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worldsover · 3 years

Text

Judgement to the Desiccated ft. Karina

length ✦ 5573

genres ✧ sm type future; asphyxiation; blackmail; virtual_servant!Karina;

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Air did a poor job of not being polluted so Lee Soo Man flooded the world instead. The man himself certainly must be long gone and could not have been in charge of that decision but the legacy of his company far exceeds the legacy of any other human collective in history. Once on this planet, gas was the fluid of choice for respiration and breathing was an unconscious reflex. Now there’s Aether by SM. How very on-brand of them to have the liquid air you breathe follow perfume naming conventions.

Open your eyes and exit the sleeping chamber. Aether has you work for each inhalation, it desaturates the color of the bedroom—maybe there’s a subtle but uncomfortable tinge of yellow—and it makes your nose itch. Your muscles wield much less force than they used to because of the lack of resistance the fluid provides. Moreover, it smells like hairspray as though the ozone layer is taking sardonic revenge.

Screens impersonating windows track your eyes to ensure realistic parallax, playing the scene of divine blue heavens that could not exist. An azure sky is a reward for those planets that have an atmosphere and a sun for light to scatter. Your walls are either chrome or drywall white and your whole bedroom is plainly decorated just like the day you moved in.

“Etymology of bedroom,” you think out loud, though it falls on no ears.

“Bedroom is a compound noun consisting of bed and room. Bed goes back to Old English bedd ‘sleeping place, plot of ground prepared for plants,’ which goes back to the Germanic-”

Plants and sleep are both strong words to use nowadays. The former doesn’t exist in nature and it seems you’re the only one who bothers with the latter. Faint buzzing distracts you from the AI’s response and signals you to the nano drones that swim throughout the liquid to process carbon dioxide from your lungs. This whole ordeal could’ve been much worse if you didn’t have brain interfaces doing the hard part of controlling your diaphragm. The most you need is a purposeful thought. Still, it gets tiring having to think the same thought every three seconds. In. Out.

Was the metaphorical Soo Man teaching a lesson in perseverance? You love K-pop and imagine it’s how trainees used to practice dancing, singing, being charismatic. Being an idol had to be as natural as breathing air. Inhale and exhale. Right now with any antiquated programming language you clung on to, you could write a single for loop that did the same job. For every three seconds: breathe in, breathe out.

“What’s for breakfast today?” Not loud enough. “What’s for breakfast?” you think it louder.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready for service.” It’s quite a kindness for SM to blur the bland dystopia you live in by augmenting reality through your neural device. A bosomy woman in a gold-lined but otherwise modest maid outfit appears from the corner of your eye and she bows. Ae-Karina is bewitching and almost becoming of her basis as its graphics have gradually upgraded over the rotations but you wouldn’t misconstrue the avatar as human.

“I said, what’s for breakfast!” It feels impolite to scream in your head, there’s other residents there, but finally the fridge lights up.

“Of course master. May I remind you eating is unnecessary?”

In. Out. Every day, she does remind you, yes. How kind of the company to put all your nutritional requirements in the new air. Aether goes in then Aether goes out. You wish the thoughts of breathing could fade into the background but they’re just like your cravings for food. Always hungry but never starving, whole though not once satisfied. Your eyes pause at her gorgeous face and she tells you there’s bacon. Take it from your fridge. Bacon goes in. Well, the drones take care of the out.

Your assigned living space is the entire 207th floor of a tower. Two hundred and seven floors below the surface. The neighbor a few floors upstairs says that he thinks living deeper is a sign of status. What a luxury. That guy should check the status of his facial muscles, maybe improve his code that lets him tell lies while he’s at it. A couple hundred flights of stairs to swim up is a useless skeuomorphism of skyscrapers in the days of the sun. In fact they were more than useless, you would've preferred a single vertical hallway as it would have let you propel upwards unimpeded. Each floor is the exact same, a glass door that affords no privacy for its residence, a false tree on each side. At the upper levels, malls, convenience stores and other gaudy retail, but it’s the gyms that mock you that you mock in return. They’re always empty.

Finally reaching the top is no true break even if it is a change in scenery. Inhale. Aether tastes a little different up here. Exhale. Can’t say you like it.

Countless satellites form a parody of the star from which the planet flew away, the false image refracted by the upper boundary of Aether. They can’t take away your memories of this star. Looking up at the sky once blinded you with ultraviolet radiation, burning your cornea. It was beautiful. Now everyone’s decided that if they’re playing the part of corporate dystopia, they might as well fit the aesthetic. In a way, it’s self-fulfilling. They wouldn’t have chosen a neon pink sun to compliment the blue and metallic gloom of the cityscape if it weren’t so ingrained in popular media already.

Still, you would’ve expected Google or Walmart to become the megacorp responsible for the state of the world, not a Korean entertainment company. Must’ve been quite the red paperclip scenario. Instead of material design or utilitarian architecture, tacky artistic structures line the streets. The same advertisements for albums that they’ve been selling for the past however long. It's all so obvious, the city could've been designed from scratch to accommodate new forms of travel and goddamn liquid air but instead they went with futuristic Tokyo.

Dubstep permeates your inner ear implants. A notification informs your thoughts that it’s “Hip-hop EDM dance pop with a strong jungle house groove and urban influences.” It’s dubstep. Liquid carries barely any sound so SM affords the option for implants if you're nostalgic for one of the senses. Even though it’s a slower form of communication than direct neural transfer, the noise comforts you. Of course the company would choose dubstep as their background music, but maybe they make money off refunds somehow. It switches to Ice Cream Cake. Much better.

You walk the not so busy roads towards a short brick warehouse in the distance and heavy rain soaks your clothes. No such thing as weather without the sun and water but it’s all simulated anyway.

A warm Seulgi adlib and you know it’s Psycho that starts playing. No, none of your senses are real. The most you could trust is your vision but even that’s being lied to. You could be living in a vat and fed all these thoughts, but then why make it so mediocre? Not paradise, nor torture but a lukewarm in-between. Guess that's what happens when SM Entertainment manages the post-apocalypse. Good on them for trying. The alternative would be a frozen hellscape without solar radiation. Can’t deny their work with geothermal and nuclear energy to keep the Aether warm so that you didn’t have to live underground for the rest of human history. It’s quite great PR to save humanity.

“Hey now, we’ll be okay,” repeats a few more times than you remember.

The Idea Factory Alpha White Delta Green says the neon tubes lighting the front of the brick and mortar building. Your ID card bears a name but it’s not yours, not until they approve your name change. Those usually get processed faster with how often people liked changing their names.

Sit at a desk with a sterile white keyboard and slick new monitor. Type and empty words appear on the screen: “Think for the many, not for the one. We need to think ahead.” A thumbs up. The company appreciates the input. That’s probably enough work for one day. Some SNSD live stages help the time pass, SM certainly appreciated the streaming numbers and it would net you some social points.

It’s hard to say what comes to mind when they ask you to envision a world without the sun and air, especially since it’s what you’ve known for... Two hundred years? There’s no frame of reference, that much you can tell from when you counted seconds to see how often the satellites completed their orbit. SM really took time to have them propel at random speeds, they love withholding sensitive information like that from citizens. To be fair, time is sensitive. Guess the meaning of that phrase changes like all parts of language.

Look around. Dozens of employees at identical workspaces all try to answer the same questions. Naturally, there’s no need for manual labor anymore but there will never be a replacement for human ingenuity. Nice slogan but you know you’re only here for data. Can’t see a need for customer retention though—what’s the alternative, skip Earth? See you on another planet?

“Hey bro, you come up with anything new?” Dave says. Two desks away, you see the enthusiastic, surprisingly spry man play around with a Newton’s cradle. The balls at each end bounce back and forth, not slowing down their rhythm any time soon.

“I think I got something,” you say, “Earth is not the answer. It can’t be, long term.”

“Ooh, I like that. Actually, I really like that.”

“What are you gonna do, copy me?”

“Of course not. You know how much SM hates plagiarism.” Click. Clack.

“Ha. As if there’s a single original thought left in the world.” Click. Clack. The imaginary sounds of metal spheres bouncing play in your mind. They got the volume wrong, no way it’d sound that loud from that distance. “You’d think with all their resources, they’d have figured out space travel by now.”

“I don’t think they want to leave, bro. Wouldn’t be great for profits.”

Your mouth opens to laugh and causes laugh8942.mp3 to play in Dave’s head. “I love it. SM probably hates that sass too,” you say.

“Oh no, they’re gonna arrest me for thoughtcrimes. Nah, they love creativity, just when it suits them. Also, if they actually did bust you for wrongthink like rumors say, I wouldn’t have this on me.” Dave twirls a finger and points at you and you thank his absurd flair for the histrionic that keeps you amused with such drab work.

“NewDrug.mp6. Would you like to play it?” the dry system voice notifies you.

“Woah woah there tiger, hold on.” Dave must’ve noticed your intrigued eyes and holds his hands up. “You might wanna experience that at home. But if you’re interested in more, ask for chicken parm at the vegan place. You know the one.”

Dave leaves his desk. He doesn’t return. You finish your work. Inspire. Expire. You’d rather not.

In contrast to your commute to work, the roads fill with others on your way home. You have to know. Take solace in the comfort of a bench where a huge McDonald’s arch bathes the surroundings and its people with a yellow glow. Really shouldn’t watch it now, especially if Dave says it’s a home type of watch but you have to know. A family of five watches you pass out. They, along with every other passerby, ignore your still body draped over the chrome outdoor seating as you look like yet another junkie. The title is correct after a fashion, the simulation is some sort of new drug. The details of the exploits that happen in the immersive replay wash over you but you don’t need them to know that it’s the sort of lewd that SM would not allow—at least not publicly and not without the right exorbitant payment.

Suit pants and underwear go straight to the laundry. That must’ve been an embarrassing sight but no one bothered to stop you, so it doesn’t matter. Look up where this vegan place was that Dave so presumptuously assumed you knew about and you find that it’s about four Avengers’ stores down from work. He must’ve eaten there before.

“Yo Dave, just wanna make sure, what’s the name of the vegan place called?”

“What are you talking about, man? You telling me there’s some secret underground farms that SM wouldn’t know about?”

You can’t tell when you got to work, a lack of standardized timing would help as well the haze of living in a monotonous dark. “Nah, I mean, for the-”

“I have no idea,” Dave emphasizes each word, “what you’re talking about.”

“I see.”

Work flies by, unusually.

“Hey, can I get a chicken-”

“Uh, this is Maron’s Veggies Only, it clearly says on the sign.”

Clear your throat. “Parm.”

The shifty part-time worker looks around and rubs his fingers gesturing for money. “No digital.”

Over the counter, you pass him a gold coin stamped with a holographic 1 and he hands you a USB stick and a laptop in return. How old-fashioned.

“It’ll sync with whoever you have set as your avatar experience aspect,” the worker says.

“Thanks.”

Ever vigilant as the patrol is, the alleys are the last place you want to go to hide with the obvious criminal element within them all but you head to one anyway. Dump the anachronistic technology in your storage pocket dimensions. Looking at its contents, you’d have to clean that mess up later, but the more you look like an average slob the better. The biggest problem with the inventories is all the people squatting in them. Inspectors wouldn’t care about the archaic ruins you left in yours.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready to service.”

“I’d like to go on a date. A special date.” You highlight the key word special and sit on your living room couch. No one’s going to look in your glass door and regardless, you wouldn’t be the pervert for glimpsing into someone’s home.

“Ah yes, master. Ae-Karina is ready to fully service,” she says with a provocative tint in her tone, her sclera disperses to black to match. A pole drops from the ceiling while parts of her maid outfit dissolve which reveals more of the silky skin of her thighs, her lissom arms and most importantly her overflowing breasts. Ae-Karina wraps her legs around the pole and spins around, teasing fingers trace curves on her body to harden you. Her dance is precise but sultry regardless. She pulls up her short skirt to flaunt more of her ass beneath white panties and then pulls down to flourish her cleavage, not trapped by a bra. “Are you enjoying your maid’s show?”

“Very much so, yes,” you say.

Half of a smile forms before a glitch occurs and she teleports next to you, fully nude. It doesn’t pull you out of the illusion however. You just stare and drink in the splendor of her created body.

“You’re not going to touch?” Ae-Karina says.

A feel of her tits and you find it softer than pillows you used to rest on. Soft isn’t much of a character that exists anymore when the whole world is engulfed in liquid. No one has beds, especially with the rarity of sleep. Therefore, her mounds are a consummate dedication to the texture as you squeeze and pinch at her cute nipples.

Her maid outfit rematerializes as she straddles you. It provides more friction to your pants as she begins her lap dance. The weight of her body dragging across your legs and clothed erection induces your carnal impulses further. If only you could fuck the virtual idol. You have to make do with the imprint of her pussy lips on your bulge sliding up and down. Breath in. Breath out.

Ae-Karina pulls down your boxers and spits on your erection. It's not real but her hands so slick on your cock and you let reality slip. Real is for the past, you have desires gratified in the present. There is no real person nibbling at your neck but your nerves activate in sexual desire without discernment for truth. No, she doesn't love you, but when the voracious mass of ones and zeroes says it loves its master, you say it back.

"I love you."

ILOVEYOU infected ten million computers in 2000. An explosion. Calibration engaging. It’s 1:21 PM, Sunday, July 18, 2286 and hypothetically the sun would be out in its full rage. At this latitude and longitude, you’re at what was once the epicenter of all—Seoul, where a fountain caused a chain reaction allowing the hopeful remnant of a world to exist. It lasted a surprisingly long time without the sun and without Aether but the dying planet would succumb inevitably to the ever-increasing contamination so SM of all corporations took charge. A different kind of chain reaction occurred when they acquired a restaurant chain that discovered the recipe for liquid air. The law is on its way and prepared to punish you to its full extent.

You reel while your ears ring. An even sexier version of the woman you already fantasized about appears from your peripheral vision in the crater of your floor. A skimpy cop outfit, striated with reflective material that seems to wane black at different angles, outlines Karina’s curves. She has a tool belt with absurd gadgets, such as a knife baton hybrid, a taser combined with a spray bottle and a Tamagotchi. None of this is necessary. They could just immediately arrest you, impose limitations on your devices. Sure, SM cloned people to deal with underpopulation, but why Karina would be the enforcer is a whole nother issue. Maybe the entertainment company loves their irony?

“Halt. You’re under arrest. Any resistance will be penalized according to the combined Terms of Service of all SM and SM associated products.”

Fucked anyway, you figure you might as well go for it. Escape into your inventory and only seconds later you’re forced out. You manage to get what you need regardless.

“Violation of access rights will be charged to your account.”

It’s so obvious but there’s a reason you kept so much gold in physical storage. As you swim away, the sides of your apartment start to bubble. Bubbles? Already, your limbs feel unsteady. Something’s wrong in the Aether.

“This is standard procedure for escaping suspects that are indoors. Again, this is all agreed to under the Terms of Service.”

“When the fuck did I ever click accept to that shit?”

“When you were born in this world and decided you want to stay in it,” Karina says out loud. You hear her say it. Your physical ears process the vibrations in the air that come from her mouth. Gravity thwarts your desperate escape as your limp body floats on the limit between liquid and air. The atrophy of your muscles becomes apparent within the gaseous atmosphere. She watches you sink down as the room drains of all the false air though her eyebrows crease when she inspects you closer. Your breaths are involuntary. Despite your muscles shorting out, the force of gravity and the pressure of the gas bearing down on you, you’re breathing and you don’t mean to. Her eyes wander farther down. On your pants, a concrete rod stamps the fabric.

“Oh, you like what you see?”

“Shut up, criminal. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Your pussy,” you say and she scoffs.

“Original.” Karina bites her lip as your erection continues to grow behind its prison. You use all effort to put your hands up.

“Please, miss Karina. I’ve been bad.”

“I could punish you even more for sexual assault.”

“Then do it.”

Heat radiates the room in a way you haven’t felt in a while and droplets of sweat form on each of your bodies, especially on the thighs that her revealing outfit parades. Her facial features contort in deliberation and the wait kills you. You bat your eyes at her before Karina takes off her tight shorts and drops herself into your anticipatory face. This makes no sense but none of this life made any sense so you decide to go with the tides.

Centuries of training your respiration has led to this moment, but when you finally have real air to breathe, you spit at the opportunity and choose to suffocate. Then you spit at her pussy and lap it up. Karina’s nectar transfixes your olfactory glands, for once a smell that isn’t the sterile Aether. Your eyes are mesmerized in parallel because of the perfect design of her pussy, a single crease that leads into her hole that your tongue emphatically explores. Karina spreads her thighs wide to reveal a small nub that craves attention. So give it. Suck and swirl and flick your tongue, and the woman provides you the tight clench of her legs as a gift. And the sounds, rediscovered glorious noise. Loud, almost too loud, and clear is how they assault your ears, even surrounded by the flesh of her thighs. Muffled by the weight of her legs, you hear Karina moan in approval but she’s still clearly in charge with how she chokes you with her legs. This is not about your pleasure but hers, and any satisfaction that you derive is not only incidental but probably punishable by SM copyright law.

Karina squirms her hips subtly on your mouth. Her eyes are sharp and she’s just about to stop your hands from moving but she notices them clasp together.

“I’ll do anything to make you cum, please.” you say sloppily as her pussy juices fill your cheeks and drip down your chin.

“God. I can’t.” She takes deep, contemplative breaths. ”That’s more time added on for inappropriate behavior.” Her groaning and brief squeals make her words sound incogent.

You give her a concluding lick and a kiss on her slit. “So what have you been doing right now then?”

Point to a corner of the room and a subtle red light indicates a recording camera. At once, she pulls out a hose from a pocket that could not fit it and the vacuum submerges the room with noise. Her expression shifts quickly to serious.

“We don’t play games here in SMTOWN unless it’s SuperStar so don’t fuck with me.”

“Look who's trying to be a comedian. How about you fuck with me any further and the video gets released.”

“That’s funny, you think you have any sort of power-”

“Yoo Jimin, I suggest you don’t push me more.”

“Where do you know that name from? Right now.” She weighs herself down on your neck.

“You think I don’t have contingencies for if I die too? Karina, we can make this a win-win scenario. We both get to cum, we both get to walk away unscathed.”

“Fuck you.”

Your weak arms wander between her thighs. At any moment, a feeble punch towards your face or another ten seconds of asphyxiation and she could call your bluff. Even if you did have the ability to expose her perversions in any way, there would be no permanent recourse, not as long SM was in charge. So it surprises you when Karina takes off her shorts.

“Goddammit. Your cock just looks too good. And your mouth, how are you so good with it?” Put up five fingers when she motions to remove her top as well, and instead she opts to take off your clothes, seizing your pants and throwing them to join the rubble in the room.

A finger slips in, then two and a third dares. Her flawlessly architected pussy lips clings to your digits and Karina shudders in reply. You explore her wetness and find it’s smooth to the point of having no faults, but her juice inside is gloppy and causes your fingers to stick more than the liquids she spills from her slit.

“Who said you’re allowed to have more?”

You lap up the nectar on your fingers. “Then why’d they make you taste so good?”

Your thumb teases her sweet tight asshole and puts just the slightest amount of pressure on it while you finger her with more intensity. The mass of her butt burdens your torso the closer she gets to orgasm. Her eyelids squeeze close and you see her body ripple in anxious pleasure. Karina shows off her pearly whites, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.

“Yes, yes! I’m so close,” she screams.

"Not yet."

“Fuck." Karina sobs, "God. Damn, fuck I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just fuck me.”

“My pleasure,” you say. There’s no need for you to grab her since she brings herself down to your groin, which you’re thankful for as your arms are as good as jelly now. Fortunately, your cock throbs as hard as ever while Karina’s slit rests on it.

“Say you’ll delete it all, all the evidence, promise me.”

“You’re gonna fuck me first or what?” Your breath hitches while she makes a strangled noise as her velvety walls swallow your cock whole to leave no room for comfort. Her tightness is stifling and you have to start counting just to breathe again.

“One two-”

“Be quiet.”

But there is no quiet when pleas for your cooperation intersperse her excessive profanities when she seats herself into your cock and ricochets up and down. Sweat emanates from her creamy skin while her legs widen to find a better angle for her supporting knees in her cowgirl position. Grapefruit and other citrus mingle with the scent of the sweat, fruits you haven’t seen except on billboards in music videos. As much as your mind crackles and your blood roars for every atmosphere of pressure Karina’s walls provide on each thrust in and out, you can’t help but reminisce on sweeter, more innocent times.

The white fluorescent lights in your apartment sputter. For all the advancements in technology, some among many things never change. Light refracts differently in air, less bright, but you can see the pure enjoyment on Karina’s face no matter the luminescence. Karina slows her ride to pull her hips down harder instead and she jolts when your cock finds the most tender spots inside her pussy and it interrupts her babbling.

