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childofchrist1983 · 7 months

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But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. - Ephesians 2:4-9 KJV

This section of The Book of Ephesians was interpreted by Martin Luther as meaning that works were not important as salvation is our as a pure gift from God; a gift earned for us by Jesus Christ. However, James in his letter, talks about the fact that faith and works are not at odds with eachother, but are integrally connected.

We cannot earn Heaven or salvation on our own. This is a fact. If it were that simple, then it would not have been necessary for God to send us Jesus who is our LORD and Savior, and who is both human and divine who would be able to redeem us, save us from our sins, and open the gates of Heaven to those who believe. How do we show that we believe? Our works are our witness to our faith. How do you know that others are who they say they are? I know that I listen to what people say and watch what people do. When their actions match their words, then I know I can trust them. I know people who claim to be good Christians who are some of the most prejudiced people I know. Their actions do not match their words. I know other good church-goers who see nothing wrong with checking out packages in the store and putting them back and take a fresh one. Then there are the people who buy clothes, wear them a few times, and then return them and ask for their money back.

When we say that we have faith in Jesus Christ and are following Him, then our actions should follow. We should be loving, not hateful; we should be working for justice, not approving discrimination, and be honest in all our dealings with others. This is what James meant, and this is in keeping with this Bible passage. Our works will never earn us Heaven or salvation, but through humbly and faithfully serving Him upon being saved and spiritually reborn, it will let God know that we have accepted Him and His eternal gift from His grace. May our actions witness God's Truth, light and love by working for justice, and loving and forgiving others. May He continue guide and correct us, so that we continue to grow in Him and not weaken and stray. May we all remain faithful to Him and to this duty and purpose He has called us to. Seek and put your faith and trust in Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ and let Him do the rest. May He humble our hearts and help us focus on following and serving Him daily and helping others with joy and happiness. We lift our voices in praise to Him for His love, mercy, peace, faithfulness and grace. - For EVERYTHING!

It is vital that we remain rooted in Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ through prayer and His Holy Word and Spirit and that we live and walk as a beacon of His light and love and share and spread the Gospel Truth daily, so that the lost souls in this world can come to know Him and be saved. The more we focus on Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ, growing spiritually by building our relationship with Him, leaning on Him and His Holy Word and Spirit, the better off we will be. Thanks to this and our faith in Him, we know that everything will be alright. And we will forever be grateful to Him. As true and born-again Christians, we believe in Him and His Holy Word and we strive daily to walk in His Holy Spirit. We know though our mortal bodies should die, He will raise us up and into new and glorious bodies (The Rapture). We who are truly His and alive at His second coming will never die, and our bodies will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and so shall we ever be with Him in His Kingdom of Heaven forevermore (1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). This is one of many promises given to us by God Himself. Thank God for His strength and guidance when we are faced with sin and temptation. Thank Him for His mercy and grace. Through Bible study and prayer, God reveals His wisdom and guides us to see opportunities to grow closer to Him and grow spiritually. He gives us direction to live our lives daily according to His will.

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven (John 3:5, 14:6), the ONLY way to salvation (Acts 4:12, Ephesians 2:8-9) and He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25-26). Jesus Christ the LORD of lords, KING of kings, the GOD of gods (Deuteronomy 10:17, 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, Revelation 19:16) - He is the Living, Almighty and Everlasting God (Isaiah 9:6, Revelation 1:8, John 3:16, John 3:36, Jeremiah 10:10). There is no other God besides Him (Isaiah 45:5). We MUST humble ourselves before Him, turning our backs on false teachers, false gods and idols and our sinful ways. We MUST repent and turn back to God and recognize who He is and love Him in return for His great love for us. We MUST make God top priority everyday! May we be motivated to spread God's Holy Word and Gospel Truth to all the Earth, knowing that it is the only hope of all those lost in their sins. Let us not hold out a false hope for men to be saved without the Gospel, but instead, strive to do our part to get the Gospel out to a lost and dying world.

Leaning on Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ through prayer and His Holy Word and Spirit strengthens us and our knowledge and wisdom about God and His Gospel Truth, exposing these imposters. May God help us to seek and lean on Him daily to gain the strength, wisdom and spiritual discernment needed to expose Satan and his imposters who seek to destroy us and God's ultimate Truth. Everyday, we must remember to share Jesus Christ's Gospel Truth with the world and to thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for the grace that He poured out for us on the cross at Calvary. He has freed us from the burdens of sin and from the eternal damnation of Hell. In all we say and do, may all praise, honor and glory always be given to Him and His Kingdom of Heaven.

With renewed minds, hearts and wills, let us serve Him humbly and faithfully out of pure love and grateful rejoicing. May He remind us of His presence and to remain at peace, fully knowing that all will be well because He is always with us. Let us seek Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ today and everyday with all our heart and being, looking for His love, light and will for our lives with each step we take. Let us seek to please Him with our thoughts, words, and deeds and seek to advance His Kingdom of Heaven and His glory with our lives. Let us seek Him from a pure and humble heart, and when we so seek, we believe Him and His promise that we will find. May He help us all to be more sensitive to the teaching ministry of His Holy Word and Spirit, relying on Him and allowing Him to speak to us and guide us every step of our Christian journey.

God gave us the Holy Bible - His living and Holy Word - to let us know of Him and His abiding love and care as well as guide and prepare us for all our lives. May He help us encourage one another as we continue our walk with Him and our duty to Him daily. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for being present for all our new beginnings and all our lives. May He redirect any anxiety we feel as He provides countless opportunities for growth and change. May we humble ourselves before God always, asking Him to forgive our sins and make our hearts and lives anew through His Holy Word and Spirit. May He help us make Him and His Holy Word top priority, so we can grow spiritually and grow in our relationship with Him as we apply it to our daily lives. Thank God that we can focus on Him and everything about Him, for that is what keeps us sane and at peace. May our words and actions always be a reflection of Him and His Holy Word and Spirit and will.

May He help us to always walk in His grace and Holy Spirit, not by our own measure. May He give us the humble humility to know that our freedom and eternal salvation is found only in Him, so that His grace may sustain us, and we may never lose sight of His love and light and mercy. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for calling us to Him and to serve Him. May He equip us to do all that He has called us to do so that as He works through us, He may use us to produce fruit, to reach others, and to encourage all brothers and sisters in Christ. May He work all of these things in us and through us for His Kingdom and His glory. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for all His creation, for His miraculous ways and for everything He does and has done for us! Keep the faith and keep moving forward in your walk with Jesus! He loves us and He knows what is best for us. Seek, follow and trust in Him - Always!

Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for His Holy Word and for sending His Holy Spirit so that we might have His grace, not only to awaken us and transform our hearts in our spiritual rebirth and guarantee our eternity with Him, but to also call upon Him whenever we are in need. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for all the reminders of His love and mercy and faithfulness within His Holy Word. He is bigger than any challenge or circumstance in our lives. Knowing this within our minds and our hearts, nothing can deter our faith in Him and His Truth. May we all accept Him and His eternal gift of salvation and ask that He would transform our hearts and lives according to His will and ways. Thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for His Holy Spirit who saves, seals and leads us. May we always thank Father God Almighty and the LORD Jesus Christ for His almighty power and saving grace. For He is our strength, and He alone is able to save us, forgive our sins and gift us eternal salvation and entry into His Kingdom of Heaven.

May we make sure that we give our hearts and lives to God and take time to seek and praise Him and share His Truth with the world daily. May the LORD our God and Father in Heaven help us to stay diligent and obedient and help us to guard our hearts in Him and His Holy Word daily. May He help us to remain faithful and full of excitement to do our duty to Him and for His glorious return and our reunion in Heaven as well as all that awaits us there. May we never forget to thank the LORD our God and our Creator and Father in Heaven for all this and everything He does and has done for us! May we never forget who He is, nor forget who we are in Christ and that God is always with us! What a mighty God we serve! What a Savior this is! What a wonderful LORD, God, Savior and King we have in Jesus Christ! What a loving Father we have found in Almighty God! What a wonderful God we serve! His will be done!

Thanks and glory be to God! Blessed be the name of the LORD! Hallelujah and Amen!

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obscureoperations · 2 years

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Having a very intense sex scene with Martin, who leaves trails of love bites on the body of his beloved, marking her as his making it clear that it belongs only to him.

This has sat in my inbox for long enough that I rushed it! Lmao..so sorry fam!

At times you had to wonder how you manged to score such a perfect boyfriend. Martin was so sweet and so shy. Still hesitant in the beginning, he'd often blush when given the opportunity to take your hand. You never had to question his motives, or wonder if his heart belonged to another. Something in his gaze always gave it away. He would eye you like a beacon in the middle of the day, helplessly dangling onto every word you would speak. The light behind his eyes the moment you enter the room. He made you feel so--

Martin was perfect for you.

The two of you had been together for nearly two months, and the change in his demeanor was clearly evident. He would stand just a few centimeters taller whenever you were around. The uncertain tremble in his voice completely forgotten.

A woosh of air escapes your throat as his teeth dig into the flesh of your neck. Soft plush lips instantly smoothing over the recent assault as his fingers move expertly between your legs.

You had created a monster.

A far cry from how things were in the beginning. Martin used to have to dive beneath the sheets before getting undressed. The residual Catholic guilt seemed to affect you relationship in numerous ways. You were so glad that he finally seemed to be coming into his own. He no longer glanced away timidly whenever you began to undress. No longer blushing profusely whenever you'd look at him. He’d shower with you frequently. Gently washing your back, peppering kisses against your neck as the lather slips down your shoulders.

A complete three sixty turn, at times you could barely recognise the man in front of you. His thrusts were slow and achingly precise, they caused every nerve ending to ignite. The feel of his breath against your neck causes you to tremble..nimble fingers ghost over your clit. Every sigh and exhalation against your ear has you melding against the sheets. You just wanted him to move closer.

The expression on his face, lost in delirium. You just wanted to smooch him silly. That sweet, and innocent face caught in rapture. His lips never looked more inviting.

You were making him feel that way.

Martin was muttering to himself, almost inchoherrantly-- his eyes start to drift and dart all over the room. Chasing the shadows faster than his own release. After a particularly sharp thrust, his teeth finds your neck as sinful moan escapes his lips.

You were patient, he had already gotten you off twice. As of now you only wanted to watch him cum. His thrusts seem to grow increasingly frantic as he syphons another mark against your kiss bruised flesh.

In an instant he withdraws, causing you to groan in frustration. You watch as he poises himself right in front of you. Teasingly stroking himself fully in front of your view. Moonlight bounces off his skin, illuminating his delicate features.

You wanted to scream. Smack him or something. You were just so achingly close. Martin was close as well from the looks of it..he continues to thrust himself against his open fist.

"D-do you feel it y/n"?" He whispers. His thumb immediately returns to your aching clit. In small short circles, he leans in to trace his tongue across your parted lips.

He was there with you in that precise moment, causing bouts of pleasure to coat the sheets.

As if on clockwork, another small release courses through your slender frame. Your thighs were on fire.. heels digging into the bed as he continues to bite and kiss his way across your stomach. Images from Sunday mass.. He kept glancing over his shoulder to look at you. That innocent face. The way he gazed at you all throughout dinner just few days before. It was the first time you sat down to meet Cuda. Martin continued to eye you from across the table.

He doesn't have a clue..

The feel of him once he enters you again in full. Streaks of light flash behind your eyes. His teeth sink into the flesh of your shoulder, causing you to cry out. That seems to gain his attention, he tilts his head to look at you all the while gently rolling his hips. “Y/n.. you’re mine right?”

#martin 1977 #martin 1978 #Martin Matthias #Martin/you #s p i c e

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 4 years

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“HUNGRY CONVICT CAPTURED IN BARN,” Montreal Star. August 5, 1930. Page 2. ---- Jules Legace Fails to Make, Good "Perfect Plans" For Escape ---- QUIET SURRENDER --- Guards From Penitentiary Take Prisoner After 75 Hour Search --- Still hungry after a three-day diet of raw vegetables pilfered from the gardens of farmers, but with his spirit still unbroken, Jules Legace, alias Joseph Bourgias, who escaped from St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary on Friday, was raptured yesterday afternoon in a small barn at L'Abond-a-Ploutte, on the banks of the Riviere des Prairies, by Col. P. A. Piuze, warden of the penitentiary, and three guards before he had a chance to make his escape or even offer resistance.

The youthful desperado took his capture coolly and, shrugging his shoulders, informed the officers that it was lucky for them that they had captured him when they did for they would never have been able to catch him it he had succeeded in escaping their vigilance for a few more hours.

The capture of Legace who was sentenced to 12 strokes of the lash and 12 years in the penitentiary by Judge Gustave Marin on December 4 last for robbing the bank at St. Chrysostome of $2,500, brought to a close one of the most spectacular manhunts in the history of the penitentiary which involved the efforts of two thirds of the prison personnel.

MANY RUMORS. The tireless patience of Cut. Piuze and his men in running down every rumor was responsible for the young convict's capture. After many fruitless trips, information was received that Legace had been seen at L’Abord-a-Pouffe. Knowing that the man had relatives in the vicinity, all reports were closely checked. One of these was to the effect that Legace had been seen in the vicinity of a little barn a quarter of a mile west of L’Abord-a-Plouffe Church, opposite the Montee St. Martin Col. Piuze summoned three of his men and surrounded the building and, entering it from four different directions, gave the convict no chance whatever to escape or even offer resistance.

When found, Legace was clad in his undershirt, his penitentiary trousers and his gray peak cap. His outer shirt, as well as the linen members which were attached to the prince uniform, had been discarded by the convict and were found Saturday by the guards a quarter of a mile from the penitentiary.

Although disappointed when captured, Legace did not appear to be very discouraged. In fact he was somewhat boastful. “If you had not got me today," he said. "you would never have caught me. I had studied the most perfect way of getting away and my scheme would have foiled you. I would have reached Montreal tomorrow and you would never have heard from me." BARN WAS HOME Legace, it was discovered, had occupied the barn as his home for 36 hours and had subsisted on tomatoes and carrots taken from a nearby garden during the night.

Col. Piuze in speaking to The Star today, expressed his pleasure that the man had been captured alive and that the hunt was over. Two-thirds of the prison personnel of 130 men were on duty constantly for 75 hours searching for the escaped prisoner. There were 22 posts on the island and all bridges and ferries leading out of the island were closely watched by armed guards", the warden said in explaining the difficulties of the search.

"We were fortunate in capturing our man," he continued, "but we desire to thank all residents who were as willing to co-operate in the pursuit, as well as the members of the municipal police, the provincial police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Our guards who worked so hard also deserve my sincere thanks for their good work."

Col. Piuze also expressed his thanks for the way in which the majority of motorists whose cars were searched at the ferries and bridges complied with the requests of the guards. It was the cause of considerable trouble and delay, he knew, but it was the only way by which the guards could make aware that the convict was not attempting to leave the island.

Legace will be brought here tomorrow and will appear before a magistrate in answer to a charge of escaping from legal custody, the penalty for which is usually two years In addition all time gained on account of good behavior la automatically cancelled.

#montreal #laval #st vincent de paul penitentiary #escape from prison #prison break #escaped convict #police manhunt #prison guards #l’abord-a-plouffe #hiding in a barn #great depression in canada #crime and punishment in canada #history of crime and punishment in canada

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theskywaslookingback · 4 years

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“Splicers!”

A burst of fire comes around the corner, Tim coming into view a moment later. His mouth is set in grim determination, wielding fire like a demon with Melanie and her crossbow at his side.

“Come on,” Sasha says from the computer terminal, hands flying across the screen, “come on, come on, come on-“

Jon feels Martin’s fingers digging into his bicep, moments before he realizes he’s leaning forward, hand already outstretched. “We need you here,” Martin says, his voice cracking, “Jon.”

“I know,” He curls his hand over Martin’s, “I know, I-“

Melanie screams.

Daisy’s head shoots up. She looks bad, hair falling into blood shot eyes, dirt covered palms pressed to her bleeding side. Basira tries to hold her there, but Daisy pushes at her gently; or as gently as she can, it still sends Basira stumbling back. “I have to help.”

“No,” Basira says, darting back forward but Daisy catches her by the shoulders.

“Goddamn splicers!” Comes Tim’s voice, and then there’s the rattle of gunfire from somewhere ahead of them. Jon can’t see Tim or Melanie anymore and he longs to help. Martin squeezes his arm, heavy length of pipe at his side tapping at his leg nervously. They haven’t been overtaken yet but Tim and Melanie can’t hold the splicers back forever, and it seems like Jonah Magnus has sent them a whole army.

The gunfire drowns out whatever Daisy is saying to Basira but Basira shakes her head viciously. Then Daisy shuffles forward and puts a mouth to her ear.

The massive door behind them pops and hisses as the steam powered locks churn and spin. Martin hisses in a breath through his teeth. Jon thinks about kissing him and wishes beyond reason that he’d thought to do it earlier. His heart in his throat he thinks, ‘I love you and I am so, so scared.’

“Got it!” Sasha exclaims, “Jon!”

“Promise me.” Daisy says.

“I promise.” Basira answers.

“Good,” Daisy says and grins, it is terrible and full of teeth, “now go.”

“Daisy-“

“Go.”

Basira turns and grabs Martin and Jon by the front of their shirts, hauling them through the massive metal door. Seconds after they slip through it makes a grating, high shriek of metal on metal before all at once it snaps back closed. Jon barely has time to see Sasha’s shocked face, splicers spilling into the room, Daisy tearing into them, before they’re lost to him.

The radio at his waist crackles. “Jon?”

Jon picks up the radio, “Elias? Where have you been, we-“

“You’re in his office now, aren’t you? You’re close.” Elias says smoothly, “Jonah Magnus should just be through the next set of doors, you know what to do.”

“And what would that be?” Jon asks, “You know you’ve never actually said-“

“Jon.”

Jon looks up. Behind him is a great wall, filled with television monitors. Some of them show parts of Rapture - the gardens of Arcadia, the halls of the medical pavilion, the docks of the fisheries - flickering in and out as the cameras shift from one view to another. There are parts he doesn’t recognize - what appears to be a chapel, a saloon, a hotel - and something that chills him down to his bones.

