#he’s just as much a dramatic showman as the rest of the order

[lucifra-writes]

Concept: Star Wars AU where everything is the same except for that like five minutes before Yoda shows up to confront chancellor Emperor Palpatine, Quinlan Vos drops from the ceiling and splits him in half before he even notices anything’s wrong

[reinvent-and-believe]

48 from dialogue prompts + 50 from wordless i-love-yous for geraskier?

Dialogue Prompt 48: “You make me want things I can’t have.” Wordless I-love-you 50: buying them a special treat when you go out shopping

--

It catches Geralt’s eye while he haggles over an outrageously priced jar of alchemy paste with a none-too-impressed herbalist on the outskirts of Novigrad, a buxom widow with thick-braided auburn hair by the name of Irmina.

“This for sale too?” He picks up the brooch from the countertop where it rests in a beam of golden light streaming through a dingy window. He examines it. It’s simple enough metalwork, a brass oval with a scalloped edge, but inlaid in its face is a single pressed yellow flower framed by tiny white blooms encased in resin.

The herbalist’s dour demeanour brightens immediately. “It is indeed!” she answers, her brown eyes shining in a plump, suddenly pleasant face. “Made it myself just last week. It’s something of a hobby of mine, making pretty knick-knacks from the flowers we can’t sell. Got plenty more like this if you’d like to peruse ‘em, master witcher! Forget-me-nots and arenaria, hellebore, violets, any flower you might like.”

A buttercup, he realizes belatedly. That’s the yellow flower in the center.

“No.” He sees Irmina’s brow furrow in offense, so he hastens to appease her. “No need, I’ll take this one. I...I’m partial to buttercups.”

Her freckled face breaks into a sly, knowing smile. “Oh, aye, I’m sure someone is partial to buttercups.” She winks, waving away his stammered attempts at an answer. “Never you mind, I know a man besotted when I see one, and it seems a witcher’s not so different. Tell you what. Fifty crowns for the paste and I’ll throw the brooch in for only ten.”

-

Leaving the herbalist’s shop with an overpriced paste, a lighter purse, and a useless trinket, Geralt curses himself for a fool.

He’s not sure why he bought it.

He knows buttercups are Jaskier’s favorite, of course. “None but the noblest of flowers for my sobriquet!” Jaskier had squawked indignantly when Geralt once made the grave mistake of referring to the pesky things as weeds after he’d stopped Roach from chomping on a patch of the bright, poisonous blooms.

They are weeds, buttercups. They serve no function. They can’t be used in any of the potions, decoctions, or oils Geralt brews, nor do they have any particularly helpful curative properties for humans.

“As ever, my dear witcher, you have no sense of poetry,” Jaskier had sighed in a most put-upon voice when told as much. “Their function is they’re pretty. Their function is to enrich our lives through the beauty of the natural world.” He’d looked to the sky, tip of his tongue between his teeth showing through his frown as was his custom when puzzling through the right way to turn a phrase. “From a strictly utilitarian perspective, perhaps the buttercup has less value than, say, moleyarrow, or verbena, or chamomile, even. Some plants provide nutritional or medicinal or alchemical qualities of various sorts. But some exist to make life worth living! To transform the banal into the sublime.” He’d plucked a buttercup from the roadside, twirling it between his long fingers. “It’s graceful and balanced, effortlessly beautiful. It’s vibrant, bright like...like sunlight, on a summer afternoon! And when you see it growing alongside the various and sundry flora, it fills you with the loveliest burst of warmth, like a lover’s smile.”

“So...it’s a pretty weed.”

“You’re incorrigible, witcher, that’s what you are.” Jaskier had huffed dramatically before tucking the buttercup behind Geralt’s ear, his face alight with a delighted grin.

Like sunlight on a summer afternoon.

-

The Kingfisher Inn is crowded when Geralt arrives. He goes to the bar, orders an ale from Olivier, and leans against the counter to take a look at the stage.

Jaskier loves playing the Kingfisher. In many of the inns he plays across the Continent, he’s relegated to a corner to try to sing over the clang of dinner, his only option to win the common folk over a raucous drinking song or a filthy ditty. And while the bard doesn’t shy away from such vulgarities, the patrons of the Kingfisher tend to be of a more artistically inclined ilk, responding with appropriate gusto to the virtuosic art songs that he rarely performs outside of competitions or Oxenfurt.

Or so he’d explained to Geralt when he’d suggested they meet up at the inn.

Jaskier sits atop a tall stool on a rather large stage framed by crimson curtains, his sky-blue doublet a vivid contrast. The audience, enraptured, listens to his ballad, a melancholy tale of a fair maiden who’s violently killed before she can profess her love to a farmhand in her village, a beautiful, strong, kind man whose hair shines like a blaze of pale fire in the sunlight. Her love for him tethers her to this world, and her spirit—bitter, weary, and endlessly yearning—calls the men working in the fields to join her dance at midday, when the sun is in its zenith, hoping against hope for the chance to finally confess to her beloved.

In the end, the brave, noble farmhand sacrifices himself, hoping to stop the spirit’s killings by listening to her song and joining her as she beckons. And as they are reunited, as she finally kisses the lips she’s longed for in a blinding blaze of sunlight, they pass on together, their spirits becoming one.

It’s a contract Geralt worked a few years ago, a noonwraith outside Oreton—or at least something close. As ever, Jaskier has taken artistic liberties, romanticized the actual events (“Sometimes, in our pursuit of Truth, we must sacrifice the facts,” Jaskier loftily explained on more than one occasion. He seemed quite taken with the profundity he seemed to find in the statement. Geralt called it pretentious once and Jaskier hurled a chunk of bread at his head). Once it might have bothered Geralt, but he’s grown accustomed to Jaskier’s rather malleable relationship with veracity in his ballads. There’s no denying the impact of his storytelling: when Geralt glances around the inn, he sees several patrons discreetly dabbing at their eyes.

It’d been an ugly case, leaving him feeling empty, drained. Noonwraiths haunt his thoughts far longer than most the monsters he dispatches. They’re victims of circumstance more than anything, young women who’ve been transformed into bloodthirsty, violent spirits through no fault of their own, through the violence inflicted upon them. Nearly forty men had fallen prey to her before the farmhand distracted her with his kiss—though Geralt would hesitate to classify his grotesque, gruesome sacrifice as such—so the witcher had a chance to strike her down with silver. Jaskier has spun the miserable tale into something beautiful, moving, something that clearly resonates with his captivated audience, that speaks to a greater force at work than the chaotic, banal evils the witcher sees every day, and Geralt thinks he understands, for a moment, what the bard had told him of Truth and facts.

(Geralt doesn’t know what greater Truth is served by changing the beloved farmhand’s hair from the dull brown it really was to “a blaze of pale fire,” but then, Geralt’s not a poet.)

The final notes hang in the air, all eyes fixed on Jaskier for a rapt, breathless moment before the room bursts into wild applause. Jaskier stands and bows deeply, once, twice, a third time, surveying the room as he offers his thanks. When his gaze catches Geralt at the bar, his expression of showman’s grace vanishes, a flash of something that looks almost alarmed for a split second before it’s replaced by a small, gentle smile.

Geralt nods and raises his mug toward the stage in cheers, draining the remainder. Jaskier is quickly swept into the swarm of captivated fans, accepting their praises with a gracious, if distracted, smile.

The witcher turns back to the barkeep to order himself another ale along with a glass of wine.

“Geralt!” Jaskier swerves to avoid a near-collision with a frenzied barmaid on his way to join his companion at the bar. He grabs the wine glass with a groan of appreciation, taking a swig before asking, “Is this for me? Gods, but you’re a marvel, darling, I thank you.” He takes another sip and sends a disarming, roguish wink to a pair of girls staring at him and giggling to each other. “I wasn’t sure when you’d arrive, but it wouldn’t have mattered, I suppose, they only had one room to let when I checked in and it hasn’t cleared out since. You’ll share mine, of course, but I’ve been here a week so, you know, best brace yourself, I’ve quite made the place my own.”

Geralt snorts. He’s stayed in enough rooms that Jaskier has made his own over the past decade to predict with some certainty what mess he’ll soon venture into.

(Doublets draped over furniture after they’ve been discarded; crumpled sheets of paper tossed near, never in the fireplace; a few near-empty bottles of wine; a shirt hung to dry over the modesty screen between the sleeping and bathing areas; bottles of a dozen oils and perfumes and soaps scattered haphazard near the tub; an unmade bed that may well contain an abandoned undergarment or forgotten stocking left by some well-satisfied guest.)

“Have you eaten? Shall we? I’m starved, felt jittery all afternoon and didn’t eat a damned thing which was all well and good until I got onstage and suddenly wished for a fainting couch. Or we could take your things up to the room first, of course. Oh! We could have them bring our dinner up to us, it’s awfully crowded down here tonight and I’m not sure I’m up to socializing all evening, to be honest, I’ve been dreadfully out of sorts, did you notice, Geralt, that I’ve…”

Jaskier continues his ramblings, and the witcher can’t help a twinge of worry for his friend. It’s not unheard of for Jaskier to be in a heightened state over a particularly important performance, but usually afterwards the nerves dissipate and he seems more himself. Not to mention, why would playing in an inn prompt such anxieties? Even if the Kingfisher clientele trends toward the more refined than the country folk he often plays for, it’s still rather a low-stakes environment to trigger such stress.

“New song?” he asks casually. Jaskier always beams when he notices such things, when he makes an effort to ask about his music.

Instead, Jaskier blushes, looking away with an expression that almost seems guilty. “Ah, yes, well, I wasn’t certain when you’d be arriving, of course, I thought I might try out something different, a sort of test audience, as it were, to feel out the piece before I use it for anything important.” The look he’s fixed on Geralt seems almost wary. “Did you...like the song?”

Geralt shrugs. “Not quite how it happened,” he grumbles, out of habit more than anything.

A smile, genuine and rueful, breaks out on Jaskier’s face. “Gods, I’ve missed you, my friend,” he says, shaking his head and looking away quickly.

“Hmm.” He reaches quickly into the coin pouch at his side, thrusting the trinket from the herbalist into Jaskier’s hand with a brusque, “Here.”

“Whatever have we got…” He cuts off as opens his palm. “Oh.”

There have been so few times over the years that Geralt has seen Jaskier speechless that he begins to worry he’s offended him. He turns the brooch over in his hands, once, twice, his thumb swiping gently over its smooth enamel face. He doesn’t look up.

Even in the crowded room, Geralt can smell the shift in his demeanor, the muted sickly-sweet anxious smell becoming something sharp, metallic, pained, like he’s been stabbed. “You’re upset.”

“I...no.” Jaskier shoves the brooch into his trouser pocket, a tense smile on his face, not at all reaching his eyes. “Thank you, Geralt, it’s lovely. Shall we take your bags to the room now?”

“I didn’t...I didn’t get it to upset you.”

Jaskier laughs, a broken thing, and Geralt grows even more alarmed. “You didn’t, it isn’t that, sometimes I want things I can’t have is all.” He grabs the saddlebag sitting at Geralt’s feet, not meeting his eyes as he rushes past him up the stairs to the last bedroom in the hall.

Geralt follows after a moment, giving his companion a respectful distance. There’s a tightness in his shoulders, a knot in his gut that only grows as he watches Jaskier’s hand tremble on the key as he unlocks the door.

It was a stupid idea. He knew it was stupid when he bought it, yet he bought it anyway, somehow ruined everything anyway.

“Here we are.” Jaskier’s voice is filled with a forced cheer as he sets the bag down, hand never leaving the doorknob. “I’ll go fetch us some supper. Or, actually, you know, now that I think of it, I’ve a few errands to run before it gets too late, meant to do it earlier but you know how it goes, lost track of time…”

“Jaskier.” Geralt moves toward him but stops himself, helpless. “Please. I’m sorry I upset you.”

Jaskier stands in the doorway for another moment. He takes a deep breath, closes the door, and walks slowly to the writing desk in the corner. He pulls the chair out, moving the doublet strewn across it before sitting. He doesn’t look at Geralt.

“You didn’t.” Every word is calculated, deliberate. “What kind of ungrateful wretch gets upset over...over an exceptionally thoughtful gift from a friend after a time apart?”

Geralt sits on the edge of the bed. His elbows rest on his knees, fingers locking together as he stares at the floor. “You’re not a wretch. The fault is mine.”

“Dammit, Geralt, there isn’t fault, I only—why did you bring me a gift?”

Geralt frowns. “I’ve bought you things before,” he says slowly.

“Things, yes!” Jaskier vaults from the chair, pacing listlessly about the room, no longer trying to mask his inexplicable distress. “Lute strings when I broke a string and I was low on coin. The lute is my livelihood, it made financial sense for you to replace the string so I could pull my own weight, help you when we pass through several towns in a row with no contracts. Boots when you noticed the hole in the heel of my old pair, because I slow you down limping about in footwear that’s falling apart. Room and board, sometimes, because you know I’m good for it, I’ll cover you the next time.” He’s stopped pacing, stares silent into the fireplace.

“Wasn’t keeping a tab.” Geralt’s voice is quiet. “You needed strings and boots and food and a room.”

Jaskier doesn’t turn to face him, but Geralt sees his hand slip into his pocket, pull out the brooch. His head bends, studying it.

He’s not offended or annoyed or angered by the gift. He’s hurt. But why?

Except...

Jaskier looked guilty when Geralt brought up the song. Like he’d been caught red-handed. Did you like it? he’d asked. Incredulous.

The noonwraith singing her song in hopes that her beloved hears her confession. That he’ll hear her song of longing and come to her.

Hair like a blaze of pale fire, not dull brown.

Sometimes I want things I can’t have.

“Geralt?”

The witcher snaps back to attention, eyes fixed on Jaskier, finally facing him.

“Why did you get it for me, Geralt?”

Geralt frowns. “It’s...pretty,” he starts lamely. “I thought you might wear it when you play. You wear gaudy things.”

Jaskier snorts, a small, crooked grin on his lips.

“It made me think of you,” he confesses quietly, his eyes tracing the wood grain of the floor. “Sometimes...things don’t have to have a function. It was a buttercup and it was pretty and it…made me think of you.”

When Geralt dares to raise his eyes, Jaskier’s staring at him, brows drawn together and mouth slightly agape. After a moment, he walks toward the witcher, sitting carefully beside him on the bed. He reaches his hand towards Geralt’s and presses the little brooch into his palm.

“Will you pin it on me?” he asks softly.

Geralt nods.

His fingers feel thick and clumsy as he fumbles with the delicate clasp. The top few buttons of Jaskier’s doublet, as ever, are undone, but it closes neatly just beneath his exposed neck. Geralt slips a finger beneath the satin fabric to pull it away from his throat, cautiously piercing the fabric with the thin pin and sliding it into its slot, locking the clasp with shaking hands.

His hand doesn’t move from Jaskier’s chest. A sword-calloused thumb, seemingly of its own volition, grazes lightly over the bobbing Adam’s apple.

“Geralt.”

He looks up, almost pulls away but for the flushed cheeks, the tongue that darts out to wet pink lips, the hooded eyes beneath dark lashes fixed on Geralt’s mouth. Jaskier’s breath is warm against his face. When did they draw so close?

“Are you going to kiss me, Geralt?” The breathy whisper is laced with wonder.

And he didn’t...didn’t buy the brooch to entice Jaskier into anything, didn’t mean to solicit any sort of reward, and he opens his mouth to tell him so, yet as his rough hand moves to gently cup the back of Jaskier’s neck the words that tumble out instead are, “I’d like to.”

And Jaskier throws back his head and laughs, a euphoric, intoxicated sound, as his lovely hands cradle Geralt’s face. He brings his forehead to rest against Geralt’s as they still, breathing each other for a moment before Jaskier surges forward to capture his lips.

His kiss tastes like sunlight.

[rjhpandapaws]

Cue and Call

Ch 1: Subtle as a Brick

Gavin hadn’t really thought about source checking the article when he saw the first one, or any of them really. He just skimmed over it while he was drinking his coffee in the morning. It made him think of Hank, he loved speculation pieces like this. It wasn’t that he necessarily believed them, he just enjoyed learning what people hoped would happen. He checked the time and then sent the article to Hank. He was on set right about now. He was six hours ahead so he probably would be able to look at it for a while. Gavin was fine with that. He just wanted Hank to know that he had been thought of. They weren’t a couple exactly. While they were interested in one another, Hank wanted to wait to try anything until both of their schedules calmed down. So for now it was text messages whenever one of them had the time, and if they were lucky maybe a phone call in the evening. Dodging the press was definitely the most exhausting part. They could only give so many evasive non-answers before the smartest of them began to suspect that something was up. Which would have been fine. Hank was great at being subtle; Gavin, on the other hand, was not. He felt like it was written all over his face whenever someone so much as mentioned Hank.

It wasn’t even that Gavin wanted people to know. They just didn’t want the press and thereby the rest of the world finding out until they were sure about whatever this was. There were some people on Gavin’s end that knew; his high school friends Chris and Tina; and Richard who had found out when Gavin had a little too much to drink and pilled his guts. They had all been sworn to secrecy of course. Hank got back to the states about three months after the first article had cropped up. They planned to meet for drinks that weekend before he and Hank were both whisked off to work on separate projects. Gavin’s was just a bit of voice work and then he would be off again. Hank hadn’t said what his next thing was. Gavin was looking forward to seeing him again. They didn’t get to see each other in person outside of work very often. On the Friday before they were going to meet up the plan changed. Hank decided he would rather join Gavin at his place than go out. Which was something Gavin could understand, being surrounded by people so soon after coming home could be exhausting. After being over seas with an entire filming crew Hank probably wanted something that was easy and quiet. There was also the added bonus of by staying in they wouldn’t run the risk of being seen. All Gavin had to do was decide if he wanted to cook or order takeout.

He decided to cook, it was something not many people knew he was good at. Spending Saturday morning grocery shopping made him regret that a little, but he could think of worse things he could be doing with his day. There was something about cooking for the people you cared about. Gavin was inclined to believe it was a love language of its own. Gavin had decided on lasagna. Both his mother and his grandmother taught him that is was a dish you made to welcome someone home. In the years since he had moved out he tweaked the family recipe for convenience sake in ways that would make his grandmother roll in her grave. Tonight though, he was using the one he had learned growing up. He had plenty of time today. Hank rang the door bell as Gavin was putting the lasagna in the oven. He set the timer and then answered the door despite the fact that his kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off and Gavin had been on of its unfortunate victims. Hank eyed him with an amused smile as he stepped inside. “You look like you’ve had an eventful day.” He said in way of a greeting. 

“Yeah.” Gavin laughed, “As it turns out tomatoes will try and get revenge if you forget to put the lid on the food processor.” Hank stared at him as they made their way into the kitchen and Gavin wasn’t sure if his expression was one of amusement, disappointment, or both. “You forgot to put the lid on your food processor?” “Well yes and no.” He clarified as Hank sat at the bar, “I thought I could shave off a little time if I put the ingredients while the thing was running. So when I needed to put the garlic in I took the lid off and then didn’t put it back on.” Hank shook his head with a laugh, “I would have thought that you of all people would have invested in a food processor with an ingredient lid.” Gavin looked up from where he had been scrubbing at a particularly stubborn tomato stain, “With a what?” Hank took out his phone and after a few moments showed him a picture of a food processor that looked like it had a chimney shoot on the lid, “One of these.” “That’s the one I have, I just didn’t realize that was why the lid was so fucking weird.” He remarked.

That earned him another laugh from Hank, “Only you would buy something designed to make your life easier and still do things the hard way.” Gavin gestured like a showman to his warzone of a kitchen, “The one and only.” “So what made you decide to cook?” Hank asked, “The last time I got this sort of treatment from you was when you held me hostage after my car accident.” “You mean when I was making sure you were taking care of yourself.” He shot back, “You were gone for a long time, I figured you would want something home cooked.” He moved on from cleaning the counter to cleaning the stove, “How was filming?” That earned him a very dramatic groan, “If I never have to work with that director again it will be too soon. He refused to listen to any of us and fired anyone who questioned his decisions on the spot.” Gavin grimaced, “Yikes.” “The thing is probably going to flop anyway.” Hank continued, “By the end the crew was too small to make anything of quality. Which sucks because  we started out with such a great team and a lot of potential, Then the director went and shot us all in the foot.” He gave an annoyed sigh, “It is what it is I suppose. Not like there is anything I can do about it now.”

“So what about the D:BH thing?” Gavin asked to change to a lighter subject, “How do you think that’s all going to pan out?” “Assuming that it’s real, I think it is going to do really well.” Hank replied, “They’ve got some pretty big promises to keep though.” “You’re excited then?” He asked as he finished cleaning the worst of the mess and came to sit behind Hank. “Oh fuck yeah.” Hank laughed, “I get to harass you and get paid for it.” Gavin rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, fuck you too.” They moved on to lighter topics after that. Gavin drank more than he probably should have should have at dinner, but it had been a long time since they had been able to do something like this. On top of that, Gavin had the tendency to lose track of himself with Hank. The conversations came easy and his carefully constructed walls crumbled like sand in the wind. Hank never seemed to mind, or if he had he hadn’t let on. Though come morning Gavin didn’t remember much after they had moved to the living room, so he couldn’t be sure if Hank had said anything or not. He woke up on his couch with good night and good morning texts from hank so he found it safe to assume he hadn’t done anything too out of line.

The next time he heard from Hank was when he called at ass-o-clock in the morning to tell him the show had been approved. Gavin had given a tired hum in response and had been back asleep before he could be given anymore details or properly hang up. Usually he was left in the dark because of his tendency to talk about the projects he was in online. Silas had been nice enough to add him to the group chat though, so that was fun. He was excited to see everyone again, but what he was looking forward to the most was getting to work along side Hank again. They would have to mind themselves around everyone else though. So this, whatever it was, would stay under wraps. It was going to be difficult, but Gavin was pretty sure he could handle it. He was alright with being subtle. “You’re staring.” Richard’s voice made him nearly jump out of his skin. “No I wasn’t.” He replied and made a point of looking anywhere but at Hank. “If you say so.” Then with that he was off to talk to Connor again. So maybe this was going to be more of a problem than he had thought. That was fine. He would figure something out, eventually.

[delanyb]

Since I’ve been slacking off with the Fnaf headcanon series for quite some time now, with no good reason, have some AR skins and event character headcanons

Shamrock Freddy

Like Frostbear and Firework Freddy,he’s a Freddy made specifically for the holidays. St. Patrick day to be exact

Has a Irish ascent to go with his holiday theme

Similar to Rockstar Freddy, he desires Faz-coin to a unhealthy degree

Enjoys talking about St. Patrick day traditions and folklore.

Is pretty self-centered

Usually picks on Frostbear for no good reason

All the other animatronics who take part in the Fazbear Funtime Service either are indifferent to him like Chica or 8 Bit Baby. While others like regular Freddy and Bonnie hate him for just being a overall jerk

In some instances when the animatronics are being shipped together in trucks for customers, a Shamrock Freddy always seems to cause some sort of commotion that usually leaves everyone in mangled animatronic parts by the end

The company was actually considering removing him off from the service completely given all the problem he caused

But considering that he makes for great revenue during the St. Patrick day season, they just left him alone for the other animatronics to deal with.

Firework Freddy

Aside from Chica with her cupcake, he’s the only one who comes with a accessory.

Has lots of nicknames, but the most common ones are Firework and just Summer Freddy

All the other animatronics find his firework very cool

Springtrap however does not becuase anything that goes boom gives him flashbacks to when the springlocks snappped back in the saferoom all those years ago...

Is a expert on cooking with a barbecue

Has a lot of knowledge on sport related stuff from all over the world

Hates the cold

However he doesn’t hate Frostbear and feels bad for him becuase of Shamrock Freddy’s constant bullying

Has a lot of extras clothes and extra accessories that correspond with the traditions of the customer(s) that ordered a vist from him

For instance, he may be all decked out for 4th of July one year, and the next you’ll see a bear ready for the beach and so fourth.

Constantly switching his attire for each visit does get a little annoying, but for him, making people happy in the end makes it worth all the hassle.

