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gaiuswrites · 3 years

Text

King of Cups || Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Page of Swords

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | three

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: You attempt a new skill. Mando attempts to teach you.

Word count: 4.7k~

Rating: Mature

Warnings/tags: gun usage/mentioning throughout, mature language, pining, more dirty thots-ish, angst because why not, does this count as fluff? sure, gun kink if you squint w/o your glasses

Notes: As the reader (you/us) begins to become more familiar with Mando, his perspective starts bleeding in to the narrative, without a blocked off POV. Also, the reader’s past will start weaving (incoherently?) into the story as well. The large italicized chunks denote past tense interactions (which is probably obvious but who knows any more). Cheers x (gif credit: @djarinsgf)

A shot rings out.

Birds explode from the canopy with offended squawks, squalling in a winged flurry to scatter every which way until they recede again into the green, disappearing back into their hiding places. You groan. You thought you’d be better at this.

It’s not that you thought you were some sort of savant, you just didn’t expect to be this bad. Honestly, it’s embarrassing—you’re embarrassingly terrible— like statistically, you should have hit something by now, but you just keep missing—a crowded tree line in front of you, and not a scratch in sight—nary a singed branch nor a bullet holed trunk. It’s almost impressive how poor of a shot you are—and you would be, if you weren’t so damn exasperated with the whole affair. With a frustrated grunt, you throw your hands up, brandishing the weapon haphazardly.

“Careful,” Mando warns slyly, “you could hurt someone with that thing.”

“Yeah, well at least I’d hit something,” you grumble.

The kid had been fussy - almost unbearably so - in the weeks that followed your short stint on Bajic, and your party was itching for some time off the Razor Crest. After his third tantrum in a day, Mando decided to land on some unknown planet you couldn’t even spell to stretch your legs and take a breather.

You had almost sobbed when you saw him drag his menagerie of weaponry over. You knew what this meant, you knew what came next—his weekly, routine buff.

You think he’s doing it on purpose.

Ever since the first time, when you damn near had a conniption ogling him, you swear it’s like he’s doing it just to mess with you. He isn’t—of course he isn’t, rationally you knew that, in fact there was plenty of evidence to the contrary. He’s a Mandalorian—weapons are apart of his religion for kriff’s sake—but Maker does it seem intentional. Premeditated. It’s like you can feel the blistering ray of his gaze on you as he takes his time, roving a leathered hand over the bulge of the shaft—greasing it, stripping it, part by metal part…

It’s all in your head, you told yourself. It’s all in your fucking head and you need to get a grip.

Immediately you sprang into action, busying yourself with anything you could get your stupid, little hands on—in this case, being one of his many blasters.

“I wanna give it a go,” you said.

He let you, surprisingly. He hesitated, at first, his helmet tipping at a disbelieving angle. But he gave in—it took less effort on your part than you’d figured—and Mando conceded. He obliged.

How hard could it be? You thought.

Famous last words.

He’s parked there, settled on a throne of crates pushed flush to the Crest, slouched against the outer hull of the ship as he cleans, from the looks of it, every item in his arsenal—a front row seat to your pathetic endeavor and you’re failing—epically, ridiculously—shot after errant shot.

You line yourself up, scrunching your face in concentration as you bare the blaster in your hands. Maybe this time…

You fire off a round and an animal scampers scared in the thicket. Nothing. Another sublime miss.

You hear a noise come from Mando’s direction, something subtle like a blip of static through his helmet - Maker, he’s laughing at you - and you pivot around to him.

“What,” you ask, although it's less of a question and more of a griping pout. He replies with silence, that fickle language he's mastered to perfection all on his own, his focus pitched down to the bristled rod he’s driving in and out of his rifle, scouring out the residue from the inner barrel. “Ugh, what Mando?” you say, just shy of a whine, one hand slotted on your hip, the other dangling by your side, the pistol foreign and cumbersome in your grasp.

“Didn’t say anything,” he replies with a half shrug, his pauldrons shifting so imperceptibly you almost miss it. You pause, hurling him a look that misses him completely before you heave a frustrated sound.

“Fine, you show me how it’s done then.”

The T of his visor finds you. Its cold and unknowable as he rolls his helmet, tilting it up to you, hands slowing their ministrations to a rest. He’s wears a glare, carved into the steel hollow of the plates—unamused and smoldering—and with it, you feel small; microscopic and withering under his pointed gaze— suddenly too exposed in the open patch of jungled wilderness they’ve landed in and your mouth tweaks, teeth grazing the plush there. You assume he won’t do it. There’s no way he’ll rise to such obvious of a challenge, but he’s sighing—you can see it in the slant of his armor—and marching towards you before you can take it back, drawing closer and closer until Mando’s slated in front of you, expectant and postured and you forget— like the skip of a record, you forget why he’s even there— not a foot before you— and your eyes dance across his helm, flickering back and forth.

“May I?” he nods down to the pistol in your hand and you start - oh, shit - and offer it to him clumsily.

Mando squares off against the untamed green. The air lays hot and sticky around them. There is no trace of wind, no glimmer of breeze, and his cape hangs mute down his back. You’d never seen him fire his weapon. He surrounded himself with them, sure, always had at least two strapped to him at all times— probably even slept with one, you reckon— but you’ve never seen him use one.

With one solid movement, he cranes his arm, taking aim.

Now, you aren’t one to condone violence, but he just looks right doing it; an extension of himself with how natural it is, how innate— an added appendage, born unto him. The pistol looks good in his fist, like it couldn’t possibly belong anywhere else, the orange tips of his glove curling around the hilt, looping over that sensitive release.

He has practiced hands. Methodical. Sturdy. It’s sensual, to watch him like this. Pornographic even— sacrilege in a way. A part of you wants to look away and turn your gaze, grant him privacy as he handles the blaster— delicately, confidently. It’s intimate.

The pistol croons in his palm. She bends, supple and lilting. He knows just where to touch, where to stroke— she does anything he tells her. She melts for him.

Warmth pools in your mouth. Mando pulls the trigger.

He lands an impressive shot onto an impossibly narrow tree trunk nestled further in, and your features contort with amazement. Maybe you want to see it again—like a nosy neighbor peeping in through drawn curtains. Maybe you’re being reckless and smarmy, and maybe you know it. A Mandalorian’s got a gun in his hand and you’re prodding him - brilliant strategy, top marks - but your adrenaline is pumping something fierce and you feel yourself grow bold with each seize of your heart.

“Lucky shot,” you huff.

He pans to you, lolling his head, visor locked onto your face. Without flinching, without gracing you with a remark, he raises his arm and fires— doesn’t even have to kriffing look. The scorch mark sizzles - haughtily, jeering - no more than a few inches away from the first. You nearly choke on the arrogance of it— the lazy, smug performance— like he can’t be bothered with any of it, as if your taunts are all so beneath him.

You have to bite down on your lip to stop it from snaking into a wicked grin.

Mando offers the pistol back to you, flipping it grip-side up in a fancy flourish before striding - strutting - back to his post. You shake your head, a determined set to your jaw and you retake your aim, squinting in the hazy afternoon light, pulling the trigger— and nothing happens.

Again, click. Nothing, click after fruitless click. You make a face, pinching—

“Safety’s on.”

You flush, thanking the Maker that your back is towards him, and switch it down with your thumb. “Right,” you mumble sheepishly, wetting your lip. You align your sights, bracing yourself for the impact—

“It’s your stance.”

Three words.

Three words, the only solace Mando provides before devoutly returning to his work.

You wait for him to elaborate, to edify you— for any manner of sage advice— but the explanation never comes; he leaves you like this, marooned with three fucking words and you have to screw your eyes shut. This man is baffling— maddeningly unhelpful— infuriatingly sparse. It makes you want to howl and rip your hair out— and you whip around violently.

“What about my st-”

Your question comes scampering to a halt, tail between your legs, throat gone dry. Mando has planted himself directly behind you— standing so close you can see your reflection in his beskar, see the blush blurring your cheek under the alien sun.

“What uh, what about my stance?” you ask, mousier now, swallowed up by the sheer size of him so near to you.

“It’s not wide enough.”

You glance down at your feet before looking back up to him. “What do you mean?”

“Turn around,” he says.

You quirk your brow at him before he repeats himself. “Turn around and spread your legs. Hips distance apart.”

Fuck, he has no business sounding like that— like bourbon and smoke and iron tang—but you do as he says. You’re shakier than you want to be— you wish you could be cool and collected but you’re not. You’re anything but, and you’re nervous. Maker, Mando makes you nervous— it’s not just the weapon in your hand, it’s him— setting you off and giving you butterflies like you’re some sort of forlorn schoolgirl. You’re a grown woman, and this is what he’s rendered you to— jittery, molten mush. It’s embarrassing. Fucking mortifying.

You guess it’s the day for it.

He doesn’t touch you, but it hardly matters; you can sense him there all the same, a shadow in your peripheral. He leaves a thick breath of space between your bodies and with your back towards him, you can feel the waves of heat radiate off the bounty hunter, pulsing out out out from him and it’s almost intolerable— as if you’ve flown too close to the sun, waxed wings melting in pearled streaks down your spine.

You scuttle your feet open, parting just outside your hips.

“Arms up,” he says, and you hoist them into position. You’re sure you look as awkward as you feel, if not more, all the angles of your body feeling perfectly wrong and misplaced. “Relax your elbows,” he adds, and you do— you try to, at least.

“Too much. Somewhere in between.”

You try again, strengthening through your triceps and down your forearms.

“Better,” Mando gives. You think you feel him nodding approvingly behind you. “The important-”

Kriff, you panic.

You spin towards him, dropping your form and cutting him off with a humbled, worried look, throwing up barricades and hurdles— landmines for him to dodge. Or step on.

“Wait hey Mando, you don’t- I don’t want to take up your time,” you begin.

“You aren’t.”

“I’m serious, I don’t want to bother you with this.”

“You’re not.”

You blink.

“If you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it right.”

He speaks so plainly, unvarnished and matte— unflinchingly earnest in a way that gives you pause. It leaves no wiggle room for interpretation and you sigh, defeated, shoulders slumping as you haul yourself back around.

“Arms up,” he reiterates, but there’s no malice there; he sounds kind— untroubled. It always surprises you how mild he can be— Mando should be anything but, he’d have every reason to, but he’s calm. Patient. You wonder if he even realizes it, if he even recognizes the tenor of his own voice— how gentle it can be— under the helmet. Despite it.

“Think of your posture as firm, without tensing,” Mando explains. “Soften your knees, don’t lock them— same goes for your arms— don’t stiffen against the recoil, let your body absorb it.”

You mirror what he coaches, shooting him a curious, hopeful look over your shoulder.

“There. Good,” he says. “Now, which is your dominant eye?”

Your arms fall down to your sides. “My what?”

“Dominant eye.”

You give him a baffled look like he’s speaking another language - in all fairness, he is - and Mando emits another puff of air through his modulator, chortling.

“Eye dominance. We’re all either right handed or left handed. Eyes work the same— right eyed or left eyed. We favor one or the other— you’ll focus that one to aim.”

Oh, huh.

You still appreciatively, basking in the novelty of the information. “Really? I didn’t know that. That’s- that’s actually pretty interesting,” you muse. “Brains and brawn, huh?” You flash a cheeky grin back at him.

Mando grunts, nondescript and unaffected and robotic but he swears he can feel pink creep over his clavicle, tainting the tan of his skin concealed there.

He fits his gloved hand over yours, if only for a second, and you do your best to ignore the rough patch of his leather grazing against the thin flesh there. You try to ignore the chill that sweeps across the curve of your waist, how the peach fuzz prickles up, electrified and magnetized, as he unfurls your fingers from the gun, letting it slip from your grasp. He tucks it under his arm, keeping it pinned there with his bicep.

“Hold your hands out like this.” Mando shows you, creating an oval with his fingers— like a view finder or a scope. You mimic him, feeling like every bit of an idiot, but you don’t contradict him— you do as he does. “Now, set your focus out on a fixed point through your hands,” he instructs and you do, setting your sights on a gnarled tree branch.

“Got it?” he asks.

“Got it,” you respond.

“Now alternate closing each eye. The image should stay in the frame with one, and then shift out of it with the other.”

You frown, concentrating, and close the right before blinking over to the left— kriff, he’s right.

“Oh shit,” you mumble. “My left. It’s my left eye.”

“You sure?”

You check again, squinting through either eye, the tree bouncing in and out of the frame of your fingers. “Mhm. Yeah, my left eye keeps it centered.”

He makes a thoughtful sound. “Left eyed but right handed. Interesting,” Mando murmurs.

You glance up to him, dropping your hands. “Why is that interesting?”

“Not common. The brain’s typically wired the same way all the way down— one side of the body will be dominant. It’s not usually split.”

“You telling me my brain doesn’t work properly, Mando?” you quip dryly.

“You said it, not me.”

He holds the blaster out to you and you swipe it from him with a huffed snort, returning towards the tree line and stars your face hurts. Your face hurts and it’s burning with this asinine smile that’s digging mercilessly into your cheeks. It makes you want to massage your jaw, get the damn thing to relax. Honestly, it makes you want to give yourself a slap.

“Make sure to cross your center with it. Line it up towards the left.”

“Maker, do you think about all this every time you shoot?” you ask, mystified, as you fix your aim.

“Muscle memory takes over eventually. You’ll get there with enough practice.” Mando replies gruffly and you guffaw, loud and wonderfully ugly. You seriously doubt it.

After a series of very near misses— you are getting closer, you’ll give yourself that— your arms grow tired; the joints and muscles protest as you extend them out from your body, taut and tense— the gun dead weight in your wobbly hands.

Your shoulder smarts where you injured the tendon in the explosion. You roll it out, earning snaps and pops as it notches over the bone there. They told you you were lucky. They congratulated you - it’s not a complete tear! - and it’s on the mend well enough, but it’s weak. It doesn’t matter the weight of the object.

The longer you hold anything, the heavier it feels.

You suppose you could throw in the towel at any point, but the fact of the matter— as terrible and true as it may be— is you want to impress him. That awful, nagging feeling— you want to impress the Mandalorian. You want him proud of you— you want to be nice and shiny for him to admire, like one of the guns he polishes until it’s sparkling, until he can mount it on display and show it off. It’s absolutely nauseating— but you couldn’t stop it even if you wanted to, and you don’t. You don’t want to.

He isn’t blind to it. He sees the exertion, the tax— how beads of sweat congress around your temples, dampening the base of your scalp, butterfly kissing your skin with a sheen. A trail of wet salt, one lone pilgrim, ventures down the back of your neck, wandering lower and lower, past the hem of your shirt, disappearing into the soft valley of your spine where Mando can’t follow. His throat bobs rough against his cowl.

Transferring the pistol into one hand, you shake out the other, flexing through it and relaxing your grip.

“Wait,” he says and you cock your head back at him. Mando’s retreating to his pile of guns, rifling through the metal anthill before selecting something sleek and chrome. “Here,” you exchange pistols, giving him back the bulkier of the two. Immediately you feel the relief of this new one— it’s lighter and smaller, slighter in your grasp, too— and you turn it over in your hands, noting the way the nozzlelike barrel glitters in the sun.

You’d almost consider it pretty if it weren’t a literal killing machine.

“That’s a CDEF model. Lightweight, reliable, Dedlanite casing, standard issue for CorSec officers.”

You nod along, as if you have any clue what he’s talking about— you don’t. You really, truly don’t.

“Should be easier.”

“Mm,” you hum out in ignorant agreement, slotting your arms back up into position.

“Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to fire.” You rest it against the slide of the barrel, hovering nearby.

Mando shifts closer towards you, the grass grinding under his feet as he takes a half step in to your backside.

“Breathe. Don’t hold it in. Let me hear it.”

Fuck, this feels like a sin; this small gap of distance he’s erected between you as tense, as strained and feverish, as whispered confessions in the dark. Like sneaking back into your parent’s house late at night— the morning moon peering down at you with a heavy lidded gaze— knowing, knowing, keeping your secrets to herself, pressing them to her chest, winking sleepily.

It would be so much easier, so much simpler, if he just put his hands on you. Placed your body where he knows it should be, force you into the shapes and positions he’s so intimate with himself, but he doesn’t. He draws it out. He respects your space and autonomy and it makes it worse. Your imagination fills the void separating you two, and it’s running wild and rampant and depraved and—

“Focus,” he utters, his voice no louder than a purr. You’ve never heard something so mechanical make a sound so deliriously smooth, and you have to suppress a nervous scoff. Focus, he says, as if he isn’t suffocating you with how close he’s standing— as if you aren’t enjoying it— as if you aren’t vibrating down to your very bones at the proximity of the bounty hunter—so close, you bet he can hear them, rattling and slapping against each other deep beneath your skin.

“Remember what I said about your posture,” he suggests quiet-like and murmured, without a trace of condescension there—a harmless reminder. You make the adjustment, fixing your shoulders down your back, and release the stress in your arms.

“Firm without tensing,” you respond under your breath—more for your sake than his— striking it from your mental checklist.

“‘Atta girl.”

No.

No no no, Maker, you feel it. You can fucking feel it—how something low and resonant spasms beyond your belly, the clench of your empty cunt at the encouragement—the heady praise of it all.

Atta girl.

He said it softly - rudely husky - just above a whisper, something tailored specifically for you—almost like it slipped from his lips and he didn’t even notice its passing. It meandered out of him, so easy—too easy. It practically sauntered.

You’re trembling— stars, you hope Mando doesn’t see it. It’s humid and muggy and yet you’re shaking as if it’s freezing, as if you’ve got icicled snot dripping from your nose, and your nerves go haywire, fraying in every direction as you sip in a whistled breath.

You can do this. You can do this. Focus.

“Take the shot,” he orders.

Focus.

Pressing into the slope of the trigger, you fire.

You gasp excitedly— a surprised, whooping laugh tearing through you and you whip around, giddy and beaming - bright, beautiful - a lock of hair sticking to your lip. It’s the youngest, the freest, Mando’s ever seen you; maybe the happiest, too, and his stomach twists at the sight, a tourniquet cinching around him, winding and coiling until he’s convinced it’ll burst. His fingers twitch, every instinct begging him— demanding him— to reach out and return the stray strand behind your ear alongside the others but you beat him to it. Deftly, you flit it away yourself instead, and he’s relieved.

Devastated, too. Gutted.

“Did you see that?” you ask, gleeful as a child.

He pries himself off you, dragging his gaze over your shoulder to where you struck the trunk, a coaled mark charred there into the bark, before returning his attention back to you. You meet his eyes, despite the blackness of his helm— you hold them, for a breathless, ageless moment, you hold him there.

“Not bad.”

He can’t muffle the jolt of his heart as it rumbles through his chest, breaking his mouth wide open into an aching smirk. He doesn’t know if you hear it. He fears you might.

He prays you do.

///

“Cooling vents,”

Metal scrapes against the table as you place the delicate bits down, deconstructing the blaster. The Mandalorian nods, silent as a specter.

“Gas refill valve,”

Another clunk.

“Actuating blaster…” You turn over a particularly knobby bulb before peeking up at Mando through your lashes, a wry grin tugging rosy and coy at your lips. “… thing-”

“Module,” Din corrects.

“Module, right, that’s what I said.”

He sits across the galley from you, arms folded over his chest as he eases back against the hull of the ship, overseeing as you take apart the blaster, the slender little thing he gave to you - he rarely uses it anyways - as you name the pieces and parts just like he’s taught you.

“Keep it,” he told you.

You resisted. You fought it, laughed it off incredulously— stubborn to the end— argued you wouldn’t even have a need for it.

“What am I gonna do with a gun, Mando?” you balked, and Maker he’d hoped you’d never have to use it, would never have to see a firefight in your damn life let alone be in the middle of one, but he wants you to have it— have a part of him, strapped to your hip— the closest he’ll get.

He’s selfish. Din is a greedy, selfish man. He wants to see himself on you, wants you to carry him around like a souvenir from something unforgettable— something irreplaceable— a memory like warm bathwater you dip into long after it passes, and he’ll take whatever he can get— just like you, hungry for anything you’re gracious enough to feed him. And fuck, if he doesn’t hate it— doesn’t want to bury that feeling, cold and lifeless, six feet under the earth. No ceremony. No elegies. Dead and gone, returning to the dust from whence it came, crawling back into the ribcage it sprung from.

Din said your name. Firm— gentle, too.

“Keep it.”

They’ve been at this ever since you managed to hit the target that first time. Hours have passed, dawdling by on the fat little legs of a toddler, plodding and slow. The sun had set, and winged bugs the length of your palm had taken up residency in the dark rainforest, making themselves known with a haunting tune, screeching and singing into the lush wood. After the child had tried making a pass at one, no doubt in the mood for a quick snack - isn’t he always - you had agreed to retire back inside the Crest.

You were so excited, your whole face lit up— like fireworks he remembered once, through the eyes of a boy in the summered night— and you wanted more; like a sponge, sopping up all you could, sucking Din in and ringing him out for it and fuck, he couldn’t say no.

He can’t say no to you.

You start prattling out questions about everything and nothing - what blaster do you prefer, do you have a favorite rifle, what’s the difference between plasma and gas charges, you have a flamethrower on your wrist? - and before long you get him lecturing, going on about weapon safety and trigger discipline and slide bites and ammunition rounds and gun brands and serial numbers and Din knows this isn’t you. You’re a borderline pacifist for kriff’s sake— he’s almost certain that if push came to shove, you’d rather lay down your life than take one. You’re no gunslinger, and you don’t hold any aspirations to become one.

But here you are, fist tucked under your chin and leaning in to him, hanging off his every word.

You have no personal interest in weapons. Frankly you’d be pleased if you never held a gun again in your life. No, and whether Mando realizes it or not, you want to know because it’s him. You want to know him. And maybe it’s because its the most he’s given to you since you stepped foot aboard the Razor Crest— almost a month, and what you’ve gotten from him today alone has been more than he’s given in weeks— not a door so much as it is a window into his life, an allowance, a glimpse behind the beskar. Its more attention, more words and insights, more tiny gestures and maybe you’ve been a little starved for it— maybe you’ll eat up any scraps Mando tosses with a calloused glove, molded and rotting, from his plate.

Even if it’s this, even if its fucking firearms.

You want to know.

It’s who you are: it doesn’t matter what someone’s passionate about, you’re interested in their interests. You care what they care about. If they matter, then it matters. It’s who you are, webbed and weaved into the innermost fabric of your being, and you can’t pretend to be anything else; you don’t know how to unbecome.

You’re splayed before him— a bleating heart, kaleidoscoping and blooming and twisting in his hands. If only you could pry open your chest— turn yourself inside out at the seams, spill yourself to splatter, sanguined and slippery right there on the deck. You’d do it, if you could.

Am I loving enough Am I giving enough Have I paid my debts Am I worth this now, finally— Worth that which I offer, have I earned it back

So effortless, this vignette, seated here in his galley, dismembering a blaster and labeling the parts, terminology klutzy on your tongue— tripping over yourself just to get it out— looking to him for hints and clues, fluttering your doe eyes with cartoonish bats.

He answers. You laugh. He smiles.

The kid is in his pram, entranced by all the shiny baubles and bobbins just out of his reach - thank the Maker - and giggles at their little game— happy, for once, just to watch.

You and me both kid, Din thinks. You and me both.

209 notes · View notes

maxwell-grant · 3 years

Note

So that ask about a Doc Savage/The Shadow crossover (which as an aside, I agree that Doc is probably the worst of the archetype he is functionally the Ur-Example of that isn’t an intentional deconstruction focusing on his worst eugenicist/borderline-fascist aspects to create a villain) has me thinking: what exactly would be the boundaries for a good, well-written crossover between the Shadow and different genres or eras of what we all collectively call pulp? Could someone do a crossover between the Shadow and Indiana Jones that didn’t rely on one or the other being little more than a glorified cameo in a small portion of what was essentially the other’s story, or reducing the former to his lamest two-dimensional “gun-toting homicidal maniac” interpretations? Could the Shadow ever functionally exist in a universe shared with a space opera setting like the Lensman series? It seems like one could theoretically do a crossover between the Shadow and a character of the same era like Nero Wolfe or Sam Spade, but would it strain credulity to attempt it with characters from an updated form of the private detective archetype like Thomas Magnum’s Hawaiian noir or Rick Deckard’s cyberpunk dystopia? Obviously not expecting answers to each of these hypotheticals specifically, just as examples of the kind of thing I’m wondering now.

I will be going through some of your hypotheticals though, you clearly gave a lot of thought to this and it's only fair I respond in turn. I am always eager to respond anyone who wants to ask specifics about writing The Shadow, because much of what I strive to do through this blog is to just inform people about the many, many things that made The Shadow great, the things that have been neglected, and to provide paths anyone who wishes to write the character may take. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to write The Shadow someday, but the least I can do is spread knowledge as I work my way there. I'd like to think I've done allright so far.

It's a fairly big question though so we're gonna through it by pieces...

...not THAT way

what exactly would be the boundaries for a good, well-written crossover between the Shadow and different genres or eras of what we all collectively call pulp?

Part of the reason why I did a post yesterday on The Shadow's influences is because looking at them, looking at a character's influences and history, I think are always essential to the prospect of tackling them. And in that regard, The Shadow doesn't actually have much, if any, boundaries stopping him from crossing over with just about anything. The most that's stopping the pulp heroes currently is, besides legal issues, their time periods and obscurity, but The Shadow is the most famous of them all, and a lot of stories have already worked with the idea that he's immortal (which I have my misgivings with, but for better or worse is clearly not going anywhere, and it's not a unworkable concept).

Right from the start, The Shadow was designed to be a long-running, versatile character that could partake in whatever adventures they felt like telling, and part of this is due not just to an incredibly strong personality not afforded to most pulp heroes or characters in general, even those who tried imitating him, but also the fact that he often takes a narrative backseat to the agents and proxy heroes, which means he doesn't have to carry a narrative by his own (and is in fact best suited not to), can blend in to just about anyone's story, and still stand out and be the center of sprawling mysteries. Actually, I'm gonna let Walter Gibson answer this one for you:

While his major missions were to stamp out mobs or smash spy rings, he often tabled such routines in order to find a missing heir, uncover buried treasure, banish a ghost from a haunted house or oust a dictator from a mythical republic.

There was no limitation to the story themes as long as they came within the standards of credibility--which proved easy, since The Shadow was such an incredible character in his own right that almost anything he encountered was accepted by his ardent followers.

Widespread surveys taken while the magazine was appearing monthly showed that a large majority of newsstands sold nearly all their copies within the first two weeks of issue. While other character magazines might show an early flurry, their sales were either spread evenly over the entire period or gained their impetus about the middle of the mouth and sometimes not until the third or even the fourth week.

From the writing standpoint, this made it advisable to adhere more closely to the Cranston guise and to emphasize the parts played by The Shadow's well-established agents, since regular readers evidently liked them. Also, it meant "keeping ahead" of those regulars, with new surprises, double twists in "whodunit" plots, and most exacting of all a succession of villains who necessarily grew mightier and more monstrous as The Shadow disposed of their predecessors.

Always, his traits and purposes were defined through the observations and reactions of persons with whom he came in contact, which meant that the reader formed his opinion from theirs.

This gave The Shadow a marked advantage over mystery characters forced to maintain fixed patterns and made it easy to write about him. There was never need for lengthy debate regarding what The Shadow should do next, or what course he should follow to keep in character. He could meet any exigency on the spur of the moment, and if he suddenly acted in a manner opposed to his usual custom, it could always be explained later.

The Shadow’s very versatility opened a vast vista of story prospects from the start of the series onward. In the earlier stories, he was described as a “phantom,” an “avenger,”, and a “superman,” so he could play any such parts and still be quite in character. In fact, all three of those terms were borrowed by other writers to serve as titles for other characters.

