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christinebloodwrittings · 2 years

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Briefly Instant (Part eighteen)

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x fem!reader

Summary: Life is complicated, always moving and working in ways we can't comprehend. Between the bubbles and the heartache, an unfortunate encounter left a half-broken heart and a strong connection which separated this soulmates for a long time. Two sides of the story, two hearts that longed for each other painfully. One brief instant was enough to know.

Warnings for this chapter: Blood.

A/n: Sorry for the delay, I'm going through stressful stuff, thank you so much for all the support and the likes and the follows, we're 400 already, I love you all so much!!!

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TH Taglist: @lucky-foxface @lokisprettygirl22 @criticaltrinket @vbecker10 @huntress-artemiss @el-zef @hiddlesgirl81

“You truly have grown beautiful” the redheaded in the red suit took off your restraints, all with a snake's smile plastered on his face, matching his mamba.

"Are we going to sit down and talk or are you going to tell me where that vermin is hiding?" the excitement of finally being back with your colleagues would turn into adrenaline, however the bewilderment of having no idea where you were in the world and the post-flight dizziness made you see colored dots, maybe you should have gotten up from the chair more carefuly.

"Come this way, we've been waiting for you, agent." The colorful reptile slid off his shoulders, its head came up and hissed at you, it inched closer until the thick part of its torso moved away from Jasper's body. You managed to hold it before it hit the ground, the reptile's body clung to your arm and then when it was safe it moved around your shoulders until it was comfortable.

“I hope my absence hasn't disrupted the purpose of our mission,” you joked, stroking the animal's scaly head. "Of course not, we have at least two hundred armed agents ready to take down Alan's mansion in Costa Brava, agents that I expected you to lead" always expected that of you, even after you graduated from the academy.

“I thought we had this issue clear, I’m not a leader, I plan to get inside, get what I need, and make Alan kiss my ass” he belly laughed, his voice turned raspy and old due to the smoke and the age, but what could you expect from a sixty-year old man with the body health of a ninety-year old?

“I don’t think he’ll put much resistance on the latest thing” he laughed again, it reminded you of the good times, “I’ll blow his head afterwards, at least he’ll have one last good thing” then you saw Smith, the doctor, “Hey! The fucking needle wasn’t necessary, next time I’ll turn you into a pincushion” he showed you his middle finger before entering the med bay.

“Now, now, don’t be mad at good old Smithy, he was just doing what he was told”.

“I’ll shove it up your ass then” the snake hissed at Jasper matching your anger, although most of it was just messing around, “I missed you” he caressed your face lovingly, he trained you, he was your mentor...he sort of raised you in your young adult years.

After a boring meeting, it was time to rest, there were few hours left before you had to hold a weapon again, you almost could feel that familiar weight in your hands.

“Soo, how’s your boyfriend? Does he know of your whereabouts?” you released a deep “ugh” at the sound of his normal voice, sometimes he was just too fruity to stop being a cliché, “No and he won’t know from the lacks of you, I had to spy on your little affair to keep her from uncovering the ruse” Charlie was really a part of all that? Yes, how? You weren’t sure.

“Is he part of this mission?” he suspiciously nudge your arm, “No! And you will not harm him, he’s innocent”.

“Did you fuck him?”.

“He does it better than you”.

“I don’t doubt that, with those hips, mmm~. They had to CGI his cock out of the frame because it was too damn big, if anything, I respect you” you had to admit that you shared his love for his physique, but the way he was referring to Tom, “Don’t talk about him like he was just some whore I fucked, he’s more than that” he made you felt safer than anyone, he was worth it.

“If you say so”.

“I had to team with you, you’re a disgrace” unprofessional, he acts out of order, improvises, and he is not inclined to follow orders, that’s why you hated him.

“We all are, and it’s your fault, all this trouble because you killed the wrong idiot”.

“I know, I won’t miss again”

“Good, now let’s go, we strike tomorrow at dawn”.

“Can't wait".

Two days passed, a few texts from you got to be sent into Tom's phone. Those brief lights of hope got him excited and cheerful at work. The feeling of your hands on his forearms going up to his neck, your warm cheeks against his, your lips, your smile ever so lovely, lingered. It made him happy to remember you like that.

It seemed so easy to just go by the day, sharing just a few texts and selfies. It worked for a while, until he saw that you sent a repeated photo.

He tried to overlook that detail, because it seemed like a mistake, anyone could just send the photo where they looked their best a few times, but he didn't get an appropriate answer from you, so he started to get suspicious.

He showed the conversations to a specialist and she determined that it was a bot programmed for auto-answer in chat, after a few trick questions to fool the system. But why would you put a bot to answer his texts? Could it be that you were still mad about the prank? No, you said that you forgave him.

So then three weeks passed. He came back to London, he didn't bothered to keep talking with the bot, if you happened to be at your place as he hoped, he was going to have a very serious conversation with you.

He knocked once and twice on your door, but all he heard were grunts and stumps, "Yes? Huh? Tom, I thought you had another week of filming" you seemed surprised to see him, but not in a good way, you held the door too close to your body.

"They let me go early, love. I need to talk to you about something" he seemed hurt, you hated that look because you knew it was because of you, did he found out about you? Who told him? Is he going to leave you because of the horrible things you’ve done?

"Can it wait?... Let's meet tomorrow, how 'bout that?" you carried away your words, heck, you could barely concentrate in putting a sentence together. "Y/n, I really need to speak to you right now, would you let me in?" no, you couldn’t, he would see you.

"Now is not a good moment".

"Y/N, what are you hiding?" was there someone with you? That’s why you were avoiding him? Not that you were his or anything, but he thought he at least had something with you.

"Nothing, can it wait ‘till tomorrow?" you pleaded, you needed him to go, but at the same time you needed him to hold you. You wanted to cry and cling to him, but you couldn’t make him see, he’ll know, and if knows, you’ll lose him.

"Y/n, I'm not going until you open the door" he wasn’t going to push the door, he didn’t wanted to hurt you.

"I don't want to".

"Y/n".

"Tom, seriously I'm busy in something important!" tears threatened your eyes.

"What? What exactly are you so busy on?" he raised his voice, making you shiver. "I don't want you to panic" the words were true, but your voice, so small and pathetic, you were once a soldier.

"Panic? Y/N stop being so cryptic, tell me what the hell is going-" you opened the door before he could yell, stopping him dead in his tracks, "I'm stitching this wound" the cut was on your right calf, it was dripping blood, and you also had another on your stomach but that was stitched shut.

You were already struggling to stand up as it is, you though that he was going to help you right away, instead he scoffed, "Very funny, is this your way to get back at me? I already apologized!" you groaned and as about to explain but then Oscar spoke behind you.

"Y/n please come back, if you move it's going to get worse-, oh! Your boyfriend, hi handsome! Would you mind telling her stubborn ass to come back? I'm not done dealing with that cut" whiney good Oscar, yes you loathed him, but he’s good with needles.

"Who the fuck is he?" Tom’s jealousy got the best of him, but that was within his right, “Just come in” you pulled him in and closed the door, well let yourself fall onto the door and pushed it until it closed.

"Tom, this is Oscar, he's the ex I told you about but before you roll up your sleeves and hit him, he and I were never a couple. For starters he's very gay, and we were cops in an undercover investigation, that, as you can see, went really bad!" you walked to the bathroom and slammed the door behind you, your screams of pain and wailing echoed in the room.

Tom tried to follow but Oscar blocked his way, "Honey, I wouldn't advise you to go in there, as I said I'm not finished, she could die for real" Oscar did know you, and Tom watching you in pain was not something you needed at the time.

"How did that-".

"No questions while I'm working, even though you're handsome, she'll explain it later, don't push her, it's hard to be oneself when you return from a mission, she’s been under a big rock" deep down Oscar would kill Tom if he hurt you, at the moment he was limiting himself to be real to him, which prove to be fruitful, “What can I do?”.

“Wait in the living room, the last thing she needs is her love seeing her at her lowest, she’s frustrated, afraid, and angry, she’ll explain in time, give her a chance” Tom nodded at Oscar’s words and took seat in the couch.

“Okay Tom, I’m going to explain, but it’s not going to be pretty, are you sure you want to hear it?” Oscar brought you to the living room once he was done patching you up. Only then he got to see more of your bruises and cuts, it broke his heart to say the least.

“It has to do with our first meeting, my first failure as part of the special forces. I was undercover working at that restaurant, everything was going fine, my target was just a few tables away. But that asshole, a nobody who wanted a free meal planted broken glass in a cake and I was publicly fired, completely screwing up my plan.

I ran into the asshole outside the restaurant and almost kicked him to death, rendering the bastard unrecognizable, which I shouldn't have done because he was my target's little brother and the street cameras didn't help me, I had to hide until that the agency erased my tracks.

But that doesn’t end there.

What was going to happen to the plan? I had to wait a lot, until recently I was called back. Alan Star's company had recently received a large payment, this being the reward for an alliance between Star Oil and McKee Senors, a company that designs cell phones. However the name turned out to be an anagram, "smoke screen" being the name, what a funny sense of humor the son of a bitch has. Instead of cell phones, they specialized in creating and modifying cures for the most complex of diseases.

And why would an oil tycoon and a bastard get together? Easy, money, power and legacies. The celebration you were going to infiltrate was a wedding between the children of both families, which impressed you in a good way, their families were mostly elderly, the ones you could bet were old enough to have witnessed what the ignorant did to the witches in Salem.

Still doesn't sound diabolical? To create a cure you need to have the disease, and to get it someone has to have contracted it. Talking about a massive missing persons and medical records case.

