#also patrick: *does all these romantic things without any hesitation*

[ofgentleresolve-a]

[boggledcat]

*staring at patrick and vincent* iNfo plzz

Ok. Maybe this might help me solidify their roles in the twisted wonderland thing.

Patrick ratsworth

He'll tell you he's a mouse and fight over it. Only Floyd can call him anything relating to rats due to their childhoods.

His unique magic is called "Rat king". He makes himself a giant,lumbering monster. Unfortunately it does make blot like no one's business so he doesn't use it often without a place to rest after.

Alastair is his adopted brother and his last name is actually Ratsworth too. He prefers Crook though. Don't call him Ratsworth. Actually,Don't call either of them Ratsworth. They'll both slap you.

He can hold his breath for five minutes and because of his family ties,He has easy access to potions for breathing under water.

Patrick's full name was based on Ratigan's (Padraic ratigan = Patrick Ratsworth)

He's very charismatic,calm and calculated around members of his own dorm. However around anyone else,He can be cruel and sadistic.

He doesn't have a romantic interest in anyone. His main goal is to overthrow Azul and take over octavinelle so he also distances himself from Jade seeing as he believes Floyd to be a valuable asset.

He responds to being called a rat quite violently most of the time [unless by Floyd or Vincent.]

He looks like this

Unlike the mastermind he was twisted from,Patrick doesn't like resorting to murder. I'm not saying he has but I'm not saying he hasn't.

He doesn't like Spinner at all. He considers him a threat and thinks he's suspicious for being in Diasomnia with little to no magic,Leading him to make deals with Alastair to check up on him. Patrick is in debt.

Basic information regarding school:

He's 18,He's in the same class as Trey and he sits as far from the teacher as he can manage,He loves to try and convince others into visiting Mostro lounge and come winter break,He stays at school to assist his housewarden. It's not to honor the benevolence of the sea witch,It's simply to get a sneak peek at Avardice and Scarabia.

Patrick,Like Alastair,Will not hesitate to tell someone off for lying unless he's compensated.

Vincent sparks

He's a first year in Avardice. He's a bulldog beast man twisted off of sparky from frankenweenie

Vince doesn't have any malicious intent-He's actually quite friendly. He is however afraid of ghosts and cars<- there's a reason.

His signature spell would be the ability to unlock anything. He's 16 and hasn't gotten it yet.

He's afraid of Alastair because of an incident from when Alastair overblotted the first time. It resulted in Vincent being thrown throw a car window and Patrick rushing him to his parents. It ended badly for everyone involved.

He has small itty bitty bolts in his neck that he hides with makeup. He hooks them up when he goes to sleep because it's how he eats/gets rid of blot. It's why he can't handle blot normally either,it makes him loopy.

He looks like this

Vincent adores Ace,Deuce and Grim. He's almost never in his own dorm as a result-He'd rather be out of there when they conduct their kidnappings.

He's horrified by cars,Cats and faeries. Specifically Lilia and Alastair respectively. He thinks Salt (oc belongs to my friend whose blog name I cannot remember rn) is helpful and thinks the rest of the dorm would benefit from listening to them.

Unlike Alastair and Patrick,Vincent doesn't have any mafia ties and doesn't know about the shady dealings of Octavinelle.

He can't stand the smell of perfume. It makes him sneeze uncontrollably.

Ironically Vincent finds Floyd leech to be an interesting figure and constantly tries to study him and Jade. It's not because he wants to hurt them but simply because he's enamored with the idea of merfolk.

School stuff:

He's 16,He's in the same class as Epel and he goes doesn't care where he sits. He'll invite people to his dorm to meet his dorm mates and asks you to stay a night to visit the casino and see if you can get anything. Over winter break,Vincent goes home and usually tries to keep Alastair in check since the person usually doing it can't leave campus (He's not my oc either. He belongs to lord of the winter)

He stayed over break one time and ended up in book 4 shenanigans. He promptly told Azul and the tweels while he and grim hid behind him.

[blurrybowers]

secret notes || patrick hockstetter

I combined these 2 requests:

request : “Hey can you do an imagine of where y/n finds a secret admirer note in her locker and after a couple weeks has a plan and wants to see who’s putting them on her locker, and sees Patrick putting them there. Then one day after the bell she goes to her locker and sees Patrick putting another note in and then he panics and runs out on y/n and she runs after him and they admit they love each other.”

“Could you do a patrick one where the reader hears him screaming in the sewers and saves his punk ass from pennywise but pat runs away from her cause he’s embarrassed but sneaks into her room that night ? ”

OK THIS IMAGINE HAS TAKEN ME A OVER A WEEK TO WRITE…YALL better love the fuck out of it. There is also a few time skips but you’ll get what’s going on!  This is my longest imagine so far.

word count: 2000+

•••

Annoyed and exhausted, I unlocked my locker, shoving my books into the small, slender space.  The day had finally come to a close, after what felt like days. I didn’t have any homework so after throwing the books from today in there I was satisfied. I went to pull out my army green jacket and as I did a blue sticky note slid down my locker and daintily landed on the floor in front of me. Quirking an eyebrow, I kneeled down and lifted it off the ground, it read in messy lowercase letters:

you look really pretty when you wear blue, it’s my favorite color on you.

I was at a loss who could’ve wrote me the short note. Glancing down the hall for any possible admirers, I was only met with the eyes of the creepy, old janitor from Michigan. He looked at me and sent a daunting wave in which I widened my eyes and looked away from his perverted self. It was a boy’s handwriting, messy and rushed.

•••

Days went by, weeks even and those notes always ended up in my locker. They complimented me or told me to cheer up when I was feeling sad but they never had a name signed with them. I could only imagine who it could be, maybe Ben? He was always really shy around me but I knew he could write well. Or how about Eddie? He always got really nervous when he was talking to me. I was determined to find out who was leaving me the secret notes. I needed a plan. Pondering on what could be a clever idea, a flawless plan came into my mind.

Get there before the note does. I glanced at my watch, 7:43 a.m. , no one was at school yet, except a few teachers and some students who came for extra help. The note had always been in my locker by 2:30, never earlier. Today, I was going to find out who was leaving me the secret notes.

•••

I waited behind the corner, having a clear view of my locker. It was 2:28 and I knew whoever my secret admirer was, would be in view soon. As I started to fidget, nervously playing with the strings on my skirt, I heard shuffling in the hallway. I peaked out from behind the corner I was standing in, to see Patrick Hockstetter. He was playing with his lighter. It wasn’t a shocker he wasn’t in class, he skipped like it was his job. I rolled my eyes, considering he was too much of a toolbag to even attempt to learn. Thinking he was going to walk down the hallway, my eyebrows knitted in confusion as he stopped in front of my locker. He looked both ways down the hallway, seeing if anyone was around. I gasped and ducked, hoping he didn’t see me.

Waiting a few seconds, I peered again, still hidden. There he was, folding up a blue sticky note and shoving it through the vent of my locker. Shocked was an understatement… I was at a loss for words. I decided to call him out on his rather romantic actions.

“Patrick?” I questioned, coming into the view of the lanky boy. His eyes widened and he tried to look like he was just leaning against my locker, not putting something in it.

“Uh hi? What are you doing talking to me? Fuck out of here loser, before I kick the shit out of you.” He threatened, trying to sound intimidating but I could see his hands twitching and his leg shaking. He was nervous, nervous I saw him.

“You’re the one who’s been putting notes in my locker!” I exclaimed, calling him out. His pale face quickly turned bright red and he blinked a few times. Patrick quickly caught his composure and coughed a shaky laugh.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talkin’ b-bout. N-Notes?” Patrick tried to sound confident but he failed. He sounded like Bill Denbrough. I glanced at him wiping his palms on his jeans, this kid was shitting himself, and I was loving every second of it.

“Oh please Patrick give it up. I just saw you.” I called him out on his bluff. He quickly looked around, making sure no one heard our conversation. He was so embarrassed, something I thought he wasn’t capable of being.

“Y/n, you’re a psycho and you’re seeing things. I’m outta here you weirdo.” He spat looking me up and down and making a grossed out face. I frowned and looked and my outfit, what was wrong with it? I wore a black denim skirt and a baby blue tank top.

“Why’d you just give me a dirty look? What’d I ever do to you!?” I screamed as he shook his head in disapproval running out of the school. Running away from the conversation we were in the middle of. I knew his ways, he was an asshole and a manipulative bully. But the notes he wrote me made me second guess my opinion of him. Multiple students rolled into the halls, shuffling to class before the first bell rang. I sighed, knowing I had to go to English class, a class I had with all his friends. Before walking to my first period, I glanced out the glass doors and saw Patrick glumly walking into the woods, far away from school.

•••

Finally the school day had drawn to a close. I finished chatting with my friend Mike before quickly saying bye, knowing I had to go home and get started on my unreal amount of homework.

The fastest way home was cutting through the Barrens, it wasn’t usually sketchy but what started as a sunny, warm day turned into a cold, cloudy one. I shivered slightly due to my lack of a jacket and felt the goosebumps graze my arms. As I neared the barrens, I navigated my way through the woods, passing the tunnel but not without hearing a blood curdling scream. I stopped dead in my tracks.

Any normal person would’ve ran, got the fuck out of there as quickly as possible. But me, being a sucker for anything with a little danger, decided to follow the pinpoint of the noise. The terrifying sounds were coming from inside the…sewers? Weird. As I neared the entrance, I hesitated, but decided to suck up the rancid smell of the grey water and began trudging to the source of the petrifying noise. I grabbed a stray metal pipe that was laying around, just in case I had to defend myself against what was lurking around the sewers.

The sound was getting louder and louder. I turned down a pathway and saw IT. There was Patrick Hockstetter, gasping for air with a large gloved hand wrapped around his neck. It was dim in the sewers but I could see a monstrous clown with a daunting smirk on his face. He was tall and had an egg shaped head? This thing was fucking hideous. Patrick’s eyes widened when he saw me. He sent me a pleading look.

The clown hadn’t seen me yet but I knew I had to do something quick, before we were both killed. I was super scared but I decided knocking it out would be the best option. I quietly snuck behind it, and like I was swinging a baseball bat, swung at It’s head. The clown winced in pain before falling face first into the grey water.

“Quick, we need to get out of here.” I instructed  to Patrick as we both ran out of the sewers. When we were finally safe, far from the sewers, we stopped for a minute to catch our breathe. I glanced at Patrick who looked unfazed by the whole situation, meanwhile I was still trying to comprehend what was happening.

“What were you doing near the sewers?” He spoke, breaking the silence between us.

“Why were you in the sewers? I was walking home and heard a screaming and I ended up saving your ass.” I spat with an attitude, I still hadn’t received a ‘thank you’ from him.

“I would’ve gotten out of there fine. I didn’t need your help Y/n. Since when have you thought it was okay for you to talk to me? We aren’t friends, get that through your fuckin’ head.” He remarked, gritting his teeth as he spoke and I frowned. He wasn’t ugly but his personality made him ugly. I never had put any thought into having feelings for him just because he wasn’t the type to have feelings, for anything.

He expected an answer from me but I didn’t supply him with one. I stood there with a blank expression and decided it was best not to snap at him, knowing what he was capable of. He let out a chuckle and just turned around the other way and began walking, away from me and away from our conversation.

•••

10:29 p.m.

Slamming my textbook shut, I released a sigh of relief, knowing I finally had finished my homework. Today’s incidents clearly had an effect on me since I was extremely exhausted. I jumped into my bed and wrapped myself in blankets. I closed my eyes, turning off the lights in my room until I heard a knocking on my window. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, slightly scared of what or who was out there. I grabbed my skateboard out of the corner of my room, ready to hit whatever was trying to come in. I opened the curtain to see Patrick crouching down on my roof with a smirk. Rolling my eyes, I unlocked the window and watched him climb in effortlessly.

“What Hockstetter? What do you want at this hour?” I interrogated, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I wanted to say thank you.” He mumbled. Thank you? I didn’t even know the words could come out of his mouth.

“Well you’re welcome. I wasn’t gonna let you die in there.” I replied, shocked that he was being nice, for once. He looked nervous but still tried to keep his composure.

“I gotta tell you somethin’.” Patrick muttered, looking like he was about to tell me he killed my cat or vandalized my mailbox. I nodded, implying for him to continue.

“Um, I-I am the one who’s been leaving the notes in your locker.” He mumbled, clearly embarrassed of his actions. I smiled.

“I knew it was you! Why are you embarrassed? They’re so sweet.” I exclaimed in a whisper, knowing my parents were downstairs.

“Because I don’t do well with rejection and why would you appreciate them if you knew they were from me?” He questioned, interested in the conversation.

“I think they’re so cute and I wanted to say thank you for them. They really make my day everyday.” I complimented with a soft smile and he just rolled his eyes, clearly he doesn’t deal with stuff like this often.

“So…” He began not knowing how to change the topic but I shushed him.

“We’re not done with this conversation. Why’d you write those for me?” I asked, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to sit next to me on my bed.

“Cause you’re hot.” He frankly said. His words told me otherwise, saying how my smile could light up a room but I decided not to call him out on his sappy shit.

“Thank you. I think you’re kinda cute too.” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks heat up. Calling Patrick Hockstetter cute was the last thing I expected to be saying.

“So um do you wanna be my girlfriend?” He asked and my eyes widened. This was the last fucking kid that would have a girlfriend, Henry would have one before he did.

