#this could be so much better but its freaking HARD to film and operate the ppt at the same time guys 😭
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idea credit goes to @demonbarberofbeepbeep. inspired by this mr. darcy proposal powerpoint
#this could be so much better but its freaking HARD to film and operate the ppt at the same time guys 😭#i did my best#its not perfectly in sync and theres some weird camera stuff#but i hope you enjoy anyways#sweeney todd#sweeney todd 2023#annaleigh ashford#mrs lovett#nellie lovett#video
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The Black Widow Essay
one of em anw, lol
i'm just gonna start with the very beginning of the film, cause start to finish, they put so much detail in and you can tell everyone really cared to make natasha's story as full & vibrant as they possibly could.
them showing how early on she liked dying her hair or was used to it, even as a child?
as well as such innocent sweet things as this scene
all possibly subtly hinting these girls’ physical capabilities and their dark upbringing or who they really are as spies???
just, how seemingly normal child like things could be subtle hints toward something darker??
but it was STILL something innocent and sweet nevertheless whether they were able to do that cause of their training??
LOVED THAT.
the fact that NAT HAD FRIENDS??? WHEN SHE WAS A KID???
so important to me...
(cause they didn't really need to add that,... but they did)
how the whole operatives pretending as fake families made perfect sense cause they do it all the time in spy movies…
and how yeah, if there were child spies, then they could be used for spy families,
but this was the first movie that DARED to talk about the complexity of it all…
of a fake family being the only family that you had.
I bring this up because I just fucking love it and it reminds me of what they did in wandavision
rushed holidays and birthdays and normal family occasions all in one, because that was all they could get…
the idea of fake empty families in both bw and wv and jac schaeffer being involved with both of em??? gods im in love hahahah
in other spy movies, it’s just so plot focused…
they’re disguised as this to get to this and blablabla
they don’t dare to talk that they were more than their mission
that they have interests hobbies hopes dreams AND LIVES, beyond their work
(say what you will about captain marvel, but I will repeat, it was the first to show women had lives interests hobbies dreams beyond the work that they had...)
i just... the spy families thing is always so plot-centric, but this one, the infiltration aspect had an emotional side to it since it meant that they could all get a reprieve from their normal horrific lives
that's what i ADORE from this film, when they do something, they always hit for the most emotional, most moving, compelling way it can be told or shown
because, all this time we’ve been told, she’s a child assassin, she’s a child spy, she started when she was young dadadaaa
in other movies, they probably could’ve explored this by showing the violence
what was done to her, to show the meaning of what they did to her…
but you know what I absofuckingtutely die for??
they showed the meaning of the violence through this
that BECAUSE of what was done to her…
she could do that
SHE COULD PROTECT SOMEONE ELSE FROM SUFFERING THE SAME FATE AS SHE DID
all, in the first FIFTEEN 15 FUCKING MINUTES…
I just love how the never endless mention of the child assassin thing
the heaviest meaning of that was so beautifully shown like this…
like, YEAH
THIS.
THIS IS WHAT BEING A FUCKING CHILD ASSASSIN MEANS.
SHE’LL STEAL YOUR GUN, SHOOT TO KILL
ALL TO PROTECT HER INNOCENT, YOUNGER, SISTER
oh wait, I also just love the action of the plane scene
it had so much stakes, I was genuinely panicked and fearing for all of them..
melina was shot, nat was flying the plane, yelena was a terrified baby, alexei was even hanging from the freaking wing…
it wasn’t just weightless action, random kicks and punches on screen…
it was a family fleeing for their lives.
I just wanted to commend the incredible stakes the creatives made sure to put into the film’s first action scene is all.
they could have phoned this in and just have hopper punch some dudes
but they WANTED you to root for this family
they WANTED you to feel scared for them, care about them.
THEY CARED.
the first action scene nat ever did, was to protect her sister…
they could have shown her take down some men following after them…
but they DECIDED for nat to show her full capabilities… when it would matter most.
THEY CARED.
AND… NO ONE, NOT NEARLY ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT.
you know what I love about the budapest reveal??
they could have just kept it at the clarifying what actually happened thing
and all of us in the audience can revel in the fact that
shooting it out with the hungarian guard and blowing up a building
was in nat’s eyes
just like a literal alien invasion of floating monsters descending from a portal in the sky
just… bask & appreciate the comedy of this guys…
nat’s so funny, I cant…
no okay, they could have just kept it at that…
but they decided to add WHAT HUMANITY THEY COULD IN THAT BACKSTORY.
and they had nat & clint play tic tac toe in the air vents they were hiding out on…
they didn’t have to do that, but they did…
and not enough people appreciate it enough.
people are already talking about how excellent and wonderful it was, the conversations and commentaries on choice are and I’m only here to say YES MORE OF THAT SHARE IT TO EVERYFREAKING ONE GODDAMN IT
in most marvel movies, the female character & the hero usually just either butt heads or the female just helps out the hero in whatever they need to do, they’re the infallible support structure that keeps the hero up
I think… this is why the dynamic between yelena and nat, hits so goddamn hard…
your pain makes you stronger
so much of this film talks about how their pain made them stronger, the best example of this I believe, is the scene in cuba
what I said about the child assassin repetition all concluding to that “I will kill you all, DON’T TOUCH HER” scene…
her pain was LITERALLY what enabled her to do that.
but I bring back the film’s crux line, cause it’s what I think truly separates and makes yelena and nat’s dynamic so much richer more complex and beautiful to me…
the pain of their past.
nat’s insistence of their time together in america not being real, and her dismissing everything in her past as a widow of the red room as horrible and just something she needed to get away from…
it reminds me of a scene from a show my family watches,
new amsterdam. in it, a woman, escapes a house of neglect and abuse. but she also left behind her younger sister in that household, and naturally, feels deeply guilty about it.
but, her therapist said to her, “you saved the only person that you could.”
and, … I can’t think of anything better to fit nat’s situation.
her dismissal of everything in her past as horrible was a fucking coping mechanism…
it made leaving everything behind, easier…
“it wasn’t real, so there isn’t anything to hold onto” nat herself says
she saved the only person she could… herself.
sigh…
most marvel movies usually just have its theme as “be who you were meant to be”
tony, thor, quill, & rocket learned selflessness
peter parker learned to appreciate what HE had, and not focus on what he was escaping from and to
steve figured out who he was in a new world
t’challa reckoned with the sins of the past
(scott’s just a dad)
carol learned to own her power and who she truly was
but nat??
yeah, sure, she could also fall under that theme.
but I just… I honestly believe the abuse, the pain she endured… makes her arc so much more meaningful and poignant…
because it wasn’t just the hero struggling, then the female side character reassuring them & giving them the strength they needed to be who they needed to be
it was her reckoning with what she did…
it was her shutting off yelena who cared about her, because she didn’t want to think about what she left behind
it was her, keeping her heart… when her mother could not.
how despite melina felt she was a rat in a cage
what SHE taught nat, was what kept nat alive…
the pain nat escaped, still found its way to her, in that because of that pain, she caused pain to the little happiness that she had in her past
she caused pain to yelena, because it was all she could associate to her past, which she NEEDED to escape
pain was inflicted on her, and she inflicted pain too
she also just casually stated her mother throwing her out like garbage
was I the only one who was utterly shaken by her statement??
to only then after say, she thought of her everyday even if she didn’t admit it to herself
(don’t even get me started on this search & importance of her past to her being fucking hinted in the place she died, vormir, where she learned her father’s name.
how even after she defeated dreykov… she still didn’t know it, til then…)
I just…
the creatives put so much effort into making nat’s story so full of heart, humanity, and meaning…
the humanity of tic tac toe over hiding out from an army
playing in the yard and colorful dyed hair hinting the dark upbringing
reckoning with what one did to survive…
black widow, is such a heartfelt humanely painful and beautiful film…
it isn’t just another spy movie
it isn’t just another marvel movie
they talked about abuse in it, guys…
they acknowledged it, unflinchingly
the good, the bad, all of it, the entire truth of it…
that alexei wasn’t allowed a chance to be forgiven for what he did
that he can wash himself clean, and that they give him their forgiveness, for HIS benefit…
that it was the very pain inflicted on them, that enabled them to take their abusers down
You think I can’t take a punch?
it was literally her pain threshold & strength that enabled her to break free from dreykov's control
her capability of severing the nerve borne from the training she endured
her pain was literally what made her stronger
they made sure to show that oksana and antonia wouldn’t be forgotten
they let the other widows do their part
and the ones the family saved, came back for them and saved them too
even antonia, as taskmaster, had someone who cared about her. the young widow who told her to smile, went to her when she was no longer controlled.
it was fighting for control, it was looking & focusing on what WAS there
just like how nat learned to accept that not all of her past was horrible,
I want to show you how this movie shows that not all of how nat was treated in the mcu was horrible
the thank you for your cooperation scene, yes
but, one parallel that I haven’t seen anyone bring up yet is this one…
nat did her job, and it’s how they took down hydra
nat did her job, and that’s how they took down the red room
because of nat’s intelligence, due diligence, they had the intel they needed to take down hydra
and to find and save the other widows…
because that’s precisely why I would die for this film…
they. care.
they remembered that small, for most people forgettable, thing that she did- BUT WAS ACTUALLY THE KEY TO THE WHOLE THING
AND MADE DAMN SURE TO SHOW & HIGHLIGHT ITS IMPORTANCE IN HER FILM.
(her copying the data needed to SAVE THE OTHER WIDOWS IN THE WHOLE WORLD WAS GIVEN THE FOCUS & ENERGY NEEDED TO HIGHLIGHT THAT SCENE'S SIGNIFICANCE CAUSE W/O THAT DATA, THOSE WOMEN WOULD BE LOST)
they KNEW that HER COPYING THAT INFO in the lemurian star in tws IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE is HOW NICK FIGURED OUT HYDRA’S PLAN
AND DECIDED TO FUCKING PARALLEL THAT TOO IN HER FILM CAUSE THEY KNEW THAT DESPITE HOW SMALL THAT SCENE WAS, IT WAS ACTUALLY THE KEY TO THE ENTIRE THING
they know the significance that nat’s story has, how it’s about abuse, and what it does to people
it makes them want to run away & dismiss everything that happened as purely horrible
sometimes, it makes them betray people (like melina & even to some extent, nat…)
they did all this in a marvel movie
the importance of choice, control, autonomy, of women’s lives, every aspect of it
the mundane, their intelligence, their pain, their relationships, their humor & happiness & love…
this was a marvel movie, starring women, produced by women, written (jac schaeffer, wv creator too), directed (cate shortland), and edited (leigh folsom) by women.
this was an excellent beautiful painfully heartfelt luminescent movie, from start to finish.
so much care compassion complexity & love, woven into the story
they cared about what nat DID manage to do in the mcu, not that she was forced into the sidelines
(though, honestly, I think that line about nat never letting herself be alone long enough to figure out what her story is was such an interesting & cool way of acknowledging it…)
nat never spoke much in the films, and they went with it, she’s not the inspiring speech type, she herself says
behind the scenes, they were making nat look as cool as possible with those poses
but in this film, they made it HER character trait
that SHEEEE, WANTS TO POSE LIKE THAT.
I just think that’s so funny… a cute character trait of her wanting to pose all the time and denying/not acknowledging it??
I think it’s a sweet & funnily humanizing trait of hers :’’’))
they made her funny like that, heh…
most mcu movies, they have arcs, they have great interesting moving stories…
I just think this film is chockfull of love over natasha romanoff, a hero, an avenger’s story…
they put so much in to give her as full of a life as they could… a complex, heartbreaking, painful, happy, tragic, loving, human life…
most mcu movies… they’re so plot focused. find this, follow that.
for me, this film wasn’t.
it was women getting their control back.
behind the screen, and on screen, it was women getting their control back…
after a decade and more of getting bits of meaningful crumbs here and there, the creatives of this film gathered all those up, and built a full complex life and story from it…
it dealt with something so real and tragic but also beautiful and full of love.
I don’t think most mcu movies did this.
and it’s why I wrote all of this.
give credit where it’s due.
black widow is the most heartbreakingly painful and beautiful film marvel’s ever made…
it was a full and concise and finished and complete story, start to finish, about the hero who’s earned it, the goddamned most.
acknowledge what they did with this film.
it’s what they, nat & the creatives, deserve.
acknowledge it.
they didn’t work this hard to give nat such a meaningful loving & complex life and family and story, only for it to be called lesser
than films who tackle their themes in much shorter times
and with themes that aren’t as rooted in reality
acknowledge what they did.
acknowledge it.
I’m not really that knowledgeable over what framing and lighting really means…
but I think those details mean something
how their life at ohio, playing in the yard was flickered with sunlight, and fireflies
how it turned to night when they were forced to flee and return to russia
how it was night when they first entered the red room
but then there’d be more and more light as nat had progressed with their plan, with beams of light, flashing through the window behind her
and then once the dust had settled, the sun was rising on them, the survivors.
but… the most poignant & meaningful of all these lighting shots that I found…
was nat’s endings,
when she said goodbye to her family…
it was almost like, she was saying goodbye to us too…
with daylight, shining all around behind her, as she walked away and whistled her goodbye
this happening with her goodbye to her family
and with her official final shot of her, heading into the horizon, to her destiny
saving the universe, and saving her family
they cared so much to give her these beautifully poetically luminescent images of her, guys…
my heart breaks as I don’t see anyone else acknowledging this…
so please… acknowledge it.
acknowledge, what they did.
acknowledge it.
#*mic drop*#lol hahhahah#black widow#natasha romanoff#love#women#marvel women#women of marvel#scarlett johanssen#cate shortland#jac schaeffer#leigh folsom#marvel studios#marvel cinematic universe#marvel#:') cries#:')#florence pugh#yelena boleva#black widow movie#black widow 2021#black widow film#natasha and yelena#melina vostokoff#rachel weisz#nat romanoff#ca:tws#captain america: the winter soldier#captain america the winter soldier#long post
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Character and Relationship Backstory and an update from me
Hey y'all! I have an update on where I've been at the end of this post for those of y'all who have been following Highschool Casualties and are wondering where I went, but if you've just stumbled across this I don't want to throw a long and random explination at ya!
Haven’t read the main story yet?
Heres the Tumblr Masterpost and the Ao3 link!
The characters
Damien Haas
16, sophomore in high school. Hardcore musical theater kid from grades 4-8. Loves to sing and shit. Got quite a few bigger roles early on. Things got busy freshman year, so he had to put things on hold.
(Favorite musical is probably falsettos or something idk I'm not a theater kid.)
(That's a lie, I'm just a bad theater kid XP)
Fucking loves superhero movies and shit because haha irony.
Favorite class is Drama, least favorite is math. Because math is hard and temporary but Shakespeare is forever.
Has an irrational fear of doctors, dentists, and needles due to some surgical mishaps that occurred when he was young. Also has a fear of the ocean.
Deals with anxiety and frequent panic attacks.
Shayne Topp
15, sophomore in high school. Really fucking loves football, but not on the team. He wanted to be, but he use to be friends with some of the people on the football team. And they... weren't the best to say the least. They were bad influences and caused Shayne to do bad things. He's no longer friends with them, but still goes to the games with Courtney and Damien to cheer on Courtny's brothers who are on the team.
Favorite class is probably woodworking, least favorite is math. Because math is hard and temporary but birdhouses are forever.
(Though he's actually really good at math, like he has the capability to take honors and do well. It just isn't fun.)
Doesn't know how to ride a bike and can't swim. Deep water freaks him out.
Has a huge fear of hurting other (because haha irony) and always puts his friends before himself.
Courtney Miller
14, freshman in high school. Loves writing and art. Has a lot of sketchbooks, but most of them are half filled. At this point she just collects cool sketchbooks.
Also love film/acting/drama but has a lot of anxiety around performing, so she ends up being on her school's tech crew. She's really good at editing, and has a passion for behind the scenes work around productions.
Favorite musical is Heathers.
Favorite class is her painting and art history class, least favorite is math. Because math is hard and temporary but art is forever.
Struggls a lot with school. Doesn't have many friends outside of Shayne and Damien, even when it comes to her tech crew. Generally on bad terms with "friends" (bullies) from middle school.
Doesn't enjoy the other people in her class. A few of them are former (or current) bullies from middle school.
Relationships
Damien and Shayne
Met in the first grade, became friends in a very first-grader-like manner.
Shayne: Hey I like your pokemon shirt
Damien: Oh thanks, you wanna play with trucks?
Shayne: Yeah sure.
They’ve been best friends ever since.
They had a bit of a falling out from mid 7th through 8th grade because of the guys Shayne hung out with. They were your average middle school douchbags but a lil worse.
Things got sorted the summer following 8th grade.
When they started high school, Shayne’s older brother would pick Damien up and give him a ride to school every morning; even though Damien was in walking distance.
But a month-ish before their freshman year, Shayne’s family ended up moving closer to Damien’s, because a tree fell through Shayne’s house during a terrible storm that hit their town. Even though it hypothetically could've been fixed, the house was old so they took it as a sign to just move.
Shayne is the only person who knows about Damien's anxiety outside of his family, and is who Damien goes to when he's having heighted anxiety or a panic attack.
They also bond over their fear of water strangly often.
Shayne and Courtney
Courtney’s family moved across the street from Shayne’s family when Courtney was in the 7th grade and Shayne was in the 8th. And after the initial family intoductions when the Millers first moved in, Shayne never talked to Courtney. Until about a month later, when he was home alone and Courtney knocked at his door.
After Shayne asked 'what's up?' Courtney asked if they could be friends.
“Do you know how to play smash?” Shayne asked.
Courtney sighed and let out a defeated ‘no’ and began walking away from the door.
“Ok, I’m gonna teach you how to play.”
They would hang out quite a bit until Shayne moved, but they still talked a lot.
Shayne later found out that Courtney would go door to door asking for friends. Shayne was the first and only person who had actually said yes.
Most people mistake them for siblings and when they find out they aren’t related, they assume they’re dating.
Shayne treats Courtney like a little sister and is very protective of her.
Shayne was fucking LIVID when he found out Courtney was being bullied. As much as he wanted to fight them, Courtney talked him down from doing so.
He still did the whole 'don't fuck with Courtney or I will fucking kill you' big brother thing. It did the trick for a while. When you're a very athletic 15 year old, it's easy to intimidate people that are younger than you.
Courtney hasn't told him about... the current bullies though.
Courtney and Damien
Met through Shayne. He made a group chat with the 3 of them that Shayne named “Operation Friendship”. Since Shayne and Damien weren't on speaking terms when Shayne and Courtney became friends they never had a chance to meet.
But they didn’t meet in person until Courtney’s first day of high school, where the 3 of them had their first class together, conveniently...
Anytime they play video games, a conversation along this happens.
"Courtney where did you learn to play this game?"
"...Shayne"
"Explains why you suck"
"HEY!"
(Shayne) "HEY!"
------
Hey! Thank you so much for reading! It's been awhile hasn't it. Yeah, I'm sorry. My life has been all over the place for the past few months and I've been struggling to find the motivation to write. I don't want to specifics because it's not only very personal, but a long story.
But to summerize why I sorta dissapeared, I had a lot of personal issues going on with both school and home and as my mental health was on this steady, but consistent, decline, it was at its very lowest in December. My home issues had reached their peak, and with the end of the quarter coming up after Xmas break and my weeks worth of late work coming back to bite me, I was too stressed to work on anything I found enjoyable without losing motivation immidiently.
Things didn't start getting better for me until some time early in semester 2 of my year. My school was transitioning back into fully in person with covid rates at their lowest in my area and things were finally feeling consistant again, but I was still getting my bearings. School still felt draining, though much less than before, and I didn't have much energy to work on things I was passionate about. I don't think I even made a new document for chapter 6 until mid-ish March.
I'm very nervious about coming back to this story after so long for many reason. First being, although I am feeling better mentally, things feel very off with writing this story. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of passion to write this story and want to see it to completion, I've just had a fluxuating interest in smosh aswell. I enjoy the channel, just not as much as I use to. And my hyperfixation on Smosh was a big drive for me writing the story. Second being that I have so much writers block around the sixth chapter of this story, and I'm worried that as soon as I try to work on it, that block will make me lose my motivation again and I'll put it off for another 6 months.
This "chapter" (idk what else I'd call this) has probably been fully finished in my drafts for about a month now, and I've been putting off posting it because of those listed anxieties, but I really want to continue writing this story so I hope you enjoyed!
Also sorry if this explination was all over the place, I just got my first covid vaccine today and am feeling kinda bleh.
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Since I rant enough about the wizening Ma and Pa received in Sinnoh it's only right to wreak bloody rhetorical vengeance elsewhere:
However harsh it may be, I'm glad Takeshi Shudo isn't alive to witness the hateful desecration of his legacy.
...
In a universe where no one's allowed to age, why are the modern Jessie and James so withered and decrepit?
Dragon Ball has been on for more than three decades. Its stars were permitted to grow up, because the head can cope with the opportunities this offers.
Yet Goku, Krillin, Bulma et al bear a greater similarity to their younger selves than these gurning invertebrates do to Team Rocket, wearing a papery approximation of their skin.
Akira Toriyama is actually concerned about his life's work, still coming up with interesting concepts, brand-new characters, and most importantly, values his audience by keeping to the established canon.
If a Dragon Ball fan reads this, I am so jealous of you.
Consider yourselves fortunate not to have seen the thing you loved the most pulverised and the resulting glutinous mass moulded back into makeshift sloppy cadavers.
Look at the state of that man! That's a good picture these days!
Why have the eyelid lines turned into upside down bags?
And why has she collected her lashes for this particular screen shot?
On eyes with a strangely feline slant...
Has she had a face lift?
Get yer money back on that one, love.
And why has he marks under his eyes and round his flapping gob to add the hint of exhaustion?
And why don't her lips reach the edge of her mouth anymore?
And why must he display Beaver Toof, as if he's only got six pegs left?
Giving it to him but not her implies she's lost the lot, needing to gum objects for a result.
And why do her low-slung ears consist only of lobe?
And why can you see his featureless lugs? Why does his barnet stand outwards in tentacles like he's taken to wearing a floppy Starmie?
What's that's meant to be, purple dreadlocks?
And why is her hairline curved and absolutely straight, like a bad wig, apart from the perfunctory bits to the side, which I guarantee won't alter their position throughout the run?
Hair used to move about, now by law there's a set pattern which cannot change. Stamp that life out immediately.
And what's that flaccid growth between his weary peepers? Is that meant to be fringe?
PFFFT!!!
And why are her digits just as thick and oblong as his?
It ain't fingers. It's trotters.
And why's he got a back to his throat, but she hasn't?
And why are we forced to witness it? You can see all the way to his dangler!
The great gaping pink cave looks like the end of Looney Tunes when Porky Pig pops up and stammers: "That's all folks!"
Remember a lack of Beaver Toof? And triangular mouths?
Remember when Meowth was a cheeky, spirited little cat, not a middle-aged human midget, an emaciated wreck bored of it all?
Remember when it wasn't deemed necessary to expose us to internal organs?
And when James was a handsome, hysterically camp dandy, not a creepy, snot-ridden science dweeb?
And when Jessie was a beautiful, stylish young girl, hot-tempered but loyal, not a sullen, cold, reptilian, Botoxed-to-the-gills gorgon?
Remember when Team Rocket were fun? And attractive?
Remember when they had joy in their hearts in spite of their poverty? And vim? And hope?
Remember them acting with flair and imagination?
Remember when their schemes had variety?
Remember when they had more than a single disguise per era?
Remember when they had many occupations? And were good at them?
Remember when they'd have a go at everything and weren't reduced to flipping condemned meat in a grotty burger van FOR THREE YEARS?!
Remember when those in charge didn't despise them, when they got happy endings?
Remember split screens? And face faults? And background tones? And purple streaks down your cheeks?
Remember big, bright open eyes, not shrunken, sagging and empty holes afflicted by glaucoma?
Remember when Jessie had eyelashes?
Remember when Pokémon was an anime?
And when James had a fringe, not a bent swelling like a balloon animal?
And when the artist could be arsed to draw Meowth's Charm properly?
Remember when the voices weren't nails down a blackboard?
When Meowth didn't sound like a wedge of coal grinding beneath an oil-deprived door?
When Jessie's dulcet tones had a wider range that just screechy, and weren't reminiscent of a cacophonous banshee clawing her way from a bog, using her own mug as a shovel?
When James speaking didn't suggest he was at best, suffering sinus difficulties, and at worst, constantly battling to swallow his own sick from looking at her?
Mind you, I'm grateful the 4Kids cast are no longer here. They deserve better, and their presence would only validate the crude bastardisations.
Every time the guttural howls reach my poor ears a chill runs through my system, and reminds me of The Pokémon Company sacking the real dub crew in preference for a job done on the cheap.
Remember speed lines? And Pokéball-throwing animation?
Remember a new motto performance in each installment, not the same stock footage reused again and again?
Remember when it rhymed?
It shows.
Remember remembering it?
Remember when Team Rocket would walk down the street in their uniforms and no one took a blind bit of notice despite the organisation operating there?
And they didn't fanny about in one scabby polyester costume every minute they were travelling, even when NO ONE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE?
Since Unova, whilst confronting Ash and this era's soon-to-be-forgotten companions, you get this exchange:
Moron-Of-The-Week: "Who are Team Rocket?"
Ash: "They're bad guys who steal other people's Pokémon."
EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME!!!
WORD-FOR-WORD IDENTICAL!!!
The writers have such deep appreciation for their work they're sending in cut-and-paste scripts.
Remember blasting off when something blew up, not an explosion from nowhere, or giving it the slip with a jet pack, or abduction by a Care Bear?
Remember when the eyebrows matched the hair?
Remember when he wore it long?
Remember blue shock? And sweat drop? And hammerspace? And comedy violence?
Remember her jagged hairline? And it being RED!!!
Remember proper highlights to it, rather than the odd white lump now and again, as if sweating like a pig, or their heads are infested with giant space ticks?
Remember when they were in all the episodes? And were main characters? And on the introduction sequence?
Remember when Jessie and James used to hug? And hold hands?
And bicker as only a couple can, but you knew they'd never cope alone?
Remember when they'd fly into each other's arms under the flimsiest pretext?
Remember when they meant more to one another than just being a pair of unconnected and disembodied wraiths coincidentally walking down the same road?
And they had more than civil interactions?
Remember when she loved him as much as he loved her?
And no one else could ever take his place?
And canon wasn't infected with the ruinous depiction of her as a hard, heartless bitch barely tolerating him until someone 'better' came along, at which point she'd fuck off without a backwards glance?
'Better', as in a scabby, satchel-mouthed, gormless cretin, just to add surly insult to merciless injury.
Never has such a life-long and hardcore defender of the faith flipped into an ardent Rumishipper as I did after that episode, once I'd swept up the fragments of my soul.
Remember when they were sympathetic?
Remember when they showed human warmth?
Remember when they cared about each other?
Remember when they weren't just a jangling, distorted mess of half-recollected traits?
Remember when they weren't really evil?
Remember Rocketshipping? That was a thing once, believe it or not.
Remember when they had a conscience?
Remember when actually wicked characters turned up, and Team Rocket ALWAYS sided with Ash, rather than the nauseating spectacle of suddenly being best buds with the Boss?
Remember when they had contact with the Twerps?
Remember when Team Rocket and the Twerps loved each other in secret and would endanger themselves to save their 'enemies'?
Everything that was once good and winning about them was sucked out, degree by degree, to leave the corpse, hollow and dead, strung up on wires as a grim marionette.
I'm sure most who see this will vehemently disagree, that I'm completely wrong, that THEY like them.
Yes, you like this three, but you don't like Team Rocket. This is not them. You have yours, and I have mine, but let's not pretend they are the same.
Why, if there is no difference, would I be so hostile, when they meant so much too me?
Did you ever wonder where the original fans went, why they all departed en masse? It's not because they 'moved on' or 'matured'.
They didn't leave Pokémon. Pokémon left them.
As the makers rely so heavily on repetition (sorry, nostalgia) they arrogantly expect us to still be here, having blithely welcomed our memories minced and our canon ripped up or ripped off, apparently.
We're intended to put up with watching them lay waste to ťhe series's body, clinging on for when a rotting bone is pulled up now and again and waved at us, before they chuck it aside to continue the dismemberment.
It's been eaten from the inside out, explaining the facial collapse. Behold the beauty on show:
You see what I mean, don't you?
Don't you? No, because otherwise you'd say the same.
How anyone feels able to describe three deformed freaks as 'hot' or 'cute' I will never comprehend.
The uniform collar protrudes like a solid pipe, emphasising the pencil necks.
It gives the impression of wrinkled, leathery tortoises peering out of their shells to secure a tasty lettuce treat.
Is that pretty? No.
Is it so surprising I don't care for my favourites to resemble melted waxwork skeletons of their own dæmonic counterparts?
S&M is a most fitting name, for this is torture.
In the film Death Becomes Her, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn vie for the attention of Bruce Willis, both taking a serum giving everlasting youth and slimness.
The catch is it confers immortality, but not invulnerability, so when pushed down the stairs Meryl survives but is dead, her neck broken, thus she's zipped up in the morgue fridge.
When Goldie is shot with a canon she too rises, internal organs blown out.
The rest of the adventure involves the pair losing the war against time, patching up and painting over peeling grey skin, holding onto loose limbs as their bodies fall apart.
This obviously is the case here. The trio lapped the potion up at the close of Sinnoh, experienced a fatal accident and are now steadily crumbling to mush before us.
According to grave-diggers the head always goes first, so there you are then.
I have a suspicion that Giovanni lured all three to his crypt, experimenting on them to engineer his ultimate super soldier, which explains their flat, plastic appearance. Those since Unova began are the cyborgs, the real ones locked in his cellar.
You may notice I have about the lowest opinion possible of the current writing team, as they deserve.
Why should I have any respect for vindictive halfwits like this, who hate Team Rocket so much they're going out of their way to distort and uglify them, expressing the resentment in celluloid?
Jessie, James and Meowth lost their only defender in Takeshi Shudo. From that point they descended from loveable, hapless tragic figures to self-parodies (Hoenn) whiney, irritating divs dumping one another at every interval (Sinnoh), robotic, amoral scum (Unova and Kalos) and now physically repulsive minor additions (Alola and Galar). Is that trajectory all accidental?
It not that it's a new 'style' (for want of a better word), as were that the case, this hideousness would apply to the entire cast, but it's only done to Team Rocket. How could that be unless motivated by malice?
Given the sub thesps are obliged to prostrate themselves in the dust, begging fans to make their appreciation known, it smacks of desperation.
They wouldn't need to ask that were the trio treated as an integral component. They must sense the objections and are thus drumming up support to avoid the dole queue.
Are those in charge so resentful of their presence it manifests in mutilating them, keen to do anything that may alienate the fanbase, so at the first sign of a dip in popularity they can leap upon it as the perfect excuse to write Team Rocket out?
Why be surprised? These are imbeciles who reject their own canon at the close of every generation, so why care about someone else's?
If people have to harangue the writers with grovelling praise of their retcons, rehashes and all-round twatting about, butter 'em up sufficiently, with the implied threat of deserting the franchise should Team Rocket be ejected, taking their purses too, all so the smug, avaricious berks deign to put the trio in the next generation, that proves they don't want them, so how can what they write for their characters be objectively of any worth?
Team Rocket would've departed by now, were there not a palpable worry their absence might ring the death knell of the whole thing, turning off the financial tap, which is what matters.
