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#cola's a tragic character (sorry) but i can still give him a little bit of hope
inked-out-trees · 8 months
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wake up, wake up, little sparrow
(a coda to the fixed point theory, in which sparrow and cola finally get their closure)
I finally did it! it's been a long time coming (and by long time I mean I wanted to write this scene into the full fic, couldn't find a spot for it, and so pieces of this have been vibing at the back of my mind for like a year). pls enjoy :')
wordcount: 3373. title from the folksong of the same name by ella jenkins, secondary shoutout to the leyla mccalla version as well.
// mention of fic-typical death, reference to something that feels like incest but is not because they're not related - sandra just likes to call the cohort her siblings
October 2009.
The variation of front doors throughout time is surprisingly thin. At least, the look of them. Approximately person-sized, with a bit extra to account for comfort and human differences, a perfect delineation that says: you can enter this closed place through this area that is sometimes not closed. And occasionally they are painted red.
This is something Sandra thinks about on and off as she stands on the doorstep.
This squat little house lives in a threadbare neighbourhood somewhere in the shitty outskirts of a desperately small prairie town, the kind with one school and two churches and porches laden with old bikes and dirty plastic chairs. She’s seen no one in the half hour she’s been here, psyching herself up first on the gravel road and then on the front step of the house. It has a red front door. The floorboards are weathered green-grey beneath her feet.
She checks the time and date again. Correct, all around. The address. Also correct. It’s all written down, anyway, on this sticky note in her pocket that’s been crumpled and flattened so much its edges are soft and the ink has run and faded. The loopy, unencumbered handwriting of a forty-two-year-old Dodger, whom Sandra had run into at a farmer’s market in 2633.
That had been weird, too. Not just because it was the first time she’d been called Sparrow in fifteen years. They’d traded pleasantries, caught each other up on the lost years of their lives like they were casual old friends rather than estranged sisters who grew up learning how to kill people. It was awkward and then they fell into it, tripping suddenly into this metaphorical hole of easy reminiscence and falling, falling, falling.
Dodger hadn’t given her much of the cohort’s history, but she did give Sandra the currents: that she’d started writing her weird books, that Ghoul had found a ‘hot divorcée MILF’–Ghoul’s words–to settle down with, that Nicky was still gallivanting around picking up his odds and ends, to the consternation of the Bureau. Most crucially, at least to Sandra – that Cola was waiting.
The date’s passed, based on our chats, Dodger had said, something wistful playing at the edges of her lips. Cola still hasn’t told us what came of it.
How is he now? Sandra had asked.
And Dodger had shrugged, easily, like it wasn’t a concern that they’d scattered, leaving Cola in particular to whatever fate he cursed himself into. Like he wasn’t struggling to draw breath the last time Sandra had seen him, like things just – went on.
Which, maybe they did. She doesn’t know the details.
He messages us every once in a while so we know he’s still alive, Dodger had said.
Sandra wonders how necessary that was, at the start. If his state of being was that much of a question.
Dodger didn’t know what she’d be walking into, and so–even though it’s been a long time since she’s needed a debrief before jumping into things–her nerves slice sharp. The porch is so unassuming it feels, for a moment, that she’s on a regular adventure, or perhaps doorknocking or flyering or something else she lost shame about a long time ago. The door is the colour of fresh blood. Sandra’s not a ditherer – but this is Cola.
Cola, whose dream she picked up and ran with, never once looked back to see if she was trailing his intestines along with it.
The blinds at the front window are shut tight, but there’s a shift in one of them–a slit widening, and then shutting again, the brief space of an eyeball between them–and then the door lock clicks. Her throat hurts as she swallows.
Empty, cold space, this airlock of a front hallway, and then Cola says, “Sparrow.”
Sandra lifts her eyes. “Hi,” she says.
Cola’s older, here, same as the Dodger she met in the market several days ago and several hundred years to come. Or maybe he just looks it – reasonably, he shouldn’t be past forty yet, somewhere close in age to Sandra herself despite the jumps in time. But there are crevasses in his face that seem too deep to be real, a heaviness to the way he holds himself, steel-grey eyes she could drown in.
“You came,” Cola says.
Sandra thinks she might understand the way it feels to be a butterfly pinned into a shadow box. “I met Dodger,” she says. “She gave me the address.”
