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#They should/could have played brothers in a film but…don't think it has happened so far?
don-dake · 2 years
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Rufus Sewell in The Illusionist (2006)
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synergysilhouette · 2 months
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"A Wish to the Stars" (Aion solo; possibly just a draft)
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Finally making significant progress on Act I of my "Wish" rewrite, and I realized I was neglecting something that "Wish" did as well: the friend group! Who are the Dreamers? What are their wishes? How does it motivate them throughout the film? Here's the answer to one of them. Introducing Aion, a Native American-inspired young man who lost his brother to magic and fears Talia will lose to it if he's not careful. He tries to keep up a bubbly attitude (most similar to Dario from the Teens), often using sign-language since the aforementioned trauma has him rarely speaking. Despite my commitment with Talia/Anselm's romance, I wanted our star to make friends with other characters as well, and the Dreamers are the perfect group. Check out the song I wrote for Aion's first encounter with Anselm (or rather, his energy; I do like the idea that he vocalizes similar to the voice in "Frozen 2"), and just how much he's been holding in. However, in reference to the last part of my title, I'm not sure about this song just yet. I kinda think I should go for something more theatrical; a lot of the time when I write these songs, it flows naturally, but perhaps that's too easy...And while I made a post about the characters before, maybe I should do a new one. Whaddya think?
(Verse 1)
You know I always believed in fairy tales.
A dream's a wish your heart makes.
You told me everything happens for a reason,
But what happened was a mistake.
You were incredible,
Talented, unforgettable,
So why did your story end?
"Let it go,
Forget it,"
But I still regret it,
It's the same as playing pretend.
(Chorus)
So I
I make a wish to the stars
That you can hear me
That you'll return to this world,
I miss you dearly!
If I lost my voice for real,
Could you return? That's the deal.
I would trade every part of me
So you could change the way I feel!
(Verse 2)
(Shuddering breath)
You know, they cleaned up your room
We don't talk about you now.
I can't say much of anything
I keep my feelings down.
But if I go the distance
Can I restore your existence
Find you in an endless sky?
"Be prepared,
You're almost there,"
When should I not care?
Your place in my heart won't die.
(Chorus)
So I
I make a wish to the stars
That you will return
That you'll ruffle my hair
And ease my concerns!
Second star to the right
Is that where you are tonight?
I feel a darkness moving in
Can you send me some of your light?
(Bridge)
Can I still chase after you?
I can't can't keep up.
Busy trying to fill your shoes
Please don't leave me behind,
I still got more of my heart to lose!
When will I start healing,
Stop this aching feeling?
The stars are gleaming, but I can't tell
What are they revealing?
(Chorus)
So I
I make a wish to the stars
'Cause that's all I've got!
Yes I have friends and family,
But to keep them, what is the cost?
How far will I go to face this danger,
To let out my anger?
And if I got you back, it's been so long,
Can I be healed by a stranger?
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thebonerpit · 4 months
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Idk if anyone follows my posts enough to even notice this but you may have seen me talking about a lot of new things I've watched so far this year, both tv and film. I kind of made a mini resolution to do this because I found, especially at the end of 2023, that I was stuck in a rut of either rewatching old things or mindlessly flipping through YouTube videos I had little to no interest in. There's so much media out there I'm interested in and now I feel almost reinvigorated to go through it and I've been having a blast.
Most of the time I'll probably just reblog a gifset or two with thoughts in the tags but I finally watched the Interview with the Vampire tv show and I have FEELINGS (mostly good)! Spoilers for season one and I do talk about book things that eventually happen so beware in case you don't know and want to continue the show completely blind...
So I kinda put off watching this at first because the Vampire Chronicles books are some of my favourites, and while it did have its own issues, the 1994 film holds a special place in my heart. I was like... do we really need anything else? But I'm glad I gave it a chance because the show was able to go so much further in so many aspects and also now we have a chance to actually see even more of the book events take place!
I'm gonna say up front that almost every character felt very different from how they are in the book except for Lestat. Lestat was actual perfection and I cannot BELIEVE someone did a (dare I say) even better job than Tom Cruise who gave the performance of his life in the film. Sam Reid's Lestat is unhinged and dramatic and terrifying and sad and cringe and yet also loveable and it was a masterpiece of acting. For the majority of the other characters I really didn't mind the differences and in some instances I thought they were actually improved. Daniel Molloy, for example, who is basically Anthony Bourdain? Perfection. Louis who is yes kind of pathetic and dramatic like the book, but also is volatile and complicated which Lestat is drawn to right from the beginning instead of only after having his little breakdown caused by his brother's death? Excellent. Armand who is older and looks nothing like the Armand described in the books but I can see without any problem how Marius fell madly deeply insanely in love with him because he's GORGEOUS and has this unsettling serenity about him? Give. Me. MORE.
The only issue I really had was with Claudia. I see people praising her all over the place so I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion but I hated that they aged her up so much. The most compelling thing about Claudia as a character is that she is an adult woman trapped in the body of a literal CHILD. A pre-pubescent child. Not a teenager. It's absolutely horrifying and it should be horrifying. Now, I will say, I saw an article where they talked about part of the reason behind this choice being that they needed the actor to work longer hours and it was impossible for a kid to do that, plus the very intense material, and I fully FULLY support any protections for child actors because the industry is insane. But it does make me sad and I wish there was some way they could have worked around it. I get what they tried to do with teenage Claudia but it just fell flat for me. And also the actress really looks her age (I think she's 20?) so like the few times where people were making fun of her for "playing dress up" or whatever I'm like... she fully looks like an older teen at LEAST what are you talking about lol. Also I thought her accent was kind of bad.
But honestly, that was really the only problem I had with the whole series. I absolutely loved how they went full-on explicit with the Lestat/Louis romance and the chemistry between the two of them was... WOOF. I was actually really interested in the modern portions too, mostly because Anthony Bour-- I mean Daniel Molloy was so entertaining lol. I loved how he pushed and pushed at Louis and their whole back and forth was brilliant. Although putting on my archivist's hat for a second to be outraged at Daniel consenting to wearing the cotton gloves to handle the diaries but then eating a fucking sandwich right beside the book???? Absolutely not lol. It was so much fun to see the Armand reveal (which I was spoiled for somehow but that's ok) especially knowing that Armand eventually turns Daniel and boy oh boy I hope they go long enough to get to that. I loved the continued references to Lestat's love of music which makes me hope they're planting seeds to make rock star Lestat a little more believable lol (god can you even imagine?? And we don't talk about the Queen of the Damned movie ok).
As for S2, I'm so excited for Paris and the Théâtre des Vampires and HELLO Ben Daniels as Santiago!!! Omg so hype for that. And it's going to be so interesting to see the Armand/Louis relationship as well because I mean it's always going to be Lestat/Louis and Armand/Marius for me so Louis being like "he's the love of my life"... girl. (And speaking of Armand/Marius please GOD give us some flashbacks because they are my Vampire Chronicles OTP and I need to see that whole story including my girl Bianca thank youuuuu).
Yeah so overall I'm quite positive about the whole thing and sincerely hope that they get many more seasons because there's so many interesting stories in those books and we've only ever gotten a TINY portion on screen.
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bonesandthebees · 4 months
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chapter six time!
and you are excited because its not going where we would expect
im not quite sure what i expect, i dont think it will go perfectly, i think perhaps something will happen that will change force their dynamic to change in a sense theyre going to this abandoned area, lots can happen they could get stuck, they could experience something crazy, a lot could happen and any one of them should realistically either drastically change their relationship or lead to a change that will eventually force their relationship to change but yk
anyways time to read!
he left the ferro thing (i cant bother to look at how to spell it right now my bad) which is you know interesting
i like this little flashback because niki obviously realizes that wilbur will do what his dad says and its obvious his father wants him to play into tomys. and thats the game of politics niki knows there arent truly friends here, but its hard to watch someone youve trusted and had on your side for so long suddenly be pulled in a different direction due to this game and i think its also just niki’s own game in a way as she figures out what she must do and yeah its a balance
and thats another thing because they know each other the way friends do but they cannot be truly “friends” because of how this works
be careful on the mountain roads… somethings going to go wrong there and itll probably be wilbur who pays the price
i think ive seen this film before and i didnt like the ending
a bad feeling…
oh my goodness shouts!
bandits!!! this is going to go terribly!
and theyre here for tommy so of course wilbur is going to protect him (right…) yeaaaa get behind him (this is going to go terribly)
oh lord we’re going off roading i dont think this carriage has four wheel drive
and crashed
PRETEND TO BE DEAD
oh god his leg is broken isnt it
yes! play dead!
A BROTHERHWHEHEHEH
the contract? someone paid for tommy’s death and i have a sneaking suspicion its one of the potential heirs quackity would make sense with his warning and schlatt probably would i wouldnt be shocked
oh lord i got so distracted it is significantly later than when i started writing this
they lived! big shock!
but uh oh! now they have to try and survive in the winter in the wilderness alone! i wonder how that will drastically change their relationship!
anyways this chapter was great im very excited for the upcoming arcs and whatnot and im very invested in wilburs broken leg and all because ive taken one too many medical courses that have made me a tad too aware of how to properly care for a good chunk of injuries but thats besides the point! hope you have a good day and i cant wait for the next chapter :]
- 🪿
the thing with niki is that her and wilbur's friendship is very real and has existed for longer than they've been aware of the political games. it's a matter of is that friendship going to continue through all of this? how far can their relationship bend until it breaks completely? niki in no way thinks her friendship with wilbur is fake or over. but she's trying to figure out what matters more to him—is it loyalty to his father, or loyalty to her? is she ever going to be the most important person to him? or is she always going to be one step behind?
"oh lord we're going off roading I don't think this carriage has four wheel drive" this made me laugh out loud thank you for that the carriage does NOT have four wheel drive
lol knew the brother line would get you guys
hmm who paid the contract for tommy's life... so many options...
wow now they're stranded alone in the wilderness together! surely this won't have any lasting impact on their relationship!
don't hold your breath for proper medical treatment tommy and wilbur are 1) trapped in the wilderness and 2) this is technically a medieval-ish era so. medicine ain't exactly up to modern standards lmao
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kurokoros · 1 year
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If they don't put the stage play on Netflix, what's the point, because I'm from a non English speaking country. How am I supposed to know stuff when that play won't be in our theaters? It takes also so much time to translate it in order to be played. It's stupid, honestly why not give us the information in the actual show? Or make a separate mini series. They just should have given us more episodes within the show, even if they are just "filler" ones. God I hate this so much because I just know as an international fan I keep losing yet again, which makes me upset. Every time someone claims the Duffers are geniuses I have to laugh because did we watch the same show? Stranger things had so much potential, it hurts me physically what they have done, especially to the characters, worldbuilding aside but the way they assassinated 70% of the main characters for action plots is insane to me. Def hard to be a Steve stan when we get nothing each season.
I'm not a huge fan of any secondary media for works of fiction that have direct tie-ins to the primary media. Like, a huge part of why I refuse to get into the MCU is because it's basically impossible to enjoy later films without having watched everything else.
With Stranger Things I think it would be fine to do tie-in media that's part of a shared universe, but has absolutely nothing to do with the Hawkins characters. Because why the hell do we need a prequel about Hopper and Joyce? In stage play format? When nothing sci-fi has happened in Hawkins yet?
S4 was an absolutely shitty attempt at trying to tie everything into a nice big bow with Vecna/Henry/One and I absolutely hated it. Like, wow Duffers you introduced three new characters with mystery backgrounds??? Obviously they're all the same fucking person. And now we need a prequel about Hopper, Joyce, and Henry Creel? I'm already mad about the Creel murder retcon because a huge part of S1 was how Hawkins is a small town where nothing bad happens, and then the town is suddenly bombarded with missing person's cases (and a suicide that doesn't make sense), and the Duffers directly took away from that premise when they threw in a mysterious family murder that no one mentioned for three seasons.
I'm not even going to talk about the stage play anymore. I'm not going to watch it purely on principle because I can't think of a worse waste of time than a tie-in stage play. Like... we know what happened with the last stage play tie-in to a major franchise.
I'm just pissed about how far Stranger Things has fallen from S1 and S2. The early seasons actually focused on the characters and their trauma. Now everyone is a caricature with a vague semblance of personality, the worldbuilding is inconsistent, and the plotlines are horrible. I know some people think Stranger Things is slow-paced and somewhat boring, but I really do wish there was more filler to fully flesh out the characters. They could even add more action to the filler. Win-win.
I haven't trusted the Duffers' writing since S3 when they did that to Hopper. I also don't like the way they made Steve into kind of a loser. blah blah blah people will argue that it makes him endearing because the internet loves pathetic wet men, but there's a clear shift between S1-2 Steve and S3 Steve specifically, and the shift is that they made him stupid and took his charisma out back and shot it because they're insecure nerds who hate jocks.
The Duffer Brothers don't have teeth. Regardless of what they say, they aren't willing to make bold choices with their storytelling. They aren't willing to flesh out their characters more, or delve into their trauma. They aren't willing to make the world--the Upside Down--a real threat to the characters, because that means raising the stakes and needing to come up with more clever solutions to the plot than "El screams at the monster until it dies".
Regardless, I'm not watching the stage play. I'm only watching S5 because I still want to see how the story wraps up, but I'm not going to hold my breath about it being good.
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dzpenumbra · 2 years
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9/30/22
This might be an intense one. I wanna refer back to earlier tonight, a big wake-up. Maybe a memory, I know I've discovered this before, but it's like... I just sorta understand it better than I did back then? I'm being vague, let me elaborate.
I was recording for Session, trying to get some clips to put on Instagram as like... a test market before crossposting on YouTube too. I wanna treat learning how to skate with a controller in Session Hardcore mode the way I've been treating learning how to skate on a real board or snowskate. I want to document my progress, daily, weekly, whatever ends up working best. I was filming for this, and by the end of the night, ended up with a little reel which came out pretty sick tbh. About halfway through, I was thinking about music again. Here it is, I uncovered the lead-up, sick, I forgot until now!
So I was listening to MrSuicideSheep - I've been listening to his mixes a LOT over the past... like 8 years honestly. I had suggested just the day before that my brother do playlists of music, searching through Soundcloud for unsigned, undiscovered good music. That way I have good shit to play on stream, don't have to worry about DMCA and I can promote small artists all at the same time. Win across the board. Then I went... yo... why am I just sitting here waiting for him to "think about it". That's like 90% of the time guaranteed to be a "no". When I could just fuckin do it myself. I could even stream my searches for music. Digging through the bowels of Soundcloud, looking for musicians with like 20 followers that are actually really damn good, giving honest, real artistic/musical critique as I go. When I played out this scenario in my head, which was very vivid, I referred to myself by my old moniker. My old persona, who happened to be my primary musical persona.