Therefore they are retained, grudgingly, and only so long as the clamour continues at its current decibel level. If that drops it's over, and don't expect a romantic resolution. Why should pleasing you be a concern when you're to leave with them?
Ask yourself: how much of your devotion is based on what they are right now, and how much is from who they used to be?
How long can they live off past glories?
The offences done in Unova and Kalos were bad enough, but remarkably Game Freak found further depths to plumb, therefore it can only get worse.
I have of course retained the loveliest for last:
Be still, my beating heart.
No, really, be still. Stop infact.
Planet of the Apes.
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Utopia and Apocalypse: Pynchon’s Populist/Fatalist Cinema
The rhythmic clapping resonates inside these walls, which are hard and glossy as coal: Come-on! Start-the-show! Come-on! Start-the-show! The screen is a dim page spread before us, white and silent. The film has broken, or a projector bulb has burned out. It was difficult even for us, old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) to tell which before the darkness swept in.
--from the last page of Gravity’s Rainbow
To begin with a personal anecdote: Writing my first book (to be published) in the late 1970s, an experimental autobiography titled Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (Harper & Row, 1980), published in French as Mouvements: Une vie au cinéma (P.O.L, 2003), I wanted to include four texts by other authors—two short stories (“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz, “The Secret Integration” by Thomas Pynchon) and two essays (“The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window” by Charles Eckert, “My Life With Kong” by Elliott Stein)—but was prevented from doing so by my editor, who argued that because the book was mine, texts by other authors didn’t belong there. My motives were both pluralistic and populist: a desire both to respect fiction and non-fiction as equal creative partners and to insist that the book was about more than just myself and my own life. Because my book was largely about the creative roles played by the fictions of cinema on the non-fictions of personal lives, the anti-elitist nature of cinema played a crucial part in these transactions.`
In the case of Pynchon’s 1964 story—which twenty years later, in his collection Slow Learner, he would admit was the only early story of his that he still liked—the cinematic relevance to Moving Places could be found in a single fleeting but resonant detail: the momentary bonding of a little white boy named Tim Santora with a black, homeless, alcoholic jazz musician named Carl McAfee in a hotel room when they discover that they’ve both seen Blood Alley (1955), an anticommunist action-adventure with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall, directed by William Wellman. Pynchon mentions only the film’s title, but the complex synergy of this passing moment of mutual recognition between two of its dissimilar viewers represented for me an epiphany, in part because of the irony of such casual camaraderie occurring in relation to a routine example of Manichean Cold War mythology. Moreover, as a right-wing cinematic touchstone, Blood Alley is dialectically complemented in the same story by Tim and his friends categorizing their rebellious schoolboy pranks as Operation Spartacus, inspired by the left-wing Spartacus (1960) of Kirk Douglas, Dalton Trumbo, and Stanley Kubrick.
For better and for worse, all of Pynchon’s fiction partakes of this populism by customarily defining cinema as the cultural air that everyone breathes, or at least the river in which everyone swims and bathes. This is equally apparent in the only Pynchon novel that qualifies as hackwork, Inherent Vice (2009), and the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of it is also his worst film to date—a hippie remake of Chinatown in the same way that the novel is a hippie remake of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald—seems logical insofar as it seems to have been written with an eye towards selling the screen rights. As Geoffrey O’Brien observed (while defending this indefensible book and film) in the New York Review of Books (January 3, 2015), “Perhaps the novel really was crying out for such a cinematic transformation, for in its pages people watch movies, remember them, compare events in the ‘real world’ to their plots, re-experience their soundtracks as auditory hallucinations, even work their technical components (the lighting style of cinematographer James Wong Howe, for instance) into aspects of complex conspiratorial schemes.” (Despite a few glancing virtues, such as Josh Brolin’s Nixonesque performance as "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, Anderson’s film seems just as cynical as its source and infused with the same sort of misplaced would-be nostalgia for the counterculture of the late 60s and early 70s, pitched to a generation that didn’t experience it, as Bertolucci’s Innocents: The Dreamers.)
From The Crying of Lot 49’s evocation of an orgasm in cinematic terms (“She awoke at last to find herself getting laid; she’d come in on a sexual crescendo in progress, like a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving”) to the magical-surreal guest star appearance of Mickey Rooney in wartime Europe in Gravity’s Rainbow, cinema is invariably a form of lingua franca in Pynchon’s fiction, an expedient form of shorthand, calling up common experiences that seem light years away from the sectarianism of the politique des auteurs. This explains why his novels set in mid-20th century, such as the two just cited, when cinema was still a common currency cutting across classes, age groups, and diverse levels of education, tend to have the greatest number of movie references. In Gravity’s Rainbow—set mostly in war-torn Europe, with a few flashbacks to the east coast U.S. and flash-forwards to the contemporary west coast—this even includes such anachronistic pop ephemera as the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men and the 1955 Western The Return of Jack Slade (which a character named Waxwing Blodgett is said to have seen at U.S. Army bases during World War 2 no less than twenty-seven times), along with various comic books.
Significantly, “The Secret Integration”, a title evoking both conspiracy and countercultural utopia, is set in the same cozy suburban neighborhood in the Berkshires from which Tyrone Slothrop, the wartime hero or antihero of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), aka “Rocketman,” springs, with his kid brother and father among the story’s characters. It’s also the same region where Pynchon himself grew up. And Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s magnum opus and richest work, is by all measures the most film-drenched of his novels in its design as well as its details—so much so that even its blocks of text are separated typographically by what resemble sprocket holes. Unlike, say, Vineland (1990), where cinema figures mostly in terms of imaginary TV reruns (e.g., Woody Allen in Young Kissinger) and diverse cultural appropriations (e.g., a Noir Center shopping mall), or the post-cinematic adventures in cyberspace found in the noirish (and far superior) east-coast companion volume to Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge (2013), cinema in Gravity’s Rainbow is basically a theatrical event with a social impact, where Fritz Lang’s invention of the rocket countdown as a suspense device (in the 1929 Frau im mond) and the separate “frames” of a rocket’s trajectory are equally relevant and operative factors. There are also passing references to Lang’s Der müde Tod, Die Nibelungen, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and Metropolis—not to mention De Mille’s Cleopatra, Dumbo, Freaks, Son of Frankenstein, White Zombie, at least two Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, Pabst, and Lubitsch—and the epigraphs introducing the novel’s second and third sections (“You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood — Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray” and “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more…. –Dorothy, arriving in Oz”) are equally steeped in familiar movie mythology.
These are all populist allusions, yet the bane of populism as a rightwing curse is another near-constant in Pynchon’s work. The same ambivalence can be felt in the novel’s last two words, “Now everybody—“, at once frightening and comforting in its immediacy and universality. With the possible exception of Mason & Dixon (1997), every Pynchon novel over the past three decades—Vineland, Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge—has an attractive, prominent, and sympathetic female character betraying or at least acting against her leftist roots and/or principles by being first drawn erotically towards and then being seduced by a fascistic male. In Bleeding Edge, this even happens to the novel’s earthy protagonist, the middle-aged detective Maxine Tarnow. Given the teasing amount of autobiographical concealment and revelation Pynchon carries on with his public while rigorously avoiding the press, it is tempting to see this recurring theme as a personal obsession grounded in some private psychic wound, and one that points to sadder-but-wiser challenges brought by Pynchon to his own populism, eventually reflecting a certain cynicism about human behavior. It also calls to mind some of the reflections of Luc Moullet (in “Sainte Janet,” Cahiers du cinéma no. 86, août 1958) aroused by Howard Hughes’ and Josef von Sternberg’s Jet Pilot and (more incidentally) by Ayn Rand’s and King Vidor’s The Fountainhead whereby “erotic verve” is tied to a contempt for collectivity—implicitly suggesting that rightwing art may be sexier than leftwing art, especially if the sexual delirium in question has some of the adolescent energy found in, for example, Hughes, Sternberg, Rand, Vidor, Kubrick, Tashlin, Jerry Lewis, and, yes, Pynchon.
One of the most impressive things about Pynchon’s fiction is the way in which it often represents the narrative shapes of individual novels in explicit visual terms. V, his first novel, has two heroes and narrative lines that converge at the bottom point of a V; Gravity’s Rainbow, his second—a V2 in more ways than one—unfolds across an epic skyscape like a rocket’s (linear) ascent and its (scattered) descent; Vineland offers a narrative tangle of lives to rhyme with its crisscrossing vines, and the curving ampersand in the middle of Mason & Dixon suggests another form of digressive tangle between its two male leads; Against the Day, which opens with a balloon flight, seems to follow the curving shape and rotation of the planet.
This compulsive patterning suggests that the sprocket-hole design in Gravity’s Rainbow’s section breaks is more than just a decorative detail. The recurrence of sprockets and film frames carries metaphorical resonance in the novel’s action, so that Franz Pökler, a German rocket engineer allowed by his superiors to see his long-lost daughter (whom he calls his “movie child” because she was conceived the night he and her mother saw a porn film) only once a year, at a children’s village called Zwölfkinder, and can’t even be sure if it’s the same girl each time:
So it has gone for the six years since. A daughter a year, each one about a year older, each time taking up nearly from scratch. The only continuity has been her name, and Zwölfkinder, and Pökler’s love—love something like the persistence of vision, for They have used it to create for him the moving image of a daughter, flashing him only these summertime frames of her, leaving it to him to build the illusion of a single child—what would the time scale matter, a 24th of a second or a year (no more, the engineer thought, than in a wind tunnel, or an oscillograph whose turning drum you can speed or slow at will…)?
***
Cinema, in short, is both delightful and sinister—a utopian dream and an apocalyptic nightmare, a stark juxtaposition reflected in the abrupt shift in the earlier Pynchon passage quoted at the beginning of this essay from present tense to past tense, and from third person to first person. Much the same could be said about the various displacements experienced while moving from the positive to the negative consequences of populism.
Pynchon’s allegiance to the irreverent vulgarity of kazoos sounding like farts and concomitant Spike Jones parodies seems wholly in keeping with his disdain for David Raksin and Johnny Mercer’s popular song “Laura” and what he perceives as the snobbish elitism of the Preminger film it derives from, as expressed in his passionate liner notes to the CD compilation “Spiked!: The Music of Spike Jones” a half-century later:
The song had been featured in the 1945 movie of the same name, supposed to evoke the hotsy-totsy social life where all these sophisticated New York City folks had time for faces in the misty light and so forth, not to mention expensive outfits, fancy interiors,witty repartee—a world of pseudos as inviting to…class hostility as fish in a barrel, including a presumed audience fatally unhip enough to still believe in the old prewar fantasies, though surely it was already too late for that, Tin Pan Alley wisdom about life had not stood a chance under the realities of global war, too many people by then knew better.
Consequently, neither art cinema nor auteur cinema figures much in Pynchon’s otherwise hefty lexicon of film culture, aside from a jokey mention of a Bengt Ekerot/Maria Casares Film Festival (actors playing Death in The Seventh Seal and Orphée) held in Los Angeles—and significantly, even the “underground”, 16-millimeter radical political filmmaking in northern California charted in Vineland becomes emblematic of the perceived failure of the 60s counterculture as a whole. This also helps to account for why the paranoia and solipsism found in Jacques Rivette’s Paris nous appartient and Out 1, perhaps the closest equivalents to Pynchon’s own notions of mass conspiracy juxtaposed with solitary despair, are never mentioned in his writing, and the films that are referenced belong almost exclusively to the commercial mainstream, unlike the examples of painting, music, and literature, such as the surrealist painting of Remedios Varo described in detail at the beginning of The Crying of Lot 49, the importance of Ornette Coleman in V and Anton Webern in Gravity’s Rainbow, or the visible impact of both Jorge Luis Borges and William S. Burroughs on the latter novel. (1) And much of the novel’s supply of movie folklore—e.g., the fatal ambushing of John Dillinger while leaving Chicago’s Biograph theater--is mainstream as well.
Nevertheless, one can find a fairly precise philosophical and metaphysical description of these aforementioned Rivette films in Gravity’s Rainbow: “If there is something comforting -- religious, if you want — about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.” And the white, empty movie screen that appears apocalyptically on the novel’s final page—as white and as blank as the fusion of all the colors in a rainbow—also appears in Rivette’s first feature when a 16-millimeter print of Lang’s Metropolis breaks during the projection of the Tower of Babel sequence.
Is such a physically and metaphysically similar affective climax of a halted film projection foretelling an apocalypse a mere coincidence? It’s impossible to know whether Pynchon might have seen Paris nous appartient during its brief New York run in the early 60s. But even if he hadn’t (or still hasn’t), a bitter sense of betrayed utopian possibilities in that film, in Out 1, and in most of his fiction is hard to overlook. Old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) don’t like to be woken from their dreams.
by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Footnote
For this reason, among others, I’m skeptical about accepting the hypothesis of the otherwise reliable Pynchon critic Richard Poirier that Gravity’s Rainbow’s enigmatic references to “the Kenosha Kid” might allude to Orson Welles, who was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Steven C. Weisenburger, in A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion (Athens/London: The University of Georgia Press, 2006), reports more plausibly that “the Kenosha Kid” was a pulp magazine character created by Forbes Parkhill in Western stories published from the 1920s through the 1940s. Once again, Pynchon’s populism trumps—i.e. exceeds—his cinephilia.
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interview | zach villa - schonmagazine.com
As the infamous Night Stalker, Iowa-born actor Zach Villa is a chaotic evil in the latest series of American Horror Story. Entitled AHS: 1984, the show plays off the hopes and tropes of the 1980s, incorporating elements from films like Friday the 13th and Halloween into a spine-tingling thrill ride. The chief villain of the series is Villa’s Richard Ramirez, a reality-based serial killer set on making the lead characters’ lives a living hell — quite literally.
In real life, however, Villa is an obvious contrast. A multihyphenate with a strong career across a range of disciplines, he first caught the attention of the mainstream from his collaboration with Evan Rachel Wood in the project Rebel and a Basketcase. Now, as AHS: 1984 keeps audiences around the world thoroughly spooked, Villa opens up to Schön! about growing up in Iowa, his willingness to collaborate with Taylor Swift, and the unexpected call that announced his role on American Horror Story.
How did you get your start in acting?
Well, I’ve been on stage since I was two, so the whole shebang started quite early. Acting, oddly, was an afterthought when I first started. I had been dancing and singing on stage for years, idolising great song-and-dance performers like Gene Kelly, Donald O’ Connor, and Sammy Davis Jr. when it occurred to me that I should probably focus on learning the craft of acting if I wanted to continue pursuing that particular path in the entertainment industry. I had focused intensely on two out of the three “triple threat” disciplines, so I guessed it was time that I figured out the third part. It was an accessory to being able to perform musical theatre roles more effectively, and I guess that backfired in a sense and became a more central focus as I developed.
Iowa isn’t the most common birthplace for a big-time actor. What does your family — and presumably other Midwestern relatives — think of your journey into Hollywood?
They are both thrilled and confused. Don’t get me wrong — my family is very happy for me, and while we have had our spats over the years about whether or not I should be pursuing a highly volatile, financial unstable career, they have ultimately come through and rooted for me and my success.
That being said, I think pursuing a career in the mainstream entertainment industry is a very singular experience. Unless you’ve lived it and hit the pavement in NYC, L.A., etc., it’s very hard to understand the day-to-day struggles of a performing artist. I think that certain regions of the country are — generally — a majority of media consumers as opposed to creators, and there is a disconnect between the public and those of us pursuing an arts career that propagates the fallacy of things being easy and breezy, since you don’t have to get up every day at 6 AM, go to the office, and then come home and make dinner. People see that lack of structure as undisciplined and fancy-free. Let me tell you, it’s anything but. Artists have to hit the pavement in a very different way that is highly varied from day to day, and that uncertainty introduces a unique kind of stress, in addition, to actually trying to be good at your job. I always say that booking work is my “job” as an actor, and when I actually book a gig, that’s where the job ends and the craft and career begins. Translating that to someone without firsthand experience can be infuriatingly difficult.
Where were you when you found out about landing AHS: 1984 and the scope of your role? What did you do?Who did you call first?
I was in the studio recording an audiobook — one of the many ways that this particular actor has been able to supplement their income, and it has been such a gift. I was waiting on the call, and I stopped narrating mid-sentence — much to the puzzlement of my audio engineer — and picked up. I got the news, opened the door of the vocal booth and leaned against the front wall, sliding down to a sitting fetal position, and started to tear up. I called a few close friends and family and walked around for the better part of an hour mildly freaking out. The studio staff secretly went and bought a bottle of champagne down the street, and after I finished my page quota for the day they surprised me with a toast. Then everything in my life became a blur.
Of course, without spoiling anything, what can you tell us about your role as Richard Ramirez in AHS: 1984?
Oh, that’s a very difficult question. Richard Ramirez was a real person. I am playing a character that shares his name and is informed by him and his history. Beyond that, you’ll just have to wait and see.
What was the most memorable moment from shooting the series?
I can’t say my absolute favourite without revealing secrets! But I’ll say that the encounter with the hiker in episode two was quite “fun” — if you can call pretending to murder someone “fun.” The makeup and FX team on the show is the best in the biz, and the blood rig that was used in that scene was just wild. It was messy and crazy, and [there was] high pressure to get it right in one take, and I loved it.
What’s your method for getting into character, both in the weeks and moments leading up to a shoot or performance?
I have to play these cards close to the chest. Some of it is instinct. I just feel as though I am inside the character’s head at some point after spending enough time with the material, but it’s different with each role.
Sometimes I need to know how they sound, sometimes it’s historical research. It’s ALWAYS spending an exorbitant amount of time with the script — that’s the golden rule for me. Whether its Shakespeare or the 200th episode of Friends, you have to start with the text as an actor, and the most minute differences in phrasing, punctuation, word choice, etc. are clues to how this person operates as a human being and in the world. I always come back to the text. Any other secret sauce that I do I’ll keep secret for now.
What’s been the most challenging part of playing a character like this?
I’ll modify the question to ask what’s the most important part of playing a character like this… and that, I think, is being able to let it go at the end of the day — which I don’t always succeed in doing. Sometimes after an intense shoot it takes me a minute to let go of the energy I was carrying around on set. I pride myself on being able to flip in and out, but that is challenging from time to time for me on this particular project.
If you could only watch one film and one television series for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
The Back to the Future Trilogy for movies and Battlestar Galactica for TV. Nerd alert.
Apart from acting (and dance) you’re also well-versed in music. How did you begin as a musician?
The same time that I started hearing it, so very, very early. Growing up with a dance studio attached to your house, you hear a lot of very diverse music over the years. That all seeped into my subconscious, and I was writing full-on symphonies in my head walking through the woods in Iowa when I was seven or eight years old. Mind you, I didn’t have the skills to put that into writing or notation — and still don’t, not for the symphonies anyway.
I learned how to read music by playing the violin in elementary school. I didn’t pick up a guitar or actually start producing original music in any tangible way until my junior year at Interlochen Arts Academy. There, my roommate Filip — a wildly talented self-taught metal guitarist and visual arts student from Macedonia — taught me things here and there, and I also taught myself by ear. The Internet, man.
Who are some other musicians with whom you’d like to collaborate?
St. Vincent. Top of the list. Blink 182 — a childhood dream. Jimmy Eat World. John Mayer but only if he lets me be in his next ridiculous green screen music video. Mac Ayers, Tears For Fears, Snail Mail, and oh, I dunno… Taylor Swift. Come at me.
Who are your biggest musical inspirations? And what have you been listening to lately?
Biggest? That’s tough because it changes with each project. Tower of Power is a huge influence for me. My first band was funk-based, and man, they are so groovy. If you don’t know, now you know go listen to them. St. Vincent. Jimmy Eat World. And, regardless of the drama surrounding this artist from time to time, John Mayer. He really is one of the great guitarists of our generation, and more importantly, the songwriting that he produces is top-notch. I’ve learned a lot from diving deep into his material over the years. Miles Davis, and jazz in general, is huge for me. Brain fuel. Listening lately to Sleater-Kinney’s new record, Knuckle Puck, and a lot of 2000s pop-punk.
What else can we look forward to from Zach Villa — be in 2019, 2020 or later?
World domination.
The track on the video content [for this shoot] is the first single — a tease if you will — of my new solo project. Go check it out. My band Sorry Kyle will be dropping a ton of music over the next few months if you’re into punk and emo.
And that’s just music. Acting-wise, post-AHS I’m waiting to see what comes down the pipe. I’m always creating. I want to be fluid in music, movement, film and TV, directing, etc. There’s no time like the present and the present is, well, now. So hang on tight.
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Fangirl Dreams
Summary: (Y/N)’s favorite time of year has once again come around, but this year at San Diego Comic Con was extra special.
Characters: Jensen Ackles, Zachary Levi, Reader
Pairing: Jensen x Reader x Zac
Warnings: Fluff/Smut
Word Count: 3334
A/N: Dedicated to my wifey @dean-winchesters-bacon because she always encourages me to write whatever comes into my pea-brain. As always this is unbeta so all mistakes are mine. Likes, comments and reblogs are splendid and I will love you doubly for them! Enjoy!
Stepping foot out onto the main street of San Diego Comic Con was an experience like no others. No many how many years (Y/N) had been coming to this particular event she still was overwhelmed with excitement. She felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her waist holding her tightly.
“This place will always hold a special spot for us.” Her husband, Jensen Ackles whispered pressing his lips just below her ear.
She nodded as they were led inside the special entrance for celebrity guests. They both had a ton of press to do all day Friday and Saturday luckily, they were about to endure it together. Looking around, she found it hard to keep from chuckling as Jensen kept rolling his gorgeous olive eyes.
“He does one freaking comic book movie and he’s everywhere.” He muttered as she playfully smacked his arm.
(Y/N) gave him a pointed look, “It’s not just one movie and you know it. He’s been working hard for this non-stop and you know better than anyone what he has sacrifice for it.”
Jensen’s handsome face soften nodding knowingly, “Yes I do and there would be no way in hell I could have done what he has. That is why this weekend is extra special.”
She smiled brightly kissing his cheek then looked back at the large Shazam poster featuring the third member of their little trio, her boyfriend, Zachary Levi. The story behind how the three of them end up in an open relationship was one of a fangirl’s dreams. She never knew six years ago at that very convention her whole life would change.
San Diego Comic Con – 2013
(Y/N) waited nervously as she stood behind the scenes of the infamous Nerd HQ panel. She had won a contest by making the largest donation for a chance to be backstage meeting all the guests on Nerd HQ throughout the whole weekend. Now, she was not so patiently waiting for the stars of Supernatural to make their way there from the main convention.
“So, how’s been so far?” came a familiar voice from behind her.
(Y/N) turned around to see Zachary Levi standing only a foot away from her checking in with her like he had been all weekend. Even though they had spent a lot of time talking throughout the panels, she was still star struck by him.
“It’s been amazing! Thank you so much for letting me be back here and meeting everyone.” She knew she was gushing but (Y/N) could not help it.
Zac laughed slipping his arm around her shoulders, “Be honest what has been your favorite part so far?” he asked pulling her in close.
She hesitantly wrapped her own around his back the feeling of his lean body beneath her fingers making her knees weak, “Well to be honest I think it’s going to be a tie between getting to meet Jensen Ackles and then being able to meet you.”
He looked down at her with a breathtaking smile, “Honestly meeting you has been the highlight of my weekend. I don’t know if I’ll be able to compete with Jensen though. He’s so dreamy.”
(Y/N) laughed as they called him to go out on stage for the start of the panel. She noticed as he pulled his arm away he ran his hand down to hers squeezing it briefly. After the panel was over, Zac personally brought Jensen and his co-star Jared Padalecki over to her.
“Jensen and Jared, this is the amazing (Y/N) (Y/L/N). She made the largest donation to Operation Smiles in order to hang out back here with me.” He said as both men shook her hand.
She was having trouble remembering how to breath let alone speak to them, “H-Hi, it’s really nice to meet you both.”
“It’s nice to meet you. Now, did you really want to hang out with this nerd all day?” Jensen asked smiling down at her as Zac and Jared were chatting.
She shrugged smirking at him, “Kind of, yes. I am a huge fan of Zac’s but also, I really want to meet you… and Jared, of course.” (Y/N) could feel her cheeks burning as Jensen’s smile spread wider across his face.
Soon, they were being usher to take a picture for the Nerd Machine and then Zac pulled (Y/N) into a photo as well. Jared’s chin was resting on top of her head as Zac and Jensen leaned in both of their lips pressing against her cheeks.
When the weekend was coming to a close and reality was creeping its way back into (Y/N)’s perfect little fangirl world the most unbelievable thing happened. While she was walking back to her hotel, Zachary Levi had called her inviting her out to dinner. Arriving at the little restaurant, she was surprised to find Jensen there as well. That evening turned out to be one that changed her life forever.
San Diego Comic – Present Day
(Y/N) was separating Jensen and Jared as they waited for the next interviewer to come in. She felt her phone buzz in her pocket pulling it out quickly.
“Surprise.” Was all the text said from Zac and she showed Jensen it as he shrugged.
Jared suddenly stood up walking towards the door of the interview room, “What’s going on movie stud!”
(Y/N) felt her heart nearly stop seeing Zac standing there in black fitted jeans, a pastel floral shirt and perfect tan from traveling recently. She could feel her jaw slacked as a husky voice whispered in her ear, “Surprise pretty girl.”
She looked up to see Jensen grinning from ear to ear before going over to greet Zac. That is when she realized that they had set this all up and she could not be more thankful for the two of them. She went over, trying hard not to seem to eager to see Zac. He pulled her into his strong arms holding her tight against his muscular body.
“Hey gorgeous.” He whispered briefly pressing his lips against her neck.
She let out a shaky breath feeling complete within his arms, “I missed you handsome.” She whispered back just before the Entertainment Weekly crew got there.
She found that Zac was interviewing them to get in more press time for his big movie coming out. He specifically requested to interview the three of them stating he was close friends with them all which was not a lie. Jared and his wife, Gen, were part of the small group that knew the truth about their relationship.
“Jensen how is it having your gorgeous wife on the show now? By the way, you’re welcome for that.” Zac said as they all laughed.
She looked up to her husband who was smiling fondly, “First thank you in all seriousness. You can ask (Y/N), I’m constantly giving you credit for us being together. It’s been great having her on set and living up in Vancouver. It’s nearly perfect.”
Zac smirk nodding to let him know he caught what he said. Jensen was right, living in Vancouver had help immensely with the loneliness of not being able to see either of them. However, the time Zac had been filming Shazam nearly tore her heart apart. He rarely got the chance to come back to their home in Austin and she could not go visit him on set.
It was taking everything within her not to go over and sit across his lap. It had been almost eight months since she last saw him between his schedule and hers. (Y/N) was desperately waiting to spend time with him. Thankfully, Jensen and Jared took the bulk of the interview as (Y/N) was lost in her own little world trying not to stare like a fangirl at Zac.
The interview ended when Zac’s movie co-stars crashed it to lead into their interview with Entertainment Weekly. Sadly, Zac could not get away to see her off and overwhelming sadness hit her like a tidal wave. She clenched onto Jensen who directed her off to a small, private hallway. Jared had nodded silently, saying the married couple needed a moment and would do the interview himself.
As soon as it was just her and him, (Y/N) let out the sob burning in her chest. “Shh, I know pretty girl, I know. Just let it all out.” He whispered rubbing her back soothingly.
(Y/N) cried for seemed forever into Jensen’s chest. Once all the sadness had left her chest it was replaced by guilt. “I’m sorry J-Jensen… I have missed him so much but I’m so thankful to have you.”
His hands were on either side of her face as his lips gently kissed hers, “You know you never have to feel guilt for missing either of us. This is not a competition and I know for a fact that he has missed you terribly. It’s breaking his heart to not be with us, but we just need to make it through today.”
She looked up to him with hope warming her body, “Do you mean…” she whispered as he nodded.
“Tonight, we have set it up that it is just the three of us in a hotel suite with dinner and all the snuggles you can handle.” Jensen’s smile was mirroring the one spreading across her own face as she threw her arms around his neck hugging him.
“Thank you.” She said through tears of happiness.
Knowing that she was going to be able to spend the whole evening with both her men made getting through the rest of their press interviews easier. Once they were all done, Jared split from them to go to his own room where Gen was waiting with the kids. (Y/N) was practically skipping down the hall next to Jensen as they made their way towards their suite.
Opening the door, disappointment coursed through her seeing the room empty. “He is trying to get away from the party going on but it’s good press for the movie if he is mingling down there.”
She looked up to Jensen who was sympathetically towards her. (Y/N) smiled pushing up on her toes to kissing him, “Then I guess that means more snuggle time with you, pretty boy.”
(Y/N) and Jensen were both in their pajama bottoms and t-shirts snuggled on the bed together watching a movie on Netflix. His fingers grazing down her arm making her shiver and she snuggled against his firm body even more. She brought her leg over his waist and brushed against the bulge in his sweatpants.
She lifted herself up straddling Jensen’s waist blocking the tv. “Hey, I’m trying to see who gets the girl in the end here.” He joked as she rolled her eyes.
(Y/N) pulled her shirt over her head revealing her bare breasts to him watching as his tongue darted out over his bottom lip, “Still wanna watch the movie?”
“Hell no.” he said clicking the tv off, tossing the remote and sitting up to capture her lips with his.
His arms wrapped around her keeping her in place while her hands went up into his hair. Suddenly, she pulled away from him as their breathing was both heavy, “We should wait for him.”
Jensen began kissing down her neck as his hands went to her waist, “Let’s keep going and then you two can spend some time together.”
She pulled his head up looking directly into his dark olive eyes, “I want to be with you both though… together.”
He smiled kissing her deeply before saying, “I know, and you will, but pretty girl I’ve been able to have you whenever I want for the better part of a year. He deserves a little time with you, just the two of you. Plus, you know I won’t be far away.”
She chuckled remembering Jensen admitting to them one night that he loved watching her and Zac together. (Y/N) slowly rolled her hips against him as he continued his path down her neck. Wet, open mouth kisses trailed down until he reached her breast. The tip of his tongue circling around her nipple slowly.
(Y/N) let out a long sigh as he continued his slow torture over her breast eventually moving to the other one. “Jensen, please…” she moaned needing to feeling more of him.
He rolled her onto her back sitting up to bring her pants and panties down her legs. When he went to leaned down between them she suddenly snapped them shut, “Pants off is the toll you pay to get through the gate.”
Jensen chuckled getting off the bed standing next to it. He knew she loved to watch him strip out of his clothes. As slowly as he dragged his sweatpants and boxers down his bowlegs her own legs split apart for him. (Y/N) sucked in her bottom lip seeing his thick cock freed needing to feel him on her tongue.
Before he could keep her from doing it, she was on all fours on the mattress with her parted lips brushing against his slick tip. “Shit pretty girl, I wanted to take care of you.”
Jensen pushed into her mouth a loud groan escaping his lips making her core clench around nothingness. He was hot and heavy on her tongue just the way she loved him to be. His large hands gathering her hair as he slowly began to thrusted himself in and out of her. His grunts and whimpers filling her ears distracting her from the fact that they were no longer the only ones in the room.
When she felt a long, rough tongue lap over her slick lips her body tensed up for a brief moment. Jensen pulled out of her mouth even though she knew he was painfully close to coming. “About time you join us.” He said as (Y/N) looked over her shoulder.
Just over the curve of her ass she saw dark brown hair with flecks of gray at the sides. Leaning down onto the mattress he licked over her a few more times before smiling at them both, “Sorry I had to literally sneak away to get here. It will be worth getting in trouble tomorrow though.”
