#suddenly it’s a completely different kind of book still scary I guess but the horror of the story was about not knowing what’s going on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

max-is-tired · 4 years

Text

On Top Of The World (On Top Of It All)

Pairing: Analoceit

Characters: Virgil Sanders, Deceit Sanders, Logan Sanders, Remus Sanders, Roman Sanders, Patton Sanders, Character Thomas (mentioned)

Words: 4.365

Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit & Remus, swearing, kissing, one very light innuendo and light graphic talk by Remus, there’s a fight but the characters have agreed to it and no one gets hurt

Notes: Let’s start with a big round of applause for my amazing boyfriend @afulldeckofaces who commissioned this big boy -he asked for pining Loceit and Confident Virgil, and who am I to deny these two beautiful concepts?

Writing this was so much fun, and I hope you guys will love it at least as much as I enjoyed working on it!!!!

Commission me!! Buy me a coffee!! Join my Discord server!!

When Logan and Deceit initially got together, it really hadn’t been a surprise to anyone -apart from maybe Thomas, but he had since stopped questioning most of the things that went down in his mind. So when they told him he simply blinked, shrugged in that specific way people do when they are way too tired to try and actually think about whatever the hell is going on and smiled at the way his two sides leaned on each other, genuinely happy for them.

Point was, everyone had seen it coming, recognized their hopeless pining for what it was despite the two sides’ vehement denial (“denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, dude”) and collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the two finally got their heads out of their asses and actually talked about their feelings for once in their life.

(Roman was just a tad bitter that both Deceit and Logan had refused to see reason for so long despite his best efforts to act as the perfect Cupid he was, and also that Remus had only won their little bet because gay panic was one hell of a way to make Deceit blurt out the truth. So what?)

What no one had exactly seen coming -apart from Remus because he was Deceit’s go-to when he needed to ramble/vent about something and therefore was aware of most things regarding his love life before anyone else, mostly to his brother’s dismay- was the small, minuscule crush the two were starting to develop on Virgil.

Which really, could you blame them? He was calm, snarky, and if Logan had to be honest, he had been harboring a tiny, infinitesimal infatuation for the anxious side since the time they had their first debate, back in the mindscape’s palace when Thomas had been dealing with cognitive distortions.

(For Dee, it was more complicated, having had feelings for Virgil since before their falling out only to feel them rekindle once they had started to grow closer again, side to side with the burning flame that were his feelings for Logan. Accepting that those feelings were still a thing had been an ordeal, to say the least, but having Logan at his side as they worked on figuring it out had helped immensely.)

So yeah, both Deceit and Logan were kind of crushing on Virgil. But that didn’t mean they were going to act on it, despite Remus’ constant suggestions that they should “try and tap that booty.” After all, it’s not like Virgil would be interested, and the feelings were completely, one hundred percent manageable.

Right?

(Spoiler alert: they were wrong. So, so wrong.)

+++

It all started one particular afternoon, when Roman barged into the living room with a very worried look on his face.

“Please tell me someone has seen Remus at least once since this morning,” he questioned immediately, his gaze traveling from the kitchen, where Patton was currently backing some cookies, and the couch, from where Logan and Deceit were staring back at him with twin looks of both confusion and annoyance.

If Roman had to be honest, it was kind of creepy to see, and he was the one with an actual twin.

“I can’t say we have,” Logan finally answered, looking about ready to go back to his book.

“Neither have I, sorry Ro,” Patton called from the kitchen doorway, looking at him with a worried frown. “Why, did something happen?”

“No, but it might soon,” Roman answered, looking more troubled by the second. “Last time I saw him, he said he was going to the Imagination to work on a project. I have no idea what he’s working on, but the last time he spent this much time holed up there he ended up setting loose an entire army of bright green rats while proclaiming himself their Rat King, so I think you can guess why I’m a tiny bit worried right now.”

Deceit sighed, sharing a glance with Logan before turning towards the prince.

“I guess I’ll go check on him,” he said, standing up.

Logan gave him one look and immediately stood up himself, settling his book on the coffee table as he readjusted his tie.

“I’m coming with you. If he really has something planned, I might be able to help you reign him in.”

“Sounds good,” Deceit nodded, giving his boyfriend a small smile before taking his hand and turning towards Roman. “The Imagination, you said?”

Roman gave them a nod, while Patton looked at them in worry.

“Be careful, alright?” he called after them, watching as the two sunk out of the room.

Then, Roman seemed to realize something, turning towards Patton with a confused frown.

“Wait, where’s Virgil?”

+++

Between all the sides, Deceit, Virgil and Roman were the only ones who had actually set foot in Remus’ side of the Imagination before.

Over the years, the view had never changed much. A dark, ominous forest. Creatures that looked normal but not quite. A night that never ends, with a blood-red moon as the only companion. A tall, far-away tower, always visible in the distance but never seeming to grow closer.

This time, however, when Deceit rose up with Logan’s hand held tightly in his, the world around them was completely different. They were standing in what appeared to be a big, unassuming square circled by various buildings, the fumes and smells associated with cities surrounding them even without any people or cars passing by.

It was eerily silent, and Deceit didn’t like it one bit.

“I thought Remus’ domain would bear more similarities with Roman’s fantastical kingdom,” Logan commented, looking around with a hint of curiosity.

“It usually does, even if leaning much more on the ‘scary forest where literally everything could kill you’ side of the spectrum,” Deceit answered, studying their surroundings with much more suspicion. “In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never changed the landscape on his side of the Imagination.”

“Oh please, I’ve done it plenty of times,” a very familiar voice suddenly called from above their heads, “just never when you were around!”

Deceit and Logan looked up, trying to spot the source of the voice. Remus grinned back at them, hanging upside-down from what appeared to be-

“Wait, is that the floating cloud from Dragon Ball?” Deceit asked, staring in confusion at the cloud Remus seemed to be sitting on.

“Hell yeah! Do you like it?”

“... I’m almost afraid to ask this, but is there a reason it’s pitch back instead of the original white or is it just for the aesthetic?”

Remus wiggled his mustache, obviously excited by Deceit’s question in a way that made the side immediately regret ever speaking in the first place.

“White is overrated, and also this one can shoot lightning bolts!”

As if to demonstrate Remus’ words, the cloud immediately started crackling with energy, lightning zipping through the air and hitting the ground on the other side of the square.

“Woohoo!” Remus cheered, cackling like a madman at his own destruction.

As for Deceit, he fought to keep his expression neutral, squeezing Logan’s hand once it looked like his boyfriend was about to go try and investigate.

Logan rolled his eyes but relented, keeping his curiosity in check. For now, at least.

“Care to explain why exactly you changed the scenery, then?” Deceit asked, “I didn’t peg you for the city type.”

“Oh, it’s not for me, it’s for Virgil!” Remus grinned, straightening upon his personal cloud and snickering at the two sides’ growing confusion.

“Come on up, I’ll show you,” he offered, guiding the cloud down to give the two a chance to safely board.

Logan didn’t need to hear it twice, immediately mounting on the floating and very solid cloud -his boyfriend was a little more cautious, having had to deal with a lot of surprise features in Remus’ creations.

“Up we go!” Remus cheered, and suddenly the cloud was rising into the sky, making both Deceit and Logan hold on for dear life.

“Remus, where the hell are you taking us?!” Deceit frantically asked, watching the ground get farther and farther away.

Remus simply answered by gesturing excitedly to a nearby building, bringing their attention to a very familiar purple shape standing on a rooftop.

“Is that Virgil?” Deceit asked, squinting, “wait, what is he-”

Before he could finish his question, Deceit watched in horror as Virgil suddenly started sprinting towards the edge of the rooftop, feeling Logan stiffen at his side as he opened his mouth to shout something, anything that would stop the anxious side before it was too late.

But then, he felt his cry die on his lips as he watched with wide eyes Virgil leap gracefully from one rooftop to the next, rolling and leaping to his feet with the grace and flexibility of someone who has done this over and over.

“Oh my god,” Deceit whispered, feeling Logan peer down from beside him as they watched Virgil leap and jump from building to building with whoops and cheers of joy and the biggest smile anyone had ever seen on his face.

“He’s beautiful,” Logan murmured, attracting Deceit’s gaze on himself -he was staring at Virgil with wide eyes, a soft blush covering his cheeks and his eyes twinkling in a way Deceit had ever witnessed only when Logan was either talking or looking at the stars.

“He is,” he hummed in agreement, feeling a small, soft smile stretch on his face despite his best efforts to fight it down.

Behind them, Remus giggled in obvious delight as he watched the two become more and more smitten by the second.

“He’s been asking to use my part of the Imagination to practice for years now!” he chirped in explanation, “he does this once or twice a week, and in exchange, he gives me pointers on how to be that flexible.”

He grabbed his foot from behind and easily raised it to rest on his shoulder as a demonstration, wiggling his mustache throughout the entire process.

“There was no need to show us, Remus,” Deceit grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. Logan kept staring, raising an inquisitive eyebrow as Remus wiggled his foot at him.

“Are you implying that Virgil might be as flexible as that?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s much more flexible than me,” Remus shrugged, letting his foot fall back down, “seriously, sometimes I can’t help but wonder if he actually has a backbone or not. Wait, do you think I could get more flexible if I got my backbone out?”

“I do not advise trying, no,” Logan chided half-heartedly, blinking at the creative side as he tried to process his words.

“Oh god, I’m going to die,” Deceit muttered, hiding his flaming face in his hands as images of Virgil showcasing his… flexible abilities filled his brain.

Remus started cackling at their expressions, rolling around the cloud while clutching his stomach.

Ignoring him, Deceit and Logan exchanged a flustered glance, before turning around to stare at Virgil’s figure still bolting and jumping around the buildings under them.

It looked like this crush of theirs was not going away as quickly as they’d hoped, was it?

+++

Okay so, Virgil was flexible and apparently did weekly parkours over city landscapes Remus conjured just for him. So? Logan and Deceit could still deal with that and manage not to die of gay at the mere thought of just how agile and flexible their crush was.

Then, Roman decided it would be a good idea to challenge Virgil to a duel.

Granted, the proposal was meant mostly as a joke, a direct answer to Virgil threatening to kick Roman’s ass if he didn’t stop singing random Disney songs at full volume as everyone tried to relax.

But Virgil had easily accepted it, surprising literally everyone in the room as Roman looked at him as if he had grown two heads.

“What, Princey?” Virgil had asked, a lopsided grin stretching on his face, “scared you’re gonna lose to little old me?”

And so there they were, Roman and Virgil standing at the opposing sides of the arena the creative side had conjured while the others watched on from the sidelines -Patton had been very worried initially, but both sides had assured him that one, none of them were planning to injure badly the other and two, no sharp weapons would be used, so the father figure had eventually relented and followed the others on the stands.

“Who do you think will win?” Patton asked as he sat down, fidgeting with his cardigan.

“While I cannot deny that Virgil’s fight or flight instincts will probably be helpful in such a fight-” Logan started, looking at the two sides standing in the arena with twin wooden staffs in their hands- “his opponent is far more experienced than him in these kinds of things. Therefore, I suppose Roman will come out as the winner.”

Deceit nodded in agreement, wondering why Virgil had thought accepting this duel would be a good idea. Sure, the guy knew how to pack a punch -Deceit had found that out the hard way when he’d accidentally startled the anxious side during one of his panic attacks- but Roman quite literally fought bandits and Dragon Witches for fun. He obviously had the upper hand.

Remus watched the two sides lean forward, fighting down a snicker as his mind traveled to the numerous sparring match he’d had with Virgil when they both needed to let out steam.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

As if reading his mind, Roman suddenly bolted forward, staff held securely in his left hand as he prepared to strike down on his opponent. Quicker than anyone could see him, Virgil rolled to the side, easily avoiding Roman’s blow as he immediately leaped to his feet.

The fanciful side didn’t seem to be deterred by Virgil’s obvious agility, turning around to strike again and again with a type of ease only an experienced fighter can hope to achieve.

They went on like this for a while, with Roman delivering one strike after another and Virgil parrying and dodging every single hit, eyes reduced to slits as he focused on his opponent’s movements and nothing else.

As they watched, everyone had slowly started scooting forward in their seats, no more words being shared as they observed the two sides meeting and clashing only to pull away again. It almost looked like a graceful dance following a song only they could hear, their bodies moving in tandem as they both fought for the upper hand.

Then, Deceit felt the hair at the back of his neck stand up to attention, almost on instinct squeezing Logan’s hand as he leaned forward in sudden anticipation. He didn’t know why, but he felt as if something was going to happen very soon, and he did not want to miss it.

As if on command, Roman moved to attack once again, and a grin suddenly appeared on Virgil’s lips. Without missing a beat, the anxious side moved his body just a little to the left, hitting the inside of Roman’s arm with his staff as he slipped his foot just behind the other’s and kicked his legs off from under him.

Roman let go of his weapon with a pained yelp, falling flat on his ass as his balance was so suddenly thrown out from under him. Cursing under his breath, he started to reach for his fallen weapon only to find himself face to face with Virgil’s staff, hovering just in front of his face and blocking his movements.

“I don’t think so, Princey,” Virgil chuckled, giving him his signature lopsided smile as he slipped his weapon to tilt the creative side’s chin up.

“I’d say I won, don’t you agree?”

Roman gulped, looking up at him with wide eyes before answering with a small, trembling nod.

The sides sitting on the stands weren’t fairing much better, staring in absolute disbelief as the arena slowly disappeared from around them and Virgil helped Roman up -at least, everyone but Remus, who was too busy cackling his ass off at their surprise to care much about anything else right now.

“You guys were incredible!” Patton cheered, bolting forward to drag the two panting sides in a hug.

“Thanks, Padre,” Roman laughed, returning the hug as best as he could, “I was not expecting out resident emo to be such a valiant foe, but I’m positive a rematch will set the results right.”

Virgil snorted, patting Patton’s back with one hand as he arched his eyebrows at Roman.

“I’m down to beating your ass again anytime you want, Princey,” he teased, a shit-eating grin tugging at his lips as Roman let out his certified Offended Princey Noises™.

Patton gasped, turning his head around to stare at Virgil.

“Vee, language!”

“Sorry, Pat.”

Logan and Deceit watched over the scene from the sidelines, still trying to recover from what they had just witnessed.

“Uh, Virgil, if I may-” Logan called, attracting the side’s attention to himself as he nervously adjusted his tie- “where did you learn to fight like that?”

That was… something Deceit really wanted to know too, if he had to be honest.

Virgil shrugged, gently pulling away from Patton’s hug to properly look at them.

“I just… always knew how, I guess? Being fight or flight and all that,” he answered, looking at the two sides with the same lopsided smile he’d been sporting while tilting Roman’s chin up with his staff and-

Yup, it was official. Logan and Deceit were way too gay to deal with this shit.

+++

After that, it didn’t take long for things to finally come to a head.

It was a series of episodes, piling up one after another as Logan and Deceit fought more and more to frantically keep their crush in check.

A perfect example was that one time Roman somehow convinced all of them to join him in a quest, something he’d never quite managed before.

After crossing the entrance to the Imagination, all of them had found themselves wearing clothes that were starkly different from the ones they’d had had on a few seconds before.

Namely, Deceit’s robe now had much more flair to it, a wizard staff suddenly clutched in his hand as a long, black cloak with his symbol stitched on it hung loosely around his body.

Deceit hummed as he took in his new attire, feeling the weight of a sword hanging from his side as he begrudgingly had to admit that Roman hadn’t done a half-bad job with their clothes -something he remarked with stark clarity as he took in Logan’s much more practical shirt, jacket and pants that hung in a very flattering way on his lean figure.

Then, Deceit made the mistake to let his gaze move towards Virgil and all coherent thoughts suddenly screeched to a halt.

Virgil was wearing what looked like ranger robes, the dark hood of his battered cloak shadowing half of his face as the anxious side examined the slick bow he was now holding in his hands. Hidden under the cloak, Deceit could see the metallic glint of a black armor protecting Virgil’s body, the hilt of a sword peeking out from one of his sides.

In the back of his head, Deceit found himself thinking that maybe, Roman always calling Virgil their Dark and Stormy Knight was more accurate than they’d previously accounted for.

Taken as he was in admiring Virgil’s new outfit, Deceit failed to notice the way the others were getting ready to start their journey, slowly advancing down the path in front of them. He only noticed when Virgil shot him a strange look, arching his eyebrows as if silently asking if everything was alright.

Fighting down the blush threatening to rise to his cheeks, Deceit gave a terse nod, hurrying to catch up with the others before they noticed. In his hurry, though, the deceitful side failed to pay attention to his own cloak, now reaching to his feet instead of just covering his shoulders. As one might expect, he ended up tripping on it, a small curse already on the tip of his tongue as he flailed his arms around to hopelessly try and stop his fall.

Deceit closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, preparing himself to a relatively painful meeting with the ground -only to feel a pair of strong, warm arms wrap around his waist, stopping his fall midway through.

“Dude, you okay?” Virgil asked, looking torn between worry and amusement as he held the other side close to his chest.

Deceit blinked, looking at him with obvious surprise in his eyes as he took in their sudden vicinity. Then, he grumbled something under his breath, pushing at Virgil’s chest until he was finally free from his hold and stalking forward with the anxious side’s low chuckle trailing behind him.

And if the blush on his cheeks was due to more than simple embarrassment, well, that was nobody’s business but Deceit’s.

Logan’s turn to become a flustered mess had come not even a week later, as he walked down the hallway with a book in his hands and everything in his mind but looking where he was going.

All the warning he got was the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, followed by someone cursing under their breath and a hand suddenly wrapping around his forearm.

Before he knew it, Logan had his back pressed against the wall, a very familiar purple shirt filling his vision as he heard two sets of pounding footsteps bolt down the corridor and Remus’ cackling laughter fill the air.

Once the two brothers were finally far enough for them to be able to safely move, Virgil pulled back, letting out a sigh of relief as he rested his hands on the sides of Logan’s head.

“Thank god,” he muttered, glaring towards the direction the twins had disappeared in, “I was almost sure they were going to run you over without a care in the world.”

Then, he looked down, finally noticing the stunned expression on Logan’s face as he held his book limply in his hands.

“Uh,” he muttered, frowning, “L, you good? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Logan shook his head, looking to the side with splotches of red covering his cheeks.

“No, I am-” he cleared his throat, raising one hand to nervously adjust his tie as he tried to look everywhere but in Virgil’s eyes, “I can assure you, I am perfectly fine.

“Are you sure? Wait-” Virgil squinted at him, leaning forward to take in his red cheeks and suspicious behavior- “Lo, are you sick and trying to hide it again?”

“Oh, would you look at the time!” Logan suddenly exclaimed, looking redder by the second as he slipped away from under Virgil’s arms, “I would love to chat some more but I have some important work that needs to be done, goodbye Virgil.”

“Logan, wait-”

Nope, too late, the logical side had already sunk out of the corridor, probably to hide in his room. Virgil sighed, dragging one hand down his face.

Well, it looked like he was going to need to sick Patton on him and hope for the best.

+++

Their final showdown, so to speak, went down during an inconspicuous afternoon, with Deceit and Logan hanging out in the deceitful side’s room. The two were curled on the bed, having initially planned to take a nap only to end up doing what seemed to have become their favorite past time as of late: gushing about Virgil.

“That raccoon has no right being as hot as he is, I swear,” Deceit grumbled, hiding his face in Logan’s chest.

“I know, dear,” Logan hummed, stroking his back. “Virgil is… very aesthetically attractive, and our debates are always great fun.”

“Nerd,” Deceit snorted, looking up at his boyfriend with a small smile. “Do you think he might feel the same?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Logan admitted, a pensive frown on his face. “I do hope so, that’s for sure. Having him as our boyfriend would be… nothing short of wondrous, I suppose.”

“Then why don’t you just ask me?” came a very familiar voice, startling Deceit off of Logan’s chest as the two sides whipped their heads around.

Virgil stared back at them with his usual lopsided smile, leaning on the doorway as he looked at them in clear amusement.

“You guys forgot to lock the door,” he explained.

“Ah,” Logan said, cheeks turning redder by the second as he kept his eyes trained on Virgil.

“You know,” Virgil started, walking deeper into the room as he kicked the door closed behind himself, “I couldn’t help but notice how strangely you’ve both been actin, lately. So I thought I’d come to talk to you guys about it, you know?”

“I go to Logan’s room, but you guys are not there. No big deal, if you weren’t in one room then the other would probably be the correct one. Imagine my surprise as I stand in front of Deceit’s room, seeing it half open as I prepare to knock, only to hear you guys say my name.”

“How-” Deceit cleared his throat, trying to fight down the red staining his cheeks. “How much have you heard?”

“Enough,” Virgil shrugged. “So, are you going to ask me or what?”

Silence fell as Logan and Deceit looked at each other, sharing a silent conversation before Logan reached to squeeze Deceit’s hand and took a deep breath.

“Virgil, we were wondering if you would… be amenable to the idea of joining our relationship?”

Virgil’s grin widened considerably, a laugh escaping his mouth as he quickly erased the few feet left between him and the two sides and leaned forward, kissing them both silly.

“I would very, very much enjoy that, you dorks.”

(From just outside the door, Remus let out a silent cheer, shimming in place before bolting towards his brother’s room. He had ten hard-earned bucks and a victory to rub on Roman’s face waiting just for him, after all.)

#sanders sides #analoceit #virgil sanders #logan sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #roman sanders #patton sanders #analoceit fluff #swearing #ts fanfiction #sanders sides fanfiction #maxiswriting

347 notes · View notes

codenamesazanka · 4 years

Text

Well I attempted the essay and I got stuck on the first sentence, so have this very draft-y fic I wrote a while ago that somewhat encapsulates my feelings about Villains in a way similar to what the essay ideally would be like:

AU where somehow Spinner got caught by Heroes during Gigantomachia month; don’t ask me how, all I wanted was to write bits of scenes of Toshinori interacting with Spinner and pretending I know things about psychology.

“…no criminal record beyond League of Villains activity. So we brought in a de-radicalization specialist, but seeing how he’s refusing to talk, and with the Commission breathing down our necks, he’s probably going to be transferred to Tartarus the moment the prosecutor’s office gets through to the judge…”

Despite all his years as a Hero catching criminals and handing them over to the justice system, Toshinori never was too familiar with how the process actually worked. The paperwork he had to file was already a nightmare - the thought of learning the intricacies of the courts barely entered his mind. As the counselor beside him talked, he could only nod, nothing to say, attempting to roughly sketch out the path she was describing for the young man on the other side of the glass.

Iguchi Shuuichi had been given the full bind - maximum restraint and containment, every part of him that can and might move strapped down onto his chair; but he seemed to have shut himself away too. He sat with his shoulders hunched as much as they were allowed, face turned down and away from the rest of the world, eyes shut to everything around him. Since Toshinori had first seen him from the observation room about half-and-hour ago, Iguchi hadn't moved at all. It had been three days since his capture. Toshinori wondered if he had been as still as this the whole time.

“—Dr. Nakaya will do another session later this afternoon, but…” The counselor sighed. “It’s a pity. He’s probably the best candidate for the program too.”

“…You called it the “de-radicalization program,” correct?” Toshinori asked, turning to the counselor, who immediately gave him her full attention. “May I ask what exactly that is?”

“Of course, of course! Essentially it’s rehabilitation focused on having the individual reflect on their belief system and rejecting extremism. Allowing them to accept different perspectives and solutions, and understand how their current way of thinking is both harmful to society and themself.”

“That sounds a little too easy for this kind of situation.” Tsukauchi said, looking up from some notes he was taking. “Plus vague. How is that different from any other rehabilitation programs in prisons?”

And Toshinori had to agree with that. He looked back at Iguchi, still unmoving. “You said he was the “best candidate”. That means he’s different as well? From other Villains.”

“That’s what we hoped.” The counselor paused. “Have you read his profile yet?”

[…]

“Build a relationship with him?” Toshinori asked, frowning.

“Another way to put it is ‘treating him as a complex, multifaceted person’,” Dr. Nakaya said with a wry smile. “You see, Mr. Yagi, we think of terrorists - of Villains as single-minded boogeymen that have no history or future. But they’re human too, with a human brain and human emotions, motivations. Our program’s theory is that young people like Iguchi Shuuichi felt something significant lacking in his life, and in trying to fill that hole, they turn to philosophies like that of Stain.

Iguchi Shuuichi fits that model almost exactly. His family told me that he had been a hikikomori. For years. He was aimless, friendless, he ‘had no light’ in his eyes, as his mother said. Then suddenly Stain appeared on the news, and he became obsessed. In just a matter of weeks, he left home to dedicate his life to— to whatever the League is working towards. Interviews with your students said that he was fanatic when talking about Stain. So isn’t that a grand narrative? Having what seems like a noble purpose, having a group of people that would take him into the fold, believing he is doing something important. World-changing. There’s a reason research has shown that many terrorists and extremists got their start as young adults - it’s a time of change and possibilities, and it can be scary not knowing how you’ll spend the rest of your life.”

