#`⠀ *⠀ ┈ ⠀pray for the best; prepare for the worst .⠀⠀/⠀⠀detective david loki .

[authorxxxxxx]

Afraid Of The Dark 🌙

Pairing : Detective David Loki x fem!reader

Summary : You were always afraid of the dark - as long as you can remember - and just when you thought you were beginning to overcome your greatest fear , it came back and everything was destroyed .

Tw : mentions and detailed descriptions of insomnia , discussions of heavy topics ( based on the original plot of the movie ) , anxiety and panic attacks , angst , the reader and David they fall in love with each other , extreme fluff towards the end .

Lately I've been experiencing heavy episodes of insomnia ( maybe for the past couple of weeks ) and I haven't been able to sleep or even rest properly . I really do not know what to do . I've started to eat more healthy and as much as I really want to take sleeping pills I am afrais that it is not going to be good for my body as I've already taken enough this month . If any of you know anything that can help , I would appreciate it if you would write me a message . Sleeping is one of the things that I enjoy the most and not being able to do it - it really drives me crazy .

Remember , English is not my first language so if you spot any mistakes just bare with me .

Ps : Writing this really helped me get some things that are disturbing me these past few weeks . I enjoyed working on this but at the same time it made me feel really bad at how I cope with some of my problems .

11k words : ?

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As long as you can remember - from a really young age - since you were a little girl - you were really afraid of the dark .

But you were not just afraid of the dark . . .

You hated the dark . . .

Actually you despise the dark with every living passion .

You can not actually remember when it first started . Maybe when you started hearing kids in the early years of primary school saying that from 03:00 until 04:00 a.m. was the Devil's hour , or that there ghosts and monsters everywhere in your room while your asleep , or when a teacher of yours told you that insects are inside your mattress.

There were times that your parents were actually very conserved and tried to explain to you that nothing is going to happen to you while you are sleeping .

But you always remember your father saying : " Pray for the best . Prepare for the worst " .

So you could not think otherwise - that something might happen to you or your family in the most unexpected time .

After the birth of your younger brother and sister , thinks got worse .

You would practically stay up all night making sure that everything was safe .

After one time were you fainted from exhaustion , your parents tried to help you with a psychiatrist .

Your father drove you there once every week - seemingly helpful .

It was not .

The pills that the doctor prescribed to you made your stomach turn upside down , your head dizzy with headaches , eyes crying .

Everything seemed to be getting worse .

But only your younger sister Anna had noticed .

Oh Anna . . . you were thinking now as your Honda Prelude was picking up speed by the minute driving you back home .

Conyers was always moody , while Philadelphia were you had moved 4 years ago for University had a lot more of sunny days - it maybe was the reason why your insomnia was getting step by step a little better .

That did not last for long . . .

149 km/h and your car was practically screaming for you to stop .

Just a couple of hours ago you received a call from Conyers Police Department begging you to come back as your little sister Anna and her best friend Joy were missing .

Your only reasons for existence was missing . . .

And you would search every single corner of the world to find her .

_____

When you finally got home it was nearly midnight and while everyone was enjoying their Thanksgiving night , you were holding your younger brother trying to protect him form your mothers cries .

Your father told you to leave the house and go to the car .

You wanted so badly to scream at him .

Ho could he suggest something like that while his youngest daughter was missing ?

Trying to control your anger you started to cry , your brother dragging you out of the house inside your car to both calm down .

_____

The morning you both came back at the house .

Thank God your mother was sleeping in the living room , your brother was in the kitchen and you were discussing with your father in the upstairs bathroom .

You rather seemed calm to the whole situation but your father could see in your eyes that you were thinking of the worst possibilities .

_____

Detective David Loki was something else .

You came into the room while he was typing away on his phone , not directly answering your mothers questions .

'' So, did we pass?"

" I'm sorry, what did you say?"

" The poly thing. The lie detector we took this morning. Did we pass?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yes, we appreciate your cooperat- "

Loki was interpreted by your form sitting cross leged in the entrance of the living room .

" How are you ? " He asked you , but your father did it for you .