Lion Samuels, CEO of McKee Senors was my objective, he’s gone but…” you couldn’t hold your tears anymore, as soon as Tom opened his arms to you, your body pushed itself from Oscar and fell into Tom’s embrace.

Unable to keep explaining, Oscar finished your you. “Y/n found out there was someone else there, not being their prisoner, as we thought, but working with them”.

“Who?” Tom was soon going to regret asking, “My mother” you spoke through your sniffling, it hurt too much.

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sooibian · 3 years

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So Let's Runaway - Costa Brava

Prologue >> Costa Brava >> Seville >> Cuéllar

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Fem!Reader ft. bff!Chanyeol

Genre/Themes: Fluff, angst, humour, travel AU, road trip through Spain, travel buddies Chansoo

Warnings: Grief, loss, heartache, toxic relationships, mildly explicit language

Description: A bachelors trip turns into a soul-searching journey when an unlikely group of three travels through the scenic landscapes of Spain. Their experiences present them with opportunities to mend bridges, face their fears and fall back in love with the true essence of life.

Word Count: ~ 5.3k

A/N: this story is a part of @supermwritersnet ‘Around the world in 31 days’ event. event masterlist.

Tag list: @sooadorable @rosetvler @changshapatrol @his-mochi-cheeks @is-that-baekhyuns-shirt @j-pping @kysoobydoobydoo @exoxobsession @camillapad @reekyungsoo let me know if you’d like to be (un)tagged.

@smolgirlbigthoughts thank you so much for the description!!! ;~~~~~;

After having stayed the night (or whatever was left of it after a red-eye flight) in an Airbnb in Barcelona, the three of you hired a Lyft to Europcar to pick up the SUV that Chanyeol had pre-booked for the Costa Brava - Seville - Cuéllar itinerary. What you’d gathered from your several conversations with Chanyeol after that serendipitous coffee date was that each of the three friends had handpicked an adventure sport to try out in these places.

Chanyeol had chosen scuba diving in the rugged coast of Costa Brava with its spectacular cliffs and countless coves. Kyungsoo had appositely picked out an adventure sport involving throwing oneself out of an airplane thousands of feet above ground a.k.a. skydiving in Seville, the capital of Andalusia, resting, wise and old, upon the Guadalquivir river. And Yixing, bless his heart, had wanted to take part in a bull run in Cuéllar that takes place on the last Sunday of August each year.

Twirling the car key on his finger, Chanyeol, dressed in baggy black shorts, a loose fitting purple tee, super dark oversized shades and a snapback cap worn backwards, strongly resembled that ‘smiling face with the sunglasses’ emoji as he walked out of the booking office with Kyungsoo following closely behind. All set to catch a few winks in the rear seat comfort of the SUV, you pulled down the brim of your sunhat but suddenly, a blur of turquoise swooped past you, capturing your attention. Your drowsy eyes wrestled the summer sun to land upon a gorgeous turquoise Buick convertible swerving around the parking area before coming to a fashionable halt. A portly, bespectacled man stepped out of the vehicle and deposited its key with the booking office.

This was it.

This was the car ideal for a road trip, not some mafia boss’ kidnapping vehicle.

The essence of time dawned upon you so you trotted to where the Buick was parked and went down on your knees, hands folded in an implicit plea. The two men, startled at first, were quick to realize what was up.

Kyungsoo fixed you with a judgemental gaze that wasn’t any different from a mother’s fed-up of her child’s tantrums while Chanyeol broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Shoulders hunched under the weight of his tan leather backpack, Kyungsoo crammed his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants and sighed, “The SUV’s more practical.”

With a twinkle in your eye, you exclaimed, “Screw practical! Just look at it! It’s a convertible and we’re on a road trip!”

Grinning from ear to ear, Chanyeol advanced towards you gingerly. “Shifu, my love-”

Jutting out your lower lip, you crossed your arms over your chest and whined, “Don’t call me that after you’ve ditched me for Miss Perfect Hair!” causing Kyungsoo to roll his eyes which distracted you from Chanyeol’s stealth attack.

All of a sudden, the beanpole leapt at you, maneuvered you like he would a balloon sculpture, tucked his arms under your knees, picked you up and shoved you in the backseat of the dreary black vehicle with sun shades on windows darker than Kyungsoo’s soul. With Chanyeol’s finger pressing down on the ridge between your eyebrows, you laid down on your back, sulking, “Some road trip this is. Can I atleast drive?”

Before slamming the car door shut, he teased, “Take a nap.”

And...you tried.

Forty five minutes into the drive, you tried so hard to make up for the red-eye flight but Kyungsoo’s phone Just. Wouldn’t. Stop. Ringing. To make matters worse, he sounded like a broken record parroting the words ‘margin call’, ‘shorting’, ‘S’, ‘B’, ‘stop loss’ over and over again. The same damn thing, every single time.

“Enough Kyungsoo! We’re on a vacation, dude,” Chanyeol chided, the almost indiscernible crack in his voice indicative of his annoyance.

Leaning back into his seat, Kyungsoo bragged, “The last thirty seconds earned me enough commission to be able to buy at least five bags of the kind I bought Aera yesterday.”

“Now, why would you buy Aera a bag?” Chanyeol asked, a hint of suspicion evident in his tone. The sounds of their voices had been mercilessly thwarting your attempts at a peaceful slumber but, this was different. The lack of response from Kyungsoo seemed to have piqued your interest. Your eyes fluttered open to a one eighty shift in Chanyeol’s mood. Brows knit together, his fingers impatiently drummed on the steering wheel as you both waited for Kyungsoo’s answer with a bated breath. But in his stead, it was his stupid phone that broke the silence.

Wide eyes fixated on the screen, Kyungsoo suddenly cried out, “Stop the car!”.

“What?!”

“Stop the car, Chanyeol!”

Letting out an exasperated groan, Chanyeol rashly veered the car to the right before hitting the brakes, causing you to nearly roll off your seat. Kyungsoo darted out of the vehicle and the next thing you knew, he stood facing the hood of the vehicle, his laptop perched atop the bonnet and his life support cellphone clutched in one hand.

Bowing to the screen, he greeted, “Moshi Moshi!”

“Is he taking a work call right now?” you mused.

Chanyeol snorted, “That’s Doh Kyungsoo for you.”

Chuckling softly, you squished your face against the back of Chanyeol’s seat and groused, “Well, along with loony, your friend seems to be fluent in Japanese.”

“Yah! Cut him some slack. He’s had a rough couple of weeks,” explained Chanyeol, wrestling with a bag of chips in his hands.

“Yeollie -”

It was on the tip of your tongue.

You wanted to tell Chanyeol about your encounter with Kyungsoo on the rooftop but there was no way you could explain your own presence in the first place. To make matters worse, you were the worst liar you knew. So, you decided it was a story that best remained untold for your own sake, your mother’s and inadvertently, Kyungsoo’s.

“Yeah?”

“Can I have a chip?” you asked instead.

“All yours!”

“I’ll have just one, thanks.”

“You alright, Shifu?” Chanyeol slurred around a mouthful of chips, “Is there anything you need?”

“A nap would be nice,” you jested while nibbling at the edges of the deep fried snack.

“Aww, sleepyhead, we’ll be there in an hour.”

Humming in agreement, you reached for another chip and cooed, “Are you alright, Yeol? What’s with the whole ‘bag for Aera’ situation?”

Chanyeol’s head spun around to give you a warm, dimpled smile. “Don’t worry. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

You couldn’t help but notice how he had wolfed down an entire packet of chips in a matter of minutes along with a can of some neon and black fizzy drink. A distant memory of Chanyeol guzzling an entire bottle of water in three seconds for shits and giggles back in Uni stretched your lips in a wistful smile.

By then, Kyungsoo was done with his twenty minute long call against the quaint cerulean and stone backdrop of fishing villages by the coast. Who needs a virtual background when you’re surrounded by coves of deep blue sea and beaches of golden sand? As he reached for the car door, you whispered in Chanyeol’s ear, “One more call and I’m chucking his phone out the window.”

Grinning mischievously as he fastened his seatbelt, Chanyeol sang, “Oh, Shifu, I’ve missed youuuu!”

The moment Kyungsoo stepped inside, a tangible gloom proliferated in the enclosed space. Chanyeol started the car and you quietly curled up in the backseat. Kyungsoo’s head spun around, round eyes blazing with conviction. Pointing towards the trunk, he said, “Do you see that cloth bag on top of Chanyeol’s trolley?”

“This one?” you asked, hoisting yourself up on one elbow, your arm carelessly flapping all over the luggage before landing on said cloth bag with a dull thump.

“Hand it over, please,” winced Kyungsoo, “Be gentle, it’s a gift.”

Passing him his precious ‘gift’, you let out an annoyed huff and laid down again, facing the backrest. But curiosity got the better of you. You immediately turned back around to see what this ‘gift’ looked like.

Kyungsoo loosened the strings of the canvas tote to reveal a black Birkin Cargo. Soft and lightweight, it was supposed to be Hermès first off-road bag. Your droopy eyes flew open in awe of its high-brow craftsmanship and it was certainly a thoughtful gift for a bride-to-be. If this gift was meant for you, you were sure to forgive any and all of his crimes but the bag didn’t seem to have the same kind of effect on Chanyeol.

The air was still thick with tension.

Gaze fixed on Chanyeol’s profile, Kyungsoo murmured, “I didn’t want to do this now.”

Eyes on the road, “Spill,” grunted Chanyeol, as if expecting the obvious.

“This is an ‘I’m sorry’ gift for Aera,” started Kyungsoo before lowering his voice to a whisper, “I picked it up from duty free last night...it’s fifteen times Yixing’s annual agricultural income.”

