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aidemint · 2 years

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Eclipse, A Faithful Pass | Like Real People Do: Part 3 | Silco

part one | part two | part three

summary: yearning bleeds into reality. light and darkness finally meet, and destiny is fulfilled.

word count: 5.7k+

pairing: Silco/GN!Reader, Silco x GN!Reader

warnings: canon-level violence

notes: the final part to the soulmate au i’ve toiled for months on! our dearest reader and silco finally meet, and everything unfolds. i hope you enjoy :)

dedicated to the lovely @chickenparm , @simpfiles , and @arcanescribbles because jesus fucking christ have you seen their silco works???

“Jericho, I’m really starting to think that you don’t have my best interests in mind.”

The roll of gauze in your left hand is nearly emptied when you look up at the chef with a raised brow. Rows of blisters dot your right hand, scorched into existence by an untimely grab at the side of a pan. The chef on your left chortles, voice muddled as he gargles his response.

“What do you mean ‘I do, sometimes?’ It’s supposed to be all the time!” you fume, ripping off a small piece of packaging tape and sticking it to the end of the gauze ribbon, “Don’t I do all the hard work for ya? I thought my efforts would be appreciated a little bit more.” Jericho grumbles a compromise and you ease a bit, interest piqued.

“Okay, but you’re paying.” He garbles his agreement, and you’re soon back on your feet, chopping vegetables for the next customer at the stand. Muffled chatter plays in the background as the stove burns, alive with fire and oil, grilling cubed onions to top off a fried dish. Over the roar of the flames, you happen to overhear a conversation between two people sitting closest to you.

“Did you hear about what happened during the shimmer raid this afternoon?” one figure mumbles with a mouthful of kebab, “Fuckin’ green bugs burned everything that was goin’ on a shipment ‘cross the river.” His friend looks nervous, poking the end of his skewer against the counter.

“You think the boss’s gonna be mad?” The man beside him shoots him a look, brows raised in disbelief, lips parted enough so that bites of unswallowed meat fall out between them. You look away, wincing at the saliva-covered particles.

“Entire shipment of cargo got trashed.” He scoops up the fallen bits and shoves them back into his mouth. “What do you goddamn think?” A shrug comes as a response.

“Dunno. I ain’t really met the guy yet, but I heard his daughter was kinda looney, maybe he’s the same.” You hear the other customer scoff while biting off the last of his meat-on-a-stick.

“You right about the kid, girl’s a fuckin’ lunatic.” He sighs, setting his foodless kebab on an empty plate. “But Silco ain’t gonna be happy ‘bout the yield, that’s for sure.”

Silco.

Mindlessly piling the caramelized onions onto a plate of messily battered fish and assorted slaw, you test the way his name rolls off your tongue, mouthing the syllables. You ring the bell at the front, slide the dish in hand to its customer, then check the next ticket with him still on your mind.

You’d only heard rumors about him, much like this one, never having seen the man with your own eye before. It seems that, with the amount of suspicions and gossip floating around the undercity, even the Lanes, you’re not alone in this. But from what you’ve gathered, working on the main street, he’s lanky, semi-proportioned with a tall nose and thin lips, and charming when he needs to be.

Others say that his most defining feature is his left eye—an eclipse-like iris surrounded by the blackness of space, unblinking. Petrifying. Enchanting. Terrifying.

Some say that all it takes is one look at it and you’re dead—it’s a grossly exaggerated story, but you laugh at the idea of a skinny man with snakes for hair, in accordance with an old Ionian legend.

Zaunian society has different opinions of him, regarding his leadership and means of assuming it, but it collectively recognizes him as the Kingpin. His title is power and prestige recognized into a position that allows for him to control the masses despite not housing the physical capacity to bend the city to his will.

Tiana’s voice rings inside your head when you’re tossing a batch of minced tentacles in sauce with furrowed eyebrows.

Hatred isn’t the right word.

It’s more like fear. Fear or admiration, often a mix of both. It’s his tenacity and striking perseverance in the face of seemingly unconquerable feats, his dream of Zaun, his ambitions to guide his people to independence that brings about submission.

There’s the shimmer, too. You watch a puff of purple come out from the mouth of one of the diners and cringe at how it sparkles.

Shimmer runs rampant in the underground and you know that everything leads back to him. All rivers of communication, all dealings, all markets.

The thought instills a bit of apprehension within your bones, but also a shred of hope—because if there’s anyone that knows anything about who your soulmate is, you suspect that it’s Silco, given his reach.

Your gaze flits over to the neon green eye at the end of the street.

The thought of being so close to an answer sends chills down your spine.

“Graghogarpogoh pgroda!” Jericho’s gruff shout yanks you from your fantasies and puts your mind and body back behind the stall. He shoves your shoulder and gives you a disapproving look after he stares at an unfinished ticket hanging in front of you. “Gangomo, donokha.”

“Yeah, yeah, I gotcha big man,” you grumble, getting to work on the last of the dishes before the final bunch of customers flock in, “Just a little lost in my head.”

The rest of your shift is spent cooking wordlessly, spare the few exchanges you have with Jericho, who wonders what you were thinking about.

When you’re at the back, scraping gunk off of dishes, he moves closer to you and gibbers quietly, a small question. You smile softly and scrub harder at the plate in your hand.

“I’ll tell ya later, I promise. It’s about that soulmate stuff again.” He groans and does what you think is an eye roll, which you chuckle at. “Look, I just think I got a lead. That’s it.” His tone is somewhere in between sarcastic and disbelieving when he mumbles a response and gets back to tending to the grill.

Soon, once the last of the food is served and the customers leave, the fire is shut off and everything’s packaged and placed where it needs to be. Jericho takes his wooden arm board off, putting it on a stand, hanging his apron on a knife’s handle before taking yours when you gratefully place it in his open hand.

“Where do you wanna go tonight?” you ask, staring at the man in front of you, “We got a lot of time on our hands, so.” Jericho thinks for a moment, fingers scratching the top of his parted lips spread over pointed teeth. A few names come and go in mumbles until he mentions one that livens your eyes.

“Grigandho domokoyee gahgraboragah?” A word of confirmation. You nod.

“That sounds great.” Jericho’s grin gets just a little wider when he beckons you to follow him.

“It’s like I know the answer is staring me in the face, I know it.” You down the rest of your whiskey with a groan, wincing at how the alcohol burns the fine lining of your throat. “I don’t know why I haven’t fucking found them yet. I really don’t. I haven’t seen anyone with this damn scar in my entire life.”

Jericho offers a gurgle of pity, a large hand patting your shoulder. You sigh, appreciating the sentiment but too tipsy and frustrated to really make sense of it.

“I know I’ll find them eventually, but just— after all this time I just want an answer. Something to go off of so I don’t drive myself off the fucking edge.” You pause, biting the inside of your cheek. “Maybe I can find some help elsewhere.” The man beside you makes a startled noise, yellow eyes widening when he garbles in protest. You laugh at his alarm, punching his shoulder playfully.

“I’m not going to leave you Jericho, so don’t worry—not done repaying you for everything you’ve done for me just yet.” He shudders in relief, shoulders untensing enough to allow him three shots, which he throws back with ease.

“Gorbhajagomgrahkgograhgagpago. Pego.” The chef raises two fingers after he wipes his mouth and walks them along the countertop until they stop at your empty glass. “Braheo, drejogahagoeugaega. Gra, gro, gra.” A giggle erupts from your throat when Jericho taps on the cup with a nail to mimic knocking.

“It can’t be that easy.” You turn to face him, laughter dying down when he shows no sign of joking. “Can it?” He only shrugs in response, a half-hearted you decide coming from him before he orders another round for the both of you.

“Wait but if you know so much why didn’t you tell me until now?” you say when Jericho receives his rum and slides you a Bloody Mary, “I’ve already opened up about this whole soulmate biz, you coulda at least given me some tips.” The man beside you babbles a reply, tipping his glass in your direction. You think you can detect sass in his voice, but it’s quickly covered up by the bubbling of alcohol.

“I mean— Okay, yeah. You know what? That’s fair.” A sigh leaves your lips. “But do you really think I can just waltz in there? Without… ever having been to the Last Drop before? Knock on his door like that?” Jericho mumbles something and you stare reluctantly at him.

“You sure? You’ve seen people turn out good?” He gurgles something else to combat your hesitancy, and you finally cave. “Never hurts to try, I guess.” Sipping somewhat bitterly at your Bloody Mary, your eyebrows furrow at the thought.

Jericho doesn’t leave much time for brooding, as he smiles and gives you a pat on the back, a sign of reassurance, then a hum after your submission. You’re slow to grin back but do it anyhow, appreciation illuminating your bright irises.

“Thanks, Jerry.”

You think that the air stings your lungs a bit more when you take in a sharp breath as you draw nearer to the Last Drop. It bites your insides, acidic yet addictive, reminiscent of Zaun but different enough to remind you that you’re in new territory. It’s a warning.

But you continue to move, breaths coming steadily, chest rising and falling with each.

Clenching your hand around a sack of coins in your fist, your fingers tighten around the drawstring as you march forwards, gaze pinned on a heavy-set man guarding the entrance. He’s supposed to look unapproachable, intimidating, dangerous to dissuade any wayward wanderer, but after so many years of working with Jericho, you think that your definition of “scary” has shifted a bit.

You tilt the tip of your raised hood upwards and adjust your jacket to a more open position.

When you’re at the front, you’re met with a smirk and a look up and down, no words exchanged. The bouncer’s eyes are all you need to see to know that you’re not welcome.

“Whaddya want?” he grunts, “Got the wrong address or somethin’?” You shoot him a glare.

“I have business with Silco.”

“I don’t remember the boss needin’ ta meet with a street food vendor.”

“Well now I know you’re not just fucked in the face, your head’s a problem too.” Your voice is icy, sharp and demanding. “Let me in.” The doorman scoffs, lips twisting into a sneer at your insistence.

“Fucked in the head, huh?” he growls, stepping towards you, “I’ll fuck up your head real soon if you keep that up.”

You roll your eye at his tone, bringing up the pouch of coins clutched in your hand to hover it above his.

“Maybe this will suffice as necessary persuasion.” You press the medium-sized sack of gold into his palm as gently as possible, the satchel clicking when you set it in his grip. “It seems to do wonders universally.”

The doorman looks incredulous, words suddenly stuck in his throat, unable to get through a thickened lumen. You try to not enjoy the way his eyes bug out in disbelief, but you bite the inside of your cheek to suppress a smile when your gaze settles on his loose jaw and flared nostrils.

He glances at the sack hesitantly as if to reason with himself on whether or not accepting the bribe is okay. Pausing for a moment, he flits his eyes upwards to regard you with detestation, forcing as much of it as possible into a single glance, but eventually relents and allows you access to the room behind him with the grumble. When you walk by, he gives you a small card—a pass, of sorts. A green eye stares upward at you from the piece of cardstock and you tilt your head at the odd piece of imagery.

The Eye of Zaun. How ironic.

You keep your stare trained on it as you walk through the mob, a hand covering your mouth in an attempt to inhale the least amount of secondhand shimmer possible. Creeping through the main lounge, you eventually emerge into a subsection of the club, a small, concrete pavilion of sorts with a rickety table set up in the middle. There, two men groan and throw their cards down on the surface, cursing as a woman smirks in front of them.

“Bad luck, boys.”

