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ddaenghoney · 4 years

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chapter thirteen

masterlist link in blog description.

As a successful songwriter, you want nothing more than the acknowledgment that the chart-topping musical pieces are your own creations. But contracts, relationships, and the difficulty of facing the stakes involved head on, keep your mouth shut until pressure builds too much.

Pairing(s): Park Jimin x Y/N, Min Yoongi x Y/N

disclaimer: any characters depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.

Series warning(s)/genre(s): Chapter-based written fic, Slow-burn relationship(s), Fake-dating, Unrequited love, Songwriter/producer!oc, idol!Jimin, idol/songwriter/producer!Yoongi, friends with benefits, drama, romance, smut, angst, fluff (updated as needed)

Chapter warning(s): lot of manipulative aspects in conversation.

Word count: 5133

if you enjoy please, please let me know!

Jimin finds himself contemplative. Standing motionless outside of the elevator, he looks on at the button to call for it still unlit due to his lack of movement. He’s supposed to hit the downwards facing arrow, earlier intending to work on choreography before the instructor arrived to work on finalization and moving on to the next song’s dance. But he doesn’t click the button, finding himself uncertain if he wanted to do that or follow the teeming sensation in his head to hit the button that would send him upwards.

He sighs, shaking his head and thinking about the ridiculousness of him just standing there. Rather than mull around in his thoughts it’d be more useful to do practically anything else, so he impulsively reaches to click a button. Stepping back, Jimin rubs his jaw, eyes glancing back down the hallway towards Yoongi’s studio.

For a second your simple sentence registers in his ears. A thanking comment that you didn’t have to say, especially considering how lackluster his involvement really was in the situation. Yoongi did more for you, and, had Jimin not spoken up in the midst of his annoyance overflowing out of his mouth, Yoongi likely would’ve said more. He clearly wanted that producer to stop being disrespectful to you.

Jimin falters at the memory, hand trailing to mess around with his hair as he thinks about your avoidance from the area by entrance into Yoongi’s studio. Not having to ask permission, it was simply granted to you, where it’s commonly understood by the majority of employees in the company that Yoongi hasn’t simply become comfortable with everyone to act like that. While he’s definitely polite and civil, there’s undoubtedly a line between himself and the original employees of SoundWave. Meanwhile, you’re an exception to the fact.

He bites his lip, attempting to silence the jealousy that he doesn’t have a right to feel strongly about anymore. Jimin made the choice to create a rift between the two of you, and there’s no sense in him trying to find away back across it anymore. The gap is too foundationally damaged with nothing in sight to fix its stability in a long-lasting way.

He enters the elevator, thoughtlessly clicking a floor number as he steps away from the couple of people also inside. Watching the stories climb, he tries to think about the future comeback he’s working on. There’s still much to record, but with the title track completed and choreography being mastered for it, Jimin finds the date of release running towards him at a speedy pace.

Another album to drop without his creative input poured into it in the way that you and other producers have worked so hard for him and every other artist. His name next to tracks, on the album cover, face in advertisement, and nothing in his heart to solidify the bond between himself and the music. The thought didn’t occur to him so strongly before, but now that he doesn’t see your happiness in showing him songs you’ve created, he can’t find anything exciting about the prospect of release.

Jimin can’t watch you pour emotion onto paper, or listen to the untamed ramblings of you passionately explaining songs given to other artists. He has to corrupt your meaning to come up with his own, behind lyrics he would have never written himself. He wants to scream onto pages with ink in the way you have. The scribbles in notebooks at his apartment and lines saved into his phone’s notes cling to the hope of further work, but wear away in abandonment. They aren’t enough.

Jimin steps out of the elevator, head bowing as Yerin’s secretary notices him. The button he pressed dragged him upwards in another attempt. Like his last visit, Jimin is unannounced, causing the lady greeting him to smile with apprehension of what he wanted. He could’ve succumbed and hid away in the lower basement levels where the dance studios are, but he’s on the top of the building again.

“Is she in?”

It takes a hesitant affirmative and a few more slowly spoken sentences for Jimin to be left standing in front of the secretary’s desk as she pages into the office. He didn’t have a reason to come up here this time. About a week earlier he had the faintest plan of asking permission to work with a producer on a small independent whim. Now he walks into the CEO office without a plan at all, uncertain of what he actually wants if he gives himself a moment to be honest with himself.

“Jimin,” Yerin greets the unassuming man as he carefully shuts the door behind him. Her eyes remain fixed on her computer as she types quickly, eyes unhindered by his presence. “Take a seat, this won’t take me long.”

Jimin does as she says, forgetting to nod his head as a response. He considers the implication of him coming here again so soon, wondering why he felt so impulsively moved to go and speak to Yerin again. The clutter of his head feels entirely unprocessed, but he thinks of you.

Recalling the hurt in your expression when he told you that he can’t accept what you wanted changed in your contract, Jimin sits with his hands meshed together, silently thinking about how he found himself so afraid to tell you that.

He knew completely that you wouldn’t be able to accept him staying beside you with an opposing perspective, because Jimin knows that despite all the crap that SoundWave gives you that you still understand the worth of what you do underneath all of your own insecurity of how to go about getting what you want. He didn’t want to lose you, but in agreement he’d lose everything he had worked for. However, the fact is that in so many ways what Jimin has was built for him. Jimin bites his lip, thinking that beside his own selfishness, he should’ve supported you.

The news of your leave comes to the forefront of Jimin’s mind. Rumors similar to the producer’s indignant comments swarmed the halls since the day of, but all cleared in front of him by your defiant statement that you quit. Splitting from the path you were on to start creating your own, you gave the greatest shock to the company. Even the tiny inklings shoved into the bottom of Jimin’s conscious, didn’t think you’d ever go this far when nothing outside of your choice is clear.

“Now then.” Yerin stops typing, shifting her chair to face Jimin directly as his eyes lift up to her. The person you overcame despite her chilling methodologies keeping the company arranged in perfect order. “What brings you here?”

“Y/N’s quitting.” Jimin’s voice speaks as small as he feels compared to Yerin and you. Obviously she knows this, and it isn’t something he should come from out of nowhere to restate unless looking for an argument, but his head didn’t consider words. Just the fact that there’s a crack where fingertips can reach through layers of deceptively bright veiling curtains.

The very corner of Yerin’s lip slides into a frown, the hand on her desk curling into an arch as the random sentence remains in the air without an addition. She notes an absence of apprehension in Jimin’s eyes as he stares back at her in the way one does after a realization. “She decided not to continue with the company, that’s correct.”

An evident erasure of any spite is removed from her tone, but not the gleam in Yerin’s eyes that Jimin sees through. Knowing she’s already irritated from your situation-- from losing control in the largest hidden piece to SoundWave. She’s good at hiding it to remain mostly poised.

“This means things are going to change.” Knowingly said. Not an observation, a promise. Jimin doesn’t smile, but his expression appears to be uplifted. Yerin’s hand curls more, fingers colliding with her palm, trying to find clairvoyance to study him, but his reaction is opposite of anything she expected to hear from Jimin concerning your leave.

“You’re not upset.” Yerin finds herself speaking the oddness aloud, not realizing so until she closes her mouth following the sentence. Appearing like a dissimilar person to the one she knows, Jimin pauses only for a moment, before air escapes his mouth in the smallest of laughs. Surprised as well.

“I know how much everything here rides on her.” He says, eyes casting down in consideration of everything you’ve accomplished for SoundWave. A gentle smile slips onto his expression, “I’ve been terrified of her getting sick of the crap she gets here.” He doesn’t miss a beat to rephrase himself, just sitting back into his seat while Yerin’s eyes follow his movements through a hardened gaze.

“Because you would never stop telling me how I’d never make it without her doing everything in the background. For years now that’s the only stance you’ve had, no matter how much I expressed how willing I was to do things for myself. It’s just always been you telling me no. That I’m not good enough-- that it’s not worth the risk.”

“It isn’t.” Yerin speaks up, sighing to refrain from clicking her tongue. She rolls her shoulders to sit up properly, speaking fluidly and without tact, “Your purpose here is for singing, dancing-- being the face of the Jimin persona the public want. Your artistry as a producer of any kind isn’t fruitful to take a risk in when you weigh it against people with endowed talent like Y/N and other producers in the company. This isn’t just about you Jimin. At the end of the day, what sells is more important than your desire to try your hand at songwriting.”

“She’s leaving.” Jimin says, words exiting his mouth with an audible grain of discontentment, that alters into rising frustration, “You’ve made it so she has nothing if she were to quit and she still has. You can’t rely on her to keep everything here functioning like it has-- it would only make sense that you change how things are handled and give the artists--” Jimin straightens from his chair, shoulders stiffening as he practically pleads through biting words, “Give me an opportunity to actually do what everyone out there thinks I do.”

Jimin remains still, watching for any reaction of his words, but Yerin only stares in a calmly pensive manner. No irritation of his outspoken demands, not even shock from his voice’s unintentional rise in volume from his emotions. Jimin keeps himself from faltering, thinking its best to remain firm no matter how long she appears to consider his words in silence.

“This isn’t entirely my decision to have the artists from creating their own music. It’s the board’s collective agreement to produce whatever will sell best from experience.” Cool words ease into the room, her fist uncurling so that her index finger can tap the quietest of beats against her desk. Yerin examines Jimin, finding him absent of a response yet. She shrugs a shoulder once, “To be completely honest with you, I’d rather go back to make a new deal with Y/N than give every artist a sudden opportunity at self-production, but she’s set in her ways.”

“She deserves better than what she gets here.” Jimin speaks without hesitation, though a piece of his mind becomes inquisitive as a faint smirk grows on Yerin’s face.

“And you don’t? Your contract ends at the end of the year.” She says, voice more sly than Jimin has ever heard. “Why not just leave at the end of it too?”

Jimin’s eyebrows crease in surprise, staying quiet while he tries to consider what she means. He catches the sound of his heart once and then it stays in his ears, feeling as though he’s done something wrong. He hadn’t considered his disposability. But that’s a factor isn’t it, one that should’ve crossed his mind, and maybe in a normal train of thought it would’ve. In other situations maybe he’s had the warning in the back of his mind that they could simply get rid of him since he’s replaceable. Replaceable. The word repeats with his heart, making Jimin bite on his inner cheek.

“You’re a liability to other companies.” Yerin leans her chin against her hand, watching him boredly. Her expression different from calm, similar to apathetic instead. “Your career is what it is because of how you’ve been marketed, conceptualized, created-- all synthetic.” Her finger continues a tap that’s out of beat from the way Jimin feels his heart, out of sync, creating a disarrayed ambiance. “You aren’t anything without what we make for you, Jimin.”

Her words send Jimin’s memories back, to every other instance of conversation with her privately for the past five years. The insinuations varying in how opaquely they’re depicted, but also equating to the strings attached to his performances on stage. How crafted his public persona is. Yerin’s reminders that he’s the face alone, and all else is because of collaborated work behind the scenes. Telling him again and again, if Y/N leaves his career could shatter right along with it.

“Just because Y/N leaves doesn’t mean we can alter the entirety of how the company operates. That’s like asking for public scrutiny.” She exhales, rolling her shoulders again in a relaxed manner. Jimin’s eyes don’t leave her, too frozen like suffocation. “Maybe if you left together with her, you could’ve made something, but from the looks of things that’s not something I need to be concerned about, or else you would’ve submitted resignation the same day she did.”

Jimin wonders how you were able to walk off without anyone. Under Yerin’s gaze and the tangling of her words, Jimin feels no freer than usual. Then he realizes that what she says is valid. You’re the one with talent. Yerin knows he can’t leave on his own because of that. Nothing on his own, Jimin is just what they’ve made. Like Yerin has always told him.

Making him align with the company’s perspective to keep your desires subdued. Tricked perhaps, but it’s true that a collapse without you is possible. An engrained thought.

Jimin sits back in the chair, eyes glancing from her to a random point in space in front of his legs. There’s no tension in his body, but he feels as though he’s lost.

---

You stretch your legs, sock-clad feet lying atop the opposite armrest. Staring up towards the ceiling, you let a song play through your ears for the fifth time in a row, while your fingers tap softly along to the beat where they rest on the pillow you clutch against your stomach. The airpods aren’t soundproof like the headphones Yoongi uses when editing, so the typing of his fingers on the computer keyboard ring in the back of your mind. You barely notice when the monotonous sound breeches your concentration on the finalized version of the first song you worked on with him, but you find difficulty in ignoring when he starts typing again after abrupt pauses to take curious glances back in your direction.

“You know, I’m not really upset about that producer--he’s always been like that about my job.” You say plainly, unlocking your phone to pause the song, realizing that the comment would result as it does in Yoongi spinning halfway on his chair to better face you. “I kind of figured people would start rumors anyways.”

“Then maybe I’m more annoyed with that guy than you are.” A tiny sheepish curl begins at the corners of his lips, prompting an endeared smile on your own expression as you eventually shrug. “When did you start hearing the conversation?”

“About whenever he called out to Jimin.” You sit upwards on the couch, tossing the small pillow to the table and pulling your legs up to your chest so your chin can situate on your knees. “I thought he was going to notice me, but he looked in the other direction.” A small scoff escapes your lips sounding like a bitter amusement in Yoongi’s ears. Yoongi’s head nods slightly as he stands up to his feet, strolling to sit on the couch where your legs had occupied prior. “You sounded mad-- I would’ve been scared if I was him.”

Yoongi sighs at the memory of his tone, covering his slightly embarrassed smile with his hand as he rubs his face, sinking further back into the couch. You giggle at his reaction, lightly bumping the tip of your foot against his thigh to tease him. “Who wouldn’t? What a way to get information-- trying to get it through me,” He mumbles his words with his bottom lip prominently poking with his words, “In the first place I wasn’t going to let him say whatever about you anyways. Especially not go around saying you got fired.”

“Yeah,” Your eyes glow happily like your expression as you watch him talk. Yoongi shrugs, crossing his arms to keep himself quiet at risk of sounding silly. “Thank you, Yoon. It made me happy to hear you defend me like that, honestly.” You bite your lip to refrain from more laughter as he just shrugs again and purses his lips together in a muted satisfied smile. “Really I am!” You go on thinking his shy disposition is cute, but Yoongi only nods, mumbling in a joking way,

“Yeah, such a genuine way to thank someone.” He knows you’re speaking with sincerity, but he teases in return just concluding that you may try again with a higher-pitched voice to get him to believe you. Yoongi’s head turns to you as you shift on the couch, curiously raising an eyebrow as you simply crawl the pace to him and tug him into a hug,

“Thank you,” The final syllable trails on in a whine, as Yoongi laughs outright in response to your attempt to get him to stop pouting. His arm as well goes to wrap around your waist, unintentionally nudging you beneath the curve of your side prompting you to suddenly jerk. Pulling him back with you, Yoongi’s upper body lands on yours as you make a squeak of shock from being tickling and fall backwards onto the couch. “Don’t tickle me; I’m trying to be nice and thank you.”

“Accident,” He chuckles, adjusting himself into a less awkward angle as your hugging arms around his ribcage tighten warningly as though you attempt to get revenge. “What are you trying to do; wrestle me to apologize, angel?” Yoongi laughs, listening to your abrupt voice dismissing the idea sheepishly. “If we’re trying to replay the nap from the other day then maybe I should set an alarm since you fell asleep instead of waking me up.”

“How dare you call me out.” You can’t help but grin in embarrassment as he laughs, both recalling the hour nap that ran closer to three. “You made me fall asleep too.” Helpless mumbling excuses leave your lips, while Yoongi makes a disapproving whine at the passing of blame. “Also, how come you get to lie on me again? What if I want a pillow?”

“You threw the pillow onto the table.” He says bluntly, flicking his chin in the direction, as his waist wiggles to break free of the hug. You let out a single laugh, having forgotten that fact entirely and feel silly about his reminder. “But fine, since you’re complaining,” Yoongi’s voice trails off, simply taking a grip on either of your shoulders to bring you along with him as he lays his head on the opposite armrest.

Catching up with the altered positions, you feel a blush creeping along your cheeks while Yoongi’s arms lazily encompass your waist, leaving your face hidden from his sight as you situates against his chest. Biting your lip, you try not to think too much about the placement of your hands, but are at a loss of knowing where to put them. As your ears catch the faint melody of his heartbeat, you feel able to relax just the same with the weight of your forearms flattening also on his torso.

“Comfy?” The faint coarseness of Yoongi’s voice sounds mostly relaxed and gentle, but the questioning tone is genuine. You think even a little nervous that he did something wrong, but your head properly nestling against him relieves most of that worry. Evaporating it in entirely as your voice trickles peacefully,

“Yeah, very.” You don’t think he’s serious about taking a nap, considering the later hour of the afternoon and that you both would likely leave for the day soon. Nonetheless, not an ounce of energy in your body gives you the idea of scooting away from him. Too relaxed with in the warmth of Yoongi’s arms and gentle sway of your head rising and lowering from his even breaths, you lie enjoying the moment. Your hands twitch in little movements as indecision in your head goes back and forth, but eventually you ease them around Yoongi’s waist as well. Satisfied with the action as he shifts up only enough for you to hug onto him as he is to you.

“Maybe it’s not something for me to say, but I’m really proud of you for talking back to that guy, angel.” Yoongi admits softly, glancing as you wiggle a little and squeeze your arms tighter around him. Stifling any chuckling, he sees the faintest of rose decorating your complexation, and rubs his hands along your back, smiling as he questions, “What? You were cool.”

“Stop,” You laugh slightly, then sigh, “I was just annoyed. I don’t know.” Your cheek presses against Yoongi as you reconsider your actions, “I didn’t really feel scared or anything though… It felt kind of easy to speak-- defend myself, actually.”

“That’s good.” Yoongi smiles, letting his neck relax so his eyes can find the ceiling while he goes on, “I think you’re a strong person. Even if things are hard for you, you still do what’s best for yourself.”

“Whatever that is.” You mumble, not intending to discredit Yoongi’s words, because they really made you feel better about it all. Still you can’t help wonder about the future when the present seems so mixed up.

“Things will work out.” He replies simply, knowing it’s not a secure comfort. They’re ultimately just words with only what Yoongi knows about you to make up their validity, but in some ways he believes the simpleness is closer to what you would like to hear. Rather than dedicate paragraphs to idealistic scenarios, he supports you in a genuine sentiment enshrouded with the security of holding you in his arms.

Though there are ways for him to help you in a more pressing way. The idea of it is practically rebellious to the structure of his public persona, but the care of it bothers him less in the moment than it did when he rambled his worries to Hoseok. At the forefront of his mind is your situation, but also all of the potential associated with the idea. The small piece of it that could work for both of you even.

“I was thinking a lot lately,” Yoongi draws out the sentence, hesitant of the words due to their likelihood to change the temperment of the moment. But the rumor of you getting fired plays through his head, as well as the other instances of unfair treatment you’ve received. How you’re willing to leave with nothing. You hum for him to continue, your body completely lazed into his own. “If you want to, I want to release those songs we made together.”

There’s a beat of quiet, then you’re breeching away to support yourself on your arms. Looking down at Yoongi in an incredulous calm, your eyes narrow thinking you didn’t hear him correctly. He can’t help but smile up at you, finding your bewildered small frown endearing, but says again, easier now that it’s been said once, “I want to release them. Independently from my brand; just as Yoongi. With your name there too.”

“You’ll,” You stutter, still thrown off from the prospect, and the air in your throat hitching because of mention at your name being put beside something you’ve worked on. “You’ll get in trouble though, Yoon. I don’t want you to get in trouble for me.” You frown, wishing that you could say yes as instantaneously as he probably hoped for you to.

Yoongi’s undeterred by your response, hands running tiny slow streams along your back still to give a moment of calm. “I’ve released stuff independently before, angel. They don’t mind.”

“But they will if my name’s in there.” You swallow thickly, frown growing into more worry as your eyes deflect from his as you think of reprimand that would come his way undoubtedly.

“You’re not renewing your contract. They can’t stop you from doing what you want.” He strays a hand from your back to find your cheek, gently coaxing you to look back towards his eyes. Yoongi notices the evident spike of worry for his career, finding it similar to what he thought of his own career when Hoseok was going through his scandal. Then unwilling to help because of the risk. “Frankly, I don’t really care anymore if this company wants to get mad at me. My last one already stopped me from helping one friend when I could’ve, and I’m not going to let this one do it again.”

For a second you think that Yoongi’s desire to help you out is your fault for always bring your troubles into his life. That you’ve made him feel obligated. But you realize you’ve never indicated that you wanted to release the music. You didn’t join in collaboration with him under the pretense that you could find a way to drop the music into the public-- it was just his offer to give you an outlet when you originally were sad. But it became three songs before either of you realized. Never a discussion of release, and you didn’t expect anything because of a predisposed view you’ve grown used to.

“I want to.” Yoongi tells you softly, his eyes inspecting your expression as you feel a shift from worry into something different. He watches the space below your eyes, thumb brushing along your cheek to collect a tiny tear, and he notices your jaw appears to be clenched like you’re holding back. A faint smile drifts onto his face, “Do you?”

“I,” You try to speak, only becoming conscious of the tears Yoongi’s already aware of when they drip away because of your speech. An obscure mixture of anticipation fights with pessimism about his idea. “I feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to say yes.”

“You can if you want.” Yoongi says, brushing away more of the conflicted tears and catching you against his chest when you huddle back against him. “You don’t have to right now, either though. Just know that if you decide you want to release them, we can.”

“Even if it’ll get you in trouble though, Yoon?” You mumble in a more tamed worry, shifting in belief that maybe you could take a hold of this option that he’s willing extending you.