Zac stood up unbuttoning his shirt letting it slip down his large arms. (Y/N) looked back to Jensen who was settling into the oversized chair next to the bed. His hand gripping his cock as he nodded for her to turn around.
Rolling onto her back, she watched as Zac pulled the tank top over his head showing off all the hard work he had been doing in the gym seven days a week. His legs were resting against the side of the bed as he trailed one hand down her leg while the other unfastened his belt and pants. His thumb brushed over her throbbing clit making her grasp the sheets beside her.
“Gorgeous, I have missed this view so much.” He whispered rubbing small circles against her mound.
(Y/N) was almost panting as his pants fell down his long legs, “Oh… Zac…” her eyes traveling down the outline of his hard length within his boxer-briefs.
He pulled them down his legs quickly kicking them off to the side. The sight of his hard, long cock had her squirming her body up the bed. As much as she wanted Zac all to herself, seeing Jensen watching her as he stroked his cock slowly had her wanting them both.
(Y/N) knelt on the bed patting the empty side of the bed, “Handsome I need you right here.” She said as a lopsided grin appeared on his lips.
He laid down then (Y/N) straddled his waist. Her hips slowly rubbing her slickness along his length, “Fuck.” He grunted as she leaned down kissing him.
His hands gripped her hips as hers went up into his soft hair tugging at it. Zac lifted her just enough, so she could sink slowly down on his cock. “Oh god!” she whimpered bracing her hands pressed against his chest bracing herself.
That is when she heard Jensen let out a grunt. Looking over his hand was moving swiftly over his length and she pointed to him. “Nuh-uh pretty boy. The only way you’re coming is in me.” She looked down to Zac who was smiling, “You too, handsome. I need both of you now.”
Leaning her chest down against Zac’s, she felt Jensen behind her his hot breath against her skin. Zac was kissing her neck when Jensen tongue lapped over her puckered hole. “Shit.” She breathed out hearing Zac chuckle.
“Again, Jay.” He said as Jensen licked over her repeatedly each time his tongue going in a little deeper than the last.
“Fuck, Jensen please!” she begged clenching around Zac’s cock as he groaned bucking his hips against her. “Holy…” she cried out burying her head into the crook of Zac’s neck.
(Y/N) felt Jensen slowly pushing into her bringing tears to her eyes as his thick cock stretched her. Once he was had a good position they both started thrusting slowly into her. Both men filling her in more ways than she could ever describe. Feeling their toned bodies against hers, hearing them pant and grunt as they hit a steady rhythm together.
Zac lifted her slightly, so he could take her nipple into his mouth suckling and nibbling on it gently. Jensen’s hands were gripping her hips so tightly that she knew there would be bruises the next morning. The coil deep within her winding tighter and tighter as they began to pump into her faster.
“Shit boys… a little harder.” She moaned feeling them both snapping their hips against her.
She was holding onto Zac’s shoulders digging her nails into them as the pounded into her. They were close as they both mumbled incoherently chasing after their release. Jensen was first to slam into her coming grunting her name. She hated feeling him pull out of her. Sitting up, (Y/N) rode Zac hard bouncing on his cock bringing her closer and closer to the edge.
“Right there baby. Fuck, you feel so good. I’m so… fuck!” Zac yelled as she felt him coming deep within her.
Hearing him pushed her over the edge as her body began to shake was the intense pleasure flood it. She was calling out both their names as she felt Jensen’s hands over her breasts. (Y/N) fell against Zac’s body as they both were panting heavily. Jensen laid down on the other side gently stroking her hair.
“Feel better now?” He asked her as she silently nodded.
“Jay, I think we broke her.” Zac joked slipping out of her.
(Y/N) whimpered from the emptiness and tears sprung to her eyes looking down at Zac. “How long?” she whispered.
He pursed his lips together, “Until tomorrow morning then I have to fly out to Japan for more a press junket.”
She could not keep the tears from falling as Zac gently rolled her onto the mattress facing him. His legs entwining with hers as Jensen snuggled against her backside. Zac wiped away the tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
“I know this is hard, but it won’t be forever. I scheduled three weeks for me to be back home in Austin. I made sure you and Jensen would be home for those weeks before you two go back to Vancouver. Plus, I have already cleared it that you’re gonna be my date to the movie premiere.” Her eyes widen with excitement and fear.
She heard Jensen chuckled against the back of her neck, “Don’t worry it is all good. Zac is taking his biggest fan to the premiere is the cover story. Though it will probably spark some rumors because you two always look all googly eyed at one another.”
Zac scoffed, “Looks who talking mister I stare at her in every picture ever taken of you two.”
(Y/N) smiled relaxing between the two men who made all her fangirl dreams come true.
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∆Milk and Honey∆ Tom Hiddleston x Black! Female Reader •PART 1/?•
TWHiddleston > Y/N-St. John413
Dear Ms. St. John,
I had the greatest pleasure of meeting your agent last night in London a couple of weeks back. He tracked down my publicist and said you had an amazing script I just had to read. I know I am about a month late and I give you my sincerest apology.
As you may know, I am looking for a screenwriter for my first movie I'm going to direct and produce. Sadly the search has come to an end because I already found one. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that you'll be stuck with me. I have chosen your script for my first movie.
Hopefully, you'll give me the honor of turning your script into a million dollar movie. If you could email me back as soon as possible, that would be very much appreciated.
Yours truly,
Tom
Y/N-St.John413 > TWHiddleston
Mr. Hiddleston,
You have no idea how excited I am! I couldn't be any happier to receive your email. It would be my honor to have you produce and direct my script.
I have been waiting for my big break and its finally here. Thank you so much for even considering reading it.
I'm so excited to be working with you.
TWHiddleston>Y/N-St.John413
Ms. St. John,
I am very excited to be working with you too. Again, your script was absolutely brilliant. I'd love to chat more about it when we meet in person. I ask you to keep a lock and key around this whole operation. I don't want the public to jinx it before it has already begun.
To keep from checking emails all the time, I'll leave my publicist number below. I'd like to see when is the earliest flight I can get you to London. Don't worry about cost I'll fly you out here and buy you a hotel room for however long you need it.
Only the best for my new screenwriter!
Hope to see you soon,
Tom
And here you were. Outside his house. His house! Tom freaking Hiddleston's house! You didn't know if you were under dressed or over dresses. You decided to wear one of your suits. Pam said the black and white one looked great. Hopefully, it was enough to impress Tom.
"Y/N?" Ask Luke, Tom's publicist. You look in his direction and see your hand is shaking. "You've been standing at the curb for over ten minutes."
"I'm sorry, Luke." You Said rubbing your lips together. "I uh-well-you see I'm just-erm-"
"It's ok. Tom isn't a monster. He won't bite." Look said making you giggle and the train of nerves disappear.
"Thank you. I ain't never been this nervous before."
"Don't think about the nerves, ok? Just walk in and...be you. Be the girl-woman from Mayfield, Alabama who wrote that script."
"Right. For Mayfield..."
"I would go in with you, but I have a meeting. Break a leg." Luke gets back in the limo and your feet start heading towards the front door.
Pushing your glasses up on your nose, you knock hesitantly and see the doorknob rattle. "I'm coming, I'm coming." Says a voice behind the door. Stepping back and squeezing the strap of your crossbody bag. When the door swings open, you were greeted by a woman holding a broom.
"Hi."
"Oh!"
"Sorry, ma'am-"
"You must be Tom's guests. Come in, come in." She rushes you through the door with a hand on your back. "I was just in the middle of sweeping. Tom is upstairs taking a shower, but you can go on into his office." She told you pointing down the hall, behind the staircase. "Its the one with the blue curtains. He'll be with you shortly."
"Thank you." You say, but see shes already off sweeping. Turning back around, your heels click against the hardwood floor and you push the doors open and quickly gasp. "Sweet mother of Jesus." You whisper. "This ain't no office." You chuckle.
When you first walked in there was a giant living room with nice clean, cream-colored couches and blue curtains. It looked wide, but the couches looked lonely. Not a crease or a shoe print in them. But standing here in the office...Remarkable.
"I've never seen so many books." You whisper starting to pull some off the shelves. Tom had every book of Game Of Thrones. Even the very first one!
You fingers cross one on the shelf and it was one of your favorites. The Iliad. Without hesitating, you snatch it off the shelf and flip the pages. You loved the Iliad. It was the start of the great Trojan War. What wasn't there to love.
"Its a good read."
Your hands lift and the book goes flying in the air. "Oh!" You shout as your heart beat quickly. Standing a couple feet away from you, leaning on the door was Tom Hiddleston.
Tom freaking Hiddleston. A nervous lump kept you from breathing as he rushed to you. His hand on the small of your back as you stared at him wide-eyed, trying to find a way to catch your breath.
"Gee, I'm terribly sorry." He chuckles giving you a friendly smile. "I did not mean to scare you. Are you alright."
"You scared the living crap out of me." You mutter reaching for the book and holding it out to him. "I'm sorry about the book. I didn't-"
"Nonsense. It was my fault." He interrupts and your heart slowed down a bit, mostly because he was just smiling and talking in a calm voice. And the fact that he was wearing a rather clingy sweater and the traces of his abs looked fantastic
"Its nice to meet you Mr. Hiddleston. You have no idea how much...how much working for you means to me." He shakes your hand and it was warm, except for the little water dripping off his hair that landed on your hand.
"Tom, please. And we are working together. A producer/Director need to be on the same page as the writer. I have so many questions for you Ms. St.-"
"Y/N. You can call me Y/N."
"Y/N." He nods "I like that name."
Looking down you thank him and then he continues, "Y/N, I have so many questions about your script. I read it three or four times. Is it ok if I ask them?"
"Sure. Fire away." You answer pushing up your glasses as he leads you to the couch. You scooted over expecting Tom to sit next to you but he sat across from you on the other couch.
"So Milk and Honey is obviously set in the 1920s, right. Ok, I guess my first question is why the 1920s?"
"Personally it's my favorite era. The fashion and crime it was all just really close to home. Mayfield was found in the 1920s by a mobster looking for a place to start his drug trade. From Mayfield he went all over the US, shipping his drugs."
"Wow! That's very interesting."
"I know its not a great founding story-"
"No its better. Most of the founding stories center around crops. Mayfield sounds amazing."
"We don't sell drugs anymore." You laugh "We are now known for our pineapples. We have pineapple fields everywhere in Mayfield. Best in the US if I do say so myself."
"Then I better try one then."
You both laugh again and you can't help but feel giddy because right across from you was Tom Hiddleston. Talking to you well, you talk to him like you had known each other for years.
"So, Warren and Celeste. I love how you wrote their chemistry. I could feel it coming off the paper. It was so real. They say the writer leaves a bit of themselves in their story. Forgive me for being so front but, did you base it off you?"
He went straight for it. What should I say? The truth! Duh.
"In a way I did. My growing up wasn't the best. My ma gave me up when I was five to her grandmother, my great grandma and I was raised by her. I thought bringing in a character who felt lonely like I did would help their growth. But I mostly based it off my Gran. She was a very good singer and not all the time she was allowed to sing in public. They'd make her use the back door to get into places and she'd sing for not even a quarter for what the stars in Hollywood get paid for nowadays."
"I think thats what I liked most about your script." Said Tom and he was studying your face. "It felt real. I want the film to feel real and for people to feel connected. You can show anything on a screen but it takes one hell of an actor to put that much passion to turn a script into a movie."
You smile trying to break eye contact with his heavenly blue eyes. He was being very poetic and it made your heartburn with excitement.
"Tea time!" Said a voice, rolling in a tray of tea. "Early Grey for you, Tom and I chosen green tea for our guest."
"Thank you, Mrs. Gaynes." Said Tom and she slid her way out of the office. "Y/N, do you drink tea?"
"Does sweet tea count?" You ask and then nod your head quickly, so he knew you were joking. "I do. Call me weird but Ginger tea is my favorite."
"Ginger!" He exclaimed as if he didn't believe you. "Points for you." Tom winked
Drinking tea and eating finger sandwiches gave you and Tom both the opportunity to ask him questions and make small chit chat. You didn't realize how long you'd been sitting in his office talking.
You learned Tom always wanted to be behind the camera.
"I always liked the idea of being in charge. Being the man behind the camera and seeing my name on something I worked hard on."
"A man in charge." You smirk taking a sip of tea. "Sounds bossy. In a good way, I mean."
"Y/N, I want you to meet the rest of the team. I'm hosting a bit of a get-together and I'd really like you to meet all the sponsors.''
"Sounds great. What's the dress attire? I don't wanna be overdressed like I am today."
"Overdressed? Not at all. You look great. Come as you are." He tells you and you smile at him.
British charm...how charming!
"As much as I enjoyed talking to you," his eyes scan his phone. "I have another meeting." Tom stands and puts his teacup down.
"Right. I had better get back to the hotel anyway. I have to unpack and call my folks back home to tell them I'm still alive."
"I'll see you tomorrow then." He extends his hand for you to take and you slide your hand into his. "Do you have a ride back to the hotel?"
"No, but I can walk. Luke didn't tell me how close the hotel was to your house."
"Walking? The weather changes at night. Allow me to drive you."
"Really, you don't have too. I don't want you to be late for your meeting."
"Let me drive you, Y/N. My mum wouldn't be very happy if she found out I had the opportunity to drive a lady home and didn't do it."
"Your momma raised you right." You told him
Instead of letting go of your hand, he slipped it into his arm, escorting you to the front door. You felt your face get hot and you couldn't stop smiling at the ground. Tom walked you to the car and held open the door for you.
"Thank you."
A couple minutes later you are outside the hotel and Tom rushes to open the door for you. "Shall I walk you up?"
"No. You did quite enough already by buying me a plane ticket here. I think you should get going. It was nice to finally meet you in person."
"You too. Goodnight, Y/N."
"Goodnight Tom." You wave heading to open the door to the lobby.
Tom Hiddleston was no southern gentleman. He was a British gentleman. So the tingly, warm feeling growing in your stomach was nothing. Nothing at all.
He was like that to everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Chapter 1
Today was just like any other morning. I just gave the barista my order of cranberry juice, which was one of the only few things I could order in this café since I hated caffeine with a passion. I kept checking my watch literally every second while waiting for Jungkook to enter the door.
This was the usual time that he would come in here, and as of this moment, he was a couple of minutes late. I hope he would come. I could feel myself starting to panic, thinking of all the reasons he might not show up today. What if he decided not to go to work? Would that mean I wouldn't be getting a glimpse of him across the street the whole day?
When the barista finally gave me my order, I heard the glass door’s chimes open. I instantly looked up, my face ready with a hopeful smile.
There he was, looking even more handsome than he did the day before. This time he was wearing a plain white long-sleeved shirt, which made him look so hot. It was simple, yet appealing. Hell, the guy could wear a potato sack and he'd still look so damn attractive.
Say hi, Y/N. Just say hi, I told myself.
Before I could even step an inch closer to his table, a girl with straight, long blonde hair walked up to him and kissed his cheek.
My whole world stopped for a moment and I just froze there in the middle. A couple of seconds later, I realized I looked kind of stupid so I grabbed the newspaper nearest to me and tried to cover my face with it while sitting on the table across them. Why did she kiss is cheek? Were they dating?
It was hard to see everything while covering my face with a damn newspaper. Maybe I should cut small holes in this shitty thing.
I saw Jungkook touching her hand and smiling at her. Later on, he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. Wait, what? I squinted my eyes. They were still kissing.
No. This can’t be happening. Jungkook doesn’t have a girlfriend. He can’t have one. The last time I saw him this sweet and cozy with a girl was almost two years ago when I first moved here. I never ever knew of this girl’s existence until today. Did she just magically appear in his life? Can I magically make her disappear as well?
Oh god, I felt like throwing up. I stood up and left my drink untouched on the tables as I rushed out of the cafe. I looked back for a second...he didn’t even notice me because he was too busy with that girl.
I rushed straight to my car and drove to my apartment as fast as I could. I was supposed to go straight to work after, but right now I didn’t care. I felt like my world was just shattered right in front of my eyes and all I wanted to do right now was drown myself in a bucket of tears in my bed while eating everything in the fridge.
I go to my apartment in just five minutes and nearly broke down the door when I burst right through it, almost forgetting to unlock it first.
Right next to my bed, I had a full-length mirror - and that’s where I was standing in front of right now, wondering what the heck that bitch has that I didn’t . She was everything that I wasn’t. She was slim and beautiful. Her shiny blonde hair looked flawless, as much as I would hate to admit it.
Just by staring at her for a few minutes I already saw the perfection in her face and body - everything I didn't have.
I mean look at me. I was fucking short. I looked like dwarf in Cinderella. Well fine, I was a lot taller than them but that was a good comparison. I didn’t have blonde hair like her. In fact, I had the opposite. My hair was messy wave of highlight purple. Not to mention the roots of my natural black hair were starting to grow back.
Though I liked it that way, Jungkook probably didn’t. Maybe that’s why he never even dared to ask me out, because I was too different for him. He only liked slim whores who looked like they were willing to strip anytime and anywhere for him.
I sat on the edge of my bed and pulled out a large of treasure box. It was filled with two years worth of photos, and he just seemed to look better in every shot. There were a couple of pictures of him where he was just walking out of their studio, or where he was just sitting by himself on a bench while texting. The best ones were the ones where he was in his car because he just looked so hot whenever he drive.
Everyday before I would go to work, I would always look at some of the photos because they would make me happy. Right now though, they made me feel miserable. This perfect and gorgeous guy finally gave his heart to someone - and that someone wasn’t me.
I thought I was going to pig out and watch sad films all day, but instead, I just laid there on my bed and cried myself to sleep.
Most days it sucks to be me.
----
The sound of my phone ringing made me fall of my bed in surprise. Oh God, what time was it? When I looked at the screen, I saw I had only been asleep for an hour. It ridiculously felt like the next day already.
“Hello?” I groggily answered.
“Hi, Y/N!” Jin chirped on the other end of the line. “Are you coming in today?”
No. I don’t want to go to work. Not now. Maybe not tomorrow. Or maybe never. I’m just going to lock myself inside my goddamn apartment until I’m old and gray since no one would ever want to be with anyway.
“Uhh, I’m feeling a bit under the weather today.” I lied, faking a groan. “I’ll probably come in tomorrow.”
Or a week from now on.
“Oh, alright. Well that’s fine I guess.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you guys won’t need me too much.”
"It's fine, go rest. I know how to operate the equipment in case someone comes in for a shoot. I'm not a professional like you, of course, but I'll do my best."
"I'm sure you can nail it," I assured, before covering my mouth and letting out a yawn.
"Yeah, thanks. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow Y/N.”
"See you, Jin.” I mumbled, before throwing my phone on the bed.
I walked back to the mirror and straightened my shirt while using my other hand to comb my tangled hair. I looked too stressed out.
Fresh air - that's exactly what I needed. I grabbed car keys and headed out of the room.
It took only a few minutes to get to the park where I would always hang out at whenever I felt shitty - which was almost everyday. When I was about to step out of my car, I saw a familiar face just a few feet away from me.
I looked closer and saw that it was that slutty blonde girl...talking to no one else but Jungkook of course. Wow, what were the odds that I'd see them here again after I went out to get some fresh air because of them.
They didn't look like they were just talking. They looked like they were yelling at each other. The girl was flinging her hands wildly in the air while Jungkook seemed to be pushing it down. He had a furious look on his face, almost as if he wanted to hit her.
Go hit that bitch, baby. Hit her!
But of course, he didn't. Just minutes later, I saw him stomping back to his car, without her. I saw her marching away like some whore in her ten thousand inch stilettos while flicking him the finger.
I shifted my attention back to Jungkook, who just stepped on the gas pedal like as if he wanted to kill himself. He sped out of the sidewalk in just seconds, leaving me staring there with my mouth open.
Follow him, Y/N. Follow him.
Without hesitating, I started my car again and drove as fast as I could to keep up with him. Where was this guy going? It wasn't the route to his workplace, or apartment, which I would know, of course.
But I didn't care. I just continued to drive behind him.
I saw him make a quick left turn, so I followed. This was the way out of the city.
A few more minutes have passed, and here I was following his every turn. All of sudden, the rain started to pour really hard. I could feel my wheels gliding on the highway as I chased his car. I hope he didn’t notice I was following him.
After following a couple of his left turns, I realized we were the only cars in the road. I squinted my eyes and tried to look through my misty windshield. I could see him really speeding off in front of me. It was actually almost too fast that I was tempted to beep at him and make him stop.
Was he trying to kill himself??
Just as I was about to attempt to cut in front of him, his car suddenly lost its control and smashed right into the post.
What the fuck just happened here?
I left my car parked right in the middle of the road and ran towards his car, which had smoke already coming out of its engine.
I saw his head leaning on his steering wheel, with his eyes closed. My heart started to race. I had nofucking idea what to do. His door was locked, so I ran to the door of the passenger seat to check - and thank God, it was open. I crawled inside the car and pushed him off the wheel. There was a small cut on his forehead, but it didn’t look that deep. In fact, there wasn’t much blood, but he was definitely unconscious.
This was probably the closest I ever got to him, and as much as I wanted to stare longer, I knew I would be an idiot if I didn’t call an ambulance as soon as possible. So I dug my hands in my pockets, only to realize that I didn’t have my phone with me.
Damn it, I left it on my bed, of course. How stupid of me. I paused for a second before deciding to put my hand inside his front pocket to get his phone. Geez, these jeans are fucking tight.
When I finally had it in my hand, I immediately pressed the home button - only to find that his phone was dead.
Great. I was stuck here in the middle of a storm, with the love of my life. It was almost the perfect scenario to a great movie, except he was freaking knocked out.
So I did what I had to do. I gathered every single strength that I had in my body and pulled him out of the car. Fuck, he was quite heavy. I would always have daydreams of him carrying me, but I didn’t think I’d be the one carrying him first. I nearly fell on the ground trying to open my car door with one hand, and thankfully, I was able to open it and push him inside the backseat.
I took one last look at him before driving away. Holy shit! Here I am driving my car with the absolute man of my dreams lying unconscious at the backseat.
I think I need someone to pinch me.
---
I’m a selfish, obsessed moron. That’s what I am. It took me forever to decide whether to bring Jungkook straight to the hospital or to my apartment.
Of course I went for the latter.
I’ve been staring at him for the past hour, just watching him sleep on my bed. I never thought the day would come when I would actually see him sleeping on my very own bed. In my daydreams, I would be sleeping with him but then of course that’s a different story.
He was so beautiful. I could stare at him for days, maybe even for the rest of my life. I could just sit here and literally just watch him sleep. I wanted to wake him up, but then I was afraid that if I did, he’d just leave.
I started to feel hungry, so I brought my food in the room with me and ate it while watching him. I was so tempted to take a nap, but what if I woke up and he was gone?
When I was about to take a second bite of my pizza, I heard a loud knock on the door. Oh God, I barely knew anyone, so it could either be Jin or Hanna, two people I didn’t really want to see today.
I tiptoed outside my room and closed the door behind me. It took me forever to walk to the door, and the knock kept getting louder.
“Oh god, what do you-” I said, before seeing Jin’s impatient face in front of me.
“Great.” I muttered under my breath. “What is it?”
Jin stormed inside the room, looking like he was about to faint. “I can’t do it.”
“Do what?” I staggered. The thing with Jin is, he was probably the weirdest person I’ve ever known. I know I’m weird in my own way too, but he’s just really - different. Hanna thinks it’s cute and adorable, but I just think it’s plain peculiar, end of story.
He sank on the couch and gave me a pathetic grin. “I can’t propose to her without shitting bricks, Y/N.”
“Wait what?! Propose??? You’re proposing to Hanna???” I gasped softly, making sure I wouldn’t wake Jungkook. “What the actual fuck, Jin? You never told me about your plans of proposing!”
“I told you a million times.” He pointed out, giving me a weird stare.
“You did not.” I crossed my arms while raising my eyebrow.
“I did.” Jin rolled his eyes. “You were probably just too busy daydreaming or whatever it is you do when you completely snap out of reality.”
I slowly sat on the empty space next to him, still trying to process what he just told me. “So….you’re proposing to her today?”
“Tonight.” Jin nodded. I could see the beads of sweat forming in his forehead and neck. “But fuck, I just keep thinking of delaying it.”
“Why? She loves you and she will obviously say yes.” I whispered.
Jin gave me a puzzle look. “Why on earth are you whispering?”
Because Jungkook is lying unconscious in my bed and I wouldn’t want you to find out and possibly force me to bring him to the hospital or wake him up. Hah.
“U-uhmmm…” I started. “I’m just not feeling well, remember? My throat hurts, so I’m trying not to strain it.”
“Oh.” Jin blinked. “Okay, anyway, so yeah. What should I do?”
I paused for a moment, trying to think of decent answer to give him.
“You’re seriously proposing?” was all I could say.
“Yes I am, God! I need opinions.” Jin groaned, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes.
I sighed. “Okay, okay. Well, I’m not worried about what Hanna will say. I know he loves you more than anything and she will definitely say yes.”
“But?” Jin asked. “I know there’s but, so just get on with it.”
“But I just can’t imagine you getting married at this age.” I blatantly said.
“The fuck? Getting married at the age of Twenty-Six is perfectly normal, I believe.”
I got up the couch and put my hands on my hips. “Yes, but you don’t seem so mature yet. God, the other day you were having a conversation with a drunk, homeless man about ponies, and when we asked you to come back in, you stomped your fucking feet in front of everyone and-”
“Oh wow. Let us not name each other’s peculiarities okay, because I have a long list of things I can say about you.” Jin made a face, looking slightly offended.
“And that one time when you totally ruined my dress by putting food coloring in the washer instead of soap.” I went on, lifting a finger to make him shut up. “Like who the fuck mistakes something liquid for powder???”
"How does that make someone not ready for marriage? It was an accident," he snapped. "Let's not even begin with you and your silly obsession with Jeon Jungkook.”
My eyes almost popped out before I hissed at him. "Keep your voice down!"
"Huh?" Jin said, looking baffled. "I thought only you had to whisper because of your voice?"
Before I could answer, I heard the sound of a glass crashing from my bedroom.
Uh-oh. Someone's awake.
"What was that?" Jin asked, turning around to face my room.
"Nothing. You need to go," I said while pulling him towards the door.
"What was that, Y/N?” he repeated curiously.
"It's none of your damn business – "
Jin frowned at me and held my hand down. "Of course it's my business too, you're my sister-in-law. Who the fuck is in your room? Is there something you're hiding?"
"Exactly, Jin. You’re only my brother-in-law, not my dad.” I retorted. "Now go and propose to your girlfriend, I don't care anymore."
“Don’t change the topic, Y/N.” Jin smirked at me.
"It's a fucking cat, okay?" I lied. What the fuck did I just tell him? I did not plan that at all. "I found him on the streets and he looked really hungry and homeless and I just need to keep him calm and rested for a while before I let him go."
Of course I had to invent a goddamn story, holy hell. He better not look for the cat.
“I want to see the cat.” Jin said blankly. God, this boy. Someone shoot me.
“No. You’ll scare him away! You’re a giant!” I scoffed, pushing him out the door.
"Fine, whatever. Go and attend to that cat of yours."
"Thank you. Have a nice day," I beamed sarcastically, before closing the door in front of him and locking it.
I rushed back to the bedroom, slowly opening the door, only to find Jungkook standing by the end of the room, looking quite dumbfounded. Oh my god. Now I had no idea what to do.
"H-hi," I stammered. "Uh, are you okay?"
Jungkook looked at the broken glass on the floor before shaking his head. "I didn't mean to break it."
I swallowed hard. Okay, he wasn't wondering what the hell he was even doing here? Weird.
"That's okay," I nodded, trying my best to sound calm. "I'll clean it later. Are you feeling better? How's your head?"
He looked like he was about to pass out. He started to pace around the room while pulling his hair with his hands. His bandage was starting to come off, and I could still see a bit of dried blood on his forehead. God, did it bleed again or did I not do a good job cleaning it?
"Um, I'll clean your wound," I said, pointing towards his forehead.
"No, no, don't do anything," he placed both hands in front of him as if to tell me not to come closer. "I need to..."
"You need to what, Jungkook?” I asked softly.
“Jungkook?” he repeated, giving me a bedazzled look.
"Uh, yes?" I bit my lip. What the fuck was this boy saying? As confused as I was right now, I also felt like melting and screaming. This was probably the longest conversation we've ever had. I had to write down today's date.
He dropped on the floor, burying his face on his hands. "Who the fuck is Jungkook? Where am I?” he nearly yelled.
Oh...my...god.
No fucking way.
“You don’t remember anything?” I whispered, bending down to face him.
Jungkook shook his head. He was breathing heavily, like as if he was about to throw a tantrum, and I was starting to panic again.
What the fuck was I going to do? Think, Y/N, think. Of course, knowing myself, I had to think to my advantage. The love of my life was in my bedroom, and he doesn’t remember a single thing about his life. These were the kind of situations that I would secretly wish for.
“Who are you?” Jungkook finally said, looking up at me.
I felt the whole world stop right then and there. He didn’t know me. Holy shit, was that a good thing or a bad thing? Was this my chance to maybe act normal and cool like any other girl out there? Maybe he could finally like me this time? A million thoughts started to race in my thoughts, and I felt like the room was literally spinning around me.
He sighed and gritted his teeth. "Tell me who you are."
I took a deep breath before finally snapping out of my system.
"Um... I'm..."
"Tell me who you are," he repeated, sounding a lot more calm.
"I'm your wife, Jungkook," I blurted out. "We're married."
#jungkook#jungkooksmut#bts jungkook#jeon jungkook#bts fanfic#btsimagine#smut#cutefanfic#fanfic#bts jin#kim seokjin
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Batman TAS: Heart of Steel (Part 1)
“I do wish you wouldn’t be so rough with your toys, Master Bruce.”
Episode: 38
Robin: No
Writers: Brynne Stephens (Brynne Chandler)
Director: Kevin Altieri
Animator: Sunrise
Airdate: November 16, 1992
Grade: A
Mixing the world of Batman TAS with heavy science fiction elements, particularly those related to computers, could have equated a heavily dated disaster. Even Batman’s bat-computer rubs me the wrong way sometimes, it sometimes seems out of place. I don’t think the decade helped much. I am not nostalgic at all for the computers of the 90’s and early 2000’s. They were a pain in the ass and they were ugly. Batman’s computer may be super advanced, but it was still a 90’s vision. Compare this to the futuristic world of The Jetsons. The Jetsons certainly had advanced technology, but it was also contained to what we already understood about technology. Because of that, it has not aged unnoticeably despite some aspects of that future still being a ways off from today. In many cases, we simply found different ways to advance, and things like the smart phone or the tablet were hugely instrumental in determining the way our technology would wander come the late-2000’s.
Heart of Steel isn’t set in the future, though, and this helps. Sure, the show was meant to be as timeless as possible, and therefore should somewhat translate to our modern times… Right? Ehh… I don’t think that “timeless” necessarily needs to mean that. The purposely dated aspects of the show (such as black and white TV’s) are now not much more retro than some of the technology and ideas featured in this episode. Eventually we will be at a place where the space between black and white TV’s and the Internet will be significantly smaller than the space between the Internet and present-day. Because of this technology in this episode seems less 90’s, and more like it fits in with the show’s atmosphere, blending together elements of the past and present. What do you get when you put together archaic technology with present-day technology? Something kinda in the middle. So we have weird, hybrid-era computers, black and white TV’s, and many other things that mostly existed decades apart, and it works. It’s all like a stew. A good story aids as well, and what Heart of Steel delivers is pretty interesting, incredibly creepy, and cunningly suspenseful.