She matches the description that Jericho gave you—tall, dark-skinned, bulky, hair half-up, half-down, a purple cloth draped over her left arm—and you can only hope that she knows a way to Silco. As you step into the yard, you feel several pairs of eyes bearing deep holes into your figure, laser-precise and trained on the part of your hood you keep lowered.

“Sevika?”

“Who’s asking?” Her voice is gruff, indicative of the irritation lining the edges of her irises.

“Someone that wants to speak to you,” you respond calmly, turning to the two men accompanying her, “Alone.”

The three of them exchange looks before the other two gather what’s left of their meager winnings, and exit the room. Their jeering expressions point back at you for a moment, just before they disappear into the raging horde inside the Last Drop.

“Guessing you didn’t come here to fight.” Sevika’s still sat in her chair, clicking a cigar back to life with a metal lighter. You smile, but it doesn’t reach your eye.

“You’re stating the obvious here.” She scoffs at the comment, taking a drag before replying.

“We don’t give shimmer handouts.”

“That’s not what I want. I need help to find somebody.” Her brow raises, face maintaining an unamused expression.

“You got the wrong place if you’re looking for a detective,” she grumbles, a puff of smoke blowing past her lips, “The undercity might be an enterprise, but it’s not the kind you're looking for.”

“I’m not asking you to hunt down a person.”

“Stop with the details and just get to the point,” she groans, “I know a damn person asking for a handout when I see one. You’re wasting my time.” Your eyes narrow, semi-slitted, as you raise a hand to clutch the thin fabric of your jacket, patience wearing thin.

“I just was wondering if you’ve ever seen someone that looks like me.”

Nimble fingers pull off your hood to showcase your scar, raw and untouched. You look at her, head tilted downwards, and you watch her eyes widen. After a brief glance at your hands and arms and a little time to think, Sevika blinks a few times, processing your request with something new in mind. Your appearance seems to have struck something—a personal memory, perhaps.

“I’m not guaranteeing anything,” she says slowly after a period of thought, “So don’t get your hopes up.” At least it sounds like an agreement, so you nod in understanding and follow her after she gets up with a grunt.

The two of you swiftly thread through the mob, spare a few malice-laced glances that slow your step. However, they’re quick to depart, wiped from certain faces just as fast as they came, ultimately shut down by a glare from Sevika. Though you find it weird as to what prompted her sudden attitude change, you don’t question it, as you’re soon ascending a flight of stairs to an overhead lounging area—a place built to emulate an apartment, but doubles as a headquarters of some sort.

Staring at the worn floor, you notice how the wood creaks with every step, the smell of dust and old air rising instead of fog clogged by thickened shimmer. It’s oddly refreshing (as refreshing as the undercity can be, anyways).

“You’re only getting one chance.” Sevika comes to a stop at the wooden door at the end of the hallway. “Nothing else I can do if it doesn’t work out.”

“That’s alright,” you reply, “Thank you.” She tears her gaze away from you with a sigh, eyebrows arched when she turns to knock at the door.

The silence is meant to be a quiet, wordless existence in the presence of tension, but the world fills with the sound of rushing blood as it blows past your ears, heart rapidly thundering in your chest. It crashes against your ribcage with heavy thuds, the pace elevating as it continues to pulse faster. The quietness gives way to an opportunity to properly process all that has happened.

You’re overwhelmed, an influx of feeling, sensation, building up until you feel like you might burst—is it excitement, anger, or anxiety? It seizes you, swinging your consciousness into an ever-growing loop that pulls you in for more.

It persists until someone on the other side speaks a phrase that grants Sevika permission to enter.

“Come in.”

The voice is masculine, muffled enough so you can’t really tell who it is, but you hope that it’s the person you’re looking for. Sevika doesn’t regard you when she goes in and you think nothing of it at first. Coming in without a bribe was a fuckup, plain and simple, but when you look at her, you notice that her eyes are averted almost forcibly—as if she doesn’t want to look at you.

“Someone’s asking for you.” The door shuts behind her, muting the last half of her sentence, and you frown.

You can listen to her steps echo, the sound growing fainter and fainter. When she’s far enough away, you press your ear against the door, hoping to listen in on the conversation.

A small scuffling inside acts like radio static, messy and unclear, but you’re able to tune in without a problem seconds later.

“Get to the point.” You freeze, breath hitching, tongue suddenly caught in your throat.

It’s a voice—his voice. Commanding, clear, with a powerful presence that cuts through the air without difficulty. The pads of your fingers push further against the wood of the door in anxiety.

Sevika’s next comment is muffled due to a loud clunk coming from somewhere in the vents, but the conversation resumes fine without it.

“Where are they now?”

“Waiting to be let in.”

Screwing your eyes shut tight, you pray that he, who you presume to be Silco, doesn’t disregard you, a kind of desperate hope surfacing when you listen to him sigh.

“Then let them in. And close the door on your way out.” Your heart nearly jumps out of your mouth when heavy footsteps draw nearer, pacing towards your direction. Quickly moving away from the entrance, you clasp your hands out in front of you and wait patiently, as if you’d been in the same position all this time, not snooping where you shouldn’t be.

The outline of Sevika’s boots pool into two shadows at the crack at the bottom of the door and you can almost feel the weight of her hand on the knob.

“Good luck.” There’s no time to whisper your thanks before you’re ushered into the room by a small twitch of Sevika’s fingers, quickly shedding your jacket as you approach the space.

The slight separation between the door and wall gives you the view of a couch on the left side of Silco’s office—red, puffed, and regal. It’s studded with matching velvet button pins, matte and consistently placed over the surface. As the gap widens, you’re given a clearer look at the object, the piece of furniture growing longer, more detail embroidered into its fabric and carved into its wooden base, twisting and turning with shocking preciseness—

—until you lose sight of it completely, and all you can see is a blazing, crimson iris.

And the scar that surrounds it.

For just a moment, the world goes silent.

The blemish is muted, smudged over with concealer that doesn’t match his skin tone, an eyebrow drawn on top of the coverup job. Though it’s barely noticeable, how it fades from his left side to his right, after so many years of staring at your own deformity, you’d recognize it in a heartbeat.

And you notice how he looks at yours. Your left is raw, uncovered, perhaps even somewhat proudly displayed. Deep red lines and pink flesh hardened by time split your cheek and dig deep into the soft crevice of where your eye originally laid. His gaze traces over the sight, running a familiar path down a blackened cleft that meets the rich tone of your skin.

Silco’s stare holds an indecipherable emotion—his pupils are blown wide, but within his clouded irises there’s conflict. Even the bright vermillion eye seems to dim when taking a moment to study your features. Stone-faced and unreadable, he sits with a soft frown at the cushy chair behind his desk, regarding you as you peer at him cautiously.

No judgement lies behind those eyes—blazing crimson and deep black with dirty white and brilliant blue—despite all that remains unknown about what swirls around inside his head. You know, and you feel your chest tighten at the realization.

“Would you like to sit down?” Silco asks smoothly, voice silky. Your approach is less graceful than his invitation, as you hesitate before slowly nodding and easing onto the couch on his right, posture rigid, spine straight, still occupied by the reveal.

You hear the uncorking of a whiskey bottle, then a soft pouring sound as the liquor hits the inside of a clean glass.

“This must be a very shocking turn of events for you,” he hums, threading his fingers through his hair, “After everything.” Slowly, you nod after what feels like forever.

“Yeah.” Your throat bobs when you swallow, mouth dry and tongue cemented to the floor. “It’s just… I can’t believe…”

“Believe what?” Silco chuckles, taking careful sips of whiskey, “I can’t know anything if you don’t tell me.” His multi-colored irises stare pointedly at you, expecting.

“It’s you.” You feel tears brim your eyes, the whites surrounding your irises growing hot at the moisture. “I just can’t believe that it’s you. After all this time.” The man to your left takes upon a wistful expression, lips gently pursing and gaze far-off, in deep thought.

“What exactly is so hard to believe?” he muses, “Never expected a fellow, humble servant of Zaun to be connected to you?”

You’re about to respond with a curt objection, some kind of phrase that indicates your Piltoverian background, his misconception, but you catch the subtle glint in his eye first. Digging your thumbnail into the pad of your index finger, you keep quiet.

Of course he knew. How could he not? This was some kind of test, it had to be.

“I— I—” you stammer, the right words dying on your tongue, “It’s not… hard.” You cringe at the crude phrasing of what you want to say, but you find that it’s all you can muster. Silco gazes tauntingly at you.

“Then what is it?”

You don’t need to look at him to know that there’s likely a smirk on his face. Or so you think.

“Is it so impossible to understand,” you breathe, “That the introduction of you has resolved quite possibly most of my problems in my life?” A period of silence proceeds the comment, allowing for thought to happen, guiding the moment forward with shaking pushes.

“I’m afraid that I don’t quite follow,” Silco hums, finally breaking the stillness, “Could you elaborate?” You know better than anyone that he needs no elaboration. He simply craves the story.

You wonder if it’s some kind of twisted powerplay, but continue anyhow.

“You may know of my history, from the lap of luxury in a respectable house from the upper city to the Lanes,” you say, running your tongue along your bottom lip, “I… never really had any problems during my time in Piltover, at least for the half of it. There was always enough food to eat, plenty of lavish goods, and I had the privilege of knowing exactly what my future held.”

“But then…” You gesture to your scar with a slight, sad smile. “This happened. And within a week I was homeless and abandoned, beaten to shame. I’m sure you know too much about that.” Lifting your chin, you turn to Silco for an answer, but he retains his neutral expression. You sigh.

“In the end, I was abandoned because of my scar.” My scar. Silco’s head tilts to his right ever so slightly, and you notice with a flicker of your eye in his direction. “But I’m sure there are other questions you’d like to ask, Silco.”

You give him time to speak.

“Why did you come here?” comes out of his mouth when the waiting period ends. “Even the worst life in Piltover is better than what’s best here.”

A breathy laugh brushes past your lips, features shifting to reflect a sense of bittersweetness, perhaps longing or regret—culminating into pity, for someone, someplace, for yourself or others.

“I would rather live the life nobody in Piltover wants than die at their hands.”

The Kingpin’s lips quirk upwards as a silent shiver trickles down his spine. A sudden warmth blooms in his chest, pulsating fervorously to shoot a clementine high through his system. Despite this, he does his best to maintain his neutral facade, though you realize that he’s sitting a little straighter than before.

“Death? I didn’t know that was a concept people considered on the topside.”

“Admittedly, most don’t,” you say, “Not before others find out that they don’t belong, anyway.”

“Don’t belong?” Inflections of curiosity cross his tone when he raises the question.

“It seems that there are even things that you don’t know about Piltover, huh?” Silco remains silent, and you take it as a cue to go on. “Don’t be blindsided by its reputation. It’s divided amongst itself, even without the concept of Zaun. They forgo humanity in the pursuit of progress and in turn drive their own out because of trivial differences that’ll hinder its role in the economy. It’s a multi-faceted establishment. Not a city, not a community.

“I think you can guess what that means for people like me.” You give him a moment to ponder the possibilities.

“I’m not aware of a steady stream of immigrants from the topside to Zaun,” Silco muses, “If I was, I don’t believe I’d be surprised by your presence.” Silence takes the place of an amused chuckle, your eye remaining dark when met with his perspective.

“That’s because they don’t immigrate. They can’t move.” A chill settles deep inside your bones, making a home for itself in blood-bound marrow when you swallow the lump in your throat.

“They die.”

Silco looks unfazed, but seems to beckon you to continue—which you do, braving the topic.

