#footage of his santa fe WHEN

[uppastthejelliclemoon]

it’s actually biphobic that i can’t go see the uk newsies production AND i can’t see il sistina cats

[sjsmith56]

Ride With Me - Chapter 16, Finding Jade

Summary: Bucky shows up unannounced at Ma’s place outside Santa Fe. Jade, initially excited to see him, gives him a hard time when he asks her to take him back.

Length: 5.6K

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Jade, Ben, Ma.

Warnings: For readers over the age of age of 18+ due to sexual content. Minors do not interact. Residual anger at Bucky mostly as Jade acts like a bitch towards him.

Author’s notes: final chapter. Originally my apocalyptic tale was much more bleak, filled with angst and suffering but as the story progressed it became more about people finding connection and hope.  Especially Bucky, who never wanted to be looked upon as a leader and decided to go back to get Steve, knowing the group needed his reliable authority.  It allowed Bucky, without that pressure on him, to come up with a low-tech tactic that he could test with strangers before offering it to the Avengers.   Finally, about Jade...I didn't want the usual pretty girl.  The model, whose image I used on the cover, is an Australian, Ollie Henderson.  For a time she went all blonde to get a totally different look from her usual brunette hair.  Jade had to be visually, mentally and psychologically different due to her childhood trauma with the religious cult.  When she took Bucky's memories into her own consciousness I wanted to show how it upset the yin and yang that was their relationship, leading to their breakup. 

<<Chapter 15

🏍️🏜️

Eight months after Bucky left the Bunker.  Four days after Bucky left New York.

Jade was busy scrubbing the dirt off the rocks she had collected that morning.  There were some good specimens in there.  Good enough to bring in some money at the rock hounds sale in Santa Fe in a month once she sliced and polished them.   The rock hounds club in Albuquerque had asked her to set up a table there but she had declined.  Still too many dark memories of that town.  She could hear Ben laughing in the house and looked at Ma.

"He's talking to Peter," she said.  "He's supposed to be teaching him but they're talking about gaming."

"Can you tell them both to get back at it?" she asked.  "Honestly, you would think Peter would know better.  I've a good mind to phone May."

Ma laughed.  "You're sounding more and more like a normal mother every day," she said.  "What happened to you?"

"Don't go there, Ma," said Jade.  "It was my decision.  Normal mother sounds good to me right now."

She bent back over the bucket and scrubbed too hard on the one stone.  She splashed water on her shorts but ignored it as the dry New Mexico air would take care of it.  It had been almost nine months since the showdown with the cult in Albuquerque, eight and a half months since they implemented the plan to destroy all the Others' queens, eight months since she last saw or heard from Bucky.  That wasn't quite true as he sent a postcard from New York City, showing it being rebuilt after the attack on the Others there.  All it said was "Thinking of you, Bucky".  That had been over a month ago and since then, nothing from him directly. 

Peter had sent out little snippets of information since they all left, complete with links to news video coverage.  About six weeks after Bucky left there was a live streaming event of a news crew at Avengers HQ shadowing the various members of the Avengers.  Some of them like Steve, Peter and Sam were very open and informative.  Scott was very popular being the friendly man that he was in real life.  Bucky was reclusive, not wanting to be filmed or interviewed.  When they did finally get him in a sit down situation he was abrupt and clearly uncomfortable.  The footage of him and Steve taking on a series of nests by themselves and running so fast as they dropped off the flash bangs that they were both a blur was popular, generating a lot of likes on social media. 

Just a month and a half ago the Avengers were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction and the Congressional Gold Medal for their efforts in fighting the Others.  A week later they were interviewed on CBS Mornings in New York in the rebuilt Times Square with fans behind security barriers holding up signs naming their favourites.  The signs with Bucky's name were being held by predominantly female fans.  His reclusive nature had appealed to a certain type of woman who all thought he should show his face more.  The hosts showed a picture of Bucky with his short hair working on his motorcycle to the screams of his female fans.  Word from Peter was that Bucky was still debating whether to stay in New York with the Avengers.  Apparently his decision was still unknown. 

She heard Cherry nicker in her paddock and called to the mare, one of the three horses the Avengers had bought from the outfitter.  Cherry was the first one she had connected with and they still had a good relationship, just not a telepathic one anymore.  Apple, a chestnut mare, and Butch, a roan gelding, had also made the trip to their home.  Clint would have liked to take them to Missouri but thought it was too long a trip to subject them to so when she and Ma moved near Santa Fe after finding that big hunk of gold they brought the horses with them.  Drying her hands she went over to the fence.

"What is it, girl?" she asked.  "Am I not giving you enough attention?"

She felt inside the food bucket and brought out a piece of carrot for each of them, stroking their necks as they crunched through their favourite vegetable.  Two miles away where the road to their property came off the highway she caught the sound of a big motorcycle, loud and loved by gear heads, slowing down on the highway and turning onto their road.  At first she thought it was somebody using it to turn around but the dust plume from the rear of the bike kept coming closer.  Buddy sat up, his ears perked forward, watching the rider approach.

"We have company!" she yelled. 

Ma came forward, peering at the approaching motorcycle.  Then a smile crossed her face but she said nothing other than it was a friendly.  She went back to her garden leaving Jade to greet the visitor.  Jade waited and the biker finally pulled up in front of her.  It was a man and after he stopped he tugged off his leather gloves.  It was then she noticed the black metal hand.

"Bucky?" she said.

He took his helmet off and she rushed to him.

"Hold on," he said, smiling.  "Let me get off the bike."

As soon as he was off the bike she jumped into his arms wrapping her legs around him.  He wrapped her in his arms, running his hand through her hair and kissing her when she finally raised her face to his.  Buddy started barking happily, his tail wagging as he recognized Bucky.  Ma came forward then with a big smile on her face.

"About time you got here," she said.  "Poor girl has been pining away for you."

"I wanted to come sooner," he said, "but I had obligations.  I'm on leave for a month so I'll be hanging around, if that's okay."

"You're always welcome, Bucky," said Ma affectionately, "always."

Jade was crying now, still wrapped around his waist.  He held her like a baby, stroking her back and talking softly into her ear.  It took a few minutes before she relinquished her hold on him and turned away, wiping her face.  By that time Ben had heard the commotion and came to the door.

"Bucky!" he said, running to him and giving him a hug. 

"Jesus, kid," said Bucky, rubbing the boy's hair.  "What the hell is your mom feeding you?  You've grown almost a foot since I last saw you."

"Ma says it's a growth spurt," replied Ben.  "I've got hair growing in strange places, too.  And you wouldn't believe what I wake up to some mornings."

Bucky burst out laughing.  Ben was still the most direct kid he ever knew, not that he knew many.  But if anyone could get through puberty without trauma it would probably be him.  Everything was just normal to him. 

"How come you never called or wrote?" demanded Jade, anger replacing her tears.  "I received one postcard with one sentence in almost eight months.  We have a phone you know."

"I know," he said.  "I have no excuse other than things have been hectic with the hunt for Others nests.  The military is taking over a lot of the hunts now so the Avengers get to go back to being the Avengers."

"Does that mean you're staying in New York?" asked Jade, a little fearful.

"Well, no, not exactly," he said.  "I'm staying with the Avengers but they want a permanent presence at the Bunker now.  Bruce already decided to stay there and I kind of like the peace and quiet."

"Which is why you have one of the noisiest bikes, right?" said Ma, laughing.

"What can I say, I'm a complicated guy," he said.  "Jade, would you take a ride on my bike with me?"

"Only if you go horseback riding with me before dinner," she said.  "Those are my terms."

"Fair enough," he said smiling.  "I could use a drink and the use of your bathroom."

"Ben, get Bucky a beer," said Ma.  "Come sit in the cool of my garden when you're done."

Bucky took his back pack off, and went inside, ducking his head at the low door.  Ben pointed to the bathroom.  When he came outside he went under the pergola and took his leather jacket off.  A beer was sitting on a side table near Jade.  She patted the open space beside her.  He took a long drink of the beer and looked at the three with warmth.  They still felt like family to him. 

"Tell us everything," said Ma. "How is everyone?"

"Peter is in university, but you already knew that," he said.  "Steve is in charge of the Avengers and is doing a ton of recruiting, Sam is still Captain America.  He and Maria went back to Louisiana but he's on call all the time and can pretty much fly anywhere in the country within an hour.  Scott and Hope are staying in California but they're on call as well.  Clint decided to retire but I think he'll be bored out of his skull in six months.  He had a protégé all ready to take over from him, named Kate Bishop.  She lived with his family during the occupation.  Wanda is Wanda.  She'll be there if and when we need her.  Strange is kind of working with Steve to find suitable Avenger candidates.  King T'Challa died but his sister Shuri and Queen Ramonda lived.  They will get Wakanda back on its feet in no time.  Still no sign of Thor or the Guardians.  New Asgard survived and Valkyrie still rules there.  That leaves me.  How have you all been?"

"Ma and Bruce are dating," said Ben.

"I just go out there and spend time with him," said Ma quickly.  "I wouldn't call it dating. It's not like we go anywhere.  We just enjoy each other's company."

"But you do sleep together, Ma," said Jade with a mischievous look in her eyes.  "I can tell."

Bucky looked at Ma, smiling.  "Seriously?" he said. "You and Bruce?  Nice."

She didn't say a thing, just sat there with a small smile on her face. 

"Did you ride your motorcycle from New York?" asked Ben.

"I did," said Bucky.  "I packed some clothes in my back pack and headed out on the road, all the way here."

"What are your intentions?" asked Jade, suddenly.

"That's why I want you to take a ride with me," replied Bucky.

"Take the ride, Mom," said Ben.  "Oh, sorry, was that out loud?"

"You've been hanging out with Peter too much," said Bucky smiling.  "But he's right.  Take the ride with me, Jade, please."

She agreed and when Bucky finished his beer she put on her jean jacket, which was actually his jean jacket that she stole when they still lived in the Bunker.  He looked at her bare legs beneath her shorts.

"You should put some jeans on," he said. 

"I'm fine," she said.  "Lead on."

He shrugged and gave her his helmet to wear.  Then he mounted the bike, started it up, and waited for her to get on and wrap her arms around him.  He carefully drove the two mile road to the highway and set off for wherever he fancied.  After about 15 minutes he saw a sign for a state park lookout and pulled into it.  She got off the bike and took the helmet off.  He lifted his right leg over the bike and sat facing her, pulling her in close.  She lifted her right leg and leaned on him with her knee on his thigh.

"I am sorry," he said, touching her face.  "I should have never left but all I heard in my head was you telling me to leave."

"I also told you I would talk to you later but you just flew off the handle and left without even saying goodbye," replied Jade, trying not to cry.

He pulled her in even more so their bodies were touching, cradling her face in his right hand, while his left hand was on her hands behind her back.

"I regretted it the moment I was on the highway but my pride wouldn't let me come back,"  he said softly.  "I wanted to call since then but I wasn't sure you would talk to me after I left without a word to you.  Me deciding not to call was easier than hearing you say you wouldn't talk to me."

"No excuse," she said, pulling away and standing several feet from him.  "It was just a stupid argument.  I thought you didn't want me anymore after my decision."

"What? No!" he exclaimed.  "That had nothing to do with it.  You had to do what was best for you.  I respect that.  What we experienced together, that will be special forever.  But I fell in love with you, not your gift."

She sighed and walked away from him towards the fence overlooking the view.  He came over and leaned on the fence next to her.  They didn't speak for a few minutes.

"You cut your hair," she said.  "I liked it long.  But you look good all the same."

"We had to do some media stuff and one of the criticisms of my appearance was it made me look homeless or like a motorcycle gang member," he smirked.  "Not the image they wanted for the new incarnation of the Avengers.  It's already grown some and won't take long to grow longer, if you like it that way."

"Why should I have any say in it?" she asked.  "It's not like we're a couple anymore."

"That's why I'm here," he said, turning to her.  "I never wanted to leave you.  When we were together I always thought we would get married, maybe have a kid or two."

"Then why did you leave?" she yelled, trying not to cry.  "Especially when I needed you so much?  I cried for days!"

She walked away from him to a place where a bench was and sat down, putting her face in her hands.  He watched her then walked over and sat next to her.  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a black bandanna, offering it to her.  She took it, blew her nose and offered it back but he told her to keep it.

"Because I was an idiot," he said bluntly.  "Trust is hard for me, as hard as it is for you.  When you told me about Strange and Wanda removing your abilities I was hurt that you would take that step without talking to me.  It was always your decision, I get that, but I wanted to have my say before you did it.  I over reacted and said some shit to you because that's who I am sometimes.  I tried to take it back as soon as I said it but you wouldn't listen so I did what I'm really good at.  I ran away, and I've been miserable without you ever since.  I even trashed a building when I realized how stupid I had been."

"So why are you here, Bucky?" she asked, poking him in the chest.  "Why are you really here?"

"I'm going to be stationed at the Bunker, permanently," he said, grasping her hand and stroking the back of it.  "Starting in a month.  I want you to come with me, Ben and Ma as well, if they want.  I want to marry you."

He didn't know what he was expecting but yanking her hand out of his, picking up a bunch of rocks and throwing them over the fence wasn't it.  She stood there after, her nostrils flaring, her eyes glaring and looking ready to burst.

"You have your nerve," she said defiantly. "We bought that place with the gold we found.  It's ours, completely ours. We have a good life here and you want us to uproot everything to go and live in that concrete box again?"

