#but the place is a shit hole that treats employees terribly

[ms-hells-bells]

got fired today

#fucking sucks #but not unexpected #i was largely keeping quiet about my work #but the place is a shit hole that treats employees terribly #horrible HR #my union fucking despises them #time to call work and income and organise an appointment #and apply for more jobs asap #i have been applying for three months but doing interviews around work was so hard #now it'll be easy at least #they knew i was trying to leave which didn't help my case

[floatinginwords]

Saved by the Devil (15/?) - Tommy Shelby

Summary: More stuff after Epsom and a bit of of Tommy pov. (im sorry about these summaries im terrible)

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x fem!reader (Romantic)

Warning: Mention of death and blood.

A/N: Not my best but yea. im getting the hang back i think? i dont know...feedback would be great. thanks for reading and hope you all have a good day and are treating yourselves well. 

  The drive was quiet.  Neither of you two spoke and honesty you were glad for the silence. Your thoughts were loud enough as it is. Polly didn’t drive you far until she spoke or more like laughed. It sounded like a mad women’s laugh. Your stomach did flips as you could recall the laugh at your stay in the asylums from time to time. You don’t dare look at polly hoping her eyes stayed glued to the road. You didn’t want to see any glint of madness that was in her eyes. You didn’t want to ask any questions that might just pop out of your mouth. You had enough running through your mind. You had your own shit to go through.

Once you entered the city part you could see that the path polly was taking was to Adas. You didn’t want to go there.

“Polly, you can let me off here.” You say, looking at some random street corner.

She scoffs “Its getting dark and you wanna walk the rest of the way? I thought you were smarter than that.”

You don’t say anything. She continues speaking, “Just tell me where you wanna go.”

 “just pull over Here, Polly.” You say.

 She doesn’t say anything as she listens to your orders. She looks a bit annoyed but you don’t have to explain yourself. You leave the car and take one last look at Polly.

 “Thank you. I appreciate it.” You say.

 She nods. “You should call Tommy when you get home. Im sure he’ll want to hear from you.”

She starts the car and leaves you by yourself. You watch the car fade in the distance. You think of Thomas wondering if he’s dead or nt. You shake your head at the thought. You cant afford to think of that right now.

You walk the route that you’ve memorized that is Trinities place. Your there in no time. As you go through alleyways, hiding in the shadows, not wanting to take any chances. You know now that your paranoia was not just something to torture you.

You run up the stairs. Ready to pound on your best friends door, take what you needed and say a quick goodbye. But her door is ajar. You take the knife off your thigh holster, kicking your shoes off incase of a getaway and walk in slowly.

 The apartment is a mess. Books and glass litter the floor. Furniture is upside down. Curtain torn down. Blood stained on the walls. You gulp as the blood stains lead you to the bathroom. You follow. And your heart breaks as you see Trinity her face toward the ceiling. She looked dead with all the blood that covered her neck but her shallow breaths told you she was still holding on. You drop the knife, fall to your knees, struggling to hold the tears that you thought had already ran out today.

 “…(y/n)..”trinity struggles to speak, blood splats out of her mouth.

 “don’t speak. Don’t worry its gonna be alright. Its gonna be-be okay.” You looked around the bathroom, it was in such dissary you didn’t know what supplies you could use to help her. Though you knew that the amount of blood lost was too much. It would not be okay.

 Trinity grabs your shirt and brings you close. You can smell the copper in her breath. “Leave. Its- its under the-the painting.” She whispers. Her grip loosens and her stare loses focus. You sob into your friends chest.

  You look under the only painting that Trinity had in her apartment Its of a little ship sailing in the sea. You never understood why she liked it. You take it off its hook and find a moderate sized hole that holds the bag of contents that you had asked her to hide for you. You finally had everything. It was time to finally leave. You took one last look at your friends apartment feeling bad you couldn’t give her a proper burial. You know she didn’t have a religion. You grow resentment that no one in this apartment building helped her. You find a match in her drawer and some alcohol. You make a trail through the apartment down the stairs of the building. Not before leaving with some of her jewelry and dress. Needing something to remember trinity by. You light the match and throw it with ease. Th building lights up in flames. You could hear the screams pleasing for help. But you walk away heading toward the train station with a heavy heart.

 Tommy’s P.O.V

 Thomas was taken to a field. His face a mixture of boredom and anger, his soon to be killer don’t care what he feels. Hes been on the other end of this and he didn’t are what his victims felt. He thinks of your face. The way you called his name. He wonders what your doing, if you got home safe. Surely you did. His brothers, Polly, one of his many loyal employee would have sought to it. That’s all that mattered. That you weren’t here facing the type of death that he was about to.

He asks for a last cigarette. The captors allow it watching him descend into an anger that he can no longer hold in. He was about to have everything.

‘Well not everything’ he thinks of the night where he almost got to kissed you and what a missed opportunity that was. He should have gone after you told you how he felt then. But it seemed to be to late as the man pressed the gun to his temple. He will make his piece with death. I mean how could he not when for so many years, he has been the reaper for so many.

 But instead of the bullet going through his skull, marking the end of Thomas Shelby’s life, he’s pushed into a grave and two shots ring off. One assassin stand while two bodies drop. He lays in the grave, confused and very alive.

The standing assassin simply says, “At some point in the near future, Mr.Churchhill will want to speak to you in person. Mr. Shelby. He has a job for you.”

For a moment he is stunned. He was so content with the thought of death merely moments ago and here he was alive in a grave meant for him. The man tells him to go. And Thomas wastes no time walking away toward a life he fully intends on enriching and keeping for a long time. Hopefully you get to be apart of it too.

Read pt.16

tags

@babylooneytoonz @captivatedbycillianmurphy @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat @evelyn-4034  @ms-dont-care  @owenniasstars @shikin83 @lauren-raines-x @cactisjuice

#Tommy Shelby #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x you #Peaky Blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #fanfic

[thessalian]

Thess vs Exploitation

Seeing a post that I don’t want to hijack because it does make a good point, but I do want to add to it because it’s both a good point and a terribly oversimplistic one.

Basically, the message is, “The world as it is? The mess that capitalism’s become? It’s all our fault”. Because ... well, the example given was a cheap T-shirt. A bargain that “no one can resist”. One that we buy “Not for best, no, but it’s good enough”. One that earns the shopkeeper like five cents and the sweatshop worker who made it a penny at most. But we keep buying it.

Yeah, for some people, this is a true thing. For others? Here’s the thinking about that $1 T-shirt.

“Okay. Here’s a T-shirt that costs $1. I know that this was made by underpaid, overworked, abused people and earns some corporation more than it does anyone who actually did the work. ...But the thing is? I need a T-shirt, because all the other cheap ones I had to buy in the same circumstances have holes in them. And if I buy this T-shirt instead of making do with the ones with holes in until I can afford a better one, I get a healthier and more varied diet this month instead of subsisting on ramen again.”

The corporations that benefit from the state the world is in? They make damn sure that their exploitative model stays a self-perpetuating cycle. We don’t get paid enough, so we have to settle for cheap crap that is made by abusing people who get paid even less, and those people? They’re generally waved in our faces about how lucky we are to be paid a pittance and the threat is that our job could go to someone who’d be happy to settle for less, so we stick with it because a pittance is hard to survive on but easier to survive on than nothing, so we don’t get paid enough. And on and on ad infinitum.

We do need to accept that we are fuelling this self-perpetuating cycle of abuse and corporate exploitation. Thing is, there’s a difference between acceptance and blame. Blame suggests that we could do better if we wanted to badly enough. That we lack moral fibre. That we’re greedy and lazy and credulous. That we’re bad.

No. No, we’re not bad. The odds are stacked against us. Even those of us who desperately want to do right and do try to aren’t actually helping, because the corporations have arranged it that way. That more expensive t-shirt? Still sweatshop labour. Often the same ones that made the $1 T-shirt. Just they paid someone else a pittance to put a nice design on it. Maybe it lasts longer, but that’s because people treat it better because it’s more expensive.

Some of us - most of us - have to choose between the most ethical option or the one that actually provides for our needs. That is not our fault. It’s not our fault that we have to choose between patronising places that seem to treat their workers more ethically (but probably don’t) and going without, or patronising places that we know exploit their workforce and having enough to live. Not just ‘survive’ - live. I get that we want to be better people, but when you’re in a crashing plane, you put your own oxygen mask on first before you start helping others with theirs.

There is no ethical consumption under late stage capitalism. This isn’t something that people can fix with a change of spending habits. Given the sheer number of other interests any single corporation has, all they’d do even if a mass boycott got big enough to lose them even a tiny bit of money is to keep it as a tax write-off. This kind of shit has to happen at an international, corporate level. It’s going to take international standards on employee welfare, pay, food safety, goods quality, everything. This cannot be solved by one person, or one generation, denying themselves ... especially not when it comes to goods that are required for survival, like food and clothing.

And honestly, is this really the time to give people grief about buying as cheaply as possible? In the middle of a pandemic? With unemployment at a record high? When lockdown gets essential workers bullied about coming in despite government advice, giving them a choice between staying home (losing them shifts and possibly getting fired) or coming in despite government advice (risking them getting sick and at best not being able to stay home even when they test positive so spreading more disease, and at worse ending up in the hospital with no health insurance or, worst of all, dead)?

I know that this situation is tailor-made for exploitation by corporations. There is literally nothing we can do about that. Just for right now, maybe chill on the “BUY ETHICAL OR DON’T BUY AT ALL”. You can’t buy ethical anyway - it is literally impossible the way capitalism has been set up - so forget it. Maybe it would have been possible when this trend started way back when, but I can tell you from having watched through the eighties on up that that ship has sailed.

I don’t know of a polite way to say this, but it has to be said: video games are made in very exploitative environments. The CEOs are jackasses who do mass layoffs when they want to line their pockets, and force their underpaid staff to work in some cases up to 100 hour work weeks during crunch periods that last for months. These are non-essential items, and we buy them. Maybe when reblogging that post about how it’s all our fault that capitalism is how it is (when it isn’t; we’d have to go back a few decades to get to a point where we could have stopped this) where they cite essential items like clothing? Maybe consider reblogging a different post about non-essential items instead, or adding a note about the difference, or even just not reblogging it because it’s drastically unfair. Honestly, I’m not even blaming anyone for buying video games at this point; mental health is as important as physical health, and sometimes a good distraction and a bit of retail therapy helps. Plus all denying yourself all things that make you happy does is trigger or deepen depression and depth-charge one’s sense of self-worth Just ... I guess it’s kind of a combination of “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and “before removing the mote from my eye, attend the beam in thine own”. I get wanting to save the world from the capitalist nightmare it’s become. I want the same. I’m just realistic on how we do it. It’s not about boycotts; we’re well past that. It won’t help. All we’ll do by blaming people is cause more mental health issues in people than they already have, at a time when we need fewer, not more.

Just ... be kind to people, rather than even indirectly judgmental. You don’t know what they’re going through, and their reasons for doing things. Don’t shunt blame from the corporations onto the people. It was wrong when it was done regarding the environment, and it’s wrong now. We win through votes and lobbying our politicians, not through boycotts and bullying those who won’t or can’t do the same.

Incidentally, this message is brought to you by the country that literally wants to strip down employee protections about the maximum-48-hour work week and paid leave and any accountability about employee hours (even as they say that the proposals leaked in the Financial Times are lies, somehow), so I have a feeling I’m going to be finding out a lot about employee exploitation in the next couple of years.

#Thess has opinions

[lunafeather]

9 for the kiss prompts?

Hey I don’t know if you saw that I posted my response to this on AO3 (I was taking a break from tumblr at the time!), so I totally forgot to answer this ask and shit, I hope you saw it on AO3.... I’ll post it here, too, just to be safe haha

9. Fuck You Kiss

------------

It becomes a routine:

Put the kids to bed, stay up prepping their lunches for the next day, entertain Dean until he finally collapses onto their air mattress, then sneak out when he’s dead asleep.

She usually drives to Boland Bubbles in silence, her mind whirring, picturing the numbers in her head and rearranging them in a way that’s believable, but profitable, in a way that her husband won’t catch on -- not for a long while, anyway.

The parking lot is empty as she pulls in, the building ominously dark. She knows its dumb, but she wedges her keys between her fingers anyway as she leaves her car and treks to the employee side entrance and lets herself in. The motion sensor lights flicker on as she makes her way down the hallway, peeking into the warehouse to make sure it all looks kosher, doing the same with the break room and then the mood room, her eyes sweeping through the one pink tinted light they leave on for good luck, and she’s just about to turn away --

She screams when she notices the shadow looming in the corner of the room, hands in its pockets, seemingly staring into the hot tub they always have filled for customers to test out before buying.

Rio meanders closer, into the light, and Beth should have known it was him, of course it’s him, it’s always him. Still, she presses her palm to her chest, against the harsh thudding of her heart.

His eyes track the movement with interest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she hisses.

He smirks, that dumb, handsome, terrible and infuriating smirk. “That any way to greet your boss?”

Beth rolls her eyes and stalks away, not waiting for him. He won’t answer her, and he’ll eventually follow her to the office planted in the center of the show room. She doesn’t have the time nor the patience to entertain him.

He appears in the doorway a few minutes later, leaning his hip against the frame, and she has to resist the urge to look up from the papers in front of her to properly take him in -- but she can see him in her peripheral, sees the black beanie tugged low over his ears, the charcoal grey button up shrouded by the black coat with the one white button hole, the loose black jeans and the black and white sneakers.

He’s found a color scheme he likes and stuck with it, and she can respect that -- her brain chooses to focus on this thought instead of the overwhelming surge of want that flows through her, the frustration prickling at her skin -- frustration with everything that’s happened between them, frustration with this business not being hers, not really , frustration with how fucking beautiful he is. He’s taken to sporting a full beard lately, trimming it instead of shaving, and it drives her to distraction when they’re in the same room together, many times Rio just staring at her while she tries to fight the blush at the memory of that beard against her thighs, of her fingernails running through it.

The worst part is that she’s convinced he knows exactly what it does to her.

All of this lust, all of this attraction, had been a lot easier to keep at bay when she was convinced he was going to kill her at any moment, reap his revenge with three matching holes -- his and hers -- blasted in her body, and when she was consumed with the desperation for survival, convinced she needed to get rid of him first to save herself.

This stalemate of theirs makes it too easy to slip.

So she ignores him.

She can feel him smiling at her.

Still, she’s the first to break the silence.

“How did you get in?”

Rio shrugs, doesn’t answer.

She didn’t really expect one anyway.

“You worried about bein’ all alone in this big warehouse in the middle of the night, baby?”

He smiles when she glares at him.

“Maybe if you told me how you got in, I’d be able to keep the place more secure.”

His eyes are dark, framed by those thick, long lashes. “Nah, where’s the fun in that?” he murmurs.

They stare at each other for a moment.

“Well, if you didn’t need anything, I’ve got some work to --”

“Why you keep coming here at this hour anyway, Elizabeth?”

Her brows furrow. “How did you --”

He tilts his head, gives her a look.

“Are you still having me followed?” she splutters.

He shrugs again, faux nonchalant, sticking his lower lip out and then pursing his lips.

“I thought we moved past that.”

“Oh, what, you think I’m s’posed to trust you, after everything?”

Beth tips her chin in defiance. “I mean, I did bring you this idea--”

A bark of laughter, devoid of amusement. “Nah, sweetheart, that’s not how it works and you know it.”

Her mouth settles into a hard line, and she lets her expression go blank. “Fine. But if that’s all --”

“You never answered my question.”

She can’t help it, she squawks, indignant. “I’m sorry, when the hell have you ever answered --”

“Why you keep comin’ here in the middle of the night?”

“Will you let me speak?” She’s not proud of losing her temper, never likes to let her emotions slip around him, especially not now, so she balls her hands into fists in her lap and tries to channel her anger into them.

Rio watches her, waits for her to say something else, but she doesn’t have anything else, was mostly annoyed at him cutting her off. His eyebrows hit his hairline.

“Oh, that it?” He takes three long, slow steps towards her, his fingers sliding along the edge of her desk -- well, Dean’s desk, but just for now, just until she can wiggle her way in -- stopping at the corner and leaning over it, hands splayed. “Cause I thought maybe you were gonna tell me why you sneakin’ around your business, fudgin’ numbers. Why your husband still thinks he runnin’ the game and callin’ the shots.”

Beth swallows. “I told you, it’s going to take some time for me to convince him to let me handle the books. He can’t know you’re involved, or he’ll --”

“He’ll what?” Rio sneers. “Go runnin’ to the cops, the FBI? He still refusin’ to see you’re the one who bossed up and pays the bills, huh? Guess what, darlin’, I shot him once, nothin’ stoppin’ me from doing it again.”

She’s not sure what reaction he’s expecting, but she has a feeling that her cool indifference isn’t it. He squints at her.

“If you let me take care of him, it won’t come to that.”

“I ain’t got time for you to try to pussy whip your dumbass husband --”

“Excuse me?”

“You should be pullin’ in way more cash than you are, so I’ma need you to stop gaggin’ on Dean’s dick and get your shit together --”

She’s up and in his face before she realizes what she’s doing, jabbing her finger into his chest. “How dare you!”

Rio snatches her hand and holds it away from them both. “Don’t.”

His voice is rough, a warning, but she doesn’t catch it, blinded by her fury.

“You don’t know anything about my marriage, about what I’ve had to do, what I’ve had to sacrifice!” Flailing wildly, she yanks her hand from his and goes onto her toes to get onto his eye level, waving her hand in his face and prodding him again.

