"when she knew she was dying at the end of the movie, she still called him back in and made him watch her die". that's... traumatic, to say the least. other than that, no words coz that's a lot to process, much less move on from
Satine knew for a fact that she had consumption and she was dying. She even predicts that she’s going to die that very day. She knows how weak she is. She sings her swan song, Christian comes back and gives her smooches, and she dies in his arms not a minute later, hand to my heart it’s the honest truth.
Of course she told him that she really and truly DID love him, and that he had to go on, and tell their story, and it’s all very beautifully tragic. It’s the movies baybee.
(Also I say again there’s nothing wrong with telling people you love them when you’re dying irl, this is the fucking movies.)
wait, didn't performing at Moulin Rouge get Satine out of poverty? Or was I missing something? also, thanks for the explanation! (off topic. on mobile it says requests are open but when I view your blog on desktop mode, it says closed)
Alscuskdl I’m sorry for the confusion about requests, idk why it’s different on different platforms, I’ll try to correct it. (They are closed, I’m sorry, this blog is v dead.)
So in the DVD extras they actually talk about how they tried to make it clear that life at the Moulin Rouge was not all glitz and glam, and in fact that was a cover for the patrons. Before the duke came along Satine’s dressing room was a singular corner of the back of the hall with a mirror, nothing to separate it from everyone else. She would not have been selling herself if she did not have to be. By getting the dukes patronage and turning the Moulin Rouge from a bordello into a theater, they were rising above poverty. I hope that makes sense!
so I read your Moulin Rouge fic and wanted to ask about the theory coz I don't get it. please explain. thanks
Hey! I'm assuming you're talking about this fic here.
I really love Moulin Rouge, don't get me wrong, and it's a love story for the ages. Everything that happens in that movie is done deliberately, executed well, and it works for what it is.
That being said, I don't think Christian and Satine would have actually worked out long-term. First of all, even if she hadn't died, the duke would have pulled the funding from the Moulin Rouge and the entire company would be without jobs or places to go. If she hadn't died and had agreed to marry the duke, how would she and Christian have carried on their romance? Would they have done it in secret for their whole lives? Eventually secrets will out, and it would have been bloody. And, even given all those circumstances, if they'd just had one another, I don't think they could have been happy because they wanted very different things. Satine enjoyed performing, but she wanted out of her life of poverty. Christian willingly chose a life of poverty over running his family's business so he could become a writer. Satine wanted out of the Moulin Rouge while Christian found a home there.
Now, I also personally believe that Satine's love was kind of selfish. She only once actually says the words I love you in the film (briefly, after her almost rape), you'll notice that in the big Elephant Medley they actually avoided giving her the most loving lines even after Christian had already charmed her. When she calls off their love affair, you'll notice that she's already in her little pink robe so she waited until after she and Christian had already had sex to do it. When Christian desperately needs reassurance because of his jealousy over her having to go to the duke, she throws his song back at him instead of giving him any kind of comfort and reminds him of his promise not to be jealous even though they both knew that it was going to happen. And then, to top it all off, when she knew she was dying at the end of the movie, she still called him back in and made him watch her die.
(And just pre-emptively, holy shit I know that it's not actually selfish to love people and be loved by them when you have a terminal illness, this is movie-land.)
it is really disheartening that we are barely a week into the new year, and the bullies are out in throngs draggging, publicly humiliating, and doxxing people when they dont get what they want. but it appears that they are getting what they want: people are less active, and arent posting their work as much as they used to. as someone who has been an educator for many years, as someone who is a ph.d. student of writing and global studies, and as someone who is a university creative writing/literature professor-to-be, i just wanted to say: this is not how we discuss writing in the workshop. and this is certainly not how we treat peers, especially when we disagree with one another. be kind. be better. take care of yourselves.
And please guys let’s just not interact with them if at all possible. We’re all angry but the best course of action is to not engage and turn our backs
This is all for attention, so I’m going to ask that we all just block them and move on with our lives
I really can’t express how good this fic is. In all honesty there just aren’t enough words in human language.
