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robrpatz · 4 years

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Robert Pattinson new interview in Elle Magazine ( March 2020)

ELLE: You started acting when you were 18 years old, and in 15 years you’ve made 34 movies (and won eight awards…). Why do stay so active? What moves you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Now I have more fun making movies! The more I learn about how to do things, the more doors it opens to my mind. And the more comfortable you feel, the freer you’ll feel as well. I used to think in acting as a test, in which there was the possibility to fail. But when you stop thinking about the result…You never know if it will be good or bad, so the best thing is to enjoy it! And, as soon as you start behaving like that, everything becomes funnier.

ELLE: And, as you get older, maybe you can choose the roles you want to play and who you want to work with?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes. It happens when you get older and [you] do more projects. You can talk to the director. It’s more of creative collaboration. When you’re younger, you have that school mentality. Someone is telling you what to do and so you just feel like saying no all the time. But then you realize that they are all in the same boat. And that everyone wants to make a good movie!

ELLE: What would you say to the teachers who discouraged you from joining the theater club?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I’m glad they did. When I think about it now �� At the time, I was so angry that I didn’t want to have anything to do with the arts at school. And then, I ended up getting an agent, which wouldn’t have happened if I had een a part of the school’s drama club. Sometimes having a little bit of resentment is pretty good. It gives you more fire [energy].”

ELLE: Do you really think that you managed to attract a more “male” audience, as some professionals in the field suggested after Cosmopolis?

ROBERT PATTINSON: To be honest, I never thought about an audience. But the first time I noticed that men accepted me better must have been with Good Time. And it was a little strange … But, again, it’s the same logic as the drama teacher. I liked it when the male audience said to me “Oh, you’re an idiot”, because it made me want to go to the fight! These things give you energy. What’s dangerous is not having enemies. We always need good enemy!

ELLE: Do you read reviews about you on the internet?

ROBERT PATTINSON: When a movie comes out? Yes.

ELLE: What about the bad ones, does it affect you or do you consider yourself strong enough to deal with it?

ROBERT PATTINSON: When I was younger, it affected me. But now … it’s a strangely addictive thing. Reading the bad reviews is more addictive than reading the good ones. You can read a hundred good ones and a bad and, I don’t know if that’s because of that, but now the bad ones don’t affect me anymore. Unless they involve someone else. If it’s just about me, I can take it.

ELLE: What if it’s about someone important to you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: It doesn’t happen much. And I think I can separate things well. It’s one of the advantages of not having an Instagram account. Access is cut off. I’ve always had a barrier and that’s why there’s no problem. It’s all just noise.

ELLE: You’re turning 34 soon and you’re going to be a part of the so-called Millennial. What does it mean to you? Do you recognize yourself as a member of that generation?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I think I’m another last stronghold of the previous generation. I don’t feel like a Millennial at all. Many of the things that people think are important, such as social networks … are not at all important to me. They annoy me. I don’t see what it is the reason to have, to publish, to take pictures of myself and put them online … It all seems crazy to me.

ELLE: You’ve made a lot of movies lately. Waiting for the Barbarians, The King (Netflix), The Devil All The Time, The Lighthouse and Tenet (currently being shot). How many scripts do you receive per month? It’s you who choose each role?

ROBERT PATTINSON: To be honest, I don’t receive that many scripts. Except when it comes to a director I really want to work with. When I’m not working, I read a lot of scripts, but right now… I find it very difficult to read a script when you’re working on another project. I cannot understand it completely. But I love to discover filmmakers that my agents don’t know about!

ELLE: And the movie you’re filming now, Tenet? Can you talk about it?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I can’t say anything about Tenet… nor about Batman! Anyways, I don’t know anything. I’m only starting Batman next year. We’re not even filming yet.

ELLE: After all the artistic films you’ve made, was it difficult for you to decide to be in a film like Batman?

ROBERT PATTINSON: No, I wanted to do it. In every new job, I’ve been trying to do the opposite of the previous one, to be able to surprise myself. And I don’t know why, but at the end of last year, I was thinking I really wanted to do a big movie. I hadn’t think about exactly what it could be, and then Chris Nolan and Tenet came in and Batman came out shortly after. I had been making small movies, I was already relatively comfortable in what I was doing for a while, I didn’t even get nervous anymore. Not even with Tenet, which is a great production. I think it was also because of the directors. I can totally trust Chris Nolan and Matt Reeves. They are very unique filmmakers to whom I would immediately say yes if I wanted to make a smaller film.

ELLE: Do you have to physically prepare to step into Batman’s shoes? Is that the reason why you’ve been running a lot lately?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes. As soon as I finish this job, I will immediately start intensive training. In fact, it is quite pleasant, because I have been doing so many hours in the Chris Nolan film that the idea of, for a few months, being really healthy, just doing physical exercise and sleeping seems like a real dream! I can’t wait! But yes, I’ve never been a big guy. So I have a certain curiosity about what it’s like to be.

ELLE: You’re the face of Dior Homme since five years ago. How did this colaboration started and what does it means to you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I think it was before that. I met them in 2012. I wasn’t thinking about doing anything like this. But when I met them, I liked the team very much, the three people who talked to me at the beginning. They’re really cool. And Dior is Dior!

ELLE: That was your first ad? Is it the only one until now?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes. The only one! Basically, I really liked the way they presented the project to me. At the beginning, I wanted to work with Romain Gavras. And, at the first meeting, I asked: “Can we do it with Romain?” And they said “Yes, it’s a great idea!”. It’s great to work with Dior. I never went to the shows in Paris before, and I never even thought about it. But now I look forward to them every year. With Dior, I have all the glamor of acting, but without the hardest part! When you’re making a movie, you work 20 hours a day, you’re exhausted all the time. This collaboration is fast and very funny. It’s the best job ever!

ELLE: Do you like to discover underground artists? How was it to shoot the new Dior Homme campaign with the french avant-guard duo, The Blaze (Guillaume and Jonathan Alrie)? Have you met them before?

ROBERT PATTINSON: It was great! I met them in Cannes in 2017* (they were DJs at the Good Time party) and I was talking to them about making a movie together because their films are so cool. They know what performance is. And when it came to Dior, I didn’t even have anything to do with it. When I heard it, I thought, “Oh, this is great, because it’s a big ad, and they are quite unknown. something like that! Their music is great.

ELLE: There is a dance moment in the ad. It seems to be “possessed”. Any preparation?

ROBERT PATTINSON: A shot of tequila and nothing else! I was literally in the dark. I couldn’t see anyone around me.

ELLE: Do you like dancing, in real life?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I was always very shy to dance, so when I did that, my thought was,”Oh, I broke the curse. Now I can dance in front of people!” About two weeks later, I went to a party, everyone was dancing and I threw myself on the dance floor and it was like “Yes, it’s okay. You just have to dance!”

ELLE: How do you feel when you see yourself in a Dior outdoor?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Actually, I’ve never seen any! I’m always walking around airports and thinking,“ How is Johnny Deep’s here and not mine?” It’s always Johnny Depp! [Laughs] ” What beauty care do you have? A diet, a routine? “Yes, now, at 30, I really think about what I eat. I didn’t try very hard, I ate pizza at three in the morning, but… if you don’t eat well – especially when you’re always working – you can’t even survive.

ELLE: What’s the best way to turn off and relax?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Probably, running. As soon as you get used to running, I think it’s better than anything else. It clears the mind so much! But what I really like nowadays is finding ways to sleep better. I’m obsessed with sleep masks, meditation apps, essential oils… I LOVE those things!

ELLE: Do you have any sleep disorder?

ROBERT PATTINSON: A bit. I don’t take pills to sleep. But I love that moment when you fall asleep! So, I got a good sleep mask that helps me fall asleep anywhere. On set, I sit on a chair, put the sleep mask and fall asleep quickly … in front of everyone.

ELLE: Are you narcoleptic?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Maybe! [Laughs]

ELLE: And talking about music, what’s on your playlist?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I’ll see … (opens Spotify on his phone) … what have I been listening to … Oh [Message on the screen] … I didn’t pay my last bill … [Laughs] … changing my credit card … I’ve been hear a lot of Aretha Franklin and that sort of classic stuff. When I can!

ELLE: How would you define your style?

ROBERT PATTINSON: It depends. You know what? There is this thing about sneakers. I use these Adidas from a collaboration with Palace, which were made in 2015. They are no longer produced. And I use different pairs… I have about 20 pairs of these sneakers in all colors and I use them every day! And when some go bad, it’s scary, because there are only a few left. I already called the company to see if they had any extra stock they didn’t sell.

ELLE: Are you a kind maniac?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes, with these shoes. I wear the same pair of shoes for five weeks in a row, and I have an alert on eBay. Whenever my size appears, I buy it immediately!

ELLE: Today you’re fully dressed in black, but we’ve already seen you wearing extravagant clothes on the red carpet such as capes.

ROBERT PATTINSON: I didn’t think much about what I’m wearing today, but I like to wear crazy things, and I think that if I didn’t work with Dior, I would be a little more shy about using more extravagant pieces. With the collection created by Kim Jones, now it makes even more sense (Note: Pattinson was also the first Dior Homme ready-to-wear ambassador).

ELLE: Would you wear a colour such as pink?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes, I like the contrast, although a few year ago, when I shaved my hair, wore a lot more pink. When you have you hair dyed blond, long, seems like you’re in Miami Vice. But yes, if I had my hair shaved, I’d definitely wear skirts and stuff like that.

ELLE: What would you never wear?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Hum… I don’t like serious and perfect things. But I’ll probably wear then at some point of my career.

ELLE: You confessed ELLE that you obsessed with Kate Moss and Jane Fonda when you were young. Have you met them?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I met Kate Moss and was with her a couple of times, doing things for Dior. And I haven’t met Jane Fonda yet, but I’m still a huge fan of her.

ELLE: She is an activist like you, Robert. You are collaborating directly with GO Campaign. What does this NGO do?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Go Campaign improves the lives of orphans and vulnerable children worldwide by creating local partnerships and solutions. All the children have the right to have opportunities, education, medical care, food, water… Two of my friends worked for them and told me to go to an event, five years ago or so. They made an auction and built a school in Cambodja. It is a completely transparent and very efficient non-profit organization. Over the past five years, it has become much bigger than it was when I started working with them.

ELLE: And now there’s a Robert Pattinson School?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes! And the school has been growing every year. I’m really proud of it.

ELLE: What keeps you alive and motivated in general?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Actually, I only do things to have fun. Your body tells you how to live your life if you listen to it carefully. There were bad times. I watched Amy Winehouse’ documentary a few years ago. And Tony Bennett said something that touched me, “Life shows how to live, if you live enough”, or something like that, I can’t remember the exact quote. As you get older, the more your body tells what to eat, what to do, tells you everything. If you listen to it and pay attention! And if you’re not having fun doing a certain thing, stop. As soon as you start living like that, you start to feel always well.

ELLE: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I would love to have a production company. There’s a part of me that would like to record an album- but I don’t know if it will ever happen. I like to make long-term plans. That is the key of happiness. That’s it and having plans for the future – everything you build is towards a goal. And you have to have those plans!”

ELLE: What was the strangest thing that happened to you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Become an actor! The strangest thing in my entire life! I really don’t know how it happened.

ELLE: What do you like the most about your friends?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Positive attitude. I don’t like people who like to complain. It’s really boring.

ELLE: Your biggest flaw?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Pfff, none [Laugh]. Actually, how do you say it? Procrastinate. I postpone everything, really everything, until the last minute.

ELLE: Your idea of happiness?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Being in very creative places. I’m very happy in the initial stage of the work of a creative project before the problems start. When everyone is very excited.

ELLE: Your idea of unhappiness?

ROBERT PATTINSON: When people that I love are worried about something and I can’t help them. And repetitive things. Like being stuck in a circle with the same things always happening. That’s unhappiness to me. Like in that Bill Murray’s movie, Groundhog Day.

ELLE: If you weren’t Robert Pattinson, who would you like to be?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Probably a dog. I think I’ll be one in my next like, almost certainly.

ELLE: The heroes of you’re life?

ROBERT PATTINSON: As I get older, the more my parents are. But when I was younger, were a lot of rappers. They were the first people I saw who didn’t care about what people would think about them. It looked like they were showing the middle finger to everyone.

ELLE: Favourite cult movie?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Probably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

ELLE: Favourite series?

ROBERT PATTINSON: The Wire. It is a tv series about a policeman and criminals in Baltimore.

ELLE: A director that you admire?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Claire Denis. I admire her a lot.

ELLE: Favourite book?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I’ve been reading a lot of Batman comics lately. I’ve also read a very good book by Christopher Hitchens called Mortality.

ELLE: Favourite dish?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Any type of pasta. I’m really boring when it comes to food. Maybe Spaghetti bolognese. More pasta than burgers.

ELLE: Ideal holidays?

ROBERT PATTINSON: An extreme or the other. Doing something with lots of activities, like climbing or going to the beach and do absolutely nothing, with no one around me.

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the-lupine-sojourner · 4 years

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I Promised, Didn’t I? [Traitor(?)!Reader/Izuku Commission] [Fantasy!AU]

Ta-da! Here it is at long last, @elite-guard-hardygal!! So sorry to keep you waiting so long! TT^TT

Anyway, Hardygal commissioned this fanfiction based on some ideas they had and the song ‘Not while I’m Around’ from the Sweeny Todd movie. I like the song and the idea behind the commission, so I was eager to get to work on it, but then I got distracted with work and Miraculous Ladybug cus I was too curious as to what was going on so I binged the latest episodes--anyway, on to the commission!

If you want one for yourself, all you need do is ask! Here’s Info on My Commissions.

As always, I give the word count for my commissions. This one sits at 3807-ish cus there was just so much story there, I couldn’t stop writing! XD

Ok, that’s all for now! Hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving! :)

God Bless and Happy Holidays!

~The Lupine Sojourner

(Here’s a cute Izuku GiF cus why not?)

There he was; Eijiro Kirishima, the one you’d been sent to observe and eventually turn over to your boss, Kai Chisaki.

He and his group were...less than thrilled that a rogue barbarian king named Katsuki Bakugo and his companion, Eijiro, and their group of friends had been taking down his thugs and operations left and right, and as such Kai himself had sat you down and told you about sending his stealthier cronies to track and observe Eijiro and his friends, taking note of their relationships and which member would cause the most damage if they were to be...removed.

Eijiro was, apparently, one of the most innocent and a key player in keeping another group, led by Izuku Midoriya (another target, turns out), in fairly good terms with each other.

Eijiro was also married, after a somewhat fast-paced romance, to one of the most powerful magic-wielding adventurers in recent memory, Takara Yamada.

Only Shoto Todoroki, a rather reserved fellow who ran from his princely duties to find a cure for a curse that befell him, his fiance and bodyguard, Momo Yaoyorozu, and Izuku Midoriya (who was trying to find the missing king, Toshinori Yagi) could best Takara in terms of power and the way they use it.

The Chisaki told you to help hunt down Eijiro to unbalance Takara and the other powerhouses so it would be easier to kill them.

“Hey, are you okay?”

You look up. You’d been so wrapped up in your thoughts you hadn’t realized you were standing in the middle of the street, staring into space.

“Oh, y-yeah. I’m fairly new to the area, and was just getting my bearings. I look like that when I’m concentrating.”

Eijiro smiles. “Well, um, do you have a place to stay tonight?” He asks.

You chuckle. “Yes. The tavern, for now.”

“You should stay with me and my wife instead! She’d love you!” You act like you were surprised, but thanks to Chisaki you knew this was typical for Eijiro.

He always strove to help those he could. Poor naive boy.

Well, it would provide you an in with your targets. “Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you to do that. Really, I’m fine. I’m asking around for jobs, and I’ve got plenty of money to last me till I got a steady job.”

“It’s honestly no trouble. Takara would love to meet you.” You act like you were flattered and shyly accepting of the generous offer, and you could genuinely appreciate what this meant to him and his new wife.

Chisaki had even told you of rumors about Takara and what would happen in around 6 months.

You hope that rumor wasn’t true. You’d hate to make a child an orphan like you were before Chisaki snapped you up.

“Oh! I just realized; I don’t know your name.”

“Oh you’re right! And I don’t know yours, come to think of it.” You give the name you were told to use, Koi Dirisk.

“Lovely name. I’m Eijiro Kirishima.”

“Pleasure.” You shake hands and try not to think of the future too much.

=#=#=#=#=

“Darling, I’m home!” Eijiro calls, smiling broadly as he walks into the house.

“Perfect time! That deer you got this morning is just about cooked.” Comes a female voice, approaching.

Then, Takara comes into your view. She was...prettier than you thought she’d be. The description hadn’t done her justice, though you suppose that was either to avoid attachments or because the Chisaki were focused on the basics rather than her beauty.

“Oh. Eijiro, you didn’t mention a friend.” She says and you can tell she’s surprised but not angry or about to throw you out.

“She’s new to the area. Her name’s Koi. I offered to save her some money until she gets her feet under her.” Takara nods, smiling warmly at you and you feel your heart clench at the prospect of what will happen. You glance at her stomach as she walks over. It was starting to show, her pregnant belly. Just enough that you could confirm the rumors about Takara.

“Well, alright. We’ll see what we can do.” The two of you shake hands and you almost feel sick at the thought of turning this young bride into a widow so soon after her nuptials. And the kid would grow up without their wonderful parents.

And yet, you had to do what Chisaki said, or you’d be the next victim of his awful magic, creating deadly spikes out of the ground or simply destroying the body from within.

You’d been a witness in many executions now, and yet you hadn’t turned him in. You couldn’t.

You subtly shake yourself as Takara offers to show you around and to your borrowed room. You had to play the part for now.

The house was amazing, cozy and charming. The perfect place for a family, complete with a room for the upcoming child.

As soon as the tour was over, Takara returned to the kitchen and finished the meal preparation.

“So what brings you into town?” That question had come up fairly quickly as you ate dinner.

“Ah you know; traveling the world, seeing the sights, getting some exploring done before it’s too late.” That was what Kai wanted you to say. You felt the food turn to dust and ashes in your mouth as you lied.

This poor family would be torn apart and they had no idea.

=#=#=#=#=

“You established contact with Kirishima?”

“Yes.” You report in a small side room in a local tavern a day or so later.

“Good. Does he trust you yet?”

“Not sure. We’ve barely begun a friendship, much less trust at this stage. We’re going to do some magic practice later. That should help.”

“Y/N, are you having second thoughts?” Kai asks suddenly, leaning over a little.

“Not at all. I just noticed Takara Kirishima is in fact pregnant. She seems to be in the first trimester.”

“Is that a problem?” You knew the right answer.

“No. Just thought you should know.”

“It’ll make it easier for us to take care of her when the time comes. Good work.” You nod, swallowing subtly.

“Right. I’ll report to you again when I find the others in the group containing Izuku Midoriya.” Kai Chisaki nods, humming.

