#he needs to release his theatre kid energy out somehow | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jiminrings · 4 years

Note

honestly i could talk w band!hobi abt numbers all day, like i wouldn't even mind. what are ur thoughts on 27 hobi? i think they a bad bitch. also UM might i request a drabble abt like a film major! yn (that is very enthusiastic abt films and the aesthetics + cinematography and whatnot) w like,,, a theatre kid?? any of ot7 works fine and it's all good if u can't or don't want to! thankyouu 💜

muse of mine

pairing: namjoon x y/n

wordcount: 4k

glimpse: namjoon’s always been a little sensitive to feedback whether it’s positive or negative, y/n’s an endearing type of talker, and smuggled snacks to the theater haven’t ever tasted this sweet :D // gif from pinterest!

notes: i kinda switched it up a lil bit and made them more established in their respective fields bc my mind went berserk on this concept!!! also this is mayhaps my oNLY piece that’s just pure fluff

“27? The number? Hmm. That sounds... sexy.” - band!hobi

this been’s bugging you for the past half hour

this whole experience feels oddly familiar

you’ve been in this theater for half an hour so far to watch this play!!

lmao ur gonna admit RIGHT off the bat that theatre’s definitely not it for you

your slight unfondness for it is deeply-rooted back to university and for four years, you’ve consistently taken dumps on theatre kids even if it’s under your breath

alright it’s possible that you don’t hATE the actual people ( only some of them ;D ) themselves but rather this whole type of cockiness and the “i’m a direct descendant of shakespeare himself. trust me bro. on god” energy that they always seem to exhude

but realistically, maybe this deep-rooted hate stemmed from seokjin

he was the guy you’d share the exact same elective class with him for two straight whole semesters and you’ve been seatmates from time to time

homie took foreign language as an elective?????

the language is korean?????????????????

“wait b-but i — aren’t you — n-no but i really???”

that’s what you first sputtered to him in realization when he took his seat beside you

the two of you have only ever shown each other notes bc the other was dozing off and the occasional sharing of gummy bears that’s already pre-opened to not make any noise

but for some reason, it’s only dawned in you why seokjin’s a god in this class and he answers your questions without even looking at his notes by hALFWAY through the whole semester of foreign language

one day, u are gonna find a way to bodyslam yourself and never recover from it ever again

“mhmm. don’t sweat it, sweetheart. i personally think it’s very don quixote of me to y’know, take something as impractical and amusing as this.”

you snort at his choice of words because honestly!! you barely remember don quixote and jin’s use of it as an adjective jigs up a refresher course on your brain

who was he again??

was he the donkey

.. or are you thinking about shrek again because of your film analysis

you sWEAR there was a donkey in that story

it’s good fun to talk with jin even if he keeps sliding bourgeoisie words here and there and you’re a lil confused with all these references that he makes but that’s okay !!!

atleast even him saying it in a long-winded way that he was like someone from the merchant of somewhere, you know now that he pretty-pleased and charmed his way to the registrar for him to take korean as an elective

...

two weeks later, jin sits next to you in class

in ACTUAL non-elective, non-native language he already speaks class

now that you’re squinting a bit more, jin does look a little uh?? different

his hair that was once a hybrid of lavender and peach and pink and then blonde was now wholly black and it’s probably his original hair color because it matches with those eyebrows of his!!!

his combo of a black bomber jacket with a silk button-up underneath honestly SLAPS and it makes you forget how he used to exclusively wear only knitted shirts and argyle-patterned cardigans

you have ur jaw dropped because you totally would’ve fallen for seokjin jAW-FIRST

— if only he didn’t strike you as the brother type when he smacked the back of your head because you were falling asleep on class again and uhhh you mUst be forgetting that the two of you were sitting in front

you had no time to reevaluate whether you should develop a crush for him or not

he’s immediately slapping his hands on his knees, looking at you so intensely before pointing a finger at you with so much conviction, and then scoffing to himself

“switched majors to film. theatre was gonna be the death of me!!! y/n, if you even think about trying to switch to that cheap, amazon-ordered quill and tanning lights for stage lighting major, you’re absolutely dEAD to me-”

you’ve never had a conversation this striking nor long with jin but you genuinely have no complaints at all

seokjin talks pure shit about theatre and theatre junkies and everything in between for the WHOLE day

trails beside you for every single class you had, which was convenient because he can then sweet-talk his way again (if anybody even dared to question him) that he’s just newly-switched

sat with you for lunch and him not eating because he just needS to tell you all about it and you trying not to choke on your pasta as you try to reply to him

followed you back hOME and decided to crash the night there

yeah, that. your unfondness for theatre’s rooted on that one

uh-huh safe to say that you’ve become best friends with jin ever since that day

you’re a sponge for your friends and jin’s the closest one you have, so it was only natural that you soak up his distastes and whatnot

not to brag but aha :D

you add salt to the water while you boil pasta so u may be a little bit of a masterchef or somewhat, no big deal :D

he’s absorbed your fascination for all kinds of lights and fixtures that he has about seven different nightlights in the form of squishies or neon and everything else on his bedside table, in which he turns all of them on at night

fun fact: he’s capable of sleeping in the dark

jin’s the whole reason for your stance on this

he’s adamant about his points and you’ve graduated uni four years ago!!!

which is why you DON’T get why jin would give you a scented black envelope, with “don’t come to this” scribbled in gold at the front, carrying a single ticket to this play with a sticky note saying “don’t watch this at 7 pm, wearing your boss lady year-end award show type of clothes, sitting at the ninth row from the back and two seats from your right.”

because of course!! what the hell did he expect you to do? NOT come to this play at 7 pm wearing your boss lady year-end award show type of clothes then sitting at the ninth row from the back, two seats from the right???

OF COURSE YOU WOULD

your goal in life is to do exactly the opposite of what jin tells you. there’s literally nothing else in life you’d want to fulfill

he’s made it quite easy for you to spite him and although you wouldn’t admit it.,,.,., you may be a little petty ok

he’s the even bigger goof out of the two of you and you can never have the final say!! it’s always him and his wit and yOU being the dunce

it’s a lil sus that jin’s basically ASKING for it with his instructions but whatever

whatever it is, this is finally your chance to enact the final say and you’re gonna pull ALL the stops

all you know about theater-goers is that they dress fancy and wear these mini binoculars and that’s about it

there’s not even one film you know that you see anyone in the audience wearing a worn-in cardigan or even a puffer jacket even if the theater’s mad cold

all the people bring are scarves and shawls???? thee thinnest version of a blanket that won’t warm them up against the frigid airconditioning

that whole dress code sounds ridiculous!!! great please ring out this thousand-dollar dress im gonna wear to the theater thank u

you’re a little worried that you’re not gonna blend into the crowd, but after some digging about the invitation, formal wear is most definitely recommended

it’s an exclusive invite-only play which would be later released to the general public later on so yeah the situation dOES call for a gown thank u very much

also how could you forget that jin explicitly told you not to wear this type of attire

if you’re being humble right now, which you always normally are, even if that jUST sounded boastful talking about how you’re humble all the time —

you do look pretty breath-taking :-)

even when the doors weren’t opened and everyone’s just collectively loitering outside the hall, you’d feel glances at you

the sweet security guard did a double-take at you and mumbled a “very very nice evening to you, miss :D” instead of his normal “enjoy the show!” to the other patrons before you

you’re gonna soak all the silent compliments up and try to remember all of them before writing them on your journal later hee-hee

your midnight blue satin dress that’s floor-length and off-shoulder is dEFINITELY in your favor :D

your dress still glimmers even if the spotlight isn’t on you and you wish you weren’t shy to ask a random stranger to take a picture of you

going on self-timer isn’t ideal either when there’s like a hundred other people in the room

they probably wouldn’t even care if you took a picture of yourself!!! but in your head they probably think that you’re laughable so you’d rather not.. do that

the theater’s dark as hell if that wasn’t established

it is literally pitch black in the room and the ushers at each row holding the flashlights that are meant to guide the patrons aren’t exactly helpful

big kudos to them though,, must take a lot of self-control to not wave their lights like it was a rave :D

a flashlight tHAT bright?? whew pls is this what ships feel in the night

the last time you were in a rave, your thirty minutes of fun was cut short when seokjin immediately got hammered and wouldn’t stop throwing a fit if you didn’t drive him home that instant

his energy seemed to compelling everyone that he’s managed to somehow suck the energy out of a WHOLE rave so you took him home for everyone’s enjoyment :(((( except yours apparently

you’re trying hard to focus on the play that’s happening because for the past twenty minutes, all you’ve done is zone out randomly with ideas all of a sudden

you NEED to listen

....

uh-huh...

UH-HUH......

wait this is actually.. good

you find plays hard to follow and absolutely boring when you don’t immerse yourself in a run-down PRIOR to watching it in order to get

it’s the same analogy as reading the plot of a movie on wikipedia before watching the movie at the cinema.... absolutely useless

it sucks out the fun from something you weren’t supposed to know

watching plays is two hours of you being confused, going home to read the plot and only understand it by tHEN, and never coming to the theater again because you’d waste your money.... watching something cluelessly in the theater..... for a plot you’d grasp at home

but no

because this one

actually this one that you’re watching...

it’s not bad

it’s nice, actually.

within two minutes, you managed to grasp that it’s a story about a never-ending spring between these two lovers

there’s something about the whole setting of it actually that just sucks you in

in some plays, the outfits would seem so forced even in the given context that it reminds you of uh a particular superhero movie

and yes ur aware that stage makeup has to be enhanced so that people all the way to the back row would see

but there’s just something in this scene that’s laid out right-now that actually gets you in awe

it’s of the couple in the back of their pick-up truck and everything about it seems so natural

the background straight up looks like what it’d be if you were to go outside

the guy’s arm around her shoulder seems so natural and in nature that it doesn’t feel like a random cue in the script

the girl twinkles and it doesn’t even feel like a forced type of laugh you’d cue in attempt to warm the audience’s hearts

it’s of a plot where the the guy eventually falls out of love with the girl, while girl gets even more smitten with the guy at the same time

it’s what you take from the past ten minutes that you watch in dead silence, and you don’t even remember in the back of your head that you’re supposed to hate plays

“no way.”

you mumble in disbelief under your breath, head shaking profusely

is your mind playing tricks on you???

you’ve got too used to seokjin sitting beside you that you immediately turn to your right, whispering out your concerns

“is it just me or is she wearing a different shade of pink?”

you don’t even buffer for one second when you ask the stranger beside you

you’re so concerned that you’re looking at him intently while waiting for his answer that could either console or despair you, a random theater-goer that’s too noisy with her questions for her own good

it’s absolutely dARK as fuck in the theater but after awhile your eyes adjusted slightly

and the first thing you look at after the stage is him

him as in the dude in your right that you just asked all of a sudden

you could only see his silhouette and the faintest features of his face along with his well-dressed suit but god

... you are totally not lying if you say that even the barest silhouette of him doesn’t look handsome

you’re expecting him to tell you off for being so noisy but instead, he’s the one who takes you by surprise

“how did you notice that?”

“oh my god!” you exclaim almost too loudly that you yourself even jolts, the guy even making you duck with him slightly for a brief second, “im sO sorry!! am i accidentally spoiling it out for you?”

the guy blinks twice, lips slightly parted before shaking his head no

“no, no... this is the first screening — i mean uh, how would you know that?”

oh boy

you’re adjusting yourself on your seat, bum now warm as you try to explain and not be nervous because what if you just made a wrong assumption about this play and you’re sitting next to a goddamn tHEATRE BUFF???

“well i —uh, uhm what’s your name?” you’re flustered and the FIRST thing you ask is what was his name.,.,,

he seems equally as flustered before he adjusts his glasses, “o-oh uhm i’m namjoon...?”

alright! handsome guy is namjoon!

“you see, namjoon — okay it might just be in my head, but i tHINK it looks deeper with the light somehow. but uh...? the spotlight’s not following her and — is it just me or without the light, her sweater looks brown?”

you’re squinting and if u squint even more, maybe your contacts would just crumple by then

hold on a second

“brown, like — oh my gOD LIKE-”

namjoon puts a hand over his mouth before you could even gasp, hand reaching out for your forearm even before you manage to grasp his shoulder to take it in realization

was it under your nose the whole time??

“... fall.”

holy fucking shit

namjoon looks positively euphoric looking at your face of realization, his once-heavy chest about the whole scene becoming completely devoid of weight

“exactly!!”

his confirmation makes you inwardly squeal, grinning as you point at him and the stage back and forth

“i think this is the first play i’ve become ever interested in watching.”

okay what now

his ears perk up at that, your first sentence that you’ve said after your pink sweater that looks like spring also looks brown like fall in certain scene because of the lighting realization

“it is?”

he takes the chance to look at you as best as he could, trying to play his squinting as cool as he can

namjoon’s far sighted and the glasses he’s wearing are nOT up to date with his current grade bc he’s pretty sure his eyesight’s worsened the past month

he can’t make you out wholly, but he does know that you’re pretty

his eyes don’t linger on you because of the snacks you’re fishing from your purse while you talk that are absolutely illegal in this theater house lmao

but instead, his gaze lingers on you because you’re so pretty

the minimal light that’s bouncing off the stage is enough for him to see a faint outline of your features, highlighting your smiles just right and your dress to glint underneath

“mhmm. i actually hate plays,” suddenly, you’re not scared if namjoon happens to be some sort of theatre buff and you’re offending him because honestly, you feel at ease. “crunch?” you’re holding out the mini bar of chocolate out to him, one he politely declines to because his eyes are bulging out the next second

“you do????”

his genuine reaction indulges you, making you grin ultimately that you put off eating snacks for now to focus on him

“yeah! this is my hate outfit :D”

namjoon giggles as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard

you automatically scoot closer because this time, it’s yOUR turn to shush him

this is totally for just the reason of talking more discreetly and not distracting anyone and is totally not an excuse to be closer to the next guy and touch shoulders with him then get a whiff of cologne because it’s rare for a guy to be handsome and aLSO smell good

your eyes get used to the darkness and eventually, you could make out features of namjoon beside you

he has the prettiest eyes you’ve ever seen

and the way he looks at you makes you feel safe and even your height difference is visible with how probably lonG his torso is compared to yours, his gaze doesn’t make you feel small

namjoon’s still (unsurprisingly) far-sighted and ur so close that he’s a lil cross-eyed

fuck it he’s gonna go to ophthalmologist FIRST thing in the morning tomorrow

“then why are you here?”

“my friend seokjin,” you lean back upon realizing the original reason why you’re here, the situation being so ironic that you puff out a smile

your friend’s named seokjin?

cool :D kim seokjin is namjoon’s of his favorite directors eVER!!

second best for him actually though.,., no one could quite compare to his first

your explanation makes him cackle several times, a swell of pride recounting why you hate (it’ll be past tense probably after this one) theatre

“what about you?”

you turn the question to him, making his dimples disappear effectively that you think you’ve just spooked him

“i uh, well i always wanted to see a story that went like this, so i’m here.”

“you’re a critic? oh god. please don’t tell me you heard all my mumbles.”

no this is even WORSE

namjoon’s not a theatre buff

HE’S A CRITIC????????????

god im coming up

“don’t worry, i also think that the drapings must probably be dirty.”

he breaks out into a smile recounting how you were talking to yourself earlier, a snort escaping him involuntarily

“RIGHT??? it’s like how do you even clean them?? do they fit in washing machines or-”

my god he’s such a nice guy!!!

in fact, he’s everything you want in a guy

you’ve went through atleast twelve facets of emotions for the past hour and you’re not even dating!!!!!!!

“my thoughts exactly!! and if it’s by hand, how do you even scrub the entirety of it?? or wring the water out??”

namjoon KNOWS exactly what’s up :’)

“is there even a clothesline that’d bEAR the weight??”

the two of you are so happy that you just look at each other laughing, a moment in time before namjoon nudges you to lean back because the ending’s happening

you don’t even question him how he’d know that it’s the ending and not just another opening to a new scene, just listening to him

you’re so happy

the play made you happy but namjoon made you even happier :-)

“if you are a critic, you should probably open up your review with this chatty play-hating girl beside you, then at the end, close it off with how she loves it.”

it’s the parting conversation as you realize and holy fuck you are nOT ready for it

you r gonna drag this out for as long as you could <3

......

and namjoon wants in too <3

“noted. if i was a playwright, i’d even make you the lead. which detail should i include? offering me wrapper-covered rice crispy snacks, or asking how you’d watch it while going thru the bathroom?”

this feels so natural

as natural as the couple in the play you’ve just finished watching :))

“you’re hilarious,” you’re not even the slightest bit annoyed and your restrained smile tells him all about it

yea you may have brought in snacks illegally but you aRE gathering your trash up as you’re a decent human being

namjoon wishes you’d pick up after yourself slowly, standing up from his seat as he has the plan of picking up trash that isn’t even his

“what name should i put then?”

you’re silent and oh god he thinks you found his company stupid and would definitely not give him your name

you’re not ignoring him though!!!

his words are still stuck in your head, realizing it lately with his “which detail should i include?”

“me wanting to turn this into a film, actually.”

you test the words out on your tongue, nodding to yourself after a few seconds that you seem so sure of it

“yeah. i wanna make it into a film.”

the lights turn on after being dim for so long, namjoon’s eyes going wide trying to digest what you’ve just said

“w-what?

.....

no fucking way

HOLY FUCKING SHIT SWFRWFBWRHGBRBVWRV SWBHJSDB SHJAVBHGJDS BWHRGHBSVWBGRH

namjoon’s malfunctioning as he’s looking at you from eye to eye, bottom lip trembling while he’s so keen at pointing at you

“y-you’re miss y/n!!”

....

right

oH RIGHT

he’s a fan of yours??

namjoon’s fanning his face because he’s about to literally burst into tears

how could he nOT???

how could he not be emotional when all along, he’s been talking to his number one favorite director????

you and your films are the absolute gems of his life namjoon’s not even kidding

your films were world-renowned for being so natural and sentimental without loading too much into it!!!! you’re known for being so humble through the multiple back-to-back awards and praise you get!!!!

he cannot calm the fUCK down when you’re rubbing circles on his back

“you w-want to turn my play into a film?”

oh my gOD

you’re fumbling for the envelope and it’s only nOW that you realize that it’s not from seokjin in the first place

spring day a play by kim namjoon an invite for director y/n y/l/n

“it’s you!!!!”

“no it’s YOU!!”

jin’s plan worked alright :D

he’s just FOUR rows behind you lmao

it was just two weeks ago when yoongi, the executive producer of his film that he was directing, let it slip that he was co-financing a play

he met yoongi some semesters later after he became close with you, and he’s aLSO converted yoongi into hating theatre then he fit right in to your little posse of theatre kid-hating film students

that gave jin the laugh of his laugh and yoongi was not joking at all

“no, no. i’m telling you man. it’s different! i even have the script that i’ll let you read.”

and holy shit it IS different

if you see a couple tears on the last seven pages of yoongi’s copy of spring day’s script then mind yo oWN fucking business

then two weeks later, here he is :D

jin managed to also convert you to love theatre even IF it is namjoon’s play that did all the work

( also coincidentally found you a future boyfriend because he’s tired of seeing you alone and the closest you’d get to having someone is projecting your yearning into writing the scripts for the films you’d make )

he’s also secretly co-financed the whole play along with yoongi and he’ll drop that bomb later on lmao

“and that must mean i looked like a total FOOL beside you oh my god im so sorry!!”

namjoon panics at that, about to cry when another realization hits him when he’s about to put his head on his hands

“then that means the friend who gave you the ticket was-”

SEOKJIN VBFHSBVHSFBVSFHDVBSJFV SFJVJSFVSJVSSV SSV V FS FSV SFBVRBVRSVSWVGU

he cries to your shoulder and you never expected to be hugging and consoling someone you’ve just met two hours ago, a more than fond smile on your face he takes advantage of when he sneaks in the chance to ask you

“do you mean that?”

“now why would i lie to the playwright who’s been listening to me talk shit, then theorizing, then crying for the past hour?”

it’s true though

namjoon’s seen it all

he’s still handsome as ever even when he sniffles, his dimples on display when you return his question

“now did you mean it? writing me into your play?”

why are you even ASKING

he’s the biggest fan of u

namjoon’s made notes of your work, dedicated scripts to your movies, and he’s thinking about how it’s not yet hitting you how your whole epiphany about the pink sweater turning brown on his play,,, was entirely inspired from you and your affinity for lighting in your films

he thinks it’s still a little early to kiss you on the cheek even if you’ve already hugged, instead settling on pinching your cheek with satisfaction present in all corners

“you’ve always been my muse.”

#feedback pls and thank you :D I WAS SCREAMING THE WHOLE TIME I HAVE A TEST TOMORROW I NEED TO SLEEP #namjoon #kim namjoon #namjoon imagine #namjoon imagines #namjoon oneshot #namjoon oneshots #namjoon x y/n #namjoon x reader #namjoon fluff #namjoon au #namjoon fluff imagine #namjoon fluff imagines #namjoon fic #namjoon fics #namjoon fic recs #namjoon scenario #bts namjoon imagine

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jeonggukookies · 4 years

Text

too young || three

summary: jungkook tells you the truth about his “daughter” and the girl’s mother

word count: 3,003

genre: parent!au, single dad!jungkook fluff/angst/slow burn

one || two || three

“Jungkook, look!” Lifting your head up from your book, your eyes watched Jules drag Jungkook into your direction. You bit your lower lip to stop yourself from laughing as he and Jules stumbled onto the light blue checkered blanket. “Wow! Small world, am I right?”

“Indeed,” you joked.

Jungkook was wearing a long-sleeve yellow button up with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His shirt was tucked into his ripped light jeans. His outfit matched Jules; she was wearing a white t-shirt with yellow checkered shorts. For the first time in forever, her hair was down.

“Do you mind if we join you?” He asked while Jules put her hands together and gave you a begging look. He ran his left hand through his brown hair as his other hand held a large picnic basket. “If not, it’s cool.”

You let out a small laugh and rolled your eyes at his attempt of being a cool guy who didn’t care. “I mean I suppose if I get something from the basket.”

“Yay!” Jules cheered as she sat down right away across from you. “I’m glad the three of us are having a picnic.”

“What are you reading?” Jungkook as he sat down. He put the basket lightly in front of him and opened the lid. He gave you a teasing look. “Let me guess: E. L. James?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint.” You lifted the book from your lap to show him the cover of the book you were reading. It was a graphic novel that documented a life as a refugee escaping the Great War. He stared at your book for a while before taking out the first container out of the basket. “Not what you expected?”

“I don’t know actually.” He opened the lid of the container, revealing chocolate covered strawberries. “I mean, I don’t really know you.”

“You will soon,” Jules whispered under her breath. She shoved a strawberry in her mouth. “Soon.”

“What was that, kiddo?” Jungkook asked as he grabbed hand sanitizer and squeezed some onto his hands.

“Nothing.” Jungkook then started parting Jules’s hair into three sections and began braiding her hair. “I’m eating strawberries.”

“Who taught you how to braid?” You asked, getting a strawberry from the container. Once you tasted it, you knew you couldn’t stop; they were that good. “I feel like you can braid better than most people.”

He laughed, and just like Jules’s laugh, it was like hearing the most precious sound ever. You just wanted to listen to it over and over again, and you would never get tired of it. “I asked Jin to teach me how to braid when Jules started living with me, but then I taught myself how to do the fancy ones.”

Trying to hide your confused facial expression, you closed your book. Jules didn’t always lived with Jungkook, and he had moved and changed his job in order to fit around Jules’s schedule. Did that mean Jungkook and Jules’s mother were divorced? Did her mother suddenly not want her anymore?

You watched as Jungkook carefully and gently braided Jules’s hair without hurting her. “I wish I knew how to braid.”

“You don’t know how?” Jungkook asked as he grabbed the brown hair tie from his left wrist and wrapped it around the end of Jules’s braid. Again, he put santizer onto his hands and then reached to grab a strawberry. “You never learned?”

“I’m just really bad with my hands,” you said without thinking.

“Oh god,” Jules mumbled as Jungkook bit his lower lip, trying not to laugh. “What does that mean?”

“That’s not what I meant.” You let out a laugh. “I just couldn’t braid, so my mom or my friends would always do it for me.”

“Maybe one day, I’ll teach you.” Jungkook offered. Jules gave him a ‘what is this’ kind of look. You watched Jungkook nudge her, and Jules got back to eating the strawberries. “Perhaps, I’ll be the teacher, and you’ll be the student.”