I actually really like Daddy fic when it hits the right buttons for my preferences—and this does. It’s not infantilism for the reader, there’s no playing dress up or feeding or weird kid stuff—it’s the gentle dom part, the caring part, the tender part. That’s what gets me. This fic is filled to the brim with affection and tenderness and beautiful intimacy.
Every part of it is sexy without being crude, romantic without being saccharine, intimate without being overwrought. It genuinely brought me to tears when I saw that you’d initially taken it down.
To anyone who’s looking for a genuinely good and amazing Obi-Wan fanfiction, please read this. Please.
are you planning on doing any more mark renton fics? you write him so well i’d love to read more!
You know I had thought about it but given that each of those fics only got a handful of notes I figured there wasn’t much interest. Maybe at some point!
Alright so how about Dan Torrance x reader with number 29 from the kissing prompt list you reblogged?
The Favorite Tenant
—
29. Staring at each other’s lips for a moment before moving closer, as if drawn together by some unseen force.
—
The first time your Auntie called you over to the boarding house to help her favorite tenant, you were met with the sheepish smile and kind eyes of Billy Freeman as he tried to explain the water damage he’d been having in his ceiling. The second time, Billy had injured himself on the radiator that desperately needed fixing. The third, he was nursing an injured shoulder, his brother was in the hospital getting his stomach pumped, and you were fixing the broken door frame in his bathroom.
The fourth time your Auntie called you over to the boarding house to help her favorite tenant, you were surprised to see that she hadn’t called you over to help with Billy. Instead, it was the shy blue-green eyes and hesitant smile of Dan Torrance that welcomed you to the attic apartment, where he explained that there was some kind of leak in the bathtub.
“You must be quiet as a church mouse if you’ve passed Billy as Auntie’s favorite tenant,” you’d joked while you checked the pipes. You had never seen someone so anxious about water pooling on the bathroom floor, but you supposed he just wanted to be sure he stayed on Auntie’s good side.
“Something like that,” he’d said back, with an anxious smile to match the first.
He’d been very relieved when you told him it was just the old house pipes disagreeing with the new ones you’d installed a few years prior, and made sure to open the shower curtain before leaving the bathroom with you. The smile he gave you when you told him there was no charge—not for Auntie’s favorite tenant—made your heart palpitate.
You knew in that precise moment that your new life’s mission was getting more of those smiles out of Dan Torrance, at any cost.
The latest time your Auntie called you to help her favorite tenant, she was angrier than you’d ever heard her. Dan was, in her words, “on very thin fucking ice right now,” and you knew that whatever had happened, it was bad, and it was Dan’s fault—which, in itself, was almost impossible to believe. He was the quietest, mildest, sweetest man you’d ever met in your life. What could he have done to get your Auntie upset?
Cracking the word MURDEЯ into his blackboard wall was enough to do it, you thought.
“How did you manage to do it?” you asked, reaching out to trace the backwards Я with one finger. You could almost feel him rubbing the back of his neck behind you.
“I didn’t,” he said. He sounded exhausted, and if you were honest with yourself he hadn’t looked much better when you’d arrived to find out what the problem was. “I just—I woke up a couple days ago and it looked like that.”
Honestly, looking at his face and having gotten a close look at the wall, you found that you were inclined to believe him. It would have taken some very, very skillful work with a chisel to make that happen deliberately and you just couldn’t see Dan risking your Auntie’s wrath for the sake of...a joke? An art piece? You stared at him for another long moment, this time just taking the opportunity to look at him, before you shrugged.
“Auntie didn’t tell me what kind of job I was in for so I need to go to back to the store to get some supplies. Come with me,” you said. You were rewarded with another one of those winning Dan Torrance smiles and had to struggle to keep your heart in check.
On the way, you didn’t ask questions about what he’d been up to. You didn’t want to press him for answers, because you were sure that smile was for not making him explain. You did confirm that he no longer wanted the wall to be painted like a chalkboard.
