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akvtsuki-ari · 5 years ago

Text

Be Mean

Warnings: smut, femdom, degradation, sub!spencer, mild masochism, choking, generally mean shit lol

Length: 5.3k (ik)

Authors Note: uhh happy valentines day! not the fic anyone was expecting today and extremely self indulgent but valentines day is about self love too right? lmfao anyways, hope yall enjoy

Summary: Spencer was just a little too into the way you cuss people out and it was starting to weigh on him. You’re more than happy to help him out.

Words were falling from your lips with grace. Your back was straight as you leaned into the table - the unsub just inches away. He was a narcissist, and his hatred for strong women became increasingly clear the moment you stepped into the room. He wanted to prove he was smarter, tougher, and better than you - but the challenge you reproached him with left his knuckles white. Teeth gritted, jaw clenched, and that same grace - analyzing and cold, never seemed to escape you.

It didn’t take long for the arrest to fall through - his confession leaving him as he tried to express his pathetic anger towards you. He called you names but nothing creative, not as smart as he seemed to be but you couldn’t help but laugh at him. Soon after he delves into explaining his own genius and the pieces continued to fall together - it was a good case and luckily he didn’t get far after his first 3 victims. Not something that the BAU gets lucky with very often, you think.

Spencer watched you in the interrogation - eyes fading over your body language carefully. You were unnervingly confident - always were no matter whether it was a killer or not. He took notice of many little things that seemed to make the details of your existence culminate further in his mind. You licked the inside of your lip when you were getting close to breaking the unsub, and your eyes would get a little lower when he started to speak. You rolled your shoulders when you watched him get escorted and that warm, sweet version of you returned to you with no trouble at all.

It was easy for people to call you BAU’s resident sweetheart. You were charming, witty, and intelligent but also kind. When the team needed someone who people can trust, you were always up there on the list. Your skills of diffusion were particularly helpful, you worked homeland security for a long while and it showed. Your capabilities to ease a tense moment as well as interrogate a criminal in a provocative way has proved helpful time and time again - but who you were was always up in the air. It was a valuable trait to be mysterious in that sense.

On one hand, Spencer really did like plain Y/N more than anything. You were always particularly kind to Spencer - you remembered his birthday and always texted him right at 12 beating the entire BAU, even Garcia. You brought him soup and cold medicine when he was sick because you were close by and he needed some company. You helped him babysit JJ’s kids because you could and you were fond of them. You were never too impatient and you let him work in silence rather than making commentary about his process. You just got him, and it all seemed to come naturally though you knew things someone could only figure out through careful observation.

Y/N the Agent was different, though. Still you, when she needed to be. Any cases involving young children, or innocent people in general really showed the other side of you. But you had this moment in every case, where your hyperfocus became so sinister everyone in the department could feel it. They were different sides of the same coin, your traits manifesting themselves in different ways but Spencer had a very particular notice of it. For one, it fascinated him a lot. How could anyone not be fascinated by that?

Of course though, that wasn’t the only reason but the other half of this whole spiel was a lot more embarrassing but -

Spencer got unbelievably turned on when he watched you interrogate criminals and - listen he knows okay? He really understands how absolutely not good that is but the memory is so burned into his brain he can’t help but think about it every time it comes up.

The team was in Arizona working on ritualistic killings from a small tribe, native to the area. You and Reid had been assigned to talk to important community members and there was a head elder dude there who was particularly scummy - though not the unsub. He was too cocky to pull off such elaborate and patient murders so he was ruled out early but he was hiding something and you needed to know what it was. When interrogations went on, you confronted the man about his use of testosterone injections - something forbidden in the community since they believed modern medicine was extremely harmful, part of the killers M.O.

The conversation between the two of you was short-lived but memorable, to say the least.

“What happened, elder? Were the village girls not working for you anymore so you sicked your friend on them cause you couldn’t get it up? Was it worth it?,” your voice was thick with distaste and the elder lost his shit. He ended up confessing that he had a strong hunch but he’d only tell if they kept his secret and the lead was correct.

Spencer's mind hasn’t been able to let go of that moment and every single time a case comes up where you have to confront someone he finds himself having to relieve himself in a bathroom stall or strain himself to get it to just go away. It was killing him really. He had a crush on you sure, always has but his body reacting like he was a 16-year-old boy every time you spoke was not going to cut it but he didn’t know what to do either.

He finds himself in that same position now, on the plane ride home with the thought of you and your demeanor keeping him from focusing. You were asleep across from him, wearing comfortable clothes that slid just over your shoulders. He couldn’t help the way his eyes lingered on his skin and he tried his absolute best to ignore and go to sleep.

When Spencer Reid arrived home, he was pleasantly surprised to see messages from you, asking to hangout in his apartment while your kitchen gets renovated. There was no way in hell he was gonna say no to that, so he tidied his things up and ordered thai food while he waited for your arrival.

It didn’t take long for you to show, wearing black joggers and a tight tanktop that Spencer has never seen you in before. It looked good on you, accentuating the strength in your shoulders in back. He knew you were decently fit but this was surprising, even for him. You smiled wide as you stepped through the door, giving Spencer a tight hug. He can feel your boobs pressed up against his chest and he wants to kick himself for the shiver that runs off his spine as if he were a teenager again.

“Hey, Spence. Thanks again for letting me come over today, hope I’m not intruding,” you say softly, as you settle down on Spencer's couch, phone in hand. He nods, smiling.

“It’s no problem. The food should be here in a minute but do you want a glass of water or anything in the meantime? I also have some lemonade, if you want that,” Spencer offers. You readjust and Spencer watches the way your muscles tense. He shouldn’t be noticing something like that yet here he is.

“Lemonade sounds great, thanks Spence,” you say, laying into the couch as you scroll through your phone. Spencer excuses himself to the kitchen, grabbing glasses from his cupboard and filling them up with lemonade before returning to you. He places the glasses on the table in front of you, before the sound of the doorbell alerts him.

You get up, retying your hair as the smell of Thai food hits you. You let out an involuntary moan but Spencer just laughs. The food is set up in front of you, but its far too hot for either of you to eat so the both of you sip on your lemonade and chat instead.

“Everytime we get a few days off, the paranoia of a case hits the ground running,” you complain, gently. Spencer laughs, nodding his head.

“Oh definitely. I can’t imagine what it’s like not thinking about it all the time, though,” he explains. You nod your head in agreement.

“Yeah, but time off is still time off so the plan is to spend the weekend alone with a glass of wine and some romantic films and relax,” you explain, sighing. Spencer looks at you curiously.

“Didn’t take you for the romance type,” he states curiously. You sigh again, looking at him.

“I’m not for the most part, it kinda serves a different purpose for me than most women I’d argue,” you reply to him. Spencers intrigued by your comment and sits up a bit.

“How so?,” he poses carefully. You place your lemonade down on the coffee table and scratch the back of your neck.

“Don’t get me wrong, I like being wined-and-dined like any woman. Romance itself is nice, love is wonderful - but the way I wanna be romanced isn’t exactly traditional,” your voice is airy when you speak, laughing at yourself but the revelation maes Spencers weak.

“Traditional?,” he manages to squeak out. You notice his shift in behavior, and you slow down for a moment.

“We don’t have to talk about that kinda stuff, Spence. It’s more of a girls night thing I’d talk about with Garcia and JJ - though they already know about most of it,” you say lightly. Spencer chokes a bit as you continue to reveal details.

“No, it's not that. I’m… interested?,” he says nervously, chewing the inside of his lip. You tilt your head, surprised by his curiosity.

“Didn’t take you for a freak, pretty boy,” you comment, giggling. Spencer's face turns hot, but you reassure him you’re only kidding.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really care for the whole subservient role, especially not in bed. I enjoy seeing someone do what I say, and having things go my way. I’ve always been like that, figured that out with my first highschool boyfriend, hah,” you say, sipping your lemonade.

Spencer swallows at the realization that you’re probably experienced, very experienced in that department. He shifts in his set again and your eyes settle on him for a moment, neither of you making eye contact but rather observing each other

“I don’t know how to explain it all that well, but I like it when I can be just a little mean, you know,” you say, smiling. Your tone is joking but your words have weight to them. Spencer's throat is closing up as you speak but he smiles back at you fondly. You take notice but hold yourself back.

“You sure you’re okay, Spencer?,” your voice is different this time. Knowing. Spencer's eyes flutter over to you and he’s aware rather suddenly of your being. The way your chest rises and falls as you speak, the smoothness of your lips around the glass, the way your hair falls over your face. He nods as you observe him. Your lips twitch up into a smile.

“Spencer, could it be resident boy genius is a sub?,” you say incredulous. Spencers whole face flushes and you find your clit up at attention at the non-verbal confession.

While he may be oblivious to it, you had a rather massive crush on Spencer. Something about his intelligence was remarkably sexy to you and knowing he was also a good person didn’t make the feelings any easier. Who could blame you for having a crush on Spencer, anway? Most people did - it was part of the reason you never told him. Based on his personality and dating history - it didn’t really seem like you were his type. You weren’t massively intelligent or particularly unique (at least you didn’t think so) so you couldn’t imagine Spencer having a crush on you. You were great, but you didn’t think you were Spencers type, thats all.

However, that didn’t stop you from thinking about him - really the opposite. Every waking moment you’d catch him doing something absentmindedly you cute - your brain begged to see him fucked out and sleepy. He’d ramble about something for so many minutes and all you wanted to do was sit on his face and shut him up (and then let him continue because he was honest to god so cute like that)

The point was that Spencer really did something to you. You had countless lingering thoughts about him but to know that this was actually something he was into made your head spin. You couldn’t hold your expression back and maybe it was your own masochism that made you want to know more but god did you want to know more.

“How long have you known about yourself, Spence?” you interrogate. Spencer swallows and prays to every deity his mind can manage as he looks at you pleadingly but you can’t recognize what the pleading is really for.

“How long have you been on the team?,” Spencer speaks before he can really understand the weight of his words, and the second he says the whole room stops. You look at him with delighted surprise and he shuts his eyes at contempt for his own existence.

“No fucking way,” you can’t help the little inhale you do at the realization. Pure excitement just emanating from your being like nobody's business. You were genuinely going to lose your mind at this revelation. Spencer Reid discovered that hes a sub because of you? Were you dreaming?

If this wasn’t Spencer's apartment he would’ve run away. He just had to look at you instead and face the fact he just revealed his own sins. Your laugh at Spencer revelation made the little nagging voice in Spencers head just a little louder and that meant that -

“You’re really into whatever you’ve been thinking of huh?,” you say, eyeing the hard-on in his pants casually. Spencer looks down and places a pillow on his lap, wishing to throw his entire existence into a fire and to never ever look back.

“Shit,” he doesn’t know what else to say. He’s at total wits end with himself and is forced to deal with the repercussions of his horniness.

On the other hand there was you, eyes full of delight as your mind raced with all the thoughts of what Spencer could be thinking about. Anything was good really, any level of him giving up his control to you was good. It all worked for you but whatever he’d been thinking about specifically had you itching to know.

“What could it be? I mean - seriously, I have to know what has the beloved Doctor this flustered. You have to tell me,” you say smiling. Spencer just shakes his head.

“Aww c'mon, do you want me to start guessing?,” you joke. Spencer looks at you that time and you realize that might be key. You look at him in surprise.

“Okay, well let’s think. It started when we worked together which means it was probably when we were in the field,” you start profiling Spencer, which on one hand he’s not a fan of but on another he’s a little turned on by.

You chew on your lip as you think for a minute.

“The work I do on the field sorta depends, but mostly I diffuse situations,” you say softly, really to only yourself. “But also, I do a lot of interrogations, and with the way you reacted to that whole being mean thing, I’m gonna go ahead and place my bets on that,” you conclude. You look to Spencer for approval and his eyes are hazy as he nods a yes.

You place your glass on the table, and move in front of Spencer. Normally your height isn’t all too important to him but right now your being towers over him and all he can do is look up at you. You wish you had the patience to do a little bit more teasing but you couldn’t hold back too much. Your knee is between his legs as you bend it and lean over him. Your fingers brush his hair back for a moment as you use your knuckle to pull his face up. He wants to refuse but he can’t so he lets you - looking at you tenderly. He’s cute like this.

“Spence, you know I actually like you right?,”

“No,”

You laugh lazily. Your hands on the side of his face, brushing your thumb along his cheek as you look at him adoringly.

“I like you a whole lot, probably a lot more than like - actually. So whatever we do after this - if you want to do something anyways, it’s because I actually like you,” you say softly. Spencer nods, blush staining his cheeks.

“I - uh, like you too,” he says warmly. You chew your lip.

“Can I kiss you, Spencer?,” the way you ask makes Spencer's heart melt. This was you, all at once. No sides of any coins, still kind and warm and thoughtful, but still mean and intimidating in the way Spencer likes. He wants to scream yes, but he nods instead.

You brush your lips over his for a second, smiling as he moves forwards to gain some contact. You don’t hesitate to kiss him forreal that time, lips pressed to his as your hand lays at the base of his necks, fingers pressing into his throat as he sighs. Your lips are warm, your touch is soft and Spencer could cry with how gentle you treat him. You pull away and brush your nose against his.

“For someone who kisses like that, I’m surprised you’re so into the idea of being degraded,” you chuckle. Spencer coughs and just looks at you shyly.

“Yeah, I really am,” his voice is hoarse.

You straddle yourself in Spencers lap and move the pillow. All the sudden contact makes his skin flush and he looks at you needy. Your pants are loose but your tank top is tight, and he finds his eyes looking at your chest before he can think about it. You roll your eyes at him, leaning into his neck to press a kiss on it. He whimpers and you smile - he really is desperate.

“Perv,” you murmur to him.He laughs.

“Can’t say you’re wrong,”

“Before we go any further, I wanna give you a safe word. I wouldn’t normally be doing something like this the first time for the purposes of semantics but I want you too badly to wait that long. I want to make sure it doesn’t get to be too much for you, in a bad way at least,” you say softly. Spencer looks at you and kisses you, and you laugh.

“We can do Red for Stop, Yellow for Slow Down, and Green for Go,” you explain warmly. He nods.

“Okay,” he says it back to you as he buries his face in your neck. You pet his hair and place a kiss on his head.

“Tell me what you want, angel,” you say first. Your voice is smooth like silk, the word angel rings out in his mind. It’s too pretty for what he wants you to do and maybe that's why he likes it so much. The juxtaposition to be something so pretty when all he wants you to do is ruin him.

He wants so much all at once he has trouble verbalizing any of it. It’d come out so incoherent even if he tried but he wants it, whatever the case may be. He feels your hands on his chest while you stare him down. He makes eye-contact and when he tries to look down again your hands force his chin up.

“Gotta look at me when you say it, baby. Otherwise, I won’t know who you’re talking too,” you say thoughtfully. Fuck - thats hot. Spencer swallows and nods, looking into your eyes as his mind racks itself with possibilities.

“Wanna fuck you,” he can’t believe how it sounds. He has so much more that he wants - he wants to fuck you while you absolutely take away his ability to cum. He wants to hear your voice when you talk down to him about it - about how hard he is when you get like this, and about how dirty he must really be. He wants to hear you threaten him with the possibility of being blue-balled hanging over his head. He wants you to be so fucking mean to him because he knows it doesn’t matter - he knows all the choice is yours and he really does love to please you and he knows he’s quite the masochist for it. He doesn’t care.

“I think you wanna do a little bit more than fuck me, Spence,” you giggle. Your eyes turn a shade darker as your hand moves to his throat. His hands are planted to his sides as your grip tightens around his neck - voice cold as you whisper into his ear.

“I think you want me to fuck you instead, yeah? Watch your teeth sink into your lips while I sit on your dick and make fun of you for how easy you twitch when I move. You’re so easy, Spencer,” the words leave your mouth and spill like wine. The words stain his whole mind with lust - absolutely aching to hear more. Fuck did he want that.

“Take your shirt off,” you don’t ask. He does so without warning and his eyes beg you do the same.

“I’ll take mine off when you’ve earned it, unzip your pants,” you reply nonchalant. He holds back a whimper and does so, his cock stiff against his boxer-briefs. You stand up and slide your pants off and your wearing boy-shorts, making Spencer sigh.

He looks up at you pleadingly, and you smile at him. You walk up to him again and smile, as he looks up at you. You let him lay his head on your stomach as he looks at you, your fingers tucked into his curls.

You tug them as you force him to look up at you. He groans from his throat as your other hand is placed on the side of his face. His eyes are weary as he looks at you. Your hands threaten to place a hit on him.

“You should get all that begging under control before there's a handmark on that pretty face of yours love,” you say softly. He looks at you with challenge.

“I don’t think I can, miss,” he says softly. You want to kiss him but you refrain.

“Color?,”

“Green”

You lift your hand and place a firm hit on Spencer's cheek. He relishes in the pain, the demand your fingers have in them. You command respect and he knew it deep in him. He groans at the feeling.

“Didn’t take you for the type,” your commentary is sly like Spencer likes it. It’s mean in a witty way, not degrading just to do it. It fits perfect with your demeanor and Spencer adores it.

You grab a stool from near one of Spencer bookshelves and place it between his legs. You’ve picked up tie from the ground while you sit yourself in front of him

“Stand up and turn around, and put your hands together behind your back,” you say, voice laced with faux boredom. Spencer does as told as you tie his hands together. You stare at him like that, taking note at his figure. He’s slim and it’s cute to you.

You pull his boxers down and spit into your hand, reaching around to wrap your hands around his cock. He hisses at the feeling, finding his hips rutting into them. He was so desperate for it.

“There's so much to do with you, I don’t even know where to start,” you sigh. Spencers mind races as your hand moves across him, wrapping around his length tight and letting your thumb run over his slit - just so you could feel how it twitched.