“I figured one of them would. If you found them.”
“I wouldn’t say I was looking for them,” says Sandra. “Not that she was looking for me, either, it was more of a coincidence, right-place-right-time sort of thing. Which, given the whole, you know. Time. I guess it could be construed as suspicious? But then again, even the smallest of probabilities must be true in some form, in some universe, again, given time. So maybe it was just that.” That’s a lot of words all at once. Sandra clamps her jaw shut.
Cola just gives her the smallest upturn of a smile. “I really want to get to know you,” he says finally, stepping aside to let her through the cramped entryway. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
He shuts the door and locks it, and as she’s pulling off her boots, Cola skirts past her, deliberately not touching her – a lack of touch that hurts nonetheless, because she knows in her bones that in a past life he would have given her a gentle knock on the shoulder, or even a hip-check, something easy and kind. There is so much between them, and it is nothing and everything, all at once.
She tucks her boots in the corner by the doorstop, toes nudging against a faded dirt stain along the baseboard. A little whiff of warm air brushes past her knuckles from the vent. Something click-clicks deep within the ducts. The house feels, incredulously, alive.
“I also have biscuits,” Cola says, from further inside. “They’re from the store. Probably stale. But I have them.”
Around the corner, the kitchen has the same wilted feel as the rest of the interior: beige wood cabinets and grey lino on the counters, the handle of the refrigerator yellowed with use, a pile of used dishes in the sink, all of it emanating a sort of stasis. The walls and fridge are bare of pictures. A single banana sits, browning, on the windowsill.
And Cola, half inside the pantry, holding a box of biscuits tentatively in one hand.
“Sounds perfect,” Sandra says, and she almost believes it. The water picks up in the kettle. She’s visiting a friend, that’s all; never mind that it’s not her current home time or place, never mind that this friend is her long-estranged brother.
Cola shifts another not-quite-smile her way, slides the biscuits across the island.
She’s not sure what’s meant to happen now. If the onus is on her to start whatever this is, or on Cola – he invited her here, sure, but she came. She slips her nails into the groove of the cardboard and rips open the biscuit box, and Cola pulls two mugs from his cupboards and drops unremarkable teabags into them, and neither of them speak.
They stand in relative silence until the kettle boils, and Cola hands her a mug, picking up his own and leading her back into the living room. She’d passed it earlier but made no note of it; the furniture is mismatched but comfortable, and–most memorably–a guitar is propped upright next to the tv, without a stand but surrounded by piles of books and sheet music. It’s so new it shakes her. So much has changed.
“So,” she says, and the word is so violently awkward it catapults her personality fully into the opposite direction – back into the ease and detachment of Sandra, the great and powerful, better-than-you actress who first debuted whenever she finally joined the drama club. Thirteen years ago and three years to come. “What made you choose two thousand and nine?”
Cola raises an eyebrow at her code switch but thankfully doesn’t push it. “Hadn’t been here yet,” he says, “and it seemed far enough away from all my other shit that it just... sounded okay.” He swipes a hand across his forehead, pulling trailing hair from his face. “And, I don’t know. I knew you were somewhere around here, too. Maybe I’d run into you. Long shot, but. You know.”
All at once Sandra deflates. So much for great and powerful. “Time loves its coincidences,” she agrees. “You look well.”
Cola’s answering snort is derisive. “I would love to see through whatever lenses you’ve got right on right now, Sparr.”
And, okay, yes, in truth Cola has a haggardness about him, deep under-eye circles and this energy fuzzing at the surface of his skin, like he’s been holding onto a coiled spring for so long even letting it go would no longer hold absolution. It’s been a long, long time, but somewhere in the core parts of Sandra’s memories she holds a picture of Cola full of life and glowing with it. This is – not that.
“You, however,” he continues, circling his mug in her direction. “Obviously whatever you did... worked well for you.”
“It did,” Sandra confirms. She doesn’t want to say too much, because, again – a dream she stole is a dream barely hers at all.
But Cola leans forward, with the least amount of guard she’s seen since she’s stepped foot in this house that breathes. “Tell me,” he demands, and she never could deny him, anyway, not when it counted.
