#I lost marks because I only had two shots in my confined space instead of three

[yeojaa]

wait !!!! find her jk with that prompt the other anon sent!!! can u plssss that’s literally something find her jk would actually do🥺🥺🥺🥺

[ read finders keep hers ]

pairing.  jjk x (named) f!reader.  rating.  general.  tags.  idiots in love.  like, that’s all there is to say.  angst central, my dude.  wc.  2.4k.  author note.  i meant to make this short and end with some tender lovemaking but...  i cannot be trusted near a keyboard so you get this word vomit instead.  xoxo!

You love Jeon Jungkook.  Have, you think, since before you knew what the word love meant.

(Maybe since you were children and you’d still stood a chance against him, bursting with pride from a job well done, young enough that your parents’ kind words felt better than anything in the world.  Before he’d turned into the president of the Casanova Club and he’d just been your and your brother’s best friend.  Little Jeon with the unbelievably big eyes, always so curious about everything.

Or maybe since your tenth grade White Day, when he’d bought you your favourite candies and pressed them unceremoniously into your hands, too many to hold so they fall to dirt and tumble around you.  He’d stooped to snatch them all up, shoving them into the pockets of your coat.  “Because we’re best friends or whatever,”  he’d said with this toothy, silly smile.

More likely during university.  That time you’d maybe (read: very) foolishly made out, liquor fueling the tangle of your limbs and how utterly good he felt within them, a nectarine dream in his brand new G Wagon.  You’d thought he’d laugh in your face, mumble something about no, we can’t - which he had - but he’d also taken you home, tucked you in and climbed in beside your inebriated self.

Definitely once you’d started seeing each other, spending more time in his bed than anywhere else.  It’d been nearly impossible to separate head from heart, falling deeper and deeper into the Jungkook-shaped black hole that seemed to eclipse everything else.  You’d fallen head over stupid heels, leaving bits of yourself hidden among his things.  Your lip balm in his trouser pocket, perfume on the collar of his favourite turtleneck, shape of your mouth alongside monogrammed initials. 

You hadn’t meant to.

Love him, that is.  It’d simply happened in between all the laughter, the eye rolls, the smiles.  Threaded between each action and cemented by the thud of your heart, beat into the ground like a drum.)

Sometimes, though, you don’t like him.  Oftentimes, in fact. 

You and Jungkook are as different as can be.  

You’re in business development at a tech firm;  he’s the technically unemployed son of a real estate mogul.  You invest most of your money;  he spends his as if it’ll never run out (which it likely won’t).  You grew up with an older brother;  he’s got two younger sisters.  You drink to celebrate, to wind down;  he drinks to prove a point.  You believe in love - have to, looking at your parents and feeling how you do about him;  he knows it exists but up until recently, had zero interest in it.

You wonder still, seated at the table with your group of friends and their partners, whether that still rings true.  (Deep down, you know it doesn’t. You know he loves you, wants you in a way he’s never wanted anyone else before, but your brain is a fickle thing, playing tricks when it shouldn’t.) 

Would he be happier without you?  Better off without you? 

Your thoughts mock you - just as he does, roguish smile turning his entire expression into sunshine.  Inescapable, all-encompassing, so blinding it’s almost hard to look at.  Trained on the girl he’s chatting up at the bar.  

This is what Jungkook does.  What he’s always done.  You should be used to it, really.  The man’s charm is always turned up to eleven, always in full effect even when he doesn’t mean it to be.  It’s simply part of who he is- young and rich and devastatingly, heartbreakingly handsome. 

Still, you can’t help the emotion that swells somewhere deep in your stomach, jostles the meal you’ve just had and turns your insides into a sea of nausea.  You know when he’s just being friendly and you know when he’s flirting.  It’s a terribly thin line but one you recognise, intimately familiar with the two sides of his personality.  

Right now, he’s flirting.  Doing that thing he does, one arm folded on the counter top, unblemished hand resting somewhere along his hip, silver of his rings acting as a beacon beneath the dim restaurant lights.  His other hand slots itself into the pocket of his coated jeans, tattoos thrown into stark contrast against his skin and the black of the denim.  There’s that smile of his, more a smirk but sunny, radiant, beautiful.  It lights up his entire face, steeping his expression in something warm.  The dimple in his cheek winks with each laugh - you can only imagine the one on the other side does the same, cut deeply into his skin.

Don’t be mad, you tell yourself.  He’s your Jungkook, bad habits and all.  

You love him.  You love him.  You love him.

If he notices your stoicism, he doesn’t comment on it.  Doesn’t ask what’s wrong or if you’re okay or what’s up.  Barely even speaks to you, save to toss his arm around your shoulder and tug you close, practically tug you into his lap while his friends share stories of their week.

It’s your usual Friday night dinner.  Something you’ve done with this ragtag group for as long as you’ve known them.  An excuse to go out and drink and eat some damn good (and often free) food. 

You wish you could enjoy it like you normally do.  Instead, you’re preoccupied by the way a perfume that isn’t yours lingers on his collar - seeps beneath the fabric and marks him up like a possession.  It’s too sweet - cloying sugar apples and coconut - nothing like your usual earthy wisteria and dewy rose.  It stings your nose when you inhale too deeply, nestled into the familiar shape of Jungkook’s frame, settled between the vertebrae you know best.

You hardly notice when he does speak to you, rousing you from thought you can’t quite place any longer.

“Ready to head home?”

The rest of your friends are going about their business, slipping their coats on and exchanging ideas for plans the following morning.  (Saturday brunch is a very popular thing, though it tends to lean late lunch versus true breakfast-brunch.)

You nod and slip from beneath your lover’s arm, plucking your purse up as you rise.  You’re ready to get out of here, ready to scrub away the melancholy that lingers like a thin film across your skin.  

He must have realised sometime between your silence in the car and your lacklustre kisses in the elevator.  You think he must, as he nearly slams the front door of his penthouse shut, kicks off his Chelsea boots and lets them tumble together just off the welcome mat.  (Not the reaction you’d expected, but you’ve learnt to never expect anything from him.  As much as he might be your best friend, Jeon Jungkook plays by his own set of rules.)

He doesn’t wait for you to undo your own shoes, carefully undoing the straps of your Jimmy Choos and setting them where they belong before you follow the sound of his footsteps.

When you find him, he’s stripping off his jacket and tossing it haphazardly across the back of his desk chair, keys and wallet and phone dropped none-too-gently upon wood.  He says nothing even as he crosses to his closet, steps inside and slips off each piece of jewellery:  assorted rings and his Rolex - everything but the bracelet you’d gotten him for graduation.  

His belt goes next, set back within the confines of its velvet lined drawer.  Through the hole goes the button of his jeans, down goes the zipper, and then he’s in nothing but his vaguely sheer dress shirt, boxer-briefs, and silly printed socks (yellow bananas on black fabric, for reasons), looking every inch the adonis he is. 

You still haven’t said a word, carefully hanging your dress in the small space you’ve carved out for yourself.  You don’t really know what to say - how to approach his apparent frustration when you don’t know where it comes from.

