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lane-ys-world · 3 months ago

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Blank 'We Can Never Have Peace' The Series (Season 2)

Fair warning, there are SPOILERS littered throughout. Hell, this entire post is basically telling you what all went on so if that is not what you are looking for please run now and save yourself from my scathing report – hehe.

For clarity I will be referring to the characters as follows:

Aneung – Neung/Aneung

Khun Neung – Khun/ Khun Neung

Piengfah – Fah/ Peingfah

Aneung’s Grandmother – Granny

Khun Neung’s Grandmother - Granmama

Chet – demon/idiot/warden/Chet... (I'm sure I missed a few but, oh well)

It is now the end of an era�� that’s a little dramatic to say but if you’ve lived through Blank, alongside the rest of us, then you may understand where I’m coming from with this. This show put us through the ringer and I can’t even complain about it. But there are points of concern, things I can absolutely say I took issue with and one of my main problems throughout this show was an idiot named CHET.

There are few things in the world that have the ability to incite fury within me and the mere mention of that man’s name can set me off like a baking soda volcano with a shook up cola bottle. I have a hatred so deep for that man that I would set my soul on fire if I were told that I would be born into his bloodline… I hate that man so much that I almost broke my computer screen trying to deal with his sheer AUDACITY!

And, look, I get it. Okay? I understand. He isn’t real… but the fact of the matter is there is a Chet in every one of our families. He may not be the dad or the uncle or the brother, hell, he may not even be a he but there is a CHET in all our families and the irritation I feel when I think about that fact makes my skin itch like I just got a vacation sun burn (iykyk).

Alright, now that we’ve gotten the formalities out of the way, let’s get down to business. This second season, blessed as it was, was WAY. TOO. SHORT! Everything felt like we were moving at light speed just to get to the end and the end was… something. And, no, I’m not referring to the beach scene after the hospital. I’m referring to the beach scene AFTER THAT. You know, the one where Anueng and Khun were completely different people. I understood wanting to “age” the characters, to show progression and to give a timeline to their love story. I got all that. But the characters they choose threw me off a little. I accidentally jumped to the end – ‘accidentally’ – and I was worried they’d introduced a new couple without any of us knowing it. I went back through the first part of the episode trying to find them only to figure out that it was the older versions of Aneung and Khun Neung.

It was jarring, to say the least. I feel as though they could have gone about making us aware that time had passed with those two in a different way. Because, and I’m being critical here, they made Aneung’s actor three – if not more – inches taller than she was when we left off and we, the audience, were expected to just accept that that made sense? Where? How? I’m trying to be imaginative here, but how did any of this hit the storyboards, in a room full of people, and everyone went “Oh, it’s been a few years and a 22-year-old woman grew another three inches? Yeah, that tracks…” Excuse the ever loving heck out of me, but WHAT!? I feel as though they could have done some cosmetic changes, put them in different environments, hell, just put “A FEW YEARS LATER” on the screen and carried on with Faye and Yoko to wrap up the story. Instead, I’m sat here wondering if the production company was chemistry testing those two ladies at the end for some other show they plan to produce. What was the purpose of changing the actors? And yes, I’m complaining a lot right now, but that is only because I had really high hopes for this show.

Anyway, let’s dive into the storyline.

So, the story picks up the day after Khun tells Neung to leave in an effort to ‘protect’ her. Life is still hitting her hard and she is now moved back into her family’s palace, sans Sam, sans Granmama, sans Song. She’s in this big estate filled with the memories of all she’s lost all on her own and her heart aches for what could have been. And then she gets a phone call, in the middle of the night, informing her that Neung is out on the town, getting trashed and raising hell. Now, because all of Neung’s family have entrusted her with Neung’s care, Khun cannot just say that they are now in a weird, emotionally charged predicament – of her own making – and just call it quits. She has to get up and go fix what she broke, and it seems all she’s been looking for was the opportunity to do so. But it also seems that Neung took the break up way worse than Khun did and decided that a descent into madness was fitting for how she was feeling and she does not skimp.

She was doing all the bad girl things now that she wasn’t tied down. She was staying out late, drinking and dancing with boys, not to mention not contacting her gran. She was basically a delinquent.

And when she is found, on a school night, in a night club, drunk out of her mind and damn near being felt up by some random college dude, Khun just about loses her mind. She immediately claims ownership and carts Neung out of there – not without some token resistance, of course. When they make it back to the palace, they hash it out, kiss it out and then fall asleep in each other’s arms… only for them to wake up the next morning with Neung having vengeance on the brain. She’s still sour about how Khun ended their relationship and she decides that she can do the same.

She repeats, almost word for word, what Khun said to her. To ‘pretend last night never happened’ and move forward as they were. Khun, not really knowing how far she can push the issue, decided to take a step back from it all and allow Neung the space she seems to crave. We all know that she doesn’t actually want space, she wants a chase, but that is neither here nor there because Neung ends up losing at this game she initiated.

Neung wanted Khun to feel jealous, to understand what life would be like without her there and is instead met with how Khun flirts with people who aren’t her. Khun makes Neung jealous of one of her own friends, the same friend that Neung had been using to try and make Khun jealous. She started a fire fight with no ammunition, hoping she could pick bullets up along the way, and Khun came fully prepared with a military grade arsenal. The poor poppet never really stood a chance.

Now, outside of this one fight, there isn’t really a conflict between them. Their conflict bleeds over from season one. Khun believes Neung is too young to know what she wants and in a few years she will be tossed to the side when Neung finally ‘finds herself.’ Neung is not having it, this time around, and latches on like a barnacle to a turtle shell. She will not be thrown into the depths all on her own a second time. All is well with these two, if you don’t bring Neung’s family drama into consideration. They are living their best secret-love-story lives and it seems nothing can pop their bubble. Until daddy dearest starts popping up and inviting himself into their personal space and nothing is sacred anymore.

This is where my rage begins to boil over. This is where Chet exists… I mean, he inserts himself in almost every other thing Neung does – or tries to do – and makes demands of her like he’s been there this whole time and they should seem normal to her at this point but it is within the family unit that Chet thrives, where he finds power and back up. Chet, on his own, is an annoyance that we can usually ignore or circumvent. Usually Neung lets Khun deal with Chet because she’s been doing it since forever so she knows how to make him go away, but in the family unit Chet has granny’s support. And granny has Neung’s ear. Things are now complicated but they navigate it. When Chet oversteps, Khun brings him back to Earth but when Chet starts to suspect that there is something else going on between Neung and Khun, all bets are off. Chet calls Fah back to Thailand to test the waters, then Chet flat out accuses Khun, and the cats out of the bag because Khun may be a lot of things but a liar isn’t one of them.

But before we get into how things went wrong, let’s go back to why we despise Chet.

Chet spends the majority of this show spewing random, differing degrees of homophobic rhetoric. He doesn’t like Neung’s new college friend because she seems too boyish to him and, according to his two functioning brain cells, apparently this makes her contagious because he wants Neung to stop being friends with her so she doesn’t ‘catch the gay’ from the too boyish friend….

Can you hear my eyes roll all the way into the back of my skull? No?

Alright, how about when Chet decides to bring up Neung’s friend choices in front of her grandmother, who is also a raging homophobe, and they try to gang up on Neung. Because Chet couldn’t convince Neung on his own, he decides to get back up from literally the only person who gives a damn about his opinion in this entire show. Then – because it gets worse – he decides that since Neung and Khun are ‘getting along so well’ now would be a great time to revisit his and Khun’s possible marriage. He proposes. To Khun. In front of Neung. Without consulting either of them. His justification? Khun would make a great stepmother for Neung and they’ve grown up now so the issues that caused Khun to run from the wedding the first time must have gone off into the stratosphere seeing as how HE couldn’t possibly have been the problem.

And when Khun rejects this proposal, shocked Pikachu face!

This is where I believe Chet started suspecting something else was going on with Khun. Maybe he didn’t suspect that she was in love with his daughter – who he’s been aware of for the blink of an eye – but he certainly thinks she is with someone else because that would make much more sense than the fact that she’s just not that into him, I suppose.

When he can’t get Khun to marry him, he inevitably turns his attentions back to Neung which makes the poor baby even more uncomfortable with him. She hasn’t known him all that long and he is talking at her like she has no mind or thoughts of her own. He talks about what he wants for her like his thoughts are blueprints to be followed rather than talking points. He has injected himself into Neung’s life like a bad vaccine and the effects are opposite to what he was hoping because, again, NOBODY LIKES HIS PRESENCE! I don’t know how else I can say this. Chet is that one mosquito you hear just as you’ve settled in bed and you’ve switched off the lights. Just as you think you are at peace, he starts buzzing around, trying to suck the life out you… and then disaster strikes.

Neung and Khun get caught.

Piengfah comes in like a sleeper agent because, as per freaking usual, these parents are not engaged with the raising of their child until it is time to inconvenience said child by throwing their thoughts at her and expecting her to be excited about their hair brain ideas.

Let us all remind ourselves of how we ended up here, shall we?

Piengfah was in love with Khun and got rejected. Chet was in love with Khun but – from what I’ve gathered – said nothing. Fah and Chet make a baby and Khun tells Fah, out of concern, to abort said baby as this may slow down or altogether stop the progression of her life. Fah has the baby but her own mother is not pleased with this development and even worse is the fact that Piengfah refuses to tell her mother who the baby daddy actually is.

Granny decides that Thailand is clearly too much for Fah and sends her overseas to go get her shit together and she raises the baby. Chet is left unaware of the existence of said baby. Chet is set to marry Khun due to an arrangement by Khun’s granmama and Chet’s family. Chet is pleased with this arrangement, Khun is not. She runs from the wedding and effectively cuts off Chet and her gran.

Baby Neung is wrapped in bubble wrap by granny because gods forbid she turns out like her dear darling mother. Jump forward about 20 years and Neung bumps into Khun in the market – INSTA LOVE. Khun and Neung get close, then Khun falls in love. Fah makes a reappearance to rub into Khun’s face that she is Neung’s mother. Chet finally finds out about the daughter he’s had under his nose this whole time.

Chet starts love bombing this poor girl but also he really REALLY wants her to get a DNA test to prove she’s actually his kid. Neung couldn’t care less about what Chet wants and is only concerned about what Khun wants. Chet and Fah become privy to how attached to Khun Neung is and they think they can use this to their advantage but Khun is already off the deep end at this point and she has no intentions of doing things that Neung’s now helicopter parents want when that is clearly not what she wants.

Piengfah realizes that the only way any of this works is if they give Neung some space and Chet thinks space means being a puff of air away from one another. And, lastly, Chet thinks parenting is calling in your child’s grandmother any time she won’t do exactly what you want her to, when you want her to, how you want her to and with no resistance or questioning.

Chet is the most irritating character I have had the pleasure of watching and I watched Khun’s gran make a complete fool of herself and Sam’s betrothed Kirk in GAP the series and in Season 1 of Blank.

Now, because Chet has never been taught how to deal with rejection or situations that he finds averse to his morally skewed compass he doesn’t know how to properly deal with his only child being in love with a woman. And he certainly cannot wrap his brain around that other woman being his ex-fiancé. And his last brain cell is holding on to dear life when it has to process that his child won her over where he couldn’t.

So, like any untrained and untamed animal, he lashes out. At Khun. In her own damned palace. Then he demands that Khun and Neung not come into contact with one another. Gets Piengfah and granny to back him up and they all devise a plan for Neung to go live with Piengfah overseas somewhere and hopefully – and I shit you not – GROW OUT OF BEING GAY. This move only works because they have finally hit Khun where it hurts. She has been fighting with the idea that Neung is too young for her this entire time and now she has three other people telling her that she is not worthy, that she’s too old, that she is sucking the youth out of their “baby” and if she really loves her then she’ll let Neung go and let her make her own choices.

The irony there is not lost on me and I hope it isn’t lost on you either.

Just as Neung is about to leave for brighter skies with Piengfah, Khun has a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and decides to pour her heart out on live radio, for the whole nation to hear, about how in love she is and how her heart is breaking from having to be separated from the only person she has ever wanted for herself in this life. Neung hears this message and, because the demon and his minions had forced separation between the lovers, she makes a run for it. Hoping against hope that the prison sentence she had been serving for the past few days can finally come to an end when she is, "unexpectedly", hit by a car.

TROPE TIME – she’s in a coma now.

So, because she was on the phone with Neung when the accident happened, Khun is the first to arrive at the hospital… somehow… I mean, the accident happened right in front of Neung’s gran’s house so the warden and the guards should have been the first at the hospital but, I digress. When they do eventually get to the hospital, all they are is enraged at Khun for luring their baby to her possible death, and scared shitless for Neung. They blame Khun for them needing to be scared and then they try and pin the whole accident on her. Khun, like anybody else in life, has a breaking point and this comment pushes her over.

She starts firing back. She asks them why they felt they needed to come between two people who just loved each other. She asks how they can accuse her of being the reason Neung was out on that street when the car came barreling towards her when they were the ones keeping her prisoner. She asks what she’s ever done to deserve their ire. Asks how it can be wrong to love someone. Asks how she can be solely to blame when the only person who ever actually heard Neung, actually listened to Neung, was her? Crickets! Until granny comes in, on her sanctimonious rocket ship, and slaps Khun across the face before telling her to kick rocks.

I’m over it at this point. This whole family can go jump off the nearest bridge.

Khun takes a page out of Neung’s book and refuses to be tossed by the way side. She wears everyone – save Chet, until MUCH later – down with her sheer devotion. She shows up, reads to, talks to, pleads and begs with Neung to just open her eyes. And then she does. She opens her eyes and the first thing she does is make a phone call?

Look, I’m as confused as you at this part but the director, producer and creator all thought this worked so we’re going with it.

Neung wakes up, calls that same radio station in hopes that Khun is listening and confesses as well. Lays their love story bare for the country to hear. And, by some miracle, Khun is listening to the radio station at that exact moment and B-lines is straight for Neung’s room. They hug, they kiss, they hug some more and then Neung is walking out of that hospital with her arms around the woman she loves and her family supporting them all the way. Heavens, how I wish it had just ended there! It would have been sappy, it would have been sickly sweet, but it would have made a world of sense more than switching the actors at the last moment – YES I’M STILL ON THIS!

Like I said in the beginning, I wish the show was longer. I wish we had more time with these characters. I am in love with the chemistry that all the characters have with one another. This cast really sold this plot and Faye and Yoko were the perfect actors for their roles.

The only question I guess I have at the end of all this is does love really have an expiration date like Khun has been stressing this whole time or is the love of the right person infinite and unending like Neung has been saying since the very beginning?

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sunshine-in-a-bottle · 7 months ago

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wait no listen to me

Listen Seth/Eirika is so valid but when you play twin characters, the female one being so Unknowing and Innocent and needing a man to explain everything to her all the for the majority of her arc (Seth) while the male twin is fucking going buckwild being insane answering to no one I'm squinting at you suspiciously. Maybe let Eirika be capable of things on her own. Please. At least make it so Seth isn't doing exposition every chapter.

What was Eirika going to even do when Ephraim was being put through the ringer being told to be king?? Like he's being trained for that, whats she bring trained for??? What, was she gonna just be There. Let her talk about her training to be a diplomat for her Kingdom or her wanting to be on the ground taking care of her people. She can be unsure, but I want a resolution with this that isn't just her fucking off with her partner with no mention of what her life would have been if this whole story hadn't happened. Shes a female lord, please let her be a main character in her own story and not an excessively focused on Support for Ephraim.

Seriously I want some better explanation for why Eirika, the person who obviously cares more about politics and the kingdom, is being passed up for Ephraim, who was shown to be super self-centered and running away from his role until he realized that actually he was kind of being a bastard and needed to give a shit about his kingdom. Its great character development for him, sure, but if you give birth to twins, why aren't you letting the one with the greater aptitude for ruling be trained for it??? What would have happened if Ephraim had never learned to do better??? Like I could say its in-universe sexism but I don't really want that to be the reason because sexism in this world isn't well explored and going with that feels shallow.

I'm not saying Eirika has to be Queen because ultimately I think she could do a lot more as someone On The Ground Seeing The People, but I need more well written thought put into her life.

The portraits changing expressions like they have in the more recent games would be so great for her, I need her to have a raised eyebrow as she says "I can't help you with your image problems, Innes." please give her really emotional and expressive portraits that put her sass and humor full on display she deserves it. She is not just the vaguely smiling kind princess she is so funny and she has mischief in her heart. Look at her making fun of Forde. Please give this to me.

I need them to give us some high quality Eirika/L'Arachel. I don't care if it becomes canon I just need more of them in general. Maybe a little kiss. Actually wait I'm in charge. They get an Ending Together where they either get married or theyre really gay. I want an ending like that for Ephraim and Innes too.

the games tend to treat the twins and Lyon as if they were childhood friends despite them only knowing each other for like two years and its really funny, but I might have them push it to be childhood friends just because I don't see any reason why not to do that. Have them meet every summer but never through the winter, allowing Lyon to feel the cold lacking of their presence. Let them be really intense about each other. Give me more friendship content. Give me Lyon's issues for Longer and More. He can fit so much long-term angst inside him.

Don't remove Eirika's gentleness and kindness. Ever. This whole story should be her having to test her faith in Good Kind Love And Friendship against the horrors of war and the betrayal of allies and friends. I love her wrestling with that and being so afraid that she might be wrong, that people might not be inherently good, but still pressing on with her ideals and ultimately being rewarded for that with peace being restored. But also-

Eirika still gives Lyon the stone in her route and its fucked up and I think with this cool updated models stuff we can really get into this idea that shes being tricked and her kindness is being used against her. Give Lyon this really fucked up half corrupted model with Monster Edelgard vibes, let scales and claws and darkness be seeping out of him. Really hammer home the idea that this is a corrupted man and that there's so many stories where you can bring people back from the brink, and Eirika is a person who believes in that. Honestly even foreshadow it with stories of happy endings and codexs on the Five Heroes and their journey, character we don't even get to know much about. Make any person who doesn't already know how this is going to end really believe they can help Lyon and feel Eirika's devastation when they realize they can't.

Also I think they should flex more on the twins opposing flaws??? Like, Eirika gives too much, more than she can afford. Ephraim gives too little, hurting the people around him for his goals. (Important note: Martyrdom is in fact a flaw and Eirika's flaw isn't "better" than Ephraim's, see the issue with Lyon's betrayal above. There is such a thing as not being selfish enough, and its called lacking self preservation. People are not heroes for lacking self preservation.) Like I want more parallels being drawn between these two other than "will stab you vs will talk to you". We get TWO LORDS we need to USE THIS.

Seriously we need more lore about The Five Heroes and maybe even Nada Kuya. Some background murals at least. Please god give me Magvel lore we're never going to get another game set in this region I at least want crumbs.

Maybe uhhhh touch up Colm and Neimi's supports a bit. Just a little. A tiny bit less mean mayhaps.

Why don't Eirika and Tana get to kiss?????

Tana needs to get more too actually please give her so many things in life she deserves it, she has Innes as her brother.

Innes needs therapy but he's never going to get it so I think we should have a map with rain so we can leave him out there soaking wet like a sad pathetic cat. I think this would be good for him.

Marisa and Tethys should have an ending where they kiss. Alternatively they still kiss but Gerik also gets to be there sometimes and he's a bottom.