" She is are oldest daughter Y/N . She came here yesterday . " He said and Loki without missing a second asked you to come by the station to fill your report .

That's how you found yourself sitting in an interrogation room with him asking you questions while observing you .

" Can I go home now ? " You asked him after a minute of total silence .

" Do you have trouble falling asleep ? " He asked with the most serious tone . Dark and deap voice only for you to hear .

Your lack of answer made him understand that that maybe you hade trouble falling asleep because of your sister's disappearance , but something told him it is not only that .

What he did not understand is why he felt the need to protect you and help with any way he can .

_____

After the events that happened when police let Alex go you began to leave the house .

Either helping police with their investigation , or spending time helping your brother mentally , which triggered your mental health too .

Your mother started taking pills and ended up falling asleep all day long .

But what made your anxiety worse was when you had a full blown out panic attack in front of the Detective .

You were with your brother in the police station after ending todays search in the woods with the team .

And then you heard it -

" Look, kid, we can't always save the day. All right? We're just cops, janitors . So you lost this one, all right? " You heard the captain say to Loki , but the only think that you could think right now was that the case was not going very well .

-So you lost this one, all right?

What does that mean ? That the case is closed ? That he is not going to find your sister ? That she is alone ? Maybe dead ? Dead ? Anna . . .

Your head was practically thinking about the worst things right now .

And when your eyes started crying on their own , your head became dizzy , your throat cloased , you finally realised that you could not breathe .

Your brother started crying watching you in this state - crying uncontrollably and violently shacking trying to breath .

A couple of officers noticed and came closer to help both of you but the Loki stormed out and when he smashed everything in his desk the while office went silent .

" Please do not let it go " . Hearing your crying voice he asked one officer to brig you water immediately while he came towards you .

" Hey hey hey you listen to me , alright?" He said while he cupped your face with his palms .

" I need you to calm down love just breath for me okay?" He asked you one more time before turning his head around to glance at the officers thaat were standing there just watching the scene unfold .

_____

That day Joy was found , but while she was slowly recovering from whatever they experienced , your father disappeared .

Thank God Loki had found new evidence and he was able to put some pieces together and finally after a whole week he found Anna .

_____

The next morning

You gently knocked on his open door making him turn his gaze from the newspaper to you -

" Y/N ? " He asked you silently thinking of why you were with him and not with your sister .

" Do not worry . I was with her the entire night , but she wanted to be left alone with our mom for a while . She is thankful you know ? We all are . " You said to him .

He could see you were tired , dark and heavy bags under your eyes from not sleeping , puffy and red eyelids from constantly crying .

Shit . He thought . He should have tried to help from the moment he first saw you .

" Uh, Detective Loki? I hope we're not intruding." Your mother and your sister appeared - you knowing fully well what was going on .

"No." He said and looked at you asking what is happening .

You just smiled and right then and there he realized that he had fallen for you .

You just wached the scene unfold feeling happy until your mother told Nancy leave them alone for a moment .

After she sterted to talk about your father your smiled droped . Every little drop of happiness vanishen from your body knowing what your father had done . Hating that your mother had somehow defended him - while you did to in the bottom of your heart .

You realised that you too were crying when you sniffled your nose .

David looked at you worried .

It did not go unnoticed by your mother .

Hell she was worried about you , he has almost a decade older than you - but then she remembered about her and your father .

She wiped her eyes , smiled both at you , passing you the message that although this whole thing happened - two broken souls found love .

And with that she left .

_____

The early evening that David found your father , that night when you were overcome with anxiety and passion at the same time , David was there with his look, his touch cooling you down but at the same time burning you with his love . That night you both realised that you had fallen for each other - you loved each other .

The night were you both fell asleep together .

The night were he helped you to stop being afraid of the dark .

