#its a tradition for me to introduce the cat in the last slide | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonb-eam · 4 years

Note

We're all still reeling from saying goodbye, so let's try to focus on something more positive. What are your ten (or more if you want) headcanons for Elu's future?

oh this is sweet 🧡🧡🧡🧡

(I’m so sorry this took so long to answer!! It wound up being longer than I thought it was going to be 😳)

These are a few things I think happen over the coming years:

i. They learn how to communicate. It takes time, and some days their communication dissolves into arguments and some days it endlessly circles, but then, there are days when one of them comes home late and the other says, alright, I’ll make you some tea. There are days where one of them walks in to see the other crying and they say, will you tell me what’s wrong? There are days where they sit together on the sofa, legs entangled, and they talk for hours, about everything from their dreams the night before, to the deepest corners of their hearts. There are days where only a glance is needed for them to understand each other. But it’s work. It’s work, and it’s as messy as it is wonderful, and they keep trying.

ii. They get a pet together. Maybe a cat, or maybe a dog, or maybe even a bunny - but they go to a shelter together, and they leave with a little furry friend. The buy a specific bed for it, but of course it never sleeps there. At any given moment, when Lucas or Eliott are wandering through the apartment, checking underneath the sofa or behind the curtains, their little friend is actually curled between their pillows on the bed, warm and content in the space that smells like its two favourite humans.

iii. They establish small traditions together: Friday night is movie night; Sunday afternoon is when they clean; they cook for each other on their birthdays; they sleep on the balcony together on the first long summer night of the year; they take turns hiding mistletoe around the apartment in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They also establish some things that aren’t traditions, really, but just routines. Patterns. Whoever wakes up first has to make coffee and water the plants (usually it’s Lucas); whoever goes to sleep last has to turn off all of the lights and empty the dish rack (usually it’s Eliott); whenever they wash their sheets they wind up making a fort in the living room; whenever Eliott is out late at an urbex party or at work, Lucas will leave some dinner in the fridge for him, and a small note - the note may say something like, don’t make any noise, I have an exam, or something like, wake me up when you get home, I’ve missed you, and one time, memorably, you’re so hot xoxo. And you’ve probably guessed it. Eliott keeps every single note.

iv. The entrance to their apartment becomes known as a veritable revolving door of chaos. At any given movement, there is someone bursting in, either in celebration or distress, sometimes alone, sometimes with the rest of the circus right on their heels. People are also known to stay the night: sleeping on the couch, in the armchair, even on the floor on top of a pile of blankets. Lucas often complains, says that the whole point of him and Eliott moving in together was to have privacy, but Eliott doesn’t buy it. He sees the quirk of Lucas’ mouth whenever a knock comes to their door, sees how he paces around the kitchen until eventually he gives in and starts making a pot of coffee, and produces a semi-stale bag of croissants from seemingly out of nowhere, heating them in the oven and passing them out along the table. When Lucas catches Eliott staring, he just blushes, smiles, and shrugs.

v. They wear each others’ clothes all the time. There’s a drawer in their bedroom that is filled with nondescript t-shirts that have become so mixed up they can’t discern which belonged to who in the first place.

vi. When Eliott shows Lux and Obscurus to his film class, everyone is surprised. They had no idea what to expect from this coursemate who they only know as someone who is a little quiet, a little awkward, and they’re impressed by it - by the film, by the fact that Eliott was able to produce it with an amateur crew, and soon everyone is asking Eliott what his next project will be, and students from the other courses are asking him if he needs a production designer, a camera operator, a sound technician. Eliott comes home from class one day with a troupe of people following him who Lucas has never seen before, and when Eliott introduces him as, my boyfriend Lucas, there’s a collective gasp. The muse, one of them says, and the look of pure confusion that Lucas sends Eliott makes him burst into laughter.

vii. On Lucas’ first day of university, Eliott wakes up early and packs him a lunch, presenting it proudly to Lucas when he stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed. It’s unbelievably sweet, and Lucas tells Eliott this, kissing him on the cheek in thanks, but he regrets those words later that day, when, sitting on a bench on campus, he opens up the lunch to find a sandwich with ham, Brie cheese, mustard, and strawberry jam. (What he doesn’t admit is that somehow, it actually tastes really good.)

viii. The first time Lucas’ mom comes over for dinner, Eliott gets so nervous that he manages to burn ready-made pasta sauce, and Lucas gleefully recounts the story to his mom when she arrives. Eliott is laughing along with them, bashful, a little embarrassed, but Lucas’ mom smiles, pats him on the shoulder and says, there’s no need to worry, darling. With the way he talks about you, I feel as though you’re already my son-in-law. Eliott grins, pleased, and it’s Lucas then who blushes, sending his mom a pointed look that she returns with a satisfied smile.

ix. Eliott refuses to drop it, is the thing. Remember when your mom called me her son-in-law? So of course, Lucas turns it around on him, a joke that he pulls out whenever Eliott turns down an offer to join him on a night out, or on another trip to Basile’s grandfather’s. Oh that’s too bad, Eliott, he says. I was going to propose to you. Eliott tries to one-up him, naturally, and it turns into this - them keeping score for a game nobody else understands, with Eliott pretending to stumble onto one knee and asking Lucas if he will do him the honour of helping him up, and Lucas presenting a small, velvet box to Eliott at his graduation dinner, and Eliott opening it to find a condom. No one understand it, but they accept it. Just another quirk that makes them Lucas and Eliott. Well, everyone except Basile, who, when he learns that they’re not actually engaged while at Eliott’s birthday party, drunkenly bursts into tears.

x. When it does actually happen, though, it happens like this: with a date at a familiar spot, a bottle of champagne opened and emptied, with Lucas procuring another small box, and solemnly promising that it’s not a condom this time, and Eliott is laughing because his boyfriend, his fiancé, is a bit of an idiot, but he’s Eliott’s idiot, and Eliott loves him so much he can’t breathe, can’t speak when Lucas slides a ring onto his finger. They kiss, and they’re both crying, salty tears down rounded cheeks that mix with something else, something cold, and they realize at the same time that it’s starting to rain, big fat drops that land in their eyes and soak their hair and they both laugh in delighted wonder, tilting their heads back to watch they sky together.

#asks #anon #i only saw you #could be filed under #fic tag #elu #skam france #i was working on this while also starting my misn epilogue #so clearly i have elu marriage on the brain #this is why i shouldn't be allowed to watch wedding reality shows on netflix

187 notes · View notes

planetjisungie · 4 years

Text

misconceptions- l.jn

characters; gryffindor! jeno, slytherin! reader ft, gryffindor! mark

an; im making mark debut in every house, its what that man deserves 😔✋🏻 also marks kinda a bitch in this but like we still love him. this is part 2 of the nct dream hogwarts series

jeno sat in the grand hall, watching you walk in alone. your hair was so silky, and you looked so delicate and soft. but that, apparently, was the complete opposite of who you were.