Joshua should be required to attend to that final conversation with his mom if he is in the party, and his mom should get the chance to be really dramatic with her master swordfighting and land a crit on someone if she must die. I want her taking out hoards of enemies before falling. I want the player to be in awe of her and really upset she can't be in the party because of how op she is.

Lets get more Knoll. Lets get more Selena. Lets get some more Syrene even. I want more dialogue and lore from Everyone who got minimal focus or was a latecomer this time around.

Monica should still be entirely offscreen and youd should be left to imagine how fucked up

I need them to make an update of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones but I'm in charge of all the writing decisions. They disrespected my girl Eirika so fucking badly the first time around, I'll fight them

#fe8 #fire emblem #sacred stones #suds soapbox

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animefreak1145 · 3 years ago

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The Brilliance of Break On Through

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Mission Break on Through—An Analysis

I have replayed the campaign of COD:BOCW numerous times—too many times truly. Did a whole playthrough where it was Hardened and soon I’m sure I shall do Veteran(something I have never done for any COD game. Not even Hardened.).

All missions have their own unique qualities—parts where the player gets a little rush of adrenaline depending on the kind of mission and how they choose to play it (Nowhere Left to Run just a plain shooting match while Brick in the Wall you can choose to remain stealthy like the good spy you are or go crazy like an eager homicidal maniac).

Even within the safehouse, there are plenty of little details to discover if you take the time to look around and observe everyone. Or, everything. (The radio if turned to a Russian station/correspondence, Adler changes it back immediately before Da Nang mission. Watching Park’s body language, as you talk to Adler and she periodically looks over to you two. Adler suspicious when you go to the Red Room or the locked room with the arcade. The T.V. being turned on in the Red Room)

But the amount of details, details, in the mission Break on Through is outstanding. I have played this mission more than any other due to me wishing to look at all the details. There’s so many, I think I may miss some. And I can’t show them off all to you cause I suck at creating gifs and don’t know how to transfer that from Xbox to my phone.

To lighten it up a bit, I won’t focus on the four different scenarios you go through—at least not each one. That would take too long and I do not have gifs/pics to show it off since Tumblr limits it to ten anyways.

I will, however, try to guide to what parts of the game you all can explore if you choose to do so. As well just how detailed they did this mission.

I am going to start with the different statements Adler says to you throughout all the Scenarios(17, 6, 11, 1). We only go through four in the actual game—but the fact it goes up to 17 or possibly more shows just how far they went in and messed with Bell’s mind.

Now, Adler seems to be a bit bipolar on how he talks to you whether or not you listen to him and all his directions. Either totally blasé and cold to giving you and pumping you up with more MK or meds, or actually a tad concerned and patient as he guides you through.

If You/Bell Stands Still/Does Nothing:

Example 1

“So you did nothing? What were you, in shock?”

He throws the words callously, mocking. As if Bell isn’t confused and lost at what is going on. He even sounds irritated that you might actually be in shock due to these memories that are just fake—not even real. Not like what he has.

Example 2

“What’s wrong with Bell?” -Adler

“I’m not sure. . .” -Park

“I guess we’ll just wait on you to proceed, Bell.”

The contrast is dizzying. He sounds concerned when he asks Park on what could be wrong with you. If he pushed you too far and now you’re just frozen. And, instead of rushing you due to how the fate of half of Europe is at stake, he decides to give you space. Just wait for you and you’ll come out of it soon enough.

He does these sort of reactions numerous times. Jumping from intimidating to the Adler we knew as the player, as Bell—kind and always in your corner that believes in you. He switches tactics based on what he believes will work really—or he just felt really on edge at times and threw the farce that you two were friends out the window.

Other examples include:

Scenario 11–Napalm Strike-in the lab in the room where you were brainwashed

“Christ, what’s happening with them?”-Adler

“A mild seizure. Sims, past me a benzodiazepine.” -Park

Again, concerned. Worried. Almost…at unease?

In the lab—tripped up on drugs. If you run through the tight shrinking hallway back and forth like so(I suck at making gifs, I’m sorry):

“Why is Bell repeating themselves?”

“Bell, stop speaking in circles.”

Now, as others may have suspected, Bell is talking to everyone as they’re stuck in this horrible loop of mental torture. Most likely muttering, hands clenching and arms pulling against the straps of the gurney, moving their head back and forth depending on what they’re seeing. I always saw Bell as muttering quickly in Russian as they go through all of this—their mother tongue where it may comfort them as they’re panicking and speaking to Adler.

It’s just a nice detail showcasing how exactly Adler knows that Bell is on script—Bell saying what they’re seeing and doing and what’s going on. It shows also just how hard they put Bell through the ringer(badum tss. I’ll leave now).

All the details too when the game shows how the drugs they put in Bell affects you. Like so. The hallways appearing long. The lights looking yellow. You feel so fast—look how quick you can run. Run towards the Red Door that Adler so desperately wants and maybe this can stop. Ah, why is it running away from you? What’s going on?

I don’t know about you, but I was so lost and confused at what was going on my first playthrough. For the majority of this mission, the possibility of me being brainwashed didn’t reach the BACK of my mind till probably I actually saw the flashes of scenes about Vietnam and calling Bell a subject. So like right here.

I personally thought that I had a repressed memory or something due to me going through the Vietnam War. That whatever I saw with Perseus, I—or rather Bell—repressed it from our mind due to how violent or horrible what we saw or experienced was. And that Adler suspected and just really wanted to know about it.

I didn’t expect for the man to actually brainwash my character—us—Bell! The game made Adler your mentor, who always defended you from Hudson and believed in your skills very highly. How he and Bell were basically perfect partners when the two of you were together.

It’s amazing—cause I think that’s what the developers were going for. The absolute trust. The loyalty. The denial that ‘maybe Adler is being a little harsh but hey, this is to help Perseus so it’s okay?’ It’s perfect. Because I’m sure that is what Bell actually felt in real time.

Yet, if you go through the total rebellious choice of not listening to Adler, some thing’s make sense. The Rebellious Side shows you way more than if you just listen to Adler like a Dutiful Soldier.

You go through this room if you choose the rebellious route, the T.V.’s automatically turning on the closer you get. Of Vietnam. And now, all those T.V.‘s that turned on by themselves(the Red Room, Lubyanka, Cuba) make sense. You were actually being brainwashed. Poor Bell probably can’t ever have a turned off/broken T.V. again. The trauma.

Said trauma being shown multiple times too. Not just the T.V.‘s. But the absolute terror that Bell felt, before they became Bell, with Adler.

Like do you see this? This terrified me when I saw it at the end of the hallway. I just saw a red shadow in the distance and I legit thought I was about to be chased. Call of Duty became a horror game(I also went through the door to the ground too my first playthrough, so before this I went through zombies and I think my heart was going to jump out my chest) I thought. I didn’t want to get closer. I had to, with each step I see that it’s not a shadow but a body. And than I see the familiar jacket, the sound of whirring in my ears and see it’s Adler’s head being twisted back and forth, side to side, up and down, in a speed that in inhumanely possible.

Makes one wonder if Bell themselves sees Adler as inhumane. Not human. Adler seeming to just be a god in their head. All the Adler shaped rocks/boulders you go through and see. Even one point the V.C. becoming Adler and you killing him over and over and dead bodies of Adler being everywhere.

The man has entered Bell’s head and won’t leave. Just like Adler won’t leave Bell alone.

Heck, there’s one point in my playthroughs of this mission I was by the bridge yet there were parts of the lab by it. I jumped towards it, noticing down below there were different floors of the lab that eventually reach the ground. I jumped to reach the next floor and missed and I died.

And Adler mocked Bell committing suicide.

That was the kicker really that Adler truly is indifferent towards Bell. Like complete disregard. I know it’s fake. We know it’s fake. Adler knows it’s fake—but to Bell, it felt real. That’s the crazy part. All of this—this whole sequence feels real to Bell so each time they die they actually feel it. It’s insane. It’s cruel.

But we all know that Adler isn’t known for his kindness. Still like his character though, he’s layered.

I don’t have the exact quote he said, didn’t wrote it down like the others. I was shook he said it at all.

Moving on to the final details I’m going to talk about.

When you go through the room, I believe this comes out for both rebellious and dutiful, really depends. You see it filled with post it notes, articles, plans, and newspapers. And you see once more just how Bell has been scarred.

I don’t know Russian or German, but I imagine the notes are similar to what the English one’s say. If I’m wrong, please point it out.

There’s also post it notes which I believe is in code as well due to all the numbers—I’m not sure what those could mean since I am no decoding expert.

Poor poor Bell. And with all these pictures and plans—of Adler included—it begs the question that Bell may have been warned about the famous America’s Monster beforehand. Had to have—since Adler is basically Perseus’s adversary due to how stubborn the American man could be. It just adds more to the story, despite Cold War having quite a short campaign, they made it up somewhat with all these details everywhere.

When you finally and actually reach the room.

As you grow closer to the table, to your chair in the conference room while everyone else seems to have their own spots, there’s something I noticed.

There’s glasses. As well as a hat. And it’s Bell’s. Or at least, it used to be. Why else is it on their side of the table? By their chair? I believe it might be reading glasses due to all the decryptions Bell does, whether on paper or through a computer, it’s hard on the eyes. (I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed this. For look at @second-vtoroy ‘s Bell)

I believe through the brainwashing, Bell might not need glasses anymore. After all, apparently they were a smoker like Adler before too but they took that out of you. What else they changed of Bell? It makes one wonder how far they truly went into molding a person.

Which just adds onto how mind boggling this mission is—this game is. This is my favorite COD game, despite how short it is. The details and choices and interactions with everyone and able to create your own character(albeit it’s very standard and not specific but it’s good enough for me) is AMAZING. I’ve always been a sucker for RPG’s and able to get that even a little in a COD game? Truly wonderful.

I couldn’t touch on everything because it would’ve gotten long, but the fun of the Break on Through mission never gets old. It’s genius multiple ways you can do it. All the details. The feelings you feel as a player as you go through it.

They truly did a unique job with this and I hope they continue with this type of game storytelling. Hopefully longer as well.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this rant basically!

Gifs made by me and used the video down below to help.

https://youtu.be/t6QkmkGGHSQ

youtube

#russell adler #call of duty #cod #black ops cold war #call of duty cold war #cod cold war #cod bell #cod analysis #cod:bocw #call of duty analysis #bell call of duty #Adler and Bell #Cold War

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cherrycheridarling · 4 years ago

Text

chemistry test | t.h.

tom holland x actress!reader

warnings: fluff and acting..?

summary: you're auditioning for the role of silk in the new marvel film. they've already chosen their spider-man and now it's time to see how much chemistry you two have.

wc: 1.9k

"Hi! I'm here for the Marvel auditions?" you greeted the lady who sat at the front desk.

"Hello! What's your name?"

"Y/N Y/L/N."

Nerves were running through your veins at lightning speed. The lady gave you a kind smile and told you to head to room three hundred and sixteen. You returned the smile before heading to the elevators.

Upon entering, you were faced with at least fifteen other women who were also auditioning. All with black locks and brown eyes. You'd be lying if you said you weren't slightly intimidated. Sure, you had done some small films here and there, but looking at the competition now was frightening. A lady came and handed all of you a small script. At least it was a distraction. You spent the entire time reading your lines and trying your hardest to memorize them.

You sat in the waiting room for at least fourty-five minutes before your name was finally called and you were escorted into another space. Once you entered, your eyes were immediately drawn to the long table where the producers, casting crew and directors - who you've met hundreds of times in your previous auditions - were sat. You shook hands and gave greetings, the usual.

"Y/N, meet our new Spider-Man." Kevin gestured to the brunette boy at the front of the room.

He was cute. Dangerously cute. His small curls that laid messily only seemed to add to his appeal.

You smiled and walked over to him, "Hi. I'm Y/N Y/L/N. It's great to meet you." you offered your hand.

He returned the grin before shaking your hand, "Tom Holland. It's a pleasure." you noticed his British accent and couldn't stop yourself from the confused expression that took over your features.

"You're British?"

He nodded with a smile, "That I am, but," he switched to an American accent, "I can turn it off, too."

Your smile grew, impressed by his ability, "That's so cool. I would try a British accent, but I feel like I might offend you."

He laughed with you for a bit, his hand still holding yours. You both noticed the predicament and quickly withdrew your hands. Sheepish grins showed on both your lips.

Joe Russo cleared his throat, "A little background information in case you're not familiar with Cindy Moon's story."

You silently thanked him for this since you were not at all familiar with whatever the character entailed. Only getting small glimpses of her personality and behaviour before you got thrown into the mix of auditions.

"Cindy and Peter went to the same school and got bitten by the same radioactive spider. A man took Cindy and trained her, but also hid her in a bunker when her powers became too much for her to control. Her Silk Sense – which is her version of a Spider Sense – is incredibly powerful. Stronger than Peter's. In this scene, Peter is saving her from the bunker. Understood?" he spoke so quickly that you nearly didn't catch it all, but nevertheless, you nodded your head.

"Got it." you put the script to the side and took off your jacket.

"Now," Kevin spoke, "Remember, this is a chemistry test. So we want to see – not just how compatible your characters are – but you guys, as well."

Your palms began to sweat. You already knew that they were looking for chemistry, but being put on the spot made your anxiety sky rocket. You nodded again in understanding.

"Sounds good." Tom went to the other side of the room, "Good luck." he sent you another frustratingly attractive smile.

You nodded with your own grin, "Thanks, Spidey."

You spotted a small cot beside you and made your way over, laying with your back to Tom. Ready to start the scene.

"Action!"

Before any lines were given, you lifted your head, but kept it facing the wall. As if you were listening for something, waiting for something.

"Spider- Boy? Guy? Spider-something." you spoke to the wall and a second later, Tom's footsteps were heard behind you.

"I prefer Spider-Man." Tom's voice filled your ears as he leaned against the wall. "Nice to meet you, Cindy Moon."

You held a hand to your head, as if a painful migraine had just arrived. "Your presence is causing me pain. Who-" you looked up at the man, recognition dawning on your features, "Peter."

"W-what? N-n-no, no, no. Who's Peter? I'm Spider-Man." he insisted rather poorly. Deepening his voice.

You turned your body around, hanging your legs off of the cot, "I-I feel it. I remember you. Parker from my science class. Left row, three seats behind me. And my math and history. Front row in history. Middle in math. You always had a new backpack every week."

"Eidetic memory." he mumbled under his breath.

"Hm?" you furrowed your eyebrows.

"Nothing. Never mind. We can discuss this later. You need to get out of here. And I have come to save you from whatever this place is." he eyed the space with disgust.

You eyed him suspiciously, "Is this some Disney movie? Is there a magical horse drawn carriage waiting outside?"

He showed a boyish grin, "I guess you can call me your knight in red and blue spandex."

You scoffed and stood up, "Okay, Parker. How'd you know I was here?"

"Oh! This awesome dude, Tony Stark, he knows, like, everything! A-and he told me that you were here and sent me on a mission– Which is so cool! But yeah, he told me to come and save you. And that is what I am doing." he jumped up and down like an excited child.

You eyed the space around you, "Wait. M-my powers. I can't control them. I-I mean, I'm trying, b-but it's still—"

"—We can focus on that later! Right now, the richest and sickest guy on the planet is requesting you. C'mon." he grabbed your hand and, as scripted, you both locked eyes immediately.

You tried your best to look like you were falling in love. And as you stared into his deep brown eyes, you found that it wasn't that difficult. He stared back into yours. His hand still wrapped around your fingers. Your free hand travelled to his face, as if you were about to pull his mask up. Resting your palm on his jawline. His other hand that wasn't grasping yours, rested on your hip. A light pressure that nearly sent you into a haze. You both began to lean in and it no longer felt like acting until you squeezed your eyes shut, shook your head and pushed him away rather aggressively.

You put a hand on the wall, drawing heavy breaths in and out, "W-what are you doing to me?" you looked at him through heavy eyelids.

Tom was in a similar position, back against the wall, hand over his chest, "Mister Stark said that m-might h-happen." his head was thrown back against the wall, showing off the expanse of his neck as he swallowed. "Something- Something about our senses causes a strong- How do I say this? I-Intimate attraction between us."

Your eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowing, "A-an attraction? An intimate attraction? To you? Ew."

He pushed himself off the wall, "Glad to see you haven't changed one bit, Moon." he walked away from you, "We really need to get going. You- Oh! I've been wondering this: Where's your webbing?" he looked around as if he was searching for it.

You stuck your hand out and pretended to shoot a string of silk out of your finger and onto the wall. Tom followed your movements with a starstruck expression.

"That's sick! I have to make mine." he frowned, "We got bit by the same fricking spider and yours is in your hands? Let me see!" he came closer and attempted to grab your hand again before you quickly put it behind your back.

"Don't touch me." you spoke slowly, "I-if this attraction is caused by physical touch. Please, do not touch me."

He plastered on a playful smirk, "Oh, it's more than physical, Moon."

You rolled your eyes and stepped away from the wall, "Dream on, Parker. Are we going to this Mister Stank or whatever?" you waved your hand with a limp wrist.

Tom gasped, "He's Iron Man! It's Mister Stark! Stark! Not stank! And you need a suit. Mister Stark has one ready for you at the compound, but you need something to wear on the way there." he looked around for one.

As if it had just dawned on your character that you were finally leaving the bunker, your attitude changed. A smile gracing your lips.

"I think I can do a little something."

You gestured your hands around yourself, pretending to create a suit from your silk. Tom watched with amazement, "Hey, how are you doing that?" he bent down and examined your body from head to toe.

"I had a lot of free time on my hands. Costume on-the-go. You like?" you smirked as you continued your movements.

Tom nodded his head as he came back up to stand beside you, "I could've saved so much time and money by doing that."

You finally completed your gesturing with a grin, "Ta-da! A bit sticky, but I think it'll do." you pretended to stretch around in the costume.

"Okay, let's go, Moon—"

"—Nope. Nuh-uh. When I'm webbed up like this, call me Silk." you smiled triumphantly.

And with that, the scene came to an end. The producers and casting directors all stood and clapped for you and Tom. You smiled widely at how successful it had gone. Before you could even react, Tom pulled you into a hug. Arms wrapped around your waist. Without a second thought, you wrapped yours around his neck with a laugh.

"You were amazing!" Tom praised you with a wide grin.

You couldn't help but to smile, "Thank you! It helps when you have an awesome scene partner."

His cheeks turned a shade of scarlet at your compliment before Anthony Russo spoke, "That was amazing! Thank you, Y/N."

You shook your head, "Thank you for having me."

Joe came and shook your hand, "Expect a call on Monday. Keep your ringer on." he smiled.

"And that wraps up the chemistry tests! Great job, everyone!" Anthony announced as you handed the script back to them and threw your jacket on.

You swung your bag over your shoulder and made your way to the door.

"Wait!" Tom called from behind you.

You stopped in your steps and turned around with a kind smile.

He held out his phone, "Since we're going to be working together, might as well get to know one another." he had a timid grin.

"Don't jinx it, Holland." you let a light chuckle fall from your lips.

He shook his head, "It's not jinxing, it's manifesting and you were by far the best Cindy Moon. You've already got the part." he insisted making you shake your head.

"We'll see about that." you punched in your number and before you could add your name, Tom took his phone back.

"Wait." he quickly typed away.

'silk'

You smiled at the contact name before offering your phone. He typed in his number and took it upon himself to put the name.

