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atlas-of-a-human-soul · 3 years

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Broken Trust, pt.4

Part one // Part two // Part three

Summary: Time passes, but certain things don’t change. In light of their emotions, both make a choice that will inevitably lead them to one another - for better or worse.

Warnings: angst (my apologies), fluff sprinkled on top

a/n - It’s likely the last one before the finale, so settle in and get some tissues.

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Y/N swore she’ll never be so stupid, so naïve, so helpless ever again when she left the orphanage. She swore she’d be stronger, for herself and Mal, yet she found herself in the very same position.

Mal returned to her side, alive unlike what she believed. In a way, Aleksander couldn’t take away the one person she had left and a small part of her loved him more because of it. Mal wrapped his arms around her, aware nothing he says would do them any good as she began to cry. She didn’t want to, she didn’t want anyone to see her weakness for the man she’s supposed to hate. She couldn’t help it, though. She felt utterly alone and helpless. She felt like her mind and heart are breaking into two – one meant to love Aleksander and the other meant for hate.

Her screams echoed long into the night, filled with raging despair and the sorrowful betrayal she had been a victim of. After all, it’s those we love who hurt us most and she didn’t break quietly. It felt like every atom of her being screamed in unison, traumatized by all the things she kept inside since she was a child. She thought she was safe with Aleksander, that she could entrust her heart and soul to him. And she could, but she’d have to sacrifice who she is in return and she caught herself wishing she could. Y/N wished she could shed that part of herself that saw the world as black and white, to see it in the same shade of grey Aleksander did, but she couldn’t.

When the wracking sobs passed, she cried in such a desolate way that Mal couldn’t bear to listen for long.

“We need to go”, Mal whispered, looking around anxiously. They’ve stayed for too long, her cries have been too loud. He could feel it in his bones, if they didn’t leave, something sinister would happen. “Please, Y/N.”

Mal attempts to help her up, but she sinks to her knees. Her entire body is trembling, inconsolable. Y/N found herself robbed of her ability to love and trust, not only others but herself for her heart had lied to her mind who trusted the muscle blindly. It’s much more painful than a simple betrayal – she would have taken a dagger to the heart much kinder than what he had done to her.

And she hated him with burning passion for leaving now. If he persisted, she wasn’t certain if she’d be capable of resisting him much longer. But he left. He told her he loves her, her told her he would be kind to her and then he left her for trying to save his soul.

“If we do not leave now, we will be killed!” Mal raises his voice and she flinches, snapping out of her thoughts. She stands, her tears glistening in the faint light of the moonlight above them. Nodding, she walks with Mal, refusing to wipe the tears away.

She might not be like Aleksander, she might not share his darkness, but she is too proud to surrender, too proud to bend, too proud to lose. If he wants to make war instead of love, she’ll give it to him.

“How do I look?” Y/N raised her eyebrows, hands on her hips as she twirled.

Her cheeky smile acted like a wrecking ball for the wall the Darkling erected long ago, meant to keep the light out. He cultivated his darkness, convinced it would give him all his heart desires, yet the sight of Y/N struggling to stand with his kefta engulfing her the same his arms would if they embraced, it had rendered him speechless.

Y/N’s smile falters in the silence, her eyebrows furrowing as a frown crinkles her forehead. “Should I not have done this?”

The disappointment in her voice forced Aleksander to act, shaking his head while sending her a disarming smile.

"No, it's fine. I just didn't expect you to wear my clothes."

On any given day, she’d be blushing at the sight of his smile. His smile had healing properties as far she was concerned, but today wasn’t an ordinary day and her nerves made her particularly sensitive. Pursing her lips, she attempts to fold her arms with the extra fabric making it much harder, while casting her gaze to the ground. “You don’t like it.”

Raising his eyebrows, his smile grows. He comes closer, placing his index finger under her chin to tilt her head, properly meeting her gaze. "On the contrary", he speaks slowly and clearly, "I find you irresistible."

If she didn’t know any better, Y/N would have guessed he was the Sun Summoner with the way his glowing smile set her alight.

Licking her lips drew his attention, his eyes flickering down momentarily. It seemed like such an innocent moment, but it was enough to make her hands shake in anticipation.

Sighing, Y/N forces her eyes open. While she kept Aleksander out of her mind during the day, the nights favored his memory. It had been an almost that came to her dream, their almost first kiss when she had been in Little palace for a full month – she remembers because he made the dinner all about her presence.

No matter how hard she tried to let it go – to let him go, she always found herself clutching her chest in the morning. She wondered if she ever crossed his mind, almost a year since they’ve parted. Does his heart ache the same? Is that why she had hardly heard anything of him?

Her mind conjured up the worst, most painful explanations in the lonely nights. She wondered if he ever truly loved her and if he had, where had the love gone?

Can a person just stop loving someone? Did Aleksander Morozova finally stop loving her?

She wanted to stop loving him, but she couldn’t. She found herself making up excuses in his place to cover up the mistakes he’s made. In this distance that was freezing her soul and collapsing her heart, Y/N’s sole wish was to meet with her darling Darkling again. But she couldn’t travel to Little palace with the knowledge that he likely didn’t want her there or that he’d still further his plans despite her wishes. She’d have been by his side if he truly wanted her with him.

If he loved her enough, he wouldn’t have deceived her.

If he loved her enough, he would have helped her destroy the fold.

If he loved her enough, he would be here to reassure her instead of letting her question everything.

“I can do this”, she whispered under her breath, reassuring herself. She spent so many months trying to conjure up enough light and maintain enough control for it to seem Aleksander wasn’t wrong about her.

She wanted to make him proud, to draw him in with her light ever since he named her Sunshine. It’s silly, but the endearing name passing his lips made her insides quiver and she was prepared to do anything to hear it again. After all, if she does spectacularly well during an evening where she’s the main attraction, she was certain he’d see her as the only woman in the world.

Yet, as she makes her first few steps into the room, Y/N realizes she was wrong. She hasn’t done anything yet, but his eyes are chained to her regardless. The way he’s looking at her now makes her feel as if she is the only woman in the world that matters.

She saw his chest rise as he drew breath, then he was coming toward her, moving with his usual predatory grace and the intimidating flare. She wasn’t sure which she found more unnerving the intimidating Darkling or the graceful General.

"We are matching", she presses her lips to suppress an excited smile creeping up on her. She didn't expect his kefta to match hers despite his request to wear it. For Y/N, it felt strangely intimate, but she welcomed intimacy as long as it was with him.

“You look stunning”, he breathes out, a handsome smile appearing on his lips as he holds out his hand for her to take.

She doesn’t hesitate, awestruck by the twinkle in his dark eyes.

“They tell me you refused the gloves”, he raises his eyebrows.

Lifting her shin up, she smirks, “Have faith in me.”

Leaning in, Aleksander’s nose brushes her earlobe, “I never said I don’t.”

Helping her up on the stage, Aleksander stepped before her. She could hardly focus on his words, staring at his broad shoulders as they entirely shielded her from curious glances. He eclipsed her long enough for nerves to subside and she was grateful.

“You still think you’re ready?” Mal settles beside her, lips pressed as he looks at her disheveled state.

Clearing her throat, she nods, “I’ve never been stronger.”

“I know, but if you need more time –“, Mal begins, but Y/N’s irritated glare shut him up.

“We head to the fold today.” Taking a sip of her water, Y/N stands, intent on going into the woods.

“You love him”, Mal’s words stop Y/N in her tracks. “I know you do. It’s why you suffer so much in his absence.“

Swallowing thickly, she exhales through her nose to stop herself from saying anything she might regret. There’s a reason she refused to speak about Aleksander with Mal, with anyone if she could help it. Other than occasionally asking around if he’s been seen, Y/N had kept him out of her mouth. Mal couldn’t understand her feelings, he never would. She knew it to be true.

Aleksander is still an active heartache she couldn’t heal with time nor practice. Truth be told, she wanted him with her all the time. She wanted him there to cuddle when she’s on the brink of breaking, for him to whisper sweet nothings in her ear and remind her she’s loved. She wanted him there when she bathes to splash water in each other’s faces like children, to hear him gasping for air when he laughs so freely like nothing had ever gone wrong between them.

She is his. Despite the way things started, she was truly his and no amount of denial will ever change that. Unable to form words, Y/N closed her eyes as her face contorted. Her lips pressed together to hold in a sob and her head hurt from all the pressure building up in her attempt to stop herself from falling apart. But she couldn’t. There were no walls left inside her to hold the hurt encased from her mind any longer. She was shattering after nearly a year and a half of being strong – silent as she missed him, as she loved him, as she defended him from herself.

Meanwhile, in Little palace, Aleksander sat in her old room with her blue kefta in hand. He brings it up to his face, inhaling the faded scent in hope of remembering the warmth mere traces of her scent could evoke. He missed the smell of her hair when he buried his face in her neck, the gentle touch of her skin, the sweetness of her lips.

"May I ask for a dance?” He asked her with a half-smile, surprised she seemed reluctant to take his hand after her demonstration. “I won't bite”, he winks, making her roll her eyes and giggle simultaneously.

“I can hardly dance”, she admits, nibbling on her lower lip mercilessly.

Taking her hand with his right hand, he brought her closer with his left hand on her hip. She gasps, caught off guard as she looks at him with amusement.

He raises an eyebrow, suppressing a chuckle as he begins to sway her from side to side.

"When I first saw you, I couldn't get over how breathtakingly beautiful you are.” Aleksander tells her, the softest smile adorning his lips and she wished she could just reach out and touch them to see if they feel just as soft as they look. “I tried to stop you from leaving because I was bewitched by you, but then your light came out and I couldn't believe how lucky I was."

Inhaling sharply, she stared at him with lips parted in uncertainty. “So you’d say you care for me?”

Sighing heavily, Aleksander leaned his forehead on his palms, realizing not much work would be done as her face is all he thinks of, all he sees. The night he walked away, he finally saw what his love had brought her – pain and suffering. He took all she was and picked her soul apart until she was left void of love, of hate, of all emotion. After so many lifetimes, the Saints answered his prayers and sent him a dream encased in a good woman, to love and to care for and he had ruined her.

Loneliness was a punishment too kind for his awful actions.

He thought what would have happened if he had given her the truth before – had he told her what he knew, but also what he kept from her. Maybe she’d understand, maybe she would have stayed. Would their bond grow stronger?

It couldn’t be worse than it is now.

That’s his fault as well.

Pressing his lips together, Aleksander closed his eyes for a moment. “I’d say you’re the light of my life and I never want to see it dim.”

Dipping her, his lips pause at her throat and he could feel the exact moment her breath halted, caught right below his lips. He could feel her quiver, gripping his arm strongly but not out of fear of being dropped, but from a need to be closer.

Bringing her upright, he had no more desire to remain among the people where every action is judged, controversial. He wanted to take her somewhere where he could just be Aleksander, more than the Darkling they branded him as.

“Want to go somewhere more private?” She tilts her head ever so slightly to glance at the grand entry door, waiting for his response. He couldn’t believe how easily she read his mind.

Instead of speaking, he simply pulls her toward the door, feeling as if he had been given a chance to do what he never thought was possible – live. To live and possibly love.

Once they entered his room, closest to them from the reception, Aleksander stopped. He turns to her with a smirk, his hand still holding onto hers. His fingers curl around it gently, encasing it. Slowly, he brings the hand up to his lips, leaving a feather light kiss on her wrist while her cheeks darkened.

Y/N couldn’t ignore the smile upon his lips. Smiles are supposed to be soft and inviting, but his is charming and deadly. She knew he had captured her heart and no matter what she does, he’s rooted deep inside her. He’ll always run through her veins, even if they part.

Problem is, she didn’t mind it. Not at all.

