#in the modern world he’d be one of the kids who’d bury himself in the internet because he feels so stifled in reality

[moonlarked]

unpopular opinion apparently but I don’t think it would be very hard for anybody disconnected and sheltered enough to be light yagami. look at the comments under any video detailing a violent crime - child molestation, sexual abuse, brutal murder, etc. it’s literally vigilante logic. light was just seventeen and grew up around constant news broadcasts dictating that kind of thing (and probably online if his quick knowledge of the kira cult means anything - he’s probably been on forums like that before). like yeah sure, light’s dad was a cop and he was heading down that route anyway, but he was also a kid. a kid who had the chance to change.

[du0tine]

    𝑷𝑹𝑬𝑺𝑬𝑵𝑻𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝒀𝑶𝑼: 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑭𝑼𝑳𝑳 𝑺𝑻𝑶𝑹𝒀.

𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 𝟓.𝟕𝐊 |𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 + 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐒

𝑶𝑵𝑬 𝑺𝑰𝑫𝑬𝑫 𝑳𝑶𝑽𝑬. 𝑨𝑵𝑮𝑺𝑻, 𝑫𝑨𝑹𝑲 𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑴𝑬𝑺. 𝑴𝑨𝑵𝑰𝑷𝑼𝑳𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵, 𝑴𝑼𝑹𝑫𝑬𝑹, 𝑻𝑶𝑹𝑻𝑼𝑹𝑬 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑮𝑶𝑹𝑬. 𝑳𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻 𝑺𝑼𝑮𝑮𝑬𝑺𝑻𝑰𝑽𝑬 𝑺𝑪𝑬𝑵𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 𝑯𝑬 𝑳𝑰𝑲𝑬 𝑻𝑶𝑼𝑪𝑯𝑬𝑺 𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑩𝑶𝑶𝑩𝑺, 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑪𝑨𝑵 𝑺𝑲𝑰𝑷 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑻 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑹𝑬𝑺𝑻. 𝑩𝑨𝑫 𝑳𝑨𝑵𝑮𝑼𝑨𝑮𝑬 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑰 𝑫𝑶𝑵’𝑻 𝑲𝑵𝑶𝑾 𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻 𝑬𝑳𝑺𝑬.

𝑽𝑰𝑬𝑾𝑬𝑹 𝑫𝑰𝑺𝑪𝑹𝑬𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑰𝑺 𝑨𝑫𝑽𝑰𝑺𝑬𝑫

𝐓𝐀𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓:

@treblesomeharmonies @pastelsicheng @dearyongs @y2hyck @stayinzencity

The wind was harsh, blowing roughly as it rocked the large gondola back and forth. The passengers within were filled with unease. The looming feeling of fear lingering within them all as if the cable were to snap at any moment. The ten of them plummeting to their deaths, falling into the thick snow. Buried beneath the ground their bodies turning into a state of permafrost, freezing with looks of terror etched permanently on their faces.

The air was tense between the group of young individuals, no words were exchanged as they all gawked at the complete 360-degree view of mountains and large tall trees. All except for one, the very man himself who’d even invited them here in the first place. Jungwoo was leading his group of friends up towards the mountain where they’d be spending Christmas at his family cabin situated perfectly at one of the summits. One would think that perhaps he was leading them here for a nice gathering where the Christmas spirit could fill the air and bonds could be mended, the group of friends becoming closer than ever. But if you knew Jungwoo, truly knew him that is. You’d know that he had planned something much more sinister for his selfish desires and for him to fulfil such a thing he needed them alive. 

Everyone dying through such a coincidental issue such as the gondola snapping and plunging into the forest below would’ve been horrible in his mind. Not because they’d die but because they’d die at the hands of fate, not his. A death like this wouldn’t suffice and surely wouldn’t be able to feed his hunger for blood. He wanted their demise to be beautiful, an image he’d been painting within the dark confinements of his twisted mind for so long. A perfect picture ready to be ripped from the canvas and painted into reality. The maestro ready to twist and pull at the strings and create something extraordinary with his own hands. It was going to be written into history, it was going to be monumental. 

Clearing his throat, his lips stretch into a bright smile as he grins at them brightly. 

"It’s going to be alright, sure it’s a bit rocky but the gondola system gets inspected bi-yearly! Especially in the winter season,” He announces to his group of friends. His aura practically shined with hope, he radiated positivity and filled them with ease. His words made them feel reassured even making the younger Haechan decide to fuck around and jump up and down rocking the gondola even more causing everyone to erupt with playful screams. 

Meanwhile, you find yourself gripping tightly onto the railing as you look dead straight ahead at Jungwoo, your eyes filled with fear. You hated being up this high and even tried to convince Jungwoo to let you come up the mountain through the trail that switchbacked and snaked its way up through the forest but he had claimed it would’ve been much faster to just come up with them. Judging by the blazing winds that blew roughly outside, he was right it would’ve taken you ages to come upwards. 

You watch him as he pushes past your group of friends making his way next to you, his hand finding yours as he quietly takes it placing it into his pocket. His sudden actions making you feel rather flustered as you lose focus of the fear that once loomed greatly within your mind. It was now replaced with the thought of Jungwoo. Feeling rather embarrassed you look down at your shoes, the snow melting off of them making the suede leather rather wet. It was exactly how he made you feel. 

You weren’t dating but the light flirtatious moves never went by unnoticed. Mostly exchanged through by him, his advances were always quiet yet bold. He made your insides churn, your stomach turning to mush as your feelings erupted within your chest. Your mind went elsewhere whenever you were this close with Jungwoo and it soon became something you wished to always have. You wanted Jungwoo but did he want you? It seemed apparent that he did but why hadn’t he just asked you out already? There was no way you were going to confess first. Turning your head upwards slightly you turn to face him, observing his perfect side profile. He was gorgeous and yet here he was standing next to you, holding your hand. Silently trying his best to make you feel reassured. Could it be too good to be true?

Your hands began to feel clammy, your cheeks becoming hot as you attempt to pull your hand away. Only to have him lean down, his lips near your ear as the light breathes from his mouth caused goosebumps to erupt across your neck. 

"It’ll be okay, you’re safe here with me,” He whispers as you whip your head towards him. Your eyes are wide in awe as his face is few mere inches away from yours. You’re falling into a daze, the remainder of the fear that lingered within you completely washed away. After all, there is no room for terror when you’ve got your crush so close to you, if you leaned any closer you could just kiss him then and there and that was nerve-racking enough. 

The sweet moment between the two of you is suddenly cut short when you’re reminded that it’s not just the two of you inside the gondola. As a groan erupts from Haechan and Mark, the young boys publicly cringing at the two of you. Your body jerks away from Jungwoo, your hand leaving his as you cover the majority of your face with your scarf eager to hide the red streak of blush that covered your face. Staring outside the window you attempt to look anywhere but at him and yet there his is. His perfect reflection in the glass, twinkling as tiny snowflakes fly onto the surface. He’s staring at you and you can’t muster the courage to turn around and face him. Perhaps it’s for the best. 

Since to Jungwoo, it meant nothing but simply playing games with you and he couldn’t help but feel giddy at the thought of everyone heading up the mountain with simply no point of return. There’d be 10 friends and one sole survivor, himself. 

The torturous gondola was soon done and over, with the machine coming to a halt at the top of the mountain. The cold wind flowing into the confined space shaking them of the fear they once had and replacing them with the shivers. Eager to reach some warmth they all pile out, light pieces of luggage in their hands. Stepping outwards made that entire ride feel worth it, the reward at the top showcased natures utmost gorgeous beauty. Everyone was astonished by the panoramic view that wrapped around them, the towering mountains in the distance stood tall with the added plus of the small town of Banff beneath them made them feel like they were on top of the world and yet in the centre of it all. 

To the right stood the Kim’s family cabin, a rather modern-looking building that to be honest did not resemble a cabin and yet was dubbed to be one. 

“Welcome to Sulphur Mountain,” Announces Jungwoo, his soft voice practically engulfed by the blowing gusts of wind as he tries to catch everyone's attention.  

“You’re fucking kidding me, how rich are you?!” Screams Haechan as Jungwoo laughs in response, shrugging his shoulders, “We’re just comfy.” To you the whole scene looked like one from a silent movie, there was a scene and yet no sound. It was just the natural elements that filtered in. 

Jungwoo is quick to signal everyone over towards his home. The group of friends were soon led into the cabin where they were immediately met with the Kim’s family butler. An old man beyond his years, yet capable of moving quickly and nimbly. His features were almost mouselike, small framed with tiny hands. Hell, his voice barely squeaked loud enough as he welcomed you all before scurrying into what you heard from him was the kitchen. 

As everyone piled into the living room you couldn’t help but peek out the window. There seemed to have been some sort of boardwalk bridge that led up to another section farther away from the cabin. As it levelled upwards you spotted another building situated at its summit. A small cobblestone building with an antenna attached at the top was what you could make out past all the snow that began to pour rather roughly. 

“Its the comms station,” Answered Jungwoo, his voice is soft and tender as he places his head atop your shoulder. His long arms wrapping around you tenderly, engulfing you in a back hug. 

“Why so far away? Wouldn’t it be better if it was stationed inside the house?” You ask as you place your hands atop his. 

“Doesn’t matter. We won’t be needing it. I mean what’s the worst that could happen? Getting snowed in?” He responds as he laughs it off lightly pulling you away from the window and seating you onto the leather couch, “Just relax. You’re almost always on edge.” 