When the episode starts, right off the bat, we can see that it’s unusually dirty-looking. The Blu Ray release features no such quirk, but goodness gracious, how did this much film-dirt pollute so many of the frames? Char thought it only added to the look, and I definitely won’t argue that. But a little film dirt goes a long way for me. When it’s looking this grubby, to the point where it could be god damn snowing, I see it as a little bit of a problem. Nothing I can’t look past, though. While we’re on the topic of animation, Sunrise is back, a lesser-used studio who, so far, as done a sufficient job, but not much beyond that. They have a style that I don’t recognize until I know it’s them. Hindsight bias? Maybe. But they’re kinda in between Dong Yang’s best work and Akom’s standard-to-best. They typically have some really weird shots every episode, and we get one here that is displayed down below in the section for screengrabs. They did a damn fine job at animating the suitcase robot, which was certainly not something you have to practice drawing every day, and the more dramatic scenes that popped up near the end. They were also able to give us an absolutely gorgeous Barbara and Randa. I have to call special attention to Randa’s design. Apparently she was modeled after Marilyn Monroe, and it shows. Char and I both briefly discussed how attractive she is. Too bad she’s a big ol’ bitch, right? At least Barbara is adorable inside and out.
So we start at Wayne Enterprises, and this mysterious blonde woman (who turns out to be Randa) leaves a suitcase inside, leaving immediately afterward. A guard picks it up and starts messing with it, which seems a little stupid. I mean, god, that scenario has “bomb” written all over it. The guard gets the suitcase open, and it seems ordinary, so he leaves it for the night in case anyone decides to come back for it the next day. Big mistake, because once the suitcase is alone, it grows metallic limbs, a robotic eyeball, and starts scurrying around the building, making its way up to a vault containing some microchips. The microchips are one piece to the puzzle of free-thinking AI, so obviously they are incredibly valuable. The guard and Bruce Wayne take notice on their way out, and after an action sequence between security and the spindly, little robot, Batman follows it to a car being driven by the blonde lady we saw earlier. Unfortunately she is able to stop Batman from following, ending the action for the night.
After talking to Lucius Fox and Commissioner Gordon (who has Barbara with him, her first appearance), Bruce visits a place called Cybertron Industries. Optimus Prime is nowhere to be seen, but a guy named Karl Rossum is running the company, and has a sweet, delicious southern accent. Seriously, this guy’s voice is really good. Like many of the mainstays, it exudes so much character and sounds incredibly natural at the same time. Rossum shows Bruce around, introducing him to some of his mechanical inventions, and then shows him his masterpiece, a giant computer named HARDAC (Holographic, Analytical, Reciprocating, Digital Computer). Oh, and his assistant, who has her hair covered up so that the audience doesn’t recognize her as the same woman who left the suitcase. It is pretty obvious that this is her, though, and when Rossum refuses to reveal the purpose of HARDAC, this whole operation gets even fishier. Hell, when Commissioner Gordon earlier mentioned that the only team (that’s not Wayne Enterprises) researching this type of AI was Cybertron, we might as well have taken it as, “So Karl Rossum is the villain.” I don’t actually remember if he is the villain or not, it’s been too long since I’ve seen the episode, but I’m going to remain suspicious. I do remember another big detail, though, and I’m going to avoid mentioning it for the sake of spoilers. You’re welcome.
Bruce Wayne convinces Rossum’s assistant (Randa) to go on a date with him in order to squeeze information out of her. “Well… Squeeze might not be the best word.” as Bruce put it. I couldn’t even believe I heard that. Huge innuendo! But after leaving, Randa makes her way to a section in Rossum’s lab where she begins an incriminating conversation with HARDAC, and a machine spits out a copy of Commissioner Gordon, naked as a jaybird. This copy makes its way to his house, along with Randa, and takes his place, unbeknownst to Barbara. She can tell something is different with him, though, as he won’t talk to her like he normally does, he stops calling her “Princess”, and he nastily swats her stuffed bear onto the floor, despite the real Gordon seemingly being more attached to it than Barbara is. It’s a very startling moment, actually, and it jumped Char. It made me audibly gasp, and it also made me a little sad. You don’t mistreat stuffed animals like that, you monster!
At the same time, Randa and Bruce are on their date at Wayne Manor. Bruce has to leave for a little while in the middle of it, due to an information theft at Wayne Industries, and while he’s gone, Randa communicates with HARDAC again, seemingly with the aid of an earpiece. Because the information stolen was actually decoy information, HARDAC instructs her to search the house, and she happens to stumble across the Batcave in the search. This makes for the first major time anyone has figured out that Bruce and Batman are the same exact person (Hugo Strange’s efforts didn’t amount to anything), and it ends up being much more dramatic. During the search, Alfred is put unconscious, and when Bruce finally gets back, things are quiet. Randa is nowhere to be seen, and Alfred doesn’t seem to recall what happened. Is this the real Alfred? I can’t recall. He seems to act pretty normal, but he also has no idea what is going on. He could have hit his head, but it leaves me concerned. Another element to the story that I cannot remember from several years back. Batman heads down to the Batcave to investigate, but his computer starts going absolutely haywire. Some mechanical arms from above grab him, and drag him up, ending the episode. The techno-freak-out is just as frightening as the bear-swat from earlier with “Gordon”, and it makes for a great end to the episode. In general, the episode picks up as we get closer and closer to the end. The beginning is B-material, and the end is A-material easily. Because of this, I eventually went with an A, succumbing to the peer pressure supplied by Char (that’s a joke). We’ll look at Part 2 soon (the post for Perchance to Dream may be up first), where we’ll hopefully get a thrilling conclusion. So far, the second parts of the two-parters have been inferior, with the hard exception being Feat of Clay.
Some various moments of the suitcase robot. The eyeball is the one thing that adds a little bit of camp, so they could have done without that. Wouldn’t a little seeing sensor work a bit better?
The guard fiddling with the key while Bruce patiently waits. Clearly this is here to show the imperfect qualities of man when compared to machine (being totally serious here, without any sarcasm).
And here’s our Sunrise weirdness of the episode. What the hell am I looking at?
Batman is looking a little husky, but overall it’s a good drawing. Better than that scary monstrosity above it.
Also a decent looking fire. The key is to avoid too many (if any) black lines if you don’t have the chops to really make them look awesome.
Batman whips out his binoculars for a second to get a better look at the rocket (filled with the microchips) that leaves the suitcase. It’s quick.
Being a Wayne-owned building, Batman has a few secrets hidden around.
Actually, here’s another one I forgot to add earlier. Clever!
No one pours anything into a bag like this, the shit will spill all over the place.
Okay, I need one of these in my trunk for tail-gaters.
More Sunrise weirdness. We can see through the wave, and there’s no Batman. When the wave comes back down, he’s there again.
Nice water running over Batman’s costume.
Followed by a gross face that we hold on for a few frames.
Here we see Alfred dusting Batman’s computer system, but Char at first thought that he was playing with a ball. I thought that was so amusing I had to include it.
As Batman and Alfred discuss AI, we get this detailed shot of Alfred’s mop. I don’t get it.
BARBARA!!!
I love Jim and this bear. He takes it to the airport every time he picks up Barbara. “Well, he knows the way better than I.” That’s adorable.
As Jim leaves, he realizes that Bruce is still holding onto it. He then says, “Barbara forgot her bear.”
Barbara’s first appearance is a strong one, since we have already gotten to know Gordon. She feels like an extension of him.
A little bit Jetsons, and that’s not the color I would have chosen, but a cute robot.
This one is my favorite. It makes music (that sounded like some sort of brass instrument).
This big red button is for making cappuccinos. Brilliant.
I’m sorry, but this looked like the worst foot-rub ever.
This is HARDCAC. Jesus, how much did that run you, buddy? I’d spend more than double what’s in my bank account for a Macintosh laptop.
Seeing the construction of the Gordonbot was eerie. Before we see the face, we have no idea who it’s supposed to look like, so it leaves us in a bit of suspense. Also, HARDAC refers to this as the next duplicate. That has to mean there are others already out there.
Total 2001 vibes. HARDAC has a great voice.
Isn’t she beautiful? I can see the Monroe-influence. I wonder why, though?
Really disturbing as Gordon answers the door, seeing himself cloaked in shadow. The stuff of nightmares. Basically a futuristic version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The sound it makes too is so violent when you’re not expecting it.
I feel like this scene represents that space that is suddenly between them. There is one point where the Gordonbot says, “I said I’m fine.” in a really aggressive tone that gives me the willies. Replacements/copies of humans are such a scary concept.
A really well-composed screengrab. Could be an album cover.
So is the Batcave entrance behind the clock, or behind this bookshelf..? Not both, there’s only one staircase. Inconsistencies!
Oddly-proportioned Batman.
So, why exactly does Batman keep his work files on his Batcave computer? Although I suppose this files this secretive, it’s not a bad plan. Until we run into situations like this, anyway!
Char’s grade: A
Next time: Heart of Steel (Part 2)
Full episode list here!
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Double Life
Pairing: Jensen x reader
Summary: You are a YouTuber who also happens to be an actor. You do YouTube when acting jobs seem to go scarce. One day you get a call from your manager saying he has found something that peaks your interest. What happens when you meet your co-star and your characters love interest? Will you keep it professional or will you let your feelings get to you?
Warnings: angst, sad!reader, mentions of death, comforting!Jensen, gruesome description of death, talk of murder, mentions of legal trouble.
Word Count: 1215
A/N: This is based on actual events so please be gentle. I had more hard hitting news about a close friend. So, I thought since I write like I am the reader I would share this heartbreaking tale the only way I know how to. I know its really dark and going to be hard to read, but the wounds are still fresh on this. I really hope you enjoy.
"Hello everyone. I am so glad you are here to share this experience with me. I wish it was on a better day or with a better, more funny story time video. Today, as you can tell by the title, is going to be kind of morbid so please bare with me." I said trying to calm my nerves.
I could see Jensen out of the corner of my eye. He wanted to be here when I filmed this video because he knows how much it still hurts. He was reassuring me I was doing good.
"Back in preschool, we had a small little program where we had a been assigned a pen-pal to learn more about the culture of where that person lived. There were people from all over the world. Some were from the states, the UK, France, all over. It was a really neat thing for a small little preschool/daycare to have.
"You had to be at least 4 years of age to be part of this program. It was a whole interview type of situation. You had to prove your basic reading and writing skills. It was a nice learning experience for me. Once you're in you have one more piece to go through. You have to show you are capable of writing legible sentences. That way the kids aren't struggling to read what you are trying to tell them.
"I was assigned a boy named Alexander. Later on I would get to know this boy and realised I never knew his last name. Anyway, he was from the UK and he was the sweetest person anyone could ever meet.
"He was three years older than me though, but a lot of the kids from different countries tended to be a little older than us. It was okay though because it was nice to have someone who knew things and could potentially teach me.
"It a program that you stayed until you were 10 years old. Then the younger of the two were assigned new pen-pals, but you had to reapply.
"Alex and I had sent letters back and forth for three years. Until he wasn't able to be in the program anymore. That didn't stop us though. Every now and again I would get a letter from him asking how I was doing and if school was going good. He asked about old friends, and if I had made new ones.
"He would ask if I wanted to talk on the phone, so we could talk hear each other's voices. It wasn't like face to face talking though. Eventually I had grown old enough for my mom to finally let me go see him again.
"At that point it had been almost 8 years since we first met. It was rough because we both love face to face contact more than anything else.
"The trip was amazing. I was so happy to see him again. My mom was so excited to meet him. He had changed, but the same time he hadn't. He was still the same dorky kid I met when I was 4. Now I was 12 and going into middle school. He was going into what would be high school for him.
"We talked, we wrote, and when I got my first phone that you could text people on, we texted all the time. It was the best thing to have a friend like him.
"On my good days we would laugh, and on my bad days he would talk to me into the late hours of the night. It was so amazing to know I was cared about by someone I had only met twice in my life.
"When I got into acting and my career I was able to fly out and see him more. He found himself a girlfriend. I didn't necessarily approve of her, but she made him happy and that's all I cared about.
"As time went on he was starting to get these really horrible headaches. Headaches that even the slightest bit of light would make him sick. He could sit in pitch black darkness and it still hurt.
"I told him he needed to go see a doctor, and finally after months of pleading he finally went. He found out he had a brain tumor. The headaches were caused by excess fluid in his brain and that he needed surgery to remove the fluid.
"He called me that night freaked out and terrified. He didn't want his life to end like this and he didn't want to do it alone.
"I told him I was always here. Just a phone call and a plane ride away. If he needed anything I was going to be on the next flight out.
"A week later he called me freaking out about surgery. He didn't want to die on an operating table. He still had things he wanted to do. Place he wanted to see.
"He still wanted to come out and see Colorado. Or go to Los Angeles. He was so determined he was going to make it out to see me one last time.
"On January 2, 2014 Alex passed away from a severe seizure. He was found in his apartment a day later. Covered in blood and vomit. And his girlfriend was nowhere to be found.
"Things have come to light in the what was just a death caused by cancer was now something that could have been prevented. It had soon become a murder investigation.
"The doctors said they had prescribed him with a new supply of epilepsy medication to help with the seizures. Looking back on the report that medication was all gone.
"His girlfriend was going charged with murder and possession of non prescription medication.
"Two days after her arrest she was found hung in her cell. The guilt finally caught up to her, or she didn't want to man up to the crime she had committed.
"Who knows how much longer Alex would've lived if she hadn't done it, but it's over and done with.
"I wanted to let you guys know that everything is okay, but him being gone for 5 years is still hurting. Alex was my best friend before I even met Jess.
"Sometime this week I should be getting a package shipped out from what he had included in his will. I finally have some justice and closure as to what happened, but it doesn't make it any easier.
"Thank you for sticking with me. I know this was a lot to handle and everything. Please if you liked this video or just liked the fact I shared something very personal please leave a like.
"I will leave a playlist of funny story time videos. Don't forget to subscribe. I will see you guys next time. Bye."
I wiped all my tears away. As I turned off the camera. It wasn't long till I was being embrace by a pair of strong arms. Jensen was truly sent to me by Alex. It's how I know he's still with me.
He knew that Jensen would be able to provide me what he provided me. That was the coolest thing. It's how I know Jensen is the one.
Tags:
@anotherwaywardsister @archangel-michael98 @atc74 @bella-ca @canadianspnhunter @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog @ericaprice2008 @impala-dreamer @impalaimagining @katymacsupernatural @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @luci-in-trenchcoats @mamaredd123 @masksandtruths @mirandaaustin93 @muchamusedaboutnothing @our-jensen-ackles-love @roxyspearing @sea040561 @snffbeebee @spnwaywardwitch @squirrelnotsam @winchesterprincessbride
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Lonely Hearts Club
➭ “In this world, currency is not money but life, and those who cannot repay their debts have no choice but to submit for the Separation - a procedure in which the soul and mind are extracted from their bodies, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.
Jeon Jungkook is an underground tattoo artist hiding from the outside world. She has been waiting her whole life to be Separated. They were never supposed to meet - let alone fall in love.”
- or -
“Two lonely hearts collide.”
pairing: jungkook x OC, (+ some yoongi x OC)
genre: tattoo artist au, angst, smut, dystopian/sci-fi AU
wordcount: 18k
❀ 4 / 8 of my oneshot requests ❀
** warnings: this is v angsty and dark!, named OC, thigh riding, tattooed!jungkook, violence, character death, heavy themes
It’s almost funny, she thinks, how much words can fucking hurt.
Her body is pressed in a tiny concrete space, pressed against a wall. It is dark in here, the air thick and damp. Her muscles are cramped and aching for relief… but it doesn’t hurt.
Not as much as what they’re saying, anyway.
“She’s a freak,” A voice floats down. “Did you hear that her own mother left her? I would too, if that was my kid.”
A chorus of sniggers, a few chirps of agreement that crop up, and a slash of pain raw and visceral in her chest.
“Where the hell did she go?” The voice is exasperated, she hears the sound of a small foot being stomped on the ground.
“She’s probably hiding in the bathroom,” Another voice responds impatiently. “She went there last time to hide from us. Let’s go get her.”
“Rina,” She hears a small voice speak up, hesitation lacing her words. “Are you sure... are you sure doing all of this is okay?”
A beat of silence.
She doesn’t breathe, she doesn’t dare to. She starts to pray, to beg, that maybe just maybe they’ll stop, reconsider, think things through, see her as a human and not as a-
“She’s getting Separated,” The voice says bluntly, disdain twisted around that word like it is the ugliest collection of letters on the planet. “It’s not like she’s going to remember any of this anyway.”
Her heart sinks.
The voices fade off, her classmates walking away, their attention spans spent.
She stays curled up in the furnace space, tears pricking in her eyes. She doesn’t want to cry, she doesn’t want to be weak. She wants to be fierce, untouchable, strong… but she just can’t. Not like this, not when her body aches, when her head is stuffed to the brim with those words, when her heart is clattering around painfully in her ribcage.
Maybe they’re right, she thinks, as she hugs her knees tighter to her chest, folding into herself even more. Maybe it hurts so much because it’s the truth.
It all started when she turned ten and everybody her age had fresh, raised tattoos on their wrists. While they had rosy pink barcodes, protected in a film of clear cling wrap, her wrist stayed untouched.
No one really noticed at first. It had only been a fleeting observation of hers – that she hadn’t received one of those stamps on her wrist like everyone else – but soon, other people started to notice. It all began as questions, fired at her incessantly. They were questions to which she didn’t have answers. Where is your barcode? I don’t know. Are you going to get one? I don’t know. How come you don’t have one? I don’t know.
The questions became harsher, angrier, louder. She ignored them, because that was what she was good at, pretending they didn’t matter and that nothing mattered. She detached and disassociated until the questions were so loud that she couldn’t block them out anymore.
She had always been a bit different. It that had never been a problem, until she was too different. Soon, her differences were the only things people noticed- doubt and whispers escalating into full blown isolation, like she had a disease and no cure.
She had left school early one day, her throat raw from holding back tears and her palms littered with tiny red crescent moons from how hard she had dug her nails into the clam of her palm. She had been stopped by a correctional officer – a POD – (Police Operations Droid) an artificial life form that had the consciousness of a human implanted in. She recalls with clarity how the government agent had eyes that gleamed a little too sharply and movements that were a touch too erratic. He wasn’t human but he wasn’t unhuman... he was something unnatural in the middle of the two. He didn’t have a barcode either, but he wasn’t the same as her. He had scanned her blank wrist as per procedure and then reported in a metallic tone, “Seperation pending.”
She doesn’t remember a lot of her childhood, because time never slowed down for her no matter how many times she wished that it would. But she does remember falling to her knees, a tiny figure with knees marred with carpet burn. She remembers begging her parents please, I want a barcode. Please take me to get one. Please.
Two days after that, her mother left.
“… I suggest you all take plenty of notes today, because this course material will definitely be in the final examinations.”
The class groans, a collective sound. She glances up, her teacher Corvus stands there with a smile pasted on his face, pointedly ignoring the classroom’s complaints.
“I’m so fuckin’ sick of studying,” One of the boys sitting near her grumbles. “I already know I want to be a POD, so what’s the point anyways?”
The boy beside him murmurs in agreement. “It’s bullshit.”
“Complete bullshit. What are we even studying anyway?”
She looks up, stares at the holographic board, which now reads History of the Separation. She compresses the feeling of discomfort that is beginning to work its way up her spine after she reads those words, she tries to ignore everyone craning their heads over to look at her, curious for a reaction. She’s used to it, after all.
At fourteen, all she wanted was for it to stop – the words, the casual jab of fingers against her ribs and ragdoll pushes of her body. Now, at eighteen, it’s so much worse. It’s like she doesn’t exist – no one cares, no one sees her as a real person. No point in getting close to someone who isn’t going to exist in a few years, right? She soaks it in, the ache in her chest and a craving so deep that it leaves her shaky, a craving for a different life.
“So as we all know, in 2021, scientists and engineers found a way to harvest life from human bodies, and that this life energy could be transmitted between agents. After this discovery, human life expectancy was increased tenfold, and a new currency was formed – Life. As we all well aware, Life is measured usually in hours and in specific rare occasions, years. Life was then decreed to be the universally accepted form of currency as opposed to what was being used before- something called money.” Corvus taps expertly at a button on the holographic screen and an old photo of money pops up, papery notes and small strange silver and gold metallic circles. “Back then, currency in the form of money was either physical – you could quite literally carry it in your hands-” the classroom titters in amusement at that idea “- Or you could transfer it and access it electronically.”
He waves a pointer finger in the corner of the screen, and it clicks over. “Our currently today isn’t exactly like that. You can’t hold it in your hands, or access it via the Internet. How much life someone has left can’t exactly be searched up on Google.” The class laughs again. “So of course, the barcode system was set up.” He smiles, lifts a wrist. There, stamped on his skin is a small barcode, uniform strips of black ink. “A barcode system so that I can pay with my life currency if I need to. So that I am paid by this very institution. So that the authorities can check my life balance, if need be. My barcode is unique to me of course, and is with me for life… unless of course I choose to be Separated. Which brings us to the most important part of this unit. The Separation.”
He clears his throat, claps his hand, the room dims a little further until it is plunged into darkness. She rolls her eyes at the theatrics of it all. Tries to disassociate, detach from the feeling stirring inside of her belly. Hides her wrist in between her knees as she reads over those words again, The Separation.
“Of course, with his new currency in place, it wasn’t long until scientists realized that just as you can take a surplus of life away from one agent and add it to another… you can completely drain an agent of human life and replace it with the life essence of another. More or less, put your life into another body. In that way, you can have a second chance of living, enjoy a better quality life. Developers called this process the Separation,” A small smile twists at his lips, “And it was an innovation. Most people save up their entire lives to be able to transport their selves into a new body. It’s a fantastic thing, a real feat of humankind. Before the Separation, before the extraction of life was even possible… our lifespans ranged between the sixties and the on rare cases, hundreds. It seems barbaric almost, doesn’t it?” The room is filled with murmurs of agreement.
“It’s amazing,” He concludes, rocking back on his heels with a self assured smile. “I have a retirement plan set up to save for a Separated body when I am in my two-hundreds. And most of you kids, well, you can start saving now, and who knows… potentially live through several Separated bodies. The possibilities are endless! It’s really quite amazing.”
He claps his hands and the room is filled with artifical light. “Right, so your assessment today for the Separation is to write a-”
“But what about those who are Separated? Do they have endless possibilities? Is it really quite amazing for them too?”
The voice, dripping with sarcasm, cuts through Corvus’ words. The room lapses into silence. She turns in her seat, her back twisting to see the owner of the voice.
It is Min Yoongi, a new transfer at her academy, having only been here a week from a smaller country town north of this city. He has platinum blonde hair, and dark eyes that are flat and unimpressed. His mouth is turned downwards in disdain, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. He doesn’t notice everyone staring at him with stunned eyes, either that or he doesn’t care.
“And excuse me if I’m mistaken, but shouldn’t we question whether having life as a form of currency is ethical to begin with?”
He is speaking calmly, his words imbued with just the slightest tinge of condescension. His frame is lean, he is draped in his seat, his eyebrow quirked, and there is something bold and imposing and defiant about him. The chatter has died into silence. Yoongi raises an eyebrow and smirks. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. And it’s enough to have Corvus’ face quietly seething with barely masked irritation.
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating… but there are panels held every annum to assess the system and to assure it’s all legal and safe-”
“I didn’t ask whether it was legal and safe, I asked whether it’s ethical. Whether it’s right.” Yoongi interrupts bluntly.
The teacher bristles. “Well yes, people who opt to be Separated at twenty five as per procedure, or even a later age have that decision entirely up to them. Having the option to be Separated is a win win for everyone involved, those who choose to be Separated receive a generous payout-”
“What about those who can’t consent to Separation?”
Suddenly, the air is thick with a tense silence.
“Excuse me?” Corvus asks in a quiet, dangerous voice.
She feels like she can’t breathe, her chest locked. Her eyes flicker over to Yoongi, who is completely undeterred.
“Anyone under the age of 18 can have their life sold and be legally bound to a Separation without giving their explicit consent, right?” He doesn’t wait for confirmation, he just continues on. “So if they can force this procedure onto a specific group of people, what’s stopping them from doing it to others as a punishment? As a weapon? Onto any of us if we don’t do exactly what they want?”
The room falls into silence. An uncomfortable, static silence. Then the lights flicker off, for a moment the room is elapsed in pitch black and then the room is alight, back to being filled with that artificial glow.
“That’s preposterous.” Corvus says in an icy voice. “We are living in an ideal society, this is the most harmonious time in human history.” His eyes hone in on Yoongi’s. Yoongi stares back defiantly.
“Harmonious for some people, sure.” He murmurs stonily. “But if you ask me, this world is a lot more fucked up then we realize.”
She can’t breathe.
“A word of advice... Yoongi, was it?” Corvus’ words is sharp, his voice a butcher’s knife. “Focus on your future. Not on those who don’t have a future.”
There is a millisecond of tension and then the teacher’s face smooths over, he straightens. “Class dismissed.”
She sits there, her wrist still pressed between her knees. She stares down at her lap and the words are bouncing around in her head at an erratic pace she can’t control.
If you ask me, this world is a lot more fucked up then we realize.
Her heart is pounding in her chest for a reason she doesn’t quite understand, a hollow hammering in her lungs and it’s that same awful feeling she had when she was just a kid with reddened knees, sinking into the floor with tears streaming down her face, pleading for-
“Hey,” She hears a voice and she turns to see Yoongi there.
He is a bit taller than her, he cranes his neck down to look at her, a hand reaching up to brush some hair away from his eyes. “You alright?”
She blinks up at him, jumps a little. Some of his hair falls in his eyes again and he doesn’t smile at her, but his eyes soften. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that um, everyone’s left.”
She glances up, sees the empty classroom. Oh.
“Oh um, thanks. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Okay, sure.” He responds in a tone that indicates he doesn’t fully believe her but he’s going to accept her answer as it is. “Jesus fuck did you see that guy’s face? I had him, he couldn’t even come up with an answer.” He drawls, satisfaction glinting in his eyes. He smiles at her, a grin that shows his gums and he looks younger like that, softer somehow. He reaches up and brushes some of the hair out of his eyes. It falls back over his forehead again.
“I’m Yoongi, by the way.”
Her heart is still pounding in her chest.
“Oh. I’m…” Her name, her real name, is there on the corner of her lips. She swallows it down. She looks at him, the boy with the fire in his eyes, the boy who is overflowing with confidence and a steady self assurance. She thinks about her own life, about who she is. Who she wants to be.
“I’m… I’m Wren.”
Yoongi is a contradiction in the best possible way.
He is quiet, utterly unreadable except for a sardonic twitch of his lips and a tilt of his head… until suddenly something inside of him clicks his eyes are flickering embers, his words cutting and his chest trembling. He is distant and unreachable, close to no one by choice, his eyes as cool as ice to everybody who meets them… until his eyes meet hers and they melt like liquid amber.
Wren isn’t sure what exactly drew Yoongi to her side that day, or the days that followed after. They started talking, spending pockets of time together. She quickly learned that Min Yoongi had a knack of being a patronizing, know it all asshole when he wanted to be, but that he was also dry and sarcastic, and sometimes so uncharacteristically sweet that it caught her off guard. She never knew what to expect with him. He had everything - a family inheritance of life hours, a stable home. He had everything yet he wanted her.
The first time he kissed her – her first kiss – he had completely taken her by surprise. It was night time, late enough so that only a skeleton crew of PODs were nightwatching the streets, allowing Yoongi and Wren to seamlessly slip in the shadows. They would stay up until dusk the cloak of night allowing them to be the self labeled ‘prince and princess of the city’ (Yoongi always intercepted with ‘royalty is a totally fucked up concept, I’m against any unfair system of hierarchy. But I’ll make an exception just this once’).
There was one place in particular, an old, abandoned building inside a construction site. So old that there wasn’t technology fused into the walls, there were doors you had to open with doorknobs, and old posters and pictures faded yellow pasted on the walls.
They were sitting there, and they were talking, light and useless conversation when Yoongi leaned forward. He was right there inside her sphere of personal space, so close and so intimate. She didn’t draw away, instead she leaned forward and then they were kissing.
Wren knows what they share is a contradiction too - two unlikely people clinging together, their relationship marked by rushed kisses and hungered touches and the mutual loneliness of being an outsider – Yoongi by choice and her by force. Still, whatever it is that keeps them together, contradictory or not- it is the first time she has ever felt that she might amount to something, that she has something to believe in. That even with the knowledge that she is going to forget about everything, that her mind and her memories are going to be captured like lightning in a bottle… that maybe this and him makes it worth it.
Yoongi is the first person she sleeps with, he fucks her slowly and carefully at first, and then she asks for more of it, more of him. He relents, he fucks her hard and deep until she is shaking with release and it feels like every nerve ending of hers is alive. With Yoongi she is in complete control of her body, her body is hers and hers alone. She loves that about Yoongi, the way his eyes linger on hers and his hand sits on her waist, how it feels with his breath on the back of her neck and his moans stuttered in her ear, just for her. She’s there and she’s real and her body, her heart, her mind are tangible entities... with Yoongi, she isn’t temporary.
Yoongi doesn’t kiss her often, but he does brush his hand along her cheek, her jaw, and his eyes get sad and dewy when his fingers get to the blank skin on her wrist. Often he lays his wrist beside hers, and she can see it right there- his barcode, strips of lacquered black ink against alabaster skin, and then her wrist, bare. No barcode, no identity. She watches, as Yoongi pulls his wrist away and withdraws. He doesn’t speak but she can hear the thoughts flickering through his mind when he looks at her wrist.
One day, when they’re sitting in her tiny apartment, he whispers in her ear.
“I’m scared.” His eyes flicker up to hers. “Twenty five is in four years, but still, I…” His voice trails off and he shakes his head violently. “Fuck, I don’t know… I don’t want you to be Separated. It’s so fucked up, it’s… it’s…” He swallows hard. Runs a hand through his hair and Wren realizes it’s the first time she’s ever seen him look so uncertain, so unsure of himself.
“I know.” She whispers. “God, I wish…” She doesn’t dare let herself finish that sentence.
She runs her fingertips over Yoongi’s fingers, over his knuckles. Bites down hard on her bottom lip until it draws blood, coppery to taste. Looks at the boy in her bed with sheets around his waist and a petrified look on his face.
“I’ve known that I was going to be Separated since I was eight, Yoongi. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”
She raises her eyes and meets his stare. He looks so sad – his face is raw, open, and she can see his lips trembling with words that are on the cusp of being said.
And even though he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t say the words aloud, he holds her close and presses his lips to her forehead, as Wren clutches Yoongi close and prays with eyes squeezed shut.
Wren remembers. She thinks she’ll always remember it- like it’ll always be stamped underneath her eyelids, there every time she rests her head and closes her eyes.
The worst part about memories, she thinks, is how dimensional they are. She can remember everything about that night. When her eyes close it isn’t just the events, rolling out and around in her head on an incessant loop... but it’s also what the air tasted like, stale and thick with humidity, it’s the feeling of the threadbare cotton sheets she had clutched in her sweaty palms.
She can remember the way her body curled into itself with knees hugged tight to her chest as if that gesture alone would grant her some semblance of solace. She remembers that feeling deep in her chest unfurling and unraveling, the first time in her life she ever really felt dread, thick and heavy and cloying.
