Jungkook x Reader/ Yoongi x Jimin
𝓢𝔀𝓮𝓮𝓽 𝓣𝓸𝓸𝓽𝓱 [Cream] 1/2
Jimin and Yoongi share one major problem when it comes to you and Jungkook- they're not hybrids, which means there's things in life they can never fully understand. But that's what you've got each other now for. And he can't wait to get a taste.
Tags/Warnings: Human!Yoongi, Human!Jimin, Rottweiler hybrid!Jungkook, Cat hybrid!Reader, Enemies to friends to lovers, mentions of past trauma, some Yoonmin here and there oops, Main story focus are MC and Kook though, just hybrid things (scenting, grooming, biting, licking, scruffing, and more), hurt & comfort, heat, manhandling, smut, Dom!brat tamer!Kook, sub!brat!reader, Fluff, SFW in this but smut in the next, some Angst, hints at (sexual) abuse, MCs past somewhat revealed, lots of comfort though
Length: ~4.3k words
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Jungkook has to laugh a little as he watches you emerge from your room to presumably check out the smell of the soup, all bundled up in a giant burrito of blankets, tail barely poking out from the bottom between your legs.
The dog hybrid had managed to give you some fever medication, a soft laugh having escaped him as he realized that almost all the medication for you is more so branded towards kittens than actual adult feline hybrids- something Jimin explained was the only way you'd take any of it.
You're so terribly spoiled- but Jungkook can't blame him for doing so.
"M'sorry.." You slur, simply leaning your body against his, face buried in his chest as you rub your forehead against his clothes. "you were probably really.. excited.." You mumble, and he chuckles, a hand on your back- or more so all the blankets wrapped around you.
"Don't apologize." he reassures you, stirring the pot with soup on the stove before he turns off the heat. "I'm more worried about you than anything else. And I told you we wouldn't have to do anything anyways, so no issues there at all." He jokes, though you just stay in your position stubbornly.
Jungkook can really just assume what's happening to you- his internet research and general knowledge from his job offering him a few pieces to the puzzle here and there. It's clear that it's some sort of trauma response- but Jimin had told him that there's nothing documented that would explain why you sometimes fall into such a state during your heat, while other times, you'd be fine. Something Jungkook had found could be that your mind simply 'locked' any memory of something happening- making your body remember, but not your mind. It happens in some hybrids who'd suffered traumatic events in their pasts- and from the looks of it all, that might just be what's going on with you.
All Jungkook really wants however, is to make sure you're alright. He doesn't need to know your past- only your future matters, and he wants to paint it in colors nowhere near as sad as you sometimes look.
"Jungkook.?" You ask suddenly, voice muffled into the fabric of his sweater, and he hums, moving his hands to hold your face in his palms so you can look at him- which you don't do, averting your eyes from him. "Will you.. stay with me?" You ask, and before he can answer, you add on; "..even though I'm me?"
For a moment, he can only hear the clock in the kitchen ticking, his entire body frozen in place as he realizes what you're really asking him.
So he was right all along.
You're scared of being left alone, and he knew this already-
but he might've just figured out what happened to you in the past to cause your body to shut down every time you hit your heat.
Abandonment. Someone had just left you during you most vulnerable time.
"I'll stay with you forever if you want me to." He says, teasingly squishing your cheeks a little, making you pout at him with a playful glare. "No matter if you're sick, or if you're annoying, or if you're angry, or sad-" He rants, tail wagging when you start to smile. "-so stop worrying, and let me be your guard dog." He jokes, making you laugh, before you cough a little.
"You're an idiot!" You laugh, before he lifts you up, blankets and all, to sit you down on one of the kitchen chairs-
boldly pecking your cheek.
"Well, I'm your idiot now."
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"I'm going over-" Jimin suddenly says, Yoongi however reaching out to grab his wrist and hold him back.
"Park Jimin, my hybrid is currently busy spoon-feeding soup to your blanket burrito over there, she's fine." He sighs, before nodding over to the window, where Jimin can actually in fact see your legs happily kicking around on the chair, while Jungkook feeds you, most likely because you refuse to untangle yourself from the blanket. "Jimin, I have been wondering something. And I want you to be honest." He says, as the younger human sits back down. "Do you love her? Romantically?" He asks, and it's quiet for a moment, before Jimin shakes his head.