The view at the very bottom left shows a feed of his flat, the one he’d been living in for years since he’d moved away from his grandmother. The one next to that shows the university where he works, cycling through the library and mess hall and student building. The one next to that is black, though he has the chilling thought it may have once showed the home where he grew up.

“He’s been watching us.” Martin says, the horror and disgust plain on his face, “Christ, he’s been-“

“This is just sick.” Basira says, “We need to find Magnus. Now.”

“He’s been watching me.” Jon says softly.

Basira scoffs, “He’s been watching all of us.”

“No, I mean,” Jon holds a trembling hand out toward the screen, “that’s my flat. Top side.”

“What!” Martin hurries over, pressing up against Jon’s side.

It’s a welcome weight and Jon takes his hand gratefully. “That’s my office, at work,” he gestures to the next screen, “and that’s the university library, the hall-“

“So, what? He- he- brought you here?” Basira clicks her tongue. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t-“ Jon picks up his radio, “Elias? Elias, are you there?” The radio remains predictably, infuriatingly, silent. “Elias? Damn you.”

“Magnus has to be around here somewhere,” Basira says, “let’s split up and-“

“Split up?! Oh right, yes, let’s just serve ourselves up on- on- on a silver platter or- or-“

“No, no, Basira’s right. We have a better chance of finding him before he escapes if we split up. And it’s not like we’re defenseless.” Jon looks rather pointedly at the pipe Martin still has clutched in his fist and Martin gives a little grumble.

“Yes, yes, all right.”

Jon goes through a door on the right that seems to lead to a study, the walls liked with row upon row of books. There’s a stuffed bear in the corner, a hare in a jacket perched on the corner of the desk, a coat rack with a stylish if a bit worn black jacket hanging from it. The desk itself looks old and Jon wonders if Magnus brought it down with him from top side or if he’d had it fashioned from the trees in Arcadia. The desk is heaped with papers and, upon closer inspection, Jon notices a smear of blood. He traces it with the edge of his thumb and looks down. More blood drips at the edge of the desk, down onto the carpet. At the corner, near the row of neat, varnished wood drawers, is a small red button.

Jon presses the button and hears a click and hiss before the stuffed bear in the corner shifts over and reveals a door. He should get Basira and Martin, he knows, but he just wants to take a look. If it’s nothing he doesn’t want to pull them away from their own search.

The door gives easily to the press of his hand, and Jon steps inside.

The first thing Jon sees is the chair. Plush green velvet, high backed and studded with bits of brass. There is a man in the chair, his hand mere inches from the ground as he slumps there, blood on his palm and finger tips. At least, Jon assumes it must be a man. The back of the chair faces the door, too broad for Jon to see more that the arm and a leg kicked out haphazardly.

Jon clears his throat, suddenly clenched in panic. “Are- are you Jonah Magnus?”

The man gives no response. No indication he’d heard him at all.

“Hello?” Jon steps forward, lightly, “Are you-“ Jon sucks in a sharp breath as he comes up beside the man. He’d clearly been badly beaten, his head caved in with shocking bits of bone and blood exposed. Jon has seen a lot of corpses in Rapture, has even made plenty of his own, but the site of this man brings a sickness to his stomach he hasn’t felt in months.

The radio at his waist crackles. Elias hums, smooth and slow. “Oh, I see you’ve found what’s left of Jonah, then.”

Jon looks up sharply and sees a little security camera, winking a red light in the corner as if waving hello.

“A shame really, that it had to come to that, but the old man was growing soft. I think he’d started actually becoming fond of you, his little pet project. Do you know, Jon, what the difference is between a man and a slave?”

“I-“

“That was a rhetorical question, actually. Would you kindly stop talking and be still?”

Jon felt his jaw snap shut without his permission, his limbs heavy at his side like cement.

Elias let out a pleased sigh. “There we are. You see Jon, a man chooses and a slave - well, a slave obeys. Jonah decided, many years ago, that people would be so much happier if they stopped having to think so much. If they could just do as they were told without fussing, he said, if they could just exist and function in society without strife and debate then maybe mankind could actually make some steps forward. He was a daft fool of an old man but he at least had a few basic tenants right. So he started experimenting. First, with the little sisters, then with the big daddies, and then with you.” The radio crackled merrily, almost alive with the joy coming from Elias. “You were perfect, Jon. The perfect baby, the perfect child. We asked and you, well, you obeyed. It was more than we ever could have dreamed.

But the timing wasn’t right, so Jonah sent you up top to wait, knowing some day we would bring you home. He started getting soft though, as he watched you, started thinking of himself as more like your father. He said Rapture was too far gone and there was no point in bringing you down now. So, I bashed his head in with a pipe. Not my finest moment, I will be the first to admit, but- well.

But now you’re here, at long last. The moment I had long been waiting for. You are so strong, Jon, and still so perfect. And you’re mine.”

Jon feels panic claw his way up his throat with no way to escape. He feels his eyes burn with tears unshed, and knows if he were allowed to move his hands would be trembling.

“Now, Jon, would you kindly go kill your friends? I can’t wait to see you.” The radio crackles once, twice more, before going silent.

“Jon?” God, Martin, not Martin. “Jon, where are you? We can’t find Magnus anywhere! He must have escaped that slippery-“

Jon wants to scream, to warn them, but his jaw is locked down tight. He steps out into the office and Martin is there at the door. He wants to cry out, tell him to run.

“Oh there you are! Basira is- Jon? Are you all right?”

Jon brings up his hand, flames licking at his finger tips, and prays for Martin to run. And hopes that his friends can kill him before he kills them.

#fic #my fic #archives crew #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #daisy tonner #basira hussain #melanie king #elias bouchard #jonmartin #bioshock au #((no one asked for this but my brain put it out there anyway))#((I wrote this at midnight on mobile directly into the tumblr app so I’m sure there’s some stupid typos in here but oh well))#((also this is WAY longer than I meant for it to be and I can’t add a read more on mobile so rip sorry))

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corinnesamuels · 3 years

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Teddy Wants a Treehouse

(Or, the one where Harry has a minor bout of jealousy.)

When Andromeda Tonks asked Harry and Ginny Potter to watch 4-year-old Teddy for a week, the Potters accepted without hesitation. Andromeda had been playing a tug-of-war-like game with her last living sister, working to discover if Narcissa Malfoy still had traces of the person she had once known. It was decided—after a year of awkward silences, long-forgotten happy memories, and melancholy rememberings of what had been—that the two sisters would take a holiday. Maybe after being away from everything, they could find out one way or another.

At least, she hoped.

While she knew that her surrogate family would not become close friends of the Malfoys if she and Cissy were able to rebuild their relationship, they had respected her desire to try to work things out. It was decided that Ginny would watch Teddy during the days she wasn't in training, and on the days she had to travel to Holyhead, Harry would take Teddy to the childcare wing of the Ministry. Teddy had been before on just a handful of occasions but seemed to love it each time.

Andromeda told Teddy of the arrangement a few days before she was due to leave for Italy, and he was ecstatic.

"I's gets to stay with Harry' n Ginny for a whole week?" He had asked excitedly in the middle of breakfast. Porridge smeared across his mouth, small clumps taking residence in between strands of shockingly turquoise hair.

He was as messy an eater as his mother had been clumsy. It brought a sad smile to Andromeda's face to think about it.

When Harry and Ginny came to pick Teddy up for the week, Andromeda couldn't tell whether godfather or godson was more excited.

Ginny had no trouble stating that it was Harry.

And as Harry looked up from blowing a raspberry on Teddy's stomach, the little boy still squealing with laughter, the look on the man's face proved that his wife was most definitely correct.

But neither Andromeda, Ginny, nor Harry expected Teddy to come down with dragon pox just two days into the week. Andromeda offered to come back early, but Harry promptly refused. He almost never took days off from work and had plenty of leave accrued to stay home with Teddy. Andromeda looked skeptical during their conversation over the Floo, but Harry assured her that if he could defeat dark wizards and live through three different killing curses, he could take care of his sick godson.

He'd call over to the Burrow and have Molly help, at the very least.

"Really, Andy, we'll be fine. Enjoy your time in Italy. Everything will be fine when you get back." Harry said. His knees were beginning to ache from having to crouch down by the fireplace. Reluctantly, and with many quickly given tips for treating dragon pox and reminders about what Teddy liked and disliked, Andromeda ended the connection. Harry stood up, rubbing his knees.

"Well, Ted, it isn't the week we had planned, but let's make the most of it, shall we?"

Teddy looked up from his place on the hearth rug and began to try scratching his irritated skin, foiled by the scratch-proof gloves he had been forced to wear.

"Itchy." Teddy said grumpily.

Harry managed to get an appointment at St. Mungo's that afternoon. Harry was happy to discover that while Teddy would be a little lethargic for the next couple of days, he would be back to his usual self and ready for all the things Harry had wanted to do before the week was up. The Healer gave Teddy a salve for the irritated skin, a potion to knock the dragon pox out altogether, and a lolly for his troubles. She also had the decency not to laugh when Harry took one as well.

Not an hour after Harry and Teddy returned to the house on the outskirts of Godric's Hollow, Molly Weasley arrived with an arsenal of sickness-beating supplies—enough soup to last a week, a salve she decided was much more effective than whatever rubbish they were passing out at St. Mungo's, and a fresh set of gloves for little hands that still tried to scratch at the pockmarks.

"Mrs. Weasley, I'm green! And itchy!" Teddy said as Molly bustled into the kitchen.

"Well indeed, you are!" Molly replied as she poured bowls of soup for him and Harry. "But not to worry dear, we'll have you right as rain in no time. Eat up! You'll need your energy. You too, Harry, dear. You're looking quite thin. A good wind might blow you away."

Harry knew better than to waste his time protesting Molly taking care of the two of them, and after one sniff of the soup, he joined in with Teddy, eating hungrily.

"Thanks for bringing us soup, Molly. I really appreciate it. I was thinking that I'd have to order takeaway this evening."

Molly looked scandalized at the thought of a sick toddler eating takeaway. "Nonsense! I'll be sure to bring some more soup over tomorrow. It will make this little one start feeling a little more like himself." She gave Teddy a pat on the head and set the dishes to washing themselves with her wand.

Molly sat with Harry and Teddy at the dinner table for a while, going into exaggerated raptures as Teddy demonstrated his abilities to write his letters and numbers.

"How smart you are, Teddy! You'll be at Hogwarts before we know it."

Teddy looked at once proud and mildly embarrassed at the statement and looked to Harry for further approval. Harry smiled and ruffled Teddy's hair. After the dishes had been washed and dried, and the kitchen looked a bit cleaner than it had when Molly had arrived (though quickly she denied any additional spellwork and proceeded to change the subject), Molly stood to leave.

"Well, I must be off." She said as she double-checked her basket to make sure she had everything. "Arthur will be home soon, and I'll need to get dinner ready. Feel better, dear." Molly kissed Teddy on the top of his head and turned to hug Harry goodbye.

"I'll be around tomorrow to check on the both of you." She said as she grabbed a handful of Floo Powder.

"Thanks again for the soup, Molly. Teddy, what do you say?"

Teddy's little green face looked from Harry to Molly and then to the fireplace. "I want to go wif you to the Burrow! Can I?"

Neither Harry nor Molly had expected that response. A little surprised, Molly looked to Harry and saw him attempt to hide the slightly crestfallen look that passed over his face. Trying to avoid letting Harry know that she had seen it, she bent down to get a little closer to Teddy's eye level.

"You want to go to the Burrow with me?" Teddy nodded eagerly. "Well, Teddy, you know you're always welcome, but Victoire won't be there." She said, thinking that Teddy must have been missing his playmate. At this, Harry squatted down and placed a hand on Teddy's back.

"Is that why you want to go to the Burrow, Ted? You want to play with Vic?"

"I want to go see the treehouse. Harry doesn't have one." Teddy said matter of factly. Harry and Molly looked outside the sitting room window. There were several trees on the property, but as Teddy had mentioned, none of them held a treehouse.

"I don't, do I?" Harry rubbed Teddy's back, mulling things over in his head. "Molly, do you mind if Teddy and I come over and camp out in the treehouse today?"

Teddy gasped with excitement and threw his little arms around Harry's neck before looking back at Molly. "Please, Mrs. Weasley!"

Molly laughed. "Of course, you can. Arthur would love to see you both. How does treacle tart sound for pudding?"

"Excellent." Harry and Teddy replied. Molly chuckled to herself and straightened back up.

After Molly disappeared into the fireplace, Harry stood up and looked around. "Well, Ted, we'd better pack some things up for us to take to the Burrow. Go grab a few things, and I'll send a note to Ginny."

A few hours later, Harry and Teddy were sitting in the treehouse on a pallet of sleeping bags and pillows, reading the latest issue of Martin Migs the Mad Muggle. Teddy loved the silly stories and was sent into a giggling fit every couple of pages. He was right in the middle of one when they heard footsteps on the treehouse ladder.

"Looks like you two are having plenty of laughs without me. Did you save me any fun?"

"Ginny!" Teddy squealed as the redhead crawled over to them in the treehouse.

"Wotcher, Ted." She grinned before placing a kiss on his turquoise fringe. "Hello, love." She said as Harry leaned over to get a kiss of his own.

"How was training?" Harry asked, ignoring Teddy's groans of "yuck!" when the kiss lasted longer than Teddy preferred.

"It was good. Gwenog mostly had us go over some new approaches to next week's match. The Tornados' new beater is starting, and he's got a wicked aim."

"Can I go to the Quidditch match? I want to see the snitch!" Teddy asked as he crawled onto Ginny's lap. Harry beamed at Teddy's mention of the snitch and sent a smug look over to Ginny.

"We'll have to check with your Gran, Ted. But wouldn't you rather get more excited about the quaffle?" Ginny asked, glancing at Harry, whose mouth was now in a straight line.

"I like them both! But snitches are really fast and they get a bazillion points!"

"I suppose that to a four-year-old, 150 and a bazillion are quite close to the same thing." Harry said. "Nice try with the quaffle bit, though."

Ginny stuck out her tongue at him and then turned back to Teddy. "Is that your new issue of Martin Migs, Ted? Is it as funny as the last?"

After the rest of Martin Migs, a few dragon coloring pages, and one and a half rounds of Babbity Rabbity and the Cackling Stump, Teddy Lupin began to doze off. Ginny rubbed his back as Harry laid him down on the sleeping bag. "Poor kid. I remember when Ron and I had dragon pox. At least we had each other to play with."

"Yeah," Harry said as Ginny moved to sit on his lap. "When he mentioned that he wanted to come over, your mum thought that he wanted to play with Victoire."

"She also mentioned that you looked a little hurt when he said it."

Harry felt himself blushing subconsciously. "I had hoped that she didn't notice that . . ." He muttered under his breath. "I thought he was bored with me at first. Then he mentioned the treehouse, and I realized that it did seem a lot cooler than being cooped up in our sitting room all day."

"He adores you, Harry," Ginny said, pressing a kiss to his lips. "Believe it or not, even more than treehouses. And quaffles, apparently." She feigned a look of disbelief.

Harry laughed. "Apparently."

Over the next few days, Teddy returned to his normal coloring and was ruled to be back in perfect health. Harry, still on cloud nine from spending the week with his godson, decided to stay home even on the days that Ginny didn't need to go to Holyhead and squeezed as many activities in as they could into their last two days together. They got ice cream at Florean Fortescue's, went to the joke shop to play with some of George's more toddler-friendly items, and went to the cinema in London. And then, almost too soon, Andromeda returned from Italy, and it was time for Teddy to go home.

The next weekend, Ginny awoke and instinctively backed closer to Harry, only to find that Harry wasn't there. She turned over and looked around where he should be lying and, confused, glanced around the room. She didn't hear any sounds of movement in the bath, and no sounds were coming from the kitchen. Getting out of bed, she pulled on her dressing gown and walked over to where they kept their calendar in the kitchen, but his work schedule showed that he didn't have to report to the Ministry today either.

Where had he gone off to?

She noticed a cereal bowl and a used coffee mug in the sink, the tea kettle on the stove, and smiled. She hadn't been able to pick up his coffee habit in the mornings and could only tolerate the stuff when she was in dire straits. But Harry had been there and grabbed a bite to eat before he went to wherever he had gone off to and had gotten the kettle ready so that she could have tea when she woke up.

Ginny pondered this as she poured a cuppa and heard a tapping noise. She walked over to the window and saw her husband standing on a ladder by one of the sturdier trees in their yard, hammering at a set of wooden planks. Wrapping her dressing gown more securely around her, she walked outside to the tree.

"I was wondering where you had gone off to."

Harry looked down at her and grinned. "I wanted to get an early start and didn't want to wake you."

"I noticed," she said, sipping her tea and smiling at him as he went back to working on the boards. This was one of the few moments outside of their time with their friends or family that he didn't look so burdened. "What is it that you are doing, exactly?"

"Teddy wants a treehouse." He replied simply. "Could you pass me that instructions page? The one by your foot?"

Ginny picked up the instructions page and handed it to Harry. She watched as he tapped it with his wand and caused it to hover in front of him. He squinted at it briefly and picked the hammer up again. There was a sudden intake of breath, and he stuck the pad of his thumb instinctually in his mouth before looking at it.

"Splinter." He said at her concerned look. Ginny examined his thumb as she pulled his wand off of the boards and tapped twice on the small sliver of wood lodged in his hand. The splinter shot out and into the air as the skin healed itself.

"I'm pretty sure you could have gotten one that was already made." Ginny said as she placed his wand back on the planks of wood that harry was assembling. "Or done it with magic."

He shook his head. "Some things are better done by hand."

"Your hands are quite capable, from my personal experience." She smirked before taking one last sip of her tea, noticing that Harry looked quite pleased with himself at the statement.

Read the rest on ao3.

