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mst3kproject · 4 years

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622: Angels Revenge

I would pay folding money for a half-hour gag reel of all the times Mike swung too hard or in the wrong direction or the wind was wrong and he took off Crow’s head. It had to happen at least twice. MST3K was not known for the sturdiness or sophistication of their props and we love them for it.

A fourteen-year-old boy steals some stuff from a drug dealer who looks an awful lot like Ben Murphy. In revenge, Fake Ben Murphy and Actual Jack Palance beat the shit out of him. This upsets both the kid’s sister, an up-and-coming musician, and his schoolteacher, and they hatch a plot to destroy the drug depot. They recruit a few friends – a Hollywood stuntwoman, a karate teacher, a model, a cop, and one of the teacher’s students – and steal some ammo from a bunch of neo-Nazis, and then it’s on to beat up the druggies!

I guess the idea behind this movie is fairly sound – a group of women get together to do a job the men aren’t willing to do. The question of just why the men aren’t willing to do it is an open one. Do the drug dealers own the police or something? I dunno. At the time it came out, Angels Revenge was panned as a ripoff of Charlie’s Angels, which it most unquestionably is, but there’s a reason that was a successful formula: women enjoy movies in which women kick ass, and men enjoy looking at boobs. In the right hands, it would still have been a ripoff, but it could have been a much better ripoff. Unfortunately, the grubby hands it got into were those of Greydon Clark.

The opening of this movie is a series of annoying missteps. A group of women we do not know (we’re not even sure how many there are) invade a gas station in the middle of nowhere and start blowing stuff up. Their names are given in the opening shot but not in a way that makes them memorable. One character apparently dies, the others go on without her, and then she reappears to save the day. None of this makes much of an impression beyond ‘oh, look, tits’, but we can tell they’re trying to get into the main building. We get into it just enough that we want to see what’s inside, and then bam. Freeze-frame, narration.

The time for this would have been about five minutes earlier. Seriously, this ‘action opening’, obviously patterned after things like James Bond, goes on for five minutes at least in which we don’t really know what’s happening or who any of these characters are. If we had just one to focus on that might help, but we’re watching six or seven of them run around doing different things and we don’t even know what their plan is so we can’t tell if it’s going right or wrong. The whole sequence should have been either massively cut down to just enough to tell us action is happening before it goes into the flashback, or just moved in its entirety to its proper place later in the narrative.

Then when we finally do start meeting the characters, the first one we meet is not the one who began narrating a moment earlier! It’s the beat-up kid’s sister, the one who so-far looked like she was in charge. Finding out she’s secondary in the whole plot is a bit of whiplash, and as far as I can tell the main purpose of the Vegas sequence (besides showing us her midriff) is to give a cameo to Arthur Godfrey as himself.

From there the rest of the characters are introduced and we finally find out who the hell they all are and what they bring to the table. April, the teacher, is the mastermind. Michelle, the singer, is the backer. Terry, the stuntwoman, is their engineer. Keiko, the karate teacher, is the hand-to-hand fighter. Maria, the model, is a distraction. Elaine, the cop, is the tactician. And Trish, the student, is… uh… somebody wanted a kid in this movie. The point is, if you go back and watch the opening sequence after the bit where everybody’s introduced, it’s much more involving and makes infinitely more sense! They could have had five minutes of action, but they gave us five minutes of boredom just by putting it in the wrong spot!

After some of the movies I’ve see, incidentally, it is a point very much to this movie’s credit that I remember everybody’s names. Well done, Angels Revenge!

That does not, however, outweigh the many other things the movie does badly. The actresses are mere eye candy, hired for their looks and not for their talent. They stand around in ‘sexy’ poses without bras on, and recite their lines like they’re in an eighth-grade play. Even so, they’re better than the men, who are just as bad at acting but aren’t distractingly nice to look at. The best actor in the entire movie is Alan Hale Jr and he’s only got about three lines.

Then there are the bits where the movie tries to be funny. The Neo-Nazis are supposed to be funny, which I’m honestly okay with – Hitler hated being made fun of and so it’s the responsibility of all right-thinking citizens to mock him and his movement whenever possible. But they aren’t funny, just a bunch of fat clumsy guys with Hitler mustaches. I don’t know how people who make movies fail to understand that in order to be funny, characters have to do funny things. Both the Neo-Nazis and other ‘comic’ male characters in the movie are presented simply as ‘lol, men are oafs, right girls?’ without any attempt at an actual punchline.

Another running gag is April, who insists she’s a Very Organized Person, and her over-full purse. That’s not really funny, but I can’t argue with it. Two years ago I bought a bag big enough to hold my knitting and I haven’t seen the bottom of it since. Someday I’ll be rooting around for something, fall in, and end up in Narnia.

The sequence in which they rob the Nazis does provide some action and acts as a trial run to show us the women can work together successfully. But we already saw that in the out-of-place opening sequence, so it’s not really establishing anything we didn’t already know. The fact that we’ve also seen what comes after also tells us that they will succeed at this mission with nobody getting hurt (not that these idiots they’re robbing are in any way a threat), and sucks all the suspense out. Man, the longer I think about it, the more ways in which that opening makes the movie worse! Whose idea was that anyway?

The characters are stereotypes, boring at best and deeply offensive at worst. The black woman is six feet tall and works on vehicles, because black women are butch! The Asian girl knows martial arts and uses a katana, because she’s Asian (and although she’s said to be from Vietnam, she has a Japanese name… it’s possible to come up with a backstory for her that incorporates this, but that’s not my job as an audience member)! The white women are bitches and bimbos, more distinguishable by their hair than by their personalities. April is presented as ‘the mousy one’ simply by not wearing lipstick on a heist.