“See that you do, Y/N.”

“Yes, sir.” You reply, knowing the right answer.

=#=#=#=#=

Things only got worse as you were introduced to Izuku Midoriya.

He was even dressed like a proper gentleman, acting so polite you felt your heart clench at having to look at him like an enemy, scanning for weakness.

And so far, his main weakness was his easygoing, friendly, fairly trusting nature. Practically as soon as you were introduced to him, he was shaking your hand and talking about how ‘any friend of Eijiro and Takara’s is a friend of mine’.

You wanted to throw up. How could these people trust you so easily? Didn’t they want to know more about you?

So far, you’d been all but blindly taken in, asked the bare minimum of questions, and accepted as a new ally and friend by these people.

You tried to just continue like nothing was wrong.

=#=#=#=#=

“You sure know how to go on the offense there, Koi.” Izuku notes, smiling that damn warm smile of his as you two sparred.

“Well, my instructor was a victim of assault. It made her paranoid, and she passed that on to me. She told me ‘end the fight before the tricks up their sleeves come out’.”

Most of that was true. She was a victim of assault, but for being a villain, not in a random act of violence.

Izuku pauses. “That’s fair advice.” He concedes. “I wish I could help everyone, you know. It just doesn’t work that way sometimes.”

“But when you see something, you do something, right?”

“Of course.”

“That’s all anyone can do, if they even decide to do anything.” You weren’t sure when you started getting emotional, but here you were. “Most people are too afraid.”

“Well, yeah, but the ones that aren’t afraid can mean a life is saved and a villain is apprehended.”

You weren’t sure, but you’d swear he was saying something between the lines. A subtle chill went down your spine. Did he know? Or was it just coincidence?

You couldn’t be sure, so you made a few solid excuses to avoid him for the next few days. You had to get your story straight in case you were questioned.

Kai was pleased you were in contact with his next victim already, and had sparred with him. “Did he have any weaknesses in his fighting style that you noticed?” You shook your head.

“Not many. He’s sharp as a sword and quick as a spooked rabbit. We’ll have to be quicker and hit harder.”

“Excellent insight, as always, Y/N.” Kai smiles, curled finger lifting your chin to make you look at him. “You know you’re indispensable to me, dear. No one else has quite your ability to blend into any role I assign them.”

You nod, forcing a smile. “I try, sir.”

“So get out there and keep trying.” You nod and leave, trying not to let your stormy emotions show. You were growing to hate this assignment with a fiery passion.

You’d killed people and betrayed many others to their deaths, but never had you had to be a part of a man’s death with a pregnant wife. Normally, it was single people you dealt with.

At night, you cried yourself to sleep as quietly as you could. Surely, there had to be some way to save Eijiro, Izuku, and their friends, right?

You couldn’t think of anything and it was tearing you apart. You hated every mission you were sent on, but what choice did you have? Kai Chisaki had practically raised you, lording that over you to manipulate you into doing his bidding.

Somehow, you had to save these people.

Gods above, they were your age! How were you supposed to help kill them?!

=#=#=#=#=

“Hey, are you okay?” Takara asks over breakfast. You probably looked like shit.

You spent too long crying and still looked like it.

“Didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Anything you care to talk about?”

For a fleeting moment, you thought of saying ‘screw it’ and telling them the truth, but that was suicide and these people would die, anyway. “Not really. Sorry.”

“No, that’s okay. It’s not easy opening up. I get it.” Takara assures you gently, smiling warmly at you. “Just know you got two ears whenever you need to talk to me, okay?”

You fake a smile and continue eating. “I appreciate that.” Unfortunately, it didn’t spawn any plans to allow everyone in this scenario to survive.

=#=#=#=#=

The cruelest part of Kai’s undercover assignments he gave you was the few weeks you were given to get to know the victims and earn enough of their trust that they’d follow you into the trap the Chisaki laid out for them.

Usually, he talked you into hating the people by portraying himself as the victim, claiming these people betrayed him and left him no choice but to seek retribution.

And you always took his side after all he’d done for you.

But now...now you weren’t so sure.

How could killing people your age, who were just settling into life and starting families, be in any way a good thing, like Kai was claiming?

He’d just given you the week’s notice so you can get a plan for how and when you would lead the targets into a trap.

“Hey, are you okay?” Izuku asks, sitting beside you in the cool evening air atop a hill. About an hour ago, you’d probably have seen a gorgeous sunset if it weren’t for the tears going down your face.

You subtly wipe them away. “Yeah. You?” He nods, gently wrapping his arm around your shoulder. Your cheeks flush a little. Izuku was so...genuine and friendly.

He didn’t deserve to die.

“I think I am. Did you come up here to watch the sunset?” He asks, and you can tell he knew precisely why you were here.

“Something like that.” You reply glumly. You’d gotten closer to Izuku over the few weeks you’d known him, and you hated yourself for getting so caught up in the part you were playing that you could almost forget why you wore the mask.

Almost.

“You know, I’ve always liked taking moments to just sit and...be myself. Everyone looks to me as a leader and I hate to let people down.”

You nod. “So you only let yourself feel things when you’re alone.” You murmur.

Izuku squeezes your shoulder gently.

“You can be yourself around me, you know that, right?” You bite your lip.

“I know.” It was the right answer...right?

Izuku leans his head on yours, and you lose your train of thought.

“You ever feel like we were destined to meet?” He asks. “I mean--um...not necessarily romantically, just- -I- -ah, not that I am opposed to that, Koi! I just- -crap I made it weird…” You laugh.

“Izuku, I feel the same.” It wasn’t destiny, though; it was Kai. However, you couldn’t deny a feeling that beyond Kai, like maybe there was something there. You two seemed like strings being woven together for a tapestry.

“Oh, good.” He chuckles nervously as you readjust yourself against his strong chest. “What I was trying to say is, um…” He clears his throat, “nothing’s gonna harm you. Not while I’m around…” He sings softly all of a sudden.

You sigh. Even his voice was amazing. Honestly, given time, you may have fallen truly in love with him, but...he was a target of the Chisaki.

There’s no way he’d survive.

“I’m sorry. It’s something my mother would sing to me when I was little.” He apologizes. “It was dumb, I’m sorry.” You chuckle. Maybe, just for one night, you could let go and truly enjoy yourself. You snuggle up to Izuku.

“No, no. Go on. I’m sorry.”

Izuku starts over, and continues from there. “Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays. I’ll send em howling, I don’t care. I got ways.” You smile, almost believing him. If he somehow, by some miracle, survived the week, you could see yourself maybe giving him a shot, regardless of the consequences. “No one’s gonna hurt you, no one’s gonna dare. Others can desert you. Not to worry! Whistle, I’ll be there! Demons will charm you with a smile, for a while, but in time...” That, you felt, was Izuku talking like he knew about Kai and your undercover work. In case he didn’t, you snuggle closer as if charmed by his words. And you were, but you were also a little wary. If he knew, it might mean danger for you, especially if Kai found out. “Nothing can harm you. Not while I’m around…”

You two sit for a moment in silence, enjoying each other’s company.

Your heart ached to tell him everything while part of you knew better so you sat there, wondering what to do. It’s then you reach a decision.

Izuku was one of the most powerful magic wielders to date. If anyone stood a chance at saving himself and his friends, it was Izuku. But only if he knew it was coming.

“Hey, um, Izuku..?” You begin, wondering how he would react. As long as he survived, though, it didn’t matter what he thought of you. You could rebuild trust eventually, but only if he survived. “I don’t want anything to harm you, either. Not...not while I’m around.” You weren’t singing, you were looking him in the eye. You had to do this. You knew it was the right thing to do. “I- -”

“Whatever it is, Koi, you can talk to me. I want to help you. Just tell me what you need to overcome.” You take a breath. “Koi, I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise.”

He had no idea...no idea you were about to shatter his perception of you.

“I don’t want to hide anything from you…” You began. “But this...this is big.” Izuku perks up now that he’d started to crack at the armor you put around your secrets. He let you talk, his eyes betraying his eagerness to know more. You closed your eyes. “I...when I was young, maybe 6 or so, my village was attacked and burned by a villain group that was trying to get themselves started. For days afterward, I wandered around, homeless and an orphan…” You were shaking. You had never ever confided in anyone like this, and yet...you knew you had to keep going. Izuku’s warm, steady hand on yours helped ground you. You opened your eyes focused them on him and somehow found the strength to keep going. “And then someone took me in. I didn’t know it at first, but he was a villain. He wasn’t famous yet, and he hadn’t done anything flashy or impressive, but his magic was devastatingly powerful and he had convinced many people to join him.” Izuku’s eyes go wide.

He could fill in a few blanks just fine, but he kept his mouth shut, afraid Koi would stop talking if he dared utter a word.

“He told me his name was Kai Chisaki and he wanted me to be his spy, his little chameleon. I’ve been sent on many assignments, I’ve done so many horrible things to people, but I always thought Kai was right. He always made me think it was the right thing to do.” Tears formed in your eyes. Izuku hadn’t said a word. You didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing but you kept going. “But this time, for the first time, he made me go undercover with people my age, just starting out in life. I...I’ve grown to like you all a lot, even that barbarian king. You all accepted me with hardly any questions and Takara’s pregnant, and...and I can’t keep going on like I don’t know what’s coming. I made up the story about King Toshinori, and about my eavesdropping on those villains. It was a cover so I could remain a chameleon without you and Eijiro and the others ever suspecting I was the leak. You’d be ambushed and dealt with quickly so you’d stop interfering with Kai’s plans.”

You swallow. You’d done the hardest part, now you had convince him that you wanted to help him survive and protect him. “Now, I want to help you, Izuku! I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner! It’s just...Kai is terrifying! I know that’s no excuse, but…” You take a breath before you broke down in tears. “I don’t want the Chisaki to kill you or your friends. I...I want to protect you and make sure nothing harms you! I promise I’ll do my best to protect you and everyone else!” At this point, you couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. You tried not to be overdramatic, so you took deep breaths to steady yourself. “I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me, Izuku. Just know that I will protect you, no matter what. I’ll do what I can to make up for what I’ve done.”

You stood there, trembling as you waited for his reaction.

Izuku was stunned. He’d had had his suspicions about you from the time you avoided him for a few days. He checked on your excuses and they didn’t quite pan out, but he always thought maybe he was wrong. Now...he knew he was right. There was more to you then meets the eye.

But at least you had come forward and confessed in time to ensure everyone survived. That was what was important.

While he was hurt that you’d only joined his group as a ploy to kill him, he knew if he didn’t do something to make sure you knew he wouldn’t abandon you, he’d lose you and you’d think he hated you.

And that wasn’t true at all. In fact, it was the opposite. He’d grown very fond of you and was proud that you were coming forward and warning him about the impending ambush.

This way, he could be prepared and deal with the villains while still maintaining Koi- -or whatever your name was; Koi was likely a cover- -’s cover before you were found out and killed for your betrayal. Izuku knew Kai wouldn’t take kindly to his spy revealing herself to the enemy, much less getting so attached to them.

“So...what’s your real name?” He asks, giving you a small smile.

Your eyes go wide. You hadn’t expected that reaction at all.

Izuku didn’t seem to hate you for your role in Chisaki’s plan. At least, not right now.

You wipe your eyes. “W-what?”

“What’s your name?” He repeats, smiling at you. “I’m guessing Koi isn’t your real name.”

Hardly knowing how to feel, you let out a nervous chuckle. “N-no, it’s not. I’m, uh...Y/N.” You murmur, unsure how to take Izuku’s reaction.

Izuku’s smile goes wider and he holds out a hand as he stands. “Well then, Y/N, we’ve got work to do if we’re gonna survive the attack from the Chisaki group. C’mon.”

You hesitate, then take the hand, letting him help you up. “Izuku...I don’t know...I don’t want everyone to know and hate me.”

“Trust me, they’ll be thrilled you joined our side against someone like Kai Chiaski and want to help them survive. Eijiro will side with you, I know it.”

“Katsuki will kill me…” You moan, suddenly remembering the barbarian’s temper and explosive magic he could barely control. Those factors combined sent a chill down your spine. But maybe you deserved it for befriending them under such treacherous circumstances.

“I’ll handle Katsuki. He’ll be happy as long as he has villains to fight.”

While you appreciate the thought of Izuku convincing Katsuki to not kill you, you knew it was a long shot at best.

“I’ll be one of those villains.”

“No you won’t.” He assures you. “Y/N, trust me. I’ll talk to him. I know how to handle the barbarian king. You just need to talk to Todoroki and Momo, and we’ll get a plan together.”

Shakily, you nod. “I...I guess, yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Nothing’s gonna harm you, Y/N.” Izuku says, leaning his forehead against yours. “Not while I’m around. I promised, didn’t I?”

You try to believe him as you walk back into town, hand in hand.

There were so many unknowns going through your head, but one thing was for sure; you and Izuku were going to figure it out together.

#Fanfiction #fanfiction commissions #my hero academia #MHA #Izuku Midoriya #Izuku Midoriya/Traitor(?)!Reader #Fantasy AU #MHA Fantasy AU #BNHA Fantasy AU #Fantasy!Izuku #Eijiro Kirishima #Eijiro Kirishima/Takara Yamada #My Hero Academia OC #Mentioned but not central to the story #Hardygal

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musubiki · 6 years

Note

Damn I might have to make aesthetic boards of mochi and lime like what I did with quinten bc they’re so cute!! 💖💖 do you have like headcanons + personality traits for them?

GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH IM GLAD YOU LOVE THEM TOO!!!!!!!!!

➞

Mochi:

16 years old

limes childhood best friend/next door neighbor/lowkey rival

secretly a witch (under her moms mentoring). her family represents the house of the black cat (theres 4 other houses: the crow, the snake, the spider, and the toad)

the witches dont do evil though!!! they used to be public protectors (way back) but now they just help people from the shadows. her mom runs a sweet shop where theres special curses laced into the item to help the people who buy them

because of this their shop is a cryptic local superstition that eating their mochi will heal you/bring you luck/solve your problem/etc (it doeshjks its not superstition or chance)

yes their shop sells mochidsjk thats why shes named that (for now)

Pom is her black cat familiar, primarily responsible for her training as a witch. shes very kind and supportive!! she can talk. but does very obvious and fake meows when theres other people around. everyone thinks shes the weirdest fucking cat

“Did….did your cat just..say meow…..?” “[Sweats] Haha yeah she has defective vocals so it comes out weird.”

Mochi would have that kind of aesthetic pinterest bedroom with a lot of hanging lights + pictures on the walls with low lighting and chillhop playing in the background

Lime comes over to her room a lotjdksd she has the biggest crush on him but she never tells him because her mom advises against relationships (as a witch ofc)

he like fucdkf climbs up the side of her house through her window like “I brought snacks and movies so can you help me with my homework now”

they fjk have every class together and neither of them do it on purpose it just ends up like that

she DOES have a broomstick!!! and its kind of a bitch. it behaves eventually. she rarely uses it though because. its too high profile. she mostly uses her bike to get around

they live in a really nice like studio ghibli style port town!!!!!!!!!! and its very nice

she LOVES PINK!! and has a thing for hearts and flowers (mostly pink roses)

big fan of skirts and sweaters

shes a very kind easily embarassed girl, hardworking and stubborn but she can kick some serious ass in a fight (shes like how i pictured leaf)

likes the golden oreos better than the original. shes one of those people who takes it apart and licks the cream off first before eating the cookie

has a greenhouse + garden in their backyard with a lot of flowers. its usually a good place to make spells/potions/practice magic

Lime:

also 16.

mochis childhood best friend/next door neighbor/lowkey rival

hes lowkey oblivious to her enormous crush on him. like he sees that she gets all embrassed and flustered when he teases her but he assumes “hey im amazing who wouldnt be??”

she doesnt obviously swoon over him like. literally almost every other girl in school (just bc shes know him for so long shes past that) so he thinks shes just a flustered girl (which is also true)

crown jewel of like every sports team hes in. he likes baseball the best though. weapon of choice is a baseball bat dkslajds

hes like mr perfect. he gets good grades. good at sports. super hot. social. tall. hes the whole package

but hes an arrogant jerkdcjskfnj

DESPITE THAT HES FRIENDS WITH LIKE EVERYONE THOUGH…hes well liked

hes snarky and kinda rude sometimes and teases a lot just think greens kind of personality

mochi is his best friend. he never openly refers to her like that but she is. he hangs out with her a lot more than he shoulddjkdf hes closer to her than like anyone else

kind of reckless. does dumb shit like go 40 mph down a steep hill on a bike. with mochi on the back. clinging to him for dear life hoping they dont eat shit. “I-I-I HATE YOU” “No you don’t.” and SMIRKS

he knows when shes lying. she has a tell where she doesnt look at him and/or stutters. only he seems to pick this up

favorite color is yellow. usually pairs yellow shirts with some blue jeans and everyone swoons

likes the double stuff original oreos. ends up buying 2 packages bc mochi likes the other ones. just throws the whole thing in his mouth like a barbarian. doesnt even dip it in the milk. mochi thinks he doesnt respect the cookie.

lives with his grandparents and older sister. his parents are usually on business trips and/or absent or..dead…his grandparents are great and they love mochi though.

he has no idea that mochi is a witch. he knows something is up though. theres something that shes not telling him and it bothers the fuck out of him because why is she lying to me???????????

“Thats a weird fucking cat.” “[angry] MEOW.”

thinks of mochi as his lucky charm. sometimes he calls her that and shes super happy shes a mess. he wants her to come to all his games so they win. they usually do

He flirts with her to tease her hes a huge fjckfidj jerk

he thinks shes hella fucking cute. hed never tell her though

“no i dont LIKE her its just an.,. observation..an objective fact.,.” “sure.”

mochis mom loves him hes like her sonsjk

his older sister works at the local hospital (name pending)

ILL PUT MORE AS I THINK OF IT FOR NOW THIS IS SOME OF WHAT I GOT FOR THEM!!!!! THANKS FOR READING IF YOU GOT DOWN HERE!!!!!!!

#kazeshxni #ask #headcanons #or...canons...now??#canon #mochi #lime #ocs #story #long post #the misc adventures of mochi & lime #i love your fjdfif icon by the way 'is he though???????'#original character #bullet point post #bpp

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twiststreet · 6 years

Text

Anonymous Questions, Insufficient Answers

That’s a topic that grinds on me a little, on the ol’ insides so I don’t know that there’s anything I’ve ever read that I’ve enjoyed on the topic, not enough to recommend. It’s just too messy a topic. I don’t trust anybody that’s really got an “answer” on that one entirely. I didn’t read the Harriot thing but I’m probably close to that-- "I’m just muddling through-- the world is sad-- leave me alone” seems like the only thing that makes any sense you can say.