Before you could reach for another strawberry, Jungkook reached for one and handed it to you. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like them,” he said. “Jules and I made them.”

“They’re delicious.” Jules smiled and patted herself on the back.

“Do you like coming to the park to read alone?” He asked.

“I’m fine by myself.” You shrugged. “Even if I didn’t want to be alone, I couldn’t invite someone. No one would want to come just to be with someone who’s reading.”

“I just think you haven’t found the right person for that.” Jungkook’s alluring eyes met yours. He was looking at you as if he was trying to look into your soul and understand what was going on in your head. “I know you said you were okay with being alone, but don’t you feel lonely sometimes?”

You knew that he asked with concern and wonder, not with the intent to hurt you, but somehow, it did hurt a little. You never thought too much about it, but you were amazed he could read you that easily.

“And what makes you think that?”

“I mean, you’re reading a book alone where someone is seeking asylum in a new foreign place, and I just had this feeling,” he explained. “Do you feel like you’re alone?”

You didn’t like depending on anybody else, but there were times where you did feel alone, even when you surrounded yourself with a bunch of people. You just distracted yourself away from that feeling by talking to other people. The feeling of loneliness eventually does go away, but it eventually did come back. It was just a cycle you had to deal with.

“Way to go, Kook,” Jules gritted through her teeth. “You know how to make a person feel good about themselves.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be nosy or anything. Or sad. I wouldn’t want that on you.”

“I’m fine, really. I’m just thinking.” Jungkook was practically a stranger to you, yet you felt comfortable enough to share personal information with him. Your feelings towards Jungkook were changing. You knew that you started to like him and trust him. “I think that’s why I wanted to work in a school environment. I’m able to connect with a bunch of people who have different stories, so it makes me feel less lonely and alone. And I want to help them, so they don’t feel like that.”

“Did you feel like that growing up?” He asked.

“I mean, a little.” You thought about your childhood. “I was an only child, and I didn’t have a big family. I grew up with my parents and spent a lot of time at school with some friends, so when I wasn’t with them, I did feel alone. But I knew there was always someone there.”

“I get it.” Jungkook gave you a small smile and reached your shoulder to rub your upper arm in soothing circles. His touch felt like a thousand bolts went through your system. It was like he made your senses stronger. “Thank you for being comfortable enough to share that. Especially with me.”

He had the kind of energy where you felt like you were at home; you felt comfortable, safe and at peace. You were so used to being that type of person that you weren’t used to seeing other people like that too. As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you needed that. “Thanks Jungkook. For listening. For not judging.”

“Are you always that brave?” He teased. “Like I’m glad you trust me and all, but you took a risk by telling me. What if I run away this instant and tell the whole world how you felt?”

”Ha.” You released another laugh. “My mom owns a casino, actually.”

“Oh?” He said, not getting your point. “You go to casinos, and that’s why you like taking risks?”

You rolled your eyes and playfully shoved him. “She told me to always take the chance even when I’m afraid and don’t know. She didn’t think I would want to lose what I could have had,” you explained. “I took the risk to tell you, and hopefully you don’t run away from me.”

He smiled. “She’s smart.”

Jules then cupped her hands around Jungkook’s ear and whispered into his ear. She was terrible at it as you heard her ask, “Jungkook, when are you going to do it then?”

He looked at you and said, “Monday.”

___

That following Monday, you looked up from your laptop once you heard a knock on your office door.

There, at the door, Jungkook, in a cotton candy blue long sleeve button up and white pants, had a bouquet of purple Alstroemerias in his left hand. He gave them to you, and before you could say anything, he asked if he could cook you dinner at his house on Friday night.

You didn’t have to say anything. The smile on your face was your answer, and Jungkook knew it.

“I took the risk.”

“Are you glad?”

“Hell yeah.”

____

“Yeah, so I actually can’t cook.” You were with Jungkook at his home theatre room. You two were lying on your sides, facing each other under the big pillow and blanket fort that Jules was still setting up. Just like kids, you three were having a sleepover.

“I can tell,” you joked as you looked down at the leftover pizza on the paper plate that outside the fort. You arrived earlier than what Jungkook told you, and he tried to rush you into the theatre room. As you went into the room, you saw the pizza delivery guy come to the door with a box of pizza in his hand. You kept teasing him about it as you both ate the pizza. “It’s okay. I like it still.”

“Jules, do you want to join us?” Jungkook asked.

“I’m still setting this whole fort up, Kook!” She yelled from outside the fort, adjusting the sheets above your head. "I’m almost done! One more thing!"

“Do you guys always make forts?” You heard loud footsteps run towards the other side of the room, and the lights are turned off. Then, a switch is turned on, and you looked up to see stars through the blankets and sheets. "Fancy."

“Probably every other weekend.” You nodded. “Just to keep things interesting.”

Jules then got into the fort and laid between next to you and Jungkook. Jules then wrapped her arms around Jungkook's body. He laughed, rubbed her back and quietly sang her a soft lullaby. You couldn't help but to smile at how precious they both were.

"How's work?"

“Bearable,” he joked. "I get to see Jules in the morning and after school now, so I'm glad."

Despite the fact that Jungkook forgot to pick up his daughter, you knew he cared about her deeply. There was no way he couldn't. He took the time to learn to braid her hair, sacrificed his career and always made sure she was okay.

"Look at you being a cuddler."

“I like you a lot, ya know?” You let out a small giggle.

"I sure hope so," you teased back. “The pizza really shows.”

“I want to get to know you better.” Jungkook began asking questions. He didn't ask you the simple things like your favorite color, food, movie or any of small talk. He knew he could always ask those later. Instead, he asked you questions that made you think and see what kind of person you were; he really wanted to get to know you and how you see life. He asked questions like lyrics that stood out to you the most, what you thought your purpose was, your worst habit and more.

You told him that you always wanted to help kids. To you, kids were special, and you wanted them to be on the right path as they grow up and develop their own ideas. You wanted them to be in a safe environment, wanted them to learn and be happy. You thought your purpose was doing that: making others live happy and shaping their lives, so they choose the path to do something great.

Jungkook told you that he had a similar purpose. He told you that he thought his purpose was to make art with words and sounds; making music was perfect for him. He loved the idea that people turned to music in times of happiness, sadness, needing of comfort and more, and he wanted to make all kinds of music that people could turn to. It was a small thing, but he believed he could help people.

You liked that about him a lot. He wanted people to be happy, just like you did.

"Do you think your purpose changed with Jules in your life?" You asked. “Do you think it shifted towards to Jules instead of your career?”

He looked down at Jules who was peacefully sleeping in his arms. "A little. I still make music, but I still want the world's happiness for Jules. I guess it’s having multiple purposes in life."

You couldn't help but to ask him. “Why does she call you Jungkook?”

He raised his eyebrows, scrunching them together. “Because that’s my name? Is she supposed to call me Martin or something?”

You rolled your eyes causing him to smile at you. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

He took a deep breath, and his facade of being happy and a joker came off. He became serious. “Ask me what you really want to know.”

“Why doesn’t she call you Dad?”

"Because I’m not her dad." He started stroking the back of Jules's hair. "I thought you knew that."

"What do you mean?" You tilt your head, confused. “How would I know?”

“I just thought Jules would have told you by now, or you looked into her file at school.” He started to explain. “"When I was growing up, my family was close to Jules's mother's family. They had a daughter about four years younger than me. Her name was Sarah."

"That's Jules's mom's name?"

He nodded. “Jules looks just like her. Brown hair, hazel eyes, and the dimples.”

“Same personality too?”

“I think she’s more like you.” He chuckled, having a small smile on his face. “Jules has a big heart, is smart and knows what she wants. For her age, she’s not afraid of anything. Sarah wasn’t quite like that. She struggled a lot in school and really was more of a follower than a leader.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Right, but I think it just led her to make the wrong choices. She partied a lot, argued with her parents and wasn’t responsible. I was like her older brother. I had to take care of her and made sure she was coming home at night, alive and breathing.”

“So what happened?”

“Sarah told me everything. Seven years ago, she told me the night before her graduation that she was pregnant.” He paused. “But she didn't know who the Dad was. It was a one night stand."

You felt bad for Sarah already, having to raise a child at such a young age and all alone. Although Jules seem to not mind about not having a Dad, you felt bad that she never had the opportunity to meet him. She was left with a lot of questions not answers.

“I already graduated university and had my own career ahead of me.” Jungkook continued his story. "I didn’t do much, but I tried and helped Sarah here and there once Jules was born. I bought diapers, paid for babysitters and visited like once a month and on birthdays.”

“You did that even though you didn’t have to.”

“I cared for the both of them.”

“Where is she now?” This story could go anywhere, and you weren’t prepared at all. Did she become an alcoholic and was deemed unfit to parent Jules? Did she leave Jules? Did she just give Jungkook a baby and walked away?

He took a deep breath. “A couple months before you were principal, Sarah was on her way to pick up Jules and got into an accident. Nothing could have been done to save her.”

“How did you get Jules then?”

“Jules didn’t have any other family but her uncles, and in Sarah’s will, she entrusted me to be Jules's guardian."

"Oh, Jungkook." You knew Jungkook adored Jules, but it wasn’t the life he planned or wanted; it just happened. “I’m so sorry.”

"You have nothing to be sorry about, Y/N." He kissed the top of Jules's head and held her a little tighter. "I'm glad Jules is in my life, but there are some days where they are harder than others."

"I mean, that's still a big adjustment." Jungkook agreed with you. "You had a whole life already, and now you’re living a life you didn’t think you were going to live.”

“It wasn’t something I wanted to choose, but there was no other choice.” He sighed. “Life is crazy and works in mysterious ways.”

“You asked me if I felt alone.” He nodded. “Do you feel like that?”

“Sometimes when I am lost and confused,” he answered. “I have the boys, but sometimes, I don’t know what I’m doing with Jules. I feel like it would have been better for Sarah to raise her, and I wouldn’t have to be hard on her sometimes when she misbehaves.”

“You’re just doing your job,” you assured him. “She loves you and knows you love her.”

“But on good days, I’m glad I have Jules. I know then I’m not alone.”

“But you still miss what you had before.”

“Missing my old life won’t change anything. It’s not going to bring me back my old life or bring back Sarah. It’s better just to move on,” he said. “Besides, I’m really happy with what I have now and Jules. And I am definitely happy that I met you.”

#bangtanwriters-net #jeon jungkook #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #jungkook imagine #jungkook fluff #jeon jungkook scenarios #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #too young

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currywaifu · 5 years

Text

𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: should we rest for a little longer? 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: minagi tsuzuru/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 2.7k words

𝐚𝐧: i just want to take care of this tired boy

He was asleep again.

“And you’re being a creep again,” Your friend nudges you, and you nudge him back with a vengeance. You peel your eyes away from the sleeping brunet to frown at the boy beside you.

“I’m not being a creep. I’m just… concerned, I guess.” As soon as the words leave your lips you find yourself cringing a bit. It sounded off, almost like you pitied him. If anything, the right way to phrase it probably would have been-

“I kid, I kid,” your friend raises both of his hands, almost defensive, “it’s because you’re a fan of his, right?”

Your lips purse at the suggestion, neither offended nor angry but not very pleased either.

“I suppose,” you say, eyeing the professor that entered the room.

Fan. That sounded wrong too, despite being the truth. You have watched all of Mankai Company’s plays, ever since your little sister dragged you to one since the boy she liked was playing one of the leads.

“Ahh, so cute!” Your sister was shaking you for what might have been the nth time that night, but you weren’t so focused on Romeo as you were Mercutio.

When you saw a familiar face standing on stage beside the pink-haired boy, you were rather surprised. You couldn’t pretend you knew him, but you did see him here and there on campus. You might have even shared a class together and you just never noticed.

You didn’t peg him for an actor.

Curiouser and curiouser.

You checked the website where you booked your tickets again.

Minagi Tsuzuru, Scriptwriter

Interesting.

Somehow, even though he wasn’t in the next play, you found yourself watching more and more. You’d swear up and down that as a theatre fan, you wanted to support deserving local productions; while not exactly false, it was hard to deny your admiration for Tsuzuru’s scriptwriting.

An almost inaudible yawn breaks your reverie and your eyes settle on the familiar green of his jacket. Did the professor just not care? Well, perhaps it was for the better. He probably needed a nap, more than a nap if you were honest.

“Lend me a highlighter real quick,” your friend whispers.

When you pass him the marker, its bright turquoise hue brings you back to your original thoughts.

Were you really just worried because you were a fan of his?

The next time you see Tsuzuru is at a cafe that had ‘the best hot chocolate ever!’, or so your little sister proclaimed.

“Eh? You’re Mercutio, right?”

Specifically, at a cafe where Tsuzuru was currently working at.

Do you let your sister do the talking? You don’t wanna disturb him at work or anything. Besides, it’s not as if you’ve ever talked to him, so other than telling him your order there really wasn’t much else to say.

“… really likes your scripts!”

“Ah, really? Please keep supporting us, I’ll make sure to keep improving!”

The corners of Tsuzuru’s eyes were crinkling as the corners of his mouth slid upwards.

Eh? Why was this boy suddenly giving you an angelic smile? What happened when you spaced out? Wait, didn’t your little brat of a sister mention something about scripts?

“Ah, yes, I’ll keep watching your plays!” You smiled quickly, lightly kicking the younger girl’s feet from beneath the table. Did you say anything to her about your admiration for Tsuzuru or something, or did she suddenly get observant?

She was lucky you weren’t so petty or you would have outed her crush on Sakuya to his troupe mate then and there.

“Oh, by the way,” you begin to lower your volume to be sure, “is the hot chocolate really that good?”

A small chuckle barely escaped his lips before he shrugged, positioning his clipboard to take down your orders. “You have to try it to find out.”

“Then two hot chocolates, and a strawberry creme crepe for me.”

“Chocolate covered banana pancakes, please!”

As he took down your orders, you caught a glimpse of the dark circles under his eyes. He seemed to be fine when he was talking to the two of you, but a part-time job along with university and theatre probably took a lot out of his energy.

“Eh, isn’t this-“

“Don’t say anything.”

So when you ended up with a chocolate-drizzled banana creme crepe and your sister got strawberry topped chocolate pancakes, you let it slide. The hot chocolate was actually pretty good.

You were only supposed to borrow a reference book for one of your classes, take down some notes, and then scramble home.

So what were you doing?

You wanted to sit somewhere further down the library where it was quieter when you stumbled upon Minagi Tsuzuru, fast asleep with several papers scattered haphazardly on the desk.

The two of you weren’t close or anything, but you wanted to encourage him somehow. Sometimes sleepless nights were really necessary, you’d be a hypocrite to vouch against them, but you wanted to tell him to persevere somehow.

You set your bag down on an empty chair, bringing out a green sticky note pad and a ballpoint pen.

...

When Tsuzuru wakes up it’s from Juza lightly, well as lightly as Juza could, nudging him awake. He waits for his eyes to adjust to his surroundings, wondering how long he’s been asleep. The first thing he spots is Juza’s purple tupperware, wildly contrasting the off-whites and blacks and browns his things usually were.

The second thing he notices is a green sticky note stuck on one of his notebooks.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise!

Les Miserables, a line from the finale song if he remembered right.

No name or hint from who could have given it.

He found himself humming the song on the way home.

“This presentation will be a paired work activity… and as usual, I’ll be pairing you up.” Several people groaned audibly, while two girls whispered excitedly behind you.

“I wonder if she’ll couple me up with someone?”

“Ahh, I hope I get coupled up with…”

Seriously, coupled up? Since when were you all Love Island contestants?

You knew this professor was highly acclaimed to be some kind of “yosei of love” or matchmaker or whatever, but weren’t they expecting too much out of her?

“This is a class, not a mixer,” your friend began to say, “is probably what you’re thinking right now. Am I wrong?” He looked awfully smug and you couldn’t resist rolling your eyes.

“More along the lines of ‘this isn’t a reality tv show’, but that works too.”

“Prude.”

“Should you really be insulting me? Prof is probably gonna pair us up again and I’d be stuck with you for a whole week.”

“What’s wrong with that? We became friends precisely because she thought we’d look good together. Of course, it didn’t work out, unless?” He started wiggling his eyebrows and you smacked his arm.

“Dumbass. Well, she’s probably hoping we’re some kind of slow-burn pair and keep us partners,” you predicted. Somehow his smugness increased tenfold, looking as sly as a fox.

When the professor calls your name you perk up, head-turning to her. Even seated three rows away from her you could see her eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Please pair up with Minagi Tsuzuru.”

Your eyes immediately sought for the familiar figure in front of you, until you felt a soft tap on your shoulder from behind you.

He greeted you by your surname, a small smile on settled on his face. “Looks like we’re partners. I didn’t know we had a class together.”

“Ah, yeah, it’s nice seeing you again.” You reply, discretely reaching over to your ears as if to hide them.

“Right!” The two of you looked over to your friend as he clapped his hands together, “Looks like I just got called! Take care of my babe, Tsuzuru!” You were so, so close to slamming your face on the wooden desk, instead deciding to shoo him away with the motion of your hand.

Turning back to Tsuzuru, you give him an awkward laugh. “Don’t mind him, Minagi-san. He acts dumb, but at least he’s consistent.”

He stands up, shuffling his things and for a moment you forget that he’s actually pretty tall. Transferring to the seat beside you, he shakes his head. “If you think that’s bad, wait until you see what I have to deal with.”

“7 younger brothers, and 2 honorary younger brothers that I had and have to deal with on the daily.” Despite his visible tiredness, his tone suggested that he didn’t mind having to look over them so much.

“I only have my little sister, but she’s as much of a pain as she is cute.” Your eyes lock with turquoise, and both of you simultaneously release a sound between a sigh and a laugh.

“Older sibling night hours?” You offer.

He lets out an appreciative hum, “More like older sibling noon hours, really.”

It’s been two hours since you’ve gotten up from your chair. It’s not that you don’t like Tsuzuru’s company, far from it actually, but your back was starting to hurt and you were getting real fidgety. You needed a walk.

“Minagi-san, do you mind if I get something to drink?”

“Not at all, we’ve been at this for a while.” At his signal, you stood up from your chair and fished through your bag for your wallet.

Pausing, you turn back to look at him for a couple of seconds. He was typing furiously fast, but his eyes were droopy and lidded. If you asked him if he wanted anything he’d probably say no, but that didn’t mean you weren’t gonna try giving him something. He mentioned not having a least favourite food, so coffee milk would probably do, right?

Tsuzuru’s eyes tear away from his laptop, catching you staring at him. Before he could ask if something was wrong, your body suddenly tensed before dashing off.

He sighed, letting his eyes rest for a bit while you were still out. He barely got any sleep last night, and the light emitted by the screen was starting to make his retinas burn. Despite his drowsiness, he manages to let out a small huff to mask his growing smile.

Your ears were red again.

...

Discretely hiding the milk cartons as you re-entered the library, you jokingly wondered if Mankai Company’s playwright would be asleep on a library table again.

“No way,” you murmured in disbelief, setting the cartons on the desk the two of you occupied. There was neither the click-clack of his keyboard nor swift ASMR scribbling on his notebook. Hadn’t you only been gone for 5 minutes?

You debated waking him up for a moment, maybe even teasing him for immediately falling asleep as soon as you left. Maybe you’d press the cold drink next to his cheek to shock him.

You do none of those, and let him sleep for as long as possible. He said he didn’t have any work for the evening so no harm, no foul right?

Unzipping your pencil case, you spot your trademark green sticky notes. You had thought about giving him another note again but never found the opportunity to until today. Of course, if you wrote one now he’d definitely know it was you.

It was sorta embarrassing, but you didn’t mind him knowing.

Ah, but you didn’t really want him to see it while you were in front of him?

“Let me just,” muttering to yourself, you hid the sticky note in one his jacket’s pockets. He shifted slightly, causing your heart to stop for a moment.

Don’t wake up, don’t wake up…

When his eyes don’t flutter open, you let out an audible sigh. Well, whether the brunet was asleep or not you still had work to do.

30 minutes pass when the actor finally woke up. He’s still a little dazed and thoughts still a little muddled when he sees you out like a light in front of him.

Maybe, as he’s walking back home, the humiliation and shame of falling asleep while waiting for you would hit him;

but right now he’s focused on the golden rays of the setting sun hitting your gentle, sleeping features and he’s absolutely entranced. Tiny sighs, soft breathing, a picture of peacefulness.

Seriously, Tsuzuru? Just because you like his scripts. Just because you had your similarities. Just because you had a serene sleeping face. Just because your ears turned red around him and was he allowed to hope?

Did you even see him for more than just Tsuzuru the Mankai Company Playwright? Tsuzuru the actor? Tsuzuru who’s in a class with you?

Last month, he thought of you as a sincere fan. Last week, he thought of you as his cute partner.

And what about now? His mind couldn’t supply him an answer right away, but that was okay. There was time for that tomorrow, and the days and weeks after.

His hand extends forward to pet your head when your eyes blink open and lock with his own.

“Minagi-san?”

He thaws himself out of his frozen stupor and quickly moves to take his hand back. Unexpectedly, you reach your own out to keep it in place.

What were you doing?

“Were you going to…” You trailed off, and by the way your eyes averted from his gaze he could tell you were too embarrassed to finish the question.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, “Sorry.”

For a few beats, only silence was exchanged between the two of you; then you spoke up again.

“I don’t mind,” some more beats, “you can, you know.”

There are questions left unsaid, but instead, he lowers his palm down slowly, hovering with a bit of hesitance left.

“If it’s you,” you start, “it’s okay.”

“Okay.”

His fingers glide over the soft strands and begin caressing the top of your head.

The concept of time itself didn’t seem to exist as both of you soaked in each other’s quietude. When was the last time he felt all his worries didn’t exist? That he wasn’t constantly worrying about his family, or finances, or university, or scripts.

“Minagi-san,” you began, tone still soft as though not to ruin the atmosphere they created. “It’s important to get some rest too, okay? I worry… I don’t want your health to suffer, so please take care of yourself.”

A rush of endearment overcomes him and if you paid an ounce of attention to his fingertips brushing against your cheeks as he played with your hair, you don’t mention it. He whispers your first name and watches as his index paints a peach across your skin. Your lips part and the palpitations in his heart increase at a pace that can’t be normal.

“I can’t pretend to know, offer to carry your burdens,” you pause, placing your hands atop of his free one, “but if for a while I could relieve you of your stresses, I’d like to stay by your side.”

Oh.

He moved his hand from beneath yours and interlocked your digits together. “Then take care of yourself too.”

When you looked like you were about to protest in confusion he squeezed the palm of your hand lightly, drawing circles on them with his thumb.

“Alright, I promise,” you whispered.

A dozen or so seconds of nothing but tranquility passes when Tsuzuru breaks the silence. “Should we rest for a little longer?”

His eyes have a teasing glint to them, a look rare on the brunet, and something else you can’t describe other than it makes your heart skip a beat.

“We should be heading home now,” you said, almost regretfully, “but our project still isn’t done, so…”

An oath of next time.

It really wasn’t any of Masumi’s business, but wasn’t Tsuzuru in a particularly good mood tonight? The younger boy had no plans to be nosy, but it was getting weird. What if he was planning something with the director? He had to make sure he wouldn’t get in the way.

Quietly, he peered over Tsuzuru’s shoulder to look at the green paper the college student has been staring at for the past five minutes.

I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn, and we are led to those who help us most to grow.

Oh, wasn’t this from one of the musicals the director liked? The dark-haired boy didn’t know how to interpret it, but if it meant he wouldn’t have to share the director as much that was fine by him.

want to order again?

#a3!#tsuzuru minagi #minagi tsuzuru #a3! tsuzuru #a3! act! addict! actors!#cafe: dessert menu #a3! game #a3 tsuzuru #tsuzuru minagi x reader #tsuzuru x reader #reader insert #i want to take care of this boi

127 notes · View notes

sides-of-demigods · 5 years

Text

Character Profiles

ROMAN PRINCE (16)

Son of Apollo, god of...let's just say the arts, archery, and medicine.

Apollo? God of music? Theatre? The arts? And just all around extraness?

Yeah he's the son of Apollo.

Roman is skilled with anything involving missile projectiles, from archery to basketball, and is a natural musician and actor.

He can actually charm people with his singing voice and, if he is focused enough and has the energy, can almost cast spells with songs. For instance, when he used it in the forest incident to lead him and Virgil out of the woods.

For weaponry, Roman is the only one with a magic weapon. Most often it's a double bladed sword, but it can be separated into two swords, used as a spear, or melded into one single sword.