Karina almost hyperventilates when she gets up to spit on your cock. She pulls out some kind of meter from her tool belt and sighs when there’s no beeping and you recognize it having to do with carbon dioxide. She gets back to dribbling saliva and the filament trailing down to your shaft mesmerizes you. This spit is real, not simulated, and it wettens your erection in a mix with her pussy juices to paralyze you further in your already listless state. Her bare thighs jiggle and you can’t exert much force with your hands but her buttcheeks are firm with just a bit of give.

“Thank you for this cock, thank you for being bad,” Karina says as you watch her ass sink deeper while her pussy holds your dick taut. She’s frenetic when bounces up and down to play an unadulterated orchestra of slick noises between your groins.

“You’re welcome,” you accomplish getting out the words between planned breaths. Your hands cup her buttcheeks but you fear they may break with how she strikes her ass into you.

Karina turns around once more to give you the spectacle of her facial expressions as she fucks herself into you. Knead her calves laying on your torso and they take no energy to spread them though she brings them back together, compressing your hard shaft within her pussy. A new game you play with her, a separate rhythm of loosening and tightening. Her feet press on your chest to help her bounce, but the way they bear down on your lungs against the timing of your breathing causes you to fumble. Your cock bends straight forward as she plunges herself into you and it sends prickles to your entire skin, making the new angle difficult but worth it. Karina takes your hand and starts sucking on your fingers.

“You want my promise that bad?” you say.

“Yes, as bad as I want your cum. I swear, I need it.”

She draws her knees up to her torso and hugs her legs to keep thighs as tight together as possible. Karina couldn’t keep her word, she was trying to kill your cock with constriction.

“Fuck, your pussy is so fucking tight. God, Karina, fuck. You’re so good.” Even if good isn’t the word you want to use to describe her.

“Do it, please, please. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. Karina can be a good girl, a good maid, a good cop, whatever you want. Just don’t get me in trouble, please.”

Karina’s mouth stops saying words though her lips writhe, drunk in increasing lust. Her cheeks flush, before the rest of her skin joins in redness while she grapples your chest and whatever spare limb she can find. You still struggle wresting control of your body but nature seems to take over when you drive yourself into her and match her needy cadence. The air in the room is replaced by a new air but it isn’t Aether. Passion, sweat, heat and all fluids that you both exude join squelching sounds, slaps and moans in harmonic bliss when her body tenses and she screams. As her body tightens, her pussy especially holds your cock for dear life and endeavours to wring out all your semen as her wetness throbs and spills. Karina starts counting to three repeatedly and you laugh though your amusement quickly subsides when you feel her juices become more viscous and she continues her ride, even in the dying pulses of her climax.

“Was I good?” Karina asks.

Just a moment goes by before you mentally send her a screenshot of all the recordings being deleted. Karina hasn’t stopped fucking you yet so at least it wasn’t a ploy.

“Thank you, thank you, I love you.” The flexion of her pliant legs brings them all the way back to rest on top of your legs. Karina lays prone above you and finally give you a kiss. The citrusy flavor may be closer to lime than grapefruit but it’s been so long that you can’t remember which scent is which. Lips crash and her tongue lashes out at yours trying to establish dominance. Keep still to let her investigate your mouth while her pussy does the same to your shaft.

You savor the way Karina’s top emphasizes the bouncing of her tits synchronous with the rebounding of her waist on your cock, but your mouth waters when she frees them. Take the shortest moment to relish in the sight before Karina smothers you with her plump globes. You wriggle your face to try to breathe. Inhale, up and exhale, down, but all you inhale is the scent of her orbs’ sweat. Her hips undulate with a pace at least double yours breathing and the echoes of slapping flesh resonate throughout the air-filled chamber. The loudness is unlike any you’ve experienced in a long time. It’s almost a flashbang every time her ass slams into your lap, especially as you start to see white when orgasm threatens to overload you with preludial pulses.

The last words you hear infected ten million computers in 2000. Fade to black. Cut. You’re slammed out of existence back into existence as a sun rebirths both within you, heating your core to a dangerous high, and from your eyes, dazzling you in an unforgiving white light. In the throes of unconsciousness relapsing to consciousness back to tenebrosity, your streaks of semen suspend in the Aether like a dead tree resting from the wind. What flashes your mind in its orgasmic state are two things only you would remember, plants and weather. Your hyperventilation is unconscious but not unwelcome, as it’s the first time in a while your breaths were reflexive even in the liquid air. However, basking in your newfound power, you start to choke. Right. You breathe in and out again. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. Back in.

“Replaying KarinaArrestsYou.mp6.” A hint of vexatious glee in the system’s otherwise dry voice. You don’t stop for it.

✦✧✦✧✦✧

AFF, AO3

It’s pretty silly but the idea danced around in my head ever since I saw the absolute Black Mirror concept that SM had for aespa and I concur that Karina is insanely hot.

As I’m writing this, this Kurzgesagt video on the idea of a rogue Earth comes out and now I have to rewrite stuff to make it at least a little consistent. I’m obviously already going nuts with all these ridiculous sci-fi concepts but this video almost feels too targeted to me writing this for me to ignore it.

#kpop smut #aespa smut #male reader #reader insert #title tracks

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dreamer213 · 3 years

Text

Broken Machines: Lights The Dark

Chapter 8: The Charming Things You Say

Penny was feeling uneasy as she finished up her patrol and began her walk to the station. She had brought up what had happened at the end of her lesson to her dad during dinner that night and expressed her confusion with Whitley’s shift in tone. Once she repeated what she’d said about Weiss and Winter her dad told her that she may have unknowingly brought up some bad feelings for him. When Penny questioned how she had done so Pietro just said “ Well how would you feel if you spoke to one of my colleagues and they only know you were my child but because they found out on their own and not because I told them?”. She thought about it a moment and the idea that her own dad, her only family, would not speak about her to his colleagues made her feel so sad and unloved. He then asked her how she thinks Whitley must have felt actually hearing that and she’s felt absolutely horrible ever since. How could she not have notice how cruel her statements had been. Before she had just thought it was odd that she had never heard about him but after seeing his reaction and her dad’s explanation the truth of the situation was all too obvious.

She was still thinking about during the train ride and in the car on her way to the manor. By the time she was at the main entrance and being lead to a lounge room by a maid, Yuko, she gone over dozens of possible apologizes in her head, trying to come up with something to convey how sorry she was about her callous words. She was determined to make things right but she just couldn’t find the right words to say for something like this. She’s still contemplating when she enters the lounge room where Whitley was sitting on the sofa, waiting for her.

Whitley: Good afternoon Ms. Polendina.

Penny: Good afternoon.

There tense in the air as Penny takes a seat at the other end of the sofa, placing her belongings down by her feet, and pulling out the notepad and pen.

Whitley: Ready to continue from yesterday’s session?

Penny: Yes.

Whitley: Alright then, Rule Number 6, when confronted with someone who’s been continuously rude towards you walk away towards the nearest group of people socializing. If the person persist when they get close question them on why they’re following you and polity ask them to stop. Do this loudly enough that people around you hear. Don’t shout, speak clearly, keep your pitch at a normal range but increase your volume. The negative attention the statement will draw towards them should be enough to get them to walk away. Rule Number 7, never interrupt someone, especially when in a group conversation, wait until they’ve completely finished their story or statement then chime in at the first opportunity. Rule Number 8, take a few breaks during longer events like galas or evening parties. If you chat for too long you’ll seem like a gossiper or just plain nosey. Granted there are people known for that sort of behavior in high society but they’re usually more infamous then famous for it. Now this last rule is of a topic of its own all will most likely take up the rest of-

Suddenly Whitley’s scroll rings. He pulls it out and looks at caller id, it’s Octavia.

Whitley: Excuse me for a moment, I have to take this.

He gets and walk out of the room leaving Penny and Yuko alone. Penny looks around and tweedles her fingers still thinking about how to go about apologizing as Yuko watches over her.

Yuko: Would you like to watch some television while you wait for The Young Master to return?

Penny: Hmm, oh no thank you I’m fine.

Yuko: Then would you like some refreshments? Perhaps some tea and cookies?

Penny: No I don’t need anything but thank you for offering Yuko.

Yuko: Of course Ms. Polendina, please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.

Penny thinks for a moment, Yuko was one of the manor maids and had probably work at the manor for some time if she was assigned to watch over a session. So maybe she knew more about the situation with the siblings and could help her try and fix her mistake.

Penny: Actually, there is something I’d like to ask you.

Yuko: Yes?

Penny: How long have you work at the manor?

Yuko: Five years and seven months. Why do you ask?

Penny: I just wanted to know if you knew anything about the relationship between Whitley, Weiss, and Winter.

Yuko’s eyes go wide for a moment, she hangs her head and takes a few deep breaths before answering.

Yuko: That is a very Very touchy subject, so much so that the Master has forbidden the staff to even mention his daughters’ names unprompted, less they be fired immediately.

Penny: And Whitley?

Yuko: As far as I know Young Master and his elder sisters have never been close. Though he doesn’t share the Master’s visceral reaction to the mention of them, it is still a very uncomfortable subject for him.

Penny: Oh..oh no.

Penny puts her hands in her face and her head in her lap. The situation was far worse than she thought, things were so bad between them that their own father didn’t even want to hear their names anymore. And she had brought it up the first week of her etiquette lessons. As if this weren’t already painful enough.

Yuko: Ms. Polendina? Are you feeling unwell?

Penny: I mentioned it. To Whitley yesterday I thought it was just something she didn’t tell me because we don’t talk to each other much. I didn’t know it was this…this…I feel so mean.

Yuko: (Sighs) Please calm down Ms. Polendina, while it was not wise to say anything about them Young Master is quite forgiving. He’s not the type of person to hold an innocent mistake against someone.

Penny: That’s good because I want to apologize but I don’t know if-

Yuko: Then apologize the next chance you get. Waiting and acting pitiful does nothing to fix the situation so don’t delay it.

Penny pulls her head back up and smiles at Yuko.

Penny: I’ll be sure to apologize before I leave today. Thank you for your help Yuko.

Yuko: Of course Ms. Polendina, I am here to serve.

At that moment the door opens again and Whitley walks back in. He still has his scroll out as he walks directly to Penny. He stops in front of her, a small smirk planted on his face.

Whitley: I have some good news for you Ms. Polendina. I just go off a call with Octavia Foxglove, the daughter of one of your suspects. And she’s agreed to have you at her monthly tea party in a couple weeks.

Penny: Really?! That’s amazing! I’ve only been taking lessons here for a three days and you’ve already found an event with someone so close to a suspect so quickly!

Whitley: Well it’s not a hard task when you have connections with every important person, family, or business in the range. But back to the topic at hand I’ll be sending you some details on the party and your target after our lesson but before we can continue Octavia wants a picture of you in advance. She likes to have custom table settings made for each guest with their face printed on the placement cards. And since she’s not a very patient person we need to send it as soon as possible. Now stand up.

Penny obliges and gets up from her seat, while Whitley takes a few steps back and opens the camera app on his scroll. He points the camera at her face while Penny stands at attention, hands behind her back, and smile on her face. After a few quick snaps the picture is taken but as Whitley inspects it he finds it to be very unsatisfactory. While the picture is clear and Penny’s face is in full focus the wall of the lounge room had been so dark that it made everything look desaturated.

Whitley: This won’t do, the walls are far too dark. It’s draining all the color out of the photo.

Penny: Really?

Whitley turns his scroll around to show her the front screen. Penny eyes widened at the sight, though she rarely saw or took pictures of herself Penny could still tell something was off about it. The walls had indeed made everything look much darker, the worse of it being around every piece of black on her body. It was a half body pic so her bow, collar, and the top of her waist were all blending into the background with little bit of the surrounding green, white, and gold of the rest of her outfit peeking through.

Penny: This does look very bad, how do we fix it?

Whitley: We just need better lighting. let’s go the ballroom, if the currents are drawn it should be nice and bright right now.

Yuko already has the door open while Whitley walks towards it, Penny follows behind him and all three leave the lounge. They make their way to the ballroom where sure enough the currents have been drawn however it’s the mid afternoon and the marble floors seem to have just been cleaned and the white pillars waxed. With the sunlight beaming through the windows, shining on clean floor and off the pillars, the room has become very very-

Penny: Bright!

Penny, Whitley, and Yuko cover their eyes shielding their eyes from blinding light bouncing off the freshly clean surfaces.

Whitley: So it’s fairly obvious that we can’t possibly take a picture in here!

Penny: Yes, the camera lens won’t be able to pick up anything with this much light.

Yuko: Then may I suggest we go somewhere less blinding!

Yuko grabs them by an arm each and rush them out of the ballroom. Soon their back in the main hall and begin searching for a better location. They are headed towards the music room where they run into Mary and Sue standing outside the door, Sue spots them first.

Sue: Good afternoon Young Master.

Mary: Good afternoon Young Master and Ms. Polendina, is there something you need from us?

Whitley: Hello Sue, Mary, we’re passing through to use the music room for a moment then we’ll be on our way.

The moment Whitley utters the words “music room” Mary and Sue share a worried look, Sue starts nervously tap her foot and Mary rubs her temples before they turn back to trio.

Sue: I’m sorry Young Master but we can’t allow you to do that.

Whitley: And why is that?

Sue lets out a nervous chuckle then elbows Mary in the arm. She turns and looks at her pleadingly and Mary decides to give in and do the talking for her.

Mary: There’s been a several accidents throughout the manor today. This morning while cleaning the music room someone waxed the floor while others were still working and a maid tripped while carrying a number of different cleaning liquids spilled onto the instruments and the chemical reaction of the now mixed cleaners caused some damage. The repairs being done so no one can enter the room for now.

Whitley: (Sighs) I see, and the others?

Mary: Some equipment in the dance studio had a short and caused a small electrical fire and Mistress fell ill in one of the libraries after brunch.

Whitley: Meaning you couldn’t get her to eat enough food with her wine this morning and she projectile vomited again. Wonderful. That’s truly unfortunate.

Sue: B-but if there’s anything else you need we’re here to hell however we can do to.

Whitley: It’s fine we just trying to find a good location to take a photo, we look elsewhere.

Sue: A photo of what?

Penny: One of me.

Sue: Oooh.

Sue walks up to Penny, hands crossed behind her back, and pushes her face close to Penny’s. Sue circles around the redhead and looks her over. Once she’s done she returns to Mary with a smug smile on her face.

Sue: With her complexion and colors, she’ll look best in natural light with floral/woodland backgrounds.

Sue makes the camera sign with her index and thumbs in front of her right eye.

Sue: Though city night skylines could work to if the lightings right. But since we probably can’t wait for sunset there’s the only one place in the manor that could work with her looks and that’s the garden. With today’s good weather and the right angle, light, and posing, the green and white of her clothing could look very warm and calming plus the sun on her face could really make that red hair look radiant and her eyes pop on camera.

Everyone but Penny stands in stunned silence and looks at Sue, confused by her sudden musings.

Sue: I’m a photography major.

Whitley: I see…that’s good to know.

Mary: She is right though, the garden looks rather nice this time of day and it’s vacant at the moment, so it would a be the perfect option for this task.

Whitley considers it for a moment. After a while he gives them an approving nod the waves over Penny and Yuko and the three starting walking towards the garden. Sue and Mary hang back for bit, Mary looks down at Sue and whisper to her.

Mary: (whisper) Feeling better now that you’ve redeem yourself for your little chemical spill?

Sue: (whisper) That was 98% not my fault and you know that!

Sue then runs to caught up with the rest of the group while Mary trails on slowly behind her. Once at the double doors of the garden Yuko and Sue take a door each and open them, reveal the beautiful greenery of the Schnee Manor Garden. There’s nothing but flowers and trees as far as the eye could see with a white tile paths lining the ground as they enter. Penny skips ahead to go wondering, entranced by the beautiful of the grounds and all it’s foliage while the others are strategizes a plan for this mini photoshoot.

Whitley: Well we’re here, now how are we going about this.

Sue: That’s the hard part of photography, we need to find the right angle and light to put her under to get the shoot. And we also need to consider what kind of scenery we want in the-

Suddenly Sue stops, she staring at something with an intense gaze. The others turn their heads to see what she’s looking at only to see Penny squatting down with her elbows on her knees, balanced on her toes, and hands propping up her head while she stares dreamingly at a patch of pink crocuses.

Sue: This is it. This. Is. The. MOMENT! Young Master get over there, get out your scroll, get within half a foot away from her, get down to her level , and center the camera directly between her upper body, face, and the flowers! NOW!

Whitley quickly complies and goes over to Penny, while she’s absorbed in the flowers he pulls out his scroll then he squats down awkwardly. He’s lining up the shoot, trying to get the lens to focus and when it finally does he’s awestruck. Through his scroll’s camera he see Penny smiling sweetly and sniff the flowers. The warm glow of the sunlight brightening the curls of her bright orange hair, and gave a soft glow to her spring green eyes. The pink of crocus highlights the pinks of her lips and the contrast made her freckle dusted cheeks more pronounced and cute. She looks so natural amongst the flowers like a fairy lost in her own world of warmth and happiness.

Whitley: She looks peaceful, so happy, so-

Whitley shakes his head, there’s no time for this they’re already falling behind schedule. they need this done now.

Whitley: Ms. Polendina, please look over here and smile.

Penny turns her head towards him and gives him a gentle smile. Eyes glued to her gaze, Whitley is taking a few photos when suddenly he feels his heartbeat quicken and once he’s done he still can’t take his eyes off her.

Penny: Does it looks good?

Her question pulls Whitley out of his trance and he stands up heart now ponding in his chest. He turns his scroll around to show her the photos. While they’re looking over the pictures Yuko sneaks up behind Whitley. She stands about a foot away and starts waving her hand over Whitley’s shoulder and in Penny’s direction. Eventually Penny catches her waving out the corner of her eye, when she cox her head to get a better look she sees Yuko mouths “ Now’s your chance”. She’s confused for a second but then she remembers what they talked about earlier and decides to go for it.

Penny: Whitley.

Whitley: Yes.

Penny: I….I am very sorry for what I said yesterday. I did not know that you’re relationship with your sisters wasn’t good I just thought I wasn’t close enough to either for them to tell me about their home lives. I promise you I would never have said anything about them if I knew it was such uncomfortable topic, please forgive me for my rudeness.

Whitley is once again stunned, her integrity was admirable. It takes a lot of courage to admit fault and apologize, something very few people in his life had the capability or desire to do. To have someone so strong be so vulnerable and sincere with him felt….surreal.

Whitley: It’s fine Ms. Polendina, it was an honest mistake I know you didn’t mean any harm. Besides it not like I speak about them too much either, I suppose it’s just the nature of our relationship. Anyway now that we’ve gotten a good photo we can return to our lesson.

Whitley turns around and addresses the maids.

Whitley: Yuko! We’re done here, time to head back to the lounge. Sue and Mary, thank you for your help.

Yuko: Yes, Young Master.

Mary: Of course, Young Master.

Sue: Thank you, Young Master.

Whitley quickly walk towards the doors, Penny and Yuko follow behind him leaving Sue and Mary behind in the garden. Soon they reenter the lounge room, get seated, notepad out, and they’re ready to continue their lesson.

Whitley: Now that that’s been taken care of we can finally get to the most important topic of today’s lesson. Especially since you’ll need to know this subject well to successful at the tea party. Now this subject is something you probably already do in your day to day life but I highly doubt you know how to do it and use it properly. The topic is……how to compliment a person.

Penny: Huh?

Penny tilts her head a little confused but Whitley just smirks and continues.

Whitley: Now I know this sounds very rudimentary but compliments can be a powerful tool when dealing with elites. This is due to one of the major values in high society, vanity. Most elites are extremely vain and thrive off validation. They need people to know and admire how rich, how classy, and absolutely fabulous their lifestyle is, making most weak to flattery and praise. With a little praise you can make uptight elites feel at a bit at ease with you. However there are some rules you must follow to use this value successfully, the first is timing. The first compliment should be given after the first greeting, if your address a group give a general compliment like “You all look absolutely lovely today!” or something similar. If it’s a single person you can be more specific, which can be rather simple if you pay attention to how the person’s behavior and movements. Those who thrive on this kind of validation will make themselves noticeable by wearing the most eye catching outfit and accessories possible, even at most casual of events, and will show off their new pieces to garner even more attention. They’ll play with their rings and hair, twirl around in their dresses, and anything they can think of to show off what they have. This gives you easy objects to identify and praise, for those who aren’t so obvious look for them over discreetly first then compliment whatever you think took the most time, effort, and money to prepare. Now the second rule is the most important to remember, never give to much at once. While compliments are a good tool it can be a double edge sword, too much and you’ll seem like a brown nose, too little and you’ll seem petty.

Penny puts her pen down and raises her hand, Whitley acknowledges this and points to her hand. He can guess what she’s about to ask.

