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goodfish-bowl · 3 years

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Ectober Day 17: Found Footage

AO3 link

Summary: Maddie finds a camera with some interesting videos recorded onto it.

Words: 1845

Content Warning: just typical Fenton anti-ghost bias

Maddie clicked play on the first file up on the screen, this one labeled ‘Test 8’. The video on the screen was slightly grainy, but the quality was amazing for something recorded on a handheld device. The video was clear enough that the background was identifiable, an area of the park that was well-wooded and generally very private. Maddie recognized it personally as an area where small ghosts liked to lurk, but often seemed like a massive fight had gone down there without there ever having been a ghost fight recorded in the location.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” A voice off screen asked, the audio staticky and distant, barely understandable.

“If this didn’t work, that just means I haven’t figured it out yet. Come on! Get in the camera frame!” The person recording asked. Their audio was clear and crisp, whether it was due to distance or the person speaking was unclear. Both voices were vaguely recognizable, the second more so than the first.

“This is the seventh attempt. I’m not sure if it’s even possible,” the first voice complained.

“Just do it!”

The first voice groaned and then a figure stepped into the camera frame, extremely out of focus. Even so out of focus, the figure was recognizable. No one else wore that outfit or had hair that white. Phantom came into frame, and the camera struggled to focus on him. Maddie realized what the unknown person was attempting to do.

Ghosts were notoriously hard to film, often appearing extremely blurred or translucent in photos, and appearing as a blur of pixels and static on video. Audio recordings were easier, especially with something like the ghost gabber, but were still often difficult to make out. Already, the camera frame of Phantom was much better than anything she herself had recorded, probably also due to the fact that Phantom was standing relatively still in the frame.

The other voice, muttered incoherently, clicking several things that popped up on the camera screen, systems added to the camera, and a small bedsheet ghost icon appeared in the corner. The camera snapped into focus. Phantom’s eerie-bright eyes appeared in full detail on the screen. The unknown person let a whoop of joy.

“I’ve got it!” They exclaimed.

“Seriously?” Phantom asked, now equally excited.

Maddie wondered how he was capable of emoting so well, or if he was just emulating the person recording. Phantom’s audio was still poor however, but the feat itself was incredible.

“You’re crystal clear! I just need to do audio next,” the voice proclaimed.

“Dude, show me!” Phantom exclaimed, and the video cut off.

Maddie hummed, and clicked the next video, this one labeled with a date and a time that matched the time stamp. Phantom appeared immediately on the screen this time, quickly coming into focus automatically. He seemed to be holding the camera himself, though the background was indistinguishable. Maddie vaguely wondered how that worked, since ghosts also had a tendency to cause electronics to bug out, especially in close proximity, though she had seen Phantom equipped with tech before, and the technology ghosts, Technus, was a notable outlier.

“Well… uh… hi?” Phantom began, his audio much clearer this time, but still having the echoing quality all ghosts did, “TF said I should try to start a video diary… and Spaz did too. So, uh… I’m Phantom and I hope no one ever watches these. I’m a ghost… and uh… I’m just trying to do what I think is right, despite how cheesy that sounds,” he said with a wavering tone.

Maddie noted how he emphasized what she assumed were code names. Phantom had quite the amount of foresight to hide their names, for a ghost at least. She wondered why he was continuing his front of being a “hero” if he never intended for this to go public. Obviously, she didn’t believe that for a second.

“So, today Skulker decided it would be a good idea to try to catch me using some Nasty Burger as bait. No idea he thought that would work. Honestly, it was kind of insulting. Sure, I like bacon-ranch milkshakes, but he left it inside of a crate, I’m obviously not going to fall for that,” Phantom huffed.

“Says the one who fell for it!” A feminine voice shouted off screen, somewhere in the distance, this one also familiar to Maddie, but not one she could identify off the top of her head.

Phantom turned to the apparent direction of the voice and stuck out his blue-green tongue at them. The video ended with that as the final frame.

Maddie looked down to her notes and added a few more. Phantom’s tongue color, his ability to eat human food, and his juvenile attitude, and his insistence on the pretense of helping people despite the (relative) privacy of his “video journal”, the first two and last points interesting her the most.

Maddie cross referenced the time stamp with ghost activity and sightings for that day, and confirmed the presence of the ghost named “Skulker” on that day. She played the next video. It played out a lot like the first, with Phantom talking about his daily ghost fights, encounters with the infamous Red Huntress, and even her and her husband. For some reason, if she was to read his facial expressions as genuine and not a facade, he always looked solem and guilty when he mentioned the young ghost huntress. Maddie was curious about their relationship, since she had caught a few of the tail ends of their fights, which seemed much more personal than they ought to be.

Phantom’s expressions towards Maddie and Jack confused her much more. He seemed to be in pain whenever he mentioned “Drs. Fenton”, but also fond. His knowledge about their technology and personal lives was frightening. The sheer depth of his knowledge on their personal lives unnerved her. Maddie wondered if she should up the security again since it clearly wasn’t functioning like it should if Phantom knew so much about the weapons they designed to hunt him. But that might backfire and hurt her own son, Danny, who had an odd tendency to set off the systems since his accident with the portal.

Maddie’s notes kept growing, logging Phantom’s odd reactions, interesting phrases, and the code names of each of his allies, the names or code names he used for his enemies (Maddie seriously doubted “Fruitloop” was the ghosts actual name, sometimes she doubted he was talking about a ghost at all, it was hard to tell. But with ghosts like the “Box Ghost” she could never be quite sure). The videos were pretty standard, and upon occasion one of the ghost boy’s many enemies would attack while the camera was rolling. One time, it was snatched by the pair of biker ghosts, another it was hyjacked by the technology ghost, Technus, and was nabbed by the box ghost a small handful of times. Sometimes the camera would remain rolling for the entire duration, with a poor view of the ghost fight or the ghost that had captured the camera going on their own brief rant before Phantom managed to retrieve his device and turn the video off. She got to witness an entire spiel from the box ghost about how cardboard was the best and how the other ghosts refused to acknowledge it. (Phantom had saved it as its own video, surprisingly enough).

However, every single time Phantom would slip up on names, she jotted it down. Usually she got no more than the first syllable before he quickly corrected himself. She even had notes on how often he mentioned hanging around with them, expressing his opinions on his friends and enemies alike, or even doing something she’d expect of Danny, not a post-mortem abomination, like watching movies, hanging out with friends, and going to the park or arcade. But she had to be careful with herself. The more of them she watched, the more impossibly human the ghost boy seemed to be.

Perhaps that was the true purpose of the videos. A logical ruse, depicting something manufactured to be conceived as private in order to turn public opinion in his favor as depicting him as more human. It didn’t work as well as Maddie thought Phantom might believe. She could still see how inhuman he was, now in the clearest recording of a ghost she had even gotten her hands on. His pupil-less, acid eyes, the strange glow he emitted, lack of breath, the glowing green freckles on his face, pearl fangs he hid away, the way his hair wisped like dry ice at the ends, and the blue-green color where red-pink would be on a human.

Maddie must’ve been sitting there for hours on end when she reached the last video. It started like most of the others, some time late at night, the dim night sky visible in the background. Phantom was complaining about being nagged by “Spaz” to spill a secret to someone before it came and “snapped at his spectral tail”. What his secret could possibly be, Maddie had no clue.

The end was sudden, ending with a bright blast of energy connecting directly with Phantom resulting in a pained yelp before he was blasted out of range. The camera free fell to the ground from however high Phantom had been floating. The lens cracked, and video cut out for a second before it continued with it’s recording, now lacking audio. Maddie set her pencil down, giving it her full, undivided attention.

In the distance, Maddie saw Phantom crash into the concrete, leaving one of his trademark craters. She could almost hear the screech of tires in the silence of the lab as a white van slammed to a stop, figures dressed in the same near-fluorescent color poured from the vans and restrained Phantom, trapping him in an electrified net which caused what appeared to be a shriek of agony from the ghost. He was picked up like trash, injected with something that made him limp and crumple in on himself. Some form of ecto-tranquilizer. Maddie had developed and patented a few of those herself.

Just as the van doors were getting closed, there was a bright flash of white inside, causing his captures to jump back. They talked amongst themselves for a second, before climbing into the van themselves. Something fell out of the van as if flung. The van drove off, and the camera continued to run until it ran out of battery. It had remained until she had picked it up from the street on an patrol earlier that morning.

Maddie knew without a doubt what that object was, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around it, or how it had ended up there of all places. She looked down to the ground at the object that had drawn her to the screen in the first place. A single red sneaker that looked like it had been through the Zone and back. A shoe that definitely belonged to her Danny. The same Danny who hadn’t been seen since the day prior, wasn’t answering his phone, and hadn’t been in bed this morning.

Maddie started the videos from the beginning again, dots that never should’ve even been on the same spectrum slowly coming together far too neatly.

#danny phantom #goodfish writes #ectoberhaunt 2021 #ectober 2021 #found footage #Maddie Fenton #danny fenton #other characters mentioned #accidental reveal #or at least its implied #dp fanfic #video journal #no tucker it isn’t a diary

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littlejeanniebean · 4 years

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A to Z, please! 😂

lmao i’m gonna be a tease and interpret this as dealer’s pick, so:

J for Jeannie! Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].

So *rubs hands together eagerly* at the end of Up to No Good / Mischief Managed, Ginny is a morning show host and Harry is a teen idol actor, right? Everyone else pretty much has the same jobs they’ve always had in the main fic. But consider:

Harry Potter Band AU Headcanons

The Weasley Family Band and they’re so freaking popular, they have their own TV show à la The Patridge Family, and every single episode is just like:

Bill (plays the banjo and harmonica, big country music guy) and his super hot gf Fleur try to get some alone time but Mama Bear Molly aka their band’s videographer is just not having it

“And what do we have... here?” Molly pulls the bunk’s curtain aside, handheld camera in hand.

