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wandsandwheezes · 4 years

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Hermes | G.W

WARNINGS // 2k // SMUT 18+, Hermes!George AU, God!George AU, Betrothals, Dirty Talk, Innocence Kink, Corruption Kink, Unprotected Sex, Breeding Kink, Belly Bulging, (a very lowkey) Size Kink, Premarital Sex.

A/N // The third?? instalment of mine, @darthwheezely and @amxrtentias Gods!AU collection/series/etc <3 i lovs u both and i hope you chikas enjoy <33

Hermes is the ancient Greek god of trade, wealth, luck and fertility. One of the cleverest and most mischievous of the Olympian gods, he is, above all, the herald and messenger of Mt. Olympus, symbol of the crossing of boundaries in his role as a guide between the two realms of gods and humanity.

Locking eyes with him from across the rowdy dining hall, the Grecian God, whom you knew you were to be betrothed to. You knew from the moment you set your eyes on him that he was something of wonder and yet the thought of you being deflowered by him didn’t put you in as much worry as you thought it would have. You truly hadn’t expected to attract the attention so easily of the most gorgeous being you had ever laid your eyes upon.

When your parents had forced you to come to the celebration, arranged especially for the purpose of yours and his meeting, you wanted nothing less than to be in and out of there as quick as Zeus’ lightning but yet when you caught the way his hair shone like a beacon of light as it glimmered in the Grecian sun, you couldn’t bear to pull yourself away.

His jaw was prominent, obviously sculpted by the gods as he leaned over the table to grasp at a handful of grapes, his eyes not leaving yours for a second as he popped them one by one past his lips, tongue dragging along his fingers with every intent of turning you to a pooling mess.

It was unfamiliar, the way your tummy erupted with the flight of a thousand butterflies, a feeling of confusion filling you as you noted the growing wetness between your thighs. You had never taken a lover, nor even shared a kiss with another man, yet the moment you had locked eyes with George, it’s as if you became tethered to him, under the spell of his allure.

He found it fascinating, the way baby bunnies like you shone bright with purity. He liked that about you, he hardly knew your name, but one thing rang true; your untouched innocence was daring to be claimed.

You thought he had disappeared, leaving your first meeting to be nothing more than fleeting glances. Taking yourself away from the drunken laughter to wander the open halls, fingertips grazing over the pure white stone of the castle that stood tall, proud and dominant.

“My, my.. aren’t you a wonder.” You hadn’t expected his voice to be so deep, startling you from your own thoughts so rapidly that you found yourself spinning on your heel only to crash directly into the chest.

There’s something intoxicating about the way George held you, as if his touch was electric, rendering you completely and utterly dumbfounded, his eyes once again burning into your skin as he took in every inch of your untouched skin he could muster in your close proximity.

George had never seen such a doe-eyed beauty like yourself. You were a tiny, sweet little thing compared to him, the way he towered over you made you feel safe, secure and protected, not intimidated like any other man had made you feel, but he wasn’t just any man, he was your betrothed, a intricately chiselled God whose freckles had been hand picked for him and created to be one of the most wondrous sights to behold.

Looking up at him you felt an overwhelming desire like never before, to press your lips against his beautifully crafted, rosy red lips. Of course you wanted to kiss him, especially when his feather light touch had brushed your hair off of your shoulder, leaving your collarbone, neck and chest bare and exposed. His large hand cradled your neck, ghosting a thumb over your lower lip as he inched himself closer to you, almost feeling his hot breath against your chin before his eyes sought out yours again, searching in them for a sign to stop. “Tell me if this is too much and I’ll stop.”

You shook your head gently, only pushing his thumb across your lips once more before you found yourself leaning in again, truly on your toes to reach his lips. They connected together in such a heated passion that you had practically been knocked back, hands rapidly hoisting you up onto the ledge to kiss you easier. He tasted like magic and eloquence all wrapped into one, the sweet hint of grapes lingering on his tongue as it slipped past your lips.

You found yourself breathless as you pulled away from his kiss, forehead pressed against his as you squeezed your eyes closed. Already desperate for another you whimpered, your whole body leaning into him as he watched your chest heave.

“I want to absolutely devour you and it’s taken everything within me not to do so already.” He sighed, fingertips dancing over the white abundance of fabric that was cinched in at your waist, noting how irresistibly innocent you looked before him.

“Devour me?” You whispered through a shaky breath.

“I want to drink you in like the sweetest wine to ever pass my lips, you are the divine, untouched nectar I crave, a goddess in human form.” he hummed, smirking to himself at the way you avoided his gaze, overwhelmed by the full attention of a God like himself.

“A little thing like you never imagined being touched by a God, hm? I would bet your virgin cunt is throbbing just at the thought of me kissing you,”

He could read you, like the pages of never ending parchment, see through you like crystal clear waters. You couldn’t find the words to counter him, let alone to tell him to touch you.

With a sharp inhale, you felt his thumb brush over your fabric covered nipple, unaware of just how hard and sensitive they were until awoken by his touch. You let out an involuntary whimper, although it seemed more like a breathy moan at the first touch of a man you had ever before experienced.

“I just know you’re already dripping down your thighs for me, is that what you want, for me to fill your cunt up, stretch you out to fit me?”

All you could muster was a faint ‘please’, looking up at him through your lashes just in time to catch his pearly white smile before his arm had wrapped around your waist, whisking you away to his bedroom on a more secluded part of the grounds.

It was at this point that his soft touch began slipping the pathetic fabric from your body, leaving you naked before him as it pooled at your feet. He didn’t dare stare too long, instead stripping down the same way he had left you bare. His hands were quick to reach out, gliding all over your skin as he murmured praise into your ear, the vibration of his low voice humming against your ear, making you cave into him.

You were completely in his hands, thankful he knew what he was doing. His hand trailed down, reaching slowly between your legs, fingers quickly becoming slick with how wet he had already made you, much to his pleasure. You didn’t know how he did it, how when he dragged his fingers over a sensitive area, he was able to pull such a wonton moan from your lips.

He had laid you down upon a bed of comforts, hand pushing your chest down to lay fully back before slowly parting your legs so that he could nestle between them, he wanted to paint a picture of the way you were right in this moment, hair splayed out messily with your thighs either side of him, cunt dripping and clenching at the mere thought of wrapping around his cock. He wanted to paint in detail the innocence you held before he fucked it out of you, before he claimed you as his.

Your moans were greater than any tune or melody that had graced his ears, satisfied enough with seeing you squirm as his fingers sank in and out of the tightest hole he’d ever felt wrapped around his fingers. His thumb circled your clit, keeping you nice and wet as he stretched you out as best as he could with his fingers alone. “That’s it, cherub, no need to be quiet for me, let me know how nice it feels.”

He wanted you to feel comfortable when it came to the moment he and you would become one, lining his length up before pushing in ever so slightly. He found your hand, lacing his fingers with yours as he gently guided as much as you would take from him, slick walls allowing his inches to fit with ease until he was fully inside of you. It was almost as if your cunt were made for him, his cock fitting perfectly like lock and key.

He leant forward, forehead pressed against yours as he checked in with you, making sure that you were okay for him to move before he set a slow pace of passionate fucking. “Such a pretty Pearl you are, doesn’t that feel nice, finally having cock fill that tight cunt?”

“Oh, George, you’re so big, feels so, so nice the way you fill me.” You moaned loudly, unaware of just how much he could make you moan, whimper and writhe. With every movement, you thought you’d moan louder, thumb dragging across your clit to help build that beautiful sensation he wanted to give you.

Leaning back up to watch the way your cunt greedily swallowed every inch of him as he fucked you, he noticed the way a small bulge appeared with every thrust. He stilled while fully sinking inside you, chuckling slightly to himself as he ran his thumb over the bulge, smirking at the feeling of his touch against his cockhead through your skin when he realised what he was doing.

“Look at you, so greedy for me already. See how I’m in your belly, bet I could split you in two if I tried.” He chuckled, pulling your body up to make you watch the way the outline of his cock swelled your abdomen. “Watch for me, my little bunny, look how much I fill you up.”

He kept thrusting, grabbing your hand to push down against the bulge, letting you feel the rhythm of his cock hitting your hand. He then guided your hand down to your own clit, his large hand swallowing yours as he moved your own fingers against your clit. His fevered touch was drawing you closer and closer to euphoria. When it hit you, the feeling was unlike anything you had ever experienced, like every single moment of happiness, excitement and joy you had experienced in your life had hit you all at once, finding yourself screaming out his name for all to hear.

“That’s it, Pearl, you look like a goddess right now, absolutely glowing.” He groaned, continuing in his thrusts until he felt his own high approach, growling in your ear as his sensitive head hit your back wall as he bottomed out over and over. “I’m gonna fill you up, make your belly swell when I breed you, little one.”

As if you had become a goddess yourself, he filled you up with his release, well and truly in the clouds for the first time in your life.

He had covered you with a silk sheet quickly to protect your modesty, brushing sweaty hair from your eyes as he lay beside you, taking in your beauty once again.

“And to think you’re mine to devour, human woman made for the gods.” He rambled, his hands never leaving your skin.

“George?” You whispered.

“Mhm?”

“Thank you for being so gentle with me, I’m sure you weren’t expecting your betrothed to be a virg-”

“Hush now, little one, I’d rather you know my touch alone than the touch of another because the thought of anyone else ever coming near you makes me feel like my brother, just full of rage.”

“You don’t mean that-”

“I do, you deserve to feel protected. Betrothed or not y/n, you are something even a God like me is lucky to have.”

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#Gods!AU #george weasley fic #george weasley #george weasley x reader #fred and george #george weasley smut #george weasley fluff #harry potter #harry potter fic #harry potter smut #harry potter writing

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innuendostudios · 3 years

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Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

#film noir #neo-noir #criterion channel

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rhysismydaddy · 4 years

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An Artful Revenge Pt. 1

First part of The Archeron Damnation series.

~Rhysand~

Have you ever had everything you’ve ever wanted dropped in your lap like a present?

It makes it so easy you almost don’t even want it anymore.

Before today, this had never happened to me. For over thirty years, I’ve worked and fought and killed for everything I’ve wanted. Nothing about my life has been easy.

Until today.

Until a young, beautiful woman paused to look at a piece of art, oblivious to the monster who stood behind her.

As soon as I looked up and saw her, I felt like an anvil fell on my chest and robbed me of air. I couldn’t fucking breathe.

For the first time in my long, miserable life, I was utterly speechless as Feyre Archeron tilted her head contemplatively, as if the slab of paint was something that required great concentration.

Her focus was so singular it gave me more than enough time to figure out what I wanted to do.

But I couldn’t concentrate enough to even do that. Not yet. For now, I just took her in. Photos didn’t do her justice, honestly. Sandy blonde hair, a slight frame more than pleasing to look at from the back, defined cheekbones, full lips. Beautiful.

It was almost unfair for someone like her to be so beautiful.

She had a hand on her chest and was completely still as she looked at the work in front of her, like she almost couldn’t stand the rush of emotions it gave her.

I understood the feeling.

My friends often tell me I should go on the road as a mind reader or fortune teller or some other bullshit. The point is, I’m pretty decent at reading people.

And just from the way the woman in front of me is looking at an overpriced, ugly piece of art, I know she’s innocent.

She has no idea who she used to share a bed with, no idea what kind of evil she invited into her life with a smile.

I also know I can’t let it change things in the slightest. Innocent or not, beautiful or not, I’ve been trying to find the perfect moment to worm my way into her life and turn it fucking upside down.

And she’s just handed it to me on a silver platter.

I’ve been looking for her, and I’ve finally found her.

She’s mine.

~Feyre~

“You like it?”

Gasping and pressing my hand harder against my chest to calm my racing heart, I spin around to face whoever just asked such an obvious question.

And the first thing I can think is, He’s more beautiful than the painting.

The stranger’s casually leaning against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets, confidence and wealth and class draped over him like a very impressive, very handsome mask.

He’s concealed in a jet black suit, but somehow I can tell he’s impressively built; it’s like strength and power are radiating off of him. His face probably took the gods years to craft, the sharp angles of his jaw and slash of his brows perfectly creating the most alluring thing I’ve ever seen.

Dark hair, piercing violet eyes that scan me head to toe, and smirking, sensual lips complete his features.

He’s the most attractive male I’ve ever seen. And I’m an art major who frequently finds herself painting models, so that’s saying something.

“You like it,” he states, whatever he finds on my face taking away the need for a question mark.

“I do,” I confirm, forcing myself to turn back to the painting and stop gawking like an idiot.

He surprises me by asking openly, “Why?”

The painting in question is one of the most revered paintings in the world: Dancers in Blue by Degas. But he’s asking in a way that makes it clear he genuinely doesn’t know why people pay to look at it.

Running my hand through my hair, I try and put it into words. “There’s just so much... energy in it. The background’s nothing but a bunch of paint splatters, and yet you can feel it almost. The dancer’s excitement, the energy of the crowd. It’s breathtaking.”

There’s a beat of silence, and I cringe inwardly, thinking of how weird that probably sounded.

Then, “Would you like it?”

Only four words and they almost knock me on my ass. I spin back around so fast he chuckles, eyes wide, and sputter, “Would I what?”

I mean, it’s clear he’s rich, but there’s rich, and then there’s buying a Degas rich.

“I was planning on buying it anyway. It should belong to someone who loves it as much as you obviously do.”

“What?” I repeat, still not understanding why he would offer something like that to a total stranger.

“I presumed you to be intelligent, but if you keep asking that question, I might have to amend that.”

I narrow my eyes, somehow intelligent enough to pick up on the insult. “I’m just confused. I mean, you look rich and all, but that painting’s worth $45 million dollars. And you just asked...”

“If you want it.”

Putting my hands on my hips, I regard him speculatively. “Which psych ward did you break out of, exactly?”

He smiles, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can accept the painting and stare at it from home, or I can buy it and hang it with the other one and never give it a second thought.”

My mind can’t stop running, and I think if I wasn’t determined to not completely embarrass myself, I’d collapse to the ground and sob at the impobability of this situation. “What do you mean the other one? You already have a Degas?”

“The pink one,” he confirms casually, flicking a nonexistent fleck of dust off his jacket.

“You have Dancers in Pink?” He nods, lips twitching at the look on my face. “And why, exactly, are you buying priceless pieces of art if you don’t like them?”

“It’s not priceless. You just told me it’s worth $45 million.” I scowl at the non-answer, and he shrugs. “Someone I don’t care for likes them.”

I connect the dots slowly. “So you buy them so he can’t.”

He nods.

My mouth falls open, making him smile again. It’s dangerously attractive and distracting, but I still demand, “Who the fuck are you?”

The stranger laughs outright at that, strolling forward and offering me a tan, tattooed hand with practiced ease. I notice there’s a platinum, engraved ring on his pointer finger, and I stare at it for a moment because it looks strangely familiar.

He seems to pause as I look at it, holding his breath. I’m probably acting like a total weirdo, so I snap out of it and take his hand.

Because he’s rich and confident and beautiful, he feels entitled to drag his calloused thumb across the back of my hand.

And because I’m poor and stupid and at the end of the day, just a woman, I blush. Which only gets worse as he notices and smirks.

“My name is Rhysand.”

“Rhysand what, exactly? Rockefeller? Vanderbilt? Carnegie?” I run out of rich families and fall silent, and he gives me a look like I’m the most amusing thing he’s ever come across.

“Rhysand Azara. When you google me, you won’t find anything of consequence, I’m afraid.”

The way he says when instead of if makes me blush again, because I’d been waiting for him to leave so I could pull out my cracked, struggling little phone and do exactly that.

He looks at me expectantly, and I realize I haven’t said a word, just held onto his hand like a toddler being led across the street. “Oh, I’m Feyre.”

Rhysand just raises an eyebrow.

“Feyre Archeron.”

“And what would I find if I were going to google your name?”

I notice his statement has an if, but I answer anyway, stating facts nervously like an army cadet reporting for duty. “I’m an art major at UChicago. From Missouri.”

“What else?”

“There’s really not much else.”

He tsks, telling me this answer is unacceptable, but doesn’t press it. Instead he shocks the hell out of me once again. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

It isn’t a question, but it isn’t quite a demand, either. It’s a statement, and it’s said like he already knows what my response is going to be.

But like I just told him, I’m a college student.

Which means for the past three years, I’ve been dealing with college boys.

I’ve been asked to “hang,” “smash,” and even to go to coffee on a few rare, wonderful instances. But never, in my entire life, have I been asked---or told--to go to dinner by someone like him.

I realize it’s because I’ve never met anyone like him.

Even my ex-boyfriend, who’d been well off and older, was nothing like him. Compared to the man in front of me, everyone else seemed... juvenile.

They were boys, toddlers even, compared to the man still gripping my hand.

It prompts me to ask, “How old are you?”

He smiles. “Too old for you, I’m sure. Have dinner with me anyway. For the sake of the painting.”

I’m halfway sure I’m in the middle of a fever dream, about to wake up covered in sweat and wondering what the hell just happened, because this cannot be real.

“You’re... are you actually... you’re offering to give me a $45 million painting if I have dinner with you?” I sound incredulous and wheezy to my own ears, but I don’t even care.

Who the hell is this guy?

“You’ll be my second most expensive date.”

“You’re insane.” I look down to where he still holds my hand, entire focus narrowing on the strength in his grip. How would it feel to have him grip me somewhere else? Rhysand gives me a look like he knows what I’m thinking, so I look at the ceiling. Then declare, “I can’t have dinner with you.”

It almost hurt to say it, honestly, because I really love that painting.

He waits until I look back down at his face before asking, “Why not?”

Blushing to high hell, I murmur, “It feels a little like... prostitution.”

Rhysand throws his head back and laughs, a full, wonderful sound I hadn’t been expecting. It’s easy and contagious, and I find myself grinning, even though what I said was true.

“Dinner, gorgeous, was the deal.” He leans in close and whispers, “You coming home with me won’t have anything to do with it.”

I push him away, mind set on giving myself a few feet away from him to compose myself, but I’m so dizzy and confused and strangely turned on I almost fall. His hands shoot out, landing on the bare skin of my shoulders, and I pause.

And really, really contemplate my life.

Yesterday I was sitting on the floor of my dusty apartment in my underwear, eating Ramen and struggling to figure out what the fuck to put in the background of my painting. Today I’m being asked to dinner by a probable-billionaire. On the condition I accept a very expensive form of bribery.