Or I mean... I’m not sure I’m a “good person” or can lay any title to that, at least. I’ve long had a real hatred of this posture people have online that they’re the Good Guys. I find that lack of humility disturbing. Or I mean, they are living BORING lives because there’s something to be said for being a little bit of a bad person, on weekends or what have you (Ladies).

Or heck, I’m a lawyer-- if I get some disgruntled client out there that starts yelling this, that or the other thing about how I’m “bad” or whatever... that would put me in a very awkward situation, for a lot of different reasons. It’d be hard to respond to that in all the ways I’d want to, for a variety of reasons. But then what happens? People online, they don’t have any conception of how slippery or elusive the “truth” can be, not like a lawyer does anyways.

People believe whatever. If one person says something, they go “well there you go that’s the truth, one person’s enough because there’s no such thing as liars, the only liars are white men, that’s a sane position for me to take.” That’s the essence of Yelp’s entire fucking business model.

So yeah, I think about how easily it could be for me to get disqualified as a person or “cancelled” or whatever the lingo is...

Christopher McQuarrie had a thing in an interview the other day:

The only thing that shitty social media is going to be bad for is shitty social media. Filmmakers are always going to make movies. They are just going to make themselves less available to that. For me, the value of Twitter and why I signed up for it originally is so I could get ahead of inaccurate press. That was my opportunity to very quickly issue a correction when I read stuff that was wrong. I now realize that value is outstripped 1000 fold by the fact that you don’t even need to say the wrong thing to say the wrong thing anymore. It doesn’t matter what you said, the internet tells you what you meant. And that all comes from the fact that nobody is reading what you said, they are reading what they’ve come to complain about.

I’ve seen a little bit of that. When you write something people don’t like, some ax-grindy weirdo will link to you like “look at this asshole” (if you’re lucky enough to have them link to what you wrote and you don’t have some low-reading-comprehension moron trying to paraphrase something they hallucinated that you said). And then people who read these weirdos, it’s twitter so they’re playing the “one up” game so like they’ll be like “yeah, you’re right he’s a word salad barbarian”, trying to plus the original insult because that’s really the game of social media, it’s “Yes And” for the stupid and the rejected. Because they’re hate-clicking and most hate-clicking is just lonely people’s idea of socializing. And those people think you’re supposed to take them seriously...? Haha.

So I mean, there’s a ton of unasked questions-- whether you’re really evaluating who people are with reasonable criteria, or if you really know the facts ou think about people if they’ve ejected from your “conversation” or decided not to waste their time debating with people they don’t respect, or if you’re just going along with the awful gravity of some conversation that’s beneath you... Especially with people who are dead and not around to defend themselves. (I was a celebrity’s lawyer after they died once-- that is a whole story, not one I can tell but a whole story, what people do after someone dies...).

When gross dudes online are like “innocent until proven guilty”, I don’t agree obviously because I know how the system’s broken. It’s worse than people know. But the idea some of them might be trying to express of “hey maybe don’t rush to judgment” has been proven out to be the best policy time and time again. And yet I don’t think it’s one that people are doing, myself sometimes included... I’m as bad as anybody. But.

Our criteria of how we even decide who an “awful person” is just seems broken.

Besides that, with cases that are relatively clear-cut...

I avoid some stuff and not other stuff, and there’s not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it, but it’s too messy to have hard, fast rules. Some stuff makes me feel too dirty (DC comics, anyone who made a Watchmen sequel, I skipped Incredibles 2 on purpose, Louis CK shit); other shit that’s probably just as indefensible probably to someone out there, or even to me even on an “intellectual” level, it doesn’t make me fucking blink one second, not even a heartbeat (David Foster Wallace, Tom Cruise, David Letterman, the sax music of Bill Clinton).

If Woody Allen put out a banger tomorrow (and he’s put them out late in the game before-- I liked Midnight in Paris anyways), I’d go. I wouldn’t feel the least bit bad about going. And I know I’m in the minority there-- I know my position on that one is not great.

Is that right? Is that wrong? *World’s longest shrug* I don’t have some deluded opinion of how much I matter or how miserable I have to live to win whatever fucking purity contest the internet thinks it’s having. I do that “I’m not giving those assholes my money” thing too, but you know, you gotta have that little voice in your head going “hey Rockefeller, you only cost them $5″, I guess, or you’re an insane person-- or worse, you’re a fucking Yelp reviewer.

But whatever “only you can prevent forest fires” noise that the Smokey D. Bears on the internet are selling here, I’m not really buying. Or that whole thing where people go “oh well I don’t have to deal with bad people because there’s so much great shit in the world and I’ll just do the great shit”, like they’re a fucking decadent French king... That just seems like a dodge to me. That just seems so empty. It reduces everything down to equally-valid empty and meaningless bemusements, which if that’s all art is for anybody, jesus christ, maybe we have a deeper problem here. If there’s no difference in how you spend your time amusing yourself between shit and shinola, hasn’t there been some kind of failure in our culture at some level??? (I mean, and also -- there really isn’t that much great shit in the world! People just have shitty taste, if it’s all the same to them!)

But on the other hand, I don’t know-- some people have to get got. Do you want to live a life without any standards at all? Roseanne-- had to get got. Louis CK had to get got-- retaliating against people’s careers for complaining about you jerking off in front of them? He had to get got. Every single person in animation is fucking pond scum-- something had to be said. Orson Scott Card-- fuck that guy; people should harass his ass forever-- some nerd being like “I like that hatemongers’s glorified episode of star war, though”, whatever that guy’s sci-fi bullshit was, I think we’re right to roll our eyes at those nerds. All the comic book people with their dumb “the villain turned out to be a guy pretending to be a girl” comics-- people should yell at those assholes if they’re getting fucking murdered about that kinda imagery, especially if every goddamn last comic creator’s suddenly going to fake like they’re goddamn woke now to sell their bullshit. An entirely reasonable percentage of the Me Too assholes had to get got, even if not all of them.

Critical thinking without taking any kind of action based on that thinking ... then, it’s just masturbation, right? So even my “I’m just muddling through here”, I recognize as inherently unsatisfying. There’s a certain amount of hypocrisy inherent to adult life that I think you gotta forgive yourself for. But there’s also right and wrong, so I can’t just be like 100% none of it matters internet sucks bro either. You have to have some lines otherwise what the fuck are you...?

I just know whatever the answer is, you’re not going to get it off someone else on the internet, though. Some killjoy being like “oh you’re experiencing joy over a spy movie? Let me blow your mind: Tom Cruise is in a cult-- yeah I said it” like you’re seeing online lately-- I mean, the funny part of the internet is how persuasive the biggest shitheads think they are. (Myself included!) A weird amount of the internet thinks “Are you experiencing intense joy or sadness? Well here’s why you shouldn’t according to me, a braniac” is persuasive. You know, whatever the answer is, I just know I’m not going to get it from being around those friendless dorks. Too-online types drew the lines around them so tight the only movies they could watch were the Lady Ghostbusters and Oprah’s Wrinkle in Time! I’d watch a snuff movie before I saw Oprah wrinkle time. So I don’t know.

Like, the question presupposes our current cultural atmosphere as being particularly long-lasting. I don’t think that’s going to be true in even the short term. The backlash to this moment’s already started. Because the internet-- nothing gets differentiated because of how we consume opinions. If all opinions are 280 characters, then someone complaining about Aziz or Al Franken gets consumed the same way as someone complaining about Les Moonves or Harvey Weinstein, even though no one sane is saying those aren’t different situations. But I think there have been enough things in the former category where reasonable minds can differ (I guess you’d have to lump in Hardwick in the former category, even if I might not share their analysis on that one)(James Gunn’s a weird one-- I just think he’s obnoxious generally but that’s a weird one, how people process that one), and that those things have planted seeds for some kind of backlash that’s coming, even to the good stuff. That’s what I’m spooked by anyways...

(Though yeah, acknowledging that... the people wanting the backlash the most are all the broken failures online who were never willing to hear anything anybody anywhere had to say to begin with, if it interfered with their living weak lives of a sort of sneering complacency, but...)

Or there’s plenty of older stuff you can point to-- that you know disregards that ... setting the issue of trolls to one side, there are people who want to believe in a kind of free speech. Giving people who want comedy Nanette instead and telling them that their comedy is wrong and evil and too racist and has to be attacked constantly, and Nanette’s the future of jokes instead-- I mean, that’s literally what the nerd-society tried to do in Demolition Man; we use to root for people who did that kinda thing to be demolition-ed by John Spartan and/or Simon Phoenix.

Those people want a distorted kind of free speech, sure-- people sure tend to only really want to protect the speech they agree with and that comforts their status quos; it’s not fair; life’s not fair; etc. But at least they want to believe that they believe in free speech, and I think people being overly dismissive to that (and a lot of people online are very dismissive of that) are ... they’re maybe overestimating their cultural capital.

A backlash has certainly started out there but I don’t think that it’s fully here yet or what it looks like when it is, how ugly it looks, if it looks somehow uglier than Trumpism or what, but. (That’d be the worry). Or I don’t know how undeserved it is because... people have picked a lot of fucking stupid fights these last however-many years. Or at least fights people generally just aren’t ready for, if you want to be polite about it. Wokeness is too exhausting; what’s that Harris Wittells line? “Motherfuckers wanna laugh.”

I don’t know. Not an easy world. Not a lot of easy answers out there.

I’m not on the same place on this question from one minute to the next let alone one day to the next, and I don’t really know how anyone is, basically. I’m all over the map. It’s too confusing. I find it very confusing.

I still think about this show pretty constantly, considering it’s been a while.

The discussion around the ending... about who’s the dreamer or whatever-- it’s just not what I think about when I think about the show, trying to solve it that way.

There’s a popular essay floating around how the whole thing is Agent Cooper’s dream and the ending is the “real world” and blah blah blah that...

I see the appeal of that essay, certainly. It’s a solid essay. But the idea that the universe we see at the end is any more real than any other constructed-realities we see in Twin Peaks strikes me as fundamentally disagreeable. Especially because we see doppelgangers in the so-called real world, or the whole... the circumstances of how Cooper finds Laura in the second world are themselves so noir and exaggerated, that... I’m just sticking with my gnostic reading of the ending-- that wherever Cooper is, at the end, it too is an illusion.

I mean, yeah, I get it-- he cast the real people who live in the house-- I get it. I just am not as moved by that point as other people, I guess. Yeah, it’s the real people who live in the house but as soon as he put a camera in front of them, whatever he was showing us became inherently unreal. I don’t know if that’s too head-up-my-ass but...

But Laura realizes Cooper is lost before she screams? Yeah, that’s how I felt that, definitely. I’m open to readings that Cooper is realizing something important at the end and not just revealing that he’s lost and not trustworthy, but when I watch it, I feel like we’re watching the latter -- we’re watching something dark happening.

I feel for the people who liked the ending to the movie though so I really like people who try to figure out ways to keep that ending intact for themselves...

My favorite people are the ones who are like “actually it’s all a mission and Cooper’s remembering his mission at the end, and that’s what the very first scene of Season 3 means and I can figure it out using this deck of playing cards and a box of red velvet cupcakes.” I like the people who become Cooper throwing rocks at bottles to try to solve this TV show, even if I think they’re full of shit, too. I like hearing their theories the most, people who treat it as a fantasy novel, even if I think they’re the furthest off from any kind of truth...

The people I feel saddest for are people who bought that Mark Frost book though. I mean, come on. I know he co-created the show and co-wrote that season but... nah.

For me, the thing I think about more with that show even a year later is just how images wash over you. Like, when you see Big Ed at the end of that episode by himself, and he lights the thing on fire -- and his actions don’t match his own reflection. Or Gordon answering the door and when he answers the door, he gets gripped by this painful-seeming image of Laura Palmer that he hallucinates. Charlyne Yi screaming on that floor. Just how elemental the images are... That was what really hit me with that show when it aired, and it’s the stuff I think about more than the ending even now, though the ending, that scream is ... the peak of those moments, without question. The thing you understand without needing an “explanation.” I’ve been thinking a lot how that’s been a thread to the stuff I care about mostly lately, I guess-- with Atlanta or Fleabag being big other examples...

I saw the first season and thought it would end where I understand the second season ended. So I was annoyed with the ending of that first season when it just sort of farted at the end, instead of going to the place I thought it needed to go (and where I understand they’ve only just now taken the show). The whole “prestige = one story told slow” thing in TV (and comics) bores me pretty fast... So, just on a “superhero nerd” level, I was bored because it didn’t deliver the arc that I wanted it to at the speed I was going at.

And on a “fan of good shit” level... The thing I think you like is the thing I think I dislike where ... the “now we’re doing Lynch” of it feels very conscious and calculated to me. It just doesn’t feel genuine.

David Foster Wallace (who’s now culturally-verboten post-Me Too, supposedly, but...), he had a thing I always think about in a interview he did on Bookworm-- I’ve thought about it on a regular basis ever since I heard it-- which is that ... an artistic transaction has to feel like a gift, otherwise it’s just something corporate and a business transaction. He phrased it better and more elaborately than that, but. Legion just feels like this very calculated commercialization of stuff I like more, in service to an underlying product that’s really about nothing... “We’re weird like Lynch but to tell you a story about this awesome quirky superhero you can cosplay as, instead of molested girls.”

Legion’s like when the bacon people suddenly all decided that they could sell more bacon by calling it “applewood bacon.” Ooooh, applewood bacon. It’s just a Marvel show, though. Those all suck.

It’s the opposite of the Lynch thing for me where I don’t feel like it’s about understanding things on a visceral level -- it’s about, like, going “oh it’s the Shadow King” or “Oh it’s the astral plane” and there being some tidy explanation that will be provided at some point that explains everything and makes the essential horror of the unexplainable go away. (Which I think some people would call a defiency of the superhero genre, as a whole, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true at all... see, e.g., The Enigma...)

(If people who love superhero comics on purely theoretical grounds didn’t have The Enigma to point to, what would we do???)

Plus, too much Michel Gondry in there. I like Eternal Sunshine but hard pass on that guy otherwise...

And I was just underwhelmed by Noah Hawley, though I keep hearing from different sources that Fargo Season 2 is the one to go with... I couldn’t watch Fargo season 1, episode 1. Like, within 5 minutes besides my huge aesthetic displeasure with it as a Coens fan, I thought it was pedestrian thinking putting on the clothes of cooler shit to obscure how dull it was.

Which was what I thought of Legion by the end. That for all it’s little cuteness with style, it was just Poor Man’s Claremont. I read enough Poor Man’s Claremont to last me a lifetime. Including from Chris Claremont. So.

... for tumblr posts??? Huh. I don’t know what the answer to that is. I don’t know that it’s ever the same thing all that consistently. And for me, writing and rewriting kinda happen simultaneously, just because I’m fast and sloppy...? I’m just kind of fucking around mostly, but I usually try to glance at something before I hit post because I don’t trust myself very much, so. But sometimes I don’t (and trouble ensues!).

Sometimes it’s like “Oh I spot the joke now” kind of stuff, where I’ll go back and take out all the stuff that’s after the punchline. But I don’t worry over the quality of my prose or whatever... If i cared about my prose when writing this stuff, there’d be a lot less “likes” and “you knows”... I throat-clear like an asshole, which should probably bother me more than it does, but...

I’ll edit more after I hit post than when I’m writing. I know I do that...

You know, if you write anything, sometimes you write stuff down and you look at it and go “Hmmm, do i really believe that?” And the answer’s no so then you delete all that shit. But... is that “editing” or just part of writing or...?

There are “I’m a real writer” guys online that are really sad because, you know, their shit is all boring to read because they don’t do any of their thinking on the page. So I know I sort of pity those folks, generally. But.

That is a question that never occurred to me. Writing process for tumblr posts... huh!

There’s not much of any kind of rewriting if I’m posting from my phone because I don’t know how to move the cursor good on an iphone though. Anytime I’m in an airport or at the grocery store or.... there’ve been times I’ve written whole things on a street because I didn’t want to forget the part I thought would be fun to type... But I don’t understand how to use the iPhone good since I’m aged so those don’t get fussed with as much as I would at a desktop. Hm.

The first one’s a likable damn movie. I didn’t see the second-- never got to it.

I spent years obsessed with what they did with Slap Shot-- I spent years obsessed with sports comedies generally, and Slap Shot’s the best sports comedy there is, to me.

So there’s no topping that for my affections, but that first Goon’s still a likable, likable movie.

Yeaaaaaaaaah. It very much was. Here that is if anyone missed it before.

Thanks for recommendations like this generally though!! Hugely amusing to get them.

It’s pretty good. It’s got a lot of good stuff in it.

I don’t know that I loved the big twist, though. I understand why they went that direction-- it makes sense narratively and thematically and ... The math works. It’s a very coherent choice. But just aesthetically, I was into the movie up until that point, and didn’t feel like I needed it to go that far for me to have liked it...? I liked the politics of the movie, and I get exactly why it needed to be that way. So I respect it. And I enjoyed that whole scene of Armie Hammer laying out his plan very, very much (I’m very much on Team Armie Hammer after Free Fire, i.e. the movie only I liked).

I wished I loved it more than I respected it, is all. But I’m really shallow-- it’s hard to imagine my favorite movie this year isn’t going to be Mission Impossible, at this point, and that movie’s not about anything half as interesting thematically (though I have a personal fascination in how Tom Cruise’s movies are all about navigating excellence)...

I liked that they randomly shit on Michel Gondry though. That made me laugh. I don’t even know I could articulate why I don’t like him (I remember him seeming like a dick in some comics his ex-girlfriend made, but...). I don’t know. Mike Mills and Spike Jonze and Joseph Kahn and a whole mess of people >>> Gondry, though, as far as the music video director generation of filmmakers go...

Mostly I avoid those conversations, I think...

If I’m at work, it’s not my place to argue with people I’m trying to help. It’s a pretty inappropriate subject matter for any kinda casual chit-chat. Politics, religion-- it’s just not appropriate conversation usually. It comes up-- but I’m not going to sit and try to correct anybody. You know, I just hear people out and then get on with whatever it is we’re doing. A couple times I’ve had Republican clients (both times, all-time favorite clients) ask me why I went the other way and I sketched it out for them, but not to change their minds or anything-- just sketching how I got where I got to. But arguing? I would never.

You know: some clients are Trump fans; other clients are conspiracy people; a lot of folks were really affected by that Me Too. None of them come to us to see me jump out of a cake holding sparklers screaming SOCIALISM at the top of my lungs.

And you know-- what’s the harm of just hearing people out? In the actual world, some good, decent folks voted for Trump. I don’t share their analysis of the world, but... in actual life, no harm in hearing those folks out. I don’t become impure if their words go in my earholes, or anything.

Or a lot of people... a lot of people just have to live in the world. Like, I know people who have jobs some internet loudmouth might go on a lecture about, but if you’re hanging out with them, you really just want to hear what life’s like from their end, if you’re curious. You don’t want to be going “Thread!” over beers, or whatever. People are living their lives-- they don’t need me judging them at a bar.