Penny: What does complimenting someone have to with color of my-

Whitley: Brown noser is the term for someone who give excessive praise and compliments in order to gain a person of high standing’s favor. The “brown nose” comes from the less polite term of ass kisser which is derived from the idea that this kind of people were so desperate to get the approval of someone in a higher position that they’d kiss their rear ends if it might they’d something out of it. The “brown nose” comes from the idea being that close to someone’s rear would get a bit of….well you know the only brown substance human creates down there. It’s just a negative metaphor for someone how praises and flatters someone of higher standing in order to get something.

Penny: Oooh. Ewwww.

Whitley: I know, and in order to avoid appearing like one of those people after you’ve payed your first compliment don’t give another for the rest of the conversation unless they actively try to impress you. For that situation set a limit of five compliments for women and three for men.

Penny: Why is there different amount for men and women?

Whitley: Because men don’t need as much validation.

Penny: Is that true?

Whitley: It’s what social norms dictate and in high society that’s all that matters. Now I’d like to see how much you’ve learned today, I want you to compliment three aspects of my physical appearance using my lecture as a guide.

Penny almost drops her pen at Whitley’s outlandish request. Now there was no lack of things Penny could say about his appearance in fact it was quite the opposite. There was so much she could say about him, from his snow white hair to his elegant figure and jewel like eyes there was almost nothing about him Penny didn’t find beautiful. Penny decides to focus on his instructions, he said to look the person over and comment on what most likely took the most effort. Penny stares over at Whitley, who’s sat on the other edge of the sofa, legs crossed with one arm propping up the other as he rest his head on it as he stares back her, waiting patiently for her to speak. Penny feels the drumming in her chest returning but she powers through and continues to ponder until she gathers the courage to finally speak.

Penny: Your outfit looks very nice, it’s very well put together and formal but casual.

Whitley: Well it should, the vest alone was quite an expensive piece. Continue.

Penny: Your haircut is very neat and your hair itself is very pretty. The color and texture reminds me of silk.

Whitley:.…My stylist is known for their skill and I do best to get it right when I have to.

Penny: That’s not surprising you seem very diligent with the up keep of your appearance. Besides your hair and clothing your nails are also nicely manicure and your skin is soft and smooth without any blemishes. Overall you’re truly a beautiful and dashing young man Whitley Schnee.

Whitley slumps forward and face palms. Penny tries to ask what’s wrong but he puts up one of his hands and motions for her to stop.

Whitley: Would appear that I overlooked an important point in my lecture. Rule three, compliments should be a short statement commenting positivity on an aspect of a person’s appearance or personality. It should never be more then a sentence or two and as a young lady you should never give such detailed compliments to a man of any age. It can come off as flirtatious and that is highly improper and inappropriate.

The information hangs in the air for a moment until it finally sets in and Penny realize what he’s insinuating and her face bright red as she becomes overwhelmed with embarrassment.

Penny: I-I didn’t-I wasn’t trying to-I really don’t know-

Whitley: It’s fine, just don’t make the same mistake again, others won’t take it so lightly. You’re dismissed.

Penny: Okay! Goodbye see you tomorrow!

Penny quickly grabs her things and runs out of the room not even waiting for Yuko to escort her, leaving her and Whitley behind in an awkward silence.

Yuko: That was…interesting. She’s a rather odd girl isn’t she Young Mas- YOUNG MASTER!

Yuko looks over at Whitley in shock, his face, neck, and arms, they’d all gone beet red! Yuko rushes over to him, trying figure out how he gotten this way.

Yuko: Young Master are you alright? You’re breaking out into a fever. I’ll call the doctor down immediately! Please-

Whitley: I’m fine Yuko, I just need a minute to breathe. Please give me some space.

Yuko: Yes Young Master.

Yuko leaves the room, once he’s alone Whitley throws his head into his lap as he tries to contain a scream. How could Penny say such things so earnestly! What was she possibly thinking spouting such praise like that!

Whitley: Why? Why did she say all of that! It was a simple task, “compliment my appearance” that was it. There was no reason for her to go into that kind of detail! Was she trying to act like a kiss up or is that really how she sees me?

Whitley was confused by how anyone could say such things so easily. For most of his life kind words had a few uses. They were used for personal gain and control by most elites, sparsely used by the staff as part of their jobs of caring for the manor’s inhabitants, and almost entirely nonexistent with his family. Yet this girl he’s known for such a short time had chosen to praise him so sincerely. She had been there less than a week and had already proven to be far more odd and unpredictable then Whitley could have ever imagined. However as much as he wanted to be annoyed by her actions a part him can’t help but long for tomorrow and their next lesson.

#penny polendina #whitley schnee #pietro polendina #broken machines #beta tester #rwby fanfiction #rwby #fanfic #cute #guys get flustered too

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 4 years

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Mikan and Ibuki’s day off (Part 2)

Nn...?

...

*Ibuki wakes up, still laying in the futon, and the first thing she sees is Mikan’s smiling face.

Good morning.

Hm? You were up?

Yeah, a little earlier than usual...I was watching you while you slept.

Oh...did I...make any weird faces?

You did.

No way!?

You had this incredibly happy expression. Like you were grinning in your sleep...

Well that’s...creepy...

*Ibuki smiles and gently kisses Mikan.

Wanna hop in the bath before breakfast?

Sure.

[Breakfast Bar]

Woman: You two must have enjoyed yourselves last night.

...!?!?!?

Woman: In the karaoke box. I was in the corner of the bar and could hear you two singing.

Eh!?

Woman: My daughter loves Pop Drop Candy, and she plays it constantly. I couldn’t help but hum along.

O-Ohh...Alright...(That was a surprise...I was wondering what the hell she was talking about?)

Welcome back...uh...

Hm? Something wrong?

No just...are you going to finish all of that soup?

What? AH!

*Ibuki looks down and realizes that while talking to the woman, she instinctively grabbed several bowls of soup. Her entire tray is taken up by nothing but soup.

Well, this is...I was sweating a lot last night, so I wanted to get some salt in me.

Hm...I understand. Well, I guess I’ll help you if there’s too much...

Oh, Ibuki, I’ve been meaning to bring something up.

Yeah? What’s up?

I don’t know if you’ve seen it yourself but...the highlights in your hair are starting to become a little...desaturated.

Huh? You mean it’s fading? Makes sense I guess...

Is it permanent dye?

Yeah, it is, but the color fades if I don’t top it up every now and then.

Well, there’s a hairstylists in the town. Do you want to go there?

I mean, sure if you don’t mind...

Hairstylist: Welcome, good ladies. What would you like today?

Um. w-well, I hair hightlights am. fading that little, then myself will appreciation that top upon pleasure?

Hairstylist: Oh, do not strain yourself, I speak Japanese.

Oh thank god...I’m so sorry, I can’t speak a word of English.

You could have just asked me to?

I don’t want you doing all the work...

Well, I guess it is pretty funny to hear you talk like a bad google translator.

You making fun of me or trying to cheer me up?

Hairstylist: Anyway, I am under the assumption that you want to re-dye your hair to make the colors stand out more?

Yeah, that’s right.

Hairstylist: It can be done. And what about you? Would you like a haircut or your hair dyed?

Huh? Me?

O-Oh no, it’s fine. I’m not confident enough to have my hair dyed.

...

Hairstylist: Very well then. Here, I shall add you to the queue. Surname?

It’s Mioda.

A-Actually, on second thought...

Hm?

Hairstylist: Yes?

*Mikan whispers something in the hairstylists ear.

Hairstylist: Very well then. Surname please?

Tsumiki.

What are you doing?

You’ll see...

...

Um...sorry to keep you waiting...

Hm?

Woah!?

...How do I look?

That’s...wow...it’s just streak but you look really different! I-It’s a good different!

Thank you. I just thought...

I-If I got a streak...it’d be easier to see that...we were together...

...God damnit I love you so much...

But...that aside...your arm and leg...

Oh, you noticed...

How could I not?

Well, I’ve been thinking...with all that’s been going on lately...how I’ve been venting and stuff...

I-I’m not quite sure I need them anymore...these scars are grim, sure, but...They’re a part of who I am...

I hope you don’t mind...

I don’t mind at all...Now, come here, I brought us lunch!

*Mikan sits down next to Ibuki and pulls out some shaved ice from behind her back. She takes a spoonful of it and feeds it to Mikan.

MMM! It’s crunchy and dewicious!

But...are you ok with this light a lunch? I don’t mind paying for something expensive if you want?

It’s fine. You have to take the chance to go to these kinds of places when you can.

But other than the shaved ice, you’ve just brought plain yakisoba...

Well, I don’t really care what we eat. There are lots of good restaurants both here and back in Japan...

But when I eat with you, looking out among the sights of this lovely kingdom...it tastes particularly delicious.

...

*Mikan suddenly takes Ibuki’s shoulder and turns her towards her, kissing her on the lips.

...!?

S-Sorry...you had something on your lips...I was getting it off.

!?!?!?

IBUKI!?

Hrngh...

I’m so sorry! I-I didn’t mean to frighten you!?

No, no, it’s fine, I’m ok now. But jeez, you can be pretty daring sometimes Mikan...

Guess that’s just one of the irresistible parts of you though...

Ehehehe...

Hey...Ibuki look...

*Mikan crouches down and picks something off the ground.

Look at this stone! It’s so cute and small.

It’s a dark purple too...Like the color of your hair...

Yeah...maybe I’ll take it home as a memento of our trip here.

These two days went by pretty quickly...It feels kinda depressing...

Not yet...

It’s not over yet until we go home...

Yeah, I guess you’re right...

...

Ibuki...can you promise me something?

What’s that?

Promise me you won’t get hurt...or die on me, ok?

Hey, hey, what’re you talking about!? You really think I’m just gonna lay down and let Yonaga and her asshole followers kill me?

No, I don’t but...that doesn’t mean I’m not still worried...

...

Hey...Mikan? Close your eyes...

Huh? Wh-Why?

Just do it...

Ok...

*Mikan closes her eyes, and feels Ibuki take her hand. Ibuki slips something onto her finger.

Ok...now look...

...!?

*Mikan sees a gorgeous bracelet around her hand.

I brought a cheap lunch because I was using my money to buy this...

It’s a little strange, and I’m not implying anything, but...I just figured you deserved it.

No...it’s fine. I always dreamed of a moment like this...where someone would give me jewelry.

Mikan...thank you for going out with me...I know I’m a lot to handle at times but...

No, don’t apologize.

You’re super hyperactive sometimes, sure...but I love you for it.

I love you so much...

*They share a long kiss and hug.

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #danganronpa 2 #dr2 #ibuki mioda #mikan tsumiki #tsumioda #novoselic revolution arc

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artsystranger · 4 years

Text

Karma’s Playlist Chapter 1

Karma’s Playlist. Chapter 1. Introduction to the Snow.

Content: Beetlejuice/OC, language, inappropriate beetle behavior, he’s a creep what do you expect, oh my god they were roommates Word Count: 7040 Summary: Karmilla has always been able to see ghosts; something that becomes immediately more troublesome than ever when she makes eye contact with the sandworm-dodging demon-ghost. Author’s Note: I have an actual playlist for Karma. I will be using songs in there as titles for chapters. Sometimes the songs will be very telling on what’s going to be happening in the chapter.

The rain had started in the middle of her shift, something she should’ve expected given how cloudy it had been lately. It was just a light rain, though, so she felt her jacket would suffice for the short amount of time she would be out in it. The sound of the continuous pitter-patter of drops soothed her, letting her mind settle easier into the mindless monotony of her job.

Soon enough, her shift was over and she was able to leave. As she tugged on her jacket, she brainstormed on how fast she was going to have to walk to the bus stop while staying as dry as possible. There were a few trees she could take cover in, but they, of course, only did so much good. With a heavy sigh, wishing she wore a thicker jacket, she pushed through the store’s door and began her trek.

It wasn’t that far of a walk to her bus stop, thankfully. Just around two blocks. With her quick pace and there being so few people out on the streets thanks to the rain, she was able to get to the bus stop cover with her jacket being minimally soaked through. With a sigh of relief, she took a seat at one end of the bench, which had remained dry thanks to the metal cover surrounding it. An older woman sat at the other end, giving Karmilla a smile and a nod.

As she relaxed in her seat, bringing out her phone to pass the time, the rain began to pick up, desaturating the area with it’s dreary greys. It would’ve been much more enjoyable if she didn’t have one last walk to suffer through after the bus ride. Still, the sound was nice and helped her space out and let time pass.

“FUCK!” The shout came from across the street, followed by cackling laughter.

Looking up, Karmilla saw a man standing under a cloth covering that now has a large hole in it, presumably because it wasn’t able to handle the sudden downpour. He was soaked head to toe, staring in disbelief as he continued to stand under the hole. To the left of the man was where the cackling was coming from; a vividly green-haired individual in strikingly odd clothing, pointing and laughing at the victim of misfortune. While his style could by eccentricism, his floating mid-air as he laughed could not.

Karmilla couldn’t stop herself from staring at him, exasperation overtaking her mind. It had been a long while since she had seen a ghost out and about, but never one quite as relaxed or unconcerned as this one. Either he didn’t know about the weird, ghost-eating worms that evaded her supernatural perception or he had a way of avoiding them.

As a whole, ghosts were not a new development for her. She had always been able to see them ever since she was little, even if she didn’t know why. They were few and far between but even the occasional sighting and telling her mom of such had landed her being sent to many doctors to try and see what was going on in her head. Still, the sightings of ghosts didn’t seem to be enough for doctors to diagnose her with any hallucinatory disorders. Something she was very happy to escape.

When she came back to reality, the drenched man had wandered away down the street, leaving the ghost’s laughter dying out slowly before it stopped very suddenly, his interest in that small accident being lost. His dingy shoes rested on the ground as he started looking around, as if trying to decide something. His scanning gaze stopped very quickly when he noticed the woman staring at him.

Karmilla diverted her gaze quickly down to her phone, acting as though she was very much engrossed with whatever was on it. She flicked through her screens, looking through different social media to try and distract herself from the green-haired stranger, hoping that he would think she was just looking past him and go on his merry way. She had a feeling this wasn’t the case when she felt a lingering chill begin to hover in front of her. She looked slowly up from her phone to the upside-down, pale face that she had seen across the street. With the sudden closeness, she could very clearly see patchy stubble, which was mostly green, very much matching his darker-rooted to vibrant green hair. With it just being stubble, it seemed that his cheeks were also stained green for whatever reason.

As a smile started to brighten his face, she looked back down on her phone from his dark, trying one last time to ignore him.

“You can see me!”

There was a pause for response, but she just continued looking at her phone, pretending she saw nothing. She’s found that talking to ghosts in public brings nothing but weird stares and trouble. This one was not easily thrown off, however.

“Hey, don’t ignore me!” he shouted, rotating back right-ways up before bending down and almost shoving his face into her’s. She flinched back just a bit, but pulled her phone closer through his cold face, trying harder to ignore him. “Our eyes met! Our souls bonded! Well, maybe not my soul, but- LOOK AT ME!”

Karmilla heaved a sigh, letting her hands and phone fall into her lap before giving in and looking at him. He looked particularly pleased with himself when her eyes met his own again.

“You got some pretty greens there, babes.” He kept his face uncomfortably close to hers, smiling almost lecherously at her.

She leaned as far back into the bench as she could, trying to create some space as she looked off to the side. His cold presence moved from her front to her side, taking a seat on the bench very close to her. From the chill behind her, she could easily assume that he had stretched his arm out to rest behind her. This guy really had no concept of personal space.

“You’re not just gonna sit there and ignore me, are you, babes?” He was facing her, legs spread with an arm still resting behind her back.

Looking down at her phone again, she clicked on the closest thing with a text box and typed out, “Not gonna talk to a ghost in public.”

He leaned over her shoulder watching her type, silently mouth the words as she typed them. The ghost was quiet for a moment, staring deadpan at her phone and then back at her face. “You’re a millennial, aren’t you? Don’t you all carry fuckin’ headphones or something? Just pretend you’re calling someone. You know how to do that, right?”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him.

“Hey, it’s true and you know it! Don’t roll your beautiful eyes at me and act like it isn’t!” He snapped his fingers in front of her face a few times before pointing to himself. “Hey, hey, hey, look at me.”

She didn’t look full over at him, but gave him a sidelong look.

“Talk to me, or I’ll start begging. Ask anyone who knows me, I am very good at being annoying.” The expression he had on his face made her believe that he was 100% serious.

Suppressing an annoyed sigh and seeing as she wasn’t going to be able to get rid of him any time soon, she shifted her legs out so she could reach into her pocket and grab her ear buds. As she plugged them into her phone and connected them to her ears, she could feel the green-haired ghost smiling very contentedly at her.

“You’re pretty easy, huh?”

Her eye twitched as she tried to keep herself from outwardly grimacing. Once she had herself situated in as relaxed a way as she could get, she finally spoke, her tone very deadpan. “Hello?”

“You got a very sexy voice, lady. Such a nice one to come back to, just for little ol’ me.” He relaxed back into the bench, stretching his legs forward. Were he corporeal, he would’ve surely been leaning his head against her tensed shoulder. “Oh, babes, it’s been so long since someone has talked to me and not through me. There’s lots of interesting, juicy conversations out there but, holy fuck, sometimes a dead guy just needs a little back and forth.”

“Sure, but did you need something?” Karmilla did her best to keep her gaze either forward or down at her phone, not wanting to draw anymore attention to her.

There was a short pause between them as the ghost shifted in his seat again, turning himself toward her, the grin reappearing on his lips. “What? A creepy, old demon can’t just strike up a conversation with a sexy lady?”

God fucking dammit. “Oooh, a demon? Then definitely no.” She wasn’t exactly sure if he was serious about the whole demon thing, but there was a lot she still didn’t know about what exactly resides in the Netherworld.

Sneaking a small peak over at him, she noticed a few small changes. His dark eyes had taken up a golden spark while his hair seemed to have dimmed. She could’ve sworn she saw some strands of red coming to the surface. He held a hand against his chest, mocking a shock of pain. He was still grinning, but it looked sharper now. She couldn’t really explain it, but the change in his demeanor was overall more threatening than before.

“Well, shit. Your words cut me so deep.” His voice seemed a bit more rough now too. It’d probably be an attractive thing were she not in public and felt her anxiety begin to well up. Something about her own expression must have pleased him, as the new colors began to fade away and he relaxed again. “You know, your reaction to everything so far is very chill. I usually prefer to get at least one good scream, but-- for you-- I’d gladly skip to-”

“Bus is here,” she interrupted him. During his brief spiel, she heard the familiar engine of the approaching bus. She waited for it to get halfway down the street before standing from her seat, remaining in cover from the rain.

“Oh? And where is that fine ass of yours headed?” His choice of words made her think he was almost certainly staring at her aforementioned ass.

“Home,” she said simply. “I’ll talk to you more when I get there.”

“A lady usually has to buy me dinner before I let her take me home, but for you, babes, I’ll wave it.”

As the bus pulled up, she felt the older lady who had been sitting at the other end of the bench step up next to her. When the doors to the bus opened up, Karmilla gestured her arm forward and let her get onboard first. The older woman thanked her with a nod and a warm smile before moving as quickly as she could to the steps of the bus.

“I woulda tripped her.”

His voice suddenly in her ear made her jump. She had not noticed the cold almost fully encompassing her back, like he was almost pressed up against her. She took a deep, calming breath before stepping into the rain and into the warmer shelter of the bus. Of course, it didn’t stay warm, as she felt the ghost-demon following after her. It was a bit irritating but easy enough to deal with, she guessed. When she found and settled into a seat, she pulled the buds from her ears and phone, wrapping the wire around her hand before shoving it back into her pocket. Even if there wasn’t any jostling from him sitting down, she could feel the cold and see his striped form plopping down next to her.

As she brought out her phone again to help pass the time, she could see him lean over a bit to look and see what she was doing. She had a considerable number of games on her phone, most of which she had forgotten were there but kept because she might go back and play them. To keep herself busy, she pulled up a tapping rhythm and key game. It had music to go along with it but didn’t want to bring any attention her way, so she kept it muted. Scrolling through the long list of songs, she picked one of the faster ones and started tapping away at it.

The ghost stared down at Karmilla’s phone, squinting his eyes as he watched her thumbs tap quickly away on her phone. “Jesus fucking Christ. How much time do you gotta have on your hands to keep up with that shit?”

With a little finesse, she stuck out her middle finger at him while still keeping up with the tiles as they sped down the screen.

She heard his gasp of mock offense, almost certain that he put his hand on his chest in a similar way to last time. “Well, that’s just downright rude. What a way to treat a new friend.”

His words were enough to make her pause, slipping up enough to miss a note in the game. With that song essentially over, she looked up from her phone and to the side at him. He was still leaning very close to her to watch whatever she did on her phone, but as soon as that stopped he turned his attention to her puzzled face.