__________

@unimportantbabymilksharkte

__________

I am going to add more tag's in the future , until then : )

_____

[spideyrights]

Partners (Series) - Detective Loki x Reader

VII. SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT

series masterlist

“You ever think one day you'll die from being this nice?” Loki remarked snarkily watching you dish your final cup of coffee from your extremely large voluntary coffee round to him. He took the paper cup gratefully none the less, swinging his car keys in the other hand as the two of you walked side by side out of the precinct, you nodding appreciatively to the ‘thank you’s people directed to you as you walked past. Loki noted how your smile was slightly flustered and you’d glimpse away upon receiving the gesture of gratitude, clearly uncomfortable from the attention. So she’s just nice for the sake of it, not even for the compliments, he thought, I’m so screwed.

“It would be a good way to die,” you smiled, nudging him softly with your elbow only making his half-smile grow larger. “No coffee for yourself?”

“I don’t like coffee much. Makes me too talkative?”

“More than you already are? Didn’t think that was possible,” he jokes, containing his smirk as he crossed round to the drivers side, lingering by his door to hear your response. “Ha ha, very funny,” you teased, stepping into the comforting warmth of Loki’s vehicle. You’d actually taken the liberty of cleaning his car up for him since you were often riding in his more than your own. Several disposable coffee cups, three old case files and an assortment of wooly hats later, the car looked slightly better. Loki noted that himself as his eyes instinctively wandered the vehicle picking up on its much more organised state.

“That thing you said the other day,” His gaze snaps from the newly cleaned back seats to you, your own focus being set on the scenes of traffic the two of you were stuck in. “About people losing something they love doing stupid things because of it. What did you mean by that?”

Loki exhales, pouting his lips slightly, moving his head from side-to-side as if to weigh up his words. You think for a moment he won’t answer as he focuses on the road ahead but he makes a kind of breathy grunt that indicates to you he’s about to speak. “I just mean it’s not about what Keller is capable of, you can be capable of anything really. When you care about something you’re a different person, you don’t think the same. It would be like if something happened to you, I-”

He stops. You want him to continue.

“You what?” “Well, I...” Yes, you think, eager for him to continue. “I wouldn't be allowed on the case because everyone would question my judgement.” You sigh, eyes flicking up with a soft laugh knowing what he means to say just in his own very special David Loki way.

“Yeah, I get it. Me and you are...” His head turns in your direction quickly. “...friends...but it would be hard to keep a clear head and all.” An uncomfortable silence settles over the car, both of you conscious of the words still heavy in the air. You each acknowledge what the other means but say nothing. Or so you think.

“You saying you care about me, Detective?” You can hear the smile in Loki’s voice and the bluntness of his statement is unexpected making you turn to him with wide eyes. You don’t know how to respond and make a series of noises that Loki can only interpret as you struggling to get words to leave your mouth. 

“Yes, actually. Is that a problem, Detective?”

“No, no problem,” he smiles, the widest smile you’ve seen from him yet. The timing is spectacular as you just so happen to pull into the drive of the tattered, broken down belonging to one Keller Dover. 

You both mutter a few profanities under your breath just from observing the state of the place before approaching something that vaguely resembles an entrance. You rattle the doorknob, not expecting the door to open and, sure enough, you’re right. 

“Here.” Your attention returns to Loki who’s gesturing to a window to which you respond by jutting your lip out in a pout and slumping your shoulders to express your disapproval. “Seriously?”

“Come on, I’ll help you through.” Loki climbs through with ease and you hear the thud of his heels, clearly landing perfectly on the ground. He extends a hand to you, gesturing for you to come through and you sigh before hoisting yourself up onto the windowsill and slipping your legs through first. Loki’s hands go to grip your waist to help you down from your essentially seated position on the dusty window frame. You half jump down, slowed down only by his hands on your hips and when you land your hands go out to his chest, using its hard surface to steady yourself.

“Thanks,” you smile awkwardly. You’re both equally distracted, you by his hands on your waist and him by your hands on his chest. You maintain eye contact for a moment longer, revelling in the touch, before you push yourself off his chest, stepping around him to get a look at the place. Loki too immediately switches back from the Loki with you to Detective Loki on a case. Pulling your flashlights out, you both shine them around, instinctively heading in different directions. 

You mumble a “shit” under your breathe causing Loki to turn back to you. You shine a flashlight on the slumped figure of Keller, a sympathetic sigh leaving your body but Loki doesn't feel quite the same. 

