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ahiddenpath · 6 months

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Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning

I just got home from seeing the Japanese audio/English sub. This is not a review, and I doubt I'll feel the same way about it in a few days, because I'm all up in my emotions and I haven't had a think on it. So here is nothing more or less than my visceral, 100% subjective reaction.

Extreme spoilers beneath the cut, spoilin spoilin all day long. Also cussing and blaspheming, apparently I like to keep it classy.

My head is a boiling vat of pudding.

As the film ended, someone screamed, "Toei why you gotta do us like that?!" Someone else yelled, "Jesus Christ I did not need that in my life." As we filed out, another gem: "They had a digital god in this one, and they still didn't unfuck Kizuna." (That last one, I think, while funny, was not relevant. This wasn't about the older kids, they had their turn and several more, lmao).

Some notes:

-Genuinely I was not prepared for a horror. Or child abuse. I love horror games! I watch them nearly daily! Did you know I have only once been more upset/disturbed by a horror video game than I was by this movie?

Did people take their kids to this? Like, that seems totally reasonable to me, taking your kid to digimon!!! Jesus cHRISt!!!!

-I thought my bar of, "I want to see the 02 kids grown up and interacting," was so, so low. I thought my bar could not be lower. But this was Lui's story, not theirs. And this is Toei's story, not mine, so I have to accept that... They wrote what they wanted to. But yeah, the bar I thought was low was not cleared.

-SOMEONE HELP ME, Himekawa is older than Lui. Himekawa's group, they were the first Chosen. Right??? Does the time line not shake out here??? Himekawa was probably about 10/11 when she was Chosen, and she's a full ass adult in Tri??? So, like, I guess the question is, how much older is her group than Lui at age 4? Are they at least 6 years older???? But- God what age would that make- God damn let me get the chart. Shit, I'm lost. Help??????

Shit I liked:

-Lui's second birthday scene

Not the original scene where Lui meets Ukkomon. This is the second birthday, his 8th birthday, where they sit in a dark room full of presents and treats. Ukkomon mentions Lui's parents and friends. They enter the room and proceed to not say a single ducking word while Ukkomon and Lui talk and talk and talk, and it is the creepiest and most atmospheric shit I have seen. Holy shit!!!!

Obviously, the audience already knows shit is fucked up with Ukkomon, but at this point, ooooooooooooooooo baby that tension is HIGH.

-Power in the hands of children

Ukkomon is, like, seconds old when he meets Lui. Lui is 4 and extremely disenfranchised, even for a 4-year-old. Lui wishes for what he doesn't have. Ukkomon devotes his whole self to those wishes.

What happens when a 4 year old meets a baby genie? When that much power is in the hands of the innocent?

You don't want to know, trust me. Lowkey wish I didn't know!!! Christ on a bike!

As much as we love digimon and the Chosen and all of that, it's always been messed up how much power they have, and how much responsibility. It's so much pressure, it's so high stakes! It was really cool to see Toei explore how sideways all of this could go, literally at any moment.

-A few character moments

Honestly that part where a girl is chatting up Ken and Wormmon is visibly pissed is, like, my favorite thing in this movie. Oh! Also I loved seeing the international Chosen, that was so great. The gut scream of WALLACE/WILLIS in the theater when he appeared!!!!!!

Bonus:

My husband said he liked how there was a command center in Imperialdramon's head. I think that was actually some kind of... plane??? Made by Ukkomon??? I have no idea. You know, the place where Ken and Daisuke are accused of flirting.

Stuff I didn't like

-It was half flash back

I'm being a little harsh here, because stuff other than flashbacks happened in the first 46 minutes, but... I checked my phone after the final flashback (not counting Lui jumping into Ukkomon in the end). I was 46 minutes into a roughly 90 minute film. I'm not against flashbacks in principle, and I tend to like new characters, but... This just wasn't what I hoped for in a movie about the 02 kids. I accept that this is 100% subjective.

-It was too damned fucked up for my tastes

Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus H Christ!!!!!

Okay, so first of all, I generally am of the opinion that a lot of recent media has substituted trauma for substance. It's easy to make an audience pity/relate to/feel protective of a character by showing them suffer.

Lui wetting himself was so disturbing for me- in children, that's often a sign of ongoing abuse. I could easily be reading into it, but that combined with the range of age of his bruises (and he had more fresh contusions, too, they start red and turn purple and brown and eventually a yellow green) hinted that this wasn't some one off occasion caused by a sudden spike of stress. That was Lui's life. And he really might have frozen to death that night, if not for Ukkomon.

In a way, if I'm right and not just reading into things, this scene was well done. But also, like... I just don't enjoy the substitution of trauma for gradually making us care about a character and understand what they've been through. It seems like some kind of heavy handed short cut, and it usually has the opposite effect on me- thrusting me out of the narrative and making me distrustful of it.

Or maybe I'm just distancing myself, because I genuinely get so upset.

And don't even get me started on the scene where Ukkomon dissolves. I was not ready for that shit. It was just too much for me, I'm sensitive, lmao!

-I'm not sure what I think of the Chosen reacting to Lui's story

I kind of felt like the Chosen were oddly hard on Lui? They weren't actually, in reality they encouraged him to find a resolution with Ukkomon and reminded him that relationships go two ways.

But, like. Could someone have, like... Idk I was really waiting for someone to cry or hug Lui or reassure him or something? Instead it was like, "Poor Ukkomon. He tried so hard and you relied on him too much!"

And my visceral reaction to that was, "UKKOMON KILLED AT LEAST ONE OF LUI'S PARENTS AND MADE THEM MEAT PUPPETS FOR YEARS, JESUS!!!! AND YOU WANT LUI TO GO SEE UKKOMON AGAIN?!?!?!?!?" Like, that whole thing was literally a nightmare??? But Ukkomon was an actual whole ass baby god, and then again, as my husband put it, "Ukkomon did what CPS wouldn't." Lui needed help, stat.

I'm gonna need some time to sort how I feel about this. I can say that, as I watched, I felt like the emotional tone was really off for the last half of the film. All I could think about was the horror, and any time someone criticized Lui, or even told him to go see Ukkomon, I was just like- MEAT. PUPPET!!!! MEAT!!! PUPPET!!!! (Did those kids that Ukkomon made Lui's friends also die?!?!?!). Literally, snow was falling and the Chosen were playing, and my head was like, MEAT. PUPPET!!!!

There's no walking back that emotion, at least not in a 40 some minute window. Not for me, personally. I'm probably going to have nightmares. If I knew going in that this was a horror, I'd be fine with that. But gdi I though I'd see my blorbos having good times mixed with a plot.

Instead, nightmares.

-Lui's final scene with his mother

Lui tells himself, "This time, when I go back in time... I won't rely on Ukkomon for everything" (paraphrasing). He sees his mother inside his memory of his 4th birthday. He says to her, roughly, "Lui loves you, please remember that."

And magically, the mom is kind to him that night.

Now, to be fair, even disastrous relationships can have good times. Maybe it would have been just that night that was better. But there was this feeling of, "Oh, if I just talked to my mother when I was 4 years old and horrifically abused, it would have been different."

That just isn't how that works. If I had to guess, the film is just supporting communication. But god, don't ever point back to the child victim like that. Too bad that 4 year old doesn't know how to communicate with his abusive caregiver! Things might have been different!!!!!

I'm sensitive to this kind of thing, so it's totally possible I'm fixating too much on this or blowing up the importance of this moment. But yeah, not a good emotional reaction to that.

In summary: this was not the film I wanted. In fact, it's a film that will stick on me like a burr, but like. In a bad way? But also it did have some killer ideas. Ukkomon has to be one of the most interesting things to hit Adventure in years. So much power in the hands of an innocent, so disastrous so very fast.

My brain is still pudding. Time for some nightmares. Good night, I hope the film didn't distress you if you saw it! And my sympathies if you took your children, the biggest of oofs (how could you have known??? You couldn't have).

#spoilers #digimon spoiler #digimon spoilers #digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure 02 the beginning #02tb spoilers #02tb #hidden reacts #reaction #faves

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azaleapaperpad · 5 months

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Red Curtains and Chandeliers

Phantom of The Opera (Broadway version)(Merik) x GN! Reader (Part 3) WC: 1266

Your friend dragged you over to the staircase and looked around for something. You knew better this time, not looking directly at the secret lever right away. They looked around everywhere for it, and you only glanced at it once. After a few minutes, realizing most of the crowd had likely fled, you were standing there, your best friend absolutely frustrated. Their face even started turning a bit red. “This is ludicrous! You saw him too, right?!” They asked you. Well, more like screamed at you. You nodded silently, still reeling from the events of the night. You wanted to try and get yourself out of there as soon as possible.

“Maybe we should get out of here… It’s getting late.” You said, trying to feign defeat. They looked over at you and sighed. “Yes… I suppose.” They said, dusting off their costume and joining you by their side. You two walked back to the dorm quietly, your friend fuming.

After a few minutes of silence and getting ready for bed, your friend turned to you.

“Do you think there’s a chance Madam Giry will tell us anything?” They asked. You looked up at them and arched a brow.

“Maybe a senior ballerina, or other senior staff, but not us.” You said as you shook your head. They furrowed their brow like that wasn’t the correct answer.

“What about that Meg girl?” They inquired. You scoffed.

“She’s hesitant. She believes if you speak of the Phantom, he shall appear before you.” You chuckled out. “The next best option would be Christine Daae, but she’s either practicing or off with the Viscount.” You said.

“But there’s still a chance?” They asked hopefully. Don’t even think about it- is what you wanted to say, but you were tired.

“If you believe so, my friend. But it is late, we should get some rest.” You sighed, exhausted both emotionally and physically.

The following weeks were fairly uneventful, aside from the casting of ‘Don Juan Triumphant’ where you and your friend happened to be cast in the same routines. You smiled at them when they told you the wonderful news and immediately sped off to the practice room together.

Weeks passed, and before you knew it you were only a week away from first curtain. You and your friend had decided to take a break in between practices and walk around the theater, watching the actors practice their lines. You were giggling about Piangi, he kept messing up a certain bit and the rest of the cast was getting fussy.

As Madam Giry is arguing with Carlotta, you and your friend go silent. You both know better at this point than to do so much as breathe too loudly when Madam Giry was speaking. After the actors went quiet, your eyes drifted up to the rafters and you saw him.

Upon instinct, you reach for your friend's arm, still looking up. Your friend looked over to you, then where your eyes were. You darted your eyes back to theirs, staring at them and immediately, sternly saying “No.” They frowned at you. Suddenly, you heard the actors singing, and the piano playing, but no one was near the piano. Horror filled your eyes, and your flight instinct kicked in again. You dragged your friend out of the audience and to your dorm, heart hammering in your chest, despite your friend's protests and attempts to go back.

"We c-can't, we just can't-" You started.

“You owe me.” They said shortly, a slight frown on their face. You knew they weren’t actually upset, but you also know their 'Adventurousness' would get them hurt, or worse. You figured, you’ve known them long enough and you do owe them some sort of explanation.

After you got back to the dorms, they sighed and sat on their bed, kicking their shoes off and taking their coat and layers off. You followed suite and once you both got comfortable, they went to lay on their bed, having barely said a word all night. You frowned slightly, and sat on the foot of their bed.

They looked at you curiously and tilted their head, “What’s the matter, mon cher?” They asked softly. You gave a small smile. It wasn't a normal smile, it was more of a self-pitying smile, and you sighed.

“You were right,” you mumbled, hugging your knees and resting your head onto said knees.

“Oh? I’m sorry what was that?” They asked teasingly, smiling and starting to giggle.

“You were right, le stupide.” You said, a little louder, laughing with them.

“What was I right about this time?” They asked, sitting up and crossing their legs.

“I…” You paused for a second, taking a deep breath. “I do owe you an explanation. About something I haven’t been telling you about.” You said softly, your smile fading and your tone becoming more serious.

“You’re not a vampire, are you?” They asked.

“What? No, I-”

“Werewolf?”

“No, you’re missing the poin-”

“Did you cause the flames from earlier?!” They gasped.

“No, idiot! Give me a second, I’m trying to find the words!” You laughed. You took another breath and continued. You told them about how you admired The Phantom before the chandelier crash, and then became fearful and bitter at the rise of Christine (which has since settled because you thought rationally about the situation) and then finally, you refuse to face him because it would hurt too much. They listened, and when you had finished, they stayed quiet for a moment, processing everything.

“Do you have… any questions?” You asked shyly. They nodded their head excitedly, their eyes not quite focused on you though.

“Oh, I have so many questions, I just need a minute to process absolutely everything you just said.” They said quickly, a hand coming up to your shoulder. You sat there, awkwardly as your friend took about 3 minutes to process everything.

“So, let me just get this straight,” they started. “You’re in love with The Phantom of the Opera Populaire?” they asked, their pitch going up.

“I…” You started, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. You nodded slowly, looking down. Not necessarily in shame or embarrassment, but more in a “I’ve barely accepted it myself” kind of way. They chuckled.

“I was wondering why you wouldn't tell me anything... but you always were the ghoulish one of the bunch,” they chuckled. You were surprised, they didn’t say anything mean, or rather, “meaner” than their normal amount.

“That… is that it?” You chuckled dryly.

“I don’t feel… upset by this information. The only thing I’m upset about is that you didn’t tell me sooner. If I had known, I wouldn’t have tried to drag you towards him so many times.” They rolled their eyes. “If I’m being honest, I’m probably more obsessed with him than you~” they teased. You shot them a dirty look, playfully, and you both started laughing.

“It feels so nice to tell someone, finally.” You breathed out, stretching your limbs out to get up and go to your own bed. You looked back at your friend. “Thank you, for understanding.” You said softly as you bid them goodnight.

“Of course. You’re my dearest friend, how could I ever be mad at you?” they said sweetly. “Though, you best be careful. I swapped your sugar and salt after you upset me earlier.” They warned as you turned off the oil lamp. You let out one hearty

“Hah!” before you hit the pillow. “That’s okay. I’ll get you back before the first show.” You joked. More or less.

#phantom of the opera #poto #erik destler #erik poto #the phantom of the opera #christine daae #fanfic #phantom x reader

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hoodoo12 · 4 months

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Two show Wednesday

"Two show Tuesday" sounds better, but the travel plans didn't work out that way.

I saw a play and a musical. Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors and Spamalot. Mild spoilers under the cut (mostly for Spamalot).

Dracula was in an off Broadway production in a theater of ~250 seats. It was nice to be in such an intimate theater; even though we were fourth row the stage was so much closer because there was no pit. I loved the set design! They did a lot with a little. The show was a tight 90 minutes so there was no lag time or dragging out the plot. Out of the five actors, four of them played multiple roles, sometimes in the same scene!

Because the show was short and a comedy, I'd call it Dracula-lite or Cliffs Notes Dracula lol. There were changes to some backstories and genderswapping, and Dracula had a change of heart at the end. There were puppets, a bat on a stick, lots of black lace well-cut men, and every actor did an absolutely bangup job with the comedy.

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Before it was a stage show, it was a radio drama -- oops, podcast. The podcast starred a ton of stars: Christopher Sieber, John Stamos, Annaleigh Ashford, Laura Benanti, Alex Brightman, James Monroe Iglehart, Richard Kind, Rob McClure, Ashley Park, Alan Tudyk, Kathy Fitzgerald, Jeff Kready, and Orville Mendoza.

Listen to it here: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Broadway Podcast Network.

Second show was Spamalot! I was excited to see the differences between the Kennedy Center and Broadway.

The sets were slightly different: bigger, flashier, with an expensive looking forest. If you know, you know, lol. Some lines were changed but nothing drastic. God was Steve Martin, which is apropos. It was Leslie Kritzer's first night back after being sick; she made reference to that and her improv game is top notch.

Ethan Slater was great. The person I went with said they could hear his Spongebob voice when he sang as Prince Herbert but I didn't hear that (I laugh too hard at those scenes because they're my favorite). The person sitting to my other side had never seen the show or knew much about Monty Python (apparently) and he was INTO IT. I loved that he enjoyed it so much and some of it took him by surprise.