“So if you were to… become his friend…”

Dr. Nakaya chuckled, looking pleased. “We don’t have to necessarily be his friend, but if we show we are trying to understand him and we want to talk to him, that fulfills the social need - that people acknowledge us, are willing to spend time with us, want to share things with us. That should give us a cognitive opening - get him to lower his guard and defenses, which will make him more willing to listen to us too.”

Toshinori took note of the ‘we’s, but didn’t pursue it.

[…]

The list of Iguchi’s ‘likes’ included titles of video games, movies, and books. At least, Toshinori assumed they were titles; none of the words sounded familiar to him.

“He also apparently likes knives,” Dr. Nayaka said. “But I didn’t include that for obvious reasons. Well, I’m saving that and ‘Stain’ for last if this doesn’t work.”

“I don’t know anything about video games,” Toshinori said. He gave an embarrassed grin. “Though I guess I can ask him to explain them to me…”

“That list is just suggestions. Ask him about his favorite food, about his family. Tell a joke. Use your status as All Might.” She shrugged. “As long as you get him talking.”

[…]

The intercom buzzed. “You can leave now if you want, All Might.”

That felt like admitting defeat. Toshinori stayed in his chair. Nothing he was saying was working, nothing had worked, except…

He took a deep breath. “Shigaraki Tomura…”

And there it was again - Iguchi tensing up, breath quickening.

fulfills the social need - that people acknowledge us, are willing to spend time with us

want to share things with us

Toshinori said, “I knew Shigaraki Tomura—”

The intercom came on again, and this time it screamed. “You know that’s prohibited, All Might! He’s not allow— Ow, what—” The guard’s voice was suddenly replaced by Dr. Nakaya’s. “No, this is good, this is good! Keep going—” Then it was both voices, along with sounds of a scuffle, before it cut completely.

Iguchi looked at Toshinori with a great deal of suspicion and contempt. “I already told you that you’re not going to get anything out of me about him. No matter what you do or say or— or do to me.”

Toshinori paused, then smiled slightly. “You’re very loyal to him. That’s...good.”

There was an instant reaction, Iguchi’s facial expression giving away to what looked like shock and chagrin. He opened his mouth to say something, but then snapped it shut.

From behind Toshinori was the sound of someone pounding on glass and muffled yelling, but he ignored it.

make him more willing to listen to us

In some capacity, Iguchi Shuuichi cared, or at least had an interest in information about his leader. And that was something they had in common.

“I knew his grandmother.” Toshinori said, the words feeling rough in his throat as he forced them out. “Shigaraki’s grandmother. She was like a mother to me.”

It was like collapsing a wall. Toshinori spoke, and Iguchi stared at him, his defenses falling to reveal the vortex of emotions behind it, confusion, horror, anger, too many to distinguish.

“Had things been... different, maybe I would’ve— he’s her grandson, so I would’ve been like an—”

“Why are you telling me this?” Spinner asked. He sounded as uneasy as Toshinori felt. “What does this have to do—”

Toshinori found himself standing up. As if there was something urgent he had to do, something he must head for immediately. His body moved without him thinking—

“I want to help him.” Toshinori said. “I have to, I have to save him. There are— many things I have to do…for him, for Shigaraki Tomura. So please, young Iguchi, if there’s anything you know that can help…”

#nalslastworkingbraincell #nalwrites #fanfic #kinda #AU #Spinner #yagi Toshinori

28 notes · View notes

steve0discusses · 3 years

Text

The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 7: More Philosopher Stones than their PC Farm Can Possibly Render

So last we left off, a bunch of weird stuff was happening. Mustang just set Envy on fire, Lust and Gluttony kind of walked up from stage left, and Ed and Hawkeye just broke out of bougie jail and barged through a chain link fence on some Jeep. Good thing Mustang is here to explain it all to us:

(FYI I am so bad at spelling homunculus. I don’t even know which way is real anymore.)

What is incredible about this movie is just how much everyone else already knows, while Ed knows freaking nothing. Also, if you know about homunculi, then you know about sorcerer stones, and you’d know about...most of the things in Fullmetal Alchemist. Assuming that Mustang, who can look at a homunculus tattoo and be like “yep that’s a homunculus” doesn’t know anything else is kind of a big leap.

This actor had fun. I legitimately enjoy the actor who plays Mustang, I really do.

Anyway, we do get a little bit more explanation at this point by going back to the part where Hughes dies and just...showing it a second time but with this extra reveal:

(see Hughes die yet again under the cut because this movie did it not just once but twice)

It’s at this point that Hughes turns to the phone and in his dying breath is like “It’s lab 5, go to the old POW camp, at lab 5” but not only did I think that the person on the line was the general (Because Hughes originally said it was the general) apparently now the person on the line is...Mustang? And that’s why Mustang knew about lab 5?

Like it’s...it’s just kind of confusing. I know this plot because I’ve seen the anime, but if you have not seen the anime beforehand or read the books, you’d be so freakin up a creek right now about why we saw this scene twice, and why it was completely different both times.

To make things even more confusing, that whole Tucker side plot is so random, that not even our baddies know what is going on with that whole Tucker side plot.

Anyway we have to give Gluttony and Envy have to do something in order to make their presence make sense. Honestly Gluttony just needs to have a single line in this movie.

Just everything is that same shiny neutral Phong. Look at all that Phong. Like other parts of this movie are passable, this was just so hilariously overlooked.

And like I dunno if this was a teeth harness or not but damn. Damn that looks stupid from the back, hahaha. He kind of lumbers slowly after these 9 dudes (same extras we’ve seen everywhere else, ps—this is still just the same guys) and it’s not all that scary because like...they can easily outrun him. The only way you can die to Gluttony is if you trip and then take a nap for a little bit.

Mustang gets hurt and it’s kind of funny how they shot it. It was actually rough to cap because they have to do so many tricks to not show us exactly what is happening, so they rely on sounds, on zooming in on people’s shocked expressions, because they Do Not Have The Budget to do more than this.

I don’t remember if this happened in the anime, too. Like from this point forward everything is kind of like “can you spot the source material?” because it’s just become so jumbled at this point.

Ed, who as you can imagine is a bundle of emotions by default, suddenly gets really protective of his mean Dad although like...we’ve barely made Mustang seem like a Father. Hell, we’ve barely made Ed seem like a kid. Why would he get weird and conflicted now?

Just the awkward teenage energy that only occasionally stems off of Ed is very unpredictable.

This is a full grown man.

Finally, we make it to Lab Number Five, the correct one this time. It’s got an alchemy circle…

It’s got a ceiling full of...zombie corpses, if you squint real good because I have to shrink all these images (Yes, they fit in the zombie corpses, but could not fit in the North or Father or Ling Yao or like anything Armstrong) It’s got everything that we need to put that nail into that Fullmetal Alchemist coffin, but ran out of time to fully explain or do.

It’s even got Al!

Yep, this is happening now, this part of the show. Ed is just having a WILD TIME trying to keep up with it and so are we.

So apparently Shou could just turn Al “off” this whole time. This explains why Al was just chilling under a blanket for 36 hours, but like...doesn’t really explain how Shou can do this or why he is bothering to do it right now.

But we need Shou because...well someone has to tell Ed what the plot is and what he should be doing at this very moment.

(Winry is here too)

So, with the threat of Winry getting shot in the head, Shou Tucker demands that Ed make it impossible to do any magic, because magic is very expensive and hard to animate. I could be wrong...but I’m pretty sure he also took off his right arm in the show at some point nearish to the end...I think? Forgive me, everything before 2020 is kind of a haze in my memory.

PS him ripping his hand off with all these sparks everywhere gave me serious Star Wars prequel vibes that I can’t explain. Something about the CGI, something about this contrived mess was like “Ah, I’ve felt this insanity before...long ago in a simpler time” and it was kind of nostalgic for me.

GOL LOOK AT THAT.

This Mickey Mouse glove just hot chilling on that sparking end. Hahaha I love it so much!

Shou just...delivers one of the most important reveals, sending Ed on a bit of a spirit journey because the stones he’s wanted for so long are actually very bad.

As you can imagine, because Ed likes to freak out, he has a big ass freak out, to top all freak outs. This actor spent like sooo much of his time just screaming at the ground. Which, I mean this is a shonen, so that checks out.

I’m just letting you know in case you decide to watch this movie and you have some epilepsy issues--skip this part. Just skip it. I don’t personally have it, but like...they went kind of extra in this part.

Now unlike the show, this movie has like...no apology for Dr Marcoh. Freakin stabbed him through the chest and was like “I don’t care if it means we can’t have the original FMA ending I freakin hate this guy” and you know...good on you, movie. Dr Marcoh was a really bad person. Thank you for not even attempting to justify this godawful man.

This crazy ass fanfiction movie.

Anyway, Shou directs Ed to look 10 feet up to get the rest of that juicy content. That Juicy FMA DLC that was within eye distance this entire time but youknow...cropped offscreen so it just didn’t exist.

Can’t believe this wasn’t the FIRST THING you’d notice when coming into this room, since Ed has been hardwired for red stones for like 10+ years. But youknow.

Anyways, we’re getting a ton of visual elements from FMA, just checking off that check list here in the last 1/3 of the movie. But wait, it gets weirder.

What I love about this is that Shou tells us all of this stuff because I guess Ed asked for Philosopher stones once, and even Shou is like...heyyy I figured it out! But like...hell would anyone even want to do this though?

Because that’s what happens when you have Shou freakin Tucker reveal the big master plan when he is not the big master. Like this explains nothing about Father, about Ed’s Dad, about the homunculi, about the corpses in the ceiling, like there’s just no explanation, other than just –“hey! Look at this atrocity I found just now!”

There is actually a horror element to that, where you don’t need to explain everything if you’re doing horror. If this were a horror movie, this would probably...be fine. You could have a fully explained movie by just saying “they turned POW camp people into rocks and now the zombies are here!” and that would be fine.

But it’s just...that isn’t this movie. I had so many expectations. And honestly...I expected way too much from 1.5 hours of content.

So Shou pulls a gun on Ed, which makes sense. Ed is lookin to make stones, and if stones are made out of people—then it’s time to kill Ed. First thing that make sense in this movie, but I don’t know if it makes sense coming from Shou freakin Tucker who made it seem like he just wanted to kill Ed because Ed got him arrested that one time.

It may have been just the translation on my end but like...Shou’s reason for pulling a gun out here was a little nonsense. But Shou himself is already a little nonsense anyway.

So we say goodbye, for the last time, being honest—he’s fully dead—he’s not coming back—to Shou Freakin Tucker. You were a mess Shou. I won’t miss you.

And if I forgot that this guy comes back, I fully apologize ahead of time, but I am 99% positive that I remembered that this guy never comes back.

(He might come back.)

And then Lust is like “Hakuro why did you do that? Like what are you even doing???”

And everyone else is like “Oh, the General. Of course. Why didn’t I uhhh….see that coming?”

Because they had to condense a whole bunch of corrupt Generals for this movie into one character, and so I guess Hakuro took it for the team?

Also these guys are here.

Just every single person standing in this room is pretty confused, as you can imagine. No one really expects to open up Volume 2 of FMA and it’s accidentally printed the last page of the entire series.

Anyway, that’s all for this 15 minutes (It was actually a little short 15 because there was ton of caps) I’m very tired because I did this workout routine with bro that was like 300 squats and I don’t know what day it is. I wrote “update blog” in my bullet journal (because it’s January, so I’m bullet journaling) so I’m just gonna do that because I want to use this green sparkly jelly pen and cross off all of today. Mm. Satisfying.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

#FMA #Fullmetal alchemist the live action movie #live action #fullmetal alchemist #recap #photo recap #ed elric #al elric #though putting al as a credit in this one seems like a stretch cuz he just freakin sat there the whole time #hawkeye #colonel mustang #maes hughes #shou tucker #just can't have enough shou tucker #Can you even believe that this went so quickly when I finally just did it? Amazing. Amazing how little productivity I had last year wow.#Hopefully this year I can get this blog back up to old productivity #we'll see what happens because it's still a bit of a weird situation outside

13 notes · View notes

solitarystudies · 4 years

Text

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Review:

I read TSBCGTSV with @readerbookclub in October, and I had a lot of thoughts. They’re a little all over the place, so I’m trying to sort through them while writing this review (which probably explains why it’s so long). Just a warning, this review contains spoilers and a lot of them.

Looking back on the book, it’s very difficult for me to pinpoint how I felt about it. There were definitely parts that I took issue with, but at the same time, there were moments where it was exhilarating to read. And I’m not sure which of those should matter more.

Let’s start with the good stuff. The book is entertaining, really entertaining. It’s probably one of the most fun books I’ve read in a long time. The premise is crazy: a bunch of suburban women try to outsmart and outmaneuver a vampire for the sake of preserving their community. The way that the writer takes two completely unrelated worlds (suburban mum-hood and vampires) and mashes them together creates a wild rollercoaster of a story. You can tell from the beginning of the book (as early as the author’s note) that it’s going to be unique: “I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.”

I usually struggle to read books in a short amount of time. My reading speed is pretty slow and I don’t have the best attention span. But I didn’t mind reading this book in big chunks (I read the majority of it in two days). There’s so much happening, and the jumping from one plot point to the next keeps you drawn.

My favorite thing about this book was by far the horror. This was one of the first horror books I’ve ever read, and I realized that the genre’s really fun. When I looked Grady Hendrix up afterwards, I was not at all shocked to see that he mainly writes horror. The guy’s good at it! Many of the scary scenes really stuck with me. I loved how gruesome it was when the rats started attacking or when Patricia opened the suitcase to find a human face staring back at her. I also felt that the gruesome end to James Harris was beautifully done, especially this part:

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, and gave a bloody grin. “I’m leaving you all a present. Just wait until your friend Slick gets ripe.”

He started to giggle and Mrs. Greene crunched her knife through his windpipe and she and Maryellen gripped him by the hair and pulled off his head with a loud pop.

I still can’t get over how badass it was to shut him up like that. Those kinds of moments were the highlight of the novel for me.

What made me realize how good Grady Hendrix was at creating tension was how paranoid I had become. After Patricia had been backstabbed by literally everyone, I started to become just as paranoid as her. Every time that James Harris was mentioned, I was worried that he’d done something again. I have notes scattered across the latter half of the book such as: “He’s gonna kill the kid, isn’t he?” or “Please be a dream.” I think that’s a testament to the writer’s skill in the genre. I also found it really jarring to see how everyone’s attitude towards Patricia made her second-guess herself. The loss in confidence and assuredness was done very well.

But now, it’s time to talk about the bad stuff. Because while there were moments where I felt deeply invested in the story, there were also moments where I was very frustrated with the writer. Most of this frustration was targeted at the way the writer tried to include social commentary in the book. Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, I’m all for books talking about social issues. In fact, I would argue that good social/political commentary is what distinguishes a good book from a memorable one. But at the same time, it’s better to leave out the commentary than do it badly. And in my opinion, in TSBCGTSV, Grady Hendrix did it badly.

Throughout the whole book, the message of women empowerment is everywhere. And as a feminist, I would typically enjoy that. But not in this case. If you want to talk about an issue, I expect to learn something from the way you, as a writer, present it. I’m looking for a new perspective or unique approach. I also expect it to be somewhat subtle, the message should be there, but the reader should be encouraged to make sense of it for themselves. I didn’t find any of that in TSBCGTSV. Instead, I was met with very cliché approaches to sexism and gender inequality. To me, it felt like Grady Hendrix presented these ideas in a superficial way and very in-your-face too. I did initially include some examples to show why I felt this way, but upon re-reading it, my criticism seemed a little too harsh. I’d rather not take quotes out of context and nitpick phrases/sentences that I didn’t like. This should be enough to express the gist of my thoughts, and more than that seems cruel.

Having said that, it’s important to recognize that there were instances where the messages of sexism and racism were done quite well. The police’s response to Destiny’s abuse is one such example and the scene where the men turned their backs on the book club was another. But these moments were typically outnumbered by less effective attempts at talking about these issues.

Putting that aside, there were other weaknesses with the story. One of the main issues is plot holes, or more accurately, plot inconsistencies. main thing is that James Harris is defeated very easily. From what we’d seen earlier, the guy not only has superpowers (the thing with the rats) but he also appears to have superhuman strength (the way Slick describes the assault makes it seem that way). But all that is nowhere to be found in the end, and no explanation is offered for his sudden weakness either. I didn’t mind this too much because I was too done with James Harris at that point and wanted him gone, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a plot weakness.

There were also some scenes that really annoyed me. I think the one that angered me the most has to be when Patricia goes to Harris at the end. It seemed like a very odd plot point for me, but it was worse than just that. The scene makes almost no sense. And the best way to explain why is for me to retell it to you from my perspective:

Here’s what happens. Patricia finds James Harris raping (?) her underage daughter, and decides something has to be done. After meeting with her book club, they all come to the conclusion that she has to let him do the exact same thing to her (which is weird, but let’s ignore that). So she goes over to his house all dressed up, talks about her hips for a bit, and then tells him she wants him. The guy bursts into laughter and asks her ‘Do you think I’m an idiot? I’m an immortal being, Patricia, I see through your stupid plan.’ She gets frightened and proceeds to ramble on about her self-pity for the next few minutes. For some unknown reason, James Harris is no longer the intelligent immortal being he was five minutes ago. Suddenly he’s none the wiser to her plan and says ‘Sure, I’ll sleep with you’. While he’s heading upstairs, she somehow is able to walk over to the front door, undo the hatch and join Harris again without him even noticing.

My version might not be as poetic, but when you look at the events, it genuinely makes no sense. How does Harris go from this:

“You must think,” he said, gasping for air, “that I’m the stupidest person you’ve ever met. You come here, all dolled up like a hooker, and give me this breathless story about how you want me to make you one of the bad people? How did you get to be so arrogant? Patricia the genius, and the rest of us are just a bunch of fools?”

To then doing the exact thing he was mocking, within the span of mere minutes. That whole chapter really annoyed me.

So overall, I feel very conflicted about this book. While it was exciting and fun, it was also very frustrating and at times sloppy. I was constantly torn between liking the story and hating it. I guess for a book like this, the answer is that it’s in between. I think I gave it a rating of two stars, but 2.5 would probably be more accurate. Exactly half, not quite one way or the other.

If this review is a little too strongly-worded, my apologies. I tried not to be too harsh, but I didn’t do a perfect job. This was just a reflection of my thoughts, and I understand that many people probably felt differently :)

#book review #the southern book club's guide to slaying vampires #readerbookclub #tsbcgtsv #grady hendrix #long post #like super long post

3 notes · View notes

panharmonium · 4 years

Text

stranger things 3, a visual summary:

more coherent thoughts under the cut, because wow.

......okay. that was a Trainwreck. an absolute mess.

i remember when my coworkers were watching S3 (and still urging me to start season 1) and they were saying how amazing the latest season was, and honestly i think there must just be a difference in people who watch tv just to be entertained and people who watch tv and automatically evaluate the story (aka fandom veterans and English majors, lol - cue Me twice), because WHO could watch this critically and praise it that way?

it's honestly hard to know where to even begin; i've been sending frustrated notes to @brambleberrycottage ever since episode three and now that i'm done with episode 8 there's just......so much more to say

first, good things:

erica is a great character. she's what max should have been (aka, uh.......interesting!) i liked the realization moment where dustin was like "you're a NERD!"

that entire sequence where will is so upset with lucas and mike for not being engaged with the dnd game was very well done, especially the conversation he has with mike out in the rain. i loved that moment where mike asked him "did you think we were just going to hang out in my basement playing games forever?" and will said, "yeah. yeah, i guess i did." i really felt that. [edit, now that i've finished: this was never resolved. will giving away his dnd books at the end was not an actual resolution to this conflict.]

steve is still a good dude, and robin was pretty cool. i'm down for them being super friends. but i'm still mourning the steve+nancy+jonathan trio that was a thing for like 5 seconds and then never returned.

i loved how genuinely excited steve was to see dustin when dustin came back from camp. that was adorable. "HENDERSON!!!!" "how many children are you friends with?"

and uh. yeah. i had more problems with this season than praise-bestowing moments, so. here goes that bit.

OVERARCHING PROBLEMS:

1. keep it simple, stupid

remember in the office when dwight quoted the above advice to ryan as michael's rule for making a sale? the same advice applies to storytelling.

season 1 of stranger things is so simple. there is One Monster. that is the danger. and somehow, that single monster manages to be a thousand times more terrifying than all of these new "bigger, scarier, more epic" threats crammed into the second two seasons.

how goofy is the stranger things season 3 plot, seriously? russians are blackmailing a small-town mayor so they can buy up land to steal power from the town while operating a secret lab under the mall to open a gate to the Upside Down (WHY?), while simultaneously a remnant of the malevolent force that was "defeated" last season has reanimated itself and is making people scarf chemicals (WHY?), and then it possesses one of them and uses that person to possess a bunch of other people in order to build itself a body made out of melted people, in order to kill el, whose only story this season is breaking up with her boyfriend, and we have to infiltrate this russian base in order to close the gate (same endgame as last season - BIG NO-NO) to kill the goo monster, except last time the "mindflayer” survived the gate being closed, so why would this even WORK, and -

the fact that there are so many "round-up/info dump" scenes where characters summarize what's going on and make implausibly accurate connections/guesses about what it all must mean is a red flag. the characters shouldn’t have to tell your story to the audience. if it's too complicated for us to keep straight on our own, it's too complicated.

the amount of energy that goes into trying to lash together a Chaos Plot with too many shaky legs leaves nothing left over for nuanced character development or mood establishment. you're constantly running to catch up to your own flimsy story before it collapses on top of itself.

2. the horror!

S1 of stranger things was the scariest thing i'd ever seen.

granted, i don't watch a lot of horror, because i don't like it. i get scared too easily and then i legitimately can't sleep. i watched a horror movie five years ago that i still think about every time the lights are off in my house. but still, ST1 was something i had never experienced before.

it wasn't creature horror, and it wasn't just suspense. it was the UNSETTLINGNESS of it all. it wasn't really about the monster. it was about the Upside Down.

the reason ST1 is so successful is because of how much we don’t know. it's the horror of not understanding what is happening, and the terror of knowing that nobody thinks it’s real. feeling like you're going crazy and being cut off from all assistance. the conspiracy and the cover-up. and the sheer unsettlingness of the whole parallel worlds things just tipped me over the edge - the idea that you can take one wrong step and then be suddenly and without warning completely off the map, simultaneously right next to the people you want to get to and also utterly beyond their reach. that was fucking scary!!!!

and they do it all with so little. i have literally never been more scared in my life than when i would see those christmas lights start flickering. and they're just LIGHTS! yes, we see the monster later, but it's the uncertainty that's most frightening. we don't understand how it arrives in our world, and we don’t know where it will show up next. it could be right next to you - on the other side. you could be standing on top of it. you just don't know. it’s like what jonathan says to nancy in her bedroom - “it can’t get us in here.” and she says, “we don’t know that.”

the later seasons of stranger things, by comparison, did not scare me at all. season two was like a zombie movie - hordes of weak enemies that you can just shoot with a gun. and season 3 was even less frightening - upping the ante and making things gorier, more explosive, and bigger just isn't the vibe they set in S1. i'm not scared of that giant goop monster. it's like godzilla. it's not horror; it's just a lot of noise.

the unsettling, "creep" factor that made season 1 so effective was gone. it just turned into a regular old monster movie, and i didn't find that particularly interesting.

3. illogical, captain

a while ago there was a wave of pushback against people complaining about plot holes, but you know what? there is, in fact, an appropriate place for us to talk about plausibility, as well as the point at which our suspension of disbelief collapses.