“What’s up, doll? I got something on my face?” Just as he said a few bugs crawled out from his hair and ran across his face.

Unsure of what to do, she just stared wide-eyed at him before slowly turning her gaze back down to her phone. Better play a few more songs to wipe that from my memory.

“Ah, come on, that was funny! I coulda done something a lot worse. Like this!” From her periphery, she could see his hand go up to the top of his face and peel it down. Even from what little detail she could make out, she was able to tell there was nothing more to the horror than the grotesque musculature of his face.

Doing her best to communicate in a mute fashion, she made a so-so gesture with her hand, trying to say that it wasn’t so bad. Or, at least, not necessarily worse than the sudden appearance of bugs crawling over his skin.

“You’re not even looking at me,” he said, in mock offense. “You never look at me during.”

Her lips flattened out into a straight line, trying to stop the small laugh that she felt coming to the surface. Karmilla didn’t like admitting it, but his sense of humor was right up her alley. Usually, strangers had a harder time getting her to laugh. Maybe her guard was down because he was a ghost and couldn’t really do much to her, aside from visual-auditory hallucinations and gags.

She looked over to him again, after she successfully held down her laugh. The skin of his face was hanging off of his chin, revealing the muscles and tendons that made up his face. It wasn’t scary or shocking to her, just a little unsettling and surreal as she had never been able to get such a close look at facial muscles as she was now.

“Wow, really?” He had no trouble speaking apparently, even with a lack of lips. “You are a really tough cookie, aren’t ya?” After he finished his words, he slapped the slab of skin back onto his face, pushing and pulling it around to fit back where it was supposed to. “Well. I’m gonna go fuck with someone else now. BRB.”

The green demon pushed himself up from his seat and started striding down the aisle, looking for someone to properly torment with his limited power. At most, he's able to put people on edge and make them more irritable. Essentially, just being an annoying presence. Looking back down to her phone, she started again on another song, putting a majority of attention on it as she waited for the bus to reach her stop. She would occasionally hear the angry grumbling and cursing of another passenger as the demon-ghost messed with him.

Time passed relatively quickly on the bus, reaching her stop just as another round of her game came to a close. As soon as the bus came to a halt, she got up from her seat and made her way back down the aisle to get off.

“Aw, are we leavin’ already? I was this close on getting this guy to break,” the specter called after her as she walked on by, not responding to him. He hummed for a second in thought before fucking with his victim one last time before following after his friend.

It was raining harder now, the cold droplets sinking easily into the fabric of her thin jacket. Keeping her electronics as close to her center as she could, she started her fast trek through the rain. She lived only a few blocks away from the stop, so-- if the crosswalk lights were kind to her-- she wouldn't have to be in the rain for too long. If they weren’t working in her favor and there was no one hurtling down the road, she would book it across the street. Anything to get out of the beating, cold rain.

Minutes later, she was finally able to take cover under the overhang of her small apartment building. It wasn’t the fanciest place, but it also wasn’t the dingiest. The only thing that could be construed as concerning was the ivy growing up the front. Pulling her keys from her pocket, she unlocked the door and pushed her way in, getting a loud buzzing noise as it closed and locked behind her. The inside was similar to it’s exterior, nothing really standing out in the lobby aside from a few dreary paintings and a small grid of mailboxes on the wall. Dredging past it, she started ascending the steps to her apartment. It was days like these that made her wish she had gotten one that was closer to the ground instead of being at the top of the stairway. Given the small size of the building, there wasn’t any room for an elevator to be put in, making it virtually inaccessible to those with physical disabilities.

As the ghost followed her, floating up the steps rather than walking them, he would occasionally divert from the path to sneak a peek inside the other apartments. This one definitely had no sense of personal space so it wasn’t really surprising to her that he would be ignoring her neighbors right to privacy.

Finally reaching the last residential floor of the building, she walked up to her door and started unlocking it. By the time she got it open, the demon-ghost was by her side again, passing through the doorway before her.

“Oh, yeah, just go right ahead. That’s fine,” Karmilla mumbled, finally feeling like she was allowed to speak now that she was home. She followed in after him, closing and locking the door behind them. When she turned back around, she saw him still standing in the short entrance hall leading into the rest of her apartment.

“You know, I did not peg you as a dog person,” he said, still not moving forward.

Even though she knew she could pass through him, she opted for skirting around him instead, not wanting to deal with the uncomfortable chill and feeling that happened whenever you passed through a ghost. At the end of the hall sat her dog. Her tail had stopped slapping against the floorboards as soon as her new ghostly tag-along showed up.

“That’s Bingo. She’s not a fan of supernatural stuff,” Karmilla said as she walked by the alert Malinois, who continued to stare at the ghost. “Bingo, rechts.”

Without any hesitation, the hound stood and did an about-face, walking along her person’s right side as Karmilla walked to her bedroom. Karmilla had a feeling that because of how anti-boundary the ghost was, that he would try to follow her in there to watch her. She wasn’t sure how long he was going to be sticking around, but even if it’s only for a few minutes, she felt she had to set some sort of boundary for him to follow.

As soon as she threw off her jacket and got to her dresser, she saw his green hair pushing through the wall before his head popped out.

She gave him a stern look, something easily mustered by her. “Listen, ah- I don’t even know your name, but if you’re going to be in my home you’re going to have to give me some space. Now, shoo.”

“No show then?” He made a face as if he was contemplating something, looking from her face, down to her chest, then back up again. “Alright. Fine. Because you’re my friend. And friends do friends favors.”

She wasn’t sure she liked where that thought process would end up, nor was she sure where he got the whole idea that they were friends, but at least he slipped his head back through the wall, allowing her to change in peace. Bingo laid down next to her, watching the door as Karmilla stripped out of her wet clothes.

“What is your name, by the way?” she called out.

“I can’t tell ya.”

She paused for a moment before continuing, changing out her normal bra for a sports one and replacing her shirt with a loose band tee. “What do you mean? Can’t or won’t?”

“A big ol’ no can do, babes.” His voice sounded further away that time. She guessed he was looking around. This was only a 1-bedroom apartment, so there wasn’t really going to be anything else to see. “You know how it goes; fuck with higher-ups, get cursed, lose your fun powers, and can’t give your own name to a lovely lady without jumping through hoops.”

During his explanation, she had replaced her wet jeans with grey sweats, snatching the earbuds from jeans before tossing all her wet clothes into a laundry basket in the corner of her room. As she walked out of her room with Bingo following on her right, she pulled her hair from the bun it was before shaking it out. Sitting at the end of her couch that was farthest away from her TV, she could see the ghost sticking his head through the door that went into her bathroom.

“Sounds rough,” she responded, propping her bare feet up on the coffee table as she watched him.

When he heard her voice coming from somewhere different, he brought his head back out from the bathroom and spotted her on the couch. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared and reappeared right next to her on the couch, lay back with his head at the other end, one leg fully up on the couch’s cushions as the other dangled off. He laid the back of his hand over his eyes in a dramatic fashion. “Such woe is my existence. Like taking it up the ass with no lube.”

Bingo growled lightly at the sudden appearance of the ghost on her couch, because of his proximity to Karmilla and the fact his feet were passing through her. A hand on the head was enough to quiet the dog, luckily.

“I’m almost afraid to ask, but why your name?” She tried her best to not react to the cold chill from his foot sitting essentially inside her.

“Well, you know that one guy who made the fish fucker village people and had a giant free-swingin’, octopus head thing? Yeah, my name’s like his cat. You know exactly the one.” Even lying down, he was very animated while talking.

From his description, she assumed he was talking about H.P. Lovecraft. “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

“HA!” He sat up suddenly, pointing at her. “I knew you were a fuckin’ nerd. But, nah, I’m just fucking with ya. My name is nowhere NEAR as terrible as that.”

As he laid back down again, her mouth flattened into a straight line, trying to keep the fact that she thought his roundabout shenanigans were funny. No need to encourage him. “Okay, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Look, babes, I love talking about me, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like we need a bit more of a back and forth here.” He was using more hand motions to emphasize his point. “You’re learning all of my deepest, darkest secrets, but I haven’t gotten anything juicy from you.”

Her brows furrowed as she looked at him. “All I asked was your name. You gave me your life story freely without answering the actual question.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault saying my name became so complicated.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

There was a pause from him as his mouth turned into a tight-lined, exaggerated frown. “Alright, you got me there.”

There was a long bout of silence between them, one that felt awkward and a little tense. Karmilla took this time to think of a way for him to tell her. He’d probably think that just spelling it out was too boring, so turning it into a game might help it go down better.

“Would a word game work as a loophole?”

He perked up at the sound of ‘game’, almost in a way a dog would when someone would say ‘play’ or ‘walk’. “A game, you say?”

“Yeah, like charades or something.”

He sat up quickly and turned to sit more properly, waving his hand off at the suggestion. “Nah, not that one. I did that last time.”

She gave him a curious look, wondering what exactly that meant. A question for a different time, she thought to herself as she stood up and went back into her bedroom to fetch a pen and a notebook. Walking back into the living room, she plopped back down on the couch before putting her feet back up on the coffee table.

“We’ll do it like this then,” she started, flipping open the notebook to a blank page and turning it horizontal. “I guess a letter. If I’m right, you tell me where it goes. If I’m wrong we’ll do a little thing of truth or dare. Good?”

A smile curled his lips. “Oh? Adding some stakes for moi?”

“Yeah, why not. Might as well make it an actual game, you know? Now, how many letters?” She laid the notebook on her lap so he wouldn’t have any problem seeing it.

After scooting close enough to her that they were touching shoulders, he started mouthing the letters counting the letters on his fingers. “Uhh, eleven.”

She drew eleven evenly sized lines on the paper. “Alright then. S.”

It takes a moment for it to click with the ghost before seemingly going over it in his head. “Go fish.”

She sighed, writing down the letter under the lines so she wouldn’t say them again later. “Not ‘go fish’, but I will choose ‘truth’.”

“Boring. Ah well.” He leaned back, stretching his arm out to rest behind her. “Much as I love just callin’ you ‘babes’ and ‘sexy’, I’d love to know to be callin’ out.”

“Don’t get any illusions that anything could or would happen, buddy,” she responded quickly with side-eyed, half glare before looking back at the page. “My name is Karmilla Nazarian. You get the surname as a freebie.”

“Karmilla, Karmilla, Karmilla,” he repeated, trying out her name. “Karma’s a good nickname for you. It even has its own-”

“Yeah, yeah, Karma’s a bitch and all that,” she cut him, tapping her pen on the journal. “Any ‘f’s?”

“Rude to cut off a guest like that, Karma,” he said as he leaned forward and shifted around so he could look at her unamused face. He could only guess how many times she’s heard that classic line in her life. “And that’s a hard no on the ‘f’, babes.”

She groaned in annoyance this time, looking up at the ceiling and blindly marking down ‘f’ in the used letters row. “Truth again, I guess.”

He tapped his chin in thought as his eyes wandered around the room before landing on her again. Then down a little lower. He kept his eyes there even as Karmilla turned her head back to face him. Completely unashamed, he turned his eyes up to her and grinned. “What cup size ya packin’?”

“Wow, you really do not shy away that shit, do you?” The question was rhetorical, asked in an astounded state of mind.

“What can I say? I know what I like,” he said cooly with a shrug. “Now, spill.”

With a few moments of hesitation, she answered. “I’m a C. Happy?”

“Very.” The wide, pleased smile on his face definitely attested to that.

Rather than going for conventional letters this time, she went with ‘x’. Third time’s the charm, right? Or maybe not, given the look her ghostly guest was giving her. Fuck.

Taking her feet off the coffee table and slapping the pen and pad down in their place, she stood up, careful to not step on Bingo and turned to face him with her hands on her hips.

“You know what? Fuck it. Dare.”

He was amused by her sudden change in attitude, giving her a toothy grin. “You’re a competitive one, aren’t you?”

“Just give me a dare already, chucklefuck.” She had to admit, she did have a competitive streak. No matter how often she would try to play it cool in any sort of game, after a few bad turns her attitude would sour and desire to throttle people would kick in.

He did, indeed, chuckle at her words. “I gotta say, I am loving this color on you, babes. Very hot. Now, why don’t you show me how flexible you are?”

The glare on her face became harder, almost looking like a snarl had she decided to bare her teeth at him. She did growl at him a little, so there’s that. “What? You don’t want me to do a handstand while singing ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts’?”

“Not for this one, but thanks for the idea.” God, she wished he was tangible so she could punch his stupid face.

Moving her feet to keep her balanced and from falling over, she started bending slowly and fully backwards, making an arch with her spine. All the while, she kept one hand up to flip her ghostly ‘pal’ the bird. As she went back, he tilted his head to follow her until her hand finally reached the ground. He would go over there, float above her and tease her, but he knew he was already pushing it with her this go-’round.

Straightening his neck back out, he slapped a hand on his chest. “Oof. Babes. If my heart was still beating, it woulda stopped just now.”

Getting back up was a slower process than bending back, but she made it without having to lay on the ground. She walked back over to the couch, dropping down back into her spot with a bit of a bounce. Grabbing the journal and pen again, she grumbled to him, “Fuck you, we’re doing the next letter.”

He laughed at her words, ready for the fun to continue. Seeing her getting frustrated at the game she proposed seemed to scratch an itch for him. It wasn’t as good as when he scared the daylights out of someone but it was still fulfilling. The added bonus to it all was that he could actually talk with someone. It had been a good long while since he had that chance with someone who wasn’t dead or a 1-dimensional clone.

The game continued on with Karmilla guessing the wrong letter a few more times before she finally got one. When she finally did, she was probably too ecstatic. Not jumping up and down ecstatic, but the quick, in-your-face yell of ‘fuck you’ before moving onto the next letter. By the end of the game, he learned a lot; the black padding she had lining the walls of her apartment was to save her neighbors the trouble of having to listen to her blaring music and her singing along with it; she’s slept with a good few people, gender never really coming into play for her; she’s always been able to see ghosts and knew more about the Netherworld than the average breather should know. There were a few more dares involved, none of them fun for her but all of them entertaining to him.

Eventually, the game came to an end, much to Karmilla’s relief. With all the letters lined up on their spaces, she stared at the pad.

“Beetlejuice?”

He leaned more forward at the sound of his name. “It sounds very nice when you say it. Why not give it to me a few more times?”

She gave him a suspicious look as she closed the journal and tossed it on the coffee table with the pen she was using. “Why?”

The smile on his face tightened. He was probably a little too eager with his words. Standing up and walking through the coffee table, he started to pace slowly in front of her, watching her eyes follow him. “Oh, you know. Curse stuff. Can’t say my name, can’t talk to the living, can’t get summoned and get all my powers back.”

She shifted herself on the couch, tucking herself comfortably into the corner as she watched him. “It’s that easy?”

He stopped his pacing and looked at her with a tight-lined smile. “Is it, though? Usually, someone would think the whole ‘living people can’t see me’ would be a pretty big kink in a plan to return to full power.”

She mocked his expression, inadvertently making him laugh. “Whatever. So, I guess the summoning requires your name? Is there more to it? Sacrificial lamb? Blood of the willing? Sacrificial virgin?”

“You could bring a virgin to me, though there wouldn’t be any blood letting. Unless they were into that, then maybe a little blood letting.” His words earned him a disgusted look from his friend, which just made him smile all the more. “Lucky for you, there’s no ghosty mumbo-jumbo you gotta deal with. Only thing you gotta do is say my name three times in a row--” he held up three fingers to emphasize his words-- “Nothin’ in between.”

She gave a small hum of contemplation as she nodded at him. At least, there’s no murder involved. Unless, that’s something he planned on doing when he’s ‘summoned’. From what she’s seen so far, she’d just assume he’d be more of the practical joke type that might sometimes end with someone getting hurt. Still, she hasn’t known him for more than three or four hours now, so there could still be a lot under the surface she hasn’t seen yet.

“What will you do when you’re back at full power? What exactly happens?” Better to ask up front than try and be clever about it. All she could hope for now is that she could spot any lies he tried to use.

“Would you believe me if I said it was to become a better part of the community and help those in need?” Beetlejuice put on his best attempt at an innocent expression, batting his eyes at her. The visual itself got him a half-smile from her but also a shake of her head. He dropped his little act quickly. “Didn’t think so.”

He sat on air, crossing one leg over the other and put his hands on the top knee, like he was trying to sit pretty. She wasn’t able to describe the voice he was doing as anything other than a peppy lady at an interview. “Well, what I really want to do is have some fun. Ya know, go out on the town, wreak some havoc, scare the daylights outta people, and maybe throw in a few dismemberments to spice it up.”

Her eyebrows arched up as he spoke, putting more thoughts of what exactly she let follow her home. Nothing harmless, that’s for sure. “Yeah, I’m definitely not going to do that.”

He groaned dramatically, rolling his head to emphasize his eye roll. “Uuugh, but why? We could have so much fun together!” He stood up from his air seat and took a few steps towards her. “And you look like a gal who could use it.”

She opened her mouth to object to the last part, but in all honesty he was right. The most she ever did was work, college, home, and dance and sing with Bingo when she’s drunk. “Causing harm to people is not fun.”

“Unless it’s someone who really deserves it.” As he was about to take another step forward, Bingo growled. He did a quick, mock growl back at her before continuing on, staying in place this time. “And you didn’t say ‘no’ to the havoc wreaking and the daylight scaring, so-”

“It’s a no to the whole thing, Beetlejuice,” she said flatly, looking him right in the eye. She noticed that hearing the sound of his name made him perk up, his hair seeming to brighten in color and the air around him feeling more electric. At least, electric enough that she felt a tingle in her limbs and warning bells going off in her head. “Listen, I just met you. I don’t know you. I don’t know why you’d think I’d help you out.”

“Because we’re friends?” He said this like it was the most obvious thing to him. Come to think of it, she had noticed that he had referred to her as a friend every so often between the come-ons and general sexual harassment.

She let out a long sigh, letting her head fall back to rest on the cushions of the couch, trying to think of what she should say. When she finally had it, she brought her head back up. “Don’t wanna break your heart, dude, but I’m pretty sure we’re not friends. There’s no real basis for it, other than I’m the only one that can see you.”

He deflated a bit at her response, but continued trying to keep up his relentless attitude. Of course they were friends. How could she not see that? “We made a connection! This is destiny or fate or whatever the fuck it is. You talked to me!”

“Didn’t have much choice there.”

“You brought me home with you!”

“You would’ve followed me anyway.”

He paused again. “Both valid points. But come on, Karma! You’re not really gonna leave a dead man hanging, are you?”

She didn’t respond, just leveled a deadpan stare at him.

Dammit, lady, you’re killin’ me! He bit the inside of his lip as he tried to think of a way to convince her. He thought he had been very good and friendly thus far, but he may have come on a little strong with her.

“Alright, alright, okay,” he started as he came back to the couch, walking through the table again to sit next to her, facing her as fully as he could. “What if I prove myself to you? So, you can trust that I won’t be going out and killing randos on the street. Unless you want me to, then I totally will. But I’ll behave! As much as I can, anyway.”

She continued just staring at him, but thought over his words. Until she noticed him starting to do his best attempt at pleading puppy dog eyes. She’d hate to admit it, but the longer she stared back at him the more she felt his look getting to her. God, he’s really good at playing up being pitiful. Doesn’t help that he probably genuinely wants a friend. Fuck. Something about her eyes must have softened because she could see a small smile coming back to his face. God dammit, now it’s cute.

Karmilla had to break eye contact with him, losing out in the battle of wills. Curse her empathetic heart. “Fine, I guess.”

As soon as she relented, Beetlejuice jumped from the seat up into the air in a cheer, going higher than normal physics would allow. He landed on the coffee table facing her. “Oh, babes, thank you! You are not gonna regret this one bit!”

God, I hope not, she thought to herself as she pushed herself up from the couch. “Make yourself at home, I guess. I need to walk Bingo, so I’ll be back in a bit.”

He turned as he watched her go back to the counter where she had left her keys, seeing her pocket them and grabbing a leash, the dog following alongside her. “Want me to come along, my new best buddy?”

Karmilla attached the leash to her dog’s collar before pushing her feet into the shoes she had been wearing earlier. “No. I’m not gonna be long. Like I said, just make yourself at home.”

He shrugged even though she wasn’t looking before falling back and laying on air before floating gently down to the couch, hands interlocked behind his head. “Whatever you say, boss lady.” Oh, sweet, sweet freedom here I come.

He looked over and watched as she picked up what she needed, hooking up her dog and walking out the door. The click of the lock bolting into place was very audible even in the sound deadened room. As he continued to stay reclined on the couch, he looked towards the TV. Probably should’ve asked her to turn it on before she left. Live and learn. Well, maybe not live. The point stands that without his friend here, there was nothing in the apartment that would help pass the time more easily.