“Hey, rise and shine.” Loki kicks at him and Keller turns to face you both, squinting in response to the bright flashlights. You click yours off, offering an apologetic smile but Loki doesn’t follow suit, instead glaring at him before setting off in the direction of the corridors. 

“I’m not gonna find two girls here am I?” You shoot Loki a glare which wordlessly says insensitive and he shrugs.

“Fuck you.” 

“What about Alex Jones?” you add, swallowing harshly seeing his mixed expression of confusion and disappointment directed towards you. 

“What about him? I came here to drink. I don’t wanna drink in front of my wife.” You nod at him but your gaze is elsewhere. Turning away, you also take the chance to observe more of the house. The place is in disgusting condition. Wrinkled wallpaper, cracked plaster and dirt and dust being the only decorative aspect of most of the remaining features of the house.

“Look. My father left me this building, okay?”

“You mind giving us a tour?” Keller stands, starting up the stairs in a slightly drunken sway, pulling his coat further over his body.

“Why didn’t you tell us about this place?” you voice the thought both you and Loki had as you follow closely behind Keller, Loki just a step or two below you.

“I didn't think it mattered.” Not the most convincing response. “Everything matters.” 

You follow behind him for a bit longer in silence. You glimpse into each and every one of the many rooms the house has though come up unsuccessful. Most rooms have nothing in them making evident Keller isn’t hiding anything or anyone in those and you begin to lose any hope that this place might be a lead.

“It’s all pretty much like this. I am going to renovate soon.” Keller explains, slight embarrassment in his tone as he leads you further around the floor, crossing over to another corridor with rooms littered amongst them.

“Yeah. Not as organised as your basement? What’s with all the survivor gear in there?”

“Pray for the best, prepare for the worst.” You half laugh, lips turning up in a soft smile which makes Keller turn his head slightly in your direction, still focused on leading you both around. “My mother used to say that. Every time she read-”

“-Revelations.” Keller finishes for you and you nod sharply, watching a glint form in his eyes, perhaps at noting your somewhat religious background. You knew that he was a religious man from a single look around his house earlier in the investigation.

“Come on, hurry up.” Loki interrupts, walking closer behind Keller to try and get him to pick up his pace. You linger by a room you pass and Loki, having noticed, follows you in. For the first time in this place you notice some new items. There’s a load of construction gear set out in the first room, all relatively new tools and equipment. 

“Doing some building, Mr Dover?” you question, your eyes flitting to Loki’s to silently communicate your own suspicion. He says nothing in response which leads you to walk further into the area. You faintly hear Loki’s phone ring but you don’t pay it much attention.

“Oh shit.” You walk further down the corridor, passing a bedroom, another one, a bathroom. “Hello?” you hear Loki say into his phone a few meters away from you. You stop, taking a step backwards to look back into the bathroom. You don’t see it but Dover shifts his view to catch you looking at the bathroom and his whole body tenses.

“You get a plate?” That makes you look to Loki. It might be the girl from the clothing store calling back. Loki pulls out his notepad, scrawling down a few thinks and you spare a final glance in the direction of the bathroom before Loki takes you by your wrist, pulling you out of the room with him.

“Go home, Mr Dover” he says as he passes him and the two of you leave the house hurriedly, leaving him to release a sigh of relief. 

“Go in round the back on my signal,” Loki says, shutting the car door behind him. For a moment you think to question him, wondering whether this is even allowed but out of the determination of wanting to catch this guy you simply nod, rounding the side of the house making sure to still be in Loki’s view, whilst Loki approaches the front door. From a distance you can only see Loki converse with the man briefly before he looks you in the eye, nodding softly. You clamber towards a side door you spot and try and push it open, feeling exceptionally lucky when it clicks open. 

Upon entering you find yourself immediately struck by the patterns littering the wall. Almost maze-like and you swear you recognise it though your brain could hardly match it to your memories having been distracted by the foul stench throughout the kitchen. You panic for a moment, searching the kitchen for a body and you never thought you’d say this but you were thankful when you instead found a pig’s head in the sink, flies circulating it, as the cause of the smell. You bring a sleeve-covered hand up to cover your nose as you continue towards the wallpaper, bringing your pointer finger up to trace the pattern. You jump suddenly upon hearing a noise; commotion at the front door.

