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#**spoiler warning if you haven't seen the first film
mistydeyes · 7 months
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can you do a 141 boys (maybe + könig if u write for him :3) where they're all watching a horror movie together and expect reader to be scared of it, but instead reader is enjoying it and even laughing at some parts? like reader isnt phased by the horror at all, meanwhile soap is shitting his pants😭 <3
anon I LOVED THIS REQUEST! im a horror movie junkie myself and ill laugh while everyone is screaming :) this was close to home so I hope you enjoy!
horror movie protagonist
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summary: Task Force 141 had an odd tradition of showing horror movies to their newest members and scaring the absolute living shit out of them. However, they're surprised when you start to commentate on the movie as if it was some nature documentary. They're even more surprised when you starting laughing hysterically.
pairing: Task Force 141, König x gn!platonic!Reader (codename: Monsoon)
warnings: SWEARING, fictional movie violence (but GORY IMAGERY SO BE WARNED and also spoilers for Martyrs
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Despite being trained soldiers and experiencing all types of horror on the battlefield, the 141 still acted like American frat boys. Once the guns were all locked away and they changed out of their fatigues, they were the absolute worst. One of their hazing rituals was to make their newest member watch a gruesome or terrifying horror movie. The ritual started when Gaz joined, they made him sit through Hostel and he still fears traveling. Next was Soap and he shared Gaz's sentiments after watching Infinity Pool and experiencing the absolute terror that is Mia Goth. They even roped König into their routine and watched as he held his hands over his eyes and sat through Megan is Missing. Poor boy couldn't even hide behind his mask as he watched the horrifying images of Megan appear on the screen.
After a good training session with the team, they invited you to watch a movie in the common room. It was your first week as an official addition to the 141 and you were happy to participate in some comradery. You headed off to the showers before the film and couldn't see the devious faces of Gaz and Soap. They had a plan for you that night and were excited to continue the tradition. "You don't think it'll be too scary?" Gaz said to Soap as they walked to the showers. "We picked a solid one," he replied but shuttered when he remembered his experience, "still can never look at me in the mirror."
After your shower, you dried your damp hair as you entered the common room. Your team had used their strength from training to move together two couches and a few chairs in front of the television. "Ready for movie night, Monsoon?" Kyle asked as he appeared with some popcorn. You grabbed a handful before you nodded. You took a seat next to Soap and Gaz joined on your other side. Price was lounging on one of the chairs and Ghost sat with König to his left. "We picked a good one, just for you," Soap said with a suspicious smirk but you shrugged as he unpaused the film. "What is it?" you questioned as you looked around to see everyone had a similar expression. "Nothing like you haven't seen before" Price replied and you nodded as you turned to the screen.
The movie opened with a family enjoying dinner and you rolled your eyes at the thought of another heartwarming piece. Before you could speak up, a woman entered and brutally murdered the family one by one with a shotgun. "Fuckin' hell," Ghost muttered as the blood stained the screen and you couldn't help but feel a little skeptical. "The blood is too red, they could've done a better job," you muttered and Soap looked at you as if you were insane. You threw your hands up defensively in response. "I'm just saying," you muttered and the film continued.
The next scene you had commentary on was when Anna was exploring underneath the house and discovered a secret chamber. There, she discovered a woman with a steel blindfold attached to her face. "Holy shit," Gaz whispered as they zoomed in to the metal mixing with his scarlet blood. König was silent but it was clear he was fearing the worst as he tried to look away. "How is she even still alive?" Price uttered and you chimed in. "Exactly! It's an actual death sentence and just unrealistic that they can screw that in and not have her die from blood loss," you exclaimed, pointing at the screen. Yet again, everyone looked at you incredulously. "You can't expect me to watch a movie and not point out the flaws."
You remained relatively silent and kept your opinions to yourself until Anna became the latest subject and experienced brutal beatings and verbal degradations. With every shot, everyone turned away but you just rolled your eyes. You even looked bored at some points, much to the confusion of everyone in the room. Even Ghost was a bit disturbed by the brutality of the movie and put down his plate of leftovers. "I don't get what's so scary," you mumbled and Gaz lightly hit your leg to silence your sarcastic commentary.
Eventually, Anna reached the "final stage." The screen was filled with horrifying imagery and in the middle of it König took a break to walk away and hit the head. You continued watching the spectacle and tried to keep your thoughts to yourself. However, as Ghost and Price looked disgusted as the doctor peeled off her skin in a few fleshy sheets, you couldn't hold it in any longer. You laughed as the attention was on you again. "What now, Sergeant?" Price asked, bewildered. "It's just so anatomically impossible for her to survive, I mean look at her she's practically being skinned alive," you exclaimed and pointed at the screen. König had the unfortunate timing of returning when the camera zoomed in on Anna and you could hear him turn around and walk away. You chuckled as Gaz's covered his eyes to block the sight of Anna sitting in a comatose state with nothing left except for her muscles and veins.
Soap had enough and grabbed the remote to pause the film. "Okay, what the fuck, Monsoon," he interrogated and you could feel the spotlight fall on you. "What do you mean, Soap? I'm just saying the obvious," you replied back and childishly crossed your arms. "No," Gaz continued, "why are you so unfazed?" You laughed suddenly and your sides began to hurt before you recovered. "Stuff like this doesn't scare me at all," you said as you wiped some tears from your eyes. "So you're telling me you watch this for fun?" Price joined in and you nodded in response.
"Oh yeah, I love horror movies!" you explained as they looked at you wide-eyed. Ghost laughed loudly at the reveal. "I've watched all kinds of messed up shit," you continued, "From The Human Centipede to Hostel, I've seen it all." Gaz looked at Soap and you could see the glint of disappointment in their eyes. "Were-were you trying to make me scared?" you questioned and the two nodded. "It's a tradition we have in the 141, watch a gruesome movie and get the shit scared out of you," he replied quietly and you couldn't help but feel a little bad. "We can still continue?" you offered but Ghost shook his head as he got up. "If I don't have to sit through this, I won't," he said and waved off before heading to his quarters. Price followed suit and Gaz began to clean up, leaving only you and Soap on the couch.
"You are fucking crazy," Soap swore and you shot a look at him. "You telling me that was scary to you, Sergeant?" you said skeptically and Gaz laughed in response. As he shook his head in refusal, you knew how you would get back at him. A week later Soap's screams filled the base as you had snuck a picture of the martyred Anna into one of his nudie magazines. "Serves you right, Mactavish," you smiled to yourself before you settled back onto the couch and played the first movie of your Insidious marathon.
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jxckchxmpi0n · 1 year
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Press tour
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Jack Champion x Actress reader || m.list
Summary : You and Jack have been on a press tour for a few weeks as scream vi was just released. An interview with MTV leads to the realization someone's in love
Word count 1.6k
Tag list: @chaethewriter @demausbreaux
Warning: spoilers for scream vi
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It was the last interview of the day. Answering fan questions with Jack for MTV. Both of you were tired and ready to call it a day. As you sat down, the producer came over to explain how it works. "So what will happen I will read you guys the question, answer however long you want keep it flowing simple easy and your done" the costume director came over fixing Jack's clothes and your hair was being fixed.
"What do you say after this wanna get food?" You couldn't turn your head, but out of the corner of your eye, you could see him staring at you. A soft blush came to your cheeks as you hummed a yes. Satisfied with your answer, he turned back "good"
"Alright, we're on in 5, 4, 3" the producer stood behind the camera as they finished the countdown.
"Hi, I'm y/n l/n," you waved and smiled at the camera.
"I'm Jack champion, and we are here with MTV to answer fan questions about Screamvi." he winked at the camera.
'What's your favorite memory while filming scream?'
Jack held a bright smile on his face as he flashed through all the memories of you and the other cast members on set. As you both sat there making comments about how hard it was to choose, Jack was the first to settle on his favorite.
"I would have to say my favorite memories would be when- and well spoilers if you haven't seen it yet- but umm definitely the whole wiping the knife in sync with Liana" you watch him in awe as he explained it was so satisfying yet hard to film. "Overall, it was just very fun to experience the whole scream and ghostface." he turned towards you after he rambled on, a soft blush creeped on his cheeks as he realized.
"You're adorable." You turned to the camera, but your body was still facing Jack, "I would have to say the frat party. There was this scene that we filmed. I don't know if it will ever see light- but it was Chad he was hyping up Ethan to talk to a girl. Which is in the movie - but there's a snippet where we see Ethan actually trying to make the moves on Scarlett, my character look at him so confused because she sees Chad behind him jumping up and down like a little school girl."
"Who are you close with on set?
You both laughed as you thought about the times the cast would just hang out and mess around. The first to come to your mind was Jack. You guys were and are always attached to each others hip. There were many times when filming went late, and the amount of energy that went into filming had finally caught up to both of you.
Mason had found both you and Jack sleeping on the apartment couch while they were filming the "core four scenes" you laid on the inside while Jack laid halfway on you. Mason saw a blanket on the end and just threw it over you two. But what you don't know is Jack woke up and saw Masons' actions. He smiled and saw Mason giving him a thumbs up.
He felt you move underneath him, worried you'd wake up he stayed still. Mason already walked away, and Jack was slowly falling back asleep, his arm laced around your waist as he laid on you. Your arm laid over his back as if you were trying to pull him close if possible.
"I would say y/n, we spent a lot of time together on set and off when we weren't filming," he felt himself get warm, his ears slowly turning red. Shifting in his seat, he made eye contact with you and saw the soft smile you always wore. The one he loved, the one that means he had your full attention.
"That's a good point. There were days they called us in, but we didn't film anything. We were just there to be there if they needed us. So that resulted in us hanging around set trying to find stuff to do. " You saw Jack in the corner of your eye messing with the hem of his shirt, something he always did when anxious.
Your eyes softened at the sight of him, his curls loosely sat on his head, some falling in his eyes. The freckles that were sprinkled around his face - shit. You were madly in love with him! How could you not be? He's a gentleman. He pays attention he's funny he's sweet, he's caring - he's Jack.
"Are you guys aware that many of the fan ship both of your characters together, as well as you in real life?"
Your face grew a shape of red so fast, giggling you quickly jumped in before anything could be said. "I think it's adorable to see what the Fandom creates."
Jack was still on the idea of people out there saying you guys should be together. Well, they aren't wrong. You and Jack are basically a couple, just without the tile. He liked you a lot, and he liked the idea of being with you. But his heart sank at the thought of you not feeling the same way.
Without thinking, Jack quickly jumped in, "I agree with the fans. Maybe in a different universe or something, uh, you know, " an awkward laugh went through his body as he just realized what he had said.
You, as well, very confused awkwardly laughed. On the other side of the camera, the producer motioned for you to do an outtro. Smiling at the camera, you said your name as well as Jack's as he was stuck in thoughts.
"Screamvi is out now in theater." You blew a kiss to the camera, and Jack did a little wave.
"CUT" beautiful guys, we'll get makeup and costumes to take you back, and you guys are free.
Awkwardly, you stood up, taking your mic as well as Jack. "Did you still want to get some food?" He couldn't even look at you. He was so red. Thank god his hair covered his face for once.
"Yeah, uhh, that sounds good. I'm just gonna go change and meet you at the car. " Before any more, he could be said he sped off towards his dressing room.
Twenty minutes passed by, and he finally pulled himself together. He paced I'm his room debating is he wanted to tell you about you feelings.
His stomach was doing flips as he was walking to you. His hands became clammy as he got closer. He saw you standing on the wall looking through your phone. Do it while we're out.
You looked up and saw him walking towards you. He looked like a lost puppy. Looking around, trying to understand where he was, the dark brown of his eyes found yours, and for a second, you saw a calmness take over his body.
"Ready to go?" He nodded his head, and you made your way to the car.
-
There was a cafe on the corner near your place that both of you loved. It was your favorite place. "What you gonna get?" You continued looking at the list as he looked at you. He noticed the shine in your hair, the glow in your skin, the way you bit your lip as you debated what to eat.
"I think I'm just gonna get the club sandwich. Something simple and easy. What about you?" He looked down to remember what he even chose.
"The pasta sounds pretty good. I might just get that." Satisfied with his answer, he closed the menu. The waitress came out and took our order. Food was out in a matter of minutes.
Once the bill was paid, you made your way to your apartment. You were raving on about a story on your upcoming role in a movie, while Jack was stuck in his head.
"Y/n, I need to tell you something." Stopping in the middle of the stairway to your door, you looked at him confused.
"You finally gonna tell me what's been going on in that pretty head of yours?" He smiled. He knew you noticed it.
"Listen, I love you, and I love our friendship - but this," he motioned between you and him. "I want more. I want it all. I want to hold your hand. I want to hug you. I want to be able to look at you and adore you - well, even though I do that already - but god y/n, I'm like in love with you. "
You stood there mouth ajar as he just confessed his love you you. Jack champion said he loved you. A wide smile took display on your face as you stepped forward. Grabbing his shirt, you pulled him into you, and your lips met his.
They were so soft, yet chapped. It took him a second yo realize what was happening, but the second it clicked, he grabbed your waist, pulling your body into his. Smiling into the kiss, your hands made their way to his hair.
He groaned as your hand pulled on it, and your lungs burned as the kiss continued. You felt him pulling away but wanted to keep going. His eyes hazed with lust as he looked at you. His lips swollen and red, your matching his.
"I want it all as well, trust me. I love you," he reached up and tucked a hair behind your ear and kissed you again.
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n-slayaaaaa · 4 months
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𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 —𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐒𝐍𝐎𝐖
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Pairing: young!coriolanus snow x oc, young!coriolanus snow x black!oc, snowbaird
Summary: Venus must continue throughout her day with the feeling that Coriolanus is in trouble after sneaking to see their tributes early—it’s not until she sees his blossoming connection with Lucy Gray that she realizes she will always be second best in his eyes… the problem is, Venus is never second best to anyone.
Warnings: TBOSAS spoilers (book and film), themes of death, violence, gore, enemies to lovers, jealousy, obsession, gaslighting, corruption, toxic relationships, brainwashing and mental abuse.
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Venus’s loafers padded down the concrete road. Some of the tributes were huddled in the far corner of the enclosure, heads snapping at her as she walked by. She waved at them in effort to appear friendly. It wasn't their fault they were in this position. Approaching the tip of the enclosure, the rainbow ruffles caught her eye. The songbird sitting down on the floor, looking up at the changing sky that matched the color of her dress.
"Good evening, Lucy Gray." She nodded, greeting the girl out of respect ... no, no it was guilt. For not knowing if Coriolanus would return or not.
The girl jumped up at hearing her name. "H-Hi?" She stammered, never expecting another Academy student to pay her any attention. "You're the girl my mentor was with this morning, right? Venus?"
"Yes." She nodded.
Lucy Gray licked her lips, dirty hands grabbing the bars of the cage. "Forgive me if this is a bit forward, but, do you know if he'll be back soon?"
The girl's face hardened, holding her hands behind her back she took a small step forward. Mere inches from the bar as she studied Lucy Gray. Desperation. It was in her eyes and her tone. They had been separated for only a few hours and already the girl had gone ... feral. Any ounce of kindness she felt for her was gone and she returned to her stoic nature.
"I haven't seen Coryo since this morning. But, I'm sure he's doing everything he can to return to you." She pursed her lips together.
"Nessie!" A boys voice called down the enclosure. To her right, Sejanus was waving his hand to get her attention.
She stepped away from Lucy Gray, watching any hope fall from her lips as she turned them into a small pout. "If you'll excuse me."
Following where her friend was seated, Sejanus was perched at the edge of the cage with a large bag pack beside him. He held what appeared to be a sandwich through the bars, offering it to the tributes within. The pack was visibly overflowing with not only sandwiches but fresh plums as well. For a moment they were all hanging back, but, the sight of the girl with wild curls was enough to put a pep in Venus's step.
Sejanus had been trying to coax Dill to take the food before his friend arrived, his saving grace that could possibly help him make some progress with the tributes. Arriving next to him, she gave him a small greeting before turning to Dill.
The Capitol-born girl smiled, genuinely, at seeing her tribute for the first time. She was small in frame, but, that didn't mean she was of no use. "Hi, Dill!" She spoke softly, worried she would scare her if she moved suddenly or spoke too loud. "My name is Venus, I'm your mentor for the Games."
"I don't need a mender." She said, voice hoarse and scratchy from all of the coughing.
"Mentor." Venus couldn't help but correct the girls misunderstanding. "Please, come closer and talk to me. I'm here to help you and my friend even has a sandwich for you!" She glanced at the boy. "How long have you been out here?" Venus whispered.
"Only a half hour." He shrugged. "Ma sent me here with the goods right after dinner so it would be fresh for them. She sends her regards, caught a bit of your speech on the news earlier and said you did great."
Ma Plinth was always the sweetest woman. She may not have been the most put together, or seemed like she was working with a full set of marbles upstairs, but she had a good heart and sometimes that's all that mattered.
"None of them trust me ... and why should they?" asked Sejanus in defeat.
A self-important little girl marched up beside them and pointed to a sign on the pillar at the edge of the enclosure. "It says, 'Please don't feed the animals.'"
"They're not animals, though," said Sejanus, willingly going back and forth with this child if it meant he could help her see the light. "they're kids, like you and me and her." He gestured towards Venus.
The girl frowned. "They're not like me!" She said shrilly, protesting the thought. "They're District. That's why they belong in a cage."
Venus was crushed. The privileged thinking was seeping its way into the younger generation, a never ending cycle that would keep the Capitol in elitism until the system was broken, if it was ever broken. She was playing a part in influencing the children. Her mentorship cosigned the idea of the Games...a symbol of her broken spirit for trying to fight for what was right.
Now the right thing was to keep herself alive.
The little girl returned to her mother and Venus tried to focus on her tribute when a hand grazed the small of her back, making her jump. Breath hitching in her lungs she turned, eyes drifting upwards to be met with crystal ones. He'd paved through the growing crowd, spotting her only moments ago before making his presence known.
Coriolanus was here, alive and in the flesh, the only thing hurting him was his bruised ego.
"What happened?" Venus asked, stepping closer to him so Sejanus couldn't hear.
Coriolanus grabbed the girls arm softly. "I'm okay." He said compassionately. He would never tell her that he received a demerit for the stunt pulled this morning. Letting her know about her slight advantage in this competition seemed idiotic. He would use the competition to drive him, a demerit would not be a nail in his coffin.
"Coriolanus," Sejanus acknowledged his presence, a small smile as his friends were by his side. "do you think you could get your tribute to come over? If she does, the others might. They have to be starving."
The boys mind worked quickly. Letting go of Venus, he brought his hands to his sides and stared at the sandwiches. He had already been given a demerit today and did not wish to push his luck with Dean Highbottom. On the other hand, the consequence had been for simply endangering himself, and he was perfectly safe on this side of the bars. Dr. Gaul was arguably more influential than the Dean, she had even complimented his initiative. And in truth, he has no interest in ceding the stage to Sejanus or Venus.
The Zoo was his show, his spectacle, and he and Lucy Gray were the stars.
Venus seemed to have forgotten that, so he took it upon himself to remind her.
"Your girl was just looking for you." The short girl said, nodding towards the ruffles of rainbow and dirt further back in the cage.
Coriolanus glanced at the Capitol-born, narrowing his eyes as he tried his best to read between the lines. It wasn't her words that set him off, it was the tone that had fumes of jealousy.
"I can't treat her like it's feeding time," He told Sejanus, ignoring the remark about Lucy Gray. Feeding her food through the bars did not align with his treatment of her as a lady. "not mine. But I could offer her dinner."
Sejanus nodded immediately. Telling Coriolanus to take whatever he wanted since Ma made extra. The blonde boy chose two sandwiches and two plums from the pack.
"Goodnight, Venus." He whispered before crossing to the edge of the monkey house. A flat rock provided a lively seat to engage in a meal with his tribute.
She watched as he spread out the clean handkerchief from his pocket before laying the food on top. As he seated himself, Lucy Gray drifted up to the bars with a charming grin on her lips.
Here Venus stood, dumbfounded, that she allowed herself to feel an inch of remorse or fondness for Coryo as she went about her day believing he was dead. He spent all of three minutes engaging with her, brushing her off after asking him what happened in the lab.
Only using Venus and Sejanus as a stepping stone to get to who he wanted to see, who he was growing fond of.
"What's going on in that big brain of yours?" Sejanus questioned, his line of sight following Venus's. He looked between the spectacle of Lucy Gray and Coryo, returning his gaze to his friend who's jaw was rigid. "Ve?"
Coriolanus thought he could make a fool of her? A joke amongst everything else she was dealing with and enduring for the sake of keeping herself alive. Venus didn't take too kindly to that. As the gears shifted in her mind, she added another note to her mental roster. There was something about Lucy Gray that boiled her blood.
Her arrogance.
Confidence.
Her voice.
Talent.
Capitol Favoritism.
Coryo.
Lucy Gray had Coriolanus under the spell of her siren song. The one thing Venus never had, never wanted, but still had an unspoken claim on.
Like a mere child in a sandbox, Venus struggled with sharing her toys with anyone—but surely she would never share them with Lucy Gray Baird.
———
To read more of To Be Eaten Alive, check out the full story on wattpad 🐍
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thecinematicalgorithm · 5 months
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Can't Catch Me Now: Lucy Gray and Katniss Story-Tie Analysis
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I have not been on Tumblr much over the past couple of years but with the coming film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes on its way I knew I'd be dusting this old page off. The Hunger Games series is one of my all-time favorite book series and the films are some of my favorite book-to-film adaptations, so to say I am pumped for this upcoming movie is an understatement. And to top it all, I have been obsessing over Olivia Rodrigo's new song Can't Catch Me Now, which if you've read the prequel, you'll know that it perfectly ties Lucy Gray's story to Katniss' journey. As always I want to warn anyone who might read this that spoilers for the upcoming film and Suzanne Collins' novel lie ahead. Also fair warning, this is super long cause I don't know how to be concise.
In preparation for the prequel film I have re-read TBOSAS and I am currently re-reading the original THG series (I am currently on Catching Fire, if anyone cares to know lol). I am also planning on a movie marathon the week of the prequel release, which I fully intend on subjecting my boyfriend to as he recently admitted he has only ever seen the first (and I simply cannot let him continue living life with no clue on how wonderful Peeta Mellark is). With that said, I have had a few thoughts, which I wanted to share before the release knowing that I will certainly have more thoughts after I have seen the film.
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Honestly, I am going to be ridiculously obsessed for the next several weeks. I also know I wrote a couple of analyses on the differences between Snow and Katniss and the early games vs. the later games, which I will re-post so people can read them if they haven't before.
Enough chit-chat though let's get to it.
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The parallels between Katniss and Lucy Gray are quite extensive and beautiful despite the characters being in many ways polar opposites. There is the saying that "Lucy Gray Baird is a performer made to hunt while Katniss is a hunter made to perform". This is a great summary of their overall character profile, and while I may at some point do a breakdown of Lucy Gray vs Katniss, I first want to write about how Lucy Gray and Katniss' story are far more connected than some might have realized. Part of the realization for me actually came while listening to Olivia's new song.
The chorus of the song reads as:
But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze
My footsteps on the ground
You'll see my face in every place
But you can't catch me now
Through wading grass, the months will pass
You'll feel it all around
I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere
But you can't catch me now
No, you can't catch me now
In terms of Katniss, I think it's been obvious for sometime that Snow particularly despises Katniss because she is a strong reminder of Lucy Gray Baird. She is a girl from District 12. She stood out during her Reaping, and swept the Captiol off their feet during her time in his city. She not only sang in the arena, but she sang a young girl "to sleep" with the very song Lucy Gray sang Maude Ivory to sleep. She used the Captiol's berries to save herself and Peeta, just as Lucy Gray used the Captiol's snakes to save herself. She wears a Mockingjay pin, the very bird which Snow undoubtedly relates to Lucy Gray and rebellion (far before it truly became the symbol of rebellion).
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Katniss may not be like Lucy Gray in personality, but to Snow, Lucy Gray's spirit must seem very much alive in Katniss, and just as he tried desperately to rid the forests surrounding District 12 of mockingjays, this is one Mockingjay he wants to destroy.