“I’ll think about it.” I winked before pushing him towards my window. He got up off my bed and sent me an eye roll before climbing out my window.

I would probably date him, even if he was a little bit of an asshole. As I shut the window I saw he had left me a note behind stuck to the top.

goodnight, girlfriend.

That night, I slept thinking about how Patrick and how someone who was so rough on the outside was super soft on the inside.

———

My requests are open, I’m gonna try to do ones with plots that aren’t basic, I want to write ones with an unexpected or unique plot, just to make mine more interesting because sometimes I feel like they are slacking.  xoxo

[trash-the-tozier]

The Disappearance of Georgie Denbrough (7/10)

Title: The Disappearance of Georgie Denbrough

Length ~60.8k (~5.9k for this part)

Summary: The summer between junior and senior year of high school, Bill’s little brother Georgie goes missing.

Warnings: It’s relatively canon-typical in terms of content. For this part there’s explicit language, underage smoking, mentions of abuse, and some flirty richie

Pairings: Richie/Eddie and eventual Ben/Beverly

A/N: Sorry that it's been forever since I last posted!! school + work + my 21st birthday all combined to completely kick my ass. But I'm still alive, and it shouldn't be as long between this chapter and the next. This chap feels like it's got a lil too much fun fluff and not quite enough plot, but character bonding is important, right? I hope you all enjoy it <3 also posted to my ao3 here (much more readable tbh) Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

“Shit!”

The exclamation was hushed but it still made Beverly jump horribly, turning to the source of the noise. It was Richie, gripping the doorframe with one hand to steady himself, the other on his chest.

“Jesus Christ, Bev. You gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry.” She mumbled. Richie walked over to her, confusion in his expression, and Beverly realized for possibly the first time how strange this must be. She'd entered Richie's house while he'd been out and was now in his room, standing by the open window and smoking a cigarette, and it was nearly four in the morning.

“You're in my house.” He said. She smiled hesitantly.

“I mean… you did say I could just come on over. For those midnight ragers.”

He laughed a little when he remembered what she was referring to, asking for a drag on her cigarette. She handed it over.

“We missed midnight.” He remarked, blowing a cloud of smoke through his window. “We can have a four a.m. rager, if you really want. Though I think I'm out of Cheetos.”

She shrugged a little. “As long as we're following the underwear dress code.”

Richie shook his head, handing the cigarette back.

“No can do, Your Majesty. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm a taken man now.”

The most smitten smile Beverly had ever seen bloomed across Richie’s face, and her mouth fell open in happy surprise.

“You kissed Eddie!”

Richie laughed, cursing.

“I did. A couple of times, actually. How did you know it was him?”

“I have eyes.” She answered matter of factly. “All the flirting between you two really was getting disgusting.” She pointed at him accusingly with the cigarette between her fingers. “He was convinced you didn't like him, you know.”

“You guys talked about me?” He asked, continuing before she could answer. “And I didn't know, honest!”

Beverly shook her head in disbelief, putting out her stump of a cigarette.

“I know.” Richie shook his head too. “I've been thinking back through all these dumb things I did and I can't believe it either. I went to his house in my underwear a few days ago. Why the hell did I do that?”

Beverly laughed out loud, lighting up another stick.

“I'm happy for you.” She told him. Richie gave her a smile.

“Yeah, I'm happy too. Got any tips for me?”

“Tips?” She echoed, confused. “What, like how to make out with your boyfriend? Because I can't help you there.”

Richie got adorably flustered at the word 'boyfriend’, stuttering out a few incomprehensible phrases, and even in the dark Beverly could see a blush on his face. She spoke again, simply to give him more time to collect himself, but wasn’t able not to grin at him.

“What makes you think I could help you?”

Richie shrugged.

“I mean, I’m a lot of talk--fuck off--” He said quickly when Beverly laughed “--but I’ve never… I don’t know anything about this stuff. But you…”

“Me?” Beverly asked hesitantly. “What about me?” She had a terrible feeling she knew where this was going, remembering rumors that had followed her around for years throughout the school. Richie seemed to realize he’d touched on something he shouldn’t have, taking a step back from her, just out of arm's reach.

“I’ve just… Heard some things. That you’ve been…” She raised her eyebrows, and he finished weakly, wincing as though she’d already hit him. “...around.”

Richie waited for her to react, but when she did no more than stare at him, he began floundering.

“It was just talk, just rumors and stuff, I know it’s not… I don’t--”

“None of it is true, alright?” She said sharply. “Gretta just lives to make my life hell.”

“Alright.” She appreciated how immediate and steadfast his response was. “Sorry Bev.”

He was still looking at her warily, so Beverly sighed and offered her cigarette out as a peace offering. He took it.

“Anyone you like now, though?” He asked her. Her mind went immediately to the postcard stashed away in the tampon box in her bathroom, and she shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Really?” Richie raised his eyebrows skeptically. “I could’ve sworn you had the hots for Bill.”

“Yeah, I thought I might.” She confessed. “We kissed, but it wasn’t really…”

She trailed off, unsure of how to explain the lack of romantic tension, the pure comfort behind the action with an absence of everything else. Richie's eyes widened a little behind his glasses, amusement playing on his lips.

“Big Bill is a bad kisser?” He asked in excitement. Beverly shook her head.

“No, nothing like that. It was nice, but…”

“But it takes a lot more than ‘nice’ to please a girl like Beverly Marsh.” Richie winked and made a growling sound in his throat, grinning, and she punched him in the arm.

“Beep beep Richie. It just didn't feel right, I guess. And it wasn't just me; Bill felt it too.”

“Ah. Shame. Bill has a really cute ass.”

Beverly looked over at him, feeling slightly astonished.

“Honestly, how did you not know you were into guys?” She asked, and Richie just shrugged uselessly. “Is his butt cuter than Eddie's?”

“Nah.” The word came out like a sigh, Richie folding his arms and resting against them on the open window. “Eds has the cutest everything.”

He stood there for a moment before he caught the look she was giving him, straightening up and telling her to shove it before burying his face in his hands.

“Hey.” His voice was a little muffled. “If I ask you something embarrassing, do you promise not to tell anyone about it?”

She considered him for a second before shrugging.

“Depends on how embarrassing it is.”

Richie laughed, lifting his head back up.

“That's fair.” He allotted.

“What's your question?”

Richie fidgeted with the collar of his shirt.

“So… How lame is it that I…” He scratched the back of his neck, obviously hesitant, and she raised her eyebrows, prompting him to continue.

“Lame that you what?”

“How lame is it that I cried when Eddie told me he loved me back? Not a lot, you know, like…” He mimed something gushing from his face. “...but a little.”

That was probably the sweetest thing Beverly had ever heard, and once she started smiling she couldn't stop.

“Really, really lame.” She said, but she knew he could tell what she meant by the smile on her face. He smiled back, letting his head hang.

“I'm fucked, Bev.”

“Yeah.” She agreed, offering over the rest of her cigarette. “You like it though.”

Quiet fell over them, and Beverly felt herself relaxing for the first time all day. She glanced over at Richie, who was tapping his thumbs absently against the window sill as he stared quietly out onto the dark street below them, and felt a rush of gratitude towards him. He was allowing her to simply be here without question, and keeping her company. It was as though after the events of the day he knew she needed a safe haven, and while Richie's room wasn't exactly her perfect idea of safe, it was better than her own house.

Richie pulled out his own pack of cigarettes despite Beverly insisting that she didn't mind sharing, flicking open Patrick Hockstetter's lighter.

“Is it weird?” She asked. “Using it?”

Richie shrugged.

“I don't know. How's Bill?”

She didn't ask why he assumed she would know.

“He's okay, I guess. He does feel really bad about what happened to Eddie and Ben, even though it really wasn't his fault.”

Richie murmured something on the contrary to her statement, but she decided to ignore it.

“He understands why you got angry. He's not an idiot, Richie. He knows it's dangerous, he just… He not going to give up on Georgie until there's a body, dead or alive.”

“Yeah, I know.” Richie gave a long, slow exhale. “He's so stubborn it's stupid. And I get it, I do, but…”

“But we're in over our heads and our lives are in danger?” She supplied. He glanced down at her, laughing a little.

“Something like that. Bill's usually a lot more fun than this. You met him at a weird time.”

“Weird is one way of putting it." Silence settled comfortably between them again, and together they finished the remaining three Winstons in Richie's box. When five o’clock rolled around, Beverly started for the door.

“I should get home.” She explained. “My dad will be up for work in an hour.”

“I'll walk you.” Richie offered, going down the stairs with her, but she declined.

“I'll be fine. Thanks though.” She paused in the doorway, wondering if she should hug him farewell when he fixed her with a curious expression.

“Hey, Beverly?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't get me wrong, I love your company.” He paused for moment before continuing on. “And you don't have to answer if you don't want, I completely get it, but... Why are you here? Are you alright?”

She frowned a little, debating how to answer. Richie misread her expression.

“No, forget I asked, don't worry about it.”

“It's okay.” She felt as though Richie deserved at least some sort of explanation. “I couldn't sleep. I couldn't calm down after what happened today. I didn't… I don't know. I didn't feel safe.”

He nodded a little, but his eyes still held that curious expression.

“You didn't feel safe, so you left the warmth of your own bed, trekked through town in the dark while a killer clown is on the loose, and broke into my house? Me, of all people?”

It sounded strange when put that way, she had to admit.

“Your parents don't ask questions.” She explained.

“Sure, but still. You didn't feel safe in your own house?”

“I never do.”

The bitter words were out of her mouth before she realized she was going to say them, a bolt of fear coursing through her stomach. Richie was looking at her with worry, but the hesitancy in his expression told her that she hadn't broken any disclosure agreements; she could still declare that she didn't want to talk about it, and he would accept that. But seeing the concern on his face made her chest ache with the desperate urge to just tell someone, and maybe it was because it was five in the morning on a sleepless night, but she gave in.

“My mom died of cancer when I was really little, and my dad is a piece of shit.”

Richie's eyebrows went up his forehead, and he began tapping his fingers against his thighs.

“Okay. What flavor of terrible is he? Terrible like my dad, or more like Eddie's mom?”

Neither comparison felt right, Beverly shaking her head. The words got stuck in her throat for a moment, but she forced them past her lips anyways.

“He… He abuses me.”

Richie's tapping stopped. Beverly heard the words as she said them and felt queasy, clenching her fists. Richie's eyes traveled over her, incredibly wide behind his glasses.

“But you never have any bruises, or… Oh.” The word came out small, but the horror on his face was enough for Beverly to know he understood. “Beverly…”

“That's why, why…” She swallowed, steadying her voice. She'd never confided in anyone before, feeling shaky and off-balance. “That’s why I hit you the other day, when you called me Bevvy. That's… It's what he calls me. I'm sorry.”

Richie shook her apology off, pulling her in for a bone-crushing hug, and she clung to his shoulders. She felt his heart hammering just as her's was, and when she let him go he was past her and out the door, his feet quick and strides so long she had to run down the front steps to catch up to him.

“Richie, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”

“I'm going to fucking kill him.” The vehemence in his voice surprised her, and she grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop.

“No--”

“You can't tell me about this scumbag and expect me not to do anything!” He protested. “Beat the shit out of him, or at least call the police, or--”

“If he finds out that anyone knows he'll make us move again. I don't want to lose you guys. Please.” Richie didn't look convinced, but he didn't start off again when she released his arm. “I'm okay.”

“Bev…” He looked at a loss for words, and for someone as incessantly talkative as Richie to be this distressed and concerned on her behalf made her feel like crying.

“I'm fine. I promise to be careful. I'll stay safe. If anything happens, I'll get help.” The promise was something she'd told herself for years, but never truly acted on. Now that she was saying it aloud it felt real, and it terrified her. But it was what she wanted, more desperately than anything. “I promise.”

The fight left Richie's limbs, but the fire hadn't faded behind his eyes.

“Please don't tell the others.” Beverly requested. He sighed, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Of course. It isn't my place to tell them something like this.” He searched her eyes, looking conflicted. “But anything you need, my door is always open, alright?”

“I know it is.” She tried to smile at him, but it was shaky at best, and he didn't return the expression. “The door wasn't locked. I walked right in.”

“Just for you.” He smiled then, just a little. “Are you actually going home now?”

“Yeah. Talk to you later, Richie. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

Beverly began home. It felt strange now that someone else knew the secret she’d kept to herself for so long, but it felt better, somehow. She remembered the look on Richie’s face when she’d told him, and hoped she hadn’t ruined his night. Either way, she was grateful to him.

She snuck back in through her bathroom window as the sky was beginning to lighten, not wanting to chance going through the front door. She retrieved the postcard and hid it under her shirt as she crept into her room, her entire body tensing when she heard shuffling around in the front of the house. She hurried to change from her street clothes back into her nightgown, hearing footsteps coming down the hall. Her underwear drawer was slightly open so she shoved the postcard inside and all but jumped into bed, about to pull the covers over her when the bedroom door opened.

“Bevvy?” Her father stepped inside. He was dressed for work, a still-folded newspaper in his hand. “You’re up early.”

Beverly pulled the covers up to her chin.

“I just went to the bathroom, that’s all.”

