#we got a stinky theater kid between us | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

emybain · 5 years ago

Text

The Mall

im not gonna lie i lowkey based this off of my own (very few) experiences going to the nasty old mall in the next town over with my friends. lets just say: very worried parents, sticky atmosphere, and great people watching but also pedophiles left and right sksksks. the movie is also based on a movie I saw with friends when I was thirteen, but I saw it at the nice, trustworthy outlet mall closer to my house lmao. anyone else ever seen the boy? anyway, enjoy me projecting my awkward young teen experiences on the AU where Nova’s parents live. this is unedited as well:)

Part of the Nova’s family lives AU***

Masterpost of all my Renegades Fics

Nova was practically vibrating with happiness. She bounced up and down in the passenger seat of her mom’s car, leg jiggling in excitement. Only half paying attention to the radio, she hummed along to the music playing. Today was a new day. A breakthrough in Nova’s thirteen years of life.

For the first time ever, after countless hours and years of begging, Nova was being dropped off at the mall to hang out with her friends.

Her parents were what most would call overprotective. By this point, Nova was used to it, but it was still annoying when she had to miss out on fun activities just because Mom said no. They never even gave a clear answer when she asked why, too. It was always “Because we’re the parents and we say so,” usually followed by them telling Nova to go clean her room or entertain her siblings. Even with this new experience, Nova hadn’t been completely honest when her parents grilled her on the details. As far as they knew, Nova was just seeing a movie with a few friends and would not be venturing into the main mall. They were under the illusion that Adrian Everhart, Nova’s best friend and the only boy her parents trusted, was going to be the only male present. Not that it mattered much, anyway, seeing as Nova had expressed her attraction to girls as well at dinner one night about a year ago. Still, according to her parents, adolescent boys were trouble. All except for stupidly perfect Adrian Everhart. He was the kind of kid that everyone and their mother couldn’t help but be friends with. The kind of boy that, after leaving someone’s house, the mom would say “I always liked him. Good kid.” The same couldn't be said about Nova, his partner in crime since they were six and seven years old.

Her mom parked the car along the curb outside the movie theater entrance of the mall. Leaning back from the wheel with a heavy sigh, she looked over at Nova. “Just a movie, right?”

Nova nodded firmly, hand already reaching for the door in her hurry to escape. She could see the silhouettes of her friends, waiting in line for tickets.

“Hold on there, young lady.” Nova heard the clicking of the lock and groaned. “I want you to text me once every hour, okay? Stay with Adrian no matter what. If anything happens, call me or your father immediately.” Nova inched toward the door again, this time trying to unlock it subtly. Her mother still noticed. “Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know.”

Nova felt an evil smile creep onto her lips. “But what if they’re selling candy?”

“I mean it, Nova Jean.” She swore she saw the flash of fear in her mother’s eyes. “No funny business. You know how I feel about leaving you, and here of all places.” She gestured to the building before them. “Be on your best behavior. There are-”

“Eyes on me at all times, I know.” She rolled her eyes, thinking back to all the times those words had been repeated to her whenever she went anywhere. When she was younger, they confused her. But now, Nova knew her mom meant the media and how the older Nova got,

the more people watched her every move. After all, her family had a reputation. “Can I go now? Adrian’s already coming over here.”

Closing her eyes, Tala Artino nodded. She reached for Nova’s hand when her eyes reopened, now soft. “I love you, sweetheart, Be safe. I’ll pick you up at 10.”

“Love you too, Mom.” Reaching over, Nova pressed a kiss to her mom’s cheek. Then, she was finally allowed to exit the vehicle. Adrian, waiting outside, greeted her with a hug. Nova couldn’t help but notice his growth spurt in recent months. She had always been the short one, but there had been a time once where she didn’t have to tilt her head up to look at him. Now, her neck stretched more and more each time she saw him. She should’ve seen it coming; his mom had been tall, and he was a spitting image of her.

“Hi, Mrs. Artino.” Adrian waved as the passenger window rolled down. All traces of a stern parent vanished from her mother’s face when she waved back.

“Hi, honey. You’re going to make sure my daughter doesn’t do anything she’s not supposed to, right?”

“Mom!”

But Adrian laughed and simply nodded, putting on his dumb charming smile that won over every parent. They said bye to her mother. Nova watched until the car had disappeared from view before turning to face her friend.

“Where should we go first?”

Adrian frowned. “Are we not seeing the movie? Everyone else already has their tickets.”

“They can see it if they want.” Nova wrapped an arm around Adrian’s and pulled him forward. “But it honestly looks boring. All horror movies are the same.”

But Adrian didn’t look convinced, and while Nova wanted nothing more than to explore the mysterious place her mother hated with a passion, she could tell he wanted to see the movie. Well, the movie was only an hour and a half. And it was only 5 in the evening right now. They had plenty of time.

Nova let out a sigh, then pulled Adrian in the direction of the ticket line. “Fine, but you’re staying in line with me to buy a ticket.”

Adrian snorted. “Just as long as you sit next to me in case I get scared so I can hold your hand.” He seemed almost shy in saying that, despite trying to be nonchalant and joking. Nova glanced over at him and noticed how his cheeks and neck had darkened. A flutter twirled in her belly, but she pushed it aside. Those feelings were nothing new by now. But for whatever reason, she only felt them when she was around her best friend.

———-

“That movie was terrible!” Nova said as soon as she exited the theater with her friends. A few people glanced over at her, shooting disapproving looks before recognition dawned on their faces and their eyes flitted between her and Adrian and the linked arms between their bodies. Nova had to refrain from making faces at them, remembering her mother’s warnings.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Ramona said with an eye roll. “At least it wasn’t the same as every other horror movie.” Ramona was a Renegade, like Nova and Adrian. She had been chosen by Nova at the last trials a few months before to be a part of her team. Usually, the Council didn’t let the younger Renegades participate in the trials other than to watch, but they gave Nova an exemption at the ripe age of thirteen. Why, she wasn’t fully sure, especially when Adrian’s dads were on the Council and still wouldn’t let him create his. She suspected her parents had a bit of a pull in that, as well as the Council recognizing the amount of time Nova put in every day for the organization. After all, she was dedicated to righting the wrongs her uncle had done in the past. Her team couldn’t do much anyway. Patrols were too dangerous, so they were forced to stick to duties inside headquarters, something that quickly grew boring but at least helped Nova’s team bond.

Benton, Nova’s other recruit, shook his head. “No, I’m with Nova on this one. Possessed dolls? C’mon, it’s been done like, fifty times already.”

Nova headed the group as they ventured into the main part of the mall. The aroma of pretzels and stinky children pierced her nostrils. Nova hadn’t been inside a mall for some years. Her mom tried to avoid the place as much as possible, as it wasn’t the cleanest place on earth. Usually, if they had to go to a store in the mall, they would spend time only in that store, parking near an entrance by the store in order to spend the least amount of time in the main mall as possible. Tala had practically drilled Nova every single day leading up to her mall escapade on what to do and what not to do, as well as reminding her of the dangers of the media and of course, the splotchy-faced pedophiles who camped out in the food court all day watching teen girls pass by in crop tops and cut off shorts.

“Okay, but you have to admit the creepy dude at the end was a surprise,” Adrian countered, pushing his glasses up over his nose. Nova bit back a smile; she had promised not to make fun of his scratchy, changing voice. Even if he did squeak every other word. “Living in the walls?” He shuddered. “Spying on her that entire time?”

Ramona muttered something under her breath in Spanish. “No wonder his parents left. I honestly would’ve left sooner if I were them. Screw his feelings.”

“Yeah, he was weird, but that kind of came out of nowhere.” Benton ran a hand through his blond locks. “The plot holes are endless. Why didn’t his parents just up and abandon him? What was keeping them there? Why was he in the fucking walls to begin with? Why didn’t they get him mental help sooner?”

Nova gasped, quieting the group. She had spotted one of her favorite shops, a small store that sold band and other nerdy merch. Her mom wasn’t a big fan, seeing as they sold goth and emo type stuff, and their workers were ‘scary looking’. She grabbed Adrian’s hand in her excitement, missing the way his gaze widened at the gesture, and tugged him in the direction of the shop.

“There’s a shirt I’ve had my eyes on for the longest time,” she explained to him as they halted in front of the wall lined with band t-shirts. Benton and Ramona trailed off from them, drifting over to the racks and cubbies of fandom merch.

Adrian hummed in understanding. “The West Side?”

“East Side,” Nova corrected, glaring at his teasing shit eating smile. “If you’re going to their concert with me in November then you better learn their name at least, you asshole.”

Adrian bumped her shoulder lightly, but helped her look for the shirt after she gave him a brief description. Just when she was beginning to think they didn’t have it, Adrian let go of her hand to reach forward and to the left. When he turned back to her, he had the shirt, and in a size medium, just as she liked it. The baggier, the better. She grinned and accepted the shirt, wrapping an arm around him in a loose hug.

That’s when she saw a flash in the corner of her eye.

Flipping around, she saw a girl a few years older than her, the phone in her hand dropping awkwardly. Her group of friends all giggled and whispered to one another. Based on the way they were dressed and were acting, Nova could tell they had followed her and her friends into the store.

The girls entire face turned beet red, but that didn’t stop her from tearing her gaze from Nova to look at the photo she had taken. Before Nova could even open her mouth to ask her to delete the photo, the group of girls was gone, flocking out of the store quickly as if they hadn’t even been there.And that was when Nova noticed the hidden phones of quite a few shoppers. One was held in crossed arms as the lady pretended to look at a pair of shoes, another behind a clothing rack. One didn’t even try hiding their camera, or even bother to whisper to the person beside them.

A chill ran through Nova’s body, and suddenly she didn’t feel very well. Well, her few minutes of freedom were fun while they lasted. She closed her eyes and practically leaned against Adrian, jaw clenched as she pressed the shirt back into his hands.

“Shit.”

#renegades #supernova #archenemies #nova artino #Adrian everhart #nodrian #Oscar silva #danna bell #ruby tucker #tuckva #osby #anarchists #my writing

60 notes · View notes

missmudpie · 4 years ago

Text

Name Ten Films That Have, For Whatever Reason, Stuck With You

@millennialfangirl tagged me, and this was harder than I thought and I might have gone over the ten. Also, tumblr is being tumblr and not cooperating with gifs, so only the first film has one. Here they are, in chronological order:

Casablanca, 1942

Look, Casablanca is the best film ever made. Is it my favorite? No, but it’s the best, much better than Citizen Kane, which is often heralded as the pinnacle of cinema but is about a rich old white guy who loves his sled.

Here’s looking at you, kid. Of all the Gin joints. Round up the usual suspects! I’m shocked - shocked!- to find that gambling is going on in here (Your winnings, sir.). This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. As Time Goes By. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and a supporting cast to die for. Renault throwing away the bottle of Vichy water.

I could go on, but here’s why Casablanca has stuck with me: It’s one of my Dad’s favorite movies, too. When I think of Casablanca, I think of him. One Christmas (I can’t remember if I was in high school or college), the old timey theater in town played Casablanca. I got us tickets as his Christmas present. It is one of my favorite movie-going experiences (more on that below).

Star Wars, 1977

When I was little, we used to go to my maternal grandparents’ house every Tuesday, and I would watch Star Wars. I was probably waaaaay too young - there’s audio of me playing out Star Wars with my My Little Ponies and I was like, three. On my college essay, I wrote about how Return of the Jedi was my first movie (true story, I was six months old and slept through the whole thing, because apparently taking your sleeping infant to the movies is something parents did in the ‘80s).

Star Wars is where I learned about the Hero’s Journey. About princesses and rebellions and wizards and flying spaceships. I devoured the Timothy Zahn books and Young Jedi Knights series. And yes, I’m a little down on it all after Episode IX - but I still love it. It has impacted me in so many ways. I know my life would be the poorer for not having seen it.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981

If Princess Leia was the first damsel I saw who get herself out of distress, Marian Ravenwood was the one who solidified the idea that women were perfectly capable of getting into and out of trouble themselves, thank you very much. Then there’s Harrison Ford in being Peak Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones - Intelligent, clever, brave-bordering-on-reckless. Who wouldn’t want to go on far-flung adventures to find hidden treasure, and maybe punch some Nazis while you’re at it?