“Many were driven to suicide. Other deaths were the result of mob violence. Lynchings. Arson. Murders. Public executions. All done under the veil of secrecy, gone before dawn. The darkest side of a radical society in Runeterra.

“For those forgone by their home, their graves are hidden away on the outskirts nobody tends to or touches. It’s the only way I know that they’ll be safe, finally at peace after everything, despite it all.”

Your hands curl into fist, balling atop your lap, clutching the fabric of your pants. Silco’s drawl enters your ears from an unfortunate memory and you grit your teeth, jaw clenched, joint protruding.

“And when you ask me why, why I came here and stooped so low for some stupid purpose, this is why. I would have died sooner or later. Whether it be by my own volition or the doing of somebody else. It was considered a type of mercy to some, remaining untarnished until the bitter end. I saw what lay in front of me and despised it, and subsequently did whatever I could to avoid it.

“And if I couldn’t pursue what I’d yearned for for so long I saw no purpose in remaining.” Your words run out, and you’re left sitting there, a whirlwind of thought blowing through your tundra of a mind. “So I came. To find you.”

“Hm.” A low, rumbling hum comes from the man across the table when he finishes listening, setting down his glass of whiskey. “Is that the truth?”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked you if that was the truth,” Silco repeats, voice somehow softer, more relenting, “But that’s not all, is it?” Fear suddenly hauls you into stillness, grips your shoulders until they fold in on themselves, bones cracking under the pressure. Your brows furrow as your face contorts into something desperate.

You can’t bring yourself to look at him when you shake your head.

And he says nothing.

Silco just remains, patient, staring at you until you gather yourself.

“I was lucky enough to find kindness in Piltover.” You tug your bottom lip in between your teeth and shake away the memory of refuge. “Someone that cared, loved me not for my name. A person kind enough to— A person— A… A person kind enough.”

Your voice breaks in the middle, a pathetic lilt taking over what little stability you have left. The acridness of bile nips at the back of your throat, forcing you to bring a hand up to your lips, stomach twisting in knots at the sensation.

“Then the explosion happened, and everything fell apart.” It comes as a whisper, barely a breath exhaled in the midst of certain devastation. “I wanted an escape, a way to dream. So to Zaun I went, and in Zaun I stayed. To find my soulmate. To find you. The bane of my existence and the light of my life all the same.”

A heavy breath rattles your frame, knuckles turning white as you cling harder onto the cloth of your pants for stability. Bit by bit, you attempt to turn your head, averting your eyes from the lavish paintings hung on the wall across from you to gaze at the figure who you’re supposed to be speaking to.

“We… We all deserve a chance at love, right?”

You pause to swallow, still daring to speak despite your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth, dry.

“To love. To be loved. Why else would we have this fate? To share each other’s pains, to mourn the loss of flesh and bone as if the injuries were our own, as if another’s life was our responsibility?”

The ground distorts as your vision fogs up, blurred with tears that you desperately try to blink back.

“Or maybe I’m just selfish. And I don’t want to feel alone anymore.” Your eye closes and a stream of tears follow, drawing thin, colorless lines down the bridge of your nose, dripping onto the floor when the collective drop gets too heavy. Taking the inside of your cheek in between your teeth, you bite back a sob as your shoulders begin to tremble.

It’s pathetic; you feel pathetic and lost, coming undone like a sad piece of twine, unraveling completely at the mercy of the hand that pulls you loose.

“Nobody wishes for loneliness, my dear.” Silco’s voice suddenly draws your eye open. “You forget that I have also awaited your arrival, just as you have anticipated mine.”

At this, you finally look at him, and you’re met with a softened expression, not one of scorn or displeasure, but sentiment, welcoming in every wrinkle and sharp turn of his angular face. He seems gentle, despite his blazing orange eye, the same that could glare and paralyze, maim and destroy; he seems capable of love, of adoring and receiving that same, simple kindness.

Silco looks human.

Then his arms part just a little and his fingers lay flat against his desk, a small movement, but it’s enough.

Your heart clenches as you stand, legs threatening to give in, but you start to walk towards him.

As you approach Silco’s desk, he makes no move to run, no move to go, and simply stays, frozen in place—perhaps awaiting your eventual arrival. Your steps grow smaller as you near his figure, stopping only inches away from the wooden table.

Lifting your chin and mustering all your courage into a trembling arm, you reach out—

—and take his hand, fingers loosely intertwined with his.

Your bottom lip starts to tremble when you find that the action meets no resistance, but instead a gentle squeeze that tightens the hold. You clench your jaw and furrow your brows, a soft sob leaving your lips when he slowly gets up and embraces you with a sigh, chin resting at the crook of your neck.

“I have waited so long to find you.” The murmur rumbles through his chest, the surface vibrating against your own when he holds you closer. “Seeing that every minute spent waiting was worth it, I am grateful that I did.”

“Silco,” you whimper, “Oh God, this still feels like I’m dreaming. Just to hold you, to love you like this, it seems so unreal. Please don’t let this be a dream.” The Kingpin chuckles, pressing a soft kiss on your forehead.

“I can assure you that I’m very much real, my lovely.” His hand comes up, threading his fingers through your hair, cradling your skull. “What I’m hoping is that you can tell me you are too.” You laugh, joyous and real and ever-present.

“I am,” you say with a smile, “I am.”

“Seems as if both of our fears were irrational, then,” he responds, “But I’m glad.”

“I don’t think I need to say anything to tell you how I feel.” Your grip against the middle of his back tightens and you feel him stiffen, skin steadily growing in heat. Silco swallows slowly when you shift against him.

“No,” he says, breathing out steadily, “You don’t.”

You smile. “Thank you.”

Then, you think that you’re enough.

#silco #silco x reader #silco/reader #silco arcane #arcane #arcane silco #silco x you #silco/you #league of legends #arcane league of legends #lol #angst #happy endings #x reader #zaun

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ryik-the-writer · 3 years

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CHAPTER 9 - Rapids

A03

Here’s the continuation on this story that took me three years to get out.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Belle had never known such fear.

She sailed the entire world, faced typhoons and sharks and poachers nearly her entire life, but the creature—the man—she was most afraid of was walking high and dry on land.

And threatening her merman.

Belle’s heartbeat began to escalate as she paced down Storybrooke’s streets, her mind spinning for answers.

This wasn’t something she could go to the police about. What the hell could she say? “Help, my mer-boyfriend is about to be killed by a poacher-pirate guy?”

They’d think she was insane!

But she rather have to plead her case than waste any more time. The clock was ticking.

Luckily Merlin and Ariel were in the kitchen preparing dinner, chatting and laughing.

She watched her friends for a moment, wondering just what they thought of her after her disappearances these last few weeks. She hadn’t been the best towards them lately, and they’d shrugged off her absence beautifully. She owed them the world.

Ariel looked up and grinned widely at the site of Belle.

“Well, look who’s actually home for dinner,” she teased.

“I’ll get the good wine,” Merlin chimed in.

Belle gulped and stepped further into the kitchen, clutching her stomach.

Ariel instantly noticed Belle’s demeanor and placed down the knife she was holding.

“Okay, what’s going on?” she inquired as she led her to a chair.

Merlin killed the heat on the stove, and joined them, his eyebrows raised in concern.

Belle clutched her stomach, nausea threatening to take over.

“Guys,” she began to explain carefully. “I’m…I’m in trouble.”

Merlin’s mouth fell open, automatically misinterpreting Belle’s distress.

"Oh shit, you're pregnant, aren't you?" He gripped the back of the chair he was holding onto tightly, taking in a deep breath to stead his nerves. "It’s fine, we can sue for child support and put it in a college fund to—”

“Damn it Merlin no!” Belle shrieked, covering her face in humiliation.

“Then what’s going on?” Ariel demanded as she stepped in front of Belle.

“This has gone on long enough! You’re gone all day, don’t come home until the middle of the night. Your sunburn and waterlogged but you keep going back to the beach.”

Belle gulped. Ariel wasn’t just angry, she was hurt, and she had rather dealt with her rage than her pain.

Ariel stared at her best friend of over ten years. They’d sailed the world together, survived hurricanes and sharks and god-awful boyfriends. There weren’t secrets between them. Until now that is.

“Please, Belle, just tell me what’s happening to you, what’s going on?” Ariel pleaded. “Whatever it is, I will help you and support you all the way.”

Merlin nodded beside her. They were all in this together.

“It’s…a bit hard to believe,” Belle explained.

Ariel shook her head. “There’s nothing in the world you can say that we won’t believe.”

Belle groaned a bit, looking back and forth between her best friends.

“Okay,” she sighed, knowing this was about to be a bloodbath.

“For the past several weeks, I’ve been befriending and studying a merman off a cove on the beach. And now, Killian Jones, the captain of the ship Eric works on, is trying to hunt and kill him and I need your help to save him.”

The kitchen became so quiet that only the sound of boiling water could be heard. Merlin and Ariel finally exchanged a rather incredulous look.

Belle gasped. “I know it sounds crazy-”

“Actually, it sounds a lot less…odd than what we were expecting,” Merlin shrugged, making a very obvious step to the phone hanging in the kitchen.

“Merlin,” Belle whined.

“We’re just gonna give Dr. Whale a call,” Merlin responded with a tight smile. “Maybe he’s got a good remedy for dehydration…and insanity.”

Belle covered her face, feeling like she really was about to pass out. Rumple was running out of time, and she was a phone call away from ending up in a looney bin!

Ariel looked torn, but determined. Belle knew from experience that she – a championed athletic swimmer – could easily tackle her if she tried to make a quick escape. Judging by the worry on her face and her clenched fists, she might just do that.

She had to be logical, but quick. She had to bring them to her side.

“Guys, wait, please,” she pleaded, earning Merlin’s stare as the phone continued to ring.

She took a deep breath, summoning the courage she needed.

“I know you think I’m crazy, I thought I was too, so I don’t blame you,” she laughed. “But I need you both to believe me, to give me a chance.”

Merlin and Ariel glanced at each other, unconvinced but practical.

“If you could just come with me down to the docks, I can show him to you,” she swore. “Just for a moment? Please, please just trust me.”

Ariel and Merlin looked unconvinced and ultimately she had to be the one to grab the keys and make a decision.

“Five minutes at the sand dunes, and then can we take you to the hospital?”

Belle tensed. They really did think she was crazy.

“Fine,” she agreed hastily, “let’s just go.”

She sprinted to Merlin’s truck, Ariel quick on her heels as if she were trying to make a break for it.

Let them think what they want, Belle thought, as long as they got to Rumple and figured out a plan. She didn’t trust Killian not to make his move early and completely cut her from the equation in the process.

The ride to the beach severely contrast from earlier trips the trio had made. There was no laughter or good-natured banter between them. Just an eerie silence that threatened to silence them all forever.

Belle hated it. She didn’t want to have her best friends in the entire world on the outside. She hated how she had kept them there to begin with.

She'd make this up to them, she promised, but she had to save Rumple first.

Save the merman, make peace with her friends, in that order.

Belle was ready to fly from the truck when they came across the nearly forgotten mass of sand dunes, but Ariel seemed to act as a wall between her and freedom.

“Just…stay close to me, okay?” she inquired, not quite meeting her friend’s eyes.

Belle tried to get the lump in her throat down but failed. Merlin as well looked ready to spring after her.

Belle could have rolled her eyes at their behavior, but she understood in a way where they were coming from.