“I’m not going home with you, but I’ll have dinner with you.” He starts to smile, so I cut him off, “Only if you promise to not buy the painting.”

His brows narrow, a silent demand for information.

“I come here almost every day to see it anyway,” I explain. “Besides, there’s no way I can accept it. It’ll get stolen or damaged or... I just can’t accept it. And the thought of you putting it in some forgotten hallway depresses me.”

He sighs dramatically and re-puts his hand out. “No painting. Just dinner.”

“And no sex.”

A very male look crosses his features. “We’ll discuss that later, I think.”

I roll my eyes but shake hands with him, a strange sense of finality settling over me. I shake it off, telling myself the bare mention of having sex with him is why I’m so nervous.

Four hours later, I stand at the door, purse clutched in one hand, keys in the other. I’m staring at the door, practically foaming at the mouth, waiting for a knock on the other side to hopefully shock me out of my crazed state.

I’ve been like this for ten minutes already, for some reason not wanting him to wait for a second after he got here. Or maybe I just don’t think he’s actually coming.

Maybe I’ve been on some horrible practical jokes show, and Rhysand Azara isn’t even a real person. I’ll probably end up on television, blushing and beyond naïve, having been convinced a man who looked like a male model wanted to buy me a Degas.

I snort, shaking my head at myself. And then almost fall down when a soft yet somehow insistent knock sounds through my small apartment.

“Holy fuck, he’s here.”

I have no idea why I state it aloud, to myself no less, but I feel like it should be said. Hell, it should be written down in history books. If I kept a diary, I’d write in bold, underlined letters: I HAVE A DATE WITH A VERY STRANGE, VERY HANDSOME MAN.

After fluffing my hair and checking my makeup in a mirror, I stop stalling and open the door.

He, of course, looks like sex on a goddamn spoon. And for a split second--just a moment, I swear--I debate grabbing him by his expensive lapels, dragging him backward into my apartment, and finding out what his mouth feels like against mine.

“Feyre,” he greets, snapping me out of my perverted daydream. “You look beautiful.”

I know it’s dumb to be flattered, because it’s fairly standard to tell a girl she looks nice when you pick her up for a date, but it does my ego no harm because how I look right now took some fucking work.

I shaved from the eyebrows down, exfoliated, scrubbed, cleansed, plucked, and spent thirty minutes deciding what to wear.

I’d taken a gamble he’d wear a suit and dressed to match in a black dress, unremarkable save for the very low back, and simple heels.

I step outside with him, grateful for the warm weather, and turn to lock the door.

Rhysand makes a humming sound, and I freeze as I feel a finger drag down my spine, stopping right at the edge of the fabric. Which happens to be very, very close to something indecent.

“Beautiful,” he states again, and hell if I don’t feel like it.

I finally manage to get the lock closed, then spin around to face him. Up close, there’s silver flecks in his eyes, like starlight. Oh, and he smells amazing. Something manly and wintery and not sold in a bottle.

I. Am in. So much. Trouble.

I have no idea why this man has taken an interest in me, but I know it can only end in one way: me in love, him long gone.

But even though I know it, I’m ready. Five minutes with him makes me feel more alive than I ever have, and even though it’s a disaster in the making, I can’t bring myself to care.

He offers his hand and pulls me towards a--surprise--black car, one that looks expensive. After depositing me in the passenger seat, he goes around and climbs in beside me.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m making a guess about something.”

I glance over at him. “Have you ever realized you don’t give actual answers?”

"Yes,” he responds with a grin, turning the stereo on.

Twenty minutes later, I’m practically bursting at the seems to know where he’s taking me.

What kind of guess is he making? Also, what does that even mean?

He pulls up in front of a nice looking place I’ve never been to--again, surprise--and comes around to open my door. Despite the crowd, as soon as the hostess sees the man leading me through the restaurant, we’re ushered into the back.

Turns out the place has private rooms. It’s quiet and cozy, and I’m pretty sure only the president gets this kind of treatment.

Once I’m seated across from him, menu in hand, I have to ask, “Was your guess correct?”

“I don’t know, do you like French food?”

I smile because j’adore French food, and he grins back because he somehow knew that already.

The waiter comes to ask for our drink order, and I gesture at Rhysand for him to order mine. I know nothing about wine, and he obviously does, because he orders something fancy and expensive sounding.

There’s soft music playing in the background, candles in the corner, and a handsome man sitting across from me. It’s the most romantic situation I’ve ever been in, hands down.

He braces an arm on the table, watching as I take a small sip of the wine. Trying to maintain some sort of maturity, I say, “You have good taste.”

“I do,” he replies, but his eyes are on me, not the wine. “Are you almost done with school?”

“One more year,” I answer, trying not to cheer as I say it. Four years of education for an art major is kind of ridiculous to me, but it would’ve been stupid to turn down a full scholarship.

Rhysand hums, nodding. Even though he asked, I somehow feel like he already knew that. Weird.

“Did you go to college?”

He gives me a strange look. “My formal education stopped around seventh grade.”

It’s an effort to keep my jaw off the table, and I’m proud of myself when I say mildly, “Impressive.”

“Being uneducated impresses you?”

I scowl. “No, but having everything you do despite not being handed anything is.”

His face stays impassive, but there’s a twinkle of respect in his eyes. The waiter comes back and asks what we want to eat, and because the menu I’ve barely even looked at is in French, I get the same thing as Rhysand.

When we’re alone again, I ask, “Okay, spill. How’d you know I love French food?”

Rhysand shrugs. “I’m good at reading people.”

I wave a hand, because that wasn’t answer enough, and he continues on a sigh. “You’re kind of... easy to read. No offense.”

“Interesting you say ‘No offense’ after calling a woman easy,” I note.

He laughs, but points out, “You’re not easy. I offer to buy you a Degas and you won’t even come home with me.”

It’s my turn to shrug. “Once again, you haven’t answered my question.”

There’s a long beat of silence. “You like French food because you like Impressionist art, and both Degas and Monet were French. Your dream vacation also happens to be Paris, and eating French food makes you feel closer to that goal.”

My mouth drops open, and he laughs soundly at the blatant display of shock, but before I can ask how the hell he knew that, the waiter comes with our food. Identical displays of delicious-smelling pasta are set in front of us.

I reach for my fork, but he grabs our plates and switches them.

When I raise a brow, he shrugs and says, “In case you were thinking about poisoning me.”

I snort in a very ladylike manner, tucking into my food. A soft moan escapes me, and he looks up at me, bite halfway between his plate and mouth.

“Uh, sorry,” I murmur, blushing down the neckline of my dress.

Rhysand just smiles, making me feel young once again. “Don’t be. I quite enjoy the sound of a pleasured woman.”

Rolling my eyes, I take another bite, managing to refrain from sounding too pleasured. “So, Paris. How’d you know?”

He doesn’t really give me an answer, just says, “I bet you have a little Eifel Tower trinket on your desk and everything.”

An embarrassed laugh bubbles out of me, because I do. I totally do. I’ve had it for three years and look at it every time I’m tempted to drop out.

“What do you do for a living?” I ask, trying to get us back on even ground. I feel like he somehow knows everything about me, and even though I’ll have to ask questions, I’m finding out at least one thing about him.

“I’m in real estate.”

I nod, ready to just accept that answer. Then I look around us, remembering how crowded the restaurant was, and start giggling. “You own this restaurant, don’t you?”

A sigh. Busted. “Yes, I do.”

I tsk and give him a judgmental look. “You can’t take me somewhere you own for a date. That’s cheating.”

He takes a sip of his wine. “How so?”

“It just is.” I sigh, just to tease him. “Shame. I was feeling so romanticized, maybe enough so to go home with you. Not anymore, though.”

He rolls his eyes, the gesture making him younger. “Eat your food.”

I do, and by the end, I’m so full I probably look pregnant. “Holy fuck, that was good.”

Rhysand smiles, like it’s adorable that I cursed, and pushes back his empty plate. “Dessert?” I shake my head. “Coffee?”

“I’m so full I might die.”

Rising with fluid grace, he extends a hand. “Then come with me.”

Not bothering to ask questions at this point, I just take his hand and follow him out, noticing the city has a slight chill now that the sun’s gone down.

“Why is it women can never plan for the sun going down?” he ponders, wrapping me in his suit jacket.

“It’s a test to see if you’ll let us freeze to death.”

Rhysand chuckles and slides his hand into mine, so casually and simply it seems like a mundane thing we do every day.

I know I’ve known him for a total of five hours, but everything about today has been... easy. Natural. It’s like we just click, and I’m not stupid enough to question it right now.

“You’re quite the gentleman,” I remark, bringing up our intertwined fingers to look at the tattoos on his skin. He’s silent for a minute, and when I glance over, he’s looking at the ground as we walk, a strange look on his face. “What?”

“You’re probably the only person in this entire world who believes that.”

I scoff, because the idea that the man next to me, holding my hand and running his thumb across my fingers, is anything but a gentleman is absurd.

“What other paintings do you have?”

It’s a question I’ve been dying to ask since he mention his other Degas.

“It’s a shame you’re determined to not go home with me. You could see them yourself.”

I drop his hand and shove his shoulder, my lips twitching as he laughs. “You asshole. You’re leveraging access to a private collection for sex? Men are horrible.”

Rhysand chuckles, throwing an arm around me and pulling me close. “I have a Monet,” he whispers in my ear, placing a featherlight kiss to my temple. “And a Rembrandt.”

“I hate you.”

He releases me and grabs my hand again, then pulls me toward a dark alley I hadn’t noticed he’d been guiding me toward. “Um... where are you taking me?”

He, of course, doesn’t tell me. No, he shushes me.

“I will not be quiet while you drag me down some seedy alley!” I’m beginning to panic a bit, because besides spending way too much time alone, I like to watch Law and Order, and this is turning into the beginning of a familiar episode.

“Is this because I said I won’t have sex with you tonight?” Before he can respond, I blurt, “Because I probably will at some point, I’m just kind of nervous-”

“I’m not going to murder you, Feyre darling.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. Now shut up.”

Pouting like a sullen child, I shut my mouth and accept my fate. He tugs me further down the black alley, and eventually I can’t even see. Can he? Is he some sort of vampire? Am I really asking myself that?

The glow of his phone illuminates the dark for a second, and I catch the time 11:59. “One more minute.”

“Until...?”

He’s silent for thirty-eight seconds, then he says, “Until this.”

Suddenly, the space above us lights up, colors shooting all around us in a kaleidoscope of reds and blues and greens.

Gasping, I look up to see the air above us full of glass lanterns, the surfaces painted with swirling black paint. The alley is covered wall to wall, and the end result gives the walls around us beautiful designs and dimension.

I laugh in surprise, twirling around to take in the entire place. “What is this?”

“We’re in the artist’s quadrant of the city. I don’t know why, but they do this every night, exactly at midnight.”

I spin around in a circle, arms out, smiling from ear to ear. He watches with a grin, leaning against one of the walls casually. I walk down the alley, eyes up, taking in everything.

It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.

The lanterns are each unique, like they were done by different people. Some are solid colors, others are mixtures.

I look back over at Rhysand, beams of red and blue and pink bouncing off his face, a smile playing at his full lips. It’s obvious he took me here because he knew I’d love it, and it makes me feel insanely special.

Still giddy with happiness, I bound over to him, put my hands on either side of his face, and press my lips to his.

For a second, we probably look like idiots, just standing there pressing our smiles together.

Then, like we’re in synch, the smiles fall away and we start to actually kiss.

His hands slip inside the jacket, linking at the small of my back and pulling me closer to him. He’s still leaning against the wall, back against the brick, and I put my hands on his chest, fingers digging into the corded muscle I find there.

Rhysand pulls back for a minute, traces his fingers over my face lightly. He looks so surprised and confused, I’m tempted to ask what’s wrong. But then his mouth is back on mine, moving more fervently, and I forget all about it.

His hands cup my jaw, tilting my face to where he wants it, then slide in my hair.

He tastes like honey and citrus, and I slide my tongue in his mouth, desperate for more. I moan at the taste of him, and he suddenly moves, like the sound unleashed something in him.

One hand grabs the back of my thigh, the other wrapping around my waist, and then I’m the one against the wall. The brick digs into my shoulder blades, but I hardly even notice, because he wraps my leg around his hips and presses us together.

His mouth is sliding down my jaw, sucking on the spot between my neck and shoulder softly. I make a low sound, slip my hands in his hair, and prepare to eat him alive.

And then the world goes dark.

The lanterns above us turn off, casting us in darkness, but we don’t stop for a few minutes. When we’re both breathless, he pulls away with a low chuckle and releases my leg.

I slide down him slowly, leaning against the wall for support.

What the hell was that?

Did I really just make out with a complete stranger in an alley?

The answer to that question--and the one of if I’d do it again--is hell yes.

He runs a hand over his lips, almost in disbelief, then takes a healthy step back and holds out a hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

I take another look at the disheveled hair, swollen lips, rumpled shirt. And I know without a doubt that if he were on my doorstep, looking at me with those bedroom eyes, I’d pull him inside without a thought.

“I think I should take a cab.”

Rhysand smiles, knowing exactly why. “I’m flattered.”

“Shut up,” I laugh, pushing him away and starting back toward the busier street.

Even though the street’s deserted, he manages to hail a cab easily, the bright yellow car slowing to a stop next to us. I open the back door, kiss his cheek, and slip inside. “Thank you for dinner. Even though you cheated.”

He rolls his eyes and shuts the door behind me. “I’ll call you.”

I nod, feeling a little ridiculous for how happy that statement makes me. Tonight was... like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It was just dinner, I remind myself, but it doesn’t do any good.

It feels like the beginning of something.

The cab driver glances at me in the rearview mirror and laughs. “That good, huh?”

I don’t even respond because yeah. That good.

I’m halfway home before I realize I never even gave him my number. And I honestly wonder if I’ll ever see Rhysand Azara again.

_________________________________________________

Part 2

@elorcan-trash @perseusannabeth @cursebreaker29 @a-bit-of-a-cactus @elriel4life @girl-who-reads-the-books @shinya-hiiragi @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln @ireallyshouldsleeprn @highqueenofelfhame @nahthanks @ghostlyrose2 @claralady @tswaney17 @rowanisahunk @superspiritfestival @thegoddessofyou @jlinez @studyliketate @over300books @bamchickawowow @justgiu12 @maastrash @aesthetics-11 @b00kworm @sleeping-and-books @musicmaam @hizqueen4life @maybekindasortaace

#feysand #acotar #acomaf #acowar #a court of thorns and roses #a court of mist and fury #a court of wings and ruin #a court of frost and starlight #acotar fanfiction #feysand fanfiction #rhysand

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maxbegone · 4 years

Text

AND WE ARE BACK!

Part two of the Schitt’s Creek Community Fic Rec is here! This time, we focused on celebrating our favorite AU’s! Once again, this is dedicated with love to the the authors of this community! Every participant chose one AU (which was a little hard to do for some) to share and why they enjoyed it.

Thank you to everyone who submitted!

@bestwisheswarmestregards // @brighter-than-sunshine // @danieljradcliffe // @devilstelephone // @fishyspots // @imargaery // @justwaiting23 // @patrickbrewsky // @rockinhamburger // @roguebabyinyourstore // @rosebuddsmotel // @stuck-on-your-heart // @the-13th-wheel // @thedidipickles // @thisbuildinghasfeelings // @yourbuttervoicedbeau

And a very special thank you to anyone who has ever written anything in this community!

Everything is posted below the cut, and you can check out part one here!

**As always, if I missed an author’s tumblr handle, please let me know!

@bestwisheswarmestregards

Odd Man Rush by @samwhambam

It’s David and Patrick and Hockey! Three of my favorite things! Also the ending is one of my favorite endings. It’s so sweet! It’s part of the series score and all of the stories are so cute but this one is my favorite!

@brighter-than-sunshine

Thanks For Choosing Bagged! by dinnfameron

I love this one because the dialogue is so adorable, and true to David and Patrick! I can totally see the characters getting involved in something like this, like a different version of a rom-com.

@danieljradcliffe

Going Down by concannonfodder

This is one of the best stories of NYC!David and recently out Patrick while they're both trying to find themselves. It's beautifully written and my favourite part is that each chapter switches between David and Patrick's POV. It does a great job of highlighting the aspects of their personalities that we know and love but shows them to us in a new light.

@devilstelephone

sustineo by @rockinhamburger

The contemporary art discussions between Patrick and David are interesting and important to the story. Patrick still cares for and emotionally connects with David In a world that is so different than Schitt’s Creek. I liked that Sebastian Raine was the evil force without being included as a character.

@fishyspots

Welcome to Cabaret by @vivianblakesunrisebay

It's lovely from start to finish! In this 'verse, Christmas World didn't pull out, so David didn't get the lease for the general store. Instead, he gets roped into helping Moira with Cabaret, and meets Patrick (kind of) through that. I love the way this author writes. The dialogue is in-character, and the plot is wonderful and pulls out moments from canon and reimagines them in some truly inspired ways. I'm such a fan of all of this author's works; this was the first one I read, and it remains my favorite.

@imargaery

David.; or, a Tale of Misapplied Sense by Siria

A Jane Austen D&P AU and it is BRILLIANT. If you're an Austen fan, you will be able to immediately pick up on how well this author adapted Austen's style, wit, character descriptions, and ability to whack you over the head with romance when you're not even ready for it yet. Siria is a very experienced fanfic writer, but writes for many fandoms, so I think that's maybe why it doesn't have that many hits? I'm so glad I clicked on it. I want to wrap myself up in this story. I want to make a podfic out of it. I want to put it on a t-shirt and wear it every day. Also, it's in a regency AU where homophobia isn't a thing, so you don't even have to worry about that. I want to tell you more, but that would spoil it. Just read the damn thing and thank me later.

@justwaiting23

You Were the Ocean, I Was Just a Stone by @al-ex-an-d-er-hamiltons

The image of a curly haired fisherman Patrick is enough but this whole fic is such a sweet concept. Their interactions in this are so reminiscent of the show but also so different because they already know each other vaguely, and I come back to this fic over and over just because it's the perfect mix of angsty miscommunication and fluff.

@maxbegone

Known and Be Known by ahurston

As someone who tends to lean toward canon/canon-divergent stories, this was a refreshing take on an AU. Beautifully written and wonderfully raw, ahurston conveyed the vulnerabilities between both David and Patrick so wonderfully. “The mortifying ordeal of being known,” personified in fanfiction format. With humor and some wonderfully hot scenes peppered throughout, this fic was just brilliant from start to finish. I love when authors explore Patrick's insecurities and vulnerabilities - they aren't written about as often as David's are. I implore you to read this, if you're able.

