#(edited because it was missing a few parts oops)

[eph3merall]

. . . ( part 2 )

—

"nah, what the fuck is this— big bad wolf bullshit?" you can hear matt's voice falter for a second, your bare knees digging into the wood floor of his room. he decided to stream for a few hours tonight, both chris and nick away doing their own things.

for the first hour and a half matt just played some games until you got bored and snuck under his desk, his hand cupping your cheek to give it a light warning smack to whatever cheeky ideas that were brewing in your head.

deft hands slowly started tugging his sweatpants down, to which he just hummed and swiveled around gently in his chair for a second. settling back down, matt was leaning forwards a little to put some music on for the stream, shouting out names he was able to catch that were gifting.

he's fixing his headset and turning the music up a little, it's mainly just to hide any groans and sighs he lets out however. for a second, he steals a glance down at you to find you slowly lowering the hem of his boxers, and he responds by subtly lifting his hips.

matt didn't totally like this idea. one little mistake and the whole stream of.. fifteen thousand people would know what was going on, but he couldn't deny how painfully hard he was just by seeing you on your knees—a little cramped under the small space of his desk.

when you free his length to find pre already dribbling from his slit, your thumb reaches up to thumb at his tip and spread the bead of pre made lube down his shaft. you don't miss the way his thighs tense, hips twitching up a little as you listen to the way he scolds the chat for telling him to react to edits and read fanfiction.

one hand rests on his thigh while the other jerks up and down slowly, twisting your wrist up at the top as you lean forward. parting your lips, you let some saliva drip down the length of his dick and don't miss the heavy sigh he lets out.

soon you're hollowing your cheeks out and bobbing your head gently up and down matt's cock—one hand threading through your hair and digging blunt nails into the back of your head. you can't see his face—but you can hear the way his voice trembles once in awhile and how heavy he's breathing.

your nose presses into his skin, dick shoved all the way down your throat and you gag—only forcing matt to ball one of his hands up into a fist to pretened to cough because he was about this close to letting out a groan.

the noisy slurping and gagging noises of your mouth have him panicking for a second before he's quickly turning the volume of the music up, per chat's request and totally not because it put him just a little more at ease.

he keeps a hand casual over his mouth or on his face, pretending to cough or whatever. his other hand is leaving your head—fingers twitching to pull you off just so he can fuck your throat to his heart's content.

so far so good, right? the stream went pretty smoothly until you'd done something with your tongue and he felt his tip hit the back of your throat, and matt's head is tilting back against his gaming chair and a tortured groan is ripped from his lips.

oops?

notes. sorry if this has spelling mistakes / mistakes in general or anything doesn't make sense i am TIREDD... feel kinda insane w how good matt n chris looked on stream tho. anyways where the fuck did 75 followers come from? like? what??? thank u all i love u guys <3 know its not a lot but argghhb + i reached 100+ notes on a post like ugh <33

—

©eph3merall 2024

[leclercsainzz]

i was listening to “all to well” by taylor swift and the part where she sings “i still remember the first fall of snow” (pretty much verse 6) came on and i remember i had seen a nico rosberg x lewis hamilton edit to this song a few nights ago and i was wondering if you could do one where reader is nico’s sister and she dated lewis but they fell of because of the whole brocedes friendship fall out and the fans associate them with this specific song/verse .. basically brocedes situation but instead it’s reader x lewis (idk if all this makes sense lol)

DO YOU REMEMBER IT ALL TOO WELL?

PAIRINGS: lewis hamilton x rosberg sister!reader

TYPE: social media au

ynrosberg

liked by danielricciardo, nicorosberg and 645,927 others

ynrosberg: weekend photo dump or whatevaaa 🤷🏼‍♀️

tagged: @nicorosberg @danielricciardo

view 6,026 comments

user: omG i stiLL CaNnoT beliEVE MOTHER PULLED UP TO THE HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX AKAKD!!!!!

↳ user: apparently she only went to support danny bc she promised him that she’d show up to a race if he came back 😭

user: does anyone know if lewis and her interacted??!!?

user: gorgg 😍😍😍

zayn: 😍

↳ user: are they dating??

↳ user: zayn??? 👀 what are you doing here??

user: not nico using memes 💀 LMAOOO

↳ nicorosberg: it was actually a gif 😭

↳ user: pLease, this makes it 10x better

danielricciardo: ❤️❤️

user: still can’t believe mother pulled up and we didn’t get a single interaction with dad 😭😭

user: it’s the waY LEWIS WALKED BY HER WITHOUT SPARING HER A GLANCE 😭😭😭💔

↳ user: i cried when i saw that 😭😭 like why’d they show us?

user: so is everyone gonna ignore the last post?? 444?? 4’s??? who is associated with 4? lewis mf 44 hamilton?? hello?

user: lewis????

user: will forever hold on to the idea that they’ll get back together soon 😌

user: i love how everyone is bringing up lewis as if they didn’t end on bad terms lmao

fernandoalo_official: glad to see my spanish lessons taught you something 👍🏼

aussiegrit: it’s britney bitch

📌 pinned

user: not her pinning webber’s comment 💀

user: thE things i’d do to see a lewis comment or like 😩

user: just thinking about the fact that yn & lewis might’ve seen each other at the race but refused to interact w each other 😭

↳ user: they did:( and they ignored each other

user: can someone please tell me if her and lewis talked?

user: i just know they refused to look in each other’s directions

↳ user: stop 😭😭😭 you’re right, they didn’t 💔💔💔

user: 4?? lewis??

user: missing ynlewis hours 😓

user: ugh, she’s soo pretty 😍😍😍

user: how can one be this beautiful? 😩

ynrosberg

liked by sebastianvettel, kendalljenner and 610,749 others

ynrosberg: photo dump pt 2 🤪

view 5,146 comments

user: all too well 10 min ver. (taylor’s version)??? yes or yes??

↳ ynrosberg: always!!! 💗

user: LEWIS LEWIS LEWIS LEWIS LEWIS LEWIS

user: 😍😍😍😍😍

zayn: thanks for the pic creds

↳ yourusername: yea yea

georgerussell63: i see my name 👀

user: i pray lewis and her will get back together

user: wishing for a ynlewis interaction 😩😩

↳ user: same, sis, same!

user: her smile in the third post 🥰

kendalljenner: 😍😍 beauty

↳ ynrosberg: mwahh 😘

user: when she listens to taylor swift >>

nicorosberg: never got my ice cream 😕

↳ ynrosberg: oops???

user: I REMEMBER IT ALL TOO WELL

user: i literally just saw a ynlewis edit to all too well!!! janskdnd

↳ user: SEND ME THE LINK, NOW

↳ user: ^ me too, please!!!

↳ user: wtF, iM crying 😭😭😭😭

user: i just need to know that her and lewis are on good terms, my mental health depends on this info

↳ user: hate to break it to you …. but ….

↳ user: they literally walked by each other TWICE during the hungarian gp and didn’t acknowledge each other 💔💔💔💔

user: does anyone know if lewis and yn are friends at least?

↳ user: girl??? they don’t even follow each other 🙂

user: she looks happy, he looks happy … they moved on .... maybe it’s time for us all to move on as well? 😔😔😔

↳ user: nO, i cant 😔 i rEfuse!!

user: who’s lewis??? and what does he have to do with yn and nico?? (i don’t mean to offend anyone, i just keep seeing so many comments regarding lewis … is he a driver like nico or??)

↳ user: long story short, lewis hamilton is a formula 1 driver (yes), him and nico used to be teammates .. they were pretty much fighting for the championship and in the process their friendship started to fall apart due to their rivalry and ig yn pushed lewis away after nico won and retired

↳ user: wasn’t it because lewis said he didn’t want distractions and wanted to focus on his career?

↳ user: tbh i’m not sure, they never really confirmed anything

lewishamilton

liked by georgerussell63, neymarjr and 784,837 others

lewishamilton: season so far ✌🏾

tagged: @georgerussell63 @fernandoalo_official

view 7,937 comments

user: ROSCOE!!!!

user: i wonder if roscoe misses mother as much as i do 😭

user: dad, please get back with mom!! 🙏🏼

user: my man everybody 😍😍😍

user: i heard from a friend that george “kidnapped” roscoe and took him to see yn

↳ user: wait wtf, are you being frr??? 😭😭 don’t play with me

↳ user: idk if it’s true

↳ user: i wonder how roscoe reacted when he saw yn, if he did

georgerussell63: roscoe 🥰

↳ lewishamilton: dognapper

↳ georgerussell63: i did it for the greater good:)

↳ user: wAit omgsksn does that mean he actually took roscoe to see yn or???? omg wkakalsk 🥺🥺🥺

user: he’s so fine 😩

fernandoalo_official: 😎

user: WAIT DID GEORGE REALLY TAKE ROSCOE TO GO SEE YN?? BC IF SOOO IMA CRY 😭😭😭😭

user: ya’ll remember when roscoe would pull up with both his parents to the paddock?? 😔 ahh, good old times

user: @sebastianvettel sebs, i need you to work your magic and reunite my parents, please

user: not getting over how they just walked past each other as if they didn’t spend 4 years together 💔

user: the fit 🔥

user: things that keep me up at night: brocedes & ynlewis

↳ user: ^ THIS!!!!

user: ya’ll ever thing about the what-if of ynlewis??

user: goat with a another goat (alonso) 🤩

user: they day yn and lewis reunite will be magical

user: missing the yn comments/likes 🥺🥺🥺

carlossainz55: 🤩🤩🤩

user: 7 years ago, ynlewis broke my heart 😭😭😭

↳ user: don’t forget brocedes 😭😭

↳ user: can’t believe it’s been 7 years, mate

user: i wonder if they privately talk, yk??

↳ user: never thought of that but i hope they do, tbh

sebastianvettel: ❤️

user: roscoe’s too adorable!! 🥺❤️

user: i know they’ll find their way to each other eventually

ynrosberg

liked by zayn, danielricciardo and 671,048 others

ynrosberg: life so far 💗 (p.s. happy 8 months, lover)

view 5,937 comments

user: mOTHER?????? who is that????

user: 8 months???? wtf?? hello?? since when???

user: what about lewis??!

user: looks like mother gave us another dad 😔

↳ user: lewis is MY dad, idcc … zayn can be my step dad

user: so you’re telling me lewis and yn getting back together won’t happen anytime soon?? 😭😭

zayn: ❤️

↳ user: wAIT!!!! ZAYN??!??? OMG MAKALANS I KNEW THE TATTOOS LOOKED FAMILIAR WHSLs

↳ user: one direction guy????

nicorosberg: cute

↳ ynrosberg: 😌

user: they’ve been together for 8 months?? 😮😮

user: it all makes sense, i just never connected the dots

user: this was not on my 2023 bingo card 😩

user: ngl but this is actually cute

danielricciardo: cats out the bag, yayyy 🥳

↳ user: YOU KNEW!/@/&/@/‘s

user: i wonder how lewis is feeling rn

↳ user: as if he cares

user: mom, what about dad?? 😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔

user: @lewishamilton

user: nooooOo i miss dad 😭😭

user: allbio984!;’al hepan huh?!?!@ what?&@“”

user: ig those rumors a few months ago were true

↳ user: which ones???

↳ user: they were seen together like 3 months ago and there were speculations that they were together but it was never confirmed until now 😭

user: i’m still at the restaurant with dad 😢😢😢

user: yn, you’re breaking my heart 💔💔 we want dad

user: scReaming and goiNg apeshit alapamcbh93&,!;@/

user: lewis officially lost her 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

user: i can’t believe this wtf

lewishamilton

liked by danielricciardo, charles_leclerc and 793,927 others

lewishamilton: all too well

view 7,947 comments

user: DAD IS QUOTING “ALL TOO WELL”

user: roscoe owns my heart, idcc 🥺🥺

user: you remember it all too well, huh? 🥺

user: ya’ll remember yn posted a photo dump a while ago and one of the pic was a “all too well” aesthetic and now he’s using it as his caption??? he definitely misses her 😭😭😭

user: “just between us do you remember it all too well” you remember, she remembers, we all remember 💔

user: dad, we know know you miss mom and uncle nico

↳ user: 😭😭😭 stopp

user: roscoe 🥰🥰🥰

user: mom’s got a new boyfriend

user: ynlewis/brocedes will forever be my roman empire

georgerussell63: roscoe’s such a cutie!

↳ user: idc if you have to break yn and zayn up but we NEED our og parents back, please 🙏🏼

user: they were THE COUPLE

user: she definitely haunts all his what-ifs 😭😭

↳ user: he should’ve married her when he had the chance

↳ user: will never get over him choosing his career over her

user: @ynrosberg

user: i miss them everyday 😩

user: i often think about how if brocedes never ended the way they did they would’ve been together, just maybe

↳ user: i think about this everyday 😩😩😩😩

↳ user: they would’ve been married and with a kid by now

maxverstappen1: have you been hitting the gym?

↳ lewishamilton: always

user: it’s never too late, don’t give up

↳ user: she’s with zayn

user: i still hold on to the possibility that they’ll get back together eventually

user: timing was wrong bc they were in different stages of their lives but i believe they’ll always be soulmates ❤️

user: why’d they break up??

↳ user: bc yn wanted a family and lewis was too focused on his career at the time, i guess

user: roscoe’s a child of divorce like us 😭😭

user: convinced myself that taylor wrote verse 6 about them in all too well (10 min ver)

user: i wonder if he ever gets deja vu when he sees her or viceversa

user: ynlewis keeps me up at night

user: we lost two amazing things 😔 ynlewis & brocedes

↳ user: we can all collectively agree it’s mercedes fault

ynrosberg

liked by nicorosberg, sebastianvettel and 710,019 others

ynrosberg: an adventure is about to begin 🥰

tagged: @zayn

view 6,984 comments

user: mother is becoming a mother??!? omg 😭😭

user: congratulations!!!

zayn: can’t wait for our little one ❤️

↳ ynrosberg: ❤️❤️❤️

user: im not crying, you are 😭

user: the fact that’s she’s becoming a mother 😭 w/o lewis

user: this could’ve been lewis

↳ user: if only 😔

sebastianvettel: happy for you, congrats! ❤️❤️

↳ ynrosberg: ❤️❤️

nicorosberg: can’t wait till i’m officially an uncle 😢

↳ ynrosberg: ilyyyy ❤️

danielricciardo: IM GONNA SPOIL THAT KID

aussiegrit: congrats, yn

↳ ynrosberg: 😊😊 thanks youuu

jensonbutton: ❤️❤️❤️ congrats

↳ ynrosberg: 🥰

fernandoalo_official: 🥳🥳🥳

georgerussell63: can i be the uncle too??

↳ ynrosberg: why not 🤪

user: AHHH IM SOO HAPPY FOR YOU!!

kendalljenner: congrats, my love 🥳❤️❤️❤️

user: im so happy for her but all i can think about is lewis

user: mom becoming a mom without dad 😭😭😭😭

user: ya’ll imagine if it would’ve been lewis 😩

user: her dream came true 😭😭

carmenmmundt: ahh congratulations 🥰🥰🥰

↳ ynrosberg: ❤️❤️

heidiberger__: congrats, beautiful 💗💗

↳ ynrosberg: 🥰🥰

lewishamilton: congratulations!

↳ ynrosberg: thank you!!

↳ user: i waS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS 😭😭😭😭

↳ user: why’d he have to do this??? 😭

↳ user: the way this could’ve been him

user: lewis commented omg 😢😢😢

↳ user: i just know he’s regretting everything

user: lewis 💔💔💔

user: i know dad’s crying over this cause so am i

user: we’re all child of divorce 😭😭😭

[detailtilted]

In Search of Supernatural Fans from the Early Years

Hi! I’m looking for the legends who originally recorded old Supernatural convention panels featuring Jared or Jensen, or possibly Misha. See "What I'm Looking For" below. If you know one of them, or if you're a member of a community with people who were in the fandom in those early years, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could let them know about this post. I can be reached at DetailTilted@gmail.com or here on Tumblr.

If you aren’t familiar with my project, see the “Project Background” section below. This is not a low-effort exercise to merely repackage old videos. I’m putting many hours of work into each video to improve their watchability and accessibility. I will always credit my sources unless you wish to remain anonymous.

Even if your videos are on YouTube, I’m likely to have more success upscaling them if I can get the original video files. Thanks to the videos AgtSpooky kindly sent me, I've learned how big of a difference it can make when I have the original files to work with. That's why I’m putting more effort into finding those elusive original video takers.

The problem is that they all seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. Most of their YouTube accounts, LiveJournal accounts, and whatever other accounts I’ve dug up haven’t had any activity in 10-15 years. I’ve left a few messages on some of them, but I doubt they’ll be seen on dormant accounts. I’ve also gone down some crazy and twisted Googling paths trying to find current contact info for them, but without much success. In one case I even messaged the wrong person, who was at least kind enough to reply to the psycho asking for videos to let me know she wasn't the person I'd hoped she was. Oops!

What I’m Looking For

I’ve already finished CHICON 2007, Comic-Con 2008, and CHICON 2008, so I don’t need videos from those events, but I’d be happy to try to upscale your videos for your own collection if you have some you'd like to send me.

Actually, I could use CHICON 2008 Breakfast videos if you have any. I plan to attempt to redo that video either late this year or early next year.

I’ve been trying especially hard to reach people with original video files from either LA 2009 or Asylum 3 (2009), and I’d also be ecstatic to get some from LA 2008.

Any other old con videos you’re willing to share that have Jared or Jensen in them would be awesome. I hope to get to all the old conventions eventually. I haven’t yet defined “old”, so I don’t have a specific cutoff point.

Even if you just have audio files without video, those could be helpful too.

Length doesn't matter. Both long and short videos are welcome. Maybe I won't end up using them all, but the more options I have the better. Even if I don't put your video in my final edit, it would still be used because I always listen to every single video I can find when I'm finalizing my subtitles. Each video sounds at least a little different, and sometimes just hearing the audio in a slightly different way lets me catch a subtitle I'd missed or misheard.

Also, just to be clear, it isn’t necessarily my intent to exclude Misha. I’ve watched and enjoyed many of his convention videos and I liked Castiel for the most part, especially in the earlier seasons. I’m just not obsessed with Misha like I am with Jared and Jensen, and these videos do take quite a lot of work, so I’ve been putting my energy where my greatest interests lie. I’ll absolutely be including him when he’s in panels with Jared and/or Jensen, and in the future I may consider doing some of his solo panels.

So if you have original video files of Misha's solo panels that you’d like to send me, I’d be happy to add them to my stockpile for future possible use. If your videos turn out to be mostly complete, and if they upscale easily, then I might go ahead and do his panel at the same time I do the other panels from the same convention. If they'll take more effort to work with, I’ll probably skip them for now, but I may come back and tackle them if/when I run out of old Jared and Jensen videos to work with.

For any con videos you send me, regardless of whether I use them or not, I’d be happy to try to upscale them and send them back to you for your collection. I can’t always get things to upscale, so I can’t promise success, but I’ll definitely try.

Project Background - Enhanced Edition Con Videos

You can find my videos on my YouTube channel. (If you're already familiar with my project, skip to the next section -- there's nothing new to see here.)

I started this project in December 2023 to enhance old convention videos. My goal is to make them easier on the eyes and more accessible to both new and old fans from around the world. The videos on YouTube from that time can be difficult both to watch and to understand due to a combination of the older technology used to record them, the difficult recording conditions the fans were working with, and the lack of subtitles that make any sense.

I’m enhancing the videos as follows:

Visual Improvements: I’m upscaling the videos if possible, making color corrections if needed, and adding some slight stabilization to reduce the jitteriness. The end result is far from perfect because there’s only so much that current technology can do, but it's noticeably improved if you compare it to the originals.

Subtitles: I’m adding good, color-coded, English subtitles that can be turned on or off through YouTube’s CC button. The color-coding makes it more clear who's saying what when multiple people are speaking, and YouTube can auto-translate them into other languages to improve the accessibility.

Multiple Sources: If one video has gaps in it, then I'll try to find another that I can edit in to fill those gaps so the end result is as complete as possible. If I have more than one source that captured the same portion of the event, then I'll cut to whichever video I think had the best view of the action. In a few cases I’ve added a split screen with two different videos showing simultaneously so we can see action that's taking place in two separate areas. For example, when Jared and Jensen are on opposite sides of the stage. (There were also the infernal talking head bubbles on my Comic-Con 2008 video which nearly made me throw in the towel, but taught me a lot. 😅)

Extra Content for Context: These older videos don’t take up the full width of a modern video frame, so I’ve taken advantage of the extra space to display some still images with text to add extra context for many of the things they discuss. Some things are a lot funnier, or at least a lot more relevant, when you know exactly what they’re talking about. I clarify Supernatural episode references and pop culture references among other things. Sometimes I’ve also inserted short video clips, usually just a few seconds’ worth, if I thought it would add worthwhile clarity or entertainment to the topic at hand.

Current Project Status

If anyone has been wondering how I’m doing on my current video and what’s next… I’m almost done with the last video from CHICON 2008, which was Jensen’s solo panel. I should be ready to publish it on YouTube this Friday, May 24. I plan to use the same schedule as last time and put the Tumblr post up the following Tuesday when it’s a little more likely to be noticed here.

The next sequential conventions are LA 2009 and Asylum 2009, but I haven’t had much success in my attempts to upscale the available videos. If I were to work with what I have now, I know I could turn out something better than what’s on YouTube today, but the end result wouldn’t be nearly as good as what I might be able to achieve if I can get some original videos to work with. So I think it’s more logical to skip over these conventions for now and give it some time to see if I get any responses, in hope of a better end result.

I do intend to come back to the skipped conventions eventually, even if nobody sends me anything. Once I run out of conventions for which I can upscale the videos, if I still don't have anything better to work with for the ones I skipped, I’ll just do the best I can with what’s available. Even if I can't upscale, I can still do color corrections and stabilization, plus the subtitles and extra content. Some of these panels are split up into a bunch of very short videos, so it would also add value if I can combine them into something more sequential and cohesive. (I found 130 videos from the Jared and/or Jensen panels at LA 2009, and most of them were under 2 minutes long. 🤣) I don’t know if there’s enough footage to cover the entire panels seamlessly, but I’m itching to get my hands on that jigsaw puzzle of videos to try to make sense out of them.

So… the next videos I intend to work on will be from Vancouver 2009. This is one of the conventions that AgtSpooky attended and sent me videos for and they upscaled very well. Her breakfast video had already found its way onto YouTube, but wasn't properly credited. Her main panel videos aren't on YouTube as far as I could find, so that version may be new to newer fans. I'm only just starting to play around with upscaling the other sources out there, but my first attempt at the other main Breakfast source came out well. Both breakfast videos were taken from extreme opposite angles, so that should provide some useful editing opportunities. I’d still love to get more videos of this event if anyone has them.