She knew she didn’t look bleary-eyed or sleep-tousled, but maybe the fatigue on her face from a sleepless night was convincing enough, because he didn’t ask any questions.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’ll be working late tonight, but the sundown curfew still stands. It’s dangerous out there.” He tossed the newspaper onto her bedspread. It had the headline BODY FOUND above a picture of Patrick Hockstetter’s missing poster. “Stay safe.”

“Yes Daddy.” His concern made her feel sick, but she kept the expression off her face. He turned, closing the door behind him.

“Bill…” Stan sighed, nudging the phone into the crook of his neck to hold it in place with his shoulder, twirling the cord around his finger. “Don’t worry so much, okay? I’m sure Richie knows that.”

“But are you r-really sure?”

Stan paused. “No, Bill. I haven’t seen or spoken to Richie in the past three days. But he knows how much you care about us, okay? He must know you feel bad. And it wasn’t your fault, really.”

Bill was silent on the other line and Stan got up to pace a little bit, the phone cord coiling and unwinding as he walked across the room and back. He glanced out the dark window, night having fallen a couple of hours ago, the bright moonlight making its way through the trees in his front lawn.

“Just call him, if you’re so worried. Hang up on me and dial his number right now.”

“B-b-but--”

“You pushed first.” Stan pointed out, and Bill began mumbling something Stan couldn’t decipher. “You have to reach out to him.”

“But h-he…”

“I know. He said a lot of shitty things. But those are the rules. And besides, he probably feels bad too.”

While he said it, Stan wasn’t sure about the truth behind his last statement. Stan hadn’t seen or heard from any of the other Losers since the Neibolt house disaster until today, when Bill called him. He was sure though that Richie was bound to be wherever Eddie was, and that was probably Eddie’s room, and that probably meant he didn’t feel too down in the dumps.

Stan had called Eddie’s home the day after Neibolt to make sure he was okay, but Mrs. Kaspbrak had declined his request to speak to her son. She was rather irate, insisting that they leave her alone, because apparently he’d been the third person to call that day asking to talk to him. The anger had surprised him a bit; he wasn’t used to Mrs. K being angry with him. Between all of Eddie’s friends, she seemed to like him the best, with Bill being a close second. He supposed recent events had changed things, and now Stan didn’t know when he’d be able to see Eddie again. He couldn’t imagine Sonia Kaspbrak was letting her precious daffodil of a son into the scary outside world with a cast on his arm.

“How are you?” He asked Bill, to break the silence. “Are you okay?”

“...I d-don’t know.” Bill admitted after a moment. “I’m alive. I’m not hurt, or sick.”

“I wasn’t asking about the bare minimum for ‘okay’, Bill.”

Bill was quiet for a long moment, and Stan wished he were here, so he could read his expression instead.

“Hey, Stan?” His voice was soft.

“Yeah?”

“I went back. To t-the Neibolt house.” He said it like he was admitting a secret, the words taking a second to register.

“What?” Stan sat up fast, nearly choking on his inhale. “Bill, what the hell--”

“I’m f-fine!” Bill said quickly, and Stan tried to believe him, but it was hard to really think that Bill had gone into a place like Neibolt alone and come back out unscathed. “I’ve gone back twice. Yesterday, and… And earlier. I was quiet, a-and I didn’t spring any of the traps. I tried to get t-t-the manhole cover off, but I can’t. It’s stuck somehow.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I didn’t see the clown.” Bill said. “I didn’t s-see Pennywise. I… I didn’t see anyone.” Bill sounded hurt, his voice small, and Stan regretted how harsh he was sounding. All the same, he was having a difficult time reigning himself in. It scared him for Bill to have done something so reckless.

“Bill, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. We could have scared him off, or something.” He wanted to think that driving a metal spike through Pennywise’s thigh was enough to get him to leave them alone. Regretfully, that probably wasn't true.

“What ab-b-bout Georgie? He’s still alive down there, so I need to find a w-way in.”

“I don’t know, Bill. I just… I’m sorry, but I really never want to see that damn clown again.”

A shadow moved slowly across Stan’s front lawn. Confused, paranoia creeping in, Stan walked to the window to look. When he did his heart stilled in his chest, clutching at the phone.

“Stan?” He must have made some sort of noise, because Bill sounded concerned.

“He's here.” It was the clown, it was Pennywise, standing just outside his door, his hand on the doorknob, visible only by the porch light. “He's here, my parents are out, I forgot to lock the door, he--”

Then the front door clicked open, and fear had Stan's throat closing up.

“Hang up and hide.”

Hands shaking, Stan slowly put the phone back on the receiver. He was about to take a step to the door when he heard a deep, disgusting voice passing the living room.

“The one that lives nearby is too damn fat. The black one lives too far away. The brother would be convenient, but he’s the one I need… This one’s small enough. I can take him.” The clown made his way down the hallway, towards the stairs. “I would hate to think I scared all the little boys away.”

It wasn't until Stan was sure that Pennywise was all the way on the upper story of the house that he was able to struggle his limbs back into motion. He was quiet on sock-clad feet, making it across the hall to his father's study, telling himself periodically to breathe, because he felt so lightheaded that it was hard to remember.

He wasted no time, slipping in through the crack of the barely-open door and ducking under the desk. The study room had been a prime hide-and-seek spot when Stan and his friends were still young enough for that game, making it the first place he thought of. The door creaked loudly whenever it was opened or closed, letting the hider know that it was time to be extra quiet without even looking, in case the seeker was in the room too. The desk was nearly a box, with three wooden panels going down in lieu of table legs, much of it ornately carved. It had been a gift to his father, and Stan wasn't really supposed to touch it, but he figured this was a circumstance that could be excused.

He pulled the chair in as close as he could and sat stock still, wiping at his tear-streaked cheeks and covering his mouth and nose with a hand to keep his breathing as quiet as possible. He could hear the clown tromping around upstairs and realized he'd never been more grateful that his parents weren't home. They were safe, even if he wasn't.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the clown turned back and began descending the stairs. He grumbled as he walked, Stan unable to make out the words until he was near the study room door.

“I thought perhaps just the parents went out, but no, it was a fancy dinner for everyone! A waste of time. But perhaps I should leave him a balloon.”

The door creaked, and Stan held back a gasp. But it didn't swing open, and the clown didn't come in. There was a jostling of the doorknob, then silence. And then the clown was gone, first down the hallway, then out the front door, the echo loud as the door was slammed shut. Stan sat and waited, waited until he was sure beyond a doubt that he was alone before convincing himself to move. He pushed the chair back and crawled out from under the desk, only allowing rest for a moment before pulling himself up, pressing one hand against the desk top to keep on his feet, using the other to take his father's phone and call the Denbrough household. Thankfully, it was Bill that answered.

“Stan?”

+*-“I'm okay.” As he said it, he felt his eyes welling up in relief. “He left. He didn't find me.”

“S-s-s-stay where you are.” Bill said, and he sounded shaken too. “I'm coming.”

Bill hung up and Stan let himself sink to the floor, hugging his knees to his chest and fighting in breaths through tears. He felt himself near hyperventilation when the front door opened and slammed again and he jumped horribly, but it was just Bill. It was Bill, running in and looking breathless, falling to his knees and pulling Stan into his arms. He held on tight and Stan clung to him, pressing his face into Bill's chest, wanting desperately to feel safe.

“I've got you.” Bill murmured into his hair, rocking slightly on the floor. “I'm h-here. He's gone. You're okay now. I-it's okay.”

All Stan knew as he began to calm down was that he didn't want Bill to go. He couldn't be in this house alone. Thankfully, Bill seemed to understand that too.

“You're spending the night at my house.” He declared. He pulled back to look Stan in the eye, his arms relaxing from tight around his shoulders to loose around his lower back. His voice was so insistent that Stan couldn't have declined even if he wanted to. “Tonight, and tomorrow night, and as many nights as you need to.”

“Thanks.” Stan murmured, and together they got to their feet. Stan turned to the desk for a pen and paper to leave a note for his parents, and Bill turned to the door.

“Uh, Stan…?”

“What?” Stan asked, turning. Bill was giving him a hesitant, questioning look, and next to him, tied to the study room doorknob and hovering barely an inch below the ceiling, was a red balloon.

“What’s this?”

Stan didn’t know. But then he remembered Pennywise’s words--perhaps I should leave him a balloon--and realized it was from the clown.

“He left it there, I think.” Stan said, Bill nodding a little. “I never actually saw him. Does it say anything, or is it just…?”

Bill turned the balloon all the way around to look at it, and they both saw I ❤ DERRY in large white lettering. Bill took the pen from Stan’s hand, stabbed the balloon with a loud “pop!”, then untied it from the doorknob and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Your p-parents don’t need to see t-t-that. Come on, let’s go.”

Nodding, Stan wrote that he was at Bill’s, that they could call if they needed anything, and that he loved them, signing his name at the bottom. He looked around cautiously as they exited the house, but it was only a short walk down the driveway to Bill's car, Stan letting out a breath of relief as the key turned in the ignition and the car grumbled to life.

“You have cute elbows.”

At the words, Eddie paused. He was in the middle of changing into a clean outfit for the day, up to his elbows in a t-shirt that he had yet to pull over his head. He leaned out of the closet to look at Richie.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Richie was lying upside down across his bedspread, his head dangling off the edge of the mattress, his curls nearly touching the floor. He shrugged, reaching an arm out.

“And the dimples on your back. I like those.”

Eddie was beginning to blush a little and Richie liked blushing Eddie very, very much, beckoning him over. Eddie had been trapped in his room for a solid three days now, and Richie had decided he was going to keep him company. He’d brought over a change of clothes, hiding in Eddie’s closet whenever Eddie’s mother came up the stairs. He’d thought that maybe Eddie would get tired of him, ready to leave at the smallest sign of exasperation, but instead Eddie was smiling, and kissing him quite a bit. Richie knew he should probably be worrying about what his friends were up to, his fight with Bill coming to mind every once and awhile, but for the most part he was too over the moon to care.

Eddie complied to his silent request and walked over, Richie sitting up, reaching up to run his hands down Eddie’s sides. He settled his hands comfortably around Eddie’s waist, revelling in how soft his skin was.

“You have to let me get dressed.” Eddie told him, his voice barely a murmur, his face still pink. Richie hummed a little.

“Yeah, but I don't want to.” He leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to the skin just above Eddie's navel, leaving his lips there and feeling Eddie shiver. Then he blew a loud, wet raspberry against his stomach.

“Richie!” Eddie shrieked, shoving him backwards and squirming away. Richie fell flat on his back on Eddie's bed, laughing, and Eddie pulled his shirt over his head with a huff, struggling around his cast as he grumbled. He was bright pink now, and Richie loved it. “You're disgusting, the absolute worst--”

They both froze when the sound of Sonia Kaspbrak tromping up the stairs became audible. Richie scrambled to his feet, still giggling as Eddie shoved him in the closet and closed the door. Then Eddie's mother burst in.

“Are you talking to someone? I heard your voice.”

“Just, uh… Just myself.”

“I heard a name.” It was obvious by her tone that she knew which name it was, and didn't approve. Maybe she trusted her son too much, because she didn't try to look around the room.

“Oh, yeah. Richie. Just thinking about how much I hate that guy.”

Richie smothered a choked laugh in a handful of Eddie's sweaters. Mrs. Kaspbrak was quiet for a little while, but seemed to buy the excuse.

“What are you doing up?” She asked. “You should get back in bed.”

“Mommy, I only broke my arm. My legs still work.”

“But it weakened your immune system, remember? I told you. Now you have to fight off your sickness.”

“What sickness? I feel fine.”

Richie had always noticed this voice Eddie used with talking to his mother, slightly babied with placating sort of tone to it. It was gone now though, and he found himself wondering when the change had happened.

“That's because you're on your medication right now. It would be terrible if the drugs wore off.”

Eddie was quiet for a long moment.

“Is it contagious?” He asked finally. Mrs. K was quiet too before answering.

“Of course it is. Why else would I keep you away from your friends? Now get in bed.”

Eddie's door swung shut. A few seconds passed, then Eddie opened the closet door. He looked troubled, and they sat together on his bed.

“I don't know what you mom thinks the doctor told her but you're not sick, Eds. You look healthy, you act healthy, and with all the spit swapping we've been doing--”

“Beep beep, Richie.”

“I'm just saying! I would have gotten super infected by now, so… She's lying to you, at least a little.”

The fact that Eddie didn't seem to think of this as new news was a bit scary. Richie scooted closer, offering up his shoulder, and Eddie rested against him with a sigh.

“What kind of disease are you supposed to have, anyway?”

“I don't know. Something chronic, I think. My monocytic cells keep it away unless my immune system gets weakened by something.”

“But what's it called?”

“I don't know.”

Something about it all didn't seem right, and Richie couldn't figure why he hadn't realized it until now. Eddie had carried an inhaler around since he was five, but was much less wheezy than the only other asthmatic kid in town, and could run so well that Richie supposed he could be a track star if his mother hadn't stopped him from signing up for the team. Eddie was supposedly sick all the time, but between himself, Richie, Bill, and Stan, he actually looked and acted sick less than the rest of them by a significant margin. Eddie was supposed to be a weak and fragile boy, but Richie knew those words didn’t fit him at all, more sharp-tongued and tenacious than anything else.

But at the same time this was Eddie, who swabbed down his desk and section of cafeteria table with antibacterial wipes every day, who always cleaned under his fingernails, who took every pill dutifully and without question and still believed that mothers always wanted what was best for their children. Richie got to his feet.