#Harry/Ginny #Hinny Fic #Hinny #Harry is a good godfather #Harry Potter #Teddy Lupin #Ginny Weasley #Ginny Potter #Molly Weasley #cannon compliant #post-DH #after the war #fluff #Harry takes care of sick Teddy #global warming is trying to destroy us so we deserve some fluff #Andromeda Tonks

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rosy-cheekx · 3 years

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Make A Wish

Book passage: Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

Me? Posting an unprompted fic? 2021 is starting off wild!

AO3 Link here

Summary: Martin knows just how to celebrate Jon’s 35th birthday. It’s soft and beautiful and speaks of a bright future.

Martin doesn’t know how to shop for Jon. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t really want trinkets or the little gifts Martin would think to buy for a significant other. (If he does want them, at least, he doesn’t say it.) Things he needs, like clothes, he buys himself, doesn’t wait for an occasion. Overall, Martin would not describe Jon as materialistic.

Books are the exception. Books are always the exception for Jon. While Jon is not materialistic, he is usually sentimental. He keeps things for as long as he can, letting them wear and wear til they’re no longer usable, like his shoes. Especially pictures. Jon never throws away pictures. (Martin knows why and snaps as many Polaroids as he can of his partner, himself, their friends, even their cat, hanging them around the house in tiny frames as reminders.) But his books are in and out of the shelves like they run a bookshop of their own. Martin has heard the stories of his partner’s reading habits as a youth, knows that Jon’s reading habits are challenging, to say the least. Before they’d moved in together, though, he hadn’t realized that every time he was at Jon’s the bookshelves were almost entirely unique to the last visit. New titles, rarely the same authors, with no seeming organization to the assemblance. Martin knows this now, knows that once a fortnight Jon packs up all the books he’s read and takes them to their local charity shop. It’s his little ritual, and the bug-eyed look of confusion Martin had received when he had asked him about it the first time was priceless.

“I just--don’t need them anymore?” He says, like it’s a question. “I’m not going to read them again.”

“Really?” Martin raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I took you to be a bit of a hoarder when it comes to books, if the statements in your office were any indication. And it’s our flat, so they’re our books. What if I want to read them?”

“Please.” Jon scoffs. “That’s entirely different. I don’t enjoy- well. They’re work, these are not.”

Still, after this, Jon includes Martin in his ritual, giving him synopses from books he thinks Martin might enjoy and adding the Blackwood-Approved books to the other bookshelf. Martin is quite proud of his bookshelf, identical in structure to Jon’s but entirely more organized: books ordered by genre, then by author, with figurines, photos, and plants acting as weights and decor. Jon’s deviates between sparse and overflowing, books stacked however they will fit, with no rhyme or reason to their order.

Martin doesn’t know how to shop for Jon, but he’s learned quickly that Jon isn’t a Things person. Jon is an Experiences person. The moments he treasures are the ones where he and Martin are happy to be in each other’s presence and experiencing new things together. Ice skating, picnics, hiking, cinemas, all the quintessential cheesy dates, the ones he would’ve guessed, way back when, before he knew the real Jon, this Jon, he would have snubbed his nose at.

Jon’s birthday is coming up. He’s turning 35 and is all too self-conscious about the fact. Martin ribs him a little; he’s older by seven months, after all, “you’re making me feel old, Jon!” Their ritual has become to call off work and spend a day together on Jon’s birthday. No gifts, no fanfare, just a day doing an activity Martin has planned. It’s perfect usually, Jon’s delighted smile and bright eyes when he thanks Martin with a kiss is all the satisfaction he needs. But this is 35, it needs to be special. It needs to be perfect.

---

Martin blinks awake to the steady, calming drum of rain on their bedroom window. He pats out blindly for his glasses, haphazardly set on his bedside table, and pushes them on his face, before rolling back onto his side and tucking an arm around Jon’s waist and nuzzling into his neck. “Happy birthday, love,” he murmurs, carding his other hand through Jon’s tangled curls. He smiles softly as he watches his partner; Jon always grumbles that he looks so much older than he is, but when he’s sleeping, Martin swears he looks timeless, a specimen of perfect beauty against the crisp black sheets. Jon shifts in his arms, turning to face him, and squints blearily at Martin. Jon, for all his sleepless nights back at the archives, is not a morning person.

“Hm-mar’in?” he mumbles, irises stained forever green. He clears his throat and scrubs at his eyes. God, he looks just like a cat. “G’mornin’,” he says, a little more comprehensible, voice rough-hewn from sleep.

“Morning, love.” Martin kisses his forehead, between his eyebrows. “Happy birthday,” His nose, cold from a chilly autumn night. “Ready for a good day?” His lips now, soft and warm. Jon sighs underneath him, presses himself into the kiss, slots himself into the Jon-shaped space in Martin’s arms.

When Martin shifts away to sit up, Jon audibly whines, grabbing at Martin’s hand to pull him back. “You’re so warm, don’t go,” he pleads. Martin chuckles and squeezes his hand.

“It’s half nine. You want breakfast, don’t you? We have an agenda to follow, don’t forget.” But Jon shakes his head and tugs again.

“Birthday Ruling,” he cites solemnly, stretching as he says it. (Again, like a cat, the way he arches his back. Is that on purpose? Martin is pretty sure he’s seen Reggie—Her Regency—do the exact same thing.) “By royal decree, you have to stay here until I’m awake enough to help you with breakfast.”

“Well,” Martin chuckles, shaking his head to himself and tucking himself around Jon’s thin form. “I can’t refuse a royal decree, now, can I?”

Breakfast becomes brunch, and once the pair are awake tea, cut fruit, and omelets are prepared and eaten on the couch. Jon being left-handed and Martin right, they sit on their perspective sides so they can hold hands and not inhibit the other from eating.

“So,” Jon prompts, eyeing Martin from his peripheral as he watches him wash dishes. “What are your secret plans? Am I allowed to know yet?”

“Hmm.” Martin considers his question, running a plate through his hands as he dried it, solemn contemplation on his face. “No.”

“Mar-tiiin,” Martin is almost worn down by that plea, a sound he doesn’t think anyone else who has ever met Jonathan Sims could fathom coming from him. A bloom of warmth in his chest; a reminder he will never feel lonely again.

“But I think you’ll figure it out,” he compromises, grinning to himself. His plan had come to him in a sudden realization at work and Martin did think it was some of his best work yet. “Here’s your hint: you may want to bring a canvas.”

Jon’s face is a measured calm. “We’re going shopping?” Martin just shrugs, winking.

They take a cab and the rain pounds down on the roof, the repetitive noise a balm against the cold and wet. Martin really got lucky today; the sound of rain is one of Jon’s favorites. He sighs inwardly as Jon rests his curls, slightly damp from their wait for the cab, on his shoulder and closes his eyes, basking in the warmth of his boyfriend and the pleasant drumming.

Jon’s eyes opened when he felt the cab pull to a stop, and he took their surroundings in with the quick analytical eye of an ex-Archivist. Martin felt his cheeks growing warm with excitement as they stepped out of the cab and paid. The building before them, like most Scottish buildings, was made of uneven stone. There was a little garden, mostly rocks with some shrubbery dotted between, and the pathway, also stone, though a flatter smoother variety, led to the door, which read The Watermill in blue and white lettering. “Martin?” Jon threaded his fingers through Martin’s, eyes wide.

“It’s a bookshop, Jon. It’s got reading nooks, and a café, and I swear I’ll buy you any books you want. We can stay as long as we like. We can read as much as we want.”

Three short squeezes to Martin’s hand. Oh. He was starting to ramble. He returns the answering four. “Martin, love, it sounds perfect. But it’s raining.” Right. A drop of rain rolls down Martin’s nose, and he shivers. “Let’s get inside.”

Martin is glad he brought a tote, a canvas bag with the name of Jon’s university emblazoned on the sides. He follows Jon through every aisle as Jon analyzes every book like their dogs in show. He scans the titles, covers and authors with precision, sometimes returning them with delicate hands, sometimes reading descriptions or thumbing through the pages, before deciding their worth and either reshelving it or handing it to Martin. Martin is distinctly reminded of being an Archival Assistant, helping Jon prioritize case files, except the expression on Jon’s face isn’t furrowed and grim, it’s near-rapturous awe as he selects and examines the books. There is no evident consistency to the books Jon picks, ranging from YA fiction to historical documentation to travel books of places he knew they’d probably never visit, though he always takes Martin’s suggested reads, nodding dutifully and running his hand down the spine before placing it in the ever-weighing bag on Martin’s arm.

They spend nearly an hour and a half roaming shelves before Jon is satisfied with this first load. Martin is grateful. His shoulder is starting to hurt from the nearly full canvas he’s hoisted on his shoulder. Martin leads his partner to a small corner, something that can only be described as a nook. There’s a small, well-worn sofa, a table with coasters, and a coffee table in front of the sofa. The whole space is cast in warm orange-yellow light, courtesy of the standing lamps, and Martin can imagine this is a great place to curl up and fall asleep.

Curl up they do, Martin sitting with a few books of his own beside him and Jon leaning against Jon’s side, sprawling over the majority of the couch. Martin tucks an arm over Jon’s chest, feeling the slow rise and fall of the space where collarbone meets rib, and they read. They read in silence for most of the morning, Jon flipping through his books at a truly astounding pace (Jon thinks its left over from his Archival Spooky Powers, Martin thinks he’s just a nerd), pausing occasionally to read Martin a line he finds interesting. It’s a yellow paperback now, something about psychopathy, and he begins to read out an interview the author had with a man who claims he should not have been diagnosed as a psychopath.

“D’you think Jonah was a psychopath?” Jon asks, brow furrowed as he reads the qualifying characteristics. “He had the ‘grandiose sense of self-worth’ and ‘cunning/manipulation’ down pat.”

Martin hums, glancing over Jon’s shoulder to read the rest of the Psychopath Test. “Lack of remorse,” he points. “Lack of empathy for sure. Someone with empathy doesn’t implant visions of their dead father into the head of their employee. Speaking of, we should have Melanie and Georgie over soon.” Jon nods against his chest. “I’d call him charming, too, actually,” nudging Jon gently. “Especially with new employees. Remember how he—”

“Called me into his office nonstop and ‘checked in?’ Yeah, I remember.” Jon sighed and smoothed the page down. “Can you call it ‘a parasitic lifestyle’ when your employees are bound under your servitude for eternity or until they die?” Jon scoffs. “I don’t think the DSM is ready for Smirke’s Fourteen.”

“Maybe not. Maybe the sixth edition will be.” Martin presses a kiss to the top of Jon’s head and turns back to his own book.

“Hungry?” Martin asks, nudging Jon as his stomach gurgles for the third time in as many minutes. Jon jumps a little, likely having forgotten Martin was there.

“Erm-I mean, a little.” Even after being together for so long, Jon still hesitates to let Martin buy him food. (“Martin, I have money. You don’t- you don’t have to-” but whatever offending muffin or cone of chips would be pressed into his hand and he would thank Martin, sheepish, and take a bite.)

“Chai latte? Something sweet?” Martin asks, nudging Jon out of his side and feeling the cold spot left in his wake. “Its your birthday, come on.” Jon sighs and relents, and Martin swear he can hear him roll his eyes as he walks away.

Martin orders two chais and a few cupcakes (chocolate for Jon, carrot cake for him) from the café in the front of the bookshop and joins an ever-growing queue of patrons waiting to get their own warm treats. The rain must have driven people in in droves. Never mind it, though, their corner feels empty enough. He thinks he sees a spider on the back of a woman’s shirt in front of him, and flinches before realizing, oh, it’s just a bit of string. He takes a slight step back anyways. He didn’t used to do that.

“Order for Martin?” An American voice, uni student probably. He thanks her and makes a point to drop a few quid in the tip jar, seeing it frustratingly empty for such a busy café.

Martin takes a small porcelain plate in each hand, a mug and pastry balanced on each, and makes his way carefully back to the sofa where he had left Jon. Only, he couldn’t see his curly hair, tied up in his half-bun, over the back of the sofa. Did he go to the loo?

It’s when Martin steps over to the side of the couch to set the plates down that he bursts into laughter. Jon is sprawled in a way that seems completely unconducive to reading: his knees are hooked over the sofa, so his socked feet (shoes neatly deposited next to his hips) are on the cushion itself. His torso is stretched on the warm, well-swept wood floor and his head (and his book) are tucked under the coffee table; arms locked over his head so he can read on his back. It looks ridiculous, he cannot fathom what possessed Jon to sit like this and not on his back on the couch.

Jon hears his laughter and arcs his neck, trying to see Martin’s face. “It was…comfortable?” he tries helplessly, giggling awkwardly. “Oh, piss off,” he sighed, inelegantly worming his way out from under the seat.

“Come on, old man.” Martin grins, handing him the cupcake he’d bought for him, with a single purple candle pressed into it. “Make a wish!”

“It’s not even lit,” Jon protested, cheeks flushing.

“Want me to sing instead? I can.” Martin took a deep breath. “Happy Bir-”

“N-no! Martin, no!” Jon pressed a hand over his mouth, though he was giggling madly at Martin’s wild expression. “I’ll blow it out. Just hush.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and then let out a breath in a sigh. His eyes were soft, smile to match. “I…I don’t have anything to wish for.”

Martin’s turn to blush. “Just-just shut up and eat your cake,” he mumbled, hiding his smile in a sip of his tea.

Maybe its how at-peace he feels, maybe it’s his ADHD (its definitely the ADHD), but Martin has no idea how long he’s been reading. He’s brought out of his reverie, his copy of In Cold Blood almost finished (he’s read it before, but god he loves this book so much), by a low noise he can’t pick out at first. It’s quiet, soothing, its right next to him.

Oh. Oh. It’s Jon. This one, a real compulsion left over from his time as an Archivist, Jon is reading aloud to himself, his voice the sonorous, resonant tone of a man performing for himself. Martin puts his book down carefully, trying not to alert Jon to his awareness, and listens, letting the words wash over him. Jon’s voice has always been able to capture Martin’s attention, even before the Eldritch Spooky Magic that eventually attached itself to it.

“Klemmer stands there, gazing at her. “Erika doesn’t want a silence to develop, so she utters a platitude. Art is platitudinous for Erika because she lives off art. How much easier it is for the artist, says the woman, to hurl feelings or passions out of himself. When an artist resorts to dramatic devices, which you so greatly esteem, Klemmer, he is simply utilizing bogus methods while neglecting authentic ones. She talks to prevent the eruption of silence. I, as a teacher, favor undramatic art – Schumann, for instance. Drama is always easier! Feelings and passions are always merely a substitute, a surrogate for spirituality. The teacher yearns for an earthquake, for a roaring, raging tempest to pounce upon her. That wild Klemmer is so angry that he almost drills his head into the wall. The clarinet class next door, which he, the owner of a second instrument, has been frequenting twice a week, would certainly be astonished if Klemmer’s angry head suddenly emerged from the wall, next to Beethoven’s death mask. Oh, that Erika, that Erika. She doesn’t sense that he is actually talking about her, and naturally about himself as well! He is connecting Erika and himself in a sensual context, ejecting the spirit, that enemy of the senses, that primal foe of the flesh. She thinks he is referring to Schubert, but he really means himself, just as he always means himself whenever he speaks. “He suddenly ventures to adopt a familiar tone with Erika; using a formal tone, she advises him to remain objective! Her mouth puckers, willy-nilly, into a wrinkly rosette; she cannot control it. She controls what the mouth says, but she cannot control the way it presents itself to the outside world. She gets goosebumps all over.”

Martin closes his eyes against the words, a shiver running down his spine, starting at the top of his skull. It’s a feeling he gets so rarely now, the feeling of being so absolutely content in the presence of another person that any fog he may have is physically expunged from him. Not that there is any, but it’s a safeguard; a reminder to himself that he is not Lonely anymore and will never be lonely again. It can’t get him, not here, not with Jon sprawled, almost in his lap, reading and sipping tea and letting the only thing they worry about be whether they fed the cat this morning (Jon did, of course, Reggie is not one to let them forget her morning meal).

“Martin?” Jon’s voice cuts through his quiet contemplation. “You alright?” He’s tilting his head back, almost upside down to look at Martin’s face. “I felt you shudder.” Of course, even deep in his trance of this story he had felt Martin shift.

“Of course, sweetheart,” he smiles reassuringly, carding the hair off Jon’s forehead. “I’m not feeling lonely, not even a little bit.” He used to do it a lot in the safehouse, and fog would roll off him in droves. Jon would hold him through it all. “I think it just happens now like part of an immune system, just checking in when I’m feeling emotional.”

“Emotional?” Jon looks a little relieved, but not entirely. He sits up, glancing down at his page number (Martin could never figure out how Jon did that, remembered his page number instead of using a bookmark) and cups Martin’s face gently, searching it. “What’s wrong?”

“Absolutely nothing, Jon, I promise. That was why I was emotional,” he admits, feeling a little sheepish. “It’s just good to feel happy. It feels good to be with you, to be at peace, to not worry about what is going to happen tomorrow and whether we’re going to die.”

Martin blushes, feeling heat spread through his face. It feels good to say it out loud. “Happy birthday, Jon. I love you.”

They leave with bags full of books, smiles on their faces and the moon casting a faint light on their backs. Martin falls asleep in the cab on the way home, his head lilting onto Jon’s shoulder. When Jon wakes him up, leading his sleepy partner up the stairs,

Jon thinks 35 maybe won’t be so bad, after all.

#tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #jmart #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #fluff #birthday #bookshop #cafe #good vibes all around #fanfic to a tea

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astudyinfreewill · 3 years

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hey did i ever mention that for a few days back in ye olde 2014, before s10 ever aired, i became briefly deeply obsessed with the idea of demon!dean becoming the new cain and recruiting demon!bela to be his second-in-command aka the new abaddon? i even decided i would write a multichapter fic about it but only ever published two chapters because 1) hyperfixation ran out and 2) i really didn’t think the plot through very hard other than “dean and bela being sexy narrative mirrors again except this time they’re Evil and Doing Crime for fun”. and frankly i think that was a good concept if not very well planned out!! sexier than the actual demon!dean arc we got at least!!