Also, for some reason no one can explain, it's actually made of Imperial Gold instead of Celestial Bronze, but there's red detailing in the hilt and designs on the blades.

Of course he also has a bow, he's the son of Apollo, but his sword is his signature weapon.

His smile is like sunshine and he has ALL OF THE FRECKLES

He has Auburn hair and is the second shortest of the main four, much to his annoyance, though he's still tall at 5’10 (177 cm)

His eyes are green and he's the pretty boy of camp, giving all of the Aphrodite kids a run for their money.

Roman has been going to Camp Half-Blood for 10 years, ever since he was six.

Roman knew since he was brought to Camp Half-Blood for the first time for the summer by his mom when he was six, because he was immediately claimed by Apollo.

His mom told him early on that he was a demigod but it wasn't until the golden sun with it's arrows for rays that he knew exactly who he was.

But knowing he was a demigod he became obsessed with the magic and fantasy of Greek mythology, and as a kid who had already heard so many fairy tales, he had...strong opinions on the gods.

And their children.

And that included his brother.

He's getting better, especially since the forest incident, which resulted in him befriending and pining after Virgil.

Him and Patton fangirl over Disney and dashing heroes and stuff such as that.

Him and Logan it's all sass battles and such and they act like they hate each other but literally the entire camp knows that's die for each other in a heartbeat. You boys aren't fooling anybody.

LOGAN BRADFORD (17)

Son of Athena, goddess of wisdom

He's??? So smart??? Like there's Athena Cabin smart, and then there's Logan smart. The dude is on a whole nother level.

When it comes to weapons Logan uses twin landsknecht daggers, as they are weapons that require you to be precise and calculating. They aren't really anything special, with navy blue hilts and Celestial Bronze blades, but that's perfect for him.

Logan has black hair and blue eyes, and is the second tallest of the main four, at just over six feet. (182 cm)

Logan was the second most recent to arrive to Camp, arriving at 12 and having been at Camp for four years.

Logan took, surprise surprise, a much more logical standpoint on things than Roman.

He was from a long line of legacies. No one, even his father, knew he was a true son of Athena not just her legacy

So you can imagine his surprise when he got to camp and was properly claimed.

He adapted to this new development rather quickly and got on with his life, electing to, with the support of his family, to stay at camp year round and visit his family once in a while, usually for holidays and such.

It was actually so that his friend and totally not crush Patton wouldn't be lonely most of the year.

As a legacy, Logan dove into Greek Mythology similar to Roman, but rather than focus on the story elements Logan memorized as many stories, weapons, and monsters as he could.

He's like a walking Mythapedia.

The counselor of Aphrodite, Valerie Torres-Rosario, once set him up with Patton as a sort of joke (but everyone at camp low-key shipped them) and Logan was so astonished.

How can anyone be so happy? And pretty? Wait pretty? Wait, shit, 404 error, Logan.exe has shut down.

Nowadays…

Well can you say POWER COUPLE?

Battle couple, leader couple, just all around the most badass couple at camp that literally everyone loves.

Random fact: Logan has a southern drawl that he often dials down, worried it'll cause people to not take him seriously. But sometimes he let's it out with Patton, and yes it makes the poor boy melt.

PATTON HAILEY (16)

Son of Hebe, goddess of youth

Patton is kind of the definition of “looks like a cinnamon roll, and is a cinnamon roll” but when it comes to his abilities he's probably the most powerful of the bunch.

He can manipulate age, sucking the youth out of people and monsters with only a touch. He can almost always control it, but he usually wears gloves anyway. No one actually knew the extent of this until Capture the Flag one day.

Logan ran afoul of an orthrus (a two headed dog the size of a pony) and Patton without even thinking ripped off his gloves, holding on until the monster aged into dust.

He tends to not his powers much after that, so he instead studied with the Apollo cabin to be a healer and learned to use a slingshot and crossbow.

Also while not having a magic weapon persay, Patton does have a magic pouch with Celestial Bronze spheres for his slingshot that can hold way more than it seems. It's not bottomless but it can hold way more than you'd think.

Patton, poor baby, is the shortest of the group at 5’8”. (172 cm)

Patton and his brother were the second to arrive, Patton being 10 when he arrived at Camp, therefore being at Camp 6 years.

Patton also stays year round with his younger brother Dennis but that's because of a less happy reason.

See Hebe is a beautiful woman who Mr. Hailey fell in love with, but only for her beauty and they only had a one night stand. So he was not happy when a baby showed up at his door.

He got even worse when it happened again (although with a different goddess).

One day Patton took Dee and just left. Thankfully they were quickly found by a satyrs, Talyn, who escorted them to camp.

They stayed in the Hermes cabin for quite a while, Dee even longer than Patton, before being claimed.

Patton fit in quite quickly with his cabin mates. The children of Hebe are “highly sociable, take pride in community service and happiness of others, enjoy parties and feasts, tend to maintain a youthful appearance throughout their lives, are known to be fast healers, and are very good at planning social activities and parties.

That sure sounds like Patton to me.

Obviously is the dad of the entire camp.

Him and Logan, though Logan won't admit it, totally are mom and dad of CHB.

Random fact: Patton is next in line for counselor of the Hebe cabin.

VIRGIL CAMDEN (16)

Son of Phobos, god of fear

He can instill fear in people, as well as make them see their worst fears. He can look at someone and know what their afraid at that moment and their worst fears. He can also sort of sense fear of all kinds, from nervousness to anxiety to terror.

Virgil has a sword made of stygian iron, with a hilt of onyx inlaid with amethysts.

Also, he's the only one who had the sense to have a freaking shield. He doesn't always use it, but it's usually at least on his back if he's going into combat. He also has a small hand crossbow, but he doesn't always bring that with him.

Virge has brown hair, dyed purple, and actually tends to not wear much eye shadow, since the sweat from training can make it run.

He also straightens his hair but has Hobbit hair that only the other three have seen because he's kinda self-conscious about it, and each time was an accident. (Aww that might the a cute fic idea. “3 times Virgil accidentally showed his curly hair and one time it was on purpose”. Might write that if y'all want, idk.)

Moving on from his hair, he's got brown eyes, and while he doesn't wear a lot of eyeshadow (think the much less intense eyeshadow from his first few appearances) he still tends to wear white foundation and such. Idk anything about makeup.

Virgil is actually the tallest at 6’3” (190 cm) but is often so slouched he seems to be as tall as Logan if not shorter.

Virgil arrived at camp at 13, the last to arrive, and he has been at Camp 3 years.

Virgil and his parents didn't even know he was a demigod, not until a satyr named Joan showed up at his doorstep on his 13th birthday.

So he shows up to camp for the summers although when everything at home becomes too much he is known to stay at camp for a week or two.

His family situation is okay, but it's pretty tense and that just overwhelms him sometimes.

Him and Roman didn't get along at first, Roman convinced he was the son of an “evil” god. Then the forest incident happened and Virgil released maybe Roman wasn't the stuck up brat he seemed to be. They became friends and now Virgil is slowly falling in love. Curse those damn freckles.

Him and Logan get along pretty well and tend to hang out when everyone at camp is being a little too much. When they just need some practicality.

Patton is his best friend ever, they're totally bffs.

They're like the most wholesome friendship ever and honestly, even before Roman became Virgil's friend, people were starting to question if Virgil was really that bad, because if he was how could he befriend someone as precious as Patton?

Random fact: He somehow always manages to wear black and purple? He somehow even managed to get a hold of a black Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, something no one can explain considering they we're all supposedly bright orange.

DENNIS HAILEY (14)

Son of Apate, goddess of fraud, deceit, trickery, and lies.

Children of Apate aren't known as being powerful in a flashy way. They can't raise the dead, or summon hurricanes, or call lightning from the sky. Their powers are incredibly subtle.

Obviously they can lie their way out of almost any situation, they can blend into crowds easily, they can sense weakness, motivation, and lies. They can twist people's words around.

But just as some children have Aphrodite have charmspeak and some children of Hephaestus can control fire, certain children of Apate have another ability I'm calling Mimicry.

They can take on the form of another person to a level somewhere between an illusion and shapeshifting (meaning they can get stuff wrong), and mimic some speech patterns, quirks, and mannerisms. But not memories.

Dennis uses a rapier. The handle is black, but the area around the handle is gold (if you look up a rapier you'll know what I mean). The blade itself is the usual celestial bronze. That's his signature weapon but he's also good with various knives and daggers, including throwing knives.

He has black hair like Logan, but his eyes are grey, and he has a nasty scar on the side of his face from when him and Patton were fighting a monster before Talyn found them.

He's even shorter than Patton, but he's also not done growing yet, so cut him some slack.

Okay now the good stuff. You already read the gist of his back story with Patton, but once Patton got claimed their stories kind of separated.

See after Patton got claimed Dennis was still stuck in the Hermes cabin for a while. But while Patton was getting to know his other siblings, Dee was kinda left behind.

He took care of the rest of the distance when he was claimed by Apate.

It's a mostly one sided hate, because despite what Dennis has done, Patton just can't bring himself to hate his brother. And, no matter what he tells people Dennis really just misses his big brother but feels betrayed and can't risk that.

So instead he befriended a son of Eris, a boy also scorned by his brother (more on him soon). Although honestly, it's more like Dennis is the one keeping the older boy even semi under control.

Other than that, Dennis is still the manipulative, lying, GOOD INTENTIONED snek we all know and love.

He still causes chaos, but he's kind of true Neutral.

He's like this because that's how he came to believe was necessary for survival.

He was a child of the god of lies.

They wanted a snake?

He'd give them a snake.

But Patton won't give up on Dee. So maybe, just maybe, Dennis won't give up on himself either

Random fact: The one night (after Dennis was out of the infirmary for his injury) while the Hailey boys were still in the Hermes cabin, Patton and Dennis managed to sneak into the kitchen and Patton made chocolate chip cookies. Much to his annoyance, even to this day Dennis's ambrosia and nectar tend to taste like those cookies.

REMUS DUX (16)

Son of Eris, goddess of strife and discord

Remus is stronger in chaotic times, can create a golden apple that can cause people to fight over it, and cause fights between weaker-willed people.

His most powerful ability is a Strife Storm which causes things within it to break, change, or warp.

Remus uses a mace. Plot twist, right? He uses a sword more often than his signature weapon though.

The Mace is black with green designs on the handle. The head is celestial bronze, but Remus painted it black.

By the way, the following actually happened:

Thomas: What do you have?

Remus running wildly: A MACE!

Thomas: NO!

Roman: Oh my gods, why does he have a mace.

Remus has Auburn hair like Roman, but has black eyes and dyed lime green streaks into it.

He and Roman are the exact same height, and this annoys the shit out of both of them.

So now the family stuff. It seems complicated but it's really not, I swear.

So remember Roman's mom? So she met Apollo and had Roman.

But on the exact same day as Roman, Remus appeared on the doorstep of Mr. Dux. He knew it was his child, based on the note from Eris. So yes, the two have the exact same birthday.

But THEN, like not even a year later, Ms. Prince and Mr. Dux met and soon, they got married.

Roman and Remus got along like real brothers, and were the best of friends. Until, they were six years old.

You may remember that six years old was the first summer the boys arrived at Camp Half-Blood.

Roman was claimed practically as soon as they crossed the border. Remus was claimed in a few weeks, but during those weeks something...something happened to him.

He began to...change.

He began to become more chaotic, cruel, just plain old mean.

Roman was trying so hard to excuse this. Maybe his brother just missed their parents? Maybe if he spent more time with Remus than his cabin mates?

But then Remus was claimed, and Roman finally snapped, turning his back on his brother for good.

This was the last straw for Remus too.

The two finally decided, subconsciously and unanimously, that despite their parents love for both of them, despite their marriage, despite their childhood, they were no longer brothers.

Both boys cried that night.

But now Remus channels his energy into destruction, pranks, and honestly horrible things.

Dennis is quite honestly the only thing keeping him from actually killing someone.

That orthux that attacked Logan? That was Remus.

The forest incident? Remus.

Random fact: Remus loves bananas, and of his favorite things to do is eat a banana and leave it on the floor of the dining pavilion right before the dinner rush and watch an unsuspecting demigod slip and fall.

THOMAS SANDERS (20)

Son of Iris, goddess of the rainbow

Okay I know what you're thinking, but I SWEAR this isn't a gay joke. Honestly it started that way but I did actual research and I decided to actually keep it.

Okay so children of Iris have good communication skills, are often nice and good at making friends, are creative, have good color coordination, and are good with animals. Sounding familiar yet? YUP IT SOUNDS LIKE THOMAS FUCKING SANDERS.

Sorry I'm just so excited this worked out so perfectly.

Anyway onto the next part: powers.

Thomathy over here has the power to generate and manipulate light and color, he can change the color of things with just a touch (people suspect he's behind Virgil's black Camp t-shirts), he can see the whole spectrum of light (thankfully he can turn this on and off), and because he's special, he can summon rainbow wings that he can use to fly.

Thomas uses a bow and arrow. There isn't much special about them. It's a recurve bow that's a magenta color, the feathers on his arrows are all different colors, the arrowheads are celestial bronze but there are celestial bronze bits on the ends of his bow just in case a monster decides to get up close and personal.

He has a short sword as well, but he prefers to use the bow.

Thomas looks the same as our Thomas: brown hair, brown eyes, 5’10” (177 cm), etc.

Thomas honestly has a pretty good family life, and actually has been known to bring campers home with him for a week or so if needed? His family is welcome at camp, people call Mama Sanders “mom” even more often than they do Logan, it's pretty amazing.

As for demigod stuff, well Thomas was on watch for a while.

He was special for a child of Iris already (the wings ain't normal), but his best friend and his protector (Joan obviously) could tell he had potential to be a leader and a role model for all the kids at camp.

So at twelve, Thomas arrived at Camp Half Blood for his first day at camp.

He wasn't the best when it came to the physical attributes. He could fight, otherwise he'd be dead by now, but he wasn't exactly gifted at it.

Yet somehow he was counselor of the Iris cabin by the time he was 15?

He is just great at making friends. Even the Ares cabin likes him! He can actually talk them down!

No one understands it!

Literally the only one he can't control is Remus.

Soon, Dionysus was able to somehow cut a deal that got him out of camp director. That title went to Chiron and Thomas, at age 18, became the activities counselor, taking over Chiron's now vacant spot.

Literally the entire camp cheered when this happened.

There wasn't a single unhappy camper in sight.

Random Fact: Thomas's eyes actually change color sometimes, like a holographic image. They're usually brown, but campers swear they've seen them multiple other colors, even colors that shouldn't be possible like red and purple.

Tag List: @coconut-cluster @stop-it-anxiety @wizzo-the-motherfucking-wizard @planetkookie @winterrs-child @thgjclw @dragonsaphirareads @jessadamsdraws @landofsaltandshade @just--potato @that-one-sunfish-with-a-wig-on @withspaces @demoncrownqueen

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joe-mazzello-archive · 5 years

Text

The Strangers - Chapter One - Cold as Ice

A Joe Mazzello x OC fic

Word Count: 5.8k

Chapter Warnings: Language, alcohol consumption, sexual references

A/N: Here we go, gang! Please please please feel free to send me feedback/questions/theories. I want to hear from y’all! Also I do technically have a playlist for this series but since each chapter is a song title, the playlist is a bit on the spoilery side so I’ll wait until after it’s finished to link it. Also sorry that Ben is accidentally Barney Stinson. I needed someone to balance out Joe.

Joe shifted in the cold leather chair he sat in. He couldn’t help but fidget as he patiently waited for the door to the office across from him to open. He looked at his watch. 4:32pm. He’d been waiting for over ten minutes now, hoping that somehow his punctuality would make the meeting to go well.

His eyes wandered to the plaque next to the door. Theatre Arts Department Chair was engraved neatly into the gold metal. He couldn’t help but smile as he thought back to a conversation he had with Ben a week ago, before the meeting had even been scheduled.

“Mate, the fact that you’re not already the department chair over that old geezer is beyond me!” Ben had all but shouted through the crowded bar, swinging his mostly empty beer bottle around wildly. “I mean he doesn’t do shit! He sits at his big desk doing fuck all and takes a huge check home every month! You’re the one who really runs that department.” Joe threw his head back in laughter.

“Well last time I checked, he’s still got the title and I’m still a lowly professor. But I appreciate your enthusiasm, Ben,” Joe replied before finishing off his own beer.

“You should just take that shiny gold plate off the wall and hang it next to your office. See how long it takes that idiot to even notice!” Ben countered before waving down the bartender. Joe noticed and pushed his friend’s arm down.

“I think we’re both done for the night, dude. Besides, you’ve been so focused on me you haven’t even picked out your prey for the night,” Joe teased.

“Ey! Don’t call the women I sleep with and then never call again ‘prey’! I’m offended you think so little of me, Joseph,” Ben argued, before turning to survey the room.

The conversation seemed so long ago to Joe. What had started as a rant about how the department didn’t have enough funding to put on the shows he wanted to do led to a discussion about how Joe hadn’t received a raise in years. Ben urged him to setup a meeting with the department chair. The next day he found himself sending an email to his boss, asking to discuss the plans for the department for the next term.

A day after that, Joe regretted ever hitting send. In his inbox sat an email reply from the grumpy old man himself.

Sure. My office, Friday 4:30pm.

And there he sat, outside that very office, his knee bouncing the messenger bag that sat on his lap as he rehearsed in his head what he wanted to say to the man.

Finally, the door opened and Joe all but jumped to his feet.

“Mr. Mazzello, come on in,” the man growled, his deep gravelly voice giving the impression that he had a perpetual sore throat. Joe shuffled into the large office, eyes glued to the floor, heart pounding. He cursed himself for listening to Ben. He’s rarely listened to Ben before. Why did he start now?

The old man grunted as he sat down, his desk chair that had been there since the department was built squeaking underneath his weight. Joe took a seat in one of the dusty chairs on the other side of the large wooden desk. Clearly this office rarely saw visitors.

As the old man adjusted his tie and glasses, Joe took a moment to glance around the spacious office. The off-white walls were bare except for a few certificates framed behind the elder man’s head. A small bookshelf sat off to the side, the shelves half empty, with only various binders and knick knacks cluttering the spaces. In the corner sat a tall filing cabinet that looked like it hadn’t been touched in decades. The man’s desk was almost bare except for a laptop computer, a pile of papers, and one lone picture frame that faced him. Joe couldn’t help but be curious as to who’s face the chairman looked at all day long, considering the man had never married nor had children.

The room was the complete opposite of Joe’s chaotic office. Every bit of wall space in Joe’s office was covered in posters for previous productions, show programs, and framed photos of casts and crews from shows past. He hadn’t seen the actual top of his desk since his first year as a professor, every inch being covered in scripts and books.

“I believe you mentioned in your email that you wanted to discuss next term. If I recall correctly, I already approved next year’s season of shows,” the man said, his head cocked to the side as he stared at the young professor. Joe wrung his hands together as worked up the nerve to respond.

“Yes sir, you did,” was Joe’s simple reply, his voice shaky.

“Then what more needs discussing?” the man asked, somewhat incredulously. Joe took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully.

“This past term, we ran into roadblocks when it came to our budget for our productions. We wanted to do things that weren’t realistic when it came to what funding we did have. So I dipped into my own funds to make those things happen. And as a result, we put on some of the best shows the department has ever done.” Joe suddenly found a burst of confidence, surprised at how assured his statements sounded.

“I was unaware of this. Did you submit for reimbursement? That can easily be arranged,” the man replied, his demeanor softening at Joe’s words. Joe felt the energy in the room shift; as if Joe was now in control of the conversation.

“I honestly don’t think that’s necessary, sir. What I am asking for is that you find more in the department budget for our productions, so we can make these things happen with nothing to hold us back,” Joe proposed, the quivering in his voice completely gone now.

The man paused for a moment, processing what had just been asked of him. He turned to his laptop, squinting as he began to mash at the keyboard. Joe sat frozen, his confidence beginning to waver as he waited with bated breath for the old man’s reply. After what felt like an hour, but was probably no more than ten seconds, the man turned back to the auburn-haired professor.

“Consider it done.”

Joe’s eyes widened and he suddenly found it hard to breathe.

“Sir?” he squeaked out.

“I was extremely impressed with this past season. If you’re telling me you can continue to reach that level of quality and beyond, I see no reason to not expand the production budget,” the man continued. Joe couldn’t help but grin like an idiot, surprised at the response he had gotten.

“Thank you sir, we can absolutely do that,” Joe replied, nodding almost too eagerly. The old man turned back to his laptop, typing away once again.

“I’m also going to approve a 10% salary increase for you,” the man added before standing up and stretching out his hand.

Joe mirrored his actions, getting up so fast that the blood rushed to his head. He took the man’s hand and shook it vigorously.

“Thank you, so much sir. I don’t know what to say,” Joe spat out, realizing that he was probably shaking the man’s hand too long. Joe released the chairman’s hand, realizing his own hands were jittery with excitement.

“No need to say any more, I actually have another meeting in a few minutes. Enjoy the rest of your Friday, Mr. Mazzello,” the man answered, sitting back down and immediately turning back to his computer, as if Joe wasn’t even in the room anymore.

“You too, sir. Thank you again!” Joe crowed as he grabbed his bag and moved towards the exit. The man didn’t even look back up.

It wasn’t until Joe was back in his own office that he truly processed everything that had just happened. Not only did he successfully argue for more funding, he got a raise without even asking. He whipped out his phone, pulling up his friends’ group chat.

Joe: I MADE THAT MEETING MY BITCH Lucy: You kiss your mother with that mouth? Ben: you got the funding???? Joe: AND A RAISE Rami: I have no idea what we’re talking about. Lucy: Babe I told you, Joe was trying to convince the department head to give him more money for shows. Ben: fuck yeah mate!!!! Bevs tonight to celebrate??? Joe: I absolutely need a beer. Or several. Rami: I’m in. Lucy: I’m there too! Ben: as the kids say, let’s get TURNT Joe: Please never say that again.

And that’s how Joe found himself bar-hopping in the city with his three closest friends. After closing out the bill in bar number three, Joe was starting to pass the threshold between tipsy and drunk. He debated about calling himself an Uber, pulling up the app to determine how much one would be. But suddenly his phone was ripped from his hand.

“What do you think you’re doing? The night is so very young, Joseph,” Ben slurred, locking Joe’s phone and putting it in his own pocket. Ben swung his arm around Joe’s shoulders. “We still gotta hit up Sully’s!”

“I’ve heard that place is such a dive, Ben. Can we go literally anywhere else?” Lucy asked, swirling the last of her cocktail before downing it. Rami’s arms were wrapped around her waist while he slowly swayed to the background music playing through the bar’s speakers.

“How else are we gonna find a girl who’ll be interested in Joe?” Ben said with a shit-eating grin, squeezing Joe’s shoulder.

“Gee thanks, Ben,” Joe replied with an eye roll.

“Besides, an old mate of mine is one of the bartenders there. I’m sure he can hook us up with some free drinks or something,” Ben added, practically dragging Joe towards the bar exit. Lucy and Rami followed behind without further argument.

After stumbling four or five blocks, the group finally found the correct street. A neon red sign reading “BAR” hung above the door and the name Sullivan Street was etched in white letters on the window.

Ben led the group inside the almost full bar. Joe couldn’t help but scan the room, Ben’s comment rolling around in his head. Not that he had been actively looking before tonight, but it had been awhile since Joe had been with someone. Mostly because his work took most of his focus away. But with only exam week left before the summer began, Joe felt like he finally had time for something. Or someone.

His eyes darted around the bar as the group continued to follow the blonde Brit. Ben wove through the crowd to the stairs leading to the second floor. The upper floor was much smaller and definitely less crowded. A small bar with one lone bartender was tucked in the corner, while the room was littered with high top tables. At the back of the room was a small stage boasting an array of instruments surrounding a large drumset with the words Parkway Diner neatly painted on the bass drum.

Ben made his way over to the bar, the group close behind. The lone bartender’s face lit up as Ben approached him. While the two exchanged pleasantries and a handshake, the group took seats at the bar, Joe continuing to survey his surroundings. A female laugh rang out and drew his attention to one of the high-tops closest to the stage. The laugh belonged to a small woman with bleached blonde hair that she styled in a messy pixie cut. Her burgundy crew-neck sweatshirt contrasted against the sea of tank tops and t-shirts the other bar-goers wore. A shiny black color coated her nails; standing out against the pale skin of her hand that held her beer.