What happened was that I took my music persona and mixed it with things that I'm not proud of. Nothing horrible, just embarrassing. In a time that I was very sad and very lonely, and attached to whatever people would take me in like a stray dog wandering in a bad neighborhood. And, to be fair, put on anti-psychotics for... help sleeping??? This has happened to me quite a few times in my life, it's a very clear recurring pattern. But this one just sticks with me. I don't feel comfortable going into any more detail than that.
When I got in my last relationship. Let's just paint the scene here first. My ex broke up with me when I hurt my leg in 2010. I dated 1 girl inbetween and went on like 4 dates. I didn't date my last ex until about 2015-2016. I don't date a lot. Because I give every candidate a full chance, not half my attention, or purely lust. Because I'm looking for a partner, not something to entertain me because I'm bored. When I started dating this last one, very quickly I had begun to plot the dismantling of my former persona. Former dominant persona, I should say. This was the nickname every friend I had in college knew me by, I was called that name more often than my real name. It was my old username for a lot of stuff, dating back very far. I had to have a viking funeral for him. I had to shut everything down, delete most of the traces that remained, and try to move on.
But I was young. I didn't know what I was doing with it. I just expected if I kill off part of my ego, that something better would just grow back or something. Maybe I wasn't thinking, or I was taking peoples' words for it that it was the right thing? Or just acting on faith? I don't know what it was. But what happened, to the best of my recollection, was that I lost my sense of self. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. I didn't recognize the woman I was dating. I lost direction and purpose. I started feeling physically ill.
It wasn't a sudden collapse of my subpersona, it was building for a long time. He wasn't happy, he wasn't doing what he wanted. He was making compromises left and right, and the compromises always took more than they gave, by a wide margin. When I couldn't take any more, I saw the opportunity to settle down and start a family and swan dived towards it. As I stated in the last paragraph, it did not go well.
I've told the story of what happened since then before. What I really want to focus on is the impact of what happens to you when you kill off, or ask to leave, or dissolve, I don't know a good word for it... banish? Exile? Something like that. Banish works. What happens when you banish your primary identity. The person you identify as. The person that you are comfortable in the skin of, whose name spoken out loud makes your head turn. Bad shit.
I wonder if this is what they mean by ego death. Google time. What's pretty cool is the first Google search result is Timothy Leary. I have a book of his, I really should read it sometime. It's not that long. Anyway, I don't know if this that I'm talking about is full-on ego death, so I still don't know what to call it.
But that moment of burning that old life down. I guess in Tarot it would be a Tower moment, right? Tearing down the old habits, the old monument of the life before - in the card it's by a lightning strike, but I think I just kinda played god on that one and said "fuck it, it's time to evolve."
I tried to bring him back a few years later. The first time I split up with my ex for like 2 weeks, I immediately tried to resurrect him. But I didn't just bring him back the way he was, I tried to revive a spiritually enlightened form of him. It resulted in one of the best songs I've ever written. Hands down. And a massive shift in my lyric writing style, a giant growth spurt. Then, I went back to my ex. Like a big ol dumdum. And he went away. Then I left her for good. And after a few months of trying to patch my life together... and some major changes... I brought the resurrected old me back for a second spin.
This time, it got wild. This time, I tried to take my old self that was fused with spiritual self, and add in my weed-smoking hippie self from college. The combination was jarring for most. I think they forgot those old faces, and seeing them talk about spirituality out of nowhere threw a lot of them off. I mean, in hindsight, they were all self-absorbed assholes either way, because who the fuck doesn't support someone dealing with a major breakup, the loss of their purpose in life and two nearby deaths? Crazy shit.
But yeah, I had to banish him too. I clung to him for a long fuckin time. I was literally in a therapists office in a meeting in tears when I told him it had to happen. That I was grieving already and I was just so tired of having to tell this guy to leave. I love him. He's a huge part of me. But people around me keep taking offense to parts of him, I don't even see what it is anymore.
I'm tired. I'm gonna need to pass out. But I really wanted to touch on this because it had me crying a bit and apologizing to my cat for - I want to stop saying "killing", he's not dead at all, he can't die, he's a character - banishing her father. I apologized for how disorienting that must have been. She just looked at me funny, started purring and tried to go to sleep on my lap. So I'd say we reached a pretty firm understanding between us. XD
Bed time. More packing tomorrow. Hope I can get my brother involved for creative projects, I have a ton of ideas and they're gonna take up every minute of my time if I have to do all of them myself. The amount of content I could crank out if I had a good editor that knows what he's doing... it's pretty staggering to think about. Fingers crossed.
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stuckybarton · 2 years
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As It Was
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Summary: Things in your life were moving too fast, but your husband was there to help you slow things down. Words: 824 Warning: None. Characters: Husband!Oscar Isaac x Wife!Fem Reader A/N: This goddamn man has got a hold of me since Dune and it's still coming full force all throughout Moon Knight. Also, as the title suggested, inspired by this song. MASTERLIST || Requests Are Open
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"Auntie…wake up so I can say good night to you."
Sitting in the porch of your house, listening to your niece's voicemail for the tenth time now. Sighing, with the life you had lived as an actress, it was hard to find time to talk to your family. How your time was a complete opposite of their own. It wasn't always like this, it never truly bothered you when you had packed everything you had and left with a dream for Hollywood. You have it now, another filming in the horizon that would cement your name along the people you had once just watched at TV--but there was always a price to pay for your ambitions.
Looking at the graying skies, it was far too early to call your niece back and you know perfectly well that it would be far too late to call her when you wake up tomorrow. The curse of living thousands of miles apart, on different time zones. You could only sigh and press your finger against the play button again. Listening to the sound of your sister's voice in the background, trying to explain to your niece that you were busy with filming, the sound of your brother-in-law reassuring the little one that you would be calling tomorrow instead.
"It's getting dark, Babe."
You turned smiling at the remaining constant you still had in your life. Your husband that had now found himself sitting besides you, eyes peering up towards the starless skies along with you. Your head immediately resting on top of his shoulders, welcoming the scent of his that always brought you nothing but comfort especially in times like this.
"Just trying to catch up on my emails." You lied, not wanting him to worry about you and your internal struggled in the moment.
"I'm sure little Bella is helping you immensely with your emails." He spoke smiling at how you glanced at him, now wondering how long he was watching you. "You know we could always fly back home to them for a visit." He spoke.
You know as much, but when you come to think of it, a week wasn't enough for you. You wanted more time, more than you actually realize you want. There was this stifling realization that everything around you was moving, living, growing but you stayed the same. Your personal life was left stagnant. Sure you had a husband now, a husband that was far too good for someone like you, but that was it. You have this plan, so elaborate that you have now realize wasn't going to happen any time soon if you don't act. If you don't make a decision, but it was hard without compromising.
"What's wrong?" He asked again, Oscar's arm now pulling you closer to him. "You know you can always tell me what's going on."
You took a breath, his warmth a complete contrast to the cold air of the night.
"You ever think we should just slow down with what we're doing in our career?" You asked.
"Sometimes." He responded immediately. "I don't get to spend as much time with you as I once did, but I know we're doing what we're doing because we love this. We love being in front of the camera, in front of the posters, in front of whatever God-awful trailer the might think of throwing us in."
"Do you ever regret that we don't start having kids early?" You asked.
"God no." He spoke vehemently, lips quick to kiss your forehead now. "I'd rather we both go childless than resent our kids because we weren't able to do the things we wanted to do in our careers."
You smiled and that was all you needed to know. You thought you were selfish, but then this man, this wonderful and far too understanding man was constantly trying to give you the reassurance you couldn't give to yourself in moments of doubts just like this.
"Stop worrying about the future, Babe." He spoke suddenly making your turn to look at him once again. "I know you and I know when you're like this. Everything has a right time and a right place. Kids, sure maybe one or two years from now since we both have a lot on our plate. You want to visit your family for longer than a week, that's fine, we can make some changes to our schedule but we can make time. The things around the both of us are changing and moving, but what we need to do is live in this moment."
You took his words in and he was right. Your arms wrapped tightly around his waist as your head held up to the sky, watching and noticing a single star in the horizon.
"Being an adult is hard."
"I know, but the money and the alcohol is too good to stay a child, Babe."
And that, you could agree on.
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bubblesuga · 3 years
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Mahina || Part 1
Summary: Jungkook couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something drawing him to you. Like the moon tugs at the tides, he needed to be beside you. genre: smut, fluff, angst word count: 4,626 tags: idol!au, fantasy!au
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When Jungkook awoke this morning, something was... different.
He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the air in his room seemed to have shifted slightly. He felt lighter on his feet, a sudden bounce to his step while he pulled himself off of the bed and towards the bathroom.
He brushes his teeth as usual, carefully scrubbing his tongue and admiring his reflection in the mirror. The eyebrow piercing was a good edition, he thinks. It accentuates his high brow and sparkles underneath even the dimmest light. Spritzing himself with cologne, he opens the bathroom door just in time.
"Jungkook, I made breakfast! Hurry up!"
Smiling to himself, he trots down the stairs of the far too large penthouse he and his band mates bought a couple years ago. He doesn't mind sharing with 6 other people, though. Having grown up with no siblings, he enjoys the dynamics at play when he speaks to the members. They're all his brothers, co-workers, family... He couldn't have asked for a better turn out when it came to finding a career path.
Yoongi is standing in the kitchen when Jungkook walks in, the smell of pork and kimchi filling his nose. Thanking his hyung, he grabs a bowl and starts filling up.
"You seem happy this morning," Yoongi raises an eyebrow, "what's going on?"
"I don't know," Jungkook shrugs, "I just woke up in a really good mood. I feel like--" he takes a bit of his food, then speaks with his mouth full, "--something amazing is going to happen today."
"We just have rehearsals?" Yoongi's statement comes off as more of a question.
"Exactly." Jungkook says, continuing to munch on his food. Yoongi looks at the younger man and shakes his head, continuing to fry meat for the rest of the members.
"Hey, did Namjoon come home last night?" Seokjin asks as he walks into the kitchen. He takes a spot beside Jungkook on the counter, reaching into his bowl and grabbing a piece of pork belly. Jungkook attempts to push his hand away but Seokjin smacks it and grabs the meat anyway.
Yoongi shakes his head again, "Nah. He stayed at the studio last night, said something about a last minute inspiration."
Jungkook has noticed Namjoon's lack of attentiveness recently. It seems as though his head is always filled with potential themes and lyrics and beats, much more so than even in the early days of the band. He's curious about his inspiration as of late but Namjoon doesn't seem to want to give away his methods any time soon.
"He's been doing that a lot lately." Jungkook thinks outloud.
"More power to him," Seokjin says, "man works his ass off and it benefits all of us."
Yeah, it definitely does.
~*~*~
"5, 6, 7-"
Hoseok's counting is cut off by the music blasting again. It's the third run through of the new choreography, Jungkook is center and carefully watches the rest of his hyungs in the mirror. He moves to the left, following Hoseok's lead and smiling as he notices a mis-step on Jimin's part. Jimin throws his head back and yells, lifting his shirt up and wiping some of the sweat that's accumulated on his brow.
"It's okay, Jiminie," Hoseok sings, "this shit is hard."
Seokjin nods in agreement, "Yeah, what the hell happened to a laid back choreography for this come back?"
"It's the last one of the year. We gotta go out with a bang." Jungkook turns back to look at Namjoon, who chugs water in the corner of the room. "Speaking of big come backs, are you working on your mixtape?"
Namjoon laughs, "Nah, definitely not. I'm trying to get a couple more songs for the album."
"Don't we have like 14 tracks?" Taehyung speaks for the first time since rehearsal started.
"16 is better than 14." Namjoon smiles, listening to Hoseok as he calls everyone over again.
"One more time. 5, 6-"
It's then that the doors burst open and Hyun enters in. "And this is the rehearsal room containing the 7 men you will be photographing."
Jungkook's eyes travel to the person his manager is talking to, and he has to hold back a gasp. He feels the way his jaw drops, but he's unable to close his mouth while he looks at you. God, you're gorgeous. Your hair cascades down your back and your clothes cling to your body in all the right ways. Jungkook struggles to tear his eyes away, but once he sees your smile he realizes there's no way he can turn away. You're literally glowing, with god-like shining eyes. Who are you?
"Boys, this is _____. She's in charge of photography and will be around to film Bangtan Bombs, behind the scenes, or anything you all want filmed and made into content."
Jungkook repeats your name in his head five times. He whispers it to himself once while everyone else heads to you to shake your hand. Jungkook stands back, finally blinking his eyes.
You step forward after having shook the hands of everyone else, "And you're Jungkook," you smile again, "I like your tattoos. Glad you're finally willing to show them."
"T- tattoos..." Jungkook mutters pathetically as he takes your outstretched hand. You giggle, shaking his hand enthusiastically.
"Well, anyway. It was nice to meet you all. I'm excited to work closely with every one of you." your words are met with a chorus of 'same!' from everyone except for Jungkook.
Hyun puts a hand on your shoulder and leads you out of the room, continuing on the tour of the HYBE building. Jungkook stares after you, the doorway now long empty but he couldn't look away. You were, by far, the most beautiful woman he has ever come across. With your simple torn jeans and black t-shirt, he feels you could pull off anything you put on your body.
It's not until Yoongi speaks does Jungkook finally tear his eyes away, "Could you have been any creepier?"
"What?"
Jimin bursts into laughter, his frustration with the choreography long gone, "You were-" he takes a deep breath in between laughter, "you were staring at her like she was the last woman on the planet!"
"W- what?" Jungkook stammers.
Jimin doesn't respond, only laughing louder as he falls to the ground. Jungkook can see the hidden smirks of the rest of the members, turning his to look at everyone, "What the fuck just happened?"
"Love at first sight?" Taehyung suggests.
"More like love at first drool." Seokjin begins laughing before he even finishes his sentence, causing the rest of the members to groan at his joke.
Jungkook doesn't react to Seokjin though, as he turns to look back at the empty doorway. If love at first sight is a real thing, Jungkook just experienced it to the fullest extent.
~*~*~
Jungkook manages to continue the rest of rehearsal without a problem, except for the way his mind kept traveling back to you. Saying your name in his head again, he washes up in the gym showers. He thinks back to the way your skin seemed to be literally glowing to him, and your bright white teeth hypnotizing him.
Never in his life has he had such a short conversation with someone that had such an impact. He wants to learn everything about you, your passions, the music you like, the books you read. He hopes that you enjoy some of the same things he does, so he has an excuse to talk to you.
Though his interest in you is certainly piqued, he has to keep in mind that you are, essentially, his employee, and fantasizing about your employee is more than inappropriate.