Almost any situation involving crime could be adapted to The Shadow’s purposes

The final rule was this: put The Shadow anywhere, in any locale, among friends or associates, even in a place of absolute security, and almost immediately crime, menace or mystery would begin to swirl about him, either threatening him personally or gathering him in its vortex to carry him off to fields where antagonists awaited.

That was his forte throughout all his adventures. Always, his escapes were worked out beforehand, so that they would never exceed the bounds of plausibility when detailed in narrative form. And that was the great secret of The Shadow.”

In some regards, The Shadow is a mirror. He presents himself to people the way that's best suited to them, the way they'd like him to be, the way he needs to be to affect them. They want money, he has it. They want honor, glory and purpose, he gives them that. They want to fight and turn around social systems for the better, he funds their dreams. Gangsters want the underworld's greatest hitman on their side, he becomes that and lets it be their doom. The story calls for a rich aristocrat who can rub elbows with politicians and kings and presidents, he can do that as long as it suits him. Kent Allard can be a world famous celebrity in one story and a disfigured, broke and faceless nobody in the next. You want a kind janitor with unexpected fighting skill to spy on police and assist the homeless, he has a little someone named Fritz for the occasion. You want an evil monster to be defeated, bring out Ying Ko. Hell, James Patterson's upcoming Shadow novel, which by all reviews seems to be pretty lousy, apparently features The Shadow transforming into a cat. Why? Screw you, that's why! But you'd never see James Bond or Batman spontaneously transforming into a cat without outside interference. He's The Shadow, he's got a face for everything.

(Okay to be clear I don't actually want the Shadow to literally transform into animals, at least not without a good explanation which the book clearly doesn't provide, but I do think it illustrates my point about how generally weird he is)

He is a shapeshifter who can be just about any character in any given narrative who only reveals himself when it's time to materialize into a cloaked terror or a familiar face (whether it's Cranston or Allard or Arnaud and so on). War stories, romance stories, sci-fi stories, globetrotting stories, parody stories, he's done all of them and then some. He doesn't need to be the protagonist of a story, he doesn't need to be invincible, and he doesn't really have any set rules regarding powerset. Gibson stressed credibility a lot, but for over 70 years now, that's clearly gone by the window of the character's writing. By design, he was always meant to be able to smoothly integrate into any existing narrative. Frankly, the only thing that's really holding him back (or saving him, depending on how you look at it) is the fact that he's not public domain (yet).

I think for a start, it's not so much boundaries, because in make believe land boundaries are just things to be overcome on the way to telling a story, so much as it's a good working knowledge of the character and of how far you are willing to stretch your storytelling limitations to include him, because he can account for just about all of them. Now, obviously there's stuff that works for the character better than others, a lot of Shadow fans don't like it when they take the character too much into fantasy, there's debates on how superpowered should he be if at all, and so forth. I have my own preferences, but one of the bigger tests of long-running characters is how can they succeed and thrive when placed outside of their element, and The Shadow can do that.

Could someone do a crossover between the Shadow and Indiana Jones that didn’t rely on one or the other being little more than a glorified cameo in a small portion of what was essentially the other’s story, or reducing the former to his lamest two-dimensional “gun-toting homicidal maniac” interpretations?

would it strain credulity to attempt it with characters from an updated form of the private detective archetype like Thomas Magnum’s Hawaiian noir

Well regarding the first question, the latter portion I think is very easy to do. Just, don't write him like that. Just be aware of why that's a mischaracterization, why the character doesn't need that to work, why he works better without it, and so on. It shouldn't be that hard.

Regarding Indiana Jones and Thomas Magnum, I think these two actually lend themselves very easily to crossovers with The Shadow. On Indy's case, he already is a Pulp Hero operating in the same time period, who's got a heavily contrasting niche and personality to build a fun dynamic around. Indy is more story-driven, in the sense that the Indiana Jones moves are all centered around his experiences and point of view and growth as a person, compared to The Shadow's stories, which are not really about "his" story as much as they are about the stories of the people he comes in contact with. Indy is a blockbuster superstar while The Shadow lurks and slithers through the edges and cracks of a story until it's time to strike. But if anything that just makes even more of a case as to why they could team up without issue, since there's a further built-in complimentary contrast to work with.

I have never watched Magnum P.I so there's definitely stuff I might be missing, but looking him up, past the necessary explanation as to why The Shadow's hanging around the 80s, it wouldn't strain credulity at all for the two to team up. The Shadow has had Caribbean/beach-themed adventures and one unrecorded adventure in Honolulu, he has a beach bum secret identity called Portuguese Joe that he could use for this occasion, and Magnum seems like exactly the kind of character who could star as the proxy hero of a Shadow novel. He's lively and friendly and can look after himself, he has a job that leads him to trouble and puts him on contact with criminals as well as victims, he's got secrets and a dark past and a laundry list of character flaws, he's perfectly capable of carrying a story by himself but can be out of his depth in the schemes that he gets caught up in.

Could the Shadow ever functionally exist in a universe shared with a space opera setting like the Lensman series? Or Rick Deckard’s cyberpunk dystopia?

I'm going to tackle parts of this question more throughly when I answer one in my query that's asking me "How would you do The Shadow in modern day?", which I still haven't gotten around to answering because it's a tricky one. I won't go into the specifics for the two examples you listed because I've never read the Lensman books and googling about them hasn't helped much very much, and Deckard's a fairly standard P.I character mostly elevated by the movie he's in, there's not really much to discuss regarding him specifically interacting with The Shadow. The question you're asking me here seems to generally be: Could The Shadow functionally exist in settings so radically apart from the 30s Depression era he was made for?

My answer for this is a maybe leaning towards yes. Starting with the fact that the concept of The Shadow is more suited for allegorical fantasy along the lines of space operas and cyberpunk, than the gritty realism he's been saddled with for decades, which I'll get into another time. For some reason, a lot of people seem to harp on about how the Shadow's costume is impractical and unworkable for modern times, and said James Patterson novel mentioned above ditched it all together, which as you can guess was a massively unpopular decision. Matt Wagner talked once about how cities don't have shadows and men wearing hats anymore and that's part of why you can't have The Shadow in modern times (as if The Shadow was always supposed to be dressing like an average guy, and not cowboy Dracula). But nobody seems to have a problem with characters dressing up exactly like The Shadow showing up all the time in dystopian future cities with fashion senses where they stick out like a sore thumb (and really, they should stick out, otherwise what's the point of being all weird and dark and mysterious?)

Although The Shadow is specifically suited for urban settings, is conceptually rooted in 1930s America, and there are important facets of his characterization related to history like the Great War, there are not the be-all end-all of The Shadow. It's part of the character. Other parts integral to the character are, as mentioned above, the versatility and metamorphous nature he was always intended to have. His nature as a character who exists to thrive in narratives not about him and not centered around him. His roots on Dracula and King Arthur and Oz and Lupin which are concepts that have had so, so many drastical revisions and turnabouts that still stuck to the basic principles of the icon.

Besides, The Shadow's already been there. He's already been to space, he's already been in alternate dimensions, he's already reawakened in modern/future times several times now (when he doesn't just live to them unchanged). He's been a cyborg twice, and between those, El Sombra, Vendata, X-9, the Shadow-referencing robot henchmen from Bob Morane and Yu-Gi-Oh's Jinzo referencing the movie's bridge scene, it's enough to constitute a weird pattern of The Shadow and Shadow-adjacent characters turning into robots. Perhaps one positive side effect of The Shadow's decades-long submersion in fantasy is that it's opened the character for just about anything, and I think this could be a good thing if it was married to an adherence to the things that made him such a juggernaut of an icon in the 30s and 40s.

Really, The Shadow partially works on Predator rules. And by that I mean, the big secret of the Predator that filmmakers don't seem to get is that the best way to make a Predator film is to just put the Predator somewhere he's not supposed to be, and let that play out. Because the Predator is, by design, a trespasser who invades narratives and turns the power dynamics around, and that works for any narrative you put it into.

The first movie is all about setting you up for a jungle action movie with Schwarzenegger's Sexual Tyrannosaurus Crew as the biggest baddest death squad around, only for the Predator to appear, turn the tables on these shitheads and pick them off one by one until Arnie scrapes a victory by beating it at it's own game. The 2nd movie is about a drug war between cops and gangs in L.A, until the Predator shows up and suddenly he's the big problem again that's gotta be put down. All the other movies fail because they try to be "about" the Predator, but the Predator doesn't work that way. He's a ugly motherfucker who's here to fight and kill things in cool ways for the sake of it's warrior game, who already has a specific structure to how his story's meant to play out, and that's all he needs to be. What you do is just take that character, take the structure he carries around, and throw it somewhere that works by different rules, and let the contrast play out the story.

Obviously there's a lot more to The Shadow than this, I write a billion essays on the guy after all, but much of what makes The Shadow work, much of what made The Shadow such an icon at the decade of his debut and such an interesting character to revolve any kinds of stories around, was because of the great contrast he posed to everything surrounding him, and the ways he can both be at the forefront as well as the backseat of any story.

Going back to what Gibson said:

Almost any situation involving crime could be adapted to The Shadow’s purposes. He could meet any exigency on the spur of the moment, and if he suddenly acted in a manner opposed to his usual custom, it could always be explained later.

The Shadow was such an incredible character in his own right that almost anything he encountered was accepted by his ardent followers.

advisable to emphasize the parts played by The Shadow's well-established agents, since regular readers evidently liked them.

The keyword here isn't that the Shadow should be realistic, frankly that's always been a lost cause. He was never really that realistic, and it's unfair to expect writers to keep pace with Gibson who had lifelong experience with the in and outs of magic and daring escapes and whatnot. The keywords I want to stress here is "accepted by his ardent followers".

Make a good explanation, an explanation that fits the character, an explanation that works, and the rest will follow. And if you can't, make us like the character. Make us accept that he can do and be all these things. Give us something to be invested in. And if that can't be The Shadow himself because he has to stay at arms length constantly to be mysterious, Gibson cracked the code almost a century ago through the agents. Make us invested in them, and through them, we will become invested in The Shadow.

The pulp Shadow would get tired, get injured, need rescuing, need to stop and rest and catch his breath, would need to think and plan and make split decisions on the spot and sometimes would make the wrong ones only to reverse them in the nick of time, and it made the fact that he was achieving all these things all the more impressive. The pulp Shadow was a creature of fantasy grounded in the history of the world he was a part of.

If you can make people care about The Shadow, be truly, genuinely invested in him and his world and the people he comes in contact with, be as invested in those as audiences were back then, you can and maybe should put him anywhere, doing anything, as long as you know what you're doing. As long as you understand what makes The Shadow tick, what makes him work and what doesn't, and whatnot.

Which is a lot of words for "do whatever you want, just don't fuck it up"

#replies tag #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #the shadow #lamont cranston #kent allard #the predator #indiana jones #thomas magnum

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 years

Text

Treat You Better

Warnings: non/dubcon sex, questionable relationship lines (kinda cuckold-ish).

This is dark!Bucky Barnes and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: Bucky wants what Peter has.

Note: Okay, so I mean, this fic doesn’t involve technical cheating but if you’re sensitive to it, I wouldn’t recommend reading. Also we got a very calculating Bucky and very clueless Peter. I hope y’all enjoy!

Let me know what you think!

You hated waiting. Worse, you hated waiting for Peter. Without fail he was always late. When you planned something, you always expected to do it at least a half hour later. Tonight, you had planned to go out for drinks after a long week apart. Classes and your respective obligations had kept you away from each other. Admittedly, his were more pressing.

Still, the semester started to drag by the more you were alone and you had fewer reprieves from the endless studying and inherent chaos of your dormitory. You had flagged the day in your phone and it had gotten you through the midterm stress.

But he was late. Not just a few minutes, but a whole hour. It didn’t matter, right? Drinks could wait. The bars would be open well past midnight. It was only...9:17! Mark that; an hour and fifteen minutes late.

You sighed and unlocked your phone as you leaned back on metal and leather chair. You re-read the text for dozenth time. ‘See ya at 8.’ He had sent you that. You had confirmed with a ‘can’t wait’ and heart emoji. He had sent you five hearts in return. Yet here you were, waiting on him.

You set your phone down a little harder than you intended. The spark of anger drew the eye of the only other person in the room. It was easy to forget Bucky, even when he was right beside you. He was quiet, unassuming.

When you entered he had muttered a greeting and you had returned it. You asked him how he was; he shrugged and returned a courteous but unconcerned ‘you?’ You echoed his sentiment and began your vigil.

“Sorry…” You gave a meek smile. “I…”

“It’s fine,” He assured you. His facade didn’t crack as he went back to swiping back and forth on the tablet. He had been poring over a briefing since you arrived. It didn’t seem very brief. He yawned and shifted on the leather couch.

You leaned on your elbow and stared down at the small font of your textbook. Medieval and Renaissance Art: Themes and Narratives. You rubbed your eyes and tried not to yawn yourself. You had taken the book out about half an hour into your wait. Studying was preferable to staring at your lifeless phone.

You huffed again and tapped your fingers on the table. Where was he? There was only so much you could read about the Sistine Chapel before you found yourself staring out the window and plotting your fateful descent.

“Just call him,” Bucky’s voice surprised you. His arm was stretched across the couch as he looked over his shoulder. “Kid probably forgot...almost forgot his damn suit the last time we worked together.”

“Sounds like him,” You grumbled.

“Do it,” He said, “Really. I can’t take you moping over...whatever it is your reading.”

You lifted a brow and his lips curved slightly. He was amused with himself. You picked up your phone and stood. You waved it at him with a tilt of your head and turned away. You hit Peter’s picture and waited for it to dial.

It took two tries. He picked up as you expected to be forwarded again to his voicemail and you stuttered on your greeting.

“Hey,” He answered nervously, “What’s up?”

“Um, I’m waiting...for our drinks,” You leaned on the table and tried to keep your voice down. “It’s almost 9:30.”

“Shit,” Peter cursed on the other end. You glanced over your shoulder at Bucky who was once again focused on his confidential files. “I’m so sorry, I thought I texted you.”

“Texted me?” You wondered.

“Yeah, uh, something came up,” The inflection made it sound more a question than a statement. “You know…business.”

You nodded. You didn’t miss the crack in his voice or the poorly muffled whisper from Ned. When those two were together, it was rarely business.

“I came all the way down here, Peter,” You hissed, “Now I gotta take the subway back. At night. Thanks for the heads up.”

“I swear, I thought I hit send.” He explained thinly. You frowned.

“Sure,” You didn’t feel like arguing. Maybe you were just tired. Frustrated. It didn’t matter. “Fine, I’ll see you...Monday?”

“Tomorrow!” He said sharply, as if surprised. “Promise, babe.”

“Tomorrow,” You replied unconvinced. “Sure….love ya.”

“You too, babe.” He returned, “I...gotta go.”

The line died before you could give your own farewell. You shook your head and tucked your phone in your pocket. You turned and rounded the table to close your textbook.

“You were right, he forgot,” You muttered as you shoved the book in your tote. “Good thing I didn’t sit here for an hour and a half waiting for nothing.” You said dryly. “Now that would be stupid.”

“Ah, fuck,” Bucky leaned forward and set down his tablet. You glanced over at him as you pulled on your canvas jacket. “Now, I don’t think I could forget something as important as you.”

“Please, don’t try to make it better,” You moaned, “Really. I’m just going to go home and write that stupid paper on Titian. What an exciting Friday night.”

“You want a ride?” He offered casually as he stood and stretched. He turned with his arms over his head, his lower stomach peeked out from beneath his tee. You tried not to notice the lines of his pelvis above his jeans.

“I appreciate it but I can manage myself.” You slung your bag over your shoulder. “I got a pass.”

“Come on, let me drive you,” He insisted though his voice was as detached as ever. “I got nothing better to do.”

“I don’t know, you seemed pretty entranced,” You kidded.

“It’ll be a nice break,” He said, “And hey, a step up from the subway. Instead of a train full of strange men, you’ll only have to deal with one.”

You scoffed and shook your head. “Alright, fine. You’ve twisted my arm.”

Bucky’s car was nice. You guessed it was a perk of working for Stark Industries. And saving the world. It was much preferable to the subway. You sank into the seat with your bag on your lap. You almost felt like a child as he turned the engine.

“So, where am I going?” He unlocked the gps on his console and brought up the address bar, “Type it in, will ya?” He steered with one hand as he pulled out. “Not the greatest without this thing...as much I don’t trust robots.”

You squinted at him but shrugged off the comment. His metal hand would’ve made you think he had a natural kinship with more mechanical. And his demeanour. The street lights flashed through the windows and lit up the lines of his face as he drove out onto the street. You keyed in your address and turned to watch the city pass through your window.

“So...never asked but you study science or whatever, too?” He prompted. You looked to him slowly. You were almost stunned by the question. Not the content, merely the speaker. You almost preferred his disinterest. You guessed he was merely making small talk.

“No,” You laughed, “I suck at science. Art. Yeah, I know, I’ll make a great barista.”

“Art, eh?” He nodded. “I like art. God, that sounds like I’m stupid.” He chuckled. “You know, during the war, there was lots of stolen art. Some hidden away to prevent that. Some never found.” He cleared his throat as he turned the wheel.

“We were on our way to Germany. We’d clear towns along the way. Some of them’d be blown out so bad you couldn’t step inside for fear of it all falling on your head.” His eyes searched the road as if he was seeing another city entirely. “Others, totally untouched. Towns just empty. The people fled to avoid the same carnage...or they were dragged out by their invaders.”

You nodded. You didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t ever spoken so much in your presence. Even with Peter around.

“Anyway, we found this one apartment. It must’ve been locked up for well over a year. Place was covered in dust but...paintings everywhere. On the couches, in the kitchen sink, just dozens of them. We had them taken back to headquarters...I knew this one CO though, had him send a Monet to my ma. She loved flowers, you know?”

“Monet?” You were stunned. You’d only ever seen the famous paintings in your textbooks and on the walls of museums. “Wow. I…”

“Don’t know if it ever got to her though,” He said. “I never did.”

You bit the inside of your lip. What could you say that wouldn’t seem entirely obtuse?

“Ah, don’t worry so much.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I get a bit heavy. That’s the past though…” He stopped at a light and looked over at you. “So, you’re an artist?”

“I guess,” You said. “I like to paint and my portfolio got me into the program so...for now, I am. Until I’m off into the world of corporate desk jobs and retail gigs.”

“Ah, I see why Peter likes you. You’re a hell of an optimist,” He joked as he hit the gas and looked back to the road.

Your phone vibrated and you reached into your pocket. “No use running from the…” Your screen lit up and you swiped up to view the snap. Your voice died as you watched the video in awe and anger. “I knew it!”

You hit lock and the screen went black. Your nostrils flared and you clamped your mouth shut in a scowl. You squeezed your phone and shook your head. Bucky’s eyes flicked to the rear view than you and back through the windscreen. He laughed again.

“What?” You couldn’t help the growl.

“You,” He smirked, “You’re...cute when you’re angry. Like a little chipmunk.” You frowned deeper. “I mean...you’re fiery. It’s...I always wondered how a girl like you got mixed up with the Spider-man but I’m starting to think you might be more formidable than him.” You narrowed your eyes and he peeked over at you again. “Look, it’s a compliment. I’m not very good at them but take it for what it’s worth.”

“Gee, thanks,” You crossed your arms over your tote, “I’m flattered.”

He pulled into your dormitory parking lot and brought the car to a stop as the gps announced your arrival. “Look, try not to stress about it. He’s young, stupid. You got your whole life to be mad at him.” He said. “Or to explore your options. Who knows?”

“My type of optimism,” You chided. You grabbed the handle and inched the door open. “Thanks. Really. You didn’t have to.”

“No problem. It gave me an excuse to get off the couch,” He leaned his arm against your seat, “Hit me up if he does it again. Can’t have a girl like you on the subway so late.”

You couldn’t help the smile and you opened the door all the way as you stepped out. “Thanks. Have a good night, Bucky.”

“You too, doll.” His vibranium fingers tightened on the wheel. “Take care of yourself. Don’t let the boy get you down.”

You closed the door and stepped back. He pulled out and around the lot. You watched him leave, his headlights disappeared into the city haze and you retreated to the gate of your dorm. What an odd night. Not exactly the end you were expecting.

Bucky lifted the bar, a small breath escaped him. The muscles in his right arm strained and a shock surged at the base of his vibranium arm. While he could lift the weight with his left arm alone, he worked to keep his right as strong as he could. He may have only one arm but he didn’t want to fight like it.

His time in the gym was his alone time. A sort of meditation. He could forget about everything and just be. His body was intuitive. He moved from machine to machine with ease. His body fell easily into the patterns; running, push-ups, lifting.

He set down the bar and sat up as he rubbed his right hand. The metal of his left was warm. He stretched his vibranium fingers and watched the plates slide back into place. He moved his head from side to side to work out the kink along his shoulders.

The door opened and closed. He was rarely caught off-guard but his head wasn’t as clear as usual. It hadn’t been lately. Two nights ago he had drove her home and ever since she hadn’t left his mind. When she got out of his car, he could still smell her. She smelled of strawberries. Good enough to eat.

He stood as he turned to the intruder. Peter smiled at him and Bucky had to keep from scowling. When he thought of her, he couldn’t help but think of the boy. He was a kid truly, not to see what he had right in front of him. It filled Bucky with resent. She was so sweet, so devoted to the flaky college kid, and Peter was entirely oblivious.

“Sorry, Mr. Bucky, I was just comin’ to train,” For god’s sake, the kid still called him mister.

He shook his head and shrugged as he dropped and began another set of push-ups. “Thought there was a gym at the school.” He grunted.

“Yeah…” Peter let his voice trail off as he set his gym bag on the bench. “It’s too crowded there.”

“Mmm,” Bucky lost count after ten.

He couldn’t concentrate on the numbers as his mind strayed once more. As he lifted himself up and down, he couldn’t help but think of her. Picture her below him. He felt a stir in his shorts and held back a groan. Fuck. The things he’d do to her.

She was so delicate. He could only imagine the ways he could break her with his iron touch. She’d wilt like a flow. The juices would flow from the sweet berry and fill his mouth. He sniffed and brought himself to a halt.

He rolled onto his back and stretched out each leg. His cool down exercises would help him calm down. He was getting far too worked up over Peter’s girl. Yes, Peter’s girl. He shouldn’t have to remind himself of that.

He stood and stretched out his arms. “So, how’d your little date go with the girl?”

Peter looked at him curiously as he began to warm up. “How’d you know about that?” His voice was higher than usual.

“She was here all night waiting for you,” He replied, “Friday, that is.”

“Oh,” Peter blinked and frowned. “Well, I kinda forgot we were supposed to meet.”

“And yesterday?” Bucky prodded. He should back off. It wasn’t his business.

“I, uh...we saw a movie,” Peter squinted at him. “Why are you so concerned?”

“No reason. Drove the girl back to her dorm. She seemed down,” He tried to seem nonchalant but could barely ignored the thrill it sent up his spin. “Just...I dunno, she’s a special one. You should treat her like she is.”

“You drove her home?” Peter stopped his own stretches as the thoughts wrinkled along his forehead. “Why?”

“Didn’t want her to take the subway that late,” Bucky said coolly. “Not safe, ya know?”

“Ya,” Peter nodded and bent an arm behind his head. “I guess you’re right.”

Bucky finished up and grabbed his hoodie from the bench. He drained the last of his water and watched the kid as he began a set of sit-ups. He made it halfway to the door before he turned back. He neared the kid and stood over him. He looked down as Peter fell flat.

“What?” Peter asked.

“You really upset the girl,” Bucky said, “I doubt whatever you were doing with that friend of yours was worth it.”

“What do you care?” Peter leaned on his hands as he sat up. “She’s my girlfriend.”

“Then start acting like it,” Bucky snapped.

“Hey,” Peter hopped up to his feet. He still had to look up at the super soldier. “I don’t appreciate you getting involved, Mister.”

“Mister?” Bucky scoffed. “Ah, kid, you need to grow up. Women get tired of boys. Quickly.”

“I’m not a boy,” Peter snarled. “You need to back off.”

“Tell your girl the same,” Bucky didn’t know why he said it. It just seemed right. A bit of revenge on her behalf. A little jealousy always put things into perspective. “She’s very talkative.” Bucky let his voice linger in the air. “...Very...friendly.”

“Leave her alone!” Bucky was surprised by the kid’s strength. He very nearly stepped back as Peter shoved him.

“Oh don’t you worry. It was all innocent,” Bucky smirked. “She’s loyal, almost to a fault. But you’re pushing her to her limit. One of these days--”

“One of these days what?” Peter spat. “Why don’t you mind your own business, old man?”

“Key word being man,” Bucky countered. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Bucky patted his shoulder and backed away. He draped his hoodie over his shoulder as he pulled open the door and glanced at the kid as he stepped into the hall. Their eyes met in unspoken challenge.

The door closed between them and Bucky chuckled. His chest fluttered wildly as he pictured her face. Imagined how her body would feel against his. He’d just have to wait until the kid slipped up again.

“How many times do I have to repeat myself until you hear me?” You pulled away from Peter.

You had been entirely content until he spoiled it all. Nestled up together on the couch watching a movie on Netflix. The compound lounge was empty and peaceful. Or at least, it had been.

“I forgot,” Peter’s hand brushed your lower back as you stood and turned on him. “I’m sorry.”

“You forgot. Again. Big surprise. Anything to do with me, you always forget,” You evaded him as he rose and reached out to you. “Goddamn it, Peter. I told you about this two months ago. I’ve reminded you constantly and you just don’t even care.”

“I can tell Happy to reschedule the whole thing.” He pleaded as he followed you around the sofa.

“That’s not the point, Peter,” You growled and turned on him. He nearly tripped as you bore down on him, your finger in his face. “I’m tired of feeling like this. Ignored. A burden.”

“You’re not--”

“I am. Fuck, Pete, I don’t wanna be your biggest priority but I at least wanna be on the list,” You spat. “I mean, we both have our lives, our responsibilities. We knew that when we got into this but...you never treated my time like it was worth anything.”

He tried to grab your hand and you shoved him away. His eyes rounded in hurt.

“Peter!” You exclaimed, exasperated, “Or should I call you the amazing Spider-man, hmm? Our greatest hero. You can’t do any wrong.”

“You can’t hold that against me,” Peter shook his head.

“I don’t, Peter,” You lowered your voice. “I don’t expect you to drop everything for me, I just expect you to give me something. Anything.” You sighed and crossed your arms. “We’re on different roads, Peter. We can’t turn back now.”

“No, you...Please,” His face drained of colour. “You can’t mean it.”

“I can’t live like this. I can’t try anymore, not when you don’t.” You pressed your lips together and sniffed back your tears. “I might not be a hero but I can’t handle it all. School, you, work. I...You should enjoy it. College. We only get these years once and obviously I’m just an obstacle.”

“Don’t say that,” He neared and you hung your head. “I...can change.”

“People don’t change, Peter,” You let him hug you, his chin on your head. “Not for others. One day you’ll be ready for a relationship, I will too. But now…” You slowly drew away and hid your face. You grabbed your purse from the table. “I don’t think either of us are ready.”

“Please don’t leave,” Peter’s voice cracked as you pulled on your jacket. “Please…”

“Go save the world, Peter, it’s what your meant to do,” You opened the door and looked back at him. “But it’s not for me. This life...you’re much braver than me.”

You closed the door behind you. The hall was cold, it sent a shiver up your spine. Or was that the pit in your stomach. The twist of your insides as reality struck you across the face. It was over. Two years, done. Even if you had seen it coming, it still hurt. Inevitability was just as painful as chance.

The tears began to fall when you reached the elevator. You wiped your cheeks as you waited for the doors to ding. You were startled as a shadow appeared at the edge of your sight. You turned and brushed away the last of your tears with your sleeve. But it wasn’t Peter.

