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todoroki-waifu · 4 years ago

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Tanjiro x GN!Reader x Murata (one sided)

Final: Tanjiro x Reader

Scenario: Murata asks Tanjiro to help him get to know the reader better. He specifically wants Tanjiro to find out if they’re single and their likes/dislikes. Of course, being the nice friend he is, Tanjiro agrees; however, he didn’t expect to fall in love with the reader as well.

Word Count: 6518

Genre: Slight angst, drama, and fluff.

Warnings: Gender neutral reader, cursing, love triangle, and some mentions of blood.

“I can’t believe I’m tired already and we still have the rest of the afternoon. I hope I can make it.” You pout slightly, settling down on the outside porch of the Butterfly Estate. All the lower ranks were to train with the higher ranks and Pillars in order to prepare for the battle against Muzan. You and Tanjiro just finished training with Uzui, now waiting for the rest of your group to meet for lunch.

“I’m sure you can make it! You’re strong and I believe in you!” You slightly blushed at his words of encouragement, now feeling that you would regain your strength after your short break.

“Thanks, Tanjiro-kun.” You reply back as you look up at the sky, watching the clouds as you both sat there in silence. Tanjiro eyes you from the side, remembering his promise to Murata. He knew the boy wanted to know if you had a significant other, but it was hard for Tanjiro to bring it up. So he decided to start with smaller questions.

“Hey, __(y/n), I don’t think I ever asked you this but what’s your favorite color?” He asks and you turn your attention to him.

“You and your random questions. I hope you’re not collecting any data to use against me.” You laugh jokingly as he stutters slightly.

“O-of course not. I’d never do that to you. I-I’m genuinely curious.” Tanjiro hopes his cover isn’t blown.

“I’m just kidding. I know you won’t. Anyway, my favorite color is __(color).” And that simple question opened up a discussion of different topics. You noticed Tanjiro asking you random questions for the past two weeks, but figured he was just a curious guy. You actually enjoyed it since you loved his company. You met at Mount Natagumo and ended up seeing each other more often. The trio plus Nezuko basically added you to their group, seeing how frequently you were paired with them for missions. You didn’t mind. You got along well with them.

“___(y/n)-chaaaan!” You hear a familiar thunder user’s voice. “Save meeee! I’m gonna diiiiie!”

You and Tanjiro turn your heads towards the entrance of the Butterfly mansion, the dark red head’s eyes widening slightly at how fast Zenitsu was running. Zenitsu was sprinting to you with wide arms, whining about how mean Sanemi was and how his tough training was killing him. Tanjiro reacts quickly, grabbing the front of your uniform and pulling you towards him. You froze at the sudden pull, your hands unconsciously latching onto Tanjiro’s chest.

“Z-z-zenitsu!” He grabbed you just in time, watching the yellow orange haired male hug the air and fall beside you. “You have to be careful! You were running way too fast and could’ve hurt __(y/n)!"

"But I’m going to diiiiie.” Zenitsu pouts as you hear Tanjiro scold him some more. Your heart was racing not only from being potentially tackled, but at how closely pressed you were to Tanjiro. He ignores Zenitsu’s complaints as he glances down at you, both his arms now encased around you.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Y-yes, I’m fine. Thank you, T-tanjiro.” Your nerves were twisting and shaking, causing your voice to break during your sentence. Tanjiro couldn’t respond right away, his own heart racing at the proximity. He suddenly becomes aware of how __(color) and alluring your eyes were.

The way you stared up at him, the way your lips were slightly parted, and how your hair frames your face; Tanjiro is only now appreciating your beauty. He felt a few degrees warmer as his breath was trapped in his lungs. He didn’t understand why his heart was pacing so quickly almost as if it was chasing something… or someone?

“I-I-I’m so sorry!” He immediately releases you from his hold as he scoots back a bit as if to return your space. “I didn’t mean to just grab you like that. That was so rude of me, I truly apologize!”

Before he could bow, you held onto his shoulders, reassuring him that you were just fine.

“Don’t be silly! I’m glad you did that. Otherwise, I might’ve bumped heads with Zenitsu-kun or he might have squished me."

Tanjiro laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head as he hears Inosuke and Murata at the entrance. Ah, and that was another thing you noticed lately. Murata has been hanging out with your group a bit more often than usual. You assumed he probably felt like he wanted to connect more with all of you or that maybe his circle of friends were split up during training sessions.

"Hi Inosuke-kun, Murata-kun.” You greet the boys with a smile and wave.

“The great Inosuke-sama has completed his training! Now I’m hungry… let’s get food!"

"H-h-hi, __(y/n)-chan! How was your morning?” Murata instantly blushes at your smile, butterflies swarming in his stomach.

“We should go see if Aoi-san needs any help! C'mon, guys.” Tanjiro gets behind Zenitsu and Insouke, pushing them to the kitchen area.

“We should go, too.” You tell Murata, but Tanjiro stops the both of you.

“It’s okay! We’ll be quick. We’ll come back if we’re not needed. You guys just…just stay there!” He immediately rushes his two friends as you tilt your head to the side slightly.

————————————

“Why are we hiding? I thought we were going to the kitchen?” Inosuke grumbles with his arms crossed.

“Oh, good! They’re talking.” Tanjiro lets out a small sigh, peeking out the window, careful to not be seen. He stopped pushing the boys once he was at a safe distance from you, checking if Murata was taking the opportunity he had given him.

“He still hasn’t confessed?” Zenitsu knew about Murata’s dilemma, surprised that the black haired boy still made no move. “If it was me, I would’ve just asked ___(y/n) to be mine."

"You already do.” The flame and water user rolls his eyes. “Murata-san is just really nervous. He wants to make sure he confesses to them properly."

Zenitsu eyes his friend in the green and black checkered haori, blinking curiously when he notices Tanjiro’s gaze focused on you. When your laughter echoed in the courtyard, his sensitive ears picked up the quickening rate of Tanjiro’s heartbeat. Before he could question, Aoi found them lounging in the middle of the hallway, scolding them to hurry into the lunch room.

That night, the three boys were getting ready for bed, laying out their futons on the floor.

"You stupid boar, move your futon! That is MY spot!” Zenitsu yells, glaring at the mountain boy who laid right in the middle of the room.

“No it’s not! It’s mine!” Inosuke grabs his pillow, ready to defend his territory.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping closest to the door! And you’re not even lined up properly!” Zenitsu was starting to get cranky, tried from today’s training and the dreadful feeling of knowing he had to do it all over again.

Tanjiro ignores the bickering, concerned about his missing sister. He hasn’t seen her since dinner and she was usually with them around this time. She wasn’t one to wander either. He gets up from the floor, neglecting his half folded bed to search for his younger sibling.

“Nezuko!” He calls out to her, careful with how loud his voice was so he wouldn’t disturb the other Butterfly residents. Tanjiro stops momentarily, picking up a sweet and joyful scent. It made his entire being warm with happiness, a smile slowly stretching his lips. He even felt like laughing, but held back the idea when his eyes caught two familiar beings.

There you were, in the middle of the courtyard with his sister, jumping and spinning wildly. The two of you were dancing in the rain, giggling at each other’s movements. Nezuko noted a huge puddle forming to her left and immediately bounced both her feet into the water, creating a small series of waves around her legs.

She made a noise to catch your attention, grabbing your hand as she pointed to another puddle. She stops in front of it, never letting go of your hand while she looks at you then to the water then back at you. The hand holding yours begins to slightly swing as if readying the both of you to dive into the miniature pond. You nodded, agreeing with her proposal and counted to three so that you both leaped at the same time.

Nezuko cheers happily against her bamboo muzzle, raising her arms in excitement as you laugh, also holding your arms up. Your arms were stretched out horizontally, spinning around a few times and stopping just before you felt dizzy. Nezuko continues to hop into every puddle she sees as you stand for a moment in the rain, tilting your head up and allowing the water to wash over you.

————————————

“Where is everyone?” Zenitsu realized that he was left alone with Inosuke, wondering where their third member went. As he passed by a few rooms in search of Tanjiro, he didn’t see you or Nezuko either. The yellow and orange haired male can hear a sequence of loud thumps, his feet following the sound until he finally reaches its source.

“Tanjiro?” He says quietly, catching his friend standing on the engawa and looking out to the open space. Zenitsu’s eyes quickly traced to what had him so entranced. He finds you standing there, head slightly tilted back as you continue to be doused with water. You gave off a relaxed aura as you breathed in and out deeply. And there was Nezuko in the back, busying herself with the multiple puddles littering the courtyard. Even Zenitsu’s heart did a small jump at the sight of the warm scene before him.

“What are they doing? Are they training?” Inosuke’s rough voice makes Zenitsu jump in surprise.

“What? No! They’re just play-”

“I’m gonna fight them! Let’s fight!!” He roars loudly as he zips towards you and Nezuko, causing the both of you to yelp in surprise.

“I-inosuke! Stop! Be careful!” Tanjiro is finally released from his daze, stepping down from the porch to stop Inosuke from chasing after you and his sister.

“You dumbass! Why are you bothering my sweet Nezuko and __(y/n)?” Zenitsu joins the spinning circle.

————————————

“Gah!” Tanjiro accidentally slips on the wet ground during the chase and you quickly rush to his aid. Tanjiro’s fall momentarily stops everyone from running while Zenitsu immediately appears next to Nezuko, checking to see if she was okay and of course, complimenting how cute she was.

“Are you okay?” You hold out a hand for Tanjiro to use as a leverage off the floor.

“Yeah, I am. Thanks. I managed to break my fall a bit so I didn’t land too hard on the ground.” He takes your hand, accepting your help as he is finally on his feet.

“I’m sorry about us playing in the rain. I didn’t mean for us to be out too late. And I also didn’t mean for Nezuko to get so soaked.” You hoped he wasn’t too upset with you for allowing Nezuko to be out in this type of weather. You were outside first and all of sudden, Nezuko appeared and begged you to let her join you. How could you say no?

“I-it’s okay! No worries at all! I’m just glad you guys are okay. It was really nice of you for letting my sister play with you. I could tell she was having a great time, so, thank you for making her happy."

"It’s no problem at all. I love your little sister. She’s wonderful to be around with.” You look to where the others were, smiling as you see Nezuko returning to her original task with Inosuke competing with her on who can make the biggest splash and Zenitsu telling him to let Nezuko be.

Tanjiro stays silent as his gaze is focused on you again. You note his lack of words and you turn your head to the burgundy haired slayer, tilting your head at his staring. His eyes take in your cute and confused form, your drenched hair adhering to your face closely. Before you could question his silence, the rain came down harder.

“Oh wow, I thought it would stop soon.” You say as you find Tanjiro’s hair now falling to the front, almost blocking his beautiful, deep magenta eyes. You raise your hand up to his face, using your fingers to comb his hair back and securing them behind his ears. You smile once you get a clear view of his eyes, the boy’s cheeks burning a bright red.

“There, now I can see your pretty eyes better.” You tease as Tanjiro’s face glows brighter.

————————————

Ba-dum.

‘There it is again.’ Zenitsu turns his attention to the two of you.

Ba-dum.

The rhythm starts to get faster again.

Boom.

’Now he’s making a different sound.’

Boom.

'Why does it sound like it’s getting closer?' Zenitsu frowns at the change of tone, trying to decipher the sound.

Crraakk!

“Kyyaahh!” Zenitsu screeches at the new sound, recognizing it as thunder. A flash follows the rumbling, Zenitsu immediately recalling the time he had a very close encounter with lightning. He clings onto Nezuko, big tears dripping down his face as he now begs for everyone to go inside. Nezuko blinks at her frightened friend, patting his head gently as she is reminded of when Ryouta used to cry during thunderstorms.

“I’m not afraid of any storm! Come fight me, thunder!” Inosuke shouts to the sky. The loud clap forced you and Tanjiro to gather the rest of the group inside, finally getting yourselves settled for the night. As Tanjiro lays on his futon, staring up at the ceiling, he thinks back to where you were dancing in the rain.

You looked so beautiful spinning around so carefree and happy. He remembers your fingers adjusting his hair to its usual style and how you light and gentle your touch was when he felt it graze against his cheek and ear. Your touch and gaze sent a chill up his spine while his heart began beating against his chest. He quickly changes his position, laying on his side as he tries to focus on sleeping.

————————————

A few weeks pass and it has been the same between you and Tanjiro. Him asking questions or simply sitting beside you either on the engawa or in the middle of the forest during breaktime from training. It was something he looked forward to everyday. When you went out on a mission, he became slightly distracted and a bit more mellow for those three days you were gone. However, when he learns of your return, his demeanor is suddenly lifted.

That is until he hears you’re admitted to the Butterfly Estate for a head injury.

“Tanjiro!” He turns around to the source of the voice, recognizing Murata as the one calling him.

“Hey man! Good thing I caught you. I need you to give this to __(y/n), please. I’d give it myself, but I feel a bit guilty since I was on the mission with them. I got too distracted by the enemy and I wasn’t there when they needed me. But anyway, please tell __(y/n) that I’ll see them later. I have to give the report to Oyakata-sama.” Murata hands him a small bouquet of flowers, turning towards their master’s home.

“Wait! But…is __(y/n) okay?” Tanjiro was worried about your current state.

“Yeah, they’re fine. When the medics came, they said it was a minor concussion, but they still needed to be admitted and monitored. Anyway, I really gotta go. Thanks again, Tanjiro!”

“Y-yeah. You’re welcome! Good luck!” He tells Murata as he stares down at the flowers. Tanjiro also starts to feel guilty for not presenting a gift and feels slightly inferior to Murata. He immediately shakes that thought out of his head, almost forgetting his secret mission. He wasn’t supposed to feel competitive towards his friend. He promised Murata to help his feelings reach you.

————————————

“Tanjiro-kun!” You beamed at him, your heart happily leaping that he is your first guest and the sight of flowers in his hands. You tried to calm yourself, not wanting to look too gleeful at the assumption that the bouquet was for you.

“__(y/n)! I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry to hear about your concussion. Is it painful?” Tanjiro continues to eye your bandage.

“I had a massive headache earlier, but I got some medicine from Aoi-chan, so, it’s much better now."

"That’s good.” He almost forgets that he is still holding the flowers. “These are for you."

"Aw, Tanjiro, thank you! These are so nice.” You gladly accept them, inspecting and admiring the flowers’ beauty.

“They’re actually from Murata-san. He was really worried about you and wanted you to have these. He wanted to give them to you right away, but he said he has to meet with Oyakata-sama."

"O-oh! I see. I have to thank him later.” You were both surprised and disappointed that it didn’t come from Tanjiro, but you were still grateful for the small gesture. You just wished it was from the boy who you had a crush on. “Well, thank you for delivering them."

Did Tanjiro only visit to give you the flowers as instructed? You thought he was here on his own and that he was truly concerned. Maybe he was, but it did seem as if he was here only for Murata.

"You’re welcome. So, what exactly happened on your mission?” He starts the conversation, but suddenly, you’re not in the mood for visitors at the moment. Yet part of you doesn’t want him to go away.

Before you answer, it was as if someone else decided for you and a knock was heard following the sound of the door opening. It was Aoi with a small tray of tea, medication, and bandages.

“Sorry, Tanjiro, but __(y/n) needs their treatment and rest. You can visit them later."

"Oh, right. Sorry about that.” Tanjiro stands up, putting his chair aside as he smiles at you. “I’ll see you later? I hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks, Tanjiro. See you later.” You wave a hand to him before he exits the room.

That evening, Murata had visited you as promised, updating you on what had happened before you lost consciousness during the mission. He apologizes repeatedly, even getting on the floor to show how guilty he felt for not protecting you. You reassure him it was okay and that you were not mad at all.

Then the conversation turns into a very different subject. Murata begins to confess his feelings to you and how he had asked Tanjiro to help him scout information on you. Murata tells you everything, again feeling guilty for using Tanjiro as a middle person instead of him going directly to you. He was too shy and afraid of your reaction and thought that the plan in his mind would work out.

However, cupid’s arrow decided to go a different route and Murata knew to not stand in its way. Another reason why he decided to bring this up now was due to his curiosity. Though he knew his chances of being with you was low, he knew he’d regret it if he never asked.

Unfortunately for him, his assumptions were right. You couldn’t return his feelings, but he was happy you weren’t too upset at him for what he did. He also begged you to not be angry at Tanjiro, solely taking the blame on himself. You again reassured him that all was well and that you were not upset at anyone. Instead you apologized that you couldn’t reciprocate his feelings.

Once the awkward tension disappears, you’re glad that you still have a friend. You have a quick and light conversation with him and before he leaves for the night, you make sure to thank him for the flowers. Once you’re alone, you sigh loudly to yourself, slightly shocked at what you learned.

Tanjiro was only talking to you for Murata and not because he wanted to get to know you. You knew you couldn’t be angry at anyone, but you definitely felt different with Tanjiro. You’re so upset that your crush didn’t want to get close to you willingly. You sigh again, mentally yelling at yourself to not think so much about it and that it was to be expected that Tanjiro might not feel the same as you. But that thought definitely made small cracks in your heart.

————————————

“What? You told __(y/n) everything?!” Tanjiro exclaims, surprised at Murata’s bold move. He was so frightened to even talk to you yet here he was telling Tanjiro that he finally confessed to you.

“Yeah, I did. I felt too guilty and it was definitely wrong of me to make you be the middleman. I should’ve had more courage in the beginning instead of involving you. So, I’m really sorry for the trouble."

"It’s no trouble at all. I’m not upset. I’m just shocked you told them the truth. Were they mad?"

"No, not one bit. __(y/n) actually apologized that they didn’t like me back, but I told them it was okay. We’re still friends, but I’m not gonna lie and say it doesn’t suck.”

“I’m really sorry about that, Murata-san.” Tanjiro places a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“It’s fine. I mean, I had a feeling it wouldn’t work out, but hey, I think you have a good chance with them!"

"Me? What makes you say that?” Tanjiro blushes at the mention of you and him potentially being lovers.

“Well, I’m gonna be honest with you, another reason why I decided to tell __(y/n) the truth was I started to notice something. The way you look at them and when you talk about them, your facial expression and tone become different. And different in a good way. You get super excited and happy, which isn’t a bad thing! But that means you totally have a thing for __(y/n), right? And I’m not gonna be mad or jealous at all. If anything, you guys have my blessing! I can see how much you really care for ___(y/n) and I don’t think I’m the right match for them.”

“Hold on, now I don’t want you to feel like I’m trying to take them away from you. I hope I didn’t seem that way.” Tanjiro frowns, confused at Murata’s sudden disinterest in pursuing you. He really had every intention of helping his friend!

“God no! I know you’re not that type. I’m just saying, the way you look at __(y/n) and the way they look at you…there’s definitely something there and I’m not gonna get in between that."

"Y-you really think so?"

"It is so obvious, even the other three know it.” Murata was referring to Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Nezuko. They bid each other good night after a while, the Kamado boy smiling to himself as he felt relieved that he didn’t have to play matchmaker anymore. It also felt good to finally admit his feelings for you to himself.

————————————

You were off of bedrest for a while, but decided to avoid the Kamaboko group for a bit. You were confused and conflicted after Murata’s confession and decided you wanted to either be by yourself or with a different group of friends such as Genya and Kanao. You were glad that this week you were paired with Genya for training, but trying to start conversations with him wasn’t the same. He either didn’t say much or he froze up.

While you were on break from training, you decided to sit out on the engawa where you and Tanjiro usually sat at the Butterfly Mansion. You shook your head to clear your mind of the memory, focusing on meditating and total concentration breathing. You and Tanjiro were in different groups so you had assumed your breaks wouldn’t overlap.

“___(y/n)!” Ah, what timing. Normally, you’d love to spend time with Tanjiro, but you were so disappointed that it hurt to think about him.

“Hey, Tanjiro.” You smile slightly as you stand to greet him.

“It’s been a while. How is your head?”

“Much better. I’m all healed up and was cleared to practice my sword and techniques.” You tried to be polite, but deep down, you just wanted to leave.

“That’s good. I heard you’re in a different group this week. How has it been? Are they treating you well? We all miss you, you know. Me, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Nezuko.”