Just like that he’s gone, the scent of his cologne filling your sense as you shrug into your white, Proenza Schouler wool dress. The room was lively, with the sound of Christmas music filling the room as Taeil and Doyoung harmonized with almost every song that played. You couldn’t help but feel out of place, normally you would’ve joined in on the fun but you couldn’t help but feel stationed on the couch. Your gaze drifting towards the window as you looked at the comms tower that grew foggier and foggier, soon falling out of sight. 

Deep inside your mind you mentally made note of the station's placement. You couldn’t help but feel like maybe you’d have to make use of it because there was just this underlying feeling that there was the possibility of something occurring. You didn’t know what exactly but there was just something off about this whole situation. Turning your gaze back towards everyone you realize Jungwoo is still missing and he wasn’t one to miss out on the fun. He was known to be the mood maker of the group, always joining on the fun or busting a rather silly move causing everyone to cry of laughter. 

Perhaps, you’d look for him. I mean he wouldn’t mind you exploring the house a bit right? Maybe you’d be able to finally muster up the courage to confess to him. The image of the two of you sitting in his room alone, hot breaths against each other as you lean in to share a passionate kiss with him made you feel antsy. Shaking yourself from the fantasy that you played foolishly inside your mind you sneak out from the loud living room tiptoeing through the long corridors. 

You couldn’t help but cringe whenever your bare feet creaked underneath the wooden floorboards as it completely gave away your position every time and you were trying to get by quietly. As your mind filtered through possible excuses you could use should you have gotten caught. Quickly getting distracted as you continued to wander about staring at pictures of the Kim family that hung on the walls. Not even bothering to think about where the rest of the family members were. 

Suddenly the noise of one of the doors swinging open snaps you back into reality, the sound of cups and plates echo through the corridor as you quickly dash into one of the many identical doors just barely managing to sneak away from the butler as he wobbles down the hallways. The sound of china dishes disappearing just as quickly as it came. Warily peaking your head from the doorway you look both ways making sure the coast is clear and surely it is, the hallways are quiet and empty once more. 

Stepping back onto the creaky floorboards you continue to tiptoe about until you spot a nearby staircase that was merely a couple of feet away. 

'Maybe he’s making the rooms for everyone’ You think to yourself as you grip the stairwell handle and look upwards before quickly spiralling on upwards. Once you’d arrived on the second floor this sudden feeling of unease began to ripple through your spine, creeping downwards slowly and into the pits of your stomach. 

This floor was dimly lit and the faint sound of laughter disappeared the further you walked away from the staircase and instead was replaced with complete silence. 

‘Where the hell was Jungwoo?’ You kept thinking to yourself. At this point, you were more than willing to ditch the whole plan of finding him and heading back to where everyone else was. 

This corridor like the last ended with yet again another staircase and you seriously debated going any further. As you reached the bottom railing of the stairwell you glanced upwards at the spiral of steps. It was dark, the lights were completely out. Pulling out your phone you turn on the flashlight and point it upwards. Again, there was nothing but a series of stairs. Then you heard it, the sound of something slowly being dragged or rather dragging itself. The sound of nails being sharply dragged against the floorboards as a voice croaked from above, it wasn’t Jungwoo’s. 

You were frozen in place, you didn’t know if you were supposed to run or go upstairs. Was the person hurt? Did they need help? You simply just couldn’t decide as you stood there phone in hand as your legs trembled with fear. 

Thump, thump, thump. 

The body had begun descending the stairs slowly until the sounds became closer and much louder. Having lost control the body had slid down the rest of the way falling to the bottom merely inches away from your feet. Contorted awkwardly you nearly screamed in fear, your mouth going agape as you looked in horror at what lay in front of you. 

It was a young woman, perhaps a couple of years older than you. Her features were battered, clothes covered in blood. Her kneecaps were both busted as she lay there mangled, her legs twisted about. She was barely alive and yet she took whatever she had left within her to let out a string of groans. 

“W-what happened to you?” You stuttered quietly, your eyebrows scrunching in fear. Leaning in forwards you examine the poor girl up closer as she continued to moan in pain, slowly the words began to piece together. 

“Jung…woo, run,” Fluttered past her busted lips, her front teeth were broken as blood seeped past the gaps and out of her mouth. She fell into a coughing fit once you’d realized what she had said. Quickly sitting her up against the railing you brush the hairs out of her face tucking them behind her ears only to realize who was sitting in front of you. 

Jungwoo’s sister. 

Gasping out loud you fall backwards, your back slamming harshly against the stairs. She too had recognized you since you’d met her before all of this at Jungwoo’s city home. There she was yet again in front of you completely unrecognizable, her face was beaten in and bleeding. Cuts, bruises and bumps protruding from her once beautiful face. She was something else, the victim of something cruel and had become like this by the hands of what seemed like her very own brother. 

Sitting her up against the wall seemed to have helped her from choking on her blood. Things were silent except for the heavy wheezing that omitted from her, she must’ve had a collapsed lung as she struggled to breath. She didn’t look like she had much longer. Time was running out, her internal clock coming to its final countdown. 

“J-jungwoo, dan..ger— dangerous,” Was the last thing she had managed to croak out before her eyes went lifeless, her body falling still before slumping down harshly once more. She fell to her side, face planted into the ground never to wake up again. 

You struggled to move, your mind had gone into full panic mode. Millions of things running through your head, where were his parents? Had he done the same thing to them? Was this even Jungwoo? Looking upwards at the stairwell you decided that you had enough of figuring things out. You couldn’t play detective any longer because you knew that if you kept prying the price you’d have to pay with was not a poor excuse but your life. 

Standing up from the stairs you pulled yourself together, deciding that if you needed to get out you’d have to play along with whatever the fuck this was. Straightening the ends of your dress you don’t look behind leaving whatever you’d just seen behind and heading downstairs. Not realizing that your blood-stained hands had just tainted your white dress. The blood collecting within the fibres of the wool. 

Once you found yourself on the main floor making your way back to the group of friends who still roared from the living room, you felt yourself not even being able to see straight. It was almost as if you were traversing through a dark tunnel with the only lit exit being the one that lay ahead of you. Where safety was with all your friends and yet just like that you were pulled away. 

Dragged into a room by gentle arms and that smell. The distinct scent of cologne, his cologne. Once it made you feel weak in the knees and now you wanted to gag. It didn’t take much to know it was him for he was always the one grasping your body with ease, touching you so gently. You grew to know his touch yet you never learned to understand you’d been touched by a murderer until now. 

“Found you,” He playfully whispers into your ear, his breath is hot as his hands begin to wander. Gripping your waist only to move slightly upwards resting just below your breasts. Meanwhile, his lips are attached to your neck as he places soft, tender kisses trailing up towards your jawline. 

Thank god the lights were off otherwise he’d see how pale your complexion was from the amount of fear he displaced in you. Underneath his touch you were trembling, your bottom lip quivering as you bite down trying to calm yourself down. You needed to play along but you couldn’t find it in you to do so.

“Why’re you so quiet?” He asks, his voice is daunting as he teases you. His hands moving to cup your breasts tightly, fondling them gently as if he’s expecting you to melt under his touch and given the possibility that this was a normal night where you hadn’t just seen his dead sister you would’ve been a mewling mess under his touch but here you were in this twisted, cruel reality. Not quite the picturesque fantasy you had in mind. 

Just as he spins you around to face him, you pull away from his grasps making a bolt for the door. Pushing past the wooden door as it slams roughly against the wall but to him, he sees it merely a game of cat and mouse, it excites him. He’s on your tail as you burst through the door running for the brightly lit living room, your feet thumping loudly against the floor. Stumbling inside you find yourself screaming out for everyone and yet much to your chagrin there definitely was everyone but was everyone alive? 

There they sat next to each other on the couch, their headless bodies slightly slumped as a loud soundtrack made the sound of laughter echo through the room. Your heart had completely dropped to the floor, your mouth opening in fear as you properly screamed for the first time that entire evening. Your vocal cords piercing through the room as you stared at your group of friends sitting there silently, their heads in their laps. 

The music then came to an abrupt stop as you whipped around only to come face to face with the perpetrator himself. He seemed completely calm, not a single string of fear on his visage as he merely smiled at you. 

“Cat got your tongue?” He asks as he raises a pair of sharp scissors snipping them playfully in the air.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” You spit out, the look on your face is mixed with terror and pure disgust. “I mean your sister and now, now our friends?!”

“My sister?” He asks raising an eyebrow in curiosity. His dark brown eyes observe your body from head to toe and once he realizes your blood-splattered clothes he merely scoffs, “Look at you, all dirty. You’ve been a bad girl huh? Sticking your nose in places you don’t belong.” 

Looking downwards you lift your shaky hands, facing your bloodied palms upwards and see the handprints you’d created imprinted onto your dress. You were a living piece of criminal evidence, a walking crime scene. There was no telling him you hadn’t seen her, the evidence was splattered right in front of him.

Throwing his head back he lets out a sinister laugh ignoring your silence before bringing his gaze back onto you, his lips pouting slightly as he taunts you, “Christmas came early, now won’t you come to sit on Santa’s lap? Or have you been a bad girl?” 

Slowly he inches towards you taking his time with each step as if he’s had all the time in the world. “Come on, tell Santa what you want?” He asks as he continues to come closer to you. Your eyes frantically begin to look around the room for an exit but as you look past the windows all you can see is the raging blizzard. 