“Yeah, sweetie. I don’t mind that.” He listens to you groan against his chest, but just rubs your back to soothe any worries. His shoulders startle stiff when you lift your head up once more to look him in the eyes,

“You’re insane. You’re too nice, Yoongi.” Your voice is high like when you tease him or ramble about things you’re surprised about. He just shrugs, head tilting and only offering a smile in return. “You,” Frowning towards him, you wonder shortly why he always has to witness tears escaping your eyes to the point that you can’t even find yourself embarrassed about it. “You make me so happy.”

The shift in your voice to a small whisper leaves Yoongi quiet. Given the context of the conversation the admission is a bit nonsensical, only serving to create flurries in his ribcage. An earlier thought of hoseok’s words replay in his heads about Yoongi being fond of you, and it leaves him a little stunned in reaction to how you appear in his eyes. Yoongi opens his mouth a little to speak but finds no words coming out, silenced further by your curling smile.

“You know that you don’t have to feel like you need to help me, right?” You speak as through searching for doubt, but Yoongi instantly shakes his head. Curtly responding,

“I don’t. I help you because I want to.” More than that, but his mind doesn’t catch a particular word as he watches you rub your eyes from the previous evidence of surprise about his idea. His hands slide from a hug, settling to gently hold onto the sides of your waist, finding himself struck by enamor as you softly laugh.

“I wonder why-”

“I care about you.” Yoongi maintains eye contact as he blurts into your sentence, remaining serene like voice as you drop your hands from your face back to his chest. Looking down you take a moment to consider the intention of his words, unable to ignore the fervent tone despite his low voice. “We’ve gotten really close this year; why wouldn’t I want to help you?”

“Because I act like I need it every other second,” You murmur mostly teasing to which Yoongi rolls his eyes. Not having that thought for even a second. You giggle, reaching your hand to play with his hair and soothe his suddenly sour expression at your joke. “You mean it about wanting to release the songs?”

“Yes.” He nods, humored by the way you stare at him to search for even a hint that he’s unsure.

“You really mean it-”

“Angel,” He sighs, smiling at the singsong voice you ask again with. Squeezing your waist, Yoongi nods his head, “I thought about it a lot before today. I mean it.”

Your lips purse into a line. Knowing full well that Yerin would be angry the second those songs are sent out, you’re still hesitant. Granted the spiteful part of you finds the prospect of irritating her amusing, but not at all at the expense of Yoongi’s reputation within the company or otherwise. But if he’s the one presenting the idea, stating over and over again that he’s okay with it, you’re inclined to acknowledge that he knows what the idea could mean for him. And he’s still willing to do it.

“Okay, then.” Your heart thrums at Yoongi’s eyes widening slightly from your approval, but the quickly expanding smile on his face is hopeful so you succumb to a mirroring it. “Let’s release them.”

if you enjoy please, please let me know via ask, comment, rb with tags– however ! i’d just really appreciate feedback 🥺 i hope you enjoy the series, i’m working really hard on it! : )

tag list (send an ask to be added): @jaiuneamesolitaiire @tsvkino-usagi@xionysus @baebyjoonie @honeyoongles

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youremeimyou · 4 years

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The Lesser Gods of Bangtanis(pt.1)

Introduction - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

pairings: Kim Taehyung x reader, Jeon Jungkook x reader, OT7(this fic is about all of the boys’ characters, not just ‘Y/Nxsomeone’ focused) genre: angst, fluff, comedy, adventure.. - fantasy au, medieval au, magic au, royal au word count: 4k warnings: brief violance?(just some combat and sword fighting stuff)

Description: Princess Y/N, who holds the fate of her people on her shoulders arrives at the kingdom of Bangtanis, that is the home of our mighty heroes. What will the destiny of our heroes be, when she brings along a threat called dark magic and a little bit of love with her?

A/N: (To understand the characters and where the story stands, it’s best to read “introduction” before this one.) I can’t believe how much I enjoyed writing this.. This will be a series about all of our boys in an adventure with Y/N. I hope you’ll like it. I’m actually very nervous about this cuz it’s different than what I’ve written before. Any feedback is appreciated and encouraged, please let me know what you think. Enjoy!

It was nearly evening and the sun was threatening to dissappear under the hills but another boring lesson of Dynasties History was still going on in the study hall. And Taehyung was imprisoned alongside these stuck up dukes and duchesses. He couldn't wait to get out of there. The worst part was he could never understand why these young people pretended to be interested in kingdom afairs while they could just live their lives to the fullest.

As he stared outside the window he spotted his best friend and companion, the court jester Park Jimin, taking a stroll towards the city with two beautiful women on either sides of him. Oh, he had to be there. Or else he'd lose the bet the jester and himself had made to win over two hearts at once. He quickly got out of his seat and made lots of rattling sounds while doing so. As a result, all eyes in the room turned to him, questioning stares came from everyone including the elderly teacher. Taehyung was confident, he had a way with people to help himself get out of trouble.

"Lord Taehyung, I'm sure you have a good reason to disturb the study like this?" questioned the teacher with a non-approving look on his face. Taehyung spoke back with an equally smug comment as he walked towards the exit.

"My, of course I do, Instructor Seong. But I couldn't possibly say what it is."

The old man was baffled like everyone else in the room. Enjoying the attention, Taehyung continued.

"You see, I'm not supposed to talk about matters of the kingdom anywhere I like. Therefore I have to get to the throne room immediately to complete an important task."

Now every other young royal with a rank in there looked at him with envy. Everyone knew he was the favorite of the king. He was the only one among young royals that was informed about government business. So, everyone wanted to either be him or be with him. But his careless attitude made these other nobles despise him. And he loved it.

The teacher couldn't say much to stop him and the poor old man knew it. So, instead of trying to discipline him like he would with other students he settled for a sigh.

"I suppose we shouldn't expect your quick return to the lesson, my lord?"

"Well, as much as I love learning this subject I'm afraid duty comes first, instructor. At least my friends here are lucky to be staying." Taehyung said, barely able to keep his laughter in and walked out shorty after.

All was going well until he turned around the corner and came across the one person he couldn't fool, King Namjoon.

"Taehyung? Good, come join us."

"My lord, I actually-"

"Aren't you supposed to be in the study hall? It has only been a moment since I sent men to come get you."

Taehyung was surprised to hear that. He only said those things back there as an excuse to go out to the city. He didn't know the king actually needed him.

"What's the matter my lord? You seem concerned."

"You'll see once we get to the throne room."

When they entered the great hall that was the throne room, Taehyung spotted the royal advisors Kim Seokjin, Jung Hoseok and Min Yoongi, already discussing what seemed to be an important issue. The commanders and high-ranking knights of the army were also gathered there.

King Namjoon went next to his advisors to hear their reports and Taehyung listened from the other side of the table as they informed the king about the coming of a princess. Min Yoongi leaned in towards the king after that and spoke in a low voice.

"Why have you brought the kid again?" he asked while looking at Taehyung.

"I wasn't kidding when I told you I'm preparing him for the throne, my friend." the king replied as silently.

Taehyung couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Everyone seemed to be worried.

"My lords, if I may interrupt. What's so concerning about a princess coming to visit?"

Yoongi shook his head in disapproval while Hoseok explained.

"It's not a visit. We've recieved word from this princess that her home was envaded by the creatures of the night. She managed to escape but her family was left behind. She seeks our help. For shelter and more importantly, for an initiative to take back her lands."

The creatures of the night were beings born from dark magic that were thought to be terminated ages ago during the Dark War. Everyone knew it as a myth. But dark magic was real. And after the war the use of magic altogether wasn't common as it used to be. Some kingdoms forbid it and some, like Bangtanis controlled the practise of it to not let dark magic rise. Only a few experts in the palace were allowed to conduct magic in Bangtanis. And every one of them answered to the head sorceror, Jung Hoseok.

"Who is the poor princess?" asked Taehyung, understanding that the issue was a most troubling one.

"Y/N is her name." The answer came from Kim Seokjin. "I remember her from when she was little. She was here once with her father, a mighty king who came to sign a treaty with the former Lord of Bangtanis. This news upset me for I had become very fond of that king and his family back then."

Princess Y/N.. Taehyung thought he remembered her too, from when they were kids.

King Namjoon spoke up after moments of thinking.

"Dark magic is too dangerous of a threath to expose our kingdom to."

Min Yoongi added, "I agree my lord. It'd be unwise to get involved. I'm afraid there isn't much we can do to help."

"But the princess and her company cannot make it to another kingdom without getting caught. Even if they did, no one else would accept them. We'd be condemning them to death." Jung Hoseok objected.

The king looked troubled. Kim Namjoon was a man of honour, the best ruler Bangtanis ever had. Turning his back to people in need wasn't something he was keen to do. But the risk on the other hand was very big.

"When will they arrive?" the king asked.

"The letter said they'd be here most probably at first light, tomorrow. It also said they ran out of food and supplies."

Taehyung hated politics mainly for this reason. A few men in a room were arguing on what to do when actual lives were in danger.

"My king, may I have a word in private?" he decided to try and get the king to help these people. The king and Taehyung moved away from the table and started talking with low voices.

"My lord, we have to help them-"

"Taehyung, you're a young prince. You may not understand the consequences of such an attempt against this curse of dark magic."

"Hyung.." Taehyung exhaled desperately. "You're a young king, aren't you? But you've achived so much because of your good heart. What does your heart tell you?" he appealed to the kind side of the king, trusting on their brotherly bond that Namjoon wouldn't consider his words disrespectful.

"What do you suggest?"

"I wouldn't know much of what to do regarding fighting dark magic. But can't we at least grant them shelter for the time being?"

King Namjoon walked back to his advisors and announced his decision.

"We will accept them when they arrive, attend to their needs and help them recover from what they've been through. We're not deciding on anything else until we talk with the princess about the details. And that's final."

So began the preparations for the arrival of the princess. A troop of knights was formed and given the task of meeting Princess Y/N on the borders and guiding her company safely into the kingdom.

After the meeting, Taehyung decided to go down to the city to clear his mind of troubles, as he always did. Big responsibilities were his greatest fear, so he felt he quickly needed to get rid of them by doing reckless things. Besides, the princess wouldn't be arriving until tomorrow, he had plenty of time before being given more tasks.

Right when he entered his favorite tavern, he spotted Park Jimin, surrounded by even more than two women this time. Though, all over the jester would be a better term to say about the ladies. He made his way to them and interrupted without a care.

"Isn't it too early for this kind of entertainment?"

The jester rejoiced as he heard the voice of his best friend. From where he was sitting, he reached an arm to grab the prince by his shirt and pulled him closer without disturbing his lady friends.

"Glad you could join us. I think it's safe to say that I won the bet, dear mate."

Prince Taehyung cleared his throat with a deep grunting sound which captured the women's notice and made them realize who he was. Three of the five quickly went to him giving him all their attention. It made Taehyung smirk at Jimin. The jester sighed in defeat, kindly sending the women away.

"You're right, too early for that."

The two rascals spent the evening playing games and gambling. Only when it was deep into the night that they decided to get out of there and slowly head back to the castle.

As they were passing through the now closed mart, they heard sounds coming from the other side of the road. Too dark to decipher who, Taehyung saw two figures, one big and one small. The bigger seemed to be approching the smaller in a hurry. As the boys got closer to them they could see it was a man about to attack a woman.

Rushing towards them they stopped in shock when she grabbed her attacker by the wrist, twisted him around and landed a strong kick on his back. When the attacker tried to get back up from the ground where he was knocked down to, the girl took out a sword from inside her cloak and pointed it theatheningly on his neck.

When she heard the two boys arriving, she quickly used the back of her weapon to knock out the attacker and aimed it towards the boys after that.

"Woah, woah relax. We won't harm you." Taehyung said.

"You couldn't even if you tried."

The boys gave each other a quick look with cocked eyebrows. That was one wicked young woman.

"Who are you? I hope you're not drunk fools like this one right here. Otherwise your fate will be the same as him."

"We should be asking you the same thing." Taehyung said back.

Sensing her discomfort growing, Jimin spoke up to let her know they were friendly.

"I'm the court jester and he's a prince of the Kim Dynasty that rule here. What about you?"

"I'm a simple villager."

"Who owns a quality sword?" Taehyung spat back. Jimin tried reasoning again.

"Well you see, my friend and I sort of know every women of this village but we don't know you, so.."

The girl let out a huff in response to their arrogant faces after that comment.

"I'm not from this kingdom, I just arrived here." She slowly lowered her sword, seeing that they looked harmless and were unarmed but still held a tight grip on it, just in case. And since they've moved closer, Taehyung had a chance to get a better look on her face.

"Well then, since you're a traveller from another kingdom, what's your business here?" Taehyung asked.

"My business is not your concern."

"Oh but I think it is, princess."

Both the jester and the girl looked surprised.

"I don't like pet names-"

"It's your title, Y/N. I never forget a face. And you still have the scar on the corner of your eye."

Taehyung was now standing right in front of the very much confused princess whose cover was blown unexpectedly early.

"How do you know that?" was all she could manage to ask.

"I'm Kim Taehyung."

Taehyung? Who- wait. Prince Kim Taehyung? That prince? Oh no.. the princess thought while the memory flooded back to her. The boy who gave her that scar, playing sword fighting with sticks as kids.

"And what does that supposed to mean to me?" She played it off like she didn't know.

Taehyung slightly tilted his head in dissappointment as Jimin spoke.

"You two have a history?"

"She was here once before, for sometime. We were kids but still.. Kind of hurts that you don't remember, Princess Y/N."

Jimin secretly smiled at the ground, understanding she was pretending. Taehyung decided to let it go for now and try to figure out what was happening.

"Where is your company? And you were supposed to arrive in the morning."

"I will. I mean my double will."

"You have a double?"

"It's a means of safety. They're looking everywhere for me. Not just those creatures but also bounty hunters, too. Everyone expects me to travel with company. But that's my double. Try to think of it as acting, if you can. I made her memorize every line she needed to."

"I am an actor princess. The concept is familiar, thank you. But how in the world is travelling all by yourself in the dark is safer?"

"As you've witnessed, I can take care of myself. And I have a mission of my own. But you say you’re an actor? Please don't tell me you're an actor, pretending to be a prince right now."

Taehyung's mouth dropped open a little bit in response to her snarky remark. When he realised she was being sarcastic, he settled for just rolling his eyes. Jimin was enjoying this bickering between the two, even though he didn't know what exactly was happening. It was rare to see Taehyung not being able to get his way with a woman for the first time.

"What mission?"

Y/N wasn't planning on getting exposed as the princess this early. But she had to admit, getting help from people like them that knew this city and its people would be better than going at it alone.

"My father told me to find the head of the Jeon family. He said it was crucial for our salvation."

Jeon family weren't nobles but they were known to be great warriors among the people. Jimin knew of them. So he informed the confused prince.

"It must be the father of that Jungkook kid. The one who saved you from a beating once, when you cheated while playing dice, remember?"

The prince remembered but thought he was hardly a kid. Sure, he must've been a bit younger but he was more bulked up than both the prince and the jester.

"What would they have to do with this?"

"I don’t know yet but my father was very specific. Now, do you know where they live?"

“I do. We’ll take you.” Jimin offered, understanding the subject to be important. Taehyung on the other hand looked at him in surprise for knowing.

“Well, I walked Jungkook’s sister home a few times.” Jimin winked as the prince and the princess rolled their eyes.

When they arrived at the said family’s door, Taehyung made his hand into a fist and moved it to slam the door. The princess was quick enough to catch it before he could.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She whisper-shouted at the surprised prince.

“Knocking?”

“That’s not knocking. That’s punching the door. And it’s the middle of the night, we can’t startle people like that.”

Taehyung was quick to response. “Fine. I’ll let you do it the girly way, then. The lady way..” he said and looked at her closely to observe her reaction in order to figure out if she still disliked being called a lady as much as when they were kids.

“I’ll do it the nice way, Prince Rude.” Taehyung smirked for his success in making her annoyed.

“Is he always this dim-witted?” She directed the question to the jester who tried to hide his laugh but failed, enjoying this too much. And with that, Taehyung’s smirk was replaced with gritted teeth.

The princess gently knocked at the door a few times. When no one answered for a while, she knocked.. a little harder. Taehyung didn’t miss the opportunity to retort, of course.

“So much for the nice way..”

As Y/N glared at him, the door slowly opened up to reveal a young woman in her night gown. “Who are you-” she stopped when she spotted the jester at the back. “Jimin?”

Jimin could only smile awkwardly back at Jungkook’s sister who looked at him like she was ready to hit him. “Why are you here?”

“Apologies for disturbing you at this hour. I’m Kim Taehyung from the palace. We’re here on important business.” Taehyung adressed the girl in the politest way possible and the princess noted how his demeanour changed in front of a beautiful girl.

“Prince Taehyung? I’m so sorry, my lord. Of course you must be. How can I help?” The girl’s whole demeanour changed, too and all her attention was now locked on the prince. Y/N crossed her arms and started talking.

“You know little lady, it’s dangerous to answer the door to strangers at night. Especially when dressed like that.” In all fairness, her gown was a bit short. The prince looked at Y/N questioningly.

“I’m just saying. You’re lucky we’re harmless but next time, better bring a knife-”

Jimin finally cut in.

“Look, I know it’s late but this is very important. We need to speak to your father, right now.”

She granted them entrance and woke her parents up, explaining who the visitors were. Jungkook’s father immediately remembered the young princess. From the time her family visited Bangtanis, years ago.

“Princess.. It must be an urgent matter for you to come here at this hour. But I must say, I’m glad to see you all grown up. I bet your father is very proud.”

His words made Y/N a little sad for they made her remember her father’s current condition.

“My father was the one to tell me to find you. He’s being held prisoner by the creatures of the night.”

“What? The creatures of the night? But how-”

“We don’t know. All I know is that my father told me you could help us fight this dark magic. Please.. I’m desperate.”

Taehyung could see the worry on the princess’ face for her family and kingdom. This must’ve been hard for her. Even though she was obviously skilled and brave, she was still young. He thought her strength was admirable.

Just then, a young man with messy hair and messy bed clothes came out of one of the rooms at the back.

“What’s all the noise abou-” his eyes connected with the princess’.

Y/N? He thought. Was it really her? The princess he met fifteen years ago and couldn’t really forget about was sitting on the couch at his home?

His father had introduced the princess to him when they were kids.

“What’s your name, then?”

“It’s Jungkook, my lady.”

“You don’t need to call me that. Call me Y/N and I'll call you Guk.”

“But my father said you were a princess.”

“That doesn’t matter. We’re both kids and we’re equal. Let’s be friends.”

That was how she stole Jungkook’s heart as a kid. Jungkook himself was surprised to remember all of that and to instantly recognize her.

His sister spoke up to break the silence that took over after his entrance.

“Sorry, that’s my older brother Jungkook. He doesn’t like to be woken up.”

“Jungkook, come here and sit down.” His father beckoned him.

“This is Princess Y/N. You two have actually met when you were children.”

He knew that. But looking at her face, Y/N didn’t seem like she remembered to him.

“She’s in dire need of our help. Her home is invaded by dark magic. I will gather some-” he coughed while looking at Taehyung before continuing. “rather skilled men tomorrow and you will do everything you can to ready them for battle.”

Jungkook looked confused. “If they’re skilled, why do you need me to ready them, father?”

“They’re not skilled like that, son. You’ll see later.” He turned to the princess once more. “I don’t know if you already have, but you should speak to King Namjoon, princess. I have a group of men that can be of help, like I said. But having the knights of Bangtanis in on your fight would also be of great help. And maybe Prince Taehyung can help you convince the king.”

Taehyung nodded.

“I’m scheduled to meet with him in the morning, which probably will come soon. So we should head out to the palace but I want to talk about the details of what you’re preparing, later.”

“Of course. I will inform my son about everything and have him come find you later to explain it in length. You see, I’ve grown old.”

Jungkook’s father laughed bitterly and Jungkook shook his head from side to side at what he said.

“But you can trust my son. Just as your father has directed you to me, I’m directing you to him.”

Jungkook and Y/N’s eyes met and she gave him a quick, tired but hopeful smile.

“Thank you all for agreeing to help.” she said.

Jungkook’s father smiled at her. “I owe your father a big debt. He has helped me and my friends in the past. Now we’ll return the favor.”

The walk from the village to the castle was a long one and morning had arrived even before Y/N, Taehyung and Jimin arrived at the gates. The princess guessed her double to be in the throne room already, as scheduled.

The princess was visibly struggling to even walk for she had been on foot for a long journey and hadn't slept for quite some time. Moreover, consently being on the edge, looking over her shoulder and waiting for someone, something to sneak in and grab her took quite the toll on her. Coming here undercover was a key factor to her mission but travelling all alone had been harder than imagined.

As they made their way to meet the king, Jimin parted ways with them. Jesters weren't supposed to be involved in such matters. He would be learning everything from Taehyung later, of course.

"This is it." The prince pointed at the door as they arrived.

"Great. I'm about to meet the king but I must look like a mess." Y/N said with a sigh. Taehyung didn't think so. For someone who had been roaming the wilderness, he thought the princess looked rather.. well, lovely.

He then pulled her to the corner away from the guards at the door and spoke to her in a low voice.

"So, how do you want to do this? You know, you're double is probably in there."

"You're right. Just introduce me as a villager bringing news of a problem on the outskirts or something."

"Good thinking. You certainly look the part." He teased and managed to get a death stare from her.

"Just let me do the talking. Otherwise they might not believe you when you claim to be the actual princess."

Guards let them pass without question. Taehyung was a prince of the ruling dynasty after all. The meeting inside seemed to have come to a conclusion.

"That's the double?"

"Yes."

Taehyung looked at the double. Then, at the princess. More like stared at the princess, really. Taking in all her features, he'd admit to maybe having been a little mesmerized.

"She looks nothing like you. You look much more.."

He stopped. Got out of the daze he was in and changed what he was about to say to something different.

"...colder."

Y/N scoffed.

"You're quite the charmer aren't you?"