I guess by having tough women and weak men, the writers thought they were being feminist, or at least appealing to feminists, but that’s not how feminism works on any level. Strength and intelligence isn’t pizza – you getting an extra slice doesn’t mean I don’t get one. Portraying the male antagonists as buffoons is actually deeply misogynistic, because it suggest that women can’t even play unless the men are idiots. The point of feminism is that women are people just as much as men are, and deserve to be treated as such – by other women, by men, and by screenwriters.

Let me illustrate with an example from the opposite extreme: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility are sisters who each need to get married for the sake of their financial security. That might seem a very sexist premise for a story – and it is, but only because it takes place in a sexist culture. Elinor and Marianne have distinct personalities and different ideas of what makes a happy marriage, and they make decisions as individuals, not simply because they are ‘women’. Each makes her own mistakes and learns her own life lessons, and the narrative explores what society has taught them to expect out of life versus the less romantic reality. They are two human beings. The characters in Angels Revenge, by contrast, are a bunch of pretty props.

It would have been so easy to make something actually enjoyable out of Angels Revenge. As I noted above, it uses a successful formula and it really could have been a fun little piece of exploitation cinema. Every decision made along the way, however, seems designed to sabotage it. It’s badly-written, lifeless, cliched, racist, and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of feminism. They hired women with no acting experience to play the main characters, and can’t decide which of those characters is our heroine. And of course, they edited it together in the wrong order, confusing and boring us and undermining what should have been important and suspenseful scenes. This sort of thing just leaves me frustrated and annoyed. You’re making a movie, people! Could you not put a little fucking effort in?!

#mst3k #reviews #angels revenge #70s

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kylermalloy · 5 years

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My Official Unofficial Ranking of Supernatural Seasons That Nobody Asked For

This was...surprisingly easy. For someone who has a hard time picking favorites, I’m apparently quite eager to throw some seasons of one of my favorite shows under the bus.

My reasonings for this ranking are...all over the place. Since I’m considering seasons as a whole, I look mostly at the overall narrative structure, the prevalent themes, and the major character arcs. I won’t take individual/one-off episodes into much consideration...except for when I do. I won’t like some seasons/story arcs for any rationale between “this was sloppily executed,” “the message is misunderstood by viewers,” or even just that gif of Chris Evans “I don’t wike it.” I’m trying to look at seasons and storylines objectively, but I guarantee my Sam!girl bias will peek through at some point. Also, I reserve the right to change my mind at any point after I post this!

From bottom to top:

14 - Season 14

Ah, the twilight years of SPN. Now that we know this is the penultimate season, I’m a bit more lenient toward its shortcomings. Long running shows usually do stutter to a halt, story-wise. But still. I’m not taking it out of the bottom spot.

What was this season even about? Michael overtaking Dean? Nah, that barely lasted three whole episodes. Jack becoming evil? Not until the last six episodes. Team Free Will becoming a cohesive family unit? Lol. For a season that tried to set up Jack’s evil arc as a kid betraying his family, I hardly saw this “family” except in fanworks. The most heartfelt moments remained between Sam and Dean (not that I’m complaining about that—I loved those moments!) Was there an overarching theme besides “nobody is okay, especially Sam”? Season 14 is clumsy, unfocused, and does a poor job of telling the story it tried to tell. Even Mary’s second death reeked of “well, we didn’t know what to do with her and we needed a tragedy.” Oh yeah, and John was back for a hot minute.

13 - Season 9

Here’s one of these weird seasons. I like it, but I don’t. It’s well done, but it’s terrible. Also, I’m taking fan response into consideration on this one, since it colored my perception of it so negatively.

Season 9 could have been great. In a way, it was great. It was Dean’s dark arc—the part of Dean’s dark arc that I like. I’m not here to debate, just lay out the story. Dean stepped over a line. He tricked Sam into possession, lied to him for months, then refused to apologize afterward. He took the Mark of Cain as a penance, but it blew up in his face and turned him into something worse than he was before.

This is where fan response comes in. Fandom (from what I can tell; I wasn’t here back then) vilified Sam for setting boundaries with Dean, overwhelmingly siding with poor Dean who just didn’t want to be alone. The show, on paper, wasn’t trying to make the audience think this, but the POVs were skewed in such a way that we hardly got a chance to see Sam’s perspective and Sam’s trauma—so casual viewers didn’t really have a choice.

On a completely unrelated note (see, this is why this season is ranked so low) we have the angel storyline. What could’ve been a really cool and impactful story of celestial beings walking the earth, as well as Castiel exploring his new humanity in a way (that wasn’t just about sex) ended up a trite, dull affair about underdeveloped politics and characters I don’t care about. Did Metatron (the supposed big bad) even care about the Winchesters? I can’t remember. Only the actor’s indulgently entertaining performance saves that character. Even Castiel’s human arc was so short and ignored I sometimes forget it happened. This was a season that was so all over the place—good bones, bad execution.

12 - Season 12

This season is just...forgettable. Yet another season that was so all over the place—but unlike season 9, the story arcs did not culminate in a cool twist that pushed the SPN story to new heights. We had the BMOL, Mary’s return, and the Lucifer/Kelly/Dagon/nephilim story, and...honestly I can barely remember anything about them. The twisting story threads got interlocked at some points, like Mary working with the BMOL, and Sam and Dean working with them to take down Lucifer, but the threads were all wrapped up independently. To me, this suggests a lack of true investment in the stories and season arcs. Ultimately, Mary’s return was utterly wasted, the BMOL might as well have never existed, and the Lucifer storyline is a bloody, bloated carcass being dragged along behind the show by a fraying rope (called Buckleming) complete with a bad smell.

