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malfoymuch · 5 years ago

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“Rivals Don’t Look At Rivals That Way” [draco x reader]

Pairing; Draco x Reader

Genre; ANGST with some fluff?

Prompt/Inspiration: (Song) “THAT WAY” by Tate McRae

Word Count: 2,650+

A/n: Hey, hope everyone’s doing okay so far? I also hope everyone stays safe and does well!!! I’m currently back for the time being, so we’ll see what happens. I might make a part 2 but I’m not really sure? Anyway, thank you so much and I hope you enjoy it!!!

Please note that I did skip a chunk of the song, other than that hope you like it!!

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Run me in circles

Like you always do

Mess with me on purpose

So I'll hang onto you

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You didn’t know when it initially began, but something was brewing between you and Malfoy, you could feel it, and it wasn’t the excessive squabbling and resentment the both of you had since first-year.

Being in your fifth year now, you managed to hold a title for yourself, of being a refined, young individual; a wizard with a bright future amongst themselves. The impression of you given to the younger years had made you smirk from time-to-time, being someone to never double-cross. It came in handy often.

That, and your long-lasting quarrel with acclaimed Slytherin Prince, Draco Malfoy. Everyone knew about your needless banters, leading to a decent amount of detention in Professor Snape’s classroom. Honestly, you were quite surprised you had such an incredible influence given the number of times being punished for your careless actions in class with the Slytherin classmate.

Weirdly, the two of you couldn’t exactly pinpoint when things began to form into something else… something new.

-----------------------------------------------------

I know what you mean when you act like that

You don't know it's breaking my heart

Said that it was just never gonna happen

Then almost kissed me in the dark

-----------------------------------------------------

It was a blur.

It was an accident.

It was something that wouldn’t lead to anything good…

You tried to convince yourself for days, weeks…

You didn’t know what it was, maybe something that happened in the heat of the moment… but you distinctly remember being up at the astronomy tower and gazing at the stars, while the rest of your house was getting into serious trouble with the others.

But out of nowhere, you saw Draco sitting next to you, nonchalantly. Not one sarcastic comment or insult, just the two of you admiring the starry night sky. Carefully exchanging short little glances at one another, not saying a word, but noticing the reflection of the luminescent specks on the two of you.

Then, it happened.

You both happened to look into each other’s eyes, and the world seemed to stop. Neither of you had turned away, just continuing to heavily stare into the other’s alluring irises, and began to lean closer to one another. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, the two of you continued the action until you were merely an inch away from each other’s lips, noses brushing the others.

The barely noticeable spots across Draco’s face made your face tint, the tiniest imperfections were magnified being so close to him-- but to you, they weren’t blemishes, it made him normal. And sometimes normal was exceptional; time seemed to stand still for who knows how long, but it was something you weren’t sure whether to push.

It was like a sudden spark was about to be lit, a flame awaiting to kindle.

And then just like that, it diminished.

A sudden creak of the door broke Draco out of the trance and move backward, pale and wide-eyed as he stared at your figure. He bit his lip and opened his move in an attempt to say something, but closed it shut moments after. His captivating eyes had a subtle glare, making a feeling growing inside of you that perhaps, it was more than a rivalry. But just as you were going to question him, he ran.

Let’s say you were both heartbroken and confused that night.

And maybe he was too.

-----------------------------------------------------

Every time we talk it just hurts so bad

'Cause I don't even know what we are

I don't even know where to start

But I can play the part

-----------------------------------------------------

Since then, it was hard to stand seeing him at all. Walking through the corridor, teasing the other houses with his colleagues, working in class, and especially when he was chatting with Pansy; watching as she clung to him. Through all your years of seeing them, you would’ve thought that Draco felt suffocated or trapped with the action, but now, it looked like he lived for it. Openly accepted her gestures of affection, ones he used to immediately refuse…

He even returned her actions sometimes, casually wrapping his arm over her shoulders, or greeting her politely in the evening as they walked to the dining hall.

You came to the conclusion that you liked him, a lot. Maybe even loved him. You didn’t know what was the difference between the two, but you didn’t think having a simple crush would’ve affected you this badly. To notice his little quirks that made you grin-- the way he ruffled his hair when he was frustrated-- when he had a hard time in class he’d sometimes puff out one side of his cheek or bite his lip-- or the way his eyes glint with strong emotions constantly.

His insults didn’t always happen anymore, instead, it was more of a war of silent expression (facial/body posture). When they did come, you still returned with a curt, wise response… but it wasn’t the same. ‘Cause it seemed that the little things he began to insult you with started to affect you.

Not vastly, but the occasional twist and tug of your heart did hurt.

Especially when you knew that maybe it was true.

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We say we're friends

But I'm catching you across the room

It makes no sense

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Next thing you knew, another incident happened. You would feel his stares from across the classroom. Now, most people would say he was just sending a glare and not paying attention, given he might snap at them next.

But you knew differently.

Not all stares were vicious, menacing glares. In fact, a lot of them seemed to just be of him staring at you, lost in thought. Hopeful. Doubtful. Guilty.

They all ranged and altered so quickly that it was impossible to identify the logic in his mind. After some time of you staring back, he seemed to always recover seconds later, flushed and staring back at the professor. Or muttering something under his breath before sneakily harassing another student.

You would’ve confronted him for it, had it not been that fleeting thought of what it could’ve meant. And confronting him in the matter might’ve shattered both the thought and you (again).

-----------------------------------------------------

'Cause we're fighting over what we do

And there's no way

That I'll end up being with you

But friends don't look at friends that way

Friends don't look at friends that way

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It was announced suddenly. Draco and Pansy had gotten into a nasty fight with one another, leading up to Pansy striking Draco across the face and screaming utter nonsense for the next few days. To be fair, you didn’t know she had the will to actually hit him, but surprise surprise.

Weirdly, Pansy didn’t seem eager to proclaim to the world why they broke up suddenly, letting students just create their own impractical outline of their relationship. The biggest being swarmed around was him cheating or having another sidekick, though Draco dismissed them.

Hope entangled your mind. The possibility was now an option, it could be a reality. Constantly fighting with your anxiety, a never-ending struggle with your mentality. In the end, anxiety won. It seemed to always win these days.

Draco may no longer with someone now, but that didn’t mean he’d go for you, now did it?

Didn’t mean you had a chance… didn’t mean he would suddenly take interest in you either.

You’d brokenly laugh at yourself afterward, thinking about how hypocritical it was to be picturing yourself when him and then being disgusted with other students for doing it as well.

Just what was becoming of you?

-----------------------------------------------------

You stared at him longingly, causing your house to interrogate your sudden fascination with someone (they didn’t exactly know, but had a clue). One thing led up to another, rumors among you and Draco began to stir like no tomorrow.

You became the talk-of-the-town even more, as well as Draco. Students would randomly question you about your relationship status as you passed by them-- asked if you fancied Draco or were going out with him-- hell, even the professors questioned your day and life. It was much too hectic for you, especially in a time of complete and utter stress.

It was too much. The attention didn’t make you happier, because, in the end, you know, the person who they talked about wouldn’t care, or be with you.

But you still denied all allegations, wondering what dreadful response Draco would’ve made towards you in comparison. Probably a crude, rude response that would’ve left any person cry right then and there. So for the time being, you managed to deflect people’s questions and Draco’s responses to them.

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Can't even tell if

I love or hate you more

You've got me addicted

And I can't tell who's keeping score

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Soon it seemed things returned back to normal in a month’s time. The rumors died down and Draco’s bantering increased per usual, the two of you were at it all over again as if your agony never occurred in the first place. Displaying a mask upon your face seemed to be a normal occurrence nowadays.

Students soon neglected the idea that Draco could possibly be infatuated with you, considering how much the two of you bickered in all of your shared classes. To the world, it seemed that everyone and everything had returned back to normal…

Though on the inside, you were slowly crumbling away. It seemed really stupid to you, an over-exaggeration of feelings infusing together-- and you just didn’t know how to calm your paranoid nerves.

-----------------------------------------------------

We say we're friends

But I'm catching you across the room

It makes no sense

'Cause we're fighting over what we do

-----------------------------------------------------

You had a little randevú with Dean Thomas, and to be completely honest-- it made you felt absolutely wrong. Dean Thomas was an extremely good-looking student, with an awestruck personality (believe it or not), but it just didn’t feel right. And you were almost positive he felt the same, considering while talking to you, he’d occasionally bring up another girl he’s been crushing on for ages.

So one thing led to another, you two ended up like best friends, secretly discussing and plotting scenarios of how to get the other one (though most of the time, you were helping Dean). In a way, Dean became a noteworthy therapist, expressing your hindrance was beneficial.

But someone else thought a lot differently about the two of you.

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And there's no way

That I'll end up being with you

But friends don't look at friends that way

Friends don't look at friends that way

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Things seemed to become weird again. Honestly, at this point in time, you were wondering if this cycle was going to become a normal routine. This time, Draco stopped with mocking and just stared; a mixture between ogling and a glower… you couldn’t stand it anymore.

As your last class finished you darted across the room and jerked Draco out of his seat, hauling him around to who knows where; anger seemed to only raise more as the students around began to stir trouble, whether teasing or whispering to themselves. With a deadpan stare, most students’ voices died down only instantly.

“(Y/N), where the hell are you taking me?”

You couldn’t answer, because you didn’t know. Scanning through your options, you realized most options wouldn’t be best, considering the amount of blabbing students were roaming. Frustration only seemed to grow before the conclusion came to mind that the library would suit best.

It wasn’t specifically a place of solitude, but it wouldn’t be swarmed with different houses, just a series of Ravenclaws you were too engrossed in novels to realize what was happening-- or a Hufflepuff studying. To be fair, you’d much rather let a Hufflepuff overhear anything among the two of you than another chatterbox (especially Slytherin and Gryffindor.)

Giving a final yank, you gazed at the Slytherin Prince stumble forward and back to his feet, before scowling.

“Bloody hell, (Y/N). If you wanted my attention you could’ve just asked. Didn’t need to make a scene,” he fumed, staring at his surroundings. You would’ve made a remark about him for the look he gave being in a library but held back. That wasn’t important, what’s about to happen definitely is.

“Shut up, Malfoy. You deserved it anyway, after all of the nonsense I’ve had to go because of you.” You retorted, shocked that the words just slithered from your mouth. Bad habits seem to die hard. Draco didn’t seem happy at all with your statement.

“Because of me? Me? Darling, you don’t even know the amount of trouble you’ve given me…” he spat back, “And then you throw this little stunt that’s sure to bring me more trouble than ever--”

“What are we?” You blurted out accidentally, the question that’s been racking your mind finally spilling out of the blue. Draco seemed to freeze at your question, stunning him from forming any coherent sentences to come through.

“I mean it, Draco… what are we at this point?” Staring at the ground, you flinched when Draco gained consciousness of the situation, erupting in laughter.

“What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind, (Y/N)? Must’ve hit your head, ‘cause there is nothing between us. We’re nothing more than rivals--”

“Rivals that caught each other’s stares from across the classroom? From across the foyer? The garden?” You queried, examing for a definitive emotion stirring up within him.

“Right, before we throw insults at each other--”

“Do rivals stare into each other’s eyes?”

“Of course, it’s called a glare--”

“Do rivals almost kiss?” Draco’s breath hitched at the question, turning away and running his fingers across the spines of the books. His bangs seemed to cover his eyes as he looked down at your figure, a sinister smirk on his face.

“It wasn’t a kiss.” He said brazenly, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning against the bookcase for support. You huffed annoyedly, “Oh yeah? Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t think anything of me. That that night, wasn’t going to lead to a kiss, and we really are just rivals…”

“I don’t think anything of you, we weren’t going to kiss and we are just rivals--”

“Look me in the eye and say it Draco!” You demanded viciously, taking a step closer to him. “Look me in the eye, and tell me truly if I mean nothing to you.”

“Why are you so keen so knowing what I think of you? Shouldn’t you be asking Thomas this? Perhaps asking him these types of questions?” You did a double-take at that statement, blinking a few times.

“This has nothing to do with Dean, Draco. We aren’t together. I just want you to tell me the truth--”

“The truth is we’re rivals! Maybe even considered friends! Always have been! What led you to become so determined to discover what you mean to me--”

“Because rivals (friends) don’t look at rivals (friends) the way we do!” You barked at him, water threatening to spill from the corner of your eyes as you rammed a hand to his chest.

“Rivals don’t look at rivals that way… rivals aren’t supposed to feel jealous when the others dating someone else…” you droned on, ignoring the look of astonishment Draco had. “I don’t think we’re rivals, because if we were, then I’ve read everything wrong. And so are my feelings…”

So you looked back up to him teary-eyed, clutching his robes and pulling him closer to you.

“Tell me the truth, I want to know whether or not there was a possibility we have something… tell me if you feel absolutely nothing so I can stop-- there’s no point of me continuing on if nothing’s going to happen so tell me, Draco. Do rivals look at rivals that way?”

----

part two?

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ahouseoflies · 4 years ago

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The Best Films of 2020

I can’t tell you anything novel or insightful about this year that has been stolen from our lives. I watched zero of these films in a theater, and I watched most of them half-asleep in moments that I stole from my children. Don’t worry, there are some jokes below.

GARBAGE

93. Capone (Josh Trank)- What is the point of this dinner theater trash? It takes place in the last year of Capone's life, when he was released from prison due to failing health and suffered a stroke in his Florida home. So it covers...none of the things that make Al Capone interesting? It's not historically accurate, which I have no problem with, but if you steer away from accuracy, then do something daring and exciting. Don't give me endless scenes of "Phonse"--as if the movie is running from the very person it's about--drawing bags of money that promise intrigue, then deliver nothing in return.

That being said, best "titular character shits himself" scene since The Judge.

92. Ammonite (Francis Lee)- I would say that this is the Antz to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's A Bug's Life, but it's actually more like the Cars 3 to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Toy Story 1.

91. Ava (Tate Taylor)- Despite the mystery and inscrutability that usually surround assassins, what if we made a hitman movie but cared a lot about her personal life? Except neither the assassin stuff nor the family stuff is interesting?

90. Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins)- What a miscalculation of what audiences loved about the first and wanted from the sequel. WW84 is silly and weightless in all of the ways that the first was elegant and confident. If the return of Pine is just a sort of phantom representation of Diana's desires, then why can he fly a real plane? If he is taking over another man's soul, then, uh, what ends up happening to that guy? For that matter, why is it not 1984 enough for Ronald Reagan to be president, but it is 1984 enough for the president to have so many Ronald Reagan signifiers that it's confusing? Why not just make a decision?

On paper, the me-first values of the '80s lend themselves to the monkey's paw wish logic of this plot. You could actually do something with the Star Wars program or the oil crisis. But not if the setting is played for only laughs and the screenplay explains only what it feels like.

89. Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy)- In this type of movie, there has to be a period of the Ben Mendelsohn character looking around befuddled about the new arrangement and going, "What's this now--he's going to be...living with us? The guy who tried to steal our medication? This is crazy!" But that's usually ten minutes, and in this movie it's an hour. I was so worn out by the end.

88. You Should Have Left (David Koepp)- David Koepp wrote Jurassic Park, so he's never going to hell, but how dare he start caring about his own mystery at the hour mark. There's a forty-five minute version of this movie that could get an extra star from me, and there's a three-hour version of Amanda Seyfried walking around in athleisure that would get four stars from me. What we actually get? No thanks.

87. Black Is King (Beyonce, et al.)- End your association with The Lion King, Bey. It has resulted in zero bops.

ADMIRABLE FAILURES

86. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan)- There's nothing too dysfunctional in the storytelling or performances, but Birds of Prey also doesn't do a single thing well. I would prefer something alive and wild, even if it were flawed, to whatever tame belt-level formula this is.

85. The Turning (Floria Sigismondi)- This update of The Turn of the Screw pumps the age of Miles up to high school, which creates some horny creepiness that I liked. But the age of the character also prevents the ending of the novel from happening in favor of a truly terrible shrug. I began to think that all of the patience that the film showed earlier was just hesitance for its own awful ending.

I watched The Turning as a Mackenzie Davis Movie Star heat check, and while I'm not sure she has the magnetism I was looking for, she does have a great teacher voice, chastening but maternal.

84. Bloodshot (David Wilson)- A whole lot of Vin Diesel saying he's going to get revenge and kill a bunch of dudes; not a whole lot of Vin Diesel actually getting revenge and killing a bunch of dudes.

83. Downhill (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)- I was an English major in college, which means I ended up locking myself into literary theories that, halfway through the writing of an essay, I realized were flawed. But rather than throw out the work that I had already proposed, I would just keep going and see if I could will the idea to success.

So let's say you have a theory that you can take Force Majeure by Ruben Ostlund, one of the best films of its year, and remake it so that its statement about familial anxiety could apply to Americans of the same age and class too...if it hadn't already. And maybe in the first paragraph you mess up by casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, people we are conditioned to laugh at, when maybe this isn't that kind of comedy at all. Well, don't throw it away. You can quote more--fill up the pages that way--take an exact shot or scene from the original. Does that help? Maybe you can make the writing more vigorous and distinctive by adding a character. Is that going to make this baby stand out? Maybe you could make it more personal by adding a conclusion that is slightly more clever than the rest of the paper?

Or perhaps this is one you're just not going to get an A on.

82. Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard)- I watched this melodrama at my mother's encouragement, and, though I have been trying to pin down her taste for decades, I think her idea of a successful film just boils down to "a lot of stuff happens." So in that way, Ron Howard's loss is my gain, I guess.

There is no such thing as a "neutral Terminator."

81. Relic (Natalie Erika James)- The star of the film is Vanessa Cerne's set decoration, but the inert music and slow pace cancel out a house that seems neglected slowly over decades.

80. Buffaloed (Tanya Wexler)- Despite a breathless pace, Buffaloed can't quite congeal. In trying to split the difference between local color hijinks and Moneyballed treatise on debt collection, it doesn't commit enough to either one.

Especially since Zoey Deutch produced this one in addition to starring, I'm getting kind of worried about boo's taste. Lot of Two If by Seas; not enough While You Were Sleepings.

79. Like a Boss (Miguel Arteta)- I chuckled a few times at a game supporting cast that is doing heavy lifting. But Like a Boss is contrived from the premise itself--Yeah, what if people in their thirties fell out of friendship? Do y'all need a creative consultant?--to the escalation of most scenes--Why did they have to hide on the roof? Why do they have to jump into the pool?

The movie is lean, but that brevity hurts just as much as it helps. The screenplay knows which scenes are crucial to the development of the friendship, but all of those feel perfunctory, in a different gear from the setpieces.

To pile on a bit: Studio comedies are so bare bones now that they look like Lifetime movies. Arteta brought Chuck & Buck to Sundance twenty years ago, and, shot on Mini-DV for $250,000, it was seen as a DIY call-to-bootstraps. I guarantee that has more setups and locations and shooting days than this.

78. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin)- Add Dan Stevens to the list of supporting players who have bodied Will Ferrell in his own movie--one that he cared enough to write himself.

Like Downhill, Ferrell's other 2020 release, this isn't exactly bad. It's just workmanlike and, aside from the joke about Demi Lovato's "uninformed" ghost, frustratingly conventional.

77. The Traitor (Marco Bellochio)- Played with weary commitment by Pierfrancesco Favino, Tomasso Buscetta is "credited" as the first informant of La Cosa Nostra. And that sounds like an interesting subject for a "based on a true story" crime epic, right? Especially when you find out that Buscetta became a rat out of principle: He believed that the mafia to which he had pledged his life had lost its code to the point that it was a different organization altogether.

At no point does Buscetta waver or even seem to struggle with his decision though, so what we get is less conflicted than that description might suggest. None of these Italian mob movies glorify the lifestyle, so I wasn't expecting that. But if the crime doesn't seem enticing, and snitching on the crime seems like forlorn duty, and everything is pitched with such underhanded matter-of-factness that you can't even be sure when Buscetta has flipped, then what are we left with? It was interesting seeing how Italian courts work, I guess?

76. Kajillionaire (Miranda July)- This is another movie so intent on building atmosphere and lore that it takes too long to declare what it is. When the protagonist hits a breaking point and has to act, she has only a third of a film to grow. So whispery too.

Gina Rodriguez is the one to inject life into it. As soon as her motormouth winds up, the film slips into a different gear. The atmosphere and lore that I mentioned reeks of artifice, but her character is believably specific. Beneath a basic exterior is someone who is authentically caring but still morally compromised, beholden to the world that the other characters are suspicious of.

75. Scoob! (Tony Cervone)- The first half is sometimes clever, but it hammers home the importance of friendship while separating the friends.

The second half has some positive messaging, but your kids' movie might have a problem with scale if it involves Alexander the Great unlocking the gates of the Underworld.

My daughter loved it.

74. The Lovebirds (Michael Showalter)- If I start talking too much about this perfectly fine movie, I end up in that unfair stance of reviewing the movie I wanted, not what is actually there.* As a fan of hang-out comedies, I kind of resent that any comedy being made now has to be rolled into something more "exciting," whether it's a wrongfully accused or mistaken identity thriller or some other genre. Such is the post-Game Night world. There's a purposefully anti-climactic note that I wish The Lovebirds had ended on, but of course we have another stretch of hiding behind boats and shooting guns. Nanjiani and Rae are really charming leads though.

*- As a New Orleanian, I was totally distracted by the fake aspects of the setting too. "Oh, they walked to Jefferson from downtown? Really?" You probably won't be bothered by the locations.

73. Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler)- In some ways the storytelling is ambitious. (I'm speaking for only myself, but I'm fine with "He's a hedgehog, and he's really fast" instead of the owl mother, teleportation backstory. Not everything has to be Tolkien.) But that ambition doesn't match the lack of ambition in the comedy, which depends upon really hackneyed setups and structures. Guiding Jim Carrey to full alrighty-then mode was the best choice anyone made.

72. Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson)- The stars move through these long scenes with agility and charisma, but the degree of difficulty is just too high for this movie to reach what it's going for.

Levinson is trying to capture an epic fight between a couple, and he can harness the theatrical intensity of such a thing, but he sacrifices almost all of the nuance. In real life, these knock-down-drag-outs can be circular and indirect and sad in a way that this couple's manipulation rarely is. If that emotional truth is all this movie is trying to achieve, I feel okay about being harsh in my judgment of how well it does that.

71. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)- Elusive in how it refuses to declare itself, forthright in how punishing it is. The whole thing might be worth it for a late dinner scene, but I'm getting a bit old to put myself through this kind of misery.

70. The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi)- Silly in good ways until it's silly in bad ways. Elizabeth Debicki remains 6'3".

69. Everybody’s Everything (Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan)- As a person who listened to Lil Peep's music, I can confidently say that this documentary is overstating his greatness. His death was a significant loss, as the interview subjects will all acknowledge, but the documentary is more useful as a portrait of a certain unfocused, rapacious segment of a generation that is high and online at all times.

68. The Witches (Robert Zemeckis)- Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo Del Toro are the credited screenwriters, and in a fascinating way, you can see the imprint of each figure on the final product. Adapting a very European story to the old wives' tales of the American South is an interesting choice. Like the Nicolas Roeg try at this material, Zemeckis is not afraid to veer into the terrifying, and Octavia Spencer's pseudo witch doctor character only sells the supernatural. From a storytelling standpoint though, it seems as if the obstacles are overcome too easily, as if there's a whole leg of the film that has been excised. The framing device and the careful myth-making of the flashback make promises that the hotel half of the film, including the abrupt ending, can't live up to.

If nothing else, Anne Hathaway is a real contender for Most On-One Performance of the year.

67. Irresistible (Jon Stewart)- Despite a sort of imaginative ending, Jon Stewart's screenplay feels more like the declarative screenplay that would get you hired for a good movie, not a good screenplay itself. It's provocative enough, but it's clumsy in some basic ways and never evades the easy joke.