The Goonies, 1985

Speaking of far-flung adventures, how about going on one in your hometown? Booby-traps, pirates, Italian gangsters, Sloth, hidden treasure - it’s every kid’s playtime fantasy come magically to life. I still want to go down those tunnel slides and shoot out into a hidden lagoon. They just don’t make movies like this any more - fun, family movies that don’t dumb down the action or characterization for kids, that’s a ride for both kids and parents alike. This was the first movie I showed my kids during quarantine.

The Princess Bride, 1987

Inconceivable. The Six Fingered Man. Death cannot stop truly love. Only mostly dead. Have fun storming the castle! Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ROUSes.

This is a perfect movie. It is. It is lightning in a bottle and it should never, ever be remade (those were just rumors, right?). This is romance and humor and suspense and two of the best swordfights in cinematic history (fight me on this. No, really, fight me. I took fencing in college because of this movie), all wrapped up in the sweetest Happily Ever After. I love it so much.

Jurassic Park, 1993

I’ve told this story before, but here it is again. In the summer of 1993, I was 10 and my sisters were 8 and just turned 6, and we convinced our parents that we were for sure old enough to see Jurassic Park - a book my mother had read and thus knew what level of horror to expect. It did not go well. I ended up burying my head in my dad’s chest; my youngest sister was in my mom’s lap; and my middle sister, with no where left to go, ended up under the seat in front of her.

Now, it’s the movie we quote (Hold on to your butts). When my youngest had jello recently, I told him to hold it up and look scared, then texted the picture around. We all knew immediately what I meant. The DVDs are given as gifts and then immediately stolen. My youngest sister can recite the entire movie. I can’t wait to scare my sons with it.

The Shawshank Redemption, 1994

I don’t remember this movie when it came out; I remember it was this movie I hadn’t really heard of at the Oscars, where it won none. Not until I was much older did I realize what a travesty that was. I first watched this on a pep band bus trip in college - not the time or place to truly appreciate it. Months later, I rented it (remember renting movies?) and fell in love with it.

This is a beautiful movie about friendship and hope and finding light in the darkness. It’s always on TV, and I will always stop and watch at least a few minutes of it. The ending - the last half hour, really - is pure cinematic poetry, but noting beats Red’s monologue as he travels to find Andy on that Mexican beach.

That Thing You Do!, 1996

This movie is Capital-D-Delightful. Just thinking about it makes me smile. This is the movie that tipped me from Tom Hanks Fan to I Love Tom Hanks and Need Him to Be My Best Friend. He WROTE and DIRECTED this gem of a movie. The talent. The song is legitimately catchy, the characters are Wonder-ful (see what I did there?), and it’s all in Day-Glo ‘60s color. I love this movie and make no apologies.

Toy Story 2, 1999

Speaking of Tom Hanks, this is my favorite Toy Story. Look, the first is a technological marvel, but Woody is an ass throughout most of the film. The fourth is it’s own thing, and the third is really, really good and I ugly sob at the end, but it’s also got a lot going on there. But the second - oh the second is beautiful in its simplicity. In addition to all of Andy’s toys, we get Jesse and Bullseye and even Stinky Pete. It’s an ode to friendship and love and the realization that life, for toys and people, eventually ends, and we have to appreciate every moment we have now. It is my favorite Toy Story.

Finding Nemo, 2003

I don’t know if it’s my favorite Pixar film, though. It depends on the day, but most of the time that distinction goes to Finding Nemo. I first saw it when I was twenty, a decade before my first kid was born, but it has greatly influenced how I parent. The conversation between Dory and Marlin in the whale, the idea that keeping anything from happening to your kid cuts both ways, the leap of faith, the mantra of “just keep swimming,” the notion that your kids don’t just want, but need to have independence - it’s all there, in Pixar’s stunning ocean animation. I get choked up just thinking about it. “Now go have an adventure!”

Honorable Mentions:

Forrest Gump, 1994

I loved this movie. I love Tom Hanks in this movie. I would watch it in snippets during college, while I ate dinner or lunch or just needed a quick study break. But it’s been years since I last saw it, and I wonder if it still holds up. It’s a Boomer movie made when the Boomers were - basically, just a little older than we old Millennials are now. It’s American history in the last half of the twentieth century, but the big events - Vietnam, Civil Rights, even AIDS - are filtered through the lens of a straight white man who kinda wanders into history but doesn’t really get why the moments are historic. I feel like it’s a film I appreciated at a certain time, but wouldn’t love as much now.

Avengers: Endgame, 2019

There just hasn’t been enough time for this movie to make the list. Ask about it again in ten years. Although, to be honest, I haven’t seen the whole thing since I saw it in theaters, and I fear it won’t live up. It was the best movie-going experience I’ve ever had. The crowd was so into it, and the last battle had everyone, me included, screaming at the screen. Part of what makes Endgame so special to me is that, among the three big franchises that ended last year (Avengers, Star Wars, Game of Thrones), this one actually stuck the landing. And yes, I could argue that Steve Rogers’ end doesn’t actual make any sense and deprives Peggy Carter of her agency - but in the emotional moment of the film, it worked. That portal scene is the culmination of twenty-plus films, and I still can’t believe it works as well as it does.

Thanks again for this! I second tagging @lerayon for this. I feel like I’m kinda cold-calling mutuals from our Arrow days, so no pressure. But I’d love to hear what @machawicket @dust2dust34 @dettiot @theshipsfirstmate have on their lists.

#Miss Mudpie watches too many movies #Fandom Friends

5 notes · View notes

szopenhauer · 4 years ago

Text

What’s the last NON-SURVEY RELATED thing you typed? I’ve been texting my gf and my dad

Are you currently in a complicated situation with someone? I am

When was the last time you were really grossed out? today?

What was the last thing to make you laugh? this song

Was the last hoodie you wore too big for you? that’s how I like them

Is your pet currently being annoying? my dog is very rarely annoying if at all, usually it’s not his fault anyway

Do you know someone who has 5 or more siblings? my grandma had many siblings but it was normal for her times

Do you prefer movies at home or movies at the theatre? home

When’s the last time you had a rock, paper, scissors match? long time ago

What would your name be if you were a boy? hopefully Nataniel (or Sam if it was english name)

The forever on-going question: Is Twilight stupid or actually brilliant? dumb af

Finish the sentence: Remember, remember… I’m bad at dates but I know what it’s from

Did you understand Shakespeare? I didn’t enjoy Shakespeare, I think he’s not that clever - instead of rhyming he was creating his own words, cool thing to invent your own words but why rhyming then if you really can’t without that?

Can you differentiate between the words “your” and “you’re?" I can

Do you use hair ties as bracelets? at times

When did you learn the ninja turtles were named after Renaissance artists? it was obvious

Would you tell your co-workers what underwear you have on? why would they want to know?

How far do you live from your parents? I live with them

Are you happy with how much money you make? I don’t make my own money

Do you believe in staying “healthy”? I tried and ended up worse than those who didn’t :(

Do you answer your phone on the first ring? never

Do you sleep with the curtains or blinds on your window open? hell no

Would you stay at a haunted hotel? don’t wanna bother ghosts nor tempt my fate

Have you ever gotten pizza delivered to your house that you didn’t order? that happened to my dad at work once

What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever encountered while at a hotel? nothing luckily

(Insert random song lyric of your choice here): But our love, was a song, sung by a dying swan

Can one person really make a difference? one stinky man in a bus makes everyone sick so think about it

Ring the bell for service or wait patiently for a minute first? wait

Do you honestly know how to play Monopoly or just make up rules as you go? we make up rules as we go playing Scrabble to make my mom happy lmfao

Be honest… ever peed in the pool? once

Have you ever fallen off of a treadmill while walking/running? was I ever on a treadmill?...

Do you drink milk/juice right from the bottle/carton, or pour yourself a glass? pour!

Do you hide when Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on your door? I pretend I’m not home

If you farted in front of your significant other, would he/she care? omg

Must you grab a souvenir from almost everywhere you go? ... yes

Have you ever walked out on a movie at the theater? Which one? nope

Did you enjoy making things out of Play-Doh as a child? I loved the smell

Are you currently sleepy? not really

Was the last movie you watched a horror film? nooo

Do you own a lot of tee shirts? shitload

Do you handle pain well? compared to people I know - very

Have you ever been so nervous you threw up? I would throw up all the time then, glad I don’t do that outta being nervous, phew

Do you have a leather jacket? fake

Do you think hugs are awkward? often

Has anyone ever been weirdly obsessed with you? could say so

If you’re reading a book, what page are you currently on? I'm not

you’re getting ready to go to bed and the last person that you kissed shows up, what do you say? woah in the middle of the night? why?! what happened? :o What does the last text say? no ja wiem

What do you think the last person that you kissed is doing right now? she’s doing survey that I made and sent her Was your last text message from a girl or boy? gal How’s your day been? ugh... What were you doing at eight this morning? slept Are you afraid of shots? no When was the last time that someone of the opposite sex gave you a hug? yesterday Would you rather write in pen or pencil? pen Could you date someone who can’t make you laugh? if they laughed at my jokes Are you wearing your favorite color right now? I don’t Describe how you feel right now in one word? anxious What are you listening to? Fever Ray are you ready for kids right now? I'll never be Were you an adorable baby? pfft

Do you prefer water or land? land Would you consider yourself to be mature? at times only At your workplace, are you required to wear a uniform? used to Is sarcasm like a second language to you? maybe Have you ever witnessed a physical fight in real life? nothing like in an action movie tho What do you think of people who get drunk every weekend? disgusting, stupid, I hate them Do you require a lot of private time? I do Do you use a lot of hair products? shampoo only Does it bother you when people copy your actions? especially when they laughed at me for that first and then been complimented

When was the last time you had a nightmare? tonight

Have you ever made up a secret language? I made up a language to my book that you can truly use

Were you born before 1992? I was born exactly in 92

If you got married now, how old would you be by your 50th wedding anniversary? dead 78

What did you do last New Year’s Eve? spent time with my parents as usual, I like it that way

Do you have bad anxiety? If so, do you take any kind of medications for it? I do and I was taking meds that fucked me up even more >.< What was the last thing someone said to you that you kept repeating over & over in your head? I’m still wondering what my gf didn’t want to tell me last evening but not only just that

If you could, would you work from home? I’d love to <3 What were you like in middle school? I had some phases because I finally stopped wanting to fit in Which do you think is harder: realizing you haven’t changed, or realizing you have? if changed for worse then it’s obviously harder Have you ever won some sort of prize or prize package from a contest? What did you win? more than one thing/contest Most disturbing movie you have ever seen? horrors, Gummo, Pentameron?... What one thing has always bothered you, but seems to bother no one else? smells and sounds for example Do you still own VHS tapes? we do

Do you feed your leftovers to your dogs? some

How often do you use Facebook? everyday What is the fanciest restaurant you have been to? those were wedding parties took place? What is the worst damage that your car has seen? I don’t have a car When was the last time you got a new ringtone? recently Have you ever peed yourself from laughing? luckily not

1 note · View note

lord-explosion-baku · 6 years ago

Text

Villain!Bakugou x hero!reader

Warnings: swearing, violence

A/N: This was shorter than I’d like it to be. But still fun to write! As a writer it’s hard to read though. I’ve actually started reading my writing before posting it and IDK I WAS PERFECTLY CONTENT NOT DOING THAT AND NOW I GOTTA CRINGE AT MYSELF like can I go back to blindly posting shit without a second thought? Also, HELLO I’m a hopeless romantic stupid stinky girl and so i threw in some fluff bc I could. I’d like to be a spicy edgelord but snag daggit I sure love love. ALSO I did really wanna do this justice pero I rushed it. I don’t know where the race is. I’m in pain. I’m so sorry lmfao.

“Tsk, it took you long enough.” His voice called from quite a ways away but of course he could hear you coming.

You mentally cursed at yourself for not being quieter as you approached your target but the theatre you saw him enter echoed and you were wearing heels. The reason you didn’t kick them off the moment you were in pursuit of the infamous Katsuki Bakugou was beyond you.

You poked your head around a stage curtain and saw him, lounging in a theatre chairs with his arms draped around the seats beside him.

He smirked up at you. “Well?” He said, “we don’t have all damn day.”

To hell with trying to be sneaky. You already knew where this was going to lead you. You strutted out to the center of the stage and crossed you arms. “Why a theater?”

His grin widened as he stood up and walked towards the stage. He wore a white dress shirt with a skinny red tie that fit neatly in his black vest. He leaned against the thrust, resting his arms against the stage and cast a lasting stare at your legs. You shifted your weight to your right. You thought the dress you wore had been too short and the way Bakugou was looking at you now had confirmed your suspicion.

