#&&. That's not a good design choice who greenlit that

[storybounded]

Oh...oh no what is ML doing...

[kagekitsuneoflight]

I find having Jason be stuck in between two generations of heroes to be fascinating. The idea that he's stuck and can either go it alone or risk connecting with people who were friends with his brothers and may judge him is great drama. Plus when you work in a well knit community your friends naturally overlap. Have some deep discussions staring those other non Bat people about the faces you show to others and everyone's relations to others.

You. You’re understanding.

He literally doesn’t have many options to begin with so it doesn’t make sense to get upset that he’s “stealing his brother’s friends”. Who he’s got like. Two friends that don’t really have an overlap with Dick and Tim. Two whole people. That’s like half of his friend group.

The Outlaws is his group. Almost every other team up he’s had, it was either a spur of the moment deal, a ‘oh shit the world might be ending’ deal, or a ‘Batman has allowed/told me to be in this group’ deal. I don’t doubt he’s been a part of oneshot AU spin off groups where he had more of a choice in the matter, but in canon he’s got the slimmest pickings in terms of friends.

Especially when you factor in that in universe, he’s not very well liked! He’s got a bad reputation in the hero community. He’s got a bad reputation in the villain community. It’s hard to find characters who would reasonably tolerate him.

Starfire, Roy, Artemis and Bizzaro are the only people who still have a presence in the current canon who like him who aren’t a part of the bat clan proper.

Hell, depending on the run, even his own family doesn’t like him.

He’s hardly got anyone for a support system. I really wish that he didn’t have to “steal” friends. But the truth of the matter is, the writers don’t exactly have many options to chose from. And if a writer is bold enough to try and have a reluctant team up where someone comes to realize that Jason is more than just the Robin Who Fell from Grace, it doesn’t directly translate to a friendship.

And it really irks me when people go “oh just have him team up with some lesser known character. Oh just make new ones.” I don’t think that realize that’s *very hard to do*. A lesser known character is going to have their own fans who might not want them associated with Red Hood. There’s a lot of planning that has to be done for them to reasonably cross paths, have a common goal, get to know one another and have that cycle repeat enough for them to be considered a friend. That takes time! That has to get approved and greenlit by a higher up. Batman and Superman didn’t have one team up and instantly became best buds, that took years to build up, both in our actual reality and within the universe itself.

And creating a new character? For what reason? To have them be Jason’s friend? Good luck getting that approved. You have to design a character. You have to create a backstory. Create the characters in their backstory. You have to make an alias. You have to establish who they are. New characters aren’t made everyday, and if they are, chances are it’s going to be in a whole new generation of heroes.

You can’t have some guy who got stuck inbetween generation 1 & 2 become friends with someone in generation 7. He could mentor them certainly, but he’s not going to be able to really be their friend.

And even still! Batman is such a powerhouse of an IP that there aren’t many characters he or the other major players in the bat family haven’t touched, especially considering that Jason missed out on making his own connections on account of being dead. Which makes it insanely difficult to find him someone who doesn’t have a connection to someone else already.

Jason Todd is a tragic character. He’s an isolated character, and I understand why fans of Dick and Tim are upset that he gets to share a couple of their friends. I get why fans of Roy and Starfire are upset about it too. And I get why Jason Todd fans latch onto what little he does get.

He’s a good character to have come in and challenge someone’s sense of justice (which is different from morality!). He’s a good character to have someone confront a bias they might have, or see an uncomfortable parallel in and realize that hey, I remember him when he was Robin. A good kid, someone who wanted to help and did his best to rise to the occasion.

Maybe realize that they might not have come out of the other end of dying and being resurrected with the same moral high ground they have now.

Maybe they actually make a connection to him, and realize more and more that Jason Todd is first and foremost a tragedy. Maybe they take it upon themselves to end that fact.

(Don’t get me started on the wasted potential of the All Caste and how his best chance at independence from the bat symbol was just completely destroyed. I don’t care if people think it sucked it. All Caste gave him the golden opportunity to have his own ‘thing’ that couldn’t also be claimed by someone else and have fans fight over who’s better at it.)

[chocoships]

So I know you said to put asks in your inbox weeks ago but shh-

Antiaverage thoughts. I've been having them. Anti secretly likes cheesy drama shows, even if they're bad. Chase found out one day and set aside a few nights a week to watch his shows with him. They also have 50/50 control of the decorations, which means that half of the house is "normal" decor and half of it is skulls and other spooky stuff. (Not that Chase doesn't like skulls, they're just not his choice of decor.) Also also. They sit in the backyard and stargaze, sometimes bringing the kids out with them.

aaaaaaAAAAAH! Those are all really good thoughts, very cute! :> Anti having a guilty pleasure thing with cheesy dramas is not something I would expect but at least it sounds pretty harmless. I feel like him and Chase would have a blast with the bad shows, just because they can laugh together at the sheer ridiculousness of some and complain about characters while some truly badly written events unfold. Chase often ends up wondering how the hell some of those shows ever got greenlit for tv, while Anti shush him because he doesn't want to miss the "big important reveal/twist/game changer" thingy that really doesn't make any sense if you spend more than a minute thinking about it. For the decoration thing, I'd like to say that as someone whose 70% of their decoration comes from the Halloween section of stores Anti's taste is completely valid to my eyes. Get that Live Laugh Love sign outta here, Chase! And replace it with this framed X-ray of a skull. Now that's what I call interior design 👍 Also, for the stargazing, I feel like this would be the sort of thing where neither of them really speak during it. It's just that thing they do where they just let the calm and quiet of the night wash over them while they soak up in the company of the other. I wouldn't be surprised if this was something they did even before getting together. Like, Anti one night finding Chase on the roof, clearly looking kind of miserable but trying his best to keep it together. And the glitch decide to join him up there, not saying a word, just climbing up and keeping him silent company while they gaze into the infinite expanse of space above them. Maybe at some point in the night their hands intertwines, who knows? If it did happen neither of them comments on it as it happens or the next day.

[danwhobrowses]

Star Wars Visions - Review

So I finally finished watching all of Visions, the ambitious anime project set in a Star Wars loose if at all canon, and I truly had a good time with it, as a fan of anime and Star Wars I was curious how they would deliver.

Spoilers for Visions, watch it then come back here to read what I thought about it. Reminder: This is my own personal opinion

So as I said, really enjoyed this experiment Disney decided to take, the 9 episodes weren't all flawless but they weren't awful either, so I'm gonna go through what I liked and disliked about it.

We'll start with the negatives, since they're few, picky and it gets it out of the way.

What Wasn't Great

Runtime A veiled negative has to be many episode's runtimes being too short, some only lasting 10-15 minutes. Before watching I was expecting all to be at least 30 minutes, so it was a shame that none lasted that long.

Episode 2: Glorified Music Video I think Episode 2 was perhaps the weakest episode of the nine for me, because it was all building up to a song. I think it probably leaned a bit too much on existing characters like Jabba and Boba, as well as Tatooine, to carry interest, so it was a bit of a low point.

Episode 3: Studio Trigger keep their balls away from the wall Episode 3's The Twins wasn't bad, it just lingered a bit too much on the less fun things. Studio Trigger had made a name for themselves for striking visuals and absolutely batshit crazy fight scenes that ignore all manner of physics with the likes of Promare, Kill La Kill and Darling of the Franxx (and kinda Gurren Lagann, the company was made as a result of that so it's like a Studio Ghibli thing with Nausicaa) but The Twins didn't have enough of the major fight scene for my liking, given how most of what we saw was in the trailer. Maybe it's the fault of the trailer, but it did feel like you could just watch the trailer rather than the episode, which is a bad thing.

Episode 7 too, but it also lacks bravery The Elder was also a good episode, but it too lacked in the final fight, the ending being very abrupt. The Elder also had a problem in that they wasted their good characters, but also failed in stakes. Had the padawan been killed instead of simply being wounded by a lightsaber slash to the belly it probably would've worked more, since we were shown that the Elder is precise in his cutting and it would've served to increase the urgency of the master fighting him too. The fight was short and out of the characters we lost it was the most important character that bit the dust.

The Episode Order could've been Better My final criticism has to be that the order of the episodes felt like it could've been better. Starting with The Duel was right but following it up with Tatooine Rhapsody brought the mood down, likewise putting The Elder after T0-B1 was perhaps too jarring a theme switch. The bigger sin was probably ending with Akakiri. Akakiri was good, but it was a downer and you don't really finish a Season 1 on a downer because you want people to feel excited for more rather than feeling bleak about it; with the options of Lop & Ocho, The Elder, The Village Bride and The Ninth Jedi (which would've been my pick for episode 9) it was an odd choice to pace the episodes in such a way - even when knowing that people would binge in this order. FYI if you wanted to know how I would've ordered the episodes it would've been The Duel -> The Elder -> The Twins -> Lop & Ocho -> Tatooine Rhapsody -> T0-B1 -> The Village Bride -> Akakiri -> The Ninth Jedi

This way we start strong with Sith-heavy episodes that grip with combat, we have the Duel to set us off, we show off the Elder to sell the Dark Side's strength, which blends into the Twins and that sibling relationship blends into Lop & Ocho, we use Tatooine Rhapsody as an intermission of sorts but then carry the lighter theme with T0-B1, whose artistic elements and worldbuilding leans into the Village Bride. We make Akakiri the penultimate since we show the Jedi succumb to the Dark for love in contrast to the Elder where the Jedi succeeds by steeling emotions, before finishing strong with Ninth Jedi.

What Was Great

Anime is perfect for Star Wars Star Wars has of course delved into animation before; Clone Wars (both), Rebels, Resistance and Bad Batch, but never like Anime. So Visions was allowed to shine by showing off everything anime can offer which more realistic CGI and live action could not. Bright colour grading, physics-defying movement, as well as unique character and lightsaber shapes.

(Mostly) Not Wasting Time While I have criticized some episodes for not making the most of things, and not having enough time, but many episodes would last 12-15 minutes and still feel like they had a coherent storylines with no gaps in getting to know the brand new characters or a lack of important information and investment. It is a testament to the good writing of the episodes that episodes got so much from such little time.

We're Left Wanting More In spite many episodes' brevity, the good writing also provided us stories with great potential to be fleshed out. Who wouldn't want to learn more about these new characters? See most of their adventures? The franchise potential from certain stories' one episode makes the experiment an unequivocal success.

The different styles add to the story Using a different anime studio for each story allowed each episode to stand out in their own way, and lean on different areas of importance. The Duel for instance applied a Kurosawa aesthetic which made the audience anticipate samurai themes. As much as the animation will get props for its visuals, environments and character design we should also give a hat-tip to the amazing music, especially in The Village Bride, and the voice acting from both JP and EN. We had some recognizable faces on both sides with EN having Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Harbour, George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris, Allison Brie, Simu Liu, Karen Fukuhara, Lucy Liu and Taemura Morrison reprising as Boba, while on the JP side we had names familiar with One Piece (Zoro - why you gotta be a sith Zoro!, Brook, Tama, Kiku), DBZ (Goku), Naruto (Hidan, Tayuya and if you count Boruto; Chocho and Kawaki), Jujitsu Kaisen (Itadori, Megumi, Nobara) and more. The different styles also allowed a greater freedom to lore between studios, I know the lightsaber colour thing was done in High Republic but I did like how in the Ninth Jedi Kara's lightsaber started out translucent (I actually preferred it that way), while not diverting too far away from the canon.

The Samurai style episodes were the strongest While some episodes leaned on other elements of Star Wars, the best of the bunch kept true with the correlation force users had with samurai. The Duel, Village Bride and Ninth Jedi - alongside Akakiri, Elder and kinda T0-B1 - had strong showings by maintaining their force user characters as samurai or samura-esque, which only added to the themes of the episodes too.

Its success will hopefully entice more Studios and Directors A positive for the future is the fact that there is a future. Visions has plenty of mileage as both a series of one-off stories or stories that can be expanded upon, and its success will mean that more will be on the cards. Imagine now what other studios may want to try their hand at their own story in this universe? And what it does not only for the franchise but also the animation studios themselves, because this in itself becomes a bridge for fans on either side to be introduced to the other; new anime fans, new star wars fans, everybody wins.

