakuna Matata.

So, when she says, “We should do this again sometime,” Trini looks at her like Zordon has sprouted onto the back of her head like Voldemort or something.

“Um,” Trini says and she looks torn. Throws Zack a weird look in the cramped back seat of Kim’s car. “Yeah.”

She ducks out of the car like it’s on fire and is inside in 0.5 seconds.

Zack leans up and rests his head too close to Kim’s as she watches the front door close behind Trini. “Well, that was terrible,” he says and the next noise he makes is a pained yelp as Kim grabs his ear and twists it.

Detention the next morning is awkward.

Trini sits in the corner where she usually does and keeps her head down, occasionally tosses notes at Jason and Billy and ignores the one that Kim sends back to her, even though all it said was, good morning.

She’d sent a half-hearted thumbs up back, at least, but Kim wouldn’t necessarily count that as a win.

At noon, she gets up with a stiff back and stretches at her desk as everyone starts filing out. Watches Trini in the back, gathering her things.

She’s staring so intently that Jason nearly gives her a heart attack when he comes up and she jumps and then throws out a punch that he barely swerves out of the way of out of basic instinct.

“Woah,” he says and catches her wrist to stop her arm, looking a little frightened. “You okay?”

He’s got that disappointed parent look on his face, the one that somehow makes her want to confess her each and every sin. She shrugs and tugs her wrist free.

“I’m fine,” she tells him. “You just scared me.”

He doesn’t appear to buy that, but he doesn’t question her further. He just adjusts his bag on his shoulder and says, “I, uh...cancelled training for today. Thought we could all use the day off.”

Kim wonders, since aliens are apparently real, if it’s possible that pod people are, too, because Jason has never cancelled training before. That must mean he’s been taken over by some squiggly alien dude who’s set up shop in his body, right?

“Oh,” she says, coming up short for anything better.

Jason shrugs and an awkward silence envelops them. Zack is watching them from the corner of the room and Billy is waiting at the base of the stairs. Kim tries not to look over her shoulder to where she knows Trini is because there’s no point to drawing more attention to herself.

Finally, Jason says, “Yeah,” then, “See you Monday,” and he practically runs out of the room after Billy.

Trini follows them up the stairs and hardly spares a glance or a wave at Kim who, as always, is left alone with Zackary Taylor.

Zackary Taylor who swings an arm around her shoulder and says, “Guess we have more time for lessons today then.”

Lesson Four:

Facial Expressions and Social Cues Explained

It’s basically just more pictures and Kim nearly stops the lesson--nearly gets up from where she’s laying on her bed trying not to fall asleep as Zack sits on the floor with his laptop pointed towards her--to tell him that he should really join the photography club or something.

Because she’s not sure when he took them or how but they’re all actually pretty decent.

Trini scowling at Zordon. Trini with her arms crossed at the lunch table. Trini getting her things out of her locker. Trini laughing at something Billy is saying.

But she doesn’t. She just listens as Zack says, “Okay, you see Trini doing this,” and he clicks the space bar and a picture of Trini frowning intensely in what appears to be the pit comes across the screen. “What does it mean and what do you do?”

Kim frowns, too, mimicking the face Trini is making. “Hit you for making her mad?” she tries and Zack looks so appalled that she stumbles to excuse herself. “I don’t know, Zack. Jesus. She looks pissed like that about 70% of the time anyway.”

“This particular look is hanger,” he explains, touching his pointer finger to Trini’s chin on the screen. “See the way her eyes are half-lidded? She’s like ten seconds away from passing out from her blood sugar being low or completely annihilating somebody verbally.”

He’s got a point. Kim will give him that, at least.

She’s seen this look before, usually right after practice on sloppy joe days at school because that means she hasn’t eaten since breakfast. The last time she saw it had been right before she’d nearly made Jason cry from snapping at him and then ditching to go home early.

Probably to eat.

“Okay,” she says. “So, I feed her?”

