#and shane looks up and says deadpan “survive what?”

[thatonegeekygirl]

shane’s the kinda guy who’d survive a horror movie not because he’s more intelligent or faster than everyone else but simply due to the fact he refuses to react the “right way” to anything.

dark form looming around the corner? oopsie daises he forget his water bottle *about turn*.

3 am phone call with no caller id? “fuck that shit” *decline call*.

finds a body on the ground? *hands on hips* “well now who left this here”.

blood dripping from the ceiling? “someone should fix these leaky-ass pipes”.

hears a ghostly wail echoing from off in the darkened distance? *looks directly at camera* “ryan does this sometimes when he’s losing at call of duty”.

[arecomicsevengood]

Quarantine Movie-Watching Journal, Continued

Throughout all this quarantine time I’ve been chronicling my watching movies, I’ve also been reading books, but have had assorted troubles on a level that seems close to basic comprehension, or just getting on their wavelength. Part of this is having a certain tendency towards the difficult or avant-garde in terms of what I think is “good,” but also wanting things to make sense or have a certain level of clarity: It’s maybe a difficult balance to strike but I don’t know, plenty of books pull it off, I have plenty of favorites. Nothing I’ve read recently has really been hitting, the only thing I’ve found compulsively readable is Virginie Despentes’ Vernon Subutex series, which I would hesitate to recommend as I also think they’re kind of bad. I want clarity on a certain level, and mystery on a deeper one; a lot of things essentially get the formula backwards, and feel incredibly obvious and free of ideas while employing obfuscatory language. (This isn’t to say I like “straightforward” prose, the “mystery” I’m referring to is basically created as an act of alchemy when language is functioning on its highest level, and insight, mood, imagery, and motion are all generated simultaneously. This isn’t “plain speech” I’m describing, but it doesn’t short-circuit the brain’s ability to make sense of it.)

In watching a lot of older movies I find that one of the things that help them maintain a level of interest is I possess a certain confusion about their cultural context. Even if something is a perfectly straightforward mainstream entertainment, there is still a sense of confusion or mystery about it, where you can follow it perfectly, but don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from, so it’s unclear where it’s going. In contrast, watching modern movies, especially more mainstream things but also, generally speaking, everything, I feel like not only do I know exactly where it’s coming from it’s also aggressively spelling everything out, as if to avoid moral confusion. This is also combined with a certain aggressiveness to the editing, so even as everything too fast-paced on certain level, it also ends up being too long, because it needs to fit in a certain level of redundancy. Older things tend to have a greater degree of storytelling clarity that’s also premised on a higher level of trust in the viewer’s ability to intuit things. Maybe there’s also a greater level of reliance on a set of semiotic devices that we’ve become more critical of over time, but what’s emerged in their absence feels more self-consciously insistent.

Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

After watching this I looked up on IMDB to see what Gerwig is up to now and she’s slated to direct a Barbie movie? I hate this era, where success doesn’t lead to any actual clout to make important or interesting work, but instead forces artists into these traps of economic contract where they service a trademark. Also this movie is kind of weird because all these actresses are in their twenties but I think are meant to be playing teenagers for most of it? Or even younger? This movie basically feels like it is meant to be for children but is given this gloss over it to maybe seem appealing to young adult modern feminists but it doesn’t really seem like it would be except to the extent they’re indulging a youthful nostalgia.

Shirley (2020) dir. Josephine Decker

I’ve been wanting to watch Decker’s last movie Madeline’s Madeline because a lady I met and thought was cute has a small role in it. I guess all her movies are about artists and performers? I like that this one seems capable of depicting a fiction writer without just presenting their work as autobiographical but I guess that’s because it’s, you know, a real person whose story is being told. Elisabeth Moss is pretty good as Shirley Jackson. Jackson acts real weird and petulant and destructive and I sort of went in feeling like she would be depicted as a manipulative monster, but watching it I felt like it was probably well-researched and accurate to how she was but not in a way that makes me dislike Shirley Jackson — but also I do like destructive difficult personalities and I think that’s basically a fine and acceptable way for artists, or anyone, to behave. I still don’t think this is really a good movie, Shirley Jackson is not really the lead but more like the only interesting character: She’s got an obnoxious and self-satisfied husband, but the movie is more about this couple that moves in — a woman who’s pretty dull is the focal point, and her husband is boring, and manipulative too, albeit in a very commonplace way. Pretty average.

The Predator (2018) dir. Shane Black

A movie about how people with Asperger’s are the next step in human evolution that nonetheless uses the r-word slur to describe them, filled with some of the most generic actors imaginable. I like Shane Black movies as much as the next guy, but am indifferent to the Predator franchise. Maybe because, despite the R rating, they really do feel like they’re made to sell toys, like so many cartoons of the eighties? I hope the sequel the ending transparently sets up never gets made.

The Lighthouse (2019) dir. Robert Eggers

Wasn’t able to finish The Witch and I stopped and started this one a few times. Tries to avoid accusations that “all these modern horror movies are dumb as shit” by not being a horror movie but it also isn’t really anything else — Not funny enough to be a comedy nor evocative enough to be an art movie. Sort of like High Life in the sense that Robert Pattinson isn’t actually good in it but maybe it’s surprising that a mainstream actor would be in a “weird movie,” but he doesn’t really have to do anything in either, at least as far as building a character goes. It’s underwritten enough he might not even know how to read. Willem Dafoe is ok as a guy doing the sea captain voice from The Simpsons.

The Whistlers (2020) dir. Corneliu Poromboiu

Contemporary crime thing that vaguely reminded me of all the other post-Tarantino crime movies made in the past 25 years that I don’t really remember, particularly the ones in other languages. This one’s got characters learning a whistling language to communicate in a way cops will just thing is birds. Also a semi-complicated plot, told non-linearly. The female lead also pretends to be a prostitute and has sex with a criminal dude so the police watching him with hidden cameras don’t figure out what she’s up to, although, if I understand the plot, I’m pretty sure they work it out anyway.

Pain And Glory (2019) dir. Pedro Almodovar

This one stars Antonio Banderas, is pretty plainly autobiographical, being about a filmmaker approaching the end of his life -- Penelope Cruz plays the mother in flashbacks that are then shown to be a filmed recreation as an autobiographical work is begun, which is the sort of twist that could seem corny but isn’t. The film has a weird/interesting structure, the slow revelation of details from the character’s past forming a narrative a film can be made of eventually but before that there’s this totally separate story involving an actor, heroin use, and an ex-lover. That stuff’s good but also it sort of wraps up halfway through. Like, a bundle of narrative threads culminate, and then the film keeps going, to eventually tie up other bits that seem incidental. Maybe this would be fine in a theater but streamed at home I got a bit anxious. Penelope Cruz made me think “I could watch Vanilla Sky” but it turned out I can’t, it’s unwatchable.

High Heels (1991) dir. Pedro Almodovar

I love Almodovar, my stance has been that there’s a degree of diminishing returns the more of his work you see but it’s been years since I’ve seen one of his movies, and at this point I remember very little of any of them. This one’s on Criterion as part of a collection of films with scores by Ryuichi Sakamoto — Sakamoto’s not my favorite member of Yellow Magic Orchestra but he’s certainly an adept talent, and this one operates differently than I’d expect from him, most of the music feels saxophone-led, sort of in a jazz vein. Obviously you can compose for this instrumentation but yeah, not what I’d expect. The movie itself is pretty solid: bright colors, some melodrama, a ridiculous twist, a sense of humor which feels both over the top and somewhat deadpan. A woman’s mother returns to Spain after close to a lifetime away, she ends up sleeping with the daughter’s husband, he turns up dead, the daughter reveals he killed her stepfather as a child. The movie is primarily about the daughter’s yearning for the approval for an emotionally distant mother, at one point she summarizes the Bergman movie Autumn Sonata for her, but Almodovar is gayer and more sexually perverse than Bergman. so it’s less dour than I’m maybe making it sound. At one point the daughter is wearing a sweater with the pattern of the Maryland flag on it? But the credits reveal all her outfits are by Chanel.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) dir. Volker Schlondorff

The score is closer to what I would expect from Sakamoto here, in a martial/industrial vein, though not exclusively. Stars Natasha Richardson, and her performance feels related to what she did in Patty Hearst — a depiction of a woman shutting down parts of herself for the sake of her own survival, displaying inner reserves of strength through the appearance of submission. This seems a lot better than the current Hulu show, although I think it’s largely dismissed? It’s been a while since I read the book so I can’t remember how many liberties it takes. Obviously there remain traces of an exploitation bent in a weird way, through depiction of women in dehumanized sexual contexts but I feel like this movie is good at depicting competition between women in the context of a rigged patriarchal system.

Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence (1983) dir. Nagisa Oshima

Never seen any of Oshima’s films, despite the allure of explicit sex in an artsy context. This has Sakamoto in it opposite David Bowie. There’s a lot of English language being spoken in a thick Japanese accent. David Bowie plays a prisoner of war Sakamoto, as a military officer, falls in love with and tries to keep from harm, his score does the heavy lifting of highlighting these emotions. Was not super-into this movie but it’s always interesting to think about how popular YMO were, and if these are the type of faces you enjoy looking at you can do that. Sakamoto’s got a weird hairline. The movie is fine considered in the context of like, 1980s movies (not my fave decade) that are period military dramas (not my favorite genre) and exist in this Japanese film context that is neither super-insane and exuberant in its style nor is it super-austere and minimal.

A Farewell To Arms (1932) dir. Frank Borzage

Very well-shot piece of romance, starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes, in an adaptation of a Ernest Hemingway novel I don’t remember whether or not I read in high school. Hemingway didn’t like it, maybe because there were a lot of changes, which confuses the issue of whether or not I know the source material further. I don’t like this movie as much as I liked History Is Made At Night but it makes a lot more sense as a narrative, easily reduced to a bare-bones plot: He’s in the army, she’s a nurse, people don’t want them to be together during World War I, he ends up deserting to be with her. Feels lush, romantic, dreamy and swooning, but I feel like the strengths are more in the cinematography than the characters — the leads are fine enough, though not super deep, beyond the depths of their love, but the supporting cast is a bit dull.

War Of The Worlds (2005) dir. Steven Spielberg

Feel like I had heard this one was good? I appreciate Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies, and Spielberg some of the time I guess. This is a blockbuster that feels post-9/11 in a way where I wonder what a post-Corona thing would feel like — feel like it would shy away from away from a lot of spectacle or something but probably I’m wrong about that. So this one focuses on a parent and his children making their way across an increasingly demolished landscape to make it to the other parent, alien monsters are in the way, kinda just seems logistically weird or like the premise of the quest is unsound given the stakes should probably just be survival? But maybe this is post-covid thinking of how such a thing would operate — the disaster picture with a “human element” to focus the narrative on is a decades-old form and one I don’t really get down with nor do I think is generally considered to age well - i.e. I don’t remember growing up with The Towering Inferno being on TV.

My Twentieth Century (1989) dir. Ildiko Enyedi

Weird Hungarian movie where like… angels/stars observe? As two twins are born in the late eighteen-hundreds and go on to have separate lives? One as an anarchist, the other as like a party girl type who seduces rich men. The latter gets more attention than the former. Sort of a fairy tale atmosphere, which makes the explicit sex scenes awkward. There’s also a scene where a guy gives a sexist lecture about how women should be allowed to vote even though they have no sense of logic and are obsessed with sex. He draws a dick on the chalkboard and talks about how women can’t understand beauty since they are obsessed with erections which are disgusting. Not really sure what it adds to the movie as a whole since I’m not sure which one of the two characters played by the same actress is meant to be watching it, but it’s funny. A lot of things are confusing about this movie, but it’s still sort of interesting and therefore worthwhile I guess. Apparently the director has a new movie on Netflix — I don’t have Netflix at the moment but might get it for a month or two in the future to catch up on assorted things like Sion Sono’s The Forest Of Love and the David Lynch content.

His Girl Friday (1940) dir. Howard Hawks

not into this one. Rosalind Russell wears a cool suit at first though. Features the thing where a male romantic lead (Cary Grant) is openly manipulative but it’s sort of viewed as fine and funny because the woman in question is confident and modern, which kinda feels like a fascinating view into the gender dynamics of the time, although I don’t think it works as a comedy as far as me being able to figure out what the jokes are. The journalists getting caught up in crime intrigue plot is cool though, that kind of feels like something that always works.

Lured (1947) dir. Douglas Sirk

Kind of have no idea why I watched all the older Douglas Sirk movies on the Criterion Channel at this point, even the ones I liked I don’t think I liked that much? This one stars Lucille Ball, who I don’t love. Other movies I watched recently that were partly comedies and partly suspense things worked better than this. This one’s about attractive young women disappearing and Lucille Ball getting hired by the police to be an undercover detective. She ends up finding love, but then the man she gets engaged to is framed for murder by the actual killer. Features scenes where the police (led by Charles Coburn, who’s fine in this) talk about how crazy Baudelaire was. Wouldn’t recommend.

Far From Heaven (2002) dir. Todd Haynes

Not sure I have any strong feelings towards Todd Haynes, but it seems likely I might end up watching a bunch of his movies eventually. This came out in high school, and I had no interest in it, but I’m more charitable towards the whole fifties melodrama thing it’s paying homage to now. Julianne Moore stars as a woman whose husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay and repressing himself via alcoholism, who strikes up a friendship with her black gardener, (Dennis Haysbert) which scandalizes her neighbors. The moments Moore and Haysbert spend together are maybe the most interesting - particularly them going to an all-black restaurant - but the aspect of them being watched and judged feels more cliched. Similarly, the stuff about Dennis Quaid’s homosexuality is most interesting as a lived-in thing, and his drinking, hitting his wife, etc., is less so. The veins of sensuality running through the movie are richer than the plot structure that unites them. This might be one of the things that makes Carol a superior movie.

The Violent Men (1955) dir. Rudolph Mate

This stars a bunch of people I don’t like — Glenn Ford, Edward G Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck is fine in other stuff but boring here. Dianne Foster plays her daughter, and that’s the meatiest role basically- she gets to denounce violent men. This is a western about a guy being pressured to sell his land for cheap. Criterion Channel programmed this as part of a series called “western noir” and I don’t know about this stuff. Foster’s character is definitely the most interesting part — her parents are essentially these gangsters running the town, her teen angst feels like it stems from an inherent morality and disgust with them. Stanwyck is cheating on Foster’s father (Robinson) with a guy I think is his brother who also enforces the violence. The mom tries to kill the father, and then is herself killed by a woman in love with the person she’s sleeping with, so the daughter, you would think, would go through a gamut of emotions. But she’s a totally secondary to Glenn Ford’s male lead, who she ends up riding off into the sunset with — he initially was involved in a relationship with a woman who didn’t care about his inherent morality in favor of a materialism, but she just sort of gets dropped from the narrative at a certain point. The movie really tries to play it both ways with regards to the violence, but I feel like that’s pretty common actually: While I feel like today the title might primarily be intended as an indictment, it also feels like at the time it was very much the sales pitch to the audience.

Shane (1953) dir. George Stevens

Classic western, about homesteaders just trying to live who end up needing to get in gunfights with people who want their land. Jean Arthur plays the wife and mother, which is why I sought it out (especially sicne she had established rapport with Stevens) but she’s barely in it. The titular Shane is a good dude who wanders through and ends up helping them out. The kid’s infatuation of Shane is really annoying to me personally. I love how this has two big fist-fights though, the second of which is a They Live style thing, a conflict between friends that becomes incredibly drawn out. The first fight is also just incredibly brutal and well-choreographed, probably the high point of the movie.

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) dir. Martin Campbell

TV movie made for HBO with very Vertigo Comics energy, I started off thinking “this is dumb” but very quickly got on its side. It’s a riff on HP Lovecraft mythology set in a 1940s Los Angeles where everyone uses magic except for one private detective, whose name is Harry Lovecraft. Pretty PG-rated, some practical effects (not the best kind, more like gargoyle demon creature costumes I assume are made of foam), and a pretty easily foreseeable “twist” ending where the apocalypse is averted because the virgin sacrifice just lost her virginity to a cop. Not actually that clever but clever enough to work and be consistently enjoyable. Julianne Moore plays a nightclub singer. My interest in this is brought about because there’s a sequel (where I guess the deal is the detective does use magic, and no one else does) called Witch Hunt starring Dennis Hopper and directed by Paul Schrader.

