#I’m THE MAN when it comes to making up scenarios and twisting the story when canon doesn’t go my way 😌❤️

[kaitlyn-pink]

Going hard on the shitposting later today when I’m free 😼

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hi! I'm on a regency binge at the moment and while Good Society is on my list, do you have any more regency games/systems to recommend?

THEME: Regency Games

Hello friend, I think I have a nice little selection for you to take a look at!

One thing to note is that some of these games are very gendered, providing roles such as “Matron”, “Nobleman” or “Countess” that is rather unavoidable. Sometimes this is simply part and parcel of playing in a specific era of history, and sometimes it is done purposefully, as games can often be commentary about certain issues that were prevalent at the time.

While I think you could likely make a non-binary character in these games if you really want to, I think that one of the appeals of playing in the Regency era is the strict social structures that created such rigid gender boundaries, and so I’m not surprised to see those boundaries enforced in these games.

Vicious, by Budget Versailles.

Vicious is a game set during the Regency period about scandalous gossip told via letters between three or more players.

Players roll dice to generate scenarios and gossipy twists to pass on to the next player until everyone has been deceived with shocking slander and hearsay.

If you’re a fan of the epistolary phase of Good Society, Vicious is probably worth looking at. Watch a piece of news twist out of your control as your letters get flavoured with gossip. You can roll for inspiration for various scenarios, as well as for juicy gossip to make those scenarios even better - but the game ends with one player sends out an invitation to determine how many of the accusations that have been sent around are true.

I think Vicious is also an excellent add-on to pair with another game of your choice, especially since it could be played in between sessions, cooking up drama for the players to hash out in an in-person confrontation.

Hazelwood Abbey, by stevehatherly.

Downton Abbey meets Hillfolk. Players play an aristocratic family in a player-led dramatic game of emotional needs and wants for 4-5 players.

Hazelwood Abbey uses Pelgrane Press' DramaSystem rules engine to create a story of high-stakes interpersonal conflict. During the session, you will create family members with conflicting needs and goals. And then you will find out what happens.

To play this game you’ll need a good understanding of how the DramaSystem works. The author recommends referencing a copy of Hillfolk, although you can also check out the SRD for free to see how you feel about the system.

The DramaSystem is all about relationships, and give and take. Your characters all need something from each-other, something tied to an emotional reward. When interacting with each-other in a dramatic scene, tokens will be gained or spent by following prompts specific to your playbook. In Hazelwood Abbey, your characters are split between the upstairs and downstairs, just like in Downton Abbey. The upstairs playbooks will wrestle with ties to family, tradition, and duty, while the downstairs playbooks commonly struggle with ambition, social inequality, and precious secrets. If you deny another person what they seek, too many times, they may force an emotional concession from you by spending tokens.

I think this is a great example of dramatic tension, and while I suppose Hazelwood Abbey might be slightly later than regency era, it might give you some of what you’re looking for.

Sense and Sensibility, by Armanda.

YOU ARE A DEAD GUY’S SECOND FAMILY IN 18th CENTURY ENGLAND. Your mission is to get one of your sisters to marry well, since you’re all women and can’t live without the favor of a man. You have no rights other than the right to marry and be a mother. In this game, you’ll explore the terrible vicissitudes of British bucolic countryside life and deal with neighbours and city people coming to visit the various families in the area, where gossip and marriage (and love, in the best of cases) are the order of the day. 

Since this game is built off of Lasers and Feelings, I’d expect it to also be fairly easy to pick up if you’re familiar with other works in the same system. You have two stats and a number somewhere between 2 to 5 that tells you how good you are at one of those things, and how bad you are at the other.

I think this game is more focused on family relationships than some of the other games on this list, because your entire family’s well-being depends on the success of finding a wealthy match. Battle gossip, defend your honour, and possibly even sabotage your rivals in an attempt to find some security for yourself and your loved ones.

The Season, by Rue.

It's London season and you're in for a ball! 

The Season is a GM-less RPG about elevating your status and keeping up your reputation during the fabled Regency Era social season. 

This is a competitive RPG that takes place over the course of 10 rounds. Each characters’ goal is the same: to end the game with the highest Reputation. To chip away at your rivals’ reputation, you’ll have to demonstrate your own social graces, spread rumours, or meet gossip with the perfect amount of composure. You just need 2d6 to play, although you’ll probably want a few roll-tables for inspiration if you don’t consider yourself that good at improv.

This is another game that might benefit from being played alongside something bigger, or perhaps using some established lore from another setting.

Teacup Masquerade, by Sam Scribbler.

A one-page cozy social game about getting revenge on your enemies. Inspired by Regency-era romantic dramas such as Bridgerton with a vengeful twist. Create a character, discover your rival's secret, and become the darling of high society.

This is a simple game meant to fit on one page. You have three basic stats, and a gradient scale of success. You gain a random social advantage and a random personal shame, which you’ll want to try to hide as you go about discovering the secrets of your rivals.

There’s not a lot of guidance for this one, which is pretty common for one-page games. It might be a good fit if you have an idea of the kind of story you want to tell, or if you have your own set of home-brew rules that you want to add onto an existing premise.

The Social Season, by Scott Sexton.

In this single page role playing game inspired by the works of Jane Austen, you and your friends play as high society characters navigating the treacherous London social season.

To save your family from ruin, you must land an advantageous marriage proposal by the end of the season. Will you outwit scheming rivals and jealous suitors to make a fortuitous match, or will you become embroiled in scandal and depart London in disgrace?

This is a Honey Heist hack, pulling you between the two extremes of Composure and Scandal. Since it’s built off of a familiar system (to me), I can expect this game to be rather light-hearted, pushing your characters to vacillate between following social graces or deliberately doing something considered… untoward. This is certainly a chance to put on your stuffiest airs, flutter your fans dramatically, and describe your attempt to kiss your beau on the back of their hand.

The London Season, by Stéphanie Dusablon.

The London season of 1874, a perfect time for the aristocracy to advance the marriage prospects of their offsprings, entertain themselves through various social engagements and, naturally, gossip to their heart's content.

We were also taught that once we attained marital bliss, our husband would take ownership of our wealth, property and body. They probably would have passed a law to ensure our mind became theirs as well, had it occured to them that we might actually have one.

Create your young lady, decide if you hope to secure or avoid an engagement this season and carefully navigate 8 fortnights of glamorous events, social engagements and secret messages. 

As a solo roleplaying game, The London Season is an examination of the social inequities present in the Regency era, as well as a love letter for a time of secret messages and glamorous events. You’ll mostly be drawing cards to answer questions, receive secret messages, and navigate both welcome and unwelcome engagements, journaling each step of the way. At the end of eight fortnights, your young lady will have either achieved or lost her goal. Whether that goal is marriage or something else is up to you.

Games I’ve Recommended In The Past

Le Bon Ton, by RobotFrancis.

Pride and Extreme Prejudice, by Grant Howitt.

Eyes on the Prize, by ira prince.

[bijouxcarys]

𝐓𝐨 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐨 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 (𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧)

Masterlist

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Description: Sometimes the pain of what should have never been, opens your eyes to what can be.

Tag list: @celestial-dragoness @whothefuckisanja @chromations @firethatgrewsolow @tangerine1969 @callmethehunter @m-faithfull @strsmn @angrychicksposts @ourshadowstallerthanoursoul If you'd like to be added to the list, just let me know!

Elena’s heart pounded with an urgency that defied control.

Not a single utterance pierced the air during the entire journey with John, the car navigating a path all too familiar—an unwelcome route leading to a place laden with memories she fervently sought to avoid.

The nauseating grip tightened, every palpitation threatening to dislodge the contents of her stomach. Tranquility seemed a distant prospect, and the turmoil within her hinted at a precarious tipping point.

Endless scenarios paraded through her mind, a relentless procession of possibilities. She longed for simplicity—an in-and-out, a resolution neatly packaged and concluded. That’s all it needed to be. Yet, a deep-seated intuition whispered that simplicity would elude her. It would stretch, twist, and linger far beyond necessity. 

In no way, shape, or form, would David entertain brevity. Not today.

Beyond the apprehension surrounding David’s reaction to this clandestine mission, to merely collect clothing and cherished mementos, there lingered a reluctance, a hesitant acknowledgement of John’s presence. Despite the depth of trust she held for him, a trust entirely unparalleled, it failed to nullify his actions when under the influence of either one of two things—alcohol, or emotion.

Elena had yet to divulge the whole truth about her tumultuous relationship with David, and wouldn’t until she never had to see the man again. John, though privy to odd reactions to loud noises and sudden movements, remained unaware of the intricate web of torment. If John learned the full extent of David’s malevolence, he wouldn’t be accompanying Elena to retrieve her belongings; he’d be behind bars.

In their childhood, it demanded every ounce of Elena’s energy to sway John from the precipice of violence. Those boys, stationed defiantly across the courtyard, seemed hell-bent on making it their life’s mission to underscore the fact that Elena wasn’t as thin as the other 14-year-old girls at school. A relentless daily reminder that required her utmost effort to dissuade John from unleashing a physical retribution that, in her eyes, wasn’t worth it. Every. Single. Day.

In a lot of ways, she would have preferred to relive the secondary school taunting than experience another 30 minutes of David. What John would do in light of knowing the whole story was a scary thought, and one Elena wasn’t prepared to even prosper.

“El?”

John’s voice brought her out of her head for a moment, and she realised they were pulling up outside the block of flats she hadn’t returned to in a fortnight. Swallowing thickly, she willed herself to look at him.

“Are you alright?” his brows narrowed, eyes gleaming into her soul. She gave him a pathetic nod. “Y’know I can always go in myself, if ya just tell me what to pick u–”

“No,” she shook her head. “I… need to do this.”

“‘Kay…” he reluctantly accepted, but quickly added, “I am comin’ in with you though.”

“John, you don’t have t–”

“I’m not arguin’ about this, Elena, I’m coming in.”

Before she could make any further comment, John was already opening the door and stepping out into the road. A whimper left her mouth, her hand a foreign entity as she, too, pushed the car door open. It wasn’t even that hot out, but the sun felt like lasers burning right through every inch it touched. Sturdy trainers felt flimsy, the gravel beneath her feet as blatant as it could get.

She felt she was walking The Mile to her death.

“Hey…” John stopped her as they reached her floor, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder to turn her towards him. Their eyes met, and his stomach dropped at the fear looking back at him. My God, she’s terrified… “It’s gunna be alright, El. I promise.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep…” she mumbled, her foot moving to take another step.

“I mean it.”

Looking back at him, she mustered up a grateful smile, and nodded slowly. “I know,” she whispered.

The air was thick as they reached the door marked ‘13,’ a feature she had once found excitement in—living in a flat with the same number as your birthday. Now, it just reeked of a hapless existence; a far cry from what used to be her sanctuary.

Do I knock? No, Elena, this is your home—oh, shit, it’s locked. Where’s that fucking spare key? She flipped over the doormat with her foot, expecting to see the familiar metal looking back up at her. Nothing. Fucking prick…

With bated breath, Elena lifted her hand and gave three experimental knocks to the door, each one ringing deeper and deeper through her ears. Please, don’t be home… What am I talking about? I need to do this now, I keep wearing the same two outfits, you idiot…

She daren’t look up as the door swung open. Instead, she fell eye-level with that stupid striped, skin-tight shirt that became a daily choice of clothing. In and out. Please. God, if you’re up there, just let this be simple. Please…

John stood by, arms folded, as the door opened, revealing the man he hadn’t seen since December. A tall fucker. Can’t have been any shorter than six-foot-four. And there Elena stood, a measly five-foot-seven in comparison. Shaggy dirty-blonde hair that bordered on a light brown, straight and perched just below his jaw. Parted at the side. Twat.

“Elena,” David sighed, instantly taking note of John’s presence behind her. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been worried si–”

“I don’t want to talk,” she told him, as sternly as she could. “Just came to get my things…” Without looking him in the eye, she squeezed past him. He looked over at John, his green eyes calm, before they narrowed as he turned to follow Elena.

“What the fuck are you talking about, ‘just came to get my things’?”

Elena sighed and spun to look at David, accidentally catching his eyes. The eyes that commanded her every move. Eyes she felt too worthless to meet. That’s because you are.

The click of the door shutting reverberated through the room, drawing their attention like a sudden snap of a whip. John, his gaze fixed with unwavering determination, stood his ground, sending a slow nod of reassurance to Elena.

“Did I invite you in?” David’s voice sliced through the tense silence, his words laced with thinly veiled hostility as he locked eyes with John.

“Nah, mate, you didn’t,” John replied with a nonchalant shrug, his gaze flickering past David to Elena. “I’ll be here, go get your things, El.”

David’s movements were swift, a blockade forming as he positioned himself to bar Elena’s access to the hallway. “Hold on a sec, darling,” he muttered, his voice a deceptive whisper as he edged closer to her, a somewhat predatory gaze fixed on her.

Elena shook her head, her eyes dropping to the ground as she struggled to maintain her composure. “Let me through, David. I’m getting my things, and I’m leaving,” she pleaded, her voice strained with emotion. In the charged atmosphere, she could sense David’s growing agitation, a palpable tension thickening the air around them.

John, alert to every subtle shift in the room, edged closer, ready to intervene if necessary. He noted the tightening of David’s fists with a sense of grim satisfaction, silently grateful for his own presence in that moment.

“Oi,” John interjected sharply, his voice cutting through the unease like a knife. “She said let her through, mate. You’re not makin’ this any easier by being a dick.”

Elena’s heart pounded in her chest as she braced herself for David’s reaction, her shoulders instinctively hunching in a familiar stance of self-protection. A heavy breath escaped her lips as David begrudgingly relented, allowing her to slip past him and into the bedroom.

In the sparse living room, devoid of any personal touches, John and David locked eyes in a silent standoff, each sizing the other up with cloaked animosity. David’s gaze raked over John’s form, his mouth twisting into a snarl of disdain.

“I don’t know what she’s been telling you,” David began, his voice dripping with forced calmness. “I don’t know where all this has come from, either.” He ran a hand through his hair, attempting to regain control of the situation.

“She’s not told me anything,” John replied evenly, perching himself on the pine table behind the swamp-green sofa that was most definitely not of Elena’s choosing.

“Bollocks!”

“Now, now, no need for the language,” John retorted, a hint of sarcasm colouring his tone.

David’s frustration simmered beneath the surface as he struggled to maintain his composure. “Look, we both know how she can get rowdy, and mouthy–”

“Naturally. I have known her since we were kids,” John interjected, his patience wearing thin as he pushed back against David’s attempts to deflect blame.

“You clearly don’t know her very well, then,” David shot back, his eyes narrowing in defiance as he locked eyes with John. “Now… I don’t want trouble with you, chief. But I think it might be best if you just leave our relationship alone.”

“What relationship?” John scoffed, his anger bubbling to the surface. “All I see is a controlling arsehole that, for whatever reason, has made it almost impossible for a girl to come and go as she pleases… Is that enough for your theory on why she’s getting as far away from you as possible?”

John watched as David’s face contorted with a mixture of disbelief and indignation, his resolve wavering under the weight of the drummer’s accusations. Taking a step closer, John met David’s gaze head-on, refusing to back down.

“She’s not going anywhere, Bonham,” David growled, his voice dripping with venom.

With a resigned sigh, John shook his head. “I think she is, actually, Henning…”

Elena emerged from the bedroom, a large bag slung over her shoulder and a cardboard box tucked under her arm. She glanced briefly at David, her expression a dangerous mix of determination and apprehension.

“What the hell are you doing, Elena?” David demanded, his tone laced with desperation. “You can’t just walk out like this. I’m all you have. Remember everything I ever told you? You’ll have nobody.”

Elena’s jaw clenched as she fought to keep her emotions in check. “I’ll figure it out, David,” she replied, her voice firm despite the tremor of fear running through her. “I can’t stay here… with you, anymore.”

David’s eyes narrowed once again, the mask slowly slipping from his facade. “You’re making a mistake, Elena,” he insisted, taking a step closer to her. “You need me. You need us.”

Elena recoiled instinctively as David reached out to grab her wrist, her heart pounding at an instant. “Don’t touch me, David,” she snapped with a panicked tone.

But David refused to release his grip, his fingers tightening around her wrist. Digging into her skin. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled, low and menacing.

With a surge of adrenaline, Elena wrenched her wrist free from David’s grasp, her movements quick and decisive—just like the night she fled. “Get off!” she spat, her eyes flashing with anger.

John stepped forward, a protective stance as he positioned himself between Elena and David. “Touch her again, and your jaw will be on the back of your fuckin’ head, you piece of shit.”

David’s face contorted with rage, but he held himself back, his fists clenched at his sides. “Fine,” he seethed. “Go then. But don’t come crawling back to me when you realise you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.”

“No, the biggest mistake of my life was saying ‘yes’ to a drink 3 fucking years ago,” Elena squared her shoulders, her resolve unwavering despite the trepidation coursing through her veins. With one final glare at David, she turned on her heel and headed for the door, John following close behind.

As they made their way down to John’s car, Elena’s steps faltered slightly, her composure fluctuating with every passing movement. John cast a concerned glance her way, noting the tension in her shoulders and the haunted look in her eyes.

“You alright, El?” John asked softly, his voice tinged with worry as he took her things and secured them in the backseat.

Elena forced a tight-lipped smile, her facade inevitably crumbling as they settled into the car. The tears she had been holding back finally spilled over, streaming down her cheeks in silent torrents.

John reached out to comfort her, his hand hovering with uncertainty over her shoulder. “El, it’s okay, you did it,” he murmured.

But Elena recoiled from his touch, her eyes flashing through an uncharacteristic anguish. “J-Just… drive, p-please… I need to get… get away,” she panted, burying her head in her hands.

“Okay, yeah, okay…” he rambled, immediately pulling away from the block of flats. 

On their journey back to the Bonhams’ house, John couldn’t shake the nagging feeling at the back of his head that Elena still hadn’t been entirely truthful regarding David. Seeing him grab her the way he did, her instantaneous reaction. There had to be something more. The Elena he knew would have spun around and clobbered the cunt in the face. Except, he reminded himself, this wasn’t his Elena. This was a shell of the girl he grew up with. And he vowed to himself that he would do whatever it took to coax her back.

Elena felt sick to her stomach. Why do I feel guilty? There was nothing in the world she wanted more than for the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She couldn’t understand why she was finding this moment so difficult, so distant from what she expected to feel. Shouldn’t she be joyous, over the moon? To finally be free of that monster that controlled her entire life?

David’s attempt to physically restrain her back at the flat was the furthest thing triggering her uneven emotions in the car. No, she’d learned to deal with that by now. Above all else, above everything she should have been upset over… she was angry. At herself.

Thankfully, the drive back to John’s was long enough for her to get a majority of her emotions out. Crying as hard as she needed. As loud as she needed. John was the only one she would let see her in this state. It had to come out now.

When the erratic breathing and sobbing had worn her out, leaving a red and puffy face in its wake, she was able to regain her bearings somewhat. As much as she enjoyed hearing John ramble on for what seemed like hours, she was glad he chose to stay quiet this time. He knew her well enough to know when’s the time to shut the fuck up—when to give her her space.

Upon passing the familiar petrol station, she knew they were almost back. All she wanted to do was pass out. Sleep forever—at least long enough to erase any memory of the past couple of years.

“‘M sorry…” she murmured, staring out the window, her eyes still glassy.

John glanced at her, checking in, before scoffing lightly and shaking his head. “You’re the last person who needs to be apologising right now.”

“No, I mean…” she turned her head in his direction, but kept her eyes on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry for snapping at you… earlier. And that you got caught up in–” her breath caught in her throat, “In all that.” 

He chuckled airily under his breath, a somewhat amused smile on his lips. “And like I just said… You’re not the one who needs to apologise.” Stopping at a red light, he had the chance to look at her head-on. “Seriously. It’s okay. Everything’s gunna be okay, El.”

Upon looking up at his eyes, those warm, trusting eyes she’d found solace in for so many years, came the first wave of relief. A sudden realisation. Instead of David’s nagging voice in the back of her head, reminding her of her shortcomings, she heard a different one. A distant whisper from a fragile conversation she’d only ever had with one person.

You’ve done the hardest part… 

No idiot would do something so brave…

With a shaky sigh, she nodded, smiling almost painfully at John.  “Yeah…” she whispered her agreement. “Everything’s gonna be okay…” she repeated, almost as a self-assuring mantra as she looked ahead. “The light’s green,” she nodded her head towards the traffic lights in front of them.