“I don’t really need it anymore,” he told you, with a smile that was almost...triumphant. Self-satisfied at the least. His eyes were unusually bright as he asked what your favorite color was. You told him, and the paint chips he picked up were all in that shade.
It was on the way back to the boarding house that the story started to come out.
“I have a half sister,” he said, and looked to you as if for judgement over it. You just held his gaze. “Her name is Lucy, she has a daughter named Abra who found me a few days ago. She was...in trouble.”
Dan was a lot of wonderful things. Warm and kind, patient and quiet, and a wonderful singer if you could convince him to sing along to the radio while you worked. He was also a very, very good storyteller. The story came out in stages, first the bare bones (Abra had been targeted by child predators), then with more detail (she came to him for help because she didn’t want to worry her parents), and then, when he could see you were still listening, came the rest.
It wasn’t hard for you to believe Dan Torrance shined, you thought, when you could see sunlight beaming out of his smile. You caught him blushing as you had that thought and raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s with the look?” you asked.
“Well, shining means that...sometimes I can hear the things you’re thinking,” he said, and it took a moment for what he said to sink in. As your throat dried out at the implications, he hastened to add, “Not—not all the time. But sometimes if you’re thinking something loudly enough I’ll kind of...pick up on it.”
There were a lot of thoughts you could suddenly remember thinking pretty loudly and your face was getting hotter and hotter as they all flew through your mind. “I-I’m sorry. I never realized—if I’d known I would have tried to—I don’t even know how I could really think quieter but...”
Dan reached out for your hand, shaking his head. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault, you couldn’t have known. I should be the one apologizing—”
“No, you don’t have to—” you started, but he lifted a hand to your face and his thumb stilled your lips while you felt your face getting hot again.
“I didn’t exactly mind hearing your thoughts,” he said softly, and you swallowed. “But you didn’t know I was listening, and it was wrong for me to let that happen. So I’m sorry.”
“Danny...” you murmured.
You two were surprisingly close, you realized. Just inches between you, as though you’d gravitated together. You noticed his eyes glancing down and up again and realized he was doing the same as you, looking at your lips. You wondered if he could hear what you were thinking right now.
“I can,” he murmured, leaning down until your noses were brushing.
You smiled, briefly, and leaned up the distance between you to press your lips to his. For a moment there it felt as if the world was spinning around you and you had to grab on to the front of his jacket to keep yourself steady. His arms slid around your waist and you stumbled closer, into his chest, and let out a soft sound against his mouth.
Lets finish fixing the wall later, you thought at him. You felt him smile against your lips.
Realized that although I intended for Reader to be POC (niece of the landlady, who was black in the movie), I had her blushing visibly so I went ahead and updated the fic!
I see a lot of posts going around about replacing the word said in your narrative. “500 words to replace said” and the like, as though it’s a dirty word.
As someone who has been writing for nigh on twenty years now, I can promise you that you do not, ever, need to replace said in your narrative fiction. Ever. Not once, not even that one special occasion I can see you forming in your mind. Ever. You may want to, it may even be useful on occasion, but it is never, ever, necessary.
Please do not use alternate words for said. Please. Please, for my sanity and the sake of every other veteran writer, stop circulating these posts
You woke up to the feeling of lips brushing your forehead, stirring and furrowing your brow. When you opened your eyes it was to see Mark giving you a gentle, if wry, smile, holding his jacket in a bundle under his arm and his shoes dangling from his fingers. He clearly hadn’t meant to wake you, and your heart fluttered a bit in your chest at that sheepish expression in his eyes.
“Goin’ somewhere, Marko?” you said, clenching your jaw to keep in a yawn. You got your elbows under you and sat up to have a look around. True to form, he’d never joined you on the bed last night and had instead wrapped himself in the quilt on your couch. You couldn’t help rolling your eyes over the gentlemanly gesture.
“Yeah, sorry, I got a train I need to catch,” he was saying, and you could see him edging towards the door.
He always did this, you found yourself thinking. He came over and crashed with you when he was too fucked to get home. Took the couch in spite of your bed being big enough for two of him to fit in beside you, and tried to run as soon as he could, like he was afraid of being underfoot, or he was trying to get out before you could kick him out yourself.