"When I brought her home, she refused to do anything for days." Jimin explains. "No eating, no drinking, no talking- she was like a wild animal rather than a mostly human being." he remembers, looking at the tabletop. "No one knows what actually went down in that home, since she doesn't remember, and the other two hybrids she was living with had been completely shut down last time I saw them." He recalls, and Yoongi listens intently. "As far as I know, she's the only one who ever recovered to a point where she's considered independent again."
"And now you keep seeing her back in that state, and it scares you so much you rather avoid any negative situation so she doesn't fall back." Yoongi finishes.
"At first, I was walking on eggshells around her." Jimin runs a hand over his face. "One step forward, two steps back. It was a constant push and pull." He explains. "One day she'd make amazing progress, and then the next she'd be back at square one just because I accidentally did something that would set her off. It was.. frustrating, as bad as it sounds."
"It's not a bad thing to admit that it was tough." Yoongi reassures. "It doesn't mean you demean her just by saying that she was a challenge. I can't imagine how hard it must've been to work through all of it on your own."
"I knew that at some point, she was using things to her advantage. She was using me-" He sighs, "-and I let her. Because I knew that she didn't do it because she was a bad person."
"She was just in survival mode." The older human agrees, and Jimin nods with glossy eyes, feeling relieved that his partner seems to understand.
"And at some point, it just became.. okay. I felt content being her punching bag if it meant she was getting better. So I let her bite, and scratch, and yell. It was fine." He nods to himself. "And then.. she changed. Became so soft." the younger human almost whispers. "I don't- you might not really believe it, but she can be so sweet. Once you push past all her nasty walls and all that acting tough, she's an angel. She really is."
"I mean, I've seen glimpses of it, here and there. So I believe you." Yoongi chuckles. "And I think I understand your feelings towards her too. You're.. similar to me and Jungkook, I guess." He shrugs. "It's more of a.. caretaker situation. I feel responsible, in a way, since I practically raised him through his teenage years. Every flaw he now has somewhat falls back onto me." He laughs to himself. "I love him. Not intimately, or romantically- just.."
"Just love." Jimin says, nodding. "Nothing else. Just pure affection."
"Exactly." Yoongi nods.
And for a moment, both of them just look at each other-
enjoying the feeling of knowing that finally, someone else seems to understand.
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Due to his job, Jungkook has become pretty good at recognizing behaviors and adjusting his own accordingly. And he realizes quickly that your body and your mind are terribly disconnected in one way or another- making it a bit tough to figure out how to place his steps to make you feel comfortable.
Your mind is clearly content, happy and relaxed around him. You're purring against his chest right now, belly filled with warm soup and fever slowly coming down little by little, giving you finally a chance at proper rest. Your body, however, is still on high alert- ears constantly moving, tail never staying still, muscles tense in case you need to escape from whatever might happen.
He's basically forced to work with two sides of you at the same time- and upsetting one, could send the other into a panic at any time, due to your heat.
But he's got an ace up his sleeve- he's just as much of a hybrid as you are. And he noticed some things that work very well on you already.
You've currently started to roll around next to him on the bed- uncaring if your blankets or pillows fall down. It's clear that you're starting to become comfortable again, to the point of your heat actually making you interested again. And it also brings out your personality once more- as you playfully bite after him whenever he tries to touch you. You clearly initiate every contact first- from bumping your head into his body, to actually laying over him and holding onto his arms. But the moment he moves towards you, you bite, kick, or push at him again- and he knows that it's your instincts kicking in.
Jungkook has had sex before. He's not innocent in the slightest, and yet, he's sure that once you're ready for that with him, you'll be able to give him something he's been missing in every experience he's had before;
something wild, and untamed.
"Stop biting me you gremlin." Jungkook laughs while he watches you dig your teeth into the skin of his forearm that you hold onto- though you're not breaking skin whatsoever. It's just a play-bite, and neither is he mad about it. "You wanna get up and eat something?" He asks, and you finally let go, roll onto your back, and huff.