“Shit,” John pressed down on the gas pedal, a comically panicked look on his face that made Elena stifle a small laugh. A laugh. A real laugh…

It’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna be okay. 

The air was lighter by the time they pulled up to John’s driveway, and it seemed the sun wasn’t as menacing as it was before. Catching a glimpse of Pat in one of the windows put yet another smile on her face, as if another reminder that there is life outside of David. He’d damaged her mind. Tainted all of her thoughts. It wouldn’t go away overnight, but being with the Bonhams was a refreshing prompt along the road to understanding she was free.

And she never had to see David Henning ever again.

“‘Ere, let me get that,” John offered, pulling Elena’s bag from the back of the car and slugging it over his shoulder. “Fuck, what do you have in here, the kitchen sink?”

Snorting, Elena lifted the box into her arms, nudging the car door shut with her knee. “It’s the jeans and those jackets, Bon…”

“Oh, those fuckin’ jackets are massive!” he gasped, as if he had forgotten.

“Yeah, but they look good on,” she smirked, watching her steps as they made their way to the front door. John’s face dropped a little when he tried the handle, finding it locked.

“The fuck’s goin’ on ‘ere…” Turning around abruptly, he almost collided with Elena. “Back door.”

“Jesus, do you mind not body slamming me in the process?” she mumbled, spinning round in the direction of the gate that led to the Bonhams’ back garden.

As they closed in, the familiar laughter of Jason could be heard, along with some clumsy clapping.

“Do it again!” The sound of someone’s shoes coming into contact with a football followed. Jason cheered again, his adorable cadence putting a smile on Elena’s face.

The smile, however, seemed to widen when she heard familiar laughter—and it definitely wasn’t Pat.

Rounding the corner of the house, the heartwarming scene of Jason kicking his football towards a carefree Robert unfolded.

“Again!”

“Can only do a single trick so many times, Jason,” Robert chuckled, but humoured the three-year-old, performing a brief dribble with a concentrated face. Far from a trick, but enough to mesmerise Jason in his innocent joy.

“Well if it isn’t Bobby Thomson,” John called out, catching the pair off guard.

Robert’s eyes went instantly to Elena’s, and he flashed that charming smile her way, before swiftly giving John attention. “Nah, mate, Thomson’s a left backer. I’m more of a Derek Dougan,” he said, attempting an Irish accent in the process.

“Who tha fuck’s Derek Dougan?”

Jason gasped, his presence momentarily subdued. “Mummy!” He ran inside, all whilst shouting, “Daddy just said a bad word!” Elena stifled a laugh, watching over her shoulder as his small form disappeared.

The blonde froze, giving his band mate a dumbfounded expression. “I don’t trust you anymore, Bonzo.”

Elena, with an amused smirk, glanced up at John. “Dougan’s a midfielder,” she let him know. John just simply let out an exasperated groan, shrugging his shoulders. “He’s also Irish…” She looked at Robert. “Hence the terrible accent,” she teased lightly. Her eyes still felt heavy from the car journey, but jesting with Robert came as naturally as breathing.

“I didn’t know you were into football, Elena,” Robert tilted his head to the side, hand on his hip. The small gesture and placement caught Elena’s attention, just like he had done at rehearsal. Everything about the man screamed appeal, in every sense of the word.

“I’m not,” she simply responded with a shrug of her shoulders. There was a pause between the three of them and it didn’t take very long for the two men to understand why Elena happened to know so much about football. She may have not been the one in her home—ex home—watching football, but she sure got a lot of it from David.

“Uh, I’m gonna take this inside before it cuts off the circulation to my brain,” John quipped, patting Elena’s bag. “Ya want a cuppa, Rob?”

Great, Elena, you’ve made it awkward now… Fucking idiot. You can’t say anything without fucking it u–

“El?”

“Hm?” she snapped her head to John. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I asked if you wanted a cuppa,” he repeated gently, a sympathetic gaze matching his tone. She gave him a passive nod, turning to follow him and Robert inside. Her fingers were starting to lock up from gripping onto the bottom of the cardboard box, so she instantly dropped it down on the kitchen table once they’d entered.

“What’s with the box?” Robert nodded towards it, casually nosing about in the kitchen with, yet again, his hands settled on his hips. The poor lad didn’t even realise how beautiful he looked as he inspected all the photos and magnets on the Bonhams’ fridge. Eyebrows all narrowed as he focused his eyes, a subconscious curling of his mouth that naturally stretched over his strong jaw.

Elena, pack it in. It’s Robert. Stop.

“Um,” she cleared her throat, resting a hand on top of the box. “It’s just got all these photos and random things in it that are important to me. Memories, I guess…” she trailed off.

“Oh, fantastic!” Robert chimed, hair bouncing about as he turned to look at her. “Got any embarrassing photos of Bonzo in there?”

She chuckled, glancing at said man, who was busy preparing tea. “None that don’t also embarrass me.” She carefully lifted the lid halfway off the box and strategically fished out a small stack of processed photographs that were a little worn by now, tied together by an elastic band. Robert’s footsteps came closer, until his presence was right next to her, the warmth radiating from his body.

“What happened to the corners?”

Elena pulled her lips into a tight line, eyeing the damaged corners of the lid of the box, darker than the rest of it, and requiring the utmost of care. “Nothing, just an accident…” she shrugged it off.

He peered over her shoulder, feeling a small jump in his heart at being this close to her again. He had to suppress the idiotic grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. Her hair… Nothing appealed to him more in that moment than to run his fingers through it.

“Oh, this was when we went camping,” Elena smiled, holding up a photo labelled ‘Bon-Bon + El, Lake District, July 1964.’ “Bon had just finished school, so we decided to go up North for a couple of days.”

Robert tilted his head down to get a better look, snorting at the boyish expression on John’s face, equipped with the adolescent beginning stages of growing out a moustache. But the 15-year-old Elena made his smile soften. She looked happy there. Wrapped up in an earthy orange cardigan, stray blades of grass stuck to her legs from pitching a tent.

“Not that fuckin’ photo,” John whined, glancing over at them. “I look like a right knobhead!”

“Well, you always look like a knobhead, Bonzo,” Robert fired back with a smirk, looking back down at the photo. “It’s a lovely photo.”

“Eh…” she squirmed a little with a shrug. “It’s cute. John looks good in it, at least.” She carefully slipped it back in with the rest of the photos.

“You do, as well,” Robert gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow.

“Pfft, I look fat in it.”

John’s hand stopped mid-milk pour, eyes diverting to the side as he overheard Elena’s comment. Since when does she think she looks fat? Scrunching up his eyebrows, he finished making their teas. Even the comments from schoolboys didn’t influence her own perception of herself. Weird. But then, it hit him. Fuckin’ David…

“No, you look nice,” Robert refuted, shaking his head. A glance at her showed she didn’t believe him. “Seriously, yer cute.”

At the counter, John’s eyebrows raised, and a shocked smile appeared on his face. Well, shit, just jump right in, Percy…

Elena raised an eyebrow, looking up at Robert, who was still looking over her shoulder. Panic briefly flashed through his eyes and he chuckled airily, shifting back.

“It’s a cute photo, that is…” With a somewhat subdued smile, he went over to John to take his tea. Elena was left to mull over the minute interaction. Seriously, yer cute… No, it didn’t mean anything… Can’t have.

“‘Ere y’are,” John appeared next to her, offering her cup of tea. She gave him a smile in gratitude, immediately sipping at it, the fresh heat of it snapping her out of the overtime her brain had unwillingly subscribed to. “Anyway, why’re you here, Rob?”

“What, I can’t just come and see how you’re doing?” Robert squinted his eyes, shielding half of his expression with the mug of tea in his hand. 

John stared at him, trying to gauge his intentions, totally unconvinced by his response. “You’ve just seen me every day for months, mate…” He watched as Robert came up with an unnecessarily detailed reason for his visit, claiming he wanted to see how Pat and Jason were doing, and how the house was… the fucking house. But when all was said and done, John wasn’t passive enough to miss the plain and obvious reason for Robert’s presence.

Elena.

But he’d let it slide. No need to embarrass lil Robert Anthony… 

Besides, how could John ruin this moment? It wasn’t a foreign sight; Elena’s eyes often lit up in the presence of Robert, whether she realised it or not. He was a mere observer to a natural conversation about Robert’s hair. She commented on how it had grown out since she last saw him. How much it suited him. Shamelessly, yet subconsciously, lavishing him with small compliments as if they’d never parted. 

Unlike his response to the hoards of girls who usually gave him such praise on the road, Robert seemed to reduce down to that teenage boy who saw Elena for the first time, as bright and radiant as any sunbeam dancing across the lilypad of an oasis. He’d take what he could get. 

“Oh, there is a reason I’m here, actually,” Robert remembered, pointing his mug at John. “Uh, Jim and I are gunna head down to Snowdonia for a couple of weeks to work on some new material. Just thought, with us three being back together ‘n’ all, we could go out for a few drinks before I go?” He let the question hang in the air for a second, looking between the two of them in a patient standby.

John and Elena exchanged glances, as though telepathically asking each other’s opinion. Eventually, like clockwork, they both shrugged and nodded.

“Don’t see why not,” Elena softly accepted Robert’s offer, smiling up at him with a cadence akin to restrained excitement. “I mean… I don’t think I’ve actually been out for a nice drink in a… long time,” she huffed with a chuckle, attempting to conceal her melancholy recollection of the last time she’d had a good time with anyone at all. 

Robert’s gaze softened as he picked up on her implication, sending her a sideways smile that ignited a warm buzz in her stomach.

“Well, this is your new beginning, El,” John started with his usual grin of reassurance. “What better way to kick it off with a drink with two of the finest men you’ve ever known?” He paused, glancing at Robert. “Well, one and a half.”

Robert sent him a jesting glare, but his mind, as prone to addiction as it was, stayed adhered to Elena, and the excitement it brung to accept his offer for a drink. 

Even if it was dressed up as an innocent gathering of friends.

[thornybubbles]

JJBA Yandere Scenario: Jealousy (The Jo-Foes) Diego (with Outlaw Reader)

**Note: Been a while I know. I’m not sure I have a great grasp on Diego’s character here, but I tried. If this seems rushed and jumbled I’m sorry. This particular story was cobbled together from two different ideas and it might seem a little weird. Sorry this took so long to get out, too. I’ve been occupied with other things lately. I also didn’t do much in the way of proofreading this, so I apologize for any grammar or spelling mishaps. I’ll fix any that I find later. I just wanted to get this one out there as I was overdue for another fic. The next chapter of “Kinder Than Love” will be out soon for those of you that follow that story. **

Diego wasn’t too proud to admit to himself that he adored you. He should be angry at allowing himself to catch feelings when he had more important things to worry about. He had hired you in secret to keep tabs on Valentine and make sure that the underhanded politician kept his side of their bargain and didn’t do anything shady behind his back. He didn’t trust that frilly fop any more than he was willing to let Johnny Joestar win the race. Naturally, he couldn’t take part in the race while also keeping an eye on Valentine. You were also meant to spy on Joestar and Gyro and let him know what they were up to. Having you around had already made his life much easier... and a lot more fun.

Diego hired you due to your strange ability to hide in plain sight. You had no Stand that he was aware of, but you had an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to blend  into your surroundings in such a way that you could be standing right beside someone and they would never notice that you were there. Diego thought that you would make a wonderful assassin. Unfortunately you had no interest in such things. It was a shame. There were quite a few people on Diego’s “to be eliminated” list. Ah well. It was far better to handle one’s enemies on one’s own terms anyway. 

Diego admired your survivalist spirit. You were practically one with nature and exemplified the notion of “kill or be killed”. But you were willing to take a life only if it was absolutely necessary. It was the one flaw Diego saw in your otherwise perfect design. There were other little things that you did that drew him to you but the main thing about you that he loved was… a little bit twisted. 

He loved the fact that he had you trapped. You didn’t know it yet, but he had you in a deceitful snare that you would never, ever be able to escape from. You would not know the nature of that snare until many months into the race, when an unforeseen change in the weather and damage to the area due to the resulting storms caused the race to be postponed for a few days. 

It was then that you met the strange, but sweet soul who you came to know as Mr. Le Mans. While you prided yourself on your ability to be unnoticeable even in a crowd, Le Mans noticed you when no one else did. Every time he stepped into the saloon where you were having your meals, his eyes would zero in on you. He would come over to your little corner where you hid to have your meals, and the two of you would talk. 

At first it made you very uncomfortable. Diego had made it expressly clear that he didn’t want you talking to anyone. You were supposed to remain as a living shadow, moving through the crowds, blending in, and never doing anything to call attention to yourself. Not only that, but due to certain unpleasantness from your past, you couldn’t afford to have anyone get too close to you. You tried to get away from him a few times but, you found yourself beginning to crave the attention he gave you. 

It had been ages since anyone had a real conversation with you (that didn’t involve something shady). You found that you rather enjoyed talking about mundane things like the weather, food, and local landmarks. After years of living on the outskirts of society, never allowing yourself to mingle with others, and becoming something like a living ghost while surrounded by people, it felt nice to have someone do something as simple as notice that you were there. 

You didn’t realize how lonely you were until Le Mans entered your life. You’d only known him for a few days and already you were beginning to feel attached to him somehow. Diego was less than pleased. He walked into the saloon one day, spotted you and Le Mans sitting and chatting together, and gave you such a scathing look that you felt as if you'd actually been slapped. That night, he found you at your usual camping spot outside of town, and verbally ripped into you. 

“What the hell are you thinking?!” he hissed. “You’re supposed to be laying low, not getting chummy with the locals! If anyone realizes that you’re working with me, it could put all of my plans in jeopardy! You stay the hell away from the dandy or you’ll find yourself out of a job!” 

That’s what led to you meeting Le Mans in secret. What Diego didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you. Unfortunately for you, Diego did know. He knew all about you and Le Mans and your secret rendezvous. He also knew about how Le Mans pressed an adoring kiss to your lips at the end of each of your meetings. The thought of someone else kissing you caused him to go absolutely feral. The image of Le Mans’ filthy mouth tainting your precious lips played over and over again in his mind until his vision blurred and he could feel his teeth lengthening inside of his mouth. Even as he lurched into the wilderness, hunched over like a beast on the hunt, he couldn’t erase the image of your flustered face from his mind. 

They found what was left of Le Mans a day later. A bear got to him, so they said. You were stunned. Just as soon as you found the slightest spark of joy, life came along and snuffed it out completely. It was karma, you supposed. You didn’t deserve any joy really. Not after the things you’d done. Though, Le Mans didn’t deserve to die in such a way; partially eaten by some wild animal…. What a horrible way to go. You spent the next few days sobbing in your dark corner of the saloon. No one came to comfort you. No one even looked your way. It was like nothing changed. People passed you by as if you weren’t even there. You’d gone back to being unnoticed and overlooked. It didn’t bring you the feeling of safety that it used to. Now, you just felt miserable and more lonely than you ever thought possible.

The damage from the storms had finally been cleared and the Steel Ball Run race was no longer being delayed. Diego would be leaving the little town along with the other racers, and you would be expected to follow after him. And so you did. Your half blind mule was nowhere near as fast and agile as some of the race horses, but he made up for it with his ability to sniff out shortcuts through rougher terrain and his sure-footedness. If anyone spotted you they would assume that you were just some wandering vagrant and nothing more. They wouldn’t suspect you to be a spy or have anything to do with the Steel Ball Run race. They wouldn’t even bother to approach you, much less think to question you. 

It had been at least three days since you’d been back on the trail. Your mule managed to find a nice spot that overlooked the Joestar group’s camp and was situated in a way that prevented them from seeing your own campfire. From your vantage point, you could use your binoculars to watch what they were doing. While you were too far away to hear them, you could read their lips. So far Joestar was being sarcastic and the Zeppelli fellow was making jokes about his steel balls. So nothing special. You sighed, lowered your binoculars, and leaned back against a rock. You looked up into the starry sky and thought about Le Mans for the hundredth time that day. You’d been thinking about him alot lately. You’d only known him briefly, but got so attached to him in that short amount of time. You sighed again, closed your eyes for a moment, and did your best to choke back the tears. You wouldn’t cry again. It took so much out of you when you did. You missed Le Mans. You missed him very badly. You glanced back down at the Joestar group only to see that they had gone to sleep for the night. You may as well do the same. 

The sound of your campfire being stirred startled you. You turned to look to your right only to get startled again to see that Diego was sitting next to you, poking your fire with a stick. 

“M-Mr. Brando!!” You cried and he chuckled at your shocked expression. 

“Some spy you are.” he teased. “You let me sneak right up on you. Not only that, but you were letting your fire go out. You must be awfully distracted tonight if you’re that unaware of your surroundings.” 

He snapped the stick he was using to poke the fire in half and tossed it into the flames. Then he turned to you with a smirk. 

“Tell me what it is that has you so preoccupied.” he said, leaning towards you. 

You scooted back from him, feeling very uncomfortable. You didn’t know what it was but Diego’s presence had you on edge. He often visited your camp to hear what you had to say about either Valentine or Johnny Joestar, so it wasn’t as if his arrival was unusual… but something about him felt different tonight. He always seemed to have an air of danger around him, but tonight that air of danger felt downright deadly. You looked away from him, not willing to spill your personal thoughts to him. 

“I don’t have any information for you, tonight.” you said, attempting to change the subject. “Joestar and Zeppelli haven’t done anything out of the ordinary lately…” 

Diego interrupted you. 

“I didn’t come here to talk business. Not tonight.” he said. 

He moved around you so that he was once again in your line of vision. He was smiling in a way that made your stomach knot up. 

“W-what did you c-come to talk about then?” you asked, dreading the answer. 

“About us,” he answered. “About you and me…” 

You looked up at him in confusion. 

“About us? What about us?” You asked. 

“First let’s talk about you. I bet I can guess as to what you were thinking about before I snuck up on you…” 

And he was back on that topic again. You took a deep breath and tried to calm yourself. 

“I don’t really want to talk about that.” you said. 

He ignored you completely. 

“You were thinking about that dandy boy again, weren’t you. What was his name again? Leemen? Layman?” 

“Le Mans,” you corrected. “Please, I really don’t want to talk about…” 

He cut you off again. 

“I know it must be hard losing someone like that. Especially, when you seemed so fond of him…” 

Your irritation flared and you stomped your booted foot on the ground. 

“Mr. Brando! I said I didn’t want to talk about it!” you shouted. 

“Shhhhhh,” he shushed you and suddenly he was holding your hands in his gloved ones, gently rubbing his thumbs against your knuckles. 

The action startled you and your anger was forgotten. His eyes had taken on a soft look that caught you off guard and shocked you into silence. Never since you’d known him had Diego Brando appeared soft or comforting in any way. He was either cold and calculating or a beacon of hate and rage. This was a side of him you’d never guessed existed. You made a slight attempt at pulling your hands out of his, but he used the opportunity to pull you closer to him. You found himself staring into his eyes for a moment. Finding the situation far too intimate, you turned away from him, staring at the ground instead. 

“Listen to me,” he began. “I understand. I do.” 

You looked back up at him. 

“Understand?” you questioned. 

He offered you a gentle smile.

“Yes. I understand what it means to lose someone, believe me.” he said and his eyes grew distant for a moment. 

“It’s not easy is it?” he said. 

“Mr. Brando… what are you getting at?” you asked. 

“You’re lonely, that’s what I’m getting at.” he said. 

You pulled yourself out of his grasp feeling that the situation was becoming a bit too intimate for your tastes. 

“Come now, don’t be that way.” he said with a light chuckle. 

He moved closer to you and you shied a little further away from him. 

“Fine, be the shrinking violet if you want, but hear me out.” he said, growing slightly annoyed with your standoffishness. 

“I know it’s been hard for you and I can’t imagine how it feels to have to skirt around on the outside of civilization unable to connect with anyone. You must feel like some kind of outcast. I can’t imagine how lonely it gets…” 

He took a single step closer to you and you froze. You understood now. You knew exactly what he was trying to say. In the time that you’d been working for him, Diego had become more and more “friendly” with you. Then came the complements, the gifts of supplies and equipment… it was Diego that bought you the binoculars that you’d been using. At the time you thought he was just giving you a means to better do your job, but when you thought back to some of his other behaviors, (how close he sat to you when he came to hear your reports, the pet names and out-of-nowhere complements, and the nasty looks he gave you when he saw you with Le Mans) you realized that there was far more to it than that. 