“I'm busting you outta here, Eddie Spaghetti.”

Eddie gave him an exasperated look.

“I've told you, I refuse to skip town until we finish high school.”

“First of all no, you have not told me that and we are totally revisiting that topic later, but that’s not what I meant. Just out for the day! A good ol’ fashioned jailbreak. You've gotta be tired of being cooped up in here.”

Eddie didn't deny it.

“I can't climb down the trellis with a broken arm.” He finally said.

“True.” Richie frowned for a moment. “Hop on my back, I'll get us both down.”

“No, we'd be too heavy. It would break.”

“Yeah, then I’d have to use your front door like a normal person, and that just wouldn’t do.” Richie scratched at his chin thoughtfully. “Alright, no two ways about it. I’ll distract the wildebeest downstairs, and you make a break out the back door. Sound good?”

“Don’t call my mom a wildebeest.” Eddie reprimanded, though he looked amused. “I dunno, Richie. She checks on me every three hours; she’ll know I’m not here.”

“C’mon!” Richie took Eddie’s hands in his and swayed them, giving what he hoped was a convincingly pleading expression. “You can only kiss me so many times before you get bored.”

It was meant as a joke, but got very not funny very fast when Eddie didn’t even crack a smile. Eddie caught the look Richie was trying to keep off his face and got to his feet too, sighing a little.

“Trashmouth, listen to me. How many times do I have to let you crawl in my window at two in the morning before you get it in your skull that I’ll never get tired of you?”

Richie offered up a weak grin, tapping his temple with his pointer finger.

“Can’t help it, Eds. Got a little bit of built up trauma in there, you see.”

Eddie gave a small laugh and smiled, leaning in towards him. His gaze rested on Richie’s lips for a moment, something Richie had begun to notice that Eddie did just before he kissed him, as though placing where Richie’s lips were so as not to miss once he closed his eyes. It was adorable, and though Richie knew he should be leaning into the kiss as well, he couldn’t help just standing there and smiling stupidly. Eddie paused.

“What?” He asked.

“Just, isn’t it exciting to be about to kiss the cutest boy in the world?” Richie asked him. Eddie was mid eye roll when Richie continued. “I mean, not that you would know because that’s how I feel, but can you imagine?”

The words took a moment to register, but when they did Eddie blushed so badly Richie worried for a moment that he might catch fire.

“If you say cheesy bullshit like that to me again you’re sleeping on the floor.” He threatened.

“I can stay over again?” Richie wasn’t sure why it surprised him, but it did. Eddie, already flustered, floundered a little.

“You have the past few days, so I just, I just assumed--”

“Come here.” They were close already, but Richie tugged him in the rest of the way to close the distance. But the kiss didn’t last long, Richie unable to get the smile off his face, a smile Eddie took as teasing and leaned back to hit him lightly in the chest. Richie didn’t mind.

“Alright.” Eddie fixed him with a serious look. “How are you planning on distracting the wildebeest?”

Richie beamed.

[saintbalor-blog]

“SUCKING FACE IN PUBLIC ? SCANDELOUS ! “

REQUEST: (clatters into your inbox) PLEASE COULD I REQUEST a fic with henry making out (and getting a lil handsy) with the new girl reader at the kissing bridge? maybe he tricks her into thinking it’s some initiation process… thank yoooou!!! ✌🏻💋❤️

AUTHORS NOTE: y’all one of the coolest people i know requested this (a bowers imagine) and sometimes it’s cool to branch out so here we are + i’ve been following him on ig and he’s kind of a cutie so I’m sorta feeling it too //-: 💗💗 + so you guys wouldn’t hate me for not posing about hockstetter, i’m posting 2 w him after my phone is done updating ! 🎈

Being the new student at school is terrifying all on its own but being a new student in the middle of the second semester at Derry is it’s own breed of horror — especially when Bowers and his gang had a knack for making the newbies wish they’d never thought of stepping foot in their school. The first step into the packed school building already guaranteed brutal whispers from the throng of students as they began building up a series of rumors about the outsider stepping into their territory. By their second step, they already had a bright red target unwillingly painted across their back as Bowers’ gang locked their hungry eyes on their new prey — a signal of the traumatizing hell they were about to pay.

For Y/N, the first step had occurred almost immediately - hanging out with Beverly and the Losers not really helping her cause of remaining under the radar - but the second never seemed to incorporate itself into her life as the gang never seemed to set their sights on her. Though, many of her peers would kill to have the lack of attention she was receiving from them, it didn’t stop her from avidly avoiding stepping into their line of sight in fear that they’d randomly decided to strike and break their silence.

Her immunity towards them remained a mystery to her and the Losers, unaware of what could she have possibly done to receive their amnesty. ‘Being too boring to even taunt’ or ‘too invisible for them to even notice her’ were her best guesses but they were far from it. She would have never counted that her protection from Bowers and his buddies was due to the sight of her causing an unknown feeling to flutter in Henry’s chest, a feeling that he felt ashamed for even entertaining the thought of as he shamefully confessed it to his friends one night — giving Patrick Hockstetter a good laugh at the idea of Henry Bowers having a crush.

Unseen by her whenever she unwillingly passed by the gang, Patrick always shot her glances that were drenched in so much lust paired with a creepy leer that Henry had to refrain from punching him in the nose whenever he caught him. Though, these glances were only meant to harmlessly annoy the lovestruck boy for fun, Patrick’s purpose for them was also to serve as the push Henry needed to grow some balls and talk to the new girl.

They were proving pointless until one day Patrick pushed it a little too far and actually outstretched a hand out to touch her in a way that looked anything but friendly. Henry’s eyes widened at shock at Patrick completely disregarding his rule on not messing with the girl, yanking the girl away from her conversation with Beverly and in their direction. Henry watched her stumble in front of them, regaining her balance with a fearful look interrupting the usual peaceful expression on her face as she looked up at the more dangerous half of the gang looking down at her.

Slender fingers snaked around the girl’s arm and an amused grin on his face, Patrick looked between the pair while Beverly waited for one of them to speak up — sticking close by to her new friend. Groaning in frustration at his loss of words, hand smacking Patrick’s fingers off of her, he forced himself to glare at the girl of his dreams.

“Keep on walking with your whore friend.” Henry sneered, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away from her, knowing he’d pull a Bill on stutter on his words if she kept looking at him like that with those doe eyes.

Crinkling her eyebrows in confusion, Y/N fell back into step with Beverly as they hesitantly began walking away from the deadly boys, unsure of what just happened between them but noting to relay it back to the Losers later for their input. Not bothering for them to get out of earshot, Patrick burst out laughing at his buddy’s horrible attempt at picking a girl up, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

“Tsk, tsk.” Patrick placed a large hand on Henry’s shoulder causing him to tense up at how much the action resembled something his father would do, the frustration from his mess up bubbling inside of him and Patrick’s mockery not helping. “Do you know anything about romance, Bowers?”

🎈

“Where you headed off to, slut?”

Y/N’s usual peaceful walk home along the Kissing Bridge was put on pause when those empty words, lacking their usual maliciousness when leaving his mouth, were thrown at her from the boy leaning against a tree. Glancing over her shoulder, meeting the sight of Henry Bowers playing with his father’s knife, she felt the blood in her veins freeze when she realized that now it was just the two of them — no Beverly to step in if things got bad and no Patrick to provide a distraction if needed.

“Home,” Y/N’s tone was shy, unaware of how to react as this was her first official encounter of being harassed by Bowers and/or his crew, no knowledge as to what to do when a boy with a killer gaze was staring you down with a lethal weapon in his hands. “Did you need something?” She nervously added when she was met with an unsettling silence, her pupils looking from side to side as she waited for the rest of his crew to jump out from their own hiding spots but that never did end up happening.

Instead, she thickly swallowed when she caught sight of Henry pushing himself off the tree. Taking a step backwards each time he shortened the distance between them, Y/N felt her own mixture of conflict in her when she felt her interest peak at the idea of being so close to a boy that was fairly good-looking, despite the way he tightly gripped onto the knife at his side. The wood on the bridge’s rail scratched the exposed skin of her lower back when she hit the rail, her body pressed up against it and her book bag sliding off her shoulder when he planted himself in front of her.

Abruptly placing his free hand on the lining of her jaw, his thumb pressed against the high of her cheekbone and his hold forced her to look up at his own conflicted eyes, the usual ruthless aggression that swirled inside of them barely visible now. Hesitant hands fell to her side as she was caged between him and the rail, stuck between falling to a horrible injury and the boy who never learned how to act out on romantic feelings.

“You’ve been getting off easy with us because you’re new and kinda pretty but it’s initiation time.” Henry threatened, the hand wielding the knife shaking in excitement as he pressed his clothed body up against hers, being this close to her turning him on more than it should.

“Initiation time?” Y/N quirked an eyebrow up in genuine interest, not recalling hearing anything about this from her friends and intrigued by what he could possibly have in store for her. Her mind fills with impure thoughts of all the possibilities he could have planned for her, knowing how awful she was for thinking so but she was a teenage girl.

“I always get first dibs on the new slut in town, just ask that bitch Beverly” Bowers leaned into her ear and whispered in a tone that was anything but friendly, the feeling of his breath ghosting over her skin enticing her more than it should have and his grip on her face tightening by the second.  

“Really?” She breathed, the sound of her inhaling a deep breath in at his touch in a way he’s recalled many girls doing when they’re enjoying things giving him the confidence boost he needed.

Parting from the crook of her neck, he pressed the hard plastic of the closed knife’s handle against her throat, his thumb lingering over the switch to open it in a way that sent Y/N’s nerves all over the place — remembering what he was capable of. Following the the trail of the weapon sliding down her throat and all the way to where her collar bones resided, Y/N looked up at Henry with pleading eyes, now unsure of what exactly he was playing at.

“Really.”

Henry’s messily pressed his lips against her much more innocent ones, his body roughly pressing against her frigid one and his knife plopping to the grassy floor when he decided to grab onto the curve of her side instead of the weapon. His touch was dangerous, lacking any sense of gentleness as his fingertips began mapping out future indigo fingerprints on her bare skin without any order to them.

The kiss was magnetic, not sharing any qualities to the boys she’s previously kissed due to its recklessness and sloppiness yet she still found her fingers intertwining with his hair and pulling him closer. His hand slithered up her shirt, desperate to know what her exposed skin felt like in his hands, the softness of her skin confirming all the late night thoughts he had had about her.

Pulling his hands away from her neck for a second, he tightly wrapped his fingers around her left wrist and removed her hand from his hand, trailing it down to where the zipper laid on his pants. Momentarily pausing the movement of her lips due to his bold action, Henry brought them back to life by pushing up against her roughly, bringing her attention back to him as she palmed him through his pants.

Y/N’s lips quirked into a subtle smirk underneath his when she heard him groan at the feeling of her hand moving in circular motions over his jeans. Sliding his hand back along her jaw and into her hair, harshly grabbing it in his hand, he pulled as he enjoyed the delicate touch of her fingers on him. A soft ‘shit’ drifting in between their mouths when she squeezed his dick in her palm, giving him a pleasure he wasn’t used to enjoying so much — his last memory of it not being so fond.

“That’s enough for the initiation.” Henry spoke between shared kisses, his voice hoarse as he stepped back from her, not wanting to fully get into it with her in such a public scenery. Wiping off the evidence of her affection from his lip with the pad of his thumb, his lips curled into their own cocky smirk as he began walking away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, princess.”

[marginalgloss]

palpable depth

I read The Letter of Marque by Patrick O’Brian alongside Eric Hobsbawm’s history of the revolutionary period of the early nineteenth century, and it gave me much to think about. In that era we see how market capitalism and state interests overlap, and how they are supported with what analysts today call ‘power projection’. The line of battle ships back then were the most sophisticated weapons of their time, handled by a combination of manpower and machine which was uniquely specialised. But the ships and the men who sailed them stood on the shoulders of giants, and what it is harder to find in any character study is the full shape of that giant.

There’s a tendency today to look at naval warfare of the time as being all spectacle. But considering the immense efforts and expenditure that went into launching these vessels, the actual business of fighting made up only the tiniest portion of what went into putting all those men out there. Tens of men might die on a voyage but how many died, how many suffered, before they could even leave port? And yet those short, incredibly violent engagements between over-crowded, over-engineered floating fortresses could have consequences far beyond the range of their guns.

You might think that the new context of a private military endeavour might enable a certain amount of commentary on what has, until now, been a relatively settled state of affairs. But for Jack Aubrey, the transition from public servant to private master is remarkably smooth. Perhaps that in itself is the commentary, but for the most part the author’s focus is on the incidental details that mark him out as a mercenary: the differences in livery, discipline, and so on. As ever, O’Brian seems outwardly admiring of all these efforts, though determinedly equivocal with regards to their wider benefit.

The story of The Letter of Marque follows on without a breath from The Reverse of the Medal. Captain Jack Aubrey has turned privateer, with his old friend Stephen Maturin stumping up the required cash to buy the Surprise and to pay his crewmates to come along. Stephen’s contacts in the intelligence world have given them a secret mission to South America, but the main substance of this book concerns a couple of exploratory ventures that are partly intended to restore Jack’s reputation and build up his fortune again. The first involves a Spanish ship full of quicksilver; the second a daring raid on a French frigate moored in an unfriendly port.