If you made it this far, I am in awe. Sorry for putting this wall of text on your screen! 😅

[brokenmachinemusings]

im rewatching the surprising click mvs rn. break is a whole beast to get into so i wont go into that rn, but heres a few points/observations about surprising click and train trial specifically

first of all. where the hell is this place? it has art and it has a 3d modelled room. 9th june, 12th june and 13th june. these dates don’t exactly make sense. i don’t remember when the first surprising click song came out, but it was probably around 9th june or close to that — so it could be applied. to add on, i just noticed they have “day 1, 2, 3” titles on, with june 15th being day 4. which is odd. bcz ur telling me june 12th is day 1, 13th is 2, 09th is 3, 15th is 4? but maybe this was just a typography error. because i know surprising click has, surprisingly, a few clipping errors (youre bound to notice them as an animator. the ones i remember are two on qiao ling, one on the final screen with the cart. i’m sad there wasn’t a quality checker or an edit or a reupload; it’d be quite easy to fix). but food for thought, god knows.

i also noticed that qiao ling has A LOT of li tianxi references in her surprising click outfit. her ring, her shirt, her necklace, as well as i’m pretty sure her hat. i might’ve missed something and might go into a deep dive of their outfit designs some day (wtf is that thing on lu guang that looks like bread?) (also cheng xiaoshi has an angel wing. haha, so funny, haha…)

and well, here’s the same li tianxi symbolism below again, this time in train trial. if you don’t get it, it’s the same as her hairclips, which are the main “defining” characteristic of hers. there was another more viney pattern in some of the lyrics, but this was most likely intentional.

lastly, in li tianchen’s part, i don’t think this happens with anyone else — there’s something that spells oht candy 030 in the top corner. which has me wondering what it is? first thought was a date, since 30 is a day, but the 0 doesn’t make sense. maybe march zeroeth? feburary 29th? i dont know, im spewing. it seems like such a random thing to add too.

these are just random things. i still havent rewatched now&forever as well as house of the hotheaded, mainly because i dont have them downloaded. also i zoned out in half of my watches, oops, i still might have missed something.

it’s really late in my time so, i might either add more things once i rewatch again or in the morning — i’m practically half asleep. hope some of this might be interesting, though.

small typography/design analysis of train trail, if you’re interested in reading it (kind of a continuation, but not exactly, as i wrote it right after this post)

[goodluckclove]

On the Autonomy of Character (Or: How I Fucked Up and am Now Fucked)

Hi! It's me. It's Clove Gardener, the writer who was diagnosed as schizoaffective at age 12 but 15 years later was informed that they would've likely been entirely neurodivergent if not for the severe C-PTSD that those doctors in their childhood missed at the time. Oops. Turns out I just have a big imagination, and that's going to come across strong in what I have to talk about today.

I'm a big proponent of character autonomy in writing - always have been, always will be. I don't outline more than a loose conception of what I'd like to happen, but as I say that I know there's a chance that i might not. Because what I hold highest in my work is my sense of character, which often results in my characters being the ones that get to control what actually happens.

I hear a lot of writers allude to this in posts on here, but they don't go into detail. I'm going to try and explain what that means to me in an attempt to make the process make more sense to writers who prefer a bit more control and structure.

(edit: this is a ramble be warned)

For the most part it's not too obtrusive. I'll use my novel Blind Trust (E-Book available now, paperback hopefully coming out next week) as an example. There's a point in writing it that Edgar, our befuddled initial narrator, learned some information that would really come as as a shock to his love interest Scott.

Well, okay, I mused as I wrote it, he would want this to be a secret. I'll have to navigate that.

Counter to that thought, Edgar ended up telling Scott immediately. Literally, as soon as the two of them were alone. Because by then, even though I knew it would make more thematic sense, I had enough of a grasp on Edgar's character to know that he would not be able to keep this to himself.

That's usually what it looks like. Small ripples that change the current, but ultimately keep the boat riding easily. Then, a solid 100k into the sequel Migration Patterns (Also I just realized I hit 100k yay me), my cast made the biggest executive decision of the story so far.

Let me explain. Where I'm at right now, Katy Delaney and her brother are in Nebraska, and they have to drive a few states over to Oregon. The problem is that Katy is currently having her brother's house patrolled constantly by guards from Stillrush Outreach Center, the closest witch town. This includes three birthrights, one of which being Fern, a deaf ex-Navy Seal.

So that was my problem. These guards are tasked specifically to keep Katy safe, meaning they aren't going to want her to fuck off for no good reason. She needed to escape, right? That's what I thought. That's what Katy and her brother thought too. So after some brainstorming with my wife I ended up devising a ploy for them to fake a fire that would allow them to escape in the following chaos.

Here's the thing, though - and this really centers on the fact that Fern is causing me a lot more trouble than I expected for a character that was meant to be a one-off escort. The plan was to make enough smoke in a trash can fire to trigger the alarm and call a truck - but of course the guards would see it too.

Two Academic witches don't pose too much of an inconvenience - they're rule followers, they know to wait for authority. Even the two less-experienced birthrights would wait for orders before trying anything. Fern, though. Jesus Christ. Fern had years of training and an immense knight's complex, so before the firetruck even had a chance to get there they burst through the front window in case she needed to be rescued.

I didn't plan for this, but it made sense. Birthrights aren't typically bad people - they aren't all perfect, but birthright magic is typically used in the name of either social services or community good. So if someone needs help, a birthright helps - it's just a part of the culture. It definitely clashed with my plans to have Katy escape and get on the road.

And it also immediately made Katy feel like a total asshole, because of course it did. She typically gets itchy and uncomfortable around shows of heroism and goodness, even though at her core he is very much a good person. So now Clove, the writer wants Katy to book it and go on a fun road trip with her brother. But Katy Delaney sees someone who got hurt trying to save her from a danger that she made up, and she immediately thinks "well fuck, now i have to help".

So she helps Fern out of the house, and once they get themselves patched up and Katy meekly explains the weird prank and the situation it was trying to solve (Trying to keep the spoilers at a minimum), Fern is silent for a long time. Then they make a very simple conclusion.

I'm coming with you, they say.

Now Clove, the writer, the one who brought these people into existence, is like "NO. I DID NOT PLAN FOR THIS. I HAVE TO WRITE TWO MORE BOOKS AND YOU WERE NOT GOING TO BE IN THEM, FERN. WHERE DO YOU GO NOW? YOU'RE JUST GOING TO OREGON?"

But Katy feels guilty. Katy feels tired. Katy's very disorientated by how much she's suddenly feeling.

"I DO NOT THINK YOU'LL LIKE IT IN BLUEROSE, FERN," Clove, the writer, tries to insist. "I DON'T THINK THE PEOPLE IN BLUEROSE WILL LIKE THAT YOU HAVE A GUN AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT, FERN."

But Fern feels obligated to Katy. Maybe she reminds them of someone they used to know. Someone that they failed in the past and refuse to fail again.

"I DID NOT PLAN FOR GUN-TOUTING WITCHES TO BE THIS BIG A PLOT ELEMENT IN MY COMFORT-CORE ASEXUAL FANTASY SERIES, FERN," Clove wails inside their head.

It's too late, though. Clove is weaker than Fern and as much of a bleeding-heart as Katy insists she isn't. Katy agrees, and now I have two and a half books that now must at least make reference to an ex-military witch who's quick with a gun and canonically loves ska.

I don't have an inspirational ending for this. I truly don't. I'm gonna do it, because I know it's what the characters would do, and shoving them in a mold that does not fit just to appease my false sense of ego would turn storytelling into masturbation.

So yeah, guys. Fern is here. They don't have a first or a last name or any real appearance other than tall and I think tattooed, but fuck it. Fuck it. Whatever, guys. You win.

[murfeelee]

Witcher Season 3 (AKA The "Final" Season 🤣😂)

Alright y'all, back at it again with my 3rd Witcher tv show "review" or whatever. S1 | S2

Disclosure: I already told y'all that I've made peace with this being the Yennefer Show, and that I'll keep watching when Liam Hensworth plays Geralt in S4, because this show ain't been about Geralt or witchers anyway--it's about the mages, obviously. Like, I don't blame Cavill for leaving, cuz if I had to play second fiddle to Yenn when I'M the titular MC, but I don't have ANY scenes, ZERO speaking lines, and NOTHING to do in my own show, then yeah I'd quit too! So I'm not gonna complain about what I WISH this show was--it will NEVER be the books or the games (definitely not Game of Thrones). Missed opportunity.

All that being said, unpopular opinion, but IMO Season 3 kinda slapped? The 2nd "volume"/part was the best BY FAR, but I genuinely liked the vast majority of the episodes. I give S3 a 9.5/10, because I actually have very few complaints about this season overall, I'm shocked. (EDIT: I have DEEProoted suspicions about a lot of naysayers/hatewatchers who say the show's "unwatchable," just because it's got a multicultural cast/"agenda"--sounds like racism to me.)

THE GOOD

The MAIN PLOT actually went somewhere!!!! A wild Vilgefortz appears! ^0^ He beat the DOG SNOT outta Geralt, YIKES! XD

One of my biggest gripes about S1 was that the show didn't focus nearly enough on THE BIG BAD, Vilgefortz. Cahir got SO MUCH screentime doing literally NOTHING for 2 whole seasons, meanwhile the rest of Geralt's Hanse was NOWHERE to be seen, and Vilgefortz was just sitting in the cut looking pretty, like wtf?

And Season 2 was barely any better!

But yeah, S3 FINALLY gave us Vilgefortz's dastardly behavior I'd been waiting for. He effed everybody up at Thanned, as I expected--that's my special evil boy! <3 (Now that Ciri jacked half his face up I'm very sad--that man is absolutely splendid to look at. A moment of silence for the eye candy, it will be missed. U_U)

THANNED. ^0^ Hoooooooly god this was great, even better than Sodden in S1. Episode 6 is the best episode in S3--such a great battle; people were dying left and right. And MAMA TISS!!!!! She went OFF! O_O

It was so sad, but ofc this was all gonna happen--they had Tissaia allllll the way up Vilgefortz's butt, so OF COURSE she was going to be crushed when he INEVITABLY betrayed her. (I don't blame you though, girl, cuz he's SO DANG PRETTY! I'd be crushed, too!) But at least Mama Tissaia got that body count up during the battle--SLAY! The way Filavandrel was just.... 🤯

Speaking of the elves, Francesca and Fringilla were put on the backburner (after dang near dominating S2); but I like the way their arcs ended, even though I felt bad for them. Very good scenes; the mages & their arcs are the very best parts of the show, as usual.

LODGE OF SORCERESSES RISE! ^0^ Dijikstra & Philippa. 😍

These freaks--I LOVE them, your honor! 😅 I was so hyped to see Geralt break Djikstra's leg, but Philippa had me ROLLING when she was like "well, it's a good thing you like pain"--I DIED! XD These kinky mofos! They're hands down one of the best parts of the whole show--I LOVE how sinister Philippa is (her bird feathers are such a great touch--whoever was in charge of her costumes & HAIR 👌), and what a simp Dijkstra is for her. It makes me so sad to know how things go for them in the video game--I sided with Dijikstra to kill Radovid, and was so hurt when he went after Thaler & Roche. But....yeah, I did pick the option to break his other leg, so....oops? XD

So yes, I'm excited to see where this show goes with Philippa and Vilgefortz; how their schemes line up (or not) with Emhyr and the Fake Ciri; and how that effects the REAL Ciri and how she eventually ends up under Avallach (I hope we get to see him on the show!).

Speaking of Ciri, we FIIIIINALLY got to see some domestic Geralt, Yenn & Ciri--even if they are on the run from assassins; and Geralt's iced Yenn out cuz she tried to sacrifice Ciri to Voleth Mier back in S2. A lot of the fandom HATED that they made S2 Yenn betray them, but I think S3 did an alright job of not retconning her, per se, but patching things up. Cuz it's NOT a good look to have your (REAL) main character (LOL) hated by the fandom for betraying her own "daughter." So was the domesticity hamfisted? YES. But was it necessary? GOD yes, otherwise what's the point of showing The Last Wish? They're supposed to be a FAMILY, so for god's sake start giving them scenes to actually SHOW us that--stfu about "destiny"!

Probably another unpopular opinion, but I liked Episode 7 with the unicorn. These are the kinds of adventures Ciri NEEDED in S1, running around some stupid empty forests doing NOTHING is different from learning how to survive on her own in a strange wilderness, encountering strange creatures, and tapping into the good AND bad sides of her magic.

And oooooh my god, the GOAT has returned.

A lot of...hrm...interesting conversations were had as Ciri was hallucinating in the desert, with love of my life Grandmama Calanthe, as well as Pavetta & Falka. It's a shame that Ciri didn't get this kind of development MUCH earlier in the series. Too little too late? We'll have to see where Ciri's plot goes with the Rats in S4 to find out if her new whole Chaos/Fire magic arc is worth it.

AT LONG EFFING LAST, we're getting some HANSE ACTION!!!

I've been SO EFFING SICK of Cahir. I'm glad Ciri finally got closure with him from SEASON ONE, and that he's FINALLY in the Hanse now--took y'all long enough, ffs! And Milva's interesting so far, so I'm glad to see her around, giving Geralt & Dandelion grief. So in S4 all we need now is Angie, and YA BOI!!! ^0^

THE BAD

I wish Mistle and the Rats were better established--the whole Wyvern thing wasn't done very well or made much sense, and Mistle & Ciri should've had WAY more scenes. I wasn't feeling any chemistry between them, which is annoying, since Ciri's a lesbian in my TW3 game--is the show gonna go with hetero Ciri instead? Or is her love of Mistle gonna be what pulls Ciri out of the Fire/Chaos dark arc they're teasing for S4? 👀

What's annoying is that we already had a Dark!Ciri arc in S2 though, and EVERYONE hated it. We see Yenn reconcile betraying Ciri, but where's Ciri reconciliation for slaughtering all those witchers at Kaer Morhen? 😡 First she's possessed by Voleth Mier, now she's possessed by Falka? This show's great at focusing on Yenn & the mages, but leaves Ciri in the same ditch over & over--it's irritating.

Ep5 was a LAME way to end the first half/"volume," I hated that episode. The whole ball just bored me, with the dancing and singing--I get it--"all is not *clap clap* as it seems," stfu already. I didn't care. It was OBVIOUS Stregebor was being framed; WTF was that mop on Istredd's head; WHY was Triss the only one with a braincell who cared that students were going missing when apparently the school's SO strict; why don't these mages start TELEPORTING for once, and stop running around SLOW AF; how the HECK did y'all let HUMAN Dijkstra jump a WHOLE SCHOOL OF MAGES--this is an utter embarrassment. Usually the mages are the only thing this show gets RIGHT, so to see them all faceplant like this was just baffling & frustrating.

And again with the monoliths--how do y'all NOT KNOW these things are here!? Same with the one hidden in Kaer Morhen, like REALLY? NO ONE's medallion is going off? Omg. Istredd! You STUDY these things! Start TEACHING these drunk AF mages a thing or two--this is why Vilgefortz and Dijikstra wiped the floor with y'all on your own turf! 🤦

THE UGLY

The pacing was SLOW AF. Episodes 3-5 particularly dragged.

Everything with Cahir I wish was in S2 instead. That elf was GORGEOUS and I hated to see him go, but what was the point of all that again? I almost expected him & Cahir to start banging! (My perv brain; I need help, y'all. U_U)

Speaking of!

ALLLLLLL this mess about Dandelion & Radovid.

What "ripple effects"? XD It was UNNECESSARY. We all know Radovid's a disgusting genocidal racist psychopath and Dandelion's a womanizing old man--I'm not interested in seeing Radovid going through all this effort to seduce Dandelion, just to DOUBLE CROSS him to get to Ciri, like wtF? TBH, I feel like we were queerbaited, yeah I said it. 😤

And it's SO unfair how we have alllll these sex scenes with naked women's vajayjays & boobs all over the place--even Philippa got in on the action, hey hey hey! ;) --but we never get to see man-on-man action!? Wow, they kissed, SO WHAT!? Men never get full frontal nudity and it ticks me off, cuz naked women are just all over TV, meanwhile the dudes don't show SQUAT, and it's happened AGAIN.

Anyways, those are my only real complaints; otherwise I liked S3, it was much better than S2 IMO. Just don't expect too much--turn your brain off, and accept that this show doesn't gaf about Geralt (or even Ciri really) whatsoever. I'm here for Yennefer, Vilgefortz, and to see the Lodge of Sorceresses make themselves an absolute menace under Philippa so that Radovid literally flips his wig (that horrible weave MUST go in S4) and effs everything up for mages & non-humans.

[allieebobo]

Allieeee I spent the whole day reading the update because I really wanted to savor it!!! Its so good!!!!

[SPOILER]

I think u nailed the rewrite because now the other side characters really shine and you can really get a good feel of the personalities!! I am loving addie the chaotic little gremlin <3

There are some character name placement mistakes here and there (I think I saw u put in Nat instead of Tobin during the scene at the net after the doubles match??? (Nat wrong universe, buddy!)). Also felix pronoun mistakes (my felix is in the womens team, but in some sentences was written with he/him instead). But, overall was great!!

Also, I LOVE THE SAM POV SCENE???? will you be adding more RO POVs???? Or even other character POVs??? OMG RAYYAN'S POV WOULD BE SO SPICY????

anyways, cant wait for part 2!!!!

Heya, thank you so much for this message, I'm so glad you enjoyed the update!!!

On Sam's POV scene—oops, my bad, I actually think you saw a very early/WIP version of the scene, it wasn't supposed to have leaked out just yet, but I've since cleaned it up and fleshed it out further, so it should be a much more satisfying experience now?

Anywhoo, I thought it worked well, narratively speaking, to have Sam POV scenes to set up a kind of "split screen development" situation where their lives are unfolding on separate ends of the country. Especially since Sam also has limited physical presence in many of the chapters. I'm considering POV-scenes for other characters as well, but Sam-POV scenes was something I wanted to explore first. Let me know what you guys think!

Other responses under the cut (it got long!) But thanks again for the message, sending you much love!

Yay, I'm glad you think the re-write helped, as I was editing, I knew how much time I was spending on back-end things that few people would notice, but I was sure it'd improve the experience overall, and it's good to have that validated!

I love Addie the chaotic gremlin too :D

On typing Nat instead of Tobin: oh no, I've fixed those, but I think writing two different IFs at the same time PLUS thinking about Wayhaven 3 today really messed my brain up xD

I think I've fixed the Felix pronouns, but let me know if I've missed any :)

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Rachel,

I have a few questions if you don’t mind:

1. How do you get comfortable writing the story of your heart? I’ve been pushing off big story ideas that I want to write so that I can get better at writing. But like what if that’s making me feel less motivated or am I just being annoying about it? Maybe I should just suck it up and practice something easier because I honestly don’t have the skills for a complex novel idea.

2. Do you ever look at other writers progress and process and feel bad about your own? Because I’ve been feeling like that a lot lately and trying to adapt to every writers process is impossible and not fun. But I’m stifled by the fear of doing things wrong even though there’s not really a “wrong” way to write.

3-4. I want to participate in nano but I’m a student so it’s going to be a challenge. Since you also were a student do you have any tips? I’ve heard from others that I should just give up writing while in school and every time it hurts, even though I know they don’t mean me any harm. I just want to know if it’s really impossible. So I guess this really is a 2 part question: Do you have any time management tips for writing as a student and do you have any tips for starting nano for the first time?

Hi hi hi!

1. Tbh, my best advice is just to write what you want. If that’s the hard thing, then go for the hard thing. I skirted around difficult projects thinking I didn’t have the skill set for them but that just led me to never writing them. The truth is you’re always going to be missing something before writing a project—writing is an evolutionary art form for that reason, so it’s intrinsic that we learn and fail as we go.

2. I don’t really feel bad when comparing myself to other writers but this probably is mostly because I generally don’t have negative self-talk anymore (IDK WHERE IT WENT LOL) but you’re absolutely not alone in this feeling (& I know I’ve felt this way in the past). You’ve got it right that there’s no one process, and tbh, the thing you might have to do is just constantly remind yourself of that when writing in order to push through. A lot of the time if writing is sticking for me for a more abstract reason like this I have to grit my teeth and keep reminding myself it’s okay to be imperfect, etc.

3. To be verrrryyy honest with you, I struggled to balance writing & school and while I don’t think you have to give up writing while being a student, something a lot of the times naturally has to give since being a student is so time consuming. Not to be discouraging at all but just as a precursor because I was never able to successfully do NaNo when I was in school (not even in high school) EXCEPT for in 2022, and that was for a couple reasons. Mostly, I just put school on the back burner haha. I’m not recommending this but at that point in my degree I was tired of how I was being treated & not being able to prioritize my own writing & I started to push the boundaries of my academics to see how much I could let go in order to write. This is not something I responsibly recommend, but it’s what I did. I wrote a lot in lectures (….. oops lol) & pulled back a bit on assignments (I still did as well as I typically do which is when I realized for me I could put in less effort into school & get the same results—just MY experience, again not a recommendation).

So I’m not saying it’s impossible but I don’t want to make it seem like I was able to juggle both. I wasn’t lol! I skipped classes, I BS’d assignments & that’s bc school wasn’t my priority anymore (this was 100% best for my mental health & I surprisingly academically performed the best I ever have & also graduated #1 in my faculty BUT I thrive off of chaotic timetables & doing things when I’m not supposed to lol, so again not a recommendation & just context as to how I did it).

Otherwise, a couple things I did: edited late at night when I was too tired to draft & added words through line level edits. Used scene ideas from old books & propagated them into the new book. Prepped a little in advance by drafting (or you could outline) so I knew where I was going. Got ahead by 1k as much as I could. It also helped that I was at the exact right place at the exact right time to do nano (literally got right to the climax at the very end), so a lot of my success I think was also luck.

My biggest tip for starting NaNo for the first time is to be open for your expectations to change & to listen to yourself as you go because a word count isn’t worth your mental health! If you can plan around busy days that can also help too. November was always the worst month for deadlines when I was in school, so if you’re falling behind it’s soooo okay! Have fun with it—NaNo isn’t supposed to be stressful, so if it is it’s okay to amend the goal to suit your lifestyle! :)

[alpimerealmsystem]

Another interview (Lycanthrope edition)

First, credit to my friend, @living-in-a-veil for answering these questions and helping me out, I hope someone else can learn from this too, let's get into it

So you've told me what it's like for you physically during your "shifts" of sorts, but what's it like for you mentally? Do you get more instinctual thoughts? is everything in your mind replaced with thoughts of a wolf? Or do you stay the same mentally?

Vivian's reply: (do to their request, I'm rewriting this to keep certain details out) When they have their transformations they do get those more feral and uncontrolable wolf-like thoughts, and they're more aware of their surroundings, etc. Another thing they talked about is how they can't speak during these transformation, and when they try their throat starts to hurt.

What was sorta your awakening moment like, like the moment you realized you were a lycanthrope

Vivian's reply: If you mean when I saw other people like me and felt the term lycanthrope felt right, then about July 2023 :') If you mean the first moment when I realized my transformations were odd and that no other kid had them, well then about 1st grade is when I realized I was different in a physical and mental sense :') (I think I started having them [the transformations] in kindergarten though, I remember wagging my tail in the middle of class :'3 it was so fun then because people thought i was 'just being a kid' but no, little did they know that I'm a therian/lycanthrope>:3 hehe)

Do your "shifts" have any sorta triggers, such as a traumatic experience or even just intense emotion or do they come and go?

Vivian's reply: Usually music can trigger it but it mainly can just happen, I could be in a store and then all of sudden my limbs start shaking and I feel my head hurt :( [I try to suppress it until I get home or into a private place] I've also found out recently that talking about it can also trigger it apparently lol xd (not that I mind talking about it though! I absolutely don't mind talking about my werewolf experiences:3) intense emotions due tend to be the cause of it sometimes, like I just get this heavy pride-like lump in my chest and i just feel this surge of every emotion and then oops- wolf time lol

How long do they last, and when they're done is it like you slowly fade back to your human self or is it just instant?

Vivian's reply: They can last up to 10 mins to 3 hrs (is my longest one that I can remember) It varies from both, fading and instant. Sometimes it's just this sort of snap out of it kinda thing, but most of the time it takes me a bit to calm down and get back to 'normal'

I know what it feels like physically, but does it also feel like maybe even your DNA was completely redone to be a wolf?

Vivian's reply: Eh, yes but no? I just feel.. complete when it happens :') like I'm turning into the missing part of me.

What's your image of yourself during these shifts, fur color, eye color, etc. And if you were to look into the mirror, what would you see?

Vivian's reply: You know my pfp? Yup, that thing :3 I have a few drawings of myself as I t so I may send those to give you a better idea of what it looks like to me, my eyes vary from my pfp's eyes to completely glowing white. If it helps I can just send images that kinda look like me if when I'm transformed

Here are some photos as an example (I did get permission to use these)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Oops! All linkdump!

Tonight (May 2) I’ll be in Portland at the Cedar Hills Powell’s with Andy Baio for my new novel, Red Team Blues.