“Elizabeth,” he growls.

“I will not let you degrade me, or treat me like --”

And then his mouth is on hers, effectively shutting her up. The kiss is rough, angry, desperate and filthy -- Rio’s hands cup her ass and lift her onto the desk, then slide up her back to mold her body against his, her breasts wedged against his chest and spilling out over her v-neck sweater. Beth wails into his mouth and clings to his shoulders as he steps between her thighs. He ravages her mouth, alternating rubbing his tongue against hers and sucking on it. She sinks her teeth into his lower lip hard enough that she thinks she tastes blood, and he groans and twists his fingers into her hair to yank her head back and expose her throat.

“You think about my tongue in your mouth when you kiss him, mama?” he says against her skin, sucking a hickey below her ear.

She scratches her fingernails against his scalp, helpless in his arms and writhing against him. One of his palms lowers to her ass to hold her in place, not allowing her to seek out any friction.

“You close your eyes and pretend its my cock fillin’ you up, makin’ you beg?”

Beth moans as his voice vibrates against her ear, pleasure singing down her neck and across her shoulders, threading through her spine and pooling at her tailbone. He grinds his hips into hers, and she can feel how turned on he is.

“He can’t make you come like I can, huh, baby? Gotta wait til he’s passed out and touch yourself, but your fingers aren’t enough, are they? Can’t reach inside you the way mine can.”

Those fingers clench in her hair, forcing her eyes open to meet his stare, his eyes dark fathomless, drawing her in and smothering her. She tries to lean forward, to kiss him again, but he keeps her still.

“He ain’t me,” he growls. The words tumble out from his lowest register, like he pried them from deep within himself, from a place he never lets see light, dripping with possessiveness and pride, and maybe even hurt.

She shakes her head. “He’s not you.”

Almost like he doesn’t want to hear it, like he’s already said too much, revealed too much, he crushes his mouth to hers again, and this kiss feels like a punishment and a plea. Beth lets it consume her.

And just like that, he’s releasing her, both of them panting as he steps back, putting some space between them and looking at her like she’s hexxed him, woven a spell to lure him, tempt him. And then the mask is back in place.

“You got a week to get your husband in line,” he says as he wipes their spit from his chin with his sleeve. He turns to leave, but stops in the doorway and looks over his shoulder. “And you better get a gun if you gonna be spending this much time here alone. Need to protect yourself.”

She arches an eyebrow at the implication under those words, that she needs to protect herself from him.

Beth’s got a feeling that his intentions are a little less murderous and a lot more carnal.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll empty the clip this time?”

His responding grin is slow, feral, like he’d been hoping she’d say that.

“Nah.”

And then he’s gone.

#Brio #NBC Good Girls #I still have like 10 kisses to do so I won't link the prompt list #sorry for taking so long to answer this! #I wrote this on the 9th then forgot I should have answered the ask haha #my fic #Luna writes #inyoursheets #ask answer

[youreonyourown-kid]

One thing I hate about people arguing against raising minimum wage is "What AbOuT The SMalL BusiSNeSS"

Is that...small businesses can have shitty bosses/owners too.

They'll have just enough good will to be viewed positively by the community. Good product. Friends with the right people.

But treat employees like shit, and just deal with replacing them when that time comes.

And most of these shitty people? Have plenty of money to pay their employees a decent wage. But they are also the cheapest motherfuckers alive. So they well pay as little as they legally can, or just as likely as little as they illegally can that a person is still willing to accept.

And I cant speak for everyone who works for those kind of employers. But when I was in those situations, I had terrible self-esteem, and would convince myself I was worthless. I knew I shouldn't even try to get another job cause I was dumb and lazy and didn't have any options.

Im in a much better place now, both work wise and mentally. But that is a very deep hole to crawl out of; especially when you don't have money cause you're barely being paid.

Anyway $15 minimum is a start but thats not even enough so we should definitely all be fighting to get at LEAST that.

#minimum wage #politcs #us politics #fight for 15 #is that still a thing? #buisness #anyway fuck anyone excusing shitty wages #no matter the job #working sucks #even when you're in a good place

[ohwereusingourmadeupnames]

Eye-opening memory and memories of romance/love and death/loss for the Coffee shop owner!Peter/Mechanic!Tony verse. I just love them so much

do the thing, send in all the prompts 

I saw this & got really excited because fleshing out Tony and Peter’s characters in that verse is something I’m very much looking forward to. Maybe this will push me to do a second part of Counting Airplanes (fingers crossed!) Thanks for the prompts, @stark-bb. I hope you enjoy! 

✈ - an eye-opening memory

Tony asked Peter to start living with him about a year into their relationship. It made the most sense - they were much closer to both workplaces and Tony’s spot had just a bit more space. Aside from that, Tony would’ve had a hard time adjusting to somewhere new - he felt pretty firm about that. Luckily, Peter didn’t seem to mind; his boyfriend appeared to simply enjoy the entire process of making space and moving his things into Tony’s house - it probably wouldn’t have mattered if they moved into a closet. 

For the most part, the transition into being both lovers and roommates was pretty seamless - Tony didn’t mind the extra noise that Peter inherently brought with him, or the second set of breakfast dishes in the sink to clean when they cooked later on. Peter brought a sense of calm to the house that didn’t exist when it was just Tony and the empty spaces. Though his dreams didn’t go away, the haze in which they kept him in started to dissipate a lot earlier. It didn’t take him days to escape - Peter’s arms could bring him back within moments. 

The one thing Tony didn’t quite understand was the way Peter left Q-tips laying around all over the place. He started to notice it when he found one on the coffee table - and then again the same day on the dresser on top of the clothes his boyfriend dug through earlier while getting ready for work. Peter liked to dig in his ear every time he walked into the bathroom - but Tony figured that was just a habit he got into and never stopped. After a couple days of finding them in random places, Tony really started to pay attention. 

Finally deciding to approach him about it, Tony grabbed the one he just found on the junk table sitting with his random nuts and bolts that he’d eventually use. “Hey, Pete - what’s up with the Q-tips?” Tony asked - he followed Peter into the kitchen and admonished it towards him. “I find them in the most random places - I can’t decide if it’s cute or weird.” 

Peter sucked in a breath in an attempt to hold in a laugh - and quickly lost the battle. His face got red and his lips parted as the hearty sound came out from the depths of his chest. “I was wondering when you’d start to notice.” Peter gasped out through the laughter. “When I was a kid, I used to get really terrible ear infections. I’d put the Q-tip in my ear to relieve the pressure. It started out as an innocent thing, leaving them everywhere. Then, I noticed how much it pissed May off and it became this little game. For some reason, I just sort of fell back into the habit when I got here.” 

Tony tilted his head and wondered for a moment how so pure of a person actually existed. For whatever reason, the little ‘hide the Q-tip’ game felt like Peter getting comfortable and settling in, even if it was a little odd. Though he constantly thought about what it would be like to have Peter with him forever, Tony realized in that moment that he was going to marry Peter Parker.

He loved that adorable little Q-tip bandit more than ever. 

✤ - a memory that involves romance/love

After Tony asked him to marry him, Peter spent a good amount of time planning the day. Despite his anxiety, Peter was pleasantly surprised when Tony agreed to have a reception and small ceremony - he could tell that his fiancé wanted to give him what he wanted. A little bit of thought and consideration told Peter that anything bigger than their friends and family would probably be pushing it, no matter how much Tony wanted to put on a brave face. They weren’t far from Red Rocks, so he figured a little hike into the depth of the mountains wouldn’t be a bad start to their little nuptial ceremony. 

Trailing behind him and Tony, MJ, Ned, May, Steve, and Rhodey were all chatting amicably. Ever since the two of them got together, Peter’s friend group quickly integrated themselves into the gaps and spaces that existed in the close knit crew that surrounded Tony. Peter didn’t have any issues getting along with the rugged men, and when they got MJ and Ned’s approval, he was more than content to let the melding of their favorite people start to happen. The natural way it did just showed how right it actually was. 

Dressed casually in soft linen preacher collared shirts, white for Peter and a dark blue for Tony, the two of them stood in front of their selected family members and tied their life together. Steve, the big sap that he was, didn’t even make it through the first couple of minutes before starting to cry. His small talking part before they exchanged their vows was littered with sniffs and breaks to wipe his eyes. He felt Tony grip his hand tightly, the two of them sharing a look - Peter caught the very second his soon-to-be husband relaxed into the caress and really started to enjoy the moment. 

Tony didn’t do a lot of talking, but the soft delivery of his vows was something Peter wasn’t sure to ever forget. 

“There’s a lot of things I could say about love and promises and all the things I want to give to you. I want all of those things, but I think the most important thing to say in this moment is that you’re the safest place to be. Where you are, I’m home. When I’m with you, I know I’ll be safe - even when the darkness creeps in and I get pulled under, you’re there; you’ll always be there. I love you, Pete. Always.” 

Grinning, Peter neglected the traditional procedure and pressed his lips against Tony’s - he couldn’t possibly wait a second longer. He stepped back and shot a reluctant look over his shoulder - “I couldn’t help myself.” The laugh he got was just enough to keep him from losing his shit and crying tears of genuine happiness. What Tony said spoke volumes - louder and more robust than anything fancy or rehearsed would have been.  

☤ - a memory of death/loss

One of the first things Peter talked Tony into doing when they moved in together was get a pet. Since Tony wasn’t the biggest fan of taking care of himself, let alone another living thing, they opted for a hamster. It seemed silly, two grown men going from pet store to pet store looking for the perfect one, but since it felt like a monumental step - it needed to be right. The black and white ball of fluff walked right into Peter’s hand when the employee opened up the cage at the fourth Pet Smart they tried. Neither of them needed anymore prodding - they got the necessary stuff (and some that wasn’t) and took Oreo home. 

Watching the hamster roll around in the little ball was more entertaining than it had any right to be. They set Oreo in it when they were in the living room or standing around the kitchen putting dinner together. Though he spent most of his time running over either of their feet, the little rodent seemed to enjoy it. In a way, Oreo opened them up to something outside of themselves. He didn’t require much taking care of, or effort at all, but they decided to go all in. For the two of them, Oreo was a vital piece of the family. 

The unfortunate event of his passing brought a somberness to their house for a couple of days. Peter went to give him his morning treat and take him out for a spin in the ball and found him hard as a rock - the shout Tony heard from their bedroom had him sprinting down the hall, his battle training kicking in almost immediately. Seeing Peter holding the still animal gently in his hands made his heart hurt instantly. The little hamster dug into their hearts and made a home - even if he was only there for a few months. 

After sitting around the house in a cloud of sadness, Tony left Peter on the couch with a soft kiss to the head. They were done at both of their shops for the day and trying to relax. Tony couldn’t, though - not with the grief that was radiating from Peter in thick waves. Thinking on his feet, Tony drove back into work and set about making the perfect little headstone for the hamster - they had a huge backyard that would be the best resting place for their adventurous little pal. 

It took a bit of coaxing, but he managed to get Peter in the backyard after he dug the hole and got the box into the ground. He took a couple pieces of junk metal sitting around and welded ‘Here lies Oreo’ across the top of it. It wasn’t much, but it marked off his forever home and kept his memory alive. Getting the dirt over the top of the box and patting it down, Tony felt arms wrap around his hips when he stood up again. Peter leaned into him, his weight warm and solid against Tony’s side. 

“Thanks, Tones,” Peter mumbled, his lips pressing against Tony’s cheek for good measure. 

#stark-bb #starker #ironspider #bobbie writes

[savage-rhi]

Sky of Atoms: Death Stranding Fanfic Ch. 5

GENE 3.0

“C’mon Dawkins, keep it up!” Gene heard one of her coworkers shout towards her as she began loading more scraps into the incinerator. Bits of cargo and packages that couldn’t be recycled had a first class ride to hell itself at Brisk HARPY. Gene was sweating like she had been trapped in a sauna for hours, minus feeling refreshed and restored after the fact. She stopped briefly, wiping off the sweat that creased into her brow before shoveling another large pile into the open flames. Gene hated it when she got recycling duty. Sure, she could do the work no problem but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. Not to mention she was getting fed up with her partner Ned for not picking up the pace and leaving most of his part for Gene to take care of while the bastard was on lunch. Unfortunately for Gene, automation wasn’t accessible for this kind of work at Brisk HARPY. 

Gene recalled the UCA making up some sort of excuse, couldn’t risk putting expensive equipment out in the West yet due to the high amount of colonies and drifters who could potentially steal it all. That’s why it was important to keep getting more groups to join the cause, so people would have access to technology that was very much limited to the East Coast.

Gene was beginning to have a groove going on regardless of how much she hated this part of the job. The trap like beat playing above the speakers in the incinerator chambers kept her moving. This genre of music was old, but her ears could stomach it compared to most crud her coworkers insisted on playing. Occasionally she whistled to the song as the lyrics would come soon joined by a small chorus of her coworkers doing the same thing as they piled more heaps of metal into the pits. It wasn’t all that bad when people actually did their job and didn’t throw it onto another.

“Dawkins!” Gene’s head rose up as she adjusted the straps of her tank top, making sure to keep the protective pads secure so the flames wouldn’t melt her clothes off. She looked up at her boss--Stark, and let out a puff.

“Yeah? I’m kind of busy here!” She said as a matter of fact before Stark gestured her for her to get a move on and meet with him in person. Gene took off her gloves, tossing them near the locker units for someone else to deal with before letting an older coworker know she wouldn’t be able to finish the job. Usually when Stark showed up, one of two things would happen: he either had a job for you, or he was about to chew your ass out. In Gene’s case, she wouldn’t be surprised if she got both handed to her.

Brisk HARPY paid good, but management could’ve been better in Gene’s eyes. Sometimes she couldn’t blame Stark for being pissed off most days. The UCA had some unrealistic expectations and deadlines for Brisk HARPY compared to the likes of Bridges and their co-partners Fragile Express. It was enough to turn anyone into an asshole twenty four seven regardless of professionalism.

“Good news Dawkins, your numbers are looking good.” Stark started off as he lead Gene into his office space, taking a seat and gesturing for her to do the same across from his desk.

“What’s the bad news then?” Gene asked, bracing herself as Stark raised a brow at her like she was a petulant idiot.

“Wow, you’re really pessimistic you know that? I don’t always bitch you out.”

“So I’ve been told many times, and yeah, you kinda do.” Gene said matter of fact.

“I didn’t call you to rip your asshole a new one. Not this time at least. I got another delivery job for you, its UCA top priority.” Stark said as he began messing around with his cuff link, going through some paperwork before he sent it over to Gene and then gestured for her to check it out. Gene went through the motions, fingers tapping away as she looked over the details. Occasionally, her eyes widened seeing how much red tape was in this delivery.

“What do you say, you up for it?” Stark asked, snapping Genes attention back to her boss.

“Yeah, it’s damn good pay. Long trip though. I’m gonna need to pack and need any porters heading back west to restock the safe houses to the best of their ability.”

“You know that’s not always a guarantee, but I’ll put the word out.” Stark said which Gene appreciated. Despite him being a callous jerk most times, he did have his moments where he could be understanding. Stark had been part of the porter industry ever since it first got started. Once upon a time, he was running around much like Gene was, trying to make people’s lives easier delivering goods and getting paid handsomely. The years of endurance could visibly be seen on him along with the hardships he endured. Despite being in his late fifties, he was in good shape save for the many scars and old bullet holes that littered his arms and face that told many stories. He had his share with death on the job lord knows how many times. Lost count, if Gene recalled correctly when Stark was pressed to answer one day by another associate. Stark was under the belief that most porters were getting too ‘cozy’ now in terms of their work, being too trusting of folks after the UCA was fully established along with the chiral network. Gene agreed with him to an extent, but he was older and a bit out with the times. Things were getting better in the world since the BTs left. He seemed stuck in the past.

“Not for nothing, but do you know what exactly I’m going to be delivering?” Gene asked curiously as Stark grunted, giving a shrug of his shoulders.

“I have no fucking clue kid,” he said and took out a cigarette, lighting it up with one of his mechanical fingers on his cybernetic right hand, giving a few puffs before continuing. “UCA sends their shit down the grape vine, you poor souls end up with what I got. Make sure you’re well prepped and don’t be getting your foot nearly hacked this time. You saw the paperwork, can’t afford the likes of MULE’s or god knows who to snatch this off of you. It’s literally my ass, whether you make it back alive or not and I’m not in the mood for the UCA to potentially charge me in the courts cause you fucked up.”

“If you don’t have that much faith in me, then why assign me the job?” Gene asked, her tone somewhat defensive as Stark once again grunted after taking a drag from his cigarette. The bitter smoke flew into Gene’s nostrils as she adjusted in the seat to avoid getting hit with the brunt of the smell.

“Because you’re the only competent porter I can think of at Brisk HARPY. Even though you’re late on delivery more so than most dumbshits here, your records a clean slate. I know you wouldn’t meddle with whatever the hell the UCA needs sent to that particular colony. You’re good at long stretches too. I estimate you being out in the field for three weeks at most unless you bump into trouble. I don’t normally say this, but take your damn time and make sure no one or anything gets near the package.” Stark gestured his cigarette at Gene almost as if it were a stick and he’d hit her upside the head if she said anything otherwise. Gene merely nodded and got up from the seat, ready to go back to the grind at the incinerator chambers.

“There anything else I need to know, Stark?” She asked.