It sounds weird. Like she’s talking about a dog and not about the girl she likes.

But Zack nods and then grapples for his bag, pulling out a cardboard box that he hands over. “Start carrying these,” he tells her.

It’s a box of those chocolate cupcake Luna bars. Kim frowns, but takes it.

“Seriously,” Zack says. “You see that look, you shove one of those in her face-hole. I’m just trying to protect you.”

Kim is maybe on the verge of thanking him or something, though she’s not sure for what, but she never gets the chance because the doorbell is ringing suddenly.

She sighs. “Thank god.”

It’s Billy.

Billy who is shifting nervously on her front porch, moving his weight from foot-to-foot and playing with his hands like he has something important to say. He jumps when she opens the door and then again when she says, “Hey, Billy.”

“Um, hi, Kimberly,” he starts and his voice is quivering just a little.

Kim grips the doorknob and moves the door back a little, gesturing that he can enter, but Billy doesn’t seem excited at the prospect. Seems more nervous actually.

“You okay?” she asks finally. “Did something happen?”

She’s picturing downtown on fire, putties smashing into civilians and Trini and Jason in the midst of it all trying to stop it, falling to the ground. Helpless.

But Billy shakes his head and then he does come in. Steps around her and makes his way inside and then bounces on his heels before he whips around.

Before he says, “Are you taking drugs?”

Kim can hear Zack laughing from all the way upstairs.

Basically, Trini thinks that Zack has been dealing her drugs or something. It’s ridiculous.

Billy explains it all in the foyer and Kim stands there and listens and fights the urge to call Trini and say, No, you idiot. I’m not on drugs. I’m learning how to date you.

“She says you’ve been jumpy and flaky lately so she sent me over to ask you if you’re okay, maybe try to do some reconnaissance but I had to ask, Kimberly, because I’m worried about you.”

Now Kim is fighting the urge to hug him.

“I’m not on drugs, Billy,” she says, but she can understand why Trini might think that if the day before was anything to go by.

If Trini really has noticed all these side conversations with Zack and how they keep disappearing together.

Billy seems to deflate at this, like all of his fear is going away. He sighs and says, “Oh, okay. Good.”

Kim nods and they’re quiet. She’s not sure what to say, feels raw and empty and more than a little humiliated.

And then, finally, Billy breaks the silence. “Why are you acting so weird, then? Even Jason says you are.”

And that’s nice.

Kim sighs and throws her hands up in frustration before she takes Billy’s hand and leads him upstairs to where Zack is waiting with the rest of his slideshow.

Zack looks up in surprise when she brings Billy in, but then grins when she says, “Zack has been teaching me how to date Trini, Billy. That’s why I’ve been acting so weird.”

The smile Billy sends her could light up the freakin’ world.

“I’m so happy for you!” he says and it’s brief, but he hugs her, squeezes once, and then lets go. “Can I stay?”

Zack nods happily, probably eager to “prove his knowledge” to somebody other than Kim and it’s not like she’d ever be able to say no to Billy Cranston.

So that’s how Billy ends up auditing the class.

“So, if you ever see Trini making this face, what do you do? Billy?”

“Run.”

“Right!”

Billy claps his hands excitedly from the bean bag beside Kim’s bed and she shakes her head, flipping Zack off when he shoots her a disappointed look.

The face in question is an extreme close-up of one of Trini’s patented scowls and Kim is a little frightened (and just the tiniest bit turned on) by it. She’s not certain how Zack even got a picture of it, but she's almost afraid to ask because she's pretty sure he befell bodily harm moments afterwards.

Like, for sure.

“Kinda seems like Billy could potentially be better at dating Trini than you, Kim,” Zack says next and if taking that picture hadn’t gotten him socked, that comment is about to.

“I won't though, Kim,” Billy cuts in. “No worries.”

He grins and Kim has to smile back and say, “Thanks, Billy.”

He nods seriously.