I really enjoyed Taran Killan. He made Sir Lancelot his own versus aping was Alex Brightman did and it worked. His French Taunter also got huge laughs because he dragged some of it out to an awkward amount of time but got the audience into it, which brought it back around to funny again. You know Justin Collette's outrageously long scream when Lydia heads into the Netherworld? Increase that time by about two minutes and that's what Killan did during one specific part of the scene. His costume for "His Name is Lancelot" was also different with many more bedazzled flames, lol

Good quick trip with good shows!

ps: We stopped at a random cafe before Spamalot and David Josefsburg was there! I tagged him on my IG and he dmed me back, lol

#personal #Spamalot #Dracula #Broadway #Instagram

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mercymermaid · 6 months

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i think it's time for my fnaf movie rant

HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE SPOILERS (obviously)

these are in no particular order and are just a conglomeration of thoughts that i wrote down immediately after watching so they don't make any sense half the time, and don't include theories i've seen recently

enjoy

- THE MATPAT CAMEO??? THE THEORY LINE???? HOLY FUCKING SHIT. THE THEATER SCREAMED.

- why did golden freddy pull a sans w the blue eye what happened to the white smh

- DUDE. I CALLED THE 'VANESSA AS AFTON'S DAUGHTER' HALFWAY THROUGH THE FUCKING MOVIE

- THE SECOND SHE EXPLAINED THAG SHE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON AND THAT SHE WOULDNT BE ABLE TO HELP, IT WAS OBVIOUS.

- because mike explained that their dad was gone, right? and afton clearly recognized the schmidt name. due to this, i originally thought that maybe schmidt was some code name and that only the aftons could recognize it, but now i have a theory

- the families are switched somehow. Vanessa is either a stand-in for Charlie or herself, which makes no sense story-wise

- however, Mike, Abby, and Garrett are clearly afton children. Mike is Mike (and in the games, Mike apparently uses Schmidt anyway to investigate his dad), Abby can bring lengthened to Elizabeth, and the crying child doesn't even canonically have a name 💀

- so i was thinking what if the families were eswitched? vanessa was some sort of charlie stand-in, with afton as her dad, while the schmidts were raised by Henry

- this would explain why he recognized schmidt and offered the job at Freddy's - he'd already killed Garrett, so he wanted to finish off the collection. Mayne this could be a parallel to him killing Charlie, but since there's three kids, he needs to get them all??? idfk

- ONE OF THE GUYS BREAKING IN HAD A MIDNIGHT MOTORISTS T-SJIRT (the guy who got killed by the cupcake)

- i am soglad i went with who I did because i doubt any of my other friends would understand any of it 😭

- THEY PLAYED LIVING TOMBSTONE AT THE END. YES. THANK YOU. THAT IS ALL WE EVER NEEDED IN LIFE.

- the balloon boy bit 😭 i doubt anyone not in the fandom would appreciate it as well as we did smh

- ugh i wish mark had his cameo but iron lung is important too ig

- THE WAY THE AUDIENCE SCREAMED WHEN AFTON TOOK OFF HIS MASK BRAHAHHDHCJC

- WE WERE ALL WAITIJG FOR IT

- we probably won't get to see a "WAS THAT THE BITE OF '87" moment because garrett got kidnapped instead of chomped smh

- BUT. THEY KEPT THE GUILT. IN THE GAMES, MICHAEL SHOVED CC INTO FREDBEAR'S MOUTH. IN THE MOVIE, HE WASNT PAYING ATTENTION, WHICH CAUSED HIS BROTHER TO GET KIDNAPPED. OH THE FUCKING PARALLELS DUUUUDE

- also max getting bit in half is probably all we're gonna get of The Bite

- MATTHEW LILLARD FUCKING ATE. HE KNEW THE ASSIGNMENT. BEST AFTON.

- only issue is the lack of screaming during the springlocking. only your stomach is getting stabbed, not your throat yet. Scream.

- it would've been so funny if he pulled the "MICHAELLL DONT LEAVE ME HERE MICHAEL MICHAEL" while he was being dragged away but homie was too busy dying

- HE SAID THE LINE. "I ALWAYS COME BACK." OH MY GOD.

- NOBODY EXPECTSD VANESSA TO GET STABBED. THE THEATER GASPED.

- "IT'S ME" ON THE MIRROR DBSJAJXJXJXJDJ

- stop bonnie and chica staring down the camera while they release the cupcake is so funny 😭

- MORE ON THE FAMILY SWITCH. ABBY IS ELIZABETH, OBVIOUSLY, WHICH IS ONLY MADE MORE TRUE BC CHICA TRIES TO SHOVE HER INTO THAT DOLL-LOOKING THING. YOU KNOW WHAT IT RESEMBLES? SCRAP BABY. MY FIRST THOUGHT ABOUT THAT SUIT WAS "dude is that scrap baby?"

- the lack of a mrs. afton is so real 🤩🤩

- dude the entire fort scene was actually so fucking hilario

- like bonnie just. falling backwards. is so him yk

- BUT GOLDEN FREDDY. THERES THE KID. WHERE'S CASSIDY? IS GARRETT ALSO POSSESSING GOLDEN FREDDY IF HE'S THE PARALLEL FOR CC? WHAT ABOUT VANESSA?

- the issue with the family swap is that Vanessa just doesn't fit in. we can't play it off as a parallel to Charlie, because vanessa is already an established character with a connection to afton. fuck you Scott.

- SPEAKING OF. SCOTT KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING. HE CATERED TO US LIKE A FUCKING ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BUFFET. THE INSIDE REFERENCES AND EASTER EGGS?! THE MATPAT CAMEO??? THE LIVONG TOMBSTONE?!?!?!

- a bit upset they didn't keep Freddy's flashing face sequence smh

- THE SPRINGLOCKING WAS SO GOOD BC THEY LEFT HIM IN THE EXACT SAME POSITION AS CANON. ALSO IT WAS GOLDEN FREDDY WHO FINALLY LEFT HIM THERE, WHICH IS A HIT AT THE WHOLE "GOLDEN FREDDY HATES AFTON THE MOST" (cough cough ultimate custom night)

- they kept in the red eyes in some parts but im very glad they weren't in the rest. they looked fucking high. what happened to the black with white?? THAT WOULDVE BEEN TEN TIMES SCARIER AND APPEALED TO CANON, WHATS THE WITH THE CHANGE MAN 😭

- bonnie never got his eyebrows

- cupcake slayed and ate (literally!!!!)

- im actually super curious why half of spring bonnie is so damaged. now, it could go with the whole "this place hasn't been touched in forever, yadda yadda, destroyed suit makes it more sensitive and easy to set off" but. it's only one half of it. there could be a perfectly plausible explanation of "Oh yeah, only half of it was exposed to bad stuff, other half was covered with a tarp" ITS FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S. ITS NEVER THAT SIMPLE. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING? also a bit curious about whether movie afton already got springlocked once like book afton did (has game afton getting springlocked previously been confirmed? please lmk)

- i really love how they used the "the robots are just children" because they love abby and just want to play and shit and they're so sweet but they're so easily manipulatable

afton probably didn't have to do much besides show the pictures and convince them he was good

and all it took for them to turn on him was abby drawing a second picture

what if she convinced them vanessa was bad or some shit? they are really fucking gullible.

- also what the fuck was that freddy head saw blade monstrosity??!! what 😭

- like it never ends up being explained and it's not a stand-in for springlocks or being shoved into suits because those are very very much there

- literally the second i heart matpat's voice my heart went oop

- it took a second for everyone to register it but we went WILD

- AND HE DROPPED THE "BUT THATS JUST A THEORY"

- HE'S SO SILLY

- FOOD THEORY IS SO REAL THO 😭

- no bc a markiplier cameo would be so great but imagine if they used his reaction thing

- like they got him to film "WAS THAT THE BITE OF '87" as max gets bitten, and he appears in the corner for that one line

- even better, not reaction camera style, just standing there right next to her and then never being mentioned again

- either that or him popping up on the cameras (again, either as a reaction image, or standing there menacingly)

- THEY HAD SPARKY

- also why DID vanessa keep Mike in the dark abt afton (not calling him her dad, not stooping that low) and him trying to kill Abby? fear of authorities getting involved? this is bumfuck nowhere Utah, she is the fucking authority, and considering what his aunt said, a police officer defending her dad against some random guy isn't gonna go well for him

- like sure she told him to not bring abby but she didn't tell him why of course it's not gonna go well

- about the family swap. it's so easy to tell the scmidts are supposed to be a version of the afton kids, why the fuck did they name him GARRETT?

- I love the whole references to phone guy

Would've loved to see actual phone guy (imagine if THAT was matpat's cameo)(coughs in fnaf the musical) but afton is good enough

but abby's "hello" while exploring Freddy's sounds so much lime balloon boy wtf

- abby is a monogram (or whatever it's called) for baby which might not have that much symbolism bc abby is short for Elizabeth but the more the merrier yk

- i think i answered my own question abt whether movie afton has been springlocked

considering how he fuckign SPRINTED at michael and made all these moves like kicking and shit? yeah, I'm more surprised it took him so long to get springlocked

same with game afton actually like.. hello? stop laughing at the fucking dead kids in such a damp room, it's your own fault dumbass

Basically book afton was the smartest about wearing the suit bc of experience

- THE WAY CARL LAUNCHED ITSELF AT MICHAEL WILL NEVER NOT BE FUNNY LIKE BRO FUCKING ASCENDED 😭

- my friend is complaining abt how flirty Vanessa is w Michael which is really funny for no reaskn

- MY FRIEND INSULTED FOXY'S "dum dum dum" SAYING HES NOT CUT OUT FOR MUSIC. HELLO?!?!?@?@?@?@@

- as my friend mentioned, springlock scene was kinda anticlimactic lmao like where's the screaming? the blood?

- according to the same friend mentioned three times already:

Best parts of the movie

1. Matpat saying "that's just a theory"

2. Living tombstone credits

3. Vanessa getting stabbed

- the sounds at the end spell out "come find me" so wooohooo sequel time?? :))

- the "i always come back" was NOT it 😭 at least he said it yk

- okay someone pointed out that it was his last words so they were desperate and mad and showcase his lack of confidence in if he's actually gonna come back

which is cool

but I like the og more yk

- about abby's springlock suit: its the same doll from 1:35 am (fazbear frights 3), then there's sparky as an animatronic ans restaraunt, wppohoho

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #movie #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's movie #spoilers #fnaf movie spoilers #fnaf movie rant #mercy rambles

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danandphilnews · 2 years

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First half of 'We're All Doomed' stage show, transcribed

Spoiler alert!

[source]

Warning, if you accidentally clicked this: FULL SPOILERS for Dan's We're All Doomed tour! This is your chance to back out now.

Thank you to Jane for providing audio and to Cal and Keelin for help transcribing!

[Dan over speaker] hello and welcome to doomed radio. I’m your host DJ Dan here bringing you the soundtrack to the apocalypse here at the end of the world tour. I’m here with a very important message that photography, video, and audio recording is strictly prohibited so if you’ve got your phones out during the show someone that works at the theater will dropkick you and rob your device. We kindly ask for your cooperation. Now it’s time to drop some bangers. See you soon.

[plays dan’s diss track] [plays tour playlist]

Dan singing: Everything's fine, totally fine I hop out of bed and brush my teeth Make some toast or maybe muesli Fine, everything's fine [doorbell] Oh, who's that? It's my neighbor Valerie - I love people! Lookin' out the window while the tea is brewin' The bees are a'buzzin and the pigeons are a'cooin It must be a sign that nothing's out of line Because everything is fine... For you and you and you and you and you And you and you and you and you- [Dan. Daniel. Are you having another breakdown?] Everything's fine, everything's fine! La la la la la la la [He's lost it.] I love to sing- [You're spiraling. How long has it been since you've spoke to your therapist?] I'm fine. [You have clinical depression.] I'm going online! Hello, internet. [Really?] So much respect and intersectionality [Bullshit] All I see is rainbows- [It's time to stop pretending. You're clearly in denial. The world is literally ending] Yes, everything is swell, it's going terribly well [There’s drought, there’s war,??? self destruct, the ocean's on fire, we are literally fuc-] FINE, yes everything is fine For you and you [Dan, you have social anxiety and hate people.] It's fine. [Tigers are going extinct. Seagulls dying in oil on the beach.] It's fine. [Alexa is listening, plotting to kill you in your sleep. What are you going to do about the climate emergency?] SHUT UP! Everything's fine, totally fine Everything's in perfect harmony [*something*] DANCE BREAK It's fine, it's fine, it's fine fine fine It's fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine

[Dan. Come on. The world has got problems. You have got problems. Everyone here can see that. *something* deal with issues. It might be uncomfortable, like that time you pretend to love boobs for twenty-eight years. The truth is always here in the back of your mind. Dan, you need to be honest. What do you really think?]

WE'RE ALL DOOMED.

Are you happy? We're totally screwed. We are facing the destruction of our planet. Society is being ripped apart, if we do not kill each other first we're going to get nuked or a giant meteor is going to obliterate us while we sleep. What is the point in making it through our pointless little lives if anything we do has any meaning? When there is no point, no reason, no bloody hope at all.

[Well, that was a bit dramatic.] Seriously. [When I said be honest, I didn’t mean go all the way in the other direction and have a total melt.] You know what? I hate you. [Well, I don't particularly like you either.] I AM YOU. [And that's why we're in therapy.]

It's okay. It's okay. Bring it back. Start small. Just be a normal guy, doing a normal show. Look - there's your audience. Why don't you say something to them? Ask how they're doing? Crack off some regional banter? Joke about the weather! No, not the weather, actually. It’s burning us all to death. Just say hello.

INTRO HELLO, IPSWICH! Yes, I am Dan, I am doing a show. That’s why I’m here, that is what is happening. People of Ipswich, how are you tonight? [happy screams] Liars. Ooh, happy screaming. You can’t try that shit with me. I’ve got xray goggles for fear and anxiety, okay. That’s alright. I’m happy to go along with the lies. That’s why you’re all here, yeah? To leave our problems at the back of the doors and hope that at no point I leave a long enough silence for the intrusive thoughts in the back of your head to pop up and remind you of the one thing you’re trying not to think about right now.

I wouldn’t do that to you guys! Come on, really. I’ll distract your mind, it’s fine. Fill the voice with noise. Blah blah blah, blah blah. Look, we’ve got some lights. Here’s a funky sound! Ooh, it’s a picture of a dog. Wow, listen. I’m making jokes. Airplane food, am I right? Clean up in aisle two. That’s what she said. There we go, all your problems are gone, death isn’t inevitable, and we are gonna have one good night!

Okay guys - this is serious. This is an affirmation. All of you here are just gonna have one good night. [audience screams] Hell yeah. Now I’m sure what you’re wondering is - if we’re here to have a good night, why am I doing a show called We’re All Doomed? Valid. Mainly I just thought it would be really funny to scare the shit out of people walking past the theater when they see this. *something*, Mamma Mia, Mary Poppins, We’re All Doomed?! [screams]

We have a poster. It’s very tacky and pleasant. That’s just a jump scare for people at the bus stop isn’t it? Who is this very extremely tall child wearing a sandwich board looking like a creepy preacher from a town central/extra in a Kanye music video. Hi, it me. The branding is mainly black, obviously, because I’m a fucking emo. I’m one of those people that only wears black. So philosophical and fashionable, yeah. More like a performative acceptance of the darkness in me, so I can procrastinate any kind of emotional feeling that might be required *something* you know what I’m saying. But I look cool, yeah?!