"Okay," he said carefully and calmly.  "Then marry me, stay here during the week and either come to me for the weekends or I come here.  Lot's of couples do it.  I don't want to be without you again, Jade.  I've been miserable since we broke up.  Whatever you want, I'll do it, anything except quit the Avengers.  It's what I do best and I like it."

She sat back down next to him and looked at him.  "This is when I miss my gift," she said.  "This is when I would take a peek in your brain and see if you were serious.  I can't tell because I never had to develop the human ability to tell when a person was full of shit."

"Do you still love me?" he asked.  "I think you do, otherwise you wouldn't have greeted me the way you did."

"Yes," she admitted.  "I don't know why but I do."

"Sure you do," he said.  "You know why you love me.  Say the reasons.  I'll start.  I make you feel safe."

She looked at him expressionless until he raised his eyebrows.

"You listen," she carried on reluctantly.  "Your body makes me weak in the knees.  Your eyes are like the ocean.  Your voice is so soft and silky that it makes me wet with desire.  Your stupid face is in my dreams every night.  You've ruined me for other men.  I don't want anyone else.  I want you."

The last parts were spoken with a whisper as she struggled to keep her composure but he heard her loud and clear.

"Then say you'll marry me and we'll work out how we do this," he said quietly.  "Because I want you, too.  I love you and I want a life with you, however we make it work."

"I have to think about it," she said.  "Really think.  I'll give you my answer when we take our horseback ride."

"Okay," he said, satisfied for now.  "Let's go back, before Ma thinks I kidnapped you."

Only love can bring the rain

That makes you yearn to the sky

Only love can bring the rain

That falls like tears from on high

Love, Reign O'er Me by The Who

"It's raining," said Bucky, looking out the window.  "We won't be able to ride."

Jade looked outside.  "It's virga," she said.  "Rain that evaporates before it hits the ground.  Stop trying to back out."

She had already saddled Butch for Bucky and was just saddling Cherry.  Even without her gift she could tell Bucky was nervous about riding Butch, but it was so needless.  Butch was a big softie of a horse, calm and compliant.  A baby could ride him.  She finished tightening the straps and stood beside Butch.

"Want a hand up?" she asked, sarcastically.

"No, I remember how," he said, miffed.

He put his foot in the stirrup and lifted himself up onto Butch.  Jade mounted Cherry with ease and she pulled the reins to take the trail leading away from their house.

"We're off, Ma," she yelled.  "Back at sunset."

"Dinner will be ready," Ma yelled back, watching them go, calling back Buddy, then whispering.  "Say yes, you silly girl."

"Stay on the path," said Jade.  "There are rattlesnakes around."

"Where are we going?" he asked, bringing himself alongside her.

"To a nice view," she said. 

"Thanks for giving me my jean jacket," he said. 

"You're welcome," she replied. 

"You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?" he asked. 

"No, I'm not," she snapped back.  "There's something about being kidnapped by a religious nut bar who expected me to lay on my back and spread my legs for him that changes a person, especially when he turned out to be my father.  You want me?  You woo me."

She rode a little faster to get ahead of Bucky.  He realized she was doing it deliberately to hurt him physically since he was such a lousy rider.  Swallowing his pride he encouraged Butch to go faster and he caught up to her. 

"How can I woo you if you won't slow down?" he asked.

"Aren't I worth a little discomfort?" she retorted.  "I recall you saying you would die for me.  This isn't death, just hard on the ass."

"Man, you have really become quite mean since you gave up your gift," he said pointedly.  "Lost all of your empathy, your calmness, your good manners."

Jade smirked and rode even faster.  She turned around to look behind her and didn't see Bucky.  She stopped and turned Cherry around only to have Bucky whip by her from the opposite direction.  He looked back with a big grin on his face as he expertly pulled up.

"Son of a bitch," she muttered.  "He took riding lessons."

He rode back to her and she saw he was quite at home in the saddle.   With grace, she smiled and conceded a draw.  She led him back onto the original path and they finally came to the spot she wanted him to see, a view of rolling hills to the west as the sun was low. 

"This is a nice view.  I missed these sunsets," he said while he looked out over the vista.  "I took riding lessons when I was researching a delivery method that didn't depend on me and Steve running all over the place.  I'm not as good as you, obviously, but I can handle it."

"The horse detachments...that was you? Did you also do it for me?" she asked. 

"Partly yeah, I did," he said.  "What Clint said about the Others not being threatened by the horses stuck with me and I worked on the idea.  Then as I got more comfortable riding I knew I wanted to come back and ride with you. When I found out you brought the horses here it became a goal for me.  I envisioned us doing this, going for a leisurely ride just before sunset, when the light was golden.  I imagined us bringing our horses close together, and me leaning over, and kissing you."

He did the movements he described as he said them.  After kissing her he sat back in his saddle and pulled a small box out of his jean jacket.  Ma had given it to him in the house; she had kept it safe until he returned.

"I saw myself bringing this box out and showing you this ring that I made, with Ma's help, with the jade gemstone in it that you found on one of the best days we ever had together.  I practiced saying Jade Chambers, would you marry me?  I thought I did a pretty good job of it as well.  Of course, in my imagination you always said yes."

"You jerk," she whispered.  "Why did you have to go and make it so perfect?  Now I can't say no."

"Is that a yes?" he asked bringing Butch closer.

She didn't answer.

"Jade, will you marry me?" he asked, his horse right beside hers.

"Yes, it's a yes," she whispered back, trying not to cry. 

He leaned over and placed the ring on her finger, then pulled her close for a passionate kiss. 

"Does this mean you forgive me as well?" he asked innocently.

"That depends on tonight," she said, with a smile.  "But your chances are good."

"Then we better get back," he replied.  "Don't want to keep Ma waiting.  She's practically screaming in my head right now."

Jade laughed.  She took his vibranium hand in hers.  "I really missed you," she said, tears finally forming.  "I truly thought you didn't love me anymore.  That's when I missed my gift the most.  But I couldn't keep it, knowing there were people who thought it made me something I wasn't, a prophet, an object of worship, or a weapon.  That's why I did it.  It has changed me.  I'm not that strange anymore, except my looks.  That still causes peoples' heads to turn.  But then I open my mouth and they know I'm normal."

"I still worship you," he said sincerely.  "You're still beautiful inside and out.  We made love with the mental connection that one time and I will always remember how special it was.  It was a gift because I let you in and I had never let anyone into my head like that before or since.  You know my deepest darkest secrets and fears yet you still love me.  You will never be just normal to me, you will always be special."

They kissed again, and as if knowing, Butch and Cherry moved closer so the two riders didn't have to lean over as much.  They heard a rumble of thunder and looked around seeing a storm starting to develop in the distance.  Bucky turned Butch around and they started back for the homestead.  By the time they got back and had unsaddled and cooled down the horses a wind had picked up.  Ma called them in for dinner and commented they would get a good storm that night.  While they ate they could hear the incoming thunder but there was no visible lightning or rain until they had finished.  Ma looked at Bucky and Jade and told them to go on to bed upstairs, she and Ben could handle the cleanup. 

"Upstairs?" asked Bucky.  "I thought this was a single story ranch house?"

"Optical illusion," said Jade.  "Come on."

Bucky grabbed his back pack and they went up a narrow staircase to where a bedroom had been built in the attic with a skylight window facing north.  It was rustic and cozy, and it would be theirs.

"Who did this?" he asked. 

"Ma did some serious negotiating with some tradespeople for the staircase, window and the electrical," Jade replied.  "We did all the sanding.  I bought the furniture and bedding from some of my earnings."

"I thought you didn't think I was coming back," he said.

"Ma kept saying you would and her future seeing was always better than mine," she answered.

"Then why didn't the cult kidnap her to be their prophet?" asked Bucky.  "I always meant to ask that."

"Because she was past child bearing age," said Jade.  "Elder Abraham aka Dad said he was destined to be the father of greatness with the white haired mother of greatness, which was me, not her.  Enough talk."

"One more question," he said, "I promise.  You still have your implant?"

She lifted up her arm and showed him the small scar from the injection then lifted up her other arm with the faint but large scar where her father tried to carve out her birth control implant.  He touched the large scar then put his hand on her face and kissed her softly.  She kissed him back and they sat on the edge of the bed, caressing each other's face and hair.  Leaning forward she pulled his shirt off, tracing the edge of his prosthetic shoulder with her fingertips, then to his pectoral muscles before stopping at the top button of his jeans, undoing it.  He pulled her shirt off, smiling that she wasn't wearing a bra.  He pushed her down onto the bed to caress her breasts and kiss her neck.  Her pale skin glowed in the dim light then a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, lighting everything up in its brilliance.  It was quickly followed by a crash of thunder.  They both undressed completely and got under the covers waiting for the next lightning flash.  As they waited they softly kissed and caressed, becoming familiar with  each other's bodies again.  By the time the thunderstorm started in earnest they weren't paying attention to it any more.  Instead Bucky was in her slowly thrusting himself deep as he kissed wherever his lips moved to.  Jade ran her hands down his back to his bottom squeezing and pulling him closer.  He started mouthing her ear and moved down to her breasts.  Pulling his face back to hers Jade kissed him, running her tongue over his before kissing him hard.  She clenched around him and he groaned feeling her tighten.  With a grin he ground his pelvis into her, connecting with her clitoris and drawing a large sigh from her as she lifted her face upwards towards him.  As they both got closer to the moment before their bodies would release in a flash of pleasure he brought his face down to her ear.

"I found you, Jade," he whispered.  "I saw you on Red Wing's surveillance video.  It was me who told Steve where you were while he was out on patrol.  All I saw was your hair, your beautiful glorious hair.  That's why I combed it out and washed it when you were still unconscious.  I wanted to see your hair."

"I know," she murmured back.  "I saw the memory in your head right at the beginning.  It's why I was attracted to you from the start.  You saw beauty in me before anyone else.  I saw it in you, too, James."

They kissed deeply for a long time still moving in rhythm as their passion built to a crescendo of cries and thrusts until they reached their pinnacle together.  She arched her back, crying out his name and he pressed himself into her neck with loud gasps.  Below them in the living room, Ben looked up.

"We'll be hearing that a lot for the next month," he said drolly, as he rolled the dice while they played Yahtzee.

"Why don't you put some music on?" said Ma.  "I know Peter gave you some playlists.  Let your grandmother listen."

Ben took out his iPad and connected to the Bluetooth speaker, then picked out his favourite playlist.  There were swear words in it but if Ma said to play it then he was going to play it.  Above the living room they were just coming down from their bliss.  Jade heard the music playing and her eyes grew big as she heard some of the words.  She was going to go downstairs and say something but Bucky grabbed her hand and pulled her back into his arms.

"It's a different world that we live in," he said, kissing her.  "He's a good kid.  Let him have his music.  He's probably playing it because we were a little loud.  You want him to listen to us having sex or a few swear words?"

He winced when The Penis Song by Macklemore came up.  "I'm going to kill Peter Parker," he said, flopping back in the bed.

Jade started laughing and kissed him again.  She laid on top of Bucky and looked at the engagement ring with her namesake gem stone in it and thought back to the day when they found the piece of jade together.  It was before the cult kidnapped her.  They were walking along the wash away from the Bunker.  Everyone had got into scouring the area for gemstones and Jade had shown them how to shape, sand and polish the stones.  The geodes had become popular as room décor once she showed them how to crack the rocks.  She had found the jade by accident, noticing a fossil exposed by the last rain.  Together they had uncovered parts of the fossil and debated digging it out but it was huge so Bucky made a GPS record of it for the time when they could notify the university about it.  Just beside it was a small piece of jade that had been scoured on the side facing up.  Bucky said it matched her eyes and asked if he could have it for a project.  She realized right at that moment that the ring had been the project.  He had worked on it since before the cult took her.  Looking at him, she smiled.

"The ring was the project," she said.  "You've wanted to marry me for a long time."

"Took you long enough," he replied, amused.

Pulling her into his arms he kissed her again and played with her soft fine hair that he had always loved.  For the next month they would be in this bed often when they wanted to be intimate.  They would also ride his bike, ride the horses, and he would start being a real father to Ben.  Working out how to have a long-distance marriage would take time but he knew in his heart they would definitely marry.  Then someday have a child together.  He had found his gem, his Jade, and no one would ever separate them again.

Things are beautiful if you love them.

Jean Anouilh

💍 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨

Series Masterlist

I hope you all enjoyed this different take.   If you did, please like, comment or reblog.

[paulvtx42]

The Timekeepers of Eternity from Aristotelis Maragkos on Vimeo.

The Timekeepers of Eternity a film by Aristotelis Maragkos Greece / 62' / 09/2021 / experimental animation

Mr Toomey has an important business meeting in Boston, but he dreads the thought of arriving. The only relief from the screams of his father in his traumatic dreams of childhood, is obsessively tearing paper - ripping it into strips. When he wakes on his flight, there seems to have been a tear in reality as most of the other passengers have vanished. When the survivors land, the airport is eerily empty of life, like a blank page. Something is coming to rip this weird paper purgatory of the mind apart - Monsters only Mr Toomey can confront.