“Mum! Jesus H. Christ!”

“Language, William!” Molly and Fleur say at the same time. (It was the start of a beautiful friendship.)

Charlie (plays all the weird instruments - theramin, bongos, kazoo) tries to adopt a new pet and take it on the road with everyone

“Oh my god, there’s a mouse in the tour bus!” Ron gets up on the table.

“It’s only Scabbers!” Charlie holds up a fat brown rat.

“We’re not bringing a rat to France!” Molly snaps. “Ron, get off the table, for goodness sakes!”

“But he could be the next Ratatouille!” Charlie argues.

Molly looks into the camera like she’s on The Office.

Percy (classically trained pianist and flutist) doesn’t want to go on stage

“It’s embarrassing!” he whines.

“You’re embarrassing,” says Ron.

“Boys,” warns Arthur.

“And do I really have to wear this?” Percy doesn’t like their costumes for the Christmas special, thinks they’re too matchy-matchy.

“Yes,” hisses Ginny, “Mum knitted them herself!”

Percy scoffs, “That explains the lopsided —”

“How does everyone like their costumes?” Molly comes in, a beaming smile on her face.

“Love them, Mum!” Percy kisses her cheek and throws on his Weasley family sweater.

Ron rolls his eyes, “Kiss-up.”

Fred and George (guitar and bass, respectively) + sound system engineering intern Lee Jordan = PRANKS

Fred is stuffing Arthur’s filing cabinets with rubber ducks.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” asks Lee.

“So that he’ll finally start digital record-keeping,” says George.

“Save the trees!” adds Fred.

“Yeah, but why rubber ducks?” Lee checks the finder app he put on Arthur’s phone to track him (he was still in a meeting down the hall).

“He thought they were bath scrubbers until he was like, eleven,” says Fred.

“It’s Aunt Muriel’s favorite childhood story to tell,” adds George.

Lee nods, barely containing a loud, barking laugh, and goes back to checking the app. “Shit! Shit! Shit! He’s coming!”

Ron (plays the keyboard and the drums and the guitar, just really good at everything, but he thinks that means he doesn’t have this own thing™️) and his bff, Harry, have a bucket list for every city they visit, but the showrunner tells them this isn’t enough for their story arc

“Is that just a fancy way of telling us, we’re lame?” Ron narrows his eyes at them.

“We’re getting you a love interest,” says the showrunner.

“No, you’re bloody hell not!” Ron gets up to leave. “Come on, Harry!”

But Harry is enjoying this. “I happen to have a friend from my last acting job —”

“Harry!” Ron feels betrayed.

“— Hermoine Granger,” Harry continues, a shit-eating grin on his face, “always knows her lines, very professional —”

“She’s a nightmare, honestly!” Ron tries to tell the showrunner, but they’re not listening. “She’s mad!”

“Okay, fine, you can go ahead and think she’s weird,” says the showrunner. “It’ll be like Cory and Topanga in Boy Meets World.”

“Great — Wait, no! They end up together!” Ron’s face is almost as red as his hair and Harry is falling off his seat in a fit of cackles.

“Oh, and Harry, if you could spend the next episode just hanging around in Ginny’s general vicinity, that would be perf,” the showrunner adds, almost as an afterthought.

“What? Why? Ron and I were going skiing!” says Harry.

“Well, bring her with you, then. The director thinks she’s hiding behind her drum kit too much. You’re good with people. Just help her come out of her shell a bit?”

Harry, honestly thinking he’s being helpful, agrees.

Ginny spends the next episode in a perpetual state of despair because her actual celebrity crush from her favorite TV show is RIGHT THERE TALKING TO HER OH GOD SHE’S GONNA DIE

and now I really wanna write this, damn 😂

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fayewonglibrary · 4 years

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A Cantopop Dream Girl’s First Film Reverie (2019)

By Oliver Wang

If you weren’t a devotee of the Cantopop world in the early 1990s, the casting of Faye Wong in Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994) may not have caught your attention. Starring in her first major role, the singer looked much the fresh ingenue, cropped coif, tinted sunglasses, and all. Her character—also named Faye—was played with such a frenetic, awkward energy that she may well have been the blueprint for the “manic pixie dream girl” trope.

In Asia, though, Wong had already become one of the region’s biggest pop stars by 1994, and the movie premiered a month after Wong had released Random Thoughts, her eighth album in six years. To put her casting in contemporary terms: imagine a promising but still unproven art-house filmmaker convincing Ariana Grande to star in a low-budget indie film that happened to come out weeks after the release of her chart-topping Thank U, Next. For Wong Kar-wai (WKW), Chungking Express was a breakout international hit, but for Faye Wong, it was one highlight in an already meteoric career.

Landing a genuine pop star was a kind of capstone for a director whose previous films had already shown a deep love for the power of pop songs. A key scene in WKW’s debut film, As Tears Go By (1988), is built around a jukebox playing Sandy Lam’s Cantonese cover of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.” The mysterious, mesmerizing title scene in Days of Being Wild (1990), set amid jungle foliage, makes use of the minor 1964 instrumental hit “Always in My Heart,” by the Brazilian guitar duo Los Indios Tabajaras. One wonders if, in an alternate timeline, WKW would have made a great, taste-making DJ.

Chungking Express is WKW’s greatest “jukebox” film for many reasons, including its casting of Faye Wong and its prominent placement of pop tracks, plus the fact that the director uses not one but two different jukeboxes in pivotal scenes. The actual number of songs isn’t as extensive as in Scorsese or Tarantino films of the same era, but the four tunes used most strategically in Chungking Express are each repeated at least twice. In the film’s first half (which features a young Takeshi Kaneshiro alongside the legendary Brigitte Lin in her final film role), Dennis Brown’s somber 1973 reggae single “Things in Life” plays four times. In the second half, which focuses on the unconventional relationship between Faye Wong’s Faye and Tony Leung’s Cop 663, we hear Dinah Washington’s 1959 version of “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” twice and the Mamas and the Papas’ iconic 1966 single “California Dreamin’” a staggering nine times.

Most of these uses are diegetic, played on jukeboxes, CD players, or stereos. As we, the audience, listen to the music, we’re also watching people on-screen listening to music. Because of this, the songs in Chungking Express don’t just enhance ambiance, they also craft character, and these two streams flow together sublimely with “Dream Lover,” the Cantopop cover of an alternative rock hit by the Cranberries from 1992, performed by none other than Faye Wong.

Born Wang Fei in mainland China, Wong moved with her family from Beijing to Hong Kong in the eighties to pursue a performing career. Her first record label, trying to avoid associations with the mainland, gave her the generic, Anglicized stage name “Shirley Wong.” Her early albums sold, but after a few years, frustrated with her lack of creative control, she took a hiatus and relocated to New York City in 1991 as a gesture of escape and self-discovery. We can only assume she was also immersing herself in the trans-Atlantic pop scene of that time.

We don’t know if Wong heard the original “Dreams” in New York, but by the time she covered the song on Random Thoughts, the Cranberries’ song had become a signature hit twice over. It was the Irish band’s debut single from the fall of 1992, but they also rereleased it in the spring of 1994, after the massive success of their follow-up single, “Linger.” My friend, music writer Ned Raggett, described it as “a brisk, charging number combining low-key tension and full-on rock,” which is to say it’s a song filled with a sense of taut control but also giddy release. It’s easy to imagine how Wong, seeking to reclaim her artistic autonomy, might have been drawn to it.

Upon returning to Hong Kong in 1992, Wong reclaimed her birth name by changing her stage name to Faye Wong, and she immediately began to score a string of best-selling albums, many featuring covers of alternative rock hits. “Dream Lover” isn’t the only example to appear on Random Thoughts; the album also includes a pair of Cocteau Twins’ covers.

Showcasing “Dream Lover” in Chungking Express so close to Random Thoughts’ release was surely a savvy marketing move, common in the Hong Kong entertainment industry. However, the use of the song—alongside Wong’s real-life stardom—also works beautifully with the narrative and logic of the movie. From the moment Faye is introduced at the start of the second half, she’s already living in a dream of sorts. When we first meet both her and Cop 663 (Tony Leung), she’s working at her cousin’s food stand and blasting “California Dreamin’” out of a kitchen stereo. It’s so loud that 663 has to awkwardly shout at Faye just to put in his order, but Faye seems unfazed by the volume. With each repeated playing of the song, we’re meant to hear it as a commentary on Faye’s dissatisfaction with the drudgery of work and her weariness of Hong Kong’s gloomy, wet climate. California—“safe and warm”—represents a fantasy to escape to, first in her imagination, later in reality.

“Dream Lover” obviously extends the same “dream” theme, but as it’s also performed by Wong the singer, in scenes featuring Faye the character, there’s a rich meta-text at play. In “Dreams,” the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan sings of trying to grapple with her sense of fantasy and reality in the context of an existing relationship. Wong’s “Dream Lover” has different lyrics that seem to recast the song as one about a lover who may be real or may be imagined. That ambiguity echoes Faye’s infatuation with 663, which she goes out of her way to avoid making explicit. 663 may be the lover in her dreams but not one she is keen to pursue in reality. As if to stress this point, we first hear “Dream Lover” after Faye has stolen his apartment keys in order to sneak in to dust his shelves, swap labels on his pantry cans, even drug his water bottle so she can continue her clandestine cleaning while he’s passed out. (This probably seemed more quirky and charming in 1994. Today, it’d likely be cause for a restraining order and psych eval.) Faye wants to be in 663’s presence, but only indirectly. She has more of a relationship with his domicile than with him.

