LJ IDOL, WEEK 17
Dec. 15th, 2025 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
l0litaJaws has been Ione's favorite movie since she saw it for the first time.
Despite countless viewings, it always feels the same. Magical. She’s ten years old again, watching, rapt as the shark terrorizes the small community of Amity.
Her endless fascination with sharks started right around that first viewing too. Her father’s non-existent sobriety allowing her the freedom to watch whatever she wanted growing up.
The parking lot of the 6-7 drive-in - named so for its opening hours and the date of its grand opening; June 7th, 1967 - is almost empty for the ten-thirty screening.
Sandwiched between Wednesday and Friday, Thursdays are always slow nights.
By the time the movie starts, Ione, sitting perched on the hood of her blue Pinto, has counted just one other vehicle in her vicinity. A rusty pickup truck with the driver's window down, the smell of a cigar drifting through it, perfuming the night.
The owner of the rust bucket isn't planning on leaving her in peace to watch the movie, it seems.
By the time the movie hits the two-hour mark, the man has already gone to the concession stand a total of five separate times. He's found an excuse to talk to her on each of those occasions, though he's been rebuffed at every turn.
She deliberates getting off the hood, and watching the final minutes of the movie in the car, then casts the thought from her mind as soon as it enters.
Why should she? The best part is coming up.
The scene where Quint gets eaten. Her favorite.
That's always the best up close.
Plus, the likelihood of this guy finding a way to talk to her even in that position seems probable.
He is nothing if not persistent.
What a shocker.
Startling her from her thoughts, he exits his truck again. He's been watching - her more than the movie – car door open, body angled towards her.
He rises to his feet, shooting her another long look. Removing her sunglasses, she rolls her eyes. Another gesture he chooses to ignore.
Is it too much to ask to sit at the drive-in by yourself?
Apparently.
The man begins noisily clearing his throat. When that goes unnoticed, he only ups the volume.
She finally diverts her eyes from the screen and turns to him.
“What?” she snaps, a rising raft of cigarette smoke dancing in the still air between them.
The change in his face appears almost instantly.
“A smile would be nice, bitch!”
“I’m here to watch a movie, you should go elsewhere,” she shrugs, flicks the butt of her cigarette into the night. Watches as the orange cherry takes a nose dive into the remains of an earlier downpour.
“What the hell is your problem?”
A beat.
Eye contact.
"You."
She turns back to the shark menacing the men in the boat onscreen.
He snarls.
“You asked for it!” He lunges forward, grabs her roughly by the arm.
With a sigh, she tears her eyes away from the shark and looks into his again.
His dark ones are fixed on hers. He's glaring at her now, at being denied.
Adrenaline rolls off him in waves. She can smell it on him, mingled with the scent of his blood. It always makes them taste better when they're angry, or afraid.
Inhaling deeply, her pupils dilate, eyes turn from a clear blue to black. In one swift movement, she grabs his hand, pulling it from her arm.
Effortlessly, she pushes the wrist all the way backwards until with a crunching noise, the bone tears right through his skin.
He yells and babbles incoherently. Asking how and what, trying to wrench his torn wrist from her grasp.
Another of his screams pierces the night, is drowned out over the movie’s climax, and with one squeeze, his left hand is torn completely from the wrist. The hand falls to the floor with a wet thud, a fountain of blood erupting in its place.
Free of her, he stumbles backwards, as she springs down from the hood, onto her feet, long legs carrying her towards him.
She is smiling at him now, he realizes, and somehow that makes it so much worse.
Desperately trying to stem the blood flow from his severed hand, it only dawns on him that he’s backed himself against the wall when he makes contact with the concrete.
His knees buckle, vision blurs, he can feel himself fading.
There's too much blood.
She crowds him, places her left hand on the wall next to his head, and reaches for the bloody remnants that make up his wrist with her right hand.
He feels his stomach drop.
Ione brings the mangled appendage to her mouth.
She closes her eyes and breathes in heavily, savoring the scent like a woman starving.
Before he can open his mouth again to bargain or plead, she leans over and sinks her teeth into his flesh.
The shock of what is happening to him does not delay the realization that he is being eaten alive.
Needle-like teeth tear frenziedly at his flesh and he can hear himself hollering, in sync with the shark hunter who is being devoured up on the giant luminescent screen as it casts its soft blue lighting across the lot.
It's almost romantic.
Ione detaches herself from his wound and takes a step back, still smiling - no, grinning now - lips pulled back to reveal her fangs, stained red with his blood, her tongue dancing over her gums, following the taste of it.
The movie is still rolling. The shark and its own bloodstained mouth loom over her shoulder, a silent spectator to the carnage unfolding in real time.
She spent her childhood telling anyone that would listen how she wished she could be a shark.
Years later, the irony isn't lost on her.
Being a vampire is the same thing as being a shark.
The convulsing starts at the same moment she reaches into the back pocket of her shorts and brings out a straight razor. With a dexterous flick, it opens. The rays from the street light outside the parking lot kiss the blade in the dark.
“A smile would be nice, bitch!” followed by a mischievous laugh, are the last sounds he hears before she draws the steel across his throat.
Eyes closed, she sticks out her tongue, smiling as the gush of arterial spray hits her square in the face, painting her skin and her platinum blonde hair.
Up on-screen, the shark explodes.
Despite countless viewings, it always feels the same. Magical. She’s ten years old again, watching, rapt as the shark terrorizes the small community of Amity.
Her endless fascination with sharks started right around that first viewing too. Her father’s non-existent sobriety allowing her the freedom to watch whatever she wanted growing up.
The parking lot of the 6-7 drive-in - named so for its opening hours and the date of its grand opening; June 7th, 1967 - is almost empty for the ten-thirty screening.