Jennifer’s Body (2009) dir. Karyn Kusama

The climax of Cast A Deadly Spell shares a plot point with this, which I think is being reevaluated as a “cult classic” to what I assume is the same audience that valued the Scott Pilgrim movie: People ten years younger than me who think it’s charming when things are completely obnoxious. A lot of musical cues, all mixed at too loud relative to the rest of the audio, bad jokes. This tone does help power the whole nihilistic, I-enjoy-seeing-these-superfluous-characters-die aspect of the plot but the sort of emotional core of the horror is less present. This movie is basically fine, by lowered modern movies standards, but it’s perfectly disposable and not really worth valuing in any way. I watched Kusama’s movie Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman a year ago and don’t remember anything about it now.

Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg

Rewatch. I think for a while I would’ve considered this my favorite Cronenberg but nowadays I might favor eXistenZ? Jeremy Irons in dual roles as twin brothers, with different personalities, but who routinely impersonate each other, and whose lives begin to deteriorate as a relationship with a woman leads to them individuate themselves from each other. They’re gynecologists, and the whole thing is suffused with an air of creepiness. There’s this sense of airlessness to the movie, a sense of panic, which is present incredibly early on and just sort of keeps going, getting weirder and more uncomfortable as you become accustomed to it, that feels like a sure sign of mastery. I’m fascinated to think about how watching it in a crowd, or on a date, would feel. Most movies don’t operate like this.

Imagine The Sound (1981) dir. Ron Mann

Mann is the director of Comic Book Confidential, which I saw as a middle schooler. This is a documentary about free jazz, featuring interviews and performance footage. Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor are both shown playing solo piano, which isn’t my favorite context to hear them in. Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp say some cool stuff, there is some nice trio footage of Shepp with a rhythm section.

Born In Flames (1983) dir. Lizzie Borden

Easily the best movie I watched for the first time in the time period I’m covering in this post. I heard about this years ago but only seeing it now, when it feels super-relevant. It is shot in New York in the eighties, features plenty of documentation of the city as it was, but in the context of the movie, there has been a socialist revolution ten years earlier, and this film then documents the struggle of the women, particularly black women, who are slipping through the cracks, and fighting for the ongoing quest to make a utopia, but exist in opposition to the party in power. While focusing on black women, there’s also plenty of white women, also opposed to and more progre.ssive than the people in power, but that are having their own conversations which are very different. There’s also montage sequences of women performing labor that cut between women wrapping up chicken to close-ups of a condom being rolled onto a erect penis. The title song is by the Red Krayola, circa the Kangaroo? era where Lora Logic provided vocals. So yeah, this movie rules! It would be a good double-feature with The Spook Who Sat By The Door, though in a film school context, or a sociology context, you would need to do a great deal of groundwork first. Could also work as a double-feature with The Falls for how what you are seeing is the aftermath of a great sociological reshaping realized on a low-budget. I think I put off this movie I think because I was skeptical of the director’s self-conscious “artist’s name” but it turns out they got it legally named as a young child.

State Of Siege (1972) dir. Costa-Gavras

Also really good! Better than Born In Flames when considered in terms of its level of craft. Would make for a fine double feature with my beloved Patty Hearst. Tightly structured over the course of a week, leftist terrorists kidnap an American and interrogate him about what exactly he’s doing in their Latin American country that’s being run by death squads. He denies wrong-doing, but basically everything he’s done is already known to them. This exists in parallel to police interrogations of leftists. Pretty large scale, tons of characters, some basically incidental. Screenplay’s written by the guy who wrote Battle Of Algiers.

Olivia (1951) dir. Jacqueline Audry

French movie sort of about lesbian love at an all-girl’s boarding school that’s weird because everyone seems like they’re feeling homosexual love, but just for one instructor who eggs everyone on. Everyone acts weird in this one, basically. There’s a lot of doting. The atmosphere is pretty unfathomable to me. Chaste-seeming in some ways, but also like everyone is being psychologically tortured by being subject to the whims of each other, but also just rolling with it in this deferential way. Seems like it could feel “emotionally true” to a lesbian experience but only in highly, highly specific circumstances?

Lucia (1968) dir. Humberto Solas

Good score in this one, which is not that much like I Am Cuba but I feel obligated to compare them anyway - both are from Cuba and use this three-story anthology structure. All the stories in this movie revolve around different women named Lucia, in three different, historically important, time periods. The first is about a woman who falls in love with a man from Spain, during the time of Cuba’s war of independence, he says he doesn’t think about politics, but this is one lie among several. This ends with brutal sequences of war. The second takes place under the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. The third takes place post-revolution, and is about a literacy coach teaching a woman to read and write under the eye of a domineering chauvinistic husband. As with I Am Cuba, it is the very act of considering these three stories together that brings out their propagandistic aspect, and makes them feel less like individual stories. They’re all beautifully shot, although it’s less in less of a show-offy way than I Am Cuba.

Mr. Klein (1976) dir. Joseph Losey

This one’s got a cool premise- About an art dealer, played by Alain Delon, who is buying art from Jews at low prices as they leave occupied France quickly, but who then starts getting confused for another person with the same name as him, who is Jewish. Gets sort of Kakfa-esque but also remains grounded in this world where there are rational explanations for things. (at least as far as the holocaust is rational) So the line gets walked between bits that feel vaguely verging on nightmare but also sort of maintain the plausible deniability of belonging to the waking world, of a paranoia for something the exact scope of which remains unnamed. Ends with Klein as one of many in a trainyard full of people being sent off to concentration camps, which to me felt sort of tasteless, as a large-scale recreation, but that feels deliberate, as a way of offsetting the scope of the film being primarily focused on one person, whose relationship to the larger horror, before it affected him, was parasitic.

Husbands (1970) dir. John Cassavetes

Not into this one. The semi-improvisatory nature of the dialogue never coalesces into characters that seem to have a real core to them, there’s always just this sort of drunken aggression mode. What even is there to these characters, besides the aggression they treat women with? What separates them from one another, makes them distinct entities, beyond the sense they egg each other on?

Casino (1995) dir. Martin Scorsese

Rewatch. Joe Pesci plays the violent Italian guy, Robert De Niro plays the level-headed Jew, Sharon Stone plays the blonde who gets strung out on drugs. Three hours long to contain everyone’s arcs, but also sort of feels like it neatly has act breaks at pretty close to the hour marks, while also telling this pretty big historical sweeping piece about how corporate control comes to Las Vegas, the notion that “the house always wins” but even the individual whose job it is to run the house is himself situated inside a larger house. Both here and in Raging Bull, De Niro plays a character whose third act involves trying to be an entertainer for reasons of ego, and it’s so weird. Yeah, a great movie, one of the few that the reductive view of Scorsese as “someone who just makes mob movies” applies to, I have no opinion on whether it’s better than Goodfella or not.

Blue Collar (1978) dir. Paul Schrader

Not great. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto co-star. Sometimes feels like maybe it’s meant to function partly as a comedy but doesn’t. It’s also mostly a crime movie, about people working at an auto plant who decide to rob their union’s vault. They end up not making any money from that robbery, but the union can claim insurance funds, so they get to benefit while the working men continue to be shafted, worried about the consequences of what they’ve done. Kotto dies, and Pryor and Keitel are turned against each other by circumstance, which the film tries to play off as being about the divisions among people that keep the working class weak. I definitely feel like the Schrader oeuvre begins with Hardcore.

Mona Lisa (1986) dir. Neil Jordan

This ends up kind of feeling like a lesser version of Hardcore, with British accents. Bob Hoskins, out of jail, starts driving for a prostitute, they dislike each other at first,  but become friendly. She asks him to track down a younger girl she was friends with, who a pimp has gotten strung out on drugs. (Hoskins is also a father to a daughter, though his relationship with the mother is strained from having gone to prison.) Hoskins’ character isn’t that interesting and the film revolves around him, the female lead is more interesting but deliberately removed from the larger narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Neil Jordan movie.

The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma

Rewatch. Great Ennio Morricone score in this one, a real reminder of a different era in terms of what constituted a blockbuster or a prestige picture. David Mamet provides the screenplay. De Palma is pretty reined-in, while Mission: Impossible is an insane procession of sequences of top-notch visual storytelling, the most De Palma trademark thing here is a first-person perspective of a home invasion scene, watching Sean Connery, that ends up being a deliberate choice of a limited perspective to surprise as he gets lured to his death. I feel like there’s a straight line between this movie and Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990), but obviously what that line runs through is the reality-rewriting effect of Tim Burton’s Batman.

