#|| movie buzz has severe anxiety and ptsd. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spencers-dria · 3 years

Text

Numb

Someone To Stay Ch. 21

Spencer Reid x fem reader

Content/ Trigger warnings: mentions of knives, blood, ASD/PTSD, anxiety attack, severe physical and emotional trauma, mention of surgery

Reader POV:

The first thing you notice is an odd noise, muffled a bit at first, but slowly becoming a sound you recognize, rain. You hear the crack of thunder and the sound of an ongoing downpour.

Where am I? The last thing I remember was taking my lunch break.

As you feel yourself pulled out of a foggy sleep, you’re finally able to observe your surroundings. It looks as though you’re at work, but maybe not. The room looks like a hospital room, but it’s almost unrecognizable. There are string lights giving the room a soft glow, and the bed is covered with your favorite blankets and stuffed animals. The tables around the room are covered with flowers, sweets, and some framed photos from your apartment. You finally spot the source of the rain, your sound machine on the nightstand next to your bed. The reality of the fact that you are currently a patient starts to set in, the only thing keeping you from spiraling into a panic is how at home you feel in the room.

Reaching across your lap you grab the call light to ask for the nurse. It’s less than a minute before she pops through the door, and it isn’t anyone you recognize.

“Hey there, look who’s up. My name is Tess. I’ll be taking care of you. How ya feeling?”

“Umm a little sore. What happened?”

“You were in a bit of an accident. The doctor will be by shortly to explain everything. Is there anything I can get you for now?”

You try to think despite whatever anesthesia is still clouding your brain. “Spencer, my boyfriend. Is he here?”

The nurse smiles with a bit of concern apparent in her features.

“He hasn’t left since you got here. But-“

“Are you sure you’re ready to see him?” Perhaps she’s just worried about visitors in your current state, but Spencer is the first person you need to see. He always makes you feel safe.

“Of course! Can you send him in?”

She nods before leaving, softly shutting the door behind her.

A few minutes later, youI hear soft knocks followed by the shaggy mop of curls poking its way into the room.

It’s almost instinctual to jump up and run to him, but the sharp pain in your abdomen brings you back to reality. A once hesitant Spencer springs into action upon seeing me in pain. He’s by your side in an instant.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong? Can I help?”

“Yeah yeah I’m okay.” I can’t help but try to act a little tough for my hot FBI agent boyfriend.

“I’m so glad you’re here! What happened?”

His face falls and he almost looks confused.

“You don’t remember- anything?”

I simply shake my head.

“All I know is I went to get lunch and woke up in the hospital. Or some crazy hybrid of the hospital and my apartment! The lights, the blankets, even my favorite stuffed animals; Spencer, did you do all this?”

“Guilty.” He tries and fails to hold back a shy smile and a growing blush on his face.

“Oh come here, ya big softie!”

You reach out, grabbing the air with your hands, gesturing for him to come give you the hug that you desperately need.

The minute his arms wrap around you, you feel your heart stop. Your body goes cold and starts to shake. Before you can process what’s happening, you’re crying, yelling, pushing him off of you. Spencer immediately let’s go, stepping back to give you your space but unwilling to leave you alone. He hits a button to call the nurse in while trying to calm you down. You can’t slow down your breathing, causing your hands and face to go numb. Your vision blurs as you feel your body teeter towards unconsciousness. You can no longer hear Spencer’s voice, only the buzzing in your ears.

Once the nurse arrives she’s able to talk you down after a couple minutes. Your breathing steadies, but your hands are still trembling. You feel completely out of control of your body, your emotions.

“What’s wrong with me?” You ask her through the tears.

“It looks like you may have acute stress disorder dear-“

“I don’t understand.” You shake your head looking between the nurse and Spencer.

“It can be experienced by those who have recently gone through or witnessed extreme trauma. You are also at risk for PTSD. We were hoping to have someone come speak with you about it once you were alert and awake. You’re experiencing common symptoms: dissociative amnesia, extreme distress as though you’re reliving the event-“

“What trauma? I don’t even know what happened to me!” You begin to raise your voice, letting your anxiety take over your emotions.

You watch as Spencer and the nurse exchange glances before looking back at you. A few deep breaths and you feel yourself calm back down before speaking again.

“Dr. Reid, would you mind stepping out for a moment?”

“Look whatever happened I want to know. And I don’t want Spencer to leave. I don’t know what just happened, but he can’t leave me he just can’t!”

“Hey I’m right here Y/N, I’m not going anywhere.” His voice soothes you as he kneels down next to the bed. You still don’t understand why you nearly broke down when the person you love most hugged you, but his presence still makes you feel safe, especially with all the uncertainty of your current situation.

The nurse pulls up a chair, softly explaining the events that brought you to this place, this state of mind. You feel like you should be crying, but all you feel is numb. It’s like you’re listening to someone else’s story. Tess constantly checks to make sure you’re okay before she continues. You keep looking over to Spencer for reassurance that all of this is real. His eyes never leave you. They’re soft, warm, and they envelop you with all the same love as one of his hugs. When she’s done explaining what happened, she begins on the details of your surgery.

“You have several severe stab wounds Ms. Y/L/N. You lost a lot of blood before you reached the OR. We have you several units during the procedure. Due to the location of the wounds, the main source of bleeding was found to be your uterus. With permission from your family, we made the decision to remove it. We felt it was necessary to stop the bleeding and keep you safe and alive. Unfortunately this means you will no longer be able -“

The sound around your drowns into a dull, low hum, unable to understand the words spoken to you.

You can tell that the two of them are talking, but still it’s muffled. You feel like you’re watching everything happen on a movie screen, completely detached. No moving, no speaking, just- numb. You’re empty, you’re floating, you’re anywhere but here. You close your eyes as you go over the details of Spencer’s face in your mind, how gentle his touch feels.

The next thing you remember is waking up in the bed again. You remember the conversation from earlier, but quickly push the thoughts aside at the sight of Spencer curled up on the couch, fast asleep under one of your blankets. You can’t help but giggle, feeling complete joy at the sight of him sleeping, his nose twitching occasionally.

Even the smallest sound wakes him up, and he’s immediately by your side making sure you’re okay. But he doesn’t do the one thing you want most. Your heart aches for him to touch you, hold you, kiss you, but your body has decided otherwise. As tears roll down your cheeks you see Spencer start to panic.

“I’m okay, I just- I just want to be able to touch you.”

His expression turns to one of concern to one of hurt. Youknow he’s not upset with you, but seeing the pain in his eyes cuts deeper than any knife. But he stays by you side, never leaving, never getting tired of you, comforting you with soft whispers and the tenderness of his gaze.

Eventually you speak up. “So you like my blanket huh?”

“It smells like you,” he whispers smiling through the blush on his face.

“I understand if you need to go home and get some rest. I don’t expect you to-“

Your sentence drifts off as you see how fervently he’s shaking his head.

“I’m not going anywhere, don’t even try. I already took off of work, so it’s no use. I’m here to stay.”

You can’t help but wonder how long that promise will last, knowing it will be a long journey ahead of you. This will affect you for the rest of your life.

“Spencer what if- what if I can’t get past this?”