“Hey, you okay?” Bucky neared and you shied away. You sniffed again.

“I’m fine, I…” Your voice was nasally from crying.

“What’s going on?” He asked kindly. He stared at you and his blue eyes sparkled. “What did he do?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” You looked past him. “It’s...stupid college kids, you know?”

“Youth is...dramatic,” Bucky said lightly. “Doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to feel the way you do.”

You looked at him. He wore a leather jacket over his tee and his usual combat boots. He was on his way out too.

“What are you doing up?” You wondered. “It’s a bit late, isn’t it?”

“You telling me it’s late,” He scoffed as the elevator doors chimed and slid open. He waved you in ahead of him. “What about you, young lady? Out after dark?”

You laughed. “You got me,” You resigned. “I’m headed home. To sulk alone.”

He nodded and the elevator began its descent. You took out your phone and fiddled with it nervously. The silence that rose was tense. You were both thinking of what to say but neither could muster a word. You tucked your phone away and sighed as the elevator stopped.

“Hey,” He followed you out, “Wait, come on, it’s almost midnight. You need a ride?”

“I’ll be fine, really.” You assured him as he kept stride with you. “I’d hate to treat you like a chauffeur.”

“I don’t mind. Really.” He stepped ahead of you and blocked the door. “I wouldn’t feel right letting you take the subway this late. Alone.”

You squinted at him. Why did he care so much? While the gesture was nice, you weren’t so sure about his intent. Wait, this was Bucky. He was an Avenger. A hero just like Peter. Did you really prefer the underground creeps to him?

“I…” You bit your lip and peered through the glass doors on the other side of him. “...dunno.”

“Or maybe…” His lips twitched before he grasped his thought, “You wanna join me for a drink? I was just headed to this bar down the street. One drink in exchange for a ride. Fair trade, right?”

“A drink?” You raised a brow.

“Totally friendly, I promise. But you seem like you could use one,” He smiled, “I always heard it was bad to go to sleep angry.”

You stared at him as you thought. You dragged your tongue along your bottom lip as you weighed your options. You were on edge and you knew it would only get worse once you were home to stew in your self-pity.

“Alright, I suppose a drink is the least I can do,” You accepted. He turned and opened the door and waited for you to pass through. “But wait…” You stopped before the second door, “Should you be driving if you’re drinking?”

“Yeah, uh, my tolerance is...the serum kinda cancels out the alcohol.” He moved past you and grabbed the second door.

“So you drink for the taste?” You stepped out onto the street and he followed.

“It’s actually pretty sweet without the burn,” He shrugged. You walked side by side down the pavement. “And I like the bar. Small, quiet. As much as I hate crowds, it’s comforting, you know?”

“Ah,” You let him lead you to the corner and he stopped you at a small door under a plain wooden sign. “Oh, this place it cute.” You looked up at the simple moniker.

“Yeah, Peter said it was a hipster joint but I don’t really know what that means.” Bucky opened the door, once more gesturing you through. You frowned at the mention of your boyfriend. Ahem, ex-boyfriend. He noticed and winced. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine. It was my decision…” You shook off the sudden wave of gloom. “Look, let’s get that drink and forget about it. That’s all I wanna do.”

You entered and he followed closely behind. The bartender recognized him as you approached and Bucky greeted the woman as ‘Laura’. You smiled at her as she poured another customer’s drink. She turned to you as you dug out your wallet.

“I’ll have a gin and soda,” You said above the low din, “A lime too, if you have it. And uh, whatever he drinks.”

“Actually, I’ll try that,” He intoned, “Sounds interesting.”

You waited for your drinks and handed over your cash. You left the change as a tip and Bucky led you to a table in the corner. He sat and you did the same, dribbling a little gin down your fingers. You sipped through the thin straw and shook the moisture from your hand.

“So, how’s school?” He asked before another deathly silence could rise.

“Oh, it’s school,” You rolled your eyes, “Mostly papers and seminars. Nothing interesting. I mean, come on. You don’t wanna hear about the lameness that is the life of an art major.”

“Yeah? You’d be surprised how much paperwork is behind fighting the bad guys,” He replied, “Plus the mishap with Sam’s wings...that’s not going over well.”

“Mishap?” You prodded. “What exactly happened with the wings?”

“Well, airports don’t take well to unidentified air crafts in their zones,” Bucky chuckled, “We kind ran into some heat over Heathrow…”

One drink turned into two, which turned into a tequila shot and a third. Bucky was surprisingly good company. A nice distraction from the grief brewing at the back of your mind. You had thought of asking for that ride but the thought of being alone made you sick. Or was that the alcohol?

You giggled as you finished off your third gin and hid your mouth behind your hand as a belch threatened to rise. Bucky was entirely sober as he watched you lean back heavily in your chair. As a university student, you envied his tolerance.

“Another?” He offered as he looked to the bar.

“No, no,” You raised your hand, “No. I can’t handle anymore.”

“Lightweight,” He teased and you scowled. “There it is.”

“What?” You wiped the irritation from your face.

“That little furrow,” He pointed between his brows, “The chipmunk face.”

“Stop!” You whined and reached for your phone. 2:37 am. Holy shit! “Oh my god, it’s so late. Or early, I guess.”

“So it is,” He glanced over at your screen, “Last call already.”

“I should...go,” You stood with a wobble. You steadied yourself and untangled your purse from the back of the chair.

“Yeah, we should probably head out,” He rose and stretched his arms and grabbed his leather jacket.

“Urgh, I can’t wait to lay down,” You pulled on your canvas jacket as you followed him to the door. “What a long night?”

You yawned as you stumbled out onto the sidewalk. He was quick to catch you. His arm around your waist as he turned you in the right direction. “Careful,” He warned as he led you down the pavement. “Can’t have you messing up that pretty face of yours.”

Your cheeks burned and your lashes fluttered. You reached up to rub your neck as the heat spread. “Ha, you’re too sweet.”

“And you’re...drunk,” He chuckled as you leaned into him without thinking. He smelled of sandalwood and sweat. A hint of alcohol clung to him, too. “Come on, let’s get you back while you can still walk.”

“I’m not that bad,” You protested and elbowed him.

“Sure,” He said dryly and you sneered at his doubt.

He turned you into Stark Tower, through the two glass doors, and towards the elevator. It wasn’t until you were in the rising box that you realized you were going in the wrong direction.

“Wait…” You slurred as his arm slipped, “Why aren’t we...your car?”

He squeezed your ass and your squeaked in surprise. He turned to pin you against the elevator wall. His metal fingers pushed a stray hair back and you gasped. He leaned in as your heart hammered in your chest.

“Bucky,” You grabbed his forearm as it snaked around your hip, his hand kneaded your ass hungrily.

“You’re so fucking sexy, you know that?” He pressed his lips to yours sloppily and crushed you against the wall. You froze as his metal hand drifted down and cupped your breast. He pulled away as the floors ticked closer to the top. “Peter’s a stupid boy...how could he ever let you go?”

“He...how do you know that?” You breathed.

“Not hard to guess,” He smirked, his arm once more around your waist as the elevator doors opened and he as good as dragged you out. “Don’t worry, baby, we’re gonna show him what he’s missing out on.”

“Bucky,” You said weakly. Your head spun and the warmth of his arm hypnotized you. You felt safe; wanted. “We shouldn’t…”

“It’s okay, baby,” He pulled you around the next corner, “It’s just a little bit of fun. I know you uni girls…”

Another corner and another. He spun you against a door and his mouth was on yours again. He turned the handle as he held your hip with one hand. He devoured you as he urged you backwards into the room and kicked the door closed behind him. You clung to him to keep from stumbling, your lips working against his.

He reached up to slide your jacket down your shoulders. You let him as a small voice told you not to. His touch was hot. Intoxicating. Your jacket fell to the floor with your purse. He bunched the hem of your shirt up with his fingers. Up along your stomach and chest. He pulled away as he tugged it over your head, his eyes intent on your lacy black bra.

“Jesus,” He whispered.

Your mind was hazy, his broad shoulders blurred as he nudged you back. Your legs hit something and you fell onto the bed with a gasp. You felt him pull off your shoes, then your socks. His fingers worked deftly at the fly of your jeans as you lifted your head to watch him. This had to be a dream.

You giggled as he lifted your pelvis and glided your jeans down your legs. He stood and your vision cleared for a second as his eyes met yours. You glanced down at your body, the lacy bra and panties were all that were left to you.

“Stay there, baby,” He purred and you dropped your head. You couldn’t have moved if you tried.

You heard him moving around. You looked over as he emptied his pockets on the dresser and peeled off his leather jacket. He turned back to you and winked. His tongue poked out as he came nearer and pulled off his tee. He bent to unlace his boots and quickly kicked them off. He circled the bed as he undressed, watching you like a scavenger.

Your head lolled back and forth as you tried to keep track of him. The shadows blurred in your eyes and you closed them to still the ripple in your vision. You flinched when he touched you. His metal fingers were cold along your thighs as they crawled along the flesh. His other hand was warmer but rougher as it slid around your waist.

He lifted you and held you against him as he climbed up on the bed. He walked on his knees across the mattress and laid you down beneath him. His kiss was even more fervent than before. His tongue desperate as it slid past your lips. He ground his pelvis into you and you felt his erection through you sheer panties.

He parted and sat back on his heels. His hands explored your body as his eyes followed them. You looked down and gaped at his naked body. His cock was slightly curved but large. Your eyes rolled back as you wriggled beneath his touch.

"You're so precious, baby," He whispered as he reached around and popped open your bra with a flick.

You pouted as he tugged your bra from your arms. You caught it and he pulled it away easily. It dropped over the side of the bed and you shivered at the touch of his fingers along your hips. He guided the lace down your thighs and past your feet.

He tossed the panties away and bent over you. His lips trailed along your neck, shoulders, chest, and stomach. He hummed as the tip of his nose traced the line of your pelvis and you squirmed. His dark hair hung around his head and tickled you.

"Bucky," You breathed. "What are--"

You gulped as he kissed just above your pussy. He pushed your legs apart and bent them over his shoulders. The muscles of his shoulders rippled against your calves as he bent closer.

His slipped his tongue along the curve of your lips and pushed deeper. It was cool and sent a tingle along your thighs. You squeezed his head between your legs without thinking. His fingers danced along your ass and edged around your pussy.

He delved between your folds and you trilled. The sound was startling. Was it really you? His tongue moved from your clit to your entrance and back again. He swirled around your bud and suckled. He didn't let up, each flick of his tongue had you trembling.

You reached down to push away his head as the heat built. Instead your fingers buried in his dark hair and urged him deeper. He tickled your folds with his finger and circled your entrance. He pushed inside and you arched your back beneath him.

He drew his finger in and out before adding another. His mouth continued to play with your clit as he worked his hand. The pressure mounted and you moaned through your teeth.

His tongue and fingers moved faster. You could hear your wetness, feel it as he lapped it up. The knot unwound and you disassembled all at once. You whined as your orgasm radiated through you.

You twisted beneath him as he slowly parted from you. He looked down at you as you pressed your legs together and your hands fluttered over your torso. You closed your eyes and the after waves swept you away.

He chuckled and stroked his cock as he pulled your legs apart and dragged you closer. He rubbed his tip along your folds and it sent a shiver through you. You opened your eyes and watched as he pressed himself past your entrance. His head stretched you as he leaned over you.

He held himself up with his elbow beside your head as he slid into you. You gasped as he filled you to your limit. Your eyes went wide at the storm of lust and pain. He smiled down at your tortured delight.

"Yeah, baby," He pulled back slowly and eased back in. "You like that?"

You bit your lip and he cradled your head in his hand as he moved carefully. You shyly touched his hips; nudged him weakly as he worked against you.

"I can tell you like it." He whispered, "A girl like you needs a real man, eh?" He sped up just a little, "He can't fuck you like I can." He picked up again and you let out a mewl. "That's it, baby."

Your legs bent around him and your nails dug into his skin. Once more you felt the spring winding. His mouth smushed against yours and he nibbled your bottom lip as he parted and kissed along your cheek.

"Say my name, baby," His hips rose and fell in rhythm. "Say it."

"Bucky," You breathed.

"Again," He sped up.

"Bucky," You rasped as the heat licked at your skin.

"Louder," He urged as he rocked into you harder and harder. "Louder."

"Bucky," You raised your voice and he pushed himself up.

He grasped your hips as he sat back, his thighs against yours. His flesh clapped loudly against yours as he crashed into you. "Keep going," He hissed.

"Bucky!" You exclaimed as the tide rose higher. "Oh, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky…"

You yiped as the swell burst and you came with a violent shudder. He kept going until you were weak and breathless. Your fingers knotted in your hair.

He slowed and lingered in you. He wiggled his hips and you twitched.

"Turn over, baby," He rubbed along the back of your thigh. "I wanna see that pretty little ass."

He pulled out of you and you trembled as you struggled to move. You rolled over and raised yourself up on your knees. Your arms shook as you struggled to stay up.

He slapped your ass and you nearly fell forward. He seized your hips again and pulled you back against him. He entered you in a single motion. Your pussy squelched around him and you moaned.

All pretense was gone. He pounded into you and you fell down to your elbows. His pelvis crashed against your ass and he bent over you to fondle your tits. You purred and pushed back into him, longing for more.

His metal hand went to your throat and he sat up. He took you with him, your back against his muscled torso. His grip tightened as he fucked you without pause. His other hand found your pussy and his fingers twirled around your clit.

"Are you gonna cum again, baby?" He growled in your ear. You nodded and his fingers slackened just a little. "Let me hear it." His breath was hot along your temple. "Let me hear you cum."

"Ah, ah, ah," You panted and closed your eyes as another orgasm broke through. "I'm cum--cumming."

You shook and he caressed you through your climax before dragging his wet fingers along your stomach. His metal hand choked you as his other hooked around your shoulder and he forced you down harder onto his cock.

"Fuck, baby, can I cum in you? I'm gonna cum," His lips brushed over your hair.

"N-n-no," You wheezed and clawed at his hand. "N-not inside."

"Inside?" He snarled and sank into you completely. His hips twitched and he gave several long thrusts. He came as you batted helplessly at his metal hand. "God, baby, you feel so good."

He slowed and lowered your bodies together so that he was on top of you. He pushed inside as deep as he could and you cried out as he hit your cervix.

"You like it when I fill you up?" He ran his nose along your ear. "Hmm?"

You buried your face in the mattress and steadied your breath. He kissed the back of your head and pulled out of you carefully. You felt the stream of his cum and yours as it leaked between your thighs. You shook your head and the cloud grew thicker.

You rolled over as the bed shifted and you watched as Bucky's vague figure walked to the dresser. You sat up and squinted at him as he turned back with something in his hand. His phone was pointed at you as he neared.

"Bucky?" You blinked in confusion, "What--"

"Say hi," He smirked as he moved the lens up and down your body. Your mouth fell open as he turned the camera back on him. "Who's an old man now, Petey boy?"

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #dark!bucky barnes #dark bucky barnes #dark!bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes x reader #fic #au #one shot #captain america #mcu #marvel #peter parker #spider-man #dark!fic #darkverse #dark!verse

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alottamoney · 3 years

Note

This is very frustrating because you can't be messaged.Nevertheless I would like to share something very serious with you. These are strictly speculation. Firstly I would like to clear my position with Taekook.Long story short: I believe them.

Quite recently I stumbled upon a theory about Taekook's coming out process that seemed very logical to me.The summary of the theory is, the art that BTS has been releasing from the beginning,or from 2015-16 to be exact, have been quite evidently inspired by Taekook's journey from discovering themselves, to then losing themselves, to then finally be able to find their happiness and true-self with each other.From Stigma, to DNA,to FAKE LOVE.A lot of BTS songs are talking about a hurtful love filled with sadness.Also, the kind of songs Taekook listens to and covered from the beginning traces that journey from sadness to happiness.From the official songs,Singularity, The truth untold,Heartbeat,House of Cards,Whalien,Make it Right to name a few.It's justified to assume that BANGPD supports them and love them.But if it is so then why the separation from time to time?According to this theory it is to prepare the ARMY very slowly to getting used to Vkook.We have seen since 2017 taekook is used to promote the Album the most,to hype it up,and once the Album's released,it's the watchful eyes again.BangPd was very supportive of Jkwon,a kpop idol who likes drag.But he also told him that you cannot throw a stone into a still lake and expect everyone to be fine with it.It will take a long time to get the water to settle down.What bangpd is doing with Taekook is he is engineering a very long process of getting people used to the message of acceptance through messaging of their album,love myself,be yourself.He is creating a generation that is used to these ideas so that when that stone lands,there will be no ripple.

Now nitpicking time.Tae and BangPD share a mutual dislike for each other.It's not a secret.Because Tae made it obviously clear on many occasions. Everyone in the kpop world knows it.Starting from Taekook's relationship, V was being portrayed as a non-essential member.Idk if it was a coincidence,but taekook is the king of coincidence and the timing somehow matches.It got to the point where he had only 1/2 lines in a song. If you know Tae's journey, you would know and I'm not gonna elaborate the extent to which it was bad.I also get the feeling he doesn't like Kookie's personality(he doesn't respect him) because he has a psychological need for Tae built in him.The golden Child of BTS.If BangPD is supporting Taekook and engineering their smooth coming out,and taekook are in on it,then why do they seem displeased when separation happens?It has happened so many times that there is no other option to consider than them being unhappy with the situation.

My pessimism will take over from this point.It's about money in the end.I personally believe BangPD supports lgbt.Before elaborating on my point I want to present someone else's viewpoint who I had a discussion with.They are even more pessimistic than me.A bit hilarious too.According to them if BangPD really supported Lgbt he would not try to corner Tae like that.It's an unwritten code among lgbt that you hold each other's relationship up despite your personal things.According to them BangPD used all these messages for marketing purposes and used Taekook and the members as a gimmick for it.That's why he was okay with Jikook but not taekook.Tae did not like jikook happening on stage to the extent it was happening but it was given a free pass in the name of it being just a job.According to this person,an lgbt supporting person would never do something like that to a lgbt relationship.Scary stuff.

Now my elaboration : BangPD is not necessarily protecting Taekook or BTS,he is protecting his investment. He wants to engineer a smooth path for their coming out but only under his term?I know before military it's unthinkable and even after that, my opinion is Taekook are not the declaring in a statement type couple.They prove by actions,not by words.That's why I am a bit confused as to what pd's thoughts are regarding Taekook future.All I know is that Tae does not like it when someone instructs him how to behave in his own relationship.He's been throwing middle fingers left and right to whoever can see.If they are not on the same page with Pd's plan for them,then....what?On a sidenote: I am sure JJK and KTH1 mixtapes are getting delayed due to profit sharing issues.You just know they are going to break every record out there.V said in 2019 that his mixtapes were ready for release that year,and he wanted to see how ARMY react to it and then he uttered something very interesting"It's going to be delayed anyway"..then he laughed in the brattiest way possible at the staffs while spoiling 😂 BH couldn't get that sweet sweet money from "Sweet Night".Going back to my previous point,it really seems like everything is connected to money.Does BANGPD want a situation where if Taekook have to come out,whether by accident or something else,he can be there to take advantage of the situation?Like saying he supported them all along,and the money will come in as support for them pours in.Idk how that will a viable situation.For one, Tae will consider eating poison before agreeing to letting PD use his personal relationship for circus,and it's fair to assume BangPD knows it.Then what about the possibility that PD really is like a strict parent,who wants the best for his children even though his methods are torture.Did he think taekook not being a couple was in their best interest?Taekook's interest/BTS' interest?Like I said, I personally believe pd supports lgbt.He doesn't like Tae's personality,his rebellious streak.I could be wrong but would his personal dislike move him to create tough situation for taekook even though he supports lgbt.It seems unlikely because wouldn't it create unhealthy environment within the group,pd must have known this.Or did he think it's just a teenage romance,one push and it will break easily.All of these possibilities because all I have gotten that TK are not happy when their relationship is micromanaged.

Now there's Lisa in JK's Vlive correcting his steps in Euphoria.Guess we are all delulu at this point.I really think that was Lisa though.Don't ask.I'm sorry for this long ask.Please share with me what you think.

Hi anon, I'm happy that you shared your views on Taekook. My opinion on this topic might be disappointing but I'll share anyway.

First, I don't have a coming out theory because I don't think any BTS member would willingly reveal any sort of romantic relationship because of the fan frenzy around them.

I don't analyze MVs, lyrics, and such because these things involve a lot of input from a lot of people: producers, composers, lyricists, designers, stylists, choreographers, etc. It's much more than just BTS sharing personal stories and trying to find clues about the members' private lives from them is a pointless venture according to me. The covers and song recommendations made by Tae and Jungkook in the earlier years, like you pointed out, have more weightage in this regard.

About Bang and his relationship with Tae and Jungkook: I think there is a large gap between fandom perception and what has actually been shown. While I don’t think Tae is Bang’s bias, I also don’t think he dislikes him or is out to sabotage him. It is even possible that him “favoring” Jungkook does not extend beyond his potential marketability. He seems indifferent for the most part to them as individuals. Assuming Tae and Jungkook are in a relationship, I agree that maybe Bang did not take it seriously until he had to. He could also have done a lot more damage than just separate them on screen or cut them out of content so I don’t think he micromanages them outside work (or may he tried and Tae and Jungkook are just that inseparable🤷🏻‍♀️). He might even consider it beneficial, not in a direct financial manner but in that it makes them easier to control and monitor- two less NDAs to worry about. It doesn’t help that Tae and Jungkook are also very erratic in a way that can’t be attributed to company micromanagement. That could explain some inconsistencies, they’re also figuring it out (and they’re a bit dramatic about it in my opinion).

Jokwon hasn't said anything about his sexuality explicitly, I don't know if this counts as an example of Bang's support of the LGBTQ community but he seems open-minded enough and he hasn't said or done anything homophobic. Tae and Jungkook though are part of his biggest cash cow so, while he might not be homophobic it's not a stretch to assume he has different standards for them vs Jokwon who isn't signed to his label. About using the members and Jikook as a gimmick, I think that is simultaneously complicated but also not that deep and it’s probably a separate discussion; in short, I don’t think Bang is thinking farther than taking advantage of and promoting a popular (easier?) ship but it seems to have affected the relationship of the members involved (Disclaimer: I don’t think that all permutations and combinations of relationships between the members have a possibility of being “real”. I don’t think it’s an everyone loves everyone situation.)

Will Bang or the company try to take the credit if Taekook are outed by accident? The way they act, I feel like they are pretty confident that no such thing will happen. In the very minute chance that it does, I think they'll wash their hands of Taekook and let them fend for themselves. I don’t think they’ve done the groundwork to benefit from such a situation nor do I think they are making it easy for Taekook. The narratives put forth in In The Soop and other content do the opposite of cushioning the blow. There’s no overall consistency and it’s really hard to predict how such things will play out, so I don’t know if they have any plans centered around Taekook right now much less back when they discovered that Taekook might not be typical bandmates.

I'm not sure what you meant by that last paragraph but why Lisa?

#taekook #vkook #ask me questions #bts taehyung #bts jungkook

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notgonnarememberthis · 4 years

Text

Exceptional - Prologue

Sherlock was made to feel unimportant his entire life. Haunted by the ghosts that his ability shows him constantly. His father "hires" Joan Watson as his sober companion, a former surgeon, the only ordinary person in a family of gifted. He finds himself wanting to protect her from whatever agenda his father has behind this decision.

_______________________________________________________

We back at it again with an AU that nobody asked for. Truthfully, this idea for a powered AU has been sitting on the back burner for a WHILE but finally the pieces clicked together thanks to the help of a couple people. Hope you all join in on this new ride because I have a LOT of exciting ideas to comb through. May or may not have ideas for a third au but I have no intention of dropping the ones already in progress. I just apparently enjoy giving myself a lot to work with. The ground trembles under his feet almost knocking him off balance. He has to protect them at all costs so he pushes forwards into the chaos. A crack ripples through the concrete threatening to topple everything he knows in an instant. Still he marches forwards.

He bites back her fears of what, or who may lie inside waiting for him to stumble upon. A high pitched sound emanates from the building ahead, he knows it’ll hurt like hell but he can’t let them down. He followed the trail left behind, now he has to be the one to help.

They’re depending on him.

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Sherlock stretches out on the sofa ignoring the trill of the voice next to him. Agnes, he’s named the woman, is an older lady in her seventies insistent that she’d been unfairly killed despite Sherlock knowing for an absolute certainty that she has no recollection of at least a week before her death if not longer. He’d sketch her out later and search for a missing person’s report matching her face but he was at least hoping he could enjoy his morning before the dead started knocking incessantly.

Enjoying the morning got thrown out the door when he remembered his ‘sober companion’ was meant to arrive today. Over the years he’s grown accustomed to his father’s type of ‘help’. His help was a code word. A person of interest that he wanted to keep a stern eye on. This one, however, was the first that Sherlock had grown highly suspicious of.

Joan Watson, surgeon turned sober companion. Seemingly gifted in the medical profession until an accident with a patient had her license revoked. She never recovered and turned to helping people remain sober. A doctor was hardly something his father needed with enough power and money to lure a corrupt professional of any kind. The difference of her being, she was completely ordinary. An unremarkable person in a world of sufficient talent.

Not possessing a power is rather common, but Ms. Watson seems to be the only person in her family with such a position. This is what he suspects his father is interested in. What makes her different from her family. Her father possesses the ability to translate any language or code, her mother has a genius intellect and the ability to retain even the smallest information, and her brother has teleportation. Now she could possess a power so insignificant it is even unnoticed by herself, yet he believes this not to be the case. Coming from a person more than familiar with a useless ability, one would notice.

He pushes his father to the back of his mind rousing the woman in his bed to get ready for the day.

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She seems nice. She’s cute too.

Sherlock no longer startles at the sudden appearance of the dead in his residence. Agnes smiles at him like a grandma driving her grandchild to a teenager to a date. He furrows his brow at the woman jutting out his bottom lip in defiance. Joan Watson had been all he’d expected, annoyingly nosey and all too ordinary as he’d researched. The case had kept them busy the lot of the day so they resigned to the Brownstone for some R&R for his untrained companion.

“That’s none of my concern. She’ll be gone in a few weeks.”

You are not planning on driving that poor girl away. Agnes scolds with a frown. Sherlock deeply wishes now that he’d had time to find her peace so he could have a peaceful night to work on his experiment.

“I won’t have to. My father takes care of that plenty. I’ve had common colds that lasted longer than his help has. He’ll swoop in, offer her a new position and I will never see her again.”

I think this one is going to surprise you.

“What do you know?”

“Who are you talking to?” He spins around, surprised by the new presence in the room.

Well, are you going to introduce us? He rolls his eyes at the woman.

“Agnes, this is Joan Watson. Joan Watson, Agnes.” He gestures to where she, no doubt, sees an empty space. He turns to Agnes only to find that she is gone. He looks around for a moment, expecting her to have materialized behind Watson to study her closer but the older woman is simply gone. “Agnes is dead.”

“You can speak to the dead?” She leans against the counter with a soft exhale in amazement.

“It really isn’t all that amazing, I assure you.” Watson shakes her head.

“Your father didn’t tell me you were gifted.”

“Because my father sees my ‘gift’ as useless at best and a nuisance at worst.” Her face softens in what he almost believes is sympathy. He prepares himself for the spiel most launch into at this revelation on the borderline of tuning her out.

“Wait, why did we spend all day at a crime scene if you can talk to the dead?” His eyebrows shoot up, taken aback. “Surely you can just ask who killed them.”

“It thankfully doesn’t work like that or this job would be immeasurably boring. The victims are as unreliable as any other witness. They are spared from remembering gruesome deaths as would most in a plane crash or a wreck. Some lose a week, most lose a month. As for others, they’re hateful of the living. They take out their anger on someone who has wronged them, even if they’re entirely innocent.”