"No." You whine. "But I'm hungry." You complain further, and he chuckles.
"So what is it then?" He wonders, and your tail smacks loudly onto the bed.
"I wanna eat!" You complain, arms crossed. "But here!" You say, and he shakes his head.
"You're not eating in bed." He denies. "Once your heat breaks through you'll spend enough time here." He tells you, and at that, you begin to squirm a bit uncomfortably. He's noticed it some time ago already, can only really assume the contents of your most recent dream you had while sleeping next to him-
he somehow hopes he was a part of it. Maybe even the main part of it.
He can sense that you're slowly breaking out of your fever, but you're not yet there- there's still a certain sense of distrust you seem to have, and he fully understands and respects that. After all, considering this will be your first heat and first sexual experience, there has to be some sort of anxiety within you. He can only imagine how intimidating everything must be to you.
"How do you feel?" He asks, carefully reaching out to run a hand over your naked shoulder- an action you now let happen, no longer in a playful mood than before. "Hm?" He asks when you just cringe and whine, slowly sitting up.
"Dunno.." You mumble. "Don't wanna.. do stuff yet though. Sorry." You say, when he moves around on the bed, now sitting on his heels in front of you, hands on your cheeks.
"I'm not here just to take advantage of you, or have my fun with your body." He explains to you in a serious manner. "I'm not here just to have sex with you and satisfy myself." He says. "I'm here because I want to take care of you, and because I want to help you."
"Yeah and like, help is gonna-" You start, but he shakes his head.
"Help is gonna be what it's gonna be. Even if you don't want any help in that department at all, I'll still stay if you want me to." He shrugs.
"I want that." You say, grabbing and holding onto his sweater, pulling it towards you. "You gotta stay. Or I'll get sad." You tell him, flopping down into your side on the bed, and he grins, leaning down towards you.
"And we don't want you being sad, right?" He hums lowly, making you nod softly, almost shy.
"If I get sad I won't let you see me naked." You boldly tell him, and he laughs, resting his face in the crook of your neck.
"Oh no, I better keep you happy then!" He dramatically exclaims, laying down next to you. "What does a poor dog gotta do to make the princess smile?" He wonders dramatically, and you grin playfully, rolling onto your back.
"He'd carry her to the kitchen and feed her." You sing, tail curling impishly around. "And then he'd probably have to cuddle her, and make sure she's never lonely." You explain.
He nods. "I think I can do that." He suddenly says, before he gets up to throw you over his shoulder.
"Hey!" You complain, and he laughs, testing the waters by playfully hitting your butt once as he walks out the door towards the kitchen.
"You wanted to be carried." He shrugs, laughing when he notices you suddenly becoming shy. "You never said how."
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"I lied." You suddenly say as Jungkook is back in bed with you, having you laid over his lap while he pets your ears. "I had sex before. Well-... kinda." You mumble, and his touch never stops.
"You wanna talk about it?" He asks casually, careful not to make you nervous. "It's fine if you don't want to."
"No, It's just-" you huff, visibly riled up by the topic. "I don't remember it well. Like, it's like a dream that you know you had but you forgot most of the details. I know I was bad, and I know it wasn't good. I remember that I was alone after, and that I was in the bathroom- I know that I slept in the bathtub, back at my old home, but I don't remember why. I just.. woke up there." You shrug, and Jungkook nods.
So it really is how he thought. Your mind has locked certain memories away to protect you- however, the trauma responses are still there, instincts unable to forget that easily.
"I guess that's why my heat is sometimes like that. I don't know.." you mumble. "..I don't know how to deal with this stuff. I'm not sure what you do and what you don't do during your heat.." you look someplace distant. "I'm broken. And I don't know how to fix me." You sigh.
"You're not broken at all." Jungkook shakes his head. "You're you. And I like you."
"You say that to get into my pants." You roll your eyes, and he laughs.
"I'm saying that because it's true. I don't want anything from you that you're not willing to give me." He shrugs.
"Then what if I don't want to have sex with you?" You ask, rolling onto your back to look at him. "What if I don't want you to touch me? Or if I'm mean? Or-"
"That won't change the fact that I like you." He says, shutting you up. You're so used to people only doing things so they can get something out of it for themselves, that Jungkook's words have become alien to you. He's just like Jimin, back then.