Zack has his arms crossed up by her dresser and she rolls her eyes when he turns dramatically and leans down, bracing his arms against the edge so that he can stare at his own reflection like a Bond villain.

“What now?” she asks and he flips around so quickly she scoots back away from him.

“My teaching methods just aren't getting through to you, Hart,” he says and she shakes her head, but Billy is nodding as if any of this bears any sort of weight.

She bites her tongue around the urge to say, That's because your “teaching methods” are nonsense.

And then she wishes she had because he grins and says, “I think we need to partake in a round of active role play.”

Because, that sounds bad, doesn't it?

It is bad, it turns out.

Because active role play involves going outside--traveling to the mall where Zack says, “Okay, Billy, you be Trini, okay? Kim, you be you. Action!”

Billy takes the role a little too seriously and walks with his hands shoved deep into his pockets and feigns a look of moderate disinterest as they travel towards the food court.

Kim isn't sure what she's supposed to do here, so she just sort of follows closely behind him. Zack gestures at her emphatically so she clears her throats and says, “So…”

But then Zack cuts in and says, “Time! Wrong. So wrong.”

Billy stops walking and so does Kim and they just sort of wait for Zack to continue, even though everything that he's said so far--all four words--has been nonsense.

“Hold her hand. Ask about her day. Act like you actually like her,” he tells her and Kim looks at Billy, who shrugs as if giving her permission to hold his hand, need be.

They go back to it.

Kim holds Billy’s hand and at the end of a really stilted conversation that would never be so weird in real life, Zack gives her a D minus.

When it's Billy’s turn, when Kim is acting faux huffy and talking a little raspier than she normally does and Billy is flouncing around in a way she definitely doesn't, Zack gives him an A.

When it's over, Billy leaves and promises to relay everything but the actual specifics to Jason and Trini, which leaves Kim on edge for the remainder of her Saturday night.

Because Billy had accidentally cracked under the pressure of just coming over to ask her a couple questions about her potential drug use. It's possible he’ll do the same with the actual truth when he goes to talk to Trini.

She lies in bed the rest of the evening, lets her room get dark as the sun goes down instead of getting up to turn on a lamp. Thinks she hears her phone buzz a couple of times before it falls quiet for good around eight.

Her notebook is sitting at the foot of her bed, right there on the floor, and she's fighting herself because she wants to pull it out and look over her notes. Wants to study like there's an actual final coming up when there isn't, but it's also possible that she simply wants to think about Trini.

Wants an excuse to do so.

Which is silly, she can think about whatever she wants to think about. She shouldn't need permission.

It's not like she has to look over her notes to know what Trini’s smile looks like, what it feels like as it heats up her skin. She doesn't need a piece of paper to remind her of her lavender body wash and the way Kim can smell it when they're training, when Trini is squaring up behind her, their shoulders brushing.

She doesn't need a pointless class taught by Zackary Taylor of all people to tell her what she knows--that she's no good for Trini.

That she doesn't stand a chance.

A knock wakes her up.

She’d been dreaming. She's not certain immediately of what, only that Zack had been there with one of those yard sticks, scrawling illegible words on a chalkboard and laughing as Kim tried to read it.

Her room is pitch black, the faint sound of air moving through her vents making her feel lightheaded and dizzied.

Another knock comes moments later and she finally looks over to where it's coming from--the window.

Zack maybe, come to make her dream reality.

But, no.

It’s Trini.

Trini hunched over on the side of the roof right by the window, smiling in this half-sheepish way when Kim opens the window.

“Hi,” she says nonchalantly, like she's not dangling sort of precariously off the edge of a house.

“Get in here,” Kim demands, reaching out a hand that Trini clasps tightly in hers and uses to tug herself in.

Kim’s room immediately feels wrong with Trini inside of it--too small or too juvenile somehow, as if Kim is mildly terrified of Trini looking around and hating every item on display in there.

Think, perhaps, that all those pictures she keeps of the five of them by her vanity are cheesy or pointless.