Girls... I still don’t even know what to fucking do and I’m goddamn old, though. I usually avoid any kinda chit-chat as a rule, because I think that’s the smart play. But on the other hand, you really want to know as soon as possible if someone you’re interested in is also interested in, like, the poetry of Sebastian Gorka because that can dive-bomb a very nice evening into the side of a fucking mountain in minute. I sure haven’t figured out how to thread that needle, and goddammit, I really should have by now how is it that I don’t have any of this shit figured out yet?? That’s gone wrong on me so I’m pretty spooked there, and not really a font of any great advice. That’s a source of some anxiety, and I live in a blue state. (Though apparently not blue enough!)

I don’t know-- I just think it’s a rude topic, usually.

Anyways, facts... Facts are just a weird subject right now. Every fact you ever want to know is on your phone somewhere. Who cares if you can remember something anymore? It’s all on your phone. I don’t know anything anymore-- my memory’s for shit-- talking to me lately, that experience is mostly comprised of people watching me stopping mid-sentence trying to remember the name of an actor of a movie I saw some uncertain number of years ago whose title I can’t recall and my recollection of the plot is hazy and most likely incorrect. But I got google on my phone so what does it matter?

But also on the internet is the opposite of that fact which someone out there believes. Like, your friends can Actually you but what’s the source of their info? Could be something valid-- could just be some nutcase. And by nutcase, I’d include the New York Times under that at this point. Their opinion section? Useless old nutcases. And that’s the New York Times. So how much do facts even matter anymore??? If you could come out of 2016 thinking knowing facts mattered, after watching how they were herding opinion writers around in those e-mails...

I mean, as a lawyer, you become very acquainted with the idea that there are two sides to just about anything, and a skilled professional can argue either side, too, so... They’ve been making fun of the Pod Save America jackasses lately on Chapo or that lady mocking Dan Pfieffer to his fucking face on his dumb podcast. I think those Pod guys are deeply useless. But one of the points that got made is ... They read from one of those jackass’s books about how important it is for these liberal douchebags to “know the facts better than your racist grandma” or whatever and “let’s always be the folks with facts on our side so we win arguments by being super-honorable about how factually accurate we are.”

And as soon as I heard that I just started yelling at my car stereo, out loud in my car, like almost swerving off my road yelling out loud. Because it’s fucking stupid bullshit. The facts don’t fucking matter in political arguments, not if you don’t have a story around those facts that makes sense to people, and helps them explain their lives. It’s real neat if you’re the most factually accurate loser in the history of losers-- maybe you can get ribbon for that from somebody. But you can’t just Poindexter your way through arguments and expect more than a fucking ribbons because facts aren’t persuasion.

You look at jackasses like those nards during that last election cycle, clinging to their little fucking slanted fact-check websites-- it didn’t fucking matter because one side was telling a story about America that made sense to people, however awful a story, however awful some of those people were, and the other side’s response to that was just saying “America’s always been great, Love trumps hate” bloopity-bloop fucking nonsense. You can’t fact-check your way out of that...

And they didn’t learn any lesson from that because the best story those Pod Save America jackasses could still come up with is “maybe people will like us more if we extra-extra-extra try hard at convincing them we’re some encyclopedia brown fucking nerds”.

People talk about that like it’s some defect in the conversation but they’re missing the point-- people want to be ruled by people, not bloodless chart-spouting effete assholes with the best powerpoints. There is a part of the game that’s very much about the story people tell themselves, about who they are and what they want, and I don’t think that part is necessarily a defect of the process. The people yelling about facts thought they could avoid getting any icky politics into their policies. But the entire exercise is political because we don’t live in some fucking computer-run technocracy. And nor should we, so...

A lot of the internet is people who think they can avoid telling stories people want to hear if they just lecture them. “What if instead of finding a narrative that helps people make sense of their lives and our common humanity, we just yell THREAD and link to some 50 tweet thing from some joyless prick about how white people are bad and the only good thing in the world is the tremendous laughs we got from Nanette?” My suspicion is that’s not going to work...

You know, I just think what's more useful generally is having some kinda ideology that lets you groups facts together and gives you a stepping stone to analyze information that comes at you. It’s hard to imagine in the abstract though because some basic level of information is helpful to have... nobody knows every fact.

But that said, if your facts are wrong, maybe just hear out the fact. Maybe you have uninformed opinions? Beats me. Maybe your opinions should change.

Or you want to see why they’re using that fact-- arguments have premises. You know, how are arguments constructed? In law school, they teach iRAC-- issue, rule, analysis, conclusion. Here’s the issue, here’s the rule that applies to that issue, here’s a bunch of facts we apply that rule to and he’s our conclusion based on applying the rule to the facts. So if you’re weak on facts, you can check if they’re applying the same rule to those facts that you are... Somebody who argues unemployment statistics, the rules they’re applying are, like, “employment = good regardless of the nature of the employment” or “economic statistics meaningful reflect how people actually feel about their lives”... questionable rules! They’re applying rules that might arguably be the wrong rules, so even if you don’t know the facts about the statistics, you can look beyond the statistics...

But I don’t know-- my gut just says, if this is time you’re spending with friends, you should just focus on enjoying being with friends. Life’s too short. A lot of times I see these people online who are just relentlessly unpersuasive, talking about how they’re going to win over their racist Uncle finally this Thanksgiving and it just... I just gotta think there are more productive political operations in the world than that.

The “goodbye, chic” scene is top 10 scenes of this year in TV so far, even if the rest of the episode / show wasn’t great. I just loved that moment...

My complaint about season 1 was definitely “not enough sex, not enough murders” and then season 2 was like “what if there was a serial killer that was really angry about how horny these teens are”. Good move!

One episode was just the teens listening to each other having loud sex with one another in a cabin, until the mob came and murdered people who were conveniently located outside of their sex cabin...? What????

My favorite thing about season 2 of Riverdale though was after Betty stripped off her clothes while listening to the Donnie Darko soundtrack at a motorcycle club, I went online to see people’s reactions. And most of them were like “omg” or “girrrrrl no” but then one out of 10, maybe one out of 20, was someone going “How old is her character supposed to be i thought she was only supposed to be 12 years old.”

I love that super-minority of people watching this entirely ludicrous scene, suddenly doing the math in their head and realizing like oh shit they should be ashamed of themselves...

Oh, another favorite scene-- when Jughead carves an entire mass of flesh off a lady who wronged his street gang using a switchblade...?

I thought that was pretty entertaining.

Yeah, big thumbs up to season 2.

#I am Pointless!

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mild-lunacy · 5 years

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The Trouble with Alpha Alien Invaders

I just complained about the proliferation of one romance subgenre I don't even read, so I thought-- why not keep going? I sort of miss Tumblr. Lately I've just been surfing Instagram, and the way I use it is pretty impersonal. Without fandom or an interest-based community, I get pretty lurkery pretty fast. Anyway, even though not much interaction happens here, possibly because I've ceased talking about things anyone cares about, it's nice to express myself. Even though I feel like I talk about pretty lame and obscure, basically pointless things. Not that this is much of a change in my behavior, just more pronounced than before. Anyway, I just wanted to say I think the traditional alien invasion sci-fi story scenarios are lame.

I don't really care if the whole point is this invasion scenario and it's an action movie where the focus is action scenes. Aliens aren't really people in this context. I'm more talking about situations where they *are* people: specifically, when an alien's the love interest, yet their species invade Earth. Partly it's the trope itself that's problematic, but partly it's how so many unskilled romance writers seem to treat it: as if it's just, you know, alpha male behavior taken to its logical extreme. The interpretation is that these are a version of the Vikings, but instead of rape and pillage, let's just call it... forceful seduction? Things get fuzzy when you add in the magical soulmate trope and the attraction is mutual. Anyway, it's like the Vikings, but with fated mates and spaceships.

Not that I have a problem with that, per se. It's the feeling that an invasion is not a deal breaker somehow. A lot of times, these books have the hero just take the heroine to his home planet, where he accommodates her needs and wishes (eventually). But Earth just sort of... folds. First of all, that would never happen, but the idea of alpha maleness here is just annoying to me. Note, I like reading about alpha males, even (or especially) barbarians. I'm speaking as a fan. They can be... somewhat savage, impulsive, and insensitive. But they don't have to be oppressive or repressive... at least in fiction.

Maybe Tumblr isn't the right place to complain about this, after all. I bet a lot of people think that a real alien race full of overbearing alpha males *would* act like raping, pillaging assholes, at least on a cultural level. I personally think a more subtle writer can (and many *have*) separated male dominance and possessiveness-- even including a tendency towards violence-- from outright repression and oppression of women. A lot of alphas (maybe even most) are indeed insensitive and don't listen as well as they could, but they take care of women. They do *eventually* listen, because the women in this primitive world order are actually very powerful in their own way. What's more, their society acknowledges and is organized around that truth, even if the individual man isn't especially aware. Many 'barbarian' alien types are simply a version of simple hunter gatherer type warriors: crude but not cruel. The two are not the same. Cruelty and oppression is not absolutely necessary, even for a race of male beings who enjoy violence and power. At the very least, it's not inevitable, particularly in a romance.

Obviously, looking at human beings, aggression does lead to oppression within and repression of others, historically. However, this isn't necessarily true of our hunter gatherer past, nor of our space age future. The conditions which lead to oppression have to do with scarcity and cultural imbalance. This is solvable with technology, just as it's also solvable in a small enough tribal ecosystem where everyone has an important role and an impact.

I guess what I'm saying is, as a feminist who's also a romance fan, I give a lot of leeway to the genre, particularly with the alpha male archetype. But it's because I know from experience that certain extremes aren't necessary that it bothers me when I see this type of oppressive alpha invader behavior. It's particularly galling when it's implicitly presented in the narrative as being a very dominant and insensitive male thing. Um, no.

One way to deal with it is just not have the aliens invade: problem solved. They can be toppy assholes who just... have better things to do. And honestly, Earth women really aren't worth invading the planet for, by any stretch. There's also plenty of planets out there with natural bounty to pillage, even in this solar system, that are completely undefended and easy to utilize. There's no great reason to invade Earth when it's just one planet among millions, billions of others. This isn't like the Europe of the Vikings: they invaded their neighbors, not China. Without the thinnest veneer of necessity, invasion becomes a pure consequence of alpha behavior, particularly in a romance context. And treating it as such is just offensive, as I said.

Alternatively, the writer can have the alpha male alien culture *want* to invade because that's just how they roll-- subjugating and oppressing left and right-- but something happens to prevent it. This is a classic fictional trope: bad thing could've happened but didn't. Romance novels mixed with genre dystopias are one thing, but usually this doesn't extend to the characters. The *male protagonist* isn't supposed to be part of the dystopia. Duh?

In Anna Carven's books, the alpha aliens are born invaders, but this strains the fabric of the culture as well the empire itself being unsustainable. That's only realistic, reflecting the bare minimum of actual thinking of how sprawling, oppressive empires actually *work* on a cultural level. And believe me, the alpha asshole characters aren't in any way diminished or portrayed as less dominant because the military leader chose to use his brain and realize he'd get more results more easily through at least some attempt at trade and diplomacy. Even with these aliens definitely being a non-diplomatic race, it's pure common sense that if something *can* be acquired peacefully, it's probably more profitable to try that first. There's also many ways to both gain and exercise power, and laying waste to a society with pure force is only the most destructive method. Surely a race of space faring aliens would have other options, ones that would leave more to enjoy of the planet they're acquiring. The use of long-term intelligence and tactics don't make you less alpha. Just ask China.

#pointless rambles #me myself and i #narrative #feminism #writing

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allmysense8children · 6 years

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Movie Night

Title: Movie Night

Fandom: Sense8

Characters: the entire 8/8 cluster

Rating: PG

Summary: The cluster watch a movie together - an unedited drabble, by me.

“Yippee-kaye, motherfucker.”

John McLane’s famous quote was barely heard as both Riley and Will struggled to keep their eyes open. They’d had a long day, it was late, and they were currently intwined together on a fluffy couch in front of the TV. All these things made drifting off to sleep indescribably appealing - but they fought valiantly against the waves of exhaustion, stubbornly refusing to succumb to blissful unconsciousness for Capheus’ sake: incredibly, he’d never seen Die Hard, and as they could tell from his visit with them, he was loving it. How could they fall asleep and break their connection when their cluster-mate was having such a good time?

“I should go and leave you guys to rest,” he half whispered, eyes still glued to the screen.

Riley raised her hand from Will’s chest and fumbled briefly before she found Capheus’ warm fingers. “Stay,” she said softly, “it’ll be finished in a few minutes anyway.”

He didn’t need much convincing, squeezing her hand gently. “Okay.”

Riley felt a light rumble under her cheek as Will chuckled.

Fortunately, the final explosions of the grand denouement were enough to rouse them - as the FBI helicopter blasted into smithereens, Will did his best to rub the sleep from his eyes and sit himself up.

“That was an excellent movie!” Capheus exclaimed when the credits began rolling. He was practically euphoric.

Riley thought it was adorable. “I’m glad you liked it, I thought it would be something you would appreciate. There are several sequels, too, if you’re interested.”

Kala, however, did not share Capheus’ obvious delight. “It’s far too violent for my taste.” She hadn’t meant to visit, but her cluster-mate’s elation had attracted her attention. Wanting to get away from the sweaty Bruce Willis as quickly as possible, she pulled them all into her flat with Wolfgang. Her television was showing something entirely different.

“What are you guys watching?”

Seeing Capheus’ curiosity, Kala was more than happy to share. “lt’s a famous film called ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’.” She looped her arm into Wolfgang’s and leaned into him on the couch. “I’m introducing him to Bollywood,” she explained, pleased with herself.

“Bollywood, huh?” Will asked, grinning. “It’s kind of… light and breezy. Like, really light and breezy.”

Wolfgang nodded, completely serious. “It’s pretty good so far.”

Riley wasn’t surprised. “You enjoy the singing.”

Once she said it, it made sense to everyone else. Of course he would.

“Well, I’m not a fan, I preferred the ugly, barefoot man sneaking through the vents and punching people who annoy him.” Everyone’s eyes turned to the newly arrived Sun. She blinked at them owlishly. “What?”

“But it’s a beloved Indian classic,” Kala tried. “It’s been showing in Mumbai movie theatres for over twenty years. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge has everything you could ever want! Singing, dancing, romance, adventure, beautiful scenery…”

“Sorry, but it just doesn’t do it for me.”

Sun agreed with Capheus’ sentiments. “The movie lacks gravitas and drama.”

“Well, I don’t understand your idea of fun.” Kala was thoroughly put out. “That Definitely Die movie-”

“Die Hard,” Nomi corrected, having also suddenly appeared.

“-yes, thank you - that movie was riddled with plot holes and gratuitous violence.”

Wolfgang agreed. “I’ve never really been a fan of it, either.” Seeing Will’s doubtful expression, he explained. “Too many cops.”

Sun snorted just as Will threw a cushion at him.

“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” Nomi noted, “you’re dating a cop.”

Sun stopped smiling immediately. “We’re not dating.” Both Kala and Nomi shot her a knowing look. “It’s complicated,” she admitted, caving.

“I do have one criticism,” Capheus noted, getting back to the topic at hand. “It would have been a better film if Jean Claude had played the main character.”

“Urgh,” Nomi rolled her eyes, “you think everything’s better with Van Damme in it.”

Capheus smiled, unafraid to acknowledge that this was entirely true.

“When I was young I thought Bruce Willis was kind of cool,” Riley admitted. “I definitely liked him better than Sylvester Stallone. I never really understood the appeal of the Rambo films. They took themselves far too seriously.”

“You’re not hunting him-” Capheus quoted, with Will finishing it for him. “He’s hunting you!”

”Schwarzenegger is still the best out of all of them.” Wolfgang knew he was making a controversial statement, but considering his well-known appreciation of Conan the Barbarian, he also knew it wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

”But he doesn’t know any martial arts,” Capheus said with disapproval. “To be a real action star you need to have some fighting skill in front of the camera. You have to have an impressive presence.”

”Does that make me an action star? Technically I’ve been caught fighting on CCTV,” Sun joked.

”Oh, of course. You’re practically the embodiment of Jean Claude Van Damme himself.”

”Arnold Schwarzenegger has an impressive presence,” Wolfgang said with a frown, defending his champion. He looked down at Kala, hoping for her support in the matter.

”He certainly is a hulking beast of a man,” she offered.

”That British guy’s a martial artist, and he’s pretty good, too,” Will suggested as another contender for the title of best action star. “The Transporter movies were fun.”

”Not that I actively want to engage in this testosterone fest,” Nomi chimed in, “but I should point out that Dwayne Johnson’s made almost as many movies in his first few years of his acting career as Schwarzenegger did in the entire of the eighties and nineties. If you’re going to talk about success… he’s probably the one who’s made the most money and, personally, his acting’s better. And let’s not forget that Scarlet Johansson was the highest paid actress at one time for her action roles.”

Something caught Kala’s eye and she turned to find Lito sitting sullenly in the corner. “What’s the matter?”

He dragged his gaze from the TV, sighed dramatically, and then went back to staring at the screen. “Nothing,” he said wistfully.

Wolfgang smirked, knowing (along with the others) exactly what was wrong. “We can’t consider you an action star anymore because now you’re a proper Oscar winner.”

“Yes,” Capheus added, “you’re a truly great talent who can play any role perfectly. Jean Claude might be my favourite action man, but you’re my favourite actor.”

Lito was trying not to succumb to their blatant flattery, but he was having a hard time of it. “I don’t believe you guys.”

“Would it make you feel better if we all watched ‘Iberian Dreams’ again?” Riley suggested.

Lito scoffed. “I’m not an egomaniac,” he said, but did nothing to actively stop Riley from putting on the film.

“Come on,” Will goaded, patting the seat on the couch next to him. “Watch it with us.”

It took him a second, but Lito finally relented, a broad grin plastered to his face. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll go make some popcorn.”

#sense8 #sense8 fanfic #8/8 cluster #this is terrible and unedited #i am so sorry

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isoscele · 7 years

Text

you could meet someone who’s lost like you

Fandoms: Coupleish, Carmilla

Warnings: drinking, bar fights, death/reincarnation, minor homophobic language

Words: 9.7K

Summary: Two people screw things up in a couple of different lives. Flower shop customers are stalked, fights are picked, and questions aren't quite answered. (or: dee and rachel, lafontaine and danny, and some combination thereof)

AO3

When Dee is eight years old, Amy tells them that she has an imaginary friend named Rufus and that he always lets her braid his hair, Dee. Dee says that they have imaginary friends too, a whole group of them. Practically grownups. Their names are Laura and Carmilla and Perry and J.P, and Dee loves them all in ways they do not yet have the words to describe.