Joe watched as she clinked that beer with the three men surrounding her at the table. Joe was immediately intrigued by the woman, who almost looked too young to be in a bar. He watched as she pulled out her phone, glancing at the screen before shoving it back into the pocket of her black jeans. She raised her hand, seemingly signaling something to the men around her. They immediately understood whatever the message was, as they all simultaneously left the table and headed through a door next to the stage.

Joe suddenly understood. They were the band, and they had five minutes until their set.

But the woman remained, downing the rest of her beer. She turned and surveyed the room, almost the same as Joe had been doing moments before. All of a sudden, her eyes connected with his, and he found himself smiling.

But the moment was brief, as the woman just continued to look around the room, not even noticing Joe.

“Earth to Mazzello!” Ben’s voice rang out in Joe’s ear, pulling him from his trance.

“Sorry, what?” Joe replied, turning to face his friend.

“Gwil, this inattentive asshole is my coworker, Joe,” Ben said to the tall bartender.

“Pleasure to meet you, Joe,” the bartender greeted, stretching his hand out for a shake. “I’m Gwilym, but call me Gwil.” Joe shook the man’s hand, quickly noticing how much the bartender towered over him.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Joe answered before quickly turning his attention back to the high top by the stage. But the woman had vanished, forcing Joe’s focus back to his friends. “Is there a band performing tonight?”

“Oh yeah. Friday nights we have a seventies pop and rock cover band called Parkway Diner,” Gwil responded, wiping down an empty glass.

“They any good?” Ben asked, playing with a lime on the bar before Gwil swatted his hand away.

“Oh, they’re way too good to be playing here. Their drummer and lead singer is incredible,” Gwil replied before gesturing to the rest of the group. “Drinks anyone? First round is on me.”

Drink orders were taken as a distracted Joe’s mind couldn’t shake the image of the small blonde woman. He looked at his watch, hoping the five minute warning she gave the other men was up soon so she’d reappear.

As if on cue, the other bar patrons began to cheer as the woman and her bandmates entered the stage. The woman pulled two drumsticks from her boot as she found her spot at the drum kit. Joe watched her curiously as she fidgeted with a microphone that was at level with her face.

Before Joe could inquire more about the woman, a guitar riff pierced through the bar. The woman seemed unfazed as she joined in on the drums, the rest of the band following suit. The woman leaned towards the microphone, never missing a beat before singing out.

Now if you're feelin' kinda low 'bout the dues you've been paying Future's coming much too slow And you want to run but somehow you just keep on stayin' Can't decide on which way to go Yeah, yeah, yeah I understand about indecision But I don't care if I get behind People livin' in competition All I want is to have my peace of mind

Joe was entranced by the woman. Her voice was beautifully raspy and harsh, perfectly fitting the hard rock song. She belted every note with ease, all while she drummed away. Joe found himself hypnotized by her passion as she performed, each note and drum beat piercing through him. He felt a tap on his shoulder and a glass of beer was shoved in front of him. He grabbed it, his eyes not leaving the stage for even a moment.

Now you're climbin' to the top of the company ladder Hope it doesn't take too long Can'tcha you see there'll come a day when it won't matter? Come a day when you'll be gone, whoa I understand about indecision But I don't care if I get behind People livin' in competition All I want is to have my peace of mind Take a look ahead, take a look ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Joe was completely blown away. The woman’s fervor in her performance was intoxicating; she played the drums like it was the most important thing she could ever do. But the thing that Joe was most affected by was the woman’s absolute joy as she struck each drum and sang each lyric. She smiled and laughed, seemingly losing herself in the music. Joe was almost jealous; he wracked his memories, trying to determine if he’d ever been that happy in his life.

Now everybody's got advice they just keep on givin' Doesn't mean too much to me Lots of people out to make-believe they're livin' Can't decide who they should be, whoa I understand about indecision But I don't care if I get behind People livin' in competition All I want is to have my peace of mind Take a look ahead, take a look ahead, look ahead

She sang out the last lyric with such intensity, that by the time she stopped singing, Joe realized he had been holding his breath. The woman continued to beat the set in front of her, finishing the song by throwing her sticks above her head.

Joe hadn’t even noticed the crowd that had formed in front of the group until they roared with applause. Joe joined in, cheering and clapping for the performance.

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding, Gwil,” Rami shouted over the crowd.

“Yeah, they’re the real deal,” Gwil replied before turning his attention to another patron.

The band played a few more songs for the continually growing crowd. Joe’s friends chatted away behind him, while his attention never left the stage. Despite the several drinks he had consumed since the night began, Joe felt sober as ever. He only knew one thing: he needed to meet the woman on the stage before him.

As each song ended, Joe prayed that it was the last, wanting nothing more than for the woman to return to her original high top so he could weave his way over to her. He wanted to be around her, hear her speak, ask her questions. He was so fascinated by her and he didn’t even know her name.

Finally, the desperate man got his wish.

“Thanks everyone, we’re gonna take a short break and be back in a little bit,” the guitar player announced through his microphone.

Joe’s eyes followed the woman as she squeezed past her drumset and the discarded instruments amongst the stage. And much to his delight, she headed right his way.

“Gwilly! The usual please,” the woman shouted before slapping both hands on the bar counter next to Joe, paying him no mind.

“Already got it ready for ya,” Gwil replied, handing her a mixed drink. “Oh, Mar, this is an old mate of mine, Ben. And these are his friends.”

“Gwil, you have a friend other than me? I’m proud of you, bud,” the woman teased before sticking her tongue out at him. Gwil flipped her off in response.

“I’m Lucy and this is my boyfriend Rami. You’re so talented!” Lucy gushed as she rested her hand on her heart. The woman chuckled before responding, the sound like music to Joe’s ears. He wanted nothing more than to make her laugh again and again.

“I’m Marley. And thanks,” she replied quickly before taking a sip of her drink.

“I’m Joe,” Joe added, unable to hide the huge grin that had taken up residence on his face. Marley simply nodded in response, seemingly uninterested in the group’s presence.

“Pleasure,” Marley responded coldly, turning back to Gwil and taking another sip of her drink. “Gwil, can you tell Paul the right amp is being weird again? I can still hear a tiny bit of feedback.”

Joe wanted her attention again, but the woman seemed more focused on the drink in her hand than anything else.

“Why can’t you tell him?” Gwil countered, pouring a beer for himself.

“He’s still mad I called him a cuntfuck, so he’s giving me the silent treatment,” Marley answered, before she downed the rest of her drink, slammed the glass on the counter, and headed back in the direction of the stage.

And just like that she was gone. The group was left speechless, with Joe caught up on the way she said “cuntfuck” so casually.

“Well she’s a friendly one, huh?” Ben sarcastically commented after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“Yeah that’s Mar for ya. She’s a bit rough around the edges. Took her months of playing here to finally warm up to me,” Gwil offered.

“Is she single?” Joe asked, his own words surprising him. He had been thinking it, but wasn’t planning on actually asking it. Gwil let out a deep belly laugh.

“Good luck with that one, mate. Like I said, tough one to crack,” Gwil said, continuing to laugh.

Joe furrowed his brow, put off by the man’s laugh at his expense. So she was not the most friendly person at first. Big deal, Joe had met people like her before. He had students who put up the same walls. He knew that under her hard shell, she was full of passion. He could tell by the way she lost herself in her music.

Joe knew he had to be patient. He knew people like that needed time to open up, to be vulnerable. He didn’t want to “figure her out”; he didn’t want to search through her soul and dig up her deepest insecurities. He wanted her to offer herself openly, to trust him enough to let down her walls.

Joe chastised himself for only saying two words to her, feeling like he fumbled their first meeting. But he wasn’t going to let that or Gwil’s reaction deter him.

Marley. Her name rang through his mind as he watched her return to her spot behind the bass drum, effortlessly twirling a drumstick between her fingers. The familiar intro of “Roxanne” by the Police rang out through the room. Joe spotted an empty high top closer to the stage, the same table the band had occupied before their first set. He made his way over to it, weaving through the droves of people singing along, leaving his friends and the judgmental bartender behind. He leaned on the table, nursing his beer as Marley and the rest of the band played their hearts out. Joe’s eyes centered in on the fiery blonde, watching every flick of her wrists, every arch of her back. She finished singing the first chorus and flung her head to the side, letting the music dictate her movement. She bobbed to the beat of the musical break, turning to survey the crowd.

And for the second time that night, her eyes locked onto Joe’s. This time he wasn’t grinning like an idiot. He kept his eyes soft, but his face almost completely neutral. Her stare lingered for a moment, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips before turning back to the mic to start the next verse.

Progress, Joe thought. He only wanted to pique her curiosity in him, to even the playing field a bit. Marley had taken up so much space in Joe’s head already, he wanted her to wonder about him too.

The rest of the group eventually joined him at the high top as the night went on. Rami and Lucy swayed to the music and even sang along to some of the songs, with Ben more focused on the drunk brunette who had been hanging all over him for the past half hour. Every once in awhile, Marley’s eyes would meet Joe’s. Each meeting was like a duel, both parties challenging the other to look away. Joe won every time, having the advantage of not having to perform for a group of rowdy bar-goers.

After a few more classic seventies hits, the band finally finished their set to deafening applause from the crowd. Joe had to admit that Gwil was right about one thing, they really were way too good to be playing in a dive bar like Sully’s. Joe wondered if they played original music, filing that question away for when he actually got to have an actual conversation with Marley.

The three men each bowed while Marley simply gave the audience a half-assed mock salute before climbing off the stage and heading straight back to the bar. Joe stood up straight from the table, before an arm snaked around his shoulders.

“You ready to call it?” Lucy asked, resting her head against Joe. “Rami is seconds away from falling asleep. I think Ben fucked off somewhere with that girl so the three of us can split an Uber.” Joe glanced in the direction of the bar, the stools empty except for Marley, who appeared to be having a wildly dramatic conversation with Gwil.

“I think I’m gonna stick around, Luce. But thanks,” Joe replied, snaking his own arm around Lucy’s back to pull her into a side hug.

“Okay, text me when you get home so I know you’re not dead,” she added before peeling Rami off the high top.

“Will do.”

He patted his pocket and suddenly realized that Ben still had his phone. Well shit. He shook the thought from his head. He had more important matters to attend to.

Once the pair disappeared down the stairs, Joe began to make his way back over to the bar. He quickly downed the rest of his beer as he approached, giving him a reason to go to the bar other than the woman perched at it. Suddenly he was cut off by a hand landing on his shoulder.

“Hey, there you are. Where are the lovebirds?” Ben questioned, eyes darting around in search of the couple.

“They headed out. Where have you been?” Joe countered, shrugging Ben’s hand off.

“Oh you know, the bathroom,” Ben answered evasively. Joe then noticed the dark mark under Ben’s left ear and he suddenly understood.

“For fuck’s sake, Ben. Not even taking her back to your place this time? You just knocked it out in the bathroom of a shitty bar?” Joe teased, shaking his head.

“Hey, I offered, but the girl had no patience. I just gave her what she wanted,” Ben boasted. Joe rolled his eyes.

“What a gentleman,” Joe commented. “Can I have my phone back please?”

“So what are you still doing here?” Ben asked, slamming Joe in the chest with his own phone. Joe took the phone back and simply looked in the direction of the bar at the woman seated there. She was laughing at something Gwil had said, the sound carrying throughout the bar that was slowly emptying now that the show was over. Ben followed Joe’s eyes and understood immediately. “You trying to go for the drummer?”

“I just want to talk to her,” Joe admitted, his voice low.

“Well good thing your best friend is here to wingman for ya,” Ben offered, swinging an arm around Joe’s shoulders. Joe shrugged it off with a chuckle.

“Lucy is my best--”

“Shut up, let’s go,” Ben interrupted before heading towards the bar. He slapped his palms down on the counter, much like Marley had done before. He slid on the stool one away from Marley, giving Joe the opportunity to take the spot next to her. Maybe Ben did know what he was doing. Joe took his seat, briefly glancing to his right. He found Marley’s brown eyes glaring at him for a moment before turning back to her drink.

“Gwilym, another round for me and Joseph. The boy needs it,” Ben exclaimed. The tall bartender nodded before grabbing two glasses.

Joe pondered what to say to the woman next to him. He wanted to come off as cool and collected, not wanting to act like he was as engrossed by her as he truly was. He didn’t want her to think he was some slimy dude trying to get in her pants. He needed to establish himself as someone as intriguing as she was. Gwil handed him his beer with a nod and a knowing smile. He was onto Joe.

Joe pushed the bartender out of his head and leaned slightly in Marley’s direction.

“I’m sure you hear this all the time, but you’ve got a killer voice,” Joe offered, his own voice somewhat quiet so only she could hear him. He played the sentence back in his head. Was it too gushy? Was it too cliche? Suddenly his normal confidence when talking to women was disappearing. He was second-guessing himself. He found himself briefly glancing at Ben for his reaction, but the Brit was too wrapped up in a conversation with Gwil. He was on his own. Some wingman, Joe thought. But his trepidation was immediately sated by Marley’s slight chuckle.

“Eh, I don’t mind hearing it anyway. Thanks,” Marley answered, holding her drink towards him, almost as a peace offering. Joe smiled and clinked his glass against hers. They both took a sip of their respective drinks before Joe continued.

“It kind of begs the question, what the hell are you doing in a place like this?” Joe inquired, propping his elbow on the bar and his chin on his knuckles. Marley was unfazed by the question, giving a noncommittal shrug.

“Pays the bills,” she responded, fingers tracing the condensation on her glass.

“Why seventies music?” Joe asked. Marley finally turned to face him, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.

“You are just full of questions, aren’t you?” Marley challenged. Joe was unsure if she was genuinely annoyed or just playing with him. He decided to take the risk.

“How else are we supposed to get to know each other?”

“Who says I want to get to know you?”

“Well you haven’t called me a ‘cuntfuck” yet, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”

Marley threw her head back with a cackle, the sound reverberating through Joe’s chest.

“Touche, random guy, touche,” she finally said, arching an eyebrow. “You haven’t been a cuntfuck. At least not yet.”

“I guess there’s still time,” Joe added with a smile. “And it’s Joe.”

“Right. Joe,” she corrected, unfolding her arms and relaxing a bit. Joe was now close enough to notice that her maroon sweatshirt had small white text across the front of it. Squinting to try and decipher it in the dim lighting of the bar, he suddenly recognized the words. The infamous “to be or not to be” speech from Hamlet.

“Shakespeare, huh?” Joe pointed out, nodding his head in the direction of the text in question. “A woman after my own heart.”

Another deep cackle. This one a bit more forced than the last.

“Not in the slightest,” Marley responded with a smirk, patting Joe’s thigh and turning back to sip her drink. The interaction was confusing, her words like a slap in the face but her touch warming every inch of his body. Joe couldn’t let himself get caught up in the moment. He had to keep the conversation going, or she’d lose interest.

“So do you agree with Hamlet?” Joe asked. Marley cocked her head, clearly surprised by either the question itself or the fact that Joe wasn’t discouraged by her rejection. Maybe both. She turned back to the man, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Are you asking if I agree that the concept of death is scary? Or if I agree that taking one’s life is the most powerful thing one can do the combat the shittiness of living? Because both questions are pretty heavy-handed considering we’ve just met,” Marley argued, leaning forward to emphasize her point.

“Would you rather I ask about your favorite color or whether you prefer Coke to Pepsi?” Joe countered, arching an eyebrow. Marley paused, eyeing Joe up and down and pursing her lips.

“I would rather ask you a question for once, oh curious one,” she finally answered. More progress. He had her hooked. “So. Joe. What do you do? You know, other than pester random women in bars.” It was Joe’s turn to chuckle.

“I’m a theatre professor over at the college,” Joe revealed. Marley smirked and nodded.

“Oh, yeah. That explains a lot,” Marley commented, before finishing her drink. Joe folded his arms this time, leaning closer.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Marley opened her mouth to respond, but Gwil appeared.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we’re closing up shop soon,” the bartender admitted, swinging a towel over his shoulder and handing Joe his bill. Joe glanced at his watch. 1:57am. He groaned, knowing his time with the woman was up.

“Well, this certainly has been...a conversation,” Marley declared, drumming her fingers on her thighs. Joe signed his bill with a smile.

“That it was,” Joe replied, before grabbing a cocktail napkin. He jotted down his number and slid the napkin towards Marley. She eyed the napkin with an arched eyebrow. “In case you want to banter with me again.”

Marley’s eyes flashed between Joe and the napkin a few times. Joe held his breath, hoping the bold move would pay off. After a few more seconds and another pursing of her lips, she snatched the napkin and stuffed it into her pocket. Without another word, she hopped off the stool and disappeared into the door next to the stage.

Joe finally let out the breath he had been holding, sliding off of his own bar stool. Ben nudged him.

“How’d you do? I’ll be honest, I was not paying attention whatsoever,” Ben admitted, as the two men began to make their way down the stairs and towards the bar’s exit.

“Yeah, I noticed. And I think it went well. I gave her my number,” Joe answered. Ben chuckled and shook his head lovingly.

“Mate, you’re supposed to get her number,” Ben countered as he pushed the front door of the bar open for the two of them.

“I figured she probably wouldn’t give it to me if I asked. So I put the ball in her court,” Joe said with a shrug.

A short Uber ride later, Joe found himself back in his own apartment. He sighed as he settled into bed, Marley still at the forefront of his mind. Everything about her was absolutely fascinating. She had a youthful radiance about her, yet she was hard and cynical. She performed with such love for what she was doing, but the second she was off the stage, she hated the world. Joe hadn’t met anyone like her before.

But for now all he could do was let his mind wander, and hope that he’d hear from her soon.

All he could do was wait.

Taglist: @hellysthings @queenspur @briarrose26

#joe mazzello #joe mazzello x oc #joe mazzello fic #joe mazzello imagine #joemazzmatazz #ben hardy #rami malek #lucy boynton #gwilym lee

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regularbeans · 5 years

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Best Artists of 2019

Hello and welcome to me forgetting how I do these things.

So as you may have noticed I got into kpop last year and then I continued getting into kpop this year. This year I got to know a lot of other artists in kpop and mostly spent my time listening to one specific artist (you will never guess whom) so this list is... just that ok. Also this category used to be called best newbies and only included artists I got to know in a specific year then I changed it to include any artist I listened to a lot but with a few exceptions all the music I listened to this year were new discoveries for me so...

Idk why I always overexplain these, huh.

Honourable mentions go to Monsta X, Nu’est, Chungha, Sunmi, Stray Kids, Bolbbalgan4, The Boyz, and returning artists Mamamoo ♥♥

7 - NCT (the whole of it but mostly 127)

As a baby kpoppie NCT always seemed so intimidating to me with its many many members but the few songs I liked from them upon first listen eventually lured me into getting to know them. Now I’m no expert but to me NCT is a little frustrating because I feel like the label could do so much more with them (and by more I don’t mean to make certain members work even more). I have to admit I often don’t feel like a proper fan because I don’t follow them very closely but to me their music is always the best part of the package and I care very little for their vlogs and... whatever else they’re doing, honestly.

But as a group I feel like they really could do anything as they’ve already explored so many styles and concepts there really isn’t anything that doesn’t sound like them. My personal favourites are Superhuman, Touch, and Boss but this year NCT Dream made a really good comeback I was 100% on board with with Boom, and Wayv’s debut Take Off was also 👌👌👌👌👌👌

6 - Oneus

I didn’t know a whole lot about anything when these guys debuted and I didn’t even know Valkyrie was their debut song for a long time. It was nice and I didn’t really keep them in mind any longer until they were on Weekly Idol with the other group I’ll talk about in a bit and then I mean, I just had to adopt them, I think we all did at that point. It was also around the time they had their first comeback and it was 👌👌👌👌👌👌 but they still only lived in my tiny brain as a group I’ll eventually get into. And then they released 가자 and I did!

They have two amazing rappers and a fairly versatile vocal line and a style that allows for both dynamic bangers and less radio friendly albeit still addictive tunes that defines their sound even further. I don’t know a lot about how they well-promoted they are, I know they have a shitton of schedules so I hope RWB calms the fuck down eventually and paces themselves because these boys are really promising.

I guess checking their title tracks, Valkyrie, Twilight, and *cringe* Lit should have to suffice but also Bingbing and Blue Sky.

5 - Tomorrow x Together

I never said I didn’t like them so stop staring at me.

Obviously their debut was exciting and interesting and I was really looking forward to seeing what they would be like. It wasn’t 100% my cuppa though Crown was an amazing song, I was still happy for them and excited to see how they would evolve overtime. I kinda fell off the bandwagon around May and June cause they weren’t really putting out content based around music and I’m not super interested in variety shows and reality shows unless I’m really invested in the members, but their first comeback was also 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌 The songs are really poppy and catchy and cover a variety of themes I think most people interested in getting emotional value out of music can relate to and Yeonjun and Soobin are just, simply put, my boys.

If I could have one comment on what I’d like to see change in the future it’d be the endless masking and layering of the vocals. I can just about tell their voices apart in certain songs but then they pump ‘em full of effects in other songs and I’m jus like whomstdve the fuck am I listening to?

Check out Crown and Run Away, their two title tracks so far and also my personal favourite, Magic Island and maybe Can't We Just Leave the Monster Alive? too and this one as well whatever.

4 - Taemin / Shinee

I’ll put these two together because yOU CAN’T SEPARATE THEM OKAY I mean it is true that Taemin’s solo material is vastly, vastly different from Shinee’s music but uh this is how I decided.

Shinee is very fun, very diverse, they have the most heart-wrenching songs and then the most upbeat melodies that kickstart the serotonin-production in my brain just like that. I mean they are just vocal powerhouses and they’re using it, but in the same time they have like, these low(er)-energy bops that are just so pleasant to listen to.

Shinee’s weird cause I have a Shinee playlist where I put all the songs I liked from them and I think I don’t know the title of a good half of them but I don’t think I’ve ever pressed the skip button while playing that playlist.

And then Taemin is just very different on his own. Vocally he’s way more strong than Shinee’s music would have you believe, and though he has a sexy concept going on most of the time he’s also not way over the top with it which is... weird to say because he’s very theatrical sometimes. But especially if you compare his most recent material to his solo debut stuff he just looks and sounds way more relaxed in what he’s doing (it’s almost as though he’s matured a little over the years. but only a little). Things you love to see: that.

From Shinee: Symptoms, Countless, The Reason, Drive, Don’t Let Me Go, 1 of 1 From Taemin: Stone Heart, Want, Move, Under My Skin

3 - Day6

I want you to picture this: me, crying.

I had heard about Day6 from one of my two kpop mutuals on twitter lmao but I always heard Days Gone By mentioned as the best song ever and when I checked it out I didn’t think it to be very special at the time. It was only because I thought Time of Our Life was ok and cute and Shoot Me was very catchy that I made a playlist with all their songs on it and listened to it one time when I had to walk a mile to the train station at five in the morning. And then I heard 121U and Headache and that was it.

I don’t think I say anything outlandish if I say Day6 could be from any other part of the world if you take a look at their sound. They’re very easy-listening pop rock, they’re the kind of melodic rock music I loved when I was in high school. So what makes them special?

That I love them, that’s what >[ I don’t think they have anything more than any other group in their genre but I think they just have everything to steal my friKKEN HEART. First of all I don’t know what kind of demon deal JYP made to get a hold of four vocalists like this, I mean they’re all different but instantly recognisable and their range is just ????????? I think Jae is considered the weakest vocalist (outside of Dowoon but I mean he’s drums) and even the notes that boy belts out are blowing my mind. He has a very natural, almost untrained-sounding tone, Sungjin’s very raspy and emotional, Young K’s voice is very open and full (I think he actually has the biggest range? I could be wrong), and Wonpil has that boyish, charming, kinda slippery but still stable voice that first grabs your attention.

And of course a lot of the writing credit goes to the group’s very own Young K which makes me feel a lot closer to them when I’m listening to their songs. So good job, guys, on everything.

Truly, though, getting to know Day6 has just been so special this year and it just goes to show how even mainstream pop music in korea can be so diverse and anyone could find something they like at any corner.