Fantasizing might not be the right word, but he can't help and imagine conversations between the two of you. Your voice is so pretty, it's light but carries through the room. You make sure your presence is known, though with the way you shine you didn't have to try hard. He smiles to himself, closing his eyes and rinsing off the conditioner from hair. Then, he wonders what your hair looks like when it's wet.
Okay, Jungkook. That's enough.
He shakes the water off his head and wraps a towel around his body. Exiting the shower, he realizes he forgot his bag in the dance room and sighs. Checking the time on his phone, he realizes that it's after 9 pm. The odds of anyone other than the members being here is pretty slim so he can just walk his way to the rehearsal room and change in there, right?
Right.
Tightening the towel around his waist, he walks out of the gym bathroom and strolls down the hall. He scrolls through his phone while he walks, rounding the corner and hearing your voice.
"Thank you, Mr. Lee. I'm very excited to properly start tomorrow."
"We're excited to have you," Jungkook peeks his head around the corner and watches Hyun bow to you, "your work is incredible and I know Taehyung in particular loves your shooting style."
What? Taehyung knows her? Jungkook must have missed that earlier when he couldn't stop staring at you.
"Yeah! It still blows my mind that one of the bangtan boys followed my work," you let out a small, somewhat embarrassed giggle, "thank god for Instagram."
You and Hyun share a laugh, followed by a goodbye. Jungkook gasps as he sees you turn in his direction, rushing to a small doorway and pushing himself up against the wall. You can't see him like this, not already. He's nearly naked and he knows this towel isn't big enough to cover himself as well as he should in front of a stranger, so he holds his breath as your foot steps become closer... and closer... and-
"Hey Jungkook."
Fuck.
Jungkook exhales a breath and moves to tighten the towel around his waist even more. You're eyes are not scanning his body like he thought you would be. Of course, Jungkook knows that sounds cocky of him to say but he can't help but assume that that would be the outcome of this situation. Either way, his face still burns when your eyes meet his. Those gorgeous, glowing eyes.
"Were ya hiding?" you laugh, tilting your head to the side, and Jungkook realizes that he's still pressed up against the wall.
"I- I, uh-" come on Jungkook, get it together, "Sorry. I didn't want you to see me naked."
"Oh please. When humans are naked, they're at their purest forms. It's natural, there's nothing to be embarrassed about." you smile brightly, moving a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.
Jungkook raises an eyebrow. Your phrasing is odd, but he doesn't question it. Instead, he swallows, "You're right, but I'm sure you wouldn't have been okay with my dick just hangin' out. Neither would the security watching the cameras."
You laugh, a proper laugh that doesn't seem to be masked by something else, and Jungkook realizes it's melodic. A fine tune singing into his ears as one of the most beautiful songs he has ever heard. It's soft, breathy, and makes him want to make you laugh for the rest of eternity.
"Either way," you say after a moment, the hint of humor still in your voice, "nothing to be ashamed of. I'll see you tomorrow, Jungkook."
Jungkook tilts his head, watching you wave and waving back as you carry your feet towards the elevators.
~*~*~
The air was even lighter this morning, and Jungkook can't help but think you play a part in his bright mood.
Following the conversation yesterday, Jungkook walked with a grin on his face to grab his clothes. You're incredibly charismatic, an stark difference to Jungkook's usual shy and laid back personality. Despite your conversations together being minimal, Jungkook feels you and him are going to be close.
Jungkook hops out of bed and styles his hair carefully. Checking his phone as he brushes his teeth, he's received a text from Taehyung apologizing because he had already left. The house sounds still, he remembers Yoongi and Seokjin opted at staying at their respective apartments tonight, wanting to be a little closer to home. Namjoon probably stayed at the studio again and Jimin and Hoseok more than likely left with Taehyung. He shrugs, making a quick protein shake and grabbing a banana before heading out of the door.
As he drives to work, he makes note at how much more productive the members have been these days. Not that they never were, but the usual slump of exhaustion that follows months of continuous promotions, rehearsals, and recording doesn't seem to be hitting anyone this time around. Surely, the explanation is the high everyone is riding from the success of Butter and Permission To dance in the west. It's motivated everyone, including Jungkook himself.
He pulls into the parking garage, rides the elevator up to the 13th floor, and steps off only to be stopped by Hoseok.
"Jungkookie!" Hoseok wraps his arms around Jungkook's neck and squeezes him tight.
"Hoseokie!" Jungkook mocks, giving a pat to the older one's back. Hoseok pulls away with a chuckle, "I guess _____ is doing behind the scene shoots today. Something about wanting to catch us in our element."
"Oh? Like individual shoots?"
"Yeah," he smiles, "she's with Yoongi in his studio right now. She told me to tell everyone to choose a thing they do on a daily basis that might be interesting to see for ARMY."
"Should I work out?" Jungkook smirks. Hoseok rolls his eyes, patting Jungkook's pecs,
"You work out enough." Smiling, he begin walking towards the commons area,
"I'm almost to where I want to be." "Whatever Jungkook, you bully us enough already." Hoseok pats Jungkook's head and walks away, leaving Jungkook to sit on the couches for a moment.
He picks up his phone and scrolls through Weverse and Twitter for a moment. Despite not being as active as people wish he could be, he does keep up with what everyone is talking about. Currently he sees excitement about their online concert from last year coming to DVD, and "JUNGKOOK'S ABS" is trending.
Yeah, he's definitely going to work out for his behind the scenes.
Holding his phone up, he snaps a quick selfie and posts it to Twitter. Once a month seems to be a good formula.
"Jungkook?" Yoongi's voice enters the room, "She's gonna shoot with Namjoon then you."
"Ah," Jungkook stands, "time to get nice and sweaty for ARMY."
"You're such a freak." Yoongi laughs, watching Jungkook leave the room.
Jungkook begins on the treadmill, listening to music and trying not to think about the fact that you're going to be photographing him while he's working out. He feels somewhat dumb, being so incredibly invested in your opinions of him already, but like yesterday proved, there was something about you that drew him in.
He speeds up the treadmill, his calves burning and his breathing quickening while he runs. It's incredible, the feeling of absolute bliss he feels after a run. When his muscles ache and his chest feels clear, he feels most at peace. Though, peace isn't difficult to come across these days. Even with the sadness of not being able to perform live like he wants to, it's not as looming as it was before. It's incredibly exhilarating to wake up not feeling like the end is near. It happened so suddenly, he's not sure what changed.
At the beginning, when they had to cancel the tour and stay in Korea, Jungkook felt as though life was never going to be the same. It was dark for everyone. He remembers Jimin crying in the bathroom after the cancellation, which caused Jungkook to start crying as well. He scrolled through social media for hours, reading the anger and frustration at those who had to return their tickets. It pained him, to see such a bleak view of the fans he adored.
Now that it's been close to 2 years, Jungkook has learned to-- for lack of a better term-- live with it. He wakes up every day and tries his hardest to live, and that's all you can do when your passion in life is ripped away from you due to an ongoing worldwide pandemic.
The gym doors slide open and Jungkook looks in the mirror to see you.
You have a camera around your neck, Jungkook recognizes it as a Canon. You close the door behind you and stop him as Jungkook starts to slow down the treadmill.
"Pretend like I'm not even here." you nearly whisper, and Jungkook has to stop himself from choking on his spit. Your voice sounded almost sultry. He can't tell if that was his imagination or if it was intentional on your part.
Jungkook shakes his head, turning up the speed just a little bit more.
He hears the shutter on your camera clicking, the action setting in full effect as he runs. You move around him, being sure not to get yourself in the mirror of the shots. The only noises in the room are his breathing and the sounds of his feet hitting the runway. It's rough, his chest heaving the more he pushes himself, but he's more interested in the way you seem to float around the room, or the fact that your hands seem dwarfed by the large camera.
It makes him wonder what your hands would look like on him.
A necklace dangles from your neck, it's gold and shines under the lights of the gym. It falls gently into the crevice of your chest, what looks like a golden moon on the end of the chain.
Again, he wonders what your skin would feel like against his.
"You gotta stop looking at the camera." you giggle.
He didn't even realize his eyes were following you. Suddenly, it's like a wave of confidence washes over him. Confidence that he was not ready for.
He swallows, taking a deep breath, "I'm not looking at the camera." Why is he saying this?
"Yes you are," you grin, "I have like 7 pictures in a row of you looking directly at the camera."
"No," he shakes his head, "I'm looking at the person holding the camera." Shut up, Jungkook. Stop talking!
"Oh?" you laugh, "what's catching your eye?"
"The necklace." what the fuck? He basically admitted to staring at your tits!
"The necklace that's right in between my tits?"
He laughs, you snap a picture.
"I guess so, I'm sorry." The usual nervousness that he would feel at an admission like that is non-existent. He feels comfortable enough to talk to you like this, and judging by the way you smile, you're comfortable with it too.
"No need to be sorry," you snap another picture, "I know they draw attention."
Jungkook nods, "They certainly do."
"What do you like about them?"
The question throws Jungkook for a loop but he doesn't let that show.
"They're perky," he explains, stopping the treadmill, "and your shirts show off the perfect amount to leave some to the imagination."
"Ah, so you're imagining my tits?"
"Yes."
You smirk, walking away. For a moment, Jungkook is scared he said too much, but it's very quickly washed away by the sound of the lock turning. "So," you begin, "you're saying that if I took off my shirt, you wouldn't be opposed to looking at me?"
Jungkook shakes his head, "I also wouldn't be opposed to touching you."
"Well," you slip off your shirt, "I'm ready."
Jungkook feels his cock twitch in his gym shorts at the sight of your bra. Of your fucking bra.
Despite the blood rushing to his cock, he shakes his head, "Oh come on, darling. You know that's not enough for me."
"Your shirt first, buddy." your eyes follow Jungkook as he grips the hem of his shirt and pulls it off. Now that there's verbal consent, your eyes roam all over his torso. He's ripped, Jungkook knows this, but under your gaze he feels like a meal. Like he's about to get devoured by you, and he can't say he's not enjoying the idea.
You reach behind you, unhooking your bra and allowing it to fall to the ground.
Jungkook's eyes widen at sight, stepping closer to you and falling to his knees. He places his nose against your torso, inhaling your scent. The sensuality of the small gasp that left your mouth fueled Jungkook. He grabs your hands and pulls you down to his level, leaning down and pressing a kiss to your lips.
It's rough and heated, all teeth and tongue. He's not used to being this way, to feeling almost primal in his movements. He gnaws at your bottom lip, eliciting another moan from you. It's high pitched and nearly whiny, proving that you're suddenly filled with as much need as he is.
"I'm gonna fuck you," Jungkook states, "right here. Right now."
"Please." you toss your head back, falling onto the padded floors of the gym. Jungkook follows suit, kissing his way down your body until he reaches your navel. Again, he presses his nose into you and inhales, you smell so damn good.
He keeps smelling, inhaling your scent as he undoes the buttons of your jeans. The less clothing there, the stronger your scent becomes. He feels insatiable, nearly ripping off your panties to get to your center.
"Fuck, you're so wet already," Jungkook groans, his voice deep with want, with need. Taking a single finger up your slit, he draws it back and sucks your juices clean, "and you taste as good as you smell."
You stare up at him with hooded eyes, holding yourself up on your elbows and spreading your legs as wide as you can. "Now that you've had a taste you might as well finish it."
Jungkook doesn't need to be told twice, diving into your soaked folds with his tongue. He moves fast but also meticulously, being sure to take note of all the places that make you moan a little louder, sink a little deeper into him. Your hand reaches down and snakes its way through his hair, tugging at the roots.
At that point, Jungkook begins to kick off his shorts without pulling away.
"Fuck, I've always wanted to fuck you," you moan in between words, "you always look so good everywhere you go."
"Yeah?" Jungkook chuckles, "did you imagine fucking me before you got hired here?"
You nod, "I couldn't help it, I knew you'd be good."
As Jungkook manages to get his shorts off, he grips ahold of his aching member. Pulling up to his knees, his thumb doesn't stop rubbing harsh circles against your clit.
"That's hot," Jungkook breathes, "I've been wanting to take you since I first saw you."
"Then do it." you demand, and a flip switches in Jungkook's brain.
He pulls his fingers away from you and leans forward, "Taste yourself."
You don't hesitate to take his fingers into your mouth, Jungkook feeling your tongue dance across the pads of his fingers. Feeling himself twitch, he strokes himself for a little bit of relief while you suck.
"Taste good?" He questions.
"Delicious."
"Good girl." He murmurs, leaning down and connecting your lips with his again. As he does so, he runs the head of his cock against your slit, enjoying the gasp you let out every time he brushes against your clit. You feel so warm, so inviting. He can taste you so well, he wants nothing more than to dive in.
So he does.
Pressing into you slowly, he feels your warmth envelope him. Your legs wrap around his hips and guide him in all the way. When he slips all the way in, you both pull away for a moan.
"So fucking good. So tight." He moves his hips achingly slow, enjoying the noises of content leaving your lips. Your moans spur him on as your tightness engulfs him yet again. He leans down and presses a kiss to your neck, your hot skin nearly burning his lips, "I don't want to hurt you."
You shake your head, "You can't hurt me. I promise."
Jungkook isn't sure what takes over him at this point, but he feels his lips begin to thrust harshly into you. He doesn't process the rest of the world, the only thing that's certain is you. You're everything that he needs to focus on now, your whines, your moans, the feeling of your legs guiding him in and out of you. He wants to take you here over and over again until the end of time, and he's never felt that about anyone before in his life.
Your lips are beginning to bruise from the rough kisses he's been laying on you, so he takes a gentle approach and sucks on your jawline. Every few thrusts, he rests his forehead against yours. Then he moves again. Then rests.
"Tell me how good I feel." you whisper against his lips, breathy.
"Baby," Jungkook's brows knit together in pleasure, "you feel so good around me. So warm. I want to cum in you and fill you up so bad. Do-n't stop squeezing- fuck."
Jungkook abandons the pace he tried to keep and slams into you, pulling you on top of him and lifting you up and down on his cock. You let out a scream as he reaches a point he hasn't touched before, your cunt tightening exponentially around him.
He latches his mouth onto your nipples, the sensitive peaks hardening against his tongue. Your nails rake down his chest while you grind against him, your ass smacking against his thighs while he begins thrusting upward.
His hands grip your hips harshly, sure enough to leave bruises by his fingertips. He feels his orgasm approaching quickly, but he needs you to cum first. He need to feel you cum around him. "Fuck," he growls through clenched teeth, "cum. I need you to cum. Cum around me, please please please!"
"I'm gonna- I'm-" your sentence is cut off by your orgasm taking over, clenching deliciously around Jungkook and pushing him over the edge. His hips stutter and he releases into you, your warmth mixing with his as he collapses onto the ground. You're both silent for a while, your chests heaving as you try to calm down. Jungkook leans up, keeping you in a hug as your knees move to either side of his hips. Neither of you make a move to pull apart, Jungkook softening inside of you but the sensitivity feels so good.