ST3 is a bona fide plausibility disaster. i did not believe half of the story, because it was not unfolding in a believable way.

half of the plot points in this season would not have happened if the characters had been behaving with any kind of sense. it is absolutely impossible for me to believe that none of these children IMMEDIATELY went to joyce or hopper the minute they knew something weird was going on. it makes no sense. after the shit they've seen? it makes sense in season 1, because the kids are still so young that they have that kind of magical thinking that makes all of this seem kind of like an adventure. but they're teenagers now, and developmentally, they’re past that stage. they know the evil creature is back and they're pretty sure it's possessing billy? for some unfathomable reason, they don't go to an adult, but try to trap billy in the sauna and just see what happens. the other group has actual proof that russian soldiers are up to something shady in the mall? they don't tell an adult; they send a TEN YEAR-OLD in through the AIR DUCTS to investigate the secret room guarded by MEN WITH GUNS.

this is ridiculous. none of this should have happened. none of this WOULD have happened. it breaks the boundaries of disbelief. it completely sabotages the audience’s engagement with the story - joyce and hopper's whole detour with alexei and murray is so dull, because its entire purpose is to bring hop and joyce up to speed on something that we, the audience, already know. the other characters already found out this stuff, but did not communicate it - the gate is being opened again in a russian lab underground. there's no suspense for us. nothing new is revealed. we're just waiting for them to hurry up and finish finding out so we can move on to the next thing.

moreover: there are so many other problems besides just "these characters would have talked to each other." why on earth would murray, whose sole characteristic is extreme paranoia, take alexei wandering around the festival for hot dogs and carnival games. why would hopper be so virulently against the possibility that weird shit might be happening again? does he remember the past year or what? how on earth would the kids be able to fight off that massive monster with an ax and a hunting rifle? it's made out of dead guts and bones; why does it care if they shoot it?! how in the WORLD is this russian facility so penetrable? i'm sorry, it's just - beyond believable. it doesn't have cameras? the russians guards really can't tell that murray isn't a native speaker? they don't check his id when they don't recognize him? joyce and hopper really just got that lucky, to be asked a question and have “smile and nod” be the right answer? nobody ever got shot? it's silly. it's just silly. so many things - erica uses the "Open" button to open the elevator door in order to let steve and robin and dustin inside, but once the elevator is at the bottom of the shaft, robin explains the door's inexplicable non-opening because......you apparently need a keycard to use the buttons???? THAT MAKES NO SENSE; ERICA JUST USED THE BUTTONS A SECOND AGO.

even the entire endgame of this season is a contradiction! if the mind-flayer survived el closing the gate last time, it doesn't make sense that closing the gate this time would kill it. literally the entire plot of last season was "we need to get this thing out of will, because the creature will die once the gate is closed, and we want to make sure will doesn't die with it." but apparently the creature didn't die upon closing the gate; it just got trapped in our dimension. but now apparently it WILL die upon closing the gate. for whatever fucking reason.

i'm sorry, but that’s a mess. that’s a bona fide mess.

4. watch your tone

i honestly think the tonal change is the thing that made me the most frustrated about this season. it's possible to have a terrible plot and still stay relatively true to your characters - you'll still have a bad season, but at least you didn't bastardize your characters in the process.

i had issues with S2 and i definitely was not as impressed with it as i was with S1, but at least in S2 joyce and hopper were recognizable. in S3, i felt like i was watching strangers. the tonal shift was bizarre and off-putting, more so with hopper than joyce, but it affected both of them.

even as early as the very beginning of this season, i was feeling weird about how often hopper was being used for comedy. and as the season progressed, this trend only became more pronounced. almost every scene we had of him felt silly - and not like there was just something funny in the scene for me to laugh at, but like the audience was almost being asked to laugh AT him. like he was constantly the butt of the joke.

this really bothered me. from that incredibly sincere and heart-wrenching portrayal of him in season 1, when they kept him rooted in the trauma of losing his daughter and the breakdown of his marriage, and then how that same trauma made him so driven to save will and protect the kids - what a change. even in season 2 i was frustrated how the throughline of his daughter wasn’t touched again until the very last episode, and now in season 3 we’ve left that part of him so far behind that he's just there for us to laugh at. we're supposed to laugh at scenes of him being drunk and a mess. every scene he's in is either him arguing with joyce for comedic relief or being way over the top with alexei or the mayor. he was like a caricature of himself, and i didn't recognize him.

joyce suffered from the same thing, just by virtue of proximity. she spent almost all of her time in this season with hopper, and virtually all of that time was taken up with silly shenanigans or comically overblown arguing. what a departure from the desperate mother of season 1, who was maligned by everyone in town and only taken seriously by the audience. now it’s the audience who are supposed to be chuckling at her.

i dunno. the tone shift was very dramatic, very obvious, and it impacted the entire season. are we supposed to be taking this seriously or is it supposed to be a joke? a little bit of humor to break tension can be a good thing, but when it's constant, it confuses the mood.

and i personally don't think it was appropriate or respectful to either of these characters, in this case.

SMALLER THINGS THAT BOTHERED ME:

this show has 100% hit maximum character saturation. by the end of this season there were 13 core characters onscreen at the same time, in the same scene! it’s too many people! they cannot reasonably develop that many people in the space allotted.

i still am not interested in max. i don't feel anything for her. she doesn't feel real. i don't hate her, but she's just an empty vessel, and i really do think she's superfluous to this show. i think you could remove her with very little reworking and the show would be stronger for it. (they TRIED to do something interesting with billy, and i might have cared if we had been given literally any reason to care about him previously, but there was no investment earned there. they didn't do the front-end work to make him somebody we were interested in.)

weird relationship sunderings from previous seasons. i felt very strange about jonathan barely even seeing will this entire season. i felt very strange about steve having almost zero contact with nancy. i felt very strange about joyce hardly ever interacting with her kids. all of these were core relationships - the characters were BUILT on those relationships, and they don't feel real outside of them. not seeing these characters devote time to these relationships makes it feel like i'm watching a slightly different show.

the VIOLENCE. apparently this is a beat-em-up now??? i really felt like every other scene somebody was getting beaten to a bloody pulp. there was SO much smashing and bashing and throwing people into walls and fistfights and head trauma like - first of all, i find that stuff pretty boring, and second of all, all of these people should be in the hospital.

the GORE. other people’s mileage may vary, obviously; i just didn't like that. i looked away at the scene with the rat, and all this...goopy dissolving human shit, and the stabbings, and just...general grossness level - season 1 managed to be bloodcurdlingly terrifying without any of this stuff.

i know this borders on nitpicky, but yet more medical malfeasance - another example of someone receiving an injection via the mysterious 90 degree angle neck route, plus - was anyone else losing it at the fact that steve and robin “puked up” a drug they received……..via injection?????? IT’S NOT IN THEIR STOMACHS, FOLKS! THEY CAN’T PUKE IT UP! IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT!

the complete lack of follow-up to last season. the whole S3 plotline (such as it is) feels like a weird side quest. last season seemed to be furthering the mythos and setting us up for "there are other children like el/brenner is alive" - but this season, that fact appears to have been forgotten by everyone (even el!!!) and has nothing to do with the story that we're given, which is a goofy and redundant story about russians opening a secret lab under the mall which requires us to solve the exact same problem as last season (closing the gate).

this show's inability to keep certain throughlines in its headlights/keep things visible on the periphery instead of dropping them completely and then bringing them back whenever they feel like they need it again. i already talked about hopper’s daughter as an example of this (done well in S1 and poorly in S2 and S3). another example is that scene with nancy and her mom - it’s such a good scene, and yet it misses out on so much resonance, because they completely dropped the plotline of karen feeling locked out of her kids’ lives and desperately wanting to connect with them. if they had continued to reference that throughout season 2, then this scene would have been so much more powerful. as a third example, season 3 starts with a clear context/premise, and it’s INTERESTING - the town landscape changing because of the mall, business slow to non-existent, small town discontent over big corporations moving in, hopper pressured to break up the protest against mayor kline when he should have let it proceed - and then the show just drops that entire context. you expect season 3 to stay rooted in the "our small town is being strangled by this mall" and then to eventually deal with the revitalization of hawkins, but nah. it's never mentioned again.

LASTLY:

i'm not really gonna get into hopper "dying," because he's, like...clearly not dead. but the whole situation was stupid and contrived (i was so sick of that arnold schwarzenegger lookalike by the last episode, god that whole thing was so dumb) and it's even cheaper knowing that he'll obviously be back.

what i AM gonna say is that i was livid that they brought back that peter gabriel cover of "heroes" to end this season. their use of that song in S1 blew my mind - it had me stunned with how GORGEOUS it was and just, the way it worked in that particular scene - absolutely incredible. floored me. gave me chills. to recycle it at the end of such a poorly constructed season made me so mad. yOU CAN'T MAKE ME FEEL THINGS JUST BY REUSING THIS SONG. I REFUSE TO HAVE EMOTIONS JUST BECAUSE YOU PULL OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL TRACK THAT YOU ONCE USED TO GREAT EFFECT; YOUR STORY WAS STILL TERRIBLE THIS TIME AROUND; DO NOT TRY TO TRICK FEELINGS OUT OF US THAT HAVEN’T BEEN EARNED.

and that's it. i’m sure later i’ll think of other things i neglected to mention here, but...yeah. i was not impressed.

#i finished yesterday #holy moly #interdimensional babysitters club

4 notes · View notes

rosecorcoranwrites · 5 years

Text

Thoughts on Twists

Every story ever told can be broken down into three parts. The beginning. The middle. And the twist!

—Goosebumps (2015)

Jordan Peele’s Us and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village Spoilers ahead, so read with caution!

There's something about a good plot twist: the shock, the awe, the feeling of having your world turned upside down. A good twist might make you see a character in a new light, or rethink everything you thought you knew about the setting. A bad twist, on the other hand, can ruin an otherwise decent story. Bad twists feel cheap and stupid, and make what might have been good, even great stories into muddled and unbelievable messes. So what makes a twist good or bad?

First, some preliminaries: what is a twist? Although we all use the phrase "twists and turns", I submit that a plot twist is a little different than a plot turn. A turn might be defined as the plot taking a completely unexpected direction, like "Wow! Who would have thought that guy would end up becoming the villain!". On the other hand, a twist is when we learn an unexpected fact about the world or a character that had been there, secretly, all along: "Wow! Who would have thought that guy was the villain the whole time!".

Since we're on the subject, it should be noted that twist villains are not the only type of twist there is. Nor are twist endings, the quote from Goosebumps notwithstanding. Though twists tend to occur towards the latter part of narratives, they can be sprinkled throughout. I would love to give some examples of this, but one of the problems with talking about good twists is that you don't want to give them away, and talking about them almost invariably does just that.

Obviously, a twist ought to be unpredictable, but a predictable twist does not make a bad story. Erased, which is one of four perfect stories in existence, has a twist you can see coming from a mile away, and yet it remains perfect. Why? First, because the story doesn't hinge on the twist, for one thing; it's cat and mouse, so it's okay if we know who the cat is. Second, a twist that is predictable isn't really a twist. I mean, it is but it isn't; it's one of those weird gray areas of trying to be the thing, but failing. But that's okay. A failed attempt at being a twist is, in my mind, not the same thing as a properly executed but just plain bad twist. But maybe we're getting into the weeds a bit.

I would say that a bad twist is any twist that is not a good twist, and a good twist follows certain rules: it must be believable; it must make sense in retrospect; and, for double twists, the second one must make the story better as a whole. Basically, good twists are satisfying, and bad twists aren't, usually because they break one of the three rules.

Rule 1: A twist must be believable!

By this, I mean believable in whatever world the writer has set up. If supernatural elements are established, or at least hinted at, a supernatural twist is fine. If, however, there is not one hint or peep of the supernatural throughout the story, but it turns out that the killer is a wizard, or an alien, or a ghost, it's awful. Sure, it's unexpected, but in the dumbest way possible. Good twists should be like slight-of-hand; the audience should delight at being fooled. Unbelievable twists feel more like being lied to by someone who's really bad at lying. They feel like an insult.

And don't think that introducing random supernatural elements into a story is the only way to be unbelievable. Sometimes, making a "real world" twist can feel just as unrealistic. I'll say as little as I can, because it's still less than a year old, but I think that Jordan Peele's Us pulls this. I was really excited for that movie when I saw the trailers, and then I read the synopsis and got even more excited, because I hoped that he would try a certain twist. And he did, and I think it's brilliant! But he went for another twist as well (the one that occurs first in the film, actually), which kind of ruins the whole movie. Why? Because that first twist is logistically, financially, geographically, and hereditarily unbelievable (in particular, (SPOILER, obviously): it's idiotic that the child doppelgängers are the offspring of the cloned parents, and not clones of the normal kids. Even if the clone parents had sex at the exact same time as the normal parents, the sperm and egg that happen to unite would be totally random, even accepting the ridiculous idea that the mother clone would ovulate at the same time as the normal mother. Never mind the rest of the absurdity of a vast government(?) clone experiment that just leaves an unlocked exit in a beachside funhouse). It took what could have been a great movie and made it seem fake and silly. I know I wrote a whole post about not being harsh on the plot holes in horror movies, but this particular twist is based on real things in the real world, not monsters or spirits or what have you (and seriously, a mysterious, ever-changing-yet-always-present carnival funhouse that inexplicable spits out doppelgängers from time to time is way scarier than a poorly run scientific experiment). It strains the suspension of disbelief. It's too much to take. Quite simply, I don't buy it. And a good twist should never make the audience say "I don't buy it."

Rule 2: A twist must make sense in retrospect!

The best twists are those that are staring you in the face the whole time. Once you finally learn the truth, you should be able to look back and say, "I can't believe I didn't see that coming!". As an example of such a twist is M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit. Every time I watch that movie with someone who hasn't seen it, it strikes me just how obvious the twist is, and yet no one ever guesses it.

Bad twists tend to come out of left field, or else don’t mesh with what came before. They feel like the writers are cheating by not giving you anything to go off of, but still want you to cheer for them anyway. Hans being the villain in Frozen is one such twist. His early actions in the film don’t jive with his take-the-throne scheme, specifically in that he stops Weselton’s men from killing Elsa in her palace. Why does he do this? The only reason I can think of, given that he was just going to have her executed later anyway, is so the audience wouldn’t know he’s a villain. It’s not in character and doesn't make sense when you learn what he was eventually planning.

Part of making sense in retrospect is having clues to the twist throughout the rest of the story. These might be seemingly unimportant, mundane details that the audience passes over, or they might be red herrings that seem to indicate one thing but actually mean something quite different. Either way, once the twist is revealed, those clues should become obvious. The Ace Attorney games excel at this. There was a case I was playing, and, after finally eliminating one of the two main suspects, I was stumped. If it wasn’t one of those two, who was it? I pulled up the cast list and went one by one, slowly eliminating the impossible until I was left with one improbable suspect. “No,” I thought, “it can’t be them. But, it can’t be anyone else, so…Wait!” Like puzzle pieces falling into place, everything suddenly fit. That person not only had to be the killer because no one else could, it made sense for them to be the killer given all of their past actions.

A twist that I’m not a fan of is the one in And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie. Before you grab your pitchforks and torches, let me explain for those people who have never read the book: ten strangers meet on an island and are killed, one-by-one, for their past misdeeds. While the book is entertaining and is the granddaddy of all such whittling-down-the-cast who-dun-its, the twist itself is kind of… meh. Yes, the killer’s motive makes sense, but there weren’t any clues or details one could look back on and say, “Ah! Of course! I was blind not to see it!” The little twist as to how they accomplished some of the killings was clever, but as for their identity, well… I feel like Christie could have chosen any of the ten and done the same thing with them. Nothing pointed to that one person in particular being the killer, and it made the whole twist a lot less satisfying.

Rule 3: Double twists must make the story better as a whole!

Double twists are those where one twist comes after another. The second twist can either build on the first one, or subvert it. As an author, I can tell you that double twists are a nice way of covering your bases, because even if someone sees the first twist coming, they usually won’t see the second one. As a reader, I’m crazy about double twists. And yet, people either misuse them by having them make the story worse or don’t use them to make the story better. Basically, a bad double twist is one of those that breaks rule 1 or 2. Sometimes, though, a really good double twist can salvage a single twist that breaks either of these rules, assuming that the story isn't too far gone at that point (Jordan Peele, I'm looking at you).

Let’s take at movie with a double twist, and see if it works or not: M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Shyamalan is quite...something, in that he soars to heights and sink to depths in terms of quality. On a scale of The Happening to The Visit (I don’t acknowledge the existence of The Last Airbender or After Earth; they're not Shyamalanian enough), I would say that The Village is just above Lady in the Water but below Glass. Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of The Village that were quite scary and interesting, but its twists? They're just not doing it for me.

SPOILERS, I guess, but this movie's been out for fifteen years, and the twists are nothing great, so, here we go: it turns out the monsters in the woods are actually villagers in suits who deter people from leaving the community, and—double twist—the movie takes place in the modern day, but the village’s inhabitants experienced loss and crime in regular society and formed their weird community in the woods in order to raise their children peacefully. This second twist was neither believable nor hinted at. For example, why do all the adults—all of whom presumably grew up in normal society—use a stilted, old-timey speech (other than to fool the audience on time period)? Also, though we know the elders have secrets they keep in black boxes, we’re never shown even a hint that these might be things from the modern era until the ending. Why not have a full color photo, or an anachronistic piece of technology? The audience would think these were goofs or sloppy filmmaking, until the reveal that it was all part of a carefully set-up twist.

I’m not a fan of the fake-monster twist either, because I’m always in favor of supernatural elements, but it’s not bad in and of itself. If it were the only twist in the film, it would be an okay movie. But that second one, well…It doesn’t make the film better—I think most people would agree it makes it worse—so it’s not a good double twist. How would I fix it? Add one more twist. The blind girl goes into the woods to get medicine, and is attacked by the murderer in a monster suit, just like in the original movie. Only this time, rather than luring him into a hole, she is saved by another creature. “Who’s that?” the audience wonders, until it rips the murderer apart with its claws and then gallops away on all fours or climbs up a tree or something, because—plot twist—there really are monsters out there in the woods! Like I said, I’m always in favor of the supernatural (Besides, the elders do say that they based the creatures off local legends). At this point, you can keep the modern-day twist or not (if you do, I would move the monster fight to after she’s coming home with the medicine). This new twist wouldn’t make it the best movie ever or anything, but it would make it a little better, a little scarier, a bit more unsettling. If the modern setting stays, this twists hits home the already-present-but-somewhat-undercut message that you can try to make a perfect, planned life, but there are still things out there you can't control. I think it would make for a more satisfying story over all.

And that, right there, is what should be at the heart of any twist (or, dare I say it, any story element): satisfying the audience. No one goes into a book or a movie or a game wanting to be lied to or cheated. We want to be dazzled, amazed, maybe even fooled but in a way that we can appreciate. We want a twist that will knock our socks off and change everything we thought we knew, while being right in front of us the whole time. But, honestly, we'll settle for a not-so-mind-blowing twist that at least satisfies our need for a good story. Heck, we'll even take a predictable twist, as long as the story itself is good. Why? Because surprising your audience is a bonus, but satisfying them is a necessity. And that is what a good twist does.

#plot twists #plot twist #us spoilers #us spoiler #the village spoiler #the village spoilers #the village #m. knight shyamalan #jordan peele #jordan peele's us #what a twist #twist ending #writelr #writeblr #twist villain

12 notes · View notes

soundofseventeen · 5 years

Text

Red Riding Hood (Lee Jihoon)

Hello! This one was a little out of my comfort zone, but it kinda worked? I hope you all enjoy it!

TW: There are mentions of blood and death. I mean, I wrote it, so it’s not graphic or too much, but it is mentioned and I know some people struggle with that and I don’t want to mess with anyone.

Master List

*Fairy Tale*

Jihoon walked through the woods, staring at the amulet in his hand. It was still gold, but he feared it would turn red any second. He had already had to tell his prince the bad news once, and now that his hopes were up again, he prayed he wouldn’t have to do it again. He didn’t want to see that look on the prince’s face again.

He sighed, putting the amulet back into his pocket, looking around the woods. Surely there was more ground to cover, but it all looked exactly the same to him. He almost wanted to turn around and go find Seungcheol and leave this forest, but he knew the prince needed to find the princess first. He shook his head, taking a couple more steps deeper into the woods.

He would search for another hour, then go find his prince. He didn’t want to be in this forest when it got too dark. Wolves infested this forest, and most people who stayed here into the night didn’t make it back out.

Jihoon would honestly be surprised if they found the princess.

As he walked, he heard a rustling behind him. He stopped in his tracks, slowly tilting his head as the rusting continued. He quickly drew his sword and turned on his heel, ready to face whatever was coming to attack him.

His eyebrows shot up as a girl in a bright red cloak emerged from the bushes, jumping at the sight of Jihoon with a sword pointed at her.

“I’m sorry Miss.” He said, lowering his sword. You raised an eyebrow, stepping forward.

“I wouldn’t do that. There’s some dangerous creatures in this forest.” You said, eyeing his uniform. He must have been from a kingdom, but which kingdom was he from. “A girl went missing here a few weeks ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Really?” Jihoon said, looking at you. “A girl went missing here last night.”

“Up at the castle?” You asked, Jihoon looking at you confused.

“Castle?” Jihoon said, looking around the woods. There was no sign of a castle anywhere. “There’s no castle in these woods…” He looked at you.

“Oh…” You said, sighing. He was an outsider. He missed the horrors that happened to the kingdom that resides here. “Never mind. You said a girl went missing yesterday?”

“Yes, last night. We learned of it this morning.” You raised an eyebrow.

“If she went missing last night, she most likely didn’t survive the night.” You said slowly, not wanting to frighten him.

“That’s what I’m guessing.” He replied, looking around. “But we have to try.”

“...Well, I’ll be off.” You said, walking past him.

“Wait, you’re going deeper into the forest? Now?” You turned around and nodded, surprised by his concerned look.

“Yes, I have to get to my grandmother’s before nightfall. Good day.” You simply said, adjusting your cloak and turning on your heel, walking into the woods.

Jihoon watched you walk for a minute, hard to miss with the red cloak. He was about to turn and walk in the other direction, then groaned to himself, starting to walk after you.

*Today*

You smiled, walking up and down the records. How you had lived in this town this long and never been in here, let alone known of its existence, you couldn’t figure out. You were walking to the library when you felt an urge to take a different route, walking more along the water. As you got back into town, you spotted the store, peaking your curiosity.

“Can I help you with something?” You jumped at the voice, turning to face the counter. You felt your heart stop for just a second, probably because you were startled out of your thought. You smiled at the boy working, looking at you with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh, no. I’m just looking around.” You said, turning back to the rack of records. The boy continued to watch you.

“Have… Have we…” He started to say as the door dinged.

“Here’s your lunch Hoonie!” Another boy said, entering the store, placing a bag from the local cafe on the counter.

“What did I tell you about calling me that.” He glared at the new boy, just just smiled at him.

“Gyu sent some extra for you today. I think he’s really excited you got that album in for him.”

“Thanks Soonyoung.” Soonyoung saluted him, officially leaving the store. You and the boy made eye contact for just a second, both giving small smiles and then turning away. You continued to stroll the racks of albums while he started to eat his lunch, occasionally looking over to you. He couldn’t figure out where he knew you from, but there was definitely something about you that felt… familiar.

“How long have you been here?” You suddenly said, causing the boy to jump.

“Oh… Uhm. A while, I guess.” He said, looking at his sandwich. You let out a little hum, looking around some more.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in here.” You casually said, picking up an album and looking at the back of it.

“Well, we’ve been… here.” He said, trying to figure out why he didn’t know how to properly socialize right now. You smiled at him, causing him to freeze for a second. He really liked your smile.

“I guess… I’ll see you next time.” You said, giving him a wave and going to exit the store. After you left and the door shut, he leaned back in his seat.

“How do I know you…” He muttered, scratching behind his head.

*Fairy Tale*

You sat on the front porch, head between your knees, trying to breathe. There was so much blood. How could there be so much blood? Your grandmother was always so careful. She had special precautions around her house. She went through so much to convince everyone she was safe living in these woods, and managed to live there for years, even when things got worse. How could she get attacked? There is no way this was actually happening.

You had walked into your grandmother’s house in the middle of the attack, letting out a scream. That was a mistake, since the wolf had turned its attention to you. It had growled at you, slowly walking towards you, you slowly backing away, trying not to look past it at the rest of the room. You could feel your blood pumping in your chest. This was it. You were done for. The wolf was going to attack you and leave you for dead.

You shut your eyes, hoping not looking wouldn’t make it worse. You felt yourself being jerked back, waiting for the pain to start, but it never came.

“Get outside.” You opened your eyes, seeing the guard from before standing between you and the wolf, his sword drawn. He glanced at you for a half a second, hardly showing any fear. “Now!” He shouted, and you quickly ran outside, breathing hard.

You crouched down and covered your eyes, not wanting to witness any more of today. After a while, all you heard was silence, and you found yourself crying on the steps.

You weren’t sure how long you were crying, but eventually you felt a hand rest on your shoulder, causing you to jump up. The guard looked at you with concern and a softness to him, completely opposite to anything you’ve seen from him so far.

“Sorry…” You muttered, wiping your face.

“I’m so sorry about your grandmother.” He said, bringing his arm back to himself. You didn’t know what to say, but you felt more tears start to fall. “She’s always going to be with you.” You nodded your head, sniffling a bit.

“I’m sorry, I’m not great at the comfort thing…” He said, looking up at the sky. “We should probably move though, the sun’s going down and it’s not going to get any safer in here.” He stood up, holding out a hand to you. You looked at it for a second, slowly reaching out and placing your hand in his. He pulled you up, helping you stand properly and brushing the dirt off your cloak. You reached forward and hugged him, causing his eyes to widen.

“How did you find me?” You asked, not really looking at him. He was thankful for that, assuming his cheeks with bright right now.

“I was concerned. Two girls have already gone missing in here, I didn’t want you to be the third. I just wanted to make sure you got to your grandmother’s.”

“Thank you.” You said, quietly enough that he just barely heard you. “I thought I was going to die.” He slowly put an arm around your shoulder, taking a deep breath.