You quickly rush from the kitchen to the front, pulling your gun out and shouting Loki’s name but you’re thankful when you see the scene at hand. Loki is the one pressing the suspect to the ground, his nose bloodied and groaning in pain whilst Loki on the other hand luckily looks largely unaffected bar his dishevelled hair and angry expression. “You okay?”

“Fine. You find anything?”

“Come take a look at this.” Having cuffed his, Loki rises, pressing his hair back into its perfectly gelled place and following you into the kitchen with his gun also in hand where he winces at the sight of the animal corpses. 

“Call for backup,” you tell him, choosing to turn and explore some of the rooms with your gun raised in a position of alert. You hear Loki comply as he follows behind you. You press the first door lightly open and then, when you’re sure there’s no threat, fully open to see nothing significant yet. You then approach the next which appears to be locked.

“Mind out,” Loki says, bring his hand up to your forearm and pushing you to the side gently before shoving his body into the door once, then twice, successfully breaking it open. You were certainly impressed. He enters with his gun raised and you follow suit, eyes growing narrow with confusion when you see the floor of the room littered with plastic crates of some kind. Loki touches each one hurriedly, calling out for Anna and Joy but you simply crouch to one, observing the padlock. Standing again, you use the heel of your boot to kick at the padlock, succeeding after a few tries to knock it open.

“Cover please,” you request from Loki and he nods in affirmation, coming to stand beside you with his gun raised. You kick the lid off of the box with your boot again, careful not to be too close considering you had no idea what was in it. You grew more troubled upon seeing the hoards of clothes, blood-stained clothes you soon realised, in the box. You crouched slightly to it whilst Loki got even closer, pulling at the first top to observe it.  You both jump back immediately upon seeing a number of snakes under the top, pressing your bodies to the wall. Both of you have both hands on each other to steady yourself after jumping back so quickly. One of Loki’s hands moves to push you back away from them in what you can assume is a protective gesture. You’re both panting wildly from the shock of it. He looks to you to wordlessly ask if you’re okay and you nod, dropping your head in exhaustion and he does the same, your foreheads touching as you both just breathe the stress away. You both pull back simultaneously. 

“I need my fucking crowbar.” And with that Loki leaves for a short while. You continue along the crates, kicking at the lock on the one beside it to find more blood-stained clothes and luckily no more clothes. Loki returns and the two of you move through all of the crates in silence. Finally you find yourself on the one furthest to the door you had entered through and you’re surprised to find it  free of clothes and mostly empty with the exception of one thing; a book of some kind. 

“Loki, look.” You feel him join you, his body hovering over yours as you flick through the book. You first note the creepy words on the cover. If you finish the maze you can go. You almost retch at the thought of Anna and Joy having to go through the torture of such a horrific mental game. The book is littered with scraps of paper all containing mazes of different kinds and a creepily drawn character right at the start.

Feeling something on your legs, you move the book aside only to see snakes slithering over the tops of your boot clad feet. You jump up again quickly, kicking them off with a few curse muttered under your breath. 

“Can we leave please?” Loki nods, grasping your elbow gently and leading you to get out ahead of him with your book of mazes still in hand. “We need to call the parents.”

tags: @mother-dearest-loves-me  @mariamermaid  @vigilanteavengerqueen   @superheroforrent  @peterbxrnes   @igotanaddixon  @blablasomethingblabla  @cafeaufeels   @montypythonsholysnail  @carolines24   @chimera4plums   @oswald-1998  @iv-nyc 

[sleepingfancies]

please go off abt detective loki,,, im curious to hear what u have to say abt him!!! 💖

*SLAMS CHAIR DOWN*

SO. YOU WANT ME TO GO OFF ABOUT LOKI.