Diego was crushing on you. Very badly.

He suddenly had his arms around you and was pressing you into his chest. Panic rose into your chest and you tried to push away, but he tightened his hold on you. 

“If you stay by my side, you’ll never have to be lonely again.” he whispered into your ear. 

You managed to rip yourself out of his arms. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brando,” you said, straightening yourself out and trying to quell the panic that was swelling up in your heart. “I just don’t have those kinds of feelings for you.” 

Diego's reaction was not what you expected. 

He stared at you with a blank expression for a moment before his lips stretched into a wicked grin. Then he laughed. He laughed and laughed until you started to become even more uncomfortable than you already were. After a few minutes of this, you couldn’t take it anymore. 

“What’s so funny?!” you demanded.  

Diego managed to reign in his laughter long enough to answer you.

“It’s funny…” he started, wiping tears from his eyes. “It’s funny because you think you actually have the right to refuse me.” 

You raised your eyebrows, stunned at the audacity of the statement. 

“Excuse me?” you said with disgust in your voice. Your panic was very quickly turning into anger. “Did you just say that I don’t have the right to refuse you?” 

Diego merely grinned at you. 

“I most certainly do have the right to refuse you! What makes you think YOU have the right to tell ME who I can and can’t refuse?” 

Diego’s grin seemed to stretch to the far reaches of his face for a split second and there was a flash of something utterly inhuman in his eyes. It shocked you right out of your tantrum. Your anger dissipated and slowly went back to panic. When Diego spoke again, your panic turned into pure horror. 

“No, you don’t have the right to refuse me, sweetheart.” he said in a mockingly soft tone. “You can’t refuse me, because if you do, a certain event from your past is going to make national news.” 

Event from your past? He couldn’t mean… Oh no. 

“Go on,” he said with a chuckle. “Ask me what I’m talking about.” 

No, no, he couldn’t be talking about that, you tried to reassure yourself. I’ll play dumb. I’m not going to let him know he’s affecting me…

“What ARE you talking about?” you asked, trying to keep your voice from shaking. 

“Oh nothing much.” he said. “Just a little bank robbery that happened a few years back… a bank robbery that you were involved in… a bank robbery that cost a little boy his life. Ring any bells?” 

No.

NO!

He knew! 

He KNEW!!!

Eight years ago, before you got involved with Diego, you had been a part of a gang of criminals that terrorized the state. You left them after an incident that made you question everything that you’d done up to that point. It was just supposed to be a bank heist. You were supposed to go into the bank, wave some guns around, demand the money, and leave. You hadn’t expected the sheriff and a posse of deputized locals to show up and try to stop you. There had been a shootout in the streets. A child ran into the crossfire in a panic, trying to get to his mother. He was killed. Shot in the head… by you. You killed that child right in front of his mother. You panicked and fled, leaving your allies behind to fend for themselves. You didn’t escape unscathed, however. A bullet grazed the side of your face, mutilating your ear in a way that would instantly give you away if anyone saw the wound. It was the reason you always wore your hair down. It covered your mangled ear and prevented anyone from relating you to the robbery. 

At least you had hoped that it would. 

Stubbornly, you continued to play dumb. 

“I’m not sure what you could be referring to.” You said. “Though if I was involved in such a thing, you have no proof of it.” 

Diego cocked his head to the side in a playful manner. 

“Oh don’t I?” he said. 

Your heart felt like it was going to leap out of your chest and your body felt like someone had just doused you in ice water. 

“I remember reading about it in the paper. The sheriff said that only one of the robbers got away. But not before he shot them in the ear…”

Your blood ran cold. 

He reached out, pulling your hair away from your right ear. You were frozen to the spot. You could only look up at him with wide eyes as you began to tremble like a scared mouse. He examined what was left of your ear, making note of the scar across your head and your missing helix and antihelix. 

“Hmm.” he mused. “Not much left of it, is there? You poor thing. That had to hurt like hell…” 

His gloved fingers traced your scar. You shuddered and jerked away from him. You pulled your hair back over your injured ear and stared at him in horror. 

He snickered at your reaction.

“Pretty damning evidence, I’d say.” he said in a casual manner, while affixing you with a glare. 

“T-the kid got in the way!” you stammered. “It was an accident! I never meant to kill him!” 

“Do you think the law cares about that? In their eyes, you’re just a lowly child-killing criminal. You don’t deserve any sympathy. Just a trip to the gallows.” Diego said with a scoff. 

You were going to be sick. 

“I have a lot of connections, love. One word from me and you’ll be in a noose faster than you can blink. So, no, you don’t have the right to refuse me, dearest.” 

You shrank in on yourself, clutching the sides of your head and squatting down on the ground. Your eyes were wide and unfocused, staring at the ground, unable to see anything but the visions of encroaching doom floating around in your head. 

Diego grabbed you by your arms and pulled you to your feet. He wasn’t even going to allow you a moment to have a mental collapse. You found yourself, once again, forced to look at his smiling face. There was something different about him now though. His features seemed sharper, longer somehow and his eyes had taken on a strange yellowish color. You had to be seeing things. The shock of having your darkest secrets revealed must be messing with your head more than you thought. 

“Did you think that you could just run away from what you’d done and pretend that it didn’t happen? Did you think that the blood washed off of your hands over the years? No! Once a killer always a killer! You didn’t stop with the child, did you? You have quite a gallery of victims, don’t you?” 

Diego licked his lips and you felt like he was savoring your guilt and terror. 

“I had no choice!” You protested. “They got too close! They were going to find out who I was and what I did! I had to defend myself!!” 

Diego snickered sadistically. 

“Defend yourself against what? Your rightful punishment?” he mocked. 

Tears were streaming down your face now and you felt your knees go weak. The only thing keeping you upright was Diego’s hold on you. 

“How do you know these things?” you demanded. 

Diego shook his head. 

“I have my ways. Not that it matters…” he said with a sneer. 

“Why then? Why are you doing this to me?” 

“Because I own you.” Diego said with a hungry smirk. “I owned you from the moment you started doing my dirty work.” 

You looked up with him in horror. Just how long had he… felt this way about you? Was this his plan from the very beginning? Did he already know about your past in advance and mean to use it against you before you’d even met him?

You supposed that none of those answers really mattered. 

In the end this was probably what people called “karma”. 

You ran from your life of crime years ago hoping to put all of that nasty business behind you and start anew, but it wasn’t that easy. People came looking for you: lawmen, bounty hunters, people who were too nosey for their own good. Your life became one of paranoia and unrest. People were dead because of the decisions you made. A child was dead because of you. A mother was heartbroken because you took her child from her in an act of carelessness. If you had never decided to join up with that group of bandits all for the sake of relieving boredom and money woes, none of it would’ve happened. And you wouldn’t be here at the mercy of a one Diego Brando. 

You reap what you sow…

“Dry those tears,” he said. “It’s rather insulting that you act that way after I ask you to be mine. Really, you act as if being with me is a punishment or something.” 

He chuckled darkly and shoved you away from him. 

“I’ve got to head back to my own camp or Hot Pants will start wondering what I’m up to.” he said as he started to walk away. “We’ll talk about this another time. I wouldn’t try to run off if I were you. Sweet dreams, love.” 

He disappeared into the darkness, laughing lowly at your plight. 

You sat there on your knees wanting to scream in despair and frustration. You should never have gotten involved with a man like Diego. Even after you swore off involving yourself with crime or shady dealings, you still found yourself lured to men like him. Either they came to you or you stupidly sought them out for one reason or another. And now you were stuck being the unwilling romantic companion to a madman. 

You suddenly found yourself thinking of Le Mans again. 

You weren’t sure, but you had a sickening feeling that Diego was involved with his death somehow. You couldn’t forget the look he gave you when he saw you with Le Mans in the saloon. What you knew of Diego said that he was absolutely the type to kill a man out of jealousy. Still people said that Le Mans had died to an animal attack. No human could rip a man apart like that… could they?

Whatever the case, you couldn’t stay with Diego. You had only agreed to work for him until the Steel Ball Run race was over. You never agreed to being his lover. The idea made your skin crawl. Surely there was a way to escape him? If you ran now, it wouldn’t matter who he told about your crimes. You’d be long gone by the time anyone came for you. That was it! You would leave right now! 

You got up to begin packing up your things when your left arm started stinging horribly. You gasped in pain and looked at your arm to see that your sleeve was ripped and bloodstained. How on earth had that happened? You pushed the fabric of your sleeve aside to see that there was a bloody gash there. Did Diego do that when he grabbed you? Did he have a knife in his hand at the time? You vaguely remember feeling his fingernails jabbing into you, even through his gloves, as he grabbed you, but surely they weren’t as long and sharp enough to cause a cut like that! And how could he have cut you through his gloves? The wound didn’t seem too deep but it was bleeding a lot. You would have to treat it before you made a run for it. You wouldn’t be able to escape if you bled out beforehand. 

Pain abruptly shot through your arm. It seemed to spread from your wound to the rest of your body. You grasped your bloody arm, panting in agony for a moment. After a few minutes, the pain faded. If you didn’t know better, your thoughts of escape were somehow linked to the pain in your arm. But that’s ridiculous. You examined your wound again. It looked… strange. The skin around it was red and swollen, hinting an oncoming infection if not treated. But it also looked cracked and kind of scaly. Odd. Gangrene? No. You’d seen gangrene before. It was ugly, but it didn’t look like that. You really needed to patch that wound before it got worse. Then you could pack your things and…

Another jolt of pain surged through your arm and your mind went fuzzy. 

You were vaguely aware of your mule, who was tied nearby, snorting and pawing nervously at the ground. 

The pain only lasted a few seconds this time. Your brain still felt like it was in a haze though. You were probably just tired. You couldn’t focus on much except your arm… and thoughts of Diego…

You wanted to fix your arm and… there was something else you wanted to do but you couldn’t remember. 

Was it… escape? 

Escape from what? 

Diego told you not to run off. So you wouldn’t. 

You looked down at your arm again. It really looked strange now. Far too scaly, but you weren’t too worried about it. Your tongue lolled out of your oddly lengthed mouth and you gave the cut a few licks. Once the blood was cleaned off you looked at the wound. It seemed to have stopped bleeding. You would put some antiseptic on it later. At the moment you needed sleep. You flopped over into the dirt, not even bothering to crawl into your sleeping bag. 

Your poor mule didn’t get much sleep that night. He spent the better part of the night keeping a wary eye on the beast that used to be his master, just in case it decided to wake up and devour him. 

You dreamed of Diego and nothing else. 

[nightghoul381]

Finally had time to write!! Here is my first entry in @aquagirl1978 's A Series of Firsts event! Thank you @judejazza for the idea of writing Ranmaru and @candied-boys for helping come up with the story idea!

Coincidences

Ranmaru Mori x Reader Prompt: First Kiss Genre: Fluff WC: 1.1k CW: None

“Oh, hi Ranmaru! I didn’t realize you were going to be here too! We just keep running into each other lately,” You laugh, noticing the way he flips around in surprise.

“Aah! I’m so glad to see you! I think today is going to be the very best day ever now!” Ranmaru squealed, bounding over to you, and grabbing your hands, flashing his brilliant luminescent smile at you, and making your heart start to pound.

You tried to control your emotions, to control your thoughts, but the giddiness you feel when you’re around him, the nervous excitement, always seems to crash over you whenever he turns his soft gray eyes on you. It may just be wishful thinking, but there’s so much tenderness and affection in his gaze that you almost wonder, almost allow yourself to hope, that perhaps he may feel the same way about you.

Don’t be ridiculous! You tell yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and forcing a smile to your own face.

“Well, should we get started? Lord Nobunaga is expecting it to be finished today after all,” you say with a strained jovial tone. You slip your hands free of Ranmaru’s grasp and turn to start organizing the shelves packed full of parchment and ink.

You thought you heard a faint grumble, but tired to ignore it. It seems like more and more recently you’ve been assigned to tasks with Ranmaru. Last week Mitsunari had asked for you to run to a nearby café to assist with a delivery that needed to be sorted and Ranmaru had shown up mere moments after you stating that Hideyoshi had sent him to do the same task. And the same scenario repeated several more times. It seems as if some force in the universe was just begging for your heart to explode.

Each time you were together, you found it harder and harder to keep your feelings in check. Ranmaru was so sweet and excited and kind and he’s so eager to make you smile that you’ve found him showing up in your dreams, sweeping you off your feet and making you the happiest person on the planet.

“Oh no! Watch out!” Ranmaru yelled, snapping you out of your musing. You twist your shoulders toward the sound of his voice to see a large pot of ink tipping from the top of one of the shelves. In the moment it takes for you to register what is happening, the heavy container has started hurtling toward you and your eyes grow wide. Just as you brace for the inevitable impact, you feel your body pushed backward, followed by a thunk and a groan of pain.

Ranmaru lay splayed on the floor, his dusty pink hair and most of his outfit are now dripping with the deep charcoal color of the ink. Scrambling to your knees you crawl over to him.

“Oh jeez! Ranmaru are you okay?” You squeak, placing your hands on his cheeks and tilting his head.

“It really hurts,” he admits, lower lip protruding in a pout and his grey eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“Ah! I’m so sorry! This I all my fault, I should have been paying attention, not focusing on my thoughts,” You apologize, helping him to his feet, wincing at the amount of ink that still dripped down his back and at the way he held his shoulder tenderly. Ranmaru took a clean part of his sleeve and wiped the tears from his eyes and then murmured.

“What were you thinking about? It must have been something important for you to be so focused on it.”

You felt your face flush, cheeks tuning a bright red as you tried to think of something to tell him other than the truth. There’s no way you were telling him that he was the one holding your attention. Your eyes dart around the room as you stumble over your words.

“I...uh, it was… it was nothing really…just caught in my own head?” you mumble, trying to keep your attention anywhere but on the man before you. Unfortunately, your eyes fall on his beautiful face that’s scrunched in a surprisingly sultry, knowing grin.

“Were you thinking about how strange it’s been that we’ve been put on assignments together so much recently? Or were you maybe thinking about how you’ve almost started to look forward to our meetings as much as I have?”

Your breath catches in your throat as Ranmaru steps forward, his face pulling in so close you could swear you could smell the peach he’d likely enjoyed with his lunch.

“Can I tell you a biiig secret? Like the biggest secret I’ve ever had, ever?” he whispers, his words far more innocent than his intonation. You nod ever so slightly, your heart pounding out of your chest and your senses becoming overwhelmed with him. Your face feels so hot as you look into his beautiful eyes.

“I really, really like you.”

You inhale sharply, his face leaning in to press a kiss to your cheek. Your mind seems to throw rationality out the window, your arms flying around his neck as you pull him toward you again. His lips are soft, shockingly smooth and velvety as they meet yours. It’s like some barrier is shattered, your mouths working greedily against each other’s.

His tongue prodded at your mouth, slipping between your lips with seemingly practiced ease, filling your mouth with a burst of peach flavor. He twined his tongue around yours, exploring your mouth with such reckless excitement, you couldn’t help but moan into it.

His hands moved, one on your waist and one on the back of your head, deepening the kiss and you happily went along with his movements. Soon you were lost in each other’s taste, not noticing the eyes peering in at you from behind the door.

“I told you, simply put the two of them together enough times and one of them was sure to make a move,” Mitsuhide chuckled softly, sliding away from the door and turning to face the other warlords.

“I… I hate to admit, but you were right, Mitsuhide.” Hideyoshi’s resigned sigh moving to join his sly counterpart.

“I will admit, Mitsunari, placing the ink pot so close to the edge of the shelf was a very good move as well,” Masamune admitted, clapping the other man on the back before heading off down the hall and back toward the courtyard.

Mitsunari, rubbed his neck and followed behind, “Oh, right… I most certainly meant for that to happen…”

The warlords finally departed, satisfied that their scheme had worked out precisely as they had intended and pleased knowing that they would no longer have to deal with the two of them tiptoeing around each other while being blatantly obvious about how they felt about the other.

[sailoryooons]

Anything | Oneshot | jhs (m)

☾ Pairing: idol!hobi x reader 

☾ Summary: You haven't seen Hobi in a few weeks. Now that you're joining him at an award show, your boyfriend wants to play.

☾ Word Count: 5,481

☾ Genre: established relationship, pwp

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. 

☾ Warnings: This is zero plot, straight porn, cursing, explicit sexual content including Use of sex toys, use of said sex toys in public, sexual acts in public (no one knows but you & hobi), voyeurism?, dom/sub dynamics with dom!hobi and sub!reader, use of 'sir' in sexual setting, oral (f. receiving), multiple / forced orgasms, orgasm control, breath play (choking), nipple play, subspace like orgasms, breeding kink, Hobi is really just a pleasure dom here tbh

☾ Published: May 29, 2022

☾ A/N: Head empty, just Hobi filth. God this man is so perfect in ever way. I genuinely don't think there is a human more beautiful. When I saw him in person at PTD LV D3 I nearly fainted. Legit just ??? why. Anyway, enough rambling - forgive any editing errors, this was originally written for my friend in third person POV and sometimes I miss tenses when editing. As you might notice - all my PWP stories have the same banners because I am LaZeEe and don't feel like making them fancier for a simple lil' one shot. I hope you have an amazing night or day wherever you are.

☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Masterlist | Ask

Hoseok’s breath fanned across your throat. You could feel more than see the smile across your skin, his laughter low and vibrating through his chest, pressed up against her. Your fingers were tangled in the silky hair at the nape of his neck, gasping as his teeth nipped at the tender flesh over your pulse. His bites stung lightly but the soft swipe of his tongue was hot and soothing across the bruising skin. His fingers danced their way around your waist, dipping into the waistband of your leggings.

“You have to go get dressed,” you moaned, tilting your head back further against the door. He had pressed you against it as soon as you swiped the hotel card and walked in. He smelled freshly showered, dressed in simple sweats and a tee. He still looked delectable, more so pressed against you and groaning into your skin. “Hobi, you can’t get behind schedule. You’re lucky management let me come tonight.”

Hoseok hummed, burying his face in your neck. You smiled, fingers pulling him closer to you, a contrast to your words. 

It had been a little over two weeks since you had seen him and even though you hated award shows, you were there. You weren’t a fan of the cameras flashing, the hundreds of members of the press pushing up against every corner of the building and the general authenticity of the entire affair. 

But Hoseok wanted you there, and what he wanted he got. 

You were drawn to Hoseok like Icarus to the sun, yet he had yet to burn you. You knew he never would. 

Groaning, Hoseok placed a gentle kiss on your lips. He rested his forehead against yours, brown eyes swimming as he grinned at you. Just the gaze he pinned you with made your stomach twist with heat. His voice was soft as he whispered, “I’m happy you're here.”

“I am too. I missed you.” 

He rolled his hips gently into yours, making you sigh in delight as you felt just how much he missed you, cock already hard in his sweatpants. You wanted nothing more than to slide your delicate hand down his stomach, tracing the soft and hard planes of his body until you wrapped your hand around his velvety shaft.

They didn’t didn’t have time for that. And you still smelled like an airport. 

“I missed you too,” he kissed you briefly again, his lips soft and gentle. His nose rested alongside yours as he continued to nuzzle her. “Alright, I’m going to go get ready.”

-

Alone in the hotel room, you were left to your own devices to shower and get dressed. You were surprised when one of the stylists stuck her head in and asked if you wanted assistance - you were still incredibly uncomfortable and confused at the process of benign acknowledged and taken care of by Hoseok’s label.

It had been difficult at first. Befriending someone who belonged to the largest music group in the world was already difficult. Dating them had been an entirely new ballgame of struggles, problem solving and accommodating. You and Hoseok figured it out - he had been adamant on that. He wasn’t giving up just because it was difficult, and he promised to take care of the business side of things. 

And he had. 

He was always the rule breaker in your relationship. He took you on dates when he was supposed to keep you behind closed doors. He took pictures with you and kept them in visible spaces when he wasn’t supposed to. He actively was seen buying you gifts.

When you had first panicked at Hoseok’s defiance, you insisted that management would punish him. In a rare display of aggression, he assured you there was nothing they could do. What could they do? Remove one of the most successful members from a very famous group? No, it wouldn’t do. 

So management adjusted and things went on. 

Now, you were privy to some perks. You tentatively accepted the help, a little helpless at what to do with your hair. The stylist was sweet, giving you day-to-day tips and showing you a few tricks that were incredibly useful in general.

When you were finished, she bowed quickly and left you to slip into your dress. You walked out of the room heading toward the garment bag on the couch.