Footage from the 1995 Stephen King TV movie The Langoliers is edited, printed and animated into a paper nightmare.

starring Bronson Pinchot

Sound Design: Lowtronik Composer: Amulets World sales: Square Eyes

imdb.com/title/tt15528116/

Festivals Fantastic Fest, United States (23 – 30 September, 2021) Official Selection Denver Film Festival, United States (3 – 14 November, 2021) Official Selection Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greece (4 – 14 November, 2021) Greek Competition Sharjah Film Platform, United Arab Emirates (19 – 27 November, 2021) Experimental Competition Won: Best Experimental Feature Film Film Maudit 2.0, United States (12 – 23 January, 2022) Official Selection Glasgow Short Film Festival, United Kingdom (23 – 27 March, 2022) Opening Film Kaboom Animation Festival, the Netherlands (28 March – 3 April, 2022) Feature Competition Festival du Cinéma de Brive, France (4 – 9 April, 2022) International Competition Wisconsin Film Festival, United States (7 – 14 April, 2022) Official Selection Fanatastic Film Festival Australia, Australia (16 April – 1 May, 2022) Official Selection BAFICI – Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, Argentina (20 April – 1 May, 2022) Official Avant-Garde & Genre Competition Special Mention Fantaspoa – International Fantastic Film Festival, Brazil (20 April – 1 May, 2022) Animated Feature Competition Young Film Fest, Czech Republic (21 – 24 April, 2022) Official Selection Won: Best Youth Film Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, Spain (22 April – 1 May, 2022) Band A Part Competition IndieLisboa International Film Festival, Portugal (28 April – 8 May, 2022) Director’s Cut Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival, Spain (6 – 14 May, 2022) Panorama Beldocs – International Documentary Film Festival, Serbia (11 – 18 May, 2022) Fireworks Jersey Festival, Channel Islands (12 – 15 May, 2022) Animafest Zagreb, Croatia (6 – 11 June, 2022) Feature Film Competition Transilvania International Film Festival, Romania (17 – 26 June, 2022) No Limit Chattanooga Film Festival, United States (23 – 28 June, 2022) Official Selection Slaughter Fest: The International Festival Of Art Horror Film, Serbia (1 – 3 July, 2022) Official Selection Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, Switzerland (1 – 9 July, 2022) Official Selection Festival ECRÃ, Brazil (1 – 10 July, 2022) Official Selection ANIMATOR Festival, Poland (8 – 15 July, 2022) Feature Film Competition Guanajuato International Film Festival, Mexico (21 – 31 July, 2022) Special Showcase: Movies with Mummy Atlàntida Film Festival, Spain (24 July – 24 August, 2022) Main Online Programme Popcorn Frights Film Festival, United States (11 – 21 August, 2022) Official Selection Fantoche – International Animation Film Festival, Switzerland (6 – 11 September, 2022) Official Selection Sydney Underground Film Festival, Australia (8 – 11 September, 2022) Official Selection Bafici Itinerant – Santa Fe, Argentina (22 – 28 September, 2022) SLASH Filmfestival, Austria (22 September – 2 October, 2022) Official Selection Tacoma Film Festival, United States (6 – 13 October, 2022) Official Competition Won: Best Late Night Film Lima Alterna Festival Internacional de Cine, Peru (13 – 23 October, 2022) Opening film Archivio Aperto, Italy (20 – 24 October, 2022) Midnight Special

Press quotes “The Timekeepers of Eternity is an ambitious, unexpected experiment in remixing art with multiple techniques and mediums. It’s a singular vision and a complete story that mines new ideas from a nearly three-decade-old made-for-TV miniseries” Review: Meagan Navarro – Bloody Disgusting

“The Timekeepers of Eternity is a shining example of the infinite creative lifespan of art.” Review: Noah Ramer – Silver Linings Reviews

“It was the overwhelming, painstaking artistry of director and animator Aristotelis Maragkos that kept me seriously riveted.” Review: Aundria Parker – Daily Grindhouse

“The Timekeepers of Eternity is a combination art cinema project, labor of love, and eerie science fiction/horror tale. It truly needs to be seen to be believed.” Review: Joseph Perry – Scariest Things

“it takes one of the worst Stephen King adaptations and – just like Toomy – rips it up and reshapes it into something far more interesting.” Review: Padraig Cotter – Screenrant

[hakesbros]

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[cookinguptales]

So we just left Santa Fe and I finally got a chance to see the House of Eternal Return by Meow Wolf and uhhhh I’m OBSESSED.

From the website: “Guests spend an average of 90 minutes inside the exhibit but we recommend you plan for at least 2 hours. There's a lot to see!”

and when we got there, the person who checked us in was like “Well, if you just want to see the art, maybe 2 hours? But if you want to experience all the story, maybe as long as 4.”

Y’all underestimated me because I was at Meow Wolf for eight fucking hours. I guess we know now what would happen if Sleep No More didn’t throw us out after three lmao. I left because they closed. And then it took me another day and a half to go through all the digital content.

Anyway, some thoughts under the cut. Split it into mildly spoilery and VERY spoilery. 

[mild spoilers section]

Well like number one if someone told me that this whole catastrophe was set in motion by a cult leader (with real powers) falling in love with his own acolyte, who then betrayed him because he couldn’t stand to see him destroying himself and perhaps the fabric of the universe itself

like

I think I would have found a way to Santa Fe much sooner lmao.

My dad went a few years ago with some people who wanted to rush through, and he told me he didn’t even notice any story. But oh my god, there was so much story. From the moment I opened their mailbox and found the bereavement cards, I knew I was in for a wild ride. God, there were HUNDREDS of pages to read, hours of film footage to watch, like seventy rooms to explore. Codes to crack in Nicolae’s office! Secret passages to Morgan’s garden hideaway and Lucius’s Portals Bermuda! Better look in everyone’s closet because odds are high that there’s a portal to the multiverse in there!

Just how many hamsters are there?? I think I found like 6-7, but I wasn’t looking that hard. Nimsesku is always watching. :’)

Also, it was very funny to us to arrive and start looking through all the documents because apparently most of the story takes place in Mendocino, which is........ the exact area we just left. Drove ALL THIS WAY just to spend an hour poring over a newspaper with an ad for the GoodLife Bakery. (Along with one for The Power of Positive Mechanics.) Some things don’t change, I guess. That newspaper even name-dropped the very, very tiny town that my parents live in! It’s got like 200 people in it! So clearly whoever wrote those portions of the show knew the area well lmao. Those are all real places and businesses! I mean, honestly, they probably mentioned almost ALL the businesses in Mendocino. The place is tiny.

The confusion we felt when we walked in and were like wait wtf is that Point Cabrillo?? lmao.

I feel like I spent most of my time in the house just because there is so much reading material in there, but I also really loved the multiverse. I loved how you just didn’t know what you were going to find in there. I know hundreds of artists collaborated to create it, but it was still so cool to see such a mishmash of artistic styles coming together to create a really gorgeous, fractured vibe. One day I want to go back with the knowledge I have of all the characters so I can try to pin down which character each room is evoking. Some are obvious, like the arcade (and yes, I did play Cuphead there for a while and get my fortune told by Alva) but others are like ??? whose memories and desires created this pocket dimension?? Hard to say.

[MAJOR spoilers]

Well, to start with, putting the Lucius/Christian story (yeah, the names aren’t subtle) at the beginning of the house was a good call for two major reasons. Number one, if you put a gay romance in front of me, I’m staying. lmao. Number two, it was really interesting the way that they showed Lucius’s descent into ego-driven madness and how Christian felt that he had to stop him before it was too late. Because like -- yes, it’s true. Lucius was definitely going too far and had a wanton disregard for human life and the tenability of his creations. But I love the way you come to slowly realize that Christian, by helping The Charter, might have thrown his lot in with something even more sinister.

Like there were obvious parallels to like. Lucifer/Christians, knowledge/ignorance, chaos/order, free will/a lack thereof, and I like how the Charter wasn’t wrong about the Seligs, necessarily. They did have the ability to create a rift in the multiverse -- and did. But by the end, you questioned if that was even a bad thing. Like, is returning to that chaotic jumble of consciousnesses and creativity that is the Anomaly such a bad thing? The Charter is trying to stamp out magic and science and creativity and individualism. And maybe if they’d left the Seligs alone and hadn’t gatecrashed Lucius’s cult, the eventual rift wouldn’t have even happened. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy, really. They cut away Lucius’s powers, which made him return to Mendocino and prey on Lex, which resulted in their experiments on Nimsesku, which resulted in Lex fading away into the multiverse, which resulted in the family trying to get him back -- which created the rift. And it was so creepy reading Piper’s journal entries about the black crow spying on them, especially knowing that robot Nimsesku was too.

Speaking of Nimsesku, got STRONG Chrestomanci vibes from his plotline. 

I love this implication that every time their Nimsesku dies, he’s replaced with a version from an alternate universe. That they didn’t actually create an immortal hamster. They created one that occupied a very liminal space between worlds and every time he died, he could swap to a different version of himself that looked and behaved slightly differently. He’s a tiny Chrestomanci hamster with the nine lives he stole from the alternate worlds and I love that. (Until the last Nimsesku, that is.)

Considering that the parallel talent that Lucius got from the same experiment is that he could astral project in a way that physically affects alternate universes, I was just sitting there like “ah... the plot of The Lives of Christopher Chant”... Love that shit, love Chrestomanci stuff.

Some of Emerson’s videos seem to back this up, tbh, and he, too, seems to think that he might have stolen some kid’s hamster when Nimsesku “died”. Chrestomanci rules seem to apply to Lucius here, too, in that when his universes collapsed in on themselves to become more of a singularity, he may have gotten all the power that all the Luciuses would have gotten.

Add to that Piper’s remarks that in every universe, Jean died at the same time and in every universe Lex went missing... It feels like the troublesome magic comes out most when there is a place where all the universes intersect, like Nimsesku or Jean or Lucius. Like that’s where the power sits. Love that idea. 

And what was all that from the Charter notes about Jean having a constantly fluctuating sonic energy pattern...? Is she, like Lucius and Nimsescu, comprised of several different universes? Or, like some people at The Charter wondered, is she an ex-Charter member? Maybe both? God, I’m so curious about Jean! She seemed to be the member of the family that The Charter was most afraid of, but I was pretty freaked out by Lex tbh.

Between his unethical experiments on his own pet hamster (which seem to have amounted to torture), his deeply unnerving way of speaking to Morgan (as captured by robo-Nimsesku), and the fact that in one of Lucius’s videos, it kind of seems like the experimentation might have been Lex’s idea, not Lucius’s... idk, the kid worries me. Like...

“Life is made – no book says otherwise – whether it’s clay pummeled into shape by a gods’ hands or through evolution or, better yet, like this – by me, through my experiments – and, (laughs) what could I fail in? – Nothing.“

and 

Lex: … Nimsesku, he’s who we’re like. we won’t end up like a dumb dead deer. That’s for dumb animals that can’t look out for themselves.

Morgan: Why do you think that. I don’t think that. We die.

L: Things die. Not us, we’re smarter than that, I think.

M: You’re dumb, and not like an animal. They’re smart, that dumb dead deer isn’t dumb, it’s smarter than you who thinks he’ll live forever. Idiot.

L: STFU. Baby. Get smart. We are else. We are different. We’re Nimsesku to the max.

M: u stfu. You’re dumb and silly and dangerous. STFU u!

L: Listen, we can beat it. Death. And we will. We are no deer.

had me like bro you are TEN YEARS OLD. Lex freaks me out! No wonder The Charter has his threat level at HIGH. And Lucius talking about how actually Lex was the one who came to him and asked how to astral project and Lex was the one who begged for one of his crystals and Lex was the one who promised to help Lucius get his powers back had me like... Okay, but which sociopath was using whom here? Even Agent 86 was like “damn, if these parents weren’t so self-involved, they’d be horrified to see what their son is up to.”

Also all the music of the spheres stuff that Emerson and Nicolae were into. I was sitting there like “ah, my misspent years in college are finally coming in handy...” I had so much fun playing Nicolae’s laser harp... I felt a little bad about it, though, when I realized later that it had destroyed his marriage.

I’m actually wondering now if Christian had some of the Anomaly in him as well, even though he ended up betraying Lucius to The Charter... All the other twins chose love interests who were of the Anomaly, and Christian did seem to have some kind of power that he attributed to Lucius’s teachings. (See: the quantum arm wrestling competition, his ability to knock over Lucius’s sand castle with his mind, etc.)

I was sad for them, tbh. I know they were doomed because Lucius went off the deep end and Christian had his powers cut out of him to “save” him, but... they were really sweet to each other for a long time. Christian bashfully confessing to Lucius was really cute, and reading their notes to each other was like... ah... they really did love each other...

Well... maybe one day they’ll meet again in the Anomaly. Lucius certainly seemed humbled there by the end, though some of that might be the madness that having his power taken away seemed to induce. (Just like Piper seemed to become intensely mentally ill after her own powers went away, sleeping in the bath for hours, etc.)

Ouch.

(Also, very funny and kind of touching that he made Christian’s birthday an official holiday in his weird religion. Also also, Lucius’s handwriting is virtually identical to mine, which made reading his notes uncomfortable. lmao)

I will say, though, as emotionally invested as I got in the Pastore/Selig family’s story, I was surprised how genuinely funny a lot of the exhibit was, too. Lucius’s burgeoning cult, Agent 86′s sheer assholery in their notes, the blatant mockery of Mendocino’s pompous art scene, some of the insane shit in the Mendo newspaper, the quirky little decisions made in the construction of the multiverse... It was all just so well-designed and amusing, even when the story itself was very dark. I had such a good time overall.