Is he upset with you?  Had you, somewhere along the line of your own sadness, done something to upset him?

You’re running through all the scenarios, lost in thought, when his voice breaks the quiet.  Snaps forth and hits its mark - a perfect shot.  “Seriously?”  There’s a fickle quality to his tone, a pettiness that you recognise when he hasn’t gotten his way, when he’s not quite sure what to say but knows he wants to have something.  (It doesn’t come out often with you, but you’re intimately familiar with it still.  His I-want-to-fight voice.)

“Pardon?”  You’re not expecting him so close, close enough to reach you but far enough that you can tell he’s purposely put this distance between you.  It feels strange - further apart than it is.

“You’re not going to say anything?”

You blink.  Once, twice, three times.  When you speak, it’s full of confusion, paired with your brows gathering in a little knot of bewilderment.  “Anything about what?”

“What happened at dinner.”  

He sounds so utterly deadpan, you can’t help but laugh, a sound of disbelief rather than amusement.  

“You mean you flirting with that girl?”  Even saying the words feels awful, makes you want to crawl into bed and forget about it all.

Jungkook, on the other hand, looks like you’ve just handed him the answers to all of life’s questions.  His entire face rearranges, all the pieces matching back up to form a proper puzzle.  There’s a certain smugness to it now, caught in the round of his cheek and how it ticks higher with his grin.  “So you did notice!  I fucking knew it.”

“Of course I did.”  You want to be appalled.  Know you should be.  (But it’s Jungkook and you love him.)  “Kind of hard not to.”  

He’s the devil in disguise, snapping you to him with a flex of his arms, hands curled around your waist.  It’s clear he’s pleased, absolutely tickled pink that you’d fallen for his silly little trick.  “Gotta keep you on your toes,”  he croons, eyes twinkling, mouth wobbling with the strain of keeping his laughter hidden. 

He expects you to agree - maybe roll your eyes and pat his cheek, laughs along with him and give him some sort of shit about how he’s an idiot - and visibly starts when you push yourself away, two palms flat against his chest. 

“Sure.”

One word.  Nothing like he’d imagined.

“Baby?”  You’ve made it two steps - two whole steps, which is two too many to Jungkook - when he’s pulling you back, trapping you against his chest with his arms looped around your shoulders.  “Where you going?”  He’s kissing along your shoulder, trailing warmth everywhere he touches. 

He still smells like that girl’s perfume.

“Can you get off me, please?”  You’re more polite than you normally are, working hard to keep calm when he only tightens his grip.  Of course he thinks you’re kidding, thinks you’re pouting and playing just like he had when you’d returned home.

When you repeat yourself - a little harder, a little quieter - he seems to realise how wrong he’s read the situation.

“Angel—”  You’re swept around, left to stare into the neat white of his shirt as he peers down at you, waits for you to meet his eyes.  You don’t, staunchly focused on the buttons of his Oxford, how they strain over his broad chest.  “Baby.”  Now he’s the one full of reprimand, disapproval colouring the single word that’s normally so sweet.

“What?”  It’s just as bratty as he was earlier but somehow worse, touched blue.

“What’s wrong?”  Jungkook seems genuinely perplexed, concerned and maybe, just a tiny bit frustrated.  He’s not used to you lashing out like this, soft and yet unyielding, hidden behind a door he’s fumbling with the keys to.

“You.”

“—me?”

You’re not one to throw out things you don’t mean, carefully picking and choosing your words.  It’s something you’ve always done - far more responsible than your idiot best friend who’s never had to worry about a thing in his life.  

The line of his mouth dips, pulls into a frown as he studies you and tries to crack open the windows to gain some insight.  It doesn’t work well;  he’s faced with a stone wall.

“Why’re you mad?” 

You want to laugh.  Do, actually, so short and abrupt it’s more of a scoff.  “What’s wrong with me?”  You’d pull away if you could. (Realistically, you could, but you’ve always been too soft for him.)  “You spent almost all of dinner flirting with someone else.”

“Yeah— to make you jealous.”  As if that makes it better.  As if that doesn’t tear a giant hole right in the centre of your chest, launches your poor heart out of the airlock to fend for itself in the emptiness of his expression.  

You don’t know why it feels worse to hear it out loud.  You’d figured as much. 

(Jungkook had done this in the past, though always jokingly.  He’d rarely been invested enough in a girl to go to such lengths but you’d seen it once or twice.  Always the age old adage of wanting what you can’t have.)

You wish you could separate the then from the now.  Remind yourself that he does care, that this is his twisted, stupid way of showing his affection - of keeping you around.  (You know he’s just as vulnerable as you - maybe more, sometimes - but he shows it poorly.  Pushes you away when he tries to pull you in.)

Tears are welling, spilling across your lashes faster than you can yank them back.  Something about being an angry crier.  

“Good job,”  you mean to snap, to make him feel how you do.  (Small - so very, very small.)  Instead, it’s terribly quiet.  A whisper that gets lost to the cotton poplin.  “Now I’m jealous.”  And miserable and insecure.  All things you usually aren’t, that only Jeon Jungkook manages to bring out in you.

“Baby,”  he tries again, crushing you to his chest, jut of his chin resting atop your head.  His hugs had always been your favourite - swallowing you whole, making you feel safe - but it’s too much now, a prison cell rather than your familiar bed.  “I’m sorry.”  He’s kissing again, stamping his affection into the dark of your hair, brushing over and over with the soft of his lips, his rounded adorable nose,  “I thought—”

You know what he thought.  Know where he’d been coming from (a place of immaturity, a gilded golden room with Jeon Jungkook stamped across the door) but it doesn’t make it any better.

Doesn’t make it hurt any less.

[pierrotdameron]

On the set of His Dark Materials, Dafne Keen is about to see a bear.

With battle raging around her, snowflakes flying and alarms ringing, the young actor – who plays lead character Lyra in the BBC’s new adaptation of Philip Pullman’s acclaimed novel – sprints down a corridor, dodging enemies and fighting for freedom. And just when all seems lost, she looks up, seeing her saviour. A broad smile breaks out as she sees who’s standing above and ready to save her… a man wearing a white, faux-bearskin rug on his head.

OK, on set Pullman’s trademark armoured bears (or panserbjørn) aren’t much to look at – but over a year later, when they finally arrive on-screen, they’re an incredibly impressive achievement, realistic and filled with character, a triumph of puppetry and visual effects. If anything, they’re even more impressive than the animal dæmons that have appeared in every other episode so far. But how were they brought to life? What did the actors film with on set, and what were the biggest challenges?

Happily, after we’d suitably calmed down from all the excitement, the behind-the-scenes team were happy to fill us in…

Pre-production

While the 2007 movie adaptation of His Dark Materials (titled The Golden Compass) wasn’t exactly beloved by fans, it did win plaudits for its VFX, with the work of independent company Framestore winning the film its only Oscar. Now, over a decade later, the new adaptation would have to surpass even that achievement – which is why Framestore were brought on board again to work on the TV series, marking them out as the only common element between both adaptations.