“Well--” he jumped up from the couch suddenly, taking a few steps towards Karmilla’s room. “Time to complete the invasion of privacy before I gotta dial it back.”

#karma #karmilla #beetlejuice #beetlejuice oc #beetlejuice the musical #musical!beetlejuice #musical!beej #beetlejuice x oc #beetlejuice x karmilla #expect nothing from me and you'll never be disappointed #my writing #karma's playlist

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damienthepious · 5 years

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this time, on Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday: things get worse

No More Changes (I’ll Still Love You The Same) [Chapter 2]

[chapter 1] [ao3] [chapter 3] [chapter 4] [chapter 5]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, (tho not THIS chapter certainly), Curses, human!arum, (but not… because he WANTS to be), (it ain’t good y'all), Panic Attacks, Overstimulation, Rilla Is Queen Of Comfort, Damien Does Not Consider The Consequences Of His Words, The Keep Is Best Mom

Summary: Lord Arum and his Keep have fought off curses before, but they have never dealt with one quite like this. They have never dealt with a curse while having a couple of humans around to help them, either… though it remains to be seen exactly how helpful Arum’s lovers will be, in the effort of restoring him.

Chapter Summary: Damien knows that he needs to comfort his lily, but finding the right words to do so proves to be far more difficult than the poet expects.

Chapter Notes: We promised there would be a happy ending. We stand by that. But we did not say that it wouldn't get worse before it got better. Chapter title from the song Washing Machine Heart, by Mitski.

Chapter 2 - Who You Pretend I Am

When Rilla sends Damien through the portal to the Keep - practically shoves him through, honestly, so that she can run off to cancel a week’s worth of appointments - he isn’t really sure what to expect.

(Rilla dashes his expectations of a quiet, tender day spent together the moment he steps into the hut, his heart sinking at the sight of her frantic and darting from tome to tome even before she notices him and leaps to snag his wrist.

“Arum’s been cursed,” she says without preamble, a desperate sort of wildfire in her eyes, “probably by the Senate. He’s not hurt, not exactly,” she says, squeezing his hands when she sees the way the blood drains from his face. “But he’s scared and overwhelmed and I think that the transformation is screwing with the Keep- with his connection to the Keep, too.”

“T-transformation?” Damien says, sounding strangled, and Rilla winces and sighs.

“I don’t know how they did it. And we’re going to fix it.” She pauses. “Somehow. But they made him human.”)

Damien furrows his brow, and contemplates the word curse.

Damien was wrong, before, about the nature of monsters. Or- about the idea that all monsters have the same nature, at the very least. He knows, of course, that it is good that he knows this now, even if it makes his life more complicated. There are monsters who are capable of so much more than he could have ever dreamed, ever expected. Evil is not inherent to monsterkind, just as all humans are not intrinsically good. Arum, in all his complex beauty, holds the majority of the responsibility for teaching Damien this lesson.

… However.

Damien has thought, not infrequently, of how much less painful it would have been, to transition with Rilla into this wider, more complicated relationship that they now share with Arum, if only Arum had been human.

There is just… something very human about him. Not just in his eyes, not just the attraction Damien now recognizes from their first encounter. Damien can imagine it so easily, Arum as the son of some aristocrat, prideful and easily flustered, an architect but without the overlay of dangerous magic. Damien can imagine meeting him any number of ways- at some festival, perhaps. Or- perhaps Damien would be assigned to guard a traveling party including this Arum, and they might speak - as men speak, without knives and bows - and get to know each other in the ordinary way.

It would still not have been painless, of course. He certainly would have still been plagued by guilt over the idea of betraying his dearest Rilla when Arum spurred the heat of his affection, and certainly when this human Arum and Rilla met, Damien would have been filled with feelings of betrayal on the other side. He knows himself well enough to admit that.

But… if there had not been the conflict- the friction- the entirety of a war between them-

Damien cannot sleep, some nights, for the guilt that writhes like a poison inside of him. Guilt, and shame, and when Arum sleeps soundly in the same bed, Damien feels as if he could die from his mistakes. He nearly killed- he nearly murdered a creature so loving and wonderful, so clever and rare and beautiful-

Damien cannot imagine that he would have ever threatened Arum’s life, had he been human.

And so Damien wonders, at times, what it would have been like, to love Arum without knowing how it felt to nearly kill him first.

Rilla said she left Arum in the bedroom. Damien declines to ask the Keep for a portal from the greenhouse- it seems rude to strain the poor creature if it is disoriented, as Rilla suspects. If this also allows Damien to collect himself as he walks, to think a bit before he sees Arum in his new human skin, perhaps that is a benefit as well.

He knocks on the bedroom door. It has been… quite some time, since Damien felt any call to do this.

“Arum?” he says softly, nerves jumping in his stomach. “May I… may I come in?”

There is a brief moment, some quiet rustling, and then a voice calls, “You need not knock, you know. I’m hardly going to lock you out.”

The voice- Arum’s voice-

It is such a stark difference, the way that the rattle, the rasp has been sheared away, leaving a voice that sounds so similar but so entirely strange, so new. Damien is distracted enough that he almost doesn’t comprehend the actual words Arum says for a long moment. He blinks back to himself, and opens the door.

Arum is standing, leaning against the bed, one unclawed hand supporting him against the blankets as he looks at Damien with his head ducked defensively, and Damien feels as if he would know that this human were Arum even if he met him on the street, without context, and he cannot help but stare.

Oh. Oh, but his eyes-

They are still sharp, still bright with cleverness, but there are no violets here. In fact, there is no color to speak of. His eyes are gray, and light, and cool like a pair of silver coins. His robes are overlarge on this new smaller frame, hanging at his shoulders and making Damien keenly aware of his bare neck, his collarbone. Arum’s unscaled skin is dark and smooth, his nose handsomely curved, his lips soft and frowning, and his hair is long and wavy and tangled in a way that sends a sharp sting of temptation through Damien, a hungry desire to run his hands through the softness and help to tame those tangles-

Damien presses a hand over his heart. He takes a breath, and steps forward.

“Forgive me, my lily,” he says gently. “Rilla warned me, of course, but- still it was hard to believe until I saw with my own eyes.”

“Yes, well,” Arum’s lip pulls into an even deeper frown, and Damien finds himself fascinated by the curve of it, by the expressive elasticity of this new face his lover wears. “It is unbelievable, but rather unfortunately true.”

Damien does not need to look nearly as far upward as he usually does, to meet Arum’s desaturated eyes. He steps closer to the bed, and Arum continues to glare, irritation and discomfort obvious on his face.

“Oh, my dearest creature,” Damien says gently. He lifts his hand to caress Arum’s cheek, and Arum twitches, baring his teeth just slightly. “This must be terribly trying for you.”

Arum huffs. “I don’t have the first clue how the lot of you manage to move without a tail, how you manage to exist at all in such a fragile state-”

“We make do,” Damien says with a wry smile. “As will you.” He pauses. “For- for however long this lasts, of course.”

“With my luck,” Arum sneers, clenching his fists so his claws- no, his nails dig into his palms. After a moment, the tension in his frame softens, and then he sighs. “No, no. Amaryllis- between myself and Amaryllis- the three of us together- I must believe that it will not be long.”

“Of course not,” Damien says automatically, and Arum’s jaw clenches before he sighs again.

Arum lifts his hand from the bed and wobbles slightly, and Damien steadies him, curling a hand around his back. Arum stiffens, again, but after a breath he leans into Damien.

“I’m sick of this room,” he mutters, not looking at the knight. “Let’s go- the kitchen, the scroll room, the snail garden, I don’t care but I won’t sit helpless in that bed another moment.”

“Rilla was quite insistent that you rest,” Damien says, mild. Arum scowls in response, and Damien probably shouldn’t find it as cute as he does, the way his nose wrinkles with the force of his irritation.

“And I will surely acquiesce to her expertise,” he drawls, “but I need not rest confined here. A balcony. Some air,” he decides. “Keep, a portal to-”

He stops himself, his expression going entirely still, and there is a strange brightness in his grey eyes that Damien does not know what to do with.

“Perhaps it would be best not to bother the poor thing,” Damien suggests. “Certainly there is a balcony close enough that we may walk there without much strain, yes?”

“Of course,” Arum agrees, voice low. “Come, then, honeysuckle.”

Arum leans more fully on Damien, slinging his arm around his shoulder with an odd little wince, and the poet leads them out into the halls, guiding Arum’s steps. Their progress is heartbreakingly slow- Damien has to bite his tongue to keep from spouting words of sympathy whenever Arum stumbles, when his ankles wobble, when he huffs out bitter, frustrated breaths. Damien knows that Arum abhors sympathy; he finds it performative. Demeaning. Damien feels himself lucky enough that his beloved is willing to allow him to help even this much while he acclimates to this new form.

Arum’s gait improves a bit even by the time they reach the balcony Arum has in mind, an enormous ensconced bulb of soft thick leaves opening high over the swamp, high enough that they won’t possibly be visible from below and circled with dense mossy seating.

Arum releases his grip on Damien and awkwardly sinks to sitting on one of the mounds of softness, wincing and resettling his legs underneath him twice before he seems to find a comfortable position, and after a moment Damien sits beside him, staring out over the swamp with a deep sigh.

“Rest,” Arum mutters bitterly. “As if I could possibly rest in this state.”

Damien glances to the side, watching as Arum curls his hands into impotent claws, his entire face contorting in a scowl.

“I find it is best to take our darling Rilla’s advice, even when it seems difficult,” Damien says, and Arum scowls even harder.

“Am I not doing so? Am I not, despite my deepest instincts, sitting idly while this affliction settles into my malformed new bones, merely because she advised I do so?” he says in a bark, his eyes flashing furiously towards Damien. He winces quickly after, though, his shoulders sinking. “I am… trying. I am trusting. I know that I will not be able to do anything to mitigate this damage without my-” he breaks off. “On my own,” he finishes. “So all I may do until Amaryllis returns is… nothing.”

“Oh, my lily,” Damien breathes, pressing a hand over his heart again as if that could stop it from skipping. “I am so terribly sorry. How- is there anything-” Damien’s hands flutter in his own lap, unsure. “I know I am not- skilled in such a way as Amaryllis, and I cannot help as she can, but- is there nothing I can do, to help you in this moment?”

Arum scoffs, but there is no heat in it, and after a long moment of hesitation he closes his eyes and exhales.

“I cannot even… I should be able to hear the swamp, from here. The song of the frogs. The cries of bugs. It is all- it is too quiet, honeysuckle,” he says softly.

Damien stares, and Arum’s face is soft and still and enthralling and strange. “I am sorry,” he says again, because he finds he does not know what else to say.

Arum frowns, and his eyes slit back open. “Damien,” he says, a strange note of leading in his voice. “Are you not made for filling silences?” he asks.

“O-oh.”

“You are a prattler, honeysuckle,” Arum says, closing his eyes again and leaning more fully into the bed of foliage beneath him. “Prattle.”

“What-” Damien flounders, squirming where he sits for a moment. “What would you have me say?”

“Anything.” Arum shakes his head. “Distract me,” he says in a voice so quiet that Damien might miss it if he were not so close. “Please.”

“O-of course, love,” Damien says, though he still has no idea whatsoever what to say. “Of course.”

Poetry- does not feel right. Not even his own. What, should he give Arum words he composed in reverence of his scales and teeth and violet eyes? Should he remind Arum of that which he no longer possesses? A cruelty, certainly. And any other poems he knows- if they mention monsterkind it is only ever in one light, and Arum needs not hear that just now, either.

Comfort. What Arum needs just now is comfort. What must he be fearing most? He seems reluctant towards touch- perhaps he is afraid that Damien will not wish to touch him in this state, that Damien will not understand that beneath this new form it is still his Arum, his lily. He can allay those fears, at least.

“I love you,” he starts, soft and earnest, and his heart flutters when Arum startles, blinking his eyes open to give Damien the same surprised-pleased look that he always does when Damien offers his affection with such ease. Such a familiar look, at home in a new face. “I am sorry you have been so maligned, darling, but no curse could ever tear my heart from you. None.”

He lifts his hand, giving in to the temptation and brushing his fingers along Arum’s cheek (he flinches still- oh dear creature, why flinch from affection?) and softly stroking his hair.

“I-” Arum makes a noise, a choking laugh or a scoff that lost its way. “I- I know that, honeysuckle. And- and it is not permanent, so it matters not regardless. Certainly we will not even have the time to contemplate it. This- this skin is a temporary falsehood, soon to be cast aside.”

“Still, my lily,” Damien tries again, even more gently. “I would love you in any form. In any skin.”

Arum does not answer that. He clenches his jaw, neither leaning into Damien’s hand nor pulling away.

“Rilla and I will love you no matter the circumstances,” he says. “And- and if any curse were to befall you, I am terribly grateful that it should be one like this.”

Arum’s face goes blank, then, and still as a marble statue. “Grateful,” he murmurs, in his clear new voice.

“A curse that can reach out and take you even within the walls of your clever and powerful home? Arum, I am grateful that if such should occur, that you are still alive to fight back against it! That Rilla did not find you bleeding and broken-”

Arum laughs, strangely.

“My lily- it terrifies me that they could place such magic upon you. To my core. But- but don’t you see that it could have been anything! It could have been- you could have been struck by anything. Any pain, any destruction wrought upon the Keep itself- it is, of course, terrible that any such attack be mustered against you, but among all possibilities-” Damien pauses for breath, and his next words come soft, and calm. “Perhaps, my lily, it is not so terrible a fate. It could have been so much worse! You of all people know what the Senate is capable of- without any magic whatsoever, they nearly killed you once already!”

Arum’s eyes flash and he huffs out a bitter laugh. “They might as well have.”

“But, my love, surely this is far better than the alternative! There are far worse things in this world to be than human.”

Arum narrows his eyes. “And just what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

Damien senses Arum’s discomfort, so he pulls his hand back from Arum’s hair, stroking his knuckles down his new smooth cheek instead. “I only mean, my love, that perhaps there are some benefits to this… unfortunate turn of events. Maybe this will turn out to be a blessing in the end! After all, I can finally kiss you properly," Damien says with a laugh, and he feels as if he is a paper lantern, full of light and air and ready to rise, but when he leans towards Arum, he flinches.

"Properly," Arum says, and the old rough edges of his voice are gone. This roughness in his voice now is new. "And what, precisely, did you consider the affection between us when I was myself?"

"I..." Damien blinks. "Arum, I only meant-"

"No. You said precisely what you meant." Arum leans away, and then he musters himself and scrabbles awkwardly to standing, wobbling on his toes, and he does not seem to know how to keep the expression on his face from going raw and furious. "I am glad for you, then, that this curse has made it so I am no longer such an inconvenience to you."

"I did not say-” Damien scrambles to his feet as well, his heart racing in panic at the look on Arum’s face. “But- but don't you see that this solves- I am not saying that we should not attempt to reverse this transformation, if we are somehow able, but if this is not something we have the power to overcome you must know that I will stand with you-”

“For this- for this obstacle, your tenacity fails you? For this and this alone, your fervor, your fire and determination cannot match the task for even an hour before you contemplate accepting failure with a laugh?”

“No,” Damien says, shaking his head, and he is not sure how this conversation has escaped him so fully already. “No, of course I am not giving up on your monstrous form-”

“My only form. Me.”

“I am not saying we should lay down and accept! Certainly not,” he says, and Arum scoffs. “But, I think it is worth acknowledging the possibility. Worth acknowledging that even if we fail, it will be something that we can survive. That it would not be the worst of fates that you could be subject to.”

“Survive,” Arum echoes, the disdain dripping from his new smooth tone. “An interesting choice of words. We can survive.”

“Arum,” Damien says, stepping closer again, and Arum-

Arum tries to hiss. It doesn’t work, exactly; his mouth goes wide though he does not know how to use his new tongue to simulate his old sounds, but Damien is stunned enough that he stops.

“I do not believe that my survival or the survival of my Keep are on your mind just now, honeysuckle,” Arum says darkly. “Your mind is elsewhere.”

“Of course your survival- Arum, Arum you do not know how persistently I fear for your safety. How it weighs on me to know that any of my comrades could happen to destroy you and never know what a unique, wonderful, special creature the would be robbing from this world! With this- with this form-”

Arum sneers, but Damien rushes on ahead, his voice going sharp.

“If you remain human I need not fear that fate for you. Can you not understand that? As you are now- you can walk amongst my friends and people in safety, without fear of judgment or harm!”

“Just because I do not look like a monster does not mean that is not what I am. Do you think your Citadel would hesitate to slay me where I stood were they even to suspect my origins? I have no interest in walking among those who would sooner see me dead. Just because I could pass for a human in this blighted state does not change the fact that I am not one. I never will be.”

“My lily, oh, but we no longer need hide!" Damien steps closer, reaching out. Arum stumbles away another step, and Damien leaves his hand hanging in the air as Arum grits his teeth. "I have dreamed so many times of kissing you beneath Saint Damien's bells, of dancing there with you and Rilla at the Festival of the Three, dancing in truth and not simply in the metaphor of the duel, of loving you without needing to fear losing you to the blade of my own comrades-"

"For all your talk of knightly virtues you are hideously selfish," Arum growls, growls despite the unfamiliar mouth he must use, and Damien stops short.

"Selfish? Arum, I know this is unexpected and challenging, but if by some chance it is permanent, it is not completely bad. This change could only improve our-"

"Get out."

"Wh-what?"

"I said leave." Arum slashes an arm through the air, then pulls the limb back towards his body with an uncomfortable wince. "I don't care what Amaryllis said. I do not require looking after. I do not want you here, I do not need you here. Get out."

"But... Arum, I assure you I did not mean to imply... Arum, you know how I adore you-"

"Keep. Keep, a portal to the hut now." Arum pauses, his jaw clenched uncomfortably tight. "Keep." He pauses again, and then his lip twists down in misery, his hands curling into not-quite-claws as his shoulders hunch even further. "Keep, please."

The portal raises, sluggish and uncertain, and Arum, if anything, looks even more miserable.

"I do not wish to leave you like this," Damien says softly. "My words were poorly chosen, and I regret that. I should know to be more precise with my language-"

"Precision is not the issue." Arum lifts his eyes, and Damien feels a little bittersweet pang to see the ordinary pale gray, the ordinary round irises. "When I have- when I say, Damien, that I love you, I do not say so and then wish that you were different. I would not prefer you some other way. I love you as you are. Human." He turns his nose up, just slightly. "Flawed."

It's a little like being kicked. "Arum-"

"I ask that you leave, Sir Damien. Amaryllis demanded that I rest, and I will not rest while you are here."

"But you must understand how much of a boon-"

"You are not listening to me. Get out," Arum snarls. "Do not make me ask you again."

Arum’s eyes have gone bright, this miserable twist of his mouth overtly tearful. “Oh, Arum-”

“Oh,” Arum says with a vicious, false laugh as he swipes his hands clumsily over his face, disrupting the tracks of tears as quickly as they come. “Oh, so fury as well spurs this incessant weeping? Fear, yes, and sorrow, enough sense is made there, but even in anger I am forced into this ridiculous hiccuping folly?”

“Arum,” Damien says, his heart pulling as he steps forward, but Arum stumbles awkwardly back until he is pressed against the bark wall of the balcony, baring his teeth in a way that manages to look inhuman even on his human face.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare touch me. I told you to leave and I meant it. Would you ignore my wishes now, Sir Damien, when I am inarguably too weak,” he spits the word, voice cracking in the middle, “to do anything to stop you? There seems nothing honorable in that.”

“No,” Damien says, wide-eyed and shaking his head. “No, of course I don’t wish to- I merely- I cannot stand the thought of leaving you like this when you are clearly in such a state of-”

“And I cannot stand to be near you in such a state,” Arum says, his voice more waver than tone. “Leave,” he roars, and Damien-

Damien doesn’t have the opportunity to argue again, because the Keep drops a trio of vines, and gently but firmly shoves Damien back through the portal, and then Damien is gone.

Damien is gone. The portal closes, and Arum is alone. He stands, keenly aware of too much ill-fitting fabric still overwhelming his skin. His breaths come in shuddering gasps, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t trust himself to walk anywhere successfully, and he isn’t keen on falling again, so instead he just sits down where he is. Collapses, really, into a heap on the ground.

The Keep warbles at him, and he can hear a vague question and the concern that bleeds through its tone but-

“Keep, I-” He breaks off and chokes back the lump in his throat, feeling the tears filling his eyes again and hating this all the more for that, because he can’t control that either. “I can’t understand you. I can't-”

He hunches in on himself, suddenly and keenly aware of just how alone he is. He feels more isolated, even, then when he pushed Amaryllis through the portal after they soothed the Keep to sleep. Even then, he had thought it for the best. He didn’t want her to go, but she had done her job and she had to go home, to leave before he became too weak to let her slip through his greedy grasp, and he’d known the Keep would soon awaken well-rested and healthy again.