ANYWAY i never finished the fic but more importantly i DID make a playlist for it on 8tracks (because those were the cursed pre-spotify days) and while that playlist is also EXTREMELY 2014 i simply refuse to be embarrassed about it bc it DOES have bangers on it, and it’s, to this day, the only spn playlist i have ever made (yes. an au demon!dean and demon!bela playlist. i don’t know either. life is wild y’all). so i’m bringing it back like a ~blast from the past~ (and YES i even made a poorly edited cover and tracklist. what was i gonna do, simply not make a cd leaflet?! it was 2014.) you’re welcome ✨

it’s 2021 babey and you can listen to the playlist here ✨

(but because spotify is ~too cool~ to list dodgy youtube remixes and i want you to have the FULL cheesy 2014 throwback experience, here is the skorge remix of “sail” and here is the glitch mob remix of “seven nation army” )

and because i was a complete floozy for lyrics even 7 years ago... you can find the extended tracklist with significant lyric snippets under the cut. enjoy besties 💕

1. Feral Love // Chelsea Wolfe

Run from the light Your eyes black like an animal Deep in the water

2. Back In Black // AC/DC

Forget the hearse, ‘cause I’ll never die I got nine lives, cat’s eyes, using every one of them and runnin’ wild 'Cause I’m back, yes I’m back, well I’m back, yes I’m back Well I’m back in black, yes I’m back in black

3. Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine

Holy water cannot help you now A thousand armies couldn’t keep me out I don’t want your money, I don’t want your crown See, I’ve come to burn your kingdom down

4. Lilith // Susanne Sundfør

As you lie across the table you swear and rhyme You lie across the table, you swear and rhyme Thinking that someone might suit your body

5. Sinister Kid // The Black Keys

I’ve got a tortured mind, and my blade is sharp A bad combination in the dark

6. Heaven Knows // The Pretty Reckless

Oh, Lord, Heaven knows we belong way down below Oh, Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below Way down below, way down below

7. Small Pack of Wolves // Ramin Djawadi

(instrumental)

8. You’re Going Down // Sick Puppies

Define your meaning of 'war’ To me it’s what we do when we’re bored I feel the heat comin’ off of the blacktop And it makes me want it more

9. An I For An I // IAMX

Apocalypse and rapture signing in (An eye for an eye) If you’re not with us, you’re against (An eye for an eye)

10. Lose Control // Evanescence

Mary had a lamb, his eyes black as coals If we play very quiet, my lamb, Mary never has to know

11. Hey Man Nice Shot // Filter

Now that the smoke’s gone and the air is all clear Those who were right there got a new kind of fear

12. Sail (Skorge Remix) // Awolnation

Maybe I’m a different breed Maybe I’m not listening (Sail with me into the dark)

13. Addiction // Ramin Djawadi

(instrumental)

14. Animal I Have Become // Three Days Grace

So what if you can see the darkest side of me? No one will ever change this animal I have become

15. My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark // Fall Out Boy

Burn everything you love, then burn the ashes In the end, everything collides My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

16. Problem // Natalia Kills

We're hell raising and we don’t need saving 'Cause there’s no salvation for a bad girl We’re rock bottom but there ain’t no stopping 'Cause they don’t know nothing about love We're hell raising and we don’t need saving 'Cause there’s no salvation for a bad boy We’re rock bottom but there ain’t no stopping 'Cause it’s you and me against the world

17. Smells Like Teen Spirit // Nirvana

Hello, hello, hello - how low? With the lights out it’s less dangerous Here we are now, entertain us

18. Everybody Wants To Rule The World // Lorde

Welcome to your life: there’s no turning back Even while we sleep we will find you Acting on your best behavior Turn your back on Mother Nature

19. Gotham’s Reckoning // Hans Zimmer

(instrumental)

20. Seven Nation Army (The Glitch Mob Remix) // White Stripes

Everyone knows about it From the Queen of England to the hounds of Hell

21. Iron // Woodkid

The sound of iron shocks is stuck in my head The thunder of the drum dictates The rhythm of the falls, the number of deaths

22. Get Lucky // Halestorm

Like the legend of the phoenix All ends with beginnings

23. Bottom Of The River // Delta Rae

The wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight (Drunk and driven by a devil’s hunger) Drive your son like a railroad spike (Into the water, let it pull him under) Don’t you lift him, let him drown alive (The good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder)

24. Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm of The War Drums // A Perfect Circle

I’ll be the one to protect you from your enemies and all your demons I’ll be the one to protect you from a will to survive and a voice of reason

25. Animals // Martin Garrix

(instrumental)

26. And The World Was Gone // Snow Ghosts

I wish you’d felt me falling I wish you’d watched over me But I blinked and the world was gone

#i literally have not been on tumblr in days and THIS is what i come back to do #i'd say i'm sorry but i think we all know that would be a lie #spn #dean winchester #bela talbot #demon!dean #demon!bela #playlists #VINTAGE CONTENT ANYONE???#countryboycas #sapphicjo #thank you to jules and erika for enabling me. we went on a JOURNEY today #and by we i mean me and by journey i mean 'dazed stroll down memory lane'#ambra.txt #long post #mp

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notgonnarememberthis · 3 years

Text

find your way (back to me) - chapter three

Not quite sure how I feel about this chapter but it is just a bit of a turning point for the next 2 chapters coming so I promise y’all that the next 2 will be better than this. Initially I had a scene going into this but I had to split the chapter when it just got too long and my brain was like “nah”. Ended up working for the better and I’m super excited about the next. Hope y’all are staying safe and enjoy this update

The morning comes with a pit of dread in Gil’s stomach. He was awoken by an early call, dragged out of the restless slumber of accidentally fallen asleep on a stack of case files. There was the body of a man discovered in a park this morning by a jogger. He didn’t match the M.O. at all other than the location of disposal. Still as he pulls up he can feel the tension pulling at him.

Something isn’t right.

He can make out Malcolm’s pacing form as he approaches. He lingers close to Edrisa who’s examining the still form on the bench. The corpse was dressed for the snow that accumulated overnight, eyes closed and arms crossed over the chest.

“Cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.” Edrisa states, he assumes they proceeded without him when Colette arrived on the scene. That’s good, the less time they waste the better. He can have Malcolm fill him in on the extra details later.

“That doesn’t make sense. None of this matches the M.O. This screams remorse. Our killer isn’t remorseful, he’s cold and calculated. He’s accounted for every possibility. He targeted my mother in the middle of the day and stole an ambulance. He doesn’t do remorseful.” Malcolm rubs his hands over his eyes and Gil wonders for a moment if he even sat down in the past 12 hours. The boy already looks drawn thin, exhaustion battling with the caffeine in his system.

“I don’t think this is our guy.” Agent Swanson speaks up moving from her spot to the victim. “The only thing that matches up is the location. It was convenient to pawn it off onto a serial killer and get away with the crime.”

“What’s convenient about cops patrolling parks all over the city?”

“Bright.” Gil’s tone is a warning. He doubts it’s by Colette’s choice that he’s here rather than stopping him from doing so anyways. The last thing any of them need is to be at each other’s throats, but he is right. With cop cars patrolling all over the likelihood of getting by without being spotted is small.

It’s clear the scolding only makes him more agitated, Malcolm rocking back on his feet with a frustrated huff. He pulls him aside placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. This is hard on all of them but Malcolm, especially. He’s seen first hand what this killer does to his victims, hell he doesn’t blame the kid for feeling irritated by the slow proceedings. It doesn’t help that Dani lingers behind his every step.

He quietly notes to himself to get something nice for JT and Dani both. With watching Ainsley and Malcolm both they’re going to be on the end of more snide comments and snappings than either of them deserve.

“You don’t have to be here. Go back with Ainsley and work the press. This is not going to get easier.”

“I can’t. You know that.” His eyes fall on the body again. “It doesn’t make sense but I know this is our killer.”

“I believe you.” He offers Malcolm a sad smile. “Go back to the precinct, and gather all the connections you can. Swanson is going to be a hard sell. You gotta make this one believable.”

“I need help.” Gil frowns, understanding settling into him. “I have to go see him.” He immediately defends upon seeing his expression.

“Swanson won’t allow it.” He glances over Malcolm’s shoulder and the woman watching them with narrowed eyes. “It was her condition of you staying on this case, that you stay far away from Martin.”

“If I can shake Dani for 20 minutes.”

“It won’t work Bright. She’s got 3 other cops watching you.” Malcolm nods with a humorless smile. He can practically see the boy unraveling in front of his eyes. Hell, he feels it a bit himself. “I’ll go.”

Concern and panic flashes over Malcolm’s face. “You can’t.” He protests. He’s not visited Martin since Malcolm was taken but he feels the same panicked pull. If he can help them find Jessica in some way, any way he’ll do it.

“I’m the only one that can.” Malcolm tips his head back again, shaking it. Hesitation radiates from him, and he understands why. Part of Malcolm wants to protect anyone he’s close to from Martin. The other half knows that he might be crucial to the case.

“I’ll go back with Dani and Edrisa. There might be something we missed in the previous autopsies that can connect this victim to them.” He turns to walk away but stops himself. “Be careful.”

Gil pulls him in giving a short hug. “We’ll find her, I promise.” He feels Malcolm hold tighter and his heart breaks a little. He remembers carrying him into his home after he’d fallen asleep on his couch. Just before he passed Malcolm to Jess he gripped onto him a little tighter, refusing to leave his side. When he finally untangled himself from the 12 year old’s grip he took to wrapping himself around Jessica instead. The look on her face had him smiling for a week.

He has to find her, for Malcolm.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jessica’s throat feels raw from screaming when she wakes again. Her head cranes, searching for the sound that woke her. She spies someone lurking in the shadows and she almost relaxes.

“Can I have some water?” She gauges carefully. The shadow stops moving but he doesn’t speak. The radio doesn’t turn on either, so she continues. “What’s your name?”

“Shut up.” Just like she suspected, he sounds young. If she had to guess, he was no older than in his early 20s. “He’ll be back soon.”

“Why did you kill him?” She presses. He freezes again, she waits holding her breath for the answer.

“I was following orders.” Jessica takes a breath trying to quell the panic building in her. She tries to remember all of Malcolm’s talks about killers and the psychology that he often rambled about when he found a topic that particularly interested him. Right now it feels like all of it is escaping her, replaced with a voice screaming to run.

“Where did you take him?” She bites her bottom lip when he turns towards her slowly. The mask obscures all but his eyes and even the darkness of the room prevents her from entirely making out those.

“Where he could be found.” He almost sounds sad. She straightens up leaning forwards. Her head still aches but it’s no longer the piercing pain it was before.

“Who are you?” She asks again. “What do you want from me? Anything, ask for anything and I will get it to you. Money, a plane ticket, I could get you out if you help me.”

“He doesn’t want anything from you.” Her eyebrows furrow.

“What do you want?” He stops again. She thinks he might answer when the sliding of metal cuts them off.

“Why the hell didn’t you pick up?” She recognizes the voice from the radio. Anxiety grips her when she hears another, this one muffled. Her worst fear comes to fruition when the man drops another person into the chair across from her.

This one is older, salt and pepper hair falling in front of his eyes. His mouth is duct taped, one of their kidnappers leans over ripping it off harshly once his wrists are secured. “Please, where is Michael? I just want to know he’s ok.” He begs.

“Shut up!” The older one shouts.

“Where is he, please. I’ll give you anything just tell me where he is. I need to know he’s safe.” The sound of the slap resonates off the walls. She winces in sympathy as tears stream down the man’s face.

“Andrew Rankin,” The older man circles around him. “Father, husband, and cheater.” The man, Andrew, bows his head, his shoulders shaking with his cries.

“You don’t understand.” He sounds strained. “Where is Michael, please, tell me where my grandson is.”

“Jessica, I think you can sympathize with his poor wife. Afterall, isn’t that what you thought your husband was doing for months?” A lump forms in her throat. How the hell did he know that? Those videos were never released to the press. Not even Malcolm knew until just last year.

“We fixed things. Our marriage is stronger than it’s ever been, please.” The man begs.

“What’s your choice? His life or yours?” Andrew’s head snaps to her, panic in his eyes. She knows his fear, the fear of dying not knowing where your loved one is. When the junkyard killer took Malcolm she would’ve burnt the world down to find him. She swallows heavily, turning her head towards the older man.

“Tell him where his grandson is.” She demands.

The laugh booms off the walls sending ice down her spine. “You are in no place to be making demands Ms. Whitly. The sound of a gun cocking makes her straighten.

“Tell him where and I’ll make my choice.” Her voice doesn’t waver, it’s more confident than she feels. She can see the cheshire grin even through the mask. The gunshot is less expected, pain blossoming in her side where she was shot. The shout of pain is drowned out by the younger kidnapper’s protests. Her head spins, adrenaline making her heart race.

“I’m going to ask you one more time, his life or yours.” The gun cocks again.

“Kill me.” She relents. If anything, this man should have the chance to see his grandson again. She allows herself a moment of peace to imagine what a life like that would be like.

A little granddaughter with Ainsley’s blond curls and a grandson with Malcolm’s piercing eyes. The sound of small feet warming her home again, filling up the corners with rapturous laughter rather than the hollow silence of 23 killed.

Another shot breaks her fantasy.

A sob leaves her throat as the man in front of her goes limp. Her side aches with the movement. She can’t hear the two men arguing over the blood roaring in her ears. All she can see is the man in front of her, only wishing to know if his grandson was alive. He died without peace. He died without knowing.

She bows her head crying for yet another family she doesn’t even know. Her side screams with every shake but the tears don’t stop coming. She can’t seem to get enough air in her lungs, each breath shorter than the last. Even when the metal door slams shut again and the room is silent apart from her, they don’t stop.

She cries for the man, who died scared and alone. She cries for his children, losing their father in a violent and abrupt way for no good reason other than he was in the wrong place. She cries for the grandchild, she hopes against everything in her screaming otherwise that he was found and taken to the police. Simply lost in a park, not somewhere taken by these men.

The shaking only gets more violent as she thinks of her own family. Of Ainsley, with her normally perfectly groomed hair frayed and messy from late nights. Of Malcolm’s eyes hollow from lack of sleep. Of Gil, hunched over his desk searching for answers that aren’t there.

It’s not until she has no tears left, her eyes puffy and sore. A grim anger settles over her as she makes her decision. She’s going to get out of here and back to her family. No matter what she has to do.

#prodigal son #jessica whitly x gil arroyo #gil arroyo x jessica whitly #gil arroyo #jessica whitly #malcolm bright #prodigal son AU #kidnapping au #fanfic #find your way (back to me)#find your way (back to me) chapter three #notgonnarememberthis fics

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hibibun · 4 years

Text

i don’t want your crown

Series: The Magnus Archives Pairing: One-Sided Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims Summary: Jon and Martin reach the Panopticon. It doesn't have the answers they're looking for, and it doesn't go how Elias expects.

for days 6 & 7: beholding and dynamic shift Notes/Warnings: Possessive Behavior, Reluctant Relationship, Manipulation, Dynamic Shift, Body Horror, Eye Horror, Discussion of T erminal Illness, Jealousy AO3

The tower looms overhead, ostentatious and as daunting as it was when only a blip in the distance. A horrid beacon that Jon knows they’ll have to enter, however much he’s torn on it. He’s being called—has been presumably by both Elias and the Eye itself, but he doesn’t know what awaits them up there, nor if it will help anything.

He wants to know what’s up there.

He doesn’t want to know his place up there. Acknowledge the burning desire to see it all.

“So this is it,” Martin’s voice breaks his thoughts, and it’s grounding to hear against the stress of the impeding climb.

“Yes, this is it,” Jon reiterates a bit pointlessly. He’s done his best to avoid looking directly, but it’s obvious Martin has more questions for him. All he can focus on is trying to steel himself for whatever remaining trap Jonah might have for them, and what Martin might expect him to do once they’re up there. There are so many more people he owes it to, to fix things, but he can’t think of them right now either. If he even can do anything about Jonah, there’s no guarantee it would fix anything or mean anything beyond petty revenge.

Whatever he expects Martin to ask, he’s instead surprised to see his outstretched hand.

“Ready? Walked long enough to get here, couple of flights of stairs can’t be that much worse.”

Jon only offers an uneasy smile back, but accepts his hand as they enter.

It is a quiet climb. Stained glass surrounds the outer walls of the spiral staircase and the eyes painted in them watch as they ascend. Jon is long used to the gaze of eyes, but this time he is keeping a secret they want to feed on.

“So, can you see any better, now that we’re here?”

“No, but I can feel him still. He knows we’re here.”

“Great,” Martin mutters, unsurprised. It’s not like coming in with the advantage of surprise would be helpful anyway. As they round the corner, the glass gives way to cobbled walls and iron fixtures befitting the prison the old Panopticon was structured in.

“We’re close,” Jon warns, though there is little either of them could do to prepare. He thinks Martin might ask him once more, what their plan is, but either he’s tired of Jon’s ominous and unsatisfying answers or like him, knows there isn’t one. They climb a few more floors until there is only one large door left to open. Inside is a wide room that more closely resembles the top of a lighthouse, its windows giving the perfect view of countless domains, not that Elias needs them for a proper look considering anyone on the ground floor could give it if they still have eyes to spare.

Yet, there he is, as perfectly composed as always and staring down at the ruined world below them. He turns to greet Jon and Martin, and as he does, the cascading blinking eyes trailing down one side of his face and speckling his neck widen and stare.

“Have a nice trip? Breathtaking down there isn’t it? Of course, I only have the bird’s eye view, but from what I can tell it’s quite lovely.”

“Mhmm, people suffering over and over while a big eyeball in the sky watches. It was wonderful. Might have even seen a cow at one point,” Martin answers him with an eye roll. Despite his new monstrous form, Elias at least doesn’t seem to have changed much.

“Come now, Martin, it couldn’t have been that bad. You and Jon seem fine. If I’m not wrong, you even had a bit of fun on your way here. How does it feel, Jon? You can do so much more than just compel now, enthralling isn’t it?”

“I-It wasn’t fun. I only wanted to settle a score, nothing more. I didn’t enjoy doing it.”