“Tanjiro…you know, you don’t have to keep hanging out with me.” You felt like you were going to explode if you didn’t get the burden off your chest.

“What do you mean?” Tanjiro frowned, shocked at your response.

“Murata-kun told me everything. From how he likes me to how you tried to help him. I’m not mad, I’m just a bit surprised.“ You avoided looking at him, your eyes moving from the clouds, trees, and the ground. "So, you don’t have to force yourself to spend time with me anymore. I know you have a busy schedule so I wouldn’t want to take that away from you. We can still hang out, like all four of us when we have a bit of extra time, but you know. . .you don’t have to go out of your way to get to know me anymore either. I wouldn’t want you to do anything you didn’t want to."

Why did it hurt so much telling him that? If he was only being around you for the sake of his friend, that wouldn’t be fair to him. You didn’t want to be selfish, but not seeing him as often as usual was going to be a bit. . .lonely.

"But __(y/n), it’s reall-"

"Tanjiro, really, it’s fine. Like I said, I’m not mad or upset. But anyway, I actually have to go. . .so. . .see you around.” You bowed your head slightly at the male before walking towards the exit, telling your heart to be strong and to not let your emotions on display. You didn’t want Tanjiro to feel like he had to comfort you. You were done getting your hopes up.

“Wait!” Tanjiro was too slow to respond, too stunned and panicked to get his thoughts organized. You were already gone, but Tanjiro caught a scent of sadness from you before you left. He could feel his heart unhappily thump against his ribcage, causing a small pain as his eyes watered more than usual.

————————————

The rest of the day and the next week was difficult for both of you. You were used to the routine of spending a few minutes of alone time, but now, your alone time was spent, well, alone. You tried to nap during down time, but it was hard without thinking about Tanjiro.

The checkered haori slayer was the same, thinking about you and wondering how you were and if the both of you were going to have normal conversations again. He sighed, trying to speak with you, but was always interrupted either by you saying you had something to attend to or busy with missions and training. While Tanjiro thinks of a way to communicate with you, his thoughts are now directed towards his crow flying above him.

“Caw! Caw! Kamado, Tanjiro! Here are your orders. Head to the Takayama village and hunt the two demons terrorizing the village. The two demons have raided the neighboring towns and continue to spread their chaos. You will be with a team of four, who you are to meet at the front gate now. Prepare yourself well! Caw!” The black bird flies away and Tanjiro gathers his belongings and Nezuko before heading to the meeting place.

He sees you standing by the gate, bidding your ___(bird) farewell as it flies away. Once his footsteps catch your attention, you turn to greet the person. You freeze slightly, recognizing Tanjiro and you couldn’t believe your luck. Your heart was pounding and you were slightly nervous, remembering how awkward it was between the two of you.

“Hey, Tanjiro.” You politely greet him, giving him a small wave.

“Hey, __(y/n).” He replies back, stopping a good distance from you. His heart was also racing, feeling the tension swirling around you and him. But this was his chance! The rest of the group wasn’t here yet.

“__(y/n), I really need to talk to you. I know that we haven-"

"Alright!! Let’s go kill some demons!"

"Why do you look so happy?! Don’t you know we’re gonna die?” Zenitsu begrudgingly walks to the front gate with Inosuke in front of him.

“Hah! As if! I’m gonna kill them first!” Inosuke replies back.

“Oh, Inosuke-kun, Zenitsu-kun! It’s been a while since we’ve been on a mission together.” You mentally let out a sigh of relief, happy that you didn’t have to engage in an awkward conversation. Tanjiro frowns at the interruption, his heart growing a bit heavier as he can feel any hope of you two patching things up slowly disappearing.

The five of you head towards your destination, reaching near the village by nightfall. Most of the people in the town were hiding in their homes, not a single soul was out in the streets. They have heard rumors about their surrounding towns being attacked by demons and became frightened of becoming victims.

“We should split up. If there are two demons, we can find them faster if we’re separated.” Tanjiro suggests.

“I can look for them by myself!” Inosuke unsheathes his swords.

“No, you won’t. Don’t underestimate them, Inosuke. Your safety comes first, not competing on who can kill who faster.” Tanjiro advises as the boar man stares at him with a giddy expression. “Anyway, I’ll go with Inosuke. Zenitsu, you go with __(y/n)."

You were a bit surprised he didn’t try to pair himself with you, but you figured now wasn’t the time to ponder too deeply into it. The four of you head into the woods, splitting into different directions with your partners.

————————————

Zenitsu screams loudly as a figure shoots out from above, attempting to pounce on you both.

"Perfect! I’ll be ahead of the game once I eat you two.” He shouts, opening his mouth wide to dip his fangs into your flesh. Zenitsu runs behind a tree, trembling in fear while you go to swipe at the demon’s face. He immediately dodges your swing, but quickly attacks again.

You learn that the demon was competing with the second one and they were playing a sick game on who could consume the most by the end of the night. Because of how much he’s been eating consistently almost every night, his strength was difficult to handle.

Zenitsu watches in horror as the demon slashes at your back and arm, soaking your uniform with blood. After exchanging a few blows, you and the enemy are pushed back onto the ground, just a few feet apart. Your partner whimpers loudly when the monster crawls to you and grabs your ankle tightly, his sharp nails puncturing through your skin and muscle. He roughly lifts you up, spinning you a few times before throwing you against the tree the thunder user was hiding behind.

“You’re next.” He laughs, slowly walking towards Zenitsu and you as you momentarily lose consciousness.

“__(y/n)!” Zenitsu is by your side, panicking at the damage you received. He scolds himself for not participating in the fight and thinks how lucky he was to have a friend like you to tolerate his cowardly behavior. He also thinks of Tanjiro, knowing he would be so disappointed and angry to allow you to get hurt.

“Run, Zenitsu. . .” You knew how hard this was for him. “I got thi. . .I’ll catch up, I promise.” You struggled to get up, but your injured ankle sends a sharp pain up your leg and through your spine, causing you to momentarily be paralyzed. You calmed yourself, readjusting to the pain. You look at Zenitsu, telling him again to hurry and leave.

“I. . .I won’t!” He refuses as he unsheathes his sword, blocking the demon’s attack. You argue back that you could handle the demon by yourself and you’ll find him once you are finished.

“Zenitsu, listen to me! I told you I got-”

“No, __(y/n)! I can’t just leave you! I won’t let the person who Tanjiro loves die! He’ll be heartbroken if you’re gone. I don’t want him or any of us to go through that!”

“T-t-tanjiro. . .loves me?” You stare at him with wide eyes, shocked and in disbelief at the indirect confession. "Wait. . .what? Why? And how? How do you know he loves me? Did he tell you?“

"He didn’t have to tell me! I could tell by his sound. . .there’s this noise his heart makes and it’s been there for a while and it gets stronger everyday!" Zenitsu explains quickly as he runs away from the demon’s attacks.

"Are you sure? Like are you really sure?” Your heart was pounding quickly but it wasn’t from the battle.

“Yes! Of course! He’s been falling for you since the beginning but he was holding himself back to give you away to Murata because Tanjiro knew that Murata had feelings for you!"

"Really? Does Tanjiro still have the noise? Do I have the noise? Does Inosuke and Nezuko know about this, too?”

“Should we really be talking about this right now!?” He screeches, becoming distracted by your torrent of questions as he almost misses blocking a set of sharp claws. You apologize quickly, forcing yourself to stand up and refocus on your mission.

However, as soon as you stood up, Zenitsu was thrown to you, knocking you to the floor once again. The demon charges to your direction, licking his lips in anticipation. Before you could switch spots with your partner to take the blow for him, a third person emerges from the trees.

“Found you!” Inosuke yells, but his twin swords miss your assailant. “Huh? You’re not the demon we were just fighting.”

“__(y/n)! Zenitsu!” You turn your head to Tanjiro’s voice and frown at the injuries on his person. Taking a deep breath, you concentrated your energy and mentality on the battle. You thought of multiple moves and plans to secure victory, sharing your ideas with the others. The second demon that Inosuke and Tanjiro were targeting found them, but instead of teaming up with his competition, their greed cost them.

They argued constantly on who was going to eat who, which you and the others took advantage of whenever their attention was elsewhere. It definitely was not easy defeating the two, but it made things easier with your team. It took hours to defeat them which left you all panting on the floor from exhaustion, but you were grateful for another successful mission.

————————————

You were the first to recover during your three day stay at the Butterfly Estate. Thankfully, your injuries were only mild, but the other three were recovering a bit slower than you. You were okay to return for training and missions tomorrow so you were planning on making the best out of the rest of your day.

“May I sit here?” You look to your left to see Tanjiro standing a few feet away from you.

“Oh! Hey Tanjiro, did Shinobu-san medically clear you also?” You gently pat the empty seat beside you, indicating for him to take the spot beside you.

“Yeah, just a few minutes ago.” He answers as he situates himself on the engawa.

“That’s good. Now we wait for Inosuke and Zenitsu."

"Yeah.” Tanjiro says softly, looking at the ground in front of him. He doesn’t wait too long to give you the opportunity to leave like before, needing to release the heaviness on his chest.

“I-I’m sorry! Please forgive me!” The burgundy haired slayer shouts suddenly, almost scaring you from the sudden burst of noise. “I know you’re upset with me because of what happened with Murata. I’m sure you must have felt angry and sad and you kept that to yourself all this time just to spare my and Murata’s feelings. You went through a lot because of my carelessness. I shouldn’t have agreed to help Murata-san had I known I was going to fall for you, too. But __(y/n), you’re wonderful. You’re kind, sweet, selfless, strong, funny, beautiful, and you make me feel so. . .so happy. So please, please know that I don’t regret or feel that the time I spent with you was a waste. I loved every second of it. It was the best part of my day and I always looked forward to it. I’m really sorry, __(y/n). I know I don’t expect you to forgive me right away or not be upset, but I miss you so much. I miss your company. I miss laughing with you. I miss sharing memories and secrets with each other. I just miss us being okay."

You gently lift his shoulders from the ground after watching him bow lowly to you.

"Tanjiro, of course I forgive you. I was never going to stop talking to you. I just wanted some time for myself. I know I might have seemed upset at you, but I was more upset about the situation." Your chest has a tiny knot from hearing him express how he felt. "I can’t be mad at you if you didn’t have feelings for me and wanted to help Murata. I was just confused and felt extremely dumb because I liked you, but when he told me everything, well I definitely felt embarrassed and disappointed.”

“I’m really, really sorry, __(y/n).” His heart would have done a happy leap when you mentioned your feelings for him. Instead, he was thinking of all the 'what ifs’ scenarios. Would things be different if he admitted his feelings earlier?

“Do you regret. . .falling for me?” You ask quietly, afraid of his answer, but curiosity would not let you hold back.

“No, not at all! Never! I’m glad that my heart chose you. I just wish the situation could have been different. But like I said, I truly enjoyed getting to know you.”

“I enjoyed your company and your 21 questions.” You chuckle slightly. “Do you still have feelings for me?"

"Y-yes, I do. They haven’t gone away.” Tanjiro looks down shyly, but his head shoots up quickly when he feels a pair of soft lips make quick contact with his own.

“Me, too.” You send a small smile, scooting a bit closer to him. Although the kiss was short, he was left speechless, almost as if he was questioning if it truly happened. You start to get a bit nervous at his silence, looking at Tanjiro meekly. He responds back with a swift peck on your lips as well, both of your faces now painted with red.

When you both finally have the courage to face each other, you share a laugh as you feel confident enough to snuggle into his side. You rest your head on his shoulder, snaking your arms around his. He, too, is feeling bold as the arm that was being held takes your hand and holds it firmly. You and Tanjiro say nothing, letting your hearts do the talking with the sound of their beating.

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leverage-commentary · 4 years ago

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Leverage Season 2, Episode 6, The Top Hat Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: Hello I’m Dean Devlin, Executive Producer.

Christine: I’m Christine Boylan, one of the writers.

Peter: Peter O’Fallon, Director.

John: John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Scott: Scott Veach, the other writer.

Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer. And this is the Top Hat Job.

John: See, I was hoping we’d pretend that there were like twelve more people [All Laugh] in this, like, baffling list. Uh, the Top Hat Job was born actually of two things. One, Scott Veach, who’s a name you haven’t heard before on the show, came in as a freelancer to pitch a magician show. And at the same time, Tim Hutton had said that he would like to play a magician.

[Chris and Christine Laugh]

John: And Tim makes very few requests of us, so it seemed like not a bad idea. The question is, of course, well, how would you go about doing this? Um either Christine or Scott, can you tell me where we got the villain from?

Christine: Uh... where did- where did we get the villain from?

John: I think it was-

Christine: Uh, was a-

Scott: Oh, yeah.

Christine: -magazine article. Again, I believe Albert Kim brought that into the room-

John: Yes.

Christine: -a lot of these, this season we all had a hand in everything and I love that. Albert brought in this article about a foods company that was knowingly putting out salmonella-laced meals, frozen meals on the market and we were just really upset.

John: As a matter of fact, the really ridiculous villainous thing we have this guy say, which is, ‘You’re supposed to cook it to this temperature. It’s on the package; that’s why we’re not liable’ is something that company actually said-

Christine: Completely true.

John: Without mentioning the fact that even in their laboratories, they could never get it that hot.

[All Chuckle]

John: So these guys, the real life villains, are far worse than the enormously cartoonish evil guys we have in this show.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: And now, who’s this actress?

Chris: This is, uh, Jennifer, uh… Skyler.

John: Chris always has the cast list, thats-

Chris: Yes, I got my cast list right here. This is Jennifer Skyler, she’s a local Portland actress, and tried out and was fantastic.

Peter: She did a great job.

John: Now Peter, this, y’know, I think this is another one we really cast almost entirely out of Portland, right?

Peter: All but the bad guy. I think the bad guy-

Chris: I think so, yeah. I think-

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

John: What was it like working with, like, the Portland humans, Peter?

Peter: Overall it was pretty good. We had a little bit of uh, well, you know, and it turned out very well, thank you.

[All Laugh]

John: We got a state grant on the line here, Peter, so don’t screw this up for us, man.

Peter: No, she was- she was great, she was uh, she did a really good job. The concept was to try to add as much pressure to her so that you’d have compassion for her, and as you can see right where we are right now, she does a very good job of it.

John: And during the uh, during the... um, horrible credit sequence we all hate.

[Christine Laughs]

John: And I can say that, ‘cause it’s the DVD, they’ve already bought it.

Peter: Saga sell.

[All Laugh]

John: Yeah, it’s the saga sell. That’s actually, you know Pete, it’s the first time somebody’s brought up the phrase ‘saga sell’. Uh, who wants to define the ‘saga sell’ for the nice folks?

Peter: That was uh, I did the show The Riches and that was the bane of our existence, was trying to sell what the show is about, that’s what the saga sell-

John: In thirty seconds you have to remind new viewers what the show is about, and annoy old viewers.

Christine: Wow.

John: And now, why is this scientist drinking? Someone tell me that.

Christine: Because her last name is Jameson.

[All Laugh]

Christine: You’re welcome.

Chris: I believe that was your addition to the- to the character, wasn’t it? I mean-

Christine: I do like naming characters, yes.

Chris: She was initially known as ‘plucky research girl’, I believe?

John: Science girl. Plucky science girl.

Christine: Many variations on that.

Chris: And then a lot of the- there was a big cry out in the development of the story: “more plucky science girl!” And I think Christine, you added the little wrinkle that she likes to— likes to drink a few.

Christine: She does like to drink a few. I’m a big fan of uh—

Peter: Drink a lot.

Christine: Yeah, she does like to drink a lot. Um, I’m a big fan of victims who like to get involved and crusade a little bit and we hadn’t had one in a while, so getting her involved was a lot of fun.

John: It’s always tricky, because the victim, in theory, you don’t want to endanger these innocent people who’ve always been in some sort of danger, but if you don’t check in with them or don’t make them present in the story, they disappear.

Christine: But she’s plucky, has no discernible friends or family, and is a drunk, [All Laugh] so I think it’s okay that we go ahead and, you know, put her in danger.

Peter: And we decided on the set to have her play that— she’s playing really, uh, she really enjoys Tim’s company; would like to be with Tim a lot more than she’s letting on.

John: Well, you know, Tim’s a dreamy guy, right?

Christine: He is.

John: You know, when I use his photo and pretend to be him on the internet, I do very well.

[All Laugh]

Scott: I do that same thing!

John: Yeah, exactly, there’s a lot of guys pretending to be Tim Hutton on the internet, so if you ever get something dirty from Tim Hutton on the internet, it might not be him.

[All Laugh]

Christine: The actual Tim Hutton [unintelligible].

Chris: Interesting thing in his little reaction here. When I was watching this, it really, it took me back to Ordinary People because, remember him playing flustered, in Ordinary People, around the girl?

John: Yeah.

Chris: It’s very much, you see it on his face right here.

Peter: Little nervous.

Chris: It’s kinda right there-

Christine: Yeah, there’s an ‘aw shucks’ quality to it. I love it.

John: And it was interesting because, trying to get the Sophie character, trying to reconcile like what was going on here, was the understanding that they had screwed up whatever they’d kind of had first season. And so this is the phase where, you know, even if Sophie doesn’t necessarily want to see Nate off with somebody else, she knows he has to at least have some sort of human relationship—

Christine: Mhm.

John: — that this isolation that he’s engaged himself in will eventually, you know, isn’t healthy, and it is, as a matter of fact, what eventually destroys him over the course of the second season.

Christine: Mhm. Spoiler. [Laughs]

Peter: And she’s also trying to uh—

John: I think people know it’s not ending well. [Christine Laughs]

Peter: And she’s trying to break his balls a little by leaving him there alone.

John: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that’s great, that’s— this take goes forever.

Timestamp: [5:00]

Christine: Yeah, he has this nice uncomfortable beat.

John: And still—

[All Laugh]

Scott: Ooooooh…

Peter: Well… so… uh.

Christine: Been on that date.

[All Laugh]

Peter: What about them Yankees? How ‘bout those Yankees? [More Laughter] So, you gonna make a move there, son? [laughter continues]

John: So—

Peter: No, I’m not.

John: No, no. Aaand thank you, sir.

Christine:And, leave the bottle.

John: Another drink.

Chris: One more drink.

[All Laugh]

John: Yeah she’s gonna be very lonely, looking like that, drunk, in a bar in Boston. She’s not gonna do well. Uh, this is actually interesting. Now, Scott, you wrote a big chunk of this sequence, if I remember correctly. This is interesting, this is not something we usually see on the show; uh, why don’t you tell us about it?

Scott: You mean where, where they’re failing?

John: Yes. But Scott—

Scott: They never fail!

John: Scott came in and made the characters you love suck. Now Scott, explain why you did that.

Scott: [Laughs] Uh, yeah. No, but it was, you know, I think it was a, it was a group idea. But it was- the idea was it’d be really fun to see them get overconfident, and to see what happens when, you know; it’s usually, they’re so good at everything that they do, what happens when that sort of falls apart and how do they react? And so we thought it’d be really fun to see what that looks like.

John: How did you— how many takes to get him to balance the damn ball on his forehead?

Peter: We stuck it to his head. [John laughs]

Christine: Aww, that’s adorable.

Scott: There’s some, there’s some tape under there.

Peter: The other one too, is a- the- the bandana on his head is covering a scar—

Christine: Oh, yes, he is.

John: Oh, this was this episode.

Peter: — that was left because, in one of the fights he got caught and got stitches.

Chris: We’ll get to that; that’s a good story there.

Christine: This is the one, yeah.

Peter: So we added the scarf to cover the stitches.

John: Yeah, and it’s also, it’s interesting because it is- it is something they’re doing, and you know, when he says after Tim walks in, you know, there’s no blueprint fairy. The idea is, this scene, all this act here, is what happens in act zero of every other show. Like in every other show, they’re doing this, they’re showing up as pizza guys, they’re getting sketches of buildings and stuff, we just never bother to see it because this time they, they—

Dean: Actually this particular scene here was not actually, was not in the episode—

Scott: Oh, that’s right.

Dean: — when we came in, when we came in short, [All Laugh] we added this scene, and one of the things I’m so proud about is that it seamlessly goes into this scene, which was part of the show—

Chris: That I could not believe.