Not that you ever would. Even high eight ways from Sunday on the skag, you’d never kick him out.
“It’s not even half six, Marko, can’t you catch a later one?” You sat up in bed and stretched, closing your eyes and completely unaware of the way his eyes lingered on you. You gave him a smile when you dropped your arms. “I could make you some breakfast at least. Got some black pudding.”
He was on a “sober” kick, so you knew he had to be hungry. You could see the temptation in his eyes, but you knew in that same moment he wouldn’t take it.
In three strides he crossed the room again and wrapped an arm around you for a quick and bony hug, dropping the lightest kiss on the top of your head.
“I ‘preciate it, luv, but I do have to get back. Got a benefits round to do this mornin’,” he said, and you sighed.
“Promise me you’ll get somethin’ to eat at the station?” You looked up at him as he shrugged into his jacket and you could see his eyes twinkling faintly in the morning light.
“I promise. You go back to bed, I’ll see you in a few days.” He said it like a promise, but you knew that it could be significantly longer than that before he was in your neck of the woods again. You got the distinct feeling that it would be the case—he’d been “sober” for a good while now, and you knew he had to be getting bored. He tended to steer clear of your place when he was fucked on more than alcohol. Your heart clenched in your chest and you gave him a tight smile.
“Don’t be a stranger, Marko,” you told him, and he smiled, hand raised in a half wave as he walked out the door.
You waited until you could hear his footsteps fading away before you drew your knees up to your chest and cried.
-
As you predicted, it was longer than a few days before you saw him again. It was more like a couple months. You were used to it by now; the radio silence, peppered by the occasional call from his mother and the very strong urge to drive into Edinburgh yourself when you’d had too much wine and not enough dinner. You knew that Mark needed his space, though, and the last time you’d talked about it he’d vehemently protested you going to Mother Superior’s to try to find him.
So you waited. You played by the rules of his game, even when he made it so vastly unfair, and you counted a hundred and twelve days before he showed up at your door once more.
He looked different this time, you thought. Brighter in the eyes, skinnier in the frame, with a clarity in his expression that you hadn’t seen in a while.
“Hey,” he said, voice soft and eyes beseeching. “You wanna go for a walk w’me?”
No apology—yet—but you couldn’t deny him when he looked at you like that.
“Lemme grab my coat,” you said.
It was a long walk, meandering, past the station and into the hills. He puffed a bit, but so did you. It was just chill enough that you didn’t start sweating, thank God. The story came out in bits and pieces. He’d gotten caught shoplifting. He’d been put in rehab. The stupid, silly, daft bastard had underestimated his tolerance and almost fucking died.
“And that bint never thought to fuckin’ tell me!” You were seething—Mark’s mother was calling round at least once a fuckin’ week to check and see if you’d seen him, but heaven forbid she let you know when your best friend was dying. No wonder the last few weeks had been suspiciously quiet.
“Well I’m sure she had a bit more on her mind, installin’ a lock on my door and all,” he said, managing to sound only a little bitter.
He went into more detail, how they’d made him go cold turkey, and how he’d almost wished the overdose had killed him as he went through the withdrawal. Chills, fever, hallucinations, the whole works.
“Christ, Marko,” you found yourself saying. You couldn’t imagine how difficult it had been—on any of them. You were still processing the retroactive horror of finding out he’d nearly died. “I cannae even think how you managed it.”
“Well, it wasn’t fuckin’ easy,” he said with a snort. He looked over at you, something unreadable in his eyes, and you felt something brush your hand. You looked down and saw that he was reaching out almost tentatively to curl his fingers with yours. “But I had some help. Thinkin’ bout coming back to see you.”
Your heart jumped up in your throat and for a moment you forgot how to breathe. “W-what?”
“Look, I’m—“ He cut himself off, and he squeezed your fingers. “I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I shouldn’t’ve just up and vanished on you, but—you know I wanted to keep you away from all this shite. But you...thought of you, thought of comin’ back here to see you... God, it helped. It really fuckin’ helped. I dunno if I would’ve made it if I hadn’t had you on my mind.”