Elias’s multitude of eyes settle on Jon and his skin crawls again. It was one thing when Helen insisted otherwise—the Spiral is centered on lies meant to hurt. They both know he didn’t find it fun, but to say he doesn’t enjoy it entirely…

“Mm, feels nice to not be so helpless, doesn’t it? Which reminds me, I’m supposed to be the last stop on your little hit list road trip, correct? Is there anything you’d like to discuss beforehand? I’m all ears,” he asks, his smile dancing on the edge of a joke that for once Jon understands and almost flinches at when he hears. Martin, however, doesn’t see.

“Do it,” he encourages, and while it’s something Jon hasn’t been pushed to do recently, he was waiting for it. Compared to Callum or Simon, this makes sense to do. Elias—Jonah—is the one who caused all of this. He’s caused so much suffering with his tugging of strings, but Jon is still shaking. It’s his fault too.

Beholding thrums between them, even nestled in the Eye’s blind spot, as Martin looks to Jon and Elias repeats Martin’s urging.

“Yes, Jon. Do it.”

The words feel like a compulsion even though they aren’t. Still, it’s the thing that draws the words from Jon’s lips.

“Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing!”

The static is loud and overbearing, but of course from where they are, how could the Eye twist itself in? Desperately it hears its Archivist calling, but the hunger it senses hardly comes from the one its stare is being directed towards. No, it is only Jon the Eye wants to devour right now. For when its heavy weight bears down on them, tries to bear down on Elias, he is absolutely thrilled. He’s watched Jon’s other ‘smitings’, and like all the other times Jon has tried to channel the power of Beholding against the man before him, he takes to it proud and rapturous.

“Oh, Jon,” Elias breaks the silence, softly. His skin prickles with shame, embarrassment and Martin’s heavy stare beside him.

“That was exhilarating. I wasn’t sure if you’d really go for it, but surely, you knew it wouldn’t work.”

“Wouldn’t work?” Martin asks, the words pointed and sharp. Their accusing tone isn’t directed at Jon, much too infuriated that Elias is still alive no doubt, but they punch the air out of him nonetheless.

“He’s too… it’s Beholding, of course…” Jon stammers, guilt clawing at his veins because he had a suspicion, if he could call it that by this point. He couldn’t tell Martin—perhaps maybe didn’t even want to, but as a result it only gave him false hope. Something Jon continuously felt awful trying to pry away from him.

A dry laugh cuts him off.

“No, no, of course. With the way everyone talks about you here, it makes sense. It’s just, of course.”

“M-Martin…”

“Yes, of course, Martin. Jon would never want to crush that precious optimism of yours, but it’s merely a wonder this place hasn’t managed to do so. Are you starting to get it now though?”

“Elias—”

“Aren’t you tired of it Jon? Had enough of the guilt? Plus, Martin really deserves to know doesn’t he? There’s so much you keep not telling him and that frustration must surely be wedging between you.”

“Know what Jon?”

It always came down to secrets and trust, didn’t it? And in the end, as much as he asked from Martin, Jon has never really been adept at sharing—giving back to make up for what he takes.

“He’s like me Martin, w-we… I can’t kill him. I know I told you I wouldn’t hesitate, and I thought maybe, I would still be able to do something but…”

“You can’t,” Martin finishes for him, soft and brittle. He isn’t angry. Jon, out of fear, breaks that respected boundary not to look, but the disappointment is crushing and painful. His attention snaps away when he hears the telltale click of Elias’s shoes on the floor.

“No, he can’t. And he wasn’t going to tell you, but really Jon what did you expect to happen when you got here? Were you hoping to be wrong?” He laughs at that considering just how much both of them know about the world and its inhabitants now. His hand reaches for Jon’s shoulder and Martin reaches out to try and stop him or put himself between them, but falters, pinned when Elias’s eyes glance towards him.

“Are you ready to join me now, my Archive? You may not be able to die, but it’s unpleasant to keep denying yourself from looking isn’t it?”

The possessive note in his tone makes his want to run because it only adds to the things he doesn’t know how to talk to Martin about. For as much as he loves him, there is a connection forged here and twined in spider’s silk that Jon hates and craves like the air he used to need to breathe. He is hungry, especially after that failed attempt to use the Watcher’s gaze, and Elias is trying to goad him not so subtly into doing something cruel, not realizing there is another option. One he does have the power for now.

He raises his scarred palm and cups Elias’s cheek. The voices and sights and pain and misery are a wafting miasma and while it serves to remind him he’s hungry, they are not the meal he is looking at. Jon tries not to think of Martin—not to dive into the desire to know just what this must look like and what he must be thinking as Jon reveals his intentions.

“Jonah Magnus, tell me about the first time you thought you were about to die.”

The pupils in Elias’s eyes shrink, and Jon feels ravenous as he drinks in for the first time fear evident in that normally arrogant expression. They may both be connected to the same power and share it’s horrible gifts, but its desire for terror is indiscriminate. There’s a crinkle in the line of Elias’s mouth and Jon watches his throat bob with a painful looking swallow as he tries to resist.

“Tell me. Tell me about the many days in that sick room. How the doctors said you wouldn’t make it.”

“A-Ah, but it was a chance recovery. Quite lucky, right?” Elias strains, still evidently in pain. Jon’s grip tightens, and he gasps.

“How did it feel to have them discuss your own funeral thinking you were asleep? Knowing you were so young and helpless. Your whole life falling to pieces right before your eyes and you could do nothing. How every cough, every wheeze, you thought might be your last. How sometimes you wondered if you would go to sleep to not wake again. Even long after you no longer felt that weak, your lungs never quite felt right, did they? And each mild cold after only served as a reminder it could happen again. That maybe it was already happening.”

Jon doesn’t want to think about how good this feels. To see the very man who’s driven him to this point crumple before him over centuries old memories. To watch him be the one full of fear for once.

Elias’s body can’t seem to make up its mind on whether it wants to flee or lean into this. He’s captivated by Jon using his power in this manner, but also it’s his own painful memories dragged to the surface.

“You may not be able to die now, but if you’re going to push me to it, you will remember how afraid of it you were—not even kings are exempt from fear. Now let me go.”

Jon moves to pull away and is more than grateful Elias doesn’t try to hold onto him or use him to help himself up. It’s uncomfortably satisfying to see him on the ground like this and Jon takes another shaky breath before turning to Martin.

“We’re done here. Whatever it is we could do to fix things, it isn’t here.”

Martin stares between Elias and Jon who’s steadily heading back towards the door, still unsure what to make of what just happened. Getting out of there and away from Elias isn’t something he’ll say no to though and follows. The jealousy is still stirring somewhere, but it’s clear that whatever weird claim Elias thinks he has over Jon, it isn’t reciprocated. At the very least, it’s something Jon is demonstrating he wants no part of, and that’s enough for Martin right now. However, Elias’s voice stops them before they leave.

“You’ve done well, Jon. When all’s said and done, I’ll be here. The Panopticon is partly yours too, after all. None of this would have been capable, if not for you.”

Jon lingers at the door for a moment listening, but doesn’t deign to answer him. Martin catches up and is happy to let the door close behind them. The silence lingers for a few minutes as they make their way back down before Martin breaks it, needing to ask the obvious.

“Where do we go now? Do we… try meeting up with the others again? Come up with a new plan?”

“I don’t know,” Jon doesn’t mean to sound dismissive; he’s just drained from the encounter. It’s easier to not think of the others and try to see where they are or what they’re doing right now.

“We’ll figure it out when we’re out. I just… I just need a minute.”

“Okay,” Martin accepts, and quietly repeats.

“Okay.”

#writing #writing: tma #pairing: jonelias #pairing: jonmartin #character: Jonathan Sims #character: Martin Blackwood #character: Elias Bouchard #character: Jonah Magnus #jonelias #jonmartin #joneliasweek2020 #it never ceases to make me laugh how arrogant elias instead of getting jealous #bc he's So sure jon will come back to him in the end #and i meant it ambiguously on jon's side but who knows

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harrowharkwife · 4 years

Text

a 6-step plan to revise the finale and make it salvageable:

a. provide SOME fucking reason for quentin to have had the world seed page. i don't even care if it's a bad one! the reveal that it was never his in the first place and that it had just been put there by santa to give alice something to do is honestly just insult to injury at this point- they assigned q's very influential book plot to someone else and then in the eleventh hour they decide to tell us it actually never had anything to do with him in the first place? no thank you! proposed reason: candy witch gave it to him when he gave her his blood. we know the language it's written in is fillorian, so it would make sense for her to have it

b. martin doesn't break eliot's hands, he just pauses/freezes him like he did rupert.

c. imply that q's blood being left with the candy witch counts as part of him still being alive in fillory- we see the candy witch (and the blood vial) get pulled into the seahorse rapture.

d. eliot joins in the co-op casting to bloom the world seed. if they insist on having some stupid contrived narrative reasoning for it only being 4 people and not 5, then el can replace josh for all i care. but he needs to be there.

e. remember that kady exists.

f. quentin is a part of eliot's internal circumstances, so like fen with the knife trees and alice with the bacon fields, he's a part of new fillory. they don't even need new footage of jason: eliot sees the empty mosaic cottage in the distance, starts crying a little. eliot looks visibly Overwhelmed and starts walking towards it. as the audience, we're left to connect the dots between the blood vial getting raptured and the mosaic cottage being in new fillory. bonus points for some old background leftover unused audio of quentin saying something from inside the cottage to REALLY seal the deal, but SJH fucking hate gay people, so don't hold your breath.

for those of you keeping track at home, that's adding two (2) brief, ten second shots: candy witch and blood vial getting raptured, el looking at the mosaic cottage from afar. these shots would fill the time left over from removing the el-breaking-his-hands plotline and the charlton plotline. 2 shots is literally all it would take to sidestep the biggest, most glaring, most obvious problems with the finale: separating margo and eliot, isolating eliot to a life of untreated alcoholism and unresolved trauma and no friends and a job he's not happy with and experimental sex he honestly doesn't look that excited about with the nearest morally decent and passably fuckable guy in a five mile radius WHILE a weird homophobic ghost dude watches, and the world seed plot being divorced from quentin entirely.

there were a lot of other problems with the finale, don't get me wrong (julia having essentially no role, the poorly explained and therefore distracting side plot about plum and fogg and timelines and cats, that frankly horrifying line of margo's that once again attempts to glorify q's death, the beast being behind it all again because THAT'S not lazy writing or anything, kady's story left completely unfinished, alice's storyline ultimately not feeling very fitting for her as a character)

BUT. i feel like this finale could be messy-but-passable if just those 2 small changes are made to fix those 3 huge fumbles in the writing

#the magicians #the magicians salt #the magicians critical

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legacysam · 4 years

Text

It’s a day late for the fic challenge with @fieryfurniss, but it’s almost 3k instead of like... 500 so I think I’m okay with that. Completely unedited bc I am TIRED and I want to at least draft today’s fic before bed so I’m not TOO far behind. Anyway I have feelings about season 4 Martin, enjoy:

[SOUND OF SHUFFLING PAPERS]

MARTIN

Oh. Oh, hello. Suppose you’re all ready, aren’t you? Do you... I mean, we’re going to record the statements, it’s kind of what we do around here. You don’t have to keep turning up all spooky-like and turning yourselves on, we aren’t that bad at our jobs. I mean, not that performance reviews are... standard here, but still.

Do you just, do you enjoy it? Do you... I dunno, feed on this stuff? Eventually going to evolve into a, a boombox or something, like a tape recorder pokemon?

No. No, I suppose not. Probably for the best. Only just starting to get used to you at this size...

[CLEARS THROAT]

Alright, so. Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas, Head of the Magnus Institute, recording statement #0070105. Statement of Marina Adamos, given first of May, 2007.

Statement begins.

MARTIN (STATEMENT)

It started in January, right after I got back from my parents’. Or, maybe a week or so after. Came back right after Christmas, it was just too much in that awful little house will the whole family there, all the nieces and nephews and my gran going on about why didn’t I have kids yet, all those people and since I’m the single one, I got the couch for the duration, might as well have booked a hotel really. In any case, got through the holiday, answered all the usual questions, took the dog for a lot of long walks, and got out of there as soon as I decently could.

I don’t mean to sound awful, I love my family, I do. I just get used to the quiet here, in my own place, and when we’re all together it’s a bit... overwhelming.

In any case, I was back in Exeter, getting good and settled in for the rest of winter. I’ve been writing my doctoral thesis, and I’d been at it for... god, must be four years now, four and a half maybe? And I finally got a grant to just sit down and write for a year. No teaching, no committees, just me and the thesis and field trips to a few of my favorite archives. Not this one, sorry. Don’t think I’d even heard of this one until last week.

Anyway, I suppose there was part of me that... I don’t know, maybe missed home? Had some lingering feelings about home, anyway, made my flat seem too empty to get proper work done, and I thought a change of scene might be helpful to get my gears going again after the break. There’s a cafe on the corner across from my flat, one of those that’s coffee during the day and wine and beer at night, can’t miss a chance at getting all the university students in for their various vices. Vices including poetry, apparently.

I didn’t know it was an open mic, obviously, or I never would have stepped foot in the place. Awful tradition, listening to nineteen-year-olds go on about being hopelessly in love as if anybody you date at that age is some grand romance. I almost preferred the angry feminist ones about getting felt up on the tube. I’d already dragged my notebooks over there, though, and in fairness the wine was really good, so I stayed. I had a table at the side, well out of mic-range, and once I got started working I could tune it out alright. I think the only thing that interrupted me was somebody asking if they could take one of the chairs from my table, which was great, actually. Kept anybody from being tempted to join me.

It was maybe an hour or two later that one of the readers got my attention. I still can’t figure out why. He was nothing special, just some nervous, chubby lad whose friends must’ve had to shove him up onstage, because he looked absolutely mortified being there. Though thinking back, I don’t remember seeing anybody he seemed to be with. Nobody cheering him on or anything. Dunno, maybe he was just braver than he looked.

I don’t remember much about the poem he read. It was long, I know that. But there was a bit in there that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I don’t think I can forget it. He wasn’t looking at me when he read it, but it felt like he was standing at my table reading directly at me, like there was nobody else in the room, and not in a romantic way. In a really scary way, like when you accidentally make eye contact with somebody who’s been staring at you. But he was just looking at his notebook, and he said, “the winter snow that falls at night will cover us in purest white. The sun that comes at break of day will melt the snow and us away.”

It was spooky, I don’t think it fit with the rest of the poem, but I don’t remember any of that. Just those lines. I’m not a nervous sort of person, but I didn’t want to hear anymore, I just got up and left. I sat on my couch the rest of the night watching outside, waiting to see if it snowed. I don’t... I don’t remember seeing the guy leave the cafe, though. I don’t remember seeing anybody leave, but I must have fallen asleep at some point, so maybe that’s why.

I knew I’d been asleep because when I looked outside again, there was snow on the ground. A lot of it, and it was still snowing hard, and all I could think was “the winter snow that falls at night...” I could have strangled the guy, to be honest. Maybe if I’d seen him again I would have, or at least given him a piece of my mind about his creepy poetry.

Anyway I don’t know if it was his fault, what happened. Maybe it was all in my head from the start. That’s what anybody I tell seems to think, anyway. “Oh, poor Marina, the thesis pressure got to her. Such a shame.” Maybe it’s better if they think that.

I didn’t... I didn’t go out again until late the next day. It never got properly light, anyway, just that sort of glowy grey you get when street lights bounce off the snow and clouds. I stayed in and tried to work. It was... maybe 3 or 4 in the afternoon before I checked my phone. It was weird, normally I got loads of texts and things from my parents after I left from a visit, like they were trying to make it longer, you know? But I hadn’t gotten any. No missed calls, either. Everything was just... quiet. It didn’t worry me, I just figured with the snow people were taking a day off and curling up on the couch and not doing anything. I certainly wasn’t, kept reading the same passages over and over. That damn poem kept getting tangled up in them, I’d try to copy something out and find myself writing about snow and people melting.

Late in the afternoon I decided to go for a walk. Quit being a chicken about it and go out in the snow, see everything was normal and all that. And it was. I walked by houses and saw the lights on in the windows, shops were open with people behind the counters, just nobody shopping, really. It looked like I was the only one out, but that’s fair enough in a snowstorm, isn’t it?

So I went home and watched some reality cooking show until I fell asleep.

It was... different when I woke up. Still no messages on my phone. I was starting to think there was something wrong with it, so I opened up my contacts to call somebody and test it and... there was nothing. No contacts. No old messages. Just like as if the phone was brand new. I still know my dad’s number, of course, so I punched it in to call him but it just rang and rang, never went to voicemail. Mum’s too. It had to be broken, right? Factory reset or something, took it back to before it was programmed to make calls properly maybe? I told myself that anyway, though saying it now it sounds stupid.

I put the phone in my pocket and went to look out the window and... the snow was gone. I don’t mean it was melting, I mean it was sunny out and the street was dry. The sidewalks were dry. There wasn’t even any of that grey-yellow slush in the grass by the road, nothing. Like there hadn’t been any snow or rain or anything in days. And there was nobody out.

I told you, I don’t spook easily, I’m not nervous, but I was getting nervous then. Just a low level sort of adrenaline, I was not panicking, I was just... everything was weird and I still had that poem stuck in my head, and I wanted to make sure it was all just some fucked up coincidence, you know?

So I went to the cafe. It was the only thing I could think to do. I think I told myself I was going to borrow their phone, but I don’t think that was really the plan. I think I was looking for... evidence. Evidence of something.

There was nobody in the streets. Nobody. Not in cars, nobody in their yards. I couldn’t even see anyone through the windows. It was like everyone had left without me. Even the cafe, which should have been packed on a day like that, there was nobody. The door was unlocked and the lights were on, but I couldn’t find a single person. I tried to call my parents again. No answer.

I did find the open mic sign up from that night, though. They kept those in a binder by the register. I didn’t recognize any of the names, but I kept it anyway. You can have it, it just spooks me carrying it around, but I couldn’t think what else to do with it.