She could feel her lips tingle, parting in need. All she wants is to press her lips against his, close her eyes and take him in. She didn’t care about her previously established beliefs, she’d burn them all down for a single kiss. Barely holding onto who she was before she met her sweet Darkling, Y/N cups his cheek.

His eyes are alight with desire and craving he’s been suppressing for a long time, intoxicating her, captivating her.

Her hand moves to the back of his neck, pulling him down and he complies. His forehead rests on Y/N’s, the tip of his nose brushing hers while her fingertips grasp at the short hair at the back of his head. He’s breathing heavily, his eyes closing, so she allows herself the comfort of closing her own while bridging the distance between them.

She presses her lips firmly onto his and the world melts away. His hand clasps gently into the back of her hair, pressing in softly. His lips are softness, passion, the promise of the sweetness to come.

Pulling back for a air, she hears the breathless chuckle accompanying his dashing smile.

“That was a perfect kiss”, she pecks his lips once more and he feels his heart stop. At a loss for words, he blinks a couple of times, seeing her lips curve into a small smile.

“Don’t go shy on me now, Sunshine.”

Aleksander remembered how they made love that night, leisurely, savoring each other’s bodies until their passion mounted. He thought about all the times she had given herself to him willingly and yet it felt like he was the one who gave her small pieces of himself each time. He loved not knowing what to expect with her for she was never the same twice. One time she would be quiet and sensual, the next aggressive and demanding. At other times she would be laughing and teasing. But no matter how she was, he loved loving her. Even the thought of touching her excited him.

She drove him mad, but she also showed him what it means to love someone. She could have killed him at any given moment had it been her true desire, just as he could have done the same to her and yet he couldn’t. Even thinking about someone hurting her upsets him.

Y/N could have stayed or killed him, he’d be fine with either way. At least then he wouldn’t suffer alone. She let him go so easily that he couldn’t help but think her love was never his. He wished he didn’t resent her for it, because a part of him wished she’d let him go long before, he wished for her to go far away from him where she’d be happier.

In his eyes swam ghosts of regrets and self-loathing, for he could have done a lot of things much better, made her life much easier. He could have been a better choice for her, a happy ending she’s deserving of. But he had already messed everything up and it is easier to have her see him as the bad guy.

She’d let him go easier.

“General?” Ivan paused in the doorway, aware no one’s allowed in Y/N’s room and he valued his life greatly, far too much to dare take another step.

Swallowing thickly, Aleksander remained on the bed while the Darkling rose to his feet. He had been planning for too long, hiding away from what needs to be done. It was time to act and the Darkling’s mind is made up.

“We’re heading to the fold today.”

PART 5

#the darkling x reader #the darkling #aleksander morozova #general kirigan #shadow and bone #aleksander x reader

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ncitygirls · 3 years

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eternal - jaemin x f reader

fluff, smut, vampire!jaemin, 2.2k

he had yet to utter a word since his confession, and neither had you, though you had tried piecing together a worthy response. he simply watched you as you watched him, your eyes focusing on each delicate ridge in his skin, admiring his nonexistent pores; how the thin slithers of light that broke through the poorly drawn curtain, shone on a bend from the ends of his bangs down and around his chin. a kind reminder of what you swear you have always known, but regret to have never questioned.

“jaemin?”

“my love?”

“have you always been this beautiful?’

he had to admit he was taken back. those are the first words you have said in a long while. they are your first words since he told you three minutes and twenty-five seconds ago - he was counting, not actively, but over time his mind has created room for his thinking to expand, to surpass humanity’s understanding of thought, and most times he welcomes it. but not at times such as these - where he knows he told you three minutes and twenty-five seconds ago, and your first words are in awe of him.

“i told you i am undead.. and that is what troubles you?”

“your beauty is far from troubling,” you retort, eyes still inspecting his face. jaemin’s mind wanders back to when he once pitied humans. how they thought what they saw was really seeing. victims of an already limited life, the human eye is only able to pick up a fraction of their sublime reality. yet the way your eyes traverse each of his features, as if to commit them to memory, he surely found a compelling reason to admit their eyes were not so lacking. “was it the bite that made you so handsome?”

“i wasn’t bitten,” he corrects, as the pads of your thumbs sweep over his cold knuckles, your touch casting a reverence over the scene. he lets out a pretty laugh at your assumption, the soft crease between your brows forming as he destroys your fictional understanding of his kind. “humans have always had a skewed understanding of our lore.”

“so your mother and father were vampires?”

“no.” it has been some time since he has had to explain vampiric lore to a human, but his mind retains his memory of it all the same. “it is not dissimilar to what humans call possession? or a spell? it is a combination of the two.”

“did it hurt?”

jaemin cannot help but melt at the notes of concern lacing your tone. it is his turn to pass his thumb along your knuckles before flipping your hand over, letting his finger trace a swirl in your palm, offering a soft shake of his head. “it makes one feel queasy, a consequence of the change in dietary needs.”

your hand stiffens beneath his touch as your eyes drop to examine them. he fears he has spoken out of turn, pushed the astonishingly pleasant conversation down a dark hole. jaemin once believed humans to be predictable, but you continue to challenge that. “is that why my invites to have you for dinner always go unanswered?”

“i knew that wounded you, angel.”

“it did no such thing!” his chin drops, eyes boring into you in a successful attempt to lure the truth out of you. he immediately softens when you exhale, in defeat of his gaze or distaste at your transparency, he does not know. jaemin would soften all the same. “i will admit, i did make assumptions to make sense of your refusal.”

“did you think i preferred not to visit?” you had never noticed the flecks of red in the perimeter of his irises until now. they glowed slightly, as if enraged, though you know not with you. “there are rules we must follow when entering a new space, silly, unchangable rules.” his frown deepens when you nod, always understanding even when you shouldn’t. “i apologise if I hurt you, angel.”

“hush now, you need not apologise.” you’re proven right when his eyes return to the perfect colour you remember them for: a golden swirl moving within the rich cocoa, shining only as the light hits it. relief floods him when he rests his forehead on your own. he grips your hips firmly, swaying you both as you call for him.

“jaemin, what is it you do eat?”

“pretty girls named y/n.” oh how he wished you would have laughed then, instead of him opening his eyes to find your horror stricken face. “i swear to you that was a joke. that was in poor taste, i am so sorry.” you find his apology hard to believe as his body shakes, shaking your whole frame along with him.

“do not,” you hit his arm once, “mock,” and a second time though ineffective, “me!”

he saves himself quickly, retreating to safety by putting an unrealistic amount of distance between you two in an inexplicable amount of time. when he abandoned you, you nearly collapse forward with the force you were using to hit him before catching yourself.

“come here.”

“i drink blood.” you did not particularly dislike his attempt to stay on topic, just the topic itself. you try to appear enlightened but you have always found it difficult to repress your repulsion. “i know you have no interest in the macabre.”

“blood is meant to be inside you.”

“i think it tastes great.” he quickly arrives in front of you, your open books and abandoned letters fluttering all over the room as his speed garners its own winds. his thumbs journey over the veins on your wrists, slowly trailing up your forearms. he only speaks again when he hooks his thumbs under your jaw, tilting your head to allow his teeth to graze over the column of your neck. “it is reminiscent of fruit. some blood is like grapefruit and lemon. while some are akin to grape, strawberries.”

“oh,” you sigh, heart slowing as his lips drag along the base of your throat. he pulls back, gazing longingly at your wonderment as you feel his mood swing. bitterness seeps into his eyes in how his taste for blood ironically remains the only provision of some kind of memory of flavour, of normality. “do you enjoy it?”

“blood?”

“being a vampire.” no one has ever asked him such a thing. is there anything to enjoy about eternal life? about reliving his youth, being relocated, remade, renewed over and over and over, for an eternity.

as he gazes down at you, he remembers with all the bad must come some good.

“not always,” he smiles knowingly, thinking of his friends. the lives they built for themselves over a combined millennia. it almost makes him retract saying that. “i do regret some things. like allowing haechan to convince us to help real witches free the falsely accused during the witch trials. only to later discover he had a wager on being able to free more than their coven could.” he loved the way your eyes followed along, he loved knowing he could finally share his life in its entirety with you. “i have a thousand reasons why i should hate it, but I cannot bring myself to.”

“why?” he will find a way to forgive himself for giving you a reason to ask. he will ensure you needn’t ask again.

“because,” he whispers into your mouth, his lips slipping between your own, fingers clasped behind your neck. “if i had died in 1625, i would not have had the honour of making your acquaintance.”

“this is hardly an acquaintance,” you remind him, counting his years in your head as he pulls you flush against him utilising less than a speck of his strength. “careful grandsire,” it tumbles from your lips as he licks against your mouth. “i am not sure a man even three hundred years your junior could make it through what you are starting.”

“you needn’t worry about me,’ he sighs, his groin rolling against your own, his fingers clinging to your breakable frame. “though i must confess, my eating pretty girls named y/n was not said solely in jest.” his fingers toy with your knickers, ice cold digits moving freely along the waistband. “in fact, i fear my sanity depends on it. might you be of some aid?”

“who am i to deny a man nearing his fourth century?” he begs himself not to laugh, if only not to kill the mood but more so to avoid dignifying your mockery. his laughter morphs quickly into pants, your hand slotted wickedly between his own and his groin. “how might i be of assistance to you?”

“just as you are,” he whispers, his dulled teeth passing dangerously along the shell of your ear. as a man of his years, patience isn’t something which he is in short supply. but even then, one grows tired of waiting, for coitus, for love, for you. he is quick to remove your hand, finding his own pacing as he presses you against the wall, your heat pulsing beneath his cock, practically leaking. “i forgot how pliant humans are,” it is wicked how he watches you, his fingers rolling your hardened nub betwixt their pads. you shudder at the sight of him, his golden eyes darkening in the sunlit room, his tongue passing over his sharpened teeth. he smirks as you hiss, his fingers pinching your nipple before sucking it into his mouth. his tongue rolls in time with his hips, running his clothed cock along your clothed folds. he is quickly reminded of his strength as his palm collects dust as it meets the wall with a thud, steadying himself as you whine deliciously, his name bleeding from your raw lips. “yes, angel?”

“i need you,” you breathe, gazing up at him as his lips capture yours. your tongues move in tandem, wrapping around the other in a hypnotic frisk. he swallows your whimpers as he lures them out of you. he sucks your tongue into his mouth, hands moving to your rear before lifting you from the ground. he makes little work of you, rendering you a quarter of your size. your ankles lock around his waist as he casts your knickers aside, hissing as the pad of his finger meets your folds.

“might i have a taste now?” he pleads, eyes burning a fiery amber, pure adoration hidden beneath. “please, angel?”

“take all of me, jaemin.” he holds you still, a metre from the ground as he kneels, his hands firm around your thighs before he lowers you over his mouth. his flat tongue licks long stripes up your cunt, tongue flicking along your hooded clit in his descent. he likens you to a spring, his soul knelt before you, preparing an offering to your fountain. he is ready to collect all you offer him, your essence pouring out onto his tongue, soaking his lips, slick down his chin. his eyes fall to a close at the sight of your dazed form, your eyes screwed shut in prayer, his lips puckering around the hood of your clit, the tip of his tongue rolling against the nerve. “jaemin, right there, please.”

he hums in accordance, his tongue circling your clit as your thighs shake on either side of his head. he smirks as you still, his middle and ring finger entering your warm cavern, forcing your hips to roll against his digits. he curves them slowly, pressing against your pink walls, bulging up against your stomach. “you are so fragile,” he says, lips bitten as he watches your body succumb to his touch. he leans closer to you, steadying you on his shoulders to free his hand. he presses his palm to your abdomen, hypnotised by the feeling of his own fingers inside you. letting his thumb drift down, he pulls up the skin hiding your clit, allowing his lips to pucker against the nub before he offers a hard suck. his tongue joins the fold, drinking you in as you let out a sharp cry, the pressure inside and out joining forces to send you over the edge. “when you’re ready, love, come.”

he can feel your skin burning up, see the sheen of sweat coating your entire body. “jaemin,” you continue to chase your high, but cling to the moment. you feel like your convulsions might snap your body in two. that pleasure such as this cannot exist innately, that only he can bestow it on you. you are proven right as you grow more frantic, his fingers rub against the spot inside you that he found with great ease, as his lips suck on your clitoris. the final straw is his gaze, you feel it and fall victim to it. his irises a bright, angelic white, the rim speckled in gold. one cast of your eyes on your lover and you snap.

there is no doubting that as jaemin gazes up at you, he sees glory eternal. he sees life. he sees an angel.