“I could make you cum like this, facing away from me - too focused on being degraded to care. You’d still get off on that wouldn’t you, angel?,” you say warmly. You stand up and place your hands under his chin. He looks down at it.

“Spit,”

He does as told. You drip it across his length and he shivers as you take him back into your pals, fingers curled tightly around his base while your other hand plays with his nipples. Your thumbs flick across them carefully and he whimpers, knees nearly folding at the sensation of pleasure.

“You don’t seem like one for visuals but maybe it’d be more fun for me if I fucked myself in front you with your hands behind your back. All of what would be on your dick, slick on my fingers instead. If I were nice, I’d let you taste me,” you muse. Spencer throws his head back at your words.

“Or maybe that type of torture isn’t your cup of tea. What’d you prefer Spencer? You cum so many times you nearly pass out from all the pleasure? At the end of all that, you’d have been so ruined that you’d have nothing to show for it when you came. Your whole body aching pleasure but with nothing left to give,” your thoughts come to you in phases but to Spencer the sound like holy scripture. Dry orgasms sound painful but Spencer was certainly intrigued.

“I wonder if you’d cry for me, baby. When your dick gets all red and sensitive and it hurts, would I have to wipe the tears off your pretty face? Sounds nice,” your voice is light and makes Spencer want to smile. He didn’t take you for that much of a sadist but he finds himself pleasantly surprised by the revelation

Your grip on his shaft tightens rather suddenly and Spencer whimpers. His voice is shaky, bare chest rising and falling at the feeling of your hands gripped around him.

“Fuck, please,” Spencer begs you to ease up but he doesn’t really want you too. You sigh, placing a kiss on his back.

“Please, what? You want me to stop?,” you ask, knowing damn well that it was the opposite. He shakes his head.

“Please let me fuck you, please,” the need in Spencer's voice was rather nice. You pull your hand off and tell Spencer to lay down on the couch. He does so without question but aches with how much he misses your touch. He moved against his restraints to try and get some friction but no luck.

He watches you as you pull down your underwear, giving him a view to how wet you are. A slick spot just sitting between your thighs, pretty as can be. Spencer's throat is dry, the urge to touch you sending his mind into agony.

“You talk too much,” your actions speak louder than words as you position yourself over Spencer's face. His neck cranes up to get a taste of you, tongue flatly along your slit trying to get some friction. You groan at the feeling, as Spencer laps at you. Flicking his tongue back and forth along your clit, curling around before sucking it into his mouth for a few seconds at a time.

“Jesus, Spencer,” you moan out to him, finger gripping in his hair. He wished he could verbalize how grateful he was, but he tried his best to show it instead. He could do this all day if you let him, and if his hands were free he’d wrap them tightly around your hips so you’d lean more weight on him. You could break his neck, honestly. It wouldn't matter to him, the way you had him feeling.

You grind your hips, rutting against Spencer's tongue as you ride yourself closer to orgasm. The sound of you getting off mixed with the taste of you on his tongue made Spencer feel like he was living off of you and he didn’t mind. You were so good to him.

“I’m gonna fuck the shit out of you,” is the last words you say before you cum all over Spencer face. Riding your orgasm out, you move and look down at Spencer, face flush. He smiles at you, absolutely ecstatic and you can’t help but laugh.

“I’ll untie you now, you did so good for me baby,” you praise softly, untying Spencer's hands. The first thing he does is sit up and wrap his arms around your waist. He places kisses along your naval as you pet his hair. He looks up at you, your orgasm still clear on his face. You cup his jaw and kiss him, just a little messy.

“You're soft, baby,” you note. He nods, seeming sleepy already and you wanna coo at him. He looks up at you again and shakes his head.

“Be mean to me, please,” his voice is shaky. You’re surprised, leaning down to give him a kiss on the forehead before you agree.

“Sit back,” you demand. He does so without question as you straddle his lap. He can feel his tip brushing back and forth between your folds as you look at him adoringly, face full of affection mixed with an urge to give him what he’s so kindly asked for.

You wrap your hands around his neck as you sink down on Spencer cock. It stretches you out slowly, wrapped tightly around Spencer. He hits your cervix with ease. His breathing is labored, his hand holding your wrist as you choke him.

“Look at you, my love. I’m taking your breath away, and you're giving it up to me just like that? You want me to wreck you that badly huh? I didn’t take your for such a slut,” you utter that last word with false confidence but the way Spencer adores every second of it gives you real confidence instead. He could cum right then and there - hearing you call him a slut makes him feel something rather unexpected. It’s an ultimate powerplay, because the both of you know that right now he’s only giving it up for you, but it implies something so much greater. He likes it so much, likes the sound of bombarding him with pleasure and degradation that when he moans, voice strained as the column of his neck gets squeezed - he doesn’t really know how to stop himself from saying again.

“You like being a slut for me baby?,” you ask, bouncing up and down on Spencer cock, feeling the way he twitches in you. You let go of his throat, and he coughs before looking at you softly. His fingers run over the feeling of your hands. Your mouth moves to his neck instead, marking hickies into it as he holds onto your hips and fucks into you. He nods his head yes at your question.

“You’re so needy, love,” you remark, pulling back and using your fingers to rub your clit as Spencer fucks into you. You cum again a second time, convulsing around Spencer's length as you moan his name.

“Please, please can I cum?,” Spencer asks politely. You’d love to tease him more, but you figure it may be too much for him so you just nod. You kiss him softly.

“Anywhere you wanna finish?,” you ask. He looks immediately at your chest. You take off your tank top and bra and get on your knees for Spencer as he finishes on your chest, voice groaning your name.

“Y/N - fuck, oh my god,” His eyes are shut in pleasure and you can’t help but smile at him. When he comes down from his high and sees you stood up, looking for your clothes - he doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you and pull you down to the couch. You giggle as he does.

“You did so good for me, baby. You’re such a good boy,” the praises fall from your lips with ease as Spencer mutters a flushed thank you. You reach to the table for a tissue as you wipe the cum off of your chest, making Spencer snort.

You turn around to be facing Spencer, naked bodies just holding each other. You play with Spencer's hair pressing constant kisses into his shoulders, or on his forehead. Anywhere you can get them really.

“It’s time for aftercare soon, but we can sit here a little longer if you like. Just no sleeping until we’ve showered and eaten and you’re taken care of, okay?,” you say lovingly, tucking Spencer's hair back behind his ear. He smiles at you softly, the feeling of being pampered like that holding him close.

“Hey, Y/N,” he looks at you with adoration “Will you please be my girlfriend? Cause I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you,” he says with sincerity. You can’t help but chuckle as you kiss him slowly.

“Yes, Spence, of course. I’m in love with you too, by the way,” you say back. Spencer simply smiles, hugging you tight and hoping to never let you go.

______

taglist: @cynbx @skrrrrrrrrrrt @zephyr-studiesjp @reid-187

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid oneshot #sub!spencer #sub!spencer reid #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds self insert #spencer x reader #criminal minds x reader #this is so self indulgent #i do think spencer is a sub though through and through #switch leaning sub imo #feel free to ask me about it i can analyze it in great depth bc i think about That Much #author is trash anyways #hope someone else like this at least

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rumor-imbris · 3 years ago

Note

Hello, Lady Connor! I want to ask out of unbearable, suffocating curiosity in my heart, even though in the previous post you already said to not mention "that certain comic". Could you please enlighten me about your view on that comic and what you despise about it? I would love to read your detailed thoughts about it even if just once. But if this is too triggering for you, I'm truly sorry for your discomfort and you don't need to answer it.

Hello, dear Anon and welcome ^-^ It's weird you naturally called me Lady Connor, as usually only my little fairy @giuliettaluce does. Well, I guess her magic put a spell on everybody here!!

If you really care to know, I'll answer, but brace yourself, it's going to be very long, almost an essay, because I can be very detailed about that comic being a failure in its every part. There's so much to say. You're right, as I mentioned before, it can trigger me, but I have attentively analized it and I know it makes not a single atom of sense. So nothing can actually bother me that much, don't worry ^_-

First of all, my general consideration of the AC Reflections comic issue #4, (yeah, that thing -.-) is that of a mere attempt to desperately make Bayek's remote vision through Senu's eyes a canon feature. It was created and published in 2017, the same year AC Origins was released and yes, they needed an excuse to make believe Connor's alleged daughter inherited a skill someone (who isn't even their direct ancestor!!) that lived 1700 years ago in ancient Egypt had! OMG, this should be funny enough, but I'll go on. Also, I think it was likely a carelessly arranged way to satisfy those AC3 fans demanding a "happy ending" for unlucky Connor (quite 5 years later, of course).

I'll better go step by step to figure out where to start from, seriously.

1) In the comic, when Otso Berg opens the file related to Connor, the scene is set in "1796: Upstate New York." Now this is chronologically and spacially incoherent and illogical. We see Connor still wears his assassin outfit in it, right? According to AC Initiates (2012) in 1804 Connor invites the Dominican assassin Eseosa at the Davenport homestead to provide him some advices and further training as he's involved in the leading of the Haitian Revolution. That's a really cool character, read about him, if you want!

So, until then Connor is still an assassin, probably the mentor (by now) of the Colonial Brotherhood. He still runs the homestead and he still commands the Aquila, I guess, he's the captain still. I calculated the distance between the homestead and the then upper NY frontier territories is approximately 260 miles (quite far nowadays with cars and planes as well). Then, why the hell should he have a family located in the forest upstate NY? It sounds very unconfortable to run back and forth to reach them and go back to take care of all the Brotherhood matters, doesn't it? Unless he knew about teleportation!!! Also, wow, he lives all alone in a nice massive villa with all the comforts of that time while his children and wife still live in a Native village constantly menaced by settlers wanting to steal their land? Beside the fact that Connor, at least in my point of view, seemed at last very familiar with european way of living by the end of the game, this leads us to the next point.

2) By the time the game and the comic are set (second half of 18th century), most of the East Coast Native tribes were facing the tragic and forced migration to western and northern territories (mostly towards Canada, protected by the British) because of all the consequences of the Revolutionary War (lost territories, failed alliances, settlers advancing and buying their lands and so on). So tells us history, unfortunately. It's a fact. And this is wisely showed to us in the AC3 main game when, after all the Kanien'kehá:ka tribes had left the territory around Connor's village (yes, even those near New York, to be clear) even Connor's own tribe at last migrates west, leaving an empty ghost village. They had remained all along to protect the secret temple, but in the end they as well were forced to leave. So, to me it's highly improbable that in upstate NY, one could still find a tribe and even if so, that Connor would let his family live there and risk their safety everyday.

3) The whole comic plot revolves around the fact that Io:nhiòte has a "special gift"... She inexplicably knows how to read the ground and find animal traces, she also can perform a perfect twisted acrobatic flip in the air and land unharmed to the ground. Do we know why? No, don't ask! xD She simply knows U.U, even if right after the next scene she slips and falls miserably down a cliff xD, but... ok!! Beside that, when Connor is far away to search for some water and is about to be attacked by a wolf hidden in the grass nearby, she sees the whole scene from the eyes of an eagle flying in the sky above her. As I said before, this reminds us of Bayek's (never clearly explained) ability to see through his eagle Senu's eyes and spot dangers and enemies. Now can you tell me why the hell this little girl has super powers and a skill Bayek had? As I said, they are not even directely related, as Bayek is not one of Desmond Miles' ancestor, we know him simply because Layla's new Animus is magical and can inexplicably read fragmented DNA from people who died a thousand years ago (it can also prepair coffee, I think!). So, where did she get that from? Magic? Mysteries of life? Convenient improbable connections for marketing's sake? We'll never know and you should simply accept that and ask no question!

4) From her height, way of speaking/moving/running, I assume Io:nhiòte is at least 8 years old, 8 - 9 minimum. She's the youngest of three siblings, who must be at least two years older than her and than each other (according to a human woman pregnancy timing!). If the comic events are set 12 years after the main game ending (1784, when Connor also starts to train the young ex-slave Patience Gibbs, arriving at the Davenport homestead with Aveline De Grandpré, according to AC IV Black Flag bonus mission with Aveline), so, this means that in that same year Connor must have found hastily the love of his life in a Native village (as if he was easy to open himself with other people after all he's been through), married her, impregnated her and seen her give birth to their first child, all in the same year when (let's not foget! xD) he still is the leader of the Colonial Assassin Brotherhood at the Davenport homestead training novices. Now, this may even be possible humanly speaking, (well, if you force the things a bit and hurry up!) but highly unlikely to happen!! xD

These are the main problems affecting the logic of the comic in my opinion, the points making its foundations crumble apart. Though I'm sure there are many little others to point out, such as Otso Berg "opening" Connor's files... like what? Where did those data come out from? I remember playing AC IV Black Flag and uncovering a file where Abstergo researchers themselves closed access to his memories as there was "nothing appealing to this character anymore"! So, if no more researches were conducted on him since 2013, where did Mr Berg magically or conveniently discovered such data in 2017?

Or... do we want to talk about the cover? It shows Connor in the spirit outfit from the Tyranny of King Washington DLC, which has apparently nothing to do with the comic, since it is set in his present day and he wears his assassin standard robe. Now, I think that can be either a simple marketing choice to make the comic more appealing, as... well, that cover is so cool, let's admit that, or maybe the subtle suggestion that the events told in it are just a parallel Disney-like reality and are not to be considered true at all! xD i don't know, maybe both explanations are right.

I'm sure that the deeper i dig, the more nothing rational I'll find!

If you played the old games, if you know well the franchise and its lore, the true, good, old AC lore, you definitely realize by yourself how that comic is useless and senseless.

This doesn't mean I do not wish an "happy ending" for Connor. But I'd rather accept something coherent with the main game events and AC chronology. Also, it doesn't necessarily needs to be a "happy" ending, as they conveniently created to please complaining fans. I wished for something real... coherent with his personality, acquired life-style and endless sense of duty and values.

Maybe that's what pushed me to write my FanFic novel in the first place, after all... To give him MY OWN cohesive ending, including my love, for love is always needed, I guess.

I'm so sorry if the answer took this long in time and words, but you were warned! ^w^

Though, thank you... Seriously, thank you so much for asking. You made me reflect once more about this matter.

Come visit me again, if you want. Take care

- Rumor Imbris 🦋

P.S. Oh, and if you're interested, this is my "jelousy song", for when things like this trigger my inner witch!! xD

#ask #ask me anything #I Am the Storm!!!!#AC3 Reflections #why it sucks #why it makes no sense #thanks for asking #anon ask

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elsanna-shenanigans · 4 years ago

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February Contest Submission #5: Welcome

words: ca. 3,100 setting: mAU lemon: no cw: no warnings apply

“A snake made the world?”

Anna inhaled, then exhaled through her nose. Kristoff scratched idly at his stubble while they waited for their coffees to be made, standing around the uni café.

“It’s a mythos, Kris,” she said after a moment. “Just like Christian God, or Allah, or- I dunno. Whatever specific being any other major religion thought made the world.”

“But a snake.”

“Rainbow Serpent, actually. And it’s really interesting, if you bothered to listen.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off when their names were called and two coffees placed on the counter. Anna took the chance, moving forward and grabbing her own cup and a few extra sugar packets. By the time Kris had caught up to her, she’d already dumped two into her drink, gently stirring it with a paddle-pop stick.

“I did listen,” he said, clearly intent on continuing the conversation. “And doesn’t the story go that the land and shit already existed but the big snake made mountains and valleys and stuff?”

Taking a sip of her drink, more to waste time than anything, Anna had to concede that he wasn’t wrong, per-se. He was just missing all the nuances of the topic, though!

“Look, I just thought it was cool, is all,” she said once she’d finished the mouthful of, frankly, fairly mediocre coffee. Nice and sweet, though. “Like, out of the seven-hundred-ish tribes– uh. Mobs. Most of them have an origin story that’s so similar. Across the whole country! But the languages they use are completely different – did you know the name of the language is traditionally based on their word for ‘no’? I just… thought it was cool.”

“It is cool, Anna,” Kristoff said, shooting her a small smile. “And I know learning about all this stuff means a lot to you.”

Swallowing again, though more from the dryness that had suddenly appeared in her mouth, Anna nodded. “Well, Mum isn’t around to teach me this stuff anymore. But I don’t wanna miss out and regret it forever.” Suddenly, she perked up. “Hey, did I tell you? I’m going to a thing today!”

“A thing?”

Nodding – so emphatically that she spilled her coffee, the brown liquid sloshing over the side of the cup and landing with a splat on the floor – she grinned up at her friend. “Yeah! It’s this traditional Indigenous show-thing? I can’t really remember what it’s about, but it wasn’t too expensive and they’re doing everything – a Welcome to Country, and stories and bush tucker, and I think they said a corroboree at the end?”

“That sounds really cool, Anna,” Kris said, just as his watch beeped at him. “You’ll have to tell me all about it. Uh. After class.”

Sighing, but this time with a smile, Anna waved him off – spilling her drink again in the process. “See you later, dude,” she said. She probably had to start getting ready, anyway.

Throwing the remnants of her coffee in the bin, Anna made her way back home. A forty-minute bus ride home, only to take a quick shower (how fortunate the drought of her youth had trained her in the art of 3-minute washes…) before heading back out again. It was cooling off, but she knew the evening wouldn’t get cold by any stretch of the word. It smelled like it was going to rain, and she heard the kookaburras again as if to confirm the thought.

Kookaburra laughing means it’s gonna rain, she thought to herself.

It was another forty-minute ride on the bus, and Anna felt herself becoming giddier and giddier with excitement. It’s one thing to learn about this sort of stuff in class. Now, she gets to experience some of it.

Even the first few splatters of rain on the window of the bus can’t dampen her mood.

By the time she arrived, the small drizzle had turned into a full-fledged shower. It wasn’t a storm – it felt a little early in the season (or late in the year) for that – and it would probably pass soon. She was glad she wore closed-in shoes, though, because it turned the earth into a sticky, muddy substance that stuck to everything.