Chanyeol clicked his tongue in disapproval at Kyungsoo’s snide remark.

“What do you want to apologize to her for?” he then asked with a deep sigh.

“I- I can’t make it to the wedding,” said Kyungsoo, faltering in his otherwise steadfast speech.

“Why?” quizzed Chanyeol in a terrifyingly cool tone while anger started to rise within you. Why he allowed this midget to walk all over him was beyond you. Didn’t he have better friends?

“I pushed back an important appointment for this trip. It was either Spain or the wedding. And since you insisted on Spain...”

Furious, Chanyeol struck the steering wheel with his palm. With the rattle of the metal strap of his Rolex reverberating in the car, he bellowed, “The actual fuck, Doh Kyungsoo?!”

“What?! I said I’m sorry!”

“No, you didn’t! Besides, ‘sorry’ doesn’t fix anything! You’re supposed to be my best man - are- are you listening to yourself right now?!”

Chewing on the insides of his cheeks, Kyungsoo patiently waited for his friend to simmer down. After a pregnant pause, Chanyeol resumed reasoning with him, his tone evidently milder this time, “Okay, okay, talk to me. Does this appointment have to be on the exact same day as the ceremony?”

“No, it doesn’t and...it isn’t,” Kyungsoo explained before hurriedly requesting, “Can we do this later?”

Chanyeol took a sharp right turn along the tapering road and brought the car to a screeching halt. Brows furrowed, lips quirked in an angry smirk, he looked Kyungsoo straight in the eyes and you felt as if the air conditioner had suddenly started meting out the chilliest of blows.

“No, I want to talk about it right now! So, tell me. What’s more important than your best friend’s wedding?”

Kyungsoo took off his glasses, threw his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Chanyeol, please -”

“No, I need to know!”

“Then remember it was you who wanted to have this conversation on the first day of our trip,” he stated curtly.

“Enough with the drama Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol’s roar rang through the car.

“FINE!” Kyungsoo grumbled, “I got a job offer from the London office and...I accepted. I leave a week after we’re back in Seoul….since it’s a new position I cannot fly back for the wedding. And I would’ve...I- I was going to fly back for the wedding had it not been for this trip.”

“So you decided to leave. Forever. Just like that. Without even talking to me about it first.” Chanyeol thought out loud, his tone tellingly casual.

Looking out the window, Kyungsoo whispered audibly, “There’s nothing left for me in Seoul.”

Without another word, Chanyeol started the car.

Putting his glasses back on, Kyungsoo threw his hands up and argued, “So you’re not going to say anything?!”

Chanyeol cranked up the volume on the car’s stereo in response, leaving Kyungsoo tongue-tied.

***

Ten minutes into the drive, Kyungsoo’s phone blew up for, conservatively, the fifteenth time. But before he could even swipe to answer, Chanyeol lowered the car window, plucked his phone out of his hand and chucked it into the shrubbery by the roadside and continued to drive at an accelerated speed.

Kyungsoo’s mouth fell open but no words came out and unbeknownst to you, you were mirroring the dazed look on his face.

Chanyeol stuck his thumb out to where you were seated and justified indifferently, “It was her idea.”

It wasn’t a house. It was a warzone.

The spacious three bedroom apartment had invisible borders drawn out and nobody dared to encroach upon the other’s territory.

After arriving in Costa Brava, the three of you settled in and freshened up before heading out for a scheduled theoretical lesson on scuba diving conducted by your PADI certified instructor. The lesson had ended sometime around sunset and through the entire thing, you acted like complete strangers, making it more awkward than necessary for the twenty something instructor.

After the lesson, Kyungsoo offered to drive the trio to a boutique hotel, Hostal Sa Rascassa’s restaurant, which was supposed to be located on the edges of a tranquil, secluded cove and served traditional sea-food centric dishes like -

“- grilled sardines, cod fishcakes and octopus stewed with onion and pepper,” Kyungsoo counted on his fingers, making your stomach growl and your mouth water.

Chanyeol brushed him aside with a bitter, “I’m not hungry.”

Turning to you, Kyungsoo asked politely, “Wanna come?”

From the corner of your eye, you noticed Chanyeol shooting you a death glare so you decided to wriggle out of the situation by citing tiredness.

Kyungsoo lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug and took off in a taxi, leaving the car to the two of you.

“Where do you wanna eat?” Chanyeol asked as you got into the passenger’s seat.

Slack jawed, you chastised a giggling Chanyeol, “Yeollie, you’re absolutely horrible!”

It had been months.

Months since Natasha had walked out of their shared apartment.

And ever since then, every night, the moment Kyungsoo’s head would hit the pillow, a sense of hopelessness would erupt right in the middle of his chest. Spreading its wings far and wide, this despair would engulf him entirely and render him sleepless.

Nothing he tried helped his disposition so he’d started working on accepting this feeling as an inextricable part of his being. Something he’d have to learn to live with for the rest of his life.

Overcome by exhaustion, Kyungsoo drifted off only to be jolted awake by a jarring memory.

Hands balled into fists, Natasha yelled, ‘HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?’

‘This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Natasha! This deal could help us!’ Kyungsoo thundered in the face of her dogged determination to not let this slide.

‘Can’t you see that I don’t care?’ She met his bloodshot eyes with tears welling in hers.

Brows knit together, Kyungsoo ruminated on his thoughts before firing back, ‘Are you saying that you don’t care about my life?’

Exasperated, Natasha ran a hand through her hair to ground herself and argued, ‘Stop it, Kyungsoo! Don’t confuse your work with your life! Your work isn’t your life. It’s just a part of it. WHAT ABOUT US?’

‘Us?’ Kyungsoo deliberated, ‘I bought this apartment so that we could live together.’

Natasha retracted with every step Kyungsoo took towards her, expression coloured in unpleasant shades of anger and disgust. Letting out a mirthless laugh, she taunted, ‘Oh, please! You bought this apartment to impress people with your upmarket address.’

Aghast, Kyungsoo sank into the couch, his mind flitting between despair and hope. Head in his hands, breathing jagged and raspy, he reasoned, ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this to me! I’m planning a future with you.’

‘The future is yet to come, Kyungsoo. WHAT ABOUT OUR PRESENT?’

‘STOP YELLING!’

‘THEN LISTEN TO ME!’

Hands on his knees, Kyungsoo’s gaze shot up to rest upon Natasha’s flushed face. ‘What do you want?’ He demanded in a terrifyingly low tone.

A silent tear slid down her cheek as she explained with a quiver in her voice, ‘I want your time, Kyungsoo. I want a relationship not a retirement plan.’

Helpless, Kyungsoo toyed with the words in his mind before blurting, ‘If the chairman of Nakamura Corporation wants to meet me then I have- to- go! If he likes the presentation, he’ll give us the entire account. Don’t you see how big this is for me?’

‘But what about us, Kyungsoo? What about our dinner plan?’

‘We can postpone it to next month, can’t we?!’

‘It’s my birthday, Soo. I can’t postpone my birthday. You’d promised me this dinner...no matter what! You cancelled the reservation without even asking me first.’

Cupping her face in his hands, he pressed his lips to hers and whispered, ‘Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...but I have to go.’

When you padded into the living room, sleep befuddled at 5 a.m., you caught Chanyeol and Kyungsoo locked in an embrace, both of their eyes squeezed shut, as if wordlessly conveying an incredible degree of warmth and affection towards each other.

All of it….in “bro code”.

You imagined the conversation in your head, in two deep, distinct male voices:

‘I’m sorry I threw your phone out the window, bro!’

‘It’s what I deserved, bro!’

Rubbing away the drowsiness from your eyes, you tiptoed back into your room so as to not disrupt this….whatever this was supposed to be.

***

Underneath the purple-pink skies, enveloped in the cool early morning breeze, Kyungsoo, Chanyeol, and you, dressed in spandex scuba suits, huddled together in solidarity on the boat’s bulwark.

The diving site that Chanyeol had picked was called ‘Boreas Wreck’. The Boreas was a high sea tugboat that served for the German Navy during World War II. It was deliberately sunk in 1989 for the purpose of creating an artificial reef and thus, a scuba diving attraction.

“Any non-swimmers?” the trainer asked and Kyungsoo’s hand shot up in the air.

Her full lips curled up in a dazzling smile. “You’re brave,” she remarked and you heard Kyungsoo swallow hard, inviting a snigger from Chanyeol.

Hands on hips, her perfect figure accentuated by the spandex, she instructed, “You will be diving deep into this sea now, do you remember the theoretical part I taught you on the shore?”

Chanyeol and you were confident (and loud) in your affirmation.

Kyungsoo, not so much.

With the bulky dive equipment on, the instructor created a circle with her thumb and forefinger, gesturing, “All okay?”

The three of you responded by following suit.

First dive, twelve metres depth.

You’d become the proverbial fish out of water except you were not the fish and you were under water and your whole world had been turned upside down….quite literally.

You spun around to find the instructor assisting Chanyeol with his breathing rhythm and Kyungsoo curled up like a shrimp, hugging his knees. Arm extended, he gave you a “thumbs up” which meant an entirely different thing under water from what it did on land.

Thumbs up, in diving lingo, spelled trouble. It meant that, for whatever reason, the diver wished to ascend. But, by then, you’d known Kyungsoo long enough to understand that there was no real cause for concern.

The look in his eyes told you that he was simply struggling to adapt.

You swam towards him, with your legs and not your arms, in order to maintain good buoyancy control. Clasping your hands together in a mitten grasp, you signalled him to hold onto you. Kyungsoo created a circle with his thumb and forefinger to signal “okay” before putting his hand on your forearm, the soft ripples caused by his gentle movements gleaming in the artificial light from your gear.