Then it hits you, Jungwoo had planned this all before arriving. He had made sure to bring you all here when the weather was bad so there was no way you could escape. His joke of getting snowed in no longer being funny. You truly felt like you were trapped and you were. 

“I’m getting impatient,” He says cutting your thoughts short as he averts your attention back onto him. He’s now standing merely an arm’s length away from you, sharp scissors in hand as he taps his foot against the floor over and over again. 

"Times running out, tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” He asks again. 

“My life,” You reply, your eyes never leaving the sharp scissors grasped tightly in his hands. It’s silent as he pauses before bursting into laughter, he’s laughing so hard you’ve got him clenching his gut. “Your life?!” He exclaims as he stands up straight wiping the light tears from his cheeks. 

“You know I can’t just give you that, what do you think I am? God?!” 

Raising your arms in annoyance you point a finger straight at his face, “Haven’t you had enough twisted, cruel fun for tonight? What more can you do with killing one more person?” 

For a moment he stands there pondering as he mockingly lifts a finger and places it on his chin. Rolling his eyes he pulls out his watch from his pocket and dangles it in front of you.

“Since you’re cute and fuck, you turn me the hell on. I’ll give you 10 minutes, you can run but you can’t hide and of course, you won’t be running for long,” He explains offering you some sort of ultimatum before stepping aside and letting you have access to the door out of the living room. 

It was better than nothing and you very well knew where you were heading. Taking one last glance at Jungwoo who merely smiled brightly at you as he taps onto the surface of the watch, “Your time starts now.” With that, you’re out of the living room and towards the front door, slipping on your shoes and jacket you tug and twist at the doorknob. It didn’t even budge one bit. Of course, he’d have the door locked. 

You were wasting precious time fidgeting with the door so you quickly headed back up towards the corridors and up the first set of stairs. The sound of blaring music radiating from the living room along with Jungwoo’s voice, he was singing along. Zig zagging through the many rooms on the second floor you run to all the windows, tugging and pulling at them but having no luck in doing so. Quickly you stumble out running towards the second flight of stairs trying your best to ignore the dead body that lay there only to stupidly slip on the pool of blood. Your body falling backwards and colliding harshly with the floor.

The sound of footsteps began to echo through your ears, thumping rapidly inside your mind as you tried to get up, only to be pulled to the side by a small frail hand. It was the butler. Instinctively you use your free arm to elbow him square in the face. The man falls to the floor clutching his nose as blood begins to pour from his nostrils, you’re expecting him to hurt you or bring you to Jungwoo but instead, he stands back up and faces you once more this time not daring to touch you. 

“You need to get out of here, head to the third floor and make a run for the window at the end of the corridor. It won’t open so you’ll need to burst through,” He explains as you look at him in confusion. How on earth was he on your side? 

“Climb down or hell, drop down if you can. You won’t get hurt from the jump, it’s not that high. Head straight down the mountain. Don’t even think about going to the comm’s centre, it’s all fake. There's nothing there it’s merely a trap,” He squeaks out, quickly explaining some sort of escape plan to you as he begins to push you up towards the stairs. 

“How can I trust you?!” You question as he continues to shove you upstairs. 

“You’ll just have to take a chance and right now you only have one,” He replies giving you one last shove before turning his focus away from you. 

“Master Jungwoo?” Is the last thing you hear from the butler before you bolt up towards the stairs. Once at the top you’re met yet again with complete and utter darkness, what seemed like the window ahead was also quite dim as it was covered with snow that caked its surface. 

You didn’t wait for a cue, you didn’t even hesitate as you made ran towards the window ramming your body against it. The window had only cracked moderately and your body felt immense pain as a result but you couldn’t wait any longer. The pain you had to suffer was surely temporary if it meant saving your life. Taking a couple of steps back you ram yourself into the window once more this time managing to break a few big shards, the cold winter air seeping through the broken glass into the hallway. Small shards cutting into your arms and sticking into your face. 

Just before you can ram yourself into the window once more you hear his voice.

“You better watch out, you better not cry. You better not pout I’m telling you why,” He sings as his footsteps slowly saunter towards you. You don’t even bother looking back because if you did you knew you’d become distraught once more. Not because he was there but you’d be shocked to see the Butler’s head gripped tightly in his hands. There was no turning back or you’d face the same fate. Jungwoo was simply merciless. 

"Santa Clause is coming to town,” He bellows out, his voice echoing through the hallways crescendoing loudly as you’re taking two steps back and pushing your body through the window breaking through the glass once and for all. You’re free-falling through the air for a couple of seconds before landing roughly on your back. His head popping through the broken window as he waves at you, “Elsa?! Do you wanna build a snowman?!” 

Your body aches as you stare up at this mentally deranged man who’s usual cute habit of quoting songs quickly became much more disturbing. There’s no time to lay there in pain as you force yourself to quickly get back up. Looking back towards the broken window you no longer see him there. Automatically, you know he’s not given up and that he’s about to come outside to drag you back in so you make a run for the trailhead. If only you could find it in such horrible weather conditions. 

Stumbling around you bite your lip in agony as random pieces of glass shards cause your muscles to twitch in discomfort. The rough winds are blowing at your face, whipping at your skin. The snow blurring your vision as you blindly run around wasting your stamina. It didn’t help that with every step you took your legs fell deeper and deeper into the freshly powdered snow creating a drag on every single one of your movements slowing you down immensely. 

Suddenly you heard something whizz just past your arm, skinning it in the process. Howling in pain you clutch your arm tightly attempting to stop the blood. Only to be hit once more this time in the shoulder, your body jolting forwards as you fall onto the snow. You’d been shot, twice, and the bullets didn’t seem to stop as you lay there hearing the sounds of bullets zooming over you. He’d found your location, you were screwed. 

Crouching back up you start to run in zig zags, blood dripping from your body as it leaves a perfectly nice trail atop the snow. Your breath is heavy as you stagger in the snow eager for a way out. Then you’re hit once more, the bullet lodging through your skin from behind as it pierces through your left leg hitting your achilles heel. Falling to the floor you bite your lip in attempts to stay quiet as you silently scream to yourself. 

Then he appears, standing above you silver pistol in hand. Dressed in his black winter coat as he sneers at you from above. Leaning down he hovers above you, pinning you down with his body as he coos gently. 

“My poor baby, you’re so hurt,” He taunts pouting his lips as he tries to play it off cutely. 

Momentarily you’re silent as you look up towards him. You weren’t scared anymore, you were just sick and tired of this. If this was how you were going to die you’d accepted your fate. Your chest heaves with discomfort as you struggle to maintain your breath, you were cold and weak. There was no more fight left in you. 

“You know, I thought you’d make this harder. I mean you jumped out of a fucking window but I find you here?” He says as brings his dainty fingers towards your cheek tugging at one of the glass shards and ripping it out swiftly earning a muffled scream from you. The tear were streaming down your cheeks, the saltiness seeping into the lacerations in your skin. The destroyed porcelain made you look like an abused rag doll. 

Then it hits you, where exactly were you that made you so accessible. Scrunching your eyebrows in confusion your eyes begin to dart all around the place. Where were you? 

“Allow me to explain, your dumb ass that had been previously ogling over at the comms centre came directly here after escaping. I mean what did you expect? To be able to call in the cops? In this weather?!” He scoffs. 

Rolling his eyes you can tell he’s had enough of playing around. He came here to kill you and he wasn’t going to wait any longer. “Pity it has to end this way,” He says before bringing the pistol towards your temple, pulling the trigger you shut your eyes tightly expecting a loud bang followed by darkness. 

Click. 

Click. Click. 

You open your eyes in confusion, how were you brains not blasted out already. Jungwoo seemed to have been just as surprised as he fumbled with the empty gun, he’d run out of bullets. Taking this as a sign of hope you bring your hands upwards towards his shoulders taking everything you had left inside of you to head butt him roughly. Earning a groan from him as his head falls back staggering slightly backwards into the snow. Dropping the gun and rubbing his forehead in pain. 

“You bitch!” He exclaims. 

Quickly you get back up the adrenaline kicking back in, giving you that extra dose of energy that you needed to survive as you ran away from him once more. Ignoring his protests in the background. Surely, he’d run after you and you weren’t going to let him kill you. Running blindly through the snow you keep going straight until you start to feel the ground moving beneath you. The snow sliding rapidly as you fall onto your face, your body  getting swallowed by the snow. You had been caught in avalanche. Somehow you’d managed to run diagonally down the mountain side triggering the thick snow to plow underneath heading directly under towards the trees and the forest that lay below. 

Your body caught in the middle of it all as you free fell almost 2,000 metres to the ground. The mixture of ice and snow shoving your body around as you struggled to breath. It was unstoppable and soon enough you’d blacked out from the lack of oxygen. Your body would remain encased within snow until summer would arrive. Only when the snow would melt would your body reappear.

No-one would question your whereabouts except him. Did you escape? Did you die some other way? The questions would run through his mind for months to come eating away at his desires. His plan had failed, the picture he wanted to create and bring to life had been a disaster and now he had to start planning to create once more, to kill once again. 

He’d write this day in to be the worst Christmas of his life. Ironic huh? 