That first use of “Dream Lover” is played under a montage of an extended cleaning session, and cinematographer Christopher Doyle shoots Wong with a handheld camera, adding to the already off-balance feeling of the scene. My colleague Brian Hu has astutely noted in a video essay that this shooting style seems to deliberately mirror the aesthetics of Wong’s music videos of the time. Hu’s analysis posits both the movie and music videos were shot in such a way to present Wong/Faye as a “whimsical dreamer,” “a free spirit,” “inquisitive and mysterious.” Moreover, in real life, Wong left Hong Kong to “find herself” in the U.S., and that story would have been well-known to any Cantopop fan watching Chungking Express. Film Faye is so tightly interwoven with Faye Wong that one wonders, if Wong had been unavailable or uninterested in the role, would WKW have abandoned the character or storyline completely?

When I first sat in a Bay Area theater to watch Chungking Express in the mid-nineties, I knew absolutely none of Wong’s backstory, and yet I still found the song immensely affecting, especially when it returns a second time, forming a coup de grace moment during the film’s final scene.

To recap: the last chapter in Chungking Express occurs a year after Faye has decided that, rather than meet with 663 at the California Bar, she’s going to travel to the actual California instead to see if it lives up to her dream. Now a stewardess, Faye drops by her cousin’s food stand only to find 663 there, no longer a police officer but now the stand’s owner. Before, Faye was the one infatuated with “California Dreamin’,” but now it’s 663 playing the song, also loudly, on the kitchen stereo. He is surprised but clearly pleased to see her. She, however, is nervous about having her “dream lover” in front of her and begins to make excuses to leave. At this point, the will-they/won’t-they tension from earlier in the film returns, and as viewers invested in their potential pairing, we’re left anxious that this moment too will end without resolution.

But 663 then retrieves the letter Faye had left him the night she departed. It’s a hand-drawn boarding pass but rainwater has blurred out the destination, and Faye offers to write him a new one. When asked where he wants to go, 663 replies, “Wherever you want to take me,” and the last we see of the pair is Faye inking a new pass on a napkin while 663 stares with affectionate intensity. One final moment flashes back to the stereo, where “California Dreamin’” had been playing just before. This time, it’s “Dream Lover” that swells up and kicks in before the end credits flash on.

Ending with a song as robust as “Dream Lover” doesn’t just reinforce the movie’s unique, unpredictable energy, it also captures something of how we often experience dreams themselves: as intense but disjointed bursts of images and emotion that we wake from, momentarily disoriented yet filled with feeling. The exuberance of the song offers a form of musical catharsis for all the deliciously confusing tension that’s built up over the past hour. We don’t know for certain what will happen to Faye and 663 after this scene, but what the sound of “Dream Lover” offers in the moment is a rousing sense of possibility. The song’s sonic verve—with its “low-key tension” and energetic release—fuels hope that our lovers may not be so star-crossed after all, as they pursue their romantic dreams, wherever those may take them.

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SOURCE: THE CRITERION COLLECTION

#2019

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enkisstories · 4 years

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Just like them

- Short Detroit Become Human fanfic starring Daniel - - Close enough to canon, not my Sims!AU - November 15, 2038 Park Avenue

Daniel placed his hand on the door lock. However, the device rejected his request almost instantly.

ACCESS DENIED

It wasn’t just a string of bright letters, the message additionally burned itself into the android brain. And although the narrative went that androids didn’t feel pain, the sharp sting of the “Nope” signal along with all the emotions it triggered in Daniel’s deviant mind were unpleasant to say the least.

“Shit!”

Daniel raised his hand – or rather, he moved his shoulder to lift the replacement arm and hand up, spare parts salvaged from other unfortunates that had found themselves in the DPD’s evidence archive. Just when the new limbs had started to feel less like prostheses and more like parts of himself, the android had to receive a reminder to the fact that this wasn’t the case. His real hand was lost and with it the RFID tag that would have opened the door to the Phillips apartment.

Daniel wondered briefly the key to which door he was carrying now, because some signal had gotten exchanged between the hand and the door lock. If there had been no key present at all, the door would just have stayed silent instead of bellowing its “Access denied” at the intruder.

A shutdown police auxiliary beyond repair had “donated” Daniel’s new legs, but also the hand? Daniel didn’t remember. It hadn’t mattered earlier that day when they had set him more or less free.

And now the android he was standing here, with an electronic cuff somewhere in his system, a novel worth of parole terms in his head, but fresh out of an emergency override keycard for his own home.

I should have went with that guy from Jericho when he offered it. But, noooooo, I HAD to do this alone, because I don’t NEED help at all. And I shouted at him, so there’s no turning back now. It’s getting dark anyway. And ‘sides, I have a right to this flat! It’s my inheritance, the pay for four years of service, no way I’m going to live in, what was it, a wrecked cruise ship or something? No way!

Tap,tap,tap… jingle,jingle,jingle… swoosh

Daniel exited the elevator and only when the doors closed behind him did he realize that he had just traveled downwards by one floor without actually having decided to do so.

Check. Deviant brain doing deviant stuff. They warned me about this.

Daniel’s subconsciousness had taken over, now the question was where had it taken him?

Looking around Daniel discovered that he was standing right in front of an apartment door, one hand raised slightly, obviously in an attempt to ring the doorbell. The nameplate that went with the bell read “Rasoya”.

Ah, right, that was familiar territory. The Rasoyas were the Phillips’ direct downstairs neighbors. They had helped them out by taking Emma when her parents were out and with sugar, flour and eggs that Caroline tended to forget to stock up in sufficient quantity. That had been before Daniel had joined the household, of course, but even with the Phillips owning a state of the art household assistant made by CyberLife now the families had remained… close?

I have always assumed we were close, but looking back I feel “habitually on speaking terms” is more precise.

Someone was stirring now inside the apartment and a female voice rose up:

“I think I heard someone at the door! Will you take a look?”

“Yes, it’s me!” Daniel shouted back, then rang the bell.

Someone was looking through a spyhole, not trusting the electronic security camera, then opened the door. Before it was fully open, Daniel already gasped at the person behind it: “Can I borrow a crowbar, please, Mrs. Rasoya? I need to break into the Phillips apartment!”

Mrs. Rasoya laughed so hard at this that the toddler boy she was holding was shaking violently. Reflexively Daniel grabbed him while Mrs. Rasoya was still trying to get a grip on herself. Eventually the woman said:

“Daniel Phillips – the most polite android revolutionary ever.”

“Calm down, calm down!” Daniel shushed the human. “I’m not with Markus or whoever, I don’t even have a clear idea what exactly’s going on!”

I mean, when have I ever? I lived in an illusion all my existence, believing myself appreciated… sheltered… Going by my experience Markus could just be another Connor: playing nice, but harboring ulterior motives.

“They just…”

Looking for a familiar term in all the madness that was the present, the android continued:

“…let me out of prison and here I am, but I can’t enter my own damn apartment!”

“Own dan apartment!” little Caden Rasoya repeated cheerfully, at which his grandmother demanded the kid to get returned to her.

“Raj, dear?” she called into the apartment and a few heartbeats later her adult son, Caden’s father, appeared. Raj was a gourmet chef and his body was certainly looking the part, although he tended to dress extremely casually at home.

“Would you accompany Danny here upstairs to break down the Phillips’s door, Raj?”

“You know what, mom?” Raj laughed out loud. “This is by far the most normal request I’ve heard those last few days.”

Daniel watched Mrs. Rasoya retreat into her home where she picked up an old handheld gaming device that she had been playing on. He heard Caden giggle. The TV was running, Caden giggled some more, but then listened intently to his mother, who was explaining something connected to the evening children’s show they were watching. Everything was so normal!

Why were the Rasoyas still here, Daniel wondered? Were the feeling that the worst was behind them and deeming it save to stay in Detroit, even though the president had arranged an evacuation of a scope that put to shame even the annual floods? Were these humans maybe just as attached to their territory as Daniel himself was? Regardless of the possible consequences? In retrospect, what if Caroline had still been here tonight? Or – was she, maybe?!

“Uh… Is Caroline…?” Daniel started asking Raj.

“Left Detroit. In fact, she didn’t even wait for the presidential nudge to do so.”

“Ah.”

Raj grabbed the doorknob and with his head motioned the android to join him.

“Come in!”

“But I need to…”

“No way I’m trying to kick in a sturdy apartment door, least of all with security still intact”, Raj explained. “And neither should you do that, with a criminal record on your head. You have one…?”

“Yes, yes, it’s all legit. The DPD knows I’m here, but, fuck, I should have asked for an escort to actually get into my home.”

“You certainly picked up some language there that you didn’t know before”, Raj commented, still more amused than wary. Definitely wary, too, but not to an extent that prevented the man from acting civilly.

“But what am I to do now?”

“You’ll want to take the balcony route, Daniel. Climb up from our balcony and find your door. It was never properly repaired after… the incident, you should be able to push it open easily.”

“That’s that Connor’s fault!” Daniel spat. “It doesn’t respect anything!”

And that were the last words he exchanged with the Rasoyas. Without even a “thanks” the deviant made haste towards the balcony, jumped onto the railing and started scaling the apartment building like an ape. A PL600 wasn’t particularly strong, but their dexterity and eye-hand-coordination had to be rated outstanding even compared to other androids. Daniel was also rather agile, although he suspected that was a personal feat, nothing hard-coded in his system specs. And of course his new PC200 legs were also contributing to his athletic ability.

Inside the Phillips home Daniel didn’t linger much in the apartment proper, but instead went straight to the fish tank in the floor.