“Framestore did the original bears in the original film, which we won the Oscar for, and we’re doing the bears again, now,” VFX supervisor Russell Wilson told us. “And what’s really interesting about that is certain things we computationally couldn’t do then, we can do now – but obviously it’s harder work.”

And the digital work on the bears didn’t begin after the shoot had already concluded, as many might expect. In fact, before a single scene of the panserbjørn storyline had been committed to film, Framestore and Bad Wolf’s in-house VFX gurus were working hard on previsualizations for the bears – in other words, plotting out scripted scenes in basic computer animation in specially-rendered environments, so they could work out how the bears would look before the directors started work.

“That was a combination of Framestore’s bear animation and our [interactive set] environment,” VFX artist and pre-vis supervisor Dan May told RadioTimes.com. “We blocked out the sequence with Russell and the stunt guys downstairs. “They animated the bears to quite a high level in pre-vis, that that pre-vis was then brought to our [digital] set with all its textures.”

In other words, basic digital bears were added onto a specially-mapped digital set, blocking out the scene before anyone had even turned on a camera and creating a “virtual shoot.” And when it came to actually filming the sequence IRL, this preparation meant that the bears could (sort of) be on set as well, with specially-prepared screens and virtual “cameras” allowing the production team to check where the animated, moving bears were at all times.

“When they shot the sequence, they were able to bring that animation and the virtual camera angles, and see them live on set,” May explained. “They were able to line up a digital bear with a real set. And that is not a first, because they’re doing that sort of thing on Jungle Book and Avatar. But we’re doing it on a more affordable, sustainable way.”

Though of course, it wasn’t just digital bears lurking on set…

Puppeteers

As with the dæmons, the bears on set were built and puppeteered by Brian Fisher and his eight-person team, with various different rigs and outfits utilised by the team for different purposes.

“There’s about seven to 10 different bear rigs,” VFX supervisor Wilson told us. “There’s one for smashing into stuntmen, there’s one for representing his face, there’s one where there’s literally a guy with a glove on putting it on his face.

For example, sometimes the bear was just represented by actor Joe Tandberg (who also provides Iorek’s voice onscreen) wearing (functionally) a bearskin costume, while other times he wore a special rig (pictured exclusively above) that allowed Iorek’s bear head to hang in front of his own.

Other times, he just wore a plain boiler suit with a light rig over his face, or stepped away in favour of a static model (pictured) to help the crew include Iorek’s scale, or was replaced by a large grey cushion for scenes where Iorek was less mobile or in a confined space. “You’re basically in a green room, with a weird grey thing which is supposed to be a bear, and with Lin singing? It’s just all very weird,” Dafne Keen, who plays Lyra in the series, told us.

And of course, a lot of the time the full-time puppeteers took over. For example, while on set RadioTimes.com was shown a large puppet version of Iorek operated by two people to impressive effect. Within the rig, one puppeteer wears an ordinary large hiking backpack, leans forward to face the ground and hoists two long poles forward, with a mesh bear head that he can control and turn at the end of the poles.

Another man behind holds two strings to control the front legs. Together they can rear the bear to his full height, stalk him around an area and generally bring him to life. In His Dark Materials episode four, another bear head – one with Iorek’s snarling teeth – was used for a scene where he attacks a foe, and generally speaking the team tried hard to keep things simple instead of using complicated mechanical rigs or creations.

“When the bear attacks – that was much more stuntman, him, us throwing him around on a mat until we worked out something that we liked,” Wilson says. “We take a very human, organic, what I call a man-tronic approach to things that you might take or do in a technical perspective. “When he’s getting dragged around by the bear it is just a guy in a boiler suit and [the victim’s] on a wire, and that’s it.”

Riding Iorek

But the fighting wasn’t the only filming challenge. In fact, a key action shot that everyone was even more keen to get right comes later in the series, when Lyra rides on Iorek’s back as the pair travel into a dangerous new area. On set, the human portion of the shot was achieved by creating a special rig for Dafne Keen to ride (pictured above) – but unlike similar ridable CGI animals like the dragons of Game of Thrones, it wasn’t mechanical, instead requiring the puppeteers to move it themselves.

“When Lyra’s riding a bear, it’s all operated by a human in a backpack,” Wilson said. “You know, we don’t bring in rigs and mechanically programme them because it’s quite slow to do, and it means you get less takes at it.” “To get the specifics, the biomechanics behind how a polar bear’s gait runs, we had to go through and, with the animators, actually break it down into segments, figure out how we can translate that into something that has movement and life but is not purely mechanical,” puppeteer Brian Fisher told us.

“The second you go into a mechanical movement, you can speed it up, you can slow it down, but it is always rhythmic, whereas we don’t work in binary movements.” As you can see in the above video, RadioTimes.com actually got the chance to try out the bear rig while on set, and can confirm it’s definitely man-powered – and surprisingly bouncy. “I loved the bear rig,” Keen herself us. “Though I was too light for it. “It was very funny. They made this rig, and they didn’t calculate my weight. So they had to then harness me, because I bounced too much off the bear. So that was really fun.” “Although I felt kind of bad because I had two human beings bouncing up and down underneath me…”

The final touches

Obviously, the lion’s share of the work done by the VFX team comes after the filming as they gradually work on creating and animating CGI shots right up until broadcast. And for Wilson and his team, no detail was too small when it came to the armoured bears. “In our version of Iorek now he has the muscles underneath [his fur] that flex as he moves, and that also drives the fat on him to jiggle as he runs,” Wilson told us. “But then the skin actually slides over the bones and the ribs, which makes the fur that’s attached to the skin slide over that as well. All of that together gives you something that feels really realistic. “So again,” he concluded “the appetite and the ability is higher – therefore the workload is higher.” Oh well – hopefully, the time and trouble wasn’t too unbear-able.

[bamby0304]

The Hart III: Secrets

Chapter Four- The Rise of the Witnesses

Series Masterlist

Summary: Three months… Dean was gone for three months and now he’s back. He’s back and he truly has no idea how much things have changed. Life moved on while Dean was in Hell, and now things are complicated. With new faces and troubles right around the corner, will the trio find a way to come back together? Or has all hope been lost?

Warnings: Angst. Violence.

Bamby

EPOV

The four of us were together again, in Bobby's study, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

"So, they're all people we know?" Sam asked.

"Not just know. People we couldn't save," Dean answered as he loaded his gun before pausing as if remembering something. "Hey, I saw something on Meg. Did she have a tattoo when she was alive?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't think so."

"It was like a-a mark on her hand." Dean gestured to his own hand. "Almost like a brand."

Sam's eyes went wide. "I saw a mark on her, too."

Bobby straightened from where he'd been leaning over his desk. "What did it look like?"

"Uh, paper?" Sam took the notepad Bobby offered and drew a quick sketch of the mark. Once he was done he showed it to Dean.

"That's it." Dean gave a short nod.

Sam turned to show Bobby, who took the notepad. "I may have seen this before." Reaching for a few things on the desk, he nodded to the doorway right as the light began to flicker. "We got to move. Follow me."

"Okay, where are we going?" Sam asked as Bobby handed him a few things.