VR Toy Freddy

Is a completely different entity than regular Toy Freddy

Is the textbook definition of absolute gamer chad

Playing video games takes first priority for him

Recently he’s been playing the newest instalment in the fnamh’s (Five Nights At Mr Hug’s) series

He’s quite clumsy and bumps into other animatronics or common house things likes selves on a daily basis

But on the rare chance he’s not using his headset he’s usually making absurd theorys on what’s going on with the lore in the new Vr game

His main theory is that that this new strange crate looking character escaped from dumper purgatory from the previous game in the series and placed themselves into the in universe VR game.

Shamrock Freddy question why he’s still invested in that series though. As he states, the original trilogy is the best and that it all went downhill once that weird gumball machine used paper plates as a skin suit.

Whenever He or anyone else for that matter says something along the lines of that, VR Toy Freddy always goes into essay long arguments for why he’s wrong. He’s very quick to defend his favourite franchise

Jokes that he’s The Man Behind The Slaugher unironically even when the meme has died ( *In this universe the man behind the slaughter meme exists because of the Fnaf 1 news paper clippings, along with the fact that Springtrap is a well known entity thanks to HW, and the Fazbear Funtime service.*

Chocolate Bonnie

Nicknames are Choco Bonnie, and unfortunately as immature as it, Poop Bonnie

He’s made of real actual chocolate

Once somebody’s dog took a big bite out of his bottom right stomach area that simply couldn’t be repaired. The dog took 87 bites out of him btw

That’s why every single copy of the Chocolate Bonnie model scanned in after that day has that big and distracting hole

His three button and botie are mint candy flavoured

Real Easter eggs are hidden inside his stomach cavity and are placed near his endo parts

Though he’s more appropriate for Easter time, sometime he’s advertised for the Halloween season for that trick or treat goodness

Similar to Bon-Bon and Funtime Freddy , Easter and Chocolate Bonnie are a two in one package.

Given the surprising popularity of the Funtime Service, (*in universe*) a merch store has being set up to only spread word of their brand but to bring these beloved characters in the pop culture consensus again, and Chocolate Bonnie gets a bunch of merch

Whether it be a coffee mug,a shirt, or the type of chocolate bunny you’ll see in those craft stores, Cholocate Bonnie has it all.

Easter Bonnie

Is very dramatic and has a showman like personality. (Similar to Funtime Foxy in UCN)

His Easter egg pattern on his stomach area is actually drawn with crayons and the circles are get plain circle shaped stickers you would find at the your local dollar store. Goes to show that the Fazbear Funtime Service sticks to the roots of Fazbear Entertainment, being really cheep

How Easter and Chocolate Bonnie entertain customers is that Easter Bonnie usually has a “dramatic” retelling of the Easter bunny fairytale while Chocolate Bonnie’s the food, customers can eat while enjoying the play

He’s quite athletic

The “Happy Easter” tag on the top of his ear isn’t actually a intentional design choice

Easter Bonnie just stole it from a random candy store nearby

Some confuse him as a winter themed Bonnie covered in snow due to his mainly white colour palette. Considering that Freddy Frostbear’s a thing that isn’t that much of a stretch

Can perfectly imitate any of the other animatronic’s voices. It honestly shocks animatronics like Springtrap or Foxy with how well Easter Bonnie can capture this respective accents to a tee

He prefers to hop like a actual bunny than walking normally

Loves decorating Easter eggs.

Toxic Springtrap

All that purple goo is actually just fungi infected with some of that classic remnant

Due to his frightening nature he’s only available during Halloween time

However despite his looks he’s actually quite kind at heart. Much more than regular Springtrap that’s for sure

Is actually scared of the dark

He likes playing chess

Doesn’t like the fact that he’s advertised as something to be feared

Usually hangs around with 8-Bit Baby the most and the two usually play board games all day

Although like everyone else he feels some sort of discomfort whenever he’s shocked, the pain is really minor for him compared to other animatronics

Given that he’s only desired during the month of spooks, for the rest of the year, he’s left alone at the factory where all the animatronics are constructed and duplicated in the first place

Due to this he’s got a pleta of abandonment isssues

System Error Toy Bonnie

His head, body and limbs can be detached and put back together very easily

That’s how he entertains customers in fact. He’s basically a animatronic sized construction set, similar to Mangle

Their eyes glow bright orange in darkness

Is able to phaze through physical objects

Due to some people complaining about regular Toy Bonnie’s voicebox, the team chose to implant stock computer sound effects into System Error Toy Bonnie’s voicebox rather than actual dialogue.

Knows your WiFi password

Is taller than regular Toy Bonnie

The system error phrase near his stomach area gets brighter amd brighter whenever his costume shell is damaged

Static electricity flows through him from time to time. So it recommend that whenever a customer should wear gloves and other appropriate safety equipment when interacting with the animatronic

Balloon Boy always tries to get the static electricity balloon trick to work, but it never seems to work. System Error Toy Bonnie could really care less about this ordeal though

Highscore Toy Chica

Loves playing video games

But unlike Vr Toy Freddy, Her life doesn’t focus on it 24/7

She likes playing a variety of games too. virtual games, handheld games, games on consoles, board games, etc

Is very supportive

Knows what emojis are

Considering that she’s meant to be hip with the kids, she knows a lot about current gaming and fandom culture in general

Is a pretty good speed runner when it comes to video games

Although it doesn’t happen often she can get quite serious when it comes to gaming. You can tell when she’s just playing for fun or not if her endoskeleton eyes and grey are exposed

is indifferent to the term “Gamer Girl”

Hates games where you can’t skip the cutscenes

Radioactive Foxy

A random model of Foxy accidentally found his way into a power plant and eventually got covered in radioactive goo

The higher ups working for the Fazbear Funtime service thought that it would be a shame to throw out a perfectly good plush suit and endo. So after some strange testing involving remnant they just rebranded this as a completely new skin.

Green radioactive material drips over his body all all times

His hook is twice as big as regular Foxy’s. Probably due to the combination of experimenting with both remnant and toxic radioactive goo

Has no eyebrows due to the constant radioactive energy

Thanks to Radioactive Foxy’s transparent look, this was the first time any of the customers got a real good look on the inerworkings on how a endo properly fits into a plush suit.

Is on the hunt for and wants to consume more radioactive energy

Can transform into a more liquid based form

He’s slower than regular foxy but sill runs at a moderately fast pace

One of the more aggressive animatronics in the service alongside the likes of regular Springtrap and Frostbear

8-Bit Baby

Similar to Highscore Toy Chica, she’s meant to be marketed to the gaming crowd.

Specifically those who enjoy old school videogames

Can despense real cupcakes for eating pleasure

Has a extra sprinkler perfect for ice cream decorating

Her fan operates correctly and henceforth can be used for cooling or drying needs

Her microphone is preprogrammed with chiptune styled music

Has become many people’s favourite animatronic and has been in high demand ever since they were first brought to the service due to their uniqueness

Moves at a snail’s pace

Loves playing board games with Toxic Springtrap.

Regualr Circus Baby finds her 8 bit version adorable

[rebelpuff]

“I want to be seen from the heavens!” / @sugarisms​

                    dramatic   as   hell   !   

                    buttercup   rolls   her   eyes   ,   though   a   laugh   slips   through   her   lips.   she   guesses   she   can't   judge   too   much.   the   entire   utonium   family   has   a   flair   for   the   dramatic.   and   they're   all   damn   good   showmans.

                    “   then   sit   still   ,   ”   buttercup   says   ,   wielding   an   eyeliner   pen.   bubbles   usually   does   her   own   makeup   ;   she's   got   a   talent   for   subtle   pastels   that   buttercup   can't   quite   manage.   honestly   ,   bubbles   and   blossom's   makeup   skills   are   both   OBJECTIVELY   better   than   buttercup's   own.   she   rarely   practices   anything   besides   lipstick   application   ,   and   most   of   the   time   it's   just   a   thick   coat   of   lipgloss   or   chapstick   that   she   spends   the   rest   of   the   day   chewing   off.   bubbles   wanted   something   a   little   heavier   than   her   usual   though   ,   and   they   weren't   afforded   a   makeup   artist   today   ,   so   buttercup   is   unfortunately   on   duty.

                    none   of   them   are   super   enthused   about   going   to   the   mayor's   nth   millionth   birthday   party   ,   especially   with   the   GROSS   dress   code   ,   but   the   whole   point   tonight   is   pretty   much   to   outshine   him.   who   wants   to   be   paying   attention   to   a   quadrillion   year   old   crusty   pervert   when   there   are   three   superheroes   made   up   to   the   nines   right   next   to   him   ?   he's   gonna   fucking   hate   it.   it's   gonna   be   so   much   fun.

                    “   look   up   ,   ”   buttercup   orders.   the   mayor   ruined   their   first   birthday   party    ---    the   mayor   and   literally   half   of   the   townsville   prison   population.   it's   only   fair   they   return   the   favor.   since   their   attendance   is   mandatory.   ew.   

jenna marbles memes

[potatocrab]

Salvation is a Last Minute Business (14/18)

Chapter 14: A Face and a Number

After a few weeks of preparation, Nick, Madelyn, and Deacon make their way to Fort Hagen undercover, searching for information on their suspect. At the agency, the group is joined by Piper and Hancock to discuss their findings. Madelyn makes a solo, impromptu visit to Concord. Later, at her apartment, Madelyn is faced with the realization that this time, she may have dug too deep.

“To me, you're a face and a number, and let's keep it that way.” - Cody Jarrett as played by James Cagney (White Heat, 1949)

[read on Ao3] x  [chapter masterpost] 

Just south of Concord, situated between the highway to the east and the hills to the west, was Fort Hagen, a sprawling command center for the United States Armed Forces. The military base was a township in itself—amongst the soldier’s barracks and administration buildings was a gas station, medical clinic, corner grocer, preschool and playground. But this wasn’t like any other town or city in Boston that could be visited while on a scenic drive-by. The satellite arrays, relay towers and other military equipment required the upmost of security measures. One did not simply walk into Fort Hagen.

As much as Nick wanted to storm the gates and follow-up on the lead they had discovered while snooping around Kellogg’s apartment, that was a sure-fire way to find himself locked up in a military prison. No amount of Madelyn’s charm or connections at city-hall would get the detective out of a court martial. And so, the two spent nearly two weeks carefully researching and organizing, coming up with the perfect plan that would get them onto the well-fortified base. A few weeks was nothing in comparison to how long the Eddie Winter investigation dragged on—they knew how to be patient.

Piper was still busy hunting down anything and everything she could about the Institute, so Madelyn and Nick made use of the rest of their resources and contacts throughout the city. MacCready had sweet-talked his way to receiving blueprints of the fort from the registrar’s office downtown. Like most of the files they had, it was heavily redacted, but still provided some clarity on what the two might find inside—if they ever got a chance. Preston and his so-called Minutemen monitored the Parkview Apartments in case Kellogg decided to make an impromptu visit. It was a longshot, but Nick didn’t want to take the risk in allowing the elusive man to slip through anybody’s fingers if there was even the slightest chance he could be caught.

Meanwhile, Madelyn and Nick poured over their case-notes and files, working in tandem with Tinker Tom who had continued to decode and reconfigure redacted report from Railroad cache sights. It was a slow process that ultimately yielded nothing the agency didn’t already know about Fort Hagen or their investigation. A breakthrough didn’t come through until Deacon revealed he’d gone through the old Switchboard files and discovered long-forgotten Defense Intelligence Agency clearances. At first the credentials seemed too good to be true—tucked away in some catacomb just waiting to be found at the opportune time—but Madelyn wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They had their saving grace—all the more fitting that it was found in the basement of a (mostly) abandoned church.

That’s when the real planning started.

Even though the DIA wasn’t technically part of the military, they still belonged to the Department of Defense—the credentials were sure to get them past the security checkpoints at Fort Hagen. All they needed was a plausible reason for being there. Seeing that he was a master of disguise and skilled in the art of lying, Deacon was tasked in creating their personas and cover-stories, while Tinker Tom worked on updating the clearances to match their profiles. It was collectively decided that the best time for their visit would be right before Decoration Day, with the theory the base would be scant of soldiers, the top brass busy with coordinating celebrations elsewhere. The entire operation was full of unknowns and would require a healthy mix of luck and skill to navigate the variables. But this was their only shot if they wanted answers—only time would tell if their plan would work.

May 29th, 1958

Madelyn could tell from her spot in the backseat of Nick’s Cadillac that the detective wasn’t entirely pleased with his role in what Deacon had dubbed Operation ‘Lapins de la Mort’—jaw set tight and gloved hands gripping the steering wheel tight as he drove the trio west towards Fort Hagen.

“Remind me again,” he began in a measured tone. “Why I’m being ousted from my own investigation?”

Perhaps Nick was being a little over dramatic—he wasn’t being removed from the case, but he didn’t necessarily have a starring part in the grand scheme of their undercover operation. Simply put—he was the driver—the go man in the getaway car, on standby in case anything went awry. Safe to say he wasn’t happy about being resigned to wait around while Madelyn and Deacon snooped around inside the facility.

“No offense Valentine,” the Railroad spy mused from the passenger seat. “But since you won’t even try to wear a disguise, you’ll only stick out like a sore thumb.”

Deacon wasn’t wrong. Madelyn glanced up through the rearview mirror to observe Nick’s appearance—his stubble had grown out in the last week and a half, and for once, he’d swapped his tattered fedora and trench coat for a newer, cleaner set. But any Bostonian with a brain and a recent copy of the Boston Bugle or Publick Occurrences would likely be able to recognize him as the hardboiled detective that took Eddie Winter down. Not to say Madelyn hadn’t had her fair share of recognition lately, but it had always been easier for her to blend into the background as Nick’s nameless partner—the broad—she only hoped it would benefit her that day. That, and the long, brunette wig and glasses would help disguise her features.

She was also trying to settle into her undercover identity, chosen to play the part of a DIA investigator, who travelled between military sites to inspect operations and ensure they were running smoothly. Deacon—with a differently styled wig and his signature shades—would act as her second-hand-man. At first, she thought it would be better if their roles were reversed—he was the better liar and showman by far. She was reminded then, that she possessed what neither of her partners did—female persuasion. Madelyn would need to rely on all her skills in order to be successful—litigation, intrigue, investigation, and a whole lot of charm.

“This plan of yours better work,” Nick muttered as he turned down the private road towards the Fort Hagen security checkpoint.

“Our plan,” Deacon corrected, reaching up to adjust his tie. “Little late to start having doubts. I had you pegged as a man of faith.”

“I used to be.”

While Nick’s somber tone worried Madelyn, she didn’t have time to console him the Cadillac slowed, compelled to stop as they were flagged down by an approaching soldier. Another watched the exchange from a small, but well-fortified building, and his expression made it clear he had no intention on raising the barricade—not without knowing their business first.

“This is a secure area,” the armed soldier expressed as soon as Nick rolled down his window. Madelyn peered through the glass to see the name-patch and insignia on his uniform—Specialist Rhys. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to turn around and leave. Immediately.”

Deacon leaned over to address the man on the driver’s side. “Don’t you recognize a DIA agent when you see one?”

He wiggled his badge for the soldier, who bent in to try to get a better look at both his and Nick’s credentials. Madelyn straightened in her spot, attempting to look as dignified and important as she thought a government agent should.

“Just got in from DC this morning,” Deacon continued. “Hagen is our first stop today, best not to keep us waiting. Miss Kitty doesn’t like to be late.”

Madelyn gave Specialist Rhys a pointed look for good measure when he glanced to the back seat, and just as quickly diverted his gaze away. Still, the soldier didn’t look wholly convinced.

“We don’t have any scheduled visits for today, on account of the Decoration Day preparations,” he explained, looking over a logbook on a clipboard. “Are you sure you’re at the right facility?”

“Are we at the right facility, he says…” Deacon mumbled, lightly tapping Nick on the shoulder in mock amusement, though the detective was clearly on edge, eager to get moving. “That’s the thing about the DIA, we like our secrets and surprises. Like to keep the rest of you army types on your toes—”

Nick made an uncomfortable sound—something between clearing his throat and a groan—hinting that he was growing increasingly frustrated by Deacon’s posturing. Madelyn remained silent, only wishing he’d had the chance to see the spy in action prior to this little excursion—maybe then he wouldn’t be so anxious. The Railroad didn’t call him the best for nothing. Before anybody could speak, Specialist Rhys signaled back to the man standing guard in the building, and the road gate lifted.

“Sorry about the confusion, sir,” he nodded, pointing up the path. “We’ll radio ahead to have a delegation meet you at the command post in front of the main building.”

Deacon flashed a beaming grin. “Thank you kindly! I’ll be sure to put in a good word back at—”

The car lurched forward as Nick pressed on the gas, causing Deacon to tumble back to the passenger side. The detective let out a soft chuckle, and Madelyn had to hide her own amusement. “Don’t want Miss Kitty to be late.”

The streets and buildings of the Fort Hagen military base were already lined with Decoration Day fanfare—banners of red, white, and blue, flags waving on every lawn and from every storefront post. Between the many ribbons, streamers and balloons, however, was a noticeable lack of military personnel—dismissed for the holiday weekend or sent to other sites in preparation for the next day’s events. Madelyn knew it was tradition for soldiers to plant flags on the gravesites of former soldiers, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d leave one for Nate. A sobering feeling washed over her as she thought about finally visiting the Concord cemetery where he was buried, but the idea fell away as quickly as it materialized. She didn’t have time to be melancholy when they had a job to do.

As they pulled up to the command post outside the main building, it was clear that delegation meant two, well dressed, uniformed men. Their attire and insignia signified that they weren’t the average enlisted private, either. Nick pulled up to the designated spot along the curbside and released a sigh.

“Here goes nothing.”

Deacon and Nick exited the car in near synchronization, the detective rounding the vehicle to meet the spy as he opened the back door for Madelyn to step out. She silently thanked the two with a polite nod, steadying her composure as she approached the waiting soldiers, gripping the briefcase in her hand tightly as if to ground herself. There was a slight hesitation, as she nearly defaulted to a handshake before remembering to salute.

“Special Agent Catherine James of the Defense Intelligence Agency,” she flashed a demure smile. “Gentlemen.”

“Colonel Kells,” the man in dress uniform introduced himself, extending his arm for a handshake—finally a gesture something she was used to. He politely motioned to the taller man standing to his left. “This is Lieutenant Colonel Danse. To what do we owe the pleasure of such a visit?”

Madelyn could sense the tension in his tone, but it was filled with more irritation than suspicion as he eyed both her and the men she’d arrived with. She continued to smile, not wanting to waver or show weakness. “You know as well as I do that the government doesn’t hand out grants without proper inspection. We like our ducks shiny and all in a row, so to speak. And what better way to ensure everything is running smoothly than to show up when you least suspect it?”

“In war, the enemy never gives you a fair warning,” she added, with a wink.

While the Lieutenant seemed taken aback, nervously glancing away from her face, Colonel Kells appeared impressed. “Right you are.”

“As you can tell, we are in the middle of Decoration Day preparations,” he further explained. “You’ll have to forgive my absence, but I’m needed elsewhere. Lieutenant Danse will escort you through the premises and answer any questions you may have.”

Without further clarification, Colonel Kells saluted the Lieutenant. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, copying his superior’s actions.

The Colonel silently nodded to Madelyn before walking away to his own escort, and she didn’t dare to move or say anything until the officer’s vehicle was moving away from the outpost. She turned to face Lieutenant Danse, offering her hand in greeting. The man was tall, husky—built like a damn wall—fitting for the United States Army. With dark hair and dark eyes, he was handsome too, all the more easy to charm. But with the Colonel gone, his expression had shifted, and he eyed her with much more skepticism than before—she’d need to change that, fast.

“Agent James was it?” he asked, one eyebrow arced high. He reluctantly shook her hand, as to not appear rude, but she could tell he wasn’t completely comfortable with the action. Madelyn wondered if it had to do with her sex rather than her presence—something she could use to her advantage. What was it with military men and being unable to act rational around women?

“You can call me Kitty,” she grinned, letting his hand go as she noted the subtle flush of embarrassment on his face. She turned towards the waiting duo just a few feet away. “Agent Johnson will join us,” she gestured to Deacon, who was already hiding his amusement at the names he had chosen. She almost dared to go off script, just to spite him for being so smug.  “Agent Johnson will monitor the perimeter.”

Nick barely maintained his composure, sighing at the Lieutenant’s brief confusion. “No relation.”

“Right,” Lieutenant Danse answered, clearing his throat. “If you’ll follow me. We’ll make our way through the visitor’s center to the main offices.”

Madelyn shared once last glance with Nick, who stared back, expression stuck between a pout and a scowl—he wouldn’t be happy until she returned, evidence in hand. She only hoped the fort actually held the secrets they were after.

The interior of Fort Hagen was not unlike the Switchboard—a state of the art government facility, technology tailored for the times and to their specific branch of the military, albeit functioning and filled with a moderate amount of personnel, even with the approaching holiday. As Lieutenant Danse led Madelyn and Deacon through the halls of desks and offices, she kept a careful eye out for anything out of the ordinary, or anybody familiar. A shiver ran up her spine as she thought about the probability of running into Kellogg himself.

“Is there anything in particular you wish to observe during your visit?” Lieutenant Danse asked, his voice pulling her back to reality.

She scanned the room, pretending to observe the military staff with a keen eye, silently nodding to Deacon as if it was part of their secret code. It was and wasn’t at the same time, mostly used to confuse their guide. Madelyn knew they needed to play their cards carefully. Ask for the goods too soon, and the jig was up—she didn’t want to think of the consequences.

“Can you give me an update on daily operations?” she questioned, looking back to the Lieutenant. He was carefully watching her movements, hands clasped behind his back. “Our last report showed this facility was performing live training with protectrons in accordance to military contracts with RobCo.”

“That is still accurate, ma’am,” he answered with a firm nod. “The robots Mister House provided may move slower than your average soldier, but they certainly pack a harder punch.”

Madelyn raised a curious brow at his phrasing. “Concerned about being replaced by technology, Lieutenant?”

“N—no, ma’am,” he hesitated in answering, turning away as he led on through the offices to an observatory area. Below, army specialists were hunched over a spread of diagrams and blueprints, the charts too far away to discern.

She tilted her head, thinking back to the dossier Tinker Tom had compiled based on all the information he’d been able to drudge up on the fort’s activities. “And here I thought we’d stopped production on MK-1 turrets.”

“We have,” Lieutenant Danse confirmed, his eyes darting across the various people through the tinted glass. “Truth be told, I’m not privilege to everything that occurs within these walls. You’d have to speak with General Maxon, and I’m afraid he’s currently off-site.”

Madelyn wondered if he was holding something back, eyeing the soldier’s body language for any tell-tale signs. Not that she felt comfortable interrogating him for more information, but if there was even the slightest hint something sinister was occurring behind the scenes, she wanted to know. But whatever anxiety the Lieutenant appeared to be showing was more indicative of her close proximity and not some big secret he was trying to hide about Fort Hagen’s operations. With a disappointed sigh, she gave another nod to Deacon, who tapped his nose in return.

“Director Gould was explicit that we inspect the records room,” she spoke, driving the conversation and tour forward. “She has quite the reputation as being the most organized member of the DOD. Her demands aren’t to be trifled with.”

“Yes, of course,” Lieutenant Danse agreed, motioning with his hand towards a long hallway. “This way.”

In the next corridor, there was a secure door that required a keycode for entry. She was polite enough to look away as the Lieutenant entered the passcode, but she knew Deacon snuck a peak, unable to resist the forbidden knowledge. The room itself was enormous, akin to a library with tall shelves of books and binders, metal cabinets filled with files and paperwork.

“We’ve been following Director Gould’s suggested methods ever since she sent out the new directives two years ago,” Lieutenant Danse explained, walking them past the front desk where a lone clerk flashed a curt salute. “Every piece of intelligence is properly archived within these walls. Only authorized personnel are permitted to remove records, and all requests must be logged with the clerk.”

As she looked around, listening to his explanation, it started to sound and feel more like Fort Knox than Fort Hagen. “Would we permitted to perform an audit?”

The Lieutenant’s stern expression hadn’t changed much, but even then she felt like she might have crossed the line, shown their hand too soon.  After a few moments of silence, he slowly nodded.

“I believe that would be…permissible,” he agreed. “What would you like to assess?”