'spidey'

"I'll see you around, Y/L/N." he gave you a little salute making you laugh.

You nodded, "Definitely, Holland." you turned around and walked out of the door.

Both of you were so engrossed in your interaction that you didn't notice the producers and casting directors watching from afar. Proud smiles dawning their lips.

They found their Cindy Moon.

#tom holland smut #tom holland x osterfield!reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x actress!reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland x singer!reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x famous!reader #tom holland x reader #tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #marvel fan fiction #cindy moon #spider man #tom holland imagine #tom holland oneshot

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dimonds456 · 3 years ago

Note

*sees your tags about being salty about suf spinel*

YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT AND NOT SHARE YOUR SALT /LH

Okay, but I'm warning you, you asked for it.

LONG POST WARNING.

LIKE A REALLY, REALLY LONG POST WARNING.

Dimonds456 Presents: How They Did My Baby Dirty: An SUTM and SUF Analysis on Steven and Spinel (Told by a Progressively More and More Angry Narrator)

THE CONTEXT: There was a post talking about how you think a character will fix everything, but then they wind up making it works. My tags were "#*looks at suf spinel* #I am still salty about that like the bitch I am fghdjskgfa"

Grab some water, guys.

Let's start by talking about Steven for a moment. In the original show, when we were following him as a 12-14-year-old, we watched as he built up trauma and then learned how to hide it expertly well, to the point that most of the audience didn't even realize he was struggling.

You can actually pinpoint the seconds he makes those decisions, too. The best example is in "The Test," when he's storming up to the gems. He's pissed. His fists are clenched, he's got that anime eye shadow overlay on his face, he's frowning, all that. the Crystal Gems are clapping for him and lying to his face, and he KNOWS they are because he overheard them talking about how it was "impossible for him to fail" that test (- Garnet).

And yet... he also overheard them saying that they're just trying their best. They don't know what he needs. They never really have. No one is sure. So, Steven realizes that by picking a fight, he would just be making it worse for them because they would know they messed up, and nothing gets solved, and everyone gets more depressed and Amethyst and Pearl go back to fighting each other and- well, you get the picture. He doesn't have a full understanding of what's going on, so his kid brain went "so I can either be angry at them and cause problems, or I can tell them I did a good job to make them happy."

"I can lie to make them happy."

He storms down there angry, still mulling this decision over. He drops to the floor, frowning and pissed, and says "I can't believe you guys." He is so close to yelling at them, and yet, when he looks up at them...

"That was so... INSANE!"

You never would have been able to tell. It was right there. That moment. And then he never stops. For the ENTIRE REST of the series, he NEVER STOPS. He puts the Crystal Gems above himself every time. Think Rose's Scabbard, The Message, The Return/Jailbreak. The Cluster. Peridot. Dealing with Jasper. The zoo arc (ESPECIALLY the zoo arc). Aquamarine. Then pretty much the entirety of Season 5.

(NOTE: I went back and rewatched that scene for the screenshot. There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it lip tremble in there too! D,: )

He lives for the people around him, and not for himself. Almost never for himself.

Put a pin in that.

Now, let's look at his maturity. People thought that was just him being mature, right? That he grew up. No. That was not it at all. He was learning from his own behaviors as well as the people around him, and building up this idea that he had to "fight to be everything that everyone wants [him] to be when [he's] grown" (- Steven, the extended intro).

Yes, he matured, but not because of that. He started making various decisions to benefit the group that oftentimes he wasn't fully comfortable with, but something he believed would be better for everyone.

Put a pin in that.

Then, later in Future, we see it all manifest. He is selfless to a fault, to the point that he can't think of himself in a positive light in the sense that he's good. We see it a couple of times, but especially in "Prickly Pair," when he vents to Cactus Steven about everything that happened. He feels useless, which is taking a toll on his mental health.

"Why do I need to be needed?" He needs to be needed because that's everything he was as a kid. His entire IDENTITY rests on his ability to help other people, no matter what happens to him. He literally sacrificed himself for them countless times (the big one of course being the Aquamarine incident), and now as a teenager, his whole sense of self is wrapped up in this need to get up and do something to make the world better.

And when he can't make the world better, his world falls apart.

Put a pin in that.

Now, let's talk about Spinel, the moment we've all been waiting for.

Spinel, as a gem, was made specifically to be a friend. That is her niche, and her purpose. Her reason for existing. At first, she and Pink Diamond got along very well, as shown in the flashbacks right before Drift Away plays (I headcanon she has illusion powers and was literally projecting her trauma, but that's a completely different post).

She and Pink vibed together for who knows how long, until one day, Pink started to not like being around Spinel anymore, finding her annoying and childish. We don't know what really caused the switch, just that it did happen (but of course, I have headcanons for that, too). Spinel never realized until it was FAR too late.

Steven actually describes his younger self as annoying at one point during the Diamond Days arc, when he decides to throw the ball, so I'm legally allowed to make this comparison.

Steven and Spinel were the SAME. They were both young and dumb, and something that at least a few people found annoying. People put up with their BS though, since they cared about them. But, while Steven realized this and matured because of it (or bottled up his emotions, to each their own), Spinel never did. She never matured. She was never given a chance.

In the movie, we saw her as a child, and watched as she played with Pink and never tried to be or do anything else, to the point that Pink Diamond thought to realize she might be struggling (and maybe Spinel didn't, either!).

She lives for the people around him, and not for herself. Almost never for herself.

And when she can't be friends with this one person, her world falls apart.

Sound familiar? It should. I literally pulled from things I said earlier lol.

Spinel and Steven are mirror reflections of each other. Reset!Spinel is 14-year-old Steven, completely devoting her entire self to one idea. Steven's was helping others no matter what, Spinel's was serving Pink no matter what. Spinel is like a combination of 14 and 12-year-old Steven in this sense, honestly. Goofy, without a care in the world, except one thing: the people around her. She would do anything for Pink, just as Steven would do anything for his family.

Now, Pink Diamond left Spinel. We all know this story. She left Spins there in the garden for 6,000 years because she grew more mature and started a rebellion, effectively forgetting about this one gem she kinda stopped caring about standing there.

Personally, I don't think Pink had any malicious or even intentional intent in that, but this ain't about her. This is about how Spinel continued to sacrifice herself for Pink, even when Pink didn't need her to anymore. She wanted to please Pink 24/7, all day every day, to the point she self-sacrificed and stood perfectly still for her for millenia.

Now, back to Steven. The gems don't need him anymore in Future, right? They've all grown up and matured and headed off towards their own futures, effectively stranding him alone in terms of self-identity and self-worth. But he stays there, ready to assist at the drop of a hat, or- in Future's case- the call of a phone.

Episode 6 anyone? The one everyone says shouldn't be in Future? That it should have been cut to allow more focus on Steven himself? The fusion episode? YEAH. THAT. He is running himself RAGGED to try and help others, to give himself a purpose. He is self-sacrificing. (He's a professional, don't worry. /j)

Steven metaphorically planted his feet down and decided that he was going to devote himself to the people around him.

Spinel's feet were literally tied down soon after she made that very same decision.

Okay, enough with the backstory. Time for the salt.

In Future, Steven is at his lowest low. He is running to the Diamonds for help, to see if there is SOMETHING they can do to help him. And we first see Spinel.

Spinel has been through the ringer on a lot of the same mental problems Steven himself is facing. She self-isolated, watched as everyone grew up and left her, and then began to lash out because of it. She understands what he's going through. We even see her concerned as Steven starts to tell her why he's there.

Spinel takes him from Diamond to Diamond, until he's running out of White's room in a blind panic. Spinel is able to catch up with him, and Steven realizes the same. SHE GETS IT. He turns around and says "Hey, you used to have vengeful thoughts!"

Spinel replies "Ohhhhh yeah, but I don't have 'em anymore."

"How did you make them stop?"

She then goes on to sing Change to him, effectively cutting that conversation short.

On paper, that sounds very in-character for her. She's goofy! And that is what worked for her! But the problem is that they had to dumb her down in order to make that character decision work. In the movie, she was shown to be observant and able to put two and two together, even if she often jumps to conclusions (see her being the one to figure out that the gems needed to remember their "pieces," as she remembers the Garden, her re-realizing what Pink did, and her meltdown later when she reactivates the injector).

Spinel is smart. It should have been in character for her to realize that Steven was panicking just as she had been, and needed to be talked to gently. But no. Instead, she starts belting out Change, which given Steven's situation, would not work for him.

At the very least, she would have started doing little tricks or started trying to get him to join a game, which would have taken his mind off of it (to her anyways, that wouldn't have worked either), which then could have prompted further discussion.

Then, once they finally start talking, Spinel could have been able to share some legitimate advise. She was hurt and lashed out. What worked for her was opening up to others and letting them in, learning to trust again (which Steven also has problems with- he can't trust that the Gems won't break down the second he turns his back. Trust does NOT equal love, there is no doubt he loves them to no end), and allowing other people in.

That is what Steven needed, too. He needed to let his guard down and just talk to someone. Sure, Spinel was not going to be a fix-all, but she could have at least offered some insight on what to do.

She UNDERSTANDS him. They are a reflection of each other.

But instead of offering help, Spinel made it worse. She was dumbed down to allow the rest of Future to happen, to make Steven feel even worse. Because- and here's the kicker- because the one person who MIGHT understand him doesn't, that means there's no hope for him.

At least, that's how he sees it. And so, the denial- and "Everything's Fine"- begins.

Here's the thing, though; they DIDN'T NEED to make that decision. If the Crew wanted to have Spinel not understand Steven, then draw the line of her being a Gem from Era 1, used to the Diamonds shattering people.

Steven has killed Jasper and revived her at this point, so maybe Spinel offers that at least he's trying to get better, just like the other Diamonds! See, they're doing so great now! And then that makes him feel worse since he IS trying to do better, but is only failing, while the Diamonds- who were MADE to be nasty dictators- are doing better than him.

The Diamonds shattered a lot of people, and they're doing better than Steven, who has only shattered one person, and not even on purpose. How horrible is that?

Then boom. THERE'S your angst, with a much smarter, more helpful Spinel.

Look, I knew going in that Spinel wasn't going to be able to help. The finale had to happen somehow, and we hadn't seen Wormy Boi yet. I have always been a storng believer of the corrupted Steven theory, so I knew it was bound to happen. But I was hoping that Spinel would at least try. But she really didn't. She just brushed him off, offering really loose advise that didn't even fit his situation and thinking that would be enough.

No. It's not.

I can see where the Crew was coming from. I still love that episode, and I love seeing Spins in it (until that exact moment). This is probably the only thing in SU that genuinely gets me mad. Or, well, maybe not mad, but definitely annoyed and- you guessed it- salty.

I have an unfinished fic where I kinda delve into Spinel's head for that episode called "A New Start". If you really want my thoughts on where Spinel's head was at, there's a bit in there that really explains it. In the fic, Steven decides to rejuvenate himself and brings Spinel along with him, and that's all the context you need for this.

I cannot explain that moment in the climax of the episode, though. Maybe she thought it would make him feel better, or that maybe he really did just need to open his eyes and see the error of his ways (which doesn't make sense, he KNOWS what he did). Maybe she thought that being silly would help somehow.

But you'd think she'd learn from her time with Pink as she grew more annoyed with her, but apparently not. Or maybe she would realize for a second that being loud and annoying was bad. Or maybe she doesn't learn.

Either way, it- and she- was dumb. And they did my baby dirty.

*drops mic and walks away*

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garbagevanfleet · 4 years ago

Text

Brightest Blue (series)

PART SEVEN

Pairing: Josh x reader Warnings: men being shitty and creepy!! possible trigger for sexual assult Summary: Things are changing. New state. New school. New roommate. You just pray things are going to click into place. Notes: things are taking an odd turn, right? (sorry this is posted so late)

taglist: @valleyd0ll @satingrass-maidensfair @guitarfingers @thebohemianpenguin @peaceisouranthem @oblvions @hansonobsessed @myownparadise96 @lara-gvf @anditsmywholeheart @kill-fear-the-power-of-lies @bigblack-catattack

MASTERPOST

You woke up to the shrill chiming of an alarm cutting through your head like a circle saw. The unexpected noise made you sit up instantly, putting your gaze directly on a desk, the top of it overflowing with sheet music.

Josh started to stir next to you, his hand reaching out from under the blanket to grab his phone from where it sat in between you.

The sore spot on your ribs made you wince, and your eyes drifted down to find your own phone, pressed into the mattress from you sleeping on it.

When the screen flicked on, you let out a sharp gasp.

“Josh, we have like fifteen minutes to leave!” you yelped, hopping instantly out of bed and finding your knees a little wobbly.

He sat up then, rubbing across his face.

You gazed back at him, frowning at the odd setup; he was laying on top of the comforter but under a different blanket.

“Shit, I had yesterday’s alarm still set for my late class,” he murmured, inching himself toward the end of the bed.

“Oh my god,” you whined, racing to the bathroom. You brushed your teeth way too quickly, knowing in your heart that you did a poor job.

When you returned to Josh’s room for your phone, he was pulling a clean shirt over his head.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, sounding somewhere between asleep and awake.

“It’s okay, I should have set my own alarm,” you admitted, snatching your cell from the bed and scooting past him again. “It’s really okay. Are you going to be ready to leave in like ten?”

He nodded as he ran his fingers through his curls. “Yeah, you?”

“I’m praying.”

On the walk to school, you remembered.

“Fuck, my presentation is today. And I got high and didn’t practice.”

He chuckled under his breath, clasping his hand around your shoulder. “You’re going to be fine- just breathe and stay calm. If you mess up, take a pause and keep going.”

You nodded furiously. “Okay. Okay. Can you text that to me? What if I forget?”

He laughed in earnest then. “Yes, I’ll text you.”

You exhaled a lengthy breath, nodding as you tried to calm your nerves.

In front of the entrance to the B hall, he spun you around to face him, holding the biceps of each of your arms. He mimicked taking a deep breath, prompting you to do the same without another thought.

“Relax,” he instructed coolly. “And I’ll see you at lunch.”

+++

You had your hands clasped tightly in your lap, nervous enough that your palms were sweating. Getting up and speaking to a room of people was high on your list of things that felt like torture, especially since you hadn’t had time to shower or do anything with your mess of hair besides pinning it up into a bun as best you could.

You thanked a divine power that the outfit you had thrown on in a haste ended up looking surprisingly presentable.

As it neared your turn, you got your papers in order and straightened up your posture. When your name was called, you promptly stood, descending the steps and ending up down at the podium.

You had just opened your mouth to start when your phone chimed in your pocket. Your eyes popped open wide, hoping you’d hallucinated the sound instead of forgetting to silence your ringer.

The professor was giving you an unamused look as you gave a weak laugh.

“One sec, sorry,” you muttered, fishing out your phone. You flicked the little button down on the side, but as the screen lit up, you got to read what the message said.

Josh just now Just pretend everyone’s me or pretend they’re naked. Probably not both though.

You couldn’t help but huff a laugh as you tucked it back away. The nerves that had you so on edge started to dampen, just a bit.

+++

That afternoon, you walked home alone. Josh had texted you that he’d be staying until 5 or 6 to make sure the production was going along smoothly, but when he returned to the apartment, it was with a bottle of wine.

You were doing some of the dishes from the previous day and had to wipe your soapy hands on a dishtowel before he crossed the room and pulled you into a side hug.

The two of you had talked about how well the presentation went when you met at lunch, but you hadn’t imagined he’d make such a big deal about it.

“I had Jake pick me up and take me to the liquor store, and I got this so we could celebrate,” he informed, his voice kind of soft - either sheepish or tired, you couldn’t quite tell.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you replied, but couldn’t suppress the huge grin splitting your lips.

He nodded, offering a soft smile. “I know.” He set the bottle down on the table pointedly. “I wanted to.”

You fished the make-shift corkscrew from the utensil drawer, brandishing it like a knife to earn a melodic laugh from Josh.

He popped the door of the fridge open to peer inside. “We might be able to make something special for dinner. Or, at least more special than mac and cheese or sandwiches.”

When the idea popped into your head, you crossed the room and grabbed your purse.

“I still have about,” you paused to count the bills in your wallet. “$34 from shopping. I was saving it for something nice, so why don’t we order something in?”

He grinned at you, leaning back against the wall next to the fridge and letting his head rest against it. “What kind of take-out are you thinking? You should get to pick.”

“Oh, please,” you huffed, playfully rolling your eyes as you started unwrapping the foil around the rim of the wine bottle. “One, I could have never done so well if it weren’t for you. And two, you’re from here, so you’d know what’s worth ordering.”

His pink lips tilted up into a smirk. “I’m not from here though.”

“Close enough.” You took a moment to think before continuing on. The tip of the corkscrew was broken, leaving a blunt edge and he watched you struggle to pierce the cork with it. “Is there any kind of Indian? Or Thai maybe?”

He nodded. “There’s an Indian restaurant downtown. It’s pretty yummy if I remember right.”

“That kinda sounds perfect, right?”

He held his hand out, flicking his eyes down at the corkscrew and then back up at you until you reluctantly handed it over. He picked up the bottle and popped it open with ease, his smirk only growing.

“Yeah, perfect.”

+++

Thursday evening, Trevor showed up around five, just as you were finished making your bedroom look like a cute study nook. You weren’t entirely sure how much studying either of you planned on doing, but since he only brought one notebook and nothing else, you weren’t very hopeful about getting any work done.

“I wasn’t expecting you to have a roommate,” he said in a playful tone.

“I do. When I moved here, I knew I couldn’t afford to live alone, so I rolled the dice. He’s a great friend, as it turns out. Do you want something to drink?” you asked as he stepped through your doorway and set his stuff down on your bed.

“That’d be cool.”

“We have juice and milk and water and iced tea.”

He shrugged with a smile. “Anything but milk, please.”

You nodded. “I’ll bring you some juice.”

Josh, who was seated in the sitting chair in the living room, working on his own homework, looked up at you through his eyelashes with a mischievous-looking smile.

You shot him a scowl. “Don’t be weird,” you whispered, and then in a normal tone, finished with, “Would you like some juice too?”

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head at you. “That’s okay, I can get my own. You just worry about him.”

Trevor happily took his glass as you handed it to him, giving you a “thank you”.

“Of course,” you replied as you sat next to him on the bed and pulled your stack of textbooks onto your lap. “Where should we start?”

“You actually want to study?” he mused, sounding disbelieving.

You bit your lip. “Probably for a little while at least, right?”

He shrugged back at you, but you tried to brush off the odd attitude. Maybe you’d given him the wrong impression as to exactly what this would be, but you could fix it.

“So, we’re supposed to read chapters ten through sixteen and then do all the questions,” you informed, flipping the book open. “You want me to read it out loud?”

You thought maybe offering to do most of the work would brighten his mood, but every time you looked over at him while you were reading, he was scrolling through his phone. He had a bored expression painted across his features, and it took him nearly a full minute to realize you’d stopped reading.

When he finally looked up at you, he gave a smile that you knew he thought was the most charming thing you’d ever seen.

You could hear a knock on the front door and Josh shuffling around in the living room.

“Have you been listening to any of this? You look like you’d rather be anywhere else.” You tried to keep your tone from sounding annoyed, but you knew you couldn’t hide it as well as you wished.

“I’d rather be doing anything else if I’m being honest.” There was not a single shred of an apology in his voice, and when you spoke again, you knew it would be even less put together.