“You’re okay. You’re safe.” He said as you nodded. You pulled back a little bit, slightly embarrassed for just hugging him. But he gave you a soft smile, pulling your hood over your head. “Now come on. I’ll protect you.”

*Today*

“Hey Jun.” Jihoon said, walking into the cafe. The cook hardly acknowledged him, only waving a hand as he read his book. Jihoon sighed, used to this kind of interaction. He normally came into the cafe later due to his work schedule, and Jun was much less social that Mingyu was. He wasn’t sure why, due to he never really talked to guests, but Jihoon didn’t usually mind it. By the time he finished his shifts, he usually wasn’t in the mood to talk anyway.

He took his usual seat at the counter, pulling out his own book and settling in. Jun placed a soda in front of Jihoon, going to make his usual order. He continued to read, while Jun did the same, both sitting in peace in the cafe.

“Come on, I bet this place is good!” Jihoon heard from behind him, letting out a sigh.

“How have we never been here?” He heard another voice, one that sounded familiar.

“I don’t know… The cook looks kinda… Scary.”

“Let me go see if I can order something to drink.” It took all of Jihoon’s effort to not turn around, and not look to his side as another person approached the counter. He took all of his energy and put it into his book.

“Hey!” He looked up, seeing you looking at him, pointing a finger at him. “Record store guy, right?”

“Uhm… Well, actually it’s Jihoon, but yeah.” Jihoon couldn’t help but notice Jun was watching this whole interaction.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Y/N.” You smiled, looking at Jun, who immediately went back to his book, eyes occasionally darting to the girl in the front of the cafe. “How do we order here?” You asked him, being completely ignored by Jun. “Uhm… Hello?”

“He doesn’t really talk to people.” Jihoon said, looking between you two, catching Jun’s eye briefly.

“Then… How do we get food?” You looked at him questioningly.

“Either wait until Mingyu comes back, or become a regular.” Jihoon shrugged, seeing a smirk form on Jun’s face.

“...When does this Mingyu come back?” Jihoon looked at his watch, shrugged.

“Half hour or so.” He said, seeing you sigh.

“Hm… Maybe we’ll try somewhere else then. We have to get back to the library before it spontaneously combusts.” You joked, causing Jihoon to nod his head. “Thanks, I guess.” You said, waving at Jihoon, giving Jun a look, then going back to your friend, collecting her and leaving.

Jihoon sighed and turned forward again, seeing Jun standing with his book down.

“Who was that?” Jun asked, Jihoon mildly confused that Jun was speaking to him.

“Uhm. Someone I met earlier…” Jihoon replied, expecting Jun to go right back to his book. Which he did, but he looked at Jihoon for several seconds before picking his book back up, opening to his page.

“Eat your sandwich before it gets cold.” Jun casually said, reabsorbing into his book.

*Fairy Tale*

“Where are we going?” You asked, pulling your cloak closer to you, staying close to Jihoon. You two hadn’t said very much along this walk, but you got the feeling you had much higher chances getting out of here alive if you stayed with him.

“We need to find Prince Seungcheol. I can’t leave him in here.” Jihoon replied, attempting to retrace his steps. He had felt relief when he started spotting trees with his markings on them, meaning they were back in the part of the forest he had originally been. Seungcheol had to be close.

“He must be very important to you.” You said, trying to distract yourself from your fear. “Most guards I’ve met would have fled by now, prince or not.”

“He’s… He’s the future ruler of our kingdom. I can’t go back to the castle without him, his father would kill me, and I wouldn’t dare tell his mother I left him here.” He said, helping you over a log. “He also happens to be one of my best friends.”

“Hopefully we can find him soon.” You said, and he exhaled, nodding his head.

“We will.” He said, looking around. “We have to.” He suddenly winced, digging into his pocket. He pulled out a small red amulet, staring at it in fear.

“What’s that?” You asked, looking at it closer.

“She knows. The Queen knows the princess is alive.” He said, looking around, placing the amulet back into his pocket. “Come on, we have to hurry.”

“It’s so dark here…” You said, looking around. You felt Jihoon take your hand, attempting to provide comfort.

“What happened to the other girl? The one who went missing a few weeks ago.” He asked, trying to get you to not focus on the darkness that was growing.

“She came in to save her father. He had gone on a trip and never came back, and there were rumors he was trapped in the cursed castle. She refused to wait for the royal guard and went to find him herself. He eventually came back lost and confused, wondering where his daughter was.” You sighed, hearing the fear in your voice, trying not to focus on all the movement in the trees. “No one’s heard from her since.”

“You seem to know a lot about this…” Jihoon said, taking a turn by a tree with a marking on it.

“She was my best friend.” You said, unable to ignore the movement to your right anymore. “Jihoon…” You said shakily, gasping as Jihoon’s hand covered your mouth, pulling you into him and into some shrubs.

“Shh…” He said, not moving a muscle. You weren’t sure what was happening until you saw the great big wolf walking along the path. You felt your breath stop, and noticed that Jihoon’s had stopped as well. You both sat frozen as the wolf walked past, sniffing the ground you had just been standing on. If it followed the scent, you two were goners for sure.

You squished your eyes shut again, afraid to look after seeing more movement. Eventually, you heard a scream, it sounded like it was coming from a woman. It sounded angry. Almost like an evil laugh. You struggled a bit, but Jihoon kept a good hold on you. You opened your eyes and saw the wolf was gone, running off towards the scream, several following.

Jihoon waited a couple seconds, before releasing you, grabbing your hand, and pulling you in the other direction.

“Who was that-”

“The Queen.” Jihoon said quietly, leading you through the forest. “She must be cursed somehow, her appearance was changing quite a bit, but it was her. I recognize her anywhere.”

“Is she going to survive?” You asked, partly worried about either answer. Jihoon looked at you for a second, letting out a shaky breath.

“What do you think?” He said, pulling you some more. You were starting to feel relief that the forest seemed to be getting lighter, hopefully you were out of the worst of it.

“Wait…” You said, stopping Jihoon. “I hear voices.” You whispered, listening. He stopped, listening as well.

“A prince… Seungcheol.” Jihoon said, listening to what the voices were saying.

“Over there!” You said, pointing to a small gap in the shrubbery, both running through, stumbling upon several dwarfs, a prince, and a girl is a glass coffin.

*Today*

“So,” your fellow librarian said, leaning on the counter as you checked in books. “Who was that?”

“Who was who?” You asked, amused by her curiosity.

“The boy you were talking to at the cafe? Someone special?” She wiggled her eyebrows, causing you to roll your eyes.

“Hardly. I met him this morning at that little record store.”

“That’s where I’ve seen him before!” She said, and you looked at her.

“You knew that was there?”

“Of course. You’d have to be blind to miss it.” She said, giving you a questioning look.

“Weird…”

“Wait, you seriously never noticed it before?” She asked, and you shook your head.

“Not until this morning.”

“...Are you blind?” She asked, waving a hand in your face. “Do we have to get you checked out?”

“Come on, calm down.” You said, pushing her shoulder. “Is it really that big of a deal? Neither of us had been to that cafe before.”

“Yeah, but now we know why. That cook was scary looking.” She said, and you rolled your eyes.

“Apparently they have another cook, slightly friendlier.” You brought up, remembering what Jihoon said.

“We’ll have to try again when he’s there then.” She sighed, flipping through a book. “Damn, I read this one too…”

“You’re seriously telling me you’ve read every book in this library?”

“I thought so, but this morning proved me wrong.” She picked up another book, reading the first page. She suddenly looked up at you, raising an eyebrow. “Hey Y/N, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember how we met?” She asked, causing you to look at her.

“Well of course. We met when… Well we met when we were…” You racked your brain, but you couldn’t remember meeting her. “Maybe it was… Oh my gosh, when did we meet?” You said, not remembering more than a while ago.

“So it’s not just me then…” She said, looking deep in thought.

“Why do you ask?” She looked at you for a second and opened her mouth, then seemed to change her mind.

“No reason.” She said, taking a stack of books. “I’ll put these away, yeah?”

She left you at the counter, confused.

*Fairy Tale*

You sat on the comfy bed, knees pulled up to your chest. You had tried to go to sleep, you really had, but your day kept replaying in your mind. It was like your head was determined to keep you awake. You were brought back to Seungcheol’s castle where nurses and maids immediately started to care for you. It made you feel a little awkward, but you were too exhausted from the dya to fight against them. You jumped at the light knock at your door, calling out for whoever it was to come in.

Jihoon slowly walked into the room, standing near the door.

“A letter has been sent to your parents, explaining what happened and that you’re safe.” He said. You thought he looked completely different, standing there in much more casual clothes than the uniform he had on earlier. You couldn’t help but notice the bandaging on his arm, which he tried to hide with his sleeve. You wondered if it was from the wolf, it had to have been. “The prince was curious if there was anything else you’d be needing before retiring for the night.”

“No, I should be fine.” You said, shaking your head. Jihoon looked at you, nodding his head.

“I… Will let him know.” He said, looking around the room. “I guess, if you don’t need anything else-”

“Hey Jihoon?” You said, causing him to stop.

“Hm?”

“Tell me something about yourself.” He raised an eyebrow, almost humored by your request.

“Like what?”

“Like… anything. For example, I like books. I used to spend afternoons sitting with my friend, each reading our own books. It was our own way to escape the closeness of our village.” You offered, Jihoon thinking for a second. “It was mostly her thing, but everyone thought she was weird for it, so I started to read with her.”

“Okay, I... like music.” He said, and you looked at him longer to continue. “I can play several instruments, it’s… Kind of one of my hobbies.” This time you raised an eyebrow.

“Really?”

“Yep. That’s actually how I got closer with Seungcheol. He has a similar interest, so we learned together.”

“You’ll have to play me a song sometime.” You said, causing Jihoon to grin.

“Okay, maybe I will.” He smiled, turning to leave the room, a hand on the doorknob. “It’s been a long day. Try to get some sleep.”

“I will…” He nodded his head, starting to close the door. “Jihoon?” The door creaked open again, him looking towards you. “Could you… Could you maybe stay… If it’s not any trouble… If you could…”

Jihoon looked up and down the hall, slowly stepping into your room and shutting the door. He sat down on the bed by your feet, looking around the room. You sighed, somehow already feeling safer with him just in the room.

“I’ve only been in here once.” He said, looking at the decorations on the walls, attempting to fill the silence. “When we were younger, the prince and I would play games in this wing. It was only used for company, so if no one was visiting the whole wing was deserted. I remember hiding in here during a game, and being caught by the head maid. Did she scold us that day…” He trailed off, looking over to you, sound asleep. He sighed, pushing himself up off the bed. He winced from a pain in his arm, something he managed to hide most of the day.

He walked over to you, brushing some hair from your forehead. He didn’t know what compelled him to do that, but he just wanted to.

He decided that day that as long as you let him, he would do his best to protect you.

*Today*

“Hey, I think you forgot this one!” You called out to your coworker, flipping through the book. As you stood up to bring it to her, you felt a warm breeze blow past you, causing you to turn around. You swore you shut the window this morning when a strong wind came through. Before you could think about it too much, you collapsed into a deep sleep, landing harshly on the ground.

“Y/N? Y/N!” You woke up, looking around, confusion filling your mind. Your friend was looking down at you, relief on her face as she opened her eyes.

“Oh my gosh.” You sat up to hug her, squeezing tightly.

“Y/N, where are we?” She asked, looking around the room. You looked too, assuming you were in a library, based on the amount of books.

“I don’t know… This doesn’t look like your castle’s library…” You muttered, standing up to look out the window. “I don’t know where we are, but we’re definitely not in the kingdom anymore.”

“If we’re here, they have to be too, right?” She almost whispered, joining you at the window.

“They must be… Okay think. We both woke up in a library, meaning they would have woken up somewhere with something to do with their hobbies. So that would mean-” You were interrupted as the door opened, someone walking in.

“Hello?” You heard someone call, your friend’s face lighting up.

“That’s Jun!” She said, running towards the front of the library. You quickly followed, getting there just in time to see Jun spin her around in a hug. As he set her down, Jun pulled you into a hug as well, exhaling deeply.

“Thank goodness you two are okay.” He said, looking between you. “I wasn’t sure how I was even going to begin to explain to Jihoon if you weren’t here.”

“Jihoon’s here?” You asked, looking at him in shock.

“He has to be. The curse was supposed to bring everyone. I didn’t really check, I just ran straight here knowing she would be here.” He said, pulling your friend into his side. You didn’t see them letting go of each other any time soon.

“Where could Jihoon be…” You said, your eyes glazing over the posters on the wall, one advertising a music shop. Your eyes widened as your thoughts answered the question for you. “Oh my god. I know where he is.” You said, running past the pair and out the doors.

You ran up and down the street, looking for any shop that seemed music related. It took a couple turns, but eventually you came across a shop that held musical discs, all but running inside. This had to be the shop the poster advertised.

Your stomach dropped as the shop was empty. You looked around, starting to panic.

“Jihoon?” You called out, false hope that he would hear you and was just hiding. “Jihoon!” You jumped as the front door dinged, someone entering the store.

“They have to be… Y/N.” You turned around, seeing Jihoon standing in the doorway. If it was weird to see him in casual clothing, what he was wearing now was like going to Wonderland. But you didn’t care about that, you simply ran to him, wrapping your arms around his neck, feeling like you were finally breathing.

“You’re okay.” You said, relaxing as his arms went around you.

“I was so worried… I know Jun warned us but I thought-”

“They’re here too. Jun found us first.” You sighed, not ready to let go. “I think there are others too. Jun said it affected everyone.”

“We should go see who else is here, hopefully gauge some of the chaos that’s happening, maybe find some answers.” You couldn’t help but let out a laugh, Jihoon smiling. “What?”

“You’re always so noble.” You said, pulling back a bit. “Come on my knight.” You said, taking his hand and exiting the shop.

48 notes · View notes

beyond-the-yellowbrickroad · 5 years

Text

Movies Watched in 2019 - Filmes assistidos em 2019 (part two / segunda parte)

111. About a Boy (2002) Directed by Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz

I liked it a lot! The Kid is amazing and just imagine my face when I found out he was Nicholas Hoult…

112. Hotel Mumbai (2018) Directed by Anthony Maras

It’s a very heavy movie to watch, even more because is based in a real life history… the amazing cast helps to make it even more realistic.

113. Toy Story 4 (2019) Directed by Josh Cooley

I’m angry and very disappointed. It may sound childish of me because “people change” and “leave our lives” but was that really necessary? I think NOT!

114. Widows (2018) Directed by Steve McQueen

I didn’t like it that much but it was probably my fault… I was expecting something more like Ocean’s 8, but it’s completely different from that. Anyway, the cast is great.

115. Final Destination (2000) Directed by James Wong

116. The Final Destination (2009) Directed by David R. Ellis

117. Final Destination 5 (2011) Directed by Steven Quale

So I re-watched all of the “Final Destination” Series at once, and I had the most fun!

I had already seen de second and the third one when I was little (I was about 6 or 7, grown ups were crazy in the early 2000′s) but I had never seen the others and, for my surprise, I loved almost all of them! (I really don’t like the fourth one and I rather pretend it doesn’t exist)

The second one is still my favorite, but the others are as crazy and fun! I LOVED IT!

AND THE ENDING OF THE FIFTH MOVIE, OMG, I WAS NOT READY!!!

118. Liar Liar (1997) Directed by Tom Shadyac

Jim Carrey making funny faces for no reason for 86 minutes straight

119. John Wick (2014) Directed by Chad Stahelski

120. John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) Directed by Chad Stahelski

121. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) Directed by Chad Stahelski

So I also watched all the “John Wick” movies all at once and all I can say is: it’s really great to see treined assassings kill people to revenge their dogs and to see Keanu Reeves being amazing, sexy AND kicking other people’s asses.

122. The Perfection (2018) Directed by Richard Shepard

I saw this weeks ago and I still am absolutely shocked with everything that happened in this movie

123. Us (2019) Directed by Jordan Peele

Literally, a masterpiece of horror and comedy. The cast it’s incredible!

124. The Lion King (2019) Directed by Jon Favreau

Nice, but… it’s the same as the original, but more… dull. Impossible not to have fun though, because it’s the same movie as the original.

125. Long Shot (2019) Directed by Jonathan Levine

Now I really want to go to a club with Charlize!!

126. The Angel (2018) ‘El Ángel’ Directed by Luis Ortega

Beautiful photography, and the cast is really great! The music is also incredible.

127. Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015) Directed by Michael Showalter

It’s a nice reminder that everyone has it’s own time for doing things… sometimes you star things eary and sometimes, other things happen in life before others, and that OK! I loved it!

128. The Lake House (2006) Directed by Alejandro Agresti

It’s romantic, well done and super interesting! Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock looked so good together! I really loved this sci-fi love story.

129. Pride & Prejudice (2005) Directed by Joe Wright

Honestly, everything is absolutely pefect in this movie… like when Mr. Darcy always look’s like he’s about to throw up everytime Lizzie is around, how Mr. Bingley is an absolutely sunshine, how Jane it’s his perfect match, how Lizzie is perfecly sassy and smart… I, obviously, and I can not stress this enough: THE HAND FLEX!!! (and when Mr. Darcy cofesses his eternal love to Lizzie in the rain and them they fight and them they almost kiss… AMAZING CINEMA!)

I loved the movie and I can’t wait to finally find time to read the book too…

130. Creep (2014) Directed by Patrick Brice

131. Creep 2 (2017) Directed by Patrick Brice

Both weird movies, but the first one is more amazing because you spend more than a half of it not knowing what it’s happening.

132. Vox Lux (2018) Directed by Brady Corbet

Natalie Portman is amazing and this movie is also weird.

133. Austenland (2013) Directed by Jerusha Hess

A thriling saga to my Pride and Prejudice / Jane Austen obcession…

So, the fake Mr. Darcy (Mr. Noble) looks like young Tom Hiddleston so now I have a huge crush on him.

Also, I think it’s a very fun movie and I had a good time.

134. Good Sam (2019) Directed by Kate Miles Melville

Fun, I guess… honestly, the romance was unecessary.

135. Almost Famous (2000) Directed by Cameron Crowe

The bus scene when they all are down and then suddenly starts singing to “Tiny Dancer”… The most beautiful thing I saw in my life.

136. The Losers (2010) Directed by Sylvain White

It’s a very fun movie!

But I have an observation: It just don’t sound truthful that people would make fun of a hot, nerdy, super uncle, not being that good with girls Chris Evans… really, he is absolutely hot and cute in this movie, it just not make sense!

137. Sing (2016) Directed by Garth Jennings

I watched this because of Taron Egerton singing “I’m Still Standing”, but I loved it for so much more!!!

138. Candy Jar (2018) Directed by Ben Shelton

Fun for spending the time.

139. The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019) Directed by Gideon Raff

Nice movie and great cast!

(also, I know thi isn’t the point but Chris Evans is beautiful in this movie to)

140. The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) Directed by Robin Swicord

I loved this so much, but I also feel kind of sad because I don’t have friends to make a Jane Austen book club with me and also I will never get married with nerdy and cute Hugh Dancy.

141. The Hustle (2019) Directed by Chris Addison

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson deserved better!

142. The Sun Is Also a Star (2019) Directed by Ry Russo-Young

I don’t want to be mean but, this was horrible!

143. Descendants 3 (2019) Directed by Kenny Ortega

This movie was already going to be very emotional because is the last one of the trilogy, but the recent evens with the super talented actor Cameron Boyce, it was twice as emotional... I cryed a lot.

Also, the movie is increadible in every way: the songs, the dancing, the characters, the cast... I loved it!

144. Brightburn (2019) Directed by David Yarovesky

Well, that was a disaster...

145. Parasite (2019) ‘기생충’ Directed by Bong Joon Ho

Okay, so this movie... there’s so much to talk about this movie...but I don’t want to spoil it... BUT, everything is absolutely PERFECT! OMG! I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH!

146. Otherhood (2019) Directed by Cindy Chupack

Great cast, fun to watch!

147. The Craft (1996) Directed by Andrew Fleming

ICONIC!

148. Wild Child (2008) Directed by Nick Moore

EMMA ROBERTS: I’m sorry for every time that I sayd that you were not a great actress. You are, and this movie is a masterpiece.

149. Mandy (2018) Directed by Panos Cosmatos

That was a crazy ride and I LOVED IT! Nick Cage it’s amazing in this and I really love this scrypt.

150. Falling Inn Love (2019) Directed by Roger Kumble

This couple is so beautiful and I really wish they could date me as well.

151. Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) Directed by Marc Lawrence

I did not like the movie that much but the cast is nice, so is not that bad to wach.

152. Bacurau (2019) Directed by Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho

This was, honestly, the best thing I saw the entire year. It made so happy and proud of my own culture, and was so increadible to watch, with a great cast and characters that are truly amazing... and as if all of this wasn’t enough, the movie (as a coincidence) talks direcly with Brazil’s currently politic scene.

When the movie was over, I felt like crying of happines... I so proud o f brazilian cinema and how it gets better and bigger each year!!

PURE PERFECTION.

153. Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019) Directed by Scott Aukerman

There was scenes that I really found funny and there were times that I was just confused... but I liked it.

154. Last Holiday (2006) Directed by Wayne Wang

QUEEN LATIFAH I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, PLEASE BE MY FRIEND!!

Honestly, this movie is everything a romcom should be... PERFECT!

155. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) Directed by Lasse Hallström, Joe Johnston

I’m absolutely angry with the fact that Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen in the same movie and they even looked at each other! CRAZY THING RIGHT?

156. Rumor Has It… (2005) Directed by Rob Reiner

Just imagine a world were Jenifer Aniston and Mark Ruffalo are a couple...

The movie was SO WEIRD!!! (but good)

157. It Chapter Two (2019) Directed by Andy Muschietti

The first one still is my favorite, BUT this is so great... I’m not even going to begin to write about the cast, ‘cause everyone knows it’s absolutely PERFECT, but really, BILL HADER GUYS! JUST, AMAZING.

Anyway, I did not got even a little scared, but who cares, it’s a great movie.

Also, the scene were Bill Skarsgård show up without the Pennywise makeup... his acting was SO GREAT!

158. Midsommar (2019) Directed by Ari Aster

Today I saw someone describe this movie as “a bunch of white people killing other people and dancing in circles” and honestly, this is the perfect description for this.

159. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (2019) Directed by Beyoncé Knowles

i CAN’T BEGIN TO DESCRIBE THE FEELINGS I FELT SEEING THIS! This woman is beautiful, super talented and a genius!

YOU JUST MIGHT BE A BEYONCÉ IN THE MAKING!!

160. Frozen (2010) Directed by Adam Green

HORRIBLE! OH MY GOD! I FELT SO BAD WATCHING THIS, IT WAS TERRIFYING! OMG!

161. Hush (2016) Directed by Mike Flanagan

I NEVER FELT SO UNCONFORTABLE IN MY LIFE! Truly a good idea for a scary movie and a very well executed one to! Loved it!

162. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) Directed by Vince Gilligan

The perfect ending for one of the best suporting characters on a TV Series.

163. Little Monsters (2019) Directed by Abe Forsythe

Lupita Nyong'o deserves way more recognition from the Movies Industry because she is so great and even with a fucking OSCAR on her shelf, she barely has any leading characters on her career and is SO UNFAIR!

This movies is funny, scary, the cast is great and there’s Shake it Off by Taylor Swift was sang by a bunch of kids and Lupita dressed on a beautiful yellow dress all dirty of zombie blood, sooo... you should go and watch it!

164. The Blair Witch Project (1999) Directed by Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez

The movie it’s okay until it gets on it’s last 15 to 10 minutes... then so much starts to happen and you just want to stop seeing it, but can’t because you want to know the ending of it, and it’s so scary and crazy... Really I totally get why lots of people are crazy about this one... SO SCARY!

Also, look out for the website they made for the three filmakers that “disapeared” ( AKA were killed by the Blair Witch), it’s so good and there’s a lot of more information that makes the movie even more scary.

165. Yesterday (2019) Directed by Danny Boyle

It could be SO GOOD! But it was SO BAD! Lili was this movie, the guy that played Richie in Skins was in this movie and I still did not like it... The sountrack was made by BEATLES SONGS and I still did not like it... SAD.

166. The Witches (1990) Directed by Nicolas Roeg

NOT A KIDS MOVIE! Really, it’s so scary! OMG!

167. Shaun of the Dead (2004) Directed by Edgar Wright

It’s a very diferent zombie movie, but I really liked it!

168. Maid in Manhattan (2002) Directed by Wayne Wang

IT WAS JUST LIKE CAMP ROCK!!

Very cheesy, not the best romcom I ever watched, but also not the worse... If you want a good JLopez movie, go see Monster In Law!

169. Monster House (2006) Directed by Gil Kenan

ALSO NOT A KIDS MOVIE! This was actually very little apropriate to kids and so fucking sacry, OMG, how this was made up to be a kids movie?