“Like an ex.”

“Precisely.” He bristles at her understanding. The last who’d understood him… “Besides, they’re decidedly less present today.”

“Maybe this one doesn’t want to be found.” He rocks back and forth at the thought, possible but not likely. “Do they always know they’re dead?”

“Not always.” He drifts for a moment, distracted by a memory. “They don’t always linger either. The ones that do have unfinished business, the ones whose lives were cut off without warning.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“Correct.” She grins to herself at the praise underneath his words. Not a lot understood his abilities, they came with a lot of underlying rules. She’s different. “What about you?”

“Me?” She runs a hand through her hair with a curt shake of her head. “No abilities. My parents tested me when I was younger but nothing.”

“Why did your parents test you.” The question comes out harsher than he intends. Concern passes over her face momentarily but she reigns it in just as quickly as it appeared.

“I’m the only one.” Any emotion that comes with the statement is stifled, one that she’s said so many times that it has lost all meaning. “It’s rare and my parents did everything to make sure I was ok.”

Sherlock nods thoughtfully. Any comment on her side is abruptly cut off by the ringing of his phone calling him back to the case once more. Yet even as they proceed his eyes linger on Watson. Seemingly useless in her family she made a name for herself in the world and still she lost it all. He shivers at how familiar the narrative sounds. Despite the annoyance at her intrusion he finds himself wanting to protect her. His father is a poison, but he won’t let him touch her. She’s perhaps the first person to understand him in ages.

He can’t help his curiosity, but neither can she. She is attentive on the case, never once fazed by the brutality yet still remorseful. She must have been an exceptional surgeon. She listens to the details of the case, hanging onto every word even as she slipped into slumber. She’s comforting with grieving families, it evens out his harder edges.

She’d be an excellent partner, he muses.

Told you she’d surprise you.

#joanlock #sherlock holmes x joan watson #sherlock x joan #joan watson #Sherlock Holmes #elementary #elementary cbs #elementary AU #powers au #exceptional #stay tuned to see who has powers and who doesn't

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vaingloriosa · 4 years

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let it snow (and awaken hearts)

Summary: Almost like a Christmas miracle, you get the news that the love of your life has returned from the dead.

Words: 2.2k+

Characters: Loki Laufeyson x f!reader

Warnings: none. takes place somewhere in a non-canon timeline where loki returns but he isn’t the one from 2012. though christmas is briefly brought up, it isn’t discussed in-depth.

Author’s notes: hello, y’all! this is my first story in over three months and my final story for the year of 2019. “let it snow” is part of a writing collaboration with one of my dearest friends, susie of @pendragonfics! what sparked as a random idea and one of those “just kidding!...unless?” moments has come to this. our prompt was: “You fell asleep on me, but it’s fine, I made sure you’re warm and comfortable.“ where we took creative liberty with it! our two stories are like narrative foils where susie’s is more on the fluffy spectrum whereas i navigate the choppy waters of angst with comfort (because it’s the HOLIDAYS, BABEYY!). thank y’all for your support this year!

read “let it snow” by @pendragonfics

Homecoming.

Snow silently leaves its mark on the New Zealand land overlooking the roaring sea. Purple and pink hues grace the skies and provide a beautiful setting for the evening. It’s almost majestic the way that the New Asgard had transformed over the years. From the Asgardians losing the only home they knew to rebuilding a life afterwards; it was never about the place, it was always about the people.

You stretch out your arm for the snowflakes to melt against your warm hand. A shadow of a smile forms on your lips as you turn your hand over to capture more falling snowflakes.

The people.

It had been years since the Snap, since losing him, years you have bore witness to immeasurable heartache, pain, and lingering suffering. Uncertainty was always cast above your head for you didn’t know you would ever see the people you cared about again. You put your mind into aid efforts for the Asgardian refugees, hoping that healing would come in the form of volunteerism for the people he helped protect, for his sacrifice not to be in vain. To see life blossom back again after slaying the Titan, bringing everyone back, to see the light of the Asgardian people return brought a sense of peace.

Maybe you can move forward.

Then, when you thought you did enough mourning, Loki returns. Alive.

A breath catches at the back of your throat, tears welling in your eyes when you got the call from Valkyrie. You boarded the next flight to New Zealand with fidgety hands in your lap, trying to find the right words to say to the man you’ve always loved, the one you presumed dead and mourned but now living and breathing.

Perhaps the pattern of rising from the dead when presumed otherwise should’ve been a sign.

An early Christmas present indeed.

Mortality as a Midgardian sinks in the middle of your chest as you read the welcome sign of New Asgard. This is far different than being reunited with your loved ones after everything has been said and done to undo the Snap. Nothing can ever truly prepare you to meet the love of your life again in your lifetime, not alive at least. You knew Loki might outlive you and you had made peace with your future. Maybe mortals weren’t meant to be with gods, but you want to be the exception.

Your love for Loki never left, not even a sliver.

The sound of your heels pacing along the floor echos down the corridor.

“Stop pacing back and forth before you make me nervous!”

Above the raging thoughts forming in your head, your head perks up from the familiar voice of your friend. A smile forms on your lips as Valkyrie softly bumps her shoulder on yours, taking a place right by your side. You take a shaky breath out as you start to pick at your nails you just done earlier this morning. Stars, you are a complete nervous wreck.

“You look lovely this evening. Is it new? Who’s the designer? We should’ve gone together! Have you seen this snow? So lovely this time of year...” You try to change the subject but Valkyrie knows all the tricks in your hat, white bunny and all. Her eyes know the full story and you know there’s no point in hiding away from the Asgardian queen herself.

“First off, we did go together. You’re the one who suggested it. And two, why are you avoiding the inevitable?”

You look longingly at the ornate wooden door mere feet away from where you two stand. Your chest rises unevenly from taking a deep breath in then you move your gaze over to Valkyrie and shake your head.

“I don’t know what to say to him. How does one convey their messy emotions about seeing the one they love rise from the dead? ‘Hello, I mourned your death but surprise to me! Not dead!’” It’s a forced laugh that escapes your lips which in turn brings a prickle to the corner of your eyes. You take in a short breath then let it out through your teeth. You wrap your arms around your chest in an effort to comfort yourself and guard your true feelings.

Valkyrie cocks her head to the side, placing a warm hand on your upper arm which melts away from of your tension. You put your arms to your side then shake your head, a nervous smile once again.

“Most of the things I’m feeling are selfish, I know. All this can more than likely be resolved if I just talked to Loki but it’s been years. Things could’ve...changed.” The last word almost comes out as a whisper but the condensation that forms indicates you said the word out loud. Your friend takes both of your arms into her hands and forces you to look at her directly in the eyes. You’re almost petrified by the intensity.

“Stop doing this to yourself; it won’t solve anything. I only briefly talked to him and he’s been asking about you. Things haven’t changed between the two of you on the Loki front.” She offers you a small smile, rubbing both of your arms for reassurance. You can feel some of the tension melt away from your muscles and begin to ease up just a bit. Your mind still spins of things to say but it’s now an organized chaos.

“Be it as it may, whether it’s the Yuletide or the Christmas energy in the air, the universe has spoken. Now,” Valkyrie lets go of you then brings her hands up towards her head where the crown sits nicely on top. It’s more a formality than anything but she said that it was just the cherry on top of the whole king thing. With gentleness, Valkyrie removes the golden crown and examines it in her hands for a second. It’s nothing exuberant or too gaudy, just the way that it should; a delicate golden circlet with laurel-like tendrils woven all around. Right in the center is a peak with a stunning red gemstone in the middle.

Valkyrie clears her throat then gestures you to bow your head. Your eyes narrow, shaking your head as you put two and two together.

“Val-”

“Not another word.”

You do as she says, bowing ever so slightly as Valkyrie fixes the crown on top of your head.

“You have the power of me and the gods alongside you now. It’s time you get your damn ass in there and talk to your boyfriend.”

You let out a sharp snort then give her a mock curtsy. You already feel slightly powerful with your new given rule. “Thank you, queen.”

Valkyrie calls out as you walk away. “Don’t do anything stupid with that crown of mine!”

The night appears to be in full swing once you pull open the wooden double doors. Laughing people glide all over the dance floor, merriment sounds and lively music fill the open air, with people enjoying the sprawling Yuletide feast table. Lights twinkle above every head in the ballroom that creates an almost surreal and dreamlike atmosphere. You let your eyes wonder from the decorations to the faces of joyous Asgardians as they celebrate another year of being together, of being alive.

You crane your neck to find a particular set of eyes but to no avail.

Once again, you feel that heaviness in your chest as if you suddenly forgot how to breath. Even with the pep talk, it’s no match for what lies ahead for you. Knowing that he’s somewhere here, walking, breathing, existing...

The music switches to a more slow tempo song.

You watch couples take each other in their arms, swaying to and fro, eyes locked into each other’s souls. There is no one else in the room but them together, in that moment, soaking in each other’s presence. A melancholy feeling washes over you as you remember asking Loki to dance at one of Stark’s stupid galas you always despised being dragged to. You’ve been mustering up the courage to ask him all night that with one final swig of liquid courage, you came up to him and offered you his hand.

The look of pure delight sparkling in his eyes still stays with you.

A smile forms on your lips when you recall the moment.

“Hello, my love.”

A breathe catches in your throat. The sound of his voice...you blink twice to make sure that this all real and not a figment of your imagination. You turn around to face the man you’ve never thought you would ever see again in your mortal life.

“Loki.”

His name feels ancient on your tongue, as if you never knew you would be able to say it again. You can feel Loki take a hold of your hands as you continue to examine his face. This is real, this is all real. He is in front of you and not dead somewhere out in deep space like they’ve told you. Loki is standing there, right here and right now, in the flesh, body and soul. You can feel tears prickle at the corner of your eyes knowing that the two of you have been reunited by a red string of fate; almost like destiny.

Loki rubs his thumbs along the tops of your hands. “I know I’ve been gone for awhile but I didn’t expect you to become queen of Asgard in such a short amount of time. Never doubted you once, little dove.”

For the first time that night, you allow yourself to be vulnerable and cave into your emotions. You burst out into laughter, tears streaming down your cheeks, then press your body against Loki, wrapping your arms around his neck. You close your eyes as you nuzzle into the crook of his neck, taking in the scent of sandalwood and a hint of spiced cinnamon. Loki can feel the tears along his exposed skin and he holds you even tighter in his arms.

The rest of the world had been forgotten for a few seconds as the two of you focused on only each other. Almost everyone in the ballroom had taken notice of the glorious reunion between you and the raven haired prince. Thunderous applause erupts around the two of you and you let go of Loki to press a warm hand on his cheek. He places his hand over yours, fond eyes looking at you as you press your lips onto his for a soft kiss.

All of a sudden, the jitters you’ve had before dissipate for you knew there is nothing to be worried about anymore.

You can feel Loki’s lips curl into a smile as he sinks in deeper to your touch. There’s another rounds of some hollers and you can feel your ears burning from such prying eyes. You take his hand, nodding towards the entrance in a silent invitation of escape. He takes your cue, interlocking his fingers with yours as you guide him towards salvation.

Once outside, you take him towards an intimately lit garden with archways full burnt orange calendulas. The snow has given way to a peaceful and silent winter’s night. Loki brushes away some snow from a bench then pats the space right next to him. After you remove the crown, you place your head on his shoulder.

There’s a slight tension between you two of you.

“I know you may have a lot of questions-”

“That’s an understatement.”

“And there are no words to tell you how deeply sorry I am to have put you in such a difficult position.”

You move your head away from Loki’s shoulder to look at him. There are tears welling up in his eyes as he remembers the hurt he has caused not only his people but to you especially. What Loki thought he was doing was protecting everyone he has ever cared for has turned against him. Nothing was prevented, people still suffered, however, he still had hope that things could get better.

“It’s unfair for you to have gone through such turmoil and loss again and again. You deserved to be safe and happy, not this. I apologize for not sending you a sign but it was far too dangerous. There aren’t enough apologies that can express it. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to be there for you and fight by your side. May we never have to be separated again.”

You place your hand on his cheek to wipe away the tears that drop down his face. “You don’t have to apologize. I know you did everything you could and I did everything I could. We were brought back together, I think that’s a good sign.”

Loki takes the hand that was resting on his cheek and presses soft kisses on each knuckle.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” You raise an eyebrow at him and he lets out a small laugh, almost as if reminiscing on his adventures.

“Yes, but I don’t want to ruin this moment.”

You lean against your chest as your eyelids become heavier and heavier; his heartbeat almost like a lullaby. There’s a flash of green magick as Loki summons a knitted blanket to wrap around the two of you. You let out a sleepy smile when you feel Loki bring your legs up to rest on his lap.

“Welcome home, Loki.”

For a brief moment, you open your eyes to soak the moment all in. Loki presses a small kiss on your forehead with a smile.

“With you, I already am.”

Tagging: @kwaiky (my cinnamon apple, my day one freak nasty), @cura-posterior (WHO WOULD’VE THOT I WOULD BE BACK ON THE WRITING TRAIN AHA!!), @diansaprince (bithch lily...im loveu thank u for being on this ride with me...churro pride), @black-widow-fangirl (queen, your creativity and motivation inspire me to no end), @deviantramblings (HOE JASKLDJSKAL LOOK AT US! LOOK AT US! thank you for being the light of my life), @moonbeamgogh (miss. maeve...u beautiful sunflower we loki hoes had a delicious year), @michverse (okay i know u ain’t on this joint as much but...that’s our white king okay...thank u for everything bb), @attentionseekingprincess (ANOTHER OG ON GODDDDDD you’re amazing)

#angel writes #loki laufeyson x reader #loki x reader #loki #loki laufeyson #loki odison x reader #loki odinson #loki imagine #loki laufeyson imagine #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel x reader #tom hiddleston #dude it has been forever so idk how to tag my story lmaoo

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vinylandcoffeecollection · 4 years

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Notes On a Conditional Form- The 1975

(This is my review of Notes, which, obviously, I adore)

People tend to have a fixed idea of what the 1975 are, love or hate them. To some, they’re a plastic pop band who write (great) 80s-influenced songs like “The Sound”. To others, they’re the millennial Radiohead or U2 (pick your comparison depending on how much warmth you feel towards Matty Healy), obsessed with chronicling and holding forth on the State of the Nation, embodied by perhaps their best and most critically lauded song “Love It If We Made It”. The mixed reviews of their fourth album probably stem from the disappointment of both camps above: for the first group, superstar single “If You’re Too Shy (let me know)” is evidence that the band could continue to be great if only they mined this genre more. The second camp desperately searched for proof that Notes... has Something to Say, didn’t really find it, then concluded that it’s a weak or inferior album. In reality, though, 1975 are neither of the ostensibly polar identities above. As they are fond of saying, they create as they consume, and they consume a vast landscape of music constantly: it’s their life’s passion and one that has been apparent since their earliest EPs. Even though their last two albums appear on the surface to be perfect examples of the plastic pop (ILIWYS) and political polemic (ABIIOR), in reality each blends both and throws in some ambient instrumentals and other left field moments for good measure. No one who has heard Matty Healy and George Daniel talk about their creative influences and processes could ever confuse them with any other conveyor belt pop band or be in any doubt about their commitment to their art.

Following up 2018’s critically lauded A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships was always going to be a tall order but the 1975 can always be relied on to do the unexpected. This is a band who by the point of becoming massive had given up on ever actually becoming massive, so made a first album full of songs that they loved, that they now admit they might never have made if they had had any idea that global stardom was beckoning, because it’s just a bit weird. They apply the same kind of logic to Notes...: on the back of huge critical acclaim from A Brief Inquiry...they went inwards and simply made the kinds of music they loved consuming and playing, heedless of expectations. Notes.... has long been spoken of by the band as a metaphorical notebook, a looking back to their roots, collected and recorded around the world on their global tour last year. Originally due in May, then August 2019, then February, then April 2020, it’s been a beneficiary rather than a victim of unimaginable global circumstances, more relevant and strangely prescient than ever now. It turns out it does have something to say, but in lowercase rather than capital letters, and it’s a better album for it. Any capital-lettered statement, after all, could only have appeared completely outdated and irrelevant in the midst of a global pandemic.

Conditional verbs are “if” verbs, used to imagine events in certain conditions, and this is what Notes... is: a collection of songs posing questions and examining sets of circumstances and relationships that make us who we are, for better or worse. It’s an ending to these four albums of sorts (“I just wanted a happy ending,” Matty pleads in “If You’re Too Shy,”) but also an exploration of the impossibility of tidy, definitive endings. The final track of A Brief Inquiry... , the vital and unexpectedly uplifting “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)”, began with the line “I bet you thought your life would change but you’re sat on a train again.” That’s where we are on Notes and why its third track, not the final track, is called “The End”, to underline the point. This instrumental re-works the instrumental track “HNSCC” from the band’s 2013 EP Music for Cars, making it more orchestral. It’s a lovely way to develop this theme: that everything that happens to us is conditional to other events in the past, present or future. It also explores the idea that concepts of linear growth as people are artificial. Notes... embraces the lack of any kind of coherent narrative in life that we can tie our experiences together neatly with, the struggle to know and accept yourself, to be that person that you present to the outside world.

Anais Nin wrote: we do not see things as they are; we see them as we are. A Brief Inquiry.... is a great album but it also captured a moment in time both culturally and for the band, particularly Matty Healy personally. Having derided him for years, there seemed to be a huge will amongst the press to make this album succeed because of everything he had been through with addiction and rehab between 2013-2017. That was the narrative- he’d fucked up, now he was clean, gleaming and healthy in tasteful fitted jumpers and suits, with the haircut of a Mature Man, and they’d made a Political and Important album. The band were apparently finally deserving of the acclaim afforded to serious artists. But there were notes of caution: an interview Matty did where he spoke of being wary of being a poster boy for sobriety because he hadn’t been sober for long enough. I remember worrying about him when listening to all of this- what if he couldn’t hold it together? What then for him and the position in culture that he and the band were now occupying? It was almost a relief when he confessed in a 2019 interview to briefly relapsing: it was honest and it was real.

Notes sees Matty embracing the honest and the real like never before, and it’s apt that the album moves through the idea of Endings to “Frail State... “ “Streaming” and “The Birthday Party”, a hauntingly beautiful song about sobriety, questions of shifting identity, growth and relationships (“We can still be mates because it’s only a picture,” is the narrator’s rejoinder to a friend taking the piss out of him for buying an expensive artwork that the friend can’t relate to). It’s a song that narrates a tale, in the tradition of A Change of Heart, Milk or Paris, that is both humorous and devastating, particularly in its last line: “I depend on my friends to stay clean. As sad as it seems.” Maybe you do need to be knowledgeable about the band’s personal circumstances to understand that “The Birthday Party” isn’t just a dull and over-long tale about being bored at a party, as Rolling Stone appears to have taken it, but to paraphrase “Frail State of Mind”, it seems unlikely. In any case, Notes.... is a deeply honest album, one that paints Matty Healy in as unvarnished a form as he has ever appeared, talking candidly and literally about piss, shit and erections. As he has said, it’s an album without ego.

Appropriately for an album looking back, making notes on all those “if...then”s, Notes... is more eclectic than ever before, a distillation, as the band say, of their previous sounds as well as the music that has inspired their own creativity over the past nearly two decades. The reaction of the album’s detractors to this has been to see it as a jumbled mess of Too Much-ness, which is to completely miss the point. Notes... is deliberately and thoughtfully structured, each track including threads and connections to other songs and iconography of the band’s world, an intertextuality that is sometimes darkly humorous, sometimes poignant and very much underlining that theme of honesty. “I never fucked in a car, I was lying,” opens “Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied”, Healy lacerating his ego by referencing Love It If We Made It’s memorable opening line as well as their early song “Sex”, and later “you can’t figure out a heart. You were lying,” undercutting the swagger of 2013’s 80s-maximalist “Heart Out”. More poignantly on “Roadkill”, again recalling the lie of linear growth and maturity, he sings “if you never eat you’ll never grow. Should have learned that quite a while ago,” looking back to one of the band’s most loved and most “apocalyptic adolescent” songs, as they term it, from their debut album, “Robbers”. The intertextuality is there in the music too, from the re-working of instrumental track “HNSCC” in “The End” (a connection missed, unforgivably, by seemingly every critic) to the inclusion of original demo of standout track from A Brief Inquiry... “It’s Not Living (If it’s not with you)” at the start of the surreally titled “Shiny Collarbone”. This is the largely instrumental EDM track sampling Cutty Ranks that for a number of critics seems to represent the fact that the band have lost their way and just started putting out random filler. They haven’t on either count, and the sample is a lovely reminder that even when farming seemingly the furthest reaches of the 1975’s discovered land, the music is always quintessentially theirs.

Perhaps the farming metaphor isn’t the most appropriate though. The band have spoken before about the choice that they have as artists to be “cowboys or farmers”, to keep re-working old ground or move forward and discover new places. To the charge that the songs here are just not as good as their earlier albums, well that depends on your perspective. Even the poor reviews aren’t quibbling with the strength of “If You’re Too Shy...” but truly that’s not the best songwriting on display here. The 1975 can write songs like “Too Shy” while knocking about having a laugh, stoned out of their heads. As they say themselves, it’s not a stretch. They’d rather push themselves, which they do. Regardless of genre, though, any band will stand or fall on whether they can write a catchy tune or not. The 1975 have always been able to write a catchy tune and it says something that over 22 tracks, each one has that catchiness and each one is distinctly itself. “Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)” begins with a pitched up sample of “Just my Imagination” by the Temptations, it’s a love song in the 1975 tradition: bouncy and irresistible major key melody juxtaposed with an emotional sucker punch: “She said they should take this pain and give it a name.” They cleverly subvert the genre, pairing the beauty of the melody with the brutally honest: “Tonight, I think I fucked it royally.” It’s one of the best songs on display here and another perfect example of how the 1975 can take that most over-done of genres, and make it completely their own.

Because of the evolution of the album, seven songs, not including “The 1975” with Greta Thunberg, were already well known before its release. “People”, the first of these after Greta, is fantastic pop punk, a track that has lost none of its impact in the 9 months since its original release. “Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied”, the self-referential track referred to above, is a catchy treatise on the search for meaning in our lives, fusing a soaring choir-sung chorus with Matty’s witty rapping. A trio of tracks explore what some critics have labelled “emo garage”: a thread that begins with the pulsing and affecting “Frail State of Mind” (“Go outside? Seems unlikely,” and is followed through with the standout “I Think There’s Something You Should Know”, surely a future single that would be perfectly at home on Radio 1, and “What Should I Say?” In the instrumental vein, the George Daniel-created masterpiece “Having No Head” transports the listener to another sonic world. There are several throw-backs to the band’s previous emo-indie incarnation Drive Like I Do with “Then Because She Goes” and “Me and You Together Song”. And then there’s a couple of gorgeous ballads: the profound “Jesus Christ 2005...” and the love letter to the band “Guys”. In a way this closing track is almost a microcosm of the band: love them and this is a beautifully turned love letter to friendship and loyalty in the face of life’s challenges. Hate them and it’s a cringeworthy, naive irritation.

Of course, there is no happy ending or neat bow tied round Notes.... at the conclusion of its 22 tracks. We leave Matty still struggling with himself, life and his conflicted desires but with two tracks- the gentle “Don’t Worry”, a Tim Healy- penned song that is performed as a father/son duet, and “Guys”- we are reminded that it’s our relationships that will help us through, the connections we build. We are all conditional forms in this sense.

The vinyl of Notes... is poignantly inscribed with the words 'If this is to be read in the future, please know that this was us trying'. It would be very easy at this stage in their career for the 1975 to put out albums filled with variations on “Chocolate” or “The Sound”, and it might make some fans and critics happy, but they don’t want to. They are triers. Perhaps it’s this very workaholism, their obsession with pushing boundaries and experimentation, speaking up and refusing to stay in their lane that so riles up those ready to sharpen their critical knives. They are those too clever and too keen kids at the front of the class, annoying the fuck out of those who can’t be bothered or just can’t compete. Having spent last year taking political stands on issues ranging from misogyny in music to abortion laws in the US to the treatment of the LGBTQ& community in the UAE and doing their bit for the environment by commanding fans to be quiet and listen to a Greta Thunberg monologue for five minutes at their live shows, selling recycled merchandise and planting trees for every ticket sold, they are still unable to rest in the midst of a global pandemic, engaging with fans through Twitter listening parties and an interactive website called Mindshower where fans can create their own music and artwork and reflecting on what live music might look like in the future when we can finally get out there again. It all sounds a bit like Radiohead in the 2000s, except Radiohead never made an album as sonically beautiful or coherent as Notes... either immediately post-OK Computer or in the 19 years since. The 1975 are many things but they’ll never allow themselves to become stale or apathetic or lazy and for that at least they should be recognised: they simply care too much. And as for that vinyl inscription, in the future they won’t just be remembered for trying but for achieving what most bands never do even in a lifetime of striving.

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woolishlygrim · 4 years

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Winter Weebwatch #10

We’re very much hitting the final stretch of the winter anime season now, and to be honest, I still don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing for Spring Weebwatch (Spring Spreebspratch?). Kami no Tou, Digimon Adventure 2020, and Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens are shoo-ins, but a lot of the shows that start in Spring are the second seasons of shows from Autumn 2019, and I’d rather not do those.

Anyway, on with this week’s shows.

Pet.

★★★☆☆

Okay, so apparently Pet did air last week, I just didn’t see that it had, which is weird, I was looking out for it.

Also weird is that the character I originally thought was called Tsukasa and then thought was called Tsubasa is actually called Tsukasa. Did … did the subbers make a mistake at some point, or did I make the mistake? I genuinely do not know.

Anyway, last week and this week, Pet saw Hiroki discover Hayashi, still not entirely crushed but rather in a mostly-crushed state similar to the one he found Tsukasa in. Realising from exploring his memories that Tsukasa was the one who crushed Hayashi, Hiroki, feeling betrayed, confronts Tsukasa and eventually runs away. Meanwhile, Tsukasa, faced with the prospect of the Company separating him from Hiroki and then with Hiroki running away, grows more and more unhinged, eventually deciding to manipulate Satoru into going after him.

Things are definitely winding their way towards a conclusion, and I honestly can’t see what that conclusion will even be, or how the writers plan to tie this up in two episodes, but it’s fun to watch, at least.

That said, my god, Tsukasa going off the deep end is … something. The animators are having a whale of a time, drawing him wide-eyed, pale, and practically twitching. One scene has him drooling as he talks and occasionally having to wipe it away with his sleeve. If this was an actor, I’d say they were chewing the scenery, but it’s not, someone intentionally made him like this.

ID: Invaded.

★★★☆☆

This is another episode that just doesn’t quite deliver on the promise it set up. While I felt I was being a little harsh with last week’s score, this time I feel like I’m being a little lenient. It’s really a two and a half star episode.

With the set-up of the last episode going forward, Anaido just turns out to not … really have any kind of diabolical plan at all, whereas Hondomachi in the Well-Within-A-Well just kind of puts a couple of clues together and discovers who John Walker is.

John Walker is, incidentally, the character everyone expected him to be, since we’d seen that Walker has a white beard and moustache and only one other character had that.

As far as twists go, it’s … weak. It’s very weak, and the downplayed way the episode presents it suggests that the creative team were well aware of how weak the twist was. Similarly, the reveal that Kiki is inside the Mizuhanome is pretty much expected.

However, we still have two episodes to go, so there is plenty of time for the show to pull a rabbit out of its hat, so to speak.

Darwin’s Game.

★☆☆☆☆

I’m beginning to lose patience with this show, and if we weren’t in spitting distance of the end (this is episode nine, there are eleven episodes total apparently), I would drop it.