Intimidating, because his friendliness is just way too suspicious. But for now, you just go to sleep- taking a nap close to him, to maybe relax and sort out yourself and your situation for once.
Maybe.
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You're suddenly huffy yet again, hiding away from Jungkook underneath the blankets, and no amount of treats or praise seems to be able able to get you out from underneath them. He tries it all for a good while- offering your favorite foods, promising cuddles, even getting Jimin for you- but you refuse to come out and face him any longer.
He's not sure what happened after your little talk, but he's determined to find out.
"You can leave now!" You hiss underneath the heavy blanket, and he sighs, sitting cross-legged on the bed instead, not moving an inch. You're stubborn- but he's got the better patience of you both, so he decides to just wait it out for now, instead of getting you out underneath. He'd risk setting you off again- and he's not sure if he could handle the guilt of being the one to cause you distress. "Go away!" You yell again, but to no avail. He's not moving.
"Not until you tell me why." He responds to you calmly, and suddenly, your face pokes out the blanket, eyes red from crying, face clearly angry.
"I'm not in heat anymore, you can go now..!" You huff, and he tilts his head a bit confused, unsure what you're talking about.
"What do you mean?" He asks, and you just hide underneath the blanket again.
"I don't know, I'm just not anymore, so you can fuck off!" You growl, pulling the edges of the blanket close.
Jungkook thinks for a good moment. Maybe you're confused? You clearly still smell like you're in heat- more than ever, in fact, but your mind is pretty obviously not anymore, which doesn't make sense. And even if you weren't anymore, why do you suddenly seem to hate his presence?
"Do you think I only wanted you.. because you're in heat?" Jungkook wonders, tests the waters, and your silence tells him everything. He sighs loudly, and pulls on the blanket, easily overpowering you and taking away your hiding spot. And just as you try and get away, he pins you down instead by your wrists, leaning over you to look at you closely. "I want you when you're not in heat too. I want you whenever you want me." He tells you, and you look at him with wide open eyes.
"Why?" You ask.
"I don't think any explanation would really convince you." Jungkook says, looking at you. "Because you don't seem to understand that.. love and affection, that doesn't need anything else. Actual love isn't a giving and taking. It's not a transaction. You don't decide to love someone." He shrugs, before his hold on your hands loosens, arms rather wrapping around you to pick you up and hold your body against his, hugging you with his face in your shoulder. "Let me love you." He hums against your skin, and you don't know what to do for a good while.
He's right.
Love always comes with some responsibility for you- or at least it did, in the past. If someone loves you, you're obligated to return it in some way- you have to pay it back, somehow, no matter if it's not what you want, or if you don't love that person at all. Love always has some sort of hidden meaning. There's always a compensation wanted.
But Jungkook is like Jimin. He doesn't want anything from you- so what are you supposed to give?
Because compared to everyone who 'loved' you in the past, you actually want to pay him back. You want to return it. You want to be loved. But he doesn't want anything from you in return. What do you do now?
"What do you want from me?" You almost whisper, unsure. "I want to.. I don't know what to give you." You whimper, body shaking a little.
"I don't need anything from you." He chuckles, holding you a bit closer.
"You have to want something!" You call out in frustration. "I don't know what to give you in return- I wanna-.. I need to give you something, anything.." You stutter, and he realizes what you need.
"How about your love then?" He wonders, leaning back a little to look at you. "Please love me." He asks, a smile on his lips and tail happily wagging.
And for once in your life, never has a request been so easy to fulfill.
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'I'm not in heat anymore', is what you've said. In reality, you very much still are- and Jungkook realizes as you lift your behind up next to him with red cheeks, face hidden in the pillows in embarrassment, that you finally broke through. So if anything, you've never been so deeply in heat than right now.
You trust him enough to let yourself go, and leave your body in his care- instincts taking over as you whine in complaint next to him on the bed.
Before you went to sleep a few hours prior, he'd had a very in-depth talk about what's allowed to happen in this situation. How far he's allowed to go, what you think you'll enjoy and what you absolutely do not want, no matter how much your fogged up brain will ask for it. So he's empowered by a certain sense of confidence in his actions- and he's also more than excited to help you.