Conclusion

Visions provides an alternative in Star Wars media outside of live action but also away from the CGI tv shows, but it has started off strongly almost as well as The Mandalorian and in my opinion better than the Bad Batch did. My favourite episode was probably the Ninth Jedi, but Village Bride and the Duel are close runners up, soon followed by Lop & Ocho, I hope very much that the stories these ones started especially can be fleshed out and maybe even greenlit for their own series, while also curious about what more Star Wars can deliver.

All in all, good job for everyone, they took a risk and it paid off.

[keyofjetwolf]

Bonus Question Answers! (non-anime animated final)

I asked a silly question! You gave me incredible answers. SO VERY MANY INCREDIBLE ANSWERS. If yours is listed below, you’ve earned an entry in a random draw to win a GIFTENING liveblog OF YOUR CHOICE

This question may have inadvertently created my favourite solid block of answers. I wouldn’t have called that, and was DELIGHTED. Narrowing these down was so incredibly hard. You are all beautiful and I love you.

—

Q: What was one of my favourite songs in JEM? Points will be awarded for accuracy, OR making me laugh, so if you don't know any JEM songs (or Misfits or Singers, of course!), DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU.

*  The Limp Lizards launched a shockingly popular remake of their 1 (one) famous song, and it is literally just an ASMR soundtrack of glass breaking.  That's it.  And yet, their renewed royalties have set them up comfortably in the 2000s.  -- @amberlilly  [I hoped in my heart of hearts that someone would say The Limp Lizards, and then you did, BUT DID IT MORE, Lilly you are the hero we need in these dark times.]

~~

*  If one of your favorite songs wasn't Takin' It All, then I just don't know you.  @ayu-ohseki​  [I DO LOVE THAT ONE YOU GOT ME]

~~

*  Bad Influence? I don't know, the Romeo and Juliet tale but instead of people getting stabbed/poisoned, you have of a bunch of people hijacking YOUR stage performance to sing about how much you and your friend suck. It seems really appealing.  -- Don Jose  [I’m not sure I ever quite phrased it that way to my myself, BUT YOU RIGHT.]

~~

*  Designing Women. It's an incredible bop that features the Misfits trashing a store and then buying everything. All just to spite one of the protags. -- Eddy  [I DO IN FACT REALLY LOVE THIS ONE.  Oh, Misfits, you’re so ridiculous and poorly socialized.]

~~

*  "Come on in the Water's Fine" because when I looked at song titles, I imagined Michiru saying this to Ami to bully her into the pool to race her again bc Ami seems like the kind of girl to her who would need such kind things said to entice her. But additionally, when it started up for some reason it made me think about "Holiday" by Madonna which boy, talk about nostalgia for me. Also also when the dude in the video first shows up, I thought the striped part of his shirt was the only part of his shirt and the peach flesh colored part of his shirt was just his torso and therefore that he was wearing the most hideous crop top that ended just above his nipples because that would be QUITE the fashion statement. Also mermaids rock okay   -- Furi  [There isn’t a word out of place in this entire answer, but also it made me really want you to have to do a blind reaction series on JEM song videos.]

~~

*  "Be Gay, Do Crimes, Rio Sucks" obviously a Misfits song, preaching only truth  -- @incorrecttact  [Bless you, friend]

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*  I Snort Glitter Everyday  -- Jillwalker  [ACTUAL LOL, this was clearly from one of Kimber’s 1938577 rebellious phases this week.]

~~

*  That one, in episode 47 I think? about rats being good for your skin? Wouldn't expect it to be so catchy just looking at the lyrics (I mean really, "Put 'em in soap, that's the peak, all squeaky clean, makes the boys' knees weak"? Who greenlit that?) but I haven't been able to go two months without it lodging itself in my brain for *years*  -- @kariachi  [just *chef’s kiss*]

~~

*  Glitter and Gold, because it's such a gigantic "WE HAVE NEW DOLLS TO MARKET!" advertising tie-in that I can't help but enjoy how shameless it is. GLITTER AND GOLD! GLITTER AND GOLD! HERE COMES GLITTER AND GOLD, IN STORES NOW! (Also truly outrageous I guess, but GLITTER AND GOLD!)  -- Peter Svensson  [IT’S TRUE AND YOU SHOULD SAY IT. It’s so fucking brazen, I love it.]

~~

*  Jemmicle Songs for Jemmicle Cats!  @sirblackaxe  [Bravo. BRA. VO.]

~~

*  "alone Again" for the sole reason I want you to go "wtf song was this again?" and have to look up this nightmare fever dream of an episode  -- shoujo screamer  [HA JOKE’S ON YOU FRIEND I DON’T HAVE TO LOOK IT UP I ALREADY KNOW THE SONG AND THE EXACT EPISODE IT CAME FROM SO TAKE THAT I AM VERY COOL]

—

AND THAT’S ALL THE BONUS QUESTION ANSWERS. Thank you all so much for playing along with me. I’ll be pulling for the winner (winners? THAT’S UP TO YOU) this Thursday the 14th! The winner(s) will have 24 hours to let me know what I’ll be doing, and we’ll have that liveblog(s) on the last day of THE GIFTENING, Tuesday the 19th.

THANK YOU AGAIN YOU’RE ALL TOO GOOD IT’S DISGUSTING

[random-imagines-blog]

Fiction {Andy Serkis x Reader One Shot}

Requested by: @madarin-of-the-sharingan​ Wordcount: 3829 Summary: Growing up with Peter Jackson as your best friend had perks, such as getting you your dream job as set designer on one of the biggest movie franchises to ever exist - and introducing you to your celebrity crush.

Growing up next door to someone like Peter Jackson - yes THAT Peter Jackson - was a life-altering thing. Perhaps if it had been a jock, you would have gotten into sports. If it was a cool, popular girl, you might have joined her clique and married some rich man and have a yacht. But luckily for you, it was nerdy Peter, a couple of years older than you, who lived next door to you and your parents, and who let you hang around despite the teasing. No one wanted to be the teenager who hung out with little girls. But Peter never minded - mainly because you would listen to him go on and on about the things that he liked, and you in turn began to like them as well. Lord of the Rings in particular - oh, how the two of you could talk about Lord of the Rings for hours on end. All day if your parents would let you. While you both went different paths - he into directing and you into art - it all came together when Peter became the director of the Lord of the Rings films and hired you on the spot to be the set designer.

When Peter would read the books aloud to you as a kid, you would lay on his living room floor on your stomach, knees bent, feet kicking in the air, drawing what you imagined Rivendell to look like. You had a very particular image of graceful waterfalls, elegant columns, intricate architecture, and an almost pastel but not too child-like color palette. Eventually, that was how Peter learned to see it too. It indefinably became Rivendell to him, and he would accept no other person bringing it to reality other than you. It meant there was a high expectation on you but you were up to the challenge. You’d been dreaming about this your whole life.

You had some pictures drawn to show to Peter. You brought them in to the studio where they were finishing up figuring out the casting. They had the videos rolling, and a couple of the chosen cast already there. Including someone that you were extremely excited for - Andy Serkis as Gollum. You’d helped to pick him, since Peter had trusted your judgment. No one else had the correct voice for him. And then Andy surprised you all by being open to the motion capture and was able to move in weird ways. It was like these films were meant to happen. Everything was absolutely perfect.

“There you are!” Peter said with a big grin once he saw you. Even after all of these years, he considered you to be his best friend. “What have you brought for me?”

“More Rivendell, as tradition,” You said with a big grin, knowing that it was one of his favorites. “And some ideas for The Shire. I also have some rough sketches for the Mine of Moria. I was rereading Fellowship last night,” Your eyes wandered past him towards Andy who was talking to some of the crew. Everyone was allowed to have at least one weird crush, weren’t they? Yours was Andy without a doubt - though you were careful never to let it show. Peter would have teased you endlessly, and called the choice of him being cast biased. “So what are you doing here today, then?”

“Just finished up watching these. I’m liking this kid for one of the hobbits,” Peter pointed towards the screen that he was watching. A man was talking, and you could definitely see his resemblance to the hobbit creatures.

“I was thinking about scouting a few spots for The Shire that are on the approved list. Did you want to come with?”

“I’m a bit busy - you should bring Andy, and take some pictures.”

Thank God he was looking at the screen and not at your face, because your expression would have given your secret away. “Uhh - sure, sounds good boss.”

-

It had started from there and then began to snowball. Andy was a gentleman, and very professional on set but off of it - oh boy, was he ever a massive flirt. Hardly a day seemed to go by that you were there and he wasn’t making some sort of comment on how lovely you looked that day, and that you should be a part of the scenery because you were as beautiful as the nature around. And you fell for it hard. Not only that, his influence fell upon you and you found yourself becoming a more confident woman under these compliments.

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon, when you were stuck in the studio because it was too wet to film anything outside, you were in a secluded corner with your sketch book. Though The Hobbit hadn’t been greenlit (yet), you were already working on your designs. Thranduil was a favorite characters of yours and imagining the Woodland Realm was an old past time.

“My precious...” Andy’s best Gollum voice said, his fingers going towards your work. You laughed and swatted him away. “No show me the precious?”

“They’re not done and only half thought out,” You said, closing the book before he could take another look. “Not precious at all.”

“Everything you draw is precious. Come on, show me,” Andy urged. He had that look in his eye - the same one that he sometimes got after a hard day of filming. The one that showed that he wasn’t going to give up until he had completed what he set out to do. And right now, that was to see his drawings.

You sighed, giving in easier than you would have with anybody else. You handed it over and hid your eyes behind your eyes, too scared to see what his reaction was going to be. Other than a couple of hmms, he didn’t have all that much to say. He just kept flipping. Apparently he wasn’t limiting himself to what was recent, but going all the way back. If he didn’t stop....

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” You said, going to take it back from him. The first few pages in this particular book were occupied by sketches that you had done of Andy and of Gollum. You’d seen what the CGI team was planning, and Gollum was looking amazing. You weren’t ashamed of those pieces of work but that didnt mean that you wanted the focus of them seeing it. “So what do you think? Or rather - does Smeagle approve of the Woodland Realm?”

“Smeagle doesn’t like elves,” Andy said, making you laugh. He was good at staying in character. Almost too good. The way that he contorted his face was more than just a little bit frightening. But when he relaxed it and went back to his ordinary self - that was how you liked it best. “It’s really good. Better than most of the art that I have in my house.”

“Do you consider yourself an art collector?” You asked, having never heard about his house before.

“No,” He shook his head. “Just stuff from my nieces and nephews - and don’t tell them I said that about their art.”

“If I ever come across them, I’ll keep silent,” You slid an invisible zipper over your mouth and pretended to throw away the key. This was the early two thousands after all, such things were still ‘cool’.

“Oh you’ll meet em,” He said with a grin. He threw his arm around you, sitting on the arm of the chair. “I’ll fly you out to one of our big barbecues, you’ll love it.”

“Oh my, is that a privilege that you extend to all set designers?” You asked playfully.

“Just the special ones,” He said with a wink. “Just let me know if you want to bring a plus one.”

“Ha!” You laughed, shaking your head. “I wish. I work too hard to ever have a plus one. Though maybe I’ll extend it on to Peter, you know how much he loves a barbecue.”

“That he does. Anyway, I’m off to my trailer since there’s nothing more to be done. See you tomorrow!”

“See ya,” You said with a wave, watching him go. Once he had disappeared out the doors, you went back to your sketchbook. The room went back to being quiet - or it was until you started to overhear a conversation.

“That was obviously just his way of making sure y/n was single,” A young voice said, with laughter hidden within it. You kept your head low, drawing over the same spot over and over, but still listened. Eavesdropping was a terrible habit, but it was about you, so that made it okay... right?

“He’s only been in love with her for the past four years!” The undeniable voice of John Rhys-Davies said, chuckling. “The poor sap.”

“I don’t feel bad for him one bit,” The other voice said. You tried to place it without looking over, for that would surely just make them be quiet. You wanted to go on listening. They were telling you exactly what you had dreamed of hearing. “She’s obviously into him too, but neither of them will say something. It’s just getting painful at this point. Did you know that Peter has-”

“-bets? I already lost mine two years ago,” John grumbled.

“Ha! Mine is for not until after the premieres. I think I’ve got it in the bag.” You finally placed a face to that voice. Dominic Monaghan. The very one that Peter was judging to be right for the role when he sent you off with Andy to look at places for the Shire. “Though Orlando has within the next two months, so it might go to him.”