Dean: And it actually ended up adding a very nice-

John: The other side of the door, that first side of the door was shot how many months after the- this side of the door?

Dean: About a month.

Scott: Probably a month, it was probably about a month. And see if you can track, uh, Gina’s pregnancy there.

[All Laugh]

Scott: It’s an interesting thing.

John: Yeah, it’s really— you’re kind of in a medium-close there. There she’s okay.

Christine: She’s glowing, she’s gorgeous.

John: She is glowing.

Peter: We decided to give Tim a lot of movement here because the concept is, he knows it’s all gonna go bad—

John: Yeah.

Peter: — they don’t.

Scott: He’s convinced it’s gonna go bad; he’s gonna sit down and wait.

John: Well, in the research, it was a little stunning. When we started investigating these food companies, because, you know, in the show it’s always, how do you have a threat? And uh, the scale— the amount of money that these guys throw around, is truly boggling, and the depths to which they will go to cover up their maleficence is uh, it’s… they’re not putting people in shallow graves, but they’re ruining people’s lives.

Peter: Did you notice his name?

John: What’s that?

Peter & Christine: Oleg.

John: Oleg, why?

Peter: I dunno.

[All Laugh]

Christine: Damn sexy name.

Scott: Yeah, I don’t think that was in the script.

John: I like that it’s “Super Hot Pizza”, because you wouldn’t want to buy another kind.

Dean: But I also notice that this- this entire sequence, the camera never stops moving, and it— just love the way you use the camera in this sequence.

Peter: Try to keep the heat going on, the pressure.

John: Now when you’re planning on shooting something that cross cuts between two to three situations, I mean, you know, are you trying to match actual camera left-to-right movement? Or do you just keep it in motion and assume that when you’re cutting it that’s gonna play?

Peter: I try to match it, right-to-left. You know, the idea was that Tim’s static, and he’s just sitting there doing, uh, you know, he’s confident about what’s going on while the rest of them are panicking.

John: He’s Reed Richards back there, he knows.

Scott: It’s like his version of TV, to watch this.

Peter: Exactly.

John: Nice fight, by the way.

Scott: By the way, this was literally maybe twelve hours after he’d gotten stitched up, he did this fight.

Peter: If that, yeah.

Christine: He is a superhero, seriously.

Peter: He takes it very seriously.

John: I always say, shit kicker is genetic.

Dean: And I think that’s our first ‘in the nuts’ shot of the series.

John: I think it is.

Peter: I like to do those nut shots.

Christine: Nice.

John: That was in your contract.

Dean: And I love the whole Parker thing here, this whole Parker exchange here was just inspired.

John: Yes, her idea of witty banter just doesn’t quite cut it.

[All Laugh]

John: But yeah, neither one really gets it.

Christine: Who put Parker in the glasses? A+. She looks great.

John: Thanks for bringing the lesbian vibe tonight, Christine.

Christine: You know, I’m here, you know, I’m representing all kinds of people.

Chris: Here’s another shot.

John: Nice green screen. Have you not seen that nice green screen? Nice green screen shot. Um yeah, there’s a lot of green screen in this one actually, just because there’s a lot of Parker hanging places.

Dean: I love this Aldis ending here, trying to, like, put a good spin on it.

[All Laugh]

Peter: And Aldis was quite at adding little quips here and there, and the fun stuff.

John: Yeah, a lot of— by this point, these actors know these characters well enough that, you know, a lot of times you’re just trying to get out of their way when they’re on pace.

Peter: This was a note that Chris gave me, which I loved, which is that they’re, like, children.

Timestamp: [10:00]

Chris: They’re siblings.

Peter: And Tim’s the father.

Chris: And Dean, you were here for this, I believe—

Dean: I was here for the poking.

Chris: And I think that I gotta give you credit for kinda, getting the whole poking thing. You know, ‘Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.’

Dean: Yeah, we just wanted to get that vibe of ‘Daaad.’

[All Laugh]

Peter: ‘He’s bugging me, stop it!’

John: The ice thing we actually established early in the season; the idea that they’re constantly raiding Nate’s apartment for the tools- his life has turned upside down, at some point, three AM, he will wake up and they will be in his apartment, like, bandaging themselves up with his stuff.

Christine: Eating cereal.

John: Yes, eating cereal. He has not had ice for a drink in, like, four months; it’s all for Eliot’s bruises.

Scott: ‘She’s poking me!’

[All Laugh]

Peter: ‘Leave me alone, dad.’

Dean: Love it.

John: Now, this whole section where they introduce how we get the information because these guys couldn’t get in, uh, Erik with a ‘k’.

Christine: Always evil.

Peter: I love the reaction with the ‘k’, too, here, that she’s uh, ‘I didn’t know that.’

[All Laugh]

Dean: And she goes, ‘Everyone knows that.’ [All Laugh] And he’s like, ‘What the fuck?‘

Christine: I got a lot of weird Facebook messages after this aired, by the way, from Eriks with ‘k’s.

John: You actually get all three character’s attitudes flawlessly there, which is: Parker just lives in a slightly different world, it’s about ten degrees off of everyone else; and Sophie treats her like its just, oh, I didn’t know it was that way in your world; while Nate, Nate is the only sane man in an insane world.

Chris: Here, look at this, we gotta give credit to Apollo Robbins, here. Apollo gave us [unintelligible].

Dean: I love this camera work, I love this idea of attaching the camera to the packet.

John: What is it? Is it just a button cam, or…?

Peter: Eh, we just attached the camera with a c-stand onto the box itself.

John: Oh cool. Um, that whole trojan horse thing comes from Apollo Robbins.

Chris: Apollo Robbins, our consultant, gives us all kinds of, you know-

Peter: And you will see a short little cameo of him in the back in one of the scenes.

John: Oh cool!

Peter: We’ll point him out.

Chris: We’ll talk more about him later.

[All Laugh]

Peter: Oh that was a great idea. Speedos are always good.

John: But there’s a hacker conference in vegas called DefCon every year, and that year, the trojan bluetooth cellphone happened to be the big thing of that year, so we ganked that. Um, you know, we really should, like McGuyver, leave out one crucial element, because we have taught people to do fairly horrible things on this show, and only later do we realize, oh we…we taught them exactly how to do that.

[All Laugh]

John: We should have rethought that.

Dean: Oops.

John: And then they’re talking about the horrible corporate meeting.

Chris: I think that was- Albert Kim, who worked at Time Warner and their magazines for many years, introduced us to the state of the company meeting, where they often have magicians. That was, kind of, what brought the whole episode together.

John: And remember, I had done a bunch of those, and that’s why as soon as Albert said that, I was like oh god, I actually did one of these shows when they announced layoffs right before I went on.

Christine: That was a great day in their world.

Peter: Well that’s a tough room.

Chris: Because folks, surprisingly, to do a show - a heist/con show involving a magician, is not the easiest thing in the world.

[All Laugh]

John: No, really, oddly enough.

Chris: When that’s your mandate…

John: Yeah, we don’t usually start backwards like that, but you know what, this actually turned out pretty coherent, considering.

Dean: I love this whole magic bit here, I think this was inspired.

Christine: This kid’s great.

John: This guy is so- now why are they dressed like fif- by the way, Parker and Hardison here are either, a) dressed like a fifties’ couple or b) like the couple from Thriller, from the horror movie Thriller.

Christine: I thought b), I thought we were going for that-

Dean: They are college kids.

John: They’re college kids, is that how the flappers are dressing now?

Chris: This is Tim Gouran as Chronos.

John: [wheezing] Chronos… Oh the nipple rings are horrifying.

Christine: They’re fantastic.

Peter: The guy does- the guy’s channelling...what’s his name?

All: Chris Angel.

Peter: The way he does the movement, and all of that, we asked him to just study him and go wild with it.

Christine: I remember his audition tape; made me laugh.

Peter: I love that she’s reluctant to go up to the- first she goes, ‘Oh no no no, I don’t wanna go-’

Christine: ‘No, I don’t like magic-’

John: God, he’s so cheesy- oh man, and then him showing her exact- and that’s the- it’s interesting that the entire show’s, kind of, about trade secrets. Because you know, the whole idea is the advantage these characters have is, they know how these tricks work, which is a trade secret. Wow, that’s a really creepy look.

[All Laugh]

John: “Silence!”

Scott: Oh, he was great.

John: I almost enjoy this sequence more without words. Seriously, I’m like half a Guinness in and I’m loving this.

Chris: And kudos to the assistant, giving the bored reactions.

Peter: She’s just bored out of her mind.

John: I believe that’s actually in the script, right? ‘Even his assistant doesn’t like him.’

Peter: ‘That’s my girlfriend; that’s her up there, quit looking.’

Chris: A lot of great ad libs here from them.

John: Again, this is one of those places where when it’s, you know, Aldis and Beth, you just kinda get out of their way, and you assume it’s gonna work out.

Timestamp: [15:00]

[All Laugh]

Dean: This guy is so great.

Christine: We’re all just watching him.

John: I almost want to bring him back now; now that I’m watching this again?

Dean: He’s so over the top; it’s awesome.

Christine: Can we please bring him back? He’s adorable.

Peter: And once again, kudos to our magic… what’s his name again?

Christine: Apollo.

Peter: He helped him out with all these, how they do it.

Chris: He designed the box. I mean he did so much; he added so much to this episode.

Peter: That was a mistake, and it was hilarious, you know, with the sword; she grabbed it and pulled it in, and I thought it was hilarious.

John: No, I’m actually- I’m friends with David Ackroyd who designs tricks for Penn & Teller, and the whole, sort of, the loathing for stage magicians that these guys have is hilarious. Oh, the eskimo kisses. And the rings. Yup, I think we went through a whole day of, like, looking at tricks and seeing what could malfunction in the most annoying way.

Christine: That was an odd day of YouTube clips, I’ll tell you. We went down the rabbit hole there.

John: No odder than usual, really.

Christine: No odder than usual, it’s true.

Chris: I love the way this actor dropped the character at one point, like “stop it!”

John: That’s really, that’s dark, ‘cause now I can actually- now as he runs off-

Peter: ’Is there a surgeon? Is there a surgeon?’

John: Like, with Parker actually trapped in the box still, nice. And, another innocent human destroyed in our quest for justice.

Christine: Not so innocent. Not so innocent.

John: Yeah, that’s true.

Christine: He was sexually harassing his assistant, I believe it says in the text.

Chris: Here’s George Castillo, who’s playing Dan Markland, head of security, who is our bad guy’s henchman.

John: He’s the Busey. We can say Busey, Busey is the word we use all the time-

Peter: And here’s Tim, having fun.

Christine: Oh no.

John: If you haven’t heard the first season DVDs, the Busey is based on Gary Busey’s character in Lethal Weapon.

Dean: Are those Apollo’s hands?

Chris: Those are Apollo’s hands.

John: Uh, who is the thug who brings physical violence so that the main bad guy doesn’t have to. Yes, that’s Apollo doing the close up stuff. Although Tim did a little bit of it; Tim really got into it.

Dean: Oh, he was into it.

Peter: And again, Tim handled this so well, the idea that the- they just start pushing away and go through it all- they just start pushing their way in.

John: Yeah, exactly. Well, that’s the, you know, all of heist and confidence shows are just, just keep it moving so people can’t ask questions.

Dean: And carefully placing Gina behind the box.

[All Laugh]

Peter: She’s always carefully placed, you’ll notice.

Christine: We couldn’t have laundry in this one, so we, you know.

John: What is Beth- what is Beth wearing?

Dean: This got more and more obvious as the season went on.

Peter: I’ll bet.

John: Beth is like Neil Gaiman’s Death back there.

Christine: I know, I love it. Again, A+ Parker look right here. Just, all these Parker outfits are terrific.

John: And it’s interesting, it’s really interesting because you got, everyone’s got a very distinct look; in particular I love Aldis in the suit, as the engineer, as the kind of like.. you know, you can totally see how that character lives his life. He dresses up, he goes to these shows, he’s actually based- that character’s based on a British fictional character called Jonathan Creek, which is a British mystery show about a guy who designs magic tricks. He’s not the magician, he’s the guy who designs the impossible and he solves impossible crimes, and you know, when you have five humans, coming up with a role for everyone to play, never easy. That’s why Chris is actually in the box.

Peter: Oh, this is the rabbit gag.

Christine: Oh, the rabbit. I love the camera work here.

Chris: And this is all one shot, watch, watch this.

Dean: This is a beautiful steadicam shot.

Peter: Our steadicam operator was, uh, a bit nervous when we started, but- except for this.

Dean: Oh, this is awesome; one of my favorite flashbacks.

John: Now this- And we have not done a lot of the flashes this year-

Christine: Look at their face. [All Laugh] That’s great.

Scott: That was my mom’s favorite moment.

Christine: “It’s not the same thing.“

Chris: And the rabbit’s gone.

John: That was actually written as just an anecdote, and then we hadn’t done a flash in so long, it’s like, you know what, what the hell, let’s bury a kid.

Dean: And what’s the story with the girl who played Parker? Wasn’t there a story behind that? That she didn’t get to do that part in a different episode?

Chris: I think that’s right, she got cut out earlier.

John: Yeah, she got cut from the MMA one, the flashback of Parker’s first concert. And then, so instead, we gave this one where we buried her alive, in a backyard in Vancouver, Washington.

Christine: That girl’s adorable.

Chris: Backyard? That was a public park.

[All Laugh]

Christine: Buried a girl alive in a public park.

Peter: Marc Roskin shot that, by the way.

Chris: Yes, Marc Roskin did a fantastic job shooting that.

Christine: Only on Leverage.

Chris: That’s how accommodating they are in Portland.

John: ‘Hi, uh, listen, we’re the film department. We’d like to bury a twelve year old girl alive in a public park, if you can-’

Christine: ‘Great, great, we’ll get you a brunette, we’ll get you a redhead-’

Peter: I actually had a bet with the location department, because I’ve been all over the world shooting, where you could never dig a park up. In Portland you can.

John: No, they’re very happy to have us there.

Chris: We have eminent domain powers in Portland.

[All Laugh]

John: ‘We’re here seize your home.’ ‘What?’

Scott: We’re like diplomats.

John: To be fair, we couldn’t have made this year without Portland. I mean, seriously, the locations we got?

Peter: No.

John: Oh yeah. ‘Where’s the rabbit?’ Nice running gag, by the way, I don’t believe that was in the script?

Peter: No, that was just [unintelligible].

Chris: Nah, that came up on set.

Timestamp: [20:00]

John: Nice. You didn’t actually lose the rabbit, did you?

Peter: No. No white rabbits were harmed filming this show.

John: Now, have you shot a con or heist show before?

Peter: Uh, I did The Riches.

John: The Riches, yeah. So— but that’s almost more of a character piece, than a— ‘cause they, they’re, he’s running a long con, but not—

Peter: Yeah, big tycoon, he’s lying to everyone all the time.

John: Yeah, exactly. Was there any—

Peter: Not quite this… this…

John: Yeah this is more heisty, y’know, was there any prep you did coming into this, just like looking at stuff, or, uh-? I’m always curious, because we have different directors come in, it’s a very different kind of show. It’s not like, say, ER, where it’s the hospital, there are doctors—

Peter: Everybody runs a steadicam shot all the way through.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Peter: No, actually, I just uh— I watched the, like, five shows that Dean had sent me, and in the big picture I got the idea, I mean the concept. Also, I love that Tim wanted to do the magic so badly that we ended up writing, what, four or five more pages that we shot for days on end. But it was great; it was really fun. And for me it was all movement; the whole show is about movement.

John: Yeah.

Peter: And we added a whole bunch of guards everywhere so, I wanted to have an extra pressure all the time, so every time they step around the corner there’s more security people walking around, so it appears as though—

Dean: I love this guy, who played the uh, the CFO.

Christine: Oh, yeah.

Chris: This is, uh, Jack Armstrong, another local Portland actor.

Dean: This bit was great, what was the story behind this bit?

John: I actually dropped this one in the script based on a guy who had been driving around, um, San Francisco with a RFID receiver, ganking people’s passport numbers out of their pockets. He was, like, driving around in a car, and the RFID chips were giving off enough of a signal that he could read their data as he drove by.

Peter: God.

John: So getting your car to do it was a piece of cake. I mean, getting your phone to do it at that range, eminently believable. That is one of the things about this show, is you spend an awful lot of time telling America they’re nowhere near as safe as they think they are.

[All Laugh]

Peter: This uh, this gag in the elevator, uh, the giant bar broke, and damn near took off… uh, who’s head?

John: Aldis?

Peter: Aldis, and Chris, actually. Both of them.

John: No, don’t hurt Aldis. I mean Chris, has the shit-kicker genes; he heals in like a day. Seriously he’s got some weird Wolverine stuff going on, but now, don’t bang Aldis up, man. You know, that’s weird, that happened on a pilot I shot in San Diego. They had a wire rig for two thousand pounds, had two hundred and twenty pounds of people on it, snapped, put them through like fifteen feet; dropped them right through the ceiling of a hut they were supposed to fall through. Now luckily, they were supposed to fall through the hut, so we got the shot.

Peter: Right.

John: And they were fine. [Laughs] But the point is—

Peter: Well, we had one take, we had one take of this, that’s it.

Scott: Yeah, this is it.

Peter: Luckily it worked really well.

Dean: Oh this is great, uh, falling through the, uh…

Chris: The elevator shaft.

Dean: The elevator shaft. Now part of the- this gag actually came because of TNT, right? What was the story behind that?

Chris: TNT said, ‘How come the in the script it just has him falling up? And we suggest her falling through the elevator shaft.’ And we said, ‘Well, if you’d like to pay for a shot of them falling through the elevator shaft, [All Laugh] we’d be happy to shoot it.’ And credit to TNT, they did.

Dean: That’s so great.

Peter: And I love– again, they’re arguing like — they’re back at arguing like kids, about who goes out and what they do and how they handle it.

Dean: Yeah, I love Eliot’s one, it’s like, ‘Who wants to be me? I punch people.’

Chris: ‘I get punched and kicked.’

John: That’s it. That is his lot in life, man, and he knows it.

Peter: And this was actually a auditorium from a large corporation.

John: Yeah. This is how they do those shows, man; those shows are death. They’re a lot of money, but they are death.

Chris: Hook it to something. There we go.

John: Now you shoot— Now, when you’re shooting up, this is green-, this is all computer generated right?

Chris: There we go.

John: But when you’re shooting up through the top of the elevator, was that green too, or—

Peter: Yes. I love his reaction here.

John: Yeah. And down.

Dean: I like the little pause, though. Like, everything’s okay, and then, Bugs Bunny.

John: It is Bugs Bunny, isn’t it?

All: Woah!

Dean: And that is digital debris, my friends.

Christine: Wow.

John: That is digital debris. So let me get this straight - we dropped digital pieces of cardboard, but we used a giant bar to lift our actor and slam him against the top of an elevator.

Peter: And slam him hard, too.

John: Okay. Good, that’s good, I’m glad we got our priorities straight.

Chris: There was a little smile from Aldis there because it was just so fun. I mean it was like, we couldn’t— and we only had one shot at it. I mean, you really wanted him to be scared, but it was just too impossible when he got pulled to the ceiling.

Peter: And we decided to add this part at the end where they drop.

[All Laugh]

Dean: “You didn’t see that coming, seriously?”

John: We actually, uh, it was a big debate this year, and most people watching the DVD might now know Jeri Ryan, until she shows up, when she would get her ‘seriously?’, because being allowed to say ‘seriously’ is part of the whole ‘you’re part of the team'.

Timestamp: [25:00]

Christine: On the writing staff, too.

John: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Peter: Where did Erik Casten come from, the name?

John: Uh, clearances. [Laughter] Seriously man, we accuse people of such horrible, actionable crimes, we absolutely will.

Christine: Well what do we say, K's are evil?

John: K's are evil.

Christine: S's, P's, you know, things like that. And so I, you know—

John: An F or a Ph, that's usually evil.

Christine: I like to work with sounds, when we're naming.

Scott: Oh here he's covering his scar there, too.

John: Yeah.