Pulp Fiction (1994) dir. Quentin Tarantino

Rewatch. Can scarcely comprehend how it would’ve felt to see this in a theater when it came out. I watched it the first time in college on a laptop and headphones and it blew me away, even after years of a bunch of it being referenced on The Simpsons and everywhere else. I haven’t seen it since. Rewatching is this exercise in seeing what you don’t remember when everything’s been processed a million times. Feels like Tarantino’s best screenplay due to its construction, more so than any dialogue, which is obviously a little in love with itself. Samuel Jackson wears a Krazy Kat t-shirt after his suit gets covered in blood. Quentin Tarantino casts himself as the white guy who gets to say the n-word a bunch.

[golbrocklovely]

only the lonely survive // colby brock - chapter one: just another la devotee

A/N: so... I’ve had this story in my head for a long time, and now I’m finally posting it! I have a bunch of chapters already written, but I’m gonna be posting the first two just so ppl can get a read for them and see if they like them. and if i get some good feedback, i’ll post weekly :)

here’s the description of the story

trigger warning: swearing

word count: 1766

DAY: 1/14

"Are you sure you have everything?" My mom asked, standing in between me and the front door. 

I rolled my eyes, "Yes mom. I literally went over this with you last night. I've been packed for, like, three days now."

She sighed, smiling. "I know, I just don't want you to leave yet. I can't believe I'm not gonna see you for two whole weeks. How will I survive?"

"You'll be fine, trust me. Besides, this is like a trial run to see what it will be like when I actually move out to LA." I stated, grabbing my bags and pulling them closer to me.

"That's not funny, Skylar." Her voice was deadpan. Oh no, not this again.

"I wasn't trying to be, Mother." I remarked, my voice the same as hers.

She exhaled, "Let's not argue before you leave. We'll talk about it when you get home though."

"That's fine with me." I smirked. Then, I heard my phone vibrate. I looked down at it, seeing I had a new message from Casey.

 Casey: ayeee bitch im here leTS GOOOOO

 I chuckled and then looked at my mom, nodding my head. I opened my arms to her, and she smiled sadly. We embraced, hugging as hard as we could. As much as I couldn't wait to leave, I'm still going to miss my mom.

"Text me when you land, okay? Make sure to call me every night, or as often as you want. Whatever hour, it doesn't matter." She whispered.

"I will, Mom," I said pulling away from her. "I love you."

"I love you too, Skye." She leaned in and kissed my cheek. I grabbed my bags and opened the door, seeing Casey in her red Jeep. She waved at my mom.

"Have fun! Don't do anything too crazy! Make sure to use protection!" My mom yelled.

I groaned. "Would you like to yell that to the whole neighborhood?"

"I meant sunblock, not condoms. But now that I'm saying it, maybe don't use too much protection. Ya looking a little pale, and I want grand kids anyway." She laughed.

I snorted, "Bye mom!"

"Bye honey!" She grinned, slowly closing the door.

I rolled my bags over to the car, opening the backseat's door. I threw my luggage in, closed the door, and then opened the passenger side. I huffed, winded from how heavy my bags were.

"Did you bring your whole closet?" Casey asked.

"Just about." I sighed, jumping into the car.

"By the way, I fucking love your mom." She giggled.

Starting up the car, the radio turned on. Panic! At The Disco's 'LA Devotee' started playing. It must have been from Casey's playlist, specifically made from our trip to LA.

After a moment of silence, I smiled. "Oh my God, we're actually going to LA. Like, this is happening."

We both looked at each other. Then we screamed excitedly.

"I have been waiting so fucking long for this to happen!" She yelled, turning up the music.

"You're telling me! The fact that we are actually leaving Philly and going all the way across the country to fucking Los Angeles... is fucking mind blowing. Like, I can't believe it. Why did it take us so long?" I sighed.

We both sighed and nodded our heads at each other, "School."

"If only we could have graduated sooner." I stated, shrugging my shoulders.

"If only we had met sooner." She smirked. I smiled back at her.

Casey and I hadn't been friends that long, only three years. We met because we both went to the same college. I was in the theater program working on my acting abilities, while she was taking dance. We ended up meeting because we both got into the same musical - 42nd Street. If you've never heard of that show, that's understandable. It's old as hell, but honestly still a good musical.

Casey is originally from Florida, while I've always lived in Pennsylvania. We connected with each other because we were both the outcasts. I was always overlooked, not for lack of talent but I'm overshadowed easily. She, however, is amazing at dance and always picked first. This caused a lot of jealousy to be thrown her way, but she took it like a champ.

We also have a lot of the same interest - youtubers to be exact. While we both love the bigger influencers, like Shane Dawson and Jenna Marbles, we also love a lot of relatively smaller ones. Like, the Trap House for instance. We talk about the guys a lot, especially Sam and Colby. I mean, I do most of the talking while she just listens.

Because of them, we started youtube channels. We're pretty popular on there, having both around 500+ subs. She does dance videos, while I do random covers, Q and As, and just whatever I can think of.

"So, explain to me again why we didn't have to pay for a place to stay at?" I asked, turning my head towards Casey.

"My uncle owns a bunch of properties out in LA and he turns them into AirBnbs so I asked if I could 'rent' one for two weeks and he was cool with it." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Thank God you have a rich uncle because otherwise I don't think I could have afforded this trip." I groaned, annoyed.

"What? You mean making eight dollars an hour can't afford you the luxury of living in LA?" She snorted.

I fumed, "No bitch. I can barely afford ramen at this point, and that shits three for a dollar."

"Don't get your panties in a twist now. We both got enough for the trip, and my uncle also stocked the house with food, so we'll have some when we get there. Plus, he's lending me his car for the time being too, so transportation won't be the biggest bitch." She responded.

"Why does everyone have a rich uncle but me?" I mumbled. She slapped my leg and laughed. I giggled back at her.

/  /  /  /

"Skye, Skye... Skye wake up!" Casey whispered, loudly into my ear.

I jolted awake, glaring at her immediately. She snickered back at me.

A muffled voice came over the loudspeaker, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be landing in Los Angeles in 15 minutes. The temperature right now is a cool 75 degrees. It is currently 2:38 pm. On behalf of me and the crew, thank you for flying American Airways and enjoy the rest of your day."

"Oh shit we're already here?" I asked, shifting myself in my seat.

"Yeah, the moment we got off the ground, you went out like a light." She replied.

"Well, I'm sorry but waking up at the ass crack of dawn isn't something I usually do so I'm little tired." I retorted.

"Yeah whatever. Oh, so you know, we don't have to get a cab anymore to get to the house. I have some friends out here and one of them is gonna pick us up from the airport. He's leaving right now." She stated.

I nodded my head, "Oh that's good. I remember you telling me about your friends, but like, you never went into detailed of who they are."

"The one that's picking us up is an old friend from Florida. We used to live next door to each other until he moved out to LA and I left to go to school in Philly." Casey explained, grabbing her carry-on bag and putting her phone inside of it.

"What does he do?" I questioned.

"Uh... he does youtube and he's a dancer, like myself. He's the one that got me into dance to be honest." She explained, shrugging her shoulders.

"Oh wow, I must meet him then. Without you being a dancer, I never would have met you." I smirked.

She laughed. "How much would your life suck if I wasn't in it?"

"Honestly I would be better off." I joked.

The plane soon landed. After getting our stuff and rushing out, we went and got our luggage.

Casey had told me she had been to LA multiple times, mostly to come visit this friend of hers that lives here. She told me that he has a bunch of roommates that we will probably meet at some point during our stay.

After waiting outside for ten minutes, Casey started to get impatient.

"Ugh, where is he?" Casey groaned, tapping her foot on the ground and looking out into the street.

"Didn't you say he was leaving for us while we were still in the air? Shouldn't he be here by now?" I replied, leaning against my luggage.

"Traffic in LA is a bitch..." She mumbled back.

We both looked down the street, car after car after car passing us. None of them were him apparently.

"Oh shit there he is!" She yelled, pointing at a black car come toward us.

I squinted, trying to see who was driving. I shrugged and grabbed my bags, turning my back to the car pulling up next to us. I grabbed my phone and sent my mom a quick text saying I had landed. She would have been pissed if I didn't say something to her soon.

"It's so good to see you! What's it been, like a year, since I last saw you?" Casey shouted.