And as for the last member of the family... I think Morgan survived. I know that she ran away and hid under the stairs in her garden when the others did the seance thing, and I hear that she has a brief cameo in Omega Mart. Poor Morgan. She’s such a little Cassandra. She sees so much and understands so much but no one ever listens to her. They didn’t listen to her about Jean, they didn’t listen to her about Lucius, they didn’t listen to her about Lex, they didn’t listen to her about Nimsesku, they didn’t listen to her about the multiverse. And she knew.

I think it’s also interesting to put her against Lucius. Like Lucius, she was artificially given a power by a family member’s experimentation, but unlike Lucius, she managed to retain her original ability (extreme empathy) while immediately bonding with her new ability (plant magic) and managing to combine the two of them into something wholly unique. (Plant-talking, possibly to her dead grandmother.) Lucius’s childhood was... honestly pretty awful, and I wonder if he would’ve turned out half so fucked up if his parents hadn’t lied to him about his “medical condition” and kept him locked inside a house for like a decade. I wonder if having someone like Morgan around as a child would have helped him come to terms with his gift, or if he would’ve just abused her like her own twin does...

Seeing the way that both sets of twins loved each other desperately only to be torn apart by insecurities and resentment (and because it seems like the male twins have a streak of sociopathy tbh) makes me wonder a lot about Emerson’s twin sister... You see brief mentions of her, but I wonder why she’s not a part of any of their lives... I wonder if she had powers, too... I wonder if they also fought over Emerson’s scientific pursuits... I want to know about the sixth twin...

God. I actually have SO many more thoughts and questions, but I don’t have a lot of time and this is VERY long already. So I’ll just keep them to myself until we go to Omega Mart next week.

I will post some photos soon, too! But I got a date with a (monument) valley so I gotta run!

[latenightsleuth]

Girl found dead in duffel bag was scarred ‘head to toe’ and abused for months, evidence shows

(Image from WTOL11)

Trinity Love Jones was scarred from head to toe. The slain 9-year-old’s body had so many injuries that a medical examiner performing an autopsy had to draw several diagrams to document them all.

Evidence showed that the girl had been abused for months — beaten, denied food and bearing an infection on her feet that made it hard for her to wear shoes.

At a preliminary hearing this week in a Pomona courtroom, prosecutors outlined the serious injuries the girl suffered before her 2019 death and provided new details, including text messages and videos that led investigators to suspect the girl’s mother and her boyfriend of killing her.

Taquesta Graham, 29, and Emiel Hunt, 39, have been charged with murder and torture. They have pleaded not guilty.

Superior Court Judge Mike Camacho decided Friday that the case will proceed to trial, saying the evidence showed “systematic abuse and neglect.”

“It’s clear that these were intentional acts and the defendants acted with conscious disregard,” he said.

The girl’s body was found March 5, partially stuffed inside a large duffel bag near the entrance to an equestrian trail in Hacienda Heights. The killing shocked the community, and the child’s identity wasn’t confirmed for nearly a week. Thousands of tips poured in from across the nation.

In court, investigators read aloud text messages in which Hunt and Graham wrote of punishing the girl and complained that she kept urinating on herself. “Trinity is going to get it,” Graham texted Hunt after one such incident.

In another exchange from January 2019, Graham asks Hunt to show Trinity the text she has sent: “We were talking about giving you a burrito ... you messed up.”

In interviews with investigators, Hunt and Graham said that two weeks before her death, the girl fell and hit her head, L.A. County Sheriff’s Det. Marc Boisvert testified. There was a large lump on her forehead and her left and right eyes had begun to swell. She became lethargic and started to slur her words, Graham said.

Graham told investigators that on Feb. 28, she woke up and noticed Trinity was congested, Boisvert testified. She said she gave the child Pedialyte, soup and a bagel, then took a shower. When she got out, she noticed that Trinity’s teeth were clenched and she was having a seizure, the detective said.

That afternoon, Graham went to work at a dollar store while Hunt waited in the parking lot. Trinity was in the back seat of the car, sleeping, Graham told investigators. When Graham got off work about 9:30 p.m., the three returned to a hotel and Hunt carried the child back to the room.

Later that night, Graham checked on Trinity and noticed she wasn’t breathing. She told authorities her first thought was that Hunt had placed a pillow over Trinity’s face while they were in the SUV earlier that evening.

Hunt told investigators that he woke up about 3 a.m. March 1 and noticed that the child was not breathing. He said he and Graham “freaked out” because of their criminal histories but told each other “we didn’t do anything wrong,” Boisvert said.

Court records show Hunt was convicted of felony child abuse in San Diego County in 2005 and sentenced to 12 years in state prison. Graham has a prior conviction for involvement with a minor in prostitution.

Graham said she wanted to call 911, but Hunt persuaded her not to and suggested putting the girl’s body in a dumpster, which angered her. She also said she didn’t take the child to the hospital after the fall because she was afraid of getting into trouble.

Just before 6 a.m. March 1, surveillance footage from the Budget Inn in Santa Fe Springs shows Hunt carrying a body wrapped in a blanket, Sheriff’s Det. Louie Aguilera testified.

About 30 minutes later, video from cameras at a Walmart shows Hunt purchasing two shovels, a throw blanket and a lighter.

At 11:36 a.m., Hunt and Graham were spotted at a discount store purchasing a rollaway duffel bag that was identical to the one the girl was found in, Aguilera said.

Aguilera also testified that tracking data showed that Graham, who wore an ankle monitor because she was on parole, was in the area where her daughter was discovered for about 30 to 40 minutes March 1.

After discovering the body, Los Angeles County investigators asked for the public’s help to identify her. A relative called authorities after seeing a sketch and photo of her. Investigators said that Graham, Hunt and Trinity had moved out of a relative’s home in July 2018 and then slept in Hunt’s SUV and at various hotels. Extended family said they had seen the girl only periodically after the move.

Investigators looked into Graham and Hunt’s criminal histories and began searching for them as possible suspects.

Graham was arrested on an unrelated warrant March 8 at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas. Hunt was arrested a day later after he was found sleeping in his SUV near San Diego International Airport.

Hunt told investigators that after the couple dumped the child’s body, they drove away from the site in silence, Boisvert testified.

Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.

Artile by Nicole Santa Cruz

Read full article: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-21/girl-found-in-duffel-bag-was-neglected-and-had-more-than-100-scars-on-her-body-coroner-testifies

[theparanormalperiodical]

The TRUE Story Behind Friday The 13th (1980), And America’s 7 Most Haunted Campsites & Lakes That Will Definitely Ruin Your #VACAY

It was sometime around midday when Nils Gustafsson’s body was found on the shore of Lake Bodom. The 18 year old was alive, however, despite his broken jaw and the concussion. 

The three people lying next to him were not.

In the early hours of June 5th 1960, Nils, Irmeli Bjorklund, Tuulikki Makiwer, and Seppo Boisman were attacked by an unknown person armed with a knife whilst camping at one of Finland’s most serene tourist spots.

12 years later, a former suspect confessed to the crime. The local kiosk keeper was known to be irritated by the presence of the youngsters in the area and it was assumed he took his rage into his own hands.

He alleged that he did indeed commit the murders in a suicide note before drowning himself in the lake that overlooked them. His wife has since provided evidence that refutes this.

This tragic story is still under investigation to this day, with the sole survivor being put up for trial for killing his own girlfriend and her friends himself. But what makes this tale quite so terrifying is that we’ve heard this story before.

We’ve read it on r/nosleep, we’ve heard it at a sleepover, and we’ve told it round the campfire. We’ve even seen it on the TV, too.

It’s been 41 years since the terrifying events at Camp Crystal Lake were recounted in the horror classic Friday The 13th (1980). But what happened at Lake Bodom is not the only time the stories we tell around the campfire actually happened. And right by the crackling logs, too.

Today we unmask the dark inspiration behind Friday The 13th and make some smores at the most haunted campsites in the US, each with their own tale as terrifying (and tragic) as what happened at Camp Crystal Lake.

First, Let’s Recap Horror’s Most Iconic Franchise, Friday The 13th

It’s not easy to summarise a franchise lumbered with 12 films, a TV series, and a gaggle of video games following in close pursuit. But I’ll try.

This American horror franchise follows Jason Voorhees, a serial killer who drowned as a child at Camp Crystal Lake while the camp councillors were having *sex*. Following this tragic event, the lake was rumoured to be cursed according to the superstitious locals and became the setting for several mass murders carried out by Jason or in his name.

It was one of the original slasher flicks released in an attempt to cash in on the success of Halloween (1978) and was actually the highest grossing horror franchise of all time - until about 3 years ago.

The reboot of it’s arch nemesis, Halloween (2018), left Jason in the shadow of Michael Myers.

The franchise starts by introducing us innocent viewers to the mysterious folklore surrounding Camp Crystal Lake when the new councillors rock up to revamp it. Then Jason Vorhees’ mother starts pickin’ em off one by one in vengeance for the death of her son who was born on - yep, you guessed it - Friday the 13th.

There’s actually not much mention of the date in the franchise, with some claiming only on his birthday does Jason commits the murders. But this is what’s so great about the films: at its core it’s a story told around the fire by American kids at summer camp. 

Just like ‘The Hook’ or ‘Killer In The Backseat’, Jason’s murder spree fits a simple plot line copy-n-pasted for urban legends. There’s a mysterious killer with a mysterious motivation who does terrible things at a mysterious location.

We see the events of these baseless stories happen in the grainy footage of the 80s and the pierce-your-eyeballs HD of 2009, right where the stories are typically told. It’s meta. It’s mindful. It sounds like a boring 90 minutes stretched out of an urban legend you could tell in 45 seconds flat.

The franchise does sprinkle in a handful of bad luck symbols amidst the buckets of blood ‘n’ guts to fit the title, but it’s setting on this infamous day is merely a technicality to pull us headfirst into the not-so-urban and not-so-legendary plot line.

Most urban legends are just that: legends. Rumours pieced together from random scraps of information until they juuuuuust about make sense. But most of these rumours have basis in reality. Despite the creators claiming it was not directly based on a true story, we already know events eerily similar have taken place.

But what happened at Lake Bodom was not the only occurrence of such terrible events. We will get them later.

Even if Victor Miller wasn’t inspired by the cursed lakes and haunted campgrounds littered across the States, they clearly took inspiration from one paranormal phenomena.

(Hint: it’s in the title.)

Why Is Friday The 13th Considered Unlucky?

We’ve never had a good relationship with the number 13. Triskaidekaphobia can be traced back as far as Norse mythology when 12 gods were having a dinner party until Marvel-fan-favourite Loki arrived and arranged for someone to be shot.

The god that was shot, Balder, died, and it was then that the “earth got dark. It was a bad, unlucky day.” A similar dinner party, this time hosted by Jesus and his disciples, also gave ‘13’ a bad name.

Judas was the 13th to sit at the table during the Last Supper and his betrayal of Christ gave it its more mainstream reputation.

There are many more events like this, whether mythical or based in reality, that link the number 13 to bad luck. But what is about Friday the 13th?

Friggatriskaidekaphobia - or fear of Friday the 13th - lumps together the cursed backstory of the number 13 and the fear of the unluckiest day of the week. Eve gave Adam the apple on a Friday, their son killed his brother on a Friday, and Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

It’s not looking good.

But fear of the date Friday the 13th was only planted in mainstream Western culture in the 20th century. 73 years before Jason Vorhees mother slut-shamed those camp councillors, Thomas William Lawson published the book Friday, the Thirteenth (1907).

Lawson told the tale of an NYC stockbroker who used superstitions about the date to create chaos on Wall Street and rake in the cash.

*sweats in GameStop*

From here furore about the date festered with every occurrence (which can be as much as three times a year). There’s no escaping it, even if a hockey-masked killer is interrupting your campfire sing along.

To this day, the American economy loses about $900 million every Friday the 13th. Flights are half-filled, spending is reduced, and some daren’t leave their homes until midnight strikes.

Funnily enough, the franchise only contains 12 movies so far, but this echoes the unluckiness of 13 that much further. Another reason we fear the number is because 12 is used so much to represent completeness. The months of the year, the hours in a day - 13 goes beyond that. 13 plays on that.

It takes what we know and twists it a ‘lil. But just enough to strike fear into even the least superstitious.

The 7 Haunted Campsites And Lakes That You Should Emotionally Block Out When You’ve Finished Reading This

Holy Ghost Campground, New Mexico

Nestled in the Sante Fe National Forest, this is an isolated but serene location perfect for pitching a tent and starting a fire. But 300 years ago, something happened there that might make the howling wind that much more terrifying.

The area is reportedly haunted by the spirit of a Spanish priest murdered there in the 18th century. But the entire area has a reputation similar to the Bermuda Triangle. People just tend to disappear into thin air over there. No clothing is found and no bones or bodies are discovered.

UFOs have been sighted overhead, shadows have wandered through the forest, and voices have echoed into the night. Just like the Bermuda Triangle and the lesser-known Alaskan triangle, there are claims of a ‘cosmic doorway’ where different energies and entities flit between realms.

Big Moose Lake, New York

Grace Brown was only 18 years old when she died. She was unmarried and she was pregnant by her boyfriend, Chester Gillette. This was a bad situation to be in in 1906.

She went with her soon-to-be-fiancee to the Adirondacks mountains assuming he would propose during the trip, saving her from a ruinous fate. But one day, she would not return to the campsite from which they stayed.