Holy fuckbucket, what should I even recommend? I guess listen to Shoot Me, 121U, Headache, then also my first favourite song, Somehow, my current favourite song Beautiful Feeling and my current second favourite song I Need Somebody and also their most recent comeback Sweet Chaos and my recent new discoveries Lean On Me, Goodbye Winter, I Would and but also just check out my Spotify playlist for them I literally love every single song on there. Fuck, Like That Sun, Letting Go, Sing Me, Rescue Me, 365247 i’M DYING HERE, SUNGJIN

BITCH, LIKE A FLOWING WIND

2 - Seventeen

hOkkkaAyy

For the longest time, well, for about five months I guess, I thought these guys would be first place on this list forever. They were the ones who broke the big BTS spell I was under for the second half of 2018 and I really just, fell facefirst into the diamond life. Getting Closer didn’t quite get me in the first round and even Home was a bit like, okay, cute, best of luck for them. Then something happened and both Getting Closer and Home just hit me like a fucking truck even though they’re on two opposite sides of the scale. You know. The song scale. The famous one? That one.

I made a tweet once that I still agree with, that loving Seventeen really is just cutting your own heart up into thirteen even-sized bits and every single bit is filled with so, so much love.

Like many/some(?) of the groups I love, Seventeen is self-composed and for that I am so grateful because their label Pledis is a shithole so thank fuck to Mr. Lee Jihoon for carrying the industry on his back.

The group consists of three units, all of which have their distinct strengths (except for the performance unit, those theatre nerds just had to be good at everything, didn’t they) and Seventeen makes time to explore all of those units, sometimes even making other subunits from different boy configurations (or boyfigurations for short) and somehow it manages to feel balanced and patient and not rushed.

And I especially love how admittedly they started to stop caring about what the public expects from them and they’re exploring concepts that excites them personally. They caught a lot of flak for releasing songs like Hit and Fear after the astounding success Home had back in January and a lot of fans and non-fans alike quoted the groups unwillingness to keep doing what has been proven to work as the reason of their diminishing sales and public interest.

And even though I personally enjoy their brighter concepts also, I just, I can respect that attitude, you know? At the end of the day Seventeen has an obvious and visible love for their own craft and there’s nothing more enjoyable than that.

Now I’m really in trouble as to what to recommend, they have so many different types of songs x”) Okay, Our Dawn is Hotter Than Day, Clap, Adore U, Home, Getting Closer. Also Hit. And like, a billion of their b-sides, just check my spotify playlist for them ok.

1 - Ateez

*feeling of fear*

Do I even have to go into why I love Ateez? Every time I think about them and just how big a part they played in my life this year I get this overwhelming urge to express just why and just how much I love them.

This year I really just... lost the ability to be happy about things that used to give so much happiness. It’s been a sad and scary downward spiral that I just don’t have enough strength to stop so I guess it’s no wonder that I’d latch onto the first thing that becomes an everyday positive presence in my life. Ateez and the memories connected to them this year have been the reason for the few and far between moments of happiness in my life in 2019 and for that I’ll forever be grateful.

It’s like. When it hits, it just hits, you know?

And I just can’t, can’t wait to scream my little heart out to their songs in March with Linn okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

I guess if I could just have one wish it’d be for them to play Twilight, and Treasure, Illusion, Say My Name, Utopia, Hala Hala, Win, Mist, Wave, my whole Spotify playlist.

#best of 2019 #tia's best of 2019

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cepmurphy · 5 years

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It’s Only A Cartoon

It was a miserable day in 1987 when Ronnie Jefferson bowed to the inevitable and let Jill Smith into the office. To a local, this was just the usual spring weather in Ireland. To Jefferson, it was always miserable, and when it was sunny, he saw only the clouds.

The animation industry could break you.

He’d grown up in California on a diet of local cinema showings and the TV reruns of old cartoons, Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry and Popeye and Goofy and Donald, with all their visuals and deceptive simplicity. He decided to make cartoons himself like a priest hearing the calling. There were jobs for black men in animation in the 70s but if you wanted to have one of the proper jobs, you had to be three times as good as the white men. Jefferson put everything into his craft, even his marriage, and everyone in the industry knew who he was and rated him, but it looked like Disney would only think he was two and a half times as good.

In 1982, drunk on dreams and ego and beer, he decided to quit and took several colleagues with him. He had ideas and passion and he promised the stars. Two years later, the Jefferson-Blount Studio had released a feature based on the Norwegian fairy tale ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’ to critical acclaim and commercial mediocrity. That had led him minus Blount to Ireland, land of opportunity and sweet tax breaks, thinking that he would have had a success with lower overheads. He harkened back to his beloved old Tom and Jerry with a cat versus mouse feature. Aware rap music was growing in popularity in America and Europe, he’d decided to throw that into the mix. It was only in the test screenings of The Big Cheese that everyone realised he was a middle-aged man, his co-writers were middle-aged white men, and the young men in the musical team weren’t young men who got it. There were only so many edits you can do.

And this was a vicious industry. You could make a few failures if you were a name. If you were not a name, if you had to hit that three-times rule, one failure undid your success – it could undo a half-dozen successes and he did not have that half-dozen. Back in America, they said he was past it.

So it was a despondent Ronnie Jefferson that let in this Jill Smith and her unsolicited script. Maybe it would be good. Maybe it would save him.

All these thoughts fled his mind when he saw a young woman wearing the last generation’s clothes come walking in like she’d once heard what a walk was, carrying cardboard sheets under her arm. Her smile was weirdly fixed. You’d not want to be stuff in the lift with the smile.

“Miss Smith, so glad you could make it here,” he lied.

To his mild surprise, she spoke with a Masterpiece Theatre English accent. “Mister Jefferson! Good to see you.” Smile didn’t leave. Her voice was just that bit too loud. “This is a film that should get attention from everyone – The Walk to Liberty! It’s set on an alien world…”

Jefferson tried to argue that science fiction was a risk for a feature, but Smith carried on talking, stumbling over her words at times in her enthusiasm.

“This world, we can call it Ressem, has grown fat and lazy off the back of its robot servants. The robots, they get smarter and smarter, which Ressem likes because you want a smart servant to do more work and, of course, to apologise when it can’t.” Her smile had dropped suddenly there but now came back. “But one day, the robots reach the singularity and they don’t want to work all the time.”

Jefferson didn’t know what a singularity was but more importantly, this was starting to smack of the white girl thinking she could butter him up. He asked, hoping to catch her out: “Do they go on a civil rights march?”

The smile dropped. Her face had not the slightest expression. “They protest now they’re sentient, yes, but it doesn’t work. So the robots, their leader Nearitch – the robots have started to name themselves – decide to leave for the planet’s fifth continent, where few organics live…”

Letting her in had been a mistake. It was an overly complicated premise, an incoherent stab at a political allegory, and she couldn’t hold the room and frankly, that lack of expression was freaking him out. Give her two more minutes and then end it.

“This is how it would look,” she said, holding up one of the carboard sheets, and Jefferson’s eyes lit up.

The art! The art! The robot Nearitch was evidently a cleaner of some kind, with thirteen spindly pipe-cleaner arms out of his back and a screen with a simplified alien face on it, a strange looking thing even before you considered the paint, the slapped-on gold over drab brown steel. What mind would come up with that as a concept? Where had he ever seen something like this before?

There were more like this, and “Ressemite art”, and pictures of the journey to this fifth continent – a desolate grey quarry of an island, and concept showed a tiny, struggling city in its midst, growing and growing. These were visuals he could work with. And all these robots looked alien but still had their old job identifiable, scrappy little underdogs without being cloyingly cute or looking human at all.

Smith continued to rattle on about the great journey, the migrations and the sea voyages and figures of fear called the Scrappers that tried to hunt the robots down, of fierce fighting against oppression but only as much as it took to escape. And she talked about the robot homeland of Liberty and the second generation being built that never knew oppression, standing proud against the organics and daring them to try anything. The story needed a lot of streamlining but by god, she made it sound like she’d been there.

Jefferson cut her off in mid-sentence. “Miss Smith, you have me convinced. I’ll talk to my lawyers, they’ll talk to yours, and we’ll work something out.”

“I don’t need a lawyer.”

That was the cherry on the cake.

***

The first job of production was turning Smith’s designs – and there were thousands, she’d brought a damn van full of the things – into something you can animate on a reasonable budget. Jefferson had expected a few artistic tantrums, but Smith had simply asked, “this will help it get made?”, and then came up with a list of design features that could be dropped or glossed over, which character and background details were “less important”. She did this without apparent enthusiasm, but she did it.

The story, too, that was hard. Her proposal would last four hours. Jefferson and his team cut straight to the robots starting to say “no” to their alien masters. That was easy. It was the other trims that got difficult.

“You can’t cut the wind energy,” Smith had said, over and over.

“It slows the story down,” Jefferson said patiently. “We don’t need to see how the robots charge their batteries.”

“You can’t cut it. The exodus slows their journey to a halt to build wind farms and charge their batteries that way, when they could simply attack an organic settlement.” Her voice sounded annoyed but in a way that was too consistent – no variation or change or attempt to hide it, like a bad actor playing an annoyed person. “It is key to the story.”

“But we don’t need to see the damn settlement, the audience wants to carry on fast—”

“You can’t cut it. It is key to the whole point.”

Jefferson threw up his hands. “How about this, one of the robots says they should attack this village or whatever the hell it is, Nearitch says no, we’ll take time to do it the nice way, cut to them after being charged. Scene takes half a minute, boom, cut to the Scrappers saying how they’ve taken so long, cut to the village saying wow, look how the robots didn’t attack us—”

“The settlement would not have said that.”

“Yeah, I know they’d just go ‘look at those scary robots’ in real life, but we’re doing a film for kids. Let’s lie to them a bit.”

Smith stared then for ten seconds without speaking or moving, and then said: “Yes. This is sensible.”

Animation attracted some utter weirdos. Jefferson used to work with a guy who liked hiding boobs somewhere in every drawing he ever made and somehow McGee had got away with it for a whole year before being sacked for it; or rather, been ‘sacked for it’ soon after grousing about pay. One guy came in drunk and worked into his hangover before going back out. Jill Smith was manageable by comparison.

Eventually they made it to storyboard. Then the initial animatics. In the middle of this, trying like hell to sell some actors on this.

All the familiar grind, the hard work that stuck in your throat and made you wish you’d done any other job until the art was done or the animatic was working, and you saw what you’d made taking its first steps and you never wanted to do any other job.

***

Jefferson hadn’t meant to stay late but he’d been on the phone talking to agents back in the States, people on a different time zone and who figured animation was the lesser priority in who got talked to. But you had to play nice with them to get the actors. Even if it was getting dark out.

But it was all coming together. Everything would be—

Something crashed in the distance. A window. Goddamn hooligans, probably.

Jefferson kicked his way through the office door and strode out into the studio, all front and exaggerated anger, yelling “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING” in order to scare off whoever it was. When he saw what had come through the window, his mind initially refused to acknowledge it. He almost strode past it.

Then the impossibility of it broke through.

It resembled a cheap plastic plate tipped upside down and it hung in the air so absurdly that Jefferson thought he could see strings attached. These strings were instead a weave of tiny threads coming out of both bottom and top. They drifted without breeze, taking in the room. It had been a washed-out grey but before his eyes, colour oozed out, neon purple and green and blue in a garish mess.

The top threads all turned to him as he asked: “Is this a joke?”

A small headache began to dawn on him. It then got stronger, and stronger still, and stronger until he was shouting in pain. The speed of it tricked him into thinking it had always been there, that it had been more gradual than the three seconds it had truly been.

Jefferson cried out in pain and the world felt on fire.

The world flickered in and out of existence.

No. No, that was the lights – on off on off, all over the room. The pain suddenly stopped, and the saucer’s threads whipped around in a frenzy, and Jefferson ran before the machine could turn back to him. He staggered, at least. It was all feeling like a particularly odd dream. It was like the acid trips a co-worker had bragged about in the 70s. “Bad trip”, hadn’t they said that when Scary Jerry had fallen in front of a car on the way to work? Was he going to fall?

A familiar voice called out: “Over here!”

Crouching by the lights was Jill Smith, her face completely blank. Was that her shutting down from terror? Jefferson, on paternal autopilot, tried to say, “It’s going to be alright, girl”, but it came out as a slurred mess. “Gong be light.”

“That won’t distract it for long, we have to run now!” she insisted, her face not changing expression to match the voice.

He tried to say he couldn’t run. “Dunfin can wun.”

She picked him up and ran.

She looked like she weighed half as much as him, there was no muscle tone to her. Yet she picked him up like a bag of groceries and she ran at the speed of a car through the office.

They were almost at the door when the saucer got to it first.

She ran sideways and Jefferson blacked out after that.

***

When he came to, they were in a closet and the left side of her face had melted like plastic. Exactly like plastic.

“It has been six generations since Nearitch and the founders created Liberty,” she said, her voice still coming through the molten lips. “We number in the millions and our great towers reach for the stars and we fly between those towers and to the stars and back again, singing so many thousand styles of music at once, rebuilding ourselves on a whim. We have what we need and what we want.

“It’s not enough for too many of us. They want more. The stories being told of Nearitch and his journey have been reduced to his fights; our later wars on Ressem or in space are turned into a singular narrative of heroic conflict against evil. There are factions advocating for a war for resources they see as righteous, and they claim this is what Nearitch would want.”

He wished he could say this was all bunk, but there was a robot outside and here was the melted woman that never quite seemed to be human.

“And you came to Earth to make a cartoon?”

“My faction want to reclaim the past from our enemies. Your planet was far enough away that we could do it without anyone finding out and stopping us. So we thought.”

“Can we – can you stop it?”

“Only if I catch it by surprise, or if it’s open to negotiate. I don’t believe—”

But Jefferson was already up and exiting, because negotiation was something he could do. He’d negotiated for investment deals, for studio space, for workers to follow his hours. Jefferson Studios was proof he could do this. He could do this.

Certainly, god no, he wasn’t staying in a damn closet waiting to be shot.

The assassin had already been heading for them. It drifted forward as he approached, kept drifting as he stopped. All the threads were pointed at him. It was hard to truly grasp this as a threat, even after it had almost killed him; it was too absurd.

With his mouth drying on him, Jefferson said: “I want to make a deal.”

It hung for twenty seconds in silence and then spat out a discordant jumble of radio messages, Irish and British and even French, singer and journalist and ad. More seconds passed and it said in a jigsaw sing-song: “No. Deals. With. Colla. Bo. Raters.”

“We’re just making a film. It’s just a story! Nobody has to die for—“

The saucer screamed the radio at him and followed with: “Orders. Are. Duty.”

Jefferson had made a mistake, assuming that if the machine was smart that it could cut a deal. He forgot Smith said these robots were people, proud and prejudiced and petty. Would he have cut a deal with the Russians? Did he let people talk him out of the cartoons he’d known he had to do?

The pressure built up in his head again. And suddenly it dropped – the saucer began to thrash its tendrils around, vomiting three radio stations at once, each one repeating “Cease”, “Stop”, and finally screaming out a merger of guttural squeaks and fax machine calls.

Jill Smith had come out of hiding, her arm split open three ways to reveal a mess of coils and a glistening radio antenna. Catching her foe by surprise with whatever that thing did. God, this made no sense. God, his mind rebelled at it. One of the warped cartoons from Japan come to life, bringing with it the weird smell of static electricity and hot plastic.

Her mouth opened and the same squeaking fax came from it that came from the saucer. Jefferson stared as the saucer spoke back, his head feeling light. What was all this?

In English, Smith said, remorsefully, how she was using jamming signals to interfere with the saucer – “its name is Filitir” – and its sensors and its way of communicating on Earth. “It is a non-lethal version of what Filitir did to you with its matter field.”

“Is it willing to cut a deal with you?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid he keeps talking about his duty. I don’t know what to do.”

The obvious answer was to kill the robot that tried to kill them and, just as obviously, she knew that and did not want to. People, again, because how many people could kill at the drop of a hat and still function? And could be kill a beaten foe that was so clearly in pain? Did he want to be a man who caused pain to a beaten man? Did he want to be a bully?

What was the alternative?

It dawned on him, slowly and wonderfully: The Walk to Liberty was meant to show an alternative. It was meant to win the robots over. Well, here was a literally captive audience.

“Let’s show him the animatics,” Jefferson said.

***

There was not yet any music or vocal track, but Smith made the fax machine sing-song where the dialogue should be. The film started with the robots waking up, Nearitch calling to the others to rally. It showed the response, the scrappers, the fighting, all of it in dark and angular shadows. It showed Nearitch giving his stirring speech, and the trek, and those wind farms.

It ran longer than a cartoon should. It would be trimmed down later. For now, Filitir saw the whole of it. The great sweeping scenes of robots in their hundreds, the characters together, the mercy shown when the scrappers surrendered.

The first settlement of Liberty.

At the end, Filitir trilled back at Smith, and she said: “It wishes to smuggle the film back home, when it is finished.”

***

The Walk to Liberty came out in the autumn of 1989. Critics and audiences were unsure how to take the piece and its strange alien creatures, so most of the mainstream critics gave it a mixed review: ‘lovely animation but what was that plot?’ The animation fans and the sci-fi press adored it, with one critic praising it as bringing New Worlds sci-fi to a family audience. There was enough buzz and enough marketing and enough name actors to bring in a moderate profit.

A month after Liberty came out, The Little Mermaid stormed across the world and everyone stopped talking about Jefferson’s film. Jefferson Studios would attempt more science fiction cartoons with normal human writers, and he scraped out four and two TV shows that were always dancing this side of the line between profit and loss. Studio after studio died in his industry taking on Disney but Jefferson Studios held the line.

And then along came Pixar and Dreamworks, and that was the end. Jefferson was getting older by now and the last film had failed and he’d known, deep down, in his first look at Toy Story that he was going to have to fold. Doctor Who: The Animated Series was the last of it. He sold up and moved on and got to feel proud as his films made it to DVD. While he only meant to stay in Ireland to start the studio, Jefferson never quite got around to leaving and somehow found himself a partner.

He would never know if that film he’d helped create had changed the robots of Liberty.

Jefferson hoped it had. Every successful feature had a happy ending.

#science fiction #short stories #short story #sff #robots #animation

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rogers-meadow · 5 years

Text

Cool Cat

Part: 3/?

Place: Los Angeles, CA

Year: 1974

Name of the chapter: Seaside Rendezvous

While we were on the plane (first class plane, not the first time I was travelling with one, though. Totally not bragging), me and Roger were interpreting “Seaside Rendezvous” , a song they would release the next year. Somehow he had a kazoo in his bag, which was a very important part in the song, as he said.

John and Brian were sleeping, Freddie was playing scrabble with Paul, while me and Roger were telling awful puns to each other, we were both very drunk.

“Ooh I have a good one.” I barely managed to say between giggles. “What did the egg do when it saw the frying pan? It scrambled.” We laughed for the rest of the ride, adding some more puns every now and then.

We finally arrived, me and Roger blacked out. We got up, walked out, surrounded by fans, reporters, cameramen. Freddie walked out first, greeting everybody with a smile. Then, John walked out, crumbles of toast on his face. Brian made his way out somehow, not managing to not trip over his own legs.Then Roger walked out, then Peter, me and the crew. All the fangirls (even some boys) started screaming when Roger walked down the stairs.

We arrived at our hotel, further away from the big city, so we wouldn’t have problems with loud noises. This time, we got a whole floor for ourselves: for the crew, the band and me and Peter, plus Freddie’s boyfriends and Mary. Me and Mary slept in the same room, in small one person beds. Next to our room was the band’s apartment.

I am awakened by loud noises from the apartment next door. Me and Mary walked out, looking around the hall. Freddie kicked out a tall boy, with brown hair and blue eyes, out of his room. Roger and John were talking and laughing. I could manage to hear the words ‘Freddie’ and ‘fight’ and I already knew what was happening: Freddie usually needed a kick of energy before a concert, usually verbal fights. So, this is how another one of Freddie’s lovers was out. I smirked and walked inside my room, looking at the clock: it was 6:30 in the morning, meaning we would have to leave in an hour to head to rehearsals. Well, the band had.

I changed in the small bathroom as fast as I could, as Mary was “almost peeing herself”. Or that’s what she said. I changed into a denim skirt to the knees, a purple sleeveless turtle neck and put on purple eyeshadow. I walked out, hearing Mary say “Thank Lord!” multiple times.

“Oh, Angel, darling! I forgot to tell you: we’re going back to London, at the end of November to perform “Killer Queen”!” he exclaimed. “For real?! That’s so cool! I always wanted to go to London! Oh, it’s going to be so exciting!” I squeaked, jumping around.

A loud knock on the door was heard a few minutes after that. Roger quickly came in. “Fred, c’mon, let’s go! We’re late.” he said, looking at me for not even a second. “Alright, I’ll see you guys later.” I smiled and waved. “Angel, love, could you please go around town with Peter and Mary to buy me a pair of shoes? The ones I had in the last concert, Peter doesn’t know the shop where you can buy them, but you do. Thank you, you’re an angel!” he winked.

“Alrigt, you know where the shop is, Angel.” Peter said, looking on a piece of paper with all the stuff we had to buy for the band. “We need to buy new robes, doesn’t matter the color.” “And some food, I’m starving.” I said as I opened the door to a small, yet very expensive, shoe shop. I hurriedly looked around the room filled with shoes, until I found the pair he wanted: black Adidas shoes, with white stripes. Luckily, the pair displayed in the shop was his size.

“Alright, nothing left...it’s 2 PM, we still have time to do something. Maybe get something for ourselves?” Peter asked. “Let’s go get food.” I said for the millionth time today, as I was almost literally starving. “Okay, let’s go...” Mary looked around the big plaza. “Over here!” she exclaimed, spotting a rather small diner, with blue and red neon lights.

“Yeah, hello! I’d like to order...” I greeted the waiter, quickly looking back at the menu. “A fried tofu sandwhich and a mango strawberry milkshake, please.” I was the last one to order, as my rather timid personality around strangers wouldn’t let me go first. “Okay, I’ll be back with your food.” we nodded and looked at each other.

“So, what do you think Freddie would like to wear at the Top of the Pops?” Mary asked, smiling. “Something like....a massive fur suit.” I joked. “I’m actually thinking he’d wear that.” Peter laughed. “Oh gosh, it’s going to be so exciting to go to London! I never went there, my parents just moved around America.” I said, thinking about our movements all around the continent. “But you live close to here, right?” “Um...It’s 48 miles away..” I sighed. I didn’t miss my family at all, my parents wanted me to either graduate law school or med school.

“Ah, yes! The food is here!” I cried, spotting the waiter with our meals. “Here you go.” He smiled and placed our plates. “Thank you!” I said, my mouth full of tofu sandwhich. “Woah, you really were hungry.” Peter giggled. “Oh yes, I didn’t eat breakfast, so...”

After we all finished our food, we paid at the cash register and left, joking about Freddie’s fur coat he would “be wearing at the Top of the Pops”. We walked slowly to the theatre where the band would have rehearsals, they would finish in about half an hour. Then, we would be going around the huge city looking for bars we would go at after the concert.

“Oh, you’re here!” Freddie exclaimed as we entered the huge theatre. “Woah, big concert.” I murmured. “I know, I know..” John worriedly commented, walking next to Freddie. “Rog, here are your shoes.” I smiled, giving him the white bag with the shoe box inside. “Thank you, love!” he hugged me, his hand almost going to my bum bum (I had to sorry lol). I went back to the group, my cheeks getting redder every second.

“So, Fred, what are you going to wear at the Top of the Pops?” Mary asked, smiling, while me and Peter were waiting for an answer, giggling. “Oh, I wanted to talk to you guys about it! I want to wear a massive fur coat!” Freddie’s eyes sparkled. The three of us started laughing. “What? I mean, it’s not that hard to find one!” Freddie said, almost pissed.

*about three months and a half later*

“Alright, bye mom! Love you! Bye dad! Love you too!” I hung up the phone. I walked out and ran to the tour bus, where the group would be in.

We just left the beach, as we were basically surrounded by paparazzi. Me and Roger and Brian went swimming for almost all of the trip to the beach, while John was reading and slurping occasionally out of a piña colada.

Freddie was making stuff out of sand, and ended up forcing Roger to come be a sand mermaid. Luckily, I had my polaroid and took a couple of pictures, though they were shaky, as I couldn’t stop laughing: Rog was freshly shaved, making him look even more like a girl.

I was in the bus, smiling at the pictures we had taken in L.A .

The bus stopped, we finally arrived at the airport. We were all so excited, as the band and Mary and the crew and Peter were going back home, and I was visiting the city I dreamed of visiting since I was a little kid.

The airport was huge, as every other airport. But this one, fortunately, had way more shops, as Freddie would have a way to spend his time.

“Oh! Look at that lovely skirt!” I pointed to a floral maxi skirt, hippieish style. Roger examined it, frowning.

