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heyktula · 4 years

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Closer, Chapter Two: Aware - Bonus Features

(I'm sorry about the chapter titles, lolsob. They are, in fact, "Risk", "Aware", "Consensual", and "Kink", plus a surprise title for the fifth chapter.)

((Okay, fine, I'm not nearly as sorry as I should be.))

Chapter two of Closer, the first installment in Somewhere in Canada (the Terror kink AU)... is now up! What is wordcount! (Apparently shit to me, since this chapter is three times the length of chapter one!)

Same deal as last week--technical notes first, story notes after, line notes to finish it all up. (Although I still blame Edward, a number of this week's line notes are Jopson's fault, and he's a lying liar on a number of occasions, the terrible sweetheart.)

Alright, here we go.

Technical Considerations:

Chapter Length: So, this story was intended to be much shorter than it is. Initially, the fic was a one-off. After all, it's only taking place over a weekend, how long can it be? (lolsob--sixty k, as it turns out, and that's with a significant number of hard cuts. I cringe for the future Fitzier, because the winter conference is longer than the summer one.)

Initially, I'd followed the same chapter structure I used in one of my earlier fics--one day = one chapter. Obviously, that worked fine for Friday, but didn't work for Saturday or Sunday, both of which I've split into two chapters. I still feel like the chapter length is a bit obnoxious--I prefer a 7k chapter, and chapter two is 15k, but it's the best place to make the cut, I think. I considered a cut after Edward's talk got derailed by Hickey--but that would have left Edward in a really ugly headspace for a week while everybody waited for the next chapter, and I didn't want to let him chill there knowing that Jopson is gonna make him feel better, like, immediately.

Hard Cuts: One thing I really like about the source material for The Terror is that it uses hard cuts liberally, and something about that feels like it frees me up to do the same in my own work? So I cut the things that don't matter to the story, even when they're things that I care about. (That rope suspension scene with Sophia and Gore and Dundy was real good, but Edward did not give one single shit about it, and thus, it is not on the page. Similarly, we didn't get dragged through any of the other panels, etc, that were happening throughout the day, and the one panel we actually did attend, Edward is giving by rote, without thinking about anything he's saying, because Jopson! is! there! oh! god!)

Story Considerations:

Goodsir: Like, of course Goodsir moved to Canada. I don't think it was for Silna, necessarily--and she would have been super unimpressed with that if it had been--but it wouldn't have been not for Silna either. I just think he really loved it here on his first visit, and that was it for him--he came home, he missed Canada, he went back, and he stayed. I'm sure he's in the process of getting his citizenship, and in the meantime, he's going out for hikes and taking pictures of elk and going ice-fishing and organizing kink conventions and generally just having a wonderful time living his best life, and I love that for him.

(And if he's on the receiving end of Silna's strap in increasingly regular frequency, I love that for him too.)

The Tozer-Little Experience: So, outside of the joplittle, which was my primary reason for writing the fic--I also have, like, the world's biggest soft spot for Solomon Tozer. And the dynamic that I ended up developing for Tozer and Little in this fic is a hell of a lot of fun, because it's deeply intimate, and steeped in years and years of shared experiences, but it's platonic at the same point--or, at least, what constitutes as platonic for them, which is more intimate and open than you would see for a lot of male friendships. (I'm putting a pin in the discussion of feelings as feelings relate to their friendship, but we'll come back to it in a few more chapters.) If you asked either of them to describe an ideal partner for the other person, they could both do it, and they've got all kinds of stories about each other, which Tozer shares easily and at length, and Edward keeps his goddamn mouth shut about.

That easy camaraderie between them is, I think, why the takedown panel goes so wrong so quickly. Tozer has no reason to suspect anything is different than it has been any other time, and Edward isn't admitting how much he's obsessing over Jopson, so he's also just stubbornly pretending things are fine. I don't think that Tozer had any intention of letting Edward win, no matter how good Edward thinks his chances are, because it's Tozer's panel, and goddamn it, if Sol's going to all the effort to give a talk, he's gonna try to get his dick sucked as part of the aftermath, am I right, lads?

(Conferences that I've been to are hyper-careful about bodily fluids, and for good reason--so if blood is a possibility, everything should be tarped off and proper protective gear should be used, and Edward visibly bleeding all over everything would have been a Very Bad Look. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.)

((Also, just as a side-note, can we talk about Tozer's quick transitions between "shit, fuck, Little--", "and that is a takedown!", and "do not bleed in here, don't fuck this up for me, I don't know what the fuck your dumb ass was doing"? Because I love that Tozer's first reaction is "holy FUCK are you OKAY" and then he immediately takes control of the room to finish his talk, and then leans in to threaten Nedward. As though the threat is gonna take away the part where your first reaction was being horrified that you clocked him in the face, Sol.))

The Jopson-Little Meet Cute: Okay, fine, I guess it's not really a meet cute when one of you is bleeding into a sink, and the other one of you snuck into a takedown panel late in the hopes of seeing your crush and gets the bonus experience of watching your crush totally get hit in the face. But, whatever. They'll work with it.

One of the things I love about this scene is that the balance of power is exactly the opposite of where it would normally be--Jopson is the one controlling the scene here, through service, and Edward is the one that's following Jopson's lead. Jopson is, in canon, a caretaker, primarily, and I set this scene up so that he would shine, and I think he does that effectively here. Edward is the kind of guy that gets easily rattled when things don't go the way he expects them to, and it's indicative of their compatibility that he unwinds so easily for Jopson.

Also, I appreciate the hell out of Jopson gently bullying the topic of conversation around to giving talks, so that he could just slide his own talk under the door to gauge Edward's reaction. After all, if one is a trans man, and one's crush is a transphobe, better to find out before this goes any further. Between us, Jopson was reasonably sure things would be fine--after all, as Blanky notes later, he's had his face in Edward's blog*, and I'm pretty sure Edward went through his blog a while back and edited all his posts for gender- and trans-inclusive language, and left a footnote indicating he'd done so--but it was important for Jopson to make sure everything was on the table, and Edward's meandering discussion of the requirements for giving presentations was as good an in as any.

*Jopson clearly didn't know who Edward was by name on Saturday morning, but knows by Saturday afternoon. There's any number of ways he might have found out Edward's name, but I suspect he talked to someone** who had attended the power play panel he was on with Tozer earlier that day.

**I have a candidate in mind for this, but we'll get back to it later.

The Rough Physical Play Panel: Well, when that went wrong, it went real wrong, huh?

I think one of the things I'm enjoying so much about writing a modern Terror AU is that it lets me explore Hickey in more detail, because canon!Hickey just makes me so goddamn furious (the motherfucking BOOTS, he took James' BOOTS, and then EVERYTHING ELSE, and I CAN'T) that I can't even delve into him right now without wanting to throw things. But I can dig into him here, because I have the protection of this, you know, not being canon.

One of the things I really love about Hickey is that I think, one hundred percent, that he's exactly the kind of person that pays attention to the things you're interested in, and that makes it easy to start a friendship with him. I can guarantee that he knows every single item Tozer has ever stocked in his booth, and how well each of those items sells. I also know for sure that he's read every single post on Edward's blog, and can talk intelligently about any of them. However, Hickey is also exactly the kind of "friend" that will use that information against you at the drop of a hat if it benefits him in any way--and I can guarantee that the temptation was irresistible for Hickey here, because not only is it an excuse to deliberately trigger Edward's anxiety in front of a room full of people right immediately before those people leave the room, thus guaranteeing it's the last thing on their minds--but it's an opportunity to do so in front of the guy that Edward has been interested in all weekend. From Hickey's perspective, it's for Edward's own good--any idiot can see that Jopson is way out of Edward's league, and the sooner Edward stops making an ass of himself, the better it'll be for everyone involved. (I would also argue that if any of their friend group "deserve" to have more status in the community, Hickey feels that's him, so any attempt by Edward to "rise above" by, say, associating with someone linked to Crozier, is going to be viciously stamped out.)

The miscalculation here, of course, is that Hickey has misread Jopson just the same as everyone else has misread Jopson. We'll come back to why this mistake is important next week, I think.

(It's unfortunate we didn't get the good version of the panel, with the demo, because it's very good--Edward picks a random audience member, demonstrates the consent negotiation in front of everyone, and then walks through an entire gamut of activities, the intensity of which varies depending on how the person he's chosen is enjoying it. This is the way that I had my first exposure to this type of play, and watching the talk was a goddamn delight--and there's nothing that makes someone look competent more than them just improvising an entire talk on the spot.)

Dungeon Setup: So, again, because Canada, every dungeon I've ever been in has separated the drinking section from the fun section for safety reasons. Usually they're in separate rooms, though I've been in a couple dungeons where the drinking section runs along one wall of the fun section. Because this is my fic, and I'll improve it if I want, I went full bore on this and created that second-floor lounge that's open to the dungeon below, so you can stand up there and drink and watch the dungeon from above (or you can sit up there and drink with Hickey, but yuck).

The showcase performance thing isn't something I've seen at a kink conference before--I borrowed that from burlesque conventions I've been to because I needed it for the upcoming Fitzier fic. I kinda wish Edward had paid attention, I feel like that was a really good rope suspension scene. But, he was standing too close to Jopson, and thus, nothing else mattered.

Also, is it really a dungeon if it doesn't heavily rely on Enigma's music? I don't think I've been in a dungeon once without hearing Return to Innocence or Sadeness, and at this point, if I hear either of those pieces outside of the context of a dungeon, I get really nostalgic for dungeons.

(I guess while we're talking about setup, I'll also confirm that pretty much everybody* is staying on-site here--the hotel has a bunch of space set aside for the kink conference, and as long as people booked their rooms quickly, their hotel rooms are also in the same venue, so there's no need for transport, or going outside, or anything like that. Poor Nedward can have his meltdown about collars without needing to call a cab once.)

*I know a certain repressed somebody who has opted not to stay at a hotel full of perverts, but, uh. I mean, it's a Choice, but maybe sit with yourself a second, John.

Line Notes:

“Dude,” Tozer says, swinging his duffel bag off his shoulder and booting it under the table. “I had the most repressed guy in my talk this morning, it was fucking brilliant.”