Knowing she couldn’t swim, Gillette paddled their boat out to the middle of the lake, grabbed a tennis racket from inside his bag, and smashed in her head.

She then fell into the water and drowned. To this day, campers have reported supernatural occurrences around the lake. She is often seen wandering the shores of the lake, visiting the local cottages nearby, or reliving her traumatic death.

According to local legends, she is trying to extinguish all the lights in the local houses. No one knows why.

Lake Morena, California

On the other side of the US, events similar to those seen in Santa Fe were playing out.

In 1983, these supernatural occurrences were reported in the local paper: “More than Fish Haunt Morena”. Park rangers and tourists have witnessed and reported a vast range of phenomena, not limited to heavy footsteps following visitors, noticing the figure of an old man in the corner of their eye, and even seeing people levitating.

One of the most infamous sightings of paranormal activity was when a ranger had a relative staying over in his house. The relative woke up in the middle of the night to see a baby’s christening gown float across the room.

“It floated to her, brushed her cheek, floated back where she had first seen it and disappeared.”

Lake Ronkonkoma, New York

To this day many locals won’t dip a toe in Lake Ronkonkoma - and it’s easy to see why.

Long Island’s deepest lake was once the setting of a tragic love story. Just like Romeo & Juliet, but far wetter. Legend has it back in the 17th century a Native American princess fell in love with a colonist on the other side of the lake.

The star-crossed lovers were forbidden from meeting, and the princess wrote notes confessing her love on a piece of bark and floating it across the lake. Heartbroken by the lack of response, she canoed to the middle of the lake, stabbed herself in her broken heart, and her body slumped into the icy waters below.

Some versions of the legend claim before she died she cursed the lake.

Whichever you believe, the routine drowning of a young man on a yearly basis is enough to stir up the story. There have been at least 160 drownings here from the 1850s to the 1970s. A majority were men, fitting the story.

Is she still looking for the man she could never be with? Or is she punishing the local community for the divide that kept her from her love?

Lake Lanier, Georgia

There are a number of ghosts seen at this lake. There’s the spirit of a woman in a flowing blue dress roams around this lake, and several pairs of supernatural hands have been felt reaching out of the depths and grabbing swimmers mid-stroke…

But this paranormal phenomena is nothing compared to what lurks underneath the water.

The lake was actually created in the 1950s by flooding valley communities. The local government wanted to provide surrounding towns and the city of Atlanta with water and power, but to do this they’d have to create ghost towns and then effectively drown them.

Locals that had sold land to the government gathered during the building of the dam and watched the waters rising above the place they once called home. But in these communities were cemeteries. The dead did not consent to this.

More than 200 people have died in mysterious accidents on the lake since 1994.

Manchac Swamp, Louisiana

The Manchac wetlands are known for being, well, grotesque. They’re thick with pea green ooze, riddled with bugs, and festering with ‘gators. But according to some, the greatest threat was the local Voodoo priestess, Julia Brown.

She was known for her charms, curses, and singing strange songs on her porch. But there was one verse which in hindsight makes a lot of sense: "One day I’m going to die and take the whole town with me."

On the day of her funeral a huge hurricane swept through Louisiana. On September 29th 1915, the 125mph winds killed 300 people with homes, buildings, and railways destroyed.

Locals claim this was caused by a curse created by Brown. She is even rumoured to still be seen cackling by the water’s edge.

Lake Tahoe, California

Tahoe-Truckea is steeped in paranormal tales, stretching back as far as the legends of the local Native Americans. Many hotels and cabins claim to have their own supernatural entities concealed within their hotel which you can see for yourself - for a booking fee, of course.

But the spirit that haunts Emerald Bay can be seen for free.

Captain Dick Barter was known for telling stories of his seafaring days in the early 19th century. His encounters with capsizing in frosty waters, grizzly bear attacks, and by the sounds of it serious alcoholism made him talk of the town.

Apparently Captain Barter just can’t stop reliving his glory days.

One night after goin’ heavy in the bar, Barker boarded his boat to sail home. But he was never seen again. Somewhere on the route back he capsized and died. His body was never found.

His spirit is often seen swimming in the area during foggy moments, trying to find his way back to the tomb he built years before he passed.

So that was depressing.

Anyway.

If you liked this post/it traumatised you but hey you’re living for the spooks, make sure you like and reblog to let me know!

And if you simply can’t wait for more articles on the paranormal, then you best be hitting the follow button. I post a new article every weekend AND a new ghost story everyday.

(That’s really sad, isn’t it?)

Oh well. See you next week, kids!

[river-me-timbers]

does ANYBODY have video footage of when Mike Faist got his foot stuck in a chair? or Kara Lindsay throwing the broom into the orchestra? or Corey Cott singing the key change of Santa Fe way too early? please?

[antoine-roquentin]

Public distrust of the CWP [Communist Workers Party] mobilized sympathy for the white power gunmen. Furthermore, CWP members repeatedly undermined their chance at what justice the court could offer. Several of the women widowed on November 3 confounded the Greensboro community when, instead of weeping or grieving, they stood with their fists raised and declared to the television cameras that they would seek communist revolution.61 Days after the shooting, an article appeared in the Greensboro Record that was titled “Slain CWP Man Talked of Martyrdom” and implied that the CWP had foreknowledge of the shooting and that some planned to die for the cause. This damaged what little public sympathy remained. In language typical of mainstream coverage, the story described the CWP as “far-out zealots infiltrat[ing] a peaceful neighborhood.” Even two years later, when the widows visited the Greensboro cemetery and found their husbands’ headstone vandalized with red paint meant to symbolize blood, they would not be able to effectively mobilize public sympathy.62 Community wariness of the CWP’s militant stance only increased after the CWP held a public funeral for their fallen comrades and marched through town with rifles and shotguns. The fact that the weapons were not loaded hardly mattered: photographs of the widows holding weapons at the ready appeared in local and national newspapers. In the public imagination, these images inverted the real events of November 3, when a heavily armed white power paramilitary squad confronted a minimally armed group of protestors. The defendants, depicted as respectable men wearing suits in front of the Vietnam War memorial, stood in stark contrast to the gun-toting widows.63 National and local CWP members took up a campaign of hostile protest of the trial itself. The day before testimony began, the CWP burned a large swastika into the lawn of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms director, and hung an effigy on his property with a red dot meant to convey a bullet wound. In the trial itself, CWP members refused to testify, even to identify the bodies of their fallen comrades. CWP widows who shouted that the trial was “a sham” and emptied a vial of skunk oil in the courtroom were held in contempt of court. Although the actions of the widows may have “shocked the court and freaked out the judge,” as the CWP newspaper Workers Viewpoint proudly reported, the widows’ “bravery” didn’t translate as such to the Greensboro community.64 Even those who may have sympathized with the CWP after seeing the graphic footage of the shooting soon found that feeling complicated by the group’s contempt for the justice system, however problematic that system was. With the CWP widows refusing to tell their stories, attorneys for the defendants built a self-defense case by deploying two widely used white power narratives: one of honorable and wronged Vietnam veterans, and the other of the defense of white womanhood. The defense depended on the claim that CWP members carrying sticks had threatened Renee Hartsoe, the seventeen-year-old wife of Klansman Terry Hartsoe, as she rode in a car near the front of the caravan. Terry Hartsoe testified that he could see the communist protestors throwing rocks at the car and trying to open the door. Such a statement can be seen as alluding to the threat of rape of white women by nonwhite men, a constant theme throughout the various iterations of the Klan since the end of the Civil War.65 White supremacy has long deployed violence by claiming to protect vulnerable white women.... After many years of ineffective, smaller prosecutions, the Fort Smith trial marked the first serious attempt by the federal government to recognize the unification of seemingly disparate Klan, neo-Nazi, and white separatist groups in a cohesive white power movement, and to prosecute the movement’s leaders in light of this understanding. Affidavits documented nearly a decade of control by Beam, Butler, and Miles, and also named Miles’s home as the command center for the Order.66 “They preached war, prayed for war and dreamed of war,” said Justice Department prosecutor Martin Carlson. “And when war came, they willingly accepted war.”67 The indictments presented a serious enough threat to white power leaders that Beam decided to flee the country, setting off a series of events that would shape the outcome of the trial. Before Beam fled he married a woman whose martyrdom would later rally the movement and appeal to the mainstream. After the fishermen’s dispute, Louis Beam had led a chaotic personal life. He separated from his third wife in 1981, and an ugly custody battle followed the split. Beam took his young daughter to Costa Rica for two years. After his return to Texas in late 1984, he moved permanently to the Aryan Nations compound. He didn’t break his Texas ties, however, and took long trips there frequently.68 Sheila Toohey was a pretty, blond twenty-year-old Sunday school teacher at the Gospel Temple, a Christian Identity congregation in Pasadena, Texas. Beam’s young daughter was one of her students. Perhaps Beam met the Toohey family during the fishermen’s dispute: his Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had run a bookstore in Pasadena. Toohey came from a family that lived in a trailer in nearby Santa Fe, Texas—the site of the Klan rally where Beam had burned a boat painted “U.S.S. Viet Cong” during the fishermen conflict in 1981.69 “Louis fell in love with Sheila immediately,” wrote J. B. Campbell, a white power movement activist who also claimed mercenary service in Rhodesia.70 Campbell’s laudatory essay later appeared on Beam’s personal website under the heading “Love” and framed with images of roses: [Beam had] been visiting her father, talking politics, and couldn’t believe his friend could have such a beautiful, sweet and unaffected daughter as Sheila, who lived at home with her parents and brothers in Santa Fe, Texas. Sheila taught Sunday school. She’d had to wear a back brace from a recent car accident and was in constant pain, although she would never burden anyone by mentioning it. In the following weeks Sheila noticed that Louis was coming over for dinner quite frequently and that he was talking with her more than with her father. He actually likes me, she realized. Within a few months Louis asked Sheila to marry him.71 The passage focused on Toohey as a vulnerable white woman—in constant pain but never mentioning it—and subservient to the man who “actually like[d]” her. Her position as a Sunday school teacher confirmed her innocence, presumed virginity, fitness for motherhood, and, since she taught children at a Christian Identity church, subscription to a white power political theology. That she lived surrounded, and presumably cared for, by her father and brothers emphasized her movement from one set of male guardians to another. It also highlighted the twenty-year age difference of the newlyweds. Toohey was Beam’s fourth wife; the first three had each been around sixteen years old when they married and around twenty years old when they divorced.72 Beam and Toohey married at a Christian Identity church in Pennsylvania in April 1987.73 After the wedding, with seditious conspiracy charges issued, Louis and Sheila Beam traveled to Mexico to avoid trial, taking his seven-year-old daughter with them, though without the proper documents. They settled in Chapala, near Guadalajara, in a community of white American expatriates. Beam spent four months on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before authorities caught up with him in November 1987.74 One night the Beams returned home after grocery shopping. While the couple was unloading the food from the car and his daughter was still sitting in the vehicle, authorities apprehended Louis Beam. Sheila Beam “glanced out the kitchen window down at the car and was appalled to see Louis bent over the hood with a gun to his head,” according to Campbell’s narrative. Sheila Beam would later say that the officers never identified themselves as policemen and she assumed the attack was a robbery or kidnapping. Purportedly defending herself, she grabbed her husband’s weapon and shot a Mexican federal officer three times, wounding him. Authorities detained her in Mexico for ten days while they extradited Louis Beam to the United States, where he spent the next five months in prison during the sedition trial. A Mexican judge found Sheila Beam not guilty for reasons of self-defense in November 1987, and she was released and deported back to the United States. The officer she shot in the chest and abdomen remained hospitalized.75 To white power activists, this story was about endangered white women, but it was also about government betrayal. Rumors flew that federal agents had used phony drug charges as a pretense for the arrest, in order to extradite Louis Beam to the United States. This narrative placed innocent Sheila Beam in the crosshairs of a renegade state.76 However, Beam would most likely have been subject to extradition in any case, with or without drug charges.77 In an affidavit, Beam presented herself as an innocent white woman in need of the protection of white men. She said that she sustained an abdominal injury when the arresting officers threw her over a chair, and was then taken to jail and kept handcuffed for five days. She also said that the chief of police threatened her with torture, and that she was forced to sign documents in Spanish that she couldn’t read. She testified: While I was in the Guadalajara jail, I was physically and psychologically mistreated. I was kept with my wrists handcuffed behind my back for five days; my wrists were so swollen that my hands were turning colors and my watch was cutting off the circulation. I was hand-fed by a little Mexican boy with his dirty fingers. Officers would come into my cell and leer at me and caress their weapons. I was chained to the bed, which had a filthy, rotten mattress, and when I would try to sleep, they would kick the bed to jar me awake and keep me from sleeping. I was refused water for extended periods and medication for my back injury or my back brace. I was denied medical attention for my abdominal injuries and suffered from vaginal bleeding for several days afterward.78 Her testimony positioned her as endangered. It placed her in peril and in the presence of male racial others—the “Mexican boy” feeding her with “his dirty fingers,” and the officers. It presented men of color “caress[ing] their weapons” as they “leer[ed]” at her, invoking masturbation.79 It also placed her in a violated bedroom space, “chained to the bed, which had a filthy, rotten mattress.” Within the broader frame of pro-natalism, this language positioned Sheila Beam’s body as vulnerable to attack by men of color, and emphasized it as a site of combat where battles might be won or lost through the birth or absence of white children. The vaginal bleeding she said she suffered after her imprisonment hinted at both rape and miscarriage of a white child, and would have signified a double martyrdom. Jailed at the moment when the state had finally turned to the prosecution of the white power movement, Sheila Beam acted the martyr in a way that further united activists and appealed to people beyond the movement. Her wounded body served as a constant symbolic reminder of state failure and betrayal. Metzger lobbied for her release; Kirk Lyons, who represented Beam in the sedition trial and would become the go-to attorney of the white power movement over the next decade, sent an associate, Dave Holloway, to help the Toohey family advocate for her return. Back home, the Tooheys answered the phone with the entreaty, “Save Our Sheila.”80 After her release Lyons told one reporter, “It made a Christian out of me again. Her being freed was a miracle to me.”81 In the mainstream press, too, Sheila Beam became a sympathetic figure in local newspapers and major publications alike. A series of articles in the Galveston Daily News focused on her injuries, stating as fact that she had been “severely beaten” and raising the possibility that she “may have been sexually assaulted.” The same reporter uncritically repeated white power claims that FBI agents had refused to arrange her release to the United States, and described “physical and psychological coercion” during her ten-day imprisonment.82 Other articles linked her faith in God to her hopes for the acquittal of all the trial’s defendants,83 and mentioned her pain and injuries with no mention of the reasons for Louis Beam’s arrest or Sheila Beam’s actions in shooting and wounding the officer.84 The Houston Chronicle reported that she returned to the United States sobbing and limping, escorted by her father and an associate of Lyons, and was met by her mother and three brothers at the airport. The article emphasized that Sheila Beam had a swollen abdomen and walked with such a pronounced limp that two people had to support her.85 A photograph of Sheila’s return in the Miami News featured a flattering photograph of her leaning against her brother’s chest, holding flowers and flanked by a pretty, smiling, female friend. The caption referred to her “break[ing] out in tears” upon her return, and to her being “charged with shooting a Mexican federal police officer during the arrest of her husband at their … home.” It elided any reference to Christian Identity or participation in the white power movement, either by Sheila Beam or by her husband. It didn’t even name Louis Beam, much less discuss his pending seditious conspiracy charges or his stint on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Nevertheless, it made clear that Sheila Beam shot the officer at her home, emphasizing domestic defense beneath a photograph that portrayed her as vulnerable, small, and feminine.86 For her own part, Sheila Beam delivered a political performance of martyrdom both in comments to the press and in her actions. After her release, she flew directly to Fort Smith, where Louis Beam had been transferred to a federal prison hospital following a weeklong hunger strike. White power leaders praised her selfless devotion. “Despite her severe internal injuries and equally severe psychological damage,” Campbell wrote, “Sheila postponed her required emergency surgery and flew to Ft. Smith to reassure her husband.”87 Sheila Beam went to her husband’s side despite her severe pain, the story had it, illustrating the sacrifice of the white female body to the needs of the movement. During the trial, the presence of Sheila Beam’s wounded and wronged body entered the official record in several ways. Lyons invoked her injuries regularly, interrupting testimony about her arrest to ask the pursuing FBI agent what had happened to her back brace and conspicuously leaving court to pick her up at the airport. Sheila Beam continued to speak about her injuries and abuse to the press, and claimed her husband’s innocence with the simple position that since he had quit the Klan in 1981, he couldn’t now be guilty of sedition. In truth, he had quit the Klan to join Aryan Nations and lead the white power movement on a larger scale. She also reminded newspapers that her husband held the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Air Medal for Heroism, staking out his moral authority as a hero of the Vietnam War.88 It is difficult to gauge the impact of such performative acts on the outcome of a jury trial, but Sheila Beam’s symbolic work toward acquittal should not be discounted. Even in the pages of academic accounts that have argued that white power paramilitarism partially or wholly excluded them, women nevertheless appear as historical actors who impact events. In Rafael Ezekiel’s widely cited ethnographic study, for instance, which includes his observation of the Fort Smith trial, he notes that “a sister appears for a young fellow who is already serving a long term for involvement in The Order’s robbery of an armored car … entering the court, she touched her brother’s arm, quietly, as she passed him.”89 With these actions, the “sister”—no name given, as she did not qualify as an activist in this study, but perhaps it was Brenna or Laura Beth Tate, sisters of David Tate—conferred humanity upon her brother, appealed to the jury, and neutralized the racism of the movement.90 Similarly, Ezekiel recounts the presence of Louis Beam’s “young new wife,” Sheila Beam, although she isn’t named in his account.91 Ezekiel describes how the couple make frequent eye contact across the room. She had been the Sunday school teacher of Beam’s daughter. A reporter ungraciously described her to me as “a Yahweh freak.” Here in court she wears a frilled white blouse; during Beam’s arrest in Mexico, she shot an armed Federale who had failed to identify himself.92 In other words, Sheila Beam played her part as a movement activist by creating and embodying a particular narrative of her innocence, the arrest, the justified shooting of the Mexican officer, and her husband’s wrongful detention—one persuasive enough to be accepted uncritically by journalists and academic observers.93