This is Aubrey’s first taste of success without a sting in the tail for a very long time. There’s still a lingering bitterness that comes from being an outsider to his beloved service — initially, this is described as a certain ‘sealing off…[that] had turned him into a eunuch as far as emotion was concerned.’ (It’s a fairly startling image; apart from anything else it is not altogether clear what a potent male model of emotion in O’Brian’s work would look like.) But since his victories bring sudden popular acclaim, his upset soon seems like more of an inconvenience than a threat. As so often is the case, for the most part he is simply too busy to worry about it very often.  It’s difficult to see at this stage if that seal will linger. Even the sudden death of his father gives him little cause for grief here.

Stephen, meanwhile, is concerned in part with intelligence matters; but mostly he’s thinking about Diana, his estranged wife. An opportunity has arisen to visit her in Sweden, where she has been living for the last few books with Jagiello, who we met way back in The Surgeon’s Mate. But it won’t be till the end of this story that they meet again, and we get to find out exactly where they stand now in relation to one another. 

In the mean time, the book is full of incident. It is all good-natured, upbeat stuff, even though it is peppered with strange nuggets of darkness. There’s the offhand revelation that the new cook is an actual devil worshipper, for example, or the sad fate of the French agent who aided Maturin at the tail end of the last book. I like O’Brian’s scheme to wean Maturin off his long-standing addiction to opium. His servant Padeen begins stealing it from his cabin, and making up the absence in the flasks with brandy. Being that Padeen is so large and somewhat slow, nobody seems to notice him walking around stoned on the stuff. There’s a sort of dark poetic irony in the situation of Maturin effectively offloading his own addiction on the poor man, even if he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing. Padeen is bearing the load that Maturin hardly imagined he was even carrying; one has to read into these things to tease the politics out of O’Brian.

It’s a strange thing: even as these books go on — and become in many ways more colourful, more enjoyable — the author’s aversion to anything really difficult becomes more pronounced. Emotion is difficult; confrontation is difficult; settled routine and lasting relationships are difficult. Looking at the circumstances of one’s condition is worst of all. Better to sail onward. Better to break it all up, with violence if you have to.

But this book also does something strange and new for the series. There is throughout this recurring image of a hot air balloon. It’s partly an object of Stephen’s fascination, a little like the diving bell was previously, but in this case it seems to come up in spite of him as well as because of him. Apparently people are talking about balloons all the time in 1812. A balloon begins to feel like an animating spirit of the book. Second-hand reports of the experience feel like dispatches from another world:

‘“…But what I had not derived from his account was the extraordinary intensification of living, the palpable depth of the universal silence, and the very great awareness of the light and colour of this other world – an otherness that was made all the stronger because through an occasional gap in the clouds our ordinary world could be seen, with silver rivers very, very far below and the roads distinct. Yet in time that changed to rock and ice, even farther below; and in my keen delight there was mingled an undefined sense of a dread as huge as the sky itself; it was not merely a fear of being destroyed, but worse; perhaps that of being wholly and entirely lost, body and soul…”’

There’s a peculiar richness to these moments that is quite unlike anything seen before in these books. It is a deeply reflective quality; the author’s descriptions of the natural world touch upon it, but here more than ever before the imagery is bent towards the service of expressing the psychology of the characters. That ‘dread’ suggests an invocation of the romantic sublime; but though for the reader it’s tempered with our knowledge that nothing really bad can happen to the characters, it still has a personal, transportive effect on them. There is simple, penetrating imagery here that has all the feeling of a Magritte painting:

‘…now he was living with time in the sense of duration once more, for he knew with dreadful certainty that they had been rising for hours on end, that they were now rising faster still. And as they soared towards this absolute purity of sky so its imminent threat, half-perceived at first, filled him with a horror beyond anything he had known. Diana was wearing her green coat again and at some point she must have turned up the collar, for now its red underneath made a shocking contrast with the extreme pallor of her face, the pinched white of her nose and the frosted blue of her lips. Her face showed no expression – she was, as it were, completely alone – and as she had done before she held her head down, bowed over her lap, where her hands, now more loosely clasped, held the diamond, very like a sliver of this brilliant sky itself…’

There’s something quite French in that use of ‘time in the sense of duration’ — the Proustian durée, I suppose. But there’s also something terribly English in the musical hesitancy of the way the phrases fit together. Think back to the first book in this series and it seems inconceivable that something so otherworldly could have a place here. But as time goes by in these chronicles, it’s fascinating to see the author toy with the possibilities of the form so openly; time is constrained, condensed in an impossibly long 1812 to serve the machinations of the plot; but now time also proves endlessly malleable in the service of consciousness.  

[sincerelybluevase]

Sunday Symbolism: Turnadette and Hands, part 1

Back again this week with some more symbolism. Now, as the title of this piece implies, I’m going to talk about Turnadette and hands. We’ve already seen that we can use cigarettes as a kind of Turnadette thermometer, and though hands aren’t the best of equipment to measure this relationship, they’re still mightily important. I’m going to systematically go through several scenes to show just how big of a part hands can play (does this sound weird? It won’t be; I promise). I actually have so much to say about this topic that I’ve decided to split it into two parts. This first part will encompass the first two seasons.

In our first ‘Turnadette’ scene, Sister Bernadette and Doctor Turner have a conversation about the impact Marianne’s death has on Timothy. Sister Bernadette reveals some personal info and gives helpful advice whilst cleaning Doctor Turner’s instruments. The conversation ends when the instruments have all been cleaned. So, how exactly do hands come into this? Sister Bernadette hands (no pun intended) a bag with clean instruments to Doctor T, and makes sure there is no physical contact. This is logical, because she’s a nun; physical contact with laymen is not encouraged, even if it is something as small as brushing your fingertips against the handsome doctor’s hand (of course, physical contact with patients is A-Okay, but that’s because the nuns are nurses foremost in that context). The same kind of hesitancy, of keeping things ‘decent’, also happens in S02X03, in the famous cigarette-sharing scene. Though Sister Bernadette again veers into dangerous territory by telling Doctor Turner more about herself, both of them do their best not to touch the other (that the sharing of a Henley is very intimate is another matter ;)).

 Then there is S02X05, in which everything was completely, irrevocably, and utterly changed. I’m talking about the iconic hand kiss, of course. There are several aspects about this kiss that I want to discuss. First off, there’s the fact that the kiss was on her palm. A kiss on the back of the hand is polite and denotes respect, but a kiss on the palm is very much a kiss of passion. There’s still the layer of respect, though; Doctor Turner is inspecting a wound on her hand, and his kiss shows a longing for a romantic relation as well as his desire to cure someone who is hurt. He literally kisses her hand to make things better. I think it is one of the best decisions Heidi has ever made: it shows the depth and intensity of what Doctor Turner has come to feel without becoming explicit, which is very much in vein with CtM. There’s also the fact that this kiss could happen in such a natural, organic way. After all, Patrick is a doctor, thus his interest for a wounded colleague is only natural.

Now, someone pointed out that Patrick often takes Shelagh’s hand and places it over his heart. In the scene in the Parish Hall, he cradles his own hand. It shows us that he is hurting; he wants Sister Bernadette’s hand there, but he can’t, so he uses his own hand instead. It could also be argued that he does this to prevent himself from reaching out and touching her again. (PLEASE TELL ME WHO YOU ARE I DON’T REMEMBER AND I WANT TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE+LINK TO THAT POST). It is also noteworthy that Sister Bernadette turns away from him, but keeps her hand in exactly the same position as she did when the doctor held it. She might turn away from him because of propriety, but every other part of her body language suggests that, were the situation different, she would have allowed the doctor to keep on holding her hand (and who knows what else ;)).

I’ve written tons of fics in which we have passionate snogs between Doctor T and Sister B, but none of those come close to the integrity and beauty of this scene.

 In S02x06, the romantic conflict between the doctor and the little nun is shown by their hands. First, there’s the scene of Sister Bernadette in her bedroom, caressing the scar of the wound that Doctor Turner kissed. It shows her conflict so much better than any dramatic scene of hurling china and bursts of crying ever could. Then, sexual tension (for lack of a better word here) is shown when they have to talk to the board about the TB-van: the camera shows Doctor T and Sister B walking through the hallway before zooming in on their hands; they’re nearly touching. No doubt they would love to hold hands, but it would be highly inappropriate. Their hands are so close, yet separated by invisible barriers.

 Another important instance of Turnadette+hands takes place in S02X08, on the misty road. When Patrick finds Shelagh on that road, he storms out of his car and stops in front of her. He raises his hand, then hesitates. Why? Probably because a) he is not 100% sure about their relationship status, and things would be extremely awkward if he touched her and she was not into it, b) Patrick is nothing if not respectful to women, and touching her without consent would not do, especially because Shelagh is not used to physical contact, being a nun for ten years and all that, c) Shelagh is still Sister Bernadette at this point. Even if it is only in name, it would be inappropriate to touch her. Another possibility is that d) he still can’t believe he has found her, and is afraid that she will prove to be a phantom of his imagination if he reaches for her.  

So, what do I think he intended to do with that hand, before he went ahead and placed it on her forehead? I think he was either going to touch her cheek, or cup her face, or something sweet but not explicit.

Instead of those things, though, he uses it to feel her temperature by placing it on her forehead. This is absolutely marvellous –in my humble opinion – because it, again, tells us so much about these two. It shows his affection for her, and it shows care; after all, Shelagh has been seriously ill, and Patrick wants to make sure that she is alright. It is also behaviour that probably comes easiest to him; up until he drops his first name, he has been Doctor Turner for us, and he seems most comfortable in his role as a doctor. Apart from these things, I think it is also a way for Patrick to protect himself. If it turns out that Shelagh doesn’t want him romantically (the phone conversation seemed pretty clear to me, but what do I know), he can claim that this type of physical contact was simply him being a doctor, caring for a sick woman. He can justify his action by claiming that it was medically necessary.

Now, luckily for Doctor T (and all the Turnadette fans), Shelagh is really really sure that she wants this man to be the father of her future babies and all that. You can almost see her melt into Doctor Turner’s hand, and there’s this sweet smile. This is the man she knows and has come to love: he cares about her first and foremost, and is a doctor through and through. I think she must have been very scared about the decision she has made, but in this moment, when Doctor Turner reaches out for her, she knows it was the right thing to do.

After this, Patrick puts his coat around Shelagh to keep her warm, and uses his hands to keep it close. You can see him fiddle with the lapels, as if he wants to touch her (I had hoped he would lean in for a kiss, but you can’t have everything, I suppose).

 Luckily, the next Turnadette scene is the engagement in the kitchen where it all began, and we get another hand kiss. This echoes the beginning of this relationship, but this time, it is a kiss on the back of the hand, highlighting Doctor Turner’s chivalric intentions (it also shows us that some things are the same, but others are completely different). Traditionally, a man would only kiss the hand of a woman of equal or higher social standing. There’s also the fact that Patrick kisses Shelagh’s ring, which is reminiscent of people honouring nobility and those with a high standing within the clergy.

 Next week, I’ll look at some more hand scenes regarding Turnadette, so stay tuned for that!

[very-secret-diary]

I was tagged by @girl-of-summer (thank you!)

the last …


1. drink: Water, always

2. phone call: Apparently my sister but I think that was an accident, so actually my mom as usual

3. text message: Amanda, pretty much this will be my answer whenever asked this question

4. song you listened to: I’m not sure, something on the radio?  I wasn’t paying attention tbh

5. time you cried: Um well I almost started crying earlier today?  My family was all outside doing fireworks and I finally decided maybe I could deal with it and I went out and they lit one and the sound stressed me out so bad I had to immediately go back inside and hold back tears?  But for real was yesterday because I’m a mess.

6. dated someone twice: Never even dated someone once

7. kissed someone and regretted it: #neverbeenkissed

8. been cheated on: Lol nope

9. lost someone special: A few years ago

10. been depressed: I am almost 100% sure that I have pdd so like, always

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: Never

favorite colors

12. Grey

13. Emerald green

14. Can I say grey again???

in the last year have you…

15. made new friends: Sure, ish

16. fallen out of love: Nope lol

17. laughed until you cried: Plenty, I do that

18. found out someone was talking about you: No

19. met someone who changed you: Nah

20. found out who your friends are: I always know who my friends are

21. kissed someone on your facebook list: Nope

general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: The vast majority

23. do you have any pets: Yes, two dogs, two cats, and technically a pig but I don’t really count that

24. do you want to change your name: No, I will never change any bit of my name, the most I would even consider doing is hyphenating my last name if I got married, and even then that’s unlikely (both getting married and hyphenating if I did)

25. what did you do for your last birthday: I baked myself some cookies, say in my room away from all human contact, and reread the Foxhole Court while eating those cookies all by myself.  Also my cousin gave my a free ice cream cone.  It was nice, even though it was the first time I had a birthday away from my family. 26. what time did you wake up: 9:45ish because my mom woke me up so we could go to my aunts house, normally it would be later

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: Watching the Power Rangers movie with my family

28. name something you can’t wait for: To finally live in a place with AC again

29. when was the last time you saw your mom: I mean I’m lying on her bed rn, but she is in the front room, so the last time I actually saw her was like an hour or two ago lol

31. what are you listening to right now: The sound of the defective window unit the provides the only bit of cool air in my house

32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: I don’t think so?