For example, the Topher Grace character is introduced as a sort of assistant, then is re-introduced an hour later as a polling expert, then is shown coaching the candidate on presentation a few scenes later. At some point, Stewart combined characters into one role, but nothing got smoothed out.

ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

66. Yes, God, Yes (Karen Maine)- Most people who are Catholic, including me, are conflicted about it. Most people who make movies about being Catholic hate it and have an axe to grind. This film is capable of such knowing wit and nuance when it comes to the lived-in details of attending a high school retreat, but it's more concerned with taking aim at hypocrisy in the broad way that we've seen a million times. By the end, the film is surprisingly all-or-nothing when Christian teenagers actually contain multitudes.

Part of the problem is that Karen Maine's screenplay doesn't know how naive to make the Alice character. Sometimes she's reasonably naive for a high school senior in 2001; sometimes she's comically naive so that the plot can work; and sometimes she's stupid, which isn't the same as naive.

65. Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)- This might be the first buddy cop movie in which the vets make peace with the tech-comm youngs who use new techniques. If that's the only novelty on display here--and it is--then maybe that's enough. I laughed maybe once. Not that the mistaken identity subplot of Bad Boys 1 is genius or anything, but this entry felt like it needed just one more layer to keep it from feeling as basic as it does. Speaking of layers though, it's almost impossible to watch any Will Smith movie now without viewing it through the meta-narrative of "What is Will Smith actually saying about his own status at this point in his career?" He's serving it up to us.

I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing the old school Simpson/Bruckheimer logo.

64. The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie)- Look, I'm not going to be too negative on a movie whose crime slang is so byzantine that it has to be explained with subtitles. That's just me. I'm a simple man. But I can tell you that I tuned out pretty hard after seven or eight double-crosses.

The bloom is off the rose a bit for Ritchie, but he can still nail a music cue. I've been waiting for someone to hit "That's Entertainment" the way he does on the end credits.

63. Bad Hair (Justin Simien)- In Bad Hair, an African-American woman is told by her boss at a music video channel in 1989 that straightening her hair is the way to get ahead; however, her weave ends up having a murderous mind of its own. Compared to that charged, witty logline, the execution of the plot itself feels like a laborious, foregone conclusion. I'm glad that Simien, a genuinely talented writer, is making movies again though. Drop the skin-care routine, Van Der Beek!

62. Greyhound (Aaron Schneider)- "If this is the type of role that Tom Hanks writes for himself, then he understands his status as America's dad--'wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove'--even better than I thought." "America's Dad! Aye aye, sir!" "At least half of the dialogue is there for texture and authenticity, not there to be understood by the audience." "Fifty percent, Captain!" "The environment looks as fake as possible, but I eventually came around to the idea that the movie is completely devoid of subtext." "No subtext to be found, sir!"

61. Mank (David Fincher)- About ten years ago, the Creative Screenwriting podcast spent an hour or so with James Vanderbilt, the writer of Zodiac and nothing else that comes close, as he relayed the creative paces that David Fincher pushed him through. Hundreds of drafts and years of collaborative work eventuated in the blueprint for Fincher's most exacting, personal film, which he didn't get a writing credit on only because he didn't seek one.

Something tells me that Fincher didn't ask for rewrites from his dead father. No matter what visuals and performances the director can coax from the script--and, to be clear, these are the worst visuals and performances of his career--they are limited by the muddy lightweight pages. There are plenty of pleasures, like the slippery election night montage or the shakily platonic relationship between Mank and Marion. But Fincher hadn't made a film in six years, and he came back serving someone else's master.

60. Tesla (Michael Almereyda)- "You live inside your head." "Doesn't everybody?"

As usual, Almereyda's deconstructions are invigorating. (No other moment can match the first time Eve Hewson's Anne fact-checks something with her anachronistic laptop.) But they don't add up to anything satisfying because Tesla himself is such an opaque figure. Driven by the whims of his curiosity without a clear finish line, the character gives Hawke something enigmatic to play as he reaches deep into a baritone. But he's too inward to lend himself to drama. Tesla feels of a piece with Almereyda's The Experimenter, and that's the one I would recommend.

59. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)- I can't oversell how delicately beautiful this film is visually. There's a scene in which Vitalina lugs a lantern into a church, but we get several seconds of total darkness before that one light source carves through it and takes over part of the frame. Each composition is as intricate as it is overpowering, achieving a balance between stark and mannered.

That being said, most of the film is people entering or exiting doors. I felt very little of the haunting loss that I think I was supposed to.

58. The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano)- Call it the Timothy Hutton in The General's Daughter Corollary: If a name-actor isn't in the movie much but gets third billing, then, despite whom he sends the protagonist to kill, he is the Actual Bad Guy.

Even if the movie serves up a lot of cliche, the action and sound design are visceral. I would like to see more from Morano.

57. Red, White and Blue (Steve McQueen)- Well-made and heartfelt even if it goes step-for-step where you think it will.

Here's what I want to know though: In the academy training sequence, the police cadets have to subdue a "berserker"; that is, a wildman who swings at their riot gear with a sledgehammer. Then they get him under control, and he shakes their hands, like, "Good angle you took on me there, mate." Who is that guy and where is his movie? Is this full-time work? Is he a police officer or an independent contractor? What would happen if this exercise didn't go exactly as planned?

56. Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart)- The visuals have an unfinished quality that reminded me of The Tale of Princess Kaguya--the center of a flame is undrawn white, and fog is just negative space. There's an underlying symmetry to the film, and its color palette changes with mood.

Narratively, it's pro forma and drawn-out. Was Riley in Inside Out the last animated protagonist to get two parents? My daughter stuck with it, but she needed a lot of context for the religious atmosphere of 17th century Ireland.

55. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (Rob Garver)- The film does little more than one might expect; it's limited in the way that any visual medium is when trying to sum up a woman of letters. But as far as education for Kael's partnership with Warren Beatty or the idea of The New Yorker paying her for only six months out of the year, it was useful for me.

Although Garver isn't afraid to point to the work that made Kael divisive, it would have been nice to have one or two interview subjects who questioned her greatness, rather than the crew of Paulettes who, even when they do say something like, "Sometimes I radically disagreed with her," do it without being able to point to any specifics.

54. Beastie Boys Story (Spike Jonze)- As far as this Spike Jonze completist is concerned, this is more of a Powerpoint presentation than a movie, Beastie Boys Story still warmed my heart, making me want to fire up Paul's Boutique again and take more pictures of my buddies.

53. Tenet (Christopher Nolan)- Cool and cold, tantalizing and frustrating, loud and indistinct, Tenet comes close to Nolan self-parody, right down to the brutalist architecture and multiple characters styled like him. The setpieces grabbed me, I'll admit.

Nolan's previous film, which is maybe his best, was "about" a lot and just happened to play with time; Tenet is only about playing with time.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES

52. Shithouse (Cooper Raiff)- "Death is ass."

There's such a thing as too naturalistic. If I wanted to hear how college freshmen really talked, I would hang out with college freshmen. But you have to take the good verisimilitude with the bad, and good verisimilitude is the mother's Pod Save America t-shirt.

There are some poignant moments (and a gonzo performance from Logan Miller) in this auspicious debut from Cooper Raiff, the writer/director/editor/star. But the second party sequence kills some of the momentum, and at a crucial point, the characters spell out some motivation that should have stayed implied.

51. Totally Under Control (Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger)- As dense and informative as any other Gibney documentary with the added flex of making it during the pandemic it is investigating.

But yeah, why am I watching this right now? I don't need more reasons to be angry with Trump, whom this film calmly eviscerates. The directors analyze Trump's narcissism first through his contradictions of medical expertise in order to protect the economy that could win him re-election. Then it takes aim at his hiring based on loyalty instead of experience. But you already knew that, which is the problem with the film, at least for now.

50. Happiest Season (Clea Duvall)- I was in the perfect mood to watch something this frothy and bouncy. Every secondary character receives a moment in the sun, and Daniel Levy gets a speech that kind of saves the film at a tipping point.

I must say though: I wanted to punch Harper in her stupid face. She is a terrible romantic partner, abandoning or betraying Abby throughout the film and dissembling her entire identity to everyone else in a way that seems absurd for a grown woman in 2020. Run away, Kristen. Perhaps with Aubrey Plaza, whom you have more chemistry with. But there I go shipping and aligning myself with characters, which only proves that this is an effective romantic comedy.

49. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor)- Patient but misshapen, The Way Back does just enough to overcome the cliches that are sort of unavoidable considering the genre. (I can't get enough of the parent character who, for no good reason, doesn't take his son's success seriously. "Scholarship? What he's gotta do is put his nose in them books! That's why I don't go to his games. [continues moving boxes while not looking at the other character] Now if you'll excuse me while I wait four scenes before showing up at a game to prove that I'm proud of him after all...")

What the movie gets really right or really wrong in the details about coaching and addiction is a total crap-shoot. But maybe I've said too much already.

48. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)- Porumboiu is a real artist who seems to be interpreting how much surveillance we're willing to acknowledge and accept, but I won't pretend to have understood much of the plot, the chapters or which are told out of order. Sometimes the structure works--the beguiling, contextless "high-class hooker" sequence--but I often wondered if the film was impenetrable in the way that Porumboiu wanted it to be or impenetrable in the way he didn't.

To tell you the truth, the experience kind of depressed me because I know that, in my younger days, this film is the type of thing that I would re-watch, possibly with the chronology righted, knowing that it is worth understanding fully. But I have two small children, and I'm exhausted all the time, and I kind of thought I should get some credit for still trying to catch up with Romanian crime movies in the first place.

47. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner)- I laughed too much to get overly critical, but the film is so episodic and contrived that it's kind of exhausting by the end--even though it's achieving most of its goals. Maybe Borat hasn't changed, but the way our citizens own their ugliness has.

46. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)- Despite how little happens in the first forty minutes, First Cow is a thoughtful capitalism parable. Even though it takes about forty minutes to get going, the friendship between Cookie and King-Lu is natural and incisive. Like Reichardt's other work, the film's modest premise unfolds quite gracefully, except for in the first forty minutes, which are uneventful.

45. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)- I loved parts of the film--the disorienting, claustrophobic opening or the quick look at the police officers' home lives, for example. But I'm not sure that it does anything very well. The needle the film tries to thread between realism and theater didn't gel for me. The ending, which is ambiguous in all of the wrong ways, chooses the theatrical. (If I'm being honest, my expectations were built up by Les Miserables' Jury Prize at Cannes, and it's a bit superficial to be in that company.)

If nothing else, it's always helpful to see how another country's worst case scenario in law enforcement would look pretty good over here.

44. Bad Education (Cory Finley)- The film feels too locked-down and small at the beginning, so intent on developing the protagonist neutrally that even the audience isn't aware of his secrets. So when he faces consequences for those secrets, there's a disconnect. Part of tragedy is seeing the doom coming, right?

When it opens up, however, it's empathetic and subtle, full of a dry irony that Finley is already specializing in after only one other feature. Geraldine Viswanathan and Allison Janney get across a lot of interiority that is not on the page.

43. The Trip to Greece (Michael Winterbottom)- By the fourth installment, you know whether you're on board with the franchise. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" to Coogan and Brydon's bickering and impressions as they're served exotic food in picturesque settings, then this one won't sway you. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" about life, like they are, then I don't need to convince you.

I will say that The Trip to Spain seemed like an enervated inflection point, at which the squad could have packed it in. The Trip to Greece proves that they probably need to keep doing this until one of them dies, which has been the subtext all along.

42. Feels Good Man (Arthur Jones)- This documentary centers on innocent artist Matt Furie's helplessness as his Pepe the Frog character gets hijacked by the alt-right. It gets the hard things right. It's able to, quite comprehensively, trace a connection from 4Chan's use of Pepe the Frog to Donald Trump's near-assuming of Pepe's ironic deniability. Director Arthur Jones seems to understand the machinations of the alt-right, and he articulates them chillingly.

The easy thing, making us connect to Furie, is less successful. The film spends way too much time setting up his story, and it makes him look naive as it pits him against Alex Jones in the final third. Still, the film is a quick ninety-two minutes, and the highs are pretty high.

41. The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood)- Some of the world-building and backstory are handled quite elegantly. The relationships actually do feel centuries old through specific details, and the immortal conceit comes together for an innovative final action sequence.

Visually and musically though, the film feels flat in a way that Prince-Bythewood's other films do not. I blame Netflix specs. KiKi Layne, who tanked If Beale Street Could Talk for me, nearly ruins this too with the child-actory way that she stresses one word per line. Especially in relief with one of our more effortless actresses, Layne is distracting.

40. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)- Whenever Sacha Baron Cohen's Abbie Hoffman opens his mouth, the other defendants brace themselves for his dismissive vulgarity. Even when it's going to hurt him, he can't help but shoot off at the mouth. Of course, he reveals his passionate and intelligent depths as the trial goes on. The character is the one that Sorkin's screenplay seems the most endeared to: In the same way that Hoffman can't help but be Hoffman, Sorkin can't help but be Sorkin. Maybe we don't need a speech there; maybe we don't have to stretch past two hours; maybe a bon mot diffuses the tension. But we know exactly what to expect by now. The film is relevant, astute, witty, benevolent, and, of course, in love with itself. There are a handful of scenes here that are perfect, so I feel bad for qualifying so much.

A smaller point: Daniel Pemberton has done great work in the past (Motherless Brooklyn, King Arthur, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), but the first sequence is especially marred by his sterile soft-rock approach.

GOOD MOVIES

39. Time (Garrett Bradley)- The key to Time is that it provides very little context. Why the patriarch of this family is serving sixty years in prison is sort of besides the point philosophically. His wife and sons have to move on without him, and the tragedy baked into that fact eclipses any notion of what he "deserved." Feeling the weight of time as we switch back and forth between a kid talking about his first day of kindergarten and that same kid graduating from dentistry school is all the context we need. Time's presentation can be quite sumptuous: The drone shot of Angola makes its buildings look like crosses. Or is it X's?

At the same time, I need some context. When director Garrett Bradley withholds the reason Robert's in prison, and when she really withholds that Fox took a plea and served twelve years, you start to see the strings a bit. You could argue that knowing so little about why, all of a sudden, Robert can be on parole puts you into the same confused shoes as the family, but it feels manipulative to me. The film is preaching to the choir as far as criminal justice goes, which is fine, but I want it to have the confidence to tell its story above board.

38. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV)- I have a barfly friend whom I see maybe once a year. When we first set up a time to meet, I kind of dread it and wonder what we'll have to talk about. Once we do get together, we trip on each other's words a bit, fumbling around with the rhythm of conversation that we mastered decades ago. He makes some kind of joke that could have been appropriate then but isn't now.

By the end of the day, hours later, we're hugging and maybe crying as we promise each other that we won't wait as long next time.

That's the exact same journey that I went on with this film.

37. Underwater (William Eubank)- Underwater is a story that you've seen before, but it's told with great confidence and economy. I looked up at twelve minutes and couldn't believe the whole table had been set. Kristen plays Ripley and projects a smart, benevolent poise.

36. The Lodge (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)- I prefer the grounded, manicured first half to the more fantastic second half. The craziness of the latter is only possible through the hard work of the former though. As with Fiala and Franz's previous feature, the visual rhymes and motifs get incorporated into the soup so carefully that you don't realize it until they overwhelm you in their bleak glory.

Small note: Alicia Silverstone, the male lead's first wife, and Riley Keough, his new partner, look sort of similar. I always think that's a nice note: "I could see how he would go for her."

35. Miss Americana (Lana Wilson)- I liked it when I saw it as a portrait of a person whose life is largely decided for her but is trying to carve out personal spaces within that hamster wheel. I loved it when I realized that describes most successful people in their twenties.

34. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)- Riz Ahmed is showing up on all of the best performances of the year lists, but Sound of Metal isn't in anyone's top ten films of the year. That's about right. Ahmed's is a quiet, stubborn performance that I wish was in service of more than the straight line that we've seen before.

In two big scenes, there's this trick that Ahmed does, a piecing together of consequences with his eyes, as if he's moving through a flow chart in real time. In both cases, the character seems locked out and a little slower than he should be, which is, of course, why he's facing the consequences in the first place. To be charitable to a film that was a bit of a grind, it did make me notice a thing a guy did with his eyes.

33. Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)- Usually when I leave acting showcases like this, I imagine the film without the Oscar-baiting speeches, but this is a movie that specializes in speeches. Pieces of a Woman is being judged, deservedly so, by the harrowing twenty-minute take that opens the film, which is as indulgent as it is necessary. But if the unbroken take provides the "what," then the speeches provide the "why."

This is a film about reclaiming one's body when it rebels against you and when other people seek ownership of it. Without the Ellen Burstyn "lift your head" speech or the Vanessa Kirby show-stopper in the courtroom, I'm not sure any of that comes across.

I do think the film lets us off the hook a bit with the LaBoeuf character, in the sense that it gives us reasons to dislike him when it would be more compelling if he had done nothing wrong. Does his half-remembering of the White Stripes count as a speech?

32. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe)- This is such a play, not only in the locked-down location but also through nearly every storytelling convention: "Where are the two most interesting characters? Oh, running late? They'll enter separately in animated fashion?" But, to use the type of phrase that the characters might, "Don't hate the player; hate the game."

Perhaps the most theatrical note in this treatise on the commodification of expression is the way that, two or three times, the proceedings stop in their tracks for the piece to declare loudly what it's about. In one of those clear-outs, Boseman, who looks distractingly sick, delivers an unforgettable monologue that transports the audience into his character's fragile, haunted mind. He and Viola Davis are so good that the film sort of buckles under their weight, unsure of how to transition out of those spotlight moments and pretend that the story can start back up. Whatever they're doing is more interesting than what's being achieved overall.

31. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)- It's definitely the film that Vinterberg wanted to make, but despite what I think is a quietly shattering performance from Mikkelsen, Another Round moves in a bit too much of a straight line to grab me fully. The joyous final minutes hint at where it could have gone, as do pockets of Vinterberg's filmography, which seems newly tethered to realism in a way that I don't like. The best sequences are the wildest ones, like the uproarious trip to the grocery store for fresh cod, so I don't know why so much of it takes place in tiny hallways at magic hour. I give the inevitable American remake* permission to use these notes.

*- Just spitballing here. Martin: Will Ferrell, Nikolaj (Nick): Ben Stiller, Tommy: Owen Wilson, Peter: Craig Robinson

30. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)- Exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed.

I think a less conclusive finale would have been better, but what a model of high-concept escalation. This is the movie people convinced me Whannell's Upgrade was.

29. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)- Slight until the Mexican sojourn, which expands the scope and makes the film even more psychosexual than before. At times it feels as if Coppola is actively simplifying, rather than diving into the race and privilege questions that the Murray character all but demands.

As for Murray, is the film 50% worse without him? 70%? I don't know if you can run in supporting categories if you're the whole reason the film exists.

28. Mangrove (Steve McQueen)- The first part of the film seemed repetitive and broad to me. But once it settled in as a courtroom drama, the characterization became more shaded, and the filmmaking itself seemed more fluid. I ended up being quite outraged and inspired.

27. Shirley (Josephine Decker)- Josephine Decker emerges as a real stylist here, changing her foggy, impressionistic approach not one bit with a little more budget. Period piece and established actors be damned--this is still as much of a reeling fever dream as Madeline's Madeline. Both pieces are a bit too repetitive and nasty for my taste, but I respect the technique.

Here's my mandatory "Elisabeth Moss is the best" paragraph. While watching her performance as Shirley Jackson, I thought about her most famous role as Peggy on Mad Men, whose inertia and need to prove herself tied her into confidence knots. Shirley is almost the opposite: paralyzed by her worldview, certain of her talent, rejecting any empathy. If Moss can inhabit both characters so convincingly, she can do anything.

26. An American Pickle (Brandon Trost)- An American Pickle is the rare comedy that could actually use five or ten extra minutes, but it's a surprisingly heartfelt and wholesome stretch for Rogen, who is earnest in the lead roles.

25. The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)- At two hours and fifteen minutes, The King of Staten Island is probably the first Judd Apatow film that feels like the exact right length. For example, the baggy date scene between a gracious Bill Burr and a faux-dowdy Marisa Tomei is essential, the sort of widening of perspective that something like Trainwreck was missing.

It's Pete Davidson's movie, however, and though he has never been my cup of tea, I think he's actually quite powerful in his quiet moments. The movie probes some rare territory--a mentally ill man's suspicion that he is unlovable, a family's strategic myth-making out of respect for the dead. And when Davidson shows up at the firehouse an hour and fifteen minutes in, it feels as if we've built to a last resort.

24. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis)- The tricky part of this film is communicating Hunter's despair, letting her isolation mount, but still keeping her opaque. It takes a lot of visual discipline to do that, and Claudio Mirabella-Davis is up to the task. This ends up being a much more sympathetic, expressive movie than the plot description might suggest.

(In the tie dispute, Hunter and Richie are both wrong. That type of silk--I couldn't tell how pebbled it was, but it's probably a barathea weave-- shouldn't be ironed directly, but it doesn't have to be steamed. On a low setting, you could iron the back of the tie and be fine.)

23. The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)- I wanted a bit more "there" there; The film goes exactly where I thought it would, and there isn't enough humor for my taste. (The predictability might be a feature, not a bug, since the film is positioned as an episode of a well-worn Twilight Zone-esque show.)

But from a directorial standpoint, this is quite a promising debut. Patterson knows when to lock down or use silence--he even cuts to black to force us to listen more closely to a monologue. But he also knows when to fill the silence. There's a minute or so when Everett is spooling tape, and he and Fay make small talk about their hopes for the future, developing the characters' personalities in what could have been just mechanics. It's also a refreshingly earnest film. No one is winking at the '50s setting.

I'm tempted to write, "If Andrew Patterson can make this with $1 million, just imagine what he can do with $30 million." But maybe people like Shane Carruth have taught us that Patterson is better off pinching pennies in Texas and following his own muse.

22. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)- At first this film, adapted from a picaresque novel by Jack London, seemed as if it was hitting the marks of the genre. "He's going from job to job and meeting dudes who are shaping his worldview now." But the film, shot in lustrous Super 16, won me over as it owned the trappings of this type of story, forming a character who is a product of his environment even as he transcends it. By the end, I really felt the weight of time.

You want to talk about something that works better in novels than films though? When a passionate, independent protagonist insists that a woman is the love of his life, despite the fact that she's whatever Italians call a wet blanket. She's rich, but Martin doesn't care about her money. He hates her family and friends, and she refuses to accept him or his life pursuits. She's pretty but not even as pretty as the waitress they discuss. Tell me what I'm missing here. There's archetype, and there's incoherence.

21. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles)- Certain images from this adventurous film will stick with me, but I got worn out after the hard reset halfway through. As entranced as I was by the mystery of the first half, I think this blood-soaked ensemble is better at asking questions than it is at answering them.

20. Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh)- The initial appeal of this movie might be "Look at these wonderful actresses in their seventies getting a movie all to themselves." And the film is an interesting portrait of ladies taking stock of relationships that have spanned decades. But Soderbergh and Eisenberg handle the twentysomething Lucas Hedges character with the same openness and empathy. His early reasoning for going on the trip is that he wants to learn from older women, and Hedges nails the puppy-dog quality of a young man who would believe that. Especially in the scenes of aspirational romance, he's sweet and earnest as he brushes his hair out of his face.

Streep plays Alice Hughes, a serious author of literary fiction, and she crosses paths with Kelvin Kranz, a grinder of airport thrillers. In all of the right ways, Let Them All Talk toes the line between those two stances as an entertaining, jaunty experiment that also shoulders subtextual weight. If nothing else, it's easy to see why a cruise ship's counterfeit opulence, its straight lines at a lean, would be visually engaging to Soderbergh. You can't have a return to form if your form is constantly evolving.

19. Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson)- Understandably, I don't find the subject as interesting as his own daughter does, and large swaths of this film are unsure of what they're trying to say. But that's sort of the point, and the active wrestling that the film engages in with death ultimately pays off in a transcendent moment. The jaw-dropping ending is something that only non-fiction film can achieve, and Johnson's whole career is about the search for that sort of serendipity.

18. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)- Delroy Lindo is a live-wire, but his character is the only one of the principals who is examined with the psychological depth I was hoping for. The first half, with all of its present-tense flourishes, promises more than the gunfights of the second half can deliver. When the film is cooking though, it's chock full of surprises, provocations, and pride.

17. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittmann)- Very quickly, Eliza Hittmann has established herself as an astute, empathetic director with an eye for discovering new talent. I hope that she gets to make fifty more movies in which she objectively follows laconic young people. But I wanted to like this one more than I did. The approach is so neutral that it's almost flat to me, lacking the arc and catharsis of her previous film, Beach Rats. I still appreciate her restraint though.

GREAT MOVIES

16. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)- I don't think the Dardennes have made a bad movie yet, and I'm glad they turned away from the slight genre dipping of The Unknown Girl, the closest to bad that they got. Young Ahmed is a lean, daring return to form.

Instead of following an average person, as they normally do, the Dardenne Brothers follow an extremist, and the objectivity that usually generates pathos now serves to present ambiguity. Ahmed says that he is changing, that he regrets his actions, but we never know how much of his stance is a put-on. I found myself wanting him to reform, more involved than I usually am in these slices of life. Part of it is that Idir Ben Addi looks like such a normal, young kid, and the Ahmed character has most of the qualities that we say we want in young people: principles, commitment, self-worth, reflection. So it's that much more destructive when those qualities are used against him and against his fellow man.

15. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (Don Hertzfeldt)- My dad, a man whom I love but will never understand, has dismissed modern music before by claiming that there are only so many combinations of chords. To him, it's almost impossible to do something new. Of course, this is the type of thing that an uncreative person would say--a person not only incapable of hearing the chords that combine notes but also unwilling to hear the space between the notes. (And obviously, that's the take of a person who doesn't understand that, originality be damned, some people just have to create.)

Anyway, that attitude creeps into my own thinking more than I would like, but then I watch something as wholly original as World of Tomorrow Episode Three. The series has always been a way to pile sci-fi ideas on top of each other to prove the essential truths of being and loving. And this one, even though it achieves less of a sense of yearning than its predecessor, offers even more devices to chew on. Take, for example, the idea that Emily sends her message from the future, so David's primitive technology can barely handle it. In order to move forward with its sophistication, he has to delete any extraneous skills for the sake of computer memory. So out of trust for this person who loves him, he has to weigh whether his own breathing or walking can be uninstalled as a sacrifice for her. I thought that we might have been done describing love, but there it is, a new metaphor. Mixing futurism with stick figures to get at the most pure drive possible gave us something new. It's called art, Dad.

14. On the Record (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering)- We don't call subjects of documentaries "stars" for obvious reasons, but Drew Dixon kind of is one. Her honesty and wisdom tell a complete story of the #MeToo movement. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering take their time developing her background at first, not because we need to "gain sympathy" or "establish credibility" for a victim of sexual abuse, but because showing her talent and enthusiasm for hip-hop A&R makes it that much more tragic when her passion is extinguished. Hell, I just like the woman, so spending a half-hour on her rise was pleasurable in and of itself.

This is a gut-wrenching, fearless entry in what is becoming Dick and Ziering's raison d'etre, but its greatest quality is Dixon's composed reflection. She helped to establish a pattern of Russell Simmons's behavior, but she explains what happened to her in ways I had never heard before.

13. David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee)- I'm often impressed by the achievements that puzzle me: How did they pull that off? But I know exactly how David Byrne pulled off the impish but direct precision of American Utopia: a lot of hard work.

I can't blame Spike Lee for stealing a page from Demme's Stop Making Sense: He denies us a close-up of any audience members until two-thirds of the way through, when we get someone in absolute rapture.

12. One Night in Miami... (Regina King)- We've all cringed when a person of color is put into the position of speaking on behalf of his or her entire race. But the characters in One Night in Miami... live in that condition all the time and are constantly negotiating it. As Black public figures in 1964, they know that the consequences of their actions are different, bigger, than everyone else's. The charged conversations between Malcolm X and Sam Cooke are not about whether they can live normal lives. They're way past that. The stakes are closer to Sam Cooke arguing that his life's purpose aligns with the protection and elevation of African-Americans while Malcolm X argues that those pursuits should be the same thing. Late in the movie, Cassius Clay leaves the other men, a private conversation, to talk to reporters, a public conversation. But the film argues that everything these men do is always already public. They're the most powerful African-Americans in the country, but their lives are not their own. Or not only their own.

It's true that the first act has the clunkiness and artifice of a TV movie, but once the film settles into the motel room location and lets the characters feed off one another, it's gripping. It's kind of unfair for a movie to get this many scenes of Leslie Odom Jr. singing, but I'll take it.

11. Saint Frances (Alex Thompson)- Rilke wrote, "Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." The characters' behavior in Saint Frances--all of these fully formed characters' behavior--made me think of that quotation. When they lash out at one another, even at their nastiest, the viewer has a window into how they're expressing pain they can't verbalize. The film is uneven in its subtlety, but it's a real showcase for screenwriter and star Kelly O'Sullivan, who is unflinching and dynamic in one of the best performances of the year. Somebody give her some of the attention we gave to Zach Braff for God's sake.

10. Boys State (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine)- This documentary is kind of a miracle from a logistical standpoint. From casting interviews beforehand, lots of editing afterwards, or sly note-taking once the conference began, McBaine and Moss happened to select the four principals who mattered the most at the convention, then found them in rooms full of dudes wearing the same tucked-in t-shirt. By the way, all of the action took place over the course of one week, and by definition, the important events are carved in half.

To call Boys State a microcosm of American politics is incorrect. These guys are forming platforms and voting in elections. What they're doing is American politics, so when they make the same compromises and mistakes that active politicians do, it produces dread and disappointment. So many of the boys are mimicking the political theater that they see on TV, and that sweaty sort of performance is going to make a Billy Mitchell out of this kid Ben Feinstein, and we'll be forced to reckon with how much we allow him to evolve as a person. This film is so precise, but what it proves is undeniably messy. Luckily, some of these seventeen-year-olds usher in hope for us all.

If nothing else, the film reveals the level to which we're all speaking in code.

9. The Nest (Sean Durkin)- In the first ten minutes or so of The Nest, the only real happy minutes, father and son are playing soccer in their quaint backyard, and the father cheats to score on a children's net before sliding on the grass to rub in his victory. An hour later, the son kicks the ball around by himself near a regulation goal on the family's massive property. The contrast is stark and obvious, as is the symbolism of the dead horse, but that doesn't mean it's not visually powerful or resonant.

Like Sean Durkin's earlier film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, the whole of The Nest is told with detail of novelistic scope and an elevation of the moment. A snippet of radio that mentions Ronald Reagan sets the time period, rather than a dateline. One kid saying "Thanks, Dad" and another kid saying, "Thanks, Rory" establishes a stepchild more elegantly than any other exposition might.

But this is also a movie that does not hide what it means. Characters usually say exactly what is on their minds, and motivations are always clear. For example, Allison smokes like a chimney, so her daughter's way of acting out is leaving butts on the window sill for her mother to find. (And mother and daughter both definitely "act out" their feelings.) On the other hand, Ben, Rory's biological son, is the character least like him, so these relationships aren't too directly parallel. Regardless, Durkin uses these trajectories to cast a pall of familial doom.

8. Sorry We Missed You (Sean Durkin)- Another precisely calibrated empathy machine from Ken Loach. The overwhelmed matriarch, Abby, is a caretaker, and she has to break up a Saturday dinner to rescue one of her clients, who wet herself because no one came to help her to the bathroom. The lady is embarrassed, and Abby calms her down by saying, "You mean more to me than you know." We know enough about Abby's circumstances to realize that it's sort of a lie, but it's a beautiful lie, told by a person who cares deeply but is not cared for.

Loach's central point is that the health of a family, something we think of as immutable and timeless, is directly dependent upon the modern industry that we use to destroy ourselves. He doesn't have to be "proven" relevant, and he didn't plan for Covid-19 to point to the fragility of the gig economy, but when you're right, you're right.

7. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)- swear to you I thought: "This is an impeccable depiction of a great house party. The only thing it's missing is the volatile dude who scares away all the girls." And then the volatile dude who scares away all the girls shows up.

In a year short on magic, there are two or three transcendent moments, but none of them can equal the whole crowd singing along to "Silly Games" way after the song has ended. Nothing else crystallizes the film's note of celebration: of music, of community, of safe spaces, of Black skin. I remember moments like that at house parties, and like all celebrations, they eventually make me sad.

6. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht)- I held off on this movie because I thought that I knew what it was. The setup was what I expected: A summer camp for the disabled in the late '60s takes on the spirit of the time and becomes a haven for people who have not felt agency, self-worth, or community anywhere else. But that's the right-place-right-time start of a story that takes these figures into the '80s as they fight for their rights.

If you're anything like my dumb ass, you know about 504 accommodations from the line on a college syllabus that promises equal treatment. If 2020 has taught us anything though, it's that rights are seized, not given, and this is the inspiring story of people who unified to demand what they deserved. Judy Heumann is a civil rights giant, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't know who she was before this film. If it were just a history lesson that wasn't taught in school, Crip Camp would still be valuable, but it's way more than that.

5. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)- When explaining what is happening to them, Andy Samberg's Nyles twirls his hand at Cristin Milioti's Sara and says, "It's one of those infinite time-loop scenarios." Yeah, one of those. Armed with only a handful of fictional examples, she and the audience know exactly what he means, and the continually inventive screenplay by Andy Siara doesn't have to do any more explaining. In record time, the film accelerates into its premise, involves her, and sets up the conflict while avoiding the claustrophobia of even Groundhog Day. That economy is the strength that allows it to be as funny as it is. By being thrifty with the setup, the savings can go to, say, the couple crashing a plane into a fiery heap with no consequences.

In some accidental ways, this is, of course, a quarantine romance as well. Nyles and Sara frustratingly navigate the tedious wedding as if they are play-acting--which they sort of are--then they push through that sameness to grow for each other, realizing that dependency is not weakness. The best relationships are doing the same thing right now.

Although pointedly superficial--part of the point of why the couple is such a match--and secular--I think the notion of an afterlife would come up at least once--Palm Springs earns the sincerity that it gets around to. And for a movie ironic enough to have a character beg to be impaled so that he doesn't have to sit in traffic, that's no small feat.

4. The Assistant (Kitty Green)- A wonder of Bressonian objectivity and rich observation, The Assistant is the rare film that deals exclusively with emotional depth while not once explaining any emotions. One at a time, the scrape of the Kleenex box might not be so grating, the long hallway trek to the delivery guy might not be so tiring, but this movie gets at the details of how a job can destroy you in ways that add up until you can't even explain them.

3. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)- In her most incendiary and modern role, Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, which is short for Cassandra, that figure doomed to tell truths that no one else believes. The web-belted boogeyman who ruined her life is Al, short for Alexander, another Greek who is known for his conquests. The revenge story being told here--funny in its darkest moments, dark in its funniest moments--is tight on its surface levels, but it feels as if it's telling a story more archetypal and expansive than that too.

An exciting feature debut for its writer-director Emerald Fennell, the film goes wherever it dares. Its hero has a clear purpose, and it's not surprising that the script is willing to extinguish her anger halfway through. What is surprising is the way it renews and muddies her purpose as she comes into contact with half-a-dozen brilliant one- or two-scene performances. (Do you think Alfred Molina can pull off a lawyer who hates himself so much that he can't sleep? You would be right.)

Promising Young Woman delivers as an interrogation of double standards and rape culture, but in quiet ways it's also about our outsized trust in professionals and the notion that some trauma cannot be overcome.

INSTANT CLASSICS

2. Soul (Pete Docter)- When Pete Docter's Up came out, it represented a sort of coronation for Pixar: This was the one that adults could like unabashedly. The one with wordless sequences and dead children and Ed Asner in the lead. But watching it again this week with my daughter, I was surprised by how high-concept and cloying it could be. We choose not to remember the middle part with the goofy dog stuff.

Soul is what Up was supposed to be: honest, mature, stirring. And I don't mean to imply that a family film shouldn't make any concessions to children. But Soul, down to the title, never compromises its own ambition. Besides Coco, it's probably the most credible character study that Pixar has ever made, with all of Joe's growth earned the hard way. Besides Inside Out, it's probably the wittiest comedy that Pixar has ever made, bursting with unforced energy.

There's a twitter fascination going around about Dez, the pigeon-figured barber character whose scene has people gushing, "Crush my windpipe, king" or whatever. Maybe that's what twitter does now, but no one fantasized about any characters in Up. And I count that as progress.

1. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)- After hearing that our name-shifting protagonist moonlights as an artist, a no-nonsense David Thewlis offers, "I hope you're not an abstract artist." He prefers "paintings that look like photographs" over non-representational mumbo-jumbo. And as Jessie Buckley squirms to try to think of a polite way to talk back, you can tell that Charlie Kaufman has been in the crosshairs of this same conversation. This morose, scary, inscrutable, expressionist rumination is not what the Netflix description says it is at all, and it's going to bother nice people looking for a fun night in. Thank God.

The story goes that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, when constructing Raiders of the Lost Ark, sought to craft a movie that was "only the good parts" with little of the clunky setup that distracted from action. What we have here is a Charlie Kaufman movie with only the Charlie Kaufman moments, less interested than ever before at holding one's hand. The biting humor is here, sometimes aimed at philistines like the David Thewlis character above, sometimes at the niceties that we insist upon. The lonely horror of everyday life is here, in the form of missed calls from oneself or the interruption of an inner monologue. Of course, communicating the overwhelming crush of time, both unknowable and familiar, is the raison d'etre.

A new pet motif seems to be the way that we don't even own our own knowledge. The Young Woman recites "Bonedog" by Eva H.D., which she claims/thinks she wrote, only to find Jake's book open to that page, next to a Pauline Kael book that contains a Woman Under the Influence review that she seems to have internalized later. When Jake muses about Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems," it starts as a way to pass the time, then it becomes a way to lord his education over her, then it becomes a compliment because the subject resembles her, then it becomes a way to let her know that, in the grand scheme of things, she isn't that special at all. This film jerks the viewer through a similar wintry cycle and leaves him with his own thoughts. It's not a pretty picture, but it doesn't look like anything else.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Riverdale Season 5 Episode 9 Review – Chapter 85: Destroyer

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The mundane mingles with the supernatural in a enjoyably goofy episode.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 8

“It is better to know the truth and make peace with it.”

In a bit of selfless wisdom, Cheryl states the above words to Betty in tonight’s bonkers installment. The context being that Betty doesn’t want to tell her mother that it looks like Polly is a goner. So she goes to Cheryl basically to inquire whether she feels that her cousin’s life would have been better had she not known Jason’s true fate.

The from-the-heart response that Cheryl gives her is quickly ignored, and Betty hides the truth from Alice. Since this is an episode of Riverdale, Betty’s deception immediately backfires on her when her FBI superior Glen arrives at the Cooper household to reveal Polly’s probable fate and kick Betty off the case. (Somewhere in the night, Veronica does a breathy cover of The Thompson Twins’ “Lies”).

Anyway, let’s get back to that quote for a second: It is better to know the truth and be at peace with it. That’s going to be the mantra for this entire review, as there are fundamental truths I’ve touched upon in the past that demand to be recognized before the healing can be reached. They are:

1- Archie’s football storyline is a total snooze.

Riverdale may have leaped seven years into the future, but Archie remains as doltish as ever. Granted, K.J. Apa is killing it this season as a grizzled version of the character, but the problem of Archie’s messiah complex still drags on. There are a lot of fascinating things happening on this series right now, and all the Bulldogs stuff does is slow down the breakneck pace that those interesting storylines are moving in. Aliens are in Riverdale, nobody cares about high school football right now. C’mon.

All that said, Britta rules.

2 – Any time that this series isn’t focusing on Mothmen Aliens is wasted time.

The show is taking serious liberties by mashing up Mothman and alien abduction mythologies, which really upends my In Search Of-influenced ideology about how the world works. I’ll forgive this because putting “aliens” on Riverdale is a work of stupid genius but also because I love watching Cole Sprouse and his starter goatee running around looking totally frantic.

3 – Hiram Lodge should be eaten by Mothmen Aliens.

Am I alone in thinking this could actually happen? What a coup for the series that would be! We know that Hiram is involved in some shady business, and all his SoDale shenanigans are a cover for some big secret. Therefore the mystery of the Lonely Highway is directly traced back to Hiram. Is he working for the government? Did aliens cure his mystery illness of last year and in turn is he feeding them Riverdale’s castoffs? Nothing is off the table here. Hiram’s machinations have been the same since he first appeared, but what if he really was working for aliens THE WHOLE TIME? Wouldn’t that be insane/amazing? No other show could pull that kind of shit off.

What I’m saying here is that Riverdale has been dancing with insanity since day one and it’s time to consummate the relationship.

4 – Betty Cooper, Alien Hunter needs to happen.

She fights werewolves in the comics, so is this really that crazy?

The ultimate mystery of whatever is happening this season will likely have a logic-based answer. That’s disappointing, as the Archieverse can be shown to handle witches, so are extraterrestrials that far off? (I’m still burned by the conclusion of the Gargoyle King saga, so I’m not expecting much here). Imagine though, the writing staff wants you to think that everything will wrap up with a plausible explanation and then, boom, it gives you bona fide aliens! A dream is a wish the heart makes…

This episode did give us clarity on a few things. We learned that both Jughead’s and Betty’s investigations lead back to the Lonely Highway and the mysteries — either terrestrial or otherworldly — unfolding there. Additionally, we were reminded that even though he’s ostensibly the lead character of this series, Archie is straight-up boring when he isn’t being attacked by bears or escaping from prison. With only one more episode before an extended hiatus, I hope next week brings us some resolution even though deep down I know that it won’t.

Riverdale Rundown

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• Jughead’s student who writes the troubling story about Mothman abduction is Lerman Logan, a reference to The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Percy Jackson franchise star.

• Old Man Dreyfus’ name is clearly inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind star Richard Dreyfuss, which is fitting as the supernatural elements of this season are riffing on the sci-fi blockbusters of the 1970s and ’80s. Further proof of this can be seen by Drefyus telling Betty and Jughead about how Riverdale was a hotbed of Mothmen activity in the summers of 1977 and 1982, ones in which Star Wars and E.T. respectively ruled at the box office.

• Mr. Weatherbee threatens to fire Jughead if he doesn’t stay out of Lerman’s problems, apparently forgetting that Jughead isn’t really even a teacher and is only volunteering.

• Even objectively, Archie is a terrible coach. Can we please fold him into the Jughead/Betty storyline somehow? It’s great to see him and Veronica back together but damn do they need better plots to work with.

• One of the teams that defeats the Bulldogs is the Baxter High Ravens. In case you forgot already, Baxter High was one of the schools that Sabrina attended in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

• One has to wonder how the Vixens must feel about Cheryl, a woman in her twenties who graduated seven years ago, returning to her alma mater to steal the thunder of teenagers who live in Murdersville, U.S.A. and have no other outlet besides cheerleading by performing a self-aggrandizing Lady Gaga cover. Cheryl does a lot of messed up stuff on this show, but this act struck me as especially cruel.

• There’s no Toni and very little Tabitha Tate tonight. Boo.

• I still think they should sell the Pop Tate bobbleheads they keep showing.

• Kevin gets put through the emotional and physical ringer this episode. We learn that disparaging remarks from his mother impacted his self-image so much that he turned to cruising in Fox Forest. (The fate of Mrs. Keller is unknown, so it is possible that she will make an appearance in an upcoming episode). The assault that Kevin endured was brutal to watch, but the scene between Kevin and his father was powerful and cathartic. It will be interesting to see where the character of Kevin goes from here, because it is absurdly beyond time the writers give him a personality trait other than chronic thirst.

• Someone on the Riverdale production staff must really love Friday Night Lights.

• I don’t believe for a second that Polly is actually dead. There’s more of a chance of Hiram being eaten by Mothmen Aliens or Archie getting a compelling A-plot.

• I hate on the football storyline a lot in this review, but I do find all the talk about tainting the podunk town’s football league’s prestige to be weirdly funny.

• Pop’s sells take out cold cuts too? Helluva business, that Chok’lit Shoppe.

• “I’m saying that things happen, especially in Riverdale,” declares Jughead, in the most obvious statement in the episode.

• Please let them do a Mulder and Scully thing with Jughead and Betty.

• I think there’s more Mr. Weatherbee in tonight’s episode than there has been in the entire series to date. That’s a fantastic thing.

• So is Reggie done with Hiram for good now? He is such a key figure in the comics that it would be fantastic if the series figured out what the hell to do with him.

• Having reviewed this show from the first episode, I’ve learned a thing or two about how Riverdale storylines work. Therefore I’m calling it now: Glen is the Trash Bag Killer. You think so too, I know it.

• So far this season has drawn influence from everything from cryptozoological monsters to the real-life crimes of Patrick Kearney. Next week marks the mid-season finale, and the promise of everything from aliens to Pop’s possibly being blown up by Hiram? Whatever happens, cherish it, as the show then won’t return until July.

The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 9 Review – Chapter 85: Destroyer appeared first on Den of Geek.

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thelastspeecher · 5 years ago

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Angiewolf AU - The Morning After

So I know I said last week that I was going to be taking a break from writing so I could focus on my thesis. But I also said that I might randomly post ficlets if I get struck by inspiration for something. And this is one of those times.

This is a long overdue scene, taking place after the events of Weirdmageddon in my Angiewolf AU. As for what all happened during Weirdmageddon in this AU, read to find out. Or go back into my blog and find the posts I made about it last year. Whichever floats your boat.

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Ford looked up from his mug of coffee as Stan walked into the kitchen.

“Your footsteps are incredibly loud,” he informed Stan. Stan froze. He slowly turned his head to stare at Ford. “I could hear you the moment you stepped outside of your bedroom.” It had been one of the many things Ford could hear from his seat at the kitchen table. He wondered if the walls were thing or the high ceilings, built with werewolves’ large stature in mind, amplified noises. No matter the cause, the house hadn’t seemed half as quiet as Ford expected it to be this early in the morning.

“You- Ford- you’re-” Stan stammered, running a hand through his hair.

“I have two questions I would greatly appreciate an answer for,” Ford interjected. Stan blinked. He seemed taken aback. At what, Ford wasn’t sure.

“Uh. Shoot.”

“First, why did I wake up in your guest room, on one of your spare werewolf-sized dog beds? Second, why was I nude?” Ford asked. Stan opened and closed his mouth silently. “I realize you may not know the answers to those questions, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

“No, Ford, it’s-” Stan swallowed. “I can answer your questions. But before I do, you need to answer one from me.” Ford waved a hand, indicating he was willing to hear Stan’s question. Stan strode over to the table and sat next to him. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked in a low voice.

“I…” Ford furrowed his brow, thinking furiously. “I think the last thing I remember is that we were both being held hostage by Bill.” Stan nodded. “You were in wolf form, as Weirdmageddon began during a full moon and time was frozen during the entirety of the event. And you were…” A snippet of a memory flashed through Ford’s mind. Animal eyes narrowed, a vicious snarl of teeth as long as his arm, immense pain. Ford swallowed. “Did you attack me?”

“No, I-” Stan chewed on his lip. “It’s complicated, what happened.” He frowned at Ford. “You really don’t remember?”

“No, I don’t,” Ford said defensively. “And frankly, your body odor isn’t helping me to focus.”

“My body odor?”

“Yes! When was the last time you showered?”

“Last night.”

“Before or after you smoked a cigar, drank an entire bottle of whiskey, and worked on your car’s engine?” Ford snapped. Stan leaned back in his chair. He was watching Ford with an expression that took him a moment to recognize.