The reason I rank this season above season 9 is that I don’t shudder when I hear people talking about season 12. I don’t generally get angry when I think about it (except the way they did Crowley dirty) and it did give us Jack, the greatest fanon projection the show has ever given us. (I’ll elaborate on that in a minute)

11 - Season 10

This is the season in which I don’t like Dean’s dark arc. By that I mean...it wasn’t much of a dark arc. Instead of exploring Dean’s inner darkness and the choices that led him to take the MoC, we get a meandering season of (pretty enjoyable) one-offs. We are repeatedly told Dean can’t fight off what he truly is—except we’re also being told that Dean can’t truly control what the MoC is doing to him, meaning the MoC isn’t what he truly is. It’s a mixed message, and it ends up being too many episodes in a row of Dean staring moodily at his arm while he drinks. Sorry, an ancient tribal tattoo does not a compelling big bad make.

Speaking of bad guys, though, season 10 gave us Rowena! And more Crowley material! And the Stynes—wait, no. We don’t talk about...whatever they were.

I do like Sam’s determination to save Dean, and I even like the underhanded methods he used to get the MoC off. Charlie’s death was a horrifying shock, but it actually fed the story very well. And I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about individual episodes, but Soul Survivor and Fan Fiction are both epic.

10 - Season 8

...this season. This season is such a mixed bag you could almost rank it as two separate seasons! ;) This was Jeremy Carver’s first season as showrunner—and while I like what he ended up doing, I hated the way he played with the brother dynamics throughout the season, especially the first half. Season 8 starts out disjointed, very unconnected from the previous season. The story thread of “Sam didn’t look for Dean” is overplayed and very tired. Also a bit of a reach, considering the season 5 finale. My point is, Sam and Dean both act like pod people for the first part of this season. Dean is mad at Sam for...doing exactly what Dean himself did a few years ago (fandom misses the nuance of Dean’s hypocrisy and jumps right in the blame-Sam boat with him) and Sam is suddenly...living with a strange woman we barely get to meet and okay with not hunting anymore?

This is another example of the skewed POVs hurting the show’s message. We don’t get to see Sam’s grief the same way we saw Dean’s struggle in purgatory, and since Sam’s Amelia arc makes very little sense anyway, we’re forced to imagine it—and this is a disservice to both Sam and the overarching story.

However, the saving grace of season 8 is the second half. We get the bunker, the Trials storyline, which is a whump goldmine for my Sam-loving heart, and one of the best season finales this show has ever produced. I mean...they got married. In a CHURCH! I’m not really a wincester, but seriously how do you not ship it just a little when the show gives you stuff like THAT?!

*deep breath* I’m good. Moving on!

9 - Season 13

I...have a soft spot for this season. Anybody who follows me on here can probably guess why. That’s right, it’s Jack, the greatest fanon projection the show has ever gifted us.

Let me explain. The narrative structure of the season is a mess. The exploratory theme of Sam and Dean as parents is derailed by the fact that Sam and Dean spend less than six episodes with their surrogate child and spend the rest of the season spinning their wheels until it’s time for the finale. Lucifer as a villain doesn’t give a crap about the protagonists, which makes him a really boring and terrible antagonist—to say nothing of the fact that two of the writers try to make him sympathetic and end up assassinating the character harder than Michael!Dean did. I only found Scoobynatural mildly entertaining. As for Asmodeus...who’s that?

Basically, the only shining light in this season besides the brothers is Jack. And we don’t even get a consistent characterization of him. He’s essentially a blank slate, which means we as fans and fanwork creators get to make him whatever we want. While he’s supposedly the Winchesters’ kid in canon, it’s rarely shown—that falls on us as fans to make a reality. And boy do we make it reality! This is where I found my corner of fandom, and that’s why this mess of a season ranks relatively high for me. Still in the bottom half, but it gave me one of the greatest gifts the show has ever given.

8 - Season 7

I shouldn’t have to defend myself, but while most of the fandom harbors a little black spot of hatred for this season...I don’t. Like, at all.

I don’t agree with all the creative choices of this season—the Leviathans were an out-of-nowhere big bad with no connection to the Winchesters. However, the guy who played Dick Roman did a fantastic job hamming it up. And I love how all the pieces came together in the end—Sam and Dean, Cas, Crowley, even Meg as a surprise reluctant hero. We also got Charlie! And Kevin! Bobby got a fantastic arc, both before he died and from beyond the grave. And Crowley, even though he helped win the day, also rigged the game so he took all the pieces left on the board. Mad respect for my king.

Also, as a stalwart fan of Sam whump, Sam’s hallucination storyline was all kinds of awesome. (Except for how it abruptly ended and was never spoken of again)

I know objectively this season isn’t very good, but I still find myself rewatching it a surprising amount. I have a soft spot for Sera’s storytelling, and she did not have complete control over the creative decisions for this year. Season 7 only barely misses out of the top half.

7 - Season 3

This season is great, it really is. I think the main reason I rank it so low is because of the shortened season—Sam’s aborted arc. And that was obviously out of everyone’s control; the creators had to just pick up the pieces and make do with what circumstances gave them.

Basically, I don’t have anything bad to say about this season. It’s a brother-lovefest, it gives us Bela and Ruby, and yes we get some truly great one-off eps. Bad Day at Black Rock, A Very Supernatural Christmas, Mystery Spot, Jus in Bello, and Ghostfacers are among my favorite episodes to rewatch. I just mainly miss the end of Sam’s arc. Although I do appreciate the writers’ strike giving us Castiel instead, I still wish we could’ve gotten to see boyking!Sam save his brother.

6 - Season 2

While on the surface season 2 is barely different than season 1, it also gives us loads of gamechangers. It’s the coming-of-age season—Sam and Dean aren’t kids anymore; in fact, they aren’t anyone’s kids. The season bookends of John’s death and Sam’s death make a horrible tragedy that I don’t even care much what’s in the middle.

But then again, everything in between is so good. There’s not much of an overarching story, just a sense of dread and desperation as...something...draws near. (We don’t even know what it is, but it still scares us! It’s masterful!) The tone is consistent and effective, the brother dynamics are still balanced enough to fully enjoy, and of course...there’s Playthings. :)

(Y’all are gonna stop believing me when I say I’m not a wincester, I can feel it. What can I say, I have incestuous shipping tendencies.)