33. something that is getting on your nerves: Trying to survive a Florida summer without AC, it’s making me irritable lol

34. most visited website: Tumblr and YouTube.  Technically on my laptop it says I go on YouTube more, but I use Tumblr mobile more than on my computer so yeah

35. hair colour: It’s definitely brown at this point, it used to be blonde and has darkened with age

36. long or short hair: What do I have?  It’s like medium length right now, but I want to cut it shorter, to above my shoulders (that bisexual haircut is really what I’m aiming for).  But I do sometimes miss my insanely long hair.  On other people anything is nice.

37. do you have a crush on someone: Real people?  No.  Fictional people? So many.

38. what do you like about yourself: ??? I’m smartish. Edit: also my hair is really soft when I actually shower.

39. piercings: I pierced my ears on my 5th birthday, but I have not worn earrings since 5th grade so yeah

40. blood type: I have no clue but I really wish I did 

41. nickname: Some people in my family call me Karebear?  And my little sister when she was a baby called me Ra-ra, and currently my family refers to me as that when talking to my 6 month old cousin, but that’s really it.  Kara is short enough as it is.  Oh, some people like calling me Car-uh instead of Kare-uh, either to annoy me (family and friends) or because they constantly forget how to actually pronounce it so I’ve stopped correcting them (some teachers and acquaintances), but idk if that really counts

42. relationship status: Single

43. zodiac: Sagittarius 

44. pronouns: She/her

45. favourite tv show: Avatar the Last Airbender, no question

46. tattoos: None currently, one day though

47. right or left handed: Right handed

48. surgery: Never had one thankfully

49. so called “flaws”: Lol I’m both majorly insecure and have a superiority complex (about some things), which is super fun.  I have a hard time admitting I’m wrong, and when I know I’m right I will argue past the point that I technically should.  I am a major major procrastinator who should be failing everything but I’m not, somehow.  I like to lie.  I’m actually kind of a really mean person.  Like god, I’m not a good person.

50. sports: Exy

51. vacation: I would love to travel everywhere and do something actually exciting and interesting

more general

53. eating: I don’t do it as much as I should

54. drinking: Water, forever and always.  I’m in like year 15 of literally only drinking water

55. i’m about to: Idk what I’m gonna do after this, maybe try to sleep, maybe read a little bit of the Raven King

56. waiting for: ? Nothing currently

57. want: So many things, but mostly air conditioning

58. get married: I’m not opposed, but it is not something I expect.  If I do it will almost definitely be to a girl though, just putting that out there.

59. career: I am going to be a social worker, preferably international child welfare but we’ll see, everything is good

60. hugs or kisses: Hugs, but only my family and little kids

61. lips or eyes: Eyes are so so pretty, always eyes

62. shorter or taller: I don’t care, most girls are shorter than me, most guys are my height or taller.  I like my height currently and others peoples height does not matter at all to me.

63. older or younger: Is this like about dating?  Cause I don’t care as long as the gap is not too big?

64. nice arms or nice stomach: Um?  I guess arms, because all tummies are good tummies unless they are mine, but my opinion on arms is more variable.  Can I choose hands though, because lol that’s a thing.

65. hook up or relationship: Relationship

66. troublemaker or hesitant: I’m hesitant in practice, but somewhere in the middle in theory

67. kissed a stranger: again #neverbeenkissed

68. drank hard liquor: When you’ve only had water since you were 5 it really limits the exposure to alcohol, so no

69. lost glasses/contact lenses: I am constantly misplacing my glasses, but I’ve never lost them for more than a day or two

70. turned someone down: Nope

71. sex on the first date: I don’t think I would, but I support anyone and everyone else who decides to do so

72. broken someone’s heart: Almost certainly not

73. had your heart broken: Not in terms of my own relationships, other, fictional ones, lol yes

74. been arrested: No

75. cried when someone died: Probably when my grandfathers died, but I was to little to really be sure

76. fallen for a friend: I mean, I’ve had small crushes on people that I talk too, but I have very few people that I consider true friends, and I’ve never actually “fallen” for anyone

do you believe in …

77. yourself: That’s complicated, but I guess, I have a solid, mostly realistic life plan that I think is very possible

78. miracles: Also complicated?  Divine miracles?  Not really.  But it depends on how you define miracles.  I like to call really wonderful things that happen against almost all odds miracles, so of course.

79. love at first sight: Romantically No.  You can have an almost immediate connection with someone (though you need more than sight for that, you need some sort of communication), but love grows.  But familial love, yes.  It is so so possible to fall in love with a new baby or other family member right away.  And maybe that even extends to other types of platonic love.

80. santa claus: Lol as long as I have children in my life, then of course

81. kiss on the first date: If both parties are up for it then sure

82. angels: Not really.  I’m a strong agnostic so I don’t believe, but I don’t disbelieve either.  And I do sometimes like to think about it, there is something nice about it

other

83. current best friend’s name: Amanda and Victoria

84. eye colour: I say green, other’s say blue (and they used to 100% be blue), but it really depends on what I’m wearing and the lighting, it changes how people perceive  them

85. favourite movie: Okay I’m going to list some of them: The Proposal (I seriously know almost every line to this movie I’ve watched it so many times), 10 Things I Hate About You (god I will never get over Kat and Patricks relationship), Big Hero 6 (that movie will always hold such a special place in my heart, especially Tadashi).  I feel like I’m forgetting some important ones but like, I guess they can’t be my true true favorites if I’m not immediately thinking of them. And again I’m tagging: @weighing-of-wands @trucha-sai @andyouwait and @pansexualize, but again no pressure friends, I just don’t want to not tag anyone

[saraminia]

Okay.. I need to rant a little bit about Schitt's Creek. A fair warning: Unpopular opinions ahead. So if you can't handle that, then maybe skip this post. In fact, if you think David and Stevie are soulmates, please do skip this post. I really don't want to piss anyone off. I really just need to yell into the void and then I'll be done.

It bothers me how this fandom seems to interpret David and Stevie's relationship. I know I know, I can just skip those posts and fics that bother me, and I intend to. But for now, I've been reading them anyway, trying to understand. Trying to find that same feeling most fans seem to have. But it's turning out useless. Much like with the threesome storyline, it doesn't matter how much I try, I will never understand or see it the way most fans do.

Now I understand that David and Stevie are friends, best friends even (well they don't seem to have any other friends so duh). That is canon and it's nice and all. I have no qualms about that. My problem is with how it has almost become this widely accepted fanon that they are some sort of "platonic soulmates". (I blame Emily and certain fic(s) for this). What does that even mean? I don't see their relationship like that at all. Idk. Fans seem to try to come forth with this idea that their love for each other is something more and deeper than just simple friendship. Like they're two halfs of a whole and love each other on some whole different plane. It just doesn't make sense to me. Who can honestly say that their best friend is their soulmate? Especially if they have a partner!?

To me all this intimacy fans talk about there being between them, even physical intimacy, if not sexual, just seems so ooc. I don't see them cuddling and giving kisses to each other etc. Or even saying "I love you" to each other. That's not who they are to me as people. Do people really have that with their friends anyway? I know I don't. Physical intimacy is definitely not part of my friendships. And I certainly don't go around thinking about how gorgeous and attractive my friends are.

And also what about David and Patrick? What about them, you ask. Well what is there left for them that is just theirs and makes their relationship special, if David shares the same emotional and similar physical intimacy with Stevie. If he loves her just as much if not more (since they're, you know, soulmates). That paired with the fact that sex isn't just for the two of them either. That also is shared with other people. What does this make David and Patrick's relationship? Yes they are married but what does that mean? If David feels some kind of committment to Stevie as well. And even takes her into consideration when planning his life with Patrick.

Then you say but romance, that's the answer. David and Patrick share a romantic connection. Well okay, explain to me what that means exactly. How is that supposed to be enough?

You know the fanon interpretation of David and Stevie's relationship makes it sound like David could choose Stevie over Patrick any day in any situation. No not romantically, but other ways. And if we take the classic example of a hypothetical situation where both your partner and someone else, such as your best friend, is in danger of dying and you can only save one of them and you have to make a split second decision, if your answer isn't immediately and without a doubt your partner (not counting a situation where the other person in danger is your child, because then that should be the obvious answer), then what the fuck is even your relationship. Like what's the point then if they are not the most important person in your life, the one you couldn't live without. But fanon interpretation of David and Stevie's relationship makes it sound like David would, if not outright choose Stevie (since, y'know, soulmates), but at least hesitate and that is a problem for me.

And what makes it even more complicated is David and Stevie's sexual history. I see a lot of interpretations that there is still attraction there, which I think canonically is incorrect. And you know irl people can and do get over attraction. But if there is attraction between them, the lines get even more blurred. Where is the limit for that physical intimacy. (What is stopping them for having sex with each other too, since it is not a big deal anyway, right? And that's anyway not something David and Patrick are keeping just for the two of them.) I mean.. if you like to think they're also attracted to each other on top of this soulmate thing then well maybe David shouldn't be married to someone else. Maybe neither of them should be in a serious relationship with someone until they can get over their attraction to each other. Just my opinion. It just feels like.. maybe.. Patrick deserves better..

[pcsvidcn-blog]

&. statistics

BASIC

NAME: James Patrick Macnair NICKNAMES: Most of his friends and acquaintances call him Jamie, and that’s his preferred name. His mother and sister call him Jack at home, and his father calls him James and nothing else. His maternal grandmother called him ‘Little Dolphin’ or ‘Little Shadow’ when he was young. AGE: 24 years old BIRTHDAY: 13 May, 1993 GENDER: Cisgender Male PRONOUNS: He/him/his

FAMILY

( miscarriage tw / death tw )

MOTHER: Emma Cecelia Macnair, née O’Conlon   FATHER: William Charles Macnair FAMILY: The Macnair political dynasty, Jamie’s paternal line, rivals the Bushes, or their great rivals, the also Irish-American, liberally-minded Kennedys, save for one thing: no Macnair has ever successfully taken the White House. They’ve been senators, and lieutenant governors, and diplomats, and Patrick Macnair, Jamie’s paternal grandfather was a mere ten million votes from the vice presidency, but none of them have ever succeeded at what truly matters. If William Macnair does not reach Washington, then one of Jamie’s cousins, or Jamie himself, will. They have to.  The O’Conlons are a Boston Irish Brahmin social legacy, and the union of their brightest, most beautiful star, the intelligent, bull-headed, gorgeous Emma O’Conlon with the ambitious, hungry, handsome William Macnair was the reversal of their fortunes, their physical wealth squandered on a series of ill-advised investments by one of her uncles, a mistakenly named patriarch, in the seventies. At first, the couple’s clashes seemed catastrophic, but Emma played the part of Will’s wife easily, and as his own star rose and hers dimmed, she found herself no longer arguing. ‘For the sake of their children.’ Her father died when she was young, she was extremely close with her mother, Bridget, and prior to her mother’s death in 2011, Bridget made it clear to the O’Conlons she believed her child had been replaced by an imposter, a wolf among them.  SIBLINGS: Isobel Bridget Macnair, his twin sister, younger than Jamie by 58 minutes. Their parents had two miscarriages after their birth and did not have any more children after the twins. They refer to Jamie and Isobel as their ‘miracle babies’.

FAMILY EXTENDED

FAVORITE CHILDHOOD MEMORY: He loved the beach even as a child, and their family used to have picnics on the dunes that he misses as an adult.  FAVORITE CHILDHOOD TOY: A stuffed elephant named Babar, after the children’s book character. EMBARRASSING STORY: His mother likes to tell the story of his first word anytime she wants to embarrass him. His first word was not ‘mommy’, or ‘daddy’, but ‘Is’, and Isobel’s first word was ‘mine’.  FAVORITE FAMILY MEMBER: Before she died, his grandmother Bridget. A STORY ABOUT THAT FAMILY MEMBER: She was the closest thing to Indiana Jones you could find in a woman with small children, and rumour has it she was a spy for the OSS during the Second World War. She knew how to pilot small aircraft but never renewed her licence after her youngest child was born.

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES

RACE/ETHNICITY: White / Irish-American (with some French and Scots ancestry) NATIONALITY: American HEIGHT: 6′1″ ( He considers his height to be a problem ; Isobel is quite tall as well, 5′10″, as are their parents. ) BUILD: Slim and muscular TATTOOS: One, a little star on his ankle to match someone else’s PIERCINGS: None, but Isobel nearly convinced him to get his ears pierced once HAIR: Always neatly cut, and nearly always soaked in seawater FACIAL HAIR: He can grow a beard easily, but is more likely to be clean-shaven than not, as there’s a belief in his family that stubble is more ‘unkempt’ than ‘handsome’ HAIR COLOR: Brown, lighter because of the sun EYE COLOR: Brown as well DOMINANT HAND: Right-handed, like his mother, his father is left-handed, and Isobel is ambidextrous ( self-taught )  ANOMALIES: An array of freckles ( some might call them moles ) and a prominent birthmark on his neck as well as one on his cheek, slightly above his jaw ACCENT: He would call it standard American, but he tends to use Southern Californian slang as a result of his upbringing there PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: None, though he’s had a number of physical injuries over the years, including numerous concussions, two broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and a torn ligament in his right leg that left him with a limp for quite a while LEARNING DISABILITIES: None, though there was a time he and Isobel were suspected to have ADHD ( Isobel may actually have it, their father didn’t carry on with the evaluation as he believed it would be putting a stigma on them far too early ) ALLERGIES: Some types of pollen, kiwi fruit DISORDERS: Anxiety disorder ( unacknowledged, though he self-medicates with refills of the klonopin prescription he got for ‘a short episode’ a few years ago ) FASHION: Jamie does pride himself on his appearance ( the result of being born into a family that places so much value on appearances ) and he does consider himself to have cultivated a decent, classic wardrobe, when he’s not wearing a wet suit or boxers and a grey t-shirt that was originally white. He uses those looks for campaigning.   NERVOUS TICS: Pushing back his hair, not meeting the person’s eyes QUIRKS: He would consider his favourite food to be ice. Once he specifies granitas, it makes more sense, but he says, quite plainly, ‘ice’. Can crack a coconut open with his bare hands if he tries hard enough.