“come angel.”

and you do. jaemin’s simple command breaks a dam, summoning a flood of pleasure you are unsure you will survive. hot iron passes through your veins, lighting you from the inside out. he continues without thought, his lips sucking the pleasure out of you, his fingers still pounding into your swollen pussy. only when your fingers find his hair, pulling him away with a sharp tug does he concede, lowering you into his lap.

“hi,” he says after some time, watching you pant against the wall. “are you still with me?” he jests, palms gliding up and down your aching thighs.

you hum, gazing up at the golden orbs that you decide you mustn’t live without. much like his life, and much like your love. eternal. “always.”

#not a yours pt 2 but a lil sumn to keep you nana stans fed #injun stans.... i see u i hear u i ignore u #na jaemin #jaemin #jaemin x reader #jaemin fluff #jaemin au #jaemin smut #nct fluff #nct smut #nct dream smut #nct dream fluff #nct au #another post i stole from my other page oooops inspo come to me pls

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germvity · 3 years

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RISES THE MOON

leon s kennedy x reader // 10 // proprietorial heart

(big word yay :))

leon feels a small wave of jealousy- which dissipates as soon as it swells as you yawn, stretching. "come on, let's go get ready for our next trial." he smiles, helping you stand. you nod in agreement, waving goodbye to the fireflies and fish as the two of you leave.

tags: jealous leon bc we love that, more jake content 😩, violence/attempted murder, blood, injury, hurt/comfort

tag list <3 - @hex-touchstarved @trinswhimsys

trials moved on at a medium pace, not too slow so everyone was anxiously itching for the next trial to get it out of the way; nor too fast so everyone had a nice relaxing break to massage out knots from muscles and heal open wounds.

nights like these were your favourite. sure, routine could be stressful (especially in a murder game) but the even breaks between being active, and the added love from your adoring partner, make you happy.

leon was sat back against the headboard, gently massaging your scalp as you lay between his legs, head resting on his chest. the myriad of crickets and a few crows nearby were soothing to you; feeling yourself dozing off. leon catches on, and nudges your uninjured shoulder to keep you awake. "c'mon, last trial of tonight. you gotta stay awake." he urges, pulling you from the tempting lull of sleep. you give a throaty whine, nuzzling into leon's chest with a tired huff.

"i know you're tired, but we've got to do this." leon gently pets your cheek, helping you open your eyes to look at him. "fiiiine..." you sigh dramatically, wrapping your arms around his middle so you could cuddle him whilst still using him as a pillow. "what item do you want?" your boyfriend asks, a gentle smile on his face. "wanna find something to bring back." you reply, eyes falling closed again.

"god damn, was looping legion that tiring?" leon teases and you let out a sarcastic laugh. "yes, it is. frank never gives up." you complain, remembering how you kept him in a mad tantrum at a single pallet and how he refused to leave you alone after. "he's been hanging around ghostface too much. he's becoming obsessed with single survivors each match." leon notes, mainly to himself. "not necessarily. while they do hang out, frank's ego is bigger than saturn. god forbid you hurt his precious feelings." you giggle.

leon laughs too, gently running his fingertips over the healing wound on your shoulder. hissing with pain, you nuzzle into leon for comfort automatically. "i'm sorry!" he rushes to help soothe your tenseness. "i didn't mean to hurt you..." you smile as leon pouts, gently rubbing your side and giving your head soft kisses. "no it's okay." you reply, rolling your bandaged shoulder with pain.

"i didn't mean to-..." he starts again, but you cut him off, "i know. you'd never hurt me." you smile, and he smiles back, giving you a single nod. "never." is the final thing he says before the two of you are pulled into a trial.

clown. you hated him. as grotesque and ruthless he is, a top pleaser for the entity, he's such a dick. you crouch next to a finished gen, staring past it at where he was patrolling the hook like it was his last ever duty. "what a prick." you mumble, and leon hums from his hiding spot behind a tree. "we need to get jake... nea's 99'ing the door that way, if you could use borrowed time i can-"

"wait, you want me to save him?" leon cuts off, and you nod. "yeah? i'm gonna take some heat off of you, if he snags me i have soul guard. it's just that i know he will try to tunnel jake and you have what it takes to save him." you reply, and leon huffs. "what if he goes for me?"

"i won't let that happen. now c'mon. once he's off the hook, i'll run behind, you run in front and nea can open the gate- we all get out. easy." you stand, moving out of your hiding spot. "wait! what if-?" leon doesn't even get to finish his sentence as you pelt a rock on the clown's direction, hitting his back. the man turns with a cough, locking eyes with you. "c'mon! i'm here, c'mon! let's party!" you yell, gesturing for him to come over- but he doesn't want to leave the hook.

"leon, c'mon. sneak around him." you whisper, approaching the scene with confidence. the killer watches you carefully, only he can decide when you get too close. leon follows up, running through the main building to get to jake a bit faster. "c'mon, gates not open. still time to tango." you grin, staying ready on the balls of your feet. hawk grunts, taking a swipe at you, and you easily dodge it, leading him away as best you can before he turns back. "hey! what's wrong, y'scared?" you yell.

you had to keep his attention, you promised leon you would. "hey! don't be such a fucking wimp and chase me!" your words are desperate, but it worked. he turns back to you with a look of anger, deforming his chipped face paint. "what'd you say, punk?" he wheezes, approaching you with speed. leon slowly eases out from hiding, and as he watches you run, runs to get jake.

you stay close, slamming a pallet down on the angered clown, vaulting over it and passed him. you sprint a little, thank god for lithe, and hear him take another swipe at you. you move in behind jake, ignoring the coughs and wheezes. you were so close, this plan was working. "nea will open the gate when she sees us. let's-."

you're cut off by a bottle shattering, pinky-purple clouds swirling around you. you cough, the substance burns your throat, it slows all three of you down tremendously, and you try to gasp for clean air. you yell as the clown's knife slices through your back, downing you instantly. "y/n!" leon turns, and you hiss as he picks you up. "go!" you yell, wiggling as best you can.

the rusty hook hurts as he slams you onto it, but you don't scream. you're past giving them that satisfaction. "heh. don't talk if you can't deliver." the clown coughs, and you roll your eyes. "someone's upset." you scoff, watching the auras of nea open the gate, and jake dashes through it. but leon... oh leon. ever the saviour, is running your way. "oh no..."

"what, you realising that yer' friends don't care? ha! nothings getting you outta this." the clown hacks up a laugh, and you shake your head as leon makes a beeline for you. "move it!" he barges the clown as hard as he can, making the hefty man stumble. "leon, wait- no!" you yell, but he's already grabbed you. "you little-!"

leon dodges a swipe of the man's knife, and it slices through your stomach. you whine, urging leon to leave. "not without you! i can't leave you now!" leon yells, he's behind the hook, ready to run the other way if the clown came at him. "the others will come soon, and-"

"leon. relax, breathe. it's okay. i'll see you at camp, but i need you to go." you huff, glancing behind you. "no! if i can time this right-!" leon is cut off as the clown goes for him again, he runs around, and another hit lands on you again. leon grabs you, this time he manages to pull you off, and that endurance is sweet. you stumble, crying out as another slash carves your back. "leon-! i can't, you have to go!" you protest, but he simply runs with you, holding your hand tightly. "come on! the gates close!"

leon yells for nea, knowing she can help without getting hit. "leon- leon, he's gonna throw-!" glass cracks and you cough on your words as you stumble through the thick smoke. "let's go, people!" nea yells, taking place behind you, and keeping her eyes on the clown, who was advancing quickly. jake was waiting anxiously by the exit of the hell of this map, and smiles upon seeing you. "you crazy bastards. you did it!" he grins as the clown stops at the gate.

throwing a tantrum, the killer walks away as you all leave, throwing a bottle halfheartedly in your general direction before the entity swallows him. "hey, let me see those cuts?" jake asks, and you hum, the blood loss making you feel woozy. fabric gently presses over your shoulder, bandaging it up as jake carefully wraps your wounds. "this might sting, but this one is deeper. we need to stop it from bleeding." the woodsman mumbles, and you nod, sitting on a log as he pours some styptic powder onto his palm. "bite my scarf if you need to." he adds on, handing the fabric to you, ignoring the blood that smears on it. "thank you." you reply, tone hushed.

leon stands nearby, the jealousy of someone else patching you up, someone else touching you- it was consuming him. the blonde couldn't just watch, but he swallows his pride and walks over instead, holding your hand tightly and glaring at jake over your shoulder. unbothered by the looks leon was giving him, he finishes bandaging your wound. "that covers the other one too. be more careful next time." he scolds jokingly, and nea laughs. "yeah, like that would help your ass. always being 'careful' aren't you?" she nudges jake, who sighs. "surviving is important, not just for me." he shrugs, standing up. "mhm, sure. c'mon, let's split i'm starving!" she groans, and you laugh. "nea, nice work out there. you did amazing." you praise, getting up from the log with leon's help, and she smiles at you sadly.

"i miss seeing you at camp." she kicks a few rocks idly, waving jake off before turning back to you. "i miss you too, maybe i'll stop by when i'm feeling confident." you shrug. "i'll hold you to that." she sniffles through a smile, swallowing her sadness and wiping her tears. "ugh. i hate crying." the rebel laughs, and you smile slightly, embracing her tightly. "i'll stop by soon. we can hang out then." you promise, locking your pinky with hers. "you better..!" nea laughs, tears still falling. you wipe them with your hand- trying not to smear blood on her.

"i'll see you then, nea. go eat, you need it." you smile, bidding her farewell. nea nods sadly, waving to leon before heading off in the direction of the campsite. with silence, you turn back to leon, who was standing right behind you. "hey... that whole trial was a mess, huh?" you joke, giving him a smile. "you could of died..." he sighs, and your smile turns sad. "i could die any trial. doesn't matter what happens." you shrug, explaining the sad reality of the world you all lived in.

"i know, but you could of died saving someone like jake..!" he replies, and you furrow you brows. "someone like jake..? jake's really nice, what do you mean 'someone like jake'?" you cross your arms and he sighs. "forget it..."

"hey, you're tired- and worried, you don't know what you're saying. c'mon, lets go back to our place and we can eat and get warm. it's freezing out here." you suggest, and leon hums grabbing your hand tightly. "let's go..." he mumbles, and you nod, pulling him along.

"what's up?" you ask, swallowing your food and putting your spoon down. "hm?" leon looks at you, pushing a spoonful of stew into his mouth. "you're pouting." you huff, observing him as he quickly swallows, shaking his head. "no-!" he chokes on poorly chewed meat, and you laugh at his dismay, gently patting his back. "'m not pouting!" he coughs, covering his mouth with his arm whilst he recovers.

"mhm. sure. i was watching you pout. tell me what's wrong?" you lean your shoulder against his, hoping contact will soothe him. "it's embarrassing!" he whines, and you smile. "noo, tell me." you laugh, leaning against him further. the blonde huffs, resting his head on yours. mumbling something into your hair, you nudge him. "leon, tell me." you smile, and he sighs, finishing his stew and putting the bowl down.