"bro i heard she like, hexed a bunch of first years and made them look stupid in the hallway. poor kids" mark uttered. the topic of conversation was conveniently you, and jeno was slightly confused about where this was all coming from. "and it’s definitely true?" he asked, turning to his blonde friend. mark shrugged. "its y/n, so i wouldnt put it past her. last year she got into a fist fight with kang miyoung"

mark was always gossiping, he knew all the rumours in the school, if you wanted to find anything out all you had to do was ask mark. he knew everything and it was sometimes scary. but it wasnt always true, like the time he spread the rumour that choi san had cheated on his girlfriend when it actually had turned out to be his sister. that was an awkward one. turning back to you, jeno tuned out the sound of mark droning on and on about the things you had apparently done. he watched you sit down away from the other slytherins, grab some pasta onto your plate before silently eating. he watched you drink your cup of water slowly, before going back to eating your food. he also saw how the other slytherins would glare at you, or point at you while laughing. something didnt add up. why would slytherins, known causing petty issues, mock someone who supposedly did just that? it really didnt make sense to him.

so the next day, jeno had heard crying down the hallways. being a gryffindor, he ran towards the sound, wand in hand in case anyone was in danger. what he wasn’t prepared to see, however, was a first year on the ground, holding his ankle while crying in pain. but that in itself wasnt shocking, what was, was you sat next to him, a gentle smile on your face while your wand had a green glow to it, seeingly calming the boy down. he had then noticed that you were using a pretty advanced healing spell, which was odd for a slytherin to know in the first place, especially someone like you. in fear of being caught staring, jeno just swiftly turned around, brows furrowed from the thoughts in his brain.

the next time jeno had seen you, he was playing hide and seek with the gryffindor boys in the forest. he was hiding behind a fallen tree, when he noticed a familiar head of hair, and the black and green robe flowing around you. getting up, he silently walked closer towards you, trying to see what you were doing. seeing a creature next to you, he squinted his eyes. you were knelt next to a unicorn, a large gash on its right side, your wand with the same green glow as when you were healing the first year. you seemed to be at peace here, just helping out. not noticing the small smile on his face, jeno turned and walked away before again, you could notice him.

the third time he had seen you, was not as pleasant as the last two. you were sat on the floor of an empty hallway, a white cat in your lap as silent tears fell down your face. jeno felt his heart break for you, he could practically feel the emotional pain radiating off of you. deciding to actually talk to you, jeno made his presence known, walking closer before sliding down the opposite wall to face you. looking up, your eyes widened noticing the infamous gryffindor heartthrob, the crush of all the younger girls. clearing your throat, you wiped your eyes of the tears, pulling your cat, mr snuggles (the return of mr snuggles) closer to you unknowingly. jeno flashed you a small smile, which you returned. clearing his throat, he moved his gaze from the oddly adorable sight of you cuddled up to a cat to the cold wooden floor. "im jeno" he introduced, causing you to scoff lightly. "im y/n, but you probably already know that" you said softly. surprised to actually hear your voice, it wasnt at all what jeno was expecting, causing his head to whip towards yours. he was expecting an arrogant, cold, high pitched bitchy voice, but was met with a quiet, gentle and melodic voice. by now he was almost certain that you had definitely been misunderstood.

"uh- okay wow i wasn’t expecting-" jenos rambling was cut off with your soft laughter, watching your head lean against the wall slightly and your eyes close, shoulders moving up and down in response to the sound coming from your chest. "i know i know, you were expecting me to be some cold, brutal and violent bitch, right?" you said, a smile now on your face which was a nice contrast to your earlier face of sadness and utter despair. "i mean kind of i guess" jeno shrugged and chuckled awkwardly. you let out a sigh before extending your legs from the crossed position, letting them stretch in front of you. "its fine, everyone just blindly believes any rumours that are spread. youre not at fault, the slytherins are" jeno looked up in confusion after you said this, evidently showing on his face, adding onto that the noise he lets out which couldnt be described other than ‘a jeno noise’. noticing his obvious inquiry, you layed back and closed your eyes.

"i dont exactly fit in with the slytherins. my focus has always been to help others, to share what i have to those who dont. the slytherins obviously didnt like that, and i quickly became a misfit, so they started spreading awful rumours about me. no one usually bothers to check if they’re true or not, so that resulted in me not having any friends" you sigh after explaining practically the whole reason of your mental torture at hogwarts to the gryffindor across from you. jeno once again felt his heart break, and a small pout formed on his lips. "how comes you were put in slytherin then?" he asked. you groaned and opened your eyes. "stupid slytherin parents. i didnt get sorted, they work for the ministry so i was basically forced into slytherin to carry on shitty family tradition bullshit" you snorted, head lolling onto your right shoulder. jenos eyebrows raised. so you were basically not a slytherin yet put in slytherin and people practically bullied you for it. sounds pretty tough to him. "and you couldnt speak to dumbledore about it? im sure hed do something" he said, now genuinely concerned about you. shrugging, you reopened your eyes. "i dont realy care anymore, let the people think what they want"

after that day, jeno watched you a lot more closely. he would see how your nose scrunched up when you saw something you didnt like, or when your tongue poked out when you were focused. he sat across the room from you in potions, so when slughorn announced that you two were going to be partners for the Amortentia potion, he couldnt exactly say he was disappointed. despite the obviously sympathetic looks from people around him, he smiled as you pulled the chair next to him, sitting down carefully.

the lesson began, and you and jeno quickly started working on making the potion, working together efficiently and getting it done to the T whilst also having a little bit of fun. leaning towards the pot, jeno moved at the same time as you to smell what was supposed to be the scent of your crush. immediately catching a strong whiff of jenos apparently overpowering cologne, you leaned back, coughing and covering your nose. "jeno, stop wearing so much cologne" you choked out, trying to inhale fresh air. meanwhile, jeno smelt the scent of lavender and cotton, turning to you in disgust, not at the smell itself but the pure strength of it. "unlike you, i dont douse my clothes in lavender essential oil, jesus christ woman" he lifted his hand whilst staring into the pinkish liquid. "i dont think we did this right" you said, before slughorn came up to you with a delighted look on his face. "oh well done, this is perfect!"

that day lead to a lot of confusion between you and jeno. opting not to ask him about it seeing as he never questioned you, you just sat in silence out on the grass, staring up at the stars. you had snuck out of the castle to sit on the land around it, seeking some sort of relaxation. what you hadn’t expected, was for the black haired boy to somehow find you, sitting down quietly on the grass next to you. "so..." he started, before sighing and looking down. he knew he liked you, how could he not? the way you were completely different to how you were said to be, how you didnt blame others but the slytherins for being mean towards you, and just how kind you were in general. whilst most people would veer away from you, he was the complete opposite, finding himself attracted to you like a magnet. smiling slightly, you turned to face him. just like him, you had found it hard not to fall for him. in the times where people would doubt you, or just be plain rude, he actually came and spoke to you. jeno was the first one who cared about you, and not just the rumours that drifted around, he talked to you when no one else would.

that night, you two had a whole sobbing session, confessing to eachother and apologising for things you didnt even need to apologise for. needless to say, when you walked into the hall hand in hand the next morning, with grins that hurt your cheeks, it definitely put people in a daze.

#nct hogwarts au #nct #nct dream #jeno #lee jeno #mark #mark lee #hogwarts #slytherin #gryffindor #jeno angsty fluff

89 notes · View notes

sumeshi-t · 4 years

Text

hinata shoyou x reader | hanahaki x reincarnation au; a chaotic mix of fluff, crack, and angst.

song: lifetime by ben&ben

a/n: a three-part fic because i didn’t want it to get too long in one post. this is my first time working on an au and hinata so i hope i did him justice. beta-ed by @taeiliee iloveyou mom always <3

i. 》 ii. 》 iii.

*:･ﾟ✧ "Tangled with another's eyes–nevermind, you were never mine," ✧･ﾟ: *

Your fingers drummed against the table, eyes intent on the ginger sat before you. “So, what do you say?”

He looks away, avoiding your gaze, fidgeting in his seat. Hinata Shoyou wasn’t sure why he was feeling nervous under your gaze, especially when you were the one basically asking him for a favor, “B-But, why should we date? I know I wasn’t… meant to see that, and I swear, y/n-san, I would never tell Kenma! We can just end it at… that,”

When you don't respond, Hinata decides to raise his eyes to look at you—your face looks solemn, and somehow… something about it, something about you just draws him in. This time, you were the one staring outside the glass wall of the antique cafe. His heartbeat quickened, breath getting caught in his throat—

‘...beautiful,’ was the only word he could find to describe that moment, even if your eyes had a faraway look in them. Hinata knew your true wish was that this never had happened, and that you were talking to Kenma instead.

If only he never went back to the restroom.

You tried not to heave a sigh at your impulsive and brash decision, and at his innocent question. But what can you do when your life's on the line? Ten years left in your life may seem like a long time but, “It’s not enough. Please, Hinata-san.”