“Why did you want to come over for a study session if you didn’t want to study?” It was less of a question and more of a scathing review of his character, or at least what you’d seen of it so far.

He frowned at you, looking a shade on the accusatory side for your liking. “I feel like you should have known what that actually meant.”

You could hear a conversation going on in the kitchen, and you silently wished you were out there instead. The longer you heard them talk, the more convinced you became that it was Jake, and you wondered if Josh invited him over on purpose, or if he just showed up.

“You said you thought I was good in class and that part of why you asked me out was so I could help you with classwork.”

He rolled his blue eyes. “Yeah, if I hadn’t, I can’t imagine you would have invited me over.”

You had your mouth open to snap a response, but somehow, his words hurt you. Not much, but just enough for your chest to feel tight, and not just from anger.

“Did you think you could manipulate me into having sex with you?” you asked quietly, your brows threaded close together in a frown.

He gave a long, bored-sounding sigh. “Don’t act like I’m a bad guy, here. Everyone does it. Give some fake compliments and then make your move, you know?”

For emphasis, he placed his hand on your thigh, a little too high up. It made your teeth clench, jaw tightened by rage.

“Don’t touch me. You should go,” you stated.

He huffed a sarcastic laugh as he inched his hand a bit further up your leg. He moved toward you until his face was nearing your neck. “Come on, what’s the big deal?”

Before you could stop yourself, you reached a hand out and slapped him across his face, your palm making contact with the hollow of his cheek. You hadn’t been expecting the crack of noise when you made contact; it ripped through the room, and out into the living area if you had to guess.

It took him a beat to realize what happened, but as soon as he did, he stood from your bed. You picked up his notebook and handed it to him, and he ripped it from your grasp, a dirty look on his features.

“You’re a cockteasing bitch,” he snapped, nursing the red spot on his cheek.

He was already halfway through the living room when you moved to stand in the doorway of your room.

“Fuck off,” you called through clenched teeth as he opened the front door and let himself out. When he was gone you realized that Josh and Jake were both looking at you with similar degrees of concern from where they were sat on the couch.

“What happened?” Josh asked, frowning up at you.

Embarrassed, you flicked your eyes over to Jake who had one eyebrow quirked up at you.

“Oh, you know. Just boys lying to me so they can fuck,” you snapped as you retreated to your room and closed the door. You instantly felt bad for being short with them, especially since Josh is just about the last person you could ever imagine being mean to, but you’d apologize later.

Right then, you were going to curl up in bed.

After a couple of hours, Jake left and you wondered how long it would take before Josh came in to bug you, but he didn’t. You listened for his footsteps coming toward your door, but you could hear him in the living room, turning the page of a book every now and again.

Eventually, you couldn’t help yourself - you threw the blankets off and stood. The stiffness in your muscles was a poor consolation prize for the day.

He looked up at you, shutting his book instantly, his homework caught between the pages.

“Hey,” he greeted quietly. He patted the spot next to him on the couch. “I’m sorry your...thing went so poorly.”

You were too annoyed to care anymore, so you laid your head on his shoulder, letting out a long sigh. It surprised you when you felt a tear drip down your cheek and you could feel your face start to warm in response.

He heard you sniffle and his form stiffened immediately. His arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you tight to him.

“Did he hurt you?” It sounded like Josh’s throat was tight, making his words hoarse.

“No, he just,” You weren’t sure how to finish that. He hadn’t really hurt you, per se. “He just tried to touch me. And then he didn’t stop when I told him to.”

“What?” His tone was charmingly offended on your behalf.

“It’s okay,” you assured, wiping your face with the sleeve of your sweater. “I’m more angry than anything. I just kind of can’t believe I fell for that, you know? The whole ‘let’s study’ thing.”

“Stop that - it’s not your fault.” You could feel the hesitation as he laid his hand against your ear, but you leaned into it, grateful for the comfort.

It was quiet for a long moment while you calmed yourself down. His presence was more of a reassurance than anything else you could have imagined at the moment.

“You’re my best friend,” you breathed, turning to nuzzle your nose against the fabric of his sleeve. “And I’m lucky to have you.”

Through a smile, you heard him say, “Me too.”

#brightest blue fic #josh gvf fic #josh kiszka #josh kiszka fic #gvf fic #gvf fanfiction #.0

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the-hunchback-of-notre-dame · 3 years ago

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‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at 25: An Oral History of Disney’s Darkest Animated Classic

Posted on Slashfilm on Monday, June 21st, 2021 by Josh Spiegel

“This Is Going to Change Your Life”

The future directors of The Hunchback of Notre Dame were riding high from the success of Beauty and the Beast. Or, at least, they were happy to be finished.

Gary Trousdale, director: After Beauty and the Beast, I was exhausted. Plus, Kirk and I were not entirely trusted at first, because we were novices. I was looking forward to going back to drawing.

Kirk Wise, director: It was this crazy, wonderful roller-coaster ride. I had all this vacation time and I took a couple months off.

Gary Trousdale: A little later, it was suggested: “If you want to get back into directing, start looking for a project. You can’t sit around doing nothing.”

Kirk Wise: [Songwriters] Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty had a pitch called Song of the Sea, a loose retelling of the Orpheus myth with humpback whales. I thought it was very strong.

Gary Trousdale: We were a few months in, and there was artwork and a rough draft. There were a couple tentative songs, and we were getting a head of steam.

Kirk Wise: The phone rang. It was Jeffrey [Katzenberg, then-chairman of Walt Disney Studios], saying, “Drop everything. I got your next picture: The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Gary Trousdale: “I’ve already got Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. You’re going to do this.” It wasn’t like we were given a choice. It was, “Here’s the project. You’re on.”

Kirk Wise: I was pleased that [Jeffrey] was so excited about it. I think the success of Beauty and the Beast had a lot to do with him pushing it our way. It would’ve been crazy to say no.

Gary Trousdale: What [Kirk and I] didn’t know is that Alan and Stephen were being used as bait for us. And Jeffrey was playing us as bait for Alan and Stephen.

Alan Menken, composer: Jeffrey made reference to it being Michael Eisner’s passion project, which implied he was less enthused about it as a story source for an animated picture.

Stephen Schwartz, lyricist: They had two ideas. One was an adaptation of Hunchback and the other was about whales. We chose Hunchback. I’d seen the [Charles Laughton] movie. Then I read the novel and really liked it.

Peter Schneider, president of Disney Feature Animation (1985-99): I think what attracted Stephen was the darkness. One’s lust for something and one’s power and vengeance, and this poor, helpless fellow, Quasimodo.

Roy Conli, co-producer: I was working at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, doing new play development. I was asked if I’d thought about producing animation. I said, “Yeah, sure.”

Don Hahn, producer: The goose had laid lots of golden eggs. The studio was trying to create two units so they could have multiple films come out. Roy was tasked with something hard, to build a crew out of whole cloth.

Kirk Wise: The idea appealed to me because [of] the setting and main character. I worked with an elder story man, Joe Grant, [who] goes back to Snow White. He said, “Some of the best animation ideas are about a little guy with a big problem.” Hunchback fit that bill.

Gary Trousdale: It’s a story I always liked. When Jeffrey said, “This is going to change your life,” Kirk and I said, “Cool.” When I was a kid, I [had an] Aurora Monster Model of Quasimodo lashed to the wheel. I thought, “He’s not a monster.”

Don Hahn: It’s a great piece of literature and it had a lot of elements I liked. The underdog hero. [He] was not a handsome prince. I loved the potential.

Gary Trousdale: We thought, “What are we going to do to make this dark piece of literature into a Disney cartoon without screwing it up?”

Peter Schneider: The subject matter is very difficult. The conflict was how far to go with it or not go with it. This is basically [about] a pederast who says “Fuck me or you’ll die.” Right?

“We Were Able to Take More Chances”

Wise and Trousdale recruited a group of disparate artists from the States and beyond to bring the story of Quasimodo the bell-ringer to animated life.

Paul Brizzi, sequence director: We were freshly arrived from Paris.

Gaëtan Brizzi, sequence director: [The filmmakers] were looking for a great dramatic prologue, and they couldn’t figure [it] out. Paul and I spent the better part of the night conceiving this prologue. They said, “You have to storyboard it. We love it.”

Roy Conli: We had two amazing artists in Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi who became spiritual leaders in the production. They were so incredible.

Gaëtan Brizzi: [“The Bells of Notre Dame”] was not supposed to be a song first.

Paul Brizzi: The prologue was traditional in the Disney way. Gaëtan and I were thinking of German expressionism to emphasize the drama. I’m not sure we could do that today.

Paul Kandel, voice of Clopin: They were toying with Clopin being the narrator. So they wrote “The Bells of Notre Dame” to open the movie.

Stephen Schwartz: [Alan and I] got called into a presentation, and on all these boards [was] laid out “The Bells of Notre Dame.” We musicalized the story they put up there. We used the pieces of dialogue they invented for Frollo and the other characters. I wrote lyrics that described the narrative. It was very exciting. I had never written a song like that.

Kirk Wise: Early on, we [took] a research trip with the core creative team to Paris. We spent two weeks all over Notre Dame. They gave us unrestricted access, going down into the catacombs. That was a huge inspiration.

Don Hahn: To crawl up in the bell towers and imagine Quasimodo there, to see the bells and the timbers, the scale of it all is unbelievable.

Kirk Wise: One morning, I was listening to this pipe organ in this shadowy cathedral, with light filtering through the stained-glass windows. The sound was so powerful, I could feel it thudding in my chest. I thought, “This is what the movie needs to feel like.”

Brenda Chapman, story: It was fun to sit in a room and draw and think up stuff. I liked the idea of this lonely character up in a bell tower and how we could portray his imagination.

Kathy Zielinski, supervising animator, Frollo: It was the earliest I’ve ever started on a production. I was doing character designs for months. I did a lot of design work for the gargoyles, as a springboard for the other supervisors.

James Baxter, supervising animator, Quasimodo: Kirk and Gary said, “We’d like you to do Quasimodo.” [I thought] that would be such a cool, amazing thing to do. They wanted this innocent vibe to him. Part of the design process was getting that part of his character to read.

Will Finn, head of story/supervising animator, Laverne: Kirk and Gary wanted me on the project. Kirk, Gary, and Don Hahn gave me opportunities no one else would have, and I am forever grateful.

Kathy Zielinski: I spent several months doing 50 or 60 designs [for Frollo]. I looked at villainous actors. Actually, one was Peter Schneider. [laughing] Not to say he’s a villain, but a lot of the mannerisms and poses. “Oh, that looks a little like Peter.”

James Baxter: I was doing design work on the characters with Tony Fucile, the animator on Esmerelda. I think Kirk and Gary felt Beauty and the Beast had been disparate and the characters weren’t as unified as they wanted.

Kathy Zielinski: Frollo stemmed from Hans Conried [the voice of Disney’s Captain Hook]. He had a longish nose and a very stern-looking face. Frollo was modeled a little bit after him.

Will Finn: The team they put together was a powerhouse group – Brenda Chapman, Kevin Harkey, Ed Gombert, and veterans like Burny Mattinson and Vance Gerry. I felt funny being their “supervisor.”

Kathy Zielinski: Half my crew was in France, eight hours ahead. We were able to do phone calls. But because of the time difference, our end of the day was their beginning of the morning. I was working a lot of late hours, because [Frollo] was challenging to draw.

Kirk Wise: Our secret weapon was James Baxter, who animated the ballroom sequence [in Beauty and the Beast] on his own. He had a unique gift of rotating characters in three-dimensional space perfectly.

Gary Trousdale: James Baxter is, to my mind, one of the greatest living animators in the world.

James Baxter: I’ve always enjoyed doing things that were quite elaborate in terms of camera movement and three-dimensional space. I’m a glutton for punishment, because those shots are very hard to do.

Gary Trousdale: In the scene with Quasimodo carrying Esmeralda over his shoulder, climbing up the cathedral, he looks back under his arms, snarling at the crowd below. James called that his King Kong moment.

As production continued, Roy Conli’s position shifted, as Don Hahn joined the project, and Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney in heated fashion in 1994.

Roy Conli: Jeffrey was going to create his own animation studio. Peter Schneider was interested in maintaining a relationship with Don Hahn. We were into animation, ahead of schedule. They asked Don if he would produce and if I would run the studio in Paris.

Don Hahn: Roy hadn’t done an animated film before. I was able to be a more senior presence. I’d worked with Kirk and Gary before, which I enjoy. They’re unsung heroes of these movies.

Kirk Wise: The [production] pace was more leisurely. As leisurely as these things can be. We had more breathing room to develop the storyboards and the script and the songs.

Gary Trousdale: Jeffrey never liked characters to have facial hair. No beards, no mustaches, nothing. There’s original designs of Gaston [with] a little Errol Flynn mustache. Jeffrey hated it. “I don’t want any facial hair.” Once he left, we were like, “We could give [Phoebus] a beard now.”

Kirk Wise: The ballroom sequence [in Beauty] gave us confidence to incorporate more computer graphics into Hunchback. We [had] to create the illusion of a throng of thousands of cheering people. To do it by hand would have been prohibitive, and look cheap.

Stephen Schwartz: Michael Eisner started being more hands-on. Michael was annoyed at me for a while, because when Jeffrey left, I accepted the job of doing the score for Prince of Egypt. I got fired from Mulan because of it. But once he fired me, Michael couldn’t have been a more supportive, positive colleague on Hunchback.

Kirk Wise: [The executives] were distracted. We were able to take more chances than we would have under the circumstances that we made Beauty and the Beast.

Don Hahn: Hunchback was in a league of its own, feeling like we [could] step out and take some creative risks. We could have done princess movies forever, and been reasonably successful. Our long-term survival relied on trying those risks.

One sticking point revolved around Notre Dame’s gargoyles, three of whom interact with Quasimodo, but feel more lighthearted than the rest of the dark story.

Gary Trousdale: In the book and several of the movies, Quasimodo talks to the gargoyles. We thought, “This is Disney, we’re doing a cartoon. The gargoyles can talk back.” One thing led to another and we’ve got “A Guy Like You.”

Kirk Wise: “A Guy Like You” was literally created so we could lighten the mood so the audience wasn’t sitting in this trough of despair for so long.

Stephen Schwartz: Out of context, the number is pretty good. I think I wrote some funny lyrics. But ultimately it was a step too far tonally for the movie and it has been dropped from the stage version.

Gary Trousdale: People have been asking for a long time: are they real? Are they part of Quasimodo’s personality? There were discussions that maybe Quasimodo is schizophrenic. We never definitively answered it, and can argue convincingly both ways.

Jason Alexander, voice of Hugo: I wouldn’t dream of interfering with anyone’s choice on that. It’s ambiguous for a reason and part of that reason is the viewers’ participation in the answer. Whatever you believe about it, I’m going to say you’re right.

Brenda Chapman: I left before they landed on how [to play] the gargoyles. My concern was, what are the rules? Are they real? Are they in his imagination? What can they do? Can they do stuff or is it all Quasi? I looked at it a little askance in the finished film. I wasn’t sure if I liked how it ended up…[Laverne] with the boa on the piano.

Kirk Wise: There was a component of the audience that felt the gargoyles were incompatible with Hunchback. But all of Disney’s movies, including the darkest ones, have comic-relief characters. And Disney was the last person to treat the written word as gospel.

“A Fantastic Opportunity”

After a successful collaboration on Pocahontas, Menken and Schwartz worked on turning Victor Hugo’s tragic story into a musical.

Alan Menken: The world of the story was very appealing, and it had so much social relevance and cultural nuance.

Stephen Schwartz: The story lent itself quite well to musicalization because of the extremity of the characters and the emotions. There was a lot to sing about. There was a great milieu.

Alan Menken: To embed the liturgy of the Catholic Church into a piece of music that’s operatic and also classical and pop-oriented enriches it in a very original way. Stephen was amazing. He would take the theme from the story and specifically set it in Latin to that music.

Stephen Schwartz: The fact that we were doing a piece set in a church allowed us to use all those elements of the Catholic mass, and for Alan to do all that wonderful choral music.

Alan Menken: The first creative impulse was “Out There.” I’m a craftsman. I’m working towards a specific assignment, but that was a rare instance where that piece of music existed.

Stephen Schwartz: I would come in with a title, maybe a couple of lines for Alan to be inspired by. We would talk about the whole unit, its job from a storytelling point of view. He would write some music. I could say, “I liked that. Let’s follow that.” He’d push a button and there would be a sloppy printout, enough that I could play it as I was starting the lyrics.

Roy Conli: Stephen’s lyrics are absolutely phenomenal. With that as a guiding light, we were in really good shape.

Stephen Schwartz: Alan played [the “Out There” theme] for me, and I really liked it. I asked for one change in the original chorus. Other than that, the music was exactly as he gave it to me.

Gary Trousdale: Talking with these guys about music is always intimidating. There was one [lyric] Don and I both questioned in “Out There,” when Frollo is singing, “Why invite their calumny and consternation?” Don and I went, “Calumny?” Kirk said, “Nope, it’s OK, I saw it in an X-Men comic book.” I went, “All right! It’s in a comic book! It’s good.”

Stephen Schwartz: Disney made it possible for me to get into Notre Dame before it opened to the public. I’d climb up the steps to the bell tower. I’d sit there with my yellow pad and pencil. I’d have the tune for “Out There” in my head, and I would look out at Paris, and be Quasimodo. By the time we left Paris, the song was written.

Kirk Wise: Stephen’s lyrics are really smart and literate. I don’t think the comical stuff was necessarily [his] strongest area. But this movie was a perfect fit, because the power of the emotions were so strong. Stephen just has a natural ability to connect with that.

Will Finn: The directors wanted a funny song for the gargoyles and Stephen was not eager to write it. He came to me and Irene Mecchi and asked us to help him think of comedy ideas for “A Guy Like You,” and we pitched a bunch of gags.

Jason Alexander: Singing with an orchestra the likes of which Alan and Stephen and Disney can assemble is nirvana. It’s electrifying and gives you the boost to sing over and over. Fortunately, everyone was open to discovery. I love nuance and intention in interpretation. I was given wonderful freedom to find both.

Stephen Schwartz: “Topsy Turvy,” it’s one of those numbers of musical theater where you can accomplish an enormous amount of storytelling. If you didn’t have that, you’d feel you were drowning in exposition. When you put it in the context of the celebration of the Feast of Fools, you could get a lot of work done.

Paul Kandel: The first time I sang [“Topsy Turvy”] through, I got a little applause from the orchestra. That was a very nice thing to happen and calm me down a little bit.

Brenda Chapman: Poor Kevin Harkey must’ve worked on “Topsy Turvy” for over a year. Just hearing [singing] “Topsy turvy!” I thought, “I would shoot myself.” It’s a fun song, but to listen to that, that many times. I don’t know if he ever got to work on anything else.

Paul Kandel: There were places where I thought the music was squarer than it needed to be. I wanted to round it out because Clopin is unpredictable. Is he good? Is he bad? That’s what I was trying to edge in there.

Kirk Wise: “God Help the Outcasts” made Jeffrey restless. I think he wanted “Memory” from Cats. Alan and Stephen wrote “Someday.” Jeffrey said, “This is good, but it needs to be bigger!” Alan was sitting at his piano bench, and Jeffrey was next to him. Jeffrey said, “When I want it bigger, I’ll nudge you.” Alan started playing and Jeffrey was jabbing him in the ribs. “Bigger, bigger!”