He flattened his lips together to contain a smile and then grabbed her by the arm to bring her to the king as unnoticed as possible. But the people in the room slowly turned heads their way one by one. Y/N was starting to feel a bit nervous, afraid of compromising the task. And Taehyung could feel her body stiffen next to his. He spoke in a volume only she could hear.

"Don't worry. Everyone thinks your double is the princess. They're just not used to being disturbed at an event like this. Especially by dowdy looking people like yourself."

And his reassurance and sarcasm worked in getting her to relax.

The advisors of the king took action after seeing Taehyung. Kim Seokjin quickly stepped towards them while Jung Hoseok started to kindly lead the people in the room outside, stating the meeting over.

Taehyung thought Seokjin would be angry with him for not attending the meeting.

"Hyung, I know I'm late but before you start scolding me, this is-"

"Princess Y/N?" Seokjin was almost sure but he had to ask first. And Taehyung was initially shocked but thought if he remembered the princess, so could Seokjin. Seokjin was older at that time, after all.

"Yes, that's me but please keep it down. Also, how did you know?"

"I was the prince who was assigned to see after you and your father back when you visited for the treaty."

"The one who took me to see that play?"

"With me!" Taehyung cut in. "I was there, too. You do remember me, don't you?"

Y/N kept talking without acknowledging his little comment.

"How did the meeting go?"

"Your double was wonderful, don't worry. She almost had me fooled! Now, let's have you meet the king."

"I believe it'd be better if everyone else left before I reveal myself."

"Those are the king's advisors Min Yoongi and Jung Hoseok. King Namjoon wouldn't decide on anything without their counsel."

"But they're very young. Normally all advisors are old men."

"Our king is young, too."

They explained the situation to the king and Y/N told them everything that had happened to her. Then she asked for their help, almost beggingly.

"Princess, first of all I'm really sorry for all you've been through. We've been trying to figure out what we can do to help. Unfortunetely, sending my men to fight a force they have no experience with is not a great option. We've settled with your double on helping your company recover from the dreadful journey for now." King Namjoon stated.

"I understand your reluctance. I know creatures of the night are quite terrifying. I've witnessed that first hand. But I cannot hide here forever. I must try to free my kingdom, with an army or by myself... We thank you for giving us shelter, no matter what your decision will be about lending us a fighting force."

Taehyung felt so helpless and he couldn't imagine how Y/N was feeling. Coming all this way and not even getting an actual answer. He hoped whatever the Jeons had planned would turn out to be good.

They assigned Taehyung to attend to the princess, to help her keep her indentity a secret as she preferred. And Taehyung would carry information between the two parties. After that, Hoseok convinced Y/N to get some rest for the time being.

"I'll take her to her chambers. Which one did you have prepared?" Taehyung asked.

"Well, her double was escorted to her assigned chambers. We should quickly have another one readied." Jung Hoseok said in a hurry. They weren't exactly prepared for two princesses.

"No. Maybe I shouldn't accomodate inside the castle. It's crucial that I don't get discovered."

Min Yoongi had an idea. "There's an empty cottage out in the village. It used to be my home. Prince Taehyung can take you there. And he will stay with you. We'll have knights securing the cottage from afar. How does that sound?"

"Perfect. Thank you for your understanding."

The duo left the throne room and started making their way to the said cottage.

"Why does a village house belong to an advisor of the king?" Y/N was curious. First the advisors turned out to be young and now she learned one of them used to live outside of the castle. Bangtanis was full of surprises.

"Min Yoongi isn't royal born. He was an orphan who King Namjoon befriended as a kid. He made sure the cottage would stay there even after moving in the castle. By the way, I don't suppose the beds will be comfortable so thanks for that, princess."

"You're welcome to leave me after we get there. In fact, I encourage you to." Y/N spat back.

"You already said you think it's perfect. Admit it, you can't wait to catch me alone."

"Keep dreaming, Prince Smug."

Neither of them knew just how much their destinies were intertwined. Taehyung somehow had a feeling, though. A feeling that made him want to stick close by.

...

A/N: to be continued haha..

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pocket-infinity · 5 years

Text

This is a fanfic appreciation post

It’s The Only Option. I’m going off about this again, and y’all can’t stop me.

I’m still not done, and at this point I don’t think I ever will be. And that’s perfectly fine with me, because this piece of art is fucking amazing you should absolutely go read it right the hell now. I’m dead serious; if you feel even the slightest hint of a desire to read it, just click away and read. Please. Honestly, anyone who’s even reading this should just go and read it. I- okay, I’m finding it incredibly difficult to put into any actual words just how happy this writing has made me. The normal is just scrolling through the genre on ao3 and ending up (eventually) finding a “oh hey this is kinda cool” or a “this has a new or unique gimmick that I haven’t seen before” but The Only Option is just... so much more than anything I’ve seen in such a long time. I mean no disrespect to any other writers, I know very well how hard writing is, and I’m consistently impressed by what this community has to offer. But still, of all the god-knows-how-many fics I have bookmarked, this is the only option for me when it comes to re-reading. This is the only one that managed to somehow poke at that little spark enough to get me to write two complete theories on it, and that’s just because it’s so impossibly good. Trying to figure out what, exactly, I like about this one only ends with me making a list that I can never actually complete, and even if I could, I would never even be able to start ranking the things I love. I mean, to start, there’s the sheer amount of writing. Good things are good (obviously), and the more of it there is (assuming it maintains quality, which this fic does not—it gets better), the longer you get to feel good. Obvious, I know, I know, a lot of the things I’m saying here are really, really obvious, and ineffably repetitive, I’m willing to bet, but still... 137,877 words. That’s something special. It might sound intimidating (maybe) to some people, but it was so very hard for me to set this down even for something so basic as sleep. These words aren’t filler, either, they’re all well-written and well-focused, always establishing, developing, or concluding. Setups and payoffs, starts with currently-unknown ends, dramatic irony, they all fit into place nigh-perfectly. The characters meld and conflict with each other in the most sublime ways, all while they develop and change as things move forward. People actually have motivations in this one, The Pale King is more than a sub-one-dimensional scooby doo cardboard cutout, Grimm is more than just comic relief or bat dad, Lurien has an actual history and character beyond “I’m loyal to king because I am”—and all of it intertwines with itself. The depth of this story is just so immeasurable; if I tried to explain one single thing more than two chapters in, I’d end up needing to explain a whole multi-faceted scenario just as buildup. But that’s not the miraculous part; the true magnificence, at least for me, lays in the fact that you’re never confused. It’s relatively easy to have things be deep and complicated, but to have it still be understandable without a 30 minute line-connecting session is another feat entirely. There’s just... there are so, so many more things that I want to say, but if I keep going down that list, I don’t think I’d ever stop. But, ultimately, the most important thing I have to say here is actually the least verbose:

Thank you. Thank you, @corruptapostasy, for making something so astounding.

#hollow knight #corruptapostasy

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hamliet · 5 years

Note

Hey! Sorry if this sounds rude or offensive - I assure you that it is not my intention at all. So I saw a discussion about fetishization in yaoi, and I want to ask what does "fetishization" mean in this context? Some of my ships are male/male ship and I don't want to end up fetishizing them (if that makes sense). Forgive my ignorance but can you ask me what to do/not to do in this matter? ((Of course you can choose not to answer this if you don't want to))

Hey Anon! I don’t think you sound rude at all, and thank you for being so polite. I’m going to start by stating that asking a person who identifies as LGB T+might be better (and ppl feel free to chime in, correct me, give you opinion, etc), but here’s an answer that’s going to start by trying to discuss the appeal of yaoi from an empathetic context, and then point out why the fetish aspects can be really disrespectful and even harmful.

Full disclosure: I don’t personally like most yaoi stories. I watched one season of one once and felt very uncomfortable with the ‘consent not being a thing’ issue, etc. I do however love stories with good representation. Banana Fish and Yuri!!! on Ice have good representation, but are often incorrectly categorized as yaoi–however, it’s not like they aren’t drawing from that appeal either. Mao Dao Zu Shi is technically boy’s love, but has great representation. I’ll discuss what I think makes these stories good representation and not fetishization later.

Yaoi is–it’s… a genre written by straight women for straight women. Think of how lesbian scenes (or even just teases) tend to get sexualized in main stream media–it’s not done for representation, it’s done for the “omg this turns me on/gives me feelz” aspect.

However, is that necessarily a bad thing for stories? Not all stories have to aim to tell the most profound, character-driven, thematic story imaginable. It’s interesting to me if you look at traditional “uke” and “seme” roles which are written by women–from a sociological standpoint, I would love to see an academic paper written on this and what it suggests about how women think society views them. The lack of consent and “no, don’t but no means yes here” aspects in yaoi are not unique to yaoi–open any romance novel in the western world. Women are often told they can’t be sexual, and have sexuality shamed, so that’s interesting. Women are told that if they do choose to express their sexuality, it will often define them (traditional literature tropes for women are very often defined by their sexuality–nefarious seductress, beautiful virgin, hooker with a heart of gold, etc.), so the fact that “seme” and “uke” seem to define yaoi characters is also interesting from this perspective. (you can also apply these ideas to omegaverse fics–look fanfic is really interesting sociologically because it’s written by traditionally marginalized communities like women and lgbt+ people.) Not to mention why would women want to fetishize/romanticize a lack of consent? Maybe because society tells us we should.

But here’s where you run into a problem: writing about m/m relationships in such a way, even if you view it through such an empathetic lens, runs into the issue of yaoi often lacking any kind of empathy for lesbian/gay/bi people, and it seems especially cruelly ignorant because it is not written by nor for LGBT+ people, whereas western romance novels are often written by women for women.

Fiction isn’t reality, but fiction does exist within reality. It’s a safe place to explore, but it is created within reality, consumed within reality, and yes, can and does affect reality. To say otherwise is ignorant. (To use this to condemn people who enjoy more scandalous fiction, however, is equally ignorant, but that’s for another day.)

And in reality? LGBT+ people are horrifically treated. There’s progress, but it’s slow, and in many places they not only can’t marry, but it’s freaking illegal. Like, Saudi Arabia will execute you for it. Chechnya was rounding gay men up in concentration camps. Even in Japan where yaoi comes from, they can’t marry, and in China, everything is censored and people can be arrested for corrupting others if they promote certain content.

To consume yaoi without being aware of the real-life conundrums and struggles for LGBT+ people is ignorant and harmful. Because yaoi does reinforce tropes that are dangerous–it forces certain roles and expectations, and there isn’t much good representation to counter it and convey that hey, this is a fetishization, not reality. Most of it doesn’t acknowledge the struggles of LGBT+ people to be accepted in the world, to not be condemned, and if it does it’s often in the context of sex, which can fetishize it. It often reduces the relationship to sex.

And there’s the issue. Yaoi is “omg penises having sex.” It (often) reduces people to just objects, and when in the real world LGBT+ people are struggling to be acknowledged as existing, that they aren’t going to hell, to survive, that’s just… it can be irresponsible.

So let’s talk about Mao Dao Zu Shi, a Chinese boy’s love novel that I’m recently obsessed with lol. And let’s throw Banana Fish and Yuri!!! on Ice in here as well, because all these stories are often called “yaoi” when… while they do draw from certain tropes, it’s reductive to label them as such. Because all these stories are plot/theme/character driven. Even when the love stories between Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian, Ash and Eiji, Yuuri and Victor, are the beating hearts at the core of all these series, the story never reduces them to an object. Even if I have said before I think Victor needs better fleshing out, and I do, he’s not an object. The stories serve the characters, rather than characters existing to serve the audience via turning them on and/or giving feelz. Even though MDZS does have explicit sexual scenes towards the end, and YoI has a ton of fanservice, the focus is not the audience. The characters are not props even when they are weaker. In Banana Fish and MDZS, two of my favorite stories ever, the characters are particularly rich and compelling and real.

That’s what good representation is, imo. Showing them as people, not as objects having sex. The opposite is fetishization–and while there is a place for fetishes and such, to enjoy a type of it while real life people are suffering is… immensely privileged. And it can be hurtful.

My guess is from what you say, you’re not shipping m/m because it’s m/m, but because you like the dynamics/find their dynamic hot (which isn’t fetishization necessarily), not because you just want to see penises in action. And to be clear, a story like MDZS does draw attention to the fact that it is two men and deliberately critiques society for its homophobia, so it’s not like you can’t like an m/m ship for that reason–but I do think it’s just good to be self-aware, and allow for nuance.

#ask hamliet #lgbt+#yaoi #Anonymous

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dat-fandom-losertown · 5 years

Text

Cat Out of the Bag

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Chapter 1: Prologue & The Encounter

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Neko!Hank Anderson x Artist/Author!Connor

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Swearing (assume this’ll be in all future chapters as well lol), A tad of Violence, Panic attack similar to my own, Blood/Injury Mention

Word Count: 9,453 (I have no clue how to write short chapters/fics lol)

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Synopsis:

“I ain’t some starvin’, twink cat that you can just bring home and teach how to trust and love or whatever the fuck else books try to say. Hell, I’m not even a Persian or Maine Coon cat with those bushy, pale tails like people always love to give us bears. I’m just an old, fat calico.”

“I personally don’t agree with the stereotypes as well. But as I offered before, you’re always welcome to leave. The front door is right there, I’m not keeping you trapped here... If you wanted to stay, though, I can make you breakfast? You can watch me make your breakfast, or you can make it yourself if you want.”

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~> Next

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Growing up, Connor was always stuck in the worlds he fabricated in his mind, and he wasn’t ashamed of it like his family tried to tell him to be. Even when he would introduce himself to people since middle school, he would always say his name then state that he had an uncontrollably active imagination, and if they ever are speaking to him and he doesn’t appear to be actively listening that they should try to not be offended. He just simply found inspiration and was committing whatever it was to memory to come back to later, or has laid out a simple plot to follow along later. He really meant no harm or disrespect to them.

Let’s just say that, among the school’s nerds, jocks, or other cliques, “Crazy Connor” did not fit into any social group, and regularly gained more bullies than friends. He never minded too much, though. He always lived vicariously through his character’s lives which he created, and they always had plenty of friends and allies they could turn to when in trouble. That’s all he needed, or at least, that’s what he always convinced himself so he wouldn’t become swallowed by loneliness.

By his first year in high school, he wrote an entire book, and by the end of his first year, he wrote another, longer one. For his second year in high school, he was “gently persuaded” into taking an art class for whatever reason the school offered (he wasn’t listening on purpose that time), and he discovered he had a natural gift in the subject. With the encouragement of his art teacher and his one and only friend, Markus, he started posting his artworks on a blog he created just for this purpose, that way he didn’t flood his normal social medias with the unusual content. Soon after, he bought himself the equipment to start doing digital art and quickly switched to that for any piece that wasn’t a graded assignment.

By the end of Connor’s second year, an online social media influencer found the one fanart of them he made– and his blog and all of his other works by extension– by pure chance. After some talking and interactions, they asked if they could commission him to do a small line of t-shirt merch designs. Of course, Connor said yes. They loved it, and so did the customers and fans who looked at and bought the t-shirts. He still knows to this day that he is more than extremely lucky to have had this chance.

After designing the merch, his art blog started gaining more attention, and by christmas break of his third year in high school, he was making more money each month than any student he knew with a job. He got donations from very generous people just for sharing his art and little comic scenes, and he regularly got commissions from people, and was even asked to create pin and more t-shirt designs for that same online influencer. Connor never gave up writing, however, he simply never posted it anywhere public. Although, as soon as he turned 18 early in his Senior year, he immediately self-published the first book he wrote after doing some heavy editing (it was an actual cringefest trying to read through it), and made it well known on his blog that more were coming in the somewhat-near future.

It didn’t do too well, to say the least. A world where nekojins and inujins don’t exist, especially for the sake of not making certain things in the plot happen conveniently and provide crude or perverted humor? It doesn’t fly for most people. He didn’t give up, though, of course not. He expected this book to not do well at all, so he wasn’t put off in the slightest. He self-published his next book during his final new year’s break of high school, which ended up doing much better than his first, considering it was a fantasy adventure genre and had a nekojin as one of the main characters. Looking back on it now, this is probably where his career in writing first started.

Up until this point, Connor was convinced he’d be stuck at a nine-to-five office job for his entire life, since he couldn’t see himself doing what he loved due to the lack of publisher and author connections and, as much as he loves art, that’s not where his true passion lies. He knew that he’d eventually get burnt out if it were his job and only source of income. Although, he also couldn’t imagine doing something he actively disliked because he would rather rip his hair out than be an accountant or anything of the sort like what his family wanted. However, this second book made him realise that it could be possible to do what he wanted full time.

As Connor very soon found out, nekojins and inujins weren’t popularly a main character in books or any media for that matter, and if they were, the book almost always had a forbidden love type of plot or the partial-human was a slave of some sort of one of the other main characters. The fact that Connor, a high schooler, wrote a book with a kick-ass nekojin who gives no fucks and takes no shits as a main character with a pure human lover/sidekick was decidedly open minded and extremely controversial.

At one point, an encounter with a reporter brought up the question of how he found the courage to make such a bold statement. Connor felt somewhat guilty when he admitted that this story idea had just been in his head for so long and it just had a bad-ass nekojin as the main character. He put no thought into what people would think about it or what kind of statement it could possibly give. It’s just what the story always was, so he made it how it is. Simple as that.

And apparently that was an open minded answer. The fact that he hadn’t even thought about what the public might think and didn’t care whatsoever that the main character was a nekojin proved that in his head was a world that easily existed where partial humans and pure humans lived in perfect equality. The writers of those articles weren’t exactly wrong, but Connor still didn’t like how every single one of his artworks and writing pieces were soon heavily criticized and people looked far more into them than even Connor himself thought was possible. It was almost intriguing how people could pull such in-depth ideas and conspiracies from works that were made simply because he thought “Oh, this kind of pose looks cool for this character” and “Wow, these colors look cool with it so we’ll smash them together like this” and “Ta Da! I did it! I made a thing! Look guys!”.

By the time he graduated, he was in the midst of self-publishing a third book that Connor carefully picked because the story line didn’t have anything blatantly controversial in it. His fourth or fifth ones didn’t have anything especially attention-grabbing in them either. Although, that’s just how he planned them in his head. Yes, he did have other titles deemed more risky and controversial, but he didn’t release them only because he didn’t want that kind of attention on him again yet. Eventually, all the controversy surrounding Connor had died down once people began realising that such a large statement from him was likely going to be a one time deal. All that was left behind from the ordeal was a sudden spike in interest and income from the people who found his work because of the fuss.

Yes, he hated that partial human slavery still existed, and no, he never planned on getting one of his own and helping the economy of those types of businesses, but he couldn’t gather the bravery needed to make any grand statements on his blog and march along with the groups of people trying to make things equal. He had morals and human decency, but they apparently didn’t run deep enough to make him less terrified of the mass of negative attention he once faced, so he supported the protesters in spirit for doing what he can’t with minor guilt.

He still feels that way even now at 32 years old. He’s lucky enough to no longer be a starving artist, and he moved out of Markus’ and Simon’s shared apartment to live on his own a couple years ago. He still mainly does digital pieces when creating art, but he took inspiration from Markus and his father and started using different types of traditional medias again. Although, somewhere down the line, art stopped being the larger source of his income, and started being extra cash he put into savings and funding for larger luxury items– such as trips across America for more experiences that he could use in his art and books.

He no longer has to self-publish anymore, yet he still occasionally does under an alias when his agent, a good friend of his by the name Luther, wants him to change too many aspects of a book to make it more commercialized. He has told Connor in the past that he comes up with other manuscripts to pitch quickly compared to the other writers he works with, so he doesn’t worry too often about Connor self-publishing something he didn’t accept. He understands that, to Connor, these aren’t just books, these are tiny pieces of himself in written form. Though, Luther always goes into detail about what parts he doesn’t like and why because there are times where Connor decides that the world in his head would be made better with the changes Luther wanted.

Connor is currently heading home after one of said moments. He just got done with a meeting to pitch his next potential book, and Luther had suggested that he change the time travel portion in it to make it a trilogy and expand on some character’s backstory and development. Connor, not understanding why he hadn’t written a series of any kind yet, since most of his books are rather long, quickly and happily agreed to go home and edit large chunks of it to make it work.

He wonders if he can somehow convince Luther or the publishing company to hold off on publishing the books until all three are completed. Connor hates waiting months for sequels and much prefers having all of the books in a series so he can binge them, and he knows that he’s far from the only one who feels this way. They probably won’t stall until all 3 books are fully completed, though. He’ll just have to somehow work quicker than usual without getting burnt out, or pitch a different book from his list of ideas to work on in the meantime.

Connor blinks out of his head to pause and take in the scenery around him. Connor’s lucky to live in a more suburban area. He’s always been an extremely light sleeper, so he could never get much rest when he lived in the city with his family. The nearest area like that is just far enough away that the only evidence of it being there are the skyscrapers in the distance and the fact there are precisely 14 stars on a clear night sky, and on the nights that aren’t clear, the clouds over the downtown area have an enchanting glow to them.

In the area Connor lives in now, most of the roads are all one lane per direction, with the exception of the main roads with the stores and sloppy grids of traffic lights. This is where Connor is right now, walking along the strangely empty sidewalk. He lives in one of the apartment buildings in the area, and the rumble of cars and occasional shrieks of emergency vehicles are enough to make him want to move back to Markus’ quieter area, despite there still being five more months left on his two-year lease. Looking off to the side where his apartment building should be, Connor decides that he should start hunting for other apartments if he really wants to move somewhere else.

Connor pulls out his phone to take a picture of the serene scene he’s just been greeted by. The setting sun casting the sky in a brilliantly beautiful gradient of rich orange and gold. He has to shove the small sense of guilt away for thinking something that air pollution has caused is gorgeous, because that’s exactly what it is. The small trees that are planted in the middle of the wide sidewalk on the other side of the road look like a black void is trying to rip and glitch its way into swallowing the sky whole, yet is always coming up short. The road he walks along is empty for now due to the traffic light glowing red behind him, which gives him a chance to get an unobscured picture.