You had the sudden urge to cough, and, upon doing so, Hinata could only watch as your pale hands covered your mouth, and the sound of coins dropping to the floor entered his ears. There was a bit of blood that ran down your nose, and he immediately reached for a table napkin. More than guilt, it was worry that bubbled from his chest.

Even if you had explained it—this sickness—that you had, he still found it ridiculous.

You saw nothing but the disbelief in his eyes, desperate to get a grasp at this uncanny reality.

You saw yourself in them, in his constricted pupils and lids widened—reminded of the first time you discovered that you were sick with a rare disease you thought only exists in fiction.

The Hanahaki Disease, a disease acquired from garnering an unrequited love, was something that no medical doctor could cure nor control—anthosectomy, the surgical removal of flowers, was nothing but a temporary solution.

One must be loved in return to be free from it.

Apparently in your case, the disease has “mutated”. That instead of flowers or petals blooming from your lungs, money would begin to collect in them, beginning from coins and eventually into large bills as it grew worse over time.

You only discovered this fact just two, about three weeks ago, during breakfast, after a lone coin dropped into your cup of coffee, mocking you as it floated; the aftertaste of iron and aluminum on your tongue.

“Our family inheritance… came from their chest—even your mother’s.” your father muttered regrettably, with a hint of disgust, back turned to you in the study.

“I didn’t expect for you to catch the disease this early, and you’re doing so well with your current business projects,” he heaves a sigh, fingers grazing through the spines of the books, before pulling a velvet-covered hardcover, worn out from time.

“How long… has this been going on, dad? Is this some sick family tradition?! So… does this mean…?” you couldn’t even say the words—you haven’t even confessed and yet, having this disease only meant that Kozume Kenma didn’t feel the same way you did.

Finally, your father sits before you, sliding the title-less book towards you. He explains further that you read its contents—the ancestral diary—about the history and the findings made by your predecessors.

He calls for your name softly when your wide eyes never left the book in your hands. He looks over you sympathetically, “I thought that by hiding this from you, I was protecting you from harm.” Your father’s eyes squinted, wanting to reach out to you but his conscience telling him he failed you as a parent was stronger.

“But y/n, don’t give up… don’t be like them, like me,” your father says this with blood dripping from the corner of his lips, before clutching his chest, spitting bills of varying amounts out his mouth.

“I never thought ten years would pass by so quickly,”

You look at him, mortified at his pallid face, standing up in worry, going to his side. “Who…?”

With a weak smile on his lips, your father utters your mother’s name, voice just above a whisper, tender and soft at hearing her name come from his own lips.

“And I don’t regret it. Loving her is the best decision I’ve made, even if she didn’t want it.”

You spent the next week with him, until he breathed his last, inevitably leaving you to face this battle of love and pain on your own.

As if everybody’s expectations from you weren’t high enough already, now that you were alone, it skyrocketed through the roof. Even as you knelt before the portrait of your father, refusing to talk to anyone on the first day of his wake.

You heard their whispers, you knew their motives—nobody really cared about the life of a rich man, they only cared about the man’s riches. You shut down any and all talks about businesses to potential or lifelong business partners; the least they could do was respect you and let you mourn.

On the third and last night of the wake, someone unexpected came to pay his respects.

“Kenma…?”

“Hello, y/n. I…” he looks away shyly, a few strands of hair falling to cover a portion of his face. “I’m sorry,” he finally managed to squeak out. His hand reached out to you, holding a tiny plastic bag filled with your favorite snacks, all over a black-white envelope.

Seeing Kozume Kenma in a formal suit, bun loosely tied by his nape, awkwardly scratching his cheek; you could feel the ice in your heart being slowly thawed by the scene before you. You would’ve finally smiled; you would’ve pulled him in just so you could cry out into his chest.

But you felt suffocated, and the slap of this impossible reality you couldn’t dodge stung against your bare and open heart, pulling you back and keeping you rooted in your place.

You knew his apologies were meant for condolences—but your father wasn’t the only one who died. You mourned for your own demise, wishing you could bury these hidden feelings along with his ashes and leave everything behind to start anew.

But secrets turn into regrets, and buried feelings would only grow.

Your fingers brushed against his skin as you took the plastic bag in your hands, the sensation sending sparks to your nerves. You didn’t hear yourself mutter your gratitude, only the sound of Kenma’s soft gasp. The back of his hand wiped the tear stains off your cheek, “How long have you been holding back, y/n?”

‘A long time, Kenma,’ you wished to answer, but you knew you or your words didn’t matter to him as much as you’d have liked to. Even through the tears that blurred your vision, the love in your eyes for him was clear.

Kenma awkwardly pulled you close, a hand behind your head to press your face against his chest, while his other arm remained by his side. His actions strongly reflected how he felt nothing more for you than just a friend and a board director—he didn’t even choose to hug you.

But the unheard truth didn’t stop you.

Behind the lids of your eyes, you saw little moments of joy you had shared with Kenma—maybe it all began with an inevitable meeting in your office, unlike the usual video conferences he would attend. Working with someone your age with the same prospects and visions was rare for you in the world of business—you mused, this feeling was mutual.

Then the meetings became less about business, and more for just the heck of it.

You daydreamed about him, seeing his smile from the corner of your eyes when you were alone. His intelligence was a given, so maybe it was his soft-spoken, honest nature; or the way he was athletic even if he stayed in his house majority of the time.

That was the tip of the iceberg.

Because really, it was more of feeling so at peace when you were with him. You couldn’t hold back being yourself when you were with Kozume Kenma because despite hiding behind several secret doors you’ve put up all your life, the scrutiny of his sharp, cat-like eyes opened each of them, finding you over and over.

You didn’t want to lose that sense of familiarity. So, you chose to ignore the signs that you were indeed falling for him. And by doing so, your life was now reduced to a mere ten more years, caught at crossroads, burdened with making the decision between continuing your family’s horrible legacy or carving out your own place in his heart and have him learn to love you.

The words of your father echoed in your head.

And it bounced off your lips, “Kenma… please stay, just a bit longer,”

“Kenma, are you he—oh?”

Hinata Shoyou peeks from behind the corner, checking if he didn’t get lost in your family’s large home. His presence made you shy away from Kenma, clearing your throat before the ginger-haired man was introduced to you.

He offered you the brightest smile you’ve ever seen, fitting for the shade of his hair and contrasting the dark hues of his clothes. “Kenma and I go way back, he actually sponsors me!” his cheeks were dusted pink, both embarrassed and excited. “Now I play for a team in Division 1,”

‘Ah, he’s that kind of person,’ was your initial thought. Hinata Shoyou seemed so easy to read, pure and unadulterated intentions out in the open for everyone to see. What’s fascinating was that he makes it seem so easy to not let that be a vulnerability.

Spending a few hours with someone whose energy was bigger than him—cliché as it sounds, but it was akin to standing beneath the rays of the sun. Hinata Shoyou radiates warmth upon your frozen heart, even if for just a moment.

It was a different kind of peace. And you looked forward to seeing more of his large smiles.

Just… not this soon.

Maybe it was fate playing tricks on you. The timing was quite impeccable.

Kenma went ahead first, Hinata had to go to the restroom. Soon as you stood up to see him out, you cough, coins falling to the floor. One of them finds its way towards Hinata, rolling and stopping when it hits his foot.

“Oh? Lucky!” he picks it up, hears more coins hitting the floor that he has to look for the source. Hinata sees your back hunched over, money around your feet. As he was approaching you, he said sheepishly, “y/n-san, is this yours? I was about to take it—!”

“y-y/n…y/n-san… are you… okay?”

Hinata flinched as you glared at him, voice seething, words through gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare tell Kenma.”

Hinata nods once, pocketing the coin he had in his hand on instinct, before scurrying away.

You let the incident pass, as you had the cremation and burial to worry about in the meantime. But a few days after, all it takes you is a phone call to Kenma and a few texts to Hinata—which leads you to the present wherein you and the athlete agree to meet at a café.