Wren had unfolded like a leaf when she heard it, footsteps racing to her room. The click and the slam of her door, the tiny indentations the doorframe left in the wall. And this – the next few minutes are what she remembers sharper than everything. Seared in her mind in streaks of black and grey.
Her mother, flinging her body at her. Arms that encircled her a little too desperately, and then her head tilting back as a loud, keening sob ripped from her lips.
Wren had been so confused- her head tilted to one side as she stared up at her mother. She placed a palm, a tiny palm on her mother’s cheek and it was like a small starfish and she whispered, “I’m sorry mama,” and she didn’t even know why she was saying sorry. It just seemed like the right thing to say.
Wren’s mother turned and her mouth fell open and one word fell out of her mouth, contorted in anguish. “Please.”
Wren’s father stood in the doorway, and her whole life he had always been so strong and tall, a willow tree with a steady trunk that she flocked to. But in her dreams his head hangs low. He isn’t crying, his face is blank. His body is broken.
Wren will find out later that this was the night her father’s debts rose to the surface. That he had accrued a debt that consisted of years and years of life, years that outweighed even his own. Wren’s father was sentenced to be Separated, and told that his next of kin was going to be Separated too. It was according to the government, the only viable and efficient way to repay his debts. It was the fairest way.
“The fairest way?” Wren’s mother had whispered woodenly. “How is this fair?”
The debt collectors had been lurking like shadows with their fists tightening around her father’s neck, tighter and tighter until his body broke. This was fair, this was policy. This was their way of not only getting what they were owed back, but also sending a message. This society is ruled by order. We are balanced, we are fair, this is the ideal world. Everybody lives longer. Except for you, and except for your daughter.
Wren hadn’t known then. She didn’t have a concept of life, of debt, of what was right and what was wrong. She didn’t understand that during her tenth birthday, she would not be getting a barcode tattooed on her wrist. She didn’t know that on her twelfth birthday, her mother would leave in the middle of the night with no words or goodbyes, her absence leaving behind a gaping hole in Wren’s heart. She didn’t know that on her sixteenth birthday her father would be separated and that she wouldn’t cry, in fact she wouldn’t feel anything but a throbbing ache in her chest and the memories of her mother’s arms tight around her and the cotton sheets bunched up under her body.
She didn’t know any of that then. So, in all of her dreams, and on that night at eight years old, she turned to her mother and repeated those words, “I’m sorry mama.” Her mother who was still crying, her shoulders shaking so hard that it almost looked like she was laughing. Behind them, her father sank to the ground and hung his head so low in his hands that the tips of his hair brushed the floor.
Wren wakes up with a start, her face dotted in sweat. It takes her a moment to adjust, to settle her fraying nerves. I’m here, I’m still me. She sits up in Yoongi’s bed, whispering the words aloud. “I”m here, I’m stll me.”
Still, her heart flutters uncontrollably in her chest like a hummingbird's wings. She gets up, walks out into the hallway. The automatic lights hum on as she sits down on one of the kitchen counter stools, it adjusts its height automatically. She glances up at the clock, it’s nearly midnight.
Four years, sixty two days. Wren closes her eyes and tries not to think about it. Still, the clock ticks on. She opens one eye, looks at the time. 12:02.
Four years, sixty one days.
Wren wonders idly where Yoongi is. She’s shaken, wanting nothing more than his arms around her waist, his lips by her ear. As if on cue, she hears the beep of a scanned barcode outside the door.
“Hey,” Wren sighs, watching as apartment door glides open, Yoongi barreling in and shoving the sleeves down on his sweater. She yawns, begins to gather her hair up in her hands. “Where were you all day?”
Yoongi doesn’t respond, striding over purposefully. “Wren,” He says, and his voice is quick and excited, “Check this out.” She stops, her arms fall to her sides and hair spills back over her shoulders.
Yoongi has on his arm right above his barcode, ink. Wren gasps involuntarily, seeing the puckered skin on Yoongi’s arm, the black lines that runs over his skin. It’s beautiful – a clean geometric pattern that swoops over his arm and disappears around his elbow. It is understated and striking and so utterly Yoongi that it takes a half minute for her to properly register what it is that she is looking at.
“Is that a tattoo?”
Yoongi nods, he’s practically bouncing on his toes. She gapes.
“How the hell did you get a tattoo? They’re illegal for God’s sake!” Her voice lowers into a hiss.
Yoongi shrugs, unfazed. “I did some digging around at work, heard from a guy who heard from another guy about this tattoo artist. His place was a bitch to find, next to some gaudy brothel that was PODs only and no humans allowed, called iPod, how fucking cheesy is that-”
“Yoongi, tattoos are illegal.” Wren interrupts him, “You can get in serious fucking trouble, you know.”
“Trouble?” Yoongi scoffs and for a moment Wren hates him, she hates how reckless he can be, how invincible he thinks he is. For a moment they stand there, staring at one another stubbornly.
Yoongi weakens, he takes a step towards her. “I was careful, Wren. I’m not a complete idiot, you know.”
She gazes at him and sighs. “You’re at least fifty percent idiot.”
His face melts into a smile and it’s one that she hasn’t seen on Yoongi’s face in what feels like weeks. He steps closer to her, his fingers interlacing with hers. And then he kisses her, long and slow and that right there is definitely something that hasn’t happened in weeks. They pull apart but Yoongi stays close, his lips close to hers. They’re still nearly touching and his voice drops to a whisper.
“Wren there’s… there’s people out there who are against what the government does. They’re against the Life currency system, against PODs, against Separation. They want to do something about it, take action. They… they want me to help.”
Wren feels a sharp snap of panic.
“It’s legitimate. Half the reason why I went and got this tattoo today was because I wanted to talk to the guy who did it, some guy a few years older than us. Apparently he knows stuff about it, he didn’t say much, I tried bringing it up with him after the tattoo because he barely spoke a word to me before that… though Jungkook, that’s the name of the guy by the way, he kicked me out pretty quick the minute I mentioned the rebel organization but I mean that’s gotta be confirmation it’s legitimate right-”
“Yoongi, a rebel organization?” Wren’s voice raises a few decibels and she immediately lowers it, her hands trembling. “Are you stupid? That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
Yoongi reels backwards. His face flashes with hurt and then he crosses his arms over his chest, inhaling deeply.
“Look, I know it sounds… it’s a lot, but it’s something, you know? It’s better than this, what life is like now-”
“What life is like now? What are you talking about Yoongi? Life is fine now-”
Yoongi interrupts with a dry laugh, she ignores him pointedly, presses on.
“Besides do you have any idea how damn risky all of that shit is? Do you know what they do to people who try and resist? They get punished, Yoongi. Fined all these life hours-”
“Who gives a flying fuck about hours?”
“-or imprisoned, or God knows what else. Yoongi, you could… you could die.”
Her cheeks are flushed and the words are tumbling out in rapid succession,
Yoongi just stares at her and shrugs, a tiny drop and fall of his shoulders.
“And what’s the alternative? Sit around and wait for you to be Separated?”
A heavy silence hangs between the two of them. It’s like a glass wall has been shattered, and Wren stares at him with betrayed eyes.
“I know… I know you hate talking about it but it’s the truth Wren. It’s going to happen and I know you keep saying you’re fine with it-”
“Yoongi, don’t-”
“But I’m not fine with it, I don’t want to lose you, I can’t lose you, not when I, not when I-”
“Yoongi I said fucking don’t-”
“Not when I’m in love with you.”
There it is, the unspoken bombshell.
They stare at each other and Wren feels like she is falling, a lump in her throat because she is so scared, so bone numbingly terrified to admit to herself that she is in love with Yoongi too.
“I’m going.” She stands up shakily, her eyes brimming with tears as she walks towards the door. Yoongi opens and closes his mouth, stands up too.
“Wren, I’m sorry. I-”
She whirls around. “Yoongi I – I can’t right now, please, I’m-” Her words are tumbling out in panic because she has ten thousand things floating around in her mind, about this rebel organization, thoughts wrapped around feelings of fear and panic and most of all, most unfamiliar of all... a twinge of hope.
“Okay.” Yoongi interrupts quietly. “Okay. Just…” He swallows. “What else am I supposed to do?”
He lifts his wrist, scans the screen near the door so that it glides open for her. Wren stays still for a moment, staring into his eyes.
“I don’t know, Yoongi.” She whispers, before she turns and walks out.
The streets are dark outside, there are less PODs on late night watch than usual so she takes a moment to stop still in her tracks. It’s rare for it to be this quiet – no glide of cars, the only sound the eerie hum of the artificial lights and occasional beep from a nearby scanner.
She doesn’t want to be scared. She doesn’t want to be scared of the threat that has been dangling over her head her entire life, the constant fear of getting too close to feeling human when she knows she’ll have that humanity ripped away from her at twenty five. She doesn’t want to be scared to live, to discover who she is when this world has told her she doesn’t have an identity. She doesn’t want to fill herself full with emotions and memories when she is a shell waiting to be given a more permanent host.
She doesn’t want to be afraid of her life. She wants to reclaim it.
She straightens, and she turns sharp on her heel. She almost runs to Yoongi’s apartment, she doesn’t pass a single POD on the way. A twist of fate, a sign. Her heart knocks in her ribcage as she approaches Yoongi’s building.
She runs up all eight flights of stairs because she doesn’t have a barcode to scan at the elevator. The moment she steps into his hallway, something twinges in her chest and she hears a faint ringing in her ears.
It’s like a siren. A warning, a prickle over her skin and a sudden feeling of dread. She doesn’t know why. The hallway is quiet, still. But something feels wrong. Misplaced.
She walks down the hallway and then she sees it. Yoongi’s door – wide open. The scanner that sits outside is smashed, jerky holographics playing on the wall and a robotic voice repeating “Identity - unrecognized. Identity - unrecognized.”
No. It feels like something is broken inside of her, and she is filled with cold waves of shock and fear. She walks towards Yoongi’s home, and then she sees it. Four PODs, there in the entrance of Yoongi’s home. Tucking things into evidence bags – the photographs he took and kept scattered around his house, his favourite black sweater. His coffee mug that he had permanently glued to his hands at any time of the day before 12PM.
But she barely registers any of that. Because there, in the middle of the room is a white sheet covering a body.
Everything cracks, splinters into fragments and she falls to her knees.
Her knees throb from the sudden impact and the PODs continue to do their job, not even looking up at the crunch of her body against the ground.
A police officer, a human one, approaches her. He’s talking about freak accidents and unmotivated murder and looking for his barcode to transfer his life hours to his next of kin, but it all feels wrong.
Wren can’t blink, she can’t breathe. She is staring at the white sheet, at the arm that is peeking out from underneath – the barcode she knows better than any other, and the fresh tattoo sitting above it.
The police officer is asking questions, talking in a tone that is monotonous and calm. But she can’t hear him.
All she can hear is that warning siren, getting louder until it drowns everything out altogether.
The night before Wren’s twenty-fifth birthday is a cold one. Bitterly cold in fact – the air is restrictive and numbingly icy, like a vice of cold has locked around her throat, rendering her constantly breathless. Wren thinks to herself as she walks that this is one thing she definitely won’t miss, the fucking cold.
It is early in the morning, so early that the sky is an eerie shade of translucent blue, a muted contrast to the buildings that tower above her head, each gleaming a different shade of grey.
She is on the opposite side of the city, her city, with not much to go off of but whispers and hearsay about this so-called tattoo artist. A brothel called iPod. A man named Jungkook. She doesn’t exactly know why she is here, slinking in between alleyways looking for a metaphorical needle in a haystack yet here she is.
She turns down her fourth alleyway and sees it. There – the brothel she was told to look for, bright magenta and yellow neon lights. A big ugly sign that says ‘iPOD’ with a retro style photo of some ancient music device similarly named iPod.
‘...iPod, how fucking cheesy is that...’
Dark eyes, platinum blonde hair, him crooking his head and looking down at her in the classroom, asking, ‘You alright?’
Her fist curls into a ball, she feels a searing whip of hurt deep in her stomach. A hurt that has been there for four years and sixty one days. She pushes it down, packs it away. Tries not to think about him, tries not to think at all.
Tucked beside it is a nondescript building, with just a large black chrome door.
She walks up to it, and there, scratched in the metal is a tiny flower. She stares at it, makes up her mind, and her knuckles come down, rapping right on the flower’s two dimensional petals.
There is nothing but silence, the soft patter of rain beginning to fall, a hollow series of laughs from the brothel next door. Wren grabs the door handle and it swings open. Immediately, a device hovers down from where it was nestled in the doorframe and scans her, looking for a barcode or for a POD tag- but of course, it finds nothing.
The door closes behind her, the hallway is dark and dimly lit. Carefully, she works her way down until she sees something blocking her path. It’s just a black curtain, cheap fabric that is fraying where it brushes the floor and gingerly she ducks underneath it.
Her eyes fall first on the black leather chair that sits in the middle of the room. It is cracked in sections, signs of wear in the white plumes of stuffing that are spilling out of the leather. Wren arches an eyebrow as she carefully steps into the space.
Her eyes immediately fall on the walls, they are filled with drawings – illustrations and sketches, grey charcoal on creamy swatches of paper. There doesn’t seem to be a theme that ties the drawings together, and she leans closer, her lips pursing.
There is a sketch of flowers, delicate petals with shading so intricate that it seems as if the plant is about to burst off of the pages. A scorpion ready to strike, drawn with harsh strokes and bleak scribbles. There is a sketch of a woman, older, creased lines in her skin and huge, lonely eyes.
Wren shudders and turns. There is a window, tucked in the corner of the room and for some reason that she can’t quite decipher, her fingers begin to tremble.
A man is standing by the window, crooked over the windowpane. He is dressed in a thick black coat that reaches his ankles, a black turtleneck clings to his body underneath.
He is smoking, and she watches as he brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales, thick plumes of smoke curl around his body and then dissipate. Wren is mesmerized, she hasn’t seen a real cigarette before, and she stares at the crimson red embers flickering to the ground.
And then her eyes fall on him.
He is striking, she thinks, the thought slips in and the moment it does, she can’t get rid of it. Once her eyes fall on him, she can’t look away. He has dark hair and dark eyes, fringed with thick lashes. A strong jaw, which clenches in between drags of the cigarette. Eyes that are wide and sweet, despite the harshness in the grim set of his mouth and the lines of his build.
He seems to sense the stare that Wren is directing at him, he flicks the cigarette out of the window, it disintegrates into ash and falls through the air like flakes of charred snow. He turns, his eyes set on her.
“How did you get in?” He asks in a short, clipped voice.
She ignores the question, dodging around the words like they were never asked.
“Are you Jungkook?”
He folds his arms across his chest, steps away from the window and shrugs off his coat.
“Depends who’s asking. I believe,” He tosses the coat across the leather chair sitting in the center of the room, “I asked you a question. How did you get in? I have special scanners at the entrance.”
He doesn’t look intimidated, just mildly curious. Wren hesitates.
“I’m here to get a tattoo,” She answers instead, “If you have free time. Seems like you do, though.” Jungkook’s lips twitch at that. “And, by the way. Your scanners are broken.”
Jungkook’s eyes widen slightly, he nods, absorbing her words. “Broken?” He repeats softly. “Huh. That’s never happened before.” He cocks his head to one side as if he’s deliberating, assessing her with narrowed eyes.
“Okay then. A small tattoo’ll cost you 800 hours. Barcode please.” He holds out a palm and hesitation flushes red over Wren’s face.
“I…” Wren swallows, her throat is dry. “I don’t… I can’t pay with hours. I have cash though, real cash, it’s a bit old but-”
“Cash?” Jungkook’s voice is full of disbelief. “I don’t take cash. No one takes cash anymore.”
Wren opens her mouth to argue, more negotiations and pleas ready to come spilling out of her mouth, but she sees the steeliness in Jungkook’s eyes and pauses. A moment of hesitation and deliberation, drawing lines in her mind and questioning whether or not she is making a huge mistake… and then her fingers grasp at her sleeve and she pushes up.
She keeps her eyes on Jungkook, watching him intently for a reaction. She spots it- the tiniest flicker of surprise that dances across his face, the way he blinks a few more times than necessary.
Most of all is the realization that cracks loud and clear inside of her like a rubber band snapping in half, that he isn’t shocked by her blank wrist, of her lack of a barcode.
He’s seen it before.
Just as quickly as she catches it, those few fleeting seconds of shock and recognition, he conceals it all – his face smoothening over, his eyes flitting up to meet hers, dark and somber and unreadable.
Wren has a thousand questions, and her eyes lock with his. Something is in the air between them, the lowest of crackling heat, an electric pulse that is just faintly buzzing underneath the surface, like a thin film wrapped around them both.
“Jesus.” The word rushes out of his mouth and his eyebrow creases and he folds his arms tight across his chest, and the look on his face, the pity creased right there, pinched tight between his brows reminds her so much of him that a sharp ache stabs her in her chest, sour and painful and-
“Why… are you here?”
She is jolted out of her reverie and she swallows, hard. She lifts her eyes to meet Jungkook’s.
“I’m here for a tattoo, I already said-”
“You know I can’t tattoo you.”
A silence falls between them, they stand and stare at each other before she straightens.
“Please. Please. I can pay, I just-”
“No.”
“Please. I’m… I’m desperate. I…”
“I said no sweetheart. My answer is final. The exit is-”
“I turn twenty five tomorrow.”
He freezes. She spots it, a window of opportunity. Zeroes in on it, chases it, pins everything on it.
”Please.”
He sighs, clenching his jaw in uncertainty. Stares at her, assesses her closely.
“Okay, I... okay.”
She breathes a sigh of relief.
“So what do you want to get, then?”
He clears his throat, rolling up his sleeves as he speaks. His forearms are taut- honey skin and curves of muscle but what pulls at her attention are the lines of black ink that kiss Jungkook’s skin. His forearms, both of them, are intricately tattooed. She recognizes a few motifs- flowers mainly, thick vines and leaves and roses that curl around his forearms and disappear beneath the black fabric bunched around his elbows.
“I…” Her voice falters, whatever courage she had is draining away and disintegrating with each word. “A bird. A wren bird.”
He raises an eyebrow. “A wren bird?” He repeats, the firm line of his mouth cracks ever so slightly into a laugh. “Cliché.”
Wren cracks a smile. Jungkook’s eyes are on her, she can sense it – almost like they’re circling each other, unsure of how much to say, how much to reveal.
“Where?” Jungkook asks. “Where on your body?”
“Wrist.” She taps the spot where her barcode was supposed to be. Where there will be tomorrow.
Jungkook clicks his tongue, nods. “Sit.” He nods at the black chair in the centre of the room and she sits down on it gingerly, watching him. He turns away, walks over to a black box on one of the benches and picks up a few tools, amongst them a needle, before he settles back down by her side.
“This is how you do it?” She asks, “With a needle?”
He glances up and nods, a wry smile that is softer around the edges.
“Mm. Old school technique called handpoking. I know there are other underground artists who use technology to tattoo, it’s probably faster that way but…” He glances down at his arms with a faint smile. “You can’t get the lines as delicate that way.”
She looks at his forearms, at the intricacy of his tattoos. She’s never seen tattoos like that, except for of course the one that once adorned his arm. While Jungkook’s are intricate, so full of life and movement, his tattoo was clean and flowing, structured swoops of art on skin.
Jungkook picks up a swab of damp cotton and swipes it over her wrist carefully.
“They’re beautiful.” She says. “Your tattoos, that is.”
She realizes that Jungkook’s fingers are still latched around her wrist, black ink petals that arch up the back of his hand to his knuckles a sharp contrast against her untattooed skin. Jungkook’s grip tightens, just a touch. His eyes soften, only a fraction. And just like earlier, so quickly that Wren wonders if she is imagining it or not, Jungkook’s gaze lingers for a beat too long on her lips.
“Let me know if it hurts, alright?” He says quietly, glancing up at her. She nods as his eyes linger on hers and he brings the needle to her skin.
It’s quick – he is fast, expert, so fast. Quick, rapidfire pricks into her skin, she flinches a little at first but quickly adjusts to the feeling. Jungkook stops, his thumb brushes over her wrist.
“All good?”
She just nods and he continues, for a moment the only sound is the sound of him breathing, his eyes narrowed in focus.
“So what does it mean, then?” Jungkook asks gruffly. “The wren bird?”
Wren glances over at him, he isn’t looking at her, and she takes a moment to drink him in. The careful, concentrated crease in his brows. The earrings that dot his earlobes, the broadness of his chest as he carefully, precisely tattoos her. There’s something about him that she trusts.
“It’s my name.” She murmurs. “Wren.”
“Ah, that’s your name?” Jungkook glances up, his eyes meet hers. “It’s pretty.”
She doesn’t respond immediately, keeping her eyes on him.
“You weren’t surprised,” She says quietly. The pain comes in small pricks but it fades quickly, she stares up at the ceiling and breathes in deeply. Jungkook hums softly under his breath.
“About what?”
“The fact that I’m going to get Separated.”
Jungkook’s mouth twists and he sighs. “Mmhm. You’re not the first. I’ve met people like you before. But no barcode at all, that’s rare.” He shifts a little in place. “How old were you then, when you were contracted to be Separated? Must’ve been young, to not have a barcode at all…”
She stays still, perfectly still. A few more pricks to her skin and her eyes almost fill with tears but she grits her teeth.
“Eight.”
A heaviness falls between them. Jungkook’s hand hovers and he lets out a tiny sigh. “I’m sorry.” Jungkook says finally.
“Nothing you can do about it.”
“Nothing any of us can do about it, I suppose.”
They fall quiet, Jungkook’s gaze intent as he continues to press the needle into her skin.
“So. How did you find me then?”
“Someone I… someone I knew mentioned you a few years ago. Said he was looking for you, he got a tattoo from you on his arm.”
Jungkook smiles at this, his lips turning up into a smirk. “Huh, really? Does it still look good?”
Wren wavers, a shuddering breath falls out between her lips before she can stop it.
“It did.”
Jungkook pauses. He doesn’t look at her, but she can see his hands tremble.
“I see.”
“He… he mentioned something about a rebel organization. Something about trying to find you to learn more about it. That was before he, before-”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Jungkook’s voice hardens. His face is perfectly still, dangerously still, and a beat of silence passes between them.
“No,” Wren whispers. “I’m here because…” Her voice trails off. She has so many thoughts, so many emotions, all jumbled and tangled and she doesn’t know how to feel anymore. Why she’s here. “Because I miss him.”
“He’s dead?”
Wren feels an acute, awful twist in her chest and nods.
She misses Yoongi so much.
Jungkook’s eyes meet hers and she can see it dancing over his features, inner conflict about what to say, how much to share of himself. He’s so distrusting, so guarded, and it feels familiar to her. She must pass whatever test he’s running through his mind because he sighs again, a few more pricks to her skin and then he speaks, so quietly that she almost can’t hear the words he’s saying.
“I don’t know who he was,” He says quietly. “But I’m not surprised to hear about that. Anyone who gets caught in association with my brother and his people face consequences.”
Wren glances over at him, his face is carefully masked but she doesn’t miss the flash in his eyes and the way his jaw trembles.
“Your brother?”
“Mm.” Jungkook nods. “Big brother. Leader of the fuckin’ rebel organization. Last I heard, the government was actually trying to hunt them down.” He barks out a humourless laugh. “I have nothing to do with them. Not anymore, anyway.”
Wren feels a pang in her chest, something inside of her wavers.
“Why not?”
“Because my brother…” Jungkook’s voice trails off. “He’s a good guy, he just… he sees the world in black and white. Not too dissimilar to the people who implemented this whole Life system and Separation system in the first place. They see the world one way, that it needs to be perfected, categorized, organized… and my brother thinks that chaos is natural. That there is no such thing as the perfect life.” A muscle in Jungkook’s jaw twitches. “The world isn’t that simple though. Bad people do fucked up things. Good people do fucked up things. You know?”
Wren is quiet, absorbing his words. “Your brother believes in something, at least.”
“Isn’t it better to believe in nothing, if what you’re believing in is doomed to fail?” Jungkook asks, his voice slanting up harshly.
Wren looks over at him. His eyes are pricked with emotion, glassy with tears and then he snaps his head back down, emotions teeming at the surface.
Another beat of quiet passes between them.
“Maybe,” Wren whispers. “But I know what it feels like to believe in nothing. And I can’t imagine there being any better alternative.”
Jungkook is quiet, he picks up the needle again and she feels it pressing into her skin.
“What if the alternative is losing someone you love?”
A flash of Yoongi, of her mother, of the feeling of her body crooked into a furnace that is cold and dusty and dark.
“That’s an alternative I’m pretty familiar with.”
The words come out more bitterly than she had intended. Jungkook sighs.
“You and I both, then.”
Wren’s eyes snap up, to Jungkook who is staring straight at her with a pained expression written on his face. He gazes down at her, keeps rhythmically pressing the ink into her skin.
He lets out a sigh. “I was once by my brother’s side you know. Believed in everything he believed, because he was my brother and whatever he said... that was it, you know? Endgame. I would’ve done anything for him.
When he wanted to rebel, to fight back, I was right there with him. I believed in it. How could I not? I never had a father, it was always me and my brother, protecting our Mum, us against the entire God damn world.”
Jungkook’s voice breaks apart, he swallows.
“We were finding all of this shit out about what the government and their PODs were doing, what they were experimenting on. Using Separation as a weapon, experimenting with other ways to use Life and take Life. How to control and use the minds and souls that had been Separated.” Jungkook’s lips twist up, his face darkens. “No matter how close we got, how dangerous it all was, hyung just kept… he just kept going. He thought he was fucking invincible.”
Wren is quiet, knowing the feeling of standing by someone’s side while they burned fierce and bright and hot, unstoppable to a fault. Ignited by someting powerful, unmovable - belief. She looks at Jungkook’s face, hears the sudden thickness in his words and remembers what Yoongi’s body looked like under the sheet, the filling of fear and powerlessness that had consumed her when she had seen it.
“He died, didn’t he?”
Jungkook is silent.
“No,” He says slowly. “My mother did. She was Separated. Right in front of us. They removed her mind and her soul and took her catatonic body with them. I thought they were going to kill me and my brother too. I wanted them to kill us. But they didn’t. They left us.”
Wren lets out a soft, choked sound. Jungkook doesn’t look at her.
“I always blamed him. Blamed her. Blamed myself.” He shakes his head, looks down at his hands, at the petals fanned out over his fingers. “I haven’t talked to him in years. That part of my life is done. I’m never going back to it. That night, my family died. My mother died, and so did my brother.”
He shrugs, she can see the pain brimming in his eyes, the muscles clenching in his jaw.
“Jungkook.” Jungkook glances over at her, sees her looking at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing you can do about it.”
They stare at one another before Jungkook straightens, stretches out his arms. Stands up, sits beside her on the chair.
“Anyway. All done.”
“Really?” Wren glances down to see her wrist. There, on the centre of her wrist – clean black lines are flow across, depicting a small bird taking flight. “Thank you. I’ll pay you, I promise.”
“It’s alright, really. Don’t worry about it.”
She glances up at him, her eyes shining. “No I…” She swallows and a smile flickers across her face. “Thank you. For... for giving me something to believe in.”
Like this, it’s almost as if she is a different person – her bottom lip trembling, her face a foreign blend of sadness and happiness. A smile that is happy but painfully sharp around the edges. She looks at him – he is staring at her so intensely that she is about to ask him what’s on his mind, what is the matter, but something stills inside of her.
Silence passes, logically Wren knows it must only be seconds but they feel like so much longer, time stretched out to infinite quantities while her gaze is locked in Jungkook’s.
He shifts ever so slightly, enough so that his body is closer to hers. Something velvet and dark roars inside of her, like flames are licking at the edges of her insides. It is a sensation she hasn’t felt in so long and she has thousands of thoughts bleeding through her head, thoughts she can’t unpick, thoughts she doesn’t want to - right before Jungkook leans in.
He is close – so close that she can feel the heat prickling off his body and onto hers. Her entire chest is tight, like it is wrapped in the vines inked on Jungkook’s arms, as her reaches up. He brushes his fingers carefully right by her ear, the tips of his fingers grazing her earlobe.
She shudders delicately as a sudden flash of lust scorches white hot inside of her. His hand travels down to brush her hair carefully behind her shoulder. And then – the tips of his fingers at the base of her head, his fingers knotting into her hair, sending another fresh set of waves rippling through her body. Her thighs clench involuntarily, she squeezes her legs together and lets out a tiny whimper.
Jungkook leans in even closer. His lips are only centimetres away from hers, his eyes heavy and lidded. She realizes with a flare of clarity that she wants him to kiss her, to feel the heat of his body on hers, to feel his hand laced in her hair gripping hard and tugging. The moment her mind has wrapped around that image she can’t let go of it.
He’s still close- so close, she is lost in the dark depths of his eyes as they stare into her own.
And then his mouth brushes against hers.
It’s barely a kiss, so tentative, so chaste that it doesn’t feel real. Jungkook pulls away and she sees him swallow thickly, and it’s like something ignites inside of her. Like all the tension is instantly gathered into heavy pulses of need, her focus narrowing down and honing onto him – Jungkook, his hand now resting against the nape of her neck, his fingers brushing slow patterns against her skin, his face inches from hers. She lingers on it, on his dark eyes and the look on his face – the way he has to swallow desperately every few seconds, the way his jaw is trembling as he tries to control himself.
She doesn’t want him to control himself. She doesn’t want to control herself. She just wants.
She chases into him hard and hungry, wanting more. It feels like something desperate and feral and needy has unleashed from inside of her. Her lips crash against his and Jungkook immediately lets out a groan into her mouth, his voice gravelly and his hands winding around her waist and tugging her against him with a muttered “God”. He kisses her, his tongue dominating and intense as she feels her mind go blank. A heavy drum beat has started, a syrupy pulse made up of the most dangerous kind of heat, she can feel it throbbing between her legs, an ache in her breasts from how badly she wants to be touched by him.
He doesn’t stop – he kisses her longer and deeper until she’s gasping for air, ripping away from him as her chest heaves and his lips pluck kisses down her jaw and to her neck.
His teeth catch on her skin, she lets out a loud moan at the feeling of it- his teeth nibbling into that sensitive spot right underneath her jaw, the pressure of his lips sucking against her skin and leaving behind a small purple bruise. The feeling of him, his lips and mouth and each lust drenched moan against her neck as his strong arms grip her tight to his body.
She’s letting out pitchy, desperate sounds – stuttered sounds of urgency and neediness, her legs beginning to tremble because all she can feel is the thud between her legs and the wetness beginning to pool fast and messy between her legs.
It’s like their bodies are synchronized – he is as desperate as she is, as full of need. Wren’s breath hitches raw and fast in her throat as Jungkook’s thumbs gripped her hips, digging hard into the flesh as he pulls her hard against him. Even harder. Harder, so that there is a sound of bodies colliding, his fingers laceingin her hair as he let out a moan and a husky “fuck”. She glances up to see him staring down at her. His face dotted in sweat, his dark eyes blown out and so fucking full of keen unadulterated want that it makes her even more dizzy with it.
“I want to fuck you. All of you, until you don’t even know your own name.”
A thrill eases its way through her body. She tilts her head back and lets out a needy moan, an affirmation, and she feels his eyes track down to the curve of her breasts and he reaches up to touch her. His hands lock around one breast and she lets out a whimper at the roughness of it, his fingers find her hard nipple and he pinches hard, enough to have a higher pitched hiss escape from her lips.
He still has her thigh gripped in his other hand, her body pulled up flush against his. She stares at him, her eyes wide, she is yearning for it.