Scott: If you guys are paying attention, he puts his hat back on.

John: And again, it's, it's—'cause we just did the commentary for The Order 23 Job, and this is another one where it's just, you just take Aldis and Chris, you let them be annoyed with each other, and you set them off on a separate plotline. And that will bring you amusement.

Peter: Yes. Mark Roskin shot this scene also, because my wife was having surgery.

John: Oh I'm sorry, is she okay?

Peter: Yeah, she's fine. God bless you guys though, it's the only time I've actually been able to leave. [All Laugh] 'My wife's having surgery.' 'Sorry, you can't-- have to stay.'

John: Well, Marc Roskin directed, uh, MMA, the MMA job which is on the set of discs and everything; he's actually our Producer/Director up there, who stayed up in Portland. So he picked up a lot of-- he shot a lot of stuff. We're... we shoot in seven days when we should really shoot in, oh, ten. Right?

Christine: Everybody gets to work with Rosky, that's uh, that's the way it goes.

John: That's the tradition. Uh, which hack is he doing right now?

Chris: I think this is when he hacks into the camera.

John: Oh, as he hacks into the remote camera.

Chris: He hacks into the remote camera.

John: That's another thing we—

Dean: Yeah this is when we decided to have that— the camera on his belt buckle allowed them to see what he was doing on the computer.

John: The phone camera.

Dean: The phone camera.

Christine: Right.

John: Also eminently doable. It's a bit cludgy, but you can- you can do it.

Peter: Tim's bombing here, which— we decided to give an arc here-

John: See, this is my question, because Tim's bombing, alright, and that's what I found delightful, is the fact that Nate Ford is finally not good at something.

All: Right.

John: What was the audience thinking? These are Portland extras, they've been told they're seeing Tim Hutton, did he just go up and suck, or did you tell them he was going to suck?

Scott: No, they were—

Peter: We told them that—Uh, we stood up and we showed all the uh, audience reactions, and Tim was up there with me and I was yelling out 'Okay now he really sucks; no, he really, really sucks' [All Laugh] 'No, he's boring', and they would all get really bored.

Chris: Now here were these real tricks that Apollo Robbins taught them to do, we did— we kinda had a little magic bootcamp while this filming was going on. And uh, you know these are all things Apollo brought up there, and we choreographed; they just had a ball.

Peter: It was astounding the show still turned out short with the four pages we added there. [All Laugh] Nothing but magicians.

Chris: But, but it's a testament to the pace of this show, I mean you really- it just flies.

John: It's, uh— and she's having another drink.

Peter: More drink.

Christine: Still in the bar.

John: Seriously, we're so—

Peter: Three days later.

John: We're so bringing drunk science girl back.

Christine: Oh, that's right.

John: I love science— I love a good science girl anyways, so.

Scott: Who doesn't?

John: Who doesn't?

Christine: Drunk science girl is just a bonus.

John: Yup.

Peter: Covered his scar again.

John: Yeah. But it's a tricky bit, because you know, your average television script is between forty five and fifty five pages, and because we're an action driven show we just never know where we're gonna land.

Christine: Yeah.

John: Um, that's cosy. [All Laugh]

Chris: That's a great shot right there.

Christine: No comment.

John: Yeah that's, that's a great shot.

Peter: Once again the bad guys walk by.

John: You know what, if they were- if they were really good at their jobs, they wouldn't be working at a food company.

Chris: Eh, now they're starting to get the hang of their magic act, you see things starting to turn around.

John: Uh, and then, oh yeah, we came up with the whole idea— this was the other thing, is, what were the constraints, what you need for security systems?

Peter: This the most— with the check, the chances of us timing this correctly were so slim, and this was the first take. Wow.

Scott: That was perfect.

Peter: Racked to it. And everybody got up at the right time.

John: Nice. You either get that— you know what, that always is a first take, isn't it? It's like, either you get it or you don't, yeah? Um, yeah that was a big part of designing this episode, is, we had to figure out what were the security systems in place, and how they could possibly interact with magic, none of us being magicians.

Chris: Right.

John: Yeah, it was a lot of, uh, a lot of big lists on the board that day. I like how the thing even has a top to hide her, uh, her pregnancy there. The sword thing is even at the right height.

Peter: The background absolutely loved Tim. They thoroughly enjoyed the—they sat there for, I dunno, eight or nine hours?

Christine: Wow.

Dean: I love that. 'No questions!' [All Laugh]

Chris: Yeah, first thing was- was a fingerprint. Okay—

Dean: 'Belieeeve in the magic.'

Chris: —well lets, how would they get a fingerprint if you're a magician on stage? Well okay, this is how. How would we relay it? And it was all... There's a lot of great gadgets here, we have the [Chuckles], you know the handy, uh, Brother P-Touch... [Laughs]

John: Yeah! The Brother P-Touch fingerprint printer.

Christ: The Brother P-Touch fingerprinter which, uh, available at [sounds like: hamburger shlemer] folks.

John: You know what? Again, this is why people underestimate Hardison. He has to have this stuff in his bag all the time. That's why he has the van. The van is there for a reason, people.

Christine: Respect the van.

Dean: Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was the first episode that we introduced the gummy frogs—

Chris: Yes.

Dean:—which now became a partner with the orange soda as a necessary thing for Hardison at all times.

John: It is required, it is absolutely required for Hardison to have gummy frogs while hacking.

Dean: And orange soda.

John: And orange soda.

Chris: Alright, now they got the fingerprint, now it's smooth sailing, we get to get in. Uh, not so fast.

John: Uh, well they need to get—it's not so fast because now they need the gel.

Peter: I'll never forget when the prop guy said— we started with gummy bears, gummy this, gummy that, and when you said, I think, gummy frogs, and he's like, "You're fucking killing me".

[All Laugh]

Chris: Nope, gotta be gummy frogs.

Christine: They're exactly the right size! They're perfect.

Timestamp: [30:00]

John: It's gotta be frogs. And again, by the way, I've actually seen the video where Bruce Schneier used this exact technique to fool a $150,000 fingerprint scanner.

Chris: Yeah.

John: The type that the TSA uses to secure airports.

Christine: So please try this at home.

Chris: This is a great reaction right here.

John: And that's a great reaction. Just the laser, just the mocking him with the lasers.

Chris: And literally, ‘I'm spinning plates here, I'm spinning plates here while you're asking me for retinas.’ He's spinning plates!

Christine: Doing a great job! Spinning plates. And juggling.

Chris: And the retinas part is, to me, what the show is all about, what Leverage is all about, is that we have to put a CEO in a magic box, to bring him to scan his retinas. That is a whole, whole thing.

Dean: That's my favorite part of this whole episode, that for me... when I read that in the draft, I literally fell out of my chair laughing. I thought that was the funniest bit.

Christine: I think that was our favorite bit to do in the room.

John: Yeah, I must have driven the staff crazy, because I must have said 'They put me in a box' a thousand times.

Christine: It was hilarious. And the fake music cues we would make up, wheeling along...

John: Yeah. Oh, remember the uh, the thing I had was the sound of the box [mimics squeaking] and then we cut to the box. [mimics squeaking] 'Hey, is anybody out there?''

Chris: And this was great, this is Apollo—Apollo figured out how we would do the uh, box switch.

John: Cause the box actually works slightly differently, that's not how you'd usually do it, but he—Apollo invented a version of the trick on the fly.

Christine: For us.

John: [mimics squeaking] Hello?

[All Laugh]

Chris: And this stuff, when we shot this, I literally was crying, I was laughing so hard. We were shooting the stuff of him in the box, the CEO-

John: How did you shoot that?

Peter: We attached a camera again, kind of like the box shot earlier, attached the camera to the box and spun it. But I was surprised, it didn't look like I thought it would. It looks great, but it didn't turn out like I thought it would. But he was great, we spun him around and around, at one point he said, 'I'm getting sick'...

[All Laugh]

John: And all the jokes about bosses here, this is what you do in a corporate show, is when you go, you find out like all the stuff, the name of the boss, and the one who's bad at golf, and you work it into the routine, and oh, man. It's filthy, filthy lucre.

Chris: Here's a beautiful shot I love here, too; there's a shot from behind of the box spinning I just love.

John: And, away.

Christine: The color palette’s great, for the entire show. Looks terrific. Really pops.

Peter: [Unintelligible] to our DP by the way, that was four cameras at once; we shot the whole thing in one day.

Christine: Wow. Dave Connell, superstar.

Dean: I love all these shots, I just love them. And he was great in these scenes. I mean, I totally buy him.

John: We just put him in the elevator. ‘Have a good time.’ Yeah like it's all sort of blue and orange down here, it's all sort of grey and pastels upstairs—

Peter: The crowd loved this gag.

John: Oh yeah.

Chris: And here we go.

John: [Mimics squeaking] It's just funny, I'm sorry, man. You put a CEO in a box... And the uh, did you use a real dove, or no, that was a fake dove all along?

Peter: It was fake. It was a little squeezy dove, that's really kinda cool.

John: There's actually a famous, uh, Penn and Teller famous story, they do magic exhibitions, where people demonstrate their tricks. And there's a youth category, where kids show that they have mastery of these classic tricks, there's one where you, like, show the dove in a cooking pan, and then close the pan and then light the fire and whip it away and there's like a cooked dove in its place? And as the kid did it, he screwed it up, so as soon as he lit the fire, like, a hundred magicians stood up at once and went 'THE DOVE!!' 'cause they all know how it works.

Dean: Oh noo.

John: And he's like the thing's on fire and he's beating it out with his tiny like, his twelve year old magician's coat... 'cause doves are expensive. I mean nevermind the cruelty, but yeah.

Christine: Aw... [Pause] These two need to have their own vaudeville act. I would watch a variety show that they hosted.

John: I like, again, just the constant choices that Beth is making at all times, just like- and she's kind of amused, and now she's bored with this. Ah, she's done, she wants to be breaking into things. Uh, excellent cheesy server room, nicely done.

Peter: It was the smallest room in the known world.

John: Ye—what's that?

Peter: It was the smallest room in the known world.

John: We like to build our sets really tiny.

Peter: It was basically a closet.

John: Yeah, and then this was again always our drive to the [unintelligible] complication.

Peter: Good bad guy, by the way.

Dean: Yeah, he really delivered.

Chris: This bad guy, he was really terrific, Kevin E. West is his name.

Dean: We actually met him through uh, Patrick Jakoni, who's our mixer, who mixes all the episodes of Leverage.

John: Did he have a—did he just bring the headshot in, or....

Dean: He was a friend and he just said "I really want you to meet this guy, he's a friend of mine, I really think he's a terrific actor." And I met him, and I thought he was great. You guys have met him, and—

Chris: Great kind of middle management evil.

John: The banality of evil. He gets a great evil speech of evil.

Chris: He does. Which is a late edition.

Dean: A little shout-out to Derek, who does all of our graphics on all the computers.

Peter: Unbelievable.

Dean: I mean, he does so much for us—

Peter: This is where he hit his head.

John: Yeah, see, no scar there, and then, uh, nothing but scarves afterwards.

Dean: I love this fight too.

John: This, I will—

Timestamp: 35:00

Dean: I love the closed quarter fights.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: I will fully admit, this is, um. I'm trying to remember....

Chris: Look at this. [All Laugh] There's the scene.

John: I'm trying to remember, there's a, it's not a Jackie Chan fight, it's a Jackie Chan produced movie, it's with three actresses, I think it's called So Beautiful, which has an elevator fight, that actually was the origin of this.

Peter: What I like is the 90 degree shutter in all these fights. It makes it feel, like...

John: It's very crisp.

Peter: Yeah. It makes it feel like, like you're missing a frame or something.

John: So what happened? Chris turned around, right, turned around and just smacked his head against the side of the cabin?

Chris: Well, I mean, we passed it, but there's a moment when he throws a punch, and it sort of—you can kinda see the edge, in the frame, and his head just continued into the edge of the box.

Peter: No, we had the— we didn't have the padded one in there. And he went against the hard one. Split it open huge too.

Chris: Seventeen stitches.

Scott: Wow.

John: Seventeen stitches, and then like a week later, pulled them out himself because he was sick of them.

Peter: I think it was actually right here.

Scott: Really?

Peter: I think it was this one. I think it was the last punch, if I remember correctly.

John: Never do the last punch.

Chris: Oh, might have been there, yeah.

John: Yeah, lotta elbows, lotta—I always loved a good fight—what, what is this? This is madness!

[All Laugh]

Christine: It's vaudeville!

John: What the hell was that?

Dean: Something like a Marx brothers movie.

John: I know!

Christine: It's delightful.

John: I'm really waiting for Zeppo to show up to that. I think Gina's Zeppo in this episode. And he's still in the box.

Peter: 'Hello? Hello?'

John: And then this, the getaway with the curtain trick.

Chris: Curtain trick, and this again was, you know, Apollo designed, because, you know, we had in the script, they disappeared in a cone curtain, and he, you know...

John: Well it's actually, it was uh, when I was seven, or something of that age, I saw Bill Bixby do that in The Magician, and it always stuck with me.

Christine: The greatest theme song in the world.

Chris: We watched a little bit of The Magician.

John: We watched a little bit of The Magician, and it has the greatest theme song of all time. If you can go YouTube the theme for The Magician, it's fantastic.

Christine: Our writers’ assistant had it queued up. Becky had it queued up and ready whenever we needed to play.

John: Ohhhh.

Chris: Ohh, gut punched into a chair, that's another kind of recurring theme of season two.

John: Well, it was our Rockford homage.

Christine: Ah yes, the gut punch.

John: Yeah, James Garner spent five years getting gut punched.

Chris: I think this is an iconic shot of this show, I do, it's a beautiful shot.

Peter: And this is Apollo's idea, I think, to put the rabbit back in, too.

Chris: Yes, it was, it was.

Christine: Fantastic visual.

Dean: And I love the way that Aldis plays this scene here, because I- the danger felt real. It didn't feel like, oh comedy villains' fake punch, he's really okay. You know when I watched it, I really felt like wow, we're in trouble.

John: Well Aldis is a very good actor. Yeah. This really also became the year where we kind of established the straight run fourth and fifth act.

Chris: Well this is very much a real time episode. I think three of the five acts were pretty much in real time.

Peter: I like that he talks about the uh, magician's union. You're gonna get a letter from them, I'm telling you.

Chris: And here is the evil speech of evil.

John: Just explaining that if people are stupid enough to eat frozen pot pies without heating them enough, they deserve salmonella.

Dean: That's not a rationale!

John: No!

Chris: That's what happens to people who don't follow instructions. Now I'm giving you instructions.

John: No, he's really selling this, he thinks he's gonna die here, or at least get seriously messed up. And the bad guy, uh, who played the Busey?

Chris: The bad guy was George Castillo.

John: Yeah he was good. He had a good physical menace. And the nice pass, there we go, if you're paying attention. And what I like is that Aldis made a choice there, like, as soon as he saw that—

Peter: Two different locations, by the way.

John: Oh yeah, you're not— that reverse isn’t anywhere near there?

Christine: Oh, nicely done.

Peter: It's like, thirty miles away.

Dean: Nice. Never knew that.

Chris: We coming up to— when we do this flash, about how we got the phone, is a, this right here is an absolutely beautiful shot coming up.

John: I like that he calls him magician too, as if— it's very, like [very dramatically] 'Magiciaan!'

Christine: I'm actually most proud of that line, by the way.

John: Yeah, exactly. It is. It's very Lord of the Rings.

Dean: And a terrific use of the ninja zoom.

John: Yeah, to reestablish that geography we talk about all the time. Um, yeah, and the poker chip, and the turn to the reveal, she’s gonna bump into him, but the thing I was going to say is, Aldis does a moment there where he sees the lift, he knows it’s going to be okay, and his expression changes.

Christine: His whole face relaxes.

Peter: She looks so hot there, too.

John: She does, she looks very good.

Christine: She's rocking the power pony. There's a lot of Parker's power ponytails this year.

John: Parker ponytails?

Christine: The power pony.

John: The power pony, is that what you're calling it?

Christine: That's what it's called.

John: By the way, if you google power pony that's not what you're gonna get.

Christine: Do not Google power pony.

John: [Laughing] Do not Google power pony.

Peter: Here's a flashback, this is a great shot.

Chris: Here it is, here's the shot.

Peter: This was— our operator nailed this.

John: It's coming.

Chris: It's a long explanation.

John: It is a long explanation.

Chris: Here it is, here it is. Oh, look at that. Perfect shot

Peter: Her look back is fabulous.

Timestamp: [40:00]

Chris: Perfect turn.

Christine: That is poetry. That's beautiful.

John: It also helps that Beth has good hands. You know, Apollo said that —

Chris: Well, he worked with her on this.

John: Yeah, he taught her how to lift.

Christine: She could be a thief if she wanted to.

John: And we'll see how season three goes, who knows where we'll wind up. Aww, thief of hearts, that's nice.

Christine: Isn't she?

John: And the whole idea of dumping, um, it was actually, the whole idea that phones now, you can just dump massive amounts of information on, was, I think Bruce Sterling had just done a thing about, um, the ubiquity... instead of cloud computing, but using the sort of—why go to cloud computing if your devices have more memory than the NASA moon landing?

Chris: And here, here's where we're—

John: And, ah, she's back!

Peter: 'I was in the box.'

[All Laugh]

Christine: 'I was in the bar!'

Peter: 'They put me in a box.'

Christine: He was in the box, she was in the bar, and now they're together again.

John: Seriously man, I had a fistful of scotch, and I must have been saying that for a week. 'They put me in a box'. I may drink during the day. And this, by the way, is an iconic shot for the show. That's a big one.

Christine: Aw, look at that. Look at those two.

John: It's tricky, when you find— our wardrobe has to be high style without ever going over the top, and that's what really— it's nice because that's what makes it visually interesting.

Christine: Look at these two together. Oh my god.

John: I know. They're great.

Dean: And this, again, was a real nice setup for where we ultimately go with the uh, the entire season.

John: That's right, because if you're listening to these commentaries in the—and we've split the season, it's— 209 is the last one. So you don't know what happens in the back end. Um. Dinosaurs.

Christine: They fight dinosaurs.

Dean: But this concept that he has replaced alcohol with control...

John: Right, this season is about addiction. Um, and people who cope with alcohol. Ahem.

Christine: Oh, this season is about addiction? [All Laugh] What? What show was I writing on last year?

Chris: Beautiful shot of her here, too, just really nice.

Peter: Hiding her pregnancy.

John: You know, she does a lot of work here when she's talking to—'cause it's interesting, this is a pairing we don't do a lot, and we wound up doing more this year. Um, is the idea that he is a little outside the team, and very hyper competent at what he does. And you can sort of see their relationship over the course of the first couple episodes arc where she feels comfortable confiding in him, in a way that was not there for season one.

Chris: And she's a little estranged from Nate, too.

Christine: I think because of that betrayal, first season, Sophie and Eliot have a special relationship in season two.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Well, Peter, thank you for being part of this episode, and being part of our show.

Peter: Loved it, enjoyed it immensely. I wanna live in Portland.

[All Laugh]

Christine: We do too.

John: And uh, Christina, Scott, nicely done.

Christine: Good job guys, everybody did a great job.

Dean: Stay tuned for the next episode of Leverage.

Peter: Single person clapping, single person clapping.

John: We're all clapping.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Eliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 2 #Episode 6 #season 2 episode 6 #The Top Hat Job

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archonssun · 5 years ago

Text

Don’t Take it to Heart

Chapter Eight

WC: 1346

“Eeny-meeny, miney-moe…”

“We’re catching cold…”

“So here we go!”

It was the banter that kept them on their toes in the freezing dungeon. Ever since they had arrived, Prompto and Noct were going at it with quips and puns, and on more than one occasion Pax found herself chuckling.

“How much farther?” the woman asked, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

“Not too far,” Ignis replied. He looked back at her over his shoulder, then shed his jacket and handed it to the girl.

“Thanks, Iggy,” Pax smiled. Ignis smiled in return. A few months ago, had he smiled at her, Pax would have been in shock, but now? She was used to it. It was the others that couldn’t get used to it.