@patrickbrewsky

Bound by Symmetry by barelypink

They say write what you know. I instead read what I know. David is the accidentally fantastic teacher we all wished we'd had in high school, and some of us wish/hope we are or might be one day. This fic is a great exploration of combining everything David knows he is (creative, bright, v.knowledgeable about art) and all the things he thinks he's not (empathetic, a role model, great with kids, selfless, kind, & big hearted) The selling point quote: "And it feels good, David realizes, to have a job that means something, a purpose beyond himself. A place where he feels like he belongs, just like his students." (David Rose proves he is both a good and nice person).

@rockinhamburger

Blackbird, Fly by distractivate

This is a post-apocalyptic story about love, connection, and hope, with a central theme of growth from destruction. I could not put this one down; I read it feverishly in one sitting, desperate to soak up every word. I love this fic because it is what I like to think of as an exemplar for transformative works (one of ao3’s top values). I love the way the fic stretches toward the light in the dark. It makes me think: about the quintessential elements of these characters, what remains the same despite changed circumstance, and what inevitably shifts when these characters we know and love are faced with a situation far outside their experience or comfort. This story likely hits differently in 2020, when post-apocalyptic narratives feel much less distant than they might have just a year ago. And yet, all the more reason to read an incredible work about hope and resilience and transformation.

@roguebabyinyourstore

Fifteen Hundred Miles by MoreHuman

Where do I even begin with this fic? I was at first skeptical about what reason David Rose would have to willingly subject himself to a trek through the wilderness out of his own volition. Well I’m so glad I ignored that admittedly stupid part of me because this is one of the mostly beautifully crafted stories I have ever read. Patrick and David are individually on their own journeys of self-discovery, but the way they help each other find what they sought... It’s breathtaking. Their feelings for each other bloom so organically over their time together that despite the circumstances laid out before them, the miles that they stumble and walk and run bring them miles closer to each other. Closer to the love that they both didn’t know they needed. The characters come alive and are identical to their canon selves. The dialogue and banter are spot on David and Patrick. The writing itself is superb. The tropes are incredible, the pining and *oh no there’s only one tent.* The slow burn is tantalizing but in a way that feels true to a genuine love story. The way the setting somehow breathes in tune with the characters, the way they leave messages behind in the trail register—conveying more than they can utter aloud— and the way their families communicate with them throughout their time on the trail through letters. All of the elements of this story ground it in universal truth, in feelings that are not only relatable, believable but demand to be felt. I can wax poetic until I am blue in the face, but really... Read this story. And then reread it a million times.

@rosebuddsmotel

I Carry These Heart-Shapes Only to You by @ladyflowdi and @ships-to-sail

There are over 180,000 words in this WWII AU, but not one of those words is wasted. It is gorgeous in its prose, and incredibly romantic without romanticizing the very real pain and tragedies of the era in which it exists. It's not an easy read by any means, but it's the kind of cathartic emotional journey that is more than worth it in the end.

@stuck-on-your-heart

kiss from a rose by mihaly ( @davidroseshusband )

What can I say about this very special fic that would do it justice? In this story, Alexis stars in a Bachelorette-style dating show and it’s every bit as brilliant as it sounds. On top of the incredible characterization, there are little surprises at every turn, there’s pining, and of course, there’s love. Secret love, even. This fic is truly addicting – I promise you won’t be able to stop once you start reading, and it will leave you feeling so satisfied (and if you’re like me, a little misty)!!!

@the-13th-wheel

Hold Me Like You’ll Never Let Me Go by @mooodlighting

It is a wonderful short AU where Patrick and David where they meet at an airport after they get snowed in. It is cute, there is longing and pining that just make it a wonderful read!

@thedidipickles

Beneath the Winter Snow by Distractivate

The writing is so utterly gorgeous all the way throughout that I frequently needed to take breaks to breathe. The author *perfectly* builds an Olympic world that I can totally see my favorite characters inhabiting, and the resolution is gorgeous. All of Distractivate's AUs are amazing, but this one still stands out.

@thisbuildinghasfeelings

How Do We Get Back by @unfolded73

This one deals with a literal alternate universe, which is the first thing I loved about it because I had never read a fic quite like it before. It's a beautifully written 60,000+ word masterpiece that definitely makes me feel ALL the feelings. In addition, it is absolutely riveting. I could not stop reading until I got to the end.

@yourbuttervoicedbeau

Make It To Me by figmentof ( @rosesdavid )

Epistolatory fic is SO hard to pull off and the author does such an incredible job with the way the characters shine through even though we only see them interact via text message. This fic is my comfort food and I reread it regularly <3

Anonymous Recs:

Just Breathe by olivebranchesandredwine

I love this one because it's got Patrick as a yoga teacher (hot!) and shows David being proactive about anxiety and it's just such a lovely story.

Shall I Stay? by alladaydream ( @maybewecandreamalittle )

This is so worth the 100k wordcount. 18-year-old David and Patrick sweetly leaning into first love, a lot of angst and pining in the middle that allow them both to heal and grow, and a heartfelt reconciliation. Plus, two bonus cherries on top with artist!David and a beautiful epilogue in which they (spoiler) live happily ever after. The tone and pacing of this fic is so good, and I always go back to it when I want to read something comforting.

Your Heart is Keeping Time with Me by @yourbuttervoicedbeau

I haven't seen 50 First Dates, but this fic is better than the movie could ever be. The author's writing is so beautiful and her David who has amnesia and her Patrick who wants to help him are just PERFECT. I want more and more and more of this.

Once again, thank you to everyone who participated and thank you to every single person who has written something in this community! It would be wonderful to do a part three, but for now, enjoy some alternate universe fics!

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funknrolll · 4 years

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CHLOE X HALLE "UNGODLY HOUR": A JOURNEY THROUGH SELF-AFFIRMATIONS, VULNERABILITIES, STRENGHTS, PERSONAL AND ARTISTIC GROWTH. THE GEM WE DIDN'T KNOW WE NEEDED

Despite all the traumatic things that happened this year, summer 2020 is full of great new music we are totally in love with. One of the new albums that caught my attention is Ungodly Hour by the powerful duo Chloe x Halle. With Ungodly Hour, the Bailey sisters mark their coming of age, exploring a more adult territory. The new R&B record is indeed drenched in sultry harmonies, intricate beats, ravishing vocals, profound, empowering, at-times caustic lyrics.

The album was released one week later in solidarity of the Black Lives Matter protests and boasts the writing and production credited to the two sisters. With no further ado, let's discuss this new gem. A 28 seconds Intro opens Ungodly Hour with Chloe and Halle harmonizing together on the melodies of the next songs, then stating, "Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness." which sums up the whole concept of this work. Forgive Me with the melancholic harmonies accompanied by meticulous vocals and downtempo beat, is the perfect sorry-not really sorry breakup song in the face of a jerk who stole time with his lies and empty promises. As the artists sing in the previous song, "Best believe I move onto better things," the next track Baby Girl finds the pair moving into a new scary yet exciting new world full of adventures and independence. The complex and layered beats masterfully crafted by Chloe perfectly match the lo-fi harmonies. Segueing the laid back, vintage-flavored Do It is one more time about being independent, partying, having fun, not-"looking for boo," having a no drama mama kinda night. In Tipsy the straightforward biting lyrics, and the angelic vocals match the themes of the song excellently, "Better babe, you better treat me better (babe)/ Better than those other guys who change up like the weather,/ It is such a shame that they went missing, they can't find 'em now/Oh, I wonder how, I accidentally put them in the ground? Yeah". As we can see from these words, this is another sorry not sorry advise for a boy to not play with fire or else... Then the gorgeous 80s-verved title track is a perfect mix of infectious house beats and alluring vocals. Opening in a terrific soul vocalization in the taste of the glorious Motown Records and the Supremes, the classy R&B Busy Boy is ornated with gorgeous vocal complexities shifting from low notes to higher ones. One more time, the lyrics of the song are a metaphoric middle finger spurred in the face of a typical annoying "I know I can play with any girl I want" fuck-boy. Not this time, Kevin. Chloe and Halle don't want your unsolicited nasty pictures. Chloe and Halle didn't come here to play with you this time!! Next song the stringed-based with prominent hip-hop beats Catch Up boasts the collaboration with part of the hip-hop duo Rae Sremmurds, Swae Lee, and Mike Will Made-It, who also helped in the production process. What is impressive about this track is how the voices of the four artists work in perfect harmony with one another. Subsequentially, Overwhelmed is a short yet expressive piano-based interlude accompanied by gorgeous almost-acapella angelic voices polyphonically set, which works perfectly with the central themes.

With Overwhelmed, the duo addresses the feeling of helplessness exploring and diving into the deep vulnerabilities youth brings: feeling like not having everything figured out while the pressure keeps pushing, ultimately not knowing what to do and how to fix things "I don't know at all/ I wish I had all the answers/ Fix it all myself (oh)/ I feel overwhelmed." This is what the stunning interlude is all about: everyone can surely empathize with these genuine words. We all have been there. At least once. With Lonely, the duo gets back to the classy, insistent R&B beats, delving into the art of being alone as a moment and act of self-discovery, self-love, because after all, "It don't have to be lonely being alone." Segueing Don't Make It Harder On Me, is a sumptuous Motown-tinged, Never Can Say Goodbye by Jackson's 5 flavored with a touch of It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over by Lenny Kravitz, glistening sampled-stringed ballad. Wonder What She Thinks Of Me is yet another emotional stringed power ballad nestled with utterly striking and precise vocals. Closing the album ROYL, an effervescent anthem with trap beats resembling Lizzo's iconic anthem Truth Hurt. With this song the duo aims to remind themselves and the listener the uplifting truth, "You wanna fly, but you don't/ You holdin' on your wings/ Look to the sky, why don't you/ Live for the finer things?/ You know, you know, you know that you fine like that". Because to spread our wings and fly, we need to stop holding onto our wings and live, right?

With the superb, classy, and always precise vocals, its masterful production and empowering lyrics, Ungodly Hour is a beautiful not-always-comfortable voyage through the self-affirmations, ethos, vulnerabilities, strengths, of Chloe x Halle's personal and artistic growth and the passage from teenagerhood to womanhood. In the album, the protective layer of innocence dissolves, unraveling the artist's ending in approaching love naively, in turn sparking their awareness on the dangers of the lies and subterfuges deeply ingrained in it. There is so much strength and so much power in togetherness and sisterhood. There is so much empowerment from the two siblings whose constant message is to remain unapologetically true to themselves, being proud, gorgeous young women. Not only did the duo create Ungodly Hour to empower themselves. This work was, as well, conceived as a common salvific act for other women to relate to the artist's message. They really "Did It For The Girls." Ungodly Hour represented one of the first adult acts from the astonishingly talented duo, and I cannot wait to hear more from Chloe x Halle, and I am sure we will. This was just the beginning of a bright future awaiting them.

Thank you for your attention💜 G✨

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wild-aloof-rebel · 5 years

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Some Favorite Fics from 2019

Before I dive into my list, let me send out some love to ALL of the authors who have contributed fic to this fandom this year. There are well over 300 people who wrote Schitt’s Creek fic this year, and you’ve brought joy to so many people and should be super proud of what you’ve written, whether it was only 100 words or 100k. I’ve personally read more than 6.5 million words of fic in this fandom this year, and I want to thank you all for every single one of them. <3

Now, in continuing this year-end love fest we’ve had going on the last few days, I also want to highlight some of my favorite fics from this year. I decided to cut myself off at twenty fics or we’d end up with a list too big to be allowed, lol. I also decided to limit myself to one fic per author in order to spread the love around as much as possible; there would definitely be some repeat authors on this list otherwise.

And now with all that in mind, I’ll shut up and get on with it.

Here are twenty of my favorite fics from this year and what I love about them...

this roof is a blanket by withkissesfour • rated M • 3k+ I love Patrick-centric fics. He’s such a beautiful character, but because he isn’t one of the four Roses, we miss out on a lot of his pov in the show, so I’m always here for fics that try to capture that. And this one does it beautifully, focusing on four different but thematically-connected moments in Patrick’s life.

We’re Getting Something for Free by MoreHuman • rated G • 1k+ This is one of those fics where you can see how much Patrick KNOWS David and loves him for exactly who he is. His refusal to let David villainize himself for just being who he is makes my heart so very happy.

Heart of Gold by barelypink • rated M • 40k+ I love love LOVE a good AU, but AUs based on other media can be really tricky to get right. The best ones take elements from both sources and elevate them into something fresh and new, and this fic does exactly that.

now you see me by grapehyasynth • rated T • 4k+ Did I mention that I love AUs? I never get tired of seeing them meet in new ways, and their New York-set blind date in this one just makes me smile a whole hell of a lot.

I’m All Lost (in the supermarket) by sullymygoodname • rated G • 9k+ This fic combines David “Good Person” Rose, headless mannequins, tiny cardboard houses, karaoke, ugly sweaters, and all the friendship and shenanigans you can possibly stand. What’s not to love?

I know, I’m strange, too much light makes me nervous by another_Hero • rated T • 4k+ I’m so in love with the entire premise for this soulmate AU and everything that it says about love and the choices that we make because of it.

Pizza Night by smoulderandbraids • rated M • 4k+ Sometimes you just need to read about them making pizza and making out. Thank goodness this fic exists for those times. It’s a straightforward concept executed perfectly.

cinnamon sugar... by startswithhope • rated T • 1k+ All of startswithhope’s fics have a lovely softness to them that almost seems nostalgic, like you can feel yourself missing them before you’re even done reading them. This one I think captures that feeling best and most explicitly--David’s mood here is exactly that kind of nostalgia. And his thoughts about Stevie near the beginning are something that I’ve found myself thinking about over and over again since I first read this.

On My Way by Distractivate • rated M • 11k+ As much as I love the happy place that is this show, I also really love fic that acknowledges that sometimes relationships are hard, that things aren’t always perfect, that love is a CHOICE which has to be actively made again and again and again. This fic showcases exactly that. Love isn’t always easy, but choosing to love each other anyway is always worth it.

around us by lamphouse • rated G • 1k+ This one is a simple idea, written with a soft touch, and every time I re-read it, I’m crying by the time David says “I want to stand still.”

of all the riches. by falconeggs • rated T • 9k+ Who doesn’t love a good celebrity AU? This one is as cute as you could possibly want it to be, from their first meeting to taking their relationship public. It’s just a little slice of joy.

Overreacting by codswallop • rated M • 17k+ Fics dealing with hospital visits and illnesses and things of that sort can easily tip over into whumpy territory (which is totally fine if that’s what you’re looking for), but this fic goes a different direction and manages to be funny and sweet and charming while balancing the anxiety of waiting for news. David and Patrick’s dynamic here is so good; they’re both sharp and funny and vulnerable and messy in turn, joking like normal when they can, lifting each other up when they can’t.

101 by Hth • rated E • 8k+ Like I said, I love fics that acknowledge that things aren’t always perfect, and there’s nothing more rife for imperfection than a first night spent together. Their night at Stevie’s is the perfect setting for starting to navigate some difficult conversations, especially in the wake of Jake’s unexpected appearance, and this fic does a great job of getting them through the nerves and the talking and the the stops and starts of that night. And their last two lines of dialogue are perfection.

The Sidelines by wildhoneypie • rated T • 5k+ Comedy is so much harder to write than you might expect, and I am constantly awed by how well this fic does it. It feels effortless and in-character and in line with the kind of humor that beats at the heart of the show, all while still capturing that instant, playful attraction between David and Patrick. It’s just such a fun read.

holy sick divine by earlylight • rated T • 36k+ If the tags “Strangers who Met in a Field to Coworkers to Friends to Lovers” and “Paperwork - But Make It Sexy” don’t endear you to this fic before you even start it, I don’t know what to tell you. My favorite part of this story is actually the role reversal of Patrick being Stevie’s best friend, Patrick having dated Jake, etc. That’s just one way that this fic takes everything we know and turns it on its head, and it does it with good humor and such a strange sweetness. It’s utterly unique, and the final scene just burrows down into your heart and sets up house there.

A Fair Return by thingswithwings • rated E • 237k+ This is probably the most insanely well-crafted canon retelling I’ve seen in my life. It adds so much backstory to the show and makes you rethink scenes you know intimately, which is what any good canon retelling should do. The OCs and the ways they’re carved into the structure of the story we know are where this fic particularly shines; it’s so, so well done.

my heart was broke, my head was sore by blueink3• rated M • 31k+ I think the only thing better than fake dating might be the exact reverse: having to pretend you’re not dating when you are. Even though they’re technically together, there’s just so much opportunity for pining and angst (both of which blueink3 always does SO fucking well), and this fic takes that to another level by adding in the fragile newness of their relationship and the anxiety of a family medical scare. David is so, so careful with Patrick here, and I love every single word of it.

let’s go dancing in the light by goingmywaydoll • rated G • 2k+ It was so difficult to narrow this down to one fic by goingmywaydoll because I absolutely love everything she does, but ultimately I went with her first one for this fandom. I’m SUCH a sucker for David and Patrick seeing each other before the wedding, and David having anxiety about not having anxiety is pretty much the most David thing possible. The characterization, the dialogue, the whole entire mood of the fic--it’s all absolutely spot-on. This one is everything I could ever want from wedding fic.

for feelings unbound by wardo_wedidit • rated E • 20k+ Picking one single fic by wardo_wedidit was also a near-impossible task, but ultimately I had to go with this one because it’s honestly perfect. David’s empath abilities add SO much to his characterization and the trajectory of his relationship with Patrick, and it fills this fic with so many gorgeous moments that leave you feeling like maybe there really is magic in the world--and this fic has plenty of it.

Watching Through Windows by helvetica_upstart • rated E • 38k+ Every single moment of this fic is heartbreaking in the best possible way. Reading it is like cracking yourself open and then putting yourself back together a little stronger. Watching David learn about the man he’d grown into and have to decide if he wants to (or even can) become that man all over again is simultaneously gut-wrenching and soul-healing. And Patrick in this fic--god, what can I even say about him? He’s so understanding and GOOD, even when he’s terrified and heartbroken. He is absolutely everything. Everything. This story is 100% perfection from start to finish, and the bench scene in particular is hands down the best scene in any fic I’ve read this year.