He rests his chin on your shoulder, glancing behind you and towards the mirrors. On the inner edge of each of your shoulder blades, lay two large scars. They're old, pink in color now. Jungkook reaches a finger up to trace the scars but is stopped by a knock on the door.
"Hey, I'm ready when you are _____!" Jimin's voice sounds through the gym, muffled by the door.
"Shit." You whisper, "shit, shit, shit!"
You quickly pull off of him, beginning to slip your panties and bra back on.
Jungkook flinches at the sudden loss of warmth around him, looking down at his cock and seeing a mixture of his and your cum coating his thighs. "Don't you need to clean up?" he whispers.
"I'll stop by the bathroom on the way." you murmur, now fully dressed, "thank you for that, by the way." you wink, grabbing the back of his neck and pressing a hard kiss against him. Then, you're out the door.
Jungkook is left naked on the floor, confused, and wanting to ask why exactly you have asymmetrical scars on your back.
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Text
To Raise Children: Chapter 25
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Chris Evans X Daughter!Reader, Grandpa!Chris Evans X Flynn and Felix Evans (OCs) Tom Holland X Single-Mom!Reader (Slow Burn)
Series Masterlist
OC List
Series Summary: It's been 4 years, your sons are starting kindergarten, you're starting junior year of college, a lot has changed.
Chapter Summary: Time skip, to April!
Series Warnings: Age gap (Reader is 20, Tom is 29), absent father, mentions teen pregnancy, mentions abortion, if you see anymore please let me know politely.
Chapter Warnings:
Sequel to "It Takes A village"
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It's April! A few things have happened since Christmas, firstly Chris is away filming a movie so you and the boys have the whole house to yourselves. Flynn got his cast off, his arm is as good as new. Tom and you have been dating for 4 months it's been good. Long distance is hard. Luckily he's going to be in New York next weekend and you and the boys are taking a trip up. You convinced Sebastian to let you stay with him. It wasn't hard he was excited to see you and the twins. Mostly the twins. The twins were excited for the trip, you have only taken them to California, other than that they've spent their lives in Massachusetts. They've also never ridden on a train and your taking a train to New York.
Sebastian knows why you're coming to New York. He even offered to babysit the twins so you could go on a date with Tom. As far as you think, the boys don't know you have a boyfriend or that it's Tom, but they've known since you told Chris. They don't know why you're going to New York. You're waiting until the 6 months mark to tell them and then slowly your start integrating Tom in their lives after maybe 8-9 months. You were taking it slow, you wanted to make sure their hearts wouldn't be broken if you and Tom didn't work. Tom understood, he's never dating a single mom before but he understands that he'll be put behind your sons. He knows that and he wouldn't have it any other way, he'd put them before him too.
"Mommy why are we going to New York?" Flynn asks you smiling.
"Well your Uncle Seb has been missing us so we're gonna spend a few days with him." You explain as you drive home.
"Oh mommy when will we visit Gran or Amelia?" Felix asks.
"Well we're gonna visit Amelia this summer and we might try to make a trip up to texas, and we'll bring Poppy!" You explain. Maybe a trip to your hometown won't hurt, besides Gran told you that Jake left town he moved to Mississippi with some girl he met in college. Apparently, that's where she's from. You don't care you just know he won't be there. Sure his parents and your mom would be there but you can avoid them.
"Cool! This summer is gonna be so much fun!"
"Yeah it is." You smile.
"I can't wait to swim! And Uncle Scott said that if we bring the hose on top of the slide it'll be a water slide!"
"He did? Well we'll have to try it."
———
The twins were in the living room playing video games. You're on the phone with tom while you cook dinner.
"I know Tom I already got the train tickets, and Sebastian is letting us stay with him. He even offered to watch the twins so we can go on a date."
"That's great! I guess Sebastian doesn't hate me as much as he says he does." Tom says smirking, you're on a face time call.
"Yeah. I'm really excited to see you." You smile at him.
"Me too."
"Mom!"
"Yes desr?"
"Felix keeps killing me on our game!" Flynn frowns.
"What game are you playing?"
"Lego Jurassic park."
"Felix! Please stop killing your brother." You shout.
"Fine!" He shouts back.
"Thank you mommy." Flynn grins before running off.
"When does your dad get back?"
"July hopefully. I found a daycare for the twins though so they're covered."
"That's good. I should be able to make more trips to the states this summer so maybe we can hang out?"
"Yeah I have a trip to Virginia with the boys to meet their sister planned but I might be able to spare a little bit of my time for you." You tease. He smiles.
"For little 'ole me. I'm honored." He jokes. He looks away from his phone and you can hear Sam talking. "One second mate im talking to Y/n."
"Hi y/n!" He says, before walking into the frame of the call.
"Hey Sam. What are you doing this late?"
"Yelling at Tom for being so loud. We have thin walls." He glares at his brother.
"Your just mad I have a girlfriend to stay up talking to and you don't." Tom rolls his eyes.
"No im mad that you have to keep me up to 3 am flirting with your girl." Sam argues.
"Get out of my room." Tom rolls his eyes.
"Not till you agree to shut up."
"Y'all are worse than my five year olds." You roll your eyes, as you continue cooking dinner "Boys! Go get cleaned up! Dinner is almost done!"
"Yes mommy!" They both shout
"I forgot you had kids. Do they know about Tom?" Sam asks you.
"No we haven't told them yet."
"We know." Flynn says from the doorway. You look at him confused.
"I'm sorry... Did poppy tell you?"
"No."
"Uncle Scott?"
"Nope."
"I didn't tell them either." Sam laughs from on the phone.
"Whos that?" Flynn asks.
"That's Tom's other brother."
"Oh."
"Hi let me guess you're Felix?" Sam asks.
"I'm clearly Flynn you dummy." He rolls his eyes.
"Flynn Scott! We do not call people Dummies." You scold.
"Sorry."
"It's okay buddy."
"Okay Flynn sugarplum how did know that me and tom are dating?" You asked, as Felix enters the kitchen.
"We heard you talking to Poppy." Felix says smiling.
"Oh you did?"
"Yeah before Christmas!"
"You've known that long and didn't tell her?" Tom asks.
"She told poppy it was a secret and if we told her she'd know we were listening. But we just wanted to know what Poppy got us for Christmas!" Flynn argues.
"Do you two have any questions?"
"Okay I'm gonna go now. Tom keep it down you twat-"
"Sam! Children." Tom slaps his brother.
"Kids don't repeat the shit I say okay?" Sam says before leaving.
"Whos he?" Felix asks.
"That's my brother." Tom says.
"Oh he seems mean."
"He's just cranky. So do you boys have any questions for me or Tom?"
"If you're dating tom does that mean he's our dad? Cause my friend Emery's dad started dating a lady and now she's emery's step mom." Felix says.
"Well uh." You didn't know what they were gonna ask but you didn't expect this.
"No im not your dad. If me and your mom every get married, then I'd be your step-dad."
"Oh, so we're still dadless?" Flynn asks. Your heart breaks a little. You hated that they noticed the absence now. Maybe you shouldn't let Jake meet them, you just had a bad feeling about it all. You didn't want them to get attached to him just for him to decide being a dad was to hard. But what if you not letting them meet him hurts them more.
"I told you so." Felix says to his brother. Flynn shrugs frown.
"Let's eat! Say bye to Tom." You say on hopes of changing the subject.
"Bye Tom!" They both say.
"Bye boys, bye love." And the phone call disconnects. You instruct them to go list down while you bring the food to the table.
"Mom why does everyone else but us get a daddy?" Felix asks. You frown looking at them.
"I don't know babe." You say softly.
"Everyone in our class has dads. You even get one!" Flynn frowns.
"I know."
"It's not fair."
"Will we ever get a dad?"
"That's something only time will tell Shortcake."
"Will it be tom?"
"Boys I don't want you getting attached to him. Okay? Relationships don't always work out." You tell them.
"Oh."
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Taglist: @fic-for-readers @denisemarieangelina @thevelvetseries @kaitieskidmore1 @ellerosie2332 @tahniemarie @runawayolives @marajillana @buckybarnez @positivelyholland @firehoseevan @coldmuffinpartycloud @beautifulrose0809 @believinghurts @laura-naruto-fan1998 @shadow-dixon @claaaaaaire-blog @mrs-brekker15 @h-j-s-03 @moniffazictress11 @buxkybarnez @ducks118 @kalopsia-flaneur @silverrmist @some-lovely-day @peterparkerbae @Olivia197810 @gengen64 @Bellagaseta20 @hollzo-03 @bubb1eana1ee @cmalas @jamie0515 @mpamphsss @bucketbarnes12 @lyraficrecs @hunni-bunny @lyrarodriguez @snigdha-14 @cedricdiggorysimpp @Multifandom_Boss_Bitch @sea040561 @queensgirl718
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starcats1219 · 3 years
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Intrulogical Week Day 6 (Free Choice)
For @intrulogicalweek2021
Honey, I'm home!
Ao3 || 824 words || romantic intrulogical
Free Choice (Roman)
Roman has an idea. Remus agrees, but his husband isn't amused.
"You're going to what?" Remus asked, staring at his twin with shock on his face.
"Hey, it'll be funny!" Roman replied, raising his hands defensively, "this is your kind of humour, isn't it?"
"You think that pretending to be-oh my fuck Ro, you're an idiot!"
"Rude."
"Fine, just-what exactly is your plan?" 
"Uh…" Roman hesitated.
Remus face palmed. "You don't have a plan? Now I have to see this! You have my full permission, Ro-Bro."
"Wait, actually?" Roman asked in disbelief.
"Sure. With one catch, you know me!"
"Oh God, what?"
"Let me film it?"
"You want to watch your husband and your brother make out? I knew your...tastes could be a little strange sometimes, but I didn’t think you’d be into that."
"Trust me, Ro, you won't make it that far."
Roman gasped dramatically. “Excuse you, I am an actor!”
“Yeah? And my husband’s a genius!” 
"Oh, whatever, he won’t suspect a thing. Promise you won't tell him beforehand?" 
Remus grinned. "Scouts honour."
"Remus, we're not twelve."
“Really? Well your mom would say differ-oomph-”
As Remus got back to his feet, Roman grinned.
This would be fun.
~a week later~
"Honey, I'm home!"
Logan peeked around the corner and smiled as his husband walked in the door. Something seemed off about him, but he decided to let it go for now.
"And how was your day, dear?" Logan asked, waiting for the normal reply full of dramatics.
"Oh, nothing special, just an average day." He shrugged, as Logan narrowed his eyes. His mind had begun to piece together what was happening, but he was curious how long this could be kept up for.
“Wonderful. Dinner should be ready soon, I hope you’re hungry.”
“Ooh, what are we having?”
“Chicken pot pie." They weren't, of course.  Remus hated the texture (he often described it as "nasty"), but if Logan's suspicions were correct, there would be no argument against his statement.
"Oh sweet! Love that stuff. Just like I love you," 'Remus' continued, as Logan grew more and more fed up. 
His 'husband' walked over, leaning forward to give Logan a kiss on the cheek. Logan accepted it, before quickly walking away.
'Remus' followed him, asking about his day. Logan responded with short answers, already sick of this game being played. 
He turned around, and 'Remus' tensed. Logan watched as he walked forward, 
"Well then," Logan said, exasperated. "Come here,"
Now 'Remus' looked hesitant, "...For what?"
"You know what for, now come here."
Gulping, 'Remus' walked forward, yelping as Logan grabbed his shoulders and moved him even closer.
Logan began to speak quietly. "Did you really think you could get away with this, dear? You think I wouldn't notice?"
He leaned in, and 'Remus' eagerly did as well. Just before making contact, Logan stopped. "Why are you here, Roman?"
Roman's eyes widened, and he stumbled back away from Logan, before tripping over his own feet and landing on his butt with a loud oof.
"I-Logan! What do you mean? It is I, your loyal husband!" He stammered, desperately trying to maintain the 'illusion'.
"Uh huh, because my husband definitely speaks like that. Nice try, Roman, but I'm not fooled quite so easily."
Logan held out a hand, and helped Roman up. To spare his brother in law some dignity, he failed to mention the growing redness of his face.
"How long did you know?"
"Since you said you were looking forward to having chicken pot pie. Remus hates the stuff."
"Yeah, come on bro, you'd think you'd know at least that." Remus strolled out casually from within the closet, phone in hand, still recording. The other two stared at him, slack jawed.
"Wait-Re," Logan asked, "how the hell did you get in here? I watched Roman open the door, and it hadn't opened before that."
"Oh, you know." Remus shrugged, not elaborating further.
"Ookay then, let's get back to the topic at hand."
"And what exactly is the topic, Roman?"
"Uh…"
"Exactly. Now, what was it you were trying to accomplish?"
"Prank you by making you think I was Remus?" Roman asked hesitantly.
Logan raised an eyebrow, "And you seriously thought that would work?"
"What can I say, let a man dream a little!"
Logan pursed his lips. "Well, all I can say is I'm disappointed in both of you. Roman for thinking of this, because I presume it was your idea, and Remus for going along with it. Now Roman, if you wouldn't mind giving me and my actual husband some alone time."
'Roman' moved to go out the door before Logan stopped him. "I can tell that's you Remus, even if you two are dressed the same. Get back here."
Remus gulped, before trading places with his brother. After the actual Roman shut the door, Logan turned to face his husband.
"Well dear, are you ready for your punishment?"
(Spoiler: the punishment was making Remus clean their apartment top to bottom.)
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My Top Ten Overlooked Movies With Female Leads In No Particular Order
Note: When you see this emoji (⚠️) I will be talking about things people may find triggering, which are spoilery more often then not. I mention things that I think may count as triggers so that people with them will be aware before going in to watch any of these.
Edited: 3/16/21
Hanna (2011)
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So, before I get into why you should watch this movie, I just want to take a moment to say why it's near and dear to my heart. Growing up as a queer kid in the early 2000s, seeing portrayals of people like or similar to myself on anything was rare at best. It was mostly in more "adult" movies or shows that my parents would occasionally let me watch with them that I'd see any lgbtq+ rep at all. Often times they were either walking stereotypes, designed to be buried, evil, or all three.
Then here comes this PG-13 action thriller with a wonderfully written main female lead who, at the time, was close to my age, and who got to kiss another girl (her very first friend, Sophie) on screen in an extremely tender and heartwarming scene. To say the least, it was a life changing moment for me personally.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, Hanna is a suspenseful movie about a child super-soldier named, you guessed it, Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan) and her adoptive (?) father Erik Heller (played by Eric Bana) exiting the snowy and isolated wilderness of their home and taking on the shadowy CIA operative, Marissa Wiegler (played by Cate Blanchette) who wants Erik dead and Hanna for herself for mysterious reasons.