Amy talks to Rufus when she thinks Dee is being mean or annoying, saying things like, “I’m glad we’ll be friends forever,” to the empty air at the bottom of the slide. Dee decides that they and Amy had different ideas of imaginary friends. Dee can’t talk to theirs on the playground when Amy won’t share her jump rope. They have people in their head, sure, but these are stagnant people who do terrifying things. These are people who cannot in the slightest be connected to Dee’s calm, tranquil suburban lifestyle, but are always wriggling in the back of their mind. There are events too (imaginary moments?), a whole storyline of them, linking together some conspiracy about vampires and colleges. Dee remembers because they were there. Not as Dee, of course, but as a cool big kid with really neat hair and a love of science, which is Dee’s third least favorite class.

Rufus is abandoned after Amy decides that braiding hair isn’t that great anyways and it’s a little babyish to have imaginary friends. Dee will spend the next fifteen years wondering why it isn’t so simple for them.

When Dee is twelve years old, they tell their parents that they have a story in their head. “Like a movie,” is what they say exactly, a long movie in the perspective of someone you never quite see. They aren’t allowed to watch scary movies with the Connelly kids down the block until they’re in high school, but apparently there’s no age limit on the dreams, terrifying blurs of blood and fangs and worrying so keenly for the ones they love. It’s easier to imagine the whole thing as some elaborate work of fiction to keep Dee entertained during the boring parts of social studies class (which is most of them).

Rita and Peter Warson trade a look that Dee will later identify as “is-this-thing-our-kid-is-doing-normal.” Dee waits patiently in the doorway to the kitchen, scuffing their shoe against the tile even though their mom always tells them not to.

“Maybe you’ll be a writer one day,” their dad says finally, and their mom lights up.

“Oh honey, that’s wonderful!” she says. “You should write it down. I’d love to read it.”

“I can’t write it down,” Dee says. “It’s not fair to them.”

Their parents share a second, more dubious “is-this-thing-our-kid-is-doing-normal” look. This time, they come up empty.

“The people in it,” Dee clarifies. They pause for a moment, and then add, thoughtfully, “I think they might be dead.”

“Sweetheart,” their mom begins, but seems to fall short.

“I hope not,” Dee says quickly, because it’s not like they want people to die in the movie in their head, they just aren’t quite sure how it ends yet. “I like ‘em.”

“Well,” their dad says, so obviously grasping at straws. “Keep us- keep us updated, huh?”

Their mom opens her mouth to add something but just then Amy bursts through the screen door and yells that the stupid eighth-graders stole her charm bracelet again and do they still have the water guns Dee’s mom always threatens to throw out because this is war and the house is wrapped up into merry chaos yet again.

It’s only later, washing the muddy war paint off their cheeks, that it occurs to Dee that maybe they should just keep their mouth shut about the whole past-life thing. Amy doesn’t seem to understand it either, and Dee is quickly coming to the conclusion that if there’s ever anything in their life that Amy doesn’t understand, it’s pretty much a lost cause that anyone else would get it better.

They go to bed and dream about monsters crawling from the wide, gaping chasm in the ground.

When Dee is twenty-two, Rachel Mannt strides into the apartment for the first time with a stupid hat and a stupid accent and the face of one of Dee’s imaginary friends.

It takes twenty minutes of Not Paying Attention to This Roommate Interview At All for Dee to decide that they are never going to mention their strange and complicated past life to Rachel. There’s no point. Faces look similar; there are about sixteen British actors that they couldn’t tell apart if ordered to at gunpoint. But this girl . . . it’s uncanny.

It’s not like Dee cares too much, anyway. If it were Laura or, God forbid, Perry, it would have been a different situation entirely, but Dee never really liked Danny even when she wasn’t a semi-evil vampire, so they aren’t going to tear themselves apart worrying about it.

Dee spends the two days prior to their new roommate moving in picking apart everything they’ve ever thought they understood about their life. They paint angry things, taking pride in the slashes of red and swaths of purple that shred the canvas. They sleep a lot, ignoring the uneasy dreams. They clean up.

They manage to get through the move-in day without having to reveal that they don’t actually remember this new person’s name because they were a little preoccupied at the time, okay? They help unpack a shit-ton of boxes and tune out Amy’s delighted proclamation that she and New Roomie like all the same shows and try to decide if they should take down the curtains to increase the aesthetic appeal of the living room.

They don’t talk to Probably Wears Leggings and Like, Cardigans and Stuff for most of the day. There’s just a lot to do and if this tall musical theatre fan has a problem with a grumpy and antisocial roommate, maybe this isn’t such a good fit after all.

The first dinner is order-in-pizza. Amy does most (all) of the talking.

“Is there good food in London?”

New Roomie jumps, like a child caught in the act of drawing on the walls. “I’m sorry?”

“Good food,” Amy repeats, taking a bite of pizza as if to demonstrate.

“Er- yeah, some,” Impeccable Jawline says awkwardly. “Yeah. There’s- there’s some. Good food.”

Something deep and vicious inside Dee is thrilled that everyone in this situation is equally uncomfortable.

“Mmm,” Amy says, in that voice she almost entirely uses for unimpressive dudes. “Interesting.”

It’s almost tangible, the amount of effort Amy’s putting into making this work. Dee isn’t looking forward to their sister leaving for the night.

Not-Danny eats her pizza with a fork and knife. Barbarian.

The second day, Dee barely sees their new roommate at all because she and Amy are gone before Dee even wakes up. They won’t admit to spending the whole day sulking, but they do.

They were born with a whole world inside them, a world that left them scarred and exuberant and filled with so much visceral emotion, it was hard to keep track of, sometimes. They were born with memories of impossible things, a left eye that aches on bad nights, and PTSD.

They don’t remember the name of their roommate, but it’s not Danny, she’s not Danny. She’s someone else, someone who has a whole life, an unmarred past, present, and future that organize themselves in nice little rows, unlike whatever knotted existence Dee’s leading.

She doesn’t remember what Dee does, because Dee remembers things that never happened. It’s as simple as that, really. They need a roommate and here one is and they aren’t going to torture themselves about it. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s all good. They’ll find a new identity for this girl and it’ll all work itself out.

Amy and New Person Who Dee Had Never Met Before Yesterday come through the door, laughing and laden down with bags. Dee smiles, says something airy and sarcastic, and life proceeds as it tends to.

That night, Amy goes back to her apartment. Dee turns in at a reasonable hour for once, and gets three hours of sleep before everything changes.

When the door opens, a sliver of harsh hallway light cuts across Dee’s face. They ignore it, pretending to be asleep with a vigor never before experienced.

Three footsteps, and a heavy pause. They can almost taste their new roommate’s apprehension, tall, probably-alive whatsherface and damn, there’s no way they’re going to survive this.

They listen to the uncertain creak of the floorboards underneath Miss-Turns-On-Loud-Music (seriously though, kudos to her for not even blinking at Amy’s Internet questionnaire) for about twenty minutes before coming to the conclusion that they’re just doomed to dance around each other forever and drown in potential PTSD awkwardness.

Joy.

And then Tall Brit draws a deep breath and says, “LaFontaine?” and everything in Dee’s brain just kind of stops because how does she know that name?

There’s a long pause and then Not-Danny sighs and retreats taking care to be quieter this time. Normal new-roommate courteousness, nothing awkward here, nope.

Dee rolls over again, sure that she’s gone, and stares up at the ceiling, unable to process this new development.

Would it be worse if the whole thing was a weird extended figment of their imagination or if it wasn’t? Twenty-three damn years of uncertainty and then out of nowhere the person Dee least wants to see. Some pissed-off demigod from a lifetime ago exacting revenge.

Sighing with the eternal exasperation of someone who just wants to live a peaceful, vampire-less life, Dee hoists themselves out of bed and trudges down the hall, squinting into the too-bright lights and berating themselves for letting Amy put the ad up in the first place. They’d rather settle for the dude in the winter coat who’s apparently afraid of baths.

She-Whose-Name-Dee-Wasn’t-Really-Paying-Attention-To is crouched on the couch and staring at one of Dee’s most recent pieces, one overflowing with color and vibrancy and life. Dee wants to tear it apart with their bare hands, a cruel reminder of a somewhat simpler time. SWNDWRPAT’s fingers tremble on her kneecaps and her hat is a little lopsided. Not so composed now, is she.

Dee leans against the doorway, trying to look casual and in control of the situation. “Hey.”

She almost jumps, eyes comically wide. Her hat falls off entirely. “Ah! Sorry, I- I thought you were asleep?”

Part of them wants to ask how she came to that conclusion, but they aren’t that mean. “Nah. I-,” they pause, rubbing the back of their head, “-this is pretty weird, huh?”

Their attempt at humor goes unnoticed. Danny (no, not Danny, someone else whose name maybe starts with an R?) becomes very interested in her shoes.

“Sorry for pretending to be asleep,” Dee says because dammit, they’re going to act like an adult if it kills them. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Absurd-Lover-of-Hats sucks in her cheek, considering the heavily-stained carpet. “It’s okay,” she says, almost a monotone. “I- you look a little like someone I used to know. That’s all.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself of this, too, and they feel for her. Really.

There’s not an easy way to have this conversation, and part of Dee is still kicking and screaming at the very idea. They’re done with demanding knowledge, okay, they’re done and denial is actually quite nice once you get the hang of it and it’s been twenty-three fucking years, twenty-three years of thinking they were insane and having nightmares of events that never happened and they would’ve been fine continuing with this relatively nice existence, really.

They can’t say any of that. They’ve never even tried to before. It’s completely uncharted territory.

“So!” they settle on, bright as they can manage. “Are you still undead?”

They wince immediately afterwards because what the fuck, Dee.

Roommate-Who-Dee-Has-Probably-Now-Alienated-Forever looks up, eyes wide like Bambi or something (they don’t know, okay) and makes a soft, strangled noise.

Tact is a thing. A thing that Dee should probably use more.

“Er, sorry,” she says, “did you- do you remember?”

Dee joins her on the couch. “Yeah,” they say and damn, this is hard to talk about. “I remember everything.”

Total silence. That should’ve been a question on the roommate survey. Do you have a weird past life that involves vampires and swords and sentient buildings that you may or may not share with the occupant?

“Do you know any of the others?” Danny-Not-Danny asks suddenly. “It was awfully inconvenient, you know, being born in London and all, and I can’t find any Facebook pages for some reason- anyway, I don’t suppose you’ve encountered anyone else?”

“Just you,” Dee says, pretending they can’t see their new roommate deflating in front of them.

“Right,” she mutters, drawing lines on the floor with her sock. “Well, better than nothing. I thought I was the only one for ages.”

“So,” Dee says, “do you think this means it really happened?”

“Yes,” she says, with an enviable certainty. “It has to have. It- it has to.”

Sometimes, when Dee closes their eyes, all they can see is blood, curly hair and an awful, awful smile. Sometimes, they dream of a light so hungry, so terrible that it swallows everything else and they wake up unable to distinguish between real and not-real.

Sometimes they taste death on the back of their tongue, spit and blood and salt.

“This sucks,” they say. “This really, really sucks.”

She looks almost pitying. Dee wants to throw up. How did it end again? Did anyone win? Who was saved?

“Remind me of your name?” they say into the silence. “I don’t want to keep calling you Danny.”

“Rachel,” she says and right, that was it, a good, straightforward name.

Dee nods, closes their eyes. Rubs their forehead. “Sorry for forgetting.”

More awful silence, and then Rachel shifts off the couch and leaves for her barren, just-moved-in room to nightmares and invasive thoughts, most likely. Dee sits and tries not to think about anything.

Silas University never existed. Googling Laura Hollis provides pictures of thousands of ordinary women who bear no resemblance to the firecracker of a freshman that they once knew. Googling Lola Perry- well, that’s a more unique name. Rachel is a shell of Danny. Somehow, they’re still an atheist.

They need a cup of coffee, or maybe something stronger, but they don’t move from the couch until the sun is almost over the horizon and the bleakness of the night gives way to some fragment of a future.

The next eight months pass without ever really passing at all, in a blur of selfies and shopping and rearranged furniture. Dee’s very good at avoiding things they don’t want to talk about and apparently Rachel is too, because they don’t bring it up, not even when it’s inhumanly late and Amy’s passed out on the carpet and the moon looks bloody from here.

Rachel is a considerate roommate. She tiptoes when Dee’s asleep, replaces the coffee filters, and washes every dish she uses, including some she doesn’t. She seems perpetually anxious around Dee, perhaps some remnant of simpler times when eyebrows were blown off and anglerfish gods were the most normal bit of Sunday breakfast.

On bad nights, Dee wakes up to Rachel’s cries, muffled by the world’s thinnest walls. They don’t want to think about what Rachel might wake up to, sometimes. Nightmares are a part of life, and they don’t talk about it and don’t talk about it.

Sometimes, when they know she needs it, they add a knock of alcohol to the coffee in the morning without really knowing why.

Dee dreams of Perry a lot, and Laura sometimes and even Vampire Pants, but never once Danny, not in all twenty-three years of confusing, bloody nightmares, until she just happened to move in and then they can’t escape her eyes, dark and soulless, after the shift. Can’t escape this tired, traumatized TA with red hair and no stupid accent and blood smudged on her fingertips and a whole summer behind her. It feels like every dream, no matter how it starts, ends with Danny.

Everything is made more complicated by Amy’s instant liking of Rachel. It feels unfair sometimes- why don’t you share a traumatizing past life with her, if you like her so much- and definitely a little annoying. Amy is Dee’s person, sometimes the only one in this life who doesn’t make them ache with longing for the old one. They want Rachel to find her own anchor, one who doesn’t come with Dee in the kind of package deal you can never break.

In the end, though, it’s fine. Really. Dee paints and sleeps and drinks, Rachel finds hats more ridiculous than her last hats and brings in cushions with the Union Jack on them and acts pretty much entirely unlike Danny, enough that it’s sort of okay to be around her this much.

This honeymoon period of neutrality comes to an abrupt halt while they’re building the fucking desk and Dee is perhaps a bit drunker than they should be for this conversation.

When they pull up the email that’s far more official than anything they’ve ever received in their life, every slurred thought is wiped clean for several seconds. Distantly, they feel that maybe they should be upset because what the fuck, Rachel but they struggle with the actual execution.

They pass the phone to Amy and a single sentence occurs to them, dreamlike and very clear. I want her out.

They never really liked Danny that much, thinking her too rough around the edges, too likely to act without thinking. Rachel seemed better, calmer, but clearly it was all a well-constructed act because this right here is a very Danny move.

Dee’s angry, angrier than they really ever get, because it feels like an insult. They spend over twenty years building a façade of a reasonably normal kid, if not the perfect daughter their mother always wanted. Twenty years of believing they were crazy, reading up on people who remembered past lives as clearly as this, twenty years of missing people they had never met with everything in them.

Twenty years of an awful, aching loneliness they will never be able to describe. They were torn from the people they considered their family and inserted into a new one as some sort of new person, and they had to figure out what was Dee and what was LaFontaine and what was new and what was old, so old.

They never told Amy about the memories. They tell Amy everything.

And for what? Was it all just leading up to this, sitting in front of a dismantled desk after eight months of awkwardly tiptoing around the first sign that maybe there was something bigger than them at work and learning that Rachel told the government they were dating?

You don’t get to use me to stay, Dee thinks, wildly. I built this life out of nothing after the fiasco that was my last one. You don’t get to swoop in here, disrupt everything, and use me in this stupid, stupid way so you can continue to disrupt everything.

People are talking and people are shouting, they are shouting, and they are saying none of what they want to say. Rachel leaves and Dee is glad to see her go, glad to let her get the fuck out of their life already because enough is enough.

“I like her, you idiot,” Amy says. “She’s got a big heart.”

“Her heart’s not what you like about her, so shut up,” Dee says. Sometimes they’re so close to rolling over in the permanent sleepover-dark of their room and spilling everything. All the secrets, all the worry. All the people who are nothing more than shapes in their constant dreams.

They want to tell Amy everything, but they also really don’t, because then they can never ship their whole damn previous life off to Britain, pip-pip cheerio, and forget about the whole thing. Go back to their starving artist lifestyle and pretend until they drive themselves into the ground.

They won’t go around acting like Rachel’s datemate, okay, they won’t. They won’t hold hands and use sickening pet names and give cheek kisses because they should be doing that stuff with Perry or J.P. or anyone, really. Dee doesn’t hold a lot of stock in should-be’s, but Danny, stupid tall Danny who probably still has a puppy crush on Laura, is the worst possible person for this scenario.

“We’re more than she has back home,” Amy is saying. In a lot of ways, Rachel is more than Dee has ever had, period, and probably vice versa, but they can’t bring themselves to care.

Amy wants Rachel to stay, and Amy sees no reason why she shouldn’t. Because Amy doesn’t remember watching a shell of someone you once at least trusted stride across the room and lift up a superstrong immortal vampire by the throat. Amy doesn’t remember the blood and the anger and the horrific noise Matska Belmonte made when the locket was crushed.

Amy stalks off. She always has to have the last word, but now she doesn’t need to fight for it, because Dee isn’t trying to say anything. They grab the bottle and take a long swig, staring at the partially-constructed desk, which looks about four seconds away from falling apart.

They can imagine Future Dee looking back at this moment and shouting. You idiot! they would say. The only lead you’ll ever get and you just let her leave the country? Now you’ll always wonder, and you’ll never be any closer to an answer. Dee generally likes to imagine that Future Dee is pretty wise beyond their years and also incredibly successful, so maybe they know what they’re talking about.

Dee picks up their phone, abandoned on the couch cushion after the initial revelation, and tries to pull up the kind of courage they used to have. It feels like they’re about to plunge into a hurricane of knives again.

They call Rachel.

Dee definitely didn’t want to make a video, and Amy said that nobody would see it. This is the kind of classic moment that every sibling knows to store and whip out in the future when Amy tries to rope them into something again. Hey, remember that time you made me and my almost-fugitive fake girlfriend Internet sensations? Yeah, so do I, funny how that worked out.

There are nearly fifty comments on their first video, and it’s only the third night since they put it up. Dee really, genuinely does not care what strangers on the Internet think of them, but still they find themselves awake at two in the morning, perched on the couch with a laptop on their knees and scrolling through every last one.

They’re so absorbed in ladykiller0457’s questionable use of emojis that they don’t even hear Rachel coming down the hall until she’s right next to them and looking over their shoulder, squinting into the screen that Dee never bothers to turn down the brightness on.

“You’re up late,” she says. Noncommittal and almost nonjudgmental. It’s a good first move.

“So’re you,” Dee says, clicking to read the six responses to gam3rg1rl’s “zomg so cutttteeeee!”

Rachel perches on the edge of the couch, as if she’s waiting to be asked to leave. She’s been walking on eggshells ever since the whole “I-may-have-included-you-in-my-elaborate-lie-to-the-Canadian-government” thing, which brings Dee a small amount of pleasure. “Amy told us not to pay attention to the comments.”