#thank you to all the amazing authors in this fandom #you've kept me plenty busy and wonderfully entertained this year #here's to even more fic in 2020!#fic recs #long post

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beansprouts · 3 years

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Bean’s Eurovision 2021 Top 5!

(aka Bean’s Eurovision 2021 Song Ranking: Part 5)

This is the S-tier for me, and I would be ecstatic if any of the following artists won.

5) Manizha - Russian Woman [Russia]

I genuinely don’t understand how, Russia being the way it is, this pro-LGBT Tajik refugee utter goddess managed to catapult her modern feminist anthem to winning the Russian national competition. Maybe after charming everyone with internet darlings / rave trolls Little Big last year, Russia decided a conventional Eurovision act was for squares? Or maybe Manizha is just that good? Honestly probably a bit of both. This song is a tour de force. If you’re like me you might need multiple listens to be ready for it, because it exists somewhere outside of conventional genre expectations, but I promsie it’s worth it. If it wouldn’t be insulting to Manizha I would suggest it comes from an alternate universe where electronic music is more freeform and you could combine Russian girl-rap with a sick synth guitar (sitar??) drop without it being weird. I feel I need to mention again how good that drop is. It’s not a dubstep-type drop, but when that first beat kicks in you feel the energy, and it makes the subsequent slowdown for the lyrical belts (”Борются, борются Все по кругу борются, да не молятся”) all the more impactful. That her message reduced so many Russian viewers (and a fucking cultural committeeperson) to pearl-clutching only proves how much it’s needed. People hate to see an immigrant woman win. But, have you seen her? She’s fierce and she cannot be shut up <3

4) 10 Years - Daði og Gagnamagnið [Iceland]

If you follow my tumblr you’ve probably seen me reblog stuff about Daði Freyr, because I think he’s delightful and I love everything he does. In the wake of Hatari’s BDSM-with-a-message shaking the world in 2019, Iceland swung in the complete opposite direction in the best possible way by introducing us to Daði Freyr, potentially one of the most wholesome musicians of all time, and his high-school-found-family-turned-band-Gagnamagnið. Their 2020 song Think About things was written as a sort of letter of hope and acceptance to Freyr’s young daughter who’s too young to form opinions. It’s utterly charming and probably would have (deservedly) won last year’s Eurovision if the pandemic hadn’t caused it to be cancelled. 10 Years, in turn, is a love letter to Freyr’s wife, with whom he’s been married a decade. Freyr’s style is both unusual and distinctive: smooth and simple yet irrestibly catchy vocals, funky brass fills, and the gorgeous experimental synths of a self-trained internet hobbyist. His attachment to his old-school 8bit aesthetic makes him not just endearing to my own nerdy biases, but refreshing to a generation of Eurovision viewers tired of the overproduced and inauthentic bombastic power ballads of yesteryear. Freyr is clearly the musical genius of the group (as evidenced by his frequent covers, streams, and other fun experimental breadcrumbs he clearly releases just for the sheer fun of music) but I also love that he’s always surrounded by his buds. That one in the front is his wife :) You can tell they’re friends, you can tell they’re having such fun, and it’s a straight rush of serotonin to me and anyone else who goes buckwild for found family in fiction. I want to play video games with him. 🎵How does it keep getting better????👯‍♂️

3) Discoteque - The Roop [Lithuania]

The Roop’s Discoteque is the ultimate theme song for dancing by yourself in your room. That is it, I have condensed its essence into one sentence for you. It’s really not hard to get the appeal of that. Haven’t we all been trapped in our rooms for the past year? Don’t we all need to be told that “it is ok to dance alone”? I feel like The Roop made the accompanying dance simplistic for other viewers on purpose. Discoteque is for everyone. Discoteque is a sealed package of pure fun, and it’s addressed to everyone who has heard the chorus of this song. Even though everyone is isolated in their own home right now, we can do the dance ourselves, and it is ok to dance alone. Dance alone, dance alone, dance alone.... 🕺

2) SHUM - Go_A [Ukraine]

Songs like SHUM are the reason that Eurovision exists: a blend between Ukrainian folk (heralding the beginning of spring) and utterly banging hard techno. Where the fuck else would I find Ukrainian technofolk? And more importantly, where else would I find one that goes this hard? There’s a reason why in the past week I have seen videos of almost every Eurovision performer dancing to SHUM, and it’s because SHUM is a fucking banger. I’ve already posted that I think I played this song so much my neighbours are getting sick of it, and I’m trying to teach myself the Ukrainian lyrics. It’s not out of effort, really, it’s just because if you like EDM at all you will fall in love with this song and have it in your brain constantly, and next thing you know you’re learning Ukrainian folk tales about the metaphorical resonance of sowing hemp. It’s such a good song purely on a musical level that anything else it could offer is just extreneous, frankly. But we also have Kateryna Pavlenko’s god-tier cyberpunk queen aesthetic, Ihor’s brilliant flute-playing, and a genuinely very punk video of the band visiting Chernobyl to benefit from Go_A too. The band that never stops serving.

1) Dark Side - Blind Channel [Finland]

Ok, look, nobody is surprised to see me simp for the Finnish nu-metal band. But give me a few paragraphs to convince you that they (or at least this song) merit just a bit of simping. As a treat. From the perspective of Eurovision this song came pure out of left field: electronic pop and hard rock in a harmonious marriage the likes of which the music scene hasn’t seen in decades. Apparently they like to use the term “violent pop” to describe themselves. In many ways the feel like a Linkin Park revival, if maybe a bit more energetic: dark, emotionally vulnerable, and the kind of thing you would belt out in the shower on a bad day. It is also technically perfect. Considering the simplicity of the lyrics it’s easy to overlook all of the compositional details at play here, but from the vocal effects to every guitar riff to the drum solo in the bridge to the sheer energy of the performance, everything is both perfectly engineered to be musically effective yet authentically hard rock as fuck. These boys may have the aesthetic of someone who spends their days crawling out of dive bar dumpsters (affectionate) but they are extremely hardworking with their craft and I wasn’t surprised to see the release of their mini-documentary wherein it’s obvious they are working themselves ragged and should probably be getting more sleep. Not to forget, of course, the message of Dark Side. This song is a tribute to the outsider, to feeling lonely, to being emotionally stuck and needing release. It embodies catharsis. Every human out there (even though some may claim not to) know what it’s like to want to stick your middle finger up at everyone. And it’s that often-maligned part of you this band is channeling with this amazing rock song. I want Dark Side to win because I think, after 2020, what we as a society collectively need is to put our middle finger up, take a shot, throw it up and don’t stop.

Previous parts of my ESC 2021 song review: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

#eurovision #esc 2021 #beansprouts commentates #music review #long post #me? be late to my vaccination appointment because i had to get this out before the first semifinal? it's more likely than you think

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cronquette · 4 years

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:three:

Disclaimers:

-Dedicated to Julia/ Silverwolf735

-I do not own any of the Naruto franchise, all credit goes to Masashi Kishimoto

-More informal notes will be situated at the end of this chapter

Enjoy!

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It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom.

-Wallace Stevens

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“It really is an honour to do this, you know,”

Ino lathered her hands in rich, creamy serums to cleanse her digits, minutes prior washing them clean in water and drying them with a neat rag. She scrubbed generously across her skin, scrutinising the plain pinkette that sat obediently before her, hands held closely in her lap, a myriad of thoughts crossing her mind on whatever to do with the said girl. She hummed lowly, blonde brows knitting in concentration, precision crossing her mind in seaming hatches. She took her index fingers and thumbs and created the scene of a picture between her pale hands, switching portrait to landscape, picturing her close friend in many different styles, each resulting in the Haruno looking absolutely breathtaking. She sloppily grinned, her tongue peaking out of the right corner of her lips; she was utterly excited, and yet terrified at the same time.

Senju Tsunade had entrusted her with the looks of her daughter-figure. There was no question she would push her limits just to add the extra effort in for Sakura. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her, nonetheless. Having the decency and poise for such a role, Ino felt such gratitude, she almost shed tears towards the news. She knew this event would momentarily approach, but since the morning of their breakfast, resting on the patio and chatting hour’s talk within just a few minutes, the days seemed to fly faster than an icarus soaring towards the sun.

And now, now was the day she would have to bear the worry of saying goodbye. Of letting go of a rope she had been tugging on for so long, only to realise her attempts at keeping the tide at bay were futile-- Sakura’s dreams and pursuits were not one for her to interfere, and she would certainly not object to crushing her faith in the world outside the trees that had shielded their forms for so long. She wasn’t so cruel as to drag the pinkette’s mind back to her own ground, for although their opinions on what they would serve to do in the adult world would forever remain sparse, she would also forever support the decisions that would take place in her mind. And vice versa. That, along with others, was one strong thread that had sewn Ino a scarf of belief that Sakura would keep strong and firm, would never falter, and would step up as her identity as a witch. She may have to mask that fact in return of unpromised safety, but there would always be that place in her heart that wouldn’t deny herself of her person. Of her lineage.

“What mood are you feeling right now, Forehead?”

Crystal orbs witnessed emerald globes gleam with calculation, trying to discern her pooling emotions balling up in her stomach.

Haruno Sakura had waited years for this-- a decade at most. She had always dreamed of being able to step out between the last two wooden pillars that were the trees that loomed over the warlocks and sorceresses that took residence in said place. There was yet so much to be processed, and yet all she could focus on was the way the Yamanaka’s eyes were trailing over her features, searching like a fine tooth comb, in preparation for the ceremony that was to take place hours after this. She pressed her rosy lips in a thin line, her legs begging to move--to jiggle-- for she was anxious. Never in her life would she imagine to have gotten this far.

The biggest stepping stone prior to this was to convince Shishou to agree with her risky plans. With the way the coven was run, no one expected her to be crowned the Senju’s successor, for bloodline wasn’t accounted for.

Even with the given circumstances-- the two females were not blood related.

With a sharp intake of breath, Sakura stared into the small mirror that sat at her side, portraying her reflection. Her seafoam eyes glistened with a sense of fierceness she had never thought she could exhibit. She searched, her calculating expression causing her brows to furrow, to find the features she had developed through her late mother.

Of course, the colour of her orbs was a definite fact; through her mentor’s words and rutting, few paintings she had of her, she was able to make out the distinct similarities they both shared. Hers just was a tad lighter, and along with portraying the colour of the evergreen lush shades of the forest, she also had the vision of spring splayed like cataracts across her promising eyes. A sign of hope, a sign of happiness.

“What would you do if you were here, mama…” she lowly whispered, burying her head in thick strands of her rose tufts, her features swelling downwards.

“Did you say something, Sakura?”

“No,” she jumped at the presence of Ino, forgetting she was also in the room. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders to prove her case.

“I have the perfect look for you Forehead. Just you wait!”

As the blonde dressed and primmed her, she wondered if a talk with Tsunade would help to understand her mother further.

She was never used to wearing such a thick, sprawling gown, but here she was, staring at the person in her reflection-- proud and determined.

Ino really had worked her magic to the fullest potential; she really did look gorgeous.

She wore a white, puffed-sleeved shemise decorated with lace at the cuffs, and around her waist sat a hip pad, tied securely to later on serve the purpose of keeping her petticoats upright and voluptuous. She wore two layers of thick duvets, pleated at her backside hip and profound in accentuating her growing curves. They were both coloured a dark, mesmerising red that gave more life to her softer features, such as her lotus locks.

Her bodice was black, but her stomacher a shade lighter than to what her skirt was. The ribbons laced soothingly around alternate holes, fastening her chest tight. A shawl was twisted modestly over her shoulders to mask her bare, creamy skin, and her legs were covered with stockings, held in place with a simple lace garter. Her leather shoes had a clinky heel to them, which made her an inch taller. She felt as if she had moved up in the world.

Her locks had been braided neatly and swirled into an uptied bun, some strands decorating her face with pink curls. They were decorated with crimson ribbons and her namesake-- artificial ones, that is, Tsunade carefully crafted them for the purpose of adding to her outfit. She looked ethereal, a goddess put forth as the wielder of beauty, and once the moon had arrived to witness her, it was as if she overshadowed the face of light itself, creating merely a substance of glimmer to her rich luminous figure.

Tsunade paid her a visit, later on, when her errands had been fulfilled and she had made sure that everything was in order and in serenity’s embrace had she finally had the time to approach the dear girl. She found her sitting down on the dining table, her usual seat occupied as per usual, but for whatever reason, she looked so small, so frail and fragile, so vulnerable in that moment, that it seemed she was about to break. Her shoulders hung lowly, her head tipped down, her pale, gloved hands sitting perfectly in the centre of her lap.

“Sakura? Is anything the matter?”

She sprung up, like a late flower in Spring, her green orbs encased with gleaming surprise, but she instantly retained her posture once she had a hold of the person in the room.

“S-Shishou,” she greeted, a sense of flustered manner bestowed within her. A tinge of pink dissipated across her face.

“I was only deep in thought, I didn’t mean to stir any worry.”

The elder woman came towards her, prodding the youth to retreat back to her chair. She gazed upon the young lady with fine pride, studying her features, seeing her here was a reminder that an old friend was still by her side, and had entrusted her with the greatest gift she could ever give.

“If I may, would you tell me what’s plaguing your mind, dear?”

It was without hesitation that she spoke, her tone filled with the strength of a rock as she looked at her mentor directly in the eye.

“My mother. What would she have thought?”

She was old enough to handle it-- the both of them had acknowledged that fact, Sakura taking advantage of the situation, and therefore having the upper hand. All that was said was needed to be declared, and she had been given her answers. It was then that the Haruno felt truly prepared to take part in her ritual.

The ceremony commenced the moment the hand stroke it’s twentieth chime, where as Sakura stood on a marble podium enlarged for a huge cauldron, bubbling with excitement and steaming with delight, and the Mistress herself, the one entirely building the future of the pinkette at that current moment. Everyone from the coven had hurried to observe such an illustrious event, one that such would fill the night entirely with gossip and chatter, small grins of revelation or astounded faces with no other way to convey their reaction.

Whatever it was, all present of the ceremony knew that Haruno Sakura was about to be crowned her jewel, her birthright, the precise channeling of her chakra. She was about to receive it-- all in her very possession, and fret not, for she wasn’t as nervous as what one would have expected. Here she was, being granted permission to finally use her energy fully for the good of the world. There was nothing more she wanted to do, anyway.

Other than step outside the barrier of woodland to discover things beyond her own measure, places she would have only befallen in dreams.

“Haruno Sakura,” the deep voice boomed before her, yet it only made her stand taller before her mother figure, proud and prepared to cross a new bridge in her life.

“Shishou,” she nodded firmly, knowing this and a couple more times into the night will most probably be the last time she could call that name before she would wander off to her own devices.

“The moon is full; your time is nigh.”

She held her subtle breath as she made her way towards the erupting pot, gleaming under the moonlight. She pulled her lids to a close, focusing on every ounce of what she had been taught over the years, days of pouring her heart and soul into her studies flashing before her, memory by memory, as she recollected what she had garnered through the assistance of the dear Senju. Her right hand stretched out, merely feeling the course of ripples dancing through the spherical large sustainer.

Allow yourself to release chakra onto it, Sakura. You will know you have done enough when you will feel an equal amount of force thrusting towards your palm. Do not stop your motions, or rather fear it; you must persevere until the ritual is done. I highly believe in your capability.

Do it.

She could hear that strong, booming voice coaxing her, drumming through her like a streak of lightning, empowering her. She slowly let loose, feeling cold, energetic waves course through her veins and release through the centre of her palm. Through the darkness of her shielding lids she could feel a glint of blue being lit ablaze as she did so, proving that she was indeed exhibiting her energy towards the concoction. She had never gotten enough time to study the ingredients laden within the black tub, but she knew its purpose. Tsunade had bestowed a specific spell to help conjure her birthright-- birthstone that would have best suited her, something she would eternally have, that would be in her possession only.

Steadily, she felt something intangible begin to plow through to her. It wasn’t as strong as the force she had been applying, but something told her it would gradually increase, so she strengthened her pose and focused more on the task at hand. Being put in a silent crowd of spectators was a little overwhelming, however the process of the ritual alone was not a prospect that daunted her predominantly.

She reached the pinnacle of her strength, and under the moon’s supervision, a bright, warm, glowing emerald ascended in front of her, blinding the crowds with its awesome wonder. She became mesmerised by it; the stone the length of her hand, but she knew not to touch it-- not at that very moment.

But soon.

She stared at it, floating stationary in the air, her small mouth hung agape at it. She could feel energy of her own adorning such a green crystal, unbeknownst to her, the jewel created a beacon of light shedding flecks of green against her already beaming orbs, unintentionally making them shine with further fervour.

Her palm hovered over it, her body drew closer and closer, until the cauldron was the only obstacle that prevented her front standing right next to it. Her index, timid and slightly trembling from use of chakra, touched the surface of the jewel. She hadn’t expected anything, it’s rigid layers crumpled, yet the centre smooth, its opaque rocky form provided something cool to touch; her brow marred slightly-- twitching at most-- as her fingers traced the vertices of the object.

From behind her, she couldn’t see the soft smile Tsunade had given her as she watched the said girl inspect her birthright. The blonde woman looked to the crowd, and giving a firm nod, they began to shatter the silence brought forth for the prior concentration needed, and rather, the palace was now filled with clamour. It sent jolts of merriment through her, and tears stung lovingly at her eyes.

Sixteen years...sixteen years was the amount of time she had been able to keep her sheltered. Now, she would have to heavily grasp onto the mere hours she had left, feeling the girl already slipping from her fingers like an hourglass, a loose thread through a sewing needle. She’d done her part, and well, for most could see the lovely young lady Sakura had blossomed to be, but she saw it coming that it was only a matter of time before her mind would drift to higher lights, to things beyond her knowledge. With a mind like her mother’s, that wasn’t hard to gather.

So when a reception had begun, she sat herself further from view of the most part, sipping daintily on a bottle of fine sake, the rice wine tickling the inside of her throat and burning with utmost force, but she paid no heed to it. She’d done her part, the upbringing of a daughter that was not hers, but would always be regarded as one, but she felt as if she hadn’t done enough. She wanted to scourge all she could from the night, but as well as it being young, time flew quickly. Her head spun with the possible outcomes of approaching her. It was most likely that she was speaking with friends one last time, and it wouldn’t seem right to disturb her, but at the same time…

She sighed, a puff of steam emitted into the fresh cold night air, deciding her next taste of sake would be a heavy swig, the juice coating her mouth as she did so. She swallowed bitterly, her tongue clicking in hardness as she squinted to the sky. The winking stars were not so prominent this night as they had been others, but she took it as a sign for a specific pinkette to have shone the brightest out of all, and she left it at that.