“Yeah, on the way to the UCA client you got a couple deliveries. I’ll patch them to you on your cuff link. You should get cleaned up, get some rest and be ready to head out on the double. No lollygagging. Move your ass Dawkins.”

Gene snorted, letting out a small laugh at Stark’s jerk off streak then left the office. The first matter Gene took care of was getting some grub after working recycling for most of the day. Brisk HARPY was connected to a colony-state via underground networks and such. The facility housed up to two thousand people. A quarter working for Brisk HARPY while the others worked with the UCA or general labor. Gene liked how large the communal cafeteria was.

There were over four hundred people currently occupying the space. Some enjoying coffee and fruits grown by the nearby city, and others bullshitting about their jobs and family life. Most people came to Brisk HARPY for work, so it was interesting for Gene to see families actually living here. Many were displaced because of the terrorist acts Homo Demens carried out within the last two years. Brisk HARPY’s facility was one of the safest in the Western part of the UCA in terms of keeping terrible folks out. The place was fortified to the point where launching a bomb wouldn’t do shit to the structure or stability of the establishment. It was no wonder families were beginning to seek residence here, but that meant trying to find some way to incorporate them into the culture. Most folks in the Brisk HARPY sector had no family and had no intentions of creating one. Hell, some of her coworkers purposefully chose to work for Brisk HARPY because they wouldn’t have to be in the presence of kids in particular. Gene lost count how many folks called the children around the place crotch goblins among other unique nicknames. She was indifferent to children, not exactly maternal but understood it wasn’t the kids fault they had to live here and so Gene treated them like any normal person unlike some of her own coworkers.

Gene went through the cafeteria line, settling for some slices of bacon and a huge portion of potatoes. It had been a month since she had either. Slowly as people began to reclaim land and such, growing things like potatoes and having tech to produce genuine bacon was gaining traction. Foods that were thought to be long lost due to the Death Stranding were coming back.

A couple of the older kids living in the facility came by, high fiving Gene and greeting her as she took her tray over to a small table nearby a screen overhead that went off about the weather and the latest sightings of Homo Demen’s and MULEs. Occasionally, there would be some product placement and commercials from other carriers trying to get Brisk HARPY employees to seek greener pastures, but most folks were in it for the long haul. Good luck trying to get a lot of the geezers to quit. Gene thought to herself as she started gorging herself on the mashed potatoes. The aroma made her stomach ache as she consumed the meal. Gene hadn’t eaten in two days, so this was much needed. Sometimes working the incinerator chambers didn’t leave much time to take a break as there was a lot to melt down due to parts not being recyclable.

As another infomercial about Homo Demens came up, Gene’s mind began to wander while she ate. She thought about Higgs. He hadn’t sent word or anything for over three weeks. She was beginning to think maybe he made up the pizza request just to get her to shut up and take off. It seemed in character enough for him, though like she had told Higgs earlier, Gene was beginning to feel guilty for not returning the favor. He saved her twice. She didn’t like needing to be rescued by anyone, but the few times it happened on the job, she always made sure to pay it forward and then some. Gene felt like she cheated Higgs out of something.

“Seriously I shouldn’t give two shits.” Gene said to herself as she began scarfing down the bacon on her tray. Her mind drifting further to what happened weeks ago. Gene’s foot was healed, but her upper left eyebrow was still healing from the various punches David had given her. It still stung from time to time if she moved her eyebrows a lot. Gene was worried she had resting bitch face often due to it.

“How did he know David?” Gene said aloud to herself, recalling the strange interaction Higgs had with the Homo Demens member. Had Higgs been a terrorist before? No, the man was a bit of an ass but Gene didn’t think he had it in him. Higgs seemed to have knowledge of the porter life, so maybe he had done jobs for them. Many porters were well known for dealing under the table, especially if their main employers were not supplying a sufficient income. Some didn’t care who they worked for, so long as they got their money at the end of the day. Gene herself had done similar side gigs when it got difficult to take care of herself, but there were certain lines a porter doesn’t cross. Terrorism being a huge one.

“Hm?” Gene quirked up, seeing her cuff link was buzzing and she quickly opened up the screen. There was a new message in her inbox. She shifted through most of her junk mail, going to the new email.

Chikadee--

That foot of yours fell off yet? Time to pay your savior. Coordinates to my terminal are 30-25-351-201. Bring me nothing but the best. Extra cheesy for old time's sake. 👍🏻

“Speak of the devil,” Gene said as she shook her head, letting out a tired laugh. She wondered how Higgs managed to track her IP on the cuff link. The cuff links could work long distances, but at Brisk HARPY due to MULE’s hacking to track package routes, it was nearly impossible to break the code. Regardless of the uneasiness she felt towards Higgs, a deal was a deal. She was looking forward to getting her debt to him paid off so she could move on. Gene began to input the coordinates, noticing that the way they were encrypted guaranteed that Brisk HARPY couldn’t track it. She furrowed her brows, feeling a slight sting on the cut above her eyebrows. She rubbed it as the healing wound began to itch while trying to make out how far he was. Fortunately enough, Higgs was close enough to her UCA route. Gene could easily make her small deliveries and then pay him a visit before moving on with the top priority package. Piece of cake. Gene felt confident she had this in a bag. Now came the hard part as she shut off her inbox: what in the hell did a guy like Higgs love to drink alcohol wise? Her eyes widened slightly, feeling a bit nervous at this task. He requested alcohol, but never specified the type or brand. Same with the pizza minus the extra cheesy bit he left in the message. Gene searched her memory, recalling he said something along the lines of he would have whatever she was into. She wasn’t sure if it was some sort of power trip thing or if he was legitimately curious as to what she liked. Not to mention ordering pizza through a porter when he could have had something more expensive in exchange for saving her butt caught Gene off guard. Higgs was an odd one.

The days came and went, and Gene got done with her small deliveries save for the UCA package and Higgs’s odd request. The parcels of medicine that needed to be distributed to a nearby settlement was easy enough. Only thing that bugged Gene about that experience was the guy that worked for another small porter company trying to recruit her. The guy was like a pop up add in human form, wouldn’t shut up.

Gene had to scale a tall mountain pass to get to Higg’s base. She cursed him for it a few times, nearly falling more than she could count. Gene pat herself on the back for bringing extra security for the packages. At this point, if she hadn’t done it, the pizza Higgs wanted would be as good as gone, tumbling down some cliff and into a crevice by now with how much she lost her grip. Upon reaching the summit, Gene found herself having to climb down a ways, getting back to flat earth and about one hundred and twenty yards away, she could see the signature terminal and entry point into a facility up ahead.

When Gene arrived, she paused to get a good look at the place. It looked abandoned. There were scraps of metal and other mechanical bits scattered around. Some weird looking eyes and scarabs made from various broken parts of machinery decorated the outer part of the building, giving the ruined facility a persona of its own.

“Didn’t take the asshole for being an artist.” Gene said aloud, finding some of the weird sculptures Higgs seemingly made to be cool in their own right. He had a lot of time on his hands given how intricate and detailed some of the pieces were. She even bent down to check out one small sculpture that looked like an ankh. Gene wasn’t familiar with Egyptology, but knew enough to know what it was. She was beginning to wonder if maybe Higgs was a cultist. The few she met seemed to latch onto ancient cultures, Chinese, Egyptian, or what have you and latched onto their beliefs like it was a holy scripture.

“God I hope he’s not really like that.” Gene muttered under her breath, recalling the last time she made a delivery run for a cultist that it ended poorly. She was given a low score to Brisk HARPY because she didn’t want to hear for three hours why some spaghetti monster was going to descend from the heavens and save everybody. Stark chewed her out for it. Apparently spaghetti monster man, as Gene liked to call him, was a top paying client and he threatened to cut ties with Brisk HARPY and move to Fragile Express.  Humans were fruitcakes, the lot of them in Gene’s opinion, but said fruitcakes paid the bills.

Finally going to the terminal to deliver the goods, Gene was a little perplexed at the machinery. The tech was a little outdated, but once she figured out how to insert her key card into the system, it began to boot up. She put the pizza and the canister carrying the alcohol on a conveyor belt watching as the machinery took it behind the walls of the bunker. Gene waited patiently for Higgs to pop up and say something through the hologram projector. Nothing came of it. She raised a brow, scanning where Higgs should have been up and down. Suddenly a ringing pierced her ears, causing Gene to nearly screech as she covered them and a weird chipper voice began to speak.

“H-hey this is Peter Englert. Who is this speaking?”

What the actual fuck? Gene thought to herself as she put her hands down and looked around. Wondering if this was some kind of joke.

“You still there?” The nervous light heart voice asked once more.

“Higgs? It’s me, Gene. Your pizza and the alcohol you wanted is here. Nothing damaged.”

There was no response. No response for three minutes straight. Gene was beginning to feel odd and slowly began to walk backwards, intending on making a beeline out of the terminal area and back up the mountain and over the pass. She stopped when suddenly the door behind the terminal opened and Higgs stepped out. He was dressed casually, looking like he just stepped out of a shower given how his hair was slicked back and the scruffy beard he once had was trimmed down to almost nothing save for some little bits here and there.

Maybe I was too rough with the neanderthal comments. Gene thought then raised a brow as Higgs smiled at her. There was no malice in it, for once.

“Took a little longer than I expected. Figures with rookies.” Higgs said with a laugh as Gene tried to restrain herself from rushing up and slam dunking his face into the ground for the comment.

“You have any idea what I had to do to make sure this delivery was off the books?” Gene spat, earning an amused chuckle from Higgs.

“I’m sure it cost you an arm and a leg maybe even a foot,” he said, tone teetering on the edge of teasing as Gene realized it was an offhand comment about her foot injury from before given the sarcasm that dripped from his tongue.

“Har, har. Look I gotta run. We’re square now, so will you leave me a review, and pay my employer so I can get this show on the road?”

“Gee let me think,” Higgs rubbed his chin, looking as if he were trying to solve some great puzzle before his gaze fell back onto Gene, lips curving into a signature smirk. “No.” He said playfully.

This was going to be a hell of a night. Gene thought to herself, wondering exactly what Higgs had in store.

Tagging:  @kusooi​

#death stranding #its got higgs in it you thirsty bitches! #higgs monaghan #higgs x oc #fanfiction #fanfic #if you want me to tag you when i do a chapter update just hit me up #also on ao3

[meggie-jolly]

Messing up the Freshly Made Bed

Word count: 1609 Rating: G Fandom: Captain America (Movies), MCU Written for: Stucky Remix 2020 (@stuckyremix) Inspired by: Pillow Fight (Art) by @the-steve-bucky-ship  Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers Summary: Steve and Bucky are undercover as cleaning staff in a Hotel. Who's brilliant idea was that? Everyone should know that Steve “Captain fucking America” Rogers, national icon extraordinaire was a bad choice for pretty much all undercover missions. Links: AO3, Fanfiction.net 

Steve and Bucky were undercover as cleaning staff in a hotel to gather information on a potential Hydra operative.

How anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. had thought that two super soldiers, one of which had a metal arm, would make convincing maids at a fancy hotel was beyond Bucky. He was very good at undercover work and blending in, but even he had limits.

And Steve “Captain fucking America” Rogers, national icon extraordinaire was a bad choice for pretty much all undercover missions.

Nonetheless here they were, and after a few very confused looks and questions from the head of staff, they had been hired. Those looks had nothing on the looks from the other employees though. Luckily the hotel was high brow enough that all guests pretended the staff didn't exist. Even they spared a second glance when Buck's metal arm glinted at them from the gap between his fancy starched shirt and the gloves.

The person who had decided that white, starched collared shirts with long sleeves would be a good uniform for cleaning was almost as bad as the person who picked them for this mission. They were uncomfortable, hot, wrinkled as soon as you did any cleaning and got stained way too easily. Plus, the hotel didn’t really have sizes that were equipped to handle a metal arm or a shoulder to hip ratio of someone like Steve. So they were too tight on top of all other problems.

Between the fact that Bucky and Steve had grown up in a time when the only pride people could take in their Brooklyn homes was keeping them perfectly clean, the army, Sarah Roger’s lessons in making beds the hospital way and Bucky’s questionable experience in cleaning up crime scenes, the cleaning part of their jobs wasn’t a problem. Though all the different tools and cleaning agents confused them from time to time. Why did they need so much stuff if a bucket of water, some soap and vinegar, a couple of rags and maybe a brush would do the trick? Though Bucky had to admit these micro fibre cloths really worked like a charm to clean glass.

One thing was for certain though, there was no job better suited for snooping than the cleaning staff. You were required to rifle through things and all the tools needed to clean up any evidence of your snooping were right there and not suspicious at all.

It didn’t take them too long to find incriminating evidence, and from then on out they laid low and kept their eye out for any more evidence until the Hydra operative checked out. The plan was that Clint and Natasha would follow him in the hopes that he would lead them to one of the higher ups. Bucky still thought it would have been easier if the teams switched and Nat and Clint did the undercover work, but he was just following orders.

Not that he thought Clint and Natasha weren’t capable of following the Hydra guy. He had seen them in action and he was not suicidal enough to doubt any of Natasha’s abilities. He had helped train her after all. Fuck, this train of thought would get him in trouble with her no matter what. Implying he was in any way responsible for her skills? Almost as bad of an idea as implying she couldn’t do something. And he knew very well that Clint would either help her in tearing him limb from limb or stand by watching and laughing his ass off. Steve probably wouldn’t be of any help either.

But either way, Nat and Clint would follow and catch the operative, while Bucky and Steve would give their notice and return home, standing by in case they needed help. Which they wouldn’t because they were Natasha and Clint. So this whole mission was boring and annoying. Rich people were terrible slobs who treated their rooms like pig-sties. And they didn’t even leave proper tips! They were rich for fuck’s sake.

Bucky chose to ignore that both he and Steve had somehow ended up with a lot of money due to Army back pay and the fact that they lived rent free at the Avengers compound which made this fancy hotel look like a dump. It was the principal of the thing.

So yeah, cleaning the room of a businessman who was clearly here with his mistress, judging by the lingerie and the wedding ring that was hidden in the bedside drawer, was not engaging enough to keep his mind from wandering. Hopefully the Hydra guy would leave soon. This was getting tedious.

After two more weeks he finally checked out and Steve and Bucky were assigned to get his room ready for the next guest. Which was more work than expected.

“What did he do in here?" Steve asked once they entered the room. "It looks like a bomb of stray bedding and mini toiletries exploded.“

Bucky just shrugged. “Who cares. Let’s just clean it up, look if he left anything behind and then give our one week notice.“

“You’re right. You wanna take the bathroom and dressing room, I’ll take the bedroom.“

“Deal, but I’m taking this ridiculous shirt off. This one is even more stiff and scratchy than the others.“ He shrugged it off, carefully hung it over a chair to avoid wrinkles and headed to the bathroom in his undershirt. Steve followed suit, which was a little surprising, since he usually followed any uniform regulations to a T.

The towels were soaking wet for some reason and every little soap package was ripped open. What a goddamn idiot! Bucky got to work and had the bathroom cleaned quickly. The most interesting part was always the trash. Seriously, you would think a relatively high level Hydra operative would know not to throw important information into the trash without so much as ripping it up, but that was exactly where they had found the incriminating evidence. Bucky seriously had no idea how Hydra had lasted so long if they had idiots like that.

The bathroom trash was boring this time, but the one in the dressing room produced a slip of paper with a phone number on it. It did say cab company, but it was handwritten, so it was at least worth a follow-up. Bucky pocketed it and made his way back to the bedroom where Steve was placing the ridiculous amount of pillows back on the freshly made bed. Knowing Steve, it had perfect hospital corners and was tight enough to bounce coins off.

Steve’s stupid Dorito shape was only emphasised by the white undershirt and the fancy black pants and Bucky couldn’t help but stare for a moment. The effect was even stronger when Steve turned to him and gave him his patented Steve smile. Which was distracting and unfair, especially because they had stuck to being completely platonic for this mission. They had hoped to draw a little less attention that way and since the public didn’t know about Captain America dating the Winter Soldier they didn’t want it coming out, because S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t know how to pick people for undercover missions.

For now he decided to distract himself and get back at Steve for being so Steve by taking one of the freshly fluffed pillows of the bed and whacking him with it.

Steve’s expression was one of such utter surprise and confusion that Bucky almost fell over laughing. So much for the battle hardened, tactical genius that couldn’t be fazed by anything.

But then Steve used his fit of laughter to get him back with another pillow.

“That’s for messing up my freshly made bed!“

Bucky laughed and grabbed another pillow to throw it at Steve.

“That was just one pillow. But this—” He used Steve ducking out of the way of the pillow to grab the blanket off the bed and lunged across to throw the blanket over Steve’s head and pull him onto the bed. “Is messing up the freshly made bed.”

Steve let out a loud yelp and started to struggle against the blanket while Bucky tried to wrap it more tightly around him. Both of them giggled uncontrollably and eventually one of them ripped a hole in the blanket.

“Shit, that wasn’t supposed to happen. You would think a fancy place like this would have sturdier blankets.”

“We are Supersoldiers you punk. I highly doubt blankets that sturdy exist.” Bucky corrected Steve and then decided to fuck it and ripped a pillow open just above Steve’s head to shower him in feathers.

One of them floated so close to Steve’s nose that he sneezed, which in turn blew feathers into Bucky’s face and more importantly his hair which made Steve dissolve into giggles again.

“You… look…” He was struggling to get the words out between laughter. “Like a… flock of... birds attacked… you.”