“Please Jungkook, God, please…” She mouths against his neck, moans into his kisses as his hand massages her breasts and he lets out a choked sound right back into her touches.
“Fucking hell, Wren. Fucking hell.”
She stares and feels her throat go dry as he reaches up behind his head and in one fluid motion, pulls off his black turtleneck. His hair is tousled, his arms flexing as he tosses the sweater to the ground.
His chest is broad, his shoulder muscles defined. He has a taut abdomen and two small slopes that disappear into the hem of his pants. His arms are tattooed – covered in those intricate flowers and vines. And then there – on his ribs, on the left side of his abs is another tattoo, a panther’s body arched upwards, claws outstretched.
She feels struck by it, by him. How effortlessly beautiful he is as his hands move down to his pants, unzipping and pulling them off until he is standing there in black underwear that cling to the length of his cock, his erect length which is hard and stands tall in his pants.
“Jungkook,” She whines faintly. He hums, his eyes boring into hers, raking over her body, chest heaving with each labored breath. He’s strong, and even the way he is standing – a natural dominant stance - has her dizzy.
He steps back to her, wraps her legs around his waist, his fingers locked hard around her upper thigh. He squeezes, hard, and she lets out a desperate whimper. Her eyes flutter up to meet his, and his gaze is dark, intent on hers, before he grasps her chin, his thumb tracing her bottom lip.
She’s shaky with it, how badly she wants him, and she lets out a small cry, a plea, and Jungkook just hums in response as his hand darts between her legs.
Wren is wearing nothing but a pair of thin black cotton pants, it isn’t much, and certainly doesn’t act as a barrier between her wetness and the feeling of Jungkook’s fingers pressing right there against her sensitive, aching slit. His touch is rough, intense – three fingers, pressed flat against her and he’s rubbing hard, intense circles deep into her walls and she can feel the sensations on her clit and she thinks she might fall into the very earth from it.
He has three of his fingers flat and he presses hard against the fabric of her pants, right there on her sensitive, aching slit. She lets out a sharp moan at how good it feels to have that pressure on her when she’s so full of want, throbbing and aching with it.
“I want you inside of me,” She pants out, and Jungkook lets out a moan at her words as he wraps his hands around her waist, tugging her in hard until she spills forward against his body. His lips press hard against her throat and she feels him mouthing kisses down her the slope of her neck, his palms gliding down her front to unbutton her shirt.
He undoes as much as he can, his fingers shaking as he exposes her breasts. He doesn’t tease, he continues kissing down her neck to the dip of her collarbones, his tongue lapping at the skin there. She lets out a hissed mutter and clenches her thighs, pressing as much of her pussy against his waist as possible in desperation to feel something.
Jungkook presses a kiss on the top of her breast. She pushes harder against him, letting out a strangled whimper when she feels the hard bulge in his pants, the friction of it against her soaked panties. It’s torture – how close his mouth is to making contact with her hard nipples, his lips planting slow, intentl kisses right there around it but never quite touching.
“I want all of you,” He murmurs, his words coming out in soft pants of air against her hard nipples. She’s desperate – her hips bucking into him, she lets out tiny mewls at each grind of his hard dick against her wet slit, and just when she thinks she can’t take it anymore, his tongue flickers over her nipple and her body curls.
“Fuck!” The word falls out of her mouth and she tilts her head back as Jungkook latches his lips around her, swirling his tongue over her nipple as his other hand cups her breast. It feels incredible – taking her higher, getting her even more desperate. His tongue, his hands all over her breasts, the feel of his dick against her slit, getting her more and more worked up.
Suddenly he stands, his arms slotting around her waist as he picks her up and settles her on the ground, she sways a little on her feet as he sits down on the chair. He smirks up at her, and she swallows – his tattooed arms tensed, him sitting in just his black jocks and his visible erection, his thick muscular thighs gripping the edge of the seat.
Standing, she realizes just how much she wants it- her whole body is trembling with it, the throbbing between her legs almost painful. And then he pulls her into his lap, over his knee.
This close, straddling his leg, she sucks in voluntarily for breath. He leans his forehead against hers, smirks. He looks so in control of himself – his hands curving around her ass, his muscular chest rising and falling with each breath, his hard cock twitching in his underwear.
“Jungkook,” Her words fall out, her voice loose and husky. “Please…”
She can feel his muscular thigh underneath her wet pussy, and she begins to grind against him. She lets out a tiny whimper at the sensation of it, every rock of her hips creating a new wave of desperate, frenetic pleasure from deep inside of her.
She ruts harder against his leg, clenching, moaning, frustration blooming in her chest.
“Good girl,” He croons in her ear, his voice is harder, rougher, turbulent with lust. “That’s right, make yourself feel good…”
He thrusts his thigh up a centimeter, enough so that she can feel his muscles tensing in his leg, him pushing himself harder against her. Fuck.
She lets out a broken sound as her eyes flutter back into her head. She is so wet – so wet and sensitive that it feels like she is going to fall apart at any moment, she grinds down harder into his thigh and he lets out a loud sigh.
His hand snakes to his thigh and for a moment she feels it, his fingers pressing up into her pants and the feeling of his fingertips right there against her slit, and she lets out a whimper as he pulls away. She’s so close to her release but she knows she can’t reach climax like this, even though she wants it so badly that she is begging for it with whimpers and pleads that come falling uncontrollably out of her mouth.
“You’re so wet,” He mutters, his voice shallow. “Fuck, so wet, you’re soaking with it.” His eyes flicker up to meet hers and a ripple of heat works its way up her belly as she nods, whimpering desperately, bucks harder against him and squeezes her thighs together even harder.
“I want it so badly, please,” Her voice is scratchy as her hands work into his underwear and find his cock, wrapping around his thick length. “Please Jungkook, fuck me. Please.”
Jungkook lets out a soft groan. “God…”
He’s tense, and she begins to glide her hand up his shaft in long strokes. His eyes flash, he moves, picking her up until they are both standing.
“Come here.” She scrambles up onto the chair, and he is on top of her, behind her. He kisses against the back of her neck, she lets out a desperate moan as she feels his fingers at her underwear, grasping at the fabric and pushing it roughly to one side, too rushed and desperate to be slow, to be careful.
“Please Jungkook, God, please,”
She is still pleading for it, and Jungkook doesn’t speak, just groans as his hands tug harder at her ruined underwear and she lets out a pitchy, breathy cry as she feels the tip of his hard cock brush against her entrance.
He thrusts into her, easing into her. She is so soaking wet that he pushes his entire length inside her with ease, until his thick length is all the way inside of her.
“God, you feel so good,” She moans out, she still has her blouse on, halfway unbuttoned and Jungkook reaches up to cup at her breasts, the other hand supporting his body as he begins to snap his hips and thrust into her.
She was so close before this that she feels like she is going to disintegrate into flames just from this, the feeling of him inside her, the tight ache of her pussy and the feeling of him fucking her hard and deep. She basks in it, the friction as he slides out of her and then back into her at a pace that is hungry. She moans louder, possessively, he grips onto her body and pulls her so that her ass is pressed up against him. She can feel him so deep and so full that tears prick in her eyes. She is so close to the edge, so full of pleasure and satisfaction and so close to it, the release.
He is strong, bold, dominating – she can feel it in his fingers grabbing her breasts and his voice against her ear, murmuring how good she feels for him, how much of a good girl she is for taking his entire cock so well. His voice is no longer composed and neatly held together, and he holds onto her body as he fucks into her and rolls his hips up until it hits that spot. She rolls her eyes back into her head, her body beginning to shake.
“I’m going… I’m going to…” The words are breathless and he does it again, thrusts inside her again and his fingers fall from where they were wrapped around her to her clit, which is sore and aching. He begins to massage two fingers against her and that’s all it takes for her body to spill forward, and a release that is sweeter than any high she has ever felt before washes over her entire body.
Her moans fade out into soft honeyed whimpers, as he carefully grasps her shoulders and turns her so she lying on her back. He reaches down and yanks off her underwear properly, she gazes up at him through the haze of her orgasm. He is almost impossibly gorgeous, the ink on his arms dancing under the ripples of his muscles as he pushes himself back inside of her.
This time, he slows, his hands reach up to cup her face, he stares into her eyes and rolls his hips up at a tempo that draws more sensations out of her. It feels so good – she is still soaking wet, her body and mind worn out and so overflowing with feelings of satisfaction, but this is something else entirely.
Him, grinding and riding into her, his jaw clenched as she sees the emotions flicker across his face- lust and want and desire, she reaches up and presses a kiss to his mouth, a long desperate kiss and Jungkook moans into her mouth, thrusts his hips and comes.
It is intense, sinful in the husky moans that fall from his lips as his body stutters forward, filling her pussy up with his cum.
He stays like that for a moment, so does she – they are both tired and blissed out, until finally he pulls out and settles beside her.
They lie on the chair, his arm crooked around her shoulders. She folds under his arm with her breath coming out in jagged puffs against his skin, one hand draped tiredly over his abdomen. For a moment the two of them just breathe it all in, their eyes closed.
Then slowly everything starts to piece back together. The smell of the room, warmth and heat in the air, the smell of Jungkook’s skin and hair and the scent of sex. She opens her eyes and cranes her head up to look at him. He glances down at her and he has no guard up whatsoever on his face. His face, so impossibly soft, so open and so beautiful that she feels everything go silent as he leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
They pull apart and the only sound that fills the space is their breathing, slowing and intertwining with each rise and fall of their chests. They don’t speak, they just gaze at each other and even though no words are spoken, she feels like everything on her mind is being said.
“Thank you.” He finally whispers, her voice doesn’t break the silence, shatter it – instead it quietly melts it away.
His mouth crooks in the corner and he reaches up, brushes hair away from her face, pulls it back over her shoulder to expose her bare neck.
“What are you thanking me for?” She asks, shaking her head, a self conscious laugh peeking through her words. “Do you thank everyone you fuck on this chair?”
She reaches out, to poke his shoulder, to detach, to disassociate, but her fingers curl around his collarbone and over the tattoo there, intricate patterns and leaves and stars. Clean and abstract and vibrant all at once.
Jungkook just chuckles, his chest shakes and he holds her to his body a little tighter before relaxing. “No, I just…” His voice fades off in contemplation. “Hm, I don’t know. I was beginning to forget what this felt like.”
She looks at him, he is staring ahead, at the sketches he has pinned up on the walls.
“What, sex?”
He glances down at her, his eyes lock with hers. Her heart quickens, it drops and climbs and she feels like she’s soaring and falling all at the same time.
“No. I feel happy. Worthy. You know?”
Her breathing quietens, they just stare at one another. She can understand that all too well. The feeling that often permeates through her until it feels like it is carved on her bones and written all over her heart, the doubt that creeps in and wraps itself around her… that maybe she isn’t worthy, that she isn’t meant to be happy or fulfilled, that perhaps being Separated really is the best outcome for her.
“When I was a kid me and my brother used to always joke around when our mother was annoying us or telling us off or whatever else, that we were going to get new bodies and run away.” Jungkook murmurs. She is still in his arms, their legs wrapped together. “We used to joke about it when Ria in his academy classes told him she didn’t like him back. We used to joke about it when we didn’t like what was for dinner. We always used to talk about how if our lives weren’t happy enough, that we could trade them in for happier lives one day. I used to dream about it – the perfect, happy life.” His voice is tinged with a blend of sadness. “Some dream, huh?” He sighs. Doesn’t finish his anecdote, holds her a bit closer, tenses slightly.
“I think everyone dreams about the perfect, happy life. I know I did when I was a kid too. Y’know, the whole stupid fucking thing ¬– new body, job as a POD, barcode charged up with all the hours I could ever need, I dunno. Everyone by my side, or even someone by my side.”
“Yeah. Same. Pretty fucking naïve of us, right?”
Jungkook laughs. Wren smiles, and she doesn’t know why she’s smiling when they’re talking about sad, dark, deep heavy shit... but she’s smiling and her eyes meet Jungkook’s and he leans close and kisses her long and sweet.
Jungkook pulls away, stands up, slots his arms underneath Wren’s back, her body folding into his like a piece of origami.
He stands up, staggering a little before he turns. Wren is a bit disoriented, he can tell by the uneven flutter of her lashes, and he pushes open on a small door in the wall and settles her down on the mattress sitting alone in the centre of the room.
She murmurs a little as he lays her down, turning away to twist open a bottle of water. He pours it into a glass, she sits up blearily as he thrusts it in her hands.
“Drink. It’s just water.”
She arches an eyebrow and takes a sip experimentally. “Just water? No superchargers or supplements?” She says in a wry tone, before she drinks more. “It’s good. Thanks.”
Jungkook nods, she sets the empty cup down.
“Where’d you get normal water from?” She begins curiously, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I haven’t seen normal water since – hey, whoa.” She stops mid-sentence, her eyes widening as she takes in the walls of Jungkook’s room.
The walls are low here in this small nook of the building, it’s less of a room and more of a cupboard really – a space so confined that when Jungkook stands his head almost brushes the ceiling. The defining feature however are the walls – three of which are covered in paint, the last wall a huge window. The walls aren’t of the vivid and artificial colour palette that paints their city – instead they are muted, neutral earthy tones, terracotta reds and seafoam blues and buttercup yellows.
“They’re so beautiful,” Wren breathes out quietly, she sits up straighter and brushes her hair away from her face. “What are they?”
Jungkook is staring at her, his room is dark, illuminated only by the glow from the outside world, the teeming city. Her features are so soft, so delicate – he feels like they are all maginified in this lighting, the way her long lashes blink slowly, her lips falling apart into a perfect ‘o’, the absentminded way her fingers card through her messy hair. She isn’t what this society would deem perfect – a small scar on her cheek by her ear, her features aren’t exactly the traditional definition of pretty, the fresh ink on her wrist… but Jungkook thinks to himself that she’s beautiful. Fucking beautiful.
“Jungkook?” She implores, her eyes meet his and it feels like there is a stutter in Jungkook’s heart.
“They’re… my mother used to tell me about them,” He says finally, tearing his eyes away from her and to the walls. “These places that used to exist before… before all this. I don’t know how accurate they are,” He continues, a touch ruefully, walking towards the nearest mural. His fingers brush along the slopes of blue, grazing against where the dried paint blends into yellow. “I’ve never seen them before. But she used to talk about them a lot. She’d sit in me and my brother’s room and tell us about all the places she grew up around when she was a child. Before she…” His voice trails off and he feels a dull twist in his chest as old memories are dredged up of her.
Creased eyes and worn skin, leathery and old but so familiar, her voice soft and dulcet, telling him stories of a place called the beach, where she used to go swimming. Of sunflower fields, where she talked about flowers with withering yellow petals that faced the sun when it rose, how the landscape was bright and flawed and each plant was a bit battered from her friends and her combing past them each day. Places he would never see, a person, his mother, who he would never see again.
Jungkook had never been one to believe in the afterlife, but this world wouldn’t even give him that much. His mother wouldn’t be an angel, she wouldn’t be there waiting for him in the gates of heaven or hell or oblivion, or whatever it was that awaited him after death. She would be somewhere in the system, government property, waiting to be used as a weapon or as a tool, or worst of all- sitting there forgotten, the only memory of her the peeling sunflowers on his bedroom wall.
He feels arms winding around his waist, he glances down to see slim wrists and fingers that are laced together, he feels a cheek pressed to his back and the feeling of skin on skin. His head hangs forward and he squeezes his eyes tight together, focuses on the sensation of her breath against his spine, waits.
He turns, until he is facing her. He doesn’t smile, his fingers reach outwards and he carefully, slowly, caresses the outlines of her face in his hands. He memorizes everything – the slope of her nose, the set of her eyes, he leans in and presses a kiss against her lips in the hope that the taste and feel of her will stay imprinted in his mind for as long as possible.
He pulls away and stares at her. The city is behind them, the room is filled with an odd aubergine and green glow from the city lights, the ads that gleam bright at all hour of the evening.
He leans his forehead against hers and their fingers lace together, their bodies pressed together, clutching onto one another with a quiet, teeming urgency.
“Don’t leave,” He whispers. “Tomorrow. We can hide. We can run away.”
“Jungkook…” She pulls away. “I can’t… just run away. They’ll find me.”
“They wont,” Jungkook insists in a low voice. “I’ll protect you-”
“And how long do you think you’ll be able to protect me for before they find us both?” She interrupts, her words slice cleanly through his protests. He falls quiet. “This… this goes so much deeper than just you and me Jungkook. I’ve seen it happen, I’ve seen someone who I lo-” Her eyes flash in hurt and she swallows. “He was killed and I won’t, I can’t let that happen to you too.”
Jungkook opens his mouth but she rushes in.
“...I’m tired of not having a name except for the one I gave myself, I’m tired of not knowing who I am or who I was ever supposed to be…” Her voice trembles and her fingers glide from where they were sitting on his collarbones, ghosting over the ink on his chest down his bicep to his wrist. “Maybe I was meant to be Separated.” She whispers brokenly. She taps the lines there on Jungkook’s wrist, the barcode, and her eyes are watery, full. “We can’t change the future when it’s already been written for us.”
Her words hang in the air between them and Jungkook has ten thousand things he wants to say. He wants to tell her that maybe she’s wrong, that they can hide from the world, that they may be able to slip through the seams, that the future isn’t written in stone. That he thought his future had never been written to include anyone else in it, yet here she is easing her way into his heart no matter how foreign and terrifying it feels. That his mother described running through sunflower fields as the most perfect feeling in the world - ‘in its simplicity, I didn’t have to think about it, it just was’. But he falls silent instead.
She is crying – tears pooling in the corner of her eyes, her fingers coming up to her cheeks to scrub away at them stubbornly.
“Okay.” He says instead. He draws her into his arms and he presses his lips to the top of her head. “Tell me you’ll think about it, though.”
She nods from where her face is buried in her chest. “I’ll think about it.” She lies.
They stay there that night, two bodies entwined, exchanging kisses, touches, caresses.
Two lonely hearts, two broken souls, who found one another – if only for one night.
Wren wakes up when it’s still dark outside. She sits up in bed suddenly, her face dotted with sweat, and it feels like she’s just had a nightmare – but she can’t remember what it was about.
For a moment she feels hazy, disoriented, and then it hits her – today is the day. The day she has been waiting her whole for.
She straightens, slowly, taking the time to stretch out her sore limbs. She thinks idly that it doesn’t really matter whether or not she stretches out her muscles, seeing as in a few hours her body won’t belong to her anymore anyway.
The thought makes her head ache in a dull, funny way.
Wren glances down and sees Jungkook by her side. He is knocked out– he had fought so hard to stay awake last night, tossing and turning stubbornly, but he had eventually succumbed to sleep.
Wren on the other hand only managed a few hours, if that – staring up at the ceiling and watching the neon lights cast strange figures on the walls. Jungkook had one arm draped over her waist and he smelled unfamiliar – smoky and masculine, like cedar and sage, and Wren had spent time tracing the tattoos on his arms and wishing that she was someone else, anyone else… and not her, a ticking time bomb, a mind and a soul without a home to return to.
As her fingers had carved softly around the petals of a magnolia flower tattooed around Jungkook’s elbow, Wren allowed the stray thought in that she had been fighting to keep out ever since she spotted Jeon Jungkook standing by that window pane… that in another universe, in another time, she might have really been able to love this man with every fibre in her being.
She carefully eases the arm off of her body – God it’s heavy – and she straightens. The room is still dark and she stands uncertainly for a moment. She is naked, and she covers her body uselessly with her arms, wrapping tight, holding herself together. Jungkook is still sleeping, his mouth parted, his lids closed. He looks so peaceful like this, she thinks to herself, and so beautiful- his hair messy, the curve of his shoulders and the tattoos that look like artwork traced on his skin.
I could’ve really loved you, Wren thinks quietly to herself. A part of myself does love you, in a strange way.
She doesn’t want to leave, every nerve ending wants to keep her rooted here, in this room with the low ceiling and the paintings on the wall. She wants to sit in between Jungkook’s legs with his arms draped around her body, him telling her stories about his mother, and she even wants to hear stupid little tidbits of his life – dumb things really, like how many people he’s tattooed, or what the stupidest tattoo was that he’s ever had to do, or even God knows, what his favourite colour is.
She forces herself to walk to the door, and it feels like her body is aflame. She wants to stay. She wants to be loved. She doesn’t want to be alone. But it feels like horrible déjà vu, the whiplash of being in a car accident, the jolting and all consuming memories of the people who have loved her – her father, her mother, Min Yoongi.
With that in mind, she opens the door and walks out of the bedroom. Her eyes fall on the leather recliner and she drums her fingers against her thigh, blood is rushing in her ears and her heart is going a thousand miles a minute in her chest.
She walks down the stairs, back through that threadbare piece of black cloth. She keeps going, until she is outside, back on the street- where the air is icy against her flushed skin, the pink that tinged her cheeks draining away. She shivers, she holds herself tighter, she looks up at that grey obsolete building and with a lump n her throat she can’t swallow down, she turns around and walks away.
It doesn’t take long until a small chorus of pods pull up beside her on the street. It’s early – too early for them to be out on patrol – and she doesn’t stop to wonder why it is that they are out at this time of the evening. They glide up soundlessly and one turns to her, joints clicking and a subtle electronic beep as it scans over her for a barcode she knows they won’t find.
“Subject 274,193. Birth name, Inhae Jung. Age, 25 and three hours. Awaiting to be processed for Separation.”
The status report makes her flinch. She stands still in spot and glances up at the building, from where she is, she can barely make it out. She searches for the big glass window but her eyes find nothing but grey walls. The lump in her throat gets bigger.
“Ma’am, will you please come with us to the nearest Government Dome for your processing?”
The nearest pod, a young man with sharp features and striking good looks steps up to her. He doesn’t smile, because pods aren’t programmed to have emotions. He speaks in a bland tone, but Wren doesn’t miss the way his arms twitch by his sides, at the other pods that have closed in just a centimeter. It’s a threat, a veiled one, but a threat nonetheless.
“Of course.” She murmurs faintly. The Pod nods and then a vehicle glides up on the street beside them, it hovers silently in the air. She’s ushered inside before she quite knows what is happening, wedged between two pods.
Processing. This is it. She wonders if it is going to hurt. She doesn’t speak, the Pods don’t speak either, she watches one out of the corner of her eye and wonders how sentient they are, just how much of the old mind and soul and essence of self still dwells within these lifeless hosts.
Judging by their blank stares, their rigid bodies, Wren more or less has the answer.
The paperwork is quick, efficient. Wren waits, completely naked, on a steel chair. She has been strapped in, attached by the wrists and ankles, ‘for security measures you see’, and it is cold in this room. Goosebumps cover her arms. A woman sits opposite her on another chair, tapping something into the holographic keyboard that sits in the air beside them, filling in last minute details.
“I’m glad you’re being so compliant,” She says sweetly. “We were beginning to worry. That is quite a debt your father accrued there.” She tuts softly and her fingernails drum down on the table.
Wren feels her breath hitch in her throat. Panic rising up inside of her like a tsunami, building, escalating. Not now, she pleads, and she doesn’t know whether she’s thinking about the impeding panic attack lapping at her feet, or the Separation itself. Not this, not now.
“But you’ve been kept in pristine condition for the most part. That… thing is no good,” She continues, her eyes honing on the black bird etched on her wrist. “But we can easily laser that off for the next inhabitant of your body if they so wish.”
She shoots Wren a saccharine sweet. “It’s great news, really. We were beginning to worry that we would have to harvest your brother too. But it seems you’ll pay back your father’s debts in full, so there should be no need.”
Wren’s heart slams to a grating stop in her chest. Her eyes flicker over to the holographic screen, there, is an image – a boy, a man really, a few years younger than her. A shock of dark chocolate hair, a strong jaw, a barcode hovering beside his face.
“My… brother?”
The woman ignores her, she stands up. She’s dressed in a black sheath dress, her hair is cropped short and she has several jewels dotted in her earlobes. Wren’s eyes widen, her heartbeat quickens, the wave of panic looms larger and taller than before.
“My brother? I have a brother?” She repeats, desperately. The woman picks up the two silver, rectangular shaped slabs from a bench that slides out from the ground between them, she is no longer speaking. She turns off the screen and Wren feels the wave beginning to descend upon her.
“No, I don’t- I can’t, I don’t want to do this!” her voice rises into a scream and she moves to stand. But she can’t. She struggles uselessly against her restraints and the woman’s face is completely passive as she approaches.
Wren has felt fear and dread a thousand different ways, in a thousand different colours. But this is new. This is fear so raw that it numbs her, her body goes slack, her eyes fill with tears.
“Don’t,” Wren pleads, but the woman doesn’t slow. The metal bars are pressed to her temples.
Wren has one thousand questions, and the wave is approaching, roaring, thrashing dark waters beneath its surface. She pulls at names and faces in a desperate hurry.
Her brother, Yoongi, her mother, her father. Jungkook.
Her eyes card down to her wrist, straining from where it is locked in place, the bird trapped beneath. She can only see the tip of its wings.
The wave is coming in faster now and Wren squeezes her eyes shut. I should have stayed. I should have run.
Jungkook, she thinks desperately. I can’t forget. I can fight this. I can not forget. They can’t take this from me.
The metal is cool against her skin. She can hear the woman humming a tuneless song under her breath.
Wren squeezes her eyes shut, she musters up everything inside of her as the wave finally crashes down over her head.
Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook.
And then everything goes blank.
Jungkook has his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his mouth set in a grim line.
Here, alongside the river, there isn’t a clear footpath – so it feels as if the earth is slipping beneath his feet, small stones crunching under his shoes with every step he takes. The water below is a translucent grey, marred with thick swathes of oil.
Jungkook sees him, standing there, and his breath sucks in through his teeth and rattles in his lungs.
He reaches the other man’s side and for a moment they stand side by side, staring down into the lifeless water. Both are silent, shoulders touching.
Behind the river mouth Jungkook can see the city beginning to come to life, and he knows all too well that in mere minutes the pods will start to emerge, and that the air that is so silent and still will soon be thinned out by voices and the monotonous click and whir of machinery.
“So. You’re back in? Really in?”
The other man’s voice is light, but Jungkook doesn’t miss the suspicion threaded in through his words. Jungkook stays still.
The water is glassy and Jungkook swallows.
“Yeah, Namjoon. I am.”
The taller man lets out a soft chuckle and relaxes, his shoulders slumping slightly, his hands sliding into his pockets.
“Finally realizing how fucked up the world is?”
Jungkook hums under his breath, ignores the question. “Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
Namjoon laughs again. A hollow laugh that wavers in the air and Jungkook turns his head to stare at his brother.
He hasn’t seen Namjoon in years, and although so much has stayed stagnant in the world they both live in, the world they’ve always known– the neon lights that burn artificial light day in and day out, the air always acidic and coppery, the rhythmic beep of scanned barcodes in the background of every memory – so much still, has changed. Namjoon has changed.
His face is older, his eyes brimming with a fierce determination. Long gone is the naivety and sadness that used to live in the lines of Jungkook’s brothers face- Kim Namjoon is utterly unsympathetic now. Locked on the goal ahead. Ruled by a laser sharp focus.
We really are brothers, Jungkook thinks as he takes in the set of Namjoon’s jaw, the coolness in his eyes. Jungkook wonders if underneath that ironclad front is a heart that feels like his does now – swollen and aching and uncertain.
Jungkook had never been conscious of his heart before- it had always just been an organ pumping blood around his body. But now he can feel it, he can honest to God feel every squeeze and restriction of it right there in his chest, he can feel the radiating ache that seeps through his body and leaves him trembling. His heart and his chest and his bones and his head all ache in unison, and he doesn’t know how to make it go away. It’s why he’s here, he supposes, why he’s here standing beside a brother that he barely knows, hanging onto a moment and a memory of a girl who no longer has any moments or memories to call her own.
Jungkook wonders if that is what spurs Namjoon on as well. If his brother too has a glass heart kept safe and protected in a cage of steel.
“I’m looking for someone…” Jungkook swallows hard. “Someone Separated.”
“What…? Someone Separated? Why?”
“Is it possible?”
“I… I don’t-”
“Hyung. Is it possible?” Jungkook’s voice is as sharp as knives and Namjoon doesn’t react. He just looks down at the ground and rubs the tip of his shoe in the soil, the earth is loose and unstable and separates easily, and Namjoon lets out an almost indecipherable sigh.
“Yeah, it is.”
Something akin to relief washes over Jungkook and he nods once, then twice, as if he is assuring himself, it’s possible, it’s really possible.
“Jungkook, it’s possible, but it’s not easy-”
“I didn’t ask if it’s easy. I asked if it’s possible.” Jungkook says in a short, clipped tone. Namjoon falls quiet. Stops moving. There is a small gap in the earth where he was digging his shoe into before.
“Look. Something tells me there’s more to it than you’re telling me…”
Jungkook’s eyes flicker over, meeting Namjoon’s. The older man has a resigned look in his eyes. “…But you don’t have to explain your motives. As long as you’re with us for real. You are, right?”
Jungkook swallows. He nods, turns back to the river.
“I said I’m in, so I’m fucking in, Namjoon.”
Namjoon just laughs again and the sound is grating, Jungkook realizes that there’s no humour in that laugh. It’s just there, a sound to fill the silence.
“Okay,” Namjoon murmurs after a beat of quiet. “I’ll... I’ll go. Got places to be. I’m... I’m glad you contacted me, Jungkook. I... I’m...” His voice trails off. He doesn’t finish his sentence, he stands there.
Then he claps Jungkook’s shoulder and then he is gone.
Jungkook stays, staring at the river. The sun is rising, and it is an unsetting shade of red– like it was dipped in crimson dust.
Jungkook doesn’t have long, knowing that when the sun has risen fully, a new day will have started. Yet he stands and watches, watches as the sun bleeds that ruby glow over the horizon, watches as the city begins to flicker to life, all the while thinking about her, the bird tattooed on her wrist, the barcode tattooed on his.
His lips form her name, Wren, and he whispers it into the air like it’s a vow, like he’s promising to himself with the river and his city as a witness that he won’t forget, that he’ll be back for her, have her back in his arms again no matter the cost. No matter the currency or price that he has to pay.
His fingers curl into a fist and tears, strange and unfamiliar prick in his eyes, and once again he’s all too painfully aware of his heart- heavy and thudding in his chest. He wonders fleetingly if the tables were turned, if he had the opportunity to have all of this separated and taken away from him – memories of his life, things he had done, ink he had etched into skin and her eyes staring watery and huge into his own… would he? Would he forget? Would he choose to forget her?
I won’t forget, he promises, so fiercely that he isn’t sure if he’s said it aloud or not. “I won’t forget.” He says aloud a final time.
And then he turns and slips into the shadows before the sun rises, hanging low and scarlet in the sky.
amynote: (I am thinking of potentially writing a sequel to this!!! let me know your thoughts.) edit 19/04/18: I am definitely writing a sequel! thank you for the feedback!!
+ wow i really enjoyed writing this story. challenging but so much fun. thank you very much to the person who sent in the original request. I hope you all enjoyed reading ♡
#jungkook smut#jungkook fanfic#jungkook angst#jungkook x oc#bts fanfic#bts smut#tattooed jungkook#bts angst#bts dystopian au#yoongi fanfic
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Nous allons enfin nous régaler! (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are)
the food travel au
3 ½ month film schedule. 31 countries. 24 episodes.
2 people who might just fall in love along the way.
Chapter 3: France : Paris-Lille
Author:
@pingou7
(Read on AO3)
They arrive in France on schedule and thankfully the whole crew has pretty much recovered from their stomach bug by then. Shara Bey looks a bit queasy in the morning perhaps, but everyone is still curious about what their short trip to the country of Haute Cuisine will entail.