5 - Season 11

This is a season that I could tear limb from limb for falling so flat in the end, but...somehow I can’t bring myself to. I didn't find myself into the Amara storyline too much, mainly because the God/Darkness sibling dynamic wasn’t developed enough to parallel with Sam and Dean invest in. But this season does an awesome job of healing the brother dynamics. While seasons 8, 9, and 10 were fight-heavy, Sam and Dean spend this season in relative peace. In times of potential crisis, they band together instead of fracturing apart. And that, honestly, is enough for me to forgive...well, a lot, plotwise. The Dean/Amara connection that went nowhere, the Casifer storyline that went nowhere, the Darkness’s grudge against her brother that...went nowhere...and I’m not even going to touch on the Sam/Lucifer dynamic that started out SO GOOD and then...well...

Again, I’m not going to touch on it. I love this season despite its flaws.

4 - Season 1

Here it is. The season that started it all. I said I was going to consider mostly narrative structures for this ranking, yet here season 1 is without much of a narrative structure, fourth from the top.

The first season of a show is always the feel-around-in-the-dark season. This is where we learn the rules of the show, how the world works, and most importantly, who our characters are. We spend 22 episodes with the writers and actors just...figuring out who Sam and Dean are, most especially who they are to each other. They were so successful in this that they spawned a fifteen year phenomenon centered around this fraternal love story. As an additional plus, since the characters were so new, season 1 gives us the most balanced POV between the brothers. We get to feel for both of them without being pitted against each other, and I appreciate that more than words.

The horror is old-school, the storytelling can be a bit cliche, but every show has an origin story and I’m in love with this one.

3 - Season 6

Again, I love Sera Gamble’s storytelling. It’s most evidenced here in her first year of showrunning. This season had the astronomical task of following up season 5. How do you follow up the literal apocalypse?

...Astoundingly well. To me at least.

This season’s narrative structure is my favorite. It’s kind of a noir thriller, with more twists and turns than Supernatural usually gets. In fact, having now watched Vampire Diaries and The Originals, season 6 of SPN kind of echoes those shows. (I don’t think it’s coincidence that TVD aired its first season one year prior to this)

Instead of trying to outdo the literal devil (the mistake of latter seasons) we spend most of season 6 not knowing who the big bad is. We meet a few baddies, get backstabbed by former friends, and we’re told Raphael is a threat, but in the end the big bad was the friend we made along the way—Castiel. It’s depressing, it’s not what we expected, and it’s honestly a departure from “traditional” SPN. But I like it. I like it a lot. If Sera had been allowed to do more seasons like this, she probably would’ve stayed longer.

2 - Season 4

I love a lot of things about this season. The way they handled the angels was great—the right way to do unknowably powerful beings. I like Sam’s dark arc. It’s coupled perfectly with his good intentions and his all-consuming love for his brother. The plot twist at the end is perfect—Sam, in doing the right thing, unleashes the worst evil this world has (yet) known.

The tone is also perfect. It’s dark. A little edgier. Edging toward eldritch horror rather than ghost horror. Balanced out with light episodes that pack a hard punch in the feels regardless. And this is a little thing, but the color grading shifts back to more sepia after the technicolor of season 3. It gives us this little sense of dread throughout the season without even knowing why.

I could complain about the skewed POVs, about how fandom still sometimes crows “Dean was right about Lilith!” when all Dean opposed was Ruby and the demon blood—he wanted killed Lilith too. But as this instance of POV-warp serves the storyline in a good, necessary way, and Sam truly did need to be brought back from his dark path, I’m choosing to ignore it.

1 - Season 5

Are we surprised? Maybe some Sam fans are—I know some who get vexed about the blame for the apocalypse being solely and constantly placed on Sam...but I’m not. The overall story of season 5 is just so good. Lucifer is a good villain in this season. Sam and Dean have an excellent healing arc. The angels are good villains, also ironic mouthpieces of the overarching themes—despite touting “fate” and “unavoidable,” they are champions of free will, since they do whatever they want in their father’s absence. Zachariah most notably. Castiel was utilized in a good way (whereas now he struggles to still have purpose in the show) Bobby and Crowley both were good in this season (and also sparked a rarepair that’s—hilariously—canon) and this season did not pull any punches when it came to death. Even the main protagonists were shot point-blank halfway through the season! (Don’t talk to me about the samulet, I can’t do it without bawling)

And Swan Song remains my favorite season finale and overall episode. Dean relinquishing control of his little brother, allowing him to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the world. I still halfway wish the series ended with Sam and Dean both throwing themselves into the Cage, destroying themselves for the world, out of love for each other. (insert “poetic cinema” meme)

And there we have it! To my mutuals, I’d love to hear your thoughts or your rankings. And to @letsgobethegoodguys - Steph, since this was so hard for you, I did it myself so I could feel your pain. 😘

#supernatural #through the seasons #spn #rankings #kylerrambles #listen—i welcome discussion!#pls talk to me!#but if you come on my post just to argue with me—don’t bother

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takemedancingmaine · 6 years

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My heart is in my throat. My pulse is thundering through my veins, echoing in my ears and with everything I have in me I fight to keep my breath steady.

The world feels like it slows down for a moment. It's as if I'm moving at my normal speed while everything and everyone else is moving in slow motion. Everything aside from Jack turns fuzzy.

He's standing in front of me, a wide smile and his dimples flashing. His hair is windswept, or rustled from his fingers running through it--either option is entirely plausible. He's got on black jeans and clad in an incredibly soft looking jumper that's a bit big for him.

He looks quite fit.

My mouth goes dry.

I remind myself to smile at him, instead of just staring, wide-eyed like a deer in headlights. Very attractive, Wren.

His eyes relax into his smile when he sees my own smile grace my face and he gestures for me to walk toward the counter to order.