On May 5, I’ll be at the Books, Inc in Mountain View with Mitch Kapor; and on May 6/7, I’ll be in Berkeley at the Bay Area Bookfest.

In 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term “web-log” to describe his website “Robot Wisdom,” where he logged his journeys around this exciting new digital space called “the web.” Two years later, Peter Merholz shortened “web-blog” to “blog”:

https://peterme.com/archives/00000205.html

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this dump to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

Two years after that, I started blogging, when Mark Frauenfelder made me a guest-editor on Boing Boing:

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

I’ve now been blogging for 23 years, nearly half my life, a near-daily discipline that forms the spine of my writing practice. I take everything that seems important, and, in summarizing it for strangers, embed it in my own mind, and then find connections that turn into essays, speeches, stories and novels:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46

For the past 3+ years, I’ve been blogging solo on my Pluralistic.net project. It started off as a “link-blog,” in the Robot Wisdom vein — short hits summarizing interesting things:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

But over the months and years, it’s turned into a place where I write long essays, sometimes six or seven per week, trying to pull on all those threads that I’ve cataloged over the decades, weaving them together into big, thoughtful pieces, often to great and gratifying notice and even a little fanfare:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

But I miss the linkblogging! For the past 14 months, Pluralistic has featured a little section called “Hey look at this,” where I post three short links, bare-bones pointers to interesting stuff online:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/01/reit-modernization-act/#linkdump

These links pile up in my todo.txt file, ebbing and flowing. Some days, I’ve got nothing for the section. Some days, I’ve got a backlog. These days, I’ve got a massive backlog — enough links for many, many editions. I am drowning in linkblog debt, and the interest is compounding. It’s time for a jubilee:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/24/grandparents-optional-party/#jubilee

Here, then, is the first-ever Pluralistic Jubilee Linkdump Backlog Bankruptcy!

First up:

“The Internet Isn’t Meant To Be So Small,” Kelsey McKinney’s crie-de-coeur for Defector:

https://defector.com/the-internet-isnt-meant-to-be-so-small

This is part of the enshittification canon that includes Cat Valente’s unmissable “Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things”:

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

McKinney’s money-shot:

It is worth remembering that the internet wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be six boring men with too much money creating spaces that no one likes but everyone is forced to use because those men have driven every other form of online existence into the ground. The internet was supposed to have pockets, to have enchanting forests you could stumble into and dark ravines you knew better than to enter. The internet was supposed to be a place of opportunity, not just for profit but for surprise and connection and delight. Instead, like most everything American enterprise has promised held some new dream, it has turned out to be the same old thing — a dream for a few, and something much more confining for everyone else.

This doesn’t just make me want to stand up and salute — it makes me want to build a barricade (or a guillotine).

On to “Reddit Data API Update: Changes to Pushshift Access,” a Reddit thread where the volunteer mods are discussing another enshittification move: Reddit’s pre-IPO API shut-down that has broken all the mod tools that volunteers use to shovel out Reddit’s Augean Stables, getting rid of spam and catfishing and fraud:

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/134tjpe/reddit_data_api_update_changes_to_pushshift_access/

This isn’t just “stop talking to each other and start buying things” — this is “stop doing billions of dollars in volunteer labor keeping our users safe, and start paying us for the privilege.” Good luck with that, Reddit.

Hey! The Hollywood writers are back on strike! The Guild is a shitkicking, take-no-prisoners, radical union with massive solidarity:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/2/23707813/wga-hollywood-writers-strike-2023-streaming-ai-wages-contract

It’s what let them trounce the talent agencies — hyper-concentrated to just four companies, two owned by private equity ghouls — over a 22 month strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#monopsony

The talent agencies had rigged the system so that instead of getting a 10% commission on the writers’ earnings, they were taking as much as 90% out of every dollar — and were about to make it worse, building their own studios, so they could negotiate with themselves on behalf of their clients. In the same week, 7,000 writers — even the ones who weren’t getting screwed — fired their agents, and demanded a return to the 90/10 split and a ban on agencies owning studios. The agencies say nfw. The writers stayed on the picket line.

There’s a whole chapter on this in Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin’s and my book on creative labor markets and monopoly. One of our sources was David Goodman, who led the strike:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

David hosted our LA launch, where he told us, “We thought the agencies had all the power. We learned that they only had as much power as we gave them. You can make a movie without an agent. You can’t make one without a writer.”

The new strike is about the same thing as the old strike: shifting money from labor to capital. The studios have figured out how to use streaming to avoid paying writers, using gimmicks like shorter seasons and running their own streaming services to dodge the wages the writers are owed. As the union says, the studios “created a gig economy inside a union workforce.”

I live in Burbank, where many of these studios are located. I’ll see you on the picket line.

Sticking with labor for a moment: the Biden administration is investigating the use of bossware — the spyware your boss uses to monitor your driving, keystrokes, web usage, location, hand-movements, facial expressions, even your eyeballs:

https://gizmodo.com/remote-work-surveillance-software-workers-rights-1850392911

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Request for Information solicits your experiences with bossware:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/050123_OSTP_RFI_PREPUBLISH_.pdf

They want to know:

Workers’ firsthand experiences with surveillance technologies;

Details from employers, technology developers, and vendors on how they develop, sell, and use these technologies;

Best practices for mitigating risks to workers;

Relevant data and research; and

Ideas for how the federal government should respond to any relevant risks and opportunities.

If you’re living under bossware’s yoke — say, if your boss has transformed “work from home” into “live at work,” then you know what to do: melt the switchboard!

One more labor story: a reminder that labor rights are a marathon, not a sprint. A group of Amazon drivers won a $30/hour contract through their union, the Teamsters. Even more importantly, the contract lets them refuse to work under unsafe conditions (it’s never just about money):

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/27/23667968/amazon-contractor-delivery-union-teamsters

But there’s a catch: these are Amazon drivers, but they don’t work for Amazon. They drive Amazon-branded vans, specced down to the last rivet by Amazon. They wear Amazon vests. They deliver Amazon packages. But they work for “Delivery Service Partners,” a kind of pyramid scheme created by Amazon that tricks workers into thinking that paying Amazon for the privilege of working for a trillion-dollar company makes them “entrepreneurs.”

Instead, they’re “chickenized reverse centaurs.” “Chickenized” because — like poultry farmers — they are totally controlled by a monopoly buyer that dictates every part of their business to them, dribbling out just enough money to roll over their loans and go deeper into debt. “reverse-centaurs,” because they’re the inverse of the AI theorists’ idea of a “centaur,” that is, a computer-assisted human. Instead, they are human-assisted computers, with their every last move scripted to the finest degree by bossware that they have to pay for:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

Amazon now has the luxury of terminating its contract with the union’s employer — the cutout that allows Amazon to maintain the worker misclassification pretext that these drivers in Amazon vans wearing Amazon uniforms delivering Amazon packages don’t work for Amazon.

Amazon hates unions in ways that are hard for everyday people to grasp. One of the organizers of the union drive has been illegally terminated in retaliation for his labor activism:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/amazon-delivery-owner-says-he-was-punished-for-supporting-union

This fuckery doesn’t mean that union organizing is dead. As Jane McAlevy writes in “A Collective Bargain,” her superb memoir of her union-organizing career, unions started winning the class war when labor organizing was illegal, fighting in the teeth of a rigged legal system. We won then, we’ll win again:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-collective-bargain-a48925f944fe

Seeing defeat (seemingly) snatched from the jaws of victory is a major bummer, but a better world is possible. It’s not even complicated — it’s just hard. If you are in precarious housing, or homeless, or if you experience the moral injury of living in a city where your neighbors lack the foundational human right to a home, it’s easy to feel despondent.

But solving homelessness isn’t complicated, it’s just hard. In Finland, they solved homelessness through the simple expedient of giving everyone a home. This didn’t just address the problem of not having a home — it also made incredible progress on the comorbidities of homelessness, like mental health problems and addiction. Turns out, getting sober or getting treatment is a lot easier when you’re not freezing to death on a sidewalk. Whoathunk?

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-finland-solved-homelessness

There are many ways to improve our cities. You can (and should) fight for better local government, but there’s always the tantalizing option of taking matters into your own hands. That’s what the Crosswalk Vigilantes do. They research the intersections where cars are killing their neighbors, then they put on hi-viz vests, set out traffic-cones, and install crosswalks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x33yLuJ5slI

If you’re wondering how the forces of bossware, homelessness, and other enshittifying factors came to rule, it’s actually pretty straightforward. 40 years ago, we installed a software patch called neoliberalism (in some regions, this patch was had localized names like Thatcherism or Reaganomics).

40 years later, the patch is an unequivocal failure and now it’s our job to roll it back, despite all the broken dependencies this will trigger. Most of us can see this is true, but not The Economist, which Brad DeLong calls “Neoliberalism’s Final Stronghold” in his Project Syndicate article:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economist-writers-last-true-believers-in-neoliberalism-by-j-bradford-delong-2023-04

De Long’s catalog of the recent bizarre, delusional work in The Economist embodies Upton Sinclair’s maxim, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Every Naomi Kritzer story is a fucking delight and “Better Living Through Algorithms,” just published in Clarkesworld, is no exception:

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/

Few writers are better at inhabiting the uncomfortable space between recognizing the delights of the internet without flinching away from its horrors. This one is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

If you’re just discovering Kritzer, check out “So Much Cooking,” an eerily prophetic 2015 story in the form of a series of perky cooking-blog posts amidst a global pandemic. It got a much-deserved second life during lockdown’s peak sourdough moment:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/17/pack-of-knaves/#so-much-cooking

And then try her at book length! “Catfishing on Catnet” is Kritzer’s book-length adaptation of her Hugo-winning short story “Cat Pictures Please.” It’s an AI caper about cat memes, community, and the anti-enshittification underground:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/19/naomi-kritzers-catfishing-on-the-catnet-an-ai-caper-about-the-true-nature-of-online-friendship/

Speaking of science fiction: I’ve got a new novel out. Red Team Blues is an anti-finance finance thriller, a heist book about cryptocurrency and forensic accounting with a 67-year-old hero, Marty Hench:

http://redteamblues.com/

The book came out last week and I am still in the nailbiting interregnum where its fate is unknowable — will it be another bestseller, or fizzle? Thankfully, the reviews have been stunning. Mitch Wagner calls it “the most exciting technothriller about a 67-year-old accountant you’ll read this year”:

https://mitchw.blog/2023/04/25/warning-cory-doctorows.html

Mitch ruminates some on the distinctive way I’m handling Hench’s aging process in this book and its two (at least sequels). Reading other peoples’ insights into one’s own work is a wild experience. I mean, it’s nice when a reader notices something you worked hard to put in there, and frustrating when a reader imagines something that definitely isn’t there.

But the best thing is when a reader notices something that you didn’t consciously put in there, but which is undeniably there, and also very cool. In his Locus review, Paul DiFilippo homes in on the way that Marty Hench is totally reliant on his friends and comrades to get out of hot water:

https://locusmag.com/2023/04/paul-di-filippo-reviews-red-team-blues-by-cory-doctorow/

 Marty is besieged and almost helpless without the aid of friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. He is no go-it-alone superman, but rather an individual tied into a network of humanity, relying on the goodness and altruism of his fellows for survival.

This is so right. Marty is no great man of history — he is part of a polity, a collective of people from all walks of life who try hard to help each other. Call it solidaritypunk. Also, Paul opens his review with “I can’t possibly say enough good things about Cory Doctorow’s new novel.” I mean, who can complain about that?

I was also very gratified by Henry Farrell’s Crookedtimber review, which says some very nice things about the way I work in technical detail, and suggests that this technique is one that all kinds of technical experts, policy wonks and scientists could learn from:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/04/27/red-team-blues-and-the-as-you-know-bob-problem/

Which makes Matt Green’s review, where the eminent cryptographer digs into the cryptographic technical details of the book, especially delicious. Green is a brilliant scientist and science communicator, and he says I get it right, and do it well:

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/04/24/book-review-red-team-blues/

One of the first reviews to hit the web came from Matt Haughey, AKA “Metafilter Matt,” who called it “a ‘ripped from the headlines’ romp”:

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2023/04/25/red-team-blues-is-a-fun-ripped-from-the-headlines-romp/

Matt’s fellow PDXer and olde timey blogger, Andy Baio, called it “a wild ride”:

https://waxy.org/2023/04/cory-doctorows-red-team-blues-is-out-now/

Andy is my host at tonight’s book signing in PDX, at the Powell’s in Cedar Hills:

https://www.powells.com/book/red-team-blues-martin-hench-1-9781250865847?partnerid=33241

As I type these words, I am sitting in a window-seat on Alaska Air, en route to Portland for that event. I am wearing slip-off shoes, a jacket with pockets of sufficient volume to store my watch, wallet and belt, and socks that I don’t mind exposing to a dirty airport floor. As I shuffled through the TSA checkpoint an hour ago, I found myself looking on the beleaguered “officers” who were patting people down with pity and even a little sympathy.

The TSA is an abomination. A boondoggle that doesn’t make aviation safer, lights billions on fire in lost productivity, wages and capital equipment. Its legion of underpaid, miserable workers invade the privacy and even sexually assault millions of Americans every day, and have been at it for decades without any sign of stopping or even slowing down.

The agency is now 20 years old, and it just keeps getting worse, finding new ways to make America hate it. Reading “The Humiliating History of the TSA,” Darryl Campbell’s giant reckoning in The Verge was a wild ride, and a reminder that while most of us only interact with the TSA’s awful, inexcusable policies a couple times a year, TSA workers live with it every day:

https://www.theverge.com/c/23311333/tsa-history-airport-security-theater-homeland

Before I close, please let us have a moment to acknowledge the passing of Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian music legend, who has just died at 84. He will be missed:

https://www.joeydevilla.com/2023/05/01/r-i-p-gordon-lightfoot/

All right, it’s time to hit publish on this linkdump, but before I go, a couple of absolutely lovely little webtoys and grace-notes for you to take away:

Womprat (the font you’re looking for) is the world’s greatest Star Wars font collection:

http://womprat.xyz/

And finally, Tumblr, now owned by WordPress parent company Automattic, is striving mightily to reverse decades of enshittification from Yahoo and Verizon. They’re leaving very heavily into listening to their users, paving the desire-paths and putting the community ahead of any other priority.

One place where that is paying unexpected dividends is their deeply weird little merch store, where you can buy up to 24 blue checkmarks to appear on your posts (they sell in pairs at $8). Even better: they’re now selling a 3D printed, light-up, Tumblr-themed Dumpster-Fire:

https://shop.tumblr.com/product/tumblr-dumpster-fire-3d-print/

The dumpster-fire was hoisted from a community member, who made their own, sent it to management, and struck a bargain to sell them through the store. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make sarsaparilla when life gives you SARS.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Mountain View, Berkeley, Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A page of comic book 'small ads.']

[ronearoundblindly]

Ro's Bi-Weekly Edit

February 12th - February 25th, 2023

In case you missed it, here are the fics and ficlets posted within the last two weeks!

Below the cut are links and snippets of 6 parts from 4 series:

Gifts Given, a mini-tale from The Root of All Ransom Ransom Drysdale x rich!Reader, enemies-to-lovers

“I was gonna see you off,” you huff, grabbing his elbow gently. He leans to kiss your cheek, a smooth way to cover up his whisper of, “second only to getting me off, but—“ he pulls the card out of your reach “—this is important, too.” “Seriously, Ransom, I can just cancel it under the room.” He tosses his card dramatically over the desk, making the poor hostess scramble to retrieve it. “Oops. I guess they already have my card on file, so unless you want to waste my money, sweetheart…”

The Things We Do For Love, a mini-tale for Fools Rush In Steve Rogers x wife!Reader (Sketch & Keeps)

“Yeah, yeah, Keeps. Less talking, more washing.” He turns on the water. He imagines you can’t even feel the temperature through the layer. “Don’t be an ass.” He grimaces at the color thinning on its journey down the drain. “Don’t smell like one and we’ll talk.” Your husband points to the back of the shower for you to drop your now malleable clothes and shoves the bar soap in your hands. For good measure, he drizzles liquid body wash down your back. He waits for most of the ick to rinse from your hair and face before helping scrub shampoo through. It’s…unclear if the smell is lingering on the clothes and tile only or if you still stink. “Uh god,” he coughs out, “should I get the vinegar? Would that do it?”

Alone Together, a Bedrock and Blueprints tale Ari Levinson x best friend!Reader

Your hazy gaze rakes up a very tall man in dark jeans and a dress shirt—well, as dressy of a shirt as Ari Levinson owns. “Hey,” he mutters with a smile. The tension in your chest boils over, face cracking into an ugly sob because he’s here. The perpetual anti-Valentine hauled ass across town for you…and you’ve had no food with alcohol. “Okay, alright,” Ari hushes, kneeling down so you can bury your face in his (thankfully dark) shirt. The hug masks that you are not happy from other patrons, and his position seems to give a few onlookers the wrong idea. A few people start clapping. Others join in and start ‘aww’ing you. They think Ari’s just proposed to you, and he stiffens in your arms. “For the record, this is why I don’t do this shit,” he says in your ear, making to pull away until you grip tighter. “Just one more second,” you blubber. You’re not quite ready to be seen, and there are still people watching. He rubs your back for as long as it takes.

The Root of All Ransom, Part Five, Rated Mature Ransom Drysdale x rich!Reader, enemies to lovers

“Oh, hello, dear,” Linda chirps to you, watching Ransom sit on your other side, “don’t you look lovely.” His mother twitches her fingers like she needs a cigarette, faking an adjustment of her thick spectacles to hide the tremor, and the whole night is already worth skipping hanky panky before arrival. You do look lovely. It makes him look good. He’s winning. He needs a victory drink. When food is set down in front of you all by a catering staff, you immediately offer appreciation, and Ran parrots the ‘thank you.’ He doesn’t think much of it. He just takes your cue. Ransom has always known how to be decent; he chooses not to be out of spite…except near you. He likes looking good around you. It makes him feel like he could be good. Meg, subtle as ever, word vomits “holy shit” in response to Hugh Ransom Drysdale thanking the fucking help. When Ran catches her eye, Meg raises her brows and snaps her wrist like she’s cracking a whip. He scowls back, but his cousin is too far across the table to curse without upsetting you, so he just mouths ‘get fucked’ at her.

Judgment, from Book II of The Stark Legacy Tony Stark's daughter, coming of age epic

Sam needed to take real notes on the developing side effects of her dermal Extremis injection. She needed a secure and sterile space to take samples. Shuri was a legend in Sam’s studies; Wakandan telecommunications, armor, medical care, and weaponry had no competition the world over. She was excited to work with the Princess.   The welcome party was mercifully small, but still included several of the most important people in the country. King T’Challa himself stood poised to greet his old friend, and Princess Shuri giggled beside her brother, talking excitedly to someone on her Kimoyo beads until seeing Bucky emerge from the quinjet. “Captain Barnes,” Shuri exclaimed, “you’ve brought me gifts!” Bucky handed her the crate Banner had given him in New York. “And Miss…” but the princess never finished her thought. The handful of Wakandans all stared at Sam, still wearing a hat and casual clothing. The warrior Okoye leaned over to the king, whispering, “is it a girl?”

Seventeen, from Book II of The Stark Legacy Tony Stark's daughter, coming of age epic

“Hey, Ineffective Metal Man,” Rocket said, shaking a bottle of booze across the table, “calm down or I won’t pour you one.” “Iron…never mind. Not today.” Tony rested his head in his hand, looking out yet another small port window. Rocket sat confused. Stark had never refused to drink with him. “Why? What’s today?” “Actually, it’s my daughter’s birthday.” “Oh my god, you spawned?” Rocket blurted. His eyes shifted between the dirty looks of the others. “I mean, good for you.” “She is left on your world defenseless? That is terrible,” Drax added. “You’re probably gonna need to get her an expensive gift. Chicks like that,” Quill chimed. “What do you normally do for her birthday?” Gamora spoke to Tony directly for the first time. “A card,” Tony said, unable to turn back around, waving a hand around in apology. “Yes, one card representing someone of her choice for you to kill, an excellent gift,” Drax agreed.

[Light Masterlist; Main Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

I was think about those titles, the only one thats really popping into my head is Melli and Adaman. Also while I dont think EITHER clan would disrespect titles of the nobles, I do think they would throw hands at the galaxy team if they dont ise them. Kamado REALLY strikes me as someone who wouldn't acknowledge the Nobles by their titles, which would definitely be a point of contention

siiiiigh okay listen. LISTEN. this might be spoilers or i might cut this scene entirely and it might be irrelevant but listen. because like i said im obsessed with this lil bit of characterization generally. so im just going to. natter on for a minute.

this is also one of those things that i WISH i had been more attentive to in the beginning of oop, because there are some early points where it doesn't really hold together, but whatever i'm not making early chapter edits now if i start i'll never stop. juuust listen

but the symbology of a title is formality, right. tacking on a "warden" or "lord" or even just a "miss" onto the front of anyone's names communicates, simultaneously, respect and distance. and those are the two key things to me! someone who says, fx, "captain cyllene" instead of just "cyllene" or even "sinensis" is communicating that they respect her position and responsibilities—but, simultaneously, it may also imply that they maybe don't know her very well, and/or their relationship is strictly professional. or that this is a formal conversation and being casual is inappropriate at the moment. (this generally applies most at the start of a conversation—the more times you're saying someone's name in a row, the more acceptable it becomes to drop the title regardless of context i think.)

so anyway part 1 of this particular argument, the background, is that adaman almost NEVER bothers with the titles of the diamond clan wardens. especially not mai and melli, who he's so close to that he just drops it constantly. this is part of the thing where adaman's also not big on formality in general, and irida very much holds that against him. it annoys the shit out of her. so he tries to be a little more observant when he's in the presence of the pearl clan but he's still. not. very good at it. like a lot of things between them this is sort of a micro-scale of a broader argument and it's also very performative a lot of the time. like, a lot of drama between the clans has a lot less meat on it than any of them would like to admit, and this is no different.

...especially bc in this case irida's kind of a hypocrite because she doesn't always observe the titles of her wardens, either. actually there's one person in particular that she's repeatedly dropped the title of a few times and that's ingo.

and she slips up with that again, while she's walking with adaman, and he immediately jumps on it. like. at least i'm doing it because i'm close with my wardens. kind of presumptive for you to talk about him like you're friends, isn't it? and irida immediately starts spitting venom right back at him, because these two fight like it's a habit. aaand like, again, a lot of arguments they have, it's a tiny detail that's really just the vector for a much bigger conversation - in this case, irida's decision wrt ingo.

i could quite literally go on about this for so many characters like you mentioned melli and kamado and those are ALSO two who are HUGE on the formality-respect-distance sliders but i am going to stop before this gets too horribly long and also i go off on things that are completely unaddressed/vaguely inconsistent with the mainfic itself hgsksjhkjh.

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 8- Part 5

Well, I don’t want to go too far east yet, so let’s go up north- at least this way, we’ll probably reach a dead end due to that chasm, so we can say we’ve crossed this street off our list of new places to explore.

Oop, okay, here’s a new Trainer-

Yet again, Xera is just walking there, she is just standing there-

Togedemaru, huh? Alright, let’s send in Prong with the Mud-Slap!

The Togedemaru is using Rollout, but luckily it isn’t very damaging with the first hit.

Mud-Slap’s Accuracy drop should stop the Rollout from doing too much more- after all, Rollout by itself becomes less and less accurate the longer it goes on, so an Accuracy drop should heighten the odds of it missing!

Or…not. Okay, well, another Mud-Slap should remedy that-

IT’S STILL HAPPENING, THEY’RE STILL BEING LEFT WITH MINISCULE RED HEALTH-

Also, I had to use a Potion to get Prong’s health back up because Rollout is still hitting?? Somehow?? Whatever, just finish it with Bug Bite-

That Togedemaru managed to hit get a Rollout streak at, like, four times at the max before it finally missed- even at -2 Accuracy! If I tried to pull that off, my Pokémon wouldn’t be able to get above, like a streak of two, I guarantee it!