The second verse of the song goes:
Bet you thought I'd never do it
Thought it'd go over my head
I bet you figured I'd pass with the winter
Be something easy to forget
Oh, you think I'm gone 'cause I left
This verse summarizes Snow's mindset at the end of TBOSAS, as we know he thinks he is safe from the threat of Lucy Gray. Her games have been erased, as time passes "there will be a vague memory that a girl sang in the arena" and even that too shall pass. However, where he goes wrong is when he fails to understand the deep connection and love the other Covey share for Lucy Gray. Despite not seeing how the story ends for them, or even having a solid explanation of Lucy Gray's ending, we at least know that Lucy Gray and her songs were not wiped from existance. Whether they believed, as he supposed, that the mayor was responsible for Lucy Gray's disappearance does not erase their connection to her.
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Snow may have chosen never to allow love to control him again, but he did not erase the love those children had for Lucy Gray. Her music became all they had left of her so you can bet they continued singing them and sharing them, even if they had to do it on the down low. (I also share the common fan theory that Maude Ivory is the grandmother to Katniss Everdeen, and I'm hoping the film confirms this). Either way, Katniss clearly learned those songs from somewhere, which for Snow would have been a siren's call from the great beyond that Lucy Gray did not pass with the winter and she was not as forgotten as he had hoped.
Then we go into the bridge of the song where Olivia sings:
You, you can't, you can't catch me now
I'm coming like a storm into your town
You can't, you can't catch me now
I'm higher than the hopes that you brought down (repeats)
This is my favorite part of the song. Not only is it moving and emotional but it ties so much of Lucy's story to Katniss'. Both girls were like storms in the Capitol, sweeping the people and the nation into their stories so they could not help but be invested. Both were near impossible to control, despite Snow's best efforts, and both had a spirit of hope greater than Snow's ability to crush the highest of hopes. There's also something deeper, which intended by Olivia or not, makes this song perfect for the series. The lines "I'm coming like a storm into your town" and "I'm higher than the hopes that you brought down" is sung from the point of view of Lucy Gray. Both bring to mind images of the rebellion in THG: Mockingjay. The rebels stormed into the Capitol and their hope was higher than the hopes and lives which Snow had already destroyed in an effort to quell the rebellion.
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However, just like Katniss becoming the Mockingjay, or the symbol of the rebellion, Lucy Gray had become her music. She was the anthem of the rebellion. If Katniss inspired hope, Lucy Gray was that hope. The hope of freedom. Dead or not Lucy Gray was finally free and her song reflects that truth and the rebels clung to it. Dead or alive they would be free.
Furthermore, Lucy Gray's song not only led to the freedom of Panem, but it also led to the freedom of Peeta's mind from the lies and brainwashing inflicted on him in the Capitol. Remember, Katniss always associated Peeta with hope until Snow brainwashed him. And if you'll recall, Peeta's first true breakthrough in regaining his memory of Katniss and his love for her was when he heard her rendition of "The Hanging Tree". Lucy Gray not only stormed into the Capitol but she stormed into Peeta's muddled memory, and her music was higher than the hope Snow had brought down. Lucy Gray's song led Peeta and Panem into freedom, and it helped to restore Peeta as the hope and love of Katniss' life.
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Lastly, the ending of the song greatly foreshadows Katniss' journey:
There's blood on the side of the mountain
It's turning a new shade of red
Yeah, sometimes the fire you founded
Don't burn the way you'd expect
Yeah, you thought that this was the end
Of course, we all know the end is far from over for Snow. As Lucy Gray told him once, "The Capitol show isn't over until the mockingjay sings". Katniss' story ends with her singing Lucy Gray's lullaby to her children. Katniss was the fire founded by Snow, and despite his best efforts, it didn't burn out or even burn the way he expected it to. The line "the fire you founded" is also perfect to describe Snow and Katniss' dynamic because in many ways Katniss was only a threat because Snow threatened her. It's the same dynamic as Harry and Voldemort's. If Voldemort had left Harry and his family well alone, Harry never would have been the perfect enemy to thwart him. In the same way, if Snow had left Katniss and her friends and family well alone, she may never have come for him the way she did or joined the rebellion.
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Interestingly enough, if Prim's name had never been called not only would the rebellion most likely have been avoided, but Lucy Gray's music may very well have been truly forgotten. Assuming Katniss is the only one left who actually remembers the songs, we know from reading the books that Katniss does not like or want to sing simply because they are painful reminders of her father. If Prim had never been threatened and Katniss had never been a contender in the games she would have been subjected to a life of mining and may have let the songs fade from memory as she lived out her miserable slave life in District 12.
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But as we know that's not what happens, and instead the memory of Lucy Gray and her music is forced from Snow as Katniss is forced onto this journey proving the memory of Lucy Gray is very much still alive except this time Snow can't catch her now.
Thank you for reading if you made it this far! Please share your thoughts if you'd like!
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snoleopard7 · 1 month
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HAPPY 1ST YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO EMESIS BLUE!!!! 🥳
If you haven't watched it yet, here you go:
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This film has remained one of my favourite films of all time, and probably one of the highest points of the SFM community as a whole. When I first watched it last year, it scared me quite a bit at times. Plus, it's the length of an actual film; longer than you think it is.
Some stills are below the readmore (spoiler warning and also it's a lot of em)
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I've seen the other side. It's longer than you think.
HAPPY 1ST YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!!
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invisiblefoxfire · 9 months
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Listen up, fellow queers and token straights, we're not gonna whine about the lack of new media during the strike and we're not gonna waiver in our support of the strikers.
In the meantime, we are going to recommend to each other more already-existing media than any of us could ever watch given several lifetimes to do it in.
I'll go first. Here are just a few of the creators I care about and want you to support.
FREE TO WATCH:
Filmjoy: This YouTube channel (Movies with Mikey, Deep Dive, etc.) makes incredibly well-produced video essays on film and occasionally TV and games. The channel's focus is on positivity and finding things to love about everything. And YouTube doesn't promote that sort of thing anymore, so the channel's creators (one of whom has multiple sclerosis) are running out of money and close to losing their house. Binge these genuinely incredible video essays with adblock turned off or, better yet, sign up to their Patreon and binge them with adblock on. Seriously, I love this channel so much, and if they don't get a boost in income soon, they're going to have to stop making videos. And I want more videos. Seriously, even watch the videos about things you haven't seen. They've persuaded me to watch loads of stuff I never would have watched otherwise and they're very good about not spoiling things (and giving spoiler warnings when needed).
AyeForScotland on Twitch: This is Tumblr's very own very handsome pro-Scottish-independence @ayeforscotland who has an incredible accent and plays loads of interesting games. He's going for Partner on Twitch now, which he has already earned but been denied due to an absurd technicality regarding whether viewers being linked to the channel directly from Tumblr integration. Go follow him now if he's not live, and when he goes live, go to Twitch and manually click on his name to watch the stream, since that's apparently the best way to get him the boost he needs. He sometimes has @thebibliosphere on as a guest (DOUBLE SCOTTISH ACCENTS HELL YES) and you can watch archives of many of his streams on his YouTube Channel.
Africa Everyday: This YouTube channel is run by Babatunde, a Nigerian man who shares his life and culture, makes cooking videos, and generally is a pleasure to watch and listen to. Seriously he's one of the kindest human beings I've ever spoken with. The money he earns from the channel goes towards helping his family and his community.
CHEAP AND WORTH PAYING FOR:
Dropout.tv: You simply will not find better comedy entertainment for the money. A monthly or yearly subscription is just a few dollars a month and gives you access to countless hours of top-quality entertainment from a company that started their own streaming service rather than cater to YouTube's algorithm. This is the place that started as College Humor, but if you haven't seen them in a while, you really need to check it back out. They're incredibly inclusive in their casting and theming and the production values are insane. I recommend starting with Game Changer, a show which has made me laugh so hard I choked and almost threw up. They also have Dimension 20 (or D20), the highest-quality DnD series out there, with custom-made sets and minis, usually with a focus on sheer comedy rather than drama (most of the cast members are comedy writers or comedians) - but it WILL and I mean WILL make you cry now and then. The currently in-progress season of D20 is called Dungeons and Drag Queens and the players are four literal actual fucking drag queens including Bob the Drag Queen and friends? You need to be watching this. If you have any doubts about whether Dropout is worth it or don't have any money, you can watch many full episodes for free on the CollegeHumor YouTube channel, although they have to censor the swears on there.
Nebula: Remember Lindsay Ellis? She left YouTube because of [too many reasons to list] but it turns out she's still active, she's just on Nebula now. Nebula is the co-op of streaming sites. Users sign up for a low monthly fee and the income is distributed among the creators, weighted according to how many views they get. The videos are uncensored and ad-free and contain lots of stuff that later needs to be edited out of YouTube videos to avoid copyright strikes. They've got FilmJoy on there (remember them from the start of this list?), Philosophy Tube (@theabigailthorn), Jacob Geller, Extra Credits, and loads and loads of other stuff on all different sorts of topics. Many of these channels also have YouTube channels that contain most of their content if you can't afford a Nebula subscription, but Nebula supports them more and gives them more creative freedom.
I'm gonna stop here for now but I'll add more in reblogs as the strike continues.
I hereby invite all of you to ruin my notifications until the strike is over. Reblog this, add your recommendations (especially ones that most people might not know about), and pass it on. There will not be a single complaint about lack of things to watch while the strike is ongoing.
(Why yes I am looking for more things to watch too. I've already seen all of the above. Bring it on.)
(And if you have a few dollars to spare, support the strikers directly at the Entertainment Community Fund.)
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Kaiju Week in Review (February 18-24, 2024)
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Godzilla Rivals: Mothra vs. M.O.G.U.E.R.A. begins with a standout fight between Mothra and Ebirah. From there, however, the Queen of the Monsters spends most of the story on the sidelines, with a brawl involving Mechagodzilla, Garuda, Jet Jaguar, and M.O.G.U.E.R.A. over the fate of her egg taking center stage. A mech fight on that scale is unusual for a Godzilla comic, and despite the misleading title, it's a decent issue. Writer Johnny Parker II sat down for a lengthy interview with Kevin Derendorf and Raf Enshohma this week; I haven't had time to listen to the whole thing, but I do know he talks about his valiant efforts to put Medical Jet Jaguar from Godzilla Island in the comic.
Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #5 also released this week. Afraid it didn't leave much of an impression on me; the book is juggling a lot of narrative threads now, and I don't see how it wraps them all up satisfactorily with just two issues left. I would've liked to see a more focused cast (and not just because it takes forever to list all the DC characters on Wikizilla each issue, haha). They also finally mention Monarch in this issue, which only makes the absence of the Monsterverse's human characters more conspicious.
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Between Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, March was already going to be a great month at the movies for giant monster fans, but they'll now be joined by an anime classic: The End of Evangelion. GKIDS is bringing it to North American theaters on March 17 and 20 (a Sunday and a Wednesday, respectively). All showings will be in Japanese with English subtitles. This is not, as some reporting has suggested, the first time the film has ever played in the region—I found a Facebook event page for a 2019 screening in Omaha, for instance—but it is certainly the first major release. Be forewarned that if you haven't seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, you'll be confused out of your mind, as the film serves as an alternate ending for the final two episodes. But you've got time to get caught up.
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Like many a Godzilla movie before it, Godzilla x Kong is leaking like a sieve, with a number of alleged screenshots of the Titans now making the rounds online. I normally wouldn't mention such things in this column, but they show a couple of characters who haven't been officially confirmed to be in the movie yet. So here's a warning to be on your guard if you're spoiler-shy.
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jomeimei421 · 1 year
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hi do you have any more fic recs?? ive read everything you already recommended in the last post and i am Terrible at finding fics myself-
why yes indeed i do <(:]) spoilers for all of ORV under the cut! Here is a link to my other fic rec post for those who haven't seen it yet.
Mei's ORV Fic Recs 2: Electric Boogaloo
Looking for Yoo Joonghyuk by Je_te_veux
GEN, written for YJH's birthday. A canon compliant exploration of YJH's search to find the answers to who he is and what he should live for. Takes place during the epilogue. Again, JTV is a Chinese author so you will need to read their fics with material translation, but their writing is remarkable! I'm especially fond of the way they wrote YJH and Anna Croft, and also, I have a soft spot for things where YJH (who has had to carry the enormous burden of the Story for so long) finally gets to do some reading and writing of his own.
Love & Affection Do (Not) a Cat Make by featherx
Sangsoo, with a side of Joongdok. The misadventures of HSY (cat) and YJH (cat???). I have a special spot in my heart for this fic because cat HSY is written so hysterically well it has permanently affected my own characterization of HSY. Funny, charming, cute, but as with all things orv, has a very sweet and sad undertone.
Great Escapes by wyrvel
JDJ. YJH attempts to confess. KDJ does not make things easy for him. The calling card of a great jdj confession fic is a tasteful amount of KDJ brand tomfoolery, just enough to make you want to grab him and shake him like maracas. This fic accomplishes that with flying colors. It's written from YJH's pov, but you can just feel the gears turning and steam puffing out of KDJ's head. Op understands babygirl YJH. As a warning, this is the first part of a three fic series, the other two are NSFW.
Only I know how this show will end! by ineedacatchyname
YHK. Our favorite toxic polycule, now on live tv! A truly tremendous Love Island AU fic. My absolute favorite thing about this fic is that every time a character is introduced, there's a cutaway to their Love Island Love Interest Self Introduction Sexy Beach Montage Reel written in the style of a TV film script and every last one of them had me crying real tears. YSA is also excellent in this fic.
World's End Rhapsody by wakerife
JDJ, with a side of Sangsoo. This was one of the first orv fics I read, before I started bookmarking them; there's a really sweet scene of YJH reading that I couldn't get out of my head so I went on a hunt to find this fic again by searching through every single ORV fic tagged with "post-canon." A collection of KDJ recovery snippets, punctuated by some heartfelt jdj.
At Sea by ksalientian
YHK. The dead return from the sea, including KDJ. He doesn't come back exactly how they remember. Eerie, melancholy, and permeated with slow, enormous loss. There are some horror like elements in this fic, but it's more psychological than something that might make you squeamish. Yoohan are going through it. Fantastic fic!
I don't want to fall asleep just yet by featherx
GEN. Pre-canon. There's a ghost that lives inside of HSY's house. A short character study on the loneliness of a writer.
A New Story Written by pyrrhura
YHK. KDJ worries in the middle of the night about being responsible for a new story, and about being a father. Or, three idiots and baby. I love fics where yhk get their blissfully mundane happy ending, but op doesn't confuse that with forgetting the traumas and hardships of the past. Love the banter in this fic, and the way they just lean on one another without even thinking. As a warning, there are discussions of unplanned pregnancy in this.
Ain't Nobody Solving That Declining Birth Rate by dulcetair
YHK. KDJ is fresh out of a coma (broke) and YJH is a former terrorist (also broke.) The post-scenario government issues a cash incentive for people to get married. Or, the gang commits marriage fraud! Features YJH wearing a apron that says grillmaster on it. I was already a firm believer in YHK getting married for """tax benefits""" because it makes things easier for KDJ who is too embarrassed to admit anything otherwise, but the idea of HSY using Avatars to game the system and buy a three story house just for funsies is also incredibly in character.
What the Living Do by younglegends
GEN. Snapshots of mourning, loving, and longing from various KCom members' points of view. The chronological events of this fic are backwards, which makes for an interesting read. Younglegends hasn't written a lot of ORV stuff yet, but the two fics that they have so far are both downright phenomenal, and some of the best work I've seen in this community. They are also the author of the fic that I refused to spoil in the previous orv fic rec. Also, their YSA characterization is perfect.
That's all for now! Enjoy!
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noodleofwriting · 4 months
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Blood Upon the Snow
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Word count: 6,814
Summary: The full flashback from Before the End of Time (TVA Loki fic I'm wrapping up). Loki and his love go into the forests of Asgard in the dead of winter to find an Asgardian child lost in the mountains. Ending up in a fight for their lives, both reveal their true selves and come together as one in the heat of battle. The myth of how Loki got his horns.
Warnings: Gore, intense fight scene, angst, bookended in fluff
The playlist I made while writing this linked here
Spoilers: The only spoilers are in the Epilogue, so if you haven't seen Loki S2 E6 just don't read that part.
Author's notes: This kind of just ran away from me while writing a fic inspired by Loki S2 E6 (coming soon!) -- but there are no spoilers for most of this. This all takes place before the first Thor film.
For this, I leaned a little more towards Norse myth, where the love interest/reader is heavily inspired by Skadi, goddess of the mountains and hunting (and skiing, interestingly, but that's not represented here). That being said, if you like the reader to "wear the pants" of the relationship, this one is for you!
This was truly my imagination running wild with easily my favorite fictional character of all time, Loki, as a love letter to him and the myth he comes from. I hope you can feel the love as you go on this adventure with me!
ALSO: Thank you all so much for the support for my first fic I posted a few months ago (linked here)! It means so much to me that people enjoyed it. I'm getting more comfortable with posting fanfics, now, so expect to see more in the future. The fact that some of you enjoy my unorthodox approach to fanfic makes my heart so full and grateful.
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Loki held her to his chest. Her smell mixed with the freshness of the air coming in through their window — a cool Asgardian summer night. He could feel her relaxing into him.
She looked towards their bed, where he had put his helmet moments before. The long horns coming from it curled away from the bed, white and streaks of brown matching the rich earth tones of the bed, gold contrasting in a way screaming of the old world and power.
“Do you remember when we got those horns?” She asked.
“How could I forget?”
It had been one of the deepest, most harsh winters that Asgard had experienced in centuries — as if a curse had fallen over the land and made it permanently frosted. The snow had gotten so deep that a child had gone missing, running into the forest to play and not home when they should have been — evening beginning to come over the land.
The child’s mother had come begging to her, as most of the Æsir had gone to battle in another realm. It had just been her and Loki at home, helping to move cattle between fields. Or, rather, Loki was there for moral support while she worked her magic, singing to the cattle and them responding like she was speaking their language, butting each other and blowing out steam as they trudged through snow coming up to their withers behind her.
The mother had come right up to her, casting him a wary sideways glance as his love gently grabbed the woman's arms, steadying her. The mother then described her son running into the forest and not coming back, despite her calling for him and being gone longer than he had ever been before.
By the time she had looked over to Loki, he knew they had already said that they would find the boy.
The mother cast another weary look to him, turning to her and worriedly whisper-speaking to her. He was sure she was whispering something about how Loki couldn’t be trusted with something this important, that he always caused chaos wherever he went.
His love calmed the woman then, walking them over to Loki.
“I would trust him with my life.” She gave him a knowing look. “He wouldn’t let anything happen to you boy,” to which she then looked to Loki expectedly, tilting her fur-enrobed head to the mother.
Loki stuttered over himself trying to get the words out. “O-of course. We’ll bring him home to you.”
After settling the cattle, they moved to the stables to grab their horses.
Loki came up beside her, speaking low.
“Are you sure about this?”
To his surprise, she looked to him with foreboding, no admonishment in her voice.
“This could be dangerous, Loki,” she looked ahead and began to take her draft horse out of its stall, absentmindedly rubbing its muzzle. “We can’t not go out there, though.”
He recognized her demeanor — quiet, introspective, serious.
“A premonition?” Half-whispered as they stood between their horses, fully saddled. Ice crystals blew through the barn, making his horse shake its head, pressing into his back.
She cast him a wary glance. “I don’t know yet, for sure. But we need to be exceptionally careful.”
Looking out to the forest on the edge of the city, where spruce was white with snow clinging. She sheathed a long sword into the scabbard on her saddle, the horse adjusting to the sudden weight.
“This is the kind of forest that doesn’t want to be disturbed,” she spoke, “and we’re disturbing it.”
He took the hint and followed suit, sheathing his daggers. She had always refused to take a weapon into the forest outside of a battle, and it made his intuition twitch to see her doing so now.
When they rode out to the edge of the forest it was exceptionally quiet save for the disrupting of the snow, their horses making paths through it. His horse was struggling, a couple hands shorter than hers, which moved through the feet of snow with ease. She never lost that look on her face, though — whole body tense, eyes moving between the trees.
An owl moved from one tree to another, catching a rodent. The small scream reverberated through the trees, stilled only by its echoes fading.
Loki realized he was holding his breath, then, and gasped to breathe normally again. A billow of his breath crystalized in front of him.
Her horse was suddenly next to his, and she reached down to grab his hand. Looking up to her he was met with an intensity that screamed eternal, screamed ancient in a way he had never seen in her before, as if he were looking into the eyes of a wolf.
“I love you,” she spoke, steam billowing from her lips, “stay alive”.
Loki swallowed hard, looking up at her, in all of her beauty and wildness. He reached his hand up and caressed her head, pulling it down to his, lips meeting. The freezing cold left for a minute while they kissed, her lips full and warm against his, fortifying him.
When she pulled away from him, there was a red tinge to her cheeks. Their faces hovered for a split second.
“I love you,” he repeated, “stay alive”.
They moved into the forest, feeling the difference in light like a cloak as the forest enveloped them. He quickly found small footsteps dredging their way through the snow, leading deeper and deeper into the trees. They followed them.
Loki noticed that he had lost count of how many trees they had passed after a while, all looking identical to him save for the occasional gnarled knot or branch that he would duck under.
A quiet so profound it felt like a blanket followed them, making him jump every time a vole or bird would move by them. She, however, never startled, as if she had known they were coming long before an animal would make itself appear. She would twitch her head, cocking it one direction or another, like a dog catching a sound in its soft ears, pinpointing it.
They stopped after making their way close to a mile, where the tracks of the boy stopped.
Snow was kicked up in a several foot radius, like something massive had come from the side and bowled the child over.
She jumped from her horse. Moving to the disturbance cautiously, crouching down, she ran her fingertips over a few drops of blood, moving it to her lips. The bloodied snow stuck to her lips and her tongue darted out, taking it into her mouth.
Loki had never seen her do this before, but didn’t question it. He sat in the saddle with baited breath waiting for her to say something.
When she looked up to him, her face said it all: it was the child’s blood.
“What do we do now?” Loki spoke, breaking the silence that had lasted between them the entire way through the forest.
Standing up, she looked towards a tree to her left, where massive claw marks dug into the bark, revealing the lighter pulp underneath. Her fingertips ran across it. Immediately she jolted as if struck by lighting; she whipped her head up, back stiff, eyes wide as a gasp choked out of her.
Loki leapt off of his horse and came to her side, grabbing her by the shoulders, fingers digging into the fur of her cloak. He spoke her name, shaking her slightly.
She took in a shuddering breath, turning to look at him. Her eyes were wide and crazed, shaken, as if she had seen a ghost. Her voice came out stuttering over itself in a way he had never seen from her before. For her to be this shaken by something could mean Ragnarök itself was in the forest, a great wolf waiting to swallow them.
“Whatever took him was touched by a dark force — something I’ve never felt before.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“What do we do?” He asked.
She looked to him again with that intense stare, the look of premonition.
“We kill this thing,” she said, “whatever it is, it a scourge on the land. It won’t stop with one life.”
The massive path of whatever this creature was moved onwards from them, towards the sharp black mountains that were a few more miles out from where they were, uphill.
They mounted their horses and made their way up the mountain, a solemn silence between them.
By the time they were approaching the edge of the forest, their horses were breathing heavily, steam coming from their backs. They had made their way into the upper mountains, where trees mostly gave way to rocky cliffs, creased with snow blowing over them. Ice shards blew into his face, no forest left to soften the wind. It was bitterly harsh and cold, the kind of place that only some of the most extreme and terrifying animals and monsters would reside in — or the land of frost giants, Jötunheim, from whence he came. A shiver rang down his skin at the thought of this birthplace.
Soon after they had cleared the trees and were up into the mountain, a boulder came into view — pressed up against the stone was the boy. His clothes were tattered, a large gash across his chest.
“There he is,” Loki gasped.
She immediately hushed him.
“It’s close,” she whispered. “It wouldn’t have left him.”
Just as the words left her mouth, the rustle of something large came from across the mountainside.
At first, Loki couldn’t see anything.
Then it moved, a mass that had looked like the shadows of many trees making its way towards them. An immense beast, with gaping, blood-coated teeth and several pairs of horns jutting from it. It towered at least fifteen feet above them at the shoulder, covered in snow-white and mottled grey scales. Several sets of reptilian eyes set on them, pupils narrowing as it began to circle them. Its eyes glowed red, a black smoke trailing from them.
A bilgesnipe, but not one like Loki had ever seen before. This beast was several hundred pounds more massive than any he had seen, and it reeked of a dark magic that Loki couldn’t place.
Loki looked over to her. She was looking towards the child.