𝑨𝑳𝑳 𝑹𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻𝑺 𝑹𝑬𝑺𝑬𝑹𝑽𝑬𝑫 ©︎𝑫𝑼0𝑻𝑰𝑵𝑬

[alittlefoxedup]

An Unexpected Reunion

I’m gonna try out this Omega Jason Todd Week challenge thing with an idea that’s been in my head for awhile.

Day 1: Jason presents post-Lazarus

Roy Harper is rescued by someone who claims they’ve met, but he can’t figure out how he’s supposed to know the omega.

The whole rescue had been a bit of a blur for Roy. Bread and water for a month, maybe more, would do that. He could really go for a burger. The idea of food was the only thing keeping his feet moving. That and his mysterious rescuer. Grateful as he was, Roy wanted to know who and why. If anyone was going to rescue him, he thought it would have been Oliver or the Titans. Neither came.

He was pretty sure he couldn’t blame being out of the hero loop on not knowing this guy. The guy had clearly been in the business for a long time, but Roy had never heard of him. People only heard about the ones that got caught or boasted. Roy didn’t think his rescuer fell into either category. He was pretty sure his rescuer could run laps around everyone he knew and they’d never know.

Finding out what this guy wanted with Roy was Roy’s new top priority after eating all of this guy’s food. He couldn’t see the smirk but could feel it. His rescuer wore a red hood and mask covering the bottom half of his face. It was hard to make out any features except for blue eyes and a streak of white in his black hair. The gray body armor disguised as leathers was an interesting choice. Roy liked the bronze gauntlets and greaves. The modern mixed with some traditional worked well on the guy.

“You won’t enjoy all that coming back up.” His rescuer took the rest of the food away.

Roy nodded, already full on a sandwich and half an apple. He wasn’t sure when the last time he had juice was, but he was starting to feel better. His stomach wasn’t going to be happy later but whatever. He switched to the glass of water he’d been given and tried for answers.

“So who are you?”

The guy shrugged. “Different people call me different names.”

“Uh huh, must be hard for name recognition when you don’t want anyone to know you exist.”

“My mother told me the same thing. I’ve been going by Red Hood for awhile.”

Roy frowned. There were a few times he’d helped Dick out and that name had popped up. He was pretty sure it was the name Joker went by before going, well, batshit. Only a large amount of guts or small amount of intelligence could be responsible.

“You wouldn’t be the first to question it.”

“I’m sure. Why’d you pick it?”

The guy shook his head. “Long story.”

“Mhmm, then why’d you save my sorry ass?”

“That’s not how I’d describe it, and you deserve better. I kinda know a thing or two about never measuring up in a mentor’s view.”

Roy tilted his head. “Is that so?”

“Uh, yeah.” Red Hood went to rub the back of his neck and knocked his hood off. With a better view, he looked familiar in a way Roy couldn’t place.

“So why’d you really save me?”

“I wasn’t planning to, but it seems everyone got caught in legal tape. I think the only reason they kept you there was to get something in exchange for ‘graciously’ letting you live. They weren’t moving fast enough in my opinion.”

“You think I’m gonna buy that? You’ve stayed off everyone’s radar just to get involved now?”

“Fine. You did something for me that was small for you but meant a lot to me. I’m paying you back.”

Roy didn’t buy it, but the last explanation sounded the closest to the truth. He was given the option to stay until he was back to full strength. The guy probably didn’t save him just to kill him so Roy stayed. The home cooked meals were heavenly after the crap he’d been eating for the past year. The house was on the beach and far away from the rest of the world.

The first week was tense. Roy was probably to blame. Hood took his mask off after a few days and called Roy by his real name which unsettled Roy for awhile. There were little things that rung bells that Roy couldn’t place. He watched Hood sometimes discreetly sometimes blatantly. The scent blockers coming off were as much as a shock as the omega scent that followed. Hood started to make more sense.

Roy slowly got back into training. Everything had taken a hit so he had to work back to where he’d been before. He tried pushing himself once then was knocked down by Hood. The scolding was from concern so Roy let Hood come up with his recovery routine as long as he got to watch Hood do his workout.

Sparring came two weeks in. Hood always won. Roy had used every trick he could think of to win and got nowhere. That didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it. Hood’s quips were as quick as his attacks, and Roy could match him. The line between banter and flirting became blurred to the point Roy didn’t care. An omega that could beat him in a fight and took care of him was slowly becoming what he wanted. Roy just hoped it wasn’t all one sided.

It took a month and a half for them to have nightmares the same night. Late night tv kept the edge off. Roy threw one arm on the back of the couch. It landing behind where Hood was sitting meant nothing and everything. Roy wasn’t sure if it was just an inch between them or a canyon.

“What was it that I did that you felt like you owed me?” The question had been at the back of his mind for awhile. His nightmare and the silence pushed it forward.

Hood leaned into his arm some. “You gave me your number.”

“I think I would remember giving my number to someone as pretty as you.” Roy let his hand drop onto Hood’s shoulder and toy with the loose thread.

“I wasn’t an omega then, and I was fourteen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Roughly twenty one.”

“Roughly?” Roy frowned. Seven years ago he would have been running with the original Titans. He’d given his number to plenty of people.

“You said I could call you whenever I needed to rant about family and you’d tell me embarrassing stories until I felt better.”

Roy’s hand stopped moving. He remembered that conversation. There hadn’t been any calls because that kid died. Roy had visited his grave, but all the little things he noticed made sense if the guy he kinda had an arm around was Dick’s kid brother. He certainly wasn’t a kid anymore.

“Jason? How?”

The fear mixed into the omega’s scent pulled at Roy’s heart. He knew that kind of fear. Fear of a rejection that was sure to happen, that had maybe happened already. It was a fear Roy had become all too familiar with. He hated it, especially coming from the person who’d been looking out for him.

“It’s okay. I believe you. You don’t have to tell me specifics, but I want to know what happened if you can tell me.” Roy pulled Jason close and kept his arms around him.

“I don’t really know. I just woke up with all my injuries still there and six feet of dirt above me. Talia found me and took me in. Ra’s was interested then grew bored. She put me in the Lazarus Pit so he wouldn’t do something. Ra’s was pissed. I presented a couple hours later. Talia thinks that’s because the Pit fixed the malnutrition. I found out about what happened while I was gone.” Jason took a deep breath. “The Pit Madness latched onto that. I was sent to some different teachers. One of them got through to me so I was able to fight off the Pit. I went back to Talia and looked after Damian until he was sent to… Gotham.”

“I don’t know what you mean about the Pit Madness.”

“Means I was more than wrathful about not being avenged and a new kid in my suit. Ducra explained some stuff about not everyone being capable of taking a life. Some people can physically do it, but the mental side could shut them down or turn them into a monster. It made sense. He’s never been exactly mentally healthy.”

“You were missed. I saw it almost ruin Dick and heard about what it did to Bruce. Hell, we talked like three times, and I missed you. You were mourned and still are being grieved, Jay.” Roy pulled Jason into his neck and ran a hand through his hair. He’d wanted to repay him but not like this.

“I tried to go back, but they wouldn’t listen. One whiff of my scent and they started screaming at me how it was a horrible joke and I was an awful person for even thinking of doing that. They wouldn’t listen. They ordered me to leave and never come back. I can’t even see Damian now.”

Roy held onto him tightly and bit back his growl. An alpha’s order was near impossible for their pup to ignore. Grief made people do stupid things, but the logic and evidence run Bats shouldn’t have been that stupid.

“I can kidnap Dick and force him to listen to you.”

Jason shook his head and buried deep into Roy’s neck. The quiet sobs and tears hurt worse than any knife or bullet. Roy didn’t know how to fix that so he held him together while Jason fell apart.

The tv droned on about nothing.

[rosesareviolentlyread]

WIJ Day 9: Choice

Third prompt I did today! I kinda..I went hard. Boy has this been a trial by fire of relearning to write, but it’s best I guess to just get all my jitters out now? Who knows, not me! This is a modern magic world heavily inspired by @0idril0 and @whumpywhumper‘s Nico & Markus/Lucien series respectively. Okay promise I’ll like...figure out another way to credit you guys now, so I stop spamming your notifications. ANYWAYS. Meet Adam, our (slightly himbo) caretaker as he attempts to buy clothes

CW: Self-blame, toxic family, slight religious whump, vaguely panic attack, anxiety

The cream henley feels not quite soft, but not scratchy either, a weave with texture that grabs his skin and reminds him of the present, the friction that exists between whatever today is and whatever tomorrow will be. There is a thicker, weightier warmth to it, one that reminds him of how long it's been since he’s been held by another person. Adam’s fingers trace wooden buttons, enjoying the calm feeling of grain under his fingers, wishing he’d at least brought something to whittle the while away. But it feels wrong, to enjoy it, to enjoy the way it clings to his shoulders, hiding the musculature gained in his desire to build something for all he’s lost. 

Frustrated he pulls it off, throws it on the ‘maybe’ pile that’s growing by the moment. He grabs the next one swung over the door by the shop girl that had looked a little too closely, too attentively at the threadbare shirt, the paint plastered jeans, with interest. Eyes always looked interested, even if he knew the story wasn’t written on his skin, on his face. But it felt like they were still there, baring his life like an open book for all to see. 

Adam wonders how much longer he’ll be able to hide from their judgement for the consequences of his actions. Or if it’s worse than knowing His judgement.