“Smarter than he looks, that one.” John said, appraisingly. “Did you hear that even Ian is in on it? He said he knows enough about repressed sexuality that it will be well into the development of Hobbit films! Hobbit films!”

“I’m not prepared to lose though,” Dominic said, and you could hear him rubbing his hands together. Oh, if they could only see the mortified look on your face, they would surely stop talking then, but you were much too humiliated to turn in their direction.

-

Dominic did end up losing. You saw him with a sour expression on his face during the last premiere. There had hardly been a conversation between you and Andy after he had invited you over to England for a barbecue, since things had gotten way too chaotic. Putting the movies together, reshoots, editing - it took a lot of hard work, even though the majority of your job was done. You had to move onto other projects, only coming back for the award ceremonies and the premieres. You thought about going and telling Dominic that you felt bad for him, losing the money in a bet about you, but he deserved it. He was wrong. If Andy was seriously flirting with you, you would have known it - surely.

Andy had gone off to other projects as well, and not much was said between the two of you. An occasional hello email but even those started to slow.

That was until you got the phone call from Peter that The Hobbit films had been greenlit, and he obviously wanted you and your designs to come back. This was what you were waiting for - and you couldn’t have been more happy. Peter had even added on that he wanted you to reach out to Andy before his manager did, because he deserved to have the good news come from a friend. You were a bit surprised by that, not knowing if Andy really did consider you a friend, but since it was Peter asking, you were obviously going to do it. You still had his emails, and one of them had a phone number that you had always been too anxious to use. You dug it up, tapped the number to your phone, and lingered by the green call button. Were you prepared to hear his voice after so long? You supposed the worst thing that could happen was this wasn’t his number anymore, so with that in mind, you pressed on the button.

“Ello?” Andy’s voice sounded just as you remembered - his actual voice, not the one that was Smeagle. He had picked up on the second ring, before you even had the chance to think of what you wanted to say. You were caught off guard until he greeted you a second time.

“Andy, it’s y/n y/l/n,” You said, finally. “I know it’s a bit weird to call you out of the blue like this. I have some good news though, it’s not one of those dark phone calls-”

“Y/n!” Andy said, sounding much perkier now. Almost as if he had just gulped down three cups of coffee within fifteen seconds. “I was hoping that I’d hear from you! Finally cashing in your offer of coming down for the barbecue? I never did forget about that.”

“Oh, well, not exactly,” You said, rubbing the back of your neck.  You never forgot that either. There were times when you wanted to bring it up but it just seemed like a weird thing to do. You didn’t want to just throw yourself into his life like that. You thought that the invitiation was a joke, something that Dominic, the prankster of the group, had put him up to, then taunted you with that conversation. “I wanted to tell you the good news. Or rather, Peter wanted me to tell you because he thinks you’ll like it best coming from me, for some odd reason. I’ll just get on with it then, heh. The Hobbit movies are a go, and obviously, we’re hoping to have you back for the riddle scene.”

“Excellent!” Andy said, sounding genuinely excited. “That is good news! Obviously my manager will be in touch to figure out the details but I am there!”

“It’ll be nice to see you again,” You agreed. That was one of the bits that you were looking forward to. That and seeing your artwork come to life once again. It was a magical feeling, and nothing compared to it.

“So, are you good to come down this week? The weather is supposed to be smashing,” Andy continued. “Perfect timing for you to fly on over. Do you have a preferred airline?”

-

You don’t know how he did it, but Andy had convinced you to get on a plane over to England. You were a bit antsy as you packed your solitary bag, not knowing what you should wear to something like a family barbecue. Should you bring a swimsuit? Would that be a bit too revealing for the friendship that you had going on? Should you bring a dress or something a lot more casual, like jeans? Why was this so damn difficult?

After spending far too much time over thinking, you chose a bigger bag to bring, and packed all of the options. You zipped it up, and decided that’s that. No going back now.

The flight was smooth, a little turbulence, but the movie was good. You could have designed the sets better, you thought to yourself slightly smugly, but all in all, it wasn’t bad. It was enough to keep you entertained until you landed on British soil.

Andy himself was there to pick you up, hiding behind a hat and sunglasses. But you could make out the distinct facial features anywhere. “Hello darlin,” He said with a grin once you walked up to him, wheeling your bag behind you.

“It’s so good to see you,” You said, accepting the hug that he offered to you. To your surprise, he grabbed the handle of your bag away from you, so he was the one carrying it along. “You don’t have to, I packed light.”

“I’m honored you came at all, so let me do this,” He said. You shrugged and let him, since it seemed to mean so much. “Things are already getting set up back at home, so we’ll have to hurry.”

You were glad you brought along jeans and a nice top because that seemed to be the dress code for the casual barbecue. There were kids running around in muddy clothes, having the time of their life, adults were sitting on lawn chairs with the grass between their bare toes. It was as un-formal as it was possible to be. You were introduced in turn to each of his siblings who greeted you like you were family. It was odd but it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. They had all heard so much about you from their brother, and loved the work that they had seen of yours. One of them even remarked on a drawing of yours that Andy had framed up inside of his house.

“I bribed Peter for it,” Andy shrugged when you looked to him for an explanation. “What? I told you that you were fantastic.”

“You could have just asked me,” You laughed. “I have enough spare drawings around that I could probably wallpaper your house with them.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Andy winked.

The company was amazing. You got along well with everyone, and managed to find things to talk about with each one of them. The kids were adorable, and they showed you their artwork inside of the house, pointing at it proudly. They also talked your ear off but you didn’t mind. They reminded yourself a little of you at that age - not because of how chatty they were but because of how much passion they had behind what they were talking about. The adults were all kind without being condescending in any sort of way. The food was mouth-wateringly delicious - you had no idea that Andy could cook like that. You ate so much you felt like you were going to burst, but still helped yourself to the ice cream that was passed around after. As the sun began to go down, the kids began to get sleepy and their parents began departing to take them home until it was just you and Andy, sitting in the messy backyard beneath the darkening skies.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He asked, slightly hunched over in his chair.

“Not at all. And notice how I kept the secret?” You teased, taking a drink of the beer that you had been nursing most of the evening. It was only your second of the day, and it seemed a perfect way to bring together the night. “You have an amazing family.”

“They thought the same of you,” Andy stated. You could feel his eyes on you, though you were looking up towards the sky most of the time. You were still too shy to look over, knowing that your feelings were all over your face. Truth be told, seeing him like this, in a casual environment surrounded by loved ones - it made you fall even harder. You felt like a school girl with a crush rather than a grown woman.

“That’s flattering,” You said with a nod, lowering your head. “Thanks for inviting me. And making me stick to it.”

“Well I wanted you here,” Andy got to his feet, and had a good stretch. He made a lot of noise as he did it, which made you grin. Old man noises, you used to call them, when your father did the same thing. He then offered you his hand. “I’m thinking about taking your drawing from the frame so you can sign it. Do me the honors?”

“I’d be more than happy,” You said, taking his hand and getting to your feet. But it didn’t stop there - he continued to hold onto your hand as he lead you into his house, which was growing familiar to you. Your bag was in the spare bedroom, and you could see the faintly muddy footprints of the kids running through the halls. He took you into the living room where your drawing was. It was one that you had done of Rivendell - one of your specialties. You remembered giving it to Peter for work, not as something to keep. You had almost entirely forgotten about it.

The frame came down off of the wall, and Andy skillfully opened up the back of it to slip the drawing out. He even grabbed you a pen and watched eagerly as you scrawled your signature in the lower corner. “There you go,” You said, pushing it back towards him.

“You always made the sets feel more like reality than fiction,” He said, taking a look at it again. You could see appreciation all over his face, and damn if it didn’t make you feel good. Fiction was something that you always wanted to make a reality, so even him saying that was just so in-tune with yourself.

“Thanks Andy, that really does mean a lot,” You nodded, sitting down on the couch. He joined you after securing the drawing back into it’s frame, and looked over at you with a smile.

“Did you have fun today?” He asked.

“The most fun that I’ve had in a long time,” You admitted. “Seriously, I didn’t know that I needed that until it happened. You have a great family - no wonder why you’re so happy all the time.”

Andy laughed at the last bit, surprising you. “You only see me happy all the time because I’m around you!” He stated, resting a hand lightly on your shoulder.

“I make you happy?”

“Of course! Why do you think I invited you here? I like being around you.”

“Enough to perhaps consider this a date?” You ventured, the little bit of alcohol in your system and the euphoria of the day had given you enough confidence to push that forward. Andy seemed a little taken aback by that, and just as you were about to tell him that you were joking, he started to speak.

“Normally I don’t introduce to my family until we’re official but I knew that you were special,” He said, a big grin spreading on his face, making him look near child-like. “But yes, I’d like today to be considered a first date. And a second tomorrow, perhaps?”

“I’d love that,” You hummed, resting back against the couch, gazing upon his face. It might be a bit soon to be thinking of the l word but - damn, you loved his smile.

[mit3c]

think. I have a lot of thoughts about that episode and I’m not going to go into details unprompted (literally WHO wants my ducktales rants?) *raises hand*

hahah aw  i think if they were really set on making daisy a good character they should have introduced her waaaaaaay earlier into the story and in an active role within the main cast. her being into fashion sure is a goal but it has literally nothing to do with what the main characters do so she will always be very satellite to the main story and once again... she only is linked to the family/cast through donald... with the way DT is constructed + how late into the show we are,there won’t be time to flesh her out much and build meaningful bonds between her and others characters. the way I see it the writers just secured a happy end for Donald when writing Daisy. and god knows that Donald needs some happiness but it coming from something outside of his family is... depressing to watch I think. you’ve got three seasons of Donald feeling alienated from his family, and while he’s sad about it the writers do nothing but push him further away from them. You’d think the solution would be that his family, who are the main cast and are supposed to be good guys, make an effort to understand Donald and make him feel included but not only this doesn’t happen, the only solution they found for Donald is for him to find validation and comfort with someone else entirely- which would be fine if Donald’s whole conflict wasn’t about feeling cut off from his loved ones

I wrote so much about Donald’s voice already so you know what I think of it but I cringed hard at that scene where he sings to Daisy. I am very annoyed at how his voice is sometimes taken as a disability, sometimes as a joke and sometimes both at the time. It’s tone deaf, repetitive, and frankly disappointing that this is the only joke they can think of for Donald. the whole idea that he sounds “normal” to her and her only is.. I saw it coming but it’s frankly so cheap that a rando girl has an Innate Talent in understanding him when we could have had. IDK, maybe established characters whom Donald loves make the effort to try and understand him instead? Maybe That Would Matter More 

this goes beyond Daisy of course but since she’s written as an accessory for Donald it’s natural to link her to Donald’s disastrous writing 

so yeah I expect we get one or two more episodes starring Daisy where she doesn’t really get to bond much with anyone but Donald, and then she shows up later in the finale and in the epilogue she’s seen with Donald as his happy end, I might be wrong and I hope so though I still believe she is too removed from the main story to matter. though with no S4 being greenlit, I do think S3 is being written as if it were the last one, so I expect it will have an epilogue kind of end that is also open enough in the case an opportunity for S4 presents itself

some others things that bother me with that Daisy specifically is that they chose to take inspiration from Donald’s Diary and I’m not gonna go into explaining why I don’t like sexual dimorphism again but yeah. uncanny design choice

((also the fact that it’s a love/attraction at first sight kind of story... and hm. the scene where she’s locked in a small closed space with Donald and she removes her coat to reveal her sexey body and her tight fit dress and Donald is ohh ahhh .... frankly i’m not impressed lol why didn’t she remove the coat when the party started if she wanted to show it off to Emma... or why wasn’t she carrying a portfolio with her she could have shown Donald in the elevator... like it’s not the worst thing ever and i’m not saying it’s ~problematic~ even just that in terms of writing romance this isn’t very... cute....))

[katyatalks]

Spoon.2di April 2018 - Itou Setsuo’s [Mob] Interview

Here’s the translation of Itou Setsuo’s interview from vol 36 of Spøøn.2di (April 2018), released in promotion of MP100 Season 2, announcement of which happened at the end of the Reigen OVA! Three page interview that I’ve done as a summary for the most part, but the end is full of meta regarding Mob’s relationships that’s incredibly sweet so I’ve typed those up fully.