170. mother! (2017) Directed by Darren Aronofsky

I will never get over this movie, I feel marked for the rest of my life, thanks very much Aronofsky! (no, really, THANKS!)

171. The Meddler (2015) Directed by Lorene Scafaria

Honestly, the “I was visiting my daughter, she just shot a pilot!” joke was THE BEST THING I EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE! Also, “I have to go home, my hands are loud!”.

172. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) Directed by Stephen Chiodo

I don’t even know what to write about this one... It was weird and not scary at all, but was kind of... diffent? I mean, you don’t get literally scared but you feel unconfotable, like, a lot! Go check it out and you will hopefully understand what kind of feeling I’m trying to describe, it’s just... weird.

173. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) Directed by André Ovredal

WHAT ON EARTH PEOPLE KEEP MAKING THOSE SUPER SCARY MOVIES ANT SAYING THEY ARE FOR KINDS? This was so scary Jesus, and It was great. But not for kids.

If you read the books I don’t know how you going to feel about it, but in my experience from movie adapttions from books, you probably going to feel like shit. But I did’t read the books and loved it, so, you might to :)

174. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) Directed by Joe Berlinger

Not ever close to be as great as the first one, it’s crazier, more things happen and you still feel crazy with the characters, but, it’s not as great. But it would be a great stanalone, if the first one did not existed.

175. Vacation (2015) Directed by John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein

This is a comedic MASTERPIECE and I CAN NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!

I love comedy movies, but I always expect to much of them... but this served me EVERYTHING that a good comedy should have to make me laugh until my breath runs out. LOVED IT!

176. Walk the Line (2005) Directed by James Mangold

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are absolutely babes and so increadibly talented!

The movie is a bit slow (maybe only if you not a particularly big Cash fan), but is great!

177. Love Happens (2009) Directed by Brandon Camp

Jennifer Aniston is amazing and goergeous as always but I didn’t conect with the characters so... it didn’t work to much for me, but it’s not bad eigther.

178. John Tucker Must Die (2006) Directed by Betty Thomas

Talking about perfect comedies, this is ONE OF THEM! FOR SURE!

179. You’ve Got Mail (1998) Directed by Nora Ephron

I’ve got three things to say:

One: TOM HANKS

Two: I could never date someone that led me to bankruptcy, I could however punch this person multiple times.

Three: MEG RYAN!!!

180. The Prince & Me (2004) Directed by Martha Coolidge

Okay, so I was not expecting anything big from this movie and I only watched it because of Julia Stiles, BUT OMG I’m so thakfull that I gave it a chance, because it’s an amazingly done cliché and the Prince it’s totally hot!

181. Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019) Directed by James Bobin

I WAS SO SURPRISED THAT IT WAS SO GOOD! I really wasn’t expecting that! SO GOOD!

182. Me Before You (2016) Directed by Thea Sharrock

méh.

But Emilia, I want to be your best friend!

183. Late Night (2019) Directed by Nisha Ganatra

To Queens that almost coused my death because of how much a I laughed in this... it’s ligh, fun and dramtic and real... AMAZING!

184. Let It Snow (2019) Directed by Luke Snellin

Kiernan Shipka and Mitchell Hope singing The Whole of the Moon awakend my bissexuality.

Shameik Moore and Isabela Merced to!

185. When Harry Met Sally… (1989) Directed by Rob Reiner

MEG RYAN!!!

So... this is the movie that every fanfic is based on? I really loved it!

186. Bringing Down the House (2003) Directed by Adam Shankman

Queen Latifah always brings a smile to my face... she’s perfect!

187. Joker (2019) Directed by Todd Phillips

Huum... Joaquin Phoenix it’s a very great actor, OMG!

188. Penelope (2006) Directed by Mark Palansky

It was very hard for me to watch this movie and not get distracted by James MacAvoy’s perfect face and body and not so perfect hair in this one, but does anybody really care? It’s beautiful James McAvoy!

Also, the movie is so great! I didn’t knew about the plot and I was so surprised! It’s very, very good!

I love the final scene when Penelope just let’s the children run wild while she swings with her hot boyfriend...

“Take of your mask!” ~proceds to kiss Christina Ricci very dramaticly~

189. Mad Money (2008) Directed by Callie Khouri

Everything about this movie was PERFECT

190. Baywatch (2017) Directed by Seth Gordon

Great opening scene, the rest was kind of a mess.

191. Noelle (2019) Directed by Marc Lawrence

CUTE! CUTE! CUTE!

But I will complain about the lack of Bill Hader content.

192. Every Day (2018) Directed by Michael Sucsy

Another surprise this year, a very good one!

It’s cute and dramatic, also, this actress kissed every teeneger and young adult in Hollywood!

193. Over Her Dead Body (2008) Directed by Jeff Lowell

A good and weird movie! Gave a few laughs.

Paul Rudd is in it, so, totally worth it!

194. The Skeleton Twins (2014) Directed by Craig Johnson

A dramatic, surprising and “few good” comedy!

I really wish I could hang out on Halloween with Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig...

195. Eat Pray Love (2010) Directed by Ryan Murphy

I didn’t quite understood her journey but I quite liked it.

Veeeery long movie.

196. Death at a Funeral (2007) Directed by Frank Oz

197. Death at a Funeral (2010) Directed by Neil LaBute

I know I should have loved the original version more but the american version... I don’t know what it is (probably the many actors that I absolutely LOVE), but I coul not stop laughing!

James Marsden was an absolute STAR!

198. The Other Woman (2014) Directed by Nick Cassavetes

I wish I could personally thank Cameron Diaz for every great movie I watched because of her.

Thank you, Mrs. Diaz!

That last scene was peak COMEDY!!!

199. The Back-Up Plan 2010 Directed by Alan Poul

JLo! PERFECT!

Honestly, I was thinking this movie was going to be very problematic, but it wasn’t that much... it was actually pretty cute! The birth scene was sacry and funny at the same time!!

200. Muriel's Wedding 1994 Directed by P.J. Hogan

Don’t judge me, I didn’t liked it, it fact, It made me feel pretty shitty, so I just wnat to forget that it existis.

#filmes assistidos em 2019 #movies watched in 2019 #segunda parte #part two

8 notes · View notes

mocha-sim · 6 years

Note

Ooh I need Ayano x Nemesis fanfic! And Ayano x Oka too! /sry I love them/

Couldn’t think of anything for Ayano and Nemesis so I went with Ayanoka! (Under the cut because it got longer than expected)

It felt like something straight out of a horror movie. Twolonely teenagers, strolling down the deserted school hallways armed withnothing but their phones and a heavy book – headed straight for the hauntedbathroom. Oka swallowed her fear. How many things could go wrong? Far too many.Yet here she was, following Ayano up the stairs to the third floor.

Ayano hadbeen the one to bring up the rumoured “phantom girl” at lunch. The group hadbeen discussing changing up their club activities for once: summoning demonsalways brought a thrill of both excitement and terror, but after weeks of nosuccess, it became monotonous to say the least. Supana’s idea of telling ghoststories had led to their newest member finally speaking up – suggesting thatthey investigate the third-floor bathroom.

The occultclub fell silent.

A murmur swelledacross the huddle. A few members began to shuffle backwards out of the circle.Shin shook his head vigorously, eyes wide.

“I don’tthink that’s a good idea, Ayano…” Kokuma shot a glance at her. Ayano stoodimpassive, her face expressionless as usual.

“Why not? This club is about the supernatural,right?” No answer. Ayano shrugged. “I just thought it seemed fitting.”

Oka gulped.“I mean… we have wanted to investigate that for a while now… we’ve just alwaysbeen too scared…”

Ayano raisedan eyebrow. “That’s ironic.”

“Can youblame us, though?” Daku shuddered. “I mean… it’s just…”

“Well…” Alleyes turned toward Oka. She stared at the ground, her voice hesitant. “I guessmaybe it wouldn’t be as scary if we all went as a group… right?”

A murmur of agreement rose around the circle.Ayano nodded.

“Then we’llhead up there at club time.”

None of themhad shown up.

Oka had seenShin’s retreating back, following Daku and Kokuma down the pathway and out ofthe school gates. A heavy disappointment settled in her stomach – but how couldshe blame them? She herself had considered leaving, after all. It had only beenthe overpowering thought of Ayano, waiting all alone for them in the occultclub room, that drove her here.

She almostregretted it now, sticking so close behind Ayano that she nearly stepped on herheels. Ayano glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure Oka was stillfollowing her. Despite her empty expression – the same one she nearly alwayswore – something about Ayano’s presence was comforting. It was far, far betterthan doing this alone.

The doorwayloomed before them like the gaping maw of a beast. Oka gulped. She usually onlycame in here at cleaning time and then left as soon as she could; coming herewith their occult tome and phone cameras out felt wrong.

Ayano ledthe way. Oka clutched the book close to her as she followed.

The firstthing Oka noticed was that the bathroom was dark.The rest of the school was fairly well-lit until the students and teachersleft, yet the lights almost never seemed to be on in here, and it took a longwhile for her eyes to adjust. Almost instinctively, Oka’s arm shot out to gripAyano’s sleeve – with surprising strength. Somehow, Ayano didn’t even flinch;she just kept scanning the room as if searching for something.

Oka took adeep breath. “Should we begin the ritual…?”

“Wait.”Ayano squinted into the darkness. She clicked her phone on and opened thecamera, the bright screen flooding the room with light. “I’ll see if I can spother.”

Oka satcross-legged on the floor, gently peeling apart the worn pages of the book andplacing it in her lap. She flipped back to the first page and stared up atAyano; she seemed to be doing something else with her phone now, frowning inconcentration as she tapped on the screen. For a long while, the bathroom fellsilent.

Ayanoglanced down at her. “I heard that ghosts sometimes appear in photographs, soI’m going to take a picture. I was just making sure the flash was off.”

“I see.” Okahesitated, then stood, leaning up to peer at Ayano’s screen. “Do you think itwill work…?”

Ayanoshrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”

Oka watchedattentively, scarcely blinking as Ayano finally tapped the button to take aphoto. The screen flashed. Both girls squinted at the photo.

“There’snothing there…” Oka felt a strange mix of disappointment and, she had to admit,relief. Her shoulders slumped as the photo vanished from the screen. Asfrightened as she was, some part of her wished that they could have spotted theghost.

“Hold on.Maybe we just need to look harder.” Ayano pulled up her camera roll and tappedthe most recent photo.

The screenwas completely black.

A chill shotdown Oka’s spine. Ayano’s face remained completely blank. How could she be socalm?

“I’m goingto try taking another one.”

Okashivered. She swore she could hear someone whispering near the sink. Her heartpounded in her chest as if it would burst out at any moment. “I think we shouldleave…”

Ayanosnapped another photo. It only yielded the same result: when she checked on thephoto, it had become nothing but a black space. “Guess we’re not getting ourevidence…”

Thewhispering grew louder. Oka clung to Ayano’s shirt.

“Yeah, Ihear that.” Ayano finally looked up from her phone, staring into the semi-darkness.“So we know it’s here, at least…”

“Do youthink she’s angry…?”

“Maybe she doesn’tlike us taking pictures in here.” Ayano turned her gaze back to her phonescreen, flicking between the two photos. “…Hmm. There’s something weird inthat second photo I took.”

Oka almostdidn’t want to look, but her curiosity got the better of her. She squinted atthe photo, trying to spot whatever Ayano was talking about. “What is it?”

Ayanopointed wordlessly to the right side of the photo, where the black faded to adeep grey shade. She could make out the lines of a hand and the shape of twofingers, reaching toward the camera as if to snatch Ayano’s phone.

Or could it have been reaching for Ayanoherself? Oka gulped. “We should get out of here…”

The whispering voice hissedthroughout the bathroom – still mostly unintelligible. But a few words could bediscerned from the jumble of gibberish now: “daughter”, “life”, “revenge”. Oka wasn’tsure when she’d begun shivering, but suddenly she could barely hold onto Ayano.

“She can’t hurt us.”

Oka blinked. “What?”

Gently, Ayano placed a hand on Oka’sshoulder. “I know you’re afraid, but there’s no need to be. She can’t hurt us,even if she wants to.”

Oka’s grip relaxed a little. Ayanowas right, but logic did nothing to calm her nerves. She felt sick to herstomach, eyes darting around the dark bathroom.

There was a strange light in thecorner.

The girl materialized out of thinair, her pale skin a stark contrast to the darkness. Oka froze completely. Forthe briefest moment, a flicker of something like surprise passed across Ayano’sface.

Oka’s scream caught in her throat,and only a high-pitched choking sound escaped. Ayano opened her mouth as if tospeak. No words came out. The three of them stood there, completely still, thegirl’s one visible eye locked on Ayano and the two students staring back ather.

It wasn’t until she took a steptowards them that the terror kicked in. Oka grabbed Ayano’s arm and fled fromthe bathroom, down the stairs, and down the hall, dragging Ayano behind her thewhole time. She wasn’t sure whether the ghost was following them or not. Shewasn’t going to check.

The door of the occult club roomslammed shut behind them, and Oka collapsed against it, panting. Ayano floppeddown next to her, equally exhausted.

“Well, we certainly found the ghost.”

Oka nodded, still trying to catchher breath. “I’m not… going back into that bathroom… again.”

Ayano sat up. “…We still have awhile before we have to go home.” She paused. “Want to watch a movie orsomething?”

“That sounds a lot better than runningfrom ghosts…”

A lone teacher strolled down the hallways, peering into theclubrooms. Most of the students would have left by now, of course – she justneeded to make sure there were no more stragglers before the gates closed. She oftenfound a few students scattered about the art club, trying to finalize their piecesbefore they went home, or a group of students in an almost trancelike state inthe gaming club room.

Rarely didshe find any students still in the occult club room – let alone sleepingstudents.

The whirringof a chainsaw echoed through the room from the iPad in Ayano’s lap, accompaniedby typical horror-movie screams. The teacher glanced between the screen and thepeaceful faces of the two students, before reaching over and tapping Oka’sshoulder.

Slowly, thetwo girls awoke, among much groaning and eye-rubbing. Oka glanced around theroom. “Did we fall asleep…?”

“I guess so.”Ayano looked up at the teacher. “What time is it?”

“Just pastsix. You two should be heading home now.” She smiled. “The gates will beclosing soon.”

“Of course.Thank you for letting us know.”

“No problem.”

Ayano stoodby the door, waiting for Oka to finish shoving the few books lying on the floorinto her bag. They left the building together – walking beside each other thistime.

“Oka?”

“Yes?”

“Thank youfor coming with me.”

Oka staredup at her. “I should probably be saying that to you…”

Ayanoshrugged. “I know that the others all went home before club time. I just wantto say that I appreciate you staying behind to investigate the ghost.”

“I…” Okaturned her gaze back toward the ground. “…Thank you. It was kind of scary,though…”

“It was.”Ayano smiled slightly.

“And it wasnice to do something different with our club time… but I think we should go backto summoning demons next meeting…” Oka stopped by the school gates, glancing upand down the street. She paused. “…What do you think would happen if we went backinto that bathroom?”

“You mean tomorrow?At cleaning time?” Oka nodded. Ayano thought for a moment. “I can’t say. Imean, she still wouldn’t be able to hurt us. But whether she’d appear again ornot…”

Oka shuddered,shooting a glance back at the school. “I don’t think I’m going back in there…”

“Same here.”

“Girls!”They both jumped, turning to see a teacher striding towards them. “You need toget going! We’re closing the gates soon!”

“Right.Sorry.” Ayano turned back toward Oka. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yes. Seeyou.”

With onelast glance at the school, Oka turned and headed down the street towards herhouse. She smiled to herself. Somehow, with Ayano there, she’d finally foundthe courage to investigate the third-floor bathroom – even if she had run away,it felt like she had accomplished something.

Her mindwandered back to Ayano. How could she remain so calm when there was a ghostright before her? It was somehow admirable: it seemed to Oka that she couldkeep a level head in almost any situation.

She was gladthat Ayano had been the one to go with her.

Oka andAyano had rarely spoken before Ayano joined her club, but they’d grown closerover the past weeks. They both liked silence – there were times when they wouldsit together at lunch and not speak a word, simply enjoying the peace and quiet.It wasn’t that the other club members were loud – far from it, in fact – but somethingabout Ayano was… different.

With one lastglance at Ayano’s retreating figure in the distance, Oka turned and stepped intoher house, smiling to herself.

#yandere simulator #lovesick #ayano aishi #oka ruto #ayano x oka #ayanoka #mocha writes #still unsure about the ending but publishing anyway #Anonymous

55 notes · View notes

mdwatchestv · 6 years

Text

The Magicians 3x10 + 3x11: What Even Are the Rules

Hi, I know, I know I missed a week. It was too late to watch ten, and then eleven was out, and then we just entered total despair free fall. Now here I am Tuesday trying to pick up all the pieces and figure out how I'm going to fit two plot-busting episodes into one reasonably lengthed missive. But I will take up this quest with all the misguided dedication of Beast!Quentin. These episodes were very different in style but Julia's storyline took center stage in both of them, which means maybe I was right to group them together and everything's going to be okay.

We go into 3x10 with only TWO keys left to find and four episodes to find them in, sounds pretty achievable! Q and his current sidekicks, Alice and Josh, learn the next key is in the throne room at Fillory, hey we know where that is! But this retrieval task is made more complicated by the recent overthrow of Eliot and Margo. Our royal pair have taken up residence on their new friend the Muntjac, who can now take to the skies! Also the Muntjac must have a fabulous wardrobe because that Margo's magenta corset and Eliot's sparkly muumuu (?) were to die (Wed morning edit: these outfits were in 3x11 but I was really excited to talk about them) . Q and co somehow hike through Fillory, get all the goss, and then board the ship in the sky. This all happens off screen so I guess we’re not supposed to worry about it. They conveniently deliver the plot point that Fillory is at war with Loria and the Stone Kingdom, due to the violent incompetency of Tick Dick Pickwick. Eliot and Margo springing into action to figure out how to save their kingdom was a nice character moment for them, and marked how far the two have come. While the rest of the Children of Earth are technically also Kings and Queens, they have mostly been vanity titles. Margo and Eliot meanwhile have taken responsibility for something bigger than themselves (for the first time really), and now are showing a selfless devotion to it, which is a pleasing arc for their characters. Anyway they are still Margo and Eliot so they defend Fillory the only ways they know how: with lies, threats and sex. God bless them.

While Josh, Quentin and Alice solve a Zelda puzzle in the Fillory throne room, Quentin finally confronts Alice on why she's suddenly so invested in their quest. Alice reveals she is working for the Library, who also has a vested interest in seeing magic restored. This makes sense because as we learned previously the Library's magic is being fueled by ground up fairy bones! A grim and non-renewable resource. However the Library is also shady af so Q is right to be suspish of Alice (who is shady in general). Anyway the key isn't there, and the quest is a bust.

Meanwhile in the real world, Julia is still on her mission to save the enslaved fairies, and Fen has just discovered emojis. Julia entreats the Fairy Queen to come with her and help free her kinfolk, but it’s Fen's passionate plea that finally sways the Queen into coming. We learn that fairies used to live freely on Earth until Magicians killed them all for their delicious bones. Typical. Julia's plan is to present the Fairy Queen as a slave (complete with Death Necklace), in order to get her to her people and free them. However this plan is complicated by the fact there is no way to remove the necklaces except via beheading. And since the Jaime Ray Newman family has received a large order for fairy bone (likely from The Library that just lost much of their supply), heads are gonna ROLL. Our heroines discover the fairies are held captive by a fairy deal brokered by Dust, who long ago made the ultimate sacrifice in order to allow the OG Fairy Queen (our FQ's mama) to escape Earth. Our current Queen decides to break this deal, freeing her people, and brutally slaughtering the Newman's (except for Jaime Ray who escapes).

The Fairy Queen laments to Julia that now the fairy's deals will mean nothing since one was broken, but I was a bit confused by this as how is anyone going to know? Like yeah they broke one deal, but pretty much all the humans aware of that are dead, and unless Jaime Ray is writing a breaking news story for The Fillorian Times, I don't really see the ish. Queenie also tells Julia that the fairies have a Quest Key, but it's sort of being used to prop up the whole Fairy World so no one can have it. I feel like our crafty Magicians are going to find a way to get it though, probably by integrating fairies back onto Earth or Fillory-at-large. What's for sure is that this side quest has muddied the morality waters when it comes to the fairy species. Rather than being cut-and-dry baddies, they are victims of greedy humans and they just want to find a home of their own. I foresee a tentative truce with the reinstated rulers of Fillory in our future. Also many Margo scowls.

Gah so much happened in this episode (as in all episodes) but there was one more important thing! Penny has been sulkily shelving away down in the Underworld library (I guess Kady has gone to look for him tho? She was conspicuously absent from these two eps) and attempting to find a way out. He does con a dead guy into giving him his Metro Card to the pig that takes you out of the Underworld and presumably to Heaven or Hell (what even IS The Magicians), but before he can use it he is pulled aside for a come to Jesus talk by Hades! Hades is the second Greek/Roman inspired god we have met this season (the first being Bacchus), and he is here to keep it real with Penny. He essentially tells Penny that if Penny stays in the Underworld, he will have a much more glorious destiny than if he returns to his sucky friends on the surface. Penny seems to take this advice to heart as he joins the local Library book club, and dessert-fancier group. As the season has gone on, and Julia's powers have ramped up, the mention of gods, the god-touched, and the appearance of gods themselves has been steadily increasing. I feel like in the quest for magic, Hades will not be the last mythological face we see.

OKAY NEXT EPISODE. IF YOU WERE SKIPPING 3x10 HERE BEGINNITH 3x11.

A lot of wild stuff went down in 3x10, but 3x11 was another helping of full on Magicians crazy-time. Once again Julia and Josh (of all people) are the central characters, which is refreshing seeing as how they haven't received a lot of lead story time ESPECIALLY not as a couple (Julia/Josh, pick your shipper name). This episode these two new best friends take a journey into the wild unknown, aka the 23rd Magicians timeline! In season one it was established that there are (at least) 40 timelines in the world of the show (due to a time loop created by...too boring, you remember). This is both insane and totally genius as it is a built in way for the show to bounce into a completely new world, with alternate storylines, whenever it wants. Characters can die, hook-up, become werewolves, anything is possible! As is the case here when 23 Josh (aka Dick Josh) pulls regular Josh and Julia into their timeline. Here, 23's Beast is essentially immortal and powered by a KEY. The J's decide to pull their weight for once and go after the 7th key on their own, consequences be damned!

As we learned from Season 2 when 23 Alice was summoned into timeline 40, 23 is a pretty f'd up universe. Mostly all of our beloved character's have been brutally killed, and the Beast rules unchallenged. However there is one thing that 23 has that’s worth all of these tragedies and that is KACEY ROHL!!!! My beautiful hedge witch queen lives on in timeline 23! She is just as goth, brash, bitchy, and perfect as I remember. Sure she is missing her signature power pony, but I will survive. She has teamed up with Dick Josh (who has Lasik, a cool jacket, and also werewolf herpes) in a last ditch effort to take out the Beast. Julia and Josh also run into in-love-with-Julia Penny, and GHOST MARGO AND ELIOT. Although one of the strengths of the Magicians is the unexpected fun and character building that comes from different pairings (Josh/Julia, Julia/Fen, Quentin/Penny, etc) there is one couple that should and shall never be parted. Even in bloody horrible death this gruesome twosome shall not be struck from each other's side. I loved the ultimate horror of Eliot being responsible for Margo's hideous death, truly scary! Also half-a-face Margo is still absolutely sickening. Cocks indeed.

However the biggest twist in this world is that their Beast is no longer Martin Chatwin, but Quentin! And to be honest, a much, much hotter Quentin. No one else thirsty for soulless Beast!Q? Honestly seeing him cut down Alice mid-whine was...extremely satisfying. But how did this happen? Well in Season 2 after 23 Alice was brought briefly to talk with 40 Q, she became obsessed with seeing her Q again. She even sold her soul in order to bring him back to life, albeit shadeless. Yes shadeless Beast Quentin is a ruthless, violent, killer, but goshdarnit he's a pretty fun time. Julia cleverly defeats him by lending him her shade, and once Q is back in possession of the full gamut of his shame, guilt, anxiety, and depression, it is but a matter of moments before he kills himself. Cheery. Anyway Julia takes the key and uses it to return her and Josh to their own timeline. But on top of their return 23 Penny and Marina ALSO go through to timeline 40. Historically in fiction timeline mixing is almost always a terrible idea, but Kacey Rohl back in our lives is worth the risk. Also we are entering a sort of Midsummer Night's Dream world here where there are two Penny's, one who is alive and loves Julia, and one who is dead-ish and loves Kady. Cray!

Misc thoughts from the episode:

I am really not getting the Dean Fogg storyline, it kind of feels like they don't know what to do with this character anymore. He's not even a comic relief as his addiction storylines feel more sad than wry. If there is nothing else to be done with this character, I think time to let him loose.