Now, he wants so desperately for Amaryllis to return and insist that they can fix this. For the Keep’s soft influence in his mind, letting him know that they will both be alright. That they will make it through this. But he is, for the first time, completely and utterly alone. "Keep, please, I-"

He can't finish the sentence. He's not sure what he would have said anyway. And it doesn't even matter, does it? He cannot communicate with the Keep anyway. He has no words for the sharpness of his isolation. Instead, a sob wracks through his body and he wraps his arms around his waist and curls in on himself even further, and he is utterly unable to stop the tears as they come.

The Keep sings something around him, uncertain and distant, and every unconveyed message makes Arum feel even more broken. Even more alone. He can’t stop the way his breaths go ragged and violent, either, or the way his heart is thudding, or the way that no matter how fast he scrubs the wetness from his cheeks he simply can’t outpace his own tears, and he burns with hatred for this body he is trapped in.

The song comes again, merely music now. Arum fists his hands over his ears, dulling the already dull sense even further. He can’t understand, so why listen?

The third time the Keep sings to him, the melody is followed by touch. Arum jerks in surprise, but even with skin this sensitive the Keep’s vines are too familiar and a shuddering sigh leaves him as the Keep wraps him up in the closest it can get to a cocoon of comfort. Ordinarily he would push the vines off, would snap that he is not a hatchling to be coddled, but the cool leaves are soft and gentle and familiar, and he leans as much as he can into the embrace.

Cocooned in the moss and vines and leaves, Arum almost believes he could leave this body behind and become one with the Keep again, could sink into the green and lose himself entirely. He can’t understand the gentle coos vibrating through the space all around him, but he feels them nonetheless, and even without words its message is clear.

I’m here. I’m here. I love you. I’m still here.

Not alone. It’s not the same, without their link, without the easy language that should pass between them, but Arum isn’t alone. Even with this barrier between them, he still has his Keep. It will still protect him, just as he will always, always protect it.

At least he can be grateful for that. The Keep will be here for him, even if Damien-

Even if Damien-

Amaryllis promised to help him fix this. To help him restore himself.

Did she really mean that? Or was she merely trying to help him stay steady and coherent in the moment?

Does she think as Sir Damien does?

… and if the both of them prefer him this way… if both of them wish he were human…

"What do I do?" he asks, and he hates this weakness, hates not even knowing if his Keep understands him, hates that even if it does he cannot hear any advice it might offer, cannot even feel the comfort it would try to send through their link- “Keep, I-”

Will they make him choose? Will Sir Damien and Amaryllis make him weigh that scale, between keeping them, keeping their love, and restoring himself?

“Keep…”

The Keep sings an airy triplet, gentle acknowledgment he can understand even without feeling it in his mind.

“Perhaps…” he whispers. “Perhaps this bond was doomed from the start, Keep.” He curls tighter, tighter, and the Keep’s vines and leaves caress and soothe as best they are able. “Perhaps this is merely revealing what was always true. I should never have expected humans to love a monster. Not truly. Not without conditions, not without an underlying desire for something better.”

The Keep squeezes him softly, and he knows that it has understood him as it warbles… something. He cannot know what it means to impart with this wordless, unparseable song.

The Keep knows many songs, though. Some, even a human can understand.

So the Keep sways him, swaddled and safe in its hanging bramble, and it sings him something he might sing along with. It sings him a song that he carries in his heart already. It sings to him a song he shares, a song that has passed hands from monster to human or human to monster, and it does not matter which.

I’ll float down with her-

Arum breaks. It shudders through him like poison, like a blade, the breathless hopeless sorrow of this curse, but his Keep holds him all the same. It holds him, and it sings, and it sings, and it sings.

If he cannot be whole, Arum thinks, at least in this moment he may still be held.

#elle's fanfic #sky's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #sir damien #the keep #(rilla's here in this chapter for like two lines so)#sorry about the emotional distress!!!!! we'll get through it i promise

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jastiss-blog · 6 years

Text

Trial by Fire (Ignis/femaleOC currently SFW)

Ok, so I’m playing around here with text posts rather than simply posting my AO3 links for this fic. Bear with me. I made up the fighting bits because I sit my butt down all day and have zero knowledge of how this shit works but! I think it’ll be alright.

Summary: A woman put forth by Gladio enters the ranks of the Crownsguard and piques the interest of the royal adviser. An adrenaline fueled moment changes everything for Ignis, but catastrophic events may leave her dead before he can act. Struggling with his sense of duty and his own personal freedom, Ignis must mourn the chance at happiness while remaining strong at his king's side. Covers events prior to Parting Ways, throughout main storyline and beyond.

No warnings apply at this time. Many thanks to @hypaalicious for the push to go ahead and post.. I’m such a weirdo about having my works out in public.

Chapter 1/?

"Again."

Daggers clattered to the ground as Callie grunted in frustration. Her breathing was ragged, hands screamed in pain at being forced to grip weapons for so long.

"Again," he repeated, tone commanding obedience.

"We've been at it for hours..." Callie grumbled under her breath.

Emerald eyes snapped to her silver ones, her instructor's face one of mild annoyance.

"You would do well to save your breath for the exercises and also to remember that my time is highly valuable," he stated calmly. "Gladiolus requested that I assess your readiness for the Crownsguard physical aptitude exam. Do you intend to take this seriously?"

Though firm, his words were not unkind. Of course the prince's right hand would have much more important things to do than assess a civilian and would want to know if he was wasting his time. After all, rumor said that he was constantly at work, never leaving the Citadel even to sleep... They also said Ebony flowed through his veins, keeping him alert at all hours.

Callie suddenly felt humbled and sighed. "I apologize, Ignis. When Gladio said he'd have someone objectively gauge me, I didn't think he meant the royal adviser himself. I'm exhausted and could definitely use a bite to eat. Do you mind if we take a breather?"

"I presume you aren't used to someone working you this hard?" Ignis quipped as he gave her a wry smirk.

Assuming it would be rude to have a heart attack in the middle of the training floor, Callie reigned in her surprise at the adviser's humor. "Well, Gladdy does often treat me like a flower. Either that, or he's the flower and is putting on an act."

At her retort, Ignis actually gave a chuckle. "I shan't tell him you think so."

"I don't know, his reaction may be entertaining," Callie replied, laughing along with him. She knelt down to retrieve her twin daggers before glancing back to him. "So, how about that break?"

Ignis hummed thoughtfully as he retrieved his phone from his pocket and glanced at it briefly. "Unfortunately, I am needed with the Council shortly; either we push forward or we will need to adjourn for the day. Are you willing to commit to fifteen more minutes? I wish to observe for myself the reason Gladiolus is pushing for your recruitment."

Fifteen more minutes when her hands were tingling and swollen. Fifteen more minutes of her stomach clenching in pain because she forewent breakfast, thinking this would be a simple ten minute spar. His morning meeting canceled, Ignis had deemed it appropriate to run various drills with her until his next appearance. All that in mind, she hesitated.

"Ignis, I don't know, I-"

"Defend yourself!" he exclaimed, leaving Callie with a split second to realize he was charging in her direction, a pair of his own daggers suddenly in hand.

Metal clanged sharply as Callie crossed her weapons in front of her to deflect the sudden attack. She staggered back a pace, meeting the sly glint in Ignis's eyes with fire. "Astrals, Ignis, what are you doing?!"

The strategist said nothing, eyebrows simply arched in challenge. Infuriated, Callie snarled, shoving Ignis forcefully away from her. The blond back flipped away effortlessly and paused to allow Callie to regain her senses.Â They clashed repeatedly, Callie getting the impression that Ignis was simply toying with her.Â She found that it was entirely too difficult to get near the strategist; he kept dancing away from her as soon as she found an opening.

"I've not known Gladiolus to misjudge something so poorly," he taunted, suddenly behind her.

Callie's hackles raised. She could feel him gearing up for another charge attack and as soon as she heard the squeal of his fancy shoe pushing off the wooden floor, she dropped to the ground, flat on her back. Ignis passed harmlessly overhead, at which time she sat up and executed a seated back flip, using the natural reaction to stumble forward to launch a kick at the back of his knee. Surprisingly, the royal adviser stumbled down to one knee, and Callie was quick to press her blade to his throat in victory.

Time stood still. Callie's pulse pounded in her ears, the sound of her ragged breathing just as loud to her in the otherwise silent room. They remained as they were, Callie with her right blade poised at Ignis's neck, his left arm twisted behind his back in her firm grip. The adviser was calm, his breathing as even as if he were out for a leisurely stroll.

"Mortifera," he breathed, breaking the spell, "if you would?"

"It's Callie," she corrected automatically, noting that he gestured in the direction of the blade at his neck with the hand he was previously steadying himself with. She immediately dropped her arms and stepped back a few paces, blushing profusely.

Ignis stood slowly, brushing dust from his knee and turned to face her.

"My apologies, Callie," he also corrected, gently pushing his glasses up his nose.

Silence dragged on as the tactician regarded her with a calculating, unreadable stare. Callie fought against the urge to squirm under his gaze, but eventually she could hold herself in check no longer.

"Ignis, look, I'm so sorry. Instinct kicked in and-" she began, uncertain.

"Be at ease, Callie," he said, face gentle in what she imagined was the closest he came to actually smiling on a normal basis. "It is precisely the reaction I was hoping to provoke. I admit, Gladiolus gave precious few details of your training and as such, my curiosity prevails. Where did you learn your particular technique?"

There was a brief pause as Callie crossed her ankles, bringing her arms behind her back as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I don't know... uh... well, myself, I guess?"

For the first time, Callie witnessed the renowned strategist caught off guard. He blinked slowly, and she could almost see the wheels in his head turning, trying to figure out how someone could simply grab daggers and become proficient enough to disarm someone of his stature.Â He finally cracked, eyebrows knitting together in contemplation.

"You mean to say you've had absolutely no formal training?" he asked, surprise coloring his tone, the smooth baritone rising in pitch very slightly. "Magnificent. I admittedly wondered how a civilian was being fast-tracked to Crownsguard admission. If that only a small glimpse of your abilities, their judgment is sound."

"Uh, thank you," Callie laughed nervously, a bright blush dusting her high cheekbones. "I was a gymnast for many years and decided to add something light and deadly to compliment my knowledge base. You do what you have to when your hometown is surrounded by daemons."

The confession prompted an inquisitive look from Ignis, though he said nothing. Callie could tell he wanted more information, but perhaps he thought it impolite to ask.

"I grew up in Lestallum, after the King had to pull back the wall to protect Insomnia," she offered. Ignis crossed his arms and listened, his face impassive. "We always tried to be careful, but things went bad one day and dad didn't make it. I begged mom for combat manuals after that, and, well... here I am."

Ignis had schooled his features into the mask of the strategist. Uncrossing his arms, he took a step forward, lips barely down turned. "My condolences on your loss, Callie. The loss of one's parents is difficult to manage on the best of days."

"Thank you," Callie mumbled, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Do not cry, Callie, do not.

"If I may, however-" Ignis began. His phone, however, had other ideas. "A moment, Callie."

While he was otherwise occupied, Callie took a moment to really look at her mentor. She knew black attire was a staple for the Crownsguard as her mother told her years ago it held some special significance to the Lucis line. Thus, most of Ignis's attire was black, save his shirt. It was an interesting color, once which Callie had trouble placing. It was coeurl print, but was it deep grey, or desaturated lavender? Callie landed on it being somewhere in between, though the spots were black and the collar was a pretty black leather adorned with silver studs along the stitching. The shirt tucked neatly into his trousers which were black with a stripe down the side of the same pattern as his shirt. Callie couldn't tell what was on his snazzy black shoes, but there was some pretty adornment on them.

A muted voice on the other end had been droning on during her observations but before long Ignis gave confirmation that he would be on his way. He stowed the phone back in his back pocket, turning an apologetic face her way.

"My apologies, Callie, but it appears that I am now needed elsewhere," he said, lips quirking into a small smile. "You certainly have my endorsement; I believe you will do well when the Marshal calls upon you to take your trial."

"Thank you, Ignis, truly," Callie replied, another blush creeping up on her. "That certainly puts my mind at ease."

With a nod, the royal adviser turned and headed for the exit at a brisk pace. While Callie busied herself stowing her weapons, she didn't notice him pause and glance at her over his shoulder.

"Ah yes. Callie?" he called. She snapped her head up, meeting his gaze with a quirked brow. "Should you have the availability, I would enjoy sparring with you again. Though, I wouldn't expect next time to be so easy."

The statement hung in the air, awaiting her confirmation or denial.

"Of course," she agreed, a large grin on her face. Callie never backed down from a challenge. "Once I figure out what's going on, I'll let you know?"

"Excellent. I can typically be found here in the Citadel," he said, heaving a dramatic sigh. "Such is my duty. If you cannot find me, seek Gladiolus for assistance."

As Ignis took his official leave, Callie reflected on the day's events. Gladio obviously knew what he was getting her into pairing her with Ignis for training, and she would be pissed off if not for the outcome of the day. Resigning herself to the fact that she would owe the large man a favor, she grabbed her bag from a nearby bench and headed for the apartment she was staying in while awaiting her trial.

Halfway home, she stopped in the store to grab as many Cup Noodle as she could find, intending to pile it in Gladio's room at the soonest opportunity. Along with some dinner for herself, she took her purchases home, intending to shower and run some gymnast drills before bed. However, as she turned her key in the lock, Callie could feel the groceries getting heavier. Maybe gravity was pulling her down to the floor. She made it to the kitchen to drop some daggerquil breasts in the fridge along with the garulessa milk, everything else dropping to the kitchen floor with a loud thud.

No, come on, Callie scolded herself. We should at least stretch it out and eat something. We haven't had a bite to eat today... You're going to be sore as all hell in the morning... Don't do this to yourself.

Her body had another idea as it disobeyed her urging and plopped down on the plush black sectional. Within seconds, exhaustion pulled her under like the deep currents at sea.

#ffxv #ffxv fanfiction #chocobros #made up the fighting cuz I don't do the shit #ignis scientia #female OC #technically canon compliant #filling in those massive plot holes #not my characters #currently sfw

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kaygee-writes · 6 years

Text

Wicked... Like the Musical but a Cringe Poem Instead...

Again, I am upset. I want to write this as a short story, but I’m not very good at those. I don’t usually know where they should end. Henceforth, I shall continue my challenge of poetry. And maybe someday I’ll stop being jealously upset and text my friend back…

Poetry feels a little elementary to me when I mention modern day things, like texts. Must challenge myself to not worry about that at some point.

Wicked

For all my times I’ve collected my joy,

And cultivated the smiles you see,

To tuck away into my little bottles of glass

Safe in my cupboard, glowing fancifully for me.

I have yellow yes, and a bit of magenta.

Light green, sky blue, hot pink, deep black

But there is always more.

Always something to lack.

And “hello,” says my friend, emitting green glow

It’s bright

And playful

And carefully spun

Around my fingers and over my nails

Into a bottle of clear shiny glass

Shining a light to my heart’s deep repass

Excitement she sends in a speckled purple hue

To me!

For me!

And then onto-

…Red.

It’s hers.

The color I’d lost.

We’d lost.

Just the same!

And I remember the name

We’d given that pain

Together we suffered,

But together’s now vain!

The red tickled her lips

A humorous gleam

And tinted her cheeks

And to her it brought

A new, light esteem.

I’d bathed in red

A fortnight ago

With pink, and green, and cyan to show.

Since man had offered to refill my stock

But try as they might I could never find

The same tinge

Same tint

Same vibrant hue

As the red of a crush,

A love sparked anew!

But if I’d had red

If I regained my lost slight,

What then is next?

Her green

His blue

Their white

That hue.

Every bottle in my cupboard opened space for two more

Never was it full

I wanted her red, but wished she kept it too.

I grinned with no yellow, and desaturated delight.

Save the deep greens of envy, tripping through as they might.

“I’m happy! That’s great!” I said with no dye

But an undertone of a different red,

One where hatred can lie.

If I had no colors

Then no one should

But what fun is that world?

It’d do me no good.

So I’d hide my fright

At life’s lacking luminosity

And I might paint what I can

Be it better than an atrocity.

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somethingmustbreak-project · 7 years

Photo

“You would like that we were not here. But we are too emotionally absorbed by the homesickness of places that we’ll see only from the windows of our Bentleys”

An environment seemingly unreachable: familiar to us as much as distant.

Paul Barsch Pierre Clement Michele Gabriele Andrew Birk Nuno Patrício Lucia Leuci Monia Ben Hamouda

With text contributions by Keiu Krikmann and Matteo Mottin. Concept, documentation, curation: Michele Gabriele.

She is driving, angry. She is driving, sad. She’s been driving for hours, nowhere in particular – post-fight. Highway, industrial landscape – in transit. By now, together with fading daylight her mind is turning soggy and dropping off, out of focus. Her eyes are on the road, thoughts floating around her; some circling back, again and again.

She’s worn out from the fight, her emotional state and the smothering synthetic smell in her car are stirring up something; the spiralling thoughts are gathering, she’s driving into a vortex.

Barely acknowledging it, she glimpses things she isn’t really sure are there, objects or images she can’t place – superfluous and not part of the landscape. A flash of blue sky, when it’s clearly getting dark. A round pattern, a bit detached and too close – what – doesn’t matter. The bitterness and chafed vibes from before and the stuffiness of the car are closing in on her – leaving little room for anything outside – pickled, probed and gray – ugh, can she even be??

All the fights she’s had in this car! Why do arguments always happen in the car? And then you are stuck in a wildfire in a tin box with no escape – that is just the worst.

With mom it had been long passive-aggressive streaks. Their fights were thick, like expired plasticine or shit, you couldn’t get it off of you, you couldn’t get the smell out. And the level of pettiness was unreal.

Something registered – like – she doesn’t – umm no.

And then, with her – heavy screaming, fights so intense they were physically exhausting. It had obviously not always been like that, but eventually she had grow to resent everything about her, she had grown to hate her hair in particular, sometimes at night she had thought she’s gonna cut her fucking hair off in a clump. Cut and run – just leave it – just –. Heavy beats, gasping for air. Get – get the – fuck – fuck – out – out of – my car. I don’t get mad!

A story so cliché she was embarrassed to admit it. Another unplaceable object faintly flickered in corner of her eye, or in her mind’s eye, or somewhere in-between.

She now knows for sure, this car is a vehicle of fights – she can’t get the exhaust fumes of confrontations out, everything is drenched in it. She needs a new car to vanquish the spirits. Somewhere along the road she has become like all those women laughing alone with salad, quietly gone mad – and she – will go off – blow off – up – and beyond. The neon letters are all fucked up, she can’t read the signs anymore. This one’s gone to the vortex.

– Keiu Krikmann

___________________________

Facebook THU 12.01.2017 – 2:14 PM

MG: Hello Matteo, I wanted to ask you if you could come visit me one of these days. There’s something I’d like to show you. MM: Sounds good! What’s that about? Where do you wanna meet? MG: Let’s meet at the Seregno’s trains station, early in the morning. Catch the first train you can. And let me know by what time you’ll be there. MM: I could be there next Wednesday. I’ll catch the train in Turin at 5.50 AM and I’ll be in Seregno by 7.30. How about that? MG: That’s great Matte! MM: What is this all about? MG: I’ve got a few things to show you. Telling you wouldn’t be the same. You must see them yourself.

Seregno WED 7:32 AM

MM: Hello there Michele, it’s so good to see you here, just like the first time we met, when I came for the studio visit. MG: There you are, of course I remember! Seregno never changes, like all these area actually. It waits for you but it never helps. MM: On that matter, what’s awaiting me in Seregno today? MG: We’re just leaving, we’re going to Milan. Please, get in the car. That’s no Bentley, some call it my wheelchair, but it’s still carrying me around. MM: Why are we going to Milan? Did you change your mind? I’d have waited for you there if you told me. MG: We must go there together. Shall we leave? MM: Do you mind if I keep this recorder on? MG: Not at all.

WED 7:48 AM

MG: Look at this tunnel here, it connects Brianza and Milan. I used to get stuck in traffic for hours to get to the city center before this was built. I believe it has had a strong influence on my production, esthetically speaking. Look at the colors. It’s new but still it looks like it’s been here forever. It’s one of the longest urban tunnels in Europe. It repeats itself over and over, same doors, same streetlights. This makes it look shorter but it’ll be around two kilometers long. MM: Wait a minute, what’s that? Did you see that? Just at the entrance of the tunnel. They looked like dreadlocks. MG: They are dreadlocks, tied up and thrown there. They recall a sitting person, if you’ve got that type of imaginary need. Still it looks like they fell there by chance. Has if someone threw them away, forgotten… MM: As if someone threw them from a running car. Can we go back to get a better look? MG: It’s better not to stop here, we must go on. Cars should be going at 90 km/h, but who’s driving that slow? MM: When we first met you used to have dreadlocks. I remember coming across Rastamen, they were always saluting you, beating their fist on their chest. It’s interesting how we found those dreadlocks right here in this tunnel, almost as if you left them behind to move faster to the city center… MG: Yes, I remember my dreadlocks! I didn’t think about that! You know Paul Barsch is keeping them? He made an artwork out of them and he exhibited them for the project Cielo Milano curated by him and Tilman Hornig months ago. Come on, let’s get out of here, let’s catch the first exit.