This is the perfect scene to paint back at home. Maybe it’s just the thing to finally get him out of his art block.

Connor quickly snaps several pictures at varying levels of brightness and contrast before the light turns green. He quickly puts his phone away and continues on his way home. Honestly, Connor should have taken an Uber or something instead of walking, but he isn’t regretting it quite yet. He probably will in a few minutes, though, when the only light will be from the moon and the occasional street light. He supposes he can always call an Uber now, but he’s currently only a fifteen minute walk away from his apartment complex if he doesn’t take the shortcut through the trees, closer to ten minutes if he does.

Besides, the air is nice and cool for once, if not a bit on the humid side– but that’s just what happens when you live along the east coast, you get non-stop humid air. On top of the air being nice, Connor really needs to get more of it from outside, rather than the stale air inside. The last time he left his apartment (besides hopping into his car for grocery, work, or mail related journeys) was probably a little under a year ago, maybe a little over. Sure, once in a while he’ll open his windows, but that isn’t the same as being outside, feeling the sun on his skin and slight breeze in his hair.

Huh, that could make a cool land in his series. A place where no matter where a person stands within the small civilization, there is always wind to be felt. They could remain protected and unspotted with the use of a force field of sorts that spreads itself over the town. Maybe that could be because they are a true neutral civilization and don’t want any part in the war–

A thud of something hitting metal immediately followed by a quiet groan of pain interrupts Connor’s wandering train of thought. He probably wouldn’t have even heard it if he hadn’t retained his habit of somehow being alert to his surroundings while zoned out from back when he was in school. He doesn’t even know where the painful sounds came from, but that doesn’t matter because he wouldn’t just jump in to other people’s problems. What if there isn’t anything happening at all and that was just someone who tripped and fell?

So he checks the time (for evidence purposes, just in case) and keeps walking straight, hyper aware of every little movement and sound around him, yet never turning his head. That is, until he jumps at the abrupt sound of sharp laughter coming from behind the boutique that’s closed for the night.

“The fucker’s weak and already passing out! Who would’ve guessed! Ha!” a nasally voice taunts. Connor freezes against both his will and better judgement.

“Should we call some place to pick ‘im up? We could get some extra cash?” a woman asks.

“Hell no!” a masculine voice shouts, “Who the hell do you think would want an old, fat neko like him, anyway. We’d be doing everyone a favor by just killing it.”

That gets Connor moving silently into the narrow alley towards the voices. He may be socially awkward and loathe conflict, but he grew up training in different types of combat and self-defense. If someone’s life is in danger, he damn sure will fight, and as long as none of these people have a gun, he will win.

“Uh, I didn’t fuckin’ sign up for murder.” the nasally voice says uneasily, “I just wanted to go out and have a good time.”

“Ugh, it’s not like we’d get caught. And even if we did for some reason, we would get a slap on the wrist at most.”

“Are you actually that fuckin’ stupid, Damien?” the woman snaps. “If we kill him, that will be seen as worse than killing an animal. Even I’m not stupid enough to think that we’d get away with something that in a place out in the open like this. Someone’s gonna have to take out trash, and evidence of us being here is everywhere.”

Connor finally lets himself fall still, ceasing his silent shuffling towards the corner. He presses against the wall in hopes to lower the chances of being spotted, and promptly rests his back on something sticky. He jumps forward just slightly, but not enough to be seen.

“What was that?” the first guy asks.

But is apparently loud enough to be heard.

Connor braces himself for a fight, tensing up and getting into position–

“Dude, you’re being paranoid. Let’s just get the fuck out of here. I’m bored, anyway, and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.” The supposed ringleader persuades, his boots thumping on the concrete as he walks away. Connor lets himself relax, thankful that nothing more is going to happen for now.

“Same. C’mon.” The woman starts following him if the sound of clacking heels is anything to go by.

There’s a relieved sigh, then one last set of footsteps walking away. Luckily, based off of the sounds of scuffling and skateboards from around the corner, there’s another way to get in and out of that place besides the one Connor is hiding in. He stays completely still and silent for several minutes after they’re gone, just to make sure they won’t come back. When he finally feels that it’s safe enough to look at the time on his phone, only twelve minutes have passed since he last checked it.

Taking a deep breath, he moves himself out of his hiding place. He spots the large nekojin laying against a dumpster in the alley and can immediately tell that the 911 emergency responders won’t do much, if anything, for him because there’s no collar around his neck and no obvious lethal wounds. The poor guy’s got blood in his hair, which is grey with age, and there’s a bit of blood on the ground and dumpster where he was presumably knocked down. His wrist is also zip tied to the back handle of the dumpster, so his arm is raised high above his head and Connor can see where the zip tie is digging into his skin. He watches as the man takes a small breath with a small sigh of relief.

That seems to make something in Connor click, because he’s suddenly dropping to his knees to check for any less obvious injuries. First thing’s first, Connor removes the zip tie from the man’s wrist by jamming his fingernail between the latch and tail slowly undoing the loop. He carefully puts the man’s arm down by his side. Connor only knows so much about first aid and injuries from past, admittedly extensive research for his books and comic scenes, but he does remember how to spot the signs of various broken bones. He also knows that won’t be enough to make sure he’s actually okay.

Therefore, he yanks his phone out of his pocket and texts his friend, Kara, who is some kind of doctor, hoping that she’ll be kind enough to come and look this guy over herself. It’s not like Connor wouldn’t pay her for her expertise, after all.

Connor Child Today at 19:28 (7:28)

Hey, are you busy right now?

Connor doesn’t even have time to repocket his phone before it vibrates in his hand. She mustn't be busy, if she responded so quickly.

Best Mom Friend Today at 19:28 (7:28)

i’m free. what’s up

Connor Child Today at 19:29 (7:29)

You know how you’re a doctor? Are you, like, a general doctor, or are you specialized in something? And is there a difference between pure and partial humans medically/biologically?

Best Mom Friend Today at 19:30 (7:30)

We’ll call it a general one. and no there aren’t major differences besides the tail and ears and heightened senses and all that jazz.

weren’t you just with luther? what happened?

Connor Child Today at 19:20 (7:30)

I was, but I found an injured Nekojin that was beat up by these three assholes while walking home. It doesn’t look life threatening, but I’m not a doctor and I also have no way of getting him to my place.

When Kara doesn’t respond immediately, Connor carefully lifts up the large man’s shirt, carefully avoiding touching his white, tan, and black blotched tail that’s draped protectively across his chest before he passed out. He notes that there’s a lot of bruising, which could mean a few things, some worse than others. He’s taking even breaths instead of short, sporadic ones, though, which could be a good sign. After checking a few other things tenderly and carefully, Connor decides that it’s probably okay to carefully lay the stranger down so he can check his back.

It’s immediately apparent that they jumped him from behind. The entire back of his shirt has blood all over it, and some blood on the wall and dumpster where he was leaned against them. After a solid twenty seconds of processing what he’s seeing and choosing what to do about this first, Connor finally forces himself to tenderly lift the back of his shirt up. He notices that none of the cuts should be deep enough to do any lasting damage beyond scars. He doesn’t even think blood loss should be a problem, since the blood wasn’t even visible for the most part until he was rolled over. That doesn’t account for any possible internal bleeding though, and for the fact that Connor still isn’t a doctor.

At that thought, Kara finally messages back with perfect timing.

Best Mom Friend Today at 19:34 (7:34)

first of all, where are you?

second of all, you shouldn’t bring strangers into your home.

third of all, you should take him to a hospital anyway.

Connor cringes at his phone at the last suggestion, then begins typing.

Connor Child Today at 19:35 (7:35)

We both know he won’t get proper care at a hospital, especially since he doesn’t appear to have a collar or a way of contacting someone who will pay off the debt for the stay. Also, I’ve already thought about every other option besides bringing him to a hospital and they all end with him getting abandoned and/or hurt again out here. I don’t wanna leave him like that.

It’s then that Connor realizes that he likely has most of the things needed to take care of these types of injuries at home in his jumbo first aid kit. Markus bought it for him on his birthday as a jab at how clumsy he is, but it’s come in handy multiple times since then and none of his friends let it die.

Connor Child Today at 19:36 (7:36)

Besides, I think I have everything needed to clean him up at my apartment, I’m just not sure about any internal injuries or how to move him.

Oh god damn it, apparently Connor’s going to be one of the dumbasses who brings injured strangers back home. He can’t just leave him out here and he can’t trust anyone else in this area– state, even– to not abuse this guy as soon as Connor is out of sight, though. He gently feels around the stranger’s head, carefully avoiding his tan and black ears, for any obvious injuries as he works things out in his head.

Maybe he can call Markus to come over to help keep watch just in case? No, he and Simon are out in New York on vacation until Monday, and today’s Thursday. He can’t ask Carl or Luther to come over, since Carl is old and wheelchair bound and, as well as Luther can act and despite his massive size, he does much worse with conflict than Connor does. He’d be on edge from being around a wild card for the night, then stressed for days after. Connor knows Kara would come help him out, but she doesn’t get enough sleep as it is, with the weird hospital hours and helping with taking care of Alice. She doesn’t need to be more involved in this than she already is, anyways.

This is either going to end surprisingly well or very badly, and Connor has a feeling of which it’s going to be. That is decidedly not a good sign, but Connor elects to ignore it anyway.

Connor finds a rather large knot on the right side of the man’s head where the majority of the blood in his hair is, which is probably the same injury that pretty much knocked him out in the first place. He doesn’t even know if there’s a way to check for concussions when the person is unconscious.

His phone finally pings an alert for a new message.

Best Mom Friend Today at 19:37 (7:37)

fine, you win. tell me where you are and i’ll bring you guys to your place. who’s staying with you, cause it isn’t going to be me or luther.

Connor Child Today at 19:37 (7:37)

Thank you so much!! I’m at the boutique near my apartment complex! And I have a friend that I’m going to message!

You’re the best!!

Connor rolls the stranger into what he hopes is a more comfortable position, then finds a place where he’ll be able to watch the parallel parking lanes in front of the boutique and the unconscious nekojin at the same time. His phone chimes again, and he doesn’t bother opening it for the simple three letter in the message notification.

Best Mom Friend Today at 19:41 (7:41)

Omw

With that taken care of, all there is left to do is wait for Kara. He moves and sits down in his spot, and just a bit over ten minutes later, she pulls up. Connor glances back at the old stranger, making sure he won’t die or something in his absence, then quickly steps out of the alley so Kara will see him. She does and parks her blue SUV in the spot closest to where Connor is waiting.

“Kara! You’re a lifesaver, really!” he calls after Kara steps out of her car.

“I know, I know,” She shuts the door behind her, “Where’s the guy?”

“He’s back here. I didn’t want to move him too much.”

She nods in approval and silently follows him to the old nekojin, then starts looking over his wounds. She decides that the cuts on his back aren’t as bad as they could be and the bleeding has already slowed down a bit. At her request, Connor retells everything he knows. After a few more minutes of checking, she states that the stranger no doubt has a concussion and will need plenty of rest and another check up once he’s awake. Thankfully, she doesn’t think his wrist is dislocated or fractured or anything, and his ribs seem fine. Together, they carefully lift the unconscious man into the back of the SUV, and Connor climbs in the back to sit with him.

They reach Connor’s apartment complex in just over two minutes (he swears he isn’t staring at the clock in the car), then fight to awkwardly lift the man out of the car and up the flight of stairs to Connor’s apartment. Once inside, they lay him on the bed in the guest room. Kara makes a comment about the sheets not making it through unscathed, but Connor disregards her with an obvious lie about needing new sheets anyway.

Kara then washes the man’s back and arms then carefully tends to his plentiful superficial wounds with Connor’s help, since there was apparently glass in some of his cuts. By the time they’re finished with that and the man has a light blanket draped over him, a couple of hours have gone by. Kara leaves once Connor promises (lies) that the person he texted about staying over will be on their way very soon and isn’t there now because they have a shift at the grocery store.

Now that Connor is completely alone and is starting to feel the nerves from having a large, presumably strong stranger unconscious in his home, he doesn’t quite know what to do. Normally when things get stressful or unusual, he’d write a short story depicting a character going through something that would make them just as uncomfortable and stressed as he is and post it on his Patreon, but he doesn’t want the click-clacking of his keyboard to mask any noises that the man might make.

After a bit of thinking and standing around, he decides to paint the sunset he took a picture of earlier.

He goes down the short hallway that connects his room, laundry room, and bathroom to the rest of the apartment. He opens the closet on the right side of the room and grabs a canvas and various paints and brushes. Going back out to the area of life, as Connor calls it (since the kitchen, dining room, and living room are all one large area, with the living room sectioned off by couches and the kitchen by a counter island and tiles on the ground), he sets up his stuff on his small, square table. He makes sure he’s facing the doors to his and the guest rooms with his back to the front door and the sliding door to his balcony/patio thing.

He pauses in his painting every 45 minutes to an hour so he can check on the nekojin. When the sun finally rises in the morning, Connor’s finished two sellable paintings and is starting a third. He has officially reached the level of exhaustion where he no longer feels tired as long as he ignores the pressure behind his eyes and the headache starting to form. Sometimes his insomnia-like-symptoms flare up until he gets to this point, so he isn’t worried.

After checking on the man yet again, Connor decides to fix a breakfast sandwich using his near-expired bacon and a tube of premade biscuits. He makes enough eggs and bacon for only one person, not knowing when the nekojin will wake up and if he even eats eggs or meat.

He’s in the middle of putting his food on a plate when there’s a slight and distant creak. If he were alone, Connor would have been able to convince himself that it was the building settling or something of the like, but he isn’t. He quickly turns around and is relieved to see nothing behind him. He hastily scoops the last bit of eggs onto his plate before cautiously walking through the living area towards the guest room. He pauses right at the door and listens for movement, just in case the man woke up and is trying to do something stupid and/or dangerous.

Connor may be trained in various types of combat and self defense, but he’s not stupid enough to think that makes him invincible. Especially against someone who is as large as that man was, and that’s excluding the chances that this stranger has training in some kind of combat as well.

After a couple of seconds of complete silence, Connor hesitantly opens the door just wide enough to slowly peek half of his head through. He immediately sees that the man is no longer in his bed. He’s barely able to open the door wider to step inside before a heavy weight barrels into him from the side. Next thing he knows, he’s pinned to the wall by a furious nekojin, with his ears pinned to his head and fangs sharp as needles. It’s already getting hard to breathe and Connor, as predicted, can’t move the arm that’s pushed against his throat. Trying to move his right arm and both legs is useless because the man also has them pinned enough to where he can’t make any effective attacks on him.

He must have some kind of training in combat as well, or has learned from personal experience. Connor is completely screwed if this man decides he is too much of a threat or isn’t worth his time.

“Cause any trouble and I make your life painful, ya hear?” the man snarls lowly, and if Connor wasn’t already used to being pinned against walls and threatened, he’d probably be panicking right now. Connor rapidly nods as calmly as he can (which isn’t nearly calm enough) while being in this situation. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Connor” he rasps painfully, “I’m– no harm. Please–”

The older man hisses, and it sounds nothing like when cats do it. When cats hiss, it almost sounds like an air leakage from a pipe; high pitched and more breathy than anything. This hiss, though, is not unlike what demons sound like in horror movies. It’s lower and almost growlish and absolutely terrifying enough to make up for the lack of a small, agile body.

It shuts Connor up to say the absolute least.

“Where the fuck did you bring me?”

“My–” Connor coughs and gasps painfully, “apartment.” That must have been the wrong answer because the pressure on his throat increases. Since moving the arm is impossible, he starts patting it to try to signal the stranger that he really needs air.

“I can fuckin’ see that, dumbass. I meant where the fuck is this place?”

“Not– far, fr-from… alley…” Huh, so the darkness not only invades from the sides of your vision, but the focus of it also dims too. And nobody ever mentioned in the books he read about how much pressure is building in his head right now, like it’s going to explode soon. Aw great, now he’s starting to mildly dissociate. Just what he needs.

The nekojin is trying to say something to him, but the only things he can make out clearly from the sudden white noise are “you”, “better”, and “punk”. Connor doesn’t want to agree to something preposterous, but he also doesn’t want to try to ask for clarification or anything like that and make the man angrier. He suddenly has a fleeting thought of dying here, and his mind just as suddenly latches onto it and won’t let go. God he’s so fucking stupid. He knew this was a horrible idea, and he still fucking did it. Why doesn’t he ever listen to anyone?

Just as Connor tries to reach his left arm up to damage the man’s face somehow and force him to let go, he’s abruptly released.

Connor barely avoids dropping to the ground and instead leans against the wall because his legs want to function more like jelly than anything remotely solid. He coughs and gasps but locks his knees so he’s less likely to fall over into a more defenseless position. He distantly recognizes that the nekojin is trying to talk to him again, but he’s too preoccupied with getting air into his lungs and not falling over to even try to decipher it. Thankfully, whatever he said apparently wasn’t super important because nothing happens when Connor doesn’t give any kind of response, and nothing continues to happen until he’s breathing normally and standing up on his own again.

“You said I wasn’t far from the alley,” the nekojin spits out, “How close is it?”

Connor blinks the tears from his eyes. “Five minute walk, maybe.” he answers quietly, throat hurting.

“Where are your roommates?”

“Don’t have any.”

“You live completely alone?” he asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

Connor silently nods.

“Why’d you bring me here? Think you could tame some fuckin’ stray to be your personal pet? ‘Cause you’re very wrong.” he ends in a growl. It sends shivers up Connor’s spine and he can feel the sweat on him beading and rolling down. If this comes to blows again, there’s no way Connor will be able to win, especially not like this.

“No. You’re hurt.” he says more sure, finally lifting his head to meet the other’s eyes.

“You honestly expect me to believe that you brought an old, stray nekojin home just because he was a little hurt?”

Connor nods. “Didn’t know if you were bleeding out or not–”

He shuts his mouth with a click and braces himself for another attack when he sees the stranger move. It’s barely a shift to the side, but it’s enough to send Connor back into highest alert. The guy must realise this because he shifts backward a step.

“What do you get outta patchin’ me up?”

“...technically nothing?”

“No one does anything without any reward, so fuckin’ spill it.” he spits.

“A clear conscious, maybe?” There’s no bite in his words, only the underlying fear of giving the wrong answer. When the older man doesn’t immediately shoot another question, Connor continues. “Look, I just don’t like it when people’re in pain. I wanted to help, so I did.”

“People.” When Connor stares blankly in return, he continues. “I’m not people. Won’t ever be, thanks to the ears and tail.”

“You should be people.” he breathes. “A lot of others agree with me, nowadays.”

“Ah, so you’re one of those activists? You realise you guys are going to get killed before anything substantial changes right?”

“I’m– uh, I’m not really an activist? I don’t like all the attention.” Connor forces himself to loosen up a little, more to prove that he isn’t a danger to the wild card in front of him and less because he actually wants to. “It makes me nervous.”

“Yet you supposedly bring home a dangerous stranger from the streets into your own home just for the sake of patching up a few scratches.”

Connor stands at full height once more, his voice sharp, “You also have severe bruising and a concussion. And the hospital wouldn’t have done much for you because it wasn’t immediately life threatening and you don’t have a collar.”

“If it wasn’t fucking life threatening then you should have left me out there! To hell with your hero dilemma or whatever the fuck you have!” the man snaps, waving his arms in wide, angry gestures, “How the hell did you even know where to find me, if you really aren’t with the fuckers who did this to me?”

“I was walking home from work and heard someone get hit, then voices threatening murder. I just stayed until they left in case I needed to jump in and stop them.” Connor says gravely.

The man sighs. Connor can feel his exhaustion from that one breath alone, but holds his ground. He doesn’t know what is genuine and what is an act to get him to lower his defenses. He’s suddenly aware that he’s shaking.

“And how the fuck did you get me here?” His tone is slightly less angry.

“Called a friend with a car. She’s the one who patched you up ‘cause she’s a doctor.” Connor tries to slow his trembling, and, to his surprise, it’s kind of working.

The older man eyes him, “And why the fuck did she help?”

“She thought someone else was staying with me last night so I wasn’t alone with you.” Connor blurts before reassuring, “No one else is here, but she doesn’t know that. She has her own things to worry about. I don’t want her involved.” With that, he stops his breathing exercises, confident he won’t start panting or hyperventilating.

“And you don’t have one?” he can almost hear the raised eyebrow accompanying the nekojin’s question.

“Not really.” He doesn’t really want to talk about this, especially not to someone he doesn’t know.

“Nothin’ to lose by taking in a stranger, huh? Self destructive much?”

“Not– not exactly.”

There’s a few moments of tense silence. Connor still refuses to move a single muscle from earlier and it’s starting to get strenuous now, but he won’t lower his guard until he knows this nekojin isn’t a threat anymore.

“...You’re not gonna try to name me or some shit?” the partial-human asks warily and, if Connor isn’t wrong, with a hint of timidity.

That… was not at all what Connor was expecting out of the gruff man after what has been going down. He didn’t even know that people did that to partial humans. It sadly makes sense, though, considering history. Animals have always been renamed with little issue, and back in the day, people used to do just the same to partial humans too. Connor thought that kind of thing died decades ago, though.

“No? I didn’t even fully realize that was a thing people still did…”

“And none of these drawers have clothes of my size in them?”

“I– No! Check if you want but–”

Connor falls silent when the other man suddenly turns to the single dresser in the room and opens the first drawer. Every drawer after that was opened and reshut with great haste. Finding it all empty, he moves on to the closet and goes through the small shelving unit in there. He once again finds nothing, and shuts the closet with an obvious breath of relief. He sharply turns back to Connor. The man must see something in Connor because he sighs and shuffles towards where he’s still sitting against the wall.

“You really don’t want any ownership over me?” The man sounds less angry and more skeptical.