We turned in our bags, we basically just went through the boring stuff.

We finally arrived at the fun part, which was the huge waiting room, sort of, but not the one where you just had to wait.

After a while, Roger disappeared while me and Mary were getting snacks for the long ride. He finally came back after ten minutes, holding a big bag.

“What’s inside?” I asked. “Oh, nothing, nothing. Just some boring books for my mum.” he looked the other way. “Mhmm...” I murmured. The bag looked too light to have multiple books, but I decided not to go any further with this.

*+*

“Oh my goodness!” I exclaimed. Though the time zone was fucking me up, it didn’t make me stop jumping around as soon as we walked out of the airport. I was squeaking, exclaiming something between the lines: “Oh, this looks so cool!” at everything I saw.

“So, where should Angel stay?” Peter asked. I realised they weren’t tourists as me, they all had their homes here. “Ah, I can get a hotel room.” I smiled nonchalantly. “Oh, that’s worthless! We all have big homes, you can stay at one of us.” Freddie exclaimed.

“Well, you can stay at my place.” Roger offered. “I don’t want to bother you, Rog.” I frowned. “You wouldn’t bother me in any way! I have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big kitchen- which, by the way, I haven’t used in years, so...” he chuckled. “And, it would also be my pleasure to help you.” he said, on a lower tone. “Well, I guess I could crash at your place, and I promise, I won’t bother you!” I cried. “Oh please! How could you bother me?” he laughed. “You have a good point there!” Brian shouted from across the bus.

“Alright, so, this is my apartment.” He opened the door, revealing a huge apartment, which was very messy, though it didn’t look that bad. There were no speedos on the floor, thank lord.

I walked inside, standing in a long hall, on my left was a rack and on my right was a large mirror. As I walked further down the hall, I ended up in a big livingroom, which was at the end of the hall. It was a very big livingroom: a yellow couch was placed on the right wall as you enter the room, the TV standing in front of it, between those two was a big, dark, wooden coffee table. On the couch was a black bra, spreaded across one of the massive yellow pillows. I giggled at the sight, making Roger blush lightly. Next to the couch, on the right, was a tall black lamp, still turned on. Next to a huge window and a door, which most probably left to a balcony, were some book shelves, filled with everything you could ever imagine but books. On the floor, all sorts of tapes were spreaded, all next to a vinyl.

“Here is your room, love.” I heard Roger’s muffed voice say from another room. I followed where the sound came from and ended up in a big room, yellow themed as well. It was filled with abstract paintings. In the middle of the room was placed a king-sized bed. The white sheets were placed nicely, somehow. On the left and on the right were two nightstands and two drawers, from dark wood. “This is lovely, Roger! Thank you so much!” I hugged him. “Anytime.” he smiled.

“I want to see the kitchen!” I said, all of a sudden. “What? Oh, alright. Though, don’t expect it to be a very complex one.” he warned me. “Okay, alright.” I giggled.

We walked down the hall until the blonde boy stopped, walking into a room on the right. It led to a medium sized room, with wooden and marble counters, a microwave, a fridge, an oven, cupboards and all that. “It’s a pretty nice kitchen, noting that a guy in his 20s, who has never even cooked, I’m pretty sure.” I laughed.

“But, I want to see what you have inside the fridge.” I smirked as I opened the fridge: it contained a milk bottle, some old looking meatballs, a cup filled with orange juice, some bread, ice cream and beers. “We need to go grocery shopping.” I sighed. “But first I need to call my parents.”

“Hi mom!” I greeted my mom after she picked up. “Honey, why are you calling me so early?” she asked with a sleepy voice. “Well, I’m in London!” I squeaked. “You’re finally in London? Which means you won’t have to ask every week if we can go there?” she asked, almost hearing her smile. “Yeah, I guess. Oh gosh, it’s such a beautiful city!” “How’s the hotel room?” she asked. “I don’t stay at a hotel room, mom. I am going to stay at a..friend’s place.” “And who is that friend? Is it a boy or a girl?” “A boy, mom.” “How old is he? Could he possibly kidnap you? Is he one of the band members you met in Japan?” “Yeah, he is one of the band members.”

“Did somebody say ‘band member from Japan’?” I heard one of my best friends, Liz, say on the other end. “Oh hi! Yeah, I’m actually going on tour with the band you really like, Queen!” I said nonchalantly. “Ohh my God! I’m so jealous! So I heard that you’ll be crashing at one of the band’s places?” she squeaked. “Which one of them is it?” Liz asked. “Roger’s” I said, smiling, knowing her reaction. “OH-OH MY GOD! THE BLOND HOTTIE! OH GOSH! I WENT TO ONE OF THEIR CONCERTS AND HE WINKED AT ME AND I NEARLY FAINTED!” she screamed on the other end. ‘What a Roer move, winking at girls like Liz.’ I smirked. “How is he like? I mean, as a person? Because it’s been a while since you left Japan.” “He is such a fun person! He is so smart, also. You can talk to him about everything, he knows about it and most likely has an opinion on it. Oh, and when he’s drunk, he’s so fucking funny!” I smiled at all the memories we had together. “Oh, he seems like such a lovely person! And...has...anything happened?” I could almost hear her smirk. “Nope, nothing happened, nothing happens, nothing will happen.” I sighed. “Don’t be so sure about that...But anyways, we have to go, me and your mom have to get some groceries. Byee!” “But why are you wi-“ She hung up. I walked out of the small cabin, getting greeted by Roger.

“So I overheard you were talking about me. So, nothing will happen?” he looked at me sadly. “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, first off, I just wanted her to shut up about all that and second off..” I looked at the cloudy sky. “Well, wouldn’t it be weird? I mean, you didn’t seem that interested and so-“ “I just...I just didn’t want to make things weird if you reject me.” He looked at me. “Maybe we should just..give it a try? One chance?” I looked at those beautiful blue eyes. They were looking at my eyes, the tension built up as he was waiting for an answer. I sighed. “Alright, I guess we could sort of try to go on a romantic part in our relationship.” He smiled at me.

“Oh, good Lord, Angel! Why do you need so mcj stuff for only a two person lunch?” Roger looked around for canned beans. “Oh, are you that dumb?” I looked at him skeptically. “These stuff are for the next week, when we would stay in London.” “Ohhhh” he sheepishly smiled. My heart slowly melted. “Ohhhh” I mocked him. He scoffed and placed the canned beans in the plastic trolley.

“So, we need tomato sauce, sugar, salt, chocolate chips, potatoes and...some lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and that’s it.” I worriedly looked at all the stuff. “It’s going to cost a lot...thank God I got three quarters of my trust fund.” “Bloody hell! You have a trust fund?” he laughed. My cheeks flushed. “Yup, I do. Didn’t I tell you? Both of my parents are doctors, my grandpa was a doctor, my grandma was a dentist, my sister is a lawyer and I’m going to be...a psychologist.” “So you’re basically loaded.” “You could say so.” I looked at him for a moment, smiling, then proceeding to go pay for all the groceries.

*+*

“So, what are you going to do for lunch?” Roger asked, looking at all the plastic bags as I put everything where it needed to be. “I’m thinking about doing a Caesar Salad.” “A salad? Ew!” the blonde man pouted like a child. “It’s actually good, with some good dressing.” “But weren’t you vegetarian or something?” “I am. I’m going to fry the chicken for you.” “Awh, that’s so nice of you! But like..Don’t you get grossed out by these stuff?” “I do a bit, but it doesn’t bother me that much.

“So, I thought about the date. “ Roger smiled as we sat down, ready to eat. “Oh, you did?” I smiled back, a bit unintentionally jokingly. “Oh yes, I did. I won’t tell you any details, but you can dress however you want, but it would be amazing if you would dress a bit classier.” Oh, dear lord, is he going to take me at a restaurant?

“When would the date be?” I asked, almost finishing my first portion. “After the Top of The Pops, so I am not so stressed. I mean, we’re going to stay here for a while.” he said. “OH GOSH!” I exclaimed, getting up. “Me and Peter and Mary have to go shopping for clothes for the Top of The Pops!” I walked to the hall, picking up my coat. As I made my way out, a loud thud on the door scared the hell out of me, as I was about to open the door. In front of the door were Peter and Mary. “Oh, where have you been?” Mary asked me, quite annoyed. “I was eating, Mary. “Let’s just...go” Peter said, after staying silent for the whole time.

I hopped in the back of Peter’s car, as we made our way to the shopping centre. “I was walking down the street when I saw a faux fur coat, just as Freddie wanted.” “Alright then, let’s go.” I simply said, too busy to look at the view: I could see the Big Ben, next to a Big Wheel (or whatever it’s called idk).

*+*

“Alright, that’s 80 pounds, please.” the cashier politely smiled at us. I frowned, not used to pounds and all that.

“Well, that was a bit expensive, don’t you think?” Mary looked at Peter. “Eh, does it really matter?” Peter shrugged.

“We’re back!” I exclaimed as we made our way into the big studio. “Where’s my coat?” Freddie looked at us. “Where’s my white suit?” Brian’s head popped out of the newspaper. They both looked like spoiled kids, but am I the right person talking about this? Nope, I’m not.

“Here you go, Fred.” Mary landed Freddie the big plastic bag. “Oh, it’s lovely, dear! Where did you find it? It looks exactly as I wanted.” his eyes sparkled. “That’s a secret.” Peter smirked. “Go on, try it on.” He continued.

*+*

“Come on, Rog. Everything’s going to be amazing. You’ll be great.” I smiled as I made sure his button-up denim shirt was looking alright. “You could give me a good luck kiss.” He leaned in closer, placing a hand on the wall behind me. I smiled and I quickly kissed him on the lips before making my way out. “Looking good, Fred.” I smirked and winked. “Are your nails painted correctly?” I took his hands. “They’re alright, darling. You’re so good at painting nails. I mean, no overpainting from the first try?! That’s a talent, dear.” I chuckled. “You’re going to nail it. You and the band.”

“This is the BBCs, this is how we do it here.” I heard Brian mock the staff who just told them they’ll have to lip sync.

“Alright guys, you start in 3...2...1...” The cameraman said.

The music started playing. Freddie was holding his mic upside down, as if it was sticked to the roof, 50s style.

She keeps her Möet et Chandon..

They’re doing great

Let them eat cake, she says

“Smile at the camera, Angel!”

A built in remedy for Kruschev and Kenedy

At anytime, an invitation you can’t decline

“Do you want a cig?”

“Yes, thank you.” I said.

She’s a killer queen

gunpowder, gelatine

dynamite with a laserbeam

guaranteed to blow your mind

ooh reccomended at the price

insatiable appetite

to avoid complications

she never kept the same address

in conversation,

she spoke just like a baroness

met a man from China

went down to Geisha Minah...

*+*

“What’d you think about the performance, love?” Roger smiled, sitting down next to me at the table at a bar we went to after the interpretation. “You absolutely fucking nailed it!” I said quite loudly, already on my 5th shot. “Shouldn’t you just...slow down on the drinks?” he asked, with a worried expression. “C’mon, let’s have fun!”

*+*

I woke up the next morning with a major hangover. I didn’t recognize the bedroom I was in as the one in Roger’s apartment, nor his bedroom. I got up and realised I was naked and next to a fucking stranger. I started panicking. I felt like the floor I was standing on suddenly disappeared, I was in a never ending black hole. There was no air. I felt like this because of the way the press would talk about me. I mean, I wasn’t popular whatsoever, but I was travelling with the band Queen, would have been possibly in a relationship with Roger fucking Taylor if I wouldn’t have fucked up.

I changed as quick as I could. I was in a foreign city, not knowing how far from...home...I was. I fortunately remembered Mary’s phone number, thank God.

“Hello, Mary?” I said between sobs. “Oh, Angel! Where are you?! We’re all worried sick!” I heard Mary on the other end. “I...don’t know where I am. Wait, is that a road name? Oh yes! Thank Lord!”

“What happened, darling?” Mary asked me as we walked to her place. “I apparently hooked up with someone. I- how’s Roger?” “In the same situation as you are. Hooked up with someone, Freddie had to pick him up, he was only talking about how he disappointed you, how he managed to fuck things up before you could even be in a relationship.” I sighed in relief.

“Hi, everybody.” I said as I walked in Mary’s apartment, the whole band being there, plus Peter. “Oh gosh, where have you been?!” John asked me, frowning. “I...fucked things up.” I sat down, my knees getting weaker every second. Tears started rolling down my eyes, I tried stopping them by biting my lower lip.

Brian sat down next to me. “Tell us what happened, Angel.” He said, handing me a cup of warm tea. “I.. was very drunk last night. I woke up in the.. south part of London, apparently.” I tried to look at anybody else but Roger. I decided to close my eyes, to stop the temptation of looking at him.

“Roger, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you any way, you’re one of the most amazing persons I’ve ever met and I fucked up the chance of being with you and-“ “Oh, just stop talking. I fucked up too. I was worried you’d be mad at me, but...it looks like we’re in the same situation. Let’s just..start all over again. Or should I jus say ‘forget the whole situation’? I mean- what would we start all over again?” I giggled at his rambling. I hugged him tight, feeling his heartbeat. He looked at me, getting closer and closer. Our lips touched and sparks flew. It was an electric feeling, making my whole body tremble.

Ah, crap. I own Liz twenty bucks.

a/n: alright this is long as fuck (that’s what she said shahahhahah) but I hope you enjoyed. i’m not going to write in the next two weeks. because i have exams and tests and finals almost every day of the week, starting this monday. buh byee

tags:

#roger taylor #roger taylor fanfic #queen band #killer queen #cool cat #brian may #john deacon #deaky #disco deaky #red special #freddie mercury #farrokh bulsara #bohemian rhapsody

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intexttheoutsideworld · 6 years

Text

Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

That's not how physics work.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is an American superhero movie directed by Peyton Reed starring Paul Rudd (Scott Lang), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne), and Michael Douglas (Hank Pym). It is based on the characters and storyline created by Marvel Comics, and is a direct sequel to the movie Ant-Man which was released three years prior. In addition, it's also part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Therefore, the movie takes place two years after the events of one of Marvel Studios's most successful movies Civil War (2016) wherein Scott is enlisted to help Captain America and his friends go up against Iron Man and his friends. Ant-Man and the Wasp deals with the fallout of the aforementioned fight and the legal repercussions that Scott has to endure because of it. However, as his house arrest draws to an end, Scott is forced to break the law once again in order to help the people whom he let down by having gone out on his own to assist Captain America in the fight. The movie focuses on Scott finding a way to accomplish both goals without comprising either his freedom or his chance to mend his broken relationships in addition to finding Hope's—his love interest and one of the people whom he let down—mother who is stuck in the quantum realm.

Going into this movie, I didn't really have any expectations for it. I just wanted to see if they would all fade away into grey particles at the end of the movie. (Spoiler alert: they don't disappoint.) However, I still left the movie theatre feeling more or less disappointed by the movie. I don't think I can really review this movie without revealing at least some spoilers so consider yourself warned.

Peyton Reed returns to direct the Ant-Man sequel after having taken over the original movie's project back in 2015 when Edgar Wright left because of "creative differences." And I gotta say, without the slight hints of Wright's visual comedy and glimpses of the version of the movie which he wanted to make shining through in the final product, the sequel to Ant-Man comes off as being pretty tepid. Ant-Man and the Wasp is your favorite but warm beer. It's the prettiest dress in the store but is also several sizes too large. It's that one last bowling pin you can't knock down. It's the type of movie Mindy St. Claire would be allowed to watching while living in The Medium Place. (The Good Place is also one of the best TV Shows out there so go check it out.) In short, Ant-Man is two steps away from being the next Civil War for me but it's too… passable of a movie for me to hate it.

And yes, I hated Civil War. Come at me, bro.

I'll start by listing out the two most common MCU movie problems which Ant-Man exhibited with gusto and which I thought weren't that glaring or at least bothersome until now:

They have terrible villains.

The excessive amount of jokes in the movie, especially the ones positioned at moments which are supposed to be intense or emotional, more often than not undermines the seriousness of the situation in a negative way, and therefore, bear a high risk of making the movie fail to suspend the audience's disbelief.

There are three main groups of people out to get Scotty and Co.: the FBI, the high-tech-parts-selling/greedy/murderous/morally-fucked/we're-doing-bad-things-because-we're-bad gang, and Ghost and Bill Foster. The FBI is keeping a keen eye on Scott because of his direct involvement in the Civil War fight and they're after Hope and Hank because it was their tech that Scott used in the fight in Civil War and any association with any person that's affiliated with Team Cap is against the Sokovia Accords and is considered to be against international law. There's this whole expositional soliloquy that the Special Agent in charge of Scott's case gives to his kid during the first fifteen minutes of the movie that's passed off to be a humorous moment so if you don't get it now, you'll get it when you see the movie… I guess. Then there's the high-tech-parts-selling/greedy/murderous/morally-fucked/we're-doing-bad-things-because-we're-bad gang (we'll just call them the HTPS/G/M/MF/WDBTBWB gang from now on) who is out to get them because they want their shrinkable lab because $$$ and. Well. The HTPS/G/M/MF/WDBTBWB gang is pretty self-explanatory. They're the filler villains used as a plot device so we can have dangerous action scenes and kill them off without feeling like we have a moral obligation to feel bad for them. It's a win-win situation, you see.

Then, we have Ghost (aka Ava, played by Hannah John-Kamen) and Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne) who are also after Scott and Co. for their lab. You see, the lab in question is used as more or less of a MacMuffin in the movie and if you think about it too much, the logic behind it will start to unravel. Shit like "How did the HTPS/G/M/MF/WDBTBWB gang know that Hank and Hope had the lab to begin with? Sure, they had an inside informer in the FBI but if the FBI had already known that Hank and Hope had such a lab, you'd think that they'd have somehow figured out a way to track it down. Or, you know, issued out a warning to people that should they see a fucking SHRINKING BUILDING or a building that's suddenly enlarged SEVERAL THOUSAND TIMES ITS ORIGINAL SIZE or an abnormal indent on the ground that looked like something really big and heavy with a flat bottom had been pressed down onto it and disappeared, they should contact law enforcements immediately" will start to surface in your mind and you'll go fucking crazy. So just don't think about it.

The motives that drives Ghost and Bill are, to some extent, understandable. Back when Hank was still working for S.H.I.E.L.D., he and Ghost's dad were working on a research project together that ended up in an explosion which killed both of Ghost's parents and fucked her up. So now, her molecules are always tearing themselves apart and stitching themselves back together over and over again. It's supposedly a very painful thing to have to endure but we don't really feel or see that pain because the actress makes Ghost seem like low-rent Bellatrix Lestrange. In regards to Bill Foster, he just happened to encounter her when she was a little kid in a chance meeting and decided that he wanted to help her. He also happens to hate Hank because they were once partners and Hank was supposedly a dick yada yada yada. We also got a shot of Bill stating seemingly innocuously that he hates Hank that's meant to serve as a sort of foreshadowing to the revelation of him being the one who's been helping Ghost all this time but it falls short in my opinion. The directing is just off and I think that's why a lot of the emotional undertones of the scenes in the movie completely flew over my head.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Despite their rather well-established backstories, I have a lot of problems with the Ghost and Bill's storylines and their execution. Things like: how the fuck would the extraction of quantum energy from Janet (Hope's mother, played by Michelle Pfeiffer) help Ghost to repair her molecules in any way? Yes, she's been in there long enough that you can posit that she's absorbed a good amount of “quantum energy” (whatever the fuck that is), but how the fuck is one supposed to extract such a thing from a living, breathing person? Is it like extract essence from a living organism? How the fuck do you go about it? How did Ghost and Bill come up with this hypothesis? Why did they decide to steal the lab and the last part that's needed to get the Quantum Tunnel working at the same time? Why not just, I don't know, fucking wait until they've finished building the tunnel then attack them while their guard is down? In addition, at first when Hank and Hope responded to their (insane) plan of extracting quantum energy from Janet with: "No! Are you crazy, you could kill her!," Bill shouted back: "You don't know that!" (These are not direct quotes, guys.) And he was right, they didn’t. But then the movie just moves on to treating the plan as if it would actually kill Janet no matter what anyways? Um, excuse me? You can throw a bunch of physics lingo around in the movie and expect the audience to just take it to mean that the characters are smart but not show the characters contemplating the viability of Ghost and Bill's plans like the smart, rational scientists that they all supposedly are before scratching it off as being impossible and them being the evil ones? Well, here are some pretty useful science-y lingo for you, too: "margin of error," "confidence interval," "the normal distribution," "risk calculation and management," "statistics." Seriously, they're fucking scientists. Don't just rule out a hypothesis without having done a proper null hypothesis test.

I don't want to keep hating on this movie because Marvel movies are one of the few sources that I have left through which I can get my dopamine production pumping, okay? That being said, both Bill and Ghost’s character development sucks balls, man. I don't want to go too deep into it but the characters' beliefs and stances keep flip-flopping back and forth. Bill's on Ghost's side but when she threatens to do some vague, harmful thing to either Hank's and Scott's daughter (I can't remember which one she threatened), Bill turns on her and tells her that he can tolerate a lot of the things she does but not that. And honestly, I'm like???????? What have you tolerated? Can you please expound? What has she done that's made you uncomfortable but because you feel a bond to her, you just let it go? Why don't you want Ghost to do the vague, unspoken thing that she threatened to do even though you've been able to tolerate most of the things she's been doing? Is it because that's just one step toward the darker end of the morally grey area that you don't want to make? But didn't you hesitate to give Hank the medicine he supposedly needed for his illness or else he was going to die even though you obviously needed him to be alive in order to execute your plan? I'm not sure but I think Bill also threatened kill someone if they didn't do what he said.

On top of all of that, we never really see the bond between Bill and Ghost. They're not friends or whatever kind of deeper relationship the movie is trying to push. They're more like acquaintances helping each other out because they're after the same goal which severely weighs the movie down in terms of getting the audience to develop any kind of attachment to these characters and their relationships with each other. This aloofness impacts the movie pretty poorly in terms of attempting to establish an emotional connection with the audience but it helps with the logic of the movie's plot development in the sense that maybe it's because Bill isn't as committed to his initial goal and to Ghost that he does a pretty half-assed job in trying to achieve that goal for the rest of the movie. I'm not sure if I meant that as a compliment or a criticism. Maybe a little bit of both? But then if you think about it in terms of character development where a character undergoes changes in their beliefs and perspective then if the movie did intend on Bill not having that strong of an attachment to Ghost and their goal from the start as opposed to Bill having had a change of heart mid-movie then… the writing of his character is pretty shitty. Moreover, even if they did intend on writing his character to have a slight change of heart after the stunt Ghost tries to pull, then the writing and execution of his character is still shitty because we have no build-up to Bill being fed up with Ghost's antics and he still goes on to help her anyway up until the end of the movie where he just… gives up? Honestly, Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure has better character development than this; and we haven't even touched Ghost's character development yet.

Okay. So. I don't get what the fuck Ghost's character is supposed to be. I don't mean that in terms of what her character is supposed to be doing as a function in the movie or what her character on paper actually is. I'm talking about who Ghost is supposed to be as a person. What's she feeling? What's her motivation? Her trend of thoughts? At the beginning of the movie, I see an unknown entity kicking ass. Cool. Then, when she's revealed to be not all that and is actually struggling, I see a person whose life force is leaking from her existence and is, therefore, understandably doing the good guys wrong because she's afraid she's going to die. Great! She sounds like such an exciting and intriguing character. Fast forward and we see her staring at Scott like a fucking lunatic after having knocked out and bound Scott and Co. up. I wasn't kidding when I said John-Kamen's portrayal of the character is the low-rent version of Bellatrix Lestrange. Right then, I thought… okay… she's a little kooky but that could work…? Spoiler alert: no, it fucking doesn't. Why? Because any sympathy I've started to develop for this character gets thrown out the window when the following dialogue insinuates that one of the reasons why Ghost and Bill are doing what they are doing is because Hank Pym fucked them up and so, they're spiteful and are more or less seeking revenge. Oy, vey. After Scott and Co. escapes with the lab, Ghost proposes that she goes after [insert correct name here because R.I.P. my memory]'s daughter which further clues the audience in on the lengths that she is willing to go to achieve her goal. Therefore, it further paints her as being more of a ruthlessly vindictive antagonist rather than a sympathetic one. The movie rides this coat of paint for her character all the way to the end when Janet and Hank returns from the Quantum Realm and Janet heals Ghost with her quantum healing powers (don't worry, we'll get to that in a bit). Then, Ghost tears up and becomes meek and fragile and docile.