Hi, Irving.

Edward can’t quite tell what Jopson is talking about, they’re too far apart for him to be able to eavesdrop. He wishes he was over there, though. Listening.

They're talking about you, Edward. Jopson knows who you are by this point, and he is three hundred percent telling Blanky about your blog right now.

He hasn’t paid attention to the specifics, because it’s not his talk, and it doesn’t matter.

Except it does matter, Edward, because one of those times the door opened and Jopson came in.

Jopson takes another step forward, his hands down at his sides, palms facing Edward. “I saw what happened,” he says. His voice is gentle, low. Hypnotic.

I appreciate Jopson approaching Edward like Edward is a wild animal that's going to spook at any moment, because Edward is, in fact, a wild animal that's going to spook at any moment.

“One of the better quality sessions I’ve seen this weekend,” Jopson says.

Thomas Jopson, you are a lying liar. It is the first day of the convention, and this is the first instance in which you've left your booth for any significant length of time.

“—you must see there are gaps. I was thinking, maybe, there’s another conference in six months...”

I can guarantee that this is a conversation that has been had with Francis in slowly increasing levels of volume, and I can also guarantee that Francis has been very supportive of Jopson wanting to fix those gaps. I would also side-eye the length of time (none) it took Jopson to pull up his fully-completed notes for a talk that Edward notes later is ready to go, and doesn't need any alterations. (Anyone taking bets on whether or not Goodsir has seen this? Yeah, I wouldn't bet against it either.)

It’s only after Jopson’s left that Edward realizes his black handkerchief is still on the edge of the sink.

Remember that conversation we had last week about the hanky code? Good, because Edward doesn't.

“Don’t wanna have a discussion about feelings if we don’t have to,” Tozer says gruffly.

Translation: if your eyes are wet because I smoked you in the face, then we'll have that conversation, but for fuck's sake please provide me with literally any other explanation--oh, thank fuck, I forgot about your septum piercing, perfect, good, onwards.

(I'd argue that Edward's probably all up in his feelings from Jopson's talk, BUT both of them are talking around everything in this scene, so I guess we'll just let them have that.)

They’re walking down the hall, and literally anyone could walk past Edward right now—fucking James Fitzjames could walk past Edward right now—and there is no way in hell he would notice, because Jopson is right there...

James Fitzjames, "that online guy" and most recognizable kink celebrity, would be So Offended by this, and it would be good for him.

They’re walking side-by-side, Jopson just a fraction behind Edward, and Edward can’t tell if it’s on purpose.

Jopson knows how to sub--it's on purpose, Nedward.

(I should note that this isn't at all a requirement for subbing--but it's part of how Jopson, in particular, submits, and since that's how he wants to interact with Edward, that's how he's behaving now.)

—not a blog post from five years ago that he’d kept up because there’s hardly any information out there and he wanted to make sure that people were aware of the risks and safety concerns, and—

And, I mean, also because you like to do this, Edward. Let's not beat around the bush here, you're not writing entire blog posts about things you have an academic interest in for safety reasons, although it would be totally valid if you did. But you aren't. You wrote an entire post about how to safely fit your fist into someone's ass because you did a lot of research as to how to do it safely and then subsequently did it on multiple occasions.

“It’s right there on the blog post,” Jopson continues, fingers clenched on his notebook. “The exact same blog post you’re citing has the answers to the questions you’re asking, and it’s disingenuous of you to…to purposefully derail his panel and pretend that the answers aren’t right there.”

If Edward was thinking critically about any of this instead of just bluescreening, he'd realize that it's Significant that Jopson knows this without consulting his cellphone, which he hasn't needed to do here, because his hands are still on his notebook, which means that Jopson either a) sought out this post specifically, b) made it multiple years back in Edward's blog archives, or c) both AND remembers it in detail.

But, he's Edward, and he's not thinking about shit right now except possibly how nice it would be if the building just randomly caved in on top of him. Not everybody else. Just him.

Jopson’s posture relaxes slightly as he exhales. “I was wondering about aftercare,” he says. “What you would normally recommend.”

Translation: Reassure me that you know what the fuck to do with me after we've just done everything that you've been talking about, because I AM DOWN TO DO THIS RIGHT NOW.

“Fucking peckerhead,” Tozer says, straightening up and rolling his shoulders, his eyes flashing. “I needed him to do some goddamn work.”

Yeah, well, Hickey’s got no fucking work ethic, so I dunno what the fuck you were thinking, Tozer. Duty owed, indeed.

It’s the guy that was watching Tozer. His eyes are burning with fanaticism. “It’s not too late,” he repeats. “Your crisis is an opportunity to repair yourself.”

Irving, sweetheart, buddy. You are at a fetish convention. Nobody here is interested in repairing themselves, and neither are you or you would not be here.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Jopson says. He’s still behind his booth, which is entirely too far away from Edward. “And Blanky’s due back any minute, so unless you want an interrogation over what you’re planning to do with the collar, you might want to come over to my side and look at books instead, I promise I won’t give you the third degree about anything.”

JOPSON, you are a LIAR. You fully intend to give him the third degree about everything, you just want him physically closer to you while you do it.

He’s not quite close enough to hear the conversation, but he is close enough to watch the way Jopson’s hands move in front of his body as he speaks, realizes after a moment that he’s signing. Realizes a few moments later that the words he’s saying aren’t English—and only then because it’s a different rhythm than Jopson usually speaks in, a little more halting, less fluid.

Francis' crash course in Netsilik went alright, apparently! I'm sure Jopson is disappointed in himself for not being fluent, but Silna will confirm to Francis that Jopson tried hard.

“We’re acquainted,” Jopson says carefully. Then adds, “It’s been a bit since I’ve spoken to her.”

LIAR, Jopson, you were literally in a deep conversation with her YESTERDAY. Edward, of course, does not notice this, even though he observed said conversation. (*cough*himbo*cough*)

Jopson shrugs, the motion a little self-deprecating. “That’s it. I’ll be finished then.” He sets his jaw, looks away. “I imagine we’d need to be more concerned about your availability than mine.”

Bold of you to assume that Edward "anxiety" Little actually checked his Fetlife messages and sorted out any play dates with anybody in advance.

Blanky grins at him. “That’s more like it. If you’ve got a couple minutes to wait, I’ll cut back the extra leather on the straps here for you.”

A number of people who make collars leave extra length on the straps in case it's needed. In this case, Blanky knows it won't be, so it can get trimmed back before Edward even leaves the booth. (Also, the Edward Little energy of Edward dropping a bunch of money on collars for Jopson, and then immediately freaking out and sticking them back in his hotel room?)

As an aside, considering Blanky is #teamjoplittle, I would give so much to see the content of the inevitable groupchats that are happening right now.

Phew. That's it for this week! Chapter three, Consensual, goes up next Friday! See you then! And if you have questions or anything in the meantime, you can always drop me an ask on tumblr or Curious Cat. I know I didn't cover everything, even in this long-ass entry, cuz there's a fuck of a lot of stuff going on in the foreground, much less the background. I honestly don't mind if you ask, it's totally cool. :)

See you next week!

#the terror #the terror fic #my fic #fic: closer #fic breakdown #fic: the terror kink au #joplittle

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years

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Cowboys And Cavemen

This one’s gonna meander, but it’s about cavemen and cowboys and dinosaurs, so some of you may wanna stick around…

. . .

Recently watched the colorized version of One Million B.C. with Victor mature, Carole Landis, and Lon Chaney Jr.

I remember frequently watching the original black & white version of this as a kid; it popped up on local Early Shows a lot primarily because it could be chopped down to fit an hour’s running time without losing too much of the story (Early Shows were afternoon movies with a local host that typically ran only 90 minutes from 4:30-6pm; with commercials and host segments there wasn’t much room for uncut films and as a result they featured a lot of B-movies with 65 minute running times, or else cut out sequences from longer films not germane to the plot).

The colorized version surprised me in a couple of ways.

First, I’d forgotten just how well done One Million B.C. is in basic film making terms: Once past the opening scene, in which an archeologist explains some cave drawings to a group of mountaineers who then imagine themselves in prehistoric times, there’s no recognizable dialog; the film is told in purely visual terms.

Second, the colorization was incredibly sloppy: There’s a lot of weird blue artifacting going on that lays a strange mist-like quality over several scenes, and in several places the colorists inexplicably either colored the actors’ bare legs blue or else overlooked the mistake in the final color correction.

Third, the sloppy colorization doesn’t matter: If anything, it adds to the weird dream-like quality of the film. As an attempt to realistically recreate the prehistoric past, it’s gawdawful; taken as the imaginings of an average contemporary 1940s person with no real knowledge of prehistoric times (viz the prolog), and it’s pretty entertaining.

Technically the movie is a mixed bag. The special effects are pretty seamless (yeah, you can tell when something is a rear screen shot, but then again rear screen shots in every film of that era were obvious)). A travelling matte shot of a hapless cavewoman buried under a flood of lava is particularly well done and as amazing today as it was then (though the colorists dropped the ball and didn’t tint it a vivid red or orange in the colorized version).

There’s a lot of monsters, but they range from well done to just plaine…well…

The best are a woolly mammoth (i.e., an elephant in shaggy fur costume) and a baby triceratops (a large pig in costume) that really seem to capture the essence pf those creatures.

The worst is a guy in an allosaurus suit who kinda just shuffles along like a grandparent going to the bathroom, and in the middle are various lizards dressed up with fins and horns.

The lizards bother me more and more over the years. At first it was because they were disappointing -- they don’t look like dinosaurs, dammit, but like lizards with fins and horns glued on -- but now it’s because I realize they were goaded by their handlers into fights and reactions shots.

That’s plain ol’ animal cruelty, even if they are reptiles and not mammals.

There’s an armadillo and a koala-like animal that appear thousands of times their normal size. The koala-like critter (sorry, but I don’t know what it actually is) is passable as a giant cave bear or sloth, but the armadillo is just an armadillo (there was something about armadillos that 1930s audience found creepy; they’re waddling all over the Count’s hiding place in the original Dracula).