After all, you're his partner from now on. You're his princess- and he can't wait to mark you up as such, too.
He turns onto his side to watch you, as you slowly move around to roll on the bed and get your scent everywhere- dark spot on your underwear giving him an idea of the predicament you're in, inside of your legs already glistening with your slick, probably having started during your nap earlier. He can also see the underside of the base of your tail wet from having been pulled between your thighs in a pitiful attempt to somehow provide any sort of relief- which didn't work. And even your hand, which travels shamelessly underneath the fabric of your underwear, doesn't seem to help you at all.
The moment your eyes lock, he waits. He knows what you want, but he refuses to act on anything that's not your clear words. You're in heat, after all- not mute.
"Jungkook..!" You whine, rolling around once more before you kick after his legs- though he catches your ankle, holds it with a stern but playful look. You whine again, no words coming from you, as you try and pull your leg away.
"Words." He simply states, letting go of you before he moves one arm to rest behind his head, lazily watching you. "I can't read your mind." He shrugs.
"You can!" You hiss, sitting up. "You know!" You argue, and he's got the audacity to laugh at you. "Do something!"
"How about you beg a little and I think about it?" He teases, and he can see in seconds how your cheeks turn red.
"You're evil!" You hiss.
"And you're being a brat right now." He shrugs, looking at you, now sat up to glare at him. "Just a pretty little 'please' and I'll do whatever you'd like me to." He almost sings, very much aware that he's riling you up right now. He's studied you enough to know how far he can go. He'd never intentionally make you feel bad- especially not in a situation like this. But he also wants to have a little fun with you- you're just too easy to tease.
And so fun, too.
"Please~ do something then!" You huff, flopping onto your back, making him laugh- before he moves his arms, opening them, inviting you silently. He's not even gonna move for you- you have to come to him instead.
And so you do just that-
Giving yourself to him in a final display of trust.
And he's gonna make sure you'll know it's not being misplaced with him.
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and now it’s time for silly songs with larry minnesota cuke, the part of your dash where i keep talking about indiana jones, forever.
current state of the view count:
here be spoilers. i might say i’d stop tagging after we cross the month threshold but tbh the way i keep writing novel-length nonsense it will probably just stay under a cut regardless
i know we got the wilhelm and the milennium falcon/plane engine noise (can’t remember where, on the latter) but i avidly watched the credits last time and ben burtt was not involved in this one. dunno how much of this is lucasfilm restructuring under disney or them handing it over to a mostly fully new team (like new costumers being mostly disconnected from the old ones), but it’s a little sad to see. it’s not like he’s retired. (I mean, maybe he was overbooked or didn’t want to work on it, but still!) (i may be the singular person out here regularly making raiders foley art jokes around the internet, so, you know, forgive me on my frustration with this point.)
what do you think happened to that poor italian pilot after everything? are they long-distance friends now, a la sallah or presumably renaldo, etc? (which, by the way, I can’t remember if I ever speculated about it on here, but I was hoping we’d meet up with one of Young Indy’s FFL friends in Morocco. I was clearly wrong about that.) or do you just go back to your italian pilot life trying not to think about how you went 2200 years into the past? i mean, shit gets weird with pilots. so it’s not like he’d be an odd man out just ranting paranoically about watching out for dangerous cloud formations at altitude. (and when i say “shit gets weird with pilots”, i also mean, like, it’s a personality thing. SO.) (i mean...)
been trying to pay more attention to the score on subsequent viewings because it hits so differently for me. I think, other than Helena’s Theme, that it just uses older cues a lot more? which, arguaby, it’s not like the past sequels haven’t done that, but much like my script complaints it feels like it’s Oops! All References. which I did notice— pretty sure when the bomb drops in the intro, it’s the ants swarming cue from Crystal Skull. (which is kind of an interesting comparison, musically, thematically!)