Katherine Belew, Bring the War Home

[brokehorrorfan]

Blu-ray Review: Vampires

John Carpenter is an undisputed master of horror, having helmed such classics as Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, and Christine, but he always wanted to make a Western. While he explored Western themes into Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, and Big Trouble in Little China, he didn't get the opportunity to fully immerse himself in the genre until 1998's Vampires. Trading cowboys and Native Americans for vampires and vampire hunters, the neo-Western concept allowed Carpenter to combine his interest in Westerns with his penchant for horror.

Set in a world in which vampires have existed for hundreds of years unbeknownst to the general public, James Woods (Videodrome) stars as Jack Crow, who was raised by the Catholic church to be the ultimate vampire mercenary. He leads a Wild Bunch-esque team that slays bloodsuckers by day and parties like rock stars come nightfall - that is until the gang is mercilessly slaughtered by a master vampire known as Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith, The Karate Kid Part III), the likes of which no one has ever seen.

The only person to face Valek and survive, Crow regroups with his right-hand man, Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin, Mulholland Falls), a church-appointed liaison, Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee, Blade), and a would-be one-night-stand, Katrina (Sheryl Lee, Twin Peaks), who was bitten during the vampire attack. As the master shares a telepathic link with its underlings, Crow is quick to utilize Katrina to track Valek before she completes her transformation into the undead.

Based on John Steakley’s 1990 novel, Vampire$, and adapted by screenwriter Don Jakoby (Arachnophobia), the plot of Vampires is more complicated than it needs to be, but it never feels hindered by exposition. While the Western angle may have attracted Carpenter to the project, the script lends itself to several set pieces that allow him to play to his strengths in horror as well as action, from the Gothic atmosphere of the opening sequence to the vicious vampire effects by KNB EFX Group (From Dusk Till Dawn, Scream).

Woods is not the first actor to come to mind when you think of grizzled antiheroes. With a sarcastic sense of humor injected into the sparse dialogue, the role feels tailor-made for frequent Carpenter collaborator Kurt Russell, but Woods proves to wear the leather jacket well. In a time when such larger-than-life roles were dominated by muscleheads like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, the part harkens back to the days of Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and Henry Ford. Woods reportedly ad-libbed some of his silver-tongued dialogue, which adds more personality to the character, but sadly results in some homophobic dialogue.

Lee is a captivating presence on screen, but her role is a thankless one. The only female character of note, she's treated more like a prop than an actor as she is constantly pushed around both literally and metaphorically. Baldwin has had well-publicized battles with personal demons, but he's in top form here, playing well off of Woods with his tough guy persona. Griffith has the commending presence necessary to play the ultimate vampire, able to come off as both savage and suggestive - although, as the story dictates, he often leans toward the former. The cast also includes Maximilian Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg), Mark Boone Junior (Sons of Anarchy), Gregory Sierra (Barney Miller), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat), and a cameo from filmmaker Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption).

Carpenter and his frequent director of photographer, Gary B. Kibbe (They Live, Ghosts of Mars), utilize wide, anamorphic shots that evoke the director's early work as well as Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Westerns. The Western aesthetic is echoed by the soundtrack, on which Carpenter collaborated with Booker T. & the M.G. guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn and former The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan guitarist Jeff Baxter. The score mixes Carpenter's traditional, sinister synthesizer cues with bluesy rock and southern-fried guitar licks.

Scream Factory has released Vampires as a Collector's Edition Blu-ray. It offers Sony's same transfer that was used for Twilight Time's sold-out 2015 limited edition release of the film, which is pristine. The sun-baked orange glow of the desert (shot on location in Santa Fe, New Mexico) is particularly striking in high definition. The release features fiery new cover art byDevon Whitehead, along with the original poster on the reverse side.

The real selling point is the new extras. A 12-minute piece edits together new interviews with Carpenter, producer (and Carpenter's wife) Sandy King, and Kibbe. They discuss the making-of the film, its themes, the cast, and even the sequel, but it really only scratches the surface. An unexpectedly lively interview with Woods offers more substance. While he admits he wasn't the action hero prototype, the 22-minute chat makes it apparent that he relished the opportunity to play one. There are also new interviews with Griffith, who reminisces about being buried alive; Guinee, who shares a humorous fart story; and special effects artist Greg Nicotero, who breaks down several of the film's impressive effects sequences.

Carpenter's DVD audio commentary is ported over. Always significantly more animated when joined by a cast member, the director’s track isn't particularly informative, but he does share a handful of anecdotes between pauses and explaining what's happening on the screen. Carpenter shines more on the isolated score track that is also included. Archival extras include the vintage, 6-minute making-of featurette, along with extended segments with Carpenter, Woods, Baldwin, and Lee, plus B-roll footage from the shoot. There's also the trailer, TV spots, and a still gallery.

Vampires will be released on Blu-ray on September 24 via Scream Factory.

[twinklelightshorts]

Mean What You Mean (Colby Brock) - Part 4

Part 4:

“Hello and welcome back! If you don’t know who I am, I’m Josephine and this is my YouTube channel. For today’s video, I read comments on my last videos and decided to try something new. A few months back on my Instagram, I expressed an interest in dyeing my hair. So, three or so days ago, I put a poll on my Insta story with two color options.” I picked up the two color samples from my dresser. “One is a dark maroon color and the other is a purple color. I have a friend who does hair so I thought I would have her help me. But we're going to get coffee first! Let's go." Tucker and I went out to my car and got in. I knew this part would be a time lapse so we set the camera facing out and strapped it down. "Why do you want to dye your hair?" Tucker asked. I shrugged. "Just for something different, I guess." "Okay, well, I like the maroon color but I think you should do it like highlights." I glanced over at him. "Really?" "Yeah." He nodded. "I think it would look really cool." "Thanks, Tuck." Tucker put a hand on my thigh and I slipped my fingers into his. "Are you excited for LA?" "Yes. I'm so excited!" I giggled. "Ah! I've wanted to go there since I was nine years old." "I'm glad you're excited." "Thanks." "What's the first thing you want to do when we get there?" Tucker asked. I bit my lip. "I'd like to go to the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign." Tucker squeezed my hand. "Okay. Walk of Fame and Hollywood sign, first." "Can you grab my camera? We're almost there." "Of course. What else am I here for?" I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, right." * "Okay, here it is. The reveal." Aly turned the chair around and I gasped. "Oh my God! It's perfect!" I gushed. "You like it?" Aly asked. I nodded. "Yes!" I thread my fingers through my brown hair that was now highlighted with maroon. Tucker stood behind me with my camera. "I like it." "Yeah?" He nodded. "It looks really good, Jo." I covered my face as I blushed heavily. "Aly, I can't thank you enough for this!" "Girl, you're welcome! I always love cutting and styling your hair so I was super excited when you texted me this idea." She ran her fingers through my hair. "I love how this turned out." "Me too." Tucker pointed the camera to the floor. "Hey, Aly, can I have a minute with Jo?" My friend nodded. "Of course. Meet me up front." "Okay." I smiled softly. Tucker sat in the chair beside mine and smiled over at me. "You look beautiful." "Thanks." I grinned. "What's up?" "I have to get going." He said quietly. I giggled softly. "Oh. I thought it was something serious." "Well, it's not, but I do need to borrow your car." He grinned wide. Sighing, I handed him my car keys. "You better pay me back for the Uber I'm about to order." Tucker set my camera in my lap as he leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Of course, I will. Bye, babes." "Bye." I sighed. After he left, I went up to the counter and paid Aly. "Where did Tucker go?" She asked. I shrugged. "Dunno. He said he needed to borrow my car though. I didn't really ask." "Do you need a ride?" She asked. "No." I shook my head. "I think I might walk down the street to the lake and get some footage. Maybe I'll make a new Instagram video." Aly handed me my receipt. "Well, if you change your mind, I get off in an hour." "Thanks, girl. And thanks for the new hair color." I grabbed my bag. "See you later." "See you." I started my walk down the sidewalk I was familiar with and reminisced about the adventures Tucker and I went on in the woods near this particular lake. I took a few photos and started walking around the lake. I found a bench and set up my camera to catch a time lapse of the sunset. I sat on the ground beside the bench and took out my phone. Opening Instagram, I saw I had a few unopened direct messages. Most of them were giving me ideas for LA but one of them caught my attention. It was a low quality video of a familiar restaurant in town so I clicked on it and turned up the volume. "Hey, Josephine. I know you don't know me, but I live in Minneapolis. I'm out with my sister and I recognized Tucker from your 'friendship tag'. He went inside Frankie's with a girl and my sister went inside a few minutes ago and saw that they were getting ready to leave. So, I wanted to film this for you." The girl stopped talking and I watched the door closely. Another minute went by before Tucker walked outside. A second later, a familiar girl walked out behind him; her hand was in his. I covered my mouth as Tucker leaned his head down and kissed her. "Oh my gosh." "Oh my God. Jo." The girl said. I stood up and pocketed my phone, running my hands over my face and through my hair. Anger began to set in at the thought of Tucker blatantly omitting the fact that he had a date tonight. I waited another minute before pressing stop on my camera and starting my walk back to the hair salon. I went inside and walked right up to Aly. "I need your car. Where are your keys?" I muttered. "Okay." She nodded. "They're up front, under the counter. There's a pink fuzzy ball on my key ring." "Thank you. I'll be back in a half hour." "Alright." Aly's car got me to the Greenwich neighborhood. I drove around, looking for my white Hyundai Santa Fe Sport 2. I found it parked at a dead end with Tucker and Marietta stood beside it. I sped toward them and slammed on the brakes, put the car in park and got out. Tucker's jaw dropped when he saw me. "Jo, I can explain." I shook my head. "I don't want to hear it, Tucker. Say goodbye, get your ass back in my car and follow me back to the hair salon. Aly needs her car soon." Marietta scoffed. "Don't be such a jealous bitch, Josephine." "Shut up, Marietta." I snapped. "Go home." "You can't talk to me like that!" I looked at her. "I just did! Leave!" Huffing, Marietta got in her car and drove off. "What the hell has crawled up your ass, Jo?!" Tucker yelled. I groaned. "Me?! Seriously?! You took my car, leaving me without a ride, to go on a date with Marietta Gonzalez! I cannot believe you, Tucker! I thought we told each other everything!" "We do!" He yelled. "I was going to tell you tonight! I didn't think much of her dinner offer until she started playing footsie with me under the table. I decided to give it a shot!" "With my car?!" "I didn't think it would bother you like this!" I sighed. "It wouldn't have bothered me if you'd told me where you were going." Tucker walked up to me, cupping my face. "Josephine, you are my best friend. I'm sorry I left you at the hair salon. I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was going." "Do you know how I figured it out?" I asked, softly. He shook his head. "No. I don't actually." "A fan saw you walk into Frankie's." I put my hands over his and pulled them away from my face. "She took video of the two of you leaving and sent it to me." Tucker sighed. "Damn it." "I'm sorry, Tucker, but you're just as much in the public eye as I am now." I whispered. "I love having you in on this with me, but I can't have someone on my team that isn't going to be one hundred percent honest and open with me." I squeezed his hands. "Can you do that?" He nodded. "Yes, babes. I can. I'm so sorry." I bit my lip. "Let's just go. We can talk later."