The breath vanished from your lungs. Hoseok was leaning against the wall a few feet away from you, one hand tucked into the pockets of his suit, the other behind his back. His dark hair was slicked out of his face, two pieces hanging loose on his forehead. You immediately wanted to comb your fingers through his hair and feel how soft it was between your fingers. 

You wanted to grip his hair the way you did when he was between your legs. 

Hoseok seemed to know exactly where your mind went. He smirked at you, looking you up and down. The heat of his gaze warmed you in the pit of her stomach and you knew that within moments he had made you wet just by looking at you.

Hoseok had that effect every fucking time. 

“I have a present for you.” His dulcet voice was low. “I want you to wear it tonight.” 

“Ooo.” You padded over to him. “Is it a pretty necklace? I like shiney.”

His wicked grin made your thighs clench as he revealed a matte black, box wrapped with a satin, black ribbon. It was too large to be a piece of jewelry and the Cheshire Cat smile unnerved you. You narrowed your eyes, taking the box carefully from him. His eyes were sparkling as you sat on the arm of the couch.

Your fingers slid under the ribbon, the silk hissing under your touch as you pulled at it. The ribbons fell away softly and you lifted the lid. The wrapping was soft and black. There was a single pearlescent sticker keeping the wrapping closed, La Perla written across it. Your brows shot up. Expensive lingerie was not what you had been expecting. 

Glancing at Hoseok, you delicately popped the seal and unwrapped the soft tissue paper. A pair of black lace underwear were folded neatly in the box. The lace was entirely see through. You chewed at your bottom lip as you unfolded the silky material, feeling the way it slipped between your fingers. You tilted your head to the side, feeling a heaviness at its center. 

Heat flooded through your cheeks and neck. Nestled in the delicate crotch of the underwear was a grooved piece of silicone, making your head tilt to the side. You ran your pointer finger across it and almost gasped when it buzzed to life, making your eyes snap up to Hoseok.

A phone was in his hand and the grin on his face had spread, his eyes dark. You glanced from the underwear vibrating happily in your hand and his phone. He tracked the movement like a predator. “I want you to wear these tonight, baby.”

“At the awards?” You squeaked.

He nodded. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I want to play.” 

You visibly shivered as you stood up, vibrating panties still in hand. “I didn’t know La Perla made sex toys.”

“I had them custom made.”

“For this occasion specifically?”

He shrugged. “I like the thought of my girl being able to feel me wherever I am. I can control it anywhere.” He glanced at the Rolex on his wrist and tapped the face. “Running out of time, baby girl. Get dressed, I’ll wait for you.”

“Can you help me instead?”

Hoseok was off the wall and in front of you in moments, his hands on your waist. He kissed your jaw, your throat, your collarbones. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Your skin was warm and sparking as Hoseok’s hands moved all over you. It felt like his hands were everywhere at once. He pulled the shirt slowly off of you and over your head by the hem, revealing your bra and goosebump covered flesh. His hands were reverent as he ducked his head again, kissing your shoulders and sternum as his fingers slowly pulled your leggings down. 

Tilting her head back, you closed your eyes as you stepped out of your pants, Hoseok’s gentle hands guiding you. You could feel his breath on your hip as he remained kneeling in front of you. He kissed your hip bone and a moan escaped from your mouth, making him chuckle directly against your skin. 

With measured movements, Hoseok pulled the sides of your underwear down. You shivered again as his breath hit you between the legs. He groaned as he slid the underwear down. Before you could step out of them, Hoseok ducked forward, tongue swiping right up your dripping pussy. 

You nearly shouted in surprise and pleasure. Hoseok laughed again, lifting you by the ankles to step out of the underwear. “Sorry,” he groaned. “Wanted a taste. You’re so fucking wet baby. Gonna soak through these panties for me tonight before I can even touch you?”

“Yes,” you managed to get out, shuddering. “I think so.”

“Good. You’ll be ready for me to fuck you into the early hours of the morning. I haven’t tasted this pretty pussy in weeks. I’m starving.”

“Are you sure we have to go to the awards?” 

Hoseok had the vibrating panties in his hand and guided you by the ankles to step into them. His touch was hot as he pulled them up your legs, settling them into place. You glanced down at the sinful sight in front of her, Hoseok fully dressed in his fine suit on his knees for you. Fuck.

The small device felt strange and foreign against your slick folds. You wiggled a little bit, earning a light spank from Hoseok on your ass. You squeaked as he laughed, standing to wrap his arms around your throat softly, pulling you in for a searing kiss. You could taste the small lick of arousal on his tongue, heady and hypnotizing. 

With deliberate softness, Hoseok helped you slide the emerald gown up your body. It was made of stunning velvet, clinging to every curve. There was a dangerous slit cutting up your leg, showing off your toned calves and sliver of soft thigh. Hoseok deftly pulled the zipper up your back, making sure to touch every part of your spine before finishing with a kiss to the back of your neck.

“If you don’t want to go, say the word,” he whispered.

“I was kidding.”

“I’m not. If you didn’t want to go I wouldn’t. We could stay in my room all night and I would make you cum several times before I took off this delightful dress.”

“We have to go.”

“I don’t care. Say the word and we stay.”

You turned in the circle of his arms. “Of course we’re going.” You placed a chaste kiss on his lips. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

-

With the crush of people, sounds and lights flashing, you almost wish you had asked to stay at the hotel. You shoved aside the thought quickly. You would never do that in a million years. Not only would you never ask Hoseok to sacrifice something at work for you, but you loved seeing him in his element. 

The carpet experience was a series of repetitions. Walk for a bit, smile with him as his date, step to the side with a handler while the group took pictures together. You were grateful that the team was close knit and full of carefully vetted employees that had been with the team for years. The handlers and staff were always familiar faces that you could find some comfort in.

You were nearing the end of the carpet when the first jolt of vibrations hit you. You gasped and nearly doubled over in surprise. A staff member went to you immediately, asking if you were okay. You straightened immediately, a flush blooming through your neck as you whipped your head to Hoseok. He wasn’t looking at you, but his hand was in his pocket as they spoke to an interviewer.

It was hard to focus. Your thighs were trembling, white hot pleasure humming through you. You knew it was on a low setting and it didn’t matter. You were clenching your fists and every muscle in your body was screaming as you flexed, trying to control your breathing despite the fact that your stomach was flipping. 

It only lasted about a minute. A minute of searing heat rippling through you. A minute of trying not to pant in front of others. You shifted back and forth in your heels, mouth parted slightly as you tried to even your breathing. You had no idea how you were going to make it through the night. 

The moment the vibrations stopped, you were both relieved and groaning internally. It felt amazing, and knowing that Hoseok had been doing that, picturing the way he pleasured you in the middle of a live interview did things for your mind. 

Joining him and heading inside, you squeezed Hoseok’s bicep in mock anger, eyes narrowed. He gave you a cocky grin. “You’re flushed, baby girl.”

“Am I? Hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh really? Should I have done a better job?”

You grabbed a flute of water as a server walked by. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

Hoseok’s breath was hot as he leaned down to your ear. “You are on dangerous grounds, baby girl.” 

You nearly squeaked. Instead you shut her mouth, knowing that if you started to toe the line when Hoseok was this domineering that you were asking to be edged for hours instead of edged once or twice before Hoseok worshiped every inch of you. He would never let you go without cumming, but your behavior was the difference between cumming once and multiple times. 

You settled in your seats neatly, pressed close to Hoseok. You were on edge, constantly glancing at him to try and predict the next onslaught of pleasure. You were tense in your seat as he rubbed your thigh absently, hardly watching the first few performances. Every time the lights dropped and a performer came on, you were sure it would happen. You were sure he’d flip the switch.

He didn’t. 

Hoseok stood as a stagehand came for them. They were performing early in the night. He stood and bent down to kiss her. “Be a good girl for me.” He smiled. “And don’t you dare cum without me here.” 

His reasoning for the warning came ten minutes later. The moment they were announced for their performance, the underwear turned on. You sank into her seat. The vibrations were considerably higher this time, nearly making you moan out loud. He expected you to be able to last the entire song without cumming? 

You tried to catch your breath as they took the stage but you could barely hear the song.Your blood was roaring in your ears. You thankfully could relieve some tension shifting from side to side in what looked like very poorly choreographed dancing, but was in fact shifting the underwear back and forth to relieve your clit for a moment of respite. 

By the time Hoseok got off the stage and flipped the switch, you were collapsing against her seat covered in a sheen of sweat. Your thighs felt like they were melting and you could now feel your wetness completely ruining what you were sure was four-hundred dollar underwear. 

When Hoseok returned, your eyes were half-lidded and your hand was shaking. He kissed you gently, wrapping an arm around you and pressing her to his side. He kissed your ear and whispered, “Did baby cum?”

“N-no.”

“Good, I wanted to watch you.” Your eyes widened as his hand slipped in his pocket and flicked the vibrator on. Your fingers dug into his thighs and you bit down on her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. “Be a good girl and stay quiet for me, okay? You can cum now but not again until later when I play with you. Okay?”

You didn’t have a response. You nodded your head. He hummed in response and tilted your head so that it was resting on his shoulder. Anyone could look at you and see them as a loving couple, a boyfriend letting his tired girlfriend lay on his shoulder. In reality, you was clenching your teeth and clinging to him for dear fucking life. 

It was nearly impossible not to rock your hips. Especially as Hoseok palmed your thigh and whispered into your ear. Yeah? Does that feel good? Is my baby gonna cum right here in front of hundreds of people? Yes. you certainly were. You look so fucking hot baby. Wish you were saying ‘yes sir’ while cumming on my tongue? God. So that’s the mood he was in tonight. He had yet to make you call him ‘sir’, but he was riled now. You could see it in the way he eyed you hungrily. 

“I-I’m gonna-“ your whisper broke off as your head sagged. Your gut was clenching and if you looked down at your heels, you knew your toes would be curled.

“Cum for me, baby,” Hoseok whispered, fingers digging into your thigh.

You almost let out a loud, untethered moan as your orgasm burned through you. You were shaking in the seat. You didn’t care if anyone saw you now. You were unable to do anything about it as you ruined the nice black panties that Hoseok bought you, trembling in the seat next to him as he coaxed you through your first orgasm for the night. 

The vibrations stopped and you went limp against him. He bore your weight easily. His strokes on your leg were soothing and he pressed a firm kiss to your brow. “Good girl. You did such a good job for me. You’re so fucking perfect. I fucking love you- only you.”

You nodded into his shoulder, a little too fucked out for a response. 

Hoseok took mercy on you for the rest of the show- at least, he didn’t turn the vibrator on. He made sure to drop comments whenever possible, reminding you that he knew you were sitting in cum. You felt parched the rest of the night, no matter how much water you drank. 

You were nervous about the ride back to the hotel, sharing a limo with the rest of the boys. You kept your legs firmly crossed. It never came. They made it back to the hotel in peace and slightly buzzed on champagne, riding an all time high after they won their awards and performed for their fans for the first time in ages. 

As they stole away to their room, the darkness to Hoseok’s gaze was gone, replaced with giddiness and elation until you were back in your room.

As soon as the door was shut, he was kissing you and spinning you around, murmuring how much he had missed you between kisses, taking the time to map out the make of you with his mouth. 

Dipping down, Hoseok scooped you up bridal style, carrying you to the master suite where he laid you down on the bed gently. You looked up at him, every part of you vibrating with your love for him. He was the most beautiful person you knew, inside and out.

Sometimes- like that moment lying on the bed- it was so consuming that you just stared at him, wondering how you could ever thank the universe enough for making them exist in the same timeline. 

When Hoseok leaned down to kiss you, pushing you gently into the mattress, you knew that he felt the same way. He often told you out loud how he felt. He reassured you at every turn, took the time to whisper the things he thought about you, how much he loved you.

But it was when you could feel in his mouth, his fingertips removing your dress, the way he shivered as he licked down the valley of your breasts- that was unbeatable. 

Letting the gown pool to the floor, Hoseok kissed you, delicate as the wings of a butterfly, removing your bra and tossing it. 

“God,” Hoseok whispered, bowing his head. “Have I ever mentioned that you have amazing tits?”

“Yes, once or- ohhhh god.” Hoseok cut you off by wrapping his mouth greedily around a nipple, sucking hard. 

You fisted the sheets as his tongue laved at it, teeth pulling gently at the hardened bud as he pulled away. His spit was a silvery sheen as his tongue slid from one breast to the other, teeth plucking the other nipple teasingly until he wrapped his lips on it, sucking again. 

Letting go of the sheets, your hands carded in his hair as he paid generous attention to your chest before kissing his way down your stomach. He smiled against your skin as his teeth pulled at the waistband of her underwear.

You lifted your head. Watching, slack-jawed, as he removed your underwear with his teeth. You felt heat bloom at your core, wetter just from the sight of him between your legs. His eyes connected with yours and he grinned, licking his lips as he dropped his eyes down to your pussy, groaning. 

“Fuuuuuck you’re messy baby,” he hummed. His fingers danced along your legs, pushing them so that both of your feet were planted on the bed, wedging your thighs open so that your pussy was completely exposed to him. “Mmmm want me to clean this cum up for you, baby?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good girl.”

Famous last words.

A keen tore from your throat as Hoseok didn’t hesitate. He didn’t do a careful lick to ease you into it - he tongued at your core hungrily, tongue lapping back and forth as he messily ate you out like a starved man. You gasped, hands going down to his hair and tugging slightly, unable to control yourself. He growled into your pussy as he sucked your clit into his mouth, tongue circling lightly.

You were coming apart at the seams in a matter of moments. Nothing about the way he licked you was refined. His tongue fucked you messily, the sounds of his sucking and own moans of pleasure making you quake. He ran the flat of his tongue up you slowly a few times, eyes fixed on yours. You nearly came right then and there, seeing the way he grinned around the flat of his tongue as it wiggled against your clit.

your head fell back against the bed as his fingers circled your entrance, applying just enough pressure to make you clench, but not enough to slide in. It was maddening. You let go of his hair to find purchase in the sheets, twisting them around your fist as he teased your core. 

“Mmm, such a pretty little hole,” he noted, the tip of his finger almost entering you.

“Sir, please.”

“Please what, baby?” He mumbled against your slick folds. 

“Fingers- pleaaaaase.”

“Mmm, since you asked so nicely.”

Hoseok slipped two fingers in your warmth, making you scream as he curled them, brushing right against your soft spot, sending pleasure sparking like fireworks to every limb and end of your body. You could feel the electricity in your fingertips, entire body jolting as he pumped his fingers in and out of you slowly, tongue moving tauntingly against your clit. 

Thoughts were nonexistent as you rolled your hips to meet each soft stroke of his fingers. His tongue was enough to get her you alone, but his tongue and fingers together? You were seeing white behind your eyelids after a few minutes, thighs and legs locked around his head. He didn’t care. You knew he loved the feeling of your thighs tight around him. Loved to hear you whine and keen. 

“You wanna cum?” His voice was muffled between your legs.

“Yes yes yes yes.”

“Ask nicely, then.”

“Can I come sir, please? I wanna cuuuum please.”

He kissed your clit affectionately. “Who am I to deny you?”

Hoseok certainly had denied you before, though not for long. He always came through, always wanted you to fall into the bliss only he could bring you.

No one before him ever had you like this, panting as you crested upwards into your orgasm, his tongue sinful against your pussy and crying as you crashed into blinding pleasure. You knew you were loud and she didn’t care, tears pooling in your eyes as she gasped for air, your entire body jerking as his fingers worked you through he orgasm. 

You were boneless as Hoseok withdrew his hands from you. You protested in a quiet mewl, making him laugh as he kissed his way up your stomach, stopping again to nip at your breasts. You wiggled under him until he placed a gentle kiss on your lips. Your hands tore at his clothing. 

“Off,” you gasped between tangled kisses that were made more of teeth than lips and tongue. “Off off offf off.”

He pulled away from you and raised an eyebrow at you. “Sir,” you added, grinning lazily at him. “Please.”

He complied. 

Your relationship was a give and take. While Hoseok often called shots in the bedroom and could be demanding and domineering, he always gave you what you asked for. He never denied you.

The power was yours to use at your leisure. He knew it, you knew it. Though it was Hoseok who told you what position to get in, Hoseok who bent you the ways he liked, any moment you said stop or the moment you asked for something you wanted, he bent to your will.

Hoseok was yours entirely and you both knew it. 

You wished you were an artist. You wished you could paint the lines and the shadows on his body. Each shadow and contour, each plane of hard muscle and swell of soft skin. You wanted to capture every single part of him. He was beautiful, entirely otherworldly as he moved toward you. You wanted to trace his skin forever, to run your fingers alone every iota of skin. 

Yours. Hoseok was yours.

You made a sound of appreciation as you eyed his cock, heavy with a dark tip as he moved you up the bed, crawling between your legs. Your hands moved to grip him eagerly, wanting to feel the velvet shaft in your hand. He tsked at you, catching your hands and bringing them up with his on either side of your head. 

“Not about me tonight,” he whispered. He laced your fingers together. “I just want it to be about you.”

“Mmmkay,” you whispered. He smiled and kissed you. “Want you now, though.”

He rolled his eyes, releasing one of your hands to grip the base of his thick cock. He rubbed the tip against your slit, making you moan, mixing his precum with the slick already there. “Greedy.”

Both of you groaned as Hoseok pushed inside of you, not hesitating to let you adjust. He bottomed out, his hips flush against yours for a split second before he pulled all the way out. He slammed back in, shifting you up the bed. Your mouth hung open as you breathed heavily, Hoseok setting a hard rhythm, fucking into you slowly but with force.

Air was caught in your lungs as you pushed your head into the bed, arching into him. You rolled your hips to meet his, taking him deeper. Your hand gripped his tightly as his head fell to your collarbone, picking up speed. You could hear how wet you were as he stroked you, turning you on all the more.

“You feel so fucking good,” he grunted. “I swear to god this pussy is divine.” He groaned and shuttered. His pace was unforgiving and you were moaning his name under him, barely able to form a sentence. “I’m gonna fuck you all night.”

“Please.”

“Anything you ask for.”

Hoseok’s lips attached to your neck where your pulse was. His tongue licked at you and you tilted your neck, giving him more access. He understood immediately. He let go of your hands and leaned up on his knees. He pulled your hips up slightly, making you squeal at the feeling of his cock kissing your cervix. His hand snaked up to your neck, gripping the base of your throat. He pushed you hardler into the bed and squeezed the sides of your throat slightly, not enough to cut off your air supply, but enough to make you breathless.

A new wave of feeling washed over you. You felt the way the dizziness brought you closer to your orgasm. Your lungs fluttered like a moth’s wing, and your eyes fell shut, just letting him take care of you. You felt every stroke and vein on his cock, felt the way his fingers were against your pulse. Without the constant supply of air, your pleasure was heightened. 

“Fuuuuuuck your pussy is clenching my cock baby,” Hoseok was panting as he continued to thrust deeply. He let your throat go and a rush of air flooded your lungs, sending you straight for the cliff. “Come on, you can cum. Dammit- just like that. Cum for me.”

He didn’t need to tell you twice. You screamed into your third orgasm of the night, hard enough that Hoseok cursed under his breath, unable to fuck you from how tightly you were clenching down on him. You could barely hear what he was saying. You were somewhere between feeling Hobi above you and somewhere else, wrapped in a starless sky.

Hoseok was patient, biting his lip and taking deep breaths as you started to come down from your high. It took you a moment, your entire body shaking and flushed from the heat of your orgasm. He peppered your face with kisses, murmuring how amazing you were. How good you were for him. How much he loved you. 

Slowly you came back to reality, blinking your eyes open and smiling at him, slightly hazy. You lifted your hips and squeaked slightly at the overstimulation but you didn’t care. You did it again, signaling him to start at a slow, deep pace again. He pressed your foreheads together as he worked on his own orgasm- you could feel him struggling not to cum the entire time you clenched down during your own orgasm.

“Want me to cum inside?” His voice was hoarse as he asked. “Good practice for when I fill this pretty belly with kids.” You moaned loudly at that. “Yeah? Fuck I love you. Want to marry you-“ he gave a hard thrust. “-want you to have my babies-“ another hard thrust sending you reeling. “-want every part of my life with you. You’re mine.”

“I love you,” you gasped. You were embarrassingly close to another orgasm from a mixture of overstimulation and his words. His hand snaked between you as he circled your clit, applying pressure. You screeched, shaking. “Fuck- too much!”

“You got this,” he promised. “Want you to cum with me. Come on, baby. You can get there.”