She remembered a day similar to this, when she received her stone. She quickly found a strong bamboo stick to wind around it, to protect it, steady and firm, such as herself. Her mood and burdens lifted at that. Her youth had long gone and surpassed her, she knew that, but she was also the last of her time, at least, to her. There had been no need to talk of such trivial needs alike to her younger days. She combed stray tufts of her locks that tickled her face, gently tucking them back, and then in a weak attempt she tried to find locks of pink in the crowds of celebrating people.

She was so weary that she didn’t see the ravenette that slowly approached her.

The breath was knocked out cold from the pinkette when she observed the huge palace of foods and tables set out before them invitingly, warmly, prodding everyone to take a share.

There were tables, covered with cream linen cloths, surrounding the expected perimeter, as it was all open air, the event. And on those tables sat platters of hot, mouth watering dishes that sent strings of steam into the night air, lapping enticingly for consumers. There were oil lamps too, to keep the evening bright and warm for everyone to sit around and just talk. It was all so comforting, especially as she knew it would be the last in a while that she could sit down and let all her worries waft away with the nightly breeze, laughing and talking with the dearest people cherished in her beating heart.

She was sixteen years of age, and yet she still felt like a small child, not ready to let go of the hand of the ones she trusted most, tender and helpless. But she would not permit anyone to see her that way. She would remain sturdy until time’s end. She felt a light feathery touch on her almost bare left shoulder, heat resonating between the two. There, she turned around to meet sky blue eyes gleaming with such happiness that coaxed her to smile as much back.

“So, how’s it feel to be sixteen?”

The Yamanaka had found the two a table relatively close to the plates of food scattered around, figuring her appetite must have arisen during the ceremony. She gestured for the blonde girl to have her share, only waiting until she was satisfied with her portion and had sat down to properly converse.

“How long did I take during the ritual?”

“About twenty minutes…? I always knew these types of things would take an enormous effort in time, but what really bugged me was the old hag standing next to me. She was muttering spells this and that under her breath, and it vexed me so,” she feigned hurt, dramatically sighing herself down onto the table’s masked surface. She quickly sat back up, however, to take a bite out of an umeboshi filling of an onigiri. She shuffled the ball of rice before taking a small nibble at its peak, daintily chewing. This only retracted a light hearted snort from the rosette. She lad herself back comfortably onto the back of her chair, her arms folded neatly under her biceps, rolling her eyes playfully as she watched her friend eat.

“You might want to have one last moment with Tsunade-sama, you know. We’ve all seen how she resorts to all her problems. And it’s annoying how she becomes. I doubt an occasion like this would not leave her like this. The effect you have on her is entertaining,” Sakura gasped as she saw the Yamanaka chug a quick shot sake, roughly setting the small glass down and then exhaling heavily, a drunken smile on her face.

“Pig! You’re not even of age yet! What if someone catches you?!”

“To hell with it, I won’t get as bad as that, and I’ll be sensible. Don’t start acting like Okaa-san just because you’re now a full fledged witch, Forehead. You’ll never hear the end of it from me,” She gave a sly grin.

The Haruno herself only nibbled on such light delicacies, such as a couple steaming takoyaki stringed with brown glaze, mayonnaise, aonori and flickery bonito flakes. It took up some of her appetite before having a small bowl of anmitsu, which had set her straight for the night. She did not drink, even though she was now technically permitted to do so, she wanted no distractions towards her journey out of the woods; she made her mind to stay sensible. Had it been anything else, she would’ve taken a responsible sip, perhaps under the supervision of her mentor.

Speaking of the said woman, she knew she wouldn’t be able to withdraw from the myriad of congratulations she was to receive from everyone, so she deduced that she would not cross paths with the aforementioned Senju. Bitter, she pondered, but it wasn’t impossible for her not to meet before her departure. She highly doubted the woman would miss it, anyway. So she bypassed everyone with suave and ease, greeting them patiently, waiting for the daylight to rise, for the sun to come once again, and then, then, she would finally reach the dreams she had barely been grasping just a few months ago.

“You’re going to miss her, Tsunade-sama. I think we all will.”

Shizune had taken her seat besides the woman at her own accord, cautious not to stir up a riot with the Senju-- she knew enough that the former was beginning to feel light-headed. She peeked through her curtain of dark locks to see her expression.

“Shizune.”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“You remember what happened all those years ago…” She concluded the woman was beginning to stir with fatigue, her lids grew heavy and her hold on the now empty bottle began to fall loose, not so much as to drop it, but slightly softer than before. And plus, she would never disclose information, perhaps this time phrased as a question, out in the open. This alike.

So, Shizune took it rhetorically.

“Why don’t you retire for today, Tsunade-sama? You’ve done so much to prepare for this day…” Her head hung low as the blonde turned to look at her. She couldn’t decipher her expression, much less know that she was staring at her at all, for the short haired woman was searching the pebbles and soiled ground, not meeting her syrupy brown eyes. When she heard a light snore however, the Kato fought the urge to burst out in a fit of laughter, holding the Senju’s weight against her as she sluggishly dragged the both of them towards Tsunade’s abode.

It gave her both a sense of relief and alighting hope that she could let her guard down so easily; the last few months, no, years, had deprived her enough of her sleep and happiness. The only joy was Sakura, but now that she would entirely leave for God knows how long, she doubted the elder woman would be able to comfortably rest without her terrors frequenting her mind. She softened her gaze at the tipsy blonde, content with the fact that at least now, she could be snug in her own skin, if not for a little while.

The festive occasion was buried well into the night, further prolonging the early hours of the morning. Which decreed Sakura sleepless when she was quickly checking the supplies she had prepared for her unknown trip. She dressed lightly, unlike a few hours prior when her hips sagged petticoats and her bodice fit with many layers of cotton. Her hair was fully plaited high up, her baby strands hanging loose, stretching out statically, but would not be seen either way as she masked from the hairline and down to the nape of her neck, a light veil, a wimple, that prevented any persons from seeing the concealed pink within. Convenient, and subtly neat, she knew, and she would not grab attention from anyone who lay dully as a stranger to her.

Signo!

Her eyes caught her heap of scrolls sitting idly, cornering the room and gathering dust. She had sealed within them some of her more heavy luggage, so she found it simple to place them in light sheets of tattered paper for now. She placed them into her sac, a brown, old, worn out bag that yet still carried a lot and had mustered so much throughout its time. Apparently, its previous owner had been her mother. She wanted to still keep a piece of her with the pinkette, aside from her notes scripted in her recounts and a small, delicate painting of her.

She leisurely closed the door behind her, fretful that she would cause enough noise to wake the whole coven up. Thankfully, she didn’t, and set off towards the edge of the forest. She was nearing the barrier when she saw two figures up ahead, seemingly awaiting her arrival.

“Ino; Shishou…”

She trailed off, her brows shaking with utmost emotion she could not contain. She smiled, but her bittersweet beam meant nothing short of a goodbye. It was fruitless if they were to stop her now-- she had made up her mind on what she was going to do, and she’s carrying it out now. But she knew better: they were wanting their farewells to be the absolute last and most meaningful to her, something she would regard in her memory when travelling vast plains, when seeing the moon arise, and then fall.

“Forehead!”

She nodded towards the younger blonde, not long before the latter collapsed her whole figure on the Haruno, pulling her into a bone crushing hug as she let her tears free, dampening the rosette’s shoulder with her salty droplets.

Sakura chuckled sadly, “I’ll miss you too, Pig.”

“Don’t die, dammit. Take good care of yourself, eat well, and just-- just, come back someday. I don’t think I’ll survive forever without you.”

She rubbed circles on the Yamanka’s back to solemnly comfort her. She nodded, making sure of that fact.

“Don’t worry; I’ll visit once in a while.”

“You better.”

That wasn’t from the blonde she was currently in contact, rather, it was the other blonde, the elder in their place, her arms weakly crossed, slightly smiling at her own form. She could make out the heavy bags that drowned her mentor’s lids. It brought a sad feeling to swell up in her chest.

“Don’t push yourself too much, Tsunade-sama. I know first-hand how much you love to do that.”

She nodded firmly, then, taking her small palm into hers, she closed her eyes, gripping tighter, as if memorising each and every inch of her skin. When she opened her eyes, a fresher, more youthful smile appeared on her face.

“As to you, my dear.”

Sakura had used her chakra fueled from her emerald to set off, waving one final goodbye to the place she would forever know as her childhood, her home. She was yet to craft a rod to help with the weight of her brilliant stone, but for now, she would worry about what lay ahead of her. It was hours of walking to completely free herself of the woodland, but she knew she could make it. Her limits were definitely more stronger than a couple hours of walking.

Each step further and further away led her feeling such exhilaration, that when she approached a sea of creamy mist, she felt her heart bursting with frisson of not knowing what was there. She steadily walked through it, the grey fog whispering around her. She was not afraid, as she strode further until she could clearly see the break of the sun’s beaming rays,

And a bustling village full of humans lying ahead.

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

Hi again! I’m back with another chapter. How was it? Please leave some sort of feedback for me as I would love to take some constructive criticism from my readers. I’ve been so on and off with this chapter, but I’m decently satisfied with what I’ve done in it.

Thank you, as always, for proof-reading, Julia.

Until next time, goodbye!

-Writer

#CCaCC chapter three SasuSaku witchau

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treatian · 4 years

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The Chronicles of the Dark One: The Dark Curse

Chapter 218: The Last Visitor

"Oh, you're back already! Good! Good thing!" he piqued, his voice involuntarily going up a few octaves more than he'd meant to. That had nothing to do with his crafted persona and everything to do with the pounding in his heart. He turned away and back to the wheel; with any luck, she'd go back to read, and it would just be an ordinary night. "I'm, uh…I'm nearly out of straw," he swallowed nervously again.

How was it she had the power to take a centuries-old, cursed Dark One and make him just as nervous as an average fourteen-year-old boy?!

"Mmm," she responded, hurrying over to him and setting the basket down on the platform. "Come on…you're happy I'm back!" she smiled, meeting his gaze through the wheel.

She knew. Of course, she knew. She always knew him better than anyone ever had. She was a highly perceptive woman. Beautiful and smart. How could he ever dream of casting her aside? How could he not be happy to see her?

"I'm pleased you've returned," he found himself admitting, wishing those were the words he'd actually said. There was no mistaking it now. She was blushing, a beautiful rose color that complimented her smile perfectly.

Oh, she needed to sit down. Now! He waited with bated breath for her to round his back as he knew she would because this was the moment he'd played over and over again in his head more than any others with her. He didn't even bother to try and spin because he knew he wouldn't be able to focus the moment he felt her hands on his shoulders, her breath on his neck, and her eyes on him. He knew it was no use. He couldn't focus if he'd tried, not with her heart humming the way it was, alive, and so close to his own.

"And, uh, you promised me a story," she whispered behind him.

He glanced up at her. "Did I?" Had he? He couldn't remember. His brain wasn't moving as fast as it normally was in this place. Her distinct scent, the smell of roses and lemons and fire, was overwhelming the grain and wood. He'd forgotten she smelled of lemons…

She made a sound that confirmed he had made her that deal, then reached down and boldly plucked the string he held from his hands. She made herself comfortable next to him, too close, perhaps. She sorted her skirts around her, and he wondered how he'd never known a human body could fit there so perfectly before. Then, before he could move or step out of the space and away from her, she did the unthinkable. She reached forward and put her hand against his leg. Delicate, beautiful, slightly shaking itself.

She sighed suddenly and shook her head, her hand steading. "Tell me about your son."

His stomach dropped. The words were sobering or would have been if they didn't make him so uncomfortable. That was the story he'd promised her. He remembered now. If she returned from town, he would tell her about himself. He'd made a mistake. He'd made that mistake before, but he knew this wouldn't be one. He could tell her, she'd understand, he just knew she would! He wanted to tell her, just like he had for the longest time, but he just couldn't put the necessary words together. But they'd had a deal…

"I…" he tapped his fingers together, suddenly feeling nervous under her gaze, and then did what he should have done all along. His hand sought her own. It covered the one that she'd placed on his leg and trembled with her. Could she read his mind? See his thoughts? Know the loop he would play this conversation on in his mind for the next few years to come? Could he break it? Oh, how he wished he could.

"I lost him," he admitted, stroking the back of her hand to calm her. "There's nothing more to tell really…"

He held his breath, wondering if she'd question further, waiting for her to respond, wanting her to question further so that he could answer her. She wouldn't be like the others who knew. She wouldn't take advantage of him or the information. He just knew it.

"And since then," she went on, the grip she had on his leg loosened, and she turned her hand over, allowing her fingers to skim over the palm of his hand, sending sparks of magic into his brain, "you've loved no one, and no one has loved you."

No. It wasn't true. Not anymore. It had been at one time, but now he knew he did love someone beyond his son. And she loved him. No matter what he'd done, she loved him. That was something to hold onto.

He found himself leaning forward, closer to her. He felt his heart flutter, his stomach twist as he stared into her eyes. He'd never felt this way about anyone.

"Why did you come back?" he asked, his voice no more a serious whisper between the two of them.

"I wasn't going to," she whispered back, looking him over. "But, then…I had a talk with someone and…she changed my mind, but…but not the way I felt. I knew that even before I'd left here. Can you trust me? Do you?"

"Can you trust me? After all, I've done to push you away? Would you?" he asked back.

Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded. And suddenly the world seemed to slow around them as she moved closer, so close he could feel her breath upon his cheek and yet…she wasn't close enough!

Before his mind could form a coherent thought, his eyes closed, and he moved forward to let her do what he'd wanted to for months now.

They kissed.

And it felt indescribable. It was just a kiss, just her lips brushing against his. But it was everything he remembered it had been, something different than he'd ever experience. Less abrasive than Cora's, more meaningful than Milah's, and enough to make him completely and utterly regret the rampage that had followed. A pure, genuine, heartfelt kiss. When he realized he was kissing her back, he wanted to change it. He'd never felt like he was melting before, but he felt that way now. He felt dizzy, his throat dry, his palms sweaty. He felt more human than he'd felt in a long time. Since before Bae left.

It was as better than he'd imagined it would be. It made him feel settled in a way that he hadn't expected, and the moment they'd pulled away from each other, his hands sought her waist. He wanted to kiss her again, to hold her close as he'd dreamed about, and descend into euphoria with her shamelessly. He didn't want to be apart from her for the rest of his life.

"Oh, what's happening to me," he muttered, astounded at all the feelings and sensations working their way from his mouth through his body.

Her hands were at his neck, against his cheeks, intimately brushing away hair, as he opened his eyes and struggled to find her face. Why did the room seem duller next to her all a sudden? Why was he struggling to see in the dark next to her radiant light?

"Kiss me again. It's working!" she exclaimed.

"What is?"

She smiled. "All curses can be broken," she whispered as an explanation. Oh yes…all curses could be broken. And how he wanted his curse to be broken. The curse that his life was the curse that it had been. So he drew her closer, he moved closer to her. He kissed her again. A slow ache returned to his ankle, a familiar friend. His strength, his power seeped out of his very pores. The tingle he wasn't aware that he felt every second since taking on his curse slowly left his body as his nose filled with a scent that wasn't his own. It was hers. It belonged to Belle, and he'd be content all the days of his life to smell nothing but that.

"Oh, Belle," he whispered when she stood and straddled his lap. He looked up into her eyes. They weren't as clear as they had been while he'd had his powers. But it was gorgeous in the low light of the fireplace. Low light. He hadn't seen lowlight in over one hundred years. And never, never, had he seen anything as beautiful as she was. "I love you," he whispered.

Her smile grew, it spread across her face so that it touched every part of her, her eyes smiled, her forehead participated, even her nose seemed happier. "And I love you, Rumpelstiltskin."

"I want to tell you everything."

"Tell me. I want to help."

So he told her everything. It helped.

He could have relished in that false memory for as long as he lived. He could have relaxed in it and pretended it was the truth for eons just to bask in her a little bit longer than he had in reality.

But something stirred him from his stupor far earlier than he would have liked it too.

This wasn't a simple spell, one that could be said and done in a snap. It was the greatest Curse of them all. It was going to take some time to cover the land. From a single source, the cloud would grow and double and double and double until it spread everywhere and did its work. It was so powerful it would leak into other Realms if that's what Regina wanted. It wouldn't affect those realms as it did this one, devastating the land by tearing it to pieces, but it would freeze time and enable her to pull forth individuals if she wanted. Though…he couldn't imagine who she would want to pull when she was so stuck on those in this land.

He could feel her there. He could feel her easier than ever. The Curse was growing. It was close, so close he could taste it! The magic in the air was overwhelming enough that he could leave if he truly wanted to. But he didn't; there was no point. He had no one that he wanted to see, no one to kiss good-bye. And apparently, neither did the little mouse who had snuck uselessly into the mines to see him.

"I'm waiting!" he cried, pressing his face to the bars as the Evil Queen materialized outside his cage with her back to him. She still wasn't thinking long term and probably never would. She'd snuck in here as if afraid she'd be caught, but she'd just cast the most powerful Curse in all the realms. Who was going to catch her?! Besides…all the guards had abandoned their jobs to go to their own families. They were the ones who had no one except each other, a fine bit of irony that was. "What took you so long?"

"You know what took so long," she grinned, turning to face him. She grinned…but something was missing from that grin. Satisfaction. The Curse was complete, but she wasn't satisfied. It was all part of the cost of the magic she'd unleashed…she never would be satisfied.

"Oh, yes. The Curse. You did it."

"That's right. I did it. And I wanted you to know it before you, like all the other pathetic denizens of this wretched land, forgets everything."

He smiled and leaned up on the bars. "How did it feel?"

"Watching the curse cloud form? Felt like victory."

"No!" he laughed. "How did you feel to kill the thing you love most? Ripping the heart out of your father?" she winced, her guard falling for just a second before she got it back in place. "How did that feel?"

"It was the price of the Curse," she dismissed. "How it felt doesn't matter. He would have understood. I took my life back. I had to. I won."

Oh, the poor foolish child. And to think she'd ever had dreams she might one day be a greater sorcerer than he when she didn't even understand the difference in a curse between "sacrifice" and "price."

"And yet, here you are. Feeling the need to gloat. Something's missing, isn't it, dearie?"