I don’t... I’m not sure I can properly explain how I felt in that moment. I stole a scone. Didn’t even think twice, just took it out of the case. Definitely tasted like it had been in there more than a day, but it didn’t really register with me. I sat in the window like that for ages, watching the street, just cold. I was thinking about how big whatever this was might be. Was I the only person left in Exeter? In Devon? Was it bigger than that? Had I missed an evacuation notice, was there some natural disaster coming? I’m not religious, but I had a school friend who was, and I wondered if maybe I was the only one terrible enough to be given a miss at the rapture. I was desperate to find something, some explanation, something sensible that would put the world back on track.

That was when I noticed the water in the street. Just a bit at the edge where something hadn’t drained properly, and it looked like it was moving. I went out to see, and it... Listen this is going to sound mad, and I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to take my word for it that it’s true. It was... there were hands in the water. I don’t mean like physical hands, I mean it was as if people were standing over the water waving at it, and it just made waves of reflections of hands. It wasn’t trees, or clouds, or me, it was in the water. That was when I started to run.

I was in and out of shops, went in and out of people’s houses, through yards, everywhere I could think where people should be. I went to the university and opened every office and classroom door in the Washington Singer building. My advisor’s desk had a cup of tea on it, like she’d just stepped out, but it was stone cold and there was a ring above the tea like it had been sat there a while. She practically lives in that office. Something about that, that damn cup of tea, that broke me a little.

I didn’t know where to go. I sat on the steps outside and just watched the empty world. There were birds and things just like there always were, but there was no movement that could possibly be a person. No sound like a human voice. I think... I started to think about whether I ought to go home, barricade myself in and hope that people came back, or if it would be better to go looking. I didn’t have a car, but my landlady did. I knew where she kept her keys and everything. It wasn’t as if she was using it.

I laughed at that. I don’t know why, but I started laughing, sitting there all alone on campus, laughing at the idea of stealing my sweet old landlady’s car. I’d have to leave a note, I thought. She’d think she just forgot where she parked it and she’d go mad looking for it. If she came back. If that water...

I think I tried to ignore what I’d seen in the water, and the way the snow melted, and that damn poem. It was still in my mind, but I had closed off that part of it because it wasn’t helpful. It wasn’t helpful to think that maybe some stammering undergraduate with a terrible poem had somehow magicked the world into...whatever this was. I can’t remember how I locked it all away, but I remember walking down the street toward home just... muttering to myself. “No, no, no...” The kind of muttering that makes you look crazy to passersby. But of course there weren’t any. I could say whatever I liked and no one would know. I could stay in my flat for a week and no one would bother me to come out with them. I could ignore my phone and not miss any messages from my parents. They always worried if I took too long to answer them.

I yelled “FUCK” once, in the middle of one of the bigger intersections, just to see how loud I could be. It hurt my throat how loud I could scream.

I wonder if that was what did it, actually. Looking back, it was right after that that I saw the dog. I don’t know how that would make a difference, but it makes as much sense as anything. Just a glimpse, but I could see a tail and a trailing leash going around a corner a block away, and without thinking I started to follow.

I’d already done a lot of walking and running that day, but I think that was the fastest I’d ever gone in my life. All I could hear were my feet hitting the pavement, and then I started to hear the sound of tags on a collar. And then he was in sight, a big lab like my parents’, running full out, tail wagging like he was playing his favorite game. I didn’t think I could possibly catch him, but I kept going, because what choice did I have? I chased him through yards and parks and down empty streets, and when I finally got close enough, just as he was about to zig zag away again, I threw myself on the ground and got hold of the leash. I still have a scar from my elbow hitting the sidewalk.

It was... like when you unpause a movie and it’s not just that the world starts moving again, it’s like something that was just a picture becomes alive again. I heard a voice behind me, and a woman pulled up in a minivan thanking me for catching her dog, the kids were so upset when he got away from them. And then the kids were there, piling out of the van, and a lady came out of the house we were in front of and offered me a bandage for my arm. There was traffic again, I could hear music from a couple streets over. It was all back.

I didn’t go to the cafe again. I just... couldn’t. I couldn’t risk it. Whatever happened to me, wherever I was that day, I knew it all started there. I wasn’t going to give it a chance to get me again.

I don’t... I don’t know if this is helpful for you, I don’t really know what you do here aside from collect creepy stories, but I just. When I heard about you I felt like I should tell you my story, maybe get it off my hands. I’ve got things I want to do with my life, you know? Time to stop thinking about all this. Time to let it go.

Statement ends.

MARTIN

[LONG PAUSE]

The... the list from the cafe is here. It’s... I... yes. Yes, my name is on it and yes, I used to go read there, but this isn’t... I don’t recognize those lines, I didn’t write them. I didn’t... I wasn’t...

I think I need to talk to Peter about this. I don’t want to. If the Lonely was... I don’t think I want to know. I don’t want to have been... I dunno, destined for this. I don’t want any of it. I...

[DEEP BREATH]

I... I’ll ask Melanie if she can do the follow up on this one. I think she’ll understand.

End... end recording.

#martin blackwood #tma #the magnus archives #okay listen #i haven't read a single tma fic yet i only just caught up BUT #my assumption is that statement fics are a thing and i cannot wait to read some

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april-ruffin-world · 4 years

Text

BLACK MOSES SONG

“If it is true that black people are becoming increasingly well adjusted to the American way of life, then we may lose our capacity to tell the truth about our black life in America.” - Cornel West (Hope on a Tightrope p 202) The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the historical and current, ever-increasing influence of African American/Black music on American culture and why it is crucially important to remember the past in order to thrive in the future. Secondly, I aim to demonstrate how powerful black music is and how it has been used as a catalyst for freedom. I will use as my dialogue partner, Dr. Cornel West, one of America’s most gifted theologians, educator, activist and philosopher. Dr. West, Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University, in 2012, returned to Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he first began his teaching career. He has written over twenty books such as Hope on A Tightrope (2008), The Cornel West Reader (1999), The Future of the Race (with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1996), and Race Matters (1993), where I will be drawing from for conversation. I witnessed for myself earlier this year on April 30th, 2015 at Biola University, Dr. West in dialouge with Robert George and Pastor Rick Warren, where Dr. West made reference to saxophonist, John Coltrane, whose music was lightly playing as the attendees waited for the forum to begin. In his opening comments, Dr. West expressed that he hoped Coltrane wasn’t just music playing in the background because, “John Coltrane is a part and a voice and figure in one of the greatest traditions in the modern world; which is a musical tradition that in the face of catastrophe mustered the courage to bear witness to compassion… in the face of being terrorized for four hundred years decides not to terrorize others, but fight for freedom for everybody…it’s a human tradition.” Because of the age of consumerism we live in today, “Obsession of money making and profit taking…we have less gas in our spiritual tanks, a spiritual malnutrition, an indifference to the suffering of others…a calousness,” West continued. He then quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “An indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself.” America is in a state of emergency; many of its citizens are living and operating from a state of fear. We’re subconsciously encouraged when we watch the nightly news or peruse social media sites to fear. We are to fear terrorism, fear cancer, fear consumption of any foods that are not glucose, lactose or sugar free, and little black boys and girls are taught to fear for their lives lest they end up like Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Oscar Grant, Jordan Davis, Tamir Rice and countless others victims who suffered the penalty of death simply because of the color of their skin. Dr. West not only used John Coltrane as example, but referred to Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Erykah Badu, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin to stress his point that Black musicians, writers and artists use creative expression as an outlet to overcome and to stay above negative forces that would aim to steal their creative ideas or kill and destroy (literally) their lives. No doubt, West has perused the pages of works such as the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave where Douglas writes: “The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out—if not in the word, in the sound;—and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great Houses Farm. Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words:— I am going away to the Great House Farm! O, yea! O, yea! O! This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul,—and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because ‘there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.’” (p 25-26) These songs composed by slaves would come to be known as negro spirituals. Many of these spirituals had a code message aimed to guide slaves, via the Underground Railroad, to freedom or to the “Jordan”, which was on the Northern side of the Ohio River. Here is one example of this hidden message, weaved within the words of a song: Deep River, my home is over Jordan; Deep River, my home is over Jordan. O don’t you want to go to that Gospel Feast That Promised Land where all is Peace? Deep River, I want to cross over into camp ground. These spirituals were always inspired by the “good news” message from the Bible; by Christ and his message that “you can be saved.” Negro spirituals would later influence chain gang songs, sung by “prisoners” or victims of the unscrupulous sharecropper system following the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Inmates would sing in the call and response format; the leader began a line and the other workers followed, often using their axes to keep rhythm and to keep up with the rigorous demands of the day. In 1927, the Mississippi River broke levees in almost 150 places and caused one of the greatest floods in American history. Many blacks were forced, by gunpoint, to fill sandbags to set in place to resist the flowing waters. When the flood overpowered their attempts, these blacks were left to fend for themselves and many fled, migrating north. This great flood is responsible for the largest migration of blacks in U.S. history. In fact, the actual terms “Chicago Blues” and “Muddy Waters” stem from this Mississippi flood of ’27. The blues musician known as Muddy Waters was born and raised on a plantation in Mississippi, but moved to Chicago in 1943 in hopes to become a professional musician. In Hope on a Tightrope, “Blues,” first on the list of Westian core concepts, is defined as, “The elegant coping with catastrophe that yields a grace and dignity so that the spirit of resistance is never completely snuffed out.” (p 221) It is intriguing how a rhythm birthed from pain, and the pursuit to overcome that pain, would mother genres of music we refer to today such as rhythm and blues, rock ’n’ roll, folk, country and jazz. Muddy Waters, himself, influenced musicians such as Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Paul Rodgers, and even Jimi Hendrix. Muddy Waters’ 1950 release of the single “Catfish Blues” or “Rollin’ Stone” is where the famous London group got their name from and the magazine, too. Even the Beatles referenced Muddy Waters in their song “Come Together.” More recently, the rock group AC/DC borrowed from Muddy Waters’ lyrics and Angus Young, one of the group members, has often cited Waters as one of his greatest influences. Me: Dr. West, Besides Muddy Waters, can you name another example of a black musician who you would consider a trailblazer in this plight of using self expression to gain freedom from enervated mental and physical circumstance in America? West: Louis Armstrong, who grew up in the red-light district of Storyville among prostitutes and brothels, was able to escape the social misery and express his unbelievable genius and imagination to keep alive the greatest musical tradition of the modern world. The black musical tradition gave us blues and jazz idioms that the rest of the world now understands. (Hope p 179) Me: Dr. West, I was born and raised in New York City and have often pondered as I passed by the Cotton Club or The Apollo theater in Harlem, what it must have been like for these early black musicians who were still combating the remnants of slavery and Jim Crow laws, but simultaneously, had this new outlet and opportunity because of their musical talent. I know, from even watching the film, that blacks weren’t allowed entrance into the Cotton Club as patrons, but were only allowed access as performers. Duke Ellington and his orchestra became renown because of his appearances at the Cotton Club, but the members of his orchestra would, most likely, never be able to walk in through the front door. Blacks, as we’ve discussed, like Muddy Waters’ inspired not only other musicians, but entire musical genres and in the end, it seems he got the shorter end of the stick as far as making a profit and being in full control of his artistry. Why is this? West: Blues and jazz lost much of their black audience in the 50s and 60s when they abandoned black public spaces, such as black dances, clubs, and street corners. Without access to the participatory rituals in public spaces of black everyday life, blues and jazz became marginal to ordinary working black people in urban centers. In their stead, rhythm and blues, soul music, and now hip-hop seized the imagination and pocketbook of young black America. This fundamental shift in the musical tastes of black America resulted from two basic features of the larger American culture industry: the profit-driven need to increase the production pace and number of records, reinforcing fashion, fad, and novelty, and the explosive growth of black talent spilling out of churches and clubs in search of upward social mobility. The lessening of racist barriers in the industry and wider acceptance of black music by white consumers created new opportunities. Since neither blues nor jazz could satisfy or saturate this market, they fell by the cultural wayside or, at least, were pushed to the margins. (Hope p 122-123) Me: That explains it. So it’s all about capitalism and profit. I always thought of blues and jazz as a distinctive genre and sound influenced, primarily, by the time period that those musicians lived. I have always gotten chills while listening to Billie Holiday’s unique voice, but only recently came to understand the deep meaning behind the tone and lyrics of say, Strange Fruit. And growing up, listening to my mother play Kenny G when he first became popular in the 1980s or for example, when I was invited to see Kurt Elling in concert at Carnegie Hall, I just assumed that jazz had become “white music.” West: One of the reasons jazz is so appealing to large numbers of white Americans is precisely because they feel that in this black musical tradition, not just black musicians, but black humanity is being asserted by artists who do not look at themselves in relation to whites or engage in self-pity or white put-down. This type of active, as opposed to reactive, expression is very rare in any aspect of African American culture. (Hope p 119). West: For me, the deepest existential source of coming to terms with white racism is music. From the very beginning, I always conceived of myself as an aspiring bluesman in a world of ideas and a jazzman in the life of the mind. What is distinctive about using blues and jazz as a source of intellectual inspiration is the ability to be flexible, fluid, improvisational, and multi-dimensional—finding one’s own voice, but using that voice in a variety of different ways. (Hope p 114) The human voice itself is the greatest instrument. Black folks’ tradition begins with the voice. (Hope p 113). It was music that sustained Africans on slave ships making their way from Africa to the New World. We often didn’t speak a common language that allowed us to communicate with each other in a deep way. We had to constitute some form of comradery and community, and music did that. It preserved our sanity, as well as our dignity. Owing to white supremacist sanctions, enslaved Africans were not allowed to read or write. As a nonliterate people, we learned to manifest our genius through what no one could take away—our voices and our music. (Hope p 110). When you look at this tradition from the spirituals on through Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Curtis Mayfield, Luther Vandross, and Aretha Franklin on up to Prince and Gerald Levert, music sustained our humanity, dignity, and integrity. Me: Ah, yes! It seems that during the 1960s when black leaders emerged such as Dr. Martin King Jr. and Malcolm X, there were also black musicians that answered the call to use their voices as an impetus for change. James Brown released “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud,” to inspire and uplift the people, while Nina Simone released “Mississippi Goddamn,” but was blacklisted because of it; her music not allowed airplay over the radio. In The Future of the Race, published in 1996, you wrote prophetically: “The twenty-first century will almost certainly not be a time in which American exceptionalism will flower in the world or American optimism will flourish among people of African descent. If there are any historical parallels between black Americans at the end of the twentieth century and other peoples in earlier times, two candidates loom large: Tolstoy’s Russia and Kafka’s Prague—soul starved Russians a generation after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and anxiety-ridden Central European Jews a generation before the European Holocaust in the 1940s.” (p 75) If I am understanding correctly, Dr. West, black music has been created and ushered out into the world almost as a push-back; a resistance to hopeless situations and music has served as a remedy or cure. The black life and tradition in America is not separate from black music and the arts, it is one in the same. And therefore, the fight for justice; for mental, physical and financial freedom which is only experienced by a small percentage of blacks in America, is a very real and urgent task. Earlier black musicians were aware of this plight because the chains of slavery (literal and proverbial) were still evident. Today, we are in greater danger because those chains are invisible and have been set in permanent institutions such as urban schools and prisons. Nearly fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led marches and other peaceful demonstrations to bring attention to racism, segregation, and discrimination which greatly influenced the signing of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As it can be seen, just because a law is passed, that doesn’t mean that people’s beliefs and behaviors change. In the early 1950’s, racial segregation was customary in America. Basic math would then imply that members of the KKK are still living, in fact, one can readily log onto the internet and find a current KKK website. The media and most curriculums taught in educational institutions depict the Civil Rights movement as a thing of the past, something that happened then, and everyone should just move on and never bring it up, because “Today, we live in a fair and equal society.” Contrary to these false aphorisms, racism is prevalent in 2015 America. Even after repeated injuries, incarcerations and murders of blacks, both male and female, the racism conflict advances, leaving behind blood stained sidewalks and unbottled tears. Historical advances in American music and the arts woud prove that it’s okay to imitate blacks, which is seen as early as “black face” stage and film productions where white actors would paint themselves blacks to make fun of and entertain the audience, to the Beach Boys to the modern day where so called “pop” artists imitate and appropiate hip-hop culture. It would seem that the fight for freedom is futile and a far cry from reality. West: As freedom fighters, we’ve got to become much like the jazz women and jazz men. Fluid and flexible and protean—open to a variety of different sources and perspectives. (Hope p 187). [Again] We come from a particular tradition of struggle. Our people have been on intimate terms with the constant threat of social death. No legal status, no social standing, no public value—you were only a commodity to be bought and sold. If you don’t come to terms with death in that context, there’s no way you can live psychically and culturally because the rights and priveleges that your fellow human beings of European descent had access to were stripped from you. (Hope p 184) Freedom fighters struggle for justice, not revenge. We love in the face of bigotry. We keep track of the indescribable scars and bruises. Yet we refuse to be victims! We instead mount constant heroic resistance against injustice. (Hope p 206) Those who have never despaired have neither lived nor loved. Hope is inseparable from despair. Those of us who truly hope make despair a constant companion whom we outwrestle every day owing to our commitment to justice, love and hope. It is impossible to look honestly at our catastrophic conditions and not have some despair—it is a healthy sign of how deeply we care. It is also a mark of maturity—a rejection of cheap American optimism. (Hope p 217) Black people’s deep memory of history is a legacy of catastrophe. It’s the slave ship and the body swinging from the tree. It’s the disgraceful school systems and being taught to hate ourselves. America’s concept of history is that of a chosen people, a city on a hill where the sun is always shining. Therefore, black people’s conception of memory is that of trauma, whereas the mainstream conception of memory is this progress of an every generation toward a more perfect Union. If your conception of history is one of catastrophe and your conception of memory is one of trauma, the only countermovement against catastrophe and trauma is never forgetting the catastrophic and yet still attempting to triumph. (Hope p 188) Me: The Hebrew verb zakhor ("remember") appears in the Torah about one hundred and sixty-nine times, Moses while leading the Israelites out of Egypt towards the Promised Land, would often encourage them to remember. In Deuteronomy Chapter 8, Moses and Miriam’s song Me: J. Wendell Mapson, Jr., author of The Ministry of Music in the Black Church writes: “The task, then, is to affirm the good in black theology and to offer correctives so that black theology may continue to address the needs of black people in light of their relationship to God and culture. Historically…, music in the black church has reflected the theology of the pilgrimage of black people. Set within the context of the black church, the religious music of black people has helped to articulate the very soul and substance of the black experience, most especially for those who belong to the family of God. In many instances, music has not only been shaped by theology but has also shaped theology. Not only may one speak of a theology of music, but one might also speak of the music of theology. There is no doubt that in the black church music is the lifeblood. Among blacks, music is not always compartmentalized into categories such as sacred and secular. In fact, the black church itself does not always see itself in light of such labels. Among Afro-Americans, just as in African cuture, religion permeates the whole of life, and so does music.” (p 16) Similarly, in The Cross and The Lynching Tree, author, James Cone offers a corrective and brilliantly explicates how by connecting the cross to the lynching tree, not only blacks in America, but all Americans may benefit: “Despite the obvious similarities between Jesus’ death on the cross and the death of thousands of black men and women strung up to die on a lamppost or tree, relatively few people, apart from the black poets, novelists, and other reality-seeing artists, have explored the symbolic connections. Yet, I believe this is the challenge we must face. What is at stake is the credibility and the promise of the Christian gospel and the hope that we may heal the wounds of racial violence that continue to divide our churches and our society…Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a ‘recrucified’ black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy. (xiii-xiv, xv) Later, in this sermonic book, Cone writes: We are bound together in America by faith and tragedy. West: The major black cultural response to the temptation of despair has been the black Christian tradition—a tradition dominated by music in song, prayer, and sermon. (The Future of the Race p 101) You can’t talk about the crucifixion without talking about nihilism and spiritual abandonment. The feeling that you have no connection whatsoever to any of the forces for good in the universe underscores your relatively helpless situation (referring to Matt 27:46 when Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). If Jesus had American advisors, they would have said, Negotiate with Pontius Pilate, sacrifice your sense of who you are, call your mission into question, and sneak away at night under the protective cover of the Roman Empire to live free. Jesus would have responded, No, there’s a cross for me. In fact, if you look closely enough in your life, there’s a cross for you, too. (Hope p 198) West: The American Empire is still governed by its desire to shape the world for American interests. It is still determined to have its way and do whatever it takes to preserve the resources necessary to sustain the “American way of life…” The new American Dream is to never run out of things to buy and sell, and people to buy and sell. What must happen for us to stay awake permanently and commit to critically engaging the public interest or expanding the common good? (Hope 181) West: Subversive joy is the ability to transform tears into laughter, a laughter that allows one to acknowledge just how difficult the journey is, and to delight in one’s own sense of humanity and folly and humor in the midst of this very serious struggle. This is true freedom of spirit. We can think and feel, laugh and weep, and with the belief and capacity of everyday people, we can fight. Fight with a smile on our faces and tears in our eyes. We can see the deprivation, yet hold up a bloodstained banner with a sense of hope based on genuine discernment and connection. We can point out hypocrisy and keep alive some sense of possibility for both ourselves and our children, thus fulfilling our sacred duty. (Hope p 192) West: Hip-hop, the most powerful cultural force on the globe right now, was one of the ways in which the black underclass responded to being forgotten and overlooked, with its pain downplayed and ignored. The response to invisibility was to create a whole cultural genre that represented young, black, and underclass folk. The culture and entertainment industry had to take notice by 1985. Now hip-hop is the most lucrative cultural area of the entertainment industry. It’s another tribute to the tremendous cultural imagination and genius of black folk. (Hope p 178) The vitality and vigor of Afro-American popular music depends not only on the talents of Afro-American musicians, but also on the moral visions, social analyses and political strategies that highlight personal dignity, provide political promise and give existential hope to the underclass and poor working class in Afro-America. (The Cornel West Reader p 484) is that it’s a human condition…a love caravan. West: To be human you must bearwitness to justice. Justice is what love looks like in public—to be human is to love and be loved. Me in closing: I have to believe that there is hope for Black men and women in this nation and throughout the world. Inherently, all human beings know that greatness is not achieved through material gain and worldly acquisitions, but true greatness is seen by observing the character of a man. While listening to a eulogy, we never hear the orator bloviate about how many cars the deceased one drove or how many houses he had, never! Whether the deceased was a criminal or clergyman, we hear of how good the person was, how thoughtful and generous. We sit and listen to people go on about how much they loved the person or how that person made them laugh. We know deep in our souls what really matters while we’re here on this Earth. God’s beauty, truth, love and freedom is still attractive in a world full of deceit, hate and restriction. We are all longing for more. Everyone wants to know their purpose in life and we often do not feel satisfied until it has been identified. When it is identified, but not actively pursued, one lives or exists, rather, in a dulled, gray state—full of regret and disappointment that slowly leads to an anger filled heart of stone. Even the apathetic ones feel, too. Whether acknowledged or not, these emotionless souls are feeling something, deeply. Life is completely mundane, boring and hopeless without a mission. The beauty in the knowledge of Yeshua is that we all have been given a mission…we were commanded to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s what it all boils down to…love! It is impossible to know Love, to know what love is, without knowing God. And how can we say that we love God, whom we have never seen, but hate others who we see everyday (1 John 4:20)? I want to enhance this notion of God’s beauty and take it to the streets of the marginalized, in hopes to impart the knowledge that their lives, too, have a meaning and purpose. To those who have given up on God and themselves, who will never step foot into a church, they too must know that they are wanted by God. Too long have I witnessed churches that sit in communities filled with indigent people full of despair, but the congregants sit securely in that church building, worshipping and reaching out to the Lord, yet do not reach out to the people in need that are in the community. We are to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth; and truth is, there is so much work to be done outside of those four walls of the church building. God’s church is not the physical edifice, but His people. We must do the will of our Father, lest He say, “I knew you not,” when we go to enter the kingdom of Heaven (Matt 7:21-23). With the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to be witnesses of Yeshua to everyone to the ends of this earth (Acts 1:8). The end is delayed because of the mission. We often pray, “Come quickly,” but we must first work before He comes. We all have been given spiritual gifts in order to serve others. We serve, never because of “what’s in it for me,” but to exalt Christ. All of our giftings should be conformed and exercised to the dictates of love. The body of Christ will be edified as we serve together, some teaching, some preaching, some praying, some singing. With the songs given to me by the Holy Spirit, I wish to communicate that: “Nothing is lost, everything to gain, forget the past, forget the pain, you can climb higher, you can achieve, if only you trust and believe and never look back!” Feelings of emptiness and hopelessness can lead one to suicide or a life lived without purpose. But the knowledge of new life, believing that we ought not remember the former things, because God is about to do something new (Isaiah 43:18-19), will save lives! People must see the beauty in God’s light and how it shines in darkness, transforming from the inside out. Aristotle believed that music is the most representative of all the arts and I agree. Music is powerful! A melody could be dimly playing in the background and the listener, incognizant at times, mechanically taps along. The Bronx nursing home, Beth Abraham's experiment with catatonic patients was revolutionary. Ask any college student what gets him or her through when they have to pull an all-nighter and the answer is usually, music. Listening to their favorite soundtrack or artists helps the time pass, without feeling the burden of the task at hand. Hearing a particular song can trigger memories from our past, taking us to places long forgotten about and treasured. Music can be used to awaken a nation, as seen in the 1960s with the release of A Change is Gonna Come, by Sam Cooke, which became an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement. When John Legend and Common stood to deliver their speech for winning “Best Original Song” for Glory from the Oscar-nominated film Selma, Legend conveyed that, “There are more black men under correctional control than there were under slavery in 1850.” Something is terribly wrong with that picture. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” SEE MORE (YOUTUBE: thekingherself)