“If you don’t believe me, then you can always leave. I don’t want to trap you. But you’re still hurt.” Only silence follows, so Connor tries again to make this man trust that he won’t slap a collar on him. “I’ve never been interested in getting a nekojin. I hate what you guys have to endure, and I’ve always pretty much seen everyone as equals. It actually got me a bit of unwanted attention when I was younger.” He adds after a split second of hesitation.

The stranger huffs in what seems like a mocking manner. Connor can understand why.

“You sure you’re not an activist? Going out and parading and getting arrested by plan?”

Connor fights the urge to squirm in shame and apprehension and shakes his head. “I’ve always been too shy for anything like that, and I don’t like a lot of attention focused on me. It’s stressful.”

The man takes two steps closer to Connor, who instinctively tenses, not realizing that he ever relaxed just the slightest bit in the first place. The other pauses, then shuffles back half a step, putting his hands in his pockets in a way that makes it obvious that he’s forcing himself to do so, rather than keep them ready for a fight and out in the open.

“How do I know you aren’t with those three brats and are gonna try your shot at taming my fugly mug into something sellable? Hm? How do I know that no one’s waiting to catch me if I try to leave like you offered?”

Connor speaks without thinking. “You’re not fugly, just in need of a shower and new clothes.” Connor hates the tense silence that immediately follows, so Connor quickly moves on and fills it, “And, I– uh– I guess you don’t? I mean, I don’t know how to prove it? That I don’t think it’s a good idea to ‘tame’ anyone? I mean, don’t you need those life skills? To like, survive and stuff in our current society?”

The nekojin only gapes at him as if he’s said something completely absurd, and knowing himself, he probably did without realizing it. When it becomes obvious that Connor isn’t going to continue, the stranger shakes his head incredulously.

“Do you know how many people would call a nekojin’s feral state ‘life skills’? Even the damn activists have their own ideas about how our sanity should be managed. Are you fucking insane?”

Connor winces at his tone. “Uh… I mean, you don’t seem feral to me, as such… But I know I’m socially awkward and I’ve been told I’m dense–”

“I can’t tell if you’re shitting me or if you’re really trying hard to get me to not fucking hate you.” He suddenly sniffs the air and his expression becomes darker. “Something is burning. What the hell are you cooking?”

Burning? Connor thinks, sniffing the air. He can’t really smell anything. A partial-human’s sense of must be substantially stronger than a pure human’s; a single truth within the many lies of the internet.

“I was making a breakfast sandwich before you woke up… It might be the biscuits that you smell burning?”

He should really go pull them out of the oven, but he’s still afraid that this guy will pounce on him again if he tries to make an unannounced move for the door, and he doesn’t want a repeat of that whatsoever. On another note, there is absolutely no way he’s going to have his back turned to an aggressive stranger for any amount of time, especially because this one has claws and fangs.

“Fine, I smell the eggs and bacon too, but I’m gonna go sit out where you’ll be cooking so I know where you are and what you’re doing.” He straightens up and crosses his arms defiantly. The post is practically begging Connor to refuse the guy so he can do something about it. Too bad Connor doesn’t want to.

“That’s fine,” Connor pauses, then tries something bold at the last moment, “As long as you tell me what to call you.” The other startles at that, “I’m tired of calling you ‘stranger’ and ‘nekojin’ in my head.” Connor relaxes his pose just enough to seem like he isn’t ready to spring into any kind of action still, even though he definitely still is. “I’m Connor.”

He scrutinizes the younger man, then sighs and untenses just a tad. “Fine. Lead the way, then. I’m Hank, and that’s all you’re gonna get outta me.”

“I didn’t expect anything else.” He attempts a smile that he suspects looks more like a grimace.

Now that Connor is somewhat confident that the stranger– Hank isn’t going to pounce on him the moment his back is turned, he’s able to exit the door and walk to the kitchen area without looking alarmingly tense and uncomfortable. Connor hears a door close as he finds and pulls on a pair of oven mitts. Connor still keeps a mental map of where Hank is by the sound of his footsteps as he grabs the pan of moderately burned biscuits out of the oven.

He sets the pan on the counter so the cooked-to-dark-brown biscuits can cool so the trash bag doesn’t melt when he throws them away. Then he swiftly pulls out a stool from the kitchen island and takes the smoke alarm off of the ceiling, then deactivating it right as it begins beeping with the timing and grace of only someone who has done this a million other times can achieve. He gets down and puts the stool back. He moves back to the oven and turns it off all while avoiding having his back completely to Hank, who’s standing in his living room.

There’s complete silence in the room that makes Connor’s nerves bristle. Connor glances over to the knife block next to the fridge, knowing that he would never actually use them to harm anyone, but he likes to believe he could bluff his way out of a dire situation. Although, now that he’s thinking about it, maybe he couldn’t. Hank would probably be unfazed or get angrier after everything he’s experienced in his lifetime, and that’s if he somehow believes that Connor would actually use said knife after everything he’s said and done.

Connor jumps when Hank starts speaking.

“Everything good now? You’ve been standing there starin’ at nothin’ like a lunatic.”

Connor says nothing, choosing to just nod instead as he casually crosses his arms and leans against the counter next to the oven in a strained act of nonchalance.

Hank studies him carefully. “Why are you helping me, really?”

Connor can’t help but silently sigh. He may have already said this once or twice before, and he may not blame the guy in the slightest for not believing him, but still. It’s not like his answer is going to change from when he asked earlier. Although, that may be why he’s asking again, as some form of test or something.

“Like I said before, I don’t think I’ll get anything tangible out of this. If you really need something, then maybe self-satisfaction or a clean conscious for helping someone in need, but nothing tangible like money.” Hank shoots him a blank look that he hates. He sighs. “I just– My gut told me that you needed some real help, and I was going to give it whether you were a pure human or partial. It’s just that after finding out you had cat ears and a tail, I knew that no hospital in the area was going to give you proper care so 911 was essentially useless. I generally have good intuition when it comes to people, so I trusted it and brought you home instead of leaving you tied down in that nasty alley.” What Connor doesn’t mention aloud is how he’s been regretting not leaving him bandaged up in the cleaner part of that alley ever since he couldn’t see the other man in the guest room’s bed earlier.

His last statement catches Hank’s attention, who then turns his head to look away from Connor for the first time since being awake and looks out a window. He clears his throat, cutting off Connor’s growing panic. The guy’s head is down and his shoulders are slumped, but it’s still obvious that he’s still on edge and wary of his surroundings and Connor. When he speaks, it sounds like he has to force the sound from his lips.

“Look, Connor, I’m sorry for snapping at you, even if I don’t entirely regret protecting myself like that. But I still don’t trust or like you, got it?”

“Yeah. The sentiment is kind of the same right now, no offense.”

“None taken,” Hank pauses and straightens up, “Do you at least get where I’m coming from, though?” he takes a step forward. “Like, according to society, I am an untamed animal or slave, and I wake up in a strange room and am getting checked on every god damned minute by a complete stranger when the last thing I remember is getting kicked around and beat with broken bottles.” He shakes his head and looks away.

“I ain’t some starvin’, twink cat that you can just bring home and teach how to trust and love or whatever the fuck else books try to say. Hell, I’m not even a Persian or Maine Coon cat with those big bushy tails like people always love to give us larger people. I’m just an old, fat calico.”

Hank suddenly stiffens upon saying that last word, but Connor ignores it and lowers his head.

“I personally don’t agree with the stereotypes as well. But as I offered before,” Connor raises his head to meet Hank’s eyes again, “you’re always welcome to leave, The front door is right there. I’m not keeping you trapped here, and there’s not anyone after you or anything that I know of, so…” Connor shrugs.

For the first time this morning, Hank looks more uncomfortable than anything else, and Connor doesn’t really have the energy to unpack that. He starting to feel tired because of the lack of adrenaline in his system, so he’ll probably need some caffeinated tea soon. Maybe a new breakfast to go with it, too; his stomach is starting to hurt with hunger because he forgot dinner last night.

Still, Hank hasn’t responded, so Connor takes this opportunity to give him the explicit option to stay because he’s already given the nekojin multiple outs and, as stupid as Connor knows he can be, he doesn’t think Hank should be left on his own quite yet. Besides, he really doesn’t think that Hank will do any harm for no reason. His anger and violence earlier were understandable at the least, and neither of them seem to want a repeat of that any time soon. Connor doesn’t think he’s making the wrong decision by doing this since Hank’s already here in his apartment, anyway. Emphasis on think.

“If you wanted to stay, though, I can make you breakfast? Or you can watch me make your breakfast, or just make it yourself if you want. I mean, because I’m willing to bet that you haven’t had anything decent in a while, yeah?” He chuckles awkwardly. It almost works to make the atmosphere less heavy. Almost.

Hank stares him down, obviously still skeptical and wary of Connor. The creator tries to not do anything that could be taken as suspicious, but that in of itself could be suspicious in a way. A few more seconds pass like this in tense silence before Hank finally sighs and relaxes his shoulders the slightest bit.

“What the fucking hell is my life anymore.” He mumbles, then raises his voice to a normal speaking level “Alright. I’m gonna sit on that stool,” He points to one of the two the kitchen island, “And I’m gonna watch you so you don’t poison my food. And then you can hear me if I even so much as shuffle, so you’ll know I won’t attack you from behind.”

“Okay.” He watches as Hank moves with a slight limp in his left leg and sits with a poorly concealed wince. “Did you… did you want to maybe redress your wounds? I have over the counter pain meds if you want, but I doubt you’d trust that.”

“You’re right. I don’t trust that a single fucking bit. This ain’t nothin’ I haven’t gone through before, so you can quit your worryin’.” Hank hesitates, then continues, almost meeker. “And you don’t need to worry about allergies. I’ll eat anythin’.”

Connor simply nods in response, already getting used to Hank’s vulgarity and irritation. It’s probably not healthy why he’s already getting used to it, considering it’s mostly due to questionable parenting choices and plenty of childhood bullying, but no one really has the time or patience to unpack that right now (or ever, if Connor has any say in it). Therefore, he does what he does second best, and instead of slowly unpacking that box of troubles and sorting through it like any healthy person should, he simply tapes that box shut tightly with three layers of duct tape and shoves it to the back of his mental storage unit while he takes out his pan cleaner to wash off the remnants of his food before starting Hank’s.

As he gathers ingredients and tools to the island so Hank can see exactly what Connor is doing at all times, he never once looks up at Hank. The why from earlier tries to rear its ugly head again, but he shoves and forces it down again with practiced ease. Unlike what it has to say about the damnable why, his gut is telling him that Hank isn’t really a bad person, that he’s just been dealt a shit hand in his life. It’s right about people much more often than it’s not, and Connor can only hope that this isn’t one of those times where it’s not.

He finds himself almost wanting to like Hank, to show him that the world isn’t completely filled with stupid assholes, only mostly full.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

~> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Hey guys!! I hope you didn’t mind the wait too much, but I ended up changing the plot to this story last minute and rewrote this chapter, like, 3 and a half times now? So, yeah, there’s that. This chapter was a bit angsty and I still kinda really hate it, but!! But!!! I am moving on because Protective Hank™ will be making an appearance next chapter!! The next chapter of The Drift Between Us may not come for a couple of weeks because I have to update the EXO x Reader I’m writing on a blog I share with my friend that I have been neglecting lately Lol. So, that’s pretty much it! Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you have a pleasant day/night! 😊💕

#hankcon #hank x connor #hank anderson x connor #hankcon fanfiction #hankcon fanfic #hankcon au #hannor fanfic #hannor fanfiction #hannor au #hannor #neko hank anderson #dbh neko hank #cat out of the bag #chapter 1

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years

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This post is full of misinformed, misinterpreted and out of context shit.

· There is NO hard canonical timeline for Peter’s ages for when he began acting as a hero. At best sources stating he was 15 upon getting his powers and ASm #400’s backup strip claiming that he was 16 the night he caught the burglar is how you can arrive at the conclusion he aged into being 16 by the time he began acting as a hero. But it’s vague as fuck and both 15 and 16 are retcons. Originally Peter was written to be a senior in the Ditko run. However it makes more sense if Peter was 15 both when he got his powers and when he began acting as a hero as Mysterio (debuting in ASM #13) claimed in ASM #24 that he’s hated Spider-Man for years implying at least 2 years elapsed between that issue and his debut

· Spider-Man circa the time this post was written was not 30 years old. He was actually older than that if you do the math properly. Do not be fooled by Learning to Crawl’s assertion he was merely 28 circa 2014 he was actually 30 years old circa OMD in 2007. So no he has egregiously more than 14 years worth of experience.

· The list of characters Peter’s been active longer than is highly flawed due to the inclusion of Captain America, the Guardians and Jessica Jones.

Whilst the essential sentiment is accurate it’s misleading because Jessica Jones first appearance was not when she canonically began to be active in the silver age (the 1960s). Captain America of course was active in WWII and then put on ice until the early days of the Marvel Age where the F4 debuted meaning he was most experienced by like decades ahead of Spider-Man. And the Guardians debut date listed is in reference to the ORIGINAL Guardians of the Galaxy. These Guardians were not Gamora, Star-Lord, Groot, etc. These were a group of heroes from the far future of an alternate marvel universe.

So great research there.

· The post states that 5 years real time = 1 year for the MU. Actually it’s 4 OR 5 and more commonly 4

· Yes Spider-Man was indeed widely disliked by most heroes but the OP idiotically claims it was because he was a jerk.

No. It was because Jameson slandered his name. Spider-Man’s jerkish behaviour was the result of three major factors.

Firstly it was the fact that many heroes outright disrespected him. for instance the Avengers not only insulted him verbally and antagonized him but they had the audacity to try and test his worthiness to join their team after only recently accepting former criminals Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye onto their team. As a reminder the former two were affiliated with mutant terrorist Magneto and the latter with Communist spy Black Widow. None of them were ever tested, the Maximoffs just wrote a letter asking to join and that was it.

Secondly in the Silver and Bronze age ALL heroes in Marvel were jerks to one another. It was a conscious effort to differentiate themselves from DC. It isn’t something to be taken too seriously.

Thirdly Peter was well beyond most other heroes straining under immense pressures which would serve to make ANYONE uptight. These were pressures most other heroes simply never dealt with.

· The OP claims Peter picked fights to prove how tough and manly he was. This is not only ignorant of 1960s societal standards for the time but is also an overly comdemnatory reading of the character

See these for more on that

https://hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger.tumblr.com/post/163322233001/in-a-recent-exchange-i-had-with-somebody-they

https://hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger.tumblr.com/post/168252199132/fyeahspiderverse-ask-me-ask-me-ask#notes

This poster takes an oversimplified and highly pretentious sociological approach to the character that is ignorant of the character’s proper in context psychology or how many real life people would think, feel or act.

Noticably (and this is much later on in the post) she talks about the character revelling in violence when MOST superheroes are just like that and more poignantly the ‘revelling’ involved is a character harming objectively evil people the overwhelming majority of the time.

He gets brutal in the course of a brutal life dealing with brutal people doing horribly brutal things.

Does he lose his temper from time to time?

Yeah...but EVERY PERSON ON EARTH DOES THAT...and most people on Earth are not coping with the insane levels of personal stress being placed upon Spider-Man.

The OP I am willing to bet does not deal with anything CLOSE to the amount of horrible experiences and stresses Spider-Man himself does.

· The OP paints Peter is a disgustingly negative light. Listing how he is oudmouthed, proud, independent, stubborn, touchy, cocky, judgmental, and he has one hell of a temper that he typically can barely keep under control. He has a firm sense of justice, of what’s right and what’s wrong, and if he’s made up his mind, he will not budge.

This is BS because not only are there numerous instances of Peter having his mind changed but Peter being ‘touchy’ is usually owed a fuckton more to the situations he finds himself in and the stresses he’s coping with. FFS Peter for the first 18 years of his life has no friends and was bullied and ostracised. OF COURSE HE’D BE TOUCHY!

Similarly his’ barely controllable temper’ was a feature more during the silver and bronze age when writing standards for many superheroes was very different from what it’d later evolve into and the character was a lot younger too.

YES Peter has had moments where his temper breaks in later stories but they were situational.

But what’s gross about the OP is that she lists of all this stuff as part of Peter’s personality and then lists nothing else.

Nothing else.

Peter’s kindness?

Peter’s sense of loyalty?

Peter’s sense of you know...responsibility?

Peter’s sheer decency?

Peter’s ‘never say die’ attitude?

Peter’s sense of humour?

Peter’s fondness for learning?

Peter NOT being as judgemental as the OP is grossly pretending he is considering he never once held Flash Thompson once assaulting his girlfriend, Betty cheating on her husband or many other bad things his friends have done against them?

Which showcases an incredibly forgiving nature to the character.

· The OP claims Spider-Man REVELS in violence and loves fighting.

No Spider-Man loves blowing off steam with action which MOST superheroes do. It’s not a Peter thing it’s a genre convention thing and needs to be properly looked at WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE GENRE CONVENTIONS of the series and Marvel in general.

Does Spider-Man love beating up bad guys?

I think he certainly gets a certain thrill out of it, but he rarely seriously injures them unless the situation is serious or else he’s been pushed hard.

In the 1980s the violence Peter was witnessing in various street crimes actually served to seriously affect him and he wanted to quit.

Shit he’s wanted to quit COUNTLESS times and it’s his sense of responsibility that keeps him in the game.

That is NOT someone who just ‘loves’ fighting or ‘revels’ in violence.

· “He punches first and asks questions much, much later. ”

Again bullshit. Not only have there been instances where Spidey has asked questions first but this interpretation of Spider-Man is extremely flawed not only because it doesn’t properly contextualize genre conventions of the superhero genre (Daredevil and Batman are as ‘guilty’ of this as Spider-Man) but also because 99% of the crimes Spider-Man ‘punches first’ he catches red handed in the middle of the act.

He doesn’t need to ask questions if he sees someone in a ski mask with a gun holding up someone screaming in an alleyway.

He doesn’t need to ask questions when he sees what is obviously a bank robbery in progress.

He doesn’t need to ask questions first if the Rhino is rampaging in Times Square.

It’s OBVIOUS what is happening so his immediate intervention is neccesarry.

· The OP claims Spidey “goes out every night LOOKING for people to beat to a bloody pulp. It’s like his therapy, where he works out his many anger issues (I could write a whole essay on where those come from).”

First of all the OP couldn’t write a whole essay on where Spider-Man’s anger issues come from since she patently misunderstands Spider-Man.

Secondly beating up criminals isn’t Spider-Man’s ‘therepy’ it’s Spider-Man’s way of helping people by reducing the crime rate and protecting innocent civilians.

See ASm #50 where he retires briefly and crime rates spike.

See ASm #500 where he chooses to not prevent his younger self from becoming Spider-Man due to how many people wouldn’t be saved by him.

See EVERY SPIDER-MAN STORY EVER!

Spider-Man doesn’t go out every night looking to beat people to a bloody pulp.

I’m a Liberal and even I think that’s overliberalized bullshit.

If you actually pay attention Spider-Man rarely draws blood when going out on patrol let alone causes any serious physical trauma whatsoever.

More importantly going out on patrol looking for ‘people to beat up’ isn’t his fucking hobby. That’s him using his powers to help people by fighting crime...like the kind that got his Uncle Ben killed perhaps. Fucking idiot.

· “He is not afraid of the unsuperpowered criminals he hunts down because they literally CANNOT LAY A FINGER ON HIM AND HE KNOWS IT AND ALWAYS HAS.”

Yeah.

Remember all those times ‘unsuperpowered criminals’ like the Kingpin or the Enforcers or the Foreigner or Captain fucking America never hit him once?

· “The criminals are terrified of HIM. ”

Some are, some are not.

He isn’t Batman, it’s more they know they have little chance of avoiding capture if Spider-Man’s there. They aren’t actually afraid of him in the way the term ‘terrified’ implies.

They are afraid of him the way they are afraid of Superman. They know Superman isn’t going to hurt them much if at all but they know they’re in for jail if they cross him.

· “He is unstoppable when he’s angry.”

Is that why Daredevil was able to defeat him in the Death of Jean DeWolff when he was angry?

· OP uses Peter complaining how normal crooks are boring as an example of Spider-Man inherent personality and as an example to again paint him in a negative light.

This is BS because the issue is premeditated upon building up his pride before Doc Ock kicks his ass and humbles him.

He rarely if ever displays that kind of attitude towards regular criminals again.

This is also a TEENAGER displaying TEENAGE pride. There is nothing damning about that.

Oh but the character must’ve just inherently been that forever more obviously.

· OP uses Untold Tales #13 as an example of how ‘toxically violent’ Spider-Man is.

Again ignores context.

Spider-Man is a teenager who recently lost his Dad who’s school peer who was his own age violently died very recently and so he was grieving and lashing out.

I knew kids who were children of divorce who lashed out.

That was cause for understanding by my teachers and fellow students.

Peter was dealing with worse but he’s painted negatively and as though this is something inherent to him in this very extenuating circumstance. And he’s comdened by the OP for it. Gross.

Also the OP pretends Spider-Man almost killed the villain in question. He didn’t there is no indication of that. Spidey used too much force after he’d already won but he was never implied to be inflicting any really serious physical trauma.

· The most disgusting thing in the post so far, OP tries to pretend there is a problematic and inherent ‘pattern’ of Peter��s violence by citing how Peter almost killed Norman Osborn after Gwen died.

First of all there was no pattern because Peter didn’t almost kill the Untold Tales villain.

Second of all Peter was DELIBERATELY trying to muder the Green Goblin.

Third of all both instances involve Peter grieving.

Fourth of all the GG incident was when his almost fiancée had just been MURDERED before his eyes by the target of his anger.

Literally ANYONE would’ve felt the same way Peter did.

The OP treats people becoming violently angry against objectively evil people when they have or are very seriously threatening to do horrific things (like murdering innocent people, particularly those Spider-Man has an emotional investment in) as ‘problematic’.

