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[plantfood]

Though he won't admit it, even to himself, Mathias is slightly nervous.

He's made the best preparations he can, managing to take over the television in the basement for the time being, although he hasn't had as much luck with the bookshelf as he'd been hoping. It seems to know he's looking for something in particular and so has been giving him all sorts of other movies. Eventually, it gave up two monster movies, though neither of them are from the fifties and he's a little disappointed by that. The titles, however, are especially ridiculous and so he hopes they're still entertaining enough.

He's telling this to Julie as he leads her down to the television, holding both movies in his hand. "So our options for tonight, anyway, are Sharktopus or Two-Headed Shark Attack. I am not sure which one sounds more absurd." They both look to be fairly recent, too, perhaps even made after his time and Mathias isn't sure what that says about the modern movie going experience.

Comments

[kissmehardy]

"Sharktopus," I answer, without a moment of hesitation. "Something with a title like that has to be amazing, right?"

Even if it's terrible, I don't care. A few hours in a darkened room with a man I like and the popcorn I've cajoled from someone in the kitchen is the start of a fine time, even if the film is less than a masterpiece.

[plantfood]

"Amazing or absolutely ridiculous," Mathias answers with a smile, but he doesn't mind if it turns out to be both. Setting the other movie aside, he goes to the TV to start Sharktopus before returning to the couch.

"Sam sends her regrets, but she had a previous engagement with her dogs," he says with a straight face.

[kissmehardy]

"There is a very fine line between ridiculous and amazing and I'm not sure there really even needs to be a difference." I have a fine appreciation for both.

"Sam might be a bit young yet to appreciate the beauty of the amazingly ridiculous, but I wouldn't mind another drawing date with her. I had fun."

[plantfood]

"I'm sure she would be more than happy to hear that," Mathias says as he settles onto the couch and the movie begins on the television. It's nice down here, too, much more quiet than it would be if they tried to do this in the rec room upstairs. "Anyone who spends time colouring or drawing with her tends to become one of her favourite people quite quickly."

[kissmehardy]

"I do like making new friends. Also, being a favorite." I'm not really THAT vain, but it's not really far off from the truth, either. I move slightly closer to where he's settle on the sofa, to better share the popcorn.

"That looks a bit like here," I say, noting the film's tropical location.

[plantfood]

"Now that you've said it, we're bound to have our own Sharktopus in no time," Mathias answers, his voice dry. In truth, he isn't sure what such a creature might entail, but he's sure the film will leave nothing to the imagination. "In fact, I'm sort of surprised it hasn't happened already."

Maybe it's been happy enough with the giant squid.

[kissmehardy]

"I'm not sure what's more frightening about that. Your lack of surprise that it's an actual possibility or surprise that it that it hasn't happened already. This place is fairly alarming, you know." Not that I mind much, but it does bear noting.

I'm quiet for a bit, watching the film set up its plot. It is already acceptably silly.

[plantfood]

"Fairly alarming, yes," Mathias agrees with a faint smile, thinking of all the things it has done to people over the years he's been here. It's really nothing to smile about, the people who have been lost, the things he's had to live through and see others live through, but he isn't sure how else to react anymore.

"This is... a very interesting film," he comments after watching for a few moments.

[kissmehardy]

"Alarming is somewhat better than dull, I suppose, and it's definitely better than nothing." That I find the notion of some terrifying and (hopefully) fictional creature trying to kill me FAR less frightening than a person doing the same thing probably says a lot about me. At least a sharktopus, whatever that turns out to be, probably won't tie me to a chair in my underwear with an iron rail against my spine for days on end.

"Interesting, yes," I agree, and am slightly startle when a character is yanked off a boat by a rather huge tentacle. "Wow."

[plantfood]

Mathias can't help but laugh at the tentacle, surprised by its sudden appearance. He isn't sure what he might have been expecting from this movie, but it's going above and beyond his vague ideas. "Sometimes I am amazed by what people manage to get money to make," he says, laughing again. "Not that there's not a market for it, but I just never quite expect it."

[kissmehardy]

"I think it's wonderful. Like magic, what they can put to film." In this, at least, I am easily impressed.

Perhaps not impressed in an entirely good way, however, when we get our first glimpse of the whole of the film's title character.