You then raised your other arm and flattened your hand, palm down, to “pat” the water in front of you as you would the head of a dog. Wearing a comforting eye smile, you essentially asked Kyungsoo to take it easy and relax. You then levelled your hand with his eyes, palm facing up before drawing a deep breath, wordlessly asking Kyungsoo to breathe slow, deep and long.

Another nod. Another “okay”.

He then pointed his index finger to his ear, the gesture indicating that he couldn’t clear his ears and had trouble equalizing. So you locked your eyes with his and took his elbows in your hands to pull him up to ascend slightly before quickly pushing him down again while wondering whether he’d paid attention to the theoretical lessons at all.

He squeezed his eyes shut before giving you another nod which meant that the equalization was a success.

Kyungsoo’s thumb and forefinger met in another “okay” but this time with an eye smile which you reciprocated with an “okay” before snapping your fingers into a teasing finger heart.

All traces of agreeableness instantly vanished from his visible features.

***

The deeper you went, your fluo green spectrum widened, whelming you with the underwater world’s tranquil beauty which neutralized the shooting pain in your ears and the violent thumping of your heart. Corals in the shape of giant mushrooms floated around you and sea urchins greeted you with their bright purple-brown spikes glowing under the ocean’s natural light. At your feet, a shy goby fish with its large head and tapered body tunneled its way into the sand upon sensing the arrival of strangers.

While you were immersed in this exquisite scenery, a wide eyed Kyungsoo grabbed your attention by waving at you, his hand holding a pink fin.

‘That fin looks familiar,’ you thought before realizing it was your fin that had released itself from your right foot. You almost choked from laughing with the regulator on and the mask attached to your face as Kyungsoo helped you stick it back on.

Having been privy to breathtaking videos and countless stories of the mysteries and magic of the underwater world, a first-hand experience felt surreal. You were quick to adapt to the environment and didn’t try to fight it or control it and your first breath under water had been an experience like no other.

The Boreas Wreck was home to a number of incredible marine species such as Mediterranean sponges and blue gorgonians, scorpionfish, sea urchins, starfish, goatfish, mullets, bream, lobsters, groupers, and barracuda. While you couldn’t pindown all the enticing, drop dead gorgeous palettes of reds, blues, and yellows that crossed paths with you, shoaling, schooling...or even solitary, it didn’t take away from the sheer awe you were overcome with at every second of your time several azure and viridian metres below the surface of land.

The instructor then guided the three of you inside the boat’s wreck, which was safe to enter since all hazardous items had been removed before Boreas was scuttled. With an excited Chanyeol in the lead per usual, you visited some of its confined rooms, and went further in to explore the kitchen, the engine room, the bridge and even the captain’s cabin. The dilapidated metal and wood body of the civil boat, covered almost entirely in sea fauna, was nothing short of a beautiful nightmare.

Traversing, you reached one corner of the boat basked in a blinding white light, enveloping you in a gentle embrace. Emotions so carefully locked away came flooding through the dam of your forced stoic indifference. Giving in, you stretched your arms out, allowing yourself to freefall into a distant memory.

Haphazardly flapping your arms and legs, you struggled to keep your head up but no matter how hard you tried, the pool water made its way into your mouth, nose, and eyes, even.

‘Appa!’ you managed loudly as you felt yourself drowning again.

Your Appa was the one who always came to your rescue.

No matter where you were, no matter how bad things got. He was always there. So when he just stood there, a smile on his face, watching you grapple with a force that mercilessly dragged you down while you kicked and punched and floundered to stay afloat...a mysterious emotion rose within you.

You felt betrayed by the man who was supposed to have your back.

Seething, ‘Appa!’ you bawled, but to no avail.

Until...magically...you didn’t need his help anymore.

After days of relentless torture, you’d finally found yourself moving forward, cutting through the water with synchronized movements of your arms and legs.

But the exhilaration hadn’t lasted long.

A couple of minutes in and you realized that that force was winning again but this time, you didn’t drown.

This time a familiar pair of hands grabbed you before you went under and threw you up in the air as your misty eyes took in the biggest smile on your father’s face with an equally big one gracing your bright features.

Circling his arms around your tiny torso, he nestled you into himself.

‘My champion!’ he whispered into your swim cap covered ear.

***

Back on the boat, with your diving gear off and fresh towels wrapped around your shoulders, you sank to your knees, completely wracked with sobs.

You felt a million emotions, all at once, the reigning one being embarrassment at this sudden outburst. With his arms around you and his chin resting on the top of your head, Chanyeol whispered, ‘It’s okay, it’s alright,’ to ground you while gently rocking you back and forth until you’d let it all out. Turning around, you buried your face into the crook of his neck as if to hide away from the inquisitive eyes of Kyungsoo and the instructor. Chanyeol held you closer, his hand stroking the back of your neck in silent support.

Even after a sumptuous lunch of salmon canapes, baked scallops, rice with spiny spider crab, mixed seafood finger foods complete with a chocolate semi sphere, Chanyeol was uncharacteristically quiet and Kyungsoo, uncharacteristically amiable.

“Feels a little morbid to be eating all this seafood after a dive,” you jested with a serious expression, nibbling on a piece of dark chocolate. And it was only then that the boys went back to being their true selves. Amused, Chanyeol guffawed, “Good to have you back!” while Kyungsoo choked on his sparkling white wine.

Shortly after, Chanyeol excused himself to make a call to Aera.

Kyungsoo ordered two coffees for the both of you and you noticed how he kicked about a conversation starter in his head as opened his mouth only to clamp it shut several times, before finally mustering, “I just want to say -”

“No,” you interrupted him in a mortified haste, “no, please don’t say anything I don’t wanna talk about it except, I’m really sorry for making it so awkward for you guys back there.”

“Oh, no,” he gave you a dismissive wave of hand, “it was just Chanyeol, me, and...erm...the pretty instructor who we’ll never see again. Chanyeol makes a complete ass out of himself every waking hour and as for me, please don’t worry about me. Especially not after you found me blind drunk on a rooftop in the dead of night. We all have our moments. I’m sorry,” he suddenly stopped short, expression solemn, “you said you didn’t wanna talk about it.”

You chuckled, teasing, “Pretty instructor, huh?”

This was the longest conversation you’d had with Kyungsoo so far and truth be told, you were caught off guard by... his smile. His resting face was a natural frown, mostly due to his poor eyesight. And in your experience, if he had his glasses on, it was Chanyeol who was the primary reason for his scowl, with you being a close second.

It took you a moment to take in that dazzling, heart shaped smile of his before you could speak again but it was Kyungsoo who lugged the conversation forward.

“I just wanted to thank you for what you did for me back there. I think I felt a little overwhelmed by the,” he pondered his thoughts before concluding, “the vastness of the ocean. Sorry, I’m no poet.”

“Don’t mention it,” you smiled, “How did you feel by the end of it?”

“Umm,” Kyungsoo ruminated on your question, “I felt like I was in the moment...like, reaching a stage of subtle awareness from surface awareness.”

“And you say you’re not a poet,” you quipped, “So, like, meditation?”

“Maybe. It felt as if I was letting go of...of all the emotional baggage -” he trailed off rather plaintively.

Voice laced with hesitance, you sang, “So….maybe…you’ll sleep better tonight?”

Clearly taken aback by your question, Kyungsoo exclaimed, “What?!”

“I’m sorry but, it’s very obvious that you haven’t been sleeping too well.”

Thick eyebrows scrunched together, he let out a confused ‘Oh!’

“Did Chanyeol -” he continued, only to be interrupted by a booming, cheerful voice, “Think of the angel and the angel appears!”

Kyungsoo looked up at a beaming Chanyeol and deadpanned, “That’s not how the saying goes. Anyway, what took you so long?”

Eyes holding a glint of humour, Chanyeol placed a neatly wrapped iPhone box in front of Kyungsoo and took the dramatics up a notch with a stage performer-esque curtsey thus inviting amused stares from the nearby tables in the courtyard style restaurant. Kyungsoo unwrapped the packaging with the eagerness of a five year old on Christmas Eve and to his disappointment, instead of the high end handphone, he opened the case to a hot pink flip phone.

Kyungsoo let out a low growl, “The fuck is this?”

Standing at a safe distance from his fuming friend, Chanyeol quipped, “A phone,” while making no effort to suppress his laughter.

“Thank you, Mr. State The Obvious, but I’m an adult male, not a Japanese schoolgirl!”

Tickled by his own little prank, Chanyeol threw you under the bus by triumphantly howling, “It was Shifu’s idea!” before darting out of the premises.

Dumbfounded, you exclaimed, “WHAT?! NO!” as Kyungsoo fixed you with a death glare.

‘When were you going to tell me about this?’

Maybe this was one of your endless nightmares.

Maybe this wasn’t happening at all.

Your mother deflected your question by putting things away. Dirty dishes in the washer, clothes in the dryer, leftovers in the fridge, while you followed her around like a lost puppy, a crumpled, time stained letter held delicately in your hand.

The throbbing in your head now bordering on numbness, bile rising up your throat, your legs threatening to give away, you reiterated your question, vociferously this time, surprised at your own power of will. A quality that forever eluded you. The inability to voice your needs, your opinions, masked under a not so thinly veiled sense of self deprecating humour was...you, in a nutshell. This sudden surge of fighting spirit consuming you whole felt alien but at the same time, very natural and, at the same time, it was taking a toll on every nerve, every muscle, every bone.

Every second felt like your last.