It’s the same expression he used to have when he did his best to help his children figure something out themselves.

“I didn’t do any of that, Sixer. Especially not the cigar thing. I gave up smoking decades ago when Angie got pregnant.” Stan’s tone matched his face. He was holding back the entirety of what he knew, providing as few crumbs as possible so that Ford could come to a conclusion on his own. “And I sure as hell ain’t gonna pick it up again. I like being able to breathe.”

“But you smell like-”

“Like what?” Stan prompted.

“Cigar smoke, whiskey, and motor oil,” Ford said firmly. Stan raised an eyebrow at him. “What?!”

“C’mon. I know you’ve heard that phrase before.”

“I-” Another memory floated to the surface, from decades ago. Angie explaining how she could tell who entered a room just by their smell. “That’s- I’m smelling your- your scent?” Stan nodded. “The scent that only werewolves can detect?”

“Stanford,” Stan said seriously, “you really want that title of ‘World’s Dumbest Genius’, don’t you?” Ford slumped against the back of his chair. “The dots are starting to connect now.”

“Yes,” Ford croaked. “Yes, they are. You’re not loud or smelly-”

“Okay, that’s not true,” Stan interrupted. “Don’t slander me like that. I’m just not as loud and smelly as you think I am.”

“…because I was turned and now have a werewolf’s heightened senses,” Ford said. Stan nodded again. Ford covered his face with his hands. “How? When?”

“The last thing you remember was right before you asked me to turn you. You had this…completely stupid idea to trick Bill into your mind and then erase your memory so that he’d be gone forever.” Stan scoffed. “Somehow, it fucking worked.”

“That’s right,” Ford said slowly. “Bill realized that you had the information he sought, not me.”

“Yeah, well, being the mate of a pack leader has its benefits.” Stan stretched. “All sortsa magical weird things talk to me and tell me shit. I probably – no, definitely – know more about Gravity Falls’ weirdness than you do now.”

“You turned me so that I could take your place,” Ford said. Stan’s face hardened.

“You literally put your arm in my mouth. I didn’t wanna do it, but I- you insisted.” Stan looked down at the table and rubbed his thumb against a bright red stain. “Now I know why Angie hated turning me so much. It fucking sucks.”

“And then I shifted.” Ford frowned. “I don’t remember anything after the bite. How did you manage to pull off the switch? It was a permanent full moon.”

“Well…” Stan sighed. “Being a werewolf for almost thirty years has its benefits. In some cases, I can force a shift back to human. It doesn’t last long, but that’s what I did. Bill was fooled into thinking you were me, since you were the one that was the wolf, and you know how the rest goes.” Silence fell.

Or at least as silent as things will be now that I have a wolf’s hearing. Ford tried to ignore the faint sounds of someone getting out of bed somewhere in the house. He cracked a weak smile in an attempt to alleviate the somber mood.

“It was a very complicated plan,” he said. Stan let out a half-hearted laugh.

“No shit.”

“Some would say overly complicated.”

“Again. No shit, Poindexter.”

“How the hell did it work?”

“I have no fucking clue,” Stan said, exasperated. He dragged his hands down his face. “But it did. And you were a werewolf who didn’t have any memory. Luckily, since Angie’s the Mother Wolf and I’m her mate, you listened to me when I told you what to do. So we managed to get you back here, set you up in the guest room, and just sorta worked on trying to get you to remember things. You were stuck as a wolf, but since we could still communicate, you were remembering things bit by bit. Yesterday, it seemed like you finally got all your memory back.” Stan rested his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. “And now you’re back to square one.”

“I don’t have amnesia,” Ford said.

“You don’t fucking remember-”

“I don’t remember the time I was a werewolf,” Ford said, talking over Stan. “I remember everything else.”

“You-” Stan groaned. “Oh, fucking hell. It’s that amnesia that happens when you first shift, isn’t it?” He looked at Ford. “We went through all that trouble to get you to remember shit and it woulda come back once you turned human again.” He slapped the table in frustration. There was a rustle from upstairs, like someone was startled awake by the noise. “God fucking dammit.”

“I’m not quite sure that’s accurate,” Ford said softly. “Angie went into a fugue state when she first shifted. She couldn’t remember who she was and was stuck in wolf form as a result. I think that restoring my memory was crucial to allowing me to return to human form. Once I was human again, the memory loss was no longer a concern.”

“I don’t think I’d say that,” Stan said. “I mean, you can’t remember any of the last like…month.”

“Month?” Ford gaped. “I was a wolf for a month?”

“Give or take a few days, yeah.”

“Holy Moses,” Ford muttered. He rubbed his forehead. “That’s…unfortunate.” Stan snorted.

“Understatement of the year.”

“Heh. I suppose.” Ford furrowed his brow.

“What?”

“Did something happen with Fiddleford while I was a wolf? I think I remember…well, not any specific events. Just that I had very strong emotions regarding him-”

“Pfft, like that’s news.”

“-and maybe his son?” Ford finished, ignoring Stan. Stan’s eyes widened. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I…” Stan grimaced. “You found something out, yeah. It kinda sucks you forgot it, but you’ll figure it out again pretty fast. All you gotta do is track down Fidds and Tate.”

“That will jog my memory?”

“It’ll do somethin’.”

“Could you be more explicit?” Ford asked. Stan shook his head. “Stanley, I’m not in the mood for one of your games-”

“It’s not a game. It’s- well, you’ll know what I mean when you see Tate again.”

“Stanley.”

“I can’t say anything about it, Ford,” Stan said in a tight voice. “I promised I wouldn’t. And honestly, being a werewolf has made me a lot more serious about promises.” Stan shook his head. “Man, wolves don’t fuck around with that shit.”

“…Very well,” Ford said after a moment. He sighed. “I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“That’s what you did last time. You can do it again.”

“I’m going to have to.”

“Yep,” Stan said cheerfully. He got up from the table. “Before you head out, though, want some breakfast?” Ford’s stomach rumbled. Stan grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll serve you up the Werewolf Special. It’s all meat.” Ford smiled back.

“That sounds both delicious and appropriate.” The scent of sweet peas and rainwater suddenly filled the room. Ford looked over at the kitchen entryway. “Hello, Angie.” Angie smiled at him.

“Hello, Stanford. I see yer back to yer old self.”

“As much as I can be.”

“I got to admit,” she sighed, “I’ll miss havin’ a big ole wolf kowtowing to me all the time. Not goin’ to lie, it was a good boost fer my self-esteem.”

“What do you mean?” Ford asked. Angie grinned crookedly.

“Hon, you were a wolf ruled by wolf instincts. And all of those instincts told ya to practic’ly walk on eggshells ‘round the head of yer pack.” She pointed at herself. “Me.” Ford chuckled softly. “D’ya think you’ll whip up a cure fer yourself?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure at this point. Having heightened senses might come in handy. But the shedding…”

“Yeah, vacuuming’s a daily chore,” Stan said. Voices carried from upstairs.

“Sounds like you should make up more than just one serving of breakfast,” Ford said. Stan nodded.

“Yep. Ang?”

“On it, darlin’.” Angie joined Stan in digging through the fridge and rifling through the cabinets, pulling out cookware.

“Stan?” Ford said. Stan looked up from a bowl of eggs.

“Yeah?”

“I’m very glad that you didn’t turn me until after we began the process of burying the hatchet. That’s not something I’d like to have forgotten.” Stan grinned.

“Duh. If you were still as pissed at me now as you were before everything went to shit, when you woke up naked in my house you’d probably think…I have no clue what you’d think, actually.”

“Me neither. So it’s just as well that I didn’t.”

“If yer goin’ to yap ‘n distract Stan, ya have to at least help cook,” Angie said, putting a hand on her hip. “We have a lot of werewolves to feed, not to mention Fidds, who’s comin’ over with Tate.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Ford said. Angie shook her head.

“Nope. Get up. Yer helpin’.”

“I’m not-” Ford started. Angie frowned at him. Some part of Ford urged him to do what she said. He stood. “You weren’t joking about how influential the pack leader is.”

“Nah, that part was just me bein’ a mom.” Angie beckoned him over. “C’mon. Help Stan crack some eggs.”

“Are you going to make pancakes?” Ford asked. Angie raised an eyebrow.

“If I am, they’ll be human-exclusive,” she replied.

“That’s something else to put in the downsides of being a werewolf,” Ford mumbled. Angie snickered. “What?”

“I’m very glad my pancakes are in such high demand, that’s all. Now, wash yer hands and get crackin’.”

#this ended up longer than planned but I couldn't find a good place to stop #and Angie wasn't originally in it but she snuck in while I was writing at some point and I let her stay #she's the Mother Wolf I can't say no to her #enjoy the exposition I have MASTERFULLY weaved in here (if I do say so myself)#Angiewolf AU #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #Angie McGucket #my writing #my stuff #ficlet #speecher speaks

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checkbio-i-moved-accounts · 6 years ago

Text

Little White Lie

Pairing: Hoseok x Reader

Words: 10.5k (rip)

Summary: What starts out as a small lie for the sake of your friendship spirals a bit out of control. How will you get yourself out of this one? (College!AU)

Warnings: Angst ahead. Proceed with caution.

A/N: I’ve been working on this for a while I am so so so excited to finally post it! I hope you enjoy! <3

Waking up was very low on the list of things you liked to do, but today it especially sucked. The unpleasant taste of last night’s many mixed drinks lingered in your mouth and your head throbbed lightly. The birds outside chirping up a storm didn’t help the migraine either. It was then you remembered the party last night that you attended with your best friend, Hoseok. The moment Chi Omega announced a party at their place, Hoseok had all but begged you to go with him and you weren’t going to turn him down. However, considering the fact the loud bass from last night seems to still be resonating in your head, you ponder if turning him down would’ve been a smarter choice. Too little too late now, you already went and had to deal with the repercussions.

The first thing you noticed when you opened your eyes was this wasn’t your apartment. That was made apparent by the lack of decor on the white wall you were looking at. You groan and try to stretch before immediately regretting that decision. If the soreness in your legs and the slight ache in your back was anything to go by, you fucked someone last night and it was good. That makes a small smile spread across your face, here’s to hoping they were at least cute. You made another attempt to stretch yourself and were more successful this time around. Your back cracks and you let out a small appreciative sound before turning over to see if your catch of the night was still here. The sight of a sleeping Hoseok with the sheets draped over his stomach was the last thing you expected to see. You became painfully aware of everything around you, any sort of grogginess dissipating as you realize the weight of the situation at hand.

You look down at your bare chest and noticed the marks that littered your torso. You scan the room and see your dress thrown on the floor, along with your panties. Hoseok’s shirt and bucket hat were on his computer chair. Your stomach turned when you noticed his boxers hanging off a lamp. You were 99% sure if you lifted the covers, you’d find Hoseok was as naked as you are. You could only come to one conclusion.

You had sex with your best friend last night.

You’ve always wanted to be intimate with Hoseok but not like this, not a drunken hookup that you couldn’t even remember. Panic started setting in when Hoseok started stirring next to you. As you watched him nuzzle more into the pillow under him, you begged all the forces in the universe to keep him asleep. It seems whoever was out there heard your plea because Hoseok stayed in his state of slumber. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding as you rubbed your temples.

What now? Do you stay? Do you leave? Do you wake him? You didn’t know what to do, but as you remember the state of panic you were almost sent into over Hoseok waking up there’s one thing that sets into your mind.

He can’t know you two had sex.

It would ruin your years of friendship and make things weird. You didn’t want to lose him. That’s the main reason why you never told him your feelings in the first place. So as quickly and quietly as you could, you redressed and exited the apartment you frequently visited.

Within 15 minutes you were inside your apartment. With a long sigh you dropped your bag to the floor and kicked off your shoes. You flopped down face first onto the couch, not noticing your roommate Tatum sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. Your distress must’ve been obvious because it took only a few seconds for her to realize something was wrong.

“Good morning sweet pea.” Tatum greets you cheerfully as always.

You grunt in response, waving in what you hoped was her direction. It was hard to tell with your face buried in leather.

“Everything okay?” She asks carefully and you don’t answer for a few moments because you aren’t exactly sure how to answer that.

How did you feel right now? You slowly correct your positioning on the couch and look over at Tatum. She gives you a reassuring smile and you wish it made you feel better, but it didn’t.

“Tatum...I fucked up.” You sigh and let your head fall back and rest on the cushion behind you.

“What’s wrong?” She asks as she makes her way over to the couch. She sets down her cup of coffee and gives you her full attention.

This is why you loved Tatum. You come home at 7:45 am on a Friday and she’s awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to help you in any way she could.

“...I fucked Hobi.” You state quietly, admitting it only made your heart sink more.

“I’m...what’s the problem with that? You’ve wanted to jump his bones for like two years now.” Tatum raised a brow as she replied.

“Well first off, we were both drunk off our asses and secondly I can’t even fucking remember it!”

The irritation was mostly due to the fact that your memory was shot. The one time you actually fuck your best friend and your brain couldn’t do its one job and store it away for you to get off to later? Life was a cruel son of a bitch.

“Ohhh,” Tatum nods in understanding, “I gotcha. I’m guessing he didn’t take it well?”

“I don’t even know if he knows. I left before he woke up.” You murmur as you pinch the bridge of your nose.

“What? You creeped out on him?” Tatum’s jaw drops in shock.

“What else was I supposed to do? Stay and let him wake up and see me and freak out?” You ask as you look at your roommate as if she lost her mind.

Tatum didn’t understand how detrimental this was to your friendship with Hoseok.

“Maybe he wouldn’t have reacted badly? You don’t know that.” She replies, trying to keep a positive approach, but in your eyes nothing good can come from this.

“Trust me, I know him. He would’ve freaked out. I’m not just some girl he may see around campus again. I’m his best friend, who he tries to see at least six times a week if he isn’t stuck in rehearsals. Even then I still see him every other day.”

You two met years ago through a mutual friend and had been inseparable since. When you didn’t have a date to homecoming, he ditched his friends to get cheap take out with you and go stargazing. When his long-distance girlfriend cheated on him, you stopped working on your thesis to comfort him and watch movies. When you broke your wrist, he went to your classes to take notes for you despite him having classes of his own. There were hundreds upon hundreds of memories you had with Hoseok and the thought of losing that over a drunken hookup made you want to cry.

“Okay, okay. It’s going to be okay. You said you don’t remember the hookup right? Chances are he won’t either and you can pretend it never happened.” Tatum suggests, but you can tell by the look on her face she didn’t think it was the right thing to do.

“Yeah...yeah, maybe.” You nod slowly and take a deep breath, “I need to shower, I feel gross.”

“Okay, I made you a bagel. It’s on the counter.” Tatum nods to the plate across the room and you follow her gaze to it.

“Thanks, Tate.” You say before heading to the bathroom.

You closed the door behind you and looked at yourself in the mirror. You looked about as great as you felt. You shed off your clothes and for the first time you see the full extent of the marks Hoseok left on you. There were quite a few hickeys and some small marks that could’ve been made by his hands. You wonder for a moment if you left any marks on him. You didn’t really ogle him for long before leaving so you couldn’t be sure. You stop your train of thought before you reached dangerous territory. Instead you turned on the shower and get in, determined to wash the feelings and this morning away and put it behind you.

Now dressed in comfy clothes, you lay in your bed watching some YouTube videos. You had no classes on Friday so your plans for today were to relax and deal with a slight hangover. You were deep in a clickhole, watching whatever video in your recommended caught your eye with no idea how much time had passed. Then a text from Hoseok popped up on your screen. The unexpected message made your body tense, allowing your phone to slip from your hands and land on your face. You cup your nose and groan as you flip over onto your stomach.

“At least no one saw that.” You murmur to yourself before you pick your phone up and go to your home screen.

The little number one near the message icon was taunting. The possibilities of what he could have sent you makes you hesitate to open the message, but it was now or never. You had to face it at some point. With bated breath, you opened the message.

[Hobi: The world is spinning and I hate everything.]

You chuckle as you write back a response.

[You: I told you the keg stand was a bad idea! You brought it on yourself]

[Hobi: I did a keg stand? Why don’t I remember that?]

He couldn’t remember the keg stand? That happened way before you got too drunk to remember anything. Maybe he didn’t remember going home with anyone. You’d never tell him, he won’t know, everyone wins!

[You: Because you decided to do it after 3 games of Beer Pong, you lost all three by the way]

[Hobi: That’s because my partner in crime wasn’t there to help me :( You’re my good luck charm]

You curse yourself for the way your heart flutters at that message.

[You: I told you I wasn’t trying to get too trashed! But then we played Never Have I Ever and that went to shit]

[Hobi: Ah yeah. You’ve done a lot of shit dude. I don’t know how either of us got home in one piece]

[You: Me either, I don’t remember shit after Wendy streaked through the house. Memory goes blank after that.]

[Hobi: Wait, Wendy Ryther? She streaked? And I don’t remember it? Fuckkkkkkkkk]

You laugh to yourself as you picture Hobi’s disappointed pout in your head.

[You: Your fault for getting wasted so early in the night!]

[Hobi: Well now that’s two girls I have no recollection of from the night. Great.]

Your throat goes dry and the panic from this morning comes back. Two girls? So he did remember it? You type out and erase six different messages before finally settling on one that seemed normal and not panicky.

[You: Two girls? What do you mean?]

The typing bubble pops up and you anxiously watch it and wait for Hoseok’s reply.

[Hobi: There was a girl at this party that I really vibed with. I’m pretty sure I brought her back here but she snuck out before I woke up and I can’t remember her face for shit. Don’t remember her name either. I remember getting us drinks, I remember us walking back to my place but it’s all very hazy. I was hoping she left a note with her number or something but nothing at all, just up and vanished :(]

You let out a sigh of relief. So he remembered taking someone home but he didn’t know it was you. Good. He’d let it go and this will be thing of the past before you know it.

[You: Sorry Hobi :( there’s always another party and there’s no shortage of girls on campus so]

[Hobi: Yeah you’re right but...idk I feel as if I really digged her you know? Like I wanted to get to know her better]

You smile sadly at your phone. If only he knew. He would change his mind quickly.

[You: Maybe she’s a student and she’ll be at another campus party! Have hope!]

[Hobi: Yeah you’re right! I’ll probably bump into her again, hopefully not shitfaced this time]

Your talk with Tatum comes to mind and a wave of guilt hits you hard. You consider coming clean and telling him it was you, but not knowing the outcome of doing so was enough to make you shut down that idea.

[You: Take it easy on the shots next time then. I feel bad for your liver]

[Hobi: I’m here for a good time, not a long time babe]

You roll your eyes before replying. The pet name was one he’s used with you for the past year or so. For a moment you thought maybe he was into you, but when he didn’t make any advances you realized it was only a name and nothing more.

[You: I’m tired of you]

[Hobi: Love you toooooo! Movie night? My place? No alcohol though, my stomach can’t take it right now.]

[You: Works for me! I’ll come over at like 7 or something]

[Hobi: Bring me ginger ale and I’ll love you forever]

[You: I’ll think about it.]

You perk up as you hear the front door open. Tatum was home and it was perfect timing so you can update her on your current situation.

Seven rolls around pretty fast and you find yourself back in Hobi’s apartment where you snuck out 12 hours ago. You try to push that to the back of your mind as Hoseok gives you a big hug.

“Hey! You look pretty good for someone who was plastered last night.” He says as he pulls back and takes the bag out of your hand. He leads the way into the living room and starts spreading out the food you brought over.

“I could say the same for you.” You reply as you give him a once over.

Unlike this morning, he was dressed in a shirt and sweatpants. You favored this morning’s look more than this one, but if he was shirtless right now you would be unable to focus on a movie let alone form actual coherent sentences. So it’s probably best he kept his clothes on his body and not on his lamp this time around.

“Took quite a bit of water and sporadic napping but thank you.” He flashes you a smile over his shoulder before heading to the kitchen for some napkins.

You settle on the couch and look to see what movie he chose. Scooby-Doo: The Movie. Typical Hobi. A few moments later Hoseok returns with a napkin and two cups. He pours you both some ginger ale before hitting play. You watch the opening scene in silence as you and Hoseok eat your food.

“About the party last night,” Hoseok speaks up after a few minutes, “do you remember anything from the night? Other than Wendy streaking.”

“You sound so bitter about that.” You say with an amused smirk.

“Doesn’t answer my question.” He mumbles as he stabs into the chicken on his plate.

“I remember everything up until Wendy, I told you that.” You remind him before sipping your ginger ale.

“So you don’t remember the girl I took home?” You tried to keep a casual look as you set your cup down beside you.

“Nothing, sorry Hobi.”

The look of slight disappointment made the guilt come back again, but soon it was replaced with the trademark ‘I-got-an-idea’ look.

“I know how to find her.” Hoseok says as confident as ever and you raise a brow.

What could he have come up with that made him so sure of himself?

“And how is that?”

Hoseok sets his food aside before revealing his ‘foolproof’ idea to you.

“By going to another campus party and finding her. I bet she would go to another party and you know me better than anyone else so if we work together, we could find her! Maybe. It’s worth a shot.”

“I don’t know Hobi.” You set your plate down as you shake your head.

“Come on! Pleaseeeee.” He clasps his hands together and gives you his puppy eyes.

“Really? You think that’s gonna work on me? Seriously?” You deadpan as you look your best friend in the eye.

He doesn’t reply, just keeps giving you that look and as Hoseok predicted, you caved and agreed to go with him to the party he planned to attend tomorrow. This was the start of something bad and you knew it, but you felt powerless when it came to trying to stop it.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” Tatum says as you put on your shoes.

You told her about Hoseok’s plan and how you agreed to it. He would be here in a few minutes to take you to his first ‘scouting party’.

“You are seriously feeding into the mystery girl shenanigans? You’re digging yourself into a hole you won’t be able to get out of.” Tatum continues as she watches you put on a jacket.

“I’ve been thinking about it! I’ve come to the conclusion that if I simply entertain the idea a bit, soon he’ll give up and then we can forget about this whole thing. 3 parties max and he’ll be over it. Trust me, I know Hobi very well.” You ramble as you zip up.

Tatum gave you a disapproving look but before she can say much else you yell bye and leave the apartment. You exit your building and are greeted by Hoseok sitting on the hood of a car. He smiles as you emerge and whistles.

“Lookin’ good! Don’t make me have to play bodyguard all night.” He jests as he hops down and makes his way to you.

“You’re just flattering me.” You giggle before leading the way to Lehman Tower, where the party was located.

“I always mean what I say. You trying to take someone home tonight?”

“God no. I don’t need a repeat of last night.” You sigh and put your hands in your pockets.

“Last night? You went home with someone Thursday?”

It was then you realized your error. Thinking quickly, you brush off his question.

“Nothing remarkable, ‘s why I didn’t mention it.”

Hoseok hums in acknowledgment before turning his attention back to the street ahead. Thankfully Lehman wasn’t too far away and after another minute or two of silence you reach the building.

“Hope this ends up being a good night for both of us.” Hoseok murmurs as he holds the door open for you.

It was really quiet and for a second you wonder if you came to the right place, but Hoseok leads you to the elevator and gets in before you can question anything. He clicks the P button and you wait silently as the elevator went up over 20 floors. As the elevator came to a halt, you could hear the loud music and people yelling. Once the doors open you see people lined up in the hallways with drinks, laughing and chatting in groups. With a few ‘excuse me’s you and Hoseok make your way through and enter the penthouse the party was in. This place was really posh for a college party, some rich kid probably organized it. How Hoseok got you two in was beyond you but as he handed you your first drink you found yourself not caring. Three drinks later you and Hoseok lean on a wall, lightly bouncing to the beat of the music.

“Alright, I got enough drinks in me to approach someone. Pick a girl.” He says loudly so you can hear him over the music.

“What? Pick a girl?” You repeat in confusion, forgetting why you two were here in the first place.

“My mystery girl! You know me well, I trust your judgment. Who do you think it could be?” He asks before setting his empty cup aside.