So continuing on from last week, the protagonist (nine episodes in and I still have no idea what his name is) engages in a fight to prove that his clan is worthy of allying themselves with the boxing gym-y clan, after which the top-ranked player in the game kidnaps him to … ugh.

Kidnaps him because she is the head of an ancient clan of psychic assassins and she wants him to be the father of her child, and fuck knows writing that sentence made me seriously reconsider watching the last two episodes.

The whole thing ends with said top-ranked player (who can psychically incapacitate people somehow) joining the protagonist’s clan, because I guess we don’t need stakes? Nah, nah, who needs narrative tension, right?

Congrats on another episode I actually remembered, Darwin’s Game. You might’ve done better if I hadn’t.

In/Spectre.

★★★★☆

Okay, I admit it, In/Spectre has wormed its way into my good graces. I enjoy this show now, I guess.

This is just a really good episode, and it manages to be a really good episode while working with material that I’m not sure most writers would be able to make interesting. As the plan to take down Steel Girder Nanase kicks off, Kotoko begins what is essentially a reddit forum argument in which she attempts to cast doubt on the existence of Steel Girder Nanase by proposing an alternate theory and arguing in its favour. As she does this, however, Rikka is attempting to argue back under several different accounts, trying to sway people into believing in Nanase’s existence.

Do you see what I mean? This is … this is banal. This is people arguing in the comments section while one person uses transparently disguised sockpuppets. This is something I can find by just going to a forum and scrolling down a few inches, and yet this episode is absolutely fascinating to watch.

When the episode ended with Kotoko saying that it’s time for her to present her second theory, I wasn’t even annoyed. I’m genuinely interested to see what the second theory is. I hate that I really like this show now.

Infinite Dendrogram.

★★★★☆

This is another one where I was honestly not sure what score to give it. It was a three-and-a-half star episode, really, and I wavered back and forth for a while over whether to bump it up to four stars or down to three stars, before eventually deciding to be nice.

Honestly, it could have gone either way.

With Franklin/Penguin-san having kidnapped the princess and enshrouded the arena in a barrier, he begins his invasion of the city, remarking to the princess that he will break the spirit of the Masters of Altar before the war between Altar and Dryfe can resume. While Franklin’s own Superior class ability, which allows him to invent and spawn monsters, is a potent threat in his own right, he is also joined by numerous other Masters, from both Dryfe and Altar, along with Hugo and what appear to be the other three Dryfe Superiors.

So this is an actually really fun episode, even if it’s also kind of a nothing episode. With Shu and Figaro both trapped in the barrier, Ray and Rook learn that any player below level fifty can pass straight through the barrier, and use that to mount a counterattack. A small chunk of the episode is devoted to what amounts to a ‘Ray And Rook (And Later Hugo) Show Off Their Awesome Abilities’ scene, and honestly it was enough fun that I’m willing to forgive it for being mindless fluff. I do like the touch that while Rook can use his abilities to convert female monsters to his side, his Embryo Babyl can use her abilities to convert male players to her side, making them a nice team.

Meanwhile, Marie, who had bonded with the princess earlier, tracks down Franklin and shoots him a bunch, and exactly nobody is surprised because we all basically knew already that she was the monster-bug-shooting gunslinger who killed Ray before. Franklin is still alive, though, and as the show, as all shounen shows must, descends into shounen anime battle match-ups, Marie finds herself facing off against another Dryfe Superior with power over music.

Also, can I just express my irritation that Franklin combines both chess metaphors and poker metaphors. Those games are the antithesis of each other: Chess is a game all about planning multiple moves ahead, figuring out multiple paths and multiple outcomes to those paths and then choosing the best one; whereas Poker is a game all about taking a hand dealt to you by luck and tricking, scheming, and gambling your way to getting the best possible use out of it. Either one will work for a scheming villain, but they work for very different kinds of scheming villain.

#infinite dendrogram #darwins game #id invaded #pet #in/spectre #anime #winter weebwatch

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myfriendpokey · 5 years

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Morality Play

What does it mean to have a videogame tell you you're a good person? It doesn't know me, can't see me. I don't know if you can be *immoral* in a single player game outside of some very inventive custom controls. Why should I care what a game says? Any inner moral life that a videogame or a painting might possess would be more alien to me than that of a bug or a starfish. Of course videogames and paintings are made by humans, and shaped by the moral opinion of humans.. but we might make a distinction between what the human says and the object says, we might still feel the latter is more important, somehow.

The moral authority of an artwork or object comes from the fact that it's not quite human, that it comes to us from outside humanity to an extent, is distinguished from the unreliable back and forth of human consciousness in motion. But this distance is exactly why you might expect those moral verdicts to be unintelligible to us, or at the very best, to be untrustworthy, an imitation. So what's the appeal – that of having a human voice which speaks with the gravitas of an immortal object? The pleasant conceit that the general shape of our minds is universal, like all those Star Trek aliens that are just regular guys with slightly weirder ears or foreheads? The void speaks, and turns out to sound like a computer engineer.

But maybe not necessarily, maybe in fact it's sometimes not universal authority and moral support that we seek from the object: maybe a certain jankiness of verdict around the way these things communicate in human terms is itself part of the appeal. I think of paper fortune tellers, magic eight-balls, "love tester" machines that return a romantic prognosis based on palm temperature. The entrancing bathos of the chance-driven or mechanistic judgement that still speaks with a human voice: I’m sorry, I cannot answer right now. Please shake me, so I may try again. How different is that to the widely beloved and magnificently broken romance system in Dragon's Dogma, where, spoilers: your "soulmate" is not a matter of direct moral choice, but of variables being tracked over the course of the game including who you talked to and what sidequests you completed - which means it could arbitrarily turn out to be the weapons merchant, or a grandpa npc you found a potion for. Which is goofy, but only in a slightly more blatant way than "accidentally unlocking the romantic option in a dialogue tree from just clicking around" or "having your morality score drop 5 points because you pressed the wrong button and accidentally hurled a rock at someone's head while trying to equip shoes".

I think something I appreciate about videogames is the kind of insectlike moral life that they tend to portray, the sense of value systems which are in some way recognisable but which have mutated in conversion to something alien and horrifying. Lara Croft shooting a wild eagle is unfortunate, Lara Croft shooting a thousand wild eagles is bizarre – but really those thousand eagles are just the one eagle, the one self-contained pulp encounter fantasy, which has been extended, extrapolated, systemised as result of being placed in this machine. The latter may be more egregious but it’s still composed of repeated incidents of the original encounter - and part of the strangeness in these games is just the uncomprehending machine effort to systemise the half-formed gunk substance of our terrible fantasy lives, which only bear a vague and halfhearted relation to any notion of ethics in any case.. We can contemplate with envy and excitement the possibilities of running more realistic, recognisable emotional and moral situations through the meatgrinderof the format in this way. How about a solemn middlebrow videogame about divorcing 50 different wives, each one larger and more powerful than the last (excluding sprite recolours)?

All this is not to say that the casual political and moral stupidity already in videogames should simply be excused or exist outside of critique. But in addition to the body of discourse around "moral commodities" - commodities invested with moral or political meaning independent of any brutal labour practices they might entail or monopolistic accumulation of private wealth they might support – I think it's also worth considering the purpose of the "moral object" itself. The alienation intrinsic to the object form can be a way to think, and also a way to avoid thinking. To project moral beliefs away from the specific context of a creaturely human existence can be a way of expanding that existence, but also of denying it. The paltriness of the human can itself be problematic next to the splendour of the object, and the reflected moral superiority of those with the means of producing such objects.

*****

There's a famous line in the Spiderman comics that with great power comes great responsibility. But it's also kind of a weird line because, while obviously applicable to Spiderman, the person it's actually delivered to is Peter Parker - who is, for all his uncle knows, still a physically awkward and friendless nerd with no immediately visible "great power" to speak of. He does like nuclear physics, though - maybe the advice was intended as a friendly intervention to keep him from turning into the next Edward Teller? Or possibly it's just a kind of unconscious, pulp-writer-trance-appropriation of the muscular liberal rhetoric of the then-current Kennedy administration. Or maybe, and stretching a bit, it's a line that relates more to the conditions of pulp culture manufacturing itself, to the awareness that the stuff you make will be printed thousands of times and sold to kids around the country, poured raw into the national subconsicous. With great sales figures comes great responsiblity.

I mention it because I think it connects to an issue with the kind of cultural criticism that emerged, like it or not, from the specific context of an age of mass media. With great power comes great responsibility - but conversely, to execute your great responsibility you also need great power. And what are you meant to do if you don't have it? Does no power mean having no responsibility? It's possible, but i feel like most people would be dubious about this as a moral lesson - and the inescapability of heavily-financed blockbusters in the culture means that an assumption of already "having great power" sometimes becomes a critical starting point. If you don't have power you should get it, so that you can then have great responsibility and contribute to the discourse. The effect can sometimes be like climbing a mountain of corpses to get a better platform for your speech about world peace.

A good essay on jrpgsaredead.fyi points out the way that certain industry conversations on "accessibility" revolve specifically around access to whatever mainstream AAA action games are currently dominating the news cycle. And the related effect where both problems and proposed solutions are particular to these games, the audience they have, and the resources they can bring bear: More consultants! More characters! More romance options! Better character creators! If you're speaking to an (essentially captive, given the marketing monies involved) audience of five million people you'd better be sure your ideas are, at least, not actively harmful, and in fact should ideally be improving - - fine. How about an audience of 50 people? Or an audience of 0? Does that mean this work is less moral than what speaks to a larger crowd - in effect, that it's worse? And what about the relationship to audience that this kind of teaching implies? i can think of several occasions where people from different subcultures or minority groups were reprimanded because something in their own experience might read differently, or problematically, when presented to a presumably white/cis/affluent etc audience - which is of course the audience that matters, because what's the value of presenting work from an alternative perspective to an audience already familiar with that perspective, to whom it has no automatic moral significance (might, in fact, merely be 'aesthetic')? Compare the complexity of a specific local audience which can think for itself to the easy win of the alternative: a phantasm audience of moral blanks to whom rote lessons in hypothetical empathy can be tastefully and profitably imparted over and over, forever.

****

If the ethical act is that which we'd be willing to posit as universal law, perhaps we could say: the ethical artwork is that which we'd be willing to mass produce. Small or hobbyist developers are encouraged to work from the perspective of a mass-productive capacity they do not in fact possess; their successes and inevitable failures are hoovered up alike by the industry proper for later deployment in the form of cute dating sim or inspirational narrative with similar but sanitized tone or aesthetic. In essence a kind of moral QA testing, with all the job security and recompense that this implies.

The hobbyist is, by definition, not universal: they are enclosed within the local and the material. What time do you get off work? What materials do you have to hand? Are those materials always legal? The entire western RPG Maker community exists as result of widespread bootlegging; the entirety of videogame history and preservation essentially depends on stolen copies; we find out about it through ROMs, videos and screenshots which mostly depend for their continued existence on copyright holders either not finding out or choosing not to pursue these debateable violations. It's a complicated discussion whether this stuff can be justified on a general, universal level - but also I'm not sure we can do without it. When Fortnite uses dances from TV and music videos of living memory they're considered to be in the public domain; but Fortnite itself is not in the public domain, even though it's so inescapable that even I have a pretty good idea of what it looks and plays like despite having made a pretty determined effort to not find out anything about it. It's "public culture" in that sense, and it includes public culture within it, but both game and imagery are privately owned and aggressively policed (suing teenage hackers, etc). What does it mean for art to emerge from an ever more privatized sense of public life?

In 2007 the RPG Maker game Super Columbine Massacre RPG was added to, then removed from, the Slamdance festival following complaints; it was a minor cause celebre at the time following concerns about censorship and the lack of protections for expression in the videogame format specifically following the Jack Thompson media crusade in the United States. In 2019 the same festival retrospectively changed their reasoning: now the game had no longer been removed on the basis of questionable taste, but on the basis of questionable compliance with copyright law, since it included music from the likes of Smashing Pumpkins without paying for licensing fees (and also because the author generally "hadn’t created several of its elements" - asset flips!!!). There's some humour in the fact that a benign-sounding concern with "artist's rights" could just be swapped in as a more respectable-sounding surrogate for general prudery with exactly the same result. But also, in this instance, what does it mean about the game? As facile as SCMR is, the bootleg use of graphics and music was its most interesting element: the game was a bricolage of American pop culture at a specific point in time, as were the killers, as are we. The nearness and recognisability of that culture, the sense of not being able to get enough distance from it to properly fictionalise or think about what happened, is what stands out. An "ethical" version of the same game which used original music - Nirvanalikes, some tastefully copyright-adjacent Marilyn Manson clones - would not just be diminished, it would be actively insulting in the false distance it implied.

I don't mean this at all as a request for more edgelord-ism. But it's worth remembering that videogames themselves are not ethical; are, in fact, colonized materials assembled with exploitative labour and dumped aimlessly into public life by electronics corporations looking to make a buck. The bizarre and haphazard ways this long dump of poor decisions has manifested, warped, been adjusted into culture is part of what's worth attending to about the format – I think it's worth looking closer into all these pools of murkiness, before ethical landlords can come drape a tarp over them as part of the process of divvying up the property.

(image credits: youkai douchuuki, quiz nanairo dreams, trauma center: under the knife, espial)

#gamechat #games criticism #moral

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joshbentley-blog1 · 5 years

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2018, A Year in Film

Much like my love for music, I use the end of the year to compile a list of my favorite films, films that affected my life and altered my perspective and appreciation for the arts. Here are a list of motion pictures that I consider impactful in some shape or form, transformative to a degree, and worthy contributions to the medium. Enjoy.

Honorable mentions:

Roma

Alfonso Cuarón’s return to Earth since 2013′s Gravity finds itself in 1970s Mexico, backdropped by the political turmoil of the time and laced with the mundane yet subtly beautiful comings and goings of every day life. It is an intimate and sincere look into the struggles of surviving day by day, but also a gorgeously emotional ode to the resilience of those entrapped by the life’s unprejudiced judgement.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Distributor: Netflix

Genre: Historical drama

Isle of Dogs

Wes Anderson returned to the beloved medium of stop motion animation this year with Isle of Dogs. His previous work, Fantastic Mr. Fox, was a charming and quirky story of a fox father trying to provide for his den in the midst of a heated human versus animal dispute. But where Fantastic Mr. Fox lacked substantial depth (not a bad quality by any means), Isle of Dogs builds a narrative of love and hope, eloquently animating the unimpeachable love humans and dogs so equally share. The set design, animation quality and Wes Anderson quirks are all at their very best. A must-see for any Anderson fan, or appreciator of stop motion animation.

Director: Wes Anderon

Distributor: Fox Searchlight

Genre: Stop motion animation / sci-fi / dystopian

Sorry to Bother You

Directorial debuts were bountiful this year, and one such standout is Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You. An apt and absurd social commentary, with enough laughs to punch through the somewhat dark depths it veils. The film starts off vanilla enough, but you soon find yourself in the midst of a dark, fever dream that won’t end. The phenomenal writing and cast make this original an extremely hard film to forget.

Director: Boots Riley

Distributor: Annapurna Pictures

Genre: Absurdist / dark comedy

Top 10:

10. Disobedience

When New York-based photographer, Ronit (Weisz), learns of her father’s unexpected passing, her past life and all its troubles are brought to the forefront. Returning back to the Orthodox Jewish community in London in which she grew up, Ronit is faced with various extremes. From the turmoils of having to explain herself to the Jewish community, to the re-kindling of her relationship with Esti (McAdams), to facing her own faults and desires, Ronit’s life is crumpled and staggered. Disobedience is a heartfelt and organic story of love finding a way through all the dark and uncertainty.

Director: Sebastián Lelio

Distributor: Bleecker Street

Romance: Romantic drama

9. You Were Never Really Here

A heroic yet traumatizing narrative finds Joaquin Phoenix’s Joe in the midst of unfolding the inner workings of a crime ring that stretches further than anyone could have comprehended. Joe is a former military and FBI operative, now a hired gun whose job it is to rescue trafficked girls. Director Lynne Ramsay expertly maneuvers the chaos and violence of the film, often subverted our expectations in various means. Phoenix gives one of his best performances to date, and Jonny Greenwood’s original soundtrack is the icing atop the cacophonic cake.

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Distributor: Amazon Studios

Genre: Psychological thriller / crime drama

8. The Old Man & the Gun

If (500) Days of Summer were all grown up is how I would begin to describe this story. But The Old Man & the Gun is much, much more than a simple romantic comedy. Much like the director’s project from last year, one A Ghost Story, David Lowery once again explores the fabrics of time and how they shapes us as a species. The story is a contemplation on time’s inevitability and its relationship with our feelings of love and yearning. Beautifully backdropped by an America long passed, Lowery’s film finds two characters especially intertwined, strung together by the fickle hands of time itself. Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek have undeniable chemistry, and it is this chemistry that acts as the driving force of the film. Redford’s swan song is one to be seen and remembered dearly.

Director: David Lowery

Distributor: Fox Searchlight

Genre: Biography / romantic comedy

7. First Reformed

A deep meditation on faith and all the uncertainties it brings with, First Reformed is an imaginative and exhausting look into the vitriol we have brought upon ourselves, and how God and Man meet at such an abyss. Reverend Toller, once a chaplain in the Armed Forces, now resides and serves in an old Dutch Reformed church, serving a diminishing congregation and existing in the shadow of the neighboring megachurch, Abundant Life. Toller is forced to deal his own morals and understandings, while also supporting those in his congregation. As his service becomes increasingly darker and more difficult, Toller looks deep within himself and looks to God for an answer, any answer.

Director: Paul Schrader

Distributor: A24

Genre: Drama

6. Eighth Grade

Bo Burnham uses his directorial debut to discuss the Internet in its current context. From his discussions on the A24 podcast, Burnham wanted to find a proper medium for such a discussion, because many who try to judge the Internet and its culture do so miserably. It is understandably difficult to critique such culture without sounding tone deaf, but Burnham executes it to perfection. What better way to critique the Internet than by doing so from the perspective of an eighth grader, a person who has grown up in the shadow of the digital age? Elsie Fisher is a breakout star, nailing the timid courage of her character. Through excellent and organic performances and modern comedic writing, Eighth Grade is a coming-of-age story unlike any other.

Director: Bo Burnhma

Distributor: A24

Genre: Comedy-drama / coming-of-age

5. Annihilation

2018 was admittedly a weaker year for science fiction, but one project that rose above the rest was Alex Garland’s Annihilation. Garland’s no stranger to science fiction or horror, having tackled the genres in 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, and Ex Machina. But with Annihilation Garland is able to capture horror rooted in science, incomparable to any other film. Based on the novel by the same name from author Jeff VanderMeer, the story follows a group of scientists venturing into a quarantined zone known as “The Shimmer.” Once inside, the scientists are faced with the supernatural horrors they studied from afar. Garland’s work is immense and vivid, deserving of so much more praise than it has received.

Director: Alex Garland

Distributor: Paramount Pictures & Netflix

Genre: Science fiction horror

4. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Coen Brothers are no strangers to the subversions of classic film. Their tangled narratives, inconclusive conclusions and ponderings on the workings of humankind have made them standout directors, enemies of conventional filmmaking and pioneers of darkly comedic explorations of humanity.

"A song never ceases to ease my mind out here in the West. Where the distances are great, and the scenery monotonous."

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers' first true western since 2010's True Grit, is anything but monotonous and certainly a welcome addition to the genre. Additionally, it is a triumphant return to form for the Coen Bros. Buster Scruggs is unlike most films, and again finds the Coen Brothers subverting the western genre, in its anthological form. Six vignettes tell the tales of settlers, outlaws, cowboys, and every sort of man and woman in between in the days of old, when the West was formed, and includes every bit of gruesome and grim detail.

It is not secret the Coen Brothers are adept at macabre storytelling, and are avid explorers of what makes man tick and humanity tremble. Their iconic dark, dry humor, their gritty and off-center storytelling, and their classic subversions of film are all present in Buster Scruggs. But while Coen films of past contained these elements (e.g. Hail, Caesar!), I have felt that their recent works have lacked that classic Coen charm. That snappy dialogue, the witty banter between characters, the intricate storytelling, all have been present in their works, but not since A Serious Man have I felt the Coen's magic this potently. That is now, not since Buster Scruggs.

The film's characters and stories do not overlap. But the themes and lessons certainly do. The opening ballad of one gun-slinging, guitar-strumming cowboy, Buster Scruggs (aka 'The San Saba Songbird'), is a gruesome musical. Full of shootouts and gore, it perfectly sets the tone for how the remainder of the film will play out. Tim Blake Nelson is charismatic, ruthless, and quick as a whip in this vignette. And I would have adored an entire film devoted solely to his character. But the Coen's first subversion comes when our hero is gunned down in the street by a faster gun.

Near Algodones, New Mexico, we find James Franco's outlaw. Robbing a bank, he is retaliated against by a surly old man covered in pans. This vignette feels shorter than its predecessor but is equally humorous and grim. The third story, Meal Ticket, gives us a glimpse into the harsh realities that faced early western settlers. And how making a living does not always coincide with morality and ethics. Liam Neeson and Harry Melling gel so well together but share few pieces of back-and-forth dialogue. I've seen some criticize this vignette for straying from the classic "western format," but to me it perfectly captures what it meant to live such a life.

All Gold Canyon is among my favorite of the stories. Its beautiful shots, wide takes of a beautiful canyon, and the juxtaposition of a man searching for riches in the mud while the true riches of nature are set behind him. It's a simple story, but it leaves the viewer wanting more from Tom Waits' prospector character. One of the view stories to end happily (in a sense), I found All Gold Canyon to be a masterful work of minimalist storytelling.

The Gal Who Got Rattled is my favorite of the six stories. Zoe Kazan, Bill Heck and Grainger Hines have excellent chemistry and play off each other so well. Straying from the deep west, we are drawn northwards, on the Oregon Trail. The simple yet dangerous treck is beautifully captured by the Coens here, and the story envelops you in its charm. And finally, The Mortal Remains ends our journey. A story laced with symbolism and metaphors, it's the Coen Brothers at their peak. The skeletal format of this vignette is much like the morals explored in No Country and A Serious Man, and I found myself wondering how the story could possibly end. And then it does. The final subversion of the film is this vignette's untimely end.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs may lack continuity in terms of character arcs and storytelling. But what it certainly does not lack is character, masterful writing, expert characterization, and a deep understanding of what captivates us as viewers. The Coen Brothers understand that sometimes, simplicity is best. There is beauty in minimalism, and I believe Buster Scruggs is a excellent envisioning of such a statement.

Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen

Distributor: Netflix

Genre: Western / anthological film / dark comedy

3. Hereditary

They say the devil is in the details, and so such phrase would better describe Ari Aster’s debut, Hereditary. Perhaps the phrase shouldn’t be taken metaphorically though, instead literally; the film finds a family thrown into tragedy after a Satanic occult ritual, long in the works, begins to root itself in the foundations of the family.

Aster uses the story to burrow into our pysches, to strike fear and discomfort into the viewers. He does so not only expertly, but in such original fashion as well. Sure, Aster’s influences can be indentified and picked apart by an experienced viewer, but his crafting of a narrative and his fleshing out of the characters is so unique and a welcome take to the horror genre, Hereditary feels like an entirely new breed of horror.

The film begins with the funeral of the mother to Annie Graham (Toni Collette). As guests pour in to the congregation, it is clear that Annie is shocked with the occupancy. She states in her eulogy that her mother was a very private and secretive women, and that she is shocked to see so many unfamiliar faces here to pay respects to her estranged mother. Once home, Annie and the rest of the family unwind to a disturbing degree of comfort. Annie does not seem shaken by her mother’s passing, as she begins clearing out boxes that belonged to her mother. As she is exiting her studio however, a vision of her mother briefly appears in the dim and dark corner of the unlit room. Annie steps back, wondering if what she saw was real or a fabrication of her mind. Thus, begins the Grahams’ descent into darkness.

Following the funeral, Annie’s only daughter Charlie expresses her worry over the loss of her grandma. Stating, “Who’s going to take care of me?” Charlie is at a loss. Annie comforts her saying of course she will take care of her, but Charlie responds by asking what will happen when Annie is gone.

Later, Peter (Annie’s son) asks if he can go out and visit friends at a party. Annie lets him go but on one condition, that he takes Charlie with him. Charlie begins having visions of her own, and begins tinkering and creating absurd and deformed sculptures. An obvious introvert, she is reluctant to agree to go to the party with Peter, much to the chagrin of Annie. At the party, Peter finds a group of friends to smoke marijuana with, leaving Charlie by herself. Alone, Charlie gets into trouble and her and Peter rush home. An unfortunate incident occurs en route, which only propels the darkness further.

Annie becomes desperate for answers and substance to her mother’s reclusive and secretive life. She finds hints of the truth through old belongings and an old friend of her mother. Visions keep recurring and stranger forces begin to act on not only Annie but Peter as well.

Soon, the family is tumbling down a slope of despair. Séances, rituals, occult castings begin to mount and the demons and darkness begin to unleash. The film is a gripping and horrifying look at what is perhaps most universally frightening, family.

Director Ari Aster is unafraid to explore and highlight the grotesque and grim. He utilizes shocking imagery and beautiful lighting to display these horrors front and center, while still relying on subtle scares to keep the audience in suspense. Not only is the film adeptly disturbing, its characters are compelling and interesting. None are thrown by the wayside, and the spiraling story’s success is hinged on the characters we come to love. Toni Collette gives her greatest performance to date, and Alex Wolff proves he can handle a broad array of material. Milly Shapiro is excellent as Charlie, rivaling Elsie Fisher for young breakout star this year.

The magnificent blend of cinematography, acting, writing, and horror imagery Hereditary the best horror film I’ve seen all year, and certainly one of the most gripping stories I have ever experienced.

Director: Ari Aster

Distributor: A24

Genre: Supernatural horror / disturbing horror

2. The Favourite

It is often the case that period pieces take on a serious tone, dramatic takes on the facts and legends of old. Think Phantom Thread or Lincoln. Not too common are period pieces that extrapolate on the well-known, but also leave plenty of room for creative freedom from the production team. Even more rare are such projects that include elements of absurdity and dark comedy.

But it would not come to anyone’s surprise to find out that such a project exists at the hands of director Yorgos Lanthimos. Best known for his previous works, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimos is almost Wes Anderson-esque or Tarantino-esque, in the marks he leaves in his films. His style is so distinct and his directions very much his own.

The Favourite follows suit, and Lanthimos’ quirks and trademarks are found throughout. From the monochromatic color palette to the dry, darkly comedic dialogue, the film is familiar in a way. But also true is that the film is nothing like Lanthimos has ever done before. It is grander, more gruesome, diabolical in a way, biblical in scope. His first film for a major production studio perhaps led to a grander scope, but I believe that this was a logical next step for the director. From The Lobster it was apparent that Lanthimos was willing and more than capable of tackling a monolithic project such as The Favourite, if given the right assets. It is inspiring to see such a film come to fruition.

The film finds three women in the royal court of Queen Anne: Abigail Hill, Sarah Churchill, and Queen Anne herself. Churchill (known in the film commonly as Lady Marlborough) has serviced the Queen for quite some time, prior to Ms. Abigail Hill‘s arrival. Both as a political aid and as a lover, Churchill finds comfort and immense power in her role beside Queen Anne. Everything seems to be going well for the court; the Queen, while certainly inept, has the confidence of her subjects and the war with France is going better than expected.

But then Abigail Hill arrives. A cousin of Sarah Churchill’s, Abigail travels to the court in hopes of working under both the Queen and her senior, Lady Marlborough. Hill begins as a lowly servant, making meals and cleaning sections of the palace. But not soon after, she advances the ranks, eventually rivaling Churchill in terms of power and influence on the Queen and all of Britain. The two cousins turn on each other, a once subtle love quickly turns to angst and hate.