He snickered, “I was hoping you’d put on a show for me.”

“I don’t have time for games Bakugou. Where is she?”

“She? She who? There’s nobody here except me and you, sweetheart.”

You scanned the the auditorium. All empty seats, no sign that anyone had been anywhere near here for at least a couple hours. You shook your head and turned on your heel and started marching away from the blonde. Kiyomi Sakamata had to be somewhere else in the building.

A blast rang and echoed throughout the theater. You tensed and closed your eyes. Here we go.

A hand grabbed the back of your arm and pulled you around. You ducked and slid under him, trying to kick him down but he tucked and rolled back to his feet. You faced each other.

It had been Kugo Sakamata’s niece’s wedding and since you had formed a pretty tight bond with him and his family while working under him for a few years, you had been invited to witness two people form an eternal bond. Halfway through the reception, there had been an explosive ruckus and Kiyomi Sakamata had been taken. You didn’t get a great look at him but you were sure you saw then kidnapper wielding the same grenade gauntlets as the man standing before you usually carried with him.

Taking in his current appearance you laughed. “You dressed up? For me?”

Rolling up his sleeves he chuckled and shook his head. “I had to blend in somehow, didn’t I?” You did a double take on his vest. He was sporting the same look as the other servers in the reception hall. So he had been there. That was smart of him. Gluttonous celebrators never looked twice at people providing service to them if they were doing their jobs right, especially if they were serving food or champagne.

“Damn it, Bakugou,” you moved towards him, kicking upwards towards his face. He ducked and towered over you. You pushed him against one of the stage props and grabbed him by his tie, pulling his face down to level with your own. “Where. Is. She?”

His smug eyes looked at you and then to your lips. There was a complacent grin stuck to his face. “I don’t have her and I never did. She’s back at the reception hall enjoying her time with her significant other. I just needed a way to get you here.”

That didn’t make sense. You saw someone take her and had been at the reception.

He laughed at your puzzled expression. “You just took off so fast, didn’t you? Eager to see me? So what are you going to do now that you have me all to yourself, huh?” His hands were on your wrist and he pushed you off of him. You stumbled back, catching yourself before you could fall.

“Oh, give me a break. You conducted all this just to spend time with me? Was I not giving the poor little boy enough attention?”

“Don’t act like I don’t see right through you L/N,” Bakugou began loosening the tie that hung around his neck, “You saw me walk in here alone. You knew she wasn’t with me and yet here you are. Pretending to fight me. Admit it, you’ve missed me.”

You swung a fist through the air and he dodged it. He was laughing. Every time you swiped he was always evading. You finally managed to grab on to a fist full of his collar and he grabbed your arm. Struggling to break away from his hold, your hand quickly sliced down his chest, the buttons of his shirt popped off and danced across the floor. Droplets of his own blood fell from the cut you left him.

“Oh so now we’re undressing each other are we?” He grinned.

Your eyes slid down his exposed chest and onto his abdomen. You hated the blush the creeped into your cheeks and you hated yourself even more for wanting your run your hands down his stupid ripped body.

“Ha! Remember that time in our second year when you accidentally walked in on me changing after a hero drill? How you squealed out an excuse for your intrusion and you couldn’t even look me in the eyes?” You did remember. It wasn’t like you hadn’t ever seen him shirtless before that day but just the fact that you could have been walking in on him at any point of his routine was what got you flustered. You rolled your eyes. It was always reminiscing with him. You moved your hand to cross check him but he easily dodged it and grabbed your arm to twist you around so you face away from him. He spoke into your ear, “Do you remember what we did after that happened?”

You slammed your elbow into his jaw, knocking him back. “You’ve always been an arrogant prick,” you jeered.

He was cupping his face. He spat onto the stage and you could see a spot of blood on his mouth. “And you’ve always been a shitty girl,” he growled.

He ran towards you. Before you could even react he had you spun around and pushed up against him. “Always so easy to read. Hey, why don’t you do yourself a favor and admit to me what this actually is, yeah?” You thrashed in his arms but he only pulled you closer proving there was no manner of escaping. “Admit that you get a thrill whenever you find me up to my not so conventional schemes. Admit that you love having me up against you like this,” he pushed his sharp chin on your shoulder. “Hell, we both know what this is, I’m sure. You haven’t even used your quirk all night long.”

“You’re one to talk,” you spat. “This has all just been a game to you for a while now. You haven’t actually done anything bad in weeks.”

“Ohh but I could do something bad right now,” he purred in your ear, “I could do lots of bad things to you.” He loosened his grip and placed a hand on your hips, squeezing lightly.

“I hate you.”

“I’m sure you wish that were true,” he soughed and began kissing your neck. You let out a slight sigh and moved your neck, allowing his kiss to deepen. His hands trailed down to your dress and he pulled on the him, hiking it up, and he placed his calloused fingers between your thighs, sending shivers through your body.

You felt him harden against your butt as he pressed against you. Fuck.

You swatted his hands away and faced him. He had his signature shit-eating grin on, the one that you remember him doing as kids.

You pulled your dress down and adjusted your now messy hair. You pursed your lips at him, admiring your handy work. You drew his blood and there was hardly a scratch on you. He never did really hurt you, did he?

You shook your head. “I have a wedding reception to get to,” you said.

He out his hands up and chuckled, “I’m not keeping you.” There was a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

“Then what the fuck are you doing?” He didn’t answer. Ignoring the thrum of your heart, you began to walk off the stage.

“It’s funny,” he called and you stopped walking. “The wedding, I mean. The concept of forever.” You glanced back at him and he was smirking. “It makes me wonder how long we can keep this up. Do you think it’ll be forever?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Is that some kind of proposal, Bakugou?”

He laughed. “All I’m saying is... I wouldn’t mind. If we did this.. forever.” His smirk had softened into something that seemed to be a normal smile. He wasn’t putting on an act to get you flustered.

You turned your face to hide your smile. “You’re a sap, you know that?” You could hear that dumb snicker.

“Hey, you put on a good show, sweetheart, but make sure next time you stick to your character, hero.”

You heard a blast to signal his exit. You made the same promise to yourself that you’ve made the last dozen times you saw him. Next time... next time you’ll get him.

Little did you know that Bakugou was making a similar promise to himself as he watched you walk down the street, back to the wedding reception.

Tags for EVERYTHING: @yandere-inamorata @doriichii @miitaart @dessiedawnwritesfanfiction @kido-is-not-a-ghost @wickedlewicked @chickennuggetsarequestionable @nevermorelanore @kpanime @jetblackjessie @ayeputita @captain-sin-allmight-queen @diisasterbii @iceformer @meganofmars @colagirl5 @colorbookshd @grimmjadeskye @sm0kingcrack @sarcastictextstuck @zellllyyyy @psionicsnow @mynahx3 @andie-in-tumblland @iamthe-leaf @midnightfeline666 @bungou-stray-alies-tales-of-aly @rubyred-28 @bokunoheroes-stories

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha x reader #bnha imagine #mha #my hero academia #bnha reader insert #reader insert #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #villain bakugou #villain bakugou x reader #bnha villain au #bnha one shot #bnha requests #requests

953 notes · View notes

lycorogue · 6 years ago

Text

A Movie Date

I can’t let Valentine’s Day close out without some Love Square fluffiness. So how about a pseudo-date between Adrien and Marinette (with a sprinkling of DJWifi) from my story “Peeping Tomcat”?

Peeping Tomcat Summary: Something called to Adrien, and before he knew it, he was addicted to sitting outside Marinette's window as Chat Noir; just watching her. His voyeuristic habit needs to stop, but things have gotten far too complicated now that he realizes he's growing a crush on her.

Alya rushed us through the concessions before racing us to the theater. The movie trivia was still playing on the screen when we got there, so Alya paused to scan for the best seats.

"There!" Alya pointed to a row of five seats about half way up and centered. "No clue why no one picked them yet. We must be lucky."

I placed a hand in my pocket and ran my fingers over the plastic beads of Marinette's lucky charm bracelet. Perhaps it did strike again. I was able to hang out with my friends, I managed a conversation with Marinette – however brief – I was able to see a few different sparks of the Marinette I've only previously seen hidden in her bedroom, we've made it to the theater in time, and now we could all sit together in really decent seats. Plagg and the Cat Miraculous couldn't darken the good luck Marinette's lucky charm seemed to bring me.

We settled into our seats. Nino and Alya sat together so she wouldn't give me a death glare again. Marinette was on Alya's left, and I was on Nino's right, with a vacant seat to my other side. We each chatted for a minute or two, but just as the first preview started Alya sighed.

"Great," she grumbled, "I found the one seat below an A/C vent. I'm going to be frozen this whole movie."

"I could keep you warm, babe." Nino wagged his eyebrows as he wrapped an arm around Alya's shoulders and pulled her in. She instantly pushed away from him and growled his name in a soft scold.

"We could switch seats if you'd like," Marinette offered, "I don't mind. I'm the only one of us with long sleeves on anyway. It won't bother me."

"Marinette, you're too sweet."

Alya and Marinette awkwardly shuffled around each other to switch seats. In the shifting, some of Marinette's popcorn tumbled out of the top of the bag and rained down on the patrons sitting in front of us. Embarrassed, she meekly muttered apologies as she settled into Alya's old seat. Once seated, she pulled her feet up onto the chair and hid behind her knees as she sheepishly began nibbling on her popcorn.

The previews continued, and Alya periodically leaned over Marinette to get Nino's attention to comment about a shot, scene, or upcoming release date for the movies being promoted. Marinette silently chuckled to herself as she tried to dodge out of the way so the couple didn't have to keep leaning around her. Finally, she offered to switch with Nino so the lovebirds could sit next to each other again. She was thanked a second time, and the two of them did their own shuffle to exchange seats.

This time, however, Marinette's popcorn didn't survive the musical chairs. Her foot caught something, and she tumbled forward. I jumped up to catch her, but her popcorn dropped to the floor, carpeting the rest of our row.

"You okay?" I bent down to try to help her scoop her popcorn back into the bag.

"Yeah," she sighed, "I just wish I wasn't such a klutz."

"I wouldn't worry about it. Did you want me to buy you another bag, though?"

"No, no, that's alright. I still have my box of chocolates." She rattled the small concession stand box of chocolate covered peanuts. "Besides, I wouldn't want you to miss the start of the movie."

She placed the trashed bag of popcorn under her seat and settled in, popping open the pour corner of her box of chocolates.

"Well, what's a movie without popcorn, right?" I grabbed my bag from the vacant seat beside me and placed it on my left knee so it was between us. "I never finish a full bag, so you can steal some if you'd like."

"Y-y-you want m-me? Me to share? Popcorn with you? Your popcorn? I could have?" There was that nervous giggle I had grown accustomed to, but not the joy-filled one that froze me on her balcony five nights before. I simply shrugged back at her, grabbed a handful of popcorn, and started filtering it into my mouth.

"Would you like a chocolate?" She softly offered with another gentle rattle of the box.

"Sure. Thanks." I threw the rest of the popcorn into my mouth, wiped my hand off on my jeans, and held it out for her to pour a few peanuts onto my palm.

After I dropped the peanuts into my mouth one at a time, I felt the popcorn bag shift. She pulled her hand away with a fist full of popcorn, opened it in front of her, and picked one kernel at a time from her hand.

"You sure you don't want to sit next to Nino? I could shift again." Marinette motioned to stand up. I held up an open palm to stay her before grabbing another handful of popcorn. Once more I funneled it into my mouth.

"Nah. You've moved enough. This seat is fine. Besides, I think Nino and I would be too tempted to spend the whole movie muttering about it to each other. We'd drive you and Alya crazy, I'm sure. It's probably best that we ended up shifting around. I'd hate to disturb their date."

As if on cue, Nino commented about not feeling a draft, and was promptly elbowed by his girlfriend as she shushed him.

"Wait!" Marinette had that panicked look again. "They're on a date? You really think we're invading their date? But they asked us to come. You don't think they meant for this to be a double date? I mean this isn't-. Is this supposed to be-? I mean, not that I would ever want to go on a date with you. Pfft. Er- no! Not that it would be terrible to go on a date with you. I'm sure it would be fantastic. That is, if you wanted this to be a date. But you don't, right?"

Poor Marinette. She clearly didn't want to hurt my feelings by straight out telling me that she only saw me as a friend. I couldn't very well comfort her by reassuring her that I was in love with Ladybug though. I wasn't about ready to be laughed at for my "crush" on a superheroine.