One Million B.C. was produced by Hal Roach and Hal Roach Jr. The senior Roach goes all the way back to the silent era, so this was not a huge stretch for him.

Originally D.W. Griffith was to direct the film, but while he did a lot of pre-production work including screen and wardrobe tests, he either dropped out or was replaced on the eve of production. (Reportedly he wanted the cave tribes to speak recognizable English and left when Roach refused.)

The special effects wound up in a ton of movies and TV shows over the ensuing decades; modern audiences are more familiar with the film through 1950s sci-fi than its original version.

All else aside, the picture is carried by stars Victor Mature and Carole Landis. Ms Landis in particular is a spunky, charming cave gal with a blonde-fro and while Mature would never be an Oscar contender, he at least has the physicality and screen presence to get his character across.

The scene where he thinks Landis has died in a volcanic eruption may be corny, but you can feel his character’s grief.

. . .

A quarter of a century later it was remade as One Million Years B.C. with John Richardson in the Victor mature role and Raquel Welch in the Landis role.

No disrespect to Welch, who by all accounts is a nice person, but she never showed one iota the acting chops of Carole Landis. Welch is beautiful, and as a generic pin-up model cast as a film’s “sexy lamp” (look it up), she presented appealing eye-candy. She appeared in one good sci-fi film (Fantastic Voyage), one campy monster movie (i.e., One Million Years B.C.), two incredibly campy WTF-were-they-thinking movies (The Magic Christian and Myra Breckenridge), and a host of instantly forgettable spy films and Westerns. The best movies she appeared in were Fuzz, based on the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain (a.k.a. Evan Hunter nee Salvatore Lombino), where she did an acceptable supporting turn as a police detective, and Kansas City Bomber, a roller derby movie that many consider her best role.

Landis never enjoyed the same level of fame (or notoriety, depending on your POV) that Welch did, but holy cow, could the gal act. It’s a pity Hollywood is crowded with talented, beautiful people because she certainly deserved a bigger career capstone than One Million B.C..

Welch’s personal life certainly proved less traumatic than Landis’, however. When actor Rex Harrison broken off his affair with her rather than divorce his wife, Landis committed suicide.

The scandal exiled Harrison temporarily back to England. A few years later One Million B.C. and Landis’ other films started playing on television.

Who knows what opportunities may have opened for her in that medium?

. . .

The original One Million B.C. is vastly superior in all areas but one (well, two -- mustn’t leave out the catfight between Welch and Martine Beswick): Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion dinosaurs

Mind you, most of the dino scenes in One Million Years B.C. are underwhelming. To stretch the budget the producers used close ups of spiders and an iguana to simulate giant monsters, a brontosaurus does a walk through in one scene and never appears again, and the first big dino moment has cave gals poking sharp sticks at a big sea turtle.

On the other hand, the remaining trio of dino scenes are the aces and vastly superior to their corresponding scenes in One Million B.C.. The latter film’s allosaur attack is one of the best dino scenes ever animated, and the ceratosaurus vs triceratops battle followed by the pteranodon grabbing Welch are almost as good.

Both versions of the film had an interesting influence on films that followed. One Million Years B.C. was followed by a host of prehistoric films, most of which existed only to cast voluptuous actresses in fur bikinis although When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth, a direct follow-up, offered more monsters and a better story.

While One Million B.C. wasn’t the first film to sub real life lizards for dinos, it certainly told budget conscious producers that such substitutions were okay.

The 1959 version of Journey To The Center Of The Earth cast iguanas with glued on fins as dimetrodons, and for once the impersonation proved successful as the two species do bear certain similarities.

Producer Irwin Allen (he of Lost In Space and Towering Inferno fame) hired Willis O;Brien (the animator behind the original King Kong) and his then assistant Ray Harryhausen to do accurate-for-the-era stop motion dinosaurs for The Animal World documentary but apparently frustrated by the time it took to get results opted for lizards in his version of The Lost World (which, ironically, O’Brien worked on in a non-animation capacity despite having done the original silent version of the film with stop motion dinosaurs).

I saw Allen’s Lost World as a little boy and felt grossly disappointed by the obvious lizards, especially since the script identified them as belong to specific dinosaur species when they quite clearly didn’t (had the script said they evolved from such creatures, the way the most recent version of King Kong did, it would have been less egregious).

Allen’s lizards popped up in several TV shows he did, most notably the TV version of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. That show’s co-star David Hedison played a supporting role in The Lost World so once a season they found some excuse to get him out of his Navy uniform and into a safari jacket in order to match footage with stock shots from the movie.

The Animal World wasn’t the first time O’Brien and Harryhausen worked together, and Harryhausen followed up One Million Years B.C. with The Valley Of Gwangi, an O’Brien project that the older effects artist never got off the ground.

. . .

Let’s back up a bit to discuss “O’Bie” (as his fans refer to him).

O’Brien was a former cowboy-turned-cartoonist around the early 20th century who became interested in animation.

Movies were in their infancy then, and O’Bie shot a short test reel of two clay boxers duking it out.

This got him financing to do a series of short films ala The Flintstones with titles like Rural Delivery, One Million B.C. (the titles were often longer than the films).

These shorts featured cartoony puppets, no actual actors. O’Bie followed it up with The Ghost Of Slumber Mountain which was the first time dinosaurs were animated in an attempt to make them look real, and that was followed by The Lost World in which O’Bie combined live action with special effects, climaxing the film with a brontosaurus running amok in London.

O’Bie wanted to follow it up with a film called Creation but that got deep sixed. However, producer Merian C. Cooper saw O’Bie’s test footage for Creation and hired him to do the effects for the legendary King Kong.

While O’Bie followed that success with the quickie Son Of Kong he never got to work on a dinosaur film of such scope again.

War Eagles (a lost-civilization-with-dinos story) was supposed to have been a big follow up epic, but the Depression and the growing threat of WWII caused it to be cancelled in pre-production.

During the 1940s O’Bie pitched a number of stories to studios involving dinosaurs or other monsters encountering cowboys, one of which was Gwangi (he also pitched King Kong vs Frankenstein which eventually got made as King Kong vs Godzilla using two guys in rubber suits, not his beloved stop motion effects).

Gwangi had cowboys discovering a lost canyon inhabited by dinosaurs, chief of which being Gwangi, an allosaurus. O’Bie never got Gwangi off the ground but decades later Harryhausen did with Valley Of Gwangi.

. . .

I never cared for Valley Of Gwangi and much preferred One Million Years B.C. over it (and, no, not because of Ms Welch).

Growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, I enjoyed cowboys as much as dinosaurs.

I’ve posted elsewhere how my interest in dinosaurs led me to dinosaur movies which led to monster movies which led to science fiction movies which led to literary science fiction which led to science fiction fandom which led to my writing career, but my genre of choice before age 10 was Westerns.

As others point out, most Westerns are actually crime stories, what with bandits robbing stagecoaches and banks, rustlers making off with cattle, etc. The climax usually involves a lawman (or a vigilante who carries the weight of the law) confronting the evil doers and bringing them to justice.

Sometimes these vigilantes wore masks (Zorro and the Lone Ranger). Sometimes those they pursued wore masks, and sometimes those masked villains pretended to be ghosts or phantoms.

They weren’t, and were invariably exposed as frauds.

Westerns based themselves in a rational world.

Other times a criminal in a Western would be after some invention that could bring either a great boon (say an energy source) or great harm (a death ray) to the world, and wanted it for their own selfish ends.

The story would invariably use the invention as a mcguffin device, maybe letting it figure into the villain’s eventual comeuppance, but never really influencing the outcome of the plot.

Westerns and fantasy genres (including science fiction) don’t mix well, The Wild Wild West not withstanding (and The Wild Wild West was not a Western per se but rather what we would now call a steampunk commentary on James Bond filtered through the lens of traditional American Westerns).

(And don’t bring up Gene Autry And The Phantom Empire, just…don’t…)

Dinosaurs and cowboys don’t really go together.

That didn’t stop O’Bie from trying.

In addition to Gwangi, O’Bie had two other projects that he did get off the ground: The Brave One and The Beast From Hollow Mountain.

The Beast From Hollow Mountain is a standard Western about mysterious cattle disappearances and quarrels over who might be responsible, only to discover in the end it’s really -- surprise! surprise! -- a solitary tyrannosaurus that somehow survived since prehistoric times.

The movie is constructed in such a way that had the dinosaur element not panned out, they could have removed it and substituted a more conventional ending.

While O’Bie didn’t work directly on the film after he sold the story, it did feature a variant of stop motion animation known as replacement animation. Instead of building a realistic looking puppet with rubber skin and posable limbs, the dino in Beast was more solid and featured interchangeable limbs that could stretch and squash in a more realistic manner (rather, the movement looked more realistic, the dino sculpture no so much…).

The Brave One started life as a story about a young Mexican boy who raises a prize bull for the ring, only to have the bull face an allosaurus in the ring instead of a matador.

The producers who bought that idea hired blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to turn it into something filmable, and Trumbo sensibly jettisoned the dino to focus the story on the boy and his bull, much to the film’s advantage (it won an Oscar for best story when released, but Trumbo’s heirs had to wait decades before the award could be recognized as due their father).

The Valley Of Gwangi was yet another variant on the same basic idea, more expansive than the other two in terms of dinosaurs, and with at least a nod in the direction of trying to explain them (a “lost canyon” giving them shelter instead of a mountain plateau or remote island).

It never connected with me, despite having more extensive dino sequences than One Million Years B.C..

O’Bie animated stop motion cowboys fighting a giant ape in the original version of Mighty Joe Young but the context proved different. The cowboys’ presence in Africa is acknowledge in the film itself as a publicity gimmick, and therefore not a true blend of the American West with a fantastic element.

Mr. Joseph Young of Africa himself, a 12-foot tall gorilla, was also presented as an exceptionally large but otherwise natural gorilla, not a throwback to a prehistoric era.

. . .

Before there were action figures, but long after there were tin soldiers, we had plastic play sets.

They came in all eras and varieties, but among the most popular were Wild West sets, Civil War, World War Two, and dinosaurs.

