"The Acid Pancake from the Abyss"... I'm going to pass, I think, since all that comes to mind is certain culinary miscues... smoke alarms... fire, flood, and famine...
Actually, I wrote a poem once upon a time. It was pretty dark. There were razor blades slid down into an abyss. I titled it "Chili." And the last line was a plea that she never cook for me again...
But, along the lines of movies...
I'm a "Potter-head."
In 1998, I was by no stretch of the imagination a kid anymore, married and working a career while finishing up my Master's degree in education, having moved on from my earlier thought that the counseling field and detention work might be a good fit for me. I was completely unaware of J.K. Rowling.
Until Mom purchased "The Sorcerer's Stone" (Americanized version) as my birthday gift that year.
Mom was an elementary school teacher. More, she'd read the book and saw a lot of me in Harry. I even had a scar on my forehead (although mine was from getting my helmet ripped off at the line of scrimmage and making the tackle anyway, knocking the ballcarrier unconscious).
(Personally, I think I'm more something along the lines of Hagrid, but Flitwick sized... "Hairy and mad, you say? You wouldn't be talkin' 'bout me, now would ya?" And then there are Dogzilla and the three Demon Cats...)
It was a gift. From Mom.
And, okay. It worked for a paper I was having to write for my last Children's Literature requisite. (Technically, it was supposed to be a Newberry or Caldecott, but I was just that fuckin' good. Not to mention stubborn, obstinate, determined, willful...)
So, I read it. More, I studied it.
And enjoyed it.
Not enough that I was waiting with 'bated breath for the next installment. Hell, I didn't even know there would be a next installment since I didn't really care all that much. It was a children's book after all. Laurell K. Hamilton, David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, John Ringo, David Eddings, Tracy Hickman & Margret Weiss (to name a few) were much more my speed for "mind candy."
Mom had that covered as the next was released just in time for my next birthday.
And the next released just in time for that birthday.
And the next released just in time for that birthday.
However, the next year, there was no new book. And I found myself oddly disappointed since I was certainly no child by that point, having gained my M.Ed and taken retirement from my first career in order to embark on something I thought would be a better fit.
Instead, they'd gone and made a movie.
Bleargh.
Let me explain.
The one and only movie I've ever judged to be every bit as good as the book was "The Abyss." Every other one has been... lacking. (And don't even get me started on how many ways they fucked up "The Sword of Truth" or "Dresden Files" or... Tanya Huff's work that I can't remember the series title and am too lazy to go look up at the moment. The television series don't just suck, comparatively, they "suck diseased moose wang" to blatantly steal a phrase from Jim Butcher.)
Only...
Only, this Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone didn't suck as much as most Hollywood gets ahold of and then decides to piss on all the fence posts until it's unrecognizable to anyone who actually read the book.
(And don't come at me with your arguments about the length OR special effects. I've sat through George Lucas films AND Kevin Costner "this shit is going to be over sometime today, right?" movies.)
And pretty much right up until they decided in "their infinite wisdom" to completely cut S.P.E.W., the Potter franchise movies did a pretty damn decent job of at least resembling the books they were made from.
Once I'd collected all seven books (eight movies), each year around my (and Harry's) birthday, I would set the movie matching the book up on the DVD player to loop and read each of the books again.
Flash forward a few years, and Mom had enough of fighting non-Hodgkins lymphoma after more than a decade and went on to see what is next. Both my wife and I were classified as disabled and unable to work, with me becoming largely housebound and her virtually bedridden. Our options for entertainment were... eh... somewhat more limited than they had been.
It was even more important, to me, to continue to re-read the books Mom had given me each year with the movie from the book playing on a loop in the background while I did it.
But... Love and I also had developed certain... idiosyncrasies with our sleep hygiene. Specifically, we could not sleep if it was... well, if "it was quiet. Too quiet."
So, we would set up movies in the DVD player on a loop.
The thing was... we were a little different in just what worked.
I was more "Chronicles of Riddick" or "Avatar." The Star Wars franchise... I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I had to stand if I wanted to stay awake through the intro music and scrolling screen of a Star Wars movie. But, pretty much anything with a high ammo count and explosions would suffice as a lullaby for me. So, pretty much any cheesy 80s action flick.
Speaking of which, I saw that Chuck Norris is wearing a mask. We're fucked. But, I digress.