"How are you doing?" He asks. "Have you settled into your job yet?"

He remembered. Well damn.

"I'm alright," I nod. "I've grown quite accustomed to my new job. Everyone tells me I'm getting on, so I assume I'm doing something correctly."

He chuckles as we stand in line. "I'm sure you're doing very well."

"I don't know," I shrug, ready to get into it. "I couldn't even keep up with Charlie's project assignment this morning, so I doubt I'm really keeping up with the news," I step up to order before he can form a rebuttal.

After I order, in the split second before I can hand my card over Jack steps up to order, too.

"I'll pay for hers as well," he tells the clerk, who shrugs and takes down his order.

We move toward the counter where our food will be out shortly and he gives me a curious look.

"Thank you for paying," I say quietly, my nerves still on edge at his proximity, the image of him winking at me in the pub last week sending a shiver through me before I regain myself and centre back into the present.

"O'course," he smiles and bites his lip. His beard is filling in nicely now. It had been slightly scraggly before, but now it's full. It makes me curious though, his ginger beard is much darker than his hair. I know it's usually a case of slightly different colours--when Liam's not shaved his face is covered in almost black scruff--but something about the lightness of his hair versus the beard has me squiggling my eyebrows in curiosity.

I wonder how that beard would feel under my fingertips.

Jesus Christ, Wren. Get it together, I chastise myself.

What would it feel like against my cheek, my lips-fucking hell you stupid bugger, stop this train of thought, please!

Jack's raised an eyebrow at me, I realize when I finally make it back to reality.

The curious glint is still in his eyes.

"Did you learn anything from the project?" He teases now.

I flush a bright pink colour and lower my gaze to my feet.

"No," I shake my head. "All I learned is that my six-year-old nephew is going to grow up to be smarter than me and his dad combined."

Jack laughs at that. I look up to see his head thrown back and the joyous sound fills the café. It's absolutely lovely, that sound is. I want to hear that all the time.

"His dad's a lawyer, right?" Jack asks.

"He is," I nod. "He had some mediation or something to be at this morning so I got to help Charlie with the project while he skipped out."

"Oh, so you were a babysitter and a tutor today?" He asks with a smirk.

"No," I shake my head again. "I was the sitter, but Charlie was the tutor," I explain. "He absolutely knew more than me. Even after I used my phone to search things."

"Y'know," Jack gives me a smirk that has me all kinds of nervous, "I honestly feel that way every single day with these kids."

"That cannot be true," I give him a look.

"It is," he says earnestly. "I feel like I cannae keep up with everything they know. One told me just yesterday about this new Mars rover project. I had no idea some of the stuff he was going on about," he explains.

I end up giggling. "Maybe you picked the wrong profession," I tease.

"Oh, I absolutely should've been a footballer," he nods. "I was quite good as a young lad. I definitely made a mistake going to uni," he goes right along with my teasing.

I bite my lip to keep from giggling, but some giggles slip out anyway. He gives me some side-eye but is forced to look away when our food gets placed out on the countertop.

He grabs the tray and carries it for us back to our small table in the corner.

I pour my tea while he asks another question.

"D'you spend a lot of time with Charlie, then?" He asks I can tell by the way he won't meet my eyes he's referring to time after what happened to April.

"I always have," I say by way of smoothing that gap a bit. He's offhandedly trying to ask if I took care of Charlie for Liam.

I'm not offended by the question, for myself or Liam. It's natural to be curious since a lot of my life revolves around Charlie and Liam. Especially since my taking care of Charlie was a result of how we'd met in the first place.

"His mum and I were close as well. We weren't mates or anything until she and Liam got quite serious, just as Li was applying to law programs, but I had a key to their house long before anything happened. Since then I've just been trying to help out more so than before."

Jack's eyes are on his tea until I start speaking again.

"Besides, Charlie is the coolest kid," I shrug when his eyes meet mine, the blue swirling around his irises like oil paints on canvas. "Who wouldn't want to spend time with that little nugget?"

The question is rhetorical, but Jack smiles, a quiet chuckle slipping past his lips. "No," he says, "I love spending time with him. He's got quite a vivid imagination."

I smile, my cheeks pink again. "He really does," I nod.

We fall into a comfortable silence as I start nibbling on my blueberry scone and I look out the window to see that it's started to rain lightly, umbrellas beginning to pop up all along the sidewalk as people continue on their way unperturbed.

"You were going to be a footballer then?" I ask with a smile.

Jack's eyes light up and he leans forward eagerly. "I was going to play for Scotland," he tells me. The excitement palpable, almost visible in the air surrounding him, as if out of nowhere I've come to possess synesthesia and can see his aura shift colours.

"Oh, really?" I ask, looking down at the pastry, his aura almost too much.

"M'not joking," he tells me, his eyes on mine when I look up again.

I raise an eyebrow.

"Okay, so I never got that far, but eventually, maybe, I could have played for Scotland," he shrugs.

"What made you become a teacher then?" I ask, curious.

"I was actually pure rubbish at football," he smirks.

I roll my eyes.

"And so you went to school instead," I finish.

He nods. "Exactly," he finally looks up into my eyes again, his aura bright, his oil painting blue eyes swirling. He may be rubbish at football, but clearly, he loves it.

"No, I became a teacher because I had one when I was younger, Mr Wiles, that absolutely inspired me, so here I am," he says.

"Here you are," I give a nervous little smile with a small gesture towards the café around us.

"Right," he smiles back at me. "I'm with you, having a nice brew and getting mentally prepared to view some art."

"You don't have to make the art part sound like I'm dragging you to a monthly meeting of the ignorant tight-arse club," I tease and then my cheeks flame when I remember who I just said that to.

I close my eyes and lower my head toward the table before I hear his laughter. Again, I'm drawn to it, but I keep my head down.

"I'm-I'm sorry," he apologizes. "I didn't mean to make it sound like that. I'm not dreading it. I promise," he manages through his laughter.