“Now that you know, here’s the deal I’m offering you, Hinata-san. I’ll sponsor you in exchange for your silence. And…” you take a sip from your coffee, watching him from over the rim of the cup. Hinata was uneasy, confused, and shocked at the illness you had. It was as if he were in a volleyball game, forced to take in so many things at once.

“Hinata-san, go out with me. Let’s date. What do you say?”

“E-Eh…?! B-But, why should we date? I know I wasn’t… meant to see that, and I swear, y/n-san, I would never tell Kenma! We can just end it at… that,”

“It’s not enough. Please, Hinata-san.”

Hinata stood quickly, contemplating just how he was going to help. He has to bite the cheeks of his mouth, looking over you with worry as hundred and five hundred yen coins spilled from you. You felt his hands slightly shaking when he gave you the table napkin, and in return you motion for him to take a drink so he could calm down.

“Sorry about that—so, do you agree to be my boyfriend? If you need time to think of a response, I can give you two days, because I have to go in a few minutes,” you say this, looking at your wristwatch while slowly gathering your things.

“y/n-san,” Hinata began, still standing by your side, looking down to meet your gaze. “I… I agree. Because I want to help you in any way I can, just to give back, with how generous you are and… because you don’t deserve this. But why does it have to be me?”

His words struck something within you, but then your own sorrows blocked him out. “Your timing was just perfectly terrible. I’m sorry for dragging you into my problems, Hinata-san.”

Hinata felt his pulse quicken at how you looked up at him from beneath your lashes. His unease somehow was replaced by something. But your next words broke his trance, “There is only one condition that you have to follow,”

With a smile that never reached your eyes, Hinata feels his own heart break at how you were like a broken porcelain doll, red lips moving so easily to convey words, convey the one law you’ve forced him to follow and would eventually break—

“Never fall in love with me.”

cheese cult: @akaashichigo @drainedjaz @haikkeiji @annalyn-annalyn @sosugasweet @cali-writes-sometimes @simping4ratsumu @shishinoya @ushiwakaa @akaashit-baeji @kxgeyamasmilk @agaassi @hanibuni @cupofkenma @kawanisshi @milkandc00kiez @thiccbokuto @shinsukestan @sufiawrites @wakaitoshi @skyguy-peach @fern-writes-ig @briswriting @kawaiikraykray @bubbleteaa @miyuswriting @raevaioli @ouikarwa @hakueishirei @pineapplekween @estherwritess @keiji-n @achoohq @badlywritten-hq @mochibeaa @oinkanna @chxrry-wxne @spudicide @airybby @asranomical @karmasuna @nekoglasses

gen. taglist: @yams046

#cheese cult fic event #hanahacheese #cheese cult #hinata shoyou #hinata shoyo x reader #hinata x reader #hinata hanahaki au #hinata shoyou fluff #hinata shoyou crack #hinata shoyou angst #hinata shoyou x you #kozume kenma #kozume kenma x you #kozume kenma x reader #hanahaki au #haikyuu hanahaki au #haikyuu hanahaki

37 notes · View notes

ecotone99 · 5 years

Text

[HR] Lonely

Rie was a lonely child. Her mother, Mika, works two jobs all the way in Tokyo, in a station two hours away by train, because Tokyo jobs pay well but Nagano rent was worth the commute- especially considering the train fair would be provided by her company. She was a paralegal assistant; regal in title but in title alone; the actual work was demeaning and degrading. She made coffee and tea, provided copies when required, and answered phone calls. A post graduate degree, two years working in the field and yet her gender reduced her to be no more than a secretary, with no immediate sign of promotion, while her less qualified male coworkers order her around. She however, had no other choice.

However, as you might expect, she was not paid enough to cover the hospital bills. Her husband, Rie’s father, had stage 4 liver cancer. The bills were horrendous, and she had, on occasion, fantasized about just, well, letting nature take it’s course. But, she just couldn’t. He was her sole ray of light in a hard life, he, despite his fragile, disoriented state, deserved more than that. And, probably more prominently, She wasn’t ready to give up hope. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

Naturally, with Rie, a girl of five at home to feed, and hospital bills to pay, being a secretary wasn’t enough. Mika started a second job. As shameful as it was, she worked as a hostess at a bar in Kabukicho, the red-light district of Shinjuku-Ku, a overly populated area of Tokyo.

This caused her to leave Rie home alone for days at times.

Mika was ashamed of this, but she had no choice. There were bills to pay and mouths to feed, and no dependable relatives within a near enough vicinity.

Mika was too ashamed to tell her husband’s family, or to ask for money. They shamed her poor family from the beginning, and she was set out to prove them wrong. She would succeed, she would make money on her own, she would be successful.

Or so she thought.

Reality is cruel.

So, Rie was a lonely child. She knew how to keep herself busy, though, relatively. She had the gift of imagination, no doubt in part facilitated by the lack of external stimulation; they had no TV, no video games, no friends, just a deck of cards and rie’s three treasured stuffed animals. A toucan she called Ma-Chan, a Fox named Pii, and Nya-Chan, her favorite, because Daddy won it for her from a crane machine before he got sick. When they lived in a house, and went out to play some times.

Rie often had conversations with these three. Ma-Chan was loud and boisterous. She often came up with ideas and made decisions, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer, though she did often change her mind and was open to suggestions. Pii was the smartest, the oldest and the most mature. He would often keep Ma-Chan in check, and make sure she didn’t get us in trouble. Nya-Chan was fun, cheerful and silly, but she was also a coward some times- fittingly, a scaredy-cat.

They went on adventures together all of the time. Mostly inside the apartment, and sometimes outside, but of course, as a secret, because Mika would be so mad. They went all the way to the playground once, and it was Rie’s favorite adventure. She met Mr. Tanaka that time, the nice old man that smelled like pickles. He said they can come back to his house , and we can have tea and dango. As always, Pii wouldn’t let us. Mika told us never to go with strangers. Mr. Tanaka understood, and said he’s often at the playground, if we wanted to visit him again.

Now, it had been almost a week since Mika had been home, and Rie was getting bored of the apartment. They haven’t eaten since yesterday, because the refrigerator was empty, and Rie didn’t know how to make rice yet. The four were in the middle of a game of “baba-nuki”, a Japanese version of Old Maid, when Ma-Chan blurted, “Hey, let’s go to the playground! We need to go outside. Maybe Mr. Tanaka will be there again, and can give us tea and dango!”

Pii was unsure, but he was hungry, and he was the weakest to food.

Rie and Nya-Chan loved the idea. They pleaded with Pii, and he eventually complied, but they have to be careful, and come home right after.

So the group snuck out to the park. Rie had a special backpack to fit her friends- they weren’t very good at walking, and people stared when she held them. Nya-Cohan, though, was scared of the backpack, and wanted Rie to hold her hand at all times. So, of course, she did.

Rie almost got lost this time but Pii knew the way, and then they found it! Not only that, but Mr. Tanaka was there, along with a boy. Rie ran up to say hi. Mr

Tanaka looked a little nervous, but he was happy to see them.

“Rie! It has been a while, how have you been?”

Mr. Tanaka! I’m doing just great! Mommy hasn’t been home for a long time though, and we ran out of food. Can we have dango? Pii said it’s ok this time.”

Mr. Tanaka laughed. “How long has your Mom been gone? DOn’t you think she’ll be home tonight?”

Rie blurted, “No, I don’t think so. It’s been almost a week! And We’ll head back before bedtime. Right?”

Mr Tanaka smiled. “Of course, I’ll take you right home. Right after tea and dango.”

The boy tugged on Mr Tanaka’s shirt.

Oh, Rie, this is Makoto-kun. He’s 4, one year younger than you! I met him just a few hours ago. Mind if he joins us?”

Rie didn’t like boys much, but Makoto looked nice enough, and she was too hungry to care too much.

“Ok. As long you have enough for all of us!”

