"At the Pictures" - Rated PG13 - SPN/Buffyverse/Film History/Femme's Brain Crossover
omg, I am a HUGE NERD. This, whatever it is, is inspired by last week's SPN in combination with uh, my Film Studies education and general cinephilia? Dedicated to eyesofmyeyes who is a geek like me but less chatty and considerably more fond of Quentin Tarantino and Sergei Eisenstein (films)--for reasons that will, I think, be clear to her. The rest of you can quirk an eyebrow and laugh at me.
Title: At the Pictures
Author: femmenerd
Characters: Angel, Spike, Buffy, Faith, Dean, Sam, Jan Winchester (OC), Sadie (OC)
Rating: PG13 for language
Summary: How the fictional people I love interact with the fictions of the silver screen.
Author’s Note: Each of these bits stands on its own if you know who the characters are, but if you read them all together this is a Supernatural/Buffyverse/Film History/My Brain crossover.
Word Count: About 1400 total.
Angel
The advent of new inventions always makes Angel feel older, and the world itself seem improbably ever younger. He was there, at the World's Fairs with their teeming masses (less deodorized than they are now); he saw those mystical marvels with his own two eyes. The cinematoscope; the flying Kentucky derby horse. And once, inadvertantly, his own moving image on the edges of a crowd scene, in sepia tones like everyone else.
He hasn’t been to the pictures often since the talkies came. When he does go, Angel remembers-in the darkened theater he can feel alone, with others.
One time, Angel went to a special screening of silent films at UCLA. Just like him, they still looked the same after all these years. Except that no matter how many times you rewind the reel, the people up there are still going through the same motions: Chaplin tramping about and the Great Train Robbery repeating itself ad infinitum. But the prints had suffered decay, and the audience of students and aesthetes was respectful and quiet as opposed to the raucous crowds back when he’d snuck into the Nickelodeon with the rest of the riff raff.
I was there then, he thought, and gazed up transfixed, hoping that the flickering players on the screen met natural deaths instead of something like him.
Spike
Spike and Dru used to frequent the seedy porno venues in Times Square, back when you had to go to the theater to see your smut in moving color. They’d laugh and get comfortable in the sticky seats, even as the other patrons looked askance at his Dru-not because she was dressed in over-sized, anachronistic doll’s clothes, but simply because she was a real, “live” woman-shaped item.
They’d pay half attention to the feature, and make out in the back row as if this were a regular show, drinking in the distinctive whiff of anonymous desperation-sweat, cum and life. After, his wicked girl would pick the juiciest one there to corner in an alleyway, and they’d share just like lovers with two straws in a disposable soda cup, buttery fingers touching in the popcorn tub.
Now, one of the greatest pleasures in his unlife is to take Buffy out on a Friday night; let her pick the flick. Wrap his arm around the back of her seat and sit back as the lights go down, middle row with the respectable couples and kiddies. Spike feels then a bit like the carefree young man William never got to be.
Buffy
Buffy likes sports movies; she likes cheesy musical training montages and triumph against all odds. Ice skaters especially, but rookie ball players and gymnasts will also do.
Ever since she was a little kid, it’s always been Junior Mints and diet Coke for her, but real butter is better than fake for popcorn. She likes to have someone else there, but she’d rather not share her snacks.
At the movies, Buffy’s just one of many: watching with mouths and eyes open, hoping, gasping-separate from the scene but engrossed.
It’s like a little vacation.
Faith
Give Faith an action movie any day of the week: hearts pumping, big tits and pecs, Kung Fu and kicking. Fast-paced and funny too if possible; no depressing crap-she’s seen enough messed up shit in real life.
Back in Boston in the winter time when it was too cold to hang around Harvard square smoking butts, drinking watery Dunkin Donuts coffee out of styrofoam cups and doing nothing, she’d sneak into the multiplex with these kids she used to run with. Someone always had a flask of something and no one ever cared if they got caught.
When Faith was first called, that’s kind of what it felt like-like suddenly she got to be a superhero straight outta the movies, like the world could never fuck with her again.
Of course it could and did. But at the movies you can pretend that you always win.
Dean
Maybe you’d think that someone in Dean’s line of work wouldn’t be so into horror movies, what with the fact that nine times out ten, they’re so wrong about everything it’s freaking ridiculous. But see, Dean likes the unreality of it all; he likes knowing better. Also, gore and titties-can’t go wrong there.
Dean also likes movies where a cocky, good lookin’ guy saves the day and gets the girl (he can save the girl too, but that’s optional). Spaceships and aliens are also very cool. Shut up. They are.
And there are no pictures of him wearing his footie pajamas swinging a plastic light saber around anymore; Dean’s almost one hundred percent sure.
Sam
Sam was in college when he realized that he liked Hitchcock-up until then it’d been a steady stream of neverending Star Wars rewatches and TNT late night movies with Dean. Books were a much easier route to “culture”-taking them out from the library was free.
Sam read feminist critiques of Hitchcock’s films in a couple of the Film elective courses he took at Stanford and he understood what that was all about, but he still likes them. He likes plot and detail and yet that’s not even the point; he likes seeing the world in new ways.