She talks for a long time, and Cola never once stops looking interested. He rises a couple times: first to refill their tea, and then to start dinner, something small and frozen that Sandra doesn’t quite catch before it’s out of the box and into the oven. “Hope you’re okay without living in splendor for a bit,” he says, somewhat sardonically, and Sandra says, “I was in prison, I can handle it,” fully knowing she hasn’t gotten to that part yet in her story, excited to tell more. They sit on Cola’s kitchen counter and eat when it’s done – two plastic plates full of crudely sliced Shepard’s pie, heels knocking against the bottom set of kitchen cabinets.
Sandra finishes her abbreviated life story–as much as she’s telling, anyway–as they’re drying and returning Cola’s dishes to their spots. The grass flats stretching beyond the kitchen window sprout twisted, gnarled shadows, like scarecrows in the drying field. The sun is on the other side of the house, so low in the sky it’s almost disappeared. It’s been hours.
In the living room, Cola flicks on the lamp and dumps himself back into the chair. Sandra cradles her fourth cup of tea. “Your turn,” she says.
Cola shoves his face into both hands, stays like that for a while, and then moves them up, brushing back his hair as he goes. “It’s not as exciting.”
“I don’t care. It’s you. It’ll be exciting.”
This is the wrong thing to say, apparently, because all of the looseness Cola has begun to exhibit coils right back up, hard lines re-imprinting into the corners of his eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking, Sparr, I promise it’s not–that’s not even your fucking name, I shouldn’t be calling you that.”
“You can,” Sandra says. “You’re the only one who can.”
“Fuck,” Cola sighs, deflating much like a balloon. “Look, it’s not. I’m not.” He sits in silence for a while, clawing his fingers and then relaxing them on his knee, nails scraping against his jeans. “Dodger didn’t tell you anything, huh.”
“Not really.” and she hadn’t, not of their past; just of their present, or what they’d built into their own pocket of ‘present’, this shortened version of their past ten years or so. Sandra makes a small, nonsensical gesture at the house. “But you’re here. Instead of, you know.”
Cola stares at the floor, visibly steeling himself. “So you left,” he says. “We know that part. The Ring was not happy, as you can expect. They said they’d handle it. The rest of us kind of expected them to bring back your body as a warning.”
“Jesus,” Sandra says, before she can stop herself.
“But they grounded me anyway,” Cola continues. “Thought I’d helped you, or some shit. When they asked if I had I said no, but if she’d let me I would have, and I don’t know if that killed my future or not but it certainly didn’t help. Didn’t really care at that point, though. Since you, you know. Made it all possible, even when it wasn’t.”
Sandra remembers the crack in his voice that very first night, when he’d said I’m too chickenshit to do anything about it. Remembers how hard she’d hoped, afterwards, that he’d managed anyway.
Cola drains his tea. “Didn’t matter, anyway. The program got shut down five, seven years later. Yeah,” he adds, at Sandra’s raised eyebrow, “we were the first and the last ones, big fuckin’ whoop. Guess it wasn’t sustainable the way they thought it was, raising cycles of children to do their dirty work. Anyway, we were still classified as dangerous as hell, didn’t even exist legally and all that shit, so they couldn’t just let us wander. So we just, kind of... stayed at the compound. They kept everything running–everything except, y’know, the regular trips–and it was the most boring three years in my whole goddamn life. Hell, Mono and Prime started shagging somewhere in there, and it was–yeah, I know–until I figured, hey, we’ve been controlled enough, they don’t need any judgement from me. So. You know.”
He shrugs, like it’s the end of the story, dismissive in a way that makes Sandra want to lean in, unravel the stuck pieces and pull them out like thread.
“They let us out a couple years ago,” he says. “Personal escort to whenever and wherever we wanted to go, no time tech allowed beyond that. We collective-bargained for this stupid groupchat. I think they got the code from the future. But it measures sends and receives based on how long we’ve each been alive, so, like – I could text ‘em four hours after I get here and they’ll each get it four hours after they’ve landed in their final times. But that’s. That’s it, really.” He leans back in his chair, eyes still tight, face still shuttered. “And now I’m here, I guess. Living out the rest of my life in a fuckin’ farm town.”