It also has an amazing soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers, great action scenes, and it has an over arching fairytale motif, which I'm always a sucker for.
⚠️ Mild blood effects, some painful looking strikes, various character deaths, and child endangerment all feature in this film. However, given its PG-13 rating, a majority of viewers are presumably able to handle this one. Still, be aware of these going in.
Sidenote: It's recently gotten a TV adaptation on Amazon TV, although I have not watched it, and do not know if Hanna and Sophie's romantic/semi-romantic relationship has transferred over.
A Simple Favor
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A Simple Favor is a "black-comedy mystery thriller" centered entirely around the relationship between two mothers, the reclusive, rich, mysterious, and regal Emily (played by Blake Lively), and the local recently widowed but plucky mommy blogger, Stephanie (played by Anna Kendrick). When Emily suddenly goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to find out what happened to her new best friend.
It's a fantastic and entertaining movie throughout, with fun, flawed and interesting characters. The relationship between the two female leads is also implied to be at least somewhat romantic in nature, and they even share a kiss.
⚠️ The only major warnings I can think of is that the movie contains an instance of incest and one of the main plotlines revolves around child abuse, although both of these potentially triggering topics are not connected to each other, so there is thankfully no csa going on.
Edit: I legitimately forgot there was drug use in this movie until now. So, yeah, if that's a trigger, be careful of that.
I Am Mother
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I became mildly obsessed with this movie when it came out. I Am Mother is a sci-fi film that centers entirely around a cast of two woman, and a female-adjacent robot who is brought to life on screen with absolutely amazing practical effects.
The plot is such, after an extinction-level event, a lone robot known only as Mother tasks herself with replenishing the human race via artifical means. She begins with the film's main protagonist, Daughter. Years go by as Mother raises her human child and the two prepare for Daughter's first sibling (a brother) to be born. However, on Daughter's 16th birthday, the arrival of an outsider known only as Woman shakes Daughter's entire world view. She begins to question Mother's very nature, as well as what's really going on outside the bunker she and her caretaker call home.
⚠️ This movie features child endangerment and reference to child death.
Lilo and Stitch
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When I decided to add a single Disney film to this list I initially thought it was going to be hard but almost immediately my brain went to Lilo and Stitch, and specifically about the relationship between Lilo and Nani.
On the surface, this film is about a lonely little girl accidentally adopting a fugitive alien creature as a "dog," but underneath that the story is also about two orphaned sisters and the older sister's attempts to not let social services tear them apart by stepping up as the younger sister's primary guardian. Despite its seemingly goofy premise, Lilo and Stitch has a very emotional and thoughtful center. It's little wonder how this movie managed to spawn an entire franchise.
Despite the franchise it spawned (or possibly because of it), I often find that Lilo and Stitch is overlooked and many people only remember it for the "little girl adopts an alien as a pet" portion of its plot, and I very rarely see it on people's top 10 Disney lists.
⚠️ This movie could be potentially triggering to people who were separated from their siblings or other family members due to social service intervention. There's also a bit of child endangerment, including a scene where Lilo and Stitch both almost drown.
Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind
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Unlike the above entry, I did struggle a little bit with picking a single Studio Ghibli film. Most media of the Ghibli catalogue have strong, well-written, unique, and interesting female leads so selecting just one seemed like quite the task.
However, I eventually settled on this particular film. In recent months, Princess Nausicaä has become my absolute favorite Ghibli protagonist and I'm absolutely enchanted by the world she lives in.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world overun by giant insects and under threat of a toxic forest and its poisoness spores, Nausicaä must try to protect the Valley of the Wind from invaders as she also tries to understand the science behind the toxic forest and attempts to bridge the gap between the insects and the humans.
For those who have never seen the film, I think Nausicaä's personality can best be described as being similar to OT Luke Skywalker. Both are caring, compassionate, and gentle souls who are able to see the best in nearly anyone or anything. She's an absolutely enthralling protagonist and after rewatching the film again for the first time in well over a decade she has easily become one of my all time favorite protagonists.
Whenever I see people talk about Ghibli films, they rarely mention this one, and when they do mention it, it's often in passing. In my opinion it's a must watch.
⚠️ This movie contains some blood, and the folks who either don't like insects or who have entomophobia may not appreciate the giant bugs running about throughout the movie. (Although most insects do not directly relate to real life bugs, and are fantasy creatures).
A Silent Voice
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A Silent Voice is an animated movie adaptation of a manga of the same name. While I've never had the pleasure to read the manga, the movie is phenomenal. It covers topics such a bullying, living in the world with a disability, the desire for atonement, social anxiety, and depression in a well thought out manner that ties itself together through the progression of the relationship between its two leads, Shoya and Shouko. It's also beautifully animated. Although very popular among anime viewers, I've noticed that it's often overlooked by people who watch little to no anime. So I suppose this is me urging non-anime viewers to give this film a chance.
⚠️ As mentioned above, the movie deals with bullying, anxiety, and depression (with this last one including suicidal thoughts and behaviour). If discussion of those topics are triggering to you, than you may want to proceed with caution or skip this movie all together.
In This Corner of The World
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Another manga adaptation, this one taking place during WWII-era Japan. In This Corner of The World follows the life of a civilian Japanese woman, Suzu Urano, as she navigates simply living and her new marriage as the wartime invades nearly all aspects of everyday life. I think this movie is a good representation of what it must be like to be living as civilian in a country at war where the fight is sometimes fought on one's own soil. It was also an interesting look into pre-50s Japanese culture in my opinion. It's also beautifully animated featuring an art style I don't see often.
Despite it being well known among anime fans, I never really see it be brought up, even among said anime fans themselves.
Side note: I've seen many WWII dramas centering around civilians but they've almost always been about American or UK civilians. This was the first movie I'd seen that features the perspective of a Japanese civilain.
⚠️ Features the death of a child and limb loss. There's also a disturbing scene featuring a victim of one of the atomic bombs near the end.
Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki
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This film follows Hana, a Japan-native woman who fell in love with a magical shape-shifting wolf-man, and her trials with raising their children, who can also magically shape-shift into wolves, on her own. It's a very heartfelt movie about a mother's love and the struggles of doing right by your children when you have limited resources to actively guide and care for them. All the characters feel unique and alive in my opinion. Also, the animation is so good that my sister and I initially mistook it for a Ghibli film.
Again, like the previous two anime entries, I don't see it ever brought up outside of anime circles.
⚠️ There's some child endangerment present in the film, although none of it is the fault of Hana as far as I can remember.
Roman Holiday
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Roman Holiday is about the fictional Princess Ann (played by Audrey Hepburn), who while on a whirlwind tour of Europe, finally reaches her breaking point over having her entire life be one big schedule and all her words and actions being rehearsed. In the spur of the moment, she runs away in hopes of experiencing what life is like for other women. Unfortunately, she was previously given a sedative, meaning she doesn't get too far before it takes effect. Fortunately, she is found by the kind reporter Joe Bradley (played by Gregory Peck). Believing her to be drunk and unable to get an address from her (because she has none) he ends up taking her home for safety's sake and allows her to sleep off her suppose drunken stupor. The next day, he realizes who she is, and decides to take her on a fun sight seeing trip across Rome in hopes of getting the big scoop. Along the way, they begin to fall for each other.
This is my favorite black and white, old romance film. I think the relationship between the main characters is absolutely beautiful and I have a lot of fun watching it.
⚠️ I'm not entirely sure what kind of warning this film would need. However, it was released in 1953, so values dissonance will probably be at play for many viewers to at least some extent. For example, early in the film Ann is given sedation drugs by her doctor for her behavior, something that is very unlikely to happen today. Also, Mr Bradley deciding to take Ann home to keep her safe rather than call the police or an ambulance is a very pre-90s decision in my opinion.
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kerie-prince · 3 years
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We're Worlds Apart (2)
Draco Malfoy x American No-Maj!reader
series m.list | general m.list | previous chp
warnings: light cursing, mentions of death, angsty Draco
summary: Draco Malfoy is a pureblood wizard. Magic runs through his veins and has been since his birth. You're a Wiccan No-Maj; a non-magical being with ordinary blood through your veins, but practices what you call magick. And this very practice upsets your neighbor.
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(gif not mine)
The surrounding neighbors have been very nice; one elderly couple walked up to Draco’s door with an apple pie, quite the American staple, and he seemed to appreciate it. They seemed normal and sweet. Much unlike the feeling he had for his neighbor. Y/N. He hasn't made any attempts in the month that he's lived in the small suburban neighborhood to see her. He avoided her like she was a deadly plague.
Albeit, it was probably harsh and extremely childish. The whole point of him becoming a new person was changing his views he had been taught in adolescence. Or else why did he help Harry Potter all those years ago when he swore he hated him?
It was currently around 3 in the morning, he was standing in his backyard and made sure no one would be awake as he sent his owl to send a letter to his best friend, Blaise. He was the only person who still contacted Draco on a regular basis besides the occasional letter from Theodore. Gregory cut all contact with Draco after the Battle, especially since Vincent had died that night in the fire in the Room of Requirement. Pansy was living her life somewhere, and although the Golden Trio had forgiven Draco for his actions, it didn't start any friendships. But Draco was fine; Blaise and Theo had been there for him in more ways he cares to admit.
He never mentioned a word about Y/N to Blaise until now when he asked what Draco’s American neighbors were like. Majority of the letter contained contents of how work has been, the differences in not only culture but also how things are called, and just his own well being. He did say something short for the elderly couple, but when it came to Y/N he had a lot to say.
These muggles are far different from the ones in England, Blaise. They know things about the magic world but input a fantasy in their heads. They believe they can actually practice witchcraft and wizardry, calling themselves “Wiccan” or whatever rubbish it is. Bloody hell, they even have films and tv programs of them. My neighbor is one of these and she does the most ludacris things in her house. Quite laughable, really. If Salazar was alive today to see this happening, I’d bet he’d curse the whole lot.
She had been lingering in his mind since that day of his discovery. It was annoying him. Every night, he would catch her in her room doing whatever the hell she was doing and he felt as if the universe was mocking him. This is what people think what you really are was the message he got from it all. Draco never thought something like this would make him feel like a freak. But he did. This act of hers was an indirect insult of what he was capable of. And she had no idea.
It was a fine autumn morning. The shop was closed today, so you had lots of time at home to catch up with cleaning. You stood over your bathroom sink brushing your teeth and saw from the reflection of your mirror your cat stretching herself before walking into the bathroom to rub herself on your legs. “Good morning, Aurora,” you cooed at her. She purred in response and ran off to her tower in the living room.
After getting changed into some comfortable clothes, you walked up to a closet in the hallway that had collections of crystals, oils, sage bundles and more. “Let’s see, where did I put the angelica root?” you asked out loud to yourself. Going through the shelves, you pulled some sea salt, ground lemon balm, ground angelica root, and a feather. You carried the items outside in a bowl to your backyard and set them at a small garden table. Walking over to your garden, you pulled some elderberry flowers and started your cleansing spell.
You sprinkled the salt onto a censor dish and placed a charcoal dish on it and lit it up. In the bowl you had used to carry the items out, you started mixing the herbs together as you waited for the charcoal to burn red. Once it did, you sprinkled the herbs on top, creating a cleansing incense. You picked it up from the bottom of the censor dish, picked up the feather and made your way steadily to your front door, lightly wafting smoke towards it. Reaching your front door, you drew a pentagram over it with the feather and smoke,
“Be gone negativity,
Here now blessed be.”
You repeat your incantations throughout the house until you have finished and walked back to your living room, drawing one last pentagram. You placed your feather and censor dish on the bare floor, stood up and tapped your foot three times,
“By my will, so shall it be.
Sealed now shall this cleansing be.”
You sat on your couch and turned on the television, waiting for the incense to burn out so you could scatter it around your backyard. After a couple of hours of watching a guilty pleasure of yours, you decided to get some actual cleaning done. First thing was to do some trimming and gardening outside, so you grabbed some gloves and headed out back to your yard.
Before grabbing your garden scissors, you looked up and saw something rather strange. There was an owl in your neighbors yard. In broad daylight. From the backyard, you heard a car pull in and peeked over the fence to see that it was your neighbor coming home. You ran to the front leaving a dirt trail in your house and ran out the front door.
He hadn’t walked in yet, so you started waving your arm, “Hello! I’m Y/N!”
He had just nodded his head and walked a straight line to his door. Not wanting to lose this chance of having a conversation with him, you yelled for him one more time, “There’s an owl in your yard!” His eyes widened and without a word, he ran into his house in a panic. From a distance, you heard him say 'shit' before closing the door.
Building up confidence, you walked up to his door and knocked a few times and patiently waited. You fixed your hair and stood surprised as he hastily opened the door. “H-hi! It’s so nice to meet you, I'm Y/N,” you stretched your hand out to shake his hand. He looked at it and had a displeased look, causing unease within you. Looking at your hand, you noticed you still had your gardening gloves on with dirt on it.
“Oops, sorry!” you chuckled as you took it off and reached out again.
Again, he just looked at you with a straight face for a couple of seconds before finally speaking, “Look, I’m really busy, so if you don't mind.” He shut the door without giving you any chance to say anything back. You stood there in shock, replaying his British voice in your head. And as you stood there, you wondered why it is that he doesn't want to talk to you. The Charles couple across from your house were able to introduce themselves, and even got a smile from him. But for some reason, you could never get the same treatment.
Ian had proposed to Draco a housewarming party during lunch. Of course Draco had never been to one, much less hosted one.
“It’s alright, boss. I can fix all the arrangements up. All you gotta do is relax,” Ashley proposed. To say that Draco is extremely happy is an understatement. He had friends that actually enjoyed his company and not his influence. Not that he had much of that anyway.
America was really working out for him; work was great, people were nice, and the area he lived in was peaceful. Yes, he didn't like his neighbor, but she wasn't ruining his life in this new country. He just didn't like what she did.
“Thank you, Ashley. And you know you can just call me ‘Draco’.”
“I know,” she replied. Ashley grabbed her Blackberry phone and started drafting up an email, asking for his address so she could let people know where it would be. “Is this Friday a good time?”
“Yes, that should be fine. I don't have any plans that day.”
“Great, it's sent out to everyone in our department. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an attending to watch over for a surgery. See you guys later!” Draco, Blaine and Ian waved at Ashley as she left.
Blaine left soon after, leaving Ian with Draco. “Alright man, how’s it going on your street? Are you finally settled in?”
“I finally got the last of my things delivered from London yesterday. I was a bit nervous though. That mugg— I mean No-Maj neighbor of mine saw my mum’s owl in my yard. Thankfully, she didn't ask any questions,” Draco said as he cleared his lunch tray.
“Wait, you still use an owl? Ha, I didn’t think people still did,” Ian chuckled. “Well, of course I do. Do you not?”