"Oh," I say, not even bothering to hide my laughter at the (again, hopefully) invented hybrid creature. "Sharktopus. That's rather... clever."

[plantfood]

"It is exactly what it's supposed to be," Mathias says, laughing as well, taking in the entire thing. It's the strangest looking creature he's seen in a good long while, but it is exactly what he imagined when he thought about a shark and an octopus being combined together.

"How did someone come up with this?" he asks. "How does one think 'Today I'd like to know what a shark and an octopus would look like together'?"

[kissmehardy]

"Well, when a shark and an octopus fall in love...." I really do find the whole thing entirely too amusing despite what the creature is doing to tourists on screen. "I wonder what they did on their first date. Did they watch a film about perfectly ordinary people and laugh like we're doing?"

[plantfood]

"Or perhaps they fell in love through their common interest in chasing tourists. An interest they've clearly passed on to their offspring," he comments, tilting his head slightly to study what's happening on the screen.

"I feel like this was the better choice of the two movies," he decides.

[kissmehardy]

"However it went, I'm glad they seem to have made themselves a nice enough life." When all is said and done, I really am a bit of a romantic.

"Me too," I say, with great feeling. "I don't care how many heads the shark in the other might have had. There's no possibility it's better than this."

[plantfood]

"Unless the two-headed shark also has tentacles," he adds thoughtfully, trying to think of ways for this movie to be more absurd than it already is. "Though I have a feeling that the story just isn't as good."

[kissmehardy]

"Tentacles on a two-headed shark would be a bit much, don't you think?" I ask, as though either would be the one thing that would put it over the line. "I don't see how the story could even compare. This is a masterpiece of cinema."

[plantfood]

"It has probably won several Oscars," Mathias agrees with a knowing nod as he glances back to the screen. "I think, in particular, the Best Actor and Best Actress awards, yes?" It's fun, though, even as much as he's poking fun at it. It's keeping him entertained and, better still, Julie seems to be liking it, which is what he'd wanted.

[kissmehardy]

"Sharktopus alone could have won both those awards." This is a much different kind of film than I'm used to, but I don't hesitate to enjoy it. "The cinema seems to have changed a bit in the past seventy years," I observe. "But I'm glad to find that I'm only an old lady by the calendar. I haven't gone off allowing new things just yet."

[plantfood]

"I think many things have changed. Even just between my time and the island," Mathias admits, thinking about it. There are all sorts of things he never would have considered to be real that he now accepts as part of every day life. Fictional people, magic, sea monsters. The island changes many things, it seems.

[kissmehardy]

"The only constant is change, right? Keeps things fresh, anyway." As disconcerting as the future can be, I love being surprised by wonderful things that I hadn't thought to imagine before. "And you were supposed to say something about how I don't look so old, or that I've aged well, or something along those lines," I tease. "This is a date, isn't it?"

[plantfood]

"Of course," Mathias answers, struggling to keep his own smile in check. "I just thought it was a given that you have aged well. You look barely a day over sixty." It's one of those things he doesn't think of often, how some of his friends are so much older than him or would not have been born at all in the time he's from. They're all here now, all close to the same age.

[kissmehardy]

"Thank you. I'm glad I can pass for such a youngster, though I think I'll make an excellent pensioner. I've been saving up stories." I am dead serious about this, as I'm thrilled to have even a chance of truly growing old. "Though I never thought I'd have to come to Neverland to do it. Does that make us pirates? They were grownups in Neverland."

[plantfood]

"I always liked pirates when I was growing up," Mathias answers thoughtfully. "Does that mean I was the type of child who would not have been allowed in Neverland?" He's always been far too serious, far too stern for something like that anyway, but it was one of Henrich's favourite stories growing up and Mathias knows it well.

[kissmehardy]

"Of course not!" I'm actually a bit horrified at the thought of a child left out of Neverland. "All children are allowed in Neverland. You'd just have had younger pirates, when you were there. The rules of Neverland are flexible. It's sort of the point, isn't it?"

I have very strong feelings about the subject and feel a need to explain.

"Peter Pan was always a favorite at Craig Castle. My mother even keeps our windows open when we're not at home, in case we come flying back in without warning."