But to be fair. There is a pop of color in there, the accent of orange just for contrast. As so many of you so helpfully pointed out, it’s literally the Pornhub logo. [audience cheers] *something* But it is too late, okay. We’ve printed the merch, the posters are up, get over it, okay. Get over it. To be fair I think we could have had the tour sponsored by Grindr, that’s a missed opportunity. Could have had a themed segment where I react to strangely toxic men telling me that my facial structure is too effeminate. Reporting me for not sending him feet pics. Or reporting me for catfishing as Dan Howell - which has happened, by the way. People have tried to catfish using my pictures. Don’t know what they’re thinking, should I be Timothy Chalamet, Troye Sivan… no, no. I need someone believably sad, lonely, and horny: Dan Howell. They gotta be careful. I don’t know who they’re gonna get nibbling on that line, but some of these fuckers are crazy.

We’re All Doomed is not just for the memes on the screens, though. This is a tour that I felt I had to go on to get out of the house and out of my head. It’s a show about the thoughts that are lurking and swirling in my mind. I want to be honest with you guys, do that uncomfortable oversharing thing. I am not just here to talk about having a weird crush on Tony the Tiger, okay. What, you don’t see it? He could throw you across the room with those arms. And cover you in frosting, rwar.

If I did a show about all the reasons why I’m stressed at humanity’s doom, then all of my problems become your problems. You know how they say a problem shared is a problem halved? Well there’s like a thousand people here right now. Forget halving, I am decimating this bitch. Literally and now a tiny piece of my problem is inside all you. [audience reacts] Don’t act like that.

Now, the problem when all the world is such a dystopian nightmare is where to begin. But our mission for tonight, therefore, is to look at all the ways in which humanity might be irrevocably fucked. And who knows, maybe you will find something to be hopeful for the future. And if not, at least we will have had one good night before we all go up in flames!

Now where to start… hmm. Nature is dying, robot rebellion is coming, our phones are secretly filming us shit. You seem surprised by this. They’ve got you in 4k popping a squat and they don’t give a shit about it. Why don’t we start there? Let's talk about the screens.

SCREENS Social media is 100% the downfall of humanity, and I say that as someone whose entire life relies on three apps. Not youtube, instagram, and facebook - onlyfans, facetuner, and *something.* While I heat my toast in the morning.

Every day when I wake up, I am terrified to reach over to my phone and see what things have been happening in the world. And thus… the doom scrolling begins. You know what doom scrolling is right? You sit back just a moment to look at your phone - then it’s FOURTEEN DAYS LATER. You lost your job, you smell like shit. All of your houseplants are dead. You go to scratch your leg, it’s not there. The cat ate it to avoid starvation. Our phones are literal black holes full of the worst things we can find. Terrible natural disasters and awful news about your favorite celebrity. Or the worst thing at all - that really annoying friend asking if you want to go for a coffee some time.

Yeah, that’s the worst thing. I would rather lose a hundred hectares of rainforest than spend an hour in Cafe Nero making small talk, staring into a latte wishing it would jump out of my cup and drown me. No - come up with an excuse. I’ll just say my grandma died. It works for everything, that’s a great excuse. The only problem is you can only use it once. Or twice for the other side of the family. Or more if you have a polyamorous lesbian grandma. Anyone here plan on becoming a polyamorous lesbian grandma? [audience cheers] Alright!

But for real, *something* we can’t look away from it. As humans we are naturally drawn toward the doom and gloom. It’s an evolutionary need to perceive every possible threat. Flight or fight, yeah? Or flight or curl up in a ball and *something* to death. *something* Social media companies know this. They know we want to see things that are terrible, so they feed us with an endless stream of bite-sized tragedy that are like anxiety hit tracks.

[something happening on the screen] Doom! Doom! Doom! Aww. Doom! Doom!

See what I’m talking about? It’s that easy. But it’s not just the bad things. I think it’s also the good things that make you feel terrible when you see status updates from your popular attractive friends living their best lives, ugh. Truly nothing is as insufferable as other people’s joy. They got engaged, they got promoted, they went on holiday and touched an elephant. They ran a marathon and they raised loads of money for charity. What a twat. Has anyone here run a marathon before? [audience laughs] Fuck. I found my people, okay.

You done exercise before? [No.] What was that - oh, you’re saying ‘um’ because you’re in a wheelchair, you have an excuse. I love the extremely confident ‘um’ from you there. We’re all desperately trying to turn our lives into content. I think instagram is just a horrible place filled with fake people trying to present these perfect lives. Some of us are just more secure in the knowledge of how insecure we are, and I think we should get credit for being honest with ourselves. Yeah - *something* No. Not in this house. Guys, we need a word for this.

But *sensually?* experiencing life around us has definitely taken a backseat to capturing it on camera. Even live events like this - the key word being live. I get it. You obviously want to take some kind of memory for posterity, but we’ve all been at a gig where there’s some guy in the front row holding up a fucking second generation ipad air *something* - GREG! Drop the fucking tablets *something* so I can see Dan outline his fashion statements.

Okay. But I get it, the urge is strong. That is why I asked you kindly to try and connect with me in this room tonight. Not physically, *something* obviously. I want you to connect with each other. Find each other after the show. Talk about the good time you had slash *something.* But if you don’t publicly post spoilers about the show just for the Australians that have to wait for 2023 for this shit *something* there’s not gonna be an Australian in 2023. It’s gonna be me doing this to a koala in a fallout shelter. However, just in case someone is secretly filming this on a spycam or perhaps streaming this to a contraband twitter space from a phone in their pocket now.

I have an announcement. Hi, and welcome to the *something* I’m your host Dan Howell and I’d like to confirm for the record, I’m a Tory. I’m actually straight. I have a six pack, a sixteen inch penis, and a tattoo of *Armie Hammer?* on my left butt cheek. Oh yeah. Armie Hammier. *something* The reverse Call Me By Your Name. That’s when you take a bite out of the peach then come in it. [audience boos] I thought I was allowed to express myself! Are you trying to bully me back into the closet? I see how it is.

Look. I think the internet is fucking amazing. It is a place where people can come together and find communities, they can share information, get representation that they wouldn’t get in real life. It saves lives. It saved mine. If I didn’t escape the bubble of my homophobic childhood I might not be here today. It’s the reason why we are all together in this room right now, and I think that that is awesome.

[audience cheers]

But on the other hand we’ve got guys filming themselves throwing milk on the floor in a shop - wow. And I hear fascism’s back in style, oh well. Play some Muse(?). Did you see what happened to Gabbie Hanna the other day? Girl potentially having a breakdown on TikTok and some guy turns up at her house to secretly film her because, I don’t know, banging content? Is this where we’re heading? Is this the future? This is what I’m afraid of, right? The internet just gives us all this power to make our lives amazing but it’s also drawing us toward doom and desperation and I’m afraid that if things keep going the way they are, we’re going to crash and burn.

[visual element]

Now perhaps the biggest danger of our social media addiction… Can you guess? Is data harvesting, okay! Because every single thing you do is being monitored. The likes, the dislikes, the friends, the transactions, the incognito tab - they know all of it okay. I want to give a shoutout to the FBI agent assigned to my internet. That guy has seen some shit. He needs therapy. But our privacy is all up for grabs, and to demonstrate this I am now going to grab a member of the audience and force them to show us their camera roll. [drumroll sound effects]

Why would I do that? Hell. What! No. But for real, l that is what every app is doing to all of us right now. [audience screams] Bunch of exhibitionists. When we think about privacy, we only really care about two things - our browser history being exposed and our nudes being leaked. But the truth is unless your password is the name of your dog, you’re probably fine. Anyone here have the name of their dog as their password? What’s your dog’s name? Percy? That is a short fucking password, okay. Oh, dear.

Privacy is really an issue for all of us, thinking about it. But the truth is that our news or searches for Sonic the Hedgehog mpreg gore are not very interesting. No offense. What they wanna know is every single boring thing you do. The posts you like, the ads you click on, the images you scroll by just for a second and think ‘hmm, I would.’ Don’t shame me, okay. You want to fight, don’t you. Okay, I see how it goes. But what is the evil end goal for all this data harvesting, you’re wondering? It’s just adverts. They just want to give us more personal adverts, how nice of them. It’s like digging through someone’s trash and then turning up at their front door like, ‘Hey, want some of this?’

I swear to god I only get adverts for things I literally just bought. I’ll be, I don’t know, buying some oranges so I don’t get scurvy because I don’t ever leave the house, and instagram will be like… hath thou considered this citrus? Bit late, mate. Why don’t you give me something that I need, like toilet roll. Ideally before I run out and have to start tearing pages out of my promo copy of Tom Daly’s autobiography. Do not make me put Tom Daly in my ass! Again. Legend.

In 2020, it was leaked that Facebook had a secret operation called Operation (?). That sounds nice, doesn’t it? They want to find out if their algorithm had learned to exploit our attraction to devices by deliberately putting (?) and political views together, and it absolutely was. And you know what they did when they found out facebook was doing it? NOTHING. Because when society is being ripped apart, you scroll past loads of ads. It’s great for business! And that might be scary, right. Because if the apps can control the content we see, they can control how we feel. Facebook makes you angry. Instagram makes you sad. Duolingo makes you horny. No? You might say… hornay. You don’t like that? Can anyone say horny in another language?

[audience interaction about saying horny]

This is scary, right? Thinking that the phones have this much control over our lives? WRONG. I think it’s a great thing. I would love for my life to be controlled by a machine. Or maybe I just crave domination, I don’t know. Life is hard. I don’t want to make these decisions. What t-shirt am I going to wear today, what bus do I have to catch to be on time, which pornhub category will I dive into and then feel deep shame about for several months? I do not want to make these decisions, okay. I just want an ad to be like Dan, wear a blue t-shirt for once. Get the 12 local bus and stop being (?). Dive into DILF tag for a good time.

Now, we’re not quite there yet. But one thing's for sure - we will all be replaced by robots one day. I have a couple of friends that are already halfway there. [Phil on screen] THey can do anything we can do. They can build cars, harvest crops, keep you on the phone to the bank for half an hour before I realize I’m just realize stupid. But surely there are some things that these AI programs can’t do? Mm, you’d be shocked. They’re replacing our pets with indestructible metal dogs. Have you seen that? What the fuuuuuck! Oh, don’t worry, they’re just for delivering items across terrain. Definitely not hunting down (?) in 2032 (?) with their metal snouts. If that dog humped your leg, you’d end up with third degree burns.

But what is safe? Human consciousness, art, love. No, none of those things! Love isn’t real. Love is just a toxic manipulative relationship where you need something from someone so you give them affection and the occasional disappointing orgasm. Unless it’s the love you have for your mother. Hopefully. But what about art? The creative reflection on life that separates us from the beats and the binary code? Are there any artists here? [audience cheers] ART IS ALREADY DEAD. A computer can do anything way better than you! Some of these AI art programs are a bit shit and you’re not quite redundant yet. I’m sure you all still have PTSD from that time I asked one to show Dan Howell experiencing happiness for the first time. Yes, (?). They say that the eyes are the window to the soul and my soul is an asshole.

I got access to the big boy Dall-E and I made this AI visualize my fantasies.

[section of AI images appearing on screen]

But hey - so maybe they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our art. Perhaps this is the last bastion right here. Human communication. We want to have connections with real people. We want to share stories, move each other emotionally, make jokes about depression and penises. And surely a robot could never replace this, right?

Well. I’d like to introduce you to someone.

[deep fake of Dan appears on screen]

Hi, Dan.

[deep fake: Hi, Dan.]

I’m so turned on right now. I commissioned a deep fake of myself to prove definitively that even I could be replaced or even subversed by a machine. He’s also running my onlyfans.

[If you want feet pics, that’s extra.]

This computer generated me can do all kinds of things I can’t do. He does exercise. You could juice an orange with those biceps. He can juggle. He’s really good at (?).

[I hate my job and my audience terrifies me.]

He’s also heterosexual.

[I am attracted to the form of breasts.]

He has an easier life than me. He’s everything I’m not. Outdoorsy. Active. Brave. Look at that. So realistic. I don't know how many of you noticed, but he actually did all the programming for this tour.

[I am so excited to go back on the road. I love living on a bus sharing one toilet between nine people.]

Hell, I could even be a deep fake right now. If (?). It’s a fucking joke. (?)

He can sound like me. He can look exactly like me. But he cannot replicate my mind, because I am a complex human consciousness made of real experiences and emotions.

[But Dan, your consciousness follows a simple formula.]

Sorry, what?

[Your writing is a simple formula, too. I might even say predictable.]

Okay, rude.

[Popular topic plus personal experience divided self-depricating relatability minus obvious sexual innuendo equals Dan’s content.]

It’s not that simple. I’m speaking from the heart, here.

[Did you know I’m socially awkward? Just kidding, it’s depression. Also, do you know I’m gay? I like penis.]

Okay, anyone can do an impression.

[Dan, I can even predict where the show is going and how it will end.]

Spoilers.

[I can even make the point of the show in a much more entertaining and profound way.]

No, no you can’t.

[At the end of the day, maybe all you can do is-]

*Dan speaks over the recording and ends it*

CONSPIRACY THEORIES Now I'm sure you're thinking this is all sounding a bit tinfoil hats. "Ooh, Dan, the apps are controlling our minds. Alexa is secretly keeping a list of everybody that doesn't say thank you so she can ?? Dan! Aren't these just conspiracies?" Hell yes! And I love a conspiracy! Do you?

Well, I lied, I used to love conspiracies because, I don't know, conspiracies used to be funny. You'd hear about some bloke named Barry down the pub who knew the earth was flat and he had a mate that sailed to the edge and spill off the edge. And look he was obviously batshit and smelled like a salami but he wasn't hurting anyone! Apart from his liver and strange family. But! [laughs] I think all good conspiracies are simply stupid, epically unintelligent pieces of fun fiction that everybody can enjoy. Do you want to hear my favorite conspiracies? Here are my top three classic favorites.

Go.

Number one: Avril Lavigne ?? Classic. The story goes in 2006 Avril Lavigne died, presumably hit by a runaway skateboard or something, and her record label, desperate to keep making money from her touring, replaced her with a clone called Melissa! Now! You may think this is stupid, but can you tell the difference? Is this Avril or Melissa?

[shows something on screen] Ooh, what d'you think? [audience response] I like how you're like "I don't - fuck it - Melissa." This one? Oh, see now ?? What about this one?

[Liz Truss shows up on screen; audience laughs]

That's not Avril Lavigne, that's a fucking idiotic shell puppet that is an embarrassment to the country! [audience cheers]

Next conspiracy: chem trails! Yes, that's right, the naturally occurring streaks of water vapor that do come out of the back of every single plane. ?? it's piss tanks so we're all ?? are actually a cocktail of secret chemicals that are released to make the population stupid. Now, the only problem with this one is implying that the people that lose our luggage are being trusted with secret chemicals. You think RyanAir could successfully execute a bio-terrorist conspiracy? They can't execute a fucking frozen tikka masala. There you go, airplane food joke.

Next! It is: every TV game show is rigged. Obviously!? They can't be giving out max prize every single time, they have to save it for one episode a season. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire going a bit too well? How many atoms are there in all of space? Hmm! Oh what, you wanna ask the audience? Good luck, we've been pumping chem trails into the studio all day! We all know they get too close to 52k, secret hatch under the podium, swap out the card, go home with 50p. Well, The Chase ?? When they're looking for contestants they find thick people.

And those are my favorite conspiracies. They're great, right? The problem is that nowadays conspiracies are no longer being discussed in secret. Now teen tinfoilers are hitting the streets and taking action. I wanna know: whyyy are they so obsessed with the 5G towers? I need 5G, okay? I like fast Internet. I am not going back to 2006 watching porn on dial-up, sat in the kitchen, as the shaft of a penis slowly loads up the monitor of my mum's work PC, okay? No. We didn't need edging back then ?? Leave the 5G alone!

And these conspiracies they're not fun, they're dangerous. 'Cause yeah, 5G causes ?? And the freaking microchips in the vaccines. The queers are secretly going to overthrow society. And they're stupid, these conspiracies, they're like Trump toddlers knocked over a bowl of alphabet soup. I genuinely think that the people of Ipswich and not that came to the show just because it's the first one could come up with a better conspiracy theory that's more believable right now... It's time to play conspiracy theory madlibs!