Everyone but Jyn that is, and despite his growing anxiety — because this was France, people! — Cassian can’t help but notice that she has grown more subdued since they’ve picked out their luggage at the airport.
Okay, she’s in a mood and her French is infinitely better than what he personally recalled from High School. It’s true what they say about French being bad at languages, by the way: It’s not that people don’t bother, exactly, it’s more than they’d best not to, their accent makes it hard to understand.
Honestly, he just gives directions in Spanish and there the taxi driver gets it, easier for everyone. Until Jyn stops looking by the window and engages the conversation!
“Nous ne sommes pas en vacances. On est une équipe de tournage."
The driver seems ridiculously overjoyed to hear her speak his language and grins at her in the rear-view mirror.
"Vraiment? Pour le cinéma?"
"Non, la télévision, c'est un programme culinaire."
"You speak French?" Draven interrupts, interest picked. "I didn't know that, it wasn't on your resume."
"Now you do," she shrugs, turning back her attention on the driver.
"La cuisine française est la meilleure du monde, vous aurez de quoi filmer!"
"C'est l'idée. Mais la France n'est pas notre seule destination, on visite plusieurs pays."
Okay, all of this is so quick and fluid that Cassian can't follow. But he can see Draven's brain gear turning as he insists:
"What did you say?"
"Nothing important, I'm not disclosing anything, don't worry. We're doing a food show for TV, we do several countries. Our friend here thinks French food is the best, obviously, and that we're gonna have a lot to cover."
"It's a given," Cassian smiles, impressed by her proficiency, "it's nice of you to speak up, though. Might facilitate the dialogue, too."
"It's nothing to get excited over," Jyn grumbles, sighing, "I've been to France before and have a knack for language, this is just idle chat anyway."
He can’t explain why but there’s something unsettling for her, that has nothing to do with food poisoning. He's curious, but drops the matter when they make a mandatory stop in a boulangerie, where Cassian marvels about the variety of breads and pastries offered, not to mention the cakes...
Mothma actually volunteers, Luke is already taking out his smartphone and since Jyn has already proven her ability to speak French, she too is put to contribution. The two other cars choose to proceed however, waiting at the hotel.
Cassian, Mothma Jyn and Luke are originally sent to get some crusty golden baguettes, of course, their white crumb, thick and soft. Yet a man before them prefers a boule de campagne, round shaped and thicker still, browner and earthier too.
Fascinating.
Honestly Cassian feels perplexed yet eager to order and the seller is amiable and smiling has she suggests viennoiseries.
"We have to take at least a croissant and a pain au chocolat each for everyone," Jyn declares immediately, strangely bossy all of sudden.
"Can we get a brioche too?" Luke asks, eyeing the one in the counter with barely concealed longing.
"Sure, if you want," she agrees easily, translating the order.
"Oh, there's chouquettes too," Mothma exclaims delightfully, legit clapping like a little girl. Thus a small bag of choux buns with sugar pearls joins the order.
Like she was on a mission, Jyn finally asks for different types of croissants too:
"The regular type is made of fresh butter," Jyn explains, "but we will take the almond version too."
"Would you like some of our savoury version," the seller asks helpfully, "it's with cheese and ham."
While in English he'd known the pains au chocolat to be called chocolate croissant — even if the chocolate is hidden within — he gets primly chastised by Jyn:
"Contrary to popular belief, it's not the same thing."
"Sorry, I had no idea. How do you all even know this?"
"My sister Leia likes posh bakeries," Luke says as only explanation.
"Me too, though it's been years since I've had chouquettes," Mothma adds.
But to his frustration, Jyn doesn't say anything has she asks for the total. He commits as much information as he can to memory and Mothma actually has to chime in with a few Euros of her own since she, Jyn and Luke kept adding some douceurs to taste. Clearly they are more familiar with French pastries than they’d let on, but he doesn’t mind being educated on the subject!
In fact Cassian grins wilder as the demeanor of other clients goes from neutral to slightly amused. He even catches something akin to respect on the face of an old lady behind them, as she glances at the pile of sweetness.
Unfortunately, it’s an improvised stop and they can’t film on a whim right now — photos will have to do. That’s a shame, for Monica Mothma isn’t a woman prone to expansiveness and it would have been nice to catch this unscripted madness, even if just for themselves.
Eventually they buy enough to feed an army or for everyone to develop diabetes, at the very least. It’s all for the greater good of the show, of course... They actually film a tiny clip back at their hotel and post a few candids on Instagram.
Kes teases them for their sweet tooth, saying he should have come with just to protect the bakery’s supplies and Draven rolls his eyes, but both are getting their faces stuffed with croissants and pains au chocolat so... Though far from constituting a balanced diet, their purchases become the entirety of their evening meal.
To be fair, who knew there was so much type of stuffed viennoiseries to begin with? It’s almost maddening!
Rationally he knows he shouldn’t indulge so much on the first day but the bread is crispy, the brioche is sweet but light... choosing is a lost cause and truthfully nobody seems to care.
Jyn is seated across from him though and a tiny speck of chocolate stays struck at the corner of her plush lips. He starts to ogles her mouth and reflexively licks his own — just in case a crumb of his own is there, too — but thankfully she doesn’t pay much attention to the people next to her.
Instead, she keeps staring at an invisible point in her plate. No pastry deserves to be looked at with such sadness unless it got prematurely rotten, and he says as much, eliciting a chuckle from the guys. She momentarily meets his gaze as she bites in her pain au chocolat again but her spirits have not lifted. Failed attempt then... He hopes his heated cheeks are the result of the two glasses of red wine he had before dessert, he’s not usually this awkward.
But she intrigues him, he wants to know her better! She’s unpredictable too and rather enticing. She proves to be an asset to the show and not just as a Camera Operator. But of course there is no way he’s going to say it. Besides it’s wine and sugar load talking and they have to focus on the French schedule within the next hour.
"Last time I was here, I was 15," she finally reveals, "but there's water under bridge."
If he weren't focused on her, he might have missed it, but like a private oath, she whispers next: "Saw has no place on this job, nor in my life. Paris doesn’t change that."
He's the only one to catch that, but before Cassian can figure out the meaning of this comment, everybody’s head snaps up at hearing Draven clearing his throat:
“By public demand, we will be setting this episode slightly freelance, as we go up North. About the capital, Cassian has an appointment at “Au Doux Raisin” tomorrow. It proposes a panel of traditional French dishes that would be interesting to foreign viewers.”
Draven enumerates this in a flat voice, looking bored as usual, yet Cassian starts to freak out internally: France was renowned for its Cuisine. He even follows French cooking shows in his spare time! How is he supposed to do his own thing despite the legions of stuff available?
“Sorry to interrupt Sir, but how are we supposed to squeeze several sets in so little time? As far as I know, most traditional French recipes involve spending quite a bit of time if not the whole day over the stove.”
“Don’t fret Andor,” the Director retorts impatiently, “it’s not like you’re be the one doing the cooking, right? So spare me the nerves. Thanks to our split filming teams, most material will be easily covered too. You just have to taste and judge, not really a hardship for you, I suspect.”
No, perhaps not. But Cassian doesn’t like the way his Director is handling things tonight. Tension increases a bit in the room but he keeps his trap shut, not wanting to spark things off on their first night here. The traveling show was already bumpy enough as far as he’s concerned so better not add to the man’s frustration.
“I wanted to see the sights a bit. It’s the city of lights, it’s every lover’s dream,” Kes mumbles.
Unfortunately, it seems that he's not discreet enough.
“Dameron, if you want to play the tourist, plan a romantic vacation for your fiancée AFTER the rush. We’ve got no time for that and moreover, I don’t care for your personal life,” Draven chastises in a clipped tone.
Cassian suppresses a sigh but the case is closed, crew eventually dismissed for the night. He’s pretty sure Draven was a military at some point before going into production or he is one in an alternate universe, with the way he’s usually behaving...
The next day, the crew did some sightseeing before their appointment — they could not be here and not pause in front of the Eiffel Tower, couldn’t they?
"Come on, we gotta have a picture with all of us! It's Paris guys, you can't be more French than that!"
"We won't all fit on a single one," Wedge Antilles says.
"You already had me posing in London, Skywalker, I'm not doing this again. Besides, Cassian is the one that should feature, he's the face of the show."
"Please Jyn, it'd be a group pic, not just you this time. A memento. Don't you want to show this to your friend Bodhi?"
Damn Luke and his boyishness... Everyone caves, elbows and shoulders squeezed together awkwardly. As Kes and Shara are the only couple, they also strike a cheesy pose for prosperity, likely adding some "romance" to the collection.
They ignore people seeking them for money or whatever petition they wanted to get a signature for though... Some details must be glossed over.
"We're not airing on a discovery channel," Draven says, already checking his watch, "most of the tedious editing falls on Kay’s team anyway. Let's get going."
Of course, for professional purposes Cassian forgoes lunch, preferring to nimble on a sandwich so he’d be famished when the time to shoot arrives.
And arrive it does.
A van comes to pick them up and their materials for the intended point of rendezvous between the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Jardin Des Plantes, in the 5th Arrondissement. Quite a pretty place and Luke already mumbles about some hashtags and photos he’d like to take afterwards.
When they finally enter the brasserie called “Au Doux Raisin” (At the sweet grapefruit) — a little before the opening, obviously, for the team has to settle — they instantly find themselves in a typical homey Parisian environment. From the very first second Cassian knows why the production chose this establishment in particular:
The meals offered represent just as many potential discoveries, yet not always the cheapest — within reasonable price range nonetheless. The brasserie sets a real atmosphere with portraits in black and white of old famous actors, an old-fashioned counter and something in the air so uniquely French that he’s surprised the staff doesn’t wear berets with white striped shirts.
Truthfully, everyone is excited, including Jyn who looks oddly happy to be there.
“We’re somewhere straight out of the movie Les Tontons flingueurs,” she says, watching their surroundings with sparkling eyes. At the lack of response she gets, she prompts: “You know, Crooks in Clover, also known as Monsieur Gangster? Ring a bell?”
To be honest the actors look familiar, Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura most of all, but nobody shares her excitement and she automatically returns to her defensive stance:
“What? I’m a cinephile and actually did study film making, you know? These actors are legendary among French cinema, you must have at least heard of some of them!”
“Somewhat. I'm more interested in the fact that this is the first time that I've caught you smiling since we’ve left England.”
Cassian only wished to put her out of her misery as they prepared the set. He gets a bit jittery before the beginning of each filming session so he likes to see people enjoying themselves, it calms him down. Yet somehow it was the wrong thing to say and her lit-up face turns stony as she replies:
“Yeah, well, let’s get this done.”
Smooth, Andor, well done, he thinks sarcastically as Draven yells action and a waiter gives him the menu. Most of the crew will stick to plates of charcuterie and cheese but he has a few possibilities to consider. Of course the list has been communicated beforehand, but ultimately Cassian always has the final choice, to stay as genuine as possible and because he prefers to eat whatever strikes his fancy. It’s more digestible in case of several takes.
Finally he chooses a “Bourguignon meal”: traditional snails then beef and wine stew, a plate of cheese and some crème brûlée to finish. Plentiful but really appetizing. Of course, if it weren’t for the show, he’d just stick with some of the various grâtins and be done with it, but the place calls for gluttony and as a presenter he has to make sure viewers will be satisfied.
If the French can stomach as much in one sitting, so will he.
(Still, he’s thankful Kay’s not currently with him or he’d be sure to get an earful...)
The preliminary speech done in a single take, the first course comes quickly. Famous escargots, classic of the French to eat snails, so the occasion was too good to pass on.
Cassian already had some experience tasting snails in the French way, had enjoyed it so he thought he didn’t have to mask his facial expressions.
He was wrong.
The promised “Gros Escargots de Bourgogne” come in front of him and truth be told they look appealing enough. But what the heck is he supposed to make of the... unusual cutlery... that the waiter brought along? It looks more like a surgical instrument than anything Cassian has ever used.
This entrée should come with warnings, explanatory note and step by step tutorial included.
For a split second Cassian blinks owlishly at the camera then he recovers, a consummate professional. Should be easily enough, really, right? A circular plate with six stuffed snails in their shells... a tiny fork with two tines... and pliers of some kind? It has a spring with a round extremity, obviously meant to keep the shell in place while with the fork he’s supposed to stab what’s inside.
Alright, I’ve got it, he reflects after a few nano seconds of appraisal.
He doesn’t bother with explaining his course of action yet, focused on the task at hand while he states that the snails are cooked with a butter mixed with chopped garlic and parsley.
He looms over the snail closest to him, lift it slowly from his dedicated hole in the plate... but he hasn’t got the chance to use the fork. The damned thing escapes from the contraption and literally flies several feet away from his stunned face.
Nobody moves, not even Draven says cut, yet Cassian stares dumbly at the ruined snail on the floor, hidden two tables away from his. From the way Jyn angles the camera, he guesses she’s zooming on it too...
Fucking French!
It takes three tries for him to master the so called “pince à escargots” — to the utter delight of the crew around him, as they personally try some pâté de lapin à l’ancienne, saucisson sec or saucisson à l’ail and smelly cheese like Camembert or Roquefort.
By the time the Bœuf Bourguignon is served, he feels oddly proud to have won against the perfidy of posh Gastronomie, despite his bruised ego. Thankfully the beef stew is not as challenging, with a regular, universal and most of all reliable knife. Not that he really needs to cut anything, mind you: from what he knows of the process, the beef has macerated in red wine for hours to get this tender. The serving is pretty generous too, and it comes with boiled potatoes, mushrooms, onions and carrots. Thyme and laurel too, to perfume the whole.
He’s full when the four types of cheese come next but he explains the different milks each of them were made of. He actually has flash cards ready on his knees like a cheating schoolboy but their filming time turning short calls for desperate measures. At the dessert he struggles to get through. It’s delicious, it’s just that he reached the peak of his sugary intake. After a few spoonfuls immortalized on film, he hands the rest to Shara’s extended hands.
Overall, good stuff, really. Two glasses of red wine to complete the meal and footage aside, Cassian is more than satisfied with his Parisian trip.
They wrap it up, shake a few hands but take their time calling it a night. Paris is bewitching in the evening and the company is boisterous as they go along the shores of the Seine. Cassian uses it to his advantage, walking his meal off and doing his best to ignore the taunts made over the snail incident.
"I couldn't believe the famous Cassian Andor got bested by a snail. One that was already dead and cooked too," Jyn teases.
"Hey, I succeeded eventually, and it's not the snail as much as the tool that's to blame."
"Still, I thought you'd have more dexterity."
"Sorry to disappoint you, I'll do better next time."
It’s all in good sports really, but while Jyn snorts, Antilles sniggers and Luke stumbles, slamming against his back, blushing inexplicably. What has gotten into them? But she's still smiling as they drive back to the hotel and suddenly he doesn’t mind the French and their peculiarities so much. The production duo have still a decent amount of work before going to bed, but everyone else goes to sleep.
(Maybe Kes and Shara got MIA along the way but the contract doesn’t bind them to a curfew and Mothma turns a blind eye).
Cassian only wishes he had that much freedom as the so called star of the show. But it has been a long day and he would have nobody to share a nightly tryst. Cassian Andor is reasonable, professional and single to boot, so it doesn’t cost him much.
His dreams are fitful and slightly disturbing though. Jolting awake only five hours later, the only image that stays with him is of Jyn, replacing Nicole Kidman’s part in the Moulin Rouge! movie. She looked tantalizing in his subconscious and very not herself: less pragmatic and more eerily sexy.
He shakes the feeling away as he dresses himself. He has a long day ahead and can’t afford to fantasize about the only unattached woman in his crew. She’s a pretty thing and kinda mysterious too, but he is awake now and the dreamy bullshit has no incidence on his job.
He decides to tiptoe in the free area, seeking a cup of herbal tea. Whether mint or ginger should help with the food overload from the night before, surely such things could be found on the table set for self service?
He forgets all about beverages the instant he sees Jyn awake over an hotplate, her back to him. As her name stumbles from his lips, disbelieving, she stiffens visibly and spins slowly around.
Her voice is still sleepy and his annoyingly raspy as they greet each other. In November, the sun isn’t up so early and won’t be for quite some time, unfortunately and the bleached out white neon lights accentuate the exhaustion on her face. Very far from a dreamy cabaret dancer, his mind evaluates worriedly. Has she even slept? She’s dressed in her usual clothes already and ignores the elephant in the room as she asks why he too is already awake.
“I ate too much,” he answers.
“Well of course you did, not everyone can eat as much as the French do just before going to bed. Stomachache?”
“No, just energy of the calories pumping through my veins.”
“How do you plan to work it out then?”
He represses a smirk. With her velvet morning voice, it sounded a lot like an opening for innuendo. She realizes this a second too late and just purses her lips. They are not yet close enough to tease each other, so he throws her a lifeline and gestures to the food he interrupted.
“Isn’t it what you’re doing in the kitchen Jyn?”
“I wish. It’s just... I needed an outlet and I thought I’d best do something useful. Couldn’t wake my best friend.”
He wanted to ask her about what she needed an outlet for, yet people keep appearing and she visibly closes off. Obviously Cassian isn’t the only one awake as the self-service kitchen fills in slowly with the rest of the team. Fat chance, again. He sits, rubbing the back of his neck and mutters a hello.
“What’s the delicious smell I can sniff?” Luke asks, entering the room, nose upturned and honest to God sniffing the air like the human puppy he usually personifies.
“The bread and brioche won’t keep for much longer. So I’m making pain perdu,” Jyn answers, sending a fleeting smile in his direction.
“Lost bread,” Kes translates confusedly, eyeing the slices browning slowly browning in the pan, “what is lost about it?”
“Dunno, it’s just the name,” she sighs, repeating the process to make enough for everybody.
Or maybe the food isn’t the lost thing here, Cassian muses, she is, her tired eyes and forlorn attitude hinting as much. Then, realizing how stupid his thoughts are, he mentally slaps himself and hands the coffee pot to Wedge Antilles, who is blindly reaching for it, like a drowning man and a lifebelt, a junkie and his fix.
Seriously, besides Luke and himself, Cassian wonders how these people can do this work and NOT be morning people. Like, never ever. Kay has complained he had to put with them grumping and groaning until the clock reached 8 AM in the past, but at the time, he thought his friend was being his usual pessimistic self. But as he considers the bunch of sleepyheads around, he has to admit there was some truth to it.
When a plate arrives in front of him, with icing sugar or cinnamon for him to add on if he so wishes, he’s pleasantly surprised.
“You told me you didn’t how to cook,” he says, mildly accusatory.
He leaves the first slice bare, adds sugar on the second and cinnamon on the third, to have the full tasting range. As soon as he tries the first, the goodness dissolves on his tongue, creamy and buttery, the two variations making a perfect combination between sweetness and a tad spicy. He knows various ways to save stale bread, but somehow this tastes different. Besides them Luke was already helping himself with a second serving, grinning.
“Please, this isn't cooking Cassian,” Jyn shrugs. “I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve had this.”
“Not like that, though, this is unique. How did you do it?”
Most of all he wants to know what prompted her to fix this at six in the morning. But even if he had the nerve to ask, she likely wouldn’t answer. So, asking for her recipe was as close as he was willing to go.
“I made the slices my own way. More often than not people use eggs where I used milk. Once the slices suck up all the milk, getting slightly spongy again, I put them in a salt-buttered pan. Easy, not haute cuisine.”
Easy perhaps, but her wistful tone speaks of something more. He knows preparing food can reveal a lot about a person — hell, that was the reason he got enrolled in all this cooking stuff in the first place… — and… well, he remembers their stunt at the Lahmu Restaurant in London. Clearly her relationship to food is… personal.
God, why Kay isn’t here to smack the corniness out of his head?! He almost feels like using a pan on his own skull if that could just stop his brain from overanalyzing a mere breakfast plate.
He doesn’t even have time for this, with the shooting schedule they have to maintain. After all, he might envy other people’s low functioning brains, they are saved much trouble.
Draven announces their Parisian Interlude is over and satisfactory — praise the Lord for that — but he still has a surprise in store...
“A… bus?”
“Yes,” Draven confirms, ”we should be grateful, it’s fully furbished too, functional, and a bit cheaper.”
“Whatever spares us a flight,” Dameron says in relief.
“You don’t like flying?” Jyn asks, surprised.
“If I have to take hop on a plane, I will. It’s way quicker, after all. But yeah, if I have to choose, road’s better. Plus, we can build team spirit or whatever. It’d be like a school trip.”
“Oh yeah,” Luke cheers, absurdly enticed with the idea, “I’m sure our followers would dig that kind of thing, you know?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jyn shrugs, “I never went on school trips, or I was so young I don’t remember. It’s weird.”
“It’ll be a new experience for you then,” Cassian encourages.
“I guess, but why do you care so much?”
(Good question.)
“We’re all in the same train wreck, we gotta stick together.”
(What was that nonsense... for sure if Kay ever heard him talk like that, he would deck him so hard his face wouldn’t be filmed for weeks!)
They take the A1 highway up North, chatting, napping, playing on phones... and yes, to Draven’s utter dismay, there are stupid songs involved at some point. Dameron started, Cassian picked up, and soon everyone was at least humming along. Perhaps because the driver couldn’t take it anymore, they stop in a rest area about midway until they reach Lille, the northern city that ends the French episode. As if the crew’s sugary consumption weren’t already high, they picked sweets again, albeit regional:
Two metal boxes, one with some minty ones called the Bêtises de Cambrai and the other containing toffee-like Babeluttes du Nord, to have a foretaste of their next local cuisine.
If they’re still alive to document it because Cassian swears he’s gonna die of hyperglycemia before they reach Amsterdam!
They have just one day left to shoot in France when they arrive in Lille two hours later, but they make it work. The city, nicknamed “the capital of Flanders” is picturesque in a different way than Paris, of course, but just as pretty. Places with fountains, houses made of red bricks and old cobbled streets, it’s nice.
As they have little time to spare — yet again — the rushes get more hectic than in Paris. It’s much less representative after all.
The people there talk pretty funny, with words even Jyn has a hard time deciphering, but all are very accommodating and helpful. A few wave at the camera and suggest a dish to try. It’s much more easygoing and Cassian relaxes pretty soon.
Not wanting to spoil any Belgian discovery by choosing a dish similar to what can be offered further North, he decides to try « a Welsh ». Like its name implies, this is not originally a French recipe but it became one of the easiest specialty to eat in Lille:
It is a sandwich composed of bread soaked with beer, cheddar cheese and mustard, covered with a slice of ham, dipped into a cream of cheddar cheese, heated in the oven in a ramekin. Not the most elaborate of the establishment they picked’ but it works perfectly with their thematic for the French episode and their lack of time.
Indeed, La Chicorée (The Chicory) is a brasserie like the one in Paris. Except it’s actually an hundred-year-old brewery, not just for the fancy name, and it’s open pretty late, until 4:30 AM. They are told it’s renowned, too, and Cassian can believe that easily.
For dessert, because apparently the mad guys around him have an insane tolerance for sugary treats, or really want him to die on the job, they have some stuffed waffles with cassonade. This version is thin, thankfully, crunchy, though the garnish of vanilla and brown sugar is most likely rich.
“I hadn’t had those in ages,” Jyn says drowsily, waiting for the Lille-Amsterdam flight a while later. “I bought some for my best friend, but I’m not sure I’ll resist the temptation for long. I’ll have to send them to him.”
“Really? How come? It’s good, but it’s not like it’s so addicting,” Cassian asks, because he still feels curious — perhaps sleepy Jyn is more inclined to share anecdotes?
“Wrong, they are addicting. I loved them as a young girl. I’ve spent some time in France over the years, but none so much as northern France. We were British, after all, so crossing the Chanel was easy and Saw... I mean, I’d known an old lady, Louise, who did such waffles for me.”
Yep, oversharing, he thinks with a smile, and there she is talking about a Saw again. More like eluding but it’s more talk than he ever heard from her. The schedule must take its toll on her, same as anyone else.
"You’ve spent holidays in France then, growing up?"
"My guardian actually had a job in France for a time. He was stationed not so very far from here for about a year, before we moved again."
"So the wanderlust goes way back? It explains why you took on the travelling show."
"Maybe. Saw and I never stuck around for long anywhere, but I've been happy there, it brings good memories for once."
At her conflicted expression, he guesses such good memories are far in between. He recalls her enigmatic whisper from a few days ago and surmises she must have had a falling out with her guardian. Cassian doesn't pry further though when she doesn't elaborate, but he stores the information for later.
He’s almost snoozing when Draven — no human has the right to be this operative at 3AM... — hands him his phone, mouthing Kay’s name:
“Hello, Kay?”
“Cassian, did I wake you?”
“No, but that was close. Not everyone can be focused on the show 24/7, like Draven, or you. I feel like I’m slowly losing my soul to the cause.”
“Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear. And you’re as dedicated as the rest of us, you’re just being unusually whiny.”
“Well, you’re not here yet to keep me in check so I can be as petty as I want. I’ll feel better after we leave the country and get some sleep.”
“I’ve seen the first French rushes, actually, to see if they could be easily edited with ours. I have to say it’s fairly entertaining to witness your culinary struggles, Cassian. Especially the snail fetching.”
“Thanks a lot, Kay,”
“I’m serious, honestly it should make the final cut.”
“Did your illness kill your brain cells? What part of the first try should be included? The moment the snail flew across the room or the framing on my butt as I had to get on my knees under the table to retrieve it?”
“Well, I’ll leave it for Draven to decide,” his soon-to-be former friend replies wryly. “But just so you know, it could bring in more female viewers.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m realistic Cassian, you have a very nice bottom apparently and judging from the people’s enthusiastic reaction on social media, you’d better use it.”
“I... don’t even know what to say to that. Do you even hear yourself?”
“I’m referring to the show’s ratings, not your sex life Cassian Jerón Andor! You know what, we will speak later, once you’ve put your mind out of the gutter!”
“I love you too man,” Cassian smirks.
Only the dial answers him.
#rebelcaptain#food travel au#rebelcaptain food travel au#fanfiction#pingou writes#chapter 3#sorry I'm passionate about it#so proud#french#star wars#this gives me life#c'mon guys#love and reblog#pretty please#cassian x jyn#cassian andor#jyn erso
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Henry Danger Carnival/Fair Fic: Part 2
Dedicated to: @sunbeameyes @up-the-tube @youngbloodthekilljoy --thank you for all your great feedback. I'm positive this wouldn't have turned out so well (at least I wouldn't have liked it as much) if not for the motivation your kind words gave me! :)))
Summary: The gang--Ray, Schwoz, and the kids (Piper included)--spend the day and most of the night at the Swellview Fair.
A/N: Soooo, just describing two events took up a LOT more than I thought, so this fic is probablydefinitely gonna be more than the predicted 3 parts. Don't know if that's good or bad news, but....enjoy! xoxo
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The gang--Ray, Henry, Jasper, Charlotte, and Piper--arrived at Swellview Park where the annual fair was in full swing. They watched as people rushed in and out at a steady pace.
Ray parked the car next to a very familiar smart car, and everyone got out quickly, excited to be at the fair. It was a nice change from the usual job of crimefighting--apart from Piper who was just glad to have something to do, especially something she used to love as a kid.
The driver side door opened on the smart car, and a familiar face emerged from the tiny vehicle.
"Hello everybody!" Schwoz called out, a giant smile on his face. "Guess who finally got their colon checked!"
A chorus of groans sounded from the others in protest to Schwoz' tendency to over share.
"I really don't want to." Henry muttered with a look of disgust on his face. The others wore similar expressions.
"Yeah, Schwoz, no one wants to be talking about your inside parts." Ray complained.
Schwoz' face fell. He had been excited to finally get the procedure out of the way; he had been postponing it due to everyone else demanding he be at their immediate service, so it was a relief to be able to focus on his health for once. "Well, I'm sorry I'm excited about it. I've only been putting it off for months because of you people." He sniffed pathetically. "I could've died."
Ray rolled his eyes. "You weren't going to die."
"You don't know that!" Schwoz protested, eyes wide.
"Neither do you!" Ray countered. "You're not a doctor." Schwoz shrugged one shoulder, conceding the point, so Ray continued. "Okay, now that we're done talking colons, can we get to the fair please?"
"Yes," Henry said dramatically, "Please."
The others nodded in agreement.
"Alright, then, let's go." Ray lead the crew to the opening walkway of the fair, practically shaking with excitement now that he was this close to his candy apples--though talking about Schwoz' colon hadn't done much good for his appetite.
While everyone filed through to the fair grounds, Piper watched Schwoz with a vague sense that she had seen him before--and a slight bit of nausea considering he had greeted them with talk of his colon--but she couldn't imagine where. She couldn't think of a reason she would have had for coming into contact with someone like him. He did kind of remind her of the strange interpretative dance guy she had hired for her tea party...weird.
The fair was crowded--as was expected; it looked like the entirety of Swellview showed up for the event. Popular news anchors Trent Overunder and Mary Gaperman were in attendance as well, filming a segment sure to appear on the news later that day. Henry had a hard time convincing Ray not to make an appearance as Captain Man for the cameras; he knew it would attract the attention of everyone around and that Kid Danger would have to appear as well. Although the prospect of Swellview's own heroes enjoying the fair with the rest of the town's citizens would definitely gain positive publicity, all Henry wanted was to spend the day with his friends as Henry Hart--no Captain Man and no Kid Danger. He felt he deserved this day to be selfish, to be able to just be Henry, a regular citizen (Ray reluctantly agreed--a reminder of candy apples being no more than fifteen feet away helped persuade him).
Kids ran around gleefully, faces painted and fingers sticky from the cotton candy they clutched in their hands, giggling as they went. Sounds of excitement and frustration sounded from the many game booths as people won and some less fortunate lost. Various carnival music could be heard carrying through the air from all the different rides and attractions, and even screams of excitement--terror as well--could be heard from the more extreme rides nearby. A multitude of smells from the different food booths wafted through the air into one scent, creating that familiar--to most--carnival smell. Everything was so brightly colored and wonderfully lit. There was so much going on, but it was still enjoyable, not chaotic. The weather was beautiful--not a cloud in the sky--and everyone was in high spirits; it was impossible not to be affected by the carnival.
Genuine smiles made their way to the faces of the six who had only just arrived--Jasper's being the biggest.
Jasper was in complete awe at the sight of the fair. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. It's sheer size was breathtaking on its own. He didn't even think Swellview Park was big enough to host such an event, and yet here it was, in all its colorful, magical glory. He could see a giant ferris wheel--much like the one on his bucket, much to his delight--on the far side of the park, easily visible because it was incredibly tall. Closest to him were the food and game booths, all of them painted in bright colors and adorned with even brighter lights. Just past the booths, the rides began, and there was a wide variety. Super rollercoasters, kiddie rides, bumper cars, paddle boats, a carousel, a tilt-o-whirl--they were all there. It was all incredible, and Jasper couldn't wait to try everything. His only problem was what to do first.
Ray had no problem figuring that out for himself.
"Candy apples," he announced in a voice that said he was only thinking of one thing as they moved farther into the fair and the infamous candy apple booth appeared.
"Great," Charlotte sighed. She knew they all shouldn't go separate ways--it would be impossible to find everyone again in the mess of people--but Ray's mind was no longer functioning correctly. "I'll go watch him and make sure he doesn't do anything too...Ray."
Henry nodded. "Jasper and I will stick with Piper." He ignored the scowl on his sister's face and looked to Schwoz. "Take Schwoz with you."