“Come on, now, Marko, you don’t mean that...” you said, pushing out a disbelieving scoff in spite of how breathless you felt. “You’d’a been fine.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. His eyes were bright on yours, intense. “Thought about you when I was sinkin’ into that overdose, too. Thought, ‘what am I gonna do, I promised I’d be back.’”
“In a few days! Been a bit longer than a few, you cunt,” you said, though there was little acid in your tone. “Would you just stop it, alrigh’? You don’t need to do—whatever this is.” He tried to cut in, but you wouldn’t let him. “I forgive you, you don’t have to do this song and dance. I’m just happy to see you again, you daft bastard. Specially if it means you’re off that fuckin’ poison.”
He said your name, trying to interrupt, but you were on a true ramble now.
“Wish I’d’a actually been there to fuckin’ help, but that’s your mam for you. I’m a bad influence cos I don’t nag your ear off about your drinkin’, but not too low’s she can’t call round to ask about you—“
You were finally cut off when Mark dropped your fingers to grab you by the head with both hands and pull your face up to his. You let out the most undignified sound as he kissed you, and he drew back to chuckle against your lips for a moment before he slotted them again. He nipped your bottom lip and surprised a little whine out of you before you managed to pull yourself away to give him an incredulous look.
“I meant it,” he said simply. His thumbs stroked over your cheeks. “You kept me alive, well long before I overdosed. I can’t—I can’t promise it’ll be easy, or I won’t make you cry again—“ your face heated when you realized he heard you those months ago “—but I want to try. Don’t you?”
“You are a fuckin’ idiot, Mark Renton,” you said, and you buried your face in his chest while he laughed.
Two am in the country tended to be pretty quiet. You were used to the sounds of the city, the constant buzz of noise even when everyone should’ve been snug in their beds. You were still getting used to the idea that everywhere closed for the night by about ten pm, except for the pub, so when you felt restless there was only one place you could really go.
“This’ll be the third night this week I’ve found you out here,” came a voice from above your head.
You tilted your head back from where you lay on the roof to find that Mark was clambering out your bedroom window, and your heart stopped in your chest for a moment as you watched him, quite gracefully, swing his legs over the sill.
“Can’t blame me for wantin a bit of stargazing when light pollutions so shit back in London,” you said, giving him a grin as he crouched low and shuffled down to lay on his back beside you.
Third night this week and it was only Wednesday, you knew. It was just hard, still, to get used to the quiet. To get used to sharing your space with someone. To get used to the idea of someone wanting to share space to begin with.
For a long, long few moments it was just silence between you. He had his hands on his own abdomen and you could see out the corner of your eye that he was almost completely focused on the sky above. There was a bit of wonder in his eyes that made your heart ache and for just a moment you let your mind wander, opening up those pathways you’d long closed off out of self preservation.
What if, you thought, with a kind of wistfulness that had sharp edges. What if, what if, what if...
He caught you off guard when he turned to look at you and for a moment you could still see the stars reflected in his eyes, before he saw the look on your face and his brow furrowed. He turned towards you and tucked his elbow beneath his head, reaching out with his free hand to twine his cold fingers with yours.
“What’s that look for, then...?” he asked, voice soft and low with concern. You realized then that he’d caught your look of wistfulness and you tried to school your expression. He squeezed your fingers. “None of that, now, come on. You can tell me.”
I was wondering what it would be like if you looked at me with the same kind of wonder as you did the stars, you didn’t say. The words pushed at your lips but you couldn’t bring yourself to actually put them to voice.
Instead, you said, “...why did you invite me to come with you?”
“What?” he said, eyebrows lifting and surprise overtaking confusion. You looked down at your joined fingers and took a breath.
“When you left London. When you decided to move out here after everything with your—your old friends. Why did you ask me to come with you?” Now that you’d finally asked, you couldn’t stop yourself from adding to it. “I—I love getting to spend time with you, honestly, and I’m so happy you did, but I can’t figure out—I don’t understand why. Why me. Out of everyone you could’ve asked...”