‘Would she be able to handle it all over again?’ crestfallen, you mused, ‘The grief. The sympathy. The cumulation of my life -- all these decades condensed into a tiny vessel of ever fading memories. The sands of time trickling through her wrinkled fingers.’

‘Eomma, please -’ you cried out, only for your plea to fall upon deaf ears.

It wasn’t until the next morning that she spoke to you again.

Bloodshot eyes framed by the weight of living, she handed you a warm cup of tea and let out a deep sigh.

‘He never wanted you. It was your Appa who accepted me...he accepted us… It’s been three days since your Appa -,’ wracked with sobs, it took her a while to compose herself to be able to speak again, ‘don’t dishonour his memory.’

‘Why should I believe a word you say? Why should I believe that- that my own father never wanted me?’

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apethalibut · 2 years

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What's the point of going abroad if you’re just going to be treated like a sheep? Carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry in their bloth baps and their bardigans and their transistor radios, bomplaining about the tea - "Oh they don't make it properly, do they" - and stopping at endless Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamari's and two veg and sitting in their cotton sun frocks squirting Timothy White's sun cream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh 'cos they "overdid it on the first day."And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Bontinentales with their international luxury modern roomettes and swimming pools full of draft Red Barrell and fat German businessmen pretending to be acrobats and forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into the queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night there’s bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring some tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some fat bloated tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners. And adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged wop waiters called Manuel and once a week there's an excursion to the local Roman Remains where you can buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleeding Watney's Red Barrel and one night they take you to a typical restaurant with local atmosphere and color and you sit next to a party of people from Rhyl who keep singing "I love the Costa Brava, I love the Costa Brava," you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and last Tuesday's Daily Express and he drones on and on about how Mr. Smith should be running this country and how many languages Margaret Powell can speak and then she throws up all over the Cuba Libres. And spending four days on the tarmac at Luton airport on a five-day package tour with nothing to eat but dried British Airway type sandwiches and you can't even get a glass of Watney's Red Barrel because you're still in England and the bloody bar closes every time you're thirsty and the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ash-trays and they keep telling you it'll only be another hour, but you know damn well your plane is still in Iceland... shut up and has to take some Swedes to Yugoslavia before it can load you up at 3 a.m. in the morning and then you sit on the tarmac four four hours because of "unforeseen difficulties", i.e. the permanent strike of Air Traffic Control over Paris - and when you finally get to Malaga airport everybody's queuing for the bloody toilets and queuing for the bloody armed customs officers, and queuing for the bloody bus that isn't there waiting to take you to the hotel that hasn't yet been built. And when you finally get to the half-built Algerian ruin called the Hotel del Sol by paying half your holiday money to a licensed bandit in a taxi there's no water in the pool, there's no water in the bog, there's no water in the taps, there's only a bleeding lizard in the bidet. And half the rooms are double booked and you can't sleep anyway because of the permanent twenty-four-hour drilling of the foundations of the hotel next door - meanwhile the Spanish National Tourist Board promises you that the raging cholera epidemic is merely a mild outbreak of Spanish tummy, rather like the previous outbreak in 1660 the bloody rats are dying from it - and meanwhile the bloody Guardia are busy arresting sixteen-year-olds for kissing in the streets then on the last day in the airport lounge everybody's buying little awful horrid donkeys with their names on and bullfight posters with their own names on, like “Antonio Ordoney and Mr. Brian Pules of Norwich" and then finally when you get to bloody Luton the...

#monty python #travel agent #eric idle #updated #hollywood bowl #op #text

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luca-ercolani · 2 years

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The Clash - Spanish Bombs

Martin Scorsese and The Clash (Via @jedivoodoochile )

Spanish Bombs Testo

Spanish songs in Andalucía

The shooting sites in the days of '39

Oh, please, leave the vendanna open

Federico Lorca is dead and gone

Bullet holes in the cemetery walls

The black cars of the Guardia Civil

Spanish bombs on the Costa Rica

I'm flying in a DC 10 tonight

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón

Spanish weeks in my disco casino

The freedom fighters died upon the hill

They sang the red flag

They wore the black one

But after they died it was Mockingbird Hill

Back home the buses went up in flashes

The Irish tomb was drenched in blood

Spanish bombs shatter the hotels

My senorita's rose was nipped in the bud

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón

The hillsides ring with "Free the people"

Or can I hear the echo from the days of '39?

With trenches full of poets

The ragged army, fixin' bayonets to fight the other line

Spanish bombs rock the province

I'm hearing music from another time

Spanish bombs on the Costa Brava

I'm flying in on a DC 10 tonight

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón

Oh mi corazón, oh mi corazón

Spanish songs in Andalucía, Mandolina, oh mi corazón

Spanish songs in Granada, oh mi corazón

Oh mi corazón, oh mi corazón

Oh mi corazón

#Spotify #musica #music #the clash #cinema #martin scorsese #movie #film #pop culture

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tatewolverson · 7 years

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transitions // summer - autumn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19PrWo74eY

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bts-scenarios-br · 4 years

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Reaction - Uma Idol dando em cima de você.

JIN

Você estava acompanhando o seu namorado em uma festa que estavam dando após uma premiação. Ele tinha ido cumprimentar algumas pessoas que conhecia, e você aproveitou para ir até o bar para pegar um pouco de água, já que não tinha bebido nada desde que chegou e estava ficando com sede.

“Eu quero uma água.” Disse para o barman, que se afastou para buscar o seu pedido.

“Vai pedir só uma água?” Ouviu a voz de uma mulher do seu lado, e se deparou com a Moonbyul, uma das integrantes do Mamamoo.

“Eu estou com um pouco de sede.” Sorriu.

“Mas você está em uma festa!” Sorri também. “Não deveria nem estar parada. Por que não está dançando?”

“Ah, eu estou esperando o meu namorado.” Olhou em volta, logo vendo que ele estava se aproximando. “Ali, ele está vindo.”

“Moonbyul.” Ele a comprimentou se curvando um pouco.

“Jin.” Repetiu o gesto. “Então ele é o seu namorado?” Se virou para você com uma sobrancelha arqueada.

“Sim, eu sou o namorado da S/N.” Ele passou um braço pela sua cintura. “Algum problema?”

“Não, nenhum.” Ela riu um pouco. “Só fiquei curiosa para saber quem que tinha abandonado uma mulher bonita assim.” Voltou a olhar para você. “Se precisar de companhia para dançar, é só me chamar.” Piscou um olho e saiu.

“Você nem comece.” Disse se virando para o seu namorado.

“Eu nem falei nada!” Arregalou os olhos.

“Mas eu sei o que vai falar.”

“Que ela estava dando em cima de você? Porque ela estava.”

“Vamos deixar esse assunto de lado.” Passou os braços pelo pescoço dele. “Por que não dançamos um pouco?”

“Eu não estou muito afim de dançar agora.” Estreitou os olhos para você.

“Se você não vier comigo eu vou procurar a Moonbyul…”

“Vamos logo.” Te puxou para a pista de dança, fazendo você rir.

YOONGI

Estava sentada em uma cadeira, nos bastidores de um evento de música, enquanto esperava seu namorado ficar pronto para irem embora. Não estava fazendo nada além de de observar as pessoas passando, cumprimentando uma ou outra que conhecia, por isso se assustou quando viu que uma das integrantes do Mamamoo, Hwasa, estava se aproximando.

“Posso me sentar com você?” Ela disse, indicando a cadeira do seu lado.

“Claro!” Respondeu.

“Eu sou a Hwasa.” Ela estendeu a mão.

“S/N.” A cumprimentou com um sorriso.

“Você está aqui sozinha?”

“Não, eu estou esperando o meu namorado para irmos embora.”

“Quem é o seu namorado?” Ela levantou uma sobrancelha.

“Ah, é o Suga. Do BTS.”

“Ah, sim.”

Continuaram conversando por um tempo, até que o seu namorado chegou, e sem dizer nada, puxou outra cadeira e se sentou do seu lado.

“Oi, Suga.” A Hwasa o cumprimentou.

“Oi.”

“Eu não sabia que estava namorando alguém tão interessante.” Ela disse, piscando um olho para você.

“Olha quem fala.” Você a respondeu rindo. “Nós já vamos?” Se dirigiu ao seu namorado.

“Os meninos ainda não estão prontos para ir. Eu achava que a gente podia ir na frente sozinhos, mas acho que você tem outros planos.” Dirigiu um olhar não muito contente para a mulher do seu lado.

“Yoongi!” Sussurrou brava.

“Ah, não se preocupe, S/N.” Ela colocou uma mão na sua perna, se apoiando enquanto se levantava. “Eu sei quando estou atrapalhando.” Sorriu para o seu namorado. “Espero que a gente consiga se ver de novo.” Piscou mais uma vez e saiu.

Assim que ela se afastou, você olhou com as sobrancelhas cerradas para o homem do seu lado.

“Precisava disso?” Disse, agora mais alto do que antes.

“Disso o que?”

“Ser grosso assim com ela.” O olhou, agora um pouco mais chateada. “Ela só estava sendo legal comigo, Yoongi!”

“Ela estava dando em cima de você isso sim!”

“Como você sabe?”

“Eu já estive no lugar dela, S/N. Sei exatamente como é se sentir atraído por você.” Ele disse, agora um pouco mais relaxado. “Desculpa ter sido grosso.”

“Vou te perdoar dessa vez, mas que isso não se repita. Eu realmente estava achando ela interessante.” Ele te olhou fingindo estar bravo, mas logo cedeu e começou a rir um pouco.