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oscopelabs · 5 years

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Mirror, Mirror: When Movie Characters Look Back at Themselves by Sheila O’Malley

“I always feel it behind me. It’s myself. And I follow me. In silence. But I can hear it. Yes, sometimes it’s like I’m chasing myself. I want to escape from myself. But I can’t!” —Peter Lorre as child-murderer, M (1931)

There was a period in the ‘60s and ‘70s when you could barely call yourself a male movie star if you didn’t do a scene where you stared at yourself in the mirror, doing various “private” things. The device shows up before then, too, but the floodgates opened in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Meryl Streep has observed, “Often the scenes that are the most exciting, and most illuminating in film, are the ones with no dialogue…where a character is doing something alone, where the deepest most private self is revealed or explored. Exposed.”

Mirrors have multiple thematic uses (as well as the obvious directorial choice to add visual interest to the frame). But if a character is inarticulate, then seeing him “deal with” his reflection can fill in some gaps. It’s a great storytelling shortcut. If the character has a firm public “mask,” a “mirror scene” can let us see who he is when no one is watching. We all lie, to some degree, out there in the world (or on social media). We construct a “self” and a mirror scene allows the character to strip that away.

Speaking stereotypically (or, in archetypes), what is expected of male characters in terms of public persona is different from the pressures on female characters. Not better or worse, just different. Crying, showing uncertainty, weakness, vulnerability … can be a minefield. This is why the glut of male mirror scenes in the 70s makes a kind of sense: as the women’s movement rose, men began to wonder about their place, as well as buck against some of the gender norms imposed on them (or, in some cases, re-entrench said gender norms, Travis Bickle’s “You talkin’ to me” the most classic example).

Shakespeare’s use of the soliloquy—in particular for Kings and prospective Kings—could be seen as mirror scenes, with the audience as the mirror. A man goes into a private space, showing the audience things he cannot show on the battlefield or in the court. Hamlet, one of the most introverted of Shakespeare’s characters, showing non-gender-norm qualities of uncertainty and sensitivity, has a massive six soliloquies. (“O that this too too solid flesh would melt”, “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I”, “To be or not to be”, “Tis now the very witching time of night”, “Now might I do it pat” and “How all occasions do inform against me.”) It is impossible to imagine the play—or Hamlet—without them. In Richard II, after Richard is forced to surrender his crown, what is the first thing he does? Like a true narcissist, he calls for a mirror. As he stares at himself, he wonders,

“Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men?”

and throws the mirror on the ground.

Mirrors are powerful and mysterious symbols. The doubling-up can mean all kinds of things. Alice steps through the looking glass into another world. Goethe’s Faust looks into the witch’s mirror and sees a beautiful woman staring back. Dorian Gray takes a mirror to compare his face with the one in the attic portrait. (Like Richard III, Dorian smashes the mirror.) A mirror is crucial in Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott,” where “The Lady” is cursed to view the world only through a mirror. But then Lancelot rides by and she can’t help it, she has to sneak a peek. Maybe the most famous fictional mirror is the Evil Queen’s in “Snow White,” the one she asks every day, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Richard III doesn’t look for a reflection of his beauty. He wonders where his “self” even is, without the crown.

An early male mirror scene—and one of the best—is Peter Lorre’s in Fritz Lang’s M (1931). Our first glimpse of Lorre’s face comes without warning. As a handwriting-analyst theorizes in voiceover about the child-killer’s psychology, we see him, staring at himself in the mirror. He pulls at his face, slowly, manipulating his mouth into a smile, trying it on for size, maybe seeing what it looks like to the children he seduces. He bugs his eyes out, turning this way, that, a maniacal presence, almost like a shark rolling its eyes backwards as it attacks. He has no sense of what human beings feel like, of what he looks like, of how to even make a facial expression. It’s one of the most chilling private moments in cinema.

Speaking of “private moments”: Constantin Stanislavski wrote a lot about how actors needed to feel “solitude in public.” He wrote: ”During a performance, before an audience of thousands, you can always enclose yourself in this circle…You can carry it with you wherever you go.” Lee Strasberg developed his “private moment exercise” to help actors achieve “solitude in public.” There are things you do when you are alone which you would stop doing if someone walked in. Maybe you sing along to the radio. Maybe you talk to yourself. Maybe you pick your nose. Maybe you do all of these things simultaneously. Our “public” selves are drilled into us from a very young age. There are “good manners,” there are “contexts” to be memorized—what flies at home will not fly outside the home. Breaking down the public face, letting an audience see who you are when you are by yourself, is part of the actor’s job. (It’s not a surprise that the '70s came to be dominated by private-moment mirror scenes, considering the influence of the Strasberg method on acting styles.)

One of the most important mirror scenes, and a huge influence on Martin Scorsese, is Marlon Brando’s in Reflections in a Golden Eye, directed by John Huston. Brando plays Major Weldon Penderton, a closeted gay man married to a frustrated, luscious Elizabeth Taylor. Late at night, Penderton sits alone, staring at pictures of naked male statues from Greek antiquity. The character lives in an almost totally male world (the military), turned on by young soldiers, and terrified of revealing himself. In one scene, alone downstairs in the house, he walks into the hall and stares at himself in the mirror. After a moment of vacuity, he begins to talk to himself, or, more vulnerably, to an imaginary other person. He pretends to respond to what the other person says, he practices laughing, and he smiles, but the smile is superimposed. He can’t get it to look real. What he says is a kind of murmur, a “pretense” of conversation. This is the kind of vulnerability Brando could achieve like no other. Without this scene, the Major could have been a caricature. All we see is his fuddy-duddy sexless stiff public mask. The mirror scene shows his confusion at how to be a man, how to navigate even a casual conversation.

Alain Delon has a stunning mirror moment in Purple Noon (1960), Rene Clement’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Delon plays the sociopath Tom Ripley, in thrall to his casually masculine friend Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet). Delon’s chilly presence onscreen works to beautiful effect: He doesn’t show us much. But then, he tries on Philippe’s clothes, a sleek pinstripe jacket, fancy shoes. He checks himself out in the mirror. Most actors would leave it at that. But Delon understood the homoerotic implications of the script, not to mention the character’s dangerous narcissism. Delon leans into the mirror and gives himself a rapturous long kiss, slitting his eyes open at one point, to check out what he looks like.

It’s interesting to contrast this with the same scene in the 1999 adaptation, The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring Matt Damon. Director Anthony Minghella makes the subtext practically text, by placing mirrors in almost every scene (the final shot of Ripley is through a mirror). When Ripley tries on his friend’s clothes, he dances around to Bing Crosby’s “May I,” doing a vaudeville burlesque. It’s a different kind of rapture than Delon’s swooning kiss. Damon’s drag-style dance is more for the audience, an explicit display of inner gay-ness, what Ripley is hiding beneath his good-natured submissive public persona. It’s a good scene, although I prefer Delon’s. Delon’s kiss is Stanislavsky’s “public solitude”—and it shows the terrifying void within the character. There is no self. The entire world is a mirror.

In Karel Reisz’s gritty Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Albert Finney’s Arthur, in a whirl of work, sex, and alcohol, is suddenly caught by his reflection one hungover morning. He was beat up the night before. He plays at being a sniper through his window, targeting local women with pellets. It’s a thin line between playfulness and murderous acting-out. Finney digs into this aspect of the character when he suddenly speaks to his reflection. It is a statement of bravado before descending into confusion: ”I’m me and nobody else. Whatever people say I am that’s what I am not, because they don’t know a bloody thing about me. God knows what I am.”

For the opening sequences of Rocky, we see Rocky Balboa’s normal “day in the life.” We are introduced to him through various public selves. But when he goes home to his dank apartment, feeding his turtles, gentle and quiet, his loneliness is so acute it reverbs off the screen. Childhood photographs of him line the mirror frame, and Rocky stares at them, his big-lug face almost crushed in disappointment. Holding a container of turtle food, he starts to talk to himself. What he’s saying doesn’t sound like anything, just private-moment murmurings, but in the next scene, when he goes to visit the girl in the pet store, it becomes clear. He was practicing a joke to tell her, a joke designed to make her laugh, show her he’s a safe person, he’s nice. Rocky practicing a joke in the mirror is one of Stallone’s most vulnerable moments as an actor (and evidence of his gift as a screenwriter).

John Travolta’s mirror moment in 1977’s Saturday Night Fever is star-making, not just because of Travolta’s almost otherworldly gorgeousness (as well as how he revels in said gorgeousness, behavior considered coded-female). Surrounded by 1970s icons—posters of Rocky, Serpico, and Farrah Fawcett—he blow-dries his hair, places gold chains around his neck, and stands like a superhero in his black speedo briefs, shot from below. Perhaps the most revealing thing about the scene is that when his father barges into the room, Travolta’s Tony Manero does not stop what he is doing. His lack of embarrassment tells us everything we need to know about the character.

Francis Ford Coppola’s epic, Apocalypse Now begins with a hallucinatory sequence showing a PTSD-rattled Martin Sheen, holed up in a hotel room in Saigon, tormented by memories. In one shocking moment, Sheen stands unsteadily, and lurches around in front of the mirror, flailing his arms out in imitation martial-arts moves, an attempt to combat his helplessness and anguish, his impotence. But the gap between reality and fantasy is too great, and he, like Richard III, smashes the mirror.

Richard Gere’s mirror moment in American Gigolo is a distant cousin of John Travolta’s. His Julian has carefully crafted an immaculate persona for his female clients, and part of the movie’s pull is watching it get stripped away. At home, Julian wanders around, practicing Swedish, working out, picking out clothes for his next appointment. He’s vain, but vanity is part of his job. Smokey Robinson’s “The Love I Saw In You Was Just a Mirage,” and it’s perfect because Julian literally is a mirage. To his clients, to himself, even. When he stands in front of the mirror, flexing his muscles, he is more Evil Queen than Richard III, a destabilizing of gender norms around male sexuality (and self-presentation) which is so much a part of the film. (When Julian meets a private detective, it’s at a joint called the Me & Me Coffee Shop. Julian’s hall of mirrors shatters by the end of American Gigolo: in the final scene, he talks to Lauren Hutton through a glass partition in prison. The mirror is no more. He can see through it now to the other person, and, crucially, he can be seen, too, as he really is.)