[the-roanoke-society]

the condemned.

once upon a time in louisiana, something went awry.

featuring @agent-houdini and, in a roundabout way, agent whiskey of statesman.

go tell aunt rhody, go tell aunt rhody, go tell aunt rhody, everybody’s dead...

figures. give the quartermaster a wet dream, get a nightmare in return. fair play, universe.

houdini woke slowly.

she savored the rare morning off, a gentle, natural awakening as opposed to an alarm jolting her from a dead sleep to go train the newest round of recruits. she inhaled, deep, stretched and—oh. that’s right. jack was in new york.

she missed the familiar weight, the warmth of him next to her, but… it did allow her to stretch her limbs out in every direction as far as they would go. she laid like that for a moment before rolling up and reaching for her specs on her nightstand.

as soon as she slipped them on, she could see a small red dot in the upper corner. a new transmission. she opened it.

the imagery that met her turned her blood to cotton.

it was seraphim. and she looked awful.

the feed was timestamped at a little over one o’ clock in the morning. houdini frowned. seraphim had been afield for at least a week, somewhere down in louisiana. she hadn’t given anyone the specifics of what she was doing, she’d just—left.

“… good morning.”

seraphim began, her voice rough. she was facing her specs, recording, in an unfamiliar room. the familiar tinge of green that came with night vision mode cloaked all the visuals. even past that, houdini could see her skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. it almost made it look like she was made of plastic. “i’m ah—i’m sorry, if this wakes you. but i—you’re the only one i trust with this.” a crooked smile.

her speech was… something was wrong. was she drunk? drugged? where even was she? “i’m not sure how much time i have so i’ll try to make this quick. if i do this the right way, your specs should start loading my coordinates riiiight about—now.” codes started to manifest in the opposite corner. latitude, longitude, a map. she was deep in the bayou. “and some other files i thought might be useful.”

a logo. red, white.

what was the umbrella corporation?

“remember the drug cartel? in santa fe? regla de perro blanco?” seraphim continued, and coughed. “i ah, did a bit more research, when we got back. lauren, this thing—went a lot deeper then we thought.” she swallowed, shaking her head, looking at the floor for a beat. “i don’t know what this corporation is, i’m—i’m not even sure i can explain what’s happening now.” seraphim shifted, and pain ghosted across her face.

“… it’s something unholy.” she sighed, glancing around the room. ‘room’ was a generous word. houdini squinted. dilapidated carpentry, old stone. more like a dungeon, she thought. a prison cell. if seraphim was sitting on something—a chair, maybe just a mattress on a floor—she couldn’t see it. “i came here alone, thinking that i’d be able to handle what i thought i was going to be a little bit of reconnaissance, field research. the same occult ties we saw in new mexico are everywhere here. they’d—on my way in they’d made an altar out of the bodies of deer, and…”

and for the first time, houdini saw fear in the agent’s eyes. “i was wrong. i should’ve listened to harry when he told me about james.” another nervous grin. “rae’s, uh, rae’s gonna be pissed when i get back.”

the more she spoke, houdini realized that no, she wasn’t drunk. she wasn’t drugged. she was sick. tendrils of dark hair had curled against her forehead, and there were dark smatters of something down the front of her shirt. houdini couldn’t tell what it was. she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

but through the feed, seraphim looked squarely at the camera, meeting houdini’s eyes. her expression was equal parts physical discomfort, a subtle horror, and a not-so-subtle despair.

a woman alone in a cold, dark room.

“this is me formally sending a distress signal. you and jack—well, jack hopefully after you’re finished watching this—are now officially the only agents who know my whereabouts and that i have been—detained.” her cadence slowed. her words were being carefully chosen.

“and i am choosing the both of you, because you were with me in new mexico. and therefore you both—“ more coughing, a bit more violent. “—you both would understand why i came down here. this—this was—“ she made a vague gesture. “an accident. if—if i’d known—“ she ran her hands through her hair. she was shaking. “guess i’m not as strong as i thought i was, huh?” she tried to laugh, but houdini could see tears forming in her eyes.

she’d never seen seraphim this scared before and it was disturbing on a level she couldn’t quite articulate. their fearless leader, not so fearless anymore.

“and tell—tell merlin—“ for a second, seraphim couldn’t speak. she lifted a hand to her mouth, gazed off at some far-off point, breathing. trying to regain her composure. but her voice was thick when she began, “—lauren, i need you to lie to him. i need you to tell him whatever he needs to hear so that he’s not worried. he—he can’t know i’m down here, even lillith just knows i’m somewhere in the state, and… and i know, it’s already been a few days, i know hamish’s going to get suspicious, might already be but—“

tears began to roll down her cheeks. the night vision caught two separate glints of light—a cross around her neck, and her engagement band on her left hand. she wiped at her face, “—there’s nothing for it, lauren. you can ask him for any new tech, that’s it. this is a road that would swallow a quartermaster whole. and if—if you and jack can’t find me, or it’s been three weeks since this transmission and i’m not back…”

more coughing, this time so aggressive that seraphim bent in half out of frame. when she sat back up, she wiped at her mouth, and was that a smear of blood on the back of her hand? jesus, what had been done to her?

she stuttered out her next words, and houdini had a horrendous thought that maybe she was still choking on whatever dark substance had just come up her throat. she thought she was going to be sick for a second. “… w-well. in that case. tell him the truth. i asked you to cover for me, because i wanted to protect him, and—“ seraphim’s voice was steady, but she was weeping. “—that he was the love of my life. and it’s—“ she swayed, as if faint. don’t pass out, morgan, not yet-- “—i want to minimize the damage of what i have done.”

there were creaks. they sounded distant. seraphim abruptly froze, eyes wide, body stiff. listening. and houdini pressed her specs into her face, hearing what might’ve been footsteps over seraphim’s holding cell through an old wooden floor, not realizing that she’d been holding her breath until it was over.

seraphim waited until they’d passed. then closed her eyes, let out a smooth exhale. smiled. she whispered, “… but we’ll do as jack says, as burn that bridge when we get there. i will see you soon.” seraphim reached out then to grab the glasses, and the feed visuals shifted as she moved to shut them off. “help me lauren-wan kenobi—“ more footage of the room. “—you’re my only h—“

a gasp. a quick image at the very last second of the feed that passed too quickly.

then nothing.

houdini was fighting to not have a panic attack.

she reopened the transmission, fast-forwarding to the last few seconds, purposefully slowing the frames.

there was nothing about the building that seraphim was being held in that was helpful. it was rotting, it was condemned, and looked like many properties she’d seen the exorcist cleanse with agent succubus. garbage and—bones? all over the floor. scattered papers. she caught the corner of a stained box spring. a few empty budweiser bottles.

and that final frame.

jail-like bars. a doorway. light spilling out behind a man easily as tall as merlin, and twice as wide. the light blacked out all of his features, but caught on the lenses of his glasses.

in an apartment in new york, a phone screen lit up.

[8:46 AM]

sweetheart calling . . .

[hakesbros]

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[newsfact]

‘Rust’ actor describes ‘life-threatening’ shootout scene before fatal accident involving Alec Baldwin

An actor who was in a different scene involving firearms on the set of the movie “Rust” is speaking out about his “life-threatening” experience.

Several members of the cast and crew are speaking out following the accidental shooting incident in which Alec Baldwin discharged a gun on the set that he believed to be unloaded. The incident left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead and director Joel Souza wounded. 

Speaking to TMZ, New Mexico-based actor Ian A. Hudson spoke out about his experience on the film in a previous scene that involved guns. Hudson played an outlaw who is eventually gunned down. While filming his death scene, the actor explained that he noticed a lot of things that he believed were unsafe when it came to handling the firearms and making sure the cast and crew were clear of any danger. 

Hudson noted that there were cameras and crew positioned behind him on the set in the direction real guns that were loaded with blanks were being fired. While he was in the scene and thus directly in the line of fire, he says they were protected by shields. 

‘RUST’ SHOOTING: FILM LOCALS LEFT ‘ROLLING EYES’ AT ALLEGED LACK OF SAFETY MEASURES: LIVE UPDATES

Ian Hudson discussed the safety conditions on the set of the movie ‘Rust.’ (Instagram)

“That made me question me being in front of the camera and in between all of that fire,” he told the outlet. “When the rounds were released — when they shot at me — I actually did feel the blanks hitting my face and my body, and I could feel the wind from the shotgun being discharged.”

The actor said that he remembers feeling like there was a sense of danger on the set given all the munitions being discharged, regardless of whether or not they were blanks.

“It was heavy. It was strong,” he said. “I would talk to my fellow cast members afterward and we all agreed how intense that was and how scary and real that was.” 

Rust Movie Productions did not immediately reply to Fox News’ request for comment.

Since the accidental shooting resulted in a crew member’s death, many have likened it to the shockingly similar 1993 incident on the set of the movie “The Crow” that left actor Brandon Lee dead. Hudson noted that the cast discussed that very incident prior to Hutchins’ death.

“That conversation came up a couple of times,” Hudson told TMZ. “We’re doing this the same way they did it then, 30 years ago. You’ve got to double-check and you’ve got to make sure.”

Fortunately, Hudson explained that some of the other actors on the set with more experience than him when it came to firearms did indeed check their weapons, regardless of whether or not they were told the guns were safe to handle or not.  

‘RUST’ FILM ARMORER HANNAH GUTIERREZ REED FACES EVICTION FROM ARIZONA LANDLADY: ‘I WANT HER OUT’

Baldwin has since spoken out about the incident, calling it a ‘tragic accident’ and praising Hutchins as a ‘deeply admired colleague.’ (Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican)

“As a new actor, I don’t want to cause trouble,” he explained. “I don’t want to make an issue about things, I just want to do as well as I can and get the footage that they want. So, I held my tongue for a lot of it.”

He adds: “But some of the other actors who had worked on a lot more sets than I have as principal characters… They were double and triple-checking our weapons after the armorer gave them to us, whether they were cold or hot.” 

According to a search warrant from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office Baldwin was handed a gun that assistant director Dave Halls announced as a “cold gun,” a term meaning there were no live rounds inside of it. However, that wasn’t the case and when Baldwin pulled the trigger while rehearsing a scene, the gun fired. 

One of the three people besides Halls and Baldwin who handled the gun was armorer Hanna Gutierrez Reed, who previously questioned her own abilities to run firearms on a movie set in a recent podcast. While her culpability in the accident is being called into question, Hudson noted that he thought she was doing a good job given the circumstances. 

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“Honestly, I think the armorer, as pressed as she was for time, was doing a fantastic job,” he said. “I even overheard [director] Joel Souza praise her a couple of times for being as safe as she was and as consistent — and speedy, too, keeping up with the rushed schedule.”