#criminal minds #dr spencer reid #original story #spencer x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid #Spencer #trauma #hospital #angst #hurt comfort #Spotify

33 notes · View notes

gothic-safari-clown · 3 years

Text

The Mind’s Power Over the Body

Part 9: Explanation

Story summary: They only ever had each other. It had been that way since high school, ever since Elianna transferred to dreary Arlen and took Jonathan under her wing. They go separate ways for college, and when they're reunited at Arkham Asylum professionally, Elianna comes to find that they've both changed during their time separated. Can she look past the promise of danger and stay by Jonathan's side as they slide further and further into the darkness while she grapples to come to terms with the truth about herself? Can she accept what needs to be done in order to hold onto the only person who holds any meaning in her life? This is a very self-indulgent AU that draws from several different canons of the DCU and ignoring others, starting in the Batman Begins Nolanverse. This will follow the plot of the movie, although the timeline has been very slightly tweaked.

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight

Word count: 2469

Between her newfound acceptance of her less-than-moral tendencies and her freshly organized office, Elianna had finally been able to find peace for the day as she finished plugging all of her notes into the computer. Cognitively she knew (and had even told several patients in the past) that seeking revenge was unhealthy and detrimental to the healing process, especially if the outcome could get the exactor arrested. But God was the prospect of it attractive.

I don't think God has anything to do with any of this.

She wrapped up the rest of her work fairly quickly, still mulling over the unethicacy of admitting patients with common phobias, finally deciding to overlook the fallacies if it meant that she wouldn't be attacked again any time soon, and gathered her purse and her suitcase before making her way to Jonathan's office after a glance over her map of the facility.

On her way, Elianna suddenly found herself wrapped in the embrace of something blonde and very shrill. "Harley?"

"I'm so sorry that I didn't check on you sooner!" El laughed and gently pried her friend off of her.

"It's okay; I'm alright." She assured with a warm smile. She barely knew Harley. How sweet of her to be so worried.

"Like hell you are, look at your forehead!" Without thinking, El lifted her hand to touch the bandaid, which was only partially covered by her hair.

"To be honest, I forgot about it. But the fact that I only needed a bandaid and not a hospital bracelet means something, I think."

"Yeah, I guess so." Harley pouted and linked her arm with Elianna's, starting to walk her in the direction she had been going before she stopped her. "I was really worried about you, y'know, and nobody expected you back today. I mean, you must be traumatized! Any signs of PTSD?"

"Not yet, but I'm trying not to dwell on it. I mean, I came here for a fresh start (not technically a lie), and as far as I'm concerned, this was just the city officially indoctrinating me as a Gothamite." Harley snorted and shook her head.

"Alright, however you want to look at it, I guess. Look, I gotta run; I just couldn't let you go without making sure you're okay. You're sure you don't need anything?"

"Not at the moment, but if I need anything, I'll keep you in mind." El stopped walking again to give the blonde a tight squeeze, which she returned readily.

"Alright, honey, say hi to Doctor Crane for me," Harley finished with a kiss on her cheek and then seemed to vanish before Elianna had a chance to say anything else.

Upon reaching Jonathan's office, she knocked and waited for him to buzz her in, and her original greeting died in her throat as she entered.

"Why do you get a bigger office than me?" She asked, looking around the space. It was still messy, just like his home office, but the chaos seemed more organized.

"Because I've worked here longer, come help me with this stack, will you?" He sighed and pushed said stack to the other side of the desk from him. El nodded and sat in front of it, taking the top file off. "Just read me the most recent notes inside, and I'll type it up." They set to work straight away, finally getting each computerized file updated after an hour or so. Jonathan stretched his back as they stood up, and El noticed that he still seemed irritated by whatever her name was from the DA's office.

"You okay? I can drive home if you want." He let out a short, humorless "ha!"

"Under no circumstances do you get to drive my car. You drive like Scarecrow."

"Wh-you let him drive but not me?" He shook his head.

"Not a chance, but he likes it when you drive, and that's enough of a deterrent for me." El rolled her eyes, but it was sound reasoning, she supposed.

"Fine, but you have to make dinner again."

"Well, the difference is that with me behind the wheel, we'll actually make it home to enjoy dinner." He replied offhandedly, snapping his briefcase closed and walking with her to the door.

"Okay, I get it, find a new joke, will you?" Her light irritation seemed to amuse him, and she muttered something about, "never should have taught you about humor," as he held open the door for her.

Once back at Jonathan's apartment, El wasted no time getting into the shower and changing into pajamas. She still had so many questions about his involvement in the underworld, and being comfortable acted as her preliminary strike against what would doubtlessly be a less than fun conversation.

When she returned to the living room, Jonathan hadn't bothered to change out of his work clothes, and it appeared that he had been trying in vain to tidy his desk the entire time. El left him to it and continued to the kitchen in search of something to snack on.

"You jealous of my clean office yet?" She called as she pilfered through his pantry. Her friend had had a weakness for goldfish ever since she had introduced them to him, as silly as it sounded. I know they're in here somewhere...aha!

"Hardly; I just misplaced something." He replied distractedly as she walked back in with the entire carton. "If you finish that, you're buying me more."

"Deal. So, why don't you put that on pause until after we talk about everything else?" El asked as she walked next to him and leaned back against the desk, and he stopped shuffling through his papers.

"Where do you want to start?" El thought for a moment before pulling him over to the couch so that they could sit and set the carton between them.

"Why don't you tell me how you...came into the life of organized crime?" She asked slowly, unsure of how to go about asking. Was that the right way to refer to the situation?

"There's a man, Ra's Al Gul," El was taken aback by the intense name—this really was very serious. "He contacted Falcone a while ago to find someone to make a compound that can help him purge Gotham. Falcone found me because of my specialty in phobias and recruited me to the cause. He assumed that I would be easily corrupted, working at Arkham and all." He reached into the carton for a handful of goldfish. "I guess he was right."

"O-okay, and that's why you developed the toxin in the first place." He nodded. "And this Ra's Al Gul character, he's the one shipping what you need into Gotham, what is it?"

"It's this little blue flower from Bhutan. It grows in the mountains. There's a natural chemical in it that reacts to being broken down that causes vivid hallucinations by hijacking the amygdala and creating a powerful fear response. He uses it for some...initiation process for his organization."

"So you studied it and found a way to work it into a serum." He nodded again, still slowly working through his handful of the little crackers, and suddenly something clicked in Elianna's brain. "My patients." He looked at her, his face impassive. "The ones with the anxiety disorders, there isn't actually anything wrong, is there? You admitted them to study the effects."

"Yes, I've been microdosing them with different strains of the toxin to study the results."

"Well, how do you keep them from ratting you out? I mean, if I'm working with some of them, then that means other doctors are too."

"I've made it clear to all of them that if they point the finger at me that I'll give them a full dosage. It's not like the administration would find any of my research if they cared to look anyway; it's all here." Elianna laughed incredulously.

"You really do have everything figured out, don't you? Sneaky bastard."

"I'm going to choose to assume that was a compliment." There was a quiet pause while El thought over everything she had learned in such a short space of time.

"Why does Ra's Al Gul want to target Gotham?" Jonathan half shrugged in response.

"Something about the corrupt elite, the thinks that by weeding it out, it can allow humanity to heal."

"He thinks he can fix humanity by taking out one lousy city?" She asked before another thought hit her. "Hold on, you're one of the corrupt elite, aren't you? That goes against his whole plan. Why are you helping him if you're in his crosshairs?" At this, Jonathan shook his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I agreed to do this because if I didn't, they could find someone else to, and as long as I continue with the project, I've been promised a way out of the city safely. This has been in motion for long enough that I work directly for Ra's Al Gul now. Falcone is just involved in handling the shipments; they sneak it in with other drugs."