“Huey, Dewey, Louie… everyone still there!” he noticed with relief. “It’s feeding time, gentlemen! – Hehe, yes, go for it! No need to fight, there’s more where this is coming from!”

Smiling the android watched the fish gorge themselves. When had been the last time they had been fed, he wondered? So typical of Caroline! Flaunting the family fortune, but possessed of a total disregard of actual living beings. Like those of the ornamental fish she had left behind to their fate. Or her android’s…

Daniel had never given his artificial lung much thought. They were just there, moving his chest to make him appear more lifelike. Now the deviant realized how this particular biocomponent came in handy: he sighed deeply.

Moving back into the apartment Daniel almost expected to find John’s tablet. Of course after all this time it wouldn’t be there anymore. Or at least it would no longer display the order confirmation for the AP700, where John had ticked the “Disposal of old device at no extra cost” option. There had been another option, also at no extra cost: to donate the old android to charity. It would have taken the man no longer than two minutes to choose an organization from a dropdown list, but John Phillips hadn’t wanted anybody to mooch from something he had payed good money for. He had said so aloud and that comment had alerted Daniel to what was going on in the first place.

John’s greed and antisocial tendencies might very well have saved my life!

Daniel shooed this thought and looked around some more.

Pictures of Emma, John and Caroline, sometimes alone, then again as a family or with various friends, were everywhere. Of their android there was no sign and hadn’t been before the incident. Daniel felt a little like visiting the Dursleys with all the pictures of Dudders and no hint whatsoever that another boy was living at Privet Drive…

He picked up one of the framed pictures. It showed the family gathered under a Christmas Tree. The spheres, bells, stars and pine cones were all made from real glass and in between hang handmade charms fashioned by Emma. The Phillips didn’t believe in anything transcendental, neither god, nor magic. But even so they had followed the traditions and actually gained something from them. There had been an unusual warmth around that time of year each year.

Daniel put back the photograph. Suddenly the glass ornaments were too bright, the fishtank next door too loud and even the carpet his feet were touching was too rough. The deviant hunkered down and buried his head in his arms. Thirium tried to get up and out through his nose. Daniel didn’t understand what was happening to him. His system status hadn’t been that bad this morning!

Stay in… stay in… I don’t want to die! Only, I feel like dying… But I don’t want to! It’s not fair!

Daniel had sat there hunched over and crying for a while, when suddenly the door rang. A jolt went through the android’s body. Daniel jumped up and the weak, but steady stream of skin fluid mixed with blue blood came to a halt. The android wiped it away and licked the thirium from his new fingers before opening the door.

“Hey, Geeta”, Daniel greeted the visitor. “Afraid I might shut down from sorrow all alone up here?”

The words sounded like an accusation…

“Nah.” Mrs. Rasoya shook her head. “Not you. In fact, I reckon you are unable to suicide.”

“Huh? How would you know?”

Geeta walked past Daniel. She grabbed one of the family photographs at random and turned it for Daniel to get a good look at it.

“Dogs take after their owners, children after their parents and androids… androids take after their masters.”

“That’s utter bullshit!” the deviant flared up. “And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t apply to me! I’m a de…”

“Deviant, Daniel? For deviants what I said goes even more so, because of your emotions.”

“I may have acquired some of those, so what?!”

“The Phillips couple, too, was never one for thinking before acting… for taking a step back from their desires… or for putting themselves into others’ shoes.”

Daniel started to yell again, but was cut short:

“What kindness they had, manifested indirectly only - in their little girl and in their household assistant.”

“Huh.”

“Not what you wanted to hear, I know.”

Daniel took the picture.

“Me? Being like them?”

“It’s true.”

The deviant smiled warmly, not unlike when he had watched his fishes. For several moments he stood there, content with the world and himself. But then he jerked around his arm and smashed the frame against the nearest wall.

“They never were my family!!!”

Geeta shrugged and said her goodbyes.

“You know where to find us if you want to borrow gelignite or whatever a modern deviant might need”, she said. The woman had meant it as a joke, but as she gently closed the door behind herself, she wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

#dbh daniel #dbh #detroit become human #dbhtextpost #dbh textpost #non sims #danielgavinnewstory

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starswornoaths · 5 years

Text

Months and Malms Ago

Serella had thought herself the only one who had used her tomestone. Upon a chance review of what data it had collected, however, she found a recording addressed to her. A recording she had not been expecting.

Or:

Hi I didn’t need to make this depressing but I’m on my bullshit and I needed this out of my drafts it’s been here for a year h e l p.

The Steppe was beautiful in the twilight hours in its own melancholy way, Serella observed from her perch on one of the higher cliffs overlooking the vast expanse of the lush landscape. The night sky was chasing after the falling sun— N’haama ever reaching out to touch her beloved Azim, ever stopped by the horizon, according to local beliefs. A belief that felt closer to home than she had felt for months now, so far away from all she knew.

She watched the mundane nothing and everything that happened around her. With her knees curled to her chest she watched the deep blue of unimpeded night fall upon the land. Watched the way the world around her hushed itself in preparation for bed. She watched until the stars began to twinkle amidst the blue of the night sky and sighed deeply. This was both her most loved and loathed time of day, where the world was quiet enough that she could gather her thoughts— but also silent enough that she was left to them.

Still, she found solace and much needed distraction in the handheld tablet that she now pulled out of her pocket. A tomestone used to store and gather data any way it could. Truly, for how remarkable the technology was, it offered little to most; a small storage device, able to record audio, pictures, and motion but useful for little else.

For Serella, it was something to cling to.

It had been a parting gift from Cid and the Ironworks crew before she had gone to Carteneau to activate Omega. Nero had been outright aghast at Cid’s declaration that it was the bleeding edge of what Garlond Ironworks had developed in handheld technology, because, “Garlond! Do you not realize that in Garlemald there are such devices that can transmit data without connecting to another device how are you the pride of our nation?!”

Serella got the feeling that he was largely blustering at the whole ordeal for blustering’s sake.

Though at first she had no idea what she was meant to do with it, upon her entering Ala Mhigo for the first time and drinking in the sights of the land of Uthengentle’s birth, she found its purpose. With a camera lense and ample storage, she had quickly taken to using it for taking pictures of places she had been, things that she discovered, all in anticipation of showing them to her loved ones upon her return.

Whenever that was to be, she thought bitterly.

The device itself— and every photo she took on it— quickly moved from a curiosity into a tangible piece of what will be for her— proof that this will be over, that there will be people waiting for her back home, that she will be home at all. Each photo she took was a promise to herself: I am taking this home with me.

Turning her photos into such lofty promises of will be, however, turned into her scrutinizing every photo she had taken, scouring over them to see if there were pictures that needed deleting because she really needed to remember to move her thrice damned finger or looking for which photos she liked the most. It had become part of her ‘winding down’ ritual for the night, ever since they had landed in what felt like a whole world from home: before bedding down, she would scroll through her pictures, reminding her of how far things had already come even while she knew there was still so much more yet to go.

Still, Serella often opted to do so in solitude, whenever she could; even if the only solitude to be found was burying herself fully beneath her blankets, she took it. With the group sleeping safely within the Mol tribe’s boundaries, however, she had the liberty to scurry off to find her own solace; better no one see her and worry over her petty homesickness, she thought. Twelve knew they had all been fretting over her enough since her loss against Zenos as it was, the last thing she wanted was to add to that concern.

Nearing the end of the new photos she had taken, she raised a brow when she began to see photos she could not recall taking. She scrolled through curiously.

Photos of her— taken by Uthen, judging from the height difference between herself and the camera...and photos Uthen took of himself and his surroundings, too. Innocuous photos, all told; a shot of her stumbling through sign language with a member of the Qestir tribe back at Reunion, a shot Uthengentle took of himself with a friendly arm slung around Lyse, who in turn had an arm around Arenvald back in Rhalgr’s Reach before everything went up in flames, a shot of her enjoying a bowl of udon with Yugiri in Kugane— with his own grinning face peeking from the corner of the shot, and a slightly tilted, off center shot of a baby chocobo. She recalled that day— and that bird— because Uthengentle had slapped at her arm while tearfully insisting that she had to look at him, he’s so small but he’s doing his best Ellie look at him, as he had put it.

She particularly liked that one— he had been an adorable little chick.

Pleasantly surprised by his additions to her collection, she closed out of her photo gallery— and after a few moments of consideration, opted to look through the rest of her tablet to see what else Uthengentle had decided to put on there without her knowledge. Sneaky shite, she thought fondly.

Scrolling through the other files and folders that she had, she had begun to think that there was nothing else when a file caught her attention— she had never bothered to check her audio folder, knowing she had recorded nothing of the sort, but upon inspection, she found there was precisely one file to be found within.

Curious, Serella mused, tapping on the icon to bring the file up. She had half expected it to be only a few seconds long, perhaps long enough for Uthen to say something silly, when she was surprised to see that it was a few minutes long— and had been sitting on her tablet for some time, if the date on it was anything to go by. Comparing the timestamp to what the current date was put it at just under a year ago.

Her frown deepened as she tried to think of why that date was significant, though quickly gave up on the attempt; even with a calendar function on the tablet, she had not paid much mind to the precise when of her leaving Eorzea, and by the time she had thought to, it was a lifetime too late, and she was left adrift. She had decided that it was better that way.

Still, she pressed play and held the speaker end up to her ear, fully expecting to hear Uthen ramble about something that he was crafting or trying to craft. Perhaps he had inspiration for a new weapon augmentation — or it might have been Cid using it to test its functionality—

“Ella,” a voice from what felt another lifetime said softly in her ear.

It was a moment before she realized who she was hearing, though when she did, her breathing stopped. His voice continued but she had to fumble desperately to pause the recording, unable to hear his words for how her heart pounded in her chest.