"don't make me force you." you tease, and he looks at you sceptically. "mhm.. i know your weak spots." you grin, putting your own bowl down and leaning over his lap. "uh... i don't..?" leon stammers nervously, breath hitching as your lips find his neck. "i uh... you- wait-!" leon writhes under you as your fingers attack his sides, tickling him affectively. "you tricked me!" he yelped, trying to scramble away as laughter fills the room.

"tell me what's wrong!" you demand, smiling wickedly as you don't let up on him. "please! i beg- haha! mercy!" leon wails, laughter growing as you slip your hands under his shirt. "tell me and i'll stop." you bargain, and leon caves. "okay! okay, i'll tell you! just stop!" he yells, tears of laughter filling his eyes as you finally let him go. you giggle at the state of him, cheeks red and eyes watery. to make up for it, you rub his sides gently, kissing his neck, jaw and cheeks. "i... god this is embarrassing but i was really jealous of jake..." leon finally admits, and you stop.

"jealous?" you smile, and he flushes red. "i told you!" he huffs, looking away. your hand finds his cheek, pulling him back to you so you could give him a soft kiss. "don't be jealous of jake. we were friendly before but it was nothing like that. i promise." leon deflates, sagging into you as he holds you. "i've never been that jealous before... i'm sorry."

"why are you apologising? it's good to tell me how you feel!" you scold, and leon sighs. "i shouldn't be jealous! he wasn't even flirting with you..." leon whines, and you chuckle, kissing his cheek a few times. "is it weird that i love that?" you ask, and leon hums. "what? my jealousy?" he huffs out a laugh, and you nod. "yeah.. no ones ever felt that way over me before. it's refreshing." you shrug, huddling closer. "i'm trying not to make a habit out of it..." leon huffs, kissing your neck lovingly.

you hum, combing your fingers through his hair lovingly. "i love you, y'know that?" leon smiles, and you giggle. "i know. i love you too." you reply, giving him a gentle, quick kiss. "let me check your bandages?" he sits up, pulling away. "sure, i should get some fresh ones on anyway." you roll your shoulder, letting leon unravel it. "poor baby... i wish i could take all this away..." he sighs, kissing above your injury. "no.. it's okay. it's not that bad." you breathe out, giving him a kiss. "turn around, let me see."

you hiss as leon cleans your wounds, huffing out a laugh. "might not be in trials for a while whilst this recovers." you huff, letting him pull fresh bandages over your shoulder. "can it really get that bad?" leon asks, and you nod. "depends. it's just because i've gone into so many trials in this condition. it's up to us whether or not we get worse, apparently. we need to perform to the best of our ability to avoid no trials." you explain, and leon huffs. "no trials. that doesn't sound that bad."

#leon kennedy x you #leon s kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #dbd leon #dbd leon x reader #dbd x reader #germvity writing #resident evil #dbd resident evil

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atinyidea · 3 years

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Heartworm | Choi San

n. a relationship or friendship that you can’t get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smouldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

⟶ college!au, best friend!san, brother!seonghwa, friends to lovers!au, kinda very spicy but there’s no actual smut, there’s mentions of underage drinking and sexual encounters, everything is consentual!

⟶ appellation series masterlist

⟶ 5.7k words

600 special prompt for my lovely soul partner @san–shine, its like 50 years late and I know she no longer is active on this blog but I wanted to keep this.

42: “Exactly how drunk was I?”

49: “Good morning, sunshine.”

☞ When you were younger, you knew you were one-hundred per cent in love with your best friend, Choi San. However, because he was also, in fact, your brother’s best friend and you were a sixteen-year-old rebel adamant to never admit your feelings, you had to watch as he got his first girlfriend during a party Seonghwa had thrown for you. Now, years later and in the middle of college, you find yourself in a familiar setting: a party thrown for you by your brother and Choi San looking as breathtaking as he always does.

☞ moodboard

Just to be clear, when you woke up, you hadn’t expected your brother to announce that there was going to be a party held at your house for your twenty-second birthday. Your brother, being the kind and loving brother he was, had yet again used your birthday as an excuse to throw a house party, even though it wasn’t even your birthday until tomorrow. Seonghwa liked to use your birthday, the date falling in the last week of the summer holidays, as a way to gather all your combined friends as some sort of final summer get-together before the school year began again. You weren’t particularly against them, the end of summer parties becoming a little tradition after the fourth year running, and the fact that they were held at your house meant you could just go to bed any time you wanted. [ thank you sound-proofed home as per your mothers request due to your fathers’ noise-making habits from his job as a musician. ] Though it wasn’t like you knew anyone who would be throwing a house party you couldn’t just walk home from.

You did not know how many drinks you had consumed, alcoholic or otherwise, but the setting you found yourself in was giving you very explicit pangs of nostalgia to the first time you and your brother had thrown one of these parties. Your current situation was not unlike the situations you had been in before. You weren’t ashamed to say that you liked to have fun with your relationships: romantic, platonic or the just-once ones. It wasn’t unusual for you to be found in someone’s lap around midnight; the last party happened to be a beautiful girl named Soojin, the party before that was a guy whose name you hadn’t bothered to remember. However, the person’s lap who you sat in usually was not your best friend, Choi San’s. Not the San you spent the better half of your life burying romantic feelings for because he was Seongwha’s friend first. Not the San, your eyes couldn’t help watch whenever he was near. You made a promise to yourself since that one time when you had just turned sixteen, the one time you found yourself on his lap. [ A promise you made to deny your feelings because the very next day, he had gotten a girlfriend who was definitely not you. ]

At seventeen years old, San knew he was still a stupid and hormonal teenage boy. He practically got nose bleeds anytime he remotely saw a girl's lower back or tummy, their exposed thighs or neck: he knew he could be a perverted little shit. Still, having a girl for a best friend meant that he also knew what was respectful and what was just disgusting – thinking back on it, he was grateful for his friendship with you for teaching him from a young age how to treat girls with proper respect. [ Mainly because you would whack his head or punch him in the balls whenever he said something inappropriate or did something stupid. ] But, also at sixteen, San knew that he was also sorta-kinda-probably in love with his best friend’s sister. [ Who was also his best friend… was it possible to have more than one best friend? ]

During the summer of your sixteenth, Seonghwa’s eighteenth and his seventeenth birthdays, San and his family had gone overseas for an extended holiday. His father had received a promotion, and his mother struck lucky in her weekly lottery draw, so he hadn’t been there to witness the gradual changes to your body. It wasn’t like San wasn’t attracted to you before [ not that either of you knew what the fuck attraction was before ] but when you came to the airport to pick him up with your father, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to look at another girl ever again. [ Of course, that was an overdramatic thought since he proceeded to have girlfriends that weren’t you but the thought of you truly never left his mind. ]

The day of your sixteenth birthday party was something he would always remember clearly. He remembered the way you hugged him for a solid five minutes when he got to your house in the early morning, complaining about how your parents would still be away for another few days, and your brother refused to even hug you on your birthday. [ Seonghwa’s excuse was that it was your birthday tomorrow, and that was when you could claim the birthday hug. ] Secretly, he wished you would tell him you hugged him simply because you wanted to have him close. He remembered how Seonghwa had launched into a story from his last house party (one for the seniors that only he was invited to, but the stories were fun nevertheless) as he attempted to make pancakes at your request. You had bounced your way to your favourite countertop space and jumped up to sit there, right in front of the fridge, because it was the only place that was both cool and warm [ “exactly the right temperature” ] in the entire kitchen. He remembered the way his body slotted between your legs, his back to your chest as the two of you shared a vodka-and-coke at ten-in-the-morning. His mind was restlessly deciding if it was okay to lay his hands on your knees or calves, inevitably switching between the two places every five minutes. It hadn’t felt weird but natural as all three of you shared hearty laughs and then partially burnt pancakes.

[ He remembered when he had given you the small-and-terribly-wrapped box that held your present, egging you on to open it a day early. The way your face lit up as you lifted a thin silver chained sunflower charm bracelet into the air would forever be imprinted on his eyes – your eyes sparkling and lips twitching up into a wide grin as you thanked him seven times. The gentle tone of your voice as you asked him to help you put it on because for some reason, you couldn’t put clasped bracelets on for the life of you, was saved like a voice note in his brain. “You remembered,” you had whispered once he was settled back between your legs, “that sunflowers were my favourite, I mean.” The brush of your lips on his cheek lined the walls of his heart as it threatened to shatter through his ribs. ]

As a sixteen-year-old San knew that you probably shouldn’t’ve had as much alcohol as you had that night. However, as a seventeen-year-old San also didn’t care as long as you were having fun. It was not the first time you consumed alcohol, but it was the first time you’d had enough to get drunk from it. It was your sixteenth birthday party after all, and neither your brother nor your best friend had any objections when you grabbed the first vodka-and-coke at ten in the morning while you got ready. So now, at almost eleven at night, you had had more than ten of those drinks, and you could honestly say you weren’t sure if you’d remember anything from this night at all. The hours went by in a blur, and soon three drinks had turned into eight as you dragged San to your room to decide on an outfit for the night. He remembered the way his throat constricted as you strolled out from your bathroom in a neon green crop top and the pair of flare jeans you always wore. Ultimately San thought he would’ve preferred that outfit to the one you settled on – a black denim mini-skirt with a matching jacket on top of a simple t-shirt with a neon rainbow painted across the chest. The sliver of skin showing from the crop top was way less tempting than the muscle of your thighs, mainly since that was your exact plan for the outfit.

“You look good,” he had said, swallowing gulps of air and saliva when you asked, “you’d still look good in a potato sack,” he complimented you as you twirled on the spot and gifted him with a brilliant grin that simply took his breath away.

“We match!” You all but squealed when you took note of the black denim jacket San wore over his t-shirt with a neon rainbow across the chest.

He hadn’t even noticed.

His memory started to get hazy around drink number thirteen. He couldn’t remember how or what events had led to the current situation, [ or which room the two of you were actually in that was both not your bedroom and also not inhabited by literally anyone else ], but he certainly was not complaining. You were so close to him he could smell the faintest scent of your vanilla and cinnamon shampoo and conditioner you had used the day before, the slightest whiff of your jasmine scented perfume [ the one you always wore, the one he bought you your first bottle of ] and the sweetly bitter smell of cherry coke and vodka on your breath. His hands seemed glued to your lower back and hips, palms almost moulded to your skin like he were a sculptor, and you were his latest masterpiece. Your legs either side of his own, wrapping around him possessively, like he was yours and only yours, and he let you, using his hands to pull you closer to him like you were his and only his. Your faces were so close he could feel each hot exhale of breath hitting his lips, and when they stopped as you shivered and whined, he couldn’t help the way his lips tilted upwards into a smirk. The way you attempted to wire your mouth shut not to make a sound wasn’t effective, seeing as he heard all three of your whines, each one getting more prolonged and higher in pitch as the two of you continued your ministrations. His hips wanted to jut up into you. Still, he forced his movements to be as slow and smooth as possible, wanting to feel every way you would come undone above him, but when his gaze flickered across your face. He spotted the small trickle of blood falling from your lips; it was like everything that had just happened had disappeared.

From your recollection, you only remembered specific parts of that night. Your legs had been situated on either side of his thighs, your arms wrapped around his neck as his palms slowly pushed up the small of your back to pull your body closer to his. Your faces were so close you could physically see the connection between the two of you, yet neither of you pushed forward enough to make that connection real and tangible. [ You wanted to, God, you wanted to kiss him right then more than anything. Why didn’t you kiss him then? ] San’s hands felt hot against your skin, his fingertips slowly moving to draw a masterpiece on your back. You shivered slightly as a slight breeze floated around the sliver of exposed skin where your shirt had ridden up. Your eyes were drawn to San’s lips as they twitched up into a slight smirk; his own eyes flickered to watch you watch him. Neither of you had said a word to each other for almost half an hour, drunkenly pushing at the limits between your friendship with nothing but burning touches and delicate twists of hips.