"Well...shit, you get to leave the city so that you don't get caught up in the...the chaos, what about me?" She had a moment of self-awareness for the selfishness of her concern, which was easily brushed off (much to her own surprise), and she did not want to get caught up in the attack on the city. Jonathan turned his head to look at her, almost offended that she had even asked.

"I'm going to take you with me. I thought that would go without saying." He shifted his whole body to face her. "Like I said this morning, I do terrible things, but I wouldn't abandon you do that any more than you would to me, especially now. I told you everything; now you're involved."

El nodded in relief. All of her questions answered, she returned to thinking about how much she should have been disturbed by the situation. Her best friend was involved in a plot to bring down an entire city, and she had been more concerned about her own safety than she had been about the innocent people living there.

Then again, why should she be worried? Everything, everyone, for her entire adult life had been just like high school in Arlen where the strong and privileged had punched downward at the weak for fun, and the weak were pushed to do bad things to get by. Was it not kinder to eliminate the city where it was all overlooked? Kinder to provide the weak with an out from subjugation with a choice that they didn't need to make? To exact revenge on their tormentors?

Really, she thought, if you think about it, the only difference between them and the two of us is that we have the chance to do something about it. So why shouldn't we?

Life in Gotham had already been so much more exciting than she had hoped for, and the promise of more in store filled her with anticipation. Why had she chosen to go so far away from Jonathan in the first place?

"Well then," she moved the carton onto the coffee table and laid across the newly empty space to put her head in her friend's lap and looked up at him. "What's the plan for Zsasz?" The littlest hint of a smile appeared on his face.

"You're looking forward to it now, aren't you?"

"He deserves it." The condemnation flew from her mouth without a second thought.

"He does, but are you sure you can do it?"

"Yes. I want to do it. And if I can't, that won't change. Even if you have to do it for me, it'll be done, and so long as one of us does it and no one else, I'll be satisfied with the outcome." Jonathan found himself feeling proud of his friend, and Scarecrow echoed the sentiment; the straw man was really starting to like her for the first time.

"Well said."

"I thought so too." El smiled at him, suddenly remembering once again her mysterious savior. "Oh!" She sat up quickly, turning to face him again. "The parking lot the other night, Zsasz; there was someone else there."

"What do you mean, there was a witness?" Elianna shook her head.

"No, it was after I fell, when I got up again and I was running to my car there was someone else there, he-" she paused to decide how to tell what had happened. "It seemed like he flew over my head, I don't know where he came from, but he went after Zsasz. I saw him for a seconds before I left, he was dressed in all black, and his face was covered. I thought that he would take care of Zsasz, but it seems like the police detained him, so I don't know what happened."

Jonathan thought for a moment, analyzing the information. "Well, even if whoever it was incapacitated Zsasz and called the police, it's unlikely that they would broadcast that on the media." EL nodded in agreement.

"I wonder what his motivation was and how he happened to be there." She spoke aloud, but more to herself than to Jonathan. "If he hadn't shown up, I don't think I would have made it."

"Well, it's definitely strange, I'll give you that." Jonathan sighed. "Something we'll have to keep an eye on. If a vigilante is gearing up to take out criminals, then we'll have to be prepared for it."

"Yeah." The apartment was silent as the pair thought over what would happen if anything they were planning on doing was discovered. "I knew Gotham would give me some excitement." She finally said lightly, to which Jonathan scoffed.

"Yeah, you could call it that. Is...there anything else you may have forgotten than you need to tell me?" El thought back for a moment, fighting a chill as she forced herself to remember anything.

"No, that's it." He nodded.

"Good."

"Yeah." They both paused for another moment before El spoke again, looking to change the subject. "Now go make dinner before I'm forced to finish your goldfish; I'm starving."

"Yes, ma'am," Jonathan stood, taking the carton back into the kitchen with him. "How do you feel about pasta tonight?"

#the mind's power over the body #jonathan crane #scarecrow #batman begins #nolanverse #elianna montgomery #jonathan crane x ofc #slight au #fanfiction #attraction to the insane #multi chapter fic #cillian murphy #cillian murphy scarecrow #tmpotb chapter 9

5 notes · View notes

keiratheraven · 4 years

Text

Bentley 8 Squad Characters Description

(First, forgive me for my broken English. Second, sims close-up in sims 3 gameplay isn't so good and I can't install pose player for some reason, so I have to go to CAS just to take their closeups).

This is the description of the characters from my fanfiction, Bentley 8 Squad. Like I said in my previous post, they called themselves "Bentley 8" because all of them like Bentley cars. They are living together in a house in Sim City. Each nicknames represent their traits/styles and positions in this squad. Their friendships are inseparable, and they're always there for each other. They established a mental health community named "Im-perfection", and their goal is to help everyone who struggles with mental health. Their Im-perfection community tagline is: "It's okay to not be perfect, and we are perfect because of it". Despite their obstacles, they're always finding ways to chase their dreams in their early 20's. By the way, some original characteristics are changed for the storyline.

Angela Pleasant (Bentley Queen) - age 20

She's ambitious, fashionable, popular, cheerful, and a trendsetter. As a cheerleader captain and queen bee of Pleasantview high school, Angela knows how to fit in. She's always friendly to everyone despite her stuck-up personality, and it made some people nicknamed her "phony" behind her back. But as she gets older, she became more sincere, especially after she's taking a master's degree in psychology. She and her twin sister, Lilith, disliked each other when they were teens. But she apologized to her and they became friends. She also has interests in fashion design. She's a great home cook, and excellent at making cakes. Angela is a good listener to her seven housemates. She loves Dustin so much although they came from different social circles. She suffers from eating disorders and endometriosis, but it doesn't limit her to become a (soon-to-be) psychologist.

Lilith Pleasant (Bentley Gothic) - age 20

She's often misunderstood due to her attitude and black clothing. She's sharp, gloomy, sarcastic, hot-headed, and somewhat rude. But she's really nice if you know her well, and she will do everything for her close friends and lover (especially her boyfriend, Dirk).

Despite her parents (Daniel and Mary-Sue Pleasant) treated her unfairly and favored Angela over her, plus she and Angela disliked each other when they were teens, she's forgiving and didn't hold grudges. Unlike Angela who was a queen bee, Lilith was one of the outcasts in high school. As a lead vocalist in her high school band, and she's taking art major, Lilith is a great artist and talented rock singer/guitarist. She has bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, but her manic-depressive phases make her even better at making arts and music. That's the way she deals with her mental disorders : pouring all her emotions into creations as a coping mechanism.

Dustin Broke (Bentley Rogue) - age 22

He's rebellious, bad-ass, tough, daredevil, and likes to break the laws. He used to be a criminal and drug dealer in high school. He liked to smoke weed and use cocaine. Back then, he liked to steal things. But actually, he's not a bad person. He's really soft on the inside but pretends to be tough. He cares a lot about his seven housemates, especially his beloved girlfriend (Angela). His mother, Brandi Broke, is married to Dirk's father (Darren Dreamer) several years after his father (Skip Broke) passed away.

Then, he realized his dream was never to become a criminal. He quits his criminal career to become an architect. Also, he suffers from schizophrenia caused by the drugs and trauma (his then-alcoholic mother, Brandi Broke, often beat him up when he was a teen), but medications and his job keeps him stable. He's getting nicer and trying to do good, although his rebellious nature is never faded.