Pausing for a moment, Bobby looked to him. "Some place safe, you idiot." Getting back to it, Bobby grabbed some more things before he hurried out of the room.

Sam was right behind Bobby, with Dean and I close behind. We walked into the basement, heading towards a large, heavy, metal door. With his hands full Bobby couldn't open the it, so I stepped forward to do it for him, letting the guys in first.

It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the large air vent in the roof- which had a fan in it. Once I was inside I flicked the light on so the brothers could see where they were.

The room was completely made out of iron, and covered in pentagrams with a large Devil's trap on the ground. On one side, the walls were lined with a range of weapons. The other side had a bed, a desk that stuck out into the middle of the room, a couch and then a shorter desk that ran along the wall.

As I closed and locked the door, the brothers looked around in amazement.

"Bobby, is this-"

Bobby answered before Sam couldn't finish, "Solid iron. Completely coated in salt. One hundred percent ghost-proof."

Sam looked impressed. "You built a panic room?"

"We had a weekend off." Bobby shrugged.

"’We’?" Dean asked.

I nodded, moving over to take the things from Sam. "I'm more than just a pretty face, Winchester."

Grinning, Dean shook his head as he looked form me to Bobby. "You guys are awesome," he chuckled, grabbing one of the guns off the wall.

...

I sat on the couch, my legs stretched across it as I read the book in my hands. Bobby was at one of the desks reading as well, while Sam and Dean were at the other desk preparing some rock salt ammunition just in case we'd have to leave the safety of the bunker. Which chances are, we'd end up out there again.

"See, this is why I can't get behind God."

I looked away from the book and over to Dean, seeing him frustrated and annoyed.

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked before I had a chance to.

"If he doesn't exist, fine." Dean shrugged. "Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason. Just random, horrible, evil. I get it, okay. I can roll with that. But if he is out there, what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does he live with himself? You know, why doesn't he help?"

He had some good points. But if I was being honest, this wouldn't be the first time I've wondered that. Growing up with a religious mother, I was taught not to question things. But after losing my dad and having a pretty rough life, I always wondered why. Then as I got older I just couldn't understand how 'God' could put us on Earth and just leave us like he had. He was the ultimate dead-beat dad.

Instead of responding to Dean, Sam looked over at me before the two of us turned to Bobby, waiting for him to give Dean an explanation or something. Unfortunately, his response wasn't what I'd been hoping for.

He shook his head. "I ain't touching this one with a ten-foot pole." Turning back to his book, he taped his pencil on the page. "Found it."

At least he had something.

Pulling myself up, I moved over to take a look at what he'd found. "The brand is called the Mark of the Witness," I told the guys, reading of the page.

"Witness?" Sam asked, confused. "Witness to what?"

"The unnatural," Bobby answered. "None of them died what you'd call ordinary deaths. See, these ghosts, they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They were like rabid dogs. It ain't their fault. Someone rose them... on purpose. "

As Sam opened his mouth to speak, I cut him off. "And before you ask, there’s no way to tell who rose them."

"But whoever it was used a spell so powerful it left a mark, a brand on their souls," Bobby noted. "Whoever did this had big plans. It's called 'the rising of the witnesses'. It figures into an ancient prophecy."

"Wait, wait." Shaking his head, Dean stood from his chair and walked over to Bobby and I- Sam followed after a moment. "What- what book is that prophecy from?"

Turning away from the table, I looked to Dean as I answered. "Revelations."

"This is a sign, boys," Bobby started.

"A sign of what?" both brothers asked at the same time.

"The apocalypse."

DPOV

"Apocalypse?" I gave a short chuckle. "As in ‘apocalypse’, apocalypse? The four horsemen, pestilence, five-dollars-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?"

"No, the other apocalypse." The sarcasm dripped off Liz's tone.

"The rise of the witnesses is a- a mile marker," Bobby explained.

Sam nodded, clearly ready to get to work. "Okay, so, what do we do now?"

I scoffed, turning around and moving back to the desk. "Road trip. Grand Canyon, Star Trek Experience." Clapping my hands, I pointed to Sam. "BunnyRanch."

"First things first. How about we survive our friends out there?" Bobby suggested.

Giving a short nod, I sat down and turned to Bobby. "Great. Any ideas aside from staying in this room until Judgment Day?"

"It's a spell," he gestured to the book again, "to send the witnesses back to rest. Should work."

"Should." Sam gave a short laugh. "Great."

"If I translate it correctly."

"Which you will," Liz assured him. Looking down at the book, she nodded. "And we've got all the ingredients in the house. So this will work."

"Any chance you got everything we need here in this room?" I asked with a small smile, hopeful but also doubtful.

Bobby turned to me with a raised eyebrow and slight frown. "So, you thought our luck was gonna start now all of a sudden? Spell's got to be cast over an open fire."

"The fireplace in the library," Sam noted.

I looked around the bunker, not feeling too good about this plan. "That's just not as appealing as a, uh, ghost-proof panic room, you know?"

EPOV

Haven't heard from you since my text...

Just stay safe, okay?

Love you xox

- T

I looked down at my phone for the millionth time, wondering if and how I should respond to the message I'd looked at a million times by now. I felt so guilty for not sending a message back. But at the same time, I couldn't lie and wouldn't tell the truth. So radio silence was the best option for now.

"Hey." Dean came over to me, offer a gun. He frowned as I quickly slipped my phone into my pocket. "You get a message or something? Everything okay?" he asked, nodding to my phone.

"As good as it can be when the ghosts of people we couldn't save are trying to kill us." I shrugged, taking the gun. "And yeah, I got a message from a friend. Letting me know they were safe."

Before he could say anything else, I started for the door, ready to get out of here. The bunker might have been the safest place, but it was small and confined. I'd never really been one for small spaces, but that’s what happens when you've got a slight fear of them.

"Cover each other," Bobby told us as he got ready to leave. "And aim careful. Don't run out of ammo until I'm done, or they'll shred you." He came to stand by me at the door, looking to the three of us. "Ready?"

I gave a short nod. "Ready."

Opening the door, Bobby looked around before he stepped out. We all had our guns ready, the four of us heading for the stairs. I knew the brothers were right behind me, always were in times like this.

As we turned to start up the stairs, we all came to a stop. Sitting there, on top of the steps, was a guy- a dead guy. He would have been in his early twenties with curly hair. I remembered him for a shapeshifter case we did. It was Ronald.

He lifted his head and smiled at us. "Hey, Dean. You remember me?"

Dean, who stepped in front of the rest of us, looked up at him. "Ronald, huh? With the laser eyes? I wish I could say it's good to see you."

"I am dead because of you," Ronald started, getting to his feet. "You were supposed to help me!"

Suddenly Bobby raised his gun and shot at him. Once Ronald was gone Dean turned to Bobby, who simply shrugged. "If you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

With the path cleared, we continued. One by one we headed up to the first floor, keeping an eye out for any movement. The moment we were in the study, the four of us got to work.

Sam and I started on making a salt circle surrounding the desk, while Dean moved to the fireplace and Bobby collected everything he needed that was in the room.