Mr. Tanaka assured her he had plenty. “And you can meet the others too! You’ll have so many new friends.”

Riecouldn’t help but grin. Friends! She hasn’t had friends in so, so long. Other than Ma-Chan, Pii and Nya-chan of course.

Mr Tanaka continued, “ I have my car just right around the corner. Follow me!”

Rie, Ma-Chan, Pii and Nya-Chan follow behind Mr Tanaka, but they notice Makoto looks a bit apprehensive.

Makoto says, in a quiet, meek voice, “Daddy told me to stay here. He said he’s gonna be right back...”

Mr Tanaka laughs. “Makoto, you told me last time he said that he didn’t come back until dark, and he was all smelly and red, and he was acting weird. Do you want that to happen again?”

Makoto shakes his head no.

“Then let’s go! I’ll tell your dad myself.”

“Do you promise?”

Mr Tanaka holds out his pinky. “Hari senbon.”

“Ok.”

Mr Tanaka leads everyone to the mostly empty parking lot. There was one car- a boxy and dusty van with a fair amount of wear-and-tear, no doubt a well loved and well used economy purchase from years ago. Makoto gets into a child’s seat prepared in the front, and Rie and her three best friends occupied the back.

Mr Tanaka situates himself in the driver’s seat. “Everyone got their seatbelts on? My house is a bit of a while away, but I’ll make it fun!”

Mr. Tanaka starts the engine, and pulls out of the parking lot. He starts the long, long trip up a windy road. Pii-Chan was nervous and Ma-Chan started to feel sick, but Mr Tanaka was right, they had fun! They talked about everything. Makoto loved this anime he told us about, with a boy who had a magic watch that controlled monsters or something like that. He said one was a cat, like Nya-Chan, but that can was an old man. I told them all about Pii and Ma-chan and Nya-chan, but, as usual, the three wouldn’t talk to strangers, so Rie had to interpret. They all played a game of Shiritori, and Ma-Chan kept losing, as usual. Rie told Mr. Tanaka and Makoto about how her Daddy was sick, and her mom had to work all the way in Tokyo now to pay for Daddy to get better. Mr. Tanaka said that it was too bad, but Death, what he said happens after sick, but before better, might be better than better. He said sometimes death is the best. Rie asked if she could go to death too, and Mr. Tanaka told her sure, if she wants to, and, she could even skip sick. Makoto said he wants to go too and they all laughed.

They finally pulled up to a driveway of a lonely, traditional Japanese house on top of a hill, surrounded by forrest. It was surprisingly well kept, despite its size and isolation.

Rie had never seen a house so big.

Everyone gets out of the car,

“Wow! Do you live here by yourself? It’s so big!”

Mr Tanaka smiles. “Oh no, I have many many friends here with me. Here, I’ll introduce you!”

Mr. Tanaka unlocks the front door, and lets everyone inside. He promptly locks the door behind him.

“Now, let’s get you all some tea and dango, small we?”

Rie’s stomach was rumbling loudly. She couldn’t remember the last time she had dango. It must have been with Daddy, before he was even sick. Mr. Tanaka heads into the kitchen, where he pulls a pitcher of tea and a tray filled with the coveted treats.

Without wasting a moment, Rie stuffs a particularly fat, pink morsel into her mouth.

The sweet, strawberry flavored sauce that coated the dango spills out of the side of her lips, and she promptly licks it, shivering with glee. She hasn’t had anything other than rice or crackers for a long, long time. The soft, sweet, supple mochi was god-sent. Makoto whispered “itadakimasu” before biting into a soy-sauce flavored one.

Mr. Tanaka watched them indulge, smiling.

Rie asks, “You don’t want any, Mr. Tanaka?”

“I had some earlier, I’m stuffed! Eat your heart out, dear.”

After a few spears of the sugary treats, Rie was stuffed. She was starting to feel drowsy, but Mr. Tanaka reminded her about the others, and he was eager to introduce them. He told her they were in the living room.

Mr. Tanaka lead Rie, Makoto, Ma-Chan, Pii and Nya-Chan into another small room in the back. It seemed as though Makoto was getting sleepy too, no doubt due to the sudden sugar rush obstructing his usually, fairly balanced diet.

Mr. Tanaka has everyone sit on a small couch.

“Wait here, I’ll go get them.”

He opens a sliding door to reveal a room filled with children, all about Makoto and Rie’s age, except there was one baby. Everyone was sitting very still but were dressed in the nicest clothes. Some where in Yukata, while some girls were in western dresses. They smelled a little funny, But Rie didn’t mind too much- She probably smells funny too.

Makoto tried his hardest to stay awake. He kept nodding off.

“Let me introduce you. From left to right,” Mr Tanaka places hits hand on the shoulder of the tallest boy, adorned in a particularly expensive looking, dark blue yukata, pattered with embroidered chrysanthemums. “This is Kenta, he’s the oldest. 12 years!” He then motions towards the girl next to I him, a slightly chubby girl with long, straight hair, wearing a pink yukata patterned with goldfish, and a beautiful, large gold OBI with green stripes. “This is Yumi.” Next to Yumi, next in line, was a shorter girl, with pigtails, wearing an elaborate western dress. “This is Chie.” After Chie was Keiko, a girl in a light blue western dress, with a petticoat and tights. After Keiko was Masa, a small boy with big eyes, and finally Miyuki, a very frail looking girl, who wore a green dress, covered in flowers and lace.

“Why is everyone so quiet?” Makoto asked.

Rie laughed. “Maybe you just aren’t listening right! Like how you can’t hear Ma-Chan and Pii and Nya-Chan, even though they’re talking all the time. It’s a different kind of voice.”

Mr Tanaka smiled. “I knew you’d understand, Rie. Exactly. Shall we all play a game, then?

Pii spoke up.

“I dont’ feel right about this. Something is wrong. we should go home.”

Ma-Chan glared at him. “Oh Pii, you always have to ruin the fun. Everything is fine! Mr Tanaka is a nice man.”

Rie tells Mr Tanaka, “Pii wants to go home. “

Mr Tanaka smiles. “I’ll take everyone home, but lets play one game first. Just one.”

Pii agrees, but only one game.

Ma-Chan squeals in delight.

Rie asks, “What game?”

Maybe hide and seek! I’ll be the ONI (It). If I catch you, you have to take off those boring clothes. When you run out we can switch turns!

Rie never played with those rules before, but It sounded like a challenge.

It’s just, she was so, sleepy. But, there is no way she’d lose to an old man.

“Ok! Is everyone going to play?”

“Yes, yes of course. The last person to be caught will be the next ONI.”

Ok. Count to ten, and no peeking!

Mr. Tanaka closes his eyes and begins to count.

Rie thinks fast. Where can she hide?

The others don’t seem to be worried at all. I guess they play often, or Maybe Mr. Tanaka is really slow. Rie runs to the kitchen, and hides under the sink. Makoto seemed to be too sleepy- he just hid on the couch, behind the cushion.

“8... 9... 10... ready or not, here I come!”, Mr Tanaka yells.

Rie can hear the other kids whispering. She can’t see them from where she is, but she hears everyone run about. One of the boys, Kenta maybe? Enters the kitchen.

He creeps down by the sink, So Rie is tempted to tell him to go somewhere else. There was no room!

He crouches down- Rie can see his shadow- and whispers. “Get out of here, now. Mr. Tanaka is not a good man. You need to... call the police.”

“Police? What’s that? Are you tricking me?”

“Please... just dial this number. The phone is on the table, it’s close. You can do it. Just say you need help. Tell them you’ve been kidnapped.”

Rie asks him, “why doesn’t you do it?”

“It’s... it’s to late for me. Hurry!”

Rie is about to open the cabinet door when she hears Mr. Tanaka’s voice.

“Rie, Makoto~ where are you? Come on, help an old man out, will you?”

Kenta is gone.

Rie hears a scream. It’s Makoto.

“There you are!! I win Makoto. Take all of that off. Come on now, or should I do it for you? A game is a game!!”