My father took a business trip to Chicago when I was four, and when he came back I remember eagerly crowding around the suitcase with my mother, grandmother, and aunt as he opened it and brought out souvenirs for us.

I forget what they got, but I remember feeling disappointed and forgotten since their stuff was on top.

But, underneath everything else, sat a large cardboard box, and in that box was a Marx Prehistoric Times playset.

It’s hard to adequately describe the joy that filled my heart when I opened it; it was one of the best presents I’ve ever received.

And while I later acquired a Civil War set and a World War Two set and a bag of what we then called cowboy and Indian figures, the dinosaurs remained my most favorite.

I bring this up because I think the Marx playsets explain the origins of two comics books, Turok, Son Of Stone (an on-again / off-again series from 1954 to 1982 from Dell / Gold Key) and The War That Time Forgot (1960-68 from DC).

In both cases, I’m sure somebody from each company saw some kid combing their Wild West or their World War Two playsets with their dinos and realized there was story gold to be found there.

The War That Time Forgot felt much more my speed, a lost island inhabited by dinosaurs and visited by American and Japanese forces during World War Two.

World War Two effectively ended any hope of their being a lost island with prehistoric monsters; pretty much the entire planet was scouted either on foot or by air.

Turok, Son Of Stone didn’t connect with me. For one thing, it was too much like a Western in concept; for another, Turok and his brother Andar, being pre-Columbian Native Americans, were already from a neolithic culture, and the various cavemen and Neanderthals they encountered in their lost valley seemed more drab and colorless than their tribal background.

The dinosaurs they encountered always came across as large, dangerous, but wholly natural animals, different only from bears and wolves and bison by size and appearance.

Despite my indifference to Turok, I can absolutely understand why others love it and disdain The War That Time Forgot.

Different strokes for different folks.

. . .

We can’t close this without taking a look at The Flintstones, and we can’t consider The Flintstones without first examining Tex Avery’s The First Bad Man in order to bring this post full circle.

There’s a long history (har!) of contemporary satire using a prehistoric lens. The Flintstones started life as a knockoff of Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners told in a prehistoric setting; the series made no attempt to present itself as realistic in any shape, fashion, or form.

Among the many cartoons and short subjects that preceded it (including Chuck Jones’ Daffy Duck And The Dinosaur) is The First Bad Man by Tex Avery, an MGM theatrical cartoon.

Tex told the story of Dinosaur Dan, the world’s first outlaw, using Western tropes told through a prehistoric lens.

It works, because it’s a parody of the Western form, not a sincere effort to blend it with the caveman genre. It works because it’s a jarring clash of genres, not despite it.

The caveman genre itself has fallen on fallow times. Despite films like The Quest For Fire and Clan Of The Cave Bear attempting to do realistic takes on the topic, most people seem to prefer more fanciful approaches, best exemplified by the movie Caveman which sent up the entire genre while not skimping on the stop motion dinos.

With sword & sorcery / Tolkienesque fantasies finally acceptable to mass audiences and thus providing a venue for humans to directly fight giant monsters, there doesn’t seem to be a huge demand for a return to the glories of One Million B.C.

#Compare And Contrast #One Million BC #One Million Years BC #Ray Harryhausen #Willis OBrien #Victor Mature #Carole Landis #Raquel Welch #Hal Roach #DW Griffith #cavemen #cowboys #dinosaurs #sci-fi

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s4msepiol · 5 years

Text

Headcanon #1 | Yeux Disent Le Contraire

• Title: Yeux Disent Le Contraire • Type: Fluff • Requested by: @ramimalekrp-roleplayerpage • Request: “Can you do something with the character falling in love but using the attack method of hating you that couldn’t express his love to reader?” • Prompt: How the two of you went from enemies to lovers. • Pairing: Rami | Ahkmenrah | Josh | Finn | Reader

Whenever someone asked you about your relationship with the actor you weren’t quite sure about what to answer them.

You were his stylist that was a fact, something concrete and tangible, black on white. Unfortunately, most interviewers weren’t satisfied with such a pragmatic answer.

Was it friendship? Totally not. “Friend” was probably the last word that would have come to your mind to describe your relationship with Rami.

“Okay… Mr. Malek look over here… Perfect.” You heard the photographer say to Rami who was pretty photogenic under that light.

In fact, you could have found him handsome if your opinion of him wasn’t polluted by his extraordinary ability to make you lose your temper.

“Thank god, now I can take off that horrible shirt…” Rami said loudly enough for you to hear at the end of the photo shoot, with the exact same smirk he had every time he tried to get on your nerves.

That smirk could have sum up the whys and wherefores of every argument you had had with him.

The outcome of which was always the same, no matter what the reason.

He would fire you or you would resign then both of you would fight to prove that you were the one that had decided to put an end to that disastrous collaboration.

He would finally call you at an ungodly hour to stammer some excuses explaining that you were the only stylist he wanted to work with. After a few minutes you would put an end to those bowing and scraping with a concise yet so satisfying ‘I hate you, Malek.’ and at those words he would know that you would be back at work the following day.

At the end of the photo shoot, you packed up your things and were going to leave when you heard Rami’s agent’s voice.

“Y/N wait! I would need you to go to L.A next week with Rami for the SAGs.” And before you could answer anything you heard an all too familiar voice say:

“What about just sending the outfit to my hotel, trust me you would do me a favor by not coming with me.” Rami snapped directly at you.

“You’re sure you’re gonna be able not to put your pants on backwards without me, Malek.” He opened his mouth only to be interrupted by his agent.

“Are the two of you done? I’d like to see both of you alive by the end of the award season.”

“It wouldn’t be a great loss…” Rami sputtered ignoring his agent’s remark.

“Yeah picture that ‘Stylist kills an extra from Twilight.’” You retorted miming a newspaper cover.

“At least you would get to make the cover for once.”

“Fuck you.”

“You wish.” And at those words, his agent handed you your plane ticket.

“We have a reservation under Malek, please.” Rami declared to the receptionist.

The latter gave Rami only one key…

“Excuse me, sir. There must be a mistake… Hum… I’m pretty sure we reserved two rooms for tonight…”

Do I need to mention that Rami’s attempts to find a solution were vain, the hotel being completely booked…

“You can have the bed, if you want, and I'll take the couch.” You heard Rami say from the bathroom.

“I’ll save you from that cliché...” You stated putting on your jacket. “I’m gonna sleep at a friend’s place, I’ll see you in the morning.”

And when you opened the door to leave, you froze at his raspy voice.

“Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?” You said turning away from the opened door to face him.

“Take two steps backwards every time I take one forward.” He literally took a step towards you, as if to prove something. You didn’t flinch.

“Rami, look I’m really not in the mood to fight with you at the moment. I thought you’d be happy not to have to spend the night with me, but you’re even more complicated than I thought…”

“Why wouldn’t I want to spend the night with you, Y/N?” He whispered to your ear, his left-hand closing the door behind you, his right-hand pulling you to him before crushing his lips to yours…

At your arrival at the museum while everybody was greeting you, he stayed away and stared at you with a look you couldn't quite identify at first. Hatred or indifference, maybe both but before you could put your finger on it Sacagawea dragged you through the hallways meanders of the museum.

Your first argument was about his guards obeying to you whenever he wasn't around, your Arabic being better than his. This disagreement only being the first of many.

He wasn't sure about how he had figured it out, probably because of the Iris scent floating in the Egyptian exhibit hallways when he came back or because of the chuckles of his stone giants whenever he would speak to them in Arabic.

I “أتعتقد ان هذا مُضحك ؟” I (you think that's funny?) He asked you dryly, interrupting your daily attempt to reconcile Jedediah & Octavius after the latter had insulted the first one’s mother in latin.

I “أتعتقد ان هذا مُضحك ؟” I You corrected him, putting the emphasis on the right syllable. He had developed a special ability at hiding what he felt when he was around you but you could see by his clenched-jaw that his annoyance was overflowing out of him like Nile after the rainy season.

“Lady Y/N, would you join me for a walk?” Lancelot asked you politely, interrupting Larry’s daily attempt to reconcile Ahk and you, his main idea being about looking for what the two of you had in common instead of fighting about your differences.

“It would be a pleasure.” You answered, secretly thanking Lancelot for putting an end to Larry’s lecture. Standing up to follow Lancelot you felt a pair of eyes on you and for some reason the feeling of those vibrant green eyes on you felt kind of pleasant.

“So what, you’re just gonna leave us here, Y/N?” Larry deplored as you passed your arm through Lancelot’s inviting him to walk with you.

“Don’t take it personally Larry but those little sessions between the three of us are less pleasant than the ten plagues of Egypt, deaths of firstborns included.” And before you even finished your sentence, Ahkmenrah’s expression went from a gaze darker than his coal hair to a chuckle he was desperately trying to hide, in vain.

Joining back your exhibit at the end of that little walk with the knight, you noticed Ahk sitting on your sarcophagus, in the dark.

“How was it?” He asked, his tone closer to the whisper than to a question. For the first time in what felt like millenniums there wasn’t a single ounce of irony, sarcasm or bitterness in his voice.

“It was like feeling what Jews felt when they crossed the Sinai desert…” You retorted, sitting next to him.

Another half-hidden chuckle… and for some reason you realized that his laugh was one of the most melodic thing you had ever heard. Still, his eyes were avoiding yours.

I “هل حاول تقبيلك؟” I (did he try to kiss you?)

You couldn't tell what surprised you the most, his question or the fact that he asked this in a perfect Arabic.

I “لا.” I (no.) You didn't know how many seconds, minutes, centuries had passed between his question and your answer but you were sure of one thing: his eyes never left yours during that span of time.

“Good.” And at that word he pressed his lips against yours…

You and Josh used to be very good friends.

Your friendship often earning you some dumb jokes from the band about when the two of you would take it to the next step.

You don't really know when that friendship (not to say little infatuation) turned into the taste of ashes you had in mouth every time Chris would mention Josh's name.

You had been one of the few persons he had accepted to see after his sisters’ disappearance.

The only person, in fact… and that for a while…

You used to pick him up after his sessions with Dr.Hill, and despite circumstances that tradition was your favorite moment of the week.