You bit your lip as you let him send your body into overdrive. Once more you was pulled into a haze of pleasure, a soundless scream leaving your body. You jerked forward, slightly hitting you head on Hoseok’s but neither of you cared as he came loudly, cursing and screaming and holding you close to him. 

The edges of your mind were fuzzy as he lay on top of you. The softest touch made you twitch, your body an electric grid made up of nerves that sparked every time he breathed against you. You had no idea how long you lay tangled like that until he slowly rolled to the side. You immediately felt the mixture of cum dripping out of you and she didn’t care. 

“Thank you,” Hoseok whispered, voice raspy. You let your head loll to the side, looking at him with a vaguely confused expression. “For coming tonight- pun intended.” You laughed and you attempted to swat at him, but the attempt was futile. You were boneless. “I appreciate you being here and being able to see these things for yourself. I know the crowds are scary and the schedule is intense, but it means the world to me that you come to see what I do.”

“Of course I would,” you answered simply. “I love you. And I love that you love what you do. Anything for you, Hobi. Anything.”

“Anything?” you nodded again, eyes droopy. His hand rubbed up and down your sides. “How about another round in about fifteen?”

Your smile was as bright as neon. “Anything.”

-

TAG LIST: @effielumiereiere @purest-expressionofgriefnofgrief @hobisbabycake @pshychives @gaea23 @rae-sparda @jakiki94

*If you don't see your tag, it was not working. If you'd like to remove yourself from the tag list or edit what content you're tagged on, you can always do so here

[princesstillyenna]

NONIFICATION OF THE BAD PENGUIN WHO DIDN'T NONIFY THEMSELVES:

Hello 👋

For the Fanfic Writer Ask Meme M & U, please, and thank you 😊

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with?  Did it turn into a story?

Weirdest? IDK. I don't tend to come up with AUs. I have some notes for an AU where Dylan Strome is a girl? That's not so weird though because uh, Dylan Strome??? Let me go check the notes nonny.... Although lbr, an AU where the nyr are all secretly into kink and fuck each other into the team? That's quite weird. But no, back to the UNWRITTEN IDEAS DOCUMENT. The AU where the only reason Tony DeAngelo is nice to Mika is because he doesn't realise he isn't white... because swedish = white in his head. Amazing. Dumb dumb DUMB boy. I just didn't really have anymore than that? Actually no, y'know what, it's not even that. It's the following. And I will copy and paste WORD FOR WORD my fic notes from my fic documents (and yes, all of my fic notes read like this) Medieval AU, Teeks is like 3rd inline to the throne, important enough to make a political marriage, but not so important that it doesn’t matter that his future wife can’t have kids Arranged marriage between him and Nolanne Patrick who is the only daughter of a super rich merchant family. They’re like, yes, we can give the crown a massive dowry for this bitch, but she can’t have children. PLOT TWIST IT’S BECAUSE SHE’S A DUDE IN A DRESS They don’t consummate their marriage, and TK is like secretly wondering if it’s because Nolanne has an STD, but he doesn’t say anything, and she’s super shy, so he mostly is like. Ok, whatevs. This was always for the money, and I’m hella gay anyway. Whatevs. And then NP walks in on TK having sex with Laws, and is all, ohhhhhh oh I didn’t realise he was into dude. (TK was totally bottom btw, because he was) and then he’s all like, HOW DO I TELL HIM I’M  A DUDE. I JUST CANT But then they’re hunting, or out riding or whatever and Nolly gets injured which is sad, but it’s a super high up in the groin injury that needs dealing with IMMEDIATELY. So TK is all like, I know you don’t like me seeing you naked, but like YOU’RE DYING and THIS IS NOT WORTH DYING OVER. So GET THOSE PETTICOATS OUT THE WAY And Nolly’s like, fine, just don’t hate me or whatever. So TK moves the petticoats and SURPRISE! COCK! And he’s all like I NEED TO SAVE YOU but also OMG I WANT YOU. But he focuses mostly on the saving. And is all like, when you’re recovered, we’re talking about this. So Nolly explains that his family have like a million sons, and no daughters, and like, they really wanted this. So they just made me be a girl. And, honestly, I’m quite believable, and I’m queer anyway, so whatevs. And TK is like, hey, wanna consummate our marriage? Nolly: Can I top? TK: I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.

IT'S THAT ONE. BUT THEN AGAIN IN THAT DOCUMENT I HAVE NOTES ABOUT WHICH HOCKEY PLAYERS ARE EQUIVILENT TO WHICH MLP CHARACTERS SO THAT'S PRETTY FUCKING OUT THERE??????? ok back to the questions. What even was the next one? U: Is there a pairing you would like to write, but haven’t tried yet. Oooooh I like this question. i keep meaning to write some hockey sibcest but I haven't written any yet. Maybe Jack/Quinn, or Dylan/Ryan. Tryna think if there's any other hockey pairings that I like reading that I haven't written yet? MattDrai in their own right? OHHHH COLE AND MARTY ST LOUIS VERY MUCH. Basically cole and and old man that there is. Cole and an old dude. Cole and Santa.... oh wait no, I wrote that already.

[professional-benaddict]

I'm pretty sure you've already done a request like this but imagine little!Peter coming home from a few drinks with his college friends and tony and Stephen have to deal with a drunk little. Like, Stephen trying to get him into his jammies whilst Peter is asking whether it's bedtime yet, him being all cuddly and dozy whilst his daddies try to make sure his baby didn't drink too much

this is the kind of scenario id love to act out irl with a CG partner🥺🥺 coming home drunk and little and being taken care of sksk💗💗💗💗

Daddies Tony and Stephen, +18 Little Peter, Littles Are Not Known, drinking, crying, fluff, comfort

It’s way past midnight when the front door opens and Stephen and Tony pause their movie to listen. They have stayed up on purpose, although they won’t admit that it is because they were too anxious to go to bed before they knew Peter was safe at home. This is the first time Peter has gone out for drinks with friends since he moved into Stephen and Tony’s guest room at their house. They are curious and anxious to see the state their young boyfriend is in.

And whether he’ll be Big or Little.

It had only been a few weeks since Peter just happened to tell a funny story about the one time he went for drinks with friends and ended up regressing in the taxi on his way home. He said he chewed his fingers in the taxi, saying to the driver that he was hungry. Peter had been mortified, but then laughed about it later. Stephen and Tony had laughed as well, but now not so much.

The two men listen closely.

Some shuffling feet, the jingle of keys. Giggling, a sigh. More giggling. Then, a thump and a slurry curse. Tony and Stephen head over to the entrance hall. They find Peter leaning against the wall, one shoe off and struggling to take the other one off.

“God- why- why did they make shoes so complicated?” Peter mumbles to himself. Then, he seems to spot that he is not alone, and gives his older boyfriends a goofy grin. “Hiiiii!”

“Hey.” Tony chuckles.

“How many drinks did you have?” Stephen asks.

“Uhm- three? I think? MJ made something really tastyyy. I don’t know what it was, but it was goood.” Peter continues happily.

“Okay, let’s get you some food and water.” Stephen says, removing Peter’s second shoe before helping him up.

“Wait, wait, Daddy!” Peter yelps loudly, making Stephen pause. He has to grab a hold of Peter to prevent him from swaying. Two clear eyes meet dialated ones. “I-I want- fries.”

Stephen and Tony meet each others’ eyes for a second. Neither of them are shocked about the fries, but rather the title that Peter used on Stephen. So, they did end up with a drunk Little after all.

“We have crackers and we have iced tea. Perfect sobering snack.” Stephen says while Tony snickers at seeing Peter so wobbly on his feet, even with Stephen helping him to keep his balance.

“Nooo, I want fries! You know, the long, yellow ones?” Peter slurs. “Long and yellow… like a ‘nana!”

“I’ll get you crackers and iced tea. That’s it.” Stephen says, helping Peter to sit on the sofa. The doctor goes to fix the snack, leaving Tony with Peter. The man sits on the coffee table in front of the boy.

“So, did you have a good time?” Tony asks. He is expecting Peter to start rambling about his friends, like he usually does. But, instead the boy’s face twists into one of misery. Tony’s eyes widen in worry, and Peter lets out his first wail. “What? No, was it that bad? What’s up, baby?”

“I-I…” Peter hiccups in between sobs. “I-I wan’ frie-e-es!”

Tony sighs and pulls out his phone to order some McDonald’s before Peter goes into a total depression. Peter continues wailing and tries to suck his thumb at the same time, which isn’t an easy task.

“Baby, baby! I’m getting you fries, okay? I’m ordering ‘em now. They’ll be here in 20 minutes, okay?” Tony comforts, sitting next to Peter and pulling the boy onto his lap.

“The-the long ones?” Peter asks with a sniffle. He seems to have calmed down just as quickly as he bursts into tears just minutes ago.

“Yup, the long and yellow fries.”

Peter giggles happily, and cuddles into Tony by rubbing his face all over his shoulder. The man sighs a little at having his shirt ruined with tears and snot, but it can’t be helped really.

Half an hour later, Peter is sipping on watered down iced tea after devouring his fries. The boy ate in such a hurry that Daddies got a little worried he’d get a tummy ache. They tried to get him to slow down now and then, and now he is busy sipping his drink from one of his sippy cups. Tony suggests that they change Peter into a pull up and some pjs for the night. Peter finds that increadily funny, and giggles so much that he chokes a little on his drink.

“Next time, we’re going out with him.” Stephen says, trying to hold Peter steady long enough that he and Tony can get the pj shirt over Peter’s head. When the boy’s head pops through the neck hole, he blows a raspberry at his Daddies.

“He’ll hate that. Unless, we follow him without him knowing.” Tony points out. “And when he tries to get a third drink, we’re bringing him home.”

“Firefighter style?” Stephen chuckles, and Tony nods with a laugh as well.

“Did you have a fun night, baby?” Tony asks Peter with a coo.

“Fuuuun!” Peter giggles, biting the nipple of the sippy cup with a wide grin.

“I think he needs more fries actually.” Stephen says, studying Peter. “He isn’t sobering up.”

“You want more fries, baby?” Tony asks, already getting his phone.

Peter shrieks with glee so that his Daddies’ ears hurt. He’s lucky he is so adorable while Little and drunk.

[construingseacats]

Umireread: Legend of the Golden Witch - Chapter 11: Curtain-rise on Tragedy   

Sun, Oct 5 1986 - 8:45AM

The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Umineko. Please do not read if you are yet to finish it.

I joked earlier about Gohda being targeted after Natsuhi was off the table (and how that probably wasn’t the case), but man, the updated character info becomes so much funnier if you approach it with that read. A sarcastic “How unfortunate” and “He was originally supposed to be on duty”. Yasu really twisting the knife there.

Man, her default reaction is to assume she’s being blamed, huh? Like mother like daughter when it comes to trauma reactions, it seems.

Once again, it’s really interesting to read all these scenes where character reactions to the incident are re-contextualised as their anxiety over being an associate.

This one in particular is a pretty fun scene, since you get Nanjo and Hideyoshi trying to reassure each other over the whole thing. Bros for life.

Not quite sure what Natsuhi’s intention is here - go to the study to have a meltdown in private, perhaps?

Kumasawa is having the time of her life once again. Absolutely living for the chance to put on a performance and play things up for the others. I’m actually surprised that this isn’t a huge giveaway of her involvement, since she’s absolutely not taking this seriously, and we’ve already seen her penchant for dramatics during her desires to tell ghost stories on the boat trip.

So - in the preamble for Umireread, I mentioned that I’m applying Death of the Author here, since I feel you lose a lot of the heart of the tale once you open the catbox and rip out the guts. That being said, as much as I don’t want to canonise Our Confession for this read, it’s really hard to ignore. Even with Death of the Author in effect, it does feel like Our Confession is indeed a breakdown of the rules that were in play from the start, so it’s hard to go against them. Mainly, I like the interpretation that the servants were all on board with Yasu’s plan, identifying with their plight and being willing to help with their apparent atrocities as a way for them to do her right. And while that’s obviously true for Genji, it’s hard to read Kumasawa as that here, because she’s leaning so heavily into the “doesn’t realise it’s real and believes she’s taking part in a prank” side of things. We’ll see how it develops over future chapters, but it’s quite noticeable here.

Similar point to the gardening shed, but it’s very funny how everyone involved is so to the point of “Okay, please look at this clue. You got that? You’ve all seen it? Good, now let’s leave straight away.”

Battler had a line here where he went along with it, but yeah, it really is the associates pushing to make everyone leave. So much of Episode 1 can be pieced together if you make note of who is pushing people away from the crime scenes.

Yasu mentally thinking “well, I guess it’s time to break out the corpse.”

It’s very funny that Natsuhi has no idea what to do after Eva barged into the study, and is desperately looking towards Kanon and Genji for a story. The Natsuhi suffering arc continues.

I do wonder if the phones are actually broken at this point, or whether the servants have been meddling with them. Well, obviously they’ve been meddled with by the servants if they’re broken, but I mean that along the lines of “they’re actually still working, but we’re being told they aren’t”.

I can’t help but wonder if the characters so readily believing that Shannon was gushing over George instead of Battler is further commentary on the futility of taking what you see at face value.

There’s a funny line here about how this scenario made Jessica envious - I wonder if this was the instigator for her desire to start pursuing Kanon?

This one’s an interesting line - they don’t put much emphasis on it, but it’s good to see that we’re already tempering the idea of retreating to fantasy as a way to solve problems. It’s been pushed heavily as a coping mechanism so far, but of course, entirely foregoing truth is no way to go through life. You need to know what’s appropriate for any given situation to really be able to help someone.

Interesting how this is brought up again, but this time in a tone that ridicules you for believing it.

At this point, with how prevalent it is, I don’t think this is just intentional misdirection for the sake of the mystery - I think it’s a direct prompt to think deeper about what is going on in the story. It’s not just about accepting or denying what is being said on the surface level - it’s about actively thinking about whether you should or shouldn’t trust what’s being presented to you. It’s not so much ridiculing the idea - which we know to be true - but ridiculing taking the earlier account as fact without reasoning ourselves into it. About working towards a Golden Truth rather than accepting a Red Truth, if you will.

I’m actually a little fascinated by Eva’s game here. She’s playing this so strangely.

Again here - Eva is basically ratting out her fellow culprits. It’s a bold strategy, but I suppose she’s banking on the others overthinking things and believing that it can’t be them?

I suppose her ploy here is to secure her alibi by staying on the attack. When she’s this forward and accusatory when trying to find the culprits, it does make you think “would a guilty person be acting this way?” - of course, if you’ve played any number of social deduction games, the answer is almost always “yes, they’re trying to deflect”, but that’s not something you pick up on as readily in fiction as you do in person.

Umineko is a rare story where they can say this kind of line and get away with it. Usually it’s exceptionally eye-roll inducing when a piece of media goes “this isn’t like one of those pieces of media where X happens!”, but I can make an exception for it when your work is such a thorough deconstruction of the genre as a whole.

I wonder how Eva feels about Battler reasoning himself out of the truth - probably a mix of “God, what an idiot” and “Ha, exactly as planned”.

We’re even calling the double bluff now, how deep does the rabbit hole go?

I think the only reason that Episode 1 is as hard as it is mystery-wise is because of how counterintuitive the killer’s motive is. Battler gets pretty much everything right here, but he then wants to work with an axiom that the killer wouldn’t want to be caught - which is wrong - and so it all falls apart from a bad foundation.

Retracting my former statement about Umineko being allowed to be coy about referencing the genre, Ryukishi’s a total hack.

I do wonder what Higurashi being a canonical story in-universe means for Bernkastel and Lambdadelta existing in the meta realm. Although, to be fair, Umineko is also a story in-universe, so we probably shouldn’t get too held up on this.

You sure about that, narrative? Maria’s just having a good time watching TV, I don’t know what you’re on about.

“Probably” shocked his fellow servants, while they all go “yeah actually we hated that guy.”

Oh hey, a Battler perv moment that I actually don’t mind. It brings a nice bit of levity to the scene. I think the key here is that it’s not actually directed at anyone, so it’s not a “joke” at the expense of someone else’s wellbeing. God I wish the early chapter moments were more like this and less like him trying to grope his relatives.

Legitimately cannot get over Eva’s brass balls where she tries to clear herself by bouncing suspicion back and forth between her and her co-conspirators.

Fully acknowledging the alibi issue as well. As long as you attribute it to unknown motive X, you really do have all the clues you need here to solve everything.

LITTLE GIRL JUMPSCARE

This is a very mean change that’s been added in more recent editions of the game. Like, this CG was in the original PS3 patch I played back in the day, but the fisheye shot of Maria just faded into it. No scary sounds or intentional jumpscare effects to get you. It honestly feels really out of place because Umineko absolutely isn’t one of those stories. I hope there isn’t anything like this that’s been added elsewhere to the game.

Ah, and so we find Maria at her worst, honestly. I think the writing here is pretty lacklustre. While going for a complete personality switch to “creepy little girl” does big up the mystical elements and make the story more mysterious, it cheapens Maria’s character a lot by reducing her to an info dump. This would be far more palatable if they kept it as her over excitedly sharing information about her hyperfixation, or if they kept it in line with the letter reading earlier and had her doing a Beato impression of a time that she was told about all this. Maria immediately jumping from her usual self to “kihihihi foolish humans” just doesn’t feel organic at all - and again, in a story that otherwise so expertly captures the human element of all its characters, it’s a huge let down.

And so we finally learn more about the meaning of the magic circle painted on the shed! I remember being really intrigued by these when I watched the anime at age 13 and again when I read the VN at 17, but the mysticism scared me a little too much so I didn’t want to look into it much further. I have become much more jaded since then, and the demons are now welcome to take me away any day.

I do kind of wish that I had done more research into them, though. It’d be nice to be able to say something more about what’s going on here. Maybe I should have bought some books before jumping into this?

Oh hey

So, there’s actually not an awful lot to say here - if we look up this magic circle, we read this:

The Seventh and last Pentacle of the Sun. If any be by chance imprisoned or detained in fetters of iron, at the presence of this Pentacle, which should be engraved in Gold on the day and hour of the Sun, he will be immediately delivered and set at liberty.

There’s then confirmation of which names are written around it, talking about the Rulers of the Elements. We also get the translation of the Psalm:

Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder. I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon the Name of IHVH.

IHVH in this case being the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, used to represent the incommunicable name of the Supreme Being. Umineko does away with these semantics and just says “the Lord”.

With that in mind… There’s actually not an awful lot here that isn’t given pretty much word-for-word by Maria. Not to contradict myself once again and refer to Our Confession, but I do get the impression Ryukishi just used his passing interest in occultism to look up magic circles and demons, go “yeah, I’ll use that” when he finds something interesting, and implant it into the story without much further thought at the time.

I do find the references to the circle being engraved in Gold and escaping the chains of iron to be interesting, however - if nothing else, it feels like a thematic nod to the 10 tons of gold, with the iron being an allusion to the military munitions sealing the fate of the island. I’m not sure the Umineko version references iron specifically, so that might indeed be looking into it too much.

I’ll be keeping an eye on future magic circles to see if there’s any extra information we can glean from the Grimoire - although I suspect all implementations will be similar to this one.

I’ll also be interested to dig deeper and see what real purpose we have behind these magic circles. Are they just there to perpetuate the facade of the witch? Are they done as an ironic slight against Kinzo’s interest in sorcery? Does Yasu have an interest in this herself? Beyond that, how does their use in the message bottles compare to the forgeries? Definitely something worth keeping in mind as we press on.

Funnily enough, I bought a lovely hardback cover of the Lesser Key of Solomon in preparation for this reread, and it’s only when we got to this part that I realised all the magic circles are mentioned in the Greater Key, so I had to rush out and buy another book. Oops.

Rudolf’s talking about occult films here, but honestly, this applies just as well to the heart of the tale. These tales of Rokkenjima are false - but people want to see them, so a lot of effort goes into the forgeries and message bottles. You just have to hope that the intention behind these creations is one of love, not of malice.

Honestly - it’s funny to think that it might honestly be Rudolf’s reassurance here that launches Battler into refusing to believe in witches. Rudolf unironically drives Episodes 2-8 and stops Battler conceding after 1.

YEAHHHHH HERE COMES CORE! Phenomenal detective theme, another one of those tracks that make for quintessential Umineko.

I’m sure there’s something to be said about this line of reasoning and how that means we end up with the Episode 2 Chapel not being a false closed room but instead being the work of small bombs.