Love, on the other hand... Oh, good God! West Wing. Criminal Minds. Law and Order. Grey's Anatomy. NCIS. For the love of God, how many boring assed legal, political, or medical soap operas are they going to inflict?! And why the Hell couldn't I have been claimed by a slave who liked "chick flicks?!" Those, at least, I could sleep through (and often did the first time through). Christ on a crutch, even Oprah, the Hallmark channel, or that Oxygen network would have been better! (Unless Dr. Phil was on that episode, since I couldn't sleep because I'd be too busy heckling "The Frat Boy.")
About the only thing we could agree on, that worked for both of us, was the Harry Potter movies.
We played them so much that we wore out two of the eight discs.
At the end of September 2017, her son and his wife were visiting and took me to Wal-Mart. Where I spotted some Harry Potter movies and decided to buy a couple of the two movie sets to replace the ones we'd used up.
On October 5th of 2017, just after midnight, I came out of the bathroom to find the television on some craft show. (I don't think it was the dude with the white man 'fro painting, but it was the same kind of thing.) Which also just didn't work for me. So, I opened one of the replacement DVDs and put in "The Chamber of Secrets" set to loop.
Love was already asleep. And I was asleep within seconds of stretching out next to her.
Eight hours later, or thereabouts, I woke to the movie still playing. And Love still asleep.
She'd had a lot of trouble sleeping, so I slipped quietly out of bed and into my computer chair beside where I sleep, where I sat for the entire day, waiting for her to wake up. With "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" playing on a loop the entire day.
It was still playing at 1800 (six o'clock) when I decided that was enough sleep until she ate something... and discovered that she'd died at some point. And I hadn't known.
It was still playing as the police and the medical examiners came and investigated. And then wheeled her lifeless body out past me.
It was still playing as I sat there in a numb haze, making the requisite calls to let family know that she was gone. And after, as I tried to think what I should do, what I could do, what there was left for me.
I don't remember exactly when I shut it off, took the DVD out of the player, and carefully put it back in its case.
I neither read the books nor watched the movies that year.
One night, over a year from when I'd shut it off, I was chatting with someone I thought was not only a submissive but my little. She knew (or should have) that movie had been playing when my wife died, and just how much pain was attached to it for me. I had told her. We had talked about it. We had talked about it when my birthday came and went and I didn't read the books or watch the movies. That particular night, she was... call it babysitting. And the kid had picked "The Chamber of Secrets" to watch.
Part of being Daddy for me is that I am interested in what my little is watching, reading, or listening to. And even if it is not to my personal taste, I will read, watch, or listen to it with them (if they will share it with me and it is feasible). Hell, I'd broken my housebound streak to go to the movie theater at the same exact time to watch the movie about Freddie Mercury "with" her (a thousand miles apart).
It was painful, even considering pulling out a Potter, much less that particular one. But, she meant that much to me, my perceived role in her life meant that much to me, that I opened the dusty disc case and brought out the movie that had been playing on a loop the day my wife died.
I relaxed into the pain, let it wash over and through me, and was coming out the other side, actually enjoying not only this return to Hogwarts but sharing it with her... When a message popped up.
"The kid's asleep and I'm turning this shit off. I'm not watching it for the billionth time."
And brought not only the original pain back, but adding to it.
I stopped the movie and put it away once more, harmed irrevocably by this latest iteration of her callous, egocentric cosmology. And have been unable to watch or read those since.
Until...
My sweet little spice was here for her longest visit yet.
And in the latter days of her visit, mentioned that she'd never seen nor read Harry Potter. I paused and considered for all of a moment... We're only five books in on The Dresden Files, with several more to go. (We've been on the fifth book for months now as she keeps falling asleep after only a paragraph or two.) And I'm not going to drop a series and start reading a different series to her then try to come back to this one... Nope. If it's a series, I either read it all to my little before starting a new one, or we don't come back to it. Ever.
As for the movies...
***snort*** I have to put her in a full rig to get her sit still for a full thirty minutes, and then she's gonna fall asleep when she can't "shark mode!" Hell, when she's here, I have to strap her into her body pillow or I'll wake up to find she's not only slipped out of bed but out of the house!
And she wanted to try to watch all eight of the Harry Potter movies with only seventy-two hours to go in her visit? Maybe if we'd started the first day of her trip and done one per day, we could have set it on a loop and she might have caught the whole thing after about seven or eight playthroughs as she circled back from chasing shiny. But, no. Even two movies would be problematic unless I was prepared to catch her at the door of the restroom when I let her up for potty breaks and strap her back in.