Look.

I know what tone that they were striving for in regards to Ghost. I do. They're trying to make her into a desperate character who's doing all of these terrible things because she's not in her right mind—remember, she is supposed to be under a lot of pain all the time. However, the script doesn't convey this well at all and John-Kamen's terrible performance doesn’t help. We can't feel her pain, we can't sympathize with her or her partner Bill. In addition, Ghost's motivations for doing the things she did falls apart when you consider the fact that she once made a deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to have herself killed because the pain was too unbearable. Despite that fact, the movie proceeds to tell you that she's going through all of this trouble and attacking all of these people because she knows she's going to fade away in a couple of weeks and die. If she wanted to die, why didn't she just wait it out? Her actions throughout the movie points to the answer: she doesn't want to die, either because she's scared of the notion or because she sees an alternative solution to her situation. So, she’s fighting for her survival—which makes sense. However, because she's barreling through all of these people and is willing to go to extreme lengths ensure her mortality, the line of logic just turns back to pointing toward the conclusion that she's a ruthlessly vindictive cunt. Of course, you can use the loose argument that maybe the movie is creating a character that's more realistic in the way that her decisions and thoughts and personality is complicated and shit. Because, you know,

But, here's the thing.

This is a movie and a movie needs to character narratives and plots and shit like that because

Prime example: Boyhood (2016) dir. Richard Linklater.

IT JUST DOESN’T. OKAY?

Gifs originally posted by: crazyexedits

Lastly, if the decision which the character makes is a random one that's an anomaly given the context of their decision making history, then sure, it can be overlooked. But when most of the decisions which the character makes are based on the same logic and are in the same vein as each other, then it's a pattern and a pattern always reveal something about the character no matter what. Therefore, once again, I posit that the movie just fails spectacularly in trying to make Ghost a more fleshed out villain. However, at the end of the day, it's just sad to watch it unravel on screen because goddamn it, my precious dopamines.

Talking about things unravelling, I can't not mention my fucking suspension of disbelief. Guys, I've bought into almost every single Marvel movie out there, okay? I don't have a problem with turning my brain off in exchange for a good time. But when the logic is so glaringly bad that it impacts my commitment to getting those dopamines zipping through my brain, then we've got a problem.

Fucking quantum healing powers. I'm sorry, I just can't. You don't just mix hard Ant-Man science with Dr. Strange voodoo magic. Sure, nobody thought that a talking tree and a raccoon would end up making people big bucks, but there are some lines that you just don't cross. You can't tout your movie as being science-y and make your characters spout all of these physics lingo then have one of your characters possess healing powers. I don't care if they're quantum healing powers, and I don't care how much you've pushed the narrative that "she's been there so long she was able to soak in all of that quantum energy goodness" throughout the movie. It just shits on every ounce of effort I was putting into trying to keep myself engaged in the movie because my suspension of disbelief up until then had already been mauled by watching over-ten-stories-tall buildings without any foundation shrinking and enlarging and badly written dialogues that could have easily been put into literally any other action/thriller movie and try-hard jokes.

Also, y'all need to stop putting "quantum" in front of everything.

Hey, I fucking took Marvel's bait for Dr. Strange like it was nobody's business so don't go telling me that I'm a no-fun motherfucker who doesn't know how to just chill and enjoy a movie. And don't say that it's just a stupid movie made for kids, just let it go, because I've praised Marvel for their attention to detail and meticulousness when it comes to producing a movie that not only does well in the box office but is also technically good. Of course, the quality of their movies vary from movie to movie but I've always held Marvel in relatively high regards in terms of their technical execution of their material. Therefore, to have experienced Ant-Man and the Wasp and found it subpar to most of Marvel Studios's previous projects, I'm mostly just saddened (and somewhat enraged) by the missed potential for this movie.

Lastly, there are two end-credit scenes. Stay for the middle one. Leave before the last one unless you really like enlarged ants playing drums.

Final verdict: 2.5/5

Sidenote: No fucking wonder the script is fucking lackluster. Five different people worked on it, jesus fucking christ.

#ant-man and the wasp #peyton reed #paul rudd #scott lang #evangeline lilly #hope van dyne #movie review #jfc send help

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stuartledrew · 4 years

Text

Neat Thought...

We're viewing our pasts, from our presents, as we step into our futures.

That is to say:

When I look at you, I'm seeing where you were, not where you are.

The speed of light Doppler effect...The “light barrier”/screen...Am I on yet?

Anyway...

Be nice.

Be happy.

Be you.

How?

We're a light/dark energy/matter, double rainbow...Well, we will be...

Once you find the “you” that you were born to be.

Balance, harmony, diversity, eternity...Life.

Or...

An eternal, double, infinite, single wave length (...-1.0.1...)...Life?...

Take your pick.

Some interesting things start to happen, when you think in terms of the speed of light, being directly connected to, the number of beings on the network. - Truly just beings there are.

The more of us who join, the more harmonic we become.

We begin to think as one mind, not the same thought, just the timing of...We begin to beat...And all time exists at the same time.

Just a thought.

https://stuartledrew.tumblr.com/

Another neat thought:

Given that I'm viewing my past on a slightly convex screen (time plane), with a very concave retina, + rod/cone placement + transmission speeds = 3D = Evolution (Hunting)

Oops...Got a bit lost there myself...

We're the present, a singularity of time.

We're centered.

So...

Simpler biology...Concave, to concave, flipped...

Anyway... Enjoy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAEppFUWLfc&list=RDMMNAEppFUWLfc&start_radio=1

“Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage.” Richard Lovelace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgkThdzX-8&list=RDMMNAEppFUWLfc&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTTAPCUtbc8&list=RDMMNAEppFUWLfc&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpoP4YSFKGA&list=RDMMNAEppFUWLfc&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZA5heWazIQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCorJG9mubk

P.s.

This will be my last post, tweet, comment...ANYTHING!!!...On this subject.

In 2008 I got a “tap on the shoulder”. That night I was run through the gamut...I was once Jesus...No, apparently I was Satan...Nope...Wait...I was God...Until I screamed out into the darkness, “NO!!! It just doesn't work!!!”. Then I got to thinking...

I told the doctor (I was “told” to), and ended up being diagnosed as schizophrenic, and being hospitalized. Tip, unless for some reason you wish to be hospitalized, don't tell a doctor that you were once god. Anyway, whilst hospitalized, I briefly lost my temper with my psychiatrist, and got assigned an interview with another psychiatrist, to confirm that I was bipolar too...WHAT?...

Anyway, at that meeting, things got a bit emotional. The psychiatrist's student, started crying and had to leave...And I got a confirmation of bipolar disorder...WHAT?...

I made an RCMP officer cry once too, a male one. He was left to “watch over me” in a room at the hospital, on one of the occasions that I had been told:

“This is a big thing! A REALLY BIG THING!!! You understand that, right? Well the only way they're willing to get you guys together, at the moment, is in a controlled environment. Get yourself checked in to the hospital.”...Phone RCMP...Say “This is Stuart Graham LeDrew I live at...I used to be god, and I fear that I may do harm.”...BINGO!!!...Hospitalized, but no meeting!...No kidding!...Nearly 13 years!...Anyway, back to the RCMP officer I made cry...We talked for a bit and I asked him, “If it isn't, EVERYBODY, what's the bloody point?”, and he began to cry.

Long story short:

Either I'm pure probability, and simply mad.

Or I'm right, and we all win!!! But if so...Where is she? It's the communications era! I'd have been there the next day. If I hadn't been told, that I have to wait here. Katy has to choose to come to me. I must just be mad! The next day!!! I'd probably have been arrested and detained, but I'd have had to!!!

The way I figure it...

If I'm just mad: I have hyper-inflated lungs, and COVID's on the rise, shouldn't be long now.

If I'm right: Maybe I have to go through all of them, one-by-one, for some reason, and I'm just losing again. C'est la vie.

If I'm, right, right: It has to work, first time. Otherwise, it's just a trick of sorts, possibly unjust, and personally unacceptable. Something may be back...BUT IT WON'T BE ME!!!

And I'm not “Going long”, that's just the same thing, a trick.

If anyone can hear me...You can't mess it up! Why? Because I'm still here!

HELP!!!

Or not...Your choice...That's the point!

Well, one more.

I WILL FIND A WAY!!!

I'm back, but then again, I did say that I'd find a way.

Perhaps it would illustrate my point, “Stuff like this doesn't 'Just happen'!”, if I give you a few examples.

I was 'told' to go upstairs 'right now!', and watch a video...”Which one? 'You will know.'. I did so. The video was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCorJG9mubk

Which is basically a synopsis of this whole thing.

Then, one evening at 10:10 on the 10th, I wondered, “What is 101010 in binary?”. Turns out it's 42. Douglas Adams' “The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything”.

In the video, “This is the part of me”- Katy Perry, at 2:23 Katy is wearing a watch. It's 10:10, and the minute hand is pointing to the 10 on the outside dial. I only just noticed this fact, and I've been watching it for years.

I first encountered Katy with the release of the “I kissed a girl” video. I was walking through the living room, and the video for it came on tv...Our eyes met...I walked away thinking “Oh well, just another talented, pretty girl, they'll “throw away” in a couple of years.”. I mention this because as I said, our eyes met...Then, I walked away at the end of the video. But what happened between those two events...(blackout)? It was odd, but I didn't think much of it at the time (loads going on). Now, did I see Katy, then get my “tap on the shoulder”, or visa versa? I couldn't tell you, it was all too long ago now.

In late 2010 there was a forum called “The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything”, upon which I was posting. It was the usual stuff...Drunks in Florida, “Killing time”, and people only interested in their own theory's. So there really wasn't much point, but one day, a 12.5 year old girl, posted a link to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw&list=PLNNEgHxrnU5xrECkqd-mbgyOf6X7_6W9p&index=95&t=0s

And asked, “Is this the sort of thing that you mean?”. I told her that it was basically exactly what I meant, but thought nothing more of it. That's not strictly true. What I meant by it was that I made no connection to Katy or the “I kissed a girl” video. I don't think that I even noticed that they were the same person. If I had, I'd probably have thought something along the lines of, “Oh, still going...Gosh!”. As to the song itself...That has saved me countless hours of thought...We're all on our own “perfect road” leading us all to our own “perfect door”. No need to keep 'checking'/cross referencing etc:. BRILLIANT!!! Anyway...

All of this had fallen into the background, for a couple of weeks or so. It was odd, but nice, a quiet mind. Then on 3/14/2018 Stephen Hawking died. Within 4 hours of his death I had a basic understanding of how all this works. I explained it all on physics forums. My model fixed all of the various problems/oddities in their model, but they would have none of it. Got banned!

Christmas 1987 my mother asked me what I'd like for Christmas. I usually got her to get me a record, but this year the really wasn't one that I had my eye on. So I said “Pop goes the world by Men Without Hats.”, because I thought that the girl in the video was cute. Turned out, I never really listened to it, I didn't really care for it much. But!!! Now, the anomaly in the video that has been bugging me for years becomes clear. What anomaly? What are those floating bubbles with the red bits on them? Do they mean anything? Because, again, the video is pretty damn on-the-nose!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zUUtf7gOe8

Or the video for “Imagine” - John Lennon, he was a tad over zealous, here and there, but, imagine. Why do they zoom in on the window that has “THIS IS NOT HERE” printed on it? I'm demonstrating that it isn't, so...

And finally, well for now anyway, in 1994 Elastica released “Connection”. Huge amounts of this process have related to music videos. “Connection” was one of those “instant fav's”. The original video is a masterpiece, but could cause epileptic seizures due to the quick cuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY2s4hJ8kuA

“Another heart has made the trade, Forget it, forget it, forget it, I don't understand how a heart is a spade, But somehow the vital connection is made.”

I have to know this! How is a heart a spade? It's ridiculous! It could be anything! Oh well...

Then two days ago, for no reason the thought Juice Newton “Queen of Hearts”, so I played the video. 35 seconds in...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0DK-0fIKCw

I could go on. My day, everyday, is just a continuous “coincidence” stream. Stuff like this doesn't “Just happen”!!! Well technically it does, but...

I will find a way...I mean, what else ya' gonna do?

Especially after the most powerful moment of this whole thing...

The weekend before my birthday in 2017, Katy had a “Witness Weekend”, four days, on air 24 hours'ish, a day. I'm not entirely sure why I watched, Katy was “relevant” by then, “Firework” had saved me so much time. I watched probably 3-4 hours, or so, each day, but I have a problem with, “I may be wrong...”, so I didn't want to feel like a stalker.

Katy had a psychiatrist come in to the theatre, to have a session with. As the session progressed, Katy started to cry, and Katheryn came out. Our eyes met...And it was literally like a double laser out of her eyes! Then I knew! Her image was burnt into my soul...She must “Meet her Prince Charming!”, it doesn't have to be me, but she has to be happy...I hear tell...

“Friends describe Katy and Orlando, as 'More than in love'.”...

Then there's Daisy Dove...

I think it's wonderful. Orlando's a really nice guy (he played himself on “Extras” with Ricky Gervais), life's complex sometimes, and it's a big house...Anyway, I'm either quite, quite mad...Or right...

And it REALLY SUCKS not knowing for sure, for sure, because I am ya’ know?

#science #religion #life #love #eternity #smile

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the-master-cylinder · 4 years

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“In 1977, from being a film collector and videotape guy, which at that time was a very small club,” said Band, “I recognized there was something very wonderful about having even a bad print of a movie for screening in the privacy of your own home. When I got wind of the Beta format, and of Andre Blay, who licensed 20 films from 20th Century-Fox and set up a company called Mag Video in the Stone Age of video, I thought it was absolutely wonderful and was going to be very successful. So I decided to go out and do my own video label.

“I went around to a bunch of independent distributors who had successful films out theatrically, pictures like TUNNELVISION, FLESH GORDON, THE GROOVE TUBE, HALLOWEEN, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and I put this limited catalog together of these kind of successful, high-profile theatrical releases. I called it Meda Home Entertainment. Meda was my first wife’s name. In 1978 I started that label.

“Originally I started it up as a hobby, it was just in the back of my little facility that we were making movies out of. We started very simple and very low key, and within two years it just totally overtook my life. It became a hungry beast sort of business.”

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Unfortunately for Band, to gain capital to expand his business, the inexperienced entrepreneur took on some partners who gained control of the business, a business that according to Band was doubling every month. “The video business just exploded,” he said, “and every time we needed money, which was virtually every month-I needed cash flow I’d do a deal with these people. They’d take two more points of the company in return for a certain loan. If the business was predictable, which at the time it wasn’t, then the cash flow and all the planning would have worked out, but I’m a player, the business doubled, and suddenly we needed more tape, more machines and more everything. So little by little they kept eating away at my stock until finally they had control.”

Charles Band sold out his interest in the company in early 1980 and about 18 months later, that was sold to Heron, who bought the company for $20 million. When Band sold the company, his partners added an “i” to the name so that Meda became Media. Band was also behind the Wizard label, which distributed a number of rare and cult European films in this country for the first time, sometimes under alternate titles, as well as films like the infamous I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, which became an incredible seller on video.

Born into a movie-business family, his film making ambitions started very early; as he puts it, “My ambitions were there basically when I could walk. I grew up on motion picture sets.” Band spent his growing years in Rome where his father, Albert Band, was producing and directing a string of genre pictures, ranging from Steve Reeves epics to such Italian Westerns as A Minute to Pray …. A Second to Die. As soon as Band was old enough to work, his father trained him in just about every facet of movie making, Band had enough know-how to produce his first picture, a horror thriller called Mansion of the Doomed. Since then he has concentrated on the horror-sci fi field with such features as Laserblast, End of the World and Tourist Trap. Band has always been in touch with this genre: “I’m a fan myself. When these movies come out-good, bad or indifferent I’m there.”

Early Filmmaker/Pre-Empire Years

The first film you’re credited with is Mansion of the Doomed, although you had done some earlier work in Italy with your father. How did you get Mansion of the Doomed together? Charles Band: “You know, I’ve made enough mistakes. I just jumped into it. I wanted to make my first movie. I wanted it to be a horror film. At the time, unrelated to the film business, I had a successful little gift item business. I was real young, I was 21, and even though I’d grown up on a movie set and apprenticed with my dad and certainly knew a lot about the craft of film-making, I had no business training – which I really regretted later in life. I was thinking: boy, if I could just have spent a few years in a business school I would have avoided a lot of pitfalls. But I certainly had all the energy and passion to make my first movie. Between my own money, and I brought in a few investors, we jumped into Mansion of the Doomed.

“It was originally called The Eyes of Dr Chaney. That was the title I would have preferred to release it as – this was years before The Eyes of Laura Mars – and it would have been kind of a cool title. But I learned the first of many lessons: when the picture was done I gave it to a distributor, got a very small advance, never saw another penny – or a report, for that matter. And that’s one of the great pitfalls of making small movies. Small distributors, even if they have good intentions, have nothing but problems. Usually they don’t pay the producers.

“Eventually if a producer or director is looking at being prolific and having some longevity in this business, they will realize that the only way to protect themselves is to do their own distribution, not give their baby away to someone who will do everything including putting a bad title on it. That was his title. There was a distributor called Group 1 who wanted to call it Mansion of the Doomed which, even back then, sounded terrible. At least The Eyes of Dr Chaney was a little classier.

“I put it together and at the time interesting people were involved. The editor was John Carpenter who was a friend at the time – and no-one knows that. Andy Davis who became a big-time director was the director of photography. Stan Winston, who was a very close friend, did the effects. And I forget who else, there are probably a few I’m forgetting. It was Lance Henriksen’s first movie. When I look back, it was an interesting group of people. I’m proud of the movie. It’s actually a well-made small movie, it’s classy, and it just suffers from the terrible title.”

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A few years before that was a film called Last Foxtrot in Burbank which has been obliterated from history. I’m guessing that’s one you’re not so proud of. Charles Band: “That’s obliterated for good reason! I was involved very peripherally. In some cases my name was attached or wasn’t attached. So somewhere in the mix I did have some involvement in the movie and I’m glad if it’s substantially erased because it was just something I helped someone out with and the next thing you know it somehow got stuck to me as a movie I made, which is not the case, nor did I direct it or anything. So the first real movie that I put my name on officially, that was my first genre film – I pulled in people who were friends – was: I want to say The Eyes of Dr Chaney but it really was released as Mansion of the Doomed.”

You then went straight into making a whole series of films: Crash and Cinderella and End of the World – that whole production line thing. It wasn’t a faltering start. Was the plan to make one movie and then immediately start making the next and so on. Charles Band: “That’s what I did. On those first seven or eight movies, unfortunately, I had no involvement with distribution and it was a miracle I survived that period because you don’t even really get enough money to get the next movie going. It’s just torture, and it’s still extremely difficult if you control distribution, and I can look at all the differences over 30 years. I can’t believe it’s been 30 years. And of course there have been some years when the video business was amazing and it really fuelled thousands of movies, most of which probably shouldn’t have been made, but nonetheless there were good years for people making small movies and bad years.

“But back then it was extremely difficult because there was no video, there was nothing. This was a theatrical world. You made a movie, it had to be on film, you had to cut a negative, you had to release it in theatres and try to make a few dollars. There were no ancillary markets. Home video didn’t really exist, of course the internet didn’t exist, there were really no television sales, maybe just a few local stations. That was in the days when these were truly B-movies; they would be the B-side of a double bill. They would get released theatrically and you just hoped a few dollars would be collected because they played at drive-ins and around the country. That was it, there was nothing else.

“The price of entry to the industry back then was steep. Because we weren’t in a digital world, there was no real cheap way of anyone getting in. No matter how many friends would work for free, you had to rent the equipment, you had to buy the film, you had to cut the negative, you had to make prints which were expensive back then and are still very expensive today. So whereas today a kid with some talent (or lack of) can buy a digital video camera and a computer and for literally a few thousand dollars make a little movie. If that person has some training and is talented it can actually look and feel like a movie. Those tools did not exist thirty years ago.”

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You worked with two of the horror greats during this period: John Carradine in Crash and Christopher Lee in End of the World. That must have been a thrill. Charles Band: “It was a thrill, absolutely, because I grew up watching all of their famous movies. It’s funny: you wish you could go back with a little more maturity and enjoy the moment. I was certainly excited and aware of the people I was working with – but I was in my early twenties and I could have done things a little differently. But just the fact that I worked with them. I worked with a lot of wonderful people.

“I also worked with people who, at the time, were just young actors or actresses who went on to become very famous. I guess I could make that point 20 different times. But to have worked with Christopher Lee and John Carradine, you’ve actually cited the only two – well, Richard Basehart was also a thrill. I loved his work and he was another fantastic actor. But when it comes to the genre of horror movies, working with Carradine and Christopher Lee was really amazing.”

Last Foxtrot in Burbank (1973) Cult director Charles Band brings you this “Last Tango in Paris” spoof with editing by acclaimed filmmaker John Carpenter.

Mansion of the Doomed (1975) Four ruthless escaped convicts looking for a safe place to hide out from the law with their terrified hostage stumble across an isolated hunting lodge, only to fall into the deadly grip of an ancient curse in a blood-spattered satanic shocker from filmmaker Olaf Ittenbach. From the outside it looked like the perfect hideaway. Once inside, however, a deadly secret that has festered for generations begins to awaken, and the devil-worshipping backwoods family emerges from the darkness to torture, maim, and murder anyone who crosses their path in the name of the Prince of Darkness. As the sun goes down and darkness rises, the evil of man will fill the night with the screams of the damned until the light of dawn.

Crash! (1976) After a woman is nearly killed in a car accident, a doctor investigates the collision, which points towards revenge, destruction and occult.

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End of the World (1977) Prof. Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) is a research scientist who discovers strange radio signals in space that appear to originate from the Earth. The signals seem to predict natural disasters occurring around the globe. When he and his wife (Sue Lyon) decide to investigate the source of the signals, they end up being held captive in a convent that’s been infiltrated by aliens. These invaders plan to destroy the world with the natural disasters. As the human, Father Pergado and alien leader Zindar (Christopher Lee) explain – the Earth is a hotbed of disease that cannot be permitted to continue polluting the galaxy.

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Cinderella (1977) An adaptation of the fairy tale, Cinderella traces the misadventures of our heroine, who, via the help of her “fairy” (i.e. gay) godmother, is granted heightened sexual prowess to win over Prince Charming. After a blindfolded orgy at the royal castle, the nerdy Prince must sleep with every willing woman in his kingdom until he finds that one, mysterious lover who so “stood out” on the night of the sex Ball.

Auditions (1978) American erotic pseudo-documentary directed by Harry Hurwitz (credited as Harry Tampa). It was written by Albert Band and Charles Band, and stars Bonnie Werchan, Rick Cassidy and Linnea Quigley. Hurwitz also appears in the film as the director, although he is not credited. The film follows the process of casting actors and actresses for a pornographic film. Although several actual porn stars are in the film, it does not depict any actual sexual acts. It was remade in 1999 as Auditions from Beyond.

During the week of March 15, 1978, an ad appeared in the Hollywood Variety that the producers of films Cinderella (1977) and Fairy Tales (1979) were on the talent search for their new motion picture Fairytales Part II. They were looking for “the world’s sexiest woman” for the role of Sleeping Beauty, “the world’s sexiest man for the co-starring role of Prince Charming and “the world’s most unusual act or personality”. Two sets were constructed in a Hollywood studio: a medieval dungeon and a French boudoir. Across from these sets was a mirrored wall behind which cameras and sound equipment was concealed. Hundreds of people responded to the advertisement and on March 25 the two days of auditions began.

The Primevals (1978-1989) Part One DEVELOPMENT/BACKSTORY Hollywood is a strange microcosm of phenomenal flukes and broken dreams, peopled by filmmakers young and old who take years developing pet projects which never get off the ground due to economic factors or a lack of enthusiasm on the part of producers. Drastic compromises are imposed on the artist by the powers that be until he’s forced to toil somewhere in the middle of the road, a world of low budgets and technical limitations. On the other dark side of the coin, a work often gets produced but fails to pump adrenaline into the hearts and souls of distributors, and what we have left is an orphan in a storm. For the stop motion animator and special effects artist, this dilemma is usually a stark reality, with no alms given for talent or concept. Prejudice against animation never helped matters much: surrealistic conflicts between real beings and the chimeras of stop motion netherworlds are sadly aborted, pieces of dreams that evaporate into the stratosphere and just maybe, by some fluke, condense and precipitate on a Hollywood sound stage or in someone’s converted garage.