There was only one other girl her age, and though Anna didn’t want to seem too invested, she was also cognisant enough to recognise that she’d rather interact with her than with any of the other people. A glance at the assembled crowed, standing under a large tent as protection from the rain, only confirmed her suspicions: there was at least one tour group, mostly made up of retirees; a school group, probably from the city’s Boys Grammar school, judging by the pretentiousness (and the uniforms). And the girl.

Not that she needed to worry about it. It was very much a group thing in that they weren’t asked to find partners or actually even talk to each other – not at first. First it was a respectful silence – and for Anna, a respectful reverence – as an Elder stood before them to give an official Welcome to Country. He described the land, before White colonisers; the shape of it, the boundaries between Turrbal Country and Jagera Country; the Meeanjin people, who weren’t able to claim Native Title for the land that still was theirs. Even the private school boys were silent, weren’t even fidgeting. Anna had to blink a little harder than usual, and she didn’t stop until he’d finished his piece.

No one clapped, but then, they weren’t supposed to.

A sudden flash of anger overtook her, and she had to face the ground just so she wouldn’t ruin this moment for everyone else. Why had her mum kept this from her? Why did she have to go searching, find out herself? How could they have grown up, let her grow up, not knowing a thing about her heritage??

“Hey, you okay?”

Jerking her head up, Anna found herself having to blink once more to force the angered tears away. The girl she’d noticed earlier was standing in front of her; everyone else had moved on, walking over the red land and towards a building.

��Y-yeah,” she responded. “I’m just…”

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” The girl looked over her shoulder at the crowd. “C'mon, I don’t think you want to miss this next part.” With a quick, but sincere, smile, the girl turned around and began the return to the group. Anna followed, a few steps behind.

“I don’t?”

The girl shook her head. “I’m Elsa, by the way.”

“Anna. Nice to meet you.”

Elsa just smiled at her, slowing down enough to let Anna fall into step beside her.

Elsa was right: she did not want to miss this.

Once they regrouped, everyone was led into a darkened room. There was a star projector in the centre, a surprisingly real-looking, but definitely fake, fire built around it. They’d lit incense, or something, and when the door behind Anna closed and she was asked to sit on the floor, she found it really easy to imagine being here, back in the long ago.

It wasn’t the Elder who spoke this time. Another man, several years younger, came to sit in front of everyone. He had no shirt on, but his chest was painted in various pigments of ochre and white, only just distinguishable in the dim light of the fake fire and stars (and, Anna realised when she turned around, the fire exit sign). Elsa was sat behind her; she lifted her eyebrows once, still smiling, and Anna hurriedly turned back to the speaker in front her her.

And boy, did he speak. He told the story of the Rainbow Serpent, who carved the mountains and the valleys, and who tickled the frogs until they laughed, and the water that had been kept in their fat bellies burst and filled the tracks that had been made. He spoke about the animals that followed the Rainbow Serpent, who obeyed her and were rewarded by becoming human; those who did not would be made stone again.

But he spoke of other stories, too, ones she hadn’t heard before. He spoke about the Three Brothers, who were found mixing with women of another skin-group – a serious offence – and found their lives forfeit, as there were strict rules around marriage and mingling. Another person came up after that, a young woman, who told the story of Mundiba and they Honey, which was a cautionary tale against greediness and selfishness, as he had been asked to collect honey but had kept it for himself. A spirit had grown suspicious, and upon witnessing Mundiba taking the honey, had sung to the trees to trap Mundiba, where he had perished.

The last tale that was told, just as the retirees were losing focus and the boys began squirming, was the tale of the two wise men and seven sisters. Another origin story, Anna thought, and enjoyed it all the same because it spoke of people who weren’t people. This story, the audience was told, was from Wong-Gu-Tha country.

In the beginning, it says, the Creator sent two spirit men, Woddee Gooth-tha-rra, to shape Yulbrada, the Earth. They came from the far end of the Milky Way, and were tasked with making the hills and valleys. They made the cliffs and the oceans, the plains and the mountains. And when their work was almost complete, the Creator sent seven sisters, who were stars of the Milky Way, to make the land beautiful with flowers and trees, springs and billabongs, and all the birds and animals and all the creepy things.

Anna had to stifle a little smile when the woman said that. Not that she had to – the woman was smiling, clearly enjoying telling the story, perhaps more than Anna was enjoying hearing about it.

The sisters were making the Honey Ants when they became thirsty, and asked the youngest to find some water for them all to drink. She dutifully took her dish and went off, in the direction her sisters had sent her, to find water.

The Woddee Gooth-tha-rra were in the bushes, spying on the women, and followed the youngest went she went for water. They did not hide, and she fell in love with the two spirit men, and they her. The six sisters left became worried because the youngest had been gone so long.

They had all been warned by the Creator that, should such a thing happen, they wouldn’t be able to return to the Milky Way. The youngest sister remained on Yulbrada with the two men, and became mortal. They became the parents of the earth, and made the laws and the people of the desert.

The woman fell silent as she finished her story, and Anna was left thinking. It was a creation myth so similar to Eden, but different. People came from the Heavens, but it wasn’t a punishment to remain on earth. They weren’t cast out for the knowledge they gained, but instead had to embrace it. It was love that made the people, not the wrath of any god.

It was a comforting thought.

After the stories, they were treated to a didgeridoo player, as well as a demonstration of spear-throwing, weaponry, and warfare stuff. They returned outside, the storm having passed and the remaining clouds providing just enough cover from the would-be blistering sun Anna was less invested, but the school boys definitely perked up. Actually, regardless of her open interest, she still found herself perking up. The storytelling, while interesting, had little action and more atmosphere. This had action.

She found herself sitting next to Elsa again, a question burning the tip of her tongue. When there was a short break while some of the boys asked questions about the weapons, there was a window to actually ask.

“How did you know I’d like that?"

Elsa hadn’t been paying attention, naturally, and looked a little surprised when she turned to Anna. A smile graced her face; she looked comfortable.

"Everyone does. Even the kids, even if they thought it was a little boring.”

“Well, you were definitely right,” Anna said, an easy smile lifting to her own face. “Have you been here before?”

Before Elsa could answer, their attention was called for the next activity. A small wave of disappointment urged through Anna – she wanted to talk! – before she chastised herself. She had come here to learn all this stuff, even in this vaguely touristy way. She did not come here to make friends.

But… perhaps that would just be a happy bonus as everyone was led to a fire-pit and she realised that the next activity was lunch. An activity in which everyone was able to – nay, encouraged to – talk to everyone else.

Anna wasn’t going to talk to the school kids, and she held little interest in talking to the retirees. She didn’t even have to seek out Elsa; the other woman had left a spot next to her open, and was already looking at Anna and smiling.

They didn’t speak until after the food had been distributed: damper and dukkah – and a plate of different dips and chutneys on the side; skewers of kangaroo, crocodile, and emu; as well as more typical roasted meat. Potatoes and gravy, and all flavours she’d never tried before.

“This looks amazing,” Anna said to herself, eyes as round as the plates in which the food had been served. There was a light laugh from next to her, and she turned to find Elsa smiling.

“It tastes even better," she said. "And I know because I have been here before. Only once or twice, but it was enough to get me to come back.”

Anna thought back to how much this had cost her – well worth it, but it wasn’t cheap either – and then to the woman next to her. “It’s been amazing so far,” she agreed.

“And it gets better and better. This is probably the best one I’ve been to.” She said it without taking her eyes from Anna, who felt her cheeks burning. Was this woman flirting with her?

And then Elsa bit her bottom lip, still smiling, and nodded towards the food. “Go on, try it. I bet it’ll be the best you’ve ever had.”

Okay, yep, definitely flirting. Probably as red as a beet, and a shade that couldn’t just be blamed on the sun, Anna ducked her head and focussed on the damper. It came apart easily in her hands, and she dipped it in some of the… chutney?

“So, is this your first time here? What made you want to try it out?”

Elsa asked the questions just as Anna lifted the bread to her mouth. She’d definitely taken too large a bite, and probably looked silly. A possum in the headlights, with bulging cheeks and wide eyes. With some difficulty, she swallowed.

“Y-yeah,” she said, reaching for her cordial. “My um. My mum passed away recently and when I was going through her stuff I found some pictures and documents about where I- where she came from. Wanted to… reconnect, I guess?”

Elsa nodded along as Anna spoke. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, and she actually sounded like she meant it. “How are you finding it?”

It was impossible to tell if Elsa were talking about the death, or the discovery, so Anna chose to focus on the latter. “Well, I was really excited at first. I wanted to learn the language and talk to the Elders – I’m already doing Indigenous Studies at uni, so the chance to learn about it all from a personal perspective was really nice.”

“But…?”

“But Mum was Nunukul, so there’s no more language. I know they have the Quandamooka centre over at Straddie – uh, Minjerribah – but I don’t know if that’s the same. Jandai is not my people, or my language.”

Elsa nodded, taking another bite of her food. She was already half-finished, while Anna had been so focused on talking she’d barely started.

“I know what you mean,” Elsa said when she swallowed. She spoke slower than Anna, more thoughtfully; it gave Anna a chance to catch up with her food, at least. “My father is Tjungundji, so all I really have for that is some stupid word lists by old white people, sealed away in Canberra and gatekept by those same old white people.”

A bitterness seeped into her voice; a tempered fury that Anna was]s only just learning exists in her, too. A righteous anger over how much had been taken, not just from her, but from her people, and all other peoples who had been here before.

But she needed to look for the positives. She didn’t know much about Elsa’s mob, but she had been researching her own. She was lucky enough that not everything was taken or destroyed.

“It’s amazing what we’ve been able to recoup,” she said softly, thoughtfully. “I don’t think my grandma, or even my mum, really, could have imagined that their culture could be separated. It’s why they didn’t pass it down. But it is; it’s here and alive. Even though no one speaks Nunukul anymore, and it wasn’t really written down, we have the songs and stories of those people, even in English. I know the snake is my totem, even though I’m terrified of snakes. And I just think it’s amazing how much we’ve been able to put back together even after it all shattered. Things like this, today, are amazing, honest attempts at reconciliation.”

Elsa snorted gently, a smile on her face. “’Reconciliation’, eh? That’s the buzzword of the century.” Anna laughed and nodded.

“I like to think it’ll keep getting better. Two years ago I’d have never even thought to do this – Indigenous history was just a boring subject in school. But next week I’m getting a snake tattoo, which is terrifying, and it’s been designed by an Indigenous artist and it’s something on me that they can’t take away.” She sighed. “We need to stop taking so much away.”

They fell into silence for a moment, finishing up the meals on their plate. It was a thoughtful silence, comfortable, before Elsa broke it.

“So, you’re terrified of snakes and tattoos. Why are you getting both? Why not choose another design?”

She asked the question so sincerely, honestly. That was all that was really needed, Anna realised. A genuine desire for understanding that, as wonderful as she believed Australian culture to be, she often found sorely lacking. The “she’ll be right” attitude that blinded people to problems. To truths and solutions.

“Because,” Anna said, smiling. Elsa looked right back at her, the expression mirrored on her face, and regardless of the flirting earlier, Anna thought that, at the very least, she had made a friend. “A snake made the world.”

#elsanna #submission #february 2021 contest #prompt: ancient worlds

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willow-salix · 4 years ago

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Fluffember Prompt: Time

Day 22 of Isolation on Tracy Island 2.0.

There is weirdness going on in this villa, weirdness I tell you. They all seem to be getting on really well and I knew they were planning something, I just didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.

"OK, what's going on?" I asked Alan, picking on the smallest of the bunch. He was often the weak link in the group, he couldn't stand to be accused of things he hadn't done.

"Nothing!" he squawked but he had that shifty look in his eyes that I recognised far too well.

"Nope, not buying it," I coughed, folding my arms. I was starting to feel better but I was still feeling delicate and needing to rest a lot or I was getting light headed and grumpy (although Gordon said I was always grumpy).

"OK," he sighed, knowing he was beaten.

I waved a hand in a 'continue' gesture.

"It's thanksgiving tomorrow."

I gave him a blank look, because I'm English and even though I'd heard of thanksgiving it wasn't something that I knew anything about and I definitely didn't celebrate it.

"We've never celebrated before," I said.

"We'll we've never had the time before," he shrugged, not taking his eyes off his game.

Scott came in to sit down beside me with a cup of Gordon's tea which he handed me. I swear if I drink much more of this tea I'd start to slosh and look like a lemon.

"What he means is that International Rescue has taken up so much of our time for so long that we've never wanted to do a big celebration because it would always get interrupted. We tried the first few years but every time a rescue call would come in and we'd end up leaving, it stopped being worth the effort."

"We still try to do Christmas," John added, nudging me until I sipped my tea. Honestly, I hate tea, I only drink it when I'm not well because coffee tastes weird when I have a cold, but it was making me feel a bit better so I was sucking it up.

"But thanksgiving ended up being forgotten," Alan finished. "So Dad said we should make the most of this year and the fact that it's unlikely we'll get a call."

"We know the world is in a bad place right now but people need to be grateful for the fact that, while they can't see their family and friends as much as they would like to, they are doing their bit to keep their loved ones safe. And that's what thanksgiving is about, spending time with family and being thankful for everything you have," Scott said.

"I can understand that part," I nodded. "I just don't get the whole thanksgiving thing, it's not something we do where I'm from, so I know nothing about it. What's the story?"

All three of them looked at each other, exchanging one of those silent looks that family does where they are communicating nonverbally.

" I too would like to understand more about this human custom," EOS said, her holographic symbol floating peacefully above the table. "It sounds most interesting."

"We could tell you, but Grandma would be better, she used to tell us the story when we were kids," Scott said.

"Does this mean you guys have forgotten most of the story?" I guessed.

"No, of course not!" Alan protested.

I can't say I believed them.

Grandma was duly summoned to the lounge and we all settled in various chairs and couches like kids in anticipation of storytime.

"It all began around five hundred years ago," Grandma began, holding court like the Queen she is. "And a great many people in England were unhappy because their King wouldn't allow them to worship as they liked."

"Always the way," I muttered under my breath. "Always some king or other telling people how to pray. Couldn't even be a witch without being killed for it, but I know the Protestants had the same kind of trouble."

"The king told them they must worship his way or risk imprisonment or even death," Grandma said. "They were of course unhappy with this and a great many took it upon themselves to flee the country to settle elsewhere."

"So basically they yeet skeeted out of there?" I said.

"That's one way of putting it," Scott laughed.

"First they tried Holland, and called themselves Pilgrims, a word meaning someone who is always travelling to find something they love or a land where they could be happier. They said 'from place to place, toward heaven, their dearest country'."

I sipped my tea and listened, it was easy enough to follow so far, I knew about religious persecution, although I'd never left my home for it.

"The pilgrims were happy there for a while, they were quiet, peaceful people, but they were very poor. And, when their children began to grow up, they didn't have the same upbringing as their parents had, they weren't like English children, they spoke Dutch, like the children of Holland and some grew very disobedient and refused to go to church anymore."

"Sounds legit."

"The parents weren't impressed with this and, after much deliberation they decided to move again, wishing to go somewhere they could live their own way and make their own rules. They hired two ships, the Mayflower-"

"Oh, I've heard of that one! That's one thing I do know," I said, quite proud of my rather limited knowledge but you know, you gotta take what you can get.

"They hired the Mayflower and the Speedwell to take them across the sea to another land where they could make their home."

"So the pilgrim Mamas and Papas were like forget this, we're gonna ship off somewhere we get to make the rules?" I asked.

"Essentially, yes," John admitted.

"Honestly, I'm not too sure what to think of this right now, but I'm reserving judgment."

Grandma gave me a squinty eyed look of warning and I mimed zipping my lips.

"Unfortunately," she who must be obeyed continued, "the Speedwell was not a strong ship, and the captain had to take her home again before she had gone very far. The mayflower returned too to take some of the Speedwell's passengers. They travelled for more than two months-"

"Two months!" Alan yelped, "we can go from here to England in less than an hour in Thunderbird One."

"Yeah, that's crazy," Virgil agreed, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe it.

"They landed and started building the first homes on Christmas day, but the journey hadn't been kind to them, many were sick and still suffered months later so were little help in the house raisings. They had barely any food, they had landed in winter when the land was barren and frozen, with great snow falls the likes of which they had never seen before."

"That sucks," Gordon said. "They should have been better prepared."

"By the time spring arrived their number had reduced by half from illness, starvation and cold," Grandma said, continuing with her far from pleasant tale. "The indigenous tribes of the area came to help, being friendly people and offered grain, seeds and tools with which to farm as well as the knowledge of when and how to plant to make the most of the land."

"That was nice of them," EOS said. "I have observed that it is uncommon for humans to help each other without payment or gain, but it seems that it was not always the case."

"No, it wasn't," John agreed. "No matter what you read of humans, EOS, remember that where there is bad there is also good. Unfortunately it's often the bad we hear about while the good remain unnoticed, but that doesn't lessen their value or importance."

I squeezed his knee affectionately, just because I could and it's funny to watch him jump sometimes. His hand landed on top of mine to prevent me doing it again but I knew he didn't mind really.

"The pilgrims farmed well all summer and when the autumn cape and they had harvested their crops they decided that a feast was in order to celebrate their first year, their first harvest and their new life. They invited all their native friends to attend and they happily agreed, bringing with them deer and other foods to share. They must have enjoyed themselves because the party lasted for three days. And now we celebrate being thankful for what we have every year at thanksgiving," Grandma finished, looking pleased with herself. She obviously loved the story and had told it with a kind of familiar comfort which told me that it was once she'd heard many times before, probably from her own grandparents.

I loved those kinds of stories, the ones that bring back memories or a time past, one's that make you smile when you think of them.

"Wow, they really knew how to throw down and have a good time," Alan grinned. " Do we get a three day party?"