“Sorry,” Trini says and Kim thinks she’s the one who says it at first, because that makes more sense.

Because--

“Why are you sorry?”

Trini stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and shuffles her feet back until the backs of her legs are brushing against the windowsill. She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

There’s this itching underneath Kim’s skin and she thinks of Billy in the food court, eating a corn dog across from her and describing his day as, I dunno, boring, in this weird voice that was probably meant to sound like Trini. She thinks of Zack gesturing at her emphatically until she finally reached across the table and grabbed Billy’s hand.

That move was the only reason she hadn’t failed entirely, apparently.

She tries it then and it’s different with Trini than it had been with Billy, but so much better. There’s not much space between them anyway because Kim hadn’t backed up after helping Trini inside, so she barely has to cross any distance to pull one of Trini’s hands out of her pocket and take it in her own.

The change is immediate. Trini looks overwhelmed the moment their skin touches, as if guilty or vulnerable. Kim doesn’t have the words to make the difference, but Trini seems to have some.

She says, “I feel like things have been weird between us and that it’s my fault or something.”

She throws the or something in there after a moment’s hesitation, trying to pass off the emotion of the moment. Kim has a note about that in her notebook somewhere, having written it down despite already having known it.

Her first instinct is to lie, to reassure. To say, It’s fine, things are fine. They’re not weird at all.

But even she’s not that good of a liar. And it’s been a week since that day at the cliff. A week since Zack grabbed her by the elbow and made her look at what was happening between them, what she’s been heading towards with Trini for months now. Made her look because she was always going to ignore it, to pass it off and make it seem less than what it is in order to feel more secure, more sure-footed.

Because facing this head on means coming to terms with the idea that Trini might be it for her. This could be it. She might not ever want someone else after this.

And that’s pretty scary when you’re eighteen.

“It’s my fault,” Kim cuts in, in the interest of facing things head on.

Trini looks startled by this, by her honesty. She opens and closes her mouth a couple of times and then says, “What?”

And then Kim remembers that Trini might have briefly believed she was on drugs.

“Not because...I’m not taking drugs--”

Trini’s eyes widen impossibly further, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.

“--and, wow, that sounds like I am, huh? But I’m not, I just…”

She briefly considers coming clean. Pulling out that damn notebook and laying the whole thing on the line, but it seems like a lot. Too much, maybe, for a Saturday night.

What she settles with is, “You just...You make me an idiot, I guess, sometimes and I sorta lose my cool around you and end up spazzing and freaking you out.”

Trini’s face stays neutral for maybe three seconds and then she smiles, astonished again.

Kim isn’t really expecting anything other than a firm rejection, but what she gets is, “Yeah, I know the feeling,” and Trini’s fingers squeezing her own.

Which feels a lot better than a D- for sure.

“I don’t need your help anymore.”

There are probably better ways of phrasing that--ways that won’t end up breaking Zack’s fragile ego--but it’s too early on a Monday morning for Kim to really think of any of them.

It seems to work, though. Zack closes his locker immediately and looks over at her with an eyebrow quirked. “That’s what Daniel-san said to Mr. Miyagi and he turned out to be a liar.”

Kim rolls her eyes, clutches her books to her chest, and looks away just in time for Zack to turn serious.

“What do you mean? With the Trini thing?” He seems to understand immediately after practically shouting it, that it may get him whacked, so he lowers his voice and repeats it. Whispers, “The Trini thing?” again.

She nods and looks around. No one seems to be paying them any mind though and they still have about five minutes before the final bell rings.

“Why not?” is Zack’s next question, voiced with actual, audible concern.

“Because,” she starts, “I did just fine with her Saturday night.”

“You were alone with her when I specifically told you not to be?”

Now that does get him whacked, right in the arm so that he winces and rubs the spot sorely, cursing under his breath.

“Yes, I was,” Kim says quietly, harshly. “And it was fine. I did way better the moment I got you out of my head. I think the only reason I’ve been having issues this past week is because I listened to you.”