"Not at all," she smiled. They were dancing, moving back and forth between the bars. He was moving, leading, she was following, looking him in the eye, getting up close in his face, seeking satisfaction that no one would ever be able to give her, not as long as her curse reigned supreme. "I have everything I want. Nothing can stop me now."

Nothing. He'd told her there was something the last time she'd visited, and yet she still wasn't listening—poor girl. The irony was that if she'd actually cast the Curse when he'd first given it to her, then things would be different. Perhaps he should be grateful for her stubbornness.

"Not quite."

"What does that mean?"

"The savior, the child of Snow White and Prince Charming."

Regina sighed and rolled her eyes at his remark as if it was nothing.

"She can stop you," he reminded her. "She can break the Curse."

"Well, looks like getting rid of a baby made my to-do list."

Stubbornness, again. He had nothing to fear. Everything the Seer had ever said would come to pass had come to pass. He trusted she'd make it out.

"Of course, it did. But even if you succeed with that, you have an even bigger problem!"

She eyed him with curiosity. Curiosity he was all too happy to smother. Oh, the Seer, that blessed woman, put vision after vision of Regina in his head at just the right time.

Regina-a straight plain haircut in smart clothes that lacked the sex appeal she had now.

"Gold, I need help."

"I need your help."

"Help me."

"There's something I want."

"Help us, Gold."

"Help", "Help", "Help". Vision after vision, time after time. Her clothes changed, her hair varied slightly in each, but the meaning was clear…this wasn't to end here.

"Now, there's a hole in your heart, and someday you will come to me to fill it."

She shook her head and looked him over with disgust. "You overestimate your powers of foresight," she breathed before turning from him.

"And you underestimate the price of what you've done!" he cried after her. "You shall see! You will come to me! There is more you need! Oh!" he rang out in a sing-song voice.

Regina's anger flared as she turned to him, her cloak billowing out around her. "Your taunts will get you nowhere! I know you too well. You want to make another deal. Well, I won't."

"A deal?" he laughed. "You already promised me a good life in this new land. What more than I want from you?"

"Oh, to be let out of this cage," she guessed, looking around. "To be let out of our last deal. To escape the curse."

"But why would I desire that, dearie? I'm exactly where I want to be." Regina's eyes widened as she reeled back.

"You planned this?" she muttered.

"How could I?" he laughed. "After all…I overestimate my power of foresight."

"What have you done?!" she cried as he turned away from her. "Tell me!" she screamed as he took a seat on the opposite wall and crossed one leg over the other, waiting patiently for the inevitable. Regina let her hands slam into the bars, let her face press against them in desperation, and he smiled. Now it was she in the cage. "I have something of yours!" Regina finally cried. "Something precious, something you'll want more than whatever secrets you hold dear, tell me, and I'll return it to you."

No. That was unlikely. Baelfire was in another world, Belle was dead, thanks to Regina, and everything else he needed or wanted would be coming back to him as soon as the curse was complete.

"There's nothing you have I want dearie…perhaps I just want to stop you from reaching the child before she escapes you," he smiled sinisterly. "Though...bit of advice, dearie...remember...if the Savior is killed...your Curse will be finished before it even begins."

"Then I'll take her from her parents and make sure she never knows who she is!"

"Well, then...I guess you better hurry. I can feel the magic brewing outside this place. I imagine you don't have long before it hits."

Regina's nose flared, her eyes went wide and wild. And then she was gone

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Belle #Evil Queen #Regina #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfic

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hejer-maomao · 6 years

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Hewwo I am back and am asking to see if I am request again. Can I get Luka and Edgar with a insecure s/o who doesn't really like herself? uwu

Hewwo! (Oh my, your greeting is so cute) Of course you are welcome to request again ❤

This ask is just too pure for words! It also strikes a sensitive cord in my heart as well, as I personally struggled a lot with self-hate and insecurity for a long, long time, and I have only started to learn how to love myself very recently.

It’s a tough, extremely exhausting, and painful process and I hope that all of us, who do not really like themselves now, will slowly grow to appreciate the amazing people we all are.

Enough with my sappy talk, let’s get started!

Luka:

Luka does not get it at all at the start.

It’s not that he’s denying your heartfelt feelings nor carelessly brushing them aside after you gathered all of your courage to confess them to him. Luka simply does not get why such a beautiful soul like you would not like herself. It is beyond his capacities to understand.

He honestly believes that you’re so strong, so brave and simply so gorgeous, inside out. None of the flaws you’re mentioning seem to even matter to him. Luka Clemence loves you. The messy you, the tired you, the happy you, the sad you. He loves the you who jumps excitedly at the promise of chocolate, and the you who cries her heart out if a dog dies in a random movie. He is helplessly, and utterly in love with the you who hides under her soft covers after a bad day, and the you who sometimes forces herself to fake a smile in front of others just not to worry them. Luka just loves you, every part of you, every inch of your body that you like and the inches that you hate, your kind smile as well as your scars marks, now and forever.

Everything about you is so warm and soothing and Luka desperately wants to lend you his own eyes, so you can see the incredible woman who managed to heal his heart and fill the void in his soul. Maybe then you would be able to love yourself just as much as he loves you.

And just the same way you saved him before, Luka decides it is his turn to firmly stand by your side and help you take baby steps into healing. His calm, reassuring presence giving you courage as a constant reminder of his unchangeable love for you.

He will never pressure you into faking self-love, nor insist that you’re perfectly fine or that you’re just exaggerating. No, no. Luka will continue to shower you with his affection and love, in his own quiet way, hoping that one day you will wake up in the morning by his side, sleepily trudge your way to the bathroom and finally find it in yourself to smile at your reflection in the mirror. Because you are fine just the way you are.

But it is only up to you to believe that or not.

Edgar:

Edgar Bright is no stranger to self-loathing.

He knows, more than anyone, how hard it is to open your eyes in the morning and feel completely empty. He knows how painful it is to look at yourself in the mirror and feel nothing but pure, raw hatred for every inch of your body. He knows how tedious it is to try and convince your mind over and over again that self hate won’t lead you anywhere.

Edgar knows all of this and maybe even a little bit more.

He has spent years hating himself, hating his blood-soaked hands, hating his fake smile and pretentious gestures and hating how uselessly obedient he is. And more than anything, Edgar knows how this hate just keeps on piling up inside your soul, ripping at your heart, spreading darkness between the cracks of your ribs, and eventually ravaging your entire being.

So Edgar will patiently wait for you. He will wait and wait and wait even more while showering you with compliments each morning, pepper kisses all over your stomach and thighs after you’re done making love, making sure to loudly vocalize his deep adoration for every part of you, whether you thought it to be ugly or not. Because Edgar simply loves you. He’ll try to encourage you to go bold with your clothes, yes wear that crimson skirt, get that backless dress from your closet, and forget about what others think of you! Edgar will repeatedly tell you, voice crystal clear, that you should have confidence in your beautifully crafted body, and strut your way into the world, regardless of anyone’s opinion.

Edgar will also be there when everything is simply not working. He will pull you into his tightest embrace and wrap his arms around your waist, as you sob your heart out and blabber how pathetic you feel, how useless you are, and how just not enough you consider yourself to be.

Edgar will then softly kiss your eyelids, gently wipe away your tears and whisper in his soothing voice that you are always enough, that you are worth everything in this world. You are worth fighting for, dying for and living for.

‘You are so loved’ Edgar softly murmurs in your ear as you doze off in his arms.

So guess who’s finally back after two weeks of absence?

Last week has been an utter nightmare you guys! My laptop was broken, my university is trying to kill me with more force than usual, and I’m feeling quite sick once again.

I hope these very simple and average HCs will somehow make the requester and anyone who reads them feel the tiniest bit better about themselves.

Just remember, there’s absolutely no need to push yourselves too hard! Just take one step at a time, and do not give up on healing just because it is slow.

After all, storms never last! And after the rain, always comes the sun ❤

My Ask Box is still open for the moment, but I’m thinking of closing it quite soon, since unanswered asks are slowly piling up, so make sure to send in your requests now! I’m looking forward to your asks!

#ikemen revolution #luka clemence #edgar bright #sending love to everyone who are healing!#you are so strong!!#don't ever forget that ❤

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technicolorfamiliar · 6 years

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The Artist vs Social Media

I have been sharing my feelings about art and its ever-growing relationship to social media with a number of people recently. I wrote a bit about it here some months ago, but that was primarily focused on reactions to different types of art I was posting on different platforms. Without a doubt, it’s been something that’s given me pause for a while, and I have a suspicion I can’t be the only person that feels this way.

To be clear: this is not meant to be an attack on the people who enjoy and excel at being a creative on social media. It is purely an expression of my own frustration, a cry out to others who have struggled with the same issues, because I know I’m not alone.

First of all, my personal style just doesn’t compliment a successful social media presence, I’m such a fan of the long-format, in general. I don’t want anything in my life to be bite-sized, cropped, or condensed. I struggle to convey the concepts teeming in my heart in a limited number of characters and pixels. As I am evolving as an artist, I enjoy incorporating many layers of meaning, drawing on a multitude of sources for inspiration. Social media, for the most part, wants to condense, compartmentalize, limit. It’s short-format, lacks fluidity, and promotes shorter attention spans. It feels counterintuitive to the kind of art I love and the art I want to be making.

For as streamlined and easy as social media has made sharing artwork with the great big world out there, it’s also birthed a lot of additional anxiety and despair. At least that’s been my experience. Some people have taken to social media like ducks to water, they are thriving in an endless stream of posts and pictures and stories. But this particular artmaker finds the rise of social media more like an impossible mountain, and climbing it is a requirement.

I envy the artists and makers who have figured out how to hack social media in order to promote their work and their brand. These people make it look easy, like social media integration with one’s art practice is as simple as breathing. I understand how it is crucial now as any kind of artist to have a big social media presence. But despite that understanding, I still have a lot of issues with it.

I was in art school in the still relatively early days of Instagram. Facebook and Twitter were big, but I didn’t really ever get too deeply involved in either platform. For me, Facebook was mostly for staying in touch with friends and family back home. I didn’t even have a smart phone until some time after I graduated. The school I attended encouraged us to build a website, get a business card, but there was no way to prepare us for the expansion of these apps among others that would emerge later on. This is not a sorry attempt at an excuse for my complicated relationship with social media, because there are a lot of artists in their early 30s right now who are very clearly doing well in that arena.

Circa 2009 – 2011, using social media for networking was beginning to be a real thing to consider. Having a Facebook page and separate Instagram and Twitter accounts devoted to your craft in addition to your website and blog in order to reach all possible professional connections was increasingly important. And now, they are all absolutely essential. People think you must be kidding yourself if you’re making art and don’t have a social media presence. I’ve caught myself being judgmental of young artists who aren’t on social media. But then I’m reminded of my own issues with Facebook and Instagram and all the others and I think maybe I should shut my mouth.

—

That’s the background. The real thing I’m trying to say is this:

Social media is exhausting.

I hate it.

For all the good content being generated and shared on FB, IG, etc there are a thousand mentally and emotionally draining posts being shared by people who, by and large, aren’t on social media to promote their craft. And that’s fine, people should have a place to vent their frustrations, laugh at funny or un-funny memes, share recipes and cute animal videos, get 100+ validating reactions to their photos, post thoughts/criticisms/ideas too long for Twitter but too short for a blog…

But to expect an artist generating original content to compete with everything else being blasted on every social media platform is complete and utter unrealistic nonsense.

—

My big, huge, major beef with social media is the totally insane decision to stop having posts featured in chronological order on pretty much every major platform. This really hurts creative people who are trying to get exposure, share their work to the world (or at least their friends and followers), and requires them to generate even more content, or share the same post over and over again in the hopes that their painting or photo or video somehow makes it over all the other posts from everybody else that are only just so much noise. Trying to get noticed or share your work with likeminded creatives you don’t already know is like shouting in a canyon full of other people shouting, drowned out by all the other voices and the echoes of the voices.

But that’s not the only thing about social media that keeps me up at night.

There are people on social media who have become experts in making their lives look like perfect, magical journeys of self discovery and growth and good fortune. Seeing their perfectly composed, perfectly lit photos of what is supposedly their daily lives, their brunches, their cocktails, their pets, their clothes, their travels, their significant others, and whatever else makes me want to not even try. Why should I even bother to try to compete with that? Looking at those kinds of posts immediately makes me feel inferior because 1) I’m not living that theoretically beautiful, charmed life, and 2) I’m not generating masses of content like that of my own experience. I look at my weird little life and there’s hardly anything photo- or post-worthy, at least not on a daily basis, not enough to get above everyone else’s noise. When did having a social media presence become an art form in and of itself? One of my very close friends described social media as performance art, which is probably the best description of this phenomenon I’ve ever heard. I’m not saying it’s not hard work — in order to project this perfect life, you have to be a photographer, or at least know and/or have the money to pay for one, be a master of self-marketing, and you have to set aside the time in your day to make the posts (more on that in a bit). But as someone with at least half a brain, I know that the content being gobbled up by glowing, supportive friends and followers is only a version of reality.

I know I’m not the only one who feels utterly alienated by the “perfect lives” being presented on social media, and I know that it’s not most people’s intention to alienate their friends by posting gorgeous photographs and positive affirmations of their own journeys.

And yet, even just thinking about it is exhausting. It’s a destructive and deadly combination of self-loathing and self-doubt inspired by the vast majority of what I see on Facebook and Instagram with knowing full well that those feelings are totally unfounded since the posts are not a true reflection of reality. It doesn’t motivate me, it doesn’t inspire me to follow their lead, it doesn’t get my blood pumping. It just makes me tired.

—

By my nature, I am a relatively private person. I have no real desire to share my private life with strangers, and it’s a struggle for me to open up to acquaintances. I have a hard time talking about myself, my dreams and aspirations, my needs and wants with other people. I keep to myself, I have a small circle of close friends and family with whom I share things openly.

There’s nothing like the gut-wrenching feeling you get when you’re talking passionately about your art or your interests or your hopes for the future with someone and seeing the very moment their eyes glaze over with disinterest. It’s a special kind of soul-crushing dismissal that has lead me to live an introvert’s life. Because why, after all, would I share anything with people when that’s the reaction I often got in my youth when sharing with my peers?

The whole grand purpose of social media is to share. Share everything and share often. Artists who hold regular jobs and don’t have an abundance of free time or energy to devote to generating social media content on top of the art they’re already making need to find that magical balance. The Buzzfeed article about burnout that was circulating a few months ago touches on this a bit. Work + Art + Self Promotion. That’s always been the case for artists looking to make a profit off their work, but now it’s on a whole other level and puts creatives in direct competition with social media influencers and everyone else on FB, IG, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, etc. When I say time and energy, I mean the lack of energy I personally have after a working a job that already requires me to use my creativity, strategy, and organizational skills. When I get home or when I finish a job, I want to recharge so I can have the energy and motivation to actually sit in my studio and make new art. I struggle with budgeting out my time and energy for taking photos, writing cute little descriptions, thinking up clever hashtags, and setting timers to remind me when to post in order to get the most views.

I’m over-focused right now on making the art, in finding my voice as an illustrator, in re-vamping my portfolio and considering the future of my practice. I would need a personal assistant to run my social media accounts in an effective and professional way, and I don’t understand how other artists don’t have assistants. Or maybe they do. At the very least it would require me to have my phone in my hand far more than I already do, so another reason to keep it on me, especially in my studio while I’m in the zone, working, makes me feel gross.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But Emma… you took all this time to write and edit this long blog post. Surely you could have used that time to work on content for your IG or FB accounts.” And you would be right. However, I’m in a place mentally and emotionally where I see the social media game, I understand it, but I just don’t want to play it. Not the way we’re all expected to if we want to get noticed. I’m not a performance artist, I’m not extroverted enough, my process doesn’t lend itself to this new gold standard of being an artist in the 21st century. Am I making big strides to change my process? Not really, because the very nature of social media feels inauthentic to me and the work I want to be making.

—

In the end… I don’t really know how to make social media work for me and my own journey as an artist. It would be great if there was some compromise, some middle path for people like me who are rubbed the wrong way by hashtags and stories and filters. Is there even a possibility for existing any other way as an artist today? Because everyone I know who creates any kind of art seems to have accepted and figured out the key to doing well on social media. It’s almost not even worth airing my grievances since I’m not willing to completely change and conform to something that does not feel right to me.

I’ll just keep plugging along as I have been until I figure it out. Or some kind souls who have been through a similar conundrum swoop in and offer their wisdom and insight.

#my writing #art vs social media #long post

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douxreviews · 6 years

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Gravity (2013) Review

"Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." – Leonard 'Bones' McCoy

In space no one can hear you cry out in terror. They can't hear you scream in pain, or weep at the loss of a friend or loved one. Space is quiet and cold and empty, and to be honest I've never really grasped those truths about space except in an abstract way. Until watching this movie.

That's probably because in Hollywood, space rumbles. You can hear the rockets engage and burn with brilliant jets of blue or red flame. It gives you a sense of movement and weight. Because sound is something we need to use to reconcile what we see versus what we understand. For example; you see a crowd of people start to react to something, and a moment later you hear the sound and react with them. It's a part of our nature.

What happens when you can't hear what's coming? What if you are doing everything in your power, with the chips stacked against you, to simply open a door? (Or in this case, a hatch?) How can something like that be so harrowing, that you are literally on the edge of your seat?

Well, that's exactly what Gravity accomplished. It took simple actions, and things we take for granted, and turned them on their ear.

To elaborate; the only sounds in this movie are done through radio, and muffled through Ryan Stone's (Sandra Bullock) space suit. You can hear impacts, and breathing, and static and that's it. Except for the score, which never distracts from the experience. It is a remarkable thing to watch something get destroyed and not hear it happen. It's disconcerting and totally feeds into the tension. This film doesn't rely on tricks or jump scares. This is the kind of film that drops your stomach to your feet and makes you grip the arm rests for ninety minutes.

I believe this is Sandra Bullock's best work. She gives a nuanced and powerful portrayal of a woman in totally over her head, and who fights with everything she has to survive. George Clooney is also kind of perfect in his role as the seasoned astronaut whose calm, gravelly voice evens out the chaotic events happening around him. He's the hero archetype, and yet his character is so true that you believe he's real from nearly his first line. However, the real hero of this movie is the director, Alfonso Cuarón. He has crafted a masterpiece of tension and character that totally blew me away.