An actor involved in a shootout scene on the movie ‘Rust’ spoke out about the ‘life-threatening’ experience on the set.  (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

The actor concluded his thoughts on the matter by stating that the fact of the matter is, using real guns on the set of a movie is a dangerous experience. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Discharging any type of projectile is terrifying. Having been shot at multiple times and faking my death for the camera was enlightening to me in all the wrong ways,” he said. “It was life-threatening. It felt too surreal and it’s just… It’s really unfortunate to have what happened happen because they were just trying to make a movie.”

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[demolitionjetstar]

Prompt 30: too quick, mumbles into your scarf

Y’all already know this is mark/roger heck yes

Warnings: none besides me not knowing if Central Park has a fountain and a garden right next to each other

If you like this, send a pairing and a prompt for more!

—

“Mark, come on! It’s summer, it’s nice out, why are you wearing that god awful scarf?”

The gang decided to spend the day together, and that went as well as was expected. Maureen and Joanne argued three times already about absolutely nothing, and it was only noon.

“Hey, I like my scarf! It’s soft!” Mark knew defending himself against Roger was useless, that man always put him at a loss for words.

Collins let out a laugh that only belonged to him, loud and boisterous, as was his personality. “‘It’s soft’. Really? That’s your excuse? It’s literally, like, seventy five degrees out, man! You don’t wear scarves in this weather!” Mark scoffed at his friend and rolled his eyes, picking up his camera from a Central Park bench.

“Okay, break time’s over kiddos, why don’t we come to the garden over here?”

—

Roger secretly loved the scarf, of course he’d never tell Mark that.

But it was soft, and it was fading and it had a hole in it, he’d had it since he was a teenager and he kept it because at that point it had been almost new. But now, it was old and worn but it was just so Mark, and he loved it.

Well, really, he loved Mark. The scarf was just an added bonus. He laughs at the fact that he loved a scarf, and just how weird it sounded. But the scarf was Mark’s, so was it really all that weird?

A camera in Roger’s face interrupts his moment of Mark appreciation time.

“Roger, what are you laughing about? Come on, look at the camera, why were you laughing?”

Roger huffs, but looks at the lens nonetheless. “Can’t a guy just, I don’t know... laugh for no reason? Is that so impossible?” He smirks at the retracting lens and then turns and walks away to admire another part of the garden, away from Mark.

“Huh...” Mark whispers to Roger’s retreating frame.

Mark, from the moment he moved in with Roger, knew he had a crush on him. And as time went on, that crush grew into something more, something that killed him inside when Roger said he was in love with Mimi last year. If still kills him, seeing the two, and Collins and Angel, and Joanne and Maureen be so happy, all the time. He wanted that. He threw himself into his films, didn’t let himself do much else, didn’t go to dinner with everyone, mainly because he didn’t have a person to hold, a person to hold him.

“Markie, honey, that battery’s gonna die if you keep it trained on an office building that long!” Angel’s voice startled Mark out of his daze.

“Are you coming? Were you even listening to a word I said? Let’s go!” Angel rolled her eyes fondly and grabbed Mark by the arm.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry! Let’s go, I’ll follow you.” He laughed at Angel’s false seriousity. She was never actually mad at anyone in their group, save for the one time when Maureen went through Angel’s closet without the ‘okay’ from Angel and... well. That went as expected.

“Darling, you’ve got to know that just looking at him won’t do anything, right? Markie, I’ll be honest, I thought you were smarter than that!”

Mark glanced at Angel, then at Roger, and sighed. “It’s just not that easy. He and Mimi are head over heels for each other, I’m not about to ruin it for my own personal gain. Even if they weren’t together, I wouldn’t do anything unless it was clear that there might be something beyond friendship, but as of right now there’s nothing there.”

His posture became visibly sad, he slouched and his shoulders drooped. His camera hang a little too loosely from his fingers. He stole another glance at Roger and Mimi, and smiled a sad smile. They were perfect for each other. Of course they were.

“I know it feels that way, but if you’ll just look closer... it may not look that way. Let’s sit and look at your footage for a second, shall we?”

She dragged Mark to the nearest bench, and pulled the camera from his grip, which had gotten a lot stronger after he almost dropped it.

“I don’t know how to work this, pull up the footage from the beginning of dinner last night, to now, and focus on how he looks at Mimi, compared to how he looks at you.”

Mark tried to find a difference, he truly did, but there wasn’t any difference at all to him.

“I guess I don’t see what you see, then. He looks at her the same way he looks at me.”

Angel smirked. “Exactly.”

This got Mark feeling very confused. He thought that was the issue, was it not?

“If Roger looks at his girlfriend, the same way he looks at his best friend, doesn’t that mean anything to you? He feels the same way about you as he does Mimi, if not more.”

This was getting to be too much. He couldn’t handle speculating anymore, he had to talk to Roger himself, or nothing would make sense.

“I’m gonna talk to him, I’ll be back.”

She grinned and clapped her hands. “I’m right, you’ll see!”

Mark only scoffed. He walked to where Roger and Mimi were sitting by the garden, where they had a perfect view of the flowers and their friends.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mimi, could I please speak with Roger for a minute?”

Mimi squeezed Roger’s hand and stood, slipping away to meet Angel and Collins by the fountain.

Here we go. It’s fine, he’ll either say he loves you or he’ll move out of the loft. It’s fine.

“Hey.”

—

Roger knew what was happening. He was sure of it. Mark was there to tell him to move out, that he was being creepy, that he was uncomfortable with Roger’s actions. And that was fine, he’d do anything to make Mark happy, he truly would.

“- and I just think, I might, maybe... are you even listening to a word I’m saying? Now I know how Angel felt!”

“Sorry, yeah, I’m sorry. I’ll pack up when we get home and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Roger gave Mark a sad smile, he hadn’t wanted it to end up like this.

“Wait, what? Why would you move out? I’m the one that’s being weird, I’m the one that’s in love with his best friend who has a girlfriend, I should be the one to move out! I’ll, um- I’ll just go-“

Before Roger knew what was happening, Mark turned on his heel and quickly walked away from him.

“Wait! Mark, hang on!” He ran to catch up with Mark, he may not have the longest legs but he was damn quick with his strides.

He didn’t understand. He should’ve paid attention to what Mark was saying, maybe then he wouldn’t have this problem.

“No, it’s fine, I get it. I shouldn’t have even said anything-“

“Mark, shut the hell up for one second, please. Can you repeat yourself? Everything you said went in one ear and out the other. Tell me what you said.”

Roger guided Mark back to the bench, and sat Mark down before sitting right beside him.

“This is awkward... I guess not as awkward as just now, though.”

They both chuckled at that. Roger put a hand on Mark’s knee, and almost removed it when Mark looked at his hand incredulously, but kept it in its place anyway.

“So, it’s a bit hard to explain, so bear with me please.” Roger was willing to wait the entire day listening to Mark explain himself if it meant staying with him.

“I guess I should start with when we first became friends and I moved in with you. At that point, it was only a- only a, well, a crush. God, that makes me sound like a teenager but it’s so true.” Mark let out an actual laugh at that, one that was quiet but had him grinning a mile wide. The laugh Roger fell in love with.

“And that’s all it was at that point, a crush. But, time went on as time does, and that crush developed into something I wasn’t sure of. I knew you were my best friend, but I was confused about myself. I guess that’s why I dated Maureen, to make sure I knew what I was. And I did love her, truly. But it was nothing compared to how I felt for you.”

Roger moved his hand from Mark’s knee to his hand, but said nothing.

“When she broke up with me, I was relieved. But the it kicked in that now I couldn’t pretend I was in love with her anymore. I just had to face the fact that I was in love with you. That I still am in love with you. That’s what it is now, I think. Love. Although ‘love’ sounds ingenuine, like it means nothing. It’s just.. the only word I have to describe it.”

Mark felt his throat tighten, and his vision became blurry with unshed tears. He took his hand out of Roger’s and tried not to imagine his friend’s hurt face as he did so. He dried his eyes and took a breath.

“Anyway, I think it’s your turn now. Talk to me, please. Whatever you say, it’s fine, just... please don’t- please... don’t hate me.”

Roger took a deep breath and tried not to cry, to focus on putting his thoughts into coherent words.

“I asked you to move in because I knew we had a future. I didn’t know what sort of future, but I knew it was there. I knew I needed you in my life. And then, we became best friends and I’d never been happier. I had a friend! A friend who didn’t care about how messed up I was in the head, who didn’t care about the fact that I was in withdrawals. I had a friend who helped with all of that. And I felt loved, and cared for. But I was scared, because I kept feeling these things and I didn’t know what they were. So, even though I didn’t like her at first, I started dating Mimi, and it was great, because like you said, I could pretend too. I didn’t have to be unsure of myself. But I was pretending, really, because I knew Mimi and I wouldn’t last long.”

Mark looked at Mimi from where the rest of the gang was, coming out of a shop with absolutely nothing, but that wasn’t to say they didn’t look around and dream of being able to buy the place. Maybe if they all went through with the Santa Fe restaurant plan, they’d be able to.

“But you guys haven’t broken up. If you aren’t in love with her, why continue the act?”

Roger brought his hand up to Mark’s jaw and turned his head so he was looking Roger in the eye.

“I was getting there, actually. We talked and she understood where I was coming from. She said that she’d be willing to pretend for as long as I needed, as long as I made an attempt to make it clear to you. And I tried, but I got so terrified that you weren’t feeling what I was, that I just... stopped. And, well, here we are. And I’m still terrified that I’m misreading things, but at least now I’m sure that I love you... Wow, you’re right. ‘Love’ doesn’t sound right, not like this.”

They both laughed and they stood up, having felt the eyes of all their friends boring into them, like they were a movie. Roger slowly raised his middle finger at them, and took Mark to the other side of the garden as the rest of them laughed.

As they sat down, they made little space between them. Both of them hoped this was a good thing.

“So, um... what happens now?”

“Mark, whatever happens is okay, as long as I’m with you.” Considering the fact that he’d finally explained his feelings and let Mark know what was really going on inside his head, he allowed himself to shed a few tears. He did it.

“Oh god, Roger, don’t cry, please, it’s okay. It’s okay...”

Pretty hypocritical of Mark to say, considering he was crying too. But only a little bit, he swore.

Roger pulled Mark into a hug that was filled with so much emotion, so much care and love and ‘oh my god this is finally happening’ and the two were so happy. Roger put his head on Mark’s shoulder, and mumbled into his scarf.

“Sorry Roger, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you, you said it too fast.”

Roger picked his head back up, and instead put their foreheads together. “Oh, I just said I love you. I can say that now, oh my god!”

Neither of them knew where the rest of the group were, and neither of them cared. It was just the two of them on a park bench in the city, very loud everywhere else in the city, but for Mark and Roger, they were so focused on each other that the city was quiet.

“Hey, uh, Mark?”

He took Mark’s hand, and, if it was possible, moved closer to him.

“I think- I hope- I know the answer to this, but... be my boyfriend?”

Mark grinned. “Of course. Hey Roger?”

“Hmm?”

“Kiss me?”

And Roger did.

[squeeprojectsllc]

About this Event

Get $5 off tickets with code DRIVEIN

LA Premiere Screening of All Hail The Popcorn King,: The Joe R. Lansdale Documentay with Special Guest Performer, Kasey Lansdale

Hosted by Filmmaker Hansi Oppenheimer and Moderated by Bill Thill.

"Documentary films about authors are few and far between. That's chiefly because the act of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard isn't anyone's idea of high drama.

Not so with New York-based documentarian and self-professed fangirl Hansi Oppenheimer's All Hail the Popcorn King, a tribute to and examination of Joe Lansdale, the Lone Star State's "writer of the purple rage."

Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle

"Lansdale shares stories from his life and career in Nacogdoches, Texas while a wide range of artists and fans, including Joe Hill, Mick Garris, Brian Keene, Bruce Campbell, Don Coscarelli, and more, share what they love the most about the man and his work.All Hail the Popcorn King paints a vivid picture of iconoclastic creator Joe R Lansdale, who isn’t just a talented writer, but seems to be a genuinely good person, to boot. The interviews included here are in such a down-to-earth, conversational manner that you can’t help but just get drawn in by his charisma and sense of humor. I can’t imagine watching this and not being compelled to go grab the first book you can find and dive right in. Hell, I’ve read a fair chunk of his work and this made me want to go back and reread everything while scouring bookshop shelves for the ones I haven’t found yet."

Paul Brian McCoy, Psycho Drive-In

"Oppenheimer followed Lansdale, camera in hand, while he shared some moments of his life. It makes you feel as if you were the one having a conversation with him. This closeness makes you feel the extent of his love for all types of storytelling."

Adrienne Tyler, 1428Elm.com

"Lansdale talks like he writes, and you don’t want to look away. He’s a storyteller, and that lends itself to a documentary. Hansi Oppenheimer makes the film a visual feast to go along with the verbal one, just as rich in walking us back through time. Vintage footage of drive-in movies and intermission concession ads create a feeling of nostalgia that works well with Lansdale’s rememberings."

Lynn Zubernis, Fangasm, When academics go to Hollywood!

Director, Hansi Oppenheierm with master storytellers. Joe R. Lansdale and George R.R. Martin at George’s Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe NM for the screening of All Hail The Popcorn King