Dirk Dreamer (Bentley Brain) - age 21

He's good, selfless, genius, bookworm, and compassionate. He's the smartest among them in this squad. He graduated from medical school at age 19, then he took psychiatry specialization aside from his dream to be a general practitioner because he wants to recover his girlfriend (Lilith), his step-brother (Dustin), and his best friend (Angela) from their mental disorders. As a kind doctor, Dirk is always helping people or put everyone's priority first before him, especially all of his housemates. His hard-work is because he wants to make his late mother proud. He's good at treating sick people or saving lives, and he'll be distressed if he fails to keep them alive. But, he has a terrible sense of humor. He has a library in their house, full of his book collections. Despite his struggle with type 1 diabetes, it doesn't stop him to become a successful doctor. He wrote a best-selling book about his journey as a diabetic psychiatric resident.

Johnny Smith (Bentley Leader) - age 23

He's nice, athletic, charismatic, commanding, and a party animal. He's so confident despite having a green skin due to alien descent. As the squad leader (and the oldest member) who has a black belt in karate, Johnny is trying his best to guide and protect all his friends and lover (Ophelia) in this squad. Johnny is a great organizer and planner. His perfectionist nature makes him never missed any arrangement. He has a bachelor's degree in business. He also likes to be a party DJ in the clubs. He's the second-best home cook in their household after Angela. Although sometimes he's loud and bossy to his seven housemates, it's because he cares and wants the best for them. He suffers from OCD and PTSD because he got beaten up by 9 people, stabbed on his abdomen, and thrown to the filthy dumpster due to hate crime against green-skinned sims when he was 18. But, he's trying to let go of the past, learning karate, and became a successful young executive.

Ophelia Nigmos (Bentley Flower) - age 22

She's kind, worrywart, mysterious, graceful, and patient. She likes every kind of flower, and her hobbies are gardening and writing. Motherly and nurturing, Ophelia knows how to give attention to her seven friends/housemates (especially her boyfriend, Johnny). She likes children, and she's working as a kindergarten (sometimes elementary school) teacher. She's also a talented writer. She has a strong interest in literature and has a bachelor's degree in it. She's also a successful blogger and their Im-perfection website admin as well. Her parents died when she was 10, and she became independent and quiet since she moved to Olive Specter's house in Strangetown. She's often panicking and worrying about the smallest things. Although she has anxiety and paranoid personality disorder, caused by the ghosts of her old house, only writing and gardening that can calm her down beside the meds.

Ripp Grunt (Bentley Clown) -

age 21

He's playful, humorous, hyperactive, talkative, and a heartbreaker. He slept with more than ten women (and also slept with men). But, he never fell in love with them like the way he fell in love with Ophelia and Johnny. As a drama student, Ripp is a talented actor and entertainer. He's great at imitating impressions. He can do a pantomime or stand up comedies as well. He likes to sing/play guitar and often posting duet cover videos with Lilith. He also likes to post pranking videos. His nice and funny personality makes him great at consoling his seven housemates when any of them gets sad, even though he often cries alone when he remembers his past because his father and older brother (Buzz and Tank Grunt) abused him when he was a teen. He wants to become a successful actor and musician despite his struggles with ADHD and chronic gastritis. Although sometimes he can't control his manners or actions, He's still trying to do the best.

Puck Summerdream (Bentley Fancy) - age 22

He's good, shy, polite, thoughtful, and serious. Charming and well-mannered, Puck knows how to treat everyone nicely. Coming from the most respected and wealthy family beside The Capps in Veronaville, makes him the richest sim in this squad. But he's still humble and doesn't want to talk about his wealth. Unlike his peers in Veronaville, Puck didn't want to get involved with Capp-Monty feuds, and he's always trying to be nice to both sides. He likes to wear suits and bowtie. He's an expert in classical music because he has double degrees in mathematics and fine arts (music branch). He likes to play the piano, violin, saxophone, and he can conduct an orchestra as well. He often treats his seven friends at the restaurants, movie theatre, and concerts. His sensitive nature makes him a little bit over-emotional. Despite his weak heart, and his depression caused by the death of his girlfriend (Hermia Capp) due to the mass shooting at Academie Le Tour three years ago, Puck will never let grief or disease obstructing his dreams. He became a successful conductor, and his dream is to bring peace with his music.

Bonus pics

Six of them autonomously spending time together at the gym (Lilith is not in the pic).

Puck and his new girlfriend, Marina Prattle from Bridgeport. She's really a pretty sim for a sims 3 premade.

#sims 2 characters #sims 3 screenshots #angela pleasant #lilith pleasant #dustin broke #dirk dreamer #johnny smith #ophelia nigmos #ripp grunt #puck summerdream #squad #mental illness #description #fanfiction #sims story #marina prattle #bentley 8 #sims 3

7 notes · View notes

stupid-jeans · 6 years

Text

Well. It’s not fic (not really) but I’m posting this here anyway mostly for me. This is...really heavily veiled RPF. And it’s not relevant to any of my recent fandoms. If you can figure it out um...you get a medal. This is a verse my wife and I wrote in almost nonstop for 10-something years. And I missed it so this is what happened. It’s not the beginning, it’s not the end. *shrug*

CW for mentions of rape/sexual assault/PTSD/flashbacks/disassociating/war related violence, but nothing major.

Matt didn't expect that going back up the Hudson would cause a problem. Why would it? Nothing happened there. And he was fine. He'd been fine for several months now. He almost didn't think about it every day anymore (it helped that he'd left, that his time in the army was done), and things were good.

So he went upstate to visit his brother, because being away, being in a war zone, had made him want to mend whatever was left of the wreckage of bridges he'd burned with his younger siblings. If he was being totally honest, spending so much time in California played just as big of a role as the war had. His siblings didn't deserve to pay for the fact that his mom died. And it had been twenty fucking years already. It was definitely time to bury the hatchet.

Everything went okay until they decided to go to the bar, on a Friday night of a three day weekend. Everything was fine until he'd been brushed up against twenty too many times while playing pool, until Jimmy's buddies were ragging on him for playing a shit game, until some guy with an army-issued buzz cut stumbled into him walking out of the bathroom, and the next thing he knew, Jimmy and two of his buddies were hauling Matt off the guy and dragging him out of the bar. The shock of the cold air snapped him out of it, and then he was shaking and fighting the urge to run and Jimmy just looked worried. Fuck.

"I'm...gonna call Wes?" Jimmy offered, and Matt almost objected, until he thought about the potential damage he could do to his little brother's career over the next 48 hours. So he nodded instead, handing Jimmy his phone. His voice wouldn't work yet, and with how badly his hands were still shaking, there was no way he'd be able to text.

So his brother called his boyfriend and then they walked back to Matt's hotel and Jimmy stood by the door, still looking worried (and also overwhelmingly like their father, and that wasn't something Matt was ready to process right now).

"You can't stand there all night," Matt said finally. Jimmy nodded but didn't move. "I didn't know tonight was going to happen or I wouldn't have come."

Jimmy softened immediately and it was all Linda, Jimmy's mom, and Matt felt a pang of guilt for all the times he'd pushed his stepmother away.

"I don't give a shit about that," Jimmy promised. "Are you okay? I mean, what the hell happened?"