Turning to Sam, Bobby stopped him for a moment. "Upstairs, linen closet. Red hex box. It'll be heavy."

"Got it." With a short nod, the youngest Winchester rushed out of the room.

I finished the rest of the salt circle on my own. The moment it was done I looked up to see two girls standing in front of me. I recognised them... not just from the yard earlier when Sam and I found Bobby and stopped the girls from killing him. Years ago, one of the first Bobby and I had been on, the thing we'd been hunting... it got to the girls before we could get to it. We'd lost them.

I froze with guilt, unable to look away from them.

"Elizabeth," one spoke.

"You walked right by us while that monster ate us all up," the other added.

The first one spoke again, "You could have saved us."

A gun shot went off, the bullet hitting the girls and sending them away.

Looking over my eyes locked onto Dean's. He watched me a moment longer to make sure I was okay. With a short nod to reassure and thank him, he then got back to work.

Bobby stepped up to me, needing something else that wasn't in the study or the safety of the salt circle. "Kitchen. Cutlery drawer. It's got a false bottom. Hemlock, opium, wormwood.”

"On it." I nodded, hurrying to the kitchen to get the things he needed.

SPOV

I opened the closet door, finding the red box Bobby asked for in an instant. As I reached for it I stopped at the sound of Meg's voice.

"You know what really pisses me off, Sam?"

I turned and aimed to shoot her, but she disappeared before I had a chance.

"You saw how I suffered for months." She appeared behind me. "I thought you must have learned something." I turned to aim at her, but froze at the broken look in her eyes. "I thought I died for something."

"Meg-"

"But what you're doing with that demon, Ruby... how many innocent bodies has Ruby burned through for kicks? How many girls just like me? And you don't send her back to Hell? You're a monster!"

Maybe she was right, maybe she was wrong. I didn't know if what I was doing was the right thing to do. Hunting and killing demons alongside Ruby- a demon. It sure as hell didn't seem right. But if that’s what I had to do to make a difference, then that's what I was going to keep doing.

Raising my gun again, I shot Meg.

EPOV

I knew where all the hiding places were in the house. I knew where Bobby kept things. So finding the false bottom in one of the drawers was easy. In a matter of minutes, I had everything Bobby asked for.

Turning, I was maybe two or three steps away from the study when the doors slammed shut.

"Liz?!"

"Lizzie?!"

Both Dean and Bobby were clearly worried about me. I could hear it in their voices. But as I went to open the doors and they wouldn't budge, I knew there was nothing they could do for me, so there was no need to worry them further.

"I'm all right! Just keep working!" I told them, even though my gut was telling me I was definitely not all right.

"Hey, Lizzie."

I spun around to see Ronald standing in the middle of the room.

"Ronald." Giving a weak smile, I reached over to place the ingredients on the table. "Hey, come on. You don't wanna do this. I thought we were friends."

"That's when I was breathing." He slowly started towards me. "Now I'm gonna eat you alive."

Raising my hand, I flung Ronald across the room. "Look, Ron, I don't want to hurt you. You're a good guy, really. But if you give me no other choice..." I shrugged at him as he turned to me again.

He suddenly disappeared, but I knew better than to think he was gone. No way was he giving up that easily.

Where are you?

Scanning the room, I tried to stay prepared for whenever and wherever he was going to pop up. Unfortunately, I don't have eyes at the back of my head and therefore didn't see him appear behind me… but I felt it.

His hand pushed through my back and into my chest, grabbing and squeezing my heart.

Everything in me tensed as it went into panic mode. It was as if I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move. My body didn't know what to do as his grip on my heart tightened. He was killing me and I could do nothing.

"Why do you deserve to live and not me?!" he yelled, squeezing more and more. "Why?! It's not fair!"

"Liz!" Dean was on the other side of the door, knocking on it, trying to get through. "Elizabeth!"

Movement at the other doorway caught my attention as Sam walked in, raised his gun and shot at Ronald.

The moment Ronald was gone I took a deep breath and fell to the ground, my body still in shock and unable to do much.

"Hey." Sam hurried to help me up. "You alright?"

I shook my head, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as I now stood again. "No."

"Let's go." His arm wrapped around my waist as he moved for the doors to the study.

Lifting a hand, I opened them with my mind, seeing as Dean still couldn't get them open himself. The moment the doors opened, Dean was there, making sure I was okay as he looked me over with a worried expression.

"You okay?" he asked, looking me over.

"I'll be fine," I insisted, nodding to the table. "Sam, give that stuff to Bobby."

When Sam hesitated, still clearly concerned for me, Dean looked to his brother. "I got her. You help Bobby."

Once Sam's hold on me was replaced by Dean's arm, the two of us moved over to the couch in the study while Sam hurried to hand Bobby everything he needed. Feeling a little better, I helped Dean reload the guns, knowing the ghosts would be back, and soon.

As soon as all the ingredients were together, Bobby lifted the book and began to recite some Latin words, reading the spell.

The windows blew open as a wind filled the room, blowing everything around. I looked down at the ground, watching as the salt began to move until it was no longer in the form of a circle and we were no longer protected.

All the ghosts appeared, one by one. We all shot at them as Bobby kept reading. Sam, Dean and I knew that at this point, no matter what, we had to make sure Bobby finished the spell or none of us would make it through the night.

DPOV

We were out of bullets. I'd managed to grab an iron rod to use, but before Sam or Liz could find weapons, the ghosts attacked.

Ronald pushed a desk towards Sam which then pushed him against the wall, holding him there. The two girls went for Liz, pushing her against the other wall so her chest was pressed against it- that way she couldn't see them, and couldn't use her powers to send them flying.

"Liz! Sam!"

"Cover Bobby!" Sam called as he tried to break himself free.

Before anyone could say or do anything else, Bobby stopped reading and started to groan in pain.

I turned to see Meg standing behind him, her hand reaching into his back, grasping at his heart in his chest. She was killing him.

He lost grip on the bowl filled with the spell ingredients. "Dean!"

Diving for it, I managed to catch the bowl before any of its contents could spill.

"Fireplace!"

With an order from Bobby, I tossed the ingredients into the fireplace and watched as it all burned a bright blue before the light grew so much I had to look away. The whole room glowed as the fire's energy burned the ghosts away, setting them free from the curse that lifted them.

Once the ghosts were gone, Bobby was free from Meg's grasp and fell to the ground.

"Bobby?" I crawled over to make sure he was okay.

Liz hurried over as well, dropping to her knees by his side. "Bobby, you okay?"

He didn't say anything, but gave a tired nod. He was okay. We all were.

...

I'd been asleep, on the floor in a makeshift bed I'd put together with some blankets and pillows Liz had given me. Sam was on the couch while Liz and Bobby were in their rooms upstairs. We'd all pretty much crashed after everything.

What woke me was a feeling, of being watched.

Opening my eyes, I turned my head to look over into the kitchen. Sure enough, standing there, leaning against the counter, was Castiel.

I looked over to make sure Sam was still asleep before I got up and headed over to the angel.

"Excellent job with the witnesses."