You subconsciously sucked your bottom lip into the confines of your teeth, but you willingly bit down harshly to stop a sly whine from escaping your lips as San had the cocky idea to roll his pelvis into yours as he held you in place with his hands on your hips. Apparently, you had bitten down way too hard because the next thing you knew was that San’s playful smirk had evaporated into a concerned frown. He lifted a hand from your hip – the sudden rush of cold where his hand previously was leaving you feeling a sense of loss – to your lip, his thumb tugging your lip back out.

“You’re bleeding,” he mumbled, thumb coming away with a smear of blood moulding into his fingerprint. The taste of blood in your mouth was unexpected and had sent you reeling. You almost flew off of his lap and practically ran to your bedroom’s bathroom to inspect the damage. There was a tear in the side of your bottom lip. [ The side of your lip you always bit out of habit, so the skin was thinner there than the rest of your lip. ] Against your better judgment – the rational part of your brain was too drunk at that moment – you settled your tongue against the fresh cut. Finching away from yourself at the unexpected [ which really should’ve been expected ] pain, you decided that there was nothing you could do to help soothe it. After twenty minutes, that felt like two, of staring at yourself in the mirror, you finally shrugged and made your way back into the heart of the party.

As an almost sixteen-year-old, you knew you were just coming into figuring out your body and the emotions of more physical relationships as you grew into it. You knew you had grown up a little (a lot) over the summer, your chest filling out from a b-cup to a c-cup, your lanky figure could no longer be considered lanky as your limbs gained muscle, fat and tone, creating a new full and curvy figure. Your mother had been ecstatic when you came to her asking how to style clothes to fit your ‘new’ figure as it meant the two of you could go shopping [ one of her favourite activities ], and you could find your style that both suited your body and personality. You did have to admit that your style didn’t change much; you still loved a sturdy flannel shirt [ always oversized though, now you tended to wear it open with a form-fitting crop top or spaghetti-strap top underneath to show off your chest and waist ] and you still loved your favourite pair of flare jeans enough to wear them almost every other day, [ the one with the painted sunflower over the back pocket. ] You also loved pleated mini skirts and knee-high socks or a simple loose-form-fitting dress with lycra cycle shorts underneath. You didn’t like the emotional side of your summer changes, though and, while you were new to the whole attraction thing, the one person you definitely didn’t feel anything remotely romantic for was your best friend. [ Well, maybe you did, but he was Seonghwa’s friend first, and that was a no-go… and perhaps you wanted to reject the way your heart turned into butterflies when you saw him at the airport… and maybe you just weren’t ready to put those feelings into words, so you denied them instead. ]

Your best friend whose lap you were just sat on, grinding your hips into his with your noses touching. Your best friend who was now kissing another girl [a beautiful girl who was named Hyemi, she was in Seonghwa’s class and also happened to live across the road… she was always nice to you and you couldn’t find it in you to dislike her even as your stomach knotted and twisted into something green with envy ] in the middle of the kitchen. You wouldn’t remember how long you stood there, watching the two of them kiss like a complete and utter creep, and you wouldn’t remember the look San gave you as he noticed the sway of your hair as you retreated out of the kitchen with a frown on your brow.

You did not fancy your best friend, and you definitely did not care that he was kissing Hyemi in front of the fridge. [ The fridge he stood between your legs in front of literal hours ago. ] Lastly, you definitely did not feel like crying as your mind reminded you about two different memories of earlier that day – one of you sat on the counter opposite that exact fridge with San leaning back into you as he gave you the sunflower charm bracelet that wrapped around your wrist, watching Seonghwa attempt to make you birthday pancakes. The second the memory of his hands burning up your skin, the way his lips tilted into a smirk when you shivered under his hold and the way you inflicted pain to yourself in an attempt not to whine with pleasure at the way he moved his hips.

It was too raw, and now you just wanted to forget.

San’s brain refused to calculate time because one minute his hand was reaching for your bloodied lip and the next you were gone, and San was back in the kitchen getting you a glass of water [ and then he was kissing another girl in front of the fridge he rested between your legs literal hours ago. ] San wouldn’t remember what their conversation had been, only that this girl, Hyemi, was older than him and had just asked him out. He wouldn’t remember the exact way her grin turned a little too malicious to be sincere. He would, however, remember the way your hair flew over your shoulder as you spun away from the scene involving him; he would remember the way his eyes followed your figure all the way into the embrace of your brother as you shallowly smiled and stole his drink [ and he would remember the way his chest seemed to ache at that simple action. ]

Hyemi became his girlfriend at that same party; you didn’t even know they knew each other. He didn’t even know why he said yes.

And here you were, on the penultimate night before your twenty-second birthday, in the lap of your best friend. His relationship with Hyemi had lasted six months, and he had gotten six more significant others in the seven-year gap from then til now but, right then, he was single, and you were in his lap. You had flopped down over the side of a two-seater couch; eyes screwed shut with laughter, so you didn’t realise who was sat on said couch – or that anyone was – until your head made contact with their thigh. [ Their thigh was very comfy to lay on, which was the first thing your brain commented on. ] When you looked up and met eyes with San, a small [ tiny really, in no way visible to the person who knew you best and where to look for a blush – finding it immediately ] blush was growing warmly over your cheeks.

“Hey there,” He grinned, setting down his plastic cup, [ more like throwing it over his shoulder, not caring that it hit someone since it was mostly empty anyway ] and poking your nose gently just to watch the way it would scrunch up. His fingers were moving from your nose to his ear to make sure the roll-up cigarette that was balanced there hadn’t fallen.

“Hi,” you giggled, your legs curling up to your chest, making you look like a contorted cat as your feet still dangled slightly over the arm of the chair. After a few seconds, your fingers started twitching and settled on playing with the fabric of his shirt. It was the same rainbow one he wore to your sixteenth party, matching the one you were wearing too. The both of you had grown out of them, San settling on cutting it into a crop top and you doing the same, [ since you were the one who had actually cut San’s shirt and decided to continue and do yours, so you matched again. ] His shirt gave little to cover, showing off his abdominals and tummy [ and the slight happy trail peeking out from the waistband of his jeans ] proudly and only just covering his pectorals. Your own shirt was cut higher, stopping just above the curve of your breasts. Still, your own torso was covered in a neon green fishnet bodysuit [ not that it left anything to the imagination, your torso was still on show ] that was tucked into your signature flare pants which now rode a little low on your hips and the sunflower on the back was more than a little faded.

“What are you doing?” He asked with an amused grin, [ complemented with the subtle raise of a singular eyebrow… Gods, why was he so attractive? ] one hands fingers starting to twist in the loose strands of your short hairstyle. It was nice. [ The touch of his hands against your hair was excellent, the slight tug of the strands against your skull felt really nice. ]

“Taking a break. Siyeon, Minji and Yunho broke out the karaoke machine, and they're playing the song shots game.” You replied as if it explained everything. [ It actually kind of did, San recalled you once telling him that the chaotic energy of that particular trio and the song shots game gave you awful headaches. And you hated having headaches when you were drinking because it made you nauseous. And when you were nauseous and drunk, you tended to go have a smoke, which you were trying extremely hard to stop doing for the sake of your father, who also used to smoke and now had lung problems. So, San understood your meaning. ] “What about you?”

San had to take a minute to think. Just what was he doing? Why was he so out of it today? In his heart, San knew the answer, but he hadn’t unlocked that treasure chest just yet. [ He was tired of watching you be semi-intimate with people that weren’t him… Which he refused to admit. Because both of you were pinning assholes in denial. ] Finally, even though it had only been a minute, he replied with a simple “I’m just… sitting.”

“Oh?” You asked, now it was your turn to raise the amused eyebrow, “just sitting?”

“Sitting... and thinking.”

“About what?”

“You.” The word was out faster than San’s brain had time to process what he’d said. However, now he had said it, he wasn’t going to deny it. Was it the small amount of alcohol in his system? [ It was the way your eyes widened a little as you looked up at him from your place in his lap, fingers twisting in his shirt and lips falling open ever so slightly. ]

“Me?” Your pitch ascended as the volume of your voice diminished.

“Yeah, you!” He grinned, tone equally as quiet but still showing enthusiasm, moving his free hand to boop your nose.

“What about me?”

San’s fingers in your hair froze at your question, his mind whirring with any kind of answer that wouldn’t cross the line into confession territory wherein he would lose your friendship indefinitely, but after one look at the serious longing look in your eye, he decided he would ‘man up’ [ the phrase making him cringe as soon as he thought it… the connotation of the word being so outdated and, for someone who grew up with a very stubborn girl in his life, San wondered why society hadn’t come up with a suitable alternative to the phrase ] and just tell you.

So he did.

“Do you remember what happened between us at your sixteenth party?” He asked, seemingly changing the conversation topic. Confused but going with it, a slight blush warming your cheeks, you nodded, and he took that as permission to continue, “I can’t stop thinking about it.” His voice was nothing louder than a whisper, you should’ve had to strain your ears to hear him, but at that moment, it was like all other sounds and distractions faded from the scene. Your breath hitched as you simply stared up into his eyes, his pupils dilated, almost taking over the beautiful swirling colour of his irises [ making his eyes look darker than usual, more intense than expected, and for a second, you swore your heart stopped ].

“What about it?” Your question was innocent enough, but the way you said it gave way to other ideas. Your voice was soft and breathy, like you weren’t getting enough oxygen, and like San, the words weren’t said above a whisper. Afterwards, you bit down softly on your bottom lip [ unintentional on your part, it was just a habit of yours, to be honest ], minutely sucking it in, and San’s focus shifted to watch your lips specifically.

“I’m thinking about how much I’d like to do it again.”

“You want to kiss me?”

“If you’d let me.”

“Please kiss me.” You whispered, more a statement rather than a question or demand. And so he did, leaning forward to reach you, head still in his lap, [ it felt like a slow-motion scene in a movie, but it couldn’t have been longer than two seconds before his lips were flush against yours ]. It was not the first time the two of you had kissed, but it was the first time you had kissed since becoming official adults — it felt different.

It felt good.

His lips were soft, and his kiss was gentle, at least it was at first. As the seconds ticked on, the kiss grew more intense, the soft brush of his lips pressed harder into you, his hands running over your body to pull you up to him. Your arms threaded around his neck, stretching out your torso [ if you were honest, it hurt a little… not that you were lucid enough to be aware of it ] and arching your back. He bit down on your bottom lip, tugging at it a little when your fingers twisted through the hair at his neck, pulling him to you with a new sense of desperation.

And then the two of you fell off the couch. You slid off his lap and landed on your back [ though it was more like you were on your side than your back ] while San rolled over on top of you. Both of you froze in your positions, eyes wide, [ pupils dilated but that was most likely due to the desire flowing through you ] lips parted as you just stared at one another for a second. San was the first to crack the silence, lips pulling into a grin and eyes crinkling with joy as his laugh sounded out around you. He flipped off from on top of you, landing next to you on the floor but his smile never dimmed and his laugh hadn’t faded. You rolled slightly so you were actually on your side as you continued to look at him. When he looked back at you your heart skipped a beat, his smile was so pretty and it made his dimple so deep but it wasn’t long before his laughter simmered and his expression faded as he looked back at you.

Biting your lip once again you made an executive decision [ the only decision you could think off, since all thoughts were now preoccupied with San at the moment ] to lift yourself to hover over him this time. You swallowed and let out a breath as your eyes met, searching for any sign that you should stop. Your shaking breath cut out into a soft gasp as San’s hands caressed over the small of your back to pull you down so that your chests touched. Your right hand lifted up to take hold of the cigarette tucked behind his ear, [ a small giggle leaving your lips at the thought that it was still there even after all that ] and twisted it between your fingers a little. Was it a nervous habit or just a neat trick, you couldn’t distinguish at the moment. San’s own hand came to hold yours, two sets of fingers now playing with the home-made roll-up gently. Soon enough San took it from your shallow grip and flicked it across the room, using the same hand to cup your jaw to cirect your gaze back to him.