Sandra wants to ask about the farm town decision, but the impression she’s getting of Cola–this ghost of a man living inside a house that feels, for all intents and purposes, larger than the person occupying it–is twigging something unpleasant in her gut. “All the things you wanted to do,” she ends up saying. “Concerts. Coworkers. Love.”
Cola laughs, a single, sharp bark that could shatter ice. “Fuck, Sparrow, that was always just going to be a dream. The program took too much away from me when they grounded me - hell, when they fucking adopted me. There’s not enough left in here to build whatever life I wanted.” He flops a hand around in a gesture at himself. “I’m glad you got your happy ending. Really, I’m fucking elated for you. But all you are is lucky. Most folks just go until they don’t anymore.”
Sandra notes, dimly, that whatever was rattling in the vents has now stopped; somewhere down the hall a clock seems to be repeating the tock without an accompanying tick, an unsettling undertone to the silence. She might be numb all over. Or maybe it just hurts, in some unexplainable way, this version of Cola she’s just met – the one she’s known all along. Bitter and carved from stone.
It’s fully nighttime now. It might just be the lamp casting odd shadows onto his face, but she’s not quite sure that’s it.
“Cola,” she says.
“I picked Ronan,” he says. “Not that anyone knows me by that. But the woman at the grocery store asked, once. Town this small, it’s hard to miss when new people show up.”
Sandra wets her lips and resets. “Ronan.”
And Cola looks her in the eyes. “Sandra.”
Good god, how did they get here? Her fingers itch for her watch; she wants to hurl them both back in time and fix whatever’s gone wrong here, fix it all – mold them both better childhoods, give them love rather than the fucked-up upbringing they got stuck with.
“You still have time,” she says, finally, sort of like she’s begging. Absolutely like she’s begging. “Find a major city. Pull out all the stops.”
“Jesus, always with the idealism.” Cola runs his hand through his hair, again, and tugs at it. “I’m a fucking coward, didn’t you hear the first time? This is what I have. I’m not stupid enough to let it get taken away from me, too.”
“But it doesn’t have to go.” Sandra’s stubborn, she can credit herself that. “You’re making Ronan up as you go. I know you are, I had to do the same with Sandra. He doesn’t have to hold onto the things Cola holds onto. He can do more. He can.”
Cola looks cynical, and for a flash of a second Sandra wants to haul him to his feet by the collar and throttle him. She doesn’t. She bites at the edge of her thumb and thinks for a while.
“Hey, we all knew this was going to be how it turned out,” Cola says, in a weird, gentle way, like he’s trying to reassure Sandra of his own miserable circumstances.
Sandra finds purchase on a piece of tough skin and yanks, tearing a strip that starts fine and turns tender the further it pulls. The loose thread of skin tickles. She flicks it back and forth with her pointer finger.
“Fine,” she declares. “You’re a coward. Cool. You know what you can still do?”
Cola raises an eyebrow as Sandra stands, rounding the coffee table and picking past a small pile of DVDs.
She thrusts a hand out, fingers open, as though offering him a boost up. “Take my hand.”
“Sparrow,” says Cola.
“The great news,” she says, “is that we’re all cowards. Every single one of us, about different things. We just find people who can do the things we can’t and let them drag us along, because we’re scared as hell but we do it anyway. Take my fucking hand, Cola.”
Cola spares a glace to his DVD player, which has a digital clock glowing green on its right side. “It’s nine thirty. Where are you planning on taking me, the high school bonfire?”
“It’s a bloody metaphor,” Sandra says, exasperated. “Do I have to pick you up? You look like you stopped exercising. I could take you.”
“Uh, no,” Cola retorts. “It’s always been a fair fight, it’ll always be a fair fight.”
He’s slipping back into banter mode, shedding some of that armor disguised as a hatred for life. Sandra keeps her hand out and tries to smother the smug feeling in her stomach.
Cola looks at her hand, then looks at her, back and forth a couple times. “You’re fucking serious,” he says.
“I’m fucking serious,” says Sandra.
“You–”
Sandra waves her open hand very close to Cola’s nose.
“Don’t slap me, Jesus Christ.” Cola smacks her hand away, and that’s the end of it – except it’s not, because instead of just letting her go, he wraps his fingers around hers. It’s a little unorthodox, as far as hauling handshakes go, but Sandra plants her feet and pulls him to stand anyway.