The relationship of the three women dips and ascends throughout the film; there are periods of immense joy and respect, but also grim and violent progressions of guilt, lust and jealousy.

All of these emotions are so vividly captured thanks to the unique cinematography and direction. Camera angles are unconventional, using low-lying cameras to peer upward towards the characters, or highly placed lenses creeping above the Queen and her court. All of these placements give the sense that the viewer is spying on the characters, that we are sneaking into their lives unbeknownst to them.

It is the performances of the three leads and the unique cinematography that gripped me so powerfully upon my initial viewing. Olivia Colman (Queen Anne), Rachel Weisz (Sarah Churchill) and Emma Stone (Abigail Hill) are all superb talents, free the stretch their acting chops and creative imaginations to bring such life to their characters. But the supporting cast is equally brilliant. In fact, no elements of the film come off as ill-planned or weak. The film is like a well-oiled machine, perfectly in sync and precise to a scary degree.

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Distributor: Fox Searchlight

Genre: Historical comedy-drama / period piece / romance

1. Burning (버닝)

It has been quite some time since I have felt this looming questioning of morality, this cutting sense of dread from a motion picture. Burning is a Korean psychological thriller by Lee Chang-dong, and tells the story of three individuals caught in the unforgiving hands of lust. An ineffable sense of desire lurks throughout the film, as the three characters find themselves and their relationships with each other engulfed in tragedy. Love and desire quickly transforms into decay and wrath.

Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) is a part-time delivery man, who one day finds an old schoolmate working outside a department store. Shin Hae-mi (Jun Jong-seo) asks Jong-su out to drinks and the two quickly become entranced by one another. Hae-mi asks Jong-su if he remembers her from their shared past. He does not. She informs him that they attended middle school together, lived in the same village, and that Jong-su once called her ugly leading to her receiving plastic surgery. Still, deeply infatuated and perhaps a tad remorseful, Jong-su helps Hae-mi by looking over her reclusive cat while she travels to Africa in the hopes of some soul searching.

Hae-mi eventually returns to Seoul, this time bringing back a friend she met while in the airport, Ben. Ben and Hae-mi bonded over their shared heritage and nationality, being the only two Koreans in the airport at the time. The trio goes out for hot pot and drinks, where Hae-mi states in a drunken stupor that she felt incredibly lonesome while in the Kalahari desert. She describes a bittersweet lonesomeness that only such a vast expanse of desolation could bring. Jong-su seems unphased, almost detached from such a stark statement from a normally bubbly individual. Ben, looks noticeably concerned but then says he has never understood why people cry, he has never shed a tear himself. The three leave shortly after.

Time moves on, and Jong-su eventually moves back to his hometown to take over his father’s farm, as his father has come into legal trouble. Hae-mi and Ben become ever closer and Jong-su appears to remain detached from Hae-mi from the exterior. Deep down, Jong-su feels heavily for Hae-mi, eventually expressing his love for her to Ben at his farm.

Darkness sets in when one day Hae-mi does not respond to Jong-su’s calls. From there on out the story becomes a mysterious and incredibly riveting tale of love and the dangers of desire and inaction.

Yoo Ah-in is incredible as Jong-su, and nails the detached and perplexed characterization. Steven Yeun steals every scene he is a part of, reminding me of Heath Ledger’s Joker or Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in terms of menacing presence and subtle malice. But for me, the standout actor is Jun Jong-seo and her portrayal of Hae-mi. She embodies the character perfectly, and I felt for her character throughout the film. Hae-mi is clearly struggling to find her own way and desperately wants to find courage and power in some shape or form. I can relate to that struggle. Truly, this film is carried by its characters and the beautiful performances by their respective actors.

So many other elements come together to make this film a success though. The cinematography is masterclass. Using wide lenses to capture the claustrophobic chaos of downtown Seoul and the vast and desolate disconnect of the Korean countryside, cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo is able to capture the diverse beauty of Korea. He uses intimate close ups and handheld camerawork to create cutting scenes of tension and discomfort, drawing the viewer into the experience, emboldening the story of Jung-su and Hae-mi. A wide variety of long takes and tracking shots are utilized as well, forcing the viewer to pay attention and highlighting the characters in an organic moment.

Perhaps my favorite scene of the year, and certainly my favorite scene of the movie comes about half way through the runtime. It involves Miles Davis’ song, “Générique,” and a particular character’s tribal, rhythmic dancing. It’s a beautiful moment of reflection in the film and still runs through my head.

I will refrain from discussing the film anymore, as I strongly believe this work is best experienced with as little knowledge as possible. Lee Chang-dong, Yoo Ah-in, Jun Jong-seo and Steven Yeun, and the rest of the production team have created something incredibly raw and thoughtful here. It is more than apparent that an immense amount of care went into making this story and adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Barn Burning a triumphant success. What I love about this film is, in a way, it made me feel a connection to my home country in such a profound and unexplainable way. I haven’t seen many Korean films, but Burning was able to kindle a connection in me that I haven’t experienced with other Korean films before. For these reasons, I can decidedly say that Burning is my favorite film of 2018.

Director: Lee Chang-dong

Distributor: CGV Arthouse (Korea) & Well Go Entertainment (USA)

Genre: Psychological thriller / romantic drama

#film review #film #movie review #movies #movies of the year #films of the year #sorry to bother you #roma #isle of dogs #wes anderson #yorgos lanthimos #the favourite #burning #lee chang-dong #hereditary #a24

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sunyoonandstars · 6 years

Text

✨Linked✨ || BTS Soulmate AU Series || You x !Soulmate! Yoongi | You x Jimin || Part 17

Text/Social Media/Narrative Series || Soulmate & College AU

Previous Part | Next Part

LINKED MASTERLIST

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

― Plato, The Symposium

Credit goes to the incredible @789cream for creating this beautiful moodboard for my series. Thanks again!

Despite your efforts to keep him at a distance, following his instincts, Yoongi eventually approaches you from behind to carefully hold back your hair, just in case, and rub your back in soothing circles. Soon, he can feel your breathing slow down and your tense muscles relax.

“I’m — I’m sorry. This —”, you stutter, your voice shaky, heavy with tears.

“It’s okay, y/n. Just inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Don’t think. Just breathe.”

Being this close to you, actually feeling your body press against his, feeling your warmth under his palm, is almost more than Yoongi can take. The tattoo on his wrist keeps burning relentlessly. Your relief, however, makes his pain seem insignificant. For you, he’d go through hell and still smile, he realizes as you let your head fall back and onto his shoulder. For you, he’d do anything and expect nothing in return.

Pairing You x !Soulmate! Yoongi You x Jimin

Word count 4.040

‘siblings’, according to age: Namjoon, Jimin, y/n, Taehyung (you grew up living in the same foster home as implied in earlier parts of this series)

fluff, angst, hints at/of smut

!Warning/s! mentions of suicide/suicidal thoughts

Previously, on ‘Linked’…

Eventually, after years of successfully having avoided it, you have come across your soulmate. An ominous stranger of whom you know no more than the back of his head, his phone number and that he works as a part-time barista at your (former) favorite coffee shop.

Having been pressured by a friend into contacting him, things start to get complicated. Because your heart already belongs to another. And, haunted by the ghosts of your past, the last thing you want is for your soul to find its one, true, destined mate.

After texting back and forth for days with the man only known to you as your ‘Soulmate’, you are forced to break contact since he is starting to get too close and your boyfriend Jimin is anything but pleased with that. When your paths, however, cross, the ominous ‘Suga’, as he calls himself, refrains from revealing his true identity to you - which would mean an instant link of souls and the end of his torture - and, instead, is set on making his way into your life the right way.

A fateful accident at your workplace is followed by a visit to the emergency room and a falling out with your boyfriend, Jimin, leading you to turn to a virtual stranger for comfort …

CHAPTER 17

Shaking your head, you step back from Suga’s fridge.

“What’s this? Did you win a lifetime supply of Red Bull or something?”, you laugh, grabbing two cans before you make your way back to him.

“I wish”, he chuckles, his eyes following your every move as you, leaning against his desk, open both your drinks and hand him his. “I just hate wasting time on sleep, that’s all.”

“Wow, that attitude can’t be healthy”, you note before you throw back your head to take a first sip of the ice-cold, almost sickeningly sweet liquid, pretending not to notice that Suga’s gaze still rests on you, the expression on his face absent.

Somehow, knowing that he is watching you and his mere presence, the warmth emanating from his skin, Suga’s hot breath brushing past you, excite you in ways that your boyfriend doesn’t and hasn’t in a long time. It’s like every movement of his, howsoever small and casual, educes an immediate reaction from your body. It’s not even something you provoke consciously. You can’t control it. And you're not sure you like it. Because you know for a fact that Suga will never be yours to have, his soul having linked with that of another. And then there’s still Jimin. The man you thought you would spend the rest of your life with but from whom you’ve been, slowly but surely, growing further and further apart.

“What’s with that sigh?”, you hear Suga ask, the sound of his warm voice leading you to jolt out of your wandering thoughts.

“Sigh? What sigh?”

“So you don’t even notice anymore, huh?”, he raises a brow at you, a fond grin playing on his lips. “You kept sighing like the weight of the freaking world rested on your shoulders.”

“No, I didn’t”, you pout, hiding your embarrassment by emptying half of your Red Bull can in one go. Which was probably not your best idea.

“You know what? I think it’s about time we get out of here. I think we need a break.”

Surprised at Suga’s newly found enthusiasm, you watch him get up, a bright smile stretching across his handsome face.

“What the hell?”, you wonder out loud, eying him suspiciously. “Just a few minutes ago you could’ve been mistaken for a zombie. And now you’re … What? Willy Wonka? Where’s that energy coming from? You’re scaring me.”

“Who the fuck is Willy Wonka?”

“You didn’t just ask that”, you gasp, dramatically clutching your chest while Suga grabs his jacket and ushers you towards his studio’s door.

“Afraid I did”, he shrugs nonchalantly.

“Oh, come on. You’re just pulling my leg. Right? Everyone knows —”

“Charlie and The Chocolate Factory? Yeah. I was kidding. I’m not as creepy as Willy Wonka, though, I swear.”

“He’s not creepy!?”

“Oh, come on. The crazy eyes? The weird voice?”

“Well. Maybe a little bit. Just a tiny little bit creepy. God. Now that I think about it — Damn you.” You playfully punch him, your voice echoing throughout the dark corridor leading to the building’s lobby. “You just ruined one of my favorite childhood movies.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No. You’re right. I’m not.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“Always.”

“Tsk”, you scoff, not even for a second doubting his words to be true, though. With Suga, there are no lies, no half-truths. With him, it’s all honesty. Something you had been craving for a while now. A reason not to pretend. And it felt like you could finally breathe fresh air again after having been locked in a suffocating dungeon for months or even years.

“Where are we going anyway?”, you ask as the two of you step outside into the brisk night. You had no idea it was already this late. The hours with Suga, locked away in his studio, hiding from the cruel world outside of its four walls had passed far too quickly.

“We’re going for a drive.”

Sliding into the passenger seat of Suga’s old Kia feel surprisingly natural to you. Within no more than two days, this is the third time you ride his car, entrusting your safety and life to a man you barely know. Yet, there is no place you would rather be right now. And no person you’d rather be with.

“Where are you taking me?”, you ask as the car picks up speed now that you left the campus’ parking lot to turn right and onto the main road. Street lights, dark house facades, and glinting neon signs keep rushing past you like a gloomy dreamscape. You encounter barely any other drivers at this time of night. The streets are almost abandoned, the peace and quiet giving the scenery a post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

“I’m taking you to one of my favorite places. To clear our heads.”

“Sounds vague.”

“Tsk.”

“That’s it? That’s really all the info I’m gonna get?”

You watch him as Suga steers the broken up vehicle into a tunnel, the flickering lights tinting his smiling side profile a warm gold.

“You could just as well be kidnapping me for all I know, driving me to a secluded spot where it should be easy to dispose of my cold dead body”, you grumble, crossing your arms over your chest in the hopes that he will take a look and take note of your demonstratively pursed lips.

“Who knows”, he wiggles a brow without taking his eyes off the road. “Maybe that’s just what I’m about to do.”

“Stop it”, you whine, realizing just how quickly that careless joke of you turned sour. “This is getting creepy.”

“May I remind you that you started this?”

“But I don’t like where it’s going.”

Now, finally, Suga turns around to face you, his expression of sudden seriousness.

“Do you actually believe I would or could do something like that? To you?”

You swallow hard as your eyes once more get lost in his pitch-black orbs.

“No. To be honest. I don’t know why, but I trust you. More than I trust myself. Does that make sense?” Unable to withstand his boring gaze any longer, you avert your face, covering your burning cheeks with both your hands. “No. Of course, it doesn’t. Just forget what I said. I don’t even know where it came from. I’m sorry if I crossed a line.”

“No. Don’t apologize. It’s okay.” He pauses. You can tell that he’s still looking at you. “No one has ever trusted me before, you know. I made sure of that. But I have to say it feels … good.”

Right in this moment, it takes all of your willpower not to give in to the strong urge to take a hold of Suga’s hand. Instead, you just look at him, dare yourself to meet his eyes. And the two of you spend the following minutes in telling silence, the air filling the space in between your bodies sizzling, every single atom vibrating with prickling electricity. The tension is palpable. You’re sure you’re not the only one who can tell.

“Can I let down the window?”, you inquire, your voice no more than a whisper, hesitant to break the quiet.

“Sure.”

And so you wind down the window and poke your head out into the fresh breeze entangling itself in your loose hair, caressing your skin and drying a stray tear that had made its way down your cheek unnoticed. When now, suddenly, a familiar song starts sounding from the car’s speakers, your heart skips a beat. You would recognize this melody anywhere. A sound like that of another world. Magical. Unreal. Matching the moment’s ambiance oh so perfectly.

How did he know?, you wonder. How did this strange man know to pick one of your very own favorite songs? How is it possible that Suga keeps on striking all the right chords in you? It isn’t. It shouldn’t be.

“We’re here”, he unexpectedly announces.

“Where?”

You turn around to look at Suga who’s eyes widen at the sight of your face.

“Y/n, why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying. These are just tears. It’s not the same.”

“It’s not?”

“No. Not to me. You know, when you’re always sad, you learn to tell the difference.”

“Are you sad right now?”, he inquires, his tone soft.

“Not really, no. That moment was just so perfect. The tears were happy ones. Because I forgot for a second.”

“Forgot what?”

He stares at you as if he’s almost scared of your answer.

“That I’m sad”, you reply, your lips smiling all by themselves. “And a little broken. You made me forget.”

Yoongi can’t believe what he is looking at. How is it possible for you to become more gorgeous by the second? Is it really just the Link? He isn’t sure anymore. If he’s entirely honest with himself, he refuses to believe that what he feels for you is merely a matter of genetics. Not anymore at least. What you do to him can’t be explained by mere DNA analysis. It’s no longer just chromosomes that connect you. It’s bigger than that. When he looks into your shimmering eyes, still wet with tears, he can catch a glimpse of his very own soul. And for the first time in his life, he likes what he’s seeing.

“I’m glad I could do that for you”, he says, taking in your smile, the saddest and most beautiful smile he has ever seen. “That I could help you forget about your sadness, even if it was only for a little while.”

“I’m glad you’re glad”, you reply without hesitation, immediately going on to shake your head at your own words, obviously embarrassed. “God, that sounded stupid.”

“No, it didn’t.” He can’t help but grin, even your flushed face appearing endearing to him. You’re so cute, he almost can’t resist the longing to plant a kiss on your forehead. And maybe smell your hair … and …

“So. You said we were there? Where you wanted to take me?”, you swiftly change the topic, making good use of this chance to break eye contact and direct your attention towards the cityscape passing you by.

“Yes, we are. This bridge is special to me. For several reasons.”

“Such as?”, you inquire, your averted face remaining hidden behind a curtain of hair.

“Well. I mentioned this person, this woman I linked with.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the day I linked with her, by accident, you might say, I was standing on this very bridge, ready to jump.”

Eyes, wide with shock, hair flying, you whirl around to stare at him in disbelief.

Afraid his face could betray him, Yoongi decides to keep his eyes fixed on the road ahead as he speaks up again.

“That spot over there”, he points to the place where he climbed the banister no more than a week ago, about to fall to his death, his cold fingers desperately clutching his phone which seemed to be the last thread connecting him to a life he didn’t feel was worth living, his eyes eagerly following the lines a perfect stranger sent him. Even now he still remembers these painful seconds all too vividly, the memory sending an icy shiver down his spine. “That’s where I stood, prepared to end my existence once and for all. I was sure I was gonna go through with it this time. But then I linked with her. And it changed everything.”

Yoongi is forced to pause when his vocal cords refuse their service.

“I’m glad it happened. The Link. That you didn’t …”, you stammer, your voice no more than a breathed whisper.

If you only knew. That it was you who saved his petty life.

“I’ll be honest with you”, he eventually continues. “I was quite an asshole before the Link. I didn’t think I could ever love somebody. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to. I didn’t let myself. I thought love was bullshit.” He shakes his head. The words just won’t come out right. Yoongi can feel his heart pound against his ribcage and your eyes still glued to his side profile.

“No, actually, I was kinda afraid it could be real, to be honest. I shielded myself from love because I was a coward, scared shitless. I built walls around myself, too high for anyone to ever climb. And if someone tried, I was sure to push them away in any way possible. Time and again I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t lovable, I guess. That, in the end, every new person claiming to want me in their lives would leave me, just like everyone did before them. I hurt so many people, y/n, just so I wouldn’t get hurt. I slept around. Had meaningless affairs with women who didn’t know me. But the very second the Link was built all of that anger and emptiness and sadness inside of me suddenly just … disappeared. I felt at peace for the first time in as long as I can remember. Because, before her, you know, there was just no one worth taking the risk for. The risk of letting someone in and depending on them. But the moment the Link was built, I didn’t feel alone anymore. For the first time in my life I didn’t feel isolated by the person I am. And life had meaning again. She gave me meaning. And she doesn’t even know.”

Teeth clenched, Yoongi’s trembling hands close so tightly around the steering wheel, his knuckles turn white.

“I’m sure she does.” He hears you say, and your words hurt him just as much as they heal him. “I’m sure she knows. She must.”

“I hope so.”

With those words, a haunting quiet makes itself at home in the space between you, filling the inside of the car, Making it hard for him to breathe. Until you start talking again, the mere sound of your voice bringing him ease.

“Part of me wishes to know what that feels like”, you mumble, more to yourself, one hand reaching out of the open window, your pale finger playing with the wind, glowing in the cold harsh light of the street lamps. Yoongi has to admit to himself that your vague words fan the spark of hope that has begun to settle in his heart.

“But, don’t you have Jimin? Haven’t you been with him for a while now?”

“So, what?”, you shrug, not taking your eyes off of the nocturnal city skyline.

“Well, don’t you love him?”

“To be honest, I’m not so sure if I ever loved him in the way I should’ve.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Suga, could —” Eventually, you turn around to look at him, your face white as a sheet, lips trembling. “Could we maybe — Could you stop the car? I think I need to get out. To get some air. I — I —”

“Yes! Yes, of course!”, he cuts you off, pulling over immediately.

As soon as the vehicle comes to a halt, you throw open the car door and stumble outside, towards the bridge’s railing, leaning over the banister, your shaking hands clutching the cold metal.

Quickly, Yoongi rushes to your side, unsure of what to do or say, your concerning state instilling sheer terror in him.

“Y/n? What is it? What’s wrong?”

You brush his word off with a gesture of your hand, indicating him to stay away as you cough and heave, your erratic breaths, now and then, being interrupted by broken sobs.

“I’m — I’m sorry. This —”, you stutter, your voice shaky, heavy with tears.

“It’s okay, y/n. Just inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Don’t think. Just breathe.”

“Are you feeling any better?”, he cautiously asks after minutes of silence, only filled by the sound of both your breathing, have passed with your head still resting on his shoulder.

“Yes. I think.”

Instantly, as if you had only now become aware of the situation, you straighten your posture and step back, bringing a good two feet between yourself and Yoongi, hiding your face from his view.

“Sorry. I —”

“Stop apologizing already.”

These words came out harsher than intended. Brows furrowed, you shoot him an astonished glance.

“I’m sorry”, Yoongi mutters under his breath, one hand awkwardly massaging his neck.

“Stop apologizing already”, you snap at him, imitating his tone, biting your lip so as to keep it from breaking into a smile.

“You’re pretty cheeky for someone who almost fainted just now, you know that?”

“Yeah, right?”, you giggle, throwing back your head to take another deep breath.

“So, are you ready to go back?”

Your head tilted to one side, you look at him, your unexpectedly serious eyes taking in his features, an intensity to their gaze that leads his face to flush.

“Yes. Take me back, please.”

“Are you sure?”

You nod your head as you step closer. So close he could effortlessly reach out and touch you.

“Yes, I am. Everything is a little less scary down there. With you. In your studio. I feel safe there.”

Yoongi has to actively remind himself to breathe at this point.

“Okay. Let’s go back then.”

The drive back is spent in comfortable silence. For a few minutes you even doze off, your head abuts against the now-closed window. Yoongi can’t keep himself from smiling like an idiot while he watches you, calm now, soundly sleeping, your mouth agape, dark lashes fluttering.

Back at the studio, you plop down onto his sofa with a sigh, apparently feeling quite at home already. An assumption that fills Yoongi with contentment and even pride. He is sorry to disturb the peace, but a question has been burning on the tip of his tongue ever since the incident on the bridge. And he has never been one to hold back when it comes to wiping the slate clean.

“So, y/n, what happened back there? In the car?”

“I didn’t get carsick, if that’s what you were thinking”, you joke, not meeting his gaze.

“Come on. Let’s be real here.” Taking a deep breath, he squats down before you. This is harder than he thought it would be. Yoongi hates himself for putting you in the position to face those unpleasant feelings again. But there are just things that can’t be left unsaid.

“If something like that happens, I need to know why, y/n. Especially if it’s in my car. So I can react accordingly. You scared me, you know. And don’t you even think about apologizing again.”

“Okay, I won’t then”, you scoff, burying your face in your hands, your elbows propped up on your knees.

Seconds elapse, stretching into what feels like an eternity, before you reluctantly proceed.

“What happened is — I realized something. And it made me sick. Literally. Because I’m like the biggest asshole on earth. And I can’t stand it. I can’t stand to — To hurt him like that. I disgust myself for having to.”

“Him?”

“I believe we both know who I’m talking about.”

“What do you mean, hurt him? What did you realize?”

Yoongi has trouble containing his excitement.

“You don’t have to tell me, of course”, he quickly adds. “Only if you want to. It’s not like you owe me any kind of explanation. I know what I needed to know. Anything else is —”

“I don’t love him”, you suddenly burst out, cutting him off in mid-sentence, finally lifting your head to reveal a tear-streaked face, eyes reddened. “I don’t love Jimin the way I should. And I’m not sure if I ever did. I’m afraid what we had was a lie. Sure, I needed him. We needed each other. At one point. And he probably still needs me. But I just — I just can’t keep up the charade any longer. I — I can’t keep playing a role I wasn’t cast for, you know!? I’m not what he deserves and he’s not what I need. It’s just — We’re just —”

He can tell your anxiety is setting in again. So, his instincts taking over once more, Yoongi cups your face with both his hands, forcing you to focus your attention on him.

“I get it. Okay? It’s all right”, he enunciates, stressing each syllable. “Feelings change. People change. It’s nothing to hate yourself for. Do you hear me, y/n? It’s not your fault. You can’t force these things. You shouldn’t.”

Reluctantly, you nod, blinking away another tear.

“Not that I have any right to meddle in your relationship. But you shouldn't keep lying to yourself and especially not to him. You need to tell him. So he knows. How you really feel. Instead of raising false hopes in him.”

“False hopes?”

“Well … Are you gonna get back together with him? Back to how things were?”, Yoongi asks as he pulls back from you, his hands dropping to his knees.

“I — I don’t know. I —”

“Forget about it”, he interrupts you, afraid your next words could be the last straw. That they would very literally rip his heart apart. Because, slowly but surely, the growing pain in his chest is starting to make it almost impossible for him to breathe. “I shouldn’t have asked. This is none of my business.”

Weak at the knees, the world starting to spin around him, Yoongi somehow manages to get up and step away before you can reach out for him, staggering towards his chair while a blinding brightness quickly closes in on him from all sides.

The last thing he hears is your high-pitched voice calling out his name before he drops to the floor and a bottomless darkness takes over his consciousness.

When he comes to, bright lights hinder Yoongi from immediately identifying his strange surroundings.

Where is he? And most importantly, how did he get here? He can’t remember anything. Other than fainting.

Only slowly he comes to realize that he is resting in a hospital bed. The air smells of disinfectant, a constant humming and beeping sound from various directions.

Now that he slowly but surely regains full consciousness, another question comes to mind.

Where are you?

“Y/n!?”, he calls out, sitting up so quickly, another dizzy spell threatens to overpower him.

“Shhh”, a nurse appears by his side out of nowhere. “You need to stay calm. Lie down. You’re in no condition to fuss about a girl right now.”

“But — Where —?”

“Your friend left already. Seemed to be in a hurry.” With a warm smile, the middle-aged woman starts rummaging through her gown’s deep pockets. “She told me to give you this.”

With these words, she hands him a crumpled up piece of paper. Only hesitantly Yoongi extends his shaking hand to accept it.

“I didn’t peek if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, thank you. It’s fine.”

With a nod of her head, the nurse leaves to attend to a groaning elderly.

She seemed in a hurry.

No. No way. She didn’t. She couldn’t.

His heart racing, Yoongi barely manages to unfurl the paper, his eyes widening as they follow your quickly scribbled words.

Now it all makes sense. Why I felt so drawn to you. Why you knew me so well. Why you appeared when I was at my weakest.

How could you?? When were you planning on telling me your birth name?? Once I broke up with Jimin?? Or would you even have waited that long??

Shit. I trusted you. I was so blind. I should’ve seen it coming.

Don’t contact me. I really can’t have this right now.

No. No. No. No.

END OF CHAPTER 17 || TO BE CONTINUED

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it so far and this chapter didn’t disappoint. 😌

Here you can find my Masterlist in case you feel like checking out more of my BTS fiction.

Also, if you have Spotify, you can listen to the ‘official’ 🎶 playlist 🎶 to the ‘Linked’ series here. It contains all the songs having been sent back and forth between Yoongi and the reader in the past and some more tunes fitting the series’ vibe.

Take care and have a great day! ☺️💖

NONE of the GIFs used are mine. Credit goes to the initial creators. Thank you for your hard work and dedication.

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thesinglesjukebox · 6 years

Video

youtube

PALE WAVES - EIGHTEEN

[6.40]

After one 1975 tour, one Jukebox appearance, about seventy-million singles, and, at last, one album, here's "Eighteen"...