I thought the place went out of business because of earthquakes wrecking the ward? Eh, maybe it was just an additional set of circumstances.

Ah, there’s the Day Care- probably not gonna use it, but good to know where it is. But even more importantly…the Pokémon Center!! Let’s head in and heal and see what NPCs are inside!

Oh- wow, there are a LOT of people here, whoa.

Oh- that’s, uh…rough, lady. (The boyfriend’s totally dead, isn’t he?)

Again, probably not a natural occurrence, not at all! Probably a result of that “machine” the drunk guy talked about- whatever that is and whatever it did…

Sure, grandpa, I think Nurse Joy should get you back into bed now-

Okay like on one hand, I do feel like the plants would be removed if people had, like, Fire-types or stuff to cut down trees, but on the other hand…DID YOU NOT SEE THE GIANT CHASM RIGHT OUTSIDE??

Aw no, that’s terrible, lady! (The son’s totally dead, isn’t he?)

(Future edit: Actually, now that I think about it…didn’t we see the one kid just kinda by himself when we first came into Obsidia Ward? The one who was like “I’m scared”? Was that- was that him? Was that this lady’s missing son??)

Okay, seriously, I get that there isn’t much anyone can do about the buildings and streets being torn apart, but like- does no one around here have any Fire-types?? Where’s the Fire-type Gym Leader, call them in and maybe have them take out a few of the trees and vines! 

(That won’t have any unintended consequences, surely- what’s a forest fire?)

Previous

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[riftwalker-limbro]

You say warframes being dead is not necessarily correct, and that is an interesting semantic can of worms i do Not have the energy for rn, but also

Vince did die

Like, that was very much a thing he did

Verica and the rest you can say maybe aren't Dead dead but Vince literally got resurrected. He didn't cheat death but Kelth cheated it for him. Might as well get a new birthday while he's at it

(Also sorry if you already touched on this before and i Don't Remember but how does Verica feel about the fact that her man got exploded?)

HEE HEE OH GOOD POINT GREAT POINT YES

edit: oops this became an Essay.

i compare becoming a warframe to dying because in a way it is an immense transition, only instead of getting to any kind of afterlife you're now functionally almost immortal and also almost entirely different from how you were before. what you are now is influenced to an incredible degree by how you were before. you can never go back.

he absolutely was blasted apart. to smithereens. refactored into gorey confetti. how he even managed to survive that with his personality mostly intact is part of the "functionally almost immortal" bit above - if, in a human, you manage to fuck up the brain area, it's done, it's over. there are several additional such crucial areas. a warframe? built to survive long enough to inflict permanent damage, and preferably longer. warframe's vital memories and functions are stored on a much more distributed scale, experience locked in all tissues from their pinky fingers to their heels, functions mashed together into a soup of war-ready monster meat, very difficult to kill completely, irreversibly. when vince made his fatal rift jump, he tore himself apart - but thanks to this built-in redundancy of function, of memory, kelth and ordis and sufford were able to find enough pieces for the helminth to combine into a functional warframe again. he can never be the exact same as he was before - some small parts will always be missing, lost forever. what is left, however, will be the most him he'll ever be again.

I imagine that whatever a person considered important in life - say, the memory of proposing to a loved one - will have been backed up in enough places in the memory-tissue of a warframe so as to almost never be completely lost, in events such as what vince had happen to him. but some little things - the exact sound of a laugh, the specific curl of a smile, the faces of students he was particularly proud of - might not have been so lucky.

verica does not at first know about the confetti event. as far as she knows, she just went to sleep one day, and the next, she woke up in the chair of a mushy helminth-infested room, and an unfamiliar-yet-familiar warframe was standing by her side, non-existent expression unreadable but anxiety clear in every line of his body. and since all relevant memories lost were from the before-times, she doesn't initially notice that he doesn't know how she takes her tea anymore, because she doesn't take tea at all anymore. he tells her, eventually, because he's tearing himself apart about it - only on the inside, this time. he hates that he can't remember certain things, and he doesn't dare to ask her to tell him again, because he's afraid it'll hurt her to remember when she was human. but they eventually settle into a routine of sometimes just- sitting together, reminiscing. it's as much a way of dealing with having a past you didn't want to say goodbye to but now can never face again, and a way of reassuring each other that they're still them, allowing the other to know you exactly, not caring about the parts you've lost along the way to find each other again, because the important part is that you're both still there, still have each other. they're two of very few relics left over from that time, that place, and it's up to them to keep it alive.

verica treats the confetti event as an inevitability - because she's seen a few out-of-control warframes get airlocked, failed test subjects, neglected experiments - she knows the madness of not being properly guided to consciousness, awareness. sure, you can swallow a helminth sample and technically be changed into what constitutes a warframe, but that doesn't mean your transformation was entirely correct, that you came out entirely alright. you need a little conscious-minded work here and there, which the helminth in Kelth's ship is able to do - vince, as he gets hoovered up and collected, is very much raw material, still. vince, as he gets rebuilt, is much closer to how he used to be than right after he ate the sample. still not the same, though, which is why he ditches his old name and takes up a new one, with the meanings i've gone into before.

that doesn't mean she liked that it happened, though, and she carefully asks him about what exactly went wrong, and she tries to help prevent anything like it from ever happening again, and to not put him in situations like that again. he was never meant to experience any of that in the first place. she may have followed him into hell, half by accident - but he never made that choice in the first place.

[cheoliehansoliereblogs]

🧸this is a review for @k-fic-collection 🧸

Consider this my live reaction while reading the fic

First of all, before we even get into this, can I just say I love a good college A. Something about the vibes are just immaculate

“See, I only know that one slimy creature with the ring. What was he always saying…” The man snapped his fingers, a lightbulb switching in his otherwise empty brain. “Ah, yes!” He then completely distorted his voice, rasping, “My presh-shious!” - the way Vernon would drop kick me because that’s also the only line I know from that movie

Vernon could not help his smile dropping. I don’t get paid enough for this. - how I feel working my on campus job and the students email me over things that are clearly explained

but someone this aesthetically pleasing did not come to stores like his - I’ve never heard someone be referred to as aesthetically pleasing, but if someone said that to me, I would be honored

“I don’t know if you’d have the Disney Princess box set? You know, the complete edition?” - this is something I would do for sure. Either Disney Princess or classic Barbie movies

Perhaps you were braindead? - ouch

who was watching Disney movies at that age? - Disney movies are a classic to be enjoyed at any age, Chwe Hansol!

He had, in his own words, called you a hag. - I will throw hands, istg

“My god, you’re a filmbro!” - the accusation serves him right for judging reader for wanting a Disney Princess box set

Of course the pretty, borderline-mean, borderline-terrible-taste-in-movies girl was taken - all these insults, yet he still wants her. What does that say about him?

“How can I help you, Miss Disney-Hag?” - I will literally fight this man, even if I’m over a head shorter than him. I will come for his ankles 

Packaged in pink casing, Sofia’s most treasured piece sat, almost with its head held high as the other movies orbited around its pull. - I cannot believe this man is stealing his little sister’s most prized possession rn for a girl he barely knows

Kim Mingyu. Fuckass Kim Mingyu. Film major—just like him. One of the most popular boys in the year—very unlike him. All the teachers love his essays, all the girls love his freakishly-perfect six-pack, which Vernon is extremely irritated (and devastatingly intimidated) by. - not at mingyu being the literal worst for being too perfect (I get it)

“You’ve never had a hot girl this close to you.” - oh to have this confidence

“All part of my master plan.”- idk what evil plan is being concocted rn, but I’m so here for it

You could only shake your head, trying to contain your laugh. “Careful, or I just might bother you after the plan.” - oop-

MINGYU IS A FUCKING IDIOT…CINEMATICALLY ILLITERATE…BORDERLINE MISOGYNIST… - girl, let’s take a few deep breaths

“Didn’t you say she was really stupid, Gyu?” - kim mingyu i hate you with a burning passion wtf (not irl baby, i know you would never)

“_____ may have been hot, but she was one stupid bitch. Thank god I got rid of her.” - the way my jaw dropped, wtf!!!!!!!

vernon: u dont have to wait till next week / vernon: ill help u with the plan - YESSSSSSSSSS

VERNON WAS WONDERING WHETHER HE STILL HAD TIME TO KILL HIMSELF. - me during finals week

“Get in loser, we’re going trespassing.” - an icon, truly

“I don’t take opinions from men who can’t drive.” - once again, an icon

Sure, he could not drive, but was it not just three pedals, a wheel and a dream? - this is how I think about driving as someone who doesn’t have a license

For a moment (and he did not know whether he was going to regret making this assertion), he did not care for Christopher Nolan’s disrespect, after seeing your reaction. - the filmbro has a heart!! He’s changing like the grinch with christmas

What Vernon wanted to tell you was no, no, no, because another second with you would end with all the blood in his system rushing to his head, and other places. Damn everything and everyone, he would want to see you again—no. No. He wouldn’t. He would not. - i love how nervous he is in this. I feel like the members are usually written to be super suave and cool, but seeing him written like a normal guy who’s just goofy and a little bit of a loser is refreshing and kinda nice

Only when, fifteen minutes in, Atlantis is finally introduced that something clicked in his brain. Mingyu tilted his head, thinking out loud. “What the fuck…?” - how can one be so dense??????

The worst arrived in all his golden-skinned, empty-headed glory. Holding one of his DVDs, Kim Mingyu stood at the doorway, his eyes widening with every second they beheld the intruder, one leg out of the house, the other a moment away from heaving him up. - omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg the p a n i c

And then you were both laughing, giggling beyond control at the narrow escape, and the near crash against some tree. Vernon knew how stupid this whole situation was, but strangely, he did not seem to care—not when you did not see it like that. A very odd prospect. - this scene is so cute 

“So…Tangled is the only one you haven’t watched, huh.” - so disappointed he hasn’t seen one of the best Disney movies to exist. If he doesn’t like it, i’m throwing hands

You, on the other hand, were a problem. He could not let you down—not anymore. Not after today.  - 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“Now why are we already getting context of some random witch’s actions? Less telling, more showing, man!” Vernon kept his arms crossed, shaking his head at the TV. “Oh, great, poor little king and queen in their big ass castle!” - can he shut up??????

Blinking back repeatedly, he could not even shrug it off, stunned once again by how you were casually able to touch him and not feel anything—while his entire system shuts down like a lagging desktop when it tries to run the Sims. - that’s actually so cute

The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, let me just change my name to Bartholomew Whiteman real quick.” - that’s actually crazy

Because the music that surrounded the two crept into his ears, playing the strings of his senses; because the lights were off save for the TV, shining its dimmed lighting upon your face, making you glow with the dark purples, blues, golds of the Tangled scenery. He lost all interest in everything because you were looking something out of a daydream, watching the events of the movie as if they were scenes of salvation. The two of you were definitely not on any kind of boat, merely sitting on bean bags. Despite all of that, he began to float—swaying from where he sat, as if he was truly settled on water. - if someone ever described me like that i would burst into tears

“If I am to be your exception, _____, then I suppose you can be mine.” - screaming, crying, throwing up

 “I think I could have fun with you anywhere…in secret or for anyone to see.” - asjdkdjsgdklsghi

Whatever happens, Vernon would not be having sex with you if Shrek was playing in the background. - the way i was not expecting it to be shrek omg

VERNON LOST HIS VIRGINITY WITH SHREK PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND. - NO FUCKING WAY

You did not stop teasing him, and he did not stop shutting you up by kissing you senseless. - oh

When the two of you were not terrorising Mingyu’s livelihood - that would be so fun tbh

The beginnings of his shit-eating attitude did not develop, since your smack on his arm completely snuffed it out. “Ow, damn!” - serves him right

but decided that it was important to accompany Vernon to the seemingly bigger release - this is love, sacrifices

What you received instead was a boy engulfed in all the pinks of the colour wheel. - vernon the barbie fanatic i’m so here for it

And as the two of you entered the theatre, hand-in-hand, the boy learned that perhaps he, too, would have gone anywhere with you. - omg that was so cuteeeeee

I just wanna say that I loved the Tangled scene so much. Like that part was so well written and it made me so happy and it made me feel so warm and bubbly inside like words cannot describe how perfect that scene was. This fic was amazing and I loved it so much, definitely one of my favorite Vernon fics.

𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐨-𝐳𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝

❝Who knew all it takes is a hot girl with top-tier taste for a man to admit he's wrong?❞

𝒈 𝒆 𝒏 𝒓 𝒆 : fluff, comedy, suggestive, college! au

𝒘 𝒐 𝒓 𝒅 𝒄 𝒐 𝒖 𝒏 𝒕 : 21.7k words

𝒔 𝒖 𝒎 𝒎 𝒂 𝒓 𝒚 : self-proclaimed movie mastermind chwe vernon minds his business—whether that be avoiding the popular, problematic kids in his college to reducing customer interest in his parents' film store. his plan of isolation, however, is completely destroyed when you, a seemingly insane disney fan, slam his perfect movie taste and ask for his help to take down an evil ex.

𝒄 𝒐 𝒏 𝒕 𝒆 𝒏 𝒕 : loosely inspired by watching the detectives, film major! vernon who owns an outdated film store, fem! reader is the baddest (but also the craziest) bitch in this fic, vernon is a loser, film major! mingyu who will be violated many times in this fic sorry king, mentions of many filmbro films which will also be violated, self-indulgent mentions of some of my favourite films, a few super dark jokes nothing serious though, kissing, mentions of sex and the act of cumming (all joking wise) but no actual sex because im fearing god today (super suggestive at best), barbenheimer reference <3

𝒕 𝒂 𝒈 𝒍 𝒊 𝒔 𝒕 : @hyuckworld @junyangis @hiraethmae @lllucere @intoanothermind @kokoiinuts @shnnzsworld @lilifiedeans @talkyoongitome @vanishingboots @cookiearmy @person1fys

𝒂 𝒖 𝒕 𝒉 𝒐 𝒓 ' 𝒔 𝒏 𝒐 𝒕 𝒆 : she is finally here !! so so sorry for taking so long </3 i never thought it would be finished atp but thank you addy and alice for pushing me to complete this lil fic !! addy ur film major info birthed the filmbro slander, and alice...no smut LMAO LOSER anyway do enjoy homies <33

𝒑 𝒍 𝒂 𝒚 𝒍 𝒊 𝒔 𝒕 : if you're too shy (then let me know) by the 1975 || q&a by seventeen || wonderful women by the smiths || confidence by ocean alley || talk talk by charli xcx || oh my! by seventeen

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“NO, THE HOBBIT IS SET BEFORE THE LORD OF THE RINGS.”

This particular customer, however, refused to grasp the concept. “But the Hobbit was released after,” he repeated, as if he had not heard twenty minutes ago, when he first entered the store. “Wouldn’t it make sense to watch the more recent movies?”

Vernon clamped his lips together, stopping himself from saying something that would lose him a potential buyer. Well, not that it would matter much, considering the man before him could not comprehend what a prequel was, but still—he had to make this idiot understand.

“I understand that, sir, but the Hobbit is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings.” Holding onto the DVD set, he pointed to the grand picture of the movie’s protagonist. “It’s based on Bilbo Baggins’ adventures.”

“But was that not the little fellow from the Rings?”

“No, sir, that was Frodo. Bilbo is Frodo’s uncle.” The boy then clarified, tone heightening, “You know, where he reclaims his home from Smaug?”

“Smog?” The customer parroted incorrectly, scratching his hair as if the action would jog his memory. “Now why does this hobbit’s home have health violations?”

The twist of his lips was inevitable. “Smaug,” he corrected. “The dragon…the villain…the whole reason the movie was created?”

“See, I only know that one slimy creature with the ring. What was he always saying…” The man snapped his fingers, a lightbulb switching in his otherwise empty brain. “Ah, yes!” He then completely distorted his voice, rasping, “My presh-shious!”

For a split second, Vernon was a little gob-smacked at the impression. Then, he remembered he needed sales, and made sure to laugh as if that customer was the funniest man that ever stepped foot in the store. 

This particular joker, who was clearly not understanding Vernon’s analogies, instead asked, “Well, which one do you recommend?”

Ah, the fated question. 

Besides from the Lord of the Rings collection, he had been asked this very question a few too many times, when customers would browse the films on offer and ask for his opinion. Not that he considered himself an all-knowing master of movies—

He smiled. Now that was something he could chuckle about.

“Well, sir, the Lord of the Rings is a timeless classic. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a well-written, well-produced fantasy.”

The man twisted his lips. “But I don’t really like fantasy, though.” 

Vernon could not help his smile dropping. I don’t get paid enough for this.

With as much strength he could muster, he persuaded the idiot to get a rom-com instead, and ushered him out. 

He sighed, going back to the desk. The store was never busy—unsurprising, since nobody buys DVDs anymore—but that was how he liked it. The less customers that bothered him, the better. He did not want to be that type of guy, but he would rather have his own company than those who thought that the Marvel movies were God’s gift to man. (The Spiderman movies, however, he had to leave out of his apparently controversial statement).

Vernon was about to close the shop out of pure boredom when someone stepped in. 

His eyes darted to the newcomer. 

They stayed as he beheld you.

Perhaps this was a gross generalisation, but he did not expect someone so cute walking in a store this run-down. Maybe you had mistaken it for a vintage shop, planning to rob the CDs, or thought there might be decades old clothing in here. He was certain you had walked in by mistake, but then you began to browse the movie sections.

His first thought was that you seemed to have excellent taste. 

You slowed your steps in the classics section, eyes roaming at the Fan Favourites shelf which was simply movies Vernon had seen this week. Still, they were amazing fucking movies, hence their place on the shelf, now being admired by the likes of you. He wondered what you thought of the one DVD you picked up, assessing the blurb at the back. Roman Holiday. The boy could have smiled—you truly had a knack for picking out special films. 

Your fingers lingered on the movies for only a couple of minutes before you saw the desk—first the counter, and then the person behind it. 

The fact that your first instinct was to smile at the boy behind the counter had a profound effect on him.

Now, he did not want to sound pathetic; he did not know you, had never seen you before, but someone this aesthetically pleasing did not come to stores like his. Someone who picks up Roman fucking Holiday and be this cute did not acknowledge boys like him.

But Vernon Chwe will be cool about it. He will not look like a loser in front of you.

He pretended to look over some DVDs on the counter desk as you approached him. “Hey, there,” you greeted, and only then he allowed himself to look up, glancing you over. Already you had propped your arms on the top, eyes darting around the store as if finding something which deserved your attention. “I wanted to ask about a specific film. Well, films.” 

Films? Vernon really thought all the intelligent minds had rotted in this lifetime, but clearly you were an exception. “Of course,” he said, setting the movie on the side. “What genres are you interested in?” he ticked his head towards the Fan Favourites. “You were looking in the right place, to be fair.”

“Hmm?” you only spared that shelf a momentary—dismissive—glance. “Oh, sorry! I was looking for a specific box-set, but I can’t seem to find it on the shelves. I was hoping you could have it out back.”

Specific box-set? Vernon tried to contain his smile. Of course you were looking for a collection of timeless classics. “What’re you looking for?” he asked you, hoping you were going to request Hitchcock’s best. If you asked for Wong Kar-Wai’s trilogy, he might have fallen to his knees. 

You smiled at him.

Then dropped the bomb.

“I don’t know if you’d have the Disney Princess box set? You know, the complete edition?”

Vernon’s eye twitched a little. What the fuck?

Your gaze on him did not shift. “Are you okay?”

It took a moment for him to realise that you had asked him a question. “Huh? Right, sorry,” he said hurriedly, mind rushing for the many possibilities as to why you had requested a set like that. Perhaps you were braindead? No, that was too harsh. But then, who was watching Disney movies at that age?

Then an idea came into his head, and it made him feel much better. 

“So sorry about that,” he reiterated, scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway…Disney Princess set, huh?” He sighed out a laugh. “A sweet treat for your younger siblings, then.”

“Younger siblings?” A swift shake of your head, still smiling. “Haven’t got any of those.” 

The twitching was back. “...anyone under the age of 12 you know?”

“Now you’re making me sound like a freak,” you mused, locking your hands together. “Is it that shocking that I’m getting the set for myself?”

Vernon’s any attempt to diffuse the conversation died the moment you said those words.

Disney. Princess. Movies. The box-set you wanted was a Disney. Fucking. Princess box-set. 

At this rate, his eye-twitching was very much visible to you. “Don’t tell me no one’s ever bought a Disney movie from you,” you said, surprised by his change of attitude.

“Well,” he jeered, “I usually have first-time parents with their toddler kids asking me about sets like that.” 

You then titled your head back a little, taken aback with the comment. “Are you saying I’m too old to watch Disney movies?”

“No!” he instinctively defended himself, though he had virtually no defence to offer. He had, in his own words, called you a hag. 

This was it—he was usually stellar at keeping his opinions to himself. Now, the one time he could have kept his mouth shut, it spluttered open and not only embarrassed him, but one of the only cute potential customers. He was his own saboteur. His own destruction. 

After catching the flurry of emotions on his face, you had a realisation. 

Did his stupid comments get to you? Perhaps they would have, had you not seen his like before. Not only that, you had a sneaky feeling he himself had no clue on what category he was slotted into.

So you let the corners of your mouth curve upwards—up to the point where you were smirking, completely catching the boy off guard. 

“My god, you’re a filmbro!” 

Those emotions that you had witnessed now all conjoined into confusion. “Huh?” was his intelligent answer to the accusation. Filmbro?

And then you began to chuckle—little bursts of soft giggles, which escaped your mouth the more the revelation settled over you. “Wait, wait,” you began, “I need to ask this first!” You wiggled your finger at him. “What is your favourite film?”

Again, the fated question. This time, though, he felt as if his answer would not be the right one. Still—if there was one thing he was confident about, it was his expertise in films.

He tried, as confidently as he could, to voice out his supposed opinion. “Nolan’s Inception is one of the greatest films ever made.” 

There was one, solitary, quiet moment.

It was ruined by the subsequent laughter, courtesy of your mouth, which could not shut after his answer. You had to grip the counter, cackling at the response, and Vernon could only gawk at you, face reddening with every second spent watching you keel over. 

After what seemed like a lifetime (but was only about thirty seconds), Vernon finally cleared his throat. “Alright now, that’s enough comedy,” he muttered.

Another thirty seconds later, you finally seemed to calm down. The mischievous mirth on your face, although would have had any man swooning at your feet, seemed to irritate him all the more. “I’m sorry,” you gasped out, wiping a slight tear from your eye, “You just…you reminded me of my boyfriend.”

Of course. Vernon nearly clicked his tongue in disappointment. Of course the pretty, borderline-mean, borderline-terrible-taste-in-movies girl was taken. Fuck my life, son.

Your smile flickered—almost as if it turned cruel. “My mistake…ex-boyfriend.”

His eyebrow then raised a little. Maybe life can be unfucked; maybe the pretty, not-that-mean-as-he-thought, changeable-taste-in-movies girl was still attainable. 

Your eyes wandered once more, but this time to your hands. “I was actually going to get the Disney Princess set for him.”

The eyebrow decided to raise further up. He was dying to know why you were 1) getting your ex-boyfriend a present and 2) getting your ex-boyfriend the worst fucking present. But of course, due to the lack of balls in his pants, he did not ask you.

The crazier notion was, maybe you knew the lack of balls that should be present in his pants, because you iterated for him. “I’m surprised you’re not asking why I’m giving my ex a Disney Princess movie set, Mr. Filmbro.”

That term had him immediately frowning. “I don’t particularly care,” he lied as best as he could. He then crossed his arms. “Plus, I’m afraid the store doesn’t have the sets. I’m gonna have to order them in.”

A tilt of your head. “Are you lying?”

The cross of his arms was gone—now his hands were raised in surrender. “No, no!” At least not the set order bit…

Although it was quite clear that you did not believe him, you spared him this once. “Alright…” you receded your arms from the desk, taking a step back. Instead, you pointed at him. “But don’t think I’m gonna leave you alone on this!” 