It’s problematic in so far as we shouldn’t ALLOW people in society to go around doing that.

It isn’t problematic in so far as it speaks to inherent negative traits within those people who want to or actually do do those things.

Because let’s not lie to ourselves here.

If someone murdered someone you loved...you’d be angry. You’d want to hurt them. And if they were right in front of you shortly after they’d murdered your loved one and you could you’d inflict pain upon them.

Real talk every parent ever would agree if they’re child was hurt or god forbid abused or murdered they’d want to kill the person who did that.

And the OP disgustingly ignores how Peter DIDN’T kill the Goblin and acknowledged how he almost crossed a serious line having already gone too far.

· OP brings up ANOTHER instance where Spider-Man gets angry and violent to again unsubtley imply it’s so problematic.

Yes in this instance Spider-Man used force unnecessarily whilst angry.

He however inflicted no lasting damage and the person he used it on had just murdered an innocent man who had a family.

· “ASM #177, where, as you can see, he’s downright contemptuous of other people’s attempts to harm him”

Contemptuous was an interpretation of the OP, not something hardcore without a doubt the emotion Spider-Man was going with.

Frankly in the panels showcased i’d say Spidey was more surprised and mocking towards the guy who was again...a huge asshole.

He believed it was his friend Harry who was from Peter’s POV betraying his friendship, had tried to harma dn murder him, Aunt May, Flash and MJ in the past, had hospitalized MJ and at that PARTICULAR moment in the story was wasting Peter’s time as Aunt May’s life was hanging in the balance.

So yes Spider-Man mocked him and hit him.

Shockingly you are allowed to hit people sometimes FFS.

Oh and btw the issue number wasn’t even correct.

· OP uses ASM #189 to further support their case. This is one example where I WOULD agree that the panels legitimately support the agenda they are trying to push.

The problem is that the panels are also OOC.

Spider-Man had never to my recollection ever acted this was towards a doctor before and only particular situations had served to spur him to act this way.

This was part of the Marv Wolfman run where to be brutally honest there was more than a little OOC writing of many characters and an over all regressive approach to Spider-man in particular.

He’s MORE rash and MORE aggressive and MORE of a jerk than he’d been in a long ass time even under Stan Lee’s tenure.

And this made sense because Wolfman pretentiously regarded himself as a Ditko ‘purist’ who believed Spider-Man should never have left high school. And so he wrote Spider-Man in a regressive way to the point where often times, like in the referenced panel from ASM #189 he acted in ways that didn’t make sense for a 22 year old written for 1979 standards vs a teenager written for 1963 standards.

Further proof can be observed in how his writing for Mary jane in her rejection of Peter’s proposal played as though she never developed from the silver age onwards.

· “ASM #193 – this is VERY 616 Peter. He’s frustrated with his personal life, so he decides to take it out (violently) on a bad guy:”

Again...Wolfman’s run, but in this case he is not doing anything particularly wrong within the genre and societal conventions of the time.

Genre conventions dictated that in superhero comic book land hitting criminals is 100% okay because they are bad guys.

Therefore since Spider-Man does that anyway, venting his frustrations into something productive is also okay.

Societal conventions dictated that this was the late 1970s and early 1980s...in New York.

70s and 80s New York was ROUGH and had problems with street crime that got more violent into the 1980s, at least according to the media.

You know how in the Daredevil Netflix show they said because of the Battle of New York Hell’s Kitchen had gone downhill?

That was because they were trying to justify modern day Hell’s Kitchen resembling the kind of dark crime ridden place it was in the 70s and 80s at the height of Daredevil’s popularity.

NYC was ROUGH and that was attributed a lot to crime and so a crime fighter like Spider-Man getting rough would’ve been regarded as fine as would him doing it to vent anger.

The angrier he gets the more criminals he beats up meaning the more go to jail meaning the streets are safer. So all the better.

That was the logic of the time period.

Remember this was the decade that spawned DIRTY HARRY!

This was a decade where Vietnam wrapped up in abject failure and Watergate broke out. People were fucking angry and disillusioned.

And to add further context Marv Wolfman wrote Superman in the 1980s post-crisis era as getting rough with criminals too because Wolfman was a child of the era where both superheroes and crime/gangster stories involved that sort of mentality. His Superman was the Golden Age one who got rough a lot and it was seen as fine because criminals were bad and therefore deserved it.

Now bear all that shit in mind when reading ASM #189...where Spider-Man in hunting down a dangerous super villain who could endure blows from him and whom he’d need to find and stop anyway...whilst he’s coping with Aunt May being in a nursing home, his relationship with MJ whom he is in love with disintegrating, his relationship with Betty also disintegrating and having just taken a punch to the jaw from Ned Leeds his old rival.

YOU CANNOT REMOVE SHIT FROM THE CONTEXT OF THE TIMES THEY WERE CREATED IN!

· More of OP being a disgenuous jerk by pretending Spider-Man losing his temper in confronting the man who murdered Uncle Ben is problematic.

“…notice how a mask seems pretty unnecessary here, despite the fact that his opponent is armed. Peter doesn’t even hesitate. He is out for blood.”

A) The Burglar was not initially unarmed he lost his gun in the scuffle depicted in the panels from the OP

B) Real talk...who WOULDN’T lose their temper confronting the guy who MURDERED THEIR DAD to the point where they’d come close to seriously injuring them?

C) Peter believed Aunt May had recently DIED and that it was at least partially his fault

D) The OP conveniently neglects that the Burglar was threatening Spider-Man with a gun a panel before Peter attacked him and that Spider-Man doesn’t have his powers in this instance. In other words shortly after his mother figure’s death an unarmed and helpless Peter Parker was confronted by an armed known killer who killed his father figure in cold blood and was threatening his life. And he’s ‘problematic’ for assaulting him angrily and threatening to kill him. Can you spell ‘self’defence’?

OP is also disingenuous because she paints Spider-Man’s rage and scary demanor as the fault of the Burglar’s death when it was just the Burglar working himself up.

Spider-Man made it explicitly clear he was NOT going to kill or maim the Burglar but the Burglar was just too worked up and had a heart attack.

· OP brings up Spec v2 #10 where Spider-Man is beating the shit out of Doc Ock....but conveniently doesn’t include the panels prior to that incident where Doc Ock pointlessly murdered an innocent police officer violently and then threatened to murder someone everyday for a year...after he nearly deliberately instigated a war between Israel and Palestine! I am NOT making that up Doc Ock nearly set off a war between Israel and Palestine just to force Spider-Man into revealing his secret identity

FFS is Spider-man REALLY this violence revelling brute for punching the shit out of him for that!

Doc Ock took an innocent life, threatened to take more and was willing to risk MILLIONS of people dying in a war that could’ve lasted years because of his own stupid ego and obsession.

Like fuck dude WAR CRIMINALS have been executed for less than that but SPIDER-MAN is a violence addict because he punched Doc Ock a bit and humiliated him?

Look real talk Spidey making Doc Ock ‘ask him nicely’ was OOC (the OP doesn’t seem to realize such a thing could ever possibly happen) but even if it wasn’t it doesn’t prove the OP’s point because the CONTEXT OF THE SITUATION MATTERS.

· “ASM #522, where he loses his temper and throws Wolverine out of a window:”

Yes.

First thing in the morning after he’s been woken up abruptly by the worrying and mind boggling news that his wife has been sleeping with Tony Stark the guy who’s been insulting him on and off for awhile and who is now very directly insulting his pride and his beloved, long suffering wife (who’s lived through hell for him and has saved his life a million times too).

And he does the equivalent of punching the guy.

How ‘problematic’ and ‘toxic’ that must be.

Gimme a break.

Also remember Spider-Man doesn’t normally randomly punch people, even those who insult him despite the bullshit picture the OP is trying to paint.

· “ASM #539, the first issue in the “Back in Black” arc where Aunt May is shot on Kingpin’s orders, and Peter PUNCHES, INTIMIDATES, AND THREATENS HIS WAY THROUGH THE UNDERWORLD trying to figure out who was responsible. I would recommend reading this arc for a good look at Peter when he’s beyond furious”

OP disingenuously pretending that Peter when he is beyond furious is Spider-Man’s default setting as opposed to Spider-Man under extenuating and/or exceptional circumstances.

You know like when someone has shot his mother who is now dying and might pose a threat to yet more of his friends and family!

Like FUCK how are you so dense as to not properly contextualize shit.

· “Notice, again, the lack of a mask. Peter’s not even slightly frightened by the thought of diving into a room FULL of criminals armed with machine guns where he’s outnumbered by what looks like about 7 to 1.”

OP seemingly conveniently ignoring that in Back In Black (the story being referenced here) Spider-Man identity was public so it doesn’t matter that he didn’t have his mask

· “I find these panels more telling than Peter vs. Norman in #122 – in that one, Peter lost his temper momentarily but quickly snapped out of it and realized he didn’t have it in him to commit murder. Here, he’s completely cool. He genuinely plans to murder Kingpin. He’s thought about it. He wants to do it. He will do it without a moment’s hesitation if the need arises, if that’s what it takes to protect his family – that’s what 616 Peter does. He protects everyone around him. He takes the punishment they cannot.”

I find this part the most mind boggling of all because the OP’s statements here are not untrue but also make no sense in her characterization of Peter as toxic.

· “I could keep going with this all day, because this is who he is in the comics, but I’ll stop there. ”

Again no.

This is who Peter is at TIMES in the comics under certain circumstances and at particular points in his history. That isn’t what he is like at his regular default setting when horrible or seriously stressful or emotionally triggering things are not happening to him.

He ISN’T like this for instance in the Digger arc of JMS’ run.

He ISN’T like this in ASM #301

He ISN’T like this in ASM #41

He ISN’T like this in the Kid Who Collected Spider-Man

· “Does this angry, vengeful man who REVELS in violence really seem like he’s scared of, I don’t know, ANYONE? Don’t let the jokes fool you. Peter’s not someone you want to make angry. He is terrifying when he’s angry.”

Again OP speaks bullshit because

a) Peter doesn’t revel in violence. That’d inply real enjoyment. He at worst vents using it

b) Peter isn’t scared of anyone huh?

Sister let me introduce you to Spider-Man’s ex...and her new man.

Their shipper name...is Venom....

#Spider-Man #Venom #Eddie Brock #Green Goblin #Doctor Octopus #Peter Parker #MCu #marvel cinematic universe

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kpopnationunite · 7 years

Text

I Hate You, I Love You

A/N: So originally this Oneshot is a chapter of a LONGER fanfic I’ve written. With that being said... I released this chapter, solely because this chapter sums up the whole Angsty fanfic. I may release the whole story if I get a positive reaction to this “Oneshot.” Hopefully you enjoy this and please stick around!

Main Characters: Z or (Y/N), Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin

Genre: Bitter Sweet/ Angst

Word Count: 3331

I recommend to listen to:

“ I hate u, I love u” by gnash ft: Olivia O’Brien

Summary: After the end of her 3 year relationship with her first love, Z is trying to continue on. With being an Idol herself, underneath a branch from the company her ex Jimin is in. It only got harder and harder. If it wasn’t for her BEST FRIEND Jungkook, she would have lost it. One thing lead to another. Suddenly for the sake of emotions and a couple of drinks, a fake relationship bloomed. It was kept between them both, until feelings evolve and pushed back. Little did she know was, Jungkook was holding back.

How did I get into this situation, where I'm once again at an apartment party?

“Just walk through the kitchen doorway over there, the booze and snacks are in there.”

I smiled and followed the instructions from a total stranger.

I haven't seen any of the boys yet. I was drawn towards the bottle of vodka. I poured the substance in my red solo cup. I had more vodka than the chaser. I made my way to the balcony. As I struggle to slide the screen door close, I looked up to notice Jimin walking by the kitchen doorway: My stomach flopped upside down, when Jimin retraced his steps and look into the kitchen towards me. He started to walk over to me. The closer he got, the more I was mentally cursing at myself.

“Are you struggling? Here I can help you.”

He slid himself through the small opening and slid the screen door close. I turned away from him and leaned against the railing. Jimin walked over and stood beside me. It hurt and I wished it didn't hurt so bad. I wish I could stop loving him...

I wish I could STOP FEELING THESE FEELINGS!

I was shaking… suddenly he wrapped his arm around me, holding me by the shoulder. Jimin pulled me in and I quickly looked over at him.

“Let me have one last moment like this with you, before you go into Jungkook arms.”

The smell of whisky trailed off his lips and I knew he was mildly drunk. I nodded my head okay and looked out at the night sky. I took sip after sip until my cup was nearly empty, and I could feel myself sway side to side.

I looked up at Jimin. His beautiful plump lips that I use to kiss. I would constantly feel safe, when those lips pecked my forehead.

His rather small nose that fit him so well… it was that nose of his that caused me to love my own small nose.

Those eyes, GOD THOSE EYES… I could read every line on his iris all day, and not once be tired. As the light would reflect on his deep set of eyes, his eyes would gave me a reason to live.

Once Jimin looked down at me… he smiled.

I then began to reminisce those endless nights.

Those nights where I would be sunk inside the Boys dorm. Those nights where I would follow Jimin, tiptoeing past their managers room. Those nights when I would finally make it inside Jimin's room. Those nights when once he locked the room, he would look over at my direction with a childish grin. Those nights when he would jokingly tackle me onto his bed and peck my face with his kisses. Those nights when our bare skin would collide and the smell of intense passion would arose across the room. Those nights would soon come to an end. Those mornings that I would wake up in his arms, against his chest. This wasn't those nights I craved so much.

I smiled and blushed even more. This would only be a small moment, to add onto those nights reminiscences.

I know that I control my thoughts and I should stop reminiscing. But I learned from my Dad that it's good to have feelings.

“Jimin…” I then stepped back. The moment I felt the ache in my heart. I felt a sudden pain, this was wrong. I have… “Jungkook…” His name trailed off my lips. “Jungkook..!” I knew his name left a nasty taste on Jimin’s tongue, the moment he repeated my sudden outcome. “I'm sorry I have to go find him.” I walked towards the sliding screen door. “Yeah… your boyfriend is waiting.” It hurt… I wish he was. I wish everything we did meant something. If only it meant something to him. Because to me, it meant everything. I slid the door open and I looked over. I took 3 shots. As I was pouring the 4th one. I could feel myself lose all types of restrictions. I took the last shot and quickly made my way down the sudden long hallway. “Jungkook!!?” I called over the loud music. Nothing “JUNGKOOK??!??” All drinks and all my emotions became a fucking mix. I checked every room in the apartment. In which I accidentally ran into some R rated shit. “JUNG-” I suddenly stopped to find him leaning against the wall, about half a foot away from Yeri Eonni. What the fuck? Disgust took over my body. I was so angry, I could feel the tears run down. I couldn't handle it. I turned around to walk away but I was caught by NamJoon. “NamJoon let go of me.” I spat out. “JUNGKOOK.” I looked up and smiled in disbelief. Are you serious NamJoon, I let my head hang down and I begin to cry. “What are you doing?” He questioned your “boyfriend”. I couldn't see what was happening, but I could imagine everyone staring at us and Jungkook calmly pissed. “What do you mean Hyung?” NamJoon turned me around and I looked up. The alcohol was making things more emotional then they were suppose to be. “Why the fuck are you so damn close to Yeri Noona, when you have your girlfriend here watching you!!?!” Jungkook rolled his eyes and walked closer to NamJoon and I. The closer Jungkook stepped towards me, the deeper my heart sunk. From the corner of my eye, I could see Jimin, Tae and Hoseok watching everything. Jungkook was suddenly two inches from my face and smirked. “Why are you crying? Don't you think we should surrender?” He's been a lot drinking too. My eyes increased in size as Jungkook stepped back. “What am I doing? Admiring Noonas beauty.” His cocky response had Yeri smiling in satisfaction. It made me sick to my stomach. “That's disrespectful Jungkook, you have Z here to admire!” NamJoon sternly spoke out. Jungkook then grabbed onto my arm and pulled me beside him. At this point I was staring at NamJoon. Slowly the rest of the boys begin to appear behind him. “Don't you have something to say Z?” They looked at me puzzled and I could feel myself light headed. Time passed and Jungkook grew impatient of my silence. “Z and I aren't together. It was all a prank that went too far.” It felt as someone hit me so hard in gut, I lost my breath. “Is this true Z?” Yoongi spoke out coldly. Everyone was shocked and cold. I didn't have any other choice but to admit the truth. “You two seemed more than friends? You're telling me it was all a joke?” Jimin spoke out angrily. Jungkook chuckled abit. “It was all because of you Jimin Hyung. Z dragged me into this joke for you to feel some type of way.” I quick pulled my arm away. Everyone looked at me disappointed. “What the fuck!? No. Jimin hear me out… it's not like that.” I tried to speak out but he quickly cut me off. “What’s your problem? How selfish do you have to be?!” My heart stopped and I could feel myself suffocate. I was crying badly at this point… so I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I ran out onto the streets, and messily looked for my way home. Why me? Why does all of sudden everything decides to crash down? I stopped rapidly and bend over to throw up. I wish I could wake up from this nightmare.

After throwing up and walking around for hours to find my apartment complex. I made it to the entrance and made my way to my apartment. I pressed in my code and open the front door. I shook off my shoes. As I drunkenly walked in the livingroom I saw Jungkook standing, just waiting on me. I looked away and tried to ignore him. He stepped in front of my way. “FUCKING MOVE I DON'T WANNA SEE YOU!” I looked up yelling at him. “WHERE WERE YOU!? WHY DO YOU SMELL LIKE THROW UP?” I laughed sarcastically. “WOWWWW JUNGKOOK YOU ARE REALLY SOMETHING!” I paced around. “I'm serious… I was-” “WORRIED??!??” I snapped back “WHY WOULD YOU CARE?” He looked at me concerned. “Because I do care for you.” I push him lightly. “CUT THAT BULL SHIT! What was that- that shit you pulled back at the party!!!??!??” He chuckled. “WE AREN'T DATING! It was the truth and they needed to know! That doesn't mean I don't care for you.” I shook my head no. “YOU… did more than it needed to be.” He crossed his arms. “Why do care what Jimin feels?!?!!” I couldn't feel anything, I guess feeling numb had its advantages. “DAMN IT… IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT JIMIN! What do you want me to say Jungkook? YES OKAY I STILL LOVE HIM?!” My voice sudden crack and tears streaming down broke his heart. Jungkook looked very upset, but there was no turning back to this situation. “I saw you two cuddling outside, when I was trying to look for you.” The room was tense and it all made sense. The way Jungkook acted. “That's why you did what you did hmmm?” He looked away. “You know we've been planning on telling my Hyungs for a while… but also I think you caught on that Yeri Noona and I are getting close.” It was true and maybe that's why I tried everything to ignore my feelings and run away. Maybe that's why it hurt. Maybe that was the reason I stretched out our “relationship”. I didn't want to let go of Jungkook. “Jungkook… I hate myself for it. How no matter how much I try… I will always love him. But… it didn't hit me until tonight, that I didn't love him like I did.” Jungkook held in his light gasp. He looked over at me and waited for me to continue. “I noticed at the moment he held me close, I reminisced our relationship. I knew at that instant, if anything did happen between us. It will never be as good as how it was. I then…” I stopped and tried to focus on Jungkook's face. But the layer of tears made it even more hard to do so. Jungkook came closer and wiped my tears. I wish I could step back, as easily as I could do with Jimin. I studied Jungkook’s outline and my butterflies took over. “I then felt wrong. I pulled away from Jimin… because even after all those flashbacks were playing over again, at the end of everything. I saw you.” I held my breath, I noticed Jungkook stiffened up. “Jungkook I might've fallen for you. I think I fell in love with you… and I tried so hard… SO FUCKING HARD TO IGNORE THESE FEELINGS! Without even acknowledging them. But the moment I was looking for you and I found you near Yeri Eonni. The closeness of you two. How happy you two looked. The way you stared at her. I could feel a knife running across my heart.” Jungkook loosen up and turn around, walked a couple steps away from me. He stopped and looked over at me. “You… can't… DO THIS TO ME Z!” He was shaking and tears were falling down his cheeks. “HOW FUCKINGGGG SELFISH DO YOU HAVE TO BE??!!?” I looked at him crying worse then I was. I was confused. “What-WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!??” He turned around and punched the wall. The sudden move made me jump. “HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO SAY YOU FUCKING LOVE ME… WHEN IT'S TOO LATE AND I FINALLY MOVED ON!??!!” It felt like I was just slapped across the face. It stinged, and worse of all… the uncomfortable lump lowering down my throat. “Moved on?” I managed to speak out so clearly. Jungkook couldn't even look over at my direction. “You have no idea how painful it is… to witness the love of your life, loving someone else. Someone close to me. I saw the purest form of love. So I let it happen. I also witnessed the constant emotionless days of a broken heart girl. It lasted for years and it continues to go on. Z… do you know how happy I was, when I moved in with you? How happy I was when we started “dating.” How natural it felt for us? How painful it was to realize it was all fake? Did it ever cross your mind that maybe just maybe, I started hanging out with Yeri Noona solely to save my soul? I never understood why you never liked her… Now I get it.”

How is it that you never noticed? You were slowly killing me?