Edward Okulicz: This is the one. This is what Charli XCX should have been by combining guitars with gothy obesssions. This song takes all the great things about a murderer's row of good songs and just one-ups them in every way -- two that come to mind are "Clarity" by Zedd and "Heaven Sent" by Killing Heidi, but the list could stretch on for paragraphs. Songs with anthemic qualities that are a little bit doomed at the same time and don't care about that and don't regret one thing. The lyrics to the chorus describe a first love, but as I've got older I've learned that these ideas don't stop being true, and in fact get even more so. Falling in love doesn't change; some of us are lucky enough to get better at it over time, but every time you have that moment where you see someone for the first time, or you see someone in a new way for the first time, it's a revelation, and that's the same whether you're 18 or 28 or 38 or 118. Heather Baron-Gracie is singing the life I wanted at 18 and still want two decades on. The performance is a masterpiece of tension and timing and pop hooks and guitar crunch, but on top of that, it's just a perfect piece of pop songwriting. [10]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The verses brim with a romanticism that peaks early on: a declaration from Heather Baron-Gracie that she can "finally see in color." The arpeggiating synths and reverberating drums conjure up a dreamlike state that her vocal melody cuts through: a representation of one's thoughts as they transition from "is this happening?" to "this is happening." That she doesn't repeat the melody in the second verse is heartwarming. This absence acknowledges the ecstasy of that honeymoon stage while allowing the ensuing parts of the relationship to feel just as meaningful; the second verse is still dreamlike, still intimate, still life-affirming. The chorus finds the fog clearing, almost blindsiding one with how direct the singing and instrumentation is. Here, Baron-Gracie provides a diaristic recounting of how much her lover means to her, sounding like Avril Lavigne during this endearing confessional. Hearing her profess that she "poured [her] heart out, spilled all [her] truth" makes one want to do the same. The pop-punk spirit of that chorus may scream teenager, but "Eighteen" understands that the people we cherish from those times -- or any time -- stick with us for eternity. [7]

Alex Clifton: "Eighteen" sounds like a lost Killers track full of youthful ebullience. Some songs remind you of being young and have you lost in thought of what that was once like; others put you back directly in the moment, bringing forth vivid sense memories you thought you'd lost. For me, "Eighteen" is the latter, throwing me back to a time when every day felt like a new kind of heartbreak while losing myself in whatever new song I'd found. It's a good kind of ache to remember that kind of youthfulness. I'm never going to be that girl again, but she'll live on in both my memory and in songs like this; in the end, that's all I can ask for. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: Throbbing rock with a Moroder-esque pulse that explodes into Paramore-colored rainbows on the chorus. If I was, in fact, 18, I'd probably be way into this. Since I'm almost 48, I'm just moderately into this. [6]

Juan F. Carruyo: Received nostalgia isn't what it once was. This sounds like third-rate Paramore. [2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is an unholy fusion of Body Talk Robyn, Speak Now Taylor Swift, and Days Are Gone HAIM with all of the interesting edges or imperfections shaved off, leaving the most deeply radical centrist indie pop record I've heard in a long while. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: I continue to dislike "Call Your Girlfriend" on lyrical grounds, but it's still very obvious how crucial the melodic lift on "that you just met somebody new" or "the only way your heart will mend" or "and then you let her down easy" (Robyn has about six per song) is to the chorus, and how flat a similar chorus would sound if it didn't have one. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Rattling synth arpeggios lift from the ground as searing guitar swings, and then is swept in a big, goofy hug by the limber, devastating drums. The bass silently bridges the gap alongside Heather Baron-Gracie, and both watch the guitar and drums race on ahead, then swing back as Heather rides it on the way to the beginning of her first relationship. [8]

Alfred Soto: For once dampening the synths for a sugar rush of guitars and harmonies, "Eighteen" takes Tegan and Sara into Undertones territory. Like good pop punk, it distills matters to essentials: "I finally felt like I feel for the first time" -- boom. [7]

Josh Love: Pale Waves present a fabulously goth visual aesthetic but their music is closer to brighter synthpop practitioners like Tegan and Sara or Carly Rae (even Chvrches is moodier). "Eighteen" itself engages in a similar bait and switch; at first blush it seems clearly like a rueful lament -- "I was just 18 when I met you/Poured my heart out, spilled all my truth." Yet the lyrics never deliver the expected betrayal or breakup, and so we're surprisingly left with either a love that's still thriving or one that can be looked back upon without bitterness or regret. [7]

Claire Biddles: Pale Waves' debut single (and my Amnesty pick for 2017!) "There's a Honey" was a big ol' perfect ten -- dually a mission statement for their teen-dream goth aesthetic and a self-contained delight. Each single since then (and there have been a lot, thanks to the over-eager contemporary rollout process) has felt like a watered-down version of that initial sharp hit; same shiny Cure-esque guitar waves, same vocal inflections, same song structure, but less magic. "Eighteen" is no exception to the tried-and-very-tested Pale Waves formula. Being a descendent of such crystallised pop perfection means it retains some sparkle. There's a couple of lovely moments -- the couplet "We sat on the corner kissing each other/Felt like I could finally see in colour" is cute -- but overall the lyrics are a little clunky ("Finally felt like I could feel for the first time," yikes) and the transition between sections is too sudden, too formulaic. They've definitely got something but I'd love to see more variety on the second album. [5]

Jonathan Bradley: Pale Waves makes glistening, tear-struck synth-pop that aches like MUNA and quivers like Matt Healy. Even that alone is not nothing -- good bands have survived on finding one sound and doing it well -- and "Eighteen" has more than that. Moments of Heather Baron-Gracie's narrative detail catch on adolescent crisis: "The city depresses me, but you try to be everything I need/We sat on the corner kissing each other," is drifting emotionalism worthy of a YA novel or a teen movie voiceover. Her tones curl like cellophane: gaudy, thin, and brilliant. That this band is capable of sharper hooks and more potently melodic tracks speaks well for "Eighteen"; even when their inspiration is meanly apportioned, it still shines so bright. [7]

Maxwell Cavaseno: As Dirty Hit distressingly grows into a factory of 1975-soundalike music, Pale Waves were merciful enough to grant us a reprieve from that and to give us their single which sounds the least like The 1975! It's unfortunately marked by Heather Baron-Gracie giving one of her worst vocal performances yet, a continuous grating whine and a mix that feels like an amorphously sleek pop-punk drive to earnestness paired with inane, cheesy lyrics. But at the same time, given the fact that the band has been in a subtle danger of falling victim to perception of simply being a vehicle of extra ideas from their label's cash cow, you have to commend the them for deviating just slightly enough from that mold. Should we be so lucky, maybe they'll get even bolder with time and find an identity that may stand parallel, or even superior. [3]

Nicholas Donohoue: On the level of "Eighteen" being a universal anthemic love song I'm not moved, but I fully see the person who would love this and I have no reason not to be happy for them. [5]

Will Rivitz: This song is the Biggest goddamn Mood I've heard all year. Starting off the song -- and My Mind Makes Noises as a whole -- with the line "This city depresses me"? Big Mood. Doing that over an uncompromisingly triumphant major-key instrumental that only gets louder and more expansive from there? Bigger Mood. Encapsulating the entire scope of young love in a fifteen-second chunk, in which "I finally felt like I could feel for the first time" somehow loses all semblance of cliché thanks to a delivery that teeters on the brink of euphoria before the bridge pushes it over to the other side? Biggest Mood. This is the last twelve lines of "The Fish" mixed with Gerard Way mixed with Carly Rae Jepsen, and I do not make that last comparison lightly. Even if "Give Yourself A Try" had lyrics that fit its sonic tone instead of Matty Healy's too-wise-for-you clunkers, it still wouldn't pack nearly the thunderbolt as this, and I gave that a [10] too, so... [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Pale Waves #pop #writing #music review #music

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strainingfororiginality · 6 years

Text

Chapter 13.3 - Redemption

Releaser - Kid Cudi

No longer you can deny me, woah-oh

It's blinding, your glory

Your glory is blinding

As the Maiden stepped forward, through the hole in the veil, she felt the curse finally leave her body. In light of her inevitable betrayal, the Morning Star had taken everything from her that she most cherished. Persephone had always been a Goddess of Fertility, and her physical form had very much expressed that sentiment in every way, shape, and … curve.

It was like a hot shower washing her clean as she stepped over and through the threshold of the dhampir’s tear in her dollhouse … in her cage. Everything that Lucifer had taken from her, to change her, to torment her, the punishment he had inflicted, melted away and she became herself again. The white and wrinkled leather of her skin pulled taunt and its color deepened as warmth flooded into it.

She glowed with an amber aurora and her fingers slowly explored her face first, gently prodding the once-sunken cheeks to find that they were full now. Her hands continued their path upward as she gripped the full volume of her hair, pulling a lock of it down in front of her eyes so that she could see the white had disappeared and it was once again that rich auburn she had missed so very much.

Next, she explored her body and her hands greedily arrested and gripped the curves of her chest as she let out another relief-filled sigh, though this one seemed almost more of a moan, so much so, in fact, that the men present shifted uncomfortably.

"O … kay then. Are you … finished, sister?" Raum asked, his eyebrow raised high as he watched her continue to fondle her own body.

"Or perhaps we should allow her some quiet time to herself?" Quinlan’s eyes grew wide as Persephone’s hands meandered down further, exploring the hidden spot between her legs.

"I’m whole. I’m … me again." Relief and gratitude poured forth in her words and she smiled, spinning around once and then twice as she beamed at everyone before settling on a stare directed at Quinlan. “You …” He pointed to his own chest following her word and only managed to take a single half a step backwards as she lunged after him, her arms wrapping around his torso and crushing her chest to his. With hungry eagerness, she thrust her large, ruby lips against his and his eyes widened with half-fright and half-surprise as he froze with rigid uncertainty.

His arms remained steadily at his sides as she watched him resist the urge to shove her away. Her kiss finished and she was pleased to find he at least minimally returned the gesture of it at the very end, his lips pursing to hers as she pulled away a few inches, although she suspected it might have just been to appease her politely as his body was still rigid and unmoved. "You … “ She repeated. “If I had known you could do that … I promise I would’ve let you out much sooner." Running a playful finger down the side of his check, she purred an invitation. “Would you like a proper thank you … Prince?”

"I … I am … " He began a quick refusal but she was already leaning forward again. This time, his arms did find hers and this time, he pushed her back forcefully, leaning as far from her body as he could manage without stepping. She could push it, but his body tensed further and her fun with him was clearly done. “Flattered. But … You are … very much ... not my type.”

"Oh please. I’m everyone’s type."

"No." The statement was firm and his grip on her arms tightened even as her lower lip protruded slightly from his defiance. Was he really going to refuse her? Her?!

"He’s Hayyoth, Kore. He’s divine." Adam shook his head and began to walk away, apparently hoping to leave the uncomfortable conversation behind. “Leave the poor boy alone. He doesn’t want you and you know it. He wants another … just as you do.”

"Do not." Her nostrils flared. “But you’re right.” She glanced downwards and smirked, catching his eye as she raised her eyebrow. “I almost forgot about your little problem. Such a pity.”

"It … is … not … a …. " There was a slow stammer and Quinlan flushed with sudden color. His still partially human cheeks turned slightly rosy as her smirk widened further. “... not a problem. It is how I was made. It is how divine creatio--”

"She knows. She knows. Come on." Adam reached for her arm and pulled her along, leading the way down the enclosed rock corridor that stretched endlessly in both directions.

"Oh well. Whatever." Persephone glanced back towards him. “Your loss then. You let me know when you change your mind.”

Quinlan stood for a moment, avoiding Raum’s eyes as he hoped to put distance between himself and the grabby Maiden.

"My advice … Stay away from that one." Raum slapped Quinlan’s shoulder as he walked to follow after them, giving a single head shake as he passed. “I wouldn’t even touch her with a ten foot pole.”

"I … really was not going to ..." Quinlan was shocked at even the suggestion that he might have been interested. “She is really not my typ--”

"Uh huh. Sure." Raum said from behind the dhampir and Quinlan moved quickly to catch up. “I’m just sayin’. Her ex …” The Djinn cringed. “Trust me. You don’t want to poke that ox.”

"While I’m quite certain I’ve already poked Lucifer. I do appreciate the warning. But honestly, she really is not my--"

"Lucifer? Ha! Oh no. No. No, my dear boy." Raum laughed out loud. “Lucifer was just the rebound.”

"Wow. Look at that! The time is flying, isn’t it?" Sandalphon stood and waved a hand towards the courtyard exit. “Shall we go then?”

Uriel wasn’t buying her invitation and he cocked his head inquisitively. "Oh? Really? Now what are you planning?"

"Now? Yes. Now, my dear brother." She danced over to his side of the table and nudged him gently on his upper back, urging him to stand. “I need your help with something very … delicate. The timing must be perfect, you see. And I need your help. Come.”

"You think I’m gonna go with you? Ha! Not until you tell me what you’re planni--" He had barely begun to demand when the gust of wind violently blew across the tables, an occurrence that did not normally happen in the utopia of Heaven. As the wind grew in force, cups began to blow over on the tables around them. A peculiar but familiar sensation ran across his spine as he stood and stared into the force as it grew even stronger. The chairs began to fall and skid across the cobblestone. Uriel knew what this was because he felt the energy on the wisps of air that danced around his head. He knew who it was and it … he … was urging the Left Hand towards the exit.

"Father ..." It was a whisper.

"Shhhhh." She said lowly, sliding an arm through his and they walked together towards the exit as the wind abated. “We need your help with something … very, very delicate.”

"Come on, Andy. Where are we going?" They exited the square and she pulled him along the sidewalk, walking briskly.

"It is almost time." She tugged him cross the street. They would need an adequately open space to spread their wings. Where they needed to go was very far from here. God, how she longed to spread them after having been hidden for so very long. “You see. Quintus was wrong. He thought there were only three ways out of Heaven, but as we both know, there are four. I did not correct him because he wished to return to Earth.”

"Four? You want me to let you into the Well of Judgement." Uriel stopped and stared. “You want to go to Hell?”

She pulled him along again and Uriel surrendered as wind brushed against them again. "Only a Hand can open the door to the Well and no … I don’t wish to go to Hell, brother. We just need to open the door is all …" She laughed matter-of-factly. “Or else there won’t be anywhere for them all to go.”

"For … who to go? Where?! Andy, you aren’t making any sense." Uriel shook his head. “It only goes one direction. It only goes down.”

"It wasn’t always that way." The wind blew briefly again and she smirked with glorious intent. “It used to go both ways … before the Morning Star fell.”

"Yeah well, now it only goes down. The other path was closed."

"Locked. Not closed, brother. And who did that?" They rounded the buildings corner and she eagerly walked out into the widest part of the mostly empty street. “Who sealed that door?”

"Father, of course …" Uriel paused and the breeze tickled him again.

"Yes he did. And I think now you’re getting it, aren’t you?" She shrugged. This was the moment she had been waiting for and bumps of pure excitement flooded across her skin as she began to shed the glyphs carved all around her. Inside and out. Diminishment. Metamorphosis. Rebirth. She had hidden from him for so very long and as she burned the marks away, she became the Tall Angel Prophet again.

Her height, her skin, her wings, her eyes. Sandalphon now towered over Uriel by several feet and gasps were heard from the people around them as crowds stopped to gawk.

"Ok then ..." Uriel spread his wings and the wind picked them up with incredible ease, carrying them faster and farther than they would be capable of flying on their own. He cradled them in his embrace and they soared in his arms.

Sanctuary - Welshly Arms

I see your hurt, I feel your pain

All of our dirt is washed in the rain

I've walked that road, I've felt that shame

No place is home but times, they are changin'

And finally, as she burned away the final glyph, Obfuscation, she reached out through her mind. She closed her eyes and her presence sparked into the Nexus for the first time in thousands of years.

And he felt her there. She knew it, because she felt him too.

I have missed you … so very much, my Traveller.

She felt anger but she was expecting it. He had every right to be angry with her. Rightly so. So angry in fact, that he said nothing in return, but she already knew he wouldn’t. She had seen this far. She had seen all of this, but she had no idea how their story might end.

This moment was the last she had seen of their narrative before the end of sight. Before the End of Days.

"You still didn’t answer me. So what’s next?" Uriel glided under her, careening around and over her so she could hear him through the gusts of the air.

"Next? There is more than one way to defeat an enemy." She uttered the words she knew Adam had just said to small team far below and she smirked as they barrelled towards the mountains. “Next … Next comes the Rapture, my brother.”

Guards were sprinkled sporadically about the long, dark, and winding corridors, but their numbers were nowhere near what Quinlan was expecting. In fact, the entire place appeared to be mostly deserted and each time they approached a guarded section in what seemed like an unending path, Adam would touch their backs from behind and thrust his chin forward, holding up his hand to convey the quantity that awaited them around the next bend.

Quinlan regretted having doubted the man’s usefulness and Adam quickly picked up on his wordless admiration. "It is in the very darkest of places where the blind can see best."

Persephone snorted, loud and obnoxious from behind. "Ha! Yeah right ... It also helps when you have the All Father whispering everything into your ear, doesn’t it?"

"Well …" Adam shrugged, holding in a mad chuckle. “Yes. I suppose omnipresence helps too.”

"So where is everyone, then?" Quinlan queried the prophet.

"All those who are of Lucifer’s ilk are at the gate."

Raum had taken point, dispatching their first opposition with eerie stealth and precision. The guard’s eyes barely had time to grow wide as Raum pulled the Djinn’s own sword from his sheath and relieved his head from his shoulders.

"That was not very merciful." Quinlan had quipped, stepping over the body as Raum checked the balance of the curved scimitar.

Finding it of adequate quality and value, Raum opted to keep the blade, shrugging and answering nonchalantly as he stepped over the body as the guard’s eyes followed them. "I have my moments."

At the next bend, Persephone tried to step forward, eager to show her usefulness. "I got this one." All three men halted her at once.

"I think it’s a better idea if we let the boys handle them?" Adam suggested. “With a bit more quiet finesse, yes?”

"Fine." She crossed her arms, pouting slightly as she waved them forward. “Whatever. Do your thing then.”

Quinlan stepped forward when more than one was present, but for the most part, Raum led the escape with absolute covertness. He moved like a ghost. Only one Djinn had given him the slightest trouble, and even then, the guard had only lasted seconds longer than the rest. They had spoken each other’s names before Raum downed him and it was clear there was history of some kind. Quinlan assumed that there was likely history between Raum and all those that he was cutting his way through.

"He knows these men?"

"They are …" The question was directed at the prophet, but Raum answered with slight discomfort, nodding solemnly as he heard the question from afar. “These were ... my men.”

"They are still your men, Raum." Adam contended.

"Forgive me if I doubt their current allegiances."

"Compassion, brother. It has been much longer for them, than it has for you, Merciful One. You, of all people, know that we all falter at some point. And it is that stumble that makes us stronger in the end."

Raum did not respond. He wiped the blade on his sleeve and walked ahead.

Devil Like Me - Rainbow Kitten Surprise

My heart and soul were never mine to own

What you care to die for?

We die alone

Quinlan watched the next prey carefully. It was the way the Djinn took charge of the sword that fascinated him. Raum’s skill with the weapon easily surpassed the dhampir’s own. Where Uriel’s blade had been an extension of his body, almost like an extra arm that moved in unison with the rest, Raum became an extension to the blade. Every movement, every swing, every step, and every single muscle that tensed, did so in service to the sword.

As Quinlan watched him dancing with it, something eerily familiar about the way the Marid moved caused a flood of bumps to scatter wildly across the dhampir’s skin and the truth of it occurred to him.

He had seen this before. He had seen him before. In fact, many times.

Sicily, 44 AD ...

When Quinlan was a tiny boy, no more than four years old, he had ventured into a nearby village, not far from the olive grove of his birth. Starving, cold, and alone, he had attempted to steal a chicken. This had been his first cruel interaction with man and his first true meeting with pain as their response to his deformities was beyond extreme.

He had been surrounded and when the rocks began to hit his fragile, young skin, he wailed and sobbed, cowering into a ball as they pelted him relentlessly. He didn’t understand the need to fight back and he was too tiny. He didn’t understand their words, but when they brought the fire, he understood their intentions.

And then there was a man. Quinlan remembered his boots first, opening his tiny eyes and seeing them before him as the wave of rocks finally abated. There were words spoken, in fact, words shouted between the stranger and the mob but he could not remember what they were, as he was without language at that time.

He felt thick, crimson fabric upon his shoulders, and when he looked up, he found the man’s face kind, merciful in fact, and he pulled a cloak tight around the tiny dhampir’s bloodied body. Quinlan would keep this fabric for years, his most prized possession, clutching it tightly in the dead of the winters, until it would eventually disintegrate completely in his hands from wear. This man … this stranger ...

"When the fighting begins, you run as fast as you can, boy. And next time ... hunt in the woods. Do not return to this place again."

Had the man spoken to him? He didn’t remember exactly and he was without language, but he remembered understanding. Quinlan had done as instructed, running as fast as his tiny body could manage.

When the smell of blood rushed over him, he glanced back only once during his mad escape. He expected to see the crowd descending upon the stranger, tearing the poor man to bits, but it was very much the opposite. The man was cutting through them with absolute grace, using a strangely curved blade. All of them.

When he was a safe distance, perched high up on the cliff above, Quinlan watched the village burn to the ground and had always assumed that man had died for him. This was the first moment that he had felt hope for life and humanity.

But this man’s face wasn’t Raum’s. He was certain of that, however … the eyes. Quinlan squinted as the next memory hit him like a brick.

Thrace, 317 AD ...

In the Battle of Mardia, when Quintus had fought for Emperor Constantine against Licinius, he remembered a strange soldier on the field. In that dark, blood-soaked night, nestled in the rocky Balkan mountains, they had pushed the enemy forces into the basin of the Ardas River and in, the heat of the fight, his horse was cut from beneath him.

Pinned by the massive beast as it flailed, heaving its last breaths, he nearly lost his head. An opportunistic Licinian had swung wildly for his neck and a strange soldier swept into the way. The man had danced on the air, seemingly out of nowhere. He watched the Djinn now and the movements were more than just similar. They were exactly the same. This red clad figure relieved the attacker of his arms and then his life.

"Next time, boy …" The stranger had quipped, sarcasm rich in his mocking tone as he stared down at the dhampir, re-sheathing a strangely curved blade. “It would be best to leap from the beast before it falls on you. We both know you’re fast enough.” That accent … Those eyes ...

By the time Quinlan had pushed the dead animal away, the soldier was gone. He had sought him after the battle was won, but assumed he had vanquished with so many that day.

But this man’s face wasn’t Raum’s. But the eyes … Quinlan cocked his head to the right, remembering the amber irises that had stared down at him out of the darkness of the helmet.

The eyes were the same.

79 AD, Pompeii …

Quinlan had died this day and Raphael had resurrected him. He was quite certain now, but the moments before that death, he remembered something he’d nearly forgotten. It was the eyes that jolted this thought.

Nearly upon the Master, the closest he had ever gotten to the strigoi lord, the wind had shifted and the mountain blew. He should have run, but he stayed. In his final moments, he had put himself between the lava flow and a temple full of people. He had pushed the stone slabs of the outermost marble pillars down to divert the flow so the women and children could flee.

He held the stone in place, even as it heated through and the palms of his hands began to melt against it. He clenched his jaw, even as the shear heat of the air began to cook him and his skin bubbled, sizzling and crackling as the city became an oven.

In the end, he had even begun to scream to distract himself from the agony, as it was unlike anything he had ever felt. In all of his strength and endurance, he knew he could not hold it forever and as the molten liquid began to flow over the top of the makeshift stone wall, he held his ground as the people still fled behind him.

And then there had been that stupid man. The foolish stranger who had stood beside him, pushing against the marble, urging him to run. Begging him, in fact. "I’ve got this! You need to run! I’ve got this! PLEASE!"

How courageously foolish that man had been. He was just a human, after all. He could not have held the stone. He could not have survived that heat and so Quinlan had ignored him, even as the lava had began to eat through the flesh of his arms, even as the man had pleaded with him so very desperately. "I have this! I PROMISE YOU! PLEASE GO!"

The instant before Quinlan gave in to this inevitable death, when his body was turning to ash and there was no strength left, he had turned to face this foolish companion. He would always remember the man’s last words: "Foolish boy". He would often think how useless of a sacrifice that stranger’s life had been. How flawed the man had been to give up everything for him. The desperation and tears and need to save … a stranger.

But this man’s face wasn’t Raum’s, but … the eyes and … the tears. And it hadn’t seemed too strange before now. He had assumed the heat had played tricks on his eyes, but the man hadn’t been burned. When he turned to him, the moment before the dhampir’s death, even as Quinlan’s skin was cooking, the man had remained untouched by the fire.

There were more instances. More strangers. More faces. More memories. Damnation.

The Ripuarian Frank of the Battle of Tolbiac … 496 AD

The Merchant in Venice … 752 AD

The Fortuitous Sniper in the Allied advance to Rome … 1943 AD

And more …

As the Marid placed his boot on the skull of his last victim and jerked his curved blade free of the bone, Quinlan tilted his head to the side, the words nearly catching in his throat. "We have met before ... haven’t we, Raum the Merciful?"

Raum grinned. His overly handsome features shining as he flashed his all too perfect teeth. Oh how Quinlan unfairly despised him in this moment. "Many times, my boy. So very many times." As he walked by, he slapped Quinlan on the shoulder, a condescending gesture that the dhampir was quickly tiring of. “I’ve been protecting you since the night you were born.”

It was a maze and the blind man led the way. Through miles of tunnels, they finally came to the massive circular staircase carved into the stone around them. Its diameter easily greater than several hundred feet across. Glancing over the edge, Quinlan could see no end to its direction downwards, but there was light coming from a great distance above and as they began the long walk up, the more stairs they covered, the stronger his dragonfly’s beacon called to him.

Adam never really stopped speaking and his intrusion into Quinlan’s mind was quite often, answering questions that the dhampir had never actually voiced. The prophet had assured him it was something unconscious, something he could not help, and he picked up on the flicker of hope instantly. "The higher we climb from the depths of the pit, the more aligned with Earthly time we become."

"The more aligned? Time in hell is variable?"

"Yes. Whereas Heaven’s gears move slower than Earth’s, Hells’ rotates much faster. And it only gets faster the deeper you go."

"So how much time is passing on Earth at this moment?" They had taken quite a long time to get this far and his worry grew with each lingering moment spent here.

"At this level? Days here are less than a single second there." Adam explained. “When we get to the top of the pit, to the Gate, it will be minutes to seconds. Nearly one to one, I believe.”

Quinlan glanced down again, unto the vast darkness below. "Is there a bottom to it?"

"Yes." This answer came sharply from Persephone, as she pushed passed them with annoyance. “There is a fucking bottom.”

Hmmm.

"The Cells are at the bottom. Tartarus is the Center of Hell."

"Hmmm." This question seemed to bother everyone and when no one offered more information, Quinlan shook off the curiosity and proceeded ahead.

They stared down into the massive entry chamber from an inconspicuous cliff high above. The vantage point was quite ideal as it was Adam who suggested it. They could see the entire gates and the impossible escape that confronted them.

There were two massive doors. An inner and an outer.

The inner one swayed and flickered. Adam explained that it was made of pure divinity and was located on the Hell side of the breach. Something Lucifer had installed himself as soon as he had taken sanctuary here. A way to ensure his brothers could be kept out of his sanctuary. This was a single panel that slid down in front of the real doors.

The outer doors seemed entirely solid and the metal shined with a variety of hues just like the Celestial Blade. The etchings that were carved into the massive panels reminded him of two things, the second of which brought a sad smile to his face. They were carved with intricate swirls of vines, organic and wild. All manner of creatures and familiar insects, danced across its beautiful surface. These curves, these swirls, like those upon his neck, were the same patterns carved into the Celestial Staff and the very same ones that Dawn had drawn into her Sun Stik.

He played over those first few memories of their initial meeting with equal parts regret and nostalgia. He wondered if she already knew she was actually recreating Raphael’s staff when she made her clever little weapon. Wondering how much of everything she knew, he looked forward to finding out, because he hoped he could be the one to filling in the gaps. He played over the possibilities of her expressions of the stories he planned to recant.

No. Not right now. Adam gripped his shoulder as Quinlan pushed this playful distraction to the side, tried to focus on the task at hand as there would be no future like that if they were not able to escape.

These doors, the outer ones, were obviously made by God himself and were very solid, existing on the Earth side of the gateway. The doors were two halves, opening down the center and towards Earth.

In between the sets of doors was the veil. The point at which Hell spilled into Earth, or vice versa. And it was vertical wall of water, thousands of feet high. Water has always been the gateway between the worlds and since the Gate to Hell opened into Lake Baikal, it did make sense.