"No, no. I think we're more like chaperones. Although from the way that Alya is already resting her head on Nino's shoulder, we're kind of bad at our jobs."

Marinette giggled! Honestly giggled! Aside from my umbrella closing on her that first week we met, this was the first time I had made her laugh. My whole body felt warm at the realization that I had done it: not only had I heard her genuinely giggle, but I had caused it. I palmed the outside of my right pocket, feeling the outline of the charm tucked inside. I quietly thanked it for the luck it was bringing me, and then mentally thanked Marinette for gifting it to me in the first place.

I tilted the bag of popcorn towards Marinette. "Feel free to take some more." I then scooped up a handful of kernels.

A rosy hue returned to her cheeks as she bashfully looked away. Did she really think I secretly wanted this to be a date, simply because I was offering my popcorn? How was I going to fix this?

While I racked my brain to figure out how I could prove to Marinette that I didn't think this was a double date I reached for more popcorn. Marinette had also moved for the bag, and her fingers brushed mine. I instantly dropped the kernels I had grabbed as my hand flinched. She whipped her arm back and held the part of her hand that brushed mine like it was burnt.

"Um, sorry."

"No problem." I awkwardly chuckled and realized it didn't sound anything like my normal laugh. What was wrong with me?

We sat silently for a few seconds, unmoving. I just focused on the last preview, unsure what else to say or do with Marinette beside me. Since she had clearly given up on having some of my popcorn – not that I blamed her - I again reached for more.

I felt her fingers against mine.

Once more we jumped and nervously giggled.

"S-sorry. Go ahead. It's your popcorn."

"Don't worry about it, I had offered to split it." I leaned the bag towards her. I watched as she snatched her snack. Once she had pulled her hand fully away, I reached for my own. We attentively watched the top of the bag the next few grabs to make sure the other didn't already have their hand there.

"Here. You can have some more too." Marinette held out her box of chocolate peanuts.

I smiled and held my hand out for her to pour three more peanuts onto my awaiting palm.

As the movie started, Marinette and I got into a pretty decent rhythm in sharing my popcorn and passing the box of her chocolate covered peanuts back and forth. The confusion about us possibly being on a date seemed to have vanished as we began to relax. With no one to my right, and Marinette fixated on the screen, I was even able to sneak Plagg a few pieces of popcorn in the dark. The true highlight of my day though, was that, aside from feeding my kwami, I felt like I was a normal kid.

I wasn't a model. I wasn't a celebrity. I wasn't the son of Gabriel Agreste. I didn't have a bodyguard. I wasn't a superhero. Most importantly, I wasn't some creeper who had to spy on his friends to find out details about them.

Better yet, things seemed normal with Marinette. Not our normal, but your average teenage friends normal. She was intently watching the movie – which was as exciting and witty as we had all hoped – and she was calmly sharing movie snacks with me like I truly was just some average Joe. She wasn't on edge, and didn't act weird at all, aside from placing random chocolate covered peanuts into her purse every now and again. It seemed a weird and potentially messy way to save left-overs, but I try not to judge, considering I have to carry stinky Camembert wherever I go to appease a small cat-like magical being that grants me superpowers.

All-in-all, the hang-out was going smoothly, that is, until we got about fifty minutes into the movie. The popcorn had gotten a little low, so instead of leaving the bag on my leg, Marinette and I started passing it back and forth so we could tilt it for easier access. Our hand-offs became second nature after a couple of clunky exchanges. We weren't even watching our hands anymore as we mindlessly tag-teamed grabbing popcorn and tossing it into our mouths. Our eyes were instead glued to the movie screen.

The scene was dark, the music was ominous and intense, and the main character Lucas was creeping through an abandoned warehouse with his gun drawn. There was no dialog, just Lucas breathing hard as he tried to steady his nerves. Pulled fully into the scene, Marinette grabbed her handful of popcorn, and shifted her wrist to pass the bag back to me. Then, as my hand closed in on the bag, and Lucas closed in on a window, a bird flew through and nearly crashed into the movie's lead.

The jump scare did what it was supposed to: both Marinette and I flinched; startled by the unexpected bird. Unfortunately, the successful jump scare also meant that the bag of popcorn went flying. The remaining third of the bag rained back down on us, and the empty bag bounced off my knee on its way to the floor.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Marinette hid behind her hands.

"Well, you're now two for two on popcorn bags," I laughed, "so at least you've got a perfect score."

She curled up in her seat and some popcorn kernels tumbled off her shoulders.

Way to go, Agreste, I chided myself, Make her feel self-conscious about her clumsiness, that's how to get her to relax around you.

I looked down at the pile of popcorn that had pooled onto my lap. I scooped up a handful and offered it to her.

"Hey, don't worry about it. We were mostly done anyway, and the popcorn is still perfectly good. Want some?" I plucked a kernel out of my hand and popped it into my mouth.

She softened beside me and gave me a grateful smile. She then scooped popcorn off her own lap and began eating that. I took my hand back and kept eating the remains of our shared snack. Soon enough the stray kernels were all eaten and we tucked the empty bag into Marinette's trashed popcorn.

With our snacks gone we didn't have that mindless flow between us. We were both still sitting next to each other and watching the same movie, but we weren't connected any longer. I could have been sitting alone in my room. The disconnect began to distract me. While I was still mostly paying attention to the movie, I also started to keep an eye on Marinette to remind myself that I was there with friends.

I watched her tense up in suspenseful scenes, and sigh with relief when they were done. I watched her laugh, and I watched her give a knowing look whenever Lucas flirted to no avail with his partner Iva. Watching her reactions to the movie was almost as entertaining as the film itself.

Another forty-minutes or so into the film, Lucas and Iva were chasing the villain through a crowded Italian street. The ancient road was narrow, and a bit claustrophobic between quick shaky-cam shots and blurred racing through the tightly packed crowd. The two heroes tracked their prey up to the top floor of an old fort of some kind. The villain was gone; seemingly vanished. Lucas and Iva slowly combed the floor, their eyes peeled for any ambushes.

Marinette started creeping to the edge of her chair; her foot bouncing slightly.

The only sound was the soft crunch of Lucas and Iva's shoes on the loose gravel scattered across the deteriorating floor. The protagonists got closer and closer to a window the camera would not turn away from. Then came the echoing cackle of the villain, bouncing off the stone walls, and making it sound like it was coming from everywhere at once.

Marinette leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. Her hands covered her mouth as she sharply inhaled in preparation for the next bit.

Lucas and Iva were perfectly aligned with the window. Their backs were to each other so they could try to look around them for the source of the laughter. Something whizzed out from the shadows and slammed hard into them. They stumbled sideways and out the window.

I felt a squeeze. I looked down and Marinette had a firm grip of my left hand. Her eyes were still trained on the screen and she kept sliding further and further to the edge of her seat. I wasn't entirely sure she even realized she had grabbed my hand instead of the arm rest. I debated pulling away, but I didn't want to embarrass her. Especially after she tried so hard to not shatter my non-existent crush before.

In the movie, Lucas was clinging to the crumbling ledge of the window he fell out of. Barely holding on below him dangled Iva.

As Iva's grip on the side of the fort slipped Marinette's grip on my hand tightened. I found myself gently squeezing back. I don't know if it was to help comfort her, or because I was also caught up in the tension of the scene. Either way, a chill ran through me. It's probably just the suspense of the movie, I told myself, but still, my own grip on Marinette's hand tightened slightly.

The brick that Iva was hanging from chipped under her weight. Lucas precariously reached out his hand for her to grab. The more Iva pushed on the stone to reach Lucas's hand the faster the brick split from the wall. As her perch broke fully from the structure Lucas snatched her from her plummet.

Marinette's fingernails began to poke me as she squeezed harder. I became acutely aware of my heart beats as I watched the heroes barely cling to the side of the building. My eyes darted between the screen and Marinette, watching her and trying to catch her reaction before it startled me further.

Iva's grip around Lucas's wrist was too loose, and she was beginning to slip again. Lucas struggled to raise her up to the window ledge for her to grab. His arm was shaky. Her fingers twitched as they tried to find better purchase. Lucas' own grasp of the ledge began to fail. Iva pleaded for him to let her go so he could get a better handhold and survive. He refused. She let go of his arm, in hopes that he'd lose his hold on her. He yelled for her to grab on again. He kicked his feet to the wall to try to get leverage. Iva slid a few centimeters through Lucas's fingers.

Then a low buzz sounded throughout the theater, again startling me and Marinette. The recording of a female voice calmly accompanied the buzzing. "Akuma alert. Ladybug and Chat Noir are expected to handle this emergency swiftly. All visitors, kindly vacate the premises very calmly. Thank you." There was a twenty second pause before the recording started over again. The buzzing never ceased.

*Excerpt from chapter 4: Normal. To read the full chapter, you can check it out on AO3 here. Or, if you prefer, you can find it on FFN or DA. If you’d like to read the story from the beginning, you can check it out on AO3, on FFN, or on DA.

14 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

Godzilla vs. Kong: Who Should Win?

https://ift.tt/3sB2eYO

Ever since Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures announced they were building a “MonsterVerse,” this is the fight everyone’s been waiting for: Godzilla vs. Kong. Fire meets fur. As the undisputedly most popular monsters in movie history, King Kong and Godzilla are responsible for the entire idea of a “kaiju versus” film thanks to their first bout nearly 60 years ago. Since then they’ve each appeared in countless sequels, spin-offs, and reboots. But never again have they crossed paths. Until now.

Some might say that’s because one movie isn’t big for the both of them. After all, there’s a reason why each has coasted to the top of our Movie Monster March Madness bracket, right? But we disagree with the idea that you can’t choose. There should be a clear cut winner in Godzilla vs. Kong, and Den of Geek editors David Crow and Alec Bojalad are ready to go to the mat over who that should be.*

Godzilla Should Win

David Crow: It took several years after the original Ishirō Honda masterpiece, Gojira, was released for it to reach the U.S. When it did, the Western distributors clearly got a lot of things wrong: the awkward inclusion of American actor Raymond Burr; the removal of all direct allusions to the Bikini Atoll nuclear radiation disaster; and not nearly enough mad scientists with eye-patches. But what they got right? The title. It was all right there when the film became an international phenomenon–Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (even the declarative exclamation mark is theirs).

Godzilla might’ve been the second big guy on the scene, but ever since he lit Tokyo up like a Christmas tree, he’s been first in our hearts. From ‘56 to 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, there’s only been one undisputed reigning titan, and he’s not a gorilla. King Kong is good enough for an island no one’s heard of, I guess. But Godzilla? He’s been the top dog all over the world, and he’s more often used that supremacy to protect all of us from intergalactic aliens and ancient monsters… as opposed to only having eyes for blondes with a healthy set of lungs.

In terms of physicality alone, Godzilla has an advantage in reach that exceeds even his towering height. With nuclear fire breath that can span the length of 15 devastated city blocks, Godzilla should be able to cook Kong before he ever gets down from the Empire State Building.

King Kong Should Win

Alec Bojalad: Who would win in a fight between Godzilla and King Kong? The only possible answer here is the big monke, himself: Kong.

Do me a favor real quick. Head on over to the Homininae Subfamily Wikipedia page. Take a look at the header photo and let me know what you see. A chimpanzee, a gorilla, and… a human being. Of course we all know that humans and gorillas are closely related, but for the purposes of the monster fight to come, it’s important to see just how closely related we are. To argue that Godzilla has a prayer in a fight against King Kong is to argue that a big dumb lizard could ever triumph over the ingenuity of the human species and our homininae subfamily.

As one of humanity’s closest cousins, Kong brings so many things to a fight that his scaly counterpart just can’t. Let’s start with the obvious: Kong is strong. Those rippling arm muscles and pectorals of iron aren’t just for show. Kong is also highly intelligent. Observe his use of tools in his many film appearances throughout the years, up to and including his big whooping stick in the Godzilla v. Kong trailer. And if raw strength and intelligence weren’t enough. Kong is highly lithe and nimble. That should prove quite useful in battle against the largely inert Godzilla

Look, I don’t mean to body shame this very chonky lizard. In fact, I admire his dedication to not skipping meals. But when it comes time to face off against a quicker foe, all that raw strength is gonna hold him back. As any boxing fan could tell you: speed beats strength 100 times out of 100. That’s why Kong won during the pair’s 1962 matchup and it’s why he’s going to win again now.