on the flip side, I was dinking around with Helena’s Theme on the keyboard— I’m fairly but not 100% certain it’s just the Raiders March notes rearranged. which is sweet, and I like that it went someplace different musically, but also it’s interesting to note how that’s such a musical diversion from John Williams’ other work. Star Wars intertwines themes a lot, but so has Indiana Jones; notably with Mutt’s theme in Crystal Skull but iirc also with Henry Sr in Last Crusade? now i’m second guessing myself. ANYWAY. Williams does it a lot, frequently in little ways that are just a bar or two or four, so it’s notable to me that Helena’s doesn’t.
which is fine; it’s a good theme. on the other hand, I feel like that reinforces again my structural complaints with Dial of Destiny, in that things just seem tacked on together in a pile and don’t really mesh; and moreover, that we frequently are given Helena’s Theme when we want to hear the Raiders March. intertwining them as countermelodies or harmonized or whatever would have given us both. and 1) it’s interesting that they chose only to give us Helena and not Indy, musically, and 2) this echoes the structure of not actually actively resolving (or, uh, even really addressing forthrightly) their character arcs/conflict!
on my last viewing i went to see it in this theater that used to be an indie/art theater and got bankrupted by covid and resold, and it was very nice internally but i spent the whole movie wondering what the fuck kind of weird vignetting was going on with the film/lenses. finally made it to the underwater scenes and it was just dark as shit, so I suspect, looking back, it was just that the projector had bulb issues, which is frustrating on its own but even moreso as a purportedly indie/art theater. (also i got a trailer for that theater camp movie this time, which is a hilarious pre-roll choice? lol)
i cannot stop thinking about the whole Science But Also We’re Going To Nod Vaguely To Athena And Put Moons On Shit design premise. i get the moons if you’re trying to make everyone remember that the dial is a celestial body calendar calculator (which it was!) but WHY JUST THE MOON. WHY EVEN BOTHER PUTTING ATHENA IN THERE. if it’s SCIENCE then put THE MOON AND THE STARS AND THE PLANETS. if it’s MYTHOLOGY then PUT IN ARTEMIS AND APOLLO/ETC. AND IF IT’S ABOUT TIME THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN ME KRONOS AND THE TITANS GOD DAMNIT
/rant
anyway. lazy production design (and/or writing/plot choice if it was them) in my opinion.
BUT NO WHAT’S THIS IT’S MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT THE GRAPHIKOS
I think they melted it... digitally? The fire looks digital, and the melted wax looks digital, and there’s a notable texture difference from the shot of the disc in the melted wax vs. the subsequent shot of Indy pulling the disc out. So I’m very curious to know if it was actually digital or practical. Generally, yes, safer for fire. My preference obviously as a Raiders/etc fan specifically is that it should have been practical to the extent they could have. And of course we can argue maybe the shot difference is just waiting for the wax to cool enough to pick it out the disc safely, but, eh. idk. it didn’t feel tactile, you know? That’s part of what these movies are about.
(I mean, likely, lighting some 151 or whatever on a Wide Candle would probably not burn sufficiently long to melt it? But COME ON, THE POWER OF EDITING, I BELIEVE IN YOU) (also perhaps i will try lighting one of my junk candles on fire later with the power of rum. just for experimental purposes. SCIENCE, YAKNOW)
side note, historically, i want to say a wax tablet like that would have had a wood frame? also, i don’t know what kind of wax they would have made it out of. i could easily go research this, so i guess that’s going on my list next.
So the big thing I keep chewing on is the contrast-not-contrast of Voller and Indy, and what the fuck the plot was actually trying to say. (and, frankly, as I have mentioned, I keep coming up with ????? because I think they didn’t have a good thesis and thus the structure floundered and the point is kind of lost, aside from the broad strokes of what we already “know” about Indy, both the person and the character.) Voller’s Mediterranean look is interesting to be because it seems like a pallette-swap of Indy. Light toned fedora, light toned jacket, slacks and a shoulder bag, all still in natural, earth tones, but not dark browns. To me this is a more interesting contrast than is happening almost anywhere else, because it’s reminiscent of Belloq’s pallette (usually whites and creams, both with pith helmet and later a fedora) and also Panama Hat’s (love those serial flick names). Belloq and Indy are explicitly very close to the same, “rational” archaeologists in pursuit of some academic fame or notoriety, and also a little bit in the realms of questionable ethics. (Until it turns out, of course, that Belloq would sell his soul to the Nazis, and Indy wouldn’t, though let’s not get into the depths of that examination here.) Voller also consistently sees Indy as a comrade-in-arms, the rational scientists whose pure pursuit of truth (and their own goals) is above all else.