She thought herself mad sometimes at all this. Merfolk were stuff of legend after all, and the fact that she was up close and personal with one on a daily level still had her in shock.

But she wasn’t crazy, and Rumple was somewhere in the area and she had no choice but to reveal his existence.

The trio skid down the dunes, Belle’s eyes immediately searching for her merman.

The water was quiet, the faint echo of seagulls creating a lullaby over the area.

“Maybe he’s sleeping,” Belle suggested out loud.

“Belle,” Ariel sighed.

“Just…give me a second,” Belle said as she kicked off her shoes. She dodged Ariel’s grasp and eased into the cold water, shivering with anticipation.

She placed her hands above the water, feeling the vibrations from the life underneath it.

Rumple’s life.

“Rumple, please come out.”

A small wave crashed on to her, shaking her but not knocking her down. She looked up and found Rumple staring at her, grinning.

“Back already?” he breathed.

“Yeah,” she said, choking a bit on the relief that Jones hadn’t gotten to him yet.

Rumple noticed her distress instantly. “What is it, Belle?”

As his eyes searched her face, it landed on the other two humans behind Belle, both of who were gaping at them.

“Holy fish!” the female with long red hair said. “Holy actual fish!”

The male human began to shake and slowly eased to the ground.

“That’s a…a…”

“Merman?” Ariel said, just as confused as he was.

Rumple growled at the intruders, hands squeezing Belle’s tighter.

“It’s okay,” Belle assured, fingers grazing over his. “I know they’re strangers, but their friends of mine and they're going to help us.”

“Help us?” Rumple inquired.

Belle grasped his hands, her body shaking from the stress.

“There’s a man after you, Rumple,” Belle explained as the merman’s expression changed. “The same one who hurt your tail.”

Rumple growled. “Where is he? Did he hurt you?”

Belle would spare him the details of her conversation with Jones until later. All she needed right now was for her to agree for him to go with her.

“No, but it’s you he wants, and I can protect you but you have to trust me.”

Gold nodded. Of course he trust her.

Belle motioned for him to stay put and waddled back to sure where her two companions were still gaping.

“So …” she began, motioning to Rumple. “He’s pretty real.”

“No flipping kidding,” said Merlin who had collapsed onto the sand.

“I know you’re both taking this in, but we need to get him out of here.”

Merlin rose up, staring at her incredulously. “And how do you suppose we do that?”

Belle smiled widely. “It’s about time to uncover your pool, right?”

Merlin’s eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon, you want to take him to my place?”

Belle dropped down to his level, practically begging him to consider.

“Jones won’t set foot on your property to get Rumple this way,

“And,” Ariel jumped in, shrugging sheepishly. “It’ll create the perfect environment to study him.”

Belle gave her a look.

“To keep a close eye on him, I mean.” Ariel corrected.

Belle shrugged, satisfied. She knew her friend was going science-mode as she had when she first discovered Rumple and meant nothing malicious.

“So what do you say,” Belle inquired to Merlin. “Can we take him home?”

Merlin looked at the hopeful women before him and then at the merman who had yet to lighten his glare.

This all seemed like a very weird fever dream, and one unfortunately that he would not be waking up from any time soon.

Best to just accept it then.

“Fine, but you two better figure out how to get the fish on the back of my truck.”

Belle and Ariel squealed and kissed his cheeks.

“Okay,” Belle gasped, a weight lifting from her chest. “Can we get the truck down here?”

As the trio worked out a way to get Rumple to safety, the merman turned to the horizon where he could just see a ship sailing across the setting sun.

Jones.

Rumple hissed with intense hatred. That man was after him, and his Belle at that!

As Belle beckoned him to the shore, he swore immediate death on the man if he came near her again.

He was not getting his beloved. Not a chance in hell or high water.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #mer!rumple #foxmurphy #ouat au #ryik's fics #mermaids #rumbelle au #salt water

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letterboxd · 3 years

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The Package.

As the bonkers genre thrill-ride Shadow in the Cloud blasts into the new year, writer and director Roseanne Liang unpacks her love of Terminator 2, watching Chloë Grace Moretz’s face for hours, and the life lesson she learned from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Cheng Pei-Pei.

Roseanne Liang’s TIFF Midnight Madness winner Shadow in the Cloud landed with a blast of fresh genre energy on VOD platforms on New Year’s Day. It’s A-class action in a B-grade body, cramming plenty into its taut 83 minutes, including: a top-secret package, a freakish gremlin, a hostile bunch of Air Force dudes, outrageous stunts, dogfights and a fake wartime PSA that feels remarkably real.

Throughout, the camera is focused mostly on one face—Chloë Grace Moretz’s, playing British flight officer Maude Garrett—as she tackles all of the above from a claustrophobic ball turret hanging under a B-17 Flying Fortress, on a classified mission over the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

While the film’s tonal swings are confusing to some, schlock enthusiasts and genre lovers on Letterboxd have embraced the film’s intentionally outlandish sensibility, which “makes excellent use of its genre mash to create an unpredictable, guilty pleasure,” says Mirza. Fajar writes that “it felt like the people involved in this project knew how ridiculous it is and gave a hundred and ten percent to make it work. Someday, it will become a cult classic.” Mawbey agrees: “It really goes off the rails in all the best ways during the final third, and the last couple of shots are just perfect.”

Chloë Grace Moretz and her top-secret package in ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

To most of the world, Liang is a so-called “emerging” director, when in fact, the mother-of-two, born in New Zealand to Chinese parents, has been at this game for the past two decades. She has helmed a documentary and a romantic drama, both based on her own marriage; a 2008 short called Take 3, which preceded Hollywood’s current conversation about representation and harassment; and Do No Harm, the splatter-tastic 2017 short in which her technical chops and fluid feel for action were on full display, and, as recorded in multiple Letterboxd reviews, established her as one to watch.

Do No Harm scored Liang valuable Hollywood representation, whereupon producer Brian Kavanaugh-Jones brought Shadow in the Cloud to her, thinking she might connect with the material. “It did connect with me on a level that is very personal,” Liang tells me. “As a woman of color, as a mother who juggles a lot.” She says Kavanaugh-Jones then went through the process of removing original writer Max Landis from the project. “He felt that Max was not a good fit for this project, or for how we like to run things. We like to be respectful and courteous and kind to each other…”

In several interviews, Liang has said she’s comfortable with film lovers choosing not to watch Shadow in the Cloud based on Landis’s early involvement. What she’s not comfortable with is her own contribution—and that of her cast and crew—being erased. While WGA rules have his name attached firmly to the project, the credit belies the reality: his thin script, reportedly stretched out to 70 pages by using a larger-than-usual font, was expanded and deepened by Liang and her collaborators.

Writer-director Roseanne Liang. / Photo by Dean O’Gorman

That team includes editor Tom Eagles, Oscar nominated for Jojo Rabbit, actor Nick Robinson (the titular Simon in Love, Simon) and Beulah Koale, a star of the Hawaii Five-Oh series. The opening newsreel was created by award-winning New Zealand animation studio Mukpuddy, after a small test audience got weirded out by the sight of a gremlin in a war film, despite well-documented WWI and WWII gremlin mythology. It’s an unnecessary but happy addition. The cartoon style was inspired by Private Snafu, a series of WWII educational cartoons scripted by none other than Dr. Seuss and directed by Looney Tunes legend Chuck Jones.

But the film ultimately hangs on Chloë Grace Moretz, who overcame cabin fever to drive home an adrenaline rush of screen craft, in which the very limits of what’s humanly possible in mid-air are tested (in ways, it must be said, that wouldn’t be questioned if it were Tom Cruise in the role). Liang would often send directions to Moretz’s ball turret via text, while her cast members delivered live dialogue from an off-set shipping container rigged with microphones. “I just never got sick of Chloë’s face and I’ve watched her hundreds, if not thousands of times. You feel her, you are her, she just engages you in a way that a huge fighting scene might not, if it’s not designed well. Giant empty spectacle is less interesting than one person in one spot, sometimes.”

Ambitious and nerdy about film in equal measure, it’s clear there’s much more to come from Liang, and I’m interested in what her most valuable lesson has been so far. Turns out, it’s a great story involving Chinese veteran Cheng Pei-Pei (Come Drink With Me’s Golden Swallow, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Jade Fox), whose film training includes a tradition of remaining on set throughout filming.

Roseanne Liang on the set of ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

That meant that, during filming of Liang’s My Wedding and Other Secrets, Cheng would stay on set when she wasn’t required. “In New Zealand, trailers are a luxury,” Liang explains. “I said ‘Don’t you want to go to the trailer that we arranged for you?’ ‘No, I just want to sit and watch.’ ‘Why do you want to watch it, you’ve seen it hundreds of times!’ And she said ‘I learn something new every time’. To Pei-Pei, the secret of life is constant education and curiosity and learning. Movies are her work and her craft and her life, and she never gets bored. If I can be like her, that’s the life, right?”

Speaking of which, it’s time we put Liang through our Life in Film interrogation.

What’s the film that made you want to become a filmmaker? Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the movie that is at the top of the mountain that I’m climbing. To me it’s the perfect blend of spectacle, action design, smarts and heart. It poses the theory that if a robot can learn the value of humanity then maybe there’s hope for the ships that are us. That’s perennial, and possibly even more pertinent today. It holds a very special place in my heart, along with Aliens, Mad Max: Fury Road, Die Hard, La Femme Nikita and Léon: The Professional.

What’s your earliest memory of watching a film? I have a cassette tape that my dad made for my grandma in 1981 (he’d send tapes back to his mother in Hong Kong). I was three years old and he had just taken us to see The Empire Strikes Back in the cinema. And he can’t talk to my grandma because I’m just going on and on about R2-D2. I will not shut up about R2-D2 and he’s like, “Yes, yes I’m trying to talk to your grandmother,” and I’m like, “But Dad! Dad! R2-D2!” So it’s actually an archive, but it’s become my memory.

What’s the most romantic film you’ve ever seen? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s not the sexiest, but it’s the most romantic. That last scene, those last words where she goes “But you’re gonna be like this forever and I’m gonna be like this forever…” and he just goes “okay”. That to me is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen. It is a perfect movie.

And the scariest? If it’s a horror movie, the most scared I’ve been is The Ring. I was watching it on a VHS and I was lying on a beanbag on the floor and I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move, because I felt that if I moved she’d see me! Also, American Psycho just came to me this year. I caught the twentieth anniversary of that movie, which is a terrifying film, and again, possibly more relevant now than when it was made. The scariest film that’s not a horror is Joker. It scared me how much I liked it. When I came out of the movie, I was like, “I’m scared because I kind of love it, but it’s horrible. It’s so irresponsible. I don’t wanna like this movie but goddamn, I feel it.” Like, I wanted to go on the streets and rage. In a way we’re all the Joker, we’re all the Batman. That duality, that yin and yang, is inside everyone of us. It’s universal.

What is the film that slays you every time, leaving you in a heap of tears? This is a classic one, the opening sequence of Up. The first ten minutes of Up just destroy me every time. I also saw Soul a couple of days ago and I was with the whole family and I, just, if I wasn’t with the whole family I would have been ugly-sobbing. I had a real ache in my throat after the movie because I was trying to stop [myself] from sobbing.