Bucky tried to use his murder scowl, but it was impossible with all the laughter, the feathers and the adorable way Steve was sprawled out on the bed.

“You have even more feathers stuck to you - you just don’t have my fabulous hair that provides contrast,” he mocked instead and pressed a quick kiss to Steve’s lips before grabbing another pillow to continue their fight.

The fight grew more and more heated and probably would have turned into something else if the door wouldn’t have opened to reveal the manager of the hotel.

Her face said it all and Bucky turned to Steve to say with a smirk,

“Well at least now we won’t have to quit.”

#fanfiction #stucky #MCU #captain america #the winter solider #bucky barnes #Steve Rogers #Stuck remix 2020 #Pillow Fight #mine #the-steve-and-bucky-ship #remix #inspired #fanart

[howtolistentomusic]

Dear people that think the Goodwill wants to sell your Ziploc baggie of used crayons: it doesn’t. That shit goes directly into the trash, right on top of your broken furniture. Surely you mean well when you donate, say, an old dresser with a busted leg. But good intentions can’t magically transform a ragtag crew of temp agency employees into proper handymen. 

If, however, you need an informed opinion on one of those homemade mixtapes that sometimes find their way into the warehouse, I might be your man. 

Once upon a time I managed to con my way into the world of online music writing. As one might expect from a blogger haughty & naive enough to write under the banner How to Listen to Music, many of my insights have aged terribly. But I was constantly learning from the best critics, journalists and bloggers in the field and HtLtM was gaining steam before my fragile discipline collapsed under the weight of increasing visibility. I still believe deeply in the merits of the template I created to analyze songs on Youtube, which was unlike anything on the internet before or since. Maura Johnston seemed to like it, at least. 

And yet I failed miserably at turning these creative endeavors into a sustainable career. So here I am, handling donations at my local Goodwill warehouse for minimum wage. Today old man Kenneth and I are inside the container, which is the detachable part of a freight truck the drivers dump on the dock for the roll-off team to unload. We’re placing the donations on the open edge for the guys outside to grab and toss into gaylords. Yes, the thick cardboard boxes with an open top we place on pallets to store donations in are called gaylords. And yes, my coworkers think this is hilarious. Death, taxes, and “they’re calling you!” from one roll-off laborer to another every time the term is overheard. 

***

“You dropped this,” Kenneth says as he hands me a crate of CDs. 

“If there’s no Justin Bieber, it’s not mine.” I say.

“You better cut that shit out!” David says. 

“He’s joking,” Donald tells David. 

I laugh.

“I know you!” Donald says.

“Dude, I’m a poptimist.”

“A what?“ 

Let’s start by pointing out that it’s a hell of a lot easier to be an "authentic” artist, as a certain orthodoxy of criticism dictates one should be, when your very existence isn’t under constant attack. You’re in luck, straight white dudes! Again. What a coincidence. 

Poptimism basically says nay! to all the noise. The Beatles go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Gaga goes to Mars to get more candy bars. Or college, I suppose, if your childhood sucked.

“It means I listen to pop.” Among many other genres, to be very clear. “Top 40. All the stuff you guys probably hate.”

“Bullshit!” Donald says.

I don’t know who he thinks I am but it’s clearly someone much, much cooler. 

“I thought you were smart!” David says.

“Am I no longer smart if I listen to Justin Bieber?”

“Nope!” says Kenneth.

“Oh shut up!” I say to the grizzled geezer. “Go jack off to Creedence.” 

“I’d rather get gang banged by CCR than listen to that little homo.”

You heard it here first. Listening to Justin Bieber: gayer than being gay!

“Really? Justin Bieber?” David says. “Wow. You think you know a guy.”

“Any recommendations?”

“Marvin Gaye! Stevie Wonder! James Brown!”

What’s Going On. Songs in the Key of Life. Think. These are all stone cold classics. I have a healthy respect for these artists but they aren’t in my regular rotation.

“Those guys are before my time. If we move up a few decades, I’m totally there. New Edition, Boyz II Men, Soul 4 Real …”

“Now we’re talking!”

“Bieber’s better though.”

David throws up his arms in wild exasperation, as if his favorite sports team just botched an important play. He doesn’t seem to understand that I’m trolling him.

To be clear, I do indeed listen to Justin Bieber’s music. “Baby” is catchy as hell, and the song’s DNA can be heard in other notable pop releases from the era such as Katy Perry’s blockbuster Teenage Dream and internet darling Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss. I also like “Never Say Never” if only for hearing Jaden Smith say “No pun intended / was raised by the power of WIll.” And for an album created by a former child star falling apart at the seams, Purpose has no business being as good as it is. Stand-out track “Love Yourself” contains the immortal roast “My momma don’t like you and she likes everyone.” And with its heavy utilization of short, staccato notes and sudden, dramatic rests, the song is my favorite example of a distinct style of guitar playing favored by many male musicians. Such “cool pauses” give these songs a slightly broken, incomplete feel that mirrors the artist’s self-assured “deal with it” tone and I love it.

Even Carlos, my arch enemy, likes “Love Yourself”. A while back we were inside the warehouse creating pallets of our best furniture to be sent to proper Goodwill retail locations. Supervisor Anna miraculously felt like hearing some contemporary hits that day and had the building’s three radios tuned to Live 105.5, our local top 40 station. “Love Yourself” played. 

“This is Bieber’s only good song,” Carlos told me. He tried to sing along but quickly lost the words. “Sing it!” he said. “I know you know it!” 

I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by being stereotyped or impressed by his accuracy. Nonetheless, it was true! I did know the words! I picked up where he left off.

”‘Cause if you like the way you look that much / Oh baby you should go and love yourself / And if you think that I’m still holdin’ on to somethin’ / You should go and love yourself.“ 

It wasn’t a particularly strong vocal performance but Carlos, somehow, was awed. 

“Daaaaaaamn!” he cooed. It was perhaps the only time I ever impressed him.

Carlos, in case it wasn’t clear, is an asshole. He’s the type of open misogynist that progressives, in our insulated internet bubbles, are shocked to realize still exist. My masculinity isn’t up to par with his standards and he likes to torture me because of it.

Carlos is off today but there’s a small part of me that wishes he was here. He’d have no trouble buying the fact that I listen to Justin Bieber. At the same time, I know I need to be careful. After all, Bieber is far from my favorite musician. But I can’t help it. Playing Bieleber is such a fun and easy way to rile up my coworkers.

“You need a lesson in quality, my boy!” David says.

“I’m all ears!” I say, but he just shrugs.

If I wanted to be really mean, I could point out that David just might be the true Bieleber in roll-off. See, David the Bieber-hating quality expert is the same David that sometimes drops me off at the bus station after our shift ends. More than once on these trips, a Justin Bieber song played on the radio. Did he change the station? Nope! 

David seems to be harboring a lot of hate for a musician whose songs he doesn’t even recognize. This doesn’t surprise me, of course, because Bieber hate is barely about Justin Bieber.

Leonardo DiCaprio. Robert Pattinson. Zac Efron. Boy bands. The Biebs. Celebrities like these are cut from the same cloth in that they’re overwhelmingly attractive in a way that draws ravenous, predominantly female fanbases. In turn, this provokes intense contempt and ridicule from traditional dudes everywhere. This is bullshit. It’s retaliation against open female desire that, in an affront to their entitlement, isn’t directed towards Man McAverage.

Evoking “quality” is no exemption from these kinds of considerations. Many people treat the word as if it’s an objective and universal set of standards everyone intuitively understands but this is nonsense. Quality is more like a self-shaped hole we attempt to carve into the world, both encompassing and reproducing our ideals, desires, prejudices, etc. It sure as hell doesn’t explain itself.

I’ve been immersed in the world of music writing for a long time. My favorite publications tend to be ones that upend the very idea of quality. The Singles Jukebox gathers a variety of writers to weigh in and score the same song, and reading wildly different takes on what makes art good or bad is enlightening. One Week // One Band achieves something similar by inviting a different writer (sometimes a professional, sometimes not so much) to take over the blog for a seven-day deep dive into a musician they love, with “no rules and no canon” dictating who that musician can be. And then there was Hipster Runoff, the defunct but brilliant meta exploration of taste and identity that often delved into the ingredients of quality that we don’t like to talk about. 

I think I ‘like’ them because they are differentiated from 'traditional music’ and 'modern indie music.’ When I listen to them, I exist on a higher plane of musical appreciation and consume products for 'all the right reasons.’

- Carles, the voice of Hipster Runoff, on Animal Collective

Quality shouldn’t be a Get Out of Bullying Your Co-Worker Free card. But after a lifetime of living with what is often considered bad taste, I’ve learned to be on the offensive just in case.

Try harder, fuckers.

#minwagepop

[caddeter]

Hey, Knight, I have a serious question for you:  Are you fucking illiterate or something?

Okay, looking through the notes, I can’t let this go.

Soku, You JUST described what you do.

Soku made a grand total of two posts in this chain.  You can find both of them here.  One of them is an actual explanation on why Savage’s post is stupid, the other is him simply saying ‘eh’ in reply to Xenodweeb.

“Instead of making the White Fang this way, do it this way that justifies my political beliefs because I deserve validation. 

1.  That had never come up in that chain at all, Soku pointed to utilizing the school setting as an example.

2.  It has nothing to do with his political believes, it has everything to do with putting fucking effort into a point of your show!  How is pointing out that a show displaying an extremely black and white stance on a real world issue that is excessively grey a political stance?

3.  If your talking about what Xenodweeb said, allow me to simplify it for you:  They hyped up a character, only to kill her off not five minutes later.  Even if we ignore her skin color, that’s still incredibly stupid.  And it’s made worse with her skin color.  Even then, there’s a grand total of twelve named dark skin characters in a cast of over 70 characters.  Five of them are villains, the rest are unimportant.  Seriously, what does any black character, who isn’t Emerald, Ilia, or the fox brothers contribute to the plot?  And aside from the guy based off an Achievement Hunter joke and the guy from the team they only remembered half the members of, I bet you and the rest of the fandom don’t even remember they exist.

Also: Listen to me and only people like me because I deserve to be solely pandered to while you don’t deserve a say in your own show.”

First of all, is Savage a member of CRWBY?  Is Savage one of the lead writers?  Is Savage even a Rooster Teeth employee?  You and your little posse constantly remind us that RWBY isn’t our show, yet whenever it’s convenient, it’s your show.

Secondly, that’s your argument, not ours.  You constantly pride your opinions above everyone else’s, from people with experience with the subject they’re talking about, to people who have researched the subject their talking about, to scene analysis, to fucking shit posts.  And you’ve done this over on Deviantart, where there is no RWDE tag, and was just people criticizing your precious little show.  The RWDE tag was made so that the main RWBY tag wouldn’t need to read through all of our posts.  We’re trying to keep our opinions away from you jack asses, and this is the thanks we get?  You know what, screw it, this is going in the main tag.

I just boiled down your entire collection of RWDE posts down into this because THIS is how you act each time:

And I’m a dragon who breaths Popsicle, living on top of the Eiffel Tower making reviews of late night talk shows.  How many times have you said that, and how many times have we proven you wrong?

Only your worldview (even if it’s blatantly wrong and fucking stupid) deserves to be seen and only YOUR iteration) deserves to eb seen and only people like you get to have media in their tastes.

Mirrors are a rare thing in your house, aren’t they?

Okay, that was a little too fast, let me slow it down for you:  Mirrors are pieces of shiny glass you look at to see yourself.

Even then, what are you judging this on?  The fact that people complained about plot holes, unfortunate implications, terrible execution, wasted potential, a side character steeling the spotlight?  That’s not a matter of taste, that’s a matter of desiring quality.  People would be complaining about RWBY’s flaws even if RWDE never existed, just look at how the anime reviewing community treated Sword Art Online.

Everything about RWBY must conform to what you think you deserve, regardless of fucking quality or what the Writer’s want to do or why other people like RWBY.

Yes, because a consistent plot, stable world building, and an understanding of what it’s doing is completely subjective.

RWBY’s quality is objectively terrible; it’s full of plot holes, we get more development for the side characters than we do the main characters, and the world building is excessively muddled.  It also has a bad habit of flat out lying to its audience and constantly ignores the easier solutions.  And with how many details are missed between the writers and animators, I’m left with the impression that the production of this show is a big game of telephone.

Calling RT sexist, racist and homophobic is not criticism.

Jaune gets away with, and is rewarded for something that Yang is demonized for.  That is sexism and criticism.

RT constantly portrays the White Fang, who were left with little other option than to become a violent group like many real world minorities, are treated as completely evil with no redeeming qualities.  And then there’s the count of black characters in the show an their importance to it.  That’s racist and criticism.

It took RT five years to reveal an LGBT character, after years of excuses that for some reason never applied to straight pairings.  That’s homophobic and criticism.

Do you read selectively or something?  We’ve explained several times over how one could get these impressions.  Just because you plug your ears and shout, ‘LALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING!’ doesn’t mean the evidence stops existing.

Lying about the show is not criticism.

Knight, the only people who have ever lied about RWBY is you.  We have backed up our claims with explanations, comparisons, examples.  You have changed evidence to work with your conclusion instead of changing your conclusion to work with evidence.  You’ve flat out admitted to doing that, yet you still act like we’re in the wrong.  Why can you get away with something like that, but we constantly get demonized for you’re lies?!

Spreading controversy like a manwhore with STD is not criticism.

You really don’t understand how criticism works, especially for a show this popular, do you?

Okay, even ignoring the fact that that’s a load of bull, that’s all you do.  Every time there’s a new RWDE post, you jump to the front lines to start a flame war.

You do not criticize, you complain.

My god, it’s almost as if that was the basis for the RWDE tag in the first place!..  How do you breath?  You can’t wrap your head around this simple concept, yet you still haven’t suffocated yet?  How does that work?

People HAVE refuted you:

Yeah, badly.  And then they got refuted right back.

I’ve had to have done it at least fifty times.

First of all, you’ve had way more chats with people in the RWDE tag than just fifty.  If your track record is so bad, why is your ego so huge?

Second of all, where exactly?  Was it here, where Delvin asks you for evidence of what you’re accusing him of, and then you ran off?  Was it here, where Delvin throws every one of your notions back at you in the end?  Was it here, where Dudeblade explains why you think it’s wrong to compare RWBY to other shows based on IMDB scores, before doing just that with shows with lower scores than RWBY?  Was it here, where Lycanheiress took everything you said and utterly destroyed it?  Was it this one here, where a transgender lesbian explains homophobia to you, and why people accuse you of being homophobic?  Or was it here, where Xenodweeb boiled all of your stupid notions down to the basic level to show why they’re wrong?

Thirdly, you’ve had to do it?  Did we make you?  Is Rooster Teeth paying you to paint their fanbase in a negative light?  Are they holding a gun to your head as you type this out?  Are they threatening your family?  Is the RWDE tag doing that?  Did anyone even ask?  I’ve already explained this to you, KKKoB, no one but you is making you write these.  You chose to do this.

Fourthly, for every one time you’ve attempted to debunk us, we’ve debunked you ten time over.

You just ignore them, block them or throw variations of the word “bigot” at them so you can disregard it

You mean like you did with Delvin?

You’re like that child who keeps changing the rules to make himself invincible because they suck at the game.

You mean like you did with Lycanheiress when you guys were arguing the shows focus on Jaune.  Also, when did we change the rules?  I’m pretty sure we’ve kept things pretty damn consistent in all of our debates with you.

And as for YOU, Xenodweeb,

I don’t wanna hear YOU try to talk about nuances when, looking at your entire conversation on this post (https://savageoppressme.tumblr.com/post/169718979263/xenodweeb-savageoppressme-xenodweeb), you look at everything in Black and White.

“>Racism is a non-issue>Civil rights movements=extremists”

Knight, cursory glances tell us why you’re full of bull.  Also, who do you think I’m going to believe, the guy who admitted to stalking and harassing people who blocked him, constantly acts as the exception to all of the rules he lays out, and almost drove someone on Deviantart to suicide, for Xenodweeb, who has, at worst, criticized RWBY.

Also, you’re one to talk about seeing things in black and white:  You view the RWDE tag as an irredeemable evil that must be purged no matter what each individual blog has done and yourself as the one true fan of RWBY.  What you’re asking for isn’t that we try to look past RWBY’s flaws, your asking for blind devotion to the all mighty Rooster Teeth.

Skipping a bit, because I’ve already established why the next few lines are bunk a few paragraphs back.

To you, “Nuance” does not mean “subtle differences in meaning or expression.” No, it means “my fucking view” without even taking the time to consider that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong and your blind.

How can someone be so in love with the sound of their own voice yet never hear what they’re saying?  Knight, you almost drove someone to suicide because you couldn’t handle the idea that they had a different view then you did.  You aren’t one to talk.

Fuck, there is a reason why I blacklisted the RWDE tag:

Wait...

!?!?!?!?!?!WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

So you actually did that thing the RWDE tag was meant for?  Why are you still here then?!  Why are you still bitching about the tag you no longer need to look at!?  Why are you so dedicated to proven Darwinism wrong?!  There-there are no words to describe the level of stupid you are!  It doesn’t matter what insult I throw at you, it will always only ever be an insult to the people I’m grouping you with and a complement to you.  I feel sorry that people call you a Nazi now, at least those guys have some brains.  Retards, homophobes, racist, sexists, pedophiles, none of them deserve to be compared to you.  The FNDM would be disgusted if they saw you, hell, Rooster Teeth would be disgusted.  It’s a good thing Monty’s dead, because if he saw you, he’d jump right back into his grave!  You deplorable, inconsiderate, obnoxious, cruel, immature, cruel, judgemental piece of shit!  If the human race died tomorrow, we’d all die happy, because you would have finally have been removed from the gene pool!  I’ve seen super-villains more likable than you.