About King Kong vs. Godzilla…

David: Alec, I’m glad you brought up King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). It’s a solid throwdown between ape and lizard that arguably invented the monster mash-ups we’re still enjoying to this day. All that said, Zilla was ripped off in the movie.

Back in ‘62 , Godzilla was the new kid on the block, and Kong was the legacy pick, with King Kong (1933) being the paterfamilias kaiju movie before Toho Studios made that word a thing. However, they did make it a thing, and Godzilla was already doing monster battles with glorified armadillos in Godzilla Raids Again (1955), back when a “King Kong vs.” movie was still a twinkle in special effects guru Willis O’Brien’s eye. So as the sentimental fan favorite, Kong was basically rigged to win while Zilla was just playing the Heel. But I’m going to let you in on a secret every wrestling fan knows: deep down everyone all prefers the villain.

So yeah, the lizard lost round one, but he took a fall for the good of the genre. Almost every time since then, however, he’s been on the side of the angels (or at least Venus princesses, look it up), protecting us from three headed dragons who’d eat Kong’s lunch.

And saying Godzilla isn’t smart? This is a beast who, in the American MonsterVerse, has been around since the time of Atlantis. Kong is just the youngest in a long line of gorillas while Zilla has the age and wisdom of a god. Underestimate that experience at your own peril.

Alec: Sure, David, we all enjoy a good villain. But how often do they win? Godzilla’s resume is just L after L. Godzilla lost to Kong in ‘62, he lost to an oxygen destroyer before that in ‘54, and he lost in ‘98 to Matthew Broderick (but to be fair, we all lost with the existence of that movie). And doggone it, he’s going to lose again in 2021.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have denigrated the beast’s intelligence because I must concede that Zilla is pretty sharp for a lizard. Kong, however, is smarter, more adaptive, intuitive, and quicker in thinking. Godzilla’s nuclear-powered fire breath is certainly formidable to lesser monsters, but Kong is just too elusive for it to prove that big of a threat. Imagine Godzilla’s confusion upon watching Kong simply sidestepping a fire blast. Huh, Ghidorah didn’t do that. Yes, Godzilla, that’s because Ghidorah is very slow. Just like you, I’m afraid.

A Skull Islander or the Savior of the World?

David: First of all, that was not Godzilla in ‘98. It was a stinky-breathed fish-eater from the hacks who got lucky once because of Will Smith. Toho Studios corrected them though when the real Godzilla turned that American monstrosity into a marshmallow in Godzilla: Final Wars (2004).

But if you don’t remember, I can understand since Godzilla has won far more bouts than he’s lost over the years, from American embarrassments, onward. That’s because Zilla has been putting in the work. Ghidorah? A three course meal. Biollante? Fertilizer. Gigan? Who even cares. Mothra, arguably the smartest of all the kaiju, and a celestial creature with the gift of flight and her own cult, more often bows down before Zilla as a friend. Why? Because of respect.

Meanwhile what’s Kong been doing? Hiding like a coward on a rock in the Pacific. If he’s so tough, why didn’t he ever leave Skull Island in the MonsterVerse while Godzilla was busy saving the world? Because he’s scared. He knows pound for pound, he doesn’t have the strength or the cunning of Godzilla. The original Kong was slaughtered by biplanes; Zilla eats jets for breakfast. Filmmakers had to size the new Kong up to even have a ghost of a chance. It won’t save him.

Movies

Godzilla: First 15 Showa Era Movies Ranked

By Don Kaye

Movies

The Weirdest Godzilla Moments from the Toho Movies

By James Hunt

Alec: There is no doubt that Godzilla’s won more bouts than he’s lost because Godzilla only faces monsters he can defeat. Biollante is literally a plant. What, was Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors not available? Mothra bows before Godzilla? Well, I would too if I were a highly flammable bug. Ghidorah is a solid enough victory, but Ghidorah also doesn’t have Kong’s advantages.

Sure, Kong spends most of his time on Skull Island. You know why? Because he appreciates some gosh darn peace and quiet like the king he is. Kong doesn’t need to prove his mettle by trading fisticuffs with whatever misguided kaiju comes knocking at his door. He’s perfectly happy to spend his days eating comically big bananas and kicking back. Why not outsource the world saving to Godzilla, who seems pathologically obsessed with proving that he’s a big, scary monster whenever he can? Kill all the Ghidorahs and knock down all the buildings you want, dude, it’s not gonna make up for the emptiness inside.

Ultimately, however, I’m confident in a Kong victory over Godzilla for one reason above all. Godzilla has such a glaring physical weakness that it almost feels rude to point out. When things get really heated in this matchup, and the punches start actually flying, what is Godzilla going to do with those itty bitty T. Rex arms? I’ll believe Godzilla has a shot against Kong when I see him raise his arms over his head.

Final Round

David: Don’t worry, Alec. You’ll see him raise them high enough when he stands victorious over Kong’s smoldering corpse. With fire breath like that, his reach far exceeds whatever big rock the wittle bitty ape thinks can save him. And while I cannot see the future, I suspect on March 31 we’ll both see the denizens of Skull Island bow down in awe. They’re about to meet their real god, and this one won’t die on them because of “beauty.”

Alec: Damn, now I almost want Godzilla to win just to watch him try to raise up his baby arms. Sadly we won’t get to see that spectacle. Come March 31, Kong is going to make Godzilla rue the day he ever crawled out of the sea on his belly.

Godzilla vs. Kong opens in theaters and premieres on HBO Max on Wednesday, March 31.

*Editor’s Note: This conversation was recorded before either editor reviewed Godzilla vs. Kong.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post Godzilla vs. Kong: Who Should Win? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/39rXFZk

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

onceuponymous · 7 years ago

Text

Got the Be More Chill book by Ned Vizzini from the library after listening to the musical

Jenna is the Coolest girl in class (caps from the book), and her pool of gossip is pretty much limited to her friend Elizabeth and said friend’s “sluttiness”.

I want to like the detail of Jeremy’s “Humiliation Sheets,” spreadsheets where he tallies day-to-day embarrassments like being laughed at or ignored, but every time they’re brought up it’s... super weird?

So far what we know about Jake is, “The big story was that Jake Dillinger had sex with his model from Czechoslovakia who was dating his dad, which I believe. Jake can do anything.” He’s brought up a few more times, and Jeremy makes sure to mention this model each time. (Is this supposed to be impressive??? I’m just super creeped out by every aspect of this)

There’s a kid named Mark Jackson talking to a kid named Jackson Marks

Jeremy: “I just look at [Christine] and think about her a lot because she’s beautiful, you know? I mean she’s intelligent and sweet and everything else that a girl is supposed to be to offset her beauty, but even if she were idiotic and mean, she’d still be beautiful and I’d still be contorted.” Uhhhh...

Speaking of Christine, I was afraid she’d have 0 personality. I was wrong. She has 1 personality, and that personality is, “Girls make no sense, bro.” Everything Jeremy says to her, she finds fault with and berates him for. Now, I’m all for girls being allowed to get frustrated, but Christine’s written as a absolute jerk for the sake of making a point about “girls not being easy to reduce into a series of instructions to follow”.

We meet Michael in the cafeteria. “Michael smiles and lets chewed fish-cheese roll through the gap in his teeth. It plats onto the tray in front of him.” I’m charmed.

Rich’s red streak is in the back?? “Tall-ass” is canon; he says it to get Michael to move away from the trashcan so Rich can dump his entire lunch, tray included, directly into the trash. No justification for this is given.

The city they’re in is Metuchen, New Jersey!

My sibling Casey, as a theater nerd themselves, would like to point out that the description of Jeremy and the plays he’s been in sounds like a series of tropes about theater kids rather than what it’s actually like.

A selection of lines from Mark Jackson, Classmate to Jeremy: “Yeah, I’m in this dilly-deal”/”Midsummer Night’s Drizz-eam. Gotcha”/”Mind your beeswax”/”No peeking, dorkus malorkus”/”Damn, this dude is fruit-aliciously homo-rific”

Mr. Reyes screams intermittently when talking. I’m not making this up, and he does it throughout the book.

“‘You’re kidding,’ [Christine] squirts.” Squirts.

“Christine has brown eyes with her blond hair. Up close she looks like all the cutest movie starlets, all those ones who haven’t really been in any movies, but you see them in Stuff magazine or whatever, all combined in Photoshop, except that someone checked the Constrain Proportions box so nothing got distorted.” This is one of the weirder forms of objectification I’ve ever read.

“And then [Christine]’s gone as if, you know, a giant dragon coiled its way up from the floor of the theater and decided to take her for its mate.” Dude, she just walked out the door because rehearsal was over.

From my sibling: “Every time Rich talks, he sounds like an intrusive thought.”

“... sometimes I think about renaming all of [the students], about standing inside the front door of Middle Borough on a stepladder and stamping their foreheads as they come in in the morning: Mouth Breather, Waste of Sperm, Ingrate, Troll, Skank, [r-slur], Pus Head, Junkie, Fetal Alcohol Casualty, Yellow Teeth, Stinky, Preggers, Soon to Be Featured on World’s Scariest Police Chases, whack, whack, whack. I know them all so well.” Our lovable protagonist, everyone.

Jeremy starts thinking about people in history who were Cool -- Saddam Hussein and OJ Simpson among them.

“... I’m not the freak; Rich is the freak. Clearly. When I grow up, that had better be understood and I had better be compensated, or I’m going to shoot myself in the head.” Everyone complains about book!Michael, but jesus christ book!Jeremy

“Naturally, Dismissed [MTV show] fills my screen; it’s always there in my lowest moments, so weird and dangerous and hypocritical that I’d like to shoot up my school just to blame it.” JESUS CHRIST BOOK!JEREMY

Jeremy continues to watch MTV. “I mean, what kind of show throws ménage-style blind dates at teenage boys? What are you telling them -- all of a sudden, you’re not Cool unless you’re going out with two girls? You’re entitled to two girls? Where’s my one girl? And if you are a girl, are you better suited to competitive harem living than any sort of independent, self-sustaining existence” ... “Are you bred for competition like a horse?” I think that was supposed to be feminist there at the end, but my brain is too baffled to pick this thing apart. Let’s just sit back and appreciate the whiplash between Jeremy complaining about how he’s not been awarded a girl to complaining about how these girls aren’t making enough out of themselves.

Why can’t this book be about Michael’s older brother who is calling from college about the government putting pills in people’s brains, and is implied to have taken a Squip himself?

Michael has a De-Fuzzer that attaches to his TV and un-censors nude people. I hate everything about this concept.

“‘Like, humanity is currently at its genetic peak. Did you know that?’ Michael’s full of crap like this” NO, YOU LOVE HIS DISCOVERY CHANNEL FACTS

“Michael and I used to have dandruff battles, actually, ruffling our hair violently in a sunbeam to see who had more glittering scalp waste” I can’t decide if this is cute or disgusting

Musical Mr. Heere doesn’t wear pants. Book Mr. Heere doesn’t wear clothes. A sentence is devoted to describing his butt cheeks. i don’t want this.

“‘Ho pippitty pum pum!’ Dad says, shaking his penis--”

Jeremy talks about “people who shouldn’t breed.” Has this kid given me any reason, any reason at all, to like him??

And that’s chapters 1-10. More to come.

#bmc #be more chill #jeremy heere #michael mell #bmc book liveblog

261 notes · View notes

theliterateape · 6 years ago

Text

Farewell to Chicago [1989–2019]

By Don Hall

Thirty years. Almost to the month. Like my ten years with the Chicago Public Schools (closer to nine), my decade in the public radio mines (shy by two months) and my five years hosting The Moth (just short by a month), I’ll round up and if that bothers you, consider yourself a pedant and kin to that fucker who corrects your grammar while in line at a CVS.

No one in Chicago knew a goddamned thing about me on April 7, 1989. I didn’t know anyone in Chicago that day as I drove my blue and grey 1984 Bronco II onto a crowded Lake Shore Drive in Friday afternoon rush hour. Having spent my years growing up jumping from place to place, new wasn’t intimidating but that traffic was something I had yet to encounter. Christ, it took me two days in Chicago to figure out that when other drivers were honking at you, they weren’t waving but flipping you off.

I had no clue on that day that I’d spend the next thirty years of my life in Chicago.

A recitation of accomplishments, jobs, marriages (three), personal and public wars, and lessons learned easy and hard wouldn’t do it justice. I might as well list the cash amounts paid out to rent and utilities. There are, however, moments that help sum up and define what became known as my Chicago.