Tell me your favorite coming-of-age film, the film that first gave you ‘teenage feelings’? Pump Up the Volume. Christian Slater! Off the back of Pump Up the Volume, I fancied myself as a prophet and wrote a theater piece called Lemmings. Obviously the main character was a person who could see through the façade, and everyone else was following norms. “No one understands me, I’m a prophet!” So clearly I have this shitty, Joker-style megalomaniac inside of me. It was the worst play, and I don’t know why my teachers agreed for us to do a staging of it!

Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis in ‘Pump Up the Volume’ (1990).

Is there a film that you and your family love to rewatch? We’ve tried to impose our taste on our children, but they’re too young. We showed them The Princess Bride—they didn’t get it. We literally showed our babies Star Wars in their cribs. That’s how obsessive Star Wars fans we were.

Name a director and/or writer that you deeply admire for their use of the artform. I have a slightly weird answer for this. Can I just give love to Every Frame a Painting by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos? They are my film school. I was thinking of my love of Edgar Wright, but then I thought of their video essay on Edgar Wright and how to film comedy, and his essay on Jackie Chan and the rhythm of action and then their essay on the Coen Brothers and Shot Reverse Shot. I must have watched that 30 times ahead of the TV show that I’m making now. I started out in editorial and Tony Zhou is an editor and he talks about when to make the cut: it’s an instinct, it’s a feeling, it’s a rhythm. I realized the one thing in common that I could mention about all the films I’ve loved is Every Frame a Painting. It’s their love of movies that comes bubbling out of every single essay that they made that I just wanna shout out at this part of my career.

Were there any crucial films that you turned to in your development for Shadow in the Cloud? Indiana Jones was something that Chloë brought up—she likes the spiffiness and the humor of Indiana Jones. Sarah Connor was our touchstone for the female character. For one-person-in-one-space type stories, I watched Locke quite a lot, to figure out how they shaped tension and story and [kept] us on the edge of our seats when it’s only one person in one space. In terms of superheroes, I came back to Aliens. Not Alien. Aliens. You know, there are two types of people in this world—people who prefer Alien over Aliens, and people who prefer Aliens over Alien. But actually I think I vacillate for different reasons.

Can there be a third type of person, who thinks they’re both great, but Alien³, just, no? Maybe that’s the best group to be in. We don’t need to fight about this, we can love both of them! I was having an argument with James Wan’s company about this, because there’s a rift inside the company of people who prefer Alien over Aliens.

Okay, program a triple feature with your film as one of the three. I don’t know. Ask Ant Timpson!

I’ll ask Ant Timpson. [We did, and he replied: “Well, one has to be the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. And then either Life (2017) or Altitude (2010).”]

Thank you Ant! I used to go to his all-nighters as a university student. He is the king of programming things.

Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Life’ (2017).

It’s strange that we never met at one of his events! Ant would make me dress up in strange outfits and do weird skits between films. (For those who don’t know, Timpson ran the Incredibly Strange Film Festival for many years—now part of the New Zealand International Film Festival—and still runs an annual 24-Hour Movie Marathon.) So what’s a film from those events that sticks in your head as the perfect genre experience with a crowd? It was a movie about a man protecting a woman who was the girlfriend of a mafia boss: A Bittersweet Life. Not only does it have one of the sexiest Korean actors, sorry, not to objectify, but also I actually screenshot a lot of that film for pitch documents. And, do you remember a crazy Japanese movie where someone’s sitting on the floor with a clear umbrella and a woman is lactating milk? Visitor Q by Takashi Miike. I remember just how fucking crazy that was.

Finally, what was the best film you saw in 2020? I haven’t seen Nomadland yet, so keep in mind that I haven’t seen all the films this year. I have three: The Invisible Man, which I thought was just amazing. I thought [writer-director] Leigh Whannell did such a great job. The Half of It by Alice Wu, a quiet movie that I simply just adored. And then the last movie I saw at the cinema was Promising Young Woman. The hype is real.

More from the New York Post:

Alam, a Bangladeshi citizen living in Jackson Heights, Queens, allegedly discussed buying suicide vests and hand grenades — but opted instead to try and shoot up the Crossroads of the World, the documents said. There was no indication he trained overseas, a law-enforcement source told The Post. Alam was charged with knowingly receiving two firearms with obliterated serial numbers in Brooklyn as part of the plot.

In the charging documents, Alam expressed his desire to destroy the new World Trade Center in lower Manhattan with “probably a rocket launcher, like a huge one.”

Alam also praised Osama bin Laden, claiming that his “mission is a complete success, thousands of American soldiers died and trillions of their monies gone in the war.”

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

Deportation. ASAP. Ban any relatives from ever entering the U.S.

As we’ve noted previously in posts and on Twitter, Muslims from Bangladesh are illegally pouring into the U.S. through the southern border.

#Immigration #Legal #Jihad

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takeeachdayonebookatatime · 2 years

Text

(Laura8759

Write a little bit about you like what genre of books you write and what your up to .

(Connor)

I love horror! Everything from slasher to psychological to monsters to existential Lovecraftian subgenres. I’ve always loved being scared and scaring others and think that horror is an important genre when learning to face our fears. Currently, I’m working on two novels and a collection of short stories that I’m looking at publishing in the coming months.

(Laura8759)

Congrats on the book now to the questions

(Questions)

(Laura8759)

Is there a special reason behind the title of your book/series?

(Connor)

Looney Lynda Darcey was really the result of me just trying to name my slasher and finding some fitting alliteration. She had a couple different names in earlier drafts, but I finally landed on Lynda and Looney Lynda just seemed to fit into the urban legend theme of her story.

(Laura8759)

Was there any inspiration behind your story/series?

(Connor)

Lots. The basic premise was to take a slasher much like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th and put a new twist on it. I’ve always loved monsters and the kind of extra-dimensional mysteries akin to things like Stranger Things and even a lot of Stephen King books like It, so the inspiration basically became “How can I craft a story that blends Friday the 13th with Stranger Things?”

(Laura8759)

What made you want to write?

(Connor)

When I was a kid I used to write screenplays that me and the other kids around the neighborhood would put on for our parents. I can’t say any of them were good, but that the earliest memory I have of writing and I haven’t really stopped doing it since. I grew up a massive fan of film and knew I always wanted to be a storyteller of some capacity. I even went to school for Creative Writing and later for Film Production. I think I would always just watch a movie or read a book and get so inspired to run with any ideas I would get from those and try to make my own story just as special and inspiring as what I was watching or reading.

(Laura8759)

For people who have not read your books or series, what are they about?

(Connor)

Well, as of the time I’m writing these answers, none of my books have been published yet, so no one’s read them outside of a few beta readers. But Looney Lynda Darcey is the story of a group of kids who encounter supernatural slasher, and local legend, Looney Lynda, while on a school field trip. They must fight to survive while also solving the mysteries of Lynda’s past and her strange abilities. I’ve also got another horror book in the works about the trauma of gay conversion therapy and a collection of short stories featuring monsters, ghosts, and everything in between.

(Laura8759)

Do you have any pets so what are their names?

(Connor)

I had a dog name River who sadly passed away last year. He was a good boy and he is dearly missed.

(Laura8759)

What are your other hobbies when not writing?

(Connor)

I’m a gamer. I play a lot of video and tabletop games. I’m the dungeon master of my DND group. We’ve been playing together for almost 4 years now and are just getting ready to finish up our second campaign.

(Laura8759)

What is your favorite part of your book or series?

(Connor)

The characters. I genuinely enjoy being able to craft such unique individuals for a story like this. As a homosexual man, I jump at any chance to secure more representation for the LGBTQ+ community, so getting to write protagonists from that community in any capacity is always a joy. Lynda is also a character that I’m quite proud of. Giving humanity to a supernatural serial killer is a treat that I hope people enjoy when the book finally comes out.

(Laura8759)

Do you have a favorite book or series from when you were a child?

(Connor)

I discovered H.P. Lovecraft way too soon and fell in love with his creatures and worlds. Though the man is a problematic mess and his writings contain troubling themes especially by today’s standards, you have to respect the impact he’s had on modern horror and science fiction. Call of Cthulhu is still among some of my favorite stories, but I think my favorite of his has to be At the Mountains of Madness.

(Laura8759)

Favorite cd or artist to listen to while writing?

(Connor)

I don’t often listen to music when I write because I tend to find it distracting, especially if the music has words. If I do listen to music I find some eerie, creepy, haunting ambiance on YouTube and let that play in the background to help me get in the mood to write a spooky scene.

(Laura8759)

What is one of the most important things your readers should take away from your books?

(Connor)

There is, I think, an underplayed theme of family and friends in the book. I’m a big believer in the idea that there are two families that everyone has in their lifetimes: the family they’re born with and the family they make. Lynda’s family locked her away for her deformities and so she was never able to make a family of her own. The protagonist of the book, Simon, is also rejected by his father because of his sexuality and thus finds a new family in his friends who in turn help him through both the battle of self-discover and the battle for his life with Lynda. So if there’s any take away, perhaps its that sometimes the family you’re born with sucks and it doesn’t hurt to rely a little more on the family you choose for yourself, your friends.

(Laura8759)

If you could, would you make any changes to your book or series?

(Connor)

I could and I definitely will before it is finally published. There are certainly some improvements to be made to the pacing and overall conciseness in my mind. It’s still a while away from being ready for publication, but I am still proud of where it is now.

(Laura8759)

If your book got turned into a movie, who would you want to star in it?

(Connor)

I think I’d prefer of unknown actors were in it. I like the idea of newbies being discovered and getting to really show their chops on an original property rather than millionaire actors who’ve already been in the spotlight getting it again. So if there was a movie of Loony Lynda, it would probably star someone no one has ever heard of.

(Laura8759)

What is your thought on outlines for stories/books?

(Connor)

I don’t really use outlines. I’m a much more go-with-the-flow style writer. I find that when I use an outline I get far too caught up in the outline that I can’t ever really get to the story and the book never gets written. I get too caught up in the way things are supposed to be according to the outline that it almost feels like I’m limiting or restricting myself when I use an outline. Of course, the drawback to not using an outline is that sometimes it take a few extra drafts to get everything right. When I write its almost like improv that I then have to pay for by going back and fixing all the fumbles and mistakes I made as I was going. For me that really helps get the first and most important draft done, but I usually spend ages on subsequent drafts to get the story just right.

(Laura8759)

Paper, computer or typewriter what do you write your story on?

(Connor)

Computer. I do all my writing in Microsoft Word. Makes things easier to organize, maintain, and send out when it’s ready.

(Laura8759)

What was the last book you read?

(Connor)

I recently read Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell and really enjoyed it. A fun, creepy read that definitely managed to keep me turning pages. Another I highly suggest is A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill.

(Finale question)

(Laura8759)

Current book you're reading?

(Connor)

I’m currently reading Dune for the first time. It’s a beast of a book and I’ve been enjoying it so far, though it isn’t my absolute favorite. I’m looking forward to seeing the new movie though.

(Laura)

Any social media pages our very few readers can find you at and were they can buy your books

(Connor)

Well, you can’t buy my books yet, but you can follow me on Twitter @heumillerc.

#books #reader #read #reading #bookreviewer #betareader #interview #QandA #horror

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cherrygeek · 9 months

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SDCC-CHERRY THE GEEK TV INTERVIEW- JEFF BERGMAN LOOKS BACK AT ANIMATION HISTORY IN "LOONEY LEGENDS IN CONVERSATION"

Voice actor Jeff Bergman was at Comic-Con International in San Diego last week and stopped by Cherry the Geek TV to talk about his new documentary special Looney Legends in Conversation, where he sits down with Noel Blanc, the son of legendary voice artist Mel Blanc, as they talk about the history of voice acting, cartoon characters, the art of creating character voices, stories from childhood,…

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#Cherry The Geek TV #Comic-Con #Fred Flintstone #Jeff Bergman #Looney Legends in Conversation #Looney Tunes #Noel Blanc #San Diego Comic Con #SDCC #SDCC 2023 #SDCC23 #Yogi Bear #Yosemite Sam

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epacer · 4 years

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Story You May Have Missed

How San Diego can you get?!