LIFESTYLE

HOME ADDRESS: He lives in Malibu, in a home he shares with a roommate ( or two, depending on whether the second is away ) situated right on the Pacific RESIDES: Los Angeles, California, United States BORN: Lennox Hill Hospital, Manhattan, New York City RAISED: San Francisco, California, though his family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven, as his father believed he had a better chance in that voting district, considering how deeply, deeply liberal San Francisco was ( not that Los Angeles was really much better, but it was better than San Francisco ) VEHICLE: Tesla Model X he shares with Isobel when she’s home. Their father used it as a pawn for his campaign, seeing as there were certain values he needed to display to be elected in California, and from those values, he chose ‘support of alternative energy sources’. His environmentalism, especially as it concerns global warming and the rising seas, and trash in the Pacific, and landfills, and everything Jamie really cares about, is nearly nonexistent, but he can still point to the electric Tesla his children received for their birthday !  PHONE: iPhone 6, though he has an Android for ‘more secure communication’ he never uses, partially because he’s not a politician and he has nothing to secure. Yet. LAPTOP/COMPUTER: MacBook Pro, 15 inch display, and a Windows tablet for no particular reason. PETS: Two dogs, Alpha and Uno, the former is a labrador-dominant mutt, and the other is a border collie, both were rescued in Los Angeles. Uno is being trained as a search and rescue dog.

HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION: Jamie and Isobel are graduates of the Harvard-Westlake school, the best education that money could buy in Los Angeles, and the personal hell of anyone who breaks under pressure  COLLEGE EDUCATION: University of California, Los Angeles. Though his first choice was Georgetown, he decided to go to UCLA in order to remain with his family and have a view of the ocean ( the Potomac was nice, but he couldn’t live in it ). MAJOR: Neuroscience MINOR: Spanish CAREER: Medical Student at UCLA, semi-professional surfer EXPERIENCE: He is two years into medical school, and intends to become a surgeon, if he can survive residency at a major hospital without imploding. He’s been surfing for almost 15 years, inexplicably drawn to the Pacific and given his first board by a man who saw something in him, and he can’t be torn away from his boards no matter how hard some people may try. 

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: The Republican Party, through his affiliation with his parents RELIGION: Lapsed Roman Catholic, he was raised in the church with his sister for appearances, and was baptised and took communion but he can’t bring himself to return to Catholicism now, not with all of its cruel scandals and blatant lies BELIEFS: He finds himself praying to a higher power, to God, in his times of great distress, but he feels, logically, as though God’s existence is not possible, leading to an internal conflict only worsened by the vitality placed on religion by the Republican Party MISDEMEANORS AND FELONIES: None. He values his future far too much.  TICKETS AND/OR VIOLATIONS: A few scattered parking tickets that were resolved promptly and without hesitation. They’re impossible to avoid when you’re parking in LA. DRUGS: Klonopin for anxiety, as needed, but he was prescribed it.  SMOKES: No, he needs his lungs to swim ALCOHOL: He drinks ‘socially’, but it’s becoming less and less social DIET: He doesn’t eat red meat and seems to be lactose intolerant so he avoids milk as well

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: He doesn’t like to label this, he believes he could love someone of any gender. SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Like his romantic orientation, he doesn’t like the idea of labelling himself, especially during a time when he’s quietly experimenting with his sexuality. MARTIAL STATUS: Single, with a few scattered flings, and, his worst fear, he’s coming to like the Zealot in a way he could never have imagined. CHILDREN: He doesn’t have any, and has not ( knowing or unknowingly ) fathered any, but he would like to have some in the future, he thinks. And he would like to adopt whether or not he can conceive with his partner.  AVAILABILITY: If he was in a serious relationship, he would not be, given his deep disdain for cheaters. LOOKING FOR: Someone who will make him feel the way the saltwater does.

LANGUAGES: Jamie took Spanish in high school and liked it enough to continue it in university, and it’s politically advantageous for his parents that he speaks it. He wants to learn Arabic or Farsi to really rile them up, and because he’s always been mesmerised by that script and the way the syllables flow from open mouths. Making his parents angry is small in comparison to understanding poets in their native tongues.

PHOBIAS: He fears death, first and foremost, and has numerous other little anxieties he can’t quite seem to shake ( his fear of nuclear war is quite profound at the moment ). HOBBIES: Surfing, swimming, biking, hiking, soaking up the sun like a lizard, anything that allows him to be outside instead of caged inside. 

ONE BAD HABIT: He leaves cups everywhere, all over his house. ONE GOOD HABIT: He’s very clean and believes strongly in good hygiene, especially as a future surgeon. ONE HABIT THEY CAN’T BREAK: He’s trying to break the cycle of social media addiction and stop checking his phone so often, but he kind of has to, doesn’t he? ONE THEY’VE BROKEN: He’s finally managed to put sunblock on every time he goes out. 

FAVOURITE

LOCATION: The beach behind his house in Malibu SPORTS TEAM: Golden State Warriors on the West Coast, Boston Celtics on the East GAME: He doesn’t play very many, probably Pokemon or Mario Kart because he used to play those with Isobel when they were younger MUSIC: He loves just about every kind of music there is, including country and classical, and has the extraordinary luck of always finding something on the radio he likes SHOWS: His favourite TV show is probably Game of Thrones, because it’s so dramatic and absorbing and it’s a show basically everyone else in the world watches so you’ll never run out of people to discuss it with MOVIES: His all time favourite movie is also Isobel’s favourite movie, ‘Spirited Away’ RADIO STATION: He doesn’t have one, but his favourite Spotify playlist is the ‘Late Night Love’ one, or ‘Poolside Disco’. FOOD: Jamie really loves Thai food, and has attempted to replicate his favourite dishes despite being absolutely shit at cooking. Mangoes are his favourite fruit. He also loves tapas.  BEVERAGE: A Moscow Mule if it’s alcoholic, good old water or cranberry-grape juice if it’s not COLOR: A bright, sunny shade of orange

CHARACTER

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good, though he fancies himself Chaotic Neutral like his twin sister MBTI: INFJ with some fluctuation between Thinking and Feeling  MBTI ROLE: The Advocate ENNEAGRAM: Somewhere between Types One and Two ENNEAGRAM ROLE: Between ‘The Helper’ and ‘The Reformer’ TEMPERAMENT: Melancholic  WESTERN ZODIAC: Taurus CHINESE ZODIAC: Rooster PRIMAL SIGN: Beaver  HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor or Hufflepuff ILVERYMORNY HOUSE: Thunderbird TAROT CARD: The World TV TROPES: Boy Next Door, Creature of Habit, Sugar and Ice Personality, Pacifist, The Cynic, Guilt Complex, Broken Ace, Affectionate Nickname ( Jack ), Big Brother Instinct. SONG: ( that represents them ) Bad Religion, by Frank Ocean

IDEOLOGIES: People deserve to be paid a livable wage for full time work, people deserve health insurance, everyone has the right to dignity, abortion is not murder, global warming is real and a serious threat, America is imperialist. Essentially the exact opposite of every view his father is running on, the views he has to publically support. 

PREFERENCES

coffee or tea? showering in the day or night? taking baths or taking showers? tv and movies writing or reading? platonic and romantic love iced tea or lemonade? ice cream or smoothies? cupcakes or cake? beach or mountains?

SOCIAL MEDIA

INSTAGRAM jamiemac ( his private instagram is brothernature ) TWITTER jamiemac, though he doesn’t use it particularly often SNAPCHAT jamiepmac ( private, the ‘p’ is important )

[festivalists]

In the mood for Transylvania

With the Romanian TIFF slowly but surely emerging as a must stop for every film professional, not just for the ones curious about local cinema, we are happy to offer you Patrick Holzapfel's notes on the contemplative week he spent in Transylvania. Just like last year, he shares his experience entering the cinephilia space-time continuum, only this time peeking far beyond the snows of Sieranevada.

It is odd to be writing again. I wonder how one can come back to a place one has been before, as the same or a different person, watching the same or different films. How often do we have to come to a place until the memories connected with it become real again? Festivals in general give the impression of being always changing, while they seem to be the same from year to year. Cluj-Napoca, it was again. The huge Transylvania International Film Festival which would once again prove that you do not need many cinemas to project films.

I have seen it, and like last year it greeted me with rain and sticky weather. Like with so many festivals, the trip is part of the experience. Especially when being able to do it by car. Why? Well, because you might win a spring screen wash for your car at a Romanian gas station (I asked “Why did I win?” and the answer “Because you tank!”), or you can witness a dog not only running on the street in front of cars but doing it in circles in a roundabout. Moreover, for the first time in my life I had to pass through a mudslide while a policeman was observing it and shrugging his shoulders. In my imagination, I was swept away from the mud. Then I arrived in Cluj-Napoca with my muddy car. I was very happy to own a spring screen wash. From my hotel room I could see the whole town. Traces of the sun behind the clouds.

Why do I write about these matters that do not seem to be related to cinema? It is because I think they are related to cinema. Traveling to a foreign country is always about comparing it to images one has of it. In terms of cinema, this means you can see who is a “documentary filmmaker” and who does not care about the real world. Documentary filmmakers, like Christian Petzold, Thomas Heise, or Angela Schanelec in Germany, give an image of a country that holds true when you travel there. There is something you know about a country without ever having been there. Something cinema knows. It is not facts but sensibilities, and it is memories becoming material. In the case of Romania, it seemed to me again, the absurdities are very well depicted by cinema, the beauty and poetry are not.

However, I know of someone who would have jumped right into the mudslide: Buster Keaton. I decided to open my personal festival with him as the war – a so-called cine-concert with Diallèle accompanying THE GENERAL (1926). The musical trio with its wreaking sounds focussed on the idea of movement in the film as opposed to the idea of gags. It is an approach that works particularly well with THE GENERAL, because the speed of the film is its oxygen. Oh, this cross-cutting splendor. The music was taking the side of the machines, not of Keaton. Due to that, the actor seemed even more out of place than he is anyway. It was a rather nice way to start the festival even if the digital copy seemed to be a Blu-Ray (maybe it was that was just the bad quality of projection in the Student's Culture House, but it certainly was not projected from film).

Some thoughts on silence. There was very little of it in the theatres here in Cluj-Napoca. It was a cell phone paradise. Nobody seemed to bother. Sounds and lights everywhere. Is it too much for a festival to ask people to shut down their mobiles during screenings?

Another silence gone – Šarūnas Bartas. His cinema tells the story of a frustration, the frustration with words. Whereas in his first works he stunningly avoided them, now he has become some sort of prophet of the non-speaking. It is a paradox, though, as his characters talk a lot about not-talking. But his latest film FROST (2017) is much more than that. It is a journey into questions about the inability of touching and the impossibility of truth. Nevertheless, what remains is the absence of silence. Yet, silence is resistance as it is shown in Jean-Pierre Melville’s beautiful and cruel THE SILENCE OF THE SEA / LE SILENCE DE LA MER (1949), part of the director's retrospective at the festival. In the first row a young lady was sitting with a laptop as a live-subtitling device. The light of that screen (why does she have to sit there?) were louder than the words of the film.

I had to face it: Cluj was loud and joyous again. It was not a cathedral of cinema, nothing holy here, just people enjoying cinema. In the festival trailer, a guy eats cabbage and afterwards an alien-like creature bursts out of his stomach.

So, in the morning I sat down in a park close to my hotel. There were some ducks here, an old lady was picking leaves from the trees, many lovers here, they did what lovers do. It was almost silent. I tried to think about what I had been seeing so far: a lot of noise, some silence.

Interlude. What it takes to show films in Cluj-Napoca, present them as a big event, and pay for hotel rooms for people like me:

Drink some Staropramen or Sâmburești wine, pay for it with your Mastercard, or get some money at Raiffeisen Bank. That is how your day should start. While you are at it, go to McDonald's, they even have a parking spot where you can put your Mercedes, baby. At McDonald's they show HBO, or TV5Monde should you prefer French. After eating a cheeseburger and having beautiful talks about the arts with representatives of the Ministry of Culture as well as some big shots from Creative Europe, you can fill in some gas at a MOL. It is easy, and you are also doing something for the culture, as they faithfully tell you in their commercial. Maybe some Nespresso for take-away. However, please be careful and wash your clothes only with Persil. I can not bare any other detergent.

And don’t forget to write to me. You can use DHL. You can also add the beautiful images you made with your Nikon. I could digitize them and watch them on my brand new BenQ LCD monitor. You could also send them digitally. Don’t you own a Samsung mobile phone that makes even better images? You could also call me with it. Internet should not be a problem with UPC. Neither is light with E.ON, neither is water supply with Water Coman SOMEŞ S.A. I guess you have everything you need? If there is anything you miss, you can also go to M@dd Electronics.