Sandwiched between Wednesday and Friday, Thursdays are always slow nights.
By the time the movie starts, Ione, sitting perched on the hood of her blue Pinto, has counted just one other vehicle in her vicinity. A rusty pickup truck with the driver's window down, the smell of a cigar drifting through it, perfuming the night.
The owner of the rust bucket isn't planning on leaving her in peace to watch the movie, it seems.
By the time the movie hits the two-hour mark, the man has already gone to the concession stand a total of five separate times. He's found an excuse to talk to her on each of those occasions, though he's been rebuffed at every turn.
She deliberates getting off the hood, and watching the final minutes of the movie in the car, then casts the thought from her mind as soon as it enters.
Why should she? The best part is coming up.
The scene where Quint gets eaten. Her favorite.
That's always the best up close.
Plus, the likelihood of this guy finding a way to talk to her even in that position seems probable.
He is nothing if not persistent.
What a shocker.
Startling her from her thoughts, he exits his truck again. He's been watching - her more than the movie – car door open, body angled towards her.
He rises to his feet, shooting her another long look. Removing her sunglasses, she rolls her eyes. Another gesture he chooses to ignore.
Is it too much to ask to sit at the drive-in by yourself?
Apparently.
The man begins noisily clearing his throat. When that goes unnoticed, he only ups the volume.
She finally diverts her eyes from the screen and turns to him.
“What?” she snaps, a rising raft of cigarette smoke dancing in the still air between them.
The change in his face appears almost instantly.
“A smile would be nice, bitch!”
“I’m here to watch a movie, you should go elsewhere,” she shrugs, flicks the butt of her cigarette into the night. Watches as the orange cherry takes a nose dive into the remains of an earlier downpour.
“What the hell is your problem?”
A beat.
Eye contact.
"You."
She turns back to the shark menacing the men in the boat onscreen.
He snarls.
“You asked for it!” He lunges forward, grabs her roughly by the arm.
With a sigh, she tears her eyes away from the shark and looks into his again.
His dark ones are fixed on hers. He's glaring at her now, at being denied.
Adrenaline rolls off him in waves. She can smell it on him, mingled with the scent of his blood. It always makes them taste better when they're angry, or afraid.
Inhaling deeply, her pupils dilate, eyes turn from a clear blue to black. In one swift movement, she grabs his hand, pulling it from her arm.
Effortlessly, she pushes the wrist all the way backwards until with a crunching noise, the bone tears right through his skin.
He yells and babbles incoherently. Asking how and what, trying to wrench his torn wrist from her grasp.
Another of his screams pierces the night, is drowned out over the movie’s climax, and with one squeeze, his left hand is torn completely from the wrist. The hand falls to the floor with a wet thud, a fountain of blood erupting in its place.
Free of her, he stumbles backwards, as she springs down from the hood, onto her feet, long legs carrying her towards him.
She is smiling at him now, he realizes, and somehow that makes it so much worse.
Desperately trying to stem the blood flow from his severed hand, it only dawns on him that he’s backed himself against the wall when he makes contact with the concrete.
His knees buckle, vision blurs, he can feel himself fading.
There's too much blood.
She crowds him, places her left hand on the wall next to his head, and reaches for the bloody remnants that make up his wrist with her right hand.
He feels his stomach drop.
Ione brings the mangled appendage to her mouth.
She closes her eyes and breathes in heavily, savoring the scent like a woman starving.
Before he can open his mouth again to bargain or plead, she leans over and sinks her teeth into his flesh.
The shock of what is happening to him does not delay the realization that he is being eaten alive.
Needle-like teeth tear frenziedly at his flesh and he can hear himself hollering, in sync with the shark hunter who is being devoured up on the giant luminescent screen as it casts its soft blue lighting across the lot.
It's almost romantic.
Ione detaches herself from his wound and takes a step back, still smiling - no, grinning now - lips pulled back to reveal her fangs, stained red with his blood, her tongue dancing over her gums, following the taste of it.
The movie is still rolling. The shark and its own bloodstained mouth loom over her shoulder, a silent spectator to the carnage unfolding in real time.
She spent her childhood telling anyone that would listen how she wished she could be a shark.
Years later, the irony isn't lost on her.
Being a vampire is the same thing as being a shark.
The convulsing starts at the same moment she reaches into the back pocket of her shorts and brings out a straight razor. With a dexterous flick, it opens. The rays from the street light outside the parking lot kiss the blade in the dark.
“A smile would be nice, bitch!” followed by a mischievous laugh, are the last sounds he hears before she draws the steel across his throat.
Eyes closed, she sticks out her tongue, smiling as the gush of arterial spray hits her square in the face, painting her skin and her platinum blonde hair.
Up on-screen, the shark explodes.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-17 10:22 pm (UTC)I hate how men act like we owe them a smile.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-23 07:17 pm (UTC)I love the parallel between Ione and Jaws, with the fictional scene playing out behind the real one. It's a really sharp parallel that gives the scene a bit more punch.
The voice you create is perfect. You make her seem like a moody, emo girl in the beginning. Then you make her feel like prey. And then you transition her to the role of predator and it's all done so smoothly and so slickly. It flows perfectly. I love that you set this up to seem like one thing only to flip the script and have it turn into something else.
Your descriptions are so visceral and visual. It's so easy to see this. As well as her bloodstained mouth mirroring Jaws' bloodstained mouth.
So good. This was an amazing read.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-23 07:48 pm (UTC)So ghoulish!
But then it becomes clear why she enjoys the blood and the frenzy and the death so much.
I liked the detail of tearing off the hand (like a shark would bite off body parts), and how
“A smile would be nice, bitch!” comes full circle.
That man completely misunderstood who, in that scenario, was the prey.