He is asked how he felt when season 2 was announced. “Naturally, I was incredibly happy. I felt the joy of being able to perform as Mob again, and since I’d read all of the manga, I’d be thinking things like, ‘will this scene show up in season 2?’, and, ‘will I get to perform this scene with everyone?’. The excitement wouldn’t stop…!” Goes on to say he felt excitement as both a fan and as a voice actor.

Q: How were you told about season 2 being greenlit? A: That was… it was before appearing at an event with Director Tachikawa. I recall him saying super casually, ‘uh, you know, right?’ (Laughs)

Q: (Laughs) So, was it during recording for “Reigen: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic” that you truly came to realise that season 2 was going to start? A: That’s right. When I was told that the announcement would come at the end of the film, I thought, ‘we’re really doing season 2…!’

He’s asked how he felt reading the scenario for the OVA for the first time. “I did a double take (laughs). I read through the pages, thinking to myself, ‘this isn’t the Mob Psycho I know.’ (Laughs).” Goes on to say that while it’s a compilation it’s a fresh take on one.

He’s asked about any scene(s) from the OVA that left an impression on him, to which he replies the scene in which Mob has finished writing the book and he’s got Ritsu, Teru, Mezato & the telepathy club gathered around him. “The amount of people Mob has around him has increased so much. It’s a scene that had me realise that anew, so for me personally it’s a scene I love.”

He’s asked the same but from the scenes that have been fabricated, to which he says when Reigen pastes himself over Shou. “That’s a scene in which it’s established how cool a character Shou is, but with Shishou’s fabrication, we get Shishou’s face instead of Shou’s own. That was unbelievably hilarious (laughs). I think that’s probably my favourite out of all the fabricated scenes.”

He goes on to say that another scene that left an impression on him is when Mob and Reigen go to eat ramen together. “I thought to myself, ‘of course it’d finish up with ramen!’. Since S1E1 ends with Shishou and Mob going to eat ramen together, I felt like it suggests that a new story is going to start, so it really left an impression on me.”

[TN: Seko dismisses the above in his interview]

He says he wishes he could’ve been part of the audience not knowing that the S2 announcement would be dropped at the end of the OVA.

He goes on to say that since it’d been a year and a half since recording for S1E1, he wasn’t sure how good a job he’d do with recording for the OVA ("Can I perform in the same way?")

“When Sakurai-san performs, he has this incredible persuasive power (laughs). I was reminded anew of just how skilled Reigen-shishou is at winning over people.”

He’s asked what he’s looking forward to with season 2, and anything he’d like to see. “It appears at the end of the ‘Reigen: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic’... I really want to see ‘that person’s’ press conference.” 

He also mentions the fight with Touichirou, “if it appears in season 2[...]”, and he’s looking forward to BONE’s approach to the action scenes.

He states another scene that he wants to see, though he’s not sure if it’ll be included in season 2, is the part in which Mob gets a girlfriend

[TN: I recall him saying in another interview that he was happy to see the Emi story being in S2E1, so that’s nice]

“It’s a story in which we see Mob’s strengths and weaknesses. You can sympathise. So I’d be glad to perform it.”

He’s asked about the stage play in January and how it influenced him, to which he says that it helped him look at characters from a different perspective and take different interpretations

He’s asked what he means by this; “Rather than Mob not having any emotions, he has a weak way of expressing himself… the stage play reaffirmed that for me.”

He quotes Kawajiri Keita (screenplay/producer for stage play); “This isn’t a play that’s led by the main character. It’s the characters around him that decide the atmosphere, and Mob exists in that atmosphere doing things at his own pace, which is interesting.” Itou says this is true for anime Mob too.

And, the final section;

Q: For Mob, who would you say the other characters in Mob Psycho 100 are? Could you please begin with Reigen?

A: Shishou, rather than teaching Mob the concept of what is ‘correct’, teaches him the ‘choices’ that he needs to live. He teaches him that making the right choice is good, but he doesn’t always have to go for that option. It’s for that reason that he can be called the ‘shishou’ of Mob’s life, but I wouldn’t say that the two of them have a relationship as formal as the word ‘shishou’ suggests… the use of that word suggests a very stiff relationship, but Reigen is more like, ‘a big brother Mob is very close to who lives nearby’ (laughs). They may have no relation by blood, they may not be family, but, they’re as close as family, and Reigen cherishes Mob as such. We’ve seen Mob wonder, “is Shishou really an esper?” before, but regardless of whether or not he has powers, regardless of his shishou’s conman-like behaviour, the two of them support one another. I’d like to keep seeing these two, with that ‘shishou’ and ‘deshi’ relationship.

Q: How about his little brother, Ritsu?

A: Ritsu is a truly important person for Mob-kun. The first time we see Mob-kun genuinely get angry for someone else is when Ritsu gets abducted by Claw. So I always think of that when performing as Mob-kun; Ritsu is that important to him, that he let his emotions lay bare.

Q: It appears in the compilation part of ‘Reigen: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic - even after Ritsu vents the emotions he’s been keeping locked up inside at Mob, we once again see Mob-kun’s big-brother-like-nature.

A: That’s right. Mob-kun performs dogeza for Ritsu’s sake. When I look at that I think, ah, he’s definitely a big brother.

Q: Next, how about Dimple?

A: Dimple is, how should I say, he’s already become a friend (laughs). I suppose friendship is, the closer you get to one another the more sharp tongued you get. To be cold to someone on purpose, turn that into laughter, tamper with someone, be tampered with… I think Mob-kun and Dimple’s relationship has gradually turned into something like that. At first, I think Mob-kun was simply disinterested so he was cold to Dimple, but now they’re on good terms so Mob-kun being cold has turned into a bit of an act, I think!

Q: How about Teru?

A: Teru-kun is the person Mob-kun can sympathise with the most. At first I suppose he was something like a rival, but now, if Mob-kun were to have any troubles regarding his powers, I think the person he’d turn to first would be Teru-kun. Rather than shishou… (laughs)

Q: (Laugh) Now, please give a message to Sakurai Takahiro, voice of Reigen Arataka, who you’ll once again be playing a Shishou-Deshi relationship with!

A: I’ve been a fan of yours since I was in primary school! … which is something I’ve told you before (laughs). I may be inexperienced, but I look forward to performing with you once again!

---

Twitter crosspost here.

Spoon 2di vol36 April 2018 links (interviews in the order they are presented);

Itou Setsuo’s [Mob] interview here.

Sakurai Takahiro’s [Reigen] interview here.

Seko Hiroshi’s [Series Co-ordinator] interview here.

Kameda Yoshimichi’s [Character Designer] interview here.

Tachikawa Yuzuru’s [Director] interview here.

ONE’s [Original Manga Writer] interview here.

[cielrouge]

NYCC 19′ RWBY Volume 7 Panel

Went to the RWBY Panel at Hammerstein Ballroom, with following cast and crew in attendance: Kerry Shawcross & Miles Luna (RWBY writers & showrunners), Lindsay Jones (Ruby), Barbara Dunkelman (Yang), Arryn Zech (Blake), and Kara Eberle (Weiss).

New Announcements (Official News, Partnerships, Media Tie-ins)

The Smite collaboration was officially confirmed, with Team RWBY available in November. There will be a battle key to unlock a god skin. Miles noted humorously that it's typical for Smite characters to have a joke line of some kind, so "they won't a bunch of stinker joke lines for Weiss, since she wouldn't be good at telling them."

The next RWBY novel tie-in is called RWBY: Before the Dawn, focused on Teams CFVY and SSSN. It'll be published by Scholastic in July 2020. There is a chance that the lore featured in these novels may tie-in referenced in the general show lore later on.

The first issue of the DC Comics tie-in will be available on 10/9. Blake will also have her own upcoming storyline in this tie-in.  

Volumes 8 and 9 have already been greenlit! Kerry noted that he literally started the first script for volume 8 this morning after the RWBY team was officially given the budget to start working on them several weeks ago.

Miles noted that Vol 9 will be shorter than the other seasons so that Vol 8 can be longer. This is also partially because they want Volumes 7 and 8 to be more connected story-wise.

Miles noted that the main draw of external partnerships is that "it expands the RWBY world and let others play in their sandbox." His favorite thing about the Scholastic novels is that "they're completely different from the show, but still feature the characters we love and get to expand on them."

What's Next for Volume 7

In terms of development, Miles and Kerry noted that "they've never been this far on a volume before so everyone in the office has been working normal hours."

There's no theatrical release for volume 7 this time, which is different compared to previous seasons, but at the same time, having this release usually forces the team to push things ahead of schedule, so this is probably a good thing since it lessens the pressure for the team? Kerry and Miles did thank RWBY fans for having general patience for the Volume 7 wait.

The new designs for Jaune, Nora and Ren were shown. Miles seemed pretty enthused about Ren's design in particular and joked about being "Ren-sexual." I think he also said something along the lines of: "He's just really hot, okay???"

Miles is most excited about exploring the settings of Atlas and Mantle (the extant city underneath Atlas) and that the "art team did a great job combining the future fantasy and tech savvy aspects" which define Atlas.

Lindsay interjected that "Atlas is straight-up NYC," and joked in comparing different architectural designs of the kingdoms, it's like a "Mac vs. PC" situation.

Arryn's excited to learn more about Weiss this season, since she herself has yet to see the full rendered setting of Atlas.

Kerry made a general note that he loves seeing all the new character outfits/designs animated, and Lindsay's favorite outfit is actually for an unseen character that wasn't featured in the teaser trailer shown.  

General Q&A

"Favorite experiences working on RWBY so far": Lindsay noted that "it's been a life-changing and humbling experience." Kara noted that she loves the community and prior to two years ago when she came to NYCC for RWBY, she'd never been to NYC before. Arryn noted that "it's created this wonderful platform that's connected people from all different backgrounds, so it's lovely to hear all these stories of how RWBY has helped them in some way." Barbara noted that she loves "getting to be someone else's favorite cartoon character."

"Is there a reason why everyone is loaded on belts this season?": "Anime, Final Fantasy, and gravity." Arryn did note some confusion that Blake is wearing a cat suit, so she wasn't quite sure why she has so many belts. Kara came up with a humorous backstory theory on the spot for Weiss that she must have had some kind of traumatic experience where she was pantsed as a kid and joked about Weiss subsequently having a "belt butler" of some kind.

"What are some of the most difficult lines to voice act?": The general consensus is that one or two lines are the hardest since more emotion has to distilled/conveyed with less words. Lindsay said Ruby's "Leave her alone," was a tough line, for Arryn, it was Blake's "It's Fine" in Vol 6, Barbara noted that it's a toss-up between Vol 2 with her talking to Blake in the classroom vs. Vol 5 where Yang confronts her mother. For Kerry, it was the chibi episode where Neptune has a noir-esque introduction scene. And for Miles, it was when Jaune first comes across Pyrrha's statue.

"Which character would you choose to be stuck in an escape room with?": Arryn noted that either Pyrrha, who would be calm, or Yang, who would literally just break the room to escape. Miles noted that he'd pick Ren, who would also be chill, and for Kerry, he said that he'd go for the chaotic choice and chose Sun. Lindsay interjected with a humorous anecdote on how she's really bad at escape rooms, and once thought a clock in the room was a clue and subsequently convinced her co-worker to smash it - they ended up having to pay for it, since it wasn't a clue, and indeed, merely part of the overall set.  

The panel ended with showing the first 12 minutes of episode 1 of Volume 7.

[whatwouldyourbiasdo]

Finding Cinderella | Series | Chapter One

Title: Finding Cinderella

Pairings: Donghae x reader,(Primary) Heechul x reader (Secondary), Kyuhyun x reader (Secondary)

Author’s Note: I have been planning this story for a while but have been battling many writers’ blocks in doing so. This story will mainly focus on Donghae and the reader but will have branching stories between Heechul, Kyuhyun and two secondary OC characters.

Sidenote: Yes, this series will include Kangin and Sungmin. This was originally started back when the two of them were still active members and in my heart they will always be members so I will include them wherever I see fit.

Taglist: Make sure to send us a message if you want to be tagged in future updates on this story

It was a week before the big SM Entertainment company party. Although it was a special occasion to celebrate the company’s success to which not only the artists but also the staff was invited, the staff working for the company had to bust their chops off to get everything ready for the big night.