“I still think it’s weird that Iggy can actually smile,” Prompto muttered under his breath, looking at the siblings. As his eyes caught Pax’s, he quickly turned away, his face turning pink. Gods, was he nervous. Ever since Gladio had lifted her spirits, Pax had somewhat gone back to normal, but it all felt … forced. Like she wasn’t really feeling what she was projecting to the others.

The blond boy’s thoughts were interrupted when a group of flan appeared. Almost instantly, Noct jumped into the fray, followed closely by Pax. The girl summoned her weapon -- a pair of short swords. Their blades -- as thin as the ice prevalent all around the dungeon -- sliced through the daemons with ease, belying the countless hours Pax had practiced mastering them. When she moved, it was like watching a water sprite flit around. There was no wasted movement, no unnecessary steps as the woman struck down the daemons with ease.

“Who’s next?” Pax’s voice filtered through the chaos of battle as the last daemon fell, a wicked smile on her face. It was in stark contrast to the expression she had been wearing just moments earlier. However, Prompto was hard-pressed to say that this new expression was any better than the last. It had a sort of … primal energy to it that sent the boy’s hair to stand on end at just the mere sight of it.

A shiver raced down the blond’s spine as Pax took the lead, marching through the dungeon like she owned the place. Absently, he cast a glance back to Ignis, only to find that the man’s brows were furrowed in concern. His blue eyes shot back to the lone female, the fear of what she could do rising within.

What happened to you, Pax?

***

“Iggy, on your left!” Pax’s voice urged the older male to duck right as a Mindflayer reached for him. Then, using his daggers, Ignis cut up the daemon, ultimately killing it. As it disintegrated, Pax’s weapons disappeared as she approached the door to the Royal Tomb.

“This has got to be it,” she muttered, motioning to the black haired prince. Noctis walked forward, unlocking the door with the key Cor had given him before entering and taking the weapon into his armory. As soon as the sequence was finished, Pax stretched her arms over her head.

“Gods, that was a lot!” she groaned. Her elbows and wrists popped as they were stretched, eliciting a moan from the female. “That felt amazing!”

“Then why do you hold your weapons so tight?” Gladio scoffed. During the fights with the various hordes of daemons, he had noticed that the woman’s knuckles were white as she held her swords. Icy blue eyes turned to glare at the mountain of flesh.

“Why do you have to be a hardass?” she shot back. Gladio frowned at the woman -- well, more at her sass than anything. You’d think by now he’d be used to sass because of Noctis, but apparently not.

Seeing she had effectively shut up the Shield, Pax smirked, pushing past the Amicitia and heading towards the dungeon’s entrance.

“Hey, uh … Pax?” Prompto’s voice called after her, causing the woman to stop and turn to the other blond. Raising an eyebrow in question, she waited for Prompto to continue. “Are you … um … uh, never mind …”

As she glanced at the boy in concern, she shrugged, turning on her heel once more and walking through the dungeon once more.

***

“Your story came to a happy end,” Ignis’ voice broke the air of the Leville, and the young boy smiled almost as brightly as the blond boy himself. He basked in the praise of the royal retinue, not noticing when Pax slipped away from the group and hid in a corner. She couldn’t help it; it was a habit from over ten years of Crownsguard training, and old habits die hard. She listened in on the conversation between the guys and the young boy, all speaking in excited voices. A smile on her face, Pax’s eyes slipped shut, exhaustion threatening to take over. She was nearly overcome by the feeling when she heard Noct’s gasp.

Instantly, Pax was on high alert, racing silently across the room to stand at the prince’s side. Placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder, she searched Noct’s face as he held his head in his hands.

“Noct!” Prompto exclaimed, coming to stand on his friend’s other side.

“Your Highness,” Pax said. She tried her hardest to adopt a gentle tone to her voice as she spoke, knowing from experience with Nyx that loud noises could make the headaches worse. Her hand went from Noct’s shoulder to rubbing his back. As soon as the pain seemed to pass, Pax’s hand stopped rubbing the prince’s back, instead going to help the monarch straighten.

“Not again …” was the only thing Noct said, his hand retreating from his face.

“What’s the matter? You alright?” Iris’ concern showed through her voice as she bent to see the prince’s face.

“He’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” Gladio was quick to wave off his sister’s worry. Turning to the group, Gladio said, “We oughta take a closer look as this so called “Disc”.”

“Then look no further than the outlook. We can use the viewer things!” At Prompto’s energetic reply -- coupled with the fact that he didn’t know what those ‘viewer things’ were actually called -- caused a snort of laughter to escape Pax’s throat. Almost immediately, the entire group turned to give her weird looks, which only caused her to start laughing fully.

“Oh, Gods!” she cried, crumbling to the floor. She held her stomach, the pain almost unbearable, as she curled in on herself on the floor. Her laugh echoed around the lobby, sending all present into shock -- specifically, the boys she had been travelling with. In all their time travelling with one another, they had never seen the woman laugh as hard as she was right now. What made it more weird was, just when they thought she had gotten a hold of herself, she would be thrown into another fit of laughter.

So there she laid -- curled into a ball on the floor, laughing her ass off -- for almost ten minutes before she managed to settle down enough to stand.

“Oh, man! Haven’t laughed like that in a while!” she smiled, wiping away the tears that sprung up in the corners of her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the boys, their glances not going unnoticed. “Why’re y’all looking at me like I’ve gone mad?”

“Sorry, um … we’ve just … you--” Prompto sputtered, his cheeks turning red as he scratched the back of his neck.

“We haven’t heard you laugh before, is what he’s trying to say,” Gladio said, a small smile playing at his lips. The others smiled in agreement, causing a frown to alight on Pax’s face.

“Well, there really hasn’t been much to laugh about lately, has there?” All at once, Pax’s happy mood was dashed, the frown on her lips creasing her forehead. She pushed past the group of guys, stalking out of the hotel and heading to the outlook.

As the guys watched her retreating figure, only one thought coursed through their minds:

Why did we say anything?

#prompto argentum #prompto x oc #ffxv #prompto #prompto argentum x OC #angst

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chaniters · 6 years ago

Text

Clarity

Faced with imminent death, the heroes have a brief moment of clarity. Awan’s tech skills are put to the test against The Void.

Enjoy!

_________________________________

You approach the canisters to examine the attached explosives.

Charge and Anathema follow you closely.

"A little space... please?" you say nervously. They step back as you try to make heads or tails of it all.

Charge starts calling with a large brick phone... warning the LDPD about the need for immediate evacuation of the area. You hope it's not too late for that...

As you thought, it's impossible to just remove the bombs. and emptying canisters full of hero drugs without the proper equipment is also suicidal. It's already gaseous in its current state, and the entire lab is set to create many tiny doses to sell on the streets, not to store large amounts of it.

Ok... The only way is forward. Lucky you, you've done this before in training.

"We need to remove the lids over here first" You explain while looking for the tools in your bag. "Just need a screwdriver for this and..."

"Allow me" Anathema approaches and slides a finger over the first lid. You flinch momentarily, fearing the worst... but he is careful... the acid only corrodes a very thin line, and the lid falls off in no time.

"Or that," you say. "That works too" you begin working on the first bomb, as he repeats the procedure on the second lid.

Ortega looks incredibly nervous, and that does NOT help. Anathema exudes fear, not for himself but for the two of you... You don't want to break his bubble of invulnerability by reminding him that such a concentration of hero drugs would kill him too, like a bug exposed to insecticide... that wouldn't do any good no...

Good thing you were creating explosives as well... you have pretty much all the essentials in your bag. You connect the first bomb's electronics to a phone you are using for field hacking and access the countdown, turning off the countermeasures...

Your phone displays the counter... 6 minutes and 30 seconds left. It's a good time so far...

You repeat the procedure on the second bomb. And then you double check them...

Only 5 minutes and 15 seconds left. You begin removing another section of the first bomb.

"Anathema, please unscrew that?" you ask him. He's less nervous than Ortega... his hand should be steady.

It's only when the second lid is removed that you truly begin to panic as well. There is a mess of cables inside. Nathaniel must have planted decoys...

Fuck. No time to find the true detonator... You can narrow it down a lot, but it still comes down to a 50% chance... green or yellow. And the second bomb is just the same.

You rub your eyes... this can't be happening. Why you?

"Marshall... Anathema...You should both leave. I ... I have to cut a cable... And I could make a mistake. If you make it out now you could still outrun the cloud..." your voice breaks as you speak these words... but it's what's expected of you. What you were trained to do.

"I can contain one explosion with my body" Anathema offers

You snort... "I don't... think that will work... "

"I'm staying here too" Charge states. "I can try to shortcircuit the other bomb..."

"You two are... just ...insane," you say clearing some tears. Shit, you've totally lost your cool now.

"Ok... We have one final choice to make ... yellow... Or Green? Honestly, there's no way to tell..." you confess.

They both speak at the same time after a moment...

"I say...Yellow," says Anathema

"Green must be it.." Charge chooses instead

"You are NOT helpful" you laugh nervously trying not to freak out.

Oh shit, you're about to die.

You're not afraid of death itself... You were created to protect the innocent... at least that's what the computer programs whispered to your ears during your sleep cycles back at the farm while enduring initial training.

A servant to protect the state, to serve the innocent, to prevent pointless deaths and to face the enemies that would destroy your country. Developing your powers to the absolute maximum was your directive, all in service to the nation.

And then, that part of your training was over, and your actual missions had nothing to do with that... murdering... killing, blackmailing... spying...

You would have been content to fulfill the role you were told you had in life. The obvious hypocrisy is the first form of cognitive dissonance Regenes face in their existences.

You take a deep breath.

You know the answer... Nathaniel was not only your handler, but he was also your instructor. He taught you everything you know about explosives. You remember his words well...

"If you ever need to disarm one of my bombs in the field, 412, remember, go for the green cable".

That should be simple enough.

But then he also told you he would always have your back. That you would always be a team. That he would let you do things your way... that he almost felt you were his partner. And those were all lies.

He could have switched the bomb's sequence with a simple command of his detonator. You know how it works.

If he did... and you cut the green cable... You'll kill everyone.

You don't care to die if it will save the innocent... but to die and cause them all to die as well?

"I can't," you say walking back... "You... you do it!" you offer the tool to Charge.

"Ki... Sidestep. You're the only one who can do this" Charge says looking into your eyes. "I know what I said before but... Mierda, I believe in you, ok? You're doing better than any veterans I know... I trust you. You can do this"

"You can do this" Anathema offers you a nervous smile. Fuck. He actually means it.

This is just so corny... But right now, their reassurance brings you some badly needed peace of mind.

59 seconds...

"I..." you take the pincers "Ok... here... here goes"

*SNAP* The first cable is cut... and you're still in one piece.

You take a deep breath... and approach the second one...

You drop the pincers. Crap! You pick them up fast as Charge lets out a light gasp.

*SNAP* The second cable is cut…

Is that it? Did you do the right thing… or not? It didn’t blow up, that’s good. But you can’t know if he switched the sequence… not yet...

24 seconds left.

"Why... why didn't the counter stop?!" Charge is losing it...

"The countdown should be disconnected from the detonator"

"How do we know that's true?"

"We can’t… we have to... wait," you say. "Nothing else we can do... if we cut more we will trigger a hard countermeasure... and no time to outrun the cloud now. I'm sorry"

You look at them... it's suddenly really cold. What if you made a mistake...? What if...

You close your eyes and raise your shields... You know they can't protect you against explosions, or poisonous clouds...but you do nonetheless. It's what your instincts tell you to do.

23...22....21... you count silently... And you can’t stop shivering.

20... 19... 18...

And then you feel... hands? Arms? Charge. He is hugging you... What in the... And then Anathema. Charge is hugging and Anathema has his arms around the both of you. Anathema places his back against the bomb... as if to absorb the explosion.

“I’ve got you guys”

You know the gas will likely still kill you all if the bomb goes off, but the symbolism of the gesture isn't lost on you. It’s stupid, but the dorks are making you feel protected and it’s… just weird. Why would anyone protect you? You were made to protect others… These humans are odd. You let them be.

"Don't be sorry Sidestep... you did your best, whatever happens." Charge says. Yeah...You can’t help think those words will be making very little sense if you all end up in pieces...

But you don’t say that.

“Thank you” is all you say them.

9...8...7...

Ugh... You can’t help it. Maybe it’s the closeness of these two… But right now, if you are going to die... you don't want to be alone. You extend your hands and hug them as well.

You might die. So anything goes. Pretend to be one of them... To the bitter end. You wonder if it’s really different from being one. It’s almost funny...

4...3...2...

"Shitshitshitpleasebedisarmed" your lips whisper beyond your control

1...0...-1?

A few more seconds pass.

And then a few more.

Unlike most humans, you have a very good internal clock... When it’s over, you don't really need anyone to come to tell you.

"Ok ok people it's... it's over" you say...

They don't let go initially, so you have to push quite a bit to free yourself. Anathema walks a few steps wobblily, and Charge simple falls on his butt.

"Hand's off you two, the touchy-feely-special-friendship hour is over. No respect for personal space!...Geez... Are you two just clingy or what?" you dust off your clothes, to reinforce your point.

"Wh.. you were pressing hard too! Hugging us for your life!" Charge accuses you

"That's bullshit!! I did no such thing!"

"We all thought we could all die there! What's wrong with admitting to wanting some human contact when faced with death?"

"When I need human contact, I'll ask for human contact!" you grump back at him.

"We weren’t going to wait for you asking! It was a safety maneuver! Protect the Civilian!"

"I’ve got a hero name! And I had disarmed the bomb already!!"

"Then why were you closing your eyes and trembling?"

"I wasn't trembling!"

"We all heard you whispering terrified as the count went down!" Charge glares.

You try to ignore the fact that he’s right and focus on the important point about him being an asshole right now...

"Prove it marshall cuddles! You had your sausage fingers all over me for no good reason!" you shoot back... Why the fuck did you just say that? You end up blushing.

"W... what?" Charge seems equally confused for a few seconds before answering. "What is that even supposed to mean? You've got some serious delusions kid! I wouldn't touch you with a six-foot pole and..."

You are interrupted by the laughter.

You both turn... and see Anathema filming you.

"Please don't stop, this is just too damn funny"

"Aww...mierda... this is just... just great, look what you did" Charge complains at you.

"Shut that thing down!" you run up to him, trying to stop his recording you without a mask.

"Hey hey, stop it" he chuckles as you wrestle him. He is unmovable, but you're not a quitter.

"Guys... where's Ember and Medea?" Charge asks.

"Oh shit" Anathema and you say simultaneously

"THey've banished." he continues

"Well... I'm too tired to chase them. I got tased by Void earlier..." you say

"Same. He tased me too!" Anathema says while showing you he's deleting the recording to stop you from trying to snatch his phone. "Ok, ok, stop it"

"And I got burnt" Charge sighs. "We'll have to get them next time guys."

"Next time?" you ask

"Yeah" He smiles "Even if you are some sort of anti-social gremlin, It was good working with you ... Sidestep." So you're not the *kid* anymore. Good thing he learned.

"It was a blast! And you disarmed those things! Both of them! You're just awesome!" Anathema shakes your hand energetically.

Now you feel awkward... not used to compliments. Doing your job is just normal... It's what's expected of you.

"Hey, do you want to join us for dinner? On the ranger's tab," he asks.

"Ehrm... for real?"

"Yeah for real"

"Maybe some other time," you say excusing yourself... Free food is tempting, but you can see the police lights approaching and you don't want to be here much longer.

"Oh I get it... you don't like to stay for the paperwork" he grins "Well the invitation stands... One question before you go... Are you going to keep it up, the crime-fighting I mean... or was this a one-time thing? I could give you some tips and training if you want and..."

"In your dreams sparkles!" you shoot him down... you're not going to be anyone's sidekick ever again... that didn't end well last time. But then you realize that might have been a bit harsh.. you open your mouth again. "I prefer working alone... But It wasn't... you know, it wasn't all bad working with you either.. maybe we'll meet again Charge."

"Hey what’s wrong with the sparkles? Everyone loves them!” he grins “... allright, see you around, take care!" he offers you his hand... and you shake it.

And then you leave, putting on your hood and covering your head with your bandana. You wave at Anathema, who's talking to the police on your way out.

-----------------a few blocks later-----------------

Time to head back to the hotel...

This was... odd. Not really all bad…?

You came in for revenge... and got something completely different.

Maybe you can keep doing this? Use your powers for the purpose you were made? Protect the people? It's what you always wanted... the only thing you wished to do while you were training at the farm. Be a real protector?

It doesn't sound bad... not bad at all.

You'll have to find a place to stay... that hotel isn't a really appropriate crime fighting base of operations...

With your powers, it shouldn't be hard to steal back some money from con-men and other criminals.

And The Void is loose... You'll have to deal with Nathaniel eventually. He knows your secrets, as you do his. He didn't switch the bombs sequences... does that mean he didn't really intend to kill you? He did say he would meet you again you now recall... that should mean something? Did he knew you would disarm them...?

Your mind tells you it's impossible to know for sure... You just want to believe he didn't want you dead... Maybe he still sees you as a sort of friend, in his own twisted way? And if he does... what in the hell does it mean for you?

You are so confused...

And then there's Anathema and Charge...

Anathema seems friendly enough. You won't mind working with him in the future...

And the Marshall... He came around... you earned his respect, and he earned yours in the end...

But why do you keep thinking about his arms around you...? And why do you enjoy arguing with him so much? You're not generally so confrontational with anyone else. Is it because you can't read his mind?

Yes...

Definitely must have something to do with it.

In any case, it's a mystery for another time.

______________________________________

My Fanfiction: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

#fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero spoilers #Awan Cormac #Fanfiction

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jcmorrigan · 6 years ago

Note

Top ten KH3 moments?

***SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD! DON’T READ UNLESS YOU’VE EXPERIENCED THE WHOLE GAME OR YOU DON’T GIVE A DANG ABOUT SPOILERS!***

Confession: in trying to come up with my answer for this post, I came up with THIRTY. I’ll just put the ten here, but if anyone wants to ask about those other twenty, feel free :-D

10. The reveal of who Luxu really was the whole time. It tied together a lot of things that made sense and it set up EXACTLY THE CHARACTER IT NEEDED TO to take up the villain helm in place of Xehanort. I’m actually going to skirt saying this name, even though I warned for spoilers, because this reveal is just SO good. And a lot of the endgame made me feel sour and numb due to THE HORRIBLY TRAUMATIZING DEATH OF KAIRI, but this scene picked me almost all the way back up to normal again.

9. When Xemnas assembles Demyx, Larxene, Marluxia, and Luxord at the Keyblade Graveyard and it’s NONSTOP BANTER. Larxene firing off the most hilarious insults at Demyx (a CEREAL BOWL), Demyx openly admitting that he’s not imposing on purpose, Larxene trying to get Marluxia to start another coup, Luxord listening in the whole time and not letting on until his name is called, Luxord fiddling with the cards and making gambling metaphors, Demyx playing his sitar the whole time…and let us not forget the line that embodies a Big Mood: “Ugh. Xemnas.”

8. When Sora reunited with Hades. It was less “MY MORTAL NEMESIS WHO MUST BE STOPPED” and more “Oh, my weird friend of opposing morality who I don’t really like but have to say hi to.” Their reactions to each other were so hilariously casual. Then Hades introduced the Titans in the most EPIC way…only to realize he sent Sora EXACTLY WHERE HE SHOULDN’T GO and deciding this was fine. Also, bonus points for Sora later calling him “the H-ster.”

7. When the Demon Tornado (my personal name for the GIANT CYCLONE OF SHADOW HEARTLESS; canon will probably prove this wrong later) is about to wipe out everyone, but Ephemer helps Sora summon ALL THE KEYBLADES OF THE DEAD WIELDERS OF THE KEYBLADE WAR IN ORDER TO PULVERIZE IT. There’s so much going on there: the epicness of using a hundred Keyblades at once, the beautifully victorious arrangement of “Dearly Beloved,” the shout-outs to the player names in the commands, and, perhaps most of all, the realization after the fact that these blades were all of people who died killing each other for petty reasons…and after death, their spirits realized it was time to set aside their differences and focus on not letting Xehanort win.