You look around the room and spotted at least 3 girls who seemed to be his type right off the bat. Cute, bubbly, slim figures, basically perfect. You’d blame it on the alcohol but you’re feeling jealousy like you never have before. You keep looking around and your eyes settle on a girl in your psychology class. She was prissy, whines a lot, super high maintenance and a pretty big bitch. The kind of girl that would roll her eyes when she bumps into you. The kind of girl Hoseok wouldn’t ever be with in a million years. Against your better judgment, you nod toward her.

“Her.” You nod to your classmate who you are 78% sure is named Cali. She was currently on her phone and ignoring everything around her.

“Her? You sure?” Hoseok asks as he looks her over. You could see the slight hesitancy in his eyes, but you weren’t gonna stop now.

“Yeah her, go get her.” You nudge Hoseok toward her and he gives you one last look before he shrugs and heads over.

You shouldn’t feel joy when you notice Cali ignore Hoseok's first hello or when she rolls her eyes and pretends locking her phone to talk to Hoseok is the most grueling thing in the world, but you do. You smirk a little into your cup as with each word Hoseok’s distaste for her becomes clearer in his face. He couldn’t hide his emotions well when he was drunk.

Your source of entertainment was suddenly blocked by a black t-shirt. That black t-shirt belongs to a very cute boy who was currently smiling down at you. You had a sassy remark ready to go but the sight of his warm brown eyes and dimples made your words die in your throat.

“Enjoying the party?” He asks before sipping his drink.

His voice was smooth and sweet like honey and you found yourself hanging off his every word in a slight daze.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good. You?” You manage to keep a steady tone as you look him up and down.

As expected, he was put together and trying to impress if the brands he was wearing indicated anything. He was the definition of eye candy and you find yourself trying to recall if Tatum had any plans to leave your apartment tonight. Maybe getting laid by someone other than Hoseok was the beginning of moving on.

“Good. Even better now. I’m Damien. What’s your name?”

“Get me another drink and I may tell you.” You hold the empty cup toward your new interest and he raised a brow before an amused smirk graced his features.

“You got it.”

Damien disappears to the kitchen and you glance back at Hoseok to see him looking bored. It seems Cali was giving her full attention and rambling about something, probably herself.

“Here you go.” Damien reappears at your side, holding out a red cup.

You jump a little, not expecting his return so soon. You sip from the cup and hum in delight at his choice. Not bad.

“Now, about that name?” He asks again, leaning a bit closer to you.

You chuckle softly, licking your lips before looking over at Damien again. You were going to give him your name, but instead a light squeak comes out as an arm snakes around your waist. You looked to your right to see Hoseok had at some point left Cali and joined you.

“We should head out babe.” He speaks to you but his eyes don’t leave Damien, giving the stranger a challenging look. As if he dared Damien to try and do something about him joining the conversation.

Damien returns Hoseok’s stare for a few seconds before he holds his hands up in surrender.

“I hear you man.” He addresses Hoseok before sending you a wink, “Have a good night beautiful.”

You watch Damien go before turning to your best friend.

“Cockblock much?”

“I’m hungry and annoyed, sue me.” Hoseok grumbles a bit as he takes your wrist and starts leading you out of the party.

When you both get into the elevators to begin your descent, you think about how you set up your best friend with a girl you knew he wouldn’t like. Morally it was wrong but maybe, just maybe, if you kept up this tactic for a bit he would give up. Yeah, this is necessary. This totally isn’t selfish in any way. At least that’s what your drunk mind told yourself so you wouldn’t feel guilty. By the time you came out of your head, you were back in front of your place. That was fast.

“Goodnight Hobiiiii,” You hug him tightly and inhale deeply, he always wore such nice cologne.

“Night y/n. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He says as he returns the hug and watches you head inside. Once you disappear on the elevator, he leaves and heads home. You hum softly as you kick off your shoes and enter your apartment. That wasn’t so bad. One or two more failed parties and Hoseok will give up this search and things can return to normal.

Or so you thought.

2 weeks have passed and you’ve been to 3 more parties with Hoseok in search of his mystery girl who was much closer than he knew. It would’ve been four but tonight you had to turn Hoseok down in favor of doing a project you waited way too long to start. You decide to take a break and go into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. Tatum was also in the kitchen, sitting and reading at the table. Her brown hair was up in a bun and she wore a t-shirt and shorts. She gives you a small smile and you wave at her.

“Leisure reading?” You ask as you gesture to the book.

“Nope. Required for class. Fun.” She says sarcastically as she marks the page and closes the book, “What about you?”

“Project for science. Fun.” You reply just as sarcastically as her, making Tatum laugh.

“How are things going with Hoseok? You’ve been partying a bit lately.” She asks as she turns herself to face you.

You take a moment to answer, there was no positive way to say what you were doing to Hobi despite the fact you felt it was what had to be done.

“Yeah...he’s still looking but I’m thinking he’ll give up soon! One more party.”

Tatum stares at you for a while before scoffing and shaking her head.

“Seriously? You’re still leading him on this wild goose chase when you know you won’t come clean in the end?”

Tatum’s tone made the guilt you were ignoring come back full force.

“I...It’s for the best.” You reply softly as you look away at the clock on the wall.

“You say that but it isn’t true! You claim to want to protect him and your friendship but you’re hurting him. You’re giving him hope just to crush him. You’re leading him on. There’s no nice way to put it. You’re being a selfish bitch. Why can’t you see that?”

You take a step back, not expecting this sort of reaction from Tatum. She was typically calm and patient, never raising her tone. However, what she said was right. You were being selfish, you were being a bitch, you were hurting your very best friend. The one who has done nothing but be the most supportive person he could be for you. You felt disgusted that you had let this go on for so long.

“I never meant for it to be like this.” You say softly after a minute of silence.

“I know, I know. But you need to face this now or get him over his mystery girl. You can’t let this continue.” Tatum walks over and puts an arm around you.

You couldn’t avoid it, as much as you wanted to. You had to tell Hoseok the truth.

“I won’t.” You say surely as you take out your phone and send a text to Hoseok.

[You: Can we meet at Ed’s tomorrow? I need to tell you something.]

“It’s going to be okay. I promise.” Tatum reassures you as she rubs your arm.

You sigh and nod before returning to your room. Hopefully Tatum was right.

You wake up the next morning and check your notifications. A few from Tumblr and some from random apps you don’t remember giving notification permission to. Nothing from Hoseok. You frown at that, drunk or not Hoseok has never ignored a text from you before. So you send another.

[You: ???? Earth to Hobi???]

You set the phone aside and go do your morning bathroom routine to keep you busy while you wait for a reply. Once you felt more refreshed and awake, you checked your phone and saw a reply.

[Hobi: Sorry, got caught up in something! 2 PM at Ed’s?]

Something still felt off to you about his lack of response last night but you brushed it off and replied like normal.

[You: Perfect! See you then :)]

You glance at the time and see its only 10:47 am. You had quite a bit of time, so you get a head start on one of your essays before heading over to Ed’s when the time came. You sat at the back booth which was basically you and Hobi’s official space. Your heart was pounding as it neared 2 pm. This was it. You were going to tell him the secret you tried to avoid for weeks. You consider texting him and calling it off, saying something came up and you’d meet up later. But then Hoseok enters the diner and you know you have to go through with this. He was smiling brightly as he slid into the booth across from you.

“Hey!” He chimes happily.

You eye him for a second. Something was definitely up. Hoseok was a naturally upbeat person but he was at levels of cheer that meant something good happened to him. Considering he went to a party last night, the amount of energy he had was suspicious. You’ve seen hungover Hobi more times than you can count and he closely resembled a disgruntled zombie who would rather drop dead again than be awake. However, currently he was drumming his fingers on the table and bopping his head to an imaginary beat as he looked over the menu.

“You alright Hobi?” You ask as you push your menu aside.

You usually got the same thing every time you come for breakfast so there was no need to look.

“I’m great! Better than ever. Why?” He questions as he glances up at you.

You squint at him a little and he laughs.

“Okay okay, you got me. I have something to tell you as well.” He admits as he bounces a little in his seat.

“Oh?” You say in shock.

Well this was sudden, but he looked like he may implode if you don’t let him tell you what it is immediately.

“Well out with it then. You can go first.” You state as you rest your elbows on the table.

Hoseok broke out into a wide grin as he leans forward a bit.

“You ready?” He asks in a hushed, excited tone.

“Born ready. Lay it on me.” You reply, mirroring him and leaning forward on your arms.

“I found mystery girl last night. At the party! After 5 parties, I found her and I will forever be annoyed that my brain allowed me to forget her because she is great.” Hoseok rambles with bright eyes.

He went on to tell you her name, year, major and more but it fell on deaf ears because you were in disbelief. He...found her? But mystery girl was you! You wanted to scream the confession at him, to let the secret spill and be free of this weight you’ve been feeling for weeks but that weight has increased tenfold and you were crushed. It felt like a kick to the gut, like someone poured a bucket of freezing cold water on you. You lost your chance to come clean and though you spent the past few weeks wanting anything but to come clean, having that opportunity ripped from you was very upsetting. It took Hoseok waving his hand in front of your face for you to come out of your head.

“You still with me babe?” He asks.

The pet name that once made your heart warm now made your heart ache.

“Y-Yeah, sorry I was just...just thinking.” You say as you lean back on the cushion behind you. Your eyes stayed on the table, unable to bring yourself to look at your best friend right now.

“You sure? You look a bit…” Hoseok trailed off as he tried to find the right word to use but you cut him off before he could finish his sentence.

“Feeling sick is all. I’m fine.” You make yourself meet his gaze and give him a forced smile.

“Well I rambled enough about Seoyun, what did you want to tell me?”

You could tell him right now. You could let him know that he slept with you and you were who he was looking for, but he looked so genuinely happy. In his mind, he accomplished a daunting mission he’s been working on for weeks. You couldn’t find it in yourself to ruin that for him.

“Hello, welcome to Ed’s! I’m Taylor and I’ll be your waitress today. Can I start you guys off with something to drink?” The waitress cuts into the conversation and you thank the heavens for her sudden arrival. You couldn’t think of anything to replace what you were going to originally tell Hoseok. While he told his order to the waitress, you sent a quick text to Tatum.

[You: SOS! Need you to get me out of something NOW, urgent! Please!!]

You lock your phone right before Taylor turns to you for your order. You tell it to her and periodically glance at your phone. If there was any time for Tatum to come through for you, it would be now.

“I’ll be back with your drinks.” Taylor says before walking off.

Your gaze moves to Hoseok who is giving you an expectant look. He opens his mouth but is cut off by your ringtone. You check the ID and see it’s Tatum. You answer quickly.

“Hello?”

You didn’t expect Tatum to be full-blown crying into the phone. You flinch and move your ear away from the phone a bit.

“C-Can you come home? I-I need you.” Tatum stammers before crying again.

You look at Hoseok who looks surprised. You understood why she was being loud now, she wanted him to hear.

“Yes, of course, I’ll be home in 10!” You say as you stand up and hang up. Hoseok gives you a sympathetic look.

“No worries. Go help her.” He says with a warm smile.

You give him a small smile back before making your way out of the diner. The smile was gone the moment you were outside in the cool afternoon air. Being alone gave you time to think about what just happened. Hoseok, your best friend and crush, is seeing someone he thinks is basically his soulmate. He was happy and coming clean wasn’t an option anymore. You played a dangerous game and lost.

You entered your apartment and the click of your front door shutting was the signal to your mind that you were in a safe space and could unleash the emotions welled up inside of you. You cover your mouth, trying to muffle a sob as tears came to your eyes and spilled down your cheeks. It was a useless action because regardless of your hand, your sobs echoed through the living room. You had no control over the sounds you let out or how hard you were crying. You slide down the front door and sit on the floor, not wanting to do anything but cry over the loss you felt. You didn’t notice Tatum approaching until she was on the floor next to you and giving you a hug.

“Honey,” Tatum says sadly as she rubs your back.

You felt bad for getting her shirt wet with your tears but you couldn’t help it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She continues carefully, not wanting to make things worse for you.

You take a deep breath and try to control your crying enough to speak.

“He...the party he went to last night. He found a girl. Think she’s the mystery girl. I lost my shot Tatum. I fucked up. I’m so fucking stupid.” You speak softly into her shoulder before pulling back to look at her.

“But I guess it’s what I deserve, right? For leading him on, for being selfish and childish about the whole situation. He deserves better than someone like me. He always has.” You continue, that gnawing feeling of self-loathing coming over you.

“None of that. You’re an amazing girl even if you make some bad choices.” Tatum says sternly as she looks at you. “Hoseok would be blessed to have a girl like you.”

“Well now he can’t because he’s found someone. A dream girl. I can’t compete with that.” You sigh as you drop your head into your hands.

“I’m so sorry. I know this is cliche but it gets easier with time.” Tatum pulls you into another embrace and you let her. The comfort felt nice, but it didn’t take away the pain you felt.

“How about we binge watch some of your favorite shows and eat some ice cream? My treat.” Tatum singsongs, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

You chuckle a little, appreciating her attempt. You lift your head and look at her as you sniffle.

“I’d like that.”

Tatum helped you stand up and make your way to the couch. She stayed true to her word and bought huge cartons of ice cream to eat as you watched season after season of shows. Her commentary made you choke a few times from laughing so hard but you didn’t mind one bit. For a while, your mind let go of the events of the day and you stayed in this moment with Tatum.

You had two problems. Firstly, you had to see the guy you were in love with basically daily. Nothing new, you’ve been doing this for years. Secondly, said guy is with a girl he can’t shut up about for more than 5 minutes. You had no choice but to keep up your usual routine of hanging out with Hoseok. It’s been six days since he told you about Seoyun and somehow he kept finding ways to bring her into the conversation or he stops talking to you to send a text to her. Speaking of, he’s currently doing the latter for the 5th time since you met up for lunch.

“Hoseok. Seriously?” You sigh, annoyance clear in your tone.

“Huh?” He looks away from his phone though his fingers were still typing away.

“You keep breaking from your story and it’s frustrating. I’m here with you, can you put your phone away? I’m not on my phone.”

“Just one more text, she’s telling me about her day.” Hoseok whines as he frowns a bit.

“It’s 1 pm. Literally what the fuck could she have done?” You grumble as you avert your eyes to your food.

You don’t mean to be so sour when it came to the topic of Seoyun but this went past simply dating your crush. She had become a sort of wall between you and Hoseok and that pissed you off to no end. You never had to fight for his attention before and the sudden shift had made you more hostile than usual. Additionally, you had to completely scrap your project and redo it last night. The main water line pipe in your building broke so you couldn’t shower this morning and you overslept and missed your morning seminar which scored you a very passive aggressive and semi-rude email for your professor’s TA. Thankfully Tatum offered to reply for you because you weren’t too sure if you could resist writing back a similarly passive-aggressive response.

“Jeez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Hoseok teases as he sends the text and locks the phone before putting it away, “Happy?”

“Honestly? No.” You reply as your open your water bottle.

“Can you blame me for wanting to talk to my mystery girl after spending weeks looking for her? Come on, I know you’ve had to have a crush before. You know the feeling of newfound interest and wanting to talk to that person all the time.”

Hoseok’s fond look only further soured your mood. You did know that feeling, it’s one you’ve had for a long time with the very man sitting across from you.

“Can you just do it while I’m not here? I’m tired of having to basically beg for your fucking attention.” You snap at him without really meaning to.

This was not your day and usually you could hold back the snarky remarks when it came to Seoyun and Hoseok but he’s been doing this for days now and you had reached your breaking point. You felt as if the world was closing in on you and it was never good to back someone into a corner. It inevitably led to lashing out.

“Beg? You don’t have to beg.” Hoseok states defensively.

“Yes! Yes, I do! I tell you a story and you miss a third of it because you were busy texting! It’s irritating. You’re pushing me aside for this girl who isn’t even the actual person you’re looking for!”

The words tumble out of you before you can think about it. You were exasperated and holding everything in was destroying you from the inside out.

“What are you even talking about?” Hoseok asks, starting to get slightly annoyed himself.

He had the nerve to be annoyed with you when he was the one treating you wrong. You open your mouth, ready to rip into him more when you remember you’re in public. You bite your lip, probably a bit too hard, to silence yourself. You had to get out of here before you said something you regret. You stand up quickly, your lunch the farthest thing from your mind as you quickly exit the cafe you were in.

“Hey!” Hoseok yells after you as he chases you down the path you were taking to exit the campus, “Get back here!”

You don’t turn around to see how close he is. You had one goal in mind: get away from him and recollect yourself. Being too on edge was going to result in a possible meltdown which is not what you need right now.

“I know you hear me!” Hoseok yells again before running to catch up to you and grabbing your arm. He spins you to face him, irritation clear on his face at how you were acting.

“Why are you so upset that I’m happy?” Hoseok asks and you can’t stop the laugh of disbelief that leaves you.

This motherfucker.

“It isn’t funny, I’m serious! I thought you of all people would be happy I found someone I have genuine interest in. You went to all those parties with me to find mystery girl and now you act like this when I have her? Why? Just tell me why.” He questions.

“Because she isn’t your fucking mystery girl you idiot! I am!” Your eyes well up with tears on their own volition as the confession finally leaves you.

The crushing pressure of the entire situation started to lessen and you were desperate for it to go away. So you kept talking.

“It was me, okay? You took me home, we had drunk sex and I woke up in bed with you and I panicked and I left before you woke up! I didn’t want to ruin our friendship over a stupid hookup that wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t drunk off our asses.” You ramble, tears running down your cheeks as you make gestures with your hands.

“So I kept quiet. I pretended I didn’t know who mystery girl was because I knew you’d be disappointed and I didn’t, I...” You pause to take a deep breath, “I’m sorry Hoseok. I know I should’ve come clean weeks ago but I was so scared.” You finish your ramble in a quiet voice.

It took some courage but after a moment of silence, you look over at him. His expression was a mix of confusion, anger, and disbelief but he didn’t say anything. The longer he was quiet, the more you regretted letting the truth out. Then realization washed over Hoseok’s face, but he still didn’t say a word. He just stared at you, his expression unchanging.

“Please...say something, anything.” You plead softly.

The lack of a reaction was making you over analyze everything, even his silence.

“I…” He starts but ultimately goes quiet again.

You knew it. This was a mistake. You needed to get out of here. You spin on your heels and run without looking back. You could hear Hoseok calling your name but you couldn’t stand to be there one second longer. You needed your safe space. You needed to go home.

The thing is, once you got into that safe space you didn’t want to leave again. You didn’t want to deal with the outside world and the shit it likes to hurl at you. So you don’t. You stay holed up in your room, only leaving to shower and get food. You email your professors saying you were feeling ill so you wouldn’t be attending class and you’d make up the work and get all the notes you missed. They were written so eloquently that your instructors probably had no idea you were in a blanket cocoon and sniffling as you wrote it. A few days have passed since you had lunch with Hoseok and he has made no attempt to contact you. You didn’t reach out to him either which left a lot of free time for reflecting on your friendship with Hoseok and the situation at hand. You take things one at a time.

First: your relationship with Hoseok. Your relationship with Hoseok was...unclear. You went on his social media to see if he had posted anything but he hasn’t posted a new tweet, Instagram post, or Snapchat story since you two saw each other last. So you had no way to gauge where his head was at. There wasn’t much you could do about that without reaching out to him.

Second: the situation at hand. Hoseok had interest in a girl, scratch that, he had an interest in you. Instead of confessing you kept it from him for almost a month, even with the knowledge that he really wanted to find the mystery girl. You encouraged his ‘mission’ for almost a month knowing he would not find what he was actually looking for. You intentionally had him talk to girls you knew he wouldn’t like because you were jealous. This small mishap festered into a huge mess and it all links to you.

You not being honest.

You being selfish.

You caused this.

Sure you were scared but it doesn’t excuse your actions and how much you may have hurt one of the sweetest boys you know. The epiphany was bittersweet. Your guilt tripled, which resulted in what was only meant to be a weekend of sulking becoming nearly a week of sulking. On the other hand, it made you realize you had quite a bit of making up to do with Hoseok. You needed to reach out first. The idea terrified you but there was no way around it. You had to handle this like a mature adult.

So you take a shower and put on fresh clothes with the intention to go to Hoseok’s apartment. You exit your room after putting in an order for pick up from your usual Chinese spot. By the time you made it there, your food should be ready to go. You peek into the living room and spot Tatum on the couch with a book like usual. She glances up and does a double take.

“Oh! Hey!” Tatum jumps up and sets her book aside, “How are you doing?” She asks as she fidgets with her hands.

You roll your eyes playfully, knowing she was holding herself back from giving you a hug. You open your arms and she smiles widely before hugging you tightly.

“I missed you. I didn’t want to bother you but I was so worried! You don’t know how happy I am to see you.” Tatum rambles into your shoulder before pulling away, her green eyes bright and joyful as she looked at you.

“I missed you too. Sorry for worrying you, I just needed time to myself.” You reply, giving her a small smile.

Tatum nods before she notices your shoes.

“You’re going out?”

“Yeah, going to Hoseok’s.”

Saying it out loud made a weird feeling settle in your stomach. Who knew how this could end? That was the exact question that landed you in this situation in the first place, so you disregard it. It doesn’t matter, you had to try. If he turned you away then you’d have to accept it and move on.

“Oh?” Tatum’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Well, don’t let me keep you any longer. Good luck.” “Thanks Tate.” You wave at her before heading out of the door.

You put your headphones in as you enter the elevator and put your music on shuffle. You focused on the lyrics instead of letting your brain wander to what you were doing. The last thing you needed was to talk yourself out of this. Thirty minutes later you found yourself in front of Hoseok's apartment building, takeout bag in hand and heart thumping. You pause your music and put your headphones away. Then a thought crosses your mind.

What if he wasn’t home?

You didn’t think about that. There’s only one way to find out. You take out your phone and open your messages. You start writing ‘Hello’ but then make a face and erase it, way too formal. Maybe just a hi? No, that felt too short and awkward. ‘Hey Hoseok!’ No, the exclamation mark made things too cheery. ‘Hoseok’ also felt weird, but you can’t really call someone a nickname when you aren’t talking, right? You groan at the sky. Why was this so damn difficult? It’s just a text message for christ sake.

“y/n?”

You spun around to see the very man you were just thinking about. Hoseok stood before you in a muscle tee and black jeans with holes in the knees. The duffel bag on his arm meant he was either coming from a rehearsal or from the gym. It felt good to see him in person and not on your phone screen. You scrolled through your gallery looking at old photos of you two more than you’d like to admit.

“Hey Hobi.” You inwardly pat yourself on your back for managing to not stammer or stutter, “How are you?”

Hoseok shifted his weight between his feet before responding.

“I’m okay. You?”

“I’m,” You pause for a moment.

The word ‘fine’ was on your tongue but things weren’t fine. You had come here so things could become fine.

“I’m not too good. Missing my best friend.” You lift the bag of takeout, “Was hoping he’d be up for some takeout and reconciliation.”

The slight hopefulness in your tone made you feel a little pathetic. You didn’t want to seem weak but pride wasn’t going to help you right now. Hoseok’s eyes soften and he nods before he leads you inside. You follow behind and ride up with Hoseok to his apartment. He lets you in and it felt a bit foreign to be here again. You slowly walk in and sit on the couch after taking off your shoes.

“I’m going to shower, I’ll be back.” Hoseok calls back to you before he goes into his room. You take the time to take the food containers out of the bag and set up for his return. That doesn’t take too long and soon you’re left with your thoughts again. He didn’t seem upset about you being here so that was a plus. It gave you some hope that this could end positively. How could you ease into the topic? It seemed pointless to beat around the bush, so maybe just jumping into the apology headfirst would be best? You were too deep in your mind to notice Hoseok had re-entered the room and was asking you what you wanted to drink. When he called your name for the 3rd time, you finally heard him.