Also what is the 'Quickening'? 23 Josh had become a dick and isolated himself because he was in fear of the 'Quickening' which would kill all those around him. I assumed he was referring to turning into a werewolf (via the herpes), but it seems like this is something that could happen to regular Josh too? I kept up with a LOT this episode, but this aspect escaped me. If you have a clearer understanding, holla at cha girl.

Only two more episodes and ONE more unattainable fairy key to go!

In Kacey Rohl we trust, MD

23 notes · View notes

just-book-addict-things · 3 years

Text

Soul Seeker by Kaylin McFarren: Book Review

Image Source: Google Images

Today I will be reviewing the book 'Soul Seeker' by Kaylin McFarren which is a horror thriller/ romance/ Fantasy novel and also the first book of the Gehenna series.

I got the chance to read this book as a reviewer for the Online Book Club where I have submitted an official book review for the same and the link is given below, do check it out. But, here I will be providing a very informal review which might turn into a rant because I have many, many complaints against the book. So let us start with the first impressions.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Honestly speaking, the only reason I did read the book was that I was asked to and I probably wouldn't have picked it at a book store on one of my many book-buying expeditions. If I were to give a reason for why I chose this book out of all the other options, it has to be because of the synopsis of the story. The concept, of course, was very unique and that was probably the reason why I got excited to read the book. Also, there is a beautiful poem before the book starts, and I mean come on, no one can resist a book with a poem. Now, I would love to tell you guys the entire story. But since no one likes spoilers, I will be providing a quick summary of the book in the next section.

QUICK SUMMARY

The book is divided into two parts: Part 1 and Part 2. Now, the issue here is that both the parts have completely different contexts, so I think it would be wise if I provide a summary for both of them separately.

The first part of the story describes the sad life of Benjamin Poe, a firefighter living in the small town of Lochton, Illinois. Now, Poe did not really get along with his family, because apparently his son Gabriel was a complete sadist and he had done some pretty terrible stuff that he used to get away with. Poe, of course, did not want his son to be found guilty of anything, but he was still sceptical considering that Gabriel may have been involved in his own sister Riley's death. Poe's wife did not want to believe that her son could do anything like that, so every time he made an attempt to investigate and find out the truth, things just blew up. Talking about blowing up, the actual story starts with a fire in their College Inn. The fire was reported by Gabriel, who then fled from the scene before the authorities even arrived. And when he came home, he started behaving 'differently', if that's the right word. So, Poe became suspicious and he tried to ask him what happened. And, I mean, you can guess how that went, right? But wait, this gets more exciting. There is a Demon on the loose, Hell's best 'Soul Seeker', the reaper of all corrupted soul, Crighton Daemonium (Pretentious much!!). Now, I may not like his name, but I loved his character (only in the first part). Crighton is after Gabriel's soul and he decides, why not have fun while we're working. He starts playing these mind games with Poe, threatening and confusing him, relishing the pain that he is causing. Now, Poe has only one choice, he must fight this demon with all that he has to protect his family. Interesting right? Well, guess what, as soon as this part ends the story just takes a sharp turn to Fifty Shades.

So, I don't even want to talk about the second part, but I guess I will give you all a short and sweet summary. Crighton is now an angst-ridden bad boy who has this innate goodness hidden inside him, which can only be revealed after he finds his true love, who is, *Drum rolls Please* Ariel, the purest angel in all of heaven. She is beautiful and naive and innocent and gullible and blah blah blah blah, just your perfect Damsel-in-Distress. They have this whole forbidden romance trope, and I actually do like forbidden romances, but this one was just annoying. There are a lot of other things happening as well, but they weren't really that important. Anyways, let's move on to the next section.

MY THOUGHTS

So, here we have this amazing plotline, the concept is unique and it is executed to perfection. And suddenly it just turns to a complete mess. In the first part of the story, we have these two beautifully written characters, Poe and Crighton, clashing with each other in a fight where no one knows who is wrong and who is right. And you are rooting for both of them, which just leaves you so devastated because there is no way both of them can win and the thrill, the adrenaline of it all is just such a wonderful experience. Poe's struggle with the guilt and shame that he feels because of the ongoing situation in his family, along with his determination to save them from a vicious demon hellbent on destroying his entire world, is just so interesting. Crighton's character has so much depth, a morally ambiguous demon whose job is to collect the souls of the corrupted and take them to hell. He may be scary and sadistic, but he is not exactly wrong, especially considering that he does save a lot of good people from terrible fates.

And then what? Suddenly Crighton is a Christian Grey/Edward Cullen hybrid (No offence to anyone who likes them). It just doesn't make any sense. How did this morally grey, genius demon turn into the stereotypical Mr. ' I-hate-myself-but-I-love-this-girl-who-will-save-my-soul'? And don't even get me started on Ariel. Now, does it make any sense that this guardian angel, who protects humans from all evil in the world, just decides one day that she is going to give up everything for this abusive, sadistic demon who maybe, kind of likes her, and she's going to just 'Swish and Flick' him into being good? Sure Jan!

You know, the problem here is that people are so into redemption arcs, they just decide to ignore the beauty of a morally grey character. And redemption arcs are nice and all, but they aren't always required. Crighton isn't actually doing anything wrong, so he doesn't really need 'Redemption' per se. He isn't out there killing people without rhyme or reason. The only reason he goes after people is if they are bad, and there are others who have suffered because of them. I mean, does Batman need redemption? No, right! And even if morally grey characters aren't good people, they definitely are great characters. Aren't we all tired of reading the same cliche characters again and again?

Tell me in the comments if you think people need to stop sleeping on morally grey characters. I have added the links to the Amazon website for the book, in case you want to check it out. Please like and follow my blog for more book reviews and recommendations. Currently, I'm reading this amazing book called 'Faye and the Ether' by Nicole Bailey which I will be reviewing for my next week's blog. Till then, Bbye!

#blog repost #soul seeker #gehana series #books #bookstagram #bookrecommendations #book review

0 notes

practicingmedicine · 3 years

Text

Practicing Medicine: Chapter 5

LOADER V1. 1

EXEC VERSION 41.10

32K RAM SYSTEM

15452 BYTES FREE

HOLLOWTAPE LOADED: “THE-NEW-KID”

INITIALISING….

SUCCESS!

> STATUS

Battery Level: 100%

Wireless Signal: (?)

Operating Temperature: 87F

> HEALTH

BP: 120/90

SPO2: 100%

Temp: 98.5F

RR: 17

HR: 70

> TIME

Day: 24 SEP. 2176

Time: 06:12

> CLIMATE

Current Temperature: 80F

Atmospheric Pressure: 753 mm

Background Radiation: 0.431 RAD

---

I woke up to the pleasant smell of fresh-cooked bacon mingling with the less pleasant smell of rotting wood. I rubbed my eyes- had I really fallen asleep in the damn cabin? My back hurt, my joints ached, and, according to the pip-boy, it was 6:12 AM, almost two hours before my normal wake-up time. Though my back screamed at me to lay back down, I forced myself to stand, audibly popping at least a few joints in the process. I muttered some bad words under my breath and tried to stabilize myself against one of the shelves. Soon as I pushed on it, I could feel the wood yield, splitting and snapping off in one violent motion. I tumbled to the ground along with it and a heap of medical supplies. “Goddammit,” I groaned. I started trying to scoop up the fallen supplies. None of them seemed damaged, but so much had fallen- Bottles of pills, bags of rad-away, surgical implements from the bottom of the bag…

Suddenly, the wooden door creaked open. I made a noise like a caveman who’d just been spotted screwing his buddy’s wife, and turned around to face the intruder.

“Isaac- Oh my gosh, did you actually fall asleep in there?” I couldn’t tell if that was worry that I heard in her voice, or mocking. I looked away from her.

“Yeah. I was just cleaning up in here,” I said, scooping up a few more items and putting them back into my bag. I could feel Cook’s eyes on me as I struggled to reach for a couple of items that were on top of one of the intact shelves.

“Well, you can finish packing later. I made some home-style bacon, which as I’m sure you know has a pretty short tastiness half-life before it gets all weird and chewy.” I nodded.

“Um- yeah, you’re right. Is it that weird NCR ration stuff?” I asked, following her outside the shack.

“Technically, but I think you’ll like it. I can turn a pack of instant noodles into Taglioni ai enokitake-mutante! ” She wore a proud grin when she said that, and I gave her a weak little smile back.

“Mm.”

The rising sun felt painfully bright as I scanned the horizon, noting that we had passed the big radio-tower that loomed in the mountains beside Primm. Of course, we really hadn’t traveled far yet- I could still see Primm, with its neon signs and its indefinitely under-construction roller coaster standing out against the hilly background. The coaster had been the previous Casino-owner’s idea, but Mom had decided to see it to completion. She let me ride one of the parts that worked once; I quickly decided to never ride a roller coaster again.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be at home with mom- not the sick mom, but the strong, gambling, slightly-tipsy mom that I had spent my boyhood with! I blinked back tears as I stared at the home I was leaving behind, then quickly turned around.

“Goddamn sun is getting in my eyes,” I muttered, and kept limping towards the scent of Bacon.

Cook and I walked around the side of the shack, and over a little hill. Once we reached the crest, I could see the campsite below, just off the highway, behind a massive boulder. The wagon and its two brahmin sat off to one side, a few yards away from a shoddily constructed fire pit, where I could see Gram sitting in a folding lawn chair. Cook led me down the steep hillside, silently indicating for me to follow behind her. It took me a second, but I got the message after slipping on the third loose rock. Standing atop the boulder, I could see the unmistakable outline of Tandi, who I think was waving.

“Took you long enough!” she shouted, her voice amplified by her helmet. Cook gave her a defiant middle finger.

“I’ll spit in your dinner!” she shouted back, cupping her free-hand over her mouth. I assumed a look of quiet horror.

“Cook! That’s a textbook BSI violation!”

Tandi hopped down from the rock, executing a perfect tumble just as I remembered that she had a horribly injured leg. I almost shouted in protest, then realized that she was already standing again. She dusted herself off.

“‘Morning, fellas,” said Gram, tipping his hat at us from his rusty folding chair. I gave him a quick salute.

“‘Morning, sir! Sorry I took so long to get up.” Gram gave me a dismissive wave.

"You’re the one missing out on a hot breakfast. Check the fire, I’ll bet there’s some left.”

I don’t much like fire, but I also didn’t like how hungry I was feeling. So despite my fears about the safety of the fire pit, I walked up and knelt beside it. It wasn’t a big fire- it had been made from a couple of planks of plywood and a chunk of tire, though I was also pretty sure I saw something metal in there somewhere. It had been built inside a hand-dug pit, with the shovel still lying off to the side, which worried me a little bit. What if I fell in? Would I fall into my own fiery grave of burning embers?

Stupid. I was being stupid. The fire was burning low now, and there were two pans of delicious Brahmin bacon cooking over the stove. That was the important thing here.

“How do you recommend taking these out?” I asked, staring at the delicious bacon which awaited me in the pan below. It was tempting to just try to grab it, but… fire, you know?

Cook motioned for me to move out of the way. She was holding a machete covered in dried blood- Animal blood, I hoped, while I moseyed right-on out of the way. Cook stepped up where I had been standing, and nimbly scooped up four strips of bacon with the machete. She wheeled around on one heel to face me, and I froze, trying not to be worried about the blade that was now just inches away from my chest. Cook smiled.

“How many do you want?” She asked. I looked down at my poor, empty stomach, then back up at her.

“...Can I just have all four? I don’t think I ate breakfast, lunch or dinner yesterday.” Food had been the last thing on my mind.

“A man after my own tastes, I see! Stress-eating is the noblest kind of eating,” she replied. She tilted her machete downwards a bit, and I quickly cupped my hands to catch the sliding strips of meaty goodness. I juggled them around in my hands as the worst of the heat dissipated.

“You don’t know the half of it. Got any plates?” Cook shook her head.

“Nope. We have a couple of bowls for soup, but I just cleaned those. Find a rock or something.” She looked at me for a moment, and screwed up her face a little. “Why are you here anyways? No offense- I like Doctors, and you seem cool! But you don’t seem like someone who’s traveled before, and New Vegas is far away. What brought this on?”

I thought for a second. I had deliberately withheld that information from Gram because I wasn’t sure how he’d react, but I wasn’t really worried about Cook. Would she tell Gram? Would he be annoyed that I’d been withholding information?

Was I maybe overthinking this a little?

“My mom’s sick. I need to see the Followers to get her help, and they’re stationed in New Vegas now.”

There. Noncommittal- I didn’t say she was dying, just that she needed help. I didn’t let on too much about the circumstances, either. I just told the truth. And I always say, reluctant honesty is the best policy, on account of It fostering character growth or something.

Come to think of it, I was starting to see why characters in the books that father always read me didn’t just dump their deepest, darkest problems on each other as soon as they met. I’d always been of the mind that most of their problems would be cleared up if they were just honest with each other- that was my thinking behind the examination. But now, I was seeing firsthand the dangers of sharing information with new people. If I told Gram or Tandi the wrong thing, or presented it the wrong way, I could see myself winding up abandoned.

Cook seemed safe, though. Where Gram seemed to care only as it related to running an effective team, and Tandi didn’t seem to care at all, Cook seemed endlessly fascinated by most things. In the examination room, she had been interested by my hand, by her own strange biology, and seemingly just by me.

Based off of that, I was pretty sure she wasn’t testing me or looking for a reaction when she asked that question. She just really wanted to know.

“Oh. I’m gonna guess that what she has is terminal?” ventured Cook, trying to make scary eye contact for some reason. I sighed.

“...Yeah. My mom has cancer. Nothing I can do about it, but I know some doctors who I’m hoping to convince to come back and help. My Aunt Julie is kind of a big deal there, and I’ll bet I could guilt trip her.”

“Oh.” We both sat in silence.

Well, there went keeping that part a secret . Still, it didn’t really matter- if I was desperate enough to mosey on up from Primm to New Vegas and beg for help, anyone with an ounce of brainpower could guess that the situation was pretty serious.

I started munching on my strips of bacon, which admittedly brightened my mood a little. I think I was on about the third piece of bacon when Cook finally decided to try to restart the conversation.

“I’m really sorry- not about your mom- well, obviously about your mom, but also about…

"Bringing it up like that,” I said, finishing her thought for her. She tugged at the hem of her dress.

“Yeah. I don’t always think before I talk.”

Well, I could understand that, at least. Not that I didn’t think before I spoke, but that I didn’t think about the right things before I spoke. I’ve always tried my best to be kind to everyone, but my idea of kindness is a lot different than most people’s. For example, most people will tell you that they’d like for you to tell the truth, which is good- I like telling the truth, makes me feel better- but when you tell them the truth, they get all upset and tell you that you shouldn’t be so mean. It’s infuriating- if they want me to lie, why don’t they fuckin tell me so?

Well, actually, maybe that’s a bit too much to expect, but it would be nice if they didn’t preface it with, “ Be honest ,” seeing as how they expect the opposite. But I digress.

“It’s okay- I have a similar problem,” I replied. Then I thought back a little, and decided to be proactive. “Actually, can I ask you a quick question?”

Cook nodded. “Ask away!”

“When you say, “be honest,” do you mean it? Like, I’ve noticed that a lot of people tell me that, and then when I tell them the truth they get all freaked out. You ain’t going to do that, right?” I asked. She grinned.

“Oh, thank gosh- I thought you were about to start asking me about my past or something. Um, no, I definitely won’t freak out if you’re honest with me. Actually, I kind of hate it when people mince words to make things sound better,” she replied, scooping up another few strips of bacon with her machete. She offered me one.

“No, but thank you!” I instinctively backed up a few inches as the blade came within chopping-distance of my nose. She smirked.

“More for me, I guess.” I watched with confusion and fascination as Cook flicked her machete, tossing all three strips of bacon into the air, and then subsequently caught them with her mouth. I couldn’t pretend that that wasn’t kind of impressive, but I honestly wasn’t sure how to show my appreciation for a stunt like that.

“That was kinda nasty,” I offered. Cook scoffed at me through the bacon.

“Oh, come on, you’re a doctor! Isn’t your bar for what’s, “nasty” a little higher than that?” I shrugged.

“I never said that stuff wasn’t nasty. But, I poke around people’s guts all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever watched someone do that before,” I replied. That was a little bit of a fib- I actually didn’t root around inside people’s internals very often. In fact, yesterday was the first time that I’d done anything that involved so much blood. But, I’d seen father do the same thing a thousand times, and I’d practiced on corpses and looked at diagrams, gotten a sense for what it was like. Even by that time in my life, the smell of blood on skin was one I wasn’t ever gonna forget.

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment- I made a doctor sick to his stomach,” she said, finishing off the last of the bacon and wiping her mouth. I shook my head.

“No, see, I didn’t say you made me sick, I said it was “ kinda nasty- ” there’s a big difference!”

“You two, shut up and pack your shit! We’re leaving!”

We both turned around to face Tandi, who had been stalking up behind us, helmet underneath her arm. She looked a lot better in the morning sunlight than she did in the sickly glow of the flash-lit shed. Her hair flowed behind her as the wind blew, and she was able to stand at her full, impressive height, which was at least a foot taller than me. Cook and I were both completely dwarfed by that woman.

“I’m already packed--Isaac isn’t, but that’s my fault. I fetched him for breakfast before he could finish,” said Cook, and I silently appreciated her jumping to my defense like that. Tandi rolled her eyes at us with her entire upper body, and pointed in the direction of the shed.

“Well get to it then! I’m gonna scout ahead, check the usual places. Don’t do nothing stupid,” she suggested, slipping her helmet back on. Before I could think of a clever retort, Tandi was already out of earshot. She gave Gram a lazy salute as she strolled past him, and he tossed her something- a rifle, I think. She caught it with practiced ease. Then she strode behind the boulder, and out of sight.

“She’s real scary,” I decided. Cook shrugged.

“I like her. I mean, she’s not usually this mean- She’s just not a morning person. Give her some time, eh? She’ll warm up.” I gave her a look that suggested the opposite.

“Really? What could she possibly like about me? I’m a small-town doctor, she wouldn’t let someone like me tie her boot-laces!” Cook looked annoyed now. Were they actually friends or something?

“Yeah, and I’m a cook, if you couldn’t tell! She doesn’t care what you do, she cares what kind of person you are. As long as you aren’t a complete coward or one of Caesar’s cronies, she’ll be fine with you.”

I sighed. “Okay, maybe. I’m still just gonna stay out of her way unless I’ve got to.” Cook didn’t argue with that. I looked up at the hillside that the shed lay behind. “Do you want to help me pack up?”

She shrugged. “I guess. I’ve really got nothing better to do.

That was fine by me.

-Break-

“How’s that yellow brick road song go? We should be hummin’ that right now,” suggested Tandi, strolling beside me and Gram. Cook was sitting on the top of the wagon, enjoying a midmorning snack of NCR rationed trail-mix.

“You mean the Elton John one? It’s like, “ When are you gonna come down, When are you going to Land -“ started Gram, getting into the rhythm of the song with his gravelly voice. Tandi shook her head.

“Nah, not that hippy shit! I’m talkin’ about the one that the little brat in the wizard movie sings!” I perked up at that.

“You’re talking about the Wizard of Oz!” I replied. That movie was like, one of three that I had ever seen! Tandi nodded.

"Yeah, that one! How’s the song go?”

“Well, it’s like, “ Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Follow the Yellow Brick road !” and then there’s a trumpet thing and then they start singing that they’re, ‘ off to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz ,” I explained, doing a happy little jig as I sang each musical number. I couldn’t see Tandi’s expression, but I don’t think she was very impressed.

“That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. After a brief pause, she began to hum the song. I hummed along, and eventually, Cook caught on and started humming too. Gram just looked annoyed.

"We’re off to see the wizard ...” Gram rolled his eyes at me. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz! Come on, sing with me!”

“Yeah! I’ve heard you sing before, you’ve got a great voice!” said Cook. Tandi just kept humming along, walking forwards just a little faster than the rest of us as she hummed. The humming was surprisingly recognizable, given that it was being so grossly distorted.

“The Wizard of Oz is one becozzzzz…” I started, grinning evilly at Gram. He lit a cigar.

“I consider this your fault.”

Tandi began to hum louder, and Cook took that as a cue to join back in. I just grinned and kept humming along, happy to lighten the mood for the other two. It was getting really hot, after all, and we had already walked a couple of miles this morning.

Still humming, I checked the route guidance on my pip-boy. We were currently bound for Sloan, a little NCR mining town to our West, which was still many miles away. Thankfully, the highway was flat--slightly downhill actually, so the journey wasn’t even hard on my legs. Mom and I would go hiking up to the old cell tower back in the day, and I’d been keeping in decent shape by running the neighborhood almost every morning since then.

The others weren’t tiring either, which was refreshing. Tandi was so well exercised (and determined) that she could probably walk up a 90 degree slope, and Gram just seemed to be perpetually strolling through some sort of imaginary park. It wasn’t so much that he was fit, but that he saved his energy so well that it was almost supernatural.

Cook, on the other hand, was not big on hiking. I didn’t get the impression that she did any sort of dedicated exercises, and she was a lot heavier than any of the rest of us. So, she usually just sat on the top of the wagon, occasionally getting down and walking with us for a while. It was kind of fun to wave to her and shout back and forth from the ground to the top of the caravan though, so I didn’t judge.

Despite my ability to keep up, I still got the sense I was doing something wrong. The sun seemed to be getting to me a lot more than the others, which was strange considering how much time I spent outside. I was fanning myself off, taking little breaks behind the occasional shade-granting boulder, and even staying hydrated (despite our best attempts to run out our water reserves before we reached Sloan.)

So, I gave myself a mission: as we walked, I tried to look out for things that the others might be doing differently. At first, my search was fruitless--I didn’t notice anything different. We were all wearing long sleeves, (Except Cook, who was still wearing a sundress, and also keeping her back to the sun which I think meant she was taking my advice.) we were all walking at a comfortable pace, and we were all taking steps to stay hydrated. Then, as I was doing a quick scan, I noticed something-

H A T S

They all had hats!

Gram wore a bowler hat, Cook wore a baseball cap with a maple leaf on it (or sometimes a floppy hat,) and Tandi was rocking her ranger helmet. Did it really make that big of a difference? There was only one way to find out.

“Hey, Gram! Do you maybe have like, a hat I could use?”

Without even turning around, Gram chuckled at me- had he been expecting this? Did this happen to every new recruit or something? I felt a little bit like I’d failed another test.

“I was waiting for you to ask. Yeah, I got a few choices. You wouldn’t believe the difference they make!”

So he had been expecting this! I tried not to look forlorn as Gram stopped the Brahmin, opened up the back of the wagon, and ushered me inside.

I hadn’t ever seen the inside of the thing. The frame of the wagon was made of wood, I noted, and it had open sides, but Gram had covered it in brown-colored blankets, except for the place where a spigot for getting water stuck out the side of the wagon. The doors in the back weren’t locked in any sort of way, although there was a bar that Gram had to slide so that they could open up, probably so that it wouldn’t come open by accident.

Inside, there was a big black box- in fact, the frame of the wagon had been slightly modified to hold the thing, it was so big. The box was clearly locked, and it took up almost all the space inside the wagon. In the space that the box didn’t take up, there was a machine gun, a laser rifle, cooking supplies, some sort of emergency-medical-supplies box that I was pretty sure was made to hold stimpacks, a bunch of tangled up electronics that I wouldn’t even try to identify, and a few hooks with spare clothes hanging on them. At the tip of each hook was a hat or helmet, bobbing pleasantly as the wagon came to a complete stop.

“Well, Isaac, take your pick- if you can’t reach it, we can get Tandi,” said Gram, indicating the helmets in the very back of the wagon, a space that was hard to reach on account of the massive black box. I gave it a kick.

“What’s in here?” I asked. Gram shrugged.

“The NCR wouldn’t tell me- they just said that it was important, and sent me on my way.” He leaned over like he was getting ready to spill me a secret. I gave him my ear. “They promised me a hundred-thousand caps for this. None of those NCR dollars- good, solid caps. And a hunded thousand, do you know what that could buy? That’s enough to disrupt this economy in a big way. That’s more than I’ve made on every other shipment combined.”

Normally, I didn’t think much about money, but I had to admit that the number floored me. The things that a man could do with a hundred-thousand caps…

Of course, it was the NCR offering the money, so I was pretty sure Gram was going to get fleeced somehow. They would impose some ridiculous tax on his payment, or just plain sweep him under the rug, since the whole deal had presumably been made in secret. That was how the NCR operated- it was part of why the Followers had been so reluctant to work with them, and why father had hated them so much. And to be honest with you, I couldn’t disagree with him. The NCR wanted a police state, and freedom wasn’t something I took lightly. I figured that people don’t need a bunch of jackbooted thugs with barking-irons telling them how to live their lives, when they had been perfectly content before. Raiders were a problem, sure, but the NCR had really only made the problem worse by acknowledging the issue and then failing to do anything about it.