"I can't, okay? I'm sorry." At least he hadn't said it was nothing. A step in the right direction.

"Being over there...it really fucked you up, huh?" Jimmy finally moved to the couch, sinking into it.

"I...guess you could say that," Matt agreed, because it was true. Not the way Jimmy was thinking, because it wasn't the sand or the heat or the bombs that got him. It wasn't patching up bullet wounds or picking fragments of IEDs out of his friends that kept him up at night.

No, as it had turned out, the real enemy had looked just like him. A home-grown farm boy from Oklahoma, just trying to make his family proud. And have a little fun on the side. Whether the other participant was willing or not. And Matt had definitely not been willing.

He was shaking again before he realized.

"Matt." Jimmy's voice was even, quiet, just enough to pull him back. He breathed and unclenched his fists, realizing for the first time that his knuckles were bruised. From decking the guy in the bar. His stomach twisted. "What can I do for you?"

"I don't know," Matt admitted. "Water, maybe?"

Jimmy brought him a plastic cup from the bathroom. "You know I love you, right?"

And that caught him off guard, because Jimmy wasn't exactly the type to get all sappy. Or maybe he was, and Matt had just never been on the receiving end. He was once again struck by how little he knew his half brother.

"Yeah. Yeah, I love you too."

They watched a movie with the volume on low, all the lights on, plenty of space between them, until Wes showed up several hours later. Matt took his first real breath since leaving the bar. The world blinked mostly back into focus, and Matt vowed never to come up here alone again.

A week later, he was only just recovering. Wesley had mandated he go to his therapist, and he had. He was doing all the right things, but this wasn't like medication. It didn't just get better. There wasn't just two steps back, there were fifty, and, though he'd stumbled forward again a bit, now he'd stalled.

There was exactly one number he could call that stood a shot at helping him, but he was wary. Wary because everything was so damn complicated. Wary because, of course the only person he wanted to talk to was his boyfriend's sister's ex. But after pacing the living room for well over two hours, barely keeping a panic attack and an almost guaranteed dissociation at bay, Matt caved and sent Ingrid a text, having no idea if she'd respond or not.

His phone rang less than two minutes later.

"Do you want me to come over?" Ingrid asked. "Are you home?"

"I...yeah. Um, that would be great," Matt mumbled, finally giving up on pacing and sinking onto the couch instead, still tense, still fighting the wave of dread in his chest, but one step closer to winning.

"Okay. Just, do me a favor and unlock the door for me? I'll stay on the phone until I get there, but I need you to do that, okay?" Ingrid said, and Matt flashed back to barricading himself in Wesley's bedroom in California, to Delaney unlocking the door from the outside, which Matt hadn't even known was possible, to resurfacing on the other side of a nasty episode with his hand to Delaney's throat, pinning her up against the wall, and Ingrid there, calmly talking him back to himself somehow, until he'd let go. "Matt." Her voice was just as calm now, gently coaxing him back to reality. "It's okay. We're all okay."

"Yeah," Matt whispered. It had been five years and he still wasn't sure that was true. "Okay, it's unlocked."

Ingrid kept her promise and stayed on the line until he heard the door open. "I'm really glad you called," she said, tucking her phone into her purse. "It's good to see you. Despite the circumstances."

He smiled a little, standing to greet her. "You too. I, um...thanks for coming. I wasn't sure..."

"Look." Ingrid stopped him. "Whatever happened between me and Delaney has nothing to do with me and you, okay? You can always call me and I will always be here for you. Just like you'll always be there for me, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Matt agreed easily.

"You think I can get a hug?"

And honestly, it meant the world to Matt that Ingrid wanted him to touch her at all. He hugged her, more tension ebbing out of him.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" Ingrid murmured once they pulled away.

So Matt did. And even though he'd told the same story to Wes, and his therapist, and his sister, it felt better telling it to Ingrid. Because of all those people, she was the only one who really understood.

"Fucking triggers," Ingrid muttered once he'd finished.

"More to add to the list, I guess," Matt sighed.

"But we're here," Ingrid said. "And they get better."

"Do they?"

"Yeah," Ingrid said. "I mean, the other night, after a show, I went out to a bar with some of the girls. I didn't need my meds, I had a few drinks, I took the subway home alone, and I didn't even notice until the next morning."

"You're a fucking warrior," Matt declared, sliding his arm around her as she leaned against him.

"I know you are, but what am I?" Ingrid teased.

Huffing out a laugh, Matt rolled his eyes. "Let's not wait until the next middle of the night trauma crisis to see each other again?"

"Should be a lot easier now that you're not all the way in fucking North Carolina," Ingrid murmured.

"You should stay tonight," Matt suggested.

"Um, yeah, if you think I'm going home at...3:30 in the morning, you're insane."

"You can take my bed. I'll stay out here." Matt gestured toward the bedroom.

Ingrid glanced at the door and then across the apartment at the other bedroom door. "That bad, huh?"

He hadn't slept with Wes since coming home. It was safer to sleep alone, to avoid the potential for issues. Though Wesley could overpower him much more readily than Delaney. Asking him to wasn’t fair.

"Yeah," he sighed.

"Okay. Will you come lay with me until I fall asleep, then?"

Ingrid had her own set of triggers, and Matt knew well enough that perhaps her biggest was sleeping somewhere unfamiliar. And they'd only just moved into this place when Ingrid and Delaney broke up. She'd been here maybe twice, and never overnight.

He obliged her gladly, sitting up against the headboard while she curled up beside him. "I'd say wake me up if you need anything, but I think maybe you'd be better off waking Wes," he murmured.

"Don't worry. I've been to this rodeo a time or fifty, remember?" Ingrid reassured him sleepily. "G'night, Matty."

"Night, Ingrid."

In the morning, he woke up to Wes making breakfast, talking quietly to Ingrid who was perched on the counter, sipping coffee out of an oversized mug. No nightmares, no anxiety.

He knew the instant Ingrid noticed he was awake, but she didn't acknowledge him. More things she'd learned, about letting him come around on his own. And Matt thought, not for the first time, that he'd never love anyone else the way he loved Ingrid.

"Morning," he greeted, joining them, kissing Wesley on the cheek, lingering against his back a couple of extra seconds. His boyfriend definitely noticed but he, too,kept quiet.

"Wes and I were just discussing the merits of sitting around and watching hockey all day," Ingrid explained, offering Matt her mug, which he took with a smile.

"As long as we stick to hockey," Matt said. "No baseball, no football. Got it?"

Hockey was the only sport they'd all ever agreed on.

Wes' phone went off and Ingrid glanced at it, her mouth twisting as she looked at the display. Delaney.

Wes seemed to figure it out right as Matt did and they both reached for the phone at the same time.

"Let me get it. You know anything in that pan'll burn if you leave it with me." It was enough for Wes to relent. So Matt took the phone and wandered back to the bedroom.

"Hey, Lane, it's Matt."

"What'd you do to my brother? You know what, don't answer that, I don't wanna know." Delaney's typical whirlwind of a conversation made Matt grin.

"Sorry to disappoint you but he's just making breakfast. Didn't really feel like burning the house down so you got me instead."

"You know I like you better anyway. Listen, I'm in the neighborhood so I'm gonna stop by. Bodega requests?"

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea…” Matt said, wincing a little.