“Huh?” You turn your head to Hoseok who seemed a bit amused at your zoning out.

“What do you want to drink?” He asks again.

“Anything nonalcoholic is fine.”

He nods and disappears into the kitchen. He comes out a moment later with two bottles of water. He hands you one before sitting next to you. You watch him pick up chopsticks and the container of noodles. He wastes no time in opening it up and filling his mouth. You bite back a smile. Goddamn he was adorable, even now he made your chest tighten. He glances up at you and notices you watching him.

“Wha?” He asks as he chews.

“You know I hate when you talk with your mouth full!” You groan and make a face.

“I know.” He says as a smug grin spreads across his features.

You laugh and shake your head. He was still your Hobi. Even after the days of silence. Even after all the bullshit you pulled. He welcomed you with open arms and a friendly smile. You don’t know what you did to deserve him. Maybe you didn’t.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I was such an idiot and handled everything childishly. Drunk hookups happen and I should have come to you and talked to you about it the morning after. I was scared of what would happen to us but it doesn’t excuse what I did to you. Leading you on like that. Feeding you lies basically. It was unfair of me and I shouldn’t have done that. I hope you and Seoyun are happy and doing well because I bet she’s amazing if you felt so connected with her that she seemed to be your mystery girl. I hope that we can still be friends because I miss you. I never realized how much of my day revolves around you until I lost you.”

You stare at your hands as you speak. It was easier to be vulnerable and honest when you didn’t have to look into the eyes you’ve slowly fallen in love with over the years. You waited for a response, but for a long while there was only silence.

“Hoseok. I can’t do this again. I can’t take the silence. Please, I need something.” You say desperately as you lifted your gaze to him.

He set aside the food and has that unreadable expression on his face again.

“You’re right. It was unfair. You really toyed with me and at first I was upset because I thought you were just trying to make me mad, but when I realized it was true I was more hurt than anything else. You really think I’d toss you aside like that?” He asks softly.

This was a side of Hoseok he rarely let show. He was the sunshine, the happy one, he always tried to assume that role even when he was going through hell. He didn’t like anyone seeing him in an emotional state, but he learned to trust you with it.

“No! Yes? I don’t know. I was scared you’d regret it and be upset that you let yourself sleep with me.” You sigh and drop your head into one of your hands.

“You’re one of my absolute best friends. It would take a lot to break that. A lot.” He emphasizes before he chews his lip, “And about Seoyun, we aren’t a thing anymore.”

Your head snaps up at that.

“What?”

“Yeah. Finding out she wasn’t the girl I was looking for kind of changed my outlook. She’s a great girl but…” He trails off and messes with a thread on his shirt, “I kept thinking of you. It wasn’t fair to her, so I told her we should stop whatever it was we had.”

“Oh.”

You were stunned. He really called things off with her? He was basically praising the ground she walked on a few days ago.

“Yeah.”

There’s silence for a few more moments before Hoseok speaks up.

“Do you regret it? What we did that night?”

You think about it for a second before responding.

“Yes and no. I don’t regret what we did but I hate the circumstances it happened under. Do you regret it?”

Hoseok shakes his head no, “I wish we were sober but that’s it.”

“You’d fuck me sober?”

“I’d fuck you, period.” He replies without missing a beat and you both burst into laughter.

“Sorry, sorry, too blunt.” Hoseok says between chuckles.

“No! No, no, honest is what we need! Dishonesty is what got us here in the first place.” You reassure him as you calm down your giggles.

“Honesty.” He repeats, chewing his lip in thought before he nods, “Alright. I have a question for you.”

“Go for it.” You reply smoothly though you felt as if your heart was trying to escape your body through your throat.

Hoseok pauses to ponder something before asking his question.

“If we did do...this,” He motions between the two of you, “again. Would it be for fun? Or would there be something else?”

“Elaborate, please.”

You weren’t stupid, you had an idea of what he meant but you wanted to be 100% sure you were on the same age.

Hoseok sighs softly and pinches the bridge of his nose. Was he...nervous? That’s rare.

“Emotions. Feelings. Things like that.” His eyes were trained on the wall beside you as he spoke in a soft tone.

“Between us?”

“Yes, y/n. Do you want to just fuck me for fun or do you want this to be something exclusive?” He replies bluntly, tired of trying to ease into this line of questioning.

“Oh! Well,” You trail off as you fidget with the plastic fork in your hand.

He was giving you a chance to be completely open with him. Now was a good a time as any.

“Exclusive. With feelings. I’ve had feelings for you for a while.”

Hoseok looks at you when you say that, his warm smile starting to tug at his lips.

“It makes sense why I felt so connected to ‘mystery girl’ now. I’ve wanted her for a while. Just never thought I’d get her.”

“Well you were wrong, very wrong.” You inform him, tossing the fork onto the table in front of you.

“Could’ve had her sooner if she had been honest with me from the jump.”

You know he was just teasing but it still didn’t stop you from feeling guilty again.

“Hey,” Hoseok calls to you softly before putting two fingers under your chin to turn your head to him, “It’s okay. We’re okay.” He reassures you as he looks into your eyes and just like that, the guilt melts away.

You smile at him, heart beating a mile a minute as his hand moves to cup your cheek. He studies you for a moment, the air between you becoming more tense with each passing second.

“Can I kiss you?” His voice is so quiet, you almost miss his question.

“Can you kiss me? Not like I’ve been wanting this for years or anything.” You say sarcastically as Hoseok rolls his eyes at you.

“I’m trying to be a gentleman and you’re cracking jokes right now?”

Though his tone would make you think he was annoyed, his amused eyes gave him away. You’re ready to give him another sarcastic remark but then his lips are on yours and all words leave your mind as you melt into the kiss. Your lips develop a rhythm with his and without much thought your hands run up his chest. A soft growl emits from Hoseok’s chest as his free hand moves to your waist. You fist his shirt in your hand and pull until he’s hovering over you on the couch. Hoseok adjusts so the hand that was on your cheek is now holding him up, his other hand starts roaming from your waist. You spread your legs to give him more room to settle and are taken out of the moment by a loud thud. You both break away and look over to see what had happened. While you were adjusting, your foot knocked Hoseok’s food onto the floor.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” You ramble, slightly embarrassed as you look at the mess you made.

“It’s fine I have something else to eat right here anyway.” He says dismissively as he goes back to kissing you.

It takes you a moment to catch on to his suggestive tone, but when you do you hit his arm.

“Jung Hoseok!” You playfully scold him as heat flooded your cheeks.

“What?” He asks with faux innocence before bursting into laughter at the look on your face.

“You’re a pervert.”

“You’ll come to like it babe.” He whispers softly into your ear before trailing kisses from behind your ear to your collarbone.

As you tilted your head back to give him more space, you found yourself agreeing with that statement. You were already loving it.

“Depends if you can put your money where your mouth is.” You challenge, knowing how Hoseok wasn’t one to back down.

You felt him smile against your neck and next thing you knew Hoseok was picking you up and carrying you toward his room.

“Hey! I still have food to eat!” You whine as you watch your takeout container get further away from you.

“It’ll still be here when I’m finished with you.” He says as he kicks open his door, “You just may not be able to reach it on your own.”

With a promise like that, how could you turn him down? Food be damned, you’d return for it later. Right now you had years of pining to make up for and you had a feeling Hoseok would make sure you both remember it this time.

#jung hoseok x reader #hoseok x reader #j hope x reader #hobi x reader #bts x reader #bts fanfic #j hope fanfic

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mattbrothersscriptwriter · 5 years ago

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My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part One

I’m back and prising open this tomb of a blog like I’m Lara bloody Croft, let’s do this thing.

2019 was a huge year for movies and thanks in part to my ever obsessive Letterboxd account, i chalked up 150 total 2019 movies seen, which is... too many. Thanks again in part to the rise of Netflix originals, broader theatrical releases and a handful of festival showings (Sundance London, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Frightfest etc), I saw as much as I could. STILL some I didn’t catch (Rocketman, Shazam... Cats...) but as always, for my full breakdown, jump over to my Letterboxd ranking here - https://letterboxd.com/matt_bro/list/films-of-the-year-2019/

20. The Death of Dick Long

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this, partly because it’s from one half of the ‘Daniels’ duo, who made the equally expectation-defying Swiss Army Man and also because I saw it at Sundance London back when there was no poster, trailer and barely a logline. Some vague word of mouth from Sundance proper was about it. And that’s how I’d recommend seeing it - as blind as you can - as it’s many surprises are unlike anything I’ve really seen before.

It’s a triumph of carefully balanced tone and pitch perfect black humour. Essentially a Fargo-esque tale of two idiot hillbillys who get involved in the mysterious, titular death of their friend Dick Long (played in a cameo by director Daniel Scheinert), things slowly unravel as they realise that in reality, covering your tracks and getting away with a crime is, actually, pretty damn unlikely. The tension that mounts as hidden truths inevitably begin to come to light can rival any straight thriller and the humour always comes from a place of character. But the genius comes in the film’s ability to maintain said tone with a straight face once a very specific spoiler comes to light. It’s deliberately absurdist but you still find yourself swerving from laughing at it to being wholly invested at the sincere pathos and tragi-comedy on display. The film, for all it’s surreal trappings, never punches down at it’s characters, treating them as flawed and vulnerable as any of us, and the leads Michael Abbott Jr and Andre Hyland remain a wholly tragic and relatable pair - against all odds.

19. The Farewell

Lulu Wang’s immensely crowd pleasing indie sensation manages to be many things - a witty comedy, an ode to family, an examination of another culture’s traditions and a character study of the American-Asian experience. Like most really great movies, it’s universal appeal comes from it’s specificity - telling a unique story based in a human truth that taps into themes we can all relate to: alienation from one’s own family, feeling like you don’t belong, truth and honesty within our closest relationships and our own mortality. Or more specifically still; how we would want to face death should we be fortunate/unfortunate enough to know that is is coming.

Awkwafina really is a revelation here, showing off her dramatic chops with a heartfelt performance that utilises her strengths as a funny everywoman and as a tortured individual trying to understand not only her own relatives but herself as well. The whole cast are equally impressive, especially Chen Han and Aoi Mizuhara as the clueless couple getting married and of course, Zhao Shuzhen as Nai Nai - delivering a touching portrayal of a grandmotherly figure we can all recognise. Definitely one of the most moving films of the year for me, it’s a marvel that never succumbs to easy schmaltz or signposted resolutions.

18. Pain and Glory

I’m a big admirer of Pedro Almodovar’s body of work, having studied him since college but I’d be hard pressed to say I was a proper fan. I went into this off the back of it’s buzz and came out more profoundly moved than I first predicted. This very self reflective piece tackles a lot of Almodovar staples - Spain throughout the decades, the pain of love, film-making, mothers! - but is so strongly rooted in a career best Antonion Banderas, here playing a thinly veiled and somewhat fictionalised version of Almodovar himself.

Like The Farewell, it is deeply personal but incredibly universal, dealing with life long regrets and suppressed trauma and memory. Cruz the Muse is back in magnetic form and the tenderness in both the flashbacks and present day make for a surprisingly comforting watch about an awful lot of self-examination. It also cannot be understated how strong Banderas is here, possibly the most human I’ve ever seen the man known for playing gun toting mariachis, sword wielding masked heroes and... sword wielding, um... cats. It’s possibly his most mature and unflashy role in years but he reminds us why he’s such a consistent and evergreen movie star ten times over here.

17. Dolemite Is My Name

Eddie Murphy is back baby! This was hands down one of the most joyful and life affirming films this year, so much so that I’m gutted I didn’t see it in a packed cinema instead of on Netflix. Still, it’s a huge win for the streamer. Before now, it’s been easy enough to write off a ‘Netflix’ movie as one of three things - the modern equivalent of going ‘straight to video’, a blank check passion project for a headline grabbing filmmaker (Noah Baumbach, the Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese) or a big blatant push for awards glory (Roma). But this breaks through and hits the sweet spot, being the sort of mid-budget biopic the studios used to put out, a comeback vehicle for one of our most missed stars and as a straight up killer piece of film making all round.

From the writers of Ed Wood and the director of Hustle and Flow, Murphy stars as Rudy Ray Moore, a true over-the-hill underdog who stubbornly chases his dreams of reaching stardom as a middle aged man, who refuses to be put down in the face of mass criticism and overwhelming odds. It’s an empowerment story about pursuing what you believe in and saying fuck you to the haters. It understands that the only judge you need to answer to is yourself. It’s a testament to the power of a minority voice, in finding the unstoppable force who will fight to be seen - not just by his peers but by society at large.

I’m a sucker for films about a group of people stretched outside of their natural talents who strive to create something that wasn’t there before. Whether it’s Ed Wood or The Disaster Artist, Brigbsy Bear or Bowfinger - these movies never fail to strike a chord with me. I think championing a belief in yourself, often in the face of huge pessimism or swarms of naysayers, is so incredibly important and seeing these central figures who probably shouldn’t have succeeded, manage to do so, is so touching. The scene in the limo when they read the shitty reviews of their movie and all take a moment to arrive at the conclusion of ‘fuck them, we made a movie, it’s ours’ is an antidote to everybad review any creative endeavour may end up receiving. If it’s important to you, that’s all that matters but like all art, even if you reach one person and affect their life for the better, then it’s all been worth it.

Shining a light on the rise of Blaxploitation also helps to champion an era of outsider art that reflected the lives of millions and gave many more than chance to see themselves represented on screen as their OWN heroes and not just reductive stereotypes. Plus... Snipes is also back baby! Cripes it’s Snipes!

16. Monos

What a gargantuan feat this film is. Shooting in some of the most inhospitable locations ever seen, this tense, survivalist story of a band of young soldiers slowly imploding whilst they guard an American hostage is elemental and animalistic - a 21st century Lord of the Flies for sure.

Moises Arias is unrecognisable here as the eventual alpha Bigfoot. A former Disney star, he is most fondly remembered by me as the polar opposite Biaggio in one of my other favourite films of the decade, The Kings of Summer. The rest of the cast are fantastic too, from the captured Dr Watson (Julianne Nicholson) to the morally torn Rambo (Sofia Buenaventura). With some of the most breathtaking cinematography of the year to yet another stunning Mica Levi score, this feels like a lost Herzog masterpiece from the 70s. In other words, the kind of impossible thriller that you see all too rarely these days.

15. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Any new Tarantino is a cause for celebration, especially as he approaches his long-threatened ‘final’ 10th movie. I’m a massive western guy so I’d been loving his detour into the genre through both Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight but was definitely looking forward to his depiction of 1960s Hollywood. And Tarantino being Tarantino, the western influences manage to find their way into most, if not all, of his filmography.

OUATIH certainly ended up a divisive piece. Too much of an aimless character hangout for some, not enough dramatic bite for others. I was initially left a bit cold myself, knowing I’d enjoyed what I’d seen but wondering if it would go up or down in my estimations upon a second viewing. While that second viewing still hasn’t taken place yet, I tend to believe it will be even more favourable knowing where it’s all heading. I’m in the camp that loved where this film ended up and thought it stuck the landing wonderfully and in DiCaprio and Pitt, the film found a truly dynamic and compelling central friendship fuelled by two A-listers back on A-list form. The two veterans instantly deliver some of their best work in years (DiCaprio is 10x more alive here than he was in his Oscar winning turn in The Revenant) and 2019 would go on to be Pitt’s year, alongside Ad Astra. Margot Robbie is luminous in her limited screentime and while some were disappointed she wasn’t more of a major player, he Tate is arguably the lynchpin of the whole piece. Perhaps more as a symbol than a person, sure, but the scene where she gets to witness the joy her big screen clowning brings others (complete with tactfully judged real life Tate footage) is magic.

At first glance, this could seem like QT regressing somewhat but there are moments in here that stand out as some of his best work, from DiCaprio’s stroppy meltdown to Pitt’s visit to Spahn Ranch to the whole bloody climax. If it ends up being the odd duck of his filmography (Four Rooms aside) then it will end up all the more interesting and I am already captivated.

14. Stan & Ollie

Easily the most underrated film of the year in my eyes, I sort of understand most people’s dismissal of this charming biopic as grey pound fodder and even I admit that it falls into a sub-genre quickly approaching cliche: ageing Golden Age Hollywood movie stars have one last stab at fame and redemption by reviving a stage act in the UK - see also Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool and Judy. But this is so sweetly put together in every sense and manages to transcend the biopic trappings to create a more loving portrait of two old friends accepting that they love each other. It’s about male, platonic love and that in itself is rare enough.

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are incredible as Laurel and Hardy respectively, both disappearing into the roles completely. Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda provide brilliant comic support as their two very mismatched wives. The decision to focus on the duo’s later years, rather than to speed chronologically through their early days and movie making prime (glimpsed in the opening flashback) means that the film is free to draw pathos from a life long lived. There are mere hints at the history between them; chasms of time that hold so much importance yet are left to us (and to the actors) to speculate about, to draw from and to imagine. The performances are so strong that you can feel the weight of their professional careers in a sideways glance or a barbed retort or an exasperated sigh. It’s so much more interesting and allows practically the whole film to feed off this feeling that their entire lives are about to reach an impasse that we’re about to witness. This is the emotional resolution to the story of Laurel and Hardy and it’s wonderful to know that this is how it went down in real life too - that two lifelong colleagues couldn’t see how much they meant to each other until it was all about to come to an end.

Ultimately, it’s a story of loyalty and friendship in the face of a fast approaching curtain call. It’s bittersweet and truly sad, watching these two iconic titans perform to tiny crowds and hopelessly chase the dream of a comeback they both know, deep down, is long dead. It also contains two of the most tear-jerking scenes of the year: the very public bust up after one of their shows (”You loved Laurel and Hardy... but you never loved me”) and the ‘turn’ in the climax that wrong footed me so suddenly, despite it’s arguable foreshadowing, that I was almost immediately weeping. A truly touching British film of the highest calibre, it’s much more affecting that you might believe.

13. The Favourite

How does it feel like a million years since I saw this? Man, 2019 was long! Yorgos Lanthimos’ biggest hit yet, this is full of wild, punk energy and gives the period piece a real anarchic streak. Easily the best three hander in years, the ever evolving dynamic between Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone (hot off an Oscar win) and QUEEN Olivia Coleman (heading directly into an Oscar win) is a joy to watch. The dialogue is biting, the visuals sumptuous and the debauched attitude running through it makes it a wicked fun time. It’s influence is already being felt too - just check out that teaser trailer for the new Emma!

12. The Art of Self Defense

Unfairly shafted to VOD, I caught Riley Stern’s follow up to the ace Faults on the big screen whilst in Edinburgh, along with a fellow filmmaker and we had an absolute blast. Playing like a capital D dark comedy mash up of Fight Club and The Foot Fist Way if directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Jesse Eisenberg utilises his weedy, beta male persona into an effective portrayal of a guy sick of being shit on in life, who takes up karate lessons after a traumatic mugging and slowly descends into a cult-like world of aggressive toxic masculinity.

It’s a fantastic satire of perceived manliness, with some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen all year instantly flipping into something completely shocking. It’s another great showcase for Imogen Poots, who seems to be most often caught playing students despite being in her 30s (looking at you, Black Christmas) but it’s Alessandro Nivola who utterly owns this movie as the intimidating dojo leader; a truly twisted creation that, in a just world, would be generating some serious awards buzz. Mark my words now that by the time the Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark lands later in 2020, we’ll suddenly all be talking about him.

11. Us

Another one that feels about three years old already, Jordan Peele’s Get Out follow up finds him with free reign to really get crazy (”you wanna get crazy?”) as he uses his blank check on another bitingly original horror social satire. Leaning a bit more heavily into both the straight up genre elements AND the often-times confusing social allegories, Us is a cabin in the woods slasher that evolves into a Twilight Zone ‘what-if’ scenario before going all out with it’s underlying metaphor.

The results can occasionally be mixed but the sheer ambition on display here is invigorating and it’s captivating to sit back and let a writer/director present something to you as unique and multifaceted as this. His love for horror fuels a tense plot that constantly looks to re-shuffle the stakes every twenty minutes, Lupita Nyong’o is mindbogglingly good as two very different versions of ‘one’ character and Elisabeth Moss is the supporting standout of choice, making 2019 her year with this alongside the brilliant Her Smell... (let’s not mention The Kitchen).

COMING UP - a Canadian stuntman, a wheel of knives, space baboons and every superhero ever

#top 20 #films of the year #films of 2019 #20-11 #the death of dick long #the farewell #pain and glory #dolemite is my name #monos #once upon a time in hollywood #stan & ollie #the favourite #the art of self-defense #us

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sextonsharpwinhalstead · 8 years ago

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SHIPS Could They? Should They? Will They?

There has been a lot of discussion (again) around ships especially since it looks like there is a shake-up among the characters; whose with who and what relationships are ending and some that might be beginning. Currently Connor’s relationship is strained due to Robin’s health; Nina is paranoid as all get out because Will is back to publicly making goo goo eyes at Natalie. Natalie and Jeff broke up, Tate and April broke up, and Vicky and Ethan are done too. And who the hell knows what’s going on with Sarah and Joey as they are trying to pull Rexton 2.0, the bootleg version, out of nowhere. Which made me wonder about all the ships; their pros and cons and what could happen or if it should and better yet will the writers ever do it….most of these I’d say no cause I just don’t believe it but it’s fun to see.

(I’ve only paired the ones that I have had people talk to me about or I know other people actively ship. Obviously the sky’s the limit here.)

Let’s start with the big 3.

Natalie Manning and Will Halstead

Ship name: Manstead

Why they work: Will genuinely cares about Natalie; he cares about her well-being and there is a protectiveness that he has for her. With that being said Natalie seems to have walked into a relationship without the effort or the pressure. She gets along with Will effortlessly and their friendship deepens because she doesn’t have to think about betraying Jeff or what it means in the big picture, the feelings she has for him snuck up on her and there is something nice about that.

Why they won’t: A lot of shippers that love Manstead forgot about his behavior in the first season towards her. It’s the classic I can’t have you so I’ll treat you like shit. She was originally written pretty tough, witty, and someone that would never take his shit but as we watched her mourn her husband in-between him gas-lighting her every other episode (Like literally after the first 3) she lost a lot of her autonomy and her toughness and it dissolved the other half of the ship. Also another easily forgotten line is that he literally told her he was in love with her but not willing to wait while she mourned her husband that hadn’t even been dead a year….yikes.

Connor Rhodes and Sarah Reese

Ship Name: Rheese

Why they Work:The show has a very had time filling in the gaps for a ton of their characters but it’s hard to believe that Sarah didn’t grow up wealthy. Her mother is a lawyer and from the sounds of it a litigator and a very successful one. She may not have multi-million dollar Dolan Rhodes money but they are by no means poor…and that’s just a maybe, Connecticut (where Sarah is from) is one of the richest states in the nation. Anyway these two would bond over feelings of inadequacy as being a doctor in the world of monetary elites is still not that impressive so they talk about what it’s like to have everything and still be neglected and disrespected. He can take her to any place and she gets it because she was raised similarly.

Why they Won’t:Canonically Connor kind of has a thing for feisty women, both Robin and Sam were assertive and he’s drawn to a woman that will put him in his place. Sarah is just now getting comfortable in her skin let alone telling someone else how theirs should fit, also Connor is a bit of a rebel ; South America for med school, Riyadh for his residency. Sarah follows the rules.

Will Halstead and Connor Rhodes

Ship name: Rhodestead

Why they Work: Canonically these two really should already be best friends, they both lost their mothers, have one other sibling, strained relationships with their fathers, and special connections with their mentors whom they both ultimately lost. We watch them go to the ends of the earth for their patients but mostly because of ego which is this ships downfall….

Why they Won’t: They are both a bit egotistical. Both want to be top dog so badly, with it unceremoniously going to Halstead, I know we are in the Church of Connor Rhodes but Halstead is actually the better doctor. He was born with the talent that Connor is learning to get. However when it comes to people and jumping through hoops to get to conclusions Halstead is constantly doing them to Connor and ending up wrong every time. The verdict here is if it ever happened it would be slower than Manstead because this is literally when social worlds collide.