The most famous mirror moment is, of course, Robert De Niro’s in Taxi Driver. In the insomniac voiceover, his Travis Bickle says, “I think that someone should become a person like other people,” showing the character’s alienation from other humans. You aren’t already a person, to Travis: you have to become one. As Travis descends into psychosis, dreaming of 1. impressing the cool blonde (Cybill Shepherd) who rejected him after he took her to a porn movie on their first date and 2. rescuing the child prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster), he begins to amass a small arsenal, putting together boot holsters and straps to go around his wiry body. In the unforgettable moment when he checks himself out in the mirror, he goes into a zone of macho fantasy. (Schrader’s script said only “Travis speaks to himself in the mirror.” De Niro’s “You talkin’ to me” was his improvisation.) De Niro goes so far into his sense of privacy, it’s almost embarrassing to watch. And yet it’s so human, too. (If you say you’ve never talked to yourself in the mirror, or sung in the shower, you’re lying.)

De Niro’s second mirror moment is Raging Bull’s final scene, when the bloated Jake La Motta recites Marlon Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” monologue from On the Waterfront, before standing up and doing a series of “pumping up” exercises, to get ready to go onstage. (Side note: Mary Elizabeth Winstead closes out Eva Vives’ wonderful 2018 film All About Nina, about a troubled stand-up comic, with a re-creation of the scene from Raging Bull.) What’s fascinating about the Raging Bull scene is that Jake La Motta has no “self” to reveal. It’s almost like there’s no inner life at all. He doesn’t “get it.” He never did, he never will. De Niro blanks himself out in a very unnerving way, opposite to the dangerous vengeful-spirit fantasy he inhabits in Taxi Driver.

Although Walter Hill’s Johnny Handsome descends into a cliched crime movie with paper-thin characters, the opening sequences are dark, cynical, and atmospheric. Mickey Rourke plays Johnny, a man with a deformed head, an “ugly” appearance which has separated him from other humans. Reminiscent of the Joan Crawford film A Woman’s Face, a caring plastic surgeon (Forest Whittaker) offers to operate on Johnny, to give him a chance at a new life. When Rourke unwraps the bandages and sees his new face (i.e. Rourke’s real face), Rourke has a mirror moment like almost no other, a moment worthy to be placed alongside Brando’s and De Niro’s. He touches his face with wonder, bursting into tears. That’s touching enough, but then, as he glances back at Whitaker, Rourke goes deeper. A look of fear, and lifelong anguish floods his eyes, as he says, “I feel like I still have a mask on” and then, after that, Rourke goes even deeper into a maelstrom of emotion: gratitude, bafflement, awe, despair. The scene is Rourke’s finest hour.

Up until recently (with a couple of exceptions), when women stared at themselves in the mirror in the movies, it was obvious what they are doing: touching up their makeup, checking out their mask. Once again, in the 1960s and 70s, women started doing “mirror scenes” equivalent to men’s mirror scenes, where the purpose was not perfecting the public mask, but to - as Sylvia Plath wrote in her poem “Mirror” - search “my reaches for what she really is.” Faye Dunaway has a great one in Jerry Schatzberg’s Puzzle of a Downfall Child. Gena Rowlands has quite a few “mirror scenes” in the movies she did with Cassavetes (there’s a couple of stunners in Opening Night). In my favorite moment in Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, after breaking into Paris Hilton’s house, Katie Chang goes into a daze of mad-woman fantasy, staring at herself in Paris’ mirror. It’s not hard to imagine the character slipping into the Manson family, if a Manson came along. She’s as blank as Jake La Motta. In La Verite’s opening scene, Brigitte Bardot stares at her face in a broken shard of a mirror, right before marching off for her court date. Her “self” is fragmented, broken. Jennifer Jason Leigh has an extraordinary extended “mirror scene” in Georgia. The moment is everything: self-hatred, rage, searching and longing, and bone-deep narcissism.

Men staring at themselves in the mirror let us into their secret worlds, their fantasies and anxieties, uncertainties and vulnerabilities. It’s not about being self-obsessed. It’s trying to find the self, the self that is not allowed free rein, be it a benign self or a malevolent one.

In Caravaggio’s “Narcissus,” Narcissus leans towards his reflection in the water, his posture pulled downwards with a seductive tug. He braces himself by his hands on the ground, and his knee, bulging out beneath his torso, is the only barrier between Narcissus and his reflection (and, perhaps, drowning). In the painting the reflection below is cut off; all we see are the forearms and that gleaming sturdy knee. Even though Narcissus’ body is barely visible, even though he’s hunched over himself, his energy is childlike, soft and open. He gives his reflection a caressing stare, a swooning look. He yields. This is not just vanity. This is something else.

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roseisread · 5 years

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My Year in Movies: Favorite Non-2018 Feature Films (Part 3)

In case you missed it, check out part 1 and part 2! Now picking up where we left off...

28. My Cousin Vinny (1992, directed by Jonathan Lynn, country of origin: US)

I know, I know. I can’t believe it either. But I really hadn’t seen this one til just a few short months ago. Marisa Tomei is, of course, a megababe in it; and Joe Pesci wears the hell out of some ridiculous outfits as he portrays a very unconventional defense attorney trying to help his cousin and a friend beat a murder charge. I laughed and laughed and cheered and laughed some more. Best courtroom scenes I watched all year, (and I watched A Few Good Men this year so that’s saying something). If this is still a blind spot for you, or you just want to revisit it, you can rent it on Amazon for 99 cents right now.

27. After Hours (1985, directed by Martin Scorsese, country of origin: US)

Talk about things that escalate quickly: In this movie, Griffin Dunne’s character Paul meets a fellow book lover/manic pixie dream girl type (Rosanna Arquette). However, when he accepts her invitation for a late night rendezvous at her place, she quickly turns into a manic pixie nightmare girl. By morning, Paul finds himself a fugitive on suspicion of burglary, sex crimes, and murder in a neighborhood it’s safe to say he will never visit again. It’s a more heightened, comedic take on the classic “wrongfully accused” genre, and Dunne plays every note of desperation perfectly. You can watch this for free on Vudu, or rent on other streaming platforms.

26. The Big Clock (1948, directed by John Farrow, country of origin: US)

The Big Clock actually has a few things in common with the aforementioned After Hours--hardworking New York City guy agrees to drinks with possibly sketchy woman and winds up the prime suspect in a murder. The whole thing takes place over a 36-hour period, and as you might guess the Clock of the title is ticking. The cast is great--Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan--and the film balances humor and suspense with ease. Fun fact, the movie is directed by John Farrow, father of Mia. The movie is available for online rental through Amazon, Vudu, and iTunes.

25. The Doll (1919, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, country of origin: Germany)

I adore Ernst Lubitsch, who directed The Shop Around The Corner, To Be or Not To Be, Trouble in Paradise, and Design for Living. Before his English-language talkies, however, he got his start in Germany with silent films like Die Puppe (The Doll). Starring the effervescent Ossi Oswalda (basically the silent era’s Greta Gerwig), this comic fantasy skewers romantic conventions.

Lancelot is a young prince who must marry in order to receive his inheritance; but he’s afraid of women (or possibly gay... it’s easy to read it that way). He buys what he think is a life-like doll to deceive his family and avoid marriage to a real girl; but little does he know Ossi is actually a real girl pretending to be a doll. It’s all very silly and over the top and winking, and also one of the most hilarious and charming rom-coms this side of the Hallmark channel. The physical comedy is outstanding, the social commentary is scathing, and Ossi is the hero we didn’t know we needed. There are a few versions floating around on YouTube or you can rent it for a few bucks on Amazon. I caught it on Filmstruck during a Lubitsch spotlight, and my life has never been the same.

24. Talk To Her (2002, directed by Pedro Almodovar, country of origin: Spain)

Pedro Almodovar can take the most seemingly absurd situation or plot contrivance and draw out something truly human and moving. He excels at shining a light on damaged but compelling characters, and doing everything with such style and panache that you let your guard down completely and before you know it you’re rooting for someone you ordinarily would scoff at from a distance. This movie’s story focuses on two comatose women and their caretakers, and delves into the limits of love and consent in fascinating, disturbing ways. I had no idea where this film was going but I was with it every second. Available for rent on most online platforms.

23. Crash (1996, directed by David Cronenberg, country of origin: Canada)

From the king of body horror, David Cronenberg, comes a movie about people who find eroticism where most people would find repulsion. Based on the controversial book by J.G. Ballard, this film follows a group of people who are aroused by car accidents and the injuries that result from metal and flesh colliding. It sounds macabre and at times it is, but under the surface are deeper themes that question what is considered “normal” versus “fetish” and why bodies that are whole and untarnished are worshiped while those that have distinguishing marks are tossed aside. There’s also certainly a critique of consumerism and cars as status symbols, and probably a lot more I missed on first viewing. Who better to portray a sexual deviant than James Spader? He’s joined by Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas (you’ll never think of Casey Jones the same way again), Deborah Kara Unger, and Rosanna Arquette. This is a tough one to track down--nowhere online right now, and it’s out of print on physical media; but if you see it at a thrift store or your local library, check it out.

22. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, directed by Robert Wiene, country of origin: Germany)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of those movies that gets referenced a lot but I still wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from this silent German Expressionist film. Sometimes watching such a revered classic can be a little daunting--will I like as much as I’m “supposed to”? Thankfully, I did. Basically all of goth culture could probably trace its lineage back to this weird, creepy, twisty film. The elaborate, off-kilter set design and mind-bending story got under my skin in the best way. I won’t say much about the plot--just watch it (on YouTube unofficially or rentable on various streaming services).

21. Duck Soup (1933, directed by Leo McCarey, country of origin: US)

My introduction to the Marx Brothers was A Night at the Opera, and I went gaga for their rapid-fire verbal gymnastics and their gonzo physical comedy. This film takes it to the next level and throws in some political satire for good measure. So many incredible, iconic routines; song and dance sequences; and dialogue that you have to watch at least 4 times to catch all the jokes. I’m officially a fan of the Marx Brothers after this. You can rent it on most streaming sources, but I’m guessing if you have a male relative over the age of 50 you could probably borrow it from their collection. It’s very popular with Dad/Uncle demographic, and I can see why.

20. They Live by Night (1948, directed by Nicholas Ray, country of origin: US)

Nicholas Ray is quickly becoming one of my all time favorite directors. Rebel Without a Cause, In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar, The Racket, and now They Live By Night--just stunning movies about troubled souls who don’t quite fit in with the rest of the world. This film lays the template for so many that would come after it: Young couple, good girl falls for bad boy, they go on the run from the law, love is not all you need.

When things are good, they’re really good and lead characters Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell) and Bowie (Farley Grainger) are rapturously crazy in love. But they also bicker believably when the past begins to bleed into the present, leading to one of my favorite exchanges in the film. Bowie confronts Keechie about her whereabouts, and when she informs him she’s been to the doctor “about the baby we’re gonna have,” he bursts out, “That’s all I need!” She fires back, “You don’t see me knittin’ anything, do ya?”

This is a Criterion film, so you may have to get it from the library or catch it on TCM until the Criterion streaming service launches later this spring. Either way, it’s a must-watch, especially if you love movies like Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde.

19. Paprika (2006, directed by Satoshi Kon, country of origin: Japan)

Look, I love Inception as much as the next person, but now that I’ve seen Paprika I must admit Christopher Nolan owes a major debt to Satoshi Kon for the way he portrays dreams and reality intersecting in uncanny ways. The difference is Satoshi Kon did it with much more weirdness and color and unsettling body horror. Don’t ask me to explain this movie, I’m not even 100% sure it can be unraveled all the way into a linear structure; but it is zany and wonderful in the best way. There’s no Tom Hardy but there is a girl who turns into a butterfly and a band of frogs and a creepy clown and a really fat guy who’s in love with the smart scientist lady... I’m telling you, you gotta see this thing. You can stream it for free on Crackle; otherwise it’s a $2.99 rental from Amazon and Vudu.

18. Good Time (2017, directed by the Safdie Brothers, country of origin: US)

If you missed this in 2017, PLEASE watch it now. Robert Pattinson gives his career best performance as a fast talking petty criminal trying to get his mentally handicapped brother out of jail after making him an accomplice to his own crimes. The soundtrack by Oneohtrix Point Never combined with the Safdie Brothers mesmerizing cinematography make for a hypnotic, propulsive viewing experience. Newcomer Taliah Webster delivers an excellent supporting performance as an unwitting sidekick partway through the film. Watch for free on Amazon Prime or rent on Vudu or YouTube.

17. Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962, directed by Agnes Varda, country of origin: France)

My first foray into the filmography of Agnes Varda, and I loved it. Cleo, a French pop singer, spends a couple hours trying to distract herself from anxiety and dread as she awaits the results of a biopsy. She buys a hat, plays with her kittens, and argues with her male collaborators over song choices.

Eventually she meets a stranger and they walk around Paris in a vignette that almost certainly influenced Richard Linklater’s entire milieu. Cleo mulls her possible fate and concludes “as long as I’m beautiful, I’m alive”--a notion Blondie would later reference in their tongue in cheek tune “Die Young, Stay Pretty.” But as much as she is fixated on her appearance, she finds herself struggling to be taken seriously by men who dismiss her because of her beauty.

Special shout out to Michel Legrand, who we learned today has left the mortal plane: He composed the lovely score for this film and also appears in it as Cleo’s pianist.

I watched this on the now-defunct Filmstruck, but it’s part of the Criterion Collection so your best bet is probably getting it from the library or waiting for it to show up when Criterion’s streaming service launches later this spring.

16. Happy Together (1997, directed by Wong Kar-Wai, country of origin: Hong Kong)

Wong Kar-Wai captures unfulfilled romantic longing on film better than just about anyone. If you’ve seen In the Mood for Love or Chungking Express you already know this. Happy Together turns the director’s eye once again toward people on a collision course of love, lust, and disfunction. Leslie Cheung (RIP) and Tony Leung portray a couple hoping their toxic relationship will hit the reset button with a change of scenery when they relocate from Hong Kong to Argentina. At times their passion manifests as tenderness, as in a moving dance sequence; other times, volatility erupts into violence. When one of them meets someone new, the possibility of a simpler, sweeter kind of love offers an alternative to the cycle of codependency and betrayal. This one is out of print right now on DVD, but check your local library or used movie store and you may get lucky.

15. La Dolce Vita (1960, directed by Federico Fellini, country of origin: Italy)

You’ve got sumptuous Italian vistas, Marcello Mastroianni being gorgeous, Anita Ekberg dancing in the fountain, and a bunch of hedonism that leads down a path of inevitable emptiness and/or destruction. Personally, I prefer this one to Fellini’s 8 1/2--it’s filled with so many scenes that could work as stand alone short films; and there’s more humor and exuberance here than in his better known, meta film experience. The 174 minute runtime may seem intimidating but for me it flew by. Available with Filmbox on Amazon right now, also part of the Criterion Collection.

14. Cooley High (1975, directed by Michael Schultz, country of origin: US)

If you’ve enjoyed movies like Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti, Boyz N the Hood, or even Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you should really watch Cooley High. Filmed in Chicago, it follows a group of friends in high school as they skip class in favor of visiting the Lincoln Park zoo, recite poetry, go to parties, make out with girls, get into fights, and navigate the tenuous border between youth and adulthood. Full of laughs, heart, and clear-eyed realism in place of the occasional sentimentality that seeps into movies about “young folks,” this must-see of Black cinema influenced independent filmmakers like Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. You can rent it on Vudu, or pick up a physical copy on Blu-ray or DVD.

13. Poltergeist (1982, directed by Tobe Hooper, country of origin: US)

Out of all the major blindspots I caught up with in 2018, this is the one that both impressed me the most and made me wonder why it took me this long to see it. I think I just assumed that it would be super cheesy or super scary or somehow both? Needless to say, I was wrong. It’s a blast! Funny, scary (but in a way I loved), original, and one of the best portrayals of family I’ve seen on screen. I now plan to watch this at least once a year to celebrate Halloween the same way that I watch Independence Day on July 4th, Elf/Jingle All the Way/Christmas Vacation at Christmas, and Nightmare Before Christmas/Donnie Darko for Halloween. I’m sure that everyone else in the world has seen it, but if you by some chance have not, go watch it right now! It’s available for rent on YouTube, Amazon, and GooglePlay.

12. Arthur (1981, directed by Steve Gordon, country of origin: US)

This one really surprised me. I became vaguely aware of its existence around the release of the terribly reviewed Russell Brand version; but no idea what to expect when I impulsively clicked the “watch now” button on Filmstruck. At first, Dudley Moore came across as an obnoxious drunken boor, but as I kept watching I realized the levels to his character went much deeper than it seemed at first. John Gielgud immediately won me over as Arthur’s butler Hobson, who loves Arthur like a son despite his many shenanigans. Then Liza Minnelli shows up on screen and isn’t she cute as a button! If you only know her as Lucille II from Arrested Development, you really owe it to yourself to see her in her heyday. You might not think Buster is so crazy for embracing “our nausea.”

This movie became one of my favorite romantic comedies, in some ways a Cinderella story and in some ways a coming of age story and in most ways something wholly original. It’s a very special film, and deserves a wider audience among today’s movie fans. It’s a $1.99 rental on most platforms right now, so you have no excuse.

11. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, directed by Robert Altman, country of origin: US)

I knocked out a few Altman films last year, and they were all good but this one was my favorite. I’m not always a fan of Westerns, but this one, which finds Julie Christie’s Madam teaming up with Warren Beatty’s Gambler to open a brothel, well, it’s different. I have a feeling Altman (and maybe his cast) watched Johnny Guitar, an earlier entry on my list, because this is another case in which a powerful woman with a mind for business upends the natural order of things (aka men being in charge).

The writing here is wonderful, especially the dialogue, which includes such gems as “You know how to square a circle? Shove a four by four up a mule’s ass!” but also some more gentle, sweet exchanges and voiceover. There are also some gorgeous shots in this film, unsurprising with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond on board (who also shot Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Deliverance, and Blow Out just to name a few).

Watch it via rental on Amazon, GooglePlay, or iTunes.

Next up: The Top 10! Stay tuned!

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