HOSEOK

“A apresentação deles foi incrível!” Você ouviu Nayeon, uma das integrantes do Twice, que estava sentada atrás de você, dizer, se inclinando um pouco para a frente.

“Sim eles ensaiaram muito para isso.” Se virou na cadeira para ver ela melhor.

“Você é a namorada do J-Hope, né?”

“Sim!” Sorriu.

Vocês continuaram conversando até que os meninos chegaram, e você se levantou no mesmo instante para dar o parabéns para eles. Quando voltou a se sentar, estava se preparando para falar com o seu namorado, sentiu alguém te cutucar no ombro.

“Você vai para a festa que vai ter depois?” Nayeon te perguntou com um sorriso no rosto.

“Não sei.” Se virou para o Hobi. “Vocês vão na festa?”

“Alguns dos meninos vão.” Ele respondeu. “Mas eu estava pensando que a gente podia ficar descansando ao invés disso.”

“Eu também…” Não conseguiu terminar de falar, porque foi interrompida pela mulher.

“Ah, por que não vem com a gente, S/N?” Você olhou para ela. “Vai ser melhor para ele descansar. E eu queria passar mais um tempinho com você.”

“Desculpa, Nayeon.” Forçou um sorriso para ela. “Eu adoraria, mas acho que hoje vou ficar com o Hobi.”

Ela ia te responder, mas foi chamada por uma das meninas para irem se arrumar para a apresentação delas, deixando você e seu namorado um pouco boquiabertos olhando ela se afastar.

“Achei ela sútil.” Ele disse, voltando a se ajeitar na cadeira.

“Como assim?” Perguntou rindo.

“O jeito que ela estava tentando te roubar de mim.” Colocou um braço nos seus ombros. “Mas minha namorada me ama demais para me abandonar.”

“Você é um convencido.” Riu de novo, dando um leve tapa nele. “Mas não está errado.”

NAMJOON

“S/N!” Ouviu uma voz feminina te chamar, se virando e encontrando a Wendy, uma das integrantes do Red Velvet, se aproximando. “A quanto tempo!” Te abraçou.

“Quanto tempo mesmo!” Se afastaram. “Já fazem meses que não nos vemos!”

“Sim.” Ela sorriu, olhando em volta. “Você ainda está com o Namjoon?”

“Estou sim.” Sorriu também. “Estou esperando ele e os meninos voltarem para irmos embora.”

“Vocês vão sair?” Voltou a te olhar.

“Não, acho que ele está cansado. Vamos ficar no hotel, mesmo.”

“Você não quer sair comigo?” A olhou com as sobrancelhas um pouco franzidas. “Nós podemos sair para jantar ou algo assim.”

“Ah.” Viu que seu namorado já estava indo para saída, enquanto olhava ao redor tentando te achar. “Hoje não vai dar, Wendy, mas a gente vê isso depois!” Saiu antes que ela pudesse dizer mais alguma coisa, logo se aproximando do seu namorado, que te recebeu com um sorriso.

“Eu achei que já tivesse ido embora.” O sorriso dele diminuiu um pouco ao ver sua cara. “O que aconteceu? Você está com uma cara estranha.”

“A Wendy me chamou para sair.”

“Eu sabia.” Voltou a sorrir. “Sempre te disse que ela é afim de você.”

“Eu ainda tenho minhas dúvidas.” Começaram a sair, mas ele parou de andar, fazendo com que parasse também.

“Sai com ela então.” Te olhou. “Quero só ver se depois de aguentar ela flertando com você a noite inteira você ainda vai estar duvidando.”

“Aí, Namjoon.” O puxou pelo braço. “Se você começar a me encher eu realmente ou sair com ela e você vai ficar sozinho no hotel.” Disse, rindo logo em seguida ao ver seu namorado começar a andar bem mais rápido de repente.

JIMIN

Você estava de acompanhante do seu namorado em um evento de música, e no momento tinham acabado de assistir a apresentação do Blackpink, um grupo que era muito fã. Por isso, quando as meninas voltaram aos seus lugares, que era em uma mesa ao lado da sua, você não exitou em se inclinar um pouco para perto da Jennie, a integrante que estava mais perto de você, para a cumprimentar.

“Vocês foram incríveis!” Disse para ela, que sorriu para você.

“Muito obrigada…” Te olhou em dúvida.

“S/N.” Disse, se arrumando na cadeira, mas ainda virada para ela.

“Muito obrigada, S/N.” Olhou para sua mesa, onde o seu namorado virou o rosto rápidos, tentando fingir que não estava olhando para vocês. “Deixa eu adivinhar, você está com o Jimin?”

“Como descobriu?” Disse em um tom brincalhão. “Mas sim, eu sou a namorada dele.”

“Ah.” Voltou a te olhar. “Mas estão namorando sério?”

“Aham. Por que?”

“Só curiosidade.” Voltou a sorrir.

Vocês continuaram conversando por um tempo, até que decidiram voltar a prestar atenção nas apresentações.

“Acabou de conversar?” Seu namorado de disse em um tom irônico.

“Sim.” Deu de ombros, logo estreitando os olhos para ele. “Não vai me dizer que ficou com ciúmes.”

“Talvez.” Dessa vez ele que deu de ombros.

“Jimin…”

“Fala sério, S/N. Uma pessoa que eu sei que você gosta começa a dar em cima de você na minha frente e você quer que eu fique tranquilo?”

“Primeiro.” O olhou. “Ela não estava dando em cima de mim.”

“Estava sim.” Te cortou.

“Me deixa terminar.” Ele encostou na cadeira. “E se ela estivesse, não faz diferença. Eu posso até gostar dela, mas apenas como artista.” Se aproximou um pouco dele. “Você é o único que eu tenho interesse aqui.” Sorriu ao ver ele fazendo o mesmo.

“Tá, vamos prestar atenção antes que eu te beije aqui mesmo.”

TAEHYUNG

Você estava acompanhando o seu namorado em uma premiação em que ele e os meninos iriam se apresentar.

“Eu preciso ir ao banheiro.” Disse no ouvido do Tae, enquanto um grupo terminava de se apresentar. “Daqui a pouco volto.”

Depois de terminar o que tinha que fazer e lavar as mãos, começou a retocar sua maquiagem, quando viu uma mulher entrar no banheiro e parar do seu lado, se olhando no espelho enquanto tentava arrumar arrumar alguma coisa no cabelo. Você logo reconheceu ela, Lisa, uma das integrantes do Blackpink.

“Você quer ajuda?” Perguntou, quando viu que ela estava tendo certa dificuldade no que queria fazer.

“Por favor.” Disse, se virando de costas para você. “Tem uma mecha que caiu do penteado, consegue prender de novo?”

“Acho que consigo sim.” Pegou a parte de cabelo, logo o colocando de volta no lugar. “Pronto.”

“Ah, obrigada.” Sorriu. “Já vai voltar?”

“Sim.” Sorriu de volta.

Ambas começaram a andar em direção aos lugares, enquanto conversavam um pouco.

“Onde você está sentada?” Ela te perguntou.

“Ah, eu estou com o meu namorado.” Virou a cabeça na sua direção, franzindo um pouco as sobrancelhas. “Eu namoro o V. Do BTS.”

“Ah.” Ela disse, mais seria de repente. “Eu pensei que te conhecia de algum lugar mesmo.” Deu um sorriso fraco.

Ela estava sentada um pouco mais à frente dos meninos, por isso te acompanhou até o seu lugar. Quando chegaram, grande parte das pessoas estava de pé, por conta da música que estavam apresentando.

“Obrigada de novo.” Ela sorriu, te puxando para um abraço. “Nós devíamos nos conhecer melhor!”

“Devíamos mesmo.” Percebeu que seu namorado tinha se aproximado um pouco.

“Oi, Lisa.” Sorriu para ela. “Estou vendo que conheceu a S/N.”

“Conheci sim.” Olhou para você. “Você conseguiu uma namorada muito bonita, Taehyung.”

“Eu sei.” Ele ficou um pouco mais sério.

“Bom, eu já vou. Espero te ver de novo, S/N.” Te puxou para outro abraço, indo embora logo depois.

“Ela é simpática!” Se virou para o seu namorado, que te encarava com uma sobrancelha levantada. “O que foi?”

“Ela ficou interessada em você.”

“Aí, Tae, nem começa.” Disse. “Pra você qualquer pessoa que é legal comigo está dando em cima de mim.”

“Não é assim, jagiya. É que eu realmente acho que ela está com segundas intenções com você.” Suspirou. “Apenas tome cuidado, okay? Não vai ser bom se você se meter em polêmicas.” Te puxou para perto dele. “Agora me deseje sorte porque nós estamos concorrendo o próximo prêmio.”

JUNGKOOK

Você tinha ido com o seu namorado para um famoso estúdio de fotografias onde ele e os meninos teriam uma sessão de fotos para um evento. O lugar era imenso, e tinham vários outros Idols também, por isso decidiu dar uma olhada em volta antes que a sessão solo do Jungkook começasse.

“Ah, me desculpe.” Disse, ao trombar com uma mulher no corredor.

“Não foi nada.” Disse sorrindo, e você logo a reconheceu. “Eu sou a Sana.” Estendeu a mão, que você logo apertou. “Faço parte do Twice, não sei se conhece.”

“Conheço sim.” Sorriu também. “Eu sou a S/N. Não sou de nenhum grupo.” Riu. “Estou aqui por causa do meu namorado.”

“Quem é o seu namorado?”

“Jungkook.”

“Ah, do BTS, certo?”

“Esse mesmo.”