Meeting his eyes made you want to shy away from his gaze but you let him keep you there. He looked at you with such a strong emotion you though you’d possibly be able to taste it from his lips. “I have to tell you something…” You whispered, close enough to not have to raise your voice.

“What is it?” He whispered back, the fingers on your back drawing small circles as the hand at you jaw left to curl a strand of hair around his fingers in the opposite direction. [ how he did that subconsciously and not mess it up would’ve made your head spin in wonder ].

“I love you.” You began, still whispering. “I have for a long time, though in the beginning I tried rather hard to deny it. Mainly because you had a significant other and I didn’t want to ruin that for you. And then, in a rather dick move, I got a significant other in the hopes of stopping it but that didn’t work so I stopped getting into romantic relationships altogether and now-”

He cut you off, pulling you into him to kiss the words from your lips [ which you appreciated because your inner thoughts were beginning to panic because your mouth wouldn’t stop talking ]. When you separated his smile was back, albeit not as wide as before. His eyes were as soft as his smile as he kissed you once more, resting your foreheads together. “I love you too,” he said against your lips. At his words you surged forward, pressing into him with fierce emotion as your kissed him.

You had wanted to hear those words from his lips for so long. You had wanted him for so long. And here he was, right in your reach, his hands on your body and yours tugging gently at his hair. Before all the breath in your lungs had finished and you lost your conscious nerve to a blur of desire those word had repeated at least thrice as you made your way to the comfort of your bed and the warmth of his body.

The next day when you woke up, you woke up earlier than usual and feeling unusually chipper as you took a hot shower. The subtly sweet scent of pancakes met you as you made your way through the house and into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Sunshine, you’re up early,” your brother grinned over his shoulder, both hands currently busy holding a pan and spatula. “I made pancakes.”

“Yes, I can see that.” You returned his grin with one of your own, a teasing smile lifting to your lips as you took a seat. Your head was clear of any headaches or lingering pain from a hangover since you were better with your alcohol intake as a twenty-two-year-old, and your reckless youth had lined your stomach with a fair amount of tolerance.

“Exactly how drunk was I last night? I don’t remember anyone leaving.”

“Oh boy,” Seonghwa sniggered, a sly grin taking over his features, “the party was two days ago, you slept all day yesterday. Really freaked San out.”

“What?!” You exclaimed, a piece of pancake falling from your fingers back onto your plate, bouncing off and onto the side sadly. [ It went ignored as you stared down your brother. ]

“Yeah. And he’s been ramble-muttering about you for a solid ten hours now. He’s really not subtle at all.” Seonghwa grinned. “So now that you two have slept together, are you two actually together?”

If you had liquid in your mouth, you would have spat it out. “He told you?!” You exclaimed, heart racing at the thought of your best friend and your brother discussing your sex-life.

“No.” Seonghwa denied immediately, face scrunching up in disgust at the mere thought, “I definitely don’t need to know details about that. It’s just San isn’t subtle at all when he’s mutter-rambling. He was oblivious to the fact he was thinking out loud about how to move forward after your… time together… while I literally sat next to him.” Seonghwa then grinned at you, again, the stretch of his lips becoming a little too mischievous for your liking. “Pretty sure he passed out on the couch half an hour ago.” He hinted, motioning over to the living room with his head as his eyebrows wiggled up and down suggestively.

A puff of air exhaled through your nose as a small smile climbed over your lips. You opened your mouth to talk, but he cut you off with a gentle pat on the head, “I’m happy for you two,” was all he said but it was enough. [ Your heart soared at the approval of your brother. It was not that you nor San needed Seonghwa’s approval, but it was nice to know he wouldn’t oppose it. ] Then you made your way to the couch San was asleep on.

You sat next to him, in the space unoccupied by his body. His brow was furrowed, which you frowned at. You lifted a hand and gently pressed on the juncture between his eyebrows, smoothing them out. His face instantly relaxed under your touch [ a part of your mind daydreamed that it was because he knew it was you ] and a small smith lifted upon your lips. Your hand moved down to cup his cheek and then his jaw before you raised it to gently wipe away the hair that had fallen in his face. You bit down on your lip, confused on whether to wake him up or not but life had chosen for you as one by one San’s eyes opened and slowly focused on you.

His eyes widened, and in a flurry of limbs suddenly he was laying on his back on the floor while you had balanced yourself with your knees over his waist. After a second of shocked silence [ as the two of you came to terms with what the fuck just happened ] a grin spread across his lips, eyes crinkling in delight, as his hands came to grip your hips gently.

A silent confirmation washed over the two of you as your lips spread to mirror his grin. The two of you would be alright as the next part of your relationship bloomed, the embers of your crushes were now burning bright.

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jurisffiction · 3 years

Note

literally what is dta about i’m actually asking 😩I read the whole first book and i couldn’t tell you please help

this ignites a lot of other thoughts in my mind (wh. where else would my thoughts be.) about literary genres and fiction/fanfic demarcations because while people do talk about dta as comparable to big fantasy series it really IS a fanfic or at least, secondary/sideline work at heart merely for a) how much context from the original show you’re meant to read into things, and b) how completely centred a lot of the start is on just Dean and Cas and their perspectives on each other.

a lot of the time when i try to recall separate books I’m like “ha ha what even HAPPENED. nothing happened dean and cas just kept brushing fingers <3″ then im like. samantha you idiot there’s a war on.

but that’s not what you asked. it has actually been a while since i read book 1 and i’ve only read it once so uh. best guesses here

EDIT: woops this got long. what i would say more succinctly is . dta narratively is about dean being hurled back into the endverse timeline with no hope to return, stuck in an apocalypse which refuses to happen, and has to learn about this entire new world, including twisted layers of multiple deals/plans people have made, to Solve It All before the universe actually deteriorates. dta thematically is about like, you know. choosing on purpose to fight as if you’re gonna win, for love/community/yourself, long after it seems all hope is lost.

anyway uh so book 1 in my mind is like

5x04 The End occurs. Lucifer taunts Castiel, who leaves but discovers canon-timeline Dean is once again back in this time, and he takes him back to Chitaqua. Dean can’t remember anything about his last few months before he was sent here, and everyone who could have done it to him is seemingly gone.

Cas keeps Dean hidden around the camp. All the team leaders died in the confrontation with Lucifer, Cas is the only survivor, and believes the world to be imminently ending, so why let the camp know Dean survived?

Dean gets #outed as alive, and has to pretend to be the endverse Dean. Him and Cas fight over the various constraints on them, where Cas is grieving the other Dean, our Dean is grieving his other life, they’re struggling to adjust and Dean has to learn everything about the camp (so does Cas, because Cas previously mostly opted out and was having orgies instead), Cas has to claim ownership of Dean’s soul to protect him, and meanwhile the apocalypse just isn’t happening.

There’s other signs, like all supernatural activity has stopped, and they can’t find any animals anywhere. Cas does some angel mojo to discover there are literal holes punched into creation, seemingly Lucifer’s doing, as he has a temper tantrum over the world not ending like it was meant to.

Dean and Cas slowly make up, and live together, for ritual blood magic protection reasons. I’m more hazy on this end. I think Dean gets injured ? anyway then he decides to go out on a routine trip, gets bitten by a brownie (was confused myself whether this was the scottish folklore spirit thing or some weird american insect I DO believe it to be the folklore one tho.) and dives headfirst into a ridiculous disproportionate fever, almost dies, and has visions. He confuses this Cas for Godstiel, and attempts to seal a contract with a kiss. THat’s not majorly plot relevant it just makes me want to scream. Anyway then he appears to pull through and the book ends.

Book 2 is then (I ...think? I get the specifics confused) the events from him recovering from his fever and being read translated hippo porn (book 2 is VERY funny imo), being told the entire camp thinks Cas is fucking him for camp privileges or the other way around, confirming this rumour and officially Fake Dating, telling Cas about the Fake Dating, while meanwhile you’re finding out the original team leaders tried to assassinate Cas, a thread which partially resolves at the end of Book 2 but is drip fed with more and more consequence over the whole thing so far, iirc.

Then Book 3 is, in terms of bookends, mostly about the fake dating becoming real dating, but also about the neighbouring town of Ichabod, encountering Croats properly, learning more about why Dean’s there, and what other forces are at play. Book 4 is just like. plot being hurled at you while Dean and Cas start a remarkably well-communicated if chaotic relationship at the top of the camp hierarchy. Crowley is there and you start learning a LOT of backstory.

Like most fantasy series, the world grows as the books go on:

Book 1 is very much mostly set within the cabins only, with most of the plot and discussion firmly scoped on Dean and Cas alone.

Book 2 is about Chitaqua more broadly, how the camp functions and all the characters there, and you learn more about how the apocalypse is-isn’t going, both in terms of the supernatural and like, the current federal regulations regarding trade and how Chitaqua has grown and interacted with other groups.

Book 3 is about Ichabod, a major neighbouring commune situation, and ritual magic, and psychics and witches and gods.

Book 4 is uh, more of all of that, as they’re mostly trapped in Ichabod, you know more about other camps, you’re sideflashing over back in time to the Roman Forum, and finding out a lot of the characters’ prior lives.

tried to keep this short woops. anyway they haven’t been home in so long :////

anyway im not a part of the like, very long arc of the original dta fandom from 2014-2016 but i think my gist from reading things from them is a lot of people think dta is “About” like................. choosing to keep your head up and continue despite all odds. The story literally kicks off when the apocalypse fails to happen, with a bunch of sitting ducks waiting to be slaughtered at the end of the world, and they instead choose community and fighting instead of giving up. and this isn’t one narrative — there’s many, many mirrors/foil characters for dean and cas respectively who also go through similar arcs at a personal level. there’s also a lot of themes in it about being a thousand different people over a lifetime, which i cant really articulate here but is wonderful 2 me personally

it’s also just like. fun and funny and i do not regret my time reading it but also it is not for everyone whatsoever !

was this post useful to anyone, even me? no <3

#dta lb #asks #MAYBE I GOTTA LOG OFF FOR THE DAY

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bluboothalassophile · 3 years

Text

Rule of Three

Raven had been left in a bad spot all because of dick. No wait, that was and wasn’t right. Yes, it was because of Dick and dick; fucking dick! She wanted to scream, she wanted to go beat her head against an old iron lamp post or something.

This was New York City! It was hard enough getting a place, getting the lease, the rent and so forth, but now, now she was fucked because of Dick! Oh she was so mad, and if she wasn’t so desperate she’d be actively chewing out Wally and Kori for ditching her and putting her in this pickle to begin with.

It had all been simple really, they’d all been friends at NYU and had decided to go in on an apartment after graduation so they could save some expenses. And it was a splendid idea because, they all just got on fabulously, and they were good friends, so it would be a fine arrangement. Also, they’d all lived together senior year, so this would work in their favor, they knew how to live together. That is until Dick Fucking Grayson came sashaying back into town.

Dick had been Wally’s best friend, and Kori’s true love, and they’d both run to him faster than Raven could say ‘Timbuktu’, leaving her flat on her ass, with a three bedroom apartment she couldn’t afford on her own and only her name on the lease. It made her so mad. The only reason she’d gotten the apartment was because of the three of them she had the best credit score, so… Yeah, she was fucked.

And in an attempt to unfuck herself, she had been interviewing subletters all day, because she was desperate.

Her standards were actually very low at this point, they just couldn’t be serial killers, and they couldn’t work for organized crime. Or be on parole. As Raven had said, her standards were exceptionally, painfully low.