Graduate of San Diego's Will C. Crawford High School, founding committee member of the San Diego Comic-Con, one of Jack Kirby's San Diego Five String Mob, and leader of Dr. Raoul Duke and His All-Human Orchestra, may I present my brainy professor pal -- Roger Freedman!!! Scott Shaw post

Roger Freedman, Class of 1969

UCSB professor recalls early days of San Diego’s premiere event

COMIC-CON 2019: PROFESSOR DOUBLES AS A COMIC BOOK HERO

You may know Roger Freedman as a professor of physics at UCSB. Look again.

On Page 8 of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen 144 (1971), Dr. Freedman, with his long red hair and glasses, is standing with the San Diego Five String Mob, as the Guardian and Superman look on. “Dig those weird instruments they play!” Terry Dean tells the superheroes.

Little do the trio know that Dr. Freedman and his friends are actually in league with one of DC Comics’ most powerful villains – Darkseid! Egads!

Dr. Freedman became immortal in DC Comics canon because of someone he met at the first San Diego Comic-Con: the legendary Jack Kirby.

Mr. Kirby (1917-1994) co-created Marvel Comics’ Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, Fantastic Four, and later created DC Comics’ Fourth World stories, which featured Darkseid and his fiery world Apokolips.

From the start, San Diego Comic-Con had big names, even if the first convention only had 300 or so people attending, a modest dealers room with card tables and comics books and movie posters for sale, and only one room with speakers and movies.

“You didn’t see the multi-media stuff you see today,” Dr. Freedman, 66, told the News-Press last week in a meeting room at UCSB Broida Hall.

The first convention, then called San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con, took place Aug. 1-3 at the U.S. Grant Hotel, and tickets cost $3.50 for three days.

Fans got their money’s worth. Besides Mr. Kirby, the first convention featured legendary sci-fi authors Ray Bradbury and A.E. Van Gogt, Dr. Freedman, 66, said. “That really impressed me.”

Earlier this month, Dr. Freedman spoke on panels about the convention’s history and the science of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” at Comic-Con International: San Diego – specifically the 50th San Diego Comic-Con.

It has grown exponentially from what Dr. Freedman experienced that first year.

Around 130,000 fans, many of them dressed as superheroes and villains and characters from other realms of fantasy and animation, walked around a convention that has grown beyond the San Diego Convention Center and taken over nearby hotels and the downtown historic Gaslamp Quarter.

Fans often wait for many hours to see the latest stars, especially in Ballroom 20 or Hall H, which seats 6,500 fans. There’s a long history of fans camping out overnight in grassy areas and parks to get into Hall H, where this year Sir Patrick Stewart talked about reprising his famous “The Next Generation” character in the upcoming “Star Trek: Picard” series on CBS All Access.

Only Mr. Kirby knew how big San Diego Comic-Con would get, Dr. Freedman recalled.

“Jack made the comment, ‘Some day everything is going to be at this convention. All the TV studios are going to be here. All the media is going to be here,’ ” Dr. Freedman said, recalling a story he heard from comic book and TV writer Mark Evanier. “”Mark’s response was, ‘Sure, Jack, whatever you say. Let’s go get lunch.’

“Jack was exactly right,” Dr. Freedman said.

The lifelong sci-fi fan recalled how much easier it was to get an autograph or talk with a star in those early years.

“You would see these guys sitting around the table or around the pool. You would say, ‘Hey, Jack, can you sign this book for me?’ ‘What was it like working with Stan Lee?’ ” Dr. Freedman said. “We didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that.”

Dr. Freedman and his friends chatted with Mr. Kirby at the first San Diego Comic-Con, and convention founder Shel Dorf later called Mr. Kirby to ask if they could visit him at his Thousand Oaks home. The DC and Marvel Comics legend said that would be fine, and Dr. Freedman recalled one conversation in particular with Mr. Kirby.

“Jack said, ‘I can put anybody in a comic book,'” Dr. Freedman said. “Someone said, ‘How about us, Jack?'”

Mr. Kirby found a way with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen 144.

“It’s us and Darkseid against Superman,” Dr. Freedman said. “I’m actually part of the DC universe.”

Dr. Freedman skipped San Diego Comic-Con in 1971 when it was at UC San Diego, but returned in 1972 and worked on the con’s program book when the event was at El Cortez Hotel. Besides Mr. Kirby, the special guests included Marvel Comics editor Roy Thomas and Looney Tunes cartoons director Bob Clampett.

Dr. Freedman said his first participation in the masquerade, the Comic-Con event that has grown into elaborate skits with effects and fans in impressive costumes, came in 1974. As an alternative to all the “Star Trek” fans at Comic-Con, he and his friends promoted fandom for “Gilligan’s Island” and went on stage to perform the 1960s CBS show’s theme song, complete with a prop for the line, “The tiny ship was tossed.”

“I had a plastic boat I threw into the audience,” Dr. Freedman said.

“For a while, I was the lead singer of a band that was only at Comic-Con. It was Dr. Raoul Duke and His All Human Orchestra,” Dr. Freedman said. “Dr. Raoul Duke” was a pseudonym for journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson.

Dr. Freedman said Comic-Con grew quickly in the 1970s, thanks to San Diego’s proximity to sci-fi authors and comic book talent and its draw as a vacation destination for the New York City-based comic books industry.

“I can tell you exactly where things got to get big, when the transition started from the original Comic-Con to today,” he said. “It was 1976 when there were 2,000 to 3,000 attendees. The word started getting out to Hollywood types that Comic-Con existed. They thought, ‘We have this movie coming out next year. We think people might be interested in it.’ “

The film was “Star Wars” (1977).

Behind-the-scenes crew sold promotional merchandise at a card table in the dealers room, Dr. Freedman said.

“If I had been smart, I would have bought every sticker and poster (in the dealers room),” he said. “I would be selling them now, and we would be having this conversation on my yacht. But I didn’t, so we’re not.”

Dr. Freedman, who earned his doctorate in physics in 1978 at Stanford University and became a teaching professor of physics in 1983 at UCSB (following a two-year post-doctoral program), continued to attend Comic-Con until the mid-1980s.

When he returned in 2009 for the 40th Comic-Con, he was surprised.

“I was pretty amazed by how large it had gotten,” he said. “I had heard second-hand, but I was pretty amazed by how large it had gotten. It was like 40 of the Comics Cons I remember happening simultaneously in the same room, which was awesome.”

Mr. Freedman, who came back in 2010 and this year, sees the future for San Diego Comic-Con as secure.

“The number of people who want to get in exceeds the number of people get in. It’s up there with Coachella or Burning Man tickets.” *Reposted article from Santa Barbara News-Press by Dave Mason of July 28, 2019.

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alifeincouches · 5 years

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Fishing

On average, I fall in love at least 10 times a day. One might assume that falling in love that often is absurd. It is. One might also assume it would be exhausting. Most def. In reality, the falling part isn’t all that tiring, it’s quite the opposite. Every time a stranger smiles at me, I become instantly flush, giddy, and bug-eyed with enthusiasm! Then my enthusiasm is typically met with broken eye-contact and regret from the recipient.

Rejection is exhausting.

I once had an English teacher tell me that I should feel empowered by rejection! Like, what? He said that, “rejection is a conclusion, which is something we so rarely get in this life. Feel empowered because you took a chance, you put yourself out there and got an answer. It might not have been the answer you were hoping for but you got one, and that’s something!”

That’s something.

I suppose he’s kind of right. We so often get nothing at all, especially in the modern dating world. From ghosting, to thinly veiled “u up?” texts, we’re all swimming in an endless sea of weird emotional ambiguity. The deepest and darkest of these waters lie in online dating. I mean, Tinder alone has given me nightmares. But really. I’ve seen more dead animals in the last couple months, than I ever anticipated seeing in my entire life! I saw one man who had a normal enough opening photo, just him like standing in a field. Then his next photo was him in a nice suit, followed up by his final photo which was him taking a selfie holding a bunch of knives in front of his face! That’s obviously a murderer, right?

Nightmares.

Okay, I am aware that Tinder is not the most respectable place to go looking for love. I should have expected frightening creatures from the deep to appear with any given swipe, but love exists even in the darkest abyss. How rude is that? I know several fantastic people who have found love on Tinder. That fact is what enticed me to try it, but these people are the exceptions to the rule. The rule being that most people are the worst. Knowing this, I still ventured into other online dating pools, and unsurprisingly have exclusively found variations on the theme of gross. Next up was Bumble, which is very progressive in that women have to start the conversation! Finally, someone had the wild idea that women have a power of will!

Do you want to know my opening line? Yeah you do, it’s: “What’s your jam? Mine is space.”

Do you get it? I think it’s pretty good. In the rare case you don’t, I really love Space Jam. In the even rarer case you don’t know what Space Jam is, it’s a beautiful film starring basketball legend Michael Jordan, and the Looney Tunes. They join forces to defeat a group of evil aliens in a wacky basketball game, and Bill Murray is there too. So, yeah, it’s a strong opening line. It tells you what my priorities are in life, which are obviously comedy and great artistic works. It also sets up the opportunity for a riveting discussion. Most of the time I didn’t get a reply back. When I did, the answer was almost always: strawberry.

Finally, I waded into the waters of OkCupid. I was told this is where you went if you were serious about dating. Right off the bat, I was intimidated. You have to write essays and answer a ton of questions about yourself, and what you think your ideal partner would be like. Doing all that helped me figure out that my ideal partner would most likely not be using a dating site. They would be alone in their home watching Wes Anderson films, and journaling with their dog. Really, my ideal partner is Elijah Wood. Once I figured that out I decided to just throw caution to the wind, and put it all out there. I came up with a new goal. I was going to try and get catfished so I could be on that MTV show. I thought it was a pretty solid idea, and right away I met the perfect guy! After only a few hours with my interest parameters set to anywhere, and down for anything, a grade A cutie slid into my messages. His name was Kyle. He was a 23 years old currently living in L.A., but was originally from New Zealand. Then, to top it all off, he worked for SpaceX. Yeah, like that SpaceX! Jackpot, right? He even had an interesting opening line! Well, it was more like a little paragraph. His first message to me was,

“I could comment on your looks, because I find you absolutely beautiful, but that’s too easy. I’d rather comment on the fact that you seem like a really interesting person. You’ve lived a storied life, haven’t you?”

I was hooked. Day 1 we sent over a hundred messages back and forth before we finally upgraded to phone conversation on Day 2. His accent alone made me forget how entirely impractical a relationship would be. To top it all off, he was funny. Not nearly as funny as me, but still, pretty funny! On Day 3 we decided to have a Skype date, which was surprising at first, but I’ve seen every episode of Catfish and have learned that someone can look like their picture and still lie about everything else. So I remained cautious and prepared for disappointment. When that light blue screen faded into the man I’d been staring at in pictures for days, my brain fully tapped out. Basic sentence structure was long gone. At first I just giggled a lot and made vaguely affirming noises in response to his questions about which movie we should watch. I finally got it together enough to suggest we watch The Incredible Jessica James. I thought it was a good choice because it’s about a dope queen who dates a cute man with a fun accent, and that seemed too relevant to pass up.