You know what, screw it, I don’t care what the rest of the post says.  I’ve made my point, I’m done here.

#rwde #rwby #anti-kob #kkkob #kob you little shit #burnt corn on the kkkob #i'm not sorry

[anonymoustoddler]

In Which I Get Stoned And Bitch About Work

Yesterday I worked for nine hours checking patients in with a weird system we had to make up on the fly due to the large number of people who came early and kept coming for seven straight hours. I ran hundreds (literally) of people through a software system and set of procedures I never got a full training in and could only practice with twice.

It was really really hard. And it wasn’t as fun as it was half a decade ago, the energy and the excitement and the teamwork. I stood directly behind the CEO for the media focused ribbon cutting. I welcomed hundreds of excited, mostly happy people into a brand new, gorgeous facility with flashy displays and top quality product.

I have been through this sort of experience so many times. So many iPhone and iPad and every other Apple product launches. I’ve clapped in guests and had little chats to make each quick transaction a bit more enjoyable for both of us. I’ve swapped stories with coworkers, joked around with managers who feel accessible, gotten frustrated and got mouthy for a minute about the inevitable mismanagement and poor planning for big turnout. For god’s sake, I’ve literally been photographed with and chatted with the CEOs of BOTH companies. And F****** is small now but... in a year, you’ll all be smoking their shit and a lot of you will be visiting them for medical and recreational. They’ll create more local jobs. They’ll be a leader in Michigan cannabis.

But I’m not the same person I used to be. I know so much more now. I know how shitty their consideration for their bottom rung employees is. Which really really matters when you watch THOSE employees literally building the guts of this business. Painstakingly unboxing, pricing, properly labeling, stocking, and creating displays of each and every product - and it’s medical weed so like let’s not forget that this is a process that you HAVE to pay attention to and be careful about.

It matters when you see a team stretched way too thin because it’s way too small, learning so much in such a short time (maybe that’s just me though honestly... I did learn two jobs instead of one, and I started at least a week after everyone else who got hired around the same time).

When there were still five or six hours left of the business day, I was informed we’d already done $20,000 in business since we opened that morning.

Twenty. Thousand. Dollars.

Not even a full day’s total.

And I get one half hour lunch for an 8 hour shift, no benefits, and I don’t even get time and a half pay for holidays unless I go full time.

I have to cap my hours at 17 a week because if I work more I’ll lose my medicaid and both my doctors expect to see me every three months and my meds cost money. I have to schedule another upper endoscopy, do you want to guess how much that would cost out of pocket, with the scope, the anesthesia, the gastroenterologist’s read of the scan and the after appointment, etc etc?? I don’t.

The Corporate team was swarming yesterday. Most of them didn’t even acknowledge us. Most of the people who did treated us with the unintentional condescension of people who feel they’re inherently better, smarter, and more deserving than you. They don’t mean to. They think they’re being kind.

But at the end of the day, they make annual salaries with solid benefit and possibly bonus packages, and you make an hourly rate higher than min wage but not even close to what you deserve considering you MAKE the company work. I mean, jesus, almost all the positive reviews I’ve seen so far specifically mention the great customer service/awesome employees. And yet, even with such disparity, they tried to cut our discount. There was an actual hours long discussion two days before grand open when Corporate wanted to cut our employee discount (for legal med patients working there) to almost nothing. They openly tried to take back a discount policy we ALL knew about, so they could charge US more despite working for the company. And we’re not a shady hole in the wall op in some creepy spot in Detroit that has dirty carts for half the usual price. This is higher end shit, and we’re the only game in town so prices can kind of be set with some flagrancy. Why would you want to make money off your employees who are not even getting what they deserve to begin with? How can you want MORE???

I’m not trying to shit on this place, really. With the company headquarters setting up in the same building, the growth plans of the company as a whole, and the potential doors this could open for me in the field of legal cannabis, this job is still a great opportunity. I’m learning a lot and after years out of the loop, it’s kind of nice to have a “real job” again. The team working on site are all nice and fun and pretty chill. I like and feel comfortable with everyone on the management team, but I also know I can’t get away with bullshit callouts with them so I have to practice the choice of either sucking it up and getting out of bed or making peace with potentially losing my job in a bad way. Those external consequences are the only things I can respond to anymore. It feels terrible and I’m still a miserable mass of depression, but.. I’m getting out of bed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

As usual, I got pretty far off track. My original point was, I think, that.. I miss my innocent days. I miss when I was 23 (hell, when I was 26, 27) and didn’t understand the evil of corporations or the exploitation of the workforce. I miss the days when I felt excited to be making almost $XX an hour because I’d never made more than that and it was a few bucks over minimum wage and I got really good insurance for not too much of my paycheck. I miss feeling like I mattered. I miss being ignorant enough to believe that anyone cared about me, that anyone could see how much I had to give and how smart and capable I was even if I also was sick more days than average. That I wasn’t just disposable chattel to make money for the people at the top and their investors. I miss living in the delusion that we were a family. It was a really powerful motivator, honestly. When you believe The Boss cares about you, is on the same team you are, is paying you a fair wage... when you don’t understand how bullshit that is.. Work feels a lot more bearable, I guess.

Yesterday I made it through nine chaotic, messy, Learn As You Go and Make It Work, non-stop, exhausting hours. I still have my job, and I intend to keep it for as long as possible. But I’ve also been forced to see just how much I’ve changed over the last decade. I’ve learned and seen and experienced so much that has affected how I see money, work, the world, being alive at all. I don’t think I can ever be enchanted anymore. I can’t be magicked into believing a dumpster of garbage is a treasure chest ever again. And as much as it matters to me to know the truth... I was a lot happier when I still saw a treasure chest instead of a rotting pile of trash. It’s just not as inspiring, you know?

#work rant #disenchantment #wage inequality #life in your 30s #ramblings

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to Baby Driver

The Wright Amount

The Setup: For this post we’re thrilled to bring you two Guest Reactors, both former film school classmates of ours, and both Edgar Wright aficionados. One is Andrew, one half of the Punder Twins (we hope you’ll meet the other half in the foreseeable future), and the other wanted a codename like Bats and Buddy, so we’re calling him BOB. All caps, because BOB likes that it works as an acronym for “Boring Old Bob.”

SPOILERS -- and fan/re-casting -- after the jump!

MIRI: Ok, so what did we think of Baby Driver?

ANDREW: Oh we're starting this? It was very, Edgar wright-y

KRIS: I don’t know how much this will matter, but for context I thought it might be fun to start with everyone’s favorite (pre-Baby Driver) Edgar Wright movies/moments

MIRI: I went into the movie not really expecting to like it (the trailers just didn’t grab me the way they did SO MANY people) so I was actually really pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it

Ooh, I like that

What are yours?

BOB: "You ain't ever seen Bad Boys 2?" - Hot Fuzz

KRIS: With the caveat that I haven’t rewatched any of them, I think my favorite is Scott Pilgrim

ANDREW: The entirety of Scott pilgrim vs the world 

KRIS: which admittedly has the unfair advantages of Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza

But also “Chicken’s not vegan?”

Just an insanely stacked cast

ANDREW: I was about to say that!

MIRI: I’d have to go Sean of the Dead

*Shaun

BOB: 

KRIS: Of the Cornettos I do think Hot Fuzz is my favorite

ANDREW: Mine too! I still wish he directed ant man. I mean, I liked ant man. But...

MIRI: Hot Fuzz is excellent, but Shaun of the Dead just surprised me so much in so many delightful ways

KRIS: Oh also I liked that in the big GQ interview Chris Evans did when he got cast for Captain America, he mentioned that his friends thought his Scott Pilgrim character was hilariously spot-on, though maybe they thought this ironically

I’d have to revisit the piece, which I feel like is semi-legendary in entertainment journalism circles

BOB: I really like how he took that film and made it both a reflection of the action genre as a whole while also making it very much so an original film 

KRIS: I’ll try to find and link

MIRI: Yeah, he does great things with loving parodies

KRIS: Shaun of the Dead was definitely revelatory, although I probably saw it a year or two too early to fully appreciate it

BOB: Which when I watched Baby Driver, you could say he does the same to an extent with heist and car chase movies

MIRI: This didn’t feel as much like a sendup to me as it did just an example of the genre

BOB: It has a little Reservoir Dogs / The Killing (Kubricks) feel to it with the nicknames

KRIS: Guillermo del Toro’s very complimentary Twitter thread about the movie made a point of stressing that where Wright has previously been ironic, Baby Driver was newly and lovingly earnest

MIRI: Yeah, I’d agree. And in some places that worked better for me than others

ANDREW: I concur with the famous director.

MIRI: I’m curious--on a scale of 1-10 how much did you guys love this movie?

BOB: 9.5 

ANDREW: ...8?

BOB: Maybe cause i am sucker for the non verbal acting in the first half and the syncing of music with action 

ANDREW: That's true. The non verbal acting was top notch.

KRIS: I’m probably a 6.5 - 7? I liked but didn’t love it, and the framing for my expectations is that I follow approximately 3 million film critics on Twitter and everyone who saw the movie screen at Austin L O V E D it

MIRI: I’m somewhere around a 6.5 or a 7. It’s totally fun! The performances are great! But it’s also pretty lazy in some ways and has some plot issues. But the action is GREAT

KRIS: The physicality of Baby was definitely great

(Do we know that actor from anything?)

BOB: Fault in our stars

MIRI: Kris, I love you

He’s also in the Divergent films

and he’s the new Han Solo

ANDREW: He is also in baby driver

MIRI: This definitely seems like a step away from the teen heartthrob of it all for him

KRIS: The new Han Solo is Alden Ehrenreich. Same initials, different dude

MIRI: Ohhh oops

BOB: Fact check - han solo is alden something

They look very alike though!

MIRI: Was Elgort in the mix at one point or am I 100% wrong?

BOB: However... he is credited as Ansolo in Bad Santa 2

Yes he was

MIRI: Ok, that makes me feel slightly better

BOB: Damn this guy is only 23!

MIRI: OOOhhh, Alden Ehrenreich is the kid from Beautiful Creatures

I’m never going to get them fully separate in my head now

ANDREW: Bob! Don't look at ages!

It's depressing.

KRIS: (To our guests: we also have frequent and lengthy digressions)

(we very briefly tried to fight it but we know our limits)

MIRI: My favorite person in this movie was definitely Joseph, the foster dad

ANDREW: My favorite was Kevin spacey's kid.

KRIS: I kind of wished we’d gotten more of Jon Bernthal but I did love the Joseph scenes

OH YEAH

He was great

ANDREW: Oh my god, yes! I thought Jon was gonna come back!

I almost forgot he was in the movie.

BOB: Back to BD, BOB is very interested in getting his hands on seeing how much of the movie was motivated by the actual words on the page. A bevy of characters like the nephew and Jon Bernthals limited scenes. Heck even the small bits like the postal worker were interesting

MIRI: I liked the interactions with the postal worker

The headshake played really nicely

BOB: One plot hole for me was who was the hero that tried to ram them (The Flea/Brian Tee trio) because that guy had some guns on him

KRIS: I did really like how IMMEDIATELY everything went to shit in that moment

The second act really dragged for me but I thought this started and ended really strong

MIRI: That’s the plot hole that bothers you?

KRIS: Say more BOB

ANDREW: Damn you good Samaritan! 

BOB: Seemed like a setup that wasn't fully explained. Was Brian Tee's character in on it? Is that why he got s bullet in the head? Or was it more so over the fact that he fucked up 3 times

MIRI: He seemed like an ex-military hired security guy to me

BOB: Mike myers, dragged getting into car, left his shotgun

KRIS: I think he was just a Good Samaritan but he had a Marine Corps hat

BOB: I noticed that hat too but unsure if there was a fix there

MIRI: Oh, I thought it was additional hired security since there had been so many robberies lately

BOB: Miri good point!!!

KRIS: Oh, I didn’t think about it after the movie but in the moment I thought the lost shotgun would come back to bite them

ANDREW: Ooooh that's smart. ... I hope that it.

BOB: Yes likewise about the shotgun 

MIRI: Yeah, I definitely thought the shotgun would come back

I did like the clear willingness to take out allies like that

BOB: What plotholes bugged you MS?

MIRI: BUT that makes me buy Doc helping Baby TO THE EXPENSE OF HIS OWN LIFE even less

BOB: Yes that was good. Start of seeing how Bats was real fucked up

KRIS: Yeah, I did like the setup of Doc’s operation a lot

BOB: Bats killed him

Not Doc

MIRI: I get the weird affection, but that carried it way beyond believability to me.

There’s no planting of that (at least not any that works for me)

ANDREW: I don't know. I bought doc helping baby.

MIRI: Oh, Bats killed him? How do we know that?

BOB: "Moment you catch feelings, moment you catch a bullet."

KRIS: But it would’ve been on Doc’s orders, right?

MIRI: But the guy didn’t catch feelings, he was just bad at his job

BOB: He was already riled up. And he is very trigger happy

Perhaps Docs orders but he didn't seem type to get dirty.

He caught a feeling of being dumb then! Lol

MIRI: I don’t buy Doc helping Baby. Baby destroyed his whole operation, put his actual loved ones in jeopardy, and is now leaving him meaning he can’t pull any jobs for/with him ever again. Plus Doc definitely seems like a survivor above all else, which helping Baby totally invalidates

BOB: Would it have made sense if say Doc was like a relative ala how we see him train the nephew?

MIRI: Sure, but he’s not

BOB: I thought it was gonna go in that direction

ANDREW: You’re right, but he essentially raised Baby and worked with him for like a decade. Albeit forcefully. Do you really think after all that doc would just shoot baby in the face?

However logical it seems?

MIRI: For the level of betrayal Baby has just given him, maybe

ANDREW: Doc seems likes family man to me.

MIRI: Or at least let him twist on the rope he’s put up himself

ANDREW: A sick

KRIS: I buy Doc not killing Baby, if not the risks he then takes on Baby’s behalf

MIRI: He definitely seems like a family man, but I don’t think he treats Baby as family enough to justify the turn for me

ANDREW: That fair.

MIRI: Agreed

KRIS: I think meeting his son, and seeing how the kid is totally well adjusted, is part of setting that up

BOB: Doc shooting up people was a stretch 

MIRI: The kid was his nephew, I think

BOB: I buy the take this money and run angle a lot

Yes nephew

ANDREW: Then baby is the son he never had!

Son of a bitch!

MIRI: But he’s clearly close with him--watches movies with him, etc. He doesn’t spend time with Baby outside of business

BOB: He bought him dinner!

ANDREW: He bought him dinner!

MIRI: i’m with Kris--I don’t think he would have killed Baby necessarily, but he goes way further than I believe

He bought him dinner once, and partially as a chance to threaten Debbie and get Baby back into the game

BOB: He talks to him perhaps more so whenever he picks up him for a job

KRIS: I can sort of see dots to connect from Doc being willing to order terrible things but deliberately distancing himself from them to avoid catching feelings, because he knows or suspects that if he gets too close then he’ll stop being the criminal mastermind he wants to be

MIRI: He’s clearly closer with him than with most employees, I’m not denying that!

I just don’t think they put in enough groundwork to make me believe the turn

KRIS: I don’t think the movie does that work for you

MIRI: The movie expects me to buy emotional connections that it doesn’t show on a couple of fronts

The fact that Deborah is willing to run away with a guy she BARELY knows is ridiculous

BOB: Stop trying to catch feelings Miri!!! Bats may be listening!

ANDREW: Bro, that train I can get on.

MIRI: Even without the bank robber, just shot someone right in front of her thing

ANDREW: I kind of wanted Debra to say "thanks but no thanks" in act three.

That would have been a funny twist.

MIRI: I would have been into that

BOB: It happens... maybe she felt protected?? But they do have moments where they are similar. The love for the road, the music, the need and want to escape 

Maybe she was tired of the old humdrum reality of things

ANDREW: But baby just shot a man at the diner

BOB: Ala Thelma and Louise

MIRI: Right, they have the building blocks for dating, but not “Run away from everyone you’ve ever known with me forever”

Thelma and Louise were lifelong friends

BOB: I'm comparing the desire versus status of relationship length

MIRI: Baby and Deborah have had like 7 conversations

KRIS: (Oh god for like days I’ve been confusing Lily Collins with Lily James)

ANDREW: Most of them are about names.

MIRI: (Me too! Can I blame you this time??)

KRIS: (Yes, because you were there when I did it out loud)

BOB: Too many Lilys and Han Solo look alikes!!

MIRI: BOB: Right, but the “you jump I jump” of it all makes sense because of the love that’s already there. You don’t risk it all for a virtual stranger Basically, I think some of the relationships are weak. They knew what marks they wanted/needed to hit, but didn’t do the work of getting there well

KRIS: I think they do establish that Debora doesn’t have anything in her life early on, but I agree that across the board the movie wants me to make emotional leaps that it doesn’t work to achieve

HOWEVER

MIRI: When there’s an actual depth of relationship like between Baby and Joseph it WORKS

Buddy and Darling work

KRIS: For the sake of argument, there’s this “all the characters in Baby Driver are archetypes” case I’ve seen floated

MIRI: (we have three spellings of Debora’s name going and Kris is right about it)

KRIS: Which doesn’t work for me, but I want to know how you feel about it

In fairness, I have IMDB open

MIRI: Eh. Feels like an excuse. Especially when there are the examples of genuine emotional connections

ANDREW: Can we talk about how there are only two female characters in the movie? 1 is a love interest and the other is fodder for Jon Hamm to be the villain?