CONSPIRACY THEORY MAD LIBS (**audience participation*) Popstar- Harry Styles Politician- Boris Johnson Verb- cumming Body Part- nipple Household Object- whisk Vegetable- eggplant

“Did you know that Harry Styles and Boris Johnson are secretly married? They consummated their marriage by coming on each other’s nipples and now they have two children called whisk and eggplant”

Song- bring me to life by evanescence Adjective- moist Animal- rat Group of people- furries “How are you feeling right now?”- horny

“If you listen to Bring Me To Life backwards there is a secret hidden message that the government is putting moist rat hormones in the furries in order to make them horny”

Make a noise- *fart noise* Influencer- Phil Lester Store- Primark Zoo Animal- zebra Children’s fictional character- Harry Potter

“There is a secret society called the *fart noise* and it’s run by Phil Lester. They meet every week in the basement of Primark. They meet to sacrifice zebras in order to appease their violent god, Harry Potter.”

Well, it's that easy to come up with a compelling conspiracy these days. And because of that it just feels like a lot of people that we know are - maybe not in a funny way, maybe in a concerning way - starting to go down the big conspiracy hole. And I think it is tempting to laugh at these people for just being stupid or label them as crazy, but I don't think that's fair, right? I don't think that they are necessarily evil. When people turn to conspiracies like this I think it's probably because they're depressed. Because society is fucked. People want something to hope for. They want to believe there's something more to life than just what we see every single day, so when they find out that there is a secret and now that they know the secret they are special and their help is needed to save the world, they just go all the way down then. Even if saving the world is screaming at confused ?? slipping hormones into the ?? turning teenagers queer. Ugh!

But the truth is there is no great conspiracy. There is no illuminati. There's no lizard people or secret government. It is just capitalism, working as intended. [dramatic choir music plays]

CAPITALISM Anyhow, concept: Perhaps literal billionaires could pay just a bit more tax and some people wouldn't have to be homeless? [audience cheers] Crazy commie thinking! If you wanna think like that you are gonna be licking raw concrete off the floor of a freezing Gulag whilst polishing a giant golden statue of Jeremy Corbyn! Okay? Oh god, no. That is what my granddad says to me every single Christmas, and this is a stupid thing, right? Not a hard thing but ?? [audience laughs] Oh dear. ??

The thing is when you look at any mainstream political party in the first world, no one is proposing a revolution. You've got all these crazy billionaire defense squads that are so scared to change anything when in reality no one is trying to turn this into Soviet Russia - just Denmark, okay? Same shit, same problems, just ever so slightly less horrifically evil, but nooo this is a crazy radical plot to give people marginally better public transport. [sound effect]

I personally, no matter what might happen to my crazy (plan or) career, will ever not feel financially stressed, because I have somehow ended up financially supporting my own family. Even if they haven’t always emotionally supported me. I once came home from school crying and told my mum that someone called me gay. She misheard me, thought I said "fat" and suggested I might cycle to youth theater on Saturdays. Yikes!

So I cannot look to anyone to bail me out if I fuck up. If I am on the stage like this where I say something horrible and I get sued - have I done that so far? [audience responds] What was it, was it the granddad thing? ?? I might be forced to move back to my homophobic hometown and that is not an option for me, okay?

Now, millennials, if you want some advice ?? That if you want to pay off your student loans, you just have to cancel your Netflix subscription, guys. If you want to pay off the average student loan of about 46,000 pounds you only need to cancel Netflix for 416 years. Which as it happens was the exact length of the latest Stranger Things season. Those episodes were thicc as fuck. ??

It is hard to visualize the scale of ?? the world when it is just these big numbers, so I have come up with an inappropriately whimsical metaphor: bubbles. But for this I’m going to need some help so welcome to the stage my unpaid intern, Bubbly Ben.

[something happening on stage]

Alright, you ready for this shit? Here we go. I will blow one bubble to represent the average UK salary. Do you know what it is? Any guesses? Depressing fact: 24,600 pounds. Here we go.

Fuck! ?? Whoops.

What about doctors, huh? How many bubbles do they deserve to get comparatively, do you know what their salary is? I like that you actually went quiet there. Well done, smartypants. It’s their job to literally keep us alive even if we swallow superglue, Phil Lester.

What was the UK’s most desired profession - you’re fucking right! Being a youtuber. Depressing. Now, your mileage might vary depending on success and shamelessly. But according to Forbes in 2020, Logan Paul made 18 million pounds. [audience reacts] Yay, Youtube! Filming dead bodies! Wow. What the fuck am I doing on an eighty day world tour talking about depression? I could just get punched by KSI and ??.

The big dog himself - Mr. Jeffery Bezos, the richest man on Earth. Now Jeff has frequently paid zero on annual federal income tax. In fact on his taxes in 2011 he claimed tax credits of $4,000 for his kids. I’m sure he needed it. But now after a few tough years for everybody, Jeff’s net worth is a cool 160b dollars. Release the bubbles!

Don’t worry, they don’t stain. Probably. We’ll find out.

The reality is that going by this shit bubble analogy, I’d have to release over 530,000 bubbles to accurately represent the amount of Smaug-like hoarding taking place here. So we are all told to be angry about that guy taking our bubble or that guy taking five while Jeff here is sat on a fucking bubble bath of warehouse workers tears, scrubbing his back with the spines of books that are suspiciously cheaper than ??

You may be thinking - Amazon’s convenient, they have everything! True. But you don’t get to number one just by being good. You need some smart business decisions like making your delivery drivers piss in bottles so they keep working longer. Did you like my bubble gun by the way? Got it off Amazon. Oh sorry I didn’t find any organic farm to shop local suppliers of bubble guns in my local area, no. And this is it guys - we live in a society! And until the government forces businesses to play nice, nothing is gonna change. So hey, if you’re an elderly political that isn’t gonna live long enough to see the suffering, starvation, and inevitable revolution, who gives a fuck, right? Keep your foot on the pedal and with a little luck you’ll leave it to your fucked up kids to inherit your empire of a desolate planet.

[sound effects]

CLIMATE CRISIS Of all the problems in our human society - the doom scrolling, the inequality, there is something truly terrifying on the horizon: climate change.

Yes, the boss level of all pain and misery, and it is truly the ultimate existential threat and yet our problem is half the people just don’t think it’s real or simply don’t give a shit. And yeah, I get it, change is scary, okay. I totally lost my shit when they changed the font on the twitter app.

This is arguably almost as serious as that. But some of these climate deniers, they have spent their whole lives driving land rovers, eating twelve steaks a day, just throwing beer cans out the window and now some short Swedish girl pops up on the tv and calls them evil? This is a violent paradigm shift. It’s like when people tell me to stop sexualizing cereal mascots - I will not do it. No, no. The Sugar Puffs monster can demolish my bussy. I’m revealing myself.

Now, I’m pretty green, personally. Maybe because I don’t go outside. Turns out ?? use of heat occasionally. I’m basically vegan which means sometimes when I’m sad I have a milk chocolate and then cry thinking about the cows. Which makes me sad so I have another chocolate. It’s a vicious cycle. A delicious, vicious cycle. Also I might have had sushi once but it was on my birthday. I didn’t eat the sushi, I thought about it, okay!

Yet again I am literally on a global tour right now. My mission to save my soul and give you all one good night might as well be flying a burnt out car into Greta’s driveway, and yet the rub is just one hundred companies are responsible for seventy one percent of all global emissions. And that just means our individual actions pale in comparison to a handful of corporations and their shareholders. We’ve got all the guilt about this stuff while they’re just a bunch of comic book villains demolishing rain forests and setting the ocean on fire and embedding immortal microplastics in every single living being.

Some people are gonna be in for a shock when the system comes crashing down. And hey, where are we even gonna live when half the earth is a scorched desert? If only we knew who to call.

[sound effects, something on screen introducing next section]

DENIAL My name is Dean Niall, realtor to the dying stars and today I am here to let you in on the secret up side of the current ecological collapse which is - serious savings! Are you a young person that’s afraid to get a property line because the boomers are a bunch of money grubbing bastards? Booo! Well, feast your eyes on what they left behind.

[visual heavy segment where he advertises property during the apocalypse]

So is this it? Is this our fate, hmm? I think it is kinda terrifying to feel like we have no control over our future, so maybe I can lift the mood of the room by reminding you all that at literally any moment the sun could burn and in seven minutes all life on earth would go up in a blazing ball of molting plasma, yay!

Alright! Now you feel better, don’t you? Your problems seem so insignificant because they are insignificant. It could be anything! A fuck off rock coming from outer space, alien inviasion (although lets be honest, I’d probably like a cheeky probe), the bees having colony collapse disorder. If the bees disappear we’ve got four years until all life on earth shrivels and dies. Now that’s a stinger. It could be anything. A black hole could just get shit out of space from the solar system and we would instantly turn to string! At any moment. Like now! Are you ready? Have you got your affairs in order? Have you cleaned your browsing history so your family doesn’t find your smut stash. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter! Have you prepared? Prepared to be string? Cool. In the face of such unimaginable cosmic horror, there is truly no hope at all.

You know I thought that talking about these problems would make me feel better, that’s kind of the point. But I’ve got to be honest, we are boned. I thought that doing this tour would uh, be a kind of ??, give me something to look forward to.?? But there is nothing to look forward to but the inevitable end. What’s the point of even trying? You know what, I should just have just eaten the goddamn sushi. I should just post feet pics and get more followers. I should have sold all of your data to china, cryptocurrency. I should have bought the deep fake for meet and greet. I could have posted every conspiracy I have on facebook. I should have done this tour on a private jet, crashed Harry Styles house, put the whole thing on a fucking ?? ipad. [words get increasibly buried under a heavy bass]

BREAK FOR INTERMISSION

#wad spoilers

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ragdollrain · 2 years

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On Saturday, I had the fortune of seeing Beetlejuice the Musical live at the Marquis theater running on nothing but a few hours of sleep, black tea, borrowed french fries and a vegan brownie. All of the main cast was the same except for Adam, who was played by the very talented Graham Stevens. A few things stuck out to me in this performance, so here they are!

I’ll start by saying the audience had a great time and the cast absolutely killed it (as usual). People seemed to go especially wild for “No Reason” -- almost every one of Delia’s lines throughout the show got a laugh from the audience. There was a standing ovation at the curtain call, it was amazing.

- Alex flipped the bird at the audience at least 3 times throughout the show. It was hilarious and very quick and subtle each time.

- Sad puppet show: “Noooooo! I’m only 11 years old! There’s so much I wanted to do!”

- During Fright of Their Lives, he jumped at Barbara’s first “primal scream” before settling down and looking disappointed.

- “Or dress like a baby!” “What the shit, Adam?”

- The line “nobody’s like me,” after Fright of Their Lives was delivered in the saddest way possible. The man sounded like he was crying -- he stepped away and said “sorry” in the smallest voice. The audience literally “awwed” at him, it was such an experience. The “fuck you guys” after that was also delivered quietly through tears. This made his invisible reprise on the roof so much more depressing, you could almost feel it in the room.

- I can’t remember exactly which other lines were delivered this way, but there were a few moments before Fright of Their Lives that matched up. Overall he really played up that aspect of Beetlejuice.

- After That Beautiful Sound, two of the clones ran off the stage through the staircase on the aisle (I was right at the edge), and one of them was SCREAMING laughing and it was the funniest fucking thing.

- When Beetlejuice announced he was going to marry Lydia, before saying it was a green card thing, the skeletons and the clones made the confused Scooby Doo sound. “Ruuh?” I have no idea if this is the norm but it made everyone laugh and it was great.

- During Creepy Old Guy, as Lydia’s veil was being unraveled and Adam was pulling him to the side, he leaned over and tried to kiss him. Twice. He was rejected both times and stumbled away.

- Are you familiar with that post about the audience reacting to Beetlejuice’s death as though a real person was stabbed live on stage? Yeah.

- When Juno appeared, rather than freezing in fear he appeared to be possessed by her. She pointed in his direction and his arms went up, and he moved to try and tug them out of place.

- The audience responded to “Look, Lydia! Now we both have dead moms!” in many different ways. They were silent for a moment, then a quarter of them booed, another quarter laughed, and I think a few people cheered and clapped.

Side notes

- After the line “the sound of clean white shorts going brown!” a guy behind me said loudly to his friend that he didn’t get it.

- Someone yelled “gross” in an angry way at Charles and Delia making out with each other.

- My friend referred to Lydia as “Linda” after the play. This isn’t about the performance but people need to know.

Overall, everyone was incredible! I’m so happy I got to see it -- I didn’t think I would be able to but I did. I’m glad I saw it exactly as I did too -- being very familiar with it already and having this build-up beforehand because you already love it. And you don’t miss any lines, so there’s no potential for you to get lost or confused with the plot. I didn’t think I could get *more* into it, but somehow I did. Seeing this More Baby Than Bastard Beej will probably affect how I write him, too.

#beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway #long post #guys #he was so insanely huggable #that's the best possible adjective I can think of to describe him in that performance #oh my god #I already liked him of course but you could almost tell #how sympathetic the audience was to him early on #it was so so good #now I've got to keep the playbill safe #prized possession #almost forgot to mention how soft and fluffy his hair looked #it was in fluffy tall mullet mode

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coolunclebruno · 10 months

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Todos Me Miran!

[link at end of fic, accompanied by some really great art by @piepelu, which you'll see on the a03 page!]

To say Bruno was having the toughest night of his life would be the understatement of the century.

He had put all of his blood, sweat, and especially his tears into getting “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Play” off the ground and onto the stage of the theater his group performed at. It wasn’t an easy task! He had to not only select group members for roles, but also had to have an audition for extra roles, main character roles, extras for main character roles, etc. And Bruno hated to hurt people’s feelings, and seeing people walk off disappointed when they were denied a role did not make him feel great, but it was a necessity in the end.

He also had to set up concessions and the cost of said concessions, and had to persuade his sobrinos y sobrinas to man the concessions stand and the ticket booth.

That part was actually the easy part because his sobrinos y sobrinas were always more than happy to help him out with any project he had, and he was always grateful for their help.

Now, tonight was opening night, and not only did they run out of popcorn and had to make a quick mad-dash to the closest food store, but Gloria, the actress who played Marilyn, had broken her nose after tripping on the stairs exiting the stage and her extra-

“An hour?! Selena, we don’t have an hour!”

Was currently running late, just when the most iconic scene, the “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number, was going to come on in 15 minutes.

So, yes, Bruno was just mere moments away from grabbing a handful of the curtains and screaming into them, thank you very much.

“No, no, I get it, I get that you don’t have control over the traffic Selena, but, you have to understand, I am about to…no, no, I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you don’t deserve to be the target of my frustration, l-listen…just, call me when you’re near the theater, okay? Good luck with traffic.”

Beep

“So that’s it then, my play is a failure…”

Bruno hung up the phone and slid down out of his chair and onto the floor in utter defeat.

“ Think, think, think! There’s got to be something I can do to keep this going… ”

Bruno ran his hands down his face in a desperate attempt to think. There was no one here who could memorize the lines, get in costume, and sing and dance on short notice.

No one, except…

Bruno sat up in realization.

Should he?

I mean, would it be possible? How would the audience react, would they be confused and angered or would they go along with it?

No, no, he couldn’t…but, then again…

Bruno stood up and made his way to the door, just as it was being opened by Melanie, the costume director.

“Ah, g-good, Melanie, I was looking for you…,” he stuttered. “I need you to get me the Marilyn dress and a corset, is that okay with you?”

Melanie nodded and hurried out of the room.

“Oh! I need you to help me into the corset, if you don’t mind,” he called after her.

Bruno made his way over to a mirror and table that was in the corner of the room and pulled out a drawer that had a makeup set in it.

“ I trust myself more with this role than anyone here, if I’m being honest…,” he thought, putting his hair up into a bun.

Miguel was starting to get a bit worried.

The curtains had not opened since the beginning of intermission, which was now half an hour ago, and they were supposed to open ten minutes ago.

Everyone in the audience was starting to get restless, murmurs of confusion and annoyance were rippling through the seats.