"I wish we did, but no, " Scott chuckled, "nice try though, squirt."

"Right, now that you've all kept me busy telling you stories, I'm going to go and see if you're father is ready to go, he's taking me to the mainland for supplies for tomorrows meal." Grandma jumped up from couch with a lot more energy than I had (she was obviously invigorated by the thought of shopping) and toddled off to hunt down Jeff.

"John?" EOS asked quietly.

"Yes, EOS?"

"I don't understand Grandma's story."

"What didn't you understand, baby girl?" I asked her, butting in because I was bored quite honestly.

"I have checked the facts of the story and found that it is not historically accurate."

"What isn't?" Alan asked.

"It appears that, while the meal did indeed happen, it was not called the first thanksgiving until later and that it was actually an American president, Abraham Lincoln, who heard about the meal from a diary of the time and used it as a moral booster during the Civil War."

"Oh, well that's not as nice," Gordon admitted.

"My research also tells me that the pilgrims and the native Americans did not stay friends for long, indeed there were many nasty things done to them culminating in the decimation of their culture. Therefore I do not understand why such a thing is celebrated."

"Unfortunately, that's the English for you," I sighed. "For a small country we've done a lot of harm, we've invaded a lot of countries and taken over thinking that our ways were better, when really the best way was that of the native people. It's one of the things about being English I'm not proud of."

"It's not always that simple," John started, adopting that patiently explaining tone of his. It wasn't that 'I'm talking to an idiot' one that some men end up doing, but one that showed he was willing to listen and engage in an actual conversation. And people wonder why I love him so much.

"Why not? History cannot be ignored," EOS insisted.

"In this instance, it's not about history being ignored, but the spirit of the holiday changing over time. In the case of Thanksgiving its more about taking time out of your lives to stop and think about why you are thankful, to think about what you have and what your are grateful to have. You spend time with your family and friends and share stories and time. As with many things in life its a nasty part of history that something positive has come out of."

"Like how a lot of people don't celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, because they aren't religious in that way, but treat it more as a time of family and a time to enjoy company, food and thoughtful gifts. So many traditions have developed over the years that can't be explained by history but are important just the same," Virgil told her. If John was the closest thing to a father to her, Virgil was definitely her ever patient uncle, he was always happy to talk to her.

"So it is not a celebration of the harvest, the meal or the actions after?"

"No, its about the spirit of the meal, the sharing of food with those for might not have any, of reflecting on the things you are thankful for and enjoying time with your loved ones," John explained.

"I do not understand the spirit, I do not recall any ghosts in the story, but I find humans to be confusing, so I shall simply observe the remainder of your rituals and see for myself," she decided, her hologram blinking out.

"Well," I sighed. "I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be interesting."

#thanksgiving #Isolation Island #Thunderbirds in isolation #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirdsarego #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction

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hello-vampire-kitty · 5 years ago

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Servamp Chapter 88 “Tsukimitsu Iori”

READ ONLINE

It’s finally done, I know it took a while but I had a bunch of IRL problems to deal with and the other thing was that Tanaka pretty much challenges me every time with some peculiar word choices that I have to mull over a lot. Honestly, that’s their gimmick, I even reach out sometimes to other people, even native Japanese and they are sometimes baffled. Anywho, I have some notes that I made for certain lines and also talking about the references in this chapter:

-Right off the bat, Tsubaki’s line sounded odd, especially his last line which I wrote like “I blurted out a question.” Literally, it would be like “I talked in such a way that I questioned” (and has the nuance of doing it by accident). Sounds so weird to me :/ But, even someone else that I consulted with understood the same thing. (Tanaka what are you doing to me?!)

-Iori’s line “I’m the type who always makes sure to lock things up”. He basically said “I take care to lock up” (鍵をかける translates as ‘to lock the door’ and I think this implies that he ensures to keep things protected, that he doesn’t leave openings for others who would attempt at doing something with the things/persons that are kept secure. I think it also implies that he is very thorough, like he displayed by having a trump card.

-New spells! It’s awesome how all three siblings play a part in it! This one is obvious, their spell is based on “The Wizard of Oz”, and this isn’t the first time it we have a reference from it. In chapter 70 when Yumikage used his spell “Cry for the moon”, he also had a line that said ‘cowardly lion’ and this time, his line also has that subject. Oh and yeah, it made me remember that the shoes in the story were silver, not ruby, like how they are mostly known (ruby slippers, which were like that in the movie). Another reference from Norse mythology, Bifröst is the rainbow bridge that connects Asgard, the world of the Aesir tribe of gods, with Midgard, the world of humanity. Bifröst is guarded by the ever-vigilant god Heimdall. I think that the allusion to a rainbow could be related to the song featured in the movie “Somewhere over the rainbow” (I don’t remember a lot from the movie, but I’ve seen a few illustrations with the Emerald City depicted with a rainbow above it). This might be connected with the headline in the colored illustration of the chapter where it says ‘a different world’, which fits with the description of the rainbow bridge connecting worlds.

-I don’t know what Iori means by ‘being the first’...(and like omg, that spell was so dangerous on him? ;; when he said “I’ll pay the cost”, does that mean that it has a great side effect? I don’t think this might have been his first time using it, but maybe he was too wounded...) -Miyako’s spell, while from what I saw, the correct spelling is valkyrie, I liked how it sounded better with Valkyria. Also, Brunhilde also has various spellings, I chose that one. I also “Swan Lake”, they really gave Miyako the imagery of grace, like a swan but also power like that of a valkyrie.

I am so looking forward to seeing what the business with the “werewolf” will be like (and I’m not certain, but did they make it sound like Mahiru would know this ‘werewolf’? Lol, don’t tell me it’s Touma xD)

And that’s it for this chapter, and as usual “Tanaka-sensei, why are you doing this me?”

If you enjoy the translations, a coffee to show your support would be lovely♥

#servamp #chapter 88 #my translation

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eerythingisshaka · 6 years ago

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Moronic Jealousy

(M’Baku x Reader)

Word Count: 4.6k

Warnings: Fluff and Smut,

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ATHENA!!! 🎉🎉🎂🎂🎁🎈💕💋

I fully intended on posting this on the actual day, had the plot and everything but this week was, whew chile! So after some selfcare, I finally got a story for you @muse-of-mbaku! Happy Birthday and I hope New Orleans treats you well. Continue to be great, break necks, and make moves! This is inspired by a part of A Different World episode between Jaleesa and Walter. Soon as I saw it on Prime Video, I been wanting to use it as fanfic fodder. It’s silly, so I hope you like it!

“So then I was like ‘Put the pussy on the chainwax!’” Michelle cackles out loud as you and Adriene look at each other, telepathically wondering if your friend has gone insane.

“Honey, why would you say that in traffic court? I enjoy the enthusiasm, but it’s misguided.” Adriene states, leaning into her glass of moscato.

“You just don’t get it. (Y/N), you get what I was trying to say, right?” Michelle looks to you.

After several seconds of gulping air to find the words you respond. “To me you just added a charge of animal cruelty on top of not having a working headlight, so I’d put you up for 3 years if it was my word, but Adriene is the jury here.”

Girls night is your favorite night of the week. It’s a tradition that has been hard to keep up with given the busy weekdays you all shared, but in a way that made the final connect all the more sweeter. And what comes with that is your favorite pastime: Drunk Courtroom.

“Man, you ALWAYS take Adri’s side in this.” Michelle pouts, blowing a 3B curl out of her face.

“That’s what the judge does! My jury tells me what to do- I think I need to cut you off of the Barefoot, cuz…” You slide the bottle closer to you on the coffee table.

“No, that ain’t my problem! You really bossy since your engagement to Timbuktu.” Michelle cheeses into her glass.

Your jaw drops, scoffing. “Oh my God, how many times I gotta tell you to stop calling him that! Especially now that he is my future husband, chill with alldat.”

Michelle giggles, pushing you a little. “Can I play a little?? You landed a gold mine, or should I say vibranium mine with him as your catch. See what happens when you put the pussy on the chainwax?”

“Once again. I. Don’t. Understand. That. Phrase.” You clap between each word in frustration. “Besides. He doesn’t work with the vibranium, he handles Jabari wood, which is just as sacred and important.”

“It sure the hell is.” Adriene says out the side of her mouth. “I bet his wood is handled very properly, hence the ring….”

“Stop.”

Michelle chimes in with a seductive tone. “Does he wax his own wood, or do you do it for him?”

“Guys.”

“Is that what he names it? Jabari? ‘Jabari needs some attention…’ or whatever?” Adriene inquires with an M’Baku impression that sounded more like Vincent Price.

“Fuck off y’all, damn!” You get up in embarrassment to get some ice cream from the fridge as Adriene and Michelle balk in laughter. Don’t nobody know how to cut you down from your high horse like your friends.

“Ok, ok. My bad, we just playing with you!” Michelle calls out.

Adriene cosigns. “Can you blame us? Mr. Perfect out here wining and dining you, leading a whole damn tribe and slaps a rock like that on your finger? Don’t pay attention to us.”

Sitting back on the couch you lick your spoon instead of your wounds; the vanilla, brownie, caramel combo soothing you as you hold out your left hand.

Two weeks ago, M’Baku took you on a gondola ride that set the mood for romance just right. You weren’t expecting anything to come from it but some snuggles with your love but when the boat looped back to dock, rose petals covered the path a nearby fountain, fanciful luminarias shaped in a heart on the ground marked the spot where he led you. One of his cousins was there to shoot the moment as M’Baku got down on one knee and spoke his sweet words to you. You couldn’t pay attention to their context because you were sobbing so much but knowing him they were profound and loving. When you said yes he couldn’t stop hooting in the dead of night, hugging you tightly, kisses unabating. He hasn’t stopped holding your hand since because ‘the ring is so heavy.’

“Yeah, well I still can’t stand y’all heffas.” You grumble, rocking into them side to side.

“I wanna play a new game. Adri, pick something, child.” Michelle directs, pouring her glass to the brim again.

“I’m three years older than you, but go off I guess.” Adriene mutters under her breath, pulling her braids back in thought. “How about...Telephone!”

You scoff at her suggestion. “You need at least 10 people for that game to be effective. Pick something else.”

“What’re you talking about? All you need is some phone numbers and gumption to cold call people.” Adriene says with lip smack, pulling out her phone.

Michelle groans. “Girl, you talkin bout crank calling people, not telephone. Telephone is the whisper challenge for people with a lot of friends basically.”

“Ohhh, you right! Ok, so crank calls. Let’s make em!” Adriene picks up a handful of hot cheetos, munching excitedly. “And Michelle should go first since she so smart or whatever!”

Michelle screws her face up. “No! If I apparently lost Courtroom, I’m sitting out first round. (Y/N), start things off.”

“I don’t feel like it.” You whine, not entirely joking. The moscato and late hour of the night made for a deadly combo.

“Pleeeease. One round! Ooh, to make it interesting, how about calling Tim?” Michelle asks sneakily.

“His name is M’Baku!” You exclaim.

“That’s neither here nor there. I wanna see this! Wake his ass up!” Adriene says, bouncing in her seat.

You lay the ice cream down, picking up your phone regretfully. “What do I even say?”

That’s all Michelle had to here. “Ok, so check it. You call him and change your voice a little to make it seem like you’re someone else and just catch his reaction.”

“Pretend he got child support payments due!” Adriene offers.

“You always gotta be extra, Adriene! But he’ll know it’s me. This ain’t the 90s no more and he has my number after all.”

Michelle brushes your doubt away. “Just *67 him! It still works today, trust me…” her voice trails off as she sips from her glass shaking her head in an apparent flashback.

“O....k. I’ll try it, but soon as he knows its me, I’m cutting it. I don’t wanna stress my baby.” You say, lowkey getting excited by the approaching tease. Adriene cuts the music they were playing as you dial in silence.

The phone rings on speaker phones ominously as you wait for M’Baku to pick up, fully expecting him to say your name and catching you instantly.

“Hello?” He says sleepily.

You pause, words leaving your brain as Adriene and Michelle mime things to say.

“Uh, bueno, I’m so sorry for the late call.” You say, lowkey butchering a Spanish accent as you hang your head in shame, certain you are caught already.

You hear rustling on M’Baku’s end as he moves. “Well, may I ask who is this?”

You hated this already but push your way through the conversation. “This is...Daniella? Um, lo siento. Pero, a friend of mine gave me your number to call so I could introduce myself.”

“What friend?” He asks curtly.

You look to your girls for help on this one as they mouth names.

“Uhhh, Terrance? Michelle’s brother.” You say hesitantly. They had only met a couple times at group events, so they were hardly friends but it is the best you have to make a connection.

“Ohhh, Terrance, yes, we are wonderful friends. Known him for years.” M’Baku says perking up. You make a face at the phone as he lies so effortlessly. “So can I help you with something, Ms. Daniella?”

“Well, you may not know me but I have seen you at the gym a few times, y I was muy impressed by su cuerpo y musculos….sorry! I meant your body and muscles, I’m always slipping that way.” You say playfully to keep up your Spanish identity.

“No, it is alright. I speak Spanish fluently so si quieres, podemos hacerlo-”

“No! No, but thank you!” You clutch your chest as your heart pounds nervously. No way in hell your high school Spanish could keep up with his. “But, maybe we could meet in person and study our native tongues together.” You throw that in for good measure. Michelle almost howls out at your brazenness.

M’Baku chortles out loud, and you know you are caught. Shaking your head as he laughs at you, you almost start to reveal the prank and ask him to knock it off.

“I have never been so enchanted by a woman I have yet to meet. You have piqued my interest, Daniella, I cannot lie.”

“Really? Oh, you are making me nervous now. I thought for sure you would have someone already keeping your attention. You are just so handsome.” You waited on edge for his response. This is when you will surprise him that the woman he is about to talk about in his life is the one pranking him.

“Nooo, I try to keep my personal life as stress free as possible. And I am very relaxed right now, so I would love to meet you sometime.”

You can hear the smile in his voice as his baritone shines through, and you are disgusted. That voice that made you quiver is intentionally being used for another woman, imaginary or not. You couldn’t look at your friends for fear of breaking down.

“Wonderful! How about tomorrow night, 8pm? Since you are free…” You try your best to keep up the art of seduction but it is waning fast.

“Perfect. We can meet at this nice restaurant by the Lake Kenoba. It’s beautiful at that time of evening.”

“Perfect! See you then.”

Hanging up the phone, you look to Michelle and Adriene who are staring back at you, mouths agape.

“That didn’t go as planned.” You say, tossing your phone aside on the couch cushions.

“Why the hell did you pretend to be a date for him? I can’t believe he’s playing us...I mean you!!” Adriene exclaims.

Michelle pats your back. “Now now, don’t get so up in arms. I bet you five he is pranking you back. No way in hell he actually fell for that. Your Russian accent was so far left field, I couldn’t-”

“It was Spanish!” You say defensively. Michelle just makes a face, looking to Adriene for help.

“Ok, well, honestly I agree with Michelle on this. He is a smart man, and loves you to death up until now. No way this is a sign of anything else. Right?”

You sit back on the couch looking to the ceiling to search your thoughts for anything that may have lead to a sign of this coming. “Guys, I don’t meant to kick y’all out but I need to be alone.”

They both try to convince you to not think too much into the whole conversation, but that was impossible. Soon as they left, you were pacing the floor, channeling Angela Bassett circa Waiting to Exhale. If the band on your ring wasn’t vibranium, you would burn it with his clothes. Instead, you come to a moment of clarity. Maybe they are right and he isn’t a low down, dirty dick ass cheater. Maybe.

You pick your phone up and text him a ‘Hey babe!’ with a kissy face. His response is quick, giving you an equally affectionate hello text.

You text him asking for some time to see him tomorrow night at 8pm. Same time as Maria, or Lisbeth, or whatever name you gave yourself. You see the bubbles pop up and disappear several times on screen, driving you insane. Now he takes his time to reply?!

He says he cannot make it, meeting with family that day. You offer to come with, but he says it is private. Too private for your future WIFE to be apart of??

You end the conversation, not bothering to respond. Your phone dings again but you don’t bother checking it out. As you make your way to bed, you look up on Amazon for gasoline cans and bleach with one day shipping guarantees.

The next day, you are in a hazy cloud of dread. Your concentration at work is gone, you barely could eat lunch, and Michelle and Adriene keep blowing up your phone asking for updates, which there were none. Your fears had already been confirmed so what more was there to talk about?

That’s when your brain hatches up a plan. You were gonna catch him in the act, no doubt about it. When you got off work, you went to your place to gather an overnight bag and head over to his. He won’t even feel like going out when you were through ‘being his peace’.

Pulling up, you knock on his door at 6:30pm. M’Baku opens the door, shirtless in his joggers.

“(Y/N), what are you-”

“I figured after you are through with your family, we could hang out!” You say hurriedly, walking briskly past him as he stares at you in confusion while you toss your bag aside.

M’Baku walks over to you, arms crossed. His pics substantiated by his stance and bold tattoos across them. “Did you text me before getting here?”

You swiftly turn to him, taking off your jacket and shoes. “No, not at all. Should I have? Am I interrupting something?”

M’Baku furrows his brow looking from your bag to you. “Like I said, I made plans with family at 8, so I am in the process of getting ready.”

You blink a couple times, holding your chest. “Oh, oh! Don’t let me stop you, Timbuktu! You do all you need and keep it moving, I’ll be upstairs chilling.” You pick up your bag and head up.

“Tim- Have you seen Michelle today? Why are you calling me that? And what is in the bag love?” M’Baku calls after you.

You don’t answer as you head to his bedroom and get undressed, grabbing a shirt of his out of the dresser to put on as a night gown.

“You got a lotta questions for me, but I ain’t asked you a damn thing. SO don’t worry about me, just go on your little date...with your family. I’ll do your laundry while you’re gone, how’s that?” You give him a tight smile as you crawl up in bed, turning on the TV on almost full blast.