“Trouble in paradise? My brother being a dick? You know I’ll come kick his ass if I need to…”

“No, it’s not that. Just...Ingrid’s here.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. If not for the sounds of traffic in the background, Matt would wonder if the line had disconnected.

“Oh.”

“I called her. I needed…” Matt sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Your brother shouldn’t be responsible for all my demons, Lane.”

“I get it. It’s fine. We’re adults, right?”

“Something like that.” He chuckled. It still didn’t feel like he’d grown up at all some days.

“So, I’ll let you have your morning. Tell Wes I said hi. And Ingrid too, I guess.”

“Very adult,” he teased.

“I try. And Matty? I get it. Maybe not exactly, but I understand why you need her. I’m glad you have each other.”

Matt’s chest ached, for himself and how grateful he was for this family that had become his own, and for Delaney and Ingrid, who still loved each other but couldn’t seem to figure out how to make it work.

“Yeah, thanks.” He sniffed and tamped down on his emotions. There’d been enough of those lately. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“We got coffee yesterday, loser,” Lane pointed out, laughing.

“Love you too, jerk.”

“Whatever. Tell my brother to text me.”

And before he could respond, the line was dead. Typical.

When he returned to the kitchen, Ingrid was wiping away tears and the ache in his chest returned tenfold. Wes was comforting her, both of their mugs abandoned, the burner on the stove turned off.

“What happened?”

Ingrid waved him off even as Matt closed the space between them, pulling her into his chest.

“Nothing, it’s nothing. I miss her, that’s all.”

He knew better than to say Delaney missed her too, that the two of them just needed to get their shit together. They were soulmates, and everyone seemed to know it but them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know she’d be calling…” Wesley mumbled.

“Of course not. You don’t have to apologize for that. This is just...messy, that’s all. I think I’m gonna head home.”

“You don’t have to go,” Wes said. “Stay, have breakfast, watch hockey.”

“You sure?” Ingrid still looked skeptical.

“All this french toast isn’t gonna eat itself,” Matt declared, snatching up a piece off the plate and taking a generous bite.

“Something tells me you’d have no problem devouring every last piece of that with no help from me.” But Ingrid snagged her own piece and smiled. It felt mostly like old times and the tension that had been lingering in him since Hudson slowly ebbed.

After the game ended, while they were waiting on Wesley getting their pizza, Ingrid nudged him, snuggling against his shoulder.

“You should call him.”

“Who?”

“Jimmy.”

“Yeah?” Matt wondered how Ingrid had him so figured out.

“Maybe invite him down. I mean, they have to let them out of there at some point, right?” she teased.

“It’s a school, Ingrid, not a prison.”

“Exactly. So call him. Your territory. A little safer.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Alright.”

He half expected Jimmy not to answer as he nervously paced the living room. He could feel Ingrid decidedly not watching him from the couch, which helped, for some reason.

“Everything okay?” Matt could practically count on one hand the number of times he and Jimmy had spoken on the phone. All of them had been cursory greetings, usually while Matt was deployed, at the behest of Jimmy’s mom.

“Yeah. It’s fine. I’m fine.” It felt good not to lie. “Just kinda disappointed our weekend got cut short.”

“Yeah?”

“So, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come down here? Do a weekend?”

“Like, in the city? Hell yeah.”

He must’ve been smiling, because he caught sight of Ingrid beaming back at him from the couch, and Matt wished he had a pillow to chuck at her.

As it turned out, mending bridges was a lot easier than he’d thought. There was work to be done, but today, it felt doable. That was a victory all in itself.

#excaliburandthelaundromat

2 notes · View notes

chicagoindiecritics · 4 years

Text

New from Robert Daniels on 812 Film Reviews: AFI Fest [Reviews]: The Cave, Alan Pakula: Going for Truth, and Desert One

It wasn’t my intention, but at AFI Fest: with films examining Black love, injustice, and outer space—I discovered three documentaries about grief, each occurring in the space of three separate decades. These films demonstrate AFI Fest’s recommitment to critical documentary filmmaking, and they show us at our best, even when we’re usually at our worst.

Nosocomephobia: the fear of hospitals, isn’t uncommon. A dread seeps into the psyche: What could go wrong? But I doubt if many have visited the doctor’s office with fear of a bomb dropping over their heads—knowing they’d have to seek shelter in a series of claustrophobically constructed caves. Not to belittle such anxiety, but they do in Syria. The Last Men in Aleppo filmmaker Feras Fayyad returns with a harrowing story of a team of doctors who represent Syria’s last line of medical defense in The Cave.

While much of Eastern Ghouta has evacuated, amongst the destruction Dr. Amani Ballour and her colleagues hold firm. Because of such, they’re constantly inundated with shredded bodies—victims of the bombing campaign in the country. With limited supplies, they’re often left without answers. Instead, they must adapt and perform at their best. When they lack anesthesia, they use classical music to calm patients during invasive operations. When they dine, the doctors eat popcorn and try to imagine it’s cake instead.

As a woman, Dr. Ballour is constantly questioned by her male patients and even her father through his voicemails: pleading with her to return home and to her garden. She courageously leads this team, holding them together amongst a torn apart terrain of medical emergencies. In the face of war, the religious power structure has been upended: women aren’t stuck to tend the house. The team must also contend with their own PTSD and frayed nerves. Whenever a war plane buzzes overhead, they naturally duck. Sometimes they have a gallow’s humor about the perilous affair, but they’re scared. And yet everyday they return to work, even when they’re unsure if they’re making a difference.

Their powerlessness stems from taking shelter in the subterranean web of caves whenever a war plane flies dangerously close. It’s their only defense. And when Russians turn to chemical warfare, the doctors have even less answers. In a tidy 95 minutes, Fayyad demonstrates why he’s one of the most important documentarians of his generation, recording a tragedy that the world would rather look away from. The Cave like the region, shouldn’t be ignored.

Grief never truly stops, not for those left behind. Harrison Ford can barely form words, squinting away tears when speaking about his friend Alan Pakula. The famed producer and director who shaped works like To Kill a Mockingbird, Sophie’s Choice, Klute, The Parallax View, and All the President’s Men—died suddenly in 1998 when a metal pipe on the Long Island Expressway broke loose and pierced through his windshield. The freakish accident left a cavernous creative hole for loved ones and admirers like Matthew Miele. As a tribute, Miele creates a loving eulogy for the famed director in his poignant documentary Alan Pakula: Going for Truth.

Initially, Going for Truth diagrams the life and personality of Pakula. In a scene like the 1970’s, made up of celebrity auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Brian DePalma—whose names mean as much on the marquee as their actors—the Sophie’s Choice filmmaker didn’t seek the limelight. Many wouldn’t recognize Pakula if they were sitting beside him. And yet, he directed and produced immaculately fashioned pictures. He also crafted incredible barrier-breaking roles for women, taking a keen interest in developing fully realized female characters. Scores of former friends and associates share memories pertaining to the director, like Jane Fonda, Alec Baldwin, Jane Alexander, Jeff Bridges, Dustin Hoffman, and the aforementioned Ford. Fonda in particular credited Pakula with her incredible performance in Klute.

Each eclectic figure demonstrates the enormous impact the beloved director had on them personally and creatively. Furthermore, interviews with his relatives also shape the emotional tenor: describing how Pakula diverted from sports and more “manly” pursuits condoned by his father, to a life in art. His widow Hannah Boorstin and stepchildren also recount personal remembrances of him too.