I turned around to see Casey hugging the person, their back to me. He was kind of shortish, even though he was still taller than me. He had his hair in a short ponytail. He was wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers.

"Let me introduce you to Skye." Casey said, pointing at me. Her friend then turned around.

My eyes widened. I shook my head, trying to look away and play off the fact that I knew who her friend was.

"Skye, this is Corey. Corey, Skye." She smirked.

"It's nice to meet you Skye." Corey replied, sticking his hand out.

"Uh, it's nice to meet you too. T-thank you so much for picking us up." I stuttered, shaking his hand.

"No problem. Sorry I'm late though, traffic has been backed up for like the last five miles. Here, let me take your bags." He slowly took my bags from me and popped his trunk, putting them in.

I turned to Casey. "We are having a serious talk when we get to the house."

"What's there to talk about?" She joked. She turned towards the car and got into the passenger side. I rolled my eyes, getting into the backseat.

| CHAPTER 2 >>

[sabraeal]

Merry & Bright: Chapter 7

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

He should be over this.

(Doc makes him pull off the highway somewhere near Florence, South Carolina; she’s got an actual travel itinerary that Yuzuri helped her program into some app that includes mandatory stretch breaks because she’s concerned about good circulatory health, and – god, that really shouldn’t be doing anything for him, but it does, it does, and he’s a real idiot thinking that this is a good idea –

“It’s an overlook,” she tells him proudly as they park, smile stretching far too wide for the amount of time they’ve been in a cramped car with a week’s worth of stuff and a Christmas’s worth of gifts. “A stretch and a view!”

He swallows down a protest that it hasn’t even been two hours since they grabbed lunch – some little place that served fish in Switzerland, the only one where the whole menu wasn’t deep fried – and heaves himself out of the car, only to find that it’s – it’s not as easy as it should be.

“Yowch,” he mutters, rubbing at his back. He’s been a total knot of stress since they started north, he’s aware, but –

But god, his back is reminding him of every hit he ever took, and when he throws his arms up, bending back, he has a real moment of worry that it’s going to take an uncomfortable drive and an emergency room bill to get him upright. He’s only twenty-five, he shouldn’t be worrying about this shit.

“Obi?” she chirps, skipping over to him with a concerned look on her face. “Are you okay?”

A choir of angels sing Hosanna when his back relents, letting him snap upright. “Yeah, just fine. Had to, uh, get a kink out. You know how it is.”

Doc gives him a skeptical look, and – listen, he knows she won’t do anything but tut at him and fish out some all-organic Icy/Hot or whatever she’s got hiding in their pharmacy bag, but she’ll also tell Yuzuri, and he knows, he knows that will mean he’ll get a half dozen :3 :3 :3 texts followed by something like, gotta keep that back healthy if ur gonna rob that cradle already, and he doesn’t need that. Not this trip.

“Okay,” she says finally, mouth in a thoughtful pout. “But let me know if you need anything.”

He just manages to close his lips around, for us to turn south already. “Sure thing, Doc. I’ll be the first in line for your tender ministrations the second I have an excuse.”)

It would’ve been a hit to his pride to have turned around before he ever got here, before he even attempted to walk through the door, but Obi would have taken it if it meant dread wouldn’t be his constant companion.

That’s what he’d thought being in this house would be; just constant dread, like realizing he’s in the wrong bathroom, or watching his favorite movie as a kid again as an adult, wondering if it would still hold up. Just a week of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and wondering if it would right in front of Doc.

He’d survived it though, cookie in his mouth and arm slung around Doc’s shoulders, with nothing worse than a flash of hesitation before walking straight back into his childhood.

But now, with Todd and Kelly Ann trailing behind him and the stern set of Gayle’s mouth looming in front of him --

It’s different. Like being right back in high school, black cocert T-shirt for a band that broke up before he was born and jeans ripped at the knees, just waiting to find out how he’s been a disappointment today.  The past is a ghost he can’t shake, something that clings to him even when he tries to step out from under it’s shadow.

Doesn’t help that there’s so many people waiting to see him fail to do it, either.

“Obi!” Doc springs up from the floor, all coltish limbs, practically tripping over herself. God, this is really what he’s into now; messy hair and thick tights, barely able to keep her balance with her shoes off, someone who watched vegan cheese not melt and still could say something nice about it.

She tucks herself against his side, head fitting against the girdle of his shoulder like it was meant to be there and –

And he doesn’t even regret it. Who the fuck cares about girls with Barbie heels and legs for days; Doc can barely keep her hair in a barrette and he just – wants it. Wants the way he hooks her hair back around her ear to be real.

She stares up at him, all eyes. “You’re --?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, letting his fingers linger on the hollow behind her ear just a second too long before adjusting his hold on her, his arm draping over the line of her shoulders like it belongs there. “Everything’s as sorted as it’s gonna get.”

The worry won’t shake from her, not like he wants it to. There’s no way he’s going to be able to relax in this house, not with memory waiting to ambush him around every corner, but he just – doesn’t want her to worry about it either, about whether everyone here likes him enough, or is recognizing his accomplishments, or – whatever it is she’s looking for. He doesn’t know how to tell her that it’s fine, that he’s done enough to know that forgiveness doesn’t grow on trees, and there may not be enough for what he’s done.

He drags his gaze away, trying to escape the worry, the guilt – only to find the same on Gayle’s face, that tight-lipped concern that makes him want to squirm right out from the microscope he’s under.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to survive it for long.

“Laila!” Kelly Ann rounds the couch, hands on her hips. “You’ve been letting Shirayuki play too, haven’t you? You can’t be all the animals.”

“I let her be the baby,” the girl says, unconcerned, making giraffes escape their pen to play with penguins.

“Laila --”

“It’s fine!” Doc is quick to assure her. “The baby had fun watching all the animals play.”

The distraction may have gotten Doc’s look off him, but Gayle isn’t deterred, not the slightest bit.

“Well, I was just about to start in on dinner,” she says, gaze shifting behind him. “Todd, Obi, do you boys think you could see your way to helping out an old woman?”

Todd’s not standing anywhere near close to him, but Obi knows he tenses like he does, knows that they both looks like cats with their backs up –

“Oh, Gayle!” Doc lurches under his arm, like she’s torn between staying right where she is and shoving herself forward. “Please, let me help! Todd just got here.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Gayle huffs, waving her off. “You’re a guest, and Todd’s used to being put to work. Besides you should save up your strength – I’ll have you in the kitchen tomorrow, anyway.”

“Some guest,” Todd laughs. “Can’t work tonight but you’ll be putting her through her paces in the morning?”

“You know how it is around here,” Gayle tells him airily. “Two days and then you’re family.”

God, his chest shouldn’t ache like this. “It’s fine, Doc,” he says, rubbing her arm before he steps away. “What could go wrong in a room full of knives?”

She looks anything but convinced. “But --”

“Oh, leave them to it,” Kelly Ann says with a roll of her eyes. “Take advantage of the reprieve now – you’ll wish you had it in three days, once Gayle’s got you.”

“I don’t --”

“Come on, you can help me,” she says, catching Doc by the shoulders. “I have so much Doc McStuffins to watch.”

Laila shrieks, hands slamming on the floor as she turns to look at her mom. “I love Doc McStuffins.”

“Fancy that,” Kelly Ann deadpans, mouth twitching at the corners.

“Go ahead,” Obi murmurs to Doc when she hesitates. “I’ll live.”

She gives him a long look, then nods. “Sounds great.”

Obi’s not quite sure what possesses Gayle to put knives in their hands, but here they are, Todd on one side of the island and Obi on the other, butcher block cutting boards abutting each other as they dice vegetables. She’s even gone and turned her back on them, humming along with the Christmas songs on the radio, water steaming up from the sink as she hand-cleans her kitchen aid attachments, made back when Eisenhower was probably president.

“Truck still treating you right, Todd?” Gayle asks, lifting her voice over the stream.

“Yeah, yeah,” he calls back, shooting an uncertain glance at Obi. “Haven’t had any trouble with it since the last time.”

“Well, Bob’s already talked to Jesse,” she presses, like always. “He says he’ll look at it when he comes.”

“Aw, Gayle,” Todd sighs, suffering. “He shouldn’t have said anything. It’s fine. All Jesse’ll do is tell me I don’t take care of it right --”

“He would know,” Gayle reminds him.