***sigh*** However, she really, really wanted to. You could tell on account of how she not only said she really, really wanted to, but kept bringing it up over and over. Even putting on her special Gryffindor panties bought just for the occasion.
Yeah... I kinda suck at the whole "stern" side of Daddy. And after the sixteenth iteration, she wore me down. Although, in all fairness, it probably was the cute little Gryffindor panties hugging that spankable little tushy that did it.
And it was every bit the battle I had imagined. I kept having to pull her up by the hair from sucking me to make sure she was still following what was going on. And I couldn't tell you how many times I had to pause it as "I gotta potty" segued into "I need a drink" and then (three hours later), "I was hungry so I was making us some food."
But, somehow we persevered through the first four...
And hit a snag.
Somewhere back up there (a few hours ago), I mentioned that I'd bought two two-disc sets the weekend before my wife died. And that I'd opened the one with "Sorcerer's Stone" and "Chamber of Secrets" to put in the second that had been playing on a loop the day she died.
I'd never opened the other one I bought, containing "Order of the Phoenix" and "Half-blood Prince."
And I needed to clarify something before we went on. So, I went to find her in the kitchen...
And triggered a defensive response.
She could not hear what I was trying to tell her, what I was trying to ask, because she'd been triggered.
So, I did what I think any Daddy worth his salt would have. I held her tightly, kissed her on the brow, and apologized profusely for hurting her feelings.
Then went back, the movie still unopened, to give her some time and space, biding my time before circling back to what I needed her to understand and give informed consent to. Specifically, I was not going to open the, as yet unmarred, plastic if she wasn't going to be able to actually watch them.
When she came to me, apologizing for what she now recognized was an over-reaction, I gently broached the subject by explaining what I have set out here. That it was painful for me, thanks to Love dying and then Little One being so cavalier, but that she was providing a much-needed catharsis. Healing a wound. However, I was only going to be ready to open this unopened package if she was going to be able to sit through them and stay awake for them. Otherwise, we could do other things for her remaining time and come back to this at some future date. That I knew her limits had been tested by trying to binge them all, and it was my fault for letting her tease and tantalize me by shaking her little Gryffindor clad tushy at me.
Sobered, subdued, and more than a little shaken as she understood the gravity of the gift I was giving, and (to a lesser extent) the monumental gift she was giving to me, she chose to try to watch the rest with me.
We did make it through Order of the Phoenix and Half-blood Prince. However, Deathly Hallows was just too much.
She is back where she resides now. Probably getting a much-deserved rest. And is already aware that I've ordered The Deathly Hallows for her so that when it arrives, we might finish her introduction to Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Hogwarts in its entirety.
(As well as explaining just why the graffiti in Locke and Key, which we watched together, at the school that "Your letter from Hogwarts is never coming" sent me off into gales of laughter amidst declarations of "Oh, that's cold!")
While she understands just how much of a gift I gave to her, visiting that crucible of personal pain... I don't think she has yet grasped the sheer enormity and complexity of the gift she gave in return, healing a harmful hurt for me.
But, as I've been sitting here tonight, contemplating some of the posts I've seen, and the intricacies of these interests we share, I can't help but think it is often that way. That the lower-cased side of the slash, at least in the case of needy, greedy littles, often don't fully grok just what it is that they give to their Person. (Or how harmful they can be if they brat about the wrong things at the wrong time.) How much pain the stoic mein of Daddy can hide.
I... don't know if it could have worked, in my case, if she hadn't been sitting beside me, touching me through the first six, and in particular the second, fifth, and sixth. But, I think I can now do what I haven't been strong enough to prior to her... involvement, her existence in my world.
I think I'm ready to read the books my mother gave to me once again. With the matching movie playing in the background as I do.
(No, babygirl. Maybe later I'll read them TO you. AFTER we finish Dresden. Yes, I know you love me. Yes, I love you. But, Potter is still gonna wait until after Dresden. Now, tuck that lip in and put that flop-eared yeahbut back in its cage. No, ordering The Elder Wand for me to spank you with while wearing the Gryffindor panties won't work... Do I need to get my Dresden Staff you carved for me? And the unicorn hair cuffs to tie you to the fireplace mantel?)
Any road, I'm afraid that's all I've got on movies at the moment. But, best of luck with that Rock n' Roll Hobbit that Doesn't Know Mercy... Actually, I think I could have worked with that... except for the "too much realism" part...