I then remembered those days, where I would constantly ask Jungkook how Jimin was doing. “Do you like him Z?” My face would become bright red. There was a sudden silence, at the time it wasn't a huge deal. Now looking back… I was too selfish to even notice heart broken Jungkook. I realized all the things Jungkook would do, so I could remain happy. From late night walks at the park, to run away from all my problems. “Let's go on adventure Jungkook!” “Ugh I just got outta practice asswipe.” “Oh I'm sorry… RELAXXXX ^^!” “I’ll pick you up in 10 minutes.” “No no no… you're tired.” “Oops the elevator is already going down.” “BUCKETHEAD!” “Andddd now I'm walking towards my car.” “When you get here, I'll drive my car okay?” “Deal! Let's get food! I'm starving!” “Okay! Thank you.” To him running to my apartment, knocking down my door when I was at the verge of suicide. Jungkook experience all the emotions I went through on the daily for years. Jungkook was the one I would express my feelings towards Jimin, he saw the whole relationship bloom, die and aftermath. It hurts to now notice that Jungkook had to refrain himself from hating Jimin for what he has done to me. Jungkook chuckled and let his head drop. “You're jealous of Yeri.” My heart jumped. Me jealous of a snake? Of a fake ass, two face, cheating bitch? I walked over lightly shove him, Jungkook’s body lightly slammed against the hallway wall. “I’m stupid… I know I am. But there's no other reason for me to dislike Yeri besides…” I bit my lower lip. “Besides what? Huh? Say it.” The cold responses Jungkook spat out, cause me to be afraid. I'm going to regret this. “BECAUSE SHE’S A SNAKE!” I yelled out. My body felt lighter, but there's was still a strange weight holding me down. I knew the weight was because I was fully aware this wasn't going to end well. Jungkook looked at me pissed. “WHEN I FINALLY FOUND LOVE IN SOMEONE NEW. YOU FUCKING COME OUT WITH THIS… THIS YOU LOVE ME SHIT!!?! WHY CAN’T YOU BE HAPPY FOR ME FOR ONCE?! BUT NOOOO YOU ACCUSE MY OTHER HALF OF SOMETHING SHE'S NOT!!!” I looked away from him and quickly tried to walk past him to my room. Jungkook turned quickly and placed both hands on my shoulders. “You can't run away this time.” I looked over at the door of my room. “What do you want?!” I looked back and studied his lips, everything was muted. All I could read, were the words that escaped out of Jungkook’s mouth. “I’m moving out, it all over. All of it. This friendship.” Have you ever felt stripped of all your emotions? The feeling of your breath being stolen? The fear of losing a person who was basically your other half? Who will I be after this? The feeling of drowning, of being alone? I stepped back, I leaned against the wall. “Z are you oka- ?” I was too shocked, I cut Jungkook off. I couldn't say anything but… “Leave.” My hot tears streamed down. Jungkook didn't try to fight. Maybe that's why it hurt even more. Jungkook didn't try to fix anything. He didn't try to explain himself. Was I asking for too much at this point? He simply walked away to his room. I slid down the wall, I was a mess. I didn't try to hide my face, my cries and pride. I lost it.

It was already the morning and I have fallen asleep on the same stop from last night. My head was pounding and I felt nothing. I cried myself to sleep, I cried myself emotionless. I sat up and noticed the sun was barely rising. I got onto my feet and walked towards my balcony. I looked down to find Hoseok And NamJoon pacing around, beside a moving truck. “Oh Z! Hey tell Jungkook that we're here! He won't pick up his phone.” Hoseok smiled and waved at me. I accepted the fact Jungkook was moving out. I wasn't expecting this to happen immediately. Jungkook quickly walked past the living room. “It's cool I got it.” Jungkook quickly blurted out. He opened the door, moments later he was outside guiding his Hyungs where to go. Nams & Hoseok walked into the building, Jungkook looked around and suddenly started to wave at a parked car. I stood there confused. The door bell ringed and I quickly walked over to answer it. “It's been awhile since I've been here!” Hoseok walked in smiling, with NamJoon behind him. I smiled. “Yeah it has. Jungkook’s room is down the hall, on the left.” The boys awkwardly smile and made their way. Out of curiosity, I walked over to the balcony. Curiosity killed the cat… the owner of the car was Yeri. The way he tilt her head up to kiss her was perfect for everyone's story book but mine. Is this what Jungkook felt with Jimin and I? I decided to leave the apartment, it was maybe 10pm when I was finally putting in the code to unlock the door. I place my items on the ground and walked over down the hall. If i don't do this now, then I'll never accept the reality. I opened the door on the left. Only the bed was there, even the blankets were new. The mess of a young male adult was gone. Even his scent was gone. Everything but the memories were gone. I laid on the bed and cried.

⛅️⛅️⛅️⛅️ I packed up the last of my video equipment. I looked over at the door. “Oh he's here.” I walked over to the door. On the other side I found Jimin awkwardly smiling. “I got lost. Sorry I'm lateeee.” He handed me an Americano. “It's fine! Can you help me with my equipment?” He quickly went to pick up the items. “Hey nice place! Was it a struggle to move in?” I smiled and helped him out. “Well I'm on the 8th floor, so yeah. But it's bigger, closer to work and better rent.”

And It didn't have memories of Jungkook. Does he miss me, like I miss him? Fucked around and got attached to him. Friends can break your heart too. And I'm always tired, but never of you.

“That's true. So what's the photoshoot? Is this a hobby or?” I hoped for my bitter sweet smile to not be so noticeable. “Yeah it's a hobby I picked up when I was 19. I also promised to take wedding pictures for my friend.” I handed over Jimin a folder. He looked at me puzzled. When he opened the folder, Jimin instantly closed it. “You two made up?” I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. “We can't really stop being close. It's like…” “It's like you two are soulmates.” I looked at Jimin chuckling. “Yeah like soulmates.” I placed my laptop bag over my shoulder. “We have to get going, Mr and Mrs Jeon is waiting for us.” Maybe just maybe this was how it was suppose to end. Do you ever wonder what we could've been?

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batslime · 7 years

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So on Circus of the Dead ( now that I’ve actually watched it )

Content warnings ahoy for lowly-to-moderately detailed discussions of acts including rape, torture, murder, cheating, ableism, reproductive violence, cannibalism, necrophillia, and general violence. That’s right, all that in more in one clown movie! Also pretty long.

I've talked about this briefly but as a sake of an example, even if he tortures them Pennywise isn't genuinely "evil"..... it literally exists to consume, it was created that way, it's not BETTER but humans are like day-old ants to this timelessly old entity. I don't know if I can really even find the focus on preying on mostly children since it's easier prey for it, and in nature, the young aren't spared. Because Pennywise ISN'T human, it's a primal beast that far PREDATES humanity. It only tortures them because it says it makes them taste better, and it feeds off their fears, not their bodies. It doesn't kill just to kill, and I'm kind of even on the fence about being able to call it malice. IT isn't good but I still wouldn't consider IT evil. This stuff is genuinely just its nature.

Papa Corn from Circus of the dead is what an EVIL character is. Papa Corn kidnaps, rapes, physiologically and physically tortures people before murdering them, sodomizing their corpses, and mutilating them, or letting one of his other clown goons eat it. And he does it all gleefully, he LITERALLY gets off when meditating it, he jokes it off because he doesn't even see it as more than a day's work ( "What are you gonna DO to her?" "I'm gonna do what I always do. I'm gonna rape her, I'm gonna slit her throat, I'm gonna feed whats left to my clowns." He starts this reply out shrugging, and uses a tone talking about his plans for the day going on a walk or mowing the lawn ).

One thing early in the film that fades in comparison to all this but that still sticks out to me is when Don, the main character who's held hostage by Papa Corn and the clowns at the expense of his family, is backstage with them after having his seat drawn for a prize. He doesn't actually suspect anything is wrong yet, but Papa Corn already slipped in a chipper "I'm going to kill your ENTIRE family!" that the clown brushed off as a mishearing, and is putting off creepy vibes. So in his discomfort Don makes a short joke about one of the other clowns played by a little person. Papa Corn goes off on a little passive-aggressive rant at this, using language not only that would be considered "politically correct" but actual medical terms. "Ah! I see, you've made a JOKE at my coworker's expense based on the fact that he's OTHERED from you! Well, I will INFORM you that Mr. Jumbo suffers from a genetic hormonal deficiency called DWARFISM. However, his sense of humor is quite intact, so I'm sure he'll still be able to appreciate the joke." That's heavily paraphrased, but what he says here is undeniably recognizing and chastising Don for mocking somebody's disability and going to the length of teaching him about it. This is even what I'd call a very good way to point out bigotry in a way to not start a scene, had it been in earnest- because Papa's next line after Don apologizes and tells him shamefully he didn't consider how disrespectful it would be Papa says "But he's a dwarf, so who gives a flying fuck what he thinks." And then forces out a very theatrical guffaw straight into Don's face.

Again, that bit is insignificant to all the shit that comes later in the movie ( and even some scenes beforehand ) that this character isn't "craaaaazy" or just saying and doing whatever, he's FULLY aware of right and wrong even to an extent a lot of people in our society aren't; the thing is he really DOESN'T care and really DOES find dehumanization and faking people out, misleading them to think they're safe or he's not evil, funny.

This is kind of solidified again in a pretty early scene where he's broken into Don's house and caught his wife, Tiffany. Tiffany is screaming "let me go! I wanna go!", and Papa Corn actually puts on this calmed down facade and the panicky music stops, in a now very average tone, "Oh. You wanna go?" "Y-yeah, let me go!" "Oh. You want to go. Well, I'm feeling generous today." He actually SHOOS Tiffany away, doing so again when she glances back several times in disbelief, before abruptly screaming and running after her again. He then laughs as he waves his crotch around in her face, sticks his gloved fingers up HERS to scold her on her cheating, then slicing her neck open in the following scene. This really solidifies two things: 1, Papa Corn really does just fucking love giving his victims a tiiiny bit of hope then just yanking it away from them, and 2, the writer is SOMEHOW aware of some horror tropes and manages to challenge them in a genuinely funny way, just to be totally unconscious of all the others he shoves into the rest of the movie.

And what makes this a BAD character ( not a bad person, he's already that and more ) is that despite practically BOASTING all this, when his hostage who he's forced into a night of watching him do all this shoots him at the first chance when the two are finally alone and Papa Corn is about to violate another random teenage girl who got dragged into this shit at the blink of an eye, Papa Corn pulls this "you're just like me" bullshit that I hate sooo much.

"Don. You shot me. Were you just going to leave me here to die? You tried to kill me... I'm so proud of you." Nothing makes a villain I hate more, and not in a good way, than being untouchable. I hate that he's written to still be smug and have the upper hand even after taking bullets through the chest ( and somehow lives, presumably without going to the hospital? To my further infuriation ), I hate when villains who are so PROUD of their villainy until somebody finally raises a hand against them try to use the "but I'm not that bad, because you are too". T's SO lazy, it's SO out of character, specifically for this guy who laughs in people's faces as he skins their face or watches his goons gut a pregnant woman or fuck a guy's wife's mutilated head in front of him while he talks about how she'd been cheating on him.

Papa Corn is a villain who's a prime example of a horrible, irredeemable, inhumanly EVIL person, who does what he wants not just with no regard to others, but to revel on their agony on every level he can possibly inflict. It's far, far overdone and this makes the film cheesy and almost even LAUGHABLE despite all the awful content, but this is what makes him a good VILLAIN- somebody who IS evil, not just really doing what they were made to.

And then he defends himself as "not that bad, because who isn't?", which shows total incompetence on the writer's part, and that that entire concept of what's actually evil about his character has gone totally over the guy's head, that it really is just all shit that he wanted to film people doing.

It's not the low budget, poor sound and picture quality, the admittedly ( slightly ) better than expected writing, and mostly amateur cast that makes Circus of the Dead a bad film, to me, it's all that shit. It's that all in all the "psych challenging message" here that it tries to play is that even people who admit they're evil and have fun doing it aren't ACTUALLY evil because everyday average people who do good and bad as part of their life do bad things sometimes too, but they're still going to suffer at the hands of the evil-not-evil characters BECAUSE of their wrongdoings.

All in all, after everything I've heard about Circus of the Dead, it didn't really challenge the low expectations I had for it, nor did it challenge all the bad horror/ "mindfuck" genre tropes it set itself up for. It feels like a chore to watch with little to no reward ( Don and his whole family DO all end up dead, and the whole clown gang gets away more or less unharmed. A 2nd one is confirmed to already be written but I really hope for at least the sake of realistic forces at least one of the clowns are killed in the next one ). If I do have anything to praise, it's definitely Papa Corn's snd Pepe the mime's designs, I really do love them and it makes up for the other clowns being ass ugly and tacky. Quite a few of Papa Corn's lines really did make me laugh too, when he's not the filthy example of the lowest form of shat you can still call a man, and even admittedly when he's killing actual assholes, he is pretty funny in his total indiscreetness.

As a sidenote though, genuinely, HUGE props to Bill Oberst Jr. for his sensational portrayal of this role. I've read a lot of reviews before seeing the film describing him as having a "switch" needed for playing Papa Corn's fickle and unpredictable sense of calm before the storm, and I agreed even just seeing the trailers, but there are some parts of the film it really feels so RAW and it kind of yanks you around in a sense. I've seen interviews with him and he's such a down to earth, proudly and happily religious guy with so much obvious humility and sense of bettering himself, it's kind of awe-striking hearing him talk about how he looked through the script and said "I NEED to play this". He's a phenomenal actor and even if not necessarily for this film I hope recognition for him skyrockets.

#i spent like an hour writing this but its really just a more detailed version of everything else ive said of this movie in passing #circus of the dead #ask to tag

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herselfportrait · 5 years

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INTERVIEW: CHIEDU ORAKA

(Written for Soundsphere Magazine)

Hull’s grime kingpin Chiedu Oraka found meteoric success on Spotify’s Shutdown Playlist, joining the highest echelons of the scene where Skepta, Stormzy and Ghetts reign supreme. Not only has Oraka made a habit of topping Spotify’s charts, but the rapper’s collective Lockdown no longer see the London leagues as idols, but rivals. We spoke to him about the challenges and successes that are all a part of being the poster boy for the northern grime scene.

Oraka’s first taste of mainstream success was when his single ‘Flex’ landed on the lap of Spotify’s senior editor, Austin Daboh - all from a chance taken on a single tweet. A tweet asking Daboh to check out the single was like a shout into the void, with no promise of a return. But the track’s chiasmic bass and garage sensibilities caught the senior editor’s attention: it secured a place on Spotify’s Shutdown Playlist, exposed to its weighty 600,000 subscribers, wracking up 160,000 streams and counting. Chiedu Oraka became an overnight sensation, setting down the foundations as one of grime’s greatest northern superstructures. “I released an EP after that.” Oraka said, “I realised I had found success with ‘Flex’. From then on, getting tracks on that playlist was the goal. It just didn’t happen – but I didn’t stop. Some people might have got a bit sour about it, but I carried on. Fast-forward another year: I worked with Deezkid who is a part of my label. We did a song called ‘Darcy’ through the distributor, just like everyone else does. Bam. It was on the Grime Shutdown playlist again. What was different this time was its position. It was getting all the streams, then next minute, it was the number one track on that playlist. We just couldn’t believe our luck – ‘Darcy’ is the track that keeps on giving. Two weeks ago, I found out I was on the 50 Most Viral playlist on Spotify. I was quite high up on it, I think I was number 8, sandwiched between the biggest artists in the world. It’s still on there. It’s been there for about two or three weeks and it’s still at number 42 in the top 50. It’s mad.”

With this magnitude of success having found Oraka so abruptly, does he consider himself successful? “I think what I’m guilty of is not counting my blessings, in the sense that to the outsiders looking in, it looks like I’ve had a really successful time – but for me, it’s just a starting block. I always want more. I know I’m nowhere near where I need to be. I want to be up there with all the great musicians from the UK. I really want to put my city – the forgotten city – on the map. There’s so much more I could be doing and so much more that’s going to happen. I put down my success, at the moment - if people want to call it success - as being persistent: keep on knocking on the door and working hard.”

The grime genre is synonymous with the urban jungle that is London. Any scenes outside of the capital’s confines are overlooked, to say the least. As a rapper growing up on a North Hull Estate, based there to this day, what advice would Oraka give to rappers trying to establish a career without a London leg-up? “A little history lesson: when I first started doing this, I was just in my mate’s bedroom, freestyling, saying anything that rhymed with an American accent. I didn’t take it seriously at all. Then, my mate Crafty, the founding member of Lockdown, who had a bit of a buzz during the MSN days sending tracks around, said ‘Bro, you need to starting doing it in your own accent. Write your own bars.’ I couldn’t get my head around it, especially with the writing. I thought, ‘Me? Write raps? Nah.’ Did it. Then it just went from there. What I will say to people is work and work and work on your craft. I don’t even think I’ve fully mastered my craft yet, and I’m at the age I am and I’ve been doing it for this long. I always say I’ve only been properly doing this for seven years. Since I released my first mixtape in 2011, I’ve just improved and improved. The day when people say ‘Mate, you’re not improving’, is the day when I’d be really upset. You’ve constantly got to work on your craft. There are things like Soundcloud and Bandcamp: you can release things for free now. Keep on releasing tracks, keep on doing things, keep on practising in your mirror and success will happen. I’m a strong believer in that.”

Grime, by nature, is built on community. Rappers run in packs. Look no further than Boy Better Know: the North London independent record label presided over by the likes of JME and Skepta, pioneering rap not only as a form, but as an enterprise. “I suppose I’ve sort of done that, but done it with my own twist. I just wanted to do something that resembles me. This is what I’ve tried to represent with the Lockdown padlock: really representing that we’re trying to lock everything down – not just the music, the fashion, everything. That is what Lockdown represents. To be a good business it’s important to look the part.”

All music is written from experience. What has influenced the music Oraka creates? “Life.” He answered plainly. “I haven’t had the easiest. I’ve had a lot of trials and tribulations. I think my age group was part of the larger-lout behaviour in the city centre. Me and my quote un-quote “gang” were out most weekends on the streets drinking, going into the town centre, wanting to fight with men because we were angry. We wanted a reputation – we were young and daft. I’ve had my losses, family losses, like everyone else has. I’m from a council estate. I’ve suffered a lot of racism, especially on the estate that I grew up on, being the only black family on there. I draw from everything, and I try to paint a picture. My estate is my influence; my mum, my sister, they’re my influences; my friends.”

Hull, the “forgotten city”, as he called it, is the place that raised Chiedu Oraka. It has faced far more criticism than it deserves, accused of being rough, dead and undesirable. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m not one of those people who have said that. I went to university in Lincoln for three years, and I came back to Hull and I still live in Hull now. I think the music scene is doing well, but I think it could be better. I’m not going to say there aren’t opportunities elsewhere. I’m also not going to sit here and say I don’t see why people say Hull is rubbish, because I do. But the reason why I’m here is because it’s home. I’ll never shy away from home, it’s who I am. Instead of people whining and moaning about it, do something about it. If Hull is not the place to be – do something about it. Change. Stop complaining. If you don’t like going out in the clubs or whatever, don’t go out then. Why go out, and then complain? Do something about it. Do it yourself.”

The opening of the Bonus Arena, a new commercial venue that Oraka launched, is but another artistic outlet that has opening in the City of Culture. What else does he want to see for the future of his city? “I want to see art and culture at the forefront. There is a buzzing little scene here. I want more live venues. I don’t think there are enough. They’ve shut down Früit. We can’t just have The Welly and The Polar Bear and The New Adelphi. For a city this size we need more grassroots venues. We need more. We need people to invest into us. I would like to see a more diverse music scene in a few years, as well.”

Success is something fought for when you’re a grime artist from the north. In some ways, the two are a contradiction in terms. “This might be a big, bold-ass statement but I do think that if I was a London boy, with a London accent, I’d be a lot further than what I am. Even though the competition is greater down there – there’s so much talent, the pool is huge – it’s a gift. The fact I’m from Hull is my selling point. I’m so happy that I’m the underdog. I believe Chiedu Oraka will be the biggest artist in the UK. People will fall in love with the character, and that will make them fall in love with the music. I’m not fake, there are no fancy frills with me. I’m a strictly proper, Northern, Hull lad. No gimmicks. They haven’t seen nothing yet.”

“I’m an up north player in a down south league”, Oraka famously raps, which sums up his attitude to the north-south success divide: “I don’t want people to think I’m disrespecting the south. I look up to so many London artists. I love Ghetts; I’m a bit of a fan boy when it comes to Skepta, I’ll hold my hands up. He is bigger than grime itself, now. That’s what I want to be. It’s not just about the music. I want to inspire everyone. When I say words like that, what I mean is they’re my competitors. No offense, but I don’t look at anyone really, in terms of grime and hip-hop, as competition from around here. Neither should they, though. Cameo Brooks shouldn’t. Player One shouldn’t. They should be looking further than locally to the top league, which is the London boys unfortunately. Well, not unfortunately – it’s the truth. I respect them, a lot of them are my idols. I’m willing for them to be my rivals now.”

Having started a career in teaching before pursuing his dream to be a rapper, Oraka was motivated by inspiring the next generation. This determination to educate relayed into his music career; a future that Oraka can envision for himself: “I see my future with me becoming a better all-round artist so I can influence the next kid to do exactly the same. I realised when I left my teaching job that my purpose extended far beyond myself. I want to keep kids looking up to me. It’s important for me to continue to be successful so they can see someone who’s just like them and they can do exactly the same. It’s all about the youth. I want people to think of me as someone who sparked change. The northern working-class voice has been heard in Manchester, but who’s doing it for Yorkshire - not anyone trying to be like the Londoners - but someone who’s creating a proper reflection of the north? I feel like it is my job to be that person.”

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fuckyeahevanrwood · 7 years

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Rebel and a Basket Case

Evan Rachel Wood, known for her leading role as a heroine and oldest host in the HBO Original series Westworld, as well as her roles in films Thirteen, The Wrestler, TV series True Blood and the mini series Mildred Pearce. Her covetable award-winning catalog of acting roles barely highlights her deep rooted musical background she evolved at a very young age.

We get a squint of her prolific vocal talent as the star of the 2007 musical film ‘Across the Universe‘ as she covers 1960’s Beatles songs.

Fast forward to 2017; Evan and Zach chat with novelist Laura Albert about the inspiration for their debut album and the journey of writing songs whilst juggling an intense acting career.

Rebel and a Basket Case an edgy, 80’s inspired electro –pop duo who are reclaiming inspirational moments from their teenage music icons, The Breakfast club, Karaoke and verve for all that is a unicorn world.