"It's really not bad," I grumble but look up anyway.

"I don't know why I said it like that," his cheeks tinge pink under his beard. "I like art. I wouldn't have agreed otherwise," he adds quickly. "I just want to be in a proper mindset to appreciate it when we get there rather than just stroll through and not think anything of it."

My own embarrassment fades slightly, but I can still feel it tingling in my nerve endings.

"If you do end up hating it though, could you pretend to like it? The gallery is run by my flatmate--some of the work is hers, even--and it might be a bit awkward if you end up thinking it's rubbish," I bite my lip.

"Scouts honour," Jack nods.

"Thank you," I manage to whisper as I bring my mug to my lips and take a sip, the brew relaxing me a bit.

I've noticed that I'm not stuttering or speaking in half sentences so much around him. Instead, I'm just throwing up a bit of word vomit and dealing with incessantly pink-tinged cheeks.

I don't know which I'd rather deal with, to be honest. I'm much more used to not being able to speak rather than not being able to hold my words back. This is weird for me. Awkward either way, but I don't know which I'd rather. The evil I know and am used to, or the evil I don't and am not used to.

"Did you always know you wanted to be a journalist?" Jack asks as I nibble a bit on my scone.

I nod quickly before managing to swallow my bite.

"For the most part," I say quietly. "There was a brief period where I wanted to be a trapeze artist."

He raises an eyebrow at me, his eyes dancing behind his cheeky smile. He doesn't say anything though. He knows I'm getting him back for the footballer comments he'd made.

"No, I always knew. There was a bit in secondary school, when Liam was just starting college, that I thought I might want to go into a more stable career field, like law or even teaching," I give him a nod, "but I couldn't shake my ability to write stories and articles, my willingness to disseminate information that matters."

"How'd you get the job at the BBC?" He asks, seemingly genuinely interested.

I think about what Piper said the other night. He asked me out. He wants to see where this could go with me. He honestly wants to get to know me. At least, that's what she'd said.

"One of my professors at uni helped me to get an internship there for class credit. I mostly just refilled coffee cups and made sure the printers had enough paper," I sip the last bits of my brew.

"After I graduated, they took me on as a paid intern, y'know, to do all the boring things like fact-checking other journalists' stories and vetting their sources. I only stepped up minutely in pay and in responsibility," I add and pour another cup from the teapot, adding my two sugars. "From there, two years ago, they made me an actual reporter. I did a lot of stories that would be found buried deep on the website, buried on page twelve of the paper where no one would read them."

"Why is that?" Jack asks.

"The things I would write about were front-page news in importance and context, but were never high in interest-level demographics," I shrug. "It's fine. I'd long since gotten used to it. And they were the news stories I wanted to write. I knew what I was getting into."

"And now you're in a broadcast newsroom, right?"

I nod before responding, but he opens his mouth again before I even finish forming a thought.

"Sorry, 'm just genuinely curious," he tells me. "My job is the most basic out there, and your job is groundbreaking and cool and I genuinely want to hear all about it."

I bookmark his thinking being a teacher is boring to come back to later before I start talking again.

"It's okay," I tell him. "Apparently the EP, the executive producer, of the BBC nightly news hour segment for 8-9 every weeknight had been reading some of my work and thought it would work really well in broadcast format. He said something about my sources and connections being important to the job as well," I say modestly.

I don't have to act modestly. I only know some corporate lawyers through Liam, the definition of know being used quite generously. Basically, I just know their names. I didn't really build up those credentials through years of hard work. They just happened.

"God, that sounds so cool," he breathes out in excitement.

"It's really not that different," I tell him. "Obviously the pace is quicker, but it's pretty normal as far as jobs go at least."

"I deal with six-year-olds every day for eight hours a day," Jack shakes his head. "My job is always keeping me on my toes, but comparatively it's much more normal than yours."

"I don't know," I smile, "the leaves Charlie and I picked up today--the ones that I still cannot pronounce--are far from normal."

"Oi!" Jack calls but flushes bright pink under my gaze and my teasing words.

The rain hasn't let up, but it's not that bad, so after assuming Jack that I'd be fine to walk in it for a few blocks, we pulled our hoods up over our heads and made our way toward Piper's gallery.

We each had a paper cup filled with a replenished brew in our hands and despite the weather, we weren't walking at a ridiculous pace. Just sort of making our way, not lackadaisically, but not rushing.

"Did you and your brother plan on getting out of Birmingham then, or was it just a coincidence that you both ended up in London?"

"I never said-" I give him a funny look but he cuts me off.

"Your accent," he clarifies with a smirk and a small shrug.

I roll my eyes. "It just sort of happened. He found a law firm here and I've been here since I went to Kings for uni. And if you want to get specific, we're actually from Small Heath."

"Isn't that where Peaky Blinders is based?" He asks now.

I snort. "It is," I nod. "If only my backstory was half as cool," I say.

"You excited for the new season?"

"'M worried," I admit. "I know every season looks dark when they roll out the preview, but this one looks filled with disparity."

"Honestly, I'm scared as well," he tells me. "I love the show, but there are some decisions I'm not too fond of..." He trails off when he has to skirt through some people going the opposite direction.

He shakes his head at the gruffness of the group that passes and sidles back up beside me.

"We're only right here," I point as the gallery comes into view.

"Just when I was thinking the rain was getting a little heavier, too," he pulls his free hand from the confines of his pocket before he grabs the door to ColourOpticTrip™️and we escape the rain and cold, our cheeks pink as we push our hoods back.

Jack scans the open room, taking in the white walls, the dark wooden flooring, and the photographs adding colour and contrast everywhere he looks.

To his credit, he does actually look like he's enjoying his preemptive scan.

My attention is called away from his face as I slip out of my jacket and Piper comes out of the black room behind the front desk. Her steps falter when she realises who it is that's come in, but she recovers quickly.