We had a great time, and made plans to do it again the next day. I even found out that he really did work for SpaceX, his picture and bio were on their website. He was exactly who he said he was. Now, this is the part of the story when reality finally sets in. My brain got around to letting my heart know that this relationship wasn’t sustainable. On Day 4 he offered to fly across the country to hangout for the weekend.

That hella freaked me out.

In my opinion, I think I was justified in my reaction, but he didn’t feel the same way. His reaction was very similar to other guys I’ve said no to. He got mean. He brought up my weight, and said that I should feel grateful that he would even be interested in me. I hope you find that shocking, and aren’t like me, who is used to that experience. Though I may be used to it, I know it’s some straight bullshit. I’m a dope ass queen he was lucky to know, and now I’ve learned some things too.

I cast my net too wide, got tangled, and now I’m here.

Still very much alone.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that everyone will not find me to be a catch and a half. I’m a confident, loud, funny fat girl, and that can cause some people to quake in there lil’ fishing boots. I suppose it’s for the best, really. If I was admired as much as I admire, my heart would implode. At least with rejection, you bounce back, catch another smile, and do it all again. It’s not all that hard when you know you’ve got, at minimum, another 9 opportunities today.

#online #monologue #writing #dating #comedy #body positive #fat girl

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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Smallfoot

“Smallfoot” is an animated musical about…totalitarianism?

This may sound like a wildly contradictory concept. But the family-friendly film from director and co-writer Karey Kirkpatrick (“Over the Hedge”) and co-director Jason Reisig is surprising in its forward-thinking foundation. If only the dialogue and visuals matched the daring of its ideology.

Among the multiple screenwriters is the team of John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, who’ve shaken things up in the past most notably with the influential “Bad Santa.” “Smallfoot” urges kids to think for themselves. To question what they’ve been taught. To challenge authority. It takes place in a mountaintop society of yetis where the rules are literally etched in stone and must be followed for fear of banishment. “Smallfoot” could be viewed as a statement on the restrictive nature of government, religion or both. It’s a bold and exciting thematic choice for a film aimed at mainstream audiences of all ages.

Ah, but there’s the problem. “Smallfoot” IS aimed at mainstream audiences of all ages, meaning it must be palatable on a mass scale. And so the look of the film is blandly pleasing, and the antics have a familiar “Looney Tunes” squash-and-stretch aesthetic, and the songs are reminiscent of ones you’ve heard in previously successful animated movies. The opening sequence is pretty much a beat-for-beat recreation of the joyous “Everything Is Awesome” at the beginning of “The LEGO Movie” (although the song that accompanies it is not nearly as insanely catchy). Later, upbeat chase music throughout calls to mind the perky score of the “Despicable Me” movies.

Channing Tatum lends his voice to a sunny, furry beast named Migo, who’s essentially a yeti version of Chris Pratt’s LEGO construction worker, Emmet. He begins his day in a cheery way, being psyched about mundane stuff and joining his neighbors in a tune about how “we like living this way.” Migo’s dad, Dorgle (Danny DeVito), has the responsibility of starting each day for the village by summoning the giant, orange snail that travels across the sky; he does this by slingshotting himself through the air and hitting a gong with his head. (You may know this better as the sun rising.)

Everyone performs his or her job and stays in his or her place. Do as you’re told, blend in and always follow the stones: Those are among the chief guiding beliefs in this society. The leader of them all is the seemingly benevolent Stonekeeper (Common), who wears the rules as a massive vestment made of individually carved rocks. Any knowledge of the outside world comes in scattered and confusing pieces; a roll of toilet paper is mistaken as “The Scroll of Invisible Wisdom,” a ski pole is a horn and a down jacket is a pelt. It’s another rip-off of “The LEGO Movie”: taking everyday household items and making them seem mysterious.

But one day, when he wanders astray, Migo encounters a Smallfoot—a human who has crashed his plane and landed in the snow-capped mountains near the yetis’ home. Each has heard legends about the other; each is terrified of the other. One of the movie’s more consistently amusing bits is the distorted way each hears the other’s voice. The yeti comes off as gruff and growly when he’s really just trying to have a pleasant conversation; the human, by contrast, is squeaky and skittery when he’s trying to be calm and cool.

Meanwhile, down below in a town at the foot of the Himalayas, wildlife TV host Percy (James Corden) desperately tries to salvage his career by faking a confrontation with a yeti. But he doesn’t have to pretend for long when Migo shows up, following his newfound curiosity. From there, “Smallfoot” tracks the unlikely friendship between the two, and the ways in which it expands both characters’ understanding. (Unfortunately, this includes a wrong-headed, rap-karaoke version of Queen and David Bowie’s iconic “Under Pressure.”)

Also along to help expand Migo’s horizons is the Stonekeeper’s daughter, Meechee (Zendaya), a strong-willed, scientifically-minded young woman who’s secretly been daring to think for herself all along. And burgeoning actor/sometime basketball player LeBron James lends his voice to the character of Gwangi, a hulking, purple-hued beast with a heart of gold. But most of the characters have a shaggy sameness to them in drab shades of cream and blue, and they’re stuck saying variations of the same lines over and over.

But what’s exciting about “Smallfoot” is the way its characters increasingly push against what they’ve been told is true their whole lives—even if the lies were concocted to protect them. The Stonekeeper’s immediate reaction upon seeing a human with his own eyes is to deny, deny, deny. He refutes the scientific evidence that’s right in front of him. The Smallfoot is #FakeNews.

All of which makes this superficially sweet film so startlingly relevant. If only it had more panache in the execution—then everything truly would have been awesome.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2N3HL9B

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biofunmy · 5 years

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‘People Were Bleeding All Over’: America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park

Amusement parks are designed to deliver thrills. They are places for splashing and screaming and laughing, often on rides that defy common sense, not to mention the laws of physics.

But a park in New Jersey routinely delivered a lot worse — bloody noses, bruises, broken teeth and bones, concussions and even death. People who spent a day at Action Park in its prime, in the 1980s and 1990s, often left with something to show for it: scars.

“People were bleeding all over the place,” said Susie McKeown, who is now 52 and remembers going to Action Park after she graduated from high school more than 30 years ago. “People were walking around the park with scraped elbows or knees.’’

She went home with her own badge of honor, having broken one of her front teeth on a ride that ended with a 15- or 20-foot plunge into a chilly pond. “You went so fast that if your chin hit the water at the wrong angle, you chipped your teeth,” she said.

She is hardly alone, as far as injuries go — or memories. Sports Illustrated recently published a 3,300-word article under the headline, “Remembering Action Park, America’s Most Dangerous, Daring Water Park.”

And in 2014, Cory Booker, a United States senator from New Jersey and a Democratic presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter, “I’ve got stories 2 tell.”

Now a documentary is on the way. Its title is “Class Action Park,” a reference to one of the many nicknames for Action Park. The park, about 50 miles northwest of New York City in Vernon, N.J., was long ago replaced by a far tamer destination, with different owners and a new name, Mountain Creek Water Park.

Action Park “was funny, it was weird, it was hysterical, but there was a darkness to it,” said Seth Porges, who made the documentary with Chris Charles Scott.

“People got hurt there. The hardest part of making this movie was: How do you portray that? A lot of people look back fondly on it as a coming-of-age experience. How do you reconcile the fun of it with the human toll?”

Mr. Porges’s parents put Action Park on their vacation itinerary when he was a teenager growing up in Bethesda, Md. “I have these memories of impossible machines, water slides that seemed like they came from a Looney Tunes cartoon and this crazed atmosphere of chaos,” he said.

He also remembers the way Action Park promoted itself in the 80s and 90s. “The ads portrayed the place as a family-friendly, wholesome, great place to bring your kids,” he said. “You’d get there and realize the reality of the situation was anything but.”

The website WeirdNJ said two of the touchstones of growing up in New Jersey were being able to name all the places in the opening montage of “The Sopranos” and being seriously injured at Action Park. At least 14 broken bones and 26 head injuries were reported in 1984 and 1985. Action Park eventually bought the town new ambulances to handle trips to hospitals.

But there were deaths at Action Park: six between 1978, when it opened, and 1996, when it closed. (It reopened under different owners a few years later, only to close and reopen again.) Two deaths occurred within a single week in 1982. One victim was a 15-year-old boy who drowned in the notorious Tidal Wave Pool. The other was a 27-year-old man who was electrocuted on a ride called Kayak Experience.

“There was virtually no action taken against” Action Park, said Mr. Porges, the filmmaker. “Eventually it shut down, not because of some regulator who said ‘You’re through.’ But because it went bankrupt.” (The state Labor Department found no violations in the kayak case, but said that electric current from an underwater fan could have caused serious bodily injury.)

Mr. Porges, a former editor at Maxim and Popular Mechanics magazines who has a degree in journalism, saw Action Park as a good story. “I’m a journalist by trade,” he said. “I realized this is a great opportunity to apply my trade, so we began to dig. The true story of Action Park — it’s weirder and crazier than the legend.”

But it is the nostalgia-tinted legend that remains in people’s memories. Alison Becker, 42, an actress and writer best known for a recurring role on the sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” said the risks at Action Park were part of the appeal. She said she had gone to Six Flags Great Adventure, which is also in New Jersey, and nothing equaled the fear factor at Action Park.

“You know the scene in ‘Footloose’ where they’re playing a game of chicken with tractors and going at each other?” said Ms. Becker, who grew up about 30 miles from Action Park in Allamuchy Township. “Most people look at that and say, ‘What dumb kids.’ I look at it and say, ‘That’s like a day at Action Park. They could’ve charged an extra five for that, and we would have paid it.”

Action Park was so notorious that there are stories about a test dummy that was sent through a ride before it opened. The dummy came out missing something — its head, in some versions; a leg or an arm in others.

Andy Mulvihill, 56, the son of Action Park’s longtime owner, said the tale about the dummy’s head was true. He said he knows this because he was there. He was the first person to go on that ride, he said, after the dummy came out decapitated.

“I was wearing my hockey equipment when I did it,” he said. Speed was essential. “If you didn’t have enough speed,” Mr. Mulvihill said, “you’d fall and smash your face, and if you smashed hard enough, you could break your nose or knock out some teeth.”

He said that ride was open for only a few weeks at a time. “Generally, the rides were very tame,” he said. “But there were some where you controlled the speed and the action, and if you were reckless, you could get hurt.”

Action Park was created by Andy Mulvihill’s father Eugene, whom Mr. Porges described as a “showman-huckster businessman, a mixture of P.T. Barnum and Walt Disney, with a little bit of Trump.”

Andy Mulvihill said “the intent certainly was not to make it dangerous.”

He also said the deaths did not deter his father, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to insurance policies in 1984 and whom the Securities and Exchange Commission banned from the securities business in 1986.

“He didn’t build Action Park just to make money,” Mr. Porges said.

Nor did he “build Action Park just to break rules,” he said. “He really wanted to create an incredibly fun place. He had a vision for the most fun place in the world, unhindered by common sense or safety. A lot of people romanticize it about him and the park. They say there are too many rules now, too much regulation, stuff used to be fun. Yeah, stuff used to be fun — if you survived.”

Andy Mulvihill called the deaths at Action Park “devastating to me.”