M’Baku’s belly jiggles as he chuckles to himself with his hands on his hips before going to check your bag.

“Get outta my stuff!” You exclaim, getting up to pull his hand away from inside.

This is an obvious trap as M’Baku swiftly wraps you up in his arms, staring you down with a cold, calculative expression. “Where’s the gas can you ordered? Bleach?”

You shrank in his grasp as you wiggled to make him put you down. Damn that shared Amazon account.

You stand up to him defiantly. “Where’s Daniella, hm? She meeting you at that restaurant, right?”

M’Baku’s expressions cracked into a smirk. You wanted to rip those full lips off of his face. “It’s about time you brought it up.”

You exhale sharply. “Why? Because I should’ve always known? I should’ve suspected it a long time ago that you been two timing me?” You are shrill as you crawl into his bed in the fetal position.

M’Baku groans as he sit on the edge of the bed in front of you. “Come on, my adored one. Is that what you think of me?”

You shake your head, long faced. “Of course not, until she called you.”

“But it was you! You called me!”

“You didn’t know that!”

M’Baku laughs out loud, slapping his knee. You push on his broad back with your feet to try and get him off the bed to no avail. “Aye, you think I believed that wasn’t you but a random woman who attends my gym, that I haven’t even noticed has any female participants at the early hour I go. And is also friends with a sibling of your friend who I have only seen less than a handful of times?”

“Then why did you lie and say you knew him for years?”

“I was trying to break you out of character! But you fell into it, so I kept going along to pull the wool over your eyes instead. Plus, your Japanese accent was borderline offensive.” M’Baku says softly, bringing his hand to your cheek, brushing it with his thumb.

“IT WAS SPANISH! Why would I SPEAK Spanish while sounding Japanese.”

M’Baku’s body shakes a little as his face strains to hold back his childish laughter.

“You are diabolical.” You mutter, attempting to nip at his fingertips.

M’Baku gave you a gap toothed smile big enough to make the earth quake. “Don’t blame me, your friends have gotten you into trouble with me plenty of times before but we make up, always.”

You huff as you turn to the TV to remain bothered. “I’m not ready to make up.”

M’Baku lays his head back on your belly, talking to the ceiling. “What if I told you I made reservations at the aforementioned restaurant and I had planned to come by and pick you up to expose your plan. Hm?”

Your heart falls at this revelation. You would’ve loved to have seen that happen, and that restaurant had bread and butter you would kill to consume right now, and pack extras in your purse. But jumping to conclusions ruined that as it is your Olympic sport, gold medal winner.

“M’Baku, I’ll give it to you that I shouldn’t have thought that you would two time me, especially without talking to you first. But I still don’t like that you tricked me. You drug it out on me too long.”

M’Baku rolls over, his head traveling up your arm to your neck, kissing behind your ear and humming. The vibrations of his voice tickled you along with his breath but you ignore the dopamine flowing through you, lying perfectly still and unphased.

M’Baku picks his head up, tutting at you as he gets off the bed to head for the restroom. Next sound you hear is the shower coming on. You hope he doesn’t think you’re joking about not wanting to go out now because you were firmly in that frame of mind.

His 1000 count sheets caressed your skin nicely as you snuggled under his down comforter. That coupled with the pitter patter of the shower left you fighting your eyelids to watch the TV screen and losing.

You were awakened by the shift of weight on the bed, M’Baku wrapping his arm around your midsection to pull up behind you, breathing in the coconut and shea scent of your hair before resting his hand fully encompassing one of your breasts.

Instinctively, you hold his arm tightly. “I’m still mad at you.”

“Eh, I know.” His lips graze your ear lobe, making you flinch.

“And I don’t wanna go to dinner with you.”

“The reservation time passed. You slept through it.”

“Did you go eat without me?” You ask.

M’Baku’s hand moves to travel up your thigh. “I’m not going anywhere when you’re laying in my bed.”

You start to feel warm all over, a familiar sensation begs you to give in. “Whatever man.”

M’Baku’s groan rumbles through his body as he reaches under your nightgown/his shirt, grazing your fupa, playing in your tuft of hair between your legs. “I don’t want to bed you while you’re angry…”

Your hand clutches his forearm desperately as your legs part slightly involuntarily. “You think I’m that easy?”

M’Baku’s plush lips falls on your neck softly. “No. That’s why you are perfect for me. I never worked so hard in my life to get what I want.”

His wide hand pushes your legs apart farther as they plunge between your thighs, palming your pussy. His fingers finding your wetness with ease.

You gasp, hips bucking for friction against his hand. “I think I need a little more convincing…”

“At your service.” M’Baku crawls under the covers. You giggle as you lie on your back watching his frame under the blanket make mountains to get to your lower portion. Feeling yourself spread underneath the covers without him in sight is exhilarating for you. You feel his breath on you as he exhales with built up lust. When his tongue spreads across your lips your back concaves in aching relief. M’Baku’s tongue goes into a rhythm between your inner labia, flicking your clit every so often. The pulsations of his pace threaten your sanity as you try to sit up, crawling backwards slightly, but M’Baku’s arms wrap around your hips to keep you in place.

He seems to punish you for you resistance, focusing now solely on your clit, sending you into a tizzy. Sounds like a Campbell’s chicken noodle soup commercial under the covers with all the slurping and lip smacking he shamelessly devotes to taste every drop of you. You’re blubbering his name, peppering encouragements with begs for mercy as you feel your orgasm wash over your body. All of the stimulation happening underneath the blanket elevated your pleasure sensors as you couldn’t see the source. You had to see him or you would for sure lose your mind. Pulling the blanket back, you see his cheeks hollowing out, maintaining pressure on your clit, eyes deviously trained on yours as he penetrated you with a couple of his fingers.

This is much worse for you now, but at least you can take it out on him instead of the blanket.

“God, I’m cumming on your face right fucking now, Baku.” You squeal, fingers gripping his hair as your hip flexors strain to hold back from crushing his skull .

He turns you lose of his mouth finally, crawling up to you to tongue your down, tasting yourself along with him.

“It seems our native tongues were pretty well together.” M’Baku growls, pulling you down by your legs and he pulls his joggers off, dick unfurling full and ready. “Have I convinced you yet?”

You claw above your head for something, anything to hold onto. “You’re getting there. It’s just, my gut is telling me something else.”

“I can fix that…” M’Baku licks his lips, reaching to take your shirt off over your head, squeezing you titties like fresh picked fruit. You both groan from the touch, his eyes entranced by your nipples as they draw him in, working his neck to lap his tongue around your areola until its peak is reached.

You lick your lips, biting them as reach down between the two of you for his dick, stroking it slowly. You feel him expand in your hand as his moans concentrate on your nipple as he continues to suck, vibrating against your sensitivity.

He comes off of your breast with a pop, smiling devilishly. “What are you doing? I’m supposed to be pleasing you tonight, my love.”

“This pleases me, Baku. This does.” You whisper as you continue to ready him.

M’Baku smiles into your mouth, kissing you as you wrap your arms around his neck, laying back as you wrap your legs around him, walls contracting excitedly awaiting his entry.

M’Baku maintains eye contact as you feel his tip pressing into you before the sensation of stretching you makes you break; closing your eyes and mouth falling wide as his girth slowly navigates your canal.

M’Baku mirrors you as your tightness affects him as well, wrapping his hand around your neck lightly before tonguing your tonsils out hungrily. His hips activate against yours moving in shallow motions to prepare you before taking his strokes longer and longer until his entire length massages your insides beautifully.

“Fuck, you feel good.” M’Baku groans as he punches the headboard once for good measure, laying his body flush with your, kissing your neck and clavicle as his strokes picked up pace.

You gasp as if you’re drowning, clutching onto his arm, kissing his tattoo band gratefully. “Ohh, my gut is telling me something much different now.”

“What’s it telling you?” M’Baku grunts in your ear.

“It’s telling me to marry the man attached to this dick.” You say before your voice hitches from the wave of pleasure flooding over you, seizing your body up. The sweet cacophony of his skin slapping against yours signals M’Baku’s enjoyment of you in this moment, trapped between your legs as stare into each other’s eyes threateningly. He pulls out of you, rolling you over to give your ass a slap.

“You need to be on your knees then.” M’Baku commands.

You try your best to do as you are told, aftershocks between your legs threaten their stability as you get into position, rubbing yourself lightly as you lie in wait. Your head is against the mattress as you watch him stroke himself as he plants his hand on your lower back, kissing your cheeks audibly, smacking them both after.

“I don’t think I have convinced you properly of my devotion, love.” M’Baku says, rubbing the tip of his dick between your swollen labia.

You inhale sharply. “I’m past that, don’t worry about that baby. Just please-”

“Don’t interrupt me. You talk a lot but not when it counts. I want to hear you when I am inside you.”

You push yourself towards him, trying to geolocate the dick. “Ok, I will, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” M’Baku says, spreading your knees father apart before sliding back into you, causing you to illicit a guttural moan.

“You fill me up so good, Baku.” You inhale sharply as he works himself inside you roughly. He bounces his hips against your cheeks with slow deliberate strokes. Bam, bam, bam! The force pulls you back on his dick with each thrust, eventually leading you to bounce against him on your own.

“Ah, that’s better. Come to me like you came over here to tell me off.” M’Baku says, rubbing your ass.

Biting your lip, you pick up your bounce, arching. “I don’t play when it comes to this dick, Baku. Don’t make me wreck you.”

M’Baku smacks one cheek enthusiastically, the sting somehow sweetens your pleasure. “Show me.”

You give it your all, smacking your ass against his hips, tightening around him as you wind around his length expertly. Although you had him right where you wanted him, moaning and cursing you, you get high off of your own supply. The pressure building within you begins to release and you lose your form, holding your breath as you came.

M’Baku would not have that. He leans over you, holding your head up by your hair. “I want to hear you…”

He takes over, pounding into you while reaches between you to stimulate your bud. You squeak, gripping the sheets as he commands you to breathe. You swear this is impossible as he won’t stop digging you out and stressing your scalp with his grasp. Then you aren’t sure if this orgasm was really long or another one came quickly but as you opened your throat, you let out an animalistic screech that scared the shit outta you but rocked M’Baku’s world. He practically pounds you through the mattress to the floor as you both collapse, humping you into submission as he gets his last few strokes in you. He warms your belly from inside with his release.

M’Baku gets off of you so you can breathe, kissing down your back and examining the mess you all made inside of you. You jerk feeling him touch you, wiping the remnants down before slowly rolling off to the side of you. He takes your hand kissing your ring again before looking at you lovingly.

You lay there, twitching every few seconds as you come down.

“Are you cold?” M’Baku asks, getting up slowly to grab the previously discard blanket.

“No, of course not. I’m just recuperating.” You say between the natural jerks of your muscles, your heart still pounding between your legs.

“Any chance of Daniella coming back? Her accent wasn’t so bad now that I think about it.” He says, kissing your hand again.

You pick it up, laying it across his face for what was supposed to be a slap. “Shut up, I’m still frickin embarrassed by that. You owe me dinner though.”

M’Baku smiles, rolling on his side towards you. “I do. I shouldn’t be the only one eating tonight. Plus, I can’t risk you incinerating my things.”

You lay there in silence, closing your eyes.

“Were you...really going to do that?”

You start to snore.

“(Y/N), honestly.”

#m'baku x reader #shakafic #fanfic #muse bday #m'baku fanfic

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nautiscarader · 6 years ago

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Nautiscarader’s Wendip Week day 6 - Moving in with each other

Wendy and Dipper, now married, move into house they've proudly built. But there is someone else there already. Rated T for some language and minor innuendos.

Wendip, T, 3,7k

(Ao3) (FF) (masterpost)

- Hey, guess who has two differently coloured thumbs and finished painting the study? - Dipper proudly announced his feat to his wife, pointing to his equally messy shirt.

- Good job, Dip!

The tall, red-haired woman emerged from behind the door, holding set of brushes, her skin and white top as pristine and clean as when she begun decorating their bedroom about an hour ago.

- Hey, it's no fair, you should be way dirtier, you had more to paint! - I can find one way to fix it. - Wendy snickered.

She put the cans on the floor, and closed her arms around Dipper's neck, pulling him into a deep kiss, allowing his freshly painted hands to grab her waist.

- See, now we have to take a shower. - she winked. - It's a good thing I did all the plumbing first.

But before the newly-wed couple could take a break from decorating their small house, a sudden rumble from downstairs alerted them both, and at once they sprinted to the ground floor. Wendy arrived there first and it was her scream that only hastened Dipper, who grabbed the only weapon in his reach on the way down.

Armed with the telescopic paint-roller, he jumped the last three steps and aimed it at the sight that froze Wendy to the ground, ready to defend their household.

But instead, Dipper Pines found himself as astonished as his wife, when he spotted a round, see-through blob hovering above their sofa, staring down at the broken vase, whose pieces laid scattered on the floor.

- I do apologise, it does sometimes happen. - the stout ghost turned his disproportionally small head towards them. - I still have trouble controlling my ethereality.

Though initially shocked by the unwanted visitor, Wendy has managed to recover first, grabbed a pillow from the nearby chair, and took first cautious step into their living room, slowly approaching the spectre.

- Alright, who are you, and what do you want?

With her eyes fixed at the ghost, she was already thinking ahead; Wendy knew she would have to get to the kitchen for salt, and she might need to roll over to grab a can of nails from the other edge of the room if the intruder decided to attack. But instead, the ghost grabbed the edge of his bowler hat and bowed, or at least moved his head in a similarly looking manner, and greeted them.

- Good afternoon. My name is... well, was, Anadol Porcupine. At least I think so. It has only been about a day or two since I died, it's still a bit fuzzy for me. - What do you want? - repeated Dipper, circling the ghost from the other side, watching Wendy's face for signals. - Well... I'm here to stay and haunt. - the ghost spoke nonchalantly, and with severe disappointment in his voice. - I didn't want to, but that's the job.

Dipper waited again for Wendy to make the first move, but the lumberjill was exactly as baffled by his statement as he was, and even lowered her makeshift shield, which only now she realised how useless would be.

- You are here to... haunt? - And to stay? - added Dipper, alerted by that part of his response much more. - Yes... - the ghost turned around, shifting his stare from Dipper to Wendy.

They both flinched when he suddenly floated back and onto the couch, this time without damaging any of the furniture.

- Ah, now it works better. - he said politely - Where were we? Oh, yes, I'm afraid this is the place I will now forever haunt. But don't worry, I only have to do it every few days, and between us, I'm terrible at it, I don't want to cause any discomfort, so I'll just, I don't know, jingle some glasses, or make the floor creek, nothing heart-stopping. Please, sit down.

Before either Dipper or Wendy could accept the offer to sit in their own house, the ghost reached his chubby arm and, to both their and his surprise, grabbed the remote, and somewhat clumsily managed to turn the TV on. With his see-through eyes gaping at the flashing screen, he paid little attention to neither Dipper nor Wendy, who used that distraction to exchange a few important words.

- We have to trap him... - she mumbled, keeping one eye on the ghost, admiring a soda commercial. - How? - Dipper whispered back through his teeth, sidestepping behind ghost's back. - You grab the nails, I grab the salt, we have to ensnare him in a circle. - she pointed to the salt and pepper shakers on the coffee table - Then we'll have to make the iron cage...

But then, a sudden movement of the see-through blob caused them to cease their talking, as the ghost floated to the kitchen, opened (with some difficulty) few cupboards, and amazed Dipper and Wendy again by bringing a bowl of popcorn with him. Before the ghost could sit, or at least hover above his seat, Wendy decided to advance her plan and launched herself forward, grabbed the salt shaker, and was about to open it, when the ghost's cold, slimy hand took it from her.

- Oh, thank you ma'am.

He once again tipped his hat, emptied the contents of the shaker into the bowl, gave it a few solid shakes, and begun munching on the salted popcorn, still mesmerised by the never-ending stream of ads.

- Okay, scratch that, then. - Wendy raised to her feet again, stepping between the ghost and the screen - Listen here, you... what was your name again? - Andole Porcupine. Or it might have been Antonio. Or Angela. See, my mind is already going blank. - Whatever your name is, unless you haven't noticed, we live here, you can't just butt yourself in here! - Well, sadly, I have to. - he explained, slightly annoyed by Wendy and Dipper blocking his view.

He solved that problem, to Dipper and Wendy's annoyance, by floating through their bodies, handing Dipper the bowl of popcorn, and taking it from him once he was behind their backs.

- See, I'm bound to that place, so I have to haunt it. - he took another mouthful of popcorn, which somehow disappeared in his blobish form - It's natural for ghosts to haunt their graves after all. - Wait, graves? - Dipper raised his brow. - You... you're buried here?! - Oh, yes - the ghost spoke politely - In the ancient burial ground underneath your house. - Ancient burial ground?!

Wendy and Dipper shared the same accusatory look, though they both backed up equally fast.

- Wendy, honey, I swear I checked! This parcel of land had nothing! - he kept explaining - No background radiation, no anomalies, and definitely no burial grounds. No native tribes were on this place even for a day. - Yeah, and I checked it in the mayor's office. This land is freaking clean! - Excuse me...

The low, but somewhat warm voice of the ghost interrupted the couple's bickering.

- I beg your pardon, but this one is right. - the ghost spoke softly, pointing to Dipper - There is no burial grounds underneath your house... - But you've just said... - Dipper shook his hands in act of desperation. - Oh, yes, there is no one right now, but it will be in the future.

The two live beings in the room blinked.