Dee grunts because they don’t really care about these opinions at all, and they’ve been studiously ignoring a whole lot of misgendering but they have to do this, and if Rachel doesn’t understand that, it’s her problem.

There’s a long, awkward pause- at least, it’s probably awkward for Rachel, Dee doesn’t really care whether they talk or not- and then Rachel shifts and her foot taps anxiously against the carpet.

“Find anything yet?” she whispers, in a tone of voice that makes it very clear that they’re talking about this now.

Dee shakes their head. “I wasn’t expecting anything.”

They’ve become stars overnight. Their faces are all over the Internet: gifs of their awkward kisses and excited discussions about these new contenders in the couple-blogging game. Amy’s original post hit 30K notes sometime mid-afternoon.

Surely, someone will notice. Someone will think they look familiar.

“I don’t know,” Rachel says. “Queer vlogs about adorable new couples seem right up Laura’s alley.”

This cannot be the first time either of them have said Laura’s name aloud, but a shiver cuts down Dee’s spine that makes it clear that it is. Rachel’s looking at her socks again.

Dee surprises themselves by laughing loudly because it’s true. They can imagine so easily Laura sitting in front of her computer with her TARDIS mug and Carmilla snarking in the background, making her way through a foil-wrapped package of cookies, the sort of floury kind she really likes.

Except it wouldn’t be Laura, and there would be no mug or Carmilla or famous yellow pillow. There might still be cookies, but Dee doesn’t know. They don’t know anything at all.

Dee clicks to load more comments and Rachel waits, knees drawn up to her chest and looking smaller than she ever has. The screen slices their faces with precision. Dee’s eyes sting and they don’t know if it’s the tears or the brightness or the hour or some sick combination of all of it.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Rachel says, standing up. The top half of her body dips into shadow, anonymous once more. Dee tries to look at her, but soft pink and turquoise bruises cloud their vision after staring at the screen and they can’t make out anything.

Dee wants to say something like I am an adult and I will stay up however late I please, maybe to remind her that they’re not some fire-blooded Summer Society girl under Danny’s jurisdiction, but they swallow it. Too much discussion too close to home for one night. “Okay,” they say instead.

They wait until Rachel’s door snaps shut to let their head fall against the couch cushion. The room has a muted quality, interrupted by sleepy static.

They’re never going to find anything. Rachel was born in London, who knows if any of the rest even speak English, or if they watch YouTube or follow Amy’s tumblr or even want answers. There are those who associate Silas with things much, much worse than anything LaFontaine was part of, surely.

Hell, maybe everyone’s already seen the video. Maybe all the people Dee never stopped caring about know that they’re alive and okay and making disgusting couple videos, and God, everyone probably thinks they’re dating Rachel, which is just, no. There are worse people, face-wise, but Dee might never stop being just a little bit afraid of the person with blood in her hair and iron in her eyes.

An alert pops up to tell them that their laptop is at ten percent, and this is what breaks them out of their trance. They shut it and the room goes dark, all at once. They close their eyes, massage the lids. They have two commissions to finish by Wednesday, and inspiration has left very suddenly, like the empty hole on campus where gods used to live.

They dream of dipping their hands in paint, vibrant blues and yellows, and holding Perry until she’s covered, nothing left but eyes and mouth and hair. Staining her throat, her cheeks, her sharp stripe of nose so no one could ever forget that they go together. Tracing her jawline, patterning her shirt, never letting go, not ever again, promise.

If you asked Dee when they and Rachel became pretty much cool, they would probably say the Brownie Baking Incident or That One Time with the Giant Jenga Set.

In truth, it was some blurred stretch of time in between. You live with someone, you paint where they can look over your shoulder, you make videos in which you pretend they’re the love of your damn life, and at some point you just have to acknowledge that they’re pretty important to you.

It’s nice to have someone who doesn’t question anything, either. Dee disables Siri on every device they own. Rachel sometimes walks around with two fingers at her throat, checking her pulse like it might disappear at any moment. That’s just the way it is during Apocalypse Buddies Being Roommates Take Two. It’s a funny kind of symbiosis, and even the things they don’t talk about feel easier.

If Rachel hadn’t shown up when she did, Dee might have spent the rest of their life lying to themselves, and the thought makes them sick sometimes.

Other times, they wish they could sleep again. That they could pass it all off as a wild figment of a child’s imagination that just never went away. That they could live the life of someone for whom the past really is in the past. Because when it’s not, it’s kind of hard to have a future.

Dee’s always been of the opinion that when your entire worldview is turned on its side, the best thing to do is have sex, and a lot of it.

They like sex and they’re pretty awesome at it. They’ve heard Amy’s psychoanalyses many times before, and they want to clear up that there are no sorrowful, intimate reasons for the parade of bed-buddies. It’s just nice to have a connection with someone else that has no strings attached. It’s nice to desire and feel desired.

It has nothing to do with Elena, okay? They don’t know what sorts of things Amy is telling Rachel, but it’s nothing as deep as that.

Ugh, if Rachel starts pitying them for that whole debacle, they’re going to lose their mind.

The thing with Elena was that she was so incredibly present and she made Dee feel so incredibly present, too. That was the most important thing. Dee was constantly living a life that wasn’t necessarily theirs, and Elena made them feel like-

Well, that isn’t important. Elena was there, and it felt like she would always be there, which was stupid. You can love someone for your whole life and then wake up someone else, forced to learn how to live without them. You can love someone for your whole life and then they die, or else you do or, worst, you’re asked to help kill them for the greater good of the world. Shit happens.

Rachel and Amy throw an intervention, which is completely uncalled for because Dee is fine. They’re stressed, they work a lot, and sometimes they just want to relax. Naked. With someone else.

There are a lot of really good reasons to hate Rachel, sometimes. Sometimes she talks about things she doesn’t know the half of, sometimes she snoops through Dee’s stuff like she has any right. Sometimes she lies to the government and drags Dee into her schemes. Sometimes there aren’t any reasons at all, but Dee hates her anyway, sees her curled on the couch and typing something on her phone and hates her, hates her, hates the damn fool, the martyr, the untouchable soiled beast, all the pieces of her that combine like a supernova into this person who makes Dee eat when they’re working so hard on a painting that everything else fades into the background.

Sometimes it’s just easier to hate Rachel, because Rachel accepts hatred, lets it sink deep under her skin and weave itself into armor. Rachel is still so incredibly strong in ways Dee doesn’t feel like they can ever be, and they hate that too.

Ed is good. Solid. He’s funny and encouraging and yeah, he’s got an amazing butt. Ed wants so badly to do right by them, and sometimes they feel bad because he’ll never be the kind of person they would die for.

(Maybe, possibly, they should stop judging romantic partners on that basis.)

Dee’s been dating him for a couple of months when they roll over in bed, take a moment to admire his shirtlessness, and start talking without allowing themselves a chance to stop.

“Do you believe in past lives?” they say, hushed like a middle-schooler, and for a moment they think he hasn’t heard them, but then he opens his eyes and looks at them for a long time.

“Why do you ask?” he says, voice turning upwards with a little bit of a laugh.

“Just curious,” they say, acutely aware that they should not be talking about this. It feels like sacrilege. Like a betrayal to Rachel in the next room over, reading some dumb paperback.

“Mmm,” he says. “Are you asking if maybe we’re destined to be together?” He’s still joking, but they’re not.

That absolutely isn’t what Dee is asking, but okay. “No,” they say. “Forget it. It’s fine.”

“No, no,” he says. “You’ve caught my interest now. What kind of thing are we talking about?”

“Just-,” they swallow. They hadn’t known how hard this would be to say. “Just people being other people before.” That’s a terrible explanation. They hope he tells them so and goes to sleep.

“I think,” Ed says, “that in my past life I was a Mongolian sheep herder.”

“A Mongolian sheep herder with a really nice butt,” they say, relieved that they don’t have to go further than that.

He laughs, sleepy and safe. “It’s all the hills, luv.”

“Oh, I see,” they say teasingly. He pulls himself up on his elbows to meet their lips. He was a Mongolian sheep herder and they were the mad-scientist best friend of someone possessed by an ancient goddess, and now they’re here, together, and probably about to have sex.

It could have been a whole lot worse.

Dee is drunk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So. Fucking. Drunk. But it’s okay, they get to be drunk because- because everything is shit and it’s just like- what the fuck, why can’t they just be, like, happy? Just for a little while?

They don’t believe in karma and stuff, but this is probably something kinda like it. LaFontaine wasn’t so bad, they think, but like- like, they did try to kill a god. So maybe they’re cursed now. Yeah.

So Ed has a fucking wife. That’s real fun.

They don’t really taste whatever it is they’re drinking at this point. They’re just ordering the cheapest thing, and a lot of it, from this sort of seedy hole-in-the-wall bar because they can’t go to their usual one because that’s where Lauren attacked Amy and it’s just, no.

It’s sort of nice to be this drunk but it’s also pretty bad because it doesn’t make anything better, just numbs it for a little while, and they know it. They just don’t want to think about things, like, at all, pretty please with a cherry on top.

They especially don’t want to think about the look Rachel gave them, the worst look they’ve ever seen, holding Amy’s arm and watching her bruise. They don’t want to think about the stupid cliché things Ed spouted like it would save him when they confronted him. And they really, really don’t want to think about what he said about Rachel, because they aren’t in love with her, okay? They’re just not.

They order another glass of whatever the fuck they just had (probably in those exact words) and lay their cheek against the horrifyingly sticky bar to get a better sadness angle.

Which is why the dude who slides into the stool next to them looks sideways and a little bit glowing.

He orders something pretty stupid-sounding and then turns to them and says, almost confidentially, “How’s it going down there?”

“Bad,” Dee says.

“Aw, I’m sorry to hear that.” They don’t like his smile. They also don’t like his eyebrows, which are super thin, like almost transparent. You can’t trust someone whose own eyebrows ran away.

They consider turning and letting the other cheek marinate in whatever the hell is on this bar and not talking to him, but this cheek may be permanently glued down.

“What’s your poison?” he says, nodding to the glass the bartender just set down.

“Arsenic,” they say, baring their teeth, or at least trying to. It may look a little more like a grimacy smile.

He laughs. They don’t like his laugh either, add that to the list. “Not what I meant, lady.”

“I’m not a lady,” they say. They don’t want to be having this conversation.

“Figures,” he says. He takes a long swig of his drink, which looks as stupid as it sounds. “You got dyke written all over you.”

They sit up. Their vision tilts a little, but mostly stays loyal. “What the fuck?”

“You know,” he says. He still sounds casual, like this is a typical Friday night conversation for him. Maybe it is. Jesus, they should have known. Their internal Douche Detector needs fine-tuning. “The hair, the clothes . . . you gotta see how it looks, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” they say automatically. “Please tell me how what I choose to do with my appearance concerns you in the slightest.” That was a lot of words. Go, Dee. They’re kicking his ass.

“Come on,” he says. “I just meant, you know, you’re a walking stereotype. Chill, okay?”

“I will not chill,” they say. “I kicked my boyfriend out today and I’m pretty drunk and you’re being a total dick. I will not chill.”

“Kicked your boyfriend out?” he says. “Lucky guy. Afraid he’d find out you fuck women?”

They punch him in the jaw.

It’s a good, square punch. Thumb outside the fist and everything. He falls backward off his stool and that feels pretty awesome. Then he gets to his feet and grabs their wrists.

Dee hasn’t taken many self-defense classes outside a couple basic workshops held at various Pride events. LaFontaine did, though, so Dee twists their hands, finds the break between thumb and finger, and yanks back.

The bartender looks extremely unconcerned. Dee has time to think that they should probably take this outside when Total Dick swings at them. They dodge, but not very well, so the fist connects with the side of their face. Some absurd part of them thinks his hand will get stuck on the residue of the (very gross) bar. It doesn’t.

Things sort of happen very fast after that. They do go outside, and it’s kind of cold and Dee thinks they should have brought a sweater or something. They’re on the ground, and he’s on the ground (not at the same time) and they both land some punches or wild kicks or whatever they’re trying to do. His hair is longer than theirs, so they grab it and twist him around at some point, or maybe he does that to the collar of their shirt. It’s hard to keep track of.

In the end, they’re sitting on the curb at the end of the street with an Uber on its way and a lot of dried blood on their face. They just got into the fourth bar fight of their life. They think they maybe won, but they aren’t sure. They definitely made that homophobic asshole feel pain, which is good.

They’re sort of thinking about how Rachel is probably worried, and then they’re just thinking about Rachel in general and also Danny but mostly Rachel. They’re thinking about her with her knuckles wrapped in bandages and carrying Carmilla from the depths of hell or whatever. They’re thinking about the videos, about how they gave them all those fans who are sometimes kinda creepy but mostly cool and how they took their boyfriend.

They’re thinking about kissing her.

The Uber pulls up and they kind of fall into the backseat. The radio’s on low, mostly static with a little bit of pop music.

They mumble an address and they’re watching the streetlights out the windows, warm tears of orange and yellow. They’re thinking about all the terrible light and darkness they have seen.

“He was right about her,” they tell the driver, who looks completely noncommittal.

“Mmm,” he says, turning left.

“I think I like her,” they continue. “Like, like like her.”

“Congrats,” he says, very flatly.

“I’m kind of a mess,” they say. It’s hard to look at the road and the stars above it without seeing their own reflection. The blood is all over, splitting their face into LaFontaine and Dee, alive and dead, coexisting somehow.

They’re dropped off at the steps and they haul themselves inside, hoping Rachel will have gone to bed, tired of waiting up.

No such luck. She’s on the couch, and she’s so shocked and concerned and something in Dee twists their mouth into a smile even though they don’t find anything particularly funny.

Rachel is dabbing at their face gently, angry and upset and sweet. She has a nice face and she’s talking, she’s saying things she probably doesn’t mean, stuff like you bloody toaster, which isn’t a very good insult so she must not really be that mad.

Dee’s talking too, talking about how Ed was right, because he was, in a lot of ways. He was stupid and they hate him and his stupid face and stupid butt but he was right about some things.

They kiss her and she doesn’t tense up, not even a little bit. She leans in, kind of, almost like there’s a camera right there but there’s not.

They kiss her and they feel in control. All these gods, and they couldn’t keep them apart. All these gods, and Danny who loved Laura and LaFontaine who loved Perry, Dee who loved Ed, Rachel who loved (loves?) Amy, and what a tangled mess it is, how can something like love exist like this?

The door opens, and Amy’s standing there. Rachel looks up and Dee sits, eyes half-closed, thinking about how their nose hurts and Rachel’s lips are nice.

What a tangled mess it is.

Two months is not the longest time Dee and Amy have gone without speaking, but it’s up there. They’re not too concerned; they’ve done worse things to Amy than steal her gal pal, and she usually forgives them.

Rachel’s pretty torn up about it, though. Dee can sense her guilt from across the room. She’s really starting to fit in as a Canadian.

(Also, the job with their mom? She will owe them. For the rest of her mortal life. Not an exaggeration.)

So Rachel’s off learning how to be the world’s best flower girl (hopefully she’ll figure out the difference between dahlias and chrysanthemums; come on, even Dee knows that one), and Dee is pushing through their third-worst artist’s block in the past five years. The new apartment is quieter, and feels less like a home.

The music is almost to its highest volume, a song Dee never bothered to learn the name of. They take a sip of coffee, and this time it actually is coffee and not paint water. Small blessings.

They work for about three hours and they can feel that they’re almost past the rut. Maybe twenty more minutes of painting aimlessly, and they’ll be in the home stretch.

And then Rachel just sprints into the room, hat dangling off her ear like an absurd Christmas ornament and Dee quietly gives up their hope of getting anything else done tonight.

“Dee,” Rachel gasps, and then, with more urgency, “Dee.”

“What?” Dee says, attempting to find a place to set down their brush that won’t leave a stain.

Rachel just stares at them, somehow looking incredibly solemn while still panting.

Europeans. “How was your first day?”

“Dee, I-,” she stops, leaning against the wall. She swallows visibly. “There was-,”

“Slow down,” Dee says. “What’s going on?”

Silence.

“Rachel . . .”

“I saw Perry,” she blurts and suddenly the whole room twists like the knife in their gut and oh God, they need to sit down.

They don’t make it to the couch, instead dropping where they stand. They knock over the cup of paint water and it spills. They watch it spread across the floor, filtering the tile reddish. Perry.

No matter how many worlds they live in, Perry will always be the most important thing in them.

“Are you sure?” they say quietly. They know the answer.

“Yeah,” Rachel says, crouching next to them. “She was all in a rush, talking about- about buttholes, and her dog, and- never mind. Are you okay?”

A laugh scratches its way up their throat, almost mournful. Mother of fuck.

“Yeah,” they say. “Oh yeah. I’m great.”

“Dee-,” Rachel says, then stops. She looks regretful, some perfect mix of concern and sorrow, like she practiced it in the mirror.

“So, what?” they say. “You and-,” they can’t say it, they can’t say her name, “-you and her just stopped in the middle of the store and stared at each other? Like a fucking rom-com?”

“Well, no,” Rachel says. “I- I don’t think she remembers.”

Wow is that a punch in the gut. Dee’s laughter shakes, turning into more of a wheeze.

“I mean, she might!” Rachel says quickly. “I don’t know- I don’t know her situation.”

“She just strolled into my mother’s flower shop,” Dee says. “Perry.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “Yeah, she did.”

They’re both quiet for several minutes. All Dee can think of the way she looked after whatever it was Laura and Carmilla did, shocked and a little scared, standing in the Dean’s horrendous dress and trying to find a way to make it okay. To make it normal.

“I wish I could have seen her,” Dee says. The paint water is making little rivets through the cracks in the tile. “I- she was so close, and now- now she’s gone.” They’re not crying, okay, they’re not, it’s just- twenty-three years and she was a customer of their mom’s flower shop. Dee’s mom met Perry before Dee did, and it’s just- augh.

Rachel is quiet for a long time and then she says, “Do you know Cal?”

The fuck? “No.”

“She- she works there too. She does deliveries.” Rachel clears her throat. “On her bike.”

Is Rachel’s method of comforting friends just abruptly switching the topic? “Uh- good for her?”

“She- she knows the addresses of a lot of the shop regulars,” Rachel says, looking like she hates herself for even suggesting it.

Oh. Huh. That . . . was not something that had occurred to them.

“Okay,” Dee says.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” Dee says. They rub their knuckles, trying to figure out when this weird, elongated dream became their life. “I mean, it couldn’t hurt, right?”

It looks like Rachel thinks it could hurt very much, but she doesn’t say so. “All right,” she says slowly. “I guess I’ll go get the car started.”

Dee hasn’t been inside their mom’s flower shop since they were nine. Somehow, it manages to make them feel like a little kid all over again, following Rachel through the glass doors and staring at the colorful flowers everywhere. It always felt like stepping into another dimension, some fairy world where time passed slower.