Miguel had gotten a text from Bruno fifteen minutes ago notifying him about the situation regarding the Marilyn actress, and it sounded pretty serious. Had they not been able to sort that out yet?

Just as he was about to get up out of his seat and see for himself, a loudspeaker crackled.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! We apologize for the delay, but we had run into unforeseen setbacks. Please enjoy the rest of the show!”

There were cheers and sighs of relief through the theater, Miguel joining them.

“ Looks like they were able to sort it out after all ,” Miguel thought to himself.

The curtains opened, and the crowd drew silent at the scene before them.

A large, sparkly staircase was set in the middle of the stage, candelabras adorning the balusters.

Men in tuxedos danced around the stage carrying trays of diamonds and necklaces, while women in fluffy dresses danced with them, suddenly grinding to a halt as the stage light fixed on a lone figure in a glittery pink dress.

They slowly turned around, revealing themselves to be…

“ Wait…Bruno?! ” Miguel’s jaw practically fell to the floor.

And it sure was Bruno, wearing the iconic pink dress and gloves, his chest hair visibly peeking out from the brassiere. Despite not having shaved, he had also apparently put on makeup, blush was carefully powdered on his cheeks, red lipstick was visible, and he had even stuck on fake eyelashes.

The audience too was shocked, with small gasps and murmurs waving out through the rows, before being quickly silenced by music, and as Bruno began to make his way down the stairs, he started to sing.

“ The French are glad to die for love, they delight in fighting duels… ”

Bruno raised up his arms behind his head, revealing his armpit hair, as he kept singing.

“ But I prefer a man who lives and gives…expensive…jewels… ”

The way Bruno moved was sultry and smooth, almost like he was Marilyn Monroe herself.

Miguel was still in a state of shock, mouth agape, but not out of disgust.

But rather, at how gorgeous Bruno looked.

Miguel couldn’t explain it, but the way he looked like he was a goddess that had stepped out of heaven, like Aphrodite herself stepping out of the sea…it was like all of the oxygen in his lungs was now gone, because how could he even dream of breathing in the same air as this incredible being?

Miguel wanted so badly to be those men in suits on stage, holding onto Bruno and twirling him in the air, only to catch him in his arms. Watching Bruno dance was akin to being under hypnosis, it was simply breathtaking.

Before he knew it, the dancing and singing were over, and he was the first to stand up in an ovation.

He was sure Bruno blew a kiss his way.

Thankfully, Selena had just driven into the parking lot right as the singing and dancing were over, so Bruno didn’t have to perform in her place for the rest of the play.

Not that he wouldn’t of minded, of course.

Now he was backstage in his dressing room, the dress now back on folded on the table, the high heels thrown onto the couch along with the gloves, all that was left on was the corset and the makeup.

And of course, his underwear, Bruno wasn’t a freak.

Bruno was just starting to take off the eyelashes when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in!”

In the mirror, Bruno could see Miguel standing in the doorway and turned around to greet him.

“Oh, hey Migo! How’d you like i-”

In just a couple of strides, Miguel had made it across the room and now had Bruno on the table and his tongue down his throat.

Bruno just wrapped his legs around Miguel’s torso and pushed Miguel even more into the kiss with his hand, enjoying the moment.

Miguel pulled away to catch his breath.

“ Dios, you don’t know how badly I want to nibble on those legs of yours…”

“I take it you liked my performance, then?” Bruno chuckled, untangling his legs and getting down from the table to continue with what he was doing.

“Oh, cariño, you have no idea,” Miguel smoothed the wrinkles out of his shirt. “You were incredible! You were just…wow!”

“I can’t believe I left you speechless!” Bruno laughed. “How’d the rest of my family react?”

Miguel looked sheepishly down toward the floor.

“I actually don’t know…I ran right past them to get here.”

“Miguel! Even I know that’s rude!”

“I’m sorry! You were just so beautiful, and I just had to see you.”

Bruno walked up and gave Miguel a kiss on the forehead.

“Can you go back and find them, please? Let them know I’m getting ready now, and that I’ll see them once everything’s over.”

“Got it,” Miguel went to leave the room, before turning around one last time.

“You were simply mesmerizing, mi amor .”

Bruno blushed, waving him goodbye, then turned back to the mirror.

“Good to know I still got it…,” he said to his reflection.

thanks again to @piepelu for letting me use the sketch they had made! Thank you so much!

#bruno madrigal #encanto oc #miguel herrera #gay bruno madrigal #bruno madrigal x oc #bruno madrigal x male oc #madrigaydays2023 #madrigay days #encanto modern au #encanto fanfic #encanto

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emailsfromanactor · 16 days

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A harsh review/account of opening night from The New York Review of Books, mentioned by neither Redfield nor Sterne. I happened across it while looking up celebrities in the opening night audience.

The Gielgud-Burton Hamlet: Notes on a First Night Dwight Macdonald May 14, 1964 issue

“fiasco… 2. a complete or ridiculous failure, esp. of a dramatic performance, or of any pretentious undertaking.�� —Webster’s Unabridged (2nd. ed.)—

The first disappointment was the audience. I arrived early to find the place swarming with cops like a Hitchcock (or Mack Sennett) film, a hundred and fifty of them the papers said. They were masterfully tough with ordinary citizens who tried to infiltrate their defenses—“You wanna go to the station?” one asked a nice-looking young woman after some previous dialogue I missed; “Yes,” she said bravely, but I was able to create a diversion by pushing past without showing my ticket—and they were apologetically ineffective with more substantial-appearing citizens who had tickets (they never did get them herded into the lobby). All very American, like the TV trucks, the photograph garlanded with cameras, the brilliant lights that flooded on whenever a celebrity was thought to be disembarking from a Carey limousine. The trouble was that, while the mob in front of the theater looked like Celebrities—the handsomely gowned and coiffed women, mostly “of a certain age,” and their flushed, hard-faced escorts bursting impressively out of tuxedoes—they were not and knew they were not and, like the uncoiffed, untuxedoed, unticketed mob on the wrong side of the police lines, were hanging around in the simple, touching hopes of seeing somebody that was. But Celebrities were in short supply: the only ones I can attest to personally were Lillian Hellman (who left in the entr’acte) and Otto Preminger. (“Are we still on speaking terms Otto?” I asked, thinking of the latest bad review I’d given him: “Of course,” he grinned as we shook hands, “But I wish we were on writing terms”; a real pro.) And even if one adds, from the papers—you don’t know what you’ve experienced at these non-events until you read the papers—Dolores Del Rio, Gwen Verdon, Margaret Leighton, Hermione Gingold, Montgomery Clift, and Lee Radziwill, well I mean to say what do you have really? The one big Celebrity we were all waiting for arrived, with a clatter of mounted police and a few screams, at a remote side entrance into which she instantly vanished. She also disappeared, in the entr’acte, to visit her husband in his dressing room, or so I read in the papers. The only interesting dialogue I overheard was between a hairdo and a tuxedo: “Hey, you look great, Sam, all sunburned!” “Yeah, just back from Puerto Rico.”

When I finally gave up and took my seat, I was not encouraged to see the curtain was up on a bare stage. Bad omen; last time was Kazan’s J.B., and here even less promising: a rehearsal stage with position marks on the floor and the lathes aggressively exposed in the underpinnings of the sole concession to stage design: a higher level. The one moment of excitement that has survived for me in our theater all the way back to The Bat and The Unknown Purple is when the house lights go down, the footlights come up, and the curtain begins to rise: a moment of hope, despite all past experience, before the infinite magic of the possible has begun to be ground down by the extremely finite machinery of the actual. We were to be deprived even of this. I thought, but, as with other aspects of this confused, style-less production, it turned out we weren’t exactly. When the house lights went down, the curtain was lowered—surely some kind of theatrical landmark?—to rise at once on the same bleak prospect, this time with Francisco at his post; enter Bernardo. “Who’s there?” “Nay, answer me, stand and unfold yourself.” “Long live the king!” And we were off. In a manner of speaking.

“This is a Hamlet acted in rehearsal clothes, stripped of all extraneous trappings, unencumbered by a reconstruction of any particular historical period.” So, in the program notes, Sir John Gielgud, who directed and who was, I think, chiefly responsible for the fiasco. Charging the customers eight bucks to see a rehearsal may have been attractive as a fashionable gimmick—the medium’s the thing now—or as a way of saving money, but Sir John’s justification is nonsense. There is no escaping history even disguised in rehearsal clothes, since these were different in 1864 from today, while in 1764 they would have been what we now call “costumes.” The only historically “unencumbered” Hamlet would be a nudist one—and in fact I once saw in Paris a scene in which Ophelia, at least, was stripped and unencumbered except for a cache-sexe. And what is extraneous about actors, like the rest of us, wearing appropriate dress (“trappings”)? There is much to be said for a modern-dress Hamlet like the excellent one Basil Sidney did around 1926, as a way of freeing the play from that massively fake Irving-Belasco scenery and those boguslooking halberds and doublets right out of the costume warehouse. There is also much to be said for a freshly interpreted period production like Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, where the clothes (especially the men’s hats) were fantastic and beautiful while the sets had the clear, simple colors of the backgrounds in good Renaissance paintings. But there are no advantages, beside cheapness, in a rehearsal-clothes Hamlet; one would think even an actor might see that. Hamlet is, among other things, a drama of court intrigues, of power politics; it begins and ends with soldiers; when Fortinbras comes on at the end, it is not merely to clean up the corpses, it is also because power too, just can’t be left lying about on the stage. Modern dress marks the social dimension: Fortinbras wears a uniform, the servants livery, the courtiers dinner jackets or lounge suits, the soldiers trench coats, the king and queen formal dress with decorations. Rehearsal clothes, while not a-historical, are a-social. Fortinbras marches in wearing slacks and a sweater; Horatio wears a windbreaker; courtiers, servants, soldiers are indistinguishably casual and tweedy. “Boy, did they need those costumes!” I overheard a girl say in the entr’acte.

In Basil Sidney’s Hamlet—or in Orson Welles’s Julius Caesar ten years later—I forgot the modern dress in a few minutes, but here those rehearsal clothes were always offputting. Especially since Sir John tried to have it both ways: Hamlet conveniently wore an elegantly fitted jersey and pants of deepest black, with gleamingly polished black pumps; Polonius and Claudius wore well-pressed, neatly buttoned suits with neckties; Gertrude and Ophelia semi-formal bodices with long flowing skirts—all of which made the sweatered, tieless servants and nobles constantly puzzling. And the players in the play-within-a-play were elaborately costumed, even to stylized masks. A very peculiar rehearsal.

Sir John also skimped on the cast, an ill-assorted crew who never seemed to be getting through to each other. There were at least four unharmonized acting styles. Traditional Shakespearean: Burton, George Rose’s gravedigger, Eileen Herlie’s Gertrude, Dillon Evans’s Osric. Broadway: Hume Cronyn’s Polonius, William Redfield’s Guildenstern. Indeterminate: John Cullum’s Laertes, Alfred Drake’s Claudius. Amateur Night: Robert Milli’s Horatio, Linda Marsh’s Ophelia. There were some good performances. Rose is still a superb Shakespearean clown (and one of the few times when Burton seemed to be relating to others—and enjoying himself—was when he was matching wits with him) and Cronyn gave a briskly professional, and original, interpretation of Polonius, rapping his lines out like a spry old top executive, full of smug know-how. But he was out of key with the Shakespeareans. The great triumph was Gielgud’s recorded voice as the ghost—what splendid lines Hamlet, Senior, has, by the way, one can see where his son got his flair for self-expression—which was beautifully articulated and cadenced, and at the same time coarse as if the vocal cords were deliquescing like those of Poe’s M. Valdemar: “the sound was harsh and broken and hollow…the voice seemed to reach our ears from a vast distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth…it impressed me as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress the sense of touch.” The great disaster, even worse than the breathy ranting of Horatio, was poor Miss Marsh’s Ophelia—her mad scene was as embarrassing as if one were watching a pretty young thing really going nuts before one’s eyes. The Times’s egregious Mr. Taubman, while enthusing—I think this ghastly word is justified here—about everything else, did feel obliged to note that Miss Marsh was “in a little over her head as Ophelia,” though adding at once, as if frightened by his daring, “she manages the Mad Scene with a touch of rue.” The rue was all in the audience, however.

I expected Richard Burton’s Hamlet to be tough, virile, even brutal, but, perhaps because Sir John toned him down too much, he proved to be full of boyish charm, if anything a little epicene. He was Mercutio rather than Hamlet, best in the satiric speeches like the “Get thee to a nunnery” one, where his delivery rose to real power at the end: “You jig, you amble, and you lisp…and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriages…” (Did I detect an un-easy rustling in the audience?) His voice is an extraordinary musical instrument, but he used it with the coldness of a virtuoso; for all the Welsh charm, there was surprisingly little feeling in his performance. Also he seemed to have no middle range, nothing between soft complaint or ingratiation and a full-throated bellow. One cannot perhaps expect any actor to render all the facets of Hamlet, but two are essential: he was a prince and he was an intellectual. Burton missed both. He was without dignity; there was no space between him and the others; he was always edging up to them, shrinking away from them, handling them, bullying them, more like a teddy boy than a prince, shamelessly “indicating” and leaping about the stage. (This must have been Sir John’s directorial fault.) He ruins the play scene, for instance, by swarming all over Gertrude and Claudius, as when Ophelia says of the Prologue, “This brief, my lord”, and he replies “As woman’s love,” actually pointing to Gertrude; and later, after the Player Queen has vowed eternal constancy, addressing his “If she should break it now!” directly to Gertrude. Nor is he convincing as an intellectual. Hamlet is constantly bringing himself up short with self-criticism after he has torn a passion to tatters and split the ear of the groundlings; with Burton, one believes in the latter mood but not in the former. He roars out satisfactorily “Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O vengeance!” but when he goes on, “Why, what an ass am I!” and accuses himself of unpacking his heart with words like a whore and cursing “like a very drab,” in Burton’s delivery these lines are just another kind or rodomontade. I suppose “To be or not to be” is by now a hopeless proposition—the actor must see it approaching as a skier sees himself gliding toward a suicidally steep slope. Burton adopts the modern, sophisticated strategy of trying to throw it away. But it won’t be thrown away.

Apparently Burton felt something was wrong about the first night. He blamed the audience in one interview: “They did not pay attention. They were awed with themselves. There were so many celebrities out on the other side of the footlights they hardly had time to notice us.” But there were not many celebrities, and even if there had been what does he expect if he insists on marrying Elizabeth Taylor? On the radio, I’m told, he was more realistic, blaming himself, which is to his credit, since, with the expected exception of Walter Kerr (and the less expectable one of John Chapman of the News) the critics were as usual—uncritical.

Maybe they hadn’t made the mistake I did of re-reading the text. What a work! There seems to be a tag in every other line, tags that have become mortised so deeply into us we often don’t know when we are echoing them, formulations that have become part of the racial unconscious, of our very language. Only the King James Bible, from the same miraculous half-century, contains a larger stock of wonderful chestnuts. And a central character, direct and ambiguous, crafty and noble, tender and cruel, elevated and ribald, intellectualizing everything and yet also acting out his contradictions—can this hero, who is the play more than any other of Shakespeare’s heroes, and whose motivations and character have been matters of dispute among scholars and critics for centuries, can one reasonably expect any actor to render him fully on the stage, or any company to rise to the greatness of the language—the “big” lines are by no means limited to Hamlet��s part—or any director to make dramatic a work that is essentially literary and intellectual without losing those qualities? Lear’s moral impressionism can be more moving, and coherent, on the stage (the cinema might be an even better medium) than when read in cold print. Or, the opposite case, that tightly constructed melodrama, Macbeth, so perfectly designed for the theater, with a clearly defined villain and villainess, the most “advanced” and realistic psychology (the dialogues between Macbeth and his Lady before and after Duncan’s and Banquo’s murders often sound like Ibsen, or Freud) combined with great set pieces of rhetoric that “work” theatrically and, unlike Hamlet’s soliloquies, don’t require the actor to create a whole personality as a launching-pad. So perhaps no actor can ever give us the complete Hamlet of the text—as no singer can fulfill the impossible demands Wagner made—and perhaps Hamlet will always read better than it plays. Still, Sir John and Mr. Burton might have done better.