“Protect the child,” she said, voice flat and low.
Before Loki could say anything, she moved back and ripped her blade free — one of the finest of the dwarves’ creations, a large broadsword forged with several metals, a hilt of gold.
He decided to trust her in that moment, his body flowing warm with his magic as he removed his daggers from his steed and sheathed them. He then ran to the child, concealing himself from the beast in the meantime. It felt unnecessary, though, for as Loki turned from his partner, he heard a guttural yell come from her, beckoning the beast over.
Glancing back, Loki saw their horses disappearing to the trees as she growled to the bilgesnipe, making animalistic growling sounds that he couldn’t recognize. It took the bait, bowing its head low before beginning its charge towards her.
Loki forced himself to turn his head away and focus on the child, fallen haphazardly against the rock.
The boy looked worse than he had from a distance. Blood smeared on the rock behind him, like he had been thrown against it. The wound on his chest seeped blood, soaking his soft wool shirt. Loki carefully moved the boy upright, feeling the warm wetness of blood on the back of his head, kneeling down to cradle the child in his arm. Loki bent his ear down by the child’s mouth, watching his chest for any sign of breathing.
Shallow and labored, the child was breathing. Loki gasped in relief, resting his hand on the child’s chest. Swirls of green emitted from his fingertips and into the wound, beginning to heal it ever so slightly. His magic was limited when it came to healing, but it didn’t matter — this boy was hanging on by a thread and Loki was not going to let him die.
Loki whipped his head towards the battle that was unfolding between the bilgesnipe and her. She moved close to the beast, staying just out of reach, forcing it to careen its head faster past its limit. Knowing she couldn’t take it head on, she was coming down on its back where she could, the hide exceedingly rough and difficult to get through. Her blows barely drew any blood. She had shed her outer coats, leaving a thin shirt and hide pants — also leaving her vulnerable to the beast. The smallest miscalculation in her movements and the monster would be on her.
Bilgesnipes were more a thing of legend than of fact — they were rarely seen and feared tremendously, like a dragon without its wings, lurking in the dark mountains and taking cattle that had lost their way as a snack. Their size alone made it almost impossible to take one down unless you had several men and a ton of luck, even with Asgardian warriors. Seeing her take on the creature alone terrified him — one wrong move and she was gone from him forever, the only person he had ever loved.
Her movements were almost unnatural, leaping away right as it would bring its head around to snap at her. She was taking full advantage of its blind spots, occasionally rolling away to avoid its spiked tail whipping around. Growls shook the earth they were on. The cry that would come from her as she struck the beast was guttural and extreme, the muscles in her arms quivering as she would cut into the massive beast.
He needed to join her in battle — but looking down at the child, he was barely coming out of his death throes.
“Come on, child”, said somewhat impatiently, “your time in Valhalla isn’t upon you yet.”
As if he had heard Loki, the boy choked to life, gasping, and clutching his arm like a lifeline. The small sounds he made brought tears to Loki’s eyes, laughing in relief.
Just as the child’s eyes opened, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the cold air.
The bilgesnipe had landed a massive blow across her torso with its claws, sending her tumbling back into the snow.
He screamed her name across the mountain, guttural and piercing, ringing silence following.
She didn’t move.
Loki sat the child against the boulder tenderly, sitting him up and ensuring he could breathe. He cast an illusion over the child, and he disappeared entirely.
The roar of the bilgesnipe barely registered in his peripheral as he ran over to her, knees collapsing in the snow. Loki turned her over so she wouldn’t suffocate.
Three long, deep gashes tore from her lower hip up to her face, slicing across her lips. Blood poured from her, streaming, staining the snow red — like a freshly hunted deer after you had slit its throat in winter.
Her eyes were closed, but he could see her breathing, laboring and shuddering as it was. Her face was torqued in pain, tears streaming down the sides of her face towards her ears.
This wasn’t happening.
He called to her, voice cracking, desperately trying to bring her back from where she was going. Pressing his palm into the largest wound on her chest, he flowed magic into her like a tidal wave, feeling every cell in her body desperate to repair itself. He had never revived someone before, but damn it all if he wasn’t going to do it now.
The moment his magic slammed into her, she shot up, a visceral scream ripping from her that echoed across the jagged mountains. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot and animalistic, pupils slitted and glowing yellow. Her teeth were bared and he saw that her canines were larger and sharpened, and he felt sharpened claws rip through his leather armor where she gripped it. Loki has seen glimpses of this when they had gotten into particularly heated arguments — the slight sharpness of her teeth, the look in her eyes of something untamed — but he had never witnessed her fully in this animalistic, berserker-like state.
When she looked to him, he saw that archaic thing that he had been noticing from her for years, now at its peak. He truly felt like he was looking into the eyes of a god for the first time, power coming from her that took his breath away.
After she had screamed, a deadly silence had fallen over them, and he realized that the wind no longer blew, the forest no longer shaking or making a sound. A pin could drop in the snow and he could have heard it a mile away.
Then the forest moved.
He couldn't explain it, couldn't contort any part of his conscious mind to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. The trees moved, as if they were shifting the forest forward towards them.
A cacophony of howling so loud that it rang in his ears, blurring his thoughts.
Massive streaks of brown, white, grey and black came bounding from the trees, practically ripping the spruce from their roots, backs breaking branches as they moved underneath them.
A dozen or more dire wolves surrounded them then, the same yellow eyes glowing as they looked to him, looked to her, and then immediately took to surrounding the beast, easily standing half as tall as the bilgesnipe themselves. A couple of them broke away, sending massive amounts of snow flying as they bound to the boulder where the child was, surrounding him and standing guard.
Looking back to his love, he could see the resemblance, especially with her massive head of hair knotted and braided all around her face.
He could feel her power emanating from her as she rose, bending to lift the long sword as if it were nothing. Her blood fell freely into the snow, but she never flinched as she growled, twirling the blade in her hands expertly and making her way back towards the beast. As she did so, the dire wolves reformed rank, nipping and growling, barking and tearing at the bilgesnipe at all sides, clearly distressing it. Now it bore seeping teeth and claw marks on its hide, each attack of a wolf adding more.
He noticed that they were behaving precisely the same way lesser wolves take down large prey, like a moose or wisent — surrounding it on all sides, making small attacks on all sides to exhaust it, making it easier to deliver the killing blow.
But the bilgesnipe came to its wits, lashing out and striking one of the massive furred beasts, where it flew and slammed into a tree, falling limp. Its companions cowered then, growling and moving their heads down.
Even now, the fight wasn't even.
She fought as if this wasn't the case — easily standing among the wolves, she ripped at the beast, now tearing away large chunks of flesh, distracting it and weakening it just as the rest of the pack was.
Loki suddenly felt his magic coursing through him, felt the chill of the mountain seeping into his soul, reminding him so much of Jötunheim. It coursed through him, the snow beginning to flurry and manipulate itself to his will; with the snap of his wrist, it turned it to a long shard of ice.
He felt growing pains with this magic, a familiar and suppressed power that gave away his roots that he had let go of in order to be in his place with the Æsir. He was hesitating, not wanting to allow himself to go into that place entirely — to completely yield himself over to his full power. Transforming back into an older version of himself.
Then he looked to her, seeing her in her warrior-state, blood streaming from her wounds. Entirely unyielding and releasing all of her power that she had suppressed for years, exulting cries and bared teeth. He didn't know if she, too, was of a different blood or not, but she was bearing all of her soul to this fight; screaming and howling, lashing and throwing everything into each swing of her sword, joining the wolves.
When the beast lashed her with its tail and she cried out, falling to her knees, all hesitation left his body.
When the creature turned to attack his love, a wall of ice bolted from the ground, shards of ice shoving into the creature’s gaping mouth. It reeled, letting out an earth-shaking howl, stepping back.
Loki saw her look to him with wild eyes, fully see him in his Jötun state. He froze in that moment, terrified of what she would think — would she realize that he was a monster?
She smiled — what?
No, she couldn’t be — but she was, her bleeding lips bearing her bloodied teeth, eyes crinkling with mirth.
Her voice resonated through him, more in his mind than in the air.
“Come and fight with me in our true forms, my love, my heart!” she waved her arm, beckoning him to her. “If we die today, we die as one in our true selves.”
He had never loved her more than in that moment.
By the time Loki had come up next to her, the wolves were in their full frenzy and the bilgesnipe was beginning to grow desperate — throwing its head and crying out, biting at whatever was near it. Another wolf had been knocked unconscious and others bore intense wounds, but they showed no signs of slowing.
Their cries were growing frenzied, heat rising in the air, the prey getting weaker, the time for the killing blow growing imminent.
Loki looked to her, the leader of the pack, asking with his gaze what the next step was.
She looked to him, smiling wide in the thrill of the hunt.
“It’s our time, Loki,” her words flowed from her like poetry, “when the time is right, we finish this monstrosity”.
Taking a deep breath of the frosted air, he felt it settle into his lungs like home.
The dire wolves then changed their behavior, beginning to take more intense bites, dragging the bilgesnipe by the legs, the hips, the back, throwing their weight into each part and dragging it down. The earth shook as its legs collapsed underneath it, causing so much snow to come up that it temporarily looked as if they were in a blizzard.
Loki to the chance, snow in the air, to bring an immense chunk of ice on the withers of the best, bringing it down completely. Its head trapped under the weight of the ice, it thrashed its head, deteriorating.
She didn’t hesitate. Coming down with her sword, she slammed the blade tip-first through the largest eye of the bilgesnipe, ocular liquid and blood flowing following a resounding crack as the blade was buried to its hilt in its skull.
Its body fell still against the snow, quiet settling over the mountains as its final cry rang through. Snowflakes fell and melted on the fresh blood pouring from it. The black smoke slithered from its slacked mouth and eyes, cascading over the ledge of the mountains and down out of sight.
The dire wolves stood then, howling into the dusk that had settled over the land, snow turning purple against the blue of the sky. The brightest stars and planets began to twinkle. Howling resonated in the air, the differential notes clashing and resounding, ringing and echoing in solemn victory across the wind.
She collapsed into him then, Loki grunting and looping his arms under her shoulders to support her. Her breath was ragged, blood continuing to leave her body from the gashes across her, matching the child’s but lager in magnitude — he could see her ribs between the shreds of her skin.
The boy.
Just as Loki whipped his head towards the boulder, he saw a grey wolf gently nudging the child to stand, another of white gently lifting him by the clothes onto the back of the grey. The white kept its muzzle up for the child to grab onto as he adjusted, falling forward and grabbing the grey fur of the wolf’s neck. They began making their way towards them.
Looking back down to his love, he saw that she came back to her normal form, eyes back to normal, teeth blunted and human. Her breath was ragged, crying out when he shifted his weight to support her better. Her face was dangerously pale, showing how much blood she lost. She gasped with every move she made, but she forced herself to turn and face him regardless.
She lifted her hands to caress his face, shaking and smearing blood on his blue-tinged cheeks, fingers ice-cold. Her face was bloodied, raw, and beautiful, looking at him in pure love and reverence.
“You’re so beautiful as your true self, my love,” she spoke.
Loki Laufeyson, adopted child of Odin, held her in his true form, tears streaming down his face. In all of his life, he had never felt love like this — pure and raw, bloodied and glorious, soft and furred. The love of his life looking at him in his true form and smiling filled a hole in his heart that had been aching for centuries, and the relief of it being filled brought tears to his eyes. She wiped his tears as they came down his face.
He smiled, lifting a hand and caressing her cheek in kind.
“I've never felt a love like this,” he confessed, face serious. “I've never loved anyone as much as I love you. I never will.”
Her eyes widened slightly at this; breath baited.
“Will you take me as your husband?” He whispered, looking to her perfect, scarred face.
She smiled wide in that moment, laughing despite the pain she was in.
“You were mine the moment we came together, Loki.” She leaned in, their lips brushing. “Ragnarök itself could never steal you from me.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then began:
“You will be mine and I will be yours until the end of time,
Under the leaves of Yggdrasil, we will be joined,
Two branches intertwined into eternity.”
She continued the vow:
“Of one mind and body,
Souls bound until the end;
I take you as my one true love,
In war and in peace.”
In unison, they spoke:
“The mountains will echo with our song,
The halls of Valhalla will be warmed by our embrace.
The fields will be fertile from our union,
And our love will battle through Hel itself.”
They were both crying, now, the happy tears of a wedding on a lonely mountain where their witnesses were wolves and the monster they had felled together, pouring blood upon the snow.
Their foreheads joined, breath steaming between them. They looked at each other with pure love, mirth at the edges of their eyes.
They came together as one when their lips met, the pain and ache they were both feeling melting away for that moment. The world disappeared from around them. He felt her lips against him and felt home, felt the rest of this life.
When they parted, she cried out, resting her head against his shoulder.
He sobered, looking over her shoulder to the dark mountains, stars shining over them. Her weakened body sent fear jolting through him, and the thought crossed his mind that he might lose her here.
“You’re not leaving me,” Loki said, voice lilting between a question and a statement.
She strained out a laugh under her breath and into his shoulder.
“Not this time, my love. It takes more than this to kill me.”
He held her face to his neck, arms wrapped around her, holding her warm body to him. She was the only thing in the Nine realms that mattered in that moment.
“I’m guessing we’ll need to postpone our lovemaking as newlyweds a few days,” he joked, starting to feel the deep ache of battle coming to him as adrenaline wore off.
That drew another hoarse laugh from her, making him regret it slightly as she dug her fingers into his sides in pain. Her warm breath cascaded over his neck, giving him chills.
Loki felt his body move back into its Asgardian form, the frost suddenly hitting him much harder than before. One of the wolves came up to their side, coming down on one knee and bowing its head towards them.
Despite his knowing, he still felt prickles of fear when regarding the dire wolves — again, a creature that he had been raised to fear, not fight alongside, ride on the back of. Its fur was bloodied in many places, its mouth dripping with fresh blood and scales.
But when he looked back to his wife, all that he saw was love and respect for the beast. She started moving them towards the wolf, moving from supporting herself on him to the side of the wolf. His body felt cold from the absence of her body against his, already missing her. The blood coating his front added to the chill against his skin.
She turned laboredly, gesturing to the fallen bilgesnipe. He looked to her, confused.
“Take a set of its horns, Loki,” she said, “let them serve as a reminder of our union and your true power”.
Loki nodded, cautiously moving over to the bilgesnipe. He grimaced at the grotesque state of the thing, sword still sticking from its head, eyes bulging.
It had a few sets of horns protruding from its skull, larger than Loki could even carry himself. There was one set, though, that appeared to have just started growing — only a little over a foot long and thin, curving elegantly back around, though not touching back.
He reached out to grab one, taking out a hunting knife and carving it out of the scaled head, trying to remove as much of the flesh as possible. Loki held it over for her to see, earning an approving nod.
After removing the other horn, he placed them both under his arm while removing her broadsword from the skull of the bilgesnipe, sneering at the squelching sounds that came as he did so. Both of their horses had returned a few moments prior, and he sheathed the sword after wiping it off with some snow. It gleamed from its hilt, as if exuberant over its victory. He stowed the horns in a saddlebag on his own horse, which turned to sniff at them curiously.
Loki helped move her onto the back of the wolf. He then leaped up behind her, holding her steady as the wolf rose. Her back was pressed against him comfortably, that warmth he had craved coming back to him. His hands were around her waist, grabbing some of the neck fur of the wolf, noting the mixture of coarse and soft hairs that constituted its coat. She leaned back and rested her head on his shoulder, shuddering a sigh of relief as she let some of the tension in her body relax.
He gazed down at her, still trying to figure out what he had done right to be here, with the love of his life in his arms, her warmth against his. Peace settled over him then, in a way he hadn’t felt before — it settled deep in his bones as her breaths rose into the dark sky, stars shining brilliantly, the starkness of the mountains beyond them.
Two ravens circled above them, coming together and moving out from one another in perfect sync.
They made their way back through the forest, the other wolves beginning to dive into their hard-fought feast behind them. The wolves carrying them and the boy seemed to know exactly where to go, and it felt as though they got back in a fraction of the time, their horses trailing behind. Loki flowed his magic into her the entire way, not caring that it made him slightly lightheaded to focus so much of his power for a prolonged time, working to start mending some of her wounds and relieve some of the pain. She sighed in relief as he did this, her face nodding into his neck.
They eventually broke the edge of the forest and entered back to the plains that surrounded Asgard, the full brilliance of the city on display as warm lights flickered from towers through the cold air.
Loki immediately took notice of the small crowd that was ahead of them. Men and women, most armored, were gathered around in groups, torches illuminating their faces as they began moving battle steeds out and were assembling weapons. Townsfolk, with a nervousness to their stares, watched the group. A search party was being formed, he realized, to come and find them. Even the warriors who had just come from a long battle were there, blood and exhaustion all over them. Loki felt his heart swell at this, that they would come out to find them.
Quickly, Loki recognized the armor and faces of several of the soldiers — his brother, Thor, stood out in his silver armor plates, Mjolnir resting anxiously in his left hand.
The moment they were in sight, a silence swept over the group, turning and looking out towards the two dire wolves, which hadn’t been seen this close to Asgard in centuries.
He knew they were about to call to arms, so Loki waved an arm above his head.
“It’s us!” he cried out.
“We have the boy!”
Thor, recognizing Loki’s voice, started out towards them, torch in hand. The rest of the group stood in an uneasy anticipation, unsure of whether to start readying for an attack or not.
Once the wolves and Thor met several paces from each other, a flash of recognition and bewilderment came over Thor, and he waved back to the others, confirming that it was them. Several others started coming over, then, torches in hand.
Thor came up to the side of the wolf. A slight terror that he was trying to underplay made Loki smirk a little.
“How…?” Thor’s voice was bewildered.
He opened his mouth to speak again, but Loki cut him off.
“I assure you, Thor, these are not illusions of my making.” Loki said.
He looked down to his love, who was resting on his shoulder still.
“These are her beasts?” Thor’s confusion only grew, his voice upturning in disbelief.
Loki nodded, reveling for a moment at having something cooler than his brother. It was childish, but he needed this. Just let him have his moment.
“If you’re done ogling, dear brother,” Loki began to shift her, making her gasp in pain, “my wife is injured.”
Triple-kill on Thor’s confusion, but he quickly focused on her, only taking a small step back as the wolf lowered itself and she slid off. Several rich Asgardian curses flurried out of her mouth as she landed, immediately grabbing onto Thor with a vice-like grip, knees buckling under her. He wrapped an arm around to support her. He grimaced at her front, soaked in blood and ripped.
“You’ve fought a great battle, haven’t you?” Thor asked, looking up to her face, echoing blood and scars. He smiled with sorrow in his eyes at her state.
She grimaced, looking up to him. “It would appear that way.”
Loki jumped down, turning to the wolf that had fought beside them. Behind it, he saw some bewildered soldiers take the boy from the back of the other wolf. The boy was weak, but alive, and Loki smiled as the boy’s mother rushed and clutched her child to her chest, tears of relief streaming down her face as she cried.
The wolf they had ridden in on looked down to him patiently, waiting to see what he was going to do. It was waiting for something form him, glancing over to her and then back. Loki reached a hand out to it, landing on its shoulder.
He felt a response come to him, though he didn’t fully understand it.
“Thank you,” he murmured, “for letting me have her.”
The wolf bowed its head towards him for a moment before turning back to the other wolf.
They bounded into the forest, completely silent despite their massive frames. They disappeared into the tree, back to their home.
He turned and rushed back over to her and his brother. He was doing what Thor did best, making his wife laugh to take her mind off of her gaping wounds. They had stopped bleeding for the most part, some of the flesh threading back together, but they still made him nauseous whenever he would look down at them.
“Loki!” His brother called to him, eyes twinkling.
Loki raised an eyebrow, coming over and helping to support his wife, relieve even just a touch of her pain.
Thor reached out to him, grabbing the back of his neck in the way that he did when really trying to communicate with his brother. Loki yielded, his wife leaning against him.
“She told me the smallest part of what you did up there,” he spoke gently, looking up to the mountains.
Loki gave him a confused look. Where was he going with this?
He noticed tears start to come to Thor’s severe blue eyes, dropping Loki’s obstinancy.
“I’m honored to have you as a brother, Loki.”
Loki couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“I mean it,” Thor said, putting their foreheads together.
“I will gladly fight with you until the end, brother, and then we will have our places in Valhalla together”.
Tears were stinging at Loki’s eyes, now, making his whole face ache from exhaustion.
“Thank you, brother,” was all Loki could get out.
When he turned back to her, she was smiling up at him. Her face was still pale, though, and he could tell that she was losing strength fast.
“We need to get you to a bed,” Loki remarked, looking to Thor.
They limped her over to the crowd, where Thor immediately started shouting about their glorious battle and the mighty feast that must be arranged for the two in celebration of their love and bravery. Loki was more focused on getting her somewhere where she could be healed, but there was a warmth in his heart that his brother put there, returning him to that serene sense of belonging, of love.
The official wedding was in the Spring, after she had healed and they had caught up on the newlywed traditions they had missed out on previously.
The ceremony was a true Asgardian ceremony, with lavish decorations and bountiful feasts, drinking and dancing that went long into the night and next morning.
When they repeated their vows to each other, Thor walked up to them, a helmet in his hands. It was a rich gold band with the bilgesnipe horns coming from it, curling back in spectacular fashion, polished to their full beauty.
She took the helmet, turning to Loki, tears brimming as she spoke.
“Loki Laufeyson,
This helmet, made from the finest dwarven smiths, bears the horns of the bilgesnipe that we battled on the day that we were married — on the day that we came together as one body, one spirit.”
She lifted it and set it on his head, the helm fitting him perfectly, black hair cascading out from underneath it.
“May it bear the symbol of our union under the loving branches of Yggdrasil, and your true power, for as long as you wear it.”
The cheers echoed for miles as he leaned down and captured her in a kiss, his love for her aching in his heart.
The merriment echoed far into the trees, bouncing through the mountains, where lay the bones of a mighty beast in the everwinter of the mountains.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Epilogue (Loki Season 2 Episode 6 Spoiler!)
Loki sat on a throne of shattered obsidian and gold.
Strands of time — of lives, of deaths, of freedom — came from him in all directions, each one tended by him. They ran down to the roots and through to the branches of Yggdrasil, intertwining with each other, branching into the endless cascading possibilities of time, glowing green with his power, his purpose.
His helmet sat on his head, the horns in their full glory, natural and no longer covered in gold.
He looked up at them, framing the intertwining branches of fate that were brought together by him. Now safe, under him. His true self, in a way that he grasped with an intensity and purpose that aged him, settled into his bones with such truth that it made him sigh.
A tear fell off of his cheek, echoing into the void until it landed on a branch, pulsing green.
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e-adlirez · 2 months
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Trolls Band Together musical reading
Hiiiiiiiii so guess who got ratgrabbed and yanked down into the abyss yesterday as of the time I'm very impulsively writing this--
I went in not expecting much but a couple minutes in they were able to win me over with the plot and the surprisingly strong moral core despite the very simple narrative
And I dunno why (prolly because uh spoilers that I'll get into in a bit) but I wound up reading the movie through a musical lens, which is what this post is about :D
So if you haven't seen Trolls Band Together and don't think you want to (either because you're not optimistic due to the past two films or because you're by some chance a Disney elitist who's somehow trying to trick us into thinking Wish is somehow better than this banger), MAJOR SPOILERS for Trolls Band Together, you have been warned :]
Aight so the main reason I wound up with the music-based reading on first watch is because of the mention of the Perfect Family Harmony, which is what the protagonist boyband BroZone is trying really hard to hit, and I just so happen to be into music (I play drums :]) and just so happened to have been practicing harmonizing in recent times so I guess it lined up just enough for me to look at the film in a musical light, which was a lot of fun :3
Now, the plot of TBT is a very simple one: it's a big "hey guys how about we work together" kind of narrative, which we've seen before in every group-related franchise ever. However, the one thing that I found extremely fascinating was the fact that this story wasn't just being told by narrative, but by music. Specifically BroZone's harmonies and how they develop throughout the film :]
(Fair warning I'm not gonna be able to go Howard Ho levels of detailed, I don't even know how to distinguish chords by ear :'D I'm just gonna be talking about what I hear)
During the intro sequence, we see that John Dory (who I might end up calling JD for simplicity in this essay) has this thing about the Perfect Family Harmony (the PFH) and is trying to get his band to hit it. Obviously, his tactic for this is perfection and pushing his brothers to be perfect for the sake of hitting the PFH on their tour debut, and insisting that he takes the lead, which none of his brothers agree to while knowing that JD is not gonna be hearing any of their protests. This part is very important, because I'm sure that all musicians would know from rehearsals, if the group can't agree on whose lead to follow and wind up not listening to each other, the result is absolute chaos. Not literally as chaotic as BroZone's stage malfunction, but it do sound like that when none of the parts are working together :D
However uh, there's one thing I also want to point out with both BroZone's tour debut and when BroZone has their first full rehearsal together. When they sing their songs, the harmonies are very subdued and very simple, which is particularly shown in Perfect. There are very little facets to the harmonies, to the point where at any given bar in the performance, the line between backing vocals and main vocalists is extremely clear. The backing vocals even sound distinctly softer than whoever's leading at any given point, minus when the boys are singing in unison. Speaking of which, I could be wrong, but I think the parts in the song are like two at most and on occasion it's just the boys singing in unison? More musically attuned readers are free to correct me on that front, but that's what it sounds like to me.