Madelyn paused, even though she had her answer long before they’d made their trip that day. “K—for Kitty.”

The three navigated through the rows of shelves and cabinets until they reached a section, little flags with black lettering blocking off every few feet. Ka—Ke—Yes, that would do. She set her briefcase down by her feet and pointed to the cabinet she wanted to inspect. “This may take a while.”

Lieutenant Danse didn’t seem phased at first, content to watch her as she clicked open the drawer and began filtering through the various files. Under his watch, she had to at least pretend to be slowly inspecting that the paperwork was in order, humming under her breath and smiling to herself as if she enjoyed playing secretary.

Deacon decided it was time for him to shine. “Catch the game last night?”

“Excuse me?”

“The game,” Deacon clarified, earning the Lieutenant’s attention. “Baseball. Ya’ know, America’s pastime. I swear, it was a close one—”

Madelyn tuned them out as soon as she confirmed her partner had managed to engage the soldier fully, rambling on about player statistics and the next day’s game against Baltimore. A part of her was humored, imagining Deacon studying up on the Red Sox players before wondering if he was actually, secretly a fan of the sport. God willing he never dragged her to a game. She quickened her pace, lest she become distracted by whatever the hell Vito’s save was.

The entire infiltration of Fort Hagen was a long shot. So, as Madelyn skimmed through the folders, she didn’t expect to find much, if anything of consequence. But then, right as she reached the back of the drawer, she saw lettering typed out in a bold font, displaying a familiar name—C, Kellogg. She almost gave herself a papercut yanking it out to inspect, refraining from opening the folder at the last moment when she thought about how to get the file into her briefcase. Deacon’s distraction wouldn’t be enough.

The idea struck her instantly and without a second to overthink her next movements, she tugged on the metal cabinet, shouting dramatically as the entire structure came toppling over. As hundreds of papers flied out, she swiftly captured the one she had been searching for, tucking in with a few others as she knelt to the floor, feigning collapse. Lieutenant Danse and Deacon were by her side in an instant, the two quickly lifting the cabinet back into place. Madelyn took the opportunity to stuff the handful of files into her briefcase, clicking open and shutting it closed again like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it magic trick. By the time Deacon leaned to assist her, the job was done. Her hand in his, she gave him one last signal—three quick squeezes.

“Agent James, ma’am,” the Lieutenant’s concern was evident, even if he also appeared worried about the mess of files. “Are you alright?”

“While your files are organized Lieutenant,” Madelyn explained, breathing a sigh of relief—genuine, but only because their real task was complete. Well—so far. “They don’t appear to be structurally sound.”

The soldier frowned. “I apologize.”

“I appreciate it,” she answered, with a broad smile. “I will be kind in my report. You may lead on.”

For the following hour Madelyn and Deacon continued to follow Lieutenant Danse through the fort, her hand squeezing the handle of her briefcase so tightly she thought her fingers would snap in two. As confident as she had felt about securing supposed evidence on Kellogg, it was quickly dwindling the longer she was subjected to a farce of a tour. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep the façade up, pretending to be interested in what constituted as military secrets. Thankfully, Deacon appeared to be engaged and as collected as ever, silencing maintaining their cover.

When they were finally back outside, Nick was still standing by the Cadillac where they’d left him, left foot twitching as he tapped it against the sidewalk impatiently. When the group was close enough, she flashed him a wink, twitching her nose as she subtly glanced to what she was holding. The detective was barely able to hide his surprise, eyeing them as he eagerly awaited their return. Madelyn wouldn’t share in the excitement until they were far away from the military base, certain they had completed their operation without detection.

Lieutenant Danse turned to them near the curbside, never relaxing from his rigid military posture. “Agent James, Agent Johnson,” he nodded to both of them. “I hope your visit to Fort Hagen was satisfactory.”

“Very,” she answered, glancing to Deacon. “Johnny boy and I have a few more stops before we return to D.C, but I believe you’ve set a precedent.”

The Lieutenant, for once, showed the slightest bit of reaction—pride. He offered a salute, and parting words. “Ad Victoriam.”

“Defendam hoc,” she replied, copying his gesture. “Until we meet again.” 

It shouldn’t have been surprising that Piper was waiting for the trio when they returned to the agency that afternoon, as the reporter had a knack for occupying the space even though she had a perfectly suitable office on the second floor. Madelyn hadn’t visited the Publick Occurrences suite in a long while, but assumed it was just as cluttered as the last time she saw it, covered in newsprint, photos and paperwork. That day, Piper wasn’t alone.  

“Nicky boy, good to see you.”

It had been over a month since Madelyn last saw Hancock, when she paid him a visit at the Old State House during Nick’s hospitalization. He hadn’t changed much, not that she expected him to, still wearing his red coat and golden pin—of the people, for the people. He was leaned back in Nick’s chair, ankles crossed with his feet on the desk, flashing a lazy grin.

“Been a while,” he mused.

The detective was less than enthused by the sight, walking over to shove Hancock’s boots back to the floor, hovering intimidatingly until the other man finally moved. This time, he perched himself in an armchair, lounging back without much decency or care that there were others in the room. Even though Madelyn barely knew him, she understood the behavior aligned with his reputation. She crossed through the room to sit opposite of their guest, while Deacon followed to settle into his usual spot against the back wall.

He smiled at her, offering a low whistle. “Love the look, dollface.”

She returned the expression but couldn’t wait to slip into her office and remove the wig and return to her usual self. How did the saying go? Gentlemen prefer blondes—well, so did Madelyn, at least when it came to her own hair.

“What do you want, John?” Nick finally asked, removing his hat and coat before practically collapsing into his seat. Within seconds, he struck a match and lit a fresh cigarette, ignoring Hancock’s request for a spare. After a long day at the military base, it was to be expected—especially if they were about to reconvene on what they’d discovered.

“Miss Wright and I were just discussing the fascinating attributes of one, Mayor McDonough,” Hancock answered. “Otherwise known as my sleazy, good-for-nothing brother.”

Piper had never agreed with the mayor’s policies, or ethics—read any article she’d written on the subject and you’d get a clear understanding of her stance within seconds. She had McDonough pegged as corrupt before half the city knew what corruption was, only learning it was possible after Eddie Winter’s dirty laundry was left hung out to dry in the papers after his death. But that investigation hadn’t been able to link the mayor to anything nefarious. It seemed now that Piper was after the Institute, she was determined to root out McDonough’s secrets once and for all.

“He hasn’t been seen since the MIT demonstration,” she noted, and even Madelyn had to admit that was strange for a government official. The mayor of Boston couldn’t just disappear for two weeks without suspicion—thank God for intrepid reporters. “Even Hancock can’t get an audience.”

“Shut out by my own flesh and blood,” he mocked offense, holding a hand over his heart. “Guy has always been a pain in the ass, but hell, even on our worst days he’d still call me up on holidays and birthdays. Shake my hand in public. And on rare days, join me for a scotch in the Old State House.”

Nick was listening, but his focus was clearly on the briefcase Madelyn had situated on her lap. Piper sighed, resigned to the fact that the detective had his priorities. Until the Shaun Perlman case was solved, his interest in her investigation was limited. With all eyes on her, Madelyn took the cue to click open the case.

“I might have grabbed more than necessary,” she said, shuffling through the extra files before leaning over to place one on Nick’s desk. He read over the typewritten name, confirming it matched their suspect—Conrad Kellogg.

The group continued to sit in relative silence as Nick skimmed through the paperwork, tracing his finger across redacted lines and mumbling under his breath with a furrowed brow. “Most of this reads like any military dossier.”

“So your man really is a soldier,” Hancock suggested, inferring he’d been brought up to speed on their cold-case.

“Looks like it,” Nick muttered, but his eyes continued to scan, flipping through page after page of information. Suddenly, he blanched, and momentarily flicked his gaze to Piper as his mouth twitched. “MIT is mentioned.”

“What?” the reporter yelped, rushing to the desk and practically yanking the file from Nick’s hands. He didn’t resist, leaning back in his chair as he thoughtfully rubbed at his chin. Piper gasped as she read over the text. “This is his medical history. It says that in 1945, after returning home from the war in Europe, he received experimental brain augmentation in an attempt to cure a traumatic head injury.”

Her voice was shaky, clearly alarmed by what she’d recited. Madelyn sat in stunned silence, unable to believe was she was hearing—could it be possible Kellogg was linked to the Institute after all? “As far as these reports indicate, MIT considered the operation a success.”

“I’ll say,” Nick muttered, shaking his head. “This goes back to your theory on Institute experiments. Who’s to say they didn’t implant something while rooting around, only for it to backfire?”

Piper reluctantly nodded. “That means we were right. MIT has been hiding secrets for years. Decades even.”

An eerie silence filled the room as Nick stared down at his right hand—the prosthetic that he’d received after returning from the war, courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Similar circumstances to Kellogg, and yet set on entirely different paths. Madelyn knew there was little she could do to settle the questions that were likely running through his mind.

“Could this explain his crimes?” she asked in a hushed tone. “Any of his actions?”

Nick didn’t answer, so Piper took the initiative. “Anything is possible. The Institute has made that much clear.”

“Maybe they put one in Guy’s brain too,” Hancock joked.

At first, his statement didn’t resonate with the others, but Piper’s expression quickly shifted, her interest piqued. “That—that would make sense. It would explain everything about his actions.”

“Gives a new meaning to government puppet,” Hancock muttered.

Madelyn focused on her partner, and his continued silence. “What do you want to do, Nick?”

The detective didn’t answer for a long time, still focused on his hand, studying the hard lines of his palm. Only when his cigarette was burned down to the filter did he let out a deep sigh. “Only one thing left to do.”

He lifted his head to stare at the others. “We go after MIT.”

They’d managed to infiltrate Fort Hagen—how hard could sneaking into the Institute be?

There was something to be said about the dangers of women walking the Boston streets alone at night. Even though Eddie Winter and his crime syndicate had been shut down, and the corruption within the police department and government had been culled, there was always an underlying threat when living in the city. Between rumors of a so-called Fens Phantom and the Cola-Killer, or worries of running into a crazed, scarred gunman—there was always the possibility of running into something sinister behind every dark corner.

Madelyn wasn’t afraid, and it wasn’t because of the pistol strapped to her thigh-holster under her dress, or the backup stored in her purse for good measure. For all the potential danger lurking about after sunset, nothing was more terrifying than the idea of what she was about to do. Since the visit to Fort Hagen and subsequent discovery of evidence linking Kellogg’s involvement with the Institute, she’d had the overwhelming desire to return to Concord. Not with Nick to follow-up on their investigation, but to visit a place she thought she’d never come back to—the church. Perhaps something within her snapped when the connection had been made at the agency. Nick would sort out their leads, coordinate with Preston’s Minutemen on surveillance for the university. Piper would work with Hancock on locating Mayor McDonough in an attempt to shake him down for answers. Deacon would return to Railroad headquarters so Tinker Tom could mine the redacted information from the smuggled Fort Hagen files. Madelyn would rendezvous with the others in the afternoon, after she paid a visit to city hall to research caselaw and any court documents on file for the Institute. Their plans were set into motion without a moment to lose—the totality of it all, frightening.

Then again, she’d been delaying the visit for months—years—best not to fool herself into thinking some wild event had finally pushed her over the edge. If trauma was what she needed, Madelyn had plenty of opportunities in recent memory to travel north to Concord, and to the little church cemetery in which her husband had been laid to rest for all eternity. It was better late than never. If ghosts, spirits—guardian angels, were real—she hoped he could forgive her for the delay.

Madelyn stood at the gates for a long time, before musing to herself that if anybody were watching her, how strange it must be for a young woman to be staring longingly into a graveyard. Even then, her movements were slow as she navigated the tombstones and tiny monuments, paying them no attention. Underneath a shady tree near the back corner was her husband’s grave, the inscription easy to read thanks to the dedicated groundskeeper who worked to maintain the site, even when nobody visited.

Nathaniel James—Devoted Son, Husband, and Soldier

Madelyn swallowed back the flood of emotions that threatened to knock her down to her knees and released a shaky breath. “Hi honey.”

What? She shut her eyes tight, groaning at her own frustration. A year and a half, and all she could think to say was that? Instead of flowers, she fumbled with the most expensive bottle of whiskey she could find at the corner store and turned it in her hands, showing off the label as if he could see.

“I brought the good hooch,” she attempted to tease, but the words felt forced. Finally, with a defeated sigh, she slumped. “I—I don’t know how to do this.”

Tears prickled her vision and she gripped the bottle in one hand, reaching up with her other to wipe at her eyes. “I don’t know a lot of things. How to feel about you being gone, for starters. Guilty for the slightest bit of happiness? Sad and wallowing in self-pity? Nick doesn’t think so.”

A breeze shook the branches of the tree, startling her. She glanced around in the darkness before deciding to sit down on the ground, uncaring of the dirt and grass that would likely stain her dress—Codsworth would have words with her on laundry day. After some consideration, she unscrewed the bottle of whiskey and carefully poured a little out onto the ground in front of his headstone.

“Is Heaven a dry county?” she joked, smirking as the liquid disappeared into the earth. “They don’t teach such blasphemy in Catholic school.”

She took a sip straight from the bottle, wincing at the smooth burn as it travelled down her throat and radiated through her chest and gut. “Everybody always wants to offer unsolicited advice,” she lamented. “I know Nick means well, he always has. And maybe I shouldn’t give him such grief after—”

Madelyn broke off when she thought about her partner’s own, recent loss. “At least you and Jenny have each other now.”

The only sound—or response—were the rustling of the leaves in the oak tree. She sat in the quiet for a while, alternating between pouring more whiskey onto the ground and into her mouth until her skin felt tingly.

“All I know is—” she steadied herself as the tears clouded her vision again. “Damnit Nate, I miss you.”

“I have Nick, and Piper and—” her breath hitched, unable to prevent herself from crying. “I activated Codsworth. He’s such a sweetheart, for a robot with artificial intelligence. Worries so damn much. I—we—have a dog too,” she softly laughed, thinking off all the times she’d seen the Mister Handy walking Dogmeat outside her Cambridge apartment, much to the confusion and wonderment of her neighbors. “But I miss our house, I miss our life. Our plans. I miss dates at Shelly’s—they tore it down last summer—”

Madelyn stopped cold, realizing she’d gone on an emotional rant to an inanimate object, admitting more to empty air than she had to any living person. Remorse trickled through her mind as she realized there was one name she’d omitted, perhaps purposefully. She wasn’t lying about the way she felt—not in the slightest—but her feelings went beyond that of her late husband.

“I have more bad news,” she hushed, side-eyeing the grave like it could come to life and take his form at any moment. Maybe she’d taken too many sips of the whiskey. “I—I met someone. Maybe. Still trying to figure out the circumstances of our paths crossing. He might’ve stalked me. Might be stalking me now.”

She glanced up to the nearby church steeple window, looking for a looming shadow. “Despite the warning signs, and odds, and…cons list, I—”

Madelyn’s face felt warm, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. Why was she unable to admit how she felt, even though she’d made peace with the realization time and time again? Maybe it was the absurdity of expressing it aloud, to her deceased husband’s grave—I’m in love with somebody else.

“I’m a fool,” she sighed, tipping the whiskey bottle so more amber liquid spilt onto the ground. A little moved to dampen the edge of her dress, but she was beyond caring. “To want something after all the death and destruction—not to mention explosions—it’s new and exciting and terrifying.”

“And I’m still carrying around all this guilt and shame,” she tossed her head back, grimacing when her skull thumped the hard stone. “We’ve been busy with this case, but I’m afraid my apprehension is obvious. Even if I started it.”

“Was I always this stubborn?”

Madelyn shook her head. “Don’t—I know you can’t, but—don’t answer that.”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” she continued, quietly. “I don’t know why I finally decided to come see you. Like I said—I don’t know a lot right now, but I’m trying. Waiting for the next big break—though, I guess that’s already happened. Don’t suppose you can tell me if Nick and I are on the right track?”

Silence. Well—what did she expect?

“I need a sign,” she mumbled, gesturing to her surroundings. “Something a little louder than the wind in the trees. You know I’m not a fan of subtlety.”

Madelyn wasn’t sure if she was asking for divine intervention on the agency’s investigation, or for something else. Maybe both. Regardless, it didn’t hurt in asking for assistance from the other side. Unable to drink anymore, she capped the bottle of whiskey and tucked it safely against Nate’s gravestone, digging it into the soft dirt so it wouldn’t topple over so easily.

“There,” she sighed. “Now you can get shitfaced with the apostles.”

A sad little smile pulled at her lips as she wondered if her husband would’ve found the joke in poor taste. Somebody else she knew would’ve laughed like she was Lenny Bruce performing in New York. She pushed away the thoughts of another man and the associated guilt that ensued, focusing as she ran her fingers across Nate’s engraved name.

“I love you,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “No matter what happens next.”

Madelyn didn’t linger for long, unsure if she wanted to know what could possibly occur in a cemetery after midnight. However, as she left the Concord graveyard and stood on the sidewalk to hail a cab, she couldn’t shake the sense that she was being watched. 

It was late when Madelyn managed to haul herself up the seven flights to her apartment door, the hallway quiet and dark save for one flickering, fluorescent light near the stairwell. She wondered, as she fished the keys from her purse, if her neighbors were fed up with her late-night escapades or were suspicious of her line of work. If they hadn’t seen the fruit of her labors plastered across the newspapers, she was sure they’d probably think of her as some kind of floozie. Maybe when the Shaun Perlman case was closed, and Kellogg was captured, she could settle down and return to practicing law at the District Attorney’s office downtown.

Laughter bubbled in her throat—first at the assumption there would be no more cases to solve, that the work would ever truly be gone. Second, that she’d ever leave the agency and Nick behind. Or anybody behind. To finally be part of something larger than oneself as she assisted not one, but two organizations—Nick’s partner with the agency by day, Deacon’s partner with the Railroad at night. Settle down? Never.

Deacon’s parting words at the office suddenly echoed in her mind and she turned on her heel to face Drummer Boy’s door. She hesitated before knocking, not wanting to disturb him at such an odd hour. But Railroad agents were habitual night-owls, and not a moment after tapping, the lock clicked open and she was greeted by a familiar, kind smile.

“Just checking in. Doctor’s orders,” she pursed her lips in thought. “Not Carrington, but—”

“Deacon called ahead,” he explained, cutting her off.

While Drummer Boy would never come out and interrogate her, the way he was eyeing her with one raised brow told her he’d been listening for her return. She liked having the Railroad agent nearby, but she didn’t need to be on surveillance—something she’d need to remind her partner of the next time she saw him. It was bad enough she had a Mister Handy unit that was likely ready to report her missing if she didn’t walk through the door in the next ten minutes. The last thing she needed was a babysitter.

“Late night?” he simply questioned.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she sighed, cutting him some slack—he was just doing his job. Madelyn’s head still felt dizzy from drinking all that whiskey at Nate’s grave, and exerting herself on so many stairs didn’t help the unsettling feeling in her stomach. Maybe some food would help. “Did you have dinner yet? Thursday…I’m sure Codsworth has some kind of casserole in the oven.”

“Rain check,” he grinned, even as he shook his head. She was remined that despite his duties to the underground organization, they had managed to form a good friendship. It was only natural, seeing as they were neighbors. “I’ve got a stack of dead drops to sort through and run to their next location before dawn.”

Madelyn didn’t take offense to his rejection, understanding that his Railroad obligations came first. “I’ll save a piece for you,” she said. “Well, if Dogmeat doesn’t lick the pan clean.”

The two shared a laugh before bidding each other goodnight. Keys in hand, she stepped through her door to find her apartment unusually dark. She tossed her purse and coat over the back of her couch and reached to turn on the lamp on the table, but even after a few tugs on the chord, no light shined through the bulb.

“Codsworth?” she called for the robot, and heard his buzzing from the hallway, but only Dogmeat came bounding out into the living room to greet her. “Hey boy, is the power out?”

She patted his head and looked around the room, trying to remember where she’d last stashed a flashlight or some candles. Curiosity filled her mind when she thought about the fact she’d seen light coming through Drummer Boy’s door—had she forgotten to pay her electric bill amid the chaos of recent investigations? Dogmeat barked, and Codsworth finally appeared from the hallway.

“Miss Madelyn, you’re finally home.”

She moved to meet him halfway near the kitchen island, ready to crack a self-depreciating joke about the circumstances when something shot through the nearby window, whizzing so fast in front of her that she barely had a chance to react or realize what it was—a bullet. A second shot caused the glass of the window to shatter and Madelyn was unable to hold back a frightened shriek. A third flew by, ricocheting off the kitchen counter and into Codsworth’s chassis. The Mister Handy didn’t seemed phased, brushing off the attack as he rambled off threating phrases to the phantom assailant, hovering closer towards the window.

In the next second, Drummer Boy burst through her front door, gun drawn. With quick strides he was at her side, colliding with her body as another bullet whistled by. They fell to the floor in a heap, Drummer Boy scooting them out of sight from the window and behind the kitchen counter to best of his abilities. Muted gunshots continued to echo through her apartment until finally—there was silence. Madelyn’s adrenaline continued to rush for a long while, and neither her or Drummer Boy dared to move, unsure if it was really safe. Judging by the way Codsworth was moving around the room, celebrating their survival, the coast was clear—for now.

It was only when she felt a dampness seeping against her chest that panic started to bloom and she thought to move—had she been injured? Her thoughts shifted as Drummer Boy flashed her a pained expression, breathing out through gritted teeth as he pulled away if only to collapse flat against the tiled floor.

“Robby?” Madelyn knelt over him, uncaring of Railroad protocol on codenames. Blood soaked through the side of his shirt where he’d obviously been shot. “Jesus, you’re—”

He shook his head and forced a smirk. “I’m fine.”

“Just a flesh wound,” he assured in a hushed tone.

Madelyn had a hard time believing it, considering the painful expression he was struggling to hide. He slowly gestured to her arm, and she realized she really had been injured—blood trickling down her arm from a tear in the shoulder of her dress. It was a small graze, as far as she could tell. Considering the wound could be worse—and that she’d suffered worse before—she wasn’t fazed. The shock would likely catch up to her later, as it typically did. All she cared about in that moment was finding out why she’d been shot at in her own home—who wanted her dead? Her sense of security was shattered, all over again.  

“On second thought,” Drummer Boy mumbled, catching her attention. Madelyn found his hand and gripped it tightly, listening as the sound of police sirens wailed outside the apartment building and filtered in through the busted window. At least somebody had the decency to call for help. Tears began their silent roll down her cheeks as she wondered, how much more harm would come to those she cared about?

He barely squeezed her fingers in return. “I’ll take that slice of casserole now.”

[ravenwritesstuff]

Best Laid Plans (10/?)

Fandom: Frozen (modern AU, no magic) Pairings: Helsa, established Kristanna, Rapunzel/Eugene, lotsa frohana Rating: T for now, M later almost for sure A/N: Fun fact about why it takes me so long to write stuff. I write everything out of order. The very first scene I wrote of this fiction is in this chapter.

She cannot help but be wary. She has seen what happens when Hans Westergaard shows what he wants and she is all too familiar with that heat and tension. Her body tightens in anticipation of what he means, and does her best to hide her apprehension behind professionalism.

"While I am sure we all are thrilled with the mystery of your offer, it really is critical that we establish exactly what you want as quickly as we can as our timeline is so limited." 

She has never had a client be so withdrawn about their event or purpose before. Most clients could not wait to throw ideas and concepts and colors in her direction or instead all the things they didn’t want. So far she knows he liked the wedding because they danced and that he likes the ocean. She is in no way prepared for an event where that is the center. His lack of forthcoming throws her off balance and makes her irritable. She is not sure if it is just the Hans Westergaard way or if she is actually losing control of the situation. Whatever it is, she does not like it, but she hides her discomfort behind a Mona Lisa smile.

"Of course. Which is why I am going to show it to you as soon as I can. But it will require the wearing of swimsuits and the ability to swim. Are you all up to the occasion?” He is in full showman now, the elegant host, and while she feels more at ease when he is in this space she also likes it less. The conflict leaves her with feelings she promptly ignores and shoves down beneath the mental checklists ticking through her mind. 

“Per your vague instructions I believe we are all prepared for a swim,” she looks around at her team to get their confirmation even though she knows they all packed accordingly. “But really we have so much to cover. I think it will be best if we work through a few more steps before we get distracted.”