Music had to be arranged; a DJ to run tracks during the night and he had to be the best of the best, equipment had to be ready and in place to ensure no shortcomings throughout the party, building in a karaoke bar for staff and artist alike to sing their hearts out in the name of good fun. A dance floor especially designed for the occasion, each tile placed with precision in a pattern that, when lit up would create special effects like a lake, fireworks or fire. Decorations had to be in order, balloons, strings, posters of every artist signed and invited. Food prepared by the best chefs in Korea to suit everyone’s taste and preference and to show that SM Entertainment was a well off company who left no dime unturned in treating their staff.

“Yes… Yes, of course, I understand that it takes time to prepare all the preferred dishes… Yes, I understand that changing it last minute will cost extra, that will be no problem.”

Park Eunmi was pacing back and forth through the party venue, the light of her Bluetooth headset blinking rapidly as she once again had to deal with last minute changes by the company, having to convey these orders back to the suppliers and dealing with the complaints that it caused. It was one of the downsides of her job as secretary to the board of executives that she has grown to accept over time.

At age eighteen she started interning at the company for half of minimum wage as she was in dire need of money, having to help support her family after her father’s untimely death that left her with her stepmother and twin step-siblings, as well as pay for her enrollment into the Korean National University of Arts. Her father, Park Jinwoo, had supposedly left some money as inheritance, but had apparently signed it off on her stepmother’s name instead, as he believed that it would be safer in an adult’s hands than with the children. Eunmi had no idea if that was truly the case as she had never been allowed to look at the will, but she assumed that it had been decided as such.

Eunmi had always struggled with accepting the new additions to the family. Her mother had died when she was still young and soon after her father met Kwon Seomi, a rather extravagant young woman with twins of her own; a boy named Kwon Seojun and a girl named Kwon Seola.  They were just a year older than Eunmi and to describe them as mischievous was an understatement. It didn’t take long for her father to decide he needed a new mother figure in their lives and married Seomi the following year. Though Seomi never treated Eunmi warmly and motherly, she did her best to tolerate the new additions to the family for the sake of her father who seemed to truly love the new woman in her life.

Seomi never worked a day in her life and spent her days spending Jinwoo’s money for which he worked hard day in and day out. Jinwoo was a talented producer and manager at an entertainment label known as SM Entertainment. Back when he started working for the company, they were just starting their rise in the industry and have long since grown into the company people know, love and sometimes hate today. He had garnered quite a reputation for himself as a respected and praised producer. Unfortunately, when Eunmi had just turned eighteen her father fell ill with an incurable disease and passed away, leaving her in the care of Seomi who reluctantly took care of her as she knew Jinwoo had left most of his inheritance to his favorite and only blood-related daughter but decided not to inform her of the inheritance. Instead, she decided to keep the money for herself to make sure she and her two children could continue to live comfortably while leading Eunmi to believe that they had to turn every dime to make ends meet.

Because Eunmi promised her father to treat Seomi, Seojun and Seola as if they were her real family, she tolerated the unfair treatment they put her through. She endured having to move to the space in the attic as her own room, she endured watching her siblings dress in the newest clothes while she received the hand me downs, believing that because they were older they deserved it first. She endured being looked down upon and left out and finally, she endured having to find a job to pay for her own college degree. She had witnessed Seomi waste money on the twins for an education they threw away like it was worthless and accepted it reluctantly when Seomi told her they couldn’t possibly pay for her enrollment into the National University of Arts.

Deciding that she didn’t want to give up on her dream of becoming a performing artist as her mother, who was a promising young dancer before she settled down for the married life, she decided to take a job to earn some extra money to pay for her enrollment. She applied for a job as an intern at SM Entertainment, stating that she would do anything for less than minimum wage. Feeling sorry for her desperation, as well as acknowledging the fact that she was the daughter of one of their most praised producers, they decided to give her a chance.

Eunmi started doing the jobs no one else wanted to do; get coffee, deliver mail, clean offices, rehearsal spaces and bathrooms, organizing supplies amongst other things. Her dedication didn’t go unnoticed and soon she was promoted to a full-time employee working minimum wage and being rewarded with more honorable tasks such as answering phone calls, arranging the agendas of managers within the company and welcoming guests. And soon she had earned herself enough money to pay for her first term at the university.

But as second term was creeping closer, Seomi’s inheritance well dried up and soon declared that they no longer had enough money to get by. Seeing as she was the only person with a paying job, Seomi guilted Eunmi into giving up her studies and work to support the family. A choice she regretted from the moment she made it, but felt obligated to make as she had promised her father to take care and accept the Kwon family as if they had been blood-related.

Eunmi focused more and more on her job at SM Entertainment and over the years managed to work herself up as secretary to the board of directors, one of the most highly sought after secretary positions within the company. She was directly assisting the current CEO as well as the higher ranked managers who called the shots on any endeavor the company made regarding investments and artistic releases. At the age of twenty-six she had made quite a name for herself for being dedicated and focused, never settling for less than perfect and never handing in a task half-assed.

Her position came with a lot of responsibilities, a lot of stress and required a lot of her free time as she had to be on call at all times. If a scandal broke out, she had to be present to help fix the situation and pull the right strings to cover up that which needed to be covered. If a group released a new song or album, she had to make sure that all the schedules to promote the artist were planned out and greenlit. If a concert had to be planned she had to make sure that the venue and all that involved the concert was arranged to perfection. The only thing she didn’t do was meet and greet with the artist themselves, much to her dismay. It was a job that left her with no social life whatsoever, but she was thankful for the chance she had received and grown to love her job and accomplishments.

“No, we need it on the 25th!” She sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair as her other hand browsed through the list of things she had yet to arrange before the party. “Listen, we are willing to pay extra for the inconvenience if that can speed up the process but if you’re incapable of meeting our demands then I am afraid I will have to take this order elsewhere.” Her tone was demanding and serious, warning the person on the other side that she was not messing around. Her lips curled into a pleased smile as she heard the person stutter at her threat, quickly confirming that they would definitely be able to meet with their demands. After all, there was a lot at stake for a supplier if they refused a client as big as SM Entertainment. “I will forward the payment today, thank you for your cooperation.”

Eunmi pressed the button on her headset to cut the call as she leaned over her clipboard and crossed off the catering on the list of things to arrange. She barely had a moment to breathe when footsteps hurriedly approached her.

“Eunmi-ah! Big problems!”

“Taewoo-ssi.. Calm down,” She frowned as she turned to the taller, somewhat older colleague. His face was screaming panic as sweat was dripping down his brow. “What’s wrong?”

“T-the flowers… The celebrational flower gifts… They got delivered and… and… It’s terrible!”

“They got delivered today?” She frowned, according to their agreement with the supplier and the planning they weren’t supposed to be delivered until the day of the party on the 25th to ensure they were still freshly blooming.

“Yes but that’s not the worst part!” Taewoo continued as he desperately ran his fingers through his messy curls. “They sent us lillies. White lillies.”

“Lilies?! Are they trying to curse us?!” She immediately exclaimed. White lilies were often used for funerals and condolences but never used as a flower gift to congratulate someone.  “I thought we specifically ordered an assortment of orchids and roses!”

“We did, it even said so on the sign off sheet!” He nodded as she handed her the piece of paper.

“Then who signed for this?” Clearly the person who signed for the delivery didn’t check if the goods coincided with what they ordered, much less had the amount of common sense to realize that white lilies were definitely not used for their flower gifts.

“Someone at the front desk did… They were here and signed off when I got there.” He huffed again, unlike Eunmi he was less than compatible with any type of stress thrown his way. He had been in the company longer than Eunmi did and when she first started out he was somewhat of a mentor to her. But as she grew within the company, it was clear that the student surpassed the teacher and Taewoo often relied on her expertise to get through his own assignments. Eunmi didn’t mind as much, she owed a great deal to his supervision and encouragement when she first started out and at least he thanked her greatly after the fact. “Yah… What are we going to do? We’re in trouble… The party is in two days...”

As her brows knitted into a thoughtful frown, she tried to come up with a solution to the issue on hand. Of course they had to contact the supplier and make sure the right flowers would be delivered on the morning of the party, and she was not going to accept anything less than a major compensation for their mistake. As for the flowers they had foolishly accepted; they couldn’t return them to the supplier as they were of no use now that they were decreasing in value and condition.

“Are there any message ribbons attached to the lilies?” Eunmi quickly wondered to which she received a negative answer. “Alright, take the lily gifts and donate them to the nearest funeral hall, I’m sure they’ll be of good use there. Tell them that SM Entertainment sends their regards to all the people who have lost a loved one and that, although there isn’t much we can do for the community, we would like to offer this as a token of understanding and condolence as we want to give those who have lost someone to feel loved as part of the community.”

Taewoo stared at her for a moment, he never understood how she came up with ideas and solutions to their issues right on the spot. For some reason she always knew exactly what to do and how to support her argument. “You’re a genius, you know that? But what about the flower arrangements..?”

“Leave that to me, I’ll make a call to the supplier and demand full reimbursement for their mistake, as well as the flowers we had ordered, or threaten their good name with bad reviews.” Eunmi explained as she scrolled down her list of numbers to find the flower supplier.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side!” Taewoo chuckled before giving her a quick and cheeky salute as he headed off to dispose of the white lilies.

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SON IS JUST THE WHOLE MOOD FOR 2020, CAN WE ALL AGREE ON THAT?

Oh boy, guys, it’s here. The end. The very end. Tonight, Supernatural says goodbye for real this time. Maybe. Who really ever knows. But I’m not great at goodbyes, so instead let’s go back to the very beginning. It’s Supernatural!

So I’m here, at the season finale of Season 1. Very conveniently on the same day that the show is on the series finale of Season 15. It’s like I planned it, you guys! I did not plan this. 

Also, let’s take a minute to appreciate the irony of using Carry On My Wayward Son in every season finale when the Winchesters will never be done, they’ll never have peace, they will never lay their weary heads to rest. Don’t mind me, I’m just laughing til I cry. 

I genuinely think of the the last two episodes of Season 1 - “Salvation” and “Devil’s Trap” - as if they’re one episode. This is because a) I think they are designed to be a two-parter and b) they’re the only two episodes on the last disc of my box set BUT I think it’s important to note that these two episodes did not air on the same night. There was a week between them and that is...rough for an audience watching in real time. But when I watched it the first time, I was watching this exact dvd disc and of course I plowed right on through the cliffhanger in “Salvation” until the literal car crash that ends “Devil’s Trap”.

This disc! Right here! That has the real soundtrack on it, UNLIKE SOME STREAMING SERVICES!

Let’s look at a couple things: 

Way back in 2006 when these episodes aired, Supernatural’s success was average at best? Even though it’s the 5th most watched show on the WB, it’s averaged a little more than 3 million American viewers per episode, which at the time, wasn’t great. In contrast, the #1 show of the 2005/2006 TV year was American Idol season 1 - an average of 12.7 million viewers per episode. So it’s not exactly a winner of a show, but it’s not too far behind the WB’s #1 show, Smallville, which averaged around 4 million viewers per episode. Still, Supernatural’s fate was uncertain. “Devil’s Trap” aired on May 4, 2006, but the show didn’t get renewed for season 2 until May 18. That’s two weeks of cliffhanger limbo, and lemme tell you, that would have been a real slap in the tits if the show had been cancelled. 

Even further back, though, in January of 2006, it was announced that the WB and UPN would be renouncing their independence and merging under CBS and Time Warner company into what we know today as The CW. It was a network that was frankensteined together from the only working pieces of both networks and honestly I think that was a big reason Supernatural did get renewed. The CW was in need of some kind of programming to kick off the 2006 Fall Season and they greenlit new seasons for 13 of WB’s and UPN’s established programs. For a real blast from the past, here is their list of inaugural shows - 

7th Heaven (WB)

Beauty and the Geek (WB) 

Gilmore Girls (WB) 

One Tree Hill (WB)

Reba (WB)

Smallville (WB)

Supernatural (WB)

America's Next Top Model (UPN)

Veronica Mars (UPN)

Everybody Hates Chris (UPN

Girlfriends (UPN)

All of Us (UPN)

WWE SmackDown! (UPN)

I think my favorite part of this list is that both Gilmore Girls AND Smallville were still on the air, arguably the origin stories for Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles respectively. 