Anyway the main point is, the brothers are forced to maintain these very fixed and restricting harmonies that more or less sound the same, and of course they are-- JD (if he composed the songs) wrote them and he insists that his brothers follow them to the letter, meaning they can't improvise or go beyond what we hear in the film. Granted it's prolly because of their specific genre of music and the fact that the boys are supposed to be teens at eldest and literally a baby at youngest, but the harmonies don't ever diverge or serve to give the song more layers. They remain exactly the same, more or less perfectly in unison, and even during their first group rehearsal with the band back together in (almost) full (could be wrong can't really relisten to that part of the movie rn), their harmonies are perfectly in unison but lacking in dimension, just like how they were during their disastrous concert.
In these, it is very clear that JD hasn't changed a single bit since the last his brothers saw him. He's still obsessed with the idea that he's the leader (even though a BroZone superfan like Poppy remembers him better as "the old one" and it even took her a bit to remember his part in the band), even though in reality, he's kinda nothing without the other members of the band. Which kiiiinddddaaaaaa shows seeing in Perfect his voice sounds very similar to Clay (I bet if I listened to the soundtrack first I wouldn't have been able to pick out JD's voice), and even his part in the PFH is the same as Floyd's.
As I mentioned earlier, due to the circumstances behind this extremely impulsive rant, I can't really check BroZone's first rehearsal after reuniting rn, but I bet it would've been the same case, because what I DO remember about that scene is that JD was being the same old JD, and everyone was trying to tell him that they've changed since they last saw him (contrast to him not changing a bit because he's trying to maintain that illusion of perfection he's been chasing this whole time). From what I remember, anyway, their harmonies were basically in the same boat as Perfect: clear, subdued, restrained against the singers' will to follow a lead vocalist at all times.
Now, we're gonna shift our gaze from the brothers for a second and take a look at the twins Velvet and Veneer. Yes they are iconic and yes their songs are iconic, but one thing I wanna point out is that when I first listened to Mount Rageous on the soundtrack, I had a really hard time picking out Andrew Rannell's voice because it was backing vocals-ing so hard that it was near impossible to not hear Brianna Mazzola's extremely dominant vocals (no hate to either, Brianna Mazzola SLAYED as Velvet), and the comments section of the video I was listening to for the soundtrack seemed to share my sentiments about wanting to hear more of Andrew Rannell, but hear me out:
We know from the film that Veneer is the nicer sibling. He's a material gworl with a heart and he genuinely doesn't like hurting Floyd, especially when you listen to how they address each other and converse with each other in the film. Now, seeing just how much on speaking terms Floyd and Veneer are on, how conflicted Veneer feels about keeping Floyd hostage and torturing him, and how Veneer is always worried about Floyd's health... it would make sense for Veneer to use Floyd's music essence or talents very sparingly, wouldn't it? With that, compare him to his diva sister Velvet, who squanders Floyd's essence even for dress rehearsals, and always sings for the back row and flexes as many riffs and runs and belts any and all opportunities she gets (hence why she CARRIES Mount Rageous). Makes Andrew Rannell's more subdued and in-the-background performance as Veneer more deliberate, doesn't it? :3 (Still wanna hear his voice more tho, it'd be nice to hear what Veneer can do on his own)
Something something the Veneer siblings are direct foils of BroZone something something Velvet is a direct foil for JD and Veneer is a direct foil to Floyd something something Rageous Twins-Floyd angst anyway back to the thesis of this thing--
Now, you'd think that JD keeps up his perfection shtick all the time, but he very obviously doesn't and it is shown first in his jam session with SpBruce and Branch in Bruce's family restaurant-cafe-lazy Susan thing, through the harmonies. At first I thought it was just because their voices had clearly matured since their childhood (which it partially is), but the other reason is the fact that their harmonies are so much fuller than they were in Perfect. They even give Pentatonix vibes in their little vocalizing bit, that's how full and multifaceted their harmonies are in the song; and the main reason is because in that jam session, everyone's in it just for fun, therefore everyone is free to add their little bit of vocal flavor into the song.
If you listen to JD and Bruce's harmonies in the chorus, you'll find that they sound more full and multilayered than ever in such a way that they didn't need five entire band members to pull off. And most importantly, the line between the leading vocals and the backing vocals are a little blurrier in the sense that leading and backing vocals for the most part are on the same volume, and they opt to sing a multilayered unison for when Poppy joins in, who is also adding her own mezzosoprano piece to the song and is given the room to do so. Everyone is given the room to do so-- Bruce's bass and Branch's tenor in particular get to shine while JD provides support with his baritone-- and of course they're given room for every single one of them to shine, because this isn't a concert, it's just a fun little jam sesh that also serves as a bet to showcase BroZone to Bruce's kids. It's ironic how the one time JD doesn't feel the need to be perfect, is the time you can really see why BroZone is such a good boyband that everyone fell in love with during their time.
Now, I did mention BroZone's first rehearsal (and I don't have much else to say about the rehearsal besides the fact that JD's obstinance means that they're doing a repeat of the tour debut), so I'll talk instead about the next time they manage to work (or in this case, sing) in harmony: A Better Place and its iconic pre-chorus.
Now, first of all I will mention the moment prior where the group has that little heart-to-heart about the PFH and how they don't need to be perfect to hit it, they just need to be together. While this is a very cheesy line, it's actually very true if you think about it from a technical musical perspective: when you're singing, you technically don't need to be perfect to sound good, and the same goes for if you're singing in a group. The most important thing about singing in a group is that you're all together, you're all on the same page, and you're all in agreement on who's going to take the lead for everyone to base their singing off of; and they have all three of those things. All of BroZone is together and able to communicate with each other, and they're all on the same page because they're all agreeing to follow Branch's lead. Ignore for a second the poeticism of Bitty B now taking up The Leader position in the vocals, the fact that the group was able to agree on who'll lead and who the others will listen to is not only a good showcase of what having a good team and leader is like, but also what it takes for a group to be able to sing together and not sound like a house of people trying to sing Happy Birthday. (It's also an achievement with this bunch but I digress.)
In A Better Place, we get to hear everyone put their own bits of harmonies into the song: we get to hear Clay's beautiful vocalizations in the pre-chorus and the chorus, Anna Kendrick joining in with her soprano is always a treat for the eardrums, Camila Cabello's improvisations are very tasteful, the LAYERS that make the pre-chorus so addicting to listen to, we even get to hear Crimp adding a bit of ukulele and it's very cute and she looks so happy you guys <:], Floyd's little vocalization at the end sounds heavenly even though the poor man hardly had anything left in him Lord bless him-- and under all of this, Branch's voice still sounds prominent enough to act as a baseline that doesn't overpower but ties all the other voices together, like a concertmaster of an orchestra being the one to set the pitch and make sure that everyone is on the same page. Everyone is listening to each other, everyone is adding their own flavor to the song, and everyone is in harmony.
Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk :3 if you managed to stick it out to the end then uh holy crap I commend you soldier, your brainrot must be as severe as the Trolls tag on Tumblr made yourselves out to be :D /j
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popculturebuffet · 4 months
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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review: That's How It Could've Happened, But How About This?
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WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF AHEAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN AT LEAST EPISODE ONE, TURN BACK. SERIOUSLY DUDE. DO IT NOW. IF YOUR COOL WITH SPOILING YOURSELF, ROCK ON.
Hello all you happy scottaholics. I"m back in the saddle again. For those just tuning in i'm Jake, I review stuff.. and a few years back I reviewed the entirety of Brian Lee O'Malley's masterpiece, and the movie as a chaser, having been a fan of Scott Pilgrim since my teens but only having just revisited it at the time I started my retrospective. It was a wonderful journey that made me appricate one of my favorite comics even more and gave me a ton of my best running gags. You can find links to each review HERE in one masterpost.
So naturally when the anime was announced last year, I was entirely on board: I loved this story in all three of it's major forms and was excited to see it again, maybe updated a tad. I was also curious if the story would get a setting update, what would change , and what subplots we'd FINALLY see on screen after the film had to trim a lot thanks to half the series not being finished yet and a tight two hour run time. I was cautiously optimistic when the cast was announced as while I was happy to see the massively talented breakout cast of the film return and get another shot at the characters, I was worried it'd just be the movie but animated.. which thankfully turned out not to be remotely true once trailers came out. Instead they'd simply get a shot at playing the characters again but this time with diffrent characterizations. I coudln't be more stoked.
As it turns out though.. O'Malley had zero intention of telling the same story again. In fact, he almost DIDN'T sign on despite getting the juciest of offer, with the anime's studio, Science Saru, wanting their next project after their breakout hit Devilman Crybaby to be Scott Pilgrim and coming to O'Malley Directly.
The problem wasn't the offer: O'Malley, unsuprisingly, was a fan of Science Saru, who in addition to Devilman had also made Space Dandy and the early pilot shorts for OK KO. The problem was O'Malley.. really didn't want to simply retell scott's story a fourth time. It was a story that was personal, deeply loved and made his career.. but after a movie that everyone knew and love and a video game that was so well loved it was many's holy grail for a rerelease for over a decade after it was delisted, he didn't know how to take the story in a new direction and didn't want to do the story again if it was simply going to be a rehash: people could read the book sometime or watch the movie if they wnated Scott fighting the exes.
Thankfully for us, Brian brought up the offer to his good friend BenDavid Grabinski, a tv and film writer. BenDavid was a huge fan of Scott Pilgrim and thus when the idea came up coudln't help spitballing ideas. And one stuck: What if Scott LOST that first fight. It was naturally just a joke.. but like when Superman died.. it's one that had some heft to it. If Scott were gone what would happen to everyone else? How would Ramona react to his loss? Was Scott really gone? how would his friends go on without him... and what would happen to the exes now they weren't guaranteed to die in a fist fight and the entire problem with Gideon's whole plan was laid bare?
These questions and more are answered as Ramona gets to the bottom of what REALLY happned to scott, who unsurprisingly is not dead and even more unsurprisingly the truth is all kinds of bananas. The story of a human tire fire learning to be a better person and not runa way from his problems... becomes the story of a much more composed tire fire learning she can't run away from her problems after she chases after what might have been, forced to get closure with most of her exes as she tries to hunt down the ex that never was. Along the way there's messy bisexual love triangles, movie rental melee's, Tony Hawk style antics done on swarms of paparazzi ninjas, the greatest musical of all time, the rise of Matthew patel, the fall and re-rise of Gordon Goose, explosions, cameos, and more as Ramona Flowers gets it together while Scott Pilgrim takes off, resulting in one of the best animated series of the 2020's and possibly the best of a very stacked 2023. So take off with me as we press start on a fresh new take on one of my favorite franchises under the cut.
Ramona Flowers Gets It Together
This one's going to be a LOT to unpack, and the best place to start is with our new lead: Ramona Flowers. Ramona has never been unimportant to this franchise: after all it's her exes that make up the fight of the week each volume and who give the franchise it's hook, and in the comics she develops alongside scott: As I said in my reviews, Ramona develops alongside him, having to learn to not keep people at arms length and to not run away, nearly running away from everything before coming back, realizing Scott's worth it. Through each other, they grow stronger.
So with Scott gone... Ramona is forced to grow all on her own. If she wants to date Scott, SHE has to fight this time, and she can't run like she tends to. In the comics, she had to scrap with Envy and Roxy, but all the weight to evolve as a person was put on Scott: Ramona had a stable job, was content in her life even if her friend group was basically "Whoever scott happened to be friends with", she was seemingly all together until the last three volumes slowly chip away at that and reveal she's just as bad at staying and improving instead of noping the fuck out of an intense situation as scott. She has to evolve.. but her getting better isn't the point till the climax of the story. It's a lesson in how while a relationship can HELP you grow, ultimately it's on you to: Scott grows because he stops running and embraces his evil self and thus the memories of all his fuckups, embraces that he could sometimes be shitty so he can learn past it. Ramona has to choose to stand and fight gideon and let go of hte hold he has on her, to let go of running and embrace what she has.
Here without Scott and only the vauge mystery of a guy she dated once, Ramona instead has to confront herself: many a character question her doing this. While it starts simple enough with just Julie questioning it, because Julie hates scott as much as I hate the comics version of her, we get harder questions from Kim, whose dated Scott and knows how insesntive he can be, and Lucas who KNOWS Ramona and knows her style is to run. That a happy ending isn't as easy as finding scott again andmaking out intensely. Ramona has to make her own happy ending.
As a result instead of being the sneaky deutratonist or a prop depending on the version (I Love the movie but man do they not do her well), Ramona has to confront her past on her own, and instead of just getting cathartic punchings, she has to actually.. TALK to her exes and resolve things like an adult. And you can imagine how much she likes the prospect of that.
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And this flip in how the story works.. is brilliant: It allows us to get to know Ramona: We're seeing things from her perspective instead of Scotts so we see her way more vunerable, genuinely shaken by Scott's "Death", obssesed with solving his kidnapping, and forced to confront her past. Granted like the books we also get to see the lighter side: Ramona is still the straight man to a lot of the cast especially her exes. She and Kim are the sanest one's here and Kim is often out of focus, leaving Ramona one of the few rational people in a sea of gloriously goofy nonsense. Yet we also see her own intrests: she's a columbo fan, turns out to be a natural for stunt work, and has a meticulous routine for her hair dye. We also find out she's a blonde which is only TECHNICALLY cannon to this version.. but fits too well as her hair color to work.
We get to see Ramona not as some ideal to chase slowly turned into a person but just.. a person. Funny, aloof, kind, easily baffled... this is easily my favorite verison of her. Granted it's not exactly ac ontest: The comic's version is great and this simply takes the best of that and fleshes her out, the video game is a 16 bit brawler, and the movie... well look I like the movie, but the film version is a nigh emotionless prop that barely gave Mary Elizabeth Winstead anything to work wtih forgetting ramona HAS emotions who instead of simply having her emotoins amplified is outright brainwashed. I used to think Kim got the shortest end of the stick but doing this review.. no it was Ramona. Ramona got screentime but had any personality stripped. Thankfully both Ramona and Mary Elizabeth get a second shot on the screen here.
Mary Elizabeth's performanc ecan't be overstated: she nicely ballances Ramona's stocisim, something key to her charcter as her main problem is distance, that she puts up and that she creates by running away, with the emotoin peeking up just underneath to say hello. IT's a truly great performance and I hope she'll consider doing more voice acting, she's an natural.
And this is great as Ramona's quest eventually leads her back to scott.. and to an ending that's both profound.. and pokes some holes in the series itself.
The Adventures of Scott and Scott
So turns out Scott was kindapped by of ALL characters, Robot 01, the Katanagi Twin's robot minion who shows up for one fight in the comics and video game and then explodes real good. Here he's their little robot son.. and how Scott got kidnapped.
But thankfully the culrprit isn't the Twins. I would've liked for them to get more to do, more on that later. THeir involved, having leant their robot boy to a friend since , as a robot who can't eat, Robot 01 has never had meat and has no human limits and thus is the strongest robot vegan who ever existed.
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God I love this stupid reveal. Anyways, turns out Scott's kidnapper.. is SCOTT. Specifically a version of him who did the usual story, won, had a happy ten years with Ramona, then it fell apart after an argument which he assumed ended in divorce.
This is another twist that was brilliant.. I thought Scott's kidnapper was another scott, but I assumed a clone situation. I never thought FUTURE Scott but it's such a brilliant move. We see a Scott who won.. but who simply didn't let the lessons he learned stick. It's easy to learn something about you sucks, I have many a time.. it's harder to make the changes stick. I can't tell you how many ephnaiinies i've had only to end up back where I started. Some change has stuck with effort, but it's not easy. You have to constantly work at it, to grow. And it's easy enough to backslide.. and thus sadly easy to buy that this verison of Scott , when hit with his relationship not working, spiralied instead of working at it , not helped by Old Ramona, their words not mine, ghosting him.
He's a ghost of Scott future, every bad thing about the guy amplified: he's oblivious, thinking his newest band is going anywhere with his gloriously crappy music video, and refusing to accept it was his fault, throwing a tantrum when Young Scott states the obvious solution: just tell his younger self some of his fuckups and hopefully that'll right the relationship. Instead Future Scott goes for the solution that's easiest and laziest: use time travel to undo his relationship. And naturally this being Scott he got this stupid idea from taking a joke Wallace told him seriously. I love Wallace's "Buddy I was kidding".
I also love the performance here. Rather than use Michael Cera , Future Scott is voiced by voice acting, comedy and beard legend Will Forte. Forte's goofy nature, penchant for playing man children blind to their own flaws, and deadpan deliveries make Future Scott work. He's deeplys ad, but also deeply hilarious, sharing some of Scott's weird intricates like assuming because Future Wallace's husband works for nintendo he gets all the video games for free and making a virtual boy scrapbook of his relationship.
He's still throughly Scott.. just one who can't get past himself, requiring Scott and Future Wallace to go to Future Ramona for help. Shockingly.. she's more than willing too: While she still has Ramona's own problem of running away at the first sign of trouble, she does still LOVE this idiot, she just dosen't know how to fix it and knows she can't talk him out of this, so she sends scott back to be with his ramona... well rides him back leading to some awkward selfies.
But naturally for this tale, Scott coming back.. dosen't fix things. And not just because his older self put anti kissing nanites in him.
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Scott has grown some from seeing what he could be: He apologizes to Knives, in a scene that I truly love.. mostly for this line "Apparently a 23 year old dating a high schooler is frowned upon by society".
And I have to stop for a minute to give ALL the props to Michael Cera. He already had done plenty awesome this year as the boy of the year
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He didn't need to go for two but he did. Cera wasn't at all bad as Scott the first go round: the character was different, a bit less goofy but still awkward as hell and oblivious to his own flaws: the core was there. Here .. Cera is playing the character as on page, if slightly amped up: Goofy, excitable, trying to ignore his painful past and flaws, charming.. all the good and bad of scott is bubbling around this guy. And the line deliveries my god: we have instant classics like "I'm using the world wide web" "The place where they make the video games", the instantly memetic sonic scene (Which would be me trying to flirt with a girl, ngl), and the above frowned upon line. Cera just bubbles in this roll, sliding into who scott is: Loveable but a total mess who needs to get his shit together and has made some grave mistakes.
Granted they also take steps to make sure Scott's relationship with Knives as judging from interviews, O'Malley is kinda tried of the take that scott pilgrim is a bastard man. I mean he is, but it's less that Scott has some shit to work out and need to be better and more that everyone acts like this is a new discovery. As the author himself said it's there on the first page and a good chunk of chapter one is the people who know him best asking what the hell is wrong with him.
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Granted this is mixed with Stephen hooting and hollering as much as he can with his stoic personality, Neil being in awe and asking if they'd "done it yet" and Wallace being tempted with the idea of a high schooler himself, though I get the impression he never seriously considered it. So it is muddled slightly.. but not NEARLY enough.
I do get it with the movie: the movie.. outright portrays Knives as a legit love interest, and while it ages Scott down, it's not enough to make that not blehhhh and the game has Knives end up with Kim, which younger me didn't get was still pedophilia. So I do get it as while the comics make it clear this is messed up, it got muddled.. but it's also still a pretty weak gotcha when the source material has always said "This is wrong" They even bring up trainspotting for fucks sake, which I haven't seen but is a pretty good indication O'Malley knew what he was doing.
So here they make it clearer that while Scott's still stringing this poor baby girl angel baby along, he dosen't really consider it a relationship, or just dosen't want to and after seeing what he easily could be even with Ramona, apologizes way sooner. So they did make strides to make things a bit clearer here if only so another version didn't miss the point.
So one rant later while Scott and Ramona think things are wrapped up.. it's just not that easy. You can get closure, we'll get into the exes more shortly, but it dosen't mean your done or done growing... or that the past is done with you. Or future in this case. Like I said, Old Scott/Future Scott put nanintes in scott and after figuring out the exes aren't involved, the two get kidnapped along with the exes , knives, pretty much anyone who can throw a punch.
The kidnapper is naturally Old Scott.. EVEN OLDER SCOTT.
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I love his look: he still has his old jacket, his iconic x-men one, but laso looks like Ryu from Street Fighter 5, just with a giant beard and crazy eyes, being a mix of that ryu and devil ryu.. and nega scott. Old Scott wasn't a great person but still had the potetial to turn it around if he got his finger out of his ass. Even Older Scott is every horrible thing Scott Could've been.. and this is something the comics foreshadowed was possible.
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And the thing is while Ramona was being dickish in her own right there, not getting that while Scott cheated on Knives with Ramona he had changed since then, she's not WRONG. Scott was VERY close to giving up on change entirely if Kim hadn't turned him away. Hell had Ramona not come along Scott might've become Old Scott sooner just by dating a teenager. The potential to, like the exes, sink into his resintment and worst self was always there... this is just a Scott that did. A Scott who when faced with the fact change is hard would rather hull up, get buff and plan to kill everyone he cares about just to avoid changing. This is the Scott he almost became.. and sadly at least one scott did become.
He's also horrifying for more than just the implications of seeing this guy who while a dickhead, CAN be better if he puts in the effort and does change and grow in both main versions as his worst self. It's sad to see that.. but we also quickly see just how dangerous an evil ex scott would be: After all Scott beats all the evil exes... I mean original timeline scott beat Lucas and Todd via Indigo League style technicalities, but still. While Scott was still beatable, it took multiple rounds, a feint, and ramona's help to put down the last four exes, he was still fairly strong.. so give him 24 years more of experince with ten of those spent JUST training and specifically preparing to counter the exes , ramona and his past self.. and you have an unstoppable monster that NOTHING can stop and everyone else is very lucky they get sent back. They all put in a good offense.. but the league is out of their league.
Even Older Scott is a brick wall.. and one that smacks straight into Scott and Ramona trying to run from their problems. Scott is forced to face the fact that even getting better might not last even if he dosen't become this guy and Ramona's forced to face the hide this guy is right. Our heroes are up against the wall, their relationship almost over...
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Enter Even Older Ramona. Turns out Even Older Scott just.. ghosted her. But her presence finally gives present Ramona the wakeup call she needs as finding our her older self just.. ran away each time her and scott had issues.. gives her a needed ephinay the same way Older Scott being a dumpster fire on cocaine gave this Scott one and Scott in the comics got one from seeing a dark mirror in gideon: Ramona Flowers.. always run. Lucas outright said as much and with the series fleshing out the exes more, almost there just give me a minute, we find out she just.. bounced on each relationship. Matt isn't a suprise, his backstory is the same as it ever was, and in some cases she was ENTIRELY justified in her assholery: Todd was an obnoxious prick she left another, far better guy for, the Twins were recontexculazed as serial predators who preyed on new freshman with Ramona dating them both being a way to get even on both of them, so while she still did a bad it was on legitly bad people, and Gideon.. is still Gideon. He may get more development here and have his own backstory.. but the series makes it VERY clear he was every bit as shitty to ramona as previous versions, he just hadn't got to using the glow or mind control chips levels of creep yet.
But as i'll get into more in a bit... she legitly hurt everyone else: While Matt didn't get into supervilanny till high school, it's hard not to think that being used as a weapon to keep other boys away didn't lead him down the tryhard path he now walks, Lucas was left devistated and became a xerox of a xerox of the kind of guy Ramona left him for, and Roxy was left genuinely devistated thinking she was nothing. All Ramona has done is run and deny people closure and the series reckons with that.. and like the comics forces Ramona to stand and fight, recognizing that her relationship with Scott could end badly.. but it's worth having.