WED 8:11 AM

MM: Wait, slow down, there’s a small mouse! MG: Fuck that’s true! MM: Don’t squash it! MG: Yes, I’ll be careful. The Lambro river runs around here, that’s why it’s full of rats. MM: Ok, it crossed the road. Now it’s under those, ehm, twelve antennas? What are those twelve antennas on the wall for? MG: In this time of the year and this time of the day the light comes in a particularly white shade, desaturated and the objects outdoors look white just for a few minutes. Then the sky changes color and so do they. MM: That’s true, those objects usually keep a strong relationship with the sky, the weather and the light, even if placed like that, at that height, they look like they’re trying to show us a will to be listening and receiving in a place were, perhaps, there’s nothing interesting to be listening to. MG: I don’t know Matteo, surely antennas are usually above us, we all know them but we rarely get to see them close. Assembled with shamanic aesthetics, with bamboo canes and plumes, it look like they are ironically showing us two different clichès.

WED 8:23 AM

MM: The traffic is getting more intense, where are we? MG: We’re in the northernmost part of Milan. Let’s see if I can pull over. MM: Careful, the car in front of you is stopping, there’s something on the road. It looks like… is that salad? Wait, is that the work you made for the Bubble Tea show? MG: Yes, I better move it today or I’ll get in trouble. MM: What’s it doing hanging from the traffic divider? MG: Well, Matte… consider this as a guided tour. This is “You would like that we were not here. But we are too emotionally absorbed by the homesickness of places that we’ll see only from the windows of our Bentleys”: a group show. MM: You curated a group show setting up the works on the road from Brianza to Milan? MG: In a certain way, yes. Paul Barsch’s work is in the tunnel that, for me, links my house to Milan. But all the others are in the city. MM: Your works always have a lot to do with observing what surrounds them, and from that you develop them in a very sincere way, without being even bothered by the fact that the result might be disappointing. This work reminds me of the eating sculpture by Gianni Anselmo, only it looks faster: the lettuce is not withering, it’s being squeezed by the passing cars. What’s its title? MG: “Whity-Trashy vol.3 (I stay if you hold me tight)”. Lately, it’s as if I felt a lot more freedom in formally using the elements in my work almost carelessly.

WED 4:12 PM

MM: We’ve been driving all afternoon, but we haven’t come across any work for quite along time now. Is the show over? It’s almost sunset. MG: No, it’s not over yet but I thought we should have waited a little to see this one. Look up there! That’s “Clouds” by Andrew Birk. MM: It may be the time or the way you set it up, or maybe both, but that work looks extremely delicate and melancholy to me, as if it wanted to save an intimate and fleeting moment without telling us about it. MG: It’s been months now I’ve been observing the relationship between Andrew Birk and his work and I’m entranced by it. MM: Can you tell me more about it? MG: It’s the feeling I get, the number of canvases, the different ways of painting them. An erupting volcano. And every time he’s stripping himself down completely. Watching him working is amazing to me.

WED 6:35 PM

MM: Are you sure we can go this way? Isn’t it a private road? MG: Who cares. I’ve never seen anybody here. It gets you to a subway station. Can you hear the noise? MM: Yes, I must tell you it makes me shiver. These orange streetlights, they always made me claustrophobic. MG: Do they make you feel trapped even if we are outdoors? MM: Yes they do, they make me feel so… wait, there’s something next to that gate. Is it a painting? MG: Yes, a digitalized painting by Nuno Patricio. Its got a metal structure holding it to the ground. MM: It reminds me something I probably saw in a movie, but I can’t recall what it is now… MG: To me as well. Maybe it reminds me of a whole movie genre. When I was young I used to buy the weekly magazine “UFOs and Aliens”. Do you remember that? Buying it made me feel better than the others, one step closer to secret knowledge. MM: I was very fascinated by it as well, but then I remember thinking “if this stuff is that secret, then why can I get it so easily at the news-stand?”.

WED 10:36 PM

MG: The heating in my car comes and goes. Sorry about that, Matteo, I know it’s getting cold. Usually, it doesn’t work when it’s cold while it works perfectly when you don’t need it. MM: That’s what we’re gonna do: pull over as soon as you can, I’ll smoke a cigarette, I’ll be cold so that when we get back in the car it’ll be almost warm. MG: That sounds just about right.

WED 10:40 PM

MG: Alright, I’ll stop here. MM: Look, there’s something in the grass. They looks like tiny dolls. Hey, they’re Lucia Leuci’s from the exhibition at Tile Project Space! MG: I’ve chosen to exhibit some of the works from Lucia Leuci’s latest solo show. “Mamme Cattive e Bambini Creoli”. I’ve set them up here, among the grass in the dark. The concept of being creole upon which she’s been reflecting, the way in which she touches things. To me this really was one of last year’s most inspiring art works. Seeing them here, as if they were left behind, forgotten, moves me. MM: That may be because they’re so delicate. Seeing them here, in such an anonymous lawn, so close to the highway, conveys a strange feeling of danger, as if they were the ones in charge. MG: Probably, I’ve always felt as if they were the ones in danger, you know? MM: Maybe it is so. Maybe, because of how they were made, it’s very hard for them to find somewhere where they belong. Maybe they really don’t belong anywhere. MG:I feel represented. MM: Be careful, you’re getting too romantic. MG:Let’s go, there’s just one more work I want to show you. After that I’ll take you back to the station, it’s very late already and you might miss the last train back. MM: Will we make it or is it too dark allredy? MG: Of course we’ll make it. Everybody passing through the highway will see it with us.

WED 11:04 PM

MM: What song is this? I like it, can you turn the volume up? MG: “Reason” by Spooky Black. I’ve been listening to this kind of music a lot, lately. It’s called “sadboy music”, I think. MM: It really sounds like that.

WED 11:07PM

MM: Is that up there the work? I can’t really read what’s written upon it. MG: Yes, you to look at it for a while to understand it. You should get closer. MM: But now we’ve already moved past it, I couldn’t read it all. It’s a bit like it happens with songs, you get some of the words but you can’t understand it as a whole. MG: The font it’s written in is an art work by Monia Ben Hamouda, while the text is the verse from a song. “…Searching for wrong, so you can point your stubborn finger at me again, at me again…” MM: I see why it’s at the end of the show, it’s like the credits. MG: Yes, the credits. MM: When it comes to emotions, it’s always hard to keep the focus on who’s feeling them. It’s easier to identify with the emotion itself. And this has been a very emotional trip. MG: Thanks Matteo. MM: Thank you.

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ahouseoflies · 5 years

Text

The Best Films of 2018, Part IV

Scroll down for Parts I, II, and III. VERY GOOD MOVIES THAT STILL AREN’T TECHNICALLY GREAT--SEE, I LIED, NEW CATEGORY, WHICH REALLY SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT THIS TIER IN 2018 AND MAYBE HINTS THAT THERE WEREN’T MANY MOVIES THAT I GENUINELY LOVED

44. Hotel Artemis (Drew Pearce)- It should be illegal to watch this movie before midnight because it is an exploitation flick to its core. Is it a problem that it's shaped like a triangle, that it starts wrapping up its answers the minute we understand what the questions were? Yes. Is that a problem that Jeff Goldblum, playing the Wolf King, wearing a double-breasted camel's hair coat like a shawl, can't fix? No.

43. Sicario: Day of the Soldado (Stefano Sollima)- Considering how much I liked Sicario, I'm impressed by how close its sequel came to its chilly hardness. Strangely enough, the craft suffers more from the absence of Jóhann Jóhannsson than it does from the absence of Denis Villeneuve. Aside from a lull at the two-thirds mark and the pulling of exactly one punch, this entry feels as vital and astute as the last one.

Which means the real auteur must be Taylor Sheridan. His script mimics the structure of the original while twisting its characters just askew enough to breathe new life into the material. His screenplays just sort of unfold in a way that I find organic--it's hard to even say what the conflict is until halfway through most of the time. And if he wants to write five more of these, I'll gladly take them.

42. The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)- Like almost anyone else, I'm grateful that The Other Side of the Wind exists at all. The fact that it's so more personal and experimental than I expected is a bonus. It's kind of a mess until it congeals at the drive-in, but every choice still seems labored over. (The claustrophobic nature of the party versus the wide open spaces of the film-within-the-film, for example.) Nonetheless, it's hard to go to bat for a movie whose backstory is more captivating than the final product.

41. The Mule (Clint Eastwood)- Besides the breezy glide of the pacing, the performances stand out. Eastwood's is the type that we haven't seen from him in a while. He smiles a lot. He sings and dances and flirts. He's generally carefree and loopy. And he's contrasted with* a nervy Bradley Cooper in one of those humongous-star-taking-the-back-seat performances, sprinkling charisma the way Sean Connery did in The Untouchables.

But there is no elegance at all. Besides Chekhov's cough and the cheesy elbowing of "If only somebody had $25,000 to save the VFW Hall," we get the messy racial politics of Eastwood once again. Whereas Gran Torino worked for me because it's aware of its own racism, this one thinks that it's doing some good. The subtext is that an old White man would never catch trouble from police, but the text is a Hispanic man getting pulled over and nearly pissing himself for laughs. Hard to argue this isn't a fun time at the movies though, despite the fact that it's almost entirely about regret.

40. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)- Too theatrical and outre for my taste, but it's easy to get lost in its cosmetic pleasures: the lush colors, the lavish costumes, the immaculate close-ups, the best score of the year. I liked it, especially the Brian Tyree Henry tangent, but as the movie is swooning over itself, it's easy to catch yourself thinking, "What is this even about?"

39. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller)- Can You Ever Forgive Me? hits every beat you would expect from an "in over her head" crime movie, but the time that the film dedicates to the central relationship creates a rare intimacy. If you stopwatched it, I imagine the majority of the film would be McCarthy and Grant talking to each other. That focus, along with a resistance to smoothing over the characters' rougher edges, elevates a kind of boilerplate story.

38. Blockers (Kay Cannon)- Even if the ending is kind of exhausting, desperate to give each character his or her moment, this is hilarious. Not so much in the setpieces showcased in the commercials but frequently in an expression or line reading. The Blu-Ray has a line-o-rama gag reel that is funnier than some entire movies. It's pretty progressive and fair in its portrayal of young female sexuality too.

37. Game Night (John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein)- It gets a little tidy and full circle for my taste, but this movie has some great laughs while being a good example of a film that nails both the characters' "want" and the characters' "need." Rachel McAdams is winning, and Jesse Plemons steals all of his scenes.

Game Night also has way more of a filmic identity than one might expect, since it doubles as a sort of Fincher parody. Besides Cliff Martinez's insistent electronic score and some CGI-for-no-reason establishing shots, Daley and Goldstein borrow the auteur's desaturated palette, locked-down camera, and narrow light range. There's even an elaborate one-r. The visuals elevated a premise that had the potential to be really dopey.

36. First Man (Damien Chazzelle)- I think this is exactly the movie Chazelle wanted to make, but, to match my expectations or his filmography, it's not quite good enough. Cool to the touch, though anything else would be antithetical to who Armstrong was. In the shape of suspense, but with an outcome that is obviously never in doubt. Flipping to the IMAX ratio the second the crew docks onto the moon is a cool trick, but it's as innovative as things get.

The cast is game. Gosling's fastidious brooding resists any of his Movie Star charm but still holds every scene, and the framing of Armstrong's motivation works very well. Foy's reading of "a bunch of boys" is about to become a t-shirt. Kyle Chandler and Jason Clarke and the suddenly mature Patrick Fugit all get their moments. The final scene places the film into the Chazelle tradition of people whose calling is greater than even their most transcendent relationships, and a protest sequence is a welcome break from the eraser-streaked perfectionism.

I'm sorry that I wanted Apollo 13 instead of a hipper Apollo 13.

35. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Perischetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman)- Within the course of one year, we got two possible solutions for the "problem" of inspiring but self-serious origin stories. At the beginning of the year, Black Panther mastered the form and presented it so solidly that it couldn't be argued against. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse goes the other way, so impressionistic that the final sequence is people flying through abstract shapes and colors, so irreverent that a character cuts someone off mid-sentence as he says, "With great power comes..." Though I would have trouble explaining the film, all of the dimensional comings-and-goings make sense in the moment, and it's easily the funniest Marvel movie ever made.

Maybe purposefully, it is overstuffed though. Six different iterations of Spider-Man is enough to juggle; I definitely didn't need a cadre of villains that was even less defined. I have to admit, even though I couldn't tell you what to cut, I was exhausted by the end, even if I was huffing and puffing fresh air.

34. Boy Erased (Joel Edgerton)- Many characters do bad things in this movie, but they're people trying to help and doing their best, justifying the pain that they're causing. This is a film that easily could have been drawn in caricature, and it never is. It does, however, draw the characters as fairly as they deserve, so the Joel Edgerton gay conversion therapist does wear bad ties and pronounce some words incorrectly. The Russell Crowe character, especially in the powerhouse final scene, is more complex and real, at least if I'm to judge by my own father, who has disturbingly similar moral authority and power moves k thx bai.

33. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Morgan Neville)- This one is more cohesive than 30 Feet From Stardom, but these Morgan Neville docs are sometimes too slick for their own good. If you've never made the "jerking-off motion" with your hand, then you'll be tested when he asks his subjects to close their eyes and imagine someone special to them.

That's not to say that the nearly pornographic reverence of Fred Rogers is not deserved or effective. And one of the most daring notes of the film is the suggestion that, in our hostile times, Rogers's message might not have stuck. The jabs at Trump aren't overplayed, but the president is sort of a pall over the entire film. When Rogers says, "The most essential things in life are invisible," it's hard not to imagine the person on our TV daily who is the antithesis of that idea.

32. Hearts Beat Loud (Brett Haley)- This is a heartwarming movie that ends on a high note with solid music. (Important because, if the music that the father and daughter made had been bad, the whole thing would have fallen apart.) Occasionally, it falls into that ensemble problem of "Good news: We got Ted Danson. Bad news: We have to find something for him to do." And it's a weird sideways ad for Spotify. But if I gave Begin Again three stars, then I have to kick this Once-core entry up to three-and-a-half.

If I may, though, I would like to analyze a recommendation that Offerman's record store owner makes to Collette's character. Since she's buying Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney, he puts her on to Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, an album she has not heard of. Which is absurd. Forget that Animal Collective should not be recommended to any woman ever. Any person who knows Sleater-Kinney also knows Animal Collective. She would have heard of them if only because they would be a bad match for someone who likes Sleater-Kinney. But here he is all like, "Check out 'My Girls'--killer song." You're going to recommend the lead single, fam? You're not even going to go out on a limb and push "Bluish"? No wonder your store is shutting down if you're pushing free folk/art-punk onto riot grrls.

31. Western (Valesta Grisebach)- While I was watching Western, I can't say I was having too much fun. It seemed like an adequate story told in a patient, austere way. But in the days since then, I haven't been able to get it out of my head. The way that Grisebach gets so much out of non-professional actors, the way that each character seems to exist not so much as a person but as a totem for something like aggression or labor or exploitation or occupation. Like few other movies--though Beau Travail comes to mind--it's a portrait of masculinity that seems really resigned about its conclusions. 30. American Animals (Bart Layton)- I worry about the potential Boondock Saints effect of this movie: Do I want to be in the same number as the college dorm crew attracted to it only for its style? Is it only style? I don't think it adds up to much ultimately.

But it does have style, and it's way too fun of a caper flick to resist. It presents an interesting bridge in Bart Layton's career, from non-fiction that is a bit too fictional to fiction that is a bit too factual. The segments with the real people involved in the heist serve as decisive punctuation to the florid sentences of the narrative. I also appreciated that the film didn't dwell too much on the trial, since we know exactly where the boys faltered and what evidence did them in.

29. The Land of Steady Habits (Nicole Holofcener)- I loved the rich characterization of the first half, which resists hand-holding as it plops the viewer into a post-divorce setting that is familiar but specific. The film bounces off into tangents from there, some of which are great, but Edie Falco seems to draw the short straw. There are three actors on the poster--weird-voiced Ben Mendelsohn, Thomas Mann, and Falco--but her character is left undeveloped, a bit unfairly, as the proceedings favor the men. The film is still another ground-rule double for Holofcener, a filmmaker who gives the impression that she has no idea what a ground-rule double is.

28. Private Life (Tamara Jenkins)- I don't know anything about Tamara Jenkins's personal life, but there's no way that the details and emotion of the central couple's infertility don't come from her own pain. That frustration and obsession take center stage, and we get filled in with the rest of the details patiently as the film goes on. I don't think we even know what Giamatti's character does for a living until forty-five minutes in, and that's okay. The movie cares more about the supporting characters than I did, but I appreciated the lived-in realism of an apartment with books filling up the fireplace.

27. Flower (Max Winkler)- Although I didn't believe Zoey Deutch as a seventeen-year-old, I was impressed by this script, which moves slowly until it doesn't. I guess "Flower" is good branding since there doesn't appear to be a movie called that already, but I kind of wish this had just been called "Erica." It builds that character carefully, plants her in an impossible situation, then unleashes hell upon her.

An advantage of a movie with teenage characters is that they don't necessarily have to make the most logical decision in a given moment, so even when these characters are being dumb, they're being true to themselves. As the most prominent Zoey Deutch stockholder in North America, I actually thought about bumping this up an extra half-star.

26. Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)- Leave No Trace is partly about how existing outside of society can be as much of a contrivance as buying in, but the way the movie delivers that message is less ham-fisted than my description due to the intense performances at the center. Ben Foster, uncharacteristically restrained here, reportedly worked with Debra Granik to excise 40% of his dialogue, and that choice speaks volumes about the trust the film has for the audience in limiting the exposition.

The only thing holding me back was how exclusively internal the father-daughter story is. Unlike Granik's Winter's Bone, which functions as both a (similarly compassionate) coming-of-age story and a race-against-the-clock thriller, Leave No Trace is tracking only emotional growth. Will and Tom aren't headed anywhere in particular, which is part of the survival-versus-living point. But, you know, get you a Debra Granik movie that can do both.

25. Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham)- Socially terrifying when it isn't being effortlessly funny. Sometimes the protagonist is downright frustrating, which the film doesn't shy away from, but the vulnerability of Elsie Fisher's performance grounds everything around it. Besides nailing adult condescension, Burnham's script works because the big social disaster is always averted until it suddenly isn't, and that's when the moment hits the hardest. Somewhere in the back of my mind though, I kept thinking that perceptive realism is easy to do if that's your only goal. To quote the kids: "Some shade."

I spent most of the movie thanking God that YouTube channels didn't exist when I was thirteen.

24. Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle)- I'll be the millionth person to write "truth is stranger than fiction" with regard to this movie. And sometimes having no idea where a movie will go is enough. 23. Green Book (Peter Farrelly)- When a dramatic director makes a comedy, it often feels self-conscious and overt. I'm thinking about Von Trier's The Boss of It All, in which the technique is more important than any audience joy or release. Or Michael Haneke explaining tirelessly why he thinks Happy End is "actually a comedy." Unsurprisingly, the results work a lot better when a comedy director of twenty years decides to go more serious. He knows what audiences want, he already understands how to wring tension out of each scene, and all he needs is the right subject.

The last item is where Green Book suffers. In the end, this is still a movie in which a White guy learns not to be racist. The first third, there seemingly to insist that Tony is the main character, is shaggy. I would wager the men don't get into the car inside of forty minutes. But once we're on the tour? Man, is this a crowd pleaser. The men's respect for each other grows gracefully, and the film's proud sentimentality powers its best moments as they fly by at a clipped pace. I had given up on Farrelly after Hall Pass, which felt amateurish, so a work of such professionally manicured (manufactured?) emotion was a shock.

On a different note, are any of you interested in a thousand words on Linda Cardellini's posture?

22. Den of Thieves (Christian Gudegast)- Despite the February release date, a director with no track record, and the most #basic studio lead there is, Den of Thieves is a caper film as sprawling as it is humane. Even Potato-face Butler is perfect for his role.

I watched the unrated version, which should be called the "depressing version," since I know exactly what was cut. (Hint: The wordless scene of Butler's jilted family ignoring him when he sees them in the grocery store, not anything from the shoot-out.) There's a spot where I would end the movie, and it's way before the Keyser Soze epilogue, but this was a welcome surprise for me. The movie seems to find its star in O'Shea Jackson, Jr. as it goes, and I completely agree. Many more like this please.