Vernon’s insanely suave, cool, mystique response was giving you a thumb’s up. “Of course.” 

As you walked back to the entrance, hand on the door, you looked back at him. “I’ll see you soon, Mr. Filmbro.” 

The eye-twitch was about to come back. He did not bother waving as you left the shop.

VERNON COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU FOR THE SEVEN DAYS BETWEEN YOU AND TODAY. 

It was slightly embarrassing—he supposed he should have expected some extraordinary meet-cute, where someone who looked and acted like you would waltz into his dusty-ass film store and ask for possibly the worst movie collection to grace the western cinema. 

But then you called him a fucking Filmbro, and now the self-hatred might bubble to the surface of his usual calm demeanour. 

The boy scoffed as he fixed the alphabetical order of the CD covers, located in the Classics section. Filmbro…what the fuck do I look like a Filmbro for…

He firstly supposed that he should consider it a compliment—so what if he had superior knowledge of movies over the average morons that wandered into the store? He was paid minimum wage for this knowledge! Fuck, he was doing a degree within this field! (Not that he was quite sure he would end up as a blockbuster director at the fine age of 21, but the arts majors were always told to dream beyond the realistic limits.)

The more he contemplated over the vicious term, the more it began to bother him. Filmbro…Film. Bro. God, it sounded like a classist clique—a club where the members considered themselves above the laws of society, but were horrendously ridiculed by the outsiders. At the end of the day, he had always been an outsider in these clubs—he did not enjoy being the laughing stock, even if it meant being a member of an elitist group. 

Whatever. So what if you called him a Filmbro? He had only spoken to you once; the opinion of one girl—regardless of how pretty she was—was not of any relevance to him.

But then you sauntered into his store, and suddenly he forgot that he was seething over you for an entire week. 

There you were, footsteps harmonising along the bells of the entrance, and he swerved back to see you. You, in all your frill-skirted, layered-shirted, gum-chewing glory, catching his eye and bringing back the smile which you had offered him the moment you bestowed him that term of little-endearment. 

“Hello again, Mr. Filmbro.”

Don’t be a prick, don’t be a prick, don’t be a prick—

It was fine—it was okay. Vernon was a man now—no longer in his teens. He could have a normal, pleasant conversation. He was mature and able enough to interact with a girl who just happened to disagree with him on certain interests. 

He would be cordial—kind.

“How can I help you, Miss Disney-Hag?”

His skin nearly crawled. I need to kill myself immediately. 

A bit of a low blow from his nickname, but you were laughing, a silly little melody. You must have been crazy, because any other sane, rational human being would have been offended—should have been offended. Vernon fought to keep his face straight. 

“I see you’ve been thinking about me then,” you said. 

That had him looking away, walking behind the counter. “It’s not everyday I get a grown-ass woman asking me about children’s films.”

You mocked a gasp, slapping a hand over your chest. “Ouch. Do you hurt every girl that walks into your filmstore, or is this special treatment reserved for me?

Vernon focused on the cash in the register. “When another girl asks for the special edition for the Cinderella trilogy, then I’ll hurt her just the same.”

You clicked your tongue. “I should have known all men suck in their own ways.” You then approached the counter, propping your elbows atop the surface. “At least show me you’re good at your job and bring me the movie set I ordered.”

At this precise moment, all the thoughts about your stubborn addiction, playful smirk and how terrible the Little Mermaid was had completely vanished.

Shit. 

Maybe his irrational dislike ran further than he thought.

“Yeah…” but then he realised he sounded incredibly suspicious, and cleared his throat, forcing a little assurance in his usual monotone. “Yes! Yeah, of course! The movie set.” He took a step back, nodding his head ever so slowly, as if his head was not churning out a million different plans. “Give me one second…”

“Sure,” you could barely get out before Vernon whirled on his heel, bursting through the backstage door, and into the Chwe flat. 

He did not know whether this was going to work out. 

Like lightning he ascended the stairs, hands brushing against the bannister as he went past his bedroom, door slightly ajar. Not the destination he was seeking, he stopped before the neighbouring door—this one firmly closed. 

The boy made sure to knock first. No answer. Perfect. Slowly turning the knob, he opened the door, peeking around just in case there was someone in the room, and then he would have to resort to more planning. Since the coast was crystal clear, though, he put his mind at ease, only focusing on the main plan.

The room he had entered was a myriad of pop culture references and childhood memories, plastered on the butterfly-covered walls, sitting atop bedside tables or hanging off the hooks. Vernon never realised how invested his sister was with certain TV shows or films till he saw Lindsay Lohan’s mugshot plastered next to her bed. He had asked about it once, but she only waved him off. You wouldn’t understand her impact, she had said to him, and went back to shitting about him to her friends. 

Prying away from the poster, his eyes settled on what he came for, settled in the middle of the huge book shelf.

Sofia prided herself with her book and movie collection, a hereditary trait which Vernon shared: the top and bottom shelves were filled with her all-time favourites, even resorting to furthering her obsessions with the merch related to her treasured characters. He remembered laughing at her ideas until he saw a Barbie FunkoPop figure staring back at him one day. That notion was already horrendous, but the black, soulless eyes had guaranteed its spot in his sleep paralysis the next day.

Thankfully, the little horror was not on show on her bookshelf—this time, right in the middle, was the very prize that he sought. 

The Disney Princess Movie Set—Complete Edition.

Packaged in pink casing, Sofia’s most treasured piece sat, almost with its head held high as the other movies orbited around its pull. As far as Vernon remembered, it held all the Princess movies, and was worth at least 6 hours of his wages.

The boy looked around the room, as if his sister would appear any second.

Then, like a thief in the night (even though it was broad daylight, and would definitely be caught), he swiped the set off the bookshelf, and hurried out of her room.

“Sorry, Sofe,” he could only murmur under his breath as he dashed down the stairs, hoping you had not been bored by his absence, and left him with stolen goods at the scene of the crime.

He opened the door adjacent to the shop, and he almost sighed in relief when you perked up, eyes darting straight to your apparent order. When he saw your face light up like fireworks in the night sky, he titled his head back a bit, stunned by your boisterous reaction.

“You actually bought it!” you exclaimed, drumming your hands against the counter as he set the movies down. “I had a feeling you would blow me off.”

“Business is business,” Vernon said, crossing his arms, “Shit taste in movies will not stop me from making my money.”

You clicked your tongue. “Spoken like a business major.”

“Film major, thank you. I would rather kill myself than submit to the horrors of finance.”

“Don’t die on me just yet.” Bringing out your purse, you fished through its contents, first setting your card on the counter. Then, you brought out a crumpled piece of paper. “I actually have a few more films I want to ask about.”

The boy was expecting another long list of early 2000s rom-coms—perhaps an opinion for every Disney movie ever made in its existence. He swore if he had to hear about Rachel McAdams’ versatility one more time, he might blow his brains out in front of a customer. 

Then you dropped the names, and he had to surge his head forward.

“What are your thoughts on Wolf of Wall Street, American Psycho, Pulp Fiction…Fight Club, Saving Private Ryan, Scarface…” You squinted at the list, finding the names neverending. “Jeez, this list keeps going, huh?” 

He could not help the scoff. “And you called me a Filmbro.” He set his forearms on the counter, locking his hands together. “What do you need these movies for?”

“They’re for my ex-boyfriend.” 

The term had him pausing. Of course—the ex-boyfriend. How has he heard of this man, but not know a thing about him? Shit, he did not even know your name.

“This ex of yours has…an interesting taste,” he said slowly. “What’s he like?”

“I can tell you he attends the same college as you. Well, us,” you clarified, jerking your head towards the college colours of your server’s hoodie. “Film major. Just like you, actually.” 

“Oh?” Small world. “What’s the name?”

“Kim Mingyu. Do you know him?” 

Vernon Chwe nearly shit his oversized jeans.

A hesitant nod of his head. “I have a few classes with him.”

“Oh?” Your stare was a little more intense now. “What do you think of him?”

Right. 

Another fated question—the people around him had to stop asking him such controversial questions, or else he was bound to piss someone off. You were already letting him off the hook too many times; one more judgemental comment, and he was having that Princess movie set smashed on his head.

Kim Mingyu. Fuckass Kim Mingyu. Film major—just like him. One of the most popular boys in the year—very unlike him. All the teachers love his essays, all the girls love his freakishly-perfect six-pack, which Vernon is extremely irritated (and devastatingly intimidated) by. 

What all these people failed to realise, though, was that Mingyu was the biggest piece of shit to grace the halls of his university—and the planet, if dramatics were in order. If you thought that Vernon was a filmbro, then Mingyu was Filmbrother. Filmcomrade. Filmnemesis. 

It was as if you could hear the thoughts churning in his head. “You can be honest, you know. He did dump me at the end of the day.” A smirk began to appear. “Say your worst.”

The reassurance did not help. “I mean,” he started, swiping your card, “He’s okay? I haven’t talked to him enough to have an opinion on him.” 

A half-truth—that should suffice. 

But because the fates like to shit on his head every now and then for kicks, they decided to leave you unsatisfied with his answer. “Or, you can keep lying!” 

Excellent intuition, really. “I’m not!” he exclaimed, slapping the card back on the counter. “I really don’t know much about him.”

The big man upstairs was testing him even further, when, with a determined gaze, you set your elbows atop the surface. You leaned closer, tilting your head to the side as you inspected him, and Vernon blinked back at the sheer lack of space you had created. His mouth twisted, eyes frantically darting at the features of your face, not quite taking in the entirety of your being. Your vision seemed to work perfectly, because it caught the slight flush at the tops of his cheeks, where it was just pale skin seconds before.

Your smirk deepened. “Judging by your blush, you’re either terrible at lying…or,” you offered, voice lowering a little as you drummed your fingers against the counter, “You’ve never had a hot girl this close to you.” 

Fuck everything and everyone, because that only made him blush more furiously. You could not help the chuckle that escaped, deciding to cease torturing him and take your card. “I’ll not say the answer, Mr. Filmbro, but I think you already know.”

Since he had no plans of turning into a human form of a ketchup bottle, he evaded the topic entirely, instead focusing on interrogating you. “You still haven’t told me how Mingyu is related to the movie list you made.”

That seemed to hold your interest. “Oh, of course!” Putting the list back into your bag, you began, “Well, the list holds my ex-boyfriend’s favourite films. I wanted to know your opinion on a few.”

He could not contain his sigh. Oh, he had an opinion on these films that you mentioned. Again, he would rather be buried with his thoughts on the specific genre than ever tell you. The curiosity, though, was eventually going to eat him alive.

So much for minding his business.

“I mean…” he began to think, trying to find the right words. “I don’t mind them? Godfather is a good film, but I’ve seen better from Brando. I like American Psycho, but again, people tend to miss the point of the movie.”

As you nodded, listening to his two-cents on the movies you mentioned, he paused, furrowing his brows. “Why do you care about my opinion?”

You smacked your lips together, folding the list back. “I don’t know much about you, Mr. Filmbro,” you began, “But you don’t run a filmstore without knowing a thing or two about the films you sell.”

“So?” He crossed his arms atop the counter. “Shouldn’t you have asked the guy who you made the list about?”

“Trust me,” you said, your smirk turning more into a rageful flash of teeth, “I know exactly what he thinks of these films.”

Don’t particularly know what to make of that comment. “Well, I don’t know what my opinion for these films is going to help you in any way.”

“It has helped.” You paused then, waiting to see if he would egg you on, asking how his seemingly tame opinions would play into the grand scheme of things. “All part of my master plan.”

Master plan? Vernon may have been interested before, but he was certain that, before, he could have hid it without letting you catch onto it. In a sudden flash, though, as if his mouth was beyond his control, he regrettably slipped out the words which had you smiling more than he would have liked.

“What master plan?”

He almost closed his eyes. Shit. Now I’m fucking invested.

The corners of your mouth, lifting upwards, had him almost nervous. “I was hoping you would say that.” 

Great. Brilliant. Fantastic. Fucking Stupendous. Vernon could not think of other pretentious synonyms. “I will tell you, Mr. Filmbro,” you began, once again settling your locked hands on the counter, “If you help me out with it.” 

That had his eyebrow shooting upwards. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I intended.” A pause. “Look, I know it’s a little crazy…being asked by someone to help in some mysterious plan. But hey!” you added, “You know who the target is, and you know I can be trusted.”

“Calling your ex-boyfriend a target makes this sound like a contract killing. Also, I actually don’t know that,” he corrected, crossing his arms. “The only thing I know about you is your weird obsession with children’s movies.”

“Well, buddy, that’s basically my entire personality, so you don’t need to know any more!”

Vernon sucked in a breath. “I don’t even know your name.”

Your eyes darted to his features, the sharp brows, the speculative eyes, the flared nostrils. His lips, which were twisted in a curious, bemused line. “That’s an easy problem to solve.” You decided to battle his frown with a smile. “_____.”

_____. At least he knew one important thing about you. He swore Mingyu had mentioned your name before, but then he should not also hold certainty—that boy’s favourite subject had always been himself. 

You snapped him out of his thoughts. “This is when you tell me your name now…or do you enjoy being called a filmbro?”

Man…he could not look you in the eye afterwards. “I don’t…” he got out, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “And it’s Vernon. Chwe Vernon.” 

“Vernon,” you repeated, lips curling upwards. “Alright, Vernon, since both of us know each other’s names, you can definitely help me now!” 

The said-boy tried to smile, which was more a grimace. “Well…”

“Tell you what,” you said, trying to find something in your bag. “Wait, give me a second…shit, where is that piece of paper…?” You finally managed to fish a crumpled piece out. “Right!” After catching sight of a pen lying around the counter, you took it and scribbled something quickly, sending it his way.

Taking it, he looked at the messy scribbles—your number. “You’re looking at it as if I passed you a death threat,” you snickered. Vernon gave an uneasy smile. “Just think it over. I need movie expertise, and there’s no one else I know who can help me more than a guy who runs a film store.”

The boy behind the counter listened to you, paper still in hand. Maybe Mingyu made some points breaking up with you—you did not know who Vernon was, save for the name that was tied to him, and the job he was forced to do by his parents. Realistically, he had to decline, because if he has ever learned something in his life—or from watching a myriad of golden age romantic tragedies—is that you never trust the beautiful, crazy girls. 

“Hey,” he heard you say, and he swore your chirp had softened. “I’ll go ahead with my plan in a week’s time. If I don’t hear from you, then I’ll know your answer. You don’t have to tell me now.” When he looked at you, he saw your expression shift. “That’s why I only gave the paper.” 

He supposed he could appreciate this sentiment. “Thanks,” he could only say, pocketing your number. “Is there…anything else you want? Aside from the—” a snide glance at the DVD set—”the movie?” 

“I saw that,” you scoffed, taking hold of the movie set. “And no, I’m alright. I’ll bother you about children’s movies another time.” 

“I’ll make sure these children’s movies are all conveniently sold out when you come,” he countered without thinking. 

You could only shake your head, trying to contain your laugh. “Careful, or I just might bother you after the plan.” 

Vernon did not know what he felt at that notion—would he want that? However, he did not have time to ponder, since you were already heading for the door. As you nearly left the store, bell ringing, he did not hear the door close. He glanced up, catching you looking at him with an indecipherable expression. “Yes?”

You waited a moment before parting your mouth. “I hope to hear from you, Mr. Filmbro.” 

With that, you swiftly exited the store, leaving this Mr. Filmbro even more helpless than he was between the seven days between your first encounter, and now this very second. 

“JO MADE SENSE WITH FRIEDRICH AT THE END. SHE SIMPLY…NEEDED A MAN AFTER PINING FOR LAURIE.”

The professor listened in the small circle, the rest of the students typing or writing down the answer. “Like, realistically,” Mingyu went on, twisting his mechanical pencil between his fingers, “The whole point of the movie is her relationship with Laurie, and that was shattered the moment he married Amy. Friedrich was like…” he pouted in thought, furrowing his brows. “The light at the end of the tunnel…does that make sense, Minghao?”

The said-man nodded. “Interesting take,” he noted, walking closer to the circle he was teaching. “So you agree that Jo needed Friedrich at the end of the film?”

“Absolutely.”

There were a few murmurs around the room, majority of them agreeing with the golden boy who was sitting at the head of the circular, white table. Vernon, who was sat one girl away from him, typed furiously in his laptop, adding to his notes. MINGYU IS A FUCKING IDIOT…CINEMATICALLY ILLITERATE…BORDERLINE MISOGYNIST…Okay, perhaps he was exaggerating on the last one, but his analysis of the question pissed him off. 

Did Jo need Friedrich at the end of the movie? Was what Professor Minghao had asked them about an hour ago. Vernon knew the answer immediately, and, although did not share it with the seminar, was surprised to be disagreed by the majority of the class. Not surprising, however, when his class was filled with men who could not imagine a woman in a film wanting anything else but a man beside her. 

Whatever, he thought, straying from the web page and instead checking the release date for Oppenheimer when he heard your name crop up amongst the discourse in the table. 

“Did _____ actually?” 

“Oh, yeah, said she thought Jo should have been on her own.” A click of tongue. “Not surprising, coming from her.” 

Vernon instantly perked up, fingers pausing on the keyboard. Not surprising? The boy was actually floored at that opinion—and how valid you were for expressing it. 

“I mean,” another girl, right next to him, chimed in, “Didn’t you say she was really stupid, Gyu?”

“God, I don’t know where to begin,” Mingyu said, aghast, and the boy who eavesdropped felt a little dread at every word that escaped his mouth. “Everytime I watched a movie with her she always got bored, or argued with me when I tried to explain shit to her.” 

“I remember we sat with her while we were tryna do our film project last semester,” the boy beside Mingyu recalled. “She had no fucking clue who Martin Scorcese was, man!” 

The group audibly gasped, save for Vernon, who could not help himself, refusing to mind his business. Nasty habit this—he made a note to call you out for this later on, should you walk into his store again. 

Fuck. He did not want that. Of course he did not. He should stop thinking about it too. 

You, that is.

“She’s gotta be the dumbest one yet, Gyu,” the boy snickered, snapping his laptop shut. 

“You don’t even know the half of it,” the dumper groaned, raking through his locks. “You know she was always watching those fucking Disney princess movies?” Vernon’s eyes widened a little. “Man, I remember she wouldn’t get enough of them. Like, what are you, six? Why the fuck am I watching a movie about a midget dragon?”

Then, Mingyu said the words that made the eavesdropper’s spirits shot down. 

“_____ may have been hot, but she was one stupid bitch. Thank god I got rid of her.” 

The others agreed. He may have spoken more on the matter of your lack of media literacy, but the professor was back, and the seminar had quietened, all in focus. 

All except for the boy who had not given his two cents on the matter, frozen solid at the conversation that occurred. What the fuck was that? He had first thought, over and over to the point that he nearly typed it in the seminar document. He had always known Mingyu was an asshole, but what he said about you gave him a very uneasy feeling.  

What sent him over the edge was that a lot of his grievances sounded identical to Vernon’s own words. 

Miss Disney Hag he had called you—to your face he had insulted your taste in films, and you had only laughed. He wondered how you felt when it was Mingyu amplifying those very opinions on a daily basis. 

A frown marred his features. Damn it. He knew he was a loser, but he did not know he was an asshole. Like Mingyu…

Vernon visibly shivered. 

As Minghao voiced out the objectives for the second half of the seminar, the boy brought his hand into his trouser pocket, slipping out the paper. He looked over your number, the messy scribbles dancing in his eyes. Darting to his phone on the table, he held it in his free hand, looking over the contacts. 

“Damn it,” he said under his breath. 

Was he going to regret this? Most probably. Will you probably make him do something that would result in a fatal injury, and land a permanent stain on his social record? One hundred percent. 

If he knew these things already, then what he should have done was toss the paper in the nearest bin. What he did instead, as he typed in some vital information in his phone, was something that changed his life (or at least the life he will live for the next few weeks).

vernon: u dont have to wait till next week 

vernon: ill help u with the plan

There. And now, he shall wait.

Which, he pondered as he saw the immediate response, was not very long. 

normal disney enjoyer: wait who tf is this??

Oops. 

vernon: oh mb this is vernon lmao

vernon: from the filmstore

normal disney enjoyer: oh damn why didn’t u say so !! freaky ass text 

vernon: ??? ive said it now tf

normal disney enjoyer: and im happy u have ;)

Well. Vernon sighed a little, trying to focus back on his work, but to no avail.

Let’s see what you have in store for the next week.

VERNON WAS WONDERING WHETHER HE STILL HAD TIME TO KILL HIMSELF. 

It could be quick—maybe if he jumped in front of the next incoming car, full speed, he might suffer a haemorrhage in his brain, and die bleeding out as his parents took him to the hospital. Of course, that does mean that it would be slow and excruciating, but he thought that nothing would be as painful as whatever you had planned for him.

Come on…maybe it won’t be that bad. Perhaps his thoughts were spiralling too quickly. Perhaps his assumptions of you were a stretch, and that all this anxiousness, pent up in him, would wash away the moment he saw your car pulling up to the store’s driveway.

He felt himself prepare mentally as, eventually, your small, red car slowed in front of him. Right before him, he saw the passenger window roll down, and he caught sight of your smiling face, teeth showing. 

Perhaps it truly would not be as bad as he imagined. 

“Get in loser, we’re going trespassing.”

Nevermind.

“Oh my God,” was the unsatisfying answer to your perfect reference. Seriously, you should not bother saving your precious material on such a lame boy, but there was something so exciting about his eyes sharply rolling, colour staining the tops of his cheeks. “I’m not doing this if you’re going to quote terrible movies the entire night.”

“First of all, fuck you. Mean Girls birthed half of your customers.” You flicked the lock on the passenger door, pushing it open. “Second, you don’t have a choice. You’ve agreed to ruin Mingyu’s life.”

“First of all yourself, I did not agree to that.” Begrudgingly, he settled shotgun, snapping the car door shut. “Second, Mean Girls was a waste of Rachel McAdams’ talent.” 

You scoffed, starting the car. “I don’t take opinions from men who can’t drive.” 

This shut the boy up nicely, clamping his lips together in quiet shame. He wished he could argue with that—you, he feared, had a good point. Despite that, it was not his fault that his parents insisted on the reliance of public transport; the bus was his greatest villain—aside from the middle school kids in his store that always ask for the next FIFA game. 

You could not help taking a second glance at him, chuckling at his defeat. “Don’t be sad, Mr. FIlmbro,” you reassured him, changing gears. “I like my men a little pathetic.” 

That did not help at all—his eyes widened, gawking at you, but you were already looking ahead, pressing your foot on the accelerator. 

“Jesus!” he exclaimed as he held onto his seat, taken aback by your sudden rush of speed. “I thought you wanted to kill Mingyu, not yourself!”

“My bad,” you only said, turning right. “I’m just so excited! You know, getting there.” 

“I can see that,” he mumbled, looking away from you into the back. Strapped in with the seatbelt, bizarrely, was Sofia’s Disney Princess Set, as if the dozen-movie box was a toddler in need of extra assistance. What the fuck…?

“I’m having these films in pristine condition, Vernon,” you explained, though it still made no sense in his head. “You understand, don’t you?”

Of course not. “Sure.” 

He waited for further explanation, which, as the silence continued, you decided to throw him the conversational bone. “I don’t just carry the set around with me, you know.”

Sure. “Of course not.” 

“It’s relevant to today’s plan,” was all you would offer, speeding more to reach the destination quicker. Vernon held onto the belt a little tighter, still eyeing the movie set rather suspiciously before focusing back on the road. 

The drive was not long—perhaps thirty minutes at most—but he knew he was leaving the rougher parts of the city when nicer neighbourhoods welcomed his vision, the litter on the roads disappearing, instead trees in an orderly line painting the sides of the pavement. The further you drove into these suburbs, the more he was surprised at the sheer luxury of the exterior of these houses; granted, he did not originate from poverty, but his idea of a holiday was three days in the comforts of his bed, bingeing the Miyazaki collection with a lifetime supply of mint chocolate chip ice cream on his lap. 