MIRI: I would say that Debora and Darling fit the Madonna/Whore archetypes to a disturbing level

KRIS: AND EIZA GONZALEZ IS 20 YEARS JON HAMM’S JUNIOR

ANDREW: Genre be damned. That's a little ridiculous.

MIRI: more than a little

BOB: Hmmm interesting point Andrew! But what about the Mom? So 3?

KRIS: She’s not a “character”

MIRI: The mom isn’t a character

ANDREW: Fodder for baby to have tinnitus?

MIRI: she’s an excuse for maintain

*manpain

BOB: Ahh man pain 

MIRI: She has no arc or actions, and her only voice is filtered through Baby

Also, they do an interesting thing of rarely showing her face fully, which I assume is due to his memories being limited/fading

and it’s very cool on that front

BOB: Ditto with Miri

MIRI: but also she’s about 1/4 of the women in the entire film and we barely see or hear her

it’s not great

Can we take a moment to imagine how much more interesting the Buddy/Darling dynamic would have been if their ages and roles were reversed?

Just for fun

ANDREW: No. I was kind of hoping for something more out of Darling. But then she got shot... a lot.

BOB: Maybe if Doc was a female then perhaps the whole giving themself up in Act 3 seems more believable

MIRI: Because I would have been totally there for that

ANDREW: I was just thinking that Miri!

BOB: She got shot the fuck up

This movie put the female characters through the ringer in terms distress and pain

MIRI: The whole benevolent tolerance of Baby thing that Buddy does would have hit so harder from a potential mother figure when it went away

Yeah, it’s very lazy on that front. And--much as we love him!--not super surprising from Wright

He doesn’t seem to hate women by any stretch, he just doesn’t really seem to think of them much

KRIS: I want writer-directors like Edgar Wright and Christopher Nolan to have to take a seminar co-taught by like, Ava Duvernay and Patty Jenkins

MIRI: Is there more than one female character of note in any of the films he’s written and directed (not based on preexisting property)?

BOB: Now you have me catching feelings... questioning my overall thoughts

MIRI: YES

Also, I want to take those seminars too!

Sorry, BOB

BOB: Sign me up

MIRI: But also not sorry because it’s important to be critical of the media we love!

And the dude is clearly smart and awesome and I expect better of him

ANDREW: True that!

MIRI: Female Baby would have been interesting too

BOB: Very true... i guess I was caught up with the beauty of the action and syncs with music. Didn't take a step back to examine the archetypes 

I'm down to an 8 now

KRIS: I do think that Lily James and Eliza Gonzalez both do a lot with a little, but I also want to point out that that’s something actresses in every genre and every budget range have to do all the time

MIRI: SO true

KRIS: Also here is a tweet for Miri:

https://twitter.com/carolineframke/status/880639492025090048

MIRI: HAHAHHAHAHA

BOB: Still thinking about your posed question

MIRI: I love Caroline Framke

KRIS: About reversing the age dynamic?

BOB: I loved Lily James in this

KRIS: I’m trying to think of who I’d like to see in that reversal

BOB: Daisy Ridley?

MIRI: Ooh

BOB: Or in the Buddy / Darling?

MIRI: Wait, Daisy Ridley as female Baby? I’d be into that

KRIS: Buddy/Darling I mean

Ohhhh

BOB: Helen Mirren / Dave Franco 

KRIS: I don’t know that she’s my first choice but I could see it

MIRI: Ooh, interesting! Even more of an age gap, but I’m not it

ANDREW: No... James Franco. 

Spring breeeeeeak

MIRI: Maybe Marisa Tomei and someone?

BOB: Susan Sarandon / Zac Efron

MIRI: (Spring Break fo’evaaaaa)

BOB: Ahh Marisa! Aunt freaking May

KRIS: I almost went with like Kate Beckinsale/anyone but then I thought about all the thinkpieces about movies/TV that keep pairing brown men with white women

MIRI: She’s a similar level of hot and unexpected for a vicious role like this

GINA TORRES

GINA TORRES AND SOME HOT YOUNG DUDE

BOB: Hmmm let's switch it up.... Viola Davis / White dude

KRIS: Or like Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez would’ve killed in this

BOB: Ahhh J Loooooo

MIRI: Omg yes to both of those

BOB: J lo and Drake

MIRI: Drake’s not young enough, is he?

ANDREW: De age him 

MIRI: Ooh ooh ooh, John Boyega

JLo and John Boyega

BOB: No he seems to big in size

For J Los taste

MIRI: This tangent has gone wildly afield and I like it

KRIS: This is making me think we should make fan-cast pieces a regular thing on Reacting to Something, not that it’s super original but it would be fun

BOB: But i like that it'd be interesting to see her be the one in control and she is super tiny

MIRI: YES LET”S DO THAT

BOB: slap hands!! Yes

MIRI: I think JLo could play that

KRIS: It’s also making me think of a writing exercise Writing Teacher likes to suggest, where you have a stack of locations, a stack of actors, and a stack of genres on index cards, and you draw randomly and have to come up with loglines

BOB: 

MIRI: Wait why are we not doing that as a party game?

KRIS: Oh she also always includes tequila when she says this

MIRI: I am IN

KRIS: Literally always

BOB: I like tequila

That would be a fun game 

MIRI: I might do gin instead sometimes, but I am IN

KRIS: We’ve never actually done it but she likes it as a brainstorming thing

MIRI: ok, we should maybe talk some more about Baby Driver

Let’s talk about the awesome music some, because it really was great!

KRIS: Yeah

BOB: Actually I have a game like that minus the whole actors/ actresses names

KRIS: You still have to write a Saoirse Ronan movie, BOB

Film school cohort reference, sorry readers

ANDREW: I would like to talk about something I did really like though, and that was the use and portrayal of tinnitus. I know a few people with the condition, one more severe. But whenever there isn't music, there is a faint ringing in the sound.

KRIS: (I like that the all caps just comes off as accusatory)

MIRI: Say more, Andrew

ANDREW: How it’s something he lives with, but it's also his biggest weakness.

Like when Jon Hamm blows out his ducking hearing at the end.

BOB: Don't remind me Kris :-(

MIRI: Oh I misread that as something you DIDN’T like, whoops

ANDREW: Fucking*

MIRI: OMG that was such a vicious move!

Honestly, I didn’t expect it

And I may have jumped in my seat a little

BOB: It was vicious and a great line/scene

MIRI: Totally

KRIS: Yeah

MIRI: I expected the whole kill your girl thing, but the hearing was a great touch

ANDREW: It's just nice to see people acknowledge that it exists. And having it shown with accuracy.

MIRI: Did anyone else not super buy his whole Quirky Thing?

ANDREW: Which quirky thing? There are like 30z

MIRI: Exactly

KRIS: And whose quirky thing?

MIRI: Baby’s

It felt like a very deliberate persona

ANDREW: It did, yeah.

KRIS: I mostly bought the mixtape stuff etc. as an extension of his obsession with music between both the tinnitus and his mom

MIRI: I liked him a lot when he wasn’t performing--when he’s dancing around in the apartment, etc--but as just a dude on the street who doesn’t care that he’s walking out in front of people all the damn time it’s a bit much

The mixtapes I buy

ANDREW: I liked that he had 5 pairs of sunglasses.

KRIS: I actually bought his clumsiness on the street because I read it as a cost to having to pump music into his ears all the time

MIRI: And the iPods, now that I’ve read the Edgar Wright explanation that he finds them (and the sunglasses) in cars

BOB: I can understand it as him thinking its a little game the first time he does that

But yeah running into people is just rude!! Expected someone to deck him

ANDREW: Ooooh I like that he finds them in cars.

MIRI: He just felt like he was trying really hard to be weird a lot of the time

(Right? that’s a nice detail!)

ANDREW: I didn't even think of that. But I love it!

MIRI: But then again, he only feels comfortable with a very small number of people, so I guess a persona is not surprising

BOB: Just thought of anther Baby - Chloe Grace Moretz! 

KRIS: I’ll say I didn’t really buy him as turning out to be a badass

MIRI: And the bigness of it all makes a lot of sense with Joseph, since ASL relies pretty heavily on exaggerated gesture to convey tone

KRIS: I’m going to pitch Saoirse Ronan, who is also 23

MIRI: Really? It semi made sense to me as an extension of his driving insanity

KRIS: Not just because I’m giving BOB shit

Hmm

MIRI: omg YES to Saoirse Ronan

KRIS: (BOB have you seen Hanna yet?)

MIRI: Like, he’s super willing to take risks and put it all on the line when driving. He doesn’t have a desire to be violent, but when put in the position to be I believe him capable

BOB: Yeah not a badass. The him running and jumping scene when he escaped and jumps over the car was a little crazy. Only reason I could see it being believable is because he had a pull up bar in hid kitchen and he might work out or like to swing around and shit.

MIRI: (I haven’t seen Hanna yet and I know I need to)

KRIS: (I FORGOT YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT)

BOB: (no ... stop making BOB feel bad)

MIRI: Him being able to outrun the cops surprised me some

(I KNOW, I KNOW)

ANDREW: I... also haven't seen it.

BOB: (Let's watch Hanna Miri)

MIRI: (Is ist streaming anywhere??)

KRIS: I almost bought the parkour-lite, because it seemed to be an extension of how in tune he is with his physicality

ANDREW: Sorry Kris.

BOB: (Checking Netflix)

MIRI: Yeah, that makes sense. Except that I’m also supposed to be ok with him being super clumsy and unaware other times

KRIS: I forgive you Andrew

MIRI: Maybe it’s all a matter of focus?

KRIS: (Miri/BOB Guest Reaction!)

BOB: (no sadly)

MIRI: (I’m checking Amazon)

BOB: Yes matter of focus like an adrenaline rush??

ANDREW: Yeah, probably.

KRIS: That and it doesn’t involve him in direct confrontation with another human

BOB: (No to amazon)

KRIS: the same way driving is impersonal

ANDREW: I empathize with that.

MIRI: (rentable, though. We could do a watching party sometime)

KRIS: I own Hanna

MIRI: (Oh, sweet)

KRIS: should’ve led with that

MIRI: Way to abandon the parentheses convention too

KRIS: SORRY

MIRI: 😉 

SOMEONE TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC IN BABY DRIVER

I liked it

ANDREW: Is there a reason half the convo is in parenthesis?

MIRI: Yes, because it was an aside about Hanna, not anyhting about Baby Driver

KRIS: I thought it worked the way Wright wanted it to, and BOB and I talked about how it’s almost like the logical next step of what Guardians of the Galaxy does with its music supervision

MIRI: it theoretically helps keep this tangle all straight when you read it

Does it, readers?

BOB: I liked how he used the music to drive (pun intended) a lot of the action and dialogue 

MIRI: Hmmm, how so, Kris?

ANDREW: Ooooooooooooooh. I get it.

MIRI: Also, how many steps between this and the jukebox musical format? Because I feel like it’s getting close

KRIS: But we’ve previously established on this blog that I much prefer instrumental scores to needle drops, and at some point that’s more a taste thing than an artistic criticism

MIRI: Not that I mind that

ANDREW: Like one. Baby needs to actually sing.

BOB: Wright had the music in mind as he wrote it ala James Gunn but it does more than just be backdrop music or something that comes on when play is clicked

MIRI: Kris hates excessive needle drops so much, you guys

BOB: I love needle drops

MIRI: Does the fact that it’s all diagetic make it more palatable, Kris?

KRIS: I guess what I mean -- and BOB please interject here -- is that Guardians uses really well chosen needle drops as a critical part of Peter’s emotional arc

Yes

ANDREW: I agree with that too, actually.

KRIS: And Baby Driver takes that to 11 by syncing it to the physical action

MIRI: I’m with you

BOB: Like the Jamie Foxx scene where he tells him to play something funky --> shootout --> Tequila line

KRIS: That like half-second shot of Buddy cocking Darling’s pistol in time with the music in the warehouse gunfight is super cool

BOB: The music itself lended to the shootout scene

KRIS: And of course the timing of Buddy’s shots in the shootout with the cops when Darling gets killed

ANDREW: That was pretty sweet!

MIRI: I also liked him making them wait for him to restart the song on the second job

BOB: Whenever a drum banged, a gun shot rang out

ANDREW: That's me. That's what I would do.

MIRI: God, that one was screwed from the beginning, wasn’t it?

KRIS: Yeah, and I read that partly as a way he has to compensate for his hearing being compromised

BOB: Haha yes it was Miri

MIRI: Yeah, the shooting synchronization was obviously awesome

KRIS: Presumably he knows all the streets of Atlanta really well so he figures out his route ahead of time and syncs it to his playlist

Have any of you been to Atlanta?

Or I guess spent serious time there?

MIRI: Yes, but it was about 6 years ago and I didn’t drive

So no

ANDREW: Nope!

KRIS: I’ve seen/heard different opinions on how well it’s used as a location

And I was just curious if any of you knew it well enough to comment

BOB: I've seen the show... that count?

MIRI: Yeah, lots of relief that something shot in Atlanta is actually being presented as Atlanta instead of New York or whatever

But some people feel like they kept it very surface level, right?

KRIS: Right

Almost touristy, I guess is that line of thought

MIRI: I’ll agree that it didn’t have a particularly Atlanta feel in anything other than Baby’s accent (which ALWAYS surprised me every time he opened his mouth)

BOB: Yes much relief!! I liked that. Wish they had used Ludacris now that i think about it in the soundtrack... but perhaps since he is in F&F probably thought otherwise

KRIS: Hahaha

BOB: It felt somewhat like a different city when he walkef around during the coffee runs

Driving on the highways too.

This move may have been Miri’s favorite thing Baby did all movie

So it didn't have the NYC or LA feel to it

KRIS: Yeah, the first coffee run scene for sure definitely felt distinct in that way

“for sure definitely”

shut up Kris

MIRI: Don’t tell yourself to shut up, Kris

ANDREW: I didn't really realize it was in Atlanta. To me it was nameless city.

But, I don't know anything about Atlanta, so... *shrug*

Can I tell Kris to shut up?

KRIS: I also had that!

The not realizing where it was exactly

And yes

BOB: (Gonna be driving for next 10 mins - so a little radio silence on my part)

It felt like a Southern city though

Thanks to the accents

ANDREW: Good! I'm glad I'm not the only one, Kris. Now shit your pie hole!

KRIS: I need to get better at placing accents

MIRI: I guess the food didn’t feel very regional to me, and I would have expected it to

Better like you didn’t pick up that they were Southern? Or better like you didn’t read it as Atlanta specifically?

ANDREW: The second one, for me personally.

KRIS: Both that I definitely didn’t read Atlanta specifically, and that while I recognized Southern accents I didn’t connect the dots to “oh this is in the South”

MIRI: I don’t think most people not from the South would read it as Atlanta specifically, so I wouldn’t worry about that

KRIS: Partly because I think Southern accents are sometimes used in kind of a tropey way with characters like Debora

MIRI: They so are

ANDREW: Right!!

KRIS: And I guess I’m also just used to hearing Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood?

MIRI: Yeah, I think I am too

ANDREW: Me three.

MIRI: Ok, any points (or random thoughts) left to address? 

ANDREW: Man, the last two action films I saw had Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in them respectively...

MIRI: What Does It Mean??

I thought the dude describing guns as cuts of meat was incredibly Extra and I liked it

ANDREW: That we are in... a house of cards?!?!

KRIS: That we need a movie where Robin Wright punches Kevin Spacey in the throat

I also liked the gun thing

Although it’s hard to beat John Wick 2 for that

BOB: Lol a house of cards?!

Need to see that still

MIRI: “we need a movie where Robin Wright punches Kevin Spacey in the throat” YES YES YES OH MY GOD YES

I just need there to be an Antiope movie

And for most if not all of it to take place on Themyscira

I NEEEEEED it

KRIS: I feel like most people would agree this is a very surface-level movie, and that where opinions diverge is on whether that’s A) deliberate and especially B) a good/cool thing

MIRI: That’s fair

Where does everyone stand on both points?

KRIS: I have definitely liked style-as-substance things very much before

I mean again, John Wick comes to mind, at least the first one for this point

MIRI: John Wick might be style over substance, but I think it’s consistently so

KRIS: And Tarsem Singh’s wild Greek mythology action movie Immortals

But I don’t know, this lost me for a good long while in the middle

ANDREW: It also very auteur. In the sense of, if you watch this film, you either learn what wright is like as a director, or recognize his directing.

KRIS: For sure

MIRI: That’s the hanging point to me--if you want that as an excuse, you can’t go deeper on some parts. You have to stay on that level and have fun there 

ANDREW: Even if there are better films in his roster.

MIRI: Yeah, you always know you’re watching an Edgar Wright film

ANDREW: For me, it's more surface than anything else. Stylish and fun, but there are much better films of his, and better stylish films in general.

I guess it depends on how much you like Edgar Wright.

KRIS: Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t put this in the upper half of his filmography

MIRI: It’s definitely a fun movie. I enjoyed the whole thing in the theater, with some moments of having to just accept the flaws. 

KRIS: Which I guess is why the reactions out of Austin surprised me in hindsight

Oh I did really like that Baby didn’t get away

MIRI: Basically, if you can resist pulling the threads and you want a car chase movie it’s exactly what you want

KRIS: Although I don’t know that I loved him getting out of prison early

ANDREW: Me too!!!