It's a neat metaphor: our heroes see exactly how badly things could end... and that's how relationships can be. You worry about how badly things are going to go or how you'll fuck up. But the only way it can go forward.. is if you try. Risk the hurt for the good. present/past/whatever Scott made a valid point when trying to talk to his Older Self before seeing that was a lost cause: There had to be good times too? While Old Scott and even Older Scott bury them in self pity, a relationship, even if it fails.. has something to add. Something to help you grow. And given Brian himself had been through a divorce after a ten year marriage it's hard not to see the subtext, to see that idea of "would you talk yourself out of a relationship if you knew it'd end". And the answer he and Ramona have.. is no. It's worth the risk, worth the pain, and worth the possiblity that someone else can do it better.
Granted this being scott pilgrim doing it better involves the ramona's fusing and Even Older Ramona, while done with Scott (He ate up his second chance a LONG TIME AGO) gives both Scott's another chance. As she puts it "This one's just an idiot kid... and this one's a real mess" (When told to kick his ass) "It's never too late to clean up a mess.. " Despite it all.. part of her loves him.. and gives him another chance. Not with her, Oh lord no, but to be better. That .. we can always be better, no matter if your 23 or 47, you can become better. As Super Ramona says "What you've done in the past dosen't define you, hell me keep remembering that". It's a beautiful message: you can screw up, there is no happily ever after.. but you can always be better even if you stumble. And as our heroes face a new future together once again.. it feels a bit brighter this time, like these two kids will make it you know?
Not That Evil
One big pull of doing the story this way for Brian and BenDavid was the exes. Brian admitted in interviews he wrote the books by the seat of his pants and as a naive 20 something who didn't know how skaters or musicians worked except via magazines. Moving to LA among other stuff gave him more perspective, and he wanted to add that to the story, flesh the Exes out as people and use the bits he didn't have time for in the original.
As such 5/7 go from sometimes one dimension, sometimes wholly evil bastards for Scott to punch.. and Lucas, to 5 very flawed , very intresting people we get to see way more of and who all get something resembling a happy ending. Also Kyle and Ken are there. Getting them out of the way once again the adaptation barely uses them, as their more a plot device/backup so we can hear Will Forte sing the theme to Bubblegum Crisis. You know when Brian hinted at that scene in interviews pre show I expected to here Kirean Culkin, Bree Larson, maybe even Micheal Cera. I didn't expect Will Freakin Forte and god bless Brian for that.
So yeah the Twins are.. fine here and I love the anti climax: they don't get closure with ramona.. but are cool with Scott since they'll be buddies eventually. I also like that out of ALL the exes for Scott to befriend after they respawned it's these two guys.
Thankfully everyone else gets way more and no where is that more apparent than with MATTHEW PATEL, the first evil ex.. and the one who naturally gets the most to work with, going from the biggest jobber who ever jobbed, to the guy who killed scott pilgrim
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Satya Bhabha gets to have a fucking feast here and I hope this leads to more rolls, voice acting or otherwise. While he was already one of the highlights of the film, easily, taking what was implied to be a music number and making it into this glorious thing.
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The series takes it to new heights.. mostly by giving Matt his best life. Granted.. this life naturally dosen't include Ramona who walks out pissed off and Matt is befuddled "Wait we DON'T get her automatically if we win?"
So he does what you'd expect from an egocentric theater kid who realizes he was just played and this whole evil exes setup is a sham... call a meeting in GIDEON"S OWN LAIR to dramatically reveal it all. And punch the head off a good soft robot boy because he's a prick and a half. A loveable prick and a half but still.
It's something I just.. never thought about with the league. I assumed it was simply a "If I can't have you" situation as that was GIdeon's whole goal.. and to put her in his girlfriend freezer which i'm sure Matt released. Gideon and Roxy seemed like the only ones who wanted her back. But given the weird logic of this unvierse even if some of them DIDN'T want her, I like the idea they'd still like to keep that option open by unaliving someone. It's fucked up as it is sensical for a group that all gathered to keep their ex from moving the fuck on.
It makes equal sense that this was all a ponzi scheme, Gideon , being an entiled dick, just.. assumed he got her if anyone won. That the exes wouldn't object or, more likely, they simply woudln't make it far enough. They were just patsies so he could swoop in and score her on the rebound, also not getting that would never work and sh'ed just hammer his nuts so far in they'd be impacted.
What threw me after this.. was Matt's Challenge to gideon. Not him challenging Gideon, I expected that easily: Matt gets all of Gideon's empire if he wins, Matt dies if he looses. I figured Gideon would kill Matt, again, and would do some sort of cordinated strike. But as before Scott Pilgrim Takes off Decides
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Instead we get an absolutely gorgeous, awesome fight scenes. one of the best i've seen in animation and one of the best of the year, which given Invincible came back, is saying something. Gideon, while not having his pixel or glow powers, fights well with swords, a harness and pure skill while Matt is consistently forced to push his powers in new and creative ways. While we get the ones he got to show off against scott, fireballs and demon hipster chicks, we also get to see a lot of cool new shit as he manifests arms ala the Hindu god shiva, with all his powers seeming to tie into Hindu mythology instead of "magic stuff I guess" like the originals. It's a tense fight I assumed would end one way.. but instead... Matthew Patel FUCKING WINS and wins Gideon's emppire, only leaving him alive as a brag
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Yeah I assumed from this when first watching that this was some sort of Buffy "Superstar" situation, that Matt had altereted reality to make it better for him. Instead.. nope. This just happened organically. Turns out Matt is badass as fuck, Scott simply had the power of friendship and punches. No power scaling here bitches.
As a result... the League falls apart. Matt is TECHNICALLY leader.. but in practice the exes all go off to do whatever, with Ramona instead encountering them organically. Matt spends the season as a highly paid CEO, mostly showing up once in a while to shut down a whole movie production because it makes him look bad, pathetically hit on ramona.. then get scared when he finds out Scott is alive. My faviorite bit of that is his very timid "Is he mad at me?" like he's a second grader and Ramona's understandably irritated "I dont' know dude" as a response.
Granted this dosen't stop his dreams as Knives and Stephen are able to pitch him a Scott Pilgrim Musical, one of the most gloriously batshit subplots in the history of this franchise. Which really can be said for.. most of this fucking show, but I digress. Despite seemingly hvaing no talent, the prospect of finally getting his broadway dreams back after his dad crushed them is enough for him to level up again, do a performance everyone loves and become a broadway icon. I assume the last part. Hamilton move over, your new compettiion's in town.
(Sidebar to that refrence, I think Hidgens and Matt would be besties. THeir both weirdly violent and obessed with musical theater).
Hell Matt.. dosen't even get upstaged by Gideon. When Gideon tries a looney tunes plan to bomb the theater, the Demon Hipster Chicks just.. disarm it and Matt.. gives Gideon his company back. Turns out being a CEO is hard yo. He's already lost billions. So Matt has his career, his musical, the only thing he didn't want to give up and Gideon could care less about anyway, and a new evil bestie. Life is good.
And naturally it sucks to be Gideon Graves as a result, or rather Gordon Goose. I liked giving Gideon a backstory, aging him down to be julie's old peer who used to wear no fear shirts every day and got shot down hard. Huh I never knew the guy I knew in high school who gave every girl he knew an invitation asking them out in high school became a super villian.
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So Gideon spends most of the series in a depressed daze secretly plotting revenge and watching anime. Why is every guy I knew in high school compressed into one sad canadian?
Where he's crashing though was a nice twist: Julie. For those who read my reviews of the comics, you'll recall I didn't exactly like Julie very much. And for good reason: she's the worst. Here she still is.. but Brian found the secret to having a character whose human garbage around without making the audience pull their hair out. You have to make them entertaing. Julie is still a high school alpha bitch all grown up here, but instead of just constantly talking about how Scott sucks, she gets to be funny. She swears constantly, taking a great gag from the film and escalating it, slacks off at her job, and snarks to Ramona about her taste in men.
She also.. gets redeeming qualities. Something I never thought any verison of Julie could possibly have, but here we are. Instead of just seeming to know Ramona and only claming to be her friend because Julie Powers is a starfucker, she's GENUINELY a good friend to Ramona, giving her the info she needs and being contrite when Ramona catches her with Gideon. Julie here feels more like a person and less like a blob of all the worlds sins congealed into that bitch.
And yes she ends up with Gideon, a ship I never thought of in my darkest day but somehow works perfectly. Their both awful in a way that's made for each other and Julie taking in Gordon at his lowest is genuinely sweet.
We get to see Gideon not as G-Man.. but as a nerd whose lost everything.. and gets the greatest and most wholesome montage ever with Lucas Lee. Seriously Lucas and Gideon fucking around Julie's house like two teenage boys is one of the greatest thigns ever put to film, even greater knowing it was somehow only 90 fucking minutes. It's fucking adorable.
What helps though is that while Gideon is a touch more sympathetic and pathetic... he's still not let off the hook for how he treated Ramona. He's not putting the glow in her and stuff, but he was still the same controlling manipulative asshat. I mean he still made the league just to win her back. It's just without the league or the trappings of power... he's a less charming scott, something the books largely hinted at. Ramona DOES get him to be a better partner to Julie, calling him out for leaning on her hard and taking advantage of her, and as a result instead of leeching off her they become equal partners in villianny with vauge never to be elaborated on plans at the end. And it's honestly.. sweet. It's nice their evil together. Sure they'll probably be meancing our heroes with a super mario bros 3 airship eventually, i'm sure, but at least their better. And matt freed his frozen kidnapped wives so we're good.
So moving right along fun and fancy free we have Gordon's best bro, Lucas. Lucas Lee takes more after the film, something Brian admitted was unavoidable for some things: after the movie made some versions of the characters more iconic he really coudlnt' go back. It's why getting the movie cast was so important: While this was going to be it's own thing, having them added a layer and frankly he didn't think anyone else could do it as well. I do think someone could've, there's tones of great voice actors, but i'm still glad he got the all star cast back as their just.. giving it their fucking best. God bless Michael Cera for reviving that email chains.
And you can feel the enthusiasm in most performances, but especially Chris Evans, who responded back within 20 minutes of being asked and hams it up. This Lucas is a bro whose on the verge of being cancelled and who is delightfully try hard, saying let's party as every other line in his films, throwing parties, and generally being axe bodyspray made into a person. He also tony hawks a lot, and you can tell BenDavid loves skater culture.
Lucas is fun to watch, being arrogant and an asshole, but one whose hilarious epsecially squeezed into Scott's t-shirt playing him in young neil's movie. It's a great visual. And his downfall being dating a 30 year old who happens to LOOK like a high schooler is both a brilliant meta joke on ellen wong, and just.. fucking great.
The show also, like all the exes, fleshes him out: It takes what we knew ,that Ramona cheated on him in high school, and fleshes it out: Ramona was his everything, helping a skinny skater kid get by, fixing his boards and generally being sweet.. then aburbtly left him for a fuck boy, with Lucas deciding to become the KING of all fuck boys in revenge.
Lucas isn't super deep, but I love that he's not just the dudebro party massacre we see on the surface: he does actually read the script, has genuine insight into ramona pointing out how unlikely the regular ending of the story is .. simply because she always runs. He also willingly skates into a cloud of ninja paparazzi to cover for her.
And the skating scene.. is one of my favorites in the show. Granted I like me some tony hawk even if I suck eggs at it, so that helps, but the animation is gorgeous. Granted this whole damn cartoon is gorgeous: Science Saru put their heart and soul into every frame and everything looks stunning, having a very early 2000's look with it's frayed edges on the characters, and capturing Brian's style perfectly.
The Skating Segment shows this off, with fluid motion, some great set pieces and some impressive jokes like the alien. It's fucking great.
So Lucas ends up not even able to afford a first class ticket back home.. but finds happiness as a barita. and Stacey finds happiness starring at his ass. Everyone wins. I kinda low key ship those two.. I mean Stacey's a bit younger, yes, but it's not knives level of age gap, and Lucas could use someone with their head mostly on their shoulders. They do try teasing him and kim.. but she'd eat him alive. It'd be fun but she would. So speaking of Kim and the evil exes, let's roll on to my faviorite, Roxie. Roxie is a fucking delight this time, with Mae Whitman, unsuprisingly, bringing her best. It's fun to get to see her cut loose and just play a horny lesbian ninja gremlin like she deserves, with Roxy hamming it up. She spends the evil Ex meeting dunking on everyone else ("Act like you've been here todd!"), and already being the best. She comes off as a combo of her two versions: she has the manic gremlin energy of her film counterpart, being as bi-furious as ever, but has the snarky energy of her book counterpart, being willing to take shots at people and question them... it's just spread to all of the exes since Scott isn't around to be the sole obstacle in her way of ramona.
She's then the first ex Ramona has to deal with herself on her investigation, and it perfectly fits her character: In the film she tried to jump the line, but got a cup of accidental boob punch instead, and while she did wait for Todd to get headbutted out of existence in the books, she also started her attack with some ninja poster clones of Canadian hillary duff in the excellent Free Scott Pilgrim one shot (The very comic that got me into the series), and tried the same sneak attack that ended up in boob punch city. No matter the version Roxy is an impatient little cave goblin and of course the second she realized Ramona was free and the others had stopped giving a shit she'd be the one to show up at her door.
She's also the only one Ramona has to fight instead of just having an adult conversation. And while Takes Off changes a lot by design.. it dosen't deny giving us another excellent Roxie vs Ramona fight, something that I didn't realize was a tradition till this one. Still they saved the best for possibly last as the two's video store dustup is one of the best fights of the series, only topped by the final battle with Even Older Scott and even THEN it's a very close call.
Starting with a furious one on one in No Account Video, one of my faviorite settings from the books i'm glad to see get fully fleshed out and used here, even if it gets wrecked and then shut down as a result, with sprinkler's going off, discount tapes being bodied and Hollie deciding fuck this i'm clocking out, we then get a fun take on an old trope as a stack of tapes fall on them, leading to the two getting stuck in video land. We get westerns, film noir, samurai flicks, Hollie griping about them ruining her faviorite movie but watching anyway, it's a gorgeous fight and the video tape grain just adds to it.
We also get at least one fun bit using the medium as when Ramona gets sucker punched, Kim simply rewinds to help her new bestie out.. and Roxie takes it like a champ and... exits the tape JUST to stomp the remote. Fucking amazing.
The best part though, like a lot of SPTO, isn't the punching, though it's glorious but the payoff. With both exhausted, Roxie lashs out in a brutally painful way, blood down her cheek. It wasn't just that Ramona left, it's that she left.. without saying anything: we get an actual sense of their relationship this time and rather than be the "phase" Ramona cruelly brushed it off as the last two times, we see the two slowly fall in love, a really cute shot of ramona throwing a blanket over the two of them.. and then Ramona moving out, almost saying something but not wanting to, leaving Roxie devistated. It's easy to see WHY she has this bubbling anger at Ramona: every time they've fought, she's made her feel like nothing, something she vocalizes here. It takes what was an extremley dated bit that made Ramona come off like a giant asshole in the previous versions, it's fine if she realized she's not bisexual (which any scene with her and kim in both the comic and this very anime proves is just.. factually false), but it's a face punching way to put it, and puts it in the context of really hurting someone. Ramona realizes she done fucked up, genuinely apologizes and the two.. just collapse. Their friends now.
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I also love Roxie hitting on Kim. I could honestly see those two working out.. I mean yes there were no sparks but Kim was kinda put on the spot there and Roxie was on the rebound. Give em some time. Plus I think Kim would work well with a feral gremlin she has to reign in. She's done it before. Roxie also asking about hollie right after before cheerfully leaving.. it's the best. Mae Whitman's the best and I could see her headlining a spinoff easily. Give me more of my feral cave gremlin daughter comma you cowards.
Finally we have Todd. Unlike the others, Todd.. isn't really fleshed out more and is given an entreily new personality from the comics swaggering egotistical rockstar jackass (Since Lucas very much had that niche filled), and the film's errrr...
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Brandon Routh done good with the cleaning lady bit, but he wasn't given much to work with. Here... he makes Todd into a gloriously dumb and horny slab of moron. The guy can't go ONE SCENE without nearly fucking envy, which is one of the funniest bits in the show, capped off with the glorious wolf whistling, then fucks Wallace about ten diffrent times that we see over three days, then gets an adorable wallace sailor tatoo.
Todd.. really isn't changed. He was a fucklord in high school and he's a horny cheating mess now. He's an excus efor an already rediculous show to take it up to 11.
So let's unpack the show's sense of humor since I hadn't got to yet: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off takes an already ridiculous franchise with psychic vegans, bollywood hindu sorcerers and literal one ups, and decides to take it to the next level with film fights, lucas lee pro paparazi ninja skater 3, future renditions of Konya Wa No Hurricane by will forte, the montage from stepbrothers: Canadian edition, stunt double fights, and Matthew Patel: The Main Character. This is a series that takes it's emotinal consequences seriously and not much else. And I love it: I love weird shit, I Love balls to the wall humor, and the humor still feels very much scott pilgrim just taken up a notch.
And episode 5 is where it hits it's what the fuck is this peak as Ramona infiltrates the set of the Scott Pilgrim movie. The episode feels like one long shit post and i'm entirely in favor of it. We have Wallace fucking todd and casually dumping him, Envy and Wallace siccing their stunt doubles on each other, an Edgar Wright stand in voiced by Kevin Mcdonald for some reason and Young Neil, who in this series is entirely shit post and i'm here for it. IT's glorious chaos and only the ending is really at all emotional on some level. I mean I feel for Todd, even if he was a cheating bastard, but it's hard to take his grief or envy's seriously when Envy is a carcature of herself in this series and Todd's depression is eating a KFC bucket of poutine and sadly recounting every place he and Wallace made out. Todd isn't given extra depth.. but even as a villian he never really had depth to begin with. He had a disapproving dad and a massive ego. It's fine if he's a giant goofy blushy man who's soul wallace destroys. Brendon Routh does a phenomenal job with that.
Overall the expansion of the exes is part of what makes this adaptation so fantastic. With the exception of the twins they all get to live their best lives, and we get to see more of them. It's fun to see them implicitly join scot'ts friend group, and i've already written little chats about that, as it's fun as hell now their full characters in the world instead of respawning back probably not having learned much except not to punch scott in the face.
And the Rest
So with everything upside down, how do the rest of the people in Scott's Precious Little Life fare when the main character their built to support is gone? It's another hook of this series: if scott's gone, even just temporarily, what happens to everyone else.
Sex Bomb-Omb naturally gets impacted the most, and the versions here are superb.
The standout of course is Knives who deals with Scott's death by discovering a new love: playing music. While Knives had always been a huge fangirl in past versions, it was in the way more teens find music: by glomming on to the first band or two that makes them feel something and guarding that new faviorite thing like a cat with a ski chalet
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See? Despite letting these characters live rent free in my head for the past decade, I never once thought of this idea, letting Neil join shatterband, sex bomb omb's followup as it crumbles to dust in the comics, instead.
In hindsight this idea is the most obvious thing: Knives loves music, it's an easy excuse for her parents that eases them into the fact her friends are all 20 year olds, so she can stay with the group easier, and as for why Stephen and Kim would let it happen... both have always liked her. Kim's annoyance is more worrying about Scott scarring her for life, and Stephen an dher get really close towards the end of the series, with him becoming a big brother towards her. The two becoming big siblings to her and letting her join makes sense.
It's especially nice to see with Kim. Kim interacted with Knives a BIT in the books, being the only one on Team Sex Bomb-Omb (The band plus knives and young neil), to take scott to task for the Knives thing to his face, at worst getting annoyed Knives is copying her. Granted like most of the Team, Kim still fucks up with her, most notably.. this
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Which at the time I, and apparently the devleopers of the game, saw as a shippable moment but nowadays I see as NOPE PLEASE STOP, PLEASE STOP.. PLEASE NEVER AGAIN. AGE GAP'S STILL AS WEIRD AS WITH SCOTT. PLEASE DONT' TRAUMTIZE THIS CHILD MORE. Kim gets more of a pass than her band mates and neil because she was drunk at the time and clearly regrets it, but it's still something entirely fucked up I wish hadn't happened and feel bad for all involved. This is not how you should find out your bisexual.
The series wisely avoids this as they've realized "This is also statutory". and instead nicely has Kim take up the big sis roll to Knives, being the only one to really look after her after her boyfriend allgedly exploded and was found to have been cheating on her.
Hence we get one of the the best scenes in the series, the drum session. Which I know some did interpret romantically but first off...
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And secondly.. really dosen't given the context: Kim sees the band needs a bassist.. but more importantly sees Knives is trying really hard to learn and is clearly spiraling after Scott's death. So she invites her to play since Neil is busy with his screenplay and Stephen, as usual is handeling this sudden loss with all the grace and dignity he's known for
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IT's a beautiful scene as two people simply bond as they jam, and both heal a bit from what they've lost. And we find out Knives is a musical progidy who mastered the Bass in only four hours, and masters a keyboard later in less.
This gives Knives her first real plot in the series that isn't tethered to Scott in some way, something that was jarring to realize, but easy to see why: the books are centered around Scott's life, his friends, his love intrest, etc. Their there as needed for his story. Knives has one of the most detailed and intresting character arcs of the main cast.. but it's still thorughly tethered to Scott: his dumping her sends her on a journey of spiraling depression and growth, eventually going from someone who puts scott on such a pedestal that she attacks his new girlfriend instead of seeing the obvious, to accepting Scott wasn't perfect, he cheated and that while he opend her world up, they were really bad together and it was never an equal paring. Even the fun subplot with her dad as the mystery swordsman in book 4.. is because he thought she was still dating Scott and thus attacked him for dating his daugther. The movie makes this worse by trying to make the relationhsip seem legit missing the point entirely. While Knives has a friend in Tamara an da passle of high school drama she gleefully tells scott about, neither are important to the narrative. We only meet her parents because her mom was there when Knives met Scott and her dad tries to run him through.
Here while Scott certainly is part of her story, why she met sex bomb-omb and why she wears his jacket for most of the series, and his death certainly had an impact, she moves on quickly here not because she forgot Scott like it seems a chunk of the cast do or she's TRYING to avoid thinking about him like Kim and Wallace seem to be, she just found a healthy creative outlet, something to put her pain into in a healthy way instead of getting highlights and trying to murder Ramona or dating a guy who looks close enough to Scott. Knives moves on faster here, taking what's implied to be maybe a month at most to move on versus a year.. because she's not isolated in her pain. Scott's friends dont' dump her because it's awkward now and then awkwardly let her stay around post neil because they feel bad. Kim invites her in and after hearing she can wail, Stephen warmly welcomes her into the band, and the two become besties. So we have to talk about Stephen really quick as his plot dovetails into Knives, with the two being a duo for half the series. Stephen is based more on his movie self.
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Yeahhh while I love the books on re-read, Book Stephen sucks. He just.. sucks. If your wondering some of the lowlights i'm glad you asked, here's an expertly crafted montage.
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And that's just what I could fit into a montage: he also cheats on Julie for most of volume 4, focuses on his affair with joseph to the point he refuses gigs when it's clear playing live is something Kim LIKES doing and helps her relax, and never even informs Scott the band's broken up. The last one's .. iffy because Scott was in a waking depression coma after loosing Ramona, so he coudl've told him and forgot, but out of Scott's friend group he's the most consistently dickish, with Kim's grumpy nature mostly being a wall. It's partly the writing as , again given this is scott centric, we dont' peel back the layers on him the way we do with say Ramona, Knives or Kim. We don't see why he thought it was easier to cheat like we do with Scott and Knives, which wouldnt' make it okay but would make him less punchable. we don't know WHY he stays with Julie. Stephen is just an enigma and as such comes off immesnely annoying when most of his major endevors screw up everyone elses life in some way. And as one final coda to this rant, i'm not saying telling knives about Scott's two timing is bad... i'm saying he's the wrong person to tell her as not only did HE cheat on his partner, and as the last panel shows, KNOWS it's wrong Ramona clearly dosen't know half a year into the relationship, but won't tell her anyway for a friendship he REALLY dosen't seem to remotely care about.