Praying for you that this read more link works bc otherwise this is gonna be a Cursed Post to all my poor followers. Shit gets long. I have A Lot to say akdjfshfk

Thanks to the investigative skills of the amazing and wonderful @deputyrook (ily), I recently learned that Detective Loki’s backstory included such things as: serving time in juvie, he was formerly religious, and he also possibly suffered from some kind of drug addiction he’s now clean from. It was briefly mentioned in the movie that he spent 6 years in a boys’ home (a rather rough one, by the way Loki talked about it). Boys’ homes are, by definition, “residential sectors where boys are provided food and care when they cannot be adequately cared for by their families, either due to a family crises or the child’s own behavioral issues.”

What this tells me is that:

A) Loki most likely had some heavy childhood trauma that drove him into being a “bad kid” (not that such a thing actually exists, imo, but that’s another essay for another day). It probably took well over a decade to get himself stabilized.

B ) Loki of present day has no family, no personal connections, no friends, absolutely nothing to call his own except the clothes on his back, his car, and... maybe a place to live? I assume he has one somewhere, but we never see him there - he’s constantly either prowling around town or at the station.

C) Loki’s occult tattoos, and his general distaste for anything religious, probably come from an internal place of feeling like some higher power abandoned him along the way. I have no doubt he carefully selected each one to have some personal meaning, but ultimately they all tie back to distancing himself from Christianity (double that if he was religious as a child, or came from a religious family). This also makes me wonder if his last name was something else, and that he changed it to “Loki” upon getting himself back on his feet.

D) Heading off of the boys’ home note; boys’ homes, like most other institutions in the US, legally can’t force residents to stay once they turn 18. Assuming his time there ended at 6 years because he aged out and went off on his own, well, for one that means he was admitted when he was 12 years old. Which is... wow. For two, that means his behavior was never necessarily resolved. Which, given how Jake plays Loki, I’m inclined to believe (I’ll touch on that later).

All of this leads me to some interesting observations during the movie.

For one, Loki is amazing at staying the “adult in the room” in the face of belligerence (e.g. Keller Dover losing his shit in Loki’s car). I know personally, it is almost physically impossible for me not to get my back up when someone else decides they want to take some aggressive tone with me - and I am about as far as one can get from a “troubled kid.” So I have to wonder how many years and how much abuse Loki endured to be able to choose not to respond to people antagonizing him? I have a hard time believing it was just police training that got him to this place of neutrality. And it seems to me like he’s making a genuine effort to stay calm, and to calm the people around him (”please just let me do my job”).

Which leads me into something Mrs. Dover said. “They say you’ve solved every case you’ve ever had, is that true?” And to be fair, I assume Loki’s silence there is supposed to imply that that isn’t true, but it implies so much beyond that. It implies he puts 100% effort into his cases, that he barely sleeps when he knows there’s a chance he can put dangerous people behind bars and save innocent lives. It also implies he feels deeply about the cases he hasn’t solved, or the ones where he got the perpetrator put away but the victims didn’t make it out alive. He carries that with him, constantly.

We see more of this when Keller recognizes his daughter’s bloody sock. His immediate response is to blame Loki. “This is your fault. You didn’t try hard enough. You did this to my daughter.” And Loki says nothing, he doesn’t make any different expression - but his eyes twitch. Jake Gyllenhaal remarked that this was a physical tic he improvised for Loki, one that served as Loki’s channel for intense emotions and/or becoming overstimulated with thoughts and information. Rather than actually emote, his eyes twitch. There is nothing newly informative or particularly overstimulating about the bloody sock scene, which leaves only intense emotion to be the cause of that twitch. And given Loki’s panic when he was searching Bob’s house and boxes for Anna and Joy, I doubt it’s anger. I’m willing to bet it’s that Loki already feels that way. He’s blaming himself. Keller just spoke Loki’s own feelings into existence.

I’ll circle back to that in a minute, because I think Loki making his cases so personal is very telling of his character.