For once, Zack looks serious and more than a little ashamed. He glances away like he can’t even bring himself to meet her eyes. She briefly feels guilty and then remembers that weird car ride home after Jamba Juice the other day and the fact that she’d actually tried to make legitimate conversation about Sharpay from High School Musical.

“Why do you look so guilty?” Kim asks, frowning and tilting her head.

Zack looks around and then says, “You’d never, like, actually have the guts to full out murder me in the middle of the hallway, right?”

The glare she fixes him with must scare him--which, good--because he swallows and then kicks his sneaker into the bottom row of lockers. Looks away.

Says, “Look, I didn’t mean to ruin your chances or anything. I really do think you guys’ll be good together. I just--”

“You just what?”

Her teeth are clamped together so hard she’s briefly concerned she might crack some of them, anger bubbling up underneath her skin in anticipation.

Zack frowns. Swallows again. Finally meets her eyes. “I don’t want you to bail, okay?”

And this stops Kim cold. Right there in the middle of the hallway. The anger dissipates just as rapidly as it had come and then she’s just standing there, listening to him, hearing him out.

“Trini,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, “She can be a handful, okay? She’s hot-headed and stubborn and...crazy.” He chuckles a bit at the term of endearment and Kim can’t help but smile--feels her lips turn up of their own accord. “And I needed you to know about all that stuff--the Disney, the mood swings. I needed you to...I don’t know be in a situation with her where things were weird and kind of awful to see if you’d keep fighting for her. Because...I think you might be the thing that either makes or breaks her, Kim, and that’s really scary.”

He sighs and drops his arm.

“I don’t want to lose her if you decide to hit the trail over one of those things one day. I...I care about her, okay? I’m just looking out for her.”

It’s only eight o’clock and already Kim’s emotions have been all over the place. First nervousness, then rage, and now affection rushing over her in a tidal wave that has her pulling Zackary Taylor down into a hug before she can weigh the consequences of such a gesture.

He hugs her back, at least.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” she says before pulling away and Zack nods. “But, can you just trust me on this one? Please?”

He nods again. More sure this time.

And then there’s that stupid grin again.

“I’m still not gay, you know,” she says a minute later when they’re walking down the hall together. “Stupid, crazy into Trini, maybe, but not necessarily gay.”

Zack is still grinning. He loops an arm around her shoulder. “You keep telling yourself that, Kimmy. You should just kiss her. Seriously. Get this whole thing over with.”

“Are you suggesting sexual assault?” she asks and when she shoulders him into the locker, he doesn’t even fight back. He just laughs so hard that she can’t help but join in.

“Yeah, that makes way more sense,” is what Jason says when she fills him in on the way to towards the cliffs that afternoon. “I told Trini that drugs don’t usually resemble candy. And that you’d never be dumb enough to have a bag full of them in your backpack.”

He looks relieved though, sigh happily with his hands buried in his jacket pocket as they follow the others, watch Zack try to give Trini a noogie and end up flat on his ass up ahead.

It takes her a second, as distracted as she is by the raucous laugh Trini belts out, sending back to where she’s walking on the back of the breeze, to realize what’s been said.

“Wait,” she starts, thinking of those stupid mini-jawbreakers Zack gave her that she’s been carrying in the front pouch to eat during class. “You went through my backpack?”

Jason must not have a good answer because he’s shrugging and then running away from her, past the others, and diving off the cliff to avoid it.

“What did you do to him?” Trini asks, lingering back so Kim can catch up.

Kim shakes her head because the only other option is to chastise Trini for the invasion of privacy and it’s Trini, this time, that drags them both off the edge of the cliff and down into the water, laughing the whole way.

There were a lot better ways for Trini to find out, Kim supposes, but it comes down to timing, in the end.