Makoto begins to cry. “I... I can’t move!!”

Mr Tanaka laughs. “Oh? Quicker than I expected, but perfect. But don’t worry Makoto, you don’t need to move anymore.”

Rie started to realize something was very, very wrong. She begins to cry, but Pii speaks out. “Shh... you can’t let him find you. Let’s call the police, like Kenta said.”

Rie bites her lip and complies. She waits until she can no longer hear Mr. Tanaka’s footsteps. Ma-Chan says, “I’ll keep an eye out. When I say go, go!”

Ma-chan slips out first. She watches the hallway from the small space between the cabinet door and the floor.

“Wait. He’s taking Makoto somewhere. They are going downstairs. GO!”

Rie dashes to the phone. She grabs it, and dials 000, just as Kenta said.

“Hello? Emergency services, how can we help you?”

“Help, I have been kidnapped. Me and Makoto.”

“Honey, how old are you? What’s your name? Do you know where you are?”

“I’m Rie. Takaki Rie. I’m 5. I’m at Mr. Tanaka’s house. Kenta said to tell you I’ve been kidnapped, and he’s a bad bad man.”

Machan starts to panic. “He’s coming back! Hang up now!!”

Rie throws the phone down and runs back into the cabinet under the sink. Ma-Chan didn’t make it in time.

Mr Tanaka bellows. “Rie, dear, have you been a bad girl? Who are you talking to? I can hear you!”

Mr Tanaka enters the kitchen. “Come on now, just give up! I’lol take care of you. Like all of the others. Don’t you want to be with us forever?”

Rie tries to readjust herself. Her balance is a bit off with the odd position she held herself in, but, her legs won’t do what she tells them to.

Mr Tanaka notices Ma-Chan.

“Oh, look who we have here? You must know where Rie is, don’t you?”

Mr Tanaka picks Ma-Chan up.

Rie cries. “Do... Don’t touch Ma-Chan!”

Mr. Tanaka laughs. Oh, there you are dear. Don’t worry, I don’t need her anymore.”

Mr Tanaka opens the cabinet. He licks his lips, eyes glistening with a ravenous hunger.

“Now, off with the dress, yes? You know the rules. I found you.”

Rie tried to kick him. But again, her legs, they didn’t move.

“Oh good, I was worried you might be immune. Finally started to kick in, didn’t it?

Don’t worry, everything with be wonderful now.”

Rie struggles to speak. “What... what are you doing to us?”

Mr Tanaka thinks for a moment.

“ I’m saving you. I’m saving all of us. See, my friends here are special. Remember how I told you about that special place your daddy might go? I took everyone there! And now they never have to go to school, they never get hungry, they never hurt... All we do is play. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

I’ll take you and Makoto there. And then you can join all of us. We can have fun and play games here, forever. We’ll never be lonely.”

Rie wonders if it’s really that bad. She’ll never be lonely. No more being at home, alone, for days, hungry, and waiting.

She’ll have friends, forever.

Or so she thought. Which, is oddly comforting, given that she was found by the Nagano Police, four hours later, along with 7 other mummified children, all dressed like dolls. Tanaka Seiji had been collecting children for years, apparently. He had always been an awkward man, coming from a home of trauma and abuse, dehumanized from a young age. He finally felt in power, as he inserted himself into the perfectly preserved, embalmed children. Maybe that explains it, but it sure doesn’t justify it.

‘

submitted by /u/jishinseiren [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/2YEQKnx

#Blogger #Story

0 notes

ratherhavetheblues · 6 years

Text

INGMAR BERGMAN’S THE VIRGIN SPRING“Big, wonderful dreams!”

Now, as we open a third can of worms installed by the inimitable, Ingmar Bergman, we need to open our eyes to the seriously bizarre communication these films consist of. Unlike the catch-as-catch-can opportunities to turn a buck by fulsome cinematic and mainstream cultural techniques, Bergman puts to himself and his clients two simultaneous and contradictory presentations. Why did he work like that? He didn’t want to starve. And, moreover, he was obliged to maintain—with reservations—that the mainstream has much to recommend.

The works, in question now, introduce with silent-film-optics-brilliance, figures variously galvanized by the resources of the history of Christian assurance. Though the most overt aspects of the narratives very convincingly appear to sustain the integrity of loyalty to a Christian power, there coincides an ambush exploding the entire enterprise and mooting the uncanny ways of fearlessness.

The era when Bergman displayed such an impressive changeup pitch was perhaps less experimental and volatile than our own. But his assumption that he was on to a crucial singularity resonates—to those with advanced reflective skills—in our own millennium. The films, Through a Glass Darkly and The Seventh Seal, subtly found much amiss in insisting that strong but fabricated personalities could put one on easy street. In our film today, The Virgin Spring (1960), only a last minute convulsion cements that whimsy. But, all the better from our point of view, the drama concerns a very flesh-and-blood problematic, namely, distemper.

A devout farming couple (in medieval Sweden) sends off their adolescent daughter to a distant church in order to fulfil a clerical edict that a virgin deliver candles for the observances. She is intercepted by three goatherds who rape and kill her. The murderers, having heard from the naïve and smug girl how opulent her family farm is, pay a visit and—something the goats might have red-flagged—attempt to sell the victim’s expensive and now bloodied clothes. Her father beats and stabs to death the naïve trouble-makers. This triggers for the God-fearing parents a spate of fence-mending. The whole retinue of the rough-hewn estate is led to the girl’s corpse by an eye-witness. At that site, the contrite and grief-stricken killer looks upward and repeatedly addresses his Lord. “I don’t understand you!” Then he adds, “Yet I still ask for forgiveness… I don’t know any other way to live… I will, with these hands, build a church here.” The distraught parents embrace their child for the last time; and then they and their underlings submit to the mass hallucination (a couple of no-names from the staff bemused in accurately seeing nothing—as per the skeptics in the other two films cited) of a spring coming into force where the girl’s head had lain. (Hallucination being prominent in those two aforementioned films.) A young semi-adherent to paganism, who had been charged to see that the trip be a safe and happy one, imagines being refreshed by the “waters” and now becomes as devout as the others on hand.

I hope you can appreciate that this angle on the eventuation leaves a lot of questions. A close look at the film’s first moments can introduce a level of sensibility from which to comprehend what really happens here. We’re confronted with a ragged, swarthy and beautiful young woman, crouching over a fire pit, with arms extended. Very definitely, it is the coursing of the fire per se, and not the kindling of the cooking apparatus, which absorbs her. She exhales with vigor and with a sense of urgency, her cheeks puffed-out grotesquely. “Odin, come!” is her non-breakfasty wake-up call. She pushes a long wooden pole upward to allow the smoke to escape from a trap-door beyond the ceiling. As she looks upward to the billows she is filmed close-up from the floor, and the large features of her face bring to mind an early cave-dweller, more primitive animal than rational ruler. Moreover, her peculiar dance is unmistakably an expression of solitary anger. “Come to my aid!” she cries out. At this window of opportunity, she is fearless, a condition we know to be at the heart of Bergman’s constructs.

The screenplay is credited to one, Ulla Isaksson, whom the auteur commissioned to deal with a Norse ballad involving child murder, which caught Bergman’s eye at the time of his production, The Seventh Seal (1957), with its desperate traffic of medieval piety. Isaksson’s inhabiting the idiom of faith and her concern to set in relief the 14th century triumph of Christianity over the forces of the pagan God, Odin, would, in fact, be merely useful dilettante spadework for Bergman’s finalization of a drama concerning fearlessness and its slide to distemper (hardly a matter confined to the distant past).

The sensuality of that firebrand, named, Ingeri, gives way to the principals of the farm, namely, Tore, and his wife, Mareta, who start their morning being stalk-still, in prayer. Tore recites, “Heavenly Father, Son and Holy Ghost, with all your hosts of angels, guard us this day and always from the devil’s snares…” Mareta adds, “Lord, let not temptation, shame, nor danger befall thy servants this day.” In strong and ironic contrast to Ingeri’s commitment to conflagration, Mareta drips warm, runny candle wax on her hand. “It’s Friday,” she explains, “the day of our Lord’s agony…” Then she crosses herself, “So help me God.”