And something was telling you that he looked forward to this Wednesday tradition as much as you did.

He would always find an excuse not to go home right after his appointment. Excuses that went from a new horror movie you desperately needed to see, to a new pizzeria in town which pizzas were “better than almost any trip to the bone zone.”

You often caught yourself smiling at the thought of the note he had once left you on a napkin willingly forgotten in your car.

You can't tell when or why he decided to put an end to those traditional Wednesday afternoon trips but one thing was sure, you hadn't seen it coming.

“Hum… Sam offered to take me home after my session tomorrow… I’m hope you don’t mind…”

Not that you were against the idea of Josh making up with Sam, Chris and the others. You had been encouraging him to do so for months.

But he had done it so quickly almost precipitously…

And the closer he got to them, the farther you felt from his orbit…

Your exchanges soon only consisted of a nod in the morning when the two of you would join the band.

You weren’t even friends anymore, just two persons having friends in common.

Soon enough, the indifference turned to hatred.

You often thought about tearing that freaking napkin apart.

Still, you've never been able to... Because that stupid piece of paper was the only thing proving that you had been friends, if not more. The only thing proving that you hadn’t made it all up…

To your surprise, he invited you to the lodge with the band.

But you knew Josh, probably better than he knew himself, and you had noticed that the closer you got to his sisters’ disappearance anniversary the harsher and more acrimonious were the few remarks he granted you of.

You soon concluded that he didn’t want you to come, that he just didn’t want to be the kind of asshole that invites everyone besides one particular person.

So you came up with some lame excuses about not being available because of a family dinner.

And for the first time in months, you caught the glimpse of a smile on his face at your words. It was official, he hated you...

You're the first person he asked for after waking up in the hospital, the day following his prank.

At first, every cell of your body told you not to go, that he wanted you only because everyone had turned their back to him after his demonstration of humor.

Unfortunately for you and your will not to care, while you were on the phone with Josh’s mother explaining you how important you were to him and how he didn’t want to see anyone besides you, your eyes lingered on the piece of paper pinned on the wall.

“I’ll go.” You said out of the blue, interrupting whatever she was saying while your fingers brushed the words on the napkin, as if to feel the hand that had left them there.

“Y/N? You came?”

“I did it for your mother… and because that’s what…” You stopped at the thought of Beth and Hannah. “… they would have wanted me to do.”

You hated that man with every fiber of your being, still your heart bled at the sight of the scratches, bruises and stitches on his face.

You can’t tell how much time you stayed there on that chair next to his bed, your mind emanating and analyzing a thousand thoughts per second.

“What are you thinking about?” Josh asked, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“I just don’t understand you, Washington. So what, you hate me enough to destroy every shred of affection I used to have for you but not enough to pull that sick prank on me?”

He remained silent.

“You know what? That was a bad idea, I shouldn’t have come.” You declared before standing up to leave.

He grabbed your wrist before you could do so.

You looked at him, searching in his eyes to know what was happening in the battlefield that he called his mind.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” And before the sound of his voice even stopped resonating within you, his lips captured yours.

Tobey hired you after you beat him in a car race.

The guys were so excited at your arrival, their team despite being the best of the country desperately needed to be spruced up.

Finn quickly shook your hand before going back to the mustang he was working on.

You decided not to care, your attention being fully caught by Joe and Benny's questions about your favorite brand of hubcap or your opinion on this or that car model.

The first car you worked on with the team was a Swedish Koenigsegg Agera R.

After 1 month spent pampering that car, you could count on one hand the number of times you and Finn had talked to each other.

“Guys… hum and Y/N, the work you did on that beauty is breathtaking. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’m sure everyone here will agree with me… Y/N I would like you to drive her at the next De Leon.” Tobey solemnly declared handing you the keys of the car. Benny and Joe opened a beer and drank to you.

“To Y/N and her new steed. I hope that it won’t be the last thing you will be riding.” Benny declared raising his beer.

You hadn't been able to appreciate every sexual nuances of his joke, the latter reminding you that the De Leon, despite being the most prestigious race was also the most dangerous.

“That’s out of question.” Finn retorted suddenly, reminding you by doing so that he was there.

Joe, Benny and Tobey defended you, reminding him that you were the best and that he knew it.

“You heard me, that’s out of the question. I’ve put so much effort in that car that there’s no way I’m gonna entrust it…” He stopped as if to gather the courage to speak. “… to a girl.”

The garage remained silent for a few minutes.

“Go fuck yourself, Finn.” Tobey finally said, putting his jacket on and inviting Joe and Benny to do so.

The minute you heard their cars driving away, it took you all your will not to kill Finn right there and then.

Wrenches were thrown.

You had never noticed his skill at avoiding objects thrown in the air by a woman’s bruised ego.

“You know that I’m gonna drive it whether you like or not.”

“Nope.”

“You know I am.”

“That’s what we’ll see.” Finn taunted you before trying to break the window of the car with a wrench you had “placed” there sooner.

You stood in front of the car window before he could do so.

You were not even sure, given your relationship with him, that it would keep him from ruining 4 weeks of hard work (or incidentally from putting an end to your life).

It worked.

He dropped the wrench, the impact sound of which on the floor made you flinch.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” He ordered you, while staring at your face to be sure he hadn’t hurt you.

He had a smile drawn on his face. Finn was a handsome man; a thousand thrown wrenches wouldn't change anything to that.

“What makes you smile?”

“You’ve got a bit of…” He said low while wiping away a small stain at the corner of your mouth. “… motor oil.

You couldn't tell if it was true or not but the kiss he placed on your lips right after felt better than winning any race.

✉️ @dearmrmalek @ramimalekrp-roleplayerpage

#fluff #fics #headcanon #flufframi #fluffjosh #fluffahk #flufffinn #rami malek #rami malek fic #rami malek imagine #rami malek x reader #Ahkmenrah #joshwashington #until dawn #joshua washington #myhc #mywork #🖤

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elanorjane · 5 years

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A Princess in Theory [Chapter 3]

Summary: Raised outside of her country, she’s about to find out that she’s a real-life princess. Political advisor Gold is hired to turn this princess in theory into a real royal - without falling in love with her.

AO3 link

Belle had been on a fair number of small planes in her life, but never anything like this. It was a private charter plane and the fanciest she’d ever seen. Instead of the traditional rows of seats, there were also tables and couches. Everything was white leather and dark wood with the Avonlea insignia tastefully peppered throughout.

She hauled on board a knapsack filled with her most treasured belongings. Her photographs took up little room. With her mother’s tutelage, she’d mastered the art of traveling light a long time ago. When you’re forced to sift through everything in your apartment with a really impatient Scotsman standing right outside the door, it turns out very little holds sentimental value besides the memories. Even less had financial value. She and her mum had always scraped by with odd jobs and household goods bought at second hand stores. Belle had a small suitcase of clothes that Dove had carried on board. Afterward he’d disappeared up front with the crew, leaving her and the mystery man alone.

“Does he fly the plane, too?” she asked, watching Dove disappear behind a door. She plopped down into a soft leather seat and buckled in for takeoff.

Mystery Man took a seat on the other side of the aisle. He seemed more relaxed now that they were on the plane. He even went so far as to give her a half-smile. How generous. “No.”

After a beat it was evident that was all he was going to say to her. He’d been surly and silent ever since she’d confronted him about kissing her. Luckily, her seat was within reach of the liquor cabinet. Alcohol. Despite the safety restraint she was able to reach forward, unlatch the cabinet door, grab a bottle of vodka, a can of cranberry juice, and a glass. Her fingers glanced off the ice bucket so she’d have to drink it at room temperature, but she’d live. She sat back in her seat, satisfied with herself, and poured the two liquids into the glass. As she took a large gulp she felt eyes on her.

She looked across the aisle. He’d watched her entire performance in complete silence. How can someone’s face be completely passive yet totally judgmental at the same time?

“I’m a nervous flier,” she deadpanned. In actuality, she was the opposite of a nervous flier. In fact, she relished the loss of control, it was liberating. She could tell he didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t bothered and went back to enjoying her drink. He could keep his judgments on his side of the plane.

When they were up in the air, with the alcohol coursing through her body, she finally had the courage to ask some rather important questions.

“Well, Mystery Man, what’s your name?” He slowly tore his gaze away from whatever he found so interesting out the window. “Or do I just keep calling you ‘you’?”

“Gold.” He looked uncomfortable even sharing that much with her. This was a new interesting facet to her Mystery Man. While he was confident blowing up her life as she knew it, he was less inclined to be the focus of attention.

“You got a first name?”

“Mister.”

She smiled in spite of herself. She always did appreciate sarcasm. “Alright, Gold, what’s your role in all of this? Besides stalking and kidnapping all in the name of shoving a tiara on my head?” She decided over her drink that she’d deal with the influx of batshit crazy information she’d received over the past several hours like some sort of cosmic joke. One that happened to be working in her favor thus far, considering the luxury plane and high end liquor.

“I’ll be there to prepare you to become a princess and ultimately ascend the throne. There are innumerable protocols, rules, and social etiquette that you should have learned from birth but I will instruct you on over several weeks. Avonlea will want to welcome you home with a sort of pre-coronation event, officially welcoming you into the royal family. There will be an official celebration day, including a reception and ball. I’ll stay until you’re settled, then I’ll move on.”

Protocols. That sounded hella boring. Hanging out this close to Mr. Gold didn’t seem like too much of a chore through. He was bossy and disapproving, and, really, how was ‘Mr. Gold’ any better than ‘Mystery Man’? But she enjoyed turning the tables on him, of shocking and surprising him, and earning one of those half-smirks.

“Sounds fun,” she responded, meaning anything but. Suddenly restless, she rose from her seat and poked around the plane, opening and closing cabinets at random. She found a television behind one and snacks in another. The whole time she explored, Gold alternated between reading the thick historical nonfiction book he’d boarded with, staring out the window, and leaning his head back with his eyes closed. Having run out of diversions, she meandered back to her seat, tossing a small bag of Cheetos onto the seat next to her.