Of course, the NCR was also the only thing keeping the legion from coming in and killing us all, so I tolerated them for that. No matter how much the NCR might’ve sucked, they were better than Caesar’s Legion. At least some of them thought they were doing the right thing, even if most of them were hopelessly corrupt…

“Isaac? You gonna choose a hat?” Asked Gram. He only seemed a little bit bothered.

“Yeah, of course. Sorry,” I murmured, and started scanning the hats on display. There was a floppy hat, a tan ballistic helmet, an old firefighter-helmet, a police cap, another floppy hat...

“I’ll take the fire helmet,” I said, and pointed at the scratched grey helmet that shared a hook with a bomber jacket and a couple of sundresses. It didn’t have quite the same sun-blocking properties as a floppy hat, or the safety features of a ballistic helmet, but I’d worn a fire helmet before and it seemed like it would perform both roles fairly well.

“Alright. Can you reach it?” I nodded.

“Hell yeah I can reach it!” Though it was on one of the farther hooks, I compensated by pushing myself up to the top of the black box with one hand, and reaching for the helmet with my weird hand. I wasn’t tall enough to pull it off the hook, so instead I knocked it off from the bottom and grabbed it from on top of the black box. Once I had secured it, I let myself slide down.

“Got it,” I muttered, and slipped the helmet on. Because of some convenient rigging inside the helmet, it was surprisingly snug on my head, though I could feel it bob a little when I moved.

“Well, it’s loose for sure, but it’ll give you some good shade. Has your decision got anything to do with the thing on the front?” he asked, poking me in the center of my helmet with his finger, right where the emblem sat. I nodded sheepishly. Part of the reason I had picked it was, indeed, on account of the cool blue star of life on the front. I knew I wasn’t anything like the paramedics of the past, but I had considered them to be a sort of ideal when I was younger. Since then, I’d never quite shaken the idea of being like a pre-war medic.

“Well, come on, let’s not lose any more time. We’re closer than you might think,” he said, leading me out of the wagon. He shut the doors, and looked over the caravan with a big grin.

"In fact, riiiiggght around this bend, we’ll be able to see Sloan. We’re booming along today, just absolutely killing it! Who knows- maybe we can even get back on the road after we stop,” he continued, clearly trying to get a rise out of us. On cue, Cook groaned obnoxiously, and Tandi mumbled something about armor plates and sweat. I groaned too, but my heart wasn’t in it- I was on this journey to save mom, and the quicker it went, and the fewer hitches we ran into, the more successful I was likely to be.

“Sloan-Ho!” shouted Cook as the cart rounded the bend in the highway that had been necessitated by two giant, rocky hills. Tandi snorted at that, and I gotta admit that I smiled a little too. The town of Sloan, though still far away, was now straight ahead.

New Vegas was a long ways away from here, but I was glad that we were already making so much progress. Considering how well things had been going, it was all too easy to forget that I was on a tight, invisible timer, slowly counting down to, “too late.”

[+]

#fallout #fallout fanfic #fallout fanfiction #fallout fandom

0 notes

michael-hearteyes-wheeler · 6 years

Text

Bad Brains

[1]

Chapter 2: Horror Business

(AO3) (FF.net)

November 13th, 1987.

“I really think this is a bad idea.”

El had been repeating that phrase over and over again as she and Max, snuck through the empty school hallways.

“For the last time, everything is going to be fine!” Max snapped back in a half whisper, half yell. “And besides, this idea is awesome.” Max’s face quirked back into the same devilish grin she had been flaunting all day in preparation for her master plan.

They were going to cover Mr. Thompson’s classroom in toilet paper.

Mr. Thompson was one of the most hated teachers in school, and the pop quiz he had sprung on his entire class had only made matters worse. El and Max were now failing, as were most of the Hawkins High Junior student body. The girls were pissed to say the least, and Max had come up with the ‘brilliant’ plan to get back at him by trashing his classroom. At first it seemed like a hilarious, even justifiable way to get back at the world's worst History teacher, but now that El and Max were sneaking through the school, backpacks full of toilet paper and eggs, it didn’t feel so thrilling.

“If we get caught we are going to be dead for sure.” El whispered, her eyes anxiously peering around the set of lockers they were using as cover.

“We won't get caught!” Max whisper/yelled again. “It's a friday after school, no one would be caught dead hanging around here. So all we have to do is avoid any teachers who are still packing up for the weekend. Now come on!”

Max decided the coast was clear, and the two girls tiptoed down the next hallway. They were only a few turns away from their target, but they were coming up on the teachers lounge, and they could hear chatter coming from inside. The girls waited silently in a small drinking fountain alcove, and as soon as the gossiping teachers left, they ran into the final hall.

El had to admit, it was kind of exciting, and if she could get a grip on her anxiety she might have actually had fun. She was only a few months into her first semester of High school in a new town, and she had already made quite the name for herself with Max’s help.

“Badass girls like us need to stick together.” Max had said that fateful day behind the dumpster, while El was covered in garbage sludge. Max had been the new kid before El came along, so she knew a thing or two about being the town spectacle.

They were the dynamic duo, and everyone knew not to mess with them. Whether they were walking around downtown, sneaking cigarettes behind the gym, or pulling some elaborate prank, they were always at each others sides. And now as they ran from locker bank to locker bank, it was hard to believe they had only been friends for a few months.

“Shit do you hear that!?” El squeaked as she heard the unmistakable sound of dress shoes on linoleum. There were no resesis, or empty classrooms to duck into in this particular wing. El felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest, but Max was cool and stealthy. The fire haired girl grabbed Els wrist and pulled her into the only door on this side of the building. It looked like maybe a janitor's closet or storage room, but lucky for them it was unlocked.

They threw the door open and rushed inside, just as Mr. Thompson himself rounded the corner towards them. Max eased the door shut as not to make a sound, and the girls whipped around to find four sets of wide eyes staring at them.

“What are you doing?” A boy El recognized as Lucas ‘Midnight’ Sinclair said from the corner of the room. She had a few classes with him, and some of the other boys in the room as well

Shit. They had walked in on the school nerds.

“We didn't think anyone would be in here.” Max huffed, crossing her arms.

“Okay... But why are you in here at all?” Dustin ‘Toothless’ Henderson said standing up. She shared more classes with him than the other boys, but they had never talked.

“Were hiding.” Max said matter-of-factly.

“From what?” Will Byers eyes widened. If something was scary enough to make El and Max hide, then he was doomed.

“None of your business!” Max said, looking down her nose at the boys.

“Uh it kind of is our business. You just barged in here and disrupted out meeting.” The forth boy stood up from his seat behind the rooms small table. El almost gasped when she saw it was none other than Mike ‘Frogface’ Wheeler.

Of course it was, wherever the other dorks where Mike was sure to be. She had English with him, and while she would never admit it, she had always thought he was kind of cute. Most of the boys at school made her want to gag, but something about Mike was different. But he was a nerd, and she knew Max would never let her live it down. She mentally slapped herself back into the situation at hand.

“Meeting? Like a dork convention.” Max snickered, but the boys faces were serious. “Look, we didn't know that this was your little club house okay? We just didn't want Mr. Thompson to see us.”

“Mr. Thompson? Ugh that guy is the worst!” Lucas groaned.

“No shit! That's why we are gonna pull a prank on him to get back for that stupid pop quiz.” Max boasted, leaning back against the door frame.

“Really!” What are you going to do?” Dustin asked, suddenly giddy.

“Why? So you can go tattle on me?” Max patronized.

During this entire ordeal El just shuffled around nervously. While she was no stranger to confrontation, Max usually took the lead. El found herself glancing up at Mike, and more times than not he was already staring at her.

‘Of course he is! You are some weird stranger who just interrupted his meeting’ El told herself feeling like a dope.

Mike was staring at El, but it wasn't just because she was a weird stranger. From the first time he walked into their shared English class and saw her black rimmed eyes and ‘Black Flag’ t-shirt he knew that she was no joke, and when she started hanging around Max it only got worse. Those girls gave off a vibe that said ‘run for the hills’ and together they were a seemingly unstoppable force of pure punk rock power. But to his surprise, she was always quiet, and respectful. She never ‘threatened to beat someone up’ or ‘raved like a lunatic’ the way everyone had predicted. Over the months he had found himself feeling quite fond of watching the way she chewed her pencil, or the way she scrunched her face when she didn't know the answer to a question. And now that she was standing in his AV Club, he couldn't stop staring at her. The way she shifted her weight back and forth, clearly just as uncomfortable with the situation as he was, it made her seem completely harmless, despite the black rimmed eyes and leather jacket.

‘Maybe she isn't a total freak.’

He took a deep breath and steadied himself, listening in on the argument Max was having with Lucas and Dustin.

“Fine! We are going to TP his classroom!” Max finally snapped, throwing her arms up in the air from exasperation.

“Really!?” All four boys gasped in unison.

“Yes really. And if you tell anyone you are dead!” She jabbed a finger at them.

The boys looked at each other, and then back at the girls. Lucas whispered something to Dustin, and Dustin whispered something back. They really were dorky. Like they all shared one super brain. Max rolled her eyes and turned around to peak through the door.

“I think it's clear now. So sorry for interrupting your little geek gathering or whatever but we have business to finish.” Max waved at the boys condescendingly and pulled the door open a bit wider, but Dustin cut her off.

“Can we come with you?” He blurted, much louder and faster than he had meant to. Max's face creased in confusion and she slowly turned back around, closing the door behind her.

“You want to come with us?” Her voice was like venom.

“I don't think that is a good idea.” Mike scoffed at his curly haired friend.

“Yes it is, Mike! Thompson is an asshole.” Dustin retorted.

“It would be awesome!” Lucas added.

“What if we get caught?” Will piped up sheepishly.

“I never said you could come!” Max interjected, yelling over the banter.

“Well... Can Dustin and I come at least?” Lucas stepped forward smiling, backpack in hand.

Max and El eyed each other with similar looks of confusion. Nerds weren't supposed to want to break rules and pull pranks, where they? Max pulled El arms so she could whisper into her ear, cupping a hand over her mouth to block it from the boys view.

“What the hell do they want to come along for?” Max whispered sharply.

“Everyone hates Thompson I guess.” El whispered back, mirroring Maxs hand partition.

“But they are going to ruin the whole thing! I bet they have never pulled a prank in their lives.” Max scowled in disgust.

El thought for a moment, she wasn't so sure that Max was right. In the classes she shared with Dustin, he had shown up late almost more times than she had. And he had certainly gotten in more trouble for talking during a lecture. She had seen Lucas reading comic books behind his textbook, and she had noticed him casually pass test answers to other kids in class while pretending to yawn. She had even seen Mike mess with their English teacher a time or too by shutting off or unplugging the projector so she couldn't give her presentation. They were nerds for sure, but maybe they were a bit more wild than Max was giving them credit for.

“Thompson just left so we are in the clear. It might be fun.” El encouraged, glancing over at the very eager Lucas and Dustin.

“Fine.” Max sighed rolling her eyes and pulling away from their huddle. “You can come. But try to keep up?” Max whipped around and opened the door again.

El followed her out, looking up and down the now deserted hallway. Dustin and Lucas were right on her heels, muttering to each other excitedly. El looked back at them, and was stunned to see tiny Will and a hesitant Mike following as well. The group made their way down the long hallway and stopped at Thompson door. Max reached out for the handle but the door didn't budge.

“Its locked!” She turned around and threw her arms up with frustration. “El do you have a bobby pin?” Max asked hopefully, but she already knew the answer. El shook her head. She never wore bobby pins, instead always wearing her hair slicked back with a firm layer of Aquanet and pomade.

The boys faces fell in disappointment. Here was their chance to do something cool and it was over before it even started! Mike sighed and dropped his backpack to the floor and started digging through it. Everyone turned to look at him, questioning what he could possibly need at a time like this. A moment later he pulled a small keychain from one of the front pocket and walked towards the door. He searched through to find the right key and a second later he pushed the door open. He still looked a bit annoyed, but El could see the secret pride and excitement in his eyes.

“Way to go, Wheeler!” Max slapped him hard on the back and ran into the open room, the other boys all pouring in after her. Mike held the door open and El fell to the back of the line.

“How do you have his key?” El asked astonished.

Mike chuckled and tucked the keyring back into his bag. “I'm the AV club president, so they gave me a master key to all the doors in the school.” El watched the slightest tint of red creep over his cheeks, illuminating his freckles.

‘Freckles!? He has freckles? I thought he was cute before but now-’ El shook the thought out of her head and walked into the room.

Max reached into her own bag and passed a roll of toilet paper out to each of the boys. El retrieved the rolls from her own bag and handed Mike a carton of eggs. Mike eyed the carton suspiciously, but El noticed the corners of his mouth turning up in eager anticipation. Will locked the door behind them and as everyone got into position, now armed and ready, the room sprang into action.

Toilet paper went soaring through the air, this way and that, like white comets. Dustin yelled with excitement and jumped on top of Mr. Thompson's desks, kicking his papers onto the floor and wrapping his chair in tissue.

Lucas and Max ran up and down the rows of desks, until each and every chair was knotted into a web of paper. Will found Thompsons chalkboard erasers and slammed them together, sending multicolored dest out over the room and covering every surface. El abandoned her toilet paper and joined Mike at the front of the room, one by one they sent the eggs flying like grenades.

“Max duck!” El screamed as a poorly aimed egg almost clocked her in the side of the head. Max was almost too busy laughing with Lucas to hear, but she avoiding the egg missile just in time. El was laughing so hard that she felt like her stomach was going to split open, and Mike was giggling right alongside her.

Dustin sent his last roll careening over the room into El hands, and she sent it back so it criss-crossed the entire classroom. The scene was perfect. This would take hours to clean up! Maybe even days if the eggs spoiled over the weekend! El and Max had Thompson first period, and there was no way in hell he was going to be able to have class in all the mess, he would have to cancel for sure.

“Holy shit!” Lucas gaped, pointing a finger at the front of the class where Will was creating a masterpiece.

There on the blackboard, Will had drawn a crude caricature of Mr. Thompson, with a largely exaggerated nose dripping snot, and a bird flying over his head that was making a mess of its own. Will was adding the finishing touch: a speech bubble stating ‘I'm an asshole!’ The entire image was the perfect finishing touch to a trashed classroom.

The boys all cheered for Will, patting him on the back. Max and El were shocked, the nerds were almost more into this prank than they were.

“I told you it would be fun to bring them.” El elbowed her friend playfully in the side.

“And I told you this was a great idea from the start!” Max elbowed her back. “Plus you just wanted to show off for your little dorky boyfriend” Max stretched out the last word into a sing-songy phrase. El eyes went wide and she turned sharply to make sure the boys had not heard.

“What are you talking about!?” El snapped, whisper/yelling just like before.

“You know exactly what im talking about! You stare at him all the time like a big dope.” Max clasped her hands together and batted her eyes for dramatic effect.

“I do not!” El said, slightly louder then he had meant to.

“Do to! But whatever, I mean I guess he isn't a complete dweeb.” Max elbowed her again and El just stared back completely floored. She had been so careful! How had Max known!?

Max stepped past a dumbfounded El and addressed the giddy boys, still high off of their first real encounter with breaking the rules. “Alright nerds, we need to get out of here.” She grabbed her backpack from the floor and threw it over her shoulder.

The rest of the group followed suit and they headed back out into the desolate hallway. El, still a bit bewildered, hung behind to make sure they didn't leave any evidence behind.

“Do you guys do stuff like this a lot?” A voice snapped her to attention. Mikes voice.

El hadn't realised that she wasn't alone and she felt hot red blush roll over her face. “Uhh... not really just... sometimes.” She stuttered.

‘Stop being a loser. It's just Mike Wheeler!’ She thought, trying to steady herself.

“Where you the ones who poured cooking oil all over the gym floor?” Mike asked smiling. El nodded, a reminiscent grin stretching across her face.

“That was awesome! I was really thankful because it was-”

“Dodgeball day.” El interupted, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her hair always lost its sleek composure at the end of a long day.

“Yeah! Exactly.” Mike's was beaming at her, and it made her feel like she was going to explode. “Were you the ones who put bees in Principal Murphys car!?” He asked taking a step towards her.

“No that one wasn't us, I heard it was a couple of Sophomores, but it was a good one!” El felt strangely proud. “But we did replace Troys stupid switchblade with a toy.” She smirked.

“That was you!? Oh my god that was the funniest thing I had ever seen! He was so pissed! He whipped out his knife all menacing and then it was just plastic!” Mike chuckled at the memory, and El joined him in imagining the look on his face but then it became clear what he had just admitted to.

“Wait... Troy tried to pull his knife on you?” El gaped.

Mike nervously scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “Uh yeah... but it's not big deal, it's not like it was the first time. But I guess you like saved me or whatever so thanks.” He smiled crookedly at her.

‘Troy you absolute bastard who do you think you are!?’ El wanted to scream

But that probably was too much to say to someone she had just officially met. So instead she shrugged. “You're welcome.” She tried to say it smuggly the way Max would have but it came out more whole-hearted than intended.

“Hey love-birds! Are you coming or not!?” Max yelled through the open door, skateboard in hand.

Els eyes widened in shock, before settling into an angry grimace, eyes piercing like daggers sending a look of ‘how dare you say that i'm going to kick your ass.’ But Max just laughed and motioned for them to follow.

They headed out into the hallway and Mike locked the door behind them. They walked with Max out through one of the seldom used back doors of the school and met up with the other boys.

Will, Lucas, and Dustin were enthusiastically recounting every detail of the event that had occurred less than five minutes before. El giggled at them but Max just rolled her eyes.

“Thanks for helping us out in there or whatever. We did a lot more damage with your added tenacity.” Max said, only half sarcastically.

“It was really cool! We have never done anything like that before.” Lucas smiled, missing her cynicism.

“Yeah no shit.” Max smiled, playfully punched Lucas in the arm. “Just don't think that this makes us friends.”

The boys faces fell from excited to hurt. Clearly they hadn't picked up on the fact that almost everything Max said was laced thick with sarcasm.

“Oh... well yeah... We wouldn't want to be friends with you anyway.” Dustin crossed his arms.

Max and El looked at each other equally puzzled. Had they taken her seriously? Both girls couldn't help but laugh, leaning over and holding their guts. The boys shuffled nervously, feeling uncomfortable.

Max punched Dustin in his arm the way she had Lucas just a moment before. “You guys are cooler than I would have thought. We will see you losers, Monday.” She dropped her skateboard on the ground and hopped aboard, kicking off and slowly coasting down the hill.

“Wait so... are we friends or not?” Dustin hollered behind her completely clueless.

El was about to turn around and follow her friend, when she decided that they looked too dejected to just bail. So she smiled and tried to look non threatening and addressed Mike before turning around to leave. “We are going to the arcade tomorrow around lunch time. You should meet us there.”

“Uh...” Mike looked behind him at his friends who all nodded quickly. “yeah sure.” Mike mumbled.

“Bitchin’ See you then.” And with that, El walked down the hill after Max.

The boys watched the girls recede in silence. Lucas, Dustin, and Mike all had massive smiles plastered on their faces. Will was still a bit shaken over the whole situation but he had to admit, he did feel pretty badass.

“Wait... Did she say the arcade?” Dustin finally asked, Els fleeting message finally dawning on him.

“Yeah, I didnt think girls played video games.” Will added.

“Well how many girls do you know who skateboard, and pull pranks?” Lucas defunded.

“I guess that's true. They are pretty-” Dustin started.

“Badass.” Lucas and Mike mused in unison.

As the girls headed down the hill, they couldn't keep from smiling, and then giggling, and then full force laughing. Max had to stop skating so she wouldn't fall. They had had fun, more fun than they probably would have had just the two of them, and with the school's biggest nerds of all people!

“Did you see Mikes face when he threw those eggs!? His aim was so bad!” El held her gut.

“Because he was too busy making heart-eyes at you!” Max teased, El glared at her but kept laughing. “But did you catch the way Lucas was screaming!? He sounded like an angry bear!” Max giggled.

“He was so trying to impress you!” El teased back, Max's face gaped in exaggerated horror.

“Was not!”

“Was too!”

They continued their roaring laughter, recounting the way Dustin looked like a howler monkey up on the desk, and the way Will had perfectly captured Thompsons ugly mug. Finally they both caught theirs breathes and regained their composure so they could finally set off again. This time max carried her board and walked next to El.

They walked in silence for a while before El felt a strange anxiety rising in her stomach. She didn't like it when people knew things about her, especially not things that she had tried to hard to hide.

“So how did you know?” She blurted. Max gave her a confused glance so she continued. “That I... like kinda sorta might....” She picked her words carefully. “Kinda like Mike Wheeler?”

Max snorted and threw her head back in exasperation. “Because it's painfully obvious! You stare at him from across the cafeteria like everyday, and sometimes you don't even hear me talking to you in the halls because you see him walking ahead of us or getting into his locker.”

El felt her face get hot with embarrassment. Maybe she hadn't been very good at hiding it after all, and it was painful to realise that she really did act like a dweeb around him.

“I don't understand it at all, but I guess some girls are into that whole ‘granny knits all my clothes’ thing. I figured you would just move on or something. Guess not.” Max smirked, patting El firmly on the back.

“Guess not.” El sighed, thinking about how much fun she had just had with him. “You were right Max.”

The fire haired girl stepped back on her board and looked to El for an explanation

“That was an awesome plan.”

15 notes · View notes

scoobiesminyard · 7 years

Text

Thoughts on IT

(spoiler free unless you don’t want to know ANYTHING)

- I’m about to do what I disliked about other reviews, say who I thought was best in the film….sorry other cast members!

- Richie/Finn: Oh my god, Richie was fucking hilarious. I laughed so much, along with the whole theatre. He definitely stole the show, Finn is so talented. Its been a day and I’m still laughing at his lines when they come into my head. His sense of humour has become a lot less offensive and a hell of a lot funnier. It feels like Richie had the most screen time and some of the other Losers suffered due to it, but I just can’t imagine cutting any of his scenes or lines

- Ben/Jeremy: I love Jeremy, but I didn’t expect to enjoy his performance as much as I did. He and Richie were my favourite losers in this film (even though Eddie and Mike were my favourite in the book) and I don’t understand why more reviews aren’t calling out Jeremy for an excellent performance like they are for Finn and Sophia. His introduction scene is probably one of my three favourite in the whole movie- another hilarious scene but it had such heart behind it and Jeremy was just brilliant, as was Sophia

- Bev/Sophia was also excellent. Bev is a really enjoyable character in this movie, she is a love interest and the film avoids making her a sexy lamp or a plot device by really adding to her character and giving her some strong individual scenes. She’s definitely romanticized but she definitely is a lot more than a love interest. There is one scene with the whole ‘everyone is in love with Bev’ schtick but it was funny enough that I didn’t mind. I think the film also avoided the damsel in distress trope pretty well. Bev is a really interesting, well defined character and Sophia did a great job!

- I don’t have much to say about the others but they were all great! Great performances from all, they just didn’t stand out as much as those three

- I really enjoyed the Losers Club and their dynamic as a team and as a friendship. I wish we had gotten just a little more scenes like the swimming one, where they are just having fun (after all, they played games in between fighting IT in the novel) but it was pretty clear that the film was cramped for time…

- the film did feel at times like it was rushing through a checklist of scenes that it had to get through, to set up the plot or characters. The film lacked some stuff (particular losers suffered from a lack of screen time, see next point) Maybe this sounds odd considering IT has such a long runtime, but I got the impression they struggled with actually narrowing it down to that time. They definitely cut a few scenes, one pretty important one that was seen in multiple trailers (I was disappointed to see it go and I’m definitely not gonna be the only one). There was one sequence where it suddenly jumped to a different person nearby and I don’t know whether they cut a scene in between or edited it poorly but I still don’t know how they got there or what they were doing or where they actually were? It’s hard to explain without spoiling but yeah, that scene confused me

- Stan and Mike, particularly Mike, definitely didn’t get enough screen time. Stan probably had more actual screen time then Ben but Ben just felt more present, since he had more importance in the story and an important relationship with Bev. Stan was one of the original 4 losers but he had the least dialogue out of all of them and its a shame, Wyatt is really talented and I would have liked to have seen more. I can tell Stan was the victim of a few cut scenes. I also feel pretty sorry for poor Chosen as Mike, who was under-utilized and just…. joined the losers. There was no scene of him getting to know them, no bonding scene for the whole seven. He just joined the Losers and went with them to kill IT. He did have his own character arch, which I enjoyed but he still had the least screen time, which is unfortunate, especially considering how important he is in the sequel

- As for the horror, I wasn’t scared during the trailers and I wasn’t scared during the film (horror films just never feel real enough to genuinely scare me) The audience members did react to the film positively, to the jokes and to the scares. Personally, I thought the horror was a little lazy because (KIND OF SPOILER) nearly every scare was a jump-scare. It was effective but I guess I just expected more. My favourite scary scenes included the first group trip to Neibolt Trip (probably another one of my favourite overall scenes) and the projector scene

- As for the couples, I’m trying not to be biased here but I think people who exclusively ship Bill/Bev after the trailers might just be swayed by Benverly who have some brilliant scenes, their dynamic is great and I can think of one small, hilarious moment they shared which really stood out. They didn’t have any moments in the trailer but they had plenty in the film. A combination of the two really talented actors and a great dynamic made it the superior couple in my mind (then again, I always preferred it to Bill/Bev. To be fair, they had a good dynamic and Jaeden is obviously also very talented! I’m not a fan of the love triangle in media but I could stomach this one.