This is an utterly gorgeous movie, and I don't say that lightly. Every shot is perfectly framed, and the scope is stunning. The visual effects are incredibly realistic, to the point where it's difficult to tell where the real sets end and the effects begin. It's also a remarkably simple movie. There's no complex plot to figure out, nor are there monsters or laser guns. It is a very different kind of science fiction. The kind based on what could really happen, where reality and fiction merge in a way that is truly frightening.

I don't know if this is the best movie of the year, but it comes close. It also may not be for everyone. This film is stark and real, and occasionally difficult to watch. But it's excellent on every level. Oh, and I usually don't advocate 3D, but in this case it was totally worth the extra price of admission.

4 out of 4 Space Suits

J.D. Balthazar is a confirmed nerd who loves most things sci-fi or fantasy-related.

#Gravity #Alfonso Cuaron #Sandra Bullock #George Clooney #Doux Reviews #Movie Reviews #something from the archive

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the--concertmaster · 7 years

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Five

I felt like sharing this, although i really doubt anybody’s going to read it cause people don’t even look at my art, let alone read my full original fiction. Anyway, this is a short thriller that I wrote, and for the few people who might actually read this, enjoy! ________________________________________________________________ Perfection.

Absolute beauty lay at my feet; porcelain white skin, half concealed by velvety black fabrics, a line of crimson running down a sleek, slender throat…Beautiful.

I stood, admiring my work, mesmerised by my creation, yet I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t bask in this masterpiece longer, couldn’t indulge in the gorgeous piece of artwork, because I had to leave. Others didn’t appreciate my work.I fled, moments later, waiting till morning to break. My work will have been discovered, it’ll be all over the news. I’d go to work, act just as shocked and concerned as ever one of those naïve imbeciles. Nobody will ever suspect that I created that little piece of Excellency.

Daybreak. I got up at 5:00am ready for work knowing what an aberrant day it would be. I didn’t even bother switching on the news or reading the paper knowing the headline already, “The Calendar Killer strikes Number Four!” That’s what they call me; my little alias. It’s so utterly clichéd and straight forward, but it was the most appropriate name to use after they finally linked together my…work. The people I work with can be so simple minded sometimes; so utterly boring.

Numerous individuals brushed past me at work today, all flustered and frenzied. I just walked through the crowd, enthralled by this little bit of anarchy I created. I couldn’t help myself, I just had to smile. I couldn’t blame them, they are only human and fear is something innate in all. The Police examined the photos of my craft, wait for the other police to report back from the scene, hiding their terror with rage. The Forensics worked hard at finding evidence via swabs and prints collected earlier, rather pointlessly I might add; I don’t leave any evidence.

I peered through an office window as the commissioner ranted to his poor lieutenant, complaining about how I must be stopped. I never have understood why though; those lives that I took to create lavish beauty were worthless, people will cry, and be upset and get over it. People really are quite pitiful. I stared at them longer, watching, waiting for a time to intrude.Eventually the Commissioner caught my gaze, still infuriated.

“You!” He bellowed at me as I kept my calm composure. The lieutenant turned her head to face me, curiosity etched on her face yet still being so charming, charismatic... still being so enticing. “Get in here! You’re the psychologist aren’t you?” I stepped into the office not at all perturbed by the summoning. He thrust some papers into my hand; pictures of my previous three victims plus the dear paragon I formed last night. Among the photos were four notes, made from newspaper cuttings, each holding encrypted information of each of my ‘killings’, as they call them. They containing every tiny bit of information from where the artwork was made, to who the artwork was, to the exact minute it was formed. I gave them everything, but, of course, the police department were always to half-witted to understand the letter… before it was too late. Yes, I know, it’s clichéd, but it’s just so amusing watching them all squabble over those letters.

I pretended to examine all the evidence before stating, “This ‘Calendar Killer’ clearly fits all the properties of a serial killer. They are most likely rather introverted and commonly go around un-noticed by society; most likely this has been happening since they were a child. Because of this, they have a burning desire to be recognised, and go to the extreme to fulfil this desire.” I glanced up at the lieutenant who regarded me with interest. The Commissioner seemed far less concerned.

“Ok, got it, the killer is a loner; big surprise. Any ideas on what they’ll be doing next?” The Commissioner replied, clearly not understanding the importance of what I just told them. His loss.

“Obviously,” I answered, “As we all know, he’s the Calendar Killer. I assume he’ll stick to that. The first victim, Matilda Rose was born on the First of January, 1991. Alana Cross, the second victim was born on the Second of February, 1992, Madison Cadence, number three was born on the Third of the Third, 1993 and our final victim, Clara Lizeworth, the Fourth of the Fourth, 1994. Hardly a coincidence. Our next victim will be on the Fifth of the fifth, 1995.” The lieutenant seemed to wince, obviously disturbed by my statement. “Is there anything wrong, Miss Kyle?” I asked, fascinated by her sudden jerk.

“It’s nothing,” she hesitantly answered before returning to her usual poise, “It’s just you said that as if you don’t care at all for the girls who were killed, that their lives weren’t worth anything.” The Commissioner seemed to examine me studiously at the lieutenant’s accusation. I didn’t react; it’s exactly what they wanted me to do; like I’d allow them such pleasures.

“When working with murder, theft and crime all day, every day, one learns to be obdurate, Miss Kyle. People die all the time, best not to cry about over them all,” I stated smoothly, not changing my tone or stumbling on words.

“Just go,” the Commissioner sighed, seemingly annoyed that I hadn’t provided much ‘valuable’ information, “you have work to do.”

I took my leave without another word, since for once the Commissioner was right about something. I had a lot of work to do. I had to find out the real reason for Lieutenant Kyle’s unexplained twitch. Everything about her reply was clearly just an excuse to escape telling her true fear.

I shut myself in my office locking all five locks on the door, pulling up excessive files on my laptop. Profiles; all the faces of my beautiful victims, plus all the information needed to strike number five. It was true that nobody could have been a better target than Lieutenant Alara Kyle. She fit perfectly; she was charismatic, charming and beautiful; a paragon. Nothing could create better artwork. It was also awfully convenient that she was born on the fifth of the fifth, 1995. That poor girl, no wonder why she was so worried. It was too much of an excitement,

I literally ran to the sweet Lieutenants office, knocking on the door quickly five times.

“Lieutenant Kyle,” I panted, as she stared at me with a baffled look on her innocent face, “I have reasons to believe that you are in immediate danger.” Then that innocent look on her face dropped, the colour draining from it as I tried my best not smirk and to stay serious. “So you know?” she breathed so softly I could barely make it out. I nodded.“You need protection,” I told her.“No,” she sighed, exasperated, “no, no, no… This killer might not even know what my birthday is, I shouldn’t get so worked up about it.”Oh, how wrong she was.

“Lieutenant Kyle,” I replied, trying to hide the excitement in my voice and keep a straight face, “Alara, you misunderstood me. I don’t suggest you go to any of the other police- you’re right in thinking that telling someone could lead the killer to you. I’m offering my protection.”Her eyebrows raised, a bewildered look on her face.

“You?” she seemed so close to laughter I almost took offense. She wouldn’t be laughing soon.

“The killer is less likely to attack if you’re with someone else,” I shrugged. She seemed to be considering my offer, and we stood in an unpleasant silence for a few moments.

Then she nodded.

“Alright,” she decided, looking at me with an uneasily. “I’ll stay with you tonight. What time does your shift finish?” I bit my lip to stop the smirk from creeping onto my face.

“I retire at 5:00 tonight. Shall I meet you at the front of the station?”She nodded and I bid my farewell to her till five but just before I left her office I turned back to her and added one more thing.“Don’t tell anybody about this, alright? You never know who you can trust.”

5:00.

I met the Lieutenant outside the station, nodding to her to acknowledge her presence. We started to stroll slowly through the streets, to where I supposedly ‘lived’, Alara oblivious to where I was actually taking her. In reality, I was leading her to an alley that was now in disuse in order to create my art. We arrived at the entrance of the backstreet and I started to walk down it. The Lieutenant seemed more hesitant.

“Just this way Alara,” I cooed gently, causing her to shiver, but she did as I said and headed towards me. Perfect.I pulled out my slim, sliver dagger and pressed it to her throat. A small scream elicited from her throat, a sweet escape of sound. I pressed the blade harder, drawing out deep scarlet. She started falling limp, just getting slightly weaker, ceasing to struggle; it was almost too easy.

Chaos erupted seconds later. A cacophony of sirens filled my ears; the static screeches of speaker telling me release the lieutenant. I could vaguely see the heads of a dozen guns past the blur of spotlights and flashing sirens, all cocked and aimed towards me.

“Lower your weapon Dr Blaine!” she screamed, as I heard another voice yelling through a speaker, “Let her go or we’ll fire at will.” I loosened my grip, temporarily distracted by all the noise. It ruined my little piece of perfection. They had stolen this moment from me.The Lieutenant had felt my momentary distraction, elbowing me in the chest, kicking me to the ground.

“Did you really think I would just believe you like that? You yourself you don’t know who you can trust!” She yelled at me, before composing herself, a smirk coming onto her face, “Dr Blaine,” she sighed pulling out a pistol, cocking it at my forehead, blood oozing down her throat, anger, fear and hatred in her eyes, “You’re under arrest, for the murder of four innocent women, and attempted murder of a fifth.” …………………………………………… Cold air gushed around me as I stared around my cell. Rusted bars separated me from the rest of the world, everyone else enjoying the comfort of the ‘Calendar killer’ being locked away, thinking that the streets were now safe. They all were so innocent, so sweet… so delusional. That comfort wouldn’t last long. The walls had gawking gaps, which all called to me, seducing me to work at them. The bent rusted bars that covered my window already looked like they would give way. I saw a calendar on the wall and I smeared a deep crimson cross on today’s date. It shouldn’t take me more than five days to escape… five days… five.

#five #original fiction #original writing #oc #thriller #suspense #murder mystery #psychopath #ocd

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jrazillashadowworks · 7 years

Text

Victubia Fight Night

Just a one off. Pretty proud of this one actually. Really hope you enjoy it! ^,,^

Word count: 5537

Warnings: Some blood.

It had been a very long day with the mayor meeting happening that afternoon. All officers were on patrol, keeping watch around the carriage routes to the Mayor HQ and back to wherever the visiting mayor’s stayed that night. By the time all was finished, Ray was back at the precinct, the last of his energy quickly draining. Feeling his eyelids droop, his vision blurred as he simply waited for the night officer who was tardy to come in. Slumping in his chair, he muttered not much longer, repeatedly more so to keep himself awake.

He begun to daydream or did he fall asleep? He wasn’t sure but he was either imagining or dreaming of being in his warm bed with Felice before a loud thump startled him awake, almost knocking him from his chair. Straightening up and striking the slight dribble of drool from his chin, he focused on his captain standing before him. “Yes sir, sorry sir.”

The captain’s mustache bristled as he gave Ray a rather apologetic look, something the young officer was not used to. “I hate to do this to you,” he trailed off.

“Yes sir?”

“I know that you are supposed to be getting off as soon as relief comes in but we have a situation.”

Ray felt a slight but sharp pang of pain ricochet around inside his head. He was unable to disguise his immediate frown, garnering another apology from the captain. “Its fine, sir. What’s the situation?”

“Well, we had a report that a rather large gathering has seemingly turned into a street fight. A man came in all beat up and bloody, saying he was attacked as he happened by.”

Sighing, Ray rubbed his forehead. He wanted so badly to hand it off to the next officer but he was a man of duty and bound by that fact, he would act. Fighting through his sleepy stupor, he finally gave a nod and stood up. “I shall put an end to it.”

“You may be a first responder but if things get out of hand, use your whistle and others will come to your aid. Thank you again for this, Constable. The location is in the Lavender district, within the courtyard of the group of apartments being renovated.”

Strapping his gun to his waist, and putting his cap on, Ray headed outside into the warm night. He had a decent way to go but the fresh breeze helped staunch the clawing nag of sluggishness. With great need of haste, Ray reluctantly accepted to take a police steed. Taking it along would also bolster his image, showing how serious of an offense this all was.

Meeting with the horse, bridled with a purple police saddle outside, he gave it a blank stare for a moment before approaching. No matter how much training and how used to the beasts he became, he always had an underlying worry that the next ride could be the last. A silly notion considering by now he was a pro, according to Felice. Then again, his boyfriend was always overly optimistic.

Peering into the dark, yet twinkling eyes of the horse, Ray felt as if the beast could see into his very thoughts and it made him uneasy, almost as if it was judging his reluctance. Brows furrowing, he found his courage to mount, not wanting to look bad to a damn animal. Gripping the reins tightly, he gulped the quickly forming lump in his throat and turned the horse towards the street. Inhaling, he spurred onwards.

The streets of the capital were alive and yet, the constable had no trouble speeding down them, only garnering the turning of heads by a few onlookers. Wind lashed at his face, cooling and clearing his sinuses, giving him a burst of energy towards his mission. He still blew his whistle to warn he was in a hurry, more out of habit than actual need, piercing the night air with its shrill cry. Maybe another officer would hear it and join him, he thought but, that was wishful thinking. By the time he had reached the Lavender district, east of Iris, he had yet to see another officer. It was slightly unnerving to be honest. A stone of anxiousness dropped into the pit of his stomach. Hopefully he could handle this alone.

Galloping alongside the outlying street of Lavender, he eyed the blocks of high rising apartments, cordoned off for the safety of the public while being renovated. However, a couple of the small wooden blockades used to halt trespassers were moved aside, allowing a clear path into the complex. Now, within range of his destination, he heard voices playing on the wind, droning, growing louder as he got closer until it was practically ear splitting. He was able to discern only a few words among the collected babble, mostly curses.

Slowing his horse to a stop, Ray squinted, staring down the darkened pathway, a flicker of light melting shadowed forms against the wall adjacent. Inhaling a deep breath, he unmounted and tied the reins to one of the blockades, patting the beast’s neck, to thank it for not killing him. Still feeling the jitter of anxiousness, he slowly walked down, trying his best to gather his fleeting courage. It seemed there were indeed a lot of them and he was alone after all. Hopefully this could be done peacefully, however unlikely it seemed at the moment. Ray wasn’t defenseless by any means but, he did not see himself beating up a large group all at once and he most definitely did not want to shoot anyone. If things got to that point, maybe a shot in the air would be enough to scare them off.

Slithering, with his back up against the wall, he neared the corner, his ears ringing from the human roars coming from the courtyard. Closing his eyes, he tried to untangle his increasingly knotting nerves, heart beating madly, though his expression remained steeled. The only thing threatening to give him away was the cold sweat beginning to form on his forehead. I got this, he repeated to himself.

Huffing, and puffing out his chest, he trotted towards the courtyard, shared by the collection of buildings and upon reaching its maw, froze as he caught sight of the scene before him. There, between four, elaborate lamp posts, was a haphazardly crafted ring surrounded on three sides by wooden bleachers usually reserved for the construction workers on their breaks. Now, they were swarmed with the seediest collection of people Ray had ever laid eyes on.

From his initial scan, the officer was able to identify a few within the mob, past convicts of crimes, burglaries, assault and the like. Many of them were shirtless, bloodied and with swollen faces that made them barely recognizable. Something was off however. Despite that fact, they seemed utterly elated, drinking bottles of undiscernible liquid Ray could only assume was alcohol. A quick glance at crates scattered about, filled with much the same bottles, their sides labeled based on their contents assured his suspicion. Gin, whiskey, and rum, they had quite the assortment and amount for a random street fight. This all seemed pre organized.

Streams of curling fingers of smoke rose from various places in the bleachers, melding together in a low cloud that dispersed, only to be reformed instantly. Burning ash and slick blood was the most prevalent smells wrinkling Ray’s nose. The haphazard ring was empty at the moment, giving the constable the assumption things may well be over. Ray was beginning to doubt the sincerity of the citizen’s report. As things stood, this was still an unlawful assembly that need be disbanded. Taking a step into the light, he was about to blow his whistle when a familiar, yet disinterested voice called his name.

Nearly jumping out of surprise, Ray turned to see Hanya sitting at the end of the stands closest to him, a lit cig dangling from his lips. Blatantly exasperated and with a barrage of questions coming to mind, the constable stumbled over to the private investigator, mouthing unintelligible words.

“W-Wha-What are you doing here?” Ray finally managed, his tone brimming with confusion.

Hanya just smirked and scooted over, rudely pushing the man next to him over with his shoulder until a space was opened up. “Take a seat, Ray.”

Simply flabbergasted, he reflexively joined Hanya, staring at him as he sat down, as if his world had been turned upside down. “Hanya…what the hell are you doing here?”

Leaning back, Hanya smirked. “I’m watching the show.”

Ray’s jaw slacked. “Okay…what are you really doing here?”

“You don’t have to doubt everything I say, kid,” he griped, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “Just relax and watch.”

“This is an unlawful assembly Hanya, I don’t think…”

“Spare me the cop routine. Just chill a bit. Take in your surroundings. Listen to this old man.”

“You aren’t even forty yet,” Ray countered.

“Looks and feels are two different things,” he noted, flicking off the ash, and side eyeing Ray.

Speaking of feeling, there was definitely a prick of irritation forming within the constable, as word vomit, hot as scorching flames shot up his throat. His mouth forming a straight line, he gulped it down and unwillingly listened, giving a closer inspection of the people around him. It was then that his police instincts kicked in, his dark brown eyes scanning and profiling persons of interest with great attention to detail. Ray noticed something even stranger going on as he looked around. Though a police officer just showed up in their midst, not a single person batted an eyelash in his direction nor showed any sign of alarm, even those that usually ran at the first sight of one of his occupation.

Out of the crowd, many faces were unfamiliar, but a select few stuck out, like glimmering diamonds, among shoddy coal. The most obvious and absolutely stunningly gorgeous one was a light skinned woman, sitting pristinely atop the center bleachers on a gold tasseled, purple velvet cushion, like some deity of grace. Her face was elegant and nearly perfectly symmetrical, complexion absolutely flawless. Streams of wheat colored curls rolled down from her crown over her shoulders. Gold eye shadow glittered over large, deep brown eyes and long eyelashes that fluttered lightly. Thick, pursed lips were coated in a glossy, gold lipstick, her thin, manicured fingers, holding a long cigarette.

Her form was sultry and exposed, her breasts perking up from the tight, and expensively fancy corset, her long legs sweeping out from a lace skirt, crossed over one another, foot rolling side to side. From her exquisite and flowy movements, Ray could practically feel confidence emanating off of her. She leaned on the possibly middle-eastern male next to her who looked around the same age, dressed in a long white, hooded jacket with a black scarf, embroidered with a bizarre insignia of a bleeding eye. He like her, was very attractive, his expression cocky, pale blue eyes looking down on all below him as if they were ants. She playfully caressed his chest with her hand. Most likely a couple, Ray assumed.