“—And he’ll give me, you know, a talk.” Todd huffs. “Probably try to say something about women being engines on top of that.”

“Jesse still works at the garage?” Obi asks, know the moment he says it that it’s – dumb. It’s been six years, no one’s who he remembers except in the worst ways.

“Didn’t we tell you?” Gayle cocks her head at him. “Jesse owns his own now. Went into business with that friend of his. You remember – Scott?”

“Shane,” Todd and Obi supply at the same time. Todd glares.

“Right, Shane.” Gayle smiles. “They’ve been doing well.”

“You’d know that if you stuck around,” Todd mutters, just loud enough for Obi to hear him, and for Gayle to not.

“You done with those onions, Obi?” she asks, bright.

“Yeah, got them all chopped up here.” He points at a bowl that’s seen more of his tears than the past six years all together. “You need them somewhere.”

She drops a metal bowl between them and shoves a few handful of onions in. “Why don’t you boys mix that up and start putting the meatballs on the tray to bake. I’ll get the rest of this in the sauce.”

They give each other a wary look, but they drop their knives, mixing meat and veg and breadcrumbs up until it’s even –

“And now that you boys can’t get away,” Gayle says, hands coming down hard on the island. “Let me tell you how things are going to be.”

“What?” Todd says, the same time Obi manages an, “Erk?”

“I know you both have never seen eye-to-eye –“ Todd opens his mouth to protests, and Gayle holds up a hand – “don’t care whose fault y’all think it is, or why. That’s between you boys, ‘less you make it involve me.”

They both nod.

“That being said, you’re gonna get along this Christmas,” she tells them, firm. “You’re men, not boys, and I won’t have you ruining the whole thing for everyone just because you think you have bad blood between you.”

“But --”

“And Lord help me, if I catch either of you sniping at each other in my hearing, I will put you both into the dog house.”

Obi coughs, nervous. “Well, the Baron’s got some nice digs --”

“Not the Baron’s,” she clarifies with frightening calm. “Millie’s.”

Obi grimaces, remembering the dilapidated old thing for a dog he’d been too late to see.

“We took that down, three years back,” Todd protests, “you can’t --”

“Then I will make you put a tent in its place and share it until you both can act like civilized people.” Her hands fist on her hips. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am,” they both chorus.

“Good,” she says, firm. She turns back to the sink, like the last three minutes of threats have all just been a figment of their imagination. “Now remember, those meatballs are supposed to be tablespoon-sized, boys.”

It’s a blessing that kids’ shows don’t have any sort of continuity at Laila’s age; Shirayuki doubts that she’d be able to say a single thing about what’s been happening on the screen for the last hour, let alone tracking some sort of – of plot. It’s been hard enough to not to find some excuse to put herself in the kitchen, to make sure that Obi isn’t just suffering his slights silently, trying not to make a circus out of it for Gayle –

A hand presses firmly against her knee.

“You’re shaking the couch,” Kelly Ann tells her, voice pitched low. “Worrying about it won’t make it go any better for him.”

She knows that, she does, but not thinking about it won’t help either, and she feels like she owes him a little bit of suffering, if she’s making him face it alone –

“Besides.” Kelly Ann settles back, her arm sprawling over the back of the couch. “Gayle’s raised Todd half his life. Don’t think she doesn’t know what his sniping looks like.”

That…is a good point.

“Don’t want to interrupt your girl time.”

Shirayuki startles, twisting up on her knees to see Obi leaning in the doorway, mouth rucked up in a smirk.

“You’re not interrupting,” she assures him, a little too breathless. “Just -- watching some stuff?”

“Doc McStuffins,” Laila corrects huffily. “Not stuff.”

“Right, well.” Obi shrugs his shoulder. “When you’re done with that, Gayle says it’s time for dinner.”

Laila’s head whips around, eyes narrowed. “What’s for dinner?”

“Worms,” he says easily. “She said it was your favorite --”

“Ewwwww.” She looks at Kelly Ann. “Mommy, I don’t want to --”

“It’s meatballs and pasta,” Kelly Ann sighs. “Not worms.”

Laila glares at Obi. “But why would he say --?”

“He’s teasing, Laila-girl.” Kelly Ann glances back at him as well. “That’s what he likes to do best.”

“Well, I do like pasta and meatballs,” Laila tells him magnanimously, getting to her feet. “We can have dinner now.”

Obi gets that look in his eye, but Shirayuki is much, much to far away to whisper don’t and have him hear. “Thank you for your permission, your majesty.”

Without a single hint of irony, Laila lifts her chin, imperious as any royal. “You’re welcome.”

For once, Obi seems speechless, just watching the tiny girl sweep past. Kelly Ann barely muffles a snort.

“You should know better,” she tells him, patting his cheek as she walks by. “You don’t need to encourage little girls to be princesses.”

Shirayuki means to grab him in the hall, before dinner, but with Laila and Kelly Ann just ahead of them, there’s no privacy, no good way to pull him aside and ask – ask –

If he’s okay. If this is all getting to be a little too much for him, now that there seems to be an endless stream of disapproving siblings added to this already full emotional powder keg. If –

If it’s all right that she knows about Shannon. If this is a thing she’s supposed to talk about, or – or if she should forget she ever heard anything. Families have secrets, she knows that; every one has things they all know but pretend they don’t, just to keep the peace, but --

But she’s not used to being a part of that, not when it was always just her and Oma and Opa, and –

And it’s not until she sees it – dining room table with the leaves in, covered in a tablecloth and festive runner, dishes steaming where they sit on the table – that she realizes how long it’s been since she’s done this. Since she’s had a family dinner.

Obi’s elbow jostles her in the doorway. “Can’t eat with your eyes, Doc. C’mon, let’s go sit.”

She stumbles in, feet numb, sliding into a chair next to him. There’s been dinners out, of course, times she and Obi have cooked for Yuzuri and Suzu and Ryuu, times she’s been at Shidan’s house at dinner time and been fed a little of what everyone’s having, the team dinners that involve either pizza or barbeque being shipped in from across town, but –

That’s not this. That’s not – that’s not family stuff.

It’s like she has two left hands, both of them too dumb and clumsy to do anything but clutch at the napkin in her lap. She doesn’t trust herself to touch anything, not when she can feel them shaking in her lap, when the thorny prickle of tears sits in her throat.

“Hey.” Obi’s familiar warmth bumps into her side. “Would you like some pasta, Doc?”

It’s a relief to look at him, to see the warm smile on his face and concern in his eyes, and just nod.

He doesn’t say anything else, just grabs the serving bowl full of penne and starts rolling a few onto her plate.

“That fine, D--?” He hesitates, knuckles whitening on the serving spoon. With a quick glance up, he angles a little more toward her and corrects, “--Babe?”

He...really does not need to drop his voice like that, if he’s going to -- to call her that here. There’s a child, for goodness sake.

She glances quickly across the table, and there’s Todd, watching them with an expression far too smug for her liking.

“Um, yeah,” she manages, hoping everyone thinks her blush is from how warm the room is, and not -- not anything untoward. “Thanks, um...” She can feel Todd’s eyes on her, interested, and -- and what would Obi’s girlfriend call him --?

She panics. “...Sexy?”

The sauce ladle clanks noisily against her plate, but Obi catches the handle before it can topple over into her pasta.

“Good,” he coughs, setting it safely away from him. It’s always hard to tell with Obi, but she could swear there’s pink dusting over his cheekbones. “Glad to be of service.”

Shirayuki ducks her head, trying to focus on the food in front of her. If she’s cutting her meatballs into precise quarters, she can’t be -- be blushing over Obi, and as long as there’s food in her mouth she doesn’t have to talk or look at anyone --

Laila clears her throat, pointed. “Aren’t we gonna do grace?”

Shirayuki jolts, dropping her fork to her plate, and – and there’s not a single adult at the table who isn’t wearing an identical grimace of guilt. There’s forkfuls of pasta already en route to mouths, drinks raised to lips, hands tearing off bits of steaming garlic bread. Even Bob is trying to subtly swallow a mouthful of meatball, which at least makes the penne hanging out of Obi’s mouth less of a transgression.

All eyes shift, looking towards the authority at the table, and Gayle sighs.

“Now, honey,” she says, smoothing her napkin over her lap. “You know that when we have guests, we don’t make anyone say it.”

“But I wanna do it,” Laila whines, shrinking in her seat.