“No, most wizards here in the States just use the usual ground post that No-Maj’s use. Things are a bit more modern around here. Speaking of your neighbor actually, have you ever spoken to her?”
Draco shrugged nonchalantly and said a simple ‘No’ when he really wanted to scrunch his nose and eyebrows in disgust and say ‘Fuck no.’ Ian, however, is gifted in Legilimens. He heard what Draco really meant but kept to himself. I guess things are different in the UK he thought.
“Hello my dear baby, I just wanted to call and give you a heads up; your brother and I are coming for Thanksgiving. He’s bringing Stephanie so do me a favor, please no witchy stuff.”
The voicemail played out loud in the kitchen. Please no witchy stuff. Your mother had repeatedly explained to you that she was okay with ‘it’ all, but growing up you never really got on the same page with her. And you knew it was because of your practice. Your younger brother would say comments every now and then when you grew up, but he always stood up for you when other people called you a ‘satanic freak’. But never once did you regret starting the Craft. You enjoyed it and it made you feel whole.
It had been a week since your encounter with your, now known British, neighbor. It bothered you a lot that he didn’t seem to want to get to know you. You were lost in your thoughts that you almost didn’t notice the doorbell going off. You answered the door and saw your neighbor.
“Hi dear, do you think you could help me and my husband with something?” Mrs. Charles smiled sweetly at you. “Of course, what can I do for you?”
“My grandson is coming in from Vermont, would it be alright if you could give us a ride to the airport? I’d ask Draco but he’s always busy at work and I don’t want to be a bother.”
Draco? “I’m sorry, who’s that?” you had a confused look.
“Our new neighbor, dear. I thought you had met him already. You two are the same age after all,” she informed you. Draco. How unique. You instantly recognized the name from the star constellation. It was nice to finally put a name to a face. Distracted again, Mrs. Charles waited for your answer, “Y/N? Can you do it?”
“O-oh, sorry. Of course I’ll help. Frankie was his name, correct?”
“Yes, it’s Frankie. Thank you so much. His flight comes in on Friday. I’ll see you then,” you wished her a good night and looked out your window to make sure she crossed the street safely. The rest of the night consisted of you and and your cat laying on your couch watching TV, but what was on the screen didn’t have your attention. Draco did. And you had no idea why.
“Dude, why do you not have a TV?” Blaine looked around Draco’s house and studied the arrangements he had. It was quite plain, almost minimalistic. Looking around, Draco couldn’t help but think how different it was from the Manor back in London. Instead of grand chandeliers, moving portraits of the Malfoy’s before him, and intricate designs on the walls, he had simple white walls with just one moving picture of him, Blaise and Theo a couple minutes before a Quidditch game against Ravenclaw. He had a bookshelf full of old school books from Hogwarts and some small relics he liked from the Manor.
“I’ve never had one growing up, and once I moved here I just never gave any second thought of it. Besides, what would I even watch?” Draco replied. Despite having one letter off from being the same name as his best friend, Blaine reminded Draco of Theo. They were both funny and outspoken. He would’ve loved for them to have met. They’d probably get on.
A few moments later, Ashley and Ian knocked on Draco’s door. The door was unlocked for them to be able to open the door. They looked around the living room before settling onto the couches. “Okay so I was thinking that we can just have some trays of snacks and desserts with some champagne. Does that sound good to you guys?” Ashley suggested. They just nodded along to whatever she said. She had gone to the store with Blaine to get everything prepared before the party tonight.
Ian looked at the pictures of Draco with his friends and one of his mother that laid on top of a chimney. “Do you still have lots of friends from Hogwarts?”
Draco thought about it, “You know, I actually didn’t have a lot of friends back in school. Back then, I only hung out with probably six people. But now it’s just two.” He sounded a bit sad, but figured that two were better than none.
“Do you think of what happened a lot?” Ian implied about that day at Hogwarts. He had been the only one that Draco trusted enough to tell. “Sometimes,” Draco gave a short reply. The action of opening up was still new to him, but he knew he shouldn’t wallow in it. Plus he’d rather have a friend instead of a doctor to talk about it.
Ian really felt bad for Draco. It must have been really traumatizing for someone to go through something like that at just the age of 17. Sure, Draco wasn’t the best person at the time. Who is he kidding, he was probably the biggest git in the whole school. It didn’t necessarily mean that he had to go through what he did. He lost one of his friends in a fire, and one left him after said friend died. Another left for no apparent reason. And another wanted something different in her life. Those things affected Draco, and probably will for the rest of his life.
He didn’t pity Draco, but was feeling sympathetic. “Well if it makes you feel any better, I don’t have much friends from Ilvermorny. It sucks now, but hey, down the line you get new ones.” Ian held a fisted hand out, waiting for Draco to bump it. It made him laugh as he bumped Ian’s fist.
Outside, Ian looked out to see a certain neighbor walk to her car. “Hey, is that that chick you were talking about?” Draco looked out the window and saw you grab some things out of your trunk and into your house. “Yeah, that’s her.” Ian never really pressed on Draco to explain why he didn’t like his No-Maj neighbor like he did the elderly couple across the street.
“Well, I gotta say. She’s a sight for sore eyes for a weirdo.” She’s a what? Beyond the nightly activities he had caught you doing on occasion in your bedroom, he never really looked at your face. Or really just at you. But now that Ian mentioned something, he started studying you. She’s not so bad looking— wait, what are you thinking?
By accident, Ian snorted at the words Draco thought. “Did… did I say that out loud?” Draco asked with suspicion in his voice. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t really mean to be invading your mind or anything. It runs in my family,” Ian laughed nervously.
“It’s okay. My godfather was also good at Legilimens and Occlumency. I’m pretty sure he’s heard worse during his classes. Come on, I’ll give you a full tour of the place.”
“If the other rooms are anything like the living room, I’m sure I’ve seen the whole place then,” Ian joked.
“Piss off.” As Ian walked towards the bathroom, Draco looked back outside to see you again. He watched as you helped the Charles couple in your car and drove off to Merlin knows where.
The party was rather fun. It lasted until almost 1 in the morning. He thanked Ashley for handling everything and spent the night talking and laughing with his colleagues. Once everyone left, he changed into comfortable sweats and a plain black t-shirt. Out on his bedroom window was Blaise’s owl with a sealed letter. He quickly opened the window, grabbed the letter and looked out to make sure no one was watching. Your room was dark and it seemed as the drapes were down. He guided his friends’ owl with his hands to a small, make-shift owl post against the fence that separated your yards. It had food and was enchanted to be at a comfortable temperature. His owl laid on one side of the post, resting as Blaise’s owl joined it.
Draco opened the letter and read its contents to himself.
Well mate, I’m glad you’re having a good time in America. There’s not much going on here in London. I’m just working at Gringotts until something opens up at the Ministry. Not really sure what I want to do, but I’ll figure it out. Anyways, I think you’ll be pleased to hear that Theo and I are going to be joining you for the holidays. Theo got a hold of a couple American muggle films and he figured that if the women there were as fit as the actresses, then you must be living the best life and he wants to join. As for that muggle neighbor of yours, I can’t wait to see her in person. We’ll see you, Malfoy.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw lights turn on in your room and your shadow walk around before turning off once more. Sorry Blaise, but there’s no way in hell you’ll meet her.
Frankie’s flight was delayed, causing you to get home so late. You were extremely tired and your feet and back were sore. Usually, you’d take a bath with some salts and oils to relax yourself, but tonight you were really lazy. So lazy that you just shook your shoes off and plopped yourself on the bed.
The second you hit the mattress, you dozed off. Your mind was wandering and found yourself dreaming.
You sat in your backyard in a pretty sundress. There was a slight breeze in the air and you held a cup of coffee in your hands. Someone sat at the chair opposite you and blocked the sun’s light in your face. You looked next to you and saw your friend smiling at you.
Draco.
next chp
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buddha-in-disguise · 4 years
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I've been around fandoms for several decades now. Both before the internet, through the earliest days of internet fandom, to the present day.
I can genuinely say, the way Supergirl treats its fans, especially the LGBTQ or BIPOC fans as a whole, has been the worst by some margin. Particularly in regards Supercorp in terms of queerbaiting.
Whether those involved in the production of Supergirl want to admit it or not, Supergirl as it stands has been queerbaiting a large portion of the audience. Without a doubt, in terms of a ship, the largest core group of fans there is for Supercorp, and by some margin.
Have there been some fans who have taken things too far? Absolutely. And every good SC fan I know recognise and understand this, and constantly say this.
Yet somehow, an entire fandom gets tarred with the same brush continually.
But worse still, when anyone tries to address the queerbaiting that has gone on with someone who works on the show, other than the women in general, Jon Cryer (who could teach those BTS of SG a lot on how to engage with fans on SM, and not piss off swathes of fans), and Jesse, there are few instances I can think of where it then hasn't resulted in SC fans getting dumped on, or called delusional, or basically saying it isn't there.
Here's the thing.
As LGBTQ fans, the majority of us - especially the older ones like myself - know exactly what queerbaiting is. How do you think it even became recognised as a problem?
Because we called media out on it. The LGBTQ audiences defined it, via our experiences. So we know exactly what queerbaiting is thank you. We don't need to be told it isn't there or isn't something going on - because we are the ones who wrote up the damn definition!
In all my years of fandoms, never have I seen queerbaiting on the scale Supergirl use. Season 5 - especially 5a - brought the queerbaiting to a whole new level.
So many of us now dread S6, because S5 was so bad in a multitude of ways for the LGBTQ audience, including but not exclusively Supercorp queerbaiting.
And I don't speak for all SC fans, but I do see a lot like me are caught in a conundrum. We all love the majority of the cast. Particularly the women. Sure we all have favourites, but also as a whole, the female cast is loved and respected.
Here's my dilemma. I want to support the female cast. Hell I was a Chyler, Katie and Azie fan long before Supergirl, and have grown to love Melissa, Andrea and Nicole particularly. Nicole as a transgender women especially holds a place dear to us. I will support them all beyond Supergirl.
As S6 will begin filming, I want nothing more than to show them I love, support and care for them. But then I'm at the point where I want to just tell the show to go jump, because they've sucked all the enjoyment I had out of it for me. When you actually dread what the next week might bring, that is not what any show should be about. Yet here I find myself dreading what the show might bring.
I also am questioning do The CW even care about Supergirl any more, especially as they finally got Superman, which they've coveted for years, and made no secret of it.
They seem to forget that Supergirl and Superman have two pretty distinct fans. I like Superman, but I love Supergirl. I'm also just a little bit done with all the iterations of Superman we've had on screen.
Supergirl has always struggled on the social media side of fan engagement as well. Not once have I seen a showrunner actively engage with the audience. Or at least, if they have it was a long time ago. The current showrunners definitely haven't. Hell, one doesn't even have a SM account.
But even if a showrunner or others involved in the show don't engage, when others do, it becomes a nightmare. The last 6 or 7 hours are a case in point.
Again, yes some fans take it too far where Supercorp is involved. Yet, once again, rather than just stepping away, a writer got embroiled into something that didn't need to happen, because they gave out conflicting tweets on replies to fans over Supercorp, and then began blocking fans who were polite and respectful and did absolutely nothing to warrant a block.
Then they also liked a post that called SC fans dicks.
Yet somehow again, we are all the bad guys.
I've no doubt that they felt overwhelmed on how the reactions went. I truly do. But I really don't understand why anyone doesn't just step back. Put out a polite post saying it's all getting a bit too much, and they need to disengage. I think each and every decent fan would understand and respect that. I know I would.
But here's the thing.
Ultimately the writer shouldn't be in that position of trying to answer fans on it all. Nor should they dismiss fans who say it is queerbaiting, if they're not LGBTQ themselves.
The problem is Supergirl social media is so lacking, it places a higher burden on writers and others instead. That is on the show. Entirely.
I also have to question just how diverse is the writers room? Having a number of women, if they are White and cis, when you have a cast of characters who are LGBTQ and/or Black or POC, is not having a good diverse writers room. And it shows.
If you say there is no queerbaiting, but not LGBTQ, you need to stop trying to redefine what is accepted queerbaiting.
If someone says it is a gay agenda, you need to stop with that, because that is homophobic. End of. That's no different that being racist if you write it is a Black agenda.
Supergirl put themselves in this position.
I've had family watch Supergirl with no preconceptions on characters suddenly say: I see something between Kara and Lena. Are they together? And being astounded when not only do they realise they're not together, that they actually have 4 seasons of this and counting.
This has come from straight family. Or my very gay, very into men brother in law.
If others see it who aren't involved as Supercorp fans, who might even be straight - that is queerbaiting.
But here's the thing. It shouldn't need us to say others see it too. If a large segment of audience see it, say it is there, pull out receipts to show why they are saying that time and again, that should be enough.
Yet it isn't.
As much as it pains me - I sense now The CW has Superman, they're going to let Supergirl go by end of S6. I'd be more surprised if they announce a 7th season than not.
Whatever decisions on the shows future they might be making, one thing is clear.
If they don't allow Supercorp to develop, and don't get rid of whatever homophobic block is going on for the show, Supergirl will be left with a legacy of being probably the worst example on queerbaiting your audience ever.
The 100 are still panned to this day over Clexa by LGBTQ fans.
Supergirl still have a chance, a choice to pull it around.
Sadly I doubt that will happen.
In the meantime, I'm stuck on wanting to stop watching the show, but wanting desperately to support the cast. That's the conundrum many of us now face.
The legacy Supergirl will leave is not going to be about empowering women if they don't change significantly for S6.
It will be how they queerbaited, how they dismissed the only full cast Black woman, worse still, who played an LGBTQ role. How they dismissed the LGBTQ as a whole.
Those are legacies that will not die away for LGBTQ fans. The CW in general has tainted itself with the LGBTQ audience in more than one show.
What a mess.
And it really wouldn't take much to avoid all of this. That's what is so disappointing. It is an easy fix.
Apologies for any typos/mistakes as I'm posting unedited.
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My Cousin, Pedro Pascal
Ximena Riquelme
16 NOV 2017 12:53 PM
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Before being the protagonist of Narcos or filming with Colin Firth, José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal (42) was a child whom I knew very well because we are from the same family. A man who today looks with nostalgia and some perplexity at his place of origin and his history and who still does not answer what would have happened if he had stayed here.
The first memory I have of Pedro is in the arms of my mother during his baptism, in the garden of my house. She was a weeping bus and had huge black eyes. I was 9 years old. It was cloudy. Years later I learned that the priest was Gerardo Whelan, the legendary rector of Saint George's College. Pedro's parents were not at his baptism: my uncle, José Balmaceda, my mother's only male brother, and his wife Verónica Pascal were asylees at the Venezuelan embassy, which was on Bustos street, near my house. Pepe, as we used to say to my uncle, who years later would become a famous gynecologist, an expert in fertilization, was then a 27-year-old young doctor, in those days wanted by Dina. Some time before they had hidden Andrés Pascal Allende, Mirista and his wife's uncle. One day they came to take him to the José Joaquín Aguirre Hospital and he managed to escape by jumping through the roofs. It was October 1975.