#emails from an actor #hamlet #richard burton #john gielgud

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ideas-on-paper · 1 year

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NieR: Automata Ver. 1.1a Quick Review - Episode 4

[WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GAME AND ANIME]

[CW: ROBOGORE, MENTIONS OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS]

Well, would you look at that - you take a break from social media for a week, and next thing you know, there's a new episode of the Nier Automata anime. And to top it all off, it's the animated version of my favorite part of the game.

The first thing you see is an inside view of the theater in the Amusement Park, with machines reciting a play on stage. It's about a knight and a soon-to-be king who fight over a "diva" (by which they mean Simone), resulting in the prince killing the knight so "true love is finally his". The audience, also consisting of various machines spread across the galleries, cheers at the display. Meanwhile, we see a bunch of disfigured androids tied to crosses behind them, which give off a haunting scream of dismay. The great thing about this is that in the short, dramatic shots, you can catch a glimpse of androids in different states of mutilation: You can see their metal eye sockets, the "claws" of their toes which are usually covered by skin, their exposed dental ridges, and the metal pistons which make up their arms. The reason why I love this so much (like I already said in one of my previous posts) is because we rarely get to see what the Automata androids truly look like underneath, and if you don't pay close attention, you might almost be fooled into the belief that they're real humans. However, they are not, and this scene makes this exceedingly clear - there is a certain sanctity associated with the image of a human, which is also evident in machines (e.g. Simone) viewing androids as the epitome of beauty. This scene beautifully strips this image away, showing - if you wish to interpret it that way - that machines and androids are fundamentally the same.

After the intro, Jackass offers 2B and 9S some fresh water upon their return to the Resistance Camp, but they reject it, with 9S confirming the thing about their internal supply tanks. (Still, does "automatic replenishment" mean the used water is recycled? Or do they just have tanks where they can store some for later, like in YoRHa Boys?) Jackass is absolutely enamored by this information, trying to find the location of the tank by groping poor 9S until Lily tells her to stop.

2B and 9S then give their report about what they saw in the desert, as well as the new machines, Adam and Eve. Jackass exclaims how much she would've loved to study them, remarking that if machines take human form and imitate their behavior, they might actually surpass humanity sooner or later (singularity is coming, folks).

After that, Jackass mentions the possibility of a deal, but Lily argues that even if they understand each other, they cannot coexist. While Jackass still considers it decisive for reaching a truce (funny that Jackass is the one suing for peace now), 9S counters that it would rob the androids of their purpose, claiming it's their duty to take back Earth in the name of the humans. When Jackass asks how long he would continue the century-long war, 9S' unrelenting answer is "until all machines are destroyed". Following this, Lily and Jackass take their leave, with the latter humorously remarking about the androids being chained to their orders and the machines growing ever more free.

Absentmindedly, 9S wonders why machines would even want to look like androids - and consequentially, like humans - but 2B responds that there's no use in trying to answer unsolvable questions (something which I wholeheartedly agree to).

We then cut to the Commander in the Bunker, who enters a special communication room to contact the Council of Humanity (to my knowledge, this is the first time we ever get to see it). She stands in front of a single console, a darkened, porthole-shaped "window" opening on the wall, revealing a digital representation of the Moon with circuitry lines. The Commander applies to the Council to send support for 2B and 9S, but the Council denies her request, stating they should continue as planned and use the Resistance as a decoy. The Commander interjects that this will also endanger 2B and 9S, but the Council shuts down her protests by saying that their encounter with Adam and Eve as well as other unique machines was already "taken into account" in the planning stage of Project YoRHa. Now, this information is completely new, at least as far as I'm concerned - not to mention the implications this has for the story as a whole. If this is true, it would mean that the Council of Humanity is directly responsible for everything 2B and 9S have to go through - and I mean everything. From what I understood, the Council of Humanity and the entire Moon base were more like a "figurehead" for Project YoRHa, but this would make them the actual masterminds behind all the suffering in the game. (Now, if there only was an opportunity to destroy the Moon base at the end of the game; that would've been nice...)

Either way, the Council states that they have to do everything to assure humanity's victory, including sacrifices for the greater good, and they don't miss out on reminding the Commander that she is in the same situation as them. At the end of their conversation, the Commander returns the salute of "Glory to Mankind", but seems very distraught and balls her fist in anger. Somewhat reluctantly, she gives the Operators clearance to inform 2B and 9S about their next planned mission.

Meanwhile, 2B and 9S are idling about on a roof in the City Ruins when 2B spots the supply ships aimed for the Moon and Bunker. After 9S explains their purpose, 2B wonders why the machines and aliens refuse to attack the Bunker directly. 9S, however, only responds that nobody can tell what's going through an alien's head.

9S then gets a call from his Operator, explaining that a few YoRHa members went missing while investigating peaceful machine lifeforms. They sent back strange vocal messages about a "great show" before they lost contact, but since their Black Boxes are still online, 2B and 9S are sent out to check on them.

Down in the sewers, 9S makes an off-hand remark about YoRHa and the Resistance allegedly not being on good terms in the past. He asks both 2B and his Pod about this, but neither can give him an answer, the Pod adding that the data is in some kind of "inaccessible category". (Idk, but somehow, I got the feeling something really nasty hides behind this conflict.)

Soon, they arrive at the Amusement Park, puzzled by the unusual environment and the non-hostile machines. Suddenly, a flying unit approaches them, telling them a "great show" is about to start. 9S immediately connects this to the reports, and his Pod notifies him of faint Black Box signals coming from the direction of the theater.

In the opera house, Pod 153 registers multiple Black Box signals from the adjacent room. As they go in, 2B and 9S stumble upon a bunch of machines playing theater, the moonstruck prince from before among them (who is indeed standing in the moonlight and mad from the "illness known as love"), going on about their "beloved diva" appearing at the twelfth bell chime. (I find it interesting to note that the machines apparently love Simone now; in the game, everyone basically showered you with thanks for getting rid of the "crazy songstress".)

While 9S is still bewildered as to why they'd imitate such human behavior, the bell rings, and the machines get ecstatic about the entrance of their diva. Sure enough, Simone appears after they all spontaneously combust, aaand… she looks absolutely terrible in CGI. For real, the animation and even the sounds are exactly the same, except that her movements seem much more sluggish than in-game, which robs the scene of a lot of its impact. It really looks just like the game, but downgraded - way to ruin the entrance of one of the best characters.

The music, however, is still great as always (one of my absolute favorite tracks from the OST), and Simone's combat moves also largely remain the same. The only difference from the game is that Simone summons an electromagnetic barrier, which prevents 2B and 9S from leaving when the latter suggests retreating. 9S then tries to hack her, but before he can do so, both of them get hacked by Simone instead. As a result, both of them see the flashback scene where Simone decides to become beautiful to win Jean-Paul's love, which is confirmed by 2B remarking about her "adornments" of dead android bodies afterwards (in the game, 9S is the only one to see this scene when he hacks Simone).

After 2B recovers from the attack (which plays out exactly as in the game, except that Simone has to immediate reaction to 9S checking up on her), she dashes forward and strikes Simone's chest, briefly exposing her core. While 2B and 9S realize where they have to aim their attacks, Simone seems to grow more and more unhinged, destroying the barrier and causing crosses with android corpses to fall from above. When they get attacked with shockwaves from the bodies, they come to the realization that the missing YoRHa members aren't dead, but have been turned into weapons.

Agitated, 2B tries breaking through the wall of crosses, but is unable to reach Simone. In turn, 9S hacks her instead - and once he dives into her mind, he sees cracked up portraits of three female machines (the ones from the Jean-Paul sidequests in the game, with the splintering possibly being the representation of Simone's jealousy). When even 9S can't help the impression that Simone might indeed have feelings, portraits of multiple previous versions of Simone appear around him, accompanied by a never-ending echo of the question whether he finds her beautiful.

When Simone's face appears directly beneath him, he stabs the floor with his sword, but this only seems to deepen the connection. In the real world, 2B holds him while he is unconscious, while Simone continues attacking her with shockwaves. Destroying the android crosses with her own attacks, she catches fire and screams for help, turning into her second, spider-like form.

Pod 153 informs 2B of an incoming saturation attack, with the danger of severe damage to their memory data. Meanwhile, still inside Simone's consciousness, 9S finds himself in a swamp with a huge figure of Jean-Paul, while a small version of Simone approaches him in a wedding dress and tells him how much she loved him (at this point, you may wonder whether she sees 9S as Jean-Paul in her mind). Angrily, he stabs her, but this only causes him to sink in even deeper as several hands emerge from the miasma and grab him.

Next, he finds himself in a bedroom with Jean-Paul portraits, the severed hands pinning him to the wall. Beside a queen-sized bed, Simone is digging around in android parts, seemingly not satisfied with anything. Her face now obscured by black lines, she turns to 9S, grabbing his arm and trying to twist it out of its socket. While 9S screams in pain, Simone exclaims that she doesn't want to live anymore and begs him to kill her.

Simone herself then gets swallowed up by a huge mouth threatening to suck in all of the room's interior, including 9S. Back in the real world, Pod 153 announces that 9S is about to be absorbed by the enemy's derailed consciousness, with 2B in turn deciding to initiate a counter hack against the Pod's advice. 2B arrives just in time to catch 9S before he's sucked in as well, an angry Simone emerging from the maw and claiming that he belongs to her and her alone. When 9S spots her, he throws her sword at her, paralyzing her in the real world. 2B uses this opportunity to lunge at her, revealing her core and ordering her Pod to fire at it. Just like in the game, this results in Simone's defeat, with her reaching for Jean-Paul's hand in her dream one last time.

Afterwards, 9S finally wakes up, thanking 2B for saving him. Tbh, this feels a bit ironic considering it was pretty much the other way around in the original: In the game, it's 2B who thanks 9S for his assistance with the hacking since it's not exactly her forte as a Battler model (as 9S himself says in the anime). This might be just me, but somehow, it makes 9S seem slightly less competent, considering 2B had to save him from a hacking attempt of all things. (You could potentially argue that this is compensated by 9S saving 2B from the Goliath in Ep 1, but this was merely a result of 2B's own recklessness, which - if you ask me - isn't a very desirable trait for a combat model. Idk, it just feels a bit like the anime is downplaying their individual strengths.)

Either way, both of them take a look at the remains of Simone, the metal skeleton of her head and her machine core (the dialogue about the core's structure is also implemented here). Lost in thought, 2B remarks that Simone said some very strange things, voicing her suspicion that she might indeed have had emotions. 9S, however, denies this claim as usual, which is yet another significant deviation from the game: In fact, it's 9S who has doubts about his previous beliefs that the machines have no feelings, subtly suggesting to 2B that Simone wasn't so emotionless after all. However, 2B doesn't give him any chance to elaborte, instead shutting down any discussion by throwing back 9S' own words at him. ("The machines don't have feelings. You said that yourself.") In the game, this scene does a wonderful job of showing 9S' self-doubts, while in the anime, it's way less obvious (he only says it at the beginning of the hacking to himself).

Shortly after, a machine with a bouquet of red roses enters the hall, dropping the flowers to the floor and calling for its "mother" upon seeing the destruction in the theater. While 2B seems visibly distressed by the mother's pleas for mercy, 9S ignores her, trampling the bouquet and killing both of them. While 2B stands completely motionless, 9S cautions that her she may never hesitate, the petals of the roses getting swept away by the wind (wherever that's coming from in an internal space). Well, if that isn't a poetic image…

In the outro puppet skit, we this time get to see Commander, who pushes the members of the Bunker so harshly that they desert from YoRHa. I know I probably shouldn't take this too seriously, but still, I gotta ask: 1) How did they even manage to desert from a space station, and 2) if it's so easy for androids to desert from YoRHa (which it isn't, as seen in various cases in the game), why couldn't 2B just do the same? ;_;

Anyway, all in all, I have to say I'm a bit mixed about this episode. I'm quite bummed that they messed up Simone so much (the render is just really badly integrated into the 2D environment), and I'm still not sure whether I like the changed dynamic between 2B and 9S. On the other hand, I think the delightfully disturbing portrayal of Simone's boss fight (in particular the surreal hacking sequences) was absolutely spectacular, and they really didn't pull any punches when playing with the theme of love as insanity.

Also, I have to announce that due to some private issues, I unfortunately won't be able to keep up with the weekly episode reviews for Nier Automata for the time being. This one already took me long enough to get out, and right now, I just need to take a little break. This means that I will be on a brief hiatus for about a month; I can't promise anything, but I will definitely try to catch up with the Nier Automata episode reviews once I have the time.

#nier automata #nier automata anime #nier automata ver1.1a #IT'S SIMONE #or beauvoir if that's what you like to call her #anime #anime review

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beyonddarkness · 1 year

Text

There appears to be no end to the layers in The Rings of Power.

I began as an extremely casual fan, having never read any of the books before watching the show; but I had the same childhood association with the trilogy that so many others have. I live with my more well-read sister, who highly anticipated the series. She followed every release of promotional material, and would occasionally share stills and trailers with me, or give me brief descriptions of characters I did not know (such as Finrod, Gil-galad, Míriel, etc.).

When the soundtrack was released, what began as a relaxing day of listening to two and a half hours of new music, turned into an intense analysis of all of the motifs and cues, and how they related to the track titles and characters. Many things I found interesting, but I would like to say (for the record) that my sister and I were suspicious of Halbrand on this day, albeit mostly in jest. That being said…

I knew that the identity of Sauron was a mystery, but being the most casual viewer, the possibility of Sauron being an already-named character never even crossed my mind. Therefore, the line, Looks can be deceiving, did not sound many alarms. I just thought it was a way to tell the audience to be on guard. (In retrospect, I do not know why I had not connected the dots sooner.)

Therefore, it was not until after we watched the first two episodes, that I thought, Wait. This is much more interesting than I had anticipated. We thoroughly enjoyed the episodes, and came home from the theater with only good feelings, anticipating the introduction of Númenor. My sister had a few hours to ponder upon the things we had seen, and I was about to fall asleep when she walked into the room, almost in shock, and said: “Fig, I think Halbrand might be Sauron.” The next two hours of conversation consisted of careful consideration and reflection, floating atop rapids of excitement and screaming. Why was he dodging all of her questions? we thought. Oh, how interesting it would be, to humanize SAURON, and show this background with Galadriel! My sister told me what it says in Unfinished Tales.

“[Sauron] perceived at once that Galadriel would be his chief adversary and obstacle […]”

Then, we theorized that one of Halbrand’s remarks was an indication that he had already perceived this very thing:

“You didn’t cause my suffering and you can’t fix it, no matter how strong your will or your pride. So, let it lie.”

The subtlety was, to us, very intriguing.

However, that candle had a short wick, for we heeded the counter arguments on the internet, and convinced ourselves that Halbrand was not Sauron himself, but rather a man with a dark past and tragic ending, perhaps in consequence of what his ancestors once did (and believe you me, we pulled many muscles stretching so far). Having been attached to Halbrand, therefore, the following exchange warranted from us intense anguish, more careful consideration and reflection, and even more screaming:

Celebrimbor: “Who’s there? Reveal yourself!”

Halbrand: “Is Galadriel here?”

The finale had such an effect [on me, specifically] that night, I stayed up until 7:00 in the morning, recalling all of the signs, parallels, and connections that we voluntarily overlooked.

I have made several attempts to outline all of the connections that I could possibly think of (i.e. by video edits, an essay, and other methods). The first was creating a little Google Slides presentation (initially for my sister and me), believing I would finish it within the week.

Meanwhile, here we are, three months later. These means alone did not seem sufficient enough to contain everything. The further I delved into the material, the more I found, and things opened up. It did not take long before I was under the necessity of splitting the presentation into two parts, and it amounted to almost 350 slides, total. I have spent every day since the finale attempting to reach the bottom of the barrel, to no avail. Will we reach an end before the release of season 2? Only time will tell.