Before she could sit down, the plane hit turbulence. The bumps weren’t bad, by frequent flier standards, but navigating the rolls in an open area while in heels was. She crossed her left foot over her right, overcompensated, and tripped herself. As she tipped she clawed at empty air, hoping to grab the back of a seat. The plane steadied and her fall was abruptly cut short when she landed with an oof in one of the seats. His seat. Not just his seat but his literal lap. If she hadn’t already met his cock earlier in the evening, they were getting very well acquainted now. She could feel it pressed against her bottom, right through the virgin wool of his trousers.

His cool passiveness from the bar was nowhere to be found. Beyond surprised to find her in his lap, he was unnerved. Even before they’d boarded the plane, he’d already started to pull away from her, to purposefully snuff out the spark that had been ignited between them at the bar. She had the sneaking suspicion that when they got to Avonlea he’d basically turn to ice. Which was a shame because they could have so much fun together.

He’d instinctively wrapped his arms around her when she’d landed. He didn’t look thrilled, but he wasn’t tossing her off him either. Instead, he quietly studied her face, then looked at her mouth. She felt his cock jump against her. This she knew. She didn’t need protocol lessons about this.

She took his stunned silence as an opportunity. Instead of standing up, she leaned in closer. “When we land, I’ll officially be a princess.”

He pressed his head hard against the seat but there was no escaping her. “You’re already a princess,” he breathed. “You always were.”

“What I mean is,” she smoothed her hands up his lapels to his shoulders. She longed to thread her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. “I’m gonna have to be all proper and shit, yeah?”

His body was stiff beneath her. “That would be preferable,” he choked out.

She narrowed her gaze, “Preferable for who?”

She closed the rest of the distance. She noticed again how, just at the bar, instead of puckering he opened his mouth to catch her lips with his. The drunken haze from the bar had worn off and he was still the best kisser she’d ever experienced.

When she finally pulled back his eyes narrowed at the corners in a disapproving glare that didn’t reach his dick. “You’re going to need to stop doing that,” he told her in his cold professional voice.

She didn’t buy it for a second. “Can’t I do whatever I want to now that I’m a princess? In fact,” she fingered his pocket square, “can’t I tell you what to do?” God, that would be fun. She pictured herself in a Marie Antoinette dress, demanding he drop to his knees. She’d order him to help remove her stockings. Then those hands of his would climb up under her dress, his fingers sliding up her calf, the back of her knee, her thigh. Her requesting him to keep going up and up and...

That got a half-smile out of him. He shook his head. “You’re not my princess, Princess. I’m not a citizen of Avonlea.”

She slumped her shoulders and pouted. “Then what fun is this going to be?” She should probably get up now but she’d settled onto his lap quiet comfortably.

He stared at her lower lip distractedly. “Not very much at all, I suspect,” he replied quietly, his eyes never leaving her mouth.

Suddenly this whole princess thing didn’t seem like such a ripper of a situation.

He must have seen the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. “You’ll be fine, Princess.” It was sounding less like a title and more like a nickname now. He rubbed her back comfortingly. “I don’t think you’re at all who you pretend to be.”

That sounded so sanctimonious she couldn’t let it pass. She sat up in his lap, turning to face him. “And who’s that?”

“You forget, I’ve been watching you. You’re a party girl with your friends but when you’re alone you like to study and read,” he matter-of-factly encapsulated.

Something about that neat summation of her life didn’t sit right with her. If he thought he was plucking her from some kind of drudgery and believed he could control her, he was mistaken. She liked her life, she enjoyed her time out with her friends. Her motivation for coming with him was finding out the truth about her mum, her father, and her family, no to escape her life. She quickly stood, knowing she was giving up her chance to join the Mile High Club, and went to sit across the aisle.

She didn’t check to see if Gold looked confused her hurt from her abrupt exit. So what if he did? Let him be confused for a change. She pulled her phone out as she sat down. She had a couple “Have fun!” and winky face messages from her friends. They’d assumed she’d gone home with the stranger from the bar and wouldn’t expect to hear from her until tomorrow. That seemed like a lifetime ago now. Her thumbs hovered over the keypad. How to explain what had happened to her over the last few hours? She’d send a group text later, explaining that her father, finding out about her mother’s death, had resurfaced. It was the truth. Once everyone calmed down about her existence, she’d head back to Australia or have her friends come visit Avonlea. Wherever the hell that was. She still knew so little about her birthplace.

She finally darted a glance at Gold. He was looking out the window again. She could just ask him since he was such a know it all, but her pride wouldn’t let her. Instead, she Googled Avonlea.

Thirty minutes and twenty tabs later, she was so immersed in her reading she didn’t notice him getting up. Or his blatantly looking over her shoulder on his way back to his seat. He smirked at her obvious absorption.

“Well you’re not telling me anything!” she told him.

He sat back down. “What did you learn?”

She took a deep breath. “Avonlea is located near the Southern Isles. The castle is located on the coast,” she recited. “They had a rocky history. The 1800’s are filled with them getting their butts kicked in various wars. But they made their money in the 1970’s and 80’s with the export of their natural resources. But what they’re best known for is being a melting pot. Lots of people immigrated there in the 70’s and 80’s with the economic boom. So tourists will notice all the different accents.”

“You’ll fit in perfectly.”

She doubted it. She’ll be alone, is what she’ll be. Arriving in Avonlea meant joining a group of people who have been living together for thirty years or more. Christ, she missed her mum. “Can I-” she felt silly asking for them but the need was overwhelming. “May I see those photos again?”

He slipped them out of his jacket and handed them across the aisle to her.

Belle thought of all the parts of her life that she’d effectively gave up by getting on this plane. “What about school?” She only had a semester left. The idea of giving up college didn’t sit well with her. She was never going to be a librarian now, like she’d planned, but she’d taken a lot of pride in her schoolwork. He hadn’t been wrong about her in that sense.

“We’ll arrange it so you can finish your studies online. You’re close to graduating anyway.”

She nodded, not looking up at the images in front of her. She stared at the photos of her father, a complete stranger. She flipped through the rest slowly, relishing every image of her mother. If only she could have her mother with her, to tell her what to do and hold her hand. But she’d taught Belle to be an independent person who could think for herself, trust her gut, and make her own decisions. Was her parenting style purposeful? Did she know this day was going to come? When they were going to be found and Belle would be forced to make this very choice?

“Please tell me you packed proper shoes or, better yet, a shirt with a back?” he nodded at the outfit she wore, the same one from the bar. “I’d prefer you not create a scandal the minute we get off the plane.” His face told her he was attempting to lighten the mood and bring her back from her far away musings.

“You can’t tell me how to dress,” she shot back halfheartedly.

He looked at her pityingly. “Princess, I believe you’ll find that not to be remotely true.” Then he smiled slowly, as if he was going to enjoy bossing her around.

Her stomach dropped from nerves, the plane, that smile, or some combination.

When they landed and the plane’s stairs were lowered, Belle hesitated at the top. She knew she had to descend but her feet wouldn’t move. Up to this point, she’d been on a fun, sexy adventure. Follow a mystery man to an exotic location - another journey to put in her scrapbook! But this was real. This was actually going to happen. Once she disembarked from this plane and stepped foot on her native soil, that was it. She was a princess here and her life was going to dramatically change forever.

“Belle,” Gold’s voice was quiet behind her.

Her eyes were glued on the tarmac below. “Yes?” she answered conversationally, like she didn’t know what he was requesting of her.

His voice was next to her ear now. “I told you I would stay until you were ready. I meant it. I promise I will not leave your side until you are ready for me to go.” Warm fingers slipped into her own and squeezed once but were gone before she could even register them.

She let out a long, shaky breath, “Okay.”

Stretching across the tarmac stood a line of men and women in what she assumed was military dress. They stood at attention, to her seemingly waiting for something. Was she supposed to order them at ease? Why were they just standing there? It was making her nervous. As they walked past them, Belle slowed to a stop in front of them, balanced on one heel and wobbly bent her knees.

Gold leaned over her shoulder, “What are you doing?” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” she hissed from her half-bow, “curtsying at everyone!”

“You don’t curtsy to them,” he told her slowly, “they bow and curtsy to you.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” she was stuck in her failed curtsy.

“Besides never do that again? Stand up. Walk to the helicopter,” he instructed. One waited on the other side of the tarmac. “It’s time to go meet your father.”

#fic: A Princess in Theory #Rumbelle #Rumbelle fic #Rumbelle fanfic

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emerysaks · 7 years

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Unfaithfully Yours - Chapter 1

Just a quick note. This is a fic that was conceived and written by @delightfullyambiguous and me. Even though she graciously suggested I finish it under my own name, I don't feel right taking her name off of it. She wrote a fair amount of this, and it seems wrong to not credit her when her voice can clearly be heard throughout the story. :)

So, refresh yourself with Chapter 1 and look for the next three chapters over the next few weeks. And be warned - this is DARK.

Chapter 1

1959

It had been eight years since Howard Stark convinced Peggy Carter to walk away from the Scientific Strategic Reserve and head up his new agency, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

Leave it to Howard to found a new agency so soon after the Central Intelligence Agency was established but, truth be told, it hadn’t taken too much convincing for Peggy to come aboard and, with Angie’s blessing, she’d traded in her SSR agent title for that of Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The two had been together since 1947 and in 1949, Peggy had given Angie her grandmother’s ring, officially acknowledging their union as she slid it on the ring finger of Angie’s right hand. Angie had worn it ever since, and between the two of them, they privately agreed that, for all intents and purposes, they were married.

Only a select handful of those closest to them were made aware – Howard, Edwin and Anna and Peggy's younger brother, Harrison. As much as it pained Angie, she reluctantly heeded Peggy's advice that it was better for her family to have suspicions and still be welcomed at the Christmas table, rather than confirm them and lose all contact with her parents and siblings.

For the last nine years, the two lived their life, seemingly free of the trials and tribulations of marriage with which Peggy so often watched her agents succumb. But as things began to heat up internationally the last six months, Peggy found herself spending more and more evenings at the office. Lately, she’d even taken to sleeping on her couch and dragging into the apartment two or three days later with only a quick phone call to Angie to let her know where she was so Angie wouldn’t worry.