However, there’s evidence that Supernatural was in less danger of cancellation than you might think. In March, around about “Hellhouse” time, Supernatural gets moved from a Tuesday air date to a Thursday air date. If you follow American network TV at all, then you’ll know that Thursday is THE day. Historically, Networks believed this was the best day for programming. Advertisers paid extra for the combination of influencing your weekend plans and also influencing you before the weekend since you’re less likely to be watching TV and more likely to be spending money. Friends aired on Thursdays. Grey’s Anatomy is a Thursday show. Putting Supernatural on Thursday would indicate that the WB had some faith in it, although it’s possible they were simply removing something else that wasn’t working in that 9pm time slot. 

Ratings aside, once we get to the finale Supernatural has a good thing going, and it seems critics agreed. I think the back half of season 1 is where the show really starts to shine and take on the semblance of what it will become. This is where you see it shift from Monster-of-the-Week, anthology-style, to episodes that focused more on character - what I like to call the Feelings Episodes. That’s not to say there won’t be a ton more Monster-of-the-Week episodes, just that those are the B-story line, less important than the Winchesters-Working-Through-Trauma A-story lines. There’s also a greater emphasis on the overarching mythos and story arc of the season in the back half. This is ultimately what carries Supernatural into season 2 and beyond. Everyone from critics to series creator Kripke agreed that the episodes that focused more on the relationships and the internal struggles of the Winchesters was what really captured audiences. 

And all that gooey feelings stuff really comes to a head in the one-two punch that is “Salvation” and “Devil’s Trap”. 

UGH. FEELINGS.

The day of reckoning is finally here - the Winchesters finally know who they’re after, where to go, and how to kill it. Thanks to Sam’s Oh yeah! He’s got ESP!, they know exactly who’s gonna get hit next. The search is finally over, the battle’s about to begin. But it’s not just the Quest that’s winding down, it’s a bunch of character arcs that are coming to light as well. In fact, the Quest really does get pushed aside in favor of big character moves.

John Winchester, hyperfixated on revenge for the past 20 years, is finally close to resolving his grief and guilt over Mary’s death and the way he raised his kids. He tells his sons “whatever it takes” and we know he means it. This plays out in his decision to split up the team, in his willingness to sacrifice his own life so his boys have the opportunity to kill the demon they’ve been hunting all season. 

Who’s fault was THAT, you piece of shit.

Sam Winchester’s own feelings of guilt and grief are also on the cusp of absolution. We see just how similar Sam and John really are, specifically in their reactions to fridged girlfriends lost loves. For the first time this season, Sam follows John’s orders without question or complaint. He doesn’t hesitate to risk his own life to kill the demon, willing to literally walk into fire for a second shot at it. Sam’s here to do whatever it takes, and it’s only because of Dean that he doesn’t. 

Dean, on the other hand, is finally struggling with following John’s orders. I love the scene where John yells specifically at Dean when he finds out about Sam’s visions (watch John’s eyeline, he is NOT looking at Sam on that line) 

Exhibit A, because this show has turned me into a 19YO Stan again and I hate it.

and Dean yells back, pointing out that they were in much more dire straights than death omens and John never picked up the phone, not once, not even when Dean was dying. 

It’s TRUE and he SHOULD SAY IT! And seriously, John, even MEG knows you don’t answer voicemails, that’s why she calls Sam.

More importantly, Dean is not willing to do whatever it takes if whatever it takes means losing what he already has. Dean, who was so gung ho about finding mom’s killer in the beginning of the season, understands better than ever what he stands to lose if he lets his family continue on this path. It’s a real reversal of his attitude from the beginning of the show, but the about-face has happened so gradually over the last 22 episodes that it doesn’t feel out of left field. 

Because that’s what you get when you put Sam and Dean together on a cross-country road trip for nine months! The two grow and change just by proximity and the sheer number of hours they spend in the car together. Over the course of 22 episodes, Dean reminds Sam why they do what they do - saving lives - and Sam reminds Dean what and who they do it for - family, safe and sound and living their best life now. John’s got his own thing going on, so who even cares what his motivations are, I don’t, hurry up and get out of here, John, nobody likes you. 

That being said, “Devil’s Trap” starts with a pretty ruthless Dean performing an exorcism on Meg. He’s not dicking around this episode, and based on the fight he has with Sam in “Salvation”, it makes sense. Dean won’t do whatever it takes just for vengeance, but he will do whatever it takes to save someone, especially if those lives are his brother and his father. You could even extend that motivation into his decision to exorcise the demon and essentially kill Meg Masters - she may be dying, but she’s been saved from being a human meat puppet and unwilling participant to any number of evil things. 

In other news, Bobby Singer is a National Treasure and the Best Part of this Episode and Maybe All Episodes. He doesn’t have a lot going on in this episode, he’s just amazing and I love him forever. 

I had to pull a still from the episode because lookit this glorious mullet that he loses immediately, thank GOODNESS!

After getting a reality check from Dean in “Salvation,” Sam’s still struggling to figure out where he is on this spectrum, and you get to watch him make that decision in real time. He has the choice to be like John, to do whatever it takes to kill the demon, even though that means killing his own father. And he does not hesitate to aim when John tells him to shoot to kill, and that says a LOT. 

But it’s Dean who convinces Sam not to lose himself in this fight, even when he’s so close to winning it. It’s Dean’s tiny little “Sam, no!” that makes Sam put the gun down, and that ALSO says a LOT. 

It also hits me right in my heart meats, just OOF. 

And THEN, just when you think the Winchesters are at their lowest, beat to shit and barely holding on, THEN the show delivers its final blow: they crash a semi into the Impala. 

Listen, I watch a lot of garbage, and I watch that garbage on purpose. Sometimes, that’s just what you want. I don’t rate movies and tv shows on a good to bad scale anymore because some bad movies are GREAT and some good movies are just really terrible and I don’t like watching them. I’ve started talking about movies and tv in terms of whether or not I enjoyed them. Does it spark joy? Will it spark joy in others? 

My legitimate reaction to anything that looks like a dumpster fire.

I enjoy Supernatural. A LOT. And maybe it’s just because my calibration settings are off, but I’d also argue that this season is good. As in, it’s well-crafted, satisfying and (mostly) logical storytelling. Is it perfect? No. It’s a show that aired on the WB in 2005. And when I watched this for the first time in 2008, I didn’t dig too deep into character arcs or story structure, I just liked watching two hot guys fight ghosts and sometimes cry a little. Twelve years later, watching it with a more experienced eye and a more refined palette - er, well, maybe just more educated palette -  I can see the skill that went into crafting this 22-episode long story. 

Well, skill and and a little bit of sheer dumb luck. Cuz remember when I said that Kripke and Co. figured out that the Feelings Episodes ended up doing better than the Monster-of-the-Week episodes? That wasn’t until after they realized what a gift they’d been given in their two leads. It was the chemistry between Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki that both sold the show at the outset and built the foundation for seasons to come. Viewers cared about the show because they cared about the characters. They wanted to see these two beautiful dumpster fires struggle and overcome their internal battles way more than their external ones. If you need proof - I did not once talk about the Yellow-Eyed-Demon motives or plans from this episode. I barely even mention the quest, unless it’s in relation to how the characters are handling it, emotionally, and how that’s impacting others around them. When you come down to it, Supernatural is a show about a family struggling to survive just as much as it is about two guys saving the world, and that’s something that any audience can relate to. I’m never gonna perform an exorcism or face down angels and demons to stop the apocalypse. But I am gonna struggle with insecurity and doubt, grief and anger and family drama. That’s the human element. That’s what connects you to these characters. And when you’re lucky enough to have two lead actors that really sell the hell out of the family dynamics, you're setting up for some serious television gold. 

Fifteen years after this season aired, both of these elements - the story-crafting AND the luck - are more important than ever. No matter what show you’re watching, when you get to a season finale, that finale needs to feel like a set of dominos tipping over. It needs to feel like you’ve set up for that final confrontation both externally (the quest arc) and internally (the character arc). It needs to feel satisfying and motivated when those dominos finally fall. Most importantly, you need to make sure your audience cares about why they’re falling in the first place. Who cares about anybody’s arc if you haven’t built that character connection with your audience in the first place? 

For a TV show looking ahead to season two, all that resolution also needs to ask more questions. It needs to propel us through one conflict and into another. That’s what the finale of this season does. It threads the needle into that sweet spot between conclusion and new beginning. Will our heroes live or die? Will the yellow-eyed demon be defeated? What’s next? And on this side of 2020, how did they keep that momentum going for more than a decade? 

I can’t think of any current show right now that I would follow for 15 years. Hell, I didn’t even follow this show for 15 years. But the longevity of Supernatural means that they’ll be the template for any show looking to last even half as long as they did. And no matter how you feel about this show, you’ve gotta admit that’s heckin’ WILD. 

[letterboxd]

Horse Power.

The Nest’s writer-director Sean Durkin talks about creating atmosphere, watching films without judgment, and the best movies of 1986.

Downfalls in Hollywood movies tend to be chaotic, dramatic and a lot of fun along the way. From Citizen Kane to The Wolf of Wall Street, outsized ambitions are realized on screen in castles, exotic holidays, wild parties, sweeping us up in the extravagance of it all, before the inevitable crash. The Nest takes a slower, far more British view of ambition and its effects on family—or, as Charlie writes, “this movie is a reminder that people who call themselves entrepreneurs should instead be stay-at-home dads”.

The new film from writer-director Sean Durkin, the brain behind cult-survivor slow-burn Martha Marcy May Marlene, is less “strap in and enjoy the ride”, more “slow disintegration of all sense of sanity”—a tense psychological drama focused on the person who usually gets hurt the most: the wife. And that horse-lovin’ dream wife Allison, as played by Carrie Coon, is a character to behold (and the subject of many obsessive The Nest reviews on Letterboxd).

Just as Durkin takes time to carefully explore Martha’s vulnerability in his earlier film, in The Nest, he closes in on Allison, as she and their children adjust to 1980s life in an English manor, far from the comfort of Allison’s American home, while wheeler-dealer husband Rory (Jude Law) chases a new opportunity.

There are thematic similarities in both films; a case to be made that ambitious men wreak a comparable mental destruction on their families as cult leaders do on their followers, breaking them down with charm, persuasion, false promises. There’s also something about the juxtaposition of periods in the film—the fifteenth-century manor vs the ’80s bangers on the soundtrack—that adds to The Nest’s unnerving atmosphere (other parts of the soundtrack are composed by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry in his first film-score credit).

Keen to understand more about Durkin’s influences and memories, Jack Moulton put him through the Letterboxd Life in Film interrogation.

Carrie Coon as Allison O’Hara in ‘The Nest’.

The Nest feels like a very personal film. In what ways are the emotions of the premise personal to you? When I was making Southcliffe in 2012, I was back in England where I spent my childhood and I hadn’t been back in close to twenty years. It really struck me how London and New York felt very similar now but they didn’t when I was a kid. I thought maybe I wanted to make a film about a family that moves in that time and how a move can affect a family. As I wrote the script, I became a parent, so it became as much a reflection of modern adulthood as it did about my childhood in the ’80s. Although it’s a period piece, I wanted to make it feel very close to today to look at the celebrated values of the time and how those are still very relevant.

The mansion the family moves into is the titular ‘nest’, and the use of space and atmosphere contribute so much to the film’s subtext. What were you looking for when location scouting for the house? Was it an easy or difficult process? Yeah, it was difficult. It was like doing an open casting call. I had a very specific idea in my head but [my production designer] was able to put it into actual architectural terms so we were able to find a house that a successful commodities broker would live and commute from in Surrey. We needed something beyond that, but if you go too far, you get small castles. Once we located the right exterior, there were a bunch of [houses] that would’ve been great, but when we got inside, there were no open spaces. I wanted to have long hallways to be able to see through multiple rooms to create that isolation—the opposite of the cozy American house that they were living in before, to really highlight the good life they left behind.

Carrie Coon and Jude Law in ‘The Nest’.

We love the soundtrack; not just the choice of songs but the way that they’re mixed. Can you give us some insight into the song selection? When writing, I build a playlist that I write to. This one was a mix of personal memories from childhood—like Simply Red, which takes me back to falling asleep in the back of my dad’s car—so there’s a way into writing there on a sensory level, and then I build upon it with songs that I love from the time. I was listening to Richard Reed Parry’s Music for Heart and Breath album a lot and he ended up being the composer of the film, so his music was always part of the heart of the movie as I was writing it.