So yeah a hammy constantly anxious relatable stephen was better, and Mark Webber was a delight by contrast. We didn't get to know movie Stephen.. but I didn't want to punch him either. So having Anime Stephen be more like the one who isn't punchable was smart: He's still panicky, crying more over the fact Scott leaves them baseless than over the fact his friend's dead (Which is mildly douchey but as we learned with Julie, if it's for a joke it's fine), and still obessed with making music his career while his band mates are like "Yeah fine whatever", so he's not really changed hard from the core of the character, but he is a delight and him and Knives becoming best friends in a far less hypocritical sense is adorable.
I also REALLY love their pet project: After Young Neil's movie falls through, more on him shortly, they make Scott Pilgrim, the original timeline, into a MUSICAL, complete with a bread makes you fat music number. I do like the ocasional nod here and there: O'Malley and Grabinski conciously didn't want to just.. repeat a gag because it was expected, but threw a few of the more iconic bits in as long as they could remix the joke. It's why the pee bar and the shoe tying making cameos, as their in new contexts, while there just wasn't room for the l-word or scott going out a window.
This whole subplot is gold from Stephens aying "as a creative to another creative" a hundred times, something I relate to since i say as a critic way more than I probably should, to it paying off.
And this is where Knives asceneds. By the end she not only gets closure with scott, admitting she's glad he's back but is glad he died, as the relationship wasn't healthy and she could grow into a hit songwriter, but she has a huge career with an award winning (Probably) musical, a new best friend and mentor, and writing songs for her fav envy.
And most nicely for me.. .I get a reality where Sex Bomb Omb dosen't fall to pieces in some way or form. Yeah without Stephen's drama or callousness depending on the version and with Knives creative vision the band not only stays together, but has a real shot at being something, giving everyone in it a bright future. Knives Chau really got to take off.
Kim is as usual the meaning in my life and the inspriation, with Allison Pill getting to do more with the character since she's not shunted to the background to say one or two lines. I mean she's still IN the background sadly: She gets a major roll in episode 3 and then just shows up when Sex Bomb Omb's together, not even getting that involved in the musical. I really wished after the film Kim got a big beefy roll. She could've been Ramona's sidekick or something like that, the two been clue buddies together. But I suppose the raw sexual tension would've left Scott out. Still she plays of Ramona well and it woudl've been nice ot have Kim around to response to the madness of episodess 4 and 5 with ramona. Still she gets a better shake than the movie: Episode 3 highlights how this version is actually over him, but encourages Ramona's attraction to him, simply warning her of what he's like, is a good friend to Rammy, and gets that moment with Roxie. I love how sh'es just like "I'm not... oh alright". And I think given another chance there would be sparks. Kim is sadly not given MUCH but it's still more kim pine, and i'm always in favor of that.
Finally we have my newly adopted son Young Neil. Unlike with Stephen, they didn't really take from the previous neil, whose super excited, and goofy and better than the graphic novel version whose alright. They go back to the Graphic Novel's glass eyed, barely emotive werido.. yet STILL make him something new rather than just adapt that version.
The result is a neil whose spacey, barely emotive.. but also REALLY dumb and really weird. Naturally I love him and relate immensely. Neil is somehow CRITICAL to the plot this time and entirely unaware of what is going on. He's season 1 todd chavez and it's wonderful.
This Neil gets most of the best bits, with Johnny Simmons having perfect timing. A good chunk of this series weird shit comes form Neil, who takes Scott's death as as sign he should persue his passion for screenwriting and get's his big break when in a half assed wel lmeaning plan, ramona adapts his book into a screenplay and sends it to him. Neil sees a mysteriously cloaked future ramona writing the script.. then assumes it's his sleep paralysis demon and he's a scripting genius.
We then get two glorious episodes of Neil at a movie set not remotely qulaified to be there as he assumes Americans and then the japanese call golf carts mario karts, gets a perscription but somehow winds up with sunglasses, and barely registers Matthew shutting his expesnive nightmare of a film down becuase he can't drive golf carts anymore. It even takes a lengthy and fucking glorious scene with sex bomb omb for him to realize "oh maybe my sleep paralysis demon didn't write this". Just the casual way he says it while everyone else is baffled, and how Kim and Knives have to slowly explain reality to him is great. Neil is comic relief incarnate and I love him, easily the best version. I'm also happy that like most of the cast, he gets a happy ending, as he apparently got a job at the studio after Gideon reopened it driving his cart around. Nick Frost is right, Young Neil really is off the chain.
So onto the one charcter who over FOUR DIFFRENT MEDIUMS has never really talked to anyone I just talked about but knives, we have Wallace. First off: yes i'm still disapointed he never really talked to Sex Bomb Omb. I got it vibe wise: everyone has friends who just.. don't know each other, but the intro got my hopes up they'd actually.. hang out at some point. But just like everything else, the intro isn't remotely indicative of what happened in the anime. The comics sure. And it's a true banger.
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Seriously the colors are vibrant, the song is vibrant and fits scott perfectly, with Necry Talkie really nailing him down, and it's a perfect intro. Even if it ends up being nothing like the series , I still love it. One of my faviorite anime intros of all time. Love that cute falling shot of scott and ramona and the bit showcasing the exes. So good.
What was I on about? Oh yeah Wallace. Wallace here is a mixed bag. As with the film Kirean Culkin is perfect as Wallace: he gets the dry tone down, his drunken antics down and the whole sarcastic vibes perfectly. He was the best performance of the film, and while the compettition's too steep here for him to win again, he's still amazing.
That said Wallace.. is a bit more of a dick here. He comes off more.. tolerating scott instead of having a genuine friendship with him, and the only hint we get of him mourning his best friend is just how plastered he is.. and even then he threatens to change the locks. If Ramona reminded him to. I get the two weren't going to be as focused on, but it's still sad.
I also wish his friendship with Ramona stayed. While it makes sense they don't bond, Scott isn't around to link them, it was one of the funnest parts of the books.
Really this Wallace shows why he needs Scott and what he might be like when his bestie isn't around: Just because Wallace is more put together.. dosen't make him not an asshole. While I admi the's more dickish here with reflection.. I have to say it's not out of character. He's still giving us killer bits from wanting to see a notriously straight actor play him, to his smug acceptance of becoming an actor, to his deadpan acceptance that todd's in love with him, he's still the wallace we love... it's just we're seeing the side of him that dosent look better with a dumpster fire constantly ned tot him.
The biggest douchery is of course stealing Todd from Envy.. but besides it taking two to cheat, Wallace stealing someone's boyfriend.. isn't new behavoir. I laughed at how out of left field the PARING was.. but Wallace is Jimmy's bi or gay or pan, whatever he is, awkaneing in the book and film, and Stacey's reaction in both makes it clear he steals her boyfriends CONSTANTLY. So him stealing Todd and then explaining it was just a fling to him.. is entirely in the realm of Wallac'es douchebagery. He's not a terrible person.. but like everyone else in the cast he's a mess. HIs abuse of his stunt doubles was a bit over the line, but is so over the top it works. And this wallace also sings us complicated. So while I wish we got to see more of the Wallace we don't in the books... what we do get is still great.
Envy.. gets the shortest end of the stick here next to the twins, as she at least had a fairly comepelling arc in the book, being the focus of volume 3 and a major part of volume 6. Here while Brie Larson is once again great there really.. isn't much for Envy here. Even the film, which basically squoozer her in at the last second, still gave us an awesome version of the phone call she gives scott and the iconic black sheep sequence. Here while Envy gets another all timer scene in her funeral concert, the second most obnoxiously awesome crashing of a funeral behind flintheart glomgold
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Envy DID at least get to dance on his casket. Or a stage above his casket. still counts.
Envy.. is left at the face value we meet her at the start of volume 3: queen biatch, queen of all the chaos, queen of all you love and adore. She's still a lot of fun from the above horny antics with todd to her yanking Ramona out of a talking head interview to fight her battles for her, but there's .. nothing really to her and it stand sout in a series that gives everyone else but the twins something new.
Okay ALMOST everyone as Stacey is once again out of focus like the comics. The movie gave her a bit more, but here she's scott's sister who calls people. That's it. It makes sense, Ramona has no real reason to talk to her, but it's a waste of your Anna Kendrick to not find more antics for her, especially since they found wallace and Neil great subplots. That said she does live her best life at the end starring at lucas' butt.
I also want to note the presence of Hollie, kim's roomate, best friend and co-worker. She does little, Shannon Woodward does a fine job, but I like that she's in here at all: Hollie was a character I liked in the comics.. who went on to steal kim's boyfriend for plot convience. So having a verison of her that dosen't do that shit and is just Kim's snarky foil and friend again works for me.
Finally we have a bunch of cameos, the bulk of them legendary. We get Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as security guards, Weird Al as the intro narator for the doc on the failed Scott Pilgrim film, comedy and voice acting legend MIcheal Mcdonald as Edgar Wrong, Bowen Yang as a tv gossip, kal Pen as matt's lawyers and Kirby HOwell Baptiste as Lucas Lee's agent. All fun one or two off bits, all fantastic.
Finishing off the character stuff we have a missed opportunity too: Joseph and Lisa get to cameo.. but are once again left out, to my annoyance. I get not being able to fit them in and Lisa has less of a point without Scott around.. but it'd still be nice to get a scene or something, especially since I was far from the only person asking for Lisa Miller to get a proper apperance.
So with that we close the book on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.. and it was phenominal. While I would've loved a new adaptation, this.. is even better: a spirtual sequel that expands the characters, is not afraid to go full nonsense, let's a lot of the cast from the film fully shine, and has a bitching soundtrack once again. Not a ton of original songs sadly, but I Feel Fine and Orange Shirt are bangers, and we get Will Forte singing an anime theme song. If the last part dosen't appeal to you, I don't know how you got this far in the review. Takes Off is one of the best entries in this franchise and leaves me hopeful we'll return to this world again. Maybe not on screen but hey, even with the mountain of work it took to get this cast together again, tthis adaptatoin has proven anything is posisble.
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Thanks for reading.
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kenzielou626 · 4 months
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I've been seeing a lot of complaints about Disney's Wish✨, and so I wanted to share my thoughts about some of the common complaints I've been seeing.
❗️Warning-shaped warning for spoilers below! ❗️
Personally I enjoyed the film. It may not be as good as I was hoping it would be, but it was better than I feared it would be. It may not be as good as say, Frozen, The Lion King, Beauty And The Beast or Snow White And The Seven Dwarves, the absolute top tier Disney films, but it's every bit as good as films such as The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. (My personal favourites by the way, are Lilo And Stitch and Frozen 😉)
A lot of fans complained about the art style, but I actually like it, and found it quite charming. It does remind me of Sofia The First, but I don't see that as a bad thing. (Sofia The First was a good show! As was Elena Of Avalor.) I liked the more muted colour palette, I found it calming and peaceful at parts. I like how Disney is trying something new with their animation, which they haven't done for some time. They've tried to blend 2D and CGI, and I appreciate that Disney are trying something new. I remember when the short Paperman came out, everyone wanted Disney to make a movie in that art style. Is this not pretty close/similar to that? Personally, I'd like Disney to return to hand drawn 2D animation again, and them experimenting now is showing a willingness to go back to that. If Wish is unsuccessful that sends the people at Disney the wrong message. (The message that only CGI animations are worth making, which I feel to be untrue!) I liked how the animation of Star was different to the animation of Asha and the environment as well. I thought it was really interesting to see that contrast, between the styles within the style.
I've seen a lot of people complain about concept ideas that weren’t used. I've seen people complain that Queen Amaya and King Magnifico were supposed to be a villain power couple, but personally I liked how Queen Amaya was good! I really liked her as a character! It also shows that sometimes the people we love or people close to us are in the wrong, or do bad things, and we still need to hold them accountable. I actually really liked Amaya's design as well. Then again, in my opinion I tend to feel like I don’t like the villains. I tend to feel like they're villains, so we’re not supposed to like them. They're bad people. Sometimes I might think, for example Mother Gothel is a really good and interesting villain, but I don’t like her as a person or condone her actions. Yeah so I actually find it strange that people like the villains. Why do you like bad people? 😅 Maybe this is just me?
I liked in Wish, with Magnifico, he isn't a classic Disney villain, but he is a new brand of complexity, in which he genuinely believes he is in the right and that he is the good guy. Then, fully believing that he is in the right, Magnifico goes on to corrupt himself, which is really interesting. I like how Disney are still trying to keep things fresh and interesting. I feel like after the era of twist villains, they still wanted to do something slightly different even if they returned to using traditional villains, and I appreciate that. Disney is always trying new things, which I really appreciate! I just think it's interesting how they're like, using psychology or something! Because there are real people out there who are like Magnifico! If magic was a thing that we had at our disposal, who wouldn't use forbidden magic in the same way he did? Fully thinking that they are in the right!
Another criticism I've seen is that people wish they kept the concept idea of Star transforming into a human character, being a boy somewhat like Peter Pan. Personally, I love Star as they are! Star is like, the best thing about this movie (though maybe I'm bias saying this because Star already granted my wish long ago!). Personally I find Peter Pan to be arrogant, annoying, irritating, and so I don't like him (prefer Tinker Bell!) and so I'm glad Star wasn't like him at all! Star was a little cosmic force, a little bundle of energy! I feel like, with this character, less is actually more. I really like how Star is seemingly so simple, but such a wonderful little creature. Star seems to be genuinely quite loving, and wanting the best for people. I also think, since no pronouns were ever used in the film for Star, that you can headcanon Star as any gender you want. I kinda like the idea of Star being Disney's first non-binary icon!
I do think, since this film was tied into the 100 year anniversary of the company, that maybe this wasn't the time for them to be experimenting, and perhaps that's why fans are complaining. Because honestly the complaints don't make sense to me any other way! 😅 I liked it. A lot of fans loved Moana, some even found it better than Frozen, but I personally found Moana to be a bit boring. I don't get how people can praise Moana but criticise Wish. I just feel, that maybe I'm in the minority and people don't love fairytales anymore? But I do (love fairytales) and I always will. I like how this was Disney's first attempt at an original fairytale, not an adaptation of something already written. I think if we give Disney opportunity, they will evolve and maybe go on to make something even better than Wish, something maybe that could rival Frozen.
Personally, I like that Disney are experimenting. I hope to see more fairytales from them in the future, as well as hopefully a return to 2D animation.
Just an edit to say: I composed this post a while ago and had it saved but never published until now. Someone asked my thoughts so I thought I'd post.
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thesharktanksdriver · 4 months
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Imagine this... Movie 6, Baron Omatsuri. If you haven't watched it yet and is into physiological horror genre, body horror, angsts then I totally recommend it.
TRIGGER WARNING : ANGST, PHYSIOLOGICAL HORROR THINGS...
WARNING : SPOILERS ALSO!!!
But like... Imagine... Determination!Reader in there and witnessing how their friends, crew is drifting apart, being suspicious of each other, even hating eachother, hurt eachother one by one and then blaming everything bad happened to their captain.
Nami slapping Ussopp with genuine anger, not even standing NEAR him, Sanji not letting Zoro eat and even said "you can go hungry", and the crew was eaten by the weird soul sucking flowers and Luffy witnessing it, Luffy being stabbed with MULTIPLE AND I MEAN THOUSANDS, MILLIONS OF ARROWS AND WITH A FACE OD DESPAIR BECAUSE HIS CREW IS GONE, DEAD, HATING EACHOTHER AND STILL WALKING BUT DEPRESSION AND TRYING TO REACH HIS NAKAMA.
and then in the end, everything went normal but only Luffy and Determination!reader are the only ones that remember that traumatic shit they just went through and not telling anyone because they don't want to worry them or anything. Reader and Luffy would Def talk abt it in private and reassure and comfort eachother with a warm hug and tears from Luffy.
*cries in hot red tears*
- 🛎️ Anon :'0
I actually haven’t seen Thai films but I’ve definitely seen clips of it and it looks awesome.
I imagine in the scenario of the crew beginning to hate each other y/n would kinda shut down emotionally. Like, there are the people they’ve finally let themself call family and now their hating each other, and it’s not something y/n has really seen before so it’s hard for them to handle. Like y/n’s come back to people now hating one another but they’ve never seen it first hand. They didn’t see buggy’s and Shanks’s fight, didn’t see kindness turns to hate, they just came back to it.
Y/n remembering the experience with Luffy would be something the two hold to their graves (if y/n could die In the first place lol). It’s never openly talked about, they both just kinda have quiet moments though where they both just silently hold each others hands while looking off to the waves. Never uttering a word as either sobs, never making mention why they both dislike flowers, never casting their eyes on blood moons
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always-andromeda · 1 year
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Trick or Treat || Edward Nashton x GN!Reader
Edward Nashton x GN!Reader
Word Count || 2,336
Summary || When Edward tells you that he never went trick or treating as a child, you take the chance to help him heal his inner child.
Author’s Note || happy riddler: year one release day!! today we celebrate with our favorite little serial killer and terrorist!! this fic kicks off my next week of Halloween content and I hope y'all are excited!! I can't wait for you all to see what's to come!! Also, I apologize in advance for my obvious love for the Halloween franchise in this fic, I love all of the movies even though almost all of them are actually so terrible <3
Warnings || spoilers for Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981), some heated kissing, Edward and his Tragic Past™, sliiiiight mask kink if you squint, nothing else I can think of!!
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"Remember, Eddie, it's Halloween. Everyone's entitled to one good scare." You tease with a light tickle to Edward's side. He squirms away from you in response. 
Edward proposes uncertainly, "Isn't Halloween supposed to be for kids?"
The grimace he throws at the packaged costume on the shelf before you makes you chuckle. "Do you not understand the reference?"
"The reference?" He spares one more look to the folded boiler suit and the mask. He doesn't see it through the plastic, but the paper label says there's a plastic knife inside to complete the ensemble. How people fantasize about being such a character, Edward doesn't know. 
You say, "The quote? Everyone's entitled to one good scare."
Edward turns back to you. "That's a reference?"
Your expression is aghast, eyes wide and mouth already open and ready to protest, "You're telling me you haven't seen one of the most classic slasher films of all time?"
Edward rolls his eyes and mutters, "There's plenty of things that I haven't seen."
You guess that he's probably telling you the truth based on the directness of his words. But you can never be quite sure. Edward isn't always the most forthcoming with his life experiences. You figured it out the hard way when you brought up your parents during a date. It was only natural. Everybody has parents, right?
Apparently not. Of course the tall and adorable nerd from accounting you had begun dating just happened to be an orphan. And of course he was so nervous to mention it that you’d gushed all about your parents and your childhood dozens of times before he said something. You’d asked him what type of toys his parents had gotten him when he was little and he hesitantly muttered that he hadn’t had any of either in the first place. The conversation promptly sunk like a rock to the bottom of your stomach. How you hadn’t noticed his blank stare every time you talked about your childhood, you didn’t know. 
His childhood often provided for some...interesting conversations. Especially over the holidays. The orphanage didn't have the money nor the desire to treat the children under their care to something other than the constant poverty and paucity that plagued their lives.
While you got to shop for a brand new Halloween costume every year, Edward had stayed in the repurposed Wayne manor, looking out over the city. With every year it passed, the building and the children were more and more neglected. Gotham was just as dangerous during Halloween; possibly even more so. But deep down inside he knew that the children outside had to be having fun in some way.
For some reason, life decided that children like Edward Nashton didn't need candies wrapped in colored cellophane and fun costumes. Halloween was something that he hadn't ever been able to properly revel in. Tricks weren't nearly as fun when there was never a promise of a treat. Life had already played a horror movie for Edward to live. To find joy in the holiday seemed to be a privilege to one and he tries not to hold it against you.
You whine, "Oh, c'mon, you can't just play along? At least for my sake?" Edward offers little more response aside from another eye roll at your theatrics. He doesn't expect any less coming from you.
Pretending to be someone else didn't seem all that appealing. Maybe pretending to not be Edward Nashton would help him feel a little more comforted, at least until the autumn chill crept in through the poorly insulated walls and made him wish that it was summer. It made him wish that the rot inside would take over and consume him entirely. It made him more conscious of the simple fact that no matter how hard he tried, he would always be Edward Nashton, the wishy washy forensic accountant who was practically invisible.
Well, invisible to everyone except you, for some reason. Why you insist upon sharing these traditions of yours with him, he'll never know.  The rudimentary animatronics that jump out at him every time he steps on a button make him want to snort more than anything else. He would admit though that he quite liked some of the masks. Though he had no clue what movies they referenced, he gathered that they were villains. Only villains covered their faces like that and wore oversized cloaks or boiler suits. Only the villains kept in the dark; kept themselves masked and too afraid to confess to the world their sins.
As he stares into the dark voids of the eyeholes in the plastic mask in the package, he nudges you with his shoulder. "I'll play along," he starts quietly, "Tell me about this movie of yours."
Your eyes light up immediately. "Really? You don't care about spoilers?"
"I don't think so." he chuckles, "Besides, if I'm going to be wearing this thing for Halloween...I think I'll have to know what the guy does. "
As you continue to wander up and down the aisles of the Halloween store, Edward listens intently as you describe the tale of Michael Myers. A child who who murders his sister then spends fifteen years in a sanitarium, only to break out and finish the job with his secret sister and all of her teenage friends. Edward is sure that he's seen the events play out the same way in about a dozen different slasher movies before. He holds back the urge to scoff at all the cheesy tropes; a couple that has sex and is subsequently brutally murdered, a jammed doorknob, cut phone lines, and a helpless babysitter. However, there is one bit that Edward gets.
"So...this Michael Myers...why does he kill everyone?"
"He's out to get his family and Laurie is his sister. He's there to clean house."
"No, no, no, I get that. But why everyone else? Why her friends and everyone else at the hospital? Why does he even have to murder his family? What's his motive?"
That question is more important to him than anything. What's the point in anything if there isn't a why? There must be a reason for violence. A focus. Some sort of angle to make the ends justify the means.
You stop dead on your feet in the aisle and slowly turn on your heel, tilting your head when you finally face him. The move confuses him until you raise your hands conspiratorially. 
"That's the thing, Eddie. He almost doesn't even have a motive. He doesn't understand right from wrong or good from bad. All he knows is evil. That's it. And that motivation is what keeps him going every single time he's put out of commission."
Edward raises an eyebrow and asks monotonously, "Evil keeps him from dying?"
"Exactly! Because at the end of the day...Michael always finds a way to come home."
Though he's sure an antagonist from a 70s horror film wasn't meant to be analyzed outside the simple parameters of shock value and blood just for the sake of blood, something about that idea intrigues Eddie. He is dormant. Lying in wait. Counting down the days until the next opportunity; the next Halloween. Now that thought--more than heavy breathing on the other end of a phone--sends a shiver down his spine.
But this Halloween...this one isn't home for thoughts of vengeance and appeasing the intrusive voices that tell him he should hate the world. This Halloween is just for you and him. And the home he will now always yearn to come back to is this; you and him on the couch of his apartment, candy wrappers scattered about.
Even during the best of times, Edward isn't a fan of sweets. As he'd gotten older, the craving for them had simply faded. But this is one of those nights where he's willing to indulge. The blended aftertaste of caramel, nougat, peanuts, and chocolate makes his throat ache with richness. He pats his protruding belly, feeling like a child who's been allowed to have their bucket of candy for dinner.
If this is what Halloween had been for you during your childhood, he understands why you enjoy it. There's a sort of control and escapism in constructing your own fear and soothing it with a nostalgic film and sugary treats by the warmth of a lit fireplace. He can almost forget the real pain that lingers just below the surface of his skin. At the very least, he can quiet it down just enough to where he can let himself feel normal. He's a normal man with a normal childhood and this is a normal Halloween. And there's you, his actually normal partner rested on his chest and spreading the lazy haze that overtakes his senses.
The polyester boiler suit feels smooth against his skin, nothing like what he guesses the real thing is like as he watches Michael Myers on the television screen in front of the couch. Right at that moment, Michael kills the truck driver whom he eventually takes the jumpsuit from. For some reason, he has to admire the resourcefulness.
You look up at his face, transfixed on the screen, and giggle. "Are you getting scared yet, Eddie?"
His attention broken from the movie, Edward spares a small glance at you before grabbing the iconic mask he had tucked between his thigh and the couch and taking off his glasses. With a little bit of an awkward struggle to stretch the rubber over his round face--which only makes you laugh more--Edward finally gets the iconic mask of Michael himself on. He looks to you once more. The stoically molded expression of the mask stares back almost blankly.
Voice deep and unsettlingly even, Edward asks you this time, "Are you getting scared yet?" To add to the drama of the whole act, he begins to breathe heavily. So heavy that you're sure the inside of that mask is quickly heating up. Probably making his skin flush and form a thin layer of sweat. And what begins as stone cold fear in your core slowly warms as you remember that your chubby cheeked and kind eyed Edward is underneath there. And no mask can completely kill the comfort you feel with him.