Vernon had to save his mouth dropping to the seat of the car floor when they rolled into the Kim household’s drive. 

He was aware that Mingyu derived from wealth—the former could not help noticing his pricey, flashy brands every time the taller boy sauntered into the Film Sound classes, but he did not expect this Bridgerton-ass looking house, nestled in between the other million-dollar homes in the neighbourhood. He was greeted with a clearer picture the closer you parked in their drive, surprisingly empty; it was around that moment that you noticed that all the lights were turned off in the house, almost a haunting image. 

The boy was on his way to make a comment about your terrible spying skills when you rebuffed him immediately, saying, “I know what you’re thinking. I have it covered.”

“Please tell me, Miss Bond, how are you planning to carry this out?”

You offered him an incredulous look. “I don’t know what that reference means, I’m too pretty.”

His answer to that was a thin, long line of his mouth. You chose to ignore it completely. “Mingyu’s parents are out of town right now, and his sister’s on a ski-trip in Austria.”

A glance of confusion. “In the middle of March?” 

A shrug. “You know what rich people are like.” Weirdly enough, he knew exactly what you were talking about. “But it worked out great for us.” With a hard exhale you got out of the car, the boy beside you reflecting your actions. “All the easier for what we have to do.” You opened the car door behind the driver’s one, unstrapping the seatbelt and carefully bringing out the movie set. 

“How’re we getting into the evil lair, then?” he asked dryly, crossing both his arms. “I assume the millionaires don’t happen to put a spare key under the carpet?”

“Imagine,” you said, sighing melodramatically. “I tried making them do it so I could sneak into his house, but for some reason, Mingyu never agreed to it.” 

“I wonder why,” he muttered.

“Worry not, young grasshopper!” You strolled to the very right of the house, where a thin wooden door was almost hidden from view. “Where there is a door closed, another is mysteriously open.” 

With a hard push, the door trudged back, swinging heavily away. He stared at it, not quite believing how someone can be so careless to keep their gates unlocked. “Another weakness of Mingyu’s—” You pointed at the cleared path into the house—”whenever he leaves from the garden, he never locks the gate.”

Vernon could not quite believe it. “Either the wealthy are incredibly secured in their safety, or stupid as fuck.”

“I think you know the answer to that,” you joked, going further into the journey, ushering him over. Like a siren calling his name, he followed you, unaware of the shit you might be getting him into. 

Into the fancy garden they arrived, clean-cut hedges bordering in dozens of flower bushes, peppered also with a few fruit trees—berries of every kind ripening on the green. While Vernon admired the natural luxury, you hurried to the nearby shed, where a ladder was situated right beside it. “Quick, help me out here!” you shouted in a whisper, ushering him over. Dropping the DVD set for a moment, you grunted as you held the large ladder up with his assistance, slowly making its way to the brick wall of the house. “Wait, line it up against that window over there,” you instructed, jerking your head towards the far right window, no doubt on the second floor. Once the ladder was lined up properly, you moved the boy out of the way, shaking the rails to make sure it stayed put. 

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Vernon muttered, watching you take the Disney Princess set in one hand, the other making the first step on the calendar. “We can still…you know, not commit breaking and entering.” 

“You can happily leave, Mr. Filmbro,” you offered, looking up at your destination. 

That had him scoffing. “My ass is not walking two hours back to my house.” 

“That seems more like a you problem then!” you chirped. “Now are you following me up, or pussying out?”

Once again, pussying out seemed like the obvious choice for the boy. He was not made for missions such as these—he was merely meant to watch other people act out said missions in front of his television. Unfortunately, because he was too far away from the film store, it was either sitting it out, waiting for you to come out and do something diabolical, or at least watch over you should you cross a line (if the latter were the case, then Vernon had already failed). 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he kept uttering like a mantra, waiting for you to climb up enough to hold onto the ladder as he began to follow after you. He made the mistake of looking up as you climbed up, and he got a full, HD view of your ass. He tried his very best to look away out of some semblance of respect, but you also made the mindful decision of wearing the shortest skirt known to man. His fuck, fuck fucks! rang louder, causing you to shush him.

“Stop freaking out, my guy!” you called out, right on the top of the ladder. “I know my ass is crazy built but this is not the time.”

“That’s not why I’m freaking out, _____!” he countered, but knowing you, you did not care for his explanations. He only waited as you pushed open the slight-open window, all the way to the top before climbing inside.

As he reached the top of the ladder, he watched you dust yourself before glancing back at him, ushering him inside. “Here goes nothing,” he said to himself, hands on the top of the window ledge as he put his foot on the sill, pushing himself inside. 

Vernon dropped into the unknown room, an oof! leaving his mouth as he landed rather ungraciously on his feet. Quickly, he looked up, surroundings rather dimmed due to the lack of lighting. Still, with the help of the moonlight, he could slowly make out the huge smart TV in the middle of the bedroom, beneath it a wide shelf filled with DVDs, some opened and scattered on the carpeted floor. The bed was on the opposite side, right next to the window the two of you had entered in, black and gold sheets tousled and unmade.

As you turned the light on, the boy then made out that Mingyu, in fact, did not have a bed frame, but just a mattress, with the sheets barely done properly.  The wall on his left was a full black-shutter closet, where he could see the collection of his designer clothing behind the gaps. Posters were plastered on the rest of the walls, most of them being the Tarantino classics —a reclined, raven-bobbed Uma Thurman watching him with bedroom eyes being the most prominent—with certain papers of autographs also stuck next to the posters. There was another poster—American Beauty and the girl surrounded with rose petals—which had him quickly looking away.

“Jesus,” was all he could say, but he supposed he should not have judged. He himself had only his posters in his room—except he did not have the same taste as a middle-aged incel.

“I know.” You looked around at the familiar space, and the memories you had made here. “Imagine having sex in this hellsite.”

Then the image of you having sex with Mingyu on that messy bed came into his mind, and Vernon could have combusted then and there. “I can’t imagine,” he mumbled out, walking to the door, opening to make sure no one was inside. “_____, are you sure no one’s here?”

“Swear on my life, Mr. Filmbro.”

He had to trust you now—or you had very little respect for your life. 

He kept eyeing the DVD set you had in your hand. “Are you still not gonna tell me what we’re doing with that?”

You marched over to the shelf beneath the TV, settling yourself down. “Come here and I’ll show you.” You patted the empty carpet space next to you for added emphasis.

Hesitantly, he obliged, sitting cross-legged next to you. Finger pointing as it scoured the shelf, you carefully brought out one of the films from Mingyu’s selection, all the while sliding out a Disney film from your own set. “Now, tell me,” you began, as you showed him the two movies. “Do you think The Dark Knight and Mulan are a good match?”

First pulling a face at the choice, he then resorted to keeping his twist of features as he turned to you. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“So like, you know Mulan is a woman disguising herself as a soldier in order to defeat the Huns and save her father’s honour, right,” you explained, though you had a small feeling he was not particularly listening. “And Batman is the same thing, except he dresses up as a fucking bat…stupid furry.”

Vernon could not understand how you compared one of the most beautiful, nuanced depictions of a broken, three-dimensional superhero into a furry, but he needed to get to the bottom of your plan, once and for all. “No, I mean, what are you doing? Why the hell are we here?” 

You tutted extra loud. “I’m gonna swap the CDs, dumbass!” You held up the princess movie. “Thought Mingyu could say to me that Disney princess movies sucked, huh?” Then, the classic DVD’s turn to rise. “Let’s see how he’ll like watching a talking dragon in China instead of a talking bat in Fantasyland!” 

The boy could only watch, shock growing with the successful swap of the movies, the secret Mulan CD safely tucked into the The Dark Knight’s DVD case. “It’s Gotham, actually,” he murmured, but he knew you were not listening. “Wait, _____, we really just snuck into your ex’s house to swap a few movies?”

You looked up briefly as you began opening another DVD case. “I mean, if you want to trash the place, that’s fine, but you can’t do anymore than what Mingyu’s dirty ass hasn’t done already.”

Fair point. “I think you’re going insane. Like, clinically.” He kept looking at the door, which was closed shut. “He’ll kill us if he catches us.” 

“Forget about us, you’re barely doing anything!” you exclaimed, tossing some of Mingyu’s movies to him. “Can you actually help me instead of complaining?”

What he should have done was argue with you properly, perhaps even make his escape and leave you to dig your own grave. Sure, he could not drive, but was it not just three pedals, a wheel and a dream? He could have left, never to see you again. 

But then his eyes wandered to the Inception DVD scattered beside you, no doubt collateral damage as you took out the other Nolan films, and saw a Disney Princess movie sitting beside it. Sleeping Beauty, it read out, with the picture of some skinny blonde chick slumbering with a man overlooking her. He thought it a bit strange, almost creepy how this brunette was watching her. 

And then an idea came into his head. 

He closed his eyes for a fleeting moment, clamping his lips together. Please forgive me, Mr. Nolan, for what I’m about to do. 

Hand reaching out to grasp both DVDs, he opened one of his favourites, unclipping the CD. You glanced at him, swapping the movies around. You could not help your stare lingering a little, watching his lips pout, brows furrowed as he fixed the new CD in the Nolan set, as if the task was a serious one. Well, it was a serious task for you, but you expected more complaining. 

When he looked up, he managed to catch a small smile on your lips before he quickly looked away. “And now you’re slacking,” he accused, closing the DVD and setting it atop the newly improved. 

“What’s the plot for Inception?” you asked him, cracking open The Princess and The Frog. 

“I thought you knew, since you laughed at me for saying it was my favourite.” 

“I don’t know the full thing,” you admitted. “The only reason I knew about it was because Mingyu never shut up about it…sorry about that, by the way.” 

Vernon sighed. “It’s fine…if I made fun of your Disney favourites, then bullying me for Nolan isn’t the worst…I think.” He looked at your new suggestion before picking out Alien from Mingyu’s selection. “A thief has to implant an idea into this powerful guy’s mind, and he does this through infiltrating other people’s dreams. However, he has to be asleep while he does it.” 

As you began to laugh, he threw you an irritated look. You shook your head, unable to erase your smile. “That’s a really good match.” 

His eyes widened for a moment, mouth parting. For a moment (and he did not know whether he was going to regret making this assertion), he did not care for Christopher Nolan’s disrespect, after seeing your reaction.

With that, the two of you sat in near silence, the crisp opening and closing of the DVDs, the sliding of the discs being the only sound between the two of you. The Princess of the Frog was successfully matched with the Alien—you, unsurprisingly, had not watched the movie, but Vernon had watched both (one against his will, which you could guess), and thought it the best match. Brave was slotted into The Revenant's case, while Beauty and the Beast went straight into Pan’s Labyrinth’s. 

“Okay so…” the boy held up the Pocahontas CD. “Native American princess falls for the coloniser? How the fuck are you defending this?”

You could only offer a sheepish smile. “The soundtrack is really good?”

“Knowing Disney,” he crowed, cracking open the DVD, “They probably have a song on how terrible the poor Natives are.”

You eyed him, surprised. “How the hell did you guess that?”

First, Vernon made a face, as if he himself could not believe his excellent intuition. Then, he only laughed a little, taking out the Dances with Wolves DVD from the shelf. “I’ve watched enough Disney movies with my sister to know how they work.”

“Oh, so you have watched them?” you mused, watching him exchange the discs. “All that time I thought you only watched what Mingyu watched.”

“No, I watch foreign indie films like an asshole,” he clarified, shutting the cases, and putting Dances with Wolves back on the shelf. “The thing is, I still have my grievances against the super popular films. You know the list you mentioned to me the other day?” You nodded. “Most of these film junkies get off on those movies. I’ll admit I like them, but I’ve seen so much better.” 

You snorted. “Like Inception?” Vernon watched you for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. “What? You asked him, tilting your head. 

He followed your movement—he too, craned his head, his brown curls cascading along his forehead. “Like Inception…and better.”

“Better?” you gasped out, fingers rising to your bottom lip in shock. “Does Mr. Filmbro prefer a movie over Nolan’s grand—no, best release ever?!”

“Ha, ha,” he monotoned, only adding to your amusement. “It’s still his best film! But,” he added, shrugging a little, “I may or may not have lied to you the first time we met. Inception’s not my favourite movie.”

“What?!” you could barely contain your grin. “Oh my God, if I find out it’s a fucking Disney movie, I’m never letting you live it down!”

“Let’s not go that far,” he jeered, earning a harsh nudge of your elbow. “Hey! You should be thanking me for my honesty.”

“How about you extend that honesty and tell me which movie is your favourite?” 

Vernon mocked a ponder. “It’s a hard pass.” 

“Come on!” you pressed, scooting a little closer, almost reaching out as if to nudge him some more. “You’ve already committed a felony with me. Telling me your favourite movie is naturally the next step.” 

“Because that’s obviously how normal human interaction goes,” he countered, sarcasm clear in his voice.

“Tell me.” 

“No.”

“Tell me!” 

“Hmm…no!” he repeated, assembling the last of the DVDs. “Maybe if we raid Mingyu’s house next time.”

“Oh?” Leaning closer, you paused his hands on the movie sets. “Do you want there to be a next time?”

It was then Vernon realised the implications of your question, a consequence of his own suggestion. It was almost comical, how his eyes widened like full moons, and he immediately shook his head. “Now you know that’s not what I meant.” 

“Then what did you mean?” you asked him, and the way he exposed a slight stutter at your question had you laughing. “Would you want to see me again?”

What Vernon wanted to tell you was no, no, no, because another second with you would end with all the blood in his system rushing to his head, and other places. Damn everything and everyone, he would want to see you again—no. No. He wouldn’t. He would not. 

“You haven’t answered the question,” you said, snapping him out of his thoughts. 

The boy was about to stutter out an answer when the two of you heard a door slam downstairs. 

You whirled back, eyes instantly darting to the door. They then focused back on you, widened very much like his not long ago. “_____,” Vernon muttered. 

“Mr. Filmbro…”

The furrow of his brow appeared for a split-second before it disappeared at the shuffling underneath. “What the fuck do we do?” he gulped out, looking around to find anywhere to escape from. This was it—he thought he was getting away with trespassing just because you had convinced him to, but that fuckass ex-boyfriend was going to catch them in his bedroom, two inches away from kissing you, and—

“Wait,” you then said, catching his wrist in your hand. He barely had time to react to it before you shot up from your seated position, hauling the boy along with you. He stumbled, but then you nearly made him fall flat on his face as you ran to the shutter closets, sliding them straight open. The inside was a mess of branded clothing and boxes of sports equipment, but there was one opening with just enough for two people in trouble to hide. 

You first went in, and, with a harsh tug, pulled him in with you. He crashed into you, but you had enough control to slide the shutter door shut. There was so much commotion that when you both finally stilled, breathing harshly as you heard Mingyu enter the room, Vernon blinked back to see your face about two inches away from him. 

He was going to yelp—strong on going to, because you sensed his incoming shock, and smacked your hand against his mouth. His eyebrows could have touched the top of his forehead, but what you noticed the most was the warmth of his skin, burning the longer your touch lingered on his lips. 

The smile you offered him as you put a finger to your lips had him almost passing out. 

“Yeah, man, come round whenever,” was all Vernon could hear, still not comprehending Mingyu’s speech due to your hand. “No, Minseo’s not here, what the fuck? Why do you wanna know where my sister is?” 

Slowly, ever so carefully as not to alert him, you pulled down on one of the blinds of the shutter, spying the movie which he was about to see. Vernon should have been following your movements, but he could only sense you, inching closer and closer to him till you were pressed against him. Of course, you were only trying to better your vision of your ex-boyfriend, but the boy beside you could not focus. The hand on his mouth—God—he needed, so badly, to be put down. Your fingers were soft, and although his lips could not help brushing against your palm, everything in him resisted the urge to react.

Quickly glancing at your accomplice in glee, you dropped your hand from his mouth, silently urging him to watch. He could have rebelled against your pulling away, but he instead obliged. Bringing his face next to yours, he glanced at you one last time before peering at the vision that welcomed. 

There he was, the golden boy, raking his hair as he strolled into the middle of the room, observing the TV before him, and the DVD player sitting at the bottom. He kept humming, as if agreeing with whoever was on the phone. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go to that party later…no, I’m not bringing _____! You know about that already!” 

The boy in hiding quickly snuck a peek at you, who soured a little at the mention. “Hmm? Yeah, whatever. What? Nah, I’m just gonna watch a chill movie before leaving.” Mingyu scanned the films on his shelf. Walking over, he leaned down, sliding out The Shape of Water from his collection, cradling his phone between his shoulder blade and his craned head as he opened the DVD. 

Vernon could not help pulling a face at Mingyu’s choice of a ‘chill movie’ being a film about a mute woman wanting to fuck a water creature. You probably did not understand the reference, but by the growing anticipation on your face, you only cared about the scene you two had created, and was about to unfold just then. 

Mingyu slid the CD into the player, pressing play as he made his way to his frameless bed, settling down in the sheets. “Yeah…no, no, it’s just starting.”

The two of you could hear clearly the opening credits, which began with the most obnoxious opening music of Disney’s intro. Vernon was taken aback by how Mingyu did not realise it from that very moment, but considering he was too busy chatting pure shit on the phone, laughing to himself, the boy assumed he was simply waiting for the action to occur.

“Any minute now, Mr. Filmbro,” you whispered, oh-so-fucking close to him. He did not respond, merely a nod.

Craning his head to see through the shutters, he noticed the animation come to life, the ship within dangerous waters sailing with uncertainty. He snuck a quick glance at Mingyu’s face, which started garnering a little confusion. 

“Are these extra credit scenes? I don’t remember any of this,” he heard the OG filmbro complain. 

You could not help the snort that escaped you. Vernon glared at you, but with little effect. “What?” you whispered. “I don’t remember him being this thick.” 

“What the fuck is this cartoon…” the two of you heard Mingyu pipe up. Finally, the buffoon is realising this is not the two-time Oscar winning animation, but the four-time Oscar winning CGI. “This wasn’t in the director’s cut.”

You still could not believe how your ex-boyfriend was taking this long for the realisation to hit. Even when Eric jumped up on the screen, holding onto the ship’s ropes, the watcher only regarded the character intently, as if he was somehow part of the stranger film. 

Only when, fifteen minutes in, Atlantis is finally introduced that something clicked in his brain. Mingyu tilted his head, thinking out loud. “What the fuck…?”

Getting up from where he sat, he ended the call, informing whoever was on the other side that he would meet later. He took out the CD from the player, examining its exterior. “Can’t see shit on this CD…” He was not wrong—you were smart, choosing the discs which did not have any images, confusing the boy all the more. “Maybe I put in the wrong one…”

He shrugged it off, taking out The Dark Knight instead, another easy, breezy movie to watch when The Shape of Water did not pull through. Now Nolan was a hard one to criticise—Vernon himself was a huge fan, but seeing Mingyu try to watch it irked him. A good thing, then, was it not, that he was bound for a second surprise?

Repeating the routine, he slid the secret CD, settling back into his frameless bed. “Great minds, huh?” you whispered to him, and Vernon only rolled his eyes, not enjoying the dig against him in the slightest. 

“You dated him,” he griped, watching the movie start up.

“Waste of good looks,” you whispered, your partner-in-crime nodding in agreement. The movie beginning had you both falling silent as a bird of prey hits on one of the soldier’s heads. The scene is set in the cold mountains of China, but the sole audience does not catch it immediately. 

“So fucking weird…” Mingyu trailed off again, leaning forwards. “This isn’t the robbery scene…”

Of course it was not—the idiot would not witness one of the best film openings in Vernon’s humble opinion. He would not feast his eyes to the workings of Joker’s bank robbery, nor the cold one-liners from the incapacitated bank manager. 

No, what he was served was the Huns crossing the Northern border, which, as the boy finally began to clock after a good ten minutes, was not what he was expecting.

“What the…” once again, he heaved himself up, walking over to the player. “Now I know something’s wrong…”

Both you and Vernon stretched further close, as much as the closet would allow, to peek at Mingyu’s frustration as he brought the CD out once more, examining the back and front. He then took out some more of his favourites, opening their cases and taking out the CDs, observing them closely. He was suspicious now. How could he not be, when he was expecting incel excellence, but was greeted with the same shit his younger sister—his crazy ex-girlfriend, even—would usually watch.

He blinked back. 

His deathly stillness had the two trespassers pausing. You two looked at each other, faces losing any humour, perhaps recognising that he had clocked on. You watched the scene as Mingyu rapidly added one CD after another, expecting one movie only to have a Disney-fied replacement, completely botching his plans. Every movie that received such Disneyfication further enraged him, the grit in his teeth heard, the tick in his jaw visible. 

The final straw was when the Godfather was slotted in, his all-time, unmatched favourite. There was darkness for the first few minutes, and he sighed too quickly in relief, about to lay back on his mattress. 

Then, a curly-haired girl, a toddler at best, in huge green glasses becomes visible, being told to open her eyes. 

“Is this where magic comes from?”

“What the fuck?!”

And as a conversation between the little girl and her elderly grandmother blossomed, there was a specific dialogue which sent the young boy over the edge.

“This candle became a magical flame that would never grow out…and it blessed us with a refuge in which to live…a place of wonder…An Encanto.”

You nearly burst out laughing. 

Mingyu, on the other hand, could have seen red. 

“Who fucked with my CDs?!” he demanded to no one in particular, though in his mind he knew there was a culprit. “My fucking CDs, man!” 

“Did you do the Godfather swap?” you whispered, barely able to contain yourself.

“Two special families with one heir that doesn’t feel connected to their lifestyle.” Vernon grinned at you, impressed with himself. “It was too easy.”

“Where did you even find the Encanto DVD? It wasn’t in our set.” 

“I found it in his little filmbro shelf.” He ticked his head towards the boy in physical agony. “My guess is that his sister is a Disney fan and left it in his mancave.”

“Oh my God,” you got out, watching the melodramatic scene of your dear ex show rage akin to a teenage boy losing Call of Duty online. 

“That fucking bitch,” he guttered, over and over again as he threw the Encanto CD across the room. Those words came out, and the boy behind the shutters stiffened. Okay—there is rage, and then there is straight up promise of violence. Vernon may not be much of a knight, but if they were caught, he knew he would have to protect you.

He hoped to everything that existed that it would not have to come to that—Vernon would rather fake having a heart attack and have you drag his body out of the Kim Manor. 

It seemed as that might have been a real possibility, until the boy called out a threat to a name they were not expecting.

“Minseo, I’m gonna kill you!” Mingyu roared as he stormed out of the room, undoubtedly on his way to destroy her room, even take his anger out on her Jellycat collection.

As you heard his frenzy disappear down the halls, the trespassers took this as the opportunity to escape the closet, Vernon already creating a little distance in case you come too close and cause his passing out.

“We need to get out now,” he declared as you crept out of the wardrobe, his head whipping to the door which Mingyu left from. 

You nodded, not quite looking at him as you dashed straight for the final DVD. “Oh, Jesus,” He groaned, watching you scramble for the movie, trying horrifically to hide it within your clothes. “You do realise he can come in any second!” 

“Okay, okay,” you said, hurrying over to the window. “Wait, you can go first.”

Vernon raised a brow, following after you. “How come you don’t want to go first?”

You only ushered him further, grinning. “You can peek at my ass again.”

“My eyes will be closed,” he sniped, already carrying it out, trying his absolute best not to imagine your ass in his mind—maybe stakeouts for goofy purposes were not for the weak-willed. “You know, just for that alone, you’re going down first.” 

“Whatever suits you, Mr. Filmbro,” you almost chanted, aggravating him all the more as you stepped out of the window, beginning the trek down. 

He looked down as you descended with one film in hand, still stealing glances at the only door in the room, terrified that the boy would burst through the door, see you both and bring about his downfall. Subconsciously, his fingers hovered just before his mouth, biting the skin around his nails. He knew he should have run himself over with an oncoming vehicle. A messy plan, but still fool-proof. 