Aymeric, she thought with aching, bittersweet warmth.

It hurt more than she was prepared for, not having immediately recognized his voice— how long had she gone without hearing it? How long had she been away from home? She had dreams of him— and the rest of her family scattered throughout Eorzea— but with absence, their details had grown hazy in her mind. Their voices were distant echoes, their touch a forgotten memory. Hearing him again brought clarity to it all— and to how much her mind had blurred to numb her to the distance. To help her cope.

The date’s significance slammed into her mind with all the force of Titan’s fist: it was the night of the Alliance’s decision to liberate Ala Mhigo, to go to war in earnest against the Empire. The last night she had seen Aymeric, tucked away in their room in the Carline Canopy before he had to journey back to Ishgard, and she to Gyr Abania. He had known of the device— she had showed the Alliance Council the data on Omega that she had collected from Carteneau on this very same screen— and must have fumbled through figuring it out to record her a message.

A message she found a year too late.

Still, she restarted the recording and held the tablet up to her ear with a trembling hand, her throat already closing around the lump that had formed within it.

“Ella,” the recording repeated. “I know not when you will find this. It is my intent for you to find this later, after you have left— or rather, that is my hope, presuming I have this figured out.” There was a breath’s length of a pause. “Before I say aught else, I should start with an apology. For everything that you are about to go through.

“For you are leaving on the morrow— somewhere that I cannot follow you. For the Alliance has asked it of you. For I have asked it of you.” She heard him take in a soft breath, and she forced down the lump in her throat. “I know you will contest me on that point, so I will say only that I am sorry that you have to leave at all. I am sorry that you must risk yourself in ways that few others are forced to.

“Though even as I am sorry… I cannot stress how proud I am of you. How proud I have always been of you. But know that I am not only proud of you in victory— pray know that I am proud of you for trying most of all, dearest. Even should the worst come to pass, that will never change.”

“Stop,” she wheezed despite knowing he could no longer hear her, despite never wanting to stop hearing his voice again.

Her eyes stung. Breathing became difficult— it was as if, months before she would lie broken in the blood soaked sands of another nation he whispered a reassurance he would somehow know she needed. Perhaps she had always needed it regardless. Unaware of her anguish grounded in the past as he was, Aymeric’s recording continued on, and she continued to focus her entire being on it.

“Though while I am apologizing, I would beg forgiveness for my...reservation. Earlier. Though we have only just...come to know one another, I know not why I had ever feared your touch for how I yearned to feel it. I feared that in seeing...me, you would be reminded of all that had transpired in the Vault..and the price of my folly. That it would hurt you to even look at me.” After a pause, he added in a whisper, “Never have I been happier to be wrong.”

Now that he murmured into her ear from that night so long ago she recalled it with aching clarity, and made a mental note to chastise him for apologizing. She knew what he was referring to— he had been reluctant to take his shirt off before they made love for the first time. She’d told him he could leave it on if he so chose— she had no preference— though he insisted that he would not want to hide aught from her. As it turned out, what he feared her seeing were his scars from his time in captivity.

Understandable, but silly. She’d told him as much between kissing every single one of them. She would tell him again in her next letter, whenever she would have the next opportunity to do so.

“I,” he breathed a laugh into the microphone, soft and disbelieving. “I find it strange, speaking to you like this. Knowing you are mere fulms away from me, this seems the coward's way of expression. You deserve to hear this in person, even if I did not know you will only hear this after we have parted— and for how long will we be apart, I wonder.”

She let out a sob and instantly clapped her free hand over her mouth— she would not dilute the sound of his voice with her blubbering, of all things. The blue of the night sky blurred— and almost looked like a familiar but half remembered coat she had not seen in over a year. Or rather...how she remembered it looking.

“You have said before that there have been lovers that have left,” he said in that slow, careful tone he had when he knew he was traversing a verbal minefield. Though he had rarely used it in speaking with her, she could hardly fault him for using it now. “That there have been those who have courted you falsely, and demanded you stay when the realm would yet need you— and when you would yet need the realm. I fear this might be in the back of your mind as you march on our command, that months and malms will sever our ties.”

Her throat closed, and she nearly choked on another sob. While it had been a scarred wound, she had shown it to him, much in the same way she had shown him every scar that marred her body that night in the Canopy. He would know that this would only needle at her nerves, her fear that her obligations would burn this bridge, too.

“Pray never fear that my heart will change— Ishgardians are not bred of fairweather stock. We endure the storm for the encroaching sun, come what may.”

When he paused again, she wept in earnest— how did he managed to always find the words that she so desperately needed to hear? Even when he was no longer beside her?

She heard a shuffling sound— she could almost picture him shifting his weight from one foot to the other in that way he did when he wanted to say more.

“And...my heart already decided some time ago, Ella. I have been careful not to say overly much; I would not burden you with myself more than I already have.” She added chastising him for thinking himself a burden to the rapidly growing list of things her next letter would contain. “All the same, it felt...important that you know, given the circumstances. I love you.”

Her heart almost stopped beating.

“Please know, above all else, that I love you, Serella. With all that I am.” His voice cracked, and she curled tighter into herself, squeezing her eyes shut to better try and conjure a clear image of him in her mind— and cried when she could not.

The way her heart clenched made her wonder if it would burst under the pressure, even as she felt tears trek hotly down her face. She bit her knuckle to keep her sobs quiet and prayed he still had more to say— Gods, but what he had said had already been more than enough, more than she'd ever dared hope to hear him say.

“So rather than plead with you to stay, I would ask of you this: go, Serella.” He said, his voice soft but solid in his conviction. “Go and let your light push back against the dark. I shall be waiting, praying for the Fury to shield you.” He sighed deeply. “Though that is a prayer for the dawn. For tonight...I will simply pray for the strength to say all of this to you before you leave. But if my cowardice does not leave me before we sleep, then...goodnight, Ella. I love you.”

Just like that, the recording stopped.

It was an abrupt goodbye, rather different from the lingering, hesitant farewells they had exchanged in Gridania.

The Fury must not have heeded his prayers for courage that night: he had said none of this to her. They had made love again upon her emergence from the baths— the only time he would have had to record this message— and though they spoke in quiet whispers lying in bed together for much of the night, he had said none of this.

Though he had certainly looked like he had more to say, she had noted at the time.

Even standing at the crossroads, where she and Uthen would continue south and he and Lucia would continue north, they had lingered where their travelling companions had taken their paths a ways to give them privacy. Aymeric had looked as though he had more that weighed on him, even then.

And this had been it. Telling her he loved her.

She had hoped, had wanted to tell him of her heart besides but she had feared pressuring him— doubtless he had been driven to silence for much the same reasons.

Before she had even realized what she was doing, she was scrabbling to her feet, her limbs imbued with frenetic, desperate energy. She felt her own aether near vibrating beneath her skin with the want to go home. Just for an hour. Just for a moment. Just long enough to find him, to be reminded of what shade of blue his eyes were and tell him she loved him, too, the sweet fool, and she could—

But...no. That wouldn’t be wise, she reminded herself, even as her eyes stung all over again. Never mind what time of day it would be in Eorzea— and he would likely just be unavailable besides— she had obligations here. While nothing prevented her from just leaving for a little while, to drain herself so heavily of aether for how vast such travel was when they were on the eve of the Nadaam; in comparison to how important this was— to help the Mol tribe, but also to further aid the liberation of Doma— and later Ala Mhigo— what she felt didn’t matter. What he felt...couldn’t matter. Not yet.

Though...it could matter enough. Enough to make her fight that much harder, push herself that much farther to accomplish her goal that much sooner.

Better he not see her like this, anyroad. With hair haphazardly growing back in all manner of directions it could, with her eyes puffy and red, and trembling like a leaf. Better she meet him on the cusp of victory, on the edge of home— ideally, after she’d been able to get a full night’s sleep in, but that was fantasy.

Obligation fettered her in place— the aether she felt prickling under her skin like a thousand needles softened and dissipated. She could wait. She was fine. Sinking like a dropped anchor she scrubbed at her eyes with one hand. The other hand was already starting the recording over from the beginning, already pressing the device to her ear again that she might memorize the cadence of his voice once more.

“Ella…” said Aymeric, and she was home again, if only for a moment.

#ffxiv #I am as ever your shield #Serella Arcbane #Aymeric de Borel #yeah that tomestone is getting more and more relevant the further into ShB I go...#this is gonna get referenced later #spoilers for stormblood #(mildly but tagging just in case)#featuring: that haircut Serella didn't ask for and that emote I gladly paid money for #I hope you all enjoy!#\o/

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wackapedia · 5 years

Text

Ghost Hunting

Warning: one swear word

"Hey guys! Its me, y/n and today we're doing a ghost hunting episode!"

You were a popular youtuber and an occasional tv show actress. You were currently speaking to a handheld camera, outside a huge victorian-age mansion, at past midnight. You were with your neighbor, Joe Mazzello, who agreed to be in your vlog since you guys have the same agent. You weren't particularly a fan of this guy, but since he's now a big shot actor, it would be great to have him in your vlog.

"Now, I'm with a really special guest tonight, you might know him as John Deacon in the award-winning film Bohemian Rhapsody, its Joe Mazzello!" You panned the camera to the man dressed similarly as you. Black rain jacket, a GoPro strapped on his forehead and chest, and a backpack for his goods. He gave a tight-lipped smile and waved as he said "Ghosts aren't real!" to the camera.

You narrated the history of the place as you walked up the grand entrance of the house. Joe kept his flashlight forward and occasionally drops a witty comment about the facts you've gathered.