Continuaram conversando por alguns minutos, até que o celular dela começa a tocar, e ela se afasta para poder responder. Poucos segundos depois, você recebe uma mensagem do seu namorado, dizendo que já ia começar a sessão, e perguntando se você iria vê-lo.

“As meninas disseram para eu voltar para lá.” Ela disse quando se aproximou de novo. “Por que não vem comigo? A gente pode conversar um pouco mais.” Pegou na sua mão.

“Eu adoraria, mas não vou poder. A sessão do Kookie já vai começar, e eu prometi para ele que iria estar lá.”

“Mas você pode ver ele depois!” Fez um biquinho. “Vem comigo, vai. Eu estava gostando tanto de te conhecer.”

“Desculpe, mas eu não posso mesmo.” Sorriu fraco. “Mas nós nos vemos outro dia!”

“Posso pelo menos ganhar um abraço?”

Você concordou com o abraço, que durou mais do que o normal, e foi em direção ao estúdio que estava mais cedo, encontrando o seu namorado parado na frente da porta.

“O que você está fazendo aqui? Pensei que você já ia começar.” Disse quando se aproximou.

“Eu pedi para passarem o Jimin na minha frente.” Se desencostou da parede. “Onde você estava?”

Você explicou para ele o que tinha acontecido, e se surpreendeu quando ele começou a rir.

“Por que você está rindo?”

“Ela estava realmente flertando com você na cara dura!”

“Jungkook.” Disse um pouco brava. “Fala baixo!”

“Desculpa.” Voltou a ficar sério. “Mas que bom que você decidiu vir me ver.”

“Claro que eu vim.” Sorriu para ele. “Mas eu já estava toda toda preparada para ver um homem bonito tirar fotos, então vamos lá para dentro ver o Jimin.” Começou a entrar no estúdio.

“Não tenho nem como discordar.” Ele disse te seguindo, fazendo com que risse.

Oooi! Como vocês estão? Eu só queria avisar que não conheço muito bem as meninas, então se tiver ficado estranho de alguma forma me perdoem. Mas espero que gostem mesmo assim, e desculpe por qualquer erro.

#bts #bts reaction #jin #jin reaction #yoongi #yoongi reaction #hoseok #hoseok reaction #namjoon #namjoon reaction #jimin #jimin reaction #taehyung #taehyung reaction #jungkook #jungkook reaction #reaction

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letterboxd · 3 years

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The Eyes of TIFF.

Programmers for the 46th Toronto International Film Festival chat about the degrees of intensity they look for in a festival film, and help us zoom in on the gems from TIFF’s 2021 program, by genre and region.

“Intensity can be achieved in so many different ways. I know it when I feel it. You feel it in your gut.” —Cameron Bailey

It’s almost business as usual for TIFF this year. In-person events and red carpets return, but a healthy virtual program is also available for Canadian-based folk unable to travel, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues its onslaught.

TIFF co-head and artistic director Cameron Bailey has been with the festival for just over half its life, and says while some of the technology has changed in that time—“you’re no longer sitting in front of a TV monitor with VHS tapes… or waiting for 35mm prints to be spooled up and projected for you”—the “basic process of falling in love with movies” has not.

It’s a challenge, Bailey says, to winnow down the films he falls in love with for the final TIFF lineup. And even then, it is an annual challenge for film lovers tight on time to narrow down their own selections. So, ahead of the fest, Bailey joined fellow TIFF programmers for a Twitter Spaces conversation with our editor in chief Gemma Gracewood, in order to help Letterboxd members make some watchlist decisions.

Joining Bailey were Thom Powers (TIFF Docs), Peter Kuplowsky (Midnight Madness), Robyn Citizen (senior programming manager), Diana Sanchez (Special Presentations, Spain, Latin America, Portugal and the Caribbean), Diana Cadavid (International Cinema) and Nataleah Hunter-Young (Africa, “the Middle East” and the Black Diaspora).

Edited highlights of the conversation follow, so have your watchlists close at hand.

‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’, written by Abe Sylvia and directed by Michael Showalter.

Thank you all for joining me today. You watch a lot of films as you’re going through the selection process. How does one make itself stand out to you? Cameron Bailey: For every programmer it’s going to be something different. For me, it comes down to an intangible quality of intensity. That can be emotional intensity, it can be the intensity of formal elements, the cinematography, the performances, the writing. Some sense of concentrated emotion and momentum, where you get the sense that a filmmaker is trying to find a way to distill the essence of what they’re trying to do and communicate it to an audience through all of the tools that cinema provides. That doesn’t mean the movie has to be fast-paced or have a lot of dramatic jolts, as intensity can be achieved in so many different ways. I know it when I feel it. You feel it in your gut.

What would you say are some of the performances that have struck you the most this year? CB: Jessica Chastain is the lead in a film we’re premiering called The Eyes of Tammy Faye, directed by Michael Showalter. If you were watching TV in the ’80s and ’90s, you will remember Tammy Faye Bakker, and her husband, Jim Bakker, who were TV televangelists. You couldn’t miss Tammy, as she had these giant eyes and makeup with giant eyelashes, and this is essentially her story. It’s hard to know at first that it’s Jessica Chastain underneath all of that makeup, but she gives a performance that’s not just about the exterior. It’s about a woman who is shaped by a difficult upbringing, shaped by this incredibly deep need she has for affirmation, to be on TV, to be in front of the camera, and that guides her decisions into extremes. She’s fantastic in it.

Benedict Cumberbatch is back with two films. He is the lead in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. It’s an understated, slow-burn performance in some ways, which he can do so well. He’s also in a film that’s on the opposite end of the dramatic spectrum, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. It’s based on a real person, and when you watch the film you will be amazed that this person actually existed. Wain, in the early part of the twentieth century, was a prodigious painter who turned his talent towards painting thousands of cats. Cute cats, big eyed cats, fuzzy, adorable cats. He’s largely responsible for cats becoming as big as they are as domesticated pets. It’s a wild story.

I’m still recovering from watching The Power of the Dog’s trailer earlier today, and had to promise myself that I wouldn’t take up this entire time talking about Jane Campion’s obsession with hands. The Spencer trailer dropped as well, which has a lot of buzz around it. CB: Yes, Spencer is a remarkable portrait. Some of us remember Princess Diana, some of us have watched The Crown, and so have a very recent image, but this is a completely different performance that Kristen Stewart gives. She’s remarkable in it. I think everybody’s going to want to see this film.

‘Charlotte’, written by David Bezmozgis and Erik Rutherford, directed by Tahir Rana and Éric Warin.

Are there any other titles you’d like to get the buzz started for, Cameron? CB: On the animation side, I would say people should look out for a film called Charlotte, by Tahir Rana and Éric Warin. It’s a Canadian film telling a story based in World War II Europe about a woman in a Jewish family [exiled] in France during the occupation of France by the Nazis. She can feel what is coming. She decides to paint everything about her life, and her family’s life, trying to document what she feels is going to be very fragile, and what she might lose altogether.

As it turns out, before the end of the war she was taken away to a death camp by the Nazi regime, and she didn’t survive, but her paintings have survived and they were turned into a book, along with the story of her family. The animation is just gorgeous. I think that’s one that awards bodies are going to be paying attention to. It’s one of the best animated films I’ve seen in quite a while.

Thom, what are some of the documentary titles that you and the team think those awards bodies will have their eyes on? Thom Powers: A big one to pay attention to is The Rescue, by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who won the Oscar for their last film, Free Solo. Their new film is looking at the Thai cave rescue [in 2018], when a group of young soccer players and their coach got trapped by monsoon floods in a cave. When we were watching the news, we were seeing the journalists reporting from outside the cave. What this film does is bring you inside that rescue using footage that’s never been seen before. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are masters at the documentary adventure genre, and also [at] bringing a real human side to the people involved, which they do again here.

I’ll also mention Becoming Cousteau, by Liz Garbus, and Julia, a film about Julia Child, directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who made the Oscar-nominated documentary RBG a few years ago. So many of us during the pandemic had to rediscover ourselves in the kitchen, and Julia Child’s life was about making people feel more comfortable in the kitchen, which makes it a terrific film to watch at this time.

‘Saloum’, directed by Jean Luc Herbulot.

Peter, what’s a movie from this year’s Midnight Madness lineup you’d love to recommend? Peter Kuplowsky: We’ve got a lot of firsts at Midnight this year. We have Saloum, the first time a West African film has ever been in Midnight. We’ve also got Zalava, which is the first Iranian film to play in Midnight. Our opening film for Midnight Madness is Julia Ducournau’s Titane, which is playing at the Princess of Wales theater, and will be a spectacle to behold. When I’m looking for Midnight Madness, I like hearing the audience make certain noises in the room, whether that’s a gasp or screams or laughter. I feel that every note on the scale is going to be played during Titane by the audience.

Brilliant. Now, we’re going to bring in some audience questions. First up is Vincent, who says that one of their favorite films is Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, and asks if there are any films in this year’s TIFF lineup you could recommend for a fan of that film? PK: I’ve really been encouraging people to check out the films I just mentioned, Zalava and Saloum, and I think Zalava especially would fit here, as it’s more of a horror-drama. It begins as something that is steeped in the supernatural, but as it escalates it becomes something of a pitch-black comedy while still maintaining a gravitas to it. I think it’s one of the most fascinating discoveries in the genre space this year.

CB: I’d also add Good Madam, by Jenna Bass, from South Africa. It is a chilling movie, with a bit of an Eyes Without a Face vibe. If you like that sort of approach to cinema, I think you’ll like that.