6. Battling Davy Jones and the Kraken at the same time. The Kraken is one of the two Disney boss battle fights I have wanted for a DECADE (the other was Randall Boggs; you had your chance and you BLEW IT). I actually was half-disappointed with the naval battle portion because I had imagined it should be melee, but then Davy Jones turned out to be the first true Disney villain boss fight that wasn’t transformed into a Heartless or somesuch, and I’d been thirsty for content of him since arriving in that world. But then it turned out THE KRAKEN WAS WAITING IN THE WINGS TO ASSIST HIM and I actually DID get to fight it melee and it was just the PERFECT way to close out PotC’s role in KH.

5. Fighting Ansem, Seeker of Darkness; Xemnas; and Young Xehanort at the same time. First of all, BEST BOSS THEME IN THE ENTIRE GAME. It was the perfect culmination of putting all the Xehanort themes into one piece that flowed and made sense. Second, the sheer epicness of this CONCEPT. Third, the coordinated triple attack they make where Young Xehanort freezes Sora, Xemnas shoots him with the vines, and Ansem lets the lasers fly.

4. Even and Demyx’s one interaction. While I still don’t think Vexen/Even is hero material, the one thing that made that redemption worth it was this. Seeing these two diametrically opposing personalities, who you think would hate each other, play off each other perfectly. They’re just the right amount of annoyed with each other to be hilarious, and then there’s obviously some genuine respect passed between this odd couple. I will never be over how they have to shush each other in succession.

3. Ienzo’s intro to the plot, though this is kind of in two parts - I’m counting his initial reveal as Sora’s guide with his almost immediate return to help with tech stuff when Pence logs into the computer. Ienzo is just such a CINNAMON ROLL. He just wants friends now, he’s a total ambivert, he keeps slipping into jargon before realizing he’s the only one in the room who knows what he’s saying and reverting to layperson’s terms without being condescending, he flinches at sudden loud noises, he has a cute smile and a nervous laugh…oh. Oh, no. JCMorrigan has a crush.

2. When Vanitas is on the cusp of wrecking Sora on the Laughfloor…and Sulley intervenes by picking him up and YEETING HIM into a door. Oh, but not just that. Taking that door and THROWING IT INTO ANOTHER DOOR, THEN INTO ANOTHER DOOR, THEN INTO ANOTHER DOOR AND SHREDDING THAT ONE. I could NOT stop howling with laughter through this whole sequence. And about four hours later, it hit me that Vanitas could just Corridor out of wherever he got thrown, so Sulley basically did all that for nothing, AND NOW IT’S EVEN MORE HILARIOUS. BONUS POINTS STILL IF YOU THINK ABOUT THE KIDS’ ROOMS WHO EITHER HAD A DOOR FLUNG INTO THEM OR VANITAS HIMSELF. Also, can we appreciate how Sulley somehow knew after five minutes that Vanitas was THAT much worse than Randall that he’d need this treatment?

1. Randall Boggs hijacking the Monsters, Inc. factory. Randall is a legacy favorite villain of mine. He was a big part of my late childhood/young adolescence, and I was CRAZY over him. Over time, I’ve found he still holds up. I could gush about how KHIII’s additions to his entire characterization pretty much renewed my love for him afresh, but let’s focus on his finest hour. Normally, the designated villain of a KH world just peaces out and waits for you to find them at the boss location. Randall, instead, turns the entire factory into death traps and TAUNTS HIS QUARRY OVER THE PA SYSTEM GLADOS-STYLE. Not only that, but he makes TERRIBLE puns (”This one’s got some spark in him!” during the electric fence, “I’ve decided to ramp up the difficulty” as Sora climbs an upward-headed conveyor) and he easily slides from Large and in Charge (”Enjoy what’s left of your miserable little lives!”) to realizing he’s getting humiliated and trying to cover (”You get one freebie, but that’s it.”). KHIII did Randall so good I can’t even.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts iii #khiii #kh spoilers #kh3 spoilers

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lxveille · 7 years ago

Text

accept no substitutes

hoshi x reader

word count: ~ 6400 warnings: alcohol use & drinking games a/n: romance/fluff; pg-13?; honestly a silly idea that got a bit out of hand

You meet Soonyoung at a coffee shop when you are both stood up by your respective dates. You both may be a bit luckless in love, but at least you can save each other from having to be entirely alone.

The nervous, persistent tapping of your foot is making the table you’re sitting at shake ever so slightly. You can see it in the way the foam on top your latte shakes and threatens to spill over the side of the homey looking red mug you’d been given when you said your order was to stay. You’ve barely had three sips of it over the past fifteen minutes you’ve been sitting in this quaint coffeehouse.

You unlock your phone. It’s still open to your messages with Youngjae. You don’t know his family name. Or, you start supposing at this point, if that even is his real name. You matched this him on Tinder about a week ago. After a few days of decent conversation on the app, the two of you exchanged phone numbers and started arranging for a time to meet up in person.

‘Yeah see you soon’ is still the last message you received from him. With one finger, you try to scroll further down in the text thread, as if there must be something you missed. As if you could will another text from him into existence. Alas, you're left with the same message that was received roughly thirty-five minutes ago.

A sigh deflates your lungs as you tap back to your home screen, deciding it best not to torture yourself by leaving it open to what's starting to feel rather like a last-minute rejection. Your gaze shifts from cell phone to latte and then to the window you're sitting beside. Through the letter of the coffee shop's name on the glass, you watch pedestrians go by on the sidewalk. All you need is for one, vaguely familiar face to show up and push open the door. Or -- if the world has to be just a bit cruel -- for you to recognize him staring through the glass just before he turns and decides not to meet you. That way, you'd have the chance to chase him down and ask just why you're not worth having a single sit down with.

Life probably isn't fair enough to offer you that opportunity. At least not in person. Frantically texting him is an option. But you have friends who have shown series of text bubbles and asked you to confirm how unreasonably angry or crazy or clingy the person who sent them sounded. Texting feels like it will just validate his choice to ditch you.

It’s with another sweeping look around the coffeehouse's interior that you notice a guy -- perhaps around your age -- standing around near the front door. He’s holding his phone in both hands like he’s clutching something far rarer than a smartphone and his head is bent forward slightly. If he were on a street corner, you would guess he lost and looking desperately for directions from some app.

The bells over the door chime to announce another arrival, and you recognize the look on the guy’s face when he turns his head expectantly at the entering stranger. It looks rather like the way you felt during the first ten minutes here. It only takes a second for him to look back down at his screen, brow furrowed. The older woman who’d just come in asks him something, pointing towards the cash register. He waves her along into the short line of patrons waiting to order.

This is when you decide he must be waiting for someone, too.

Over the next seven minutes, your attention keeps dragging back to him. Intentionally or otherwise, you check in on whether or not he’s still just standing there. It seems he’s more patient than you are. You’d only been able to stand four minutes of standing awkwardly by the entrance without ordering anything.

It takes you by surprise when you look over and find yourself making eye contact with him. He must have been scanning the smattering of people in a manner much like you were. Some god of timing must be having a good laugh as the two of you race to look away first.

A thought crosses your mind. An absurd one that you shouldn't humor at all. A sip of lukewarm espresso and milk has you thinking you might as well at this point. What, after all, do you have to lose? It already feels like everyone in this cafe must have caught on to the fact that you've been stood up. What's embarrassing yourself fully to one more stranger going to do?

This is the bitter thought that sets your feet into action, a half-full mug is still left on the table to stake your claim. At the last minute, there's a temptation to duck out the door instead. Somehow, you manage to push it aside and come to a stop in front of the stranger you'd been watching.

"You're not called Youngjae, are you?"

He looks up from his phone, clearly surprised to find anyone talking to him. Let alone the same person he'd just accidentally locked eyes with only a handful of minutes ago. "No, not at all," he answers.

You nod with a smile you hope is doing a good enough job of masking how much you want to cringe. "Okay. That's fine. This would... definitely be a catfish case if you were." Being aware that you're saying too much, evidently, does very little to actually keep you from doing so.

A wrinkle appears between his eyebrows as he gives you an uncertain smile. It's fairly obvious he has no idea how to take that. Fiddling with your phone in your hands, you wonder if it has come across as an insult.

"Not that you're, um..." It's too late to back out now that you've started trying to clarify the meaning. Still, it only takes a few words for you to realize there are few ways to go about this without either implying this stranger is unattractive or sounding like you're hitting on him. "Like, you look fine. Just different from what I was expecting." Your attempt at a middle ground feels like it's painting you as a lunatic. "Which is fine! Because you're not who I was waiting for anyway."

"Ah... You're being stood up too?" he guesses.

You stammer over an attempt at an excuse. You were the one who started this and essentially outed your situation in the first place, but there’s more of a sting to actually admitting it directly. Hence why you hadn’t texted any of your friends about your unfortunate situation either.

He laughs, and where you anticipate feeling ridicule, you find instead a kind of reassurance. “First time?”

“Being stood up?” He nods at your question. "Well... yeah?" You lie, because admitting this is actually the second time it has happened to you in a month would be a new low. The guy holds up three fingers in reply. "What? This is your third time getting stood up?"

"With this girl, yeah," he admits, hand moving to rub at the back of his next.

"Seriously? The same girl?" That takes more dedication than you'd even put into some of your previous relationships. "Why do you keep trying to meet up with her then?"

He shrugs. "We have really good texts. I think she might be, like, socially anxious or something? She's never done the whole tinder-meet-up thing."

You nod, and it strikes you that this is not the typical kind of conversation one has with a stranger. You glance back to the table you'd left and see your latte still waiting to be drunk. "Am I gonna sound crazy if I ask if you wanna join me?"

"Not crazier than when you asked if my name was whatever it was you said."

You half grimace and try to sound apologetic as you say, "What is your name anyway?"

"Soonyoung," he answers.

He doesn't order anything for himself before he sits down in the chair opposite your own. Soonyoung might still have his hopes up that his flighty girl will decide to show up this time if he just holds out a bit longer. But there must be a silent understanding that you won't talk about your failed dates now that you've sat down together, because neither one of your brings it up.

Instead, you go about that usual introductory questions you'd send to new matches on Tinder. Except it's an in-person conversation with someone you hadn't even intended to meet.

Is this how people met before apps?

Either way, you find him easy to talk to. There’s laughter the very first time he says something humourous. And the reaction brings a light to his face that hadn’t been there before. Your latte only goes down a couple more inches in its mug. It’s past being any pleasant drinking temperature, and your frankly too caught up in the conversation to really think of taking any sips.

His phone buzzes after about twenty minutes of conversation. You stop mid-explanation of how you met your roommate at a waterpark to ask, “Is that her?”

Soonyoung doesn’t answer at first, moving his phone up to eye level as he reads whatever message he's received.

You wait quietly as his finishes reading and then sets his device down wordlessly. He looks like he’s processing, given the way he blinks at the darkened screen. It would be less awkward if the two of you had known each other for longer than half an hour.

“Bad news?” you guess after what feels like two minutes of uncomfortable silence.

He tilts his head quickly to one side. It’s a gesture that’s not entirely a shake of his head or a shrug, but seems to convey some combination of the two. “She sent... a long apology.”

“For standing you up again?”

“For, uh -- I don’t even know how to put it.” Soonyoung picks up his phone. Moments later, he's offering it to you, the displaying showing the sequences of messages that had arrived not long ago.

"Are you sure you want me to read this?"

"Maybe it'll make more sense to you," he supposes, extended his arm a bit further your way.

As you read through apologetic messages explaining how she was only on dating apps to try to get over some guy she'd been hooking up with, a few other notifications dropped down at the top of the screen. Mostly texts and a few snapchat notifications presumably from friends. You did your best to ignore them as the words on the screen begin explaining how every time she tells this guy she's about to go on a date he ends up showing up and convincing her not to.

"So... It seems like you helped her finally get this guy to commit. Indirectly," you conclude as you pass the phone back to him. Soonyoung sighs and crumples forwards in his chair until his forehead is nearly on the table. You chew at the inside of your cheek, utterly lost as to what to say or do at this point. “Maybe next time you should just give up on it after the first missed date?”

“Is that what you’re gonna do with your guy?” He folds his arms on the table and rests his chin on top of one forearm, looking up at you inquisitively.

“Sure. I’ll delete his number right now.” It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that should make Soonyoung feel better, but you notice a slight upwards tilt in his lips. “You have to delete hers too, though.”

“She’s seriously pretty,” he laments. The pout he gives you is almost comical.

(How does he manage to make it feel like you’ve known each other longer than you have? You’ll ponder that later when you choose to leave him out of the story while recapping your failed date to your roommate at dinner.)

“And she’s clearly not emotionally available. Come on, Soonyoung,” you encourage, picking up your own phone. “We’ll... do it together.” It’s a hesitant proposition, mostly because the sensible part of you is stil in disbelief that you’re trying to rally a practical stranger into doing something reasonable in his love life.

“Okay,” he caves, pulling himself upright in his chair and grabbing his phone as well. “Is this an on three scenario?”

“I can be.”

“Alright. Then: one...”

“Wait!” you cut him off early, “I’m not there yet.” After a few seconds clicking through to Youngjae’s contact information before giving Soonyoung an ok sign. “This time for real.”

“One. Two. Three,” he counts up, and you hit the trash icon as he says the last number as promised. “Did you really delete it?”

“Yeah. You wanna check my contacts?” You’re willing to prove it.

“I believe you.” It makes you smile. Quiet comes back between the two of you, filled only by the background bustle of the coffee shop. There's a rumble of the industrial-grade grinder working its way through a batch of beans just as you notice Soonyoung tapping his fingertips almost nervously along the back of his phone case. You don't feel like you really know him well enough to ask, but you start to think you might be able to take a guess when he poses his next question. "Could I get your number as well?"

That’s not a question you know for sure how to interpret. Soonyoung is, regardless of easy smiles and relaxed chatting, still just a chance encounter who you only really met so you woudn’t have to spend your entire time in this coffee shop alone. You’d both gotten this far in your interaction with the understanding that there are other people you'd rather be with. It wasn't exactly a romantic -- or even really a very flirtatious -- premise.

"You're nice to talk to," he elaborates, "I might need you the next time I get stood up."

"Did you not actually delete her number?" The unintended tinge of a betrayal in your voice takes you off guard.

"No, no, I did!" Soonyoung swears, holding up a screen that shows a list of contacts for proof. "I'm just not exactly a stranger to dates going awry," he adds with an embarrassed smile and a nervous chuckle.

It seems like that kind of thing that should be a red flag. This thought is quickly overtaken by the one that says he'll probably never use your number even if you do say yes.

So you do.

You have some trouble putting Soonyoung out of your mind in the days that come. It seems to ridiculous a story to tell your friends, so you stick instead to drowning yourself in the profiles of unknown men on your phone.

You get a little drunk on Friday night and swipe right on just about every profile that pops up. The banner at the top of the screen keeps dropping down with new match and new message notifications. You don’t bother looking at any of them as you continue on this impulsive swipes left and right.

Normally there’s a bit of detective work that goes into each decision. First of all, every choice of photo says something about the individual, outside of whether or not you find him attractive. For example, a shirtless selfie is an automatic dislike. No one who posts a shirtless selfie is ever a good match, you assume. The next stage of judgment is the self-description. A combination of witty without sounding too pretentious or ingenuine is the ideal. Though you'll often settle for less. Eggplant, waterdrop, and tongue emojis are also part of the instant reject criteria.

Tonight, all that methodology is thrown aside. You barely look at more than just the first picture before deciding on which way to drag the stranger on your screen. Blame it on the fourth vodka-cranberry sitting within reach on the counter beside you.

“Are you trying to hook up tonight?” Sejeon asks from over your shoulder. You hadn’t even noticed her come in and perch herself at your side.

“Not really.” You raise your shoulders in an apathetic shrug as the blue notification fades onto the screen to congratulate you on a new match.

“Well, you’re sure swiping an awful lot for someone who isn’t,” she points out, ‘You know, Sojin and Bora invited some guys over. In case you feel like meeting someone in person for a change.”

“I've only met up with, like, a handful of people from Tinder. Usually it doesn’t go anywhere. Besides, the last time I was stood up was some blind date Sojin tried to set me up on.”

“So you’re getting revenge by being antisocial at their housewarming party?”

“They moved in months ago,” you remind, “It’s not my fault they were too busy to celebrate getting a new place at first.”

“Wait -- weren’t you stood up by some app-guy just this week? That wasn’t Sojin’s fault.”

You roll your head back with a groan. “Okay. The last-last time I was stood up.”

“Sorry. Touchy subject, I guess,” Sejeon apologizes, wrapping an arm loosely around your shoulders and leaning her weight into you a bit heavily. Probably a tell that she was at least a little tipsy. “But all the more reason you should be having fun with us instead of pouting over dating profiles! Come on, Bora’s talking Haebin into playing cheers to the governor.”

Logic says everyone’s probably well enough into liquor that starting a drinking game at this point might be unwise. But you’re still young enough to willingly make such mistakes. “Alright, I’ll be out in a minute,” you promise.

“Turn off notifications from Tinder while you’re at it!” Sejeon orders as she slips back into the living room. Once she’s gone, you lean back into the kitchen counter and continue swiping. Right. Left. Right. Right. Right. Left. Soonyoung. Less than a mile away.

That brings you to a pause. Suddenly, you're faced directly with a question you'd been avoiding inside your head for the past several days. You look through his choice of photos curiously.

His default is a simple snapshot of him smiling in what looks like a park. Probably taken by some friend. Then there's a full-body shot of him laying on a couch in what looks to be mid-laugh; from the tilted lampshade in the corner of the shot, you can only imagine it was taken at a house party not unlike the one you're supposed to be attending right now. The next is a selfie taken in the backseat of a car. He's grinning into the camera with two of his friends. You assume you wouldn't recognize the guys on either side of him, but you're having difficulty looking at anyone but him in the shot. You feel your lips pull into a soft smile.

Quickly, you swipe left and tuck your phone into the back pocket of your jeans.

The lot of you are well into your first round of cheers to the governor when there’s knocking at the front door. “Oh! I’ll get it!” Sojin stumbles up from her cross-legged position in the circle on her living room floor. “No fair if you keep playing without me!”

“We’re not gonna get to twenty-one before you answer the door!” Bora argues before ushering the guys next to her in the circle to carry on with the game.

When Sojin comes back into the room, it’s with a handful of people you don’t recognize. You take a drink out of your cup even without the game’s prompting as they wave in greeting.

“We’re gonna have to start over if they’re gonna join in,” Haebin points out as the lot of them come back into the living room from getting their drinks sorted out in the kitchen.

It throws you off when one of the newcomers sits down in an empty spot on the floor next to you.

“Hey,” you greet with a small nod.

“Hey, I’m Taehyung,” he tells you with a relaxed grin. He looks like the kind of guy you’d swipe right on. But that’s without knowing if he’s the type to take a shirtless selfie.

“You showed up late,” you say, not bothering to listen as Sejeon recaps the rules of the game for the new players.

“Yeah. We got caught up in our own pregaming, to be honest.” His words are followed by a laugh that rich, and warm. It’s a nice sound.

Taehyung makes the new round of the game much more difficult to follow. The two of you keep getting caught up in chatting with each other instead of keeping track of the counting sequence as it made its way around the group. You’re not even sure cheers to the governor has been shouted any more than four times before you’re beginning to feel the vodka has taken you over the edge.

“Okay -- um, I’m out,” you excuse yourself after you take another forfeit drink as you mess up the rule set in place for twelve. There are a few protests around the circle at your announcement, which you ignore with ease. Getting up from your seated position on the floor, however, does not happen so easily.

You stumble your way to the bathroom and lean heavily into the sink. With eyes closed, you take a few deep breaths and chant inside your head that you will not throw up. You’ve always felt there’s a kind of voodoo to being drunk. If you let yourself surrender to the fact that you’ve had too much, you’re doomed to get sick. Hence the mantra insisting otherwise.

Mindful of your makeup, you carefully splash a bit of cold water on your face and pat it dry with a handful of bunched up toilet paper. You do your best to wipe the wet spots of mascara from under your eyes, but your vision is blurry at the edges in such a way that it’s hard to tell if you’ve actually improved anything by the end.