I frowned, coming to stop a few steps away from him. "You were hip to all this?"

"I was, uh… made aware."

His response and the fact he knew about it all, pissed me off. "Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance. You know, my friends almost got their hearts ripped out of their chests."

"But they didn't," he responded as if it were that simple.

"I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos. You know, Michael Landon. Not dicks."

I swear he looked smug as he looked at me and spoke again. "Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier."

That's bullshit. "Yeah? Then, why didn't you fight?"

"I'm not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns."

"Concerns? There were people getting torn to shreds down here!" I exclaimed, keeping my voice low so I wouldn't wake anyone. "And, by the way, while all this is going on, where the hell is your boss, huh, if there is a God?"

"There's a God."

"I'm not convinced. 'Cause if there's a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the earth? The freaking apocalypse? At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?"

"The Lord works-"

I cut him off, "If you say, 'in mysterious ways,' so help me, I will kick your ass." He looked away and shrugged in defeat. It was then I realised what he'd meant before. About the concerns. "So, Bobby was right... about the witnesses. This is some kind of a... sign of the apocalypse."

"That's why we're here. Big things afoot."

"Do I want to know what kind of things?"

"I sincerely doubt it, but you need to know. The rising of the witnesses is one of the 66 seals."

"Okay. I'm guessing that's not a show at Seaworld."

"Those seals are being broken by Lilith."

At least that part I understood. "She did the spell. She rose the witnesses."

He nodded. "Mm-hmm. And not just here. Twenty other hunters are dead."

"Of course. She picked victims that the hunters couldn't save so that they would barrel right after us."

"Lilith has a certain sense of humour."

"Well, we put those spirits back to rest."

"It doesn't matter. The seal was broken."

"Why break the seal anyway?"

"You think of the seals as locks on a door."

"Okay. Last one opens and...?"

He pushed off the counter and turned to face me completely. "Lucifer walks free."

"Lucifer?" I shook my head. "I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There's no such thing."

"Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me," he noted. "Why do you think we're here walking among you now for the first time in two thousand years?"

"To stop Lucifer."

"That's why we've arrived."

Lucifer. The Devil. Satan himself. Nothing good was going to come out of this. If he got out, it would more than likely end everything and everyone. Not just the people I cared about. Everything would be gone. It had to be the scariest things I could think of, Lucifer rising and returning to Earth.

"Well..." I tried to cover up my fear and shock by replacing it with disappointment as I looked to Castiel again. "Bang-up job so far. Stellar work with the witnesses. That's nice."

"We tried. And there are other battles, other seals. Some we'll win, some we'll lose. This one we lost." He stepped closer to me, getting into my personal space- I suddenly didn't feel too tough. "Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around? There's a bigger picture here." He leaned in a little closer. "You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in." with that, he vanished, leaving me to think about everything he'd just said.

I was just threatened... by an angel. Could this night get any worse?

EPOV

Popping a pill into my mouth, I took a quick drink of water- finishing what was left in the glass on the table by my bed- before I grabbed my bag and hurried out of my room. After rushing to and down the stairs and walking into the kitchen, I moved over to the pantry and pulled out a granola bar out of it.

"So... you got no problem believing in... God and Angels?" I heard Dean ask Sam as the two of them sat in the study.

"No, not really," Sam answered.

"So, I guess that means that you believe in the Devil."

"Why are you asking me all this?"

When there was a long pause, and Dean didn't respond, I walked into the room, my duffle bag over my shoulder. "When Bobby wakes up tell him I'll call him later." Turning, I started for the front door.

"Where are you going?" Dean called, stopping me before I could leave.

"Uh..." Thinking of a quick lie, I looked over at the brothers with a shrug. "That friend that sent me a message yesterday, I'm just gonna go check up on them. Make sure everything’s okay."

The look on Sam's face told me in an instant that he knew I was lying, and that he knew the truth. Still, instead of ratting me out, he covered for me. "Okay, just call us when you get there. Let us know if you get into any trouble."

"Will do." I smiled, hurrying out of the house before Dean could stop me again.

I knew I couldn't keep this up for much longer, keeping all these secrets from him. But during the four months he'd spent in Hell things had changed, and I just didn't know how to tell him...

Bamby

[cvrsedink]

A Bellatrix Lestrange One-Shot

*It’s been a very long time since I’ve occupied her head space, so she is a bit rusty. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Dreams turned into nightmares every time she shut her eyes. The sounds of low moans and cries for help filled her ears as if she were still there, chained to the salty stones in her cell, starving, weak, and alone. Only when the waves crashed against the sides of the towering prison were their voices drowned out, smothered by the angry water that surrounded Azkaban. Nature seemed to feed off the wizard-made island; the ocean groaned and clouds permanently darkened the sky, threatening to strike them all down at any given time. But even this scene was not privy to her. The small sliver of a window stood opposite of her confinement, just out of reach and tauntingly promising a freedom she could not have. Day and night she stared through this gap, unable to tear herself away from the past, as the screams of prisoners confused themselves with those entirely in her head.

The faces of her sisters swam before her eyes, frozen in shrieks of terror as they were struck down. Andromeda was always first, her hand outstretched as she attempted to fight for her freedom, but a jet of green light struck her chest like an arrow. Always true to its mark each time she saw the scene. Defiant, as she had always been, but the stubbornness was not unknown to the Black girls. Despite her utter treachery, Bellatrix had always found a way to keep her out of the Dark Lord’s direct line of sight.

Narcissa died last. She laid sprawled out on hard stone flooring, weeping and begging for the life of her child. Slowly, with her arms wrapped around a squirming blonde-haired babe, she would seem to melt into a pool of dark liquid. Her light, nearly white, hair fanned out around her was stained red with blood. A shadowed figure stood over her sinking form, letting out a high cruel laugh before ending her life.

No matter how many times Bellatrix attempted to change their fates, they always left her. And her mind would collapse into darkness, the deaths of her sisters becoming her reality and the only thing she knew to be true. It was her punishment, for the crimes she had committed. Because she had done many things for her Master, unspeakable things, and whatever happiness she had clung to was sucked from her soul. Hollow, broken, but still alive, she’d been half mad by the time her Dark Lord rescued her.

Weeks had passed since then, but the taste of salt lingered on her tongue. The others, the ones who had escaped her fate, didn’t understand the agony she had endured. How could they? Cowardice ruled their lives as they all fled into hiding the moment their Master had fallen. No one searched for him, no one except her and two others. And their attempts had been all for naught. No information was retrieved from the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom, nothing but assurance that Bellatrix was His most loyal servant. In the end they had all been sent away, to rot in cells until their bodies withered into corpses.

Her mind had been lost. Her power became unpredictable, yet as strong as ever. She blamed those that had put her in chains for the misery she had suffered and it was revenge that fueled her. Nothing would satisfy her more than to see her enemies parish in the flames she created and ever since her freedom she had strived to be at His side, aiding him, as she had done before. But the broken fragments of a once strong woman shuddered at his fury, trembled under his glare, and strove earnestly to please him once more. Let me find the boy. She had said, heart fluttering with a long forgotten sensation. But he had shot her down. Admirable as her devotion was, the boy was his. Everything was his. But today, things were changing.