They’re studying in her living room, her and Trini sprawled across the floor while Jason and Billy lounge on the couch, Zack snoring distantly in Kim’s dad’s La-Z-Boy in the corner. Billy asks Kim for a piece of paper and she has her notebook open, rips out a page to hand to him. The page that just so happens to be right in front of her notes.

Her notes on Trini.

Her notes on Trini that Trini just so happens to see.

“What’s that?” she asks and Kim hesitates.

That’s the problem here. She should be grabbing that notebook and putting it completely out of reach. Covering her tracks. Yelling, Nothing! and then maybe running just for good measure.

But she’s torn between complete fear and absolute shock. This wasn’t meant to go like this.

Here she is sitting in the scenario she’d been imagining since that first class with Zack.

And then it gets about ten times worse. Trini pulls the notebook over and starts looking at it. Starts reading it and Jason and Billy are paying attention now. Billy fixing Kim with an apologetic look, Jason looking nauseated on her behalf.

Zack has stopped snoring, too. Perhaps startled into consciousness by the air being sucked out of the room.

“Um,” Kim starts, too late. “It’s nothing.”

“Are these notes on me?” Her face is turned down, elbows planted into the rug beneath her and Kim wants to see her, but just as equally doesn’t, too.

“No?”

“They’re notes on me!” Billy pipes in from behind them and Trini lifts her head to look at him.

“Oh, so you go by Trini, too, and--” She looks down and reads from the page, “--are terrified of Michael Jackson’s Thriller?”

Billy blinks once. Twice.

Quirks his lips to the side and then says, “Yes.”

Trini shakes her head and then looks back at Kim. Kim who has scrambled back into a seating position and is only a second or two away from disappearing. From just completely bailing and possibly never returning.

Ever, ever again.

“What are these, Kimberly?”

And...yikes.

Kimberly.

She pulled out all three syllables.

“They’re--”

She barely even gets that out, though, because she’s spluttering and has to swallow, has to cough into her fist.

“See, Kim, this is why I told you to just kiss her,” Zack pipes in from the corner, as if this whole thing couldn’t get any worse. “Would have been a lot easier to explain to her than me teaching you how to date her.”

You could hear a pin drop.

Even if you didn’t have superhero hearing.

Trini and Kim just stare at each other and then Jason sniffles and moves around on the couch like he’s trying to break the tension. It doesn’t work.

“Zack’s been teaching you how to date me? Is that what you two have been up to?”

There it is. The million dollar question.

Kim presses her palms into the rough treads of the rug. “Um...sort of.”

“See, I told you they weren’t hooking up,” Jason says and Kim makes a face at him.

“Yep. And that was candy, Trini,” Billy says. “Not drugs. Zack gave me some, too!”

Zack gets to his feet and crosses the room to stand overtop of them, but Trini still doesn’t break eye contact. Not until he says, “This would be the part where you kiss her, Kimmy.”

Which, no. It’s wouldn’t be.

And then Trini is on her feet in an instant, standing there awkwardly for a second until she manages to say, “Could we maybe talk?”

Kim nods dumbly. Scrambles to her feet.

Shoves into Zack’s shoulder roughly on her way out of the room.

Things are just as weird and tense outside, standing in the cool grass of Kim’s backyard, watching the sun disappear behind the trees, as they were inside. They’re close and Trini is facing her with her body, but her head is turned away, towards the back of the property line.

Kim shifts awkwardly in front of her and keeps moving her hands--putting them in her pockets only to yank them back out, crossing her arms over her stomach, cracking her knuckles so hard it hurts. Her heart thumps loudly up her neck, in her ears.

She waits.

“So, what?” Trini says finally after what feels like forever, her head still turned away. “You want to date me?”

It’s not even close to romantic, but Kim supposes that it’s because it’s not a proposition. Just a genuine question asked in order to make something a little more clear.

“Yeah,” Kim answers, just barely forfeiting the ‘um’ she nearly lets be put in front of it.

“Oh.” Trini nods and turns to look at her, then darts her eyes quickly away. “Cool. I, uh...I wouldn’t be opposed, I guess. Since we’re bringing it up.”