I would spend my drives to set with my assistant talking about music and he would turn me onto some stuff that would make it into the movie. It was a mix of a long-running preparation and things that I pick up in the moment then making that all work at the right level so it feels of the world. Like with The Cure, we actually played that off a tape cassette when Allison walks into the room.

Since your debut feature in 2011, you’ve had a prolific career in television and as a film producer; you’re a founding member of Borderline Films with fellow directors Antonio Campos and Josh Mond. Do you see yourself more as a producer who only occasionally directs films yourself? No, I don’t really consider myself a producer. I’ve produced movies for filmmakers and friends and I help people where I can. I’m not someone who’s out getting properties and thinking about how to put together a film, I’m only thinking about my own work as a writer and a director. Between finishing Southcliffe in 2013 and The Nest in 2018, I had a five-year gap where I was developing lots of projects one after the other—two features and a television show—that were both so close to [being greenlit] but something fell through, which was really bad luck.

What film made you want to become a filmmaker? The Goonies and Back to the Future were those movies as a kid that first made me want to make movies and tell stories, but the moment where I realized what filmmaking is was seeing The Shining. I saw it for the first time when I was eleven or twelve and a friend showed it to me because his older brother had the VHS. It was my first time understanding atmosphere and direction and I just had a sense that I could do it too. It was a really crucial moment, and I kept that thought to myself for a very long time.

Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély shoots Carrie Coon in Soho.

What’s your scariest film that is not technically horror? AKA, your area of expertise. Oh man, scariest? Something I’ve watched recently is The Vanishing and it’s probably one of the most unsettling films I’ve ever seen. It was incredible to rewatch it because I’d last seen it when I was in college—I watched everything back then—and I’d also seen the American remake, so when I watched it this time, I was trying to remember things [that were different] from the remake. I was like “he’s gonna get out, right?—oh no, that’s in the American version!” I find it an astonishing movie. There’s a real human element to the pain of the killer.

Let’s nerd out: what’s your top film of 1986, the year that The Nest is set? [Laughs] I’ve no idea what came out in 1986. Can I look up a list and I’ll tell you? Let’s see, films of 1986… This is fun! Alright, “popular films of 1986” I’m seeing: Blue Velvet, Short Circuit, Stand by Me, Platoon, The Color of Money, what else have we got here? River’s Edge… Pretty in Pink… Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—Ferris Bueller’s gotta be up there. Big Trouble in Little China! That’s it! I’m sure there’s other things, but from my quick search, I’d say Big Trouble in Little China. That was a movie that was always on in my house because it was one of my dad’s all-time favorites.

Which is Jude Law’s best performance? I love The Talented Mr. Ripley so much. I constantly rewatch that movie—it’s perfect. I also loved him in Vox Lux recently.

Sean Durkin and Jude Law on the set of ‘The Nest’.

What is the best film about marriage and why does it resonate with you? Shoot the Moon was really influential for me. I’d say it’s a bit more about divorce and family than it is about marriage but [it depends on] if you take the ending to mean that they’re going to stay together—I kind of do. You could say a separation is part of a marriage. I love that movie for how it finds light in humor. Albert Finney is struggling with his masculinity where, even though he’s the one who left, he still thinks he owns it all, and Diane Keaton is quite liberated by this scenario. It’s like their journey to find language again. I find it very beautiful.

Which film was your entry-point into international cinema? I’m trying to think back to what I would’ve seen, there certainly wasn’t a lot growing up. In college I really discovered Michael Haneke and Michelangelo Antonioni. L’Avventura made a huge impact on me. I think [because of the way] the mystery kind of dissolves and it’s about the journey, not the solution.

What film do you wish you’d made? I don’t. Filmmaking is personal and it’s so much an expression of perspective when done with care and love—though obviously, there’s stuff that’s just churned out. I never see something and say “I wish I made that”. One of the things I find hard is when people critique films and say they would’ve done this differently. I’ve become very sensitive to that over time because every choice you make as a filmmaker is so specific and thought out. I try to consume movies without knowing anything about them or making any kind of judgment. I just let them be what they are and wash over me.

Which newcomer director should we all keep our eyes on? I don’t think I’m looking out for new stuff necessarily. Once I get to see something, everyone else already knows about it. One person I would say is Dave Franco, who I just worked with on The Rental. I was an executive producer and I was a creative bounce-board for Dave through the process. It’s his first film and it’s astonishingly directed. We were getting dailies from the first week and we were like, “This is his first movie? This is insane!” I think he will do some exciting things.

Finally, what’s your favorite film of 2020 so far? I was absolutely blown away by Eliza Hittman’s film Never Rarely Sometimes Always. I miss having retrospectives at local theaters, which I’m always keyed into no matter the city I’m living in. I’ve started watching a lot of Criterion Channel and I watched a movie recently that’s taken over my brain: Variety, by Bette Gordon, from 1983. It’s set in New York City around Times Square, and it’s this incredible journey that this woman goes on that captured my mind.

Related content

Sean Durkin’s Life in Film list

Sean Durkin’s Sight & Sound Top 10

Clarissa’s list of films that burn slowly

Everything Carrie Coon watched during quarantine (and the best of that huge list)

Tracy Letts and Carrie Coon’s 24-Hour Movie Marathon

Follow Jack on Letterboxd

[breakingbadfics]

Death of the author

CW: Light discussion of politics, mentions of the Alt-Right, and White Supremacists. 

Consider this a “Change of Pace” entry. I’m trying to figure out what the next essay is to be about as well as the eventual long term for this blog. 

I wrote this essay back in mid 2019, long before the idea of this blog would come to mind, it’s been lightly edited prior to posting and added to. and I think this essay shows some of my influences much more heavily than my other writings.

What does My Little Pony and The Matrix have in common?  Death of the Author. 

Death of the Author is not to be confused with “Separating the Artist from the Art,” a self explanatory concept to distance a work from a creator who’s beliefs are more than a little unpleasant, easiest example is acknowledging that, yes,  H.P. Lovecraft was a Mega-racist, however, his contributions to the horror genre have created a base that is nearly ubiquitous with the genre to this day, like wise with Orson Scott Card. this concept in itself is an especially controversial subject, but is not the focus of this piece.

Death of the Author is what allowed The Matrix, a movie with a collection of metaphors about being an lgbt person, and an activist for the rights of yourself and your allies to be grossly misinterpreted as a way to justify being a bigot, the most egregious misinterpretation being that of “The Red Pill Scene.”

In the context of the film, The Red Pill Scene is the part of the traditional heroes story where the hero “accepts the call”, Neo is quite literally making the choice to leave the safe world he’s been living in behind and embark on his adventure that will result in a death and rebirth into being The One who will save humanity. In the now very much understood to be the direct metaphor, it’s a scene in which Neo, the stand-in for a lgbt person, specifically a trans person, is being told by a much older lgbt person “You are trans, you have the choice to embrace it, but regardless of what choice you make from here on out the road ahead is going to be bumpy and rough on you, because the system around you is designed to make sure people like us aren’t able to prosper, and if you join us, you won’t be able to opt out.” 

That is the very understood metaphor that most people accept with the modern understanding after The Wachowski’s came out as Lily and Lana in the “post-matrix trilogy” reality of the real world.

However due to the Moral Neutrality of Death of the Author in other circles the Red Pill(and all the other metaphors in the film) takes on an alternative meaning. And I can be “polite” in my explaing the bad take on how this scene plays out, but just to hammer the point home we’ll get dirty so you can know where the take is coming from, The Red Pill Scene for White supremeacists, and The alt-right (but I repeat myself) is such.  Neo, a disgruntled white person is being told that the world is controlled by soulless machines. Jews, people of color, etx. Everyone around him is mind controlled and can and will attempt to stop him from saving the people smart enough to also realise they’re being held captive by non-whites and save them all. This of course, all being told to him by Morpheus, a black man. So have fun working your head around that. 

This of course the most extreme example being the most ubiquitous, poke around on chan sites and sooner or later you’ll see the phrase “red pill” having been memetically adjusted to mean “hey tell me about this thing” or even more specifically “I already had an opinion about this but either way I want you to confirm my choice.” But I digress. 

These two interpretations are so wildly on the opposite ends of the spectrum that the only commonalities between them is “You will likely need to be violent at some point” 

I’m naturally only covering the two interpretations, the matrix itself has been picked apart by an untold number of people and people interpret it in as many ways as possible in terms of philosophical meaning. That is the nature of Death of The Author. 

Death of the Author also covers in a round-a-bout fashion, selective canon, a subjective acknowledgement of canon elements throughout a long lived franchise- see; Star Wars, Star Trek, the belief that there was never any sequels to The Matrix. This variant of the philosophy allows one to be able to continue interactions with a text, specifically a text that consists of multiple volumes (or contributions, each one made by an individual author) but also deny interactions with parts that they personally dislike. 

More often than not, you can attribute the death of the author to a bad take in a case of fiction, another primary example being Fight Club, often missed for the scathing critique of unhealthy male behaviour and propped up as some sort of moral guideline for how to live your life. Which is again, not to say this is the fault of Death of The Author as a philosophy, it is morally neutral, these bad takes can more often be attribued to the simple fact that unless directly stating it most attempts at satire or parody will have a contingent of people who agree with what is said, not what is meant, and death of the author unfortunately does make that..very easy, for good, or ill. 

Where does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fit in with all this?  Well there are certainly alt-right members of the brony fandom who are painfully missing the point, but we’ve already dwelled on the negative enough, so let’s get happy. 

In Episode 1 of Season 1, the first part of a two part pilot, in the background of a shot during a party scene; a pony with a grey coat and blonde mane and tail is seen in the background. This particular pony stood out the most amongst other background characters due to a mistake caused by the animation staff. According to the supervising director at the time, this particular error was spotted after hasbro greenlit the episode for air, and because it amused him he chose not to order a correction so it was left in as a nice little easter egg. 

The nameless background pony would eventually be caught by 4chan among other places and very rapidly developed a following of fans and given a nickname, Derpy Hooves. This particular following and new nickname would echo back to shows staff becoming the name internally referred to by the show’s staff. 

Friendship is magic creator Lauren Faust, who also enjoyed the popularity of the character when asked in an interview would state that a character named Ditzy Doo existed in an unaired episode, that would be implied to be this particular background pony, So naturally now depending on the fan this particular character would be reffered to as either Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo.  

Ditzy Doo would go on to become a recurring easter egg with in the show, something similar to that of “where’s waldo” but with horses. This practice would continue until episode 14 of season 2  where the character would have a set of spoken lines and would be addressed by name. This however resulted in a degree of controversy in which some people expressed concern that the presentation of the character was an offensive attempt at portraying people with mental or physical disabilities. This event resulted in the episode being altered in future airings and the character disappearing from the show for the vast majority of Season 3. Beyond Season 3 the character would continue to appear until season 5 where they would finally have a voiced role in the 100th episode of the show, and then eventually having another speaking role in the christmas special “The best gift ever.”  It is also worth noting that Hasbro never gave her an “official name” with almost all of Ditzy’s merchandise either having no name present, or more often than not a singular image of a muffin in place of a name, even going so far as to have “Muffins” be the credited name she was given in all voiced instances of the show. 

Muffins, Ditzy Doo, or Derpy Hooves isn’t the only case of background characters growing a large following of fans with in the show; a variety of characters have been swept up by the fans, given names and personalities built entirely out of bit gags. Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and who knows how many more have all been seen in background moments which would be built on by fans and then echo back into the staff to be integrated into the show further. One would say this is fanon but at the end of the day, the writers and show staff had very little more intent with the characters beyond “does this background character look good?” and “Does this bit part character stand out enough to automatically be recognizable for the bit they need to be doing” it is still what I believe to be an example of Death of The Author, an act of choosing to ignore the intended meaning,and giving what amounts to window dressings a full life as fleshed out characters in fan content and in small instances of the show; an interpretation separate from the writers original intent. 