“Stop panicking and come down here!” your voice snapped him out of his anxious frenzy. “I know you’re biting your nails off right now!”

The boy instantly repelled his hand, instead furrowing his brow. A little irritating—scary, as well, really—how predictable he was in your eyes. How quickly you had figured him out.

“Alright,” he said, absent-mindedly as he reached for the windowsill. He peaked down again, not realising how far down the descent truly was. Rationally, he knew it was not the worst drop he’d seen on the first floor, but the nerves had started affecting his mind. Now, this entire time he was watching you take one step, two steps down, but he did not have the strength to follow you. 

Still, he knew it was now or never.

Vernon was going to be at your heels (or, more anatomically correct, at your head) when he heard a shuffle from behind him.

He whipped his head around, anticipating the worst.

The worst arrived in all his golden-skinned, empty-headed glory. Holding one of his DVDs, Kim Mingyu stood at the doorway, his eyes widening with every second they beheld the intruder, one leg out of the house, the other a moment away from heaving him up.

Oh. Jesus. Christ.

“The nerd from film theory?”

Vernon’s face dropped. 

The Nerd from Film Theory? The Nerd from fucking Film Theory? 

It was then and there, in that exact moment of time, that the filmbro in question did not give a single care for what the popular boy thought of him. Vernon knew everything about this boy (whether he wanted to or not); his every class, his every terrible friend, even his film preferences, thanks to yours truly. Yet Mingyu did not even know his name—did not even bother to remember.

It was because of that that he managed to garner some essence of his bravado, finally settling both feet on the ladder steps. 

He also decided to add in some corrections to Mingyu’s knowledge. 

“Jo March did not need any man after Laurie…in fact, she did not need any male support, asshole.”

For added effect, he raised his middle finger, as if the burn was sick enough to hurt. 

Mingyu’s devastating response was a confused tilt of his head, clearly not understanding his reference. 

It was enough time for Vernon to hurry his descent down, catching the former more off guard. 

“What the fuck—” was all the boy heard before he quickly tried to travel downwards, feet nearly slipping on the steps by his sheer carelessness. Mingyu’s head popped out from the window, and saw the great ladder leaning against the sill, shocked gaze lowering to where Vernon was descending to.

When his eyes found yours, he could have choked on his gulp. Even more so when you smirked at him.

“_____?”

As Vernon finally dropped off the ladder, dusting himself off, he watched the two of you, staring each other down. When he gauged Mingyu’s fear of you, there was a small part of him that was filled with admiration.

Mingyu’s demand sounded more like a whimper. “What are you doing here?”

You only curled your lips further upwards, grinning like a wild animal. It chilled your ex-boyfriend to the bone when you held the Tangled CD up for him to see, with your other hand raising your middle finger. 

“This is for calling me a stupid bitch.”

His mouth dropped open. That gave you just enough time to grab onto Vernon’s hand, enveloping your fingers around his wrist. 

And run for your life.

Vernon let out a yelp as he was yanked forward by your hold, barely hearing Mingyu’s loud curses and retreating back into the house, no doubt to follow after you two—the trespasser could only guess, much too occupied by your hand, a guiding beacon of mischief, never absent in his life as you ran and ran and ran out of the garden, out of the sleek maze which you two first entered, catching sight of the open garden gate.

The boy heard distant footsteps coming from the house, and as you both saw your car parked beyond the greater gates, you fished out your keys, finally letting go of his hand to dash over to the driver’s side, jamming the key in the lock. Vernon let out a startled noise as the car unlocked, wasting no time to jump inside, heart beating loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear. Mingyu appeared at the main doorstep at the exact same time, even more shocked to realise he had not noticed his ex-girlfriend’s car casually parked before him. 

Just as you climbed inside, swivelling the keys into ignition, Mingyu began to run after the car, a mere ten seconds between him and catching you two.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, _____, just start it already!” the nervous boy in shotgun begged, his head swivelling back at every chance, heart lurching at every metre closer the filmnemesis crept.

The car revved to life at your signal.

It was time to get the fuck out of here. 

“GO, GO, GO!” Vernon screamed at the top of his voice, fisting the handle at the roof of the car as you slammed on the accelerator, racing out of the driveway with Mingyu’s bellowing following after you. Of course, since he was a mere, enraged college student, and you both were in a (slight) state-of-the-art vehicle, you zoomed out of the neighbourhood, his curses fading with every turn further out, you managing to escape. 

Vernon, because he had never done such a thing before, was still screaming to leave for the next ten minutes until you had had enough, swerving to the side of the road, not far from his DVD store. You almost crashed into the nearby park, frightening a few birds that expected peace within the sidewalk trees, only to be disturbed by a troublesome ex and a film-obsessed loser. 

You gushed out an exhale, fingers gripping tightly to the wheel, almost as stunned as the boy beside you, who seemed to take in the town’s worth of air in his little body. But then, you realised the gravity of the situation, the sole movie at the back which could not be swapped, and the valiant escape from something you never thought you would come out of alive.

Just then, you burst into laughter. 

The boy whirled his head to you, who could not stop the tumbles of laughter that escaped your mouth, hanging on to the car wheel as you cackled and cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West. Well, that was what you thought you sounded at that time, but you, as always, did not care.

Only that you were wrong—at least in Vernon’s eyes. You were wrong, because if you were laughing like some Disney villain, then he would have been more pissed off—enraged even. He was instead in awe, shocked at the raw guffawing that spluttered out of you without shame. Had the two of you not evaded a great danger? Nearly been arrested for your legally ambiguous behaviour? 

For the first time in his life, he was not embroiled with dread. 

There was no anxiety in his body, no essence of panic at the consequences of your actions. No, he could only stare at you and your mirth, and find himself raising his brows, the beginnings of a scoffed laugh creeping from his lips. 

The more he looked at you, the more his own laughter joined yours. 

And then you were both laughing, giggling beyond control at the narrow escape, and the near crash against some tree. Vernon knew how stupid this whole situation was, but strangely, he did not seem to care—not when you did not see it like that. A very odd prospect. 

After a few minutes, when it finally seemed as if you would settle down, you sighed, leaning back into the driver’s seat. “We should do that again.”

Despite the amusement lingering, he immediately shut the idea down. “Not a chance.”

You admired the ancient lining of the tree’s bark in front of the car. “The way you were laughing with me just now, you’d think you want to commit crimes from now on.” 

A dramatic roll of eyes. “I’m not going to jail. They don’t even have a TV there.”

“You and your fuck ass movie collection…”

That brought out another chuckle from the boy—you smiled at the notion. He then looked at the rearview mirror, where the last movie was splayed, all alone and away from the others. “Kind of a shame we missed out on one last movie.”

“Right?” You followed his line of sight. “Fuck, Tangled of all movies?”

“Wait, isn’t that the one with Rapunzel?” 

You let out an impressed hum. “A week of seeing my face, and you’re already catching on!” A mischievous raise of brows. “Another month with me and you can sing all the tracks from the film.”

“You really shouldn’t have this much faith in me, _____,” he said, shaking his head. “Plus, this might be the one movie I didn’t watch with Sofe.” He saw you perk up at the new name. “My sister. She’s the one who forced me to watch all those Disney films years ago.”

“I like her already,” you mused, a finger on your chin. You paused for a bit, looking down at your shoes, settled lightly upon the pedals. Then, you started the engine once more.  “So…Tangled is the only one you haven’t watched, huh.” 

A glance at you. “Yep.” 

You looked back, hoping to reverse away from the tree. “Right…” You checked your watch, the car slowly moving out of the pavement. “Interesting…super duper interesting.”

It was something insane, fantastical the way Vernon’s nerves seemed to hum at the implications. “I don’t like where this is going.”

“What? I just said that it’s interesting you’ve never watched Tangled…”

The boy scoffed, crossing his arms. “This is where you’re gonna force me to watch the stupid movie.” 

But then he caught the look of surprise on your face, as if you had been caught. “Oh, Jesus, you’re not gonna let me out the car, are you?”

“No, no!” you countered at once, raising your hands. “Well, yes as in I was hoping you would watch the movie with me, and no, I won’t force you.” You sighed a little, fingers back on the wheel. “You’ve already done so much today. If you want to go home, I’ll drive you straight there.”

He watched your expression, the prepared acceptance, the anticipation—the sliver of hope, hiding itself amongst the flurry of other emotions. In all honesty, he was tired; the entirety of this evening had exhausted his social battery (which he doubted he had to begin with) and he still had some sound image work left back at the college studio. If it was any other person asking, he would have happily bunked them off—pretended that he had suddenly developed a terminal illness in the span of minutes, and begged them to drive him back home to ‘live out the rest of his days’.

You, on the other hand, were a problem. He could not let you down—not anymore. Not after today.

When he let out a soft sigh, you were anticipating the worst. Then, he revealed the answer. 

“Let’s watch a fucking Disney Princess movie.”

VERNON DID NOT WANT TO WATCH A FUCKING DISNEY PRINCESS MOVIE. 

The moment you opened the door to your house—a shabby, student house about twenty minutes from campus—stepping inside, he realised there was no way back, and that he had to humour your wish, or else lose respect in your eyes. 

As you brought him down the small hallway, leading into the little living room, you quickly grabbed the takeout boxes of your flatmates, murmuring hurried apologies as you left the room. The boy looked around, the slight cracks of the blue walls, the 32” TV sitting at the opposite end of the fraying couches. Posters of Bridget Jones, Notting Hill, and other Hugh Grant movies were plastered on one end of the wall, while Vernon nearly had a jumpscare when he caught a life-size cardboard cutout of some Disney hero—this one unrecognisable. 

“That’s the love of my life you’re staring at,” came the voice behind him, and he whirled to see you, a huge bowl of popcorn cradled in your hands. “Why’re you standing in the middle like an idiot? Sit, sit!” Vernon obliged, making to settle on the sofas when you tutted. “Are you mental? No, sit on the bean bags near the TV!” 

How stupid of me to assume I could sit on furniture designed for sitting, he meant to crow, but the moment he settled on the bean bags, he instantly preferred their malleable comfort. When he let out a relaxed sigh, you huffed out a laugh, propping the bowl before him. “See?” 

“I was gonna say…” Vernon trailed off, watching you press a few buttons on the DVD player. “Where’s the CD?”

“Already in,” you said, picking up the remote as you settled in the beanbag next to him, scooting closer. Catching a look at his face, you bellowed, “Yes, Mr. Filmbro, I watched it recently!”

“How recently are we saying?”

“...yesterday evening.” 

“And this is the masterpiece you wanna show me,” Vernon murmured, sneaking a look back at the cardboard cutout. “Don’t tell me he’s the floozy that’s leading the film.” 

You turned the TV on. “Fine. I won’t tell you.”

He then looked at you. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Trust me!” you then reasoned, putting a hand on the boy’s knee—the mere touch had his brain rewiring, nerves all ceasing to work on the one point where your touch remained. You really had to stop—first your hand was on his mouth in that damned (blessed) closet, and now this soft reminder. He tried his best not to fix his eyes on your lingering fingers as you carried on, “This film is a modern classic. I promise.” 

Well shit, he thought. When you looked at him like that, you could have convinced him that Quentin Tarantino was a better foot fetishiser than a filmmaker. 

“Okay,” he said, almost believing in your words. 

With that, the landing page for the movie turned on, and there were the main characters; he assumed the chick with the long, blonde hair was Rapunzel, and the man behind her—which, Vernon thought, did not deserve to be celebrated as a life-sized cardboard cutout—was the love interest. Whatever. 

“Let’s just get this over with,” he mumbled as you pressed the fated Play, anticipating the worst. 

And as the two of you fell silent, Vernon still holding out on the popcorn, watching suspiciously at the screen, the voice of a man flooded the TV speaker.

“This…this is the story of how I died.” 

The boy immediately reacted, face dropping. “The fuck?” he got out, catching the WANTED! Poster of the very man he bad-mouthed not two minutes ago. 

“But don’t worry, this is actually a fun story…and the truth is…it isn’t even mine.” 

“Wait, this dude is already dead?” he asked.

“Just watch the movie!” you answered impatiently, making the boy sigh and lean back into the bean bag.

“This is the story of a girl named Rapunzel. And it starts…with the sun.”

You wanted to keep your eyes rooted to the screen, watch the unfurling of Mother Gothel’s backstory, but that was precisely when the incessant complaining began. 

“Now why are we already getting context of some random witch’s actions? Less telling, more showing, man!” Vernon kept his arms crossed, shaking his head at the TV. “Oh, great, poor little king and queen in their big ass castle!” 

“Having basic sympathy will take you great places, my guy,” you merely said, scoffing down the popcorn in the bowl. “Their kid just got stolen by some crazy bitch.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he murmured, piping down once more when the flashbacks ceased, and the present day was introduced into the story. On the screen, a small, green chameleon entered, camouflaging himself behind a pot of flowers. He guessed that the chick with the long hair—Rapunzel—would be finding him, and, lo and behold, he was right. In all fairness, though, it did not take a film degree to work that out.

He also did not need a film degree to guess that a musical number was about to be introduced, not even ten minutes into the movie. That he worked out all by himself, when the guitar riffs sounded. Beside him, you instantly brightened, smile widening as TANGLED morphed on the screen, the song about to begin. 

It was around that point when, as he spared you a glance, he realised you were about to sing along.

“Oh, Jesus—”

If his life was a romantic film, this would have been the perfect setup; the girl that made his heart flutter was seated dangerously close to him, bean bags already touching with shoulders barely following, watching the cheesiest animated movie. He could have seen the shot now, with his gaze turning rose-y as you would open your mouth and sing along to the song. Of course, you would sing beautifully, better than the original singer, and he would sit there, absolutely mesmerised. 

Oh, he was stunned alright. 

“SEVEN AM THE USUAL MORNING, LINE UP—!”

The boy flinched at the sheer volume of your chant—screech would be the better word for it, for he guessed singing was not one of your natural talents. 

You could not see his judgement at all, eyes closed and clutching your fists to your chest, continuing the song. “START ON THE FLOOR AND SWEEP TILL THE FLOOR’S ALL CLEEEEEANNNN—!”

A scoff escaped him, not quite believing the scene before him. He was shocked to silence, the movie’s music now in his background, the forefront being your attempt to outsing the princess. Either no one had told you how horrendous your singing was, or you simply did not care for the opinions of others. A part of him hoped that it was the latter—for you to be so comfortable in singing away, despite what others thought, made his judgement disappear. 

Shamelessly you sang the entire number, up to the point where the scene cuts and the supposedly hot love interest—whose name was Flynn Rider, apparently, which he should have known if he just read the poster at the start of the movie like a normal viewer—was now trying to steal the crown jewels. 

Vernon was too busy thinking about how stupid ‘Flynn Rider’ was as a name to realise that another song had just started. Immediately you changed your tune, your tone lowering, almost sultry. 

This time, you looked at him when you started singing. 

“Look at you, as fragile as a flower…”

“Ayo?” A glance at the TV screen, where Mother Gothel was now singing. “Another song?”

But you did not answer his question, only singing further as you reached your hand out to him. “Still a little sapling, just a sprout!” You continued, and, at that, your hand patted his mess of curls atop his head, mirroring Mother Gothel’s actions. 

Blinking back repeatedly, he could not even shrug it off, stunned once again by how you were casually able to touch him and not feel anything—while his entire system shuts down like a lagging desktop when it tries to run the Sims. 

The overdramatic flair was present in your singing, changed from the sweetness of the previous song. It was crazy how you remembered each word, not slipping at any chorus—you were a true fan, a committed admirer of the film. Even he could not comprehend knowing every single line of his favourites. 

It was admirable indeed—to love a film as you did this one.

It was what made Vernon smile a little, turning away from your melodrama and focusing on the screen, where Mother Gothel now threatened to never be asked to leave the tower. Again.

This time, he would give the movie a chance. Thank God he decided to wake up.

The movie picked up the pace instantly—he had not expected Flynn to meet—and be whacked out by Rapunzel’s frying pan—so quickly, and had reflected her dejection when the mother screamed at her. He could tell where this was going, especially with the thief now in the closet, but he found himself grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl without turning away from the screen.

By the time the third song of the movie came around, he was taken aback that it arrived further in, surrounded by the thugs of the Snuggly Duckling. Without realising, he turned to you, anticipating you breaking out into a song, but you were merely watching the movie, bobbing your head along to the beat.

Noticing his stare, you glanced at him. “Expecting a show?”

“Since you were giving them out without request, I figured this time would be like any other.”

You snorted, grabbing the popcorn. “I’m saving my heavenly voice for the best song, actually.”

Vernon mocked a gasp. “So you’re telling me Mother Knows Best isn’t the best feature?”

“Don’t chat shit, Mr. Filmbro, because Mother Knows Best is one of the top five.”

“I look forward to seeing which song you’re holding out for,” he only said, turning back to the movie again. The popcorn ran out about this time, and you shot up from your bean bag, promising more as you exited the room, leaving him to continue. 

By the time you returned, the protagonists were escaping, chaos ensuing all around them with the guards, his partners and that eccentric white horse chasing them. Ending up in the cave, they recognise a lack of way out, and although Vernon was aware that the movie ends on the happiest note, a small part of him filled with dread. 

That dread disappeared instantly when Flynn confessed his little secret.

“Eugene Fitzherbert?!” The boy demanded.

You chuckled at his disdain. “Yeah, Flynn Rider was hotter. Eugene Fitzherbert ages him about forty years.”

“Flynn Rider was silly, but Eugene is straight up diabolical.” 

“He is still fuckable regardless!” you shushed him, raising your pointer at him. “You wish you had his sex appeal.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, let me just change my name to Bartholomew Whiteman real quick.”

“Hey!” you whacked him on the arm, this time laughing heartily at his quip. “Let my man live!”

He decided to spare your fictional man any more bullying, taking in the town atmosphere where the two adventurers and Maximus had now ended up. “Ooooo, the castle dances are my favourite scenes!” you gushed, scooping popcorn in one hand and eating with the other. “Wait, look, look at the braid!”

“Jeez, I’m looking!” he insisted, watching the girls braid Rapunzel’s hair. Flynn—which Vernon is continuing to identify him as, because Eugene was too much for him—stared at her longingly at the results. Vernon used the popcorn as an excuse to gaze at you matching Flynn’s longing at the screen. Your head rested on your knees, locking your hands in front of them, forming a lazy smile. This smile remained throughout Rapunzel and Eugene’s activities, even to the point when the couple were settled in a boat, waiting for the lights. 

“It’s happening,” you declared, the smile widening as you released your legs from your hands. “Oh my God, it’s fucking happening!”

Raising the volume, the boy watched the screen, where thousands of lanterns were sparking alight at the king and queen’s signal. The lanterns’ lights broke across the borders of the town, melting into the sea, the docked ships. Rapunzel had not noticed though, too busy dropping flower heads upon the water’s surface, Flynn helpfully holding out the bunch. 

As the princess dropped another upon the waterbed, she finally noticed the beginning.

It was then Vernon heard your favourite Disney song.

“All those days, watching from the window…All those years, outside looking in…” 

You followed this time, not as loud as the other songs, quiet and soft, as if letting the blonde shine in her song. “All that time, never even knowing, just how blind I’ve been…”” 

You exhibited the same excitement as Rapunzel, who, noticing the lanterns, threw off Flynn’s balance, hanging onto the curling bow of the boat.

The boy, however, was not really focused on the screen.

Because the music that surrounded the two crept into his ears, playing the strings of his senses; because the lights were off save for the TV, shining its dimmed lighting upon your face, making you glow with the dark purples, blues, golds of the Tangled scenery. He lost all interest in everything because you were looking something out of a daydream, watching the events of the movie as if they were scenes of salvation. The two of you were definitely not on any kind of boat, merely sitting on bean bags. Despite all of that, he began to float—swaying from where he sat, as if he was truly settled on water. 

“Now I’m here—” You put your hand to your chest— “Blinking in the starlight…now I’m here, suddenly I see…”

You kept singing the lyrics, voice more subdued than your last outbursts, and Vernon could only watch you, the pure love of this song radiating off your very pores. Vernon’s anticipation rose with every octave of the singer’s voice rising, eyes never leaving your face, the parted mouth. 

“Standing here, it’s oh! so clear…!”

As the viewers themselves were about to observe the thousands of lanterns Rapunzel witnessed, Vernon himself waiting, he made the mistake of averting his gaze from you, if only to see the grand reveal.

It was what made you unconsciously envelop your fingers with his, clasping his hand with yours.

He whipped his head to yours, eyes widening to the point of spilling. 

You were already looking at him. 

When you sang the next lyrics, Vernon could have melted molten.

“I’m where I’m meant to be!” 

And as the lanterns surrounded the protagonists, lighting up the entirety of the night, you sang the chorus to the boy in your little college flat, no one to witness it but two of you.

“And at last I see the light! And it’s like the fog has lifted!” 

Your voice was hoarse now, all the screech-singing catching up to you. Vernon, in another lifetime, would have instantly resisted, ran for the hills if it was literally anyone else in the room but you.

“And at last I see the light! And it’s like the sky…is new…” 

But it was you—you holding his hand tightly, you looking at him with the light of the lanterns in your eyes, you opening up to him in your little haven, away from anyone else. Granted, you could have offered this performance to anyone, but he liked to think—shit, he was truly hoping—that you would not have done this for anyone else. 

You would have only sang your favourite song to him. 

“And it’s warm, and real, and bright! And the world has somehow…shifted…”

Vernon watched you halt a moment, waiting for the next verse, your hand tightening in his. 

“All at once…everything looks different…”

You were right—the world had shifted underneath him, stilled under the dimmed lighting of this dingy living room. The two of you now faced each other, music still tuning from the TV, but the characters long forgotten, as if they never existed. Yes, you were right in that everything looked different, seemed different, as if he was seeing you for the very first time. 

“Now that I…see you.”

Shit. You were rather beautiful before him.

You paused then, watching his reaction. You tilted your head, thoroughly amused by the sheer awe that radiated from his face, but then you noticed his chest rise and fall, more unevenly the longer you observed him. 

The next detail you caught was how his eyes darted down—down to your lips.

It was the lips, which were watched so intently, that parted.

You attempted at a little humour. “Out of all my talents, I guess singing isn’t one of them.”

But Vernon did not respond with words. Sure, he would have agreed with you, but singing was irrelevant now. Out of all these infinite talents you possessed—your natural charm, your ease in making him laugh, your trespassing and eventual escaping of such crimes—Vernon could not have given less of a shit about singing. Not when you were before him, bathed in an unnatural, extraordinary light, soft music playing in the background. Almost as if he had adorned the rose-tinted glasses, courtesy of the universe.

In any romantic comedy, he would have kissed her.

The boy was not known to be courageous—anything but brave. Real Life, Not Clickbait Vernon would have left by now. The Real Vernon should have pussied out. 

You, however, looked a little too beautiful to be treated with cowardice. 

“Are you going to kiss me, Mr. Filmbro, or are you gonna make me wait till the end of the movie?”

He parted his mouth for a split second, gob-smacked at your question. The twinkle in your gaze, though, had him spluttering out a harsh chuckle, craning his head down at the sheer absurdity of it all. But then he looked up, smiling, not quite believing what he was about to do.

“I should make you wait.”

That was what he said. What Vernon instead did was finally grow the two balls that were supposed to be hidden in his pants, leaning in and pressing his lips against yours. 

Now the boy always wondered whether the movies were right—when mouths would touch, move against each other, whether a fire would ignite between souls, whether one really felt as if they were not of this world.

It seemed like Hallmark-level bullshit to him, but the moment his lips touched yours, he began to float out of this room. A soft hum reverated from you, approval at his actions, and he could have burst as he felt you smile against him. 

Maybe Disney was right. God, he really did not want to be in such accord with that stupid corporation, but they were onto something with the fireworks, the orchestral singing when couples kiss. He himself felt a choir-like chant all around him as he brought his hand to your face, angling it slightly so he could gain better access, boost your pleasure as he delved slightly deeper.