- So... you're... a ghost from the future? - Dipper asked, scratching his head. Wendy remained astonished for another minute or so, her face twisted in a shocked grimace. - I suppose, from your perspective, yes. - the ghost replied. - I had nowhere to go. The future is overcrowded already. You do realise there are more dead humans than alive ones, right? I'm surprised the management hasn't started shifting people temporarily before. And by "temporarily", I do mean moving them in the fourth dimension. - Well, lucky for you - Dipper interrupted, clapping his hands. - You've managed to end up in Gravity Falls, Oregon, and if there's one town with more freaky places than anywhere on Earth, it's here! - he stretched his arms in a showman-like routine - So we're gonna find you a nice place to live in no time. Auch!

Dipper immediately cowered when Wendy nudged him in the ribs.

- You can't say "live" to a ghost. - she whispered, though once she met Dipper's confused stare, she turned to the ghost herself - Uh, can you? - Honestly, death is pretty new to me as well. - he sighed - But yes, I presume it is a bit offensive. - Well, as I said, we will find you a nice abandoned house, or mine, or cave for you to, er, haunt...? - Dipper raised his brow - Inhabit...?

The ghost once again sat, or rather floated onto, Wendy and Dipper's sofa.

- It's very kind of you, but even if you do find me that place, I will have to return here. I'm bound to my grave, even if it has not been made yet.

Once more, the two adventurers exchanged looks of utter confusion and helplessness.

- Well, we can't let you stay here... - Dipper started. - We've just moved in ourselves, we're newlyweds! - My congratulations. - the ghost bowed - I'm sure we will find a peaceful way to coexists her- Oh, see, "exist", that's another bad word, since I do not exist anymo- - No, we damn won't! - Wendy roared, slamming her fist on the wooden coffee table. - I mean, this is ridiculous!

She grasped the hem of Dipper's shirt and ragged him towards the doorway.

- Come on, Dipper, we need to find an expert. - Oh, you mean Ford? - he cheered - He would be able to come up with something- - No, I meant an actual expert!

And with that, the bickering couple left their house, slamming the door behind them. The ghost moved his hand to try scratching his head, realised he couldn't anymore, shrugged, and went back to watching the television.

Dipper thought that seeing a ghost in his living room (which, as it now occurred to him, was a misnomer) was the strangest thing he would see this afternoon, but the sight of Robbie Valentino in a suit was far, far weirder. He still had vivid memory of his look as a teenager, and his current one changed drastically. His untidy goatee and earrings were gone, and only his hairstyle remained of his old, gloomy demeanour, though of course his job made up for it tenfold.

Sitting in the chair once occupied by his father, Robbie took a sip of his coffee, blinked a couple more times at his two friends, and repeated his concerns.

- So... you guys have a ghost in your house.

Wendy and Dipper nodded.

- And how exactly can I help you? - he asked hesitantly. - Who else would knows about that stuff more than you? - Wendy threw her arms into air again in another explosion of emotions. - Yeah, except we only deal with dead. Like, properly dead dead. - Robbie Valentino stressed. - The dead that are, uh, not really dead, that's more of your style, guys. - But this ghost said something about his grave.

And Dipper relayed the ghost's story, hoping they would finally gain Robbie's attention, even if prospect of working with his old rival wasn't up his game.

- Okay, graves I can deal with... Though not sure what about the ones that haven't been made yet.

Robbie reluctantly stood up and grabbed his black jacket, heading towards exit.

- Mother, I'm going out. Call me if there's a problem. - Bye, Robbiekins! - a cheerful, female voice reached their ears from another room of Robbie's family house - Don't forget to give out pamphlets to anyone looking miserable and depressed as if their whole world suddenly collapsed! - Mom!

A few minutes later, Robbie was faced with the same unimaginable sight that Dipper and Wendy were still refusing to get used to. The ghost, from the looks of it, moved from popcorn to cookies, was still watching the same channel, and hasn't given a single moment to acknowledge Robbie's presence until he spoke, or rather emitted a faint noise of confusion.

- Uh... - Oh, hello there. Do you live here as well? The more, the merrier! - Okay, that's it, this is freaking me out. - Robbie spread his arms out, and ran towards the front door, but he was promptly stopped by Wendy and Dipper, who grabbed him by his arms and forced to sit next to the ghost.

Wendy took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles, and shifting her determined stare from the ghost to Robbie, begun what Corduroys would call a "conversation".

- Alright, I'm fed up with all of that. You said there is... will be a grave of yours here, right? - Yes, we're almost directly above it. - he spoke somewhat proudly. - Great. So, Robbie, can you guys do anything about it? - Like what? - Robbie snarled - We could relocate the grave, if we had tons of paperwork, and oh, I don't know, if the grave was there! But it's not! Not now, at least! - Wait a minute, that's it! - Dipper suddenly clicked his fingers - You're from the future! We've been to the future! - You what?

Robbie opened his mouth, until Wendy almost causally stretched her arm and pulled it back into place.

- Oh, shush, and ask Tambry. - she said - But, Dipper, that's an idea! We can call Blendin and let him fix everything!

Their faces, for the first time this troublesome afternoon were filled with delight. Dipper ran upstairs, and after a quick rummage through their packed belongings, he brought the time-tape with him.

- So, what year are you from? We're gonna transport you in a jiffy, but we need a number. - Number? - the ghost asked - Oh, no, those were deemed illegal long time ago. Or will be. Tenses get a bit confusing when you travel in time. - So... you... don't know which year you are from? - Dipper stuttered - I am terribly sorry, but no. But it happened after the duck rebellion, because we had to demolish the old statues. And, do you guys still have two Moons? That might help you pin point my time of death...

The colour and hope from drained from Wendy and Dipper's faces as fast as they gained it.

- You know, why do I think that bringing Blendin would only made things worse? - Dipper spoke, closing his time tape. - Yeah, it's not like things been doing smoothly at the agency... - Wendy crossed her arms. - Dipper, I think we bring back someone who would really know how to deal with a ghost.

And once again, she reached for the exit, dragging behind her Robbie's body, still mumbling to himself about the revelation of time-travel.

- Oh, boy I can't wait to hear what Ford will think of that! - Dipper cheered and swiftly follow Wendy, helping her carry Robbie's body.

- Hi there, mister ghost! My name is Mabel Pines. - Mabel Pines smiled at the ethereal being, practically leaping from her chair and onto the coffee table. - See, I've heard you've been bugging my bro and my sister-in-law a bit, and I'm here to solve any problems!

She cheered, and put a plate of cookies shaped in the form of cat's faces before him.

- There! I've heard you've got a bit of sweet tooth! All for you!

While the ghost was busy devouring the cookies one by one, Mabel leaned to her brother's ear and whispered.

- I'm playing the good cop now.

She turned her attention back to the ghost, sitting opposite of hers, and continued her would-be-polite speech.

- So, mister.... - Barnacle. Barnacle Porcupine. At least, that sounds good for me now... - the ghost pondered. - Mister Porcupine...

Before either Wendy, Dipper or the ghost could react, Mabel leaped from her seat, stomped on the coffee table, and faced the ghost, tucking the long sleeves of her sweater.

- Okay, mister ghost, no more nice Mabel! - she shouted - You get your non-existent backside from by bro-bro's house, or I'll...

But Mabel couldn't finish her threat, as the see-through body of the ghost disappeared, letting Mabel fall to his seat, forcing her to wonder for a moment what was she exactly pressing her nose before. Th ghost appeared a few feet next to her, slowly drifting back to his place as Mabel hastened from it back to hers.

- I told you already, I have to stay here. And, really, am I that big of a nuisance? - he asked, opening a jar of pickles. - Yes! - Wendy and Dipper roared in unison, but Mabel fixed her hair again and sat on the edge of the table. - Let's try this again, nice mister ghost... See, my brother here and his wife just moved in, and, well... - she rolled her eyes - ...they would like to have time for themeselves. And even if they didn't, well, it's just not nice to just go to other people's house and... - ...demolish their living room? Eat their food? - Wendy and Dipper added - Why do you even need food, man? You're a ghost! - I miss it! - he suddenly cried - And... I eat when I'm nervous. - There, there....

Mabel moved closer to him, and placed her arm where she thought the ghost had his back, and gently patted it.

- I know it can be hard to... uh, die. - Mabel looked in confusion at Wendy and Dipper - We've all b... been through it...? Will be, at least.

Her confidence was sapping away; this was not a preschooler that had his toy stolen or had to go to the dentist for the first time. But nevertheless, Mabel refused to help this soul, even if it lacked a body.

- I can't! - he cried again, letting the jar of pickles smash on the ground - I don't even want to haunt you, but I have to be here, see?

And with that, he whipped out, from an invisible pocket of his ephemeral coat, a piece of what looked like paper. he lay it on the table, partially covered in bits of food he has managed to gauge on, and went back to crying his milky eyes.

- What on Earth is that...? - My haunting contract. - the ghost replied - See, it states I have to haunt in this place.

With some reluctance, Dipper took the simultaneously old and futuristic looking piece of slightly translucent paper and tried reading through it. And as Wendy, Mabel's and Dipper's eyes moved from top to bottom, suddenly, the same idea popped into their mind.

- I think we need an expert.

The ghost currently identifying himself as Capybara Porcupine was delighted when an old man presented him not just his old contract with dozens lines scratched off, but several additional pieces of paper clipped to it, saying that he won't have to bother the nice living beings in the place he was bound to haunt.

He produced a silvery, glowing pen from his pocket, pressed it to the paper, and just when he was about to sign it, he looked once again at the wide smile of the man in front of him. The golden tooth shone as much as his pen, and nearly as much as the light reflecting in the man's square glasses.

- Are you sure this will work? - Of course! You can trust the best lawyer for mythical beings in town! - Grunkle Stan laughed joyfully, pushing the paper hastily closer to the ghost.

No sooner than the ghost ended signing the document, he burst into flames, leaving only an odd-smelling scent in the air where he once was.

- Is he gone? Like, for sure? - Dipper asked, leaning out from behind Grunkle Stan's back. - Yep, should've asked me first, kiddo. - he stood up, grabbed the slightly burned paper and begun rolling it - No matter which century, folks never read the whole thing. Have I told you how I once was able to sell part of Washington's monument that way? - Grunkle Stan, where did you exactly sent him...? - Wendy asked, taking the document from his hands. - Oh, I just added a bit of this, and a bit of that... - he spoke - I mean, the fool hasn't signed the contract, so I just rolled with it, and sent him to Honolulu. - Grunkle Stan, it says "Hell"! - Mabel shouted, pointing him to the printed piece of paper. - Does it? - Stan took it, squinted his eyes, corrected his glasses, and shrugged - Oh, well, blame the auto-correct thingy, he was annoying you anyway.

Stan took his fake briefcase, ripped the equally fake suit he was forced to wear, revealing a Hawaiian shirt underneath it, and reached for the exit, followed by Mabel.

- Call me if you'll need my legal help again! I'll send you guys a bill via a woodpecker.

And with that, Dipper and Wendy were left alone in their house, with their ground floor covered in bits of food, ectoplasm, and with a smell of sulphur around the sofa.

- I'm gonna grab a mop. - Dipper started - And I'll take the flamethrower, good thing this sofa was cheap.

- ... and that's how I came here! They were some delightful people, they were. Say, do you have more of that rotten fish, it is delicious! - the ghost cheered, accepting another plate of the regional delicacies.

It took the locals some time to adjust to their new spectral visitor, but after learning that for a foreigner he had quite the stomach, they've accepted him as one of their own, and enjoyed listening to his stories from the future. They even found him a nice deserted tower to live in, ensuring that it will bring even more tourists to the village of Hell, Norway, even at the time of year when it freezes over.

A/N: The town of Hell, Norway actually exists, and I initially intended to send Dandelion Porcupine to Hel, Poland, but given the quality of water in the Baltic sea, I decided not to.

#wendip #wendipweek #wendip week #wendy x dipper #dipperxwendy #gravity falls #dipper pines #wendy corduroy #moving in with each other #nautiscaraderfics

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the-master-cylinder · 4 years ago

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SUMMARY Former NYPD Captain Dewey Wilson is brought back to the force and assigned to solve a bizarre string of violent murders after high-profile magnate Christopher Van der Veer, his wife and his bodyguard are slain in Battery Park. Executive Security, the private firm employed by Van der Veer, blames the murders on terrorists, but knowing that the victim’s bodyguard was a 300-pound Haitian with voodoo ties makes Wilson skeptical. With pressure to solve the case coming from both the Police Commissioner and the Mayor, Wilson is partnered with criminal psychologist Rebecca Neff.

Elsewhere, in the South Bronx, a homeless man explores an abandoned church that is scheduled to be demolished by Van der Veer’s development company. He is killed by an unseen monstrous being. Wilson and Neff investigate his murder. At the church, apparent sounds of a baby crying lure Neff up to the bell tower. Wilson follows her but does not hear the crying; once Neff is separated from him, he hears a wolf howl. He goes up after Neff and drags her to safety. Later that night, a bridge worker is apparently murdered by the same creature.

Coroner Whittington discovers non-human hairs on several victims and consults a zoologist named Ferguson, who identifies the hairs as belonging to an unknown subspecies of Canis lupus. Ferguson compares wolves to Indians. Inspired, Wilson finds Eddie Holt, a militant Native activist he arrested some years previously, working in construction. While Wilson interrogates Holt on top of the Manhattan Bridge, Holt claims to be a shapeshifter, which implicates him as the killer. Wilson opts to leave Holt alone and tail him that night.

Following animal clues, Ferguson goes to Central Park, where the killer ambushes him in a tunnel. Wilson spends the remainder of his night with Neff where they have sex. The following morning, a man in a jogging suit rides Ferguson’s motorcycle past Wilson as he leaves Neff’s apartment. Whittington and Wilson stake out the church, armed with sniper rifles and sound equipment; after Whittington almost blows his ears out by opening a beer can near a parabolic microphone, an animal that appears to be a wolf kills him. Meanwhile, Executive Security apprehends a “Götterdämmerung” terrorist cell in connection with the Van der Veer slaying.

A traumatized Wilson escapes the church and finds himself at the nearby Wigwam Bar, where Holt and his friends are drinking. The group of Natives reveal the true nature of the killer as “Wolfen”, the wolf spirit. They explain that the Wolfen have extraordinary abilities and “might be gods”. Holt tells Wilson that he cannot fight the Wolfen, stating: “You don’t have the eyes of the hunter, you have the eyes of the dead”. The leader of the group, the Old Indian, informs Wilson that Wolfen kill to protect their hunting ground. Wilson resolves to end his involvement in the Van der Veer case but he, Neff and Wilson’s superior, Warren, are cornered on Wall Street by the Wolfen pack. Warren is decapitated while Wilson and Neff flee.

Wilson and Neff are cornered in Van der Veer’s penthouse by the pack, led by its white alpha male. Wilson smashes the model of the construction project that threatened their hunting ground, trying to communicate that the threat no longer exists and that he and Neff are not enemies. The Wolfen vanish just as the police barge in. Wilson claims the attack was made by terrorists. In a voiceover, Wilson explains that Wolfen will continue preying on weak and isolated members of the human herd as humans do to each other through class conflict. Wolfen will continue being invisible to humanity because of their nature; not that of spirits but predators, who are higher on the food chain than humans. The last scene is Eddie and his friends looking at the city from the bridge.

DEVELOPMENT/PRE-PRODUCTION In adapting The Wolfen, director Michael Wadleigh and co-screenwriter David Eyre decided to expand freely upon Whitley Streiber’s original prose. Streiber’s novel worked well as a “police procedural,” but they felt his storyline needed to become more impassioned for celluloid. And, although the basic plot remains the same, Wadleigh wanted to make his film more “socially relevant.”

“What appealed to me about Wolfen was its underlying allegory about nature,” Wadleigh says. “I wanted to play that up much more in the film. The genesis of the Wolfen’s culture is that when white man first came to America, he came as a farmer. His two basic enemies were the hunting tribes: wolves and Indians. The wolves and Indians were simpatico, and accommodated each other. White farming man wiped them, the forest, and the great American buffalo out. We reduced the wolf population from a high point of two million to fewer than one thousand. What’s fictional in our screenplay is that the wolfen are the product of biological/artificial selection. When we destroyed the original wolf population, only the smartest survived. The bright ones got even smarter. Their forests were all gone, so they moved into the new wilderness: the slum areas of the major cities. For survival, they hunt at night. For protection, they only eat people that our society doesn’t give a shit about, the inhabitants of the slums. These people are never missed, so their murderers are never looked for.”

A possible hole in Wadleigh’s concept is that since his wolfen have a special understanding with Indians, they would probably also recognize impoverished blacks and Puerto ricans as “brother” victims of modern society.

“Being humanitarians or ‘wolfitarians, explains the director, “as they also are in Whitely’s book, the Wolfen only take people who are essentially ready to die. It’s almost an eastern philosophy of euthanasia. They would not kill a healthy black man. They would kill an ancient derelict who was ready to die. First, the Wolfen would check him out very carefully to make sure he wanted to give up his life. The Wolfen have a tremendous empathy for the people they kill.”

By putting the Wolfen on the same level as Indians, Wadleigh seems to be reducing Indians to yet another stereotype.

“I avoided that by making our Indians real,” defends Wadleigh. “I’ve lived with them as neighbors in Wyoming, so I know what they’re like. Indians are not the kind of preachy, sanctimonious crowd that so often gets horribly portrayed in films. The Indians that I know are incredibly clever and have a great sense of humor. What happens early in Wolfen is that Wilson is led to believe that Christopher VanderVeer’s murder might have been done by radical Indians. He goes to see Eddie Holt [Edward James Olmos], whom he’s busted before, where he’s working on fixing something on top of the Manhattan Bridge. At the foot of the construction site, Wilson tells an old Indian to bring Eddie down for questioning. The Indian says, ‘Screw you. You want him, go on up there yourself.’ Wilson precariously makes his way up to the bridge by walking up its suspension cable. When he gets to the top, there’s a great dialogue between him and Holt that I ripped off from things I’ve heard Indians say in real life. Wilson asks, ‘Are you in touch?’ Holt answers, ‘With what, my mother?’ Wilson says, ‘No, with mother nature.’ Holt says, ‘Sure. I swim like a fish and screw like a bunny.’ Olmos, after people see him as Holt, is going to be a big star. People will be left with envy of Indians. It’s a whole other subculture that they’ll want to get into. It’s not Eddie’s speeches they’ll remember, but his being.”