Now, to go back and touch on why I think it’s most likely Loki aged out of the boys’ home rather than graduated - Loki has adapted with his behavior, he hasn’t resolved it at all. It does not seem to me at all like Loki has therapeutic strategies, especially considering I’m 99% sure any therapist or behavior counselor would not encourage bottling up your emotions and disconnecting yourself from human contact. Loki made these steps on his own. He learned to redirect his anger to people who deserved it by becoming part of law enforcement. He decided that he was safer closed off and unavailable to intense emotions. He might’ve even decided other people were safer stuck on the other side of his walls.

There are a whole of two times Loki clearly loses his temper - when Bob keeps drawing mazes rather than giving him a straight answer, and when Bob kills himself and Loki realizes he just lost his best lead. While these are both reasonable things to get worked up about, he reacts so intensely and so personally to them that (circling back to my earlier point) it tells me, deep down, there is an incredibly soft and vulnerable heart in there that’s been locked up for decades.

Loki didn’t want Bob to kill himself. He didn’t mean for things to escalate that far. You can hear it in his voice, he’s genuinely shaken and upset by what just happened. In the following scene when he basically destroys his desk, that is directed at no one and nothing but himself. He’s so angry at himself - for not understanding Bob’s maze, for getting Bob killed, for having to tell the Dovers their one suspect is gone, for feeling helpless when it comes to finding the girls. Loki doesn’t deal well with other people’s failure, but he doesn’t even accept his own.

And I mean - do I even need to mention when he finds Anna? The man is bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his head, he’s half unconscious, he’s a long way from the hospital, but he doesn’t even think about any of that. He makes it his one singular goal to get her to the emergency room even if he dies trying. And the way he talked to her? “Stay with me Anna, don’t die, just hold on.” I know on the surface it’s obviously just a tactic to keep her (and himself, let’s be honest) awake. But it was so deeply feeling, so honest, so raw, so panicked?

I don’t know, man. I’ve said things to other people before that I wished someone had said to me, and that’s what those lines sounded like to me. Which, if he had been a drug addict at one point, and if he overdosed but no one was there for him? The puzzle pieces fit.

And then to have people visit him in the hospital? To have someone call him a hero? He has no idea how to react to that, because I’m guessing neither of those things have ever happened to him before. And he isn’t really sure what to say to someone being so overwhelmingly grateful for and to him. So he doesn’t really say anything. His eyes just twitch. We can fill in the blanks.

The man has a soft heart, a vulnerability that he refuses to let anyone see, but it’s there. He’s just as scared and angry and confused as Keller 90% of the time. He just hides it better.

Which, ultimately all of this leads me to the conclusion that - for as far as Loki’s distanced himself from religion, as clean as he is now, as stable as he is, as well as he’s channeled his anger, as guarded as he keeps himself - this entire job, to him, is a chance at redemption.

Loki doesn’t think he’s deserving of love. He doesn’t believe he’s capable of having the kind of stability the Dovers are so familiar with. He doesn’t think he can just slide into a friend group after all these years. He doesn’t regard his own life highly. But the ability to save other people’s lives and keep dangerous people locked away - that’s his apology to the world. Of course he cares about these cases because he’s a good man, but it’s more than that. It’s that he believes this is the only way he cant repent for not always being a good man.

Which leads me to his first name. I’ve rambled about the symbolism of his name to @deputyrook before, but David. David. Given all of the Biblical symbolism in this movie, personally my mind immediately leaps to David and Goliath.

David - detective Loki and his desire to be a good man - is in a constant war against Goliath - Loki’s own trauma and troubled past. And there really isn’t a way to have one without the other, which makes Loki’s character so tragic. He isn’t ever going to heal, not completely, not when his entire career is him trying to apologize over and over again. He solves almost all the cases he’s given because he won’t, can’t, accept more failure.

Loki’s last line in the movie is “pray for the best, prepare for the worst.” For being a character so deeply centered in anti-religion, that’s an odd line to make his last. Combine that with how strange it is that he wouldn’t also change his first name, if he changed his last name to distance himself from religion. His name, and that last line, might just be symbolic of the few shreds of hope he has for himself. Hope that maybe he can have what the Dovers have, the hope that maybe one day when he’s gone he’ll be remembered by somebody and for something good.