And then there was the army. Quinlan had only seen one other army that compared to the site before him now, and that had been in Heaven. Millions stood in perfect order below, making it impossible for them to sneak into their midst. At first, he assumed they were standing entirely still. Fallen Djinn. Marid. Ifrit. Ghoul. Sila. Vetala. Fallen Bene Elohim. And men. Many men. Some of the most wicked of human souls he imagined and he wondered how many he had put here himself. He was about to ask why the army waited, but then the ranks suddenly took one massive step forward, in glorious unison.

"It’s the time misalignment. They can only move as fast as time on Earth permits. They can’t just flood through, though more than half have already crossed the veil." Adam explained Quinlan’s unspoken question while they ogled the opposition. “Transitioning between the two takes time. It will be hours--” Adam stopped, tilted his head and nodded, seeming to hear something. “Right. Right. There’s really no need to be that pedantic. They don’t need to know--” Adam sighed and shook his head, conceding to something unseen. “Fine. Whatever.” He waved his hand in the air. “Fine. FINE. I’ll tell them. The army will be through in eleven hours, and forty-two minutes.” Adam paused. “... and twelve seconds.”

This did seem like pointlessly accurate information, but no one complained as they looked upon the feat with despair. "Eleven hours. So we wait?" Raum shook his head. “It’s not possible. Even if Kore could fly …” She sneered at his insult, but said nothing as he continued.

"No." Adam said. “The Traveller will close the gate and the Morning Star will be thrust back into Hell. It is already foreseen. We must get out before then.”

"Great." Raum laughed. “So what you’re saying is … we’re fucked?”

"You’re the one who wanted to show them." Adam snickered lowly to himself. “I told you it would just be discouraging and not inspiring. You’re growing mad in your old age.”

They stared quietly and Quinlan began to assess the situation as carefully as he could. "So, what controls the gate?" Quinlan turned to Adam. “So how does it all work?”

"The outer gate can only be shut or opened by the divinity of High Hayyoth. But the inner gate is controlled from the Tower." Adam stared at the ground as he pointed across to the opposite side of the vast chamber where buildings were carved directly into the stone, curving up and following the slant of the cave walls entirely over the pit itself in an inverse palace of sort. “You remember it?”

"Yes." Quinlan nodded. “That is where I leapt into the pit.”

"And what a leap it was child." Adam grinned. “That is the belly of The Rainbow Keep.” Pointing to the top of Lucifer’s gate, Adam pointed to the light that seemed to hook to its top. It trailed across the ceiling of the chamber like a spiderweb, meandering over the rocks and crevices until it disappeared into the overhanging carved structure. “He holds it open from there, using the pool of his own divinity. It is guarded by The Merciless ... ” Adam hesitated for a reason unbeknownst to Quinlan, seeming to treat the disclosure as sensitive information “Satan.”

"Satan, himself? That’s … wonderful." Quinlan stated sarcastically.

"Don’t worry. He’s just a Marid. His legend exaggerates his power." Persephone scoffed.

"Hmmm. Wait, Lucifer’s own divinity?" The dhampir cocked his head. “How is that possible? He is on Earth, I assure you.”

"His spirit may stretch there ..." Adam shook his head slowly. “But he is still rooted here. As is his doorway into Dawn.”

The dhampir couldn’t help the growling sneer that escaped from his lifting upper lip. Into Dawn. "So how does it close? Can it be used to crush the army? Is there any way we can tear it from its hinges?"

"Doubtful. It would take quite a force to rip it from its tracks. Besides, if they get wind of us, that entire army will descend. There is no doubt they will close the gate rather than let us escape." Adam stated. “The veins can be severed from the control room. But that is where Satan waits. The guards in the tower are not like the ones you’ve dispatched with ease.”

"Hmmm. Then we must remove Satan from play." Quinlan nodded, looking at the structure again before glancing to the Marid. “That will need to be a very … surgical … operation.”

"I will do it. Shaitan and I have … unfinished business." Raum said gravely. “Leave The Merciless to me.”

Quinlan detected a hint of fury. "What history have you with this fallen Djinn?"

"They are brothers." Persephone uttered.

"History?" Raum feigned a disgusted laugh as he took a deep breath before locking shameful eyes with the dhampir. “I will make sure the gate stays open long enough for you all to flee.”

"Raum …" Quinlan had no intention of leaving anyone behind. “I cannot allow--”

"I’ve no Qliphoth to return to. There is no point for me to return. I would be a lost spirit."

"I believe that fate would be better than any which might await you here." Quinlan fought. If he had been asked back in Puragatorium, he would have gladly left Raum here, but now …

"Regardless of who keeps the gate open, the rest will need quite a massive distraction to make it to the veil, no?" Adam interrupted the impending argument of self sacrifice.

"What of your souls of Purgatorium? How many souls are there?" Quinlan asked, turning to Persephone, but she was already shaking her head at his suggestion. “Can we not use them as an army of our own? Or perhaps, at the very least, a distraction? Perhaps I can make the tear bigger?”

"No. Those souls are not mine and they are useless." She refused. “Broken, lost, and useless. That’s why they are there and not here.” She waved a hand at the army. “Those who can fight, those capable of being useful, already wear the Serpent’s armour. They’ve already pledged their souls to him.”

"But he is not here and you can control them." Quinlan argued even as she shook her head again and again. “Reprogram them just as you tried to do to me. All we need are their numbers.”

"She is right. They are … broken, full of despair. They can be of no use to us." Adam interjected. “Besides, Lucifer has his fingers into every single human soul in Hell.”

"No, your logic is not sound. My soul is human." He sneered at their argument. “I was lost and broken, just the same as they.”

"Your soul is human, yes, but it is bathed in the divinity of Ozryel. Soaked in it. You are nothing like they are. You cannot be owned as they are."

"Obviously." Persephone giggled at the statement.

"But their numbers …" Quinlan wasn’t ready to give up the hope of a plan. “I still believe, if anything, they can be used as a distraction. They don’t need to be fighters. Surely they can be persuaded--”

"No." Adam would not hear of it. “They are all too lost to be useful.” Adam agreed with her. “They are not soldiers. Not warriors. That is why they are there ... Lucifer could not use them directly in his army. They will not be your lambs to the slaughter.” Directly? Hmmm. The last bit of sentence trailed off and Adam tensed. Something was particularly strange about the statement but Quinlan shelved it for later. “But …”

"But?" Hope sparked.

"You are right." Adam nodded. “We cannot do this alone. We need help.”

"Lucifer is a tyrant." The statement was fact. Raum had been unusually quiet as the conversation had ensued. He had been staring out into the army, carefully cataloguing everything and everyone.

"Clearly." Quinlan shifted and tried to read the Djinn’s stern face.

"Tyrants, by the very nature of their actions, inevitably leave a useful byproduct in their mad wake." Raum squinted out across the army before he turned back to the tiny group. “All tyrants do.”

"Byproduct?" Quinlan so hated being in the dark. “And what is that?”

"Enemies, Quintus." Raum stated, plain as fact, his eyes pawing over the army again. “Enemies.” He turned to Adam. “Tell me, Oh Great Prophet of the Lord … Where are the rest of my men? Are they destroyed?”

His men. Quinlan could feel the hope that now emanated from the Djinn duke. Something had changed in his demeanour and when Adam smiled next, excitement danced across the dhampir.

His men ...

"We’ve been waiting for you to notice, Merciful One." Adam stood and pointed his makeshift staff back towards the pit. “The Rebellious Ones. The Ones who refused to bow. Not to God … and not to the Morning Star. They are in the Ninth Circle. They are in the cells below.”

"How many?" Quinlan asked at once.

"Enough." Adam admitted. “More than enough for a distraction at least …”

Quinlan was already walking back the direction from which they came. When no one immediately moved to follow him, he glanced back, smirking as he did. "Well? Are we going? We’re here to start a revolution … are we not?"

The Guardian (feat. Sourc3) - Daniel Deluxe

There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths

And now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through

When that happens, the man who knows must strike

She stepped forward, pushing everyone else aside and allowed Raphael to urge her on as everything began to spin again as the Traveller watched quietly from behind. Time flowed again and the Morning Star downed her again.

Fuck. He hits damn hard.

"Enough!" She said to all her uncles present, stopping them from stepping forward en masse. Dusting herself off, she cracked her head from side to side and glared at EL. “Ok. Round three, asshole.”

"I’m waiting …" EL returned the stare. In this moment, she envied his fangs, she was certain he looked far more menacing than she did. His palm was up and his index finger beckoned her to approach. “Bring it, little girl … cause I’ve got shit to do ...”

Dawn squinted at the Morning Star and then, from within her conscience, she pointed to Gabriel. "You. You first."

There was no hesitation on the Messenger’s part and he stepped forward, thrusting his chest out, billowing with pride, but warning as he did. "He’s too fast for me, little one."

"That’s ok." She looked up in the towering warrior’s eyes. “He ain’t faster than me.” Dawn beamed. “Ready?”

Everything slowed around them and even as EL tried to charge through the change in speed to compensate for her power, Gabriel smiled, stepping all the way in control. "Yes ma’am." He was quick to come to terms with her statement. No one here was faster than her.

Courage.

It wound down and down and down. The air became dank, unpleasant odors stagnant in the dead air. As they descended, gravity and time seemed to weigh them down. Quinlan thought the journey up had been tedious, but it was nothing compared to this. They walked for what seemed like days or possibly even weeks? He was certain it had been longer but time was strange. It flickered back and forth but they kept the pace brisk and the circumference of the spiralling stairs slowly become smaller and smaller as they descended deeper. Hundreds of miles? Thousands? Possibly more?

And there was no need to rest in Hell. No need to stop. To sleep. To even pause for just a simple moment to break up the monotony of the task had it not been for Adam’s incessant words. At first, he had found the prophet’s ramblings annoying, but now, as time stretched endlessly before them, Quinlan found they were the one thing keeping them all sane.

And the Prophet spoke of many, many things. He explained to Quinlan much that Persephone and Raum already knew. Some things Sempronius had mentioned and others that were entirely new to him. And Adam started very broad, at the very beginning of it all …

"In the beginning, many celestial beings were created. Beings other than Man and as stated in the Lumen, there were seventeen total. The First numbered five, but later became four and then three. Created and imbued with power like none other. Each burned with their own fountain of divinity. Together they formed the basis of The Nexus, becoming the source of its unending divine influence for those who came after. They surrounded the Throne of the Creator as a tetramorph. Ozyrel to the right, Michael to the left, Gabriel in the front, and Raphael in the back …"

He detailed the many wars of Earth and Heaven and Hell. He talked of the fall of Lucifer, the fall of Ozryel, and the fall of Raphael. He explained the order of all the divine beings …

"Of the first brood of Angels, there were five, endowed with divinity like none other. Due to this difference, they were given the grand title of Arch, as their power and leadership would encompass all those beneath them. They would be the chieftains of their kind and thus all would respect, fear, and bow to their will …"

His recounted tales from his many lives, though he would never mention the first of them. Quinlan had asked at one point about being Adam and how he became blind, but was met with a prolonged silence that rattled him.

Of all the great stories uttered by the Prophet, the one that struck the dhampir the most was the one that Adam himself seemed to loved like none other: it was his lifetime as Two Rivers, the Great Peace Keeper of the Iroquois nation. It wasn’t just for the accomplishments of that life nor the friendship with Hinon which he openly admitted to missing desperately. It was the love that he felt and the woman who he assured awaited him in Heaven.

"She was a new soul … I could almost see it in the way she looked at the world, but I didn’t fully understand what that meant. I didn’t remember who I was then." Adam said. “Jigonhsasee. She lived along the warriors' path. She was My Mother of Nations … is. She is. She awaits my return.”

"And what of Eve?" Quinlan had finally pressed again, expecting that Adam would grow silent again, but the prophet laughed out loud.

"Eve." The sigh was dramatic. “Eve was promised to me. Given as a gift, or rather, a task. There was no choice in that for her.” Quinlan thought of Tasa in this moment. “... and truth be told, not for me either. We tolerated each other, eventually caring for one another.” The dhampir’s love of the dark haired woman had come eventually. “But love is wild. It’s very nature is organic. It needs to be because it has to grow and it must be free to do so to reach its full potential. And just like any living thing, while it can be cultivated and curated, that control only limits its possibility. There is no garden on Earth, however well maintained or manicured or beautiful on the surface, that can ever be truly compared to jungle or a forest … or even a desert.” The passion oozed from his words.

"You will see her again." Quinlan was certain. He made the promise, even though it seemed foolish but Adam accepted and appreciated it just the same.

"Yes. I hope so too. For I have much to tell her. And … from our great love, came the last known prophet: She Who Hears The Dead."

Adam came to Hathu’s tale and the subsequent fall of Michael, all of which had never crossed the ears of Persephone nor Raum. They listened, quiet but eager to know, and then, Adam came to Dawn’s tale. Much to Quinlan’s relief, the prophet left out most of the more private details.

"Lucifer has been watching her since she was born. He had her ear when she was young, before Michael … diminished her."

"And of course The Lord knew what was coming for her … and yet did nothing." Raum scoffed at the Prophet, the first true hints of his defiance to the Command hinted through his annoyance. “He set her on a path like a lamb to the slaughter. He delivered her into the arms of Hell with a smile on his face. I’ve heard enough.” The Djinn pushed ahead, jumping several steps down as he put distance between himself and the Prophet.

"He’s such a hot head, isn’t he?" Persephone’s joke fell on deaf ears and she shrugged. “You guys are no fun …”

Quinlan growled lowly, whispering to the Prophet. "He thinks he loves her."

"And what do you think?"

"I think he does not know her."

"And how well had you known her before you felt it?" Hmmm. Quinlan didn’t feel like answering that question as he wasn’t certain exactly how much time she had spent with Raum in Hell before he arrived and Adam shook his head at the juvenile jealousy. “Don’t be too hard on him, Quintus. Remember. Hell uses your emotions against you. It contorts them, attempts to mold them. And Raum … Raum has spent thousands of years, at the cost of everything. His family. His men. His brother. His home. Sacrificing it all in service to the prophecy of a child …” Adam placed a hand on Quinlan shoulder, encouraging them to walk as they talked. “Of course he feels something for her. It’s likely not what he assumes.”

"So, it’s not love. Its responsibility?"

"I didn’t say it wasn’t but … His life has been spent in servitude to this prophecy. Responsibility. Duty. Protection. These are among the most powerful of feelings for a Djinn. I think it’s possible that they are ones that can easily be confused with love …"

"Hmmmm. Possible?" Quinlan sneered again.

Adam leaned in, speaking very lowly. "Between the three of us? No, we do not think he does."

"Good." Relief washed over the dhampir and a tiny grin crept upon the very corner of his mouth. “I’d hate to have to kill him.”

"Well … Yet." The prophet shrugged. “We’re not saying that it couldn’t be cultivated into love though. That is … if you were to ever … step out of line again.”

Quinlan almost asked what Adam was referring to, but the overly amused face of the prophet told him that he should drop the subject entirely, lest he be subjected to something terribly embarrassing being uttered out loud. "But … Raum is not wrong. You … he … knew all of this was coming. Everything and yet you did nothing to warn her. Your Lord did nothing to warn her? You are all complicit in this war."

"Yes, we are. You have to understand, Quintus." Adam admitted it without an ounce of regret. “God agreed to aid in this. He agreed to listen to Lilith and he agreed to step back because of the possibility of bringing The Morning Star back from the brink.”

"Lucifer? He still thinks Lucifer can be redeemed?! I get the impression he does love his tainted son more than--"

The interruption was swift. "We all have taint, do we not? You know this better than most. We are all his tainted sons. But did not fall into the same hole that Lucifer did. There is no more or less love. God does not love one more than the other. He has faith. As much in her as he does in him." Adam sighed. “She was not warned, because it was her light that was always meant to shine on him, to breath life back into him. To pull him back. He could never relate to his brothers. And as she is learning, at this very instant actually, she is more like The Morning Star than she is even like Michael.”

"I apologize if I fail to see any similarities."

"None of this is about stopping Lucifer. If you think it was, then you’ve missed the point of it all. It is about saving him."

Quinlan was unsure what to make of this statement and he was glad Raum hadn’t heard any of it. The Djinn would have likely not responded as calmly as Quinlan did. "Some souls should not be saved."

"There is no soul beyond redemption."

For the last mile or so, the circle of descent had grown tighter and tighter at a much faster rate than above, and doors and offshoots to long hallways had started to line the walls of the stairwell. Tens of thousands of them.

"What is this place?" Quinlan’s body flooded with bumps of disdain as he asked, but he already knew that answer. It was quite obvious what this was. Each door that was passed, carried with it its own flavor of terrible noises. Chains being pulled across stone floors. Bones cracking. Whips striking. Screams and cries and sobs. Wails of anguish, some unlike any he had ever heard and others, all too familiar.

Tartarus.

These noises alone were enough to send shudders down his spine. His spine. The dhampir who had been through countless wars. Taking countless lives. He had rent heads from victims with his bare hands. He had disembowelled dozens of men alive, but even that, had not prepared him for the terrors of punishments carried out in the ninth circle.

"This place is torment. The souls he could not control. Those that would not submit to him or those who defied him. And those ... too dangerous … for even him to trust."

"Why not just extinguish them?"

"Toys. Pets. He keeps them to suffer as message to any other dissenters." Persephone explained. “For centuries, this … became a hobby of his … before he grew bored of even it. He grows bored of everything.”

Quinlan glanced to Adam and scoffed. "Redemption huh?"

Ignoring the comment, the Prophet pointed down a hallway and waved them into it. "The Rebellious Ones are this way."

Everyone but Persephone stepped forward and Raum was several feet down the corridor before Adam commented on her hesitation. "Sister?"

"You know we can’t do this on our own." Persephone’s tone was more than just a bit concerning. Quinlan knew this tone; she was preparing to manipulate. “Even with this … handful of naughty Djinn. We go to our slaughter. We’ll need more help than just this.” She lingered, shuffling about as she fussed with her fingers nervously.

Raum glanced back. "What did you have in--" But something struck him as they stared at each other for a quiet moment, her lips pinching together and he knew what she had in mind. “No.” The Marid shook his head as he pointed a menacing index finger towards her, wagging it slightly as if she was a dog. “No.”

"None of you have physical forms. Did you see the size of that gate?! You expect me to deal with it by myself?!"

"No." Raum refused again, shaking his head not just once, but twice and then three times. “That’s madness. We’re not doing that.”

"What is going--" Quinlan tried to ask for clarification, but their argument continued over top of his words.

"You know we don’t stand a chance by ourselves." She tried.

"NO." The burgeoning panic in the Djinn’s voice was clear. “Absolutely not.”

"What are we argu--" Quinlan raised his voice, but was once again interrupted.

"And I’m not strong enough on my own. I don’t wish to be here when the Morning Star returns. You--"

"Persephone. NO." Raum threw his hands up, looking at Quinlan for aid in the discussion, but the dhampir wasn’t sure what they were even arguing over yet. “I wondered why you were being so quiet!”

"PLEASE!" Quinlan had had enough and his scream echoed against the stone walls. “What on Earth are we talking about?!?”

It was not Persephone nor Raum who answered. The answer was stated matter-of-factly and Quinlan turned to the blind man who spoke it. "She wishes to free … The Prisoner."

"The Prisoner?" Surely they were down here to free many prisoners, were they not?

"The First Prisoner." Adam clarified. “She wishes to free The Face of God.”

"Face of … God?" Quinlan squinted at the prophet, tilting his head from side to side. What a peculiar thing to say. Isn’t the Face of God a thing? Isn’t the Face of God sunlight? “How does one free light itself? What am I missing?”

"The Face of God isn’t the light, Quintus." Adam corrected. “It’s the power from which the light emanates. The power of the atom.”

"Yes. I am aware of this, but I do not follow what you wish to do and we are wasting time!" His frustration began to mount and he squeezed his fists. “You wish to use a nuclear blast to destroy the army then? If there is an atomic power we can use, this sounds like it would be a good possibility.”

"No, Quintus. It is so much worse than that." Raum shook his head. “She wants to free her brother.”

"Seraphim Prime. The Fire Rebel." Adam leaned on his staff, listening to the air around him without further word.

"Her … brother ... “ Ozryel’s parting warning danced across the dhampir’s mind. “Who is ..." Yet somehow, this answer was painfully obvious as he pawed through the clues. A well known prisoner of Hell. The first. The first Seraphim. The first phoenix. The first to rebel. An ancient immortal god of fire. No, not just a god. A titan. Quinlan cocked his head to the right as he addressed the all-too-quiet Adam. “There is power in five, is there not?”

"Wait …" Raum wasn’t sure how quickly he had lost control of the decision. “No. Not you too. Good lord no. This is not a good idea!” He spun to the Prophet. “What says God? He put him there. He created this place FOR HIM. This is madness!”

"God is …" Adam listened and then shrugged, pursing his lips innocently. “Strangely quiet on the subject.”

"Then it is settled." Quinlan smirked, raising an eyebrow to Persephone. “Let us free Prometheus.”

Cut - Miranda Sex Garden

Raum boycotted the plan entirely, even refusing to follow them to the bottom. Angry about the decision, he instead set about to freeing his brethren, patting Quinlan on the shoulder again before they parted. "Well, it was nice knowing you, boy. I’ll be sure to tell Dawn you died foolishly. Don’t worry. I promise she’ll be well cared for."

He said it to anger Quinlan and there was very nearly a fight, but Persephone diffused the situation, laying her hand on the dhampir’s back and urging him down the stairs further. "Later, lover boy. Later. He’s just pushing buttons."

As they walked, Adam spoke.

"You see, Hell is not just a hole. It is an impact crater. Created when God cast Prometheus from Earth. This prison was built specifically for him. That is why it burns so hot."

"And he still remains quiet on whether we should allow him freedom?"

"He remains …" Adam nearly snorted. “Silent on the matter.”

That was either good or very, very bad. Either way, he pushed the doubt from his mind. "Tell me more of him." Quinlan asked as they approached the bottom and the air began to heat. “Tell me of Prometheus.”

"Depending on how you choose to define the moment of life, whether it is the moment you are created or the moment you draw breath, some consider Prometheus to be older than Lucifer himself. After the four were born, two pairs of two, the Great Spirit nearly turned its attention from the nest, before it noticed yet another, who had been hidden under the others. His frail little body, smaller than any of his brothers, lay there, unmoving."

"He was stillborn?"

"Oh yes. And they all sat, watchful over the smaller of the creations and when all hope was beginning to extinguish, the Great Spirit created the light to gaze upon him closer and the being sparked to life suddenly … fantastically."

"Which being?" Quinlan asked. “The Light Bringer or the Light?”

"Clever boy. You see, they called Lucifer the Light Bringer because it was for him that God created the light. In his haste to save this child, already weak from creating the four and without thinking of consequence, without knowing consequence, without even the slightest forethought, God created The Light. He had no idea that it would draw breath itself."

"A living, breathing sun." Quinlan followed the story.

"The first of the elementals. The very first of the Seraphim. The first of the Phoenix. Creature of such absolute fire. But it was a fire of destruction and of life. Absolutely immortal. Unburnable. Undestroyable. A supreme trickster. He was the first to ever defy God’s command. Prometheus breathed life into the Morning Star that first day."

"And it was for that that he was punished?"

"Oh no. No. No. His punishment was for giving man the celestial fire. He gave them the power of the atom. Tried to show them how to harness it long … long … before the Shards of Ozryel would give it to men again."

"So Ozryel committed the exact same sin that she punished Prometheus for?" Quinlan shook his head. “Her hypocrisy truly knows no bounds.”

"Heh. Poetic right? But I assure you, it was the opposite of hypocrisy. It was very calculated. The Six Shards were tired; they’d grown so weary of their exile. Your uncles wished an end to the monotony of being scattered, no matter what the cost might be. And so they commited the worst defilement against Heaven imaginable. They broke his most sacred rule, expecting … in fact hoping … God would finally come for them as he came for the Titan."

A large and burnt door was before them and Quinlan found it remarkably boring. If this was built by Ozryel, then obviously she created it in a hurry. Quinlan found this possibility slightly concerning.

Persephone stepped forward, almost unable to hide her excitement. "All I need is for you to open the door and I will retrieve my wayward brother." She offered. “He’ll listen to me. He’s the entire reason I came here.”

"You came here for Prometheus?" Quinlan doubted the statement. “According to legend, you are here because The Lord tricked you.”

"Psh." She snorted. “Someone tricked someone, but apparently not very well. Clearly My Fair Lord didn’t take too kindly to being used.” Shrugging innocently, she grinned. “Did you never wonder why I was locked away?”

"Hmmm. I thought you said he grows bored of everything?"

"No one grows bored of me." It was a sneer and then the subject was changed as she began again. “But you should really allow me to go--”

"No. It must be Quintus." Adam took a deep breath. “He must break the chains. Only he can do so.”

"He doesn’t understand. Theus can burn souls from existence." Persephone argued. “And you look just like the architect of his infinite agony. You even smell of Ozryel.”

"Yes. I am very aware of that fact. This is exactly why it has to be me. She did this to him and now I must undo it."

Adam nodded to him as the prophet read the words lingering quietly on the forefront of the dhampir’s mind.

There is no soul beyond redemption.

Waking Up The Giants - Grizfolk

Careful waking up the giants

He's a big man and a better man than I am

He'll rise up when we hear the sirens

Where's the truth when your heart's not lying?

I believe that the end's not dying

I only listen to the wind when it's crying

We're the rhythm of the darkest nights

We're the truth that's been left unspoken

We're the shadows far beyond the lights

We're waking, waking, waking up the giants

Sail away, the water's rising

Leaving our progress behind us

Right before we fail, we'll find it

Right behind the storm it was hiding

He could feel the heat before he even touched the door. This heat. The fire that drove it from within, he had felt it once before. It had ripped through his body at the moment of his death. But even that had seemed dull compared to this and he swallowed deep. He disliked fire and being burned. There was a brief hesitation as he reached for the already smoking door handle.

Hope.

The thought of that word danced across his mind, tip-toeing over the doubts as he gripped the knob and tried the massive door, finding it locked.

Hope.

Quinlan gripped the handle and felt into its source. He grinned as he touched the silver divinity that was holding the lock in place and his eyes closed with relief as the energy surrendered to him without even a fight. Ozryel’s divinity was its key and his soul was bathed in it. This lock was built for him and God knew it. The door clicked open.

Hope.

He remembered her warning. Her very last words before his soul was consumed by damnation.

There are two you should fear.

Her voice rattled in his mind and he pawed over the words, seeking ultimate meaning. But why had she warned him about someone that was hopelessly locked away? Someone who was hidden behind a cell that only he could open? There was no doubt Lucifer could have opened this lock, but she hadn’t been concerned about her little brother letting the fire god out; in fact, she had stated as much.

The first shan’t be a problem. I chained him up myself.

In fact, as he followed the spiraling stone stairs which hugged the circular walls of the chamber downwards, to the very, very center of the pit, he thought far too much of Ozryel to accept that simplistic explanation. She hadn’t been warning him at all, had she? In fact, she had no reason to even mention The Prisoner, that is, unless she was hinting at something. Lucifer could have pulled everything he wanted from the dhampir’s mind and she had veiled a plan in her rushed warning. She, and by proxy he, was the only lock to Prometheus’ cage.

Hope.

He hoped that this had actually been her intention ...

He hoped Ozryel wasn’t as mad as she appeared or acted ...

As he spiraled further down, he hoped this wasn’t a terrible idea …

His heart was full of hope …

… until he actually set eyes upon the Titan.

#the strain fanfic #Mr. Quinlan fanfic #quinlan fanfic #quintus sertorius fanfic #quintus densus #an insatiable ache #chapter 13 #part 3 #redemption #did you see that one coming?#there is power in five

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