And while Going for the Truth certainly serves as a tribute to the legendary director, when employing archival interviews, the documentary becomes a masterclass. With the central takeaway being: filmmakers don’t make movies as Pakula did anymore. They often over-cut when editing, lacking the patience for the inherent drama and emotion of the scene to evolve. The internal psychology of characters rarely flourish in today’s pictures, but they did in his. Part of such is due to Pakula’s unique style, his personal passion for psychology: his hunt for the cinematic. In a discourse taking apart what constitutes cinema, Alan Pakula: Going for Truth is a necessary balm, a touching memorialization of a visionary talent.

On Nov 4, 1979, the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line stormed the US Embassy in Tehran taking fifty-two hostages. Throughout America’s history, there exists arcs of unbridled confidence and a crisis of conscious: the difference between the idealized visions of World War II and the tragedy of Vietnam. The Iran-hostage crisis marks the latter, and led to one of the most audacious rescue attempts in United States history. The legendary director of Harlan County, USA and Miss Sharon Jones!, Barbara Kopple returns with the incredible and emotionally devastating Desert One—a portrait of heroism even when there’s no clear victory.

Kopple’s newest film sees her return to the politically charged narratives of her past. Moreover, one shouldn’t confuse Ben Affleck’s Argo (2012)—detailing the successful rescue of the Canadian embassy employees—Kopple follows the American ordeal. Desert One features interviews with both the retired Delta Force tasked with saving the hostages, and the former student revolutionaries who stormed the embassy protesting against the brutal dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. She charts the 444 days of the crisis, which witnessed the collapse of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and the creation of a team of special forces soldiers formed for the aforementioned incredible plan.

Anyone with a basic grasp of history knows that the code named Desert One mission ended disastrously. Soldiers flew into Iran during the dead of night, armed with eight helicopters and two refueling planes. They were land on a remote dirt road, board trucks, drive to where they believed the hostage were being held, and then fly out using the helicopters. The plan held multiple moving part, with very little hard intel to back up some of the assertions. At one point, the soldiers are reduced to watching Dateline for solid intelligence. Many believe the mission was a stunt, an politically ailing Carter taking a major risk with American lives in a feigned attempt of being re-elected. Kopple doesn’t parse through that theory with the depth required for the subject. Though, who could blame her? She only had twenty minutes to interview Carter.

Nevertheless, her documentary is actually eulogy to the soldiers. On the fatal night of 24 April 1980, the assembled Delta Force team were given a “Go.” Though they had doubts of the mission success, they still wanted to try. Within a span of few deadly hours, they lost three of their eight helicopters. Needing to abort, in their confusion, a helicopter crashed with a pane, resulting in the deaths of several soldiers. Worst yet, to evade capture they had to leave the bodies of their fellow American soldiers behind. In one poignant clip, days later, children are playing on the blades of one of the fallen choppers. The scene recalls Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, a film about another debacle.

Even so, Kopple’s Desert One isn’t about failure. It demonstrates the valor in trying. Because unlike America, the soldiers that night didn’t experience a metaphorical defeat. They witnessed real grief; the event still drawing tears and anguish from them to this day. And Kopple, in the midst of their mourning, finds the greatest of intimacy in those who’ve lost the most. Desert One is a fitting memorial of courage, even in the face of insurmountable odds.

from 812filmReviews https://ift.tt/2rzx5uk via IFTTT

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2QV1BcA via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #CIFCC #film critics #movies #film #Chicago

0 notes

xxoberonxx · 7 years

Text

Best Strains for Hot Fucking!!!

SKYWALKER This indica-dominant hybrid is the love child of Blueberry and Mazar. It’s a relaxing medicine, as excellent at kocking out PTSD as it is at encouraging analingus.

VOODOO This sativa is magic indeed! It’s long-lasting and stress-relieving—just the ticket to calm your nerves and keep you energized for your next friendly threesome.

BLUE CHEESE This indica cross has a funky name and smell. A fabulous painkiller, it will let you try some funky stuff without the “ouch” (i.e., butt sex).

ASIAN FANTASY A rare sativa with an uplifting, euphoric effect, it’s the perfect vacation-sex weed. This one will keep you hopping (and humping) like the energizer bunny.

SKUNK #1 The big, bad godfather hybrid that led to a zillion Skunk crosses. The cottonmouth is severe, so avoid oral. Smoke it before good old-fashioned P-in-V sex, ideal for a movie night in.

GOO With a name like Goo, expect to get messy. This 80 percent indica provides heavy calming effects without losing the cerebral high. Use that brainpower for an oral-sex marathon.

GRAND DADDY PURPLE My first time smoking this strain, I was in bed with a lover who was thinking about leaving New York. All I could manage was: “I want to move next door to this weed.” Bring this indica home and put a ring on it!

FLO This hybrid will make you super-sexy and also provide great cerebral clarity. I recommend Flo for one-night stands, so make sure to wrap it before you tap it.

ULTIMATE TRAINWRECK This sativa provides an orgasmic body buzz that will addle you in the most delightful way possible. Smoke it with someone you love. The ultimate makeup-sex weed!

SOUR DREAM The offspring of Blue Dream and Sour Diesel, this sativa-dominant hybrid will ease your social anxieties but keep you up all night. Roll a few joints for the next sex party you attend.

2 notes · View notes

fortey · 6 years

Text

Traumatized by Horror

Maybe this will be fun for someone. This is my draft of an article I wrote recently. This is pre-editing, as I submitted it. You can find the published version right here. Just an interesting contrast between what I write and what gets published. Sometimes you get edited a lot, sometimes you get edited a little. But if you’re interested in the creative process at all and how publishing works sometimes, it’s a nice comparison.

There’s probably all kinds of psychology behind why people enjoy watching horror movies that range from things like the adrenaline rush you get from being scared to the fact that the Leprechaun is clearly awesome. That’s all fine and dandy like sour candy except for when horror goes a little beyond the usual thrill and maybe wonks your brain six ways from Sunday. Because those kind of shenanigans actually happen now and then - sometimes people get so traumatized by horror they have to get medical professionals involved.

127 Hours Grossed Out Audiences En Masse

Some might argue that 127 Hours isn’t a horror movie at all, but it does star James Franco and you can’t spell “James Franco is terrifying” without James Franco, so let’s not speak of it again. In the movie 127 Hours, there’s an extremely disturbing scene in which Franco, realizing Seth Rogen is nowhere to be seen, has to take matters into his own hands and save himself by performing an impromptu field amputation of his own arm with a Swiss Army knife. This scene was at least as disturbing as Franco’s entire performance in Why Him?

The cutting scene lasts for about 3 minutes but it’s a bloody, intense, Francoscream-filled endurance test for the audience and some audience members were not able to withstand it. In fact, there’s a remarkable list of audiences who suffered a number of side effects which in some cases may have been hammed up a little since they couldn’t be confirmed, but others were making the whole ordeal sound like 127 Hours was used to punish people Clockwork Orange style.

A reviewer who saw the film at the Toronto International Film Festival mentions 3 people passed out and one had a seizure during the movie and goes out of their way to express they didn’t think it was a PR stunt as some people suggested - the audience was genuinely grossed out by the scene and had maybe never seen movies before. Weird one to pick for their first try.

History repeated itself when the director of Toy Story 3 had a private screening of the movie and two more people passed out. Did Buzz and Woody steal their wallets and take compromising photos while they were out? We can only assume.