He was unstoppable. He was alive and ecstatic and delirious, opening his mouth wider, his other hand now finding your waist, snuffing out any distance between you two. It was not like he was a pro in these situations—he had only ever had one serious girlfriend, and that was at an age where a boy could get away with merely ‘french-kissing’ (as the kids back then would have gloated) your significant other. Again, he may have fooled around a little in college, too, but never had he experienced this haze of lust, this newfound desire. 

This desire enhanced further when you slipped your tongue from the seams, sliding it along his as an invitation for more, and he could have honestly thanked that heinous hag Walt Disney for making movies you adored so much, to the point of showing him and landing him in this situation. Of course he indulged you, opening his mouth enough to let you inside. The sensation of your tongue slipping past his lips had a soft noise releasing from his throat. 

Tangled was all but forgotten, the two of you too occupied being entangled with each other. You pulled him even closer, wrapping your arms around his neck, fingers brushing against the ends of his hair. The soft touches had every strand of his locks standing on edge, a wave of delight washing over him. 

You were sagged into the bean bag, Vernon’s weight upon you sinking you further, but you did not mind it—relished it, his scent engulfing you, the sighs and soft murmurs of his every exhale haunting your eardrums. Who would have thought that a boy who could recite every Joker quote from The Dark Knight—Virgin Supremism you termed the talent—had this kind of game hidden underneath? How was he able to ignite such powerful emotions from you?

How was Vernon ‘Filmbro’ Chwe able to make you feel so good you did not realise Tangled finishing right before you?

The two of you could have spent all night intertwined in each other, perhaps would have gone past the boundaries of mere making out. However, between the haze of his soft whispers to you, your own mist swimming in your head, you heard the starting music of the DVD reverting to the home page, and like instinct you opened your eyes, finding that the movie had ended.

You must have paused, because Vernon immediately stopped, concern staining his pretty features. His knitted brow, eyes laced with nervousness, shamed you for ever stopping. “What’s wrong? Did I do something?”

“Oh, no, no!” You felt like a fool for the answer you attempted to give him. “It’s just, um…”

He followed your line of sight, turning around. Once he realised, he looked back at you, you surprised to find a little shock replacing his concern. “We were going for that long?”

Your smirk had his stomach knotting. “This is what happens when you make out with someone you like, Mr. Filmbro.” 

He could not respond, looking away as his flushed face managed to redden some more. You only laughed at him, playing with the hem of his shirt, his arms still steady as they caged you. “You are so lucky, you know.”

He quirked a brow. “And why is that?” 

“I would never miss the second half of Tangled for a man.”

It was so incredibly stupid, how he felt a semblance of pride at the notion.“Happy to know I’m an exception.”

“You do know I’m gonna make you watch it again so you can say you’ve watched it.”

Vernon tilted his head to the side, lost in thought. You watched him, anticipating. “This is the part where you say you’d rather Mingyu jump you than rewatch Tangled.” 

“Well yes, but…” He glanced over his shoulder, where your shelf of DVDs were stacked, a particular movie which had caught his eye previously now standing out all the more. “I, uh…” 

He looked back at you, and the self-conscious glint in his gaze had you watching his every movement. “I was hoping to show you my favourite movie instead.”

You were ready to make a comment on how you prided on avoiding Nolan films like the plague, but then you remembered the conversation at Mingyu’s house. Your eyebrows could have touched your hairline. “You said I could never know.”

“Well…” a small smile escaped him, slowly pulling himself away. “If I am to be your exception, _____, then I suppose you can be mine.”

Gaping at him, you could only keep silent as he, with great effort on his part, heaved off you, making his way to the shelf. He was lucky, you thought—had he been a moment slower, that comment alone would have had you kissing him again. 

What quickly caught your attention was him sliding his pointer finger through your collection, a series of your favourites. The anticipation was rising, you not quite believing that Mr. Filmbro’s favourite film was within your arsenal. Weeks ago, you would have bullied him relentlessly for the ironic hypocrisy.

When he pulled out the fated DVD, you let out the greatest laugh.

The boy instantly frowned, but you did not realise, cackling and cackling away at the selection, the final boss of Vernon’s favourite film, nestled between his fingers. “Shut up,” he mumbled, but again, you did not hear him, lost in the shrill sound of your laughter, erupting the room to life. 

“Oh, Jesus—” Your chortling did not seem to stop, almost to the point of hiccups. “Your ass…this entire time—!”

“And suddenly I’m leaving!” Vernon announced, getting up and about to drop the DVD. 

He did not last long in his determination when you grabbed onto the end of his shirt, grinning still. “Thank God you’re not a Nolan kiss-ass…that’s all I’m saying.”

All he could do was stand like an idiot, the tips of your fingers caressing the skin just above his trousers. “But I am a Nolan kiss-ass,” he murmured, crossing his arms. 

“That’s what I thought, too, but this film—” you jerked your head towards the prize in his hand. “You’ve redeemed yourself.”

“Stop it,” he only said, crouching down to pull out the Tangled CD, replacing it with the new, and, in his opinion, improved movie. “This is why I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

“And nobody will know,” you assured him, watching the movie’s main menu pop up, the PLAY option highlighted. “This’ll be our secret.”

“First the trespassing,” Vernon began, sitting down beside you, “Then the tampering of movies, and now this.” He grabbed the remote, about to play the movie. “How much more are we gonna sneak around?”

You looked at him, and the smile you offered him had him glancing away—only for a second. “Have you not had fun, though? Sneaking around with me?”

Normally, in a situation where he had zero balls, he would have evaded such a question, not fanned the flames of your fire. But tonight he had watched a Disney movie with you, felt your fingers caressing his skin, had even kissed you in the purple hues of Tangled’s light. Tonight, he could conquer the world.

What would answering a heated question do any harm?

Vernon locked eyes with you then, trying to fight his smile. “I think I could have fun with you anywhere…in secret or for anyone to see.”

As something in your gaze shifted, he turned the film on (an entendre which was completely intentional). 

Once again, the two of you were in the same position, watching yet another film, this time another’s all time favourite. The narrator began in a strange, European accent, explaining the tale of an unfortunate princess, much like Rapunzel, and her dire situation. 

Although it was undoubtedly his most treasured film, the boy had a very hard time paying attention when all he could feel was that penetrating stare of yours, capable of revealing his very soul from beneath his measly shirt. Even when the stranger main character was introduced, following his main routine in his strangest abode, Vernon was not particularly concentrating anymore.

Not when he heard your voice, a soft question amongst the gaudy music of the 2000s. “Do you mean that, Vernon?”

And perhaps it was because you said his actual name, especially when your voice sounded like…like that. Like something from a perfect movie soundtrack, akin to the end-credits of an unforgettable TV show. 

Because he was too occupied with simply admiring you, he merely nodded, biting the inside of his cheek.

And because you were too busy admiring him, his words, the entire night where you had felt pure, euphoric joy, you did Mr. Filmbro a little dirty by making a decision that negated his film.

You shifted closer once more, hands reaching out to hold his face. 

This time, Vernon was prepared when you kissed him.

There was a certain eagerness in your lips this time which was newer—more enjoyable to his senses. It made sense now, why all these couples in movies made out for hours and hours on end. He felt as if he could kiss you forever, move against your mouth, delve inside until his tongue memorised your very imprint. 

You moaned a little louder this time, and the very sound had his heartbeat racing, moreso when, as he pressed you against him, shifting upon his beanbag, he knew then and there that something in the air shifted.

Last time, you had stopped. This time, there was no such indication—the very thought had him skirting his hands around you, holding you tight enough to never let go.

Still—even with such possibilities, there was no way you and him would escalate to the point of losing his virginity.

Whatever happens though, he will still watch the end of his favourite film. 

Whatever happens, Vernon would not be having sex with you if Shrek was playing in the background.

VERNON LOST HIS VIRGINITY WITH SHREK PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND.

Certainly not his greatest achievements, considering he could not focus on his favourite movie, but it was certainly not his fault. You were—to put it quite plainly—hot as fuck.

He did not leave until the very next day because—as he had stated that night—he still wanted you to watch Shrek, and did, somehow, end up watching it properly. You did not stop teasing him, and he did not stop shutting you up by kissing you senseless. 

Unfortunately, the boy did have college the next day, so he had to leave at some point, but not without promises of meeting you again. This time, however, you two did not continue the crimes he committed with you. You and Vernon were not modern-day Joker and Harley Quinn.

When the two of you were not terrorising Mingyu’s livelihood, you decided to hang out at the filmstore, where it all began. Vernon would host weekly movie nights, and both of you would eat popcorn and watch each other’s recommendations, scoring them differently in accordance to what was most important for each other.

For the film majoring student, the rating was influenced not only by the actors’ performances, but also from the intricate storyline, the character developments, their relationships. A story, for him at least, was about relationships. Good cinema was about the chemistry between two actors, the emotional connection they had not just with each other, but also their effect on the audience. The actual editing of the film, too, was another bullet point in his criteria.

Your rating, on the other hand, differed slightly. 

“Michelle Yeoh is such a MILF,” was your only comment upon finishing Everything Everywhere All at Once. 

This comment nearly made Vernon lose his mind. “One of the greatest movies of this decade, and this is your only input?”

“But am I wrong, though?”

Vernon sighed a little at that—at the end of the day, you were absolutely in the right. There was a reason Crazy Rich Asians went platinum in his dingy little room. 

Of course, it was not just his personal recommendations that played. You had compiled a list of your all-time favourites, going beyond Disney’s borders, and Vernon was introduced to the dashing timeless genre of the rom-com. Now having a younger sister who (he thought) was a basic bitch meant he did possess some knowledge of the genre, but he had never really sat down and watched a rom-com without falling asleep in Sofia’s bed. 

For you, though, he braved the most famous romances, which he found himself enjoying more than he would have liked—more so when he found one of his favoured actors in 10 Things I Hate About You.

“Heath Ledger singing was something I never thought I needed,” Vernon commented as the ferocious couple finally kissed. 

“And this is the same fella who was the Joker in your little Nolan film,” you reminded him, as if he was not aware already. “Oh, and he was the gay cowboy in that movie.”

“Gay cowboy?” His confusion lasted for approximately thirty seconds before he groaned, pushing you over on your beanbag. “My god, are you talking about Brokeback Mountain?”

“Yes, that one!” you exclaimed, picking up the TV remote. “My guy has range, but him as a high schooler is still my favourite role.”

“You do realise how bad that sounds, right?”

“You know what I mean,” you said, waving him off as you began searching for the next movie. “Now, Two Weeks’ Notice or The Proposal?”

Vernon endeavoured to weigh in on the options. “Which one do you think I’d like?”

“Well, both have Sandra Bullock in them…”

He looked over both DVDs. “Now that’s a white woman I can get behind.” 

You scooched a little over to him, locking your hands together. “We can watch something you like…” When he knitted his brows together, not quite answering you, you went on, almost unable to look him in the eye. “You’ve been super nice, you know…sitting through all my favourites.” 

The boy could not help it, unable to let a smirk slip. “Is this _____ appreciating me for once?” The beginnings of his shit-eating attitude did not develop, since your smack on his arm completely snuffed it out. “Ow, damn!”

“You deserved that,” you muttered, beginning to scoot away until Vernon’s hand on your wrist stopped you. 

When you focused your gaze at him, he already beat you to it. “Let’s watch both today.” 

It was silly, how that made your heart beat faster. “Really? You would watch two rom-coms in a row?”

As his hand pulled you closer, his stare had you almost—almost—nervous. “I’ve done worse for you.”

“Very true,” you said, absent-minded, more lost in the twinkle of his eyes. “Very, uh…good point.”

Vernon thanked all the higher bodies that may have existed for the pure, unadulterated rizz he was attempting to spew. “I’m full of good points,” he crowed. “Now, are you going to stare at me all night, or are we going to watch Sandra Bullock?”

Although your cheeks burned, you pushed him off, earning a chuckle from him. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Mr. Filmbro. The only man I’ll be staring at will be Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal.”

All of the boy’s suave attitude dissipated at his shock. “The Deadpool guy?!”

“Ryan Reynolds did have range before,” you explained, shaking your head. “Then the superhero bug bit him.”

“What a shame,” he only said, as if Vernon did not follow the Deadpool universe to the point of possessing special editioned comics in his room. Still, he happily slotted the CD inside the player, and excused himself to make more popcorn for the two of you.

As the boy prepared snacks, glancing back every time at the opening scene, he managed to sneak a look at you, eagerly watching the screen. 

He could only smile, putting all the popcorn in the huge bowl before hurrying back to you. 

THIS WAS PROBABLY THE FIRST TIME YOU WORE A SUIT TO A CINEMA. PERHAPS THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU WORE A SUIT AT ALL.

Admittedly, it was not as if you had intended to go into the cinema in formal attire—or, at least the only formal clothing you had. Your first plan was to steal something from your father’s wardrobe, but when you tried it on, it did not fit properly, and you refused to look like an idiot in public.

Not that you cared much about looking like an idiot in public before, but there was another person to look out for. And that person, although had already done embarrassing enough actions for you, did not want to push it further. One more ceremonious act of humiliation, and Vernon would have run a thousand miles from you—or that was what you thought. 

You observed your cinema fit one last time before your bathroom mirror, fixing the lapels for the nth time. Your rented three-piece suit was almost a second skin, waistcoat snug underneath the tweed jacket, matching coloured trousers adorned alongside. You borrowed some Oxford brogues from a friend, which made you realise that you had more posh friends than you knew. You tried to find a hat similar to the one Cillian Murphy wore in the promotions, but because you did not have the wardrobe of a middle aged man, you resorted to let your head rest. 

All of this elaborate planning to see Nolan’s (apparently) greatest release yet—Oppenheimer. 

Because the cinema was not far away from you, you decided to walk, messaging your date to let him know that you were on your way. You were certain he was already there in the cinema; Vernon, since you had started hanging out more with him, had only ever talked about Nolan’s upcoming epic. You swore if you recited the IMDB plot out to him during sex, he would have spunked within minutes (a mental note to experiment on that later). His excitement had you booking midnight release tickets, which consequently made him so happy you thought you had invited Nolan to the town cinema. 

The night, furthering along, had beautified the black sky, stars twinkling on your journey. The consistent vibrations from your phone indicated the boy’s imminent excitement, and you smiled, double-checking your formal attire once more. You would have romanticised the nighttime further but living in student area brought you right back to fearing slightly for your life, so you quickened your step, cinema already a close speck in the distance. 

You knew you were nearer to the destination when the flocks of pink and black grew, the cowboy hats and fake pipes all piling up in your vision. Seeing the pink reminded you of Barbie’s influence, also being released tonight alongside the more serious counterpart. 

A small part of you really wanted to see the midnight release for the new movie. The original plan most people were following was either to watch Oppenheimer and then Barbie, or the other way around. You were so close to procuring tickets for the latter, but decided that it was important to accompany Vernon to the seemingly bigger release. After all, you were never as excited about films as the dear film major you had rather grown to like.

Another vibration of your phone, and you finally decided to stop ignoring said-film major and text him, possibly informing you of his arrival.

mr. filmbro: yo where u at

mr. filmbro: they’re too many pink mfs out here im getting suffocated

You rolled your eyes.

_____: im coming to save u kitten.

mr. filmbro: :0

Once you were inside, it was a complete sea of pink and black and grey. Two sides, which one would assume would be opposing, were all celebrating, sharing their drinks, anticipating when the theatre doors would open to let everyone in. Within this myriad of fans, you tried to search for the most mentally ill one—the one who you were certain had a finer three-piece set than you, who would have happily stolen Cillian Murphy’s set clothes to truly honour the movie. 

Strangely enough, after a few minutes, you could not find him, even after confirming your seats. You searched for anyone wearing anything devoid of colour, but did not find the boy. This time, you decided to bother him, calling him and pressing the phone to your ear. 

“Where are you, kitten?” you purposely growled, lowering your voice an octave. “Daddy’s waiting.”

“Kitten actually killed himself after hearing that,” was his purposeful monotone. 

“Can you resurrect yourself for me real quick? I’m tryna find where you are.” 

“I’m next to the Oppenheimer popup.” Immediately you tried to find it, scouring through the crowds. “I figured you’d find me easier.”

Scoffing, you ignored the Barbie stalls, walking further ahead. “How very smart of you to wear Oppenheimer clothing while standing next to it. So much easier to find you, isn’t it?”

He did not retort back, instead inciting your excitement. “Wait, I think I can see you…?”

Your eyes darted over to the fresh faces of the Nolan fans, all taking pictures of the cast pop-ups. What you were observing were the men and women, all lack of colour. 

What your gaze ended up on was someone completely different. 

What you were expecting was a mini-Oppenheimer, the too-large blazer, the sashed hat upon pretty brown curls. What you received instead was a boy engulfed in all the pinks of the colour wheel.

Pink was the colour of his top, bubblegum pink the colour of the stringy fur coat sporting over said shirt. Magenta was the colour of his flared trousers, whilst rose was the colour of his converse. What topped off the entire look was the hot pink cowboy hat, sitting perfectly upon his wavy locks, completing his fit—a fit which was perfect for the Barbie movie. 

It was around that point that he caught on to your stare—through the oceans of opposing fans, he, too, finally found you.

Vernon heard your curse murmur through the phone. “Oh my fucking God.”

That was when his own gaze roamed over you, shocked and shameless amongst the crowds. Not that the crowds mattered, not anymore. He was a little nervous, he had to admit it to himself, only because there were so many people, and they were only watching for the fad, for the trend. A part of him wanted just you and him in this midnight cinema, the biggest official date yet. 

But then seeing you here, in all your black-clad, Oppenheimered glory, had stunned him to his core. Although he had specifically brought you here to watch the movie, he had completely expected you to arrive in the pinkmania fit. Because you had kindly booked tickets for his anticipated film, he thought at least to participate in the Barbie craze fit.

It was like instinct, how his steps gravitated towards you, his phone still pressed against his ear, very much like you. You followed him slowly, hearing his ragged breaths through the speaker, watching him walk closer and closer until you both were a mere couple of feet away.

Only then did you drop the call, your hands at your sides as you admired him. It was a while before any of you spoke. 

Like always, you spoke first. “Tell me the fur coat is yours.”

A ghost of a smirk. “Sofia’s.”

“Stealing’s like second nature to you now, isn’t it?” you taunted. 

Like always, he dodged your taunts. “I thought you were gonna wear all pink.”

“I thought you were gonna wear all black.”

He tilted his head. “Well, I thought since we were watching both movies…”

Your confusion was clear, the corner of his lips curling further up. “Wasn’t Oppenheimer first?”

He then went inside his flared trouser pockets, fishing out two tickets—its colours matching his outfit. “I know how much you wanted to see Margot Robbie be silly.” 

“I did!” you exclaimed, taking the tickets from him, admiring how pretty they were designed, especially when compared to the Oppenheimer marketing tickets. In your admiration, though, you noticed a detail which had your excitement faltering. “Wait, are you sure? It says the movie’s at the same time.”

Vernon then checked the timings, mouth parting. “Oh shit. Didn’t think about that.” He shook his head, mouth straightening in a line, dejected. “This is what happens when I try to do something romantic.”

“I have to give points for effort,” you offered, bringing your hands to his wrist. “Hey, it’s okay. Let’s watch Oppenheimer, honestly. Cillian Murphy is still hot when he’s old.”

“No, no,” he countered, clasping your hands on his wrist. “It’s chill.” He glanced down. “Let’s do Barbie first.”

You attempted to argue him on this, but he simply let go of your hands, with his one hand wrapping around your waist, and the other hand’s wrist being checked for the time. You bit back a smile at his mere actions, relishing his fingers skirting under the suit, the waistcoat. “Vernon,” you attempted. 

“_____,” he said back, staring at you with an awe that you would have deserved had you worn a couture gown, not some rented hand-me-downs. 

You knew he would not take no for an answer now. “But what about Oppenheimer?” you asked anyway as the two of you made your way to the cinema. 

Vernon only pretended to think extremely deeply of the situation, making you elbow him playfully. “Now tell me, Dear Disney Hag, how did we enter Mingyu’s house?”

“Why, we walked straight in!” you answered like an over-enthusiastic student, in which he sarcastically clapped for you. 

“Right on.” As you both walked towards the Barbie theatre, the opposing movie was being screened right beside you, where people were bursting in. “See how everyone is walking in right now?” He gave you a knowing glance. 

That knowing glance had you scoffing in excited disbelief. “My God! Look at you, all ready to commit crimes!” you looped a hand around his arm. “I have taught you well, young man.”

He patted your arm. “Mr. Filmbro has come a long way from chatting shit about your movie taste.”

“So you admit it?” you leaned in. “Disney makes better movies than your flop directors?”

“That’s a completely different claim,” he clarified. “My taste in films is objectively better.”

“Still doesn’t change the fact you're watching the Barbie movie before Oppenheimer.”

He rolled his eyes, tugging you closer. “That’s ‘cause I like you a lot, Disney Hag…”

You did not stop your smile from lighting up your entire face. “You’re not the most insufferable filmbro I’ve dated I guess…”

”I better be the last filmbro you date,” he muttered, watching over the last of the crowds, where they now stood, waiting to enter the theatre.

The longer you waited to answer him, the more incredulous his face became, brows knotted in disbelief. You only chuckled, leaning in and pressing your lips upon his. Of course, he was taken aback, but surprises like these were pleasant, welcomed with open arms as Vernon closed his eyes, pulling you in. 

The moment the line started quickening you broke away, only to make sure no one skipped in front of you and him, and thus deal with yours and his passive aggression. You could not help the giggle that escaped you at breaking away from his lips, relishing in his dazed state. 

Honestly—you truly would not have minded being anywhere with him.

When it was finally your turn to go inside the Barbie screening, you held tightly to his hand. “Let’s go, Mr. Filmbro.”

Vernon only smiled. “Right behind you, _____.”

And as the two of you entered the theatre, hand-in-hand, the boy learned that perhaps he, too, would have gone anywhere with you. 

[randomshipperhere]

Oop- there it is. Usually when I go on a film spree I just give up somewhere around the 20+ mark. First time I did it was with anime (I don’t even watch them anymore 😭 lowkey miss it but I’m exhausted. Maybe once every half year). Then it was musicals (just know I didn’t like West Side Story 2021 ver.) then it was Andrew Garfield’s filmography then Ryan Gosling and now… Keanu.

So I stopped for a few days (partially due to irl responsibilities) and will slow down to one film every few days. So it was The Lake House (2006). Great film. I was not a fan of the ending. It just unraveled so many of the plot points it set up that my enjoyment went down at the last second. Like come on, his brother said Alex died and suddenly you tell me he’s alive and well and they met up?! Nah because if that was a joke by his brother it’s not funny. Also then why did he miss the dinner? Hello?! I was so down when I thought it was a closed loop situation. I like to think now that as Kate breaks down in front of that mail box an alternate timeline was forged except we didn’t get to see the AU without the continuity errors. Hah… everything about the 2004 parts of the film was great. Amazing. Would watch again. 2006 scenes were a hit or miss. I still love that saturday date they had uuuuuuu. Made my heart swell. Architect propaganda film jk but the whole bit with Alex’s father getting passionate about architecture? I love when films do that. The one that comes to mind is the jazz rant in La La Land.

In the trivia section as well when Sandra Bullock named the dog Jack because of their previous film together? Speed?! Cute. And there was a whole thing about Persuasion in the film and their characters had that and THEY had that sort of thing going on irl. When life imitates art moments.

Still have so many films to go watch (Siberia, Destination Wedding, and To the Bone in that order) and two that I have to rewatch now that I’m hyper aware of Keanu’s existence (Constantine and Always Be My Maybe but those are very low on the list since i gtg watch the stuff I haven’t seen first!). Kevin Lomax continues to be my king through all of this. That man’s grip on me is insane.

Edit: oh my god I literally told myself it’d be the first thing I write but I forgot! I think this film is where I’ve heard Keanu the clearest?? If that makes sense.