Don Hahn: In terms of what told the story better, one song was poetic, but the other was specific. “Outcasts” was very specific about Quasimodo. “Someday” was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Kirk Wise: When Don watched the movie, he said, “It’s working pretty well. But ‘Someday,’ I don’t know. It feels like she’s yelling at God.” We played “God Help the Outcasts” for him and Don said, “Oh, this is perfect.” That song is the signature of the entire movie.

Don Hahn: “Someday” was lovely. But I had come off of working with Howard Ashman, and I felt, “This doesn’t move the plot forward much, does it?” We ended up with “Someday” as an end-credits song, which was fortunate. ‘Cause they’re both good songs.

Kirk Wise: It was all about what conveys the emotion of the scene and the central theme of the movie best. “God Help the Outcasts” did that.

Everyone agrees on one point.

Stephen Schwartz: Hunchback is Alan’s best score. And that’s saying a lot, because he’s written a whole bunch of really good ones.

Gary Trousdale: With Hunchback, there were a couple of people that said, “This is why I chose music as a career.” Alan and Stephen’s songs are so amazing, so that’s really something.

Paul Kandel: It has a beautiful score.

Jason Alexander: It has the singularly most sophisticated score of most of the animated films of that era.

Roy Conli: The score of Hunchback is one of the greatest we’ve done.

Don Hahn: This is Alan’s most brilliant score. The amount of gravitas Alan put in the score is amazing.

Alan Menken: It’s the most ambitious score I’ve ever written. It has emotional depth. It’s a different assignment. And it was the project where awards stopped happening. It’s almost like, “OK, now you’ve gone too far.”

Stephen Schwartz: It’s astonishing that Alan has won about 173 Academy Awards, and the one score he did not win for is his best score.

The film featured marquee performers singing covers of “God Help the Outcasts” and “Someday”. But one of the most famous performers ever nearly brought those songs to life.

Alan Menken: I met Michael Jackson when we were looking for someone to sing “A Whole New World” for Aladdin. Michael wanted to co-write the song. I could get a sense of who Michael was. He was a very unique, interesting individual…in his own world.

I get a call out of nowhere from Michael’s assistant, when Michael was at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York. He had to [deal with] allegations about inappropriate behavior with underage kids, and the breakup with Lisa Marie Presley. He’s looking to change the subject. And he obviously loves Disney so much. So I mentioned Hunchback. He said he’d love to come to my studio, watch the movie and talk about it. So we got in touch with Disney Animation. They said, “Meet with him! If he likes it…well, see what he says.” [laughing]

There’s three songs. One was “Out There,” one was “God Help the Outcasts,” one was “Someday.” Michael said, “I would like to produce the songs and record some of them.” Wow. Okay. What do we do now? Michael left. We got in touch with Disney. It was like somebody dropped a hot poker into a fragile bowl with explosives. “Uh, we’ll get back to you about that.”

Finally, predictably, the word came back, “Disney doesn’t want to do this with Michael Jackson.” I go, “OK, could someone tell him this?” You can hear a pin drop, no response, and nobody did [tell him]. It fell to my late manager, Scott Shukat, to tell Michael or Michael’s attorney.

In retrospect, it was the right decision. [But] Quasimodo is a character��if you look at his relationships with his family and his father, I would think there’s a lot of identification there.

“They’re Never Going to Do This Kind of Character Again”

The film is known for the way it grapples with the hypocrisy and lust typified by the villainous Judge Frollo, whose terrifying song “Hellfire” remains a high point of Disney animation.

Gary Trousdale: Somebody asked me recently: “How the hell did you get ‘Hellfire’ past Disney?” It’s a good question.

Alan Menken: When Stephen and I wrote “Hellfire,” I was so excited by what we accomplished. It really raised the bar for Disney animation. It raised the bar for Stephen’s and my collaboration.

Stephen Schwartz: I thought the would never let me get away with [“Hellfire”]. And they never asked for a single change.

Alan Menken: Lust and religious conflict. Now more than ever, these are very thorny issues to put in front of the Disney audience. We wanted to go at it as truthfully as possible.

Stephen Schwartz: When Alan and I tackled “Hellfire,” I did what I usually did: write what I thought it should be and assume that [Disney would] tell me what I couldn’t get away with. But they accepted exactly what we wrote.

Don Hahn: Every good song score needs a villain’s moment. Stephen and Alan approached it with “Hellfire.”

Alan Menken: It was very clear, we’d thrown the gauntlet pretty far. It was also clear within our creative team that everybody was excited about going there.

Don Hahn: You use all the tools in your toolkit, and one of the most powerful ones was Alan and Stephen. Stephen can be dark, but he’s also very funny. He’s brilliant.

Gary Trousdale: The [MPAA] said, “When Frollo says ‘This burning desire is turning me to sin,’ we don’t like the word ‘sin.’” We can’t change the lyrics now. It’s all recorded. Kinda tough. “What if we just dip the volume of the word ‘sin’ and increase the sound effects?” They said, “Good.”

Stephen Schwartz: It’s one of the most admirable things [laughs] I have ever seen Disney Animation do. It was very supportive and adventurous, which is a spirit that…let’s just say, I don’t think [the company would] make this movie today.

Don Hahn: It’s funny. Violence is far more accepted than sex in a family movie. You can go see a Star Wars movie and the body count’s pretty huge, but there’s rarely any sexual innuendo.

Kathy Zielinski: I got to watch [Tony Jay] record “Hellfire” with another actor. I was sweating watching him record, because it was unbelievably intense. Afterwards, he asked me, “Did you learn anything from my performance?” I said, “Yeah, I never want to be a singer.” [laughing]

Paul Kandel: Tony Jay knocked that out of the park. He [was] an incredible guy. Very sweet. He was terrified to record “Hellfire.” He was at a couple of my sessions. He went, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen when it’s my turn? I don’t sing. I’m not a singer. I never pretended to be a singer.” I said, “Look, I’m not a singer. I’m an actor who figured out that they could hold a tune.”

Kathy Zielinski: I listened to Tony sing “Hellfire” tons. I knew I had gone too far when, one morning, we were sitting at the breakfast table and my daughter, who was two or three at the time, started singing the song and doing the mannerisms. [laughs]

Don Hahn: We didn’t literally want to show [Frollo’s lust]. It turns into a Fantasia sequence, almost. A lot of the imagery is something you could see coming out of Frollo’s imagination. It’s very impressionistic. It does stretch the boundaries of what had been done before at Disney.

Kirk Wise: We stylized it like “Night on Bald Mountain.” The best of Walt’s films balanced very dark and light elements. Instead of making it explicit, we tried to make it more visual and use symbolic imagery.

Gaëtan Brizzi: We were totally free. We could show symbolically how sick Frollo is between his hate and his carnal desire.

Kathy Zielinski: The storyboards had a tremendous influence. Everybody was incredibly admiring of the work that [Paul and Gaëtan] had done.

Don Hahn: They brought the storyboarded sequence to life in a way that is exactly what the movie looks like. The strength of it is that we didn’t have to show anything as much as we did suggest things to the audience. Give the audience credit for filling in the blanks.

Gary Trousdale: It was absolutely gorgeous. Their draftsmanship and their cinematography. They are the top. They pitched it with a cassette recording of Stephen singing “Hellfire”, and we were all in the story room watching it, going “Oh shit!”

Paul Brizzi: When Frollo is at the fireplace with Esmeralda’s scarf, his face is hypnotized. From the smoke, there’s the silhouette of Esmeralda coming to him. She’s naked in our drawings.

Gary Trousdale: We joked, maybe because they’re French, Esmeralda was in the nude when she was in the fire. Roy Disney put his foot down and said, “That’s not going to happen.” Chris Jenkins, the head of effects, and I went over every drawing to make sure she was appropriately attired. That was the one concession we made to the studio.

Gaëtan Brizzi: It’s the role of storyboard artists to go far, and then you scale it down. Her body was meant to be suggestive. It was more poetic than provocative.

Brenda Chapman: I thought what the Brizzis did with “Hellfire” was just stunning.

Roy Conli: We make films for people from four to 104, and we’re trying to ensure that the thematic material engages adults and engages children. We had a lot of conversations on “Hellfire,” [which] was groundbreaking. You saw the torment, but you didn’t necessarily, if you were a kid, read it as sexual. And if you were an adult, you picked it up pretty well.

Will Finn: “Hellfire” was uncomfortable to watch with a family audience. I’m not a prude, but what are small kids to make of such a scene?

Kathy Zielinski: When I was working on “Hellfire,” I thought, “Wow. They’re never going to do this kind of character again.” And I’m pretty much right.

“Straight for the Heart”

“Hellfire” may be the apex of the maturity of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but the entire film is the most complex and adult Disney animated feature of the modern era.

Gary Trousdale: We went straight for the heart and then pulled back.

Kirk Wise: I was comfortable with moments of broad comedy contrasted with moments that were dark or scary or violent. All of the Disney movies did that, particularly in Walt’s time.

Don Hahn: A lot of it is gut level, where [the story group would] sit around and talk to ourselves and pitch it to executives. But Walt Disney’s original animated films were really dark. We wanted to create something that had the impact of what animation can do.

Will Finn: Eisner insisted we follow the book to the letter, but he said the villain could not be a priest, and we had to have a happy ending. The book is an epic tragedy – everybody dies!

Kathy Zielinski: It’s a little scary that I felt comfortable with [Frollo]. [laughing] I don’t know what that means. Maybe I need to go to therapy. I’ve always had a desire to do villains. I just love evil.

Don Hahn: Kathy Zielinski is brilliant. She works on The Simpsons now, which is hilarious. She’s very intense, very aware of what [Frollo] had to do.

One specific choice in the relationship between Frollo and Esmeralda caused problems.

Stephen Schwartz: I remember there was great controversy over Frollo sniffing Esmeralda’s hair.

Kirk Wise: The scene that caused the most consternation was in the cathedral where Frollo grabs Esmeralda, whispers in her ear and sniffs her hair. The sniffing made people ask, “Is this too far?” We got a lot of support from Peter Schneider, Tom Schumacher, and Michael Eisner.

Kathy Zielinski: Brenda Chapman came up with that idea and the storyboard. I animated it. It’s interesting, because two females were responsible for that. That scene was problematic, so they had to cut it down. It used to be a lot longer.

Brenda Chapman: I know I’m probably pushing it too far, but let’s give it a go, you know?

Kirk Wise: We agreed it was going to be a matter of execution and our collective gut would tell us whether we were crossing the line. We learned that the difference between a G and PG is the loudness of a sniff. Ultimately, that’s what it came down to.

Brenda Chapman: I never knew that! [laughing]

Don Hahn: Is it rated G? That’s surprising.

Gary Trousdale: I’m sure there was backroom bargaining done that Kirk and I didn’t know about.

Don Hahn: It’s negotiation. The same was true of The Lion King. We had intensity notes on the fight at the end. You either say, we’re going to live with that and it’s PG, or we’re not and it’s G.

Brenda Chapman: I heard stories of little kids going, “Ewww, he’s rubbing his boogers in her hair!” [laughing] If that’s what they want to think, that’s fine. But there are plenty of adults that went, “Whoa!”

Don Hahn: You make the movies for yourselves, [but] we all have families, and you try to make something that’s appropriate for that audience. So we made some changes. Frollo isn’t a member of the clergy to take out any politicizing.

Gaëtan Brizzi: We developed the idea of Frollo’s racism against the gypsies. To feel that he desires Esmeralda and he wants to kill her. It was ambiguity that was interesting to develop. In the storyboards, Paul made [Frollo] handsome with a big jaw, a guy with class. They said he was too handsome. We had to break that formula.

Stephen Schwartz: I [and others] said, “It doesn’t make any sense for him to not be the Archdeacon, because what’s he doing with Quasimodo? What possible relationship could they have?” Which is what led to the backstory that became “The Bells of Notre Dame.”

Don Hahn: The things Frollo represents are alive and well in the world. Bigotry and prejudice are human traits and always have been. One of his traits was lust. How do you portray that in a Disney movie? We tried to portray that in a way that might be over kids’ heads and may not give them nightmares necessarily, but it’s not going to pull its punches. So it was a fine line.

Stephen Schwartz: Hugo’s novel is not critical of the church the way a lot of French literature is. It creates this character of Frollo, who’s a deeply hypocritical person and tormented by his hypocrisy.

Peter Schneider: I am going to be controversial. I think it failed. The fundamental basis is problematic, if you’re going to try and do a Disney movie. In [light of] the #MeToo movement, you couldn’t still do the movie and try what we tried to do. As much as we tried to soften it, you couldn’t get away from the fundamental darkness.

Don Hahn: Yeah, that sounds like Peter. He’s always the contrarian.

Peter Schneider: I’m not sure we should have made the movie, in retrospect. I mean, it did well, Kirk and Gary did a beautiful job. The voices are beautiful. The songs are lovely, but I’m not sure we should have made the movie.

Gaëtan Brizzi: The hardest part was to stick to the commercial side of the movie…to make sure we were still addressing kids.

Kirk Wise: We knew it was going to be a challenge to honor the source material while delivering a movie that would fit comfortably on the shelf with the other Disney musicals. We embraced it.

Roy Conli: I don’t think it was too mature. I do find it at times slightly provocative, but not in a judgmental or negative way. I stand by the film 100 percent in sending a message of hope.

Peter Schneider: It never settled its tone. If you look at the gargoyles and bringing in Jason Alexander to try and give comedy to this rather bleak story of a judge keeping a deformed young man in the tower…there’s so many icky factors for a Disney movie.

Jason Alexander: Some children might be frightened by Quasi’s look or not be able to understand the complexity. But what we see is an honest, innocent and capable underdog confront his obstacles and naysayers and emerge triumphant, seen and accepted. I think young people rally to those stories. They can handle the fearsome and celebrate the good.

Brenda Chapman: There was a scene where Frollo was locking Quasimodo in the tower, and Quasi was quite upset. I had to pull back from how cruel Frollo was in that moment, if I’m remembering correctly. I wanted to make him a very human monster, which can be scarier than a real monster.

Roy Conli: We walked such a tight line and we were on the edge and the fact that Disney allowed us to be on the edge was a huge tribute to them.

“Hear the Voice”

The story was set, the songs were ready. All that was left was getting a cast together to bring the characters’ voices to life.

Jason Alexander: Disney, Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, Victor Hugo – you had me at hello.

Paul Kandel: I was in Tommy, on Broadway. I was also a Tony nominee. So I had those prerequisites. Then I got a call from my agent that Jeffrey Katzenberg decided he wanted a star. I was out of a job I already had. I said, “I want to go back in and audition again.” I wanted to let them choose between me and whoever had a name that would help sell the film. So that series of auditions went on and I got the job back.

Kirk Wise: Everybody auditioned, with the exception of Kevin Kline and Demi Moore. We went to them with an offer. But we had a few people come in for Quasimodo, including Meat Loaf.

Will Finn: Katzenberg saw Meat Loaf and Cher playing Quasimodo and Esmeralda – more of a rock opera. He also wanted Leno, Letterman, and Arsenio as the gargoyles at one point.

Kirk Wise: Meat Loaf sat with Alan and rehearsed the song. It was very different than what we ended up with, because Meat Loaf has a very distinct sound. Ultimately, I think his record company and Disney couldn’t play nice together, and the deal fell apart.

Gary Trousdale: We all had the drawings of the characters we were currently casting for in front of us. Instead of watching the actor, we’d be looking down at the piece of paper, trying to hear that voice come out of the drawing. And it was, we learned, a little disconcerting for some of the actors and actresses, who would put on hair and makeup and clothes and they’ve got their body language and expressions. We just want to hear the voice.

Kirk Wise: We cast Cyndi Lauper as one of the gargoyles. We thought she was hilarious and sweet. The little fat obnoxious gargoyle had a different name, and was going to be played by Sam McMurray. We had Cyndi and Sam record, and Roy Disney hated it. The quality of Cyndi’s voice and Sam’s voice were extremely grating to his ear. This is no disrespect to them – Cyndi Lauper is amazing. And Sam McMurray is very funny. But it was not working for the people in the room on that day.

Jason Alexander: The authors cast you for a reason – they think they’ve heard a voice in you that fits their character. I always try to look at the image of the character – his shape, his size, his energy and start to allow sounds, pitches, vocal tics to emerge. Then everyone kicks that around, nudging here, tweaking there and within a few minutes you have the approach to the vocalization. It’s not usually a long process, but it is fun.

Kirk Wise: We decided to reconceive the gargoyles. We always knew we wanted three of them. We wanted a Laurel and Hardy pair. The third gargoyle, the female gargoyle, was up in the air. I think it was Will Finn who said, “Why don’t we make her older?” As the wisdom-keeper. That led us to Mary Wickes, who was absolutely terrific. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Mary, and 98% of the dialogue is her. But she sadly passed away before we were finished.

Will Finn: We brought in a ton of voice-over actresses and none sounded like Mary. One night, I woke up thinking about Jane Withers, who had been a character actress in the golden age of Hollywood. She had a similar twang in her voice, and very luckily, she was alive and well.

Kirk Wise: Our first session with Kevin Kline went OK, but something was missing. It just didn’t feel like there was enough of a twinkle in his voice. Roy Conli said, “Guys, he’s an actor. Give him a prop.” For the next session, the supervising animator for Phoebus brought in a medieval broadsword. Before the session started, we said “Kevin, we’ve got a present for you.” We brought out this sword, and he lit up like a kid at Christmas. He would gesture with it and lean on it. Roy found the key there.

Gary Trousdale: Kevin Kline is naturally funny, so we may have [written] some funnier lines for him. When he’s sparring with Esmeralda in the cathedral and he gets hit by the goat. “I didn’t know you had a kid,” which is the worst line ever. But he pulls it off. He had good comic timing.

Kirk Wise: Tom Hulce had a terrific body of work, including Amadeus. But the performance that stuck with me was in Dominic and Eugene. There was a sensitivity and emotional reality to that performance that made us lean in and think he might make a good Quasimodo.

Gary Trousdale: [His voice] had a nice mix of youthful and adult. He had a maturity, but he had an innocence as well. We’re picturing Quasimodo as a guy who’s basically an innocent. It was a quality of his voice that we could hear.

Don Hahn: He’s one of those actors who could perform and act while he sang. Solo songs, especially for Quasimodo, are monologues set to music. So you’re looking for someone who can portray all the emotion of the scene. It’s about performance and storytelling, and creating a character while you’re singing. That’s why Tom rose to the top.

Stephen Schwartz: I thought Tom did great. I had known Tom a little bit beforehand, as an actor in New York. I’d seen him do Equus and I was sort of surprised. I just knew him as an actor in straight plays. I didn’t know that he sang at all, and then it turned out that he really sang.

Paul Kandel: [Tom] didn’t think of himself as a singer. He’s an actor who can sing. “Out There,” his big number – whether he’s going to admit it to you or not – that was scary for him. But a beautiful job.

Brenda Chapman: Quasimodo was the key to make it family-friendly. Tom Hulce did such a great job making him appealing.

Kirk Wise: Gary came back with the audiotape of Tom’s first session. And his first appearance with the little bird, where he asks if the bird is ready to fly…that whole scene was his rehearsal tape. His instincts were so good. He just nailed it. I think he was surprised that we went with that take. It was the least overworked and the most spontaneous, and felt emotionally real to us.