As for my other IT ship, Reddie did not disappoint. The banter that we saw in the MTV grey water scene was a gift that kept on giving. We also saw a couple moments which showed the genuine closeness between them (one adorable shot made me want to write a fluffy AU immediately, certain scenes in Neibolt Street made me feel very angsty). I don’t mean to overhype this, they definitely aren’t ‘canon’ and I don’t believe their scenes become so overt it nears queerbaiting, just a well written dynamic which is pretty damn shippable. Also Richie/Bill and Richie/Stan shippers will have some moments to enjoy!

- The movie strays from the book quite a lot, I personally didn’t mind but if you’re a book purist then prepare yourself

- I know I did mention a few negative things but overall I really enjoyed the film! I recommend it completely, I had a great time and I can’t wait for everyone else to see it

#it #it 2017 #it the movie #pennywise #the losers club #reddie #benverly #bilverly #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #stan uris #mike hanlon

258 notes · View notes

infinitehours · 5 years

Text

Chapter 5

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn’t heed The Ghost Host’s warning about flash photography and too many bright lights?

What a coincidence; so have I!

Hello and welcome to part 2 of my Ted Talk series, “Let’s Torture Karen For Fun”. Thank you all for joining me here.

Oh. I should mention that this is the “scary” chapter. As in, it probably won’t frighten you, but it is a bit creepier than the other chapters.

There’s a character based off of a face character in Epcot in this chapter. This particular face character I’ve always thought was some kind of spirit when I was younger, hence why they’re referenced here.

Also, you’re going to start to see signs of the references I’ve put in to both the Phantom Manor and the Phantom of the Opera (only natural since the book/musical inspired the Phantom Manor).

Additionally, I wanted to explain/reference the two mansions and why only one has the aging man portrait in the foyer.

Van Winkle was an actual delegate back around that time; I may go back and change it to a fake name later. As well as maybe edit this chapter later. If anyone can give me tips and pointers, that would be appreciated.

Also I apologize for the really terrible art. I will probably go back and edit them later.

~~~~

Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

~~~

Table of Contents Link

~~~

Ch 5: Poor Unfortunate Souls

~~~

”If you want to cross a bridge, My Sweet, You’ve got to pay the toll.”

-Ursula, Disney’s The Little Mermaid

~~~~

Cautiously, she began to climb the stairs. They were going up; not down to where Michael presumably was, but she could swear that statue was going to spring to life at any moment and jump her. And she couldn’t bear to be around when that happened.

On the next floor was another hallway, this time it was framed with doors lining either side as far as she could see.

No, literally. She could not see the end of the hallway.

It seemed to go on for miles and miles; if there even WAS an end to it, it was certainly well out of the visual range of any human being.

Who the heck would even make a house like this?

There was not a soul in a sight, but there was creaking throughout. The walls creaked, the floors creaked; Karen just hoped it was the house settling.

She muttered disgruntled strings of sentences insulting the Ghost Host as she turned at a junction reached for what she had hoped was the light switch for that next set of hallways.

The old fixtures of the chandeliers above her were sluggish in illuminating her surroundings. That wasn’t too comforting when there were shadows at one side that she couldn’t quite account for, but relief came when this turned out to be merely another table with papers.

Out of curiosity (and because it couldn’t possibly make her anymore lost than she already was), she briefly shuffled through them.

Among the items that caught her eye was a newspaper. It was faded in several places, but the words of one particular headline stood out.

“LION EATS MAN

On this morning, officers of the law have found what is believed to be the half eaten remains of local man, one Mr. Hugh Hudson. Mr. Hudson had been reported missing by his cousin and overseer, Mr. Jefferson Lewis of the textile company Williams Textiles, just earlier today, when he had neglected to show for work or respond to visitations to his home. Mr. Hudson frequently suffered from unseemly bouts with the bottle, and it was under such influence that it was believed that he had happened across the grounds of the traveling Circus, The Museum of the Weird.

Although initially a suspect in this terrible tragedy, ------, the owner and ringmaster of the circus”

Karen squinted her eyes, but the name wasn’t faded but deliberately blacked out.

“Although initially a suspect in this terrible tragedy, -----, the owner and ringmaster of the circus has cooperated in full with authorities and was henceforth released from suspicions. He expressed his opinion that exceptional drunkenness was a type of evil, second only to lecherous behavior, and that such tragedies were an inevitable consequence of Mr. Hugh’s choices.

No evidence has been found that would implicate foul play. Officers of the law have investigated and determined that the methods by which the scene happened involved Mr. Hugh hefting himself over the fencing using a nearby ladder. After which, becoming trapped when there was method of climbing on the other side. Authorities are working with the assumption that the remains are, indeed, Mr. Hugh, in spite of the condition they are, which is to say, in rendered completely unidentifiable, as there was a bottle of his favored heavy wet near the beast’s cage. And, furthermore, on the good logic that none others in town have been found to be missing.”

Lion. Unidentified body. And again, that Museum of the Weird.

Karen looked at the date. 1879. Was this the same event that the other letter she had found described?

Underneath the paper were more letters. She opened a few, but most of them had names she didn’t recognize. Until she came across one addressed to ‘A Mr. James Bartholomew Gracey’.

Gracey. That was the surname of the other letter author. She opened it up.

“Mr. James Bartholomew Gracey,

You had wrote previously expressing interest in our convention that took place in Wheeling; I write to you now that we shall hold a second convention on the 11th of June. Ordinarily, only delegates are meant to attend, but as you have previously provided a great service for many of our members I do not think that your presence will incur an uproar.

Take care, my friend. For there have been rumors of late of those who wish to secede stirring trouble in towns. I recognize that you have a certain attachment to your estate, and I do not contest it is very much your birthright, but I urge you to consider relocating closer to Parkersburg, where you could be among the many who share your sentiments. At the very least, I pray you take care until this war reaches its conclusion.

Sincerely,

P. Van Winkle”

This one didn’t have a year date or any other identifying features, but it mentioned a war.

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. This was going to be a headache and a half to make sense of any of this, and likely wouldn’t even get her any closer to finding Michael.

Gracey. Given that she was finding so many letters with that surname, and given that Solomon’s portrait was hanging prominently in the foyer, she’d have to guess that the family lived in this mansion at some point.

She frowned when she went back to staring at the letter. Why was it…darker…?

Looking up, it seemed to have escaped her notice that the hallways she came from were now nearly black. Goosebumps prickled over her arms and neck.

Someone had turned off the lights.

And, judging from the human sized shadow that stood in the murky darkness: that ‘someone’ was still there.

“H-hello?” She asked in a voice much smaller than she’d intended.

The only sounds she could hear was the echoes of a door slamming off somewhere in a distant part of the house. The shadow didn’t change its position.

“Michael?” She said, a little too hopefully. But he would never have pulled a prank like this; she knew that even before she was met with silence once again.

“G-Ghost Host?”

Not a sound. This was likely too subtle for someone as show-offy as he was.

“Please….won’t you….won’t you say something? I can see you, you kn-”

THE SHADOW SUDDENLY LURCHED, JERKY INHUMAN MOVEMENTS COMING CLOSER COMING TO HER

She screamed and turned and fled. Down the hall in the opposite direction, she came across even more intersections and just blindly went down another and another, turning on the light switches as she went because she couldn’t stand to be left in the dark with whatever the heck that thing was.

[Frightfully sensitive to bright lights]

She winched. There it was again, a thought floating to the surface of her mind that distinctively did NOT belong to her. Unlike with the memory of Solomon, this thought didn’t gradually come upon her but was instead thrusted into the forefront of her mind. And complete with an unwanted sense of anxiety to boot.

She dared to look behind her, and despaired to find that the hallways she left were already dark again. Getting desperate and running out of breath, she grabbed the first few things she could find, another table and an unlit candelabra, and positioned them under the light switch so that the prongs of the candelabra held the switch on.

Karen didn’t actually think this was going to do much, but as she went to the next hallway she witnessed the candelabra shake. On its own. Violently, at first, but as she stared, the object moved less and less frequently until it stopped. The light switch remained on.

She sighed in great relief, hoping to all heck that whatever it was, ghost or not, that it had given up its attempts. The shadow certainly didn’t seem prepared to peep around the corner without the darkness there, so for all points and purposes it had worked.

Frightfully sensitive to bright lights…Had that been some kind of hint? Was she somehow peering into the desires of another being? Or was it a purposely sent message? Did the shadow really think she was going to turn off all the lights and allow herself to be at the mercy of a creature she knew nothing about?

She shook those thoughts away. It didn’t matter anymore; a quick glance at the candelabra confirmed it was still there, keeping the lights safely on. And so long as they were on, she apparently needn’t do anything about the shadow.

Another table. Another pile of assorted papers. She’d have briefly scanned over them and just kept moving, as she didn’t want to risk the shadow getting brave, but the top ones….

…Were etchings of the two different types of houses she had seen when they first came across this place.

Just like how she’d seen before. EXACTLY.

One was a Southern style house, with a flat roof and four large Roman-esque pillars surrounding the front door. There was a second story veranda that wrapped around the entire house, with iron wrought bannisters that looked just as decorative as they were practical. Though the etching was in black and white, she recalled from her previous contact that the building was mostly white and looked like it was made of paneled painted wood.

The other was in a style she’d seen around really old houses in mostly the Northeast. A brick building, with roofs slopping at sharp angles and a decorative turret with many decorative toppers scattered on key points of the roof. One of the most notable and visible points of interest was a glass room on the side that formed a half circle before fusing into the rest of the building.

Underneath these was a note.

“Mr. Solomon Gracey,

Apologies, but I am afraid I have no answers for you again. Though we have had a thorough investigation, the authorities have not been able to locate the evil persons who had accomplished the fire set to your home. Many of us have the opinion that the fire was a joint effort by many persons, who were eager to take advantage of your late father’s passing and your current absence. And that Mr. Wyatt Williams may be involved. As there were no fatalities, we thought it wise to let the matter drop; granting, of course, that you do not wish to press further.

As requested, the style of the new exterior will be a marked difference from your original inheritance. You recall your acquaintance in Pennsylvania, for whom you had favorably mentioned his newly completed estate some three years prior? We were able to coax Mr. Asa Packer, the architect of that estate, for advice.

You will be pleased, but likely as puzzled as we were, to know that much of the core inner rooms had remained perfectly intact. Indeed, it was because so many rooms were unscathed that injuries and deaths were prevented. The resulting consequences should be that it will not take more than a handful of years to fully complete her, as only really the outmost rooms and outside appearance need be worked on. And, of course, we will extend the conservatory in accordance to your previous wishes. I believe I can speak on behalf of my sister and say that the promise of this particular expansion delighted her.

I hope I am not out of line in the choice of my next words, but know that it is out of concern for your safety that I state them. Stay at the University. The town has been broiled over with unrest as of late, perhaps due to the circumstances by which our new President was elected. Coupled with the unpopularity of the Gracey family among the townspeople, returning now may only elicit additional responses against the estate before it has even reached completion.

Besides which, your presence is not needed for the reconstruction, and I offer my assurances that myself and the rest of staff will make do with the family townhouse in the meantime. We will take care; you needn’t express such worry as you’ve have.

Regards,

Edgar Galloway”

She looked back down to the pictures but they were go-

She was standing somewhere else again.

It was….it was the foyer. And the man standing in front of her…

Solomon Gracey.

There were two rows of people before him. On the right, was a row of maids in the green, pinstripe dress she had seen before on both Nell and the maid from the other memory-dream. On the left, was an apparent row of butlers. They, too, were dressed in a deep forest green, albeit as a suit. They had a pinstriped vest of a more grayish-purple color under their open jackets with a row of golden buttons, and a black tie around their neck. Both sides were standing rigid as if at attention.

As a butler took hold of Solomon Gracey’s hat and outer coat, she could hear one of the maids whisper to the other ‘You’re right. He is quite handsome in person. That portrait hardly does him justice!’

At the other end were a maid and butler pair; they seemed to be in charge, because the maid silenced the other two with a harsh glare.

Solomon, for his part, smirked in good humor. “Thank you. I’ll consider that a compliment.”

And the maids, upon being found out, couldn’t help but giggle in both embarrassment and relief until the head maid interrupted them with a cough.

Head maid and butler stepped forward to greet him. Both had similar shades of hair, a deep raven black. The woman’s was longer and had been tied in the back to be plaited into a single braid. The man’s was cut very short and side swept at the front, but there was still much left on the sides that it would have just covered his ears if he hadn’t had it swept behind them. Both, too, had cloudy grey eyes.

“Welcome home, sir.” The head maid said.

“Thank you. It is good to be back. Despite…” His face fell as he surveyed the room, “Well, despite everything.”

“We did do our best, sir, to organize the reconstruction and recreate many of the rooms.” The butler said. “But there were limitations-“

“I know, Edgar. I do thank you all for the effort and the willingness to stay despite the hardship this must have brought.”

“How was the University?” Edgar said.

“Boring. It was everything I had hated from the academy plus the addition of an overbearing school administrators that paraded the grounds as though it were their battlefield. The amount of posturing would have you nauseated. But at the very least, I’ve passed the bar and can now open a practice.”

He stopped short when he came upon his own likeness up above the fireplace.

“Oh, is this the previously mentioned portrait?” He turned to Edgar and the head maid with a raised eyebrow and a wry smile. “What on Earth were you thinking?”

“Sir, we thought it would be wise to have your portrait displayed prominently for guests who may come to call upon us.” The maid replied, giving even Solomon a pointed look of warning. “It would do much to send a message that, despite your youth, you are indeed the current, true master of Gracey manor.”

“Indeed, a wise choice,” Solomon agreed, still smiling. “But couldn’t you have commissioned someone who displayed my chin a little LESS prominently?”

The maids fell into a giggling fit again, and the butlers seemed threatened to join them, but a clap from both overseers put them back into line again.

…..

Karen could feel the scene fade away; this time, the change was much more obvious.

The hallway returned. The pictures and letters returned.

This…this was the same house.

Plink. Plink.

She picked up the two drawings and placed them side by side.

Plink. Plink.

The same exact house, just at two different points in time.

Plink. Plink.

Most of the same inner rooms, just a different exterior.

Plink. Plink.

Is that why she saw BOTH when they were approaching the mansion?

Plink. Plink.

Wait….What….

Plink. Plink.

….was that sound?

She looked up from the table….only to realize, in horror, that the other end of the hallway was dark.

And the shadow was waiting there.

Plink.

Shards of small glass came down from one of the above light fixtures, and the room grew a shade darker. It was then that it dawned on her, fresh goosebumps rising, what the shadow intended to do.

PlinkPlinkPlink.

Three lights tauntingly broke all in quick succession. The shadow was halfway down.

[Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire.]

Another unwanted thought. Wrapped in fear and anxiety.

She fled again further down the hall.

[Catching up. Catching up.]

Another corner. Again, again.

PlinkPlinkPlink.

But this corner had a stop.

Stop around the corner. There was no place left to go.

[Catching up. Catching up.]

PlinkPlinkPlink.

There was no more hallway left, only rows of doors that led to a door at the end.

Can’t go back. She’d run right into the shadow.

[I SEE YOU]

Try one. Try two. Why are all of these doors locked?

PlinkPlinkPlink.

Finally. The door at the end.

She opens it and slips through.

PlinkPlinkPlink.

She looks around for the light switch. A single bulb in the center of the room, dangling from a thread.

She closed the door behind here and learns the hard way why this door wasn’t locked.

It was because it didn’t have a lock.

The sounds of breaking bulbs gets closer.

She opts to put her weight against the door.

Only just to register what’s actually IN this room.

…..

Coffins.

There are coffins in this room.

Why were there coffins in a storage closet?

Piled high, undecorated, unpainted. Just plain wooden coffins.

She doesn’t have time to think about it; already the door is pushing her back.

Keep it closed. Keep it closed.

Digs her heels in, gaining leverage to force the door closed again.

She manages to find the perfect spot to put her feet.

It will close for sure.

Keep the pressure up.

But the lightbulb, the lightbulb. The single lightbulb.

It was already flickering.

Please don’t go out. Please don’t go out.

The shapes of the shadows of coffins dance in the flickering light like an old movie.

Sometimes, they seem to move.

Please don’t. Please don’t.

The pressure against her back again.

Her hand in her pocket. It curls around the ring.

The ring in her pocket she’d forgotten about.

The ring, the ring….

The water.

She was standing up near the water. Someplace in town near the water. She couldn’t recognize where.

The fear. Nauseating fear, it didn’t go away.

A woman was there. That woman. It was from the first memory. The maid and the boy and the angry young man. But she wasn’t wearing a maid’s uniform. And she was scared.

Yes. So scared. Please.

“Rolly!” She cried, stumbling in the darkness. Her blonde hair fell in curls about her neck, and her eyes were a dull grey-blue.

Why was it dark?

That’s right, because it’s nighttime.

But we were in a closet….weren’t we?

“Rolly! Rolly please!”

Please save me.

Someone. Please help me.

“Good evening.”

Both of them turned to see. That wasn’t Rolly….that….that voice….

A man dressed in all black. He was almost impossibly tall and thin, his face covered by a grotesque, demon-like mask.

The mask had horns, it looked like it was screaming, and there was a crack on the right eye socket of the mask which displayed the unusually large eyeball the man had. An eyeball that held a color electrifyingly blue; a shape and size and color that was so different from his ordinary looking left eye.

Almost instictively, she wanted to run at the sound of his voice.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?? Do you-do you want to hurt me??”

“Would you take comfort in hearing me say ‘no’?”

Run.

Run off into the town; after all, it was right there. But she was held into place.

Couldn’t move.

….

…This was the Ghost Host. Seeing the Ghost Host having an actual, physical form. Not merely a voice floating on the wind. And all back when he was alive.

“What….what do you want, then?” The woman anxiously looked at him, but also kept looking around her. “Rolly? Rolly are you near? Please, Rolly!”

“He cannot hear you.”

“Why?? What have you done with him??” She was frantic.

“Why I’ve done nothing, Miss Slater. It is Miss Slater, correct?”

“How do you know that?!”

“I know someone who knows things. And I happen to know that your friend has traveled the next town over in search of some work.”

“He…..he wouldn’t. Not without telling me.”

“Are you so sure, Madame? And even if he was here, are you so certain he would be able to help you? That he would have the funds at the moment to spare food for an extra mouth?”

Miss Slater was silent. Karen was silent.

The nervousness was hers. Or was it Miss Slaters? Was SHE Miss Slater?

This was bad.

“And what would his friends think, hmm? His former captain? As I understand, he gets a generous sum of money as a sort of thanks for a good length of service from a company that just so happens to be owned by the Graceys. And you?…Well…You were just fired from their house for meddling with one of the master’s sons, weren’t you?”

“That..! You…!” The woman’s face went pale. She doubled over as if in pain, her hand clutched to her heart.

Karen felt a tinge of pain in her own heart. Stabbing. Burning.

“Now, now. Calm yourself. You wouldn’t want to aggravate your condition, now would you?”

The man chuckled darkly, circling around her like a wolf with prey. Her eyes followed nervously along.

“I hold no judgement of you nor bear any grudge. In fact, I’m rather well aware that, as a mere maid, you had little choice but to say ‘yes’ to the young master’s amorous affections. How awful that must have felt; kicked out in the cold because you only did what you were told!”

“Stop!” Miss Slater’s eyes were winced shut, the tears beginning to streak down her face.

The man. The Ghost Host. Waited patiently for her to catch her breath.

“Nathaniel said he loved me.” She said, mournfully. “And I….I convinced myself that I felt the same, if only to make it easier.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I don’t. …I don’t know anymore. I think…I think a part of me did. In a way. In a twisted, awful sort of way, because he only ever made me feel twisted…and…”

She sat shaking on the riverbank. Sobbing quietly.

“Twisted….twisted and awful….I hate him….I want to get away….And I”

She gulped.

“And I don’t…I-I don’t have anywhere to go….”

The man’s hands lifted, and those long, bony fingers ghosted along the woman’s frail shoulders. Skeletal white against the bare of her arms.

“Allow me to help you.” Fingers caught underneath her elbows just as they reached them, and she was coaxed to stand.

“You could come with me. My troupe and I just so happen to be moving out tonight. A fresh start. Fresh clothes. A warm bed, warm food. Does that interest you at all?” This last part was whispered right at the shell of her ear, and she felt compelled to pull away in response.

“And what,” She said, glaring at him. “Pray tell, is your price for such luxuries?”

The man laughed, and his booming voice caused the woman to nervously ease herself away even further from him.

“I assure you, Miss Slater,” The man’s toothy smile could barely be seen underneath the shadow of the mask. “I am not THAT kind of man. I apologize if I have given the wrong impression. It is fear that interests me, not lust. As for my price, I’m not asking much. What I want from you is...” The man reached out to very gently lift her chin. “….your voice.”

Her hand went to her throat. Her face no less filled with anxiety than before.

“Do you mean to rip it from me then, sir?”

He chuckled. “Nothing so macabre. I merely want you to perform with us. Your performance needn’t be strenuous. A song here, a song there. Surely a fair price for what I offer in return, yes?”

“I’m not a singer, sir! Only for my own enjoyment; I’ve never performed or had any sort of train-“

“Unnecessary, I promise. The sort of clientele we get is often far from the obnoxious, discerning upper crust. You need only be decent, and we shall fill the whole tent!”

He offered his hand, and she hesitated to look at it.

She reached up, gently, slowly. Until her hand was firmly in his grasp.

The man smiled.

“Welcome to the Museum of the Weird, Miss Emily Slater.”

Jerked from below.

Taken back into darkness.

Pitch darkness.

But there were outlines of coffins, despite the darkness.

Oh.

She was back in the closet.

The memory was gone again.

And the single lightbulb must have gone out.

Karen sat there, her back against the door, and attempted to regulate her breathing. The room had dropped a whole 20 degrees, accented by an awful burnt smell that reeked through the air; her jacket, which felt particularly heavy against her shoulders, did little to ward off the chill. In fact, it felt as though the cold went right through its threads.

When she was sure that she could actually hold her own weight without passing out, she made the attempt to sta-

……

She tried to sta-

……

She. Tried. To. Stand.

Stand Up.

….

She couldn’t stand up.

She felt the color drain from her face, the burning smell threatening to overpower her as she lifted her shaking hands up….up to her neck….

Only to find.

An….an arm.

…..

Made of stone.

The hand was on her right shoulder, the arm itself resting on her collarbone, the bend in the elbow right on her left shoulder and all of it coming from…

…No….coming through the door.

...The arm was coming through the door. Unhindered. As if the door wasn’t there at all.

She whimpered. Tears lightly stinging her eyes, she stayed perfectly still. As still as she could with all the shaking she was doing.

The statue...The statue had been chasing her this entire time?

….she tried…to go under the arm. To wiggle…

…wiggle

…wigg-

The arm suddenly pushed down on her collarbone, pinning her harder against the door.

She cried out in response, the burning smell was getting worse, and worse…and worse…

The…head…of the statue was now through the door. Stoney eyes staring directly at her.

She whimpered again, silently wishing someone would hear her. Would know she was there.

Her arms clung to the stone, trying to pull it off her but it was too solid and heavy.

Stoney eyes staring at her.

“P-please…..Please….” She whispered. Was it for her savior to hear? Or the statue? Karen herself didn’t know who she was calling for. The tears were running down her face and she couldn’t care to stifle them.

They remained like this, the two of them. A statue and a person. The smell of burnt carcass enveloping her just as strongly as the arm did.

But there was an eventual shift on the statue’s face. The stone eyelids…flickering….Opening. Revealing…

Actual human eyeballs.

This only made her cry harder, because not only was it unnerving to see eyeballs set in stone, but they didn’t have any pupils.

At least, at first, they hadn’t any pupils. But dark pools began to phase into their center, stronger and stronger until the pupils fully appeared.

And with them came….a sort…of softer gaze. The statue looked at her with some sort of recognition.

And….And slowly….meticulously….the statue’s hold began to soften too…

The face moved away….The arm moved away….

Even the single lightbulb in the center of the room came back on.

The burnt smell disappeared.

Without the strength to hold herself in a sitting position, or even the statue to pin her there, Karen slumped to the floor.

Shaking.

In a closet full of coffins. Curled up on the floor, shaking, with the tears still streaming down.

And she finally was able to shudder back to life A nice, long, deep breath.

#chapter 5

0 notes