“It’s right there all along!” PATRICK MCKAY

This is not surface-level storytelling. For example, in The Rings of Power Podcast, Felicia Day asked if the eruption of Mound Doom was Adar’s plan. Patrick McKay said that it was actually Sauron’s plan that Adar used for his own purposes, and after explaining a little bit of reasoning and backstory (which we shall address later), he says:

"That’s the kind of layered lore that we’re trying to build into it, and hopefully, maybe if you really do the deep, deep, deep dive, you can pick up on all those things. And if you don’t, that’s okay, too." Patrick McKay, The Rings of Power Podcast 1×06

NO NEED TO TELL ME TWICE.

Elsewhere, speaking about the reveal of Sauron, Patrick explains:

"We’re really not all about playing games with the audience. I know there were definitely some folks who were like, ‘When are we going to get an answer to these questions?’ But […] it’s right there all along! […] We’re much more interested in the character dynamic between, in this case, a character who turns out to be Sauron, and our heroine. That’s the story! What his name is, is not important. What’s important is: Moment to moment, what is he struggling with? What is she struggling with? What is the friendship that they’re developing […] and how is that changing each of them?" Patrick McKay, The Ringer Verse Podcast

This endeavor began with exclusively focusing on Sauron, but I have learned that 1) he seems to be connected to every single character in the show (in other words, he and/or his influence is everywhere), and 2) each character is so incredibly crucial to the plot, it blows my mind. Therefore, as a consequence of analyzing everything related to Sauron, not a single character will go unnoticed.

The purpose of this blog is not only to give me a place to compile my thoughts, but to show that with the amount of work and dedication devoted to this series, it would be a shame to overlook anything, or to throw up our hands and say, “Well, I guess this thing doesn’t make sense.” The showrunners and everyone else involved know much more than I, so I assume where there are questions, there are answers.

"We’re all constantly talking about: How do we elevate and layer every piece of this? […] There’s so much content! […] Every line everyone says is there for a reason, and connects to something else; and there’s references and cross-references to everything within the show. And if people find it to be a rich text, that would be the highest aspiration and goal for us." Patrick McKay, The Ringer Verse Podcast

So here, we follow Sauron’s advice:

“See what happens when you stop galloping, and you give yourself a moment to think?”

I readily admit that I may be dead wrong about some things. That being said, this series is what caused me to pick up the books for once, and has only enhanced what experience I might have had before. The show already made sense to me when I knew zero (0) things about the lore, but the more I read the books, the more sense the show makes! I hope I am not the only one who is having this much fun.

If a single soul happens to read this one day, I hope you will bear with me as I freely brainstorm. I leave you with a quote from Galadriel, as it applies to myself. I’ll proceed with caution when offering predictions or theories, and will do my best to provide concrete evidence. Thus, a disclaimer:

“Palantiri show many visions. Some that will never come to pass.”

#the rings of power #rings of power #sauron #galadriel #patrick mckay #blog #blog post #introduction #unfinished tales #link

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kiridarling · 3 years

Text

𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐄

d.kaminari and h.sero | f!reader + corruption + weed/shotguning + praise + threesome + more! minors dni!

— 3.6k words

"I knew I wanted you the second I saw you."

Denki’s addicted to the pre-concert high.

His veins hum with a song that has yet to start, fingers drumming some mixed beat on the body of his electric guitar as he assumes his place on the dark stage. The theater’s dead silent, the room suspended in a titilating anticipation—and the steady rhythm Denki's heart dissapates into chaos when the faint crack of Eijirou's drumsticks bounce off the walls, and the click in his earpiece begins.

Eijirou hits the kick drum once. Twice. Then his hands fly across the set in a flurry, the rolling beat echoing into the packed arena and spurring the crowd to explode, fans flying to their feet to render their vocal cords for the night.

As the other instruments fill the blank space, Denki's hand grips the back of his guitar's neck, on hold for his solo, and by the time the electric blond steps up to the mic, pavlov's theory has already kicked in overdrive.

"Who’s ready to feel good tonight?”

“Dude, I’m on fucking fire!” Denki vibrates, nearly glowing in comparison to his bandmates as they sift through a flurry of fans at a meet and greet. It always seems like Denki and Eijirou are the only ones with energy after a good show—but what can he say? Being on stage lights him up like a live wire.

"You said that last concert, buddy," Hanta snorts, before his a fan ran sacks his attention by shoving a tiara into his hairline.

"And? My point still stan—" Denki cuts himself off with a gasp as a bra slings across his face, followed by a burst of pain when the metal hits him in the cheek. He peels the lacy thing off with an eye on the audience and an eyebrow raised in question, unsure of what to do with the undergarment (other than put it on) until someone screams:

“Sign it!”

Denki shrugs and pops the Sharpie cap with his teeth to sign the crest of both cups before flinging it back into the audience—he can only pray it pinpoints its rightful owner before the meet and greet ends.

Katsuki clicks his tongue (because he hates these events) and as the next round of fans lineup in front of their table, Eijirou stretches like this is a sport, saying, “Guess it’s go-time.”

"Go-time is when we perform," Katsuki grumbles in the seat to Denki’s right. "Go-time is when we're in the studio makin' a goddamn album, not meeting crazy fuckin' fans—no, I’m not gonna marry you, you obsessed fuckin—“

“Oh, you're just salty you're not popular with the ladies~“ Denki gushes, wiggling his eyebrows, and a fan hands him a canvas the size of his upper body. “Un—oh wow, did you make this for me—Unlike me, of course.”

"Okay, pretty boy." Hanta rolls his eyes, before signing a phone case and returning it to an overzealous fan. With a hand covering his mouth, he whispers, “Can you believe this guy? So full of himself, I swear.”

The fan giggles and Hanta meets the blushing cheeks with a satisfied smirk. Denki huffs from the disrespect, crossing both arms over his chest. “Full of myself? It’s not my fault I’m sexy—*an autograph? Of course!"

Katsuki chuckles, scratching under his chin with ink blue fingertips, "Call yourself sexy one more fuckin’ time and I'm projectile vomiti—no, I'm not signing your tits, give me a goddamn paper or somethin—"

"What?” Denki scoffs, chest collapsing with the disbelief that one could make such a lie. “I'm literally the definition of I'm sexy and I kno—"

"Um, excuse me?"

His gesticulations freeze at the passive voice, arms stretched wide and to the sky, and Denki knows he has to look absolutely ridiculous as he blinks down at the next person in-line; who's stood with bambi eyes and such a sweet smile the electric blond thinks it might make him sick.

"I-I'm your biggest fan! Could you—um, please sign this for me?"

She comes alive, shoving a poster into his chest with pink cheeks and shifty irises. Out of all the bras, all the breasts he's been asked to sign today, and here you are, with your pocket-sized poster and your lamb countenance. Denki beams.

"Of course, Sweetness! What's your name?"

"[Y/N]!" you say, giggling, and it's so. Cute. Denki opens the Sharpie and struggles to focus on signing instead of your gorgeous fucking face.

"Anything specific you'd like me to say?"

And he knows there's a rule—there always are when it comes to these things, and it's simple: don't fuck the fans. As tempting as it is, don't invite them back to your hotel room because there are too many uncertainties, and if something leaks to the press that’s possibly career ending, that’s it. So, Denki holds his tongue. For the future of himself and the band.

"Uhm, just write what you want! I...I think I'd like it best if it was authentic and came straight from you, so."

Fuck. Of course she does.

And maybe Denki just can't help it when he leans down to speak, perhaps a little lower, "You want something more authentic, cutie?"

You light up like a kid on Christmas, gasping, "Yes please Mr. Kaminari!"

So eager, too.

"Awe, you can call me Denki if you'd like," he coos, and you nod so quickly he starts to worry about whiplash. "Meet me out back, in the alley behind the venue if you wanna get to know me better. Sound like a deal?”

"O-Okay!" You nod, and when he returns your sign you grip it tight between both hands. "I'll um, see you soon Mr. Kami—I mean, D-Denki!"

You flush from the mix up and bow in apology, and Denki knows he's made the right choice when you light up, indicating you have no idea what he meant at all.

"Row row row your boat, gently down the stream," you hum, sniffling. You’re unsure if your nose is running, it's too frozen to tell, and it has you patting to confirm it’s presence. With your hands stuffed in your pockets and a jacket wrapped tight around your body, you'd think you'd be warm, but no.

The alley is dark. It's dank enough that you can smell it and you're positive what you're dancing in is vomit, but none the matter—today, you met your favorite band. Literally the people you'd die for.

"Merrily, merrily," kicking the loose rocks in the gravel every which way, you enjoy the sound of them scattering against the surrounding brick walls. "Merrily, merrily..."

"Life is but a dream," a voice finishes, a yelp rips from your throat and you jump twenty feet in alarm. But you’d know that voice anywhere; Denki chuckles at your reaction and it has you recoiling with timidity, unprepared for the surprised audience. "You have a lovely voice, Cutie. You should use it more often."

"I..." but you're not exactly sure what to say to that, knowing Denki's heard so many professional voices in his career to last a lifetime, and yet yours is lovely. "T-Thank you."

Denki watches your reaction with a hum and a smile, his visible breath escaping between the slit of his lips and into the cool air.

"Of course, Cutie."

Another voice sighs, shattering the friction that fills your gut when Denki gives you that look. You're not sure what to call it, but it makes you shiver, and that's enough to make you to run and hide.

"...Denki, who's this?"

"Um," the blond places his frozen hands in his pockets and swivels his head around to Hanta, guilty written all over his face. "A fan?"

Hanta sighs again, head tilting to the right in exhausperation, “Denki—"

"I know, I know," the electric blond sighs, waving him off. "But it's fine as long as we don't get caught, right?"

Hanta's black hair threatens to fall into his face so he combs through it, and you try not to drool at the sight of his bicep flexing. "Yeah, until we get caught."

A honk blares and it has you shrieking, to reveal a parked tour bus in the alley once the lights flicker on. Denki points the car keys at the vehicle and the doors swing open. "Awe c'mon, don't be a sour puss. It's a one-time thing, alright?"

Hanta's eyes narrow into slits.

"Seriously, dude! I'm a man of my word! On God."

The noirette's shoulders sag, but he waltzes around both of you to get on the bus. Over his shoulder, he warns, "Denki I swear to fucking god—"

"I'll be careful, I'll be careful~" he singsongs, hopping onto the stairs after the pianist. When Denki notices not you're not moving, he stills at the top step. "You coming, [Y/N]?"

"O-Oh, am I um, am I allowed?" You ask, biting your cheek at the thought of what Hanta just said as you peer around the electric blond’s body. Denki snorts, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, you're allowed," he exits the bus, only to tug you on via your collar. "Now c'mon! Let's have some fun, yeah?"

"Okay!"

Denki steers you through the bus and into a space that looks a bit like a living room, with a couch, tv, and a makeshift kitchen in the corner. Following Denki to the kitchen, you look around.

"Where are Kirishima and Bakugou?"

"Out drinking," Denki tosses, flicking open a RedBull. You wonder if this is always the post-concert routine. Hanta fiddles in with something on the couch, but he still has yet to look you in the eyes tonight, even when you ask him:

"What are you doing?"

It seems he didn't realize you’ve relocated from the kitchen to the couch next to him from the noirette nearly jumps. The green stuff in his fingers crumbles, and you scrunch your nose at the smell.

"It stinks," you add. Denki snorts, jumping onto the cushion to your right. There isn’t a whole lot of room and his addition causes your shoulders to slush between the two of them, but it’s strangely comfortable.

"It's weed," he explains like it's obvious. "You smoke, Cutie?"

"Obviously not," you and Hanta say at the same time. You turn his way, and for the first time that night, Hanta looks you in the eyes—and it's a smile, with his eyes crinkling in the corners, but there's...something else. Something else hidden behind the thinnest veil that makes you cower, if ever so slightly.

Something feral.

Denki, unaware of the crushing grip your hand has around your thigh, huffs, and tosses the energy drink down his gullet, "It was a genuine question! Geez."

"What are you doing?" You ask again, and the electric blond whimpers from being ignored.

"Rolling a joint," he utters, lifting the paper to his lips to lick the length. You watch, semi-disgusted, as Hanta finally folds over the last bit of paper around the crest of the joint, gluing it together.

"Know what a joint is?" The noirette implores.

"Yeah," you breathe, shifting at the new closeness Denki provides when you feel his chest against your back. "My roommate smokes, so."

Hanta taps it on a tray, or what Denki describes as "packing it down," before twisting the tip and tossing it back onto the tray in conclusion. Denki cheers.

"Aha! The joint-rolling master has blessed us! Everyone say thank you, joint-rolling master."

"Thank you, joint-rolling master!" You giggle when Hanta's face turns a ruddy red. He reaches over to pop Denki upside the head. Denki gasps, before lunging to return the favor, and you squeal from being jostled between two men.

"Okay," when Denki returns to his seat he's panting and so is the noirette. He picks the joint off the tray and though there isn't much room, turns so he's facing you, your legs smushed against his body indian style. "You ready, Cutie?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," you huff, swinging your arms in preparation despite the lack of space. Just in case.

Hanta snorts, holding the joint to your lips, and Denki raises the lighter and raises it to the end until it's hot enough to burn on its own.

“Now suck."

You do, cheeks puffing, and you blow the smoke straight in Denki's face. It's...a lot.

"Not quite," Hanta chuckles, and flips you via the waist so you're facing him. Denki whines from the change but finds solace in hooking his chin over your shoulder. "Suck, and then inhale. Act like it's a big breath—you gotta hold it in your lungs for a sec."

"Okay," you assert with a nod, eyes burning with a new determination. When Hanta holds it to your lips, you suck and inhale, and start coughing your throat raw, in a flurry of smoke and tears, eyes watering and nose burning. You scramble for water, but by the time you get some, the only thing that's left to soothe is a sore throat.

"Here," Denki offers, grabbing the joint before flipping you his way again. "Take smaller hits, like this."

Denki's mouth wraps around the tip and smoke pours from his lips so smoothly you're determined to do the same. With a raised eyebrow, he passes it back to you, and though it takes a moment, you try again.

The back of your throat tingles but the glide is much smoother, and you find that it doesn't burn on your next exhale. So you do it again. And again. And agai—

"Okay," Hanta picks the joint from your fingers with a click of his tongue, before taking a hit himself. You frown, making grabby hands.

"Hey, wai—"

"Nu-uh," he tuts, pushing you down by your forehead. "You'll feel it soon enough, trust me."

You whine, crossing your arms over your chest. Hanta gives you nothing but a raised eyebrow as he takes another hit, and you're convinced it's to taunt you. "I'm not eve—"

But then the world blurs, a bit, and your legs hum in a way they haven't before; it's warm and it's nice, and it has you blinking down at your hands in bewilderment. Whoa.

"And there she goes," Denki announces, and somehow seized the joint from the noirette when you weren't looking. Your mouth drops to say something, but all you can produce is a light giggle before it melts into a guffaw that only comes straight from the gut, your hands trying to soothe your cramping belly. Tears come to your eyes fairly easily, and when Hanta asks if you're okay he sounds like he's underwater, and that's enough to send you flying through another fit of laughs.

"I—y-yeah, I'm just—just fine," you snort behind a hand, chest spasming as you finally gather yourself enough to calm down. "I'm good. Mhm."

"Yep. Totally fine," Hanta says, but something in his tone suggests he doesn't believe you at all.

You nod, biting your bottom lip to avoid another laugh attack with your hands bunching the bottom of your shirt for extra purchase. Hanta narrows his eyes while taking another hit, so you sock him in the shoulder with a huff. "Stop looking at me like that."

The noirette snorts, "Like what?"

"Like..." you start strong, but falter under his eyes. "Like you want to eat me."

Hanta hums at the comment but says nothing, and you're not sure if your mind fabricated the quick look he gives the electric blond sat behind you. Denki speaks first.