There’s a girl strapping a helmet on behind the desk. She looks up at them and her brow furrows. Dee wants to melt into the floor.

“Hey, Rachel,” she says. “Did you . . . forget something?”

“Cal!” Rachel says, with a smile that looks a lot more like a grimace. “I was just . . . thinking, you know, about the woman who was in here earlier- with the curly hair?”

“Oh,” Cal says. “Rachel, look- you did fine today, don’t worry about it. Okay? There are going to be a lot of customers, you can’t beat yourself up about this.”

“No,” Rachel says. “I just, you know, wanted to apologize. Make sure she got what she needed, since I was so preoccupied.”

“I would recommend just letting it go,” Cal says. “You’re new, you’ll make mistakes. It’s fine.”

“I just want to make sure the . . . baby shower thing went okay,” Rachel says and wow, this isn’t working at all. “Do you . . . have her address by any chance?”

Cal raises an eyebrow and Rachel winces. “What?”

“Her address,” Dee jumps in, deciding that this is going nowhere without their help. “You know Rachel, can’t rest until she makes sure no one could . . . possibly be mad at her.” They dig their fingers into Rachel’s arm.

“Yep,” Rachel says, looking pained. “I can’t have her thinking I don’t care about her . . . butthole.”

Dee almost chokes.

“Do you mean buttonholes?” Cal says.

“That- makes a lot more sense,” Rachel says. “But still, I came off as sort of . . . standoffish, don’t you think?”

“No,” Cal says. “You came off as new. Seriously, going to customers’ houses when you think they might be unhappy with you is not a good business plan. Trust me.”

“Please,” Dee says, because if they get this close only for her to slip through their fingers, they’re going to scream.

Cal stares at them a long time.

“Why is this so important to you?” she asks and Dee doesn’t know what to say.

Rachel steps in. “Dee here thinks she might be an old friend of theirs. They lost touch a long time ago, but they were close in university.”

Dee tries to plaster their most innocent look on their face. “I just want to reconnect.”

“That’s really unconvincing,” Cal says. “But you know what? Fine.”

She leans over the counter and scribbles something in a notebook before ripping out the page and handing it to Dee. It has roses patterned along the edges, and GRACE written at the top. Underneath is the address, someplace not three blocks from the shop.

“Don’t do anything creepy,” Cal says, tossing a key to Rachel, who does a terrible job catching it. “And you’re last in, so you get to lock up.”

And with that, she’s out the door, leaving Dee feel a little dizzy and a lot unprepared for whatever is going to happen next.

Rachel squeezes their shoulder, watching Cal’s retreating back. “Ready?” she says.

Dee swallows. “Yeah,” they lie. “Let’s go.”

Rachel pulls into the driveway of a house that looks so Perry it makes Dee’s stomach hurt. The hedges are trimmed into perfect blocks, the grass is mown, and the roof connects with the brick in a very pleasing ninety-degree angle.

Rachel turns the car off and sits there, blankly staring out the windshield. Dee traces their seatbelt buckle, but doesn’t move to get out.

“Do you ever wish you could be more like them?” Rachel whispers, voice almost reedy with emotion.

Dee doesn’t say anything, fiddling with the top button of their shirt. They have an inkling as to what Rachel’s saying, but they hope they’re wrong. “What do you mean?”

“Danny,” Rachel says, and it’s the first time she’s ever said the name. “She was- she was so brave. Loyal. Selfless.” She touches the tip of her spine, as if remembering the knife, the dried blood. “At first, I mean.”

LaFontaine was smart. LaFontaine never gave up, no matter what. “And you think you’re not?”

“I don’t know what I am,” Rachel says, and she sounds close to tears.

Dee reaches out and takes her hand, squeezing it. “It’s okay,” they say, and they mean it. They’re these half-people, wandering around and trying to figure out the purpose behind everything that’s happened to them, and maybe there is no purpose. Maybe they’ll walk through that door and Perry won’t have the answers they’re looking for. Then what?

Rachel gives an undignified sniff and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “Thanks,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make this all about me. Do you want to knock, or should I?”

Dee opens the door, stepping out into the sun. They turn to look at the curtained windows. “I will,” they say, because they need to. This is their moment.

Rachel follows them up the path, actually wringing her hands. Something is churning in Dee’s stomach, and they don’t think they’ve ever been afraid like this. Gods and monsters pale next to Lola Perry.

They ring the bell, a tiny plastic circle smaller than their finger. They squeeze their eyes shut, unable to look at whoever will answer the door.

It swings open and Dee’s eyes are still closed. They can’t look. They can’t do it. LaFontaine would have been able to look.

“Flower shop girl?” she says and Christ, why didn’t Rachel warn them about her voice? It’s so much deeper now.

Rachel doesn’t say anything and Perry doesn’t say anything and Dee has to open their eyes, they have to.

Perry looks regal, like she’s a goddess again. She’s leaning against the doorframe, waiting.

She doesn’t remember. Dee knows immediately that she doesn’t remember. Her eyes flit over them, disinterested. Oh God, it’s her, it’s her hands and her eyes and her words, it’s Perry and Dee wants to throw themselves into her arms, see if she’ll catch them. They want to hold her and kiss her. They want to paint her.

“Perry,” Dee croaks, feeling like they’re going to throw up. “I- Perry.”

She looks politely disengaged. “Who?”

“Perry,” Dee says again, more urgently this time because who gives a fuck, really? They can’t believe they and Rachel spent two whole days tiptoing around each other. They should have grabbed her arm and asked her to be their lifeline. They should have talked about all the things they’re still avoiding.

Some things are more important than some random girl thinking you’re a weirdo.

They repeat themselves. “Perry, Perry, it’s me- it’s- it’s LaF-,” never in their life could they have imagined they would be standing here, going to pieces on these nice stone steps, introducing themselves as the person they can never be. Begging her, silently, to respond. To love them again.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “what’s going on?”

Rachel finds her words. Thank God for Rachel. Dee loves her too, loves her like they can’t breathe and maybe they can’t. Maybe they still can’t.

“Are you Lola Perry?” she asks, straightforward and to the point. “Do you remember us?”

“I remember you,” Perry says, still looking so damn confused and Dee wants to squeeze her hands until blood runs to her brain and reminds her. “You sold me- you attempted to sell me flowers this morning.”

“No,” Rachel says and how can she be so calm? “No, that’s not what we’re referring to.”

Dee wants to get down on their knees and beg. Say we’re normal now, isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what you always wanted?

“Would you like to come in?” Perry asks, sounding uncertain.

“No,” Rachel says, “no, I think it would be best if we got going. Dee?”

They nod. They can’t seem to move their feet, but Rachel takes their hand and pulls them and they detach. Perry’s standing in front of the door, forehead creased in such a familiar way. Tugging one of her curls- an old nervous tic. Dee can’t watch her anymore.

Rachel stops before getting into the car. “I’m glad you got to forget,” she calls, and then she ducks into the seat very quickly.

Dee swallows what feels like one of those spiked balls medieval people dragged around sometimes. They look out the window, determinately away from Perry. Rachel turns the key in the ignition and the radio comes on, a gentle song. It washes over them like waves on the beach they went to as a child, when the ground is disintegrating below your feet and all you can do is let go.

Rachel makes hot chocolate and they lie in bed together, knocking knees in a commiserative way. Most of the lights are off.

Dee remembers how it ends sometimes, moments like these when the rest of the world is stripped bare, leaving only hard truths. They had won. The evil was defeated. Laura and Carmilla took a long, romantic walk and Perry fussed over their eye and their scratches and Danny- well, Danny never did get a happy ending.

They remember that it was warm and things were growing in the gardens. Perry kissed them, which was nice. The sun had just started to crawl out from behind a tree when the towers fell, and by then nobody could have been saved. All that screwing around in magic and talismans and deities, all those things they could never have understood.

They had run. The school was coming down in a shower of stone and spark, great plumes of smoke reaching for the sky, for release. They had been hand in sweaty hand, tripping over each other. Victory was still in their blood, so close they could taste it.

The campus fell without drama or fuss. They fell with it, and they don’t know how many others.

They remember hurtling towards the ground, broken bones and promises, blood in their mouth, and then they don’t remember anything at all.

Rachel is asleep, mug tipped precariously. Dee rescues it and sets it aside. Somehow, they found each other across continents and oceans, and they built this home of second chances.

I’m glad you got to forget, Rachel had called to Perry, and Dee is too, sincerely. They’ve lived a life with the cruel aftertaste of death at the back of their tongue, counting stories. LaFontaine was a normal kid once, and Dee never got that privilege.

They pull the blankets around their shoulders. They look over at the girl who died twice and got back up again both times. Passing cars paint shapes across their ceiling, warped light filtered through the window.

“Goodnight, Danny,” they say, and they let sleep come.

#apologies in advance for the gross overuse of tags #i just don't think anyone ever goes on the coupleish ao3 page and i want people to see it #coupleish #couple-ish #carmilla #lafontaine #danny lawrence #kaitlyn alexander #sharon belle #fic #my writing

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vio1315 · 7 years

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ALSO 14 BC APPARENTLY I CAN"T READ?? Like that's one of the most interesting ones on the list anD I SKIPPED IT BY ACCIDENT

You are the kindest to me, thank you xD

14. Your OC finds themselves in your universe and you are their only contact. How well do they handle the adjustment and how would you try to help/hinder/contain them?

We go through the main 6 first, as always. And this reply can be extra long now that it’s a separate thing~

Skye would be so confused, but also pretty eager and easy to handle. Like she’d wanna get back home for sure, cuz heck, she has a family that needs her, but along the way of trying to figure out how to return, she’d be learning as much as possible. She’d be a regular wikipedia dweller as soon as I showed it to her. I’m assuming she’d magically be able to speak English, too. She’d think computers were like the most awesome thing ever, and nothing would really top it. I would help by googling solutions to getting her home and also teaching her how to navigate this world. I bet she would enjoy memes, actually. I’d introduce her to microwavable meals and I think this would be another highlight for her. She would love documentaries and probably cry a bit while watching them because they’d remind her a little of home

Gill would be probably 3x as anxious about things as Skye. He needs to get home like yesterday, and he’s already decided it’s impossible, but that won’t stop him. Despite this, he’s well mannered, and restrains showing any of this. He’d take some pains to learn cultural differences so he could operate better in this world. When he got more comfortable with the assurance that ‘time isn’t passing there, I promise’ he might chill enough to try and learn all the languages at once. Just for funsies. It’s relaxing. He’d probably act more like a grandma on a computer than Skye. Like not being able to nail down which bar is a search bar and which isn’t so well. Won’t stop writing like it’s a personal letter even when I explain it’s more polite not to. He likes googling things, but shies way far away from it when I explain that there’s bad sources, and he ends up being more of a library gremlin. It’s familiar, yet he can also get books shipped there, and heck, how nice. He probably thinks the lack of magic is total bs, but he keeps watching surgical shows. Probably watches the news 3 days straight when he discovers it, and then is quickly done with it and actually bothers with the computer again whenever there’s something current he’s interested in. Takes notes on everything. Thinks all the paper I have lying around is super cool. Eagerly has a special notebook for stuff he wants to tell people when he gets back. I help in the same way I help Skye, just with more reassurance. Oh, I also tell him that white hair is popular and people dye their hair that way (ON PURPOSE EVEN) so everyone will think he looks cool. He’d appreciate that.

Marth is the actual worst about wanting to get back home, and stays focused on it for much longer, even when I keep saying it’s something only I’ll be able to do for him -once I figure out how-

My poor son is very anxious for most of his stay as he can’t stop worrying about the others, even when told time won’t move there until he gets back. -I would tell none of them that I wrote them, so I can never quite convince him- I would probably sign him up for the nearest horse therapy thing I could get access to, or just horse riding in general, and that would help actually. He could hold my dog the other times, or visit my niece or cousins. This would help. He’s not a nerd like Skye and Gill, so he wouldn’t get too into the computer, though he’d be really blown away by some technology, I think a lot of it would just seem too similar to magic to him. Though he’d lowkey be really excited that he could use it too. He’d probably force me to do responsible things a lot, though. Like ‘Clean your room or I will remove everything from it and put it outside’ and like

‘we’ve been sitting inside all day while you stare at that thing’

‘I’m researching how to get you back’

‘no, this sounds too familiar, no. We’re getting food and also going outside’

‘but don’t you want–’ and then I am forcibly removed from my room.

I would probably help him by lowkey trying to teach him about mental health things, but he’d sabotage this by only being interested in what people he knows could have. I’d also never be able to leave him alone because he would absolutely go out and continue trying to interact with people as if he was back in his universe despite KNOWING BETTER because I TOLD HIM how to interact with them, but he’s a little troll that way and realizes there’s not many consequences. This is also his tactic to get me outside more. He’s troublesome, but also amaze, I have acquired another dad

Kydin would be really lowkey about how panicked he would be, because he always hides this type of crap, but internally, he’d be freaking out hardcore. Out of everyone, he believes me the fastest when I tell him that time won’t matter. And as soon as I explain things to him, he’s immediately turned all the panic into excitement. He’d drag me out and try to make friends despite me being like ‘uhm, you won’t be able to see them again once you go home so making friends is gonna be heartbreaking’ Nah, he doesn’t care. When someone mentions facebook in his friendship questing, I have to show him computers and facebook, and sign him up. He has like 100 friends the next day. He knows gossip about everyone in my neighborhood, and about people I’ve never heard of. He gets into TV hardcore. He particularly likes dramas, soap operas, comedies, and musicals. The comedy one is odd because he doesn’t get half of what’s supposed to be funny, he just likes the atmosphere of them. He stops me from researching a lot to try and get me to watch a movie with him. When I refuse too much he’d go out to a theater. Eventually he’s applying for jobs so he can go places with his friends. He’s basically started a new life within like 3 months. I ask him if he even wants to go home anymore, and he very genuinely and sentimentally tells me that he can’t wait to return home. He knows more celebrity gossip than I’ve known in my whole life. He knows more gossip about me than I know. When he finally does return home, everything in my community is disrupted. Who will they hire as a babysitter? Who will they get advice from for their woes? Who will help with the charity bake sale? Who will be the friend who you can ask to watch your dog while you’re away no matter how short of notice? WHO WILL CLIMB A TREE TO SAVE THE CAT AND ALSO MIRACULOUSLY SURVIVE THE FALL FROM SAID TREE?

Nobody knows, we only know that we will never be able to live life the same way again

Ariella is… an interesting one. She sees that she understands nothing of this world, and she’s angry about it. Why do we hug people when we see them after some time apart? What are we? Barbarians? And how can we speak in such a lax manner? Despicable. She will not hear of things like ‘different culture’ and ‘please calm down’ or even ‘it’s probably not super legal to carry around a real sword, oh gosh please stop’ NO, we are the ones who are wrong here. When I tell her that I’ll find a way to get her back, she feels satisfied with this, and somehow this is my actual job now. If I leave for work, it is cause for all kinds of scolding. How dare I.

Eventually, Ariella has decided that I’m one of the good ones, and there’s not so much scolding, though the sarcasm is more than I can handle anyways. She can never quite figure out how to interact with me in a way that makes me consistently happy, but she tries in her own way. She likes to go out on her own, and inevitably I follow from a distance. The world isn’t ready for her. I wasn’t ready for her. She discovers things like the news, and I show her how to use google, and soon she’s complaining to me about politics and certain laws that I had no idea existed. She does not notice when I have lost interest.

One day I catch her humming something from Disney, and refuses to answer how she knows it. Another day I hear her singing something from a screamo band. I never tell her that even though she’s singing it like a normal song, I’m well aware it’s from a screamo band.

She thinks running water is the most amazing thing in this world. She watches a lot of makeup tutorials once she discovers youtube. She likes to correct them in the comments. In the end I make her her own account so I don’t lose face. I avoid her a little bit, and she’s okay with this.

James is probably the least concerned about his new surroundings of anyone. He’s used to crap not making sense. He’s more surprised when he figures out it’s real, but still the most chill about this. He gets a job almost immediately, because he’s not okay with me supporting him. He decides his own rent after I keep refusing, and leaves money in my drawer. He’s fairly drawn to TV, but ends up doing a lot of research into his areas of interest. He rarely asks me direct questions and tries and figures things out on his own. After I’d taught him enough to use google, he actually used that for everything, and was the only one who grasped the concept quickly and stuck with it. This doesn’t mean he was at all good at understanding everything, as even google used a lot of terms he wasn’t familiar with, and inevitably I would find him struggling with something and just explain it in simple terms to him. He would always apologize for bothering me.

After some time he’d figure out that I’m not incredibly wealthy, and act a little more relaxed in some ways, realizing we’re essentially equals. He talks to me a lot more then, and lets me help him more. He starts doing all the yard work, and is really shocked when without prompting I give him permission to have a small garden. Tools like the lawn mower and such kind of frighten him, and at first he tries to avoid using them. With time he ends up really liking them.

He’s absolutely shocked when he learns that humans and animals are basically all there is. He keeps listing things like ‘centaurs’ and asking if they exist, and has no idea how to handle the fact that they don’t and never have. He finds it sad, and feels like they went extinct instead.

I would absolutely tell him that his feelings towards Ariella were mutual, and because he’d avoided mentioning a thing about his home to that point, he’d be very defensive and concerned for awhile, but eventually start asking questions. He’d start asking about if magic really didn’t exist here as he tried to figure out how I could know. I’d let him talk to me about everything he had to keep secret and complain as much as he wanted. He would resist at first, but he’d eventually do this quite often.

He ends up liking cars quite a bit, and is the only one who would be allowed to try and drive them, and aside from Kydin the only one who was very interested in them at all. Y’know, past the normal ‘oh gosh what is that’ stuff.

He’d be the only one to even suspect that I wrote his world and such, but honestly it’s only because I would only need to be open with him about it. He’s the only one who needs that kind of assurance that someone knows all the stuff he’s seen so he can speak freely about it. Ultimately he decides it’s something else though, because even though he’s the most open about being fiction, he ultimately can’t accept it. Particularly since he’s gone through such crap, and he can’t believe someone chilling on a couch with him showing him how to work netflix would be the one who did that.

#trintownsentill #OCs #Vio Speaks

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rsetton · 6 years

Text

The Powerbook, Jeanette Winterson

“’There is always a city. There is always a civilisation. There is always a barbarian with a pickaxe. Sometimes you are the city, sometimes you are the civilisation, but to become that city, that civilisation, you once took a pickaxe and destroyed what you hated, and what you hated was what you did not understand.’”

“‘I prefer real life.’

‘Why is that?’

‘No Surprises.’

‘Don’t you like surprises?’

‘Not since my fifth birthday when I was given an exploding cake.’

‘Could you eat it?’

‘The candles were little sticks of dynamite and they blew the cream and sponge all over the room.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Scraped it off the walls. Tried to act normal.’