Kathy Zielinski: Early on, they wanted Anthony Hopkins to do the voice [of Frollo]. [We] did an animation test with a line of his from Silence of the Lambs.

Kirk Wise: We were thinking of Hannibal Lecter in the earliest iterations of Frollo. They made an offer, but Hopkins passed. We came full circle to Tony, because it had been such a good experience working with him on Beauty and the Beast. It was the combination of the quality of his voice, the familiarity of working with him, and knowing how professional and sharp he was.

Though the role of Quasimodo went to Tom Hulce (who did not respond to multiple requests for comment), there was one audition those involved haven’t forgotten.

Kirk Wise: We had a few people come in for Quasimodo, including Mandy Patinkin.

Stephen Schwartz: That was a difficult day. [laughing]

Kirk Wise: Mandy informed Alan and Stephen that he brought his own accompanist, which was unexpected because we had one in the room. He had taken a few liberties with [“Out There”]. He had done a little rearranging. You could see Alan’s and Stephen’s spines stiffen. It was not the feel that Alan and Stephen were going for. Stephen pretty much said so in the room. I think his words were a little sharper and more pointed than mine.

Stephen Schwartz: I’ve never worked with Mandy Patinkin. But I admired Evita and Sunday in the Park with George. He came in to audition for Quasimodo. When I came in, Ben Vereen was sitting in the hallway. Ben is a friend of mine and kind of a giant star. I felt we should be polite in terms of bringing him in relatively close to the time for which he was called.

Mandy took a long time with his audition, and asked to do it over and over again. If you’re Mandy Patinkin, you should have enough time scheduled to feel you were able to show what you wanted to show. However, that amount of time was not scheduled. At a certain point, I became a bit agitated because I knew Ben was sitting there, cooling his heels. I remember asking [to] move along or something. That created a huge contretemps.

Kirk Wise: Gary and I stepped outside to work on a dialogue scene with Mandy. As we were explaining the scene and our take on the character, Mandy threw up his hands and said, “Guys, I’m really sorry. I can’t do this.” He turned on his heel and went into the rehearsal hall and shut the door. We started hearing an intense argument. He basically went in and read Alan and Stephen the riot act. The door opens, smoke issuing from the crater that he left inside. Mandy storms out, and he’s gone. We step back in the room, asking, “What the hell happened?”

Gary Trousdale: I did a drawing of it afterwards. The Patinkin Incident.

Stephen Schwartz: Battleship Patinkin!

“Join the Party”

The darkness in the film made it difficult to market. Even some involved acknowledged the issue. In the run-up to release, Jason Alexander said to Entertainment Weekly, “Disney would have us believe this movie’s like the Ringling Bros., for children of all ages. But I won’t be taking my 4-year old. I wouldn’t expose him to it, not for another year.”

Alan Menken: There was all the outrage about Jason Alexander referring to it as a dark story that’s not for kids. Probably Disney wasn’t happy he said that.

Jason Alexander: Most Disney animated films are entertaining and engaging for any child with an attention span. All of them have elements that are frightening. But people are abused in Hunchback. These are people, not cute animals. Some children could be overwhelmed by some of it at a very young age. My son at the time could not tolerate any sense of dread in movies so it would have been hard for him. However, that is certainly not all children.

Don Hahn: I don’t think Jason was wrong. People have to decide for themselves. It probably wasn’t a movie for four-year olds. You as a parent know your kid better than I do.

If everyone agrees the score is excellent, they also agree on something that was not.

Alan Menken: God knows we couldn’t control how Disney marketing dealt with the movie, which was a parade with Quasimodo on everybody’s shoulders going, “Join the party.” [laughing]

Roy Conli: I always thought “Animation comes of age” would be a great [tagline]. I think the marketing ended up, “Join the party.”

Brenda Chapman: Marketing had it as this big party. And then you get into the story and there’s all this darkness. I think audiences were not expecting that, if they didn’t know the original story.

Kathy Zielinski: It was a hard movie for Disney to merchandise and sell to the public.

Gaëtan Brizzi: People must have been totally surprised by the dramatic sequences. The advertising was not reflecting what the movie was about.

Stephen Schwartz: To this day, they just don’t know how to market “Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame.” I understand what their quandary is. They have developed a brand that says, “If you see the word Disney on something, it means you can take your 6-year old.” You probably shouldn’t even take your 8-year old, unless he or she is very mature, to Hunchback.

Alan Menken: We [Disney] had such a run of successful projects. It was inevitable there was going to be a time where people said, “I’ve seen all those, but what else is out there?” I had that experience sitting at a diner with my family, overhearing a family talk about Hunchback and say, “Oh yeah, we saw Beauty and Aladdin, but this one…let’s see something else.”

Stephen Schwartz: I did have a sense that some in the critical community didn’t know how to reconcile animation and an adult approach. They have the same attitude some critics have about musicals. “It’s fine if it’s tap-dancing and about silly subjects. But if it’s something that has intellectual import, you can’t do that.” Obviously we have Hamilton and Sweeney Todd and Wicked. Over the years, that’s changed to some extent, but not for everybody.

Roy Conli: Every film is not a Lion King. [But] if that story has legs and will touch people, then you’ve succeeded.

Kirk Wise: We were a little disappointed in its initial weekend. It didn’t do as well as we hoped. We were also disappointed in the critical reaction. It was well-reviewed, but more mixed. Roger Ebert loved us. The New York Times hated us! I felt whipsawed. It was the same critic [Janet Maslin] who praised Beauty and the Beast to the high heavens. She utterly shat on Hunchback.

Don Hahn: We had really good previews, but we also knew it was out of the box creatively. We were also worried about the French and we were worried about the handicapped community and those were the two communities that supported the movie the most.

Will Finn: I knew we were in trouble when the first trailers played and audiences laughed at Quasimodo singing “Out There” on the roof.

Kirk Wise: All of us were proud of the movie on an artistic level. In terms of animation and backgrounds and music and the use of the camera and the performances. It’s the entire studio operating at its peak level of performance, as far as I’m concerned.

Gary Trousdale: I didn’t think people were going to have such a negative reaction to the gargoyles. They’re a little silly. And they do undercut the gravity. But speaking with friends who were kids at the time, they have nothing but fond memories. There were adults, high school age and older when they saw it, they were turned off. We thought it was going to do really great. We thought, “We’re topping ourselves.” It’s a sophisticated story and the music is amazing.

Kirk Wise: The 2D animated movies used to be released before Christmas [or] Thanksgiving. The Lion King changed that. Now everything was a summer release. I always questioned the wisdom of releasing Hunchback in the summertime, in competition with other blockbusters.

Paul Kandel: It made $300 million and it cost $80 million to make. So they were not hurting as far as profits were concerned. But I thought it was groundbreaking in so many ways that I was surprised at the mixed reviews.

Kirk Wise: By most measures, it was a hit. I think The Lion King spoiled everybody, because [it] was such a phenomenon, a bolt from the blue, not-to-be-repeated kind of event.

Gary Trousdale: We were getting mixed reviews. Some of them were really good. “This is a stunning masterpiece.” And other people were saying, “This is a travesty.” And the box office was coming in, not as well as hoped.

Don Hahn: I was in Argentina doing South American press. I got a call from Peter Schneider, who said, “It’s performing OK, but it’s probably going to hit 100 million.” Which, for any other moviemaker, would be a goldmine. But we’d been used to huge successes. I was disappointed.

Peter Schneider: I think it was a hit, right? It just wasn’t the same. As they say in the theater, you don’t set out to make a failure.

Don Hahn: If you’re the New York Yankees, and you’ve had a winning season where you could not lose, and then people hit standup singles instead of home runs…that’s OK. But it has this aura of disappointment. That’s the feeling that’s awful to have, because it’s selfish. Animation is an art, and the arts are meant to be without a price tag hanging off of them all the time.

Paul Brizzi: We are still grateful to Kirk and Gary and Don. We worked on [Hunchback] for maybe a year or a year and a half. Every sequence, we did with passion.

Gaëtan Brizzi: Our work on Hunchback was a triumph of our career.

Kathy Zielinski: There are certainly a whole crowd of people who wish we had not [done] the comedy, because that wasn’t faithful. That’s the main complaint I heard – we should’ve gone for this total dramatic piece and not worried about the kiddies.

Gaetan Brizzi: The only concern we had was the lack of homogeneity. The drama was really strong, and the [comedy] was sometimes a little bit goofy. It was a paradox. When you go from “Hellfire” to a big joke, the transition was not working well. Otherwise, we were very proud.

James Baxter: We were happy with what we did, but we understood it was going to be a slightly harder sell. The Hunchback of Notre Dame usually doesn’t engender connotations like, “Oh, that’s going to be a Disney classic.” I was very happy that it did as well as it did.

Jason Alexander: I thought it was even more mature and emotional on screen. It was an exciting maturation of what a Disney animated feature could be. I was impressed and touched.

“An Undersung Hero”

25 years later, The Hunchback of Notre Dame endures. The animated film inspired an even darker stage show that played both domestically and overseas, and in recent years, there have been rumors that Josh Gad would star as Quasimodo in a live-action remake.

Alan Menken: I think it’s a project that with every passing year will more and more become recognized as a really important part of my career.

Stephen Schwartz: This will be immodest, but I think it’s a really fine adaptation. I think it’s the best musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel, and there have been a lot. I think the music is just unbelievably good. I think, as a lyricist, I was working at pretty much the top of my form. I have so many people telling me it’s their favorite Disney film.

Alan Menken: During the pandemic, there was this hundred-piece choir doing “The Bells of Notre Dame.” People are picking up on it. It’s the combination of the storytelling and how well the score is constructed that gets it to longevity. If something is good enough, it gets found.

Paul Kandel: I think people were more sensitive. There was an expectation that a new Disney animated film would not push boundaries at all, which it did. For critics, it pushed a little too hard and I don’t think they would think that now. It’s a work of art.

Gaëtan Brizzi: Hunchback is poetic, because of its dark romanticism. We have tons of animated movies, but I think they all look alike because of the computer technique. This movie is very important in making people understand that hate has no place in our society, between a culture or people or a country. That’s the message of the movie, and of Victor Hugo himself.

Jason Alexander: I think it’s an undersung hero. It’s one of the most beautiful and moving animated films. But it is not the title that lives on everyone’s tongue. I think more people haven’t seen this one than any of the others. I adore it.

Peter Schneider: What Disney did around this period [is] we stopped making musicals. I think that was probably a mistake on some level, but the animators were bored with it.

Don Hahn: You know people reacted to Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. They were successful movies in their day. You don’t know the reaction to anything else. So when [I] go to Comic-Con or do press on other movies, people started talking about Hunchback. “My favorite Alan Menken score is Hunchback.” It’s always surprising and delightful.

Kirk Wise: I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, “This is my absolute favorite movie. I adored this movie as a kid. I wore out my VHS.” That makes all the difference in the world.

Paul Kandel: Sitting on my desk right now are four long letters and requests for autographs. I get 20 of those a week. People are still seeing that film and being moved by it.

Alan Menken: Now there’s a discussion about a live-action film with Hunchback. And that’s [sighs] exciting and problematic. We have to, once again, wade into the troubled waters of “What is Disney’s movie version of Hunchback?” Especially now.

Jason Alexander: Live action could work because the vast majority of characters are human. The story of an actual human who is in some ways less abled and who is defined by how he looks, rather than his heart and character, is timely and important, to say the least.

Kirk Wise: I imagine if there were a live-action adaptation, it would skew more towards the stage version. That’s just my guess.

Stephen Schwartz: I think it would lend itself extremely well to a live-action movie, particularly if they use the stage show as the basis. I think the stage show is fantastic.

Kirk Wise: It’s gratifying to be involved in movies like Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback that have created so much affection. But animation is as legitimate a form of storytelling as live-action is. It might be different, but I don’t think it’s better. I feel like [saying], “Just put on the old one. It’s still good!”

Gary Trousdale: There were enough versions before. Somebody wants to make another version? Okay. Most people can tell the difference between the animated version and a live-action reboot. Mostly I’m not a fan of those. But if that’s what Disney wants to do, great.

Don Hahn: It’s very visual. It’s got huge potential because of its setting and the drama, and the music. It’s pretty powerful, so it makes sense to remake that movie. I think we will someday.

Brenda Chapman: It’s a history lesson. Now that Notre Dame is in such dire straits, after having burned so badly, hopefully [this] will increase interest in all that history.

James Baxter: It meant two children. I met my wife on that movie. [laughs] In a wider sense, the legacy is another step of broadening the scope of what Disney feature animation could be.

Kirk Wise: Hunchback is the movie where the final product turned out closest to the original vision. There was such terrific passion by the crew that carried throughout the process.

Roy Conli: It’s one of the most beautiful films we’ve made. 25 years later, I’d say “Join the party.” [laughs]

#long post behind read more #the hunchback of notre dame #hunchback of notre dame #notre dame de paris #victor hugo #interviews #disney #alan menken #stephen schwartz #quasimodo #esmeralda #frollo #phoebus #movies #movie history

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qianinterprises · 3 years ago

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Among the Horses {Part One}

Pairing: farm boy!Jaehyun x female!Reader

Other Characters: OC's, Haechan (sorta, kinda, not really), Renjun (sorta, kinda, not really)

Genre: fluff, angst, country au, farmboys and lady's au, falling in love, slow burn, friends to lovers

Warnings: verbally abusive aunt, yelling, degrading (not the fun kind)

Word Count: 3.8k

Overall Synopsis: Being sent to live with your aunt isn't exactly something wonderful, especially because she's verbally abusive and downright determined to turn you into a "proper lady" who a wealthy man will want to marry. However, perhaps living there won't be so bad. After all, you've got a handsome farm boy teaching you to ride horses.

Part One Synopsis: Arriving at your aunts is very challenging and trying. After being put through the ringer with your attire, you finally get a chance to explore the green world, and spend more time with the farm boy who'd picked you up from the airport.

Author's Notes: So I started this a while ago and didn't really do anything with it, but I love it and I really wanna write more so yeah... Also, I've posted this on a03 as well.

Tagging: @treasuretaeil @hachanbaecon @hwangful

A white, dirty pick-up truck pulled off the main road and onto a long, winding dirt road, leading them closer to a grand house that you had only been to a few times in your life. The place you’d be living for the next year or two.

The truck bumped along the loose gravel, crashing over potholes, sending you bouncing on the very worn cloth of the cab, your eyes glancing worriedly to the male beside you, one of his hands planted firmly on the hard steering wheel, the other loosely placed on the stick shifter in the center of the bench.

“Are you sure the tires won’t… fall off?” your voice was thick and laiden with worry.

He glanced over at you, warm brown eyes gazing intently into yours, the opticals flecked with curiosity and amusement. Embarrassment crept under your skin.

“You haven’t been out here in awhile? Have you miss?” he asked, tone filled with friendly amusement.

You awkwardly scratched at your nose, a bit of a nervous habit she’d picked up over the years.

“No. My parents never had the money to travel.”

Your voice was small, etched in nervousness and anxiety.

He cast you a gentle smile as he pulled the truck around a sharp curve in the road, and there it was.

The house was huge, at least three stories high and stretched across the land it was perched upon. The foundation red brick that looked freshly cleaned (it probably had been), a contrast to the pearly white of the rest of the structure. The curves and contours of the slightly oddly shaped house made it more enchanting and nerve-wracking, especially as you grew closer, tires hitting the smooth cement before your driver moved the shifter and parked the truck.

“Head on in, miss, I’ll get your bags.”

His accent was a combination of Asian mixed with southern, an odd mix that somehow seemed so delicately smooth and perfect, especially the way he drawled over the “r’s”

“Miss?”

You’d been stuck in your thoughts, eyes wide as you surveyed the prospects of your new home.

“Right, yes, thank you,” you said softly, moving to get out, the door creaking as it was opened.

Your black, falling apart sneakers hit the tan pavement of the driveway, the hooks of your overalls rattling loosely against your torso as they accommodated your movements; the loose denim legs falling just above your knees as you pushed the dingy door closed.

The male you’d ridden with, Jaehyun, he said his name was, pulled the latch of the truck bed and reached up to grab your mismatched luggage, his sturdy frame pressing into the hot metal of the truck.

“Do you need some help?”

Your voice was small, mixed with worry and hesitation.

You’d do just about anything to prolong the inevitable.

“That’s quite alright, miss,” he began. “You should head on inside. The heat is a harsh place for a lady,” he answered.

You looked down, playing with your fingers, but you didn’t reply. Instead, slowly moving toward the brick steps that would lead to the entrance of the beautiful home.

Anina Lee was a strict lady. She liked things just a certain way and she got them how she wanted. She didn’t tolerate bad behavior or disobedience. And she had a strong dislike for people that got in her way. Thus, she had never been married.

She lived alone, if you count having two live-in maids, a chef, and a stable hand that slept in the barn as living alone.

Alina was your aunt. Your mother’s elder sister who had alienated your mother when she’d married a man of lower class. That same man later had a wife who blessed him with three kids to care for, spending his days fixing the cars of those more fortunate than him, hoping to make a buck for his family.

That’s why you were here. A young girl, coming of age to be married off and starting a family of your very own. Your family couldn’t support you any longer, and as you prepared to move away in hopes of finding some sort of job or a life, your aunt had hastlessly offered to take you in. Your mother had all too happily obliged, hoping her only and eldest daughter would learn a thing or two from the elder woman, maybe turn you into the lady your mother and father had tried for years to make you.

The stainless white door slowly opened and an older woman stood in the frame. She was clearly in her 50s, stress lines drawn thickly in her forehead, wrinkles in the corners of her dull gray eyes, deep lines around her nose and mouth, her neck sagging just a little beneath her sharp jaw. She was a small lady. On first glance one may have a hard time understanding what makes her so fierce. She was small in stature, small in size and in frame, but she had the tongue of a snake, the heart of a lioness, and the skill of a chimp.

“(Y/N)! You’re finally here!”

You stood a good few inches taller than the woman, but that made you more nervous if anything. You made her way up the steps and, as you reached the woman in the door, you were promptly pulled into a proper hug that severely lacked warmth.

“I can’t believe you got on a plane and sat amongst all those people in that ghastly attire. You must change at once!”

The woman’s voice was so shrill it could pierce glass, but you held back the flinch.

“Martha!” the same voice called into the house as she pulled you in, shutting the door and encompassing them in the cool air conditioning.

A larger lady appeared, dressed in stained blue jeans and an ugly yellow shirt.

“Please show my niece to her room and help her change into something more… feminine and lady-like,” her aunt’s voice commanded.

“When you’re finished dear, have Martha show you to my study.”

There was no endearing term in the word “dear.” Simply an icy addition to a perfectly manicured sentence.

You watched your aunts receding form, pencil skirt tight on her legs, black heels sharply hitting the hardwood intimidatingly.

“Come with me, dear. Let’s get you changed,” the larger lady spoke softly.

She was older, maybe 60 or so, her skin dark tan, although you couldn’t tell if it was the sun or her natural skin pigmentation. Her voice was grainy, but soft and endearing. Motherly she’d dare say. And you thought that this woman may actually make living here bearable.

You followed the lady up the grand staircase, up two flights of stairs and down a long hallway until you reached the end. The lady pushed open the thick white door and stepped inside, you following her closely.