Through the bathroom door, you hear the ongoing party erupts with laughter and shouts at something you’ll never be privy to. Without fully admitting to yourself why, you pull out your phone and begin scrolling through your contacts. You lean against the wall opposite the sink as you stare at the empty conversation log for you and Soonyoung.

'saww you on tinder tnigt' you slowly type out, trying your best to put together a comprehensive message. After hitting send, you find yourself immediately pressing your phone into your forehead in regret.

When you open the door, you stop short at the sight of Taehyung. “Sorry -- you’re waiting...?” You try to get out of his way, but he simply offers a steadying hand to your swaying shoulders.

“I wanted to check you were okay. You looked -- well, look -- pretty messed up,” he says. If you were still in university, that expression of basic human compassion would have you throwing your arms around him to make out in a minute.

It turns out sloppy-drunk-you is not much better than the collegiate version of yourself. Taehyung is startled by your sudden advance, but he’s soft and tastes like apple juice and bourbon.

He cuts the kiss off early, murmuring about how you’re too far gone for him to do this. You’re about to protest that you’re not that drunk when Bora comes into the hall to ask if everything is okay. “I think she’s maybe had too much?” Taehyung replies.

You feel like an idiot the whole way home, but you’re grateful for Bora’s higher tolerance and refusal to let you make the trip alone.

“Don’t worry, Tae asked if he could get your number from Sojin,” she reports as she sets you up in bed with a tall glass of water and a few ibuprofen on your nightstand.

In the morning, you wake up to three unread messages. One is from an unknown number, with the text just reading that it’s Taehyung, and that he hopes you got home okay.

The other two were from Soonyoung. ‘Really? cool!!!!’ he’d replied only a few minutes after your message was sent. Fifteen minutes later, he’d sent, ‘Found you too!!! you didn’t match me D:’

He must have started swiping through profiles looking for yours at your text. And he must have swiped right.

Despite the horrible pounding in your head, you find yourself biting on the tip of your thumb as you grin up at that message.

It’s Wednesday evening when Soonyoung texts you that he thinks he’s being stood up again.

‘Already?‘ You send back, mostly impressed by how quickly he set up another meeting.

A reply from Taehyung in your ongoing conversation pops up at the top of your screen. You don’t open it, watching instead as the tell-tale ellipses show up to signal that Soonyoung is replying.

‘She superliked me on friday!’

You wonder if he saw her profile before or after swiping right on yours. ‘how long have you been waiting?’

‘Ten minutes’

It sounds about right to you. That's about how long it takes to begin feeling like it's hopeless. You lean most your weight on the arm of your couch and glance up at the laptop on the coffee table in front of you. It seems impossible that you've missed more than a scene or two while texting Soonyoung, but you still feel utterly lost.

Your lips press into each other tightly as you contemplate typing out a message to ask where he is. To come up with some excuse to see him in person as means of saving him from being stood up again.

‘if she superliked you i’m sure she’ll show up,’ you send instead.

Ten minutes go by without a response. As if you didn't already know, the knot that forms in your gut reminds you that's about as long as it takes to make things start to look bleak.

You try to leave your phone forgotten on a throw pillow and go back yourself dinner. You only get as far as setting water on the stove to boil before you're pacing back into the small living/dining area of your apartment to grab it again.

Switching from one thread to another, you text Taehyung a simple question. Utterly unrelated to the small talk you'd been making, but of the utmost importance: 'do you wanna go out sometime?'

Plans are arranged for Saturday night not long after. You eat dinner, satisfied that you’re not stagnant and getting more and more lax with your response time to Taehyung as the night progresses. You tell him goodnight a few minutes before you even begin your bedtime routine.

The time spent washing your face and brushing your teeth feels like the longest you've gone without checking your phone since you got home from work today. With a quick goodnight called to your roommate, you retreat into your bedroom for the night. Your phone is waiting on top of your blankets, and your intent is just to set your alarm for tomorrow.

But there’s a new text from Soonyoung waiting for you when you unlock your screen.

You consider leaving it unread until morning. You’re not strong willed enough to follow through.

‘She showed up!! but it was kind of a disaster ahahaha’ It’s followed by several nervous looking emojis.

Your pillow dips with your head’s weight as you lay down on your side. ‘here i thought getting stood up was the worst option. what happened?’

‘Mostly just not a great conversation’ A few seconds pass before a second message swooshes in to add, ‘a lot of awkward silences. Barely could figure out how to say bye!’

‘at least she showed up,’ you text to console. You can’t imagine awkward silences with Soonyoung. Infatuation has made it difficult to remember if there’d been any when the two of you met.

'Yeah you're right,' he replies.

Is it odd that he's texting you this all, and not some closer friend about this? Or -- friend at all? You're still not sure what exactly you would call each other.

‘so you’re on your way home now?’ You don’t bother coming up with some excuse to yourself for why you’re trying to carry on the conversation.

But the small prompt succeeds. It’s nearly two a.m. when you both decide it’s time about time to stop swapping stories of failed romances and unmatch-worthy dating app conversations.

Come Saturday, you feel downright guilty for the fact that you’re getting dolled up for a date with Taehyung. A poorly thought out text to Bora had admitted that you’re not sure if you even want to go. She’s been texting you persistently ever since, trying to get at the root of your doubts. Her best guess so far had been that you were still embarrassed about drunkenly throwing yourself at him.

She must have panicked at your slow responses, because now you have Sojin sending you messages as well. Her texts aren’t as gentle, arguing instead that if you hated that your last two dates were no-shows, you ought to keep in mind the way you felt before backing out on Taehyung.

‘I’m going, don’t worry,’ you send to both of them before throwing your phone into your purse and heading out the door.

On the bus downtown, you send a different message to Soonyoung, ‘I think i’m in a stand up situation again...’

‘What? Hooooow?!’ His choice in the second interrogative prompts you to start overthinking. Is it a 'how' because he can't picture doing a think like that to you?

'i'm the bad guy this time though.’ You tell him honestly. Soonyoung's next message is just a string of question marks. 'i have a date but i'm not that excited for it' is all the explanation you have to offer.

'Maybe this guy will surprise you'

You're a hard sell on that one. It would have to be a pretty monumental surprise for Taehyung to convince you that you wouldn’t rather just stay home and text Soonyoung all night.

When you show up at the restaurant, Taehyung is already waiting for you. Dinner goes well enough. Conversation comes easily enough; he's kind, and funny, and he doesn't make any mention of the drunken disaster you'd been the night you two met. The only problem is that there's absolutely no spark.

At the end of the meal, you try to convince him it's fine if he doesn't walk you to the bus stop. But like a gentleman, he insists. A stone settles in your stomach when you realize how glad you are that the bus is on time when it comes around the corner.

"Thanks for tonight," you tell him, calculating the moments left before the bus will be in park and opening its doors.

"Same here," Taehyung grins, and you dread to think he might not be on the same page as you about how this date went, "I had a nice time."

Relief washes over you when he kisses your cheek in farewell and says he might see you around some time.

Clearly, he isn't as oblivious as you'd feared he might be.

The bus only makes it one stop before you're typing out an answer to Soonyoung's waiting message asking how the date went. You're honest in your reply. Nothing about it had been bad, per se, but neither of you left looking for eager for a follow-up.

'Do you wanna meet up for a drink and complain about love?'

You stare at the received question for a few minutes. Then it dawns on you that if you don't answer quickly enough, you might end up having to pay bus fare twice.

A few minutes later, you’re getting off the bus three stops early to find the place Soonyoung recommended.

“What is wrong with us?” you’re bemoaning into a glass of hard cider as you sit beside Soonyoung at the bar.

“I don’t know,” he agrees, smiling slightly.

“Seriously, though. Are we doomed to exclusively only get dates with people who decide they’re not interested before they even meet us or who end up being basically unappealing?”

His smile drops at that, leaning his head into one hand. His elbow is almost dangerously close to his pint glass. “I hope not!”

“This is how people end up settling, I bet,” you decide as you list your glass to your lips.

“I won’t,” Soonyoung declares with a confidence you can’t think to contradict. “I’d rather go on a ton of dead-end dates than date someone just because they show up.”

“Yeah, but...” You shake your head and throw your free hand into the air, “Clearly showing up is a pretty vital aspect.”

A smile that’s difficult to decipher pulls at his expression. “Well, someone can show up and be otherwise desirable, too.”

“Otherwise desirable?” you repeat with a guffaw. “If that’s the kind of description you use, I’m beginning to see why you keep getting stood up.”

“Hey!” Soonyoung jolts a bit further upright at that. “We’re a support group here, aren’t we?!”

“Is that what this is?”

“What else would you call it?” He chuckles. There’s a moment where he looks into his drink instead of at you. Your head tilts to try to get a better look at his face. For a split second, something almost like nervousness flashes on his features. As soon as it appeared, it’s gone, and you’re left looking back into Soonyoung’s grin.

A date, you think to yourself. “I guess it’s a good enough description,” you say. Your glass is held out to his, and the two of you cheers to the idea of being some kind of luckless love club.

It takes nearly three hours to make your way through two drinks each. The time isn’t exactly something you notice with Soonyoung. Neither of you are even buzzed when it feels like you ought to be clearing out of the bar. If only because the late night crowd is beginning to flood in, turning the quiet hideout into something much more raucous.

“Could I walk you home?” Soonyoung offers as you both pull on your jackets just outside the bar’s exit.

“I normally take the bus from around here,” you tell him, a little disheartened that you can’t properly take him up on it.

“That doesn’t change my question.” He’s smiling again, and truly, you wonder how anyone managed to keep him waiting.

“It’ll take like... twenty minutes, you know.” It only seems fair to warn him.

“Fresh air will be good for us!” he argues.

You gladly take that excuse. “This way, then.”

Tomorrow, you’re going to wish you had taken note of which street you were on when Soonyoung’s hand quietly, swiftly finds yours. No point is made out loud about the change in your walking pace or the shrinking distance between your shoulders. You both just carry on talking as if intertwined fingers were already common place.

When you reach your street, there’s a temptation to slow the pace. You carry on as normal, but you think a tinge of disappointment must show in your voice when you tell Soonyoung your building is coming up.

“You know what kinda just occurred to me?” Some part of his tone makes it seem a bit like a front. Like he’s pretending something he’s had on the tip of his tongue for ages is now just a random thought ready to shared spontaneously.

“What?” you prompt him to carry on, too curious to consider calling him out on the conversational cover.

“You show up,” he states simply just as you reach the front door of your home. His hand makes no move to pull away; if anything, his fingers squeeze softly. Like they’re trying to impress some further meaning of his words into your skin.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” is all you can manage in response. Anything more would fee like a presumption.

“And you’re otherwise desirable,” Soonyoung adds, almost laughing at his own callback. Instead, it comes out as just a hint of amusement on his breath as he takes one stride closer.

You can’t suppress a chuckle like he can. But you do wrinkle your brow at him in slightly exaggerated puzzlement. “Is that seriously what you’re going with still?” you question.

“If that’s alright by you.” His hand that isn’t tangled up with yours comes up to your face, and suddenly you’re certain he’s asking for more than just an okay on his odd phrasing.

“It’s fine by me.” That’s all you need to say before Soonyoung is kissing you. He’s softer and sweeter than you imagined, never letting go of your hand even as he half-stumbles closer to deepen the embrace.

You almost wish you hadn’t deleted Youngjae’s number; you can’t help feeling like you owe him a thank you note.

#seventeen scenarios #hoshi scenarios #kwon soonyoung scenarios #sfwseventeen #seventeen imagines

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tmcastandcrew · 6 years ago

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SIMON BAKER ON FEAR AND MAKING MOVIES BY SAMANTHA MORRIS FILM, NEWS 31/05/2018

Breath’ is much more than a coming-of-age tale, and it’s much more than a surf film. Simon Baker’s directorial debut explores the fear that at times holds us back and others drives us forward. With stunning cinematography, breathtaking Australian landscapes and genuine surf sequences, the film adaptation of Tim Winton’s book of the same name is picking up rave reviews wherever it screens.

Samantha Morris spoke to Simon Baker and his two lead actors Samson Coulter and Ben Pence about what it was like to work together and whether any mishaps occurred along the way.

It seems fitting that when I meet with Simon Baker and his proteges Samson Coulter and Ben Pence, we’re in Surfers Paradise with a view of the ocean. It’s a well-known story now, but neither Samson nor Ben aspired to be on the screen, coming to Simon’s attention after a year-long search for young surfers who might make that transition. Simon says time and time again that it’s easier to teach surfers to act than teaching actors to surf. The younger pair are obviously stoked with their experience.

“You just don’t think surfing will lead to something like this,” said Samson Coulter (Pikelet).

The three men became friends pretty quickly through the filming process and while Simon admits there were lots of challenges in working with people who’d never acted before he says their shared love of the water created a short-hand.

“I already lived, kind of, what these guys were living,” he added, “so there was a shorthand there too, and because of that we didn’t have to go into airy-fairy actor stuff that a lot of times you have to go into. I pushed that there is no right and there is no wrong. I tried to create that kind of environment.”

Simon says it’ll be interesting to see what happens if the pair work on another film.

“I can’t wait to hear what their experience of that is, because this was tailor-made to the fact that we were working with two guys who’d never acted before so all the things that make you nervous and jumpy were pushed back a bit so they could still be themselves, be kids and find their way,” he said.

“I like to think I learnt a few things in that experience I could take to something else,” Samson told Blank Gold Coast. “It wasn’t easy work, I think I have a new respect for actors – for a while there I thought they had a good gig.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get to work on a project of a similar nature though,” he said. “I have nothing to compare him [Simon] to as a director but I think it’s safe to say that he took a different approach and he was easy to be around and kept calm I guess. I could imagine a lot of people would have been a little bit frustrated.”

That connection around the water and the sea extends way beyond this trio. The surf sequences are noticeably authentic and Simon is quick to praise the entire team.

“It starts with who you work with as collaborators. It’s why I cast two kids that hadn’t acted but could surf. It’s why I used Jodie Cooper – she’s an ex-champion surfer who grew up in the area. She was the prop master for the first time. I used Ric Rifici as a surf cinematographer who had a grounding in drama but understood the water. John Frank as a camera operator – a celebrated water cameraman who’d never shot drama EVER as our lead camera guy,” he said.

“You’ve gotta put all those things in place ‘cos I know the problem – I’ve seen it a million times and then you just keep on top of it and you hope for good conditions,” he said.

Of course there were mishaps along the way. “Plenty,” in Simon’s words. Including a boat that was sunk and had to be towed underwater. They laugh at some of the scenes that caused distress.

“I was driving the boat, Ric was beside me with his housing like this and Samson had his back to me, and we were in the middle of the ocean pretty much and this wave just loomed up – solid wave – and I was like ‘fuck, what’s this’ and I fanged the motor, Samson could see the whites of my eyes and it broke just at the top and I let go of the throttle just as we got over it. Samson went flying through the air and landed on me and we were like ‘woah, what was that’ and then there was another one coming.”

The retelling of that story, along with several surf tales and the laughter that go with them makes me realise how close the trio have become during the shooting of Breath. It’s obvious were a lot of fun moments, but Simon is quick to stress the strong work ethic shared by the team.

“We were working our arses off,” he said. “If it’s not fun, you can’t get good stuff. There’s certain things you have to do in scenes and moments. You have to go there. But there’s no reason why you can’t have a good time while you’re doing it,” he said.

And he’s philosophical about any industry expectations that existed around his directorial debut.

“Things are going to flow your way or not. You can’t choke the life out of something,” he said.

“I am a bit of a perfectionist and a bit of a task master. But I’m definitely that with myself before I am with anyone else.

“These guys saw the good, the bad and the ugly in me but they stuck with me. For a couple of young men their age and lack of experience, it was incredibly admirable of them and in a weird way it fed me and gave me energy.”

“I can’t help but look at these kids – not so much now, but at the time and see an aspect of myself in them at that age… that wide-eyed kind of nature, these guys threw themselves into it.”

That wide-eyed fear is a recurring theme through the film. Indeed Simon says one of the film’s key messages is that there’s fear in all of us and it’s how you live with it that makes you who you area.

“That’s kind of the strength of what fear is. It’s always going to be there in some form,” Simon said.

“You invite fear with you on the journey, just don’t let it drive.”

_ _ _

‘Breath’ had its Australian premiere at the Gold Coast Film Festival and is now screening across the country.

#simon2018 #simon baker #breath

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ask-the-voltron-lions · 8 years ago

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BLUE LION HEADCANONS

Blue does crazy stunts on autopilot sometimes just for the shits and giggles, scaring the living crap out of Lance making him think there’s some malfunction

One day they heard some explosions in the Castle and they came from Blue’s hangar. When Allura and the others went to check, there were stains of laser beams on the floor and walls and Blue was turned to a corner seeming extremely confused, lifting her front paws as if looking for something

Turns out it was just that Lance got a laser tag somewhere and was hidden on a higher level pranking Blue who had even shot her laser beams at the red spot of light trying to catch it

Red makes fun of Blue for being fooled so easily - turns out to be the next victim when Lance records a ticker and leaves it playing stuck behind Red’s ear while the Lion was in sleep mode and almost falls out of his hiding place trying to hold back the laughter as he watches Keith enter the hangar running and yelling at Red who’s a nervous wreck “WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING IN MY MIND TO GET EVERYONE OUT OF THE CASTLE, WE RAN A SCAN AND THERE’S NO BOMB IN HERE, RED, WHAT THE FUCK, ARE YOUR HEARING SYSTEMS DAMAGED OR WHAT”

Blue sleepwalks

Seriously, Shiro once went to check on Black and almost had a heart attack when Blue stepped out of her hangar, stared at him for like 10 seconds with her eye lights very low, then stepped back and hit her head against the wall twice before just lying down and shutting off again

#Lance'sBFF

“I love my human boy so much, don’t you dare talking bad of him or you’ll be singing ‘Let It Go’ so frozen you’ll be after I blast you to outer space with my Ice Ice Baby”

Blue managed to actually talk to Lance in his mind instead of just sending him ideas way before everyone else

He almost shitted his pants that day because he thought he was losing his mind or someone was brainwashing him

Turns out Blue thought it was a good idea to have a prank be their first talk ever. Because bonding. She chose a random female voice she picked up from his memories through their connection as Lion and Paladin and it was actually his mother’s voice, cue his panic when he heard it

Lance fell asleep in Blue’s cockpit once so she just lifted her barrier and called it a day

He almost panicked later when Blue was so deep in sleep mode she just wouldn’t wake up as he tried everything insisting he 'needed to go’

Blue gets distracted way too easily whenever Lance’s piloting her. If he’s not paying attention either, they’ll just collide against stuff on their way because BLUE WON’T REALLY PAY ATTENTION unless if Lance focuses enough to make her focus too

The day Blue showed Lance where her aux cord was located was the day when Voltron’s Transformation Sequence changed forever

Shiro: FORM VOLTRON! Lance: YES I ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THIS *Plays the Power Rangers Theme during the entire sequence* Keith: Lance what the fuck

Blue thinks the song is catchy btw

The other time he played the Attack On Titan theme and Pidge couldn’t stop laughing for some reason

#Voltron Headcanons #Blue Lion #Blue Lion Voltron #Blue Lion VLD

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citizenscreen · 7 years ago

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I watched Charlie Chaplin‘s century-old short, The Immigrant (1917) days before I saw the announcement for the Food in Film Blogathon and took it as a sign. The movie, which according to several sources was Chaplin’s favorite of the Mutual shorts, features a memorable scene during which the Little Tramp has a meal, a simple enough endeavor for most people, but which becomes art in the hands of Charlie Chaplin. That scene in The Immigrant is reminiscent of others I enjoy immensely in later Chaplin movies and so the idea to dedicate this entry to Chaplin’s art of the meal was born.