An owl had arrived, a strange method of communication from the Dark Lord, but it was a private summoning. The Mark was used solely to command the presence of all, but tonight he only wanted her. Jittery with anticipation, she waited for the time she was allowed to come. It had been too long since their last private meeting. Nearly fourteen years had passed since she had last stood in his presence alone. Back then she had been so bold, a soldier who was both loyal and ambitious. Tonight, she would prove to be just the same.

When the clock struck eleven, she apparated out of the Malfoy manor unnoticed and arrived outside the safe house. It appeared, from the outside, to be a run down shack with nothing more to it than a tattered, dirty curtain that fluttered in a broken window. Weeds cluttered the front yard, tangling together with sharp thorns, and tainting the air with a putrid smell. Stepping forward, she tapped her wand on the right side of a wrought iron gate before creaking it open and slipping past silently.

The inside of the shack was much larger and cleaner than the outside, but nearly as dark. There was no light, save for a low golden glow coming from the end of a long hallway. It cut through the blackness like a knife and guided her way to where she knew the Dark Lord would be waiting for her. The scent of mildew carpet overpowering her senses, she placed a hand against the cracked door, and pushed it open, announcing her arrival.

“Bellatrix.” His voice was low, barely audible over the crackling and snapping of burning wood. He had his black turned to her, his pale hands clasped behind him like a man deep in thought. “I have some news for you---"

“My Lord!” Bellatrix gasped, breathless with the honor of standing before him. Her body shrank in the company of his, head bowed in respect, a tangle of wild black hair curtained her gaze for only a moment. She longed to look at him, to be seen by him. Slowly, but insistently, she moved closer. “What is it my Lord?”

Gazing into the fire, the strange features of Lord Voldemort were illuminated in an unearthly glow. His sharp cheek bones casted shadows over his face and his red eyes were sunk deep into his skull, like two beacons shining out of the depths of a cavern. It was unnerving, yet mesmerizing and the woman found herself transfixed, waiting for him to tell her why he had summoned her. Why her? What grand plan did he have for the one who had been sent away for him? But the task at hand was not a gift to his soldier, but a test. It had not been lost on him that the woman who had been returned to him was not the same. And there could be no risking that Azkaban had softened her, instead of strengthening her.

“It seems---young Harry has a fond attachment for your cousin, Sirius Black.” His raspy voice filled the room with little effort, his eyes trained on the flames that licked flesh from wood. His servant hissed at the name of her kin and took a small step back. “Now, now, Bellatrix.” Voldemort turned, his gaze resting on her gaunt face. Her hollow eyes were momentarily alight with temptation and he lifted a hand to cup her chin. “I have given our slippery friend, Lucius, a mission--- and I wish you to accompany him.”

Her slender fingers twitched, her body coiling away from his cold touch. “You should not trust him, my Lord. He is not trustworthy. Malfoy is weak!” Bellatrix spat. “He is not strong enough to carry out your missions. You should have let me do this.” She was the most loyal, she had done everything to find him, and her efforts were repaid with exclusion. How dare Lucius or Severus think they were the most favored, the most devout of them all. How dare they think themselves worthy! After all those years, they had spent in their cozy lives, forgetting who they were and letting the world forget who they had served.

Ignoring her outburst, the Dark Lord continued. “I’m going to lure the boy to the Department of Mysteries, so that we may retrieve the prophecy at long last. He will think Sirius is there, captured by me, tortured by me. This will bring him. But it will also bring Sirius, no doubt.” He paused, taking in the expression on his loyal servant’s face, drinking in the flickering of emotions hidden behind her lidded eyes. “You must rid the boy of him.”

It took only a moment for Bellatrix to understand what she was being instructed to do. It would not be her job to get the prophecy or even capture the boy, instead it would be to kill Sirius Black. “Of course, My Lord.” Her voice did not tremble or fault in any way to betray the sliver of hesitance she felt. The Black family name would die with Sirius and they would fade away, like other great houses had done. No more would they command the respect of others or insight fear, but instead dwindle away like a withering flower. Once dead, there would be no use to recollect on it and no chance of revival.

“That is all.”

The Dark Lord turned away from her and Bellatrix retreated into the shadows, the face of young Sirius dancing in her mind. Such a bright, vivacious boy he had been. What a shame…what a shame, she thought miserably. But she could not fail. It was clear to her, now, that this was not a mission she could turn away from. There would be no more shielding her family from the wrath of the Dark Lord.

[dweemeister]

Tokyo Twilight (1957, Japan)

I haven’t been a classic movie fan for as long as some fellow amateur writers on movies, and I've only been delving into older live-action Japanese films within the last ten years. Having only made Akira Kurosawa’s acquaintance in 2010 and Kenji Mizoguchi’s after that, my first viewing of a Yasujirô Ozu film was in 2012, with his Early Spring (1956) – the work that preceded the subject of this write-up, Tokyo Twilight. A half-decade later to that introduction to Ozu, I am beginning to realize – like the plays of Shakespeare, the animated movies of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Studio Ghibli, the symphonies of Beethoven, and any other continuum of challenging, worthwhile art – that it will take me a lifetime to become familiar with Ozu’s movies. Bar any unforeseen developments in my health, there is plenty of time to do so.

For on the surface, the director’s works are filled with the tatami shots and pillow shots that I have written about numerous times on this blog. Beyond that, Ozu’s humanity, the intricacies of mundane human life, and his attention to individuals between moments of catharsis or tragedy reflect a philosopher-artist fully in control of the artform he specializes in.

Tokyo Twilight is considered Ozu’s darkest film, and it’s certainly the darkest Ozu film I have yet to see – it is not recommended for those who never seen an Ozu movie before. This darkness is based not in what the film depicts – remember, Ozu never shows the most traumatic moments (Chieko Higashiyama’s character dies off-screen in 1953′s Tokyo Story) or even a character’s greatest celebrations or victories (the buildup to Setsuko Hara’s wedding in 1949′s Late Spring is essential to that film’s plot, but the wedding itself is skipped over) – but how it impacts the characters we come to know intimately and make us care for them. Tokyo Twilight, with that apt title, would be Ozu’s final film in black-and-white.

Banker and single father Shukichi Sugiyama (Chishû Ryû) is looking forward to spending time with his eldest daughter, Takako (Setsuko Hara), as she is returning home from the aftermath of an unhappy, perhaps abusive, marriage. Takako is also bringing home her young daughter, who is just learning how to walk. Youngest daughter Akiko (Ineko Arima) is learning English shorthand and she, too, is having significant other troubles with Kenji (Masami Taura). One evening while searching for Kenji, Akiko stumbles upon a mahjong parlor owner named Kisako (Isuzu Yamada), who claims to have been an old neighbor of the Sugiyamas many years ago. Even for a neighbor, Kisako seems to know more about the Sugiyama family than she should, instantly making Akiko suspicious. In Tokyo Twilight’s second half, the two most important subplots emerge: the identity of Kisako is deduced by Takako and Akiko becoming pregnant thanks to a boyfriend who could not care less.