Inside, the room was surprisingly rustic. A simple, full-sized bed with an obviously homemade comforter thrown across it. A light gray plush rug beside the bed. The hardwood floors were surprisingly and delightfully bare. One large section of the wall was home to a large bay window that stretched from the ceiling to the plush gray cushion of the bench. There were a few flower paintings and other pointless nicknacks scattered on obsolete surfaces around the room, but you paid no mind to them as your attention was drawn to the lady opening the large mahogany grand dresser and plucking out two cloths.

She unfolded both neatly, placing them on the bed and you sighed. The skirt was long and pleated, patterns of red and white stretched in an annoying kaleidoscope arrangement across the nearly pointless garment and the white shirt appeared to be partly transparent.

“Go ahead and get changed dear, I’ll help you when you finish,” she said kindly and turned her back.

You waited for her to leave the room but it was apparent she had no intention to. Awkwardly, you began unhooking the straps of your overalls, letting the fabric clang to the floor. Your skin heated up, feeling all too exposed before sliding into the skirt, the itchy elastic clinging to your hips uncomfortably. You pulled your stained blue t-shirt off, swapping it for the crisp white one that you feared you’d stain in the next few moments.

The lady turned around, her wide hips bumping into the dresser slightly. The dresser was sturdy enough not to jostle, but it was obvious the corner was sharp and painful. You almost felt bad at the way the lady’s face winced, but it was quickly pushed away as calloused hands began gripping the delicate skin of your arms, squeezing along the skin up your arms.

She tsked and turned around, rummaging through the dresser once again, only to turn around with a black, light cardigan.

You gawked. Why on earth would you wear that atrocious thing in this weather? It was the middle of August! Not December!

“I know. But if your aunt were to see your arms, she’d have a fit. She probably still will,” she said.

You sighed. Your aunt hadn’t changed one bit. Your skin was fragile. The tops of your forearms lightly tanned, a pigment passed on from your father. The rest of your arms and body entirely was light. Lady’s should be gorgeously sunkissed to be beautiful and to be taken seriously.

With a huff, you put on the long black sleeves, the intricately designed cotton draping over your shoulders perfectly. But that didn’t mean it was any more comfortable. You could already feel the added heat seeping onto your skin. You’d be sweaty and uncomfortable soon.

“Now let’s do something about your feet.”

You looked down; your worn socks had holes all through them, mud permanently stained to the sweaty fabric.

Bustling from the room, you were left stunned in the wake of the surprisingly fast woman, watching her round the corner and disappear down the hall to fetch something to apparently “fix your feet.”

You thought you’d do something to speed along the process. The more time spent getting you dressed in these ridiculous clothes, the less time you had to explore the outside world. You made your way to the bay window, taking a seat on the plush cushion that accommodated you nicely. You pressed your back against the edge of the wall and turned your gaze to the picturesque green world filled with surprisingly lush looking grass, dips and hills along the valley, and the tops of trees further off in the distance. All this land was yours for the roaming. You couldn’t wait to get out those doors and go exploring.

The sound of water sloshing in a pot brought your attention back from the window, glancing curiously as the large lady placed the pot down in front of the window.

“Put your feet in.”

You didn’t argue. You were hesitant, but thought better than to argue and have your aunt boil you alive in this pot.

As soon as your dingy, dirty, mud pasted feet hit the water, you hissed. The temperature felt that it could boil the skin right off.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s hot, but your aunt is expecting you down soon and I have to do this as quickly as possible,” the lady said.

Grabbing your left foot, she picked the appendage up from the water along with a suds coated dish sponge and began mercilessly scrubbing away at the tender flesh. You whined and howled, tears pricking to your eyes as your skin was scrubbed and abused by the harsh bristles of the brush. You attempted to yank your foot away, but the tight grip on your ankle prevented much movement. You were stuck suffering as the skin became reddened from the irritation.

As soon as the painful experience came to a close, your now pink feet were dried with a towel before being slid into a pair of eccentrically beaded, golden strapped sandals that accentuated the rest of the over-the-top outfit nicely.

“You seem presentable enough now, although I’m sure the mistress of the house would have a few unkind things to say about your wild mane.”

You tried not to take offense. You liked your hair. It was an untamed mop that curved wildly carefree, blowing in the breeze that picked up the thick tufts.

“Thank you for your help ma’am.”

She bowed at the waist, a kind smile on her lips.

“No need for the ma’am dear. Call me Martha, or Mrs. Rivera if you must.”

And with no more haste, Martha Rivera led you back down the grand staircase to the bottom floor, the tight flats biting at your heels and ankles with every step you took, fighting off the winces that followed. You rounded a few sharp corners, venturing into a large sitting room with an extravagant flat screen high on the wall and couches that looked brand new. Through a dining room, table decorated with a sequined bronze cloth and the finest China you’d ever seen, although that wasn’t really a stretch. Finally, they made it to a large oak door, cracked just enough that you could see your aunt’s silhouette sitting behind an elegant red desk, glasses perched on her nose, pen in hand, eyes married to the computer screen. Mrs. Rivera left you by the door, and you almost spun on your heel and walked away. But of course, that would be too easy.

“Come in child. Stop standing in the doorway.”

Your blood froze in your veins. You pushed the door open and stolled in, tripping over the lion skin rug, stumbling a bit before catching your balance. Harsh wisps of breath rushed past your aunt's lips and the chair creaked as the weight lifted from it.

You straightened your back, staring fearfully into the cold gray eyes that trailed over your face and down your clothes.

The woman began moving slowly around you, manicured nails and boney fingers tracing over the outline of your clothes and jaw, running through your wild mane and down your hands, inspecting the bitten off nails. As she walked, she muttered things like “hair won’t do” and “horrible posture” before she stood back in front of you.

“You simply won’t do,” she said sternly.

The words hit hard. You may have been expecting something like this, but it didn’t make the words hurt any less.

“You look like you’ve been sleeping with the horses. Your nails are pitiful. Your skin is far too light.”

She gripped your jaw, tilting your head up harshly to expose your still slightly chubby neck.

“Can you ride a horse?”

The question was sudden and it caught you off guard, but you answered as quickly as your brain would allow.

“N-no. I’ve never ridden before.”

The woman sighed loudly, hot puffs of air pouring out of her flared nostrils.

“That’ll have to change. Starting tomorrow, you will be taking riding lessons from the stable boy. Every lady should have the basic skills of riding,” her tone was cold and brisk as she looked away and perched back at her desk.

“You’re dismissed. Dinner is at 6. Don’t be late. You may roam the grounds.”

With a wave of her hand, she dismissed her niece and immediately went back to work, not bating another eyelash as you fled hastlessly from the room, your eyes welling with tears as stress and fear washed over you, although more relieved that it was over and you could finally do something for yourself. You’d start by ditching these God forsaken shoes.

You made your way around the back door of the house, more by pure necessity than memory, simply logically thinking the best way around in the expansive flooring. When you made it, a smile broke across your face as you unfastened the painful shoes, kicking them off in a sloppy jumble by the door before opening the heavy door, the heat of the afternoon hitting your face, not that you minded.

As you stepped out, bare feeting meeting hot cement, you stripped the cardigan from your shoulders, draping it over a random, sun baked chair. You tore off through the grass, laughing giddily, breeze blowing wisps of your hair, skirt fluttering delicately over your skin. It would be difficult to do anything in the blasted thing, but you wouldn’t give yourself enough time to strip down into something better, opting to enjoy the last of the day while you could. And you’d start in the bright red barn your eyes immediately fell on.

Making your way through the soft grass that squished under the weight of your feet, you strolled into the half open barn, the soft snorts of animals bringing a smile to your lips. Just because you couldn’t ride, doesn’t mean you didn’t love the animals. You loved horses especially. They were such beautiful and majestic creatures. You’d always wanted a horse, but your family had never been able to afford one. You’d always wanted to ride, and now you could, although you didn’t understand why it was so important to your aunt.

The cool concrete felt rough beneath your feet, stray straws of hay littering the floor. It could have been a picture straight out of one of the Country Living magazines you’d kept hidden away at your parents home.

The first horse you came upon was a tall brown animal, head hung over the stall door, ears perked to attention, eyes trained on the new invader inside the barnhouse. He snorted at you and his hoof hit the barn door lightly in an attempt at getting closer. You stepped closer, slowly offering your hand out, letting the animal sniff searchingly.

“He’s looking for some sugar cubes.”

The voice came out of nowhere, interrupting your serenity, a yelp leaving your lips as your whole body jolted in the sudden fright.

You turned your head to the barn door where your driver was standing, taunt arms crossed over a broad chest, veiled from prying eyes by a lightweight flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His long legs were clad in dusty denim, mud and hay from his knees to the tops of the worn work boots.

“I’m sorry. I just like horses-”

“And you thought you’d come visit them?” he finished your sentence.

You immediately began shuffling your feet, eyes turning back to study the fading paint on the stall to keep from facing him.

Heavy footsteps hit the floor as the male moved closer until he was close enough to touch. His large, rough hand gripped your wrist lightly, bringing it up toward him. You let out a little yelp, riddled with confusion and curiosity until three small blocks were placed in your palm.

“Hold your palm out to him and don’t jerk away,” he spoke calmly, slowly urging you.

You nodded, having some sort of unkempt trust in his words as you turned back to the animal and extended your arm, palm flat, cubed sugar offered to the horse, who greedily munched them right out of your hands.

“His name’s Haechan. He’s a bit of a character.”

You nodded, drawing your now horse-slobbered hand away, opting to stroke the animal's fur from his nose to between his eyes.

“That’s an interesting name,” you said.

He hummed behind you and you heard his boots hitting the concrete as he moved away.

“Do you like animals?” he asked.

You spun around, eyes wide and shining.

“Yes! I love them! Sometimes I prefer animals over humans!”

His smile was gentle as he surveyed your physique, a dusty pink tinting his cheeks, although you thought nothing of it.

“Come on, I want to show you something,”he said, walking past you to the opposite exit of the barn.

You followed close behind, curious as to where he was taking her. Your feet fell back onto the grass, the long blades sliding between your toes as you followed in his wake. As they walked, a white picket fence came into view, not far from the barn, but oddly well hidden beneath the crest of a hill rolling through the land. Once you reached the fence, his hands curled around the boards, hoisting himself up, foot balanced on the bottom board as he climbed up, throwing a leg over one side, then the other, and jumping down. You stared at him in awestruck confusion.

“Climb over, I’ll catch you on this side.”

You didn’t know why you blindly trusted him. You didn’t know him from a random stranger in the town, but you complied, placing your foot onto the same board he had, pulling yourself up and swinging a leg over, then another. The skirt snagged in the boards a few times, one of your feet nearly slipping off the boards as you attempted to keep it pushed down. This proved to be more of a challenge as you balanced on your heels, hands clutching the top piece of wood as you contemplated how to get down now. That is, until his arms outstretched, slightly bent at the elbow, fingers parted, palms facing one another, and you knew what he wanted you to do. Taking a deep breath, you pushed off with your left foot, hands releasing your grip on the fence, letting yourself drop, eyes squeezing in slight fear that you’d soon flop hard against the green earth. But when strong hands caught your waist, arms drawing you in, broad chest breaking your fall, you braced herself against him, feet carefully being lowered until they pressed back into the earth.

“See, that wasn’t so bad.”

His teasing tone had you pulling away, glaring playfully at him before turning and pretending to walk away, leaving him in your path.

At least, until you heard a rustling in the long grass inside the fence.

You squeaked as it grew closer taking a step back as your harsh gaze followed the rustling of the grass, positive a snake would wrap itself around your leg as it dug its venomous fangs into your soft flesh.

Needless to say, you were in for quite a shock when the small head of a brown and white calf popped up from the grass.

And you were sinking to your knees.

The calf moved toward your lowered body, sniffing at your arms until you reached out to run a hand down it’s small head and back, cooing quietly, eyes brimming with unfiltered delight as you wrapped your arms around the baby, stroking the fur of its back lovingly.

“This is Renjun. He’s my little cousin's calf.”

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have to. Your cooes of joy were enough to show every emotion you were currently feeling.

Horrible aunt or not. You could certainly find worse places to be trapped. At least here you had rolling hills of green, beautiful animals to fawn over, and Jaehyun, handsome stableboy who you couldn’t wait to get to know.

#ficscafe #klibrary #kdinernet #supermwritersnet #jaehyun x reader #nct x reader #farm au #farm living #horses #cows #jaehyun x y/n #jaehyun x you #original character #friends to lovers #slow burn #series #nct series #jaehyun series

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unhinderedramblinglass · 4 years ago

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So I am literally just speculating but something does not sit right with me about this last season. It doesn’t sit right with a lot of people but here’s my thing:

-knowing this is going to be the last season (I don’t know when they announced it but it was pretty early) and you went in, you started plot lines in s14 that would continue into s15 that just... didn’t go anywhere.

-you brought characters in and back for storylines that only fit to further the boys’ plotline, which would have been fine if you didn’t insist on killing them right after when the fandom has been asking you for years ‘please stop killing my faves’

-one of your actors, who’s been trying to convince you for years, goes full down knock down drag out for one whole ‘I love you’ scene to canonically make him gay (which you’ve been denying for years and made him sleep with women) and you decide to pepper little things throughout the entire season that shows Cas and Dean feel more for each other than just friendship. And instead of making Dean reciprocate, you kill him because of literary symmetry that stopped being relevant to the story in s4 or s5

-you then started a bunch of plot lines (and here is where it REALLY gets me) that were good this season. That were leading you up to the finale. And then you got to the middle of it. AND IT ALMOST SEEMS LIKE YOU JUST DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR CHARACTERS OF 15 YEARS SO YOU JUST DECIDED TO THROW OUT AT LEAST 9-10 YEARS WORTH OF CHARACTER GROWTH IN ORDER FOR IT TO REALLY ALL TIE TOGETHER ( I mean, come on. They did a whole ass episode bout why being normal sucks and then all they wanted at the end WAS TO BE NORMAL I CANT EVEN THIS SHOW WAS EVERYWHERE THIS SEASON)

-and then you just LITTER the season with meta and foreshadowing (Dean and Cas in purgatory, Dean and Cas ‘what’s real about any of it?’ ‘We are’, Sam and Eileen not knowing if it’s real and breaking up because of it ((which didn’t even matter come sam wanting to get his dick wet but I digress 🙃)) and then you have Garth who got to live, his episode is ‘the heroes journey’ and he ends up safe, happy, still settled with his wife LIKE A MIRROR FOR OUR BOYS) and then you just DECIDE THAT NONE OF THAT MATTERS

-and then you did exactly what we asked you not to do for years. No matter how many times we all said ‘we want to see the boys happy, together, all three of them. We want them together as a family, even Jack too and Claire and the wayward sisters, we literally wanted everyone safe, happy, alive.’ So it doesn’t matter which ending they were going to give us, it was always going to end in a way we never wanted or asked for. They literally heard... okay. We kill the boys. And then everyone, even if they aren’t dead yet... will be in Dean’s heaven. That sounds right. EXCEPT THE PEOPLE THAT WE WOULD HAVE WANTED THERE, THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT REDEEMABLE FOR US (Samantha Ferris, Chad Lindberg, Osric, etc) WERE NEVER GOING TO BE THERE. it was going to be filled with his abusive father, a mother that we fleshed out and mourned for a second (or third I can’t remember) time, a vessel of the guy that very much tried everything to get away from you and your brother and this life and was super not okay with it and only did it to save his daughter but sure, he cares about you, and the actual fucking band Kansas. Who isn’t even dead!

So you did that. You did all that. And so here’s where i absolutely eat fire. Besides wanting to know why on earth this was done to our show after years of asking them not to, I want to know why it nearly felt like they were setting us up for another season. They knew that s15 would be the last way before they started writing. They had the time to write this well thought out ending and they could have taken it so many ways. They could have closed a loop, they could have tried again with the spinoff as I’m sure it would be phenomenal now. But everything they did, every plot hole and plot line they opened and never closed again... feels like it should have been a set up for s16. Now maybe I have too much anger and this was done accidentally, but I don’t think so.

Now I want to add a disclaimer that there a no proof here, I’m speculating, of course. And there were never rumors about a s16. But with the way the season went, I can’t help but wonder if someone had already planned for one. And when j2m said no, we’re gonna hang it up, it fucked a lot of peoples plans of this show being their cash cow. Now, it’s completely possible that the writers are just bad as this show has given us some doozies before. maybe they recycled plot had they been planning for a s16 but Cas’ declaration scene was the first thing to be written so... I doubt that.

But here’s my thing alright, and if you’re already here with me, guys, stay with me: why would you leave all these open ends knowing there will be no other season, throw away all this character growth you’ve been writing and telling the fans about for 15 years, and do exactly what the fans asked you not to and leave them separated and stuck on blood when for years you’ve been telling us ‘family don’t end in blood’?

It was a fuck you. It was a big fuck you to everyone involved. And I don’t mean just to the fans, which is exactly what it was to all the people that asked for them to end up alive and happy (so most of us). Again, I say, I’m speculating but it sounds to me like producers, show runners, went out of their way to make this season not make any sense. To make it bad (the fight with Dean and Cas having been written more sad than angry, the way we had an entire holiday episode for the first time in a while but without Cas, the way they literally told us the ending in beckys scene and then had the nerve to make fun of the GOT ending, I won’t even mention saileen again, the way they knew it would only reach about 30% as a good ending). It sounds to me like someone was being a petty bitch. And especially towards Jensen and Misha. Going back to look at this season, those two boys were put through the ringer and were put at the forefront of our screens and made to go outside of their character especially in the last few episodes, and yet it was all a plot device for Sam to live on.

Jensen who went tooth and nail for his characters ending and hated it (even the original one because I’m pretty sure it was pitched to him precovid) got a car ride for the send off to his character. Misha who fought for Cas to be queer for years got to die and have 12 years of love be for nothing (as dean dies a week later). These are the two that have been trying to tell the show who their character really is for years. If you go back and watch panels, Jensen has been trying to tell them for years where he thought his character should go and he said multiple times that it got swept under. He said he left the meeting feeling drained and they told him he was too close to the story. Bitch, he’s Dean!

I can only speculate that Jared didn’t have as much back and forth with the writers and show runners, but I don’t actually know. I’ve seen a panel in which he said he’s done that stuff but they’ve literally either not listened or done the opposite so I have a feeling he stopped trying so hard after a while. But I can take a guess, after hearing what Jared said at his panel about the ending being good and right, that they brainwashed him just a little to believe that this is the ending they’d always been fighting for. They say forget AKF, forget pretty much all the growth you’ve had for the past few seasons and he had to go along with it. I can also speculate that with the new show coming out they were like ‘shhh this will be good for your ratings’.

TL; DR: I think the show runners/ producers purposefully set us up with a bad season because the producers/show runners are petty bitches and they broke our boys to do it.

#destiel #supernatural #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #spn #spn finale

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prpfz · 4 months ago

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🫄🌸 hey! i’m here for some oc/cc pregnancy/family plots for stranger things. i am 25+ and am looking for fellow 25+ writers.

🫄🌸 i am more than happy to double up, am able to play any character for you (though i prefer the older teens). if you are wanting to write 1x1, that’s fine — just know i’m wanting to play an original character. please bring me all the angst, the drama, the hurt. i love putting our muses through the ringer — just please don’t end it in two or three replies. i need them to go through it so they can grow.