Interview by Laura Albert

Laura: I very much love Westworld. Has the unfurling story which seems a constant peeling back of identity, seeped into your musical world?

Evan: Zach and I wrote a lot of the album while I was in production and while we were on a short hiatus. Playing that character definitely gave me a new found strength that trickled over into our music I’m sure. So many themes on the record have to do with overcoming oppressive situations and West World is very much the same.

Laura: Your music has an uplifting message — it understands suffering but offers support to lift others out of darkness. It brings to mind a quote from my mentor David Milch, “You know, people say that my writing is dark. And for me it’s quite the opposite. It sees light in darkness and it doesn’t try to distort darkness. The essential thing is that the seeing itself is joyful.” It seems like you share this philosophy – would be great to hear both your thoughts.

Zach: Yep. I’m all about being present in the journey. One of the greatest life lessons I’ve ever learned is that you “can learn just as much from a ‘bad’ experience, as you can a ‘good’ experience.” So either way, you are balancing the scales and moving “forward” more than anything. That is cumulative. That’s unstoppable. And growth is independent of how enjoyable a particular life challenge or experience is. So, I think we capture that in our music. There is always pain and hardship that comes along (eventually) in tandem with the greatest joy. That’s the spice of life. We all want to be happy. But those moments when we are not or challenged is when we learn the most about ourselves…and carry that knowledge forward allowing us to enjoy our happy moments all more the deeply.

Evan: A lot of the lyrics that I pulled out of my arsenal came from a time when I was suffering, heartbroken, oppressed, misunderstood, and generally teetering on madness. The fact that I made it out and feel like a better person for it taught me a lot. Especially because my work in film is usually really heavy and dramatic I felt I would drain myself if the music I made was similar. I wanted our songs and lyrics to acknowledge the struggle but also say, “Hey, you aren’t alone and it’s going to be ok. You will survive.” Making uplifting and empowering music can sometimes be more challenging. Just like it’s easier to take an insult rather than a compliment. I think especially where we are in the world right now, people know things are hard, people know things are bad, I feel like we need to be reminded that we can overcome.

Laura: You were brought together collaborating on music, can you tell us more about that, and how you both felt it was a fit worth exploring.

Zach: Originally, this tune I had written sounded pretty lame with my vocals in the lead…enter Evan. She has an amazing gift both as a vocalist, and as a writer, which I discovered later. Her talent was apparent, but when it seemed like our collaboration gave her a stage to fully explore the writer inside of her, I happy obliged. That she feels comfortable with me in that regard is an honor, and a pleasure. Her turn of word never ceases to amaze me, and opened me up musically to explore different territory. It’s incredible to work with her, see how her mind works, and see the connections she makes to music emotionally. And her explosiveness and dynamic ability as a performer is hard to rival. Which is lovely, because I have looked a long time for someone who can give me a run for my money in the performative arena. I think we push each other, and complement each other equally. That’s why it works.

Evan: Music was always my first love. I held it in such high regard and it was so precious to me I couldn’t even bring myself to put my own out in the world because I wanted it to be perfect. Linda Perry heard me sing, reached out to me and became a sort of mentor. She gave me that little push I needed and the confidence to just start, it didn’t have to be perfect. Once that door was open I started working with Zach on this play we did together and we started talking about music. We not only had great chemistry but it seemed like we had the same vision for what we wanted to achieve, not just musically but the general concept. We both loved androgyny, glam rock, and were born in the 80’s raised in the 90’s so we have a lot of the same influences stylistically. Zach was the first person I felt comfortable enough with to be vulnerable and share my writing and melodies. He was really patient and nurturing and it felt safe. Once those barriers were down it was like we couldn’t stop making music, it flowed so freely and naturally. Zach is incredible with the little details and he can hear things I just don’t. He is also the hook master!

Laura: I dig how your band name is taken from the stereotype-labels from John Hughes’ Breakfast Club — there is a power in taking on a label and owning it. When I was a kid, my mom taught be about the Chinese finger puzzle, a straw tube you put your fingers into. If you try to pull your fingers out, it tightens around your fingers. The only way out is in: when you press your finger deeper inside, then it magically opens. As public figures, so many tags or typecasting can get thrust on you. But you are both freely exploring a variety genres, but ultimately it feels like you are inviting the audience to go deeper than the label or category — and by doing so, you can follow any rule want. Do you feel free to explore any genre of music with Rebel?

Evan: I feel like we have so many influences and what I love about our first record is that it all fits together but it shows a vast range. We were exploring and finding different parts of ourselves musically as a band and I think that reflects in a cool way on this album. I also think you need to keep reinventing yourself as an artist because as people we don’t stay the same, we grow and evolve so that can’t help but be mirrored in what you create. I am hoping we are able to show many sides of who we are as artists while keeping the integrity of our vibe and mission.

Zach: With Ev on this one. As a writer, I am fairly disrespectful of any kind of genre restrictions. Of course things need to sound cohesive, and we definitely have an aesthetic as RB&C but, rules are made to be broken. And music in this era we are in is so fluid. Which mirrors what we are seeing movement wise as a culture. With structure comes freedom. No fear to explore.

Laura: Zach, it’s awesome how varied your creative outlets have been, did anyone every try to dissuade you from being so expansive in your artistic endeavors or outlets? Zach did you always know you wanted to make music?

Zach: Yes. Pretty much a LOT of people tried to dissuade me. They all had the best intentions, thinking that they were doing me a favor in their advice to streamline my energies… that I would be more focused on one thing, give move to just acting or dancing etc, and clear the field and my calendar. Unfortunately, that often backfires in modern society, and gone are the days of the Greeks, Romans, and MGM Pictures when we encouraged artists (and people) to be well-rounded ; confident that the X-training in experience would yield more interesting and varied results. So, in short I told those individuals thanks but no thanks. I wouldn’t be the musician I am today without the extensive background I have in dance, acting etc. They all feed one another.

Laura: How do you form your fashion sensibilities? They seem very playful.

Zach: I like clothes that elevate an aesthetic. That allows me to feel like I can transcend the norm and connect to something ethereal. Like lights and glitter. Evan?

Evan: I always view my alter ego ‘Basket case’ as just a heightened version of myself. Like when you go to burning man and you are allowed to create whatever character you want that would normally raise a few eyebrows on the streets. Thats why music and rock n roll have always been so alluring to me, it represented full expression and freedom. We also want it to reflect our message which is ‘be loud and proud and who you are and have fun doing it!

Laura: What are your tour plans? Your music has a cinematic edge to it, would you be interested in creating soundtracks for films together?

Zach: We are playing regionally as much as possible and focusing on our unicorns on the West Coast. We are playing a Pride fest in Chicago and Oslo in June. Soundtracks for films? Absolutely….. lock me in a room with synth pads and a picture with lots of coffee any day.

Evan: I am actually directing my first film this spring so you might hear a couple of new tunes from R&BC in there.

Laura: Evan, when I became a parent, a fierce new kind of advocacy blossomed in me – I needed to protect and advocate for this child, and I would do what ever that required. With the art I created right after my son was born, I felt a not-dissimilar form of advocacy that was new in me. Not just for my art, but the idea of this child going through any of what I had experienced — sexual and physical abuse — chilled me to my core. I knew I could not shield him from suffering, but I felt that, by giving a voice to what had happened, by telling and raising awareness, I could perhaps make the world safer for him. Did you experience anything like that?

Evan: Absolutely. I feel like it is my duty as a person and as a mother to be honest about my journey to help people on theirs. I hope I can set a good example for my son in that way. There is no shame.

Laura: Film acting reminds me of writing, in that there is no direct contact with the audience at the moment of creation. What I loved about making music was feeling locked in with an outside energy and not being alone, feeling that there could be a transmigration of spirit. When you sing, there is a sense that you are going to the depth of your being to bring connected emotion into being. Do you feel that music allows for more of felt or immediate shared sense of experience than your acting does?

Evan: Yes, it’s like doing theatre you get an immediate response from the audience. No matter how many times you rehearse, the second you are confronted by your audience everything changes, you feed off of their energy and go to another place. You lift each other up and the connection is palpable and immediate. Seeing people dance and sing to something that came from your soul which in many ways is your soul, there are no words to describe it. Feeling like you are raising people’s spirits and turning something painful into something joyous is why I do it.

Laura: From your tweets to your interviews, it seems you are inviting others to move out of where they might be stuck, to come alive in their compassion, to move past an illusion of isolation of self. Do you think of directing and writing as other tools for you to take problems of our soul and spirit and transform them into issues of craft, so that others might care about what they did not care about before?

Evan: All the art I make is to release my feelings and express myself in ways I can’t otherwise. It’s why I call myself an artist because it’s just something I have to do in some way or another to survive. It’s like air to me. I don’t know what I would without it. If by doing that and being honest wakes people up and makes them view themselves and the world in a way they hadn’t before, if breaks down walls and opens up doors then I have done my job well.

#evan rachel wood #rebel and a basketcase #interview #interviews 2017 #article #articles 2017 #zach villa #contentmode

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thedeaditeslayer · 7 years

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Exclusive Interview: Bruce Campbell…Italian Style!

ComingSoon.net/ShockTillYouDrop.com‘s Italian correspondent Roberto D’Onofrio caught up with Evil Dead legend and cult film here Bruce Campbell recently for a career spanning interview as only Roberto can conduct. Here it is in “print’ for the first time.

Surely an actor like Bruce Campbell doesn’t need any introduction, his name will always be linked with the character of Ash Williams from the Evil Dead saga. When in 1979, with his friends Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, he raised 350.000 dollars to shoot the first chapter he couldn’t imagine it would soon become a cult hit, although at first just in England and Europe before the United States and that it would span two sequels, a remake and now a TV series.

Since then Bruce has gained respect from Hollywood, he appeared in television shows, directed seven films, written two books and voiced characters for Disney and other big Studios animated TV series. With his friends and partners even founded a production company, but he always kept his feet on the ground and stayed loyal to his fans, starring as himself in My Name Is Bruce (2007), a spoof of his B-movie career. He never loved Hollywood too much and in fact he lives in a small town just outside of Medford, Oregon: “I’m not interested in making a $60 million studio films with a bunch of twenty four year olds telling me what to do”, he often says.

Here’s Bruce…

ComingSoon.net: What kind of advice would you give to a young filmmaker willing to shoot a good horror movie?

Bruce Campbell: I believe you should always have a good story, don’t be a lazy writer, write good dialogs, write a great story. If you can tell a good story it doesn’t matter what the genre is, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comedy, you still have to tell a story, so that’s the number one thing. That’s what it’s all about, we are storytellers through visual images.

CS: How “Genre Movies”, Horror particularly, have changed with the success of television since you began working in entertainment?

Campbell: Well, TV used to be terrible, while now television is the place to be and it has provided a great place for actors to be. Ten years ago there were a lot of actors that you never would have seen on television, and I say to them: Why have you waited until now? I’ve done TV for twenty five years, there’s nothing wrong with it. Everything is changed regarding Horror, it’s not “evil” anymore, it’s not something to be ashamed anymore, Horror used to be very disrespected. An actor couldn’t have a serious career in Horror, we were very marginalized and now, because of The Walking Dead and other shows, Horror is today “mainstream”. If you have forty millions people watching a show, that’s not a cold show, that’s mainstream, so I’m glad for shows like The Walking Dead, they helped, they changed people perceptions, and Horror movies, I think they got us into the same interesting territory. If you take films like Paranormal Activity, then again, they’re trying something different, it’s not all about blood, it’s creepy images that suggest you that you have heard something, you have seen something, but you are not sure. I’m glad to see movies like that come out and explore different ways of scaring people.

CS: You started your career as Ash Williams, how is it changed your relation with the character after all these years?

Campbell: Well, you become a better actor so you improve, because now you have better skills. For me, the first film was frankly about learning how to act. I can watch the first Evil Dead from about halfway on without cringing. When Army of Darkness came around, we decided to make a different type of movie altogether and made an action-adventure picture with the same imbecile. I’m very happy to come back to play Ash twenty five years after I played it, because I have twenty five years of more experience now, and I’m going to use that to make Ash a great character, that’s my goal now, let’s make him the best character I’ve ever played.

CS: You filmed “Evil Dead” with 350, 000 dollars, do you think today is still possible to raise money and make a good movie?

Campbell: Sure, why not? In 1979 when we tried to raise money to make that film the economy in United States was shit, so nobody wanted to invest. There’s not good or bad time. We had to form a company with which we could approach investors and make contracts with them, so we had to be very business like. Everyone thinks that the first Evil Dead was amateur and done in college, it’s not true, we were amateurs in experience but it was all done very professionally, with lawyers and everything, so when we had success with it there was no confusion, we knew who owned what parts of the movie and where the money had to go. Anyway, things were not easy, nobody knew Evil Dead back then, everything had to start from scratch. In the old days we had to go to a camera rental place and give them insurance, we needed to have it, and then you would rent it from them and it was very expensive and you had to get it back by a certain time otherwise they would charge you more. Same with every equipment, same with laboratory work. You had to develop your film and then you had to make it print and you had to get an editing machine and edit it, none of that was easy. In the old days it was a good way to get rid of all the lazy people, in the seventies if you were making movies and you were lazy you would never succeed. Now you can go to your local electronic store, buy an HD camera, you can use an editing software, you can use music software and FX to make all your titles and graphics for a very small amount of money. You can get yourself set for about five thousand dollars, with everything you need to make a movie. Then you go and make a movie and you put it on a pen drive and you can go to your local theatre now, because they all have digital projectors, and you give them this small thing, not that junk case of film, and they show it to the audience. So, filmmakers have no excuses now, there’s no excuses not to be able to make a low budget movie, and you can do it cheaper than 350.000 dollars. You don’t need laboratories, it’s all digital, you need a table to edit all, a tripod, you know, you don’t even need lights anymore, because cameras are so sensitive, and it’s HD, that’s a good enough quality for anything. It’s much easier to make movies now. The problem is always the same, you need an idea, if you don’t have an idea it doesn’t matter if you are Steven Spielberg.

CS: It looks as if there aren’t a lot of good ideas today…

Campbell: There are still good ideas and there were shitty ideas in the seventies. There are a lot of bad movies also in the seventies, eighties or nineties, every decade has shitty movies and every decade has classic movies.

CS: Your name is forever closely linked with the Ash character, don’t you feel a bit stuck with it? Is it a gift or a curse?

Campbell: It doesn’t bother me either way, I know who I am and it doesn’t matter who people think I am, plus everybody only watch what they want to watch. I’ve done many other things that are not Ash, but I’ve been more stereotyped by the fans than by Hollywood, the industry would let me play all kind of roles, because they know I’m just an actor, and I am respected for that. Many fans think I’m just Ash, I’ve more trouble being seen as different from fans than my own industry, because that’s all they watch, the fantastical stuff. I’ve played Cow Boys, I was Ronald Reagan, I did a French movie, I’ve been in “Hercules” and “Xena” and in many other things, but fans like what they like, and that’s OK for me. I’m embracing Ash Vs. Evil Dead again otherwise fans will get mad at me. Sam Raimi made three “Spider Man” movies which made million of dollars, but everybody kept asking him: where is the next “Evil Dead”? I did a TV Show: Burn Notice, for seven years, but fans didn’t care, they kept asking about Evil Dead. So don’t fight City Hall, give the people what they want. I’m going to give you Ash so much that you won’t be able to breath.

CS: Actually I really loved “Burn Notice”, even if it’s not Horror, what do you remember about it?

Campbell: It was a fun show to work on because it was not a Police show, it was not a Doctor show and it was not a Lawyer show, as almost everything is about today, but it had life and death, there were things about right and wrong and justice. So, it was a very good experience because I was not the star of the show, I could add the salt and pepper, I was not the meal. It was a good position to be in, because I didn’t have to carry the show.

CS: What are the differences, for an actor like you, to be in a TV series or in a movie?

Campbell: TV Series are much quicker and faster, I like it, you do more in a day, you are more efficient. Movies can be slow and very boring, I like TV Series and I’m suited for it, I’m ready to go, when I show up on a film set I want to go.

CS: After “Bubba Ho-Tep” everybody’s been waiting for the announced sequel: “Bubba Nosferatu”, will it ever be made?

Campbell: When Joe Lansdale will come back to write the script, the chance are much better. He was the one who wrote a very original story, if you don’t get the guy who is a very good writer, there’s not much to talk about. That’s what I mind about and, do we need a sequel to anything? It’s a very precious little movie, what if we made it and no one liked it? Now all you would remember is the shitty one, not the good one. I’d rather like people just remember Bubba Ho-Tep in some special way in their mind, not some franchise with merchandising and the same crap. I think that’s what helped it to stand apart, not trying to be a franchise.

CS: What do you think of the huge use of digital special effects to create monsters in Horror movies today?

Campbell: Well, there’s a lot more digital today, but digital is not your story, digital should help you tell your story. I like the use of digital in a movie like Forest Gump, because they used digital to make you think that this actor had no legs, you don’t even see the digital and that’s the way it should be. Digital FX can follow a little feather and make it flow, and flow and land at the character feet, that’s what digital is very good for. What we do with CGI in a show like Ash vs. Evil Dead is that we want to have the blood to be “old school”, so we put some tubes and we pump it through your body, but some time you need to hide the tubes, and so you just digitally erase them. We try not to use digital blood, it’s too bad, it doesn’t look right, it doesn’t move right, it looks two dimensional, they haven’t figured it out yet. Digital is too easy to fall back on, it’s a tool, it’s a very good tool, but it’s just that, it’s not going to make a movie. In the Evil Dead remake they use it mainly to hide things and mechanisms, I think it is a clever way to use it, it’s only helping.

CS: You have made seven movies as a director, will you be back any sooner behind the camera?

Campbell: When things come about, they come about, they just happen. Projects are just happening, some take a long time to get the money while other are very quick and if you are working on television you disappear from other things. When I was doing Burn Notice in Florida, I disappeared for seven years, and that restricts you from doing other things, so I never know when I’ll be able to get to other projects, who knows? I’m prepping a lot of things, some as actor, some as a director. I have writers writing many things, I have ten scripts that are ready to go, when I have time, but I’m not going to have time until Ash Vs. Evil Dead is done.

CS: You were one of the first actor, besides Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, to mix Horror and Comedy, what do you like so much of that?

Campbell: I don’t like Horror that’s grim, the world is grim, we don’t need a show to tell that to the world, it already knows it. Entertainment it’s supposed to elevate the world, a lot of humor is needed along the way, because some people don’t like Horror, they stay for the humor or, if you like Horror, maybe you will enjoy a little comedy as well. It’s just a little more of a wink of the eye at it, like everything is OK, we are just pretending that this is real.

CS: What are your thoughts about the “Evil Dead” recent remake?

Campbell: Well, I produced it, so I thought it was good. That film made ninety four million dollars, so I don’t care what anybody says! Some people were disappointed because it was so serious, but there are people who never saw Evil Dead before, and they’ve seen that movie and they were terrified. It’s a scary, creepy, dark film, and that was what the director wanted, Fede Alvarez, we wanted to support him. Even the first Evil Dead was not meant to be funny, it just was because it was cheesy, a low budget production.

CS: Sam Raimi often says that his mission in life is to torture Bruce Campbell, why?

Campbell: When we were younger men Sam and I were performing at “Bar mitzvah”, he was the magician and I was his assistant. Sam was hitting me with a stake when we were performing and the kids thought that it was funny, so Sam was convinced that he needed to hurt me in order to entertain the audience. That was thirty seven years ago and he’s still doing it.

CS: The old Oldsmobile from the first “Evil Dead” movie has appeared in all Sam Raimi films, is it the same car? And how he keeps it in such a good condition?

Campbell: Yes, it’s the same car that has been used in every Sam movie he has ever made, included The quick and the dead, which is a western. They disassembled the top of it and made it look like a wagon, while they took parts of it and put it up on a wall. I guess something wonderful happened on the back seats of that car. They even put it on a boat and shipped it to New Zealand, where we’re filming Ash Vs. Evil Dead. I will one day kill that car with my bare hands, because I don’t like the way in which he is obsessed with that car, it’s not natural.

CS: How did censorship changed since you first did a movie like “Evil Dead”? Today also television is more permissive in showing violence and blood…

Campbell: To give you a bit of history, the original Evil Dead was banned in six countries, only one month ago Germany removed the ban. For thirty seven years they had a ban against that movie. Now Horror has come out of the shadows, but it used to be pornography, we were very close to that in people perceptions. Today because of The Walking Dead and shows like that, Horror is just another genre now and it’s a very popular form of entertainment. We found a partner, “Starz”, that it will let us do what we need to do, but back then, with the first two “Evil Dead” films we had trouble with censorship, although we didn’t put any restrictions in what we wanted to show, and the fans loved that. This is the reason because we have been looking for a partner with which we could do that again, so essentially Ash Vs. Evil Dead has no censorship, it is an unrated television show, and we are very happy to present it that way, not because we feel we have to always be excessive, but it allows us to do it if we would like to, and sometimes we like to.

CS: There was a moment in which you decided you wanted to be an actor? And what advice would you give to a young actor?

Campbell: Yes, there was a moment, I was eight years old and my father was in a play, a local play, it was called “Brigadoon” and he was singing and dancing with women that were not my mother, which was strange to me but interesting, and I remember thinking that it was a different part of my father that I never saw. So that seemed very appalling, and when I got older I joined that theater crew and did plays, and I was eventually directed by my father. If I have to give an advice to young actors, that would be: don’t listen to anyone about anything, if you want to be an actor, be an actor, but you cannot be lazy. If you are lazy you will be an unemployed actor, there are many opportunities out there now, there are thousands of channels now, when I grew up there were only three channels, therefore get up your lazy ass!

#Bruce Campbell #Ash vs Evil Dead #Ash vs. Evil Dead

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