PK: Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash just won the Golden Leopard at Locarno. With a title like that, this is a film that feels like it’s going to be sort of a strictly pulp crime film, but it’s so much more. It’s deeply romantic, incredibly eclectic, and beautifully shot on 16mm film. It feels like a film that was hidden away, shot in the late ’70s or early ’80s. It’s a throwback to 1980s Hong Kong action films, while also, I can’t stress this enough, being one of the most romantic films in the festival. You’ll fall in love with this relationship while it’s also working in fight sequences and magical realism.

Nataleah, what’s something you would recommend from your TIFF selections from Africa, “the Middle East” and the Black Diaspora? Nataleah Hunter-Young: One I’d highly recommend is Costa Brava, directed by Mounia Akl, from Lebanon. Even amidst what’s going on in Lebanon right now, the film offers a beautiful and engrossing portrait of a family that includes a grandmother who’s a non-actor, but has impeccable comedic timing (that travels through the subtitles if you don’t speak Arabic).

‘Snakehead’, written and directed by Evan Leong.

Robyn, what’s a movie that surprised you most during your selections this year? Robyn Citizen: I always recommend that people check out our Discovery section because that’s where we find new talent and nurture new voices. The film that really surprised me this year was Snakehead, by Evan Jackson Leong. Some people will know him from a documentary called Linsanity, and he did another documentary about evangelism in Korea. Snakehead has been a ten-year labor of love for him. He had to do a Kickstarter for the film, which is loosely based on the life of a woman named Sister Ping, who had a human trafficking ring that was the biggest trafficking ring for about 20 years.

The film tackles what’s going on now with vulnerable populations being trafficked into America, in particular Chinatown in the US, and the main character, played by Shuya Chang, has to fight to find her daughter. It’s an exciting film, and very moving. It’s extremely tightly edited, and it looks fantastic.

We’ve got our next question here from a member who says their favorite genre is science-fiction. While Dune is at the top of their watchlist, are there any other sci-fi selections you could recommend? PK: I would recommend After Blue (Dirty Paradise), which is a perverse science-fiction by Bertrand Mandico. It reminds me a lot of the French animated film Fantastic Planet. This one is about a planet which is inhospitable to men because of the way hair grows. The plot follows a young teenage girl who accidentally unleashes a notorious criminal that she and her hairdresser mother have to stalk through the alien landscape that is full of bizarre creatures and liquids and gases. I feel it’s kind of like the inverse of Dune, and an opportunity to explore a bizarre ecosystem.

NHY: I would totally insist that this member see Neptune Frost, from Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman. It’s a difficult film to put into words, but I’ve been summing it up by calling it an Afro-sonic sci-fi musical.

Whoa, that sounds like a whole new subgenre. NHY: That’s just the beginning. There’s a lot to experience in this film. It’s a cosmic romance that follows an intersex hacker and a coltan miner who make their way to this kind of dream space where they connect with others as they travel through these lush mountainous regions of Rwanda and Burundi. It’s a beautiful anti-narrative that is impeccably colored and totally consuming. It’s a must-see for anybody who loves cinema.

Diana, what would you say is the best debut feature that you’ve seen among this year’s international selections? Diana Cadavid: There are so many wonderful new talents, but I think I’ll go with an Argentinian filmmaker named Agustina San Martín. Her film, To Kill the Beast, is a co-production between Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and she worked for nine years to put this all together. She started working on it when she was 21, and we were actually having a conversation yesterday about her process, and how it’s a film that deals with the growth of a woman, and female desire. There’s this idea of the beast, something that’s either from inside or from outside forces, trying to control the human mind and body. It’s a very interesting film, gorgeously shot and very atmospheric.

‘Yuni’, written by Prima Rusdi and Kamila Andini, directed by Andini.

We’ve got another question here from David, who says their favorite films are humanistic dramas, citing Hirokazu Kore-eda as one of their favorite directors. Would anybody have any recommendations for David? CB: I can recommend at least one film, called Yuni, an Indonesian film from Kamila Andini. This is a naturalist drama about a high-school girl who is one of the top students in her class, and has a great group of friends. We slowly begin to see that her life is being constrained by one man after another, and then something happens at school, which begins to narrow her possibilities for her future. She’s trying to figure out things like sexuality and romance and what she wants to do with her future, and all of these obstacles keep getting placed in her path. It’s told in a very gentle way, but very incisive as well. Each scene really matters, taking you deeper inside this girl’s life.

RC: Our senior programmer Giovanna Fulvi programmed a film called Aloners, a South Korean film by Hong Sung-eun. This is her first feature, and it’s very much a film of our time. It is about a woman who works in the gig economy at a credit-card customer-service call center. It’s a very transient existence. She doesn’t talk to anybody, she eats by herself, she doesn’t really want to associate with the people in her apartment building. One day, one of her neighbors who has tried to talk to her many times passes away, and she has to re-interrogate the way that she’s been living her life, and figure out if it’s worth starting to form some human connections.

Next up is a question from Matt Neglia, from the Next Best Picture podcast. Matt says that he’s a massive fan of epics, whether they’re three hours long or just telling an expansive story with lots of world-building. Apart from Dune, are there any other films in the lineup that you would describe as epic? CB: While Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World might not strike you on reading its synopsis as an epic, I think it actually is an emotional epic. It’s the story of a young woman who’s trying to figure out her life. Her romance with one boyfriend doesn’t quite fit the bill for her, and she begins this looking and exploring. Trier and his writer and lead actor do remarkable work, blowing open the idea of a person trying to define who they are at this turning point in their life. They make these stakes massive and they have all kinds of interesting, innovative, formal elements in [the film] as well. It’s incredibly cinematic. If you’ve seen Joachim Trier’s other films, this is kind of the conclusion of a trilogy that he’s made.

‘Listening to Kenny G’, directed by Penny Lane.

Next up, we have Sarah, who is looking for movies about music, and also some body horror. CB: We’ve got a number of great music docs this year. I have to mention Dionne Warwick, the queen of Twitter, who is the subject of Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over. It tells the story of this incredibly talented, determined and glamorous musician who broke so many barriers. She toured in the south during the Jim Crow era, making gains as a Black woman in the music industry and in the pop-music industry, not the so-called race-record or Black-music industry, which simply wasn’t done at the time. This documentary tells that story, and also shows her later work in the ’80s contributing to the fight against stigma and hysteria during the AIDS crisis.

PK: I’ll follow up Cameron by mentioning the Alanis Morissette film Jagged. We’ve also got a film about the great jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson, called Oscar Peterson: Black + White. Lastly, there’s a film about Kenny G, called Listening to Kenny G.

Diana Sanchez: For the body horror, I’d like to mention the debut film by Ruth Paxton, titled A Banquet. It’s about a young woman who insists her body is no longer her own, and is a service to a higher power. Her mother has no idea what to think. She stops eating, and her mother doesn’t know [whether] to believe her or not. I love Ruth Paxton’s work, the way she shoots the film, the way she shoots the food. It’s almost, as she refers to it, pornographic. It looks delicious and gross all at the same time.

I’d also like to flip to comedy quickly to mention Official Competition. The film stars Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez. Cruz plays a filmmaker who puts together a well-known theater actor and a well-known box-office glamor guy, played by Banderas. The film speaks to the tension between high art and more popular art, testing those boundaries. It’s incredibly funny.

We’d love to squeeze a few more films out of everyone for our watchlists. Could you each recommend one film and try to sell it in ten words or less? CB: Let me try. Sundown, by Michel Franco. Tim Roth falls apart beautifully in Mexico.

TP: I’m going to go with the Mexican documentary, Comala. Filmmaker Gian Cassini explores the legacy of his father, who was a Tijuana hitman.

PK: I’ll go with Saloum, which is basically From Dusk Till Dawn in West Africa.

RC: I’m going to say The Wheel, a movie by Steve Pink. If you like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, this is like that with a younger couple in a much more humane, intimate key.

DS: I’ll say I’m Your Man, a sci-fi where Maren Eggert dates a robotic Dan Stevens.

PK: I know Diana has been recommending a film called OUT OF SYNC, about an artist who begins to experience the sound of the world going out of sync. She starts hearing sounds from the past because people and things are out of sync with their surroundings.

NHY: I’ll go with The Gravedigger’s Wife, directed by Khadar Ahmed. It showcases the horn of Africa unlike you’ve ever seen it on screen.

Finally, for Cameron: with fall coming, what is the best TIFF 2021 movie to watch under a blanket, either because it’s cozy or because you’re terrified, or both? CB: Great question, which gives me a chance to talk about Earwig, the new film by Lucile Hadžihalilović. If you’ve seen Innocence or Evolution, her two most recent films, you’re prepared in terms of tone, but you’ve not even seen Lucille make a film quite like this. It’s eerie, disturbing, hypnotic, mesmerizing. You can’t stop watching, but you’re always afraid that something awful and horrifying is about to happen… and maybe it might.

‘Night Raiders’, written and directed by Danis Goulet.

To bring it all back home, what would you say is the Canadian film of 2021? CB: It’s always hard to say, but I think in a year where we have Danis Goulet’s feature Night Raiders, that’s got to be the one. Danis has made some exceptional short films over the last few years that people might know. Her feature takes on the horrific, devastating story of residential schools and children torn from Indigenous families and put in institutions where the goal was to erase their Indigenous identity. She takes that terrible, real history that we’re grappling with right now in Canada, and turns it into a piece of speculative fiction, a kind of propulsive thriller.

By turning it into fiction rather than reality she can use all of the tools of cinema to tell a terrific story that’s exciting and has high stakes, but also has this deep resonance of a truth that we are, I hope, coming to terms with in this country.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 9 to 18. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Follow TIFF on Letterboxd, and follow our Festiville HQ for regular festival updates.

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