But he added, “three of those deaths were drownings. We pulled out thousands and thousands of people who were people who had no business in the water.’’

And yet, it was exhilarating. For some, the conversation in the car on the way there “was about who’s going to do this, who’s going to do that, who do you think is going to get hurt,” recalled Kris Brennan, who is now 45 and lives in Westfield. “It wasn’t ‘If someone gets hurt,’ it was ‘Who’s going to get hurt?’”

Mr. Brennan had “a chunk of skin taken out of my hip” on the 2,700-foot-long Alpine Slide.

“Class Action Park” will probably bring on a flood of memories. But Andy Mulvihill is looking to tell the story his way, and next summer Penguin Books will publish “Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park.”

He said it was “nonfiction for sure,” even if it read like fiction.

“When you do something as crazy, as cutting-edge” as Action Park, he said, “and you put it in the metro New York area, where New Yorkers are pretty much crazy anyway, you have stories.”

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

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omgnsfwisnsfw-blog · 5 years

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NSFW #16: Volsung’s Folly

The hour was early. A thick patch of mist surrounded Mountain Springs Lake and the trees bordering the banks, giving the place an almost mystical feel. At the end of the wooden dock, a boat bobbed- while done in the fashion of a Viking longboat, it was neither adorned nor intricately carved. The more peculiar part was the boat’s contents- a pair of large, curious raised shapes covered in a royal purple and forest green banner, two pairs of wrestling boots protruding from beneath it. There was no sound but the soft splashing of water at the lakeshore, the nearly imperceptible creak of the thick rope holding the boat in place… and softly, but growing louder, the marching cadence of feet on soil. Twelve souls came first, in two rows of six apiece, faces streaked in viridian and ochre, clad from head to toe in furs and mail and steel, the men wearing great horned helms and wielding greataxes, the women in winged headgear bearing round shields and short swords. The two at the front of each procession carried torches, which they planted on poles on either side of the dock’s end, flanking the docked boat. That done, they stood at the edges of the wooden platform, facing each other in pairs. A moment passed. In synchrony, the wild-looking warriors turned their heads to the path whence they came. The head of their company approached, first preceded by their bannermen- two masculine figures, one burly and one slight. Their outside hands carried flags- a blazing orange phoenix on a field of green- and between them, a wooden chest with trim and lock of bronze. This was carried to the end of the dock and sat down, the bannermen taking their places at the end of the line of warriors. Only then did the leaders of this procession make their way to the end, the axemen and shieldmaidens letting out a fierce but respectful cheer. Their armor was leather and studded with iron, furs wrapped around their shoulders and capes in their respective colors billowing behind. Belts of gold, the symbols of their position, were fastened about their waists, and runed bronze circlets rested on their heads, one adorned with an emerald and the other with a fiery topaz. The smaller of them carried a greatsword about two thirds her size, the larger a massive shield with the same stylized phoenix on a green field that appeared on the bannermen’s flags. There was a seventeenth member of the company- a lithe but strong armed looking fellow in light leather armor, carrying a quiver of arrows and a longbow, but he hung back for the time being, sharp eyes observing the proceedings. Nobody smiled or joked- after all, this was a solemn occasion. Mike McGuire spoke first. “Y’know, we’ve been doing a lot of reading. Well, my partner here always does a lot of reading, but I digress. We’ve been reading up on some Norse lore- y’know, fuckin’ Viking stuff. It’s good reads, really engaging. Everybody’s always gettin’ tanked on mead or gettin’ in fights, which frankly is my kinda reading material. But I had no idea it’d be as educational as it was, especially when it comes to the guys our opponents were named after.” John Bishop Church came in next. “Völsung Death Squad. What a powerful name. It carries a heavy meaning. But what did it mean to them?” He gestured vaguely towards the longboat. “A name to instill fear into their victims. Or maybe just a name to plaster across t-shirts.” The two share a look. John continued. “Masterson. Lovecraft. When Mike and I saw their names opposite ours - we got excited.” “Yeah. I mean, anybody who ran with our friend and legit fucking badass Sarah Roberts was bound to be good for a nice, challenging fight.” John stepped forward. The soles of his boots creaked on the wooden planks of the dock. “People think of a legendary Norse clan and their minds race to their courageous exploits. And maybe one could derive that from the Völsunga Saga. That story was wrought with tragedy. And it all could have been avoided. Like these two, they didn’t listen.” Another step towards the chest. “Völsung was greedy and agreed to wed off his daughter Signy to the king of Gothland, Siggeir. And against his daughter’s warnings of treachery and betrayal, they wed. And despite them nearly coming to blows over Odin’s trickery involving a magic sword, Völsung went head first in battle - and died. And all of his many sons? They were eaten alive one by one at the mercy of a she-wolf. Except one. Sigmund. He lasted a little while longer. Got some revenge even. Until he thought he could kill Odin. Then he died, too. After all of that blustering. After all of those adventures. Even with the aid of their magics, the Völsung clan died when they could have lived.” “Sound and fury signifying fuckin’ nothing. Kind of a shaggy dog story in the end, and I ain’t talking about that wolf. And all over a treasure that Völsung and his clan just couldn’t leave alone.” Mike strode at her partner’s side, her steps long to match her larger partner’s pace. The flanking warriors nodded at their passing as they approached the end of the dock, the chest, and the boat bobbing in the lake. She paused, looking directly into the camera, cocking an eyebrow. “Y’know, considering the Völsung clan’s, er… proclivities, I sure’s fuck hope those two weren’t related.” John cast her a sidelong glance. “They weren’t.” “Good, cuz that woulda been weird. Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah. It was all so goddamn unnecessary. One could argue that Odin was being a giant troll and knew exactly how things were going to play out, but still. Völsung and his family could’ve easily defied their sad fuckin’ fate just by saying that a fancy sword wasn’t worth it, no matter who stuck it in a tree.” “A sad fate, indeed. Like these poor fellows. Let’s pretend that these fallen warriors in front of us are indeed ancestors of this long forgotten clan. We had such high hopes for them. They made sweeping proclamations. Competition. Our eyes lit up with exhilaration as we witnessed the arrival of two men who could be our greatest challenge to date.” John sighed. “But what we saw instead was their untimely demise. Falling to the allure of a fruit-filled conspiracy. There was false hope when we saw them dismantle The Syndicate. But whohasn’t? They weren’t who we were hoping for.” “Not at all. How in the name of Fenris’ giant goddamn teeth were we supposed to expect a challenge from a pair of so-called warriors who couldn’t even crush a couple of looney-tunes melonheads? I mean it’s not like they didn’t put up a decent fight, but we’ve had enough of ‘decent’ fights. We weren’t sold on ‘decent’. We came for something we could talk about in Valhalla. Something that we could be proud we took part in, win or lose. How the fuck could we be proud of losing to the sloppy seconds of the motherfucking Melon Club?” Mike rested her forehead on the end of her giant sword, sighing in obvious disappointment. “With that said, we are willing to look past that. We are going to give them a proper send-off. Worthy of their status. Honoring their memory. Celebrating their accomplishments.” Church went towards the chest. He retrieved a keyring from his belt and held up one bronzed key. A sun ray peeked through the mist and caught on the key. He knelt and unlocked the chest, flipping the lid backwards. He rummaged through the contents and picked out two familiar looking championships. New England Championship Wrestling Tag Team Champions. Replicas or not, they were convincing. He hefted one to Mike and then got to his feet. “These right here represent just what they were capable of. Champions in their own right. Four hundred forty five days. Legends say they never lost them. And then one day, a man tempted them with greater fortunes. And they forfeited these. They traded their greatest achievement for a chance to step foot in the best tag team division in the world. Their avarice blinded them to the reality that this silver tongued man had failed long ago and only sought to attach his name to theirs. Like an albatross, he hung around their necks and dragged them down to the depths of his mediocrity.” Mike nodded. “They didn’t need him. Never did. Sarah didn’t and she’s doing fantastic for herself. She beats the fuck out of who needs beaten the fuck out of and doesn’t need any little weasel telling her how, what, where, or fuckin’ when. They shoulda followed her example. Pity.” She tisked, shaking her head and looking at the belt in her hands before dropping it into the boat atop the banner, Bishop following suit. “Just in case any of you’re confused out there, Faithful, the Death Squad ain’t fuckin’ dead. This is all symbolic and shit.” “And this upcoming match? Believe us, we’re looking forward to it. Maybe not as much as before. But still. We’re aware of the ramifications of this match. We would rather have something more up for grabs. But, that’s a conversation for Monday. Lovecraft and Masterson. They’re bigger than us. Stronger than us. More time put in than us as a unit. They came into this company and looked past us. Tore down the very teams that outwitted them and said that these...” He tapped the front plate of his Tag Team championship. “...were theirs.” “And some could be pithy and say ‘didn’t you guys do the same thing?’ No. When we said it, the belts were in the mitts of one guy who I’m pretty sure has to double check to make sure he puts his underwear on the right way. When we came here, the division was in sorry fuckin’ shape, and I don’t wanna say we fixed it ourselves, but we pretty much fixed it ourselves. We earned the right to lay claim to these. We earned the right to fight and win and defend them. This division, these titles... despite some fuckin’ smirking degenerate’s claims, they mean the goddamn world to us. You don’t get to barge in outta nowhere with your snakey little puppeteer and claim what belongs to us without so much as a by your leave from the fuckin’ kings.” The warriors tamped the ends of their greataxes against the wooden planks, the shieldmaidens smacking their swords against their shields, letting out the same barking cry they did when NSFW first appeared at the dock. “Honor us and we would have honored you. Just think about it. NSFW versus nearly six hundred pounds of monstrous power. Not a militant group of proud boys. Not a dubious pairing that was never meant to last. Not mindless mercenaries. Not just for fun. And no worshipping of the lesser gods. No. A real legitimate tag team. Challengers to our championships. That’s what we want to see in the Völsung Death Squad.” “That’s right. We want a good hard fight. Something that we, you, and everybody who sees it won’t ever fuckin’ forget. Because that’s what we’re about. ‘NSFW vs. The Tag Division’ wasn’t just a cute title on an award. That’s what we do. We take on any and all comers, friend or foe, who want to try and take the throne. Over and over, people come for these crowns, and over and over, we still reign supreme.” John unsheathed a dagger from his belt and slashed at the rope binding the boat to the moor. Mike planted her boot into the hull and kicked the boat further into the lake. The mist by this time had began to clear. Sunlight shimmered upon the water on this cold day. “Mike, these two have been gifted a great opportunity. And right now, we are going to absolve them of their past shortcomings. In moments, their legacy, tainted by a pretender, will be burned away and they may start anew.” “People can say what they will. This division is one of the crown jewels of this company. We’re Not Second Fiddle Warriors, we’re as worthy fucking champions as anyone. And we expect you to be just as worthy contenders. Learn from your goddamn namesakes and earn your place in Valhalla.” Turning her head back behind them, Mike nods briefly before looking back towards the longboat. It floated out a ways away, and as it did, the archer made his way out, the gathering of warriors, shieldmaidens, and bannermen stomping their weapons and letting out the rhythmic, barking chant, anticipating what was to come. Stepping back, NSFW gave him plenty of room as he lit an arrow in one of the torches, nocked it, and let it fly. The arrow landed perfectly on the drifting boat, setting it ablaze, the morning sun and the rising fire staining the shimmering water a vivid display of oranges and yellows. Letting out one last cheer, the gathered throng of warriors and their kings watched the burning vessel sail across the lake.

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