There's a little buzzer back there that alerts her and the owner--if by chance she's in--to anyone coming into the gallery. Piper's got her classic weekend attire on, nothing out of the ordinary as she strolls around the desk to make her way toward us; Jack still looking around in interest.

Her grey Eagles concert tee is tucked into her black skinnies and her feet are adorned in (my) black Chelsea boots. My brown ones are already on my own feet. That sneak. I cut her a glance, but she doesn't notice, she's busy looking at Jack until she comes to a stop right in front of us.

"Admiring anything in particular?" She queries as Jack's attention snaps back from an enlarged print of a rainy Camden Town, only a few blocks away from our flat, to meet Piper's gaze.

"I'm just glancing around so far," Jack smiles politely at her, "but that print is quite interesting."

Piper nods and crosses her arms over her chest, leaning her weight on her right foot and swaying a bit to look at it. "I'm actually just working on editing another version of that print right now."

"That's yours?" Jack asks, his blue gaze going back to the print before meeting Piper's eyes again. It's not quite surprise colouring his tone, but intrigue and fascination.

She smiles at him. "It is," she extends her hand. "Piper," she says. "Nice to finally meet you, Jack."

I cringe internally, and perhaps a bit externally as well. The way she said 'finally' makes it seem as if I've been talking about and pining for him for far longer than I actually have. I hope more than anything he didn't catch that use of the word.

He probably has caught it, but I still hold out hope.

"Ah," Jack shakes her hand and smiles at me as he figures out just who Piper is. The blue oil colours lightening with his own enlightenment in regards to the situation. I blush furiously under that gaze and shift my eyes to the floor. Not before Piper's smug filled look gives me pause, though.

"Nice to meet you as well, Piper," he gives his charm to her--not that he has to try, it just seems to ooze from him--and honestly, if Piper didn't know any better in regards to the situation, I know she'd already be thinking of ways to get him into her bed. As it is though, she keeps her flirting to a minimum. I appreciate that fact.

"Well," she gives me a look I can't quite decipher and opens her arms to the gallery, "I'll be back here." She nods toward the desk. "If you'd like I can take your macs and hang them on the rack as well."

Unceremoniously, I take my wet mac and plop it into her arms, earning me a glare and some under the breath mumbling about how I'm such a twat. I bite my bottom lip to stop my smirk.

"If ya don't mind," Jack says politely as he slips his mac off as well before handing it over to Piper, who is much more prepared for his interaction than mine.

"Not at all," she gives him a smile before shooting daggers at me and heading away.

Jack has sweater paws, I realise as we begin to walk through the gallery, heading upstairs first. It's so endearing that my cheeks flare as I watch him while he gazes upon the art. I've seen most of the work before, excluding the newer exhibits downstairs, so I've got more attention placed upon him than the room.

We've since finished our teas and when I come back from throwing the cups in a bin I catch myself gazing at him again.

I'm so in awe of him as a person. The most interesting part though is that he finds me interesting. Something about me compels him, which is absolutely nuts.

I know because of Melissa and the praise I get for my work that I need to hold myself in higher regards, and honestly, I do. For the most part.

The thing I don't understand though is that around Jack I've not really done anything to capture his attention. I don't understand what I should get his attention for. Perhaps there's something in my subtlety in regards to my personality.

Just as I'm thinking about how lucky I am that I'm on a date with Jack, with a human being that seems kind and interesting and worth spending my time with, Jack glances my way, catching me watching him--for the second time.

I blush furiously and close my eyes with a sigh. There's nothing else I can do, really.

Jack chuckles a bit beside me. I feel his gaze burning me and I slowly open my eyes to see him smirking at me.

"What?" He asks.

I bite my lip and shrug, I honestly feel like I've forgotten what words are and even if I remembered there's no guarantee I'd be able to pronounce them.

"Wren," he prompts, his gaze expectant. My name on his tongue gives my stomach a flutter. "You can tell me," he adds. "Have I got something on my face? Did I knick myself shaving?"

His hands go to his beard, he runs them over his cheeks and I smile and shake my head, "No, no. Nothing like that."

"What is it, then?"

"I was just looking," I lower my gaze from him to my feet. "Curious as to why someone would be willing to spend time with me when I've hardly given him reason to."

Fuck.

I did not mean to say that. Shit.

First, I can't remember how to speak and now I end up just saying whatever comes to me. What kind of cocked up karma is this?

I sense him as he shifts closer to me, see his feet as they come to rest right in front of mine. I can smell him, something minty and something outdoorsy mixing together. He overpowers my senses.

Then I feel him. It registers in my mind that this is our first physical contact. He's got his index finger under my chin, nudging it up so that my gaze is on his own again rather than our feet.

My skin under his touch feels like it's on fire. I feel the energy radiating off of him with how close he is. I'm struggling to breathe as he looks at me, his eyes so sincere as he bites his bottom lip and swallows hard.

Oh my god, his lips are so very pink. Shut up, Wren, I chastise my thoughts.

"You're an enigma," he whispers. "Admittedly, you're sexy as hell," his eyes flash and my breathing hitches. "But you're quiet and shy," he pauses, "I can tell because you blush like it's your standard state and I have this inexplicable urge to see it more and more. I don't know how I can explain it. Clearly, you're much more adept with words than me, but I just know I have to find out more."

I'm speechless. I'm barely breathing. Oh my god.

"Plus," he licks his lips and smirks, "your use of grammar just now was a huge turn on."

I blush, but let out a small laugh, his thumb stroking my cheek.

"There it is," he uses his free hand to point out my blush. "And, you've talked about me to Piper, so I know you feel something, too."

I want to groan in my displeasure, but I hold it back.

"Was really hoping you didn't catch onto that," I grumble.

He laughs, the sound making me flutter.

"I could tell," he leans in to whisper in my ear, his breath tickling my neck before he pulls away and lowers his hand from me, instead, he offers me his hand to hold.