Kelly Ann sighs. “Laila --”

“I don’t mind,” Shirayuki offers, setting her fork aside, trying not to drip sauce onto the tablecloth. “Please don’t feel like you can’t on my account.”

“Me either.” Obi grins down at Laila, giving her a wink. “Take it away, kid.”

Their only warning is the cock-eyed grin she gives, before she launches into, “Good food, good meat, good God let’s eat!”

“Laila --”

“AMEN,” she tacks on, shoving a meatball straight into her mouth and grinning at her mother.

Kelly Ann is fit to be tied, hands on her hips, cheeks blown out with all the scolding she’s fit between them –

Bob breaks first.

His shoulder shake, his eyes screw shut, and for a good second Shirayuki’s afraid he’ll fly apart like a motor under too much strain, until –

Until his laugh bursts out of him, so hard he’s hitting his hand against the table, like he needs to tap out.

“Dad,” Kelly Ann gasps, scandalized, but it’s too late, now that Bob’s broken the seal, none of them can keep it in.

Shirayuki has to bury her face behind a napkin, trying to cover up the tears running out of her eyes, trying to avoid the glares Kelly Ann is trying to send all of them.

“That’s a good one,” Obi tells Laila, and then shoves in his own mouthful.

Kelly Ann glares. “Don’t encourage her.”

Obi shrugs, shooting her a bolder grin than Shirayuki would dare.

“So,” Todd interjects, stabbing his pasta with a bit more force than necessary. “How’d you two meet? I haven’t heard the story.”

Obi has never looked happier to have his mouth full. Shirayuki sighs. “We met sophomore year. I transferred in a month into the first semester. Obi and I shared a coffee shop.”

Because he was following me, is the part of the story she leaves out.

“Transferring a month in?” Todd takes a drink. “Sounds like a story.”

Her fingers ache where the edge of the fork digs into them. “I --”

She doesn’t know how to do this, how to make black fingernails and Rohypnol and weeks of fruitless litigation into dinner-talk, into a nice little package that somehow leads to – to this. To a long term boyfriend and romantic moments and family dinners.

Especially since it didn’t.

It’s easy to leave out the worst parts of things between her and Obi, to leave out what remains of Zen in those first few years, but she doesn’t know how to invent something wholesale that isn’t just…a complete lie.

Because that’s important, somehow. That she doesn’t lie. That even with all the pretending, Obi’s family knows her.

And they can’t do that, not if she makes up some story about -- about switching majors, or moving closer to home, or whatever reason someone could have that isn’t potential sexual assault.

But she doesn’t have to.

“It is,” Obi says, with the sort of finality that says the topic is done.

She’d expect Todd to pick, to pry, but his gaze shift to her, assessing, and instead says, “So y’all live in Florida?”

“For now,” Obi says, letting her pick at her meal. “We’re doing our PhD down there, but I think the eventual plan is Boston.”

-- It’s just disappointing. Zen sighs, and she knows she deserves it, deserves his frustration. It just feels like you aren’t even planning on coming back, sometimes --

She nearly bites her tongue. “I mean, maybe. That’s – a good place to start looking.”

Obi’s head snaps toward her, a question in his eyes, but she looks down, finding her side salad engrossing.

“You live close by to each other?” Todd asks, so innocent.

“Oh, we – we share an apartment,” she says, not even thinking. Todd’s eyes take on a triumphant gleam, and she knows she’s given him exactly what he wanted.

His gaze darts to Gayle. “Oh, so you live together?”

Obi’s mouth pulls flat, but with a look at Laila, he keeps it shut.

“Did you hear that?” Todd presses, when Gayle doesn’t even blink. “Obi and Shirayuki live together.”

“Todd,” she says, turning the most unimpressed, motherly look on him. “Of course they do! You know expensive rent is.” She turns a bright smile to the both of them, radiating approval. “And I must say, they keep the place looking lovely. Don’t they, Bob?”

“Well, we didn’t get the grand tour,” Bob allows, reaching for the garlic bread, “but they got quite a cozy nest for themselves, from what I’ve seen.”

“Doc’s got a gift,” Obi tells them, sending her a wink. “If it was me, the whole place would be in black.”

Gayle rolls her eyes heavenward. “Don’t we know it.”

That sends a laugh around the table -- all except Todd, who throws himself against the back of his chair, arms folded, and lets out an annoyed huff.

“What about you, Toddy?” Obi’s grin takes on a sharp slant. “Bringing home anyone special, lately?”

Shirayuki’s half-afraid dinner is about to come to blows -- by his look, Todd does not have a special someone, and Obi clearly knew better than to ask -- but she’s saved by a timely buzz against her stomach.

“My phone!” she gasps, pulling it out from the pocket of her hoodie. “I’m so sorry! I forgot to turn it off.”

Gayle smiles. “Happens to everyone, baby girl.”

It’s not fair that -- that Obi’s family knows how to do this to her, how to make her feel warm, melty, like she’s really one of them --

She looks down, if only to blink away the sting in her eyes, and she sees big blue one staring up at her.

“Oh!” She smiles, flashing the screen at Obi. “It’s Ryuu. He just was asking if we were going to call tonight. Kirito is driving him crazy, I think.”

Obi coughs out a laugh. “Poor kid. We did warn him.”

“Ryuu?” Gayle prompts.

“He’s someone else in our program,” she says, at the same time Obi offers proudly, “He’s a kid prodigy.”

Shirayuki glances up at him. She’d been playing it safe, not giving any information Obi doesn’t offer, if she doesn’t have to, but --

But one look at him, at the pride radiating from his face, and she knows -- Ryuu isn’t someone he has to hide. That he wants to hide.

“He’s sixteen now, and starting his PhD with us,” she explains. “He was our TA, my first year at Clarines.”

“He’s not great with people,” Obi offers, “but we’re getting there with the whole…being a regular kid thing. Our boss has a nephew his age, and that’s sort of…made him normal out, a bit. You know, get used to other kids/”

“He’s a really sweet boy,” Shirayuki tells them, aware she might be -- be gushing, just a bit. “He likes to snapchat flowers to me when he’s doing fieldwork. Here, I saved a couple.”

She hands her phone down the table, and Obi pulls out his own.

“Hold up, I think I got a few of his videos too.” He flicks through his phone, engrossed. “Kirito -- his friend -- has been teaching him how to skateboard, and they’ve been recording some of it -- ah, here it is.”

He sets his phone in front of her too, eager and -- and Gayle just looks at them, eyes shining.

“Well,” she says, soft. “Doesn’t that sound nice.”

Bob reaches over, squeezing her hand. She springs to life at that, patting at her pockets.

“Let me just find my glasses,” she tells them, smile so wide it nearly splits her face. “And I’ll get a look at your boy.”

[awellboiledicicle]

Ok So I got to Spring year 2 and Kent came home from war, and i’m dating Sam, so it’s all interconnected-- but knowing me, I wouldn’t put together “gruff man coming home to the valley from war” with “Sam/Vincent’s dad” when I first met Kent.  So the following probably occurred:

When Kent hiked out to Hard Rock Farm, the packed earth path went from the uneven land that was maintained by the city to owner maintained... something. The pathway up was crushed down brighter white stones that lead up to larger colored stones set into the dirt where the white ended.  There was a small sign at the top of the way that said “dolomite, pardon the dust”. The fact it was next to a giant slab of gemstone that was clearly meant to be a stepping stone was.. likewise interesting. The house, at least, looked mostly normal.  There were fruit trees along the cliff to the front, a cat lazing on the porch, a green lawn, and... was that a chicken statue in the window? It was. It was definitely a giant wooden chicken staring out the window at him. It was wearing a top hat. Well, at least the coops in the distance looked normal? 

He knocked on the door and he really didn’t know what to expect. Jodi had insisted that this.. Farmer Mok was a good person. A little prone to getting caught up in talking about something if you let them, a little oblivious occasionally, very passionate about things. Likes flowers and chickens. Most of that information came from Vincent, actually, who heard them talking about the farmer and started talking like it was his job. Apparently they help his teacher occasionally and ‘put cool things’ in the library. Sam ignored the topic and fled the room with a joja cola when Kent had tried to ask him about them, so he took that to mean there may have been a problem between the two-- that or there wasn’t much to say. The door gave him a bit more insight into the farmer, because there was a mezuzah hanging along side it. There was also a series of light catchers on the small window on the actual door.