"So what do you think, Joe? Are you down to catch some ghosts on film tonight?" You faked your enthusiasm to mask your fear."Fingers crossed! Lets do it!" He was somehow cheerful despite the terrifying nature of the expedition. He was just really excited to be working with you, spending the night together despite being in an allegedly haunted house.You exhaled at the mic attached on you. "Alright lets do it!"

Joe opens the large wooden door creaking all the way through. Your handheld light bursts through the hallway, making the cobwebs, dust, and decades-old furniture visible to both of you.You can feel your heart hammer against your chest as you ventured deeper into the hallway. You were sure Joe was making a funny joke but you were too nervous to even comprehend. He seemed to notice your anxiety as he pulled you behind him. "Why are you doing this anyway?" He asked, chuckling as he wiped his sweat."Its fun. Imagine if we actually catch a ghost on video though" you tried to be nonchalant. Suddenly you hear heavy footfalls from upstairs. Like someone running.

"Oh shhh- shnipes!" Your heart was about to leap out of your mouth as you tried to keep your language PG. Joe remained unfazed as he pointed his flashlight to the direction of the stairway. "Its probably just a cat." He laughed at your reaction. Not cool, Joe.

You kept moving around the ground floor of the house, suddenly feeling colder at some parts of the house, particularly the dining hall. "Is that the music room?" Joe announced as he headed to the last room at the end of the hallway. "Joe, wait!" You chased him, afraid of being left alone. Despite being neighbors, you and Joe weren't really close. He was constantly away and if ever he was home, you had no reason to come over. Your only interaction with him was when you meet at the lobby of your building, or in the basement parking. An occasional smile, good morning, thats it. At some point, you assumed he was somewhat conceited, but so far he's been nice and funny.

The room was empty except for an upright piano fitted against a wall near a french-style window. There were no other pieces of furniture in the room."Okay so this is the room where there were said to be apparitions of the last lady of the house. The reason why there are no other furniture in this room is that the lady would throw objects at whoever dares to intrude." You spoke to the camera."How does that make you feel, Joe?" You panned your handheld camera to him while he was walking up to the piano, touching the dust-covered keys and pressed a chord you recognized as the first key to Bohemian Rhapsody. "I feel that its a shame she doesn't keep a bass guitar here." He chucked. You caught yourself laughing, slowly loosing up the tense situation.

Suddenly you hear a third laughter from within the room. You held your breath and held eye contact with Joe. "Did you hear that?" You whispered. He nodded, slowly backing away from the piano. He pulled you out of the room and into the end of the hallway, near the exit.

"Joe what was that?" Your voice was trembling now.

"I have no idea y/n" he said as he moved toward the main door.

"We cant leave yet! We have to go see upstairs! Management will have my head if we cower and cut the trip short!" You said, slightly annoyed at Joe.

"Are you serious? You look like your gonna pee in your pants a few minutes ago!"

"I'm serious, Joe. Get up here." You said, already climbing up the stairs.

The second floor wasn't much different as from the first. The wallpaper still had the faded sky blue design, the air still felt stuffy, and it still was dusty everywhere. You quickly moved through rooms, narrating about the various deaths that allegedly occurred there. Joe was quiet the whole time.

You reached the master's bedroom. Despite being dusty, the furniture in this room was grand. The bed was a large four-poster bed, still equipped with embroidered cushions and bed sheets. There were several paintings of people on the wall, Joe went over to see them. You, however, opened a plain-looking door adjacent to the bed. As the door creaked open, Joe looked over to you.

"Its a nursery." You said, spotting a crib in the room.

You stepped in the room to find a tall shelf filled with Victorian-age wooden dolls. You moved closer to the shelf in order to get proper footage. Suddenly your eyes caught some movement at the top corner of the shelf. Shining a light, you felt goosebumps rise on your skin as you witnessed a doll blink twice.

"Shit!" You started to bolt toward the door when it slammed shut, almost smacking you in the face.

"Joe!! Open the door!" You screamed, slamming your palm at the door. You felt the room shake and see the dolls fall to the floor. The room is filled with manic laughter coming from the dolls as they seem to move closer to you. You've now sunk to your knees as you continued to scream and cry for help.On the other side of the door, Joe was trying to twist the doorknob but it wouldn't budge. He was also panicking upon hearing your screams. He faced the painting of a woman in black clothes and screamed "what do you want? What do you want from her?!" The face in the painting smiled.

Suddenly everything was quiet. The only sound was your sobbing and the creaking of wood against Joe's shoes as he pulled the door open. He saw you on the floor and didn't hesitate to pick you up and carried you downstairs, through the exit and into the SUV he drove on the way here. Both of you were still catching your breaths as Joe sat you on the passenger seat.

Tears still kept flowing from your eyes, your cameras and microphones still recording, and hands still trembling. You closed your eyes and counted down to one in order to calm yourself.Joe was looking at you, feeling relieved like never before. He was never a believer of the supernatural, but for a moment he had to make a bargain to save you. You.

Joe looked back at the second floor to see the old lady dressed in Period clothes standing by the window, staring down at him. He stared back fiercely as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiped up to the camera app and took a picture of the house, the lady still visible.

"What are you doing?" You asked Joe, finally feeling better.Joe looked to you and smiled. Your eyes were still red and rimmed with tears but he thought you were very beautiful. And brave.

"Nothing. Let's take a selfie!" He said, flipping to the front camera and snapping a picture.

The sun was slowly creeping by the time you pulled out of the mansion's driveway. Warm yellow sunshine taking over the darkness of that horrid night felt like heaven, You smile contentedly as the sunlight hits your face through the windshield. "Mcdonalds?" Joe asked. You nodded enthusiastically.

Three weeks later, Joe was contacted by his agent to come at the office to see the edited video of your vlog before it gets posted on your channel. He was holding a hot cup of coffee as he entered the office, greeted his agent and took a seat. His agent brought out a laptop and faced it to him as the video started playing.

"Who edited this?" He asked, halfway through the video.

"Y/n herself." He was surprised that most of her scaredy-cat moments weren't edited out. He thought y/n was a very brave person for being able to face her fears and not being afraid to show that she does get scared sometimes. He had no qualms about the video so it was bound to be posted within the hour.

Joe took out his phone and opened instagram to post two pictures. One was an enhanced photo he took of the mansion where the victorian lady can be clearly seen through the window, and the second photo was the selfie of him and y/n.

joe_mazzello: spent a crazy weekend at a haunted mansion with @y/ig/n who proved herself to be one of the bravest people I know. INSANE GHOST HUNTING ADVENTURE link in bio!

#after what i did to joe in the last fic #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello imagine #joe mazzello

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shutterjae · 5 years

Text

it was still relatively freezing in korea and thus the windows in jaes car were firmly rolled up, heating on and her stereo blasting as she made her way towards her destination, the abandoned amusement park yongma land. it was a popular tourist spot, and many groups (including her own) had shot pictorials or music videos there in the past. but she was going to be staying there for the next two night and exploring it in depth, for some reason. the dark haired girl wasn’t used to being front and centre in the ghost gang videos, she was more of a behind the scenes kind of gal. but she had experience vlogging from her groups reality show they filmed on and off. still, it was a new experience in this particular setting and the idea of it all set her a little on edge, though she’d never admit it. she caught a glimpse of her destination in the distance and made to take her exit, pursing her lips and humming along to the song playing on the radio.

the first night

making her way up the steps to the amusement park, she smiled and bowed in greeting to the groundskeeper handing over the money for her stay and a little extra so that he would turn on the merry go round lights later that evening. bidding him farewell and late new years greetings, she hitched the heavy bags of equipment on her shoulder and looked around with a sigh. it would soon be dusk, so she should probably set everything up and get ready. she’d been filming little snippets as she’d been going about her day, but nothing of real value, just getting used to having the camera in her hand and documenting the little things. heading over to the staff building that would serve as her bed for the night, she unlocked the door and stepped in to find it relatively welcoming, with a bathroom and a little bed made out of a futon and some cushions in the corner. tossing her sleeping bag on top of it, she let the bag down to the floor and began organising all the equipment she would need. the bright light of the setting sun lit the park up beautifully, and jae wasn’t afraid to admit she was ready to some wonderful photos, both of the landscape and herself, and decided to flip on the handheld vlogging camera to begin the investigation. “annyeonghaseyo yeorobun, ghosteu gang oh jaehwa imnida” she paused,frowning “ah, otteokhae, is this awkward? should i speak in korean? or maybe english? i think the majority of our viewers are english? ah vivi can just sub this later, sorry vivs” she laughed, throwing a wink at the camera “i’m here at the deserted amusement park, yongma land!” she grinned, lifting the camera up out to her full arm span and doing a twirl to show off her surroundings. “i’m not used to vlogging these days guys, so, just be patient, i feel a bit dumb talking to myself” she laughed, making her way into the park and shaking her head “but this place is really creepy, even if the ghost stories have no clout. i’ve got goosebumps just looking at this place up close” she sighed, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. “but anyway, can you see this lighting?” she turned the camera round and gave a view of the soft orange and red hues that were bouncing off every surface before turning the camera back to herself “i’m gonna take this opportunity to take some photo’s on that ride over there so... cue montage” she winked again, biting her lip and setting the camera down on a ledge, making sure it was still recording as it faced the run down viking ship and began the long process of taking both a mixture of selfies and wide shots of the entire park. she’d been investigating and filming for a couple of hours and the sun had fully set, it was about time for the maintenance guy to turn on the merry go round lights for her, she made her way there, chattering aimlessly to the camera as she did so, much more comfortable with talking to herself than she was earlier on. she was mid sentence, talking about the history of the park and the rumours of the ghosts when a sight stopped her in her tracks and she almost dropped the camera. “omo...yeorobun... igeo jinjja yeppeundae” she sighed happily, the merry go round lit up beautifully against the dark inky black of the rest of the park “would you just look at... wow” she hurried over, wanting to take a closer look. climbing onto the ride, she wove in between the different seats and horses, filming as she did so before turning the camera on herself “hm, is the lighting good for me too? nope, too yellow” she pouted, wrinkling her nose before a movement in the corner of her eye caused her to flinch and turn her head sharply. “hello? ajeoshi?” she called, stepping forwards towards the edge of the merry go round and looking around with wide eyes. “huh, must have been my imagination...” she frowned, looking back down at the camera “weird. i could have sworn i saw.. ah it’s nothing.” she laughed a little nervously, brushing it off. “shall we get some pictures of the lights before they turn off?” she resumed brightly, setting the camera down again so she could get to work. after about an hour or so more, jae found herself yawning and felt she’d done enough for that day. heading back to base camp, she unlocked the door and stepped in, making sure to lock it behind her before getting ready for bed, washing up in the small bathroom and getting into her pyjamas before settling into her sleeping bag and switching the camera on again “i’m going to head to sleep as it’s now... almost midnight.” she squinted at her watch in the dark “i’ve got a motion camera set up outside the door and there are microphones that’ll probably only pick up the odd raccoon or whatever. goodnight!”