‘Difficult...’

‘Oh yes.’

(Then she paused. The she said...)’To me that’s life--a cake with little sticks of dynamite on the top.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a life with no surprises.’

‘Oh, but it is. That’s just what it is. You see, I know it’s going to blow up in my face.’”

“I had planned my afternoon. Chance had changed it. Is chance the snare or what breaks the snare?”

“She held out her hand. What a strange world it is where you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo. I’m talking about the real thing, the grand passion, which may not allow affection or convenience or happiness. The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down. That’s the size of it, the immensity of it. It’s not proper, it’s not clean, it’s not containable.”

“I was typing on my laptop, trying to move this story on, trying to avoid endings, trying to collide the real and the imaginary worlds, trying to be sure which is which.”

“We looked like gods with feet of fire. We looked like lovers blazing for each other.”

“You said how great it would be if we all got a chance to walk the course before we had to compete.

I said we were walking the course all the time, but when the moment came to jump we still refused.”

“There’s no such thing as effortless beauty--you should know that.

There’s no effort which is not beautiful--lifting a heavy stone or love you.

Loving you is like lifting a heavy stone. It would be easier not to do it and I’m not quite sure why I am doing it. It takes all my strength and all my determination, and I said I wouldn’t love someone again like this. Is there any sense in loving someone you can only wake up to by chance?”

“The risks are interesting: do you aim for speed and a correspondingly greater risk of knocking off the poles, or do you take it steady and try for no faults?

The best riders manage both, but all riders are subject to the same rule: if a horse refuses to jump, he must be made to take it again. The rider must coax him round and convince him to do it. Horses have sudden fears.

So do I, but in this life you have to take your fences.”

“‘What I think of you and what I feel for you are different things.’

‘Do you usually sleep with people you despise?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘I want you to be my lover not my judge.’”

“You were sleeping.

Why does nothing matter as much as this?

How do you seem to write me to myself?

I am a message. You change the meaning.

I am a map that you redraw.”

“Follow it. The buried treasure is really there. What exists and what might exist are windowed together at the core of reality. All the separations and divisions and blind alleys and impossibilities that seem so central to life are happening at its outer edges. If I could follow the map further and if I could refuse the false endings (the false starts don’t matter), I could find the place where time stops. Where death stops. Where love is.

Beyond time, beyond death, love is. Time and death cannot wear it away.

I love you.”

“I like the way the morning can be stormy and the afternoon as clear and sparkling as a jewel in the water. Put your hand in the water to reach for a sea urchin or a seashell, and the thing desired never quite lies where you had lined it up to be. The same is true of love. In prospect or in contemplation, love is where it seems to be. Reach in to lift it out and your hand misses. The water is deeper than you had gauged. You reach further, your whole body straining, and then there is nothing for it but to slide in--deeper, much deeper than you had gauged--and still the thing eludes you.”

“I keep telling this story--different people, different places, different times--but always you, always me, always this story, because a story is a tightrope between two worlds.”

“There is no greater grief than to find no happiness but happiness in what is past.”

“’Isn’t there a better ending than either/or?’”

“She scribbled on a piece of cardboard out of her pocket, and pressed it into my hand, nervously, afraid.

‘Never show this to anyone.’

GENTLENESS”

“And so I discovered that love is a hazardous liquid.”

“The past is magnetic. It draws us in. We cannot help ourselves and, as with other things that we cannot help in ourselves, we make up elaborate explanations, reasonable rational explanations, to chant away the powerful things that don’t belong to us.”

“We were in bed together, watching the sun stream through the window. I was happy in a sad sort of way, because I knew this was never going to work.

Work. Not work. What do I mean?

If someone had told Mallory that he would climb Everest but die in the attempt, still he would have climbed it.

What does the end matter?

Here, now, is enough, isn’t it?”

“You had once asked me if I was afraid of death.

I said I was afraid of not living.

I don’t want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.”

“Dear love--with your hair like a bonfire that somebody kicked over--red, spread out, sparks flying. I don’t want to conquer you; I just want to climb you. I want to climb through the fire until I am the fire.

Love has got complicated, tied up with promises, bruised with plans, dogged with an ending that nobody wants--when all love is, is what it always is--that you look at me and want me and I don’t turn away.

If I want to say no, I will, but for the right reasons. If I want to say yes, I will, but for the right reasons. Leave the consequences. Leave the finale. Leave the grand statements. The simplicity of feeling should not be taxed. I can’t work out what this will cost or what either of us owe. The admission charge is never on the door, but you are open and I want to enter.

Let me in.

You do.

In this space which is inside you and inside me I ask for no rights or territories. There are no frontiers or controls. The usual channels do not exist. This is the orderly anarchic space that no one can dictate, though everyone tries. This is a country without a ruler. I am free to come and go as I please. This is Utopia. It could never happen beyond bed. This is the model of government for the world. No one will vote for it, but everyone comes back here. This is the one place where everybody comes.

Most of us try to turn this into power. We’re too scared to do anything else.

But it isn’t power--it’s sex.”

“Anyway, life is not a formula and love is not a recipe. The same ingredients cook up differently every time.

Take two people. Slice lengthways. Boil with the lid on. Add a marriage, a past, another woman. Sugar to taste. Pass through a chance meeting. Lubricate sparingly. Serve on a bed of--or is it in a bed of--? Use fresh and top with raw emotion.”

“I wonder, maybe, if time stacks vertically, and there is no past, present, future, only simultaneous layers of reality. We experience our own reality at ground level. At a different level, time would be elsewhere. We would be elsewhere in time.”

“I have no power at all. A relationship where one person has no power or negative power isn’t a relationship, it’s the bond between master and slave.”

“In your face, in your body, as you walk and lie down and eat and read, you have become the lineaments of love. When I touch you I touch something deeper than you. this touches something in me otherwise too sunk to recover.”

“Love wounds. There is no love that does not pierce the hands and feet. Love’s exquisite happiness is also love’s exquisite pain. I do not seek pain but there is pain. I do not seek suffering but there is suffering. It is better not to flinch, not to try and avoid those things in love’s direction. It is not easy, this love, but only the impossible is worth the effort.”

“All human love is a dramatic enactment of the wild, reckless, unquenchable, undrainable love that powers the universe. If death is everywhere and inescapable, then so is love, if we but knew it. We can begin to know it through each other. The tamer my love, the farther away it is from love. In fierceness, in heat, in longing, in risk, I find something of love’s nature. In my desire for you, I burn at the right temperature to walk through love’s fire.

So when you ask me why I cannot love you more calmly, I answer that to love you calmly is not to love you at all.”

“Yes. Always. Even when I never see you again. After speech, kisses. The silent movie of my feelings for you. Our lips say one thing and do another. We argue in English and make love in French. I kissed you and we were in that attic room again. Our private world. Our promised land.”

“The world is a mirror of the mind’s abundance.”

“There’s no guarantee that I will find what I’m looking for. Should that deter me? We all want guarantees these days--for rising damp, bank deposits, washing machines, computer compliance, pedigree status, stain remover, marriage and torch batteries. Is this all because life comes with no guarantees at all?

There are no guarantees. I just have to risk it.”

“Through the streets, you and I, and our footprints seemed to burn in the water. The steam rose up round us as we walked, as though our feet had been shod.

Shod or branded? You marked me that day and nothing can cool the wound.”

“I tell you this; the palace was empty. That is, it was empty of what is sought, and filled only with seekers.”

“Perhaps this is how it is--life flowing smoothly over memory and history, the past returning or not, depending on the tide. History is a collection of found objects washed up through time. Goods, ideas, personalities, surface towards us, then sink away. Some we hook out, others we ignore, and as the pattern changes, so does the meaning. We cannot rely on the facts. Time, which returns everything, changes everything.

A freak tide like this one uncovers more than we bargained for. Explanations drain away. Life is what it really is--a jumble, a chance, the upturned room of a madman. Out there I can see a fridge with its door off, and a coil of barbed wire, and a shopping trolley someone shoved off the bridge. I can see the heavy anchors patina’d with rust and decorated with barnacles. There are the rotten wooden pilings of old London--the driven stakes where the boats used to tie up. Now the pilings look like plugs of tobacco, brown and crumbling moist.

Underneath there, for sure, will be the broken barrel of a pistol and a cache of oyster shells. There’ll be a clay pipe and a billiard ball and a bundle of abandoned clothes. The end of one identity, the beginning of another.

Explanations drain away. History is a madman’s museum. I think I know. I think I understand, but it’s all subject to the tide.”

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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How Potentially Great Movies Got Derailed By Offscreen BS

Hollywood has proved that it’s willing to turn literally anything into a movie, from children’s toys, to Reddit posts, to E.L. James novels. So, if you ever notice a film-worthy property that has remained conspicuously un-adapted, you can bet your ass that it’s not for lack of trying. In fact, some of the stories behind these non-adaptations would make pretty good movies of their own (mostly comedies, with some hints of psychological horror).

Gore Verbinski’s R-Rated BioShock Movie Is Dead Due To Watchmen

Video game adaptations tend to be utter garbage for one simple reason: It’s hard to turn a plot like “portly Italian steps on hundreds of turtles” into a coherent screenplay. If there’s one game that could break the curse, though, it’s BioShock. Why? Because it already has a more cogent story than most movies.

2K Games Not to mention, way more diving suit-wearing mutants with giant drills on one hand.

The game’s critically acclaimed storyline (centered on a utopic underwater city created by a combination of Walt Disney and Ayn Rand) is ripe for the taking — and there’s one director willing to do it. Gore Verbinski of Pirates Of The Caribbean fame is a big fan of BioShock‘s “cinematic potential” and “strong narrative,” and we’ve already talked about why he would actually be perfect for this adaptation (assuming he doesn’t succumb to the Burton Syndrome and casts Johnny Depp for every part).

Verbinski was all set to shoot a BioShock movie in 2009, and fittingly for someone named “Gore,” he wasn’t planning to shy away from the game’s violence and general fucked-up-ness. In his own words, he “just really, really wanted to make it a movie where, four days later, you’re still shivering and going, ‘Jesus Christ!'” The movie’s concept art confirms that, at the very least, this thing would have been visually amazing:

2K Games

But then, only eight weeks before shooting started, Universal Studios pulled the plug. What happened? Apparently, Watchmen did.

Verbinski wanted between $160 and $200 million to properly recreate the underwater city of Rapture, but after Zack Snyder’s dour superhero slo-mo-fest underperformed, Universal got nervous about financing such an expensive R-rated film. Verbinski wouldn’t budge on the rating or the budget, so that was it. The studio tried to keep going with another director, but the same problems came up again. Eventually, BioShock‘s creators decided they didn’t need a stinking movie anyways.

We’d love to end this entry telling you that the recent string of R-rated genre hits proved those cowardly producers wrong, but it’s not that simple: Deadpool cost only $58 million, Logan reportedly $97 million, and Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t exactly make it rain (by Hollywood standards). Shooting an underwater city probably won’t be affordable until we’re actually living in one, so cross your fingers for more climate change, gaming fans!

We’ll Never See Guillermo Del Toro’s At The Mountains Of Madness Because Of Freaking Prometheus

Like his creation Cthulhu, horror author H.P. Lovecraft has managed to indirectly wedge his face-tentacles into everything you love. He’s inspired such disparate works as Dungeons And Dragons, Evil Dead, and even Conan The Barbarian — and yet, very few of his works have been directly adapted into movies. For instance, there’s never been a film adaptation of his classic novella At The Mountains Of Madness, the lovely story of a bunch of scientists who stumble upon forgotten horrors during an Antarctic expedition, and end up getting slaughtered or losing their minds.

Guillermo Del Toro, no stranger to giant monsters from other dimensions, has been trying to adapt Mountains for decades, but the project has been cursed by the unthinkable evils that rule the universe: Hollywood executives. Del Toro had a script ready as early as 1998, and at various points the project managed to attract serious interest from Warner Bros., Universal, and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Pictures. In 2010, Del Toro even convinced James Cameron to join as producer and had Tom Cruise in advanced talks to star (yes, we might have finally found out what Cruise looks like as an insane person).

The studios always ended up wussing out over the budget and dark tone, but Del Toro kept plugging away, convinced that this was something audiences had never seen before. That is, until he heard about a little movie called Prometheus. You know, the one about a bunch of scientists who stumble upon forgotten horrors during a galactic expedition, and end up getting slaughtered or crushed by slow-moving space donuts.

The similarities don’t end there: Both Prometheus and Mountains involve the scientists discovering an ancient alien race responsible for creating humanity, as well some ugly-ass monsters hell-bent on destroying said humanity. Del Toro didn’t want to cover the same ground as that film, so he announced that his project was on hold or dead. In 2013, he said he would give it one more try … and that’s the last anyone’s heard of it. Oh, well, at least there’s always the new Hellbo– Whoops.

Hamilton Won’t Be A Movie For Decades Because The Creator Just Said So

Chances are that you’ve never seen Hamilton yourself (tickets go from $175 to $2000 and are still constantly sold out), but you sure as hell have heard about it. It’s a freaking cultural phenomenon. The Founding Father-themed hip-hop musical won 11 of its record-breaking 16 Tony Awards nominations, largely for its ability to achieve the impossible: making people pay “could have bought fairly high-quality cocaine” money to see something pertaining to Alexander “National Debt Ain’t Nothing But A Thing” Hamilton.

Since Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is all about making American history more accessible to the masses, a movie adaptation would make perfect sense, right? So thinks everyone, except Lin-Manuel Miranda. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Miranda stated that if a film adaptation happens, it probably wouldn’t be for at least 20 years. Partially, he wants to make sure people come see it in theaters now (even though 99 percent of us will never have the chance) … but he also claims that the only good play-to-film adaptations are “all 20 years after the fact,” giving examples like Cabaret or Chicago.

The thing is, Cabaret was only made eight years after the play. West Side Story, The Sound Of Music, Oliver!, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Guys And Dolls, Hairspray — all had acclaimed movies within five to eight years of the musical. The Grease movie was released only seven years later, and people love that retroactively creepy crap. Does Miranda think it was actually made in the ’50s because of the wardrobes?

At most, those suffering from Hamilust will have to settle for watching a filmed performance of the play, but there are two problems with that: 1) Miranda says he hasn’t decided what to do with the only recording of the original cast, joking (we think?) that he’d throw it in a vault, and 2) no one in the history of humanity has enjoyed a fixed-camera movie of a play. You might as well sneak into one of the inevitable rip-off productions that high school drama clubs will be putting on for years to come.

Steve Carell’s Real-Life Comedy About North Korea, Pyongyang, Was Shelved Because Of The Interview

North Korea has been responsible for a lot of terrible things over the years, but there was one time when they actually tried to save us from a lurking danger we ourselves didn’t fully understand: Seth Rogen’s The Interview. In what we naively thought would be the most bonkers international incident of this decade, Kim Jong-un’s regime took offense at something in the movie (presumably the part about Rogen and James Franco assassinating him, but maybe they’re just tired of stoner jokes) and allegedly hacked Sony Pictures in retaliation.

As a result, most screenings of the movie were cancelled and the film was banished to the wasteland of home video.

However, this Chinese food-fart of a movie wasn’t the most tragic casualty of the Sony hack clusterfuck: that would be Steve Carell’s Pyongyang, which was a story that actually deserved to be told.

Based on a 2004 autobiographical comic book, Pyongyang details author Guy Delisle’s experiences in the North Korean capital, where he worked as the liaison between a French animation company and a local studio. That studio’s signature creation, by the way, is an adorable propaganda series starring a squirrel and a hedgehog, imaginatively titled Squirrel And Hedgehog.

Because of his particular role, Delisle was given unprecedented access to parts of the country usually hidden from outsiders. His book is a retelling of all the bizarre things he saw and experienced in that crazy-ass regime — a concept that apparently made Gore Verbinski’s ears perk up when he heard about it. In 2013, New Regency announced Verbinski would direct a “dark comedy” based on the Delisle’s experiences, and eventually added Steve Carell as the lead. It would have been an intriguing combination of awkward situations …

… and the obligatory “creative liberties” Hollywood would have taken to make the story more like a spy thriller. Either way, expect a lot of Carell screaming in panic.

Unfortunately, thanks to Rogen shoving his dick jokes into the nuclear hornet’s nest, the movie was dead before it could really take off. New Regency didn’t think they could risk a controversial movie of their own, while Verbinski welcomed the possibility of World War III, stating, “I find it ironic that fear is eliminating the possibility to tell stories that depict our ability to overcome fear.” To which the studio probably responded: “Yeah, but nukes and shit. Right?”

The Catcher In The Rye Will Never Get A Movie Because Of A Terrible Version Of Another J.D. Salinger Story

J.D. Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye has long been considered by hipsters (and assassins) to be the greatest book against phonies ever written. Holden Caulfield’s story of self-discovery mirrors that of many a pissed-off, surly, uniquely rebellious teenager — so, all of them, basically. That probably explains why entire generations of actors, from Marlon Brando to Leonardo DiCaprio, have tried to get the movie done with themselves in the lead.

The problem is that, like his boy Caulfield, Salinger was on a bit of a crusade against the phonies of the world — and to him, no one was phonier than Hollywood (not sure how he got that impression).

Salinger didn’t always feel that way. Early in his career, he sold the rights to his short story Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut, a commentary on materialism in the post-WWII era. According to his assistant, Salinger “thought they would make a good movie,” which wasn’t an unreasonable assumption considering that the script would be written by the screenwriters of Casablanca, Julius and Philip Epstein.

So what did the Epsteins do? They changed the name to My Foolish Heart, ditched all the social commentary, and turned the story into a sappy romantic tale.

Even though the film was a commercial hit, Salinger hated it so much that he refused to allow any more adaptations of his work. Including Catcher In The Rye. Of course, there might be another reason why he turned down all those offers from famous actors: According to his one-time girlfriend, Salinger thought only he himself could play Caulfield. It’s probably a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Anyway, if you excitedly thought that Salinger’s death might finally bring about a Catcher adaptation, then you’re 1) a shitty person, and 2) wrong. The people who manage his trust were fully aware of his aversion to licensing out any of his works, and will continue his crusade for generations to come. On the upside, think of all the murders from illiterate would-be killers we’re avoiding this way.

Jordan Breeding is a part-time writer, a full-time lover, and an all the time guitarist. Check out his band at Skywardband.com or on Spotify here.

Behind every awful movie is the idea for a good one. Old man Indiana Jones discovers aliens: Good in theory, bad in practice. Batman fights Superman: So simple, but so bad. Are there good versions of these movies hidden within the stinking turds that saw the light of day? Jack O’Brien hosts Soren Bowie, Daniel O’Brien, and Katie Willert of After Hours on our next live podcast to find an answer, as they discuss their ideal versions of flops, reboots, and remakes. Tickets are $7 and can be purchased here!

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