He said your name, soft but intense, and you finally looked back up at him. His eyes were bright and so focused on yours and you swallowed.
“There wasn’t a single other person I wanted to call that night. Not a one.” His thumb stroked over your hand and you had to suppress a shiver. “And when I realized I’d have to leave, I knew I couldn’t without you. Without at least asking you to come. I thought it was a fuckin long shot that you’d agree...”
“Mark,” you tried to start, tone admonishing, but he shook his head.
“I did. Even with a sack full of cash, what kinda cunt would agree to run off with a former junkie?” He gave you one of his completely mad grins and shuffled a bit closer, getting in your space. “But you did. And here we are. Does it matter so much why now that we’re here?”
“S’pose not,” you said, voice a bit weak when you were faced with one of those blinding grins. That wistful feeling was curling around your heart, sharp and painful and bright.
His eyes bored into yours for a long, long moment. You couldn’t bring yourself to look away, and you could swear you saw the stars reflected back at you from the depths. He said your name again, softer, and in the space of a blink he was closer than ever, so much so you could count each of his eyelashes.
“Mark...?” You didn’t know what exactly you were going to ask him, and in the end it didn’t matter. You felt his breath on your lips for a fleeting moment and then—then he was kissing you, rolling so he could lean over you with his elbow beside your head. His lips slotted with yours, his other hand curling into your hair, noses brushing and breath mingling between soft, connecting pecks. A tiny sound escaped you when he pulled back for a moment, a whimper or a whine, and he shushed you with a smile.
When you looked up at him you could still see that look of reverence and admiration and wonder despite the fact that you could see the universe spread out above his back from where you lay. You could still see the stars in his eyes.
“What’s this, then?” Mark’s eyebrows quirked up as he took the soft wrapped package from you, turning it over to see it from all angles. It was just brown paper and some twine, since it wasn’t exactly Christmas yet, and you tucked your hands gratefully back in your pockets now he had hold of it.
“Just a bit of somethin’, had some time on my hands while I take calls at work and all that,” you said, and you watched him as he reached up to tug on his earlobe, fiddling with his little hoop. “Go on, open it. Can’t stand around here all day.”
He looked up at you through his lashes and grinned, a smaller one than you were used to but bright nonetheless. He fumbled with the twine, fingers cold and just a bit stiff, and when he finally peeled the brown paper away and you could see the red wool peeping through his face went a bit slack.
“I didn’t, like, board it or anything cos I don’t have room at my flat, but I figured you didn’t really care anyway,” you found yourself rambling as he tucked the paper under one arm to better inspect his gift. The scarf unfurled, bright red and soft and textured with slightly wonky stitch patterns. “And I’m pretty sure I fucked up the pattern, but I didn’t drop any stitches—“
“Would you stop bloody talkin’ for a second and let me thank you, ya daft bint?” he finally said, and he sounded a bit choked. When you looked in his eyes you could see they were a bit wet and he was smiling so much wider. “When did you even find the fuckin’ time...?”
“Well, you know, between calls at work...” you said, a bit flustered by his reaction. “You said you missed your mums scarves and mittens, so I thought—I mean the mittens are giving me trouble, but—“
“I cannae believe you,” he scoffed, and he shook his head before he reached out to pull you into a tight hug.
You couldn’t think of a thing to say, frozen for a moment with surprise before you wrapped your arms around his waist and squeezed him back.
Now that no content November is done, I’ll be reposting some fics I submitted to @rentskenobi for you all here! I know I haven’t been active lately; request blogs are a bit hard for me. But I hope you’ll like these fics!
But nothin' is better sometimes/Once we've both said our goodbyes/Let's just let it go/Let me let you go/ sorry to bring this to you but this part of When The Party’s Over fits with the movie ending Dan Torrance and now i am upset that my brain made me realize this 😔😔 🦋
I’m sorry Dee but I refuse to believe I’m unhappy endings 🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️