MIRI: Yeah, I’m surprised it’s been as critically loved as it has (and largely without caveat)

ANDREW: What a twist!!!!

MIRI: Yes, that was an actually unexpected beat and I really liked it!

KRIS: Yeah I was really like “Man, how is he going to end this?” and then he really did the right thing and went with something that felt both surprising and inevitable

MIRI: Props to Mr. Wright!

ANDREW: I was still expecting him to escape Bourne style into the water until he got the cuffs thrown on.

MIRI: That would also have been a turn

ANDREW: Like Debora would smile as Baby swims away and the action music will play.

And credits.

KRIS: And the structural success there again makes the characterization choices frustrating to me

https://twitter.com/tvoti/status/881358030016618497

MIRI: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA

KRIS: I didn’t actually CARE that much about Baby

MIRI: Well that’s not a great thing, is it?

KRIS: I would’ve dug a Bourne style ending

Although I could also see it feeling tonally more like previous Wright films than this one

Because it was such a “Fuck yeah!” moment in Ultimatum

MIRI: I think Debora should have busted out unexpected abilities and gotten them out

KRIS: And I guess this was generally more elegiac

ANDREW: The Baby Ultimatum.

MIRI: hahahahaha

KRIS: A+

ANDREW: Or the Bourne Driver?

KRIS: We need a Punder Twins reaction at some point

I’m out of stuff but I want to wait for BOB to get back to check in one more time

MIRI: Btw, if Baby’s Saoirse Ronan I still want Debora to be a girl (which I know surprises no one)

ANDREW: The Punder Twins will always be there Kris, when you need us.

MIRI: Hmmmm, what should we have them React to?

KRIS: Something they could use as a Nostalgiology tie-in

#crosspromotion

ANDREW: *Shrugs* I'm up to anything.

MIRI: ANASTASIA

Because then there can be gifs of the dress to fully convey the wonder of it and I can talk more about Anastasia

Which is always a goal

KRIS: I have not seen Anastasia

MIRI: KRIS

KRIS IT’S A GODDAMN DELIGHT

ANDREW: In the dark of the night... Kris will watch it!

Watch it!

You'll get that someday, Kris.

MIRI: ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 

KRIS: BOB I am starting an arbitrary countdown

I am not sure what the units are

Or how many of them

But it is happening in my head

MIRI: That is the most arbitrary of arbitrary

I like it

KRIS: What was the first song in Baby Driver? Let’s do the runtime of that

MIRI: I don’t know

KRIS: 

ANDREW: I think "Bellbottoms?"

Oh hey!

KRIS: THIS IS A VERY GENEROUS COUNTDOWN BOB

ANDREW: Let's hope he doesn't... bottoms out?

IM NOT SORRY!

KRIS: Oh now that I’m listening to it this was a REALLY fun opening wasn’t it

MIRI: You’re never sorry

ANDREW: It was!!!

MIRI: It really was

Although!

KRIS: Offscreen action is almost always a fun choice

MIRI: Him operating the windshield wipers dry BOTHERED ME

KRIS: Like in Mission Impossible 3

ANDREW: They didn't do a good amount of off screen action.

KRIS: I guess it wasn’t really offscreen here

But it sort of feels like it in my hazy memory

MIRI: But it was removed--we were seeing it from a distance

KRIS: BOB has 2 minutes

ANDREW: And the heist gone wrong had off screen action too. Before the Good Samaritan got involved.

KRIS: Oh yeah and that was used pretty well as a dramatic beat rather than a comic one

MIRI: The Heist Gone Wrong is a good title

What genre would we put this in?

ANDREW: Rom com

MIRI: I’ve seen it described as a comedy and it isn’t to me

Andrew

ANDREW: What?

MIRI: If it was a rom com she’d have held him not talking to her in front of his friends against him way harder

KRIS: Oh maybe that was also part of why it didn’t totally work for me, in terms of expectations

BOB the song is over

BOB

ANDREW: I was taking about the Heist Gone Wrong as a rom com!

MIRI: A lack of communication gone horribly awry is fundamental in rom coms

Ohhhhhhh

That makes sense

I meant to ask about Baby Driver

ANDREW: Oh! Action... thriller... musical?

MIRI: Is The Heist Gone Wrong our alternate universe version of this film with Ronan, JLo, etc? Because I’m into that

It is now

KRIS: Hmm

MIRI: Yeah, I’d put Baby Driver as action drama, not comedy

ANDREW: Yeah, it wasn't really funny.

KRIS: I’m thinking of how the Golden Globes lumps musicals and comedies together

MIRI: I mean there are definitely comedic beats! But they’re not the focus. Plus way too many people die if we’re going classical on our definitions

KRIS: There’s an element of genre snobbery

MIRI: Very much so

ANDREW: A lot of people do die in Shaun of the dead though.

KRIS: I like action musical

MIRI: But it’s not actually a musical

KRIS: Hmm

ANDREW: Its more of a... ballet

But with driving

MIRI: Yes!

Very apt description!!

ANDREW: And murder

Why thank you!

KRIS: Yeah, that’s good

MIRI: A...Ballet but with Driving and Murder for sub-heading?

KRIS: BOBDAMMIT

Yes

MIRI: hahahahhahahahha Bobdammit

Ok, we may just have to call it, guys

KRIS: I won’t hold anyone else hostage here if anyone needs to bail but I’ll wait it out

MIRI: Ok. I have to get my Orphan Black thoughts in order to post, so I’ll be around

ANDREW: It's up to you two. I'm a guest here.

BOB: Sorry reading 

KRIS: BOB!

MIRI: BOB’s back!

BOB: What's the question?!

KRIS: Just anything else you wanted to bring up

MIRI: We just didn’t want to wrap up without you

BOB: In a different life I am Baby

Very interested in the idea of reclassifying films such as this one with an alternate casting

Got me thinking all types of things now

MIRI: We should definitely make that a thing we do

KRIS: I actually really want to hear more about you-as-Baby, if you have more to say about that

BOB: Overall down to an 8 after the very Wright-ful comment on lack of women

MIRI: Andrew, he’s coming for your pun king crown!!

BOB: Well based on him driving and my life as a Lyft driver i started thinking about what I jam out to

ANDREW: Welcome to the fold, BOB.

BOB: But I enjoyed the film thoroughly and as mentioned yesterday want to get my hands on the script

To see how the link up and syncing up with action and music

MIRI: I wonder if Wright is a better director than he is a writer

BOB: I believe that despite its flaws with some characters and a few plot holes, as a whole should be considered for something award worthy because of its ingenuity with music and action

ANDREW: A Wright... er.

MIRI: I wouldn’t say it deserves best screenplay or anything, but a sound design nom would be well deserved

Especially factoring in the ringing

(Is that sound design or sound engineering? I always mess them up)

BOB: I think a Golden globe nod

ANDREW: I think design!

I could be wrong.

I'm probably wrong.

MIRI: Whichever I mean, that one!

KRIS: For the Oscars, Sound Editing is for making effects, Sound Mixing is for how you layer them together

So I could maybe see nods for both in this case

MIRI: So design isn’t even an option

That seems right

KRIS: I tend to say “sound design” as a safe/cop-out catchall

Oh I could totally see a Globe nod

BOB: How about its cinematography?

KRIS: in that weird Best Musical or Comedy category

MIRI: Hmmmm. I never really noticed the cinematography the way I did the sound

(don’t tell my dad)

Miri’s dad is a camera operator

KRIS: Same, except in that single shot coffee run

MIRI: Yeah, that was fun

BOB: It was shot really well

KRIS: But I would believe it was a hard movie to shoot, since most of the effects/stunts were practical

MIRI: They ought to get recognition for the stunts/driving

ANDREW: It was shot very stylistically too.

MIRI: Is there a stunt Oscar or Globe?

ANDREW: How many cars were destroyed in the making of this film?

BOB: Not yet

KRIS: I feel like I’ve heard that stunt people have been pushing for an Oscar?

Which should definitely be a thing

MIRI: Yeah, looks like no go yet

BOB: The Wright amount of cars were destroyed

KRIS: Oh my god

ANDREW: Son of a bitch!!!!

MIRI: Roughly 150, apparently 

ANDREW: Is that really the number?

Holy shit!

MIRI: http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1665810/the-crazy-number-of-cars-edgar-wright-used-for-baby-driver

Not sure they were all wrecked!

Just used

KRIS: I think we may have a new title contender

That’s also going to be hard to beat as an exit line

ANDREW: I will play Angel by Sarah McLaughlin as I think of those cars this evening.

Thanks very much to Andrew and BOB for Guest Reacting! You will almost certainly hear from them again.

For even more pop culture reactions -- just, uh, mostly from people who aren’t us -- follow us on Twitter!

#Baby Driver #Edgar Wright #Ansel Elgort #Lily James #Kevin Spacey #Miri #Kris #Andrew #BOB #guest reactors #movies #music #reaction #Miri had way too much fun on that photo layout for The Heist Gone Wrong #recast #The Heist Gone Wrong

[themirandapamphlet-blog]

Chapter 2- The Coat

When you took the job working at the theatre, you were drawn to the (rather large) sum it offered and the relatively few hours you would have to put in. On paper, it was perfect for you. In reality, it was far from the dream you expected. Working with Lin - that man(!) - really drove you insane. He'd gotten hold of your number and was forever in need of something from you that was urgent and simply could not wait - his dry cleaning, a new pair of dance shoes for rehearsals - that had driven you insane; you had trekked across half of NYC looking for a dance shop that stocked that bloody brand of shoe, and then realised that he hadn't even given the money to you to buy them! $90 out of your own pocket! It felt like you had been lost a limb when you forked that over, and he still stopped you on the way back for a very specific (very, very, veryyyyy specific) at one of the most overpriced coffee shops you'd ever been into. By the time you'd made it back to the theatre you were incredibly frustrated and were thinking of all names under the sun to call your employer. Quickly rushing into the theatre, you headed backstage to where a - what you guessed- rather impatient Lin was waiting, tapping his foot. "Where have you been Y/N?" He demanded, snatching the coffee and bag containing his precious shoes in, taking a sip of the beverage immediately. "Do you not check your phone woman? You've been driving me insane!" He exclaimed. You nearly threw something at that point. "I'm driving YOU insane?? $90 for a pair of dance shoes! 7 lousy bucks for your precious coffee and you didn't even thank me! I had to trail across half of New York to find a shop that had your size, I had to pay for can fare back to make it in time so now I'm like 120 dollars in the hole- you don't know the half of it Miranda…" you glowered dangerously at the end of your sentence, shrugging off your jacket and casting it down the floor haphazardly.He looked taken aback that you'd spoken to him like that - the past 2 weeks you'd barely spoken to him, and when you had, you'd been civil - friendly even - but today you'd had enough of him and his antics. He furrowed his brow for a moment, clearly thinking, before he spoke again. "Okay-okay, I feel like I probably shouldn't have snapped at you, I apologise for that. I don't know, I guess I didn't think about all the work you have to do." He chanced a half smile at you. "I'm not used to having an assistant and I guess I went a little… overboard" he chuckled, laughing at your raised eyebrows. "I thought this job would be so easy. The pay wasn't as much as some of the others but I thought working in a theatre would give me some experience and it would be fun. It's not. " you sighed, slumping over as your rage left you. "Well why don't you quit?" He asked. You blinked at him confused. He … cared? Slowly, you spoke "I-uh, I need the money for college funds. If I quit I won't be able to live here and fund for tuition, I'll have to go home and be back at square one." You wanted to go so bad, it was your dream, but your parents couldn't afford it - no way, so you'd decided you would save up some money beforehand and figure it out. But the years passed and you still weren't there, not yet, on your twenty fifth birthday. "I know what you mean, it's tough doing it on your own. Well, I'll pay you pack for the shoes" he insisted on this "and everything else, because you need your funds." He said, a smile crinkling his brown eyes. Well, when he wasn't being a dick he could be quite kind, you mused. "Um, thanks. And uh- I'm sorry for snapping at you. You didn't need it" You added sheepishly, feeling your face flush again. To your surprise, you saw him turn slightly red, the tips of his ears giving him away. "It's alright, don't worry about it." He reassured you. The room was quiet for a moment; he fidgeted with the bag in his hand. "Anyway-I've gotta- I've got to get back on stage. You can go now, I don't think I'll need anything else." You stood up, feeling him staring at you but still avoiding his eyes. You pulled on your coat "well, I'll see you tomorrow then?" You muttered, staring at a part on the floor that was particularly interesting at this moment in time. "Oh-yeah-yeah!" He insisted energetically. You mumbled goodbye and headed off back out of the theatre and onto New York's busy streets. You were almost home when your phone buzzed, and you glanced at it: LMM- L/N, I'm sorry for the terrible awkwardness of that! *hides from your temper* I don't want that to ever happen again! I'm only doing the matinee today, maybe tonight I could take you out for a drink, maybe dinner, and we could try and sort things out ? I don't want to ruin a good job, and a good partnership. Lemme know? :)))) He wanted to take you out?? On a date????? Nononono, you rationalised, it was just a drink, to sort things out. Nothing too big or important, right? Nevertheless, you spent the time it took for you to get into your building, up the steps and into your apartment to allow ideas rushing into your head. "He had been sorry…" you said aloud, shutting the front door and leaning on it. You shook your head and tried to think sensibly. You took your phone back out; Y/N: Sounds doable, what time and where? Look forward to it You replied, trying to seem as business as possible, but you probably just looked like a dick when you read it back. The reply came instantly LMM: The theatre at 7? There's a good bar nearby. Y/N: sounds nice, I'll see you there! :) You put the phone down and frowned. Part of you wanted to keep the relationship you had with your boss as, well, between an employer and his employee- but you did want to get rid of any animosity between the two of you, to make it easier to work when you weren't cursing out every action Lin made. A couple of drinks and some talks to try get over the rift you'd put between yourself and him, it wouldn't be anything, you told yourself. Just a one off. _____ Why were you treating this like a date? It wasn't a date? Was it? Why had you spent so much time shaving, cleaning and prepping every inch of yourself, if it wasn't a date? Did your palms sweat like this every time you went out to a bar with a co worker? What was going on with you?! For two weeks you had despised this man, and all of a sudden he does one nice thing and you go all funny and fluttery. Come on Y/N - pull it together! You pulled on your best coat, along with your black heels, and headed out to the theatre, basking in the orange light of the setting sun. Stood with his hands in the pockets of a suit jacket, his dark hair was scraped back into a ponytail and he looked around absentmindedly, until he focused on you. His face grew into a smile, and he rushed towards you, beaming. "Wow, someone cleans up nicely" he teased with a wink, steering you along the streets as he spoke. "I can say the same for you too you know, at least we're not matching this time!" You joked, and he laughed, the smile still on his face. "You're making jokes now?" He asked, mouth curling into a smile. You arched your brow; "well when I'm not being bossed about by a toddler with a Broadway musical, I have a sense of humour sometimes" you replied cooly. "Oh shush, you love me" he said playfully, to which your response was looking at him with a deadpan expression. He looked back at you, and unable to keep your face straight any longer, you started laughing. He grinned back and you felt your cheeks redden. A comfortable silence spread , and after a couple hundred feet he spoke again. "I like your jacket." He said. "What?" You questioned, confused. "Your jacket. I like it. If you were a little bit taller it would probably fit me, I love it!" He was excited because of your… jacket? It was just an old cream coat you had, you'd bought it for a party years ago, and had scarcely worn it since. "You're being serious about my coat?" You asked, laughing in disbelief. "I'm serious!" He laughed. "I've always wanted one like that but I've never found one!" You shook your head. "I don't believe you, you strange little man" you giggled. He looked back at you and smiled, before stopping outside a window that had a sign advertising a dinner and drinks deal. "Here's the place, I hope it's okay?" He asked, looking at you worryingly. You shook your head, "Don't worry, this looks perfect" you reassured, and without further waiting, headed into the building. Inside, it was dimly lit and felt almost cosy. Lin said something to a man in a black jacket, who led you both to a booth and sat you down, asking you to pick a drink to start. You scanned the drinks menu quickly and picked a fruity-sounded cocktail. Lin cocked a brow up at you, and without looking away from you, ordered the same drink. "What?" He asked, smirking. "I happen to like the passion fruit explosion extravaganza" he said in mock-defence. You rolled your eyes and laughed. The waiter then arrived, carrying the aforementioned cocktails. He placed them down and then you were alone with Lin and your very alcoholic cocktails. "So…L/N… we good? I mean about earlier-" you cut him off: "I was angry, you apologised, and I'm sorry for being a snappy bitch. Let's leave it at that for now, I'd had a bad day." You told him, playing with the straw on your drink. "Why?" He asked, leaning forward. "What happened?" "I-I write scripts a lot, and I had submitted a manuscript to this company that told me I had a good chance of securing a place with them. Anyway, I got a call before work saying they wouldn't be taking anymore applicants and they'd be sending back all my work, without any comments or approval or anything." You explained. He frowned, taking a drink of his cocktail. "Ouch, I know how that feels, and it feels shit, but keep working. You'll get a break at the right time, Y/N, I know I did." You didn't reply, and then he pulled a hand up, resting it on yours on the table between the two of you. "We're not too different, you and I. We're both just writers trying to get through. But your story's barely begun," He pulled his hand back and leant back in the booth, but you could still feel the electric where his palm had rested. "And you're the story of what success looks like - of what I might get?" You questioned. "Of what you will get. Trust me." He said, leaning forward again, his dark eyes on yours with such heat you could practically feel yourself melting. And in that moment of time, you did trust him.