Instead of just distributing that stark contrast, there is a cut to an elderly lady, Frida, who presents us with a blanket filled with new-born chicks, delicate, beautiful and full of life. Holding one in her hand, she says, “You poor thing. Live out your wretched little life, the way God allows all of us to live.” Here, then, a synthesis tumbles our way—the “wretched little life” hovering toward the possibility of disinterestedness, with aspects of wild Ingeri and the calculators, in the mix. But life is not a sure-fire recipe, as Frida soon shows us why. Ingeri’s dance in the kitchen is interrupted by the seeming old dear, her colleague in cuisine, asking her in a harsh voice, “Where were you all night? If you don’t care where you sleep, you could at least come back for the milking… Instead, I had to run around on these poor legs…” Where did the “wretched little life” go?

We’re on track, at this introduction, to deal with, not religious wars, nor with bromides about improving the Dark Ages with prayer books; but instead with an addiction for eclipsing others and leaving them seen to be inferior. After her celestial entrance, Ingeri, about six months pregnant, flashes her enhanced profile in a bid to drive Frida to feel that all her chaste priorities have become obsolete, have come to naught. Just before that, her surliness elicits from the old semi-dear, “What’s wrong?” A far cry from her silent gambit, Ingeri very commonly, even old and obsolete, explains, “Nothing more than the usual—bastards beget bastards…” Not that Frida improves the tone with her spiteful, “Serves you right, the way you behave—spitting and snarling like a wild cat. You should thank God on your bare knees for his mercy. To come to a farm like this and stay in this house like a child of the family. But you are, and always will be, a savage child.”

The objective of personal power, bringing down upon many a blast of horror, derives from that patrimony of advantage, of seizing the upper hand. The proprietors, over and above their systematic prayers, have seen fit to be the only ones to provide the regional church with candles for the observances of the Virgin Mary. In accordance with a tradition that a virgin must carry the candles to church, the onus falls upon their adolescent daughter, Karin, to double-down the piety in that way. Whereas the parents are fastidious in consummating their secular and religious challenges, Karin has chosen to exploit the vantage point she was born to and thereby occupy a medium where she always appears paramount. True to form, she had been the focal point of the party the night before, the party also dear to Ingeri; and whereas the servant had showed up, the princess had slept in, leading Mareta to think of the only other virgin, namely, Frida, to carry the goods that day. Tore’s edict, “Go put some life in that loafer,” takes Frida off the hook, and Karin ending her winning streak.

The Virgin Spring may be bountiful in evoking the mysterious and perilous tumble of sensual energy. But it also shines in its dramatic dialogue (Bergman being a connoisseur of theatrical rhetoric, to the point where speech and its imagery joins that tumble). Therefore, we’ll track with some detail the distemper within the first family, whereby Karin seeks wedding garb for running an errand of piety. She is roused by her mother only by way of racking up lavish indulgences in apparel and cuisine. “I’ll wear my yellow dress,” she proclaims. And when Mareta reasons, “My child, it’s a week day,” the child threatens, “Then I won’t go.” Mareta fortuitously perseveres to an upshot of how superior the girl and her parents not only believe themselves to be but tolerate in themselves such cheapness. “You’re behaving like a little child… [but] I can’t be hard to you.”/ “Mother, I’ll ride to church with such dignity, and Blackie will raise his hooves gently, like a pilgrims’ procession. I’ll look neither right nor left, but straight ahead.” Mareta changes the subject, but not the nonsense. “This is not an ordinary dress. Fifteen maidens sewed this! “ She attempts to return to some ascetic territory, not enjoying the cross-purposes. “You’ll give the devil such joy. Angels will punish you with boils and toothaches…” She goes on to refer to her disturbing dreams and Karin counters with, “I wish I had dreams, too… Big, wonderful dreams! But I never do…” Tore comes by, and pleased by the glamor and glory, he exclaims, “I’ll ride into the mountains with this naughty girl and I’ll say, ‘I won’t have such a daughter… I’ll imprison her in the mountains for seven years until she’s been tamed!’”

The taming of Ingeri—chosen by Karin to accompany and thereby accentuate her own fabulousness on the road and to have the audacious one’s brain picked on the subject of intercourse—proceeds by her own volition, first of all (in being tasked to provide a meal for the princess) as to placing a toad within one of o the buns. Such childish distemper not becoming her fluency with the realm of fire. Abandoning, for the moment, the most revealing interplay of the girls in the first phase of the trip, there is the shining and appallingly brief (semi-) fearlessness of Tore. After killing the goatherds (who had displayed a [semi-] retardation of predatory appetite) and rushing to Karin’s semi-nude corpse, he dispenses with meek piousness and samples some fearlessness at the borders of power as he has come to understand it. He stands close to the stream which Karin had seen before being devoured by fish-like feeders (one of which playing a Jew’s harp—a factor recalling the Nazi touch by Martin, in Through a Glass Darkly; but here the bite is far more controversial, possibly at the basis of the often-remarked down-play by Bergman toward this film); and he leverages Ingeri’s account—he very likely being the father of the child—of that viciousness and guile to a point of serious rebellion. After looking to skies that have become efficacious, no longer supernatural, he smashes his face with his fist, kneels down and then falls over, face down. Presently, he looks up in extreme divided confusion and calls out—already, in this move, sliding away from a medium of efficacy—“You saw it, God, you saw it! The death of an innocent child and my vengeance. You allowed it to happen [here a fascinating disclosure of boldness clinging to a safety net, replete with his shaking his fist]. I don’t understand you [a close-up seen from behind]. I don’t understand you [the rippling waters actually going nowhere]. Yet I still ask for forgiveness. I know no other way to make peace with myself. I don’t know any other way to live…I promise you, God, here by the dead body of my only child… I promise that as a penance for my sin I shall build you a church. On this spot I shall build it… out of mortar and stone… with these hands…” The melodramatic stance, with legs far apart, and arms up to the sky, reminds us of Ingeri at her best, bestriding the cauldron and dispensing with verbiage.

Searchlit singularity comes to a bemusing crescendo in one of Tore’s marginal retainers, namely, “the Professor,” with a vaguely clerical baldpate head. He comes into his own in scrutinizing the little brother of those killers intent on doing even more damage, but being too dull to make the most of the occasion. That the kid-minding kid (initially ordered by his adult brothers to keep an eye on the body, but soon tagging along) has been shocked to the point of not being able to keep any food down presents no mystery to the master of inferences—he having already figured out that the dark night bringing no princess means she has been murdered by those operating along the route of the church and now partaking of Tore’s hospitality. (On the other hand, Tore tells Mareta, “If Karin doesn’t come tonight, she’ll surely return tomorrow… I know you’re worried about Karin. But she’s stayed in the village overnight without permission before.”)

A preamble to that seer (a country cousin to the Joseph of The Seventh Seal) involves Frida—she of the presence of affection and the language of affliction—denouncing our sharp but not sharp enough navigator. He carelessly teases her, “A woman like you no doubt needs a confessional close at hand.” And she pushes back, “Says the man who had to flee the country to save his hide… I know all about you, Professor…” He shoots back, “A bird on the wing finds something, while those who sit still only find death. I’ve seen both women and churches…” (Frida brightens up at the prospect of learning more about religious edifices. “What were the churches like?” And he brags, “Tall as the sky. And big… Not of wood, but of mortar and stone.”)