Meals in Chaplin movies allow for the full range of his talent to emerge. Through his Tramp we enjoy his signature slapstick coupled with pathos illustrating his genius time and time again. During an interview I listened to some time ago Mary Pickford discussed the Little Tramp at length. She said she wished the actor/director would have continued to play the character for the entirety of his career. She felt that the Little Tramp “is as important a character as film has ever seen, representing those who don’t normally have a voice. Through the images of this wonderfully relatable character, Chaplin was able to make us laugh, break our hearts and make valuable social commentary.” Perhaps the most consistent manner through which Chaplin exemplified all of that was by way of meals, which play an important role in many of his films. The Tramp, as the down-on-his-luck fella he invariably is, is able to convey a wide range of emotions in artistic fashion by simply trying to ensure sustenance in order to make it through another day.

The Tramp in EASY STREET (1917)

Let me begin my discussion of Chaplin’s art of the meal with The Immigrant since that’s the movie that came to mind when considering food in film. This movie stars Chaplin as the title character and was written and directed by him as were all of the other movies mentioned here. The Tramp is the title character alongside frequent co-star, Edna Purviance, both of whom take a boat to the U.S. in search of freedom and a better life. Neither of those come easily for the Tramp in this as you might expect, but the journey is often touching and always entertaining. The Little Tramp meets and falls in love with the girl and gets into a bit of trouble along the way.

There are two meals in The Immigrant worthy of mention. The first is simple and just for laughs where we see the group of immigrants trying to eat on the rocky boat. One particular funny sequence shows the Tramp and another passenger eating from the same bowl of food that moves back and forth between them. The second and more important meal takes up the entire second part of the movie. The Tramp has arrived in New York penniless and hungry when he happens upon a nickel on the street, which allows him a meal out of a huge plate of beans, bread and a cup of coffee in a nearby restaurant. Much of the time the Tramp tries to be a class act as in this instance when we see him eating the bowl of beans with style, one at a time, savoring each morsel. Soon, however, hunger gets the best of him as he starts scooping up beans by the mouthful. It’s during this entertaining bit that the Tramp sees the girl sitting across the restaurant from him. He invites her to a meal at his table. The slapstick turns to sweet, coquettish fun before it makes a dramatic turn toward nervous tension when the Tramp realizes the nickel has fallen out of his pocket.

The meal is prominent in the movie poster

The Tramp sees the girl across the restaurant as he scoops up beans

That scene in The Immigrant exemplifies many of the themes Chaplin was able to convey in his meal scenes as well as all of the Tramp’s attributes to include, “A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.” (Chaplin) We’d see and recognize these in many of his later, more popular movies, but are prevalent in his shorts as well.

Charlie Chaplin’s meticulously executed choreography is as important a part of his intimate, often introspective meal scenes as it is in all-out physical scenes. The entire package of Chaplin’s art is evident in his art of the meal, which in some ways represents the perfect setting for what makes the Tramp the important character Gish mentioned. In fact, some of Chaplin’s meal or food-related routines are not only among the most memorable in his movies, but in all of cinema. Every conceivable scenario involving food and the Little Tramp comes to fruition in Chaplin’s cinema, including the character becoming embroiled with an eating machine in the iconic sequence in Modern Times (1936), his last silent picture.

The victim of industrialization

“Don’t stop for lunch. Be ahead of the competitor!”

The Little Tramp becomes the poster boy for the dehumanization of the worker as we see him struggle to survive the modern, industrialized world. That is, according to Chaplin who takes the point to the extreme when the powers that be in a factory choose the Tramp as the guinea pig for a new feeding machine that will save them time and money. The contraption is robotic with the different courses of the meal laid out to be fed to the worker who is strapped in. At first everything works smoothly. The tray lifts, food is delivered into the Tramp’s mouth and an automatic mouth wiper follows. The action repeats and even includes the buttering of a corn cob, but before long sparks start flying and the poor Tramp is assaulted by hot soup, iron bolts and flying corn. Chaplin makes his point, albeit in an ever entertaining way, and in the process manages to disrupt the perfectly timed mechanism of an entire factory to parody the assembly line created by Ford in 1913, which also happened to be used regularly by movie studios. It is by way of a meal that Chaplin shows that there is little sense in total automation, that the individual worker has value that cannot be replaced.

Modern Times has many other meaningful meal scenes. At one point the Tramp is once again lost in a the big city without means. The only respite he can come up with is being arrested, which would offer him three basics a day. The goal becomes landing in jail at any cost, which is solved by his ordering an opulent meal at a restaurant for which he cannot pay. After this meal the Tramp meets “A Gamine” (Paulette Goddard) his female equivalent in society who ensures her own survival and that of her younger siblings by stealing food. The two end up going to jail together and share several meals during the rest of the story. Of course the romantic sharing of a meal happens, which is a necessity, but there is also the overnight break-in at a department store during which the two indulge in an embarrassment of riches – cakes and sandwiches and sodas. The sequence in the store delivers a not-so-subtle message: while the reality for so many during The Depression was grim and dark, there were some who could enter department stores and enjoy the riches offered on a regular basis. Having food are riches to poor people, not glamorous outfits or expensive cars.

The girl in the department store gorging herself on cake

Another artistic display involving food in Modern Times that I enjoy immensely is the scene where the Little Tramp is working as a waiter. He got the job thanks to the girl and tries his best to fulfill his duties. Unfortunately, the meal involved is never consumed because the Tramp’s attempt to deliver goes awry. The sequence begins as the Tramp leaves the restaurant kitchen with tray in hand and as soon as he steps out into the dining hall the floor is mobbed by dancers. With the tray held high above his head the Tramp tries to deliver a chicken meal to an increasingly angry customer. The poor chap gets an A for effort, but the attempts prove futile as the dancers pull him around the dance floor. When the Tramp finally reaches the customer’s table he is sans chicken because it got caught in the chandelier. This is a hilarious, beautifully choreographed sequence.

The Tramp finally delivers the tray, but hasn’t noticed the chicken is missing

If I had to choose a favorite Charlie Chaplin movie it would be City Lights (1931), the most romantic of his features, which is also good for many belly laughs. This movie offers several funny food-related scenes including one where the Tramp is at a party in a millionaire’s house and mistakenly tried to scoop dip from what turns out to be a guy’s bald head. Then there’s the scene when the Tramp is drunk at a nightclub eating spaghetti. As he twirls the pasta onto his fork he also catches pieces of streamers hanging from the ceiling. Instead of stopping when he realizes he’s eating a streamer, the Tramp stands up and continues to chew it up toward the ceiling. In yet another scene the Tramp mistakenly replaces the cheese in a co-worker’s sandwich with soap. This is an old gag, but it makes me laugh. Perhaps the most important food instance in City Lights, however, is when the Tramp brings the blind girl groceries, which is not only a sign of the times, but one of the film’s deeply romantic gestures. He doesn’t come by the food easily – a gentleman…always hopeful of romance and adventure.

I should mention that Chaplin’s art of the meal is often coupled with innovation. I can think of a few instances when the Tramp is extremely resourceful and imaginative on his quest to obtain sustenance for himself or someone he loves. His wonderful The Kid (1921) comes to mind as does A Dog’s Life (1918). Even his eating the baby’s hot dog in The Circus (1928) takes a fair amount of imagination.

Preparing to eat the child’s hot dog

Eating the child’s hot dog

As far as the art of the meal Chaplin style goes I’ve left the best for last. You simply can’t beat The Gold Rush (1925) for Chaplin’s signature one-two punch combination of pathos and laughter in food-related instances than in this movie. The Tramp reaches depths of desperation that are as artistically fulfilled as anything I can imagine. To start there’s the famous table ballet scene, which is the most overtly artistic food-related meal I mention here. This is perhaps an example of the importance Chaplin placed on a gathering at the table. The sequence takes place during a daydream, the realization of a desire to belong that doesn’t materialize and breaks your heart. During the gathering he enchants with the beautiful table ballet during which he uses little to do a lot. Another Chaplin trait. Such charm is illustrated in this sequence, such artistry using only two dinner rolls and two forks – and one incredible talent. The Tramp is, after all, a simple man, and the fact that he is in difficult situations in all of these movies only serves to draw us to him. When asked to make a speech in his daydream he can’t, choosing the simple ballet instead and as a result lasting movie images are created.

The Table Ballet

The Gold Rush offers the best opportunity for elaborate food-related sequences due to the extent of the hunger present in the arctic cabin in which the Tramp resides for much of the movie. Chaplin makes the best of the Tramp’s suffering in this illustrated by the movie’s most memorable meal, thanksgiving dinner, which consists of his boiled shoe. It’s quite something to see this character so committed to ingesting the shoe, which he does with the same gusto as he does the beans in The Immigrant or the spaghetti in City Lights. The way he twirls shoe laces onto to a fork and sucks on nails as if they were bones with obvious circles under his eyes just breaks my heart. It’s done so truthfully that it hurts despite the absurdity of it. When I watched The Gold Rush with my mother she laughed heartily throughout, but when it came to the shoe scene she simply said, “poor thing, that’s how hunger is.”

Eating a shoe with as much heart as one can muster

The meal has stood out as being a social experience of paramount importance since the beginning of time. As such cinema has allowed food its vital place by offering many instances where it fosters romance and illustrates how families bond around a table as Chaplin does in The Kid for instance. Or, movies show the opposite perhaps by highlighting how far apart people have become. Many of these examples are offered in the Food in Film Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings so be sure to visit. As far as Chaplin goes I hope I’ve been able to show how food made the Tramp an artist and how the Tramp made food an emotionally varied experience. Doing justice to Charlie Chaplin’s art of the meal is no easy task because there are so many great examples to choose from. I’m confident, however, that anyone who’s seen a Chaplin film will concur: the wide range of emotions he elicits from the most average of rituals have the power to leave us speechless – by laugher or tears. The art of the Chaplin meal satisfies as much in its watching as it does for the Little Tramp time and time again.

Charlie Chaplin: The Art of the Meal I watched Charlie Chaplin's century-old short, The Immigrant (1917) days before I saw the announcement for the…

#Chaplin Art of the Meal #Charlie Chaplin #Charlie Chaplin food #Food in Chaplin movies

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the-girl-without-a-face · 8 years ago

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Best Buddies (And More)

SEBASTIAN STAN X READER

Request by @sebatianstanisbae : PLLEEEAASSEE Sebastian x reader where they r best friend and they r in a new movie together and they always hang out and r flirty on shows and just have fun together and then he realizes he loves her and he goes to tell her and then they start dating and everyone loves them together please I love you so much💘

Summary: You and Sebastian Stan are best friends, you two are the main characters in a new movie. Seb realizes he loves you. What will he do about it?

A/N: Thank you so much for the request, dear! I have a blast writing it :3 I hope you enjoy it. Tell me if you don’t and I’ll write an entirely new one just for you. Lots of love for ya 💘💘

Words: 2102.

Warnings: shameless FLUFF. Poker is mentioned but I’m not sure it counts.

MASTERLIST

It was your first day on set. Nervous didn’t even begin to describe the turmoil in your stomach as you looked at all the people you had never met.

You found the director and walked over to him. He smiled when he saw you. “[Y/]! I’m so glad you’re here!”

You smiled as he embraced you, being the warm and inviting person he usually was. “I’m glad you wanted me to be here.”

He laughed. “You’re perfect for the part, dear. No need to be nervous.”

You knew you were a good actress - great actually -, but the first day on set always brought a sense of fear to you.

“About your co-star,” he began, “I believe you’ve met him before.”

That made you arch your eyebrows. “Really?”

He nodded, smiling and throwing his hands up in self-defense. “At least that’s what he said when I asked!”

You were curious about who that mysterious guy was. You could only hope he was nice, you had a lot of scenes with him.

“And who would that be?”

“He asked not to say. He’ll arrive soon and you’ll figure it out by yourself,” he said and winked, walking away and leaving you be.

Your manager had the same instructions: not to say who your co-star was. All the team had the same instructions and that helped in absolutely nothing with your nervousness. You decided to sit in one of the chairs and read the script, trying to imagine the scenes in your head and what you could do to interpret them the best you could.

“Going crazy yet?”

You raised your head to look at the source of the voice.

“Seb!”

The script fell to the ground as you stood up and jumped to hug your best friend. His arms circled your frame as tight as yours did to his neck.

“Hey, [Y/n],” you could hear the smile in his voice.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, pulling away from him.

“I have to be on set for the shooting, now don’t I?”

That caught you by surprise. “I guess you do. Who are you playing?”

“Honey, I’m the guy you have to be with 90% of the time.”

That definitely made your eyes bulge. “What?” you slapped his shoulder and he laughed when you withdrew your hand with a pained expression. Damn muscles. “Why didn’t you tell me? What kind of friend do you think you are?”

Sebastian laughed again and sat on the chair you previously were.

“I wanted to surprise you and I know I’m your best friend.”

~/~

You had been filming for a month and the team was very caring and funny. They kept saying how you and Sebastian were cute together. Being best friends with Sebastian Stan meant that you had to put up with his dorkiness and the flirty way he joked around you constantly. As you acted the same, the team started suspecting.

Some of them, after a couple of weeks, had even asked if you were dating, claiming that you didn’t have to hide when you were in set. You thanked that you were in the dress room without Sebastian, so he couldn’t see you blushing from head to toe.

The director walked up to you and Sebastian after shooting a scene. You quit your laugh (from Sebastian’s joke) when you saw the seriousness in the director’s face.

“Okay, so the thing is… We’ve decided to change the script a bit.”

“What exactly?” Sebastian asked.

“We want romance. But before changing the entire plot, we wanted to check with the two of you,” he motioned for you and Sebastian, “If you had any problem kissing?”

You looked at your best friend as he looked at you, silently asking if you were okay with it. You nodded and then the two of you answered at the same time.

“No problem.”

The director smiled brightly.

“Then you’re free for the day. We have a bunch of writing to do.”

You did leave, but you and Sebastian did it together and decided to watch movies in his hotel bedroom, something you always did when shooting ended earlier. Or later. It was something that happened constantly, that was for sure.

~/~

“Now I can finally prove that you’re not a good kisser,” you said once you met Sebastian on set, your hair and makeup ready. Sebastian had a dark blue suit on which brought out his eyes, ready for the ‘go’ of the director.

“Let’s see if you’ll say that after I kiss your lips like a pro, [Y/L/n],” Sebastian smirked.

“Only in your dreams.”

~/~

Sebastian finished his lines and looked at you. His eyebrows furrowed and his hands on his hips, he was the vision of frustration that his character had to have at that moment. The camera came closer to you, focusing on your face for a moment before turning toward Sebastian again. Sebastian’s right hand came to the side of your neck as the other came to your waist. He leaned down and fit his plump lips to yours, his tongue already darting to caress your lower lip.

Your hands moved to his hair and gripped at short strands, making him moan in your mouth. His hands were warm and roaming your sides, squeezing you in the most delicate of ways.

He pulled back and focused on your eyes, his own orbs a color so unique that had you engrossed. You forgot you were shooting when he kissed you again, even if that wasn’t on the script for him to do that.

The director screamed “Cut!” but it fell on deaf ears. He tried again and it was only on the third that you and Sebastian finally came to your senses and scrambled to get apart.

The entire team came to congratulate you for amazing scene. “So real” they’ say.

When there was only you and Sebastian, you turned to him.

“I expected more.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

You were going to have to, because the truth was that it had been perfect.

Sebastian on the other hand, had a lot of thinking to do. He realized that night that it’s only a friendly love he had towards you. No. He loved you. But he would only tell you in the right moment.

~/~

You two sat lazily on the couch, eating s’mores and watching a new series you had started together when Sebastian asked.

“[Y/n], would you go out with me?”

“Sure. Where?”

It wasn’t new for you or him to ask something like that. You had quite a bit of flirting in the friendship, which lead people to think you were dating.

But this time wasn’t supposed to be a friendly thing.

“I mean like a date.”

You looked at him, curious. “A date? You and me?”

Sebastian nodded, a shy smile on his lips as his gaze focused on you. “Yes.”

You grinned. “Sure. Where?”

~/~

You two went to a restaurant that night. Sebastian wore a black suit, his muscles carefully defined by the tailored material.

He pulled out the chair for you and ordered the drink you chose.

Conversation was the same as always, jokes and laughter being a constant thing, but there was more touching. His warm palm would rest on your lower back whenever you were walking, he would kiss your knuckles very chance he got. When seated, Sebastian started by touching your foot with his lightly. Then, brushing your knee with his own. After you responded by brushing his knee with yours, he decided to let loose. Sebastian would rest his arm on the back of your chair, run his fingers on your shoulder or thighs, and brush his hand on yours.

The food was amazing and desert was your favorite. You made him split the bill with you and he knew better than to argue (too much). By the end of the night, he brought you to your hotel room and kissed you chastely on the lips.

You went to bed with a smile on your lips.

~/~

The next time you went out alone during shootings, Chris and Mackie were there too. They were in town, shooting some extra scenes for other movies where they just appear for a minute or two and invited you and Sebastian for a lunch.

Sebastian drove to the place and opened the door for you, holding your hand and intertwining your fingers with his on the way to the restaurant. You pecked his cheek with a quick kiss.

“They’ll be happy for us,” you told him.

He sighed and smiled at you. “I know.”

Chris and Anthony screamed “Finally!” and “About freaking time!” once they saw your clasped hands. They were truly happy about you and Sebastian.

When they were leaving, you heard Chris and Anthony discussing who would be the Best Man when you got married. They decided that one of them would be the Maid of Honor, just didn’t decide who.

~/~

“Goodnight, everyone!” The presenter greeted, a huge smile on his face as he faced the people sitting in front of him, the couch by his side bare still. The people clapped and shouted fervently. “I can hear you are excited and I believe I know why. It’s because of our guests tonight. But as the folks who are at home don’t know who they are, let’s tell them. Tonight, we have [Y/n] [Y/L/n] and Sebastian Stan!”

You appeared on the stage by the doors Sebastian opened for you. He helped you down the stairs because you were on high heels. You sat nearest to the presenter and Sebastian by your side, you both smiling excitedly.

“Hello, everyone,” you said.

“Hi!” Seb smiled big and unbuttoned his suit, revealing the shirt underneath it.

“So, new movie coming up,” the presenter said, “Tell me about it.”

“It’s called ‘Hands Up’ and it’s a thriller,” you answered.

“It’s about a woman who meets a guy and together they have to find the murderer of the city. A lot of action and fighting sequences, I believe people will enjoy it.”

“Oooh, I do love fighting sequences. Guns and explosions?”

“And knives,” you smirked, remembering your character’s favorite weapon.

The presenter squealed, “I believe you can’t me about that smile on your face?”

You laughed, “Sorry, nope.”

“I’m curious for the movie!” He revealed. “Now, let’s talk about another smile, shall we?”

“What smile?” Seb asked, draping his arm on the back of the couch behind you.

“Those smiles.” It was his time to smirk as a photo of you and Sebastian laughed, walking together on the street. You remembered that day. You and Seb had a free day during the shootings and decided to go out to have lunch. It was cold, regardless of your coat and boots, so Sebastian had his arms around you to keep you warm until you got to the hotel. You ended up ordering food service for dinner and falling asleep on your bed, after playing poker and dancing clumsily to 40s music. Sebastian had promised to teach you, since he played Bucky Barnes and learned to dance, but it was harder than you had expected.

“It was a good day,” Seb commented.

“It sure looks like it,” the presenter nodded then turned to the crowed. “And there’s no filter on this one, guys. They are that photogenic.”

The snow covered the majority of the photo, saved by the sunset lights on the sky and you and Sebastian looking cozy with huge coats, boots and gloves, hands around each other.

It was a great picture.

“Can I have that?” You asked.

“Sure,” the presenter beamed. “Perhaps for a black frame on the coffee table or up the fireplace when you guys get married?”

You blushed deeply.

“It would already have happened but won’t say ‘yes’ when I pop the question.”

Oh that’s how it is, Sebastian?

“It would already have happened, but Sebastian decided to wait a few years to ask me out,” you snickered and the crowd laughed.

“I did take a bit more than expected,” Seb admitted. “But now I have you and I wouldn’t change it for nothing.”

“Now, if Sebastian were to pop the question, how would you like it, [Y/n]?” the presenter asked, resuming the show.

“I’d like it to be a surprise.”

Sebastian looked at you, his lips stretched on a grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

~/~

That night, Sebastian whispered “I love you” into your ear before sleeping with his arms around you and your head on his chest.

“I love you too.”

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