🫄🌸 i am advanced lit to novella, preferring to write at least three paragraphs per reply, though i can go over (and tend to, but the reply does not have to be that long). as long as i’ve got enough to work with, i’m content! the rp will be over discord, and while i prefer tupperbox, it’s not at all preferred. give this a like and i’ll reach out asap. 💗

give a like and anon will get back to you

#stranger things roleplay #stranger things rp #fandom rp #fandom roleplay #oc roleplay #oc rp

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theonetheycallhannah · 4 years ago

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The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter 14: No Call No Show

Characters: Shane Benton (OFC), various other original supporting/secondary characters

Summary: We find out where Shane went Monday after work and exactly why she hasn’t been responding to any attempts at communication…and unfortunately, she’s not just taking some “me time.”

Want to reminisce about when this was just a happy little fluffy romance? Return to chapters past, or look at my other smutty drabbles here!

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: SHANE FIGHTS BACK, BUT DEFINITELY GETS HER ASS KICKED, SO FAIR WARNING, IT’S VIOLENT. Language, mature themes, emotional abuse, mention of narcotics (morphine), vomiting, foreshadowing and mention of potential future violent/non-con/dub-con activities, but if those acts occur, they will not be portrayed on the page, but rather between chapter or section breaks, so don’t worry. Also, I use the “R” word, but not to discuss non-con, but rather to add an educational note about why one should yell “fire” when one is being assaulted. Basically no Sy material whatsoever, but he’s mentioned, so I’m tagging it as such! Shane being somewhat blasé about her mortality. I really don’t want to trigger anyone, so please read with caution or wait until you emotionally are ready to deal with our girl going through the shit.

Author’s Note: Really REALLY nervous about this one. This is not the resolution you are looking for, my friends. In fact, it’s not a resolution, at all. Lol. I foresee many people disliking this chapter for some reason or another. That’s actually okay. It’s not a chapter you’re meant to “like” per se. I don’t “like” it. I’m prepared for it to get very few notes, and I’m positioning it anyway. I think it’s some of my better writing, but I hated putting Shane through the ringer like this. It’s just one of those chapters you “get through.” And honestly, if you truly didn’t like it please give me feedback so I can improve and tweak. {For reasons other than “My beebeeeeee!” or “never mention anything less than consensual ever again kthxbye” because a) of all, MY beebee too, and b) of all, that’s what warnings are for and why they should be read.} That being said, I hope it at least tides you over until the next chapter. At least you know where she is…not that THAT’S a big relief under the circumstances! Lol!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism.

Tags:

@onlyhenrys

@cavillryarchive

@summersong69

@titty-teetee

@bloodyinspiredfuck

@agniavateira

@oddsnendsfanfics

@omgkatinka

@thisismysecretthirstblog

@misslaland (apparently deactivated, idk what’s up with that)

@speakerforthedead0

@tumblnewby

@suavechops

@radkesgirl83

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@heartfelt-pen

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Hope I’m not forgetting anyone! If you want to be notified when I post a new chapter or work, I’ll be happy to add you to my tag list! Stricken blogs are getting personal messages from me when a new chapter is uploaded because Tumblr’s faulty tagging system will not stand in the way of me delivering what the people want!(?) lol! (Although…their lackadaisical notification system might…sorry for that. I have no control. lol!)

X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@

Previously, in Virginia…

"Shane left work Monday and hasn't been back since. No one has seen her. Apart from you, I presume. "

"I haven't seen her in about a week and a half. I'm training out of state for a job. I've been away from my phone since Monday, and I just got back to it now."

"She isn't…with you? I assumed…"

"Well, you know what they say, Susan. I'm coming back early if I can manage it. See if I can do something to help find her."

Three days earlier, in Missouri…

Shane blinked her eyes open to little avail. She couldn't tell where she was, other than what seemed to be the back seat of a fairly new-model large vehicle, like a Suburban or a Tahoe. She thought it was new because the new car smell was still overpowering the nicotine and tobacco odor of at least one of its occupants. She could also smell the sickly sweet stench of artificial cherry permeating the cabin. The source must be very close to her nose as she lay there helplessly restrained while the vehicle jostled down the road. The smell reminded her of the horrible liquid pain reliever her mother would give her as a child when she had a fever or leg pains. She had taken enough of it then to make her averse to most cherry flavorings as an adult. She wanted to retch.

She could also make out the faint glow of a dashboard lit with LED lights, brighter and softer than those of older models. But she soon had to shut her eyes again. Her head was throbbing and her memories were fuzzy. She remembered very little of Monday…was it still Monday? But she was trying to think, despite the pounding of many drums in her cranium where a brain should be.

She remembered staying at work late to finish notes. She remembered heading home…and she remembered forgetting her phone at her desk and deciding to turn around to get it…when suddenly she was surrounded by vehicles and unable to move without having an accident. Had she known the circumstances then, she would have tried to muscle through. The horrific events came flooding back in traumatic flashes like lightning, or the pulse of passing streetlights in an unfamiliar city.

She remembered…

The glass by her left ear shattered. A hooded, hulking figure reached in through the new opening, fumbling for the handle to open the door. She'd had the presence of mind to fight back there. To punch at the probing extremity. But the extremity hit back, landing a solid smack against her left cheek, stunning her for long enough that the cruel apparition found the unlock button, pressed it, and opened the door. She didn't go quietly. She fought like the hellcat her mother always told her to be. Her foot found the odd solar plexus and groin before enough dark nemeses arrived to overpower her. They dragged her away from her car and out onto the pavement of the church parking lot she'd used to turn around. She did not make it easy for them. She kicked and punched and tried to twist out of their grips like vices. She yelled "fire" as she was taught as a young woman, not knowing the men's intentions, but certain they weren't kind, and knowing that yelling "rape" was not always effective at summoning help. Either way, it didn't matter. She could have shouted anything. No one was near enough, or cared enough, to come to her aid. As soon as her soft hands hit the gritty pavement, though, the violence intensified. She lost count of how many times she got kicked in the back, stomach, ribs. One asshole even kicked her in the tit. She'd find out who that was and he'd find himself in a special brand of pain…if she ever got out of this alive. She heard them calling her awful names that she was sure she hadn't earned, and especially not from these guys. About six of them, she thought. She hardly knew six guys. She certainly didn't know six guys that would want her roughed up like this. She heard one of the men start to say "Come on, guys, we better save some for--" and with that, she blacked out to the tune of the distinct "thunk" of a wooden baseball bat making contact with the back of her head.

She wanted to forget…for it to be a terrible nightmare…to wake up.

But she was awake. This was a waking nightmare. The cold leather on her cheek was made colder by the harsh air conditioning blowing toward her from above and below. She shivered from the chill and from the terror she was trying to suppress. Where were they taking her? For what purpose? And for whom were they leaving parts un-bruised…though it didn't feel like it.

She finally felt them slowing, heard a turn signal clicking, the courtesy of which she applauded despite her position in the active abduction taking place, and felt the gentle displacement of her body toward the driver side, knocking her head into the door. A right turn. Not that it would matter too much, but at least when she escaped, and she made herself think "when" and not "if," she would know which direction to turn to get back to town.

The blow to the head had left her sensitive to light and sound. As she was yanked from the back seat, all she could see was the glow of a dusk to dawn light above them. Normally a soft, guiding light, this one just as well have been the sun itself the way it stung her tender eyes. She squinted against it, thankful as she never would have thought to be, when a shroud was placed over her throbbing head. She could still hear the power coursing through the bulb and fixture, though. Normally a dull hum, in the state she was in, it was as loud as accidentally switching your TV to the snow channel at full volume.

"Bring 'er inside." She heard an unfamiliar male voice say.

Two strong, ruthless hands grabbed her by the armpits, causing her to cry out in pain. Such a tender place to bear weight, and why even big strong Sy hated crutches…Sy. Would she ever see him again?

"Shut up, bitch, or we'll knock you out again." She believed them, and being fairly certain she had at least a mild concussion, she wasn't sure what a second blow of an indeterminate velocity might do to her brain. She dealt with the stabbing pain as the men dragged her across what sounded like gravel, then grass, then something hard and smooth, maybe the slabs of an old, sunken, and somewhat uneven footpath. Soon, she felt the pain of her knees hitting what she assumed were porch steps. One, two, three of them. She was trying to concentrate through the fog now setting in, and maintain consciousness. Paying attention to the sensations, she told herself, was not only helpful for that task, it might help her escape. Remember the scents, too, she reminded herself. She tried to shake off the nauseating cherry and cigarette stench from her olfactory glands and take note of the bouquet around her.

Burnt leaves…gasoline…engine grease…the tang of sappy, just cut firewood…straw…manure…this seemed to be a farm. With a barn nearby…perhaps with horses. She loved horses. If she could find a gentle horse in the night…escape might be easier than she'd anticipated.

Entering the house was a noisy affair. There was a metallic keening from the spring of an aluminum screen door. She imagined it had one of those big swirly cross beams like her grandma's used to have that she always though was supposed to resemble a butterfly. A heavier, wooden door creaked open as the three figures muddled their way in, and the floorboards protested, as well, at the weight of her captors. So, she thought, not only a farm house, but an old farm house.

"Where do you want her?" the man on her left asked into what she only knew as the void, so far.

"Take her to the cellar. I've got things set up down there." a familiar voice chuckled and growled. How did she know the voice? Was he a patient? She couldn't think of anyone she'd treated that would want her abducted and brutalized.

"You got it, E." Ugh, for some reason it bothered her when guys referred to each other by their first initials. Girls, no big deal. But bros…there was something so thoroughly douchey and…familiar about it all…

"Hold on." the man called "E" said, and she heard footfalls approaching her. As he got closer, she smelled…patchouli and incense…and the sea…and it brought back a rush of pain from past trauma followed by literal pain from his punch to her gut. She hadn't been expecting it. Obviously. The wind had been taken out of her. Literally and figuratively. She did know this man…all too well.

"We've got some catching up to do, sweetheart." the pet name dripped like venomous honey from the tongue of the snake before her.

"Elliot." it wasn't a question. She coughed the name out like a pill that had gone down sideways.

Her escorts continued their transportation of her prone body to its destination…she didn't want to think FINAL destination, but the more she learned about her situation, the more she worried that she wouldn't make it out alive.

They had to get creative in carrying her down the narrow staircase to the cellar. They argued for a moment about who would take the top half and who would go backwards.

"How about the one who takes my top half goes forward and the bottom half goes backward?" These idiots. Where did Elliott find clowns like this who needed to be told by their prisoner the best way to sort out their domestic dispute.

She thought she felt them shrug, and silently take her advice as she felt herself being lowered down the stairs, feet first, panic threatening to overtake her restrained limbs.

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, they stood her up to remove her shroud, and cut the zip ties from around her ankles and wrists. She then noticed a small cell that reminded her of the ones in the sheriff's offices in some westerns she'd seen. She started to freak out, anticipating her future in that horrid place.

"Guys, please. No. Please don't do this. I don't know what Elliott's told you about me, but I'm a good person. I don't deserve this. I have a job and friends and a family who will worry sick about me. I am begging you to let me go. Please!"

"You're wasting your breath, lady." one of the men said, gruffly.

"PLEASE!" she appealed, desperate to get through. "Don't you guys have wives or girlfriends? Mothers, sisters, aunts, or female cousins? What if a woman you cared about was in this situ---" and before she could finish the question, one of the men punched her for what felt like the thousandth time tonight. She fell to her knees, vomiting. And the world went black again.

~~~~~~~

There were no windows. There was no clock. There was just a small twin mattress in one corner of the cell, and a bedside commode in the other. As accommodations went, it was hardly a Hilton, but it could have been worse. It was all lit by a 60-watt bulb in one of those hanging fixtures her dad had always called a trouble light situated on a hook on the side of one of the exposed joists outside the cell. He'd had a similar one for the longest time. He and mom will be worried sick before long, if they aren't already, she thought. The light was aptly named for these circumstances she was in. Trouble. A heap of it. And no idea of how to get out of it.

And honestly, no idea why Elliott would want her here. How he could do such a monstrous thing as having her kidnapped. How he came to live in this place when he never worked a day in his life. She was so confused. She hoped at the very least, he'd give her answers before he murdered her, if that was his plan.

She had woken up on her side, almost her stomach, with her right cheek on the scratchy surface of the bare mattress. Whoever put her to bed had been wise to position her like this given the likelihood that she might puke again. She noticed a small bucket, presumably for that purpose, next to the mattress. There was a caseless pillow next to her head, but she hadn't found that comfort during her nap of…she couldn't tell how long. Not that it mattered. The more she slept, the less time she'd have to process this horror movie she was currently living out.

She heard the door open at the top of the stairs and Elliott shout at one of his flunkies, "What do you MEAN you didn't get her phone?" a pause while indistinct words came from said flunky across the room, or maybe the house. "Well, find it. Tear that piece of shit Explorer apart if you have to. I want that phone." She took exception to her sweet little Norah getting called a piece of shit. That was her Millennium Falcon. And yes, she'd gotten flack for naming her Norah the Explorer, but she didn't care.

Elliott stomped down the stairs, grinning the most infuriatingly happy grin she'd ever seen on him. She wanted to maul him. To tear those stupid eyes out of their sockets with her own fingernails. But she controlled her anger and resisted even acknowledging his greeting of "Hey, sweetheart."

She ignored him.

"It's good to see you."

Silence.

"I missed you."

She stared right through him.

"I heard you and that meat head soldier broke up."

She scowled at him.

"There she is. There's my girl."

"I'm not your girl, Elliott, and I haven't been in years. Why am I here?" She broke. She couldn't take it.

"We'll get to that why soon enough. First, let's talk about why you and Cap'n Crunch are no longer breakfasting together? Soggy cereal? Limp toast? Was he letting you leave the table unsatisfied?"

"As if you ever satisfied me when we were together." She spat back, calling Elliott out on his notorious selfishness in all aspects of life and relationships.

"I've changed."

"Bullshit." she rolled her eyes.

"It's true!" he insisted. "I can give you references."

"I honestly don't give a shit. We're not together. Sy and I are. Happily. And you better let me go soon. He was expecting me at his place after work. He's probably out looking for me right now." she lied. It was worth a shot.

"Now it's my turn to call bullshit, because I know that isn't true." He looked at her with that patronizing stare he had.

"You don't know shit, Elliott."

"I know that your boy took off over a week ago for Virginia and hasn't come back, at least not the way he left. I believe he's supposed to be gone at least a few weeks. Maybe a couple of months. He wasn't sure at last report."

She was literally willing him to burst into flames before her. Her gaze revealed her hand.

"Told ya. You think you're the only one with connections at the fort? I've got me a sweet little sergeant who works in ATC over there. She can out-squat anyone else on base…and let me tell you, it shows." he lifted his eyebrow, lasciviously.

"You disgust me."

"Why? You never seemed to mind my…sexy imagination." he winked at her.

"No, I'm happy that you're getting it good on the regular from an ass that won't quit. But come on. You clearly only got with this girl because you thought it would give you the upper hand against me."

"Well, that's very self-absorbed thinking."

"Really, Elliott? Do you see where we are right now?" they looked around at the dank cellar and he shrugged, unable to deny or rebut. "And this woman. Does she know about this little scheme?"

He gave her one of his more evil grins. "Who do you think kicked you in the tit?" Okay…she was new levels of pissed off now.

"Why…the actual FUCK am I here, Elliott!?"

"Well, Shane, you embarrassed me with that little stunt at the bar a few weeks ago. You thought you were hot shit, parading your sasquatch of a boyfriend around in front of me, in my town, humiliating me as all of my friends watched. And then that dickhead sucker punched me in the parking lot. I shoulda pressed charges. But him being a veteran, I knew how that woulda gone in this town. I didn't have a snowball's chance. So I waited. And I planned. And I was patient. And I watched for my moment. And it finally came. I've been watching you leave work every night for the past week, and you're always with someone, or headed somewhere else, or going straight home. Last night…last night I knew was the night when you didn't leave until after 7. You were the last one out, and I knew that it had to be then. The plan, not that you need to know, is to plaster your social media with humiliating photos, piss off everyone that you love, including your precious Sy, and alienate everyone you've ever cared about until you're miserable and alone."

Shane was crying now. She thought she might be sick again. She reached for the bucket. The delusion of this man thinking that anyone in that bar besides maybe the ones that were there with him that night gave a shit about him. Thinking that the town was his. He was a nobody there. He hadn't grown up there, he didn't work there, he didn't participate in community events. He was kidding himself if he thought anyone cared enough about him that he should feel shame over her relationship with Sy, especially five years after their relationship with each other had ended.

"How's that for a 'why,' sweetheart?" he boasted.

"It's making my ask myself a lot of questions. Like why I ever agreed to go out with you all those years ago. Why I didn't see the signs that you were a psychopath sooner. And why I put up with your terrorism for so long thinking you'd ever really change. I can't believe I ever slept with you, you absolute barbarian." and she heaved into the bucket, non-productively. She hadn't eaten since lunch, and that had to be well over twelve hours ago.

"Well, ya did. And ya can't change the past. But I'm about to take your future into my hands. As soon as we find your phone, we're gonna have us a ball, little girl."

"You honestly think I'll cooperate with any of that?"

"You won't have a choice." he held up a little glass vial. "Morphine. A tiny dose of this stuff, and you'll do anything I tell ya."

"Please. Just let me go now, and I won't press charges. I won't go to the cops, at all. I'll call in to work with a headache, or something and you can live your life with Sergeant Squats and we can leave each other alone."

"A good offer, but I need to get something out of this. I need my pride back."

"And you're gonna get that by dragging me through the mud online from my own Facebook account? Is that really the way you wanna do this? When you could just show me what a great life you've built for yourself. This is a great place here, it seems, I mean, I only smelled it, and felt how big it was while I was getting dragged around the place. But, Elliott, if you had just told me about all this, I would have been happy for you!"

"This place is Sasha's."

"Oh." she grasped for something, anything to make him see how insane he was being without saying the words. "Well, I'd still have been happy for you finding an established woman with a great job. Why couldn't you have just written me a letter telling me that? An email! Something."

"This is how it's getting done, Shane. Because this is the only way that truly ruins your life in the process. Because at the end of all of this, the backlash is going to be too much for you, and you're not going to be able to handle this life anymore…"

"No. Elliott, no."

"Yes. You're gonna take one last hit of the morphine and drive that shitty Ford right into the lake."

"You used to care about art. About beauty. You used to be sensitive. You used to have a soul. What happened, Elliott? What happened to your humanity?" Shane asked, crying, in mourning for the man he used to be. The one that she used to care for.

"I fell in love. And she broke my heart. And nothing has been the same."

"Elliott, I didn't mean to…"

"Oh, fuck, not you, don't be stupid. No, Kara. I met her right after you kicked me out, and SHE broke my heart." he turned and started up the stairs, pausing to look over his shoulder and say, "I'll be back when I have your phone. And I'll bring friends." before he ascended, shutting the door firmly behind him.

She had never been so relieved to NOT have her phone in her life. Hopefully, her coworkers had it safe and sound, and locked up at work.

Up Next: Chapter 15-Recon

#netflix sand castle #Sand Castle #captain syverson #Captain Syverson x OFC #captain syverson fanfic #sigh for sy #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x ofc #this is either a bit angsty or it will give you angst it is hard to say

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