He shoves the thought out of his mind, pulling a blue henley over his head. It’s some kind of jersey, thinner than the last, but this one is smooth, slipping through his hands and over his skin like warm water. There’s no pattern to it, but cool metal buttons bring a kind of polished finish. Simple, and barely there, it’s a balm to his skin that itches with indecision. 

Because he can’t fucking decide. If he’s honest, every shirt that’s fit and isn’t the one sweater that truly itched (who made scratchy sweaters and more importantly, who bought them? Adam’s surely feeling a bit masochistic right now, but not like that) has gone into the ‘maybe’ pile a growing heap as the girl working the shop practically throws one of every piece of inventory at him. 

Adam’s been sitting in here, pulling shirts and jeans and cardigans and belts on and off and he doesn’t know what to do. About anything. 

He hates that it was a relief when the nurse suggested he go get some air. When she asked if he had anything more ‘put together’ to wear, a warning more direct than the squinted eyes and furrowed brows from Faiths’ doctors. He doesn’t blame them. Who would fucking trust a twenty-six year old with medical decisions when he shows up wearing jeans more sawdust than denim, and a threadbare shirt held together by flecks of epoxy, spackle, and paint? Who would think the kid who’d blindly believed his sister was fine, was just on some spiritual journey when she was in fact being tortured in a basement had any right to make those decisions? 

Who thought Adam could make any decision in his life that didn’t result in pain and disaster?

“Um...Adam? Are you alright in there? Can I grab you more sizes or-” Her excited tones have slowly developed more questions, more tight lilted worry as time and clothing piles grew.

“F-fine. Just...thinking. Um, got any boots to go with this?” The happy chirp in her voice, the promise of a big commission back, and once again Adam feels the weight of someone else on his shoulders. On his decisions. On the way he’ll make or break this girl’s day if he can just choose something. But even that doesn’t help the questions that run unbidden through his mind until he feels like he can’t breathe.

Is the cream too thick? Sure, it’s cold here, layers of snow still blanketing the ground. And his sister’s hospital room is freezing (or is it just the way his blood ran cold seeing her so small, so inhuman buried in a coffin of tubes, wires, and blankets), but he’s worried he’ll be too comfortable, that he’ll fall asleep. That Faith’ll wake up and he won’t even get the chance to beg for forgiveness before she has them throw him out? 

And what if Fee doesn’t like the white, the newness, the purity that probably reminds her too much of whatever that fuck did to her? What if she doesn’t like blue? Wait, does Fee like blue? Or is that her least favorite color? He can’t remember.

What if Fee hates blue, and it only reminds her more of how much she should hate him?

What if blue is her favorite color, and when she wakes up to him wearing a blue shirt he ruins that forever for her? Ruins yet another thing forever for her, anymore than he’s ruined their family, their sibling bond, Faith’s entire life?

It’s only the feeling of boxes being shoved under the door, until they cut into the backs of his heels that makes Adam realize he’s swaying, blood rushing in his ears as the air seems to rush out of the room. 

“I threw in a few size variations since some of these run differently! Let me know if you need any in another size!” 

Another size, another option, another decision he’ll have to make and Adam just wants to curl up and disappear. To walk out into the snow falling down and fall apart, pieces of him drifting off into white nothing until he melts into the earth. He came to this shop to disappear, disappear from the judging eyes and the silent accusations that come from the hissing of Faith’s breath controlled by a machine, the nurses that care for her, the doctors that stitch back together whatever is left, and all he can do for Fee is sit there and sign the forms until she wakes up and throws him out.

But isn’t that what he deserves? He tells himself he made his choices out of good intentions. That he’d stayed silent in hopes that cooler heads would prevail. That he didn’t answer her text because he was worried whatever he said would make things worse. That he believed she was just trying to lay low as things went to hell, that she’d come back to him when she was ready. 

How is he supposed to choose how to fix things, to figure out what’s best, to rationalize any decision when everything he’s tried to do has led to this?

When your sins have all been paved in good intentions, what good do intentions have anymore?

“Hey Adam! I’m about to go off shift, do you want me to hand you off to a coworker or…?”

Dressed in what feels like the emperor’s new clothes, Adam gathers up the entire ‘maybe’ pile, a box of whatever shoes he figures he can lean down and pray in, and heads to the register, trailing a bubbly shop girl and the indecision that gave him a moment of respite. 

The only decision Adam is sure of, is he’s lost the right to think his opinion in any of this matters. No, his soul is forfeit for all he hasn’t done, and the only thing he can hope is that he can give whatever is left of it to his sister, to make up for his part in Faith’s hell. 

He walks out of the store with probably a week’s worth of clothes, enough that he can not leave Fee’s side for as long as she needs. The winter air weathers his face, salt encrusting leather and new shoe soles, but it’s fine. They were soiled the moment they touched him. Even though his breath lingers in white curling strands as he walks, he doesn’t let himself, quickening the pace.

There is no way but forward, and Adam has no right to ask for forgiveness from the sins of the past, only to beg for a chance to give Faith a future free of them. 

Tags: @bleedingandfeverish @sableflynn @starry-whump @whumpmasinjuly (let me know if you want to be added or removed from the tag list!)

[karenpage]

Frank meets Karen’s dad: How does it go?

@sail-not-drift

Vermont’s cold. Not New York street cold but bone-chilling, freeze your ass off, cold. Jack Frost’s got his claws dug in deep and shit, shit just breathing hurts out here, like his lungs are filling up on ice and it burns on the way in as much as it does when he exhales. Plumes of steam from Frank’s breath hang around his face, squinting through it as the sun mocks, glares off the snow and does absolutely nothing to warm him. Even dressed in black, in fifteen god damned layers, Frank Castle would rather be holed up in the Syrian desert with IEDs and mortar fire.

He knows what to do with war, at least. With the hot stink of death and rot and the way it clotted with bloodied sand until he spat it out, a fire-fights quick-dry cement.

He has no fucking idea what to do here.

Fagan Corners is small enough to spit across and the buildings look tired, sagging from decades of exposure to the elements - the trees are sparse near the town’s center, and there aren’t mountains close enough to shield the worst of the wind. It kicks up, Frank swears in a gruff whisper, but the snow crunching under his boots drowns it out. Not that he’d really try and complain. He knows that his five-minute tactical assessment of Karen’s hometown doesn’t give him any sort of advantage headed into the unknown.

They’re walking, her hand wrapped in his and shoved into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. He’s a little less cold when he’s focused, zoned in until the world has fallen away except for the clear-cut path. The plan. The mission.

Some kids pass them, huddled around a cell-phone and laughing at some dumb YouTube crap, but Karen startles when they shove on by. Like their joy is gunfire and so Frank just holds her closer. He doesn’t know shit about her, about her past; not like his, which has been dug up, exploited, given a post-mortem so every dumb son of a bitch who’d watched a War Documentary can chime in on what he went through.

Think they know him. Not like Karen does, she’d seen the ugly, the blood the gore, the grief and he wonders if it’s love or collateral. How you get to be this close to someone as damaged as he is and not get some part of you hooked, broken off. Shrapnel buried deeper than even a seasoned Marine knew how to dig out.

Shit though, what he knows about Karen can be measured in the hand that holds hers all the same.

She’s remained a mystery in that, holed up in the bunker of her ache and Frank’s patient. He’d wait until she gave him anything. Wouldn’t pry it from her, wouldn’t make demands.

And when Karen had asked him three weeks ago to go home… he’d made a fool of himself, stumbling over his words just to say yeah, of course.

So here they are, in the trenches and he’s going in blind.

Karen’s been leading him around town, quiet, occasionally commenting on landmarks that meant something to her, from her childhood. The only movie theater where some fumbling freshman boy had tried to get her bra off in the middle of Armageddon. Or the curb she’d fallen off, twisted her ankle, and the ice cream shop across the street from it her mom took her to every day that summer because she couldn’t go swimming with Kevin or her friends.

Frank nods, smiling a little; it’s slow. The Thaw. But she’s coming around when they pass the post-office and the corkboard outside is tacked with article clippings from the High School’s newspaper - Karen had written for them, her first real journalistic endeavor.

“Had a knack for it, huh?” His voice is rough from disuse and Karen just smiles at him crookedly, using her free hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“I guess. It earned me a spot at Georgetown, studied English.” She kicks some snow, watches it melt on contact with the heated fender of a parked car. Frank nods - didn’t know that, either. Makes sense, honestly, he’d read every article she’d put out at the Bulletin and each one was better than the last.

Won’t tell her that the one she’d written about him was taped to the inside of his lunchbox, or how worn the edges of the paper were from running his fingers over it.

More walking, more small talk.

They stop for coffee - Karen says it wasn’t a Starbucks fourteen years ago and yeah, there’s modernization on the edge of the old town. Or an attempt at it. Orders his black, the barista looks at him like that’s a Capitol Offense.

“It’s Vermont. They think salt is spicy,” she reminds him, stirring some cinnamon and nutmeg into her cup. No sweetener, and when she catches the confused look etched onto Frank’s mug she blushes. “– it tastes good. Shut up.”

He just ducks his head, hiding the amusement in his eyes and wrinkling his nose as he chokes down his drink.

Now her hand in his is shaking, her palm is clammy and he takes no offense when she draws it away, wipes it off on her thigh and reaches for him again, filling the empty spaces between his fingers with practiced ease.