Olmos enhances the performances of movie veteran Albert Finney as Wilson. Finney, a two-time Academy Award nominee, decided to make Wolfen his first film in five years due to his love for the character” and the project.

“David Eyre and I changed the Wilson character from the book,” reveals Wadleigh. “Now, he’s a cop in his forties who’s the best homicide detective around. What he’s begun to realize, however, is that his professional life is a fraud. He’s a hunter for society but he only stalks small game. The real criminals, the people who control society, are never brought to justice because they set up the law to protect themselves. Wilson’s become much more of a 1960s type of character, which allowed me to work out a lot of my own personal philosophy. I was thrilled when Albert decided to play him, because in my opinion, he’s one of the greatest living actors.”

A less significant character alteration was changing Wilson’s first name from the novel’s George to Dewey.

“That was for a clever line of dialogue that is representative of my bad jokes and corny puns that riddle the film,” Wadleigh grins. “Rebecca Neff is sitting in Wilson’s office and she looks at his coffee cup and says, ‘Dewey.’ He says, ‘Yeah. I was named for one of Donald Duck’s nephews. I was the middle duck.’I mean, what could we have done with the name George?

“There’s another scene that’s been driving people up the walls. It occurs towards the end of the film when the main characters are staking out the Wolfen in the South Bronx. Wilson’s up in one building and Gregory Hines, as the black medical examiner, Whittington, is in one across the street from him. Wilson is trying to call Whittington on his walkie-talkie and he isn’t answering. Wilson starts panning his infra-red sniper scope-the way in which man sees at night-over these burned, wrecked buildings and doesn’t see anything. The audience will become convinced that Whittington’s been offed. Finally, Wilson’s scope comes upon one window where Whittington is standing with his pants down, mooning him. Wilson says over the walkie-talkie, ‘Very funny. Whittington turns around with a big shit. eating grin on his face and says, ‘Black moon over Manhattan.’ Some of the executives at Orion were saying. “What is mooning?’ I told them, “Don’t worry about it. The moviegoers will understand.’ The scene is doubly funny because of the legend of the full moon and werewolves. In fact, I suggested to Orion that part of Wolfen’s logo could be Gregory Hines’ ass. I don’t think that they took that too seriously, though.”

Wolfen’s cast enjoyed Wadleigh’s offbeat sense of humor. But since the director had previously only been a documentarian and this was his first dramatic movie, he might have run into trouble with his cast whenever he suggested to them that they modify elements of their portrayals.

“We avoided those clashes,” Wadleigh states, “because we were all united in believing that we were there solely to do the best we could. Every one of the actors got involved to the extent that they did for two reasons: their character and the film. They opted for a personal choice. They always made sure that not only was something that they were doing going to be good for their part, but for the picture as a whole as well. Since they had a basic respect for the project, they weren’t dealing with glorifying my ego, but Wolfen itself.”

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY/LIVE WOLVES When it came time to use actual wolves, Wadleigh ran into difficulties because he was shooting on location. The majority of Wolfen was shot in New York City, utilizing Staten Island, Central Park, the New York Stock Exchange, the Manhattan Bridge, the Fulton Fish Market, Battery Park, the South Bronx, and the historic sound stages of Queens’ Astoria Studios.

“Not only did we have to fence in the area where we were shooting our wolf scenes,” he discloses, “but Manhattan sent down police sharp shooters. They were under orders to shoot to kill if the wolves got out of the fenced-in area. The other side-effect of using the wolves was that, naturally the cast and crew were afraid of them. The mythology that the wolf is the devil is absolutely permeated through everyone’s conscious and subconscious. We make use of that in the film by having a church in the Dresden part of the South Bronx. By association, the audience will automatically think that the devil is somehow involved with the murders. The other thing that’s scary about the wolves is that they’re large. We were working with a 150 pound animal that when it stands up has its head six feet and six inches above the ground. What assuaged everyone’s fear was that the wolves are beautiful creatures. Their elegance is disarming. We used that element in the film as well. I think that throughout Wolfen, people will expect that the murderer is going to be a hideous werewolf or Alien-type creature. What they finally see are these gorgeous, noble animals. The audience will wind up with empathy for them.”

Wadleigh avoided the problems normally associated with dealing with animals in movie making by turning to expert trainer George Toth.

“I think we had the best wolves in America,” Wadleigh says. “George raised his wolves so that they think that they’re humans or that humans are wolves. Therefore, they have a respect for us. A very significant point, however, is that a wolf is not a dog. Wolves’ intelligence ranks just beneath the great ape’s, the whale’s, and the dolphin’s. We were dealing with a high powered rifle. You can’t really order a wolf to do anything, you have to ask him. If one of our wolves didn’t feel like doing something, there was no way we were going to force him. Since we were dealing with an animal that was essentially its own person, we had to wait for the mood to do something to hit him which consumed time and patience. In the end, though, they always came through amazingly well.

“As good as our wolves and techniques for showing their senses were, though,” Wadleigh continues, “they didn’t allow us to illustrate what I thought was Whitely Streiber’s greatest creation: the Wolfen’s internal thought processes. We solved that problem by introducing Indians to the story. Who better could explain the dignity of the Wolfen and their point of view? The particular irony of the Indians, this destroyed race of people, is that they are the best high steel construction workers in the world and are now building the white man’s great monuments: bridges, the World Trade Center … They, like the Wolfen, look upon the white man with incredible disdain, yet the both of them are forced to live in our great, corrupt cities.”

Michael Wadleigh

Interview with Michael Wadleigh You’ve expressed frustration in the past that Wolfen has been labeled a horror film. Do you have something against the genre? Michael Wadleigh: Yes, but that’s not the point. I never thought I was making a horror film. I thought I was making a political thriller about a detective investigating activists who are killing off very rich people, and have a political and social agenda that is still made very clear in the movie. The way I photographed and presented the wolves, they never, ever growled or snarled, because that would demean their intelligence and make them stupid in my view. I wanted to make them this shadowy e presence that was very much in control of the situation, and even more frightening. I mean, I was all for killing everyone in sight! [Laughs] That didn’t bother me at all.

The Baader-Meinhof Gang is mentioned in it, and other terrorist organizations, and even recently, when the Twin Towers went down, a number of people read about Wolfen and said, “That was a film about terrorists.” There were critics who well-recognized the parallels between my film and, as Barack Obama’s ex-minister Jeremiah Wright said, “The chickens coming home to roost.” America had done many things abroad that were against its own ideals, and of course it had been done in the way we treated the American Indians. I don’t think there is anyone who disputes, with hindsight, the fact that we just stole their land and murdered them and drove them out of business-completely unacceptable behavior today. I’m just giving you an example of the anger and injustice that Eddie Holt (Edward James Olmos] well expresses to Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney).

The whole backdrop is what we did to the Indians, and the reason I killed off Van der Veer is also made clear: that his great-great-ancestor reputedly brought the first machine to America—the windmill-and that machine stands for the Industrial Age and the supposedly superior technology of the Europeans that just wiped out the Indians. They really couldn’t compete. I mean, doesn’t that sound right? It was all there in the film.

But you yourself once famously described Wolfen as “a thinking man’s horror film.” Michael Wadleigh: I don’t recall those words, but if I did, you obviously know what I mean because I just said what I thought of it. Maybe at one point I did say that, but I must insist that my memory isn’t that bad and I always thought this film was a political thriller-and why political? Well, I’ve just explained to you. I mean, we’ve got American Indians vs. white people.

What were the main difficulties for you and co-writer David Eyre in adapting Whitley Strieber’s novel? Michael Wadleigh: During the discussions I had with [Orion topper] Mike Medavoy, 1 talked about the wolves in terms of Moby Dick—which was not to be pretentious, but just to try to get an idea in there that Ahab was a kind of detective or hunter for his society, so to speak, who was obsessed with tracking down and killing the whale. As most people read Moby Dick, the whale stands for nature and Ahab’s obsession is misplaced, and he goes to his death not realizing it.

Well, I pitched the idea that the character of Dewey Wilson is sort of disconnected from nature, but then gets obsessed with tracking down the wolves. Eddie Holt shakes him up and says, “Well, you’ve pretty much destroyed nature in America, haven’t you? Look at the city look at the South Bronx area that resembles Dresden and the end of civilization. Aren’t you on the wrong side? Why annihilate the last of nature?” And in the end, Dewey quits the police force. He literally, in my screenplay, throws his gun and badge away and says, “F**k it!”

He can no longer uphold the values of a society that he feels is unjust, and now begins to question his own role as a defender of those values and a protector of people like Van der Veer. That’s what I pitched as kind of a way through the piece. Of course, there are no Indians at all in Whitley’s novel, and no political agenda, so you can see that the things I added were very strongly along the lines of a political thriller.

Much was made of the “alienvision” that represents the point of view of the marauding Wolfen. How difficult was that concept to realize? Michael Wadleigh: I’m speaking for cinematographer Gerry Fisher, Steadicam operator Garrett Brown and myself when I say that we were never entirely happy with that, but we were never too disappointed either. We kept playing around with various things, infrared photography and reprinting the colored layers and so on. Garrett, who not only invented the Steadicam but is considered the best operator by everybody, is 6 feet 8 inches tall and a very athletic guy who can run like crazy. He is also very smart, and so the first thing we got was the terrific Steadicam photography that makes you think there’s a mind behind the point of view, that we are actually looking out of somebody or something’s eyes. Next we added the coloration, the strangeness of the vision, and then we had the soundtrack and sound effects and all of those elements that—so the critics thought were put together well and added up to very intriguing and scary sequences.

Actually, I always thought that Wolfen was set in the future that it was a little bit of a science fiction film as well with the advanced hi-tech security force and the parallel that they were using infrared photography for their remote lie-detection systems. That was all deliberate, to compare nature and technology and have them sort of meeting in the future.

One of the best scenes is right after Gregory Hines is killed by the Wolfen, when Dewey stumbles into the Indians’ local bar. Michael Wadleigh: Well, that was the scene that I longed for, though it is a bit expositional. Eddie Olmos played the hell out of that, and the other Indians too, who were not real actors. They all did a good job, but Eddie, especially in a few words, conveyed the essence of the scene and then the way they all just laugh it off and so on. By the way, that was a real bar—not that it matters—but for authenticity that was the real steelworkers’ bar where the Indians hung out. We didn’t redecorate it or anything. I guess as a documentarian, I thought that was interesting, and would maybe lend something to it. Whatever was there and whatever they were dressed in, that was it. I’ve never been satisfied by the way Indians are sometimes portrayed in films, but they seem very real in that scene very dignified and eloquent and funny. Eddie had hung out with the Indians for quite a while and tried to get the cadence of how they spoke in that kind of clipped way of using very few words.

They did very good makeup on Finney, and I think he brought a lot of concentration to that scene—but it was slightly recut as well, so I wince a little bit. Nonetheless, I won’t complain. I believe that scene is great, and one can judge that all the general qualities of the film are there.

What was the difference in your version of that scene? Michael Wadleigh: Uh, let’s not go into that. Let’s be…I don’t want an alibi for anything. I’ll tell you the thing that still most upsets me, which is the marketing of Wolfen in general. I really thought that it could have had the horror film audience because the word would get out, but I also believed it would have captured those people who appreciated the Robert Ludlum sort of thing—a film that was a more of a sophisticated international thriller/detective story—but of course, that wasn’t the advertising campaign at all. All of the wolf material and general treatment that they added brought it more toward what I thought was a simplified horror film-and they thought so too. They thought that if they went that route, it would make more money. As a matter of fact, you may know that Orion was having trouble at the time and was, in my view and I said it at the time, a little bit desperate for a hit. I believe the critics, for one thing, think they made a mistake. They probably could have made more money going the other way. So that’s what I’d prefer to comment on. I only wish that it had gone that way.

The actual look of the Wolfen in your movie has aroused much debate. Michael Wadleigh: I felt that the film was much more of a nature allegory, and therefore I was never interested in making an artificial creature. What I decided to do was put the Indians and the wolves together as a team, so to speak, and therefore create a new creature by imagining an intimate association and communication between them. An amazing thing that I believe is mentioned in the film is that the Dutch colonists who first settled in New York actually used the same word “wolfen” to describe both the Indians and wolves. They of course knew the difference, but there were quite a few wolves around at that time, and those early colonists denigrated the Indians as savages and really felt they were different from full human beings. They felt that the wolves were so scary and powerful and this fear came out of European mythology as well—that they actually elevated the wolves’ intelligence and lessened the Indians, and in doing so sort of drove them together so that they were pack animals that were wild and ferocious and almost anti-real human beings.

That was the central interesting issue for me, that the Dutch were pushing the Indians and wolves together. Therefore you kind of had a bifurcated personality, and they were after all shape shifters. Well, we put it in the film when Eddie Holt shapeshifts on the beach. You have them sometimes looking like Indians and sometimes like wolves.

Legend has it that you once considered using midgets in masks to portray the Wolfen. Michael Wadleigh: Never! I can’t imagine where you got that from. That’s outrageous. Ask anyone who worked on the project. Anyone! As you know, we used real wolves, and what separates them from dogs is their elegance and concentration. Those damn things would look at you, and you would break your stare away from them. They had tremendous power and could really stare you down, and it scared the shit out of you. That worked as a strong setup to then go-pow! There’s a shadow, a splash of blood and you are gone! You unsettle the audience by using surreal sound effects, and watching a wolf’s jaws come up into frame and that kind of thing, but I still say that one of [the producers’] huge mistakes was going more animal with them. They should have stayed with the heightened surreal factor I intended, but instead they inserted shots I didn’t do and didn’t approve of, of the wolves growling. I was trying to convince the audience that these creatures had not only a powerful physique capable of delivering instant death, but an elevated intelligence—not to telegraph their presence to their victims ahead of time! I don’t want to go on about it, but I still feel very strongly about that one.

Was it difficult shooting with real wolves? Michael Wadleigh: Not at all, except that the paranoia of human beings is extreme. I mean, wolves are presented in all the movies as evil, and we have associated them in our mythologies with the devil and all of that kind of thing, but there are relatively few instances of a pack of wolves wiping out a human being. You should find some of the production stills from when we filmed the wolves in New York City. They had like a dozen armed policemen, you know, sharpshooters—I’m not kidding you—positioned all over the place because the wolves were considered wild, uncontrollable animals. I’m very serious. The police had their orders to shoot to kill if a wolf got out of the enclosure. They weren’t about to have one running around New York City! We all thought that was amusing, we who were used to dealing with animals. Their paranoia was, to my mind, unjustified.

You submitted a cut of Wolfen to Orion that was four hours and four minutes long and had over 36 SCENE MISSING cards spliced into it. Michael Wadleigh: Yes, but that was not the director’s cut I proposed to show to the public. What you are referring to is a cut that I had to supply to Orion and (producer) Rupert Hitzig and what have you. Bear in mind, Richard Chew is one of the most honored editors of all time. I mean, he’s won two or three Oscars for Star Wars and all that. You are not dealing with somebody walking in off the street. Richard took a position as well that we had simply not had adequate time, because the effects hadn’t been prepared and all sorts of other things had not been done.

Remember, I had shot the approved screenplay. I had not shot anything other than the script that was submitted, so that wasn’t the issue at all. We simply were not given enough time and, well, you can say that I’m an amateur, but this was Richard Chew—the editor they were delighted to get and had approved. And of course, it’s a matter of record that when Rupert wouldn’t go on with me, Richard just quit. He wouldn’t continue on the film. It’s just not correct that we were going to put a four-hour version out before the public.

No, I wasn’t implying that. I’m referring to the cut that was screened for Orion head Medavoy, Hitzig and others at the studio. Michael Wadleigh: That’s correct, but that had to happen. I told you before, it is well known that Orion was in deep trouble with all sorts of other films-check it out-and many people felt they were abnormally leaning on Richard and me to get this film out at any cost. You know, to hell with art! Just get it out there. Of course, a lot of things did go over budget-you better believe it—but I had no control over that. I was not the producer. I simply accepted all of these people and was mainly interested in the actors. I did want as the director to choose the actors, but hey, I’m just saying it’s a matter of public record that the whole crew was professional and that Orion selected them. I wanted pros, not amateurs, F#3 and many people took the position that it was Paul Sylbert, who was a celebrated production designer, who went nuts and really put the budget over the top with the sets and so forth and they were always consulting with him. I was a nobody by comparison.

So if the next step you might be going to is budget, then I think it was pretty well established in the Directors Guild arbitration that any overbudgetings were hardly my fault based on the information they brought forward. It didn’t seem to have any effect on whether I should be able to preview my cut of Wolfen.

Some critics complained that the subplot involving the security organization pursuing terrorists isn’t fully resolved in the film. Michael Wadleigh: That’s correct. I believe it is in David Eyre’s and my screenplay. We had a far greater integration of all the elements that were thrown out there, particularly two threads that I was interested in, and still am: the corporate vs. the government. After all, religion has gone, so the two great powers we have left are government and those companies. My sympathies have always been with government, and here Dewey (Albert Finney) is a representative of that. The film was always supposed to display the disdain that the corporations had for public gumshoes like him, the inadequacies of their financing and the smallness and shabbiness of even Dewey’s boss (Dick O’Neil] compared with the slickness of the privatization of law enforcement. That was supposed to be a big deal, but then those guys in private security can’t figure out dip-shit even with all their hi-tech stuff. They are completely on the wrong track, and ultimately it was supposed to be a vindication of government hunters over corporate hunters, so it tied up far more at the end than it did in the re-edited version.