We don’t get happy Maria often, I’m making sure to savour it while we can.

Anyway, did you know that there's a limit of 30 images per tumblr post? Guess who only found out about that now! Haha! Whoops! Guess we're splitting this one into two! Continued in a reblog.

[madraleen]

Chainsaw Man - Tatsuki Fujimoto   Ch. 98-132: A Disappointed Commentary and Overall Impressions.

LISTEN. If you’re as sensitive about your faves as I am, don’t read this. I’m bummed with Part 2 and it shows. (But, hey, I’m looking forward to reading more?)

-This Asa has had more introspection in twenty pages than Denji has had in his entire lifetime (this is a neutral comment).

-Did she accidentally squash Chicken Devil omg

-Holy shit, this escalated. Mr Tanaka, really now?

-I kinda like Yoru. And Yoru alone.

-Your goal is to defeat Chainsaw Man and mine is to actually see him... I don’t care about Asa that much.

-Oh Denji, u in Asa’s manga too?

-I like Denji, give me more Denji, omg, this is my nightmare scenario of endless chapters focused on characters you’re not interested in, I’ve feared this for a while.

-Where is everyone? Why has everyone left Denji alone? Like, in life.

-I don’t like that Denji is a side-character!

-Pls, Nayuta, save the story :’(

-At anyone who might be reading this and is enjoying the story: I am very, very happy that you do, I’m jealous. I am so disappointed though. I’m disappointed that Denji is not the MC, yes, but also, Asa is not compelling to me, there’s no side-characters with spark and just life, the setting is underwhelming - a school after Public Safety, I don’t see any interesting dynamics right now. Basically, what compelled me in the first arc just isn’t here. I see people saying to wait, that things will peak and twist and turn, and, well, yes, of course they might, but that doesn’t make up for the things that haven’t worked for me so far. But yes, please reframe those things, please, make me eat my words and shock me into adoring the arc! I beg! I beg to be wrong!

-There’s a lot of bread crumbs for the future, I won’t deny that. Yoshida’s random organization, Nayuta herself, the prophecy, the contract with Power of course, but... give us something concrete :’(.

-In a weird way though, it has me wanting to read on and on and then some, just to see Denji and see where on earth this is going.

-Why drown it, bitch. Why drown the cat, bitch.

-”Solitude and companionship... I’m afraid of both!” I mean, same.

-The Falling Devil ala chef, great, I like that.

-And you would care if the Devil’s a thief... why exactly, Denji boy?

-Yes, bb, yes, bring up Denji’s trauma, bring up Power and Aki, finally. God, I miss them. But yay, finally, quality time with Denji!

-Chainsaw be like “I wanna have sex!” and Asa be like “yeah, nvm, just let me fall.”

-They are ON A PLATE, nice. See, I’m lots more ameliorable when Denji is around and denji-ing.

-Actually content now that Denji’s been around for a few chapters in a row, lmao.

-Looking forward to seeing who “fake Chainsaw” is. An actual other Chainsaw? Denji from the future? Who knows.

-War Devil might win in the prophesy and prevent the Age of Devils, got it. Yoru, you’re up.

-And now Nayuta has the spotlight, phew, I can breathe again. And more Denji! We’re ending the binge-read on a positive note.

Overall Impressions: Part 1: Love and adoration, fun, ridiculousness, excitement, pain and heartbreak, shock and respect. Sometimes the plot gets convoluted. Denji, Aki and Power are one of my favorite gangs. I love all the side-characters, I love Denji, I love the character development, I love to hate Makima, I love the panel composition. Part 2: I’m bummed and curious. Not enough Denji, but I’m delighted when Denji and Nayuta appear. For the moment weak side-characters. Lots of hints for potentially exciting things to come. Lacks the visual oomph of Part 1 because of lackluster setting. I don’t vibe with Asa.

[harleyacoincidence]

Greetings and Salutations! And happy FairyTale Tuesday!

Today, your characters, whether they be ocs or your favorite book/show/movie characters, will be traveling through the magical world, which is that of the land fairytales.

Now, on with the show!

What fairytale are your characters traveling to?

What fairytale characters are your characters going to be in this story?

How did your characters get into the land of fairytales?

How did they react?

Are they trying to get back home?

Or are they happy in fairytale land?

Who do they meet?

Is there something about fairytale land that irks them?

Is there something eerie about this fairytale land?

Like there's something dark underneath this seemingly cheerful land?

What exactly is wrong with fairytale land and the people who live here that give your characters this odd feeling?

What goes wrong?

Are the fairytales beginning to go awry?

How did the fairytales go wrong?

Did someone die?

Are the fairytale creatures and people beginning to go crazy?

Are the buildings crumbling and changing? Did Grandma's cottage just turn into a slaughterhouse?

Is that blood seeping out from under the door!?

What's that screaming sound coming from the bakery?

How do your characters try to stop the madness unfolding?

What makes your characters unable to stop the fairytales from unraveling?

What makes them decide to give up and leave fairytale land?

How do they leave?

They need to leave.

Before it's too late.

Hurry!

Get out!

Run, run, run!!!

Who's chasing your characters?

There after you!

Hurry!

Back to your world characters!

Run, run, run, run, faster than ginger bread man can!

Did they make it out?

Is it just me, or is it kind of dark in here?

Oh! Look, a blue glowing orb has appeared on a pedastal!

I think there's an image inside of the orb!

Why does the image make your characters scared?

"....."

Are you sure you made it out of fairytale land?

Ohoho…you’re really making me pull out the Word document to write the draft for this one out! Finally, a bit of a memory challenge! I’ve chosen a few of my own characters none of you have heard of before for this one. I like to keep things fresh.

Meet Rafflesia Mallory and Jacob Amond, cousins. They hate each other for genuine reasons, and that’s all you need to know about their relationship with each other.

Rafflesia Mallory is a mix of the most naive extrovert you’ve ever met, a tragic hero, a war criminal, and the kid in school nobody wanted to be friends with. In the later parts of this story’s canon, she is entirely twisted (both morally and multiple times physically) thanks to Hemlock, a god of corruption who is considered her lover.

Jacob Amond (who is actually dead in canon by the way), on the other hand, inherited the Joker’s manipulative qualities, got full custody of indifference from his divorce with Garfield, and found anger issues upon looting the cold inventory of Emperor Palpatine. Oh, did I mention his sense of humour? He has one.

On with the show indeed! This is going to be a long one, perhaps with a planned intermission.

The fairytale randomly chosen by a spinner is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one I’m (thankfully) fairly familiar with.

Rafflesia would most likely be the Queen of Hearts, Jacob being the Cheshire Cat.

I can see two scenarios play out for how they arrived. These two were most likely going for a walk together (as they often do) when they came upon a large hole and Rafflesia was dared to peer in. Jacob would push her inside  and Rafflesia would grab onto him and grab him down with her. Alternatively, since I have the privilege of using the most recent version of Rafflesia (where she dons the titles of war criminal, mass murderer, and part-time witch), I can also say that she attempted to create a doorway to a dimension in which she could imprison Jacob for good and got sucked in.

These two are in awe of their new surroundings but are confused and mildly horrified all the same. Jacob would immediately berate Rafflesia, insisting that this and everything else about their lives was her fault (and for some of it, he’s not wrong). Rafflesia would be miserable and Jacob would want to explore, but in the end would be desperate to return home.

Yes, they definitely would attempt to get back home. Rafflesia’s the type to escape Jacob for a bit and try to make a doorway to escape without him. However, that would not happen, due to her minimal experience with magic while not having anyone around to guide her.

Neither of these two turn out to be happy where they are.

They’d meet the White Rabbit, the Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse. I’m sure they’d meet others, but it’s for certain that few of them would leave alive.

Nothing special would irk these two much, other than the fact that they literally entered a place that should have stayed in the pages of a beloved children’s book.

If you know anything about any of my work, you always know that I’m a sucker for corruption. Obviously something sinister is chilling under the noses of everybody. Luckily, I have a few masters of corruption up my sleeve. Aside from the dead one. Yeah, he’s really dead. Like, he literally got himself looted and this was before he even died. He was the embodiment of time, by the way. The only reason anything is still running somewhat smoothly is because Rafflesia decided to steal his weapon and run off with it, only to have him killed. She still very much has that freaking sword.

What’s wrong with Wonderland, you ask? [laughs in angry corruption god who can’t enter Wonderland to find his girlfriend altering and destroying the characters within so one of them might be able to bring her back out upon fully bending to his will] Not much. The characters are starting to lose resemblance to their original selves (in both personality and physical appearance, the latter occurring a considerable amount of time after the former). Oh yeah, and some of the ones that the duo had killed coming back to life. You know, the usual.

Everything goes wrong. Rafflesia and Jacob find themselves cornered at every angle in Wonderland, and since the characters (including Alice!) have been mutated beyond recognition, they are unable to speak. Rafflesia and Jacob are unable to find out their true motives, so they resort to attempts to kill the entities. However, their deaths barely last a few hours. This forces them to regroup in the forest, where they are surprisingly left alone for a more noticeable length of time. There is a downside to this, though, as the characters begin to meld with each other, gaining more abilities with each character joining. I think this covers the next few points, but I will talk about the changes in setting.

The areas such as the forest, gardens, and castle are the same, just…entirely lifeless. There’s no one left in any of them, and the sky has been reduced to a greyish-lavender cloud cover. There are no screams, everything is eerily silent except for the occasional gust of wind. Jacob and Rafflesia would kill for some sort of music, no matter what it may be.

Apparently violence is the only thing either of them can think of to stop all this, as if their many failed attempts didn’t say otherwise. Either way, Rafflesia is seeing red and Jacob is more than willing to best her in the art of getting rid of what seems to be a zombie apocalypse. Little do they know that Hemlock is behind all of this, and refuses to let whatever is destroying his ambassadors to hinder them entirely.

Only when they are in the heat of battle once again do they realize that there is no hope in fighting. They run as far as they can, buying them time from the abomination that was once each beloved character stalking them.

By this point, I can imagine Rafflesia trying to open up another dimension door, only to fail (for the thirtieth time or whatever). By this point, I can see Jacob getting consumed by the beast due to being the slower of the duo, which would be extremely funny to Rafflesia, considering how much she hates him. This would, in turn, cause Hemlock to realize a new presence within his monster and begin to piece together what had torn his lover from him. In his now even more aggravated state, the behemoth would end up chasing Rafflesia faster than before, seemingly offering no escape.

Rafflesia would not be able to make it out, thanks to the increase speed and strength of the creature chasing her.

Alright, this is our planned intermission. Go get some water or food or something. Stay with me just a little longer, okay? Thanks.

Thankfully, she would not be consumed by the monster, instead awaking inside of a dark, cold room.

Upon first glance, the room appears to be entirely devoid of, well, anything. After walking through it , though, Rafflesia stumbles across a twelve foot stone pedestal, one she swears she’s seen before.

She’d climb the pedestal, using its intricate designs to keep her grip, and would eventually come to the top to see said glowing blue orb. The colour almost reminds her of a brand of toothpaste, but not quite.

Since she is naturally curious, of course she’d look inside the orb, only to be met with the frightening sight of someone staring back at her. They bear some resemblance to her, the only differences being their lack of a red shirt, their gaunt looks, and longer, more slender figure. The joints of their fingers make the skin around them bulge out in ways Rafflesia feels they shouldn’t. The reflection slowly tilts their head up to make eye contact with Rafflesia, revealing their face to match the impossible frailty of their hands. Their eyes are sunken entirely, appearing only as small, dark marbles that shine in the little light nearby. Rafflesia gets the sinking feeling of familiarity. A few letters from above the reflection’s head, made of the strange fog which is now visible in the room, glowing red. “The Story Master” they read, sending a chill down the young woman’s spine. The letters begin to make the fog more visible, glowing like a pair of headlights. Heck, the contents of the room begin to change, as the pedestal shrinks to a measly four feet high and the fog begins to behave more like smoke.

Rafflesia begins to back away from the pedestal until only two small red lights are visible from within the smoke cloud. She has only ever seen one case like this before.

“Hemlock?” she whispers, to no audible response.

The pedestal grinds against the ground as it moves rapidly toward her, stopping just three feet away. She cautiously approaches, and finds the text on the orb to have changed. The reflection is gone. The only thing present shining with the blue glow are the words “You want to see him? Then write,” before the orb is replaced with a lantern, a notebook, and a pen.

Thank you so much for the prompts! I missed writing for this work, even though it technically is complete and this is (as of now) not canon. Perhaps I can take inspiration from this for a dream sequence...

[martianbugsbunny]

Why I Think Rumplestiltskin Would Work Paired With Another Villain

I spent way too much time on this. Like, an hour too much time. But it was also fun, so I guess it was worth it. Also, it ends kind of abruptly, because I ran out of thoughts and couldn’t come up with a lil bow to slap on at the end, so I’m sorry bout that. It’s all under the cut, let me know what you think.

Okay so obviously with Rumbelle, he makes the choice to become a good person because he is always held up to the standard of goodness that Belle creates. (Which is, in itself, a bit weird, considering she was capable of falling in love with the Dark One? In the beginning she only said she wanted to see the beast behind the man, not that she wanted to change him entirely, so her later insistence that he’s too dark for her is a little bit s u s.)

It’s an interesting relationship trope for sure. The person who’s full of light helps the dark and angry one to see what they’ve become by comparison, and then inspires them to be better. And I think Belle kinda works for it because she doesn't try to make Rumple into the better person she wants him to be; she makes him do it on his own. It’s when it’s ‘to be worthy of her love’ that is inconsistent in-universe.

But I also think villain/villain would work for Rumple. And yes, this was spawned entirely from my ruminations on CaptainCroc.

Consider you this: maybe he meets Hook before he becomes the Dark One, maybe he doesn’t. That part doesn’t matter so much. But the first years of their love story would be ‘back in the day’, when they’re both very much villains. One is a man who steals and loots from regular people (although there does seem to be a *loose* code between pirates, so long as neither of them has a clear advantage); the other is a man who preys on the desperate. Neither of them does the right thing, and neither of them really cares. They would feed into each other’s darker tendencies, maybe even enjoy hearing stories of each other’s evil exploits.

In that case, when it’s the modern day, there’s some interesting stuff that can happen.

Scenario One: They reunite and that ignites the spark of wickedness in both of them, and they return to their old pattern of feeding each other’s darkness. They probably both have to be killed by the heroes in order to stop them. Rumple would be killed first, because he’s the bigger threat, and Hook would have to be killed when he goes on a vengeful rampage. If, and only if, he’s incredibly lucky, he isn’t killed, and after many years is able to be rehabilitated and live an ordinary, if remorseful, life. But they would take delight in watching each other do terrible things, and they would have a really twisted, dark version of romance that would be equal parts horrifying and entrancing to watch.

Scenario Two: They help each other become better. Sub-Scenario One is that Hook realizes what their darkness cost them: several hundred years apart, as well as Rumple’s son, and he decides that in order for them to ever be happy they have to reform. It’s similar to the villain/hero thing, in that Rumple only chooses to do better for the sake of his loved one, except if Rumple or Hook ever falters in their goodness, the other understands, because I fully believe that both of them would have a relapse at one point or another. Eventually they would balance out and become not paragons of virtue, but decent people--probably not going with the heroes to save the world, but also not actively trying to destroy it. Sub-Scenario Two is that Rumple realizes what his love for power cost him: his son (this would happen before Bae’s death, rather than after). He figures that his family will never be able to heal and reunite if he doesn’t change, and I like the new dimension this gives it. Instead of changing for a romantic love, he changes for the love of family, which is both one of the strongest canon points of his character and also one of the biggest missed potentials. He refrains from doing evil things, but he doesn’t ask Hook to do the same. He doesn’t care if Hook is morally dubious, because Hook’s pirating wasn’t what separated their family. Eventually, Hook starts to feel strange about his husband being a better man than he is, because Rumple was always worse. He’s angry for a while, because he thinks Rumple has abandoned his real self, but he comes to realize that Bae is happier, Rumple is happier, and people hate them less, so he also puts in effort to change. Again, they probably have relapses, Rumple after Bae’s death for sure, but because neither of them has the moral high ground, there’s no demeaning or tension or anger about it; maybe a little bit of disappointment, but nothing on the level of Belle’s anger because she sees herself as better than she is and better than Rumple.

Scenario Three: One of them gets better and the other one gets worse. I don’t think either of them would kill the other (although if one did, I actually think it would be Hook) but their relationship would fall apart. Sub-Scenario One: This also ends with both of them dying; one of them is killed by the heroes for being evil, and the other becomes evil again after that and is also killed by the heroes. Sub-Scenario Two: they both die; the good one trying to protect/save the evil one, who is killed anyway because he can’t reconcile with the people who killed his husband. Sub-Scenario Three: the good one dies trying to protect/save the evil one, who backs down from the brink when he realizes that his clinging to the darkness is the reason his husband died. He then reforms and becomes a better person, but he’s always kind of bitter and never helps the heroes in even a small way.

See, there’s really only one way villain/hero can go down. The villain either has to point-blank reform, no room for grey morality, or the person they love will leave them. And while it can be a beautiful depiction of how love is a struggle, but ultimately worth it, it can also seem disgustingly tense and one-sided. (Somehow, I think Rumbelle comes off one-sided for both of them? It feels one-sided for Belle because Rumple doesn’t give up his power for her. It feels one-sided for Rumple because he would love her no matter what else was going on in their lives, no matter who she became.) That aside, it’s spectacular and epic when it’s done well, but even well-done it can slip into the realm of implausibility.

(I’m not even going to suggest the hero also becoming evil, because I can’t think of a single instance of that happening, even though it would be an interesting psychological commentary.)

Villain/villain, on the other hand, has so many branching points. The villains have to have a very specific and believable motivation for becoming better people, because just loving a person who’s good isn’t their motivation; or at least, it’s not the motivation of the first one to turn. It has to be painstaking. You have to consider all these different scenarios and sub-scenarios and which one fits the villains best. And regardless of which one you pick, you know you’re getting a couple who will forgive each other and love each other, maybe even bordering on enabling, even when they falter. And that, I think, is what appeals to me most about the concept (CaptainCroc aside). They may both start out as villains, but wherever they end up in life, they understand each other. And even if that understanding can lead to enabling, it can also be a source of support because the small failures aren’t blown way out of proportion, which yields less bitterness and anger in general, which will lead the villain to commit less big mistakes.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Playing for Keeps (2012)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Playing for Keeps is a nothing of a movie. Its parts are so mismatched that any of them feel like they should be cut to make the picture better but if you went ahead with that advice, there wouldn’t be anything left. It’s not even fascinating bad, or infuriatingly bad, it’s just a waste of time. Even the people in charge seemed to know this, as the DVD for this $55 million dollar romantic comedy has no special features whatsoever, not even a trailer!

Former professional soccer player George Dryer (Gerard Butler) has moved to the United States to rekindle a relationship with his son, Lewis (Noah Lomax). When he begins teaching Lewis’ soccer team, the two have something to bond over, but the numerous single moms attending the games and practices also want George's attention…

Essentially, this is a romantic redemption story. George blew it years ago with Lewis’ mom, Stacie (Jessica Biel). He’s just learned she is engaged to Matt (James Tupper, so not in this movie he hardly feels worth mentioning). George wants to make ammends but things just keep coming up and he winds up disappointing his family over and over. It’s also a wacky romantic comedy centering around this handsome man who's biggest problem is that women just won’t leave him alone. Divorcee Barb (Judy Greer), ex-sportscaster Denise (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and married-but-looking-to-have-an-affair Patti (Uma Thurman) all want to jump on George's bones as often as possible. The women's unshackled libido leads to “hilarious” scenarios where Patti sneaks into what she thinks is George's bedroom (actually, it’s his landlord’s). Later, our protagonist can’t get through a soccer game without getting a call from Barb, who will burst into tears unless he gives her attention. The only real prospect is Denise, but the film subliminally tells you she’s not good for George.