And thus far, all her interviewees were strikes. One was for sure a hitman, the other was probably an addict, the other two were a very incesty vibes set of twins; she didn’t want to know; and then there’d been a for sure runaway who was so not eighteen it was almost funny seeing this kid try to pass for an adult. Raven was loosing hope, she was really loosing hope. After a week of bad interviews she was thinking she’d have to move back to Saugerties with her moms and brother, and that was just going to be the biggest ‘I told you so’ from her aunt. Raven would sell her soul to make the New York dream work, she also might take the hitman as her roommate so she could sic him on Dick fucking Grayson; the dick.

This was her final set of interviews so she might be able to save her ass from moving back to Saugerties and working at the ice cream shop.

“Please don’t be a serial killer, please don’t be a serial killer,” she muttered as she opened her door for the final interviews.

“Oi, Roy! Hurry the fuck up!” a huge man bellowed as he did his tie up.

“I’m here!”

“This is all your fault, so get over here,” the other man ordered.

Raven blinked stupidly as the two hottest men she’d ever seen were standing before her. The first was a massive man, black, curly hair, blue eyes with green rings around then and a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks, there was a stubborn white streak in his hair (he looked like Richard Madden who Raven had been crushing on since the Bodyguard). The other guy was a lot leaner, but no less hot; he had long brilliant red hair, sharp features and brilliant green eyes (he looked like Sam Heughan; where the hell did these men get their genetics from!?)

“I can only apologize so many times… and whoa, hey there cutie,” the redhead said with a bright smile. The black haired man shoved the other man’s face back as he looked at Raven.

“Ignore him, he’s an idiot,” he said firmly. “I’m Jason Todd, that’s Roy Harper,” he said with a slight smile, but he kept his face serious.

“Raven Roth,” she said as she shook his hand firmly. “Come in,” she stepped aside and gestured for them to come in. They did, Roy gave her a charming smile, Jason grabbed Roy by the collar and pulled him into the apartment.

“Have a seat, gentlemen,” she said, gesturing to her beat up couch. She took a seat on the barstool as she looked at them. “So… I have just a few basic questions,” she started. “Um… what do you do for a living?”

“I just signed with the Rangers,” Jason stated.

“The Rangers?”

“Jaybird is a hocky defenseman,” Roy smiled.

“Roy here is a pitcher for the New York Yankees. And we’re here because he fucked up and now we’re both on a time crunch, your listing is close enough to where we need to be and far enough away we can be anonymous,” Jason explained.

“It’s not my fault he came back to town!” Roy muttered.

Jason growled lowly as he glared at Roy. “Anyways, we need a place, we don’t smoke, or party, he’s in AA, but I drink, and we keep to ourselves.”

“Oh,” Raven blinked.

“What about you?” Roy asked with a smile.

“I’m working at the library,” Raven explained. “And I’m writing a book, so, there’s that, and I do work for my grandfather, managing his business.”

“Awesome,” Jason nodded.

“So… the rules are simple, I mean I like it quiet and clean, but I don’t want to baby you…”

“Perfect, we don’t need a sitter or a mother,” Jason promised.

“Okay,” Raven nodded.

She asked a few more questions, and they were both happy to answer. She learned Roy was three years sober, Jason was his best friend, they hadn’t ever played a sport in the same city and decided to splurge and room together. They’d been roommates in college. They had had an apartment, but then something had happened, and Jason had decided they needed to be subletters to keep a low profile. Raven was fine with that. When they had discussed the lay out and the apartment, because they were the most normal people she had met with, she had decided to take them up on their offer, because they were willing to cover the apartment so long as she didn’t leak, they lived there. She was fine with that, and when it was all over, she had two roommates.

Jason said he’d make arrangements for their stuff, Roy flirted a bit more with her, which had her blushing a lot before they were gone. Raven shut the door of her apartment feeling a flutter about this, and genuinely excited that she didn’t have to move back to Saugerties.

“Hello?” she answered her phone.

“Raven! I am so sorry I have not been able to call you,” Kori’s voice filled her ear excitedly. “I have spoken to Dick and he would be most pleased if you came to live with us, his brother refuses to move in apparently, so there is a spare room!”

Raven grimaced at the idea of being a fourth wheel and living with a celebrity; Dick Grayson was an Acclaimed Actor in Hollywood afterall and a big heart throb for all the girls. “No, that’s okay, I’ve found someone to sublet,” Raven said.

“Really!?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I am so pleased for you, this will be glorious, Raven!” Kori giggled.

“It’ll be something,” she muttered. “I have to go, my grandfather is calling.”

“I will speak with you soon!” Kori giggled and hung up. Raven just sighed as she leaned on the door. She was feeling all sorts of butterflies and latent attraction thinking about Jason Todd and Roy Harper; they were insanely hot! But they also didn’t seem like bad people, and she was desperately in need of roommates.

She hoped this work, because she needed this to work! Part 2 from @shewhowillnotbenamed1! =) MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

#bluboothalassophile #shewhowillnotbenamed1 #fanfic #raven #jason todd #roy harper #jayrae #royrae #jayraeroy #jayroy #rule of three au #they were roommates

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astaroth1357 · 4 years

Text

The Obey Me Cast on a Camping Trip (Part One: Brothers)

Hey guys, thank you sooo much for getting me to 2,000 followers!! I honestly don’t know what to say... I never dreamed that this little hobby of mine would reach so many eyes, and I can’t be more grateful. At a time in my life where things feel so chaotic and uncertain, being a part of this community and sharing my weird ideas has been what’s kept me going. It’s been such a rewarding experience all around, so thank you. From the bottom of my heart. 😊

I pulled out all the stops for this post. I even brought out one of my favorite songs of all time: Ao to Natsu by Mrs. GREEN APPLE to get the feel juuust right. I hope you all enjoy it!

This post is split in two due to length (I had too much fun again...) For the Undateables, please click HERE!

Intro:

Another day, another team building activity between the demons and the exchange students. It was Diavolo’s idea to go on a camping trip to the human world (because of course it was), and there were very… mixed responses. That sentiment wasn’t helped when he refused Lucifer’s insistent pleas to just purchase cabins for everyone to stay in. Oh no, the Demon Lord wanted to rough it out in the wilderness, and now everyone else was getting dragged along with him…

Wonder how that turned out?

Lucifer

Really, really, really tried to push Diavolo to just rent out cabins in but noooo, he wasn’t having it... So he ended up driving a van crammed with his brothers, the MC, and a butt-ton of camping equipment into the Alaskan wilderness…

The car ride itself was insufferable… We’re talking, “I SWEAR I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!!” level of antics every 10 miles or so (mostly from Mammon)…

Setting up camp was even more of a nightmare because about half of his brothers were utterly useless. The other half (save Satan) were completely clueless… Had it not been for Barbatos and Satan he probably would have just resigned himself to the mercy of the river’s currents and let it take him away…

He couldn’t even wear his usual clothes because of the situation… For the first time in who knows how many centuries, he was stuck wearing jeans… Diavolo even bought him several plaid shirts... (which he was not happy with btw because his brother wouldn’t stop making fun of the “new” him)

He had his own tent of decent-size, enough to move around in but nothing to write home about. The very fact he didn’t have to share was a luxury in itself, so he took it for what it was worth...

He spent a good portion of the trip focused on two things: keeping Diavolo happy and everybody else alive. He rarely left camp unless forced to; he just wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible…

If he did leave, it was because Diavolo would drag him along to fish or hike. He was... less than pleased to be called out of his tent at the crack of dawn or well past dusk to sit on a little rented fishing boat with Diavolo… but he didn’t exactly pick his friends so...

He rates the trip Too Much Trouble/10. Let’s never do it again.

Mammon

Wasn’t a massive fan of being stuck out in the wild, but Satan told him some made-up bullshit about buried treasure out in the forest and got him HOOKED. He even borrowed stole a whole bunch of mining/digging equipment just for the occasion!

He spent most of the car ride asking, “Are we there yet??” like a child. The MC had to step in to keep Lucifer from leaving him on the side of the road at multiple points during the journey...

He was one of the utterly useless ones when it came to setting up camp. Someone charged him with putting up the twin’s tent, and he spent thirty minutes reading (then re-reading) the instructions while shouting expletives. Poor Simeon had to shield Luke from the vulgarity…

He has to share a tent with Levi, which neither of them liked. Mammon mainly because of Levi’s “old fish stink” and Levi because he feared catching “Mammon’s stupid.”

He was all jazzed up to go digging from Day One, though. He’d have breakfast, grab his shovel, then wander out into the middle of nowhere to go dig holes in the ground…

He also got completely lost on Day One, and it took the MC summoning him with their pact to return him to the group... By that time, he was filthy and somehow looked like he had been castaway for days (even though he was gone for like, three hours?)

When he stubbornly refused to stop digging, Lucifer resorted to just tying a rope around his ankle and letting him loose. It was up to Mammon to get back to camp before dinner, or else Lucifer would yank him back like he was on a leash.

Satan waited until the last day to finally tell Mammon the treasure was bullshit, and he was PISSED. He even threw Satan into the river, which resulted in the rest of the brothers joining in for a swim while the two tried to “playfully” drown each other.

He’d rate this trip 0/10 because he didn’t get any buried treasure. What a ripoff…

Leviathan

Hated the idea with a burning, seething passion. There’s no internet, cable, electricity, or phone signal out in the middle of nowhere! How the heck is an otaku supposed to survive?!

He clung to his electronics during the car ride until either they ran out of signal or their battery died, then he didn’t know what to do with himself… He resorted to reading several volumes of the manga he stuffed into his bag and clung to the MC for emotional support…

Yet another useless soul trying to put the camp together. He was in charge of his and Mammon’s tent but ended up almost crying in frustration… How the hell do humans do this all on their own?? Wasn’t he supposed to be the third strongest?! Why is he so pathetic?!? 😫

Hates sharing a tent with Mammon because he always wakes up to the second born encroaching on his space somehow… Poor baby is pretty much directly against the tent wall and STILL has to deal with legs and elbows in his side... 😰

Spends the majority of the trip moping in the tent... If he goes out there, he has to deal with the sun, bugs, and people… No thanks. He only leaves for meals and occasionally to go swimming.

When he found out part of the way through that Barbs brought portable solar panels and a battery pack for Diavolo and Lucifer’s phones, he was livid. He demanded access to the power source, which Lucifer refused because “It would defeat the purpose of this trip.”

He’d have summoned Lotan right then and there, deadass in the middle of the forest, if the MC hadn’t intervened. He then went back to moping, but now at the bottom of the lake and it took a lot of coaxing to get him back out…

On the final day, he was packing up the camp before anyone else even woke up. He wanted OUT and back to civilization ASAP. Bedroom here he comes!

Satan

You wouldn’t think of Satan as an outdoorsy guy. Still, he has shades of a survivalist in him (mostly because he’s read a lot of guides and was looking for an excuse to use them for a loooong time).

He read for the majority of the ride. He was squished between Asmo and Levi, which was reasonably peaceful. But he did end up shouting at Mammon quite a bit towards the end because “NO, we’re not there yet, peabrain!!”

He actually wasn’t a waste of space when setting up the camp, and between him, Barbs, and Lucifer, they were able to get a lot of stuff set up before sundown. He did have to bark a few orders to the others here and there, but overall competency won out in the end.

He shared a tent with Asmo, and the two made it work well enough… Except when Asmo did things like spraying his perfumes and dry shampoos, making it practically impossible to breathe in for a few minutes…

Spent a lot of the first few days reinforcing the camp to a ridiculous degree.

Did he have to collect large branches to build an exterior fence around the campsite? No. But he did.

Did he have to set up a water distillation system using some of the materials Barbs had lying around the “kitchen?” No. But he did.

Did he have to weave a series of fishing nets to catch them lunch from the lake and river? I think you get the point by now.

Only once he built pretty much every contraption or improvement he could think of, did he go back to just reading and relaxing by the fire.