Their path turns off from the pavement, and gravel gives way when they step off the sidewalk and turn down an unmarked road. At the end, a white and blue building with a sign that’s barely intact, ‘Penny’s Diner’. Eviction notices, ugly red tape that says condemned, paper the sides of it, but Karen’s unflinching.

As if part of her had expected exactly that.

Frank’s just a guard dog, got his leash caught between his teeth as he trails warily behind Karen - she knows the way, so it makes objective sense that he falls to her six. Doesn’t mean he likes letting her go anyplace before him. It’s tactical training, and something else. Felt that obligation gnaw at the back of his skull: gotta keep her safe.

What place is safer than some sleepy little town in the heart of Vermont?

Circling around back, a mailbox with Page scrawled in a child’s handwriting marks the start of a dirt driveway, curling behind an outcropping of pine trees. Stoic, blue-green soldiers hiding the modest house behind them.

Karen stops about halfway, her eyes wet with tears but there’s a stubbornness to it, like she’s got something to prove by setting her jaw, sniffling, and carrying on. She won’t let them fall. But Frank’s ready to wipe them away if they do all the same.

Frank hangs back a little, lets her climb the three stairs, lets her open the screen and – the moment, the beat, the breath before her knuckles rap against the blue front door. Robin’s egg blue, he thinks, and when Karen turns to look at him, motioning with her chin for him to join her, he realizes that this blue, much like the blue of the diner, is the same color as her eyes.

He swallows and soldiers forward, steps heavy, the wood of the deck groans underneath his added weight.

He’s alert, eyes narrowed, jumping to tally every movement around them. A squirrel rushes out of the bushes, climbs the little picket fence jutting out of the side of the house, and disappears. Frank shifts his weight from foot to foot - there’s movement inside the house, but no one answers the door.

It’s quiet after that in the way that nature is, makes Frank’s palms itch.

Birds chatter and the needly fingers of the spruce trees sway with every angry gust of wind. Some brush across the roof, others just tangle with their neighbor and catch the first few raindrops before they hit the tops of their heads. Fat, cold, the kind of rain that’s not yet snow but it’s trying to be.

“We should go,” Karen’s teeth chatter, the rain picks up so he holds her tight - the thin lip of an awning over the front door keeps them dry, but only just.

Frank wraps his arms around her shoulders, looks over them, where the blinds part and a pair of eyes watches - disappearing as soon as they’re spotted.

Son of a bitch.

“Nah, see… see you did the right thing. You came here, an’ no matter what he said it is your home. You have that right.” His is ashes. Red edges in on the perimeter of his vision and he only holds Karen that much tighter, keeps the tide of his rage at bay.

Karen sniffs, he knows that she’s crying but he won’t add insult to injury by commenting on it. He strokes his fingers through the edge of her hair and then, with one hand stroking up and down her back, he balls the other into a fist and pounds on that door again.

“Know you’re in there,” a growl.

Karen draws away, looks up at him to hurriedly whisper, “Frank what are you doing–”

The door swings open and Paxton’s staring them down, well, if the shock that washes over Karen’s face tells him anything - it’s what’s left of the man she’d known as her dad.

Frank’s stomach churns; what he wouldn’t give to have his child at the door. What he wouldn’t give to even see Lisa or Frankie again. He swallows down the hot bile rising up the back of his throat and stares Karen’s father down.

“Karen I -” his words are slow, slurred. A drunk. She flinches visibly and Frank’s upper lip curls. “I told you not to come.”

“Yeah, yeah you did.” But she doesn’t care, that much is obvious and despite the tension and painful discomfort of the situation, Frank feels just a little bit of pride. Atta girl. “But the thing is, Dad, the thing is you pushed me away. Shut me out and – I was alone, in New York. I found people and I kept going but you took away my right to mourn and I’ve spent over a decade trying to figure out how to let all this… all this loneliness, out of me. But I come home, I come home and you’ve just drunk it all away. Mom died, and you did nothing. Kevin died and you were all I had left, I was all you had and and —”

She has to stop, Paxton hasn’t moved, hasn’t reacted aside from the hand on the doorframe beginning to shake. Frank won’t rule that out as a byproduct of the vodka on his breath, though. His own fingers tighten against the back of Karen’s shirt. An anchor to keep him from lashing out.

Her dad just – he moves to shut the door and without thinking, Frank shoves his arm out, the pain of it being caught between the heavy wood and metal frame doesn’t bother him in the least.

Karen’s turned away, rushed down the short flight of stairs to cry freely, he wouldn’t fault her for an inch of her mile-long hurt.

Frank doesn’t get it, so he’s got Paxton’s sweat-stained shirt balled up between the white of his fisted knuckles and he draws him forward, speaks in that snarled, low rumble that makes his whole frame radiate rage.

“See, I don’t get you.” Spittle catches on the corner of his lip, “Both my kids… both of them. They were taken from me and shit– shit I made sure the people responsible paid for it. I hunted them down like animals. ‘Cuz they were. They were animals but they’re all dead now and I don’t feel better. Doesn’t… didn’t bring them back an’ I’m not sorry for what I’ve done but they were monsters, you see? They … they were bad people who did bad things. But you..” Frank shakes his head, shaking Paxton by the hold he has on him.

“You lost your son and it was a tragedy. There is nothing that takes away the hurt of having to bury your flesh and blood. Buying a tombstone for your baby is the worst kinda hell there is but you – you lost one kid and threw the other one away and I get it. I get… I get that you blame her and shit I’d have been just as angry but the thing is.. The thing is, is that people screw up and people like Karen? They hold that coal in their hand for the rest of their life. She’s done good, she’s… she’s saved lives, you know? And you chose not to be a part of that. I don’t get … Karen’s the best thing okay? The best thing to happen to me since… since all the good was taken from me. And she asked me to come here because shit, maybe she though havin’ me around would make her brave but she’s always been braver than me. Karen sees the shit she’s done and holds herself accountable. I just try and lock it up. Try and keep me separate and you know what.” Those last three words are grit out, caught on his teeth so he throws Paxton down, kicking the door the rest of the way open as he scrambles backward on his hands and heels, reaching for the phone.Frank grabs it out of his hands, rips it out of the wall, “No. No I’m not gonna do nothin’ and you’re not gonna call the cops on me or Karen and you’re gonna wallow.” He kneels, looks that man right in the eyes, the vein in his jaw twitching, “You’re gonna spend the rest of your days knowing that you missed out. That you had … you had a chance to be a good man. A good father and you let your hate win out. Now listen to me–” He ducks his head, can hear Karen rush back up out of fear - he won’t hurt Paxton Page. As god as his witness he wanted to, wanted to beat the miserable slump into a bloody pulp but he can’t do that to Karen.

“We’re gonna leave. And you’re gonna forget we came. You’re gonna make a choice. Either rot in your god damned filth, drink the rest of yourself away. Or you’re gonna… you’re gonna get help. Because the shit that happens to us ain’t our fault but what you do.. What you do with what you’re given is. If you decide to get your shit together. If you choose to live. You can beg Karen to maybe forgive you, and I maybe won’t put a bullet in your head.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, doesn’t want to hear what he’d have to say. Frank stands, feels Karen reach for him.

Two hands.

“Let’s go home,” her voice is even and despite the tears in her eyes, Karen’s offering Frank a weak smile.

And they do. They leave.

Karen tells him, her head on his shoulder as they pull out of the Essex station; the train humming to life underneath them… tells him, “No one’s ever put my da–Paxton Page in his place before. It was…. Did you mean what you said to him?” Like she can’t really believe it. 

That she is anyone’s Best Thing.“Every word.”

[pilferingapples]

Beeble Mis Episode 4 Part 2a: Marius and Some Guys

Part One, focusing on Cosette’s side of the story, Here 

  Again, this is not gonna be a Happy or especially Orderly Recap; I’ve seen this once and this is as much for my own processing/sorting as anything. Episode Four starts with Cosette as a teenager in the convent, and ends pretty much right after the Gorbeau raid. So that’s our …framing set of events, here, because I have no idea what year it is or how much time any of this is supposed to be taking?  

This section covers the Marius-focused path of events.

ANYWAY HERE WE GO, under the cut for abuse, domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, weird incest vibes, discussions of lots of things and me probably cursing a lot!  There is a LOT going on in this one!  So much that I’m actually gonna try cutting it into two parts, a Cosette Recap/Reaction post and a Marius Recap/Reaction post! here’s ...well, here’s some things that sure did happen with Marius.  A warning: at times, this show has caused me to resort to ...sarcasm. 

...remember when the Pontmercy parts of this series were really good? We’ll take a brief scene in remembrance of that, as Marius prays at church, and then stops and helps an old church warden to stand up from where he’d kneeled to pray.  Mabeuf-- FOR INDEED IT IS HE-- then proceeds to tell Marius about a poor man who’d sit behind that pillar riiiight over there, and watch his child who he was never allowed to see because of family arrangements. Marius in a gloriously Pontmercy moment, fails to see how this is relevant to himself and tries to go Cool Story Bro and zoom on out. BUT WAIT! That Poor Man was...COLONEL PONTMERCY! Yes, Marius, he was your father! 