1989

“Are you the new librarian?”

“No. I’m the music sub but they didn’t have a music position open so I’m being paid as the library sub.”

“Oh. Well, can you bring the book cart to my classroom at 10:45 anyway?”

“Sure.”

“By the way, you know you can’t sleep in your truck in the school parking lot, right?”

“Oh. Yeah. Got it.”

BIG FISH

1990

Marty DeMaat welcomes the Level One students to the Second City Training Program. I look around at the new faces and see Alida Vitas, whom I steamrolled through in our audition scene a few weeks ago. I wave “Hi” and she smiles. Joe Janes is there. He auditioned right after I did so he was in the room during mine. He seems slightly surprised to see me.

“Oh.” he says drily. “They let you in?”

Weeks later, he and I and a cast of other trainees concoct a sketch show entitled “Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman” that we produce in Andersonville later in the year.

1991

“I can’t believe you’ve never had a Lincoln Breakfast,” he mused.

Carey Goldenberg, a Jewish Deadhead who had performed at Second City with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Dan Castelleneta and was now an eighth grade math teacher, sat down at the booth.

“Try the The Monitor Skillet Eggs.”

“Monitor?”

“Named after an Ironsides ship from the Civil War.”

“Oh. Weird.”

“So what’s the big number for the choir next week?”

“We’re doing a tribute to Journey.”

“And the kids dig it?”

“They love it. It’s all new to them. They think ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ was written with them in mind.”

“It kind of was.”

“Yup.”

“You aren't Going to Tell My Mom, are You?"

1992

Jeff Hoover, Joe Janes and I, sitting in the grass just behind the Chicago History Museum. Each of us have cigars and are smoking them.

Weeks earlier, Jeff and I saw “Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack” on Broadway and, in a slightly drunken haze, decided we could could probably do better.

“Let’s call Joe,” Hoover slurred, tipping his Modelo just enough to dribble some on his shoes.

In the grass, amidst the stinky clouds of barely smoked Romeo and Juliettas, the three of us decide to start our own theater company. Weeks later, we hold auditions in the Neo-Futurarium and cast Level 6, an ensemble of improvisers and sketch comedians with aspirations of something more.

Peculiar Journeys Ep. 28

1993

From the Chicago Reader when they reviewed shows every week, every show:

A MEAN WATUSI

Level 6 and Free Pickles

at Shay's

Only suckers and wimps do just one show at a time: that seems to be the spirit behind the two new revues being hosted by the comedy group Level 6, and for chutzpah alone they deserve credit. While running their straight improv show A Mean Watusi every Sunday night at Shay's bar, they've also put together a scripted show, Silence of the Frogs, a so-called "nonrevue of unimprovisation," which they perform Wednesday nights. Unfortunately, the young group's ambition has overreached their talents, and what might make a fresh 90-minute show has been inflated into two overlong evenings.

The group's biggest mistake is failing to isolate its real creative strength. In A Mean Watusi Level 6 shows what it does best with new twists on the standard improvisational games and some quick wit. While not all the scenes are winners, the group's good humor and high energy make the clunky moments easier to take.

SILENCE OF THE FROGS

Level 6

at Puszh Studios

In Silence of the Frogs, the creative limitations of Level 6 really begin to show. One would think the luxury of a script would prompt them to weed out some of the dross, but instead their material only seems worse. After an interesting introduction in which actor Don Hall plays a muted trumpet to an audio background of croaking frogs, the show screeches to a halt in the first scene.

Cliched dialogue, nondescript characters, and half-realized situations, the sketches end before anything really happens. To make things worse, Joe Janes's direction is so uncertain that the actors appear uncomfortable as they carry out silly stage business (such as when the workmen begin scrubbing an el platform, a spectacle I have never witnessed in all my years as a commuter).

The rest of the scripted material suffers from the same problems. The choppy structure and uneven quality of material give the revue a sluggish pace that is often hard to follow. While a lack of communication between people seems to be the vague thematic thread, it is never clearly outlined and comes across as a lazy afterthought. The show picks up, though, after Silence of the Frogs, when the group returns to do some improv.

In their press release, the group makes a revealing statement: "In Silence we're out to create good art. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining, it's just not our primary objective." Maybe they should abandon their pretensions and stick to what they're good at. At least in improvisation there's not enough time to think about making good art.

— Tim Sheridan

Government Cheesh

1994

Closing up the band room after teaching from 7:30am til 3:30pm and then having after school band until 5:00pm. One of my students, a drummer, helps put things away.

“What do you do after school, Mr. Hall?”

“Some nights I have shows with my theater company. Other nights I perform improv comedy with ComedySportz.”

“Ain’t you married?”

“I am.”

“Prolly not for long.”

✶

As one gets older it becomes more difficult to make friends. At least that’s been the case for me. In my experience, the friends whom I can say I’ve cemented a lifelong bond with have all come from making art together. Sure, many have come and gone in that theater immediacy of sort of falling in love with each other during the rehearsals and run of the show, the promises to keep in touch after the show closes, only to move on and be friendly acquaintances. Faceborg connections.

Chicago is one of those places in the world, like the bizarre tourist attractions that give power to Gaiman’s American Gods, that draws amazing artists to her embrace. I have met and worked with so many extraordinary humans within the gates of this town it boggles my mind to reflect upon the sheer number. Because art is a dramatic and contentious preoccupation, there are some whom the explosion of ideas and execution burned away from the raw electricity. The burning of those connections are always a bit sad but the celebration is of the creation.

One friendship that has remained intact and with the gravity of true family across my time in Chicago is that which I have with Joe Janes. He and I have been a part of so many artistic experiments — from the early days of Level 6 to the producing of his first full-length play to the spectacle of putting up all 365 sketches he wrote in a year — despite some dark patches and irreconcilable differences along our nearly thirty years, he is the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had. I hope I can convince him to move to Vegas but even if I don’t I will always consider him the best of friends (not to mention one of the kindest humans I’ve ever run across from and the Spock to my Kirk.)

✶

1995

We held a yard sale. We sold bars of chocolate. I managed to snag us an Air Canada sponsorship for ridiculously cheap flights and booked a 17 room three-flat just minutes from the Fringe Central ticket center for around $50.00 per person for the month.

“The Armageddon Radio Hour” and ComedySportz. 26 shows in the month of the largest theater and arts festival in the world. While Chicago roasted that summer, the gang of WNEP Theater performed and saw more awesome, bizarre, experimental stagecraft than we could’ve imagined. We stole so many of those ideas and employed them back in Chicago it is no exaggeration to say that a month at the Edinburgh Fringe is better than a theater degree.

All Sandwiches Matter

1996

Joe Bill (of the Annoyance Theater) and I sit in the court room, waiting for my name to be called. We were there because a few months prior, in an act of guerrilla marketing, I instigated the fly posting of thousands of ‘teaser posters’ for the newest WNEP play and wasn’t smart enough to realize that once we put up the real posters, we’d get busted by the city.

For a few weeks in our little circle of artists and theatergoers, the question was “What the fuck is ‘Metaluna’?” Posters featuring the word and a photo of Sigmund Freud in a slip were plastered everywhere. I had multiple conversations about the mystery always with a smirk in my brain because we were in rehearsals for this ridiculous, massive show that made no sense spawned from the cracked mind of Joe Janes and directed by the equally off-balance Bob Wilson.

Five stages. Two constructed fat suits. Expanding arms. Muttonchops. A theremin. DADA poetry on vaudeville stages. Giant circus-like posters painted by Kevin Colby. It was the most ambitious show we had created to date and caught the eye of Jen Ellison, who after seeing the show, decided she wanted to be the artistic director of the company responsible.

The city fined us $20.00 but warned that they could’ve fined us $10,000. It was not the last time we would come into contention with Chicago but it was definitely the lightest sentence.

In Nonsense Is Strength

1997

Mr. Jose Barrias was the beginning of a trend.

Hired by Sharon Hayes to come in and teach music at District One Middle School, my predominant skill she prized was my tendency to bend both the rules and the expectations placed upon the role of music teacher.

My classroom had no desks or chairs. We had rugs and pillows. We didn’t spend any time learning to play plastic recorders. We listened to and discussed music and musicians and read from my college music history text. I had the HOT ROOM across the hall. I had a wall of gum that the students (not supposed to chew gum in school but did anyway) would add to every day.

In 1996, Sharon left. Barrias was hired. Jose did not appreciate my less than orthodox approach and, while he did his best to get me to follow a more traditional protocol, it didn’t take.

A year later, my teaching career was over. The trend was set — get hired to shake things up creatively, person who hires me leaves, bureaucrat comes in who wants a by-the-book approach, I stay a year longer than I should then split.

Did I Say Hot Room?

1998

“I think I want a divorce. We’ve been this for a while since college and I’m pretty sure you hate Chicago and I love it and we’re both kind of miserable.”

“That’s what my grandma said marriage was.”

“Seriously? I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll probably get a bachelor apartment in a crummy neighborhood, jump right back into another relationship, get marginally suicidal but mom will talk me through it. The theater company will kind of blow up because I’ll spend too much time drinking because the idea of being divorced is a bit intense for me and I’ll be a total fuckwad. We’ll do some shows but I’ll be mailing it in for the most part. It’ll cause a huge rift between Joe and I but we’ll repair it a while later. How about you?”

“I’ll get the fuck out of Chicago, move back to Texas, get remarried, he’ll die a year later but then I’ll meet the man of my dreams, we’ll get married and have two children. Oh, and I’m keeping both the dog and the cat. You can see them on Facebook in ten years.”

1999

FOR WNEP, IT'S `APOCALYPSE' NOT YET

THE FOUR HORSEMEN ARE READY TO RIDE

It was always about Keith Whipple. Sure, we had a massive cast and spent more money on this ridiculous, ambitious monstrosity. Twenty-five working televisions, five VCRs connected, amazing costumes, and a dark satire on Christianity. Cathleen Carr, one of our producers, broke her pelvis during load-in. Joe Kaplan built a set that could actually withstand the apocalypse.

Whipple, however, stood out on Lincoln Avenue before every show improvising riffs on Revelations with a megaphone to an unsuspecting pedestrian audience before crashing the start of the play. He endured eggs thrown at him, physical threats, and the police called on him. And he never once flagged or complained.

✶

The wonderful cesspool that is Chicago holds a special place for the transplant. Sure, there are the diehard Chicago natives, stuck in their neighborhoods and allegiance to their high schools and local digs, but the transplant has this wide open space to navigate. Chicago has been a magical playground, like a hardcore Midwestern Disneyworld with different “lands” to go to and experiment within.

I was always the new kid in school because we moved around a lot. As much as anything else, it is this foundation upon which my many career moves were made while surfing across Lake Michigan’s shores.

Public school music teacher. Off Loop Theater Producer, Director, And Actor. Improvisational Comedian. Playwright. Improv Coach and Teacher. Venue Manager and Landlord. Retail Tobacconist. Massage School Facilities Manager. Public Radio Events Director. NPR House Manager. StorySlam Host. Digital Publisher and Writer. Independent Events Consultant & Producer. Front of House Manager of Millennium Park.

Only in Chicago could I bounce around so sporadically, learning from each experience and growing in my skills. Only in Chicago could I have that many shifts in vocation without adding “Unemployment” or McDonald’s to my resume.

✶

2000

She was both excited and incredulous.

“You signed a lease on a theater?”

“I did. It was about time we had our own clubhouse.”

“Can we afford it?”

“We have to. I mean, we don’t really have a choice now.”

“How much is in the company bank account right now?”

“$18.00.”

“…”

2001

I woke up late. Jen was in the front room. She was crying. I came in and she was staring at the TV. The footage was live and it was off a disaster of some sort in New York. As I sat next to her, neither of us spoke. We sat like that for almost an hour as the non-stop feed kept informing us of the attack.

Later that day, she and I went shopping for props for her one-woman show that was in tech rehearsals. We went to a vintage toy store on Broadway. The streets were mostly deserted.

Later, I started getting emails and phone calls from the cast and crew of “Lives of the Monster Dogs” and “Soiree DADA.” We were scheduled to open the Monster Dog play on September 12. We had a DADA show that night. What were we going to do? Should we cancel the DADA? Should we postpone the play?

Jen was of no help. So I decided. I sent out an email to everyone in the theater company. If people felt strongly enough that they couldn’t perform, that was fine but we would do the shows despite the attack. We would do what we do. We would entertain as best we could.