At first, Angie constantly assured Peggy that she understood, she had even laughed and said she knew what she was getting into when she made the commitment to be with Peggy. But after three months of missed dinners, fleeting phone calls and a distracted partner, even Peggy could sense Angie’s burgeoning frustration with her.

She should have known that missing their ten year anniversary – a date they celebrated ever since Angie agreed to wear Peggy’s ring – would not sit well. Peggy could almost picture Angie wearing the new dress she’d purchased especially for the occasion when she’d called her from the office and told her she was going to be a few minutes late. She’d sensed the tension in Angie’s tone, but she assured her she’d be there. She simply needed to place one more call from their European office and she’d leave in fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately, fifteen minutes had morphed into an all-nighter as she fielded calls from various heads of state, aptly concerned over weapons being moved by the Soviet Union. By the time she finally managed to leave, she was exhausted. Her fatigue was somewhat lessened by the knowledge that she would be boarding a plane to Europe in less than five hours. Although she knew she could – and probably should – send one of her agents to do the job, Peggy had informed the President she’d take the mission herself. ‘To get it done properly’, she had told Howard. When he had rolled his eyes and muttered a comment about aging agents and their need to relive the glory days, she’d thrown a nearby paperweight at him, effectively ending the conversation.

When Peggy entered their bedroom, she was disappointed, but not surprised, to find the flowers she had Jarvis deliver unceremoniously dumped in a nearby trash bin, the new gown lay crumpled across the back of the chair near their bed.

She grimaced.

It wasn’t like Angie to be so careless with something so exquisite. Quietly padding to the bed, she looked at the woman in question just as she shifted beneath the sheets, and Peggy was startled to realize Angie wasn’t wearing anything.

It had been some time since Angie had gone to bed unclothed and, despite her fatigue, Peggy felt the familiar arousal coil tightly inside her.

Unbuttoning her jacket, Peggy removed it and carefully draped it over it over the chair and retrieved Angie’s gown. She smoothed it out and laid it next to her jacket before sitting on the edge of the bed.

With a soft sigh, she brought a hand to Angie’s hair and gently stroked it, luxuriating in the softness. A pang of regret coursed through her and she leaned down and placed a gentle kiss against Angie’s forehead.

“I’m sorry for missing our anniversary last night,” she whispered against her skin.

“Good morning to you, too,” came the soft reply, and Peggy drew back, surprised to see Angie staring at her.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“I heard the door close downstairs.”

“Sorry.”

Angie shook her head. “It needs to be fixed. It’s been slamming when I close it, too.”

“Ah.”

There was a moment of silence before Angie reached up and threaded her fingers through Peggy’s hair, pulling her closer.

Without thinking, Peggy lowered her head and began slowly kissing her along Angie’s collarbone, taking time to lavish attention on her warm skin.

“I’m sorry,” Peggy murmured into her shoulder between kisses, relieved to find no trace of anger in Angie’s voice.

“I know,” Angie nodded. She captured Peggy’s lips in a kiss. “Don’t think we won’t talk more about this later mind you,” she told her before reaching down and guiding Peggy’s hand to her waist. “But right now, I’m gonna need to see some genuine remorse, Director Carter.”

Peggy grinned and lowered her head to Angie’s breast even as her hand began tracing soft patterns against her hip. “Who am I to argue?” she teased, taking the soft underside of Angie’s breast between her teeth and lightly scraped, teasing her in the way she knew drove her wild.

Angie let out a high breathy groan and Peggy bit down harder in reaction, being careful not to leave a mark, licking in penance when she pulled away and saw the indents she left behind.

She stood, abruptly, and unbuttoned her trousers, stepping out of them and leaving them as a pile on the floor and she moved to straddle Angie.

“Hi.” She breathed, before she leant back down to kiss her, enjoying the leverage her new position granted her. Her push-up count had greatly improved throughout the years, mainly thanks to having the motivation of Angie laying between her arms in moments like this.

She shifted her weight onto one hand, and let the other drift down to stroke her thumb across Angie’s ribcage and Peggy smiled in satisfaction when she felt Angie moan vibrate through her chest before trailing her thumb across to circle Angie’s nipple.

She dipped her head down to kiss along Angie’s jaw, down her neck and across her collarbone, her lips trailing down in a slow meandering path, stopping to kiss and lavish her favourite areas on her body, making Angie writhe beneath her. As she began to shift downward, she muttered apologies against Angie’s smooth stomach and Peggy felt her shift beneath her again. She continued her path downwards and when her lips trailed over the dark matted curls between her legs she found Angie already wet. Soft fingers threaded through her hair, tugging her closer and then Peggy was lost in sensation, trying to communicate in the best way she knew how, through action; licking, tasting, teasing yet again until Angie’s hips lifted from their bed.

Peggy glanced up and grinned at her before she lowered her mouth back down and renewed her efforts. Angie’s encouraging sighs and moans were a potent combination, and the fingers that had tangled in her hair left to shoot out to her sides and twist in the sheets. Peggy reached out to cover Angie’s hand where it had grasped the bedding as she continued to kiss and suck. Angie’s body shuddered and tensed and Peggy drew the moment out for as long as she could, until Angie’s back inevitably fell back against the damp sheets while she whispered Peggy’s name over and over as her body shuddered through the aftershocks.

Peggy pulled back and winced as she shifted her weight on her knees. Wiping the back of her hand against her mouth, she found Angie watching her with hooded eyes and a sated smile. Crawling back up the length of her body, she captured Angie’s lips in a searing kiss. When she finally released her, Peggy gazed at her with a penitent expression.

“I’m sorry I missed last night, darling. Truly, I am.”

Angie pulled her closer, burying her face in Peggy’s neck as she clung to her. “I’ve missed you,” she murmured.

“I can’t stay though,” Peggy whispered without preamble. She winced at the blunt delivery and took in a deep breath when she felt Angie pull away. She could’ve handled that better. In the past, she would have. Blaming her exhaustion, Peggy glanced up to find Angie staring at her with incredulous eyes, her shock was easily discernible.

“What?”

Peggy sat up and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. “They’re sending me to Russia.”

“You’re the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I thought you sent people on missions not the other way around.”

There was a steely edge in Angie’s tone and Peggy found she had no response to her rather accurate statement.

Angie’s eyes hardened and she pulled the sheets up around her. “For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Angie scoffed. “So this,” she spat, gesturing between them, “What, you decided to work in one last hurrah before you headed off on your next grand adventure?”

Peggy stared at her in shock. “What? No! That’s not what this was.”

“Sure feels like it.”

Standing up, Peggy stalked to the closet and pulled out a bag.

Angie moved from the bed to stand behind her, her body still flushed from Peggy’s ministrations. “You can't even come up with a response," Angie seethed.

“What’s gotten into you?” Peggy snapped.

“Me? I’m not the one who spends all her time at the office, day in and day out. I’m not the one who’s missing dinners.” Angie folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not the one who missed our ten year anniversary. I waited up, you know.”

Peggy winced. “I’m sorry, Angie. I–”

“You’re always sorry, Peggy, but nothing ever changes. So much for your remorse.”

“What do you want me to say?” Peggy countered as she continued to pack her bag. “You knew what you were signing up for all those years ago.” Impatience threaded her tone. “If you had a problem, you should’ve spoken up sooner. God knows you tell me about everything else I do wrong.”

Angie crossed her arms and gave her a steely look. “Yeah, well maybe if I had known all the facts, it would’ve made different choices.”

The words hit Peggy like a blow to the stomach, and she started at the blunt statement from the woman she loved. Peggy had always prided herself at projecting a tough exterior, but Angie had always been her weakness. Bristling, she stuffed a pair of trousers into her bag before turning an icy glare on Angie.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Peggy said, her voice dark.

“Nothing to talk about, Margaret.”

She watched Angie turn and stalk into the bathroom, slamming the door closed.

Peggy contemplated going after and making a last-ditch effort to clear the air between them, but in the end, she simply stared at the door. There was no talking to Angie when she was upset. Twelve years with the woman had taught her that.

Shaking her head in frustration, Peggy grabbed her bag and left the room, the stony silence followed her as the door shut behind her.

#Cartinelli #Peggy Carter #Angie Martinelli #Agent Carter #Angst #Marital Infidelity #Our Gals Might Not Make It

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flightykickback · 5 years

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Before BTS in Chicago, I didn’t believe in post-concert depression. Clearly, I was wrong.

BE FOREWARNED!

If you thought some of my other posts were long, you’re in for a treat! This one is longer!

~ 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜 ~

I spent four, long, arduously stressful months trying to get tickets to see BTS in New York or Chicago. My friend and I combined devices to become a tiny force to be reckoned with, only to lose out on tickets for New York AND Chicago!

October was coming around the corner. I had set-up dozens of Facebook and Twitter notifications for various BTS groups and one extra special gem, BTSTicketBOT. Eventually, I had to make a decision on one location instead of being bombarded by notifications for two, so I picked Chicago. I started to search for BTSxChicago hashtags and various keywords in search engines until I hit the jackpot! I found LoveYourselfxChicago, a BTS fanbase in the Chicago-area that organizes fan events and charity drives.

DO NOT buy from unreliable websites such as Craig’s List. You WILL be scammed. No matter how tempting and how desperate you may have become during your search, DON’T DO IT! There will be tickets, just keep reading! (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

LoveYourselfxChicago was selling tickets for a suite ($250 each), at the tip-tip-tippy top of the arena with a full meal plan and semi-private bathrooms. I told them, “I do.”

K, I was at peak gambling mode at this point before I had to look at the time and stop taking chances. Originally, I told them NO! I wanna see sweat dripping from Namjoon’s forehead from P1 seating! Then I crumpled my wish on a piece of paper (seriously, I wrote exactly what I wanted multiple times on several slips of paper), before I meekly asked to be put on a waitlist. (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))

Luckily, we had already booked an Airbnb and THE cheapest transportation through Megabus ($13 total with tax, for two tickets)…..but you ought to know I’m never on time, so we missed it and had to drive (LOL!).