Like most of the Chilean families, there were supporters of both sides in mine: for and against Pinochet. Trying to help Pedro's parents, my dad called a relative who held a high position in the Army. "Tell the children to get asylum, because I cannot guarantee their lives or that nothing happens to Veronica," was his reply. She was 22 years old. Then began the journey of my uncles and with them that of my cousin José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal. Pepe and Verónica had to start living secretly in different houses. Pedro, who was only 6 months old at the time, and his 3-year-old sister Javiera were left in charge of my mother's older sister, "Aunt Juani."
The second memory I have of Pedro is when I accompanied my parents, who carried him and his sister in their arms, to stand on the sidewalk in front of the Venezuelan embassy so that their parents could see them through the window.
My uncles left the Venezuelan embassy for the airport in January 1976, Pedro was 9 months old and obviously does not remember anything. I just remember that they didn't let me go. Pedro could not record the image, which I could not see, of his grandfather Luis Pascal Vigil - a very prominent lawyer - singing the National Anthem on the balcony of Pudahuel. A memory that is not mine but that I adopted, for cute.
As the people of the International Red Cross advised our family on time, Pedro and his sister did not leave the embassy with their parents, but arrived directly at the airport: this allowed their passports not to be stamped with the "L" for " limited to circulate "that stamped on the exiles who left. Therefore, the years that Pedro and Javiera came could come to Chile without problems. And for that reason, the choclón of cousins, we were able to share long summers in Pucón and some winters in Santiago.
The Balmaceda Pascal first arrived in Aarhus, Denmark, in October 1976. A year later they left for San Antonio, Texas, where Pedro's father was able to continue improving himself thanks to a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Veronica earned a PhD in Child Psychology.
________________________________________
"But Denmark is invisible to me," Pedro writes me by email. A while ago I proposed to interview him at a distance to travel a little about his history, and here we are, in front of the computer, sharing memories. "It is invisible to me, like everything that happened before. Although once, after telling him about my childhood, a doctor told me that the temporary separation with my mother was trapped in the memory of my body and that I could remember it through the senses".
My cousin, far away
The third memory I have of Pedro is a summer in Pucón. It must have been in 1978. "Pepelo", as we said, was no longer a guagua but a restless, very blond boy, who was so impacted by poverty in Chile that when he went out on the street with his gringo accent, he asked any person: "Are you poor?" He took food out of the pantry and gave it away. With my cousins we rented a warm wooden house, colorful, with the door frames out of square. It was summers with trips to those black sand beaches that burned the feet and picnics in Caburgua with lamb on the stick. They took us to mass and Pedro sang very inspired.
"This is where the memories become more vivid, like dreams," he writes. "I remember so many details: my older cousins, children my age who were like family. The beach seemed endless. I also remember running down the hallways and stairs of Aunt Juani's house looking for Santa Claus at Christmas."
XR: What was it like leaving your parents in the United States?
PP: "I think the trauma was going back to the States, although I obviously wanted to be with my parents. But childhood in Chile, with the Balmaceda and Pascal, was a dream, a world where nothing was missing, pure adventure and love."
Now that he tells me that, I remember that image of Pedro hanging on the neck of our aunt Juani, crying in Pudahuel because she did not want to return. At that time going to the airport was a panorama: we were going en masse to leave him and his sister, who traveled in charge of the stewardesses.
In 1981 I went with my parents and my two sisters to see the Balmaceda Pascal in Texas. I remember an eternal road trip from Miami, I remember Pedro's house, in a middle-class neighborhood, comfortable, beautiful, lovingly arranged by his mother. I remember the tears of my mother and Pedro's mother when we said goodbye to return to Chile. We still didn't know when they could return. Although Pedro never fully returned.
In December 1983, Pepe and Verónica were able to enter Chile. The whole family was packed on the terrace of Pudahuel, waiting for them. I remember the Balmaceda Pascal walking from the stairs of the plane to the International Police. I remember them happy, triumphant. Pedro was 8 years old and chose to stay in my house, in love with my girl sister.
We all went to Quintero, to the house of our grandfather Pepe, a great smoker, tennis player, and fanatic fanatic who took us to the town cinema to see double Tora! Programs, Tora !, Tora! More Bridges on the River Kwai and other old movies. Surely Pedro had to see several. Since he was a boy he said he wanted to be a "director". He liked horror movies and was a big movie consumer, like his dad.
PP: "I remember going to the movies with the cousins and the grandfather to see anything with Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone. They leased me VHS movies to see alone and happy."
XR: You once recited Hamlet on the beach with Grandpa.
PP: "No, it was Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller. I was about 14 years old. I videotaped it and lost the fucking camera on the trip back to the United States."
After that summer, Pedro began to come more sporadically. He was already grown up, at school and then at university. They had moved to Newport Beach, California. His father was doing very well. But Pedro, not so much.
PP: "I think that the way the family supported me in Chile was the opposite of what I experienced in Newport Beach. I started well in California but at 13 years old, very involved in the cinema, reading plays, books, TV, TV, TV, obsessed with these things, I had the bad luck to find few like me. It was a world very attached to conservatism and its privileges where not fitting was punished. There was a group of shitty goats who were my friends the first year and became my terrors thereafter. I don't enjoy remembering that time, but there are deep connections from back then. Friends of my parents who are like parents until today."
Pedro's mom soon found a performance arts program at a high school in another district. A more inclusive school compared to Corona del Mar, the neighborhood where they lived in Newport.
PP: "My mom and my driver's license were my salvation. There I was able to unleash my appetite for movies and theater without limits."
As time went by Pedro became a fun, provocative teenager with character. He said he was "lazy", but he went to study Theater at NYU in 1993 and he loved it. I started to see it less. When he came to Chile he went out with his friends, I was already married and having children.
XR: Did you find that our way of life was very boring?
PP: "Bored, no. But overwhelming regarding life's permanent decisions. I didn't have the Catholic structure, and I felt there was no room for a young guy like me. Like suddenly, from one trip of mine to another, you had lives that included marriages and children, and pleasing the visits of the gringo cousin was no longer an option for all of you. I had to duel, because I was jealous of his inattention."
XR: Do you find us very conservative?
PP: "Yes, but it is a major contradiction for me. I come from the perspective that no one can decide how someone else should live their life. And well, in our family there are social rules that are very firm. I think that a person has the right to live his life conservatively or wildly as long as he does not negatively impact anyone or tries to embarrass others by his lifestyle. I don't touch these issues very much with our family for fear of hearing their perspective, but what I do know is that if I ever needed help I could ask any member of our family by the name of Balmaceda, and I would get it."
In 1995, Pedro's parents returned to Chile with their two youngest children, Nicolás and Lucas, who had been born in California. Javiera also came for a couple of years. Pedro stayed in the United States.
PP: "It was a very scary period. I grew up with my family in the United States and from one day to the next there was no home to return to. Suddenly the idea of the safe nest was gone. It was shocking because in previous years I took for granted the privileged life we had in California. I never thought that this could change as suddenly as happened to my parents when they became exiles. Everything felt fragile. Also, I knew that my parents' marriage was wrong and that the tension of those circumstances was hardly going to end. My mother's life felt in danger and the line between needing her, being there for her and finishing my studies and pursuing a career was a horrible conflict. I knew that my mom wanted me to continue doing mine, she never would have wanted me to sacrifice it."
XR: Did you really resent the failure of your parents' marriage?
PP: "For me it was the hardest time. I have not been able, and I do not know if someday I will be able to reconcile completely how my parents separated and the tragedy that came after that separation. The circumstances of my mother's death made it very hard for us to keep her memory of who she was. It hurts so much ... Sometimes I feel distressed and try to face it in the best possible way, because I know that my mother would not like me to do it in any other way."
Pedro lost his mother when he was 24 years old.
PP: "It's hard to say what I remember most about her. You met her, so it is easy for you to understand that she was the love of my life. I think of her every day. Since I don't pray, I can't say that I have a practice to feel her close, but I live for her even though she's gone, and that makes sense to me."
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From Alexander to Pedro
XR: Do you believe that pain makes us stronger or does it seem like a horrible cliché?
PP: "I don't think it's a terrible cliche but a profound reality. In some way, losing the most important person in your life, discovering that something like this is possible and that what you fear most in life can happen is an identifiable and permanent moment. There is a before and after after his death. I think, yes, that old age would not have been for my mother, there would have been no footwear with her. Of course, no one wants to grow old, but others can handle it better. I would not have liked to see my mom struggling with it, but at the same time, I wish I had her every day still with me."
It may have been the summer of 2012. Pedro said to our aunt Juani: "I am 37 years old and I still can't get what I want. And it's the only thing I know how to do." It had been a long time since the death of his mother in the summer of 2000 that Pedro had changed his name. From Pedro Balmaceda to Pedro Pascal. He had been searching for years, years of casting where, by being called Pedro Balmaceda in the studios, they hoped to find a Latin or classic Mexican phenotype. He had only made minor appearances in some series.
XR: Although you did not regret it, you did wear Alexander at some point. Why?
PP: "That was a desperate period and directly related to having lost my mother. I was desperate to work, to fill my days with something more to suffer. To eliminate the confusion that casting directors had with this guy named Pedro with European or Caucasian traits, I changed my first name to Alexander and took my mom's last name, Pascal. That only lasted a year, until I was able to find a job and be selected for an Ibsen theatrical classic. But it was too late for people to identify me as "Alex". Also, my mom named me Pedro. So the decision was to call me Pedro Pascal, a name that fits with me more than any other."
Soon after that came Brothers and Sisters, other small roles, and later more important ones in The Good Wife, The Law and Order, The Mentalist, until Game of Thrones, Narcos in 2015 and now, filming Muralla china with Matt Damon and William Dafoe - last year we all went to see his cousins together - and then Kingsman 2 with Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry and Channing Tatum.
XR : Have you ever been excited acting with such powerful actors?
PP: "I have been thrilled with everyone."
With fame have come the new meetings of the cousins with Pedro Pascal. We all want to see him, take pictures of us, we ask him for greetings-chub for friends, we inflate ourselves by saying that he is our cousin. That Peña, the protagonist of Narcos and the sexiest guy in the world, is my cousin-brother. He laughs and humorously calls us "scoundrels" because now we remember him. In fact, that's what our cousin chat on Whastapp is called.
But there is also the modesty to disturb him. Know that you are busy. That while I'm sending you these questions, you're filming in Boston with Denzel Washington. And to feel that there is always a lack of time to speak to him calmly, a space to ask him questions like the ones that occur to me now:
XR: Exile changed your life. Can you imagine growing up in Chile?
PP: "I don't know, because I haven't thought much about it. I have been asked this question all my life and have never been able to come up with an answer. Perhaps my life would have been more complete and solid. What I am used to is that the past disappears as if it had been lived by someone else, in another time."
XR: Do you miss something from when you were Pedro Balmaceda?
PP: "You know? There is very little difference between Pedro Balmaceda and Pedro Pascal. As it is all part of José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal, I feel the same person. But with back problems and more money."
XR: Would you like to start a family?
PP: "Being a dad? I don't know. I have no fucking idea. I love being an uncle. It may just end there. But anything is possible."
XR: Marialy Rivas said something very nice about you on Saturday: that when you play a character, you pretend that this character brought a whole previous story, much bigger than what they are telling. And it's true: you carry a bigger story than you tell it.
PP: "I don't know, cousin. I am very confused trying to organize the past and see what turns out. It helps me understand the pain or be grateful for what I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm a fraud, living between waiting for fame and attention and completely embarrassed by these wishes.
In reference to what Marialy said, I think she means that I put all my confusion, joy and sorrow, ambivalence, hostility, rage, love, lust, greed, compassion, ignorance, knowledge either to indicate a map with the finger on Narcos, throwing an arrow in Game of Thrones, lashing out at Kingsman. Cool! But I think my experience in theater taught me that."
XR: Would you someday like your life to be a script?
PP: "No way." (in english)
XR: Do you still want to be a "director", as you used to say when you were a kid?
PP: "Yes! That will be my way of being a father. Father of a production."
XR: Is dreaming about an Oscar the dream of every actor, even if you don't confess it?
PP: "I confess that possibly… yes."
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So... I was kinda disappointed with Buck Begins... NOT ENTIRELY. Just...
Major spoilers ahead. You should definitely watch the episode before reading my complaints... because I have a lot of them, and you shouldn't have the negative thoughts going into it...
But I'm gonna start with the good stuff.
The Buckley Siblings are everything to me. I love their relationship, and watching Buck grow up with Maddie protecting him? *chef's kiss* Perfection.
Buck being a daredevil because it was the only time that he got positive attention from his parents as a child? Absolutely heartbreaking and I hate his parents for *so much* for that.
Maddie doing whatever she could to help her baby brother, even when she was terrified and probably knew how bad it was going to get? I love her with my whole heart.
And I absolutely love the way they highlighted their relationship and how important Maddie is to Buck.
The moment when the team comes in to help Buck and save him and the other person? Cinematic excellence, I applaud them for that scene. His team loves him and will always have his back, and he *knows* that now.
And now for my grievances and where I think they missed the target...
It focused on Maddie too much for a "Buck Begins" episode. I get that she's a huge part of his life and that she would be in the childhood flashbacks, but even once Buck was out on his own, all we got to see were the postcards (with handwriting that did not look At All like Buck's handwriting, might I add) and the one scene of Buck bartending in Peru where he decided to move to LA and become a firefighter.
We already basically got a Maddie Begins episode, when Doug came back and kidnapped her. I didn't need another one. (I love Maddie and I loved the flashbacks, but... it just should have focused more on Buck. It was his episode, after all.)
We should have gotten to actually *see* what Buck did with his life before he made it to LA. They could have shown Maddie receiving a postcard, then done a montage with a shot of Buck writing one of the postcards. That montage focused more on Maddie than it did on Buck, which kind of frustrated me.
And then in present day? They made such a big deal about the family secret, and it just fizzled out. Like it didn't matter anymore. And I honestly don't see them doing much more with it, unless (God forbid) in a later season the Madney baby gets leukemia or something and Buck is a perfect match to save his niece. (Actually I could see them doing that and I would definitely cry. That would maybe give them a pass with this plot thread.)
Then with the factory fire? Idk, it didn't feel intense enough for me. NOT that I wanted Buck to horribly suffer more, but... Eddie being buried alive in his episode was So Much More Intense. Chimney's episode happened while he was literally bleeding nearly to death. I was hoping for more.