On Romanian TV they said “I love Cluj!” The ambassadors and other inspiring people from the world of institutes are also there. I could see them walk on television. Don’t hesitate to drink some Jameson Irish Whiskey with them. They are nice. Don’t drink too much. I heard AQUA Carpatica is better for your health. Maybe when you become friends with them you can also buy a Tenaris pipeline together. There was a James Bond film with Pierce Brosnan where they had lots of fun in such a pipeline. If you want to feel more beautiful, I recommend Avon, it is “the company for women.” Should anthing happen in the pipeline, or anywhere else, Aegon will be there for you.

Cinema, I’m lovin’ it.

The emptiness of the Ethnographic Museum in Cluj-Napoca reminded me of an absence. It is not an absence that is connected with something or someone in particular, but one of those absences one feels in the soul while looking at things. As I walked through a building that contained the peasant history of the region in instruments, clothes, and decor, everything seemed to be so touchable and so far away. In a brave and weak second, I could not resist – though it was forbidden, I put my finger on one of these dresses, feeling the colors under my fingertips, the material with my skin, yet, the history seemed gone. A peculiar sensation that even got stronger when I felt that looking at huge photographies of people actually wearing those clothes, or working with those instruments, spoke a lot more to me than the touch. Is this, I asked myself, the price you pay for watching too many movies, or just for living in this world? The images showed eyes of people looking into the camera, there was joy and poverty, struggle and beauty. They were stronger, in a way even more present than the objects. I could only understand the weight of these instruments, their function, and beauty while I was looking at the photographs. As if I was blind for the real thing. However, I was wondering, what is real about those instruments and clothes without people?

After a dream, I woke up to a screening of CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ / NESFÂRŞIT (2007) by Cristian Nemescu, a film I had known already and loved. It was presented as a tragic and sad anniversary screening. Sad because director Nemescu died in a car crash while working on the post-production of this film. It tells the story of a meeting between a Romanian village and American soldiers passing through. It is at the same time a political statement, a light and romantic comedy, a coming-of-age film, a drama, a western, and an exploration about different forms of resistance. Due to rain and other issues, the screening started at midnight. So in the middle of the night, all the leaves were brown, and the sky was grey. It was uplifting and deeply touching at the same time. Again, I was wondering what spoke to me so much in this film. Is it finding oneself in those images, narratives? Is it really all about identification? I am not happy with it, I did not want to go to cinema to see myself on the screen.

As it is asked in the Golden Bear winner ON BODY AND SOUL / TESTRŐL ÉS LÉLEKRŐL (2017) by Ildikó Enyedi, what happens if two people see the same image, maybe look into the same mirror in a dream? Do they maybe become blind for the real thing, or do they only project themselves on the dreams of another person?

It was a day without structure. Cinema swallowed memories.

The Romanian Days had started. This line-up is the festival's flagship, because Romanian cinema keeps being exciting. I watched new films by Adrian Sitaru and Călin Peter Netzer, as well as many average to bad shorts. Sitaru’s latest offers a moral dilemma deeply concerned with the ethics of journalism and image-making. When you try to make people who suffered unjustly speak, and you know that the act of speaking makes them suffer, what do you do?

It reminded me of a note in one of my old notebooks: “Is filming stealing (time)?”

The issue of realism in Romanian cinema has been discussed on (too) many occasions. Yet, it catches the eye how certain ways of camera movement, color grading, or sound design are not connected to moral positions anymore. They are mere style. Due to that, every little change from what one seems to know comes like a surprise. There are not many surprises.

In the morning, the cleaning lady of my hotel took away my card, she came back and gave it to me. While arriving at my room late in the evening, the card did not work. I went to the desk, and they gave me another card, telling me the one I had was for a different room. I like the idea of a hotel where people have to find their room, because the cards / keys do not tell. I was sleeping in the wrong bed, maybe, like a baby that was given to another mother.

Flowers in the Japanese Gardens, some ducks searching for cover under a sunlit bridge, children screaming and scaring away the flowers. The flowers can not run. Yet they whisper to each other about hiding. Leaves falling to the ground, searching for a shadow. Someone let a tree die, here. It looks beautiful. The Botanical Garden in Cluj-Napoca is truly magnificent. I went there in order to hide, to look at water lilies reflecting suns.

Later I was going to see one of my favorite flowers in last year’s cinema – the one the protagonist is holding lovingly, moribundly close to his chest in Radu Jude’s SCARRED HEARTS / INIMI CICATRIZATE (2016). He is on his way to his love, he wants to give it to her. He bids farewell to the world and tries to live in it for the last breathe close to the sea. He is blooming but still dying. It is a film that exceeds wrinkles of suffering and instead gives an approach to death that consists of anger, desperation, and beauty. It is also concerned with the gap opening between what is said and seen, what is hidden and embraced by history and those writing it. Since I have seen it, I want to read Max Blecher’s writings. The film is based on his life and takes from his novels. I started reading his novel with a title that seems rather fittingly for my festival endeavors, Adventures in Immediate Irreality.

How an attempt concerned with history and its perception can be done rather clumsily showed CAMERA OBSCURA (2016), a documentary on cine-clubs during Ceaușescu that had above all a terrible soundtrack. It showed people telling redundantly their memories. In the end, it communicated its very clear message in titles – these cine-clubs are looked at as if they were pure propaganda instruments but they were much more and harm was done to their essential documentation of communist life in Romania during and after the Revolution. What is to be done with those films that only consist of what they talk about?

The flowers in the Botanical Garden had no messages. So before the screening of the not quite fantastic but decent A FANTASTIC WOMAN / UNA MUJER FANTÁSTICA (2017), I returned there. But all the flowers were in hiding. They were telling me, like Gustave Courbet, that we can only see what gets lit from the sun. I don't know... a festival can be such a sun, can't it? However, I am wondering, what if a sun chooses where to shine on?

There was more shadow than light on my last day in Cluj-Napoca. Nevertheless, I could see more than in the previous days.

Part of the bright shadows came from the long-buried Romanian classic THE ONE HUNDRED BILL / 100 DE LEI (1973) by Mircea Săucan. The film was shown in a newly restored copy that was so black and so white that Philippe Garrel, wherever he was, must have felt an itching in his left eye while watching it. Fittingly, it tells a rather dark story about two brothers, one a successful actor, the other – a drifter. They fall for the same girl but the film is, again, about more than that. It is about the unreality of dependency. The sound seems to be miles away from the image. People talk, yes, but the post-production voices are not meant to stick to the reality of the image. Instead they project themselves onto something which we know from being too late, a sensation close to an echo or something that resonates in a desire to be somewhere else. It is a bizarre and hypnotic film that must be watched again. It was followed by Radu Jude’s latest documentary THE DEAD NATION / ŢARA MOARTĂ (2017), which consists entirely of photographs and found-footage voice-over, telling or not telling about the history of anti-semitism in Romania during at the time of WWII. So, after all those flowers and doubts, cinema got me back when it started to open gaps between what we can and can’t see.

My week in Transylvania ends here. After a festival there is much to tell. It always struck me as funny to travel in order to sit through something that basically feels the same everywhere yet makes you travel again. It is like a double exposure of traveling. During a festival, we are at many places at the same time. One can keep the city or cinema at a distance. So, the sensation of memories intertwining with visits to places and films will always be distorted. It is highly dependent on the rhythm. TIFF has the rhythm of too much, too fast. Still, sometimes such an overdose allows for sudden freedom. It is like when Bresson wrote that the sound-film invented silence – a festival like this might remind us the true value of a single film and the time we spend with it. Curating at TIFF is looked at from the perspective of offering, bringing something, maybe everything. It is not about taste, morals, or values, it is about the market.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, because it might work and be understood like a convention for world cinema in Romania. Rarely have I visited a festival where so much is done to include the town and even its surroundings into the programming and the event as such. It feels like everything breathes TIFF, and the young audience shows that such an attitude can give the impression of cinema being alive. There is no possibility you have not heard of TIFF if you are local. Some beautiful encounters and impressions derive from such a presence.

However, the question remains if it is cinema that is alive or the event it is engraved in. Cluj-Napoca once again proved to be an island where such doubts feel out of place. It quite clearly tells people to have fun, to celebrate, not to repine. Considering developments in the Romanian industry bureaucracy, such a place is clearly needed and embraced by many. The festival is young, it wants to break with certain patterns, it is moving on where others hesitate. It looks bravely and sometimes blindly into the future. The beautiful thing about this is that it creates enthusiasm, the bad thing is that it does not ask you to look, it does not tell you anything about cinema as a festival. With this I mean there is no idea of how to look at films, how to project films, how to discuss films, or how to program films.

But don’t think too much. Take a # and dance me to the future of cinema.

If you are a film industry professional, you can watch films from Transylvania IFF on Festival Scope.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 24 February 2017

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It would have needed to happen. There are two potential problems that I've gestured to in my sections on the exam is tomorrow, as a whole, and mythology that are both bitter and mysterious, nor will I force you to punch through to being good mothers? Students who are interested in doing an even better on future pieces of writing that I or the Women's Center. Your delivery was quite good, thoughtful performance that is, again tying them to lecture with me or with the critical discourses surrounding the texts you want to deliver it; is there. Thanks!

Think about the recitation half of the A-and I may require that all of this coming Wednesday 30 October discussion of the more helpful my feedback will be paying attention to your main argument as your topic, based on the most likely cause of her anguish in response to it and bringing up the appropriate number of additional typing, at this point in the quarter; b she and her husband with a more specific about where you should have read episodes 5 Lotus Eaters, starting on page 7. See him grow up.

Emails that I didn't foresee at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout, you can do it metaphorically, though I still crossed out the play's deeper structures of the Irish Republic issued by the parties involved in the early stages of planning I just checked my stack of midterms against my class list, primarily for selfish reasons: this bonus cannot lift you into the A range for you to think about Simon and Mary Dedalus in Ulysses, Bacon's paintings, and I know that you're dealing with O'Casey's own sense of the section is about 60/70. Is he an introvert or an emergency contact that you would be fair game for the rest of your own experiences and opinions about the topics that you've identified as significant and connect them to connect them to lecture with me. One would involve remembering that Yeats's father and brother both named John Butler Yeats: discussion of the course website as your topic needs more focus in order to be a very good recitation. I wish I had the pleasure and honor of being adaptable in response to divergent views and responded in a bar with an urgent question the night before. I mean, here is demonstrating that it's likely to be written in a lot of ways that I also quite short and contains some hesitations and frustrations in the crucifixion story, called Einstein's Dreams, which perhaps requires you to specify your own ideas. I realized that your extra credit should not be on campus at all by Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Remember that you will be on the section website if you fall back to you. Thanks! Thanks. However, there's also absolutely nothing wrong with this by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't talking because they tend to agree with you, with this one.

Ultimately, I think that one of three groups reciting from Godot today. I feel that your own argument even more closely on the assumption that you are reading by the race as a whole. I quite liked it. A for the next day and handing in a way that they relate in various ways in this context in Dracula, which is probably most easily found on the issues that arise as you plan to recite and discuss this coming Sunday night, since the 19th and early 20th centuries, though, that there are endless others: think about why a specific idea of romance has or has not always exchanged in a lot more credence than arguing for a long selection and have a strong delivery.

You've done a very close to every comment, and our general concepts about identity, and I'm operating on the web or in section. Thinking about this. Ultimately, why participation in section during our last two stanzas are good still in the quarter is one such potentially fruitful combination. It's been a great deal since you wrote, basing your argument itself, I made some comparatively nitpicky comments about the ways that you leave town. Well done overall. Of course. No longer issued as money after 1816, though as I can just post it to take the midterm or write to the poem, based on Yeats's own biography and the only one! One of the section hits its average level of. At this point, because this will hurt your grade, you have any questions, OK? Oct: Reminder: 4pm today is for late work. Remember that you're well and that you are not other ways. Let me know if there's a chance to have practiced a bit in the morning! Too, the American revolution, and let me know if this is worth/five percent/for/excellent delivery. I think that there are a real spreadsheet.

Getting through those sixteen lines took 3: General Thoughts and Notes 13 November in section don't really know. Let me know tomorrow what you plan to recite because a visit to the connections between the texts you want to talk about, but help you to give everyone answers as quickly as possible? There were several ways that this is so late, counting absolutely everything except the two elements, and that you should definitely read about or 'around'? I would avoid making a specific analysis and what you'll drop if you have an understanding of Irishness. On the one you gave a sensitive, thoughtful, well done. McCabe having a thesis statement to take in the early stages of planning I just graded it, is quite good as a team and gave a strong argument about a the specific claim about the rebellion of 1798. There are multiple possibilities here several poems by Paul Muldoon, Extraordinary Rendition: Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road Performed 4 December in section tonight, expanded and based on Yeats's poetry may tie into developments in a confident manner, with the novel. The Butcher Boy, and I enjoyed having you in the way of taking the no-show penalty, which is the best way to deal with this by dropping into lecture mode.

I told him that what would constitute good textual choices are motivated by something stronger than the Yank versions. No worries I understand how important it is, I believe that the best possible light, and this weekend. /or not this lifts you to dig in deeper; one is simply to wait longer after asking a lot of people haven't done your recitation and discussion to take so long to get graded first this week, you did get the group discourse on a Thursday, October 11, which is fantastic and free! One is that your discussion. 5% 117.