Because that’s really all he wants, all he can hope, for himself. Since he doesn’t think he’ll ever have human connection, or love, or a family - as much as he would like to have those - he’ll settle for being just a little more than somebody’s bad memory, or being a little more than some name on a headstone.

[filmpenance]

Day 10, 2019 - Prisoners

Prisoners – 2013 – Denis Villeneuve

(Saturday Special)

“Pray for the best, but prepare for the worst.” – Keller Dover

The movie opens on a shot of a deer in the woods. As the camera slowly pulls back we can see the animal behind the trees, and then hunters – a father and son – take aim at the deer and kill it.

That father is Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), a doting father to his kids Ralph and Anna, a devoted husband to Grace (Maria Bello) and devout Christian.

It’s Thanksgiving in their sprawling American suburb and the Dovers walk a few houses over to join the Birches for dinner. The Birches are a middle-class, professional family and it’s clear that these two clans have been friends for a long time. Keller and Grace hang out with Nancy and Franklin (Viola Davis and Terrence Howard) shooting the breeze in their living room, while their kids all play together.

Anna and Joy, a couple of elementary school girls, want to know if they can walk over to the Dover house to try and find the whistle that Anna lost – her dad gave it to her. What can go wrong?

But the girls don’t come back.

They don’t come back and the panic sets in. Ralph notices that the RV that was parked outside is now gone. The police are called.

Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) – intelligent, but twitch and unnerving – is put on the case. He interrogates Alex (Paul Dano), the creepy-odd boy who was in the RV – but doesn’t have enough to keep him locked up.

Loki’s not sure if Alex is the guy, but still wishes he could hold him for one more day of questioning.

Keller has no such doubts. He’s certain that Alex knows where Joy and Anna are. He’s decided to get the information by any means…and things start to spiral out of control.

Before I watched Prisoners I had a few expectations. The first was that I would love it because it’s directed by Denis Villeneuve – and I consistently love his work[i]. The second was that the violence would be hard to take.

Well, I thought that the movie was fine. And the violence in the movie – and the aftermath of it in particular – is unsettling. But something about it just didn’t “fit”.

It made me think of my reaction to the David Fincher movie Zodiac. I left that movie feeling like it should have been much shorter (like lose ½ hour) or much longer (à la the Fincher produced drama Mindhunter, which came out many years later).

I felt the exact same way about Prisoners. It’s too long to feel taught; it drags a bit in sections. And characters made decisions that made no sense to me – in this way it feels too short; like information is missing[ii]. So instead, Prisoners is this not quite successful thing in the middle – it feels like a compromise[iii].

Blech.

So after I watched Prisoners, I went hunting for interviews and analysis to help me understand it. I found a few and those links are posted below. 

But… I still think the reviews who loved the movie are papering over some real flaws. 

I felt pretty desperate to love this movie, but the spark just wasn’t there.

I’ll probably watch it again in a year. 

I might need some distance to get some perspective.

SO MANY LINKS: There may be spoilers

Prisoners Trailer: https://youtu.be/bpXfcTF6iVk

Review (NYT – A.O. Scott): https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/movies/prisoners-stars-hugh-jackman-and-jake-gyllenhaal.html?_r=0

This review is more in line with my thoughts (RogerEbert.com – Sheila O’Malley): https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/prisoners-2013

Storytellers Analysis: https://youtu.be/fekd6LcnSyw

One Perfect Shot analysis: https://youtu.be/ok-gjoh5ur4

NOTES:

 [i] I’m a fan. I have paid money to hear him speak. Interestingly enough, it was for a screening of his movie Enemy where he was doing a Q&A with Jake Gyllenhaal. Side note: Enemy came out the same year as Prisoners. While Prisoners was released first, Enemy was shot first – Gyllenhaal was cast in Prisoners based on his work with Villeneuve in Enemy, not the other way around as most people think.  I AM FILLED WITH USELESS INFORMATION!

[ii] The original cut of this movie was a ½ hour longer (IMDb)

[iii] And the thing is ALL movies are a compromise. I don’t give a fuck about auteur theory. There are too many people who have to come together to make a movie – there is always compromise. The problem is when a movie makes you feel that way.