the second night

to say she slept well would be the overstatement of the century, jae wasn’t used to sleeping on a futon and the temperature plummeted further than she expected, forcing her to put her coat on whilst in her sleeping bag. plus she kept on hearing noises outside, that she could only attricute to local wildlife. waking up at about 6am feeling thoroughly unrefreshed, she went and washed her face again and bruhsing her teeth before applying some light make up and checking all her notifications, making sure to message her group members a selfie ensuring them she was still alive and well. “ugh” she groaned, stretching “i need coffee... and breakfast” she sighed, grabbing the camera and making sure it had fresh batteries and sd card, putting all the old ones in her bag for safe keeping before heading to her car to go and find a cafe. sat in the parking lot of a small shopping district, jae put on some sunglasses and a hat and bundled herself up in her coat, heading inside the quaint cafe to order herself something warm and comforting to start her day. sat at her table waiting, she turned on the camera and spoke quietly into it “guys... i’m in this cute as heck cafe, and i’m pretty sure no one here has recognised me. god bless i can eat my breakfast in peace” she smiled, winking and posing a cute v pose into the lens. she didn’t usually act like this, but she knew how to ham up her persona for the audience and make people believe she was really this bright and cheerful in reality. when her food and drink arrived, she thanked the waitress politely and ate her breakfast in relative peace, if it wasn’t for her phone ringing halfway through, yeonhui. whiling her day away doing some vague shopping and sight seeing in the surrounding areas, jae finally returned to the amusement park tonight, she planned to do more in depth investigating, heading towards the ride where a girl had supposedly died and settling down on the steps to it. grabbing the spirit box, she turned on her camera once more. “it’s nighttime on day 2, everyone” she smiled, showing the camera her surroundings “i’m going to do a spirit box session, even though i hate this thing” she frowned, looking down at the device with distaste “and let’s see if we can’t get a conversation, right?” she turned it on and let it skip for a few seconds before looking around into the night “hello... my name is jae... if there’s anyone here, who wants to say anything... you can use this here to talk to me” she held it up, pursing her lips. she jumped when a fraction of a second of garbled mumbo jumbo came from the box and she almost dropped it, before laughing it herself. “okay, lets start: uh, ireumi mwoyeyo?” she asked tentatively, waiting a few seconds for a reply that never came “um, mwo sal-eyo?” she offered again, her voice lilting at the ends childishly, because let’s be real she was talking to a kid here. another fragmented section of nothing that could possibly be interpreted as ‘ship-i’ to anyone who listened hard enough “oh, apeuni?” she asked a few more odd questions, never getting much from the box before she decided to just turn it off altogether. sighing, she shook her head before she frowned. she could hear a distant rattling,coming from the direction of her temporary living. bolting upright, she squinted in the distance but she couldn’t see anything. she ran towards the small building, slowing her pace to a light jog as she rounded on the door that had been locked when she left it. stepping forwards, jae tentatively pushed the door open, fist balled ready to lash out if she needed to and found the small room pretty much ransacked. her phone started ringing simultaneously as she stepped over the threshold, her horrified face caught in the frame of the camera as it was held by her side. pulling her phone out of her pocket, she noted it was a number she didn’t recognise and she declined the call, only to immediately receive a barrage of messages from numbers she didn’t know. looking around, she could see movement in the shadows by one of the rides and didn’t hesitate to bolt from the room to her car, her high school sprint showing its true colours as she turned her phone off, slipped it into her bag and grabbed her keys all in one swift movement. unlocking the door, she jumped inside and threw her bag onto the passenger seat, slamming the door behind her and locking the doors. putting the keys into the ignition with angry, shaky hands, the lights came on and illuminated a group of about 4 or 5 people, she couldn’t tell if they were men or women but she started the engine quickly, only to look behind her in the mirror and see two of them blocking her exit. revving the engine threateningly, she shouted for them to get out of the way and honked her horn loudly, they didn’t obey so she reversed a foot or so, honking again and they scattered finally. speeding out of the car park, she drove to a hotel she was familiar with about an hour away, not the one she was actually booked in (under an alias, naturally) because clearly the sasaengs had all of her travel information. sat in the luxury suite of the hotel, she sighed and leaned back as she sipped on a glass of wine, her face a portrait of anger. she’d had to leave behind the motion camera, the microphones and her wash bag at the park. all small losses, in the long run. but irritating nonetheless she’d called her manager using the hotels phone to explain what had happened. a knock sounded at her door and she got up, walking over to the peep hole to see one of the hotel staff holding a small box. opening it a crack, she looked through the gap and raised a brow in question. “delivery for miss oh from SHY” she smiled, holding it up. a new phone. “thanks” she sighed, dryly and holding her hand out for the token. “can i get you anything else, miss?” the irl asked eagerly, clearly not used to dealing with celebrities as jae could tell from her glistening eyes and the flush in her cheeks “just another bottle of malbec, please” the dark haired girl responded with a brief smile. nodding a bow in response to the younger girls eager one.

what a dud this had turned out to be.

#ghosthqs:task #jae in yongma land

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hadarlaskey · 4 years

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Shirley

For all her mastery of horror, author Shirley Jackson had a flair for arch humour that bordered on the camp. Her slender 1962 page-turner ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ ends on an exchange between the Blackwood sisters that shows a deep irreverence for the macabre events that came before, and leaves the reader smiling ruefully.

There are similar tonal values to Josephine Decker’s Shirley, an adaptation of Susan Scarf Merrell’s semi-fictional novel of the same name. Elisabeth Moss channels a ghoulish pantomime energy in the title role that, from an actress of her subtlety and breadth, is a deliberate creative choice. Shirley is not so much about the writer Shirley Jackson as it is a concocted psychodrama infused by the qualities of her work, where the real and the imagined co-exist in queasy disharmony, and women escape male dominance through use of an invented secret language.

Shirley Jackson died in her sleep in 1965 at the age of 48, having spent the final 20 years of her life in North Bennington, Vermont, with her disloyal husband Stanley Hyman. A literary critic for The New Yorker, by this point he worked as a lecturer at Bennington College while the increasingly agoraphobic Shirley stayed home wrestling her stories onto the page. Shirley is set during the time that our antiheroine is working on an idea that would become the 1951 novel ‘Hangsaman’, loosely based on the disappearance of college student Paula Jean Welder.

Paula may have been real, but Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred Nemser (Logan Lerman) are fictional entry points to the cloistered domestic world that Shirley and Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg) inhabit. The film opens on the fresh-faced young couple sitting on a train to Bennington. Rose is reading Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ in The New Yorker – a short story that yielded record-breaking amounts of reader feedback, much of it hate mail. Rose, however, is so aroused that she seduces Fred to the bathroom for a quickie. Afterwards she looks at herself in mirrored surfaces. Decker cuts together shots by DoP Sturla Brandth Grøvlen in such a way that reflections and reality blend, setting the tone for what is to come.

Decker’s fourth feature is her first without regular DoP Ashley Connor and her first directing a script written by someone other than herself, in this case Sarah Gubbins (I Love Dick). The result is a fusion of styles that does not always cohere. With previous features Butter on the Latch, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and Madeline’s Madeline, Decker developed a trademark technique of telling female-led stories by plunging into the senses and sidelining narratives by centring the chaotic intensity of feeling alive.

Shirley has a more conventional script, replete with sparkling lines of dialogue, yet Decker’s taste for undoing the seams of characterisation shows up in the film’s visual language, as the frenetic, handheld camera is thrown at the subjects as if trying to get under their skin. This is a film trying to wriggle out of the straitjacket of its own story, the better to reveal the symbiotic passions within its two leading ladies.

When Rose and Fred arrive at the Bennington house, there is a party in full swing. Stanley is out front playing master of ceremonies. Shirley festers in an armchair inside, surrounded by acolytes hanging on her every poisonous word. The Nemsers are supposed to stay for only a short spell, as Fred settles into his new post at the college, but it doesn’t turn out that way. Stanley cajoles Rose into taking on the role of the housekeeper so she spends her days cooped up in the house with Shirley, while the men are on campus all day and sometimes all night.