“Oh this is not a distraction. I promise.” He peers out over the ocean, shielding his eyes to make out something. “We have ten minutes before we need to get suited up so let’s talk until then.” He leans back and sips his coffee. “I would love to hear more from the team personally. Why do you all do what you do? What part of the events you manage is your favorite?” 

It is an unconventional question, but what other kind can she expect from Hans Westergaard? 

She watches as the team all look at each other with puzzled expressions and she is glad that at least this time she is not the only one befuddled by what Hans Westergaard has to say. 

“I mean - I guess my favorite thing is that I get to work with my family.” Anna chimes in first, smiling at Elsa and Kristoff. “We make a great team and I don’t know many families that can say that!” She turns to Rapunzel and Eugene as well. “And I’ve gained new family members I never knew before. So it is a win all around.”

“As someone deeply acquainted with the complications of family - I appreciate that Anna.” 

It is strange to hear her sister’s name on his lips, to see him smile at her and smile in return. 

Anna nudges Kristoff with her elbow and he grunts before offering:

“I get to work with my hands and make my wife happy. Not much better than that.” He chuckles when Anna throws her arm across his stomach and side hugs him. “Plus there is something awesome when a client sees you build the thing they wanted just like they wanted. Makes you feel like Santa or something.”

“The tables and altar at Eric’s weddings were incredible. You made those?”

Kristoff tilts his head, not one to enjoy outright praise, and then nods. 

Hans returns his nod with a smile. “Excellent work. Truly. I have ideas for you.”

Elsa sees an opportunity and cuts in: “We would love to hear more about those ideas so we can really talk them over and -”

“Hold on,” Mister Westergaard holds up his hand and focuses on the petite brunette across from him. “What is your favorite part of planning events?”

“Oh. I love weddings and I know you aren’t planning a wedding, but they are my favorite.” Rapunzel’s eyes widen. “But my favorite part of my favorite weddings is the kiss. You can totally tell who is going to make it and who isn’t by the kiss. When the groom really kisses the bride - or bride kisses the bride - or groom and groom - oh you get it. When they kiss them in the way that you can almost feel it from the back row… yeah. That’s my favorite part because I know we did something to give them their happily ever after.”

Leave it to Rapunzel would say something fantastical. Never mind that it has absolutely nothing to do with her role in the company or what is at the heart of their events, but it is water under the bridge. Elsa sniffs.

“Is everything okay?” It is Mister Westergaard. He is arching his brow in the most annoying fashion because it makes her stomach flutter and her mouth go dry and she screwed up. She drew attention to herself at the worst time possible.

“Don’t mind her.” Rapunzel interjects before Elsa can even force a smile. “It’s just that Elsa has never really been kissed.” She smiles a little too broadly at her boss before looking at Eugene (who is honestly at a loss). 

Elsa is flummoxed by the comment and she can practically see the mischief dancing across Rapunzel’s features. She is living for this, needling her like the second younger sister she never had. Anna is hiding laughter behind her strawberry lemonade where Kristoff’s eyes are wider than she has ever seen them. 

She cannot even look at Hans Westergaard. 

Eugene clears his throat and swoops in while Elsa’s mind sputters at Rapunzel’s brazenness.

“Well to be completely honest I had a bit of a rough start. I didn’t exactly use my super negotiation skills for good, but Elsa gave me an opportunity to do what I do in a productive way and that is what I enjoy the most. I like knowing I can con a deal for my client,” it is a joke and they all force a laugh. “Plus I like parties.”

Even Hans Westergaard manages a smirking chuckle without all of Eugene’s history. Chances are he has files on all them from some sort of private detective or something invasive like that anyway. There is no need for elaboration.

“So what about you, Hans?” Anna says, sipping her drink, deflecting from what was to inevitably be Elsa’s turn to share. “Why E&A Events? What do we bring to the table that you want for your event?”

Elsa could hug her sister for the segway. 

Anything to focus past the horrendous mess Rapunzel insisted on introducing and keep Elsa from having to answer Hans’ time wasting question.

Hans looks at them all and smiles. It is wide and easy, like he has never had any other job besides smiling at them and his response makes her boil. She hates his smile, his calm, that he had somehow gotten her on this ship where her insides are being flipped and churned and turned upside down. 

“I want you because you are unexpected,” he says matter-of-factly. “You aren’t what I thought I would want but somehow you are exactly, wholly, and perfectly what I need right now.” 

Elsa does not need to look up from her tablet to know he is speaking directly to her. She can feel his gaze as sure as she can feel the hammering pulse in her throat. It takes her best efforts to  take rein of her stampeding thoughts and draw a deep breath.

“That is very nice of you to say Mister Westergaard,” she pretends to be very busy taking notes on her tablet. “We are excited to dive into the particulars about why you chose us but right now I think the question we all have is just what exactly we are endeavoring to initiate.” 

He nods and looks again at the horizon just as the ship’s pace slows dramatically. His smile spreads. He looks back at them.

“You’re about to find out. It is time to suit up.”

….

Elsa put on her incredibly conservative one piece in the stark privacy of a marble and gold bathroom. The couples were given other rooms and while she knows the lighting is not flattering all she can do is look at flaws in the mirror. The suit had been specifically chosen because it did not show any of her scars. The navy suit had no cut outs, barely scooped below her collarbones and shoulder blades. The suit is made out the same fabric that swim athletes use. It compresses every inch it encases but it covers everything and is not flashy in the slightest. 

She had told Anna and Rapunzel to leave the bikinis at home.

She hopes they had or else her suit is going to look impossibly old fashioned.

She turns sidewise in the mirror and sucks in. She is not certain why. Her shape is her shape. There is little much she can do about that now. Her swim wrap is her saving grace. It looks much like any of the other dresses she might wear throughout the week though  is slightly sheer. The almost black is burned out with floral patterns and wraps at the waist with a feminine sensibility she normally eschews, but she had nothing else that would serve on such short notice. 

She looks at herself once more, feels her bare feet on the cool tile and breathes. This is fine. She is simply winning over a client that her company needs to impress. That is all. 

She presses her hands against her stomach and breathes. 

She does not tell herself it will be okay. She has not done that in years. Instead she tells herself it will all be managed. It will happen and she will handle it, whatever it is. This is a test and she intends on passing it. 

There are risk to swimming with her condition, but she knows her team has her back. They will watch her. It will be okay.

She tosses her braid over her shoulder, makes sure her personal items and stacked tidily in the corner, forces herself out of the bathroom.

The rest of them are already waiting on the aft desk. She hopes she hadn’t taken too long, not wanting to raise suspicion by her lengthy change. She assesses everyone’s dress as she approaches. The expression of personalities under the instruction of ‘dress appropriately’ is not lost on her with Anna’s tankini beneath a loosely tied robe, Kristoff’s rash guard and the longest possible swimmers available. Eugene trends towards more fashionable Bermuda cuts and Rapunzel’s suit is a one piece that hardly qualifies with all of the crazy cut outs. That leaves Hans Westergaard who stands in shorts similar to Eugene’s and a plain white t-shirt that is too tight to be decent.

She tries to not notice the shape of his calves, the size and shape of his feet, but it is a lost cause. Her rebellious mind grabs onto these facts before she can convince it not to. He smiles as he sees her and it is the same earth shattering power that leaves her shaky and uncertain where the rest of the world went.

“Shall we?” he says to the group before leading them out of the shaded part of the deck out into the bright sun. 

She squints and pulls her sunglasses down over her eyes as he leads them out past the infinity pool. There are wide steps beyond it railed with stainless steel grips and she clings to them as they descend to what appears to be a small launching platform.. At the base there is a large white space where three crew members wait. They demonstrate general snorkeling protocol that she vaguely remembers from when she was six, before this all began. They offer up equipment. They fit it to them. Then the worst comes. 

Every swimmer must have one buddy. Pick your buddy and know you are responsible for them out in the water.  

And the lines are so clearly drawn. 

She stands fidgeting with her mask and flippers knowing she is now responsible for Hans Westergaard. Anna casts her a knowing glance, but Elsa knows that damage that would be done if she let Anna be her partner. The affront will be obvious, personal, and honestly this is the least of worst case scenarios. 

It is just swimming. They won’t have to touch or speak. All she has to do is make sure that Hans Westergaard does not die. Easy peasy. 

With a return glance she calms her sister’s concerns. It will be okay. This is okay. She is okay. 

Then the crew is distributing sturdy plastic bottles to everyone named with only the words BODY and FACE This time though Mr Westergaard steps up to explain the reasons.

“This is just a little project I’ve been working on - a new line of sunblock. If you don’t mind using this instead of the kind you brought I would love to know what you think.”

Elsa holds both bottles in her hands thinking it is a bit strange, but she would rather have him be strange than charming. She had applied sunblock that morning in her apartment just in case, but the sun is bright and she is not interested in burning. 

She opens the bottle labeled BODY and starts with her legs and feet. The scent and feel of a lotion is pleasing. The texture is not oily or rough but actually absorbs into the skin easily. The scent is not overwhelmingly tropical but instead has the essence of eucalyptus. It is refreshing. She hates to admit how much she enjoys it.

They are all standing fairly close together but the couples have sectioned off into their own little bubbles. She and Hans are on the outside, reasonably spaced. Anna has lost her robe as has Rapunzel. She is next and the idea of him seeing her in something so opposite of what she normally wears makes her heart race. What if he was cataloguing her traits the way she inadvertently was his? What if he liked what he saw? What if he didn’t? 

She reprimands herself. None of that matters. This is a job just like any other job and she needs to stop losing her mind over things that don’t matter.

Her fingers work the tie at her side, thankful now more than ever that they all were wearing sunglasses. If he did look at her she wouldn’t know. She shrugs and the wrap falls to her elbows and then slips all the way to her hands. She carefully draws it in front of her and folds it neatly before setting it next to her snorkel gear and hopes it is bright enough that no one can tell she is blushing. 

She retrieves her sunblock and works her way over all the parts she had missed before until she arrives at  the exposed part of her back that she cannot reach. She is struggling to bend her arms to cover stubborn spots between her shoulder blades, head bent down, and a pair of feet comes into her field of vision. She looks up and Hans Westergaard stands there with his  sanctioned sunblock in his hand. He looks at her with a smile that is nothing but warm, sincere, and if he wasn’t wearing sunglasses she is sure that his eyes would hold that defenseless, human look that always rattles her.. 

“Need some help?” He offers. “The back is always the first place to burn.”

Her decline is on the tip of her tongue but she hesitates. She can always just ask Anna for help but how will that look? No matter how infuriating and unsettling this man is he is still her client and she is trying to make a point. She can handle his flirting and still maintain a professional nature.

“Okay.” She gives a stiff nod. 

He circles around her and that is worse. She is standing there in a garment that shows every lump, bump, and irregularity. It is not cut for flattery and she should be glad of that at this moment, but she finds herself wishing she has the more daring choices of her counterparts. Or at least something that doesn’t look like she is about to take a water aerobics class at senior citizens center.

No. She mentally reprimands herself. This is for the best. She is here to be professional, and he cannot create ideas about her interest in enticing him in any way when she is wearing the equivalent of a nuns habit in modern swimwear. 

She hears him open the bottle, make the necessary squirt, and she waits then for the first touch. It takes longer than expected to come, but when it does her entire body stiffens. 

She had expected cold but there is none of that. The lotion and his touch are warm. He spreads the cream over the available skin before he begins the process of massaging it in. She stays perfectly still, not daring to move, and does everything in her power to not consider that he is touching her, she is allowing it, and that the strength of his fingers is enjoyable.

His thumbs trace the fragile wings of her shoulder blades. The slick of the lotion gives his touch a silky glide as his hands work across her skin, tracing the delicate bulbs of her spine. He comes up to where her braid hangs across her neck and pushes it to the side before she can stop him. 

She knows exactly when he sees it. She can sense it in his hesitation. The scar creeping from the base of her neck up under her hairline is a wide pink line, made wider and more noticeable with every cut, and is something she hides with low lying hairstyles and high collars but now… 

She can practically hear his breath catch at the sight. 

His thumbs run in tandem up along the length of her scar in impossible reverence. She is sure that he can feel the rapid rhythm of her heart against his fingertips where they rest on her throat before she pulls away. 

“I'm sure that's good. Thank you.” she flips her braids back over her neck in an attempt to not rub the spot his thumbs had branded and looks at him with a dare to ask her.

It would be a relief in so many ways if he would just ask. If she could just tell him and scare him away before they get any further in this unnamed dance. Behind his sunglasses it is nearly impossible to tell what his intent is until a smile spreads over his face. Instead of probing he hands her the bottle of sunscreen.

“Return the favor?” It is a question as much as it isn't and she can hardly keep from blushing when he strips off his t-shirt. He winks as he turns his back to her and she recognizes a challenge when she sees one.

But that isn’t all she sees.

Her eyes trace the ropes of his muscles as they bunch and pull as he adjusts his posture to do his own application on the front of his torso. A wide smattering of freckles swaths his broad shoulders in frenetic clusters. Despite his fair complexion there is a tawny glow that speaks of his love of being outdoors. 

For a long moment she stands there frozen just staring as he worked his hands down the length of his arms. She watches his hand slip over the enticingly sharp cuts and swells of his shoulder and then down lower. He turns his head a bit to cast a look in her direction with a smirking grin. 

“If you need more lotion, just let me know.” 

Then he is back to it. His short phrase jerks her out of whatever spell she had been under and now it feels like all eyes are on her. Is her sister watching, is Kristoff? Eugene definitely would be and Rapunzel probably was brokering some sort of wager about what is actually happening and what will happen. 

She grits her teeth. 

She knows if she looks to see if any of that is true she will not be able to do this, which is exactly why she doesn’t. She’s spent the better part of today convincing everyone that this is nothing more than a harmless flirtation and that she can handle it. Running away screaming because he needs help applying sunscreen is not going to do much for her case, but she knows she is going to hear about this later.

So she might as well put on a show.

She grabs a nearby bottle and squares her shoulders. The cap opens with a snap. She focuses on each motion as she squirts a generous amount into the palm of her opposite hand. It is too much, she knows, but it is the only shield she has. She rubs her hands together to coat them thoroughly and then, before she can lose her nerve, reaches out to touch. 

Even with the thick creamy coat of sunblock she can feel the heat of him rising to her touch. The broad lines of his back are long with foreign trenches and cords of muscle telling their story of use. His body is not exaggerated in size like her brother-in-law’s, but it is well formed, athletically cut. There is a kind of feline grace about him and the way he moves, the way his calculating eyes watch her move in this game she can hardly remember starting.

She is more rough than she needs to be, pressing hard enough that she feels him brace. She does not take the care he did to make sure that every inch of skin is absolutely slathered and rubbed in. She works from the center of his back up over his shoulder blades and then down close to the line of his swim trunks.

She stares at her own hands moving across his skin and she tries to think of anything but the idea that she is just inches away from dangerous territory. As if this entire exercise isn’t dangerous territory. She lets out a breath she did not know she was holding  and steps away.

"There. All set." She holds her hands down at her sides, palms still tingling with his heat.

He turns and faces her. 

"So," he sets his sunscreen on the deck and straightens. "Snorkel buddies? What do you say?"

She has to respect that he is actually asking instead of just assuming. It gives her the opportunity to negotiate.

"We could always triple up. No sense in creating a superfluous twosome."

"There is no possible way that any group you are a part of could be superfluous," he grins. "But it's statistically safer in pairs. Trust me one we get out there you will have so much to see that I promise you will be glad you only have to keep track of one other person."

She is not going to ask for his source on those stats, but instead she asks: “What exactly are we going to look at?” 

She had not thought it possible, but his smile grew three sizes at her question.

“My initiative,” he pulls off his sunglasses, puts them off to the side, and fits his mask over the top of his head. “Ready to see?” 

She looks over to the others and they all have their gear ready to go and are watching them. How long had they been watching them? She looks back at Hans and nods. 

He leads them to the edge of the platform. It is a few feet above the water with a plastic and metal ladder on the side. Hans sits, pulls his flippers onto his dangling feet, and then slides off into the blue water. He pops up only an instant later and swims back a few feet to look up at them. 

“Water’s great!” He treads, powerful shoulder muscles rolling. “Come on in.” 

They all follow suit. Elsa is the last to slip from the safe edge of the boat into the water below. It is cold, not freezing, but definitely not bathtub water. The temperature is jarring at first. Her body cramps and hesitates as she stays submerged, but she manages to kick to the surface. She pops up on a sputtering gasp, reorients herself, and swims to the others. 

“We’re swimming to that buoy over there.” He points to a yellow speck a few hundred yards away. I recommend using one of these to help with the swim.” He raises his arm out of the water and gestures. Several life preserver belts fly over the edge from a helpful crew member and they all grab one. “Also once we are out there it is a strict look but don’t touch policy. Ready?” 

“When will we know we are seeing what we are supposed to be seeing?” Rapunzel asks, her intrepid curiosity shining through.

“I have a feeling you will know.” He smiles and pulls his mask over his eyes. “Follow me!”

[ previous ]

[sexyenquirer]

Copper and Silver

Author: kiranatrix For: missmomentss Pairing/Characters: Beyond Birthday/L Lawliet Rating/warnings: M; mild smut Prompt: L/B mild smut Author’s notes: The prompt wasn’t very specific so I let my imagination wander. I didn’t want this to be the usual kind of L/B fic, so there’s no prison breakout or kidnapping or jam. This is a Magician AU that takes place in Paris in the late 1800s or early 1900s, where L is a famed illusionist and B is…an imposter. Or maybe it’s the reverse. ‘Copper and silver’ is the name of a magic trick, using coins.

—–

There had always been two types of magic in the world. One was quite real, but elusive, and more of a curse than a blessing on those who could channel it. The other was the magic of mankind– the sleight of hand or memory trick, the careful distraction and well-placed mirror. It was the business of the famed illusionist Lazarus, also (un)known as L Lawliet, that no one in his audience should ever know the difference. 

He’d been selling out his shows across Europe for nearly a decade, and from the Thames to the Danube, just the name of Lazarus invoked an aura of mystery and awe. He’d been invited to most of the major courts to amuse the nobility of the continent despite his own very humble birth. Not that anyone knew anything true about his origins; L’s backstory as the exiled bastard son of a Russian prince was his most carefully cultivated illusion. 

The vast majority of people who came to see him desperately wanted to believe in real magic to dull the edge of life’s mundane reality. This made them easy to fool with clever devices of his own invention. A lemon tree that seemed to grow from a seed before their eyes, sawing someone in half who was then put back together again unharmed, submerging himself in chains underwater only to escape at the last dramatic moment. Although each of his tricks did in fact have an explanation rooted in reality, competitors, skeptics, and scientists had all attempted to parse out the mechanisms to explain his illusions and all had left disappointed.  

L had not always believed in ‘real’ magic himself, but he’d never needed to. There’d never been any odd phenomenon he couldn’t eventually provide with a reasonable explanation. He considered himself a man of science and rationality, not someone who was willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of entertainment. He knew he was brilliant, and no one could be a better skeptic than he was of his own performances. Thus, his performances were inscrutable perfection start to end, each trick a thread for the audience to weave their own pretty blindfold with. 

But it took the eyes of a fake magician to know the real thing when he saw it, down a rainy street in Paris the afternoon before a show. He’d forgotten his umbrella, as usual, and had been darting from one sheltered overhang to another on his way back to his hotel when he saw a curious hand-painted board pointing down an oil lamp-lit alleyway. It was nearly as tall as he was, and upon it was was crudely scrawled:

    ~HAVE YOUR MISFORTUNES TOLD BY LAZARUS~

For one silver franc, the Incredible Lazarus will answer the following:

Your real and true name! (Great for orphans or just anyone who forgot!)

The day you will die! (Get your affairs in order!)

Whether anyone in a picture lives or is deceased, as well as their name! (Like deadbeat parents, runaway spouses, or people lost at sea!)

If you need a bath! (Free of charge!)

Guaranteed to be 100% accurate and true or twice your money back! (proof required)

Usually, L would roll his eyes at low-brow hucksters like this and be on his way, but this time was different. This time, someone had purloined his good name and was using it for cheap tricks! Anger and irritation bubbled up in him as he spied the queue to get into a door in the alley, but it was matched with a good dose of curiosity, too. Who in their right mind would so brazenly advertise these services when everyone knew the REAL Lazarus was in town and performing just down the street? The easy thing to do would be to announce at his own show later that this was just a fraud, an imitator, or simply ignore it altogether as the price of fame. 

No, L needed to see this for himself, confront the man. He walked towards the door, ignoring the line-up and grabbing a newspaper out someone’s hand to use as a makeshift umbrella. 

“Oi! I was reading that!” The man glared at L in surprise. 

“I’ll return it shortly.”

“Wha, sopping wet?!” The man pointed to the back of the queue. “And the line starts back–” He cut off abruptly to catch something L tossed his way, gaping down at a gold coin. He tested it with his teeth, piping down after that. 

When L got to the front of the line he announced, “Time for everyone to go home. This man is a fraud and not the true Lazarus. I am.” 

“We’ve been waiting an hour or more! Prove it!” The rest of the people chanted ‘Prove it! Prove it’ until L held up a finger and suddenly, the rain stopped. Amid their awed silence, he deftly folded the wet newspaper into an origami crane which he perched on his hand. He blew on it and it caught fire, the flame changing from white to blue as it floated away down the alley. The crowd parted to let it pass and then broke into an uproar of clapping and cheers as it exploded into a burst of sparks in the shape of an L. 

“How’d he do that?!”

“He MUST be the real Lazarus!” 

L slouched forward slightly in an approximation of a bow. What had seemed like magic to them was nothing more than noticing a break in the clouds and improvising, and a bit of phosphorus dust artfully sprinkled from his ring onto the wet paper. “Now, if you’ll all check your pockets, I believe you’ll find tickets to my show tonight. I invite you all as my guests.” It wasn’t really in his nature to give things away for free, or to be so polite, but he’d learned when being the showman Lazarus versus L Lawliet would get him his way the quickest.

The man who’d had his newspaper snatched hung back a moment as the others meandered away, smiling and excited. He thumbed at the closed door behind L, “Another coin and I’ll give that fraud a thrashin’ for ya.”

“No.” L turned and opened the door, stepping aside quickly as a woman in tears bustled past him. 

From further inside came the call, “Well, you asked!” followed by some soft cackling. “Next!”

L pressed a thumb to his bottom lip as he brushed aside a ratty tasseled curtain, his already large pupils widening to near blackness to adjust to the flickering candlelight. The darkness partially hid the ramshackle state of the room, and exotic-looking but cheap carpets were flung around to hide the rest. When he approached a table set in the middle of the room, L had to check that he wasn’t looking into a mirror. But no, his mirror image was seated and grinning like the cat that had caught the canary. 

“There’s not going to be anyone else.” L climbed into the opposite chair, perching in it as he was his habit when he wasn’t performing. “I sent them away.” He quickly scrutinized the man, looking for flaws in the disguise. They were approximately the same age, mid-20s, of similar built and features, although artful makeup and posture must be contributing to the effect. 

“Well, well, well…” Beyond Birthday gracefully moved into the same crouching position, mimicking each of L’s movements with precision but allowing his eyes to flick briefly above L’s head. “That was a very rude thing to do, don’t you think? I guess they all got soggy for nothing.”

“Stealing a person’s name and pretending to be them is what strikes me as rude.” L tilted his head, frowning when the imposter did the same. 

“A man’s gotta eat.” Beyond’s grin didn’t falter as he modulated his voice closer to L’s timbre and pitch. “And I wasn’t stealing it so much as…borrowing it. I suppose you can have it back now.” He had what he wanted– L’s presence and undivided attention at last. 

“I don’t appreciate it being stolen OR borrowed.” L squinted in the darkness, both unnerved and impressed by the exactness of this imitation. Fraud or not, this mysterious man had real skill in makeup and impersonation. “Who are you really?” 