Nine thirty, in the bleeding dark of the smallest farm town Sandra’s ever seen, surrounded by life – a peeling coffee table with ringstains, piles of DVDs, the goddamn guitar. Cola opens himself, just a little bit, to match.
Sandra grips her brother’s hand. “The two thousands can be great, if you let them,” she says. “You’re going to make this work.”
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velcro-rave · 7 years
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post-emoji movie Trauma
WARNING: the following text contains spoilers and can be considered disturbing to some readers. especially my brain, because it’s leaking out my ears after typing this.
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This is the first movie ever I’ve gone to see on opening night. And let me just say that, for the record, I’m glad I went to watch with friends. Without them, I would have most likely calmly exited the room, climbed up to the roof, and dived straight off.
I’m honestly fucking terrified of how much this shitty movie has pushed me to the edge. I’ve never felt more ANGRY in my life and at the same time wanted to just curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep. This is so fucked up. What made it possible for this level of psychological warfare to be used so casually by Sony? Why did they decide this was ever a good idea to present to the public? I’m still shaking (and not from the overpriced Coca-Cola I was sold). Whether it’s out of rage or fear, I don’t know. Not even throwing myself into the deep fires of hell can attempt to restore the intrinsic warmth I felt before I witnessed this crime of a movie. They say that there’s a special place reserved below for people who cause enough pain to humanity, and it is at this point where I pose this question to the following:
Tony Leondis. Eric Siegel. Mike White. Michelle Raimo Kouyate.
Why?
Did you want this to happen to me? Was this the plan all along? To destroy everything you could possibly love in the process of creating this film, to make the audience suffer without any remorse? You got PATRICK FUCKING STEWART as a voice actor, and what is it you do?
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Yeah, you make him play A WALKING PILE OF SHIT!!!!
Someone could’ve ran up to me after I left the theater, put a shotgun directly up to my forehead, pulled the trigger, and that would have still not come close to how much my mind had been blown at the shocking reality that this movie, this spawn, could exist in the known universe and continue to be shown to innocent people. There were kids there. Hopeful, happy, young kids with iPhones who thought it was a great idea to head off to the movies and watch a funny relatable movie about emojis without a care in the world. Communicating ideas without the use of words is the “staple” of their generation, as the movie so proudly portrays (even comparing it to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics!), and there’s no reason a family shouldn’t agree to bring their children to this beautiful, heartwarming adventure, right? WRONG.
Nothing could have prepared me for the horrific amount of groan-worthy jokes this movie tossed out. I’ve been wracking my brain for an entire hour trying to remember the most potent ones, but they were so easily forgettable that I can only recall a few offhand. They were tragic. Whenever an opportunity for a shitty pun showed itself, you can bet your ass the writers took it and ran with it to lengths beyond the realms of humor. From the character known as Hi-5′s nonchalant Bye Felicia! to his two puns about snapping (as if one wasn’t enough), I wanted to get up and scream at the ceiling in the hopes that my cries of agony would disrupt the structural integrity of the building and have it fall on top of me, finally freeing me from the slow-cooker of torture that is The Emoji Movie.
At a certain point, Hi-5 (by the way James Corden, I thought you were cool. I thought you were here for us, for all of us as an entertainer, but you just had to take part in ruining me and the world as we know it by accepting this role. I will never forgive you.) mentions something about his heart beating. His… heart? This walking, talking hand has a heart? Does he have lungs? What other internal organs could fit in there and be capable of being slapped around constantly as a result of his stupid ass decisions? Why doesn’t he have arms like Gene or Jailbreak, does his body somehow take into account that he’s already a living appendage? This movie is making me sit and contemplate the anatomy of a fucking animated HAND, and that’s not even as preposterous as a thought can get while watching.