[heisenbergerking-blog]

How Jimmy Parsons Contracted His Own Killer

“The Folly Of Jealousy and Ungratefulness”

-Or-

“How Jimmy Parsons Contracted His Own Killer”

By Christian Salazar

With inspiration from Samuel Soto

  BLAKKA BLAKKA BLAKKA

  KRACK KSHHHH SIFFFFF

“Stop!” came a voice between the blasts of pounding metal and wood shattering. “Stop, you imbecile, you goddamned mutt-” Jimmy’s pleas were cut short by a small *click, ting... ting, tingtingtinggg* behind him. Still squatting in his locked up shed, Jimmy could only rely on the beams of light finding its way in through the massive bullet holes to see. He quickly spun around, confused as to what could make such a timid sound. Even more so, he was confused at the contrast the sound introduced to the preceding storm of utter noise. Along the floor were dots of light aligning with the bullet holes. He followed something shiny that seemed to roll underneath each beam of light, until it came to rest. A small grey canister with a yellow band surrounding it. Now, Jimmy didn’t watch too many movies, much less films of violence, but oh, he knew what this was. He turned and leaped as fast as possible-

BANG

  Ten years ago, Jimmy Parsons was one of the top accounting students at Boulder University. A highly gifted student, one skill he rather lacked was that of the social category. He did not have many friends, much less a lover. How he longed for someone to hold, to think the world of him. Maybe then he would see himself that way as well, and perhaps he would finally feel as if all this studying was worth it. So it came as a great surprise when miss Rachel Natasha Mendelson, one of the campus’ most beautiful women, asked him to take her to the movies. “You seem like such a sweetheart, and I’m looking for something different from the rest of this bonehead campus… Won’t you take me?” For a moment, Jimmy feared that he would become anxious and do what he always had done and said that he had a big test the next day, or a science competition. But he only felt that way for a moment. Suddenly, with a burst of confidence only a special woman could give such a shy man, he replied, “That’s very sweet of you. I’d love to take you. Wuh- Would eight o’clock be alright with you?” He had only stuttered once. Rachel began to laugh; “Of course it would. See ya around, sweetheart.” As she walked away, he began to realize that he didn’t know the first thing about dating. So he did what he did best- he read.

  By that night, Jimmy knew all the tips and tricks to a good date. When he came and picked her up, she seemed very excited. They laughed and talked all the way to the theatre. Inside, he recognized that for some reason, the top corner seats were the best for a date. They went and sat there, and the movie began. She laid in the crook of his arm, and he wondered how long the film would be. Thirty minutes into the film, she turned slowly and looked intimately into his eyes. Now, Jimmy didn’t watch too many movies, much less films of romance, but oh, he knew what this was. He turned to her, looking intimately back, and-

  Ten years later, he had married Rachel and had a child. However, his diploma and graduating summa cumme laude hadn’t done much for him. Bouncing from job to job, he had graduated at a time when computers had finally become mainstream, and most companies had begun attempting to integrate them in an effort to modernize and keep up with the competition- and save money on employees. He finally found, as he described one night to Rachel, a “shit job in a shit town with a shit boss”. He managed to hold on to it, although reluctantly. His boss, a short begrudging man, hated Europeans. Jimmy was always taught to treat other how you would like to be treated, but after the first couple of years, he simply hated the small man with the loud voice, with its stench of alcohol. And no matter how much Rachel restored his confidence and faith in himself every afternoon, he could not stop his boss from toying with his head. Crude joke after racist remark after unnecessary task, Jimmy could only take so much. But he needed this job, Rachel reminded him, and she was right. He did need the job.

  But did he need his boss?

  No matter how smart Jimmy was, he always struggled with computers. Damned things, he thought to himself often. What the hell can a machine do that I can’t?

Still, Rachel knew better and had purchased one. The internet was relatively new and growing exponentially. He logged on and shooed his wife away (he needed her help to log on), and began his search.

SEARCH: hit man_

  After an hour or so, he became frustrated and quit. Still, he was not done yet. He returned day after day, whenever his wife wasn’t looking; usually when she was preoccupied with the little Evan. He slowly became more and more familiar with the system, and how to navigate the web.

SEARCH: hit man_

  Still, he could not find what he was searching for. Then, one day, at the office, he heard exactly what he was looking for. Walking past the digital department, which was full of young tech employees fresh out of college, he overheard their conversation:

“Paul, Dave, have you been on the deep web yet?”

“What the hell is the deep web? Unless this is some stupid joke about our wives, Cameron.”

“No, that’s later, just like every day. But really! It’s a program that’s similar to the Internet, but since it isn’t a government program, it isn’t surveyed by them. That means that stuff you’d never, ever see on the Internet, and probably not in everyday life, can be found there. But just because you don’t see them every day doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Footage of murder, women, government secrets, hitmen… anything you can think of. Anything you want. As long as you don’t get caught with the program.” Cameron held up a floppy disk. Before he could put it back in his pocket, Jimmy swiftly stepped into the cubicle. “H-Hi, is there any ch-chance I could borrow that?”

  As soon as he got home, he saw that his wife was out. She must be shopping. Good. He ran up the stairs and plugged in the floppy disk. The screen blinked three times, then went black. He took his hands off of the keyboard, had he broke it? Then suddenly, the screen popped up again.

Execute program (deepweb.files.exe) ?

Yes / No

  He hesitated for only a moment.

Yes

  In an instant, thousands and thousands of images and files containing terrible, unspeakable things flashed before his eyes. He understood what Cameron meant. He thought he had, but he hadn’t until now. Never in his life had he seen such things. Men in costumes forcing a crying man to eat cereal for hours in a white room; an albino chimpanzee, the same one let loose on a woman in an earlier file, available for sale; footage of covered up crimes, crimes Jimmy had heard about. When he got to the top of the page finally, there it was.

SEARCH DEEP WEB:

  He didn’t hesitate for a moment.

SEARCH DEEP WEB: hit man_

Within minutes, he found a portfolio for a man who would do the task. There was a form.

TARGET:

CONTRACTOR:

ADDRESS:

Seems simple enough, Jimmy thought. But what was the address for? He’s a professional, it should be easy to find the boss of a workplace. He must need an address to meet me so I can pay him.

TARGET: David Rodriguez

CONTRACTOR: Jimmy Parsons

ADDRESS: 6623 Green Heights Lane

Now all I have to do is wait. “Jimmy? Are you home?” Jimmy’s voice leaped at the sound of his wife’s voice. He snatched the floppy disk. “Up here, honey!”

  He couldn’t get it off of his mind. Day after day he waited. Then he realized; how would he know when the deed was done? How would they get in touch? The killer surely wouldn’t simply walk up to the door, would he?

Suddenly, and quite coincidentally, there was a knock at the door. Rachel was bathing Evan, so he shouted, “I’ve got it honey!” He turned the doorknob. “Good afternoon-”

BLAM BLAM BLAM  

Jimmy didn't know how to react. He was already on the ground. “th.. th.. rt… three bullets through the door you asshole!”

CHOP CHOP CHOP

The man was chop chop chopping his way through the door with a small hand ax.

“I've come to kill you, sir. Mr. David Rodriguez. Although you're whiter than I expected.”

“You've got the wrong guy I swear-”

CHOP

Jimmy ran through the house, searching for a defense. VVVVP! as he reached for the cupboard, a knife flew past his head, shutting the cupboard. Out of the kitchen, he saw his shed. The place he often used to tinker and fix things, his hobby. In his hysteria, he thought, Salvation.

 BANG

Everything was bright white light, and there was no detail, and all the sound he could define was a high pitched, equally white noise. He was delirious, and could not stand. At least it wasn't a lethal bomb, Jimmy incoherently thought. Jimmy shook when things got even brighter when the gentleman killer cracked open the shed. The man dragged Jimmy out into the grass by the collar, threw him down, and cocked his revolver, as a curl came out of his slicked black hair.

With a gun to his temple- he had never been so close to one before- Jimmy came to his senses. Well, at least his mind. He still couldn't use his vision or hear very well.

“You don't get it!” Jimmy paused to spit out a tooth. “I know who hired you!”

The man was perplexed for a moment, Jimmy could tell by his voice. “You… do?”

“Yes!” Jimmy shouted, on the brink of tears. “Jimmy Parsons. He hired you to kill David Rodriguez. I’m the damn contractor! Not the Target!”

The man looked annoyed as Jimmy’s vision returned. “Well, this is the damn address. Ya type in the damn address of the damn target.” He began to walk away, and as he picked up his ax, he turned. “And I want my damn money. You damn idiot.” He buttoned his jacket, opened the fence, and left.

As he sat there, bleeding, he didn’t want to cry anymore. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He kneeled in the dirt, and all he could think to say was,

“Oh.”

[englishcompositionsp17]

How Jimmy Parsons Contracted His Own Killer

“The Folly Of Jealousy and Ungratefulness”

-Or-

“How Jimmy Parsons Contracted His Own Killer”

By Christian Salazar

With inspiration from Samuel Soto

  BLAKKA BLAKKA BLAKKA

  KRACK KSHHHH SIFFFFF

“Stop!” came a voice between the blasts of pounding metal and wood shattering. “Stop, you imbecile, you goddamned mutt-” Jimmy’s pleas were cut short by a small *click, ting... ting, tingtingtinggg* behind him. Still squatting in his locked up shed, Jimmy could only rely on the beams of light finding its way in through the massive bullet holes to see. He quickly spun around, confused as to what could make such a timid sound. Even more so, he was confused at the contrast the sound introduced to the preceding storm of utter noise. Along the floor were dots of light aligning with the bullet holes. He followed something shiny that seemed to roll underneath each beam of light, until it came to rest. A small grey canister with a yellow band surrounding it. Now, Jimmy didn’t watch too many movies, much less films of violence, but oh, he knew what this was. He turned and leaped as fast as possible-

BANG

  Ten years ago, Jimmy Parsons was one of the top accounting students at Boulder University. A highly gifted student, one skill he rather lacked was that of the social category. He did not have many friends, much less a lover. How he longed for someone to hold, to think the world of him. Maybe then he would see himself that way as well, and perhaps he would finally feel as if all this studying was worth it. So it came as a great surprise when miss Rachel Natasha Mendelson, one of the campus’ most beautiful women, asked him to take her to the movies. “You seem like such a sweetheart, and I’m looking for something different from the rest of this bonehead campus… Won’t you take me?” For a moment, Jimmy feared that he would become anxious and do what he always had done and said that he had a big test the next day, or a science competition. But he only felt that way for a moment. Suddenly, with a burst of confidence only a special woman could give such a shy man, he replied, “That’s very sweet of you. I’d love to take you. Wuh- Would eight o’clock be alright with you?” He had only stuttered once. Rachel began to laugh; “Of course it would. See ya around, sweetheart.” As she walked away, he began to realize that he didn’t know the first thing about dating. So he did what he did best- he read.

  By that night, Jimmy knew all the tips and tricks to a good date. When he came and picked her up, she seemed very excited. They laughed and talked all the way to the theatre. Inside, he recognized that for some reason, the top corner seats were the best for a date. They went and sat there, and the movie began. She laid in the crook of his arm, and he wondered how long the film would be. Thirty minutes into the film, she turned slowly and looked intimately into his eyes. Now, Jimmy didn’t watch too many movies, much less films of romance, but oh, he knew what this was. He turned to her, looking intimately back, and-

  Ten years later, he had married Rachel and had a child. However, his diploma and graduating summa cumme laude hadn’t done much for him. Bouncing from job to job, he had graduated at a time when computers had finally become mainstream, and most companies had begun attempting to integrate them in an effort to modernize and keep up with the competition- and save money on employees. He finally found, as he described one night to Rachel, a “shit job in a shit town with a shit boss”. He managed to hold on to it, although reluctantly. His boss, a short begrudging man, hated Europeans. Jimmy was always taught to treat other how you would like to be treated, but after the first couple of years, he simply hated the small man with the loud voice, with its stench of alcohol. And no matter how much Rachel restored his confidence and faith in himself every afternoon, he could not stop his boss from toying with his head. Crude joke after racist remark after unnecessary task, Jimmy could only take so much. But he needed this job, Rachel reminded him, and she was right. He did need the job.

  But did he need his boss?

  No matter how smart Jimmy was, he always struggled with computers. Damned things, he thought to himself often. What the hell can a machine do that I can’t?

Still, Rachel knew better and had purchased one. The internet was relatively new and growing exponentially. He logged on and shooed his wife away (he needed her help to log on), and began his search.

SEARCH: hit man_

  After an hour or so, he became frustrated and quit. Still, he was not done yet. He returned day after day, whenever his wife wasn’t looking; usually when she was preoccupied with the little Evan. He slowly became more and more familiar with the system, and how to navigate the web.

SEARCH: hit man_

  Still, he could not find what he was searching for. Then, one day, at the office, he heard exactly what he was looking for. Walking past the digital department, which was full of young tech employees fresh out of college, he overheard their conversation:

“Paul, Dave, have you been on the deep web yet?”

“What the hell is the deep web? Unless this is some stupid joke about our wives, Cameron.”

“No, that’s later, just like every day. But really! It’s a program that’s similar to the Internet, but since it isn’t a government program, it isn’t surveyed by them. That means that stuff you’d never, ever see on the Internet, and probably not in everyday life, can be found there. But just because you don’t see them every day doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Footage of murder, women, government secrets, hitmen… anything you can think of. Anything you want. As long as you don’t get caught with the program.” Cameron held up a floppy disk. Before he could put it back in his pocket, Jimmy swiftly stepped into the cubicle. “H-Hi, is there any ch-chance I could borrow that?”

  As soon as he got home, he saw that his wife was out. She must be shopping. Good. He ran up the stairs and plugged in the floppy disk. The screen blinked three times, then went black. He took his hands off of the keyboard, had he broke it? Then suddenly, the screen popped up again.

Execute program (deepweb.files.exe) ?

Yes / No

  He hesitated for only a moment.

Yes

  In an instant, thousands and thousands of images and files containing terrible, unspeakable things flashed before his eyes. He understood what Cameron meant. He thought he had, but he hadn’t until now. Never in his life had he seen such things. Men in costumes forcing a crying man to eat cereal for hours in a white room; an albino chimpanzee, the same one let loose on a woman in an earlier file, available for sale; footage of covered up crimes, crimes Jimmy had heard about. When he got to the top of the page finally, there it was.

SEARCH DEEP WEB:

  He didn’t hesitate for a moment.

SEARCH DEEP WEB: hit man_

Within minutes, he found a portfolio for a man who would do the task. There was a form.

TARGET:

CONTRACTOR:

ADDRESS:

Seems simple enough, Jimmy thought. But what was the address for? He’s a professional, it should be easy to find the boss of a workplace. He must need an address to meet me so I can pay him.

TARGET: David Rodriguez

CONTRACTOR: Jimmy Parsons

ADDRESS: 6623 Green Heights Lane

Now all I have to do is wait. “Jimmy? Are you home?” Jimmy’s voice leaped at the sound of his wife’s voice. He snatched the floppy disk. “Up here, honey!”

  He couldn’t get it off of his mind. Day after day he waited. Then he realized; how would he know when the deed was done? How would they get in touch? The killer surely wouldn’t simply walk up to the door, would he?

Suddenly, and quite coincidentally, there was a knock at the door. Rachel was bathing Evan, so he shouted, “I’ve got it honey!” He turned the doorknob. “Good afternoon-”

BLAM BLAM BLAM  

Jimmy didn't know how to react. He was already on the ground. “th.. th.. rt… three bullets through the door you asshole!”

CHOP CHOP CHOP

The man was chop chop chopping his way through the door with a small hand ax.

“I've come to kill you, sir. Mr. David Rodriguez. Although you're whiter than I expected.”

“You've got the wrong guy I swear-”

CHOP

Jimmy ran through the house, searching for a defense. VVVVP! as he reached for the cupboard, a knife flew past his head, shutting the cupboard. Out of the kitchen, he saw his shed. The place he often used to tinker and fix things, his hobby. In his hysteria, he thought, Salvation.

 BANG

Everything was bright white light, and there was no detail, and all the sound he could define was a high pitched, equally white noise. He was delirious, and could not stand. At least it wasn't a lethal bomb, Jimmy incoherently thought. Jimmy shook when things got even brighter when the gentleman killer cracked open the shed. The man dragged Jimmy out into the grass by the collar, threw him down, and cocked his revolver, as a curl came out of his slicked black hair.

With a gun to his temple- he had never been so close to one before- Jimmy came to his senses. Well, at least his mind. He still couldn't use his vision or hear very well.

“You don't get it!” Jimmy paused to spit out a tooth. “I know who hired you!”

The man was perplexed for a moment, Jimmy could tell by his voice. “You… do?”

“Yes!” Jimmy shouted, on the brink of tears. “Jimmy Parsons. He hired you to kill David Rodriguez. I’m the damn contractor! Not the Target!”

The man looked annoyed as Jimmy’s vision returned. “Well, this is the damn address. Ya type in the damn address of the damn target.” He began to walk away, and as he picked up his ax, he turned. “And I want my damn money. You damn idiot.” He buttoned his jacket, opened the fence, and left.

As he sat there, bleeding, he didn’t want to cry anymore. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He kneeled in the dirt, and all he could think to say was,

“Oh.”