Ethan Choi and Sarah Reese

Ship name: Reethan

Why they Work: Rigid rule followers with a sense of discipline, although applied in different areas, these two have a strange balance of each other. He lifts her up so she can see that she can do more and with that teaching it gives her tenacity to step into that role. (Remember that gun episode? Sarah was not letting him steamroll her). She lends a softness to him that allows him to loosen up (which is much needed).

Why they Won’t: Besides the age gap, it’s kind of clear that Ethan only sees her as a kid-sister, a private, so to speak. I could see endless fights about her trying to help with his PTSD and him lightly and not so lightly telling her to back off.

April Sexton and Sarah Reese

Ship Name: Rexton

Why they Work: This has the potential to be literally THE CUTEST same-sex coupling on the show. Both of them are not the hard partying types, they tend to be the quintessential “good girls.” Kind, easy going, and encouraging. This ship has presh written all over it. SO MUCH FLUFF.

Why they Won’t: When is the last time these two had a scene together? Yeah. Also Sarah has yet to really let her hair down, at least April does every now and then plus the inevitable fight between them about April’s sacrificial lamb-like behavior for her brother and Sarah’s indecisiveness about her future.

Connor Rhodes and April Sexton

Ship Name: SexnRhodes

Why they Work: These two, after that pilot scene, there was chatter but they went nowhere. They could’ve been cute because April would’ve actually been pampered and loved in a relationship where her partner respected her work and her drive. They also have that in common. April isn’t just a nurse; she’s a trauma nurse, who thrives under pressure, with speedy actions, thoughts, and choices. Connor is the same, even though he switched to cardio-thoracic surgery, he is still a rebel that likes the challenge and pace of quick decision making. Also can we talk about the secret fights/dirty talk they would have at work all in Spanish? That ship wrote itself but….

Why they Won’t: It’s all a little too perfect right? Yeah April would definitely take issue with the way Connor fled after his mother’s death. She literally sacrificed her ability at being a doctor to help her little brother who is less talented. Even though there are feistier parts of her personality, I think Connor would end up running over her or getting bored.

Will Halstead and April Sexton

Ship Name: Sexstead

Why they Work: Both are catholic and grew up in Chicago, these two are driven and worked their way to where they are today with little or sometimes NO encouragement from the people that were supposed to love them. Confused and or dumped/bypassed by their crushes (Severide/Natalie) they would share some kind of basic ground for it. April and Will both thrive in the ED and she is an amazing nurse to him because of her speed and accuracy and his quick, logical, and usually correct analysis and diagnosis of the patients but…

Why they Won’t: When they think they’re right…they ‘re right (remember the drunk-guy going through DT’s episode?). She has no problem going toe-to-toe with him but they are both stubborn as hell (his insistence at her taking her meds when she was pregnant, how interesting that story would’ve been if it was his baby) anyway this would still be a hard ship to sail cause Natalie’s ass would still be walking round the ED causing problems…plus her and April were /are? friends.

Ethan Choi and Connor Rhodes

Ship Name: Rhoi

Why they Work: Aww the quiet little interracial M/M ship between the two hottest male doctors on the show…(yeah I said it). This would be the curiosity ship, who are you? What do you like to do? I never knew that about you kind of relationship. Long talks/walks about the places they had traveled to and the unique cases and ways that they handled them during their times abroad.

Why they Won’t: Remember that ego thing that would tax the hell out of Rhodestead….Ethan Choi is not exempt from that either. Two alphas fighting for control when they are adamant about being right. Connor would cave, problems and fights would ensue.

Ethan Choi and April Sexton

Ship name: Chexton

Why they Work: Arguably the two best looking folks on the show (fight me) they could work because he is probably the second best doctor that works in the ED (I have made my feelings known about the first) and she is the best trauma nurse there. They’d bounce ideas off each other and then go back to the other’s place for good-looking people sex afterwards. What they would talk about…no clue.

Why they Won’t: Remember the episode when April came back after her miscarriage and she was adamant about helping that women who was a mule? Yeah, Ethan is too black and white and the violence he has seen keeps him that way. April sees shades of grey and that would be a huge problem for them, handling cases, and then arguing about them when they got home.

Ethan Choi and Natalie Manning

Ship Name: Channing

Why they Work: One word: military. I could see them laughing over stories about basic training, bad military food, pranks, and residency stories. They would bond over his quiet love of children and her obvious field of pediatrics. His insomnia would be awesome for midnight feedings for Owen while she slept.

Why they Won’t: Remember when he mansplained pregnancy and childbirth as basically not being a factor in trauma (so cringe-worthy)? Yeah he doesn’t respect Natalie’s opinions and that would END them. Also I don’t see Natalie getting together with anyone that was enlisted ever again after what happened with Jeff one and two to be honest. It’s time for her to try something new.

Natalie Manning and Connor Rhodes

Ship Name: Mannors ( I totally made this up and couldn’t stop laughing so…)

Why they Work: Barely, they are both attractive. Other than that when the show debut they couldn’t have been in more different places in their lives, she was eight months pregnant and he had been overseas treating Saudi millionaires. The danger and excitement of his world may have intrigued Natalie at first and her relative mystery at not answering his questions about her husband might have made him curious but….

Why they Won’t: For all the reasons above, not to mention they stopped writing feisty Natalie like three episodes in and we ended up with second-guessing –judgy -Mary Sue that I have so much contempt for. Connor likes decisive women that challenge him. Also Natalie seems like she has the healthiest family out of all the characters, Connor would feel like an outsider or feel a little ashamed opening up about his screwed-up family.

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vamytas · 8 years ago

Photo

18th May ‘94

Molly,

Thanks for your exhibition prints. I’ve sold a few off the counter, the deer ones are popular. Still find it funny that people opt for the cuter kind, even if the forest frolickers are dead, although when one woman came in to buy a wallet for her husband and I told her the deer was a taxidermy she didn’t seem as eager to look around much more! Shame, that. Tried to tell her half the cost went to the RSPCA but she didn’t buy it. I’ll see if Alex wants one. Have you sent some to Tommy? He’d like the mouse driving the car (that’s him, right...?)

I would say ‘same old’ here if it was true but it’s not. The bloke I work with, Rob, the one who thought it would be a grand idea to throw Alex’s surprise birthday bash, he hasn’t shown up for work in a couple days and he won’t pick up his phone. I could joke that it was Alex’s doing but at this point with the way he’s become such a recluse I wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe they eloped? Not that they have any reason to, didn’t catch on to anything like that. Not that you’d care, obviously (ha ha). I shouldn’t joke about it, though. Rob’s somewhere we don’t know...or at least I don’t know. Thank god Alex is responding even if it’s minimal. I asked him if he knew anything and he said he didn’t. At the moment it’s a mystery to us but I’m not sure if Rob’s family have managed to get in contact, or if he has any family to worry over him, there’s a lot of characters like that around here.

Don’t be a stranger, even if you have all the critics climbing all over eachother just to glance at your face. Are you really going to try and pull the Banksy thing?

Much love,

Seb

P.S. Have you installed your dial-up yet? Data’s quicker to send than paper.

21 May 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: Beep, beep ... nnNNRRHH

Happy to see you’ve joined the legion of the world wide web! I know a lot of people complain about the noise but it doesn’t sound much different to what we used to listen to. You haven’t sold your original 20 Jazz Funk Greats, have you? Not sure it would even rake in much with what we drew all over the back, unless you or Alex get put in the Tate. With the way you’re going I wouldn’t say it’s a far way off! Also need more of those prints! Running low. You’re a popular girl here :) -- that’s called a smiley.

As for the Earnshaw Update: he’s as much a hermit as your sister used to be when she started getting into The Cure. I don’t know what instigated it but he’s only been reachable by phone since his birthday, and only at night. I’ve tried dropping in but his door’s been shut tight and I don’t know where he keeps the emergency key. You should try talking to him (I can resend his address if you’ve lost it, he hasn’t got internet yet). That’s if I can’t tide him over by telling him you’ve got a gift, next time he picks up... if he does. Sorry, that sounds very doom and gloom. I really am worried about him, if only because he hasn’t been in this kind of stasis since... well.

Please get back to me as soon as you can.

Much love,

Seb

23 May 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: He’s alive!

Did you send that print to him? I came by his place tonight and he answered after the first knock! Smiling as ever. He felt colder than a Yorkshire winter, though, and pale. I told him I could help with the gas bill if he needed it but he waved me off. We went out to one of those clubs where everyone is in fishnets and knock-off McQueen, which is nothing new, but they were playing that new MTV gothic stuff, the kind he said he hated -- could be broadening his horizons. I lost him for a bit but he found his way back, he’s somehow easy to distinguish from the crowd now (for me that is, imagine it’s always been the case with you, ha ha!)

He also told me that Rob went on a spontaneous break to Rome. Rob in Rome! And that I’d be getting a “confirmation of assumin’ such responsibilties required of a leather shoppe owner, as well as the salary”. Alex and him were closer than I thought.

It’s all looking up here. What’s happening with you? Apart from the Guardian editorial, you don’t tell me much apart from work!

Much love,

Seb

27 May 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: Concerned again.

I don’t mean to ignore the other topics covered in our ditties but Al has gone Weird. I know he always has been, in that ‘cool cousin’ kind of way but now he’s just... I don’t know. He’s practically nocturnal. There’s more and more stuff popping up in his wardrobe that he used to say was a ‘fuckin’ disgrace of shite taste’ -- the chokers! There must be about ten discarded around his whole place. I’ve seen some of his paintings too and they’re dark, as in David Lynch meets Goya’s black paintings, I mean they’re good -- really good -- but it just seems excessive.

Worst of all, he keeps mentioning Ricky. Since the accident he’s been fairly healthy with talking about it but now it seems like he’s got this growing obsession with ‘what it all meant, his death’, I don’t even know what Alex meant by that.Then he’ll ask me where I think Ricky is now and honestly I don’t know, I don’t like to think about it. I just keep saying ‘somewhere warm’ because it seems like Alex needs the comfort. I don’t know if what happened to Ricky got to him more than he let on before, or if he was too preoccupied at the time with making sure I didn’t do anything drastic. Was I that needy?

I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what to suggest either. Sorry to end on such a downer of a note.

Love,

Seb

1 June 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: Dire.

I don’t know him anymore, Molly. When we don’t go out he just wants to talk about Ricky with me, like I’m a proxy for some kind of loss he’s going through. But I don’t know what loss that is -- you? It’s the only comparison I can think of. I feel like the kid stuck between two divorced parents with you two sometimes. Except he avoids talking about you all together and if I do bring you up, like how you were moving back to London, he just looks down, rubs his beard... a new habit.

(Beard, yeah. I forgot to tell you because it was a really gradual transition at the time that I didn’t notice, but he has this Jesus thing going for him. Before, I didn’t think much of it but now it’s like an inherent look he should have been born with, innate? I could never imagine him looking like it but now it’s hard to imagine him looking any different.)

Anyway, beards aside. He’s getting... creepy. When we’re not drinking he just wants to postulate on death and ‘what comes after’, he’s a right fucking misery to be around. Although I haven’t seen him drink much at all, do you think he’s on drugs or something? It’s the only conclusion I can come up with, and I don’t have anyone else to ask about this because they’re all in the same scene he is.

Please reply soon.

Seb

2 June 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: -

Okay there are some things I’ve witheld for a long time because I didn’t want to cause you any unnecessary pain. As much as I know you say you’re fine it’s never a gift to hear these things but I feel it has a lot to do with how Alex is now.

After we moved to SF he started seeing this woman who I didn’t see much of myself,, she set me on edge but I can understand how he was drawn to her because I think it was mainly a sex thing to get over you. I told yu before that he was a catastrophic mess after you left and things got better but when I say catastrophic mess I really mean it, I won’t state examples because I dont mean to make you feel guilty Molly but it’s the truth and I don’t know what to do anymore.

I didnt want to make uyo worry because i know you;re already dealing with enough already, and i didnt want this matter in particular to be especially distressing for you. But I think alex and this woman were into heavy stuff - not drugs but maybe that too. We went out while he was with this girl, in January, I think? it was to one of those fetish clubs, wasn’t my thing. But he left me there alone without telling me he was leaving, hhe left with the girl and didn’t even leave me a voicemail. I got home fine, couldn’t sleep though. But then I went over to check on him in the morning and his back was covered in gashes and blood. he didnt wake up but he was breathing. i didn’t know what to do, i pretended i never walked in and he called me soon after to apologise for the night but i wouldnt say anything about his back because i thought it was a bdsm thing but with the way hes acting now i dont know if he was being abused? I dont know the telltale signs, just that he’d follow this woman around like she had him on a leash.

There are still parts of him I recognise but there’s something about him which feels out of touch, like he’s not the same person but trying to be. I dont know how to put it, maybe I’ve been away from someone who can actually talk about these problems for too long

The thing is I havent seen him with this woman in a while, since his birthday I’d say. Despite it he seems a lot happier now than when he was with her (apart from the Ricky fixation) but he’s gone full blown Byronic Bohemian. He’s invited me out almost every day in the past week and since this was an improvement from locking himself inside, I tried to go as much as I could. Each time I’d lose him for a while because he’d gone off with a girl . He thinks he’s being discreet but I’m not much of a dancer for these places so all there’s left to do is watch. Sometimes he goes home with them and offers to pay me for a taxi, which is a step up from leaving me stranded, I’ll give him that.

I know I shouldn’t have but I looked through his art yesterday (his emergency key is in a broken light on a wall outside his door), not his stuff under the bed but in his wardrobe. There’s five entire sketchbooks of you, some of the drawings are so beautiful, he still remembers how you look exactly but in others they just seem... off? Not that they don’t look like you because they do, even if it’s a few strokes, but for someone who knows you they just look like he;s trying to put through what he is now onto you? I don’t know. that doesnt make sense.Then there are some Ricky drawings in there too but I don’t want to talk about them. he writes stuff around you and Ricky, dates and places and random lines like ‘snake chokes on its own tail’ and ‘saw him around Seb’s’. I think he’s scared of losing parts of himself and not being able to get them back.

Please talk to him Molly , you know his number and email . I know you think you’ll do him more harm than good but I don’t know what to say, if I point out how he’s acting weird he just resorts to deflective humour ‘it’s all part of being a la Americana now’. But I’m worried if I push it he’ll get angry. Sometimes I don’t feel safe with him and I don’t know why. Please reach him, I miss him, nothing’s right with Alex like this. I’m getting homesick because there’s nothing here that seems real anymore, everything feels like I’m watching it through a TV screen and it’s muted, or the music’s too loud to hear what people are really saying. I don’t want to leave Alex alone but I feel like I’m in a coma here.

Do you think I could stay with you for a while?

Love always,

Seb

#▏🌹 ▪ VANITAS.#▏▪ HEADCANON.#[IDK WHAT TO tag this as rn . .#its long .. . longest thing ive written on this blog and its not from alexs perspectiv.e..#I DONT HAVE much to comment abt it im tired. ..#just a biffle's view of alexs days after his Death . .]

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inloveamateursatbest · 8 years ago

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I really will stop soon. But yes, the thing is the wounds and tropes that the Tates came with, evil stepmother, no fool like an old fool, wayward younger daughter, intelligent almost Hamlet like older son, those festered away and blew up onscreen. The drama the Whites came with was much lesser to an extent, then they dropped it all and went down a totally unfamiliar route. I wish we had more Lawrence/Rob for example. More of Chrissie, the young mother, who just wanted to escape the privilege 1/2

More of the business side of things (I still don’t SEE how the Whites are millionaires, they’re hardly wheeler dealers, it’s almost in passing that they are). The Tates had an empire at HF and it was seen onscreen. I agree about Noah’s humanity. I think that also comes from Moira. But separately, now you mention it, his connection and status in the village is more than Rob’s. Sarah was never a huge character. But Noah has TWO icons as parents. I just wish the Tate side was more acknowledged. 2/2Anyway, the point I’m trying to make (sorry, I will get to it) is that being a ‘Tate’ doesn’t make Noah left out or a black sheep, like being a 'Livesey’ did to Aaron. It makes him the product of something huge in the village. The last remaining son of a dynasty. With the Dingles, he’s just one of a crowd, but with the Tate name he is literally the last of them. It’s a huge deal. I hope if you do do rewatch, you’ll see what I mean and maybe when I search the Noah Tate tag it won’t be so barren!

completely agree about the whites. i feel like sometimes the route is so unfamiliar even the writers don’t know it, and that’s a lot of the problem with them. and we’ve never been shown at all how they have their fortune, always just told. we know that they sell agricultural machinery, we know chrissie has a chain of salons (she used to at least) but we never even seen them sat in the office anymore, let alone working (a bit like the boys and the scrapyard tbh, bless. always skiving off)

lawrence/rob was such a fantastic dynamic!! there was soooo much that could have been done with the whites when they first showed up. i really like early lachlan for instance, he was a fun snarky teen, but then well…

now now, mentioning noah and moira is just cruel nonnie. i actually watched the scenes after holly dies when noah gives moira the card he made yesterday (was looking for screenshots for a noah aesthetic, unfortunately the name dingle is featured in all the panels for that sorry nonnie :P) and i was crying. that child is so sweet and caring, it breaks my heart.

again, i don’t really know about sarah, but that is a very interesting point. and no other case in the village can be like aaron changing from livesy to dingle, there was so much weight in that name change. i feel that with noah, the jumping around with the surnames is just another example at the lack of stability throughout his life (and it’s a shame that’s not brought up more in relation to liv now that they live together tbh).

#ask #anon #i will let you know when i watch a bit of the tates what conclusions i draw nonnie #i am definitely intrigued #if work is as slow as it's been i might watch some eps tomorrow and all #Anonymous #ed thoughts

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olehistorian · 8 years ago

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Phyllis Logan gained worldwide fame in Julian Fellowes’s hit drama. So what did she do next? Gabriel Tate finds out

No fan of Downton Abbey’s redoubtable Mrs Hughes would ever expect the Scottish housekeeper to let a little problem like toothache get in the way of her work. And the actress who played her, Phyllis Logan, is proving similarly stoic.

Sitting opposite me in an anteroom of a central London hotel on a wintry Monday afternoon, the 61-year-old is answering all my questions in the most solicitous manner possible, despite a painful cavity laying waste to one of her teeth.

“I’m sorry, I’m really not quite myself,” she says, sipping gingerly at a cup of tea. “But don’t worry; carry on.”

Logan, who will shortly be seen as a patient in ITV’s major new drama The Good Karma Hospital, has form on this front. Five years ago, while filming the third series of Downton, in which her character waited anxiously to find out whether she had breast cancer, the actress discovered a large black bruise on her own breast. Logan carried on filming and, thankfully, got the all-clear within a short period of time. (It turned out to be a popped blood vessel caused by the tight corsets she had to wear.)

But in other respects, the woman in front of me today seems worlds apart from Mrs Hughes. While the housekeeper eschewed make-up and was rarely seen in anything other than her servant’s uniform (except during her joyous wedding to Mr Carson), Logan is looking glamorous in a crushed velvet blouse, midi-skirt and kitten heels. There is also a twinkle in her eye that Mrs Hughes would only ever dust off for special occasions.

“Wearing a corset and wig meant I didn’t get recognised much from the show,” Logan says with a note of relief in her voice. “Us fuddy-duddies just got the upsides: we used to fly all over the place to [series] launches, to places which would have previously been out-of-bounds. It was the youngsters who got all the scrutiny.”

This lack of attention was a particular blessing in America, she says, where fans “take it up a few notches”.

“The Americans were much more voluble about their love of Downton. Rather than just saying, ‘I really love the show’, they would go, 'Waaah!’ and go hysterical.”

There was one fan whom she was very pleased to cultivate, though. “My son David said, 'Mum, I’ve got to watch this thing you’re in, because everybody’s talking about it at school and I want to know what’s going on.’ I think, secretly, he was rather proud of me.”

Now 20, David (her son with her husband and fellow actor Kevin McNally) is studying music at university and not planning to follow in the footsteps of his parent

Brought up on the outskirts of Glasgow, Logan got her big break at the age of 26 when she was cast by Michael Radford in the 1983 film Another Time, Another Place. Her performance as a young woman left on a farm with a group of Italian POWs won her an Outstanding Newcomer to Film Bafta and Evening Standard Award for Best Actress. Hailed as “the next Vanessa Redgrave”, Logan looked set for a truly eye-catching career.

“Back then,” she says, “I just thought it was nice that they liked what I did and gave me a prize, then I went about my normal business. In retrospect, I can see it was a big deal. Now, I think: 'Crikey, why didn’t I capitalise on that?'”

Her next decade was dominated by the seven years she spent as the down-to-earth Lady Jane Felsham opposite Ian McShane’s antiques dealer, Lovejoy, whose roguish behaviour resembled a watered-down version of the actor’s notorious reputation as a hellraiser. “We can all be a bit tricky from time to time,” she says breezily, “but I always remember the laughs. We used to laugh like drains, and it always seemed to be sunny.“

After Lovejoy, her CV began to read as a reminder of the importance of the television crime drama (Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse) in sustaining the British acting community. Logan, though, is sanguine.

“I did feel as though I kept myself busy. It was nice when I finished one long-running series [Lovejoy] to do one-off dramas, or two-parters, or a Mike Leigh film, so I feel like I worked as much as I wanted to. It might have been nice to have been involved in more films, but I was bringing up my son at the same time.”

That Leigh film was one of his finest, 1996’s Secrets & Lies, in which Logan played Monica Purley, a woman struggling to cope with her infertility. “It was an extraordinary experience,” she says. “The improvisation was very tough and quite debilitating, especially given Monica’s story. The rehearsals were intense.”

Would she work with Leigh again? She laughs. “I think I’ve recovered enough after a couple of decades.”

That this standout role came 20 years ago is further disheartening evidence of the paucity of good roles for women of a certain age. “I’ve been out of that marketplace for a while, [because of Downton], but it probably is the case that women of a certain age become more invisible. And that’s frustrating – there’s plenty of us out there and we need a voice.”

Is the situation improving? “I don’t know. You look at comedies and most women of my age are either a cougar or Mrs Hughes times 10, buttoned-up, tight-lipped and censorious. There’s not a happy medium.”

No surprise, then, that while the conclusion of Downton brought opportunities (starring opposite Samuel West in a touring production of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter), it also brought concerns.

“You can’t help but think: 'God, is there anything out there?’ For six years, I always knew that, once filming wrapped in August or September, if I didn’t fancy doing anything else, then January would come around really quickly and I’d be back at Highclere Castle. There was a certain trepidation in being out on the market.”

Now, though, she is returning to our screens in The Good Karma Hospital, an ITV series about a British doctor (Game of Thrones’ Amrita Acharia) who leaves behind a stuttering personal and professional life to begin again at a chaotic south Indian hospital run by Amanda Redman’s brassy maverick. Blending evocative visuals with life-affirming stories and sobering social context, it’s as if Call the Midwife has been brought forward a few decades and moved 5,000 miles further east.

Logan plays Maggie Smart, a woman whose brief holiday to attend her daughter’s wedding becomes much more significant when a serious health scare forces her to consider staying – perhaps even for good. “Because her time might be a bit limited,” says Logan, “Maggie thinks: what the hell have I been worrying about all these years?”

And coming next? While Downton co-star and on-screen beau Jim Carter let slip earlier this year that the cast had been asked to “keep ourselves available”, Logan is more circumspect, although equally enthusiastic.

“Never say never,” she counsels with a knowing smile. “There is talk of a Downton movie, but it’s hard to get everyone together again. Quite a few of us in the cast would be happy to have a last hurrah.”

The first episode of The Good Karma Hospital is on ITV on Feb 5 at 9pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/phyllis-logan-us-downton-would-like-last-hurrah/

@phylli-fan-55 here’s the entire article.