Ozu, considered one of the greatest of filmmakers and one-third of the trinity of great Japanese directors (alongside Kurosawa and Mizoguchi) and sometimes framed as unassailable by his less critical supporters, addresses one of his storytelling weaknesses with co-screenwriter Kôgo Noda. That weakness: Ozu has always excelled in crafting stories from the viewpoints of elders or parental figures, not so much their children. And when those children are as young as those found in I Was Born, But... (1932) or Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947), Ozu’s depiction of children – though well-meaning, and sufficiently funny when needed to be in his comedies – never adopts their perspective, but frames their experiences through the behaviors and expectations of the adults in the movie. Having seen only one teenager as a central character in an Ozu film (Miyuki Kuwano in 1958′s Equinox Flower), my sampling size is too small to draw any conclusions – but I can’t imagine Ozu and Noda were any better with depicting teenagers. Hara and Yamada are playing young women here and, unusually in Ozu’s earlier post-silent era movies, Tokyo Twilight centralizes their fears, desires, joys, and disappointments for the plot – not that this marginalizes the father’s concerns.

Akiko and Takako are not content to care for their father alone, but to assert their independence. Takako, as the oldest, is not the stereotypically submissive woman so often found in Japanese narratives, and will not tolerate her husband’s inebriation and boorish behavior. We don’t know whether Takako married her husband out of love or some other means, but so often in Japanese cinema one would expect the battered wife to stick it out or openly fight with him. Takako knows better than to bother. Streaks of independence are even more pronounced with Akiko, who is more Westernized and enjoys being a rebel without a cause (this characterization might be the most problematic, as Ozu and Noda refuse to look into why Akiko might be acting this way – instead, Ozu and Noda prefer to have Mr. Sugiyama wallow in self-pity and express his sadness about how he raised his daughters). Among the adult daughters that appear in Ozu’s films, Akiko might be the least trusting, least reliant, and most manipulative towards her parent and other elders.

And yet despite their attempts to escape from the traditional trappings of marriage, the Confucian-influenced relationships between children and parents, or both, Akiko and Takako find the past to be inescapable. In conjunction with Yuuharu Atsuta’s pillow shots – unlike previous Ozu movies – are kept to confined spaces inside buildings or at the end of cluttered walkways. Gone are the expansive shots of a morning or afternoon sky, the flowing windswept grasses of a hillside or a berm leading up to train tracks. Instead of those relaxed pillow shots, Tokyo Twilight features pillow shots including the uncertainty that comes with darkness (almost all of the pillow shots appear during nightfall, let alone twilight), the confining angles of the home and other familiar buildings. The past, before and after those pillow shots, is built over years by the “little white lies” that parents tell their children. Perhaps the lies that your parents told you are not as serious as those eventually revealed by Tokyo Twilight’s conclusion. But at its essence, Tokyo Twilight is a piece depicting the last vestiges of childhood innocence (maintained by parental prevarication) stripped away, and how damaging that can be.

Tokyo Twilight is the most plot-centric of the Ozu-Noda collaborations. With multiple plot twists – to even have one plot twist in an Ozu movie is uncommon – and verbal conflict more visceral than usual, this is not the placid meditation that longtime Ozu fans who have never seen Tokyo Twilight before might expect this film to be. It is, oftentimes bitter, disillusioned. The two women of Tokyo Twilight are suffering from a lack of love demonstrated by their partners and the adults – persnickety and gossiping – surrounding them. Such developments are unsustainable for any human being after years of misdirections and separations. Maybe someday Akiko and Takako will accept the indiscretions of their father, their elders, and their friends as the behavior of men and women unable to imagine life in any other way. Maybe someday Akiko and Takako may find the room to forgive those who did not love them as much as they should have. But that will not happen in Tokyo Twilight or immediately after the movie’s defining tragedy – which, in true Ozu fashion, is never shown, only talked about and reacted to.

Twenty-five years old when the film was released, Ineko Arima (Equinox Flower, 1959′s The Human Condition I: No Greater Love) almost never smiles for the 140-minute runtime. For a Japanese movie, in this specific modern culture where women smiling is an uncodified tradition, that is unthinkable. Arima gives the performance of the movie, reflecting an emotional and motivational emptiness that might have been glossed over by Setsuko Hara’s smile in any other Ozu movie. To maintain that disposition for the length of the film and to earn the audience’s empathy is an enormous undertaking, and the young actress has outdone herself here. Despite a history of Ozu and Noda underwriting or refusing to give the adult children the focus of the story, Arima capitalizes on the rich writing offered to her from the screenwriters here.

This would be the third-to-last film Setsuko Hara would make with Ozu, with almost a decade’s worth of stunning performances under his direction. Tokyo Twilight marked the end of Hara, in an Ozu movie, playing a daughter of Chishû Ryû’s that other characters think should have been married long ago. Playing the older sister (possibly because, approaching forty years of age, Hara could not plausibly play the unmarried daughter to Japanese audiences any longer), the character of Takako is one of the least obedient characters Hara played in an Ozu film. The trademark smile is there, though offset quite often with her behavior towards Isuzu Yamada’s character. it is not the most memorable Hara performance, but this would not be the last time Hara would play an older sister character. If Hara had continued her career after Ozu’s death, performances like Tokyo Twilight might instead be used an example of Hara’s versatility rather than a deviation from typical Hara roles.

The veteran Ryû –who appeared in fifty-two of Ozu’s fifty-four films (including Ozu’s seventeen lost and partially surviving films) – is sometimes unreadable in Tokyo Twilight, but this plays to the film’s characterizations. It is an assured performance drawing deep from his acting experience. As Mr. Sugiyama, reserved and exhausted amid post-War change, Ryû disassociates himself with the personal details and trivialities of others unless it is somehow related to his family’s welfare. Social change and the outside world do not seem to bother him, and he is just willing to cast his fate to the winds of that change without knowing where those winds might take him. The traumas of Japanese militarization – how it estranged Mr. Sugiyama from his family and Japanese society at-large – are omnipresent. This is Ryû playing a sort of victim; a victim who unwittingly contributes, in part, to his family’s ultimate despair.

Japanese audiences, expecting a ponderous familial drama of smaller incidents rooted in a greater wisdom, responded poorly to Tokyo Twilight upon the film’s release. Over time – at least among Western audiences and cinephiles – Tokyo Twilight has burnished its reputation as one of Ozu’s most ambitious movies, embracing plotting in ways that the director had not done so since the 1930s.

I have read from certain film critics that some of the greatest movies can help change how one conducts their life or views the act of living for the better. For me, the Ozu films that I have seen – as a whole, not any one in particular as of yet – have helped shape how I view relationships familial, platonic (not so much romantic). By how much? Ask me in another five years of watching Ozu movies and I might have a more definite answer for you. Because like I've written above, Ozu and Noda are best at writing through the eyes of adults, not their adult children. Nevertheless, these films, in their own ways, still have their appeals even to adult children.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Tokyo Twilight is the one hundred and forty-second film I have rated a ten on imdb.