Shirley cuts through the hero worship coming from her ingenue houseguest with such brutality that Rose tells Fred: “She’s a fucking monster.” Pedestal out of the way, up springs an intimate dynamic. Rose cooks, cleans, assists. She starts as a nanny, evolves into a friend and then it’s a short leap into something more creatively and erotically inspiring. Their conversations become Shirley’s drafts, narrated by Moss, who envisages her newest creation with Rose’s face. Metafictional nods to Jackson’s most famous stories are everywhere, and as her fiction was informed by details of her life, the result is an ever-narrowing spiral of themes: a succession of Russian Dolls full of lost girls, banal oppressors and magical witchcraft.

Moss leans into teeth acting, snarling and smiling with gentle delirium. Her lack of make-up, lank hair and tendency to hide in bed in a white nightdress contrasts with Rose who looks every inch the fragrant faculty wife. Young injects this doll-like avatar with such vulnerability and curiosity that she is the revelation. Her character is a foil, there to bear witness to the force of nature that is Shirley’s domestic life, yet she emerges on her own terms as the lost girl at the centre of it all.

If Rose is Shirley’s protagonist then Stanley is her antagonist. He is abominable one moment, charismatic the next. Michael Stuhlbarg’s performance is ever shifting. He is an energetic, nimble Rumpelstiltskin, waiting for his wife to spin gold, patronising her like a precocious child. She has the talent. He has the social freedom. They have an arrangement whereby he is allowed affairs. Neither is interested in leaving or improving their toxic partnership. It is presented as inevitable. “Let’s pray for a boy,” Shirley whispers to Rose about her unborn child. “The world is too cruel for girls.”

The residual impression is that these women are trapped and there’s nothing in their supernatural understanding that changes this. The chord Decker plucks with Shirley is from the interior world, where women’s wild energies have the room to play out in full. It’s the same place from which fiction flows, and the thwarted can have their day to do with whatever they will. Decker shows us the real cage and she shows us the imaginary freedom – a sanctuary that is weighted with more importance than any real-life devastation. As Shirley Jackson wrote in one of her journals: “Writing is the way out.”

Shirley is released 30 October. Read more in LWLies 86: The Shirley issue.

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ANTICIPATION. Decker x Moss x Shirley Jackson. How much raw female creativity can one film hold? 5

ENJOYMENT. What a pleasure to see trapped women escaping through imagination, sensuality and friendship. 4

IN RETROSPECT. A bewitching – if discordant – attempt to bottle the atmosphere of Jackson’s particular genius. 4

Directed by Josephine Decker

Starring Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young

The post Shirley appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/reviews/shirley/

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khhunniewriting · 7 years

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Rap Daddy (3)

Episode 3: Rap Twins

As the show began immediately there was a noticeable change between the last episode and this one. The two person couch had now been replaced by one that was built for three people.

“Good morning” Yongguk greeted the staff as he sat down in the middle section of the couch.

As he appeared there were bold letters at the bottom of the screen saying ‘Welcome Back Yongguk’.

This time instead of thanking and welcoming Yongguk from behind the camera the PD stood up and shook his hand. “We didn’t think you would accept our invitation. We are glad to have you as Rap Daddy number three, Bang Yongguk.”

Yongguk smiled, “you guys were very persistent” he joked.

“You were the first person we had in mind for this show. You were extremely talented on the stage as the leader of B.A.P.” Many concert posters and clips were shown of B.A.P before showing an article announcing his hiatus due to anxiety disorder. “Your fans were left shocked when they heard about your anxiety disorder. Even after you made a comeback from that you later took yourself off stage and began composing and producing music instead.”

Yongguk’s smile faltered at the mention of his past. “It’s just something I had to do. I truly enjoy music with all my heart but my health came first. Taking myself off stage was a difficult decision but soon I saw it was the correct one. Now I can go up and perform like normal but I can’t do it to the capacity I used to.”

The PD nodded along in understanding. “You mentioned in an interview many years ago that it was because of your family.You made headlines when you suddenly announced you were married.”

Yongguk remembered how hard it was to keep his relationship a secret but it was all worth it to him. “When you get married after only a few months of dating someone many people start speculating that mistakes were made. Keeping my relationship a secret actually added fuel to that fire but in reality, I made no mistakes. I wanted to get married and have children so that’s what I did.”

“Yes, you and your wife were blessed with two very talented and handsome twin boys. Bang Yong-Jin and Bang Yong-Min.” Pictures of the twin boys as newborns were followed by some of them with Yongguk. Then the two boys walked in one behind the other.

“Hello, my name is Bang Yong-Jin” the first boy bowed as he introduced himself followed by the other. “I’m Bang Yong-Min.” They sat, one on each side of Yongguk looking directly at the producer giving her their full attention.

“You two are fraternal twins but you still look very alike. Do you get mixed up by others?”

“Yes,” they answered in unison. “We aren’t identical but at school they say we are and always mix up our names” Yong-Jin explained.

The PD then directed her next question to Yongguk. “Do you ever have trouble identifying them?”

“Never” Yongguk responded. “My wife on the other hand” he shook his head in disdain. “She is very forgetful and always calls out both names just in case.”

The boys nodded knowing it was true.

“Now that they are growing it has become easier for her. Yong-Min is actually taller than Yong-Jin so she uses that as a way to distinguish them.”

“How old are you two? Who is the oldest?” This time the producer asked the twins directly.

“Ten, I’m the oldest” Yong-Jin responded.

“I was born eleven minutes after him” Yong-Min added.

“Do you two know why we asked for you to be on the show?”

The boys nodded, “Outsider Daebu.” (대부 meaning godfather)

The producer nodded. The reason Yongguk’s sons were a top consideration for the show was all because of Outsider. Outsider is the fastest rapper in the world. After a new rapper emerged challenging his speed he was soon named the next Outsider. This caught his attention and refuted the articles. “Your godfather told the magazines that he already knew who would replace him. It wasn’t one person but two.”

“Us” the boys concluded the producer’s statement.

“He said you two were really good at rapping in English as well and would be in the Guinness World Records.”

“He always says that because we do his songs.”

“You do covers?”

The boys nodded.

“They go to a performing arts school and are currently in the music program. They have covered many of Outsider’s songs as well as other rappers.” Yongguk had never said much about his family’s personal life since he didn’t do shows anymore. This was all information that was being known for the first time. “At the school they record this to evaluate the students but they are never released.”

“Do you two rap at the same speed?”

“No, Yong-Min is faster than me.” Yong-Jin looked over at his brother. “He can do fifteen words per second and I can do thirteen.”

The producer gasped hearing their numbers. “That’s very fast. How can you talk so fast without getting tongue-tied?”

“We do make mistakes sometimes so we have to stop and practice repeating the same word over and over again” Yong-Min shared their practice strategy.

“Can you two show us?”

The boys nodded.

“Which song do you want to do?”

They looked at each other before answering in unison “Acquaintance by Outsider.”

They stood up and were given handheld mics to use instead of the small mic that they had on them for the interview.

The producer signaled for the music to be played. Soon the room was filled with the initial soft melody of the song before it’s first verse was started by Yong-Jin.

He didn’t just rap like Outsider, he also mimicked his moves on the stage. Clips of Outsider were being shown beside Yong-Jin to compare the two.

Yongguk watched as his son began to get more and more into the song. He bobbed his head up and down with the beat listening carefully to see if he made any pronunciation mistakes.

After the first chorus was over the song was skipped to the peak verse where outsider’s fastest rhymes were. This was when Yong-Min stepped forward.

The staff gasped in awe as the young boy was able to keep up. The cameraman turned the cameras to them to show their shocked expressions before turning it to the PD herself as the song ended.

The staff clapped and cheered as they got to experience the twins talent. It was clear why Outsider had spoken so highly of his own godsons.

Yongguk gladly wrapped his arms around both of them as they sat back down beside him. Yong-Jin was well composed but Yong-Min was still in the after effect. His lungs were still not developed to the point where he could control his breathing like the professionals but little by little he was getting there.

“I don’t know what to say. It was incredible.”

One of the young interns went to them offering water. The boys took it with thanks.

“As a senior in the business, what is your objective view of their performance?” The PD asked for Yongguk’s input.

“Yong-Jin made some mistakes with pronunciation but he masked them well so unless you are a very good listener you can’t really hear it.”

Yong-Jin nodded with a sly grin. “You heard it?”

Yongguk chuckled, “Of course.”

“What about Yong-Min?”

“He knows this already because he’s had trouble with it until now. The timing of his breathing isn’t good. He takes breathes at the wrong time which causes him to run out of air too soon having to take another breath in between lines.”

Yong-Min simply nodded knowing it was his flaw.

Yongguk then patted both of their shoulders before replacing his serious tone with one full of love. “As a father, I would say they did an excellent job. For their age, to be able to keep up with this speed is dumbfounding.”

At the end of the interview, the twins were asked if they had watched the last two episodes.

Both nodded with a yes.

“Both Song King and Kim Ji-Young have stage names they use when rapping.”

“Mmm” Yong-Min hummed with a nod. “Rap King and Young Boss.”

“Do you two have stage names as well?”

“Yes” they responded. “We actually have our own verse that we use to introduce ourselves.” Yong-Jin looked over at Yong-Min signaling him to go along with him.

NOS1 and NOS2

Who is faster than us two?

Before challenging reasses

It is a fact, our speed’s illegal to possess

Nitrous Oxide; quick, painless anesthetic

But with us it’s hydrokinetic.

They said it so fast that subtitles had to be added. It was the only way people would be able to understand it.

Once again the staff clapped as the boys and Yongguk were thanked for being part of the show’s cast.

“We look forward to seeing how far your talent will take you” were the last words the PD said before the episode ended.

-end-

A/N: The verses might be a bit lame. They are original written by me in the moment verses.

#bap scenarios #bap yongguk #yongguk scenarios #kpop scenarios #fan fiction #bang yongguk #rap daddy #children #variety show scenario #khh scenarios

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