...and then, okay, then I really have to protest. Because what follows isn’t about Mabeuf telling Marius how much Georges loved him; it’s about how BRAVE Georges was , and what a great fighter he was. And then there’s sort of a montage scene of Marius finding more evidence of Georges’  bravery, and this is why he comes to admire his father, because his father was Super Brave and Tough, and then he just charges all in and yells at Gillenormand for keeping him from knowing his father and slandering Georges’ name--all of which Gillenormand absolutely did!- and then there’s the WELL THEN LEAVE THIS HOUSE WELL FINE I WILL conflict, which feels less dramatic when Marius looks like he’s 30 (update, I checked, this actor is 28) than if he’s a teenager, and I don’t know how old anyone is because what is pacing or a timeline, Beeble Mis doesn’t know. Nicolette, who’s the current Best Person in the Gillenormand House and Maybe In This Episode, chides her boss (!!!) for his behavior, and Gillenormand is like “eeeeh he’ll get over it” , because Marius is a hot blooded teenager, or else he’s fifty, WE DON’T KNOW. WHAT YEAR IS IT. 

A Digression:  

Georges is Very Brave, but what MATTERS to Marius, what really melts his heart about his dad, and gives Marius the determination to turn against Gillenormand, is that Georges loved him , loved Marius, deeply, when Marius feels that he has never been loved. That’s  what matters to him; if Georges had been a Bonapartist gardener, Marius would have been obsessed with gardening. He falls for the military glory because that’s what brings him closer to the one person who loved him.  It’s not the other way around! 

 And I think that speaks to a real flaw at the center of this series; it doesn’t  believe love can change people,it doesn’t think love is really important at all. It believes in anger, and in obsession, and in Fighting, and in pride and hate and guilt. But the idea of love--actual love--as something that people live and die for, it’s not on with that. And that is genuinely the whole soul of the story; that love is what we need to change the world, love on a personal and societal level, that it rescues and heals and is worth  agony and even death.  Anyone who doesn’t get that just can’t get this story-- and I really think this series does not  get that. It makes love the also-ran in so many ways, and that guts every character but the very worst, and it guts the story. 

End Digression. 

Anyway, Marius stomps out of the house, and Why Not, he’s like 30 , he can live on his own, and he goes to find lodgings with Courfeyrac in tow. (Also, apparently Marius knows Courfeyrac already, and very well.) They’re heading to the Gorbeau house , and they pass Eponine and Azelma on the way; Courfeyrac sees them and calls them “home comforts” and Marius, unfortunately correctly, tells him he’s disgusting, to which Courfeyrac laughs and says he knows. 

(A Parenthesis: Courfeyrac is, to be sure, a sexually active young man who is unabashed about his own and others’ sexuality. He sees women as potential lovers and comments on their looks. Yes, Courfeyrac Fucks. Yes, he is a horny college kid.  This is true; and a modern or more mature reader might wish that, ideally, he was a bit less objectifying about it. BUT : Courfeyrac, in the novel, is expressly disinterested in underage, badly-dressed Cosette. He has some standards , and “starving ragged barely-teens” don’t meet them.  This is, sadly, relevant to future developments. End Parenthesis.)

Marius takes the Gorbeau apartment and then goes with Courfeyrac to meet up with the other Amis, all three and a half of them!-- Enjolras The Badly Goatee’d,  Grantaire, and also theoretically Bossuet is there! It’s okay, we can all forget about that, he’s barely on camera and has no important lines!  Apparently they all know each other already! Marius announces his change of political allegiance to Bonapartist Democrat and everyone kind of rolls their eyes AS THEY SHOULD , but Enjolras(?!?) interjects to say that BONAPARTE FOUGHT FOR THE REPUBLIC, BEFORE HE BETRAYED IT, and then speaks on a bit and god y’all, this is how badly this show is written: I don’t give a damn, I can’t be bothered to remember what else the BBCAmis said. ME. I DON’T CARE  ABOUT THE POLITICAL DISCUSSION.  It’s all buried under in the rampant sexism and disastrous pacing and characterization choices. Beardjolras gets Combeferre’s To Be Free line. I cannot overstress how little I Care. #Not My Amis, #Not My Historical Political Discussions.  

...Annnnd I’m cutting this in two parts here, because it’s gonna be at least a couple thousand words altogether and this is not even close to the worst part. 

[sokalenko]

What I Wish My Father Had Taught Me About Fishing

Forty-odd years ago, while aboard a fishing boat with my father on Long Island Sound, I felt a pull on my line like none I’d ever felt before. And then another. And another still. The wild world had hit my line with all its abundance. I reeled hard and with a crazy swing I swept my multi-hooked rig loaded with five big mackerel in a wide arc over the rail until the whole bloody mess landed with a chaotic thud. I had no care about what I would do with all these fish that I had killed in one haul. Whether I would eat them or bury them in the garden or feed them to my mother’s cat. What mattered was that I had caught them and they were all mine. Except for one, which had gone missing.

“Wait,” I said kneeling down and searching the deck. “Where’s the fifth mackerel?”

“It’s right here,” my father replied from a crouching position he’d assumed in vain to avoid the bombardier-mackerel in my wild swing. “It’s here in my back.”

I followed my line to its end and saw that the fifth mackerel, along with a large silver lure, was indeed impaled in my father’s shoulder. He’d ducked, but I’d nailed him all the same.

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Just tell the mate to come over and take the hook out.”

This Father’s Day I find myself thinking of this scene because it pretty much sums up the haphazard way dads taught their kids to fish back when the natural world seemed rich, no matter how poor it was fast becoming. In my case it was my parents’ divorce that started the process. My father was a hard-working doctor of the late Mad Men era who logged long hours away from home. Many of the details of how to keep children productively occupied were alien to him. When he suddenly found himself with court-allotted divorced dad weekends on his hands and hours of child time to fill, he fell upon fishing like a thirsty man on an oasis. And in his little red Dodge Omni we would range the coast of Long Island, his one-piece surfcasting pole lashed to the luggage rack like a knight errant’s lance.

During these times I learned from him the basics: how to cast that mighty fishing rod of his, tie a lure to a line, jam a hook down the gullet of a sandworm. But learning to fish is not so much about one person teaching another a set of skills. Rather, it is the directing of a child to observe the ways in which nature works.

After each divorced dad weekend, when I returned to my more permanent home with my single mom in her little Connecticut rental cottage, I would seek out fish-filled water at every opportunity. Like some kind of latter-day Huck Finn, I’d hop fences to trespass on various backwoods estates and to follow rivers as they braided and splayed out on their way to the sea. I came to understand how trout take cover in the slack water behind boulders, saving their energy for the critical moment of the hunt. At the seaside, I learned that the first blooming of forsythia in springtime signaled the right temperature for winter flounder to rouse themselves from the mud. Standing chest deep in summer surf, I figured out that a brighter Moon hid the fish-spooking effects of the luminescent plankton bouncing against my line. And in the fall, I mimicked nature; tempting striped bass with the eels they naturally encountered on their migration from saltwater to fresh. Eventually, I acquired my own boat and began feeling my way around Long Island Sound’s shores alone, coming to understand the bottom topography and the flow of species in and out of that great embayment.

This was how I came to learn the scientific method. I formulated a hypothesis about a fish and its hunting behavior. I tested out my hypothesis with an experiment—a choice of anchorage, a retrieve speed for my lure, the calculation of a given depth. I then published my results in the form of fillets for the freezer. No small wonder that E. O. Wilson, Carl Safina, and many of the world’s greatest naturalists have told me of similar experiences. Through fishing, a child learns the way the world works, fish-by-fish. A more serious study of biology and ecology are natural next steps. And I can thank my father from the bottom of my heart for setting me on a course that led to a global study of fish and fisheries that is now the center of my career.

There was, however, one serious flaw in my fishing methods, something I could have discussed with my father, a psychiatrist by profession, had I thought to ask. It is, in a word, denial: the pernicious tendency of men and women (and boys and girls) to downplay or dismiss the effect “sport fishing” might have upon the greater world.

For in the modern era, when boys and girls go fishing they are not Huck Finn on a raft dipping a knotty string and a rusty hook into the water in hopes of a random bite. Today, even the smallest child can fish with technology the likes of which Huck Finn could only dream: fluorocarbon fishing lines made of polymers that render the line invisible to even the keenest of fish eyes, graphite rods capable of whipping a lure farther than rods of previous generations, sonar that plumbs every cranny of the seafloor for fishy habitat.

That I did real damage with all this newly emergent angling technology is undeniable. I can remember an evening in Martha’s Vineyard when my father dropped me off at a beach where the weakfish were so thick I could hear them rumbling, making croaking noises with their swim bladders. By the end of the night I had beached six fish—lilac and yellow on capture, dull and gray upon death. We ate, maybe, one. The rest I sold to a fishmonger for five bucks. This spectacular run of weakfish occurred for three years. Then it stopped. The same fishmonger who’d paid me a pittance for my catch later told me that weakfish had been spotted off western Africa and that clearly they had migrated to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing had occurred. Weakfish don’t cross oceans—my fellow fishermen and I had brought about a local extirpation.

This would also happen to the mackerel in Long Island Sound. Catching one at a time rarely happens in those waters now, let alone five. And when the forsythia bloom in April, very few flounder come out of the mud. They’re so scarce in Long Island waters that scientists at Stony Brook University have found evidence of inbreeding—flounders are clinging to existence by breeding with their cousins. And lest the sport fishermen blame fish declines on rampages of the commercial sector, they need only look at the numbers. Today, the sport take of striped bass, arguably the most popular recreational fishing quarry in the United States, is more than double the commercial take, a situation that seriously imperils the fish’s future survival.