And maybe it has something to do with the lack of reaction from the entire team when the building exploded. Not only did we not see Eddie panic, even briefly, about Buck being trapped, we didn't see Bobby or Chimney of Hen panic either! Bobby sees Buck as a son, this is basically canon now. And Chimney and Hen see him as their little brother.
The exploding ladder truck and the tsunami both felt way more intense for Buck than the factory fire in this episode.
And then to top it off, NOBODY GAVE BUCK A HUG AFTER THR FACTORY FIRE! And Eddie and Chimney weren't even there by the ambulance! Like, what the fuck? Yes, Bobby, Athena, and Hen told him what he needed to hear, but they all should have been there! Supporting him! Where were they???
Also, they missed the perfect opportunity to casually make Buck canonically bisexual. Instead of meeting a girl who taught him how to surf, he could have met a guy. Then things didn't work out, just like they didn't with the girl.
UGH, these writers! They're either *really* amazing or *really* miss the important stuff... there was so much potential, and they just wasted it!
Anyway, enough of my ranting. I did enjoy the episode, but it was definitely not the best Begins episode in my opinion.
What are your thoughts? I clearly have too many.
-Quarantine Anon
So I just finished watching. Spoilers beneath the cut
So here’s what I knew going into this- everyone was going wild with theories and ideas and great fics of what was going to play out. Which is great. But I do think it got hyped up because of that.
The flashbacks to the Buckley childhood hurt so much. Margaret seemed to take it out on Evan so much because in her eyes- he failed her by not saving Daniel. BEGONE, Margaret! You can’t put that on your child if your own plan was to use the child to save a sibling and then deem him not deserving of love because of nature and genetics. But Maddie and Buck? I love a pair of siblings while being in agony over the hells they’ve walked through.
The use of ‘So Far’ and the team helping him? Poetic cinema. I felt so many emotions and had a bit of a cry.
I actually liked the postcards. I think if they had gone to film all of what he did, it would have gotten jammed packed. The bartender was stated in canon, so that felt worthy of a flashback (and oh wow, that was not the revelation I needed that I try to know cool things to impress cute people. Buck is not straight, I don’t care what anyone says). Plus, with Covid-19, I bet there would be some filming issues. Also, it felt the ups and downs in Buck’s postcards paralleled Maddie’s injuries from Doug. They were both lost thinking they were living, except they weren’t. It was all about survival. And the worst part is that sometimes, you will lull yourself into a sense that survival=living when that’s not the case. That’s what happened to the Buckleys I think.
We don’t know what’s to come, but the family secret might come up again in therapy. Which they better freaking continue and not drop like the Flash did.
On the factory fire- I think we hyped it up more than we expected. Eddie Begins and Chimney Begins were really serious episodes with their lives on the line. And I think about Buck talking about giving up after he gets out. He wasn’t going into this fire with a clear head. I think he saw himself as the replacement baby still who couldn’t ever live up, who couldn’t do things right. He wouldn’t leave despite ordered because that was showing Saleh he didn’t matter. To Buck, he did. He gets being left behind and in those situations, you’d rather someone else be happier and fine while you take the impact. Like the world would keep turning and everyone would be fine (eventually) after you left it.
The ladder truck and tsunami were physical pain. The factory fire was emotional pain. (which reminds me, I need to make a post about the element symbolism in Begins episodes)
If we didn’t see a hug in the episode, then we write the fic for it. Missing scenes can be created ;) Not to mention they’ve all still got work to get done on the scene. After events like that, I think everyone needed time to process it.
I get bisexual vibes off Buck big time in this episode. And I think there is repression and closeting that comes into play here. Your parents are constantly disappointed in you, so why disappoint them further? Bury it down deep and deeper who you really are. It was the attention-seeking that would work out for him. Also, bisexuality is more than one. You identify as bi and your partner uses she/her? Bi. Partner uses he/his? BI. Partner uses them/they? Still bi. (Also, how much do we know about the postcards he wrote. Maybe he didn’t give her the full story. There’s only so much room in a postcard and she was the one person in the world who still believed in him. Was he afraid to disappoint her?)
Overall, I did enjoy the episode. Eddie Begins always holds a special place in my heart as the first ever episode of 911 I saw enough of to get me interested in the show. The thing is that I can’t pit the Begins episodes against each other. They all show a journey in some way. 
Hopefully this was coherant enough and I’m sorry for my little bisexual rant.
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crystxlclear · 4 years
Text
sudden desire
chapter three: so, maybe i’m not okay
part four of sudden desire
prologue / one / two / masterlist
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in which two best friends won’t admit they’re in love so decide to have a baby together instead.
pairing: marcus pike x original female character
word count: 2.5k (short lil chapter today!)
warnings: mentions of illness? other than that, none that i can think of? maybe the tiniest smidge of angst if you squint
Coraline has always been close to her father. One of her very first memories involved her perched on his shoulders at a Fleetwood Mac gig. He'd managed to sneak Cora, her brother, Daniel, and her heavily pregnant mom side-stage — the perks of him managing the venue at the time, in between jobs — and he'd cried when he'd heard her singing along to his favourite band. The show was all she'd talked about for a solid two weeks. Sure, the memories were a little grainy and probably warped by a crackly VHS tape of her mother's that she used to watch almost every day, but they were memories she held onto it as tightly as she could.
It was her father who took her first (dreadful) headshots, and him who she'd turned to when her sister died, and him who'd persuaded her that leaving everything and everyone she knew and loved back in Michigan to settle down in California (and then, later, D.C.) was a good idea. She owes her dad a lot, which is why the phone call has been playing on her mind all day.
The call came at 3am. She'd only fallen asleep two hours earlier, after Loren had arrived to pick up Maisie an hour late, hair a mess and rushing to apologise. Marcus had left a little while later and she'd practically collapsed into bed a few minutes later. She'd been woken by the low humming of her phone vibrating against her bedside table as it shot light through her dimly lit bedroom. She'd groaned uncomfortably and reached for it, cheek wedged awkwardly between her pillows and the mattress and legs tangled wildly in the sheets (Scott had always said she wriggled a lot in her sleep, but she'd always assumed he was exaggerating, until she slept alone).
She'd scowled when she'd seen it was her dad; he knew her schedule, and she'd told him she was up early when they'd spoken earlier that day. He never rings her late and it takes a moment for the frustration of being woken early by her phone to bleed away into worry and concern.
"Hello?" She'd croaked our groggily. "Are you okay? Is mom okay?"
She'd been met with a chuckle. His voice was low and gruff when it came, unusually thick and strangled. "Hey, Corrie." There was shuffling on the other end, hushed voices floating in and out of focus, until the phone went silent enough to think that maybe he'd hung up and hadn't meant to disturb her at all.
She'd scowled but her phone assured her he was still on the line. "Dad?" She'd called out to him. The panic had begun to rise when it wasn't his voice that replied.
"Coraline," her mother's soft voice breathed out. It was like a sigh of relief. "Sorry to bother you." Her French accent tipped the corner of her words. It always got stronger when she was upset or worried or scared, and it was especially thick now.
"What's wrong?"
Another pause. "Your father is in the hospital."
"What?" She’s suddenly holy upright, fear turning her blood to ice.
"He's fine, don't worry." She'd assured her. "He’s had some problems with his breathing again. They're doing some tests."
She'd almost booked a flight back to Michigan, almost abandoned filming and ran back home to make sure her dad was okay. The last time he'd been in hospital, it had been touch and go, and they'd spent an entire day huddled at his bedside in fear, just in case he'd stopped breathing. It was touch and go, and she couldn't live with herself if the worst happened and she never got to say goodbye to the man she owed so much to. She'd been in the process of scanning over the next flights on her laptop when her dad had taken the phone back from her mom and practically demanded that she stay in D.C.
Eventually, she'd relented. He'd promised to update her and she'd told them she loved them both before hanging up. But the phone call had sent her entire day into a tailspin.
She’d tried to sleep the extra hour and a half before she had to haul herself to work but her mind was running too wild for that. Even despite the reassurances, worry was plaguing her thoughts and panic was forcing her eyes open. Everything was just too much.
The last time it had happened, she'd had Scott. It was back when things were good, and he'd held her as she'd finally fallen asleep, curled up against him in an uncomfortable hospital chair.
But, now, he’s gone. Now, then, she was stood on set alone, trying her best to bite back a yawn and the tears, with so much concealer hiding the dark circles under her eyes that she can feel it clinging desperately to her skin. And, of course, life had picked the day when they had the most action scenes to film to deprive her of sleep.
Her entire body ached. She isn't sure how she's still standing after the first hour of work, with her legs protesting with every movement. Two hours of sleep and the running and the jumping and the endless stunts had sapped every last scrap of energy from her bones. She'd carried on stoically for most of the morning but she's truly never been more grateful for a lunch hour before, when she finds herself curled up against the couch in her trailer, passing out even despite the panic still swelling in her chest. She'd been surprised when she hadn't cried — maybe she was just too exhausted and her body simply couldn't muster the tears — but she's grateful she manages to keep the tears in because she doesn't want to haul herself back to set with mascara tears on her cheeks.
She’s even more grateful when she makes it home after a day that feels like five rolled into one and the scattered couch cushions look far too inviting for her to ignore.
It's an uncomfortable sleep and she wakes with the beginnings of a headache thrumming through her skull and a stiffness in her spine that she can't seem to straighten out. She's not sure how long she's managed to sleep — barely half an hour, she assumes — because she's woken by a soft knock on the door instead of the alarm she'd set on her phone. It wakes her with a jolt and she can't help but groan at the aching protests her limbs give when she stands. She shuffles across the apartment to the door and Marcus is stood there, smiling, his suit jacket and tie draped across his arm.
She's half dressed too - only he looks a damn sight better than she does, because his hair isn't dishevelled and messy and his shirt isn't twisted half way around his torso. She shouldn't have slept in her clothes but at least she had the hindsight to take off the stiff jeans. Except, now, she’s startlingly aware she’s standing before Marcus in nothing but her underwear and an unforgivably tight tank top.
"Good evening, Sunshine." He grins, that smile that makes her think that maybe he should be the one she called 'Sunshine'. "I brought you coffee." An odd offering at nine on a Wednesday evening but she’d been complaining, via text, about the lack of quality caffeine all day. Marcus offers her a polystyrene takeout cup as he steps inside.
"Lifesaver," she mumbles as she grabs it by the flimsy top and shuffles towards the kitchen to pour it into her unused Death Cab for Cutie mug — the mug her brother bought her three birthdays ago — and sips on the coffee. It's far too hot but she doesn't care; she needs the caffeine just to keep her eyes open. She grabs the blanket that she’s been sleeping under and wraps it around her waist, hyper-aware that she’s still wandering around in her underwear. She’s almost too tired to care.
"Are you okay?" It’s almost like he can tell. Though, she’s sure it probably has something to do with the dark bags beneath her eyes. She’s sure it probably looks like she’s been punched square in the face.
She shrugs. "I'll be fine. 'm just tired," She hums. Coraline slumps back against the couch cushions, pulls a thick blanket back over her body and lets her eyes flutter shut again. She groans and pinches the bridge of her nose.
"Bad night sleep?" There’s bags and piles of fresh laundry piled on the chair he usually sits on, a product of Coraline’s half-hearted attempt at productivity. Instead, he resigns and sits down beside her at the opposite end of the couch, lifting her legs absentmindedly to rest in his lap, sipping on his own drink, and smiling at her sympathetically as she stifles a yawn against the back of her hand.
Her eyes drag towards him when she opens them again. They rest on his face, studying everything from the softness of his brow and the curve of his prominent nose, to the scattering of facial hair that dances across his jaw, small patches of grey poking through at the edges. She’s glad he kept it after whatever undercover work he’d been assigned to before they’d even met. "If I tell you it was the worst night sleep I'd ever had, in my entire life, would that make me sound dramatic?"
"You? Dramatic?" Marcus scoffs and a smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. His free hand rests on her leg; he draws patterns against her skin but she’s not even sure he realises he’s doing it. "Never."
“Shut up.” Coraline glares at him but smiles, regardless. "Well, I think I'm allowed a pass today."
His face falls at her words. "What happened?"
She sighs and takes a hand through her hair. "My dad-" She eyes him as he watches her intently, brown eyes soft and comforting. "-he's ill again."
Cora had told him about her dad's illness, about how she worried he'd wind up back there again, in the hospital, that things would be worse this time. He'd listened to her like what he was saying was the most important thing in the world and she'd almost cried when he'd held her in a hug a little longer than usual. It was that night that she’d tried to ask him about his past; she wasn’t sure if he was trying to avoid telling her because he didn’t trust her or because it held things he didn’t want to relive. She half-hoped it was the latter, but she hated to think that he might be bottling things up, things he didn’t want her to know or didn’t feel comfortable sharing.
She wishes he’d tell her things. She’ll understand, no matter what it was. She’ll listen, like he does to her, for as long as he needs, as long as he wants.
It’s almost comical how different they are in that sense. Marcus is reserved, closed off, but in way that doesn’t suit him. It’s like whatever exists there, whatever memories lingered, had been withered by sadness, by something or someone, until there’s a barrier guarding his secrets and story that he hasn’t meant to build. She sees the softness in his eyes when she tells him her stories or shares her fears, like his heart is aching to spill the details of his past. Like he can’t let it out. It works for his job — undercover work, secrets, classified information — but somehow it doesn’t suit the smile and the softness of his words as he illuminates Coraline’s darkness.
Coraline, on the other hand, finds her words spilling from her chest before she can even hold them back. She’s not sure if it’s just him — the reassuring smiles, the soft brush of a hand, the gentle voice — but they pour from her at an almost embarrassing speed, like a waterfall of words cascading at regrettable speed. She’s not even entirely sure that she won’t spill her secrets to the next stranger in the street who offers her a smile. But that works for her job; people prying, picking her apart like vultures, scavengers of information found tucked away out of reach. It’s the worst part of the job description, to expect someone to know every detail of your private life, but she often thinks she’s open enough to sate them, until they leave her alone at last.
On paper, they make no sense. Jobs, the polar opposite, necessary privacy mixed with relentless publicity. Open and closed doors. But Coraline thinks, perhaps, that’s why they work. It balances them both out.
Marcus reaches over and catches her hand in his. There's barely any space between them because of the way they’re sat, with her feet prodding at his knees. "I'm sorry, Cora," he whispers, his thumb running over her knuckles softly.
After a shaky smile, gazes locked for maybe a little too long, Coraline stands up and smooths out her shirt. As much as she appreciates it, and appreciates him, she doesn't want to cry. Not today. "It'll be okay." She scrapes her thumb under her eyes, brushing away the black smudges that she's sure have formed underneath her eyes, and finishes the last of her coffee. "Everything will be okay."
Cora isn't entirely sure she believes that.
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