But when the chips are down, the Professor shows that his reputation as a spoiler to sedate invalids derives from his having taken a deep measure of “a bird on the wing.” The sick and terrified boy is put to bed by Frida, and when she departs he takes over with his bass baritone baseline, to implicitly officiate the boy’s funeral. “You see how the smoke trembles up the roof hole? As if whispering and afraid [both fear and freedom conjoined]. Yet it’s only going out into the open air, where it has the whole sky to tumble about in. But it doesn’t know that. So it cowers and trembles under the sooty ridge of the roof. People are the same way. They worry and tremble like leaves in a storm because of what they know and what they don’t know. You shall cross a narrow plank, so narrow you can’t find your footing. Below you roars a great river. It’s black and wants to swallow you up. But you pass over it unharmed. Before you lies a chasm, so deep you can’t see the bottom [‘Hell is other people,’ has also been used]. Hands grope for you. At last you stand before a mountain of terror.” (Here the bird on the wing conflates to an interfering manipulation.) “It spews fire like a furnace and a vast abyss opens at its feet. A thousand colors blaze there. Copper and iron, blue vitriol and yellow sulphur. Flames dazzle and flash and lash at the rocks. And all about, men leap and writhe, small as ants, for this is the furnace that swallows up [the boy looks away in fear.] But at the very moment you think you’re doomed, a hand shall grab you and an arm circle around you and you shall be taken far away where evil no longer has power over you…”

What appears to be gross self-contradiction in that funeral sermon pertains to a duality with which the film is passionately absorbed. The short-lived fire of Ingeri and the rather long-winded but engaging metaphors of the Professor constitute an uncanny poetic life-blood, haunting, to those who have striven to reach heights. In addition to that, however, a curtain of inertia—demonstrated by Ingeri’s loss of grip and the Professor’s withering to clichés—intrinsically busies itself to foster preoccupation with others in survival action. We should take care, at this point, to more closely discover how Bergman evokes, with a horrific shambles, the bracing dilemma and delight of a groundswell often overt but rarely sustained.

One of the most felicitous cinematic portrayals of the endless struggle to harmonize between the two moments of creativity occurs in the course of Tore’s steeling himself to kill his daughter’s devourers. Seemingly needing to fire up his flesh by whipping himself with branches from a supple young tree (recalling the flagellants in The Seventh Seal, seen by notables to be deranged), he proceeds to break the trunk near the base. But in carrying out his effort to break the trunk, Tore becomes caught up in pushing to and fro the plant’s elasticity, a vivid metaphoric rendition of the work of balancing, countering overarching advantage, like the kills he is intent on. (That Ingeri, slinking back to the farm, goes on to accompany and assist his questionable motivation—preparing scalding vessels for him to shower nude—becomes an indicator of the “savage child” having capitulated entirely to the rapacity of advantage, getting things done without due attention to the possibility of that other, poetic accomplishment.)

The early moments of the ride to the church never reached by Karin present many rich features of those essential polarities being not and never effectively reached. Karin, the self-styled star, rides on a snow-white mare and sits in archaic, chivalric side-saddle, cosseted by the ancient airs and dances of a routed, effete and dull constituency. She sits barely touching her mount, as if messaging to the countryside that a hierarchy has come to pass. Ingeri, upon a dark, splotchy runt, rides using her legs but only faintly derives the gifts of the earthiness which the opportunity affords. Karin in the lead, they skirt a sparkling lake in the sun. The camera of Sven Nykvist draws back to reveal the vast hilly forests and skies and cosmos beckoning the girls toward a memorable treasure of travel. Karin gets as far as a pleasant song with that recorder and timbrel motif which accompanied the credits. “The little bird, he soars so high/ It is such work , such work to fly/ And over high mountains to spring./ The streams flow so merrily/ All under the verdant trees/ In springtime’s breeze…” (Here the billowy white clouds with wild flowers below accentuate the endowments of nature, seldom heeded.) Prior to this stage, there was the Professor accompanying the girls as they passed beyond the farm’s gate. He, too, was induced to song, the kinetic subject of which inclined to flattery and a premonition (of death amidst verdant trees twisting in an ambiguous breeze) ravaging lovely fruit. “So lovely an apple orchard I know/ A maid with virtues so dear./ Her hair like spun-gold does flow/ Her eyes like the heavens so dear./ The streams flow so merrily/ And under verdant trees/ In springtime’s breeze.”

Contrasting with the early field of fruition, Ingeri, in the sequel, gets her face slapped by Karin for teasing her about seducing at that party a young farmer in the hinterland (perhaps another of her paramours), brought into view as they encountered him in his pasture. (This descent into cheapness parallels the Karin in Through a Glass Darkly, being unable to regain poise after participating in an ill-conceived birthday skit.) Karin quickly apologizes; but the once fearless (implying disinterestedness) loner clings to petty advantage. “Don’t ask me for forgiveness!” From there, the dark horse, taking up a rather distant rear, doesn’t have a ghost of a chance. A raucous raven in close-up keys the next closure of Ingeri’s heart. Having come upon the pathway’s attendant to a bad crossing of the stream, Ingeri walks her mount and the beauty of that modest beast speaks volumes. Here, with her integrity in shreds, she cries out to Karin, “Let’s turn back!” When Karin refuses, the unstable outsider blurts out, “I’ll take the candles!” (melodramatic rolling the dice being a symptom of shallow desperation). Karin, being the stable one for the time being, finding some backbone in light of another’s cowardice, offers a glimpse of how volatile, how kinetically challenging, one’s emotional resources can prove to be. Ingeri does not, her gypsy looks notwithstanding, possess any capacity to foresee the future. Instead, her skittishness stems from a factor of her own failure to bring equilibrium to the firestorm of her sensibility. “The forest is so dark! I can’t go on!” Too much prose, advantage. Not enough poetry, disinterestedness. Karin, occupying a rare picture of daring and, thereby, caring, tells her, “Don’t cry so hard. You could hurt the child.” Then she shows some more of the aristocratic stream we all inherit, but have to live up to. “I’m not frightened. I’m going to church. May she [addressing the rough-hewn official] rest in your cottage a while until I come back?” Karin offers a portion of her large lunch hamper. “Look, here! This is enough for both of you.” Overwhelmed by an abyss no longer sparkling, Ingeri clings to Karin’s horse, terrified. “Did you think I was going to slap you again?” the one with the upper hand asks. When Karin is on that way she’ll need all the confidence and maturity she’s ever had, the bridge man asks, “Are you in labor?” Shaking her head, she replies, “Worse than that!” (And could Bergman, apparently fond of American genre films, have seen and been struck by the noir, Kiss Me Deadly [1955] and listened closely to its theme song, “Rather Have the Blues” [than what I’ve got]?) After the spooky old guy does some mumbo jumbo with bones and tries to embrace her as a pagan kin—a status she now regards as sterile and just another failure in her battle to engage “Something Big”—Ingeri, trembling, cries, “You have taken human blood!” She races away, the terror in her eyes and on her mouth showing that she’ll never be the player she seemed qualified to be, in those first seconds of the saga (the leaven of sensual lucidity gone forever). Before she ran away, the self-styled seer, presuming to be able to bring her around, declared, “But you’re afraid. You mustn’t be. I will give you strength!” During her flight to distance the seer, the conifers along the way have become a tomb rather than a take-off. The blur of her race through the thick woods affords no dynamic step forward, and in this she becomes a kin of that Wendy of Wendy and Lucy, in the box-car, with the trees flashing by and deadness prevailing.

Ingeri settles for commonness at the site of Karin’s corpse—a Karin murdered by way of her letting slip away that once-in-a-lifetime balance (seeing) she commanded at the bridge (a bridge to endless enmity, advantage). Ingeri had run fast enough to witness, from a hiding place, the rape and kill and desecration. The inert rock she held, and failed to use, would be her kin for life and for leveraging an after-life as an angel. That she had run afoul of shallow fantasy calculation coincides with the shallow carnal calculation of her own modus operandi which might have lasted longer in the secular fold, but with no real traction. During the squabble at the outset of the deadly ride, Karin tells Ingeri (who had lorded over Karin in experiencing the pain of carrying a child), “Then I’ll be married and mistress of my house with honor.”

#ingmar bergman

0 notes