What do I mean by that? Let’s begin by making one thing even clearer: this is not a good movie. It’s so poorly written and so thin you could predict just about every beat, even after downing a dangerous cocktail of sleeping pills and alcohol. The film's agenda is plainly clear: it wants you to want George and Stacie to get back together. Normally, a bad rom-com would do this by making her fiancé a jerk. It’s a cheap tactic that undermines the romantic lady’s intelligence but we’ve seen it done a thousand times. Instead, this film makes you understand the upcoming nuptials should take place because… nothing. Matt has a bad haircut and likes to wear sweaters. That’s all we know about him. I don’t think he and Lewis exchange more than six words in total so the boy won’t be heartbroken after he and his mom split up. After all, she can’t REALLY love Matt. Not when her son’s father says he wants to get back together. I mean yeah she’s getting fitted for a wedding dress but you know how women are; unless they’ve been married for years and are blissfully happy, they’re still fair game ;) That seems to be this story's thesis, anyway. I’d love to see the mirror universe version of this movie, where we focus on Matt, who is this great guy that does everything right but sees his future bride whisked away by her deadbeat ex that screws a different, insane woman every night, shows up late for EVERYTHING, can’t pay his rent, doesn’t even have a job and can’t even ride on the coattails of his past fame because he’s a European soccer player in the U.S.

I don’t actually think this film has any kind of twisted beliefs about what families should be like but I am going to point out that the woman George has the most in common with, the one he should get romantically involved with is discarded because she does things the movie wants you to believe are wrong. I’m probably looking too much into it but you don’t have to find any weird angle to see this film as mysoginist, or just plain stupid.

We haven’t even gotten to the other sub plot involving Carl King (Dennis Quaid), Patti's pompous, unfaithful husband. He bribes George with a fat stack of bills to ensure his daughter will sing the national anthem at the beginning of each match while his son always serves as the team goalie. You think the bribe thing is going to lead somewhere. It doesn’t.

Playing for Keeps knows what it wants to be - sorta - it’s just hobbled by all of these extraneous elements that someone was too infatuated with to cut. It's the worst kind of mess - a forgettable one. (On DVD, September 9, 2021)

[tay452]

Noddy Shop Review aka Recap

Welcome readers, you may remember Noddy right? The little wooden doll who likes to nod his head a lot and drive his little car around Toytown, well, did you know that he used to have a show about a shop with his name on it? That’s right, the Noddy Shop. I’m going to be reviewing every 66 episodes of it through and see if I like it or not.

Let’s began with the very first episode called, “The Magic Key”.

We start with the opening theme and it’s pretty catchy, if I have to be honest. We get to see most of the puppets but we don’t learn their names yet, I feel like this song is gonna be stuck in my head for a while isn’t it?…. yep.. yep it is.. 🎵Here at the Noddy Shop!🎵.

We see the puppets again but this time we hear an old man narrating, he introduces himself as Noah Tomten who is in charge of the Noddy Shop. So apparently the toys come alive on their own and we get to know some of the toys names, the turtle tank is Sherman while the toy clown is Rusty. The flamingo is Bonita who kinda reminds me of Carmen Miranda. Then there’s Johnny Crawfish who tells some REALLY bad jokes, he’s like Fozzie Bear execpt he’s a lobster puppet thing.

My favorite character from this series so far is the dog, I don’t know his name yet but I’m in love with him.

Look at how cute he is! He’s adorable! He’s just a smoll robot dog, still so cute!

Then we’re introduced to the kids, there’s Kate who explains what the noddy shop is to her new friend DJ. It’s actually Notions, Oddities, Doodas, Delights of Yesterday. Yikes, try and say that three times fast!

And of course, there’s always got to be a much younger kid, this is Truman, Kate’s younger brother. So apparently the toys only come alive when no one is looking, just like any living toy show or movie scenario. It turns out that Noah is Kate and Truman’s grandpa, kind of a twist there ain’t it?

Truman grabs the robot dog which is called Planet Pup and WHAT THE HELL HE’S ACTUALLY RESPONDING TO THE CHILD! Wait, so let me get this straight. The toys become inactive when people are around but they only come alive when Truman’s around??? Is Truman a wizard or something?!??

Anyway, everybody’s in Noah’s office and DJ wants Noah to show him the rest of the shop. But Noah has a deal of his own, he’ll show DJ the shop if he can tell him a story.. what kind of a deal is that? I mean why would you want everyone to tell you a story? You know what, I don’t even wanna know.

Dj and Kate are exploring a storage room and finds a box with a lock in it, oh gee, I wonder what’s in there :| Kate finds a key and, how long has that been here? What is Noah stashing in that box? He probably has some pictures in there of when he was young or something.

Oh.. they’re not pictures… So Noah has a habit of collecting weird dolls?…. Okay?.. The reason why these dolls look so weird is because they’re goblin dolls, I swear they look like those little mini dolls I use to collect. Does that make me Noah?.. Oh god..

DJ still has to make up a story for Noah, so they leave the storage room. But before they leave, Kate puts the dolls down on the floor instead of putting them back in the box. And why would she do this? Does she really think that putting them on the floor was a good idea? I mean, it’s fine. It’s not like those goblin dolls are gonna go anywhere right?

………………. Perhaps I spoke too soon…

We get this catchy number called “The Day The Goblins Got Away”. The toys are freaking out over the goblins being loose in the store, but they do not see them being chased by Planet Pup? Not gonna lie this actually looks pretty terrifying.

Like picture this, a family is just starting to know their way around their unrecognized surroundings and they immediately get chased down by a gigantic robot dog, the dad even gets dragged away by Truman while the mom and the son stayed hiding in a mouse hole while literally reaching their arms out for him.

Dear GOD.

The goblins eventually made their way to an old abandoned doll house which they immediately move into.

They’re literally trashing their house the moment they got there.

We’re introduced to Agatha, who is Noah’s younger sister. She works at a hat shop selling, well.. hats! It turns her store is literally right next to the Noddy Shop, so she can come visit the kids anytime! But if you going to be visiting the shop every day, then who’s going to be watching your shop?

The mom goblin and dad goblin are on the prowl for pranks and they found their first victim, Agatha.

They dumped a whole bottle of glue on Agatha’s hat and well, we all know how this is gonna turn out. Also, how did they make the glue bottle look so huge? That’s pretty cool.

Agatha puts on her hat and she immediately cannot take it off, she tells the kids that she’s going to the ocean to wash the glue off. Again, if you’re gone, then who’s watching your shop?

Kate and DJ yet discovers another box, maybe this one has elf dolls in it, and they might be the complete opposite of the goblins. Like instead of playing tricks, they help people.

Damn it! I was wrong, well, I was kinda right. It was a box full of Noddy dolls including Big Ears who IS an elf.

Kate then tells a Noddy story where Noddy’s car bumper becomes loose and Mr. Sparks can’t fix it because he can’t find his tool box. How did you even loose a tool box? Did you forget to pick up your tool box as you started walking back to your workshop or something?

Meanwhile, the rest of the toys are heading out to the seaside to cool down, Clockwork Mouse is jumping around and literally cannot stop.

He looks like he’s been doing some drugs, it can’t be me right?

Anyway, Clockwork Mouse reveals that he’s got a new key from the goblins, so does the goblin family exist in the Noddy world or..? Turns out this key is magical, which explains why he’s been jumps lately and- W A I T

THATS THE SAME KEY! WHAT?!??

Noddy and Big Ears are having a picnic, and surprise, surprise, they found Mr. Spark’s tool box. How did that even get there?

I just learned that this magic key can literally open any box, as long as it has a lock on it then your good.

We cut back to Kate, DJ and oh yeah, Truman’s here in case you didn’t know.

Noah returns, saying that he has found the cellar for his machine thing and DJ finally has the courage to tell the rest of the Noddy story.

Noddy and Big Ears gives Mr. Sparks his tool box back (He probably lost it on purpose). Noddy turns his car on with the magic key and O H M Y G O D ITS GOING TURBO SPEED

SPEED DEMON

They crashed into a tree and finds Clockwork Mouse’s old key who has been stolen by the goblins, probably the mom and the dad.

The toys come back from the beach and Noddy declares that everyone will have lunch at his place, what a nice guy.

Noah liked the story and finally shows the kids around the shop, we get this cool banger called “A What If World” God, this is gonna be stuck in my head even more then that theme song!

We get back to the goblins and, OH! The boy goblin talks in English! So the parents speak gibberish while their son speaks coherent English, that’s certainly interesting.

Agatha’s back and her hat is ripped from the glue, shouldn’t she go to a hospital or something cause the glue was in her hair also.

Everyone decides to go on a picnic just like in the story and that’s when the episode ends.

Overall Ratings:

Episode: 7/10

It was a little interesting, we got to see everyone, well, except for that weasel puppet who appeared in the theme song? Where was he? Did he not exist yet? The characters were great, especially the puppets and my favorite Planet Pup. Also, I noticed that the goblins were technically using a green screen background since you don’t really see any green on them. The songs were great and so was the story, not too bad for a pilot episode let me just say that.

Message: 4/10

I mean there wasn’t really a message here, except that you don’t know what you can do unless you try. This example goes to Dj who believes that he’s not good at making stories but almost at the end of the episode, he’s able to tell a great Noddy story.

Songs: 9/10

The songs were really catchy, some of them even made me bop my head with beat especially "The Day The Goblins Got Away".

Thank you for reading this, hope to see you all in the next episode of The Noddy Shop.

[nichestation]

INSIDE THE UNSETTLING, HOMOEROTIC TERROR OF ‘THE HITCHER’

Director Robert Harmon looks back on his 1986 classic, discussing the ambiguous relationship between its main characters, the brilliance of Rutger Hauer — and why he never thought he was making a horror movie

In the mid-1990s, Robert Harmon visited David Fincher on the set of The Game. “I’m a huge David Fincher fan,” Harmon tells me. “Seven, to me, is one of the great movies of all time — it’s just crazy-good, first to last.” But when the two directors met, Harmon discovered that the younger filmmaker was just as big a fan of his. “He said, ‘Your movie changed my life.’ It meant a lot to me, especially from somebody you admire so much.”

For more than 35 years now, Harmon has been pleasantly surprised whenever he learns that someone loves his first feature, The Hitcher, a nasty little horror movie with Hitchcockian vibes that terrorized viewers. The funny thing is that Harmon doesn’t consider himself to be a big horror guy — and, as he confides, “I don’t want to be controversial, but I was never even that much of a Hitchcock fan. His reputation just seemed way greater than his movies seemed to suggest it should be. I know it’s a minority opinion.”

And yet, this elemental story about a young man who foolishly picks up a hitchhiker in the middle of nowhere, realizing too late that he’s made a terrible mistake, remains a primal cautionary tale — a worst-case scenario of what your mom always warned you about in regards to talking to strangers. But few strangers are as unnerving as John Ryder, the enigmatic loner who torments feckless young Jim Halsey. The film’s power goes beyond its killer hook, however, touching on something bizarre and unspoken between hunter and hunted. At its core, The Hitcher is a film about a codependent relationship, maybe even a twisted love story. It’s about finding something you weren’t expecting out there on the highway, something that’s been waiting for you all along.

The Hitcher was the brainchild of Eric Red, an aspiring writer and filmmaker who had driven from New York to California. He was somewhere in Texas, fighting off exhaustion, when it happened. “I picked up a hitchhiker just to pass the time, to help keep me awake,” he’d later recall. “But the guy just sort of sat there, smelling dirty and staring at me. I started feeling uncomfortable about the whole situation and thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea picking him up. He had a rough edge. I finally stopped the car a few miles down the road and asked him to get out. He left willingly enough, and that was it.” 

But the brief encounter, mixed with his memory of the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” — which contained the ominous lines “There’s a killer on the road / His brain is squirmin’ like a toad” — gave him the idea for a screenplay. Inspired by what he’d come up with, Red would later send that script to producers, declaring in an attached note, “When you read it, you will not sleep for a week. When the movie is made, the country will not sleep for a week.”

The 1980s were a haven for horror films, especially slasher flicks. What had started in the late 1970s, thanks to seminal works like Halloween, had morphed into a cottage industry, giving moviegoers franchises such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Cheap to make but potentially lucrative, horror movies preyed on adolescent fears, with the story’s bogeyman going after helpless, naive young people, punishing them for their horniness or lack of life experience. In these films, there was a strong sense that the victims had it coming.

The Hitcher played into that trend, while tapping into a deeper cultural anxiety. Hitchhiking had, at one point, been seen as an act of freedom, playing into a Kerouac-ian love of the open road and the possibilities out there beyond the horizon. It was a romantic notion, but as historian Jack Reid describes in his book Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation, that wide-eyed optimism eventually faded away. “[H]itchhiking was [once] a common form of mobility for students and travelers of all ages,” he writes. “This held true from the Depression era, when those seeking work could find transportation by sticking out a thumb, through to the early 1970s. … Yet by the time Reagan reached the White House, hitchhiking had lost traction. … [I]n the 1980s few Americans saw hitchhikers as heroic. To them, hitchhiking was a taboo form of mobility reserved for desperate and often unsavory individuals.”

That shifting attitude toward hitching — mixed with fear and loathing directed at those who would engage in such an activity — put fuel in The Hitcher’s narrative tank. We don’t know this as the film begins, but Jim (C. Thomas Howell, who’d been in 1980s teen-centric movies like The Outsiders and Red Dawn) is on his way to San Diego, driving through the night, rain pouring down, when he sees a solitary man standing by the side of the road. Feeling bad for the guy and deciding he needs the company, Jim offers him a ride. (“My mother told me never to do this,” he tells John with a friendly smile.) And for the next 90 minutes, John (Rutger Hauer) toys with this kid, clearly enjoying having the upper hand. Early on, he pulls a knife on Jim, demanding, “I want you to stop me.” Freaked out, Jim is able to get John out of the car, but not unlike the Terminator, John just keeps coming, following Jim — sometimes inexplicably — wherever he goes. John is like a curse Jim has inherited: By stopping to give him a lift, he now will never be rid of him.

Harmon’s path to The Hitcher was not a straight line. He was already in his early 30s when the script came his way, supporting himself as a photographer. But movies were his passion. “I’ve always wanted to make films,” he tells me. “Even when I was making a living as a still photographer, which I did for quite a long time, I was just biding my time. First thing I did when I moved out [to Los Angeles] from Boston was to start putting myself out there as a cinematographer. I had no experience, so I did student films to start with. I was always working my way towards this.”

Born in 1953, growing up “outside of Manhattan,” he was one of those guys who never got over the thrill of being at the theater as a kid, the curtain opening and a movie playing on that big screen. “It may be the reason, among about 4,000 others, that 2001 remains, to this day, my favorite film of all time,” he says. “It wasn’t just the scale of the original Ziegfeld screening — it’s because it’s a real movie. It’s essentially nonverbal, which is very unusual for a commercial, Hollywood-style [movie].” Before seeing Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterwork, Harmon had been tempted to apply to architecture school. “I saw 2001, I took the application, and I threw it in the garbage,” he tells me. “I never even sent it.”

When Harmon came out to L.A., “I had literally never directed anything,” serving as a cinematographer in order to see how people made films. Eventually, he was ready to direct his own: the 1983 short China Lake, which starred Charles Napier as a bad cop wreaking havoc across the California desert while on vacation. The short, which is currently available on YouTube, sans some of the original music, very much feels like an unintentional dry run for The Hitcher. Like his feature debut, China Lake probed the psychology of a disturbed individual, the action set against a vast, arid landscape that was both inviting and unsettling. “It was an insurance policy,” he says of making China Lake. “It was a kind of ‘If this whole directing thing doesn’t work out — if I’m going to spend every cent I have for X number of years on this — I better have some use for it so at least I can put it on my [cinematographer] reel.’”

He hustled to ensure China Lake opened doors for him. While writing the script, he saw Napier at a screening at L.A.’s venerable arthouse theater the Nuart, deciding that he had to play the cop. An attempt to get the script to Napier’s agent went nowhere, but then, through a friend, Harmon obtained Napier’s number and cold-called him, telling the character actor, a veteran of Jonathan Demme’s films, that he’d written the dark role with him in mind. “The reaction was very unlike anything I would’ve expected,” Harmon recalls. “He read it, loved it and fired his agent for not having ever even shown it to him.” 

Short films tend to do only so much for a burgeoning director, but in the case of China Lake, it was enough to get him noticed. As Harmon remembers, “[Napier] dragged Jonathan Demme to a screening over at Warner Bros. It was great. It was really fun.” China Lake only played one festival — the prestigious Telluride Film Festival, in Colorado — but the response helped stoke interest. “We’d hardly shown it to anybody, and I was stunned by the reaction. The audience was, by my recollection, exactly bifurcated. People were on their feet, clapping and whistling — and other people were screaming and yelling. I very clearly remember a voice from the back of the theater: ‘Who admitted this piece of shit to the festival?’”

Harmon smiles: “The answer to her question was her husband, who was on the board of admissions of the festival.”

Soon, he’d signed with a top-flight agent at William Morris, which was fielding offers for his first feature. There was just one problem. “I didn’t like any of the scripts,” he says. “I didn’t [think] it would do me any good to make those scripts. Then at a certain point, I said to myself, ‘Who do I think I am? I’ve wanted to [be a filmmaker] for my entire life. I can’t keep saying no.’ And then I read The Hitcher.”

Red’s spec script hadn’t gotten much positive feedback in Hollywood, but David Bombyk, a development executive, was blown away by it. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 1986, he recalled that the screenplay was 190 pages, far longer than the traditional script. “I kept avoiding it,” he said, “but finally I picked it up. Then, it was just ‘Oh, my God!’”

The story’s violence and gore may have shocked Bombyk, who later would serve as a producer on the film, but Harmon was a little more muted when the screenplay came his way. “I thought, ‘Okay, I have all kinds of issues with this and with that,’ but I felt I could do something with it,” he tells me. “And it also had the thing I loved most in movies” — including his all-time favorite, 2001 — “which is, it was essentially nonverbal.” Many of the scripts Harmon had turned down after China Lake were, as he put it, “Much more slasher-y,” and even he acknowledges that Red’s screenplay made China Lake seem like “Hitcher Junior in a lot of ways.” Plus, Harmon felt pressure to finally commit to a project.

“Probably a good 50 percent of making me say yes was I’d said no too many times,” he admits. “I really thought, ‘I’d just like to do something.’ Not that it was a sacrifice, because I really did like the script — with some minor exceptions that we changed. And I liked the fact that it wasn’t run-of-the-mill. Eric Red is unique: Like him, hate him, his thing is a thing that you don’t find that often. It’s very singular and it’s very him. I think that’s rare.”

One thing he was clear about, though: The Hitcher wasn’t a horror movie. “I’m not the most objective person about that movie, but I don’t think of it as a horror movie,” he says. “I just don’t. We never did.” So what did he think he was making? “I was never conscious [of that],” he replies. “I didn’t have a target.”

Harmon had his heart set on Terence Stamp to play John, going so far as to have a picture of the Billy Budd actor in his wallet to show casting people who he had in mind. “But Terence turned it down,” Harmon recalls. “He said to me — and I thought it was actor bullshit, it may have been — ‘I don’t want to put myself through what it’ll take to do a good job on this part.’ But the sweetest thing in the world, I ran into him at some party years later, and he said, ‘That was one of my biggest, most sincere regrets, not having taken that part.’ Whether he meant it or not, it meant a lot to me. But still, how lucky could I have been to get Rutger?”

Hauer, who died in 2019 at the age of 75, was a Dutch actor who’d worked with the likes of countryman Paul Verhoeven before starting to make his mark in American films in the early 1980s, his big breakthrough coming in Blade Runner as Roy Batty, the serene, menacing leader of the Replicants, the future society’s enslaved robots who don’t want to be terminated. “It was just a miracle,” Harmon says about landing the in-demand actor just as he was getting hot. But he hoped Hauer could bring something to the character that wasn’t there on the page. “The script that I read, John Ryder was just a monster,” says Harmon. “He was just evil, just a force of awfulness. And that seemed less interesting than it could be.”

In a 2012 interview, Hauer noted, “Out of all the films I did, I never quite understood why I liked it so much. The Hitcher for me was another dance, like Blade Runner. It felt like a haunting dust bowl in the desert. The games played were like a tap dance on a drum. I sort of created a little bit of a vague backstory for myself; there should be some sort of mad, strange magic to this guy who always shows up in weird places; he’s a real ghost I think. You can only do that with film — in a book it’s harder, in film you can be a phantom.”

That level of unreality was something Harmon was pushing as well. “The idea that we eventually did was, this Rutger Hauer character wants to commit suicide, doesn’t have courage to do it himself and wants help,” Harmon explains. “He’s desperately looking for someone who’s up to the challenge. It’s in a lot of the dialogue we changed, and it’s in his performance. It seemed like an interesting thing: This guy is doing all this terrible stuff, but it’s really because he’s desperately depressed. I used to say to everybody who’d listen when we were shooting the movie, ‘The way this has to feel is, if Tommy Howell hadn’t driven down that road, Rutger wouldn’t have been on that road.’ He’s there for him — their [relationship] became sort of weirdly codependent.”