And the thing is, Kim sort of knew that already. Sure, she was terrified at the idea of the opposite, but there was no way this thing went one-way. Not completely.

Still, the smile that she feels break out across her face is embarrassing and more than a little humiliating. She briefly prays that Trini won’t see it and then Trini does anyway and it’s almost like she doesn’t care anymore.

The tension immediately lifted, miraculously gone.

“Yeah?”

“You gonna say something other than ‘yeah’?” But Trini is grinning. Trini is just as relieved as she is.

“Yeah,” Kim says again, just to make Trini laugh, just to watch her throw her head back a little, wild and untamed and built to love.

“He didn’t try to teach you kissing, right?”

This question comes a second or two later, as the sky darkens further around them and Kim feels the evening breeze blow through her bones, ready to knock her off her shaking feet.

She laughs and scrunches her nose in disgust. “Gross. No.”

And Trini smiles. Says, “Okay, good. Just checking.”

They stand there, too far apart, and Kim thinks this whole thing--this whole dance they’ve been doing for months--has really gone on too long already. So she takes a step forward, pulls one of Trini’s hands away from her side and holds it as gently as she can manage between her fingers.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to learning, though,” she tries, and Trini looks down at where they’re touching as she says it, maybe even swallows nervously. Kim knows the feeling. “Just, maybe not from him? Since we’re bringing it up.”

It’s maybe seconds after Trini looks up again that Kim feels the tentative press of lips on her own as Trini rocks up onto her toes to get a better angle.

Maybe the breeze won’t knock her over after all. Maybe this will.

Kim kisses back immediately, wraps her arms around Trini’s waist to bring her close and lets out this soft, breathy sigh as Trini’s hand slide up around her shoulders gently. It’s soft, slow, but with a touch of heady longing, too.

Kim, it would seem, was not the only one waiting for this.

When they pull apart, Trini’s lips brush gently across the curve of Kim’s chin and she looks like she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t get the chance.

Because Zack is yelling out the back door, “Yes! My young padawan! I taught you well! Get some ass!”

Kim can hear Billy scolding him for the expletive, Jason laughing in this meekly flustered way and Trini closes her eyes, lets out a sigh, and then flips all three of them off.

“I hate him so much,” she mutters and Kim is laughing too, adjusting her arms around Trini’s waist so they can look at each other properly.

“No, you don’t,” she says. It’s just the truth.

Trini doesn’t necessarily deny it, but neither does she confirm it.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. They’re already kissing again, ignoring the boys’ hooting behind them as the wind shifts the leaves in the distance, the grass brushing up around their feet.

Zack gives her a diploma. Drops it in her locker sometime when she’s not there to catch him.

It’s printed on bright yellow paper and he even signed the bottom corner. On the back is a lewd, anatomically incorrect drawing of what she thinks is supposed to be her and Trini, but can’t actually be sure until she sees the note right next to it.

hmu when ur ready to get a masters in scissoring

Trini laughs at it later, her back pressed into Kim’s chest in her bed. Says, “Yeah, maybe you should,” when she sees the note on the back.

Kim considers throwing it away, but ends up sticking it in her dresser drawer instead.

Okay, so maybe Zack isn’t a problem.

Kim’s practically obligated to say that the stupid classes worked out in a couple of ways.

Like when she spends the night curled up in Trini’s bed or the night she invites Trini over for dinner and says, “This is Trini, my girlfriend,” to her parents who’d known her already, but not like this. Who smile and welcome her into the family with open arms that Trini doesn’t quite know how to fall into.

He takes 80% of the credit and sends the rest of the slideshow he made to Kim in an email he titles may come in handy someday ;).

Kim’s learning to take it all with a grain of salt and if you asked her, she’d probably have to say that she’s completely and totally fine with that.

...

#this is sort of too long to put here #but here #trimberly #trimberly fanfic #power rangers 2017

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