Hanya followed the constable’s gaze and clicked his tongue. “That’s Queenie. Royalty among this rabble and her ‘boyfriend/boy toy’ Nazeem. She’s a mystery from Syd and He’s from a well to do family in Ekard but has broken off for some reason. He looks very untrustworthy.”

“I see. Simply visiting for this street fight perhaps?”

“Could be.”

Ray was not assured by Hanya’s reply. It was almost as if he was withholding information from him. Then again, this was common when dealing with the private investigator. It did not stop the constable from glaring at him however. Then, a hulk of a man, dressed in an obscure military jacket, clinging tightly to his large chest, approached and picked the guy up beside Hanya and tossed him like crumpled up paper before taking his seat. The wood whined under his muscular weight as he tipped his cap, respectfully to Ray, his thick, messy, dirty blonde hair forced into his chiseled, scruffy face. The bottle of alcohol in the man’s meaty grasp, sloshed violently as he took a swig. A drunkard?

“Gabriel,” Hanya said with as much enthusiasm Ray had ever heard from the man, still without looking to the new arrival.

“Enjoying the show so far?” The man known as Gabriel asked, his voice gruff and powerful.

“It’s a bit one sided,” Hanya snorted.

“Hah! Indeed! These chumps are no match for Rummy! And here we thought at least one of you capital babies would put up a decent fight!”

“Well with all the trash you guys collected, are you really surprised?”

“This is all we could get to answer our call. Seems your trash are the only ones with pride and courage!”

“Now only to become poor and beaten trash.”

“Least we are keeping them busy for a night so your city can get some form of break from their stupidity.” Gabriel looked more at Ray when saying this.

“Thanks,” Hanya scoffed. “Should wear them out for a bit.”

Ray was so confused by the whole situation. Things were much more complicated than he thought. He kept silent through their conversation until the crowds combined roaring came to its peak, startling him. Jerking his head back to the ring, a man walked to its center. A fighter through and through. Ray could only assume that this man was Rummy.

This fighter, Rummy was about five foot eleven inches. A fine piece of walking sinew. His form was wrapped in a torn, sleeveless hoodie, exposing his muscular, and powerful arms, and only half zipped to show off his extremely toned chest, and abs. He also wore boxing shorts but no shoes. Rummy was not as large as Gabriel but he was close. There were many thin scars cross hatching across his face and body. His hands were taped and stained red with blotches of dried blood.

Rummy brushed a hand through his spiked back, black hair and nodded, scanning over everyone with rather bright, almost glowing, blue eyes. Smiling brightly, Ray could make out a couple of missing teeth in the far back of his mouth. He was indeed a scrappy looking individual.

“I hope you lot are ready for more of a beat down!” Rummy blared out in a thick, British accent. “Comin to the capital, I expected some great fights but man have I been disappointed!” He flicked his nose and craned his neck. “Hope the next batch can actually lay a hit on me at least!” He thought for a second. “How bout this? If one of you can, I’ll consider that a win and give you all my winnings!”

Uproarious cheering exploded from the stands, nearly deafening the constable who reflexively stuck his fingers in his ears. More bottles were distributed among the viewers as a line of enthusiastic men stood ready, waiting for their chance against the street fighter. Ray was beginning to get nervous, a horrible feeling lurking in the pit of his stomach. Jittery, his knee begun to bounce when the first contestant from this new batch took his place in the ring.

There was a clang from a hidden bell that made the constable jump and then the fight was underway. The contestant came in arms swinging wildly and without tact. Rummy weaved through like a serpent and unleashed a blazing uppercut that resounded like a shooting bullet, sending the man on his back with a heavy thud. Immediate knockout. Ray’s eyes widened, utterly shocked by what just transpired. He was shaken out of it by Gabriel who blasted praise, lifting his drink in the air.

“Atta boy! Fuck em up! Haha!”

The first contender was dragged aside for another to take his place and once again, after one hit, they were knocked flat by a completely different, jaw quaking punch. Ray was beginning to feel almost reverence for his abilities as each fell to his fists without any trouble whatsoever. It was almost artful how Rummy moved and fought, despite its rough and wild street fighting appearance.

As an officer, he knew he should not be appreciating such a thing but he could not help it. Rummy also did not go for more blood when they were down which was respectable and dare he say, honorable. During the fights, his expression became that of a focused tiger and once over, shifted to one absolutely carefree. Deep down, Ray was beginning to actually like him.

“He’s pretty skilled isn’t he?” Hanya queried, having noticed the slight ques and minute changes in the constable’s posture.

“He most definitely is,” Ray replied instantaneously, though he did not mean to. “For a street fighter,” he added.

Hanya chuckled lightly. “Do you think you could take him?”

Ray silenced. He knew damn well he could not take on someone like him. The constable looked for an out, so he veered, changing subject. “How long are we going to let this go on?”

“It’s almost over. We have it handled.”

“What do you mean, we? We haven’t done anything but sit here the entire time.”

“We are keeping watch and making sure things don’t get out of hand aren’t we? Also, you may not have noticed but the shadows are watching as well.”

The color drained from Ray’s face and he stared at Hanya then to each of the shadows that lurked around every corner, quivering. Though he could not tell if they were moving unnaturally, he could feel a ghastly gaze on him now that chilled his blood. “R-Raz is here too?” Raymond whispered. “Why?”

“No idea,” Hanya replied dully, taking another drag. “You are asking me to define the motives of the most mysterious person in Victubia. Not even I’m that sharp.”

“I suppose…” Side eyeing the shadows, he hesitantly turned his attention back to the final fighter to go against Rummy.

Upon seeing the tall, bald, troll of a man, Raymond immediately recognized him. Scowling, he recalled the man’s past, heinous crimes which mostly involved domestic violence against his wife. On more than a few occasions they had found his frail wife covered in bruised blotches and with a broken bone or two. However, unfortunately, they were unable to put him away because she refused to testify against him, out of fear no doubt. In that moment, Ray forgot all around him and a seething rage burned in his chest. He almost wished it was going to be him to fight the filthy bastard.

“That’s that scum, Brandon Brunsten…”

“I know of him,” Hanya spat. “Maybe he’ll get what he deserves here. Didn’t think he would ever fight anyone that wasn’t defenseless.”

“I hope Rummy rearranges his cowardly face,” Ray let slip in a fit of disgust, clearing his throat immediately after to mask what he just said.

Brandon cracked his knuckles and sauntered up to Rummy who looked him up and down. “Evening, bigg’n. Seems your last up.”

“Immah break you down, boy.”

“Well come on then,” Rummy said, digging in his ear with his pinkie, then flicking it off afterward.

At the sound of the bell, the fight was underway. Immediately, Brandon stomped forward, jabbing sharply at Rummy, his bulbous arms nearing his face only to glance at air. After a failed first attempt, the lumbering mass of walking filth charged, swinging left and right in a chaotic flurry. Rummy side stepped and danced about, dodging everything, without once countering. Ray had not noticed but he was leaning forward, heart pounding in his chest, his breathing strained as he watched intently.

It was a full offensive by Brandon, Rummy simply keeping out of reach, all the while, letting the fists come within inches of his face. Something was different about this bout, usually it would be over by now but it seemed as if Rummy was toying with his opponent, deliberately. Ray felt his voice scorch up his throat, begging to release a barrage of inspiration for the street fighter all the while condemning his enemy.

The crowd was on fire, hurling all manner of words and curses. Ray’s own voice would surely be lost among the mad chorus so, he just sat there, fists clenched tight, nails biting into his palms. He was unable to blink, so worried he would miss a single second. Rummy continued to skid about, slithering just out of reach as Brandon continued to swing, his furious attacks growing more and more labored. Streams of sweat rolled off the big man, as he started to scream colorful language at his opponent, complaining about his lack of action, questioning his manhood. Then with one more gigantic swing, Rummy spun around him in a blur, his feet slicing across the ground until he was on the other side of Brandon.

Rearing his fist back, everything slowed to a crawl as Brandon, blundered around to gaze at Rummy as he jumped up. With the speed and ferociousness of a fired cannon ball, Rummy’s fist crashed into his face with a blood chilling crack that echoed past the stands. In that moment, Ray was sure he saw Brandon’s face cave in on itself, a spurt of blood lashing out, grotesquely.

With deft foot work, Rummy landed as his opponent wobbled about before tipping over, smashing hard against the ground. Then the cheers erupted from the stands, hands clapping in unison. Ray, a burst of screaming adrenaline coursing through his veins, nearly shot his arms up to the sky in victory. He stopped halfway when Rummy wrenched the downed man’s head up by the hair and started wailing on him savagely. Taken aback, he could only watch in horror as the street fighter pummeled Brandon’s face into a black and blue mess, surges of blood spilling all around, squirting on Rummy’s clothes in crude designs. Each punch reverberated, wet and loud.

In that moment, Ray’s police instincts took over yet again, tearing him from his stupor. If Rummy wasn’t stopped, he was no doubt going to kill him. Body reacting on its own, Ray dashed over towards the beat down and reached out to grab Rummy’s fist before he could land another punch. The officer was yanked by the immense force, nearly throwing him to the ground. Reacting, the street fighter whirled about and shot a fist directly at the constable’s face, lurching to a halt when his knuckle brushed his forehead. The intense burst of air that followed, made Ray’s eyes water and a sharp sensation scrape across his skin, blowing the cap from his head.

“Ah!” Rummy exclaimed, sincerely. “Sorry about that, mate.” The boiling rage that turned the fighters blue eyes into a furious sea, softened instantly when looking at Ray who was kneeling helplessly now, still trying to process what just happened.

Shaking madly, Ray tried to regain his footing and composure, his heart working in overdrive. Standing up as straight as he could muster, he cleared his throat. “I-I-I am placing you under arrest.”

Rummy smirked and shrugged, holding his dripping hands out, allowing him to cuff him. “If you say so officer.”

Ray was utterly shocked with how compliant he was. “Show’s over,” he called out, his tone wavering but demanding. He pulled out his serpent steel hand cuffs.

Just as he was about to clamp his hands, another, unfamiliar gloved pair hovered over Ray’s. Confused, Ray gazed at the olive skinned older woman now standing next to him, dressed in a full black suit, accented in silver designs, with a silk ascot, tucked in. One side of her hair was perfectly straight and gray, draping down in her face while the other was wavy and black. A cigar dangled through her thin lips and her piercing, dark eyes bore into the constable, almost threateningly. There was something very imposing and authoritative about her he could not quite place.

“I will handle this,” she stated dryly, lolling the cigar over to the other side of her mouth as she spoke.

Ray was having none of it. “This is Victubia police business. I ask you to kindly step away and don’t impede me in my duty. I don’t want to have to take you in for obstruction of justice.”

Though she kept her hands where they were, he was still able to cuff Rummy. “Hanya, take care of everything else here. I’m taking him to the precinct.” There was no doubt the rest could be left to him, even if he didn’t want it to be, especially with Raz watching as well, there was nothing to worry about. Hanya blew out an ashy plume of smoke and nodded, clearly bothered by being ordered around. However, at this particular moment, Ray did not give a damn.

The woman shared a non-verbal exchange with Rummy before secretly sliding something in his pocket, then backing off, without Ray being any the wiser. Angry boo’s resonated from the onlookers as Ray begun to walk off with Rummy, back out to the street where his horse had waited patiently. Unhooking the beast, Ray simply pulled it behind him, keeping his captive ahead as they walked.

Ray was to be honest, rather thankful to be out of there, feeling the nice breeze wash over his heated skin. They kept quiet along the way, save for the constable giving Rummy directions back to the precinct, leaving a trail of crimson droplets behind them. After a while of this, Rummy stretched as best he could, wearing the cuffs. “Sorry to bother you officer but, can you do something for me?”

Forehead creasing, Raymond simply acknowledged him with an, “hmm?”

“Can you reach into my pocket and pull out the money?”

Ray frowned. “Trying to bribe me are you?”

“Nah,” Rummy laughed heartily. “I was hoping you could give it to that man’s wife. You know, the one that he beats. Maybe with this money, she can escape that piece of shit.”

Once again, Raymond was taken aback by this man. “How did you know about that?”

“Sources,” he stated frankly. “I was just hoping to teach him a lesson by beating him to the brink of death, so he knew the fear he put into his wife. I did not intend to kill him despite that being what he deserved. There’s nothing worse than a man who beats on a woman. So, could you please do that for me? I’d be very grateful.”

Conflicted, the constable warily pulled out the thick wad of money, which was more than Ray had ever seen before at one time. Staring at it, he glanced between the two then sighed. “This isn’t stolen is it?”

“Of course not. I just won it back there with my own fists. My hands are clean,” he said, looking down at them. “So to speak.”

“Fine.”

“Appreciate it, mate! You’re a good chap!”

Ray couldn’t admit it but, he really liked this man. Despite his rough appearance, and underhanded tactics, he had honor, respect, and possibly, a good heart. In the back of his mind, he was even playing with the idea of letting him go. However, his duty dictated otherwise and he shrugged off the notion.

Upon returning to the police station, he locked Rummy in a cell. “I’ll see you in the morning, Rummy.”

“Sure you will, mate! Have a good night. Oh, and thanks again.”

With a nod, Raymond left the street fighter and gave his report to the acting night shift captain. Exiting the station, he was hit with a tidal wave of debilitating exhaustion, his shoulders and head slumping. Feeling the bulge of cash in his pocket, he headed home where no doubt Felice would already be asleep.

Opening up the front door of their shared residence, he walked into the still lit hallway. Rounding the bend, he saw Felice, face planted on the kitchen table, breathing lightly. He must have waited as long as he could, Raymond thought to himself with a smile. Quietly, he turned off the lights until he reached his partner, before scooping him up and carrying him to their bedroom. Felice along the way, mumbled his name and subconsciously wrapped his arms around him.

Within their bedroom, he gently lay his boyfriend down and pulled the covers over him, lovingly. Finally changing out of his uniform, he was able to relax and breathe a sigh of relief. It was such an eventful day. Hopefully tomorrow would be more lax. Feeling his body weigh down like lead, he plopped into bed and splayed out. His eyelids grew heavy as he stared at the ceiling until he felt something warm press against him. Turning his head, he saw Felice scooting over to him, to rest his head on his shoulder.

“Goodnight, Felice.”

“Nyight Ruhmond…”

Smirking, he gave into sleep, nestled in with his partner.

The next morning, after having breakfast with Felice and explaining to him all that happened yesterday, he was back in uniform, the money still in his pocket. Returning to the precinct and going through the main doors, he immediately headed for the jail cells, to have a talk with Rummy with a clear and awake mind. Coming upon his cell, he was shocked to see that it was empty. Befuddled, he turned to find the Captain, who happened to have appeared right in front of him. Surprised, he took a step back before straightening up.

“Good morning sir. I was just going to look for you. What happened to the man that was in this cell?”

The captain’s mustache wiggled as it always did as he put his hands on his thick waist. “He was taken away by a woman earlier.”

Ray immediately imagined the lady in the black suit. “What justification did she have for taking him?” He asked rather bluntly and with a sting of ire.

“Well,” the captain began. “That woman so happens to be Camilla Paxton, Chief Superintendent of Syd.”

The constable’s face paled, his blood icing over as he realized who he had disrespected last night. “Chief S-Superintendent you say?”

“Yes. Don’t worry,” he assured, waving his hands, to reassure him. “She had nothing but praises to say about you. But, she has taken over responsibility of him because he is a resident of Syd.”

“Oh…I guess that makes sense.”

“That’s that. However, I do have something to speak with you about pertaining to the incident. If you would please come with me to my office.”

“Yes sir.”

Back in the main room of the precinct, the man Rummy had beaten to a bloody pulp was leaning over the information desk, face a bulbous, discolored wreck. He spat at the officer behind the desk, demanding reparation for what was done to him by that man, his speech barely intelligible. Beside him, nearly folded inwardly on herself out of fear of her husband, was his thin wife. She kept her face down, as if she would be struck for holding her head at the same level of anyone else. As sad as it was, the situation was rather fortuitous. Once an officer went to transport the man to the complaints office, Brandon demanded his wife sit down and wait for him, practically spitting on her.

Ray waited for the disgusting bastard to be out of sight before stopping his captain. “One moment please sir. I need to speak to her.”

“It’s pointless, constable,” he complained with a sigh. “She won’t ever testify against him. I hate to say it but you are going to have to let that go.”

“It will only take a moment, sir.” Hurrying over, Ray asked her if he could take the seat beside her. She did not respond, hands quivering, clenching tight to her old and moth bitten purse. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to talk to you about that. I have something for you,” he whispered, sitting in a way that concealed his intentions from the others. He pulled the money out of his pocket, discreetly. “This is for you.”

Though her face was cloaked behind low hanging tresses of brown hair, she stared at the money. “Why?” she whimpered.

“It’s a gift. I hope that you can do better for yourself with it.”

After a moment of hesitation, she shakily took the money and whispered a weak but grateful thank you, shoving it into her purse. Ray tipped his hat to her and stood back up, going back to join the captain. As they continued to his office, he gave one last look back to her seat where she was no longer sitting and smiled, as genuine happiness flooded him. “Good luck,” he muttered.

Turning his attention back, he headed inside the office and took a seat before the captain’s desk. After a moment of silence, his captain leaned back in his squeaking chair, stroking his mustache. “Ray. Did you who this Rummy was?”

Taken aback by the line of questioning, he raised a brow. “No. Not at all. I just met him for the first time ever last night.”

An uncomfortable, curious silence ensued until the captain spoke again. “Well. His full name is Rummy Corvin Lowell.” He went quiet yet again as he waited for a reaction from Raymond who though thinking the last name sounded familiar, gave no reply. After another moment, the captain gravely slid a paper over for Ray to read. Glancing at his superior, he wondered where this was going, that was, until he glanced down.

Gasping, Ray’s eyes bulged as he read over the names on the file. Renau Lowell (Deceased), Rummy Lowell (Alive), Kale Lowell (Missing), Reina Lowell (Deceased), and Relix Lowell (Missing). Lifting the paper in his strained hands, he read over it repeatedly as if it would help the information sink in. Without looking up he mumbled weakly. “Rummy is relative to the family that started the second rebellion…”

#victubia #fan fiction #my writing

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