"Well, lucky for you, I'm actually into that." you cup the cheeks of the mask and press a small kiss to the lips. Behind the rubber, you can practically feel him scowl. 
Edward says incredulously, "You're into this?" Based on his inflection alone, you know he's skeptical and a slight bit horrified. It's a skepticism that you plan to completely smother.
You give a little pout, peer through the dark eyeholes, and answer, "Well, actually there's one thing I'm not into about this." You reach for the edge of the mask at his neck and pull it back over his head. Lacing your fingers through his real hair, now slightly damp and disheveled, his face looks just as red as you imagined. His brows turned, he waits for some sort of explanation as you admire his soft features. Maybe his normal partner isn't quite as normal as he expected of them.
Brushing a bit of his hair off of his forehead, you assert, "If you're going to get into wearing these, you should really get one where I can see your eyes better. I like seeing them."
Eddie rarely believes in the world telling him the truth in such stark terms. Even the grandest gestures could always be a lie. But your fingertips stroking his bare cheek and your body pressed against his in a way that tells him that you need him...that can't be faked. You'd have to be completely insane to look at him with such reverence and mean none of it. And he decides that with the safety you surround him with as proof, you're being honest. You'd never trick him. Despite the half full bag of store-bought candies that now lays discarded on the floor and his full stomach, he concludes that you're his favorite treat during this conflicting season. You're saccharine and filling but you never make him feel sick and full of regret.
This time, he kisses you. Hungry and feral, he displays a confidence you don't see in him often when his hands run up the back of your thighs and pull him up onto his lap.
You feel his teeth graze your lips and your skin flutters. "B-but what about...the movie...don't you want to...finish it?" you manage to utter between every fervid kiss that Edward lays on you.
He pulls back just long enough to give you a fond look, similar to how you'd been observing him. There's something a little deeper to it though, something possessive in how his grip on you tightens. It makes your breath catch in a tight pocket of your throat.
He finally replies, "You already told me all about how it ends. The killer gets away. I don't think I need to hear it twice." Before you can let yourself get embarrassed for spoiling the entire movie for him earlier on in the day, Edward goes in for the kill, inflicting a ravenous kiss on your neck that succeeds in making you breath once more; puncturing the pocket your air supply had been trapped in and driving you just as wild as he needs you to be for him now. He engulfs you in his arms and makes you simply bleed with a want for more of him.
It doesn't unsettle Edward; being dressed like a serial killer, that is. There were worse creatures that he'd seen in Gotham. For now, though, he can pretend that tonight is forever. You are his haunted house; the keeper of his hopes and dreams and desires and all his brokenness. You are the window that he looks through and sees himself in. Only in this reflection, he's home and he doesn't need bloodshed to get there.
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apprenticestanheight · 6 months
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Photos- Chainshipping
Okay!! My requests are currently open for just about every single saw character or apprentice (with the exception being Logan--I haven't watched either Jigsaw or Spiral just yet and thus, don't really know much about him besides his name) so if anyone has any ideas, feel free to shoot them into my inbox--I do character x character but also love me a bit of reader insert so whatever ideas you have, I'll be happy to take a look!
fic type- this fic jumps everywhere, but the primary genres are fluff--there's angst and angsty undertones in this as well though
warnings-Adam has PTSD (though he doesn't get diagnosed) and the symptoms he exhibits are as follows: avoidance, anxiety, fears of things that relate to his time in the trap (it's never stated, more depicted, but he's afraid of the dark) and anxiety whenever something triggers the memories of the trap. He does go through an episode in relation to his PTSD post trap and the episode manifests as a panic attack kind of ordeal. There are also potential SAW X spoilers (I haven't seen the movie so please don't spoil it for me--I mention offhandedly that another attack had shown up in the news in the same place where SAW X is set, which is the extent of the spoilers for the film) this has been edited but it was edited in about an hour and fifteen minutes so it's not perfect. It's also a long fic and caps at 8.2k words
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When Adam next wakes, he finds himself in a hospital room. He wakes in time to see an investigative officer enter his room, quiet on the assumption that he's still sleeping.
He scrutinizes the detective in the moments before they realize he's awake, his throat dry and his shoulder burning with the ache of a bullet that had been removed but was still left in his shoulder too long.
The detective appears to be a guy--probably taller than him but not by much, only a bit of thinning hair left to speak for what was once probably a full head. He looks, from the get-go, a little irritated, and his outfitting is a basic button down, a black tie and black pants.
For a second, Adam wonders how legal it is for detectives to intrude upon the hospital rooms of Jigsaw survivors, his gaze passing over the detectives frame once more, but he realizes that, if the detective does care, he doesn't care all that much.
Who is Adam to judge, anyway? While his work as a PI was done in the name of making enough to get the rent on his shitty apartment paid in time, he still did it. He still stalked people, watched them meet up with their secretaries to cheat on their soon-to-be-ex-wives in the middle of their divorce proceedings.
He still learned the comings and goings of innocents and allowed that to be turned against them, so even if he wants to, he can't judge the detective on the basis of legal versus illegal. He can't judge the detective for doing something that feels shady when Adam has done a number of shady things himself.
Finally, the detective looks at him, startled to find he hasn't removed his gaze from him since he first heard the hospital door creak open.
"Hello, Adam," the detective greets. "My name is Detective Eric Matthews. You escaped a trap that you were put into by the Jigsaw killer. Can you tell me how?"
Adam blinks--he can barely recall what his own name is. He doesn't know the time or the date. Why would a detective expect him to be able to explain something like that so soon?
"Uh," Adam says. "I'd rather do this at a police station or precinct. I can't remember shit, Detective, and I need at least a day to make sure my head is clear."
The detective nods dejectedly, face falling like he's disappointed in Adams response.
"All right," he says. "If there's anything I can do or anyone I can call, let me know now. I'm sure your family is worried sick."
Adam feels like it's a jab, almost, but ignores that feeling. He thinks of his mother for a second, then his father. He wonders how they're both doing before realizing he's not talked to Scott in weeks. The last person his mind lands on is Lawrence--how is he doing? Is he the reason that Adam escaped?
"No," Adam says. "I've got nobody. If I had anyone, they would've called by now, I think. Thank you for offering, though."
Eric nods, and Adam watches him go.
Very quickly, Adam realizes he's been left alone again, and when he looks to his right, out the hospital window, he finds that he's woken up in time to catch the sunset.
Adam has never found much of a point in watching the sunset alone, though, so he sighs. He turns his head so that it faces a white painted wall, gives in to the morphine-induced exhaustion and closes his eyes, falling asleep with the sunset to paint a picture perfect background.
-
Days pass, and in each one of them, Lawrence consumes the whole of Adams thoughts for at least two hours. Typically whenever a nurse walks in to change his IVs or renew the morphine drip that has been steadily keeping the worst of the pain from the bullet wound at bay, though sometimes when someone comes around to bring him food.
Any entrance into his hospital room can be thought to be Lawrence for a minimum of three seconds, Adam finds. He looks up, realizes it isn't Lawrence and while one part of him deflates with some sense of sadness, the other feels relieved.
It's an odd split--despite how much Adam thinks of him, he doesn't know what would make him happier; would seeing Lawrence and being assured he's fine be better? Would it be better than never seeing Lawrence again, leaving him and his mind to wonder whatever happened to the oncologist?
Detective Eric Matthews doesn't swing by his hospital room again, but the day following his first visit, a nurse came in to tell Adam that he was wanted at the police station to deliver a statement as soon as he felt ready to do so.
On his final morning in the hospital, Adam is given several written prescriptions after being honest about the pain in his shoulder--days of recovery and the pain is still there, which has lead his doctor to believe it could be chronic.
He's sent on his merry way and gets into a cab to go back to his apartment, idly wondering just how worth it it would be to call his parents.
Getting to his apartment is a trip and a half--he realizes he doesn't have his keys on him but finds them poking out from under the door, and the first thing he does after unlocking his door is turn on the light in the entryway.
He proceeds with growing anxiety through the darkness in his hallways to get to his room. When he's there, he promptly turns the light on and goes about getting himself acceptable outfitting--he's due in to make a statement at the station, and it's half past ten in the morning. Better to get it out of the way and deal with the press that's coming out of the woodwork sooner than later.
He grabs a towel and turns his bedroom light off, proceeding to his bathroom. When he turns on the water, its cold and reminiscent of the water he'd woken up in in the bathroom with Lawrence.
When he notices it and to the detriment of his neighbor who won't have access to the hot water for thirty minutes once Adam is done, he turns the knob so that the water is almost scalding.
He hates it--the way that a bit of cold water cascading from his head to his shoulders and down his torso has reminded him so easily of the bathroom. He tries to shake it but almost can't, so he moves through the movements of the shower as quickly as he can without just skipping through the entire ordeal.
He dries himself, gets dressed into a decent pair of jeans, a baggy black shirt and a dark gray flannel, and walks to the station like he used to when he was taking photos for a detective who worked there.
The route is so familiar that it's eerie, and he half wonders who it was who stalked him while was doing the stalking. He wishes he knew which one of Jigsaws accomplices it was who was making sure that they had everything set to go for his game, but then he thinks better of it.
He doesn't want to know that sort of thing, and trying to figure it out could have him in a trap worse than the one that Jigsaw had put him in in the first place.
When Adam gets to the station, he tells the secretary he's there to make a statement. At this, the secretary makes a call and a woman comes out of an office--a detective who looks all business but in the tired kind of way, with her exhausted looking partner on her heels.
"My name is Special Agent Lindsey Perez," the woman greets. "This my partner, Peter Strahm. We're with the FBI and while we've agreed that Erics approach was not the way to go about acquainting you with the police force at all, we're both glad you could come in today. We'll get you sorted in an interrogation room with some water and a cigarette. It'll only be a few minutes, Mr. Stanheight, and if there's anything else you need feel free to let us know."
Adam has nothing to say so he just shakes his head and lets Perez and Strahm lead him off. When entering the room, Perez notes that she'll bring a blanket back and some coffee--the interrogation room is exceedingly cold--which Adam finds himself thankful for. It's early November but it feels like he's found himself in the middle of a New Jersey winter with how cold the room is.
The interrogation room is cold, the seats metal, and the walls a bland and basic navy-blue-ish black color. Adam wishes he'd stayed home but realizes it's too late for that.
He knows he'll have to spend the next several hours dredging up the memories that had come back in bits and pieces during the hospital stay, the memories he'd half been trying to forget and half been trying to process.
Perez comes back after a few minutes, draping a blanket over Adams shoulders and setting a cup of coffee in front of him while he smokes the cigarette that had been left for him to smoke.
"All of this is going to be on record," Perez says. "Do you know why John Kramer chose to test you?"
"I work as a PI on occasion," Adam admits, guilt swallowing him bit by bit. "I was one piece in Lawrences game because I was hired by a detective who knows his wife and suspected cheating. Hiding in the shadows, taking photos of the unknowing, it's not exactly a redeemable quality in the eyes of a serial killer like him."
"Why did you do it?"
"I have a camera," Adam says, shrugging. "I needed to make the rent and get some cigarette money. I did what I had to, like everyone else does in Jersey."
Perez nods. "Do you have any recollection of how you escaped?"
Adam tightens the blanket around himself. His escape is one of the memories he's tried not to think about because he remembers it in excruciating detail until the distinct point where he collapses, and it's not fun to think about at all.
"A girl came in after a day or two. Tried to kill me," Adam says. "I managed to survive that somehow. A couple of days later, some guy opens the door. Drops a key by my hand and leaves the door open. I test the key on the chain, it works, I get up and I run while starving and dehydrated. Make it outside, promptly collapse, all the fun stuff."
"And do you remember how you got to the hospital?"
"No," Adam admits. It's the one blank spot in his memory that he hasn't been able to dredge anything up from. "I wish I did, but I don't. I've kind of assumed that someone saw me, called 911, exercised the rare gift of basic human decency."
Perez nods. She looks at Adam like he's broken and he kind of hates it, but then his mind snaps to Lawrence, the smell of coffee the gun in the bullet and the act of having to think about the bathroom being the thing that pulls the trigger.
"Uh," Adam starts, taking a drag of his cigarette. "Do you know anything--anything at all--about Lawrence Gordon? He was in the trap with me and I haven't stopped thinking about him since I woke up in the hospital."
Perez smiles, tired and sad. "I'll see what we can find, but last I heard he was in a private wing. His wife called the other day to ask us if we'd heard from you? Lawrence has apparently been asking after you, too."
"Thank you," it's the first time Adam has wanted to smile in days.
The questioning continues for a long couple of hours, Adam stating and restating things until his head hurts and all he wants is a bit of decent cheap takeout. He's let go when it's almost the sunset and again chooses to proceed without watching it. Maybe, when he has someone worthwhile, he'll consider watching the sun go down, but what is the point of such when you're doing it alone?
-
Another long few weeks pass him by. Adam gets himself a job at a Mom and Pop bookstore near the heart of the city, and with the pay raise that'll come once he's worked there six months, he'll be able to afford a decent apartment and still have money left for groceries if he shops at places known for their low costs, like Aldi or Lidl.
He doesn't stop taking photos--he's spurred on when a gallery reaches out, offers to pay him ten thousand if he can take forty photos of a theme of his choosing by the end of the year so that they can display it for five months.
A collection, they'd called it. A collection of photos with one common theme or aspect and a title of Adams choosing. He couldn't say no, even if the idea of ten thousand dollars up front played more of a part in that than he's willing to admit.
He doesn't know what the collection will be called, but as he realizes what kind of photos he's started taking, he has an idea of the theme.
Lawrence, he realizes as he goes on what has turned into one of his daily walks, would probably like that the trauma they endured didn't do anything to falter Adams love for photography.
Lawrence, Adam has also realized, has something of a permanent foothold in his mind. He is always there, always lingering, ever present in the idea of seeking Lawrence out, going searching and hoping to find.
He grins, snaps a photo of a stray cat lounging in the public gardens, when he hears a voice that is so familiar it makes his chest ache with the yearning of three weeks gone.
"Adam?" Lawrence asks. "I didn't know you liked the gardens."
They haven't spoken in weeks. Adam has been trying to figure out what to say to Lawrence for weeks, and still Lawrence gets the opportunity to speak before he does.
"I don't," Adam says, startled as he looks up to the person he likely shares some twisted kind of bond with. "I uh--I take walks now. I owe a gallery forty photos for a display by the end of December, so..."
"You take walks?" Lawrence asks, and Adam notices the cane, the way with which Lawrence leans against it. "I've been taking walks, too. It's part of the regimen I've built for myself. A walk everyday at the same time, the same route."
It's the first time they've spoken in weeks, and the fact that both of them go on walks daily is the first area in which they've found common ground? If Adam weren't so shocked by it, he would laugh at himself and at Larry, too.
"Uh," Adam pauses. "I go wherever my feet take me until I realize I've gotten lost. I work full time at a bookstore now and the long walks aren't a good thing for me, but the fresh air is nice, so I take them anyway."
"Walk with me, then?" Lawrence asks. "I mean--you don't have to walk me to my apartment or anything, but I could use the company and I really have been meaning to reach out to you."
Adam thinks on it for all of two seconds before nodding. "I could use someone to bother about my excitement with the whole gallery thing, anyway," he says. "I could tell my coworkers, but I don't know them very well, so if you're the next best thing then..."
Lawrence laughs, and Adams heart does an annoying little flip that tells him everything he needs to know but will choose to ignore for the time being.
The two of them move through the garden, occasionally stopping so that Adam can take photos of the small lakes and ravines they see because of the way that the light reflects off the water. They do it in relative silence until Adam speaks up.
"Ten thousand up front," he says. "I've never seen that kind of money before. I could get myself a decent place with it, which is the plan."
"Have you decided a theme yet?"
Adam sidesteps a bit while Lawrence keeps walking, not having realized the fact that Adam is falling behind. Adam snaps a photo of Lawrence as he moves and grins to himself.
"I haven't officially decided yet," he says. "However, I think the theme I'm going for is 'things a guy with chronic shoulder pain and a gabapentin prescription that he needs to refill at the end of next month finds beautiful post bathroom trap.'"
Lawrence, at this point, has realized that Adam has fallen back and joins him.
"You are not putting that photo in your display," he says, having realized he's the subject of the photo Adam has just taken. Adam starts walking at a pace acceptable for Lawrence, shrugging as he walks.
"I did say it was things a guy with chronic shoulder pain and a gabapentin prescription finds beautiful. Not things an oncologist who's as stubborn as he is tall finds beautiful, Larry. Had it been things you find beautiful, I don't imagine that this roll of film would have nearly as many stray cats, if any at all."
Lawrence shakes his head. "I'm not stubborn. I just don't like the view of me that exists from behind."
Adam laughs a bit, and a heaviness starts to hang in the air.
"How've you been?" Adam asks, and he almost hates it. It feels like they're past the need for the basic questions--how are you, how've been, are things all right?--but Adam supposes they're not, wonders if they ever will be.
"I've been okay, and you?"
I can't go to the part of town where the trap was, he wants to say. And I have to wait before stepping into the shower for the water to warm up because the water I woke up in was cold, and I can't stand the dark anymore--not like I used to be able to.
"I'm okay," Adam says.
He doesn't even believe himself, and he's typically a very convincing liar.
"Are you?" Lawrence asks.
"Are you?" Adam repeats. At this, they both laugh because they know they aren't okay, and they lied to spare the feelings of the other person, and neither of them are really sure if they'll ever be okay again.
Adam walks Lawrence home in a bit of comfortable lapsing silence, and says "okay," when Lawrence invites him in for coffee.
Lawrences apartment is exactly what one can expect from a recently divorced rich doctor who's just hit his forties. It's beige and brown and the dining room table reeks of quality. A KitchenAid stand mixer sits on the kitchen counter, and Lawrence has an entire espresso machine. Talk about responsible use of finances.
Adam sighs a bit after Lawrence has made him a cup of chamomile tea and everything within him has kind of stilled.
They're sitting on the brown leather couch in his living room, the curtains open to display a sunset that Adam would've paid more attention to in just about any other circumstance. There's no point in watching the sunset alone, but he has Lawrence. If they ever make it to that point, they can watch the sun go down together, Adam figures.
"I feel like I can't really escape it most days," Adam admits after some time. "Like--I was hounded by reporters and true crime junkies pretty frequently up until last week, and I saw Jigsaws name in the news the other day for something that happened in Mexico, of all places. I just don't feel like I'll ever escape Jigsaw or what happened in the bathroom."
"I've been the same way," Lawrence says. "Alison and I are getting a divorce. I haven't seen Diana since I was in the hospital--no matter how many times I've assured them both I'm fine, I can't escape it. I'm being coddled because of my experience with that bathroom. Coddled because I'm a trauma victim now."
"Well--" Adam shrugs. "That's what the bathroom did--it traumatized us, Larry. We're not the same people we used to be."
It's something that Adam hates but loves all the same. He's not the guy who used to stalk people in the name of making the rent.
Lawrence--well, Lawrence lost his foot. Of course he's changed. How can a person not change after losing something so dramatically?
Lawrence nods. Silence lapses. Adam takes a sip of his tea and tries not to tell Lawrence every last bit of the past few weeks--the yearning, the not-sleeping, the apparent fear of the dark and the inability to look at plastic bags the same way because he almost lost his life after someone tried to strangle him using one. The avoidance, the way that certain smells will have Adam back in that bathroom and terrified to the end of his wits.
"We'll get better, won't we?" Lawrence breaks the silence in two with one of the most heartbreaking sentences Adam has ever heard.
"You're the doctor," Adam says. "You tell me, Larry."
Lawrence smiles. Adam smiles back.
"The aftermath of traumatic events sometimes leads to PTSD. Even if we develop it, I think we'll be fine," Lawrence says. "The initial reactions include relief to be alive post trauma, and that can be followed by stress, fear, and anger. We might even find ourselves unable to stop thinking about it, but if we can make it through that, we will be just fine."
Adam realizes Lawrence is saying it for his own benefit--Lawrence needs this, he knows. He needs it a lot more than Adam does.
"Yeah," Adam says, nodding a bit. "Yeah. We'll be okay, Larry. Unless we do something that the motherfucker doesn't like--then we're screwed."
Lawrence laughs, shakes his head. "Those jokes aren't funny."
"Clearly they are," Adam rebuts. "If you genuinely didn't find me funny, you wouldn't be laughing."
Lawrence is still smiling, and Adam still has his camera, so he lifts it and snaps a split-second photo of Lawrence.
Lawrence turns to look at him, annoyance clear on his face. Adam bites gently at his top lip, meeting Lawrences gaze with mischief clear in his eyes.
"Yep," he says. "Into the collection that goes, Larry. One for the ages, I think."
"I really don't like being caught off guard," Lawrence says. Adam shrugs.
"And I really do like finding beauty where one doesn't expect it. I can say that I didn't expect to find your smile beautiful, so I snapped a photo," Adam shrugs. "You're not terrible to look at, Larry. Quite the opposite."
Lawrence snorts. "You flatter and distract," he says accusingly. All that Adam can do is snap another photo before he takes a sip of his tea.
"So it worked, then?" He asks, ignoring the way that his heart gives another funny little flip. "I've flattered you?"
Lawrence laughs. "What?" He asks. "I'm assuming that it means you have another plan attached to your flattery?"
Adam quirks his eyebrows. "One minute, I'm flirting to distract you from the fact that your photo is being taken and the next, you're completely and utterly infatuated with me, Larry. That's my big plan to win you over."
Lawrence shakes his head. Adam takes another sip of his tea. Silence lapses.
Adam doesn't know why, but he wants to stay. Lawrence has had a foothold in his thoughts for weeks, and even if they have a surplus of extended, uncomfortable, lapses in silence, Adam doesn't want to go anywhere.
Adam finishes his tea and gets up, leaving his camera on the couch as he tosses his teabag into the compost bin and rinses his mug.
Lawrence joins him.
"I really did mean to call," Lawrence says. "I just--recovery at the hospital, being given divorce papers, and then giving the police a statement, and then the whole circus that it was trying to deal with the press, I couldn't find the time."
Adam shrugs. "I wanted to call too, but I had to find something to do so that I could still use my phone, so that I could pay the rent. I decided from the get-go I wasn't going to do PI work anymore. Still occasionally get calls from my old contact, though."
"Do you think you could ever do it again?"
"Not a chance," Adam says. "I can't even--the idea of it consumes me with guilt. Plus, a roll of film with a bunch of stray cats is now of more use to me than a roll of film that details the comings and goings of people who go to seedy motels to cheat on their spouses. Yeah, I could make the rent being a PI but who doesn't love a stray cat lounging on the pavement? Who doesn't love working at a Mom and Pop style bookstore with a side of price gouging, honestly?"
Lawrence laughs. Adam sighs, shaking his head because he hates his job and he hates his apartment and he hates the fact that the press wouldn't leave him or Larry alone, but if it all leads to moments like that then it's all worth it.
It feels like all of the time they've spent away from each other ceases to exist. Like they're who they could've been outside the bathroom, a dynamic that nobody really expects to see because of how different their societal statuses are.
Adam looks at Lawrence with a smile. "I'm keeping those photos," he says.
Lawrences face falls, and Adam laughs.
"Not for the collection, of course," Adam feels something romantic bubble within him. He pushes it down and away. "For my own personal admiration. I've got a buddy who I haven't talked to in a while--his name is Scott Tibbs. He'll pay me decent money for photographing his band and I'll be using that to get frames once the photos develop."
"You're going to frame silly photos you took of me?" Lawrence asks. "This is the first time either of us have seen each other or talked in weeks, and this is where we're at?"
"Yeah," Adam nods. "I'm keeping you in my life, Larry, whether you like it or not. Keeping you in my life means I have to develop the photos. It also means I have to frame them and buy a shelf to put them on."
Lawrence scoffs. Adam grins.
"Well," he says. "Before you have the chance to stop me, I should go. I work a morning shift tomorrow, but you'll probably find me in the gardens, playing with the first stray cat I see around five."
"Noted," Lawrence says as Adam proceeds back to the living room. He grabs his camera, slinging it over his shoulder by the strap. "See you around five tomorrow, Adam."
Adam grins as he leaves. "Tomorrow, Larry," he says as he goes.