“Why I’m Lazarus of course! Didn’t you read the sign?” Beyond laughed at the annoyed look on L’s face, finally breaking his mimicry and lounging back in his patched armchair with a sigh, one leg thrown over the side. He stared for a moment then said with a flourish, “I’m a fan.” He twirled his fingers and produced a silver franc, letting it flip over his knuckles like the flow of water. “A performer like yourself, although not quite so famous. I’ve wanted to meet you for some time.” He tossed the coin high into the air, but it didn’t come down again.

“And now that you have, will you kindly get lost?” Even as L said the words, he wasn’t sure he meant them. Something about this man was fascinating. And where did that damned coin go? He looked up at the ceiling and saw nothing, and the man’s hands were both empty. “Cheap parlor trick. Open your mouth.” He didn’t want to admit he hadn’t seen the sleight of hand, even if he knew the coin must be there. 

Beyond extended his tongue, revealing the coin sitting right on it. He spat it into a box containing a few more coins. “Very good. But of course I doubt I could stump the real Lazarus.” 

The way those words were spoken sounded like a challenge to L, and he’d been here before. Countless other illusionists and street magicians had challenged him and become laughingstocks. “No, I doubt very much that you could.” 

“Hmmm.” Beyond leaned forward, elbows on the table as he stared. “Would you give me the chance to try?” He kept his eyes on L but swiped his hand over the flames of the candelabra beside them, appearing to transfer one flame to his finger where it burned a moment before he blew it out. 

“You dipped your nail in oil. It didn’t burn long enough to blacken it.” L raised an eyebrow when Beyond chuckled and nodded. “I hope you have better tricks than that.” He sincerely did hope that, because this was already more amusing than he’d expected, although his deadpan expression didn’t show it. 

“Oh, I do. Such wonders as you’ve never seen before.” Beyond snapped his fingers, his nail aflame again, and he transferred the fire back to the dormant candle. “If I can’t stump you, I’ll ‘get lost’ and you’ll never hear from me again. Does that suit you? A little wager between magicians.” 

“A wager?” L smiled for the first time since coming into this dismal hovel. “Just so you know, no one’s ever been able to stump me. I’ve seen it all.” He worried his lip with his thumb, unconsciously leaning forward, betraying his interest and excitement at a game. “Debunked them all and taken their tricks, improved them for my own.”

“You can’t take my tricks.” Beyond knew that for a fact. He was unique among all humans, if he was even human, in his abilities. “But I’d love to see you try.” 

He traced his long fingernails over the battered table, watching L’s thumb brush back and forth across slightly parted lips and wishing to touch them. Yes, he was a ‘fan’ of Lazarus, but it was so much more than that. An obsession, a yearning to be Lazarus. It was so unfair that he, someone with real supernatural powers, should always be in the shadow of just a clever illusionist. Beyond had been L’s actual shadow for years, never making himself known as he followed in the wake of show after show. Trying to make enough money for cheap flophouses and tickets for every performance, hiding in the back of the balcony but watching with eyes where distance didn’t matter. And when there hadn’t been money, he’d stolen. When people had tried to hurt or rob him, he’d killed. Beyond had given everything for this one moment. 

“You seem quite confident. In that case, what do you get if you manage to stump me?” L had zero expectations that anything like that could ever happen, but he wanted to be aware of the game’s rules.

Beyond pulled a deck of cards from his jacket and shuffled them in one hand, focusing on keeping his breathing slow and even as he held L’s gaze. Softly, “To be your apprentice.” 

“My apprentice?” L laughed, letting his hands rest on top of his crouching knees. “Everyone knows I take no apprentices. I have no desire to train amateurs or tell my secrets.” 

Beyond purred, “But do you desire to hear them? I can tell you secrets even you don’t know about yourself. Or ones you’ve desperately kept hidden from others.”

L was past being intrigued now, he was hooked. It didn’t help that the man’s languorous, cat-like body language was so very seductive, his gaze so intense. It was rare for L to find anyone with as much self-confidence as he had, and this man had a natural bravado that L had to work for on stage. In fact, the longer L looked, the more differences he noticed between them. The soft swell of muscles hidden beneath clothing slightly too large, hair of a silkier texture, eyes that were a pale blue instead of his own grey. He swallowed when his scrutiny was rewarded with a smirk. “I agree to your wager. But first, tell me your name.” 

Beyond wet his lips and whispered, “No. But I’ll tell you yours.” He glanced down at the coin box seriously. “Pay the fee.”

L stared unblinking, unbelieving, but pulled out the same trick ‘gold’ coin he’d given the man in the street and taken back furtively. 

When L tried to put it in the box, Beyond covered it with his hand. “No copper. The real thing.”

L’s eyes narrowed and he pulled his hand back, pocketing the trick coin and reluctantly flipping a real silver one into the box with a soft clink. He sighed, “So?” 

Beyond smiled looked above L’s head once more, not that he hadn’t read these words a thousand times already. “L Lawliet. Although the pronunciation eludes me. Do you say it in the French way, mon cher?” He smiled and sounded it out a few ways, giving up with a little shrug.

L felt like his heart had stopped beating from the shock of what he’d heard. His mouth was agape, fingers digging into the fabric of his pants. “How….” Absolutely no one knew his real name. He’d spent a small fortune to find it out himself, buried at the bottom of the rubble of the London workhouse for orphans he’d grown up in. His birth certificate, locked in a well-hidden safe at his house in Surrey, was the only document in existence with that name printed. That safe hadn’t been opened in 10 years.

“Ah! Are you stumped then?” Beyond eyed him greedily, breath coming quicker. He didn’t even need to declare he was right. He’d never been wrong, even when people tried to insist he was. The truth was always written on their faces. 

“No! You…you must have hired a private investigator.” L’s brow knitted, because that didn’t make sense and he knew it. “Someone in London told you. ”

“Does it look like I have the funds to hire an investigator, Mr. Lawliet?” Beyond gestured around at the bleak surroundings. “But if you remain unconvinced….show me a picture of someone. I’ll tell you their name as well, and if they live.” Telling L the day he would die was something else he could do, but what a morbid way to start a partnership. Plus, L had plenty of life left and no reason to believe him. Inclining his head to the box, “Pay the fee.”

L let out a shaky breath and reached into his coat to produce a cheap locket. His mother had given it to him at the workhouse before she’d died of pneumonia, and it contained pictures of his parents. He pried it open and laid it on the table, flipping another silver coin into the box. “Tell me about them.”

Beyond pulled the locket across the table and stared at the pictures of the man and woman inside. These were no Russian nobles, no princes. They were plain, simply-dressed folk who looked older than their probable years and had no death dates above their heads. “Martha Briggs, maiden name. Henry Lawliet. Both deceased.” He lifted his eyes to L’s as he slid the locket back. “Sorry if that wasn’t what you wanted to hear.” His fingers briefly brushed L’s and lingered before pulling away. “Your parents.”

“Yes.” L picked up the locket in pinched fingers and carefully put it back in his jacket. He’d never known his mother’s maiden name but all the rest was correct, although he had no idea how. He went quiet as he considered what to do. It was a first, being unable to discern the trick, and all the possible scenarios that cycled through his mind were dismissed just as fast. Only one actual explanation remained but he was loathe to say it. How could it be that? 

“Have I won then, Mr. Lawliet?” Beyond wasn’t sneering or gloating, but soft and sincere. He knew that all L had to do was refuse to keep his promise and all of this, everything he’d done to be in this room, would have been for nothing. 

A long silence passed between them as they stared at one another across the table. “You have real magic.” L couldn’t keep the puzzlement off his face. He’d spent his whole life creating the illusion of magic in opulent ballrooms and the parlors of royalty, and had he finally found it buried in a rat hole? It was ironic and tragic that no one could tell the difference but him, but Lazarus. Who was the real fraud?

Beyond’s face crumpled, “Is that your answer then? Real magic?” No no no! This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! He’d never believed that a skeptic like L, who knew so many tricks and manmade artifices, would choose the most improbable answer. Unfortunately, it was also correct. 

“Yes. That is my answer.” 

Beyond made an angry, frustrated sound and leaped up from his chair but stopped in his tracks, floundering. He wanted to run but where would he go? The majority of his adolescence and adulthood had been focused on L, following L, trying to get close to L and failing. Now that he finally had his chance, he’d failed. He turned away and clutched his hair, whispering, “Correct. You win. I’ll leave Paris tonight and you’ll never hear from me again.” 

L hummed to himself, uncurling from his crouch and slowly stepped closer to the distraught man. “Are you joking?” He touched the man’s shoulder, gently turning him around so they faced each other. “Do you think I’d walk away from real magic? You’re a unicorn.” L smiled and brushed the man’s cheek, fingers trailing along his jaw. He’d never touched anything magical before and it thrilled him. “A unicorn that had to pretend to be a horse pretending to be a unicorn. But I can see it.”  

The black kohl around Beyond’s eyes used to approximate L’s eyebags was smeared and running down his face, his blue eyes brighter for his tears. He gazed back at L in amazement, finally sniffling and giving him a little smile. “So does that make you a horse?” He leaned into L’s touch, eyes lidding and not entirely sure he wasn’t hallucinating now. “Or maybe just an ass.” Beyond’s eyes flew open as he realized what he’d said, but L was just laughing and nodding. “S-sorry, my mouth can run away with me and—”

“I’ve been called worse.” L’s fingertips traced along the man’s mouth, his heart hammering for a different reason. He wanted to know this magic, this man, and felt an electricity between them that only two of a kind could. “But I can’t call you ‘unicorn.’ What’s your name?” 

“Beyond.” He whispered it reverently, closing his eyes and taking the chance to kiss L’s fingers at his lips. What did he have to lose now? His ‘trick’ was exposed. “Beyond Birthday. It’s a stupid name.” 

L’s hand threaded into Beyond’s hair and the noise he was rewarded with made him shiver, made his pants uncomfortably tight. Was this feeling some kind of magic too? He’d never felt such a powerful attraction. “It’s a name that would look perfect next to mine on a poster.” Lazarus and Beyond….it had a certain ring to it. But you shouldn’t hide yourself under all this makeup.” He tentatively pressed closer, bending to kiss Beyond’s neck which tilted for him instinctively. “Hmm, we could work that into some good tricks, couldn’t we?” He pressed his hips against Beyond, smiling as he felt the man’s body jerk at the realization, the feeling. “Like swapping out coins, but…us.”

Beyond inhaled audibly, wrapping his arms around L’s body as he melted into this perfect dream. His idol, his everything, wanted him too? Accepted him? “But…” He quickly shrugged off his jacket when he felt L’s fingers start to unbutton his shirt. “…you said you don’t take apprentices.” He mentally cursed himself for not just shutting up. Why couldn’t he just enjoy this and not ruin everything?

L raised his head, “True, I don’t.” Before the stricken look on Beyond’s face could sink in, he added, “But I’d take a partner.” The voracious kiss that followed made L stumble back against the table edge with a grin, hidden pockets spilling their contents as their clothes were hastily pulled away. A trick wand clattered to the floor and bloomed into a rose, a crystal box of fireflies sprung open and let its luminescent prisoners flit about the room blinking.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you.” Beyond kissed him deeply again, lifting L onto the table. His hands caressed L’s body like he was afraid the man might break open too, releasing doubts and regrets, second thoughts. “Years I’ve waited to talk to you.” Beyond made magic for others, magic never happened for him. But those doubts didn’t come even when L did open for him, parting his legs and wrapping them around his waist.

L laid back against the table to gaze up at Beyond, amazed that he’d ever thought they looked alike now that they were naked and the makeup had been largely kissed and rubbed away. “I’ve waited all my life for magic.” He smiled and pulled Beyond closer, finally really understanding what his audience had been paying to see. It wasn’t just entertainment or amusement or distraction from their lives. It was hope that even if what was in front of them was only a horse, there might be a unicorn out there somewhere. “The real thing.”

[seekinghappenstance]

The Greatest Showman (2017)

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson

Director: Michael Gracey

A film is just an extended fantasy and an insatiable craving for all of us that we have been making up in our heads. There are varieties of genres to fulfill our fantasies that are impossible to see in reality and The Greatest Showman has successfully accomplished it, leaving a scatter of applause from viewers in the theater just like how the audience cheer in the circus. 

The original musical film tells a story of P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) who was a destitute man, later became prominent and rich after founding Barnum & Bailey Circus. The story follows Barnum as he recruits a bunch of performers who comply with a specific standard ‘quirky’, ‘unusual’ and ‘curious’. In the mid-19th century, people are still pretty much narrow-minded and lack the senses of diversity and acceptability. Needless to say, they hate the circus and perceive them as monsters, at the same time, some of them enjoy the show as they have never seen anything like this which generates a generous revenue for Barnum. Due to unsatisfying reactions from local toward the circus, protesters start a fight with the troupe, eventually, causing a fire at the circus. Barnum faces with the financial difficulty of rebuilding the circus. His partner Philip Carlyle (Zac Efron) financially offered to help to rebuild it under condition of becoming a full partner, which Barnum accepts. Finally, Barnum changes the business to a tent to save money. The new circus continues to grow successfully and Barnum passes on the show to Philip in order to spend time with his family.

The film is meant to be uplifting, showstopping, dramatic, and lots of dancing and singing. The film provides many catchy soundtracks that boosts up the qualities and syncs with dance moves in term of audio visual. The dance, acting and song are in sync which is pleased to watch. There’s something about the film that is able to pull it off which most people think Beauty and The Beast live action movie has failed. It’s hard not to make comparisons between the two films as both films are musical. Musical genre has left me a long lasting bad impression after watching Beauty and The Beast as it was so tedious and dull, mainly because of bad script and songs. On the contrary, the whole theme and picture of The Greatest Showman is so lively and energetic. 

I’m the kind of person who don’t really mind for castings as long as they show dedication to acting. Everyone gets a pass. Frankly speaking, I would have never thought Zendaya would be cast for this movie, surprisingly, her performance is just as incredible as the rest of the casts. Zendaya seems to be the second choice of actress to cast, but she definitely pulls it off in her limited screen time. I can really see her hardwork and dedication to her role Anne Wheeler. According to Zendaya, she had to do lots of training for her role who is a trapeze artist after she was told by the director, in order to use her own stunt double as little as possible. To increase star quality, Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron are certainly wisely cast. Hugh Jackman is already amazing and incredible to begin with. Zac Efron used to be and still is everyone’s childhood crush and his chemistry with Zendaya is indescribably sweet and it’s only interpreted by their legitimate and pure performances on screen. Then we have Rebecca Ferguson as Jenny Lind who gives an unforgettable and powerful singing performance on screen. The only thing is that her haunting singing voice isn’t hers but it is Loren Allred’s. Why not just cast someone who is equally capable as Rebecca but this time with someone who has singing backgrounds?

Overall, the entire film is very satisfying. Some said the film was too sugar-coated and sanitized but I do agree that it needs to show a darker side in the era. For instance, Philip’s parents do say something unpleasant to hear to Anne who is a African but it’s definitely watered down. Instead, they would have said the n-word to her. We do see a lot of diversity happening on the screen which is politically and socially acceptable and welcoming. The soundtracks definitely have impacts on the whole production at certain point that paint the film in a bright color. Putatively, it wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t for the amazing songs. Those are definitely a bop. I would recommend this delicate film to those who have never seen musical films, and to those who have always hated musical films, for sure, this film will show a different yet exquisite side that makes it stand out.

[kiwisfics]

Vampires and Assassins - Chapter 4

A/N - Guess who is watching The Greatest Showman for the tenth time as I write this? Yeah, that’s right, I’m Hugh Jackman trash. ANYWAY, as for triggers, the whole branding thing, but that should be it. As always, let me know if I need to add anymore warnings.

Summary: Kady Lason had dealt with enough in her life to think she deserved a pass when it came to the dangers of walking alone at night, but her bad luck doesn’t show any sympathy and she finds herself facing a world of myths as a captive. A world she would have never thought real doesn’t take long to reveal it’s vines tangled in her own world tighter than anyone would have guessed.

  I never understood romanticizing fire. All it offered was destruction and pain and I had plenty enough of those without fire perforating my life.   In a way, I'd come to see fire and men as one in the same. Both offered warmth and comfort until the moment you stepped too close, then you were burned.   Sometimes the flames exploded before you could even get close.   Like the one who had threatened himself if I didn't accept him.   Like the ones who had cornered me and offered nothing but heckling.   Like the one who'd grabbed me off the side of the road...

×

  I'd always been a fan of categorization and, when it came to my fears, I kept a list pinned to the front of my mind. The list had no shortage of ridiculous and pointless fears sprinkled throughout, but the top three were avoided like the plague to the best of my ability.   Men, fire, burns.   The fear for fires and burns came hand in hand, even though I'd never experienced the trauma of a large scale fire or horrific burn. My fear for burns was simply that. The pain caused by burns even slight raised a sickness in my stomach and made me dizzy and shaky, and that was accidental short-lived burns.   What they planned to do was in no way accidental and would—undoubtedly— leave a far more questionable scar than any and all other burns I had suffered.   Blood smoothie and self aware cattle: that was what I had been reduced to in the matter of hours and, despite the feeling of panic becoming a permanent fixture in my mind and body, anger was peaking once again.   Connor spent only seconds trying to pry me off of him, but I left my own marks in that time. If I couldn't dig my nails into all of them, by all means I'd give him the whole of my rage and fear.   I sunk my teeth deep into his arm before he finally pushed me onto a wooden table.   I was panting. My eyes darting around the room and the moment one of them moved, I was prepared to run.   But there were six of them.   I was hyperventilating, struggling to catch my breath and failing. The harder it became for me to breathe, the more panic began to envelope me.   Finally, Jacob tilted my head back and met my eyes, before his eyes flashed he placed a hand on my shoulder, preventing me from falling backwards when I went limp.   I twitched when the bottom of my shirt was lifted, my nails digging into the surface below me as I prepared to turn, but Connor quickly took Jacob's place, his own eyes doing nothing to dull the fear, but keeping me in place as the remains of Jacob's ability continued to still the fear if only slightly.   One of them ran their fingers over the area, numbness immediately following.   To be fair, they could have told me that was something they could do.   For all my thrashing and dramatics, I had to admit that the false peace did make the pain—what was left after the numbness—from the burn less extreme. I jumped more from the cold chill of the ice pack one of them pressed against my back after it was done.   Jacob was rubbing his thumb against the back of my hand. Even though I was still aware that the calmness I felt was false, I couldn't say I didn't appreciate the gesture.   Even though I shouldn't. I knew that.   Its an act. Its an act. Its an act. Don't be stupid.   "What order are we going in?" My head snapped in Edward's direction—though snapped was probably an exaggeration in my exhausted and manipulated state.   "I'm first!" Jacob exclaimed childishly, tone and volume both earning a jump from me.   "Since we're sharing you, you'll stay with each of us for a week. On the first night, whichever one of us you are with will drink from you, the rest of the week you're free from any other responsibilities." Matter-of-fact. Altair had a blunt way of speaking, but, at least, that seemed to make him more truthful.   "Have to keep your strength up." Edward's words gained a huff, the most I could muster in response.   I was sure I made a face. The calm and numbness were both slowly wearing off, as they did, the brand began to burn more and the idea of being food for them was growing less and less desirable - enough to spark another panic.   Am I in a coma?   I jumped as Ezio clasped a hand on my shoulder. "You shouldn't worry about it, Bella. The pain only lasts for a moment."   That didn't change anything.   "Kady."   And whatever mark they'd put on my body didn't change the fact that I'd never give them the satisfaction of having me act the part of property.

×

  I was far from thrilled to meet their other slaves, but, knowing they weren't human, I was glad to know that there were other humans in the mansion. Not to mention other women being present at least made me feel less surrounded.   The group was split evenly between male and female. The men all seemed either completely uninterested in me or more interested than I appreciated.   I didn't need any more men beyond the six that now owned me giving me heart attacks, but I wasn't going to hide behind one of them as if they were any source of comfort.   I'd deal with them if any problem arose.   A few of the women offered me smiles, which I couldn't help but return. The smiles calmed me slightly, at least they didn't give me the unnerving look the women at the auction had.   Those at the auction had looked at me like I was competition. That wasn't something I was used to, considering I'd always been the ugly girl, not that it bothered me much anymore.    At least, it hadn't in the months leading up to my kidnapping, commitment frightened me enough, let alone commitment to a man. I was more than happy to avoid the attention poured upon other women.   A group of three girls that appeared to be around my age offered me nothing more than cold glares. I attempted to ignore them as my gaze wandered over the rest of the group, but when my eyes returned to them to find them still glaring daggers at me, I returned the look.   High school all over again.   "There won't be any fighting." Altair's voice didn't betray his words as anything more or less than what they were. That wasn't a suggestion or a command, that was a threat. His gaze was on the group of three at first, but soon switched to me.   As soon as his eyes moved to me, my head jerked in the opposite direction.   "That includes you." I nodded quickly.   Now I wanted to start a fight.   The line between fearing men and doing everything in my power to go against what they told me to do blurred sometimes.   Especially when I really wanted to plant my fist in someone's face.   "We need to go."   Confusion took the place of my dangerous thoughts as they all walked to the door. Ezio called over his shoulder for one of the other girls—Kelly—to keep an eye on me.   With that, they were gone.   As soon as they were out of the door, the group began to dissipate, the only exception being who I assumed was Kelly, the group of three, and a man who looked around my age.   Kelly looked to be in her mid-twenties and, despite the situation, she grinned at me genuinely. She held out her hand and I took it, unable to resist returning her smile with a nervous one of my own. "Nice to meet you. I'm sorry for the circumstances." Her smile fell slightly, but I wouldn't have noticed had I not learned to pick up on subtle changes such as it.   I nodded in agreement, though my attention had diverted itself to the group who, instead of glaring, were now whispering and pointing to each other. Considering all I had heard, I could make a fair assumption that the girls had been trained, I guess snootiness extends to all walks of life.   What was with these trained people? To be fair, they might not have been trained, but they bled the same aura of the auction girls.   "What's their problem?" I questioned, jutting my chin in the girls' direction.   Kelly made a sound between a snicker and a scoff, "They're jealous."   I raised an eyebrow.   Jealous? That was something.   Come to think of it, the men were attractive, but I must have overlooked that in favor of the concern of losing my freedom, and—of course—the small matter that I was literally a food source for them.   Blood smoothie. Blood smoothie.   Eventually that thought was going to slip into the open if I didn't cut it off.   I had far more important things to worry about than their looks—they were attractive though, I wouldn't lie.   "Just to be on the safe side—not that I think you can't protect yourself—" she was quick to assure me of such, flashing a nervous grin.   Category H.   What in the world was a category H? And why, if that was the cause, did it make her so nervous?   "-but," her emphasis on the word regained my attention, tearing it away from the momentary tangent,  "you should probably avoid them." Kelly glanced to the group and then back to me. "They were raised in this life and are used to the punishments, you on the other hand, aren't."    I felt a shiver go down my spine, but refused to show any indication of it, not when one of them could be looking. "They'll... punish me even if they start the fight?" That word put a bad taste in my mouth. This entire situation made me hyper aware of any word or statement that could be used for an animal and I didn't like it.   "They don't appreciate breaking up fights, and..." She glanced to the side and hesitated, I could tell she didn't think she should say what she was about to say, "Vampires in general are... possessive. They don't like anything they feel entitled to being... marked on by anyone other than them." She glanced back at me, clearly trying to judge my reaction, but her eyes betrayed the fact that something in that statement was a lie, but I could only guess at what.   Making the vampires that towered over my frame and could easily rip me apart—could they do that? Did I even want to find out?—angry wasn't the best idea, but a small part of me didn't care, at least, not when they weren't there. Some small part of my mind, that I was trying my hardest to ignore, kept reminding me that they had to have had a blood slave before me and what could have happened to make them need a new one other than the obvious?   I was going to die.   And, that being the case, why should I not go out by being the most insufferable version of myself I could?   I could start a fight.   I could run out that door.   "What are you thinking?" Kelly's voice was suspicious, maybe even a little nervous.   After being brought back from my thoughts, I was questioning them myself.   Hope for the best. Benefit of the doubt and whatnot.   This day had been too much. I needed to get some sleep before I really did snap and toss my life away.   What do you really have to live for anyway?   I gave my head a definitive shake to push away the thought before tossing a final glare of my own in the direction of the girls, "Is there somewhere I can take a nap?"   Kelly seemed relieved to be getting me away from the potential trouble that the group posed, her tense shoulders falling and clenched hands relenting. "You can use my bed, come on." She gently nudged me toward the steps, chatting to me about random things as she led me up them.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 8/20/21 - REMINISCENCE, PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE, THE PROTÉGÉ, THE NIGHT HOUSE, FLAG DAY, DEMONIC and More

Ugh.