"Shall we see some more art, now?"

I place my hand in his, take a deep breath, and nod.

"I'd love to," I tell him.

"I'll see you again soon then, right?" He asks, his hand still in mine as we stop just outside my front door.

Piper won't be home for a while, and I'm so ready to just lie down and process my day, process what's happened in my life to get me here. As much as I don't want to end my time with Jack, my brain is drained and I'm in desperate need of a recharge.

The rain's stopped and the air is heavy and smells like damn asphalt mixing with the crisp scent of fall. Our fingers intertwined are warm, our noses and heels are chilled, but we're smiling at each other.

"You will," I nod. "I had a wonderful afternoon. Thank you."

"The pleasure was mine, Wren Kearney," he leans in then, swiftly, and caught off guard I freeze. He kisses my forehead gently and untangles our fingers to brush some of my hair from my face.

"I'll call you," he steps back and smirks. "Have a g'night," he skips down the two steps from the stoop to the street and turns for the briefest of moments to wink before he begins to walk away.

My jaw drops open. Literally pops open. I can feel where his lips were on my forehead, can still feel the warmth of his fingers in between mine, can still smell him. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

"Fucking hell," I gasp out as I fumble with the keypad and let myself in, climbing up the two flights and then wrestling my keys from my pocket, dropping them twice before managing to unlock the door and slip inside.

I gently kick my feet from my boots and hang my mac back up on its peg by the door. Without even a second thought I slip myself into my bed and close my eyes.

Naps can be severely underrated.

Sleep doesn’t come to me just yet, though. Instead, I’m rolling through scenes of the afternoon, over and over and over again of what I said, didn’t say, what I did and didn’t do.

That’s when the thoughts drift to Jack entirely. The way my name sounds coming from his mouth, his dimpled smirk, his overwhelming scent that almost hypnotized me, his blue eyes that I would let drown me given the chance to do so. I think of his laugh that I’ve grown quite fond of, like a little melody I cannot manage to banish from my subconscious that when heard in real life sends a thrill through me.

The way he licked his lips when he was so close to me, the feeling of his hand on my face. The warmth of his fingers in mine.

I think about how I found out he’s from Oxton, a small town outside of Edinburg in the Scottish Borders. How his older sister Lily is a social worker and how he doesn’t like her new boyfriend even though he seems perfectly fine. It’s a principle that he has to dislike him.

Lily had moved to London to follow her last boyfriend and when that ended Jack was just graduating uni in Glasgow. He’d moved in with her, into what used to be their apartment in order to keep a close eye on her after that. He’d found the teaching job and had been there since.

He was happy here, but he missed Scotland. That much was evident just by his tone of voice when he talked about it.

As I feel myself drifting, my eyes closing, my breathing slowing, all I can see behind my eyes is his face, all I can feel is his warmth, and all I can hear is that melody of his voice, his laughter, until I’m unconscious.

“Get up, you little cunt.”

“Get fucked,” I growl out as Piper bounces onto my bed, crawling over me and falling into place beside me, leaning against the wall as she pokes me in my midsection over and over.

When I open my eyes she’s got this cheeky grin on her face and I shove her before covering my face with my pillow.

“No!” She protests and yanks the pillow from me, her hair slapping me in the process. “You have to tell me everything.”

“You better have something to give me in return for this dissection of my life you’re about to take from me,” I glare at her.

“There’s a brew and some chocolate biscuits waiting for you on your nightstand and I just put a lasagna in the oven for our dinner. You’ve got fifty minutes before that’s ready, so drink your brew and spill it all.”

“You’re so pushy,” I grumble.

“You love me,” she winks.

“I do,” I nod and then shove a biscuit in my mouth, chewing slowly in order to draw out her wait a bit more.

She rolls her eyes at my tactics and sighs loudly.

“Alright, alright,” I blush and launch into my story, starting with Liam being late and sending my nerves into overdrive.

When Piper is satisfied—I’ve left out the bit where he kissed my forehead and winked goodbye—is right about when the timer for our dinner goes off. I don’t know why I’ve left it out, to be honest. I just think that maybe I wanted to keep that bit for myself, keep some of what was my budding relationship with Jack just between me and him. I can’t really describe the feeling, but I knew I was right in keeping it private.

It made me smile—the thought of him that close. I wanted to have something of my own from today to relive until next time.

“What’re we watching?” she asks while she scoops out slices for each of us and I set up pillows and blankets on the couch before scrolling through our Netflix queue.

“How does Rogue One sound?” I ask.

“Diego Luna?” she asks back rhetorically. “Yes, please.”

“Predictable,” I scoff but thank her when she sits down beside me and hands me my plate.

“You love me, babe,” she shoves her shoulder into mine and we start to eat after I hit play.

“You were right, by the way,” she turns to me after an action sequence had calmed down onscreen.

“Right?” I ask.

“Charlie’s teacher, Mr Lowden,” she smirks devilishly, “he’s fit as fuck.”

I blush and hide my face behind a pillow as she laughs to herself.

When I get up to replenish our brews I check my phone. There are two texts: one from Liam that’s telling me about some festival at Charlie’s school next weekend and the second is from Jack.

My heart races as I open the text, but a smile breaks over my face as I read it.

Jack: Is tomorrow too soon? — Of course not. But how about we get drinks when you get off work Tuesday?

I bite my lip and reply.

Wren: Meet me in the lobby of the BBC building at 9:15.

His reply is instantaneous and I feel a flutter when my phone lights up again.

Jack: See you then. Remember to bring those blushing cheeks of yours that I like so much.

I close my eyes and set my phone down before rejoining Piper on the couch, cuddling closer to her as she’s since taken the blankets from me. I can tell she knows something, but she doesn’t ask, so I don’t offer anything as the movie ends and we each head off to bed.

#hmd #Hand Me Down #chapter six

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