It seems, in a meeting that occurred by accident, Adam has found himself a new routine. It's something that excites him, though, and the high from that excitement carries him through the long walk home and lasts until he falls asleep.
-
Before Adam knows it, the end of 2004 has come around. He's taken more than a hundred photos and compiled forty of those photos into a theme that's suitable.
The pain of what he's experienced still kicks around, though, and it really doesn't take Adam that long to realize that the pain doesn't care where he is or what he's doing. The pain will come back around no matter what time of day it is, no matter where he is or what he's doing.
Knowing what'll trigger him is something upon which Adam can typically pride himself. He knows what makes the traumatized part of his mind start ticking and knows how to calm it down, but New Years Eve 2004, he can't figure it out.
He's giving the headliner the name of his collection when it hits--it's a burning pain in his shoulder at first, something he powers through to the best of his capability.
The collection itself is called A Unique Look at Jersey, and it's actually something of which Adam is quite proud, but the burning pain starts in his shoulder and Adam knows what it means right off the bat. Something, he knows, isn't right.
So, after he's explained the way that the photos are meant to be displayed for it to make sense and after he's been paid ten thousand dollars up front, Adam bolts out of the gallery. He rushes to his car and sits in the drivers side, trying to fend off the breakdown before it really hits him.
He glances around the area to see if he recognizes it from that black-out period between when he collapsed to the ground and when he woke in the hospital.
Nothing seems familiar, and that makes Adam want to bash his head through the car windows. He can't figure out what's set him off and it's making him so anxious that his hands are shaking.
Typically, when something sets him off, he knows what it is right out the gate. He knows when a space is too dark and he needs to get somewhere with more light or create that space himself. He knows to step out of the water, to move his hand away from it, when it's as cold as the water in the grimy bathtub was. He intentionally avoids movies wherein guns are fired and wounds are depicted or bloodied clothes are shown because that triggers the memories attached to the last words Lawrence had spoken to him before his escape.
But today, something sets him off and he doesn't know what it is. He wants to find out, though, so he does something risky.
The memory of grimy tiles beneath his feet, stale air going into his lungs, the feeling of a chain clasped to his foot, all nearly overcloud his sight as Adam drives away from the art gallery. He drives closer to the source of the episode, choosing directions based on his anxiety and how terribly it spikes whenever he takes whichever turn.
He finds himself at a building he vaguely recognizes for a split second before it hits him. The memories he'd thought were a black out--the stuff he couldn't explain to Special Agent Perez, the things he thought he'd forgotten and would never remember.
He recalls, very suddenly, the fact that, once he was in the daylight, he didn't stop running. He ran until he found a storefront, got the clerk to call 911, and then collapsed of dehydration against a window outside.
He recalls just how much it sucks to be the kind of hungry that hits when you haven't eaten in four days, how terrible the pain in his shoulder was and the odd desire to know who exactly it was who'd tried to strangle him.
It comes to a head and Adam presses his forehead against the steering wheel, hand going to find his phone so that he can dial Lawrence.
Lawrence picks up on the third ring.
"Adam?" He asks. Their daily walk is due to start in an hour. It's not like Adam to call Lawrence an hour before they walk together because they'll just be able to talk in the next hour anyway.
"Lawrence," Adam whispers. He gives a relieved sigh. "You left."
"I did," Lawrence says. "I said I'd come back for you, Adam, and I meant to. I was going to, I promise."
Adams breath is completely out of whack. He needs to find a way to make sure it normalizes again.
"All I can think about right now is the--the--" the incident. The bathroom trap. The tape, the photos, the saw that Lawrence used to cut off his own foot. The feeling of gross bathroom tiles beneath his feet and under his hands, the smell of blood and the fact that he hit Zep Hindle until he died and didn't stop once Zep had stopped moving. The fact that the Jigsaw killer was still out there and the fact that Adam was terrified to so much as smoke a cigarette because it could put him back within the killers line of fire. "Lawrence, how do I stop it? How do I stop thinking about it?"
"Where are you?" Lawrence asks, his voice urgent. "I'll meet you there, Adam. Where are you right now?"
"That's not important," Adam says dismissively. "I just don't--I can't--Lawrence, it is so hard to breathe right now."
"Adam," Lawrence whispers. "Adam."
Adam presses the back of his head against the back of his seat. He presses his eyes closed as tightly as he can and he tries to will himself to normalcy, but he can't.
He can't escape the feeling of cold tiles beneath his feet, can't escape the fear he felt waking up in that bathtub. He can't escape the burning pain in his shoulder, the ache in his lungs or the fear in his chest. He can't escape. He can't escape.
For a split second, he's back there, well and truly.
"Lawrence," he whispers. "I'm going to be okay, yeah?"
"Yeah, Adam," Lawrence whispers back.
"How can I be sure you're telling the truth?"
"I wouldn't lie to you," Lawrence says, and despite Adams attempts to stop it, he finally starts crying. He ends the call abruptly and lets himself have a breakdown in the front seat of his car, knowing he'll meet Lawrence at the garden in an hour with his camera slung across his torso as usual.
He knows that he'll pretend everything is fine, he'll wish he could just get the nerve to kiss Lawrence like he's been wanting to for a month, and he'll mention the fact that he photographed a wedding in early last month that let him put down the deposit money for a decent place near the gardens. He'll ask Lawrence how his day was and he'll take a photo that catches Lawrence off guard, and everything will be how Adam is used to it all being.
He knows that it'll go back to the way it was within the next two hours, and as he breaks down for the first time in weeks while sitting in the front seat of his car, he finds he can't wait for the time to pass.
-
Two hours go by. Lawrence calls Adam to ask if they can postpone the walk by an hour, and Adam uses the time to feed the stray that lives in his apartment between packing what little he owns into boxes.
He made a deal with the realtor when he put the deposit down, so the apartment will be move in ready by the 16th of the month. Adam doesn't really own much so packing hasn't been his biggest concern--his biggest concern has been the stray cat he feeds on a regular basis. He wants to take her with him, but the ten thousand covers rent for fourteen months.
During those fourteen months, however, the money that Adam used to use for rent becomes grocery money. Six hundred and fifty dollars twice a month can get a lot of groceries from Aldi and Lidl, but he wonders for a minute, how much can $100 a month get a person in cat care and maintenance?
He doesn't let the thought linger beyond the lobby of his apartment, where he pets the cat on the head and promises that she'll have a decent life someday, one where most of the enrichment she gets doesn't come from batting away at the roaches whenever they get too close.
Then, camera draped over his torso, he's off. He walks to the gardens and meets Larry at the entrance, an apology on his tongue.
Adam explains that he probably has PTSD but hasn't been seeking out a diagnosis, just accommodating for it whenever possible. He lets Lawrence give him his opinion and the two talk back and forth in a manner that has become familiar.
Eventually, Adam says something and Lawrence laughs and Adams heart does that flip that it's getting more and more impossible to push aside. He grins a bit to himself, snaps a photo of Lawrence despite his protests.
"That is definitely one for the ages," he says, though he knows it's just a blurry photo of Lawrences side profile as he smiles.
"You say that every time," Lawrence says.
"And I'm right," Adam says. "I would have to be right, Larry. You think I would waste precious, expensive camera film taking photos of things I don't think are worthy of such titles? It's one for the ages, and it is absolutely going to be framed and put onto my shelf."
"How many photos of me have you taken in the past two months?" Lawrence asks. "Seriously. You must be running out of shelf space at this point, Adam."
Off the top of his head, the number that Adam comes up with is probably concerning.
He's taken more than a hundred photos since his escape in October. At least forty photos have been of Lawrence.
"Not nearly as many as you think," Adam says with a laugh. "I mean--if you want me to waste an entire roll of film on photos of you, you've gotta buy it. Five dollars a pop for one hundred and thirty six photos, I have rent to pay, groceries to buy and maybe a cat to feed. I love you, Larry, but not enough to waste a roll of film on you when I could take photos of the sunrise or the skyscrapers or cats staring menacingly at me from low rooftops."
Lawrence laughs. Adam resists the random urge to kiss him.
"Speaking of rent," Lawrence says. "Are you still living in the place with the roaches?"
"As long as I have myself moved in by the sixteenth of next month, no," Adam says. "I'm using the ten thousand I got from the gallery showing to guarantee I have a solid spot to live in until March of 2006. I did the math and, tax and amenities included, the ten thousand will get me that far. I'll get a pay raise in April, too, and that will keep me able to afford the rent of the new spot plus groceries."
Lawrence grins. "Ah, decided not to let the roaches keep you company?"
"They get really old really quick," Adam says with a bit of a laugh. "Kill six of them in thirty minutes and you'll start to see what I mean, Larry."
Lawrence laughs. Adams heart gives a flip that Adam ignores.
"Do you have any plans for the rest of the night?" Lawrence asks.
"I was going to smoke weed," Adam says. "Eat the chips I bought with gas money last night, then hit the hay around two in the morning. Do you happen to have a better idea, Larry?"
"I have a two joints from a coworker who insists I need to loosen up," Larry says. "I meant to give them to you for Christmas, but you weren't at your place, so that fell apart."
"I was visiting the 'rents," Adam says somberly. "Went about as well as a reconnection attempt can go when your father is the one who kicked you out on your eighteenth birthday--but, that's not the point. If you want to smoke, we can! I would love to see you stoned."
Lawrence nods. "Sure," he says. "Maybe I do need to unwind. I booked tomorrow off anyway, figuring I'd get drunk on champagne and then have a hangover."
"I can't wait," Adam says. "Oh, seeing you get stoned? That's gonna be amazing."
Lawrence laughs. Adam snaps another photo. They carry on.
-
It's five to midnight, and neither of them have started smoking despite the presence of the joints and a matchbox. Adam is too wrapped up in the way that Lawrence is speaking, too focused on his lips and the sound of his voice.
"And it's not even like this sort of thing should be a big deal," Lawrence says. "But Alison, even when our divorce has barely been finalized two weeks, is insistent I get back on the horse, so to speak."
Adam laughs. He doesn't know what that's like, not really--Scott would occasionally help him flirt his way into a one night stand, but he's been talking to Scott less and less, only responding when Scott is the one doing the calling.
Scotts company just isn't the kind that's worth keeping--especially not after the stunt he pulled with the home-made Jigsaw trap, which he then bragged to Adam about surviving while they were within a twenty minute radius of the bathroom trap, and in the part of town Adam was consistent in avoiding because of the venue that Scotts band was playing and because Adam needed the money.
"Well, what's stopping you?" Adam asks. "Like, Larry--the dating market loves your type. Guy in his forties wanting to settle down. You're like--you're perfect to a minimum of twenty women within the tristate area."
"I think you're deluded," Lawrence says. "Twenty? Have a little bit more faith."
Adam grabs one of the joints and the matchbox, striking a match and lighting the joint without thought or care.
"Tomorrow night, or next weekend, or whenever I can actually get you to agree with me, we are going to a bar. We are drinking at least a little, and I am going to be your wingman," Adam says, though the idea of setting up the guy who he's consumed with yearning and want for with another person hurts on a whole new level of the feeling.
"No," Lawrence says. Adam inhales the smoke from the joint, passes it to Lawrence. "I don't need a wingman--I don't need a relationship right now, Adam. I have so much on my plate both with the divorce and in the romance department as it were. I don't need to get drunk or flirty with anyone when the one person I want to get drunk and flirty with is about as attracted to me as a bag of rocks."
"Who's the lucky lady?"
"The lucky lady is a photographer who is pushing thirty and has an affinity for stray cats," Lawrence says. "He's also a guy, but I guess that's just me being pedantic."
"A, twenty seven is not pushing thirty," Adam says. "It puts me on the downhill slope to thirty, which is different. B, of all of the people you could've fallen for, you chose a guy who barely has his life together? I can't judge because I find myself attracted to you, but still. All of the people you could've realized you were attracted to and it had to be the guy who you were in a weird bathroom trap with and are now probably bonded to based on our unified experiences."
Lawrence laughs. He takes a puff of the joint before passing it back to Adam, who grins at him.
"And besides, I really--you can do better than me, Larry," Adam says. "I mean--just go to a bar and look around a bit. You'll find a number of people who can't be compared to sewer rats, and I'm sure they'll be more your speed."
Lawrence is grinning, and all that Adam can think is: oh fuck.
And then Lawrence laughs, and all Adam can think is: we might destroy each other, or we might rebuild each other. I can't wait to find out which.
And then Lawrence is asking Adam if he can kiss him and Adam is laughing.
"If you want to kiss me while my lips and mouth probably taste like weed, go ahead," he says. "Yeah--Lawrence, kiss me."
And then Lawrence is kissing him and it's like Adam is on cloud nine, and Adam never wants to leave. He wants to stay in that moment for as long as he can, kissing Lawrence Gordon on his fire escape, cupping his face with one hand while relishing in the way that Lawrences hands feel when they find his hips.
Lawrence pulls away and Adam has to fight everything within him in order to keep himself from chasing his lips. He presses his forehead against Lawrences, breathy laugh falling from his lips.
"Not bad, Larry," he whispers.
Lawrence laughs, deep and throaty and perfect. "I could definitely wake up to that once in a while."
"Once in a while?" Adam asks, bringing the joint to his lips. "Oh, Larry. How you wound me."
Lawrence leans back, and Adam is looking at him.
Both of them have just realized that everything about their dynamic and their relationship has changed.
However, the kiss was so good that neither of them really give a damn.
-
Adam moves into his new place on the 16th, the gray and white stray cat from his old place under his arm after clearing that it was okay to take her with his previous landlord.
That night, with boxes of his things in their designated rooms, he and Larry decide to name the cat Graycie. Adam is still working out budgeting but Larry offered to foot the vet bills and to get her the beginnings of her necessities--offered meaning that Lawrence simply told him he was doing it and to consider it a late Christmas gift, because he had anticipated Adams resistance and knew that it had a fair shot of shutting him up--so that's not a concern for at least two months with all of the supplies Lawrence brought along.
But there's still the worries of furniture. His couch from the roach-infested place was...well, roach infested. His bed managed to not meet the same fate, though, so Adam is just glad he has a place to sleep.
He has plates, cutlery, cups and mugs so the whole "what will I eat off of?" question has an answer from the get-go, which is a relief, but still. There are questions that have answers and there are questions that don't. It's the questions without answers that have Adams anxiety spiking.
Still, the night that he's moved in and is sitting with Lawrence on his living room floor as Graycie the cat inspects the area by wandering from one room to the next is one of the best nights he's had in weeks.
Maybe, he thinks, it'll get better.
All that he really wants to focus on is the way that it feels to hold Lawrences face as the two of them kiss, Adams back pressed against a wall while bliss takes hold of his every sense, thought, and feeling.
Adam never really thought kissing someone could feel as good as it does to kiss Lawrence. Kissing was always just something he did--kissing a one night stand lead to sex, had the motive of getting to sex, but the way that they're kissing doesn't indicate that in the slightest.
It feels like Adam is kissing Lawrence just to kiss him, like Lawrence is kissing Adam just to kiss him in turn. It's something that Adam and his drunkest nights aren't particularly used to, but something he loves.
When Lawrence pulls away, Adam shamelessly chases his lips and laughs at himself for it, the embarrassment kicking in as Lawrence presses a kiss to the corner of his lips and Adam feels, for a moment, like he's melting.
Everything just feels so...perfect. It's something that Adam loves, something he cherishes.
It is something Adam never would've thought he deserved, but he reconciles he does deserve it. He deserves a happy ending, even if that happy ending is only finding it's beginning in an apartment that is relatively bare of furniture, sitting with his back against the wall and the lips of his fellow Jigsaw trap survivor pressed against his own.
As Graycie the cat approaches, brushing the side of her cheek against Lawrences hand before plopping into Adams lap and purring as loud as a broken car engine, he nods.
"I deserve this," he says. "I deserve to feel as happy as I do right now."
"You do," Lawrence agrees. "Even if you don't have a couch, or a kitchen table, or shelves that can hold the weight of more than two photo frames."
Adam grins, and Lawrences lips are against his again, his hand on Lawrences chest and feeling his heartbeat as it thrums through a high quality dress shirt.
He has a good life, he knows. He deserves it, he knows.
It's Lawrences presence and the sureness of the fact that Graycie the cat relies on him that causes all of his doubt to cease.
Lawrence pulls away, and Adam is grinning.
Lawrence grins, too.
Everything is perfect. It will not always be perfect, but it's perfect in that moment and Adam decides that that's what matters.
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ashes-writing-corner · 7 months
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So...I've been agonizing over whether or not I should post this, since I'm kinda new to this whole thing. I've written fanfiction in the past, but I haven't written a reader insert like ever, and I'm not really big on the whole CoD franchise, though I do find the characters intriguing.
That being said, I'm just gonna put this out here, and hope somebody likes it. I've seen a lot of knight Ghost AUs but I don't think I've seen anyone do this just yet: Dragon Ghost or Dragon-Shifter Ghost.
This was heavily inspired by the movie I am Dragon, which is an amazing film and I highly, HIGHLY recommend it. It's in Russian but the version I had was an English dub but you can also watch it with subtitles too I think. So a little bit of spoilers for the movie here. Sorry...
Warnings: swearing, Ghost drops the f bomb, and brief mentions/hints of burning alive but non-descriptive.
Hope you like. Please be nice, as this is a first for me.
Ghost of the North
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Imagine the tales they would go on to tell. Older, less open minded folks would say it was a shame. A bride choosing to fly away from her wedding in the claws of a monster. But yet, you chose him nonetheless.
Your heart nearly soared as you saw him fly over the gathered crowds of people in your small kingdom. They parted as he approached, running in fear and terror. But not you.
Not you.
You knew better.
You parted your arms to the great black scaled beast as his talons seemed to extend, grabbing your waist to carry you off.
It didn't matter what you yourself wanted now. There wasn't any going back. You had sung the song, summoned him, and now only his ancestry spoke to him. It was time to take a bride, to continue the cycle of his people, the Ash-Born.
He carried you off like a rag doll, the world falling away at your feet as the dragon took you higher. From his talons you couldn't see his face, but you had seen the signature white scales that seemed to form a death's head when he came for you. You knew this was him. Your beloved Simon, the so-called Ghost of the North.
He carried you all the way back to the island you had become so familiar with, you could call it home. Your heart pounded in your chest as your beloved dragon flew into one of the caverns to a chamber with a large circular flat structure. You had done your damndest to avoid this particular chamber when you were here, especially when he had told you what it was. One part a marriage bed, one part a sacrificial altar.
Ghost practically threw you on to it, hardly a care that the landing was rough. Cold hard stone met your back and you landed with a loud "oof".
"Think you could've done that a little better" you wanted to say as you winced from the pain in your back.
But now was definitely not the time for humor. Ghost peered down at you, his eyes glowing in the dark, but they still held something remotely human. His growl was a low rumble, as his chest and neck began to glow with flame. You thought it was beautiful.
You thought he was beautiful.
Ghost leaned his large scaled and horned head down, ready to set you aflame. His muzzle was only inches away. Your sacrifice was necessary to the survival of his kind. From his flame and your ashes, a new life would be formed…
Or so he thought before he felt your hands on either side of his face and your lips touched his mouth.
Ghost went wide eyed, the glow in his neck and chest fading from the shock. What the hells did you just do?! What were you thinking?! Why did it feel so ni-
No! No! No! This was NOT supposed to happen! The dragon moved away, shaking his head from the shock, roaring and growling in discontent. No…no this wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen! You were doing this wrong! He looked away, wide eyed, roaring as he was struggling to process what in the hells just happened.
"Simon, stop! Please!" Your voice sounded with concern, getting his attention.
The name…his name. The name YOU had given him the first night he had brought you here. Ghost, no, Simon stopped his panic only a moment as you stood and slid from the altar. You were coming to him…
"Don't you FUCKING come near me!" He roared, though he doubted you understood him like this.
Your expression was so soft, borderline pity. He looked down and away, unable to bring himself to face you like that. He hated when you did that, even if it couldn't be helped. He growled low, a warning from deep within his throat.
"Simon…my poor, sweet Simon. You've been feared for so long that you really don't know or understand what it's like to be loved" you kept your gaze on the great black beast before you.
A beast you once used to fear. One that, by all rights, you still should have feared. But you knew Simon. Your Simon wouldn't hurt you. From the very beginning he hadn't wanted to. He had told you himself he had fought that instinct, as he could've burned you that first night.
Simon backed away, still growling. It wasn't you he was afraid of. The feelings you inspired within him were too much. Something inside seemed to switch, and he couldn't figure it out. Something was wrong. Something was broken and, for once, he couldn't fix it. Unable to fully comprehend it, the Ghost of the north lashed out again.
"What the hell is wrong with you?! Get back on that altar NOW!" He roared, and you stopped moving.
Good, at least he scared you a little.
However, it didn't stop you. You didn't see some monster when you looked at him, especially not like this. He was struggling, something in him was hurting, and you wanted to help. He needed your help, whether he admitted it or not.
"Human…dragon…Simon or Ghost, I love you no matter who or what you are" you told him, keeping your tone soft and even, a soft smile forming on your face as you finally told him.
The dragon stopped panicking, either from intrigue or fatigue you didn't know. But at least now you knew he was listening. You had his attention. He was still wide eyed and breathing hard, but he was listening, trying so hard to understand. It was like a puzzle with jagged edges.
You kept your breathing calm as you started to kneel on both knees before him. Your arms extended slightly. The soft smile never left your face, and the dragon felt his heart race. There was a longing there. Those feelings you had inspired…they were so nice, although he was hesitant to say so. And you were willing to keep giving them to him? It still didn't make sense in his mind like this, but it was coming to him. He watched you, his gold eyes still shining in the dark.
"We can do anything you want" your eyes were a little wet at that, "I just don't want you to lose yourself or leave me. And you're not alone anymore. Please, Simon…let me help you understand. I want to help you understand. I mean it. I love you".
His expression was unreadable, and intentionally so. He didn't want to hurt you. Deep down, he never truly did. He was simply following the ways of his kind. It was instinct. But maybe, it didn't have to be that way. Maybe he didn't have to hurt you.
Maybe there was something better…
Simon took a hesitant step towards you, and then another. His gold eyes found yours once more, and there was nothing but love in them.
"Simon…I can't live without you. I can't. I tried but even back home, you were all I could think of. My time here was all I could think of" you paused for a moment, a loud thumping in your ears, "you're my home, Simon, and I want to stay home. Please".
His heart was throbbing in his chest, loud and hard. He was certain you could hear it. You had become a central part of his home. For countless years he had lived solely as a dragon, believing that was all he was. But you, this little human, this little temporary thing, had taught him what it meant to be so vulnerable and human. Simon inched closer, his eyes now staying entirely on you. You didn't even flinch as he came closer, didn't move at all. Looking up slightly, you noticed a faint pulsing light in his chest.
His heart. His once untouchable thing. Somehow you had weaseled your little way in and made it your home. The sound it made was a beautiful one to you, a mix of a heartbeat and a warm, crackling fire.
He truly was fire made flesh…
You were surprised as Simon gently put his great head into your lap. He was so careful to not crush you or get you with one of his horns. He took in your scent, resting his head on you. A soft sound like a purr rose from him. Simon blinked slowly, now putting his entire trust in you, in your word.
"Give me more…please. Let me feel that again…" he practically begged in his mind.
That soft feeling you gave him was so intoxicating and Simon wanted to feel it again. You smiled softly, your hands gently running down the sides of his muzzle and head. He was absolutely melting inside, an unfamiliar bliss felt at your every caress filled his being.
"Simon…my Simon" you whispered softly, though it echoed alongside his heartbeat throughout the cavern.
Your Simon. He oddly liked the sound of that.
He purred more, nuzzling your chest and lap softly.
"Let's just stay like this for a little while. I just need a little time to get used to you like this" you said, leaning down and putting your own head on his as your hands softly caressed the striking white scales of his face.
"I'd like that…I'd like that a lot" he replied internally as he closed his eyes.
Peace fell over the cavern, and for the first time in a long time, two souls finally felt like it was home. And home was where you both would stay…
**********
So yeah I hope you guys liked that. As I mentioned I'm seriously nervous about this, as it's my first ever reader insert. I tried to make it as neutral and non descriptive as possible so that anyone can hopefully enjoy it. Thank you for reading. Likes and reblogs are highly appreciated.
I will be going back to In the Heart of Winter very soon. I've just very much needed a break cause life has been super busy lately. Thank you again!
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