Apparently, we have four or five new wide releases this weekend, just as we get into what I always lovingly referred to as “The Dog Days of Summer.” Thanks to COVID, that could be referring to almost every weekend this summer, but it definitely becomes more true as we get to the end of summer as many kids are returning to school, some of them wearing masks, others social-distancing, some just getting us closer to the herd immunity we were always heading towards… ha ha… that’s one way to see if anyone is even reading this column. Get Political!!

Presumably, the widest release this weekend will be the sci-fi noir, REMINISCENCE (Warner Bros.), starring Hugh Jackman, Thandiwe Newton, and Rebecca Ferguson, which is the feature directorial debut by Lisa Joy, the co-creator of HBO’s popular series, Westworld. Like The Suicide Squad, In the Heights, and every other Warner Bros. movie this year, Reminiscence will be released concurrently on HBO Max this Friday. Unlike any of those other movies, I honestly don’t think anyone will give a shit about getting off their asses to risk COVID in order to see this. And I say that a.) without having seen it; b.) knowing almost nothing about it; c.) not believing the poppycock that movie theaters are the death traps some claim; and d.) I already have a ticket to see it on Friday.

In fact, I almost feel like I shouldn’t do a lot of research into what this movie is about, because despite having seen the trailer a few times, I still have no idea. All I know is that it stars Hugh Jackman, and it’s science-fiction, and that’s enough for me! (I haven’t even watched that much of Westworld beyond the first season for no other reason except that I haven’t.) The plot according to IMDB is, “A scientist discovers a way to relive your past and uses the technology to search for his long lost love.” Good enough for me.

Okay, then, so basically it sounds like a Christopher Nolan movie like Tenet or Inception from a lesser-known director -- who also happens to be Nolan’s sister-in-law, because she’s married to the other Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan. See how Hollywood works?

Because of all the Nolan connections, maybe we need to look at something like Transcendence, the 2014 sci-fi thriller directed by Nolan DP Wally Pfister, which starred Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall (coincidentally), and Paul Bettany. The movie opened in mid-April (a known dumping ground) to about $10.9 million in 3,455 theaters, and then tanked, making just $23 million domestically. (It made about $80 million overseas.) The fact that the title Reminiscence bears more similarity to Pfister’s movie brings another level of foreboding.

At the time, Depp hadn’t completely destroyed his career, and he still had a few bit hits under his belt, including Into the Woods and his final Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2017, as well as Murder on the Orient Express. Jackman, on the other hand, is still in a better place career-wise, although he still owes much of his career to playing Wolverine in the X-Men movies for nearly two decades. He’s had one significant hit since Logan’s swan song, fittingly enough in 2017’s Logan, which grossed $226.3 million domestically. That was the PT Barnum musical, The Greatest Showman, which made $174.3 million over the holidays that same year, and that really centered around Jackman as a leading man. His next movie, the Gary Hart movie, The Front Runner, didn’t fare very well (less than $2 million gross), nor did the animated Missing Link, although the latter did get an Oscar nomination. The question is whether Jackman can do much to get moviegoers into an original science fiction movie with his mere presence.

Even the rest of the cast that includes Ferguson from Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies, Newton from… well, another one of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies, and Daniel Wu from the series Into the Badlands and the most recent Tomb Raider movie. Again, take these three out of a franchise and who knows if there’s really much left?

I’m not even sure how many theaters Warner Bros. is releasing… sorry, I hate spelling out the title of this movie… into, but I have a feeling it won’t be that much more than 3,000, especially with the movie being readily available on HBO Max and all the week’s other movies being theatrical only.

Because of that, I’m very dubious about this movie making $10 million this weekend. In fact, I’m not even sure it can make $8 million this weekend. No, I’m probably going to go closer to $6 to 7 million on this, and even that might be overly optimistic.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Reminiscence in advance, so we'll just have to see what other critics who see it think about it. I’m not really expecting it to get too many good reviews, since it seems like the kind of movie that critics go to see begrudgingly, because they were assigned to see it, more than having any interest in it. And I was right.

On the other hand, I’ve already been seeing rave reviews about the animated PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (Paramount), which I also haven’t seen, and in fact, I can guarantee that I will never see it. Why? Because I don’t have kids. Nor will I ever have kids. Nor do I know anything about this other than it’s about police dogs?

In fact, opening in 2,700 theaters, I wouldn’t be surprised if this rare G-rated movie ends up winning the weekend, or at least comes in second to Free Guy, despite many kids being back in school, kids being unvaccinated and more likely to get COVID by going to movie theaters, etc. etc.

If you can’t tell, I’m writing this while on a mini-vacation and I’m kind of in a “I just don’t give a shit” kind of mood right now, but as I said, I don’t have kids, and the only reason I know what “Paw Patrol” is because the people I know who have kids seem to know of the movie’s existence. Maybe even some of them will take their kids to see it or at least wait until it’s on Paramount+, which you know is coming.

I’m going with this making somewhere around $8 million this weekend, taking second place behind Free Guy, which should continue to do well with little other direct competition.

On the other, other hand (I have three arms, you know), I have had a chance to see the action flick, THE PROTÉGÉ (Lionsgate), directed by Martin Campbell of Casino Royale acclaim and Green Lantern… what’s the opposite of acclaim? That.

The movie stars Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton, but more importantly, it stars… the awesome Maggie Q from Mission: Impossible III! (See a pattern in this week’s Weekend Warrior?) Most will probably know Ms. Q from her run as Nikita on the show of the same name, and she’s definitely back in that mode for this action-thriller in which she plays an assassin looking for the killer of her mentor (Jackson) which puts her at odds with another assassin, played by Keaton. I loved the fact that Maggie appeared in three very different movies last year from Sony/Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island and two other movies that ended up going to VOD, but the former of these shamefully opened with just $12.3 million over Valentine’s weekend and then it quickly got destroyed, first by the release of Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man in its third weekend and then by COVID, because theaters shut down in its fourth weekend. It made less than $50 million worldwide, which is a shame, because I actually liked it.

This is another case where I don’t know how many theaters it’s getting, although I do know reviews are embargoed until sometime Thursday evening, which is never a good sign, and actually, I can’t even tell you if I liked it or hated it until then, so… I guess we’ll have to go blind on this one, assuming Lionsgate will dump it into around 2,300 theaters with very little promotion. Even though action has been faring well this year, I have a feeling this will struggle to make $3 million this weekend.

Mini-Review: As I’ve probably mentioned, I love Maggie Q whenever she’s in any movie, but she’s particularly good in this sort of action role that requires a little more of a dramatic touch than we’d normally get from a man in this type of role. Sure, we can be slightly worried when there’s a movie with a female lead both written and directed by men, and some of those worries are founded, but Ms. Q always finds a way to bring more to her roles, and that’s the case here as well.

The general plot is that her Anna is an assassin and when her mentor Moody (Jackson) is murdered, she sets out to find his killer or killers, which brings her back to Vietnam where she runs headlong into another known as Rembrandt, played by Michael Keaton. At the same time, Moody has set Anna on a mission to find a boy whose father was assassinated 30 years earlier, as she learns that the two things are connected.

Written by Richard Wenk, who has quite a bit of experience with this sort of action movie, having written Denzel’s The Equalizer movies, as well as a few of The Expendables movies, he gives the movie enough story and characterization to separate it from the normal trashy action movie where that stuff isn’t important. For instance, giving Maggie’s Anna a full backstory with Samuel L. Jackson’s Moody, her blues guitar-playing mentor, or having her be interested in books and running a bookstore.

Unfortunately, the movie is kind of erratic, comical sometimes but deadly serious for the most part and the flirtatious relationship between Anna and Keaton’s character leads to some super cringe-worthy moments. While the action and fight choreography is pretty solid, the fact that 69-year-old Keaton doesn’t seem to be doing much of the actual fighting is a little too obvious. (Is he trying to be Liam Neeson now?) The way the violent fighting leads the two of them into bed also feels problematic. I generally abhor any sort of violence against women, but at least Maggie Q makes her character look super-tough and able to handle anything.

I wasn’t as keen on the film’s multiple twists in the ending or the flashback to Anna’s past, which seems to come far too late in the movie. In general, women are going to HATE this movie and I know exactly why, but men will probably enjoy it for just as many obvious reasons. All-in-all, it’s not a terrible throwback action movie that only sometimes goes off the rails. Rating: 6.5/10

Next, we have another highly-acclaimed horror film that played back at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2020 (like the recent Nine Days) with David (The Ritual) Bruckner’s THE NIGHT HOUSE (Searchlight Pictures), starring Rebecca Hall as Beth, a teacher whose husband Owen shot himself but not after designing and building their house on the lake. Shortly afterwards, weird things start happening and Beth thinks the house is haunting, but then she discovers a mysterious mirror image on the other side of the lake, and things start getting even weirder.

Definitely don’t want to say too much about this, because whether you like it or not might rely on whether you like the twist(s) in the movie, and I’m not sure that average moviegoers will like them as much as the type of person that goes to the Sundance Film Festival.

Hall is one of my favorite actors, because I feel she can do anything but she’s also very underrated. I mean, she can play a role in Iron Man 3 (one of the best things about that movie) or a movie like Transcendence (mentioned above) or Godzilla vs. King Kong or do comedy like ...um… Holmes and Watson, if anyone would consider that “comedy.” What she hasn’t been able to do is really get people out to theaters with her presence, although one of her more successful non-Marvel movies was Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, and she’s done a couple other good thrillers.

On top of that, the movie is still sitting pretty with 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes one wonder if Sundance buzz is able to transcend the 20-month gap since a movie’s premiere, and Nine Days seems to say otherwise. Another thing going in The Night House’s favor is that there’s been quite a bit of horror movies in recent months, which means this trailer has played in front of a lot of them.

I’m not really sure why Searchlight didn’t put this concurrently on their streaming partner Hulu, but maybe they’re giving theatrical another chance even with COVID still being a concern to many, but maybe not the fan of horror who might want a little escapism. This is only opening in about 2,000 theaters, and I think that might make it tough for it to make more than $3 or 4 million.

Mini-Review: Like with Maggie Q above, Rebecca Hall is an actress who I honestly think can do no wrong. Therefore, David Bruckner’s thriller might already have a bit of an advantage, because I assumed (correctly) that this movie will feature a lot of the filmmaker’s camera trained on her at all times capturing her every emotion, every fear and facial twitch.

As mentioned above, I don’t want to say too much about the plot beyond what you can easily watch in the trailer, but this is only partially the movie you might be expecting. Sure, there’s a good amount of eerie creepiness as Hall’s character tries to find whatever is haunting her house after her husband’s suicide, as well as discovering the identical house that may or may not be in a dream. (It's that kind of movie.)

Much of the film is kind of slow and mopey, and even funny in a weird way, since Hall’s character seems to be going crazy and her behavior (and performance) is quite erratic because of it. Think of it a bit as if you can imagine Hall going into crazy Nicholas Cage moments over the course of the movie or acting that way towards her friends, including Sarah Goldberg’s Claire, who always seems to be saying the wrong thing around her BFF.

One of the things that tends to work about Bruckner’s film is that you’re never quite sure what exactly is happening, but it keeps you interested enough to want to know where it might be going. The other great thing that works even moreso is the film’s amazing score and sound design that helps to keep the viewer on edge through all of the film’s ups and downs.

As the film went along, I presumed correctly that there would probably be some sort of semi-inane M. Night Shyamalan twist, and in some ways, I was right. I certainly didn’t hate the twist when it showed up (or the second or third twist), but I know plenty of fans of more straight-ahead (translation: bad) horror that might be thrown off and even perturbed by so many twists.

The Night House may ultimately be too smart or clever for its own good, since it’s being sold as a straight-ahead ghost story with the twist of this mirror house, but that’s really something that’s very much only on the surface. Any problems with the movie are countered by the fact that Hall is just so good at selling its strange concept.

Rating: 7/10

Lastly, there’s Sean Penn’s film FLAG DAY (MGM), which may or may not get a wide release -- I'm going to guess not, but just in case it does, I might try to figure out how it might do. It tells the story of lifelong criminal and con-man Jon Vogel (Penn) as seen through the eyes of his journalist daughter Jessica (Penn's daughter, Dylan Penn). Based on Jessica Vogel's book "Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life,” the movie covers Jessica's entire life from when her father left her and her brother Nick (played later by Hopper Penn) and mother Patty (Kathryn Winnick) through her own troubled life to when she takes back her life to succeed as a journalist. Also starring Josh Brolin, Dale Dickey, Regina King (blink and you'll miss her), Eddie Marsan and more, it's opening on Friday.

Without knowing whether Flag Day actually is getting any sort of wide release or will just be put into a few hundred theaters, but as you'll read in my review below, it's a very strange movie for MGM (or rather, United Artists Releasing) to have picked up before it premiered at Cannes, because it's just not that great, and it certainly isn't something that might do well in a wide release. Even if somehow MGM gets this movie into 1,000 theaters this weekend, I’m not convinced it can make a million dollars, because I just don’t think many if any people really know about it. Maybe it didn’t turn out to be the awards contender MGM hoped to release it later in the year, but it’s also strange for it to be opening a week after Respect, which I expect to do quite well in its second weekend. I’m just going to assume this will be in a few hundred theaters, and that’s about it.

Mini-Review: I really didn't know much about this movie going into it, other than the fact that it was directed by Penn, co-starred his daughter Dylan, as well as his son, Hopper. (Okay, maybe I didn’t know that last part.) What I didn’t know was that it was about a notorious counterfeiter named Jon Vogel, as seen through the eyes of his journalist daughter Jessica, and as with most of these type of memoir adaptations, it’s only going to be as interesting as how the story is told.

Penn has proven himself to be a decent filmmaker and storyteller, but here, he’s going for something arty that’s almost Terrence Malick-like at times, but needlessly so, because it just feels like he’s trying to make up for the flaws in the story by throwing in things like shaky camera work, overusing voice-over narrative and frequently leans on its soundtrack to try to make up for the weak storytelling.

On the other hand, if Penn was trying to create a great showcase for his daughter Dylan, Flag Day does a great job doing just that, and when you first see her on screen, you might be thrown off by how much she looks like her mother Robin Wright when she was much younger. It’s somewhat interesting to note that Sean Penn has never appeared in a movie he directed, which is only odd because you would think that being in scenes with other actors would make it easier to direct them. (I learned that from Jason Bateman, oddly.) In fact, the very best moments in Flag Day are those between Penn and his daughter, although there's still a lot of overacting and melodrama.

Honestly, I’ve met people like Jon Vogel, who are just constantly trying to make money however they can without worrying about who they hurt with their dishonesty. Because of this, I couldn’t fully get behind the father-daughter aspect of the story vs. just being interested in Jessica’s own personal growth.

In other words, maybe Flag Day should have been prefaced by "Based on a Dull Story,” because it just never really connected with me even though there were a scattered few moments that worked.

Rating: 5/10

Presuming that Flag Day isn’t going nationwide into over 500 theaters (and even if it does, it won’t be in the Top 10), here’s what the Top 10 should look like.

1. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $15 million -47%

2. Paw Patrol: The Movie (Paramount) - $8.4 million N/A

3. Reminiscence (Warner Bros.) - $6.2 million N/A

4. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $5 million -45%

4. Respect (MGM) - $4.8 million -45%

5. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $4.6 million -57%

7. The Night House (Searchlight) - $3.3 million N/A

8. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $3.2 million -57%

9. The Protege (Lionsgate) - $2.6 million N/A

10. Old (Universal) - $1.4 million -41%

District 9 director Neil Blomkamp returns with the horror film, DEMONIC (IFC Midnight), in which Carly Pope plays Carly Spenser, who learns her estranged mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt) who disappeared years earlier is now in a coma, although new technology has been created as therapy that will allow Carly to enter her mother's brain and communicate with her. What could possibly go wrong? I mean, read the title and take one effin’ guess.

I went into this one fairly hopeful that maybe Blomkamp had figured out a way of getting out of director’s jail after the last few duds by essentially going the M. Night Shyamalan route i.e. making a super low-budget horror movie without stars that can let him show people that District 9 wasn’t a fluke. But unfortunately, kids, Demonic does the exact opposite, because it’s one of those horrible high concept tech-driven horror movies (not unlike the Blumhouse model) that gets so bogged down in a premise that should thrive on its simplicity that it just fails to keep the viewer entertained, let alone scared.

As soon as Carly enters the mindscape that is her mother’s brain, you know you’re in trouble, because it looks like a scratched DVD or an old video game that’s gotten dirty and is now skipping or crashing just as you’re almost past the hardest level. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie, and after Carly’s first horrific experience in her mother’s brain -- I mean, just writing that and knowing my own mother makes this a scary idea -- you wonder why she’d go back and do it again.

On top of that, there’s just so much exposition with Carly talking about her mother’s disappearance, but before you can get bored, something weird happens like her best friend turns into some weird creature and gets pulled into the mix of whatever is possessing Carly’s mother. I won’t say too much more, because like with The Night House above, you shouldn’t know too much. Unlike that movie, as you learn more, you become more annoyed with the whole idea.

Then on top of that, Pope just isn’t a particularly dynamic actress, so she does little to elevate the weak material, and when her dumb-ass BFF shows up at 3 in the morning, the banter between them is so cringeworthy, you might wonder who wrote this crap. (Surprise: Blomkamp did, so he can’t even blame how bad this movie is on the script.) There’s also what looks like a scary chicken, which just makes the whole thing more laughable than scary.

Demonic is a truly awful movie, taking Blomkamp further down the spiral of a filmmaker that was obviously a one-trick pony and doesn’t seem to be able to prove otherwise.

Rating: 4/10

Now available on digital is Gracie Otto’s documentary, UNDER THE VOLCANO (Universal Pictures Content Group), which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March, and I absolutely loved it, though that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to anyone who knows about my background working in recording studios. The doc is in fact about the Air Studios Montserrat that the late Sir George Martin built in the Caribbean in the ‘70s where some amazing artists like The Police, Duran Duran, Mark Knopfler and others recorded some of the classic rock records of the ‘80s. Of course, like the movie Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm about Rockfield Studios in Wales, I’m a complete suck for these movies about legendary recording studios where great music was recorded, because it feeds one of my primary interests in life: music and specifically the history of rock music. I’m actually going to have an interview with the filmmakers over at Below the Line sometime soon, so you can read a lot more about the movie then.

Because I was away this weekend, I wasn't able to get to any of these. Sorry, publicists!

ON BROADWAY (Kino Lorber) MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY (Good Deed Entertainment) BARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (Greenwich) CONFETTI (Dada Filims) CRYPTOZOO (Magnolia) COLLUSIONS (Vertical) Next week, we're back to just a single new wide release -- thank you, God! -- and it's the Universal/Blumhouse remake of the cult horror classic, CANDYMAN.

Incidentally, I couldn’t write this column weekly without the fantastic data found at The-Numbers.com. The site continues to maintain one of the best box office databases on the internet, and I appreciate that being available to us.

[radishface]

Scientific Methods | Chapter 3: Hypothesis

You’re a showman, responding to every context, every input, sensitive to your surroundings beyond belief. But if you’re a hyperactive element that sets off at first contact, that must make Niel a noble gas. No wonder they call him King.

Read on AO3 ➡

________________________

It’s 2am. Early bedtime, all things considered. Some of the guys are still up in your room. You’re doodling away at your Mnet journal. With your right brain, you’re writing something sappy that they can use for broadcast later. Your left brain, in the meantime, is embarking on a voyage of discovery.

So, how would it happen?

Option one. After five minutes of excruciating silence at the podium, Boa reveals that “Never” Team wins (as it should), and that Ong Seongwoo has garnered the most votes and is now center of Wanna One forever.

So. “Never” Team has placed first. Cheers will erupt. Dongho will look alternatingly bitter and happy. Kenta’s face will be grey. And Daniel will turn around and be happy for you. He’ll be clapping and grinning and generally just so happy for you because let’s face it, you’re still good friends even through this competitive seduction playacting thing that’s suddenly hit your relationship like a strong gust of wind on the side of a sailboat.

You close your eyes, convulsed by a sudden realization: Niel doesn’t show any other expressions other than “sexy” and “outrageously happy.” That’s why he’s on top of this whole Produce 101 gambit. That’s it. Niel is a fucking adorable one-trick pony and the human equivalent of an endless supply of MDMA. Daniel is reliable and stable and happy and the nation loves him because he makes them sane.

There. You’ve said it. Bring on the hate mail.

Daniel must have grown up well. His mom must love him without being overly attached. His dad must be involved just enough. Nobody died in a strange or off-putting way during Niel’s formative childhood years. The most trauma he had was being bullied at school for looking like an awkward teenager, but who hasn’t experienced that? Niel grew up lower middle class, with low expectations of life. Like, if he dropped out of the rankings tomorrow he’d be bummed, but he’d get on with it.

Ugh. If you dropped out of the rankings tomorrow, you would be pretty devastated. You might not go full Daehwi-level suicidal princess of angst, but you’ll have a chip on your shoulder for a good while.

Dear God. You hope you can win a spot in the final 11 and keep your innocence intact. You need that for this whole thing to work. Or at least, at least hopefully you won’t suffer any major tragedies until you’re in your late twenties. Small tragedies are fine.

Niel is so different, not just from you, but from 90% of all the other queens of angst on this show. Niel is weirdly well-adjusted in a fucked up industry, and that’s probably why you’re so deeply drawn to one another. You’re a little bit wrong in the head. That’s why Niel, with his deeply boring inner life that’s 100% sunshine and ponies, likes you. Niel doesn’t understand it, but you’re the one who connects him to a greater intensity of life. He might be a one-trick pony right now, but he’s thirsty to learn a few more tricks. And boy howdy, you’ve seen the pony learn.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Niel, the nation’s gummy ball of sunshine, wants you to cut through it and expose his core. He’s trusting you with this. He invited you over for soju and tried to get you drunk. He wanted you to do something. He’s interested. Okay. So maybe that’s what your mission in life is. To teach a one-trick pony a few tricks. Show him what’s possible. Ideally, without causing yourself any major PTSD in the process.

And if you don’t seduce him properly, you’re the one who’s really fucked. Because here’s the thing for Niel, this might just be an Interesting Thing, but not the Real Thing. He’s probably just playing around. Ong Seongwoo is a great guy and a funny guy but Ong Seongwoo might also just be a curiosity. Ong Seongwoo might only be Kang Daniel’s best friend as long as he’s good for shits and giggles.

If you don’t completely get in Daniel’s head properly, you’re the one who’s going to be hurt. Because you’re the one who actually loves him.

Ah.

An exquisite pain blooms from your heart. It radiates out of your chest and fills your limbs with a sweet-and-sour ache.

Deep breath. It’s fine. Enjoy it. You can handle love. Close your eyes and let it run through you.

Deep breath. It would be nice if he were here. Ongi. You asleep yet?.

Deep breath. Ongi, you don’t have to be funny all the time.

Deep breath. Relax, Ongi. I like you because you’re you.

Before your heart explodes, you take another deep breath. Okay. Work through this slowly. You have a few thought experiments to complete and it pays to be methodical. This is what your therapist taught you when your dad threw the 18th century Louis XVIII ottoman at the window when he found out that your mom was having an affair and you thought that all of you were going to die that night.

In times of emotional extremity, just go slow and think it through. It’ll never be as bad—or as good—as you think it will go. Being rational has never made falling in love any easier, but it’s the least you can do for yourself.  

So. Option one—

After winning with Never, you go out and celebrate with the team. You’ll all try to get Jonghyun and Minhyun drunk at the buldak joint around the corner but of course they’ll be far too responsible and Jaehwannie will take most of the soju instead. Flush with drunk feeling, he’ll start belting out songs or just straight up start screeching. Daehwi might even loosen up and join in on the noise, given they’ll finally be away from the cameras and Daehwi has been so fucking repressed lately it even makes Ong hurt.

Niel might want to meet up later, but likely he’ll be hanging out with the Open Up team.