Sam also likes movies that make him laugh without feeling like he’s getting stupider by being there-the kind of midnight movies they play in college towns: playful weirdness and the Dude mixing yet another White Russian.
Jan
When they go to the movies together, Jan and her parents, sometimes she feels like they’re going incognito as a “normal family.” She loves it though, even if the weirdos who made her have the combined worst taste in movies of all time; she loves that about them. Her dad always buys more food than anyone should be able to eat in the space of two hours, but somehow they always seem to go through it all before the previews are even over. Sometimes Faith and Daddy will start tossing popcorn at each other and acting generally retarded, and it’s embarrassing, because Jesus, what are they? Twelve? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
Jan remembers a time when she was a really small person, and just her dad and Sam used to take her to the drive-in in the Impala. They’d bring a six-pack of beer (juice boxes for her) and they’d argue about which one of them had to drive home. Jan would climb around happily from the back seat to the front, never able to decide whose lap she’d rather be in or whether she wanted room all to herself.
Her favorite kinds of movies though are documentaries about things like bugs. She usually waits until her uncle comes to visit for those-Sam’s always down for things that are interesting as well as gross.
Sadie
Sadie actually likes the kinds of movies you see at screenings instead of showings, the kinds of films she went to at tiny side-street theaters with her art school friends when she was in college. She likes things that make her heart break a little in a beautiful way-the kinds of movies where invariably there are men with imperfect faces, ugly crying and beautiful scenery. Or not, there can be drab colors and “realism,” flowing dialogue or laconic scripts in French, Croatian or Iranian.
For Sadie also, Clara Bow’s still an “It Girl.” Stripey tights, heart shaped lips and spunk-she was punk rock feminine before there was such a thing.
But.
Sadie has also secretly always loved movies with dancing, and not just the Rogers/Astaire RKO pictures that are “allowed.” No, Sadie also gets bounce-in-her-seat excited about trashy ninety-minute cream puffs where white girl ballerinas learn about hip-hop dancing and love, Baby’s never put in a corner, and everyone’s “gonna live forever.”
Sam's allowed to know this now, and he’ll even go with her, but still the only kind of partner dancing he’s up for is the kind you do between the sheets. So on the nights when she doesn’t have to consider her outfit in light of post-viewing wine and cheese, Sadie leans her uncoiffed head on Sam’s flannel shoulder and breathes in salty-sweet-unhealthy food smells and the aftershave of a man who doesn’t judge her.
Note: Okay, so in the World of Me, all of these people can co-exist (in the Glimpses 'Verse)...except for Sadie. But I love her so I had to do one about her, and also if you "go AU" after Stuck in the Middle With You, it could work.
Oh dear God, now I have to put off watching the Hotass because I'm only a quarter of the way through my Film Theory reading because I was doing this instead.
Title: At the Pictures
Author: femmenerd
Characters: Angel, Spike, Buffy, Faith, Dean, Sam, Jan Winchester (OC), Sadie (OC)
Rating: PG13 for language
Summary: How the fictional people I love interact with the fictions of the silver screen.
Author’s Note: Each of these bits stands on its own if you know who the characters are, but if you read them all together this is a Supernatural/Buffyverse/Film History/My Brain crossover.
Word Count: About 1400 total.
Angel
The advent of new inventions always makes Angel feel older, and the world itself seem improbably ever younger. He was there, at the World's Fairs with their teeming masses (less deodorized than they are now); he saw those mystical marvels with his own two eyes. The cinematoscope; the flying Kentucky derby horse. And once, inadvertantly, his own moving image on the edges of a crowd scene, in sepia tones like everyone else.
He hasn’t been to the pictures often since the talkies came. When he does go, Angel remembers-in the darkened theater he can feel alone, with others.
One time, Angel went to a special screening of silent films at UCLA. Just like him, they still looked the same after all these years. Except that no matter how many times you rewind the reel, the people up there are still going through the same motions: Chaplin tramping about and the Great Train Robbery repeating itself ad infinitum. But the prints had suffered decay, and the audience of students and aesthetes was respectful and quiet as opposed to the raucous crowds back when he’d snuck into the Nickelodeon with the rest of the riff raff.
I was there then, he thought, and gazed up transfixed, hoping that the flickering players on the screen met natural deaths instead of something like him.
Spike
Spike and Dru used to frequent the seedy porno venues in Times Square, back when you had to go to the theater to see your smut in moving color. They’d laugh and get comfortable in the sticky seats, even as the other patrons looked askance at his Dru-not because she was dressed in over-sized, anachronistic doll’s clothes, but simply because she was a real, “live” woman-shaped item.
They’d pay half attention to the feature, and make out in the back row as if this were a regular show, drinking in the distinctive whiff of anonymous desperation-sweat, cum and life. After, his wicked girl would pick the juiciest one there to corner in an alleyway, and they’d share just like lovers with two straws in a disposable soda cup, buttery fingers touching in the popcorn tub.
Now, one of the greatest pleasures in his unlife is to take Buffy out on a Friday night; let her pick the flick. Wrap his arm around the back of her seat and sit back as the lights go down, middle row with the respectable couples and kiddies. Spike feels then a bit like the carefree young man William never got to be.