This weighs heavily on me as Father’s Day comes around and I debate whether or not to teach my own son how to fish. What I learned about nature from killing fish was profound and immeasurable. But there is not enough slack left in the world for such behavior. No room for figuring things out at the expense of other lives. And so anyone contemplating bringing another angler into the world must, by definition, consider the state of the world beyond the tip of the child’s pole.

The child you teach to fish must come to the pastime knowing the consequences of killing. The unknowing child may want to kill, for example, a really big fish, a so-called “trophy.” But trophy fish are the most reproductively important fish and, in spite of every instinct screaming to the contrary, more often than not, the big ones need to get away. Indeed, some progressive states have responded to this very sound scientific principle and established “slot limits” for fish that are big enough to have bred once, but not so big that they are critical to the endurance of the species.

Once again, letting a big fish go is a practice that must be taught and not simply learned. And it goes strongly against instinct. Yet, even if adopted, catch and release itself can cause problems. Holding a fish up for a trophy photo before it is released could have consequences we’re unaware of, but we do know something as simple as touching a fish’s skin while letting it go abrades its disease-resisting mucous making it prone to infection. These and other factors contribute to the truly shocking fact that, depending on the species and fishing gear employed, as many as one-third of all fish caught and released on traditional fishing tackle may die and not live to “fight another day” as many fishermen implausibly claimed in my youth. Yes, there are new technologies that mitigate death. There are now barbless hooks as well as “circle hooks” that lodge in a fish’s jaw rather than its gut. Both greatly improve a fish’s chances of survival. And there are “descending devices” that help return deep water fish to the correct depth thus reversing potentially fatal barotrauma that distends a fish’s organs when it is hauled up from great depth.

But even with proper release techniques, slot limits, circle hooks, and descending devices, we will still need to change our behavior by limiting what the commercial fishing sector calls “fishing effort.” In fishing, like in life, there are good days and there are bad days. And because of the increasing number of bad days in the present era, fishermen tend to keep on fishing if they happen upon a run of good luck. Even those who practice catch-and-release angling are guilty of this habit. “If I’m not killing anything,” they reason, “why should I stop?” But as the marine conservationist Carl Safina wrote me recently, “Fish are not made to have hooks in their mouths. So if we hurt these animals, we need to have a better reason than ‘just because.’” To catch something from the wild and use it for our food is, to my mind, justifiable. To torture it for amusement is not.

So perhaps it’s time to rethink fishing. No one says that a fishing trip need only be about fishing; there are other things to learn while bobbing in a boat with your kids. We can teach our children to learn the lexicon of seabirds that still plunge into the ocean’s depths, or wonder at the whales and dolphins and seals that are much more common off American shores now than when I was a child—thanks to laws that prevent their destruction. Quiet observation is a good skill to learn. And, if all else fails to amuse them, a fishing trip could wrap up after the evening’s meal has been procured. In the end, it might be better to kill and go home rather than endlessly catch and release.

[chiseler]

DARREN McGAVIN, MAN OUT OF TIME

Although Darren McGavin’s six decade career in movies and television carried him into the twenty-first century, his face and voice never changed in all those years, and they were a face and voice that somehow escaped the era in which they belonged. The more performances I see, especially later in his career, the more it occurs to me he was a man trapped in time, but who had somehow conned his way over the transom decade after decade without anyone noticing. Like so many great character actors from the Thirties and Forties, no matter the  role—reporter, judge, general, doctor, cowboy—he was always just himself in a different costume, with the same subdued physicality, the same gestures and tics, a way of moving his head as if everything was a double-take, the same mildly-stammered delivery, and eyes that were less sad than resigned. In a Hollywood increasingly populated with “stars who are all but impossible to distinguish from one another, his tough features were both wide-eyed and sly, world-weary and innocent, but an innocence maintained despite circumstance and history. He had the face, it’s often occurred to me, of a more expressive Buster Keaton, or a Lee Tracy who’d been beaten with a lead pipe a few times.

As with most kids in the early Seventies, I first became aware of McGavin (born William Lyle Richardson in 1922) through the 1972 made-for-TV movie The Night Stalker. It was there that this notion of McGavin as a man out of time was solidified in my young brain, and deliberately so. Although on the surface a contemporary horror film about hardboiled investigative reporter Carl Kolchak chasing a vampire around modern-day Las Vegas, producer/director Dan Curtis made no bones about the fact it was quite consciously a throwback to the films he’d grown up with, that Kolchak was a character who dressed, spoke and acted like a character in a Thirties film regardless of his surroundings. And in fact with its blend of horror, comedy and sharp-tongued dialogue, the film plays much more like Doctor X (1932) than,,say, a Hammer film. The point was further driven home when the TB movie spawned a sequel and a short-lived series, both populated with guest stars who either made their names in the Thirties and Forties (Elisha Cook, Margaret Hamilton, John Carradine), or looked like they belonged there (John Marley, Wally Cox, Simon Oakland). The cluttered and grimy newspaper office where Kolchak works, his old Burroughs manual typewriter, and the fast-paced banter with his ever-frustrated editor could have been lifted directly from a Lee Tracy vehicle. His ever-present white seersucker suit and straw boater were merely the capper.

But let’s back up, because all this makes sense.

Although he made his screen debut with an all-but-uncredited role in 1945’s A Song to Remember, the earliest McGavin performance I’ve seen was in Alfred Zeisler’s Fear from a year later. In what amounts to a low-budget, dumbed-down and Americanized version of Crime and Punishment, a then-24-year-old McGavin plays one of a group of students trying to help a fellow medical student plagued with guilt after murdering a local loan shark. Although he only has a few lines and mostly lurks about the edges of the scenes he’s in, he is already unmistakable, even with bleach-blond hair and the standard collegiate sweater. He’s much thinner and lankier than he would be in later years, but there is already a cragginess to his features that belies his age.

Nine years later, after nearly a decade as a busy TV character actor, he came to national prominence as Louie, the cool, sinister, sharply dressed pusher in Otto Preminger’s Man With the Golden Arm. The tarnished innocence that would be as much a standard element of his m.o. as his streetwise cynicism is here buried deeply beneath an oily sheen, a wicked smirk and a pencil-thin mustache as he repeatedly lures Frank Sinatra into having another fix. What always struck me as interesting here is that although Louie is as far from the standard McGavin character as they come, he’s still a character from another era. Despite the film’s reputation at the time for being a searing, hard-hitting social drama, it remains as naive a picture as the novel it’s based on. By the mid-Fifties, Americans were well-familiar with the heroin problem,  and McGavin plays Louie like an evil cartoonish peddler from the first wave of anti-drug propaganda films which emerged two decades earlier.  

Toward the end of the Fifties, McGavin finally and fully came into his own, settling into  the solid persona he would inhabit for the next half-century. The upstanding, street-smart and tenacious cop confronting police corruption in The Case Against Brooklyn (1958) and Mickey Spillane’s two-fisted private dick in the Mike Hammer TV series (1959) were both indistinguishable from the later Carl Kolchak, minus the boater, seersucker suit and monsters.

(As a sidenote, it was interesting to see McGavin playing opposite Ralph Meeker in one scene in The Night Stalker, considering both actors were known at the time for playing Mike Hammer, a character himself who was an anachronism in many ways.)

McGavin was one of those rare character actors who could play broad comedy as easily as intense drama, and who, though having spent much of his career playing supporting roles, could easily carry the lead. The same year The Night Stalker was aired, he starred with Sandy Dennis in Something Evil, Steven Spielberg’s made-for-TV follow-up to Duel. Predating The Exorcist by a year, McGavin and Dennis star as a couple who move into an old farmhouse that’s, yes, inhabited by Satan, who does his darndest to possess the wife.

Following a mid-Seventies run in which he appeared in a good deal of made-for-TV horror, McGavin was versatile enough to avoid being typecast. Three years after the Kolchak series ended, he appeared as an aeronautics engineer opposite marine biologist Christopher Lee in the all-star disaster sequel Airport ’77, and an earnest but not humorless NASA official who finds himself overseeing the study of a crashed UFO in Hangar 18 (1980).

It was his memorable turn as the irascible, understanding, and inherently believable Old Man in Joe Clark’s enduring A Christmas Story—a film set in the 1940s, appropriately enough, and the last time I’ve heard a character utter the mild oath “rassafracken” onscreen—that McGavin entered the second phase of his career. Apart from occasional major roles in big budget action films and mid-budget crime dramas, he would spend much of the next twenty years playing testy but ultimately understanding fathers. He was Candace Bergen’s dad on Murphy Brown, Adam Sandler’s dad in some Adam Sandler comedy or another, and Lance Henrickson’s dad in the grim Chris Carter series Millennium. The latter—in which Henrickson himself was a refugee from another era—was McGavin’s second role in a Chris Carter series. Carter freely admitted Kolchak was the primary influence in the development of The X-Files, in which McGavin made a few appearances not as Kolchak and not as anyone’s dad, but as a retired Kolchak doppelganger who acts as a father figure to a new generation of investigators into strange phenomena. So even though he avoided being typecast by genre, he had a much more difficult time avoiding being typecast, simply put, as himself.

Ironically, and again it only makes sense as a man out of time, after appearing in nearly two hundred films and television shows, McGavin’s final screen appearance would be in 2008—two years after he died.

by Jim Knipfel