None of those things were really pointed up in the cut that came out-and by the way, the other, more interesting parallel was maybe nature vs. technology. The wolves had that wolf-vision and when you saw them they were all very organic, and here the corporations were using all this hi-tech equipment and nature was still outperforming them. Also, you have Eddie Holt and the Indians compared to the people you see in the private security force, and the steelworkers’ bar compared to the austereness of Van der Veer’s office. All of those threads I’ve laid out were supposed to be yin-yang things which would tie together in the end-the one side losing and the other side winning in clever and different ways—and I believe the critics would have been much more satisfied by the version I would have completed. Yet at the time, certainly a number of critics did recognize those elements.

You have expressed satisfaction with Wolfen, even though it was recut. Michael Wadleigh: As it stands, I directed every scene in Wolfen except for the inserts they did. I believe it’s a matter of record that the additional photography they did to get the wolves growling and a few other things were a relatively small part of the movie. So in terms of writing and directing and even, as you know, I did some cinematography there is a lot of Michael Wadleigh in there, right? Everybody agrees with that. So how can I complain about it? Movies are a collective effort, and the set designer and the cinematographer and so many people contributed tremendous amounts to it.

Were you ever offered another horror film on the strength of Wolfen? Michael Wadleigh: A couple. As I recall, the offers were pretty serious. I’m told that Stephen King really liked Wolfen, though I don’t recall that I ever talked to him, but there were a number of inquiries made. It never came to a script being sent out, because I always said, “I’m just not interested.” Stephen personally got someone to phone me, and then I was going to see him in Maine-I still have a house there to this day—but somehow we never met. Mike Medavoy immediately said, “Well, why don’t we do another horror film?” A number of other people did too. I turned them all down.

Would you welcome the opportunity to release a director’s cut of Wolfen today? Michael Wadleigh: I wouldn’t know how to do it! It was so long ago that I don’t think it can be done. I would welcome a re-release as it is right now, because I think, as I gather you do, that it’s a hell of a film, no matter whether it was recut or not. It’s got a lot of innovative stuff in it, and beautiful photography and thrills and chills, and I think that people might be amazed at the success it could have.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/WOLFEN-VISION When producers Rupert Hitzig and Alan King snapped up the rights to Whitley Striber’s shaggy wolf story back in 1978, they knew it would be difficult to translate the book’s unusual Wolfen point-of-view to the screen. In fact, when production on Orion Picture’s WOLFEN began back in October, 1979, the only thing that then-director Michael Wadleigh was certain of was that nothing about the so-called “alien vision” was certain.

But it’s doubtful that Hitzig, King or Wadleigh could have possibly conceived that their self-proclaimed “thinking man’s horror film” would still be mired in a expensive eleventh hour production launch just weeks before the scheduled release. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of WOLFEN-at least to its makers-is that after 20 months, $15 million, four screenwriters, two directors and several special effects houses, crucial effects sequences remained incomplete. Just six weeks prior to its July 24 opening. a topnotch effects crew headed by STAR WARS alumnus Robbie Blalack-was still working frantically to complete WOLFEN’S opticals on time.

“We knew from the outset that filming the Wolfen point-of-view, or ‘alienvision’ as we call it, was going to be one elusive son of a gun,” said Rupert Hitzig during a break from a musical scoring session. “Nobody really went in with a master plan as to how to shoot the thing in a way that would give us complete manipulative editing and color control. Let’s just say that the whole thing has been at a great cost to my sanity, my family life and certainly my pocketbook.”

In preproduction, WOLFEN’S producers authorized a tidy $80,000 in seed money to effects houses on both coasts for generating footage that would approximate how the extraordinarily intelligent and sensorial-tuned Wolfen perceived the world.

“When we started, we had a technical consultant who we assumed knew what he was talking about,” Hitzig said. “We were assured that they had this phenomenal new computer printout device with the capacity to generate 235 different shades of grey. Well, I found that astronomical amounts of money for start-up and programming were being asked for without anyone being willing to prove that it actually could be done! We wanted to do things that had never been done before on straight optical printers, but the footage looked all grey and colors fell off into nothingness. So we shut it down, looked around and went with Blalack’s company, Praxis.”

Praxis is among the new crop of small, sophisticated special effects houses that have sprung up in recent years. Blalack, who set up the shop after splitting with former partner Jamie Shourt, first met with Wadleigh and Hitzig in August, 1980, and was given ten weeks to show the producers what they could do. “I showed them ten years of work,” Blalack said, “right through to STAR WARS. At that point, Michael and Rupert were fairly specific about what they were after, but they were extraordinarily open to our input.”

Praxis was originally hired for three months of work, but due to several changes in concept and personnel-most important the replacement of Wadleigh with John Hancock late in 1980-they worked on WOLFEN for fully nine months. “They have tremendous fiscal responsibility and concern, and they’re crealive,” said Hitzig of Blalack and his crew. “Frankly, it was a welcome breath of fresh air.”

The first “alienvision” technique that Praxis explored was “smell-o-vision,” a Michael Wadleigh brainchild that centered on the Wolfen’s ability to sniff out their prey. “Since we obviously couldn’t hand out sniff cards to audiences, we tried to convey the idea that the Wolfen could snifftranslation: see-images of dozens of people who had recently passed through a particular setting,” explained Praxis’ optical supervisor Beth Block. “The Wolfen would sift through these images and seize on the person they’re tracking. The backgrounds would always be visible through and behind the rapidly moving images of extraneous people. When the Wolfen locate the person, the image would lock in and become intensely focused.”

“To show their sense of smell, we used ghosted images. For example, when clues lead Wilson to the South Bronx, the Wolfen see him and make the connection that he’s on their trail. After he’s gone, they go to the spot where he parked his car. We see a series of ghosted images of things that have been there in the past: people, automobiles … That’s indicative of the smells that have been left behind. After all, smells are just molecules.”

Wadleigh’s “point of view shots” and “ghosted images” are bound to confuse audiences. “What can I say?” admits Director Wadleigh. “At first, it will be confusing, but I think it will sort itself out. People will go with it and not understand what it is until one of the characters explains it in the movie. It’ll be a healthy ambiguity. In my humble estimation, filmmakers don’t try enough interesting ideas.”

The “smell-o-vision” effects involved ghost-printing black and white figures over a color background. Though promising, the technique proved a backbreaker, since shots lasting only five to ten seconds were so image-dense that they required the equivalent of five minutes of film. “Smell-o-vision’ was a good idea, but the footage never really proved clear enough from an audience’s standpoint,” Beth Block explained “It just looked flashy.” When Michael Wadleigh exited WOLFEN “for political reasons” (the exact reasons are still unclear), “smell-o-vision” breathed its last.

Praxis next began work on a suitable means of achieving the Wollen’s night vision, which is used to hunt their human prey. After rejecting footage simply shot night-for-night, Blalack began experimenting with the use of false color and color substitution. The results, according to those who saw the early tests, were judged phenomenal,” but it was decided that it looked too phenomenal for the film’s purposes.

“To this day, Robbie probably disagrees with the choices that have been made,” Hitzig explained. “I know he would just as soon have had a strawberry-pink sky and shimmering iridescent lights-gorgeous stuff-but it certainly placed the Wolfen at a distance from the poor mortal viewing the film. Blalack wanted to place the Wolfen’s sensory capacities in a world of utopian color. Orion Pictures and I just felt the footage was too radical a departure from normal vision. It was particularly jarring in the number of cuts we have that shift from objective camera to ‘alienvision.’ We held that the juxtaposition would distance the audience’s subconscious identification with the Wolfen, and in turn, with the picture itself. Obviously, that was something we did not want to do.”

The rejection of the color replacement technique was a huge disappointment for Blalack and his crew, who felt they had come up with a truly startling visual scheme. “It was beautiful. It was really something special,” said Beth Block. “But did it approximate the way the Wolfen see? Maybe not. So we went with another approach that audiences could relate to, was filmically exciting and that worked within the story context. We realized that though some effects may seem old hat to us, they’re not to most movie audiences. And you don’t do effects to show off for other optical houses.”

The final “alienvision” design is still startling: a dark sky, a bright image and a sharp, jagged photographic outline on a figure in a color that signifies whether or not the Wolfen sees a human as prey. Blalack began with the assumption that the Wolfen could sense different emotional states as various colors; anger, fear and aggression would all be visibly different.

To properly isolate the desired foreground elements from the rest of the footage– which was shot without consideration to post production needs-contrast separations were frequently used, a technique also used in ALTERED STATES to add opticals to conventionally photographed footage. Using a wide range of film stocks and filters at various contrast levels, Beth Block was able to separate the flesh tones in a particular shot, alter it to taste, and recombine the footage to good effect. For several sequences, it was necessary to rotoscope the desired areas of the frame, a tedious chore handled by artist Pete Von Sholly.

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Optical work was also required to enhance the actual look of the Wolfen. “At one point, Michael and I considered using midgets with masks.” Hitzig said, “but that would have undermined the allegorical feel we were after and take the picture into the realm of the grotesque. It’s true we were both anxious not to lay any of the Wolfen’s attributes to real wolves, a species that’s already pretty maligned. But in the end, we decided to go with real wolves, doctoring them to be totally black. I also felt strongly that Robbie and his crew should work on giving the Wolfen a light energy-an aura, almost-that separates them from looking like normal wolves.”

Praxis began experimenting on this “aura” in May, 1981, using new footage of the beasts that had been reshot by John Hancock. One option Praxis developed, dubbed the “searchlight mode,” involved shooting two beams of light against a black velvet drop, and then superimposing that onto the footage. The result, according to many at Praxis, was as nerve jangling as a lighthouse. Another attempt had animators tinting the eyes of the animals a violent blue, The “ole blue eyes” approach was torpedoed too, as were experiments with pinpoint lasers, which gave the Wolfen a semi-intentional VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED look. Eventually, Blalack, Hitzig and Hancock agreed on a white, milky glow of filaments around the Wolfen’s orbs, accomplished by tedious rotoscoping that was finally completed just five weeks before the film opened nationally.

Wolf Attacks/Make Up Effects WOLFEN’s makeup effects also went through several major changes during the course of filming, contributing to the film’s expense and delay. Makeup artist Carl Fullerton had signed up on the project back in the summer of 1979, having just completed a stint on ALTERED STATES assisting Dick Smith. But when Orion Pictures ordered a halt to principal photography in February, 1980, several makeup effects had yet to be filmed and several others had to be rushed to completion.

“Although I was given plenty of time to generate and test the specific effects that were called for, two of the major effects were left until the last day of New York locations, so it was a rush job,” Fullerton explained. “I had to ship a lot of effects out to the West Coast and wasn’t there to supervise that shooting. Initially the word was that the horror and gore were going to be soft-peddled, so they left that for the last thing to be shot. Later the approach changed so the shock stuff was in demand again.”

Fullerton, who had yet to see a final cut of the film at the time of his interview, had many lengthy meetings with Wadleigh to discuss the specific effects required. “Unlike many directors who never tell you what they’re after until they’re ready to shoot, Michael would sketch ideas on paper. He wanted to do things that had never been done on camera, and he made that process so much more open.”

Early in the film, the Wolfen murder two wealthy New Yorkers, Christopher and Pauline Vandervere (Max Brown and Ann Marie Pahtako) in New York City’s Battery Park. “Michael didn’t want the audience to fully see the creatures or to see that they were actually ripping out their victim’s throats,” Fullerton said. “He decided just to show blood dribbling from the man’s mouth. I wasn’t pleased with that. Not only was it boring and a cliche, it isn’t medically feasible.”

Instead, Fullerton suggested-and Wadleigh adopted-a spurting flow of blood from actor Max Brown’s mouth. “Dick Smith gave me some helpful advice,” Fullerton said, adding that the effect was somewhat similar to Smith’s torrent of pea soup in THE EXORCIST. “Smith suggested I attach a denture clip into the actor’s mouth, then attach tubing to it. I later found a way to actually direct the blood flow.” The tubing came up the back of the neck under Brown’s hair, over his cheek and into the corners of his mouth. Latex appliances camouflaged the mechanics. To film blood flowing from Brown’s nose, Fullerton had him lie down on a large platform to which a camera had been attached. The platform could tilt up and down like a teeter-totter, but the camera would see no such movement. Open-ended blood capsules were inserted into Brown’s nostrils while his head was near the ground; when the platform was tilted upwards, gravity caused the blood to flow realistically.

The script also called for the Wolfen to tear the hand off of Syad (John McCurry), the Vandervere’s Haitian bodyguard. When a false arm proved impractical, Fullerton devised a clever, on-camera effect. “We had the actor reach into his jacket with his own hand, grabbing for a gun in a shoulder strap,” he said. *The camera point-of-view is a wolf charging at him and the actor aims the gun at the ‘wolf.’ Meanwhile, something from the left side of the screen pushes into him and knocks his hand out of the frame. While out of view, I clipped an appliance over his arm-a flexible fiberglass stump spewing blood on his face and upper chest. We avoided a cutaway and the man ostensibly loses his hand on camera.”

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More grisly effects were required for the death of a derelict named Mule, whose throat is ripped out by the Wolfen. It was one of several makeup sequences designed by Fullerton but shot during post production in Los Angeles because of his commitments on EYEWITNESS and FRIDAY THE 13TH-PART II. Unlike simple wounds, ripping out a throat required an appliance with substantial depth to it. Fullerton conducted extensive tests on himself before developing an appliance built up with fiberglass, epoxy and latex. “I actually remade the neck area.” Fullerton said. “The appliance fits under the jawline to simulate the whole neck and upper chest area. It had to allow the performer plenty of facial and body mobility-his only limitation would be really fast movements. The appliance was strapped to the actor’s chest and carefully glued to the lower jaw and neck.

“I have to say it was more successful on me,” Fullerton added. “I have a stronger jawline than the actor used in the scene.”

But the most demanding makeup assignment of all involved the Wolfen’s bold decapitation of a New York police commissioner (Dick O’Neill) in the middle of Wall Street. Although most of the sequence had been filmed on location in the financial district, the closeup of the Wolfen attack was to be shot in the studio. Though it’s a key sequence, it was left for the last day of shooting.

“Since there was really no other way to do the scene, I built a dummy head.” Fullerton said, “But a rigid dummy head would look just terrible if it wasn’t animated.” To provide the needed movement, Fullerton built a flexible neck out of gelatin and supported the head with an aluminum rod connected to a universal joint. The mouth was able to open and close, and a simple flick of the wrist on a control handle allowed an operator to move the head realistically in any number of ways.

But problems arose when Fullerton’s dummy head met Eoin Sprott’s puppet wolf: it was difficult to get the wolf to attack both on target and at the proper speed. After several unsuccessful attempts, the plan was scrapped and Fullerton was forced to devise a solution on the spot, since filming had to wrap that day.

“Originally, Michael did not want a decapitation,” Fullerton said, “he just wanted to see the neck being bitten off and pushed out in front of the camera. After doing a shot, Michael decided that he wanted to change it and have a decapitation, but the dummy wasn’t built for that. So we had to do some surgery on it: open up the back of the neck, cut the whole supporting structure out and resupport it using a tongue depressor! The neck was prescored and had piano wires at the base of the skull. We had Eoin Sprott’s puppet head lunge at the neck of the dummy. At that point, I whirled the head off!”

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In addition to filming the complex decapitation on the last, hectic day, Fullerton also set up and filmed an insert shot of Dick O’Neill poking his head through a section of fake pavement and rolling his eyes. In addition, the bloody death of Christopher Vandevere was also shot in that same day. But other planned effects could not be squeezed in and were executed in post production by makeup artist Allen Weisinger: the ripping out of the vagrant’s throat, described above; a close-up of John McCurry’s severed hand lying on the ground, the fingers twitching and still clutching the gun, achieved by having an actor stick his hand through a section of fake pavement and adding a latex stump; and a shot of Dick O’Neill’s head flying through the air spewing blood from its nose and mouth, achieved with a false head with built in canisters of stage blood and compressed air that was literally tossed up and down for the camera.

“The terrific thing was working with Michael,” Fullerton said. “But I have to admit that the pressure of doing everything at the last minute made it pretty frustrating. I can’t wait to see the movie, though, to see what got left in and what got left out.”

New York as one of the films Main Characters (Great Article @ NYC In Film about NY during the production of Wolfen)

PROMOTIONAL/ADVERTISING

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SCORE/SOUNDTRACK Wolfen (1981) The Unused Score by Craig Safan

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Composer Craig Safan wrote an original score for this film and was replaced at the last minute by future Academy Award winner James Horner, who had only 12 days to write and record his score.

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CAST/CREW Directed Michael Wadleigh

Produced Rupert Hitzig

Screenplay David M. Eyre, Jr. Michael Wadleigh Uncredited:Eric Roth

Story by David M. Eyre, Jr. Michael Wadleigh

Based on The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber

Albert Finney as Dewey Wilson Diane Venora as Rebecca Neff Edward James Olmos as Eddie Holt Gregory Hines as Whittington Tom Noonan as Ferguson Dick O’Neill as Warren Dehl Berti as Old Indian Peter Michael Goetz as Ross Reginald VelJohnson as Morgue Attendant James Tolkan as Baldy Donald Symington as Lawyer Tom Waits as Drunken Bar Owner (uncredited)

Makeup Department Frank Bianco Carl Fullerton Allen Weisinger Michael R. Thomas

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique V11n03 Fangoria#028 Fangoria#013 Fangoria#301

Thanks to Mark E. [email protected] for allowing me to link his great informative article on old school NY.

Wolfen (1981) Retrospective SUMMARY Former NYPD Captain Dewey Wilson is brought back to the force and assigned to solve a bizarre string of violent murders after high-profile magnate Christopher Van der Veer, his wife and his bodyguard are slain in Battery Park.

#80sFilms #80sHORROR

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