#phyllis logan #downton abbey #good karma hospital

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Best Online Serial Fiction

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If there was a golden age of serial fiction, it might have been the era when Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain were publishing their stories-in-installments in print periodicals, with their readers desperately waiting for the next part of the tale. But if that’s true, right now might just be the platinum age of serial fiction. The digital medium is perfect for publishing stories as episodes, and modern readers who are used to receiving stories in an episodic format, thanks to television, may appreciate the medium in a more nuanced way than their historical predecessors.

Modern serials make use of both styles of writing. Some rely on a single author who publishes their novel bit by bit, keeping readers hooked. Others are developed in a television-style writer’s room. Some feature added features like music or illustrations, making use of transmedia opportunities made possible in the digital world. These stories span genres, including near futuristic sci fi (The Vela or Machina), urban fantasy (Ilona Andrews’s “Innkeeper Chronicles”), heart-pounding stories that will keep you guessing (C. D. Miller’s Dark Heights, Ray N. Kuili’s Eden Can Wait, or Casey Lucas’s Into the Mire), your favorite comics or television characters in prose (Black Panther: Sins of the King and Doctor Who), and illustrated (Twice) or audio only (Hope and Red) fantasies. Whatever you enjoy reading, there’s a serial for you to enjoy.

Find out more about where you can read online serial fiction here.

Ongoing Serial Fiction

While the science fiction and fantasy genres have the lead as far as the number of individual serials available for purchase, the serial format has always included realistic fiction and intrigue, as well as expanding into erotic novels. Take a peek at what’s new and what’s ongoing!

Hope and Red

Jon Skovoron’s Hope and Red was originally published in 2016, but the author is back with a serialized version—delivered straight to your podcasting app, narrated by the author. As the story that launched Skovoron’s “Empire of Storms” series, the novel introduces warrior Hope and thief Red, who must team up to take down a corrupt empire. This fast-paced fantasy has all the right cliff-hangers to keep you waiting for the next episode.

The Vela

One of my favorite recent space operas is The Vela, a Serial Box original written by powerhouse team Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, and SL Huang. The story centers on soldier-for-hire Asala Sikou, who’s more worried about taking care of number one than she is about the imminent death of her star system. But when she takes a job to find a missing rescue ship, The Vela, she and her teammate, Niko, the child of the inner planet’s president, find themselves embroiled in endgames that will decide the fate of the universe. The season one conclusion had me sobbing at the end. (Check out my review of The Vela here.) Season two, The Vela: Salvation, is posting episodes right now, and I will be hanging onto my seat for each week’s new episode.

Doctor Who

This summer, Serial Box partnered with The Big Finish to release their full-cast audio dramas of Doctor Who to the serial audience. Two collections of stories, The Tenth Doctor Adventures and The Tenth Doctor Chronicles, feature the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and his companion Donna Noble, voiced by David Tennant and Catherine Tate in one and narrated by Jacob Dudman in the other. Four other offerings focus on earlier Doctors, crossovers with multiple Doctors, and the enigmatic Lady Christina. Fans of the television series are sure to find something to enjoy in these companion tales to the program, and listeners who have never watched the show (as rare as those may be!) have the opportunity to dip their toes into a very complex and well-loved world.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire

In Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire, Jessica transitions from comics and small screen to a prose serial—written by Lauren Beukes, Vita Ayala, Sam Beckbessinger, Zoe Quinn, and Elsa Sjunneson. She’s focusing on developing some healthier coping mechanisms (not drinking so much) and trying to take some cases less likely to kill her. But when a simple, cut-and-dry case has more lurking beneath the surface, Jessica can’t let it go, even when the stakes get dangerous. This is sure to be a hit with fans of the Netflix series, and it’s great to see a frequently underused Marvel superhero get more air time.

The 18th Century Man

While the conceit for The 18th Century Man, a serial on Medium by Dan Morrison, seems simple enough—a young man, conceived during a power outage, negates electricity—the first chapters indulge in a hefty dose of social and political commentary that let readers know they’re in for something that aims deeper. James grows up on his grandmother’s farm in Woodstock, Vermont, as the focus of speculation. Everyone wants to know how he became the way he is—including James himself. Reading on Medium requires either using a limited number of stories for free or becoming a subscriber; to help his readers, Morrison posts chapters into the same story, with email alerts that let them know when the next one is added. Readers just picking up this serial can easily binge the first seventeen chapters—and then keep a watch on Morrison’s email list or Facebook group for the next installment.

The Innkeeper Chronicles (and others) by Ilona Andrews

Husband-and-wife team Ilona and Gordon Andrews have been releasing a series of free novellas on their website as a reward to loyal readers. They’re fantastic at providing new content, some in the serial specific world of The Innkeeper Chronicles, which has now produced several novellas. Each weekly installment is a partial chapter, typically readable inside of fifteen minutes, and enough of a bite sized chunk to whet your appetite for whatever comes next.

They’re currently posting a new novel, Blood Heir, set in the world of Kate Daniels, featuring an adult Julie—Kate’s adopted daughter—in an Atlanta eight years after the original series concluded. For readers who weren’t ready to let the series go with Magic Triumphs, this brilliant relaunch is just the reward we needed for surviving a pandemic.

“The Innkeeper Chronicles,” the more frequent ongoing serial series, revolve around Dina, an Innkeeper, host for interstellar travelers that include familiar mythological figures like werewolves and vampires, as well as more outlandish aliens. Her inn feeds magic into her, so she can change reality on her inn’s grounds to better accommodate–and defend against–her guests. In Clean Sweep, the first novella, a supernatural danger threatens Dina’s non-magical neighbors. Dina isn’t supposed to get involved, but she’s not the type to let what she’s supposed to do stop her from doing what’s right. While most of the stories center on Dina, one focuses on Maud, Dina’s sister, navigating the intergalactic politics of space faring vampire civilization while keeping her half-vampire daughter, Helen, safe. Meanwhile on Earth, a holiday celebration at the inn is complicated when a cosmically powerful being needs a safe place to meet her amoral human uncle. The series is a fantastic hybrid of space action, swordplay, and romance, and shows that the series has plenty of room to grow.

Team Andrews creates a very cool world mixing fantasy and science fiction tropes and populates it with a fully realized cast, including not only Dina and her sister, but also the local (hunky) werewolf, a temperamental Quillonian chef, and Dina’s struggling inn’s only regular guest, a vampire noble claiming asylum on earth due to her previous ruthless acts. Can’t wait for the next installment? Andrews is updating the main blog with chapters of a new project in the world of Kate Daniels, which should tide you over!

Into the Mire

In this dark fantasy in a post-war world, a badass mercenary captain leads her crew on a hunt for the missing heir of a baron—who happens to be her old commanding officer. Unfortunately, the marsh into which they must travel is populated by carnivorous trees—and human enemies who may be even more dangerous.

Riss Chou, the head merc, is appealingly snarky; her second-in-command is a posh bisexual sorcerer who, on first read, reminded me of one of my favorite characters from Kill the Queen; and another team member is a blood sorcerer hiding his talent (because it’s illegal). While the first few chapters hint at the much larger world, the narrative never overwhelms, keeping the main quest story line at the forefront, and building the world in the background.

Launched April, 2018, the serial has completed its first full novel and is deep into book two. In 2020, the serial was nominated for New Zealand’s top literary prize in SFF: the Sir Julius Vogel Award. Author Casey Lucas updates the serial weekly on Wednesdays, New Zealand Time.

Twice

Matthew Rhymer is not what he seems—even those who know him best don’t really know his story. When his estranged friends receive a letter intended to be delivered to him, they become privy to an unbelievable story, which has to do with the Lady, her rule, and the hungers of a mysterious enemy. The newly launched illustrated serial “Twice” parcels out the mystery a tiny bit at a time, each episode giving a little more for readers to piece together. Each episode features a gorgeous painting from author/illustrator Mark J. Ferrari. While Ferrari has a tip jar on the site, subscriptions to the ongoing serial are free, and each episode can be read on the website, or delivered directly to your email. Season one concluded earlier this summer, but season two promises to bring readers even deeper into Rhymer’s world.

Dark Heights

If the audio experience is important to you and you’re looking for something for a mature audience, you might be interested in checking out music-enhanced serial Dark Heights by C. D. Miller, with music composed and performed by C. D.’s brother, Chris Miller. The music and prose are developed in tandem, so that they are intentionally intertwined. This indie serial is available at its original website but Part One was picked up by Serial Box, and is available through their app.

The story is of a town, Park Heights, where supernatural forces in a war of shadows converge. Caught in the chaos are town native Tess Bellamy and drifter Gabriel Majeaux. The series features an HBO-level of graphic content (so it’s not for young readers) and bends genres and genre expectations. If you’re a fan of psychological horror, this unique music and prose blend might be right up your alley. Just… be careful of those shadows.

Lady Victoria Howard

One of the reasons some readers may prefer a serial subscription to a paperback is that they can read bite-sized fiction discreetly on their phones. That’s one of the goals of the Lady Victoria Howard web app, an erotic serial written for women, by women. Billed as the world’s first serialized erotic novel, the web app has subscriptions available for the first three seasons (39 episodes), which are delivered weekly depending on when you start your subscription. The story follows Lady Victoria Howard, sister to a modern duke, whose past heartbreak has led her to a sexual awakening, that allows her to explore her sensuality—and live her life to the fullest.

Amazon Original Stories

Amazon Original Stories produces one-sitting fiction reads, such as their premiere releases Joyce Carol Oates’s novel The Sign of the Beast and nonfiction book Crown Heights by Colin Warner and Carl King. Their most recent collection, “Hush,” is a series of contemporary thrillers from authors like Oyinkan Braithwaite and Jeffrey Deaver. Other recent releases include the “Disorder” series of short stories, designed to keep you awake at night, and the “Inventions” series, which explores the true stories from the age of innovation. The imprint has also published “The Real Thing Collection,” six nonfiction essays about relationships including pieces by Fresh off the Boat author Eddie Huang and Pretty Little World coauthors Elizabeth LaBan and Melissa DePino; and the recent “Inheritance” collection, with stories from Alice Hoffman, Julie Orringer, Alexander Chee, and others. Other authors who have written for the imprint include Jennifer McMahon, Lisa Unger, Edgar Cantero, Emily Raboteau, Adam Haslett, Brandi Reeds, Dean Koontz, Nick McDonell, Susan Straight, Jeffrey Deaver, and Janice Y. K. Lee.

The stories are available for free to Prime and Kindle Unlimited subscribers; other readers can purchase the books for $1.99.

Ninth Step Station

In Ninth Step Station, a future Tokyo is torn, divided between the invading Chinese and the supposedly peacekeeping Americans. Disaster after disaster have kept Japan from recovering, and their police are short handed and short supplied.

When Metropolitan Police Detective Miyako Koreda is paired with US Peacekeeper Emma Higashi as her new partner, neither of them is pleased with the arrangement. But despite their hesitations, they solve a series of crimes that feature espionage, rebellion, and humanity at its worst, many of which revolve around the war.

Created by Malka Older, Ninth Step Station feels at once like great near-future sci-fi and a modern police drama in which both of the main detectives are, refreshingly, women. The second season, with writing team Older, Fran Wilde, Jacqueline Koyanagi, and Curtis C. Chen, just wrapped—but the cliffhanger indicates the solid possibility of a third season in the works.

Coming Soon

The Haunting of Beatrix Greene

What happens when a medium and a scientist are at odds in Victorian England—and a vengeful spirit enters the mix? That’s the premise of this forthcoming serial: scientist James Walker hires spiritual medium Beatrix Greene to host a seance. She’s worried he intends to prove that she’s a fraud, and she’s determined not to let that happen. Neither of them expect to have to banish a ghost—or to be so attracted to each other. The first episode is live (and free) at Serial Box, and the second releases just in time for Halloween chills and thrills.

The Co-Founder

One of two Serial Box titles in development for television, The Co-founder is a contemporary drama set to launch later in 2020. When two women, Val and Jules, create what could become the next big thing in gaming, they face a hurdle: they’re women. In order to fit in with the Silicon Valley tech-bro culture, they hire barista and failed actor Toby to act as their third co-founder. It’s a plan that might just work—until Toby tries to steal their gaming platform out from under them. The season, written by Alexis Wilkinson, is available for preorder.

Marvel’s Black Panther: Sins of the Father

It’s difficult waiting for news about the MCU’s Black Panther 2, but fear not: there’s a serial to tide you over! With a sneak peek released in August 2020, the full serial won’t release until January 2021, but I’m already ready to keep hitting refresh until it launches. Led by Ira Madison III, the writing team (Geoff Thorne, Mohale Mashigo, Steven Barnes, and Tananarive Due) take readers to a Wakanda plagued by undead. T’Challa, striving to be both a good king and an Avenger, must turn to his long-lost father to find out how to stop the supernatural onslaught—and face the demons of Wakanda’s past. With Emmy-nominated William Jackson Harper announced as the narrator, this one is going to be a fantastic read—or listen—when it releases.

Serials You Can Binge

These serials, which are not currently updating, are worth checking out, especially as some of them may later get a second season.

Marvel’s Black Widow: Bad Blood

We might not yet have a fully official release date for the Black Widow movie, but fans who can’t get enough of the Russian assassin/Avenger can get a fix with this recently released serial, which just wrapped its first season in July. As the second collaboration between Marvel and Serial Box, Black Widow follows Natasha Romanov as she tries to track down whoever stole her blood—because they also stole the blood of Bucky Barnes. There’s no good reason for someone to take the blood of two secret operatives, especially when there’s a possibility that the someone responsible is trying to develop their own brand of super soldier serum. A Barnes/Romanov team-up is something we’ll never really get to see in the MCU, but pairing these two is sure to hit all the right spy movie tropes. Serial Box veterans Lindsay Smith (lead writer for The Witch Who Came in from the Cold) and Margaret Dunlap (Bookburners) are joined on the writing team by feminist writer Mikki Kendall, urban fantastist L.L. McKinney, and thriller writer Taylor Stevens.

Knox

This recently completed serial is set in 1930s Manhattan, where a serial killer is on the loose, and Knox is the PI on the job. Both she and the murderer, John Craddock, served in World War I; the experience left Knox with the unenviable ability to see the paranormal. And the case with Craddock is anything but what it seems. Elements of Lovecraftian horror infuse this story of a badass Afro-Latina detective, and New York noir combines with queer romance to give the story a while different flavor from anything else in this genre. Let K Arsenault Rivera, Brooke Bolander, Gabino Iglesias, and Sunny Moraine take you on a trip of horrors beyond space and time—and try to hold onto your sanity while you’re reading.

Machina

The world is a mess, and the future lies off-planet if humanity is to survive at all. Machina is set after a climate apocalypse ravages Earth. In the first episode, readers meet a group of dreamers—best friends Trey, Stephanie, and Smits—who intend to save humanity from their crumbling planet, ravaged by earthquakes and worse, by creating AI that will terraform Mars. Skip forward a few years, and those Trey and Stephanie are feuding, running rival tech companies both striving toward the same goal. Although Trey’s company focuses on a more traditional style of programming—where the AI is guided at every step by humans at the helm—Trey is innovating with the help of AI anthropologist Noor Venable, whose understanding of AI may change the way everyone thinks. Stephanie’s group, determined to give their AI more independence, is led in part by ace-programmer Cameron—who finds themself as charmed by Noor as Trey’s AI. The competition is being covered by intrepid “kid-reporter” Hiro Watanabe, who steals every scene he’s in. With the writing team of Malka Older, Fran Wilde, Curtis Chen, and Martha Wells, all of whom have followings beyond their serials, this is one tech corporate drama that readers will be happy to binge—and hope for a second season.

Thor: Metal Gods

One of my favorite bits in the MCU is when Thor and Loki team up in some old-school “Road Movie” style comedy. This prose serial, the audio version of which is narrated by Daniel Gillies of The Vampire Diaries, doubles down on the fun of the Loki-Thor duo. Here, the at-odds brothers voyage through the galaxy to track down a dangerous artifact. But the cast doesn’t stop with familiar faces: new characters include a Korean tiger-goddess, Frost giant mercenaries, and a charismatic, gender-fluid space pirate.This is the first prose serial collaboration between Serial Box and one of the big comic publishers, featuring the writing team of Aaron Stewart-Ahn, Jay Edidin, Brian Keene, and Yoon Ha Lee. If you love it (or prefer a different hero), keep an eye out for Serial Box’s other Marvel titles!

Orphan Black: The Next Chapter

If you were among the fans who lamented the end of the Canadian SF show Orphan Black, celebrate the return of the Clone Club—eight years after the conclusion of the show! (Den of Geek chatted with Tatiana Maslany about continuing the series as the audio book narrator.) The first Serial Box season has concluded, but fans can keep hoping for more time with the Clone Club.

Other Half of the Grave

This may not be the vampire romance POV swap that everyone’s been talking about, but The Other Half of the Grave has some of the same appeal! Fans of Jeanine Frost’s “Night Huntress” series encouraged her to write scenes from the male lead of her first “Night Huntress” novel, One Foot in the Grave, for behind the scenes goodies. It’s not an entire book—readers would do best to read the original novel first—but the bite sized installments are a huge reader perk.

Foreshadow

After a hugely successful IndieGogo campaign, editors in chief Emily X.R. Pan and Nova Ren Suma have launched what they term a YA Serial anthology. Contributors include Dhonielle Clayton (in Issue 0), Malinda Lo (in Issue 1), Justine Larbalesteir (issue 10), and more. A print edition of some of the stories is due out in fall, 2020, but the original 12 issues remain available online.

Born to the Blade

High fantasy meets political intrigue in Born to the Blade, a serial that combines elements from Game of Thrones, Avatar the Last Airbender, and The West Wing. Duelist-diplomats fight for the fate of not only the neutral Twaa-Fei islands, but the world. Rumor has it there’s no second season yet in the plans, but if you’re like me and can’t handle the cliff-hanger from season one, spread the word!

Gods and Lies

Billed as American Gods meets The Maltese Falcon, Gods & Lies follows investigator Justix Iris Tharro, a human agent of the goddess of Justice. In order to solve the bizarre murder in the Temple of Wind, she has to team up with Andy, a disgraced demigod, trying to win back the favor of his divine parent.

First Street

First Street delves into contemporary events by focusing on four young clerks working in the Supreme Court. Recommended for fans of The West Wing and Shondaland series, who are sure to get drawn into the intrigue.

The Understudy

A dance school is the unlikely setting for this social thriller, where a group of moms must team together to protect their daughters from a series of brutal attacks—all of which began when new dancer, Imogen, started attending the same dance academy.

Alternis

In a not-too-distant future, the world’s governments have agreed to allow their standings in an MMORPG to determine their share of the world’s resources. A game designer has a choice: join Team USA or have her life’s project taken away. (We chatted with the writing team for Alternis in an exclusive cover reveal and with Summer Glau, who narrated the audio book.)

The Triangle

A covert group travels to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate disappearances, only to be stranded on an uncharted island… where they discover they aren’t alone. Secrets are slowly revealed in Michael Crichton style suspense, with a healthy dose of television’s Lost.

False Idols

FBI crime thriller False Idols pits Layla el-Deeb against a terrorist network operating via Ciaro’s art scene. Her entry into the world of Cairo’s financial elite is complicated by her impoverished childhood in Cairo’s slums, and going undercover in her home city comes with greater challenges than she expected.

Tensorate

JY Yang’s Tensorate novellas tell a technology-vs.-tradition tale of two twin siblings, Mokoya and Akeha, drawn to opposite sides of a rebellion. A prequel reveals the history of the Protector’s rise, and a continuation of the original duology, The Descent of Monsters, features a female inspector trying to solve a mystery that involves a cover up, an escaped experiment, and strange dreams she can’t define.

The Witch Who Came in From the Cold

This Cold War with witches spy saga had two seasons—and ended on a cliffhanger. If you like a good KGB vs. CIA story, definitely let Serial Box know you’d love to see a third season!

Silverwood: The Door

Continuing on from stories originally introduced in the Black Box TV series Silverwood by Tony E. Valenzuela, this serial offers a Lovecraftian creature driving people to madness, and nods to splatterpunk and slashers. (Check out our interview with the writers.)

Bullet Catcher

Imma Moreno’s dead-end life changes directions when she decides to apprentice herself to a bullet catcher—mythical warriors whose heroics are told in hushed voices, but who were supposed to have been slaughtered by the gunslingers long ago. Tales of Jedi and the series Avatar: The Last Airbender inspired this weird western by Joaquin Lowe.

The Fisher of Bones

Sarah Gailey’s The Fisher of Bones is a fantasy novelette in twelve parts released by Fireside Fiction, with an audio version produced by Serial Box. It’s a beautiful and desolate fantasy story filled with trials of faith, and the short chapters make it a quick read–but the chapters will linger in a reader’s thoughts much longer.

Dead Air

College senior Macy Walker is obsessed with death, and in her on-air show, “Dead Air,” she airs out the old case of horsewoman Peg Graham’s murder. But though she starts reporting her own findings—and realizing that plenty of people would like Graham’s case to stay buried.

ReMade

Twenty three teenagers, all of whom died in the same minute, become the last hope for humanity when they awaken in a brand new world. Here, there are robots that hunt humans, a dangerous jungle, and the ruins of an ancient civilization.

Geek Actually

This contemporary fiction piece focuses on a circle of female friends whose careers revolve around their geeky passions. The focus on powerful and healthy female friendships is a delight, and the diversity of the cast is wonderful.

Bookburners

Bookburners, the flagship series for Serial Box (and one of my personal favorites on this list), is the story of a team of Vatican-employed agents trapping demons in books—until they realize that magic is too big to be contained. The story finished its fifth and final season, and the collected episodes are too good to miss.

Tremontaine

This completed serial is a prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Riverside fantasy series, and the the swashbuckling and political intrigue kept readers hooked through the serial’s ultimate conclusion. Series creator Ellen Kushner has posted a guide to the Riverside novels and the order in which they occur chronologically for readers wanting to delve more deeply into that world.

1776

The Associated Press series 1776: The World Turned Upside Down was originally published for the bicentennial of the United States in a hardcover, large format book for news organizations. The serial features dramatized audio narration with voice work by Clint McElroy as Alexander Hamilton, Bob Garfield as Thomas Paine, Chris Jackson as Washington, Nicholas Christopher as John Adams, and Robin Miles as the narrator. (We talked with CEO Molly Barton about the project.)

A Most Dangerous Woman

Brenda Clough takes up the mantle of Wilkie Collins in creating a sequel to what many critics consider the first and finest example of the modern mystery genre, The Woman in White.

Exquisite Corpse and Embodied

You’ve heard of the game: several authors create a story together, writing a chapter at a time and then handing it off to the next, so that none of the authors really know where it’s going to end up until the last moment. Serial Box took the concept and turned it into a serial format, with two event serials: Exquisite Corpse and Embodied.

Royally Yours

Looking for something a little lighthearted for your bite-sized reads? In honor of the real royal wedding in May, Serial Box released a short, mini-series of love stories, not about the bride and groom, but about couples involved in the day’s events.

Whitehall

In the mood for courtly drama, full of machinations, intrigue, and fantastic clothing? Settle in for the turmoil of the romance of Queen Catherine of Braganza, her husband, King Charles II of England, and his mistress, Barbara. This is captivating historical fiction, vividly set in the 17th century.

Belgravia

Fans of Downtown Abbey will gravitate to this story, written by Julian Fellowes, of the Trenchant family. Belgravia integrates real historical details into the text through hyperlinking; the setting is viscerally described, and the characters presented with an open eye to their flaws as equally as their virtues.

Conclusion

The best part about serials is that they’re happening live — and if enough people are reading them, they make great Internet water-cooler conversation. So if you’re catching up on the latest episode of The Vela, or the most recent installment of whatever Team Andrews is writing, and need to gush — or just want to make sure I know about the hot new serial you’re reading — come on over and find me on Facebook.

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