And then—you’ll keep your promise and go on your way.

You’ve successfully eliminated your Feelings for people before, though they never got this far. And those feelings were never incubated in such intense environments. So you anticipate that eradicating your feelings for Daniel will be more difficult—but not impossible.

It’ll start with a regimen of Not Hanging Out with Daniel as much. You’ll have to find another buddy to occupy the time. Seonho might be interested in being your lackey, if you can tear him away from Minhyun. Seonho would also be a good fit 1) he’s in a good rank, so it won’t hurt your ratings, and 2) he’s the Kid.

You’ll have to start finding flaws in Daniel’s character. Scrutinizing everything about him. Becoming a little critical, a little dismissive. It’s going to harsh the mellow of your relationship, but some things have to be stressed in order to change. Only after this period of actively reframing can you get enough distance to look at the relationship in a different way, coming to rest as another travel-weary survivor in the bittersweet, heavy-hearted DMZ that is the Friend Zone.

Except.

Daniel might not get the hint. Peachly puppy that he is, he’ll probably come crawling back twice as hard when he catches a whiff of the boot he’s been given.

Wait. Realization: if you start ignoring Daniel, he’ll likely be more interested in you and whatever it was that you had to say.

Okay, let’s get the facts straight.

Fact: Daniel is remarkably persistent and optimistic.

Fact: You’ve intrigued him with your big potential reveal.

Fact: Daniel loves it when noonas play hard to get.

So basically, if Never team wins, it’ll force your haughty noona hand. That’ll drive Daniel insane.

One or two weeks of dramatic sexual tension later, Daniel will have broken your will to resist and there will be a confession of feelings accompanied by some heavy breathing. If Daniel’s breath doesn’t smell like fish, you might even kiss him.   

Option two—

Open Up team wins. Celebrations are planned. The 1-2 Punch Donkey Kang combo and rest of the team go out for hotpot.

While they’re out, you’ll send for your dad’s entry-level Mercedes C300. You’ll make Uncle Butler vacate said car and walk back empty-handed to the Ong family estate. Sorry, Uncle Butler.

Around midnight, Open Up team will return to the dorms. You will send a text to Daniel instructing him to meet you at the parking lot behind Studio C.

Daniel will arrive at your dad’s Mercedes C300 under the cover of nightfall. You will hold the door open for him.

But the seats are so warm?! Daniel will splutter in delight.

Yes, Niel. I took the personal liberty of making things more comfortable for you before you arrived.

You’ll drive the both of you to one of those remote highway turnoffs that overlook Seoul. You’ll start off the playlist with some classic American rock. Then some EDM. Which eventually becomes The Weeknd. The mood will be dark, sexy, and pulsating. That kind of lonely, humid, heavy, 4am feeling. Except it’s not lonely, because you’re both there.

Nice.

Your one hand is on the wheel and the other’s on the stick. Nevermind that the C300 is an auto. It looks cooler this way, and if there’s anything that gets through Niel’s thick head, it’s the visual.

Ah, important: you will be navigating this route from memory like an old school, route-memorizing badass, because Google Maps Lady would totally ruin the mood.

You will arrive at said remote highway turnoff after an hour or two of driving and admire the skyline while leaning against the hood of the C300. The rising sun will bathe Seoul in a wash of hazy pink and lavender. Giddy with exhaustion and good vibes on your gay trainee version of the classic K-celeb car date, you will both look at each other. Your eyes will drift down to his lips and his eyes, to yours. And then—

You’ll be nervous. Even though you prepared everything, you’ll still be nervous. Your heart on a stick, you’ll say, Hey, Niel.

He’ll look at you. He might have a heavy-lidded gaze, expectant. Or maybe he’ll look scared, but hopeful.  

I think it’s time for me to say that thing that I was supposed to say.

You will pause here for a really long time. To build suspense. To gather your courage.

But I’m not going to tell you.

Daniel might look surprised. The faintest edge of disappointment might creep into his face.

This is when you’ll move in closer to him and put your hand on his neck. He’ll be caught. His breath will hitch in his throat that way. You’ll run your thumb over his pulse and find it jumping. And you’ll finish what you were about to say.

I’m going to show you.

And then, if Daniel’s breath doesn’t smell like fish, you might kiss him.

You sigh in awe. Whoa. That’s good. That’s actually pretty good.

Okay. Option three—

“It’s late, Seongwoo.“ Jonghyun says sleepily from across the room. “Go to sleep.”

“Almost there,” you say, and take your pen to your trainee journal.

Dear our Lord up in Heaven, you write.

Hi it’s me, your humble servant. So, now You have heard my three proposals. Let Thy Will be done.

Thanks,

Ong Seongwoo (not Hong Seongwoo)

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘THE MAGICIAN’: “It was war, and the enemy stalked…”

© 2019 by James Clark

     This is a film so dependent upon its sense for Bergman’s previous output, and even for Bergman’s subsequent work, that it sustains the adage, “Go full out, or forget about it entirely.” But adages can be wrong; and here we welcome one and all to a breathtaking tone poem, which we hope can benefit from a few suggestions.

On the face of it, The Magician (1958), features an intense protagonist, leading a crew so heterogeneous as to wonder how their objectives can succeed. They first come to us in the countryside, at a pause in their horse-driven coach. The vehicle is affixed with the sign, “Vogler’s Magic Health Theatre.” The black and white optics induce silhouette along a ridge, the virtual trademark of the film, The Seventh Seal (1957), where a couple, Jof and Marie ply the far-flung roads in a caravan advertising their circus musicale.Those two carnies manage to transcend the deadliness of the ridge (the seduction of death and its happy ending), by virtue of Jof’s blessing of his baby boy, to be a great acrobat and a juggler capable of an impossible trick.Although Jof and Marie made their breakaway in the 12th century, those traces of magic lean heavily upon Vogler, in Sweden, in the 19th century.Therefore, while far from playful banter disturbs the “Health Theatre,” the opportunity to see deeply into the nature of conflict never flags.

During that stopover, two of Vogler’s company, not for the first time, you can be sure, express that they hate what the other loves. A happy-go-lucky marketing and PR director of the caravan’s catchy affairs, namely, Tubal, devours a heavy lunch in the clover. Though earthy to quite a degree, he stunts his better self in order to harry a very old woman (Vogler’s grandmother, in fact) who, in his eyes and nose, reeks of offensive obsolescence.The old lady busies herself with finding herbs for her manufacture of the “health” area of the theatre, while frequently urging her grandson to fire a figure dangerously crude. Leaving aside, for the moment,Vogler and his assistant-showman, as the coach resumes, Tubal, sneers, “You and your mandrake and your severed fingers, and other mischief.” As if she were some kind of relative of the old and opinionated genius, in Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)—actress,Niama Wilstrand covering both roles—she fires back, “Spirits used to howl so loudly in this forest [as did the forest where Jof and Marie parted company with the mainstream] that no one dared enter after sundown. I remember it well…” The canny, though perhaps not fully savvy, one, thinks to prevail by reminding the oldster, and the other two, that he’s the only functional businessman in the coach. “How would Vogler’s Magic Health Theatre manage without Tubal, I ask you…” 

Turning to the stylish and rather impressively silent other two, being obviously the stars of the show, their first coming to us is a very slight vignette of them surveying, on that same ridge, a sort of mine shaft with a ladder reaching out.In the course of  elevating his sense of the salt of the earth, Tubal snaps out, “Who bailed you out in Copenhagen at night, and at risk to his life, after the Danish Tour went to hell?”Though the silent ones fail to shine in the coach, Vogler gives us some indication about his strong suit when the so-called health theatre comes upon a dying man in the lake-land. Granny alone had heard the latter’s cries, and Vogler alone had gone to meet more than irate cops. He gently addresses the alcoholic wreck in question, with, “Good day, sir…” The rescued man without hope replies, “My name is Johan Spegel [mirror].(We’ll have to figure out later if that designation is valid.Moreover, we must also await for the validity of the exchange of “bird catcher” in the moniker, Vogler.Could the boss-man be running on empty?) That the dying man, an actor, readily sees through the elaborate disguise Vogler deploys—panther-black hair and beard, and game-face, black, carriage-trade outlaw to all—somewhat crimps what style there might be. That the dying man soon reveals to Vogler, and to us, his cascading cynicism(detectable before any conversation), allows us to realize that the protagonist, instinctively not sharing the nihilism of the wreck, deploys a chivalry about those who have striven and fallen. (Those who have not striven would be something else. But along with this complication, one of many, there would be the remarkable matter of short cuts to a questionable striving. (A war, indeed; but a war with a bewildering range of theatres.)Pausing on the walk to the coach, the actor/ mirror overacts to the tune of, “I’ve always longed for a knife, a blade to lay bare my entrails, set my brain and heart free, free me from my substance… and cut away my tongue and my manhood. A blade that would carve out all my uncleanliness. Then this so-called spirit would rise up from this meaningless carcass…”

At the last moment of the actor’s screed (now installed in the caravan), he asks Manda, the other careful dresser, about what kind of reading a smart young performer would prefer.The answer, “ a novel about swindlers,” comes as somewhat of a surprise, from such a seemingly serene, almost doe-like centre of  grace.Even more surprise results from Manda’s bitter outlook. “Deception is so prevalent that those who speak the truth are usually branded as the greatest liars…” That elicits, from the reckless negator, a spate of shoot-to-kill. “The author presumes there’s a great general thing called truth, somewhere out there. That theory is pure illusion.” That theory is also pure Tubal, the majoritarian, would-be top-dog in reveling that he’s sitting on a quorum to quell inklings that he doesn’t have what it takes.He sneers at the aristocratic reader (in fact, actress Ingrid Thulin, dressed in male styles), “So much for your reading, Mr. Aman.” Manda fires back, “Mr. Tubal shouldn’t speak with his mouth full…” [a mouth full of hate and raw meat]. That skirmish somewhat consolidates that the dandies have some kind of purchase, however lacking earthy force, upon an exigency prone to embarrassment, while occupying the orbit of, from one angle, the fancy-free untouchable dowager, in Smiles of a Summer Night.

What seemed at first to be a kind of eccentric road saga has developed into a war story. Tubal’s rounding out the argument, with smug recourse to the popular will—“I find this business about truth devilishly interesting. It’s a beautifully passion. My head sits on my neck… That’s an absolute truth, and I like such truths. You’re very amusing. I have no care for the past or the future. I’m a lily of the field”—constitutes a run-up to far more violence, just around the corner. As the actor dies, eliciting from Vogler a sadness, Tubal quips that the corpse is a nuisance for an affair of making a financial  success of the business of imminently wowing the burghers of Stockholm.At this juncture, the coach is imperiously intercepted at a police roadblock, and the company of diverse players comes into another moment of truth. Having been forewarned by virtue of Tubal’s advanced announcement about a magic health theatre, the City’s health watchdog, Dr. Vergerus, along with a pliable police chief and wealthy deletant, Egerman (the name of the lawyer rounded up by Desiree, in Smiles of a Summer Night), stages an inquisition of crimes against holy science—a proponent of literal truth far more single-minded than Tubal.(The proto-Nazi husband/ medic pushing his poetic wife into a mental hospital, in Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly[1961]iterates the helmsman’s disdain for careless dotage upon overrated and very dangerous idols.)

On being deposited outside of Egerman’s mansion, and left there for a long time(to digest that enemies rule) we come to realize that, whereas the rest of the crew maintain considerable composure, Vogler uses a cane, a pipe and a hunched position.Whereas, particularly, Manda’s face is poised, as if confronting those who don’t know how lucky they are to be in her elevated presence (her directing her eyes upon the detainers, in the wake of the first moment when the notables have their back to them and continue to snigger) and her entering the house having been regal, Vogler is a picture of stress, covering his face with one hand.Hearing from Tubal that Vogler is mute (mute-seeming, for the same effort of synthesis on the part of Elisabet, in Bergman’s, Persona[1966]), the inquest settles for Manda’s account, and it’s not only smooth but revelatory. Vergerus presents evidence that the bad-asses conduct “magic seances.” Looking at the technocrat straight in the eyes, she states, as if the mere thought could never cohere with someone as cool as she is, she tells the attacker, “We didn’t say that,” [the promotional hacks having rushed to childishness].The learned doctor then shifts to the scandalous notion that this rabble presumes to “heal the sick.” During her rather brazen denial of that, we see that Vogler is as unsatisfied as the prosecutor. Though petrified by the audit, that subject of lifting the frail hits, for the strange leader, a nerve, entirely absent in the spokesperson.(What troubling eddies of sensibility have come to stay, over and beyond facile provocation?)Vergerus, nothing if not a facile, but clearly murderous,provocateur, trots out the well-known zeal about the prisoner’s study for the reflections of one, Franz Mesmer (1734-1815), he, of the matter of, “animal magnetism” and “natural energy transference.”The earlier non-banter about “truth” thereby segues toward a more nuanced theatre of sensibility. (I’m reminded here of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight[2015], to wit, “Nobody said it would be easy.”/ “Nobody said it would be this hard.”)Amidst the crazy bumper-car zone to come, we must be on the look-out, within the spin, for those dramatic ideas turning a bilious plunge into an invigorating discovery.

Not getting anywhere in face of Manda’s sang froid, the special prosecutor uses some hands-on toward Vogler to determine if this terrorist leader can prove that there is any substance to the claim of being bereft of speech—a proof to the contrary being tantamount, in the doctor’s view, of fraud all across the cosmos. (As this third degree becomes necessary, there is a rather remarkable out-of-the-blue by Tubal, shooting down the idea that the business could dabble in “supernatural powers.” Of course, his patented materialism would be a slam-dunk; but, as we close into the heart of the drama, we shall have to adjust to the practical guy being actually more viably uncanny, Mesmer-like, than Vogler and Manda.)The doctor, not accustomed to arguing against his bright lights, performs upon Vogler a scrutiny of his mouth.He shoves the badly-self-possessed but garishly-promoted stranger—having been touted by Tubal as, “a big name on the Continent” [not a welcome idea to a megalomaniac vigilante against non-scientists]—into a chair, grabs a lamp, and orders the target to hold it. Before making his analysis, he delights in reproving, “Why such furious looks? You have no reason to hate me. I only want to ascertain the truth. That should be your wish as well.” The glare in the defendant’s eyes is supplemented by the local big name’s grabbing his rival’s chin, thrusting open his mouth and jerking his subject’s head back. “Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue.” After that, the doctor pushes his mouth closed, and reports, “I find no reason for your muteness.”Hovering over the captive, the chief of health sneers while Vogler leans back, gasping, and then covers his face with his hand. Amidst this humiliation, he’s asked if he would perform inducing a “state.” Vogler nods “yes,” with some vigor; and thus a counter-attack begins to form, not without many difficulty.

In Bergman films we’ve covered over the past year, we’ve seen quite a few riveting instances of “states” or moods, pushing the envelope of “truth.” The Magician, however, would seem to take the cake, inasmuch as its alliances and enmities are forever changing, requiring a true magician to discern where it’s going.The lexicon of dueling—the doctor pressing his expose by means of, “I’m at your disposal”—would seem to be the makings of a climax of such. But Vergerus, after heaping upon Vogler smears like “weak souls” (as to him and his following) and toying with the idea, “You think I hate you. You are wrong. I’m interested in one thing only: you’re physiology, Mr. Vogler… I’d like to perform an autopsy on you, weigh your brain, open up your heart, study your nervous system… take out your eyes”—in supposing having shown immunity to Vogler’s presence—comes into significant fire by the host’s wife, who asks him, “Why are you lying?… We can see you’re lying. Something frightened you terribly, but you don’t dare say what…” This rejoinder having somewhat punctured the gratifications of the town’s big names, the Chief of Police decrees that next morning the less than accomplished outlaw must show what he’s got to give.

Dinner is served; but only for those in formal attire. The troupe is directed to the kitchen where the, servants dine, an exile which involves the tuxedos laughing uproariously. (The hostess, however, declares, “Isn’t it amusing to humiliate defenseless people?” The doctor thinks to put it all fine, on the basis of her husband and him in the midst of a bet about the pros and cons of spirituality, “inexplicable forces.”“By all logic we’d be suddenly forced to reckon with a god.”) We see our voyagers stomping angrily in the shadows of the lower depths. Vogler and Manda stride through the kitchen harboring visions of revenge. Tubal, however, has mastered his initial anger and proceeds to charm the women who cook and clean. The rude exponent of cheap truth now gives us an undemonstrative clinic of wit, grace and primordial juggling! Two young girls working there, Sara and Sanna, are the first to bask in Tubal’s magnanimity. Sara, a year or so older than her friend, advises, regarding the strangers, “Anyway, they have no money. You only need fear the rich.”The calling card for the mover and shaker of the peripatetic show addresses the girls with, “My name is simply Tubal, simple as a folk tune.” The main cook arrives, and Tubal’s charm goes into overdrive, captivating her by his vitality, savoir faire and genuine pleasure to be with her and the girls..Soon Sara is wanting him to read her palm; but he is solicitous of her future possibility being more mature. “I wouldn’t want to stifle your curiosity.”With the senior chef, he provides free “love potion,” eliciting from her, “It makes me hot under the corset…” This draws from him, “I see a light”—abundantly unique amidst this most dark of Bergman’s early works.

While Tubal, having ignited amorous flames amidst all but one of the servants, there is the grandmother, having said nothing since the arrest, taking under her wing (more juggling, which the beautiful people, Vogler and Manda, eschew) the perpetually confused, Sanna, too young and simple for orgies. What she recommends, in the form of a bedtime story, covers much more than a good sleep. Though the girl ingenuously begins with, “You’re so old and ugly” [and a witch], this witch/ oracle can also rise to disinterestedness paralleling and transcending a normal narrative. (This incident also being a specialty of Bergman as a phenomenologist initiating logical problematics far beyond what Yale and Harvard could manage, shackled[like the venomous doctor here] to classical rational rubrics.) “Did you sell your soul,” the naïf asks.“Yes, perhaps I did,” the frail battling-ram smiles. (While this preamble was marching along, Sara , having swallowed some of the suggestiveness, admits, “I felt a funny feeling, especially in my tummy… Now what happens?”) Getting down to the juggling, the witch begins with, “You must wish for things that live, that are alive or will come to be… I’ll sing you a song”[very mindful about Vogler’s plight; a song about Vogler and Vergerus and Manda]. “It was war and the enemy stalked/ On tired legs the soldier walked./ The enemy [including the dying actor] charged from the woods that day/ Our man stood in the thick of the fray/ Knives flashed and blood was spilled/ Many a warrior there [including the hostess] was killed/ The soldier’s face with victory was bright[not, as we’ll see, it did him any good]/ Heavy poured the rain that night[wait for it]/ The soldier sat by himself and wrote/ To his dearest[that is dearest, as in “dearest”] a lengthy note/ Love brings solace/ Love brings rest/ Love brings strength/ To the weakest breast/ Love is one/ Can’t ne’er be twain…”

That remarkable interlude, by someone who is, in fact, the saga’s true magician, spells not only the incisiveness she lives by, but the cave-in of Vogler’s falling short of that magic of a paradoxical “twain” (comprising acrobatics and juggling). The last passage of her song is, “Love is simple. Yet hard to explain.[Vogler trapped in an explanation.]/ It’s going to thunder./ Far, far, far away…”Leaving Sanna to her simple sleep, granny—well aware that she must leave the dead end troupe (even more decisively than the dowager’s cut away from Desiree and her dead end friends, in, Smiles of a Summer Night);and also Tubal, the mixer,now headed to marry the religious cook and probably stay on at the Egerman concern—her hard-won fortune from plants, here and there, and spells, phony and valid, being her ticket to persevere, rounds off her stint in the servant quarter, with an invocation. “I call you down, I call you out,beyond the dead, beyond the living, the living dead.” Here the subject is the dead actor, seen by her to be of use in effecting some kind of escape for a dysfunctional show and, moreover, a dysfunctional marriage.

The denouement can be quickly described. But the relationship between Vogler and Manda is beyond ending.In the night, the power-couple, who couldn’t care less about mere servants,set up their apparatus in hopes of giving the shallow cynic a jolt of blue-chip mood. Mrs. Egerman drops by, Manda cuts out; and Vogler has on his hands the hostess’ delusion that he’s heaven-sent to resolve the pain of her young daughter’s recent death(plunging her, however slightly, beyond routine piety). She assures him her bedroom is out of range for her husband, whom she has also stuffed with sleeping pills. Dragging himself away from a vignette he doesn’t want to be in, he comes upon his and Manda’s designated bedroom, where a slightly tipsy Vergerus has had an eyeful of Manda being a dazzling blonde in her petticoat. From the shadowy hallway he doesn’t discover anything new; but, nevertheless, the world takes a painful step, bereft of the hostess’ shot in the dark. Perhaps  the thrill evident in the mourner by Vogler’s shaky charisma(a possible version of the cliché, “A great man never seems to be so to his wife,”) has something to do about her  tolerating the rat here.Vogler’s wildly inflected wife is in the course of getting off her chest, “Our entire act is a fraud, from start to finish… a miserable rotten lie, through and through… We’re the most pathetic rabble you could find…” (That would somewhat coincide, then, with the intruder’s, “You represent what I despise most of all. The ineffable.”The doctor extracts from her that, “a long time ago” she found some cogency in the-man-in-black’s priorities. But now there’s nothing.)

Just as he gets around to offering her help to his idea of full health,Vogler steps forward, smashes him about and the test becomes a test of the smart guy. Next morning, by virtue of the resource offered by the corpse, the nominal leader of the magic show gets down to business by way of pretending to have died during a rigorous part of the exhibition (involving the Egerman’s coachman, who had muttered, while Tubal was doing his magic, “A face like Vogler’s makes you furious. You want to bash it in…”)With Manda’s assistance, he terrifies Vergerus, whose perfunctory autopsy comes back to bite him. Using body parts and aural and optical features, he nearly murders the hated opponent, only dodging a homicide conviction by way of Manda’s intervention of common sense.

This film anticipates Bergman’s Winter Light (1963), where a charge of cosmic dynamite dribbles down to a rather tepid long shot. But, when all is said and done, The Magician is in a league of its own.It portrays, in the grandmother, a canny mystic, almost validly  inured to hidden isolation.During that prophetic downpour, she is the first to depart the shell-shocked manor, entering the coach in order to indict the poor form of Vogler and Manda.Then she hits the road; but not until describing the fortune in her purse, the rewards of her delighting in the earth and a polyglot clientele. Something she doesn’t tell them, but something we should know, is what drives her on.She is far from alone, in her preferences, though she clearly has never, in her long life, encountered her ilk. Consider the regime of solitaire for the dowager in Smiles of a Summer Night. Her hovering over the cards while secured by pillows involves a taste for order, to be sure; but at the same time, there is a premium upon silence and stillness, irrespective of the fate of the game. Despite the optics of stasis, the addressing of the situation comprises ripples of initiative, a cosmos she has had much to do in its making. While her disappointing daughter stars in a questionable firmament of gluey childishness, the elderly hostess beholds beauties on the go, headed for extinction, felt as a gift. The grandmother/ witch lacks the oracle’s ease; but loves her hardships in the same frisson. (Jof and Marie, in, The Seventh Seal, are a mixed bag—he a poet, she a practical mom. But, during their dash for the sake of the new, the lonely new finds them on the same page [evincing how often we all, however slightly, prefer an outlaw life]).

On the other hand, the former lions of Lyon crash infamously.In the wake of Vogler’s unbecoming revenge, he becomes mired in asking the notables (including Mrs. Egerman) for spare change.They reach the coach, feel the scorn of their relative by-marriage; and find that their coachman has (after a brief notion of his and his sweetheart to resume, for what it’s worth, the magic of the open road) decided to stay with Sara in the kitchen. With no horse-power in sight, the magic stars come to us in a total doldrum. Whereas the dowager could reign sprightly on her bed, to great aplomb, Vogler and Manda resort to sterile fantasy. They see themselves summoned by the king to a command performance. The first stage of this coup, that isn’t, involves the notables, back at the Egerman mansion, now having become their fans.