I’ll never forget Bob Wilson, in full DADA costume, reading the ending monologue from The Armageddon Radio Hour and sending chills throughout the room.

2002

I lived across the street from our theater which meant I was on call whenever any one of the thirteen shows per week was running

A random Friday night. A midnight show by a renting organization. I’m in the back, watching to make sure everything is copacetic. I notice a guy, solo, in the back row. He’s jerking himself off. No one else in the audience or onstage is the wiser.

“Yo. You get two choices, bub. Unclench your pud and quietly get the fuck out of my theater or continue to choke it as I drag your ass out of here by your hair. Choose now.”

Just a day in the life.

Nothing is Sacred. Not Even You

2003

I was upstairs when I got the call. The DoR was downstairs. They wanted to see our Public Place of Amusement license. “It’s on the wall. In the nice frame.” Three minutes later, the phone rang again. There was a problem. I threw on my pants and came downstairs.

The next morning, the Sun-Times ran a short story about the DoR sweep of six or seven small, Off Loop theaters that had been shut down due to licensing violations. We were among the list. Adding insult to injury, our theater was saddled with the only full paragraph and quote, saying that our license had been forged. I called to see what they were talking about. I called my landlords who didn’t return my calls. I called the League of Chicago Theaters and was told they couldn’t help us because it was reported that we — I — had forged the license.

Outside, there was a huge red sticker on our place — CEASE AND DESIST. We were being shuttered. I spoke to an attorney and was cautioned about what I might say to the press. “Don’t piss these people off. Play nice.” I was told. So when I was interviewed for the Reader, I played nice. When I was interviewed on WBEZ, I played nice. I’m not particularly good at playing nice, at watching what I say. And it made me seem guilty. The expectation of those around me was that I wouldn’t sit still for this. That, if I were in the right, I would tear off my shirt, march down to City Hall and raise bloody fucking hell. A natural born brawler, I tried to dance the political Foxtrot.

Three of my best friends — who had stood up with me at my wedding — became convinced that I had, indeed, forged the license. That, while they were performing shows, I was out in a back alley, selling forged documents to strangers using Photoshop and a color printer so kids could get into bars and underage girls could get abortions. They started working with the landlords to transfer the lease to a member of our Board who was ALSO a member of a theater company that had also been shut down.

My books were audited. Every dime, every receipt. It was concluded that everything was kosher — that there was no malfeasance. In fact, it was this audit that uncovered the fact that I had “donated” over $35,000 of my own money over three years to keep the place afloat. But, said my friends, I was pretty clever and could have figured out how to cook the books ahead of time. In the span of a month, I had gone from the guy who made sure the stage was painted and the lights worked to a criminal mastermind. It was like Kafka.

At a meeting of the majority of the 48 members and associates of the theater, I broke down in tears. I felt trapped and maligned. The tears were hot and angry and impotent. I was failing on an epic scale and could not find a way to make things right. The Three Groomsmen had successfully negotiated the transfer of the lease to the other theater behind my back; it was up to us whether or not we wanted to try to fight it out. We didn’t because I didn’t.

Getting Up the Eighth Time

2004

From the New York Times (top of fold on the cover of the Arts Section in the print version):

“John Huston's ''Let There Be Light'' (1946), a meticulously shot government-sponsored documentary that presented psychiatrists curing World War II veterans of mental ailments with such absurd quickness that many suspected it was rehearsed, now appears like more of a piece of propaganda for Freudian psychoanalysis than for the United States military.

Jen Ellison and Dave Stinton's adaptation of this fascinating movie, which was banned by the United States for over three decades, is one of the most curious shows in this year's fringe festival. It's a staged version of a documentary that may have been staged itself. Instead of commenting on or contextualizing the material, the creators of the play, which concentrates on four of the soldiers, play the material as straight as if it were a kitchen-sink drama. While the style can be stiff, the sensitive actors playing the soldiers -- Peter James Zielinski, Peter De Giglio, Chad Reinhart and James Yeater -- manage to tease emotional depth and nuance out of their thinly drawn parts.

Still, the show's optimism about the government's treatment of its veterans is jarring, especially when compared with more cynical recent moves like ''Born on the Fourth of July'' or ''The Manchurian Candidate.'' It's almost comic when Cpl. Joe Hardy (Mr. Reinhart) regains the feeling in his legs after a few moments of hypnosis.

Ms. Ellison and Mr. Stinson seem to acknowledge this anachronism in their one major departure from the film -- Mr. Zielinski's sensitive and beautifully realized portrayal of a depressed grunt who never recovers from an unspecified psychological sickness. He adds a dour tone to the drama, reminding us that the talking cure has its limitations.”

2005

One fall day, I substitute taught at a school in Humboldt Park. It is a neighborhood filled with culture and vibrancy but is one of those in Chicago left mostly out of the resources loop but I discovered that I am, as a teacher at least, at my absolute best when working in the classic "troubled inner-city school" filled with kids who America has chosen to leave behind.

I bopped around the school in the early morning, providing prep periods for fourth and sixth grade teachers - strictly high priced babysitting. Then I landed in Room 102. Seventh Grade Science. For the rest of the day.

Most teachers I know fear nothing more than seventh and eighth grade. The kids are just swimming in the chemical dump of their overloaded hormones and their emotions and bodies are careening at a breakneck pace without the experience to guide it away from the fourth turn wall. I love this age. They crack me up; every time I work with them I have new stories to tell and feel like I successfully navigated a rudderless boat through the most violent of storms and lived to tell about it. (Jesus - a NASCAR metaphor and a sailing metaphor in one paragraph - what you got to say to me now, motherfucker?)

The day was interesting. I had enough time during the day to talk to a couple of the teachers, all of whom looked tired and stretched a bit too thin and who spoke in the slow, hushed tones of the shellshocked. They told me of the gentrification on either side of the local neighborhood and the resulting dramatic rise in drug dealers and gangs in their school over the past few years. They quietly railed against the sense of entitlement their students were trained to have in an environment that dictates that teachers could not punish children in nearly any way whatsoever for increasingly violent behavior - the idea that flunking, suspending, or holding back a kid who has no perceived use for school in the first place is like fighting a wooly mammoth with a loaf of bread. While the kids were away, they would talk with a worn but slightly amused look on their faces which immediately hardened into a disgusted scowl as soon as any kid appeared.

Excerpts of my day include:

"I forgot to tell you," I gleefully stopped the class in the mid-riot of getting prepared to switch classes. "Look at this look on my face." I deadpanned. "It says 'I don't care.' You say you absolutely have. to go to the washroom or you'll die and you must have your friend with you? 'I don't care.' Your friend jabbed you in the eye and you can't see? 'I don't care.' Your teacher said that you sit in the corner with six others while 'doing your science' together? 'I don't care.'" "You say you need to KNOW something or are looking to LEARN something? Then I care."

"Mr. Hall, why are you so happy?" "Because teaching you guys is like a day at the zoo! And who doesn't like the zoo?"

"Pardon me. (a beat) Excuse me. (a beat) I need your attention! (a beat) I don't want to yell over you, folks. (a beat) Excuse me! (a beat) GOOD GOD - THE SKY! LOOK AT THE SKY!! OK, listen up really quickly -" "Mr. Hall - you're weird."

At one point, I run into Antoine. Antoine is a 15-year old, six-foot-three inch, drug dealer's son. He is a huge white kid who somewhere along the line decided he would mimic a stereotyped black kid. He is in the behavior disorder class and, according to his teachers, pretty much has the run of the school. He is what most teachers know to be a hopeless case - no pragmatic use for education, no respect for any adults except those that can pummel him, and the realization that nothing, absolutely nothing can be done to him until he's eighteen.

He came in during a class switch and was chatting up one of the girls. I had no idea he wasn't supposed to be there and was actually mystified that he simply would not shut up for me (I'm actually pretty good at that sort of thing). He literally acted as if I wasn't there. After ten minutes of attempting to explain the science lesson (Matter, Mass, Volume, and Density), he gets up and makes for the door. I intercept.

"Where are you going, Antoine?"

"This ain't my class."

"Then why have you been here for ten minutes?"

"Ah bumbbges digghuff chaetky mumblemumblemumble...."

"What?"

"Nothin. Get out my way."

"How about we wait for the security guard to swing by and take you to the class you're supposed to be in - I don't get a thrill at the prospect of you roaming the hall freely."

"What?" He tries to shove me out of the way of the door, getting right up in my face. "Don't you lay your hands on me!"

This is a trick. Antoine knows that this is the phrase that freezes the blood in most teachers' hearts. In a time where parents file lawsuits against teachers for failing grades, the stigma attached to a corporal punishment charge is career suicide.

"I didn't lay a hand on you, Antoine. In fact, it was you who laid your hands on me. We now have two choices." I get quiet enough for only Antoine to hear. "We can wait for the guard to come by and pick you up and escort you out of here so I can teach some seventh grade science. Or. I'm gonna beat the crap out of you and then have you arrested for assault. Make your choice."

His face reflects a number of conflicting emotions and finally he flashes a shit-eating grin and asks, "We cool. right?"

It turns out that the kids don't really care much for Antoine. They're afraid of him. The teachers are, too. I think it's a shame that things have come to this - it's only October. The atmosphere for the rest of the day slows down to a mere category 2 hurricane and the day breezes by.

✶

In thirty years, I’ve lived in a lot of the neighborhoods in the city. Again, in the laundry list version:

Edgewater Rogers Park Bridgeport Lakeview Avondale Northcenter Portage Park Bucktown Uptown Wicker Park

Every neighborhood has its own flavor and people and businesses. The cornucopia of experiences based entirely upon your immediate surroundings is extraordinary. All of it connected by the train (and busses if you go to where their are fewer rich, white people...)

The best part? Local businesses. My guess is that Vegas will be populated more with chain restaurants, bookstores, etc. It is the local dives and boutiques and coffee shops that make Chicago one of the most amazing places on Earth.

My Chicago is:

The Lincoln Restaurant Haymarket Pub & Brewery The Green Mill The Metro Chicago Comix The Athenaeum Old Town Tobacco Bang Bang Pies The Red Lion Victory Gardens Theater at The Biograph Quenchers The NeoFuturarium G Man Tavern Smoke BBQ The Chopin Theatre Pequod’s Pizza Easy Bar Uncharted Books The Music Box Theatre Empty Bottle Lem’s BBQ Dollop Coffee Black Dog Gelato

Sure there are more but I’m old and can’t remember everything. Calm down.

✶

2006

“Did you hear that Hall kicked Bernie Sahlins out of the Athenaeum lobby last night?”

“What? Why?”

“One of his Chicago Improv Festival stage managers pulled the lights on some Los Angeles group because they were going way over time and Sahlins lost it. Found Don and tried to dress him down in front of a crowd getting tickets. Hall stood by his stage manager and Bernie was not having that. Finally, he snapped an told him to get his old motherfucking ass out of the theater.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, Pitts got heavy pressure from Second City so he had to fire Don.”

“He’s been with CIF for, what, five years?”

“Not any more.”

2007

“Can I ask you a question I’m not legally supposed to ask? You seem like you’d be alright with it but I want to check.”

“Shoot.”

“You’re twenty years older than every other applicant for this job. Why do you want it?”

I laugh. “First, I like Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me!” Second, I like NPR and WBEZ. Third, if I do a great job house managing for peanuts, maybe you decide to offer me a full time gig.”

Four months later, he offered the full time gig.

2008

“Are you Jackie’s son? She’s right. You got fat.”

Betrayal in Tornado Alley

2009

Monday morning at WBEZ. Eighteen voicemails. Not so many until you understand that the outgoing message specifically instructs people to NOT leave voice messages and that these eighteen recordings were from the same person.

“Hello! My name is [REDACTED] and I’m here to see “Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me!” I have a ticket and I’m at the Chase Bank but I can’t find the auditorium. Can someone call me back?” - “Hello. [REDACTED] again. I’m wandering around the bank and no one seems to know where the show is being taped. Please call me back. I don’t want to miss a minute!” - “I’m in my car right now and I can hear that you’ve started the show! Where am I supposed to go? There are no signs and nothing on the ticket page. Where are you?” - “Goddamn it! I can HEAR THE SHOW RIGHT NOW! LISTEN! Someone needs to call me right the fuck now or I’m going to lose it!”

This went on for an hour, all the way up to voicemail number seventeen which was apoplectic. Voicemail number eighteen was the next day, Sunday.