The editor of Vanity Fair held a screening with Franco and the director on hand. People reportedly wept during at that one and, yeah, another dude went face down, ass up over it.

Movieline actually put together an entire timeline of people losing their shit over the movie. Some are given the side-eye treatment, suggesting maybe a few of these were played up to hype the movie given all the other stories of people passing out, but enough of them were legit that it’s safe to assume if you want the family to leave the house quick after Thanksgiving this year while still being able to pretend you weren’t doing it on purpose, this is the movie you want to put on.

Freaks Was Accused of Causing a Miscarriage

Have you ever seen the movie Freaks from 1932? It’s one of the earliest most controversial horror films and is famous for this completely baffling scene;

youtube

To this day, I won’t agree to anything during a work meeting without chanting “I accept it! I accept it! Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!” That went over like gangbusters when I was asked to start wearing pants again.

Back in 1932, a movie about murderous circus people was pretty cutting edge and, if we’re being honest, it still is. No one would make this movie today because those actors all were actual circus performers and modern audiences tend to frown on exploiting people by calling them freaks. To fully appreciate just how well this movie went over when it premiered though, you just need to dig into the lore around it. While it seems to have ruined the career of the director, it had much more harrowing repercussions in the real world where one woman claimed to have had a miscarriage while watching a test screening. She threatened to sue the studio and their response was to recut the movie to make it less horrifying. Try to imagine that working today.

The newer version of the film had fewer murderous scenes and also got rid of a castration because that was a thing that someone thought was necessary to film in the first place. Word is those scenes are lost for all time, so if you ever wanted to see a circus strongman get his dong cut off, you’re going to have to wait for that episode of Big Bang Theory like the rest of us.

The Exorcist Straight Up Ruined People

If you haven’t seen the Exorcist then your mother and I are extremely disappointed in you. Please go watch it immediately. It came out in 1973 and it still holds up as an amazing and effective horror movie and the reason so many of us masturbate with crucifixes. The story and the acting really produce an undeniable sense of dread and terror that forces you to make sure the blanket covers your feet at night because the monsters can’t touch your ankles if they’re covered, and that’s a rule. It also seriously fucked up a whole bunch of people.

Any time a movie causes someone’s heart to malfunction, and not in that “three sizes bigger” Grinch way, it’s pretty noteworthy. A New York Times article from January 1974 recounts people standing in massive lines to get into the theater to see the film, with scalpers selling tickets for upwards of $50 which is ironically what it costs to get a drink, popcorn and a movie ticket for IMAX today. It also mentions the number of people who vomited while watching the movie, and some who walked out, or fainted. And then, apparently, several people had heart attacks.

Is it possible the stories of heart attacks is just someone blowing pea soup up our asses? Maybe. In the pre-internet world all kinds of shit happened without people idly filming it on their phones in the hopes the suffering of a stranger would make them go viral. But the influence of The Exorcist does go beyond the mass pukings and odd heart attack.

If you’ve never heard the term cinematic neurosis then welcome to your crash course. It’s what a psychologist might call the phenomenon of a patient developing anxiety, dissociation and potentially psychotic symptoms because of a movie, requiring the intervention of a mental health professional to overcome. There’s a study that mentions a case caused by Jaws, one by Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 5 separate incidents caused by The Exorcist because a pre-teen girl whose head spins is always slightly more disturbing than pod people and Richard Dreyfuss.

Patients affected by The Exorcist suffered insomnia, panic attacks, PTSD and more. One had dreams about the Devil with a dick in his mouth. And sure, we all have dreams about the Devil or Elmer Fudd or whomever with a dick in their mouth sometimes, but this was to the point that the person needed psychotherapy to deal with it, so you can assume that was a hell of a devil dick.

Dracula and Eyes without a Face Caused Mass Faintings

To the best of my knowledge I have never fainted. Once I drank so much at a party in college that I woke up in the parking lot of a bagel deli next to an exceptionally large pool of drool, but I don’t think that’s the same thing. I can say for certain no horror movie has ever made me faint though, because of my robust constitution. And maybe that’s a product of the times because back in the day, people were dropping like flies watching movies like Eyes Without a Face and Dracula.

In 1928, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi was like if Hereditary and The Exorcist humped and had a baby with a remarkably distinct hairline. That shit scared the bejeezus out of people and in 1928, it was very hard to replace bejeezus. The San Francisco Chronicle talked about a nurse on hand with smelling salts to help handle an average of 14 faintings per night. Now the movie-makers of 1928 weren’t above maybe hiring some people to engage in a little bullshittery to help hype a movie but there’s not any indication that these faintings were not legit either. In fact. Lugosi played Dracula on stage before playing the role on film, and 110 faintings were reported in the first week of the theater production. His accent was that good.

In 1960, the French film Eyes Without a Face busted out a repeat performance of the Dracula phenomenon by making audience members buckle like belts thanks to one particular scene involving a face transplant which was a little much for 1960s sensibilities. It’s about 6 solid minutes of screentime featuring a doctor just cutting a face off and peeling it away like a goddamn banana. You’d probably snicker at the effects today but back in 1960 people were all made of cotton candy and golly gosh so this probably hit people like a bag of grapefruits to the groin. Seven audience members fainted during the film’s showing at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and those were Scots, for God’s sake. They eat haggis on purpose there.

It’s worth noting that faintings not strictly limited to impressionable audiences of yesteryear, either. Four audience members fainted during a showing of Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist in 2009, possible because they saw Willem Dafoe’s dong. In 2016, EMS had to be called to a Toronto showing of Raw when a person fainted, because some people still aren’t down with cannibalism.

Ghostwatch Was the Worst Idea the BBC Ever Had

There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Ghostwatch as it originally aired on the BBC in 1992 and 1992 British TV was the entertainment equivalent of a bag of scones to the jimmies. All you need to know about the show is that it aired at 9 PM, it featured recognizable TV personalities (if you’re British) and it was filmed like a typical live broadcast investigative TV show. If you’ve ever watched Live PD, the format would be very familiar - in studio host talking to people out on the scene. The on-scene hosts were at a particular home alleged to be haunted, investigating the claims and more or less mocking the idea. Or so it seemed!

The show was presented as a real documentary like so many current ghost hunting shows are, but this was well before that era. This was new, and early enough in the evening that families were watching it with the kids. And remember, it was 1992 in Britain so you probably could either watch this or some guy painting cricket balls on TV that night.

As the show progressed, the tenor went from goofy “this is a bullshit waste of time” to something more menacing. Calls from viewers, which were actually fake but no one knew that at the time, began to incorporate elements from the “real” haunting that was being presented on the show. People professed to have had similar experiences with a ghost knocking on their pipes and shit started going down on camera until the studio went full apocalyptic ghostsplosion. One of the hosts gets dragged off and presumably ghost murdered and the studio lights explode as the main host gets possessed on camera and threatens to rain holy hell down on the viewing audience before the how cuts out. Sounds kind of cool, right? Well, the 30,000 people who called the BBC within an hour didn’t think so. And that was the least of their problems.

11 million people watched Ghostwatch and it fucked them up royally. It went from silly to disturbing very quickly, however, when an 18-year old boy with some learning difficulties who watched the broadcast committed suicide days later. His parents said he had been obsessed with the broadcast and believed the same ghost haunted their house. He left a note saying that if ghosts are real, then he’ll be with them “always as a ghost.”

0 notes