Instead of standing pat with the loners—a conclusion somewhat out of whack with the fine juggling of Tubal and granny and sundry others—let’s listen some more to that barely-marriaged couple. (I find in Bergman’s scenes of chilling devastation, the demand to attend to recuperative strengths—on the basis of a comprehensive courage. As we listen to them, we’re listening to their tolerance for disappearing. Frid, the savvy servant, in Smiles of a Summer Night, coins the term, “punishment,” for the situation of full-scale , reflective love.) There is a gambit, in that dialogue with Vergerus, in which the divided woman goes some distance to put into play the state of affairs she finds herself in.In the midst of her expressing her hatred of her métier, she touches upon how her life had been elevated by “the nightmare.” “He has no secret powers?” the vigilante asks. “No, perhaps not,” she answers, in total confusion. Therefore, we get, rather predictably, “It’s meaningless…” “So I can put my mind at ease?” the scientist asks. “Yes, put your mind at ease… We can demonstrate our incompetence as often as you like…”(Wallowing in her own incompetence, being, it seems, in the vein of Vogler’s subsequent panhandler role.) The intruder reads her dissatisfaction, notwithstanding, “You seem to regret that fact and wish it were otherwise. But there are no miracles… God is silent, while men babble on.” She can’t resist saying, “If  just once…” [the ecstatic could prevail]. The doctor, misdiagnosing the phenomenon to be a lift by a supernatural gift-giver, smugly prates, “That’s what they all say” [all he knows; but not all she knows].

After the doctor leaves—sneering at the idea of Vogler being a doctor (but without comprehending that the latter’s purchase is far from an exact science)—there is left in the air the hopeless impasse with Vergerus: “You think your husband wants to kill me? Do you want to kill me, Mr. Vogler? You hate me. I like you. Quite stimulating!” After slamming the door and smashing his head repeatedly upon it, he tears off the disguise and joins her in bed, far from the first time this impasse has flared.Their conflict has more to do with acrobatics lost than mere treachery, and, as such, their distemper resembles a death spiral. Whereas his face shows anguish, her’s is impassive.Lying behind where he lies. she kisses his head. Mustering a somewhat ironical smile, she purrs, “Remember in Lyon, where we earned lots of money?” [at what line of work, the question is], and bought a country house and intended to stop traveling… Then we sold the property and bought the carriage and horses… That’s where you started acting mute[another version to come, in Persona, for the sake of progressing into the labyrinth of truth, the ways of the cosmos]. Remember the Grand Duke—a less than grand duke appears in Smiles of a Summer Night–who was so taken by me that he promised to recommend us to his Majesty in Sweden? You thought I’d been unfaithful, and you gave the Duke a thrashing. We sat in prison for two months until he forgave us. Do you think he recommended us to the Swedish court, anyway?” His reply is silence.She continues, “No, I don’t think so, either.” All he can muster, with the field of acrobatics and juggling defeating him, is, “I hate them. I hate their faces, their bodies, their movements, their voices… But I get frightened, too, and then I lose my power…”With Vogler’s virtual surrender to the appalling, she thrusts her assets, “What if I left you?” “Go on, if you want. It makes no difference…”

We have been privy to other figures under similar pressures, under the auspices of phenomena the uncanniness of which has begun to chafe creatures like the doctor.This film seems to involve, however, a drama, as never before and never later, demanding full attention to the factor of horrific odds, slicing away, like barracudas, upon those who would venture to put into play“faces,” visages and bodies, moving into a sense of integrity confusing to nearly all of the population. Furtive figures, like the lady abandoning the demoralized couple, represent a shadowy agency for initiatives needful by nature itself. But why couldn’t there be buoyant partnerships instead of mere escapees?Impossible juggling tricks carry far, given range and spunk. Bergman’s cinema, transcending political tallies, draws upon viewers who have allowed themselves to be part of the show in a remarkable way.That allowance demands special courage, but courage encouraged by inspiring creatures and other magical things.

(Further complicating an already very subtle and rigorous reflective task, is the widespread nonsense that The Magician amounts to a mea culpa about Bergman’s being humbled in a fraudulent, pointless attempt to surpass common sense.Bergman may be famously a Byzantine husband, a constant health crisis and a vicious employer. But along the way he cultivated constructs far surpassing most Nobel Prize winners. He had nothing to be embarrassed about in his work.)

By way of reiterating the test of physicality embarrassing Vogler and Manda—holed up in the carriage and biting their fists, coming down to servant-Sara’s brief whim to get into a circus and thereby get the show on the road—we have the herbalist’s final goodbye: “I always said you were a foolish and reckless man. One should know one’s limitation” [and drop the idiocy of becoming another pope].

[theskelejournals]

The Core

While making their way to the resort, the human paused upon seeing the pair of guards from earlier by the pathway. The two of them looked happy, enjoying each other's company, and made no move whatsoever to continue pursuing the child. I chuckled softly at the sight while Frisk smiled, sparing them and the nice cream vendor a few words before climbing the rest of the way toward the resort.

When they reached the top of the pathway, Sans was by the entrance. My son gave one of his casual grins and beckoned them over, offering to take them to dinner inside. Gladly accepting, the pair teleported in and Sans secured them a table where they could eat and talk. He spoke a little about their journey so far, and I could tell that my son, even being so weary about his timeline, showed now that he too had grown fond of the child. He had turned into a quiet guardian, much like myself, and silently feared for their fate if they continued onward. He even seemed like he wanted to convince the child to stay instead of continue, but after a pause he brushed it off into support instead.

To my surprise, his subject change actually lead to the door of the Ruins. I stood by quietly with raised brows of surprise as he told Frisk about his and Toriel’s time at the door. And ultimately, told them about the promise he made to her. He made it perhaps a little too clear that had that promise not been made, Frisk might not be on the journey they were on now. He’d taken my warning about the prince to heart. Sans coated the near threat with more support, unsure really how to show he had developed a desire to protect them.

Instead, he stood, saying, “well, that’s all. take care of yourself, kid, ‘cause someone really cares about you.” And then he left.

The child watched him leave, a look of uncertainty on their face. They seemed conflicted about what had happened, and I couldn’t say with absolute certainty which part got to them most. Frisk was about to get up when they noticed a slip of paper beside their drink. They looked around before grabbing the paper and reading it over curiously, and I couldn't help but to glance over their shoulder.

“check in under sans with the code 16806.”

Startled, the human held onto the paper and went to the front desk immediately. Frisk did as the paper told them, and was surprised further to receive a free nights stay at the resort. Realizing what happened, I grinned softly as they wandered toward their designated room. Having a job at the resort as a comedian, Sans had a heavy discount for stays that he could use. He might not really know how to show it to Frisk, but he really was looking out for them.

Settling down for the night, I watched Frisk tuck themself in to sleep. I was about to leave when I noticed them nod off abnormally quick while sitting up. Blinking in confusion, I tilted my head, that was rather fast. Then I froze, sucking in a breath. The child looked up quickly, startling, but it wasn't Frisk who looked up. Instead, it was the prince. I stayed still, watching, until those red eyes turned toward me. I stared, brows raising slowly higher as I realized that they weren't just looking in my direction.

They were looking right at me.

We stayed there in silence, gazes locked, before the prince tilted their head and squinted. They hummed, a curious sound, before grabbing the cover and pulling it over themself, turning their back to me. I stood there for a moment longer, completely taken off guard. Had I actually been seen? Truly? There was no way. I opened my mouth to speak, but stopped myself before I could try. There was no point, surely, it was just coincidence.

I shook my head, retreating to Snowdin for the night after that. My mind wandered on the subject matter more throughout the night, but when morning came and my bartender left for work, I went back to the resort. When I returned, the child was still sleeping. I decided to give them more space, instead manifesting in the bar while keeping a mental link open with the portal. Roughly an hour passed when I was alerted they were awake, and it was then I returned to shadow their steps.

Looking in their face, I saw that it was indeed Frisk I saw now, the red eyes once more gone without a trace.

What is causing you to resurface? What is your game? And why do you appear to see me?

They were all questions that would remain unanswered for the time as the child went around and chatted with who they could. They talked to a pair of girls out in the back, listening to them talk and gossip vehemently before returning inside.

Once there, they met an old family friend’s son working inside the fast food part of the resort. Benson, or Burgerpants as he said everyone else called him, was there. He seemed hesitant and twitchy about talking to the child, but eventually caved and started chatting with them too. Frisk was always so curious about what everyone had to say. I couldn’t help but smirk as I watched the two of them, the son of my nurse feeling very much like family.

Eventually the child decided to continue on again. Refreshed, they pressed on with new energy and started toward the Core. I frowned as I watched, sighing quietly and following a little slower than I had been. The Core had been such… a massive project. I'd been planning it for so many years before it was ever built. While yes it was a good thing and helped give the monsters power, it was still the thing that ended up scattering my existence and claiming me. It's… not a pleasant memory.

I considered retreating to my portal for this one like I had for the end of Waterfall and Hotland, but wearily decided instead to keep going. It would be fine, nothing would harm me aside from my own memories.

When they entered, Frisk tried to navigate the terrain inside. Alphys attempted to lend some assistance again over the course of their travels, but unbeknownst to both of them, Mettaton had sabotaged her plans and routes. Alphys, embarrassed, eventually stopped trying to help and instead watched quietly in confusion from her lab.

I can say I was more than a little relieved to find that Frisk had been blocked off from crossing the main controls area in which the… accident had occurred. They were, however, approached by a few waves of monsters that made me squint in disapproval. Typically only scientists or authorized personnel were allowed in the Core, but Mettaton had hired them to appear and stand in the child's way. Between strangers, civilians who could be harmed in their lack of knowledge of the Core and the fact that they were sicced on Frisk, I was more than displeased as I followed them. Even with the more resilient enemies, the child managed to find ways to get around them without violence.

After a few confusing twists and turns in their path, they finally made it to a dark room. Inside, Mettaton awaited them, a looming obstacle in their path. I listened as the robot exposed to Frisk his creator's plan, that she had been the one to activate the Hotland protocols in order to stop them herself to get on the child’s good side. To become friends, to convince them to stay behind. Frisk didn’t seem like they were too sure about the information, but after a moment to think, their face was full of confliction. I didn’t blame them. They were hurt by the lies but also touched that others actually wanted them to stay.

The child didn’t have long to reflect before Mettaton initiated a fight. He spoke of stopping Frisk on his own, using their soul to cross the barrier and entertain the humans himself. An entirely selfish goal, one I'm not sure if he meant completely or was simply saying because they were being recorded. As predicted, Alphys ended up calling the human after a moment to offer advice on defeating the robot. With a literal flip of a switch, the battle changed.

Through a veil of fog from a machine that I'm still not sure how he managed to hide, Mettaton EX appeared, a body truly fit for the stage. I couldn't help but laugh softly in disbelief, watching the entire thing play out. He really was the face of a showman.

The two duked it out in a battle of dancing and avoiding each other, with Mettaton throwing several waves of attacks and the child doing their best to dodge. They scoffed and jeered at one another, weaving around to avoid and attack. Frisk ended up having to use the device on their phone again to shoot at the robot, disabling parts of him slowly in order to keep up. Confident they weren't actually hurting him, I think it was only with that knowledge that Frisk had even resorted to such methods.

On and on they went, Mettaton trying to goad the child and thwart them dramatically in front of the cameras. It was a tedious fight, but even then.

The child refused.

Eventually Mettaton lost functionality of his limbs, dropping to the floor in defeat. Despite the fact they had just been battling, Frisk darted over and sat by his side as he spoke. Touched by their kindness and the cheering and support of his fans, Mettaton finally wished the child good luck in their journey before blacking out from over usage of his barriers.

Alphys came in moments after, looking terrified upon seeing the shape her creation was in. Unbeknownst to Frisk, Mettaton wasn't simply a robot with a soul. I hadn't known until I was lost to the Core, but he was actually a ghost monster possessing the body specifically made for him. Alphys had every reason to be afraid for him. To her relief, however, she discovered his true condition and asked Frisk to continue on.

Moments later after regaining her composure, the scientist joined Frisk on their way through the final passage. With each step the pair took, Alphys got more and more nervous. She tried to strike up tiny bits of conversation, only to let them fade immediately after. Frisk seemed worried, but I could tell that what Mettaton said before still stuck with them. They weren't entirely sure what to think, and until that point I hadn't seen quite as distressed of a look on their face as I did then despite their efforts to hide it. Had I been able to detect it properly, I know the tension would have been through the roof.

The final elevator that lead to New Home loomed ahead, and just before the child could enter, Alphys stopped them. She fumbled for words for a moment, causing Frisk to frown slowly as they tried to listen. Finally, she spoke, and I saw the dread and dismay slowly take over the child's face.

“I can't take this anymore,” Alphys said shakily, defeatedly, unable to even look at the child. She saw her efforts to convince them to stay were futile, so she finally settled on the truth. “I… I lied to you. A human soul isn't strong enough to cross the barrier alone. It takes at least a human soul… and a monster soul.”

There was a pause, Frisk’s brows arched in distressed shock. The silence hung heavy even in just those few seconds.

“If you want to go home, you'll have to take his soul. You'll have to kill Asgore.”

Before Frisk could even properly react or digest the information, the yellow scientist fled down the hall and vanished.

The hard truth of the barrier had finally been revealed, and I could only watch as sorrow swept over Frisk’s face, broken by her confession. It was almost the same look on the little girl I'd stopped in Waterfall when I'd told her the same thing, and the memory alone made the ghost of my soul ache.

I'm sorry, Frisk. You're just as trapped as we are.

Even in their grief, I saw something else slowly make its way into the child's expression. Their face hardened, their fists clenched, and Frisk looked toward the elevator after taking a deep breath. I stood in awe as I watched. Even in the face of gruesome odds, still… that determined mercy prevailed.

They would find a way to change it.

They were Determined.

[animationnut]

Sounds of the Theater

Fandom: Sing Rating: K+ Note: This movie is great and I love the Moon Theater family and Mike is hands down the best character.

A long time ago, perhaps a little too long for Buster’s liking, his theater was once filled with sweet, glorious sounds that made his heart swell with happiness. The music that once consumed the whole auditorium, melodies ranging from soothing to intense, dramatic crescendos. The soft swish as the thick red velvet curtains were hoisted back and forth, the bottoms hovering just over the hardwood of his stage. The overlapping chatter of theater-goers as they crowded the seats, their conversations mixing into the same vibrating hum. But greatest of all were the emotional monologues, the passionate lyrics, the gripping stories that poured from the souls of the performers that graced his stage over the years.

For a while, he thought he would never hear these unique, heart-lifting sounds again. He had never understood the phrase ‘silence is deafening’ until he experienced it. The agonizing quiet of his theater as his audience was drawn to more modern forms of entertainment, as his shows became nonexistent as performers drifted further away from his area, preferring to play for big, professional companies than a locally-owned theater. As his funds diminished and his theater continued to remain empty, he held on to his optimism. He had a motto, after all. Once you hit rock bottom, there was no way to go but up.

To save his theater, to fill it with energy and life and noise once again, he came up with his second greatest idea ever (coming behind his decision to own a theater in the first place).

The singing competition brought him more than he ever bargained for. There were many setbacks, and he admittedly fell to despair for a brief period of time, but in the end it turned out way better than he could have ever dreamed.

The silence was gone. But while the familiar sounds that were so affixed to his memory had returned, there were new ones, ones that he had not expected, but was extremely grateful for.

The pumping salsa music emitting from the boombox as Gunter taught Rosita the dance, the mother of twenty-five piglets laughing at her partner’s enthusiasm as his loud, booming voice nearly overcame the music as he spoke with her, not caring in the least that her form wasn’t perfect but helping her stay loose and not so self-conscious.

What Buster could only describe as the roar of a guitar as Ash took the stage, fingers flying skillfully over her strings as the theater rocked. Her strong, powerful vocal cords keeping pace with her punk-style music, a dominating presence that could not be contained.

The crooning lyrics of Mike, who created a melody that always seemed to stop Buster in his tracks, watching as the small mouse sang with soul. He was a natural-born showman, and it showed in the way he handled himself on stage (and off, as a matter of fact).

The way Meena’s voice would start off quiet when she sang, but grew more confident and stronger as she lost herself in the music, in the lyrics that meant the most to her. The vibrations that rumbled throughout the theater when she started to dance with the beat.

The sincere, passionate songs Johnny always tended to choose for his performances. The delicate piano notes that would ring clear and sweetly in succession as his fingers danced across the keys with as much determination as his singing held.

The constant bickering of Ash and Mike, her sarcasm battling his sneering mockery. The occasional sour piano key accompanied by Johnny’s groan of despair and Ms. Crawly’s blunt comments. Eddie’s frantic muttering as he checked his clipboard to see if everything was set for the night’s performances and Meena’s soft-spoken assurances that everything was in order. Gunter’s stories of his youth, which were sometimes bewildering but nonetheless greatly amusing. Rosita’s humming as she bustled about, interjected with motherly reminders to wear their scarves when it was cold and to rest when they were sick, her calm interference when Ash and Mike got a little too out of hand. Meena’s stammering when she got flustered and nervous, punctured by Mike’s sharp reprimands to be more confident, less timid (because this kid had talent and he wasn’t going to let her fear and insecurities run every aspect of her life).

The laughter that never ceased, the teasing and encouraging remarks. The shouts and hollers and cheers that echoed in the breaks of the music.

When Buster imagined the singing contest, it was to save his theater, to bring back the lost sounds he yearned to hear again. But he got something much more, a family of oddballs who shouldn’t have mixed so well together but they did.

There were new sounds that made up the Moon Theater. And as far as Buster was concerned, they were much better.

[rayaarchive]

Play Fighting

Trimmed nails picked aging frayed wood from the old seat, worn partly by the ocean air and weather. The people who set up the renaissance festival sometimes left it out and it showed under the frivolous pillows. Raya trimmed her nails specifically for today even, and she was eager for the jousting to be over so she could do her bit. That and she wasn’t overly fond of being near the horses as it was.

It grew increasingly difficult to keep the grin off her face when the knights approached her and Savill and bowed, ready for their proclamations and what not.

“You’re making a face…” Savill murmured, side eyeing Raya, who was in fact making quite an anxious face. The sting of holding in the excitement from her face instead contorted it into stern concentration. They were allowed some idle and out of character chatter so long as they kept it quiet enough for those in the wood bleachers not to hear, to which was a reprieve some days.

“I worry,” she slipped a grin in his direction, “that I may wound my kings pride.” It was so very fun to use her regal voice in idle chatter, and the blues of her eyes gave away just how much fun she was already having with the whole thing.

There was no such worry in her tone, just a simple prideful excitement. The kind of jeering tone one can only achieve if they assume their own victory ahead of time.

“There need be no lays to your loyalty today,” she spoke with a voice more authoritarian than her stature would give way she had, standing to her full of not small height. It drew in the eyes of those who were thinking of wondering away, this being abnormal for the script of the fair,

“I wish to don thy sword and shield,” she paused, pleased with the gasps of the children in the crowd, “and settle a marital dispute.”

She turned to Savill, a bit dramatically in her own taste but fitting the character she played, and more so the scene. Rather than looking ashamed, as he should for this but, he looked as pleased as a fat cat in the sun with the attention all on him.

“What say you, my king?” She prompted. Loving that they were clearly both loving this. If for different reasons.

“A duel then?” He chimed, rising to join her and hooked his index under her chin,

“A waste of a perfectly fine dress, don’t you think?”

Raya grinned and swatted his hand away with faux malice and turned to the crowd, “A pretty dress he says!” The women in the crowd picked it up right away and started a rioting cheer.

With as much grace as she could muster in her own excitement, Raya made her way down the stairs and off the raised stall-like platform they were provided and out into the ring before them with Savill close as her heel.

“Be it wrong for me to value such niceties? Your safety even?”

Given the volume they had to speak so that the crowd could hear with out a microphone or any other assistance, it did alter their voices a bit from their usual, added a bit more base even. It wasn’t something she hated to hear from him.

“My safety he says!” Raya cheers back to the crowd as she looks to find a little girl to give her crown to as Savill is removing his own for the fight. She finds one after only a moment and makes her way over to hand over her crown, smiling at a tiny brunette with a missing front tooth, “What Queen is worthy of her kingdom if she cannot protect herself!?”

Whereas Savill has graciously taken a sword with a curt kingly nod and trailed his crown for a shield, Raya took her sword from the remaining knight and pointed its blunted tip at her husband with a grin and wide stance,

“I say I will not be harmed… but I cannot say the same for you. My king.” It was too much fun, she couldn’t restrain herself for any more formality of showmanship, or preplanned dialogs; she took a wide swing, a calculated swing. Open enough to give Savill time to lift the heavy shield and let him realize why she hadn’t taken hers and weirded her Sears with both hands.

She let it hit hard against the metal an found an exhilaration in the mild fear she brought to his face. He needed to know how hard she was going to hit and that he had to be prepared for it… but that was his only warning. Her own eyes gleaming with such a warning for him.

Her next swing came much faster and less arched, as did the next and the next after that until Savill finally laid loose his own parry and thrusts of his own. Quickly it became a real duel with real pain and bruises that would surely last weeks. That came as an after thought though, the cheering and gasps of the audience feed the showman in each of them to ignore the fatigue that came rapidly when using weapons one wasn’t skilled with, none the less that came with a genuine pummeling from your spouse!

Raya clearly had the upper hand, having watched these shows since a young age and having a better upper body strength than Savill could probably ever catch up to, and thus, the winner was rigged from the beginning even if Savill hadn’t thought about it. Savill’s grip on the hilt weakened with sweat and effort spent, lost it’s battle to keep hold and his sword went flying precariously close to the crowd, many heads swirling to watch it go, the other staying glued in place as they’re watching the top of Raya’s aimed at his neck,

“YIELD!”

There’s a beat of silence, only the sound of heavy breaths and the fair in the distance before a quiet and exhausted,

“I yield.”

And the crowd booms with cheers at the closure of the ‘mock’ duel.

Savill and Raya father their things up and give a single bow each, despite the stinging pain of bruises busy forming over them and wave. Raya waving off the one mother of the girl who got her crown with a bigger smile.

A small tug at her hand from Savill and Raya followed easily to their exit in the plaster castle where the could escape for a break. The grit kicked up between them stuck to them in an unholy way and made itself evident in the way their palms rubbed against eachother in that slight way. A bath was clearly in order, if not for the sweat they’d worked up.

“Sorry about the bruise on your cheek,” The hard frown did little for his face, Raya always hated to see him unhappy, especially for such unwarranted reasons, “I didn’t mean to-”

Raya didn’t really care, it was fun. Worth it even. Rough housing was something they clearly didn’t get enough of it now seemed.

“Don’t worry,” she smiled a little smirk so innocent it was positively evil as she sat in his lap and pushed back the hair stiluck to the frame of his face with sweat, “I’ll make you pay for it later.”

Shan's responce:

“One, two, three…” Raya counted off, and Savill purred under the attention of her hands as they flitted from his shoulder down to his hip to poke around another ugly bruise. He’d felt worse injuries before and seen even more on the bodies he worked over. A few bruises wouldn’t put him in the same place. “Four. I gave you four good shiners.”

Savill flicked half lidded eyes to the cut on Raya’s cheek. Her face was hollow where she sucked on a lip, worry etched on the lines around her mouth and Savill lifted a gentle hand to tilt her chin to get better look at it while she was distracted. He pressed a thumb lightly just under the swelling. It wasn’t a deep cut, nor was it long, and it was already scabbing over.

“I don’t either of us are going to make it,” he said, regret and sorrow so thick on his tongue it dripped sarcasm down his lips. “We’ll have to make the most of it no- Ow!” Savill winced when Raya poked hard at the bruise on his hip.

“You mean you’ll have to make up the most to me, remember?” Raya told him, and his eyes widened as she moved to another bruise on his side. There was small but long scratch there and she dragged a nail across the fresh scab. Savill hissed, and not all unpleasantly.

“Raya,” he warned, voice deep with… he didn’t really want to think about just what he was feeling with a whole crowd still sitting in the jousting ring and the rest of the town milling about the fair. But Raya’s smile, small as it was, was sharp and wicked and he swallowed. “Maybe we should…go back to my place?”

Raya’s eyes lit up and he cursed himself. He could already see her mind churning. “We could climb your tower,” she said and Savill wheezed. “Breach your ramparts? Explore the dungeons?”

“Raya, please!” he gasped, somewhere between a laugh and a groan.