And, of course, in the end, we see how that plays out more explicitly, Voller in the plane says “I can’t stay here,” while moments later Indy begs to be allowed to; “let me stay.”
Of course Indy would never be a Nazi so it’s necessary both structurally (and, uh, because otherwise this would be a literal disaster of a movie) for them to be counterpoints. But while this holds in the production design and the general basic structure, again, I think they really lost the plot in the nuances.
Indy is a man of science. Even all the while he’s come to appreciate (in past adventures) the existence of some mysticism. This movie, so much thematically, is about Science (Archimedes and the antikythera) and Indy being a scientist and also Voller being a scientist. It’s also as much about belief; Indy in Science AND ALSO His Marriage, and Voller in Science. But, structurally, it keeps trying to pit Science against everything else; this in part is why the “dial” is the least interesting macguffin we’ve seen so far— it’s not really resonant to the story. (Mostly this failure belongs, as I’ve said, to the lack of character arc that should be underlying everything.)
Indy insists on being a scientist, despite the fact that he’s also willing to write off everything he’s seen as “how hard you believe in it”. Is that not worth examining, as a central thesis of the series?! Why does it get such a cop-out line?! (Again, because I think they didn’t know what they wanted to say, so they waffled on everything, and instead you get a hemming and hawing script without resolution.)
As a scientist, at the very least, I think he would be more intrigued by everything that has happened to him. Scientists love when things yield unexpected results, because that’s something new to explore.
Which, in that same vein, I can’t buy that he wouldn’t think the moon landing or space exploration was interesting. I can’t buy that he’d feel “replaced”— obviously, this is very much an angle on heroism and culture that is used by nazis and other cultural supremacists— but Indy is a guy who wants to learn, to teach, to engage with the world, to go on adventures. (If he’s jealous, show us that?)
And again, again, again, one can certainly argue that this is all specifically not him, not himself, because of the depression of losing Mutt and his marriage; that’s fine, but I think the script does a shit job of establishing that or doing anything with it.
And if Indy feels “replaced” (which, again, this thing they kept telling us in the promo material I don’t think was borne out well in the actual text!), and he’s longing for some lost era of himself (except, again, that he pushes everyone away and continues to claim “this isn’t an adventure”), what the fuck is the actual text of the movie structurally trying to say by bringing him “back” at the end? If he’s not actually a relic of the past (uh, literally and figuratively), and we still need heroes of his type today, why do we not spend more time and finesse with that character arc??????? You cannot posit this as your central thesis and then nearly forget about it until the last five minutes. I mean, you can, I guess. They maybe did. And it sucks all the more for it.
If Voller’s obsession with science is what gets him stuck as a literal and figural relic, and Indy gets to look to the future to continue to be a hero and be needed in the world around him, why do we spend so much time valorizing the antikythera as a scientific object instead of a more mystic one, if Indy needs Belief and Awe and The Power of Friendship and The Power of Punching Nazis and so do we?! Again, and I know I’ve said this a billion times already, but WHY DO HELENA AND INDY NEVER HAVE THAT MOMENT OF RESOLUTION??? Helena needs to realize it too! Indy needs to stop being so cynical and see what he already knows!
I just. urgh. like I said. it’s hard to write about with clarity because I think they lost it themselves. And, more objectively, the script is narratively fighting itself on these themes in part because “making the antikythera scientific and not very mystic” is a reaction to Crystal Skull more than it is a reflection on the rest of the series or letting it stand on its own merits. And, again, I think that not only creates a story that is at odds with itself constantly and messy as a result, but it also does no service to Raiders as a story nor the other entries in the series, nor to Indiana Jones as a concept or a franchise. (And, most notably, it makes a bad “finale” entry!)
I’ll probably have more to say on this later, and, you know, eternally, because every time I sit down to write out what I’m trying to say I end up saying something completely else so I’m just over here piling up disjointed comments on top of disjointed comments.
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