Now the question is does someone need to actively defy the author to participate in The Death There-of? No. I don’t believe so.  In much the same fashion no one need actually be a clan member to inadvertently say or do something that's passive aggressively racist(yes a bit of an extreme, I know) one need not actively defy the author, merely ascribe to an alternate interpretation of a work of fiction. Refer to Fight Club, the film does everything it can with out directly stating “most of the people in Fight Club and later Project Mayhem are bad people, because they were already doing the things Tyler Durden was ascribing to” and almost unilaterally all the bad takes are built around this idea that they’ve achieved the perfect ideal masculine because they’re the “living in the moment, violent psychopath” nihilist the movie is actively condemning. 

The simple fact is that death of the author ultimately, in a grand scale amounts to this; did a writers intent show through hard enough for their intent to be heard? And Subjectively, how much does a person believe in the meaning that they, or the writer themself have imparted into the story? 

[temmaha1996]

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a 2018 adventure film directed by J.A. Bayona. It stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Rafe Spall. The film follows on from the events of Jurassic World, where once again Owen and Claire are tasked with a rescue mission to save the dinosaurs from the exploding island. However, they are betrayed and forced to stop a much more sinister plan in play.

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all time. Although the sequels weren’t nearly as good, I was one of the few who actually liked and defended Jurassic World. I thought it was an enjoyable, entertaining summer movie. That being said, my expectations were very low for this film despite the clear adoration I have for this franchise. The trailers did not convince me in the slightest, and I went in praying my worst fears were not to be realized. Coming out of the film, I was severely disappointed. This is an awful, bland, uninspiring and frankly stupid entry into the Jurassic Park franchise. It confirmed all of my fears, and exaggerated them even worse. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is an idiotic, dumb and charmless summer movie. It takes all of the weakest flaws of the first film and expands upon it. The plot is unbelievably idiotic, and even the entertainment factor has decreased. The action sequences are decent and the sound effects are always good, but what tanks this film completely is the atrociously lame writing and underdeveloped cartoonish characters with no brains.

Let’s begin with the positives.

Firstly, action sequences. The first five minutes of the film was executed perfectly. There was suspense and a clear inspiration from classic monster movies in the past, almost reminiscent of what the first Jurassic Park was. It’s a shame that the next 2 hours of the film just felt like a bunch of rehashed and recycled ideas.

Also, sound design. Say what you will about these films, but a lot of work goes into designing a single Dinosaur roar in order for it to feel remotely realistic. This film achieves that again, and any scene with dinosaurs in it showcases the talents of the sound team.

However, it’s only down hill from here. Here come the negatives.

To begin with, plot. You will not believe what this film is actually about. The one idea that every audience believes was beyond believable and stupid in Jurassic World is actually stretched into a feature film in this one. There is also another random, idiotic subplot we are suddenly supposed to believe, almost as if Universal were insulting our intelligence. Almost every beat was predictable and obvious, even 5 year old could tell. The film only takes place jumps lazily between two locations, and it almost seemed like a rebranded version of The Lost World, minus any originality or sense of freshness.

In addition, characters. None of the characters in this film are remotely likeable or relateable. They come off as complete cartoon characters with no development whatsoever. The two returning characters, Owen and Claire, receive no development at all. However, it’s the new characters that really anchor down this film. Audience complaints regarding the weak comedy in Jurassic World were ignored, as we are tortured with literally one of the most annoying characters I have ever seen in any movie ever. Justice Smith’s Franklin is so painfully unfunny, that I started pulling out my hair in almost every scene he’s in. His sidekick, Zia, is a walking SJW meme. However, these two are outdone by three of the most one-dimensional and cartoonish villains with the worst evil plot I have ever seen in this franchise. Rafe Spall, Toby Jones and Ted Levine are wasted and shamed in this film as a bunch of brainless goons.

Thirdly, writing. I don’t fault the actors, they do the best with what they are given, and what they are given is a script so lame it was seemingly written by a baby orangutan. Literally all of the attempts at comedy in this film are cringe inducing. None of it actually makes any sense to begin with. The dialogue between all the characters are all so bland and boring, even Chris Pratt couldn’t charm his way out of it. The villains dialogue sounded like it was taken right out of a “Scooby Doo” episode. I cannot actually believe Universal actually greenlit this awful script.

To conclude, despite some nice sound design and decent action sequences, this film is nonetheless a massive, massive disappointment filled with dumb cartoonish characters making borderline idiotic choices, awful and lazy writing that takes all the charm out of it’s stars and a plot so laughably bad it actually kills brain cells. I loved this franchise, and trust me when I say I tried my best to like this film, but everything about this film made that impossible for me. It even tries to be Marvel and include a post-credit scene to stun the audience, but even that was pointless because what it tries to establish was already established in the ending montage. All my fears for this film were realized and worsened. Universal is at a lose-lose situation now. Fans of Jurassic World will be disappointed, and haters of Jurassic World will hate it even more. It hurts to say this, but this film is easily the worst in the franchise. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom receives an 4.4/10.

[kelanfilms]

26th February: Green to Go!

Prepping the Pitch:

After a troublesome weekend of internet connection failures and chasing script/story development, our team finally pulled together a (what we saw as) very strong pitch. We decided to compile it into a group one, and so I offered to edit it together: slotting in each video and exporting. However when I put everyone’s in our time was at 11.20... even though the max was 10mins... and I hadn’t put mine in yet. So after multiple watches I cut parts of our crew’s pitches out (aiming for things that somebody else spoke about, and not too disruptive to the flow of their talk), and it all worked nicely. After adding some lower thirds to introduce ourselves we sent it and the finished document (designed by the talented Claire G) and were reading for Monday Morning.

Pitch Feedback:

Our feedback from Andrew and Kieran on Monday morning was very productive. All in all they seemed happy with what we had presented, and gave us good feedback. Kieran commented that my use of philosophy was good for an editing style and liked that I added lower thirds to the pitch to make it easier for the viewer to identify us. He also commented the use of being specific to some shots would’ve been better, but as the script was in progress over the weekend and evolving, Claire G couldn’t be specific to what we were saying as the story was changing. And due to that I obviously couldn’t paper edit a concept sequence without knowing what details are in there. But! All in all the team is feeling confident, which given the circumstances is a great place to be.

Greenlit!:

And we are ready to begin pre-production in full!! This morning we received the email that we are one of the 6 projects selected so our team are very happy with each-other. Our first goal this weekend is to reach out to crews of projects that were not selected in order to find a producer (Klaudia Sewera from the She Who Walks project) is our first choice as we’ve worked with her before, so Hollie is reaching out to see if she will come onboard. Other than that hopefully the script drafts will come in hard and fast now we’re a good-to-go production, and the rest of the team can get creative with our specialisms. 

I am going to look into all the projects to find a secondary role as an AD/Edit Assistant, or even a Production Design Assistant (I just love practical roles) but right now am unsure which to choose.

All in all though, not a bad week.

[aion-rsa]

Tamzin Merchant Brings Back Mystery of Unaired Game of Thrones Pilot and Daenerys

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Game of Thrones could’ve been a very different series. In fact, it could’ve never become one at all. This is a familiar lesson for anyone who followed the saga of HBO’s flagship series and one of the biggest phenomena in modern pop culture. Yet it’s worth recalling when so many folks seem to dismiss the series, or its creators, after 2019’s contentious final season of Game of Thrones.

And it’s something we’re reminded of again with Tamzin Merchant, more than 10 years later, finally breaking her silence about the road not taken when she was briefly cast as Daenerys Targaryen.

Prior to the Game of Thrones pilot’s filming in 2009, Merchant was already an up-and-coming television star, breaking out as Katherine Howard, one of the wives of King Henry VIII, on Showtime’s The Tudors. But playing one of the lead roles in HBO’s big gamble in high fantasy had the promise of a major life changer. Unfortunately, when HBO greenlit finally ordered the project to series, it did so with the stipulation that the pilot be almost entirely being reshot and reconfigured top to bottom… and witth several key recastings, including the role of the Mother of Dragons. When the series premiered in 2011, it was with Emilia Clarke as Dany.

It’s an unfortunate situation, and one you cannot envy Merchant having to field questions for over the ensuing decade, including work on others shows like WGN’s Salem and Amazon’s Carnival Row. In fact, it was while promoting a new project in an entirely different medium altogether, her debut work as a young adult novelist in The Hatmakers, that Merchant finally answered questions in-depth about losing the role.

Speaking with EW’s Game of Thrones scholar James Hibberd, Merchant said, “Shooting the pilot was a great lesson. It was an affirmation about listening to my instincts and following them, because I tried to back out of that situation and, during the contract process, I did back out. I was talked back into it by some persuasive people. Then I found myself naked and afraid in Morocco and riding a horse that was clearly much more excited to be there than I was.”

It’s a candid answer, and one Merchant expanded on by noting she thinks Clarke did great and made the role iconic, which Merchant seems to suggest she might not have been able to do because she wasn’t excited “in my guts” about the series. But she also noted the strangeness of “riding to auditions on buses with Emilia Clarke’s face on it.”

It’s a difficult situation to be in, which Merchant handles gracefully, remarking on how she’s more creatively satisfied now than more than a decade ago. However, it is a reminder of how fragile these creative endeavors can be, even as fans and media companies shower them with praise and expectations—transforming collaborations into monolithic brands.

In the 18 months since Game of Thrones ended, a growing narrative in the media suggests showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss could make no tough, or at least smart, decision. The implication is the show’s success is attributable solely to George R.R. Martin’s extraordinary novels. While there’s truth that the narrative genius of the series comes from Martin, so much of what makes something appealing or intoxicating to fan culture stems from ephemeral (and often painful) choices made in the thick of creative battle. The elements that made Game of Thrones a cultural juggernaut were not handed down fully formed on the page, and the show could’ve been very different—or not worked at all—from the beginning.

Hibberd has explored this in-depth beyond speaking with Merchant. Recently he she some light on the secrecy surrounding the jettisoned Game of Thrones pilot in his recent oral history book about the making of the show, Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon.

“There was a piece of casting we had to rethink, [a role] that was compromised,” then-HBO programming president Michael Lombardo said in the book about the casting of Daenerys. But it wasn’t just Merchant’s Daenerys that was recalibrated. For example, Pride & Prejudice actress Jennifer Ehle was briefly cast in the role of Catelyn Stark in the pilot, and was actually well-liked by HBO and the showrunners.

But in Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, Lombardo also revealed, “The actress who played Catelyn Stark decided she didn’t want to move to Northern Ireland. I’m like ‘What?’ Then you have a conversation with yourself about whether to force her to uphold her contract.”

More than casting though the entire look of the pilot, from costuming to locations, was drastically different. Instead of Irish Castle Ward, Winterfell was originally filmed on location at Doune Castle in Scotland. And within those confines, little of the production design or direction captured the gloomy authenticity that became the series’ tonal staple. (Pilot director Tom McCarthy was also replaced on the reshot first episode.)

Said actor Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, “Nobody knew what they were doing or what the hell this was. I remember during King Robert’s arrival [to Winterfell] finding the whole thing ridiculous. The absurdity of doing this parallel universe with these very noble men. It’s a very fine balance between being serious and believing it and just being cosplayers. There certainly was not the sense this was going to be some game-hanger for anyone. But we had a lot of fun.”

If those elements had remained in place, the show might’ve been something sillier, and perhaps not worth the investment. Indeed, only recently is it becoming clear how close Game of Thrones came to not being picked up to series by HBO. After all, the pilot was originally championed by earlier HBO programming president Carolyn Strauss. But she and her administration had left HBO by the time the pilot was filmed, and Lombardo had reason to be wary even before the pilot came together so poorly.

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“HBO was very much on the fence,” Benioff said in Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon. “It’s a traditional thing at any studio that the last regime’s projects are going to be less appealing to the new regime. And this was a very expensive project.”

In fact, co-creator Weiss said, “It seemed like Mike was leaning toward no. He was not at all pleased, and for good reason. He decided maybe it would just be better to take the loss on this one.” He described the meeting where they convinced Lombardo to give them one more chance “like a horror movie” staring at the executive’s face. Strauss, who stayed on as an executive producer on Game of Thrones, said, “There was a lot of begging and pleading.”

Clearly this series could have had a quite different fate than the decade-defining hit it became—just as Daenerys might’ve been quite different as played by Merchant.

With every creative endeavor, there are a lot of “what ifs” about the road not taken. For those who so treasured Game of Thrones’ choices—at least for the first five to seven years—it’s worth remembering.

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