Buffy
Buffy likes sports movies; she likes cheesy musical training montages and triumph against all odds. Ice skaters especially, but rookie ball players and gymnasts will also do.
Ever since she was a little kid, it’s always been Junior Mints and diet Coke for her, but real butter is better than fake for popcorn. She likes to have someone else there, but she’d rather not share her snacks.
At the movies, Buffy’s just one of many: watching with mouths and eyes open, hoping, gasping-separate from the scene but engrossed.
It’s like a little vacation.
Faith
Give Faith an action movie any day of the week: hearts pumping, big tits and pecs, Kung Fu and kicking. Fast-paced and funny too if possible; no depressing crap-she’s seen enough messed up shit in real life.
Back in Boston in the winter time when it was too cold to hang around Harvard square smoking butts, drinking watery Dunkin Donuts coffee out of styrofoam cups and doing nothing, she’d sneak into the multiplex with these kids she used to run with. Someone always had a flask of something and no one ever cared if they got caught.
When Faith was first called, that’s kind of what it felt like-like suddenly she got to be a superhero straight outta the movies, like the world could never fuck with her again.
Of course it could and did. But at the movies you can pretend that you always win.
Dean
Maybe you’d think that someone in Dean’s line of work wouldn’t be so into horror movies, what with the fact that nine times out ten, they’re so wrong about everything it’s freaking ridiculous. But see, Dean likes the unreality of it all; he likes knowing better. Also, gore and titties-can’t go wrong there.
Dean also likes movies where a cocky, good lookin’ guy saves the day and gets the girl (he can save the girl too, but that’s optional). Spaceships and aliens are also very cool. Shut up. They are.
And there are no pictures of him wearing his footie pajamas swinging a plastic light saber around anymore; Dean’s almost one hundred percent sure.
Sam
Sam was in college when he realized that he liked Hitchcock-up until then it’d been a steady stream of neverending Star Wars rewatches and TNT late night movies with Dean. Books were a much easier route to “culture”-taking them out from the library was free.
Sam read feminist critiques of Hitchcock’s films in a couple of the Film elective courses he took at Stanford and he understood what that was all about, but he still likes them. He likes plot and detail and yet that’s not even the point; he likes seeing the world in new ways.
Sam also likes movies that make him laugh without feeling like he’s getting stupider by being there-the kind of midnight movies they play in college towns: playful weirdness and the Dude mixing yet another White Russian.
Jan
When they go to the movies together, Jan and her parents, sometimes she feels like they’re going incognito as a “normal family.” She loves it though, even if the weirdos who made her have the combined worst taste in movies of all time; she loves that about them. Her dad always buys more food than anyone should be able to eat in the space of two hours, but somehow they always seem to go through it all before the previews are even over. Sometimes Faith and Daddy will start tossing popcorn at each other and acting generally retarded, and it’s embarrassing, because Jesus, what are they? Twelve? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
Jan remembers a time when she was a really small person, and just her dad and Sam used to take her to the drive-in in the Impala. They’d bring a six-pack of beer (juice boxes for her) and they’d argue about which one of them had to drive home. Jan would climb around happily from the back seat to the front, never able to decide whose lap she’d rather be in or whether she wanted room all to herself.
Her favorite kinds of movies though are documentaries about things like bugs. She usually waits until her uncle comes to visit for those-Sam’s always down for things that are interesting as well as gross.
Sadie
Sadie actually likes the kinds of movies you see at screenings instead of showings, the kinds of films she went to at tiny side-street theaters with her art school friends when she was in college. She likes things that make her heart break a little in a beautiful way-the kinds of movies where invariably there are men with imperfect faces, ugly crying and beautiful scenery. Or not, there can be drab colors and “realism,” flowing dialogue or laconic scripts in French, Croatian or Iranian.
For Sadie also, Clara Bow’s still an “It Girl.” Stripey tights, heart shaped lips and spunk-she was punk rock feminine before there was such a thing.
But.
Sadie has also secretly always loved movies with dancing, and not just the Rogers/Astaire RKO pictures that are “allowed.” No, Sadie also gets bounce-in-her-seat excited about trashy ninety-minute cream puffs where white girl ballerinas learn about hip-hop dancing and love, Baby’s never put in a corner, and everyone’s “gonna live forever.”
Sam's allowed to know this now, and he’ll even go with her, but still the only kind of partner dancing he’s up for is the kind you do between the sheets. So on the nights when she doesn’t have to consider her outfit in light of post-viewing wine and cheese, Sadie leans her uncoiffed head on Sam’s flannel shoulder and breathes in salty-sweet-unhealthy food smells and the aftershave of a man who doesn’t judge her.
Note: Okay, so in the World of Me, all of these people can co-exist (in the Glimpses 'Verse)...except for Sadie. But I love her so I had to do one about her, and also if you "go AU" after Stuck in the Middle With You, it could work.
Oh dear God, now I have to put off watching the Hotass because I'm only a quarter of the way through my Film Theory reading because I was doing this instead.