By the time the group was ready to leave, Satan had somehow managed to craft them a veritable, self-sustaining fortress in the middle of the Alaskan wilds…

Overall he would rate the trip as… meh. Next time give him a challenge like a deserted island or an actual desert, and then he’ll really see what he can do.

Asmodeus

Was about as unhappy with the idea as Levi was… It wasn’t that he disliked the outdoors per se, it was just that no one, NO ONE, pulls off looking flawless after several days stuck in a tent!

He chatted the entire car ride from start to finish. He never stopped talking. It made for decent background noise at least…

Was one of the more clueless ones when trying to set up camp and pretty just did what he was ordered. The second he was left to try and figure something out on his own, he went to Lucifer or Satan for help because NOPE. Human equipment is needlessly complicated sometimes…

He had to share a tent with Satan, which in theory shouldn’t have been that bad, but Satan was out basically all day in the sun doing who knows what and would always come back sweaty and gross! At some points, he had to chase his brother out of the tent until he dunked himself in the river or something. No way was Asmo sleeping next to that. 😤

Asmo took the second-longest to get up and get ready in the morning. Sometimes he wouldn’t even leave the tent until well past breakfast just in an attempt to salvage his hair and skin… He only got grouchier about it as the trip went on… 😥

A more… earthy looking Asmo is kind of a bizarre sight. He’s still attractive, no doubt, but it’s less like polished glamour and more like Hollywood humble. He spent the majority of the trip looking like a somewhat dirtied movie-star (which he still insisted was the worst he’s ever looked in ages).

Aside from salvaging his looks, he actually enjoyed taking pictures of their surroundings or of the group (but not himself). He sometimes forgot how genuinely breathtaking the human world could be…

….but his patience for the place wore out quickly once he started noticing his hair getting greasy. He was right next to Levi, packing up the site once it was finally time to leave. At least those two finally found something they could agree on, let’s get the fuck out already!

Beelzebub

He was really curious about trying camping food and pretty excited that Barbatos was coming, too (because that meant great food in general).

Unfortunately, Lucifer had to stop the van at basically every gas station they passed for Beel could refill on snacks… Belphie ended up getting buried in wrappers pretty often, but he was asleep, so it didn’t matter much.

Beel did a lot of the heavy lifting when setting the camp up, but the finer details were left up to everybody else. He had his hands full getting stuff off the cars as is…

Of course, he shared a tent with Belphie, and there wasn’t much complaint between them. Honestly, there would have been more drama if they were split, so this was the better option.

After the MC told Beel about fishing and how it could net him more food, if he did it right, he knew exactly what he wanted to do during the trip.

… But no one told him how long and slow the process would be. There were points he’d get so hungry he’d consider eating the bait himself…

That was until about Day Three of the trip when they passed by a river full of grizzly bears… He was about to ask the MC why the bears were all standing in the water, but then he saw a fish practically leap directly into one’s mouth…

Beel had discovered his true calling.

Of course, the grizzlies didn’t take too kindly to a demon suddenly sprinting into the water with them. They tried to fight him off, but Beel just tossed most of them downstream without any issue until they realized who the apex predator really was…

After forming a shaky truce with the bears, Beel would stand in the water for hours then come back with whole baskets full of salmon… There were far more fish than Barbatos knew what to do with, so he’d just confiscate a few then let Beel eat the rest...

The MC shuddered to think about what Beel had done to the local salmon population… But he was full and happy for most of the trip, so he had a great time!

Belphegor

Sleep for him isn’t too contingent on location, so the idea of camping wasn’t terrible. It did sound like a lot of hassle for no good reason, though…

He spent the entire car ride asleep, head and cow pillow pressed up against the window and everything. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but he’d dealt with worse.

He was utterly useless when putting up the camp by choice, thank you. He had more than enough sense to get things put together; he just didn’t want to. If he wasn’t asked to do something by Beel or the MC, he’d just lay back in the grass and smugly watch everybody else struggle…

Again, he and Beel are in the same tent, and you wouldn’t hear any complaints out of him. He did start to have some second thoughts when Beel began getting a fishy smell, though, so he tried to bunk with the MC in their tent for a while.

Like Levi, Belphie didn’t leave the tent much during the daylight hours, but that was because he was still asleep… There was no good way to wake him with no alarms available, so he’d sleep in past lunch easily.

When he was awake, he didn’t leave camp very much except to walk with the MC or watch Beel fishing grizzly-style.

Eventually, Asmo and Diavolo got sick of him dodging their photos, so they’d started posing him Weekend at Bernie’s style around the camp (always conveniently propped up by something and with sunglasses on)

Something Belphie did like, however, was the nighttime. Since there were no lights around, he could practically see everything the sky had to offer. He could spend hours laying on his back long after everyone else had gone to bed just admiring the stars.

All in all, not a terrible trip. Anything that could give him that view like that was well worth it. 6/10, would sleep again.

Click HERE for Part Two. Check out my Masterlist for more!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios #thank y'all so so much #you're fantastic

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ukcyo · 3 years

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eyes locked forward.

❦ summary ; you love eren, but it isn’t enough to save him.

➳ pairing ; eren jaeger x reader

➳ genre ; angst

➳ warnings ; spoilers for chapter 119 and beyond, nsfw mentions, death, canon-typical violence

➳ a/n: happy late valentines day lovs <3 i was supposed to post this yesterday but i kept scrapping it and it went downhill from there sijfosidj

"I did love you once. But that was when I thought you weren't like the rest of them: a slave."

If Hell was real, the fire that scorched it realms could never compare to the way your heart burned when he had told you those words yesterday, only mere hours before he begun the destruction of all lands beyond Paradis. You waited for a sign, a quiver, a betrayal in his expression--anything to tell you that he didn’t mean what he just said to you, that he was just too caught up in the moment. But those blue-green eyes, absent all of life, continued to stare coldly at you, as if you truly were nothing to him but a pebble on the side of the street.

And that was when you realized that your Eren wasn’t here anymore.

You remember the first time you’ve met him. Blue-green eyes with a certain intensity that reminded you of the fiery blazes of the sun, he swept you off of your feet when his zealous words and promises of revenge and freedom made you realize that there was hope within these walls, that humanity’s savior trained right beside you. The way he was eager and happy beyond words when you agreed to his sentiments and provided opinions of your own further intensified those emotions of yours, feeling yourself get attached to everything he offered. Your feelings were confirmed when he was revealed to be one who can become a titan, telling you that it was only Eren who can guarantee a future for all of humanity.

Yet, as both of you spent countless conversations under swirls of red-orange and the occasional star-ridden darkness of the night sky, you no longer bonded over only shared goals of freedom. First it was your smiles, then it was jokes, then it was the sudden appreciations over being there for each other, tinges of red appearing both on your faces. And on a Thursday night, when both of you had gingerly kissed for the very first time, Eren and you realized that you had given a half of yourselves to each other.

That was why it was worth and continued to be worth it for the longest time, because Eren was there, as you were for him. Countless sorrows, imminent grief, frequent loss, the guilt of surviving while hundreds of the soldiers you all fought with were left either mangled or eaten--they all became bearable because both of you leaned on each other, melding beautifully into one whole that only fueled the strength you had.

What foolish thinking.

You remember the first time he touched you. It was a week before your first ever visit to Marley, just a little over a year ago. Eren had drastically changed, much more quieter and solemn, he had a habit of staring into space with a deeply blank look in his eyes. It hurt you to see him like this, the pains of the world consuming his soul, but it was enough for you to be by his side and easing his woes even just little, something you knew you were able to do when an adoring, sincere grin appeared on his face. Yet, besides that, both of you barely spoke as much as you did in your past, usually resolving to sitting in comfortable silence as you stared at the vast green scenery of the island. That was why it greatly surprised you when he had appeared in your bedroom that evening, hand caressing your cheek and lingering there, his eyes intently looking at your features, as if he was trying his best to memorize it. And when he asked if he could lay in bed with you that night, hands moving down to the collar of your nightgown and gently clutching it, you smiled and whole-heartedly agreed.

You can still vividly recall every feeling Eren had managed to procure from you that evening. His hands were like the paintbrush of a talented painter, brushing even the slightest upon your skin and producing a magnificent shade of color that you’ve never experienced and seen in your life. Both of you were inexperienced, two people lost in a world that they thought they understood so well, but realized that they actually knew nothing all. But if you were to say that the experience wasn’t heavenly, that the way he had moved against you wasn’t divine and almost brought you to tears, you would be lying. Because it was absolutely beautiful, ethereal even. In the first time in years, both of you tasted the feeling of happiness, what it meant to be alive. Both of you understood that maybe you were born to live in this exact moment, intimately connected as if tomorrow was such a distant concept.

The memory of it was a treasure in your heart that you swore to never reveal and offer to someone else, identifying it as sacred and a light in this dark tunnel you have been facing.

(Now your heart only twists in ache, for the treasure had altered into poison.)

As you reminisce, you suddenly come to a painful realization that that evening was the last time Eren had stayed alive. Both of you laid in bed afterwards, entangled in each other’s arms as you attempted to fall asleep. You remember thinking that this was the essence of being alive, until Eren had suddenly tightened his grip around your body, his arms shaking in the process. He acted as if he was in fear, fear that you were going to slip away and leave forever if he even loosened it just a bit.

“Eren,” you said his name in a concerned tone, “What’s wrong?”

He was whimpering. You realized that it wasn’t only his arms that shook, but his whole body did, his heart hammering rapidly within his chest.

“In the future, I want you to find happiness no matter what happens, even if it isn’t with me. I want you to be free, like we’ve always longed for.”

You stayed silent for a second, stunned from his words, before smiling and hugging him tighter in return.

“Eren, wherever you end up running to and wherever you go, look to the distance and know that I am there too. Freedom is still what I consider happiness, but now I realize having you in my life is too.”

That conversation, the desolation in his words, the venom in his tone when he had told you were no longer important to him--it all made sense to you now. His attack on Marley, his subsequent escape from his prison here, activating the rumbling and releasing all those colossal titans to wreck havoc to all the lands beyond Paradis--Eren knew that this was going to happen. Long before the Marley trip, long before you made love, he knew that he was meant to destroy the world the moment everyone decided you were all devils. He knew that the blood of all the innocent people that made up numerous nations was going to be on his hands. He knew that he was going to have to kill who he was, and that was why he said those words to you that evening. Because despite that all, despite how much you mattered to him, it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to save Paradis, it isn’t enough to vanquish the fear people had on the island you called home, it isn’t enough to change the future.

You love Eren, but it isn’t enough to save him. It isn’t enough to save you all.

Sacrificing himself and everything he held dear to his heart for the sake of freedom, there was no going back to who he was, and there was no going back to you.

That’s why he said it, you tell yourself, because he knew how painful it would be when I will have to face him.

As you currently lay huddled against the campfire, the woods deathly quiet for almost everyone around you slept, silent tears cascaded down your cheeks. Not because you understand that what he told you was a lie, but how much he had to slice himself up for the sake of protecting all of you. This wasn’t fair. None of this was. Why wasn’t he given another choice? Why?

A new resolve develops in your heart as you quiver from the tears that refused to stop spilling from your eyes. It didn’t matter what will happen, what will happen to you, you will get Eren back. You will save him, away from the crimes he was forced to commit, away from the cruelty of the world that refuses to leave him alone.

Because wherever Eren runs to, wherever he ends up being in, you will always be there in the distance, ready to lift him up when he ends up crashing to the ground.

#eren jaeger x reader #eren jaeger x you #eren x reader #eren x you #attack on titan x reader #aot x reader #aot x you #attack on titan #aot angst #eren x y/n #aot x y/n #pain #i am in so much pain #isayama please don't kill him off #eren come back alive challenge #aot fanfiction

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innuendostudios · 3 years

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Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

#film noir #neo-noir #criterion channel

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