“Hello. This [REDACTED] and I am so sorry I left all of those messages. Oh my. I’m so embarrassed. My husband pointed out to me that the ticket to your show was for Thursday night, not Saturday morning. I’m so used to hearing it on Saturday, I thought... Well, you can guess what I thought. Please accept my apologies.”

I called her back and gave her tickets to the following Thursday. VIP. But only if I could tell the story.

2010

For part of 2008 and all of 2009, Jen worked with a team of nineteen writers on a project that involved them writing short one-act plays or scenes inspired by the artwork of Edward Hopper.

Following the divorce and her resignation from WNEP Theater, these writers came at me.

“Are we going to do anything with these pieces or was it all just wasted time?”

So I hunkered down, stitched together 24 scenes to create a ridiculously huge theater piece, cast 18 actors, 4 understudies, booked the Storefront Theater on Randolph Street, and hired a few brilliant designers

It was the last show I produced for WNEP. It was the last theater piece I directed for WNEP. Unbeknownst to me, included in the sold out run’s audience were Jen and her new husband, Lois Weisberg, the acting Chairs of the MCA, The Art Institute and the Driehaus Museum, and a woman who hadn’t been in Chicago for very long but heard about the show and came with a friend. This mystery woman also went to the play’s off-night series and reconnected with her college roommate, Scott Whitehair.

Four years later, I’d marry her in Las Vegas.

2011

“There’s no electricity in this warehouse.”

“What? It’s 4:30am. Why are you calling me?”

“The warehouse where I’m supposed to set up the movies, the spoken word, the B-Boy/B-Girl Dance Battles? I have no electricity and the door between spaces is welded shut.”

“The Block Party starts at noon. It’s 20 below zero. What are you going to do?”

“I suppose I’ll find an old breaker box that seems to still be connected to juice and try to hotwire it. I’ll electrocute myself the first time and my fingers will turn black from it. The second try will knock me unconscious for around seven minutes and make my mouth taste like pennies. The third time — because I’m both tenacious and stupid — will work. Though later tonight when I get home, my feet will be bizarrely bruised and look like dark purple beets with toes.”

“Oh. Good plan.”

“Breeze?”

“Yeah?”

“WBEZ doesn’t pay me enough.”

2012

“Your story was amazing. We loved it. We wanted to know if you were interested in hosting the story slam at Haymarket?”

“Hosting? Why not have Tyler do it?”

“He’s the producer. We love him but he’s not really host material.”

“Yeah. OK. Sounds good.”

The back room at the Haymarket Pub & Brewery is packed to the point that people are sitting on the floor. Tyler introduces me with platitudes about being the House Manager for WWDTM — it’s a touchpoint the largely NPR crowd can cheer.

“According to the legend, The American feud begin over notches on the ears of a hog Exchanges of retribution from this humiliating start Gaining traction to equal the obsession of two warring families

The thirst for vengeance, once fomented Is unquenchable, irresistible, all-consuming The Klingons say revenge is a dish best served cold But most of the meal involves the heat of righteous anger.

Someone became stridently political Someone else cheated with your boyfriend Yet another spread rumors about you There is no end to the razor-sharp slights you have endured. Time slipping through your fingers, wasted on rage That thing that got the revenge ball rolling Lost in a cacophony of calls for justice and "It's not right"

Revealed to be, in the end, nothing more than notches on a hog's ear.

Tonight’s theme is GRUDGE. Welcome to The Moth!

Like a Burning Moth Without a Clue as to How He Caught on Fire: A Collection of Word Jazz

Of The Seven, Americans Suffer Sloth More Than the Other Six

✶

The act of reflection upon a thirty year period forces perspective. In writing this, one of the choices to make has been to determine which moments are worth hanging onto and which ones are better left erased. Sure, these erased moments are still visible but like a heavily used white board, the remnants of the words are almost scrubbed off, slightly visible but unimportant.

The odd, highly passionate fights that occurred are not limited to one or two years but peppered throughout like scars that look like faces if you squint. The betrayals are lower in volume, a tune you remember from way back when but can’t quite recall the lyrics. The specifics and details behind divorces and other failed relationships might be juicy in that Buzzfeed sort of view but aren’t truly relevant.

I scaled a mountain and, during the journey, broke few bones, got hypothermia, and lost some of my equipment but no one wants to hear the tale of those things but rather the feeling of epic transformation that such a path includes. I’ll not use my platform for therapy, gang.

I know people who tend to stare back into the rear view mirror and wax nostalgic as if the best times (or worst) are behind them. I am not one of those people. What’s past informs the navigation but does not determine the destination. I have very few regrets and I think that’s the best way to live.

✶

2013

“You were involved with the Global Activism Expo?”

“Yeah. I produced it.”

“The 5K Fun Run with Peter Sagal?”

“Produced it.”

“The Chicago Chef Battle at Kendall College? The WBEZ Day of Service? The Winter Block Party for Chicago’s Hip Hop Arts? The Year in Review at Park West? The Sound Opinions Summer BBQ?”

“Produced them all.”

“Did you have a favorite?”

“Oh yeah. The Richard Steele Holiday Party at House of Blues with featured performers Billy Bragg and the Sons of the Blues. That was seriously one of the highlights of the year.”

2014

“Hey. How about you shut the fuck up?”

Three dates later.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

How to Jump Out of a Plane and Survive

2015

Along the road, there was General Admission. It was a WBEZ podcast co-hosted by my Events Assistant and myself. We interviewed local artists as well as a handful of national talents (including Kate Mulgrew, Steven Yuen, Taylor Mac, and, of course, Henry Rollins.) A true highlight of 2015 was getting to sit down with a personal hero of mine, Chuck Palahniuk, and ask him questions. The interviews for these are long since deleted but the memories remain.

Half a Century

2016

A meeting at the bar below my apartment. Commiseration over the online trolling I’d endured from unfriending a psychopath and her army of aggrieved idiots. A pitch — how about an online magazine? Something cool and interesting and featuring all kinds off writing? Something that Himmel could sink his own Angry White Guy voice into like a fetid beef sandwich with so much mustard it covered up the gristle and the rot?

“Well, I’ve recently updated my 10-year blog (Angry White Guy in Chicago) to something less Trump-centric sounding. I’m calling it Literate Ape. Whaddya think?”

“Sounds perfect.”

2017

“In the nearly five years I've hosted The Moth (58 regular slams, 8 Grand slams and nearly 700 stories in that time) I've had a real ball.

I started every single slam with the admonition that while we are each snowflakes, unique in every way with our individual crystalline natures, we are all just made of fucking snow. With the onslaught of identity politics and partisan bickering, I hope that is something people remember.

I closed every single slam with a quote: "If you want to change the world, have a meal with someone who doesn't look like you." - Chef Coco Winbush.”

Farewell to The Moth

”In parting ways, I can say that my decade working for WBEZ, Vocalo, and especially NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! was thrilling, challenging, inspiring and worth every moment. I got to watch Obama's first speech as president on multiple televisions in a bona fide newsroom. I got to meet Michael Moore, Denis Leary, speak to Bill Clinton and hang out with Tom Hanks. I produced events for as many as 5,000 people (as well as had a hand in producing a record-breaking performance of WWDTM at Millennium Park for 17,000 people). I produced events at the House of Blues, Victory Gardens, Adler Planetarium, Metro Chicago, City Winery, Chicago History Museum, Chopin Theater and hundreds of other excellent venues.

I was there to assist in orchestrating the 10th Anniversary of WWDTM at Adler Planetarium. I was there for Carl Kassell's final show in D.C. I directed Ira Glass, Scott Simon and Peter Sagal in a gala performance. I have been privileged to work with Bill Kurtis. I got to throw Richard Steele and Claude Cunningham their retirement parties. Winter Block Parties with YCA, New Year's Eve Parties with The Moth, Pi Day, the brilliant town hall meetings for the Race Out Loud series. Jim and Greg of Sound Opinionswith Frankie Knuckles on the MCA stage. Drive-In movies in West Chicago. 5K Runs with Peter Sagal. Running front of house for WWDTM with Kate Kinser by my side almost every single night. Laughing and planning things with the amazing Vanessa Harris.

The list of amazing experiences and incredible people is a bit mind-boggling in hindsight. And Good Christ, the Pledge Drives..“

Farewell to the Public Radio Mines

2018

“In the park, there is only one we, the collective patronage of the thousands of multicultural Homo sapiens gathered to hear an orchestra or a jazz ensemble or the blues or a rock band. It is a larger and more lovely we and, therefore, a stronger foundation from which to find solutions to the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to society.”

All the World’s a Stage and Identity is Just Another Costume

“"Tiffany to Don."

The terrible analogue radio crackles in my left ear.

"This is Don. Go."

I'm on the southwest end of the park. It's hot. Really hot. Hot enough that one begins to question the sanity of standing out here, wearing all black, amidst 11,000 people listening to a world-class orchestra play Tchaikovsky. Tiffany is one of my 50 ushers. She has encountered an older couple who came out to the park to hear the music yet hadn't really thought through the difficulties of being post-70 years of age in heat that can only be described as Global Warming Hot as Balls HOT. The gentlemen is so overheated that he can no longer walk. They need a wheelchair.

"Copy that. I'm on my way."

I walk quickly to the Welcome Center on Randolph, check out a wheelchair, then navigate the unwieldy thing through throngs of casual walkers around to the east side of the the stage. It takes me around eight minutes and I'm sweating like I'd been in the volcano room at King Spa. The old man sits in the chair after navigating the fear of just falling on his ass while sitting down. They need to go to their car in the parking garage.

Tiffany shrugs. "I don't drive. I don't know the parking garage."

"I got it," I say with a forced smile.

I wheel the man and his wife through the bowels of the building. We get to the elevator and they can't quite remember what floor they parked on. They left their ticket in the car. We sit for a moment, as the garage is huge and the prospect of finding their vehicle with no concept of even what floor (of the seven levels) it is on is an impossible task.

"It's on three." "How sure are you?" "I'm pretty sure it's on three."

We go to three. No idea what section (3A? 3B? 3C? Jesus Christ…) they give me a description of the car and a license plate number and we set out through each aisle, each row, looking for the car. Thirty-five minutes later — with frequent radio calls for assistance that I direct while seeking an end to the labyrinthian journey I'm on — I spy their ride. They are relieved and thrilled. So am I.

The wife wants to tip me and offers me a dollar. I politely decline and send them on their way. I return just as the concert ends and just in time to set up the two recycling bins in the arcade for the ushers to dispose of the now outdated programs leftover from the weekend.”

Managing a House for 50,000 People

2019

Seven weeks. 2019 in Chicago has been spent doing side gigs, hanging out with people who have meant something to me in the past thirty years, and driving to old neighborhoods and reflecting upon the time here.

My last night in Chicago is spent on the Haymarket Pub & Brewery stage doing BUGHOUSE! And drinking myself stupid on Mathias Ale.

✶

And that, as they say, is that.

If you made it all the way down to this sentence and clicked enough half of the links, I applaud you. Writing this freaking tome took me most of the final seven weeks and occupied more of my brain space than most things I can recall. I’ve spent the entirety of my adult life in Chicago, a feat that I could never have predicted in 1989.

Chicago has shaped me, taking the doughy calzone that crashed upon the shores of Lake Michigan and baking me until I was a golden brown with tons of gooey melted cheese and some questionable meat product. While not born here, I can and do call myself a native. A Chicagoan.

Certainly, I won’t miss the weather — I’m quite certain there is no such thing as dibs or a viable need for shoveling and salting your walk in Las Vegas. There will be things I will be happy to shed my daily grind of: the incredibly high cost of living, the taxes, the corrupt government, the fucking parking issues, the baked-in tribal mentality of neighborhood cultures, the extreme segregation, the crap school system. Dana and I are riding the crest of a wave of deserters as Chicago continues to bleed residents like she goes through restaurants.

I will, however, miss the grit of the people. I’ll miss the almost blissfully ignorant pride in the city. I’ll miss the transit system that binds us together like arteries and the theater and spoken word scene that blossoms even under the auspices of the interminable social justice rage profiteers. I’ll miss my friends especially those who have stood by through good times and harsh times and, while always challenging me, never gave up on me either. Just like the city.

There is so much I did not include in this Dear John letter it’s hard to fathom but that’s the nature of something like this. Plenty left out but always stuck to me.

Just like the city.

#thirty years #Farewell to Chicago #memories

0 notes