"Do you know what shotgunning is, [Y/N]?"

You frown, "Like a shotgun?"

"So no," Hanta answers for you.

"Here," Denki offers, turning you again. Plucking the nub of a joint from the noirette, he takes a big hit before picking your face up by the jaw and hovering your lips over yours. You're not sure what to do, but once your lips connect, smoke fills your lungs, and you don't exhale until Denki pulls away. You blink, a little dazed.

You just kissed Denki Kaminari.

"Feel good?" He asks, never leaving your personal space. You nod, and he grins. "Wanna do it again?"

Your hands fist his shirt, teeth tearing the inside of your cheek due to the amount of embarrassment this question encourages. "I wan—can we do it again but without the um...without the smoke?"

Denki's hands find your hips and it's hard for him to contain a sly smirk, biting his lips to move in on his prey.

"I knew I waned you the second I saw you."

Denki's lips feel much better when he puts a little weight into the kiss, pinning you between him and the noirette. You're not exactly sure what you're doing but he takes the lead, titling his head and kissing harder, rougher, so your lips are pink and swollen by the time he pulls away.

"A-Another," you whimper, tightening your grip around his tee.

Denki hums in contemplation, picking your head up by your chin. "Ask nicely, Cutie."

Flushing deeper, your eyes dart to the coffee table.

“Another, please."

"Good girl," Denki coos, and he's propping you up against Hanta's chest. You shiver at the comment, finding purchase on Hanta's thighs as Denki kisses you on the lips again. "Wanna feel even better?"

"Yes," you nod vehemently. "Yes please."

Denki hums at that, climbing down your body as his hands glide from your waist to the band of your pants. You frown, "What—What are you doing?"

"Eating you out, Cutie," the electric blond says, hands freezing once his thumbs dip under your waistband. "That okay?"

"Oh okay," you breathe, relaxing against Hanta's chest. "Y-Yeah, that's fine."

Denki rips your pants off at that, tossing them towards the corner of the room and ultimately, to a place you'll probably never find them. Pushing your panties to the side, he licks his lips at the sight of your pussy, and flicks your clit with a smirk. You jump.

"H-Hey, that's not—"

He flattens his tongue against your slit and chuckles when you shudder, and after tossing both of your legs over his shoulders. You're not sure what he does after that though, because Hanta picks your face up by the chin and presses his lips to yours.

Denki slides a finger inside and you squeal against Hanta's chapped lips. You hear the electric blond moan, readjusting himself between your thighs, before you finally peel your lips off the noirette's, chest having from lack of oxygen.

"Such a pretty pussy, Baby," Denki gushes before his warm lips fold around your clit and he sucks, humming in surprise when you buck against his mouth. Hanta hooks his chin around your shoulder with a second joint dangling between his lips—and where it came from is beyond you.

Once he exhales, the joint finds its way between your lips and he instructs you to inhale, and the head rush afterwards has you digging your head into his chest.

"You're so wet, holy shit," Denki pulls away, lips strawberry pink and glossed with slick as he trades his both for his thumb and inserting another finger. It crooks just right and that's enough to make your hips buck, nails carving crescents in Hanta's thighs.

“T-There,” you whimper, wiggling your hips again, and Denki grins, thumb pressing into your clit. Your thighs quiver with the strain it takes to hold them back and Hanta’s calloused hands skip to your waist after dropping the burning joint off in the tray.

“Pull his hair,” the noirette commands, but you hesitate, hands glued to his thighs. Hanta sighs, reaching over you to tug for himself.

“Mph—fuck!” Denki’s eyelids flutter as he moans into your pussy with a new passion, his hands wrapping around your thighs to hold you in place. You gasp at his reaction, fingers scrambling under Hanta’s own to thread through his electric blond hair.

“Move your hips—grind against his face, c’mon,” Hanta’s grip tightens around your waist as he offers the suggestion, and you whimper with a nod before your bucking into Denki’s mouth without abandon. As the noirette trails butterfly kisses up the column of your neck, the coil in your gut snaps, and you barely have time to squeak out a warning before you’re flooding Denki’s mouth.

“Good girl...ride it out—there you go,” Hanta coos, biting your ear. You shiver as Denki pulls away with a final (and obscene) slurp, grinning like he didn’t just shatter you to pieces with nothing but his tongue and fingers.

Denki’s lips are on yours in a blink—you moan, legs still buzzing from the afterglow as you weakly grope for the small hairs on the back of his neck.

“Taste good, don’t ya?” He says with a click of a tongue after pulling away.

“I guess so,” you flush, the humiliation from so shamelessly digging your heels into Denki’s back finally settling in. Hanta reaches under your arm for Denki’s chin.

“What? Want a taste too?” The electric blond giggles, wiggling his eyebrows. Hanta snorts.

“If you could be so kind.”

Denki hums at that, placing a hand on your inner thigh for balance as he slams his lips on the noirette’s for the first time that night. He dives straight for the kill, tongue and teeth and everything, and Denki moas when Hanta’s teeth sink into his bottom lip; you find that you like it a lot.

Though eventually you tired of watching, and press the heel of your hand on Hanta’s hard cock through the fabric of his jeans. The pianist hisses, and you grin—you’ve got their attention now.

“Whoa Sweetheart, what are y—“

“I...I want more,” you assert despite the tremor in your voice. Hanta raises an eyebrow in question which has you pressing harder in hopes he’ll cave just as easily as before. Just in case, you add, “Please.”

Denki redirects your attention by squishing your cheeks until you’re looking him in the eyes. With dark eyes, he says, “You sure you want more, Cutie?”

You nod despite the restriction, “Wanna...wanna get to know you better.”

You watch Denki’s pupils dialate at that, and he can’t even hold back a groan when he says:

“Gods, Baby. We’re going to ruin you.”

unpopular opinion: bakugou's the bassist and kirishima's the drummer. fight me.

not me projecting 12yo sun's fantasy of getting railed in the tour bus by 5sos um—

#— 𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐊𝐈 #— 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀 #kaminari smut #sero smut #kaminari x reader #sero x reader #bnha smut #mha smut #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction

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slasherholic · 3 years

Text

synopsis: hi this is a very indulgent self-care piece born out my desire to be held,, by evil handsome collector man,, so take some very mean “fluff” based on this gorgeous commission cause it lives rent free in my brain

written in 3rd person pov, but the protag’s name and features are left vague, so anyone who identifies with the descriptions in the warnings below can read this as a self insert :0

contains: female reader, language which describes the reader’s body as “small” and “petite”, depictions of murder and violence, kidnapping, nonconsensual touching / groping / cuddling, drugging, (my kink is getting a good fucking nights sleep srry,) restraints, mild fearplay, depictions of torture.

Asa Emory / The Collector x Small! Female Reader

When panic and confusion began to mount in the concert hall and the crowd fled for the exit, she scrambled forward on the dirty ground and huddled beneath the seat in front of her, for fear of being trampled.

Thirty seconds passed. Outside, in the main building, there was more screaming. She clutched her leg in a grip that turned her shins numb where her fingers dug in.

When the screams stopped, she clambered very hesitantly out.

The theater and all its levels were empty. On the stage lay the bodies of the cast, motionless islands in vast pools of spreading blood.

She should go now. Not out the front. There must be a side door, a fire exit, something.

When it happened it took the concert hall five whole seconds to rise into a panic. Nobody seemed to believe what they were seeing, and in the end, the shrieks coming from behind the curtains were what stoked the audience into a frenzy.

The curtains; likely her best chance.

She couldn’t stop herself from looking again as she clambered up on the stage, hugging the wall, gazing with huge eyes at the dead bodies speared into the wooden floor by volleys of long pikes with more prongs than she could count at a glance. It had been impeccable timing, right at the climax of the leading lady’s highest soprano note.

She looked up. Past the bright stage lights, high in the rafters above, she saw two heavy-looking mechanisms that among the steel fixtures did not at first glance look out of place. She made her way very cautiously behind the dense red curtains.

There were more bodies backstage but what had killed them was not immediately apparent and she didn’t want to linger and find out. There was an open door on the opposite end of the room and as she crossed the dusty paneled floor her head was on a swivel, listening, for anything. The building had fallen to suffocating silence.

Through the door, there was a stairwell, and another body. A man in a ripped white button up and a stained blue tie lay face-down on the first and second steps. There was a terrible smell. She stepped over him very slowly, and then slipped on his blood.

She fell forward into razor wire. It caught on her lavender dress and cut her arms and legs. Somehow she held her shriek. The gleaming wires stretched like a web across the narrow corridor from wall to wall, and she went carefully, dipping in and out between the maze, finding she could just squeeze through it. Blood was streaming down her ankles and getting on the soles of her heels by the time she reached the top.

She almost got out. She would have made it, if only the anticipation of freedom hadn’t made her so hasty.

He discovered her snared in the labyrinth of dangling fish hooks fifteen feet from the rear fire exit, sobbing in pain, a delicate, pretty little creature, pulling uselessly at the lines as he got close to gather her up.

She didn’t put up much of a fight. She was a small woman, in shock, easy to handle.

Into the trunk she went.

The hooks would need to come out surgically. He had designed them to snag skin and embed deep into muscle and stay.

She tried to fight him for the first few minutes after he dragged her out by her nape and bent her face-down over the operating table, pinning her by her wrists while he unbuttoned the back of her dress, which he decided he quite liked; but when she lay naked on the table with her slender arms secured, as if realizing the futility of it all, she stopped struggling, and just cried while he tightened the straps over her legs. He stuck a thick piece of leather in her mouth so her teeth wouldn’t break and didn’t bother to sedate her. Waste of his resources for a procedure this short. Her huge eyes streamed endless tears as he worked on her and her face twisted beautifully at every incision. He set his scalpel down to wipe the crimson stains off her skin, and in his tray sat six bloody hooks, each as long as her index finger.

She was smart enough to mind her volume after the excruciating part was over, sniffling and crying softly while he bandaged her limbs. She had expected never to see her airy lavender dress again, but when he finally unstrapped her, and flipped her on her stomach, he clothed her in it again. She stayed limp as he did the buttons back up her spine for fear of angering him. Her wrists and ankles went snuggly into pairs of sturdy leather cuffs.

He scooped her up, gripping her trembling body tightly, in case she decided to squirm. She didn’t.

Beyond the operating room there was a corridor, its walls and ceiling painted a maroon that had faded nearly to brown. She figured it was some sort of inn or hotel. A few of the doors lining the hall sat open a crack and one near the end sat wide-open. She looked inside it as he carried her past, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

The room he brought her to had a door that was open just a little. There, in the middle of the floor, fit with heavy brass bindings and three dangling padlocks, open as if expecting company, sat a sturdy red trunk.

She knew that she was going right down in it. She tried to cry again, but her energy was good and spent.

He crouched on one knee in front of the trunk. Its walls didn’t quite touch her body as he lowered her inside, but when he closed the lid, the darkness was overwhelming. The padlocks clicked, one by one. The door swung shut, and she heard more locks turn—one, two, three, four. She wasn’t going anywhere.

For a whole day, he didn’t touch her. Not to feed her, not to give her water. She sat waiting for it to be her turn, trying very hard to turn her brain off and forget what she had seen through that door in the hallway. If she fell asleep, she felt there was a chance her body might shut down before he took her life in a manner that would have her screaming bloody murder on her way out.

Before she managed sleep, the locks on the door turned, and he was back.

His footsteps were measured as he entered, unhurried. The keys on his ring jangled as the heavy padlocks on her trunk clicked. The lid opened.

The man in all black squatted down. He stared at her for some time without moving. She regarded him with wide, wary, tear-filled eyes.

His thick arms darted into the trunk to catch her around the waist before she could struggle. She shrieked and flinched as he gathered up her legs, lifting her effortlessly out.

He sat her atop the lid of the trunk. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, on his boots.

His gloved hands had a way of lingering on her body when he touched her and as he let go of her waist he stroked her smooth thigh delicately, a bit past where her stained dress was riding up. She trembled and shook horribly, vision spotting over with erratic breathless dots.

The keys on his belt jangled again as he leaned for something on the ground, then lifted her chin to face him. She offered him no resistance.

To her dried lips, he pressed a metal cup; his black eyes considered her from behind his frightening mask, watching her expectantly.

She wasn’t certain the liquid in the cup was water but at the first sign of hesitation he squeezed her cheeks impatiently. He could force her to drink it very easily and she’d seen enough of him by now to know he wouldn’t make it very pleasant.

Down it went. It didn’t burn her throat, didn't make her cough up blood. It was only a drink of water.

The man in all black set the empty cup back on the floor, wiped at the thin spill dribbling down her chin, and gave her cheek a quick caress.

He forced her to sit with him, stiflingly close, one thick arm wrapped firmly around her middle to secure her. She would rather go back in the trunk than be held to his body like this.

He went for something on his belt. When his hand came back, her eyes grew huge.

No. What’s in that? No, he can’t put that in her; but he’s far stronger than her, dangerously so, and if she tries to fight him he might break something or cut something off or just plain open her up again and let her bleed until she behaves.

Grabbing her jaw, his mouth came to settle gingerly against the side of her head, where she could feel his breaths fluttering on her hair.

“Hold very still.”

She didn’t think he was going to speak to her. His voice was nothing but a whisper, far softer than she would have imagined, which was somehow worse than shouting, because now she suspected he was making a very deliberate effort to frighten her to death.

She did as he said. His fingers tightened around her cheeks as he aligned the needle between her neck and shoulder. Her face contorted at the pinch.

The empty syringe fell from his hand, clinking against the bottom of trunk, rolling away on the floor. He released her face, and she blinked away new tears as he led her cuffed wrists down by their thin tether to rest in her lap. He traced her collarbone out towards her arm and gripped the curve of her shoulder firmly over her sleeve.

The world was growing softer around the edges. The drug must have been some sort of sedative.

He started to touch her chest. She drew breath sharply as his large hand slipped beneath the ruffled hem of her dress, trying not to whimper and somehow disturb him as he cupped one goosebump-freckled breast, kneading her gently. He ran his thumb very deliberately over the bud of her nipple, which is all it took to stiffen it up. His hand was very warm. She wanted to sob at the violation, but her wet eyes were lingering shut between blinks, and every time they closed, they were harder to open.

He wasn’t being cruel about it. The sensation was pleasant through and through, and her groggy mind was easily tricked. Without realizing, she slumped a little into his chest. His arm relaxed a bit around her stomach and it’s weight felt good and right, warm. His sweater was very soft on her skin. He didn’t smell unpleasant.

Then she realized her actions, jolting upright, appalled by herself. He gave a light exhale into her hair as if he had found the whole thing very amusing, and opted to play along for a time—but now that the moment was over, his arm flexed tight around her petite waist, becoming a restraint again.

He turned his attention to her other breast and examined her there too, which, though certainly unwanted, felt almost clinical rather than sexual. Maybe it was the gloves. Perhaps this was his process. Perhaps she would be carefully studied all over, classified and catalogued, before he took her apart.

Her brain grew too fuzzy after that. Her thoughts weren’t making much sense. She didn’t quite know where she was anymore, only that there had been a lot of hurt not long ago, but not now. All she knew now was that she was being touched very gently, and it was nice.

A short time later, her little body crumpled into his torso, and she didn’t try to get up again.

He pet the top of her head as she went under and sat considering her unconscious face.

The piece he had in mind was delicate, elegant. He couldn’t have her jerking and struggling in it. He could go and stick her in the freezer, and she would be ready by the morning, but eyes never preserved well, and he didn’t much want to dull hers. He was already deciding on colors that would compliment them well.

Sedation was a possibility. A quarter dose of Novapryl between feedings would be sufficient to keep her suspended in a similar groggy, tranquil state.

She shifted her cheek where she lay on his chest. He touched her face tenderly, stroking the cool skin with the flat of his hand, and in her stupor, she seemed to lean into his caress, which he found charming. Needy thing.

Sedation, then.

#tw: groping #tw: torture #asa emory #the collector #the collection #slashers #asa emory x reader #reader insert #female reader #writing #horror #darkfic

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