Yoooooo, my friend and I wanted to enjoy those charter seats and avoid the erratic Chicago traffic so bad that I called my niece to see if I got ahead of the bus, would she keep my car at her college over the weekend, just gas it up. We didn’t make it. Which…worked out for us later…We stocked up on flavored soju at Joong Boo Market and got some awesome food at San Soo Gab San Korean BBQ *cackles*

Finally! We’re in Chicago! We go to Mecca and it’s a barricaded parking lot across from United Center with people dancing it out to BTS music blaring from BigHit speakers. Choreo, cheers, screaming over biases, everyone was just having so much fun! Hanging out in a parking lot was a bit of a let-down considering how much money we ARMY deliberately and emotionally give BigHit, but at least the Love Yourself banners and images were displayed everywhere. It was nice seeing the block decked out for BTS:

Right at the entrance of the barricade was the lightstick help desk, so I made a beeline!

HERE’S THE ULTIMATE V3 LIGHTSTICK FIX!…put a little cushion on the bottom of the battery pack to boost it up. There’s an issue with the battery not completing the circuit, so the light doesn’t come on. The cushion eliminates that issue. o(≧∇≦o)

There was NO line for merch. Everyone came and went. (I meeeaaaan, if you’re going to line up all night for first dibs, you shouldn’t have to wait all day right?). Luckily, I had found a GO and we got merch without having to wait in line! We were able to meander over to the merch table after getting my lightstick fixed and lazily check off the order ballet whatever we wanted. Merch availability was posted on banners. The more popular items like the photo book, slogan, certain t-shirt sizes, premium photos, etc., were sold out, but there was a ton of lightsticks, mini lightstick rings, and photo cards, left over.

Legit. We were in and out in minutes. The longest part was making up my mind. I even purchased more PCs after a change of heart while still staring at the cashier (I needed at least two packs!).

Next, we were on the prowl…to sell fanmerch! This was our first time. We had created some Love Yourself themed pocket mirrors and were hoping to recoup some of the concert costs. We almost got bounced by BigHit Staff (LOL!). This lady came over to us like, “this is your final warning.” My friend said to her, you mean our first?! Cause, we ain’t never seen this chick or spoke to her before. She pursed her lips a bit cause she knew that was dumb to say. Meanwhile, fansites and savvier fan merchants were stealthily dodging BigHit Staff and United Center Security, just making a KILLING!

I friggin love fan merch so much. I buy from fans all the time online and it’s my favorite thing to do at a kpop concert. Fan merch can be beautiful and are usually the better things the band’s company doesn’t sell. Since they’re unique, you’ll never find it anywhere else and if they’re discontinued, it’s once in a lifetime, so it was a bit disappointing that BigHit had the place on lockdown. It was greedy, especially with how they’re pummeling us fans with various collaborations and activities (Mattel dolls, Funko Pop Vinyls, UNO cards, BTS World, The Notes Books, etc.) Support your fandom family!

Honestly, there’s not much more to do and since I didn’t enter the photo booth lottery, I don’t have more to describe. I realized the set-up is more of a dip-in and dip-out scenario. Buy merch, see some sights, get pictures, then bounce (although, I’ve seen posts from fans in Asian countries where it’s a whole damn festival, but whatever America. Capitalism sucks.). We tried to sell more merch while fans were lining up at the entrances, then made our long walk back to the bus stop (I was not driving or paying for parking) and turned in for the night.

The lines into the United Center were extraordinary…because people wouldn’t listen. Granted, everyone had to form a line prior to the doors opening, but eventually, security was telling people to exit the lines and enter through any of the other doors. One whole section, with multiple entrances, had no lines, but fans were so damn scared to lose their place that they didn’t trust to leave their spot. Most had reserved seats! Swear, fans must have PTSD from how they have to fight for everything. Security was checking bags and scanning people through the metal detectors very quickly, so there was no need for the uncertainty. ¯\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯

The next day was CONCERT DAAAAAAAY! I’m gonna skip a bunch of stuff because it’s redundant and I pretty much talked about security. How. Ever. We did sell more fan merch (Thanks!), made mutuals, spoke to some great people, and even met Dee Skelliton. Eventually, it was time to check our bags and ride that evasive elevator to the sky-I mean, our suite.

Kudos to the people that handed out free stuff. I got a couple of PCs and lyrics to Seesaw in support of Yoongi’s solo stage.

Word of caution. Don’t overexert yourself. We brought water, snacks, a hand fan, extra batteries, charger, and other necessities. I thought we were ready, but that walking! Ugh! We must’ve walked the equivalent of 10 miles from the bus stop to United, around United several times, to Subway for grub, back to United. We were tired AF, so when we got to the suite, we wanted to chill, but there were 20 other people already there and not enough seating with a view (suites can accommodate 20 people, but only have 10 stadium seats. There were barstools and couches, but the TVs were not broadcasting the show).

But we had fooooooood, baby! *raps* I’m a big girl, that likes big things, and I keep a plate, for my big dreams. There was hotdogs, ciabatta sandwiches, meatball subs, fruit, a bunch of other stuff and champ-angia. I was so stressed from low sales and so many people around me, I really needed a breather so when the attendant cracked that bottle open, I didn’t shy. I got lit.

Music videos were blasting. Snapchat Geofilter was on! We had our fan project banners ready (Day 1 and 2)! Fans were singing along with their lightsticks on. And then, THE LIGHTS DIMMED! Our lightsticks went crazy colorful! BTS popped up from beneath the stage and I blacked out.

Swear, I remember screaming my head off, trying my best at the Korean lyrics, crying a shitload, streaming to my closest BTS friends (shhhhh! (*≧艸≦)), hopping from our suite to the practically-empty-suite these beautiful, magnificent, gracious girls were willing to share, but otherwise, I don’t remember a lot. Luckily, there’s film….but I’m too embarrassed by my screeching to post it (and it’s taking forever to upload!), so enjoy these photos instead! Mind you, we reached the last summit when we walked off the elevator.

We also got some amazing scenes:

Jungkook’s abs

Jimin’s abs

Namjoon getting emotional at all the love he was receiving and thanking everyone for coming to the concert.

Baepsae was a biiiiiiitch!

I SAID BAEPSAE WAS A BIIIIIIITCH!

If I were to describe the euphoric feeling I had seeing the boys in person, I’d never do it justice. They were marvelous, engaging, funny and oh-so-sweet. Hence why I’m pissed that I’m missing their stadium tour. I told myself, I’m definitely seeing them next time…who knew they’d drop tickets this week?! This sounds weird, but I was extra upset that I won’t be able to go to one of the stadium stops and see the awesome light show. Up to 80-90,000 lightsticks flickering and forming multicolored art in unison! Have you seen those videos? Wow. It would be such a breathtaking experience.

If you’re looking to get BTS Tickets, check out my other post. The title is a little misleading, but my Plan B for getting tickets after they’re sold out is there.

If you’re banking on getting tickets direct from Ticketmaster…it’s all luck. You can do everything correctly according to fans:

Have multiple devices

Recruit friends with multiple devices

Have the fastest internet service

Have multiple browsers and tabs open

Not refresh the page

For certain platforms, refresh the page

Log-in hours in advance and wait to be placed in the queue

Even Ticketmaster provided a preparation guide.

You can do all that and some (I did) and still not score a single ticket. Remember, based on the stage set-up, only 2/3s of the stadium’s seating will be sold, part of the tickets are already reserved for BigHit, Ticketmaster or another broker, and season ticket holders. That means even fewer tickets will be available! Not only are you competing with each other but also scalpers with dedicated servers to snatch up tickets.

I’m not trying to scare anyone, just stating facts. If Plan A doesn’t work, don’t give up hope! Plan B may be your best option. Just keep storing your coins and be flexible. A couple of things on my previous post in the bonus section actually happened:

Ticketmaster released additional tickets, unannounced, a week or two before the Chicago concert date.

United Center sold extra tickets both nights of the show

People were posting last-minute ticket sales in various groups

It pays to keep checking the website, staying tuned to social media and just waiting in the box office line at the venue.

Another thing I learned while talking to various fans at United Center and also from social media posts, is that sometimes people with extra unsold tickets may just give them away! *screams*

If you choose to purchase resale tickets, do it through StubHub or Vividseats. Both sites guarantee similar tickets if the ones purchased are fake or will refund your money. Last year, StubHub realized how popular BTS is and created a dedicated customer service hotline (too many people were calling lol!). Also, if you call into Vividseats, they might give a discount (the rep offered me 15%). Lastly, if purchasing resale tickets from another fan, ask for proof and have someone else look at the proof with you. You can even ask in groups if other people know of the account selling the tickets.

~ My Last Humble Opinion ~

Last year, Love Yourself tour tickets for Metlife Stadium had a decent resale price on StubHub because many ARMY had already purchased tickets: extremely overpriced resale tickets and multiple face value tickets in hopes for the right seats. I’ve seen many ARMY say they might sit this tour out because they’re broke like me, they’re saving for other kpop concerts, or they’re unsure how different the Speak Yourself concert will be from Love Yourself stages. That ups the chances for tickets and, if the demand isn’t as high as last time, the resale prices will go down about two or three days from the concert date and they’ll become lower the day of. Hell, Ontario wasn’t a popular destination and those tickets were nuts.

Just don’t buy tickets because you can and then hold them in hopes of better tickets. There will be more chances. There were lots of tickets that were unclaimed. Some of the top tier levels. Were. Not. Full.

So anything is possible! Believe it and stay fighting!

There you have it: This behemoth posting that tired me out enough over the weeks that I had to just publish the sucker and get it over with! LOL! Hopefully, this is useful. I wanted to get it out sooner than the day Speak Yourself tickets go on sale. I also forgot about DPR! Oh well. (੭ ˃̣̣̥ ω˂̣̣̥)੭

Experience: #LoveYourselfInChicago where I learned first hand what PCD is and the overwhelming disgrace of blacking out. Before BTS in Chicago, I didn’t believe in post-concert depression. Clearly, I was wrong. BE FOREWARNED!

#BTS #Chicago #Concert #Experiences #fun #Love Yourself Tour #Post Concert Depression #Speak Yourself Tour #Travel #United Center

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