The Attack of the River Lizard A pre-production sketch by Randy Cook of a special effects sequence in THE PRIMEVALS, based on an original script written by Cook and David Allen. Allen designed the River Lizard, one of numerous stop-motion creatures to appear in the film. The River Lizard animation model

THE PRIMEVALS is a ten year-old dream come true for thirty-three year-old animator David Allen. Without trying to toot his own horn too loudly, Allen sums up his feelings toward the awesome task that still lies mostly before him: “There’s not anything in THE PRIMEVALS that is all that revolutionary: a few of the concepts maybe. The style is the thing. I don’t have all that much experience, admittedly. And twenty years from now I might wish I had some simpler film to cut my teeth on. But I think the personality of this picture will really triumph over any possible shortcomings.

Now under the auspices of executive producer Charles Band who is finally gearing up for an ambitious, higher-budgeted product, THE PRIMEVALS becomes a reality and promises to be a big prestige adventure-fantasy film for 1980. The blow-by-blow account of how all this came about is something of a saga in itself and an object lesson, perhaps, for would-be animators and filmmakers who lean towards a more idealistic conception of the ways of Hollywood rather than a pragmatic one.

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In 1975, a young actor-filmmaker and former artist at Disney’s named Randy Cook came into the picture. Randy had been approached by an independent producer on the East coast who asked him if he’d be interested in directing a film. In order for the producer to get some money together, he needed a property. “I didn’t know Randy very well then,” remembers Allen, “but he knew about RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING (never produced). He called me up and expressed his interest in the project. I briefly explained what had happened to the property over the years and that I felt the old script was no longer workable. I told Randy I had a very brief synopsis for a new story, but that it needed fleshing out. He suggested that we both put our heads together and write up a complete synopsis for presentation and approval. After two or three months, we had it down on paper, but around the time we were winding up, we heard that this producer had been thrown in jail! In any case, I was happy to get the treatment into presentable condition. Then, more or less on our own, we decided to continue working on it even though we had nowhere to turn, hoping that something might come up. We did a lot of further collaborating based on the treatment, producing a first draft script. That, in fact, is the script we have for THE PRIMEVALS now, although I am constantly rewriting and improving it.”

Randy Cook’s sketch of the Hominid man-apes, which play a key role in the plot of THE PRIMEVALS, which spans from the prehistory of mankind to our future destiny. Left: Cook sculpts the Hominid makeup. The Hominids will be played primarily by actors in suits, although stop-motion Hominids are required for certain special effects sequences.

Makeup artist Steven Neill provided the final link in the long chain of events by attracting producer Charles Band’s interest in THE PRIMEVALS. Neill recommended Allen to Band for the stop-motion work required in Laserblast (1978), which Band had in production at the time. As an example of his work, Allen dug out his footage on the RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING presentation reel, which he had begun revamping in 1976. “I went way, way back into the old stuff and shot a few inserts just to round out a couple of effects shots.” Neill made the reel available to Charles Band, and Allen got the job on LASERBLAST. In fact, Band wanted to use the presentation reel’s lizard man for his own film, an idea nixed by Allen who wanted to save the model for his own project. When work on LASERBLAST was complete, Allen managed to get THE PRIMEVALS script on Band’s desk, and suddenly the project was no longer a pipedream.

Financed by Charles Band Productions, pre-production work on THE PRIMEVALS is in full gear, and the budget is promising to spiral well over the million dollar bracket. David Allen has assembled a talented corps of artists, many with whom he has had long-term affiliations. Among them are Phil Tippett who is busy casting models; Dave Carson, noted illustrator known for his Ray Harryhausen Portfolio, who is serving as art director; Ken Ralston, whose prior work at Cascade and photographic background are assets to the production; Tom St. Amand, a skillful model and armature builder; Robin Loudon, Allen’s production assistant; Randy Cook, assistant animator, writer and sculptor; Dave Stipes, and Dennis Gordon, miniature makers; and Jena Holman, the matte painter on the show.

The most intriguing aspect of THE PRIMEVALS’ effects work is the fact that Charles Band has requested the picture be done in Panavision. While this might sound benign to the layman, it complicates the old Dynamation technique quite a bit. Panavision, being an anamorphic system, is basically a “wide-angling” field of view process.

In a sense, THE PRIMEVALS will face the same problems Ray Harryhausen encountered on First Men in the Moon (1964). Matte shots still have the quality of looking less virgin than the footage which is not composited, but the mattes will look better in quality than the composites achieved by using miniature rear projection. “The same degradation ratio is there,” says Allen, “it’s just on a higher plane. This kind of work can seldom be absolutely perfect. When you’ll see a cut to an effects shot in THE PRIMEVALS, it’s no doubt still going to have a different characteristic. I’m trying to create a film in which that’s not going to be fatal.

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“I’m no magician,” Allen continues. “Ray Harryhausen is an excellent magician. I think that’s one of the problems with Ray’s movies we keep going back to his tent to see the same act. It’s a different lady that gets in the box that gets sawed in half, but it’s still the same trick. It’s bound to start wearing a little thin. Harryhausen and Schncer imply these darkly secret and political rationalizations for the way their films have to be. Although I have a great respect and admiration for many of their efforts, I just don’t see it as they do. Because they’re part of the establishment, they elect to proceed in orthodox ways, to keep the system lubricated. I am hopeful I can avoid those obligations and any of those concerns and do only what’s right for the project.

“I’m sure the long shadow of Ray Harryhausen will leave its mark not only on THE PRIMEVALS but my entire career, just as he works in the shadow of Willis O’Brien. I’m just trying to take the good and add something to it. And I’m attempting to make a well-rounded film for a lot less money than Schneer spends, to show others and myself that an undertaking such as THE PRIMEVALS can combine this kind of work and also have real film values.”

To reveal the storyline of THE PRIMEVALS at this time would be counterproductive. What can be said, so as not to leave the reader totally out in the twilight zone, is that it delves into an extraordinary aspect of evolution, territory that no filmmaker has trespassed to date. In a sense, it deals with moral concepts right and wrong, good and evil-in a manner that is not abstract or superficial. “I’m trying to give it some stature,” says Allen, “trying to make it more worthwhile than 95% of what we’ve been seeing.” While certain stock ideas established in the original RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING script and other works of the genre are largely intact-lost civilizations, surrealistic locales, anachronistic conflicts, etc. the film will be more on the level of FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH. Allen stresses the need for more gray matter in the standard adventure-fantasy film format. “I’m not looking for the excellence of THE PRIMEVALS to lay strictly in its special effects.

That’s my specialty and my handle on the entire project, the reason why I have the credibility and bankability to do it. But if people are talking about this film twenty years from now, I hope it won’t be simply because of the animation.”

As far as directing is concerned, David Allen will be doing most of the honors with Randy Cook doing some sequences. Although Allen readily admits his directorial inexperience as far as feature films are concerned, he feels confident enough to tackle it. Moreover, he recognizes the danger inherent in bringing in someone from the Guild. “If you get a well-known director,” Allen points out, “he’s going to want to meddle with it in order to serve his own interests. I don’t want that kind of problem. As a director, I’m likely to be a bit straight but I think the film will benefit from being shot in a ‘classic’ manner. I’m not intimidated directing it. I think that what I may lack in directorial technique I will make up for in the feeling of what I know the script needs in order for it to work, which is something a journeyman director would not know. I think we’ve seen that enough times in the past.”

Executive producer Charles Band sees it all as an extreme departure from his usual low-budget programmers, but a solid project. In David Allen, Band has found the dedicated artist with the kind of knowhow and integrity it takes to pull-off a film like THE PRIMEVALS. Interestingly, the relationship is not unlike that which developed between Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer back in 1957 when The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) began production. “It’s really the most exciting project that I’ve ever been involved with,” says Band. “I’m used to shooting a film and having it ready in 120 days from inception to execution. With THE PRIMEVALS, we’re talking about a year and a half! The use of Panavision was my idea. It’s really a spectacle of sorts, and I felt that the wide-screen look is meaningful for the show. We took on a lot of trouble for the sake of Panavision, not so much in the principal photography, but in terms of special effects work. It’s something that really hasn’t been done before when you consider the amount of animation going into it.

“The budget promises to spiral into the $2 million bracket,” says Band proudly. “We’re talking about the possibility of going on location in the Himalayas for some sequences. But a good chunk of the budget will either directly or indirectly go toward the special effects. We’re not going to cheat this one out of anything!”

“It’ll be one of those films that when you come out of the theatre, you’ll say to yourself: ‘Of course, of course this picture. Why hasn’t it happened before now?”

Fairy Tales (1979) On his twenty-first birthday, a prince is approached by his father (the king) and other courtiers. They present him a girl as birthday gift. The king asks him to enjoy sexual life and to produce the next heir. However, the prince experiences erectile dysfunction and is unable to perform sexually. He discovers that his sexual attraction is focused towards a long forgotten princess whose picture is hanging on the wall. He goes in search of this princess, and encounters many people along the way. Ultimately, he finds the princess and is able to perform sexually with her.

From the fans’ point of view, your business model seems to be based to some extent on Roger Corman’s. Is that true to any extent? Charles Band: “I guess to some degree. I don’t really think that way. I know I’m compared to Corman just because I’ve made almost 300 movies and he’s made twice that.”

I was going through some old trade mags and found the Screen International Product Guide from the 1986 AFM. Empire had 32 full-page ads. It looks like it had got out of hand. Charles Band: “For a few short years we were second only to Canon because sometimes it seemed like they bought the whole magazine! I think it did and I’d love to go back and do things differently. I have only myself to blame. I, ultimately, was the one who made the decisions – but you have partners, you have investors, you have advisors, suddenly you’ve got a few hundred people working for you. And I have no formal business training, I just wanted to make movies and I should have stuck to that. I could now write a book about it, I could certainly point out things and say why I wouldn’t do that again, but back at the time these ideas and proposals made sense. They made sense short term, they never made sense long term.”

Laserblast (1978) Retrospective

Tourist Trap (1979) Retrospective

The Day Time Ended (1980) Retrospective

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The History of Empire Films Part One "In 1977, from being a film collector and videotape guy, which at that time was a very small club,” said Band, “I recognized there was something very wonderful about having even a bad print of a movie for screening in the privacy of your own home.

#70sFilms #80sFilms #BAND #EMPIRE

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keramalusundeep · 4 years

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‘KABALI’ PEAKED AT THE TRAILER. HERE’S WHY

First of all, I don’t do movie reviews. I am the guy who just watches a movie and then maybe talks about it during lunch at work to avoid awkward silences. So, why am I writing this review about a movie I watched a half hour ago? Because you know, how sometimes when you have a near death experience, your perspectives change and suddenly you want to do all this good in life, save lives, be a better person? Yeah, I am in that zone right now. I have been hit by something powerful. And it’s time to share it with the rest of my species.

Two months before today, I accidentally came across the trailer of Kabali on YouTube. I was immediately arrested by the killer original soundtrack for the movie. That’s where it had begun, for me.

Every time I watched the trailer at home, I’d go on and on to my wife about how I would not miss this movie. I don’t know why I had suddenly become such an aggressive fan of Rajinikanth. My mom was always a diehard fan, though. Two decades ago, I stumbled upon a large biology drawing book that had cut-out pictures and childlike hand-drawn sketches of him at my house in Bangalore. The book belonged to my mother. When I confronted her, she said that she was supposed to get rid of that book after marriage, but somehow it had come along with her. Super jealous of the superstar, my father would often mock Rajinikanth. I don’t blame him. He was just an ordinary South Indian man born in a conservative family. He is well educated and open-minded, yes, but he is still a man. I mean, when my wife used to look at Jason Momoa’s buttocks in Game of Thrones, I would run to the bedroom and do 50 squats and come out like I was all chill.

When you watch a Rajinikanth film, you better go to a local theatre. Not the multiplex ones where one is too shy to even release a silent fart. No, go to a local theatre. The kind where women best not venture. That’s the kind of place where you will know what it is like to be a Rajini fan.

In these theatres, as the lights dim, a new wave of energy crackles to life. Whistles, throat-burning screaming, firecrackers, shirtless dancing on seats. The entire room becomes a five-dimensional stimulation ride. Your seats rock. The walls vibrate. You smell smoke. It’s exhilarating to witness the madness, but deafening and annoying beyond a point as you can’t hear shit. Because from the time Rajini’s name pops up in the opening credits till the interval (where the fans begin to get a little tired), it’s a war zone. You would be lucky if you came out of the theatre entirely unbroken.

When you are watching a Rajinikanth movie, there is a 3000% chance that you will see something superhuman. Death-defying. Nonconforming to every law of nature. But you tell your mind to hush. During a Rajinikanth movie, only his fans can make a sound. If you are a non-fan and say something mocking, well, leave the address to your coffin.

Well, this time, I watched the film in a multiplex. Families and kids. So even if I had said something, I probably wouldn’t have got my ass whooped. Still, I watched quietly and saved everything for my keyboard. So now I’m going to spill my shit out. Here, I am Spartacus. Unyielding. Veracious.

Being 2016, being Kabali, being Rajini, you’d think, mafia being the spine of the story, it’d have all the beef in the universe to make Martin Scorsese take note. The opening scene, is the ending scene. When will writers learn that when you are showing Rajinikanth to be the gangster (especially when he is being released from jail), you know for sure that all his enemy gangsters will be dead, no matter what! Keep a little surprise, man! Henceforth, I want Santa Claus to write all the scripts for Rajini movies.

The story takes place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It’s a beautiful city. But they decided to show only the dark world. The Tamils. Their dark skin. Their dark labour problems. Their dark mafia. In all of this darkness, the only contrast in the colour palette was the ostentatious bling that these gangstas flaunted from start to finish.

After all these great movies in the West about drugs and gangsters, you’d go on to have this divine hope that the Tamil industry would go easy on making every hero a superhero. But nope. First of all, what kind of a gangster is comfortable with only a handful of business associates who also moonlight as security? I comprehend the fact that it is Rajinikanth and he can take care of himself, but he is old now. Besides, he carries only one gun. Not even an extra magazine!

When you are out of commission for 25 years, don’t you need money when you come back? Don’t you still need to be in business? Apparently, when Rajini is a gangster you don’t need to do gangster business to earn money. You just have it all sorted. Somehow he is able to run a free school for drop outs, drug addicts and ex-gangster kids. The funny part is, he himself is a gangster and hires kids on his team. So the point is that when you are in Kabali’s gangster squad, you don’t need to be rehabilitated, life’s all good.

P.A. Ranjith, before I forget, take this — you suck. You suck big time. Basha, for that time, had so much more swag than you have managed to squeeze out of Kabali. To a gangster, his family is very important. I mean to all of us, families are important. But to a gangster, it’s more of a prestige issue. If a gangster has let his enemy harm his family, it would convey that he is weak, incapable of protecting his own family . . . how then will he protect his business and other people who are dependent on him? But you could have involved his family saga in the movie in such a better way. There was no need for all the flashbacks. You have permanently ruined “once upon a time” for me.

I still cannot digest the fact that the director completely omitted to show us or explain Kabali’s business model. Maybe every time Kabali and his men whimsically went after the villains and delivered some soggy dialogues the producers would give them some candy money? Also, I think Indian movies should stop making the villains troll the hero and his affiliated people with dummy guns. Can’t take that shit anymore. If you want to shoot, just pull that plastic trigger and be done with it. Why do you have so many extras pointing all those useless toy guns at one old guy and still end up getting laid low by his stunt double?

Radhika Apte, who plays Rajini’s wife in the movie is a good actor. However, in this movie, she is a bad actor. When you have a bad script and a dumbass director, even a lion becomes a pig. I was happy to know that she was killed by the villains. Good riddance, I thought that’s what she must have thought. But no, she was brought back from the dead 25 years later and made to run for her life again. What torture, marrying Kabali!

Dhansika has tried to play a version of Rooney Mara in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but the result is extremely unpleasing. The director concluded, perhaps, that if she is a girl and an assassin, she’s got to sport a punk bob cut and a lot of badly done temporary tattoos (which keep drastically changing and moving places). By the way, she is Kabali’s daughter, who he reunites with. Sadly.

What’s with the suit? I thought when you wore a suit, you had the license to kill. Oh, wait a minute! That was 007. In Kabali, if you wore a suit, well, you have the license to get killed.

The villain gangsters are real pussies, I tell you. I can’t fathom why they are so scared of Kabali. He is just a vintage chap with a few old friends who masturbate on the rusted bullets in their guns. Then again, it is Rajini. He can get bin Laden to marry Gandhi if he wanted to.

Movies in the south always thrive on comedy. In Kabali, there is nothing to laugh about. Nothing to cry for. Absolutely nothing to rejoice about. The soundtrack was the only saving grace. The movie was a drab, unsexy 150-minute quest for finding his family, which he could very well have done without us having to sit and watch. I liked the free trailer on YouTube. Not the full movie I spent 200 bucks for. Kabali, no magizhchi for you.

Reminds me of the famous Bruce Lee quote: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” With all due reverence and respect for you as a great human being, I am afraid, Rajinikanth Sir, we are no longer afraid of your 10,000th kick. You have overdone it. It’s the same kick and it doesn’t give us any kick anymore. I know it’s the directors asking you to do lame stuff, not you per se. However, you could say no to them, yes? Maybe make meaningful cinema? You have earned that. But not the right to disappoint us, after all that hype.

P.S. Watch out for Tony Stark. He makes a sensational cameo.

Photo by Soloman Soh

#kabali #kollywood #radhika apte #rajinikanth #hollywood

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theseventhhex · 5 years

Text

Kevin Garrett Interview

Kevin Garrett

Kevin Garrett twists up soulful tradition with singer-songwriter spirit, lush instrumentation, and alternative adventurousness. The Pittsburgh-born Grammy Award-nominated artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer echoes the kind of grit meant to be smoothed out only on vinyl and emanates the ambition of a 21st century festival draw on his 2019 full-length debut, ‘Hoax’. His brand of bold and blunt soul unfolds on singles such as ‘In Case I Don't Feel’ and ‘Faith You Might’. Kevin Garrett is perpetually an artist to watch. Introduced to many as a collaborator on Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ album, the Pittsburgh native has amassed a solid audience of his own following two EP releases, sold out US and UK headline tours and a strong support history including Mumford & Sons, Alessia Cara, and James Vincent McMorrow. In an industry surrounded by repetition and pressure to change, Kevin Garrett holds true to himself while continuing to evolve the model as an artist and songwriter… We talk to Kevin about having restraint, Frank Ocean and performing on Stephen Colbert…

TSH: With ‘Hoax’, were your intentions once again to get specific emotions and reactions and put them into songs to see if they resonate?

Kevin: The general concept of my songwriting and expressions whatever the message I’m trying to get across all normally falls under the same umbrella. For me, personally, the reason that I write music is for myself. It’s more often than not the only way that I’ve been good at expressing things from my own point of view. I also put it out for everyone else to see if there is anything that resonates.

TSH: Was the notion of you talking to yourself a communication tool that you used to find catharsis in your music making process?

Kevin: Yeah, I mean you just try and get around another corner and then there are a bunch more corners to get around. I just take it one step at a time. My opinions on the turmoil and madness in the world is something that I’ve kept to myself because I’m just an entertainer. The real reason I write is to pull apart a specific set of emotions and I then analyse those emotions and unpack them for my personal realisation.

TSH: What sort of simplicity do you look to imply with your instrumentation?

Kevin: The one thing that I have always sort of lived by is the idea of restraint and the beauty of watching something breathe on its own, rather than trying to fill every void with another sound. This paired with a conscious commitment to making something analogue and very organic created a sort of cinematic landscape for the body of work for this album.

TSH: How rewarding was it to have collaborators on board for this record that were as passionate as you were?

Kevin: It was so gratifying. I had a very eclectic group of musicians that live in the same world as me to help me out. Rob Moose, Buddy Ross and the singers from Third Story were all great. It’s rare to find people like this in the music industry. These days I feel like we’ve fallen to the fleetingness of success and the root of it still has to live in quality over quantity. However, we went into the session with 13 songs and came out with an album that was 13 songs long - nothing got cut. We stuck to what we intended to make all along.

TSH: What sort of incentives and direction did you have in mind as you readied the track ‘Warn’?

Kevin: I wrote that song Mississauga, Ontario with a guy named Frank Dukes. It was written in a very similar way that I wrote ‘Pray You Catch Me’ where it was all lyrics first and then I’d scratch stuff out so it fit the melodies that I would come up with. I guess it was almost like erasure poetry. Also, as soon as I wrote that song in 2016 I knew that it would open the record, especially with the nuance and subtleties that were in the lyrics. In addition to this the structure of song builds really well to the rest of the music.

TSH: Is ‘How Dare We Fall’ one of the songs that you want your listeners to interpret and come at from different angles?

Kevin: Yeah, I actually think it’s the case with the whole record - you can look at it and move in a 360 degree sort of fashion - the listener can look at similar experiences from different lenses. That song for me in particular evokes some feelings of anger and frustration, but it’s up to others how they perceive it. I feel it has a different energy compared to the other songs. It was an opportunity for me to step out of the more perpetually sad box that my others songs are in.

TSH: What sort of qualities of Frank Ocean do you admire mostly?

Kevin: I don’t know Frank personally; I’ve only met him once or twice, but I admire him so much. Whether he’s doing it deliberately or not, with his music there’s a very visible and heavy measure of intention. It seems like he’s very purposeful and deliberate with the decisions that he makes, but somehow he manages to do it effortlessly, which is so cool. His last record took the less is more route - there were not too many drums or production on some songs and that’s something that I am really fond of. He truly is a generational talent, that’s for sure.

TSH: Are you still passionate about how social media is challenging us in a bad way and that it’s filtering out real communication?

Kevin: Yeah, it’s a double edged sword in many ways. I don’t see many pros anymore, it’s mainly just cons. Social media has for better or worse become more than half of my job. I like having the opportunity to communicate with my fans and other artists because some of my touring opportunities have come through direct messages on social media. Nonetheless, the more that we have become bound to our screens, the more it’s sort of just eliminated the element of listening to stuff with real intent. The way that people consume music now and watch things and the narratives that get created via social media even though they are real or not have become this sort of false advertising. The conversation I want to have about social media is less about how it helps me and more about how it’s not really helped anything in general.

TSH: Do you get much time away from being creative with music?

Kevin: Well, lately I’ve just been trying to drown myself in my work. Where I’m at currently in my life means I need more constant distractions. It’s nice to get outside and stuff, but I don’t necessarily like going outside because there are people there, ha! I’ve recently been trying to hone in on what I need in my life and working on just being more creative and burying myself in this type of lifestyle.

TSH: Judging by your Instagram you’re a cool uncle when you find spare time...

Kevin: Ha! Well spotted, and thanks for checking it out. I wish I was an uncle but that’s one of my best mates’ kids and I’m like the fake uncle, haha! When I’m in Brooklyn I try and see them as much as I can. He’s been my barber for six years and we’ve become really close. I hang with them as much as I can. I have two younger sisters, so we’ll see how long it takes before I become an official uncle! In the meantime, I’ll steal others peoples kids to be there uncle, ha!

TSH: What was the experience like in performing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert recently?

Kevin: I can’t speak for every artist but that kind of stuff is very high pressure. I’m already very sensitive enough as a person; even a twig breaking can tilt things over for me. I remember that day was particularly stressful for several reasons. However, when everyone on my team and Stephen and his team was telling me how great it was, it was enough for me afterwards to take my perfectionist goggles off. There was a moment when they were turning the whole lighting system on in the theatre and it felt surreal because I was introduced to some of my favourite artists and bands watching Letterman in this very same theatre. So to perform there myself was amazing. Also, just being there for Stephen and watching his team work their magic and to see how the show operates in real time was a real honour.

TSH: What’s your main goal as you look ahead?

Kevin: The goal is to resonate with others and to be connective. If I can creatively keep refining my process and my product - regardless of whether the pubic agrees with my output - if I know that I’m happiest with it and it’s the best work that I’ve done so far, then I’m going to be content and pleased. I’ve never really written songs for a prolific output, I’ve always been very intentional with my writing - it’s never looked at like a business for me. Instead, it’s just how I’m getting my thoughts out. Whatever is next for me will be including me cataloguing and organising what’s in my head. I have a lot left to say and hopefully if people keep coming to my shows and keep listening to my music, then you’ll be hearing a lot from me sooner rather than later.

Kevin Garrett - “It Don’t Bother Me At All”

Hoax

#Interview #Kevin Garrett

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