Charlotte understood why Henry wanted Schwoz with her--it was better if Piper spent the least amount of time with him possible--and she pulled Schwoz after her, ignoring his protests and demands to go see the petting zoo.
Henry knew Charlotte would have her hands full with those two, but he would make sure to meet up with her later to provide some relief and to let her do what she wanted to do. "So," he turned to his sister and his best friend. "What do we do first?"
Jasper had been grinning from ear to ear the moment they arrived, and Henry didn't think he would stop. He of course didn't mind it. In fact, he liked it. It made Henry happy to see Jasper so excited because Henry knew Jasper's parents didn't take him to places like the fair when he was younger like Henry's parents had. Henry was saddened to think of all that Jasper had missed out on as a child that he himself had gotten to experience, so he vowed to make sure Jasper had the best day ever today. "I have no idea." Jasper breathed. "There's so much to do."
Piper, however, had no qualms with making a decision. "Bumper cars," she stated in a direct voice that left no room for questioning.
Henry was doubtful though. He had very distinct memories of Piper and the bumper cars from when he was a kid, and almost all of them were unpleasant. One year, Piper managed to cause a ten car pileup that only she managed to break free from, and a few kids got hurt, Henry being one of them. Six-year-old Piper rammed her car into the back of ten-year-old Henry's car, and the force sent his face slamming into the steering wheel of his car. To make matters worse, their dad was in the car with Piper. He obviously didn't help much seeing as how Piper caused the wreck with him present. Henry's nose was effectively broken, and the sight of his blood made most of the other kids freak out. They eventually had to close the ride to keep everyone from mass panic. Henry's day was ruined, but Piper was unfazed.Their parents banned the two of them from riding the bumper cars again after that. Henry didn't think it was fair that they both were included in the punishment considering he had been a mere victim to Piper's usual antics, but his parents didn't see it that way (Henry figured the real reason behind it was their fear that Piper would lash out if she were the only one punished), so Henry got a broken nose and a ban from bumoer cars at the same time. Henry's fear of riding in a car operated by Piper probably originated from those memories.
Henry rubbed his nose resentfully at the thought of that year. "I don't know, Piper, maybe bumper cars aren't such a good idea. Mom and Dad did ban them."
Piper knew what Henry was referring to, but she didn't see why that mattered now. She was like six when that happened. She was twelve now, and she had a license. "Relax, Henry. What Mom and Dad don't know won't hurt them." She could tell he was considering this, and she knew she had him now. "I have a license now, so it's just the other idiots you need to worry about."
"Again with the license," Henry sighed. "Do we really have to go through this a second time?"
"No," Piper said. Henry was surprised by her answer--but then she continued. "We're gonna go ride the bumper cars."
Henry looked to Jasper, but Jasper was thinking that bumper cars sounded like a good idea too. "Bumper cars sound cool." He shrugged.
Henry's gusto deflated knowing he was in the minority and wasn't going to win. "Alright," he caved. "Bumper cars it is."
They headed to a ticket booth to buy their tickets first. Jasper was ecstatic that his bucket proved to be of use. Piper had brought money for herself, but Henry wouldn't let her use it.
"I don't need you to buy anything for me." She grumbled. Her pride was slightly hurt; she didn't like to feel like she was in anyone's debt. She also wasn't sure how to handle Henry with all his niceness.
Henry only smiled. "I know, but I want to."
Truth was he wanted to make sure Piper enjoyed herself as much as possible as well. He hadn't been spending much time with his little sister lately with all his time spent at school and at work and being Kid Danger, and he felt bad about it. Piper was a handful, but Henry did have fond memories of the two of them together. He was responsible for her today, and that meant he was also responsible for making sure she had a good time. He figured he'd start by buying her tickets and whatever else she wanted from the fair so that she could spend her money on something fun for herself another day. He had a job, so he wasn't worried about spending money on his little sister. Piper made a big fuss about putting her money away and accepting Henry's offer, but she was actually grateful. Henry knew enough about his sister to be able to tell that she appreciated it whether she said so or not.
The made their way past multiple booths and various kiddie games until they made it to where the bumper cars were located.
Henry let out a shaky breath, wondering if this was a good idea. Yeah, Piper wasn't her six year old self anymore, but she still had a volatile temper and severe road rage. Maybe Mom and Dad were right to ban bumper cars. The point is literally to hit other people--with cars. Someone like Piper shouldn't be given that much power. But when he looked at Piper and Jasper and saw that they were acutally smiling at each other, he instantly dismissed any negative thoughts he had about it.
Maybe Piper was right. Maybe it wouldn't end bloody this time. He sincerely hoped--for his sake--that it didn't.
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Charlotte left the restroom and made her way back to the candy apple booth where she had left Schwoz and Ray. When she arrived, she found Ray sitting on the ground, apple cores and wooden sticks strewn around him. Schwoz was nowhere to be found. "Ray, how many apples have you eaten?" She gaped. "And where is Schwoz?"
Ray moaned in discomfort. "I don't know." He burped loudly, and Charlotte flinched in disgust. "All I know is that I started with twenty dollars in my hand, and now it's gone."
Charlotte looked at the sign above the booth that said that one apple was worth one dollar. "You ate twenty candy apples?" She gasped. Schwoz was making his way to them now with a cup in his hand. She looked to Schwoz accusingly. "You let him eat that many?"
Schwoz didn't look like he knew what she was talking about at first, but then he noticed the apple cores. He held his hands up in surrender. "What was I supposed to do?"
Charlotte made gave a sardonic laugh. "I don't know, stop him?"
"He can't stop me." Ray asserted. He tried to stand up from where he was sitting but thought better of it when his stomach gave a sickening jolt. "He wasn't even over here anyway. He was too busy buying shaved ice."
Schwoz smiled, holding his cup up proudly. "I got the red one." He stuck his tongue out to show that it was stained from the red dye of the sugar syrup.
Charlotte held her hand up to stop him. "Put your tongue away Schwoz." She turned back to Ray who was sitting on the ground. "You didn't answer my question. Did you or did you not eat twenty candy apples?"
"No," he insisted. "I ate ten candy apples." Charlotte raised a skeptical eyebrow, so he continued after a brief pause. "The other ten were caramel."
"Ray!" She scolded.
"What?" He cried defensively. "I've waited a whole year for these things. I think my actions were perfectly justified."
"Really?" She mused. "Well, now you're going to have to wait at least an hour before you can do anything else."
Ray gave a rude snort.
Charlotte returned it with a challenging look. "You don't believe me?"
"No."
"Ray, you can't ride a rollercoaster after eating that much sugar." She pressed, wondering how this man-child could possibly be her boss, how he could be a superhero.
Ray got to his feet shakily and had to hold onto the Schwoz to steady himself. He immediately let go once he was upright. "Maybe you can't, but I'm indestructible." He pointed a finger at himself. "That means I'm better than you. No rollercoaster is gonna make me sick." He started to walk in the direction of the nearest ride that he deemed extreme enough to prove his point, but it would've been a lot easier to take him seriously if he weren't swaying as he walked.
"I'm pretty sure that's not how being indestructible works, Ray!" Charlotte called after him, but it was in vain. He either didn't hear her, or he was ignoring her.
Either way, he made his way to the line for that ride that's a circle that spins, and people stand against the wall with no belts or harnesses as the g-force from the spinning of the circle keeps everyone in place. In other words, the worst possible thing to be on with a full stomach.
Charlotte knew what was about to happen, and it was going to involve a lot of puke. Great.
"Come on, Schwoz," Charlotte sighed, grabbing Schwoz' arm. "Let's go buy a bucket."
"Why?" Schwoz asked, eating the rest of his shaved ice.
"Because apples are about to go flying."
She hoped that wherever Henry and Jasper and Piper were, they were having a better time than she was.
----------
"Piper, stop hitting Jasper!" Henry yelled over the other kids in their bumper cars.
"No, he deserves it!" She called back, continuing her assualt.
She had Jasper stuck in a corner, and she was backing up far enough to drive forward and hit him. Poor Jasper was trying his hardest to get away from her, but he wasn't too good at operating the bumper cars and Piper wasn't giving him enough room to maneuver.
Henry tried to make his way over to Jasper to help him, but he had problems of his own. His came in the form of an eight-year-old freckly brat who spent way too much time with his foot on the gas pedal. This kid was as persistent as Piper; he purposefully sought Henry's car out and was hitting Henry hard enough to give him whiplash.
Henry was getting real tired of this little kid, and if he didn't stop now, there was going to be a bloody nose this year after all.
"Yeah, Piper, this is great. It's nothing like when we were kids." Henry muttered bitterly to himself, regretting his decision to lift the bumper car ban.
Freckles rammed into Henry another time, and Jasper sent Henry another pleading look as Piper hit him again too. Henry knew what he had to do, but he wasn't proud of it.
When Freckles backed up once more, preparing to hit Henry again, Henry accelerated instead, hitting the kid at an angle and sent his car flying into another one. Henry didn't even have time to appreciate the stunned look on the kid's face because the hit had caused a chain of hits to occur until the bumper car track was once again faced with a ten car pileup--this time with Henry to blame for it.
Henry looked around, confident that his handiwork would get the ride shut down without the need for a bloody anything, but then he was suddenly jerked forward, and because he wasn't prepared, his head went flying forward, his nose making the all too familiar contact with his steering wheel.
His face was numb all around his nose, and he felt little pricks of pain in his eyes that made tears form. Something warm trailed down from his nose to his upper lip.
Great. If only someone had seen this coming...
Henry turned around, hand holding his bleeding nose, to see who had hit him and found a kid who looked a lot like Freckles. Henry searched the track and found Freckles smirking at him before sending a salute to the kid who had just hit Henry. There's two of them. Wonderful.
A voice cut off the music that was playing over the intercom to announce that the ride was shut down and that everyone was to vacate immediately. Henry made his way to the exit--he actively avoided the Freckle Brothers--and accepted the tissues one of the ride operators was offering him with a polite thank you (he hoped they didn't know he had caused the shutdown). He found Jasper and Piper waiting for him on the fair grounds. Jasper looked shaken up--rightly--and Piper looked like she was still harboring some of that fury from before.
"Why did you do that?" Piper demanded, ignoring Henry's bleeding nose.
"Are you okay?" Jasper asked, obviously concerned.
Henry placed a hand on Jasper's arm to calm him and let him know that he was alright. "I'm fine, by the way," He snapped at Piper. "I had to do something. You were terrorizing Jasper!"
Piper made a face. "He deserved it."
"What did I do?" Jasper cried.
Piper glared at him. "You know what you did."
"No, I really don't."
"You cut me in line." She gritted out.
Henry almost fell over. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "That's why you were torturing him? Really? I had some bratty little kid and his jerk brother tag-teaming against me, and you were mad about losing your place in line?"
Piper shrugged. "You have your ways. I have mine."
"They broke my nose!" Henry was sure it wasn't broken, but he exaggerated for emphasis. It did really hurt--and he was mad about that--but it was more the principle of the thing. He knew something like this was going to happen, but Piper didn't want to listen.
Piper waved her hands in a gesture to calm Henry down. "Don't get your underwear in a twist. We'll go get shaved ice or something, and you can put yours on your nose."
Henry just shook his head, mouth agape, and Piper walked away in the direction of the food booths. Jasper gave him another concerned look, but Henry just nodded for them to follow Piper. His anger dissipated soon after they caught up with her though because Piper seemed to have calmed down; he heard her conferring with Jasper on what the accident Henry had caused looked like. Piper was even able to describe with incredible attention to detail Henry's face when the kid hit him, and that got a small laugh out of Henry.
They probably should've obeyed their parents ban on bumper cars, but in the end, they had had fun. That's what mattered. Besides, Henry's nose had stopped bleeding, so it really wasn't that bad after all. He had also really enjoyed giving Freckles a taste of his own medicine.
Henry wondered if Charlotte was having any luck with Ray and Schwoz. He hoped they avoided any nose bleeds or other injuries.
#damn#this one is looooong#it just barely made the cut#so i think this fic might end up being more than 3 chapters#but its fun and i love these kids so im down for it#this was mostly hen x char pov but thats gonna change#theres six ppl so ive got a lot to work with lol#henry is my fave to write though so hes gonna have to most air time#pls tell me what you think#henry danger fanfic#henry danger#henry hart#charlotte bolton#jasper dunlop#ray manchester#piper hart#schwoz schwartz#carnival#fair#au#fanfic#em writes
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SOUL
Jacqueline Perez
COM 105 Media and Society
FALL 2020
December 6, 2020
Blog post #5: Superhero Films: What should the future of this genre be?
SOUL
Alter ego: Shea Rincon J.D
Place of origin: The Bronx, New York
Abilities:
· Elite Level Marital Artist and hand to hand combat
· Master negotiation and persuasion skills
· Freak athlete
· Expert parkour practitioner
· Chess Grandmaster
· Gifted artist
Origin Story
Born on April 4th, 1974, SOUL’s secret identity is Shea Rincon. She is the founder of F.B.R. (Foundations Built Right). FBR is a nonprofit community group that provides opportunities in impoverished, lower socioeconomic, high crime neighborhoods in New York City. Born to a Haitian mother and a Puerto Rican father, Shea’s parents were community activist and renowned jazz musicians. They would actively participate in civil rights movements during the sixties and seventies. Unfortunately, due to the drug epidemic terrorizing New York City during the eighties, Shea’s parents fell victim to the devastating ripple sending its shock waves all throughout. Both her mother and father succumbed to drugs, by way of overdosing. This tragedy happening when Shea was just two years old, put her in custody of child protective services. She would bounce around foster care, residential programs, and group homes until the age of sixteen. At age eight, in 1982 The Bronx was filled with abandoned buildings and rubble from those very same buildings being burnt to the ground, you could easily find children at play in these buildings and surrounding rubble. In these buildings, she would develop and enhance her skills, jumping from floor to floor, roof top to roof top. This would help her tremendously with her love of graffiti. She would eventually take control of the paint can herself, tagging under the moniker of “SOUL 1”. During this time to get away from the constant shootings, robberies, gangs, and drug abuse, when she was not roaming around, doing graffiti or enhancing her parkour skills, she would constantly go to the library. Shea would become an avid reader and befriended an elderly man named Don Campos who taught her how to play chess, box, and educated her on life. During the day she would roam around practicing her art, parkour, playing chess for money and reading. In 1990 at 16 she became tired of her living circumstances within group homes and decided she would take control of her destiny and look after herself. She supported herself by going downtown to New York City parks and playing people at chess for money. She was able to rent out an apartment in a brownstone Don Campos owned. After about eight years of learning how to box from Don Campos, SOUL joined a martial arts gym to learn other fighting styles. From age eight to twenty-one, her life was constantly repeating the activities of chess, graffiti, training how to fight, and reading for hours upon hours. During a tragic home invasion, Don Campos, the only parental figure she ever truly acknowledged was murdered. The city’s homicide rate was at an all-time high, which hindered the police from ever finding the criminals behind the murder. Yet another tragedy, in the tragedy that was SOUL’s life. Becoming very cynical, SOUL went in search for the criminals. This pursuit forced her be tactful about how she was going to carry out this mission. She ultimately came up with a disguise to protect her identity. Along the way she had to gain information from gang members, drug dealers, and vicious people. She would search for active crimes, stop them, and question the criminals for information about the Don Campos murder. After obtaining the information she needed she would tie up the criminals, call the police and tag her moniker, “SOUL 1”. SOUL would go on to find the murders of Don Campos, bringing them to justice. This would be just the start of her crime fighting life, as she would actively go on to help solve crimes and stop criminals for many years to come. The name SOUL was well known throughout the city and praised by police groups and politicians.
Present Story
Standing at 5’9 and 150 pounds of pure muscle, SOUL continues to hone the skills that made her a hero in the first place. However, when she is not SOUL, she is just Shea. She operates non-profit F.B.R. (Foundations Built Right) and is well known for community activism and the mentorship she provides for the younger folk in the city. After solving the murder of her parental figure, Don Campos, SOUL went and got her G.E.D. She later went on to graduate from college, eventually attending Bronx Community College, New York University, and Colombia Law, all, respectively. This allowed her to actively advocate for the rights of people who cannot correctly advocate for themselves. When not fighting for the rights of others, SOUL is actively fighting crime and still tagging her moniker, “SOUL 1”. She uses this as a calling card and to warn others to lead a life away from crime. SOUL loves to spray beautiful murals all over the city, expressing thoughts on freedom, love, and peace. SOUL most resembles Batman from the DC UNIVERSE in this respect. Batman like SOUL were both orphans who possess no real superpowers like the ability to fly or teleport. They both possess the ability to work hard and use their environment to succeed. SOUL graduated from lower-level criminals, and currently fights criminal enterprises, and corrupt politicians. SOUL works in conjunction with the New York City Police Department and other federal departments, like the FBI and DEA to stop the flow of drugs coming into the city. This has presented incredible difficulty to SOUL’s plight. This due to the constant corruption within the city’s institutions. SOUL’s greatest challenge ever came from a woman named Throne Rayburn. Rayburn was mayor or New York City and appeared to support the same ideals that SOUL had. This was all an elaborate stunt however, as Rayburn was responsible for many corrupt and shady practices going on in the city behind the scenes and out of the public view. Mayor Rayburn also had a personal vengeance to destroy SOUL’s public image. This is because SOUL posed a threat to Mayor Rayburn’s success. SOUL eventually uncovered a mind-blowing scandal involving cartels, and other nations, working with Rayburn to bring in drugs. SOUL worked diligently to stop the flow of incoming drugs, going as far as going to the countries where the drugs were and getting rid of criminals responsible. Soon through, SOUL realized that this feat was bigger than what she would be able to handle on her own and with just capturing criminals. SOUL would go on to ask a Dave Hand, a journalist for help in showing Mayor Rayburns true nature. She would consistently supply Hand with information about the corruption of Mayor Rayburn. Unfortunately, Hand betrayed SOUL and found her identity. Hand would go on to expose this to Mayor Rayburn, later killed Hand so that he would not reveal SOUL’s identity to the greater public. At this point Rayburn had all the firepower she needed to make SOUL’s life miserable by means of politics. First, she was able to frame SOUL by getting her disbarred as a lawyer, framing her for the misuse of funds for her non-profit. Rayburn then proceeded to use criminals to burn down all of SOUL’s community F.B.R. locations. SOUL being of tenacious spirit and character realized that she needed to leave the city to escape constant police investigations and news articles assassinating her character by leaving the city. She flew to her biological mother’s home country, Haiti, and spent time there to figure what her next move would have to be. During this whole time, Mayor Rayburn continued to increase the flow of drugs and corruption, knowing that SOUL was out of the picture. Meanwhile, the whole of New York City was asking where is SOUL? The time away from New York, was much needed for SOUL. She was able to gather her thoughts and connect with her roots. She visited many important revolutionary sites in Haiti and became inspired again for fighting the fight against evil and wrongdoing. She realized the only way she could beat Mayor Rayburn was by revealing her identity and to tell her story to the FBI and the public. The last thing Mayor Rayburn would ever expect SOUL to do. SOUL told a federal agent she trusted by the name of Richard Gomez, her story and about how she wants the public to know who she is. Agent Gomez advised against this, but SOUL reiterated that it would not matter because if she did not reveal who she was, Mayor Rayburn would surely do so. Agent Gomez and SOUL agreed that they would conduct an investigation and use SOUL as a key witness in bringing down Rayburn. For the time being Agent Gomez told SOUL to stay in Haiti. After a year of investigating, the FBI indicted Rayburn on counts of murder, conspiracy, and drug trafficking. The star witness was SOUL, who was able to reveal her story to the public. Throne Rayburn quickly accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to only 10 years in federal prison if she agreed to cooperate and be a witness.
Future
The indictment and testimony of Throne Rayburn changed the landscape of the city. The city instantly became a much more peaceful and safer place. Not 100%, but a substantial changed was made. SOUL was celebrated and casted into the national spotlight as a heroine. She avoided the spotlight and moved back to Haiti. A statue sits in the middle of Central Park as a commemoration for all that she had done for the city. The CUNY Law School was renamed The Shea “Soul” Rincon Law School. She inspired many and sacrificed so much to make the city a better place to live for others. She donates all the money her organization receives and continues to receive to lower socioeconomic locations all over the world. She is considered to be a true civic leader and inspires so many.
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Epic Movie (Re)Watch #221 - Zombieland
Spoilers Below
Have I seen it before: Yes
Did I like it then: Yes.
Do I remember it: Yes.
Did I see it in theaters: No.
Format: Blu-ray
1) The prologue.
We are immediately given a sense of Columbus’ voice in the prologue, which is important because he narrates the entire film. From the beginning we get a strong sense of not only who Columbus is but the rules by which this film operates (in a literal sense, as Columbus lists his rules for surprising Zombieland). We get all the backstory we need: we’re dealing with fast zombies, world on the brink (or post) apocalypse, etc. It all works as a strong setup to a great film.
2) According to IMDb:
[Rhett Reese] the co-writer of the film plays the man in the white tuxedo with an assault rifle in the opening credits.
3) Columbus as the gas station.
(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)
We have been introduced to Columbus’ rules for surviving Zombieland (cardio, beware bathrooms, seat belts, etc.) but this is where we first really see them in action. Whenever a horror comedy is made it is easy to go low on one of those elements in favor of the other. The comedy has been established by Columbus’ voice but now we see that this film CAN be scary. There is genuine suspense on the scene as we practically wait (like Columbus does) to see if there will be a zombie attack. Not to mention they get in a good jump scare or too.
4) Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus.
As mentioned above, Columbus is our film’s main character. He’s the one we get to know best throughout his narration. That means he cannot - under any circumstances - be boring (or else the film will be too). And although Eisenberg’s performance may not differ TOO greatly from some of his other work, that’s largely because it does support the character. Columbus is interesting, developed, funny, and sometimes tragic. We get a sense of his fears (of which there are MANY) and how they can define him, but we also see him grow to face those fears for those he cares about. All of the characters are developed wonderfully in this film and Columbus is no exception.
5) Story is conflict, conflict is interesting. The two parts of the main bromance meet when they’re pointing their guns at each other. That just DRIPS with conflict and speaks to the wonderful heart of their relationship.
6) Woody Harrelson as Tallahassee.
From the very first moment Tallahassee shows up on screen you know he’s special. He just LOOKS badass and Harrelson ends up stealing every single scene of the movie. Tallahassee is largely enigmatic, but we do get to know him as the film goes on.
Columbus [seeing a zombie eat a corpse]: “I mean it makes you -”
Tallahassee: “Hungry.”
Columbus: “I’m worried about you.”
He’s developed throughout. You understand how much he fucking hates zombies and later you understand why. Sometimes when you reveal more about an enigmatic character they lose what makes them interesting (see: Jack Sparrow). But not with Tallahassee. I think this is a testament to Harrelson and the filmmakers for making him strong throughout.
7) This could really be a note thrown in while talking about Tallahassee, but I think it deserves its own recognition. The fact that such a notable part of this movie is Tallahassee looking for Twinkies gives the film two things: a strong through line and a unique character detail. Columbus’ analysis of why Tallahassee feels so strongly about this, about how it makes him remember a time when things were normal, also gives it heart. It’s not a joke just to be funny, there’s a reason behind it. I love that.
(GIF originally posted by @themarvsthompson)
8) I’m so tired of this idea that if you’re a guy who still has his virginity you’re some kind of loser. Like, fuck that shit.
Columbus [explaining how he was kind of a dweeb before zombies]: “Virginity: totally justifiable to speculate on.”
9) Amber Heard as 406.
There’s a pretty good chance that this is the only film I’ve seen Amber Heard in (that’ll probably change when Justice League comes out) and while it may not be exactly the part of the year, Heard really commits to it. In her human form you are able to invest in 406 really quickly, as Heard plays her fear and panic totally believable. But the actress also plays the part as a zombie which requires a unique physicality that not everyone can master. 406 as a zombie is freaking great though, with Heard bringing that unique movement to the character while also being really fucking scary. I dig it.
10) There are so many small jokes in this film I love I couldn’t possible list them all.
Tallahassee [about a zombie free place]: “It's all just nonsense. You know, you're like a penguin on the North Pole who hears the South Pole is really nice this time of the year.”
Columbus: “There are no penguins on the North Pole.”
[Beat.]
Tallahassee: “You wanna feel how hard I can punch?”
11) The scene with Columbus and Tallahassee in the grocery store shows off one of this film’s best qualities: it has fun with its zombie violence. It’s over the top and crazy making all the zombie killing just wildly fun.
12) The con Little Rock and Wichita run on the two guys is so interesting. For one thing actresses Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin are so good I’m 100% riveted by both performances. They give it their all even though it’s fake, even though they’re conning them. And the fact that it is a con, that twist to the scene, speaks to who they both are as characters.
Wichita: “Better you make the mistake of trusting us then we make the mistake of trusting you.”
Their trust issues with everyone but each other is great. The relationship these sisters have is developed wonderfully, defined by their interaction during the following car ride. We understand how this relationship works and the love they have for each other in NO TIME.
13) “Zombie Kill of the Week” discussion.
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Take a look at that scene, take a look at that production design. The film never calls attention to it but you 100% understand what has happened just by looking at it. The tanks, the banners, the propaganda posters, all speak greatly to the world we are currently in. Juxtaposing that against the sheer irrelevance of the conversation Tallahassee and Columbus are having about killing zombies is a perfect representation of the film. Incredible humor against a bleak landscape. (Note: the first half of the scene is not featured in this video, the one where they’re talking about zombie kills of the week. Just so you know.)
14) Abigail Breslin as Little Rock.
None of the main four characters in this film are weak, meaning Breslin is able to hold up against her cast members (including and especially veteran Woody Harrelson). There’s this sense of sarcastic humor, almost jadedness, and charisma that Breslin breathes into every scene. She’s basically twelve year old Han Solo fighting zombies. I love that.
15) I relate to Columbus in this moment.
Columbus [after Wichita highjacks his car and points a gun at him]: “I kinda like this girl.”
16) There are occasional flashbacks to life BEFORE zombies which could’ve really messed with the film (especially considering it’s less than 90 minutes), but they’re put in good spots and improve on the movie’s human element (which is incredibly important and I’ll speak more on soon).
17) Emma Stone as Wichita.
I love Emma Stone. I’d watch Emma Stone read the phonebook as a film. So I’m not exactly unbiased here, but I freaking love her as Wichita. The character is wonderfully layered, with trust issues being a defining trait but so is her love for Little Rock. The more she lets those issues go, the more she trusts Columbus and quits keeping him and Tallahassee at bay, the more fun we get to have the character/the more invested I am. But again, I’m hardly unbiased.
18)
Wichita [about Columbus, Ohio]: “It’s a total ghost town, it’s burned to the ground.”
The fact that this packs as much of a punch as it does speaks greatly to a really important part of this movie: it’s human element. In a movie called Zombieland there are probably more scenes without zombies than there are with them. Except you don’t notice this, you’re not bothered by it, and that’s because this movie isn’t about the zombies. It’s about the people living in Zombieland, living this world with zombies in it. We don’t spend as much time developing the zombies or the mythos there as much as we do getting into the characters who we are traveling with. Through trashing the roadside shop, through their time together, through their car ride conversations, through all of it. And it is done in an incredible way that just keeps getting stronger the longer the film goes.
Columbus [about Little Rock]: “It’s tough growing up in Zombieland.”
Wichita: “It’s tough growing up.”
19) Okay, the entire idea with “Zombie Kill of the Week” is a holdover for when this script was going to be a TV show. And it’s one of the best gags in the film.
youtube
20) I love the following car scene. If I could find a clip of it I would post it here, but it’s a bunch of little moments cut together which are so great (including a scene where Little Rock explains “Hannah Montana” to Tallahassee in an improvised moment). It’s one of my favorite moments in the film and I wish there was a clip of it online.
21) Bill. Fucking. Murray.
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The video is not the best quality but it’s the only one I could find with the whole scene.
Okay, the first time I saw this was in 2012. I hadn’t laughed in movies a lot since then, it had kind of died out of me. This scene busted my gut and has me laughing like crazy still to this day. The best fucking scene in the whole film it is just pure, unbridled fun! Murray fucking shines! And the way it ends!? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I can’t explain it in justice. Watch it. Watch it now.
22) When we learn the truth about Buck (that he’s Tallahassee’s son who was killed by zombies, not his dog), the fact that this film is a human story is clearer than ever. It’s this one scene, this one revelation, which catapults it from good to great. Before it was a really funny zombie comedy movie and now its something else entirely. It’s so much more human and relatable. I just really love the thought the filmmakers put into that.
(GIF source unknown [if this GIF is yours please let me know].)
23) One of my favorite pairings in this film is one which doesn’t get a lot of screen time and that’s Tallahassee and Little Rock. There’s this close to parental bond (more like uncle or older brother) they have and it comes through very nicely in the scene where Tallahassee shows Little Rock how to shoot.
24) Columbus and Wichita’s nightcap.
This is a great moment of vulnerability and honest connection between the pair. The fact that the film spends a couple minutes just going over their respective 1997’s means we get to know even MORE about them in an interesting way. As the audience we are treated to so much rich character information and development in not a long runtime and this scene shows that off beautifully.
25) I thought of this as Little Rock and Wichita get to the rumored Zombie-free-zone of Pacific Playland: the external goal in the movie is the amusement park, but that’s not what they’re looking for. What they’re looking for - what everyone is looking for - is something they had before the zombies. Columbus was looking for his family, Tallahassee is searching for Twinkies, and the sisters are looking for just a little fun that kids get to have. There all looking for a little bit of normalcy where they get to just be PEOPLE who can relax a little, something they end up finding in each other.
26) The extended climax of this film works for a few reasons. For one thing: Little Rock and Wichita being stuck on the drop ride creates a great amount of tension. The suspense and sense of risk is present throughout in scenes like the haunted house and Tallahassee in the prize cage (supported by slow-motion). That, and the zombie killing is as kickass as ever.
27) I haven’t really talked about this before but I like how this film is able to make their zombies a little unique in design. They’re not carbon copies of Romero zombies or 2005 Dawn of the Dead zombies, they’re their own thing.
28) This is Columbus’ climax.
Columbus [trying to save Wichita, stopped by a zombie clown (he hates clowns)]: “Of course, it had to be a clown. No, it HAD to be a clown. And it had to be Wichita for me to finally understand that some rules are made to be broken.”
He disregards his rules (specifically, “Don’t be a hero,”) in order to just do the right thing. To live for someone else for once. I dig it.
29) I always say you can tell a climax works because once its over all the tension in your body just vanishes. That is true for this film, once the zombie clown is dead.
30) Wichita’s real name - Krysta - is actually the name of Emma Stone’s mother in real life.
31) TALLAHASSEE GETS HIS FUCKING TWINKIE!
32) There are few films which are able to include their message in dialogue without being cheesy as all hell. This film is one of them.
Columbus: “And without other people, well you might as well be a zombie.”
33) And, if you stay after the credits…
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Zombieland is a freaking classic. Holy crap, I love this movie. It’s tight, funny as hell, and the decision to tell a human story above all else gives it an amazing beating heart. All four the main cast members are through the roof incredible, it’s got Bill Murray in it AS Bill Murray, I just really fucking love it. One of my favorite films of all time. Go watch it, it’s not that long.
#Zombieland#Emma Stone#Jesse Eisenberg#Woody Harrelson#Abigail Breslin#Bill Murray#The More You Know#Amber Heard#Epic Movie (Re)Watch#Movie#Film#GIF
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