21. The Front Runner (Jason Reitman)- Reitman starts with a complicated oner that cranes up and down, zooms in and out of new characters, and times itself perfectly to catch snatches of conversations about "how can you even lay this much cable?" And in all of its Altman-esque indulgence, it's kind of the movie in a nutshell. Something simple--a scene shot with one take--commenting on how damned hard it is. What seems like a straightforward thesis moves at a breakneck pace with a game ensemble until you realize that it was all more complicated than it seemed.

Hugh Jackman has the challenge of playing someone essentially unknowable, but he has an amazing moment in the first third. On the chartered boat called Monkey Business--such a bad look, dude--Gary Hart is composed and dignified until a woman we don't see* sits down across from him, and his whole affect changes. His guard drops, and he seems absorbed by her, giggly. We can't hear what he's saying, but he's asking her about herself and joking about himself. Both or one or neither of those personalities is the real guy. The Front Runner is a movie about a tragic Great Man, and they're always described as if they can't help themselves, as if they're fighting their demons until the magic moment when they aren't. Jackman made that magic real for me when Hart's personality fell out.

20. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)- Patently uneven and bizarrely sequenced, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs doesn't stack up to the Coens' major works--though it demands another viewing. I did think, in all of its bleak absurdism, that it belongs in their neighborhood. To me, there's a dichotomy that most of the brothers' films trace. We're all doomed, but the force that does us in is sometimes fate (A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Hudsucker Proxy, No Country for Old Men) and sometimes the stupidity of other people (The Big Lebowski, Blood Simple, Burn After Reading, Miller's Crossing). This new movie seems to start with the latter, waver sometimes in the more interesting middle stories when Zoe Kazan and Tom Waits break my heart, then end up at the former. Tracking such a thing in miniature can be really instructive.

19. The Tale (Jennifer Fox)- If you can look past Common's goofy voice and the more afterschool special aspects of this movie, then you can realize that it should actually, as disturbing as it is, be an afterschool special. It spins its wheels sometimes, but the questions that this movie asks about memory and abuse are invaluable. Presenting a downright shocking portrayal of grooming and secrecy, it avoids easy answers and over-sympathizing with the protagonist all the way through. (Especially notable because the character is "Jennifer Fox," and the director is Jennifer Fox.)

Laura Dern remains Laura Dern, but I loved Jason Ritter in this. Exactly because he has been in a hundred failed sitcoms, he is terrifying here as a devilish knock-off of the type of guy approachable enough to be on TV.

18. Paddington 2 (Paul King)- At first, during the extended introduction, I was worried that Paddington 2 was falling prey to the curse of the sequel: more, not better. But as each family member pays off what we learned about him or her in the introduction during a sprightly train setpiece that owes more than a little to Keaton, I realized that I shouldn't have doubted the Paddington empathy machine. This one carries over the humor and sweetness but goes even harder on the pathos in its attempt to convince us to have good manners and care about the people around us. I'm not sure any other movie this year hit me harder than when the Browns don't show up for their weekly meeting at the jail.

Hugh Grant, an actor who always seems to be having fun, has never seemed as if he is having more fun.

17. Set It Up (Claire Scanlon)- I guess I believe in true love now.

16. Blindspotting (Carlos Lopez Estrada)- The stylized climax is going to be polarizing, but I thought it was a heightened, artful moment whose seeds had been sown throughout. The film meanders, but its angles on subjects like gentrification and probation and identity show tenderness and openness, and Estrada's visual energy recalls early Spike Lee or Jarmusch or Aronofsky. It's worth seeing if only for its fresh sense of place.

The two leads play off each other especially well. If Daveed Diggs is the fourth lead or whatever of Hamilton, then I guess I finally have to see it.

15. Incredibles 2 (Brad Bird)- Incredibles 2 is a good example of a sequel rhyming with the original in a way that doesn’t feel like a retread. Accidentally topical in its subtext about just rule of law, the film hits upon some of Brad Bird’s ideas of exceptionalism and hope for the future while being slightly more cogent in that messaging than the original. (Slightly. The villain problem is still there. If superheroes are already illegal, then why employ and promote them at all if your goal is to make them even more illegal?)

This entry is a bit more overstuffed, less timeless, and less funny than the original. There’s nothing on the level of “Honey, where is my super suit?” which I still say to my wife fourteen years later. But the fight choreography and the textural animation take advantage of the gap in between films. The Paar family dynamic is altered only slightly, but it’s enough to re-invent the proceedings. Violet has more confidence in herself, Dash is more in control of his powers, and it’s the, yes, thicc Elastigirl who is working solo this time. Especially in the opening sequence, we see how each character’s skills complement the others’. If Finding Dory is the bar for “sequels to Pixar movies that didn’t need sequels,” then Incredibles 2 leaps over that bar.

14. Chappaquiddick (John Curran)- "We need to tell the truth. Or at least our version of it."

After the Kennedy Curse claimed JFK Jr., it seemed as if the culture reached a saturation point with Kennedy coverage. Aside from the occasional "Look who's dating Taylor Swift," we gave them their space. Who would have thought that twenty years later would be the perfect time to dust off the coldest case in the dossier?

See, now that we're having a national conversation about who gets the breaks, there's a little bit of extra weight lent to a scene of Ted Kennedy waiting for a sheriff he summoned as he drafts a statement at that absent sheriff's desk. A sheriff who then helps Kennedy to escape through a backdoor lest he answer any untoward question about his manslaughter. The film is delivered with an even pitch--especially the Jason Clarke performance that could have been overdone--but it makes no mistake about its real subject: privilege.

The attempts to keep Kennedy safe become more brazen as the film goes on, and each dodged consequence--getting Teddy's driver's license renewed on the low, for example--is balanced by Ed Helms's desperate performance as a voice of integrity. In all of the best tragedies, we know what's going to happen in the end. All along, the Kennedy Curse was that they are not like the rest of us.

13. Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti)- Can we all agree that an anonymous gossip web site for a high school is a bad idea? And that, though the film doesn't pursue this angle, the vice principal is the one maintaining it?

This propulsive, observant, and witty movie is an outright pleasure from beginning to end. Hocking spitballs at its PG-13 rating, its greatest strengths are having the courage to get dark and having the wisdom to give every supporting character his or her own moment.

#film #lists #movie reviews

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dreamsreblogs · 7 years

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Tagged by: @quatral

Rules: Tag nine people (yeah that’s not happening lol)

Relationship status: What’s a relationship? hahaha *sobbing*

Favorite color: Probably a light desaturated purple right now, but I love a few specific shades of pretty much every color

Pets: Until very recently I had a black cat named Lewis; he was 15 when he passed away unexpectedly. We still have his brother, a grey tabby named Jake - and recently got a white-with-black-spots half-pit puppy named Octavia (Tavi for short).

Wake up: Recently I’ve been getting up around 10:30. I am not, never have been, and probably never WILL be, an early riser.

Cats or dogs: Cats. Absolutely cats. I like dogs, but they’re harder and have so much energy and I have no idea what they’re thinking at any given point in time. I know cats like I know myself.

Coke or Pepsi: Coke. Pepsi has always tasted gross to me *shrug*

Day or Night: Night. The dark is calm and quiet and easier on the eyes. I can walk around and not feel like people are watching me. And I get all my best ideas at night - drawing is easier at night.

Text or call: That depends. Communication is so much easier to me over a call - but texting is so much less stressful if it’s someone I need to be careful around (and not sound like an idiot to). I’d rather text bosses / coworkers / student peers, but call friends and family I guess?

Chapstick or lipstick: Neither. I low-key wish I knew of a lipstick color that wouldn’t look stupid on me, but since I don’t really wear makeup it’d probably stick out no matter what, and I’d feel like a fool experimenting. Especially since it’s expensive. As for chapstick, I wear it when I have to, but for the most part I don’t like the oily feel of it.

City or country: Country. I like the quiet, and the stars at night. The bugs (praying mantises! milipedes! damselfies! lacewings!), the plants, and the freedom to be outside without feeling observed (usually). I could lay mostly naked in a hammock in the windy shade on a hot day if I wanted to! Without having to worry about someone being disgusted by my fat haha

Last book I read: Oh god I’m not sure. I go through like, waves, of wanting to read, and having zero interest in reading. The most recent wave, all I’ve read is fanfics. Before that I went through another dystopia craze, but got peeved off with like 4 different series and never finished any of them. I can’t actually remember what the last book I finished was... the last book I STARTED reading was Steven King’s Insomnia (which, I’ve read before). It was on my desk by my bed and I read the first chapter a few weeks ago.

Last song i listened to: Shostakovich’s Waltz #2 - which sounds incredibly pretentious xD I’ve been putting together playlists for the bot on a discord server, though, and was just listening to random stuff to see what I wanted to add.

Five facts about me:

1. I sometimes have weirdly vivid and comprehensive dreams. Like, to the point where when I tell people about them, they often think I must have consciously added details or plot points after-the-fact. I do often use dreams as inspiration for most of what I write or draw, but when I tell my dreams as-is, they ARE as-is. Honestly, unconscious me is a much better, much more detail focused story teller than I could hope to be while awake. I can’t take the credit. 2. I will absolutely always want to talk about headcanons and OCs for Harry Potter, Starwars, and Pokemon. Those three are my favorite universes- there’s so much leeway to do your own thing, but within interesting context. Talk to me about wand-cores and what your animagus form and patronuses would be. Tell me what race your jedi/padawan is and what color your light saber is and what your ship is like. Tell me all about your pokemon team and how you got into training and what you carry in your pack. I looooveeee themmmmm 3. I live within 4 hours of Canada - but I’ve never been there; the only time I’ve ever been out of the country, I went to Beijing China for two weeks. Also despite having traveled as far as China - I’ve never even been to the ocean. 4. I come across as really weirdly ‘random’ sometimes, but I think it’s mostly due to an incredibly short attention span. If I have a thought, it’s like I HAVE to follow that new thread. I’ll do this thing where, like, for example - my mom might say “Hey look a butterfly!” and I’ll look up and see this little white butterfly - so I’ll say “oh yeah!”... but then immediately my brain is off - that butterfly reminds me of a monarch we named Karma that we saved from a random summer hail storm - which makes me think about hail, which makes me think about bad weather in general, which reminds me of that time we lived in the trailer park and there was a tornado, and I was really afraid of tornadoes as a kid but one day I found a rock with a tornado pattern on it and I let myself believe it was a talisman that would protect me, but isn’t just “Letting yourself believe something” kind of weird? That gets me thinking about beliefs and religion, which gets me thinking about “okay but what sparked the big bang” and “what if that was the launching of our quantum “program” and higher dimensional beings are our “God”? Which just gets me thinking about the 4th dimension in general and trying to understand it. So I ask my mom “Do you ever think about the 4th dimension?”... but from her point of view the entire interaction was “Hey look a butterfly!” “Oh yeah!” *10 second pause* “Do you ever think about the 4th dimension?” I’m sure it seems less weird over the internet- firstly y’all don’t know what else might have drawn my attention to that new thought (did the tv mention it? did I see a post on my dashboard?), and also it’s probably pretty a fairly common thing anyway- but people irl have expressed a lot of confusion over how I flit from one thing to the next like that. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to backtrack and explain how I got from a song on the radio to that time I found a lightening bug in the grass with my peripheral vision when it only had really dim residual glow and hadn’t even flashed and how weird peripheral vision is in general, for example. 5. I get really upset or defensive if I’m feeling like I’m being misunderstood; especially if someone is telling me ‘how I feel’ or ‘what I think’ and I disagree. My point can be entirely irrelevant, but if I can’t get it across, I get really frustrated with myself. I’ll try to rephrase it a million times just desperately trying to be understood, but the more flustered I am, the less good I am with my words - and to the other person it looks like I’m just being bull headed about the point they THINK I’m making and repeating it over and over. If the argument ends and they still think I meant something I didn’t, I get really self-conscious of what they must think of me as a person, and will probably assume they never want to talk to me again and will tell all their friends about how awful I am. Sometimes I’ll apologize, but I can’t erase the mental image of them judging me for something I never even thought when I talk to them, so when I do, I often try to explain AGAIN at that point in time... and usually that gets them upset again. So usually I don’t apologize at all. But I also don’t usually try to go on as if nothing happened either, because I get all wrapped up in myself and become sure they hate me, so I don’t talk to them at all unless they talk to me first, or it’s been long enough for me to forget it happened (eg. at least a year). So... if we get into an argument where I’ve repeated myself a lot and then I stopped talking to you: I’m not ignoring you because I’m mad, I’m assuming you hate me and am afraid to talk to you any more because you might just be tolerating me (someone you hate and wish would stop talking to you) because you’re nice.

Tagging:

idk, @just-to-express-not-impress and @sonicega and @tuftyfluff Pretty sure everyone else I’d like to tag was already tagged by Quatral, or wouldn’t be interested in doing one of these anyway

#long post #about me #tag thing

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mrmichaelchadler · 5 years

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Sundance 2019: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre on The Mustang

Years before the premiere of her feature debut, “The Mustang,” director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre found a subject so complex, she studied it for years. She became intrigued by the rehabilitating powers of animal therapy in prison, which lead to her first short, “Rabbit.” The basis for her early project set the stage for “The Mustang,” which follows a violent and antisocial prisoner, Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts), as he begins his healing process with the help of a horse training program. “The Mustang” cast also includes Bruce Dern, Jason Mitchell and Connie Britton, but it’s Schoenaerts’ intuitive performance with his four-legged co-star that leave the biggest impression.

RogerEbert.com spoke with Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre at Sundance ahead of the premiere of her first feature about her movie’s subject, filming an active prison and what has she learned in researching the U.S. prison system.

This is a bit of a homecoming Sundance for you. What was your previous experience like?

I went to the labs with “The Mustang,” so the project was born here. It was the best gift to have this premiere back at home. My short film, “Rabbit,” talks about the same subject. It was about a rabbit and a female prisoner. I explored this theme of animal therapy in prison about 5 years ago.

I found out about this [animal therapy] program in Nevada. So, I wrote the first draft with my co-writer, and we were selected to send in the story for the Sundance labs for like 6 months. I was doing screenwriting and directing lab. I did all the labs after that. It allowed me to do my research on prisons as well. It was a nice moment for me to be surrounded and supported by experienced advisors at Sundance and also be able to hit the story with authentic details and elements in Nevada and California prisons.

What was the research process like? Did you go into prisons, observe the programs and talk to prisoners?

The first time, I met this therapist who was a prison consultant. She was the head of the health department in prison in California, and she also a horse owner so she became a good friend. We started our research together in 2014. She got me access to San Quintin prison because she said she thought I needed to understand violence and anger and meet the men who had huge anger issues. Also, I went into this prison in Nevada where the program started years ago, and I could observe all the different steps between the connection between horse and man. From day one to the auction when they had to say goodbye to the horse, which was very emotional.

I could see the realness of this man being completely humbled by the horse after being scared and all those different emotions that seem like being packed. It is a lot of body language. There are no words, there's no judgment. It is just two creatures trying to figure out a way to get along, to build eventual trust and respect. It was beautiful to witness. I spent a lot of time there.

Matthias, I think in a very personal way, was very involved in his character's story. It was a gift because he came with me to prison. He wanted to absorb and listen and absorb as much as possible and through this process, we got really good friends. We trusted each other to really go through this adventure. And yes, he is a wonderful partner and a wonderful collaborator.

The character Matthias plays is so inaccessible and prickly. He's difficult to empathize with. How did you develop the character of Roman?

I met a lot of men who were very closed off and needed a why to unfold themselves. I felt I needed to see, I wanted to see a man in this numbness. How the drops by drops, he would unfold himself with the animal, be able to express his crime, to be forgiven, to ask for forgiveness and to liberate himself from his physiological prison. In order to go through this heart, I needed to study this darkness, this darkness of antisocial behavior. That is where it felt it was most impactful to unfold. Obviously, I needed to depart from that place. It was very important for me.

It was urgent to follow this tragic story as the character is discovering it. I didn't want the audience to be behind or ahead of the character's understanding. I needed them to be in sync with them. This is also challenging the audience's empathy after following this tragic terrain. Then you discover his crime at the end. It is like, “Oh I kind of like this person. What do I do with them? Do I give a second chance?” That was exactly the position I was when I was in prison and I was meeting those really charming and smart men. After a while, they were like yeah, I killed my wife.

I'm here sitting with them, and I actually get along with them. I have no judgment. I know now that I have all the information. What do I do with that? This is exactly what I wanted the audience to experience. Do I give a second chance? Do I don't give a second chance? I think it is very interesting to kind of think about it. Personally, every man deserves respect, whatever he did, whatever the past was. You give what you get. And at some point, if you take the time to reflect on yourself, in those program, helping those men to resurrect.

The cinematography of “The Mustang” is really quite impressive. What were you thinking of when you were coming up with the film’s visual style?

I needed to have very light equipment in order to go move beside the horse. It was very important to have a cinematographer who had a very immersive camera that could really adapt and follow the dancing with the horse and Matthias. It was a choreography between the horse, the horse trainer, the camera — Ruben Impens, the amazing cinematographer, and Matthias. And that was actually very important for me in the choice of the cinematographer. Ruben was this person, I knew that he felt, that he was enveloped emotionally by the story. He actually was capturing a handout of virility inside this connection.

We had 2 cameras. We needed to make sure that we could grab as much as possible in this very tight schedule that we had. I needed to have much more static, rich moment inside the prison versus the wideness, loose camera following the movement of the men. I think this goes like the agility of the inside and outside. It gives this kind of roughness, vertigo even. This is what I really needed to build the dimensions of these two worlds, were kind of like overlaid into each other.

I’m also really intrigued by the use of color in “The Mustang” as well. It’s desaturated, almost dusty looking in a western kind of way.

The choice of the location was very important. It was were I started my research. Usually, the contrast was very strong. Those Rocky Mountains changed the light. A lot of changing colors and this business was nested in this Rocky Mountains. So to have the position of the barb wires behind this explosive nature was very important. And also the dust was there. It was the quality of the air, the dryness of the deserted mountains. We didn't add more, we had so much dust. We couldn't breathe at the end of the day. We were like swallowing sand and dust all the time. Especially around the horses.

The orange, the blue, there was something composed. I wanted to highlight this scale of different. I loved those colors into the landscape. The landscape was more exaggerated but you had the fluid orange. In prison, this is like a code of color. They all have the same color. Even though they have the same outfit, they want to be different. They want to have something to make them different. So maybe it's a haircut, or it's glasses, or it's bandana or it's just something that makes them not part of a union.

You also recreate the western motif when they're riding. There’s even one scene where they are all riding in a line like “The Magnificent Seven.” Were you thinking about those moments when you were setting up the shots?

Obviously, I thought about it. I wanted to have this moment of freedom. This moment of surreal freedom.

You had to get the horses used to nature, trailing and to ride them outside of the prison. So when I heard of that, I was like oh wow, that gives an amazing opportunity to have this big space to get out of the prison. Even though it's kind of cruel because you still have the “Department of Correction” on your back, to remind them that you are still a prisoner. But you have this amazing freedom of learning and riding your horse. When we go back to the prison we were very meditative, poetic, almost religious moment.

Did you film the movie in an active prison?

Both, an active one and an abandoned prison. The abandoned one was really close to the active one so there are some shots that come from the active one—a few of them because I was not allowed to shoot because of the inmates. Then we went to the abandoned one, and we created all the pens and the farm. It was shut down 10 years ago. So you can still feel like the walls are very alive. We had four inmates who were acting the film and those one of them were incarcerated in this prison. We also had guards in the prison that were actually extras in the films. We had all these people that had a past—a very strong past in this location.

In doing so much research in the prison industry, what is your overall feeling about the way the American system works.

We know that it's a must incarcerated country in the world. Incarceration is out of control, and they need to have to keep those inmates busy and they have to come up with programs. I think they need to explore more of the sentences are so long, if they keep them forever, they will be crazy and riot.

The worst country in the world for prison found out the most beautiful programs for the inmates. In Europe, you have some programs, but you don't have the animal program. It's not popular as in America. In Europe, because the sentences are shorter, they have therapy, they have verbal therapy but they don't have as much as the inmates in the U.S. It's still a huge issue. I've been in a lot of prisons here, and it is unbelievable.

It is so much loss. It's like stealing $40 and losing your life of freedom. Things are disproportionate. Going through these depths of field, I hope this [movie] brings an inquisitive message and raises awareness. A lot of those men shouldn't be in prison right now. A lot of them are redeemed, let them work on themselves. Whatever they did in the past shouldn't crystallize them forever. They can have hope, they can have a future. Most of them did their mistake when they were 16 or 17 or 18 years old. There is a lot to think about. I hope that prison can try to help the men instead of beat them up. Educate them, rather than incarcerate them. This is what I feel should be a response of the justice system. Why would you punish just to punish? What's the sense of punishment?

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