On multiple occasions throughout my viewing experience, I had to take a break to just lean back and sigh, both in anguish of what was happening onscreen as well as the sheer exhausting aspect of it all. The voice acting couldn’t have been more unreliable. Every other line it was a gamble between it being a poorly executed pun delivered so flatly that not even the 4-year old up front let out a little giggle, an obvious statement about what they’re planning to do next, or the most unremarkable snippet of backstory ever revealed. I’m sure all those scenes between Gene and Jailbreak where they gaze at each other were meant to be construed as romantic, but her blasé response to each of his approaches because she “isn’t some princess waiting for her prince” or how “women are deserving of more respect” completely knocked the mood off whatever pedestal it was stepping up to. I get it, these are actual important themes that need to be recognized, and I would be more than happy to see this acknowledged in a movie built on as many metaphors as Zootopia, but the timing of her commentary was the worst I’d ever seen. The constant interruptions made it seem like her words shouldn’t be taken seriously at all!
Unsurprisingly, character background was virtually (unintentional pun. I’m incredibly sorry.) nonexistent, and everything that’s possible to be wondered about the universe could pretty much be answered with a big shrug. For example, why does Hi-5 have a band-aid? Did he get stabbed or something? When did Gene begin to show signs that he was capable of other emotions? Was the Just Dance girl deleted after the trash bin emptied itself out? We didn’t see any signs of the characters going back for her after Hi-5 had to shake off the troll, so did they just leave her there to die? If Jailbreak had been working for a long time to get out, why didn’t she use more of her hacking skills? She pulled up her hologram window things maybe three times total to escape or hide somewhere, does she seriously not have anything else in her repertoire that could potentially help Gene and Hi-5 get to where they need to be quicker? There’s so many questions that don’t even get passively explained. Then again, I’m arguing against the same people who genuinely advocated for the setting to be called Textopolis.
AND WHOSE FUCKING IDEA WAS IT TO MAKE THE MAIN CHARACTER “MEH”??
The ONE emoji with zero interesting qualities and the most monotone parents that, for some fucking batshit insane reason, were given more than the minute of screentime they deserved. I understand for a quick gag, their emotionless response to everything could be funny, but their conversations would just stretch on and on and on. As for Gene, I trusted you, T.J. Miller. I can’t believe you betrayed me, especially after such a hilariously perfect role in Deadpool. Never in my life have I felt so disappointed in a single person. There is no justifiable reason for you to be proud of what you’ve done here. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I astral projected at least three times as I struggled to repress the memory of this trainwreck before it even ended. When I wasn’t desperately clawing at the armrests mid-convulsion, I was staring vacantly at the center of the screen, wondering how this week could have gone so wrong.
This was basically a 91-minute long advertisement. The whiplash of traveling between product placement to product placement nearly made me throw up, which was ostensibly the only thing that could’ve made this worse. Dropbox, Spotify, Candy Crush, Just Dance, YouTube, Facebook, and the almighty Twitter, I hope you’re happy with what you’ve wrought. The “emoji-pop” dance assaulted my eyes so suddenly, acting as the unnecessary cherry on top of the feel-good ending; I think that’s when I officially lost all hope in enjoying the rest of my night.
It’s honestly taking every ounce of my being to hold onto the little bit of life that I have after the Emoji Movie ripped my soul to shreds. The amount of violation I felt as my ears were subjected to endless pop culture references that were relevant years ago, nightmarish depictions of the content of each app on Alex’s phone, and the fact that the god damn Eggplant was in the Unused Emojis room when everyone knows that’s not the case is indescribable. I now have to live with the fact that every time I switch keyboards on my phone, those blank yellow faces will serve as a dark reminder of what I’ve gone through. To any of you reading this that have also watched The Emoji Movie, I am so sorry. I know how difficult it is to process. My recommendation to each and every one of you who haven’t had the chance to witness this sickening spectacle is to KEEP IT THAT WAY. Don’t give in to the peer pressure; this abomination parading itself around as an endearing motion picture will wholly and truly rattle you to the core. My only solace was the complete absence of dabbing or whipping (apart from hearing the song), and I’d like to thank every deity above and below for that small act of mercy.
Here’s to you, Sony. Thanks for ensuring that I not only sink deeper into my depression, but for forcing my mind to house the images I’ve seen today for as long as I live. I wish I could physically bring myself to chuck my phone in a garbage fire, but my entire body has gone numb. Here’s to you, and to all the writers, producers, and directors of this movie that made me sit in a corner pondering how I can possibly live in a future where this monstrosity exists.
Gravely, sincerely,
fuck you, and goodnight.
🖕
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