At one point, Matthew Modine, fresh off the romantic drama Vision Quest and about to dive into Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, was going to play Jim. Harmon admits that he didn’t necessarily have a particular actor in mind like he had for John, but Howell “was great, he was a delight.” As for Howell, it was a chance to graduate from the types of roles he’d been doing up to that point. “I was rolling from gig to gig as a kid,” Howell recalled last year. “I didn’t give a shit. I felt like it was never going to end, I was never going to grow up, and I was going to play this kid role forever. Well, I did The Hitcher, and it changed everything.”

It didn’t take much work for Howell to convey Jim’s fear of John. As Howell put it in that same interview, “I’ll never forget how everybody else on set was petrified of him,” remembering how “Rutger ate alone in his trailer every single day. Nobody would talk to him apart from perhaps the director if his back was against the wall and he had to give him a direction.” The one time Hauer did invite Howell to have lunch with him, Howell meekly tried to engage his co-star. “Everybody’s been talking about Blade Runner and his other movies, and how nobody plays the villain better than him, but I just looked at him, and with my squeaky, petrified voice, I was like, ‘So, Rutger, everybody says you’re an amazing bad guy, so why do you play bad guys so well?’ What felt like an eternity went by as he just finished that final drag on that cigarette, and he hissed at me in that guts deep whisper, ‘I don’t play bad guys,’ and didn’t say another frickin’ word. I didn’t know what to do. I think I inhaled the rest of my food and started to back out of the trailer. That rattled around my head for a long, long time.”

Harmon, who stayed friends with Hauer for the rest of his life, says, “[If] he was just sitting here listening, [he’d] be slightly intimidating. His hands are like the size of catcher’s mitts. He’s really big, and he just commands space. He doesn’t have to do anything. I don’t know whether he works on that, or if that’s just one of those things.”

For those who haven’t seen The Hitcher in a while — or who have never seen it — the film’s cat-and-mouse game deviates from the classic slasher narrative in certain ways. Traditionally, the hero is trying to stay a step ahead of the killer, hoping to get others to believe that he’s being targeted. But Harmon’s film isn’t so much about John trying to kill Jim — rather, it’s as if John wants to teach him something. Framing Jim for murder, which puts him on the run from the police, and pulling bizarre pranks — such as secretly putting one of his other victims’ fingers among Jim’s fries — John hovers around the periphery of the young man’s life, driving him to the brink of insanity rather than simply hunting him down. Jim doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this harassment, but for John there’s almost something personal about his antagonism. The fact that he won’t quite reveal his motives makes it all the more upsetting.

When I press Harmon on The Hitcher’s themes, he’s reluctant to spell things out, although he makes the film sound, in some ways, like an unconventional coming-of-age saga. “Not to explain it all, because I don’t think that’s ever a good idea, but on some unconscious level, the Tommy Howell character knows that he needs help in his maturation process. He’s not turning into the man he wants to be. He’s so naive — so almost childlike — when he stops and [picks up John]. And as a result of meeting Rutger, this maturation process that would have taken another 10 years is compressed into four days — like a diamond [which is a] piece of coal under pressure.”

After being told that there’s almost something paternal about the way John seems to be doling out tough love to poor Jim, Harmon responds, “That was a key piece of direction that I know I bonded with Rutger [over]: ‘Treat him like your son, with love.’”

Indeed, there’s a weird occasional tenderness that Hauer brings to the role — in particular when the two men are in a diner, Jim pointing a gun under the table at John, who knows it’s not loaded. John seems to be encouraging the frightened young man, like a proud papa teaching his skittish boy how to ride a bike. “Why are you doing this to me?” Jim asks, near tears. John calmly puts pennies on Jim’s eyes, cradling the young man’s face in his hands. “You’re a smart kid,” John says, “you’ll figure it out.”

Of course, that tenderness was perceived in some quarters to be homoerotic — or, perhaps, homophobic, just one more example of a horror movie that queer-codes its villain. Harmon has heard the objection, but he doesn’t agree. Asked if he noted a homoerotic quality in the tense rapport between John and Jim, he says, “Sure, but only in the movie — it was not in the script. That was something that just evolved — it was never a part of a plan. But I think Rutger has a kind of almost gender-neutral kind of thing. As I said, he has very large hands — big guy, certainly masculine — but there’s something ethereal about him. His presence and Tommy Howell’s flailing around trying to find himself — I don’t know, one thing led to another, and suddenly there we were.”

Whether you wanted to read The Hitcher as a father/son story or something more erotically charged, there was no denying that the two characters felt connected, as if their destines had become intertwined when their paths crossed out on that highway. Jim wants to get away from John, but if John is simply trying to kill the young man, he passes up several opportunities to do it. (He has no such problem offing others along the way, including cops and innocent passersby.) That tension of Jim not knowing what John wants from him — why this crazed hitchhiker won’t just kill him — gives the film an existential dread that was unique among slasher/horror films of the time. And it posed a troubling question: If your seemingly all-powerful nemesis isn’t out to murder you, is there actually something even scarier about the fact that he won’t let you go?

At one point during our conversation, Harmon recalls working with Hauer on set and it dawning on him how the actor viewed John. “He’s been playing him like he’s God,” Harmon remembers thinking. “Almost regal. It was something beautiful and strong, and that was very interesting to me.” And just like God, John could be anywhere in The Hitcher, sometimes able to do things that, logistically, he wouldn’t have been able to be present for. (For instance, how did he get that severed finger into Jim’s fries?) But Harmon liked the script’s logic-defying elements.

“I never felt we had to ‘fix’ that,” he says, “because I think for those who are open to that kind of ambiguity, it helps to understand that this isn’t 100 percent real.” And by the way, in Red’s original screenplay, Jim finds an eyeball, not a finger, in his food. “This is indicative of the change in the tone between the original script and the movie,” Harmon says. “Not only was there an eye in there — I don’t remember exactly how it was described — but he must have bitten [into the burger] and thought, ‘Hmm, that’s weird, what is that?’ And he pulls the top of the bun off, and there’s an eyeball and a note that says, ‘I have my eye on you.’ [And I thought] ‘That’s got to go.’ I thought it was unforgivably wink-wink. It just was totally wrong to me.”

If The Hitcher is about the saga of these two men, locked in this odd death dance, the closest the film comes to introducing a significant third character is with Nash, the friendly waitress who makes that hamburger and fries for Jim, unaware of the human appendage inside it. She was played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who’d had her breakout a few years earlier with Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Like many of the people involved in The Hitcher, she was someone Harmon landed on just before she got huge. His cinematographer was John Seale, who hadn’t yet received his Oscar nomination for 1985’s Witness, his first of five. (He won for The English Patient.) The music was written by Mark Isham, who was starting his composing career. (He’d later be nominated for A River Runs Through It and worked on the score for the Best Picture-winning Crash.)

Asked about getting such huge names for his first film, Harmon says the secret was simple: “They weren’t John Seale and Mark Isham at the time.” And that was also true of Leigh, who came in to read for the part like any other actress. “She might have been the third person we read,” says Harmon. “And then, we just stopped reading it — she was so fucking great. We all agreed: ‘As long as we can make the deal with her, let’s not waste our time seeing anybody else.’”

Nash becomes a potential love interest for Jim, but in keeping with The Hitcher’s playing around with genre tropes, nothing really comes of it. After all, not that long after she meets him, Nash meets a grisly, and memorable, end. Even those who have never seen the movie know what becomes of Nash. In his scathing no-stars review, Roger Ebert focused on that moment: “[T]he Leigh character’s death — she is tied hand and foot between two giant trucks and pulled in two — is so grotesquely out of proportion with the main business of this movie that it suggests a deep sickness at the screenplay stage.”

The scene had appeared in the original script. As Red later recalled, “I asked [truck drivers], ‘Well, look, if you wanted to kill a girl with a truck, how would you do it? They were suggesting things like ‘Put her in the back of the transom and run a kingpin through her.’” Technically, Ebert was incorrect — Nash is actually tied between a truck and its trailer, with John sitting in the cab behind the wheel — but, still, the image of a screaming, gagged Jennifer Jason Leigh begging for her life was a disturbing one. In the film, however, it was just the latest step in John’s plan to test Jim, egging the kid on to shoot him, which Jim won’t do because then the truck will lurch forward, ripping Nash in two. The scene amplified the idea that John just wanted Jim to end his life, but for Hauer it was more complicated, which Harmon discovered when they were about to start filming the sequence.

“[Executive producer] Ed Feldman comes to me and he says, ‘We got a problem,’” Harmon tells me. “I said, ‘Really? What’s the problem?’ He said, ‘Rutger won’t come out of the trailer. He doesn’t want to do the scene.’ I thought this was like a joke, because you hear about actors. That scene had not been touched from maybe the first draft — it had never been changed, there was never any discussion about it. So this came out of the blue.”

Harmon went to see Hauer, who “was almost near tears. He said, ‘I’m really sorry, I don’t mean to cause this production trouble, I know it’s costing time. But I just can’t play the scene the way it’s written. I don’t know what took me so long to realize this, but if I play the scene as written, the audience will think I’m the bad guy.’ I almost laughed, but I didn’t. A light bulb went off [in] my head: ‘That’s why he’s been so unbelievably great [in the movie].’” As he’d told Howell during that uncomfortable lunch, Hauer never thought of John as a villain.

Funny enough, in later interviews, Hauer would sometimes take credit for the grisly scene. “I mean, you know, they’ve been doing this for 400 years, but they did it with one or four horsepowers,” he once said. “They’d pull people apart. The Indians did it. In the Middle Ages and other countries they were doing that sort of stuff. And I thought, it might be nice to do it with a tractor trailer, that’ll just up the stakes a bit. And Robert liked that. The scene was originally, she was standing against a wall and the pickup truck was pinning her against the wall, and the final thing was that he would drive her against the wall. But that was weak. So I came up with the tractor-trailer. The tying. Cirque de Soleil.”

But according to Harmon, Hauer only agreed to do the scene if they included new dialogue that Hauer himself had written. “Luckily, I recognized immediately what he had done — and what he had done was ruin the scene.” Harmon can’t recall specifically what the new lines were, “but it was so wrong, I do remember that. But all the changes were right at the tops of the ends of the existing dialogue, so we shot the scene with all these godawful lines in there, and then we cut them out, so it [remained] the scene as Eric had written it. And I never heard a word about it from [Hauer]: ‘I can’t believe you [cut my lines]!’ Never mentioned it again.”

The scene was so traumatizing that some might forget that we never actually see Nash get dismembered. “I do remember very clearly there was no discussion about it,” Harmon says. “Nobody wanted to [show] it, including me. It just seemed gratuitous, even then.” Naturally, in the 2007 remake, the filmmakers show the dismemberment.

Making a feature film had long been Harmon’s dream, but that didn’t make the actual process any easier. “It was a rollercoaster,” he tells me, “and then it was really a rollercoaster to shoot it. I put a lot of pressure on myself, because it was very obvious to me that if I blow this, that’s that — I’ll never get another chance. Sometimes [the shoot] was fantastic and sometimes it was hellish for me, but mostly I put it on myself.”

Harmon shot for about 40 days, not quite sure what the outcome would be. “I had people around me telling me that they thought it was fantastic and it was going to be great, on and on,” he says. “I didn’t trust it ‘cause I didn’t know. I knew it wasn’t a piece of crap, and I liked certain things. I don’t think I ever felt worried ‘cause I guess I knew it was good enough not to be an embarrassment and to be a career-killer before I’d even done anything.” Yet even as the film was being prepped for release, he had to fight against the notion that he’d made a horror movie. “I don’t like the poster,” he tells me, “but they didn’t listen to me. It’s the poster for a horror movie — or much more of a slasher movie.”

The reviews were decidedly mixed when The Hitcher opened on February 21, 1986, but what Harmon most remembers is a particular L.A. Times profile piece that came out soon after the film’s release. “Infamous — for me, anyway,” he says. “We were completely — all of us, all the producers — duped by that reporter.” In the story, writer Deborah Caulfield detailed the gory elements of the original script and the finished product, asking, “How do films like this ever get made? What could the people who make these movies possibly be thinking about?”

The article provoked disgusted responses from readers, with one woman wondering, “How does a writer — or anybody — even think of such scenes as a woman ripped in two, an eye in a hamburger, et al? What does it say about our society that such an unconscionable film is deemed to have a market?”

“It didn’t really bother me that much,” Harmon says now about the L.A. Times piece. “I was so green at the time, just the attention was welcome.”

The Hitcher wasn’t a commercial success, although it put Harmon on the map in Hollywood. “I started getting offers right away and made some very bad decisions,” he says bluntly. “One was from Joel Silver for Lethal Weapon. And the other was from Sherry Lansing to replace Brian De Palma, who had fallen out of Fatal Attraction. And I turned them both down.”

How come? “Because I was an idiot,” he replies self-deprecatingly. But then he adds, “Just because those movies were wonderful and huge hits doesn’t mean that would’ve happened [if I’d directed them].” He goes on to explain that after making The Hitcher, which he describes as “really difficult for all kinds of reasons, mostly political,” he was leery of being involved in films whose producers were known for being a handful — especially Joel Silver. “Offers were coming in for real movies all over the place,” Harmon recalls. “And [my agent] said, ‘You don’t have to waste your time with that jerk — he’s just impossible, he’ll make your life hell.’ And I thought, ‘All right, there’s a good excuse not to do it.’”

As for Fatal Attraction, Lansing was paired with producing partner Stanley Jaffe “who had a reputation for being not an easy character. I had lunch with Ed Feldman to talk to him about whether I should do this Fatal Attraction thing. And he said, ‘If you think I gave you a hard time, you won’t survive [working with Stanley].’”

Harmon has no hard feelings about saying no to two massive hits, although he acknowledges the lesson he’d quickly learn: “I didn’t realize that every movie is traumatic. So how I keep doing it is I have to just accept the occasional trauma. My advice [to first-time filmmakers] is you cannot predict how you’ll feel [while you’re making a movie] — and it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. There’s things coming at you from every direction — from the floor, from the ceiling, from every compass direction. That’s the way it is, and how you react to that is how you react to it. If you react to it negatively, you have to just find a way to deal with it. It doesn’t mean you’re fucking up — it’s just the nature of the work.”

In the ensuing years, he’d make movies with John Travolta (Eyes of an Angel) and Jean-Claude Van Damme (Nowhere to Run). He directed the 1996 HBO film Gotti, which won Armand Assante an Emmy and earned Harmon directing nominations from both the Emmys and the DGAs. (He garnered a second Emmy nomination for his 2004 television film Ike: Countdown to D-Day, starring his frequent collaborator, Tom Selleck, whom he’s worked with on Blue Bloods and a series of Jesse Stone TV movies.)

Meanwhile, The Hitcher’s influence and popularity has grown over time, unexpectedly impacting later projects. When Harmon was filming 2000’s The Crossing, a Peabody-winning A&E TV movie starring Jeff Daniels as George Washington, “We were out in the middle of a field, near Ottawa, on the St. Lawrence River. I’m wandering around because we have a big sequence due the next day, and I’m trying to get it blocked out in my head. And some guy walks across this field — this older guy — having heard that the director of The Hitcher was directing the movie. He wanted to know if I was him, and we talked about [The Hitcher]. Literally, nobody around as far as we could see, in the middle of fucking nowhere in Canada.”

The Hitcher inspired a direct-to-DVD sequel, The Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting, which came out in 2003. Howell reprised his role as Jim. Jake Busey played the new hitchhiker. (“That was probably a mistake, to be honest,” Howell said later. “It was mishandled. There was a time when Rutger was involved as well, so I sort of committed with the understanding that that was what was taking place, but then that didn’t happen. It was a bit of a mess. … It probably should’ve never been made. And thankfully, nobody really even knows it exists.”) Then, four years later, Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes, as part of its plan to remake classic horror movies, did a new version of The Hitcher, with Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton as college students who pick up Sean Bean’s mysterious loner.

“I don’t know what he wanted. I didn’t have to,” Bean said when he was asked about his character’s ambiguous motivations. “There are a number of possibilities. Maybe he wanted to die and be rid of the evil inside him? Maybe he just didn’t care? Maybe he just wanted to kill who he wanted until he was killed himself? Maybe it’s just a combination of all those things? Or maybe it was just nothing at all.” It was just one way in which the bloodier, less psychologically-resonant remake differed from the 1986 original. Harmon and Hauer didn’t want to explain everything about John — and his strange relationship with Jim — but it was clear they had ideas about it. 

The original film is currently available in its entirety on YouTube and streaming on HBO Max. Ironically, you might be better off watching it on YouTube, where at least it’s presented in the right aspect ratio — the film on HBO Max is a fairly cruddy pan-and-scan version, which annoys Harmon to no end. “You cannot believe how angry I was,” he says. “I don’t know what to do about it. It’s awful, it’s really terrible.” He’s excited about an English company that will be putting out The Hitcher on Blu-ray for the first time. “They got the original negative. They’re doing [a new] transfer — it’s fantastic.” It will take some time, he reckons. “They [still] have to do the color correction. And a restored China Lake is also on there.”

That’ll be good news for all the Hitcher fans out there, whether it’s David Fincher or that random man who accosted Harmon in the middle of nowhere in Canada, or the thousands of other people who have been obsessed with that strange drifter who decides to insert himself into one unlucky kid’s life. “That experience is one of my favorite experiences in my career,” Howell said in 2013 about The Hitcher, “and it’s also one of my favorite films.”

The movie’s enigmatic attitude toward its two characters’ relationship carries all the way to the end, when Jim, convinced that he’s killed John by hitting him with his car, walks over to the body, lightly caressing John’s hair with the barrel of his shotgun, displaying the same surprising tenderness John had displayed earlier. To this day, Harmon doesn’t exactly want to assign meaning to that moment. “Make of that what you will,” he tells me. “But there was a very gentle gesture to someone who’d spent the entire movie trying to kill him.”

As for Harmon and Hauer, they stayed connected over the decades, sometimes meeting up if the actor was visiting L.A. “We’d have coffee and go to lunch or dinner,” Harmon tells me. The last time he saw his friend “was probably about a year before he died. He was doing his thing, making these very interesting, mostly European, smaller movies.” Their conversations were very rarely about The Hitcher. “I wouldn’t say we never mentioned it, but it certainly wasn’t centered on that. It was what we’re both doing — and that we had to find something [to work on]. ‘Let’s get back on set together.’”

They never got the chance. During my time with Harmon, he would sometimes talk about Hauer while gesturing at the empty seat next to us. “I’m pointing to that chair,” Harmon commented wistfully, “like he’s here.”

The impulse was poignant, but also fitting. After all, Rutger Hauer always said that John Ryder was a ghost.

X

[pipperoni32-blog]

A Death In Tokyo

By Keigo Higashino / 4 stars

I picked up Malice as an “in book” recommendation. It was mentioned just in passing, but it piqued my interest, and I’m so glad I did. Even though I read this out of order - something I try my very best not to do - A Death In Tokyo really confirmed for me that I’ll be quick to pick up anything else by Higashino. 

A man, Takeaki Aoyagi, is seen stumbling toward Nihonbashi bridge by a police officer. Thinking the man drunk, when the officer later sees him resting against one of the kirin statues, possibly asleep, he decides to investigate. Only to find that the man is not drunk, but has been stabbed in the chest. 

Soon after, another man, Fuyuki Yashima, is hit by a car. In his possession is the wallet and briefcase of Takeaki. Though Fuyuki remains unconscious, it seems apparent that he’s Takeaki’s attacker and murderer. 

But things don’t quite fit. How did the two men come to meet? By happenstance? Or was it arranged? What was Takeaki doing in the district in the first place - a long way from his business and home. 

The detectives are being pressured to close the case, to make their main suspect fit into the scenario. But detective Kaga isn’t content to go with that story, instead following slim leads and his instincts. 

Higashino doesn’t bog the story down with unnecessary details. For some, it may be too lacking, they may be looking for more descriptions of the scenes and people. For me, it was a refreshing change to just follow the narrative. Kaga’s mind and instincts keep the story moving, and it unfolds at a quick pace with little fuss. 

The twists, turns, and seeming dead ends play out wonderfully. A very clean, direct mystery, with an ending like Malice that leaves you bereft. Mistakes and circumstances, and long unturned secrets come to light. A very enjoyable read, from a fairly unknown author. I highly recommend giving it a try!