When the door finally opened, he didn’t know if he was surprised or not.  Short, with broad shoulders and a wide face. A worn blue hat covered their head, but he could see sunburn that stretched to the hairline. Glasses.  Armed with a sword. “Uh.. Good morning? Can I help you?” He shifted a bit, suddenly aware he was a stranger at home again.  “Yes, hello. My name is Kent. I’ve been gone for awhile... overseas.” A look of recognition seemed to flash through their eyes and their posture shifted, he recognized it as the one most people held talking to old vetrans. He didn’t know how to feel about that. “My wife told me a new farmer moved in while I was gone and I wanted to come say hello. So, hello.” “Well then, my name’s Mok--” They nodded and held out a hand, smiling. “Nice to meet you, Kent! Good to have you home!” They shook hands and he went home feeling very good about this meeting in general.

And then Farmer Mok went to see their boyfriend Sam, completely missing out, mentally, on the fact that Kent was Sam’s dad. Because it was planting season and they were tired and they just wanted to relax after climbing up and down hills. 

So, they squelched their way through the Cindersnap forest, lamenting the fact that there wasn’t a hard road to walk on. Also that they decided to plant the back 15 acres with the crops and the front 15 acres with flowers and the side garden with house food and the greenhouse with exotics. Also known as they wanted to go to Jodi’s, have tea, and listen to Sam practice his guitar and maybe fall asleep on him.  “Hey, Jodi?” They called as they opened the door and kicked off their shoes, hanging up their jacket. “You in from cardio?” She poked her head around the corner from the kitchen and laughed. Jodi watched them come further into the house, stretching their back out. “You surviving planting season?” “There is no survival, only seeds.” They let out a groan as the sound of Vincent running out of his room got both of their attention. “I hear my favorite little boy running in the house.” “Sib!” The little boy jumping on their back didn’t kill them, but it felt like it. “Did you bring dessert? Mom’s making lentils and--” “Oof.” Be strong, Mok. For the kiddo. Jodi was rushing forward to take him, but they were determined to keep together till she got there. “Not today, but I have a nice pink cake planned for shabbot, Why don’t you help mama Jodi with dinner so you’ll like it, picky boy?” “But--” Jodi finally pulled Vincent off their back and they tried very hard to hide their gasp. They caught the arrival of Sam and his stealth thumbs up from his doorway, though. Most skilled datemate. Them. Yup. “C’mon, honey, lets get working on some tea so we can have some with dad when he comes back from his walk!” Bless this mom. “Okay.” Vincent didn’t look entirely convinced, but he was in the grasp of his mom now. You really can’t argue while in the air. You can, but you will lose.  “I will now babysit your other child till dinner.”  Jodi paused on her way to the kitchen, Vincent making a yuck face, and gave them a knowing look. “Door open, Sam.” The sound of Sam putting his head on his door jam kinda echoed.  “Mom, we’re gonna listen to music and talk about aliens. Oh my god.” “Door open.” “Yes ma’am.”  Sam got dragged into his room so the farmer could flop face first onto his mattress, knees on the floor and groan. He laughed and plopped down next to them. “Oh yeah, we’re getting really wild in here-- glad mom made us keep the door open. May need to pop the window.” They very politely flipped him off. He leaned down and kissed the top of their head, earning a small mrrph. “You’re cute when you’re wishing death on the world.” He flopped sideways and ruffled their hair, waiting for them to get done with the following half hearted yell into his blanket. They looked up at him with the same expression that Sebastian often had when he explained an error to him that had been a pain in the ass for weeks, and had actually had a simple solution. The Rubber Duck Sam look. The ‘thank goodness i have you because otherwise i would run into the brick wall of myself’ look. Sam preferred the Rubber Duck term because he could imagine himself as one of those cool rubber ducks with a guitar and sunglasses. “I’m adorable and never want to see another seed in my fucking life.” “You’re kinda a farmer, I think that’s gonna happen. Upside, you have cute animals too?” They sat back, arms flopping up onto the bed, with one hand coming up to pap lightly at his cheek. “I have to feed and water those animals. The fattest ones crawl in my hoodies and tickle my neck.” Sam rolled over so they were face to face, feet kicking in the air. “I am not seeing a downside.” They gently grabbed onto his cheeks, put their foreheads together and stared deeply into his eyes. “You are adorably, infuriatingly, amazingly optimistic. You big, soft, loveball.” He snorted, slightly ruining it, but that was ok because by all standards pizza breath is not as bad as other things. Sam pulled them up, and they came pretty willingly as snuggles seemed about to happen and they were correct-- though he very quickly lived up to his trickster reputation by tickling them.  “I have a reputation--” “No--” They pushed his pillow into his face, eyes closed behind their soft defence. “Saaam, please, i’m tiiired.” He stopped tickling them, also probably waving off his mother who had appeared to put a stop to anything going on. Bless Jodi, because she let the two be with a quick ‘door stays open’ mouthed to Sam.  “Ok, fine. Sorry for making it worse.” To his credit, he did sound sorry. They flopped fully back on his bed and kinda sunk in. “I wouldn’t fall asleep though, mom might not let that one go.” “That’s fair.” “So.” He crossed his legs and gave them one of his big, goofy smiles. “What’d you do today? Aside of plant seeds, i mean.” They groaned again and he laughed, rubbing at their hand in sympathy. “Don’t laugh, you goober. I had to buy twice as many seeds as I thought and the ground by the river was so muddy-- I thought the bridges were going to sink into the water! I couldn’t let the animals out, and I probably can’t till it all dries out and they’re grumpy.” A sigh bigger than the house. “And some random guy showed up this morning? Is that a thing here, you move in or something and you have to go say hi to everyone?” There was a pause in Sam’s supportive ‘mhmm’ing and the rubbing on their hand had turned to a slight twitching. Checking his face, he had a kind of unreadable expression-- at least from their angle. So, they sat up and he was looking off into the middle distance... trying not to laugh. “Babe... was this guy...” He snorted and they frowned at him. “Was this guy a blond. Was he.” “Yeah, why?” “Babe.” “Sam, what are you laughing at.” “Was he kinda tall and wearing a military jacket.” Sam was keeping a very serious tone, now, but between the actual talking, it was very obvious he was about 3 breathes away from collapsing. “....oh my god.” They looked at him, to the middle distance and back. “oh my god.” “Babe. My dad got back last night.” Sam promptly fell backwards off his bed, between the wall and said bed while Farmer Mok lowered themselves down back onto the blankets and placed his pillow onto their now red face. “If you would just apply heavy, constant pressure until I stop breathing, that’d be great, babe.” It was a muffled deadpan, but Sam heard it and managed to sit up and put his head on their arm and shake his head no through his laughing. “Just kill me now, that’d be great. Leave my chickens to Shane.” “Hun, nooo.” “You are not killing me, to save me from living with this shame a moment longer than I have to, like a loving and devoted boyfriend would do.” There was a pause from under the pillow and Sam tried to calm himself down, patting their shoulder. “I am very disappointed. I thought you loved me enough to kill me instantly in an emergency.” “I’ve literally told you about him coming home, for weeks!” “I’m filing a complaint with the boyfriend store. ‘Too attractive and laughs at me’.” He let out another guffaw as they sat up and smacked him on the head with the pillow before he got back on the bed and hugged them. “Besides, he looked too short to be your dad.” “I can’t stop laughing--” He gasped. “Besides, what did you expect my dad to be, a giant? Just to walk in here, be 9 feet tall?” “The height has to come from somewhere!” They gestured to all of him, starting to giggle in spite of themselves. “I mean, it certainly didn’t come from Jodi, she’s my size!” “Are-- are you implying--” He looked faux-offended, trying not to laugh. “That my- that my mom fucked a giant. Is that what you are.. i can’t. oh my god.” “Respect your elders, Samson. Your very large elders.” He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “You know, go far enough back, and they’re your elders too.” “Are you saying...” They took a deep breath and looked him dead in the eyes. “Jacob... was a giant.” “Oh, honey.” He placed a hand on their shoulder. “You’d be taller if he was.”

There was a beat of silence as they stared at him.

“Now I have to smother you, because you called my god punching nephew short. And also me short. And--” “You’d have to reach first--” “OK